\There have been many conquerors in the world's history; Alexander, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, for instance, were conquerors; they might even be called great conquerors, but not "more than conquerors." This is language that we could not find in mere human literature. How could any man be more than a conqueror? People might say, there's no sense in such a phrase it is a mere hyperbole. Yet here it is in God's Word, and there's no exaggeration in that Book of truth. Let us see where it occurs and seek to learn what it means. "As it is written, For Thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us" (Rom. 8:36-37).
The conquerors whose names stand high in the world's temple of fame gained their great place by killing; they strode through seas of blood to the goal of their ambition. God's children become more than conquerors by being killed and killed all the day long. "We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." The time was in the history of the church when the Christians seemed only to exist to be slaughtered. Those who slew them did so for their own pleasure — "to make a holiday for Romans," or to stamp out of the world a hated Name — for it was for Jesus' Name's sake that these suffered — but they did not know that they were crowning their victims with crowns imperishable, and that these unresisting martyrs were more than conquerors. But so it was.
Those were great days for God's saints, but they have passed, and Christians are not slaughtered now for His Name's sake; then what of this remarkable phrase? is it obsolete, and can there not be those who are more than conquerors now?
Yes, there may be, and there will be if we keep in mind the words "for His Name's sake." What would not those who know His love, and what His love has made Him do for them, do and suffer for His Name's sake, for the sake of the Name of Jesus! Well, they must begin by denying self, by setting self aside, by sacrificing self, but since this is for His Name's sake it should not be hard to do. To suffer reproach, to be misunderstood, to be thrust aside, not to be wanted — in all these things we may be more than conquerors, if it is all for Christ's sake, and in these things He left us an example that we should walk in His steps. His love is the great compensation, and from His love no suffering can separate. Nay: suffering gives Him the opportunity for making His love a living, bright reality. So must His martyred saints have found it when they rejoiced to suffer affliction for His Name's sake, and so may we find it today.
The monuments that men have raised to their heroes will all crumble to dust, and every great name in history will perish, but none who have suffered for Christ's sake will be forgotten; their names are in the archives of the golden city, they shall shine as the stars for ever and ever. And He has said, "Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him will I confess before My Father and all the holy angels. These are the "more than conquerors" whose names shall live for ever.