News From the Frontlines: Aslan is on the Move
- Joshua Budimlic
- 7 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
The enemy have driven the British and French armies to the sea.
Trapped at Dunkirk, they await their fate.
Hoping for deliverance.
For a miracle.
—Opening credits, Dunkirk
Only a veteran of the Great War could have penned The Chronicles of Narnia. Indeed, every chapter is so thoroughly dripping with the dreaded echoes and shadows of war that the parallels between the two worlds—our own and Narnia’s—become inescapable.
None other than a soldier who sloshed around in the muddy trenches with his own two feet and folded at the thunder of artillery fire himself could have realized such a reality. This is in part what makes the world of Narnia all the more enduring, right up to our present day many decades later.
I do not think it a coincidence that the two most successful and influential fantasy series of all time, Narnia and The Lord of the Rings, just so happened to be written by former World War I soldiers—C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, respectively. One gets the sense that the mechanized horrors of the Great War awoke these men to the ever more horrific cosmic battle that we as image-bearers are engaged in each and every day with the forces of invisible, spiritual darkness. The Chronicles of Narnia serves as news from the frontlines, warning of the true battle at hand.
During the Great War, both Lewis and Tolkien were upon the very threshold during some of humanity’s blackest hours. In this way, there is a sense in which their respective novels function as letters written from the frontlines that they intended for delivery back home. Back home where peace and beauty still maintained a foothold amidst the gathering shadow of war. A growing shadow that these two men contended with and wanted to warn those back home about lest they should drift off into a lulled complacency: As our Lord Himself said, “And what I say to you I say to all: ‘Stay awake’” (Mark 13:37).
During seasons of war, it was not uncommon for opposing sides to berate one another, and sometimes even their own people, with wartime propaganda. This most often took the form of pamphlets that either propagandized the people through cartoonish caricatures of their enemy or outright derision that was intended for the enemy themselves. In the opening scene of Christopher Nolan’s excellent World War II film, Dunkirk, this tactic is hauntingly demonstrated as thousands of Nazi leaflets fall from the sky upon lone British forces in Dunkirk, France where they remained stranded.
Like Lewis and Tolkien after him, Charles Spurgeon likewise well understood the nature of the spiritual war raging around us. A war of cosmic proportions between a great darkness that is increasingly losing ground to Christ, the Great Light, and His Kingdom; but a war that rages on nonetheless until He returns.
Indeed, well before he became the man we today recognize as “The Prince of Preachers”, Charles Spurgeon was a mere mortal like you or I. In fact, Spurgeon never grew beyond being a mere mortal; he was simply an ordinary instrument in the hands of an extraordinary Savior. In a biography about Spurgeon, the author writes that “Spurgeon was never able to keep his joy and the basic message of the Gospel to himself. It spilled out of him naturally... There was nothing too small or trivial; he only wanted to do God’s will. The Lord began him small, found him faithful, and in a stunningly short time, brought him to great things.”
However, before a good deal of what you or I may call “great things” were accomplished through Spurgeon, he joyfully consigned himself over to the ‘little’ tasks that God had for him. Shortly after his conversion to Christ, Spurgeon himself said that he “could scarcely content [himself] even for five minutes without trying to do something for Christ.”
One of the chief ‘little’ efforts that Spurgeon undertook in his early days as a Christian was the proliferous distribution of Gospel tracts. Like wartime propaganda pamphlets falling from the sky, Spurgeon saw to it that everyone he rubbed shoulders with—and especially those whom he never met—knew the good news of salvation through King Jesus. Leaving Gospel tracts everywhere he went was one way Spurgeon accomplished this task. In the midst of this war for souls, Spurgeon’s countless Gospel leaflets filled the streets of England, declaring the good news:
“SURRENDER & LIVE! The Battle is Won!
Repent and Believe the Gospel for the Forgiveness of Sins:
The Lord is Coming Back—Soon!”
As Spurgeon famously said, “If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for.” He goes on to say,
“The very first service which my youthful heart rendered to Christ was the placing of tracts in envelopes, and then sealing them up, that I might send them. I might have done nothing for Christ if I had not been encouraged by finding myself able to do a little. Then I sought to do something more, and from that something more, I do not doubt that many servants of God have been led on to higher and nobler labours for their Lord, because they began to serve Him in the right spirit and manner.”
Whether the Lord has us serving on the frontlines or back home in relative safety, rest assured that He has work for you to do. Because our Lord is at work, we must also be at work; ever busying ourselves with the tasks of the Kingdom, whether the labour be little or much. For remember: This is wartime, and standing around idle simply will not do.
Yet even amidst the gloom of the gathering shadow, all is not lost. For in the thickest of tempests, as sin and Satan swirl about, the Lord is ever upon His throne—unphased and unbothered. Even the Devil himself is still God’s Devil, and on a leash at that. And because Jesus sits enthroned as King of kings and Lord of lords, the news of His return is ever upon the lips of His people. And indeed, the news is trembling among spittle and chattering teeth in the conversations of His enemies also: “Even the demons believe—and shudder!” (James 2:19).
As Christians, we are armed with the greatest news possible: Not only is the King coming back, but the King died for the sins of the ungodly. He loves you and died for you, and asks only that you repent and believe the Gospel. The King of the cosmos died for His rebellious subjects so that, by His gracious and sovereign choice through faith, they would no longer remain enemies or subjects, but become sons and daughters of the living God.
The war is real, Hell is real; but thanks be to God, we have victory through our Lord, Captain, and Savior, Jesus Christ. Lay hold of this glorious truth through faith and then busy yourself in His joyful employment, spreading this news far and wide as though it were printed upon wartime leaflets. For remember, we are indeed at war, but there is a rumor circulating from the frontlines: “They say Aslan is on the move—perhaps has already landed.”
Author’s Note: Several months ago I penned a short Gospel tract that you can access through the link below. I welcome you to share it, whether in print or digitally, with those whom the Lord has put on your heart. Or, as I often do, simply print off several copies and leave one or two wherever you might find yourself throughout the day—for as you know, the Lord often works in small and unexpected ways.
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