World Missions: Total Spiritual Warfare by L. E. Maxwell

Someone has said that the task of the preacher is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. The messages found in this book most definitely fall into the latter category. In these pages the author sounds a bugle call to Christian soldiers—a call “not to a holiday, but to a campaign. Our tent is pitched not in paradise, but on the field of battle…. The primary and only adequate figure of Christian service is that of the military conflict…. World missions under Christ's captaincy means war, total war, total mobilization for total conflict."

This book was written and published toward the end of L. E. Maxwell's long and fruitful ministry, thus preserving for us his seasoned convictions on two of the primary emphases of his life work: his view of the Christian life as a warfare and the supreme importance of world missions. As co-founder and principal of Prairie Bible Institute in Three Hills, Alberta, Canada, Maxwell's lifelong calling was to train disciplined soldiers for the mission fields of the world—a calling he fulfilled with steadfast faithfulness and astonishing success, thus qualifying him to speak with authority and passion.

“The content of this book is meant to furnish pastors and Christian workers with biblical material to stir God's people out of their evangelical smugness," Maxwell wrote. “Do we not all need to be stabbed wide awake?"

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Preface
Chapter 7: The Cost of Disobedience

L. E. Maxwell (1895-1984) co-founded Prairie Bible Institute in 1922 and became its first principal and later its president. The school began with 8 students, but under Maxwell's dynamic leadership it grew to become the largest missionary training center in Canada and the second largest on the North American continent. Maxwell was the editor of The Prairie Pastor, the official organ of Prairie Bible Institute, which was later renamed to The Prairie Overcomer. He also authored several books, including Crowded to Christ, Women in Ministry and the classic Born Crucified. Having passed through an intense experience of “death to self" as a young Christian, he was a lifelong proponent of total consecration to Christ and what he termed “the crucified life" based on Galatians 2:20. After 58 years serving Prairie Bible Institute in various capacities, he retired in 1980 at the age of 85. He went to be with the Lord in 1984.