Golden Plains Baptist Church · Pastor Robert Carlson

How to Be a Good Soldier

February 26, 2026·40 min·2 clips

The preacher's thought experiment: if your phone exploded the second you visited a sinful site, you would stop immediately—which proves 'I couldn't help myself' is a lie.

1. This episode is a sermon from Golden Plains Baptist Church titled 'How to Be a Good Soldier,' based on 2 Timothy 2:3-4 and Ephesians 6, delivered as an evening service. 2. The pastor is the sole speaker; no guests appear; he identifies himself as someone raised partly in Mexico (ages 10-14) and currently based in Manitoba, Canada. 3. The sermon's central thesis is that every Christian is in spiritual warfare, and being a 'good soldier' requires three things: willingness to endure hardness, remembrance of the cause, and knowledge of the armor of God. 4. The sermon opens with personal anecdotes: the preacher winning third place out of three entrants in a school shot put competition and a boyhood fight at a Mexican auction sale, used to illustrate the desire to win and the fear before battle. 5. 2 Timothy 2:3-4 is the key text: 'Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life.' 6. 2 Corinthians 10:3-4 is cited: 'For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.' 7. Sir Adrian Carton de Watt (1880-1963), a Victoria Cross recipient of Belgian and Irish descent, is presented as the model soldier: shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, groin, and ear; blinded in one eye; survived two plane crashes; tunneled out of a POW camp; tore off his own fingers when a doctor refused amputation. He wrote: 'Frankly, I had enjoyed the war.' 8. The first quality of a good soldier is willingness to endure hardness, with the preacher arguing that contemporary Christianity has become 'so soft' and overly concerned with avoiding offense. 9. He references Canadian parliament passing laws designed to silence Christian speech and the potential loss of charitable tax status, arguing Christians must be willing to endure these costs: 'Are we willing to endure some hardness even if it means being put behind bars?' 10. He cites Christians being slaughtered in Syria and the Middle East as an example of brothers who are enduring hardness for Christ's sake, adding that 'they have slowed down since Trump threatened them.' 11. Colossians 1:12-14 is cited: Christ 'has delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son'—used to argue Christians are no longer in the enemy's army. 12. The second quality is remembering the cause: the preacher connects it to David asking 'Is there not a cause?' before fighting Goliath, and cites 2 Corinthians 4:3-4—the gospel is hidden from the lost because 'the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not.' 13. A thought experiment about pornography and an exploding phone argues: if your phone detonated when you accessed sinful content, you would stop immediately—proving the problem is not inability but insufficient fear of God. 14. The preacher states: 'When people say I was just weak, I couldn't help myself—that's a lie. As a Christian, we are strong enough if we're desperate enough.' 15. The third quality is knowing the armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-18): belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness, feet shod with the gospel of peace, shield of faith, helmet of salvation, sword of the Spirit, and prayer. 16. He argues that witnessing to people about Christ is one of the easiest ways to maintain spiritual vitality: 'There's something about talking to people about the Lord—it just brings revival. It just does something to your soul.' 17. The sermon closes with the winter-clothing analogy: in Manitoba's minus-41 temperatures, nobody leaves home without full winter gear, and Christians should apply the same instinctive self-protection to spiritual armor each morning. 18. The tone is energetic and self-deprecating throughout, with the preacher frequently turning challenges back on himself and using humorous personal stories to keep engagement. 19. Evangelical Christians who want a motivational framework for understanding spiritual opposition and practical tools for resisting sin will find this sermon most useful. 20. Those seeking academic theology, non-Protestant content, or listeners unfamiliar with or uninterested in Baptist evangelical practice will likely find this episode outside their interest.

As heard by us

A direct call to endure, stay disciplined, and keep faith under pressure.

The piece begins with a small, concrete story and uses it to set up a plain warning about endurance. It moves through soldiers, hardship, public pressure, and the call to stay unentangled, so the point lands quickly and without ornament.

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Need a straight-talk sermon about being a good soldier and enduring hardship for Christ?

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