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It has always been so that there are battles to be fought in the war that is going on in the heavenlies and playing out on Earth. When God chose Israel and made them a great nation, He was also conscripting an army of humans on the earth. He created man to be in fellowship and an interactive personal relationship with Him. We fell. The war began. The armies of God's enemies in the heavenlies work through men, imitating God's government by providence (the means by which something is accomplished.) With Israel the battle was physical but also had a very spiritual element, and the soldiers were conscripted through the means of ethnicity and covenant. All of this is a vivid shadow of what is to come, and what has come, for our King is enthroned of the mountain of Zion. (Psalm 2)
At Pentecost the King, through the Holy Spirit, began conscripting a new army of men and women, one that did not fight for land, but who were at war with God's very arch enemy, the devil himself and his foot soldiers on the earth. We do not have hand to hand physical combat with these enemy soldiers, but we wage war against these enemies entering our own lives and entering into the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. As the King's soldiers we are meant to spread the good news of Christ's victory, whereby more people hear and believe and are also conscripted as soldiers. But we are also to defend the church itself and its teachings, for they are treasures being put into earthen vessels. We are to stand guard against those who would try to add to it or take from it, who would come in and water down or utterly change the doctrines that God has set for His church, those things that undermine the word of God, and remove the authority of scripture from the hearts and minds of His people. We are a holy nation, a priesthood to God Almighty, subjects of the King of Kings, meant to keep the world and its edicts and cultures out. What has happened is the church is behaving just like the unfaithful of Israel.
The King has given us His armor that keeps us absolutely safe from being taken out of His hands, and He has already won the war in that regard, and the final victory is assured and cannot be changed as we see in the book of Revelation. But this war is taking place on earth through people. The armies of the evil one are aimed at the church and God's people, and always have been. We have two weapons with which to fight. Prayer and the word of God. (Eph 6) The first needs to be redirected, and the second needs to be picked up and used. But before we can use it, we must know the word of God and be able and willing to articulate it and defend it with the word of God, without fear of not being liked or called nasty names.
I am not the only one who is hearing rumblings. I liken it to distant thunder, the sound of armies gathering. What that means exactly I do not know. I only know we are to be prepared. Prepared in His word and prepared to stand, and having done that, to stand. Our prayer needs to be one first of repentance and complacence, for leaving our post at the gates and upon the walls, and frolicing about oblivious and uncaring, not just for ourselves but for His church, for we have sinned. And then we need to say with all sincereness, "Here am I Lord. Send me." We need to pray for His church and her people, asking that God would send us to rebuild the wall and set our gates, and that He would put watchmen on the wall to rally us to battle when the enemy approaches. And most of all that He would open the eyes of His people to recognize an enemy. The battle is His, but we are the foot soldiers, and prayer, our prayers, is the means He has given us. The King is calling us to arms.
I encourage all to read Nehemiah chapters 1-4 and see there the long shadow it casts, to remind us who it is we serve, and how important and powerful is our position in Christ, our duties as His people and His army, and stir us up as soldiers of the King, to stand boldly defending what belongs to our King. Not for salvation but because of salvation by grace through faith, that our King lived, and died, and lived again, to obtain for us. He is our strength in this battle, for if we are hate by the enemies soldiers, we are loved by our God, and if we fall in battle and even if we die, yet we live.
At Pentecost the King, through the Holy Spirit, began conscripting a new army of men and women, one that did not fight for land, but who were at war with God's very arch enemy, the devil himself and his foot soldiers on the earth. We do not have hand to hand physical combat with these enemy soldiers, but we wage war against these enemies entering our own lives and entering into the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. As the King's soldiers we are meant to spread the good news of Christ's victory, whereby more people hear and believe and are also conscripted as soldiers. But we are also to defend the church itself and its teachings, for they are treasures being put into earthen vessels. We are to stand guard against those who would try to add to it or take from it, who would come in and water down or utterly change the doctrines that God has set for His church, those things that undermine the word of God, and remove the authority of scripture from the hearts and minds of His people. We are a holy nation, a priesthood to God Almighty, subjects of the King of Kings, meant to keep the world and its edicts and cultures out. What has happened is the church is behaving just like the unfaithful of Israel.
The King has given us His armor that keeps us absolutely safe from being taken out of His hands, and He has already won the war in that regard, and the final victory is assured and cannot be changed as we see in the book of Revelation. But this war is taking place on earth through people. The armies of the evil one are aimed at the church and God's people, and always have been. We have two weapons with which to fight. Prayer and the word of God. (Eph 6) The first needs to be redirected, and the second needs to be picked up and used. But before we can use it, we must know the word of God and be able and willing to articulate it and defend it with the word of God, without fear of not being liked or called nasty names.
I am not the only one who is hearing rumblings. I liken it to distant thunder, the sound of armies gathering. What that means exactly I do not know. I only know we are to be prepared. Prepared in His word and prepared to stand, and having done that, to stand. Our prayer needs to be one first of repentance and complacence, for leaving our post at the gates and upon the walls, and frolicing about oblivious and uncaring, not just for ourselves but for His church, for we have sinned. And then we need to say with all sincereness, "Here am I Lord. Send me." We need to pray for His church and her people, asking that God would send us to rebuild the wall and set our gates, and that He would put watchmen on the wall to rally us to battle when the enemy approaches. And most of all that He would open the eyes of His people to recognize an enemy. The battle is His, but we are the foot soldiers, and prayer, our prayers, is the means He has given us. The King is calling us to arms.
I encourage all to read Nehemiah chapters 1-4 and see there the long shadow it casts, to remind us who it is we serve, and how important and powerful is our position in Christ, our duties as His people and His army, and stir us up as soldiers of the King, to stand boldly defending what belongs to our King. Not for salvation but because of salvation by grace through faith, that our King lived, and died, and lived again, to obtain for us. He is our strength in this battle, for if we are hate by the enemies soldiers, we are loved by our God, and if we fall in battle and even if we die, yet we live.