Spirituality Column #800

March 15, 2022

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

This is War

By Bob Walters

“The Lord is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation; this is my God and I will praise Him; my father’s God, and I will extol Him.  The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is His name.” – Exodus 15:2-3

“I saw heaven standing open and before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True.  With justice he judges and wages war. … He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God.” – Revelation 19:11,13

It is critical to remember that we do not serve a God who is soft on injustice or who shies away from a fight.  Righteousness is who He is and what He does.

His nature is love (1 John 4:8) and His mercies endure forever (Psalm 118), but He is not the God of “Can’t we all just get along?”  He knows better.  Sadly, so do we.

The church, in our compassion, wants to help fix the people who are broken wherever in the world a battle rages.  Our hearts cry out for the injured and oppressed; we rail against man’s cruelties and pray for deliverance of the innocents swallowed up in the fight.  The tragedy is real, our cry to God understandable, our rage justified.

But God’s church must be more than a fretful and compassionate aid station.  Are we rightly called to be a hospital for the world?  Sure.  We offer physical help and spiritual encouragement; we pray for people to know Jesus and be nice to one another.

Yet in this current season of phenomenal turmoil at home and abroad – in our neighborhoods, schools, towns, and nation, as well as global political disorder and the headlining firestorm in Ukraine – the church cannot forget that God calls us to be warriors who speak forcefully in His will against the evil of satan wherever we find it.

It is not just a battle for territory in Eastern Europe (where have we heard that before?), but it is a holy war for domestic cultural and social sanity here at home – an entirely differentiated front in the battle for the minds, lives, and souls of our children.

This is not the time to think Christians are called to be sheep or nursemaids.

Jesus encountered satan (Matthew 4:1-11) with the power of God’s words: “It is written!”  Jesus knew – and went silent – when God’s holy will called him to be a sacrifice as He was led to the violent Cross … and was then resurrected in glory.

But in Revelation 19, Christ fights: “With justice he judges and wages war.”

As God saved Israel out of Egypt near the beginning, and Christ defeats satan in the End, our Christian attitude of this moment must be that God is the Lord and that we are both the tools of His power in all the Earth and participants in His love and glory.

The works of our faith are stronger than we know; our praying in the authority of God as we acknowledge evil’s battle will pull down satan’s strong holds (2 Corinthians 10:4) and attack spiritual wickedness (Ephesians 6:12).  Jesus is Faithful and True.

God’s words are our sword; we must speak them boldly.  The fight is raging.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that satan is one tough out, and that “please” isn’t going to dissuade satan or his operatives.  Walters also thanks Dutch Sheets for the timely scripture (some shared above) and thoughts of his March 10 “Give Him 15.”  May we all take to heart the power of God’s Word not only as a calming palliative in a crisis, but as a sword warriors must unsheathe confidently in the fight.