WAR A GOOD WARFARE

Nearly everyday I hear from Pastors and Christian leaders who are discouraged, disheartened, and disillusioned by the cultural and moral disintegration we are watching around us. Prophets and pundits agree--the Church of Jesus Christ and the civilization built upon the Christian ethic is under an all out assault by the world, the flesh, and devil. But what are we to do at a time like this?

It is our abiding conviction that as the Church has lost her confidence in the Truth of God's Word--written and incarnate, and as the Church has sought after the Spirit of the Age rather than the Spirit of the Ages—that Holy Spirit of the Living God, she has been rendered incompetent and incapable of meeting the challenge of this hour.

Some have suggested that the Church should surrender some or most of the territory she once claimed for Christ. Others have called for the Church to retreat into support groups. Most have been so intimidated by the onslaught that they have decided to do nothing.

There is a way forward! There is a way for the Church to regain her footing, engage the enemy, and prevail against the gates of hell.

Rather than thinking of the Church as a social club, or a support group, or a political organization, or the greatest show on earth, we must be THE CHURCH MILITANT! Ours is a holy Crusade for Christ. (Not a “CRU” but a CRUSADE FOR CHRIST).

Think of the hymns we sang when the Church was claiming territory for Christ:

ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS

A MIGHTY FORTRESS IS OUR GOD

AM I A SOLDIER OF THE CROSS?

I’LL BE A SOLDIER FOR JESUS

THE FIGHT IS ON

SOLDIERS OF IMMANUEL

STAND UP FOR JESUS

SOLDIERS OF CHRIST ARISE

How different from the hymns of this namby pamby, sissified, effete form of godliness that presents itself as the Church today. No fight. No blood. No victory.

The inspired Apostle Paul urged Timothy, “WAR A GOOD WARFARE!” Tragically the modern church has lost her fight—and that’s why we’re losing the battle.

IF THE CHURCH MILITANT IS TO ENGAGE AND PREVAIL in this battle for souls, we need enlistments who will 1) Accept the discipline, 2) Put on the uniform, 3) March to the distinct sound of heaven, 4) Engage the enemy together, and 5) Protect the flag, at any and all costs.

1. ACCEPT THE DISCIPLINE!

“Oh Sergeant, that’s so legalistic!” One can only imagine the fate of a Marine enlistment who blurted out such a complaint to his drill sergeant. Yet today most of those in the Church refuse to accept the disciplines of Christ. Some are so adroit at explaining away their lack of discipline they have made a virtue out of lawlessness. “Sin boldly that grace may abound.” How tragic.
It’s no wonder the world refuses righteousness—the professing Church herself absolutely will not yield to the law, the disciplines of Godliness. We’re not calling for legalism, we’re calling for legality! All who love God love God’s law. If we do not love God’s law, we do not love God.

We simply cannot prevail so long as everyone is doing what is right in their own eyes. WE NEED DISCIPLINE.

2. PUT ON THE UNIFORM!

“Commander, do I have to wear that? I feel more comfortable in my street clothes," the recruit complains.

Refusing to wear the uniform is grounds for expulsion from the armed forces. Inattention to the details of the uniform is grounds for discipline.
Just as soldiers wear the uniform that is proper and appropriate for their unit, we who are a part of the CHURCH MILITANT must wear what God’s Word directs. It must be gender specific ( “A man shall not wear that which pertains unto a woman, and a woman shall not wear that which pertains to a man”), it must be modest (“with modest apparel”), and it must not engender pride (“not with gold, or pearls, or costly array”).

One of the great joys of God’s people is to wear the uniform that God Himself has prescribed! I love to be identified as a soldier of the Cross. God’s people look different, smell different, act different, and sound different from the world. HALLELUJAH! WE ARE DIFFERENT!

3. MARCH TO THE BEAT OF ANOTHER DRUMMER

The Church Militant will never prevail so long as we are marching to the sensual, carnal, beat of the night-club. Our music should be as distinct from the world as the light is from night. We are children of the Light!

Why is it that Churches don’t want to look like churches, sound like churches, or act like churches? Maybe it’s because their cushioned chairs are filled with people who aren’t churches.

My father used to tell the story of the little guy who gave his heart to Jesus on Sunday and went to school the next week. When his friends tried to get him to join them in doing something wrong he stood up and said, “Oh I can’t do that, I’m a church!

You know the word “Church” means “called out ones.” The reason so many don’t want to look, and sound, and act “called out,” is because they have not been “called out!”

Whoever it was that convinced us that to gain adherents, and to advance the cause of holiness and righteousness, we needed to look and sound like the world, has surely made a mockery of the professing Church. Compromise with the world and the flesh and the devil never has, and never will grow the Church.

4. ENGAGE THE ENEMY TOGETHER!

In his soon to be released book, WHAT IS IT LIKE TO GO TO WAR,” award winning Marine Karl Marlantes writes of the transcendent force of “WE” on the battlefield. He wrote of a key battle fought on a hill in Vietnam. Under fierce assault from the North Vietnamese, Lieutenant Marlantes and his forces called for a helicopter to assist. The chopper crashed in a hail of enemy fire. He writes,

“Knowing for sure that the chopper crew were dead for sure if we didn’t break through to them, we simply rushed forward to reach them before the NVA [North Vietnamese Army] killed them. No one gave an order. We, the group, just rushed forward all at once. We couldn’t be stopped. Just individuals among us were stopped. Many forever. But we couldn’t be. This too, is a form of transcendence. I was we, no longer me.”

As I read the account a rush of emotion flooded my heart. I couldn’t help but think how great it would be if the Church Militant could act so today. In His High Priestly prayer Jesus prayed for us, “Sanctify them…I in them, and thou in me that they, that they may be made perfect in one.” (John 17:17ff).
If the “I” of self-interest, self-promotion, and self-will, would be sanctified out of our hearts—If we would abandon our plans, our ambitions, our wishes, for the cause of Christ—then we would unleash a purifying, and sanctifying force like no other known to man.

5. FINALLY, PROTECT THE FLAG AT ANY AND ALL COSTS

For generations Americans have been inspired by the photograph of American marines raising Old Glory at Iwo Jima. Warriors know that when the flag is raised, it is a declaration of victory for all to see. This territory has been won.

Too often the only flag the professing Church has been raising is the white flag of surrender. We have surrendered our faith in the infallible inspired Word of God. We have surrendered our Lord’s teaching on the permanence of marriage—“For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife,…what therefore God has joined together let not man put asunder.” (Mark 10:7ff). We have surrendered up heart holiness. We have surrendered up the holy life.

Surrender has left us powerless, purposeless, and people-less!

It is high time that the Church Militant rise up to champion the cause of Christ! It is time that the Church militant face the enemy squarely, and boldly stand for righteousness and holiness.

CONCLUSION:

The Apostle Paul gave his son in the Gospel “A Charge to Keep!” “War a good warfare!” he urged. Let the Church be the Church! If we will, We have Christ’s promise, “The gates of Hell will not prevail against us.”

A charge to keep I have,

A God to glorify,

A never-dying soul to save,
And fit it for the sky.


To serve the present age,
My calling to fulfill:
O may it all my powers engage
To do my Master’s will!


Arm me with jealous care,
As in Thy sight to live;
And O Thy servant, Lord, prepare
A strict account to give!


Help me to watch and pray,

And on Thyself rely,

Assured, if I my trust betray,

I shall for ever die.

Charles Wesley

OUR CONFIDENCE

Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward.  Hebrews 10:35

Two out of every three Americans believe our nation is on the wrong track.  And it is.

Tragically only a few seem to understand why. 

Some point to our economic malaise.  Others argue that the political system, or more specifically the politicians in that system, should shoulder the blame.  There are those who believe that it is the fault of the media and the press.  A few critics accuse our faltering schools.  And a growing number of observers see the breakdown of the family as our greatest challenge.

Yet it is our conviction that all of these are only evidences, or symptoms that our nation is heading the wrong way.  The cause is deeper.

We have thrown trillions of dollars at our problems.  We have expended thousands of hours in speech-making and politicking.   We have tried to legislate and educate to liberate ourselves out of this morass.  And yet we are still heading the wrong direction.  Things are not getting better.

Even more serious than our economic deficit is our nation’s moral deficit.

Precise definition is critical at this juncture.  It is private morality, or more actually immorality, that is at the heart of our problem.  

It is easy to demagogue the decline of morality by citing corporate fraud, governmental misappropriation, or societal injustice.  Everyone agrees that these instances of public immorality are wrong.

But it is hard to judge ourselves. 

If we judge ourselves according to the lives of those around us, we succumb to what former U. S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan called, “defining deviancy down.” Our over-exposure to the evil in those around us has numbed our moral sense.  We rationalize, “I may be bad, but I’m not that bad."

On the other hand, if we judge truthfully so many of us fall short of the mark that we find ourselves unwilling to point an accusing finger at others, for fear that our own sin might be found out.  We’re afraid that we will be judged by the same standard.  We know that we will be found wanting.  We even have an out of context Bible verse to justify our amoral stance, “Judge not that ye be not judged!”

Yet until the Americans in America get themselves on the right track, the nation will continue what Robert Bork calls, “Slouching Towards Gomorrah.”

The only way that America has prospered to this hour is by expending the moral capital garnered by past generations.  We have enjoyed the blessings of Providence showered upon those people who in times past feared, and honored, and loved the Lord God.  We have spent what they earned, but we have failed to add to that moral capital by virtuous living and the pursuit of personal holiness. Today we are morally bankrupt.

It is the demoralization of our civilization that has brought us to these desperate times.  Decades ago the Soviet KGB agent, Yuri Bezmenov defected to the West.  He warned that our enemy’s strategy was to first demoralize, then to destabilize, and finally to destroy us.  Fortunately for us, the immorality within the Evil Empire brought them down first.

But America is not far behind.  At the heart of our national moral crisis is our loss of confidence in God.  We say, “In God we Trust,” but never have we trusted Him less than we do today. 

If our nation can be demoralized, destabilized, and ultimately destroyed by a loss of confidence in the Author of Liberty and His Law, so our churches can also be demoralized, destabilized, and ultimately destroyed when they lose confidence in the God of Scripture, and when they jettison their commitment to the Scriptures of God!

And if nations and churches can be demoralized, destabilized, and ultimately destroyed, so also can Christians!  It is the heart-break of every Pastor to see the numbers of those who once traveled on the highway of holiness now trudging that hard road to destruction.

If your confidence is in the Creator who made all that is, and your confidence is decidedly not in the creation, yourself included…

If your confidence is in the Savior, who was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, buried, and rose again from the dead, and your confidence is decidedly not in your own self-righteousness…

If your confidence is in the Spirit of Holiness that raised up Jesus from the dead, who convicts, who sanctifies, who satisfies, who guides, who gifts, who bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, who intercedes for us, who is our Comforter, the Paraclete, the Holy One, the Spirit of the Living God, and you confidence is decidedly not in the spirit of this age or the spirit of unrighteousness…

If your confidence is in the inspired, inerrant Word of the Living God, the 66 books of the Old and New Testament, written by men who were moved by the Holy Ghost, and perfectly revealing God’s will for us, and your confidence is decidedly not in your pathetic, paltry, vain  philosophy…

If your confidence is in the way of Holiness and true Righteousness, and it is decidedly not in the subjective, self-determined, do-what-you-want-to-do way that leads to destruction...

…THEN DON’T CAST AWAY YOUR CONFIDENCE!

Don’t cast away your confidence when you’re feeling bad.

Don’t cast away your confidence when you’re feeling great.

Don’t cast away your confidence when things are going wrong.

Don’t cast away your confidence when things are going wonderfully.

Don’t cast away your confidence when you’re tempted.

Don’t cast away your confidence when you’re discouraged.

Don’t cast away your confidence when your friends are casting theirs away.   

(Even those that you thought would never turn away).

Don’t cast away your confidence when the Holy Spirit is convicting you or when the Lord Himself is chastening you. “Whom the Lord loves He chastens.”

Don’t cast away your confidence as a child.

Don’t cast away your confidence as a teen.

Don’t cast away your confidence as a young adult.

Don’t cast away your confidence as a senior saint.

Don’t cast away your confidence when you have failed.   

(This is not a plea for unscriptural eternal security.  This is to say that if the enemy has exploited your weakness, and you have fallen into sin, you have disobeyed God, then don’t give up.  Get up!  Never lose confidence in the Gospel of Christ who came to seek and to save that which is lost.)

Don’t cast away your confidence though all the news around you is bleak.

Don’t cast away your confidence when the two-bit rulers of this world are thumbing their noses at the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.

Don’t cast away your confidence though Israel is assaulted and Jerusalem is completely surrounded.

Don’t cast away your confidence when the Church of Jesus Christ faces the fires of persecution. “Lift up your eyes, your redemption draweth nigh!”

There are many who are heading the wrong direction, but for the blood-bought, redeemed, sanctified, Spirit-filled, people of the Living God, we’ve come too far to turn back!   “Cast not away your confidence.”

(I am grateful to Brother James Plank, from God's Missionary Church, Beavertown, PA for inspiring some of these thoughts).