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Preparing the Christian Warrior
Judges 2:23-3:2 - 11 November, 2007
23 So the LORD left those nations, not driving them out quickly, and he did not give them into the hand of Joshua.
1 Now these are the nations that the LORD left, to test Israel by them, that is, all in Israel who had not experienced all the wars in Canaan.
2 It was only in order that the generations of the people of Israel might know war, to teach war to those who had not known it before.
In my last sermon I discussed the importance of a Christian walking on God’s path. I gave you three steps that God uses to discipline us and bring us back into a state in which we can be useful to His work: Notification, Conformation, and Germination. Notification is how God lets you know that there is something wrong in the direction you are going. Conformation is the process by which the impurities within us are given up or burned away and we start to conform more to God’s law and the image of Christ. And Germination is where we give our lives fully to the pursuit of conformity to Christ, live in purity, live in obedience, live in Godly Love, and use our lives to bear fruit for God’s Kingdom. All of this is not done so we can lead safe, uninteresting lives, coming to church on Sundays, and then disappearing into the woodwork for a week. These steps are all preparatory work to prepare us for a great challenge ~ the challenge of serving God in a militant way. God wants us to be Christian warriors, not content to let sin flourish in our world and our lives, but attacking it again and again and again, until we gain victory over it.
Let’s go back and look at these verses from Judges. In pondering them, we have to ask ourselves, why would our Heavenly Father, who loves us, created us, and sent His Son to die for us; why would He want His precious children to know war? After all, war is a horror, not a children’s game. Well, there are two answers to this, and the set-up for the three verses we are looking at is found in Judges 2:19-22. Joshua has died, and judges are being appointed over Israel to oversee them and deliver them from oppression. We’ll pick it up at verse 19:
"But whenever the judge died, they turned back and were more corrupt than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them and bowing down to them. They did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways. So the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he said, “Because this people have transgressed my covenant that I commanded their fathers and have not obeyed my voice, I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations that Joshua left when he died, in order to test Israel by them, whether they will take care to walk in the way of the LORD as their fathers did, or not.”
So, we see that God purposefully left enemies in Israel’s path, partially to deal with their sins against Him, and partially to test the truth of their faith in Him. When this refers to the next generations, the ones who did lot live through the miracles by which God revealed his power during the wars with the Canaanites, the question posed by the text is revealed to be this: if their enemies were still around them, would God’s people remain loyal to Him, or would they turn and follow the gods of the other nations?
But there is another thought here that we can’t ignore ~ verses 1 and 2 in Chapter 3 tell us.
"Now these are the nations that the LORD left, to test Israel by them, that is, all in Israel who had not experienced all the wars in Canaan. It was only in order that the generations of the people of Israel might know war, to teach war to those who had not known it before."
This passage is saying that God wanted the Israelites to know and experience war, because through war they would stay sharp and focused, and through war they would come to depend more and more upon Him.
Now, let’s flash forward a few thousand years. I have to tell you that, as a student of history, I am a firm believer that we could learn much of we only would remember the wisdom of Ecclesiastes 1:9:
"What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun."
In many ways, the Christian church in America is in the same situation as Israel in the time of the judges. We began on a firm, Godly foundation, but then fell away, continually coming back in times of trial; but when we’ve perceived that our trials have passed, we only fall further and further away, just as Israel did. Many in American churches today believe firmly that our nation is still merely a nation of straying sheep, sharing the same basic moral principles, but calling those principles by different names.
There is a belief that all the Christian church needs to do is to corral these sheep and teach them the name of God, and America will automatically return to its roots in morality and civility. But none of this is true, and it has not been true for many, many years. In fact, in 1977, the official statement of the National Evangelical Anglican Conference stated this: “We are keenly aware that the church is no longer a pastoral institution in a largely Christian country, but rather a minority in a missionary situation.”
Let’s read that again: “We are keenly aware that the church is no longer a pastoral institution in a largely Christian country, but rather a minority in a missionary situation.” Thirty years have passed since that statement was made, and things are not getting any better. There are many reasons for this ~ some we have control over, and some we don’t ~ but one of the key steps that we can take is to approach the problem of the suffocation of Christianity and True Faith in this country in a more militant way. We are, after all, the Church Militant. This means that, to turn the tide of battle in America, we each have to accept that we must become Christian Warriors, boldly and courageously putting ourselves into battle on behalf of The Light. And if we do this we’ll find, just as the ancient Israelites, that the more completely and correctly we fight and struggle for God’s cause, the more we come to rely on Him for victory, and the less we rely on our own poor powers of persuasion and our own self-motivated means. But, in order to serve God completely and correctly, there are certain steps we have to take to make certain that we are, indeed, fighting for God, and not for ourselves.
I want to discuss three of these steps in rather broad terms today. They are Preparation, Mobilization, and Capitulation. Preparation is, simply put, the time we spend learning about our world, our mission, our God, and ourselves. Mobilization means using the people and resources at our disposal to get God’s message to the world. Capitulation means surrendering to Christ everything inside of us that is not Him, in order to try to clear our minds and our motives of impurities.
First let’s look at Preparation. Last time I spoke about preparing oneself spiritually and physically for service to Christ, but now I want to make a point about mental preparation. One reason people fall away from Christianity is that, often, they find it in a primarily emotional time for them, and see faith as a primarily emotional expression. Sometimes Christians even question the intellectual side of faith, and prefer to lean on the emotional reaction they experience from church and from worship. But what happens when the emotion dries up or changes? This is why Biblical study and an open mind are important weapons for the Christian warrior. We must be able to look at our faith and honestly say to ourselves, it makes sense. If we can’t do that, then it shows that we have a lack of understanding of what our faith is really all about. If our faith in Christ is built on reason and defendable beyond the notion of emotion, then the rain can fall, the floods can come, and the winds can blow and beat on our faith, but it will not fall because it is founded on the rock. But faith built only on an emotional experience is weak and vulnerable. The enemy can break in and shatter us. Emotions are tricky, unstable, misleading things. They are important, but they have to be watched closely and checked carefully against Scripture to ensure that what we are feeling isn’t merely a trick to blind us to God’s Truth and God’s Will.
Being prepared for God’s service means knowing what you believe and why you believe it. It means being able to stand up and defend God in debate. It means being able to answer intelligently and listen lovingly. It means being open to ideas that may end up proving your perceptions and interpretations wrong, but it also means knowing when to assimilate a new concept and when to dismiss it. It means knowing what you may be in for, and knowing why you are doing what you are doing. Above all, it means being willing.
So as we prepare ourselves to do battle for God, we have to understand that there will be sharp demands placed on us. We have to be prepared for rejection, for hardship, for insult, for loneliness. We have to be well aware of what we could face ~ persecution, assault, perhaps even death. Now, God doesn’t call us all to that level of commitment, but what will you do if He does? That’s something to think about.
But God doesn’t call us to work alone, in a vacuum. In fact, He’s given us millions of comrades and endless resources to assist us in our work. And working intelligently and faithfully for Him means knowing how to use these resources and access these comrades. This is my second point: Mobilization. Now, some of you may have gone through the process of mobilization in the military. For those of you who have not, let me sum-up the experience for you: they wake you up early, make you pack a bunch of things you are never going to use and you don’t know what they are anyway, they make you rush from place to place and make you wait three hours once you get there, then they give you a bunch of shots for diseases that no one has ever heard of, then they put you on a plane or a boat ~ doesn’t matter which, as long as it’s crowded, uncomfortable, and smells like feet ~ and send you someplace you would never have gone on your own because chances are close to perfect that it’s an unpleasant place filled with unpleasant people doing unpleasant things. It’s such a disturbing process they give you six medals if you even show up for it.
Well, mobilization for God’s service is a completely different concept. The key here is understanding the proper use of the resources God places around us. Mobilization means that we are stepping out to live our faith in a very real and a very visible way, and when we step out into battle for God, we do not step out alone. As a church family, we cooperate with each other and get organized for our mission, as well as support individuals in whatever mission God has called them to. This means that we are all mobilizing as one to accomplish many goals, all with the same purpose, and each one of us needs the support of everyone in the church body. See, part of the church’s design is mutual support, education, and accountability. You may not be called to be a missionary, but you can always support one. You may not be called to counsel others, but you can always pray for others. But what if God does call you higher, to step out into the unknown? You will need the support and the prayers of your church family to keep you going and keep you focused. You’ll need them to prop you up when you can’t stand any longer, and smack you in the head when you decide that you have all the answers. So you see, mobilization means that when we go to battle for God, we do not go alone; all of our Christian brothers and sisters fall in behind to support us, to share in our triumphs, and wrap their arms around us through the pain.
But proper preparation is never accomplished without the final point I wish to make today, Capitulation. Capitulation means that we are surrendering ourselves mind, body, and soul to Christ. Just as Sin corrupted every last tiny aspect of our being, so too surrender to Jesus must touch every last tiny aspect of our being. Capitulation means we hold nothing back; no part of our life, our personality, our habits, our will, remains unchanged. Some of it changes quickly, and some of it needs burned out, refined away by fire, purifying us like gold for God’s service. But capitulation also means serving God on His terms, according to His Will, not on our terms or our timetables, and not according to our own understanding of the task He puts before us.
But there is a specific aspect of total capitulation to Christ that I wish to discuss with you today, and it is pretty heavy. Typically, when we speak of surrendering our lives to Christ, we talk about the ways in which we are trying to change our habits, actions, and thoughts to align ourselves more with Christ-like virtues; and that is a major part of it. But making our lives completely His means putting our lives completely in His hands and at His disposal, just as a soldier follows the orders of his general, even when that general asks him to put his life on the line. What would you do if, to serve God, you had to lay down your life in His service? That’s a sobering thought, isn’t it? This goes beyond prayer and fasting and tithing and feeding the poor. This means total, complete, unwavering trust that the beliefs you have lived for are worth dying for. That is what total surrender to Christ means. As bondservants of our Creator, are we allowed to hold anything back when serving the One who created us
This has been on my mind a lot lately, especially this week. As I was writing this sermon I got an e-mail from the alumni office at my old college, announcing that a young lady with whom I went to college died last week while working with orphans in Haiti. She was only 25 years old. She made a choice to go down there, to give up a safe life to follow God, when she just as easily could have stayed in the United States. Now, God doesn’t call us all to leave the country or go off and be missionaries. But, this doesn’t mean that our faith and commitment can be any less than those who do serve in the missions field. We aren’t permitted to sit back and be content to let others to God’s work. He requires of us constant vigilance, always ready to answer for our faith, to help someone He may put in our path, or be prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for Him. This is what it means to be completely surrendered to Christ in our lives, and even to our last moments on earth.
All people, regardless of their religion, are called to submit to God’s will, in spite of their own personal thoughts, plans, and feelings. But, as followers of Christ, we have the comfort in knowing and trusting that God’s plan for us is for His Glory and our greater good, and that whatever happens to us on earth is firmly in His hands. And there is our hope. Hope is what separates us from those living in darkness. We are not merely stumbling through life, broken off by the slightest wind. We are all called to a higher purpose, and we know that our momentary sufferings are nothing compared to the glory that awaits us. As the Apostle Peter wrote in 1 Peter 1:6,7:
"In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ."
This knowledge should open our hearts and our minds further to Christ and to His service. Just as soldiers must go through training to break them of bad habits and build up good habits in them, so too we must go through refinement for God, to be His good and faithful servants on earth, to be His arms wrapped around the suffering, to be His hands feeding the hungry, to be His swords striking at injustice, to be His hearts loving the unloved. But this requires deep sacrifice from us. We have to let go of our deeply rooted prejudices, self-righteousness, and everything else that is keeping us from being all we can for the service of God. If our Heavenly Father would not even withhold the life of His Son for our sake, how can we justify holding back any part of our lives for His cause?
We can be confident warriors, strong and courageous. We know how this war will end, although we must suffer through many battles to get there. And it is through all these seemingly endless battles that our enemy hopes to break us down and destroy us. We may win some and we may lose some, but you know, we can’t win a battle if we refuse even to fight it. The pains of the moment are well worth the glories of the future.
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