Playground or Battlefield?

Welcome! Today we begin a new series that will take us through most of the rest of this year, a series called “The War” that focuses in on spiritual warfare. Before jumping in, I want to just say a little about the series title. If you look at secular publications and websites, the longest wars in the world include some you may have heard of and some you haven’t; multiple sites list the Reconquista as the longest war, at about 774 years. The Reconquista is a name given to war that took place on the Iberian Peninsula (what today is largely Spain and Portugal), which fell to Islamic rule in the 700s and what was not recaptured (reconquered) until 1492, a year known to Americans for something else. Also high on the lists are the Roman-Germanic wars which went on nearly continuously from 113 BC to 596 AD, and the Roman-Persian wars from 54 BC to 628 AD. Later were the Ottoman wars against the Byantine Empire, the Bulgarian Empire, and the Serbian Empire – as a whole these went from 1265 AD to 1918 AD. None of these, however, were really just called “The War” – they were more a seemingly unending series of conflicts, each with their own names. Now World War I, which took place from 1914 to 1918, was called the Great War and the War to End all Wars – they were a little off with that last name, wouldn’t you say? That war involved 70 million military personnel, and 16 million people (combatants and civilians) perished. World War II, which took place from 1939 to 1945 (although related conflicts began earlier) was simply called The War, at least in England, until the late 1940s, after it was all over. Roosevelt in the US called it the Survival War, but that name never caught on. I believe the British called it simply The War because, for them, it was so all-encompassing, so affecting of all of life, that no further description was necessary. World War II directly involved more than 100 million people from 30 countries. The number of fatalities in this war, depending on what you count as part of the war or as something else, was between 50 and 85 million people.   

But none of these wars can compare in length or in scope to what we will call The War. This war goes all the way back to Adam and Eve, who were The War’s first human casualties; like many wars, it’s not entirely clear when The War began, but Scripture tells us that there was war in heaven, and a third of the angels revolted, rebelled, and followed a particular prince of the angels. There will be more to say about this prince, much more, later in the series. But just as the United States was  brought into World War II by the aggressive actions of the enemy on its soil, the serpent entered Adam and Eve’s “home,” the Garden, and waged war on its human inhabitants, bringing mankind into a war, The War, that has continued ever since.

Now when we think of modern warfare we think of tanks and airplanes and battleships and submarines, and we think of guns and grenades and bombs and missiles. But the serpent used none of these things, nor did he use the tools of ancient warfare: horses and chariots, and swords and bows and arrows. Instead, he used words, only words, and with these words he accomplished the most crushing defeat of his enemy in all of history. Satan twisted God’s words, invited Eve to question not only what God said, but whether He might be withholding from us or lying to us; that is, he got Eve to question God’s goodness. Eve and Adam both took of the forbidden fruit, willfully disobeying God’s one direct command, an action leading to God’s righteous judgment: ejection from Eden into a world now cursed by their sin, a world with death, and struggle, and hardship, hardship between man and nature as well as between man and woman.

But God also pronounced judgment on the serpent, saying:

“Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” – Gen. 3:15

This passage is called the protoeuangelion, because it is the first pronouncement of the gospel, the good news that The War would be ultimately won for us by someone here only described as one of Eve’s offspring. The serpent would strike his heel, but this person would crush his head, symbolism that can only be interpreted as delivering a mortal blow. The serpent and his followers were destined to lose The War.

The War went on through history, through the Old Testament, as some people chose to follow God but many more listened to the many lies of their own hearts along with the lies of that serpent. Abel was one of the first direct casualties of The War, murdered by his own brother Cain. But Cain was also a casualty, as was every person who listened to the lies of the Great Deceiver, that ancient serpent.

Every war in history has been but a battle in The War. So has every estrangement between parent and child, between brother and sister, between husband and wife, between worker and coworker, employee and employer. Every murder has been a part of the War, every robbery, every beating, every rape, and every abortion. Every tragedy in which human negligence or laziness or corruption has led to or worsened the result is a part of the War. When people act out based on racism or other forms of hate, the serpent is involved – it’s another skirmish in The War. When people don’t help others that they see in need, The War is behind that, too. Much of the poverty in the world, the suffering in the world, the hunger, it’s just another aspect of The War.

The War is the only true World War. Every person is involved. And whether they know it or not, when a person truly puts their faith in Christ, they enter the front lines. Or perhaps more precisely, a new front in the war opens up exactly where that person lives. Why? Because each time the gospel spreads, each time another person turns to Christ, the serpent suffers a defeat. Really, all of the things we have described as The War are first and foremost intended to limit and prevent and stop the spread of the gospel.

Now back in Genesis, a descendent of Eve was promised to crush the serpent’s head. That person we know was Jesus. Jesus, even in His ministry on earth, was involved in defeating the serpent. In Matthew 12, the people brought Jesus a demon-possessed man who was also blind and mute, and Jesus healed him of all of it – the blindness, the muteness, and the possession. The Pharisees, instead of celebrating, accused Jesus of being in league with Beelzebub, one of the serpent’s many names. In response, Jesus gave two analogies; the second one being the following:

“Or again, how can anyone enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can plunder his house.” – Matt. 12:29

This well describes Jesus’ mission, at least in part; it was to plunder the serpent’s house. To take back what the serpent had captured through The War. We all, those who have put their faith in Christ, who have admitted their fallen, sinful nature to Jesus, who have asked Him to save them, are those who have been “carried off.” We, in our own strength, were utterly unable to get away from the “strong man,” but Jesus carried us out of there like a shepherd carrying back his lost sheep. Jesus did this on a limited, case by case basis prior to the cross, but in going to the cross, He carried out the most successful rescue operation in all of history. This rescue mission cost Him His life, but He gave it willingly, because He loved us while we were yet sinners. Just how large this rescue operation was we still don’t know, as the count of souls saved by His sacrificial action grows every day, every hour.

Shortly before Jesus went to the cross, He said the following:

Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to Myself.”– John 12:31-32

The author of Hebrews also writes of this defeat of the devil:

Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. – Heb. 2:14-15

Much of the Christian life is somewhat paradoxical in that it has a “now” and “not yet” dualism to it. This is true of the serpent as well. He is both defeated “now” and he is defeated “not yet.” The cross was the defining moment of the serpent’s defeat, but he is still very much active, very much dangerous, very much still a destroyer.

As it says in I Peter 5:8,

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. – I Peter 5:8  

There is a sense in which the battle has been won, and we live in the victory of Christ. The resurrection proved that Christ was indeed the victor, and the serpent the loser. But we don’t live in a playground; we still live in a battlefield. As the verse says, we need to be alert and sober-minded. This series is all about how to live victoriously in a battlefield.

A.W. Tozer has written on this theme. As with so much of his writings, it pierces the heart, makes us stop and think. Tozer is rarely gentle in what he writes. On this subject, he reflects on the past, saying the following:

In the early days, when Christianity exercised a dominant influence over American thinking, men conceived the world to be a battleground. Our fathers believed in sin and the devil and hell as constituting one force, and they believed in God and righteousness and heaven as the other. By their very nature, these forces were opposed to each other forever in deep, grave, irreconcilable hostility. Man, our fathers held, had to choose sides – he could not be neutral. For him it must be life or death, heaven or hell, and if he chose to come out on God's side, he could expect open war with God's enemies. The fight would be real and deadly and would last as long as life continued here below. Men looked forward to heaven as a return from the wars, a laying down of the sword to enjoy in peace the home prepared for them.

Sermons and songs in those days often had a martial quality about them, or perhaps a trace of homesickness. The Christian soldier thought of home and rest and reunion, and his voice grew plaintive as he sang of battle ended and victory won. But whether he was charging into enemy guns or dreaming of war's end and the Father's welcome home, he never forgot what kind of world he lived in – it was a battleground, and many were wounded and slain.

Tozer then compared this past view with, for him, what was the present. Tozer went to be with the Lord over 50 years ago, so I cannot imagine what he might think of our society today. But back then he wrote the following:

How different today. The fact remains the same, but the interpretation has changed completely. Men think of the world not as a battleground, but as a playground. We are not here to fight; we are here to frolic. We are not in a foreign land; we are at home. We are not getting ready to live, but we are already living, and the best we can do is rid ourselves of our inhibitions and our frustrations and live this life to the full.

Tozer goes on to observe that the church is not immune to this change:

The idea that this world is a playground instead of a battleground has now been accepted in practice by the vast majority of fundamentalist Christians. They might hedge around the question if they were asked bluntly to declare their position, but their conduct gives them away. They are facing both ways, enjoying Christ and the world, gleefully telling everyone that accepting Jesus does not require them to give up their fun – Christianity is just the jolliest thing imaginable.

Where do these ideas come from? From men’s own wicked hearts and, of course, from the whispers of the old serpent, the old worm. It is a devious plan, to convince a soldier that there is no war, but Satan has always excelled in telling people what they want to hear. Nobody wants to think about a roaring lion when there is “fun” to be had.

The serpent is a master of deception, and he often strives to make things seem “not as bad” as they really are. He did this with Eve, never even hinting at all the bad things that would result from her disobedience. I am reminded of a scene from the recent movie Valerian and the City of Ten Thousand Planets, a movie that probably nobody has seen in this room except me and my children; we only waited about a week after opening day to see it, and by then we had to drive to Greenville because none of the local theaters were showing it any more. Anyway, there is an extended sequence in which the main female character, Laureline, sees some pretty glowing butterflies dangling near her. She finally reaches out for one, only to discover that they are extremely sticky, and once she touches it, she is reeled up with a fishing pole by large aliens in a higher level of the city, and, placed in a cage, she is brought to a room, under guard, where one of the creatures offers her different pretty dresses to wear. She tries to speak to them, demanding they let her go, but her cries are (mostly) ignored. Eventually she is dressed up wearing an absurdly large hat, with a span of at least 6 feet, and forced to carry a large basket of fruit in line with what appear to be other slaves to their king, who seems to be the ultimate foodie, tasting but rejecting dish after dish. She comes up at last to the king, who quickly throws the fruit away, and then you realize that the hat has a large hole in the center, exposing the top of her head. She is forced close to the king, who then takes out something looking like a large nutcracker, and it becomes clear that it was not the fruit, but her brain, that was meant to be the main course. Because she is a main character, you know she is going to be rescued, and this makes it a funny scene rather than a scary one, but how this reminds me of our adversary, the serpent! The truth is that we are in a battlefield, not a playground, and someday, like Laureline, everyone will discover the shocking truth that things are not what they appear, not what the serpent wants them to see. For them, it will be too late – they will realize they have been duped into wasting and even destroying their lives. 

Throughout this series our scriptural “spine”, so to speak, will be the well-known passage on the armor of God in Ephesians 6:10-20. Most weeks, but not all, we will advance a little further in this passage. Because the passage repeatedly touches on major ideas and instructions that are expanded on throughout Scripture, we will have plenty to talk about in the coming weeks despite the relatively slow pace we will take.

Let’s look at the first several verses of this passage.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. – Eph. 6:10-11

We are commanded to be strong, not in our own strength, but in the Lord, availing ourselves of His strength, in contrast to ours. The command to “be strong in” means to “be strengthened in,” to “be made powerful in.” The life of a soldier isn’t easy – in fact, it is overwhelming. I and my sons saw the movie Dunkirk, and it was exhausting to even watch what these soldiers went through as they simply tried to survive and escape back to England. Paul, inspired in what he wrote by the Holy Spirit, knew this. He commands us not to muster up some fake strength that we don’t really have, but to gather strength from the only one whose strength is unlimited and available to us – from Christ.

But what does this really mean? How does one be strong in the Lord? I think the answer can be found in passages like 2 Cor. 12:9. The context here is that Paul is talking about the thorn in his flesh that he three times asked the Lord to remove, but the Lord did not do so.

But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. – 2 Cor. 12:9-10

It’s not just that we should not try to be strong in our own strength; it’s actually the opposite! We should be utterly convinced of our own inability to be strong, utterly dependent on Christ to provide us with the strength that we so completely lack! This is the secret to being strong in the Lord.

I can tell you that I have experienced this again and again in my life. This past spring and summer I was immersed in putting together two 500 page documents for department accreditation. At one point I was suffering severe writer’s block as I just couldn’t figure out how to write a delicate section without either throwing somebody I respect “under the bus” or instead “bending” the truth. Finally I reached the absolute end of myself, and begged the Lord in prayer to help me come up with something, and something right away, as I was absolutely out of time. I could feel the weight of the future of my whole department weighing on me, and I felt hopelessly inadequate, stuck, unable to write anything at all. In utter desperation I cried out to the Lord. Did He answer? Absolutely! Almost immediately I was able to write, and started to write “around” the problem, writing quickly and, I think, effectively. When I got to the critical section, it almost wrote itself – I wrote as fast as I could type, and smashed past that writer’s block.

Now maybe you feel that that was not a particularly spiritual task; maybe you question whether the Lord would help someone with such a “secular” activity. I would say that whether an activity is secular or sacred is up to you. In whatever you do, work unto the Lord, and every task will become His. The power of the Lord is not just available for preaching, although I have experienced that as well, many times, and it is not just for sharing the gospel, although I have repeatedly experienced that too. It’s available for parenting, for reconciling a relationship, for school, for work, for anything. Does that mean that you can do well anything you want to do? No, but to loosely quote a Veggie Tales episode, it means that whatever the Lord wants you to do, in Him you can do.    

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. – Eph. 6:10-11

In the context of being a soldier for God, this means that you can in fact stand against the devil, that same serpent who so destroyed the lives of Adam and Eve. You, a weak, finite person, perhaps nothing standing out even among people, can resist the prince of fallen angels. You can do this! But only in the strength of Christ. You can only do this if you fully accept that apart from Him you are so mismatched that the situation is ludicrous. David and Goliath ludicrous. Do you remember what David said to Saul, when Saul told him he was no match for Goliath?

The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine. – I Sam. 17:37a

The same Hebrew word is used for paw and hand; that is, the Lord who rescued him from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue him from the paw of the Philistine. And in the same way, in the power of His strength, the Lord will rescue you from the paw of the devil!

This strength, this power in the Lord, is mentioned earlier in Ephesians, back in Chapter 1, the glorious chapter about who we are in Christ:

 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in His holy people, and His incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength He exerted when He raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. – Eph. 1:18-21

Does this begin to sink in? No less than the power that raised Christ from the dead is available for you to resist the devil! This is Paul’s command – be strong in the Lord and His mighty power – power that is that mighty! Be strong in that!

But there is a second command in these two verses as well:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. – Eph. 6:10-11

We have already talked a little about the devil’s schemes. He has many schemes. In some cultures he makes himself quite visible, via possession and other tactics. In our culture he tends to take the opposite approach, making it seem as if the spiritual world doesn’t exist at all. But he and his cohorts are always whispering lies, lies about ourselves, lies about other people, lies, lies, lies – all to destroy our relationships, to destroy our witness, to destroy, if possible, everything that matters in our lives.

In light of this, Paul gives his second command: Put on the full armor of God. What that armor is we will see in the coming weeks. This week I just want to emphasize the basic command: Put it on! More specifically, put it all on! The devil is smart – if you leave off some part of the armor, he will just go and attack you there at your weakest point. As D. Martin Lloyd-Jones puts it, ”Every single part and portion of this armor is absolutely essential; and the first thing you have to learn is that you are not in a position to pick and choose.”

One more point I would make – whose armor is it? God’s! It is the armor of God! It’s not your own junky armor – it is His perfect armor. Years ago we did a church drama where a Satan character convinced a clueless Christian that he didn’t need that armor, too binding, too heavy, too traditional. The Satan character convinced the hapless Christian that instead of the belt of truth, for example, he only needed a sash of sincerity. Each element of God’s armor was replaced with a somewhat similar-sounding alternative, but of course the real result was that the poor Christian was utterly defenseless. Don’t let this happen to you! As we continue through this series, be utterly ruthless in evaluating yourself to see whether you have in the past accepted Satan’s imitations in place of the real thing. Put on the full armor, of God.

A final passage I will give you today comes from John 12, a chapter we looked at earlier. Again, this passage is something that takes place shortly before Jesus went to the cross:

Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves Me must follow Me; and where I am, My servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves Me. – John 12:23-26

Are you ready to be soldier for Jesus? Are you ready even to die for Him? We are on a battlefield, not a playground. The serpent would love for us to live in an imaginary world in our head, a Disneyworld-like place, where the only thing to decide is what ride to take next, but the reality is that people are perishing all around us without really hearing the gospel, without meeting our Savior, without placing their lives in the sure hands of the one who has crushed and will crush the serpent’s head. He saved us not to be vacationers, but soldiers. He tells us to protect ourselves and the ones He has entrusted to us, our friends and spouses and children, using the armor He has provided for us. He asks us to go out into the front lines, and led and empowered by Him, rescue others who are perishing. He does not promise that we will go through this without a scratch; indeed He tells us to be ready to lay down our lives for this mission, and He promises us that in this world we will have trouble. But He tells us to take heart, because He, our Commanding Officer, has overcome the world.