{"id":193,"date":"2021-01-19T17:34:57","date_gmt":"2021-01-19T17:34:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/176.32.230.18\/swordmagazine.net\/?p=193"},"modified":"2021-02-22T07:04:59","modified_gmt":"2021-02-22T07:04:59","slug":"fight-for-your-enemies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/?p=193","title":{"rendered":"Editorial – Fight for your enemies!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Who is on the Lord’s side? Those who love their enemies – and go to war on their account! David Andrew reflect on God’s kindly warfare …<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As disciples of Jesus, we have good news \u2013 the very best news \u2013 for our enemies… and unless we go to war, we cannot obey God’s command to love them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If this seems confusing, it’s time that we revisit, and seek to understand the church’s call to warfare. It\u2019s time to take a fresh look at the mission of Jesus Christ. ‘Bethlehem’s little baby’ came into this world as a soldier \u2013 to conquer, to express enmity, to disarm, to destroy, to laugh at the futility of His enemy’s defences – and to gather an army ‘terrible with banners’, an army of former slaves, who would express His relentless aggression against every continuing trace of His enemy’s work \u2013 an army whose entire motivation would be their Commanders’ selfless love\u2026 Still confused? (See: Genesis 3:15; Colossians 2:15; 1 John 3:8; 2 Timothy 2:3; 2 Corinthians 5:14)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My choice of military vocabulary is deliberate. The infant in the manger did not mature to become a warrior. As He lay there in helpless, vulnerable infancy in a cattle trough, adored by the poorest of parents and socially outcast shepherds, He was<\/strong> a warrior. The news of His arrival was welcomed just as the Nazis would one day welcome the Normandy landings and a mad, jealous puppet-king slaughtered countless little boys in the futile hope of murdering this terrifying infant-King. The nativity was Heaven\u2019s D-Day \u2013 many horrors of war lay still ahead, but this baby\u2019s birth had turned the tide of war. His infant cry was the shout of God in our camp. Hell shuddered. Angels longed to understand \u2013 but this birth made victory certain. God’s ways are high; His strategies seem to us impossible, or at least improbable – and that’s why we need God’s help to think\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Omnipotently weak\u2026<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It will help lift our confusion if we recall that the child in the manger was God incarnate \u2013 omnipotently divine, impotently human, simultaneously upholding the universe by the word of His power and utterly dependent on Mary and Joseph to meet His normal infant needs\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we don\u2019t understand His aggression, if this military Jesus seems strange to us, it will help to reflect that no humans were targeted in the unfolding of this drama \u2013 He had come to die for His rebel enemies and to destroy their enemy \u201cSince therefore the children share in \ufb02esh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.\u201d (Hebrews 2:14-15)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9). If we try to understand God’s military mind through earthly categories of ‘peace and justice’, d\u00e9tente and diplomacy, we will imagine that our moral standards are higher than God’s and His Old Testament campaigns might have been less bloody if He could have learned our strategies of compromise and appeasement! Just follow our bloody track-record in today\u2019s Godless headlines to see the folly of this reasoning!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bible states boldly that “the LORD is a man of war; the LORD is His Name”, (Exodus 15:3) but this statement was breathed into print by an infinite mind and we mortals have no right to grab a quick ‘food to go’ interpretation as if ‘man of war’, when applied to the God of peace, equates Him with any human counterpart. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

No Divine tantrums<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It’s true that He raised up Joshua’s army to wage war against the inhabitants of Canaan but, true to His “slow to anger” nature (Psalm 103:8), He waited four centuries until, in His eyes, their evil culture had ripened beyond redemption. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is exactly what He predicted to Abraham four hundred years before it happened: “As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the LORD said to him, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and ill-treated four hundred years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterwards they will come out with great possessions.  You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.\u201d (Genesis 15:12-16) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

No-one reading this \u2013 not the fiercest, atheistic critic of God can claim such a definition of ‘slow’ for their own anger. Four seconds, for some of us trigger happy chaps \u2013 but four centuries? Let no-one accuse the only Righteous God of quick-tempered, knee-jerk judgment. He is “righteous in all His ways and good to all that He has made” (Psalm 145:17) \u2013 but when it comes to evil, His patience demands respect and His generous boundaries are still to be feared. He gets angry slowly \u2013 but He gets angry\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s get God’s viewpoint on our rebel race: “Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live? \u2026 I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live!” (Ezekiel 18:23, 32). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now recall that the Son “is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power\u2026”. (Hebrews 1:3)  In His own words, He came on the Father’s mission “that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10) By now, it should be possible to see that God’s ‘warfare’ is for, not against, our race. Whatever we are to understand by Christian warfare, the primary rule of engagement is ‘love your enemies’ <\/strong>\u2013 and that’s from the top\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soldiers? Yes, really!<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If we have misunderstood God\u2019s warfare and consider it a tasteless subject for people of superior moral calibre who prefer to love their enemies, it\u2019s probable that we have no better understanding of our own \u2018military\u2019 calling. Why would the Word of God, which records Jesus dying with a prayer of forgiveness for His enemies \u2013 and welcoming a freshly penitent thief into paradise \u2013 have so much to say about our Christian \u2018soldiering\u2019? Could it be because we are naturally ignorant of the real enemy \u2013 and therefore also of the true nature of our calling?  Time to join up some dots: IF<\/strong> we find the warfare dimension of Christian discipleship distasteful\u2026 IF<\/strong> we prefer to ignore those parts of the Bible which depict God at war and which call us to be \u2018soldiers of Christ\u2019\u2026 IF <\/strong>we think that loving our enemies exempts us from involvement in warfare\u2026IF<\/strong> we imagine that these \u2018enemies\u2019 we love (if we do!) are the real and only enemy\u2026THEN<\/strong> our real enemy has tricked us into looking in the wrong direction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s basic warfare strategy: inform, disinform, misinform, confuse, disorientate\u2026 use every trick in the book to separate your enemy\u2019s thinking from reality – convince your enemy to plan for one eventuality while you plan quite another\u2026  The big issue is where do we Christians get our perception of reality? From Facebook? (I wish I were joking)\u2026 from the BBC? (Now I am joking). How do we regard the Bible? Is ALL Scripture \u201dGodbreathed\u201d (2 Timothy 3:16), or just parts of it? If so, which parts \u2013 and who decides what\u2019s authoritative and what\u2019s past its shelf-life? This magazine is a small enterprise, but it exists to maintain one clear position: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS REDUNDANT SCRIPTURE<\/strong>. It\u2019s all God-breathed and, if He has put it on His page, we need to take it seriously. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Demons? Yes, really!<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Now consider: \u201c\u2026we are not \ufb01ghting against \ufb02esh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.\u201d (Ephesians 6:12 – NLT) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The enemy is not human \u2013 and therefore common to all humanity. Our race faces the hatred of only one racist \u2013 albeit that he hides his presence behind many bigoted human protagonists. The devil and demons are part of reality. There\u2019s a war on. Civilian life is not an option for Christians. We\u2019ve been provided with full armour and an unanswerable sword \u2013 and no less than Christ Himself indwelling us by the Holy Spirit. Our human enemies have the same enemy we have \u2013 but they are blind to his existence (as we once were), blind to the war, blind to reality. If we love our enemies, we will go to war on their behalf. The real enemy will not give up his blind trophies without a fight \u2013 that\u2019s why our warfare is not optional. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our D-Day dawned in Bethlehem\u2019s manger, the decisive victory was won when the Soldier of the Cross cried \u201cIt is \ufb01nished\u201d. Death died when He rose from the tomb. All our victories ride on the back of His. But we won\u2019t have victories unless we fight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To love is to fight<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s time we stopped polarising truths that belong together. \u201cLove your enemies\u201d equates to \u2018fight the good fight of the faith\u201d. Jesus came fighting for His enemies \u2013 that was us, before we were saved. It was \u201cwhile we were enemies\u201d that we were \u201creconciled to God through the death of His Son\u201d (Romans 5:10). His Gospel preached to us \u201cas of first importance\u201d was God\u2019s means to rescue us from the dominion of darkness and bring us into the kingdom of His Son. Some who were saved before us put themselves in harm\u2019s way to bring God\u2019s light into our darkness. Their message was both welcomed and opposed, they were both popular and hated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is also to be our normal mission experience: \u201cOur lives are a Christlike fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing. To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved, we are a life-giving perfume.\u201d (2 Corinthians 2:15-16 – NLT)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notice: \u201cOur lives\u2026\u201d, not just our prayers. \u201cYour will be done\u201d is not a prayer for parrots.   It\u2019s a prayer that must be answered through our fingertips. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s time for our prayer focus to graduate from mere welfare to warfare.<\/strong>When billions are shouting \u201cMy will be done\u201d, \u201cYour will be done<\/strong>\u201d is a war cry. It\u2019s a prayer of freedom (see p.15). It\u2019s a weapon. It\u2019s the devil\u2019s defiance defied. It\u2019s captives freed, Heaven throwing a party and Hell in mourning\u2026 \u2018O Church arise, and put your armour on\u2026\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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