Today Is Our Day of Battle Part 1
Psalm 140:7
O Sovereign Lord, my strong deliverer, you shield my head in the day of battle.
If no one informed you, Christian, when you decided to bow your knee to Jesus, and He saved you, you also enlisted in the Army as a soldier of Christ.
Paul used the word several times in his epistles when referring to his fellow saints.
Philippians 2:25
But for now I have considered it necessary to send Epaphroditus to you. For he is my brother, coworker and fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to me in my need.
2 Timothy 2:3
Take your share of suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
Philemon 1:2
to Apphiar sister, Archippus our fellow soldier, and the church that meets in your house.
(All emphasis mine)
However, Paul didn’t just use the word “soldier;” he also used what I will call “battle language.”
1 Timothy 1:18
I put this charge before you, Timothy my child, in keeping with the prophecies once spoken about you, in order that with such encouragement you may fight the good fight.
2 Corinthians 10:3-4
3 For though we live as human beings, we do not wage war according to human standards, 4 for the weapons of our warfare are not human weapons, but are made powerful by God for tearing down strongholds.
(emphasis mine)
We haven’t even touched on casting out demons, the armor of God, and more, which is throughout the Holy Scriptures.
How often do you hear this taught or preached in a typical Sunday sermon? When an altar call is given? If an altar call is given many times, it’s something to the effect of the preacher saying, “Invite Jesus into your heart and repeat these words after me.” Never a mention that we must be willing to lay down our lives for the sake of Jesus.
How often do we hear about the devil that seeks our destruction?
1 Peter 5:8-9
8 Be sober and alert. Your enemy the devil, like a roaring lion, is on the prowl looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, strong in your faith, because you know that your brothers and sisters throughout the world are enduring the same kinds of suffering.
Look at that language: resist him. Let’s look at the Greek word transliterated as resist:
antistēte:
1) to set one's self against, to withstand, resist, oppose 2) to set against
(Strong's: 436)
That is yet again battle language being used. The same language James uses when he encourages us to:
Submit (antistēte) to God. But resist the devil and he will flee from you (James 4:7).
Yet, how often do we hear this in a place where soldiers of Christ are gathered together to be equipped for battle and to live in victory?
Many times, we are left scratching our heads as to why so many are leaving the Christian faith every day. Perhaps it’s because, in America, a shallow Christianity is taught, preached, and lived out. One that doesn’t require us to put on the whole armor of God and enter into battle. A Christianity where Jesus came to make our lives better with health and wealth.
Perhaps we need to change how we view Christianity, God, and the Bible.
What if, instead of altar calls in which we repeat some words after the preacher like a magical phrase, the preacher acted more like a recruiter? How many people would be willing to answer the call to battle? How would the number of nominal Christians in America diminish?
As I started and will go into greater detail here, we enlist in the Lord’s Army when we decide to live for Christ. But what is our view of Jesus? Is it some meek and mild-mannered god-man who was accepting of anyone and everyone? Or is it as the captain of the Lord’s Army? Is it as a mighty warrior?
Exodus 15:3
The Lord is a warrior—
the Lord is his name.
Joshua 5:13-15
13 When Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him holding a drawn sword. Joshua approached him and asked him, “Are you on our side or allied with our enemies?” 14 He answered, “Truly I am the commander of the Lord’s Army. Now I have arrived!” Joshua bowed down with his face to the ground and asked, “What does my master want to say to his servant?” 15 The commander of the Lord’s Army answered Joshua, “Remove your sandals from your feet because the place where you stand is holy.” Joshua did so.
This is who we serve—the Lord, who is mighty and strong in battle. The Lord who answers in fire when we call upon him. This same Lord, Jesus, is the one we see described in great detail in the book of Revelation:
Revelation 1:1
The revelation of Jesus Christ,
Revelation 1:13-17
13 and in the midst of the lampstands was one like a son of man. He was dressed in a robe extending down to his feet, and he wore a wide golden belt around his chest. 14 His head and hair were as white as wool, even as white as snow, and his eyes were like a fiery flame. 15 His feet were like polished bronze refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. 16 He held seven stars in his right hand, and a sharp double-edged sword extended out of his mouth. His face shone like the sun shining at full strength. 17 When I saw him I fell down at his feet as though I were dead, but he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid! I am the first and the last,
The fear of the Lord comes upon me even as I read the above passage of John’s vision of Jesus. This is the very same John who was called the disciple whom Jesus loved in the gospel account that bears John’s name. That very same John fell down at Jesus's feet in the book of Revelation as though he were dead. The awe of God had come upon John after his view of Jesus.
This is the mighty warrior, the Lord Jesus Christ, that we serve! The one described with fiery eyes and a double-edged sword. The same Jesus described in Revelation 19.
Revelation 19:13-16
13 He is dressed in clothing dipped in blood, and he is called the Word of God. 14 The armies that are in heaven, dressed in white, clean, fine linen, were following him on white horses. 15 From his mouth extends a sharp sword so that with it he can strike the nations. He will rule them with an iron rod, and he stomps the winepress of the furious wrath of God, the All-Powerful. 16 He has a name written on his clothing and on his thigh: “King of kings and Lord of lords.”
Did you read that? He is dressed in clothing dipped in blood, which isn’t the lamb’s blood. This time, it is the blood of the nations that set themselves against Him.
If you have ever believed that the God of the Old Testament is somehow different from the God of the New Testament, I pray that this corrects that heretical view of God. The very same Lord that was with Abraham looking down on Sodom and Gomorrah:
Genesis 19:24-25
24 Then the Lord rained down sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah. It was sent down from the sky by the Lord. 25 So he overthrew those cities and all that region, including all the inhabitants of the cities and the vegetation that grew from the ground.
I stress these points not to be redundant but to recalibrate and refocus our view of God. Because how we view God is how we view ourselves. Our identity is directly tied to who God is in our eyes. If we see Jesus as someone who was a doormat and let people walk all over Him, then that is how we will live. However, if we see Jesus as the warrior He has always been, then that is how we will live our lives.
Never forget that what Jesus did during His earthly ministry:
John 2:14-15
14 He found in the temple courts those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers sitting at tables. 15 So he made a whip of cords and drove them all out of the temple courts, with the sheep and the oxen. He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.
Did you catch that? Jesus first saw what was happening in His temple courts, and then He went and made a whip. Jesus had to make a whip with His own hands and then go back to the temple courts and begin violently clearing out the money changers.
It was Jesus’s fervent devotion to God that drove him to do what He did, and that same level of devotion should drive us to fight the good fight of faith as soldiers for Christ
Why did Jesus do this? Why is He coming back in such a violent fashion? Is it because He is returning to being the “angry and violent” God of the Old Testament? I certainly hope that’s not yours or anyone else’s view on Jesus. As usual, our answer is found in scripture. One the places we see an answer is in the same section of scripture when Jesus clears out the temple court:
John 2:17
His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will devour me.”
Let’s examine the word zeal for a moment. Again, the Greek definition really unpacks things for us:
zēlos 1) excitement of mind, ardour, fervour of spirit 1a) zeal, ardour in embracing, pursuing, defending anything 1a1) zeal in behalf of, for a person or thing.
Strong's: 2205
This is the same word used when Paul describes why he persecuted the church:
Philippians 3:6
In my zeal for God I persecuted the church. According to the righteousness stipulated in the law I was blameless.
(emphasis mine)
The New English Translation footnote on John 2:17 states, “Fervent devotion to your house” in place of the word zeal. So we could read the verse as:
His disciples remembered that it was written, “Fervent devotion to your house.” for your house will devour me.”
(my translation using the NET footnote)
It was Jesus’s fervent devotion to God that drove him to do what He did, and that same level of devotion should drive us to fight the good fight of faith as soldiers for Christ, but only if we have the correct idea of who our Lord is.
It was fervent devotion to the overall plan of salvation that caused our Lord God Almighty to leave His throne and tabernacle among us—not as He did when He briefly tabernacled with Abraham in Genesis 18-19, but to live exactly as a human from birth to death and ultimately sacrifice Himself. Letting Himself be scourged to the point where the flesh from His back was ripped away, exposing bone and sinew. Jesus’s fervent devotion let the Romans do that and then let them nail Him to a cross naked and shamed.
It is that very same level of devotion that led the early Christians to be lit on fire for Nero’s garden rather than deny Christ. To be fed to lions and other brutal Roman tortures. Where is that devotion in churches across America?
You see, a zealous warrior fights for his Lord until nothing is left to give. In the case of the Christian soldier, until that glorious day, we meet our Lord Jesus face to face.
This concludes Part 1 of Today Is Our Day of Battle. In Part 2, we will delve into spiritual dominion, conducting spiritual warfare, and how this plays into our lives right now.