What can we learn from the apostle Paul about the matter of warfare? What can Paul teach us about The Art of War? There is a famous book by that title, but we want to learn what the follower of Christ can know about the subject of warfare.

First, there is much that we can review about the Bible’s teaching on warfare. The believer knows that they are to put on the full armor of God to be able to stand against the schemes of the devil (Ephesians 6:10ff). Thus we know how to put on our spiritual armor. The one who follows Jesus knows that no weapon formed against him can prosper (Isaiah 54:17) and that we are protected by the Lord’s pinions (Psalm 91:4). Even though a thousand fall at our side and ten thousand fall at our right hand, evil will not approach us (Psalm 91:7-8). Those who believe in Jesus are more than conquerors (Romans 8:37-39) and can never be separated from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

But second we know that the Bible also has warnings to give us about warfare. Most importantly, we know that we must not go to the battle without the LORD by our side, for to go to battle without the LORD is disastrous. The children of Israel went up against the Amalekites after refusing to enter the land and were struck down (Numbers 14:40-45). Again during the time of Joshua, the children of Israel were defeated by the people of Ai because there was sin in their camp and because they had stolen what was under the ban (Joshua 7:1, 10-12). So there is teaching available to us in the Scripture about how to fight the Lord’s battles.

Now we are new creatures in Christ and we have been given new spiritual weapons which are unfamiliar to us. And just like any soldier who is using unfamiliar weapons, the Christian must learn to use the weapons which the Lord has provided and must no longer rely upon the world’s weapons. Indeed, the one who would engage in the Lord’s battles must forsake the weapons of the world, for they are useless in the spiritual battle, and must learn to wield the weapons of the soldier of Christ.

[ASIDE: In thinking of unfamiliar weapons, there is perhaps no clearer picture for us than when David tried on Saul’s equipment as he was preparing to fight the giant (1 Samuel 17:38-40) Here in this passage King Saul, the weak and worldly leader, the one who has already been rejected by the Lord, offers his garments and his weapons to David, the Lord’s anointed, but David wisely rejects them. David was going to fight Goliath the giant in the name of the Lord of hosts with the weapons that the Lord would give him, and he had no need of Saul’s weapons, weapons that could not even prevent Saul’s own destruction on Mount Gilboa. Just so, we enter our spiritual battles in the name of the Lord of hosts and we do not rely on some earthly set of weapons.]

And so here in this passage, the apostle Paul gives instruction to all those who would take up spiritual weapons in order to do damage to the kingdom of darkness. Here the Christian soldier learns “The Art of War.”

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but are divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:3-5

PRELIMINARY THOUGHTS:

The spiritual battle begins in the mind as we defend our thoughts against the enemy. The goal of the believer is to have a mind that is always alert to defend against the enemy attack; a mind that is saturated with the word of God; and a mind that is fixed on Jesus Christ.

The believer must realize that we are to resist THE SCHEMES OF THE DEVIL (2 Cor. 2:11). We must realize that we have such an adversary and that he has such schemes. The believer must understand THE GOALS OF THE DEVIL. His aim is to neutralize, disarm, render harmless, silence and discredit every believer, beginning with the boldest and most vocal. The believer must also discern THE MEANS AND THE TOOLS OF THE DEVIL. He employs any and all cruel and wicked means to achieve his goals. So he uses discouragement, deception, isolation, lies and feelings of hopelessness to bring about his intended ends. Finally, we must defend against THE PATHS OF ATTACK OF THE DEVIL, which are the world and the flesh.

EXEGESIS OF THE PASSAGE:

10:3 – We are mere men, limited in power by the weakness if our flesh. In our flesh, we are no match for our spiritual enemies and no threat to the kingdom of darkness. But as wise warriors of the Lord Jesus Christ, we do not wage war “according to the flesh.” That is, we do not rely on the dull swords and the blunt arrows of the physical warfare.

10:4 – Because our enemies are spiritual, we forsake the physical weapons of this world and instead wield the divinely powerful spiritual weapons issued to us by the Captain of the Lord’s host (Joshua 5:14-15), Jesus Christ. When we came to faith in Christ and joined the armies of the Lord, our great King of kings gave us His Spirit and gave us heavenly weapons specifically designed to destroy the strongholds of the enemy. God “trains my hands for battle (Psalm 18:34).” “He trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle (Psalm 144:1).” That is, since the day that I came to faith in Christ and entered the battle with the adversary, the Lord has been training me in the use of the weapons of spiritual warfare. Now in prayer and in worship, in fellowship and in fasting, in praise and in persecution, in witnessing and in meditating on and proclaiming the Word, the fortresses of the enemy are being destroyed.

10:5 – Ours is a spiritual battle for the minds of men and women and there are offensive tactics and defensive tactics that must be employed in this battle. “We are destroying speculations.” This is clearly an offensive tactic, for one rarely destroys anything when on the defensive. “Speculations” (NASB) is the translation of “logismos” in the Greek. Now while the exact meaning of these speculations is difficult to determine, the context of 2 Corinthians and the context of the city of Corinth itself would suggest that Paul is referring to the musings of the wise and the influential and the powerful, musings and philosophies which obscure the truths of the gospel that God has made plain in His word. Consider that Paul intentionally forsook eloquence of speech and philosophical wisdom (weapons of the flesh and of the “old man”) when he first came to Corinth (1 Cor. 1:18-2:5) so that he could proclaim the gospel, proclaim Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and nothing else. Speculations, then, are the ongoing reasonings of worldly-wise people seeking to obscure the gospel with more eloquent or more erudite or more spectacular options for what God has already established as truth. As an offensive tactic in the battle, the believer seeks to destroy these speculations by refuting them with the truth. (Titus 1:9) We oppose these speculators and seek to stop them in their tracks so that their talk will not spread like gangrene (2 Tim. 2:17) and will not confuse and hinder those who are coming to Christ (Matthew 23:13; Acts 13:8, 10).

10:5 – We are also to be “(destroying) every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God.” The Greek word for “lofty thing” could also be translated “lofty tower” or “fortress.” If “speculations” OBSCURE THE TRUTH OF GOD by making it appear as just one simple option in the midst of many educated and sophisticated possibilities (“Any religion will get you to heaven” and “Christianity is just one possible option;” “There have been many religious leaders like Jesus, so He’s just one of many;” “The God of the Bible is just one god, but there is also the Allah of Islam and the many gods of the Hindus and so every person must make his own choice.”), then the “lofty things” OPENLY OPPOSE AND DENY THE TRUTH OF GOD, which has been uniquely revealed in the Bible and by the Incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. These “lofty things” are constructed and are defended by those who know the truth that has been stated by God on a matter and who nevertheless willfully and consciously oppose God’s truth with their own lie. As an offensive tactic, the believer must directly oppose those who defend these lofty towers by discrediting the ideas they endorse and by discrediting these people as false teachers. These fortresses must be torn down and demolished so that the truth of the gospel and of Christ may shine clearly. This is an offensive tactic that involves confrontation and it must be fought with the spiritual weapons of the proclamation of the Word and of being on our knees in prayer.

What are some examples of these “lofty things?” evolution vs. creation; no resurrection of Jesus; relative, moveable morality vs. God’s definition of sin.

SUMMARY:

The believer appears to be just like everyone else, since their outward appearance and manners hide the radical transformation that has taken place in their life. The believer has been born again and everything has changed, including the battles they fight and the way they fight them. Using the powerful and divine weapons of prayer, holy living and proclamation of the Word, the believer is actively destroying the “speculations” which obscure the profound truths of the word of God; he is opposing the “lofty things” which are raised up by the philosophies of the world to directly oppose the truth of the gospel; and he is controlling his own thinking so that only those thoughts which honor Christ and which reflect the truth of God are allowed to dwell in the mind. SDG rmb 1/26/2016

Over the last few months I have been working on a passage from Hebrews 12:15-17 that describes Esau as a godless and immoral man who lost first his birthright and then lost his eternal soul when “he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.” How is it that Esau could find no place for repentance? How is it that his tears made no difference? The warning of the author of Hebrews seems to be this: There is apparently some point beyond which a person’s most fervent and tearful cries for repentance go unheeded. Is there some point beyond which the Lord will not listen to a perishing man’s cry? And if there is such a point, what do we do to make sure that we are never found in that terrifying place of “no repentance?” That is what I explore in a paper I have written and added to the site as a page.

The basic idea is that the Lord’s offer of salvation (the opportunity for repentance) is extended to sinners as an expression of His grace, but it is not extended forever. The Lord is gracious and compassionate and great in lovingkindness, but nevertheless He can and sometimes does withdraw His offer of salvation, and when He does withdraw His grace, it is forever withdrawn and the person without Christ is thereby doomed. God is sovereign in salvation and the sinner needs to come to Christ as soon as the offer is recognized, for you do not know when you will find yourself in the place of ‘no repentance.’ Esau trifled with the Lord and indulged his own sinful flesh and ignored the opportunity for repentance until his condemnation was sealed and there was no longer any hope of turning to the Lord. Thus Esau serves as a warning to us not to do the same thing.

Anyway, I have put that new page on the site for you to read. Let me know what you think.

The name of the page is: “Hebrews 12:15-17 – No Place for Repentance”

I have just added a page to the site that is a fairly lengthy study of Genesis 27, where Jacob and Rebecca conspire together to deceive Isaac and get him to give the family blessing to Jacob instead of to the first-born, Esau. In this narrative that tells how Jacob gets the blessing by lying and deceiving, I maintain that the gospel is hidden and awaiting discovery. Here is a short excerpt from the page: Isaac asks Jacob, “Are you really my son, Esau?” Jacob is wearing a clumsy Esau-disguise, but Isaac is willing to believe that the person before him is really Esau. And likewise, God the Father allows the robe of righteousness that Christ has wrapped around us (Isaiah 61:10) to disguise Him from our true identity. “Are you really My Son Jesus? Because you look to me and you sound to me an awful lot like that sinner, Roy Britton. But if you confess to Me that you believe in My Son and that you will obey Me forever, then I am willing to accept this clumsy disguise as good enough to merit My blessing. If you have on a Jesus-disguise, then I will give you His blessing regardless of how sinful you are.”

This captures the idea pretty well. Go to my pages and read the entire study. I think you will enjoy it. SDG rmb 1/16/2016

“I sought the LORD, and He answered me and delivered me from all my fears. They looked to Him and were radiant, and their faces will never be ashamed. This poor man cried and the LORD heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.” Psalm 34:4-6

January 6, 2016 quiet time:“I sought the LORD . . .”

What does it mean to seek the LORD? And what is it that you seek when you “seek the LORD”?

You are to seek the LORD Himself, not what the LORD gives or what the LORD is able to do. Here is the command: Seek an eternal relationship with the most amazing and wonderful Person that exists! If you will seek the LORD Himself; if you will seek a relationship with Him and will come to Him on His terms and if you will worship Him as Almighty God, then you will receive not only the richest relationship that a human being can have, with immense joy and love and peace, but you will also receive all the benefits of what the LORD can provide to those who fear Him (which is Old Testament language for “those who love Him”).

BUT if instead you “seek Him” so that you can get from Him His benefits, and if you only call out to the LORD for what He can provide; if you only need the LORD to change your circumstances and give you a “blessed life;” ***

[ASIDE: 1) In Exodus 33:15, Moses says to the LORD that if His presence does not go with the people of Israel, then Moses does not want to leave that place. “If Your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here.” Moses was declaring that all the temporal blessings of place and possessions would be utterly meaningless if the LORD’s presence was not there with them. “If You don’t go with us, then I am not leaving this place!” 2) The Bible declares that it is the LORD Himself who gives us all our circumstances. Since that is the case, why should the LORD change your circumstances just to get you out of trouble, when He brought that troubling situation into your life in the first place?]

*** if you are indifferent to the LORD and are not ready to love Him at all times and regardless of circumstances (Matthew 22:37-40), then you will get neither His benefits nor His fellowship. Instead, your sky will be bronze and your land iron, etc. (Deuteronomy 28:23) and there will be no blessings from the LORD.

David “sought the LORD.” What did David mean by this? His soul longed and even yearned for the courts of the LORD (Psalm 84:2). David stretched out his hands to the LORD as a parched land (Psalm 143:6). There was nothing restrained or cool about this seeking. David passionately and unreservedly sought the face of the LORD and he would not be denied. David wanted to know the presence of the LORD, to know the voice of the LORD, to know the strength and the peace and the power and the glory of the LORD. David wanted to be as close to the LORD as a human being could be. “I sought the LORD . . .” The LORD answers those who seek Him with their whole heart. The LORD honors those who call upon Him and who trust in Him.

And what does David seek? David seeks a relationship with the most overwhelming and awesome Person in the universe. David indeed seeks an intimate relationship with the Creator of the universe! It is not what the LORD can give that David seeks. Rather, it is the LORD Himself that David seeks.

Does this passion for knowing the LORD mark your life? The true believer’s life is marked out by a passionate seeking after the LORD of glory Himself. The one who will seek the LORD in order to have a relationship with Him will find that the LORD’s other benefits will also come into their life. Do you seek the LORD passionately? Do you seek Him so that you may know and enjoy Him as your God, and may obey Him as the sovereign LORD?

This is what it means to seek the LORD. Do you seek Him? SDG rmb 1/6/2016

“Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word.You are good and do good; Teach me Your statutes.” Psalm 119:67-68

In these two verses, the psalmist is thanking the LORD for the affliction because of the results of this God-sent affliction. Therefore, the affliction (67) must be from the LORD (YHWH) or there would be no corrective, directive or instructive power or intent in the affliction and so there would be no one to thank. In other words, it is clear from these two verses that the affliction was necessary in order to bring the one who was going astray into the blessing of obedience. It is also clear that the psalmist is thanking the LORD for the benefits that he has received from the affliction.

By the way, it is both implicitly and explicitly clear that the one who goes astray and who does not obey the LORD is not blessed, but is rather under the LORD’s wrath and displeasure. (Read Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26 to see this truth.). So to go astray (67) subjects the person to the LORD’s judgment and assures them of an absence of blessing, whether they are aware of this condition or not.

In the Bible, there is the place of blessing and there is the place of wrath, but there is no neutral place in between. This verse states that the LORD has purposefully, graciously and actively brought affliction into the psalmist’s life for the express purpose of moving them into the blessings of obedience. Thus the affliction is an act of God’s grace, a grace that drives the person from their place of disobedience to the place of submission and repentance.

“Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word.” (67)

Consider Titus 3:3 now in light of this verse. (See also 1 Cor. 6:9-10; Ephesians 2:2-3; others) “For we were once foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.” These people to whom Paul refers were going astray similarly to the psalmist in Psalm 119, and Paul gives the sordid details of this “went-astray” lifestyle. Many of us are too familiar with this pattern of life. (“And such were some of you.” 1 Cor. 6:11) But now the Lord has brought us to repentance and “the kindness of God our Savior has appeared . . . and He has saved us (Titus 3:4-5).” We see from these that the Lord is actively involved in bringing the means of repentance and salvation into a person’s life.

The psalmist is saying the same thing here in 119:67-68, although he is much more economical with his words and more discreet in his details. He is saying that the LORD has used affliction as His tool of grace and guidance. The LORD has used affliction to bring the straying sinner into the fold and to teach him the blessings of obedience, so that the psalmist knows by personal experience that “the LORD is good and does good (68).”

Thus we see the beauty and the blessing of the affliction of the Lord. (Consider also “the discipline of the Lord” in Hebrews 12:5-11.) The Lord brings affliction; indeed, He ordains affliction in the lives of His chosen ones to bring about His divine purposes for salvation, for correction, for direction and for instruction.

So when we are experiencing a time of affliction, we must turn to the Lord and ask Him what His purpose is in the affliction. We accept the affliction as from His hand, as given by Him for His purposes, and as intended for our good, and then submit to the affliction and allow it to have its intended effect. If we do this, in the end we will cease from going astray and will obey His word and will know Him as the good God.   SDG  rmb 12/30/2015

And the king said to Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego, “If you do not worship the idol I have made, you will be cast into the midst of the furnace of blazing fire; and what god is there who can deliver you out of my hands?”

In the prophecy of Daniel, in the third chapter, is one of the most radical narratives in all the Bible. These three men of God had refused to bow down to the king’s idol and now they faced the terrifying consequences. To obey the Most High God, the one true God, the God of Israel, and to defy the idols and the gods of this world will often result in an experience of the fiery furnace. Now with the awful cost of their boldness staring them in the face in the furnace of blazing fire, the question is how the children of God will respond. Will they compromise or will they stand firm?

Boldly they say, “We do not need to give you an answer in this matter, O king. Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and He will deliver us, O king. But even if He did not choose to deliver us, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to bow down to your idol.” The men literally risk their lives and put all their trust in the Most High God, believing that the LORD will be faithful to deliver them from the furnace. (By the way, to trust in this manner is the normal response of the Christian to this kind of persecution.)

When these believers are then thrown into the furnace of blazing fire, the pagan king is amazed to see the three Hebrews not consumed by the flames, but rather loosed in the furnace and joined in the fire by a fourth man whose appearance is like the son of the gods. Of course, this is the pre-incarnate Christ, the Son of God who delivers them unharmed out of the fire.

And so it is for all believers. To be a believer and a true follower of Jesus means that you will experience the Lord in the midst of the furnace of blazing fire. The believer will be in the flames and there in the midst of the fire, the Lord Jesus will join him and will deliver him. In this light, I want to consider three furnaces from which the believer is delivered: the furnace of testing; the furnace of persecution; and the furnace of eternal condemnation. And we begin with the furnace of trials and testing.

SDG  rmb  12/23/2015

It was ten minutes before four o’clock on Wednesday afternoon. Five minutes ago, the guys in the lab had come to me and said, “We need to have this sample in tomorrow morning!” “Not only is this a ridiculous request, but it is also impossible. No one can get you a sample the next day if you make the request at a quarter till four.” Despite the absurdity of the request, I said I would make the phone call and at least ask the question. So I called the Customer Service person at the supplier, knowing my mission was hopeless. But I knew Susan and knew that she was very good at what she did, which was to get samples to their customers, so I called her up.

I gave a pleasant hello when Susan answered the phone, then identified myself and my company. She recognized my name and my company, mostly because we have made a lot of sample requests, and she replied in a likewise pleasant way. “Susan, I know this is probably impossible, but we need to have a sample overnighted to us for delivery tomorrow. Can you help us out?” In a courteous, professional way, Susan explained to me that I had not given her enough time and the best she could do was a Friday delivery. “Besides,” she said, “the office Thanksgiving party is going to start in ten minutes and everyone is really already off for the day.” I asked if she was going to the party as well, and she said, “No. I don’t feel much in a party mood. This is actually my first day back in the office this week. My mother died this past weekend.” “Were you close to your mother?” “Yes,” she said, “very close.” Had her death been sudden? No she had a stroke about ten years ago and had been declining steadily since then. Five weeks ago she stopped eating and so the end was anticipated. “I am sorry to hear about your mother, Susan. I am sure it is a great loss.” We exchanged a couple of other pleasantries and then ended our phone call.

But I thought about Susan’s mother and about what her life had been like. It sounded like there was no “Susan’s father” in the picture. Had her mother and father divorced? It seemed to me more than likely that Susan’s mother had lived a quiet, fairly uneventful life, and then, when she was sixty or sixty-five, she had a stroke and just sort of faded away, quietly dying in her home under hospice care. Then, because I am a follower of Jesus Christ, I asked myself the ultimate question: “Was she a believer when she died?” Susan had given me no reason to believe that her mother had been a woman of faith. And if she was not a follower of Jesus, then she had already stood before the Lord, the Holy One, and been forever condemned for her sins. If she was not a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, she was right now in the agony of hell forever.

I frankly recoiled from that idea. What could this harmless, anonymous woman have done to deserve the wrath and eternal condemnation of almighty God? Is it really true that those who do not place their faith in Jesus Christ are forever damned? What evidence do I have that this could actually be the case? Is there something somewhere in the Bible that would convince me that all people deserve condemnation for their sin and that all men and women, even kindly, harmless women who have had strokes, must repent of their sins or they will perish?

Yes, there is evidence that this is the case. Yes, there is something in the Bible that proves conclusively that my sin and your sin and Susan’s mother’s sin must be punished by our holy God. What proves the horror of sin is the horror of the cross of Jesus Christ. Sin is horrible because the sinless Son of God came to earth for the express purpose of dying on the cross to satisfy the holy demands of God. This means that Susan’s mother did not need to murder someone to deserve hell and she did not need to steal a car or bow down repeatedly to some pagan idol. One sin was enough to guarantee this woman’s eternal condemnation and it is only by placing one’s faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that a person can be rescued from the eternal punishment of hell.

As I thought about it, the only thing that convinces me that my sin is horrible, and that Susan’s mother’s sin is horrible and that we must all be delivered from our deserved condemnation, is a steady gaze up Calvary’s hill to the One who died there on the cross. The glorious Son of God wore a crown of thorns and endured huge spikes nailed through His flesh, and suffered for hours on the cross before accomplishing His goal, the redemption of all His elect by the shedding of His blood as an offering for sin. Sin is horrible because it made the crucifixion of Jesus Christ necessary. Consider Romans 3:19-26. SDG rmb 12/15/2015

As I left to go to lunch with a friend of mine, with a man who did not have the greatest reputation in terms of his character, a couple of the folks in the office joked with me about my lunch companion: “Better be careful, Roy. He’s going to be a bad influence on you.” “Hey, Roy! Watch out or he will change you.”

Even though these were just idle, funny comments, just office banter, I still felt obligated to say, “You need to know who is influencing whom. What if I’m the one changing him?”

You see, I was the one who invited him to lunch, and I did so for the explicit and premeditated purpose of influencing him. He is the one who must change. He is the one who must repent and come to faith in Jesus. Now the Lord Jesus Christ has called me to be His change agent in the world. Because I have been forever changed, I make it my goal to be a change agent for Jesus.

“Who is changing whom?” Will I be the one who is changed? Not when my feet have been firmly planted on the solid rock of Jesus Christ (Psalm 40:2). I will not be moved (Psalm 125:1), but I will instead attempt to move the wicked in the direction of repentance. “Who is changing whom?” I have already been changed by Jesus Christ and therefore can never be moved back into the place where evil controls me. “Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world (1 John 4:4).” So since I have His power at work within me (Ephesians 3:20), I can boldly try to change others. “Who is changing whom?”

The LORD said to Jeremiah, “If you extract the precious from the worthless, you will be My spokesman. They for their part may turn to you, but as for you, you must not turn to them (Jeremiah 15:19).” The LORD is telling His prophet that he is to be a spokesman and an influence, a change agent for the LORD, but that he must not turn to the wicked and take up their wicked ways. And this is exactly what we are called to do. We are called to be change agents for the Lord. “Who is changing whom?”

So who are you influencing? Who are you changing by your godly life and by your telling others about Jesus Christ? Are your feet firmly planted so that the world’s influence does not move you, but instead you stand steadfast and immovable on the Rock? “Who is changing whom?” SDG rmb 12/14/2015