A CALL TO WAR Part 1

"Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, 8 but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world— he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!” And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time. The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood. But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth. Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea." Revelation 12:7-17 ESV


Remember that old newsreel that shows President Franklin Roosevelt addressing Congress the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941? Calling it "a day that will live in infamy," the president declared that in reality, America was already at war. Roosevelt just needed a declaration of Congress to make it official.

I am not the president, but as a pastor I have a declaration to make. You and I are at war! In fact, we are engaged right now in the mother of all battles. No war in history can compare with the battle you and I are fighting. It can be either the cause of your greatest joy as a Christian, or of your deepest pain. The war I am talking about is the spiritual warfare that you became a part of the day you trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. This war affects every area of your life. There is no way you can avoid the conflict. There is no bunker or foxhole you can crawl into that will shield you from the effects of this cosmic battle between the forces of God and the forces of Satan.

A lot of Christians don't even know they're at war. But others can see the results of the battle in their lives, because they have become casualties of spiritual warfare or see others who have been taken out. The church expends much of its energy like a hospital trying to heal all the casualties, rather than training, equipping, and fighting the battle. Some Christians are emotional casualties of spiritual warfare. They are discouraged, depressed, downtrodden, and defeated. Others are marital and family casualties. Divorce, conflict, and abuse are some of the battle scars these believers bear. Still others have been morally wounded in the battle. They cannot control their passions; or else they make poor moral choices. Others have become wounded in their attitudes by apathy, complacency, and loss of passion, boredom, lack of expectancy and faith. Still others are casualties who don’t even know it who are taken out by their misplaced devotion to this world,work, money, possessions, leisure, sex, power, and selfishness.


In Revelation 12:7-17 we see a couple of key things in regards to spiritual warfare:

1. There is a war going on John Piper says that the Christian life“is a battleground not a playground.”
2. It is first and foremost a spiritual battle that is being waged in the invisible spiritual realm that is being manifest in the visible, physical realm.

Ephesians 6:12, "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."

In other words, it effects you and me!

3. We did not start it, the devil did (the dragon, the accuser, the devil)


One of the things Satan wants to be is incognito---he doesn't want people to think that he is real, or be anywhere around, or has any kind of power, and belittles anyone who would advocate the fact that he is powerful and is a ruler. But God's Word plainly says he is.

John 10:10, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. "
1 Peter 5:8, "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour."
2 Corinthians. 2:11, "... in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.(I find it to be the opposite in the church. Most people are utterly clueless)
Ephesians. 6:11, "Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes."


If I told you that a cold-blooded killer was coming to your house tonight to kill you and your family, would you get ready to resist him? I'm telling you on the authority of God's Word, Satan is a cold-blooded killer and he wants to destroy you, heart, soul, mind and body. I know by experience! Satan desires to ruin your relationship with Jesus Christ; to make you utterly ineffective in ministry; to keep you focused upon you and your needs, problems, desires, and goals; to ruin your marriage and family; to destroy the church; to keep people blind in their sin and lost. We have a vicious and cunning spiritual enemy. The Bible says Satan is actively opposing us. He is real. He wants us to sin. He plots to see our downfall. Plans are being made, right now, for you and me to fall.


Our modern age has caused us to lose sight of spiritual realities of Satan's individual attention to the believer. Paul warns us in Ephesians. 4:27 to "...not give the devil a foothold". “Satan’s number one aim is the destruction of your faith.” Faith is the root of living the life of God, our love for God, and our hope in God and His promises. Therefore, Satan’s whole war efforts are aimed at the prevention or destruction of faith.


1Thessalonians 3:5, " For this reason, when I could stand it no longer, I sent to find out about your faith. I was afraid that in some way the tempter might have tempted you and our efforts might have been useless."
Luke 22:31-32 "Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers." 2 Corinthians. 11:3, "But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ."
John 8:44, "You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
2 Corinthians 4:4, " The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God."

4.The war is against God and His church


"And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time. The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood. But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth. Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus" (Revelation 12:13-17)


There is everything at stake here. God’s purpose is to make His name know throughout the whole earth (Matthew 5:16-18; 1 Peter. 2:12; John 17:20-25). Satan is trying to stop that. If he can stop the church, he will be able to thwart God’s plans and purposes. That is why Paul so strongly exhorts us in Ephesians 6:13, "Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand."


In the book of Ephesians the church is 5 things. It is first an assembly, then a family, then a temple, then a bride, and then an army. A bride is a lover. An army is a fighter. Now some of you are lovers and not fighters and you do not fight because you do not see the relationship between what's going on in your life and Satan's attack upon you to deceive you into feeble worship, sporadic church attendance, to be users not givers, having no thirst for depth, no long term commitment, no faith beyond feeling, and no sense of mission to a hurting lost world. Satan wants to blind you to think that the thought of denying self to grow and being equipped to serve is like quantum physics. The effect of this is it causes churches to stagnate, leaders to be exhausted, and people not listening to us!


The devil wants to you a high-maintenance/low impact kind of Christian. He wants to keep you in the hospital your whole Christian life. He wants us to think that we’re on R+R focused on planning our vacations, retirements, leisure, pleasure, sipping Mai tai’s while people are getting their heads blown off in the front lines! He wants us to think we are a peace time army focusing on parades, making beds, reading manuals, having studies on warfare, focusing on each other, doing KP instead of living on the front line of battle. Thousands of Christians do not hear the diabolic bombs dropping and the bullets zinging overhead. They don't smell the hellish Agent Orange in the whitened harvest of the world. They don't cringe or weep at the thousands who perish every week. They don't reckon with spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places and the world rulers of this present darkness. In fact, it is not dark, they say. Why are you being so negative. Don’t worry, be happy. It is bright and comfortable and cheery just look at my home and car and office and cabin and boat. And listen to my surround sound home theater. In short, Saved, satisfied, and stuck; Living in a virtual reality type existence in which my comfort, security, survival, and happiness become the driving forces of my life. War changes priorities, perspectives, and focus. The great general George Patton once said, “War makes all other human endeavor shrink to nothing.”


IN THIS WAR GOD HIMSELF IS INVOLVED


God isn’t an antiwar pacifist! Moses writes in Exodus 15:3, "The LORD is a man of war; the LORD is His name."


Anything that is a lie, evil, sin, destructive GOD IS TOTALLY AGAINST! You are His foot soldiers! The need of the hour is a global wartime mentality. I say "wartime" because life is war. I say "global" because "the field is the world" (Matthew 13: 38). And because thousands of unreached peoples are scattered around the globe. "Peoples," not just people. The command to the church is not to win every person before the Lord comes, but to win some from every people. This is the great unfinished task!

"To him shall be the obedience of the peoples" (Genesis 49:10).
"Let the peoples praise you, 0 God, let all the peoples praise you" (Psalm 67:3).
"Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples" (Isaiah 55:4).


Now you may not believe in war but you will get bombed just the same. Most of the church is AWOL running over to spiritual Canada or neutral thinking they live in spiritual Switzerland. When we made a commitment to Jesus Christ, we enlisted in God's army. Some may have thought they were only making their eternal destiny secure. Others may have thought that they were simply dealing with their sins. Still others may have thought that they were just subscribing to a higher moral code. Sill others thought they were entering a club-med vacation of peace, happiness, and bliss. We have joined forces with God and with one another in a spiritual conflict. The cause to which we have committed ourselves is a cause that is being attacked at every front. We have sworn our allegiance to a New Kingdom. And that kingdom is a threat to the kingdoms of the god of this world. As citizens of that New Kingdom the enemy is attacking us. By virtue of the fierceness of this attack, all citizens must become citizens/soldiers. We can do without no one. We must all combine our efforts if we are to win the battle. The crying need of the hour-every hour-is for Christians to be put on a wartime footing. To be a mighty army willing to suffer, moving ahead with exultant determination to take the world by storm


How will we come to feel the extraordinary satanic devastation being wreaked among the remaining unreached peoples of the world? How can our people come to see the irrationality of a persistently bouncy, peacetime, Disneyland mentality when the days are evil (Ephesians 5:16), and the god of this world is blinding billions (2 Corinthians 4:4), and Satan is filled with rage because his time is short (Revelation 12:12), and the stakes are infinitely higher than any conceivable nuclear World War III or any environmental disaster (Luke 12:4-5).


What's the main reason sergeants are in the trenches? To settle soldiers' disputes? Do chaplains come along just to bury the dead? Or is there a war to be won? There is. And the victory is near. But it will not be easy or cheap. The awesome mission is clear:

"This gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come" (Matthew 24:14).

Christ has his elect from every people, tribe, tongue and nation (Revelation 5:9).
They are held captive by the Enemy (2 Timothy 2:26).
And so the minefields must be crossed, the barbed wire cut, the snipers evaded, and gospel antidotes for Satan's mind-altering drugs administered against immense opposition (Luke 21:12-19)


So we know we are at war, we know we are soldiers, we know we have an enemy to fight and are aware of his strategy. What are we to do? That’s what we going to discuss next week.


Pastor Bill