Those who have gotten to know me pretty well know I am writing a fiction series with a major theme of Spiritual Warfare. I self-published my first novel and in the meantime, I have met a publisher that wants to take it and the sequel I am working on. I'm going to end up with a trilogy but to make a long story short, one of the comments I have received from my early beta-readers on my sequel is that they were impressed with how I address the spiritual battle from a perspective of fighting together. I've read a few books on spiritual warfare both fiction and non-fiction and while the idea of fighting together with your allies is never shunned or denied, the general emphasis is on the individual battles, that is what our job and role is individually in the battle. But many of us do not consider what our role in the battle does in conjunction with others doing their roles.
I want to make clear that the battles we face in the spiritual realms are not meant to be fought alone. We MUST be ready to be in position to fight alone, but we are not meant to fight alone. There are some epic battles that were one by an individual in the Old Testament. Look at 2 Samuel 23:11-12. Shammah, one of David's Mighty Men, defended a field when the rest of the army fled the Philistines. Shammah stood firm and would not relinquish the field. He stood his ground and defeated the Philistines alone. That's a great story, but why should Shammah have been put in that position? Should he have been alone? The answer is no.
The Spartans are often deemed as among the greatest warriors who ever lived. The Spartans, unlike many other soldiers in other armies, grew up eating, sleeping, living, breathing battle. And they had a tactic that no army was ever able to match: the Phalanx. In the Phalanx position, a group of Spartans would gather together and interlock their shields to form a solid wall of shield. Volleys of volleys of arrows could not penetrate it. Thrown spears would bounce off the bronze plating. And swords were too close range which would easily put them in range of a Spartan spear. And advancing Phalanx could not be stopped and through it a select few could take on armies of thousands. The famous Battle of Thermopylae pitted a few hundred Spartans against the Persian Army of hundreds of thousands and the Spartans halted the invasion.
This idea is what some of our spiritual battles are to look like. The key that made the Phalanx work so well was the unity of the Spartans. Each individual Spartan's survival depended on the location and position of his allies. And their survival depended upon that one Spartan. If one of them was out of place, the whole Phalanx could be defeated. As Christians, we are a body. Paul talks about this several places in the New Testament. If one part of the body is out of the place, the whole body suffers. The same is true in spiritual battle.
One of the biggest problems we have as Christians is we still struggle with sin. We don't have it all together. If we had walls around our lives, every one of us would have some massive holes in those walls. And we cannot fight because we are so focused on fighting the forces of evil that have easy access to our lives because of those breaches in our lives' walls. If we are to repair those breaches, we need an intercessor, someone who will stand in the gap and take on the battle we face in our stead. We need someone who will fend off the enemy to allow up to recover and repair their walls. Once their walls are repaired, they can then go and cover the walls of someone else. But notice this: those that are standing in the gap, ALSO have their own breaches. It is perfectly fine to go get help and support from our pastors and elders in our church. That is one of their jobs. But because of their job to not just lead us as Christians, but to fight with us and beside us, they have a big target on their backs. And they are not perfect. They need us to stand in their gaps, to fight in their stead so they can get a breather. We need them and they need us.
But the concept of the Phalanx works in the spiritual battle. Scripture tells us that a thousand will fall on our left and ten-thousand will fall on our right. We will get surrounded and we will be heavily outnumbered...or so we think. But one praying man is more dangerous than an army. Queen Elizabeth I of England, during the height of the Spanish Empire, said she feared the prayers of the preacher Edmund Burke than she did the whole of the Spanish Armada. And she was right to do so. The Spartans could drive out massive armies with just a few by working as unit. And that is just a picture of what we can do as Christians.
I am delving into this concept deeply in my second and third books of my spiritual warfare series that is waiting on a pending contract with a publisher. My first book "Call to Arms" introduces the concept of spiritual warfare and the battle against Satan and his minions. My second book "War Cry" (current working title) will address issues we face with our own sinful self as well as unity in the spiritual battle. My third book "The Mighty Gibborim" (working title) will add to all that addressing the battles we face against the worldly system and will continue the message of unity. But it will also deal with compromise and false doctrine in the church and how unity at the expense of sound doctrine leads to failure. We must be unified, but we must be VERY careful in whom we are unified with. There are a lot of wolves dressing up in both sheep's and shepherd's clothing and we must mark them, identify them, and have no intimate relationship with such people. We need to be unified that are completely sold and committed to the Gospel, the word of God, and the mission God has called out to do. We cannot be wishy washy and we must stand only for the truth. And if that means standing alone, then do so. The field that Shammah defended is being attacked. I am going to take up my sword, my hand claiving to it, and will defend it. Who will join me?
No comments:
Post a Comment