The Call To Arms

We are at war. I am not talking about Iraq, Afghanistan, the conflicts in Syria and potentially in North Korea. This war is bigger than the the War on Terror. It is bigger than the Cold War. It is bigger than World Wars I and II combined. It has lasted longer than recorded history. It is a war on the grandest of epic scales. It is the ultimate showdown between good and evil. This war is a spiritual war. The battlefield is both further away and closer than any of us realize. It is off in some distant land on the other side of the planet. It is numerous cities throughout the world. It is also in our own city. It is in our backyard. It is in our homes. And it is within each and every one of us. The object of the war; the reason this war is being fought, is us. We are the sought out prize: the spoils of the war. Satan is out to destroy us so he can spit in the face of God. But God is not content to just let us go and be victims of Satan's accusing, destructive schemes. He has fought back and continues to fight. Now, God and Satan are not on equal levels. The two will never be equals. God is always above Satan and when God fights, he always wins.

But God doesn't always win. Why is that? Why does it seem that evil is getting more and more powerful? If God is all-powerful, why doesn't he stop all this evil going on? Here is why. God wants a relationship with us. That was how he created mankind back in Genesis. But sin put a huge rift in that relationship. God has fought back to make it possible to close that gap. This was done by sending his son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross. God is not just a loving God. He is a Just God. Sin must be punished. It must be dealt with. God cannot be called either loving or just if he just allows sin to fester. God loves us so much he will do what it takes to clean us. He is jealous and he will not tolerate us going after other gods in the same way a husband will not let another man take his wife. What is more is that God wants us to learn to trust him more in the same way a child trusts his parents. If God did everything behind the scenes, we would not pick up anything from it. Nor would we appreciate what he is doing. But here is yet another reason God chooses to work through us. It is the ultimate smack-down to Satan. Satan thinks he has victory because he was able to deceive us and trick us into sinning and rebelling against God. But God gets the last laugh because he uses the weak, the pathetic, the poor, the uneducated, the few, and the defenseless to defeat that accuser.

Here is the problem. Those God wants to use to defeat evil are not fighting. It does not matter whether we fight for God or not, Satan still treats each and every one of us as an enemy. His goal is to steal, kill, and destroy. He will seek to be friendly and seek our friendships, but his goal is our destruction. God knows this. So not only did God give his Son to us so that he would pay the price for our sins, he has given us armor and equipment to rise up, make a stand against the forces of darkness and beat it back. Not only just beat it back, but to take the offense and drive it out. The major pieces of this equipment is the Armor of God. That will deserve its own posts. But this Armor is just accessible to just anyone. To use it, you need to be born-again. You need to renounce your citizenship to the sin in your life and claim Jesus Christ and your King. A lord in the Medieval days would never allow a soldier from an enemy army to don his knights' armor. How would he so that solider would not just betray him? It's the same reason why in order to wield God's equipment, you need to be loyal to him. But as Christians we have the equipment necessary to win our battles in this war.

But having the equipment does not address the problem. It only makes the problem worse. It is bad enough that the people are not fighting. It is worse that people have what they need to fight and aren't. Satan loves having people enlisted in God's army step to the side and not fight. That makes his job easier. We are in the battle whether we want to be or not. We cannot claim to be neutral and watch the war from the sidelines, cheering God's army on. Too many think they are doing that. No, in this war, if you aren't fighting, you are in the middle of the battlefield taking crossfire from both sides. You are like a player on a basketball team that is doing nothing to help your team score and doing nothing to help prevent the other team from scoring. You are making the few that are fighting have to fight harder because you are not doing your job. God is calling us to take up his arms, to follow him and to take the battlefield. But God is not a mere general that stands on the hillside from afar to watch and direct the battle. He is willing and wants to come and fight by our sides. He goes before us. He stands behind us. He covers our flanks. God fights for us and with us. And when we join him in the battle, we will not lose. The battle is only going to get harder because Satan knows his time is running out. He is getting ready for a final offensive front that will be carried out in the End Times. Are we going to be ready to make the stand we need to take? The spoils of this war is no trifle. It is not just your soul at stake. So is the soul of every person you encounter. And not one of us who are born-again and know Jesus personally as our Lord and Savior would be here if someone did not make a stand and fight for us.

How do we fight? What will be involved in the battle? How do we use this equipment God has given us? I'll be going into detail on this shortly. I'm raising a Call to Arms. To take up the Armor and the Weapons God has given us and to put them to use. It is a call to get off our seats and make our lives productive and useful for a purpose greater than ourselves. It will not be easy. It will be difficult. But the prize, the spoils of war, are valuable beyond measure. Will you join me?