The Church Behind Enemy Lines

CHRISTIANS ARE RESISTANCE FIGHTERS FOR CHRIST, WE ARE COMMANDO UNITS BEHIND ENEMY LINES - Andrew Walker

Our real enemy is not other people but Satan and his demonic cohorts. We need to start thinking of the church as a milatary base to train people in spiritual warfare and not just a hospital ward for sick people. If the church is a hospital, it is battlefield medic center where wounded soldiers are helped to get battle ready for their next mission.

Often the enemy attacks the hardest when we are growing spiritually for God. Where God's work is most evident, it is here the counterattack from the enemy takes place. Satan uses the same old tricks like distraction or false evidence appearing real (fear) or simply getting us to not enter into the fight so that things will go easier or better for us in the present moment.

But if you are going to conquer the enemy, you must enter into his territory. What God wants from each of us is to die to our self-centeredness and walk in God-centeredness where we know and understand both our sinful weaknesses and God's mercy and power for living.

Supernaturally Natural

THE QUESTION NOBODY SEEMS TO BE ASKING IS WHEN WE GET TO HEAVEN, COULD IT BE THE EARTH RESTORED TO ITS FULL BEAUTY?

T. S. Eliot, a Christian poet words reminds me that poets can also be prophets. T. S. Eliot said,

"To believe in the supernatural is not simply to believe that after living a successful, material, and fairly virtous life here one will continue to exist in the best possible substitute for this world, or that after living a starved and stunted life here one will be compensated with all the good things one has gone without; it is to believe that the supernatural is the greatest reality here and now."

Do you believe this?

The Avenger

IF YOU HAVEN'T MET THE DEVIL TODAY, IT'S BECAUSE YOUR'E GOING IN HIS DIRECTION

I am taking my two boys to see the new Captain America: the First Avenger movie tommorow. The story is about a weak and powerless man who is turned into Captian America who courageously fights evil and darkness where ever it is found. I love these kind of superhero movies but I can't help but wonder that in the end, these movies still promote a kind of war mentality and violence can be redemptive. Jesus took all the violence of the world upon himself so that we could lay down our physical arms and pick up his spiritual weapons. If we look to our technology and weapons of mass destruction to save us, then this becomes another form of idolatry.

War is not our true enemy but it is often a tool that the enemy uses to cause incredible amounts of division and destruction in its path. But what we see in the natural does reveal in the spiritual the true place where Christians must battle the enemy Satan. If we are not entering into the place of spiritual conflIct where God wants to use us the most, we end up fighting among ourselves rather than the One who is the true enemy of faith in Christ. We must never forget, that vengeance is not ours but God's!

Prayer After God's Heart

O GOD, YOU ARE MY GOD; EARLY WILL I SEEK YOU . . . TO SEE YOUR POWER AND YOUR GLORY (Psalm 63:1)

Vindicate me by your strength or Lord,
for I am powerless without you.

We pray for change because if we do not
change, then it shows we do not fear God.

Lord, be our deliverer and help from trouble.
Why? Because the help of man is useless.

You are my rock and fortress Oh Lord,
In you do I trust.

(my reflections from the Psalms)

Jesus and the Victory of God

WHEN PEOPLE DO NOT RECOGNIZE THE SPIRITUAL BATTLE AT HAND, THEY CANNOT RECOGNIZE JESUS - Gordon Dalbey

How many times have I witnessed Christians attacking N. T. Wright rather than his ideas? Is not N. T. Wright a friend of the church and not a foe? I heard one Christian say this week that he was against the movie "Soul Surfer," (a movie he has not even seen) because it promoted lust and women in bathing suits? I could not help wonder if this did not say more about the man protesting the movie than the movie which I saw which was a powerful movie about having an overcoming faith over one's difficulties and seemingly impossible circumstances of life.

When Christians misfocus on each other as the enemy rather than the spiritual principalities and powers, they have missed Jesus. When the larger church is so shamefully divided and often blind to the true nature of spiritual warfare, they have missed Jesus.

I am reminded of Gordon Dalbey's powerful words from his book No Small Snakes:

"The people of Israel did not recognize Jesus, therefore, not because they had wrongly expected the Messiah to be a warrior king, but because they did not recognize the war He had come to win" (emphasis his, p.57).

Of Hawks, Doves, and Snakes

THERE IS A SNAKE IN MY BOOT - Woody from TOY STORY

My Dad is a WW 2 vet and I come from a long line of veterans and warriors. I disliked fighting so much as a kid, that when someone wanted to fight me, I told them to fight my twin brother. He looked just like me so what difference did it make? They always took me up on my offer and I avoided a lot of fights in my younger years.

As a young man, I supported every war and thought every Christian should fight in them. I was too young to fight in Vietnam and after that war, I questioned all wars. Why should Christians fight and kill? Why was our country acting like a theocracy since it fought it wars for its own national interests rather than the interests of God? As a Christian pacifist, I could kill people with my tongue who supported or fought in wars even when I promoted an ethic of love and non-violence. I did not see my own hyprocrisy of the violence in my words and deeds towards others I differed with.

Even though I believed Christians should fight evil, I struggled with surpressing the warrior spirit within me. Somewhere stuck between the bully soldier and the doormat pacifist, I knew there was still something missing deep within my soul of being on the front lines for God.

Somewhere in the debate and outright assaults between hawks who support war and doves who don't, the snake of Satan has cunningly won more of these battles in the end and mocks us in the process. God who is our divine warrior assaults all of our self-prescribed idealogies and pretensions and unmasks them for the idols they are!

Firepower and disarmanent are both idols when we trust more in them than we do God. God does not care about our human fabrications whether they are political or religious. What God wants is faithfulness to Him and Him alone!

Is it possible that God is calling us to a spiritual battle and to be on His frontlines rather than armed milatary conflict or passive do-nothingism? Is it not more accurate biblically to talk about Jesus bringing heaven to us rather than us going to heaven? Is it possisble that all the talks and endless chatter of the problems of this world and Hawks and Doves is another sly maneuver of the enemy to slither past us and into God's camp? To truly be God's peacemaker, then we must have the courage and boldness to be warriors for the kingdom of God.

The Miracle

We are on family vacation and are in the beautiful Smokey Mountains in Tennessee. My wife and I watched a wonderful Christian musical called "The Miracle." The miracle had some powerful contrasts between the battle between Jesus and Satan; the contrast between Peter and Judas betrayal; and a beautiful song about forgiveness by Jesus towards Mary Magdeline and Nicodemus. Miracles happen every day and are all around us.

I see the miraculous all around me in the beauty of nature. I hear the miraculous in the wonder and laughter of my children. I see the miraculous in every testimony of answered prayer and the many small ways God provides for us every day. Some people are amazed by big miracles and yet I believe miracles happen every day for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart to receive all that God gives us.

Why You Might Want To Be Left Behind

On the less serious side, I think people might want to be left behind for several reasons:

1. You love to eat breaded locust.
2. You always wanted a fly circus.
3. The moon turning red is your favorite color.
4. I would rather eat a scroll than read a scroll any day.
5. Hey, I love apocalyptic movies so the real thing should be better.
6. I saw the grapes of wrath on Veggie Tales and I thought they were cute.
7. If the seas turn to blood, no more blood mobile drives! Yeah!
8. I like big bon fires!
9. I always wanted to see death and hades get theres in the end!
10. I've always been an introvert and preferred hiding in caves!

I mean, who reads the book of Jude anymore? All that cryptic stuff about hell, fire, judgment, and angels roasting on an open fire. But notice the angels who face everlasting judgment did not keep their proper domain because they LEFT their own abode (v.6) The angels are taken to judgment because they left behind heaven. Besides all the judgment talk in Israel being taken into captivity and judgment, the Bible is full of stories of those left behind and those taken.

Most of us have been taught since childhood that the good people will be raptured away to heaven and the bad people get stuck on earth since we know earth is hell or hell is coming to earth. But God's Word does not treat creation with contempt but with dignity. The earth is good and does need restoration. Just like there is a new heaven coming, there is also a new earth coming. Almost all the Bible commentators say that those who get left behind are the bad people while the good ones get taken up into heaven. This is why we cannot trust Bible commentaries! Often what is popular and contemporary at the moment gets presented as ancient biblical truth. But can it be that God has new light to shed on His word for us today? Luke 17:31-36 is about two groups of people who are either left behind or taken. Can it be that those who are taken are taken into judgment rather than bliss? Can the ancient Jewish view actually be right that God wants to restore paradise on earth or bring heaven down to earth? The two examples given are Sodom's destruction and the global flood in Noah's day. In Matthew 24:38-39, the ones taken away were those who were swept away into God's judgment by the flood!

Many people today are rightly concerned about being left behind and thinking they won't get raptured much less have to go through the great and terrible tribulation period. But if the rapture and escapist thinking are not correct, maybe we have been reading God's Word from the wrong persepctive? Maybe its just opposite of what we have always thought and those who get taken away get zapped and those who are left behind are blessed? If this is the case, then this may be why one should be more concerned of getting left behind rather than getting taken away into judgment.

Transformers

"WE SHALL NOT ALL SLEEP, BUT WE SHALL ALL BE CHANGED" - I Corinthians 15:51

I spoke these words once to a group of people and told them this verse should be put on the nursury door! A few giggled and I thought after that they forgot about it. One person did not forget and they beautifully embroided these words on a piece for the church's nursury. Babies are not the only ones that need to be changed. Many grown-up followers of Jesus still act like children that still need spiritual milk rather than spiritual food which they still can not chew on yet.

I saw the new transformers movie which was the best one to date even though I thought it was too long of a movie. The movie is about these robot aliens that can transform themselves into cars and trucks and all kinds of electronical devices. These good transformers try to rescue and save the world from bad transformers. This reminds me of the need for tranformational discipleship in the church today. Will God's people be transformed by the Spirit of God into the likeness of God's Son or will we be transformed by the world into the likeness of the dark powers and spirits that rule this world? We all become what we worship and the question is what do we really worship?

Rob Bell Again:

I was on vacation and there was a Sunday School class which was dealing with Rob Bell's book "Love Wins." The teacher's approach was to give a few quick sound bytes of Bell's most controversial statements. Nothing positive was given about the book but simply Bell's book was used as a kind of foil of what's wrong with Christian theology today. The church was in the same state as Bell's and some people in the class had even attended Bell's church. Several people alluded to Bell as a false teacher who will experience the reality of hell someday. Others felt sad for Bell for going so far off the beaten Evangelical track and yet none of them said they had even read Bell's book nor could the teacher really say adequately what Bell really believed? Is Bell a universalist? Does Rob Bell believe in Hell? And what about all the scriptures Bell did not quote in his book that were against his view?

Here are my quick responses to these questions about Rob Bell. Bell says he's not a universalist so can we believe what Bell actually says about himself? I would hope Christian charity would give Bell the benefit of the doubt or we end up putting beliefs on others which they categorically deny. Does Bell believe in Hell? Yes he does! Although I also disagree with some of Bell's use of Scripture, I typically have problems giving critical book reviews where people are rebuked not for what they say but for what they do not say. Can we simply stick to what people say?

Rob Bell's book actually challenges me in my own hypocrisies and apathy towards those we perceive as people who do not know God or have separated themselves from God's love. So when it comes to discipleship ethics, I hope Christians will do a lot less stone casting and show a lot more charity towards those with whom they disagree. If orthodox Christians are not careful, they may end up siding with hell against those whom they think are too soft on hell. Just a thought!