Title: ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS—HOW?

Focus: Jesus is our model. We fight with different weapons than Gad; yet we are to fight in the same spirit as Gad.

Function: To encourage the people to make use of our spiritual arsenal.

Text: II Corinthians 10:1-5

If Gad points us into the right direction—that we must fight the Lord’s battles, that we must avoid Leah’s model of pursuing her own sinful desires, seeking victory in her rivalry with Rachel—then what must we do: fight the Lord’s battles forcefully, with military weapons, with swords and knives to advance God’s rule? I don’t think so.

Let’s be clear from the outset: I am not suggesting that we become like the Amish or Mennonites, refusing military service, or opposing the death penalty for terrible criminal conduct. So, I am not trying to address whether Christians are to be patriotic pacifists or patriotic warriors willing to serve their country in times of war.

No, I want to pursue the spirit of Gad and see if the Scriptures give us a model to follow and assign us weapons of an entirely different sort than swords, bullets, and bombs.

The Bible speaks of Jesus as “the Lamb of God,” and as the “Lion of Judah.” Jesus, the Son of God, reveals meekness and strength; he is the sacrificial lamb who takes away the sins of the world; and he is the conquering lion, who defeats the devil and the powers of sin and death. Jesus came to do the will of his heavenly Father; he came to usher in God’s heavenly rule here on earth.

Jesus, then, follows in the footsteps of Gad—in so far that Jesus seeks to please his heavenly Father and do his royal bidding. Jesus is a warrior bent on warring the powers of darkness and bent on establishing God’s rule here on earth.

But unlike Gad, Jesus models meekness and a willingness to serve and sacrifice for the sake of God’s kingdom and people. For example, Jesus spoke of “turning one’s cheek.” And he showed us how to do that when he was struck by the High Priest and whipped by the Roman soldiers.

Also, Jesus willingly surrendered to the Jewish Sanhedrin when arrested, telling Peter to put down his sword. And although Jesus could command a myriad of angels to stand by him and stop King Herod and Pontius Pilate from their madness to crucify him, Jesus refused to subdue or silence them with angelic swords or violence from heaven. Like a lamb led to the slaughter--willingly, sacrificially--Jesus fought the battle against the devil, and the powers of the world, sin, death and hell. It was in the mold of a lamb that Jesus fought like a lion. It was in meekness that Jesus won the battle.

Here is the key: followers of Jesus must take their cues from Jesus and his cross. It is through dying to sin and self that we rise to life. Jesus’ death and resurrection provide us with the key to advance God’s rule and to fight our battles against sin today. Yes, we can sing Onward, Christian soldiers, as long as we do not forget to embrace and live the refrain of that song: Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before.

The enemies we fight are the devil, sin in our hearts, and the powers of sin displayed in our world and culture. Even though Christ has won the battle in principle at Golgotha through his death and resurrection, we are still engaged in the mop-up battles of sin, until Jesus comes again. How then shall we fight?

The apostle Paul shows us the way. In II Corinthians 10, the apostle Paul first points us to our model. Paul deals with some leaders in the Corinthian church who question Paul’s authority and tend to dismiss his teachings. Paul speaks directly to them and he holds before us the Lord Jesus Christ, saying, “By the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you—I, Paul, who am ‘timid’ when face to face with you, but ‘bold’ when away! I beg you that when I come I may not have to be as bold as I expect to be toward some people who think that we live by the standards of this world. For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.”

We do not wage war as the world does, as Leah did, and as we are all inclined to do because of selfish impulses within our heart: hatred, envy, brutal violence is not the way to go and fight the spiritual battles we must enter into every day. Rather, our arsenal or weapons of war are different. In Ephesians 6, for example, Paul speaks of the “full armor of God.” That armor includes the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the resolve to spread the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the protective helmet of God’s salvation, and the Word of God through which the Spirit of God speaks and cuts down opposing hearts and minds. And of course, there is the weapon of prayer.

I’m struck by Paul’s appeal to such a weapon as truth or knowledge that is shaped by God’s Word. Listen to Paul: “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

Knowledge, shaped and filtered through the Word of God is an ally in our warfare against the lies of the world. Here I could easily appeal to Christian education as a powerful weapon to advance God’s rule in our world. For Christian education takes captive every thought and bit of knowledge and places them in the service of God’s kingdom.

Prayer, evangelism, preaching God’s Word, discipleship that seeks to exercise faith, hope and love, along with the practice of truth in the arena of knowledge and education—that’s where we do our battles today. And we do so with the cross of Jesus as the center of our power.

Strong as a lion, meek as a lamb we follow the Savior in our own battles against sin, the devil and the world. The battles we are to wage are fought primarily on our knees, for the Lord Jesus taught us to pray, “lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.” And to fight the Lord’s battles today in that spirit means that we pray to the Lord saying: (Lord’s Day 52)

“By ourselves (Lord) we are too weak to hold our own even for a moment. And our sworn enemies—the devil, the world, and our own flesh—never stop attacking us. And so, Lord, uphold us and make us strong with the strength of your Holy Spirit, so that we may not go down to defeat in this spiritual struggle, but may firmly resist our enemies until we finally win the complete victory.”

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.