Tribulation

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?  Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been. -- Revelation 6:9-11

The Great Tribulation is when those who confess Christ and refuse to back down are beheaded.  Of course, that will happen only to those who are left behind in the Rapture.  I guess it's tribulation when it happens to a Christian in Egypt, the Sudan, or China.  It's only the Great Tribulation if it happens to Baptists in Dallas or Catholics in Chicago.

I heard some comedian say the other day that we couldn't defeat ISIS by killing them.  No, wait, that wasn't a comedian.  That was Marie Harf speaking on behalf of John Kerry's State Department.  Ms. Harf says that ISIS fighters need jobs.  We should bring them over to California and put them to harvesting head lettuce.

History is not at an end in 2015.  We have a fight on our hands.  We need to pray for our brothers and sisters in the Middle East, for Christians and Jews alike.  To some extent, I actually agree with the State Department spokesbunny in that military might alone is an insufficient solution for the problem of evil.  We do not war according to the flesh.  Our weapons are not tanks and planes and bombs.  We have the power through Christ to destroy the strongholds of evil, to demolish the excuses and justifications of our enemies (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).

The blood of Christians dying for the Name of Christ, wherever it takes place, cries out to God, and God will answer.  There are Christians in nearly every Muslim country.  There are also often western missionaries, though forbidden to proselytize, working discreetly in those nations.  Western governments, for the most part, lack the political will to face down, stop, and destroy those who murder and rape in the name of Allah.  Every Christian needs to understand the times in which we live, and the persecutions we are about to face.  It may not happen where I live in my lifetime, but it is happening now in many places, and it will happen here if we do not change our way of thinking.  We need to teach our children that Christianity is more than a comforting practice, a ritual, and a code.  We live for Christ, and we must be willing to die for Him.  

We live in a time when it is one thing to say that we are Christians, that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  It is another thing to say that there is salvation in no other name.  But I will say it:  Jesus is our only hope.  In the end, nothing else will matter.  




 

And the Walls Come A'Tumblin' Down

For although we are walking in the flesh, we do not wage war in a fleshly way, since the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. We demolish arguments and every high-minded thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. – 2 Corinthians 10:3-5

The essence of the gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Recognizing that the Lord was wise, good, and kind in a human sense is not transformative. That is what Paul defines as “knowing Christ after the flesh”. Jesus does something only He can do -- something only God can do. He identifies with us, taking our sins upon Himself, and paying for them with His own blood. But there is more. The Last Adam also gives the old Adam what he had had coming for a long time. When Jesus was nailed to a cross, He took Adam with Him. After all Adam was created in the likeness and image of God, he did not go down easily. It was mano-a-mano. The only way to do it was for Jesus to embrace Adam so closely that they could not be separated in life. It was risky business, but it meant they were nailed hand-in-hand to the same cross. They came down together. They were buried together. But only One came out alive.

Every battle we face as believers involves a meta-battle. Fortunately for us it is a battle that has already been won by Jesus. By faith we can appropriate the spiritual victory the Lord gained in crucifying the old nature.

We’re walking through this world looking like everybody else. I, for example, am saddled with a particularly rough looking tent. I’m pretty sure that, not only did it come off the slightly irregular rack, but it was probably a return after somebody used it to camp out in a weekend hailstorm. The flesh we walk in puts some restraints and limitations on us, no doubt. To overcome, we reject the weaponry and power of the old nature which is rendered inoperable, put out of commission through the power of the Cross. Instead we take up the weapons of the Spirit and His power.

With the meta-battle behind us, we are enabled to come against, and potentially demolish strongholds in our lives -- those things that hinder, block, and entrap us. And of what are these high-walled fortresses constructed but arguments and thoughts. Wait, I believe they use some hubris in the mortar mix. There we go: arrogance, pride, fleshly wisdom, and carnal philosophy are the walls, and they are defended by fear.

Someone may say that, yes, some people may be battling mind parasites, but my problems are real, external threats. It may be true enough that the psychotics, the neurotics, and the delusional need to take “every thought captive”, but that does not apply to me. Whatever you think. I believe that argument is itself something of a delusion.

I believe that I do not war against flesh and blood, but against rulers, authorities, world powers of darkness, and spiritual forces of evil. I believe that most, if not all the fighting, takes place upon the field of the human mind.

God created this world and He owns it. It is derived. We readily acknowledge that. As a creation, it is subject to physical laws. Our outward physical forms must, in general, conform to the rules of biology and physics. But we, the rightful lords and stewards of the cosmos, are spiritual beings first and foremost. Robin’s sidebar quote of St. Francis is applicable here – change worlds. The high ground is ours. What are the towering walls of a fortress when you’re flying at 30,000 feet? Relatively speaking, the walls of Jericho weren’t even a speed bump.

The flesh attacks from the ground in a frontal assault. It builds siege machinery and ramps, attempts to scale the walls, and laboriously, day after bloody day, prosecutes the same battle over and over. The walls never fall. The stronghold is never surrendered and the enemy is never taken captive. The unhappy paradox is that we strengthen the walls by fighting in this fashion.

Paul says add a dimension. Move the fight from the flatlands to the heavens, and throw in some shock and awe. The battle is the Lord's, and the victory is ours.