Monday, October 02, 2006
Standing Firm, Taking the Blow, and Disarming the Enemy
"Dimitri Pavlovich...was trying to teach Ivan how to absord a broadaxe blow with his shield and twist the weapon out of his enemy's hands. But Ivan would have none of it. He kept leaping backwards, dodging the axe entirely, then whacking Dimitri on the back with his practice sword. Oh, how clever it seemd to Ivan, this dancing. But what Ivan did not understand, could not grasp in his feeble foreign mind, was that in battle there would be a man to the left and to the right of his enemy, who would see the sudden gap in the line as Ivan leapt back, and he would never have a chance to leap forward again to make his clever blow. Instead, he would have to retreat farther yet, and that if the man to either side of him did not fight his battle for him, soon the enemy would come pouring through the gap, and the day would be lost. A man had to stand his ground, giving no inch to the enemy,bearing his blows and striking back harder, forcing the other man to give way."
Before having my eyes opened to the spiritual warfare of intercession and the militant aspect of the church, I never really heeded or cared for miliaristic images as part and parcel of the Christian life.
Jesus speaks in Matthew 11.12 in reference to men like John the Baptist taking the kingdom by violence. I used to think that this was a negative. I thought Jesus was saying violence was not appropriate. But it is a different kind of violence of which Jesus is speaking. When we live authentic Christian lives in a secular world, we will be disruptive. We will be disruptive in the same manner Jesus was. Read Matthew 5. If we live true to Jesus, we will suffer injustice as a result of our witness. The world will reject us because they will see Jesus. At least they should, shouldn't they? Jesus made enemies living a life of grace and mercy. And so did his disciples after him. They all suffered the same fate as Jesus. They were branded and disruptive to society and they killed them just as they did Jesus. Paul was no different.
As the body of Christ, we must respond to the attacks of the enemy with the same militant spirit as Jesus, John the Baptist, the disciples, and Paul. But as is pointed out in 2 Chronicles 20 and Ephesians 6, the weapons of our warfare are not of this world. God is the one who fights on our behalf. Standing firm, using the sheild of faith, we are to extinguish the arrows of the enemy. We are to take the blow head on. And then use our shield, the shield of faith, to disarm the enemy.
What a powerful image is revealed in this book excerpt of what happens when we do not stand our ground in faith. The line of defense is weakened, in our own life and in the Body as a whole. I confess I have stepped back way too many times, given ground. And we wonder why the church is in the state of decline that it is.
Dale Anderson, the director of the Intro to IHOP program, said over and over, at some point we as the church must stop retreating. At some point we must stop giving ground to the enemy. And with passion in his voice and tears in his eyes, I began to understand the militant nature of this journey of faith. In the spirit of Nehemiah, we must open our eyes and weep over the state of the church, be willing to confess our part for current state of the church, and then take our place to repair the breach in the wall. This is the heart of intercession.
This gives me chills as to the reality of the spiritual warfare we face. Over and over, we are called to stand firm. God give me the grace and strength to stand firm another day. I cannot do it without You.
