THE BATTLE IS NOT YOURS BUT GOD'S
The Bible gives the account of God speaking to King Jehoshaphat, who was a faithful king – the fourth king of Judah, and he was about to go into battle against the enemy, which was an ungodly alliance (I’m using that term from time to time today) of the armies of Ammon and Moab and Mt.Seir. 2Chronicles 20:17. You will not need to fight in this battle for the battle is not yours, but God's. Position yourselves, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. Do not be afraid nor be dismayed; for the Lord your God is with you.”
In that battle of Jehoshaphat’s, that army was about to attack Israel to prevent them from entering into their inheritance of the promised Land. Earlier on, Israel were told not to attack these three nations when they first came out of Egypt. However God always steps in at critical times when God’s people are ready to come into the fullness of what God has prepared for them from the beginning. The people of Israel were in fear and terror and Jehoshaphat cried out to God ‘O our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”
The Bible goes on to say ‘And when they began to sing and praise, the Lord set an ambush (âra? - to lie in wait and destroy) against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah, so that they were destroyed. God set the divided kingdoms of the enemy against one another (ungodly alliances turn against one another).
For the men of Ammon and Moab rose against the inhabitants of Mount Seir, and destroyed them first, and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, they all helped to destroy one another.’
So by the time Israel appeared on the scene ready for battle there were dead bodies everywhere and the fight was all over, and it took Israel three days to gather up all the spoil from the treasuries of the opposing armies.
I believe we are living in a time such as this for the Church as the rebellion of ungodly alliances of darkness against the light of God’s people has also begun to reach its peak.
In ancient times, and up to the time of Jesus people worshipped a multitude of different gods and therefore could never agree on anything. There were no athiests. Today there are atheists but people have invented their own gods, or their own images or ideologies of what they believe will give them everything they want in life.
Over the last decade or more a cultural slogan called DEI or diversity, equity and inclusion has become a rule for social and sometimes educational and political and corporate life. If done in a godly way this slogan has a lot of merit, as diversity is an accepted fact of life, and equity means an appropriate sharing of privilege (it doesn’t mean equality), and inclusion means inclusion. Nothing wrong with that.
But when done in an ungodly selfish way, individuals or groups of people compete to be more diverse or different than anything ever seen or heard of before and demand to be applauded for their choices it can put a strain on the fragile cultural window of tolerance and confusion and resentment starts happening everywhere. Equity then becomes I/we want to be more equal than most other people and want to enjoy every privilege that other people have without responsibly earning or paying for or deserving.
The ungodly nature of the DEI slogan is because it was based on an unspoken agreement in our culture to reject traditional Western values of Christianity which stood for a creator God with authority over human affairs through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Traditional values such as family order, freedom of speech, and obedience to the Commandments have been despised and rejected. This has caused ungodly alliances to form, and become set against one another, just as with King Jehosophat where God set the divided kingdoms of the enemy against one another (ungodly alliances turn against one another). DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion then devolves over a short time into division, inequity, and exclusion (DIE). Identity groups compete for priority of privilege and within what looked like a united front of many identity groups fragments into different splinter groups cancelling one other out and leaving more conflict and hostility in society than there was in the first place.
We might think that what is happening today is something new, but it isn’t, as we have seen with King Jehoshaphat, and Paul sums up the rebellious attitude of today’s culture when he wrote over two thousand years ago in Romans.
Romans 1:19-28 (Message Bible)
By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what normal eyesight can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse. What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn’t treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap statuettes you can buy at any roadside stall.
So God said, in effect, “If that’s what you want, that’s what you get.” It wasn’t long before they were living in a pigpen, smeared with filth inside and out. And all this because they traded the true God for a fake god and worshiped the god they made instead of the God who made them—the God we bless, the God who blesses us.
Worse followed. Refusing to know God, they soon didn’t know how to be human either—women didn’t know how to be women, men didn’t know how to be men. Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another, women with women, men with men—all lust, no love. And then they paid for it, oh, how they paid for it—emptied of God and love, godless and loveless.
Since they didn’t bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose. And then all hell broke loose: rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing. They made life hell on earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering, and cheating. Look at them: mean-spirited, venomous, fork-tongued God-bashers. Bullies, swaggerers, insufferable windbags! They keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives and they ditch their parents when they get in the way. Stupid, cruel, cold-blooded. And it’s not as if they don’t know better. They know perfectly well they’re spitting in God’s face. And they don’t care—worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best!
The basis for Christian unity, a Godly Alliance, is found in Ephesians 4:1 walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
Paul sums up the Church’s confidence in our unity of trust in God’s power on our behalf.
1 Corinthians 8:4 we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other God but one. For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are many gods and many lords), yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live. However, there is not in everyone that knowledge;
Israel did physical warfare – we do spiritual warfare. We can receive peace from God, knowing that he alone can subdue all things to himself (Philippians 3.x) including the hearts of people, and that he is the creator God who alone can bring order out of chaos, and who speaks light into darkness. And as Paul explains in Ephesians 6:10 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the times of evil, and having done all, to stand. We do not fight against people but against dark spirits called principalities, which are social demographic regions where the culture of states and cities is expressed. We also wrestle against powers that buffet our personal souls. We wrestle against the rulers of the darkness of this age, that means the darkness that is influencing the collective mindsets and ideologies and attitudes of the global atmosphere that exists in this time of worldwide crisis.
Paul writes about our strategic spiritual defensive pieces of armour such as a ‘helmet of salvation’ protecting the mind and thoughts, and he talks about a spiritual breastplate over the heart that protects us from fear. The head and the heart are the two most vulnerable parts of the body in warfare, and in spiritual terms the mind is the stronghold to where darkness directs his primary attack. We are directed in the Scriptures to bring our thoughts captive to the present moment that contains the ever-present presence of God with us through the indwelling Holy Spirit who reveals the reality of the power of Jesus to reorder our lives.This is being renewed in the spirit of our minds. We magnify the reality of God’s supernatural activity above the unreality of our anxious imaginations about everything that might go wrong.
The other vulnerable area is our heart. That is where either fear or faith can dwell. Darkness fires darts of doubt and fear into this stronghold of our relationship with God, and we are given a shield of faith to protect ourselves from this kind of attack. The very areas that satan seeks to attack you are the areas of your strength as you enter this new season - and because you have paid a price and kept going, God is giving you access to the next step in your destiny - a short climb to the next place of rest and refreshment, where God will bring healing to the wounds the enemy may have inflicted you with.
Paul also mentions spiritual weapons, like the sword, which speaks of the word of God.
The people under Jehoshaphat were told to ‘Position yourselves, stand still, and see, and to fear not.’ We Position ourselves – Our position is as partners together with God. We are partakers of his Divine nature - Joint Heirs together with Jesus. We do not earn this – it is a gift of God’s grace. But we dare not neglect it.
We stand still – We come into a place of readiness and alertness in our spirit, not passively but actively - mindful of the now moment of God’s ever-present presence with us. We See - That is seeing God at work by faith in the world of the unseen, as opposed to seeing things happen the way Israel did at the ambushing of the enemies in Jehoshaphat’s battle. Our outward ‘seing’ will come if we have been inwardly ‘seeing’ by faith. That lifts us into a present moment assurance of the greatness and goodness of God, and we magnify God’s greatness above our own weakness – ‘For The Lord your God is with you’. Amen
