The Weapons of our Warfare
Some people just don't get it. I am thinking of two groups of people. One group of people would try to further Christianity and slow the spread of evil by trying to get the right people elected into political office. The other group would try to slow the spread of evil by killing or bombing those they think perpetrate it. Both instances are groups of so called Christian people.
But in all seriousness, we cannot win the world by taking up the weapons of the world. Politics has proven it's inability to help the Church. Not too many years we had a Republican Congress and a Republican President. These were people who all said the right things that Evangelical voters wanted to hear. I was there. I was moved by the rhetoric. But years later, nothing in the nation had really been changed.
Then when you look at the people who think that killing abortionists or blowing up abortion clinics is the way to fight that particular evil. But we still (as a nation) put to death over a million babies a year. And violence has only further hardened the world to the message of new life in Jesus Christ. But even discounting that, for all the ones that have been killed, and the clinics that have been blown up, nothing has really changed.
I recall a quote that said "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." Obviously, using the world's ways has accomplished nothing. Perhaps it is time we started to fight with the weapons that God has given to His Church.
The Church's only weapon against the evil of this world is the Holy Bible. God's Holy Word is truth. The gospel is our message. It is the "power of God unto salvation." We seem willing to trust everything else except the scriptures. We are quick to trust our own wiles and our own power and ignore God's wisdom and God's power. We engage the culture through argument and debate. We write, we teach, we discuss, we debate and we hammer home the truth contained in the scriptures.
Christian, if you feel the need to be armed against the world, don't take up a gun, take up your Bible. The power of the word preached backed up by a holy lifestyle is an argument the devil himself can't refute. We Christians are in a war. We are in combat every minute of every day. Charles Spurgeon once told his church that the Christian life was a battlefield not a playground. We are only given two weapons by God to help us win in our combat, prayer and the preaching of the word. Pity that so few use them.
Some people just don't get it. I am thinking of two groups of people. One group of people would try to further Christianity and slow the spread of evil by trying to get the right people elected into political office. The other group would try to slow the spread of evil by killing or bombing those they think perpetrate it. Both instances are groups of so called Christian people.
But in all seriousness, we cannot win the world by taking up the weapons of the world. Politics has proven it's inability to help the Church. Not too many years we had a Republican Congress and a Republican President. These were people who all said the right things that Evangelical voters wanted to hear. I was there. I was moved by the rhetoric. But years later, nothing in the nation had really been changed.
Then when you look at the people who think that killing abortionists or blowing up abortion clinics is the way to fight that particular evil. But we still (as a nation) put to death over a million babies a year. And violence has only further hardened the world to the message of new life in Jesus Christ. But even discounting that, for all the ones that have been killed, and the clinics that have been blown up, nothing has really changed.
I recall a quote that said "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." Obviously, using the world's ways has accomplished nothing. Perhaps it is time we started to fight with the weapons that God has given to His Church.
The Church's only weapon against the evil of this world is the Holy Bible. God's Holy Word is truth. The gospel is our message. It is the "power of God unto salvation." We seem willing to trust everything else except the scriptures. We are quick to trust our own wiles and our own power and ignore God's wisdom and God's power. We engage the culture through argument and debate. We write, we teach, we discuss, we debate and we hammer home the truth contained in the scriptures.
Christian, if you feel the need to be armed against the world, don't take up a gun, take up your Bible. The power of the word preached backed up by a holy lifestyle is an argument the devil himself can't refute. We Christians are in a war. We are in combat every minute of every day. Charles Spurgeon once told his church that the Christian life was a battlefield not a playground. We are only given two weapons by God to help us win in our combat, prayer and the preaching of the word. Pity that so few use them.
posted by John | Sunday, August 17, 2008
3 Comments:
Amen John!
I agree that our weapon against the world should be the Bible, but I hope that you're not suggesting that we shouldn't vote.
Brother Jeff,
Of course I would not suggest we don't vote. Voting is a right and a privilege of being an American. But even there we should be cautious. No matter who wins the White House this November, our faith is in God, not who occupies the oval office. But all that aside, every American, Christian or not, ought to exercise their right to vote for the one they think will do the best job in leading our country.
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