The Enemy At The Gate

When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, "Are you for us, or for our adversaries?" And he said, "No; but I am the commander of the army of the LORD. Now I have come." And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, "What does my lord say to his servant?" - Jos 5:13-14 ESV

As Joshua approached the man with his sword drawn, he was apprehensive as to whether this powerful looking man with sword drawn was friend or foe. When Joshua put the question to him, "Are you for us or for our adversaries?", the answer came back, "NO!"  He wasn't on either side of human battles but he was clearly on the side of God and the Army of the Lord.  Of course we always feel, as Christians, that God is on our side based upon our perspective of things, our opinions, or the words of those we esteem.  In actuality, even on our best day, we are out of balance.  I have thought many times when preaching or after delivering a message, "that message standing on its own is out of balance."  That means when we are "right" we aren't totally right from all angles.  Though we stand for right in one area, we are possibly offending in another.  During the American Civil War, both sides prayed and believed that the Lord was fighting for their side of things.  As a Southerner, I look back at the central cause of the Civil War, slavery, not States Rights as I was taught in school, and wonder, how could the South have thought the Lord was on their side when their side represented taking people from their homeland and forcing them into hard labor as slaves.  Often breaking up families and selling them to the highest bidder. But the South believed just that.  They even preached in their churches sermons that justified their error.  Their belief and their fidelity to that lost cause cost 655,000 lives.  The back of the South was broken and they paid a very big price for their deception. They were sincere but learned in the end that they were sincerely wrong. 

When we find ourselves in a world torn and divided even among followers of Jesus, we need to be very careful not to repeat the same mistakes of other believers that have gone before us.  It is an easy thing to get caught up in a cause or movement because so many around us are adhering to the same cause.  Groups or numbers doesn't make us right.  Movements doesn't mean God is behind those movements.  Is God on our side? The resounding words come back, "NO!" God is on God's side.  God is on the side of Truth.  God is on the side of his MISSION!  His mission is not a national mission but a Kingdom mission.  It is easy to come to believe that our strong feelings about our cause means we are in God's cause.  God's cause is much grander, much more important than our cause regardless of how noble our cause may be.  God's cause is the cause of the Cross, the price Jesus paid on that cruel cross for all mankind from every kindred, tribe and Nation. We must make sure that our causes don't blind us to lose focus of THE CAUSE. The cause of being in the world as the salt of the earth with the purpose of winning the lost world and not fighting it. The world is lost and it will always act as lost.  It will remain lost until we influence it with love and Truth.  Truth is our only means of winning the world through love and mercy just as we received that same love and mercy.  We can't represent the Kingdom of God with anger and militancy.  Anger and militancy only produces more anger and militancy from the opposite direction.  

What can we do?  It is such a frustrating place to find ourselves. I was trained by my family to be a fighter.  When you find yourself in a fight, strike first and hard.  It is in my nature, but it is not in my born again Spirit man.  My Spirit man is filled with power, Truth and love.  God has given us power, love and a sound mind the Scripture tells us. We could win in the natural and lose in the power of the Spirit.  We must bring ourselves back to fighting the real fight in the Spirit.  Many may need deliverance and cleansing of spirit in order to get back in a position of fighting correctly with a pure heart and a sound mind.  Romans 14:17 tells us that the Kingdom of God is a matter of "righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." That Kingdom is within all of us who are walking in the Lordship of Jesus.  Let's rediscover that place of righteousness, peace and joy in our hearts and serve Him from that platform.  We are living in perilous times and deception is our enemy at the gates.  We must guard our hearts!