Psalms 144:1-2 Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war,my fingers for battle. He is my loving God and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield, in whom I take refuge, who subdues peoples under me.
God’s Word speaks of many
accounts of combat imagery and stories of many battles. Many of the main
characters in the bible were involved in combat situations. Abraham led a group
of 318 men and subdued four tribal chieftains that ransacked Sodom and captured
Lot, the nephew of Abraham, and his entire family. Abraham defeated the troops
of four kings and was victorious in the battle, rescuing Lot and his family.
Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, engaged in an all-night wrestling match with an
angel. Moses and Joshua led the Israelites in many battles to conquer the land
God promised them. Samson devastated the Philistines and destroyed one of their
temples. The list includes Saul, Jonathan, David, and Gideon, who all led
Israelite Armies into many battles.
In the pages of the New
Testament, the Apostle Paul’s writings brim with imagery and symbolism of
fighting battles. Paul speaks of “demolishing strongholds” (2 Corinthians 10:4).
There is a very sound reason that this imagery of battles and war appears in
the pages of God’s Word. We, as His people, are in a war that will rage on
until Jesus comes back and Satan receives his just reward. From the eviction of
Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, two forces have been in combat, fighting
for the souls of humanity. Paul wrote that Satan was unsuccessful in preventing
the 1st coming of Jesus and lost all his legal standing through the Crucifixion
of our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus (Colossians 2:15).
There are no coincidences where
God is concerned. Consequently, in three different locations in the New
Testament, Psalm 110:1 is quoted, in which the father says to the son: “Sit at
my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” There is a
reason for this speech of fighting and combat, which is that God and His people
share a common enemy, Satan. Furthermore, our enemies must be fought and
destroyed, so consequently, we must never forget that we, as Christians, are on
a battlefield every day and not a playground.
God stripped Satan of all his
authority and legal standing in the first coming of Jesus in His victory over
Satan and sin on the Cross. Satan is now the commander-in-chief of a retreating
losing army of evil demons. However, we must never underestimate or take for
granted the battle that Satan will come after us every day of our lives. Satan
is a very crafty commander of his evil forces, and his tactics are to arrive at
us through our weakest location. However, God, in His infinite wisdom, has
supplied us with a very effective weapon called the “Sword of the Spirit,”
which is the Word of God. We know through God’s Word that the Sword of the
Spirit is sharper than any double-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12).
The greatest and strongest army on the earth with the most significant weapons could not win one battle if they locked their weapons in some compound somewhere. The same goes for us; we have a weapon, “the Sword of the Spirit,” which is the Word of God; however, if we leave it locked away in our bunker somewhere and never use it, we cannot win any spiritual battles. A daily training exercise of reading and studying God’s Word (The Sword of the Spirit) will give us a significant advantage over Satan and his evil forces when they come after us daily and come after us, they will.
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