12.2 Made for War
If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before you. – If they persecuted Me [hunted Me down], they will also persecute you. – The one hating Me, also hates My Father. – Be of good cheer, I have conquered the world (John 15 & 16).
The ruler of this cosmos comes and possesses nothing inside of Me. – Put on and enclothe yourself with the full armor of God. – We are… contesting… against the rulers and sources, against the authorities and influences, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against the spiritual evil in the heavenly realms (John 15 & Ephesians 6).
Death has been swallowed up into and eliminated by victory (1 Corinthians 15).
To Fight and to Win. As you can see, I have inserted a set of verses delineating our enemies and our fight. From these verses and many others, we conclude that God designed us as humans, after the pattern of the Lord Jesus, not only for war but for victory.
You were made for war, and you were made for victory. We are made just like God.
And thus we conclude that we are not engaged in great battle against the world, against the spiritual powers of this world, and against death, by chance or by misfortune, but by NATURE. It is our human nature to fight, and it is our human nature to win. Yet it has been so easy for the evil one to have turned our war-making qualities, just like God’s, into the WRONG direction.
Four Parts of War. Victory comes only out from peace. – Victory over death comes out from peace with God. We cannot know what we are that we might be real humans except inside of and out from total and absolute victory. That quality that makes us just like the Lord Jesus is the next lesson.
In this lesson, we want to consider the qualities of our human design and nature that make us warriors. War has four parts, (1) strategy, (2) logistics, (3) discipline or we might say, “the shield wall,” and (4) killing. Of these four, strategy is the most important, yet no one has ever “died for freedom.” Freedom comes only from slaughter. The army that kills is the army that wins.
A Close Run Day. Of the three enemies arrayed against us, however, only one is to be killed. Of the other two, one is to be bound in chains as prisoners of war, and the other is to be brought to submission. It’s a very simple equation. Either you kill death or death kills you. Either you bind Satan and his demons in chains or they bind you in chains. Either you bring the world and the beast under submission to Christ Jesus, or they bring you under submission to themselves.
There is no Victory when there is no opportunity to lose. Waterloo was a most significant victory because, as Lord Wellington said, “It was a close run day.” But in the end, Napoleon lost the Battle of Waterloo and his throne because of failed strategy.
Seeing the Whole Picture. Christians have lost the war and their throne for 2000 years because of failed strategy. Today is the Day of Victory.
Victorious generals win because they are strategic, and they are strategic because they are wholistic, that is, they see the ENTIRE picture, not just part of it. Commanders who see only part of the picture are ruled by blind emotion coupled with arrogance; that is, they think themselves smarter than they are, and thus choose the wrong battles to fight. And this is how Satan has won the victory against the Church of Christ these 2000 years, and it is also how he loses everything. Jesus teaches us to fight only after we first see the whole picture.
The Essence of Self-Respect. Before we continue, however, we must consider how this aspect of our human nature fits that quality of our human heart that is the ego, the center, the personal ‘me’ inside.
I fight for ambition, that is, in order to win. I fight out from wisdom and truth, that is, the covenant written. I fight together with others, that is, reciprocity. And I fight because I belong. But all the way through, it is I, the personal ego, behind the fight. I–fight, in the end, is the definition of the human self. The one who fights the wrong battles loses the war, but the one who will not fight loses his or her own self-respect. Not to fight is not to live. Yet the one who fights the wrong battle dies. Victory, then, is the essence of self-respect.
Worthy of Respect. There is a movie called The Four Feathers with Heath Ledger who refused to obey his commission as an officer to go to Africa in order to extend Britain’s domination of others. He chose not to fight the wrong battle. Yet his fellow officers despised him as a coward. Because he was not a coward, he followed them into Africa, and there he risked his life, over and over, to save theirs. By the end of the movie, the others knew that the character played by Ledger was more worthy of respect than themselves, for he had chosen the right battle, and he had won.
The one who refuses to join the armies of this world is not the coward, for he takes on a far greater and more important fight.
What Makes Us Human. This is not a study of the kingdom, but of human nature. For that reason, as we look at each of these four aspects of war against each of our three enemies, we are limiting our consideration to that which makes us human. More than that, as completed humans, we are not “fighting for ourselves,” for that also is the wrong battle. We fight for others.
Fighting for others, out from indomitable self-respect seated in pure and utter PEACE with God, is what makes us human. More than that, as we fight for others inside of God, our own personal shortcomings are more easily set aside, for the fight to see others set free makes us free as well. The one who fights for others fills his or her life with purpose.
Understanding the Whole Picture. Of our three enemies, Satan is the strategist, then the world, that is, human rulers and demons together, covers logistics and discipline, and death is the killer in the front of the battle. But Satan is like Napoleon, he thinks too highly of his own success. Satan never did understand the whole picture.
Jesus said that most judge “according to the flesh,” that is, according to the limited information given by brief and emotional outward sight. But He judged according to what the Father showed Him, that is, with full knowledge and wisdom. Because we know God, we know that His thoughts concerning all things prevail, we know that Jesus sustains all, and that the Spirit accomplishes all things for us. This is our “background” knowledge.
The Battleground. So what is our picture as we think strategically concerning the defeat of the evil one, the world beast, and death? It is said that “a soldier is one who fights for the protection of those who cannot fight for themselves.”
In reality, the fight and the battleground is the human mind.
To put it simply, our brethren do not hold in their minds a Jesus here, now, and complete. In place of that overwhelming reality that is already the only life they are, they have concocted an image of a Jesus far away, a Jesus someday, and a Jesus in-part. Keeping them in the chains of unbelief, then, are the strategies of the evil one, a loyalty to the distractions of the world, and the seeing of an all-here-now completion of death.
The Great Issue. To understand our fight, however, we must know the great issue of God from the beginning. God spoke His Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, “Let there be light.” And against that mighty word, the serpent spoke – into the human mind only – “Did God indeed say?” And he speaks the same words today in the minds of all regarding anything God speaks, that is, against every expression of the Lord Jesus. “You are My image, created like Me.” – “Not really, no. Those words aren’t what you think they mean. It is true, of course, that you SHOULD BE like God, but look at yourself, it is more than evident that you are NOT.”
God speaks Christ, and His words are thrown down by unbelief.
Defining Victory. Now, it is impossible to know how to fight unless we first know what victory is. Victory is the Lord Jesus Christ, every Word God speaks, proven faithful and true inside the minds and hearts of each one, first, and then of all human beings.
Of truth, this is a psychological battle, and it can be waged only in the Spirit – bringing every thought captive. Yet there is a very definite outward element to it, and that is the actions of compassion and respect, as Paul points out. If your enemy should hunger, feed him; if he should thirst, give him drink; for in so doing, you will be heaping coals of fire upon his head (Romans 12:20).
Our Human Nature. Specifically, God designed us to fight and to win the real battle. It is our HUMAN NATURE to fight the right battle, and it is our HUMAN NATURE to win that fight to finality.
For the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but are God-able towards the tearing down of fortresses, overthrowing arguments, and every high thing or barrier lifting itself up against the knowledge of God and taking captive every thought into submission to hearing Christ, inside of your possession of readiness to dispense justice to all who hear amiss… (2 Corinthians 10). It is our human design and nature to use the weapons of the Holy Spirit to tear down the fortresses of a false self-story in the minds of other humans.
By the Power of the Spirit. It is our human design to overthrow all false and distracting arguments, by the power of the Spirit, to get right at the real issue of honesty and respect by bypassing all the non-issues. It is our nature to remove from the minds of others every high wall that blocks the knowledge of God from them. God crafted us to take every thought in the minds of others into captivity to the truthfulness and the goodness of every Word Jesus is inside of them. It is our human design and nature to use the weapons of the Holy Spirit to dispense the just innocence of Christ into all who have heard amiss. This is what and who we are, as those whose own hearing is full, that is, peace inside of God inside of us.
The Wrong Battles. As the master strategist, the evil one has succeeded this whole time by getting humans busy fighting the wrong battles. The two choices are first, fighting against themselves, and second, fighting against one another. Typically, both fights in the wrong direction are going at the same time. To get Christians to fight against “the flesh,” captures their attention away from the Lord Jesus and causes the flesh to grow larger and larger, but only in their imagination.
In the end, the one “fighting the flesh” is, if you see the whole picture, fighting against God to keep Him far away. But mostly humans fight each other.
Victory through Weakness. J.R.R. Tolkien modeled Sauron by a profound understanding of the folly of the evil one. It never entered Sauron’s mind that the weakest of all his opponents would venture into the heart of his realm and there destroy his power forever. He assumed only that anyone with access to power would use it.
Here is the strategy of our Captain. – Therefore, since the children have shared blood and flesh, He also in the same way actively partook of the same, so that through death, He might destroy the one holding the power of death, that is, the devil and accuser and might release those who through fear of death were of slavery all their lives (Hebrews 2:14-15). In another place it says, to paraphrase, that Jesus had death for lunch.
And We Also. Then, here is “And we also.” …Because the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down, the one accusing them before our God day and night. And they have overcome him through the blood of the Lamb, and through the word of their testimony; and they have not loved their souls unto death (Revelation 12:10-11).
Do you see the profound weakness that eliminates all the stratagems of evil? This is our nature; this is who we are. Notice also that these weak and insignificant people who are, in fact, casting down all the strategy of Satan for 6000 years, are doing so – for the sake of our brothers and sisters. Do you see the power of peace together with God?
In fact, Tolkien placed the weakest and most peaceful land in Middle Earth, the Shire as embodied by Sam Gamgee, as the quiet determination that WON for the sake of all.
Logistics and Discipline. Logistics and discipline is what the world does. Logistics is everything needed to bring the troops into the engagement of battle, and discipline is everything needed to keep them there when the killing starts. The world is very good at doing both of these things in the great battle of all humans together against the Lamb, against the knowledge of God entering into the human experience. The world uses distraction as its primary tool to get people, and especially Christians, where it wants them in the great shield wall against a Jesus all here now. And then the world uses a combination of public scorn and private punishment in order to keep its troops in that line.
Seeing the Whole Picture. There is only one battle. All the fighting that humans sign up for is nothing other than the distraction of the world on the one hand, and a provision of scorn or punishment on the other hand, that is, false loyalty. You see, Jesus said that when you fight against the least of your brothers and sisters, you ARE fighting against Him. The one who sees the ENTIRE picture sees that ALL fights engaged in by humans in this world ARE war against the Lamb, that is, against a Jesus all here now.
The one battle is Jesus proven faithful and true inside the human experience here on this earth – through His Church. A woman clothed with the sun, bringing forth a male child.
Purpose and Focus. Now, this lesson has not taken the form of a careful progression of thought. Rather, we have taken a huge number of things and placed them out where we can see them, though in a somewhat random manner. Having done so, then, we continue in the purpose and focus of this course. The purpose of this course is to explore definitions of the human, of what it is we are by design. And the guiding idea of this course is that Jesus alone shows us what a “human” is.
These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, because He is the Lord of lords and King of kings; and those with Him are called and chosen and faithful (Revelation 17:14). Jesus IS a mighty warrior, and so are we.
Self-Respect in Victory. Yet we do not use John’s vision to create outward images, for these words are Spirit and they are life, as Jesus said. The battleground is the human mind, and the issue at stake is simple, does Jesus speak the truth (the sword out from His mouth) or not?
This quality, then, of fighting for those who cannot fight for themselves, is our nature forever, for just as Jesus is the same forever, so are we also. We do not know what the ages to come will hold for us, but we do know what we are.
Then, the central quality of the “I,” the ego, the “self” as God made us, as Christ Jesus living as us, is self-respect. And self-respect is found only inside of the celebration of VICTORY!