Articles of Engagement for Spiritual Warfare — Darrell Champlin

Christ and the Articles of Engagement for Spiritual Warfare

Turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 16. I want to briefly bring to you a challenge from the standpoint of the eternal purpose of the God of heaven and the articles of engagement for spiritual warfare.

Matthew chapter 16 beginning with verse 13. When Jesus came into the co-successor at Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elias, others Jeremias, or one of the prophets.

He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood have not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

And I say also unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Beloved, I have real concern. As Christians, we have seen a progressive withdrawal from the public schools to, of course, the Christian schools, and from Christian schools to homeschooling, and then to homeschooling churches all across the United States.

And I have to ask this question, from whence will come Christian soldiers? Is the song, Onward, Christian Soldiers, marching us to war, just a relic of the past? Is there no warfare for which we are preparing, no battle to be fought?

And I have this question. When will our young people be tested as to their character, their principles, the biblical foundation upon which we are attempting to build their lives? Where is the discipleship?

Where is the discipline that will enable this generation of youth to go to the battle? Are we raising incipient sissies or incipient soldiers? I was listening to a well-known preacher up in the state of Michigan at one time, preaching to pastors, and he gave an illustration.

He said, if you have a seventeen-year-old son, and he's gotten his driver's license, and you give him the keys to the family car, and you don't go with him, God will judge you for that. How do you know what your seventeen-year-old son will do without you in the car?

I almost fainted. I remember being in the eighth grade and wanting to go to a Western. Now, in my generation, Christians didn't go to movies of any kind. But I've been reading Louisa Moore, and many preachers have done that.

And I heard that Louisa Moore, a movie on one of the books of Louisa Moore, was being shown at Jackson Junior High School, which I went, and then West High School in Salt Lake City, Utah, Bible College in California.

And at age twenty-two, married at nineteen to my delightful wife, Louise, we sailed for the Congo. So we've been on a mission field now into our fifty-fourth year in the jungles. And my mom said, well, do you really want to go?

I said, yes, I want to go. She said, go ahead. It's going to cost me a dime. And being a newspaper boy already and having newspaper routes, I had the money. I went over, and I stood before the door during school vacation.

I stood before the door behind which that coveted movie was about to be shown. And then I thought, what if the Lord Jesus comes back while I'm in there? You have to understand the times. I turned around and went home, and walked in the back door of our house there in Salt Lake City, and my mom said, oh, you didn't go.

Christian Soldiers and Spiritual Warfare

I said, no, I didn't go. She knew I would not, because we were being raised at that period of time to serve the God of heaven across the world, even in our childhood, making those decisions. Is the Battle Hymn of the Republic just a stirring song from the Civil War?

Listen to it. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. He has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible Swiss sword.

His truth is marching on. I have seen him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps. They have built at him an altar in the evening dews and dams. I have heard his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps.

His day is marching on. I have read a fiery gospel written in burnished rows of steel, as he deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal. Yet the hero born of woman crushed the serpent with his heel, since God is marching on.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat. He is sifting out the hearts of men before the judgment seat. Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer him. Be jubilant, my feet. Our God is marching on.

I have seen him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps. They have built at him an altar in the evening dews and dams. I have heard his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps. His day is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah. Glory, glory, hallelujah. Glory, glory, hallelujah. His truth is marching on. Beloved, as it was in that time of the Civil War, we are at war. And our purpose as Christians is to bring down the government of Satan in the hearts and minds and lives of peoples across the world.

Hindus, Muslims, animists, druggies, slaves of alcohol, captives of the American dream, to call out from every kindred, tongue, people, and nation a multitude redeemed by the blood of God's Lamb and see crowned over them the Lion of the tribe of Judah, our Lord Jesus Christ, King of kings and Lord of lords.

We, beloved, are at war with sin and Satan. Now, you go back into history, you find the Articles of Confederation for the United States, the first thirteen states in 1781, which became the Constitution of the United States of America in 1789.

And then the Articles of War, now called the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the code that governs our soldiers. We find in scriptures another uniform code, the Articles of Engagement for Spiritual Warfare.

And we find that passage in chapter 16 of Matthew, beginning with verse 13. When Jesus came into the co-successory of Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?

Christ’s Identity in the Stronghold of Baalism

Now, I have to understand the location of this question. They had now come by an incredibly huge, powerful gushing of water from a great black grotto, as it was called. This was the pervading presence of a tremendously destructive influence in Israel at that time, Baalism.

Now, Baalism had created huge prostitute apartments, or castles, you might call them. And the Jewish women were often sending their husbands to cohabit with these prostitutes in an attempt to give their husbands the power to give them children.

And in the midst of the rot of that place, and in the midst of the tremendous power of Baalism at that time in Israel, the Lord Jesus says to ask them the question, Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?

The Lord Jesus is now going to go to war. Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? Verse 14. And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elias, others Jeremias, or one of the prophets.

And he saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? Beloved, a tremendously important question. Whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered in verse 16, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Beloved, nothing happens in our Christian lives and nothing happens in the reaching of this world with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ until the King is crowned. You can go back through scripture and find it again and again.

The King Crowned in Psalm 2

In Psalm 2, for instance, if you'll run back quickly to there. Psalm 2. We're reading, Why do the heathen rage? Verse 1. And the people imagine a vain thing. The kings of the earth set themselves in the rule of state council together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us.

He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion.

I will declare the decree. The Lord has said unto me, Thou art my Son. This day have I begotten thee. There's the Lordship of the Lord Jesus Christ. My King upon my holy hill of Zion. There's his Sonship.

Thou art my Son. This day have I begotten thee. Here, in verse 8, is his generalship. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.

Thou shalt break them with the rod of iron. Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Now comes his worship. Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings. Be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling.

Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way. When his wrath is kindled but a little, blessed are all they that put their trust in him. Nothing happens, beloved, until the King is crowned.

Elijah Confronts Baal on Mount Carmel

Go to 1 Kings, will you? In chapter 18. 1 Kings, chapter 18. And we're reading, of course, concerning Elijah opposing the prophets of Baal. Verse 25. And you have to understand that Baalism was rampant, a tremendous, superating sore in the very nation of Israel.

In witchcraft, in sexual abandonment, in a special, what shall we call it, economic program taught to those who followed Baal. And that economic program was the ability to rob their Jewish neighbors of their lands, totally against the instructions and commands of the Old Testament.

These men were using the devious means of Baalism to rob their neighbors of their lands and their riches. And in the midst of that rot, God raised up Elijah to face down the prophets of Baal. And, of course, you'll remember they put a bullock upon an altar and cried upon their gods for fire to come.

Nothing happened. And so, in verse 30, we read,. And Elijah said unto all the people, Come near unto me. And all the people came near unto him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down.

And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the son of Jacob, unto whom the word of the Lord came, saying, Israel shall be thy name. And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord.

Now, let's go down to verse 36. Well, 33. And he put the wood in order and cut the bullock in pieces and laid him on the wood and said, Fill four barrels with water and pour it upon the burnt sacrifice and upon the wood.

They did it, of course, a second time. He said, Do it a third time. And they did that. The water is now, in verse 35, running round about the altar. Fills the trench also with water. And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice that Elijah the prophet came near and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel and that I am thy servant and that I have done all these things at thy word.

Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the Lord God and that thou hast turned their heart back again. Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice. The wood, stones and dust and licked up the water that was in the trenches.

When all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and they said, The Lord, he is the God. The Lord, he is the God. Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of Baal. Let not one of them escape. And they took them and Elijah brought them down to the brook Gishan and slew them there.

Beloved, nothing happens until the Lord is exalted, until the king is crowned. And when the king is crowned, then the power of God falls. Look back to our passage in Matthew chapter 16. The Lord Jesus said in verse 17, well, verse 18, And I say unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock, that is, the rock of Peter's confession, that thou art the Lord, this Christ, the Son of the living God.

I say also unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. What is, beloved, this church, this army that is so irresistible, it can attack the very gates of hell and will not be repelled?

The Church as an Irresistible Missionary Army

Well, of course, it's his church. Every born-again believer found anywhere on the face of this globe, that's us. And that's those that we've had the privilege, and you may well, as missionaries, have the privilege of finding across the globe.

First in the land of the Congo, Africa, where my wife grew up and where we went back when I was 22 years old in 1954, went back deep into the jungles. Our first house was a mud-and-stick house with dirt floors, with no screens or glass in the windows, just holes, no ceiling, palm-leaf thatched roof, two resident snakes.

Now, we looked those snakes over pretty well, and we decided they were more danger to the rats and the mice and the cockroaches and the centipedes and the scorpions and the rest of the things that lived in our house than they were to us, so we let them live.

We couldn't do anything about the leopard that came within about 16 inches of my face as I lay sleeping, sticking his head through what we called a window. It was a hole in the wall. Or the cobra that came into our living room, or the poisonous snake that my wife killed with a paring knife.

You know, if you go into the mission field, you marry a woman that's tough enough to do things like that. So we went out in 1954 and spent 10 years until 1964, went back again, and finally ended up in the land of Suriname, South America, after having established 36 churches in the Congo and training 36 national pastors.

Now, putting together our families, the Grings families and the Champlains, we now have 130 churches scattered across the map of the former Belgian Congo, Africa, with national pastors, and moving to Suriname, South America, and going into an abandoned field that had driven out three missionaries.

A black couple lasted a year, and he tried to commit suicide in the river. A German couple went down. They lasted two years and were surrounded with flaming torches and told, get out or we'll burn your house down over your heads.

And then finally, a Dutch couple that lasted five months. We went down and, of course, met a lot of opposition. Finally, the result was that souls began to be saved. And in desperation, the leadership of the village called in a fire-dancing witch doctor.

The Fire-Dancing Witch Doctor and the Power of God

We'd heard of these men. This one's name was Apotu. These were men who could dance in blazing fire, knee-high fire, in their bare legs, dance on broken beer bottle glass, not be either cut or burned.

And in desperation, they brought such a man in when souls began to be saved in that village that in all of their history—you're talking about 200 years and more of history— on that river, there had never anyone come to Christ as their Savior.

Never anyone been saved. So we're going into Satan's territory. When they called the fire-dancing witch doctor in, I could hear the drums beating over in the village. I could hear the people shouting.

And I said to my wife, Louise, I'm going to go over there, pray. Went over the little trail they just allowed us to cut through the jungle, about 200 yards. Could hear the noise in the background. Followed the noise and hear the people, several hundred people up in trees and big crowd around.

Here was the fire-dancer. He's clad only in a loincloth, nothing on his legs or feet, nothing on his chest. He began to dance around and around to the beat of those jungle drums, round and around the broken beer bottle glass.

He jumped on it in his bare feet. He stomped it. He threw his body down and rolled on that razor-sharp glass. He wasn't cut. He went from the glass into the fire, picked up the blazing branch and rubbed them through his hair and over his body, back in the glass again, back into the fire.

And then he turned to the people and said, now, if you'll follow me, I'll give you this power. And it dawned on me why he had come. He had come to prove that the power of Satan is greater than the power of God.

And I cried out, Lord, what can I do to stop him? And the Lord just said, do the dance that he has done and show them that I have power. Yes, sir. You get used to saying yes to God. I pulled off my shoes and socks, jumped on the broken beer bottle glass.

I have to admit, I jumped a little bit gingerly. But as I found that God was protecting me, I stomped it with all my might. It could not cut me. People began to shout, Vakrudena, domini topo, the demon's on the missionary now.

I went from the glass into the fire. I didn't feel that glass, but that fire was hot. It was up inside my pant legs. And I'm dancing, jumping up and down. Finally, I've got the fire put out and the red hot coals down between my toes.

And I turned to the people and I said, now, listen, God is not in the business of fire dances. God could have said, you have God's messenger, you have God's word. And if you did not believe and receive Jesus Christ, he could have let you go to hell.

And he would have been just. But he had mercy on you tonight to show you his power. Now, you can follow this man, Apolto, and he'll give you that demonic power. But he'll carry you to hell. If you'll follow my Lord Jesus, he'll forgive your sins and take you to heaven.

Make your choice. And they made it. Fire dance is over. They said the drummers got up and left their drums. People climbed down out of the trees. Witch doctor was furious. All right, the missionaries, God protected him from the glass and the fire.

Let's see if you can protect it from the shotgun. That's your shotgun point blank. And it just rolls off the witch doctor. But the leadership wouldn't allow it. Finally, they let me go. I walked back over the dark trail.

My feet were hot. Sat down, took a look in the house. No burns. Got down beside my bed. I said, Lord, now, if I wake in the morning, burn the blistered, you've suffered an awful defeat. Sun always comes up.

If you're right on the equator where we are, 6 a .m., sunrise, 6 p .m., sunset year round. And the sun came through our bedroom window, 6 a .m. I looked at my feet. They're perfect. I jumped out of bed.

Praise the Lord. No sooner out of bed than we're here at the door. That's the way they knock. I went to the front door of our house. And here are the people from the village. Missionary, how are your feet?

I said, just take a look. They said, oh, God has power. The young men, I was just starting to train. I've trained 40 some odd national preachers. And I've had to teach virtually all of them how to read and write first.

And Louise and I speak seven languages between us. We had to teach them in their own languages. And these men said to me, missionary, if that's the kind of God we have, show us a way and we'll walk in it.

Now they're preaching up and down the Kotica River. Now they're preaching in the mining town of Mungo, up and down the Tapanoni-Marawena Rivers. We got help in the capital city from Dr. Robert Patton and his family.

Number of our preachers went to the capital city as well, and people moving out of the jungles, so that now on an average Sunday we'll have in our churches somewhere between 1 ,200 and 1 ,500 people but God.

Evangelism in Public Schools

Again and again and again, our God will come to us and ask us, do you love me? How? And so we see churches such as one of our churches in the city of Brooklyn, New York, now reaching out even into the public schools.

Will you listen to this? They have brought into one of our very first supporting churches in Brooklyn what they call High B .A. The High B .A., High School Born-Againers, are trained to go in, they're going to the public schools.

I don't know that there's a Christian school within miles and miles of them, but going into these public schools, which are some of the worst in the world, I know because I taught for five hours at the request of a Christian principal.

I taught for five hours in one of those New York public schools. It was something to see. They had to have two doors, two separate doors for the pupils to come in, one for the homosexuals and one for the straights, because otherwise they had war in the hallways.

And I taught in those schools. But this church brought in a group called, as I mentioned, High B .A. They taught the young people how to win souls to Christ as students in the public schools. I called the preacher going through a couple years later, it was a year or two ago, and I said, Brother, how are things going?

Oh, he says, Brother Champlin, it's wonderful. Our Christian kids going to the public high schools of Brooklyn have won so many young people to Christ that we have had to purchase an apartment building to house our youth department.

That's called, beloved, going to war against sin and Satan and seeing the hand and power of the God of heaven to give victory and blessing. I'm just about out of time. The battle plan is defined in verse 18 of Matthew 16.

Self-Denial and Taking Up the Cross

Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Verse 21,. From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples how that he must go into Jerusalem and must suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes and must be killed and must be raised again.

But this must, declared, is defied by Peter, who began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee. And then the Lord Jesus says, Get thee behind me, Satan, for thou art an offense unto me, for thou savest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall save it.

Verse 26,. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? For what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Let me just give you an illustration in closing of the early missionaries going out to Africa.

Missionary Sacrifice and Courage

They knew. They knew that they very likely would never see their homeland again. I'll give you the list. Miss Isabelle Alley was dead in one year. Missionary Iyer lasted 21. Miss Phoebe Bart was dead in four months.

Miss Martha Coggeshell was dead in three months. Mrs. Hoffman lasted three years. Her husband lasted 16. Missionary Holcomb was dead in a year. Missionary Horn was dead in two years. Missionary Messenger died in three months.

Reverend Lancelot Minor died in seven years. Mrs. Patch lasted two. Mrs. Rombo lasted two. Robert Smith lasted three months. Dr. T .R. Steele lasted six months. Willis Hotchkiss wrote, I have dwelt four years practically alone in Africa.

I have been 30 times stricken with malaria. That's three times attacked by lions, several times by rhinocerite. But let me say to you, I would gladly go through the whole thing again if I could have the joy of again bringing the word Savior and flashing it into the darkness that envelops another tribe in Central Africa.

Afraid of what? Afraid to feel the Spirit's glad release? To pass from pain to perfect peace? The strife and strain of life to cease? Afraid of that? Afraid of what? Afraid to see the Savior's face? To hear His welcome and to trace the glory gleam from wounds of grace?

Afraid of that? Afraid of what? A flash, a crash, a pierced heart, darkness, light, oh, heaven's art, a wound of His a counterpart. Afraid of that? Afraid of what? Afraid to do by death what life could not?

Baptize with blood a stony plot till soul shall blossom from that spot. Afraid of that? That poem was written upon the martyrdom of Jack Vinson by E. H. Hamilton in 1931. John and Betty Stamm read it and said, Not afraid.

And in two weeks they were dead. Those, beloved, are the footsteps in which missionaries have marched from those days to the present until a certain sense of cowardice came in. And now danger is something from which to be rescued.

And sickness is something because of which you leave the field. We've had them all, Louise and myself, all of those diseases, name them. Been shot at with AK -47s, beaten over the head with rifle butts, had the diseases.

I'm 77 years old. Been on the field for 20, 53, 54 years. We're still there. But we need others to follow. And I trust from this tremendous congregation and this unmatched school, and I know because I taught 13 years in a row here and created a number of the classes in the missions department, we're pleading with God to give us out of this congregation some men, with capital M-E-N, and some young women with those young men that will carry out the eternal purpose of God.

The Eternal Purpose of God Among the Nations

And I close to call out from every kindred, tongue, people, and nation, a multitude redeemed by the blood of his Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world, over whom he will crown his Son, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, King of kings and Lord of lords, forever.

The passion of the heart of God that cannot be quenched, the obsession of his mind that cannot be denied, the vision of his eyes from eternity past into eternity future that will not dim, and the destination to which the God of heaven has committed his omnipotent, immutable, eternal being, a destination he will not abandon.

Young people joining in it by God's grace.