The Armies of the Lord

Well, we continue on in chapter 12 together this morning. We have one more week before we'll conclude, and then it'll be time to read our next section within the text of Exodus.

So that'll be two Sundays from now, and we'll just carry on as we see

God's great deliverance of His people from the evil empire, from the land of death and bondage and slavery.

And here, really in chapter 12, beginning in verses 31 through 42, we have the

Exodus proper. Of course, the word Exodus is a compound from the

Greek ek -hadas, out of the way, or in other words, the way out. This is the way out of Egypt.

And it's quite an elaboration on this simple event of the Exodus proper that corresponds to the entire book as a whole, and how

Exodus will connect to Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy. Of course, in verses 31 through 42, we're coming off the heels of the tenth plague having struck the land.

And so, though we're a week removed from the event of the Passover itself, for the experience of the

Israelites as well as the Egyptians, this is all happening simultaneously. So we enter back into a scene of absolute darkness in the night, of mothers and fathers wailing in the streets, the most eerie scene of tragedy and devastation perhaps we could imagine.

If you've ever seen the footage of 9 -11 at a street level, every now and then around September, I always kind of relive and review some of that footage and video cameras that were running close to ground zero.

Maybe some cameras that had just been recording tourists taking footage earlier in the day, a bright, sunny morning in September, a day going on like any other day had gone before, and then by the time the video ends, you're in an unrecognizable gray fog, and it looks like the world has ended, and that must have been what it felt like when the tenth plague struck into the very heart of the empire.

Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron by night and said, Rise, go out from among my people, both you and the children of Israel, and go, serve the

Lord as you said. Also take your flocks and your herds as you've said, and be gone. The very thing that Moses asked ten plagues ago has finally been fulfilled, as the

Lord said it would be fulfilled. He will not let you go, the Lord told Moses, except with a strong hand.

And the strong hand came plague after plague, growing in strength, growing in intensity, and now it's finally had the result that God intended all along, that Pharaoh would let his people go, that they might serve him in the wilderness.

Rise, go out. It's a desperate plea now. Now, Pharaoh's the one who's begging earnestly, urging earnestly.

When he had been, for all of this time, the one that was stiff -necked. Thankfully, Moses is not like Pharaoh, and Moses is more than willing to leave.

That was the design all along. Rise, go out. John Currid points out, these are the exact imperatives we have paired up in Genesis 19.

When Lot was going around, trying to grab his sons -in -law by the shoulders and say, rise, go out of this place, it's about to be destroyed.

So, we get something of the intensity, the urgency of Pharaoh saying, rise, leave my land, you and everything that's associated with you, not one hoof to be left behind.

So as Moses had insisted, all the Israelites would leave with all of their possessions in order to worship the

Lord. With the tenth plague, Pharaoh understands that, at least for this moment, at least with the clarity of God's judgment right in front of him, he understands that God is the one who is sovereign,

God is the one who is in control. Pharaoh does not have sovereignty over the Hebrews. He does not have sovereignty even over his own empire.

If he thought himself as semi -divine, here judgment has reduced him to but a mere mortal.

What a portrait of the folly of sin. We look at Pharaoh and we look at a portrait of the foolishness of rejecting the will and the way of God.

Pharaoh was trying to hold on to all of his power, his prestige, his sense of control, and of course, his possession of the enslaved populace of the

Hebrews. But in the end, all that rejection of God's revelation cost him everything.

Everything that he would seek to hold on to, in the end, he lost. He gained nothing.

He nearly lost everything. Egypt is now a ruin. He lost face before his people.

He lost his dynastic succession. All of this could have been prevented if he would have relented at the beginning.

And that is what sin does. It promises you everything and leaves you with nothing. Whereas the will of God often promises to take away much, but in the end it gives you all.

And so if you would seek to preserve your life, you must lose it. But if you want to lose your life, all you have to do is seek to preserve it.

Foolish king has many a foolish sinner. It's repeated constantly in the life of everyone who rejects the will of God.

They think they're grasping on to something. They think they're securing or at least buying some time, some level of comfort before the inevitable end.

But the end comes with this severity. And all there is is remorse, gnashing of teeth, weeping. And Jesus says, their worm dieth not.

We do have this rather odd addition in the midst of this desperate plea for the Hebrews to leave.

Pharaoh says, bless me also. Bless me also.

And that perhaps is the most surprising thing that drops from the mouth of Pharaoh.

Rise, get out of this place. You, all your people, all your possessions, go, leave us alone.

Never set foot again. The most surprising thing he could say is, and bless me also.

Moses must have nearly fainted. He must have done a double take. What do you mean bless? You've been public enemy number one to my people.

You've been the chief antagonist of me. You said not that long ago, I will kill you if I ever see your face again.

And now you want me to bless you? But this again shows the wild instability and double sidedness of a sinner in his sin.

This is what it's often like when believers engage those who are antagonistic, even adversarial to them.

You'll find them at times speaking ill, speaking malice, kind of rallying others against them, the holier than thou, that Christian who puts us all down, really speaking ill, maybe even wishing ill upon you.

But the moment comes where they say, will you please pray for me? You must be close to God somehow.

You have some purchase, some in with God. Will you still in some way vouch for me or pass that on to me?

You'll experience this perhaps in your Christian life. Those that would use you and abuse you often in some ways actually want your blessing.

And we'll see this desire for blessing will quickly melt away, it will quickly dissolve as Pharaoh raises his army and steers them toward Israel at the

Red Sea. And of course this is the tragedy and foolishness of sin as well. Pharaoh wants to be blessed, but he doesn't want to repent.

Pharaoh wants to be blessed, but he wants to be blessed in his sinfulness, in his sinful estate, and that cannot be.

Pharaoh has no intention of renouncing his idolatry. We don't see him in any sense motioning toward becoming a worshiper of the true and living

God. He does not pick himself up from eating grass like Nebuchadnezzar and confess there's only one true and living

God who is God above all else and him alone will I worship and serve. In fact, my people must serve the true and only

God. Now we don't have a Nebuchadnezzar moment of clarity here. We simply have a desire for blessing and a refusal to bend the knee.

So many are like Pharaoh in our day. So many want to have blessing in their life while they hold on to their sins.

But there's no real repentance and therefore there can be no real blessing. And I've seen, perhaps you've seen, many a time where people will make some slight motion toward spiritual things.

And as soon as their dilemma, as soon as their crisis is resolved, as soon as they find some semblance of peace or stability or joy, all that pursuit of spiritual things vanishes.

And they end up doubling down in their hardness of heart. Like Pharaoh, they want blessing but not the shame that makes us worthy of receiving

God's blessing. They want blessing without consequences. Blessing without a reorientation of one's life.

Blessing without repentance, which is truly turning around. They want blessing on the way that they're going, the wide path of destruction.

And of course they want the absence of consequence for their sins. That's what blessing looks like.

Get rid of the plague, get rid of the consequences for my disobedience. That is blessing. But that kind of blessing doesn't come unless there's repentance.

And so as soon as the plague passes, he's back at it, pursuing the Hebrews once again.

He has learned, as we'll see, absolutely nothing across the ten plagues.

He, like every blind sinner in the end, will pursue their own willful ruin.

By their own hand and their own desire, they will destroy themselves. That is what

Pharaoh is doing. And the Egyptians, we read, verse 33, urge the people that they might send them out of the land in haste, for they said, we'll all be dead.

You get the sense that the tenth plague is finally broken into the societal conscience. If we allow these people to be in our midst any longer, there's no telling what calamity will fall.

Soon our whole empire will be ruined. And so they now are the ones urging the people.

Moses and Aaron find the Egyptians doing the work for them. Come on, people, we need to really hurry. Do you not have time to knead bread?

Just take the ball, throw it in your cloak, and get out of the land. And soon behind the elders and Moses and Aaron are all the

Egyptians saying, yes, you really need to hurry. Please get out of our land. Of course, we have this separation that exists between God's people and the

Egyptians. It's been a separation from the very beginning of God's judgment. Having secured

His people, God was making a difference. It's that refrain that we've read several times now.

So that the Egyptians would know I have made a difference between them and My people, says the

Lord. And we see this difference now spread out in this sort of urgency to have

God's people distant. And that speaks to us. The Egyptians, of course, urging the people away because they have a dread for the people of God.

And you'll experience that as well if you're a Christian for any length of time. You may not be able to leave the land, much less even leave the workplace, but you will not be a welcome presence to many people if you're a

Christian. There will be a dread that surrounds you. You're trying to be salt and light, and for those who are perishing, you are a stench of death.

And there's a dread that is attached to you. A rolling of the eye, I remember coming in morning after morning in that break room.

There was at least three attempts to roll their eyes, harumph and harumph. Here comes Pope Ross.

You know, come sit down and give us sharp eyebrows from the break tables. Worldly people have no liking for the converted.

And so, like the Egyptians here, they want to rush them away, put them in the corners, get them out of plain view.

And our old friendships, our old companions will often prove to us this discomfort.

The more over the years that I've grown in the Lord, the more my heart has grown toward seeking to be reconciled and be winsome and persuasive to old friends.

And at that moment where I finally have a real genuine heart to not mince words and not waste words and speak clearly and directly to their conscience and to their hearts to try to win them over to the

Lord is the very time that they don't want to return my calls or see me or be around me.

They give me fake numbers. Old friends, fake numbers. There's a discomfort.

There's a dread. The world wants to be rid of God's people. Remember, Egypt is a microcosm of this great redemptive drama.

And this is what makes church fellowship so vital for the Christian. It's what makes it so sweet, frankly, that as we grow in the

Lord, we recognize how little commonality we have with those who are not in the faith. And because of the commonality we have with those who are our brothers and sisters, we're reoriented toward the family of God and away from those who run in this flood of dissipation.

We no longer can relate to them. If you're thinking rightly, that's not a chip on your shoulder.

That's a burden for your heart. You wish you could relate to them for the sake of some friendship, but you're not willing to relate to them if it's going to compromise your stance, your lights, your convictions.

And often this is our burden as believers. We often don't know what to say, don't know how to carry out our relationships.

And if we're thrown into the midst of those relationships, ad nauseam, we'll soon lose our convictions.

We'll soon become lukewarm in our desires after the things of God. And that's why, again, church fellowship is vital.

That the primary relationships we have in this life are garnered toward those that belong to the

Lord. From that place of strength, from that place of courage, we then venture out to seek and to persuade and to win others to the

Lord. The people, of course, are happy to leave. They've been slaves now for four centuries.

They're not willing to stay a night longer. And so they do as Moses had said.

In fact, they go house to house requesting articles of silver, articles of gold, and clothing.

Most likely because slaves, if you've looked at some of the ancient Egyptian carvings, you go to Fitchburg Art Museum, they have a wonderful little

Egypt room that's, I think it's a permanent exhibit, and I think there's a free day of the month that you could go, maybe a free

Thursday, you should go. Go look in the Egypt room, look at some of the carvings, get a sense of what this scene might have looked like.

They needed clothing. They weren't fit to travel very far in the wilderness with typical slave garments.

And so the clothing is not just a luxury item, it's a necessity. Articles of gold and silver, yeah, that's probably more luxury.

But it's plunder, as God has said. So you shall plunder the Egyptians.

Plunder, of course, is an aspect of ancient warfare. So the Lord is showing it's a military victory in no uncertain terms.

This isn't just an exit, this isn't a polite withdrawal. This is warfare, and God is the victor.

God is now triumphant. So his people, therefore, like mighty warriors, plunder the enemy.

Like they were some mighty ransacking army, taking the most precious objects, silver and gold.

But notice that God's army didn't even raise a sword. They're sharing in the spoil as if they're mighty warriors, not one of them lifted a sword.

They all hunkered down as wave after wave of plague passed over them. And then quite literally, death itself passed over them by the blood of the

Lamb. And then they step out of their homes, out of this scene of devastation and judgment, as a mighty army unto

God, never having owned or lifted a sword, and what do they do? They plunder. They take all the precious objects, they take the spoil.

Do you see how God again and again and again rewards his people with the things that he has done?

And if you have ears to hear it, our plunder will be very similar. It is the meek that inherit the earth.

The spoils of the world become the treasury of God's people. Again and again we see this played out, and this will be the great event at the end of history itself.

So on the way out, the children of Israel journey from Ramses to Sukkot.

They say 600 ,000 men on foot besides children and a mixed multitude, as well as a great deal of livestock.

They travel from Ramses. Remember in chapter 1, that was the store city that they helped to build.

I'm not quite sure where Sukkot is. It's probably a border town. It may even be named by them.

That's a Hebrew term. And so there they are in that border town as they're about to leave the very border of Egypt and head into the wilderness proper.

The number is significant, of course. 600 ,000 men on foot. The term distinguishes men from children and by implication women as well.

And so conservative estimates put this at about 2 million, between perhaps 2 and 3 million.

Of course there were others that aren't counted as well that were mixed in for any manner of reason. Now the population size, according to Exodus 1,

God increases people greatly. That's what necessitated in Pharaoh's mind the massacre of the

Egyptian children in the Nile. And of course as we track along the story in the book of Numbers in chapters 1, 2, and 26, we see again this confirmation of the size of the population of Israel.

So again, thinking of 2 million people, between 2 and 3 million people perhaps, traveling out of the

Egyptian empire. That would be equivalent to rounding up the entire city of Boston, all of the population of Boston, three times over and dragging them across the

United States towards some destination. This is a massive undertaking.

No wonder it put fear in the hearts of the nations around them as we'll see in the

Song of Moses. This is now psyops, psychological warfare in the eyes of the nations.

What manner of God, what God is able to do this for His people, to make a nation mobile and bring them into a land that was not theirs to take possession.

That's the strong God. That's the true God. That's the living God. And of course, this

God has a desire not only to bring His people, but with His people to bring others who were not of the fold, so to speak.

We have the mixed multitudes. We don't know who these mixed multitudes are. Perhaps they were other enslaved populations.

Perhaps they were other Semites. We know there were many that descended from Shem in chapter 10 of Genesis.

Perhaps these were Egyptians that had intermarried. Perhaps these were proselytes that had simply come to believe in Yahweh as a result of all of this terrific activity in the land.

Perhaps it's all of the above. It's a mixed multitude. But the significant thing is this. God had made a promise to Abraham that is being fulfilled as we're about to see.

On the very day, God is fulfilling His promise to Abraham. A part of that promise to Abraham, if we not only go back to chapter 15 where this is referenced, but chapter 12 of Genesis where God makes the initial call and promise to Abraham, we're reminded that part of that promise and part of the

Abrahamic covenant was that the seed of Abraham would be a blessing to the Gentiles, would be a blessing to the whole world.

And we have that in seed form as a sort of proleptic revelation of the true exodus, the greater redemptive salvation yet to come, that the

Abrahamic promise is fulfilled and the Gentiles will have a purchase within it. The Gentiles will be included as part of this worldwide blessing in the capital

S seed of Abraham. The rationale, of course, for Passover is in view and also with it the feast of unleavened bread.

V. 39 explains once more the haste is why they left without leavened bread.

And so this sets the tone for the feast of unleavened bread that will always henceforth follow the

Passover. If you've followed along the past two weeks, the Passover, the great event of our justification in the blood of the

Lamb, followed by the great work of sanctification that flows from it. Both aspects, both works of God's grace in the life of a believer.

One that is received passively, justification. One that is pursued actively, sanctification.

If that's not crystal clear to you or if you need some encouragement in it, make sure you come to SLBC tonight.

It's one of the points, and it's going to be a very rich study about Christ being our mediator in these ways.

And so, sanctification is not something that begins apart from God's grace or apart from Christ as our mediator.

If we have any thought of that, we will never be sanctified. There's a grace that flows through the cross that bequeaths to the

Christian both the benefits of justification and sanctification. Both are received by the blood through the grace of God, and yet one is received and enjoyed entirely passively, our justification.

The other is actively worked out in our lives, our sanctification, both by the grace of our

God through the blood of our Savior. We have a summary statement beginning in verse 40.

Now the sojourn of the children of Israel who lived in Egypt was 430 years, and it came to pass at the end of the 430 years.

On that very same day, it came to pass that all the armies of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.

It is a night of solemn observance to the Lord for bringing them out of the land of Egypt. This is that night of the

Lord. A solemn observance for all the children of Israel throughout their generations.

So this concluding summary begins with a very frequent phrase in Hebrew, and it came to pass.

Whenever you're continuing narrative in the logic of Hebrew, you have this phrase all contained with the word via He.

And it came to pass. Translators find it so redundant that they rarely translate it.

I'm glad they translated it here, because it speaks again to the promise that God had made to Abraham.

It wasn't just typically carrying on the story as the story must be carried on. This is the resolution for a promise that had been made four centuries beforehand.

It came to pass. And with the Lord, it will always come to pass.

It may be 400 years or 4 ,000 years, but with the Lord, it will always come to pass with a perfect fulfillment down to the very same day.

Spurgeon uses this text as an opportunity to rail against the Arminians. That's with an

I, not an E. He had no quarrel with the Arminians. Our Arminian friends think some of the

Lord's people will never come out of Egypt. They'll be lost at the last. Ah, well, as Joseph Hart, the hymn writer, says, if one poor saint may fall away, it follows.

So may all. And none of us are safe and secure. Therefore, we do not give way to that.

All the hosts came out of Egypt. Every one of them. Not one soul was left behind.

There wasn't Frank being woken up off the cot. What's going on?

Where'd everybody go? Oh no, Frank's the one Israelite left behind in Egypt. The one that couldn't get away.

No, not one soul is left behind in bondage or in this empire of darkness.

And yet, all along, the timing was in the hands of God and the wait was very difficult for that reason.

So notice what God is broadcasting for His people in the length that it takes for the promise made to Abraham to come to fulfillment.

And the church, so often like Abraham in Genesis 15, having that dark horror in the midst of what feels like a sleep fall upon us.

And there's times in church history where there's a dark, almost nightmarish existence in the church.

How could it be? Who will deliver us? And much like the Israelites were crying out,

Lord, come! As so often, persecution breaking out. Adversaries rising up.

A great flood of martyrs. As Tertullian said, preparing the seed bed for the next generation.

So we say the timing is always in God's hand, but the wait is often difficult. The Lord, for very wise and gracious reasons, delays

His fulfillment of promises. He builds up our faith. He exposes our impatience.

He draws out our confidence in Him. Do we really trust Him? Or do we just jump from promise to result?

That can never be in the Christian life. There's some promises that God may bless you with rather quickly.

Especially when you're a new convert. When you first enter into the Kingdom of Light and you've bowed the knee to the

Lordship of Christ. He is your Savior. And you are His child adopted by the Spirit of God. And so often you ask for certain things.

So often your entrance into that Kingdom was saying, please Lord, deliver me from this. And He's pleased to answer that right away.

Then as you progress in the Christian life, you start to pray that prayer for other things. And the answer doesn't come so quickly.

And it doesn't come easily. Why is that the case? God's building your faith.

Giving you endurance. He's doing a work of grace in your life.

And He's allowing that grace to be cultivated patiently so that it may bear more fruit.

And that fruit would never come if it was always an automatic response or a set period of time.

And so He elicits the faith of His people as He's strengthening them. As He's giving them aid in such a quiet, gentle way.

He bears the burdens of His own. Timing is in God's hands, but the wait is often difficult.

And so we grow impatient. We grow anxious. We grow fearful. We begin, like so often as we'll see the

Israelites, to question God. Is He there? Will He be true? Is He slack concerning His promise?

And 2 Peter 3 says, no! He's not slack, as some men count slack. And we see it even here in Exodus 12.

At the appointed time, He will show His arm mighty to save.

In the meantime, His people pray and wait. Now this connects to me to a little phrase that I'd like to devote the rest of our time, our application this morning, to unpacking.

It's this neat little phrase that we have here in Exodus 12, 41.

It came to pass that all the armies of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.

It doesn't say people. It doesn't say children. It doesn't say sons. It doesn't just simply say the

Israelites. It says the armies of the Lord. We've seen this earlier elsewhere in Exodus twice already, and here it's rehearsed again.

A slightly different term, which would be closer to regiments or divisions, but it's a military term related to hosts or the host, saba in Hebrew, which is a military term.

It took me a long time to learn that when I'd often sing, Lord Sabaoth is His name, right?

The Lord of hosts is His name. And it's like, well, what's the Lord of hosts? The Lord of armies.

The Lord of His soldiers. And so we have this phrase here, and it's such an interesting picture of this enslaved population with women, men, children, the elderly, the crippled, the lame, the blind, the paralyzed, the leprous.

Whoever is an Israelite is part of this army. There's no screening process. There's no lining up and filling out a medical card and having a nurse run over some basics and saying,

I'm sorry, son, you're not fit for active service. With here, it's like, you're in. Well, I'm a leper and I can't walk?

Perfect. I'm a paraplegic. Come on in. We've always got room for you on the fighting force of the

Lord. There's no bar for entry if you have faith in the blood of the Lamb. And so we have this phrase, the armies of the

Lord, and I'd like to look at it in three ways. First, as we've seen all along, the Passover event, the

Unleavened Sacrifice, these are all ways that God is forming the identity of His people.

He makes it a solemn observance because it must be in the very cultural stock of who they are as God's people.

They must observe this so that it becomes a form of cultural memory, of nostalgia, and with it, identity formation.

Buzzword, very important among biblical studies, this idea of identity formation for early

Christians. I'm fascinated by the topic. How do certain metaphors and analogies and doctrines shape the identity, the self -understanding and moral obligations of the earliest believers?

Well, we have it even here in Exodus. How is God using terms and framing metaphors to shape the self -understanding and identity of His people?

And we have it in this phrase, the armies of the Lord. So there's an identity first, there's an activity second, and there's an objective third.

That's what we'll do this morning. Identity, activity, and the objective of the armies of the

Lord. First, with identity, we're called to be good soldiers in a good warfare.

Our identity, good soldiers in good warfare. 2

Timothy 2 .3, you must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

Paul connecting part of being a good soldier to the endurance of that soldier. I don't know a lot about military life.

I didn't spend as much time as I could have reviewing certain things. But one thing

I know is when soldiers are engaged in the battlefield, they don't get to wake up one morning and say to their

CO, I kind of have a sore throat today. Would it be all right if I sit this one out? They couldn't even say, you know,

I don't know if you realize this, but the trench is full of water and our socks are soaking wet. You know, there's a cold front coming in and we just don't have the supplies that are sufficient.

Can we just kind of withdraw and pull back? These are not options for soldiers on the front lines.

Whatever comes, you must endure that hardship. That's what it means to be a good soldier. Part of the endurance is in recognizing this warfare has a noble, vital cause behind it.

Those days seem to be gone to us, unfortunately. If you watch some documentary, watch Ken Burns, even going back to just the

Vietnam era, and see at large the majority of the U .S. population still having that post -World

War II level of confidence that was just beginning to break down with the Nixon, you know, debacle and Vietnam at large.

And so for the first time we have severe intrusions of public confidence and public support for the government, especially when it came to matters of war effort.

Now it's questioning. Why are we there? What are our interests?

Why should we be there? Who is this profiting? What is this gaining for us?

And there's such a cloud of confusion that I don't even think today we could imagine what it would be like to feel so unified and to feel so energized by the patriotism that would go into buying war bonds or foregoing bananas like my grandmother had to do.

And it was like the lament of her life. All those war years, she couldn't have bananas. Thinking like, your husband was overseas, you know, fighting it out and you were at home saying,

I can't believe I can't eat a banana today. But anyway, sacrifices made by all. But there was this unification that took place in the country.

We were at war. The warfare was good. There's evil abroad.

We have a just cause. And we must have the victory. Go support our boys.

Go in for the fight. Be mindful. Be useful. Be resourceful. Be helpful. When you fast forward about 30 years later and the veterans come off the plane to booze and posters of baby killers, what happened in society?

We can't even fathom of what it would be like to be engaged in good warfare that is objectively good for all involved, for soldiers to recognize what we're doing here matters.

There's a cause greater than my life at stake. And that's what it means to be a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

There is something greater than my own individual needs or wants, something greater than even my own individual life.

And I will be a good soldier in that good warfare. Paul, of course, had been around his share of soldiers.

We read between Acts 21 and 23, he's carried by a retinue of soldiers out of danger.

And then the centurion appoints a bodyguard over him with over 400 soldiers surrounding him. Can you imagine what that would have been like to be in the midst of 400

Roman soldiers marching him? And so across this time, he would have seen in very intimate ways how soldiers had a very disciplined way of life that though they had great camaraderie and a warmth of enjoyment in each other's company, there was also a severe discipline that took place within their ranks.

And that led to courage and to enduring the rigors of daily life as soldiers.

And how they could snap to with unquestioned obedience. How everything they did was done with purpose and diligence.

And then to speak of the utter loyalty, especially to the commander over them. If he said go, they went.

If he said pull back, they listened right away. They never questioned or doubted or hesitated to anything he said.

Paul must have been struck by this experience. And so much like the Lord calling his people an army,

Paul employs this metaphor to the churches that he wrote to. And even to Timothy, he says, you need to be like some of these soldiers that I've been around,

Timothy. You need to endure hardship the way that they endure hardship. You need to understand you have a good cause, something much greater than a

Greco -Roman soldier would have as their cause. Romans looked for any reason to invade and conquer another land.

Literally anything, they can make up anything and that would be a reason to go. Paul understands the real warfare. So this is part of our identity formation.

The Lord is a commander of his armies as we read at the beginning of Joshua. And we're following him as our great captain, the captain of our salvation.

That can sound tired. It can sound kind of Sunday school -ish to us. And it's a problem when we let that metaphor lose its evocative power.

I grew up singing with all of my friends, a bunch of, you know, eight and nine and 10 -year -olds.

There's maybe a couple dozen of us and we, from time to time, would get up on the stage in the sanctuary and we'd do these ridiculous motions that we would sing.

Maybe you'll know this. I may never march in the infantry, ride in the cavalry, shoot the artillery.

That was my favorite part to do that. I may never fly or the enemy, but I'm in the

Lord's army. Yes, sir. The only problem is, 30 years later, they all abandoned the

Lord's army. They all went AWOL, MIA. They abandoned their inks.

And I think so often, we don't allow the identity formation to impact us the way it should.

This is not about great risks and adventures as much as it's about the daily rigors and disciplines.

This is what it means to be a good soldier. It's not about doing something marvelous, though it may be that.

It won't be that for every single person. Going off to the distant shores of Tripoli to undertake some great work for God.

No, no, no. The metaphor is employed in 2 Timothy and in 1 Timothy as well to speak to the daily disciplines and rigors of being a soldier in the

Lord's army. I was just speaking of children's songs.

I don't know if this is non -sequitur, but I was just amazed when I came across it this week. Songs do form our identity.

It's why we sing hymns. It's why the Lord gives us the book of Psalms. Songs form our identity, our experience, our emotional comprehension.

And so we have even that. I may never march in the infantry, ride in the cavalry. I'm in the Lord's army. It's identity for me.

Well, I came across a video of a school that was about to start, and this is the opening song that they sing at this school session.

Good morning. I'm glad you're here today. Good morning. Let's stand up tall and say,

I am awesome. I am smart. I can learn anything I want. I'm in control. I like myself, and so does everyone else.

Good morning. Let's make it a good day. If you want to develop a little pharaoh, sing that song every morning.

That's how you get that result. I'm awesome. I'm smart. I'm in control. I like myself. So does everyone else.

Yikes. Why are we in the mess that we are today, culturally speaking? For reasons like that.

Identity formation. The truth is, we are soldiers. Like good soldiers, being engaged in good warfare, the most significant thing is direct and immediate obedience to all the

Lord has commanded us, without question or hesitation, trusting in His wise counsel,

His ultimate purpose. We may not know the battle plans, and we don't need to always know the battle plans.

We just need to follow the orders He puts before us, the daily rigors and disciplines of being a soldier.

This is normative for a church. But so often, because we've allowed the metaphor of being in the

Lord's army to dissolve, we've even lost with it the understanding of the church being at war.

And so many churches, I put that in scare quotes now, put the rainbow flags out front and speak, peace, peace, when there is no peace.

They act as though there is no war. In fact, when we come and we say, don't you see something at odds with the word of God and what you're practicing and professing?

They say, be gone, you troublers of Israel. Christianity and the church in this nation would be so much healthier without you.

Just like always, God's true prophets being shunned away from the levers of power and influence.

And so with it, they don't think there's war. They're not engaged in warfare. In fact, they're speaking peace, and they think we're the ones preventing it.

The church may never understand anything other. We are at war. We sing it, mid toil and tribulation and tumult of her war.

The church is at war. It always has been at war, as our brother reminded us from Revelation chapter 12.

And this is why we must bear up the armor of God, as Paul himself says in Ephesians 6.

We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of darkness of this age, spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Therefore, take up the whole armor of God. They do excavations constantly.

Only about a third of the ruin of Pompeii is excavated. And I love it. Usually every other week or so,

I just follow excavation reports. I'm so fascinated by it. And they often will recover certain articles from veterans that had settled into Pompeii.

And so they never find the armor on the body. You know how they developed a technique of pouring plaster into the hollow parts of the solidified ash.

And so they're able to make a life cast of a victim's last moments. But when they recover swords and breastplates and shields, they're always just tucked away in corners of the room or closets of the villa because they weren't actively engaged in warfare.

There's no reason to wear your armor unless you're actively engaged in warfare. And so many

Christians understand, yeah, in some sense I'm a soldier, but I'm more like a soldier in the villa. And I keep my armor scattered about.

If things get really dicey, I'll be able to put it on. And Paul says, no, no, you don't understand. You're engaged in warfare as we speak.

And therefore, you must take up the whole armor of God. You're utterly vulnerable to attack unless you recognize that you're engaged in battle.

Only soldiers wear armor, and only when they're engaged in warfare. And that is who we are, and that is what we are engaged with.

A brother and I were talking about, I forget where it came from, but we were talking about boots.

It was lunch fellowship some weeks ago. We were talking about boots. And I reminisced on how when I got home from school, I had my whole G .I.

Joe phase. When I got home from school, much to the chagrin of my sister, I would put on my BDUs, and I would lace up these jungle combat boots.

And they were glorious. Steel toe, they were like three sizes too big for my feet, which added to the effect.

And it was like, the BDUs were cool, the fatigues were nice, but it's when I put on those boots and I stood up, it was just like,

I felt powerful. And it was like, I need to go kick something down. I'd go in the backyard and kick down cinder blocks or something.

You know, you put it on and you want to use it. You feel powerful. And that's what it's like when you put on the armor of God.

It's because you're putting it on that you want to use it. It's empowering to you.

You're not wearing it for nothing. When you see how effective it is, it makes you more enamored with it, more desirous to put it to good use.

And so that is part of being a good soldier, engaged in good warfare. The daily discipline, the daily rigors, enduring the hardships, putting on the armor in order to use it.

So that as you use it, you understand just how effective it is. Secondly, the activity.

So if that was identity formation, the activity of being in the army of the

Lord. And with that I would say simply this, we are to be engaged, not entangled.

We are to be engaged, not entangled. As we've said, more than anything,

Paul uses the metaphor of soldier to speak to the endurance of a Christian. And he says in that same passage, you therefore must endure hardship.

As a good soldier of Jesus Christ, no one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life.

He wants to please the One who enlisted him as a soldier. So notice that Paul says if you're engaged in warfare, you will not entangle yourself in the affairs of this life.

The reverse of that, if you are entangled in the affairs of this life, you are failing to engage in the battle.

You cannot have it both ways. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. Much to the disappointment of Marie Antoinette.

There's more than one way to be entangled. There's more than one way to be entangled. Which is to say there's more than one way of not engaging in the battle as a believer.

Most basically, you may see the opposition. You may see the battle line.

You may know the fight, but refuse to engage. You refuse to fight. You line up with all the other

Israelites and day by day, Goliath stomps across the no man's zone and you just cower at the door of your tent.

You're waiting for David to come and bail you out. You don't know it, but it's true.

The Israelite army lined up, refusing to fight. Being mocked, being taunted, they understand what's in front of them, but they refuse to engage.

There's many ways that the church today could be guilty of this very thing. That we may see the battle line formed in front of us, but we completely turn our attention to other things.

So instead of being soldiers that have understood we are girded and prepared and armored for the sake of this fight, this battle, that in God's timing and providence

He has seen fit to put directly in front of us, yet we're going to speak to the situation in our own tents.

We're going to speak to the mess kitchen. We're going to speak to in -house matters. Because we don't want to fight.

And it's so easy for a preacher to get up in a pulpit and spend the whole time railing against the sins of the

Christian church. And never even send an arrow against the battle line and the opposition that is an abomination in the sight of God.

That's a big problem here in North America. A huge problem. Because Christians don't deny the church has warts, has wrinkles, has blemishes.

But if we exhale and exhaust all of the influence of God's word toward addressing our own issues, rather than actually advancing in the battle, fighting the good fight, then it's no wonder that the church is constantly defeated and refuses to engage.

Luther said this, if I profess with the loudest voice and the clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except that little point which the world and the devil are at the moment attacking,

I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I am professing Christ, because it is where the battle rages that the loyalty of the soldier is proven.

It is where the battle is fought that the ranks are shown to be loyal. Of course, we can accurately and honestly and truthfully and maybe even necessarily address all manner of other things, but if we refuse as Christians to engage in the battle that is in front of us, then we are not loyal to the commander.

We are not following after the captain. We are not fighting the good fight.

We are not good soldiers, because we are not engaged in the good warfare. And this is how a church becomes a dark lampstand, a negative lampstand.

False prophets claiming peace when there's no peace, rather than bearing testimony to the only peace that there is, the peace that the gospel brings, they would rather make peace with the world and the flesh and the devil, and so they have it.

And if you don't know, that's where we're all heading, it seems, at least for the moment. I don't want to be labeled as Westboro Baptist Church, but I don't really have a choice in the matter, do

I? Not if I stand on the word of God. And if I spend all my time trying to distance myself from that poor version and paper man of what a church ought to be and how evangelism and discipleship ought to work, if I spend my whole time trying to say, no,

I'm not really like that, and trying to appease and accustom, I may very well not engage. Well, for all that they've got messed up, they've at least got this right, there is something that's abominable in the eyes of God.

And so we have to be prepared, brothers and sisters, to be good soldiers in this very way. There's nothing new under the sun.

Another way that we become untangled, which is to say we will not engage in the fight, is we're unable to see the enemy.

Unable to see the enemy. Of course, the enemy is ultimately fueled by this serpentine power.

It's the power of darkness. Principalities and powers, as we saw in Ephesians 6. And so for that very reason, the enemy is serpent -like.

It's stealth, hard to detect. It's not just against us in the obvious Goliath -like way, it's also amidst us like a prowling lion seeking whom he may devour.

Lions hunt in stealth. You don't know that you're about to be devoured until you're about to be devoured.

That's how a lion hunts. In Cyprian, all the way back in the 3rd century, in his own experience, he said, it's not persecution alone we ought to fear.

It's not those forces that in open warfare range abroad to overthrow and defeat the people of God.

It's easy enough to be on one's guard when the danger is obvious. One can stir up courage for the fight when the enemy shows himself in true colors.

There's the enemy, plain as day, standing in front of us. We can size each other up and we can prepare to fight.

But Cyprian says there's more need to fear and beware of an enemy that creeps in secretly when he beguiles us by a show of peace and then takes hidden approaches, which is why we call him serpent.

Those whom he has failed to keep in the blindness of their own pagan ways, he'll lead them up into a new delusion.

He'll snatch people away from within the church herself. And while they think that they're coming close to the light, he plunges them unexpectedly into darkness of another kind.

They still call themselves Christian, but they have abandoned the gospel of Christ. They have abandoned observing

His law. Though walking in darkness, they think they're enjoying the light. He didn't have a word for it then, but the word for that description now is exvangelical.

Oh, I grew up in a very strict environment, and it just led me away from God, but now

I have found God, and I realize it's not with the church and that God is just loving.

And that's what really speaks to me. I don't really focus on, you know, the word because that's just what men wrote.

It's just I kind of know the Lord speaks to me. I guess I'm an exvangelical, and I'm closer to God than ever before.

You're deluded in an entirely new darkness. Though walking in darkness,

Cyprian says 2 ,000 years ago, they think they still enjoy the light.

Another way that we can refuse to engage or become entangled is we fight as mere flesh and blood as if it were against flesh and blood.

We may fight. Good on us. We're fighting. But we do it like a politician would have us do it.

Flesh and blood against flesh and blood. Numbers and demographies and statistics and movements, buzzwords and banners and rallies.

That is not how God engages in battle. And so we fight like flesh and blood. We fight like the world.

Though Jesus says, my kingdom's not of this world. These things don't operate in this way. When you're in my army, we fight not with flesh and blood, not against flesh and blood, not with swords, but rather with light and with truth, with righteousness, with peace.

We don't wrestle against flesh and blood. We don't struggle against people in that way.

We also don't struggle in isolation. We don't struggle on our own as mere people engaged in some warfare who knows how it will end.

We're engaged in the warfare of the Lord. God was already engaging in combat in Egypt.

He just drew His armies into the fight. And so it is today. The risen King has sent us forth to war.

We sang it earlier. The Son of God goes forth to war. And when

He enlists us, we're brought into this fight not as mere flesh and blood, but we're given

His Holy Spirit. We don't fight against flesh and blood.

We fight against powers and principalities. Something holy out of our league and level, out of our imagination, unless we had the

Holy Spirit, unless we were united to Christ. Demons tremble at our prayer life, as pitiful as it is.

They tremble at it. Not because of us. We're mere flesh and blood, but because of who we're united to.

That's why John Knox could go, because he was a man of prayer, and stand before the Queen and make her tremble.

We don't realize the power that we have because we think so little of our union and the spiritual reality of our warfare.

We're like a well -trained military force that refuses to fight for this very reason.

We think the enemy's always bigger, stronger than us somehow. We forget who's with us, who's fighting for us, who's actually going to war, and we're only following in his train.

That's an absolute comfort if our enemy is the world, the flesh, and the devil. To accomplish this means we must have the

Word of God and the Spirit of God and the body of Christ. And that is what we have at our disposal.

Every resource we could possibly need to face the adversary. Which means we can not give in to the lies of the father of lies who will always say you're weak.

Of course you're stumbling, you're flesh and blood. But if by the

Spirit of God you put to death the sins of the flesh, you will live.

Look at Pharaoh. This is how Satan works, right? Those that are in bondage to him, he deludes.

They think they're a lot stronger than they are. And those that have been freed from his bondage, he deludes to think they're much weaker than they are.

So Pharaoh thinks he's mighty and he's strong and everything's in his control. He grew up singing I'm awesome,

I'm in control. But the reality is Satan's just duped him. He's powerless.

He's a peon, a molecule of dust on the scales of history never to be remembered except for Exodus.

But here we are as Christians and we think we're so profoundly weak because we're giving in to the lies of the enemy.

Saigon Sally. Baghdad Bill. Or Bob was it? The psyops that say you're weak.

I remember watching that with the 2001 invasion as we're looking for Saddam and there's

Baghdad Bob. Oh, the 3rd Regiment has the Marines surrounded. You know, we've liberated the city.

Meanwhile, we're like steamrolling everything. That's exactly what it's like to be a

Christian. The psychological warfare. We feel so defeated, so profoundly weak, so wholly unable.

We double down with conviction and guilt and we think we have no power to stand. We think we're so much weaker than we really are.

Do you not know that you're united to the Son of God? That the Spirit of God entwels you?

That is untold power. Because of His blood,

His holiness, His righteousness, His presence, His light, His glory. And all of that is for you.

Thomas Watson says it so well, Satan does not tempt God's children because they have sin in them, but because they have grace in them.

The reason the warfare is so intense is not because you're a sinner just as awful and corrupted as the rest.

No, it's because you have a principle of grace working in your life and that attracts all of the arrows of the enemy.

He's moving His artillery to you because you have grace empowering your life. We do not struggle against flesh and blood.

We do not struggle alone. We don't even cobble together as a church and try to work up some courage or ability amongst ourselves.

We are empowered in Christ. We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

One other thing about that. It puts all of the emphasis on the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer.

Because you will fight as mere flesh and blood if you're devoid of the Spirit. One of the ways you may grieve or quench or void yourself of the activity of the

Holy Spirit is by refusing to keep in step with the Holy Spirit. So here is how we keep in step with the

Holy Spirit. We do so as good soldiers engaged in good warfare. You have the great translation, it's certainly fitting from Galatians 5 .25,

walk in the Spirit. Walk. But the Greek verb there, stoiko, it could just as easily be translated march.

March. This isn't just casual walking like we so often do. I'm going to walk in the

Spirit today. I'm getting a little tired, I might take a break. You can imagine no legionary would be allowed to walk in that way.

The Roman Empire had these tremendous works of engineering.

And it's still standing and functioning today as they did. You can still use their road systems and their water systems.

One of the reasons they developed road was not just for comfort, it was for military presence. If there was some tension in one of the far reaches of the empire, you wanted to get legions to that place of tension quickly.

And how did you do that? You had these people marching in order. There was a set pattern that was kept throughout the entirety of that journey.

Until they camped later that night, no one could break that pace. It wasn't just, as you see fit, we'll all get there in the end.

It was keeping in step, marching with military rigidity. And that, I think, is a better picture of how we are to walk in the

Spirit. This isn't a sort of casual floating about. This is regimented marching in the

Holy Spirit. This is what it means to keep in step with Him. He's going on to battle.

He's going forth to conquer. The kingdom is being advanced. And you will not be able to do that if you do not march with Him.

So the Christian life, this heated battle against the world, the flesh, the devil, it's not for the faint of heart.

Just like joining the military is not for the faint of heart. For all my years as a

GI Joe kid, I wisened up eventually and was like, I don't think I could hang with that lifestyle. I don't think

I would pass muster. But spiritually speaking, we fight or we die.

Spiritually speaking. We conquer or we are conquered. Now, of course, the victory is promised just as the

Exodus was promised to the people of God. It's promised. It's assured. One of the great illustrations that was famously used by Oscar Kuhlman, I believe

I've shared it before, but maybe it's new to some here. Oscar Kuhlman, who lived through this in the late 40s, the mid 40s, he was connecting the allied invasion of Normandy at D -Day,

June 6, 1944. And how that was, if it was a successful operation, it was just a mere matter of time.

If we could secure a beachhead and a foothold in Southern Europe, whatever battles would yet come, guaranteed victory was in sight.

Now we can funnel all of our troops, all of our resources, this endless train of resources into the fight against an enemy that was hanging on to young boys and old men and was losing equipment and fuel and was completely scattered.

And so we're just pressing them back and back and back toward Germany. Any military strategist, including

Hitler's own generals, knew this was a losing battle, it was time to surrender. Some of them tried to actually force that surrender.

And so Oscar Kuhlman looked at that and he said, here's an analogy of the Christian life. The battle that had to be won, the decisive battle,

D -Day, that was the cross. The cross was the decisive battle and it has been won.

We have been saved by the blood of the Lamb. But that does not mean now we're transported without fight, without activity into that final victory.

Now the fight continues. The victory, however, is assured. V -Day is guaranteed if we but continue forward.

Yes, the battle of Bulge will be there, but the forces are diminished and diminishing. We go forth as mighty conquerors.

And so the Christian, Kuhlman said, is living a life between D -Day and V -Day, between the decisive battle having been won and the mop -up operation until we get to victory.

That's the difference that the cross makes in this engagement. We conquer under the sign of the cross in greater ways than Constantine could have ever imagined.

So we're engaged, but we're not entangled. Lastly, we spoke of identity.

We spoke of activity. Lastly, the objective. The objective. Every army has its missions, and every mission has an objective.

Well, we start, of course, with our identity as good soldiers. We're not our own. We're bought with a price.

Therefore, we glorify God with our bodies, our spirits, which belong to him, like the Israelites. We have now been separated from the world.

We no longer dwell in the bondage of the land of enslavement, the land of Egypt. But remember that they had one object in view.

Abraham had one object in view. That object was not,

I'm going to, for 400 years, allow your seed to be in bondage, but I will take them out from that land.

That wasn't the object. The object is what corresponds to that initial call in chapter 12, which is then given by way of covenant in 15, reaffirmed in 17, the very hope of not only

Abraham, but Isaac, and Jacob, and even Joseph. What is the objective?

Come out of the land, come out of Ur for Abraham, come out of Egypt for the

Israelites, come out of the land, and I will take you into a land that I will give to you.

So the objective is the promised land. The objective is a dwelling place as God's people, with God himself.

The objective is a new heavens and earth, a new Eden where we are restored to the presence of God.

That is the objective for every good Christian soldier. That's what the victory brings.

A restored dwelling place with God in a land that is ours forever.

Israel had it as a type and a shadow. It's held as a prospect before us of something sure, of something substantial.

And with single -minded devotion, we keep our eyes on that objective. There's much to say about engagement in this life.

One of the ways we can be entangled with the affairs of this life is we lose sight of that objective. Unlike Paul in Philippians 4, we don't want to be caught up with Christ.

It's not gain to us to be with Him. There is one objective for the soldier.

And it's not just victory. It's what victory brings about. Victory for the soldier means

I can finally be home. I can finally no longer have to fight.

I can finally be surrounded with my people and the ones that I love and put away my sword and my shield and my armor and I never have to fight again.

And for the Christian, that is our objective because this whole life, this whole walk is a struggle against the world and against our flesh and against an enemy that prowls around and seeks to devour, against the fiery darts that he launches at us without cessation.

And we're longing for the day when that battle is ended forever. Or with our people and more importantly with our

God forever. That is what it means to be in the army of the

Lamb. And the army of the Lamb, their grand object is to bring about this kingdom.

Advancing, however slowly but ever surely, advancing this kingdom because the gates of hell, the fortifications of Egypt cannot withstand it until that kingdom is consummated and fully realized and the glory of the

Lord covers the earth like waters cover the sea. So what of the church?

As the hymn says, crowns and thrones may perish, kingdoms rise and wane, but the church of Jesus constant will remain.

Gates of hell can never against that church prevail. Why? We have

God's own promise and she shall prevail. That's all the

Israelites had, brothers and sisters, for four centuries. They had God's own promise that they would one day be brought out.

One day be taken to a land that would be given to them. That is our promise. However long the centuries may be, however hard the fight may come, that is our promise and it cannot fail.

It will come to pass. What of the believer? You've read, perhaps,

Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Spurgeon read it over a hundred times in his own life. And when it came to this text from Exodus chapter 12, he used it as an image.

He said, I believe that the ascent to heaven is still as Bunyan described it. Perhaps you've seen this story, maybe even seen it illustrated.

I have a couple of illustrated editions of Pilgrim's Progress and it's always kind of a scary scene. There's all these fearful pilgrims and they're at the very end.

But there's this staircase to glory in between where they stand after that long journey and the glory, the luminance that is at the end of that staircase.

There's all these men of war with clubs and swords between them. A gauntlet of horror.

And Spurgeon says, I believe that the ascent to heaven, the Christian's journey toward the promised land is like a staircase, as Bunyan described it, every step of which needs to be fought for.

Every step fought for. Every step. He had heard sweet singers on the roof of that palace, what was ahead, singing, come in, come in, eternal glory thou shalt win.

And many around him had a mind to enter into that eternal glory, but the doorway stood with a band of warlike men, drawn swords to wound and to kill anyone who ventured near.

Therefore, many who would have liked to have walked on the top of that palace come to that glory.

They did not care for so dangerous an enterprise. As great as that would be, it's going to cost too much and I'm not willing to fight against that to get there.

They desired the end, but not the way to it. But at last, there came one with a determined countenance, and he said to the writer with the ink hoard at his side, set down my name, sir.

And when his name was duly recorded, he drew his sword, and he rushed into those armed men with all of his might, and it was a fierce conflict.

He meant to conquer or die. And he conquered. He cut a lane through the enemy, and by and by, he too was heard singing, come in, come in, eternal glory, thou shalt win.

This is what Spurgeon says of that scene. By conflict throughout your whole life, you will come to your rest.

There is no other way. You cannot go around some back door. You cannot enter into heaven by secret.

You must fight if you would reign. You must fight if you would reign.

What does that mean for the church? Against all the power of Satan, against however fierce the band of warlike men may be in this life, the church will ultimately prove invincible.

Because she holds as something precious within her the promise of God Himself, stands belted around with the truth of God.

And on this rests her unshaking hope. We can grow discouraged at times when we think about the church at large.

We cling to this promise as well. We may be surrounded in our own day with many Hebrew foremen that are saying it would be better if Moses never came.

But we need to remember what God has promised. Mid toil and tribulation and tumult of her war, she awaits, she fights for the consummation of peace forevermore.

Till with the vision glorious, her longing eyes are blessed, and the great church victorious shall be the church at rest.

What about for the believer? Soon the battle will be over.

Soon. The harder you fight, the quicker it will seem to you.

It will not be long now, however old you are, it will not be long in the grand scheme of things the way that years become like months and months become like days.

It will not be long before the battle is over. And for you as a believer this morning, that means a day is fixed when you will no longer experience temptation.

No longer be filled with dread from accusation. No longer fear confrontation. No longer have any dominating influence in you or upon you.

Your warfare will be over. You will embrace your commander, your Savior, the triumphator,

Jesus Christ himself. And you will leave the battlefield of this life with the victor's crown on your head.

And you will cast that crown before his feet and say all glory to the Lamb who was slain.

The battle is almost over. Is that not music to your ears? We can't relate to the persecuted church as much as perhaps we could.

It must be sweet music to their ears. It must be. But if you're fighting the good fight even in your own flesh, brother or sister, let that be music to your ears.

Keep fighting. The battle will be over soon. You'll never have to fight again. So don't give up now.

Don't give up when you've already charged halfway through the warlike men. Don't let the momentum die out when the end of your fight is within sight.

Don't abandon when you've nearly taken the hill. The battle is almost over.

Identity, you're a soldier. Activity, you're engaged in the good fight.

And your objective is nothing less than the dwelling place of God where warfare will never be known again.

We are, brothers and sisters, the church militant, longing to be the church triumphant.

But as we long, let us be the church militant. Let us be the armies of the Lamb. Let us go forth conquering in His train.

Let us follow after His own victory. William Gernal, who wrote the book on the

Ephesians 6 armor, the Christian incomplete armor. It would be quite an undertaking to get through that massive dictionary -sized study, but it would be worth your time.

William Gernal said, the strength of the commander lies in his troops.

Think of an army. What is George S. Patton? What is Norman Schwarzkopf? What is

David Petraeus? They're just men. Their strength lies in their troops. But he says, in the

Lord's army, all the strength of the troops lies in their commander. All of our strength, all of our might, all of our hope is bound up in Him.

And if He is wielding His power, if He is giving His Spirit on our behalf, then truly, we have a profound strength provided we do not rely upon ourselves and we rely wholly on Him.

We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

Amen? Let's pray. Father, thank

You for Your Word. These marching orders that You give us each week, they fill us with new confidence, new strength, new desire.

They expose our weakness, our indolence, our sloth. Let each believer here be a good soldier, fighting the good fight of faith.

For those that are downtrodden, discouraged, despairing, Lord, strengthen them with Your might. Let them break off those darts of accusation, those lies upon their shields from the enemy.

Give them Your power, Lord, that they may have power. Show them the power of the conquering

One who conquers by His own blood. Lord, for those who are arrogant, haughty, high -minded, standing, not aware that they're about to fall, may they be meek and humble and recognize that Your army is not like an army of the world, for Your kingdom is not like a kingdom of the world.

May we recognize that it's through humility and meekness that we inherit, that we plunder and spoil. Lord, if there's unbeliever present here this morning, won't

You conquer them, enlist them into this fight? Save their soul from the bondage of darkness.

Put them on the path, on this marching train toward glory and a new heavens and a new earth.

And Lord, for all of us, may we continue to fight, fight harder than we have, knowing that the battle is nearly won.