Oh the Unacknowledged Battle

Oh the Unacknowledged Battle

By David Brenneman

Oh that unacknowledged battle that we fight....and probably don't even realize we are fighting.  It's often not easy to stand with truth when others have not seen it yet.  It's harder still to speak the truth when others do not want to hear it.  What's hardest of all is seeing a battle that others refuse to acknowledge exists.

Was looking at the headlines again this morning before writing..and am only in the beginning chapters of Exodus.  It's amazing the way the people were with Moses and Aaron.  The way they constantly grumbled an complained quite often right after the Lord provided for them.  He was teaching them His ordinances and His statutes and they kept on keeping on with honestly wanting another task master like they had in Egypt.  Look later in their story and you eventually see them rejecting the Lord as their King and demanding to have a king like the other nations of the world.  The Lord Jesus told Moses not to take it personally that they had not rejected Moses, they had rejected the Lord as their king.  So that's where Saul came from.  Saul became a great disappointment but in the long run his dealings with David actually helped David become a great King.  Much as the terrible things that Joseph went through became training for when he would be lifted up to rule over the affairs of Egypt.

We indeed wrestle/fight not against flesh and bood.  We fight ideologies, we fight against theories, we fight against the thoughts and intentions in a spiritual world that overlay's our own physical world.  See it in the headlines of someone who so mutiliated his body to look like an alien that he wonders why even others 'discriminate' against him.  Take one look and you really see a demon possessed person.  God would never, ever, direct anyone to do such things to his or her body.  Still others I see in the headlines are of the still hot topic of abortion.  Go back several thousand years.  We have records of at least 1 Pharaoh who wanted all male babies murdered.  That was of Satan.  We go ahead a few thousand years to Herod who also wanted all males under a certain age killed.  As a meme I read again had said "same demons, different government" when it comes to such things.

It's not easy being positive in a very much negative, dark, world.  Which this world is.  The only lights in this world are those who have Jesus as their Savior.  All the rest of this world is immersed in darkness. Consider a night view from space.  Very similar in nature are the points of light in this darkness we call daily living.

In the beginning of the book of John it's written that people loved the darkness rather than the light for their deeds were evil.  We're warned later on in the New Testament to beware of those who call good evil and evil good.  These are warnings of how inseparable, at the time being, the physical is from the spiritual.

Our hardest days are going to be on how to find a way to be close to God when things aren't going well.  I find myself praying on the way to work, quite often on the way home, through out the day at times when there's both reason and a moment to take that time.  It's not easy when those you work with are going through things themselves and they aren't looking for help through Jesus.  

"Trust and Obey" was attributed to John H. Sammis in 1887.  It's quite often one of my 'go-to' hymns when things aren't quite going right.

"When I walk with the Lord, in the light of his word, what a glory he sheds on our way!

While we do his good will, he abides with us still, and with all who will trust and obey.

Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

Not a burden we bear, not a sorrow we share, but our toil he doth richly repay,

not a grief or a loss, not a frown or a cross, but is blest if we trust and obey

Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

But we can never can prove the delights of his love until all on the altar we lay;

for the favor he shows, for the joy he bestows, are for them who will trust and oby.

Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

Then in fellowship sweet we will sit at his feet, or we'll walk by this side in the way.

what he says we will do, where he sends we will go; never fear only trust and obey.

Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey."

We are indeed living in some hard times spiritually.  Many don't see or want to acknowledge the real battles that they face each day.   They would much rather have their head in the sand than to realize what's truly going on.  Many go to great lengths to avoid conflict by way of willful ignorance.  Choosing not to acknowledge what their eyes and ears tell and show them.  Spiritual warfare knows no separation between the personal and the public life.  It knows no separation between church and state.  It knows no separation at all.  

We miss out on what God's doing when we choose to ignore the battle and thereby not put on the whole armor of God because we choose to see no need to wear it...and are actually surprised when we get wounded?  

It's God's will for our sanctification...that is our becoming more like Christ.  I don't go to work and do what I do for the image of the company.  My work is done in accordance with Colossians 3:23-24.  We have things to be done each day that the Lord gives us to do.  We do them to the best of our ability in Christ Jesus as unto the Lord Himself.  Others likely aren't going to get that who are not in Christ and are not saved.  Yet it's those who are in Christ that sometimes they come to in order to seek God's favor.

We indeed are all in a war, a war that's been going on since before mankind was created by God.  The closer to Christ people become the more intense the warfare.  Unless sent there by God, the same demons are here today that were around when Jesus walked the earth, the same that were here when evil was so rampant that God called for a global flood to wipe out humanity save 8 people.  Demons know how to manipulate people, how to influence people, how to organize people, to do Satan's will and not God's Will.  No demon or Satan cares at all who goes to Hell upon dying.  He just doesn't want what God wants, which is to see everyone come to the knowledge of salvation in Christ Jesus.  Why do governments condone the killing of babies?  The answer is this: "Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me; but whover causes one of these little ones who believes in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of it's stumbling blocks! For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes! (Matthew 18:4-7 NASB) "See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven continually see the face of My Father who is in heaven." (Matthew 18:10-11 NASB). "So it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones perish." (Matthew 18:14 NASB).

The abortion issue is just but one.  The mutilating of genders, of even thoughts and perceptions, evil is seen only by those who recognize it for what it is who do not have their heads in the sand hoping for better.  It's a war.  The battle, as the Bible says, belongs to the Lord.  Nobody will ever cause even one part of His Word not to come true.  Not Satan, not his demons, not me, not you.  At some point in the near future, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.  Nobody's going to care who had the most toys, the most this or the most that.  Nobody's going to care about their vacations or their troubles in life when they face Jesus.  When He separates the believing from the unbelieving all anyone will care about is His verdict because it's unchangeable at that point.  Everyone's "But Lord!" who didn't have a real relationship with Jesus will be dismissed as guilty.  Everyone who has lived long enough to know good from evil has a choice to make.  

I don't always get life right in God's eyes.  I ask for His forgiveness and try to move on.  Satan and his demons love the rear view mirror way of driving.  Focus on that and not what's coming.  He loves to remind us of our past.  Of how we're failing today.  We get caught up in an endless circle if we dwell on what we shouldn't.  When the world was the way it was in Jesus's day, even He often got away and spent time with His Father.  If Jesus did it, needed it, we can hardly do any less.  Pray on, pray over, pray through life.  Choose your battles because you will face them if you acknowledge them in time.  Not every battle you are invited to is yours to fight.  Many are for the Lord to fight and not you.  Insisting on a battle isn't a good thing either.  We indeed will get encouraged to jump into a battle that the Lord isn't wanting us to fight.  Pray for wisdom in those cases. 

So when you go out into the world realize that the truth is we have to be ready for what comes when it comes.  We have an enemy who cares not if we go to Hell, but does NOT want us to go to Heaven.  He does NOT want God's Will to be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.  He cares not what we do for ourselves as long as it does not go with our sanctification in Christ Jesus.  He wants us to put what the world wants ahead of what God wants.  He will never be overt about it.  He'll get you to choose to do it instead.  Be careful!  As Paul said to Timothy, fight the good fight, finish the race.