Spiritual Warfare

Driving a Stake Through the Heart of “Christian” Nihilism

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Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.”
—Mark 10:27

Read that verse again. Now I want to ask a question: Is it true?

If any of us had to think even a split second about the answer, then something’s wrong. If any of us pondered for the briefest of moments a situation too impossible, then something’s wrong.

I can tell you with a straight face that something’s wrong with us American Christians. Winston Churchill said it...And that something is that we do not believe in our heart of hearts that all things are possible with God.

Frankly, I’m sick of fellow believers telling me what is and what is not possible. I’ve had it with Christians telling me, “Well, that’s just the way it is.”

If anything is “just the way it is,” then it’s that way because you and I don’t have faith. Period.

Folks, there’s a heckuva lot of nihilism out there masked as “practical” Christianity. Plenty of “mature Christians” will attempt to calm you down when you see something wrong and start asking why Christians in whom the Living God of the Universe dwells can’t tackle that thing and make it right.

Does anyone here think the Apostle Paul looked at Rome and said, “I think I’ll go someplace easier to evangelize”–anyone?

Look, all this naysaying talk comes down to one thing: unbelief.

One of my favorite quotes by the late revivalist Leonard Ravenhill went something like this:

One of these days, someone’s going to open this Bible, read it, and truly believe it, and then we’re all going to be ashamed.

I get a little fed up with people calling me a utopian. You know what I am? I’m someone who believes that nothing is impossible with God. I plead the same w0rds as the three Hebrews:

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”
—Daniel 3:16-18

Even if He doesn’t, I’m still believing that He will. Because nothing is impossible for Him. And I simply will not bend my knee to another idol of unbelief. Our churches in America are filled to the rafters with that idol, and I’m sick of encountering it everywhere I look.

This world is filled with far too many people who say_____________ can’t be done. Considering the times we live in, we Christians simply cannot fall in with that crowd. Yet how easy it is to do:

We may believe that God can save a hardened old curmudgeon of a sinner,  yet we resign ourselves to thinking that He can’t heal someone of cancer.

We may believe that God worked in the lives of the patriarchs, yet we resign ourselves to thinking that He can’t work in our lives today.

We may believe that God can lead a nation of people through the parted waters of a sea,  yet we resign ourselves to thinking that He can’t fix a broken socio-economic system.

We may believe that God came in the flesh and fed five thousand with a handful of loaves and fish, yet we resign ourselves to thinking that He may not come through with our daily bread.

I don’t want to hear what God can’t do coming off the lips of anyone who claims to be a Christian.

My God can do anything. Why can’t yours?

Somnambula

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Last Friday, I lay with my mouth wide while she picked at my teeth with the pointy wand of stainless. She matched my look with her own yawn. “Been doing that a lot lately,” the hygienist said.

“Me, too.”

Couldn’t tell you why exactly. I’ve fallen asleep sitting upright at least twice in the last week. Can’t remember that ever happening. Nap and Dan don’t often schmooze in the same sentence. I think my reluctance to let the Sandman dance on my widdle head has something to do with this ominous verse:

A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.
—Proverbs 6:10-11

Whoa. Harsh, context or not.

But then, I can’t help myself  on naptime of late.

I’m not the only one, I think. Seems like a lot of people have been struggling to stay awake. It’s as if a collective blanket of snooze has dropped over southern Ohio. Maybe everyone is simply bored to tears with cold, gray skies.

I think it’s something else, though. I think that the global stress of the last six months has taken root in our psyches. The anxiety of earlier days has burned through its wick and left us all spent.

As one who lived through the Carter Administration, albeit just barely, I remember a dusty word bandied about in those days: malaise.

Malaise has once again crept into the American soul and its body politic. Can you not stay awake even one hour?Malaise coupled with resignation. We sit at home helpless to make a difference in what is going on around us. We turned the country over to naïfs lacking in genuine Christian thought, so now we can sleep, oblivious, while they plunder.

What I want to know is this: We celebrated Lincoln last month, but how is it that no one today is as brave as that dead president so as to call for a national day of prayer and repentance? Isn’t that what this country truly needs?

If you want to answer that question, do so quietly. Who knows? I just might be sleeping.

The Hell Birds

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On Friday, I attended a Bible study led by a friend who comments here from time to time. This friend knows the Scriptures because he dedicates himself not just to reading but to comprehending all their rich meaning.

The text covered Genesis 15. This section caught my attention:

And [the LORD] brought [Abram] outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness. And he said to him, “I am the LORD who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” But he said, “O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
—Genesis 15:5-11

The Holy Spirit spoke to me powerfully while reading this, the kind of kick in the head,  “sit up and pay attention, son” shaking that led me to understand that if no one commented on the part of the passage that drew my attention, then I had to—or else I’d explode. That’s how it felt.

Fortunately, my friend ably covered the topic for me.

In this classic passage that all of us know, God makes a covenant with Abram concerning an heir and the numberless nature of the man’s descendents. Abram believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. So God makes a covenant with Abram, tells him how the necessary covenantal sacrifice must be prepared, and Abram obeys.

Then something happens to the offering:

And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

That passage gripped me.

Here was Abram in the midst of this most important covenant with God. He’d been obedient and done what God asked. He carried out the task of butchering the sacrifice as he’d been told.

'The Crow' by KessiyeAnd the birds of prey descended to snatch away his offering to God, threatening the blessing.

In Leviticus 11:13-19, God pronounces these same birds unclean.  In this passage of Genesis they do not serve the function of God, but they serve another master. They are the hell birds.

In the midst of Abram’s faithful response to God, the hell birds descended to wreak havoc. They smelled the sacrifice from afar and came winging in.

So it is that all of our faithful responses to God’s requirements of us attract the wrong kind of attention. Much truth exists in the old aphorism, “No good deed goes unpunished.” The Enemy opposes by his nature, and so he must oppose the saints when they obey God.

Expect it.

The Enemy will attack any work that advances the cause of God. The Enemy will attack any person who responds to God in obedience. This explains why a child acts up and distracts us at the most inopportune time in the midst of ministry. Why the car won’t start right as we are going to visit prisoners in jail. Why we get sick on the day we are to share our testimony with others. Why people who live simply so they can give their money to the needy end up hit with a massive, unforeseen expense they cannot pay.

I’m old enough to have seen this routinely in my life. I have shared my conclusion on this before, but it bears repeating:

If you are not experiencing active and relentless opposition from the Enemy in your life, you’re probably ineffective for the Kingdom of God. The hell birds don’t come a-swarming without a worthy offering to rend and devour.

Abram chased them away from his offering.

How are we to do the same when faced with the hell birds?

Satan has no authority over the believer. Christians have been rescued from His dominion, translated from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of Light.

Too many believers let the Enemy rend and savage their offering because they do not stand on the authority granted them at the cross by Christ.

And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.
—Revelation 12:10-11

Some Christians don’t even try to resist. They perpetually let the hell birds descend and make off with the blessing. Then they fall into a series of excuses, which leads to perpetual defeat.

But Abram chased off the forces of evil that threatened the covenant.

Don’t let the hell birds rob you! Do everything possible to stand on your authority as a believer, as one who is no longer under the thumb of the Enemy. Claim what Christ bought for you. Stand on the Lord’s promises. Fight back. He gave you the weapons:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints….
—Ephesians 6:10-18

I like that last line because it calls each of us into a community where you watch my back and I watch yours. Abram may have had to drive off the hell birds alone, but the Church exists to do so together. Band together, saints! God has given you everything needed to drive off the hell birds. Start doing so!