Jim Wilson's Blog, page 43

Principles of War: Concentration, part 4

 

Non-Christians and the powers of darkness out­number us along the whole front in the spiritual warfare. We can make advances along this front by using two-by-two concentration. This is necessary; however, it may not bring a decisive victory. In order to win a decisive victory, we must seek the will of God to determine the decisive points. Then:

·  Christians along the whole front will con­centrate on prayer for the decisive points.

· The physical transfer could be made by taking time off and traveling to the decisive point.

This would weaken portions of the front temporar­ily, but no more so than when Christians take leave under ordinary circumstances.

When Jesus gave the Great Commission, the apostles were not sent immediately to the uttermost parts of the earth. They were told to remain together in Jerusalem until they were “endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). Notice the elements of concentration:

·  They were all together.

·  They all continued together in prayer.

·  They were all in agreement.

·  They all preached the wonderful works of God (Acts 2:11).

As a result of concentrated prayer and preaching, three thousand were won to Christ in one day.

The same sort of concentration was practiced in the Billy Graham campaigns. Thousands of Christian people prayed for him, the team, and the city for weeks and months in advance of the crusade. Hundreds more concentrated in the city as counselors, choir members, and assistant missioners weeks in ad­vance and during the crusade.

“Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest” (Luke 10:2).

*Excerpted from Principles of War. To purchase, visit ccmbooks.org/bookstore.

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships

Principles of War: Concentration, part 3

Concentration was so important to Paul that he wrote on one occasion: “When I came to Troas to preach Christ’s gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord, I had no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus my brother: but taking my leave of them, I went from thence into Macedonia” (2 Cor. 2:12–13). Paul passed by an open door for lack of help.

Many of us wish we had an Apostle Paul to travel with, not realizing how much the leader also needs the close follower. Without his helpers, Paul was not greatly used in Athens or Troas. When the earth­quake occurred at midnight in Philippi, it was not Paul alone who prayed, but Paul and Silas. There are many other instances in the Bible where concentra­tion proved important to the gospel ministry.

If you find that you are scattering your witness in “dogfights” or the enemy is using concentration on you because you insist on taking the whole ship or base or city alone, then you need a partner. You may be partly effective in your lone witness, and you may think you have no need for a wingman. Perhaps you do not, but maybe the wingman needs a leader. Remember that in warfare it is not enough to be faith­ful but only partly effective. We are after the objective.

You may wonder where you are going to find a partner. Start by asking God to send him or her along. You may have to lead the person to the Lord. Once you meet him and before you minister togeth­er, you need to be one in purpose and as comple­mentary as possible. Study together, pray together, talk together, and reprove one another in the Lord. There should be openness and honesty between the two of you, and no unconfessed sin to hide. Then you can meet the enemy with combined firepower.

A few years ago aboard a carrier in the Pacific, two junior officers met every afternoon to offer concentrated prayer for the ship. Soon one other officer received Christ; this increased the concen­tration fifty percent. In two months ten officers and over thirty enlisted men were reached for Christ through this concentrated prayer and witness. The witness continued.

Concentration also plays a vital part in mass evan­gelism. In chapter two, it was brought out that when the army on the offense does not possess an over­whelming superiority, it is not feasible to launch an attack along the whole front to take the objective. In such a case a decisive point must be selected against which to strike a decisive blow. An overwhelming su­periority must be gained at the chosen point. This superiority is obtained by transferring forces from the rest of the line to the decisive point. This weakens the rest of the line, but enough should be left in order to keep the enemy occupied. Even if minor defeats occur along the weakened portion, it is not crucial, because in the meantime you have served the decisive blow that defeats the enemy at the decisive point.

An excellent example of this is found in Montgomery’s preparations for the first battle of El Alamein. In his own words, “Then from the bits and pieces in Egypt I was go­ing to form a new corps, the 10th Corps, strong in armour; this would never hold the line but would be to us what the Afrika Korps was to Rommel; the formation of this new 10th Corps had already begun” (Bernard Law Montgomery, Memoirs of Field-Marshall the Viscount Montgomery of Alamein [Cleveland: World Publishing, 1958], 93.

Montgomery concluded that Rommel would make his main effort on the south or inland flank. This was the Alam Halfa Ridge. Since Montgomery weakened his northern flank in order to concentrate on Alam Halfa, he strengthened it with mine fields and wire so it could be held with a minimum of troops. At Alam Halfa, the decisive point, he concentrated two mo­bile armored divisions, the 44th Infantry Division, and his newly formed armored division of four hun­dred tanks dug in behind a screen of six-pounder an­ti-tank guns. From August 31 to September 6, 1942, the Afrika Korps pounded against this line, all the while being hit hard by the mobile and dug-in tanks and by the British Desert Air Force. Rommel retreat­ed on the 6th with a decimated Afrika Korps. He had been defeated, and Montgomery had won a decisive victory. Thus, concentration achieved the turning point of the war in Africa.

(To be continued on Friday...)

*Excerpted from Principles of War. To purchase, visit ccmbooks.org/bookstore.

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships

Principles of War: Concentration, part 2

 

Now let us see how the principle of concentration applies to spiritual warfare.

“After these things the Lord appointed other sev­enty also, and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place, whither he himself would come. Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great but the laborers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest” (Luke 10:1–2).

In the chapter on the offensive, we concluded that the offense in winning men to Jesus Christ is carried out by preaching and prayer. In the Luke passage, we see that Jesus sent His disciples out to preach in concentration. He also told them to pray in concentration: “Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:19–20).

This is effective warfare.

Paul, one of the greatest of preachers, had a “wing man” with him in most cases, and when alone he does not seem to have been nearly as effective. For instance, in Acts 17 we find Paul going to Athens alone but asking that Silas and Timothy join him with “all speed” (17:15).

“Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. Therefore disputed he in the syna­gogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily” (Acts 17:16–17). Paul could not wait to concentrate his forces; so he took the city on alone and had neither an awakening nor a riot.

Silas and Timothy did not join him until some weeks after Paul had arrived in Corinth. Here also he preached alone with no recorded results. “And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and per­suaded the Jews and the Greeks” (Acts 18:4).

When Silas and Timothy arrived, there was a marked difference in the power, the content, and the results of Paul’s preaching. “And when Silas and Timotheus were come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in the spirit, and testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ” (Acts 18:5). 24

That was the power and the content; the results are recorded in succeeding sentences. There was op­position, blasphemy, and many conversions.

“And Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his house; and many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized. Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace: For I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee: for I have much people in this city” (Acts 18:8–10).

Paul remained in Corinth among these many be­lievers for another eighteen months teaching the Word of God among them.

 (To be continued on Wednesday...)

*Excerpted from Principles of War. To purchase, visit ccmbooks.org/bookstore.

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships

Principles of War: Concentration, part 1

 

“I git thar fustest with the mostest.” - attributed to Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest

“For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.” – The Lord Jesus Christ, Matthew 18:20

General Forrest was neither a West Pointer nor a War College graduate, but he knew the principles of war, and he knew how to apply them. Although it is doubtful that he used the double superlatives in the above quotation, the statement does emphasize several truths. In this one short sentence we find four principles of war, and others are implied:

Git—offensive; thar—objective; fustest—mobility; mostest—concentration. The one word “mostest” leads us to the subject of this chapter: concentration.

Neither Alexander the Great nor Julius Caesar could have conquered the then known world if he had neglected concentration.

Occasionally in the history of warfare a new meth­od comes to light that seems so effective or is such a surprise to the enemy that its users are strongly tempted to depend upon the new method (which is temporary) and forget the basic principles of war.

This tendency was evident when the airplane made its advent on the Western Front in World War I. It glamorized the war; men became air aces and heroes. The use of the airplane did not, how­ever, have much effect on the final outcome, for no one used it in concentration. Major General Claire Chennault, when a young Army Air Corps aviator, noted this lack of application of principle. In his Way of a Fighter, he wrote, “For four months we flew and fought all over the Texas sky in the fashion of the Western Front fly­ing long patrols in formation, looking for a fight, and then scattering in a dive on the enemy into individual dogfights. As sport it was superb, but as war, even then, it seemed all wrong to me. There was too much of an air of medieval jousting in the dogfights and not enough of the calculat­ed massing of overwhelming force so necessary in the cold, cruel business of war. There were no sound military precepts that encouraged the dispersion of forces and firepower that occurred in dogfighting” (Maj. Gen. Claire Lee Chennault, Way of a Fighter, ed. Robert Hotz [New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1949], 11).

This failure to apply the principle of concentra­tion continued through the Spanish Civil War and into World War II. Chennault himself put an end to these individual tactics with his American Volunteer Group, better known as the Flying Tigers. When he went to Burma and China, his pilots stuck together. Outnumbered in the air and on the ground, in planes, pilots, and parts, they destroyed 217 enemy planes and probably forty-three more with a maximum of twenty operational P-40s in thirty-one encounters. Chennault’s losses were six pilots and sixteen planes.

In order to accomplish this, Chennault used con­centration. He simply had two aircraft firing at one enemy aircraft. Even if outnumbered in the air ten to one, Chennault’s two always outnumbered the enemy’s one. If each Flying Tiger had taken on ten of the enemy, probably we would not remember the Flying Tigers today.

In 1956, while on the staff of Commander Carrier Division Five aboard the aircraft carrier Shangri-la in the western Pacific, I watched the Carrier Air Group in practice maneuvers. The F9F Cougars came down from the sky low over the waves, firing machine guns or rockets at the target simultaneously, then pulled up together to disappear into the blue. One evening I asked one of the pilots how he could fly wing on his leader and still aim at the target. It was easy, he said. He did not aim; he just flew wing. “When he shoots, I shoot.” This is concentration.

(To be continued on Monday...)

*Excerpted from Principles of War. To purchase, visit ccmbooks.org/bookstore. 

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships

Everyday Holiness: Giving, part 2

 

Giving should not be legalistic (e.g., tithing only). Nor should it be anti-legalistic (anti-tithing). Jesus spoke to both of these when He said in Luke 11:42, "Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone."

Do not neglect tithing. Tithe lovingly, ungrudgingly, and not legalistically. Consider the tenth a minimum, not even thinking of it as your own money. Take it off the top of your income and give it to one or more of the areas mentioned above.

It could be seen as “better stewardship” to give to a corporation which has an IRS-approved, non-profit, tax-deductible status. However, if you are giving in order to get, the blessing of the Lord will not be in your giving. Another difficulty with restricting your giving this way is that the widows, orphans, and aliens may not be approved by the IRS. The Bible teachers and missionaries may not be approved, either.

Western Christians have automated giving to make it efficient. Although there is the legitimate issue of giving anonymously, giving impersonally can mean giving without love. If giving is a source of pride or seeking merit, remember Matthew 6:1-4: "Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

Most people give to the places that express needs and that ask them to give a certain amount. If everyone limited their giving to the call for money, the missions who believe that they have no biblical basis to raise money for themselves that way would never receive support.

There is a teaching that applies the “storehouse” of Malachi 3:10 to the local church, i.e. your “whole tithe” must go to the church you attend. This contradicts the Bible’s teaching on other places for giving tithes to:

"Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year. Eat the tithe of your grain, new wine and oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the presence of the Lord your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name, so that you may learn to revere the Lord your God always. But if that place is too distant and you have been blessed by the Lord your God and cannot carry your tithe (because the place where the Lord will choose to put his Name is so far away), then exchange your tithe for silver, and take the silver with you and go to the place the Lordyour God will choose. Use the silver to buy whatever you like: cattle, sheep, wine or other fermented drink, or anything you wish. Then you and your household shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice. And do not neglect the Levites living in your towns, for they have no allotment or inheritance of their own. At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year’s produce and store it in your towns, so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands" (Deuteronomy 14:22-29).

Give lovingly, give personally, give prayerfully.

*Excerpted from Being Christian. To purchase, visit ccmbooks.org/bookstore. 

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships

Everyday Holiness: Giving, part 1

Love has first priority in the Bible. It is the most important and most comprehensive fruit of the Spirit. It is the first commandment, and it is the second commandment. All the other teachings of the Bible fit into it. God is the source of all love, and He expresses His love to the world by giving.

Giving is preached much more than it is practiced. Perhaps this is because the preaching is prompted by the desire to receive rather than the desire to give. Many churches and radio and television programs teach giving by encouraging people to give to their ministry. The emphasis is, “You are to give so that I can receive.” It is a veneer to hide covetousness.

Another reason giving is taught more than practiced is that we are not taught how to give lovingly by example. If godliness were widespread, it would not be necessary to teach giving. People would give themselves and their money, rather than giving their money instead of themselves. They would also give their money to the right places, in the right amounts, instead of giving where people tell them to.

We should give ourselves first to the Lord, then to others. 2 Corinthians 8 has two examples of this.

 "A

nd now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity" (2 Corinthians 8:1-2).

"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich" (2 Corinthians 8:9).

The people giving in the first example were intolerably poor, and in the second the person was wealthy beyond all measure. Giving should not be based on how much we have, but on how much we love. With this as a prerequisite, we can look at the places and the people to whom we should give.

 God is our example for giving food and clothing to widows, orphans, and aliens:

"For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing" (Deuteronomy 10:17-19).

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world" (James 1:27).

True and pure religion takes care of orphans and widows. Over the centuries, Christians have done a moderate job of taking care of orphans. We have not done as well with widows, and we have not done well at all in keeping ourselves from being polluted by the world.

We are also to give to the starving and naked: "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead" (James 2:14-17).

We are to give to the poor near by and far away. Paul spent parts of five chapters (1 Corinthians 16, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, Galatians 2, and Romans 15) raising money from Galatia, Macedonia, and Achaia for the poor people in Judea.

We should supply the needs of God’s people and everyone else: "He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need" (Ephesians 4:28).

We should give to those who teach the Word to us:

"In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel" (1 Corinthians 9:14).

"Anyone who receives instruction in the word must share all good things with his instructor" (Galatians 6:6).

The Philippians are a good example for us in this. Paul says they were the only church who supported him when he set out from Macedoniaand while he was in Thessalonica (Philippians 4:15-16).

(To be continued on Wednesday...)

 

*Excerpted from Being Christian. To purchase, visit ccmbooks.org/bookstore. 

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships

Everyday Holiness: Sound Doctrine

 

False teaching/false doctrine comes up several places in the New Testament (e.g. 1 Timothy 1:18-20 and 1 John 4:1-3). The doctrine Paul talks about in 1 Timothy 4:16 is not false teaching, and it is not the distinctive beliefs of various denominations.

This doctrine is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. How do we know? It is saving teaching—“You will save yourselves and your hearers.”

Obviously our different secondary doctrines and practices cannot all be right. Some are not important. We have used the word “doctrine” and our secondary teachings to create divisions among saved people. To my knowledge, the Bible does not use “doctrine” that way. Read Romans 14. It is the primary doctrine of the gospel that saves and sanctifies and is, consequently, of ultimate importance.

"For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men" (Romans 14:17-18).

When Paul stood up to Peter in Galatians 2, the issue was saving truth.

 

“When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray. When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?” (Galatians 2:11-14).

It was the same in Acts 11 and 15: “As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ So if God gave them the same gift as he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God?” When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God saying, “So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life” (Acts 11:15-18). 

"No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are" (Acts 15:11).

The early creeds were designed to refute teaching that did not save. The later confessions were made to divide saved people. Yet we call all these confessions “sound doctrine.”

*Excerpted from Being Christian. To purchase, visit ccmbooks.org/bookstore. 

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships

Principles of War: Offensive, part 3

 

What remains if the decisive blow has been struck? We must occupy the land. We must proclaim the emancipation to Satan’s captives. We must declare the means of freedom, the gospel, the defeat of Satan, and the victory of Christ in His death and resurrection. We participate in that ancient victory, for its proclamation is still unfinished. It is still news that many captives have not heard.

The offensive in the spiritual war is to be carried out by two very basic means: preaching and prayer. Preaching, when done in the power of the Holy Spirit, is an engagement on the spiritual plane.

Other powers are in conflict besides the speaker and the listeners. In 2 Timothy 2 we can see four participants in the conflict: the Lord’s servant, the opponent, God, and the devil.

“Have nothing to do with stupid, senseless controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to every one, an apt teacher, forbearing, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will” (2 Tim. 2:23–26).

When the Christian teaches in the power of the Holy Spirit, he does it without quarreling. The strife is on the spiritual plane. He teaches with gentleness.

The offensive in preaching is commanded in many places in the New Testament. One of the more dynamic expressions is the word of the angel who opened the prison doors in Acts 5:20 and said, “Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this Life.”

Praying in the Holy Spirit is also commanded in the New Testament. Two of these examples are:

“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way. This is good, and it is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, the testimony to which was borne at the proper time” (1 Tim. 2:1–5).

“Pray 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, and also for me, that utterance may be given me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak” (Eph. 6:18–20).

Notice this. The first text says, “First of all,” and the last is the concluding thought of the paragraph that starts, “Finally” (v. 10). “First” and “finally”—that is the order of prayer. Then notice that both of these paragraphs on prayer have to do with evangelism. When we pray in the Spirit, we and others will preach in the Spirit boldly. Ephesians 6:10–20 is very clear teaching on spiritual warfare, and prayer is the final part of it. What Paul teaches in these three verses he practices in the earlier chapters where his own prayers are recorded (Eph. 1:16–21 and 3:14–19).

These prayers are for Christians. His prayer requests are also for Christians. We have few passages in the New Testament on prayer for unbelievers; four that I have found are: Jesus’ prayer on the cross (Luke 23:34), Stephen’s dying prayer (Acts 7:60), Paul’s prayer for his countrymen (“Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved” [Rom. 10:1, rsv]), and the 1 Timothy passage quoted earlier. All of these are evangelistic prayers. The prayers and prayer requests for Christians are more numerous, and they also have to do with the proclamation of the gospel, as in Ephesians 6:20: “that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.” 

In Matthew 9, when Jesus saw the multitudes and had compassion on them, He commanded, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Matt. 9:37–38). Again, it is evangelism. We take the offensive under orders, praying and preaching in the Holy Spirit. Our objective is people: individuals, cities, and nations. The enemy holds them captive at his own will. Then let us move out; let us advance toward the objective, praying and preaching.

*Excerpted from Principles of War. To purchase, visit ccmbooks.org/bookstore.

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships

Principles of War: Offensive, part 2

 

Whether the offensive is directed against the whole front or against one segment of the enemy army, “in either case it should be well understood that there is in every battlefield a decisive point, the possession of which, more than any other, helps to secure the victory by enabling its holder to make proper application of the Principles of War. Arrangements should therefore be made for striking the decisive blow upon this point” (Antoine-Henri Jomini, Jomini and His Summary of the Art of War, The Military Classics series, ed. Lt. Col. J.D. Hittle [Harrisburg: The Stackpole Co., 1947[, Article XXXI).

There are two things that determine a decisive point. The first is the relative importance of that point compared to the rest of the front. The second is the feasibility of taking that point. If it is not important, it is not decisive. If it is important but not feasible to take, then it is not decisive. This is very important. Be alert for teaching on the decisive point in succeeding posts.

Whether the offense is made along the whole front or at a decisive point, it has several basic characteristics. In attitude it is bold; in direction it is forward toward the enemy at the objective; and as its means it uses effective weapons.

The offensive in the spiritual war is conducted in the same manner. It is directed against the enemy, not against the objective. Satan is the enemy. We fight in order to wrest from his possession those who through fear of death are subject to his bondage (Heb. 2:14–15).

Most of this spiritual war is already history. Jesus Christ delivered the decisive blow at the decisive point at the decisive time. The blow was His death for sin and sinners. The point was a cross outside the city of Jerusalem, and the time was the feast of the Passover about AD 30. The Bible tells us that this blow destroyed the enemy and set the prisoners free. When Jesus died on the cross, He cried with a loud voice, “It is finished.” What was finished? The defeat and ultimate destruction of Satan! This was the emancipation proclamation that sets us free from Satan. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36).

(To be continued on Wednesday...)

*Excerpted from Principles of War. To purchase, visit ccmbooks.org/bookstore.

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships

Principles of War: Offensive, part 1

 

They want war too methodical, too measured; I would make it brisk, bold, impetuous, perhaps sometimes even audacious.

—Antoine-Henri Jomini, Summary of the Art of War

This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem.

—The Lord Jesus Christ, Luke 24:46–47

In warfare, the offensive is the means by which one takes the objective. It is an aggressive advance against an enemy to wrest the objective from his possession. An army on the offensive has a moral and physical advantage over the enemy at the point of contact. The offensive is an attitude as well as an action. The attacking general has the advantage of making his decisions first, and then carrying them out. The defender must first wait to see what his opponent does before he makes his decision. The decision he makes is usually forced upon him by the attacker. The aggressor has the advantage of the initiative. He can choose whether to attack and when and where to attack. The defender must wait for him. The aggressor is in the superior position.

There are two general ways in which the offensive can be directed.

• It may be directed against the whole front to take it simultaneously. This is not ordinarily feasible in that it requires much more logistic support (weapons, food, and ammunition), much more fighting, and will sustain many more casualties.

• The offensive may be directed against one segment of the enemy army, the defeat of which

will mean a decisive victory. Decisive means that this defeat of the enemy may cause the rest of the army to capitulate, or it may mean a breakthrough has been made so that the rest of the army remains in a very weak position.

One of the major problems with a direct attack against an enemy is that he wants to shoot back. An attacking force can sustain many more casualties than a defending force (e.g., the Somme in World War I).

This is also true in evangelism; the enemy does not like to be preached to, so he shoots back. Christians do not like to be shot at, so they have opted not to preach. That is one solution, but not the right one.

In the Gulf War over Kuwait, there were six weeks of air bombardment and one hundred hours of ground attack. The coalition forces suffered very few casualties. I would like to compare the six weeks of air bombardment to concentrated prayer. I can touch the enemy, but he cannot touch me. This concentrated prayer softens up the objective so that when I go in to preach I do not get shot at.

(To be continued on Monday...)

*Excerpted from Principles of War. To purchase, visit ccmbooks.org/bookstore.

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships