The Army of the Lord

“The army of the Lord” is a phrase found only once in the NKJV of the Bible, and that in the Old Testament in Joshua 5:14, where Joshua, in the vicinity of Jericho, meets up with one who says of himself that he is the “Commander of the army of the Lord.” (NKJV) However, having said that, it is clear from many different New Testament passages that while the church is never called an army, it is clearly described as an army in that each Christian is considered a soldier, outfitted with battle gear, a weapon, and engaged in warfare. Since the church is composed of its individual members, each member a soldier, it follows that the church is the army of the Lord here on earth.

In the book of Philippians, Paul refers to Epaphroditus as his “fellow soldier.” (Phil. 2:25 NKJV) He does the same with Archippus in Philemon verse 2, and almost every Bible student is familiar with Paul’s admonition to Timothy where he tells him, “You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” (2 Tim. 2:3 NKJV) If we are honest, we realize that is an admonition to us as well if we desire to be a faithful Christian.

We ought to put emphasis on the phrase “must endure hardship” for it is easy to think in our day and age and in our country there is no hardship to be endured as a Christian. Wrong! Paul made it clear it is not a matter of whether or not we will be persecuted, but more a matter of when or where or to what degree, for he says, “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.” (2 Tim. 3:12 NKJV)

There is, I think, a greater implication in Paul’s statement than we generally are willing to accept. We think if someone on the national scene has spoken against Christianity, and we hear about it, that we have been personally persecuted because we are a Christian. Yet, in the first century, when Paul was writing, there was no national news that you were going to get instantly, unlike today. The persecution Paul spoke about was far more direct and personal.

Paul was speaking to a single individual in his letter to Timothy and saying to him, paraphrasing, if you are a Christian and are living like it and talking about it--the command is to “go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15 NKJV)--then you are going to suffer for it. If we do not suffer for it (sooner or later), then maybe that says a lot about our failure to live the life as God intended it to be lived. That is the implied teaching of the passage; if there is no suffering personally, then there is likely no actual living of the life as Christ intended one to live it.

The Christian life is referred to as warfare. Paul says, “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God … ." (2 Cor. 10:4-5 NKJV) Timothy was encouraged to “wage the good warfare.” (1 Tim. 1:18 NKJV) To Timothy, Paul says in the second letter to him, “No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.” (2 Tim. 2:4 NKJV) This was in the very next verse after Paul told him he must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ (2 Tim. 2:3).

A lot of people enter into the Christian life sort of unaware. They are thinking love, peace, mercy, grace, and hope. They are not expecting combat and are ill-prepared and often unready and unwilling to engage in it. Yes, there is love, peace, mercy, grace, and hope in Christ, but one has to remember these are mostly things that are found within one’s inner being because of what he has become in Christ and what Christ has done for him. As far as the outside world goes, it is an entirely different matter.

You have to a large degree become the enemy to the world unless you are going to try and be a secret disciple and never speak of Jesus and just go on living like the world. If you decide on that course you will get along fine in this world but there is always the Day of Judgment to look ahead to. That will be a looking forward to “a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries.” (Heb. 10:27 NKJV)

But, as I said, many are not ready for the combat. In the parable of the soils the one unprepared for combat is the one represented by the stony places soil (describing the heart of man) where when the seed was sown (the word of God) it was received and sprouted and came up but “when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he (the person with this kind of heart--DS) stumbles.” (Matt. 13:21 NKJV) He is neither prepared for nor willing to engage in the fight. The heart’s desire is only for the smooth things of Christianity, the blessings.

At the end of his life, Paul said he had “fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (2 Tim. 4:7 NKJV) It had been a fight indeed. Remember when Paul was being converted? Do you remember the words of Jesus when speaking with Ananias about Paul? He said, “I will show him how many things he must suffer for my name’s sake.” (Acts 9:16 NKJV)

One can read about the life of Paul and his sufferings in summary in 2 Cor. 11:23-33. He talks about his beatings, imprisonments, being stoned, and many other things that came his way in his life as a Christian. It had been a fight, a lifelong fight after his conversion. And here is the lesson we need to learn from this, those of us who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus, the battle Paul fought was a religious fight, the very kind many feel is too unchristian, or unchristlike, to fight.

It was a fight over doctrine, over who was right and who was wrong, over who would be saved and who would not, over the way to heaven. Too many people today see this as an exceedingly nasty type of fighting that drives people away from Christ, they say. Don’t talk to me about it. Your fight would be with Jesus, Paul, Jude, and others. Jesus and Paul were in religious debates nearly all of the time.

Jesus said, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.’ And ‘a man’s foes will be those of his own household.’” (Matt. 10:34-36 NKJV) Paul got in trouble because he was unwilling to remain quiet about his religion and insisted on evangelizing and debating. Come to think about it, that was pretty much the same reason Jesus was crucified, was it not?

But, most of the talk today by the Christian community, as the world would define it, seems to be about getting along, how we are all going to the same place no matter what we believe or practice, and how it is so un-Christian to fight with one another. Some are willing to go so far with this approach as to say one does not even have to be a Christian to go to heaven.

Jude says he wrote “exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith.” (Jude 3 NKJV) One cannot do that and not debate religion. “We do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” (2 Cor. 10:3-5 NKJV) Christian debating (casting down arguments) is a part of the Christian warfare.

Debating is as far as it goes. No Christian, living as a Christian, would ever do harm to another. “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.” (Matt. 5:44 NKJV) Christian wars are a misnomer. The Crusades and other European religious wars were not Christian. Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world.

When one looks at the armor a Christian is to put on to fight the Christian warfare,“put on the whole armor of God” (Eph. 6:11 NKJV), that he might stand and not fall one finds that he is given “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” (Eph. 6:17 NKJV) This is the word which is described in the Hebrew letter as being, “living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Heb. 4:12 NKJV)

There are those today who would remake the sword of the Spirit into a butter knife. Just sharp enough to cut soft butter and that’s it. They do not want a sharp two-edged sword, one that pierces in the way described in Hebrews 4:12. The fear is that someone might get hurt, that is, get their feelings hurt. They are not going to wield any such sword, and so you can forget them as an active soldier in the Lord’s army. They will not debate the truth; they will not contend earnestly for the faith; they will not wield a two-edged sword.

One of the great failings of Christian understanding is to understand that until the heart is pricked with the sword of the Spirit (and someone has to wield it) there can be no repentance, no seeking of salvation, and no turning from error or sin to the truth. You may hurt a man’s feelings for a day, yet save his soul for eternity. Until a man is convicted of the truth in his heart, the truth of his own sin, of his own error, the truth of what God requires of him, there will be no movement on that man’s part and thus no salvation.

I will never forget the wisdom of an old, long-gone preacher of my youth, one I never met, who has now been gone for a few decades. He was talking to a man who had been convicted of the truth but who was nevertheless unhappy with the preaching, as this man felt the preacher had not spoken as softly and kindly as perhaps he could have, and this offended the young man. The old wise preacher made a comment along these lines--that preacher is the best friend you will ever have. He taught you the truth and convicted you of it. Obviously, this is a paraphrase, but that is pretty much the exact thought expressed and how true it was and is yet to this day. Many is the man who will speak softly to us and who will allow us to go to hell before they will offend us, but how many a man is there who will tell us the truth? Which of the two is really our friend?

I told my children when they were growing up that one of the worst things that happens with adulthood is that when you reach that point, there are few who are willing to tell you the truth, even when you are dead wrong. When we are growing up, we have parents, teachers, and other adults who do not hesitate to jump in and let us know we are in the wrong but once a man or woman reaches adulthood suddenly no one is friend enough to any longer tell us the truth about ourselves. They nod and say yes to whatever we say. The days of being rebuked for a bad attitude and wrong doing whether toward God or man have come to an end. We are thus always right and never wrong, and how dangerous that is.

I close with this. God has an army. A man is either going to be in it and be a faithful soldier and take the sword of the Spirit and use it properly, which means for something other than buttering his bread, or else he is not. Either way, there are consequences that follow. For the one who picks up the sword of the Spirit and then drops it and turns tail and runs the Bible says, “The cowardly…shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” (Rev. 21:8 NKJV) Since that is the case, the only real choice a man or woman has, accept it or not, is fight or die.

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Non-Offensive Christianity

If someone was to ask you or me what constitutes Christian character what would we say?  Off the top of our head, we would most likely say love for God and our fellowman and faith in the Lord Jesus.  As we thought about it more intently we would add things like the fruit of the spirit, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control." (Gal. 5:22-23 NKJV)  We might recall Peter's admonition to add to our faith virtue and godliness in 2 Peter 1.  No doubt we would add humility (1 Peter 5:5), mercy and meekness (Col. 3:12), thankfulness (Col. 3:15), and truthfulness (Eph. 4:25) to our list and our list would still not be all-inclusive of the good things to be found in Christian character at its best.

It is hard to look back over this list and see anything that should offend anyone.  It is certainly not the Christian's desire to offend.  The word of God teaches the Christian to "pursue peace with all men" (Heb. 12:14 NKJV), "to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men" (Titus 3:2 NKJV), and "as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men" (Rom. 12:18 NKJV).  How is it then when it is the Christian's desire to be non-offensive to others and he/she has good character that the Christian ends up offending so many? 

The answer lies in what the Christian believes.  The very fact the Christian believes what he or she believes is offensive to many.  To whom you might ask?  To those who believe otherwise— to the atheist, to the progressive, to the secularist, to the communist, to the Islamist, to those who will not believe and obey the gospel and live faithfully.  The very fact one is a Christian condemns them.  They know they are living lives that are contrary to the gospel, that the gospel condemns their life choices.  They feel Christianity is judging them. 

For example, if the Christian believes it is sinful to live a life of a fornicator who is likely to be offended by that belief?  To ask is to answer—the fornicator, to those who see sex as a sort of human right married or not.  If the Christian was to speak against living together outside of marriage how many friends do you think he or she would make in the world we live in today here in America?  Not many.  If he speaks up it is said he is making himself a judge and causing trouble.  He is considered harsh and intolerant (as though God would tolerate the sin).  He is unloving.

If the Christian considers drunkenness to be sinful who is likely to be offended by that belief if not the one who drinks to drunkenness?  You can go right down the list of what the Bible calls sins, name them one by one, ask the same kind of question, and get the same kind of answer.  Christian beliefs themselves are offensive to many--to a great, great many--no matter what subject you end up talking about.  It is not so much what the Christian does that is so offensive but what he believes.  Jesus said we would be judged by the word of God (John 12:48) and God's word does offend many by limiting their freedom to sin without rebuke.  The word rebukes them.  If you believe the word then that is a rebuke to them and that is offensive.  You offend them because of what you believe about the word, namely, that it is the truth. 

Jesus said on one occasion, "The world…hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil." (John 7:7 NKJV)  Do you think the sinner wants to hear or be told that his works (his sins) are evil?  The minute the Christian speaks up against a sin he puts himself in company with Jesus and the world will hate him too just like it hated Jesus.  The men and women of the world want not only the silence of the Christian but even more than that, they want the Christian's approval.  They basically desire the Christian give up his faith, deny the word of God, and join them, at least in heart.

Jesus said on one occasion to those who sought to kill him, "You seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you." (John 8:37 NKJV)  When God's word has no place in a man then given the right circumstances and provocations, as the man sees them, there is no limits to the depths of sin that it can lead a man to.  The word of God places boundaries upon men, boundaries that do not satisfy those of a worldly bent, but boundaries that keep men from the evil which men are capable of doing when at their worst.  The Christian respects God's fences (boundaries) but the man of the world whose desires are for the world rips the fences to pieces.

The world thus often puts the Christian in a spot that if he had his choice he would rather not be in.  No one who has had any upbringing about him wants to be offensive to others.  We all desire the friendship of others and their affection, we want friends, not enemies, and let us be honest even if a person is worldly it does not mean they are unlikeable.  Many have very winning personalities.  They are often not bad people measured by the standards of the everyday world but the problem is the Christian can have only one standard and that standard is not the standard of everyday worldly life.

Paul gave us all words of wisdom when he said, "For we dare not class ourselves or compare ourselves with those who commend themselves. But they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise." (2 Cor. 10:12 NKJV)  Christ is the only acceptable standard a Christian can have.  The goal and the desire is not to be the best of the average everyday person but to be Christ-like.  Our desire is to be saved and in order to be saved we must live like Christ and not like the average of men.  We must seek to please God, not man.  "If I still pleased men, I would not be a servant of Christ." (Gal. 1:10 NKJV)  The command of God is, "Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord." (2 Cor. 6:17 NKJV) 

The condemnation of one group of believers in Christ lay at this very point.  "Nevertheless even among the rulers many believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God." (John 12:42-42 NKJV)  Thus we come to the fork in the road where we must make a decision.  What will it be?  Will we go with God and his word or will we go with the majority of men?  Will we offend God or will we offend man for that is what it comes down to?

No matter how much you and I desire the salvation of all men we do not desire it any more than God does.  God is "not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9 NKJV)  He "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." (1 Tim. 2:4 NKJV)  He loved the world (mankind) so much he gave his only begotten son that man might be saved (John 3:16).  Nevertheless, the Bible teaches "narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it." (Matt. 7:14 NKJV)

Now let me ask a question.  If God is so desirous of men being saved why is the gate to life so narrow and the way to life so difficult? (Matt. 7:14)  The gate is narrow and the way is difficult because man finds it hard to accept God's will, believe it, and obey it.  Put another way man finds it difficult to bring his will into subjection to God's will.  Anyone and everyone could be saved, God does not show partiality, but God is God and man is often and generally unwilling to accept salvation on God's terms.  It is offensive to man.

What does please man is the way that seems right to man.  But, what is the end of that way?  "There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death." (Prov. 14:12 NKJV)

Even among those the world calls Christians (whether they are or not God will judge based on his word) very, very few are willing to accept that a child of faith must repent and be baptized for the remission of sins despite Peter's exact words to that effect.  "Then Peter said to them, "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." (Acts 2:38 NKJV)  He had to be mistaken, he could not have meant it, it is offensive, the very thought is offensive.  We want non-offensive Christianity.  Non-offensive Christianity demands disregard for the word of God.

With non-offensive Christianity we can have, I recently read, 34,000 Christian denominations (A Short History of Christianity, Stephen Tomkins, page 245).  With denominationalism everyone gets what they want, the church of their choice; all will be saved no matter what group they are with as long as they in the broadest sense of the term "believe" in Jesus, and thus no one is offended—non-offensive Christianity.  No one is offended because in the end denominationalism means doctrine does not matter.  You read it the way you want, I read it the way I want, we are both saved, it doesn't matter which one of us had the truth.

Denominationalism is a wide gate and a broad way.  If I am wrong and that is the narrow gate and difficult way (34,000 denominations) then tell me how many denominations we would have to have to have a broad way?  Would a hundred thousand do it or would it take more like a million?  When one can find the church of his choice, rather than God's choice, you have non-offensive Christianity.

There is no doubt that the tender heart that does not want to offend people is good in its attitude toward the feelings of others but the truth of life, all of life, is that man must make choices and in making choices he will inevitably offend.  There are gentle-hearted people who sincerely want to please everyone, not be offensive to any, and who want to stay out of all fights and disagreements and they are thus unwilling to take sides or take a stand.  They just want to be left alone and left out of any disagreements or unpleasantness but isn't that the desire of most of us?  We want peace, not strife.  We want less stress in our lives, not more.  But there is a problem.

Life just does not work that way.  We cannot stay on the sidelines forever.  In failing to choose sides we choose the side by default that is most likely to be wrong, the side of the majority.  If the broad way has most of the people in it (according to the Lord it does—Matt. 7:13-14) and that is the way of destruction then my choice by default is not going to work out well for me.  It is true enough in this life a majority position is the most popular and the least likely to cause you strife in the here and now but it is also the damning position on the Day of Judgment.  On that day you want to be a part of the minority, not the majority.

Paul, speaking by inspiration, says, "All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution." (2 Tim. 3:12 NKJV)  Who is this person who is suffering persecution?  Is it the non-offensive Christian?  No!  The truth is you cannot be a faithful Christian without offending many.  You will offend because you will take a side, the side offensive to the world and to much of Christendom.

God calls us to take sides and he gives us no middle ground.  It does not matter if we would prefer to not take a side for that is not given to us as an option.  We will either believe or we will disbelieve.  We will either repent of sin or we will not.  We will either be baptized for the remission of sins or we will not be baptized for the remission of sins.  We will either be obedient in life or we will be disobedient.  We will either battle Satan or we will not battle Satan.  God's choices are only twofold.  They are either/or.  Eve only had two choices, not a half dozen.  Yes, this may sound hard and harsh to some.  God is a demanding God but what are you going to do about it?  Are you strong enough to take on God and win?

"He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad." (Matt. 12:30 NKJV)   It is either/or, there is no other option given.  We must "contend earnestly for the faith." (Jude 3 NKJV)  We must "fight the good fight of faith." (1 Tim. 6:12 NKJV)  Why?  Because it is either/or.  God commanded it and we either will obey or we will disobey.  There is no third option given.  That is the life we live.  We can please the majority of men now by not taking sides, sitting on the sidelines, giving the world no opposition, but in doing so we have taken the default position which is the devil's majority position--the broad way. 

We might say we did not ask to get put in this position.  No, we did not ask to be put in this position but God saw fit to place us here.  We are his creation.  Are we going to fight against God or put on the armor he has given us and go to battle (see Eph. 6:11-17)?

My parents did not ask for the poverty of the Great Depression and then WW II but that is where they found themselves.  The wise man takes a look around to see where he is at and the best course to pursue rather than moan, groan, and complain about where he finds himself.  God will give us rest and peace in due time in a place where there is no strife or battle but that is then and this is now.  Those who are overly meek and quiet need to put on the Lord's battle armor and go to war for the time being so they can have peace in a later time, the hereafter.  It is an either/or choice, you either do it or you don't.  Your future depends on your decision.  Do not delude yourself into thinking there is such a thing as not taking sides and setting on the sidelines for that is Satan's default position.  That is Satan's side.

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