What ought Christians to do in these times? The Church in the West is weak. The enemies of Christ seem strong and own all the cultural spaces. What ought we to do? Last week we saw that the first order of business is Christian repentance both individual and corporate. We are in this mess, not because Christ is weak, not because his kingdom is failing, but because we have squandered the inheritance handed down to us by men and women who belonged to generations more faithful than the most recent ones. Today we continue our series “The Resistance”, exploring the needed Christian response to the times we live in. In Part 2 we consider the need for those in the Christian Resistance to commit themselves to dependence on Christ. This means prayer, particularly for wisdom and courage and a renewed appetite for His Word, looking at how God’s people of old have responded to times like these.
We must commit ourselves to dependence on our king. This means prayer, particularly for wisdom and courage and a renewed appetite for His Word, looking at how God’s people of old have responded to times like these.
A Trite Answer?
Many reading this will be reminded of a typical child’s answers in Sunday School. The answers are always ‘Jesus’, ‘God’, ‘the Bible’ with an occasional ‘Satan’ thrown in for good(?) measure. Is our issue really a lack of prayer and Scripture? Aren’t we people of the book? Isn’t this ‘must’ a little too simplistic for our enlightened times? Many of us will think that to propose this answer to our current problems displays a remarkable naivety. Even if we nod and agree with the solution, we might be inclined to internally reason that this is a simplistic approach. This only further demonstrates how much the answer to our malaise is indeed the Word and prayer. So is our answer trite?
No it’s not. In the militaristic armour of God section in Ephesians, Paul lists just one weapon. He writes that we must take up, ‘the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication’ (Ephesians 6:17-18). Our weapon is the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, and Paul ties this with praying at all times in the Spirit. It seems clear that this is no trite answer. In the Scriptures and prayer, we are accessing the power of God’s Spirit, which is exactly what we need in this war, because we are not fighting flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12).
Changes in Thought Required
Thus it is necessary to get our heads straight as we consider the place of the Word and prayer in our lives. As already alluded to, what is happening around us is not something that is in an individual’s power to change. It is not in the power of a dynamic political party to change. Even a well-marketed seeker-sensitive church won’t change things. The battle is in the spiritual realm, and spiritual weapons are necessary. Paul assures us that we are not waging war against the flesh and our weapons are not fleshly weapons. Yet these weapons, the Word and Spirit, are able to “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).
Now, we ought to be careful as we consider the spiritual nature of these weapons. The word ‘spiritual’ is easily misunderstood. We do not mean that the solution to this world’s problems is spiritual in the sense of ‘other worldly’. No, not at all. The sword of the Spirit and prayer are spiritual, meaning they are not fleshly. They are not the weapons and methods of rebellious humanity. But they are able to be used and applied in this earthly realm. This whole world belongs to Christ, and his people will rule over it under him. We are not going to float around on clouds thrumming harps. So then, the Sword of the Spirit applies to life here on this earth and we ought to wield it in that way.
We also need to understand the order of things. Just as we have seen that we can’t enact change in this world without dependence on the Sword of the Spirit, we ought to remember that the way to change the political environment of tyranny that we live under is not at the point of politics. Our political environment is only a reflection of where we as a people are at. Politics is downstream from culture, and culture is downstream from religion. And religion forms in the home. This is where the battle must begin.
How are We Doing Here?
Now I don’t know about my reader’s prayer life, but certainly mine is not as urgent, frequent and impassioned as it ought to be considering our current circumstances. It’s almost as if prayer can become a bit of a last resort. As Douglas Wilson puts it, “Well, the only thing we can do now is pray about it.” “Oh no! Has it come to that?” Christian families may begin each meal with a prayer of thanksgiving, but I know that as a father, I have not made prayer as great a priority as the apostle Paul commands when he says pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:16), when he urges us to pray for kings and rulers so that we might live godly lives in peace, and even the model of prayer given us by our Lord Jesus Christ where he urges his children to pray that God’s kingdom come and that his will be done here on earth (Matthew 6:10).
But what about Scripture? No doubt many of us feel we are doing better here. Many of us belong to ‘bible believing’ churches and hold Scripture as God’s infallible Word. We can rattle off 2 Timothy 3:16 about Scripture being God-breathed. We may even be in regular patterns of Scripture reading. I know I feel more comfortable talking about my Scripture study than I do my prayer life! Yet even here we can fall into a number of traps. Of course there is the ‘too busy’ excuse which we often use to drop regular Scripture reading from our daily agenda.
Yet there are some other dangers which though less apparent can equally harm us. One of the most significant is that we live in a secular age. The world around us, the ideas that saturate our media, our social media groups, the friends we have, and yes, even our churches are all tainted by the human philosophies and ideologies of this age. Reading Scripture is important, but reading it in a humble way where we allow Scripture to cut through the cultural baggage and default opinions that we have adopted as people of this age is another thing altogether. It’s as simple as this, if you are not letting Scripture transform you through the renewing of your mind, chances are that you have been conformed to this world, and you will attempt to transform the Scriptures to fit with that conformed mind.
Continued tomorrow..