Make no mistake, this Cold Civil War has been, is, and will be about you and me. If we have but one enemy in this struggle, Satan, then the bullseye is squarely on our backs. The way we choose to organize ourselves, elect our representatives, and formulate the public policy issues that divide us, have all been sidebars to the real conflict: attacking God’s people in hopes of breaking the relationship they have with Him.
That has been our enemy’s goal through the ages, and now with the power of social media, a compliant liberal press, government, and education system; and, to some extent, leveraging the woke Church and a worldwide pandemic, Satan has never had it easier. It has already happened in other cultures. Just look at Europe and Canada. What are we to do? Where is the hope?
Scripture is clear that our fight is not against flesh and blood. I really don’t have time for the guy who was charging the Capitol in the midst of a riot waving a Jesus flag, if the picture I saw is true. That wasn’t Jesus or anyone resembling Him. Left America knows this, too. Yet they continue to exploit this imagery just the same to reflect on all of Right America. It’s what you can expect from the Left.
God’s word tells us to stand in the way of “dark world rulers” and “dark world authorities” and “dark world principalities” and something called “spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Against these we are asked only to take a “stand,” as if we are to hold up our hands confronting the dark world advance and proclaim, “No further, Satan. Not with me, not with my family, and not with my circle of influence.” The Bible tells us clearly that we have only to be still. God will fight for us against the dark world. We are only to take a stand.
But the Church must take a stand against the dark world advance. And that stand will come during a time of persecution here in this country. This could happen here.
In largely blue states, pastors will be locked up for preaching something that isn’t culturally correct. We will be asked if we attend Church, and if we take a stand and admit that we do, our blue state businesses will be shunned and shuttered. Our names will be published. Why? We will be deemed to be “religious nationalists,” or worse, “religious extremists.” We will be asked about our “complicity” with white supremacists. We will be judged based upon our answer to this question: “Was the last election stolen?”
And it has already started. The Pentagon is having a worldwide “stand down” day for Commanders (may God help them) to confront their troops with respect to their conservative values. I wonder what they’ll tell the troops or ask the troops? Those Commanders will find that, in an all-volunteer force, sixty-five percent come from the largely conservative south or intermountain west. That percentage is dated, and still I believe the majority of our Armed Forces will espouse conservative values and hail from Right America. I mean, when you ask for volunteers, that is what you get. I just hope that “stand down” day is not the same day the Chinese decide to invade Taiwan.
In the Bible, we are told that we are not to fight the way the world does. We have a different doctrine and strategy. We don’t use the weapons of the world. But none of that matters to Satan. Satan fights the way the world does and often uses the weapons of the world against us: COVID-19, despair, death, divorce, discontent, disappointment, and depression. Satan uses our guilt at our own sin as a weapon meant to be felt by us—his blast effects. And the Bible tells us what to do about that. We are to take every thought captive and make them obedient to God’s Son Jesus Christ. You see, an intellectual defense is given to you for an intellectual satanic attack.
We have said before that the Church’s fight is against arguments and pretensions and ideas and things that set themselves up against the knowledge of God. The Church must engage ideas. The battlefield is intellectual in nature just at a time when the Church is probably least prepared to love their God with all their mind. That’s why the Church writ large must turn to and embrace these four truths: Where did we come from? God. Why are we here? God. Who gets to draw the lines of our conduct? God. Where are we going when we are done here? God.
We have said before that God has already won this whole thing. So how do we cede ground to an enemy that God and His forces have already defeated? Answer: Our sin.
As believers in God, with what sin are we struggling? Now is the time to unplug the cable television, and be accountable to someone for what we watch on-line. Now is the time to pull back from social media. Now is the time for us to think critically about what the media has been feeding straight into our brains. Now is the time to cast off that sin that enslaves us. We are the ones responsible for all of that.
The Bible tells us that sin separates us from a Holy God, and grieves His Spirit. Perhaps we have been placed here in these times to deal with that generational sin. Repentant sinners draw more fire from Satan, but remember: If you know Him and love Him, God forgives you. God has already defeated Satan. We need to act like we’re on the winning side and stop ceding our sin-filled ground to a defeated enemy.
Once the Church deals with its own sin, knows what it believes, and why, that’s when God can begin to use us. I believe the Church won’t be able to stop speaking about what we have seen and heard. What would an awakening look like?
It won’t matter who’s duking it out in Portland. Those tired of the nightly riots there will be turning to the Church in Portland for answers. It won’t matter that murders happen in Chicago each weekend. People tired of those murders will be turning to the Church in Chicago for answers. The same thing happened in Littleton, Colorado after Columbine. The same thing happened throughout the country after September 11,2001. Left America, science, philosophy, and atheism won’t have the answer. Our hope is in the Church, and there you will find it.
Members of the press who were raised in the faith but drifted away will return to their faith. Universities will begin to see that the Church may be able to contribute some answers to the science and philosophy questions they can’t answer and once again include matters spiritual in the dialectic.
If there are politically-imprisoned pastors, they will be released. There won’t be room in Churches for everyone who wants to attend. And the more awakened the Church becomes, more people will want to follow, and those folks will not be risk averse. Cheap grace will be preached—by no one.
It will all have come at a price. None of this will look pretty. There will be plenty of tears and gnashing of teeth. Too many people will be in attendance who will have paid dearly. The Church will have engaged the culture in a way that cost them something. They will have sacrificed their wealth and comfort, endured the social media mob, and be excluded from the culture. And yet, along the way, God’s people will be filled with the hope that they have, because for many, that’s all that they will have. And for what? They will discover what they believe, and why they believe it. They will discover where they are going, and seekers love to follow others who know where they are going.
While all this is going on, thousands of innocents will die due to abortion. Hundreds of minor children will have Doctors tear healthy tissue from their bodies for a passing fad. Hundreds of minors will have been enslaved to human traffickers. Tens of thousands of young impressionable minds in our nation’s public schools will have been indoctrinated with liberal, anti-God philosophy. And the Church must address now how we are going to approach and care for these victims and refugees of our Cold Civil War.
This is what it looks like for the Church to make a stand against our great enemy. There is much to be done. And with God’s help, it will happen.
In the current Cold Civil War, our hope—yours and mine—will always be found in the Church. We would all love for our current culture to reflect our conservative, Biblical values, but I connect with the God of the Universe on a daily basis. I don’t need government to tell me how to live. I get my values from Him. You know, He’s got this. None of this has escaped His attention. He tells us, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” I, for one, believe Him. You should, too.
Thanks for reading this four-part series.