Holy Ground

Carl von Clausewitz, in his Principles of War, said Terrain offers two advantages in warfare.

·        The first is that it presents obstacles to the enemy's approach.

·        The second is that obstacles in the terrain enable us to place our troops under cover.

The importance of this principle is difficult to overestimate. The ground upon which we stand will either serve our own cause or it will serve our enemy’s cause. This is so universally true that virtually every nation incorporates Terrain into their Principles of War.

 I fear the Body of Christ (in America) has given up the terrain in the most critical battle of our time and we are in danger of losing. That battle is for the very souls of men. We have chosen “Culture” as the terrain upon which we fight rather than “Jesus Christ.”  So…we will lose. After all, if we manage to successfully redeem the culture…will we have successfully seen a single soul redeemed?

So we battle gay marriage…or abortion…or, whatever.

God has not called us to win the culture for Christ. In fact, we are supposed to be “counter-cultural”. The raison d’etre for the church in the world is found in Matthew 28:19-20. ”Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” We are commissioned to make disciples. Then, we teach these disciples to observe God’s commandments. We seem to want to do it the other way around.

If we don’t focus our energy on Jesus getting into people there is no possibility that the Holy Spirit can get into people. And, what is the possibility that people…without the Holy Spirit…will devote themselves to the things of God? It’s why they look at us funny when we say gay marriage is wrong.

I’m not suggesting we disengage…far from it. In Matthew 5:13-16 Jesus tells us “you are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house”. 

I am suggesting we retake the terrain that will assure victory. We get back on the very ground of Christ but we do not employ traditional weapons like politics, law, or public opinion. We adapt a strategy of counterinsurgency. We build relationships of trust that allow us to become beacons of hope. Our very lives should reflect the transforming glory of Christ. This means we have to get up every morning and give the battle to the Lord (1 Samuel 17:47). We then allow God’s Holy Spirit to lead us. I don’t mind suggesting that this is the hard way. A lot of us don’t want to work that hard.

America once stood on Holy ground. The will of God was a dominant thread in our cultural fabric until the 1950’s. We never dreamed of contesting these issues. Somehow, as a nation, we gave up the sacred terrain and are now fighting for our lives on the Devil’s turf. We can’t win…unless we reclaim the Holy ground. How? 2 Chronicles 7:14 says  “If My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land”.

This is our ground. Don’t stand any place else…
Ever wonder how we tumbled so far…so fast?  The United States use the following nine principles of war: Objective –Offensive –Mass –Economy of Force –Maneuver –Unity of Command –Security –Surprise –Simplicity –

Well, terrain is not one of them. Ironic?

Run to the battle!

When Creation Goes Wrong: Isaiah 6:3

We live in a fallen world. When sin entered our environment it was tilted off its Divine axis and has been spinning off in its preferred direction ever since. It wasn’t always this way…

Psalm 33 tells us “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made; and by the breath of His mouth all their hosts. Many of us recall that when God created our world it was “good”.  God said so 6 times in Genesis.  Romans 1:20 states, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” Isaiah 6:3 literally reads, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts, the fullness of the earth is His glory.”
The Charles Colson Center reminds us that creation is still “good” and reflects the image of God. However, “Evil attaches itself to creation like a parasite and ravages it. Sin deforms the world and makes a caricature of it. Good things are abused by sin, but they are not utterly destroyed. Even in the most perverse situations, the goodness of creation remains intact and always shines through”.
In simple Norwegian term…once our world discovered it could do things our own way, rather than God’s, opportunities for self-destruction were opened up to us. Most of us know there are very few ways (sometimes, only one) to get something right but countless ways to get something wrong.

This is why it is so difficult to get things right. And, we should never be surprised when we (or somebody else) get things wrong.

In the last couple of days the Supreme Court got a lot right…although it feels very wrong. SCOTUS ruled against the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). It also ruled it did not have standing to determine the correctness of Proposition 8 in California. In this context of deferring to autonomy of the states it makes perfect sense that SCOTUS also ruled a part of the Voter Rights Act unconstitutional.

The decisions make me feel “dirty” mostly because I happen to oppose Gay Marriage and favor voter rights so I’m very disappointed. But’s let’s take a step back…

Haven’t most of us always maintained the best government is the one closest to the voters? This would certainly prefer state authority over federal authority. So…why am I so frustrated? I go back to my theology of a fallen creation…and the propensity for getting things wrong. What do we do when we get the feeling that everybody around us is getting it wrong (disregard the obvious lack of humility)? What do we do when our most trusted and cherished institutions can’t be trusted?

We can remember that creation is still right. Sin has simply made it very difficult to see the goodness. So…let’s go back a moment. We know that marriage was designed for a man and a woman. It is still that way because this is God’s intent. Sin hasn’t changed this Divine institution. Sin has only made it more difficult to recognize. We should still adhere to the original intent.

I’d like to declare myself “Hispanic”. I believe, with the approaching legislation over immigration and amnesty I might benefit by being Hispanic. I will surely have a problem when somebody looks at me and says “but you look so Norwegian”.  But…only if they pay attention. In the same manner, there are homosexuals who want to get married. They can say they are married. The law can declare they are married but…if we pay attention…we have to say “it doesn’t look like marriage”.
So…I’ve taken a more phlegmatic approach to this disappointment. These decisions do not threaten my foundations…because the foundations of my existence are not rooted in this world. As the old spiritual says;

This world is not my home
I’m just passing through
My treasure is laid up
Somewhere beyond the blue.

Let me assure you…wherever “Somewhere beyond the blue” is, marriage means the same thing it always has.