Holy War Part 2

In Part 1 of this essay I discussed the meaning of the word Holy, as a foundation of what my idea of Holy War is. In Part 2 I want to discuss the focus of this war and our enemy.

In any war there are some important things to recognize. It is not only important, but essential to recognize these things if one is to be victorious. Among them are, to recognize that you are in a war, to know your enemy, and to know what is at stake if we lose the war.

As is or should be clear to any believer, our fight is not necessarily with people, even though the fight most often manifests itself in that way. The actuall warring is against the forces and ideologies behind those people. (Eph. 6:12; 2 Cor. 3-6)

Although we realize, or should realize that there are spiritual forces at work, that are our enemy, and we must do the spiritual warfare necessary to hinder their influence, we must also realize that there is often a place and even a need for doing battle with flesh and blood.

I see too many Christians that want to ignor or avoid the "real world" struggles. They believe that these are not necessary and that all things will work out super naturally, if we just do our spiritual part. As I said, there is a real place and need for that spiritual warfare, but God often asks more of us.

In the Old Tesatament as the yet unformed nation of Israel was told to take possesion of their promised land, God commanded them to do physical battle. This was not an option but a command. In fact those who were afraid, or thought other wise were never allowed to enter into the land of promise.

We must take on an attitude that we are always ready to do battle, in every sense; spiritually, mentally and occasonally physically.

Often it does not even matter if we want to take the battle to the enemy or not, the enemy will bring it to us. One way or another, If we will live godly, we cannot escape the confrontation or the battle at some level.

Second Peter 2:9 says that God's people are "a peculiar people" (KJV) , or "His own special people" (NKJV). The World system cannot allow that and, therefore, fights against this idea. They must bring the fight to us and have done so.

So, who and what is the enemy facing the Church today?

In light of current events it is easy to make today’s main issue a war between Christianity and Islam. That is to see it as a renewing of the centuries old and traditional “Holy War”. But the holy war I speak of goes way beyond that. Islam, and its own intolerance, is a serious threat, but it is just one of several, common enemies in this war.

My belief is that all enemies of the Church are but different manifestations of the same enemy. Let's look at what I believe are the main or most visible threats to the Church individually, and then how they all work together.

At the present time Islam is the second largest religion in England and France, and is rapidly gaining strength in the rest of Europe as well as gaining ground in the U.S.. Wahabiism and its "Islamic Brotherhood" has for some time, and continues to spend millions of dollars in spreading fundamentalist Islam world wide. Without going into this too deeply let me just say that they have been very successful in using our own laws and political correctness to gain acceptance in the west. While no small amount of Christian influence or even symbology is tolerated in our "public" schools, these same schools go to great lengths to see that Islam and all of its practices, are presented in the most positive light from the earliest grades, in the name diversity and tolerance.

The mean and evil Christians oppress the "poor" Muslim, and therefore the poor Muslim needs to be protected and helped to spread his or her message of a rich and misunderstood faith.

Then we have the secular humanists. Secular Humanism is essentially a religion base don faith in man as the supreme being and denies a religion based upon a divine authority. It is the worship of man as a god unto himself. The secular humanist believes that man, via evolution is not only getting more inteligent, but that he is getting better and better as time goes on. In order to elevate man, however, the secular humanist must first diminish and eventually eradicate any thought or perception of faith in, or influence by, a sovereign and powerful God. Those evil religionists, especially Christians, are intollerant and only hinder the elevation of man and must be stopped.

One more very relevant enemy of the Church today is New Age and syncretistic religious beliefs. These include everything from Wicca to Hinduism and the many other New Age cults. But to me the most disturbing are the turly syncretistic churches. For those who may never have heard the word syncretism, it is the blending of many ideas or beliefs, particular religious beliefs, into one. The extremes are Untity and Untitarian Universalism. Tragically, these ideas have crept into many mainline denominational churches and the personal lives of so-called believers. These are people who consider themselves Christian yet, read their horoscopes daily, call psychic readers, practice Yoga or Tai Chi and on and on. It is a Jesus plus..., faith.

These are the three main enemies of the Church and our faith as I see them. But although there are three and even more, I would say that they are all, in reality just manifestations of one enemy. In praying over this one day, I was reminded of the time that Israel was threatenned by 3 armies. II Chronicles 20 tells of how the armies of Moab, Amon and Mt. Seir were united against the Israelites to do battle with them. There is an entire wealth of sermons in this story, but the point I want to make here is that although there were 3 different armies representing different 3 people groups, they represented one enemy to the nation of Israel. They were united in their hatred for and desire to destroy God's people.

Islam, Secular Humanism and New Age/syncretistic religions are united in one common aim. The destruction of knowledge of the true God, and His people.

This is seen in how each of these is able to receive favorable treatment in society and support one another against Judeo-Christian values and teachings. Each believes that the one great enemy is Christianity and that Christianity must be destroyed, They can then worry about one another after the one great hindrance is removed. If we do not see them as a united and formidable enemy bent on our destruction, we do so at our own peril.

What is at stake? The very existance of our Holy (special and set apart) way of life is at stake. The encroachment of Islam, Secular Humanism, and New Age beliefs into every aspect of our culture, including the educational system will eventually eradicate the things we take for granted. The right and ability of our children to live freely and express their faith is at stake.

We must understand this if we are to fight the good fight. I pray we will see it, understand it, and do something about it now, not later.

Next: How we fight the Holy War.