My dear readers,

Any More Battles to Fight?

The battles that every Christian fights in are always spiritual because he is a spiritual person. He stops fighting against flesh and blood the moment he becomes a Christian. The Bible teaches this truth clearly in Ephesians 6:12: "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."

When did this spiritual battle begin? The first spiritual battle was when Adam fell into sin. Before the fall of man into sin, there was no battle. Peace reigned. After the serpent (possessed by the devil) deceived Eve, who gave Adam the forbidden fruit, and after he ate it, humanity plunged into total depravity. The spiritual battle began. According to Holy Scriptures, Abel offered an offering by faith, and God accepted Abel and his offering. However, He rejected Cain and his offering because Cain offered what was good enough for Cain but not according to Holy Scriptures. Cain committed fratricide in his murderous rage against God by killing Abel, his younger brother. More battles followed between God's people and the minions of the devil. The devil's minions nearly obtained the upper hand against God and His people in the days of Noah. God intervened by destroying the world with a global flood. God gave mankind a second opportunity to begin afresh with Noah and his family, a total of eight believers.

The spiritual battles continued when Nimrod organized the first ecumenical gathering recorded in Genesis 11 after God had told them to disperse and cover the face of the earth. God intervened again by dispersing them through the confusion of tongues/languages. The descendants of the children of Noah, Ham, Shem and Japheth suddenly could not understand one another. They spread throughout the world according to their languages.

God revealed to man the lineage of the Messiah, the seed of the woman. With this revelation, the spiritual battle took on a more direct attack. The devil targeted Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God's plan of salvation for mankind would have been doomed if the devil had succeeded in severing the messianic line. God categorically told them to live in tents and not in any city. The Shechemites nearly succeeded in getting the family of Jacob to live in their city by proposing a marriage between the prince of Shechem and Dinah, Jacob's daughter.

After hundreds of years of transforming Jacob's family of seventy-five souls to more than two million, God took His people out of Egypt, the land of bondage, by a mighty hand. God used ten powerful and devastating plagues to accomplish this through the leadership of Moses, His servant. Moses led Israel out of Egypt to the Promised Land. They fought many battles on their way to the Promised Land, including their miraculous crossing of the Red Sea and millions of Israelites being fed with manna from heaven daily for forty years. The rebellion of the people of Israel when they were wandering in the wilderness for forty years resulted in the death of more than six hundred thousand Israelites. They died because many did not want to enter the Promised Land due to their faithlessness, for challenging the priesthood and murmuring against God. These could have thwarted the salvific plan of God.

Finally, when they conquered the Promised Land, the Israelites did so in disobedience. Israel was to kill all in the Promised Land so that she could begin her holy national witness for Christ without idolatry and idolators. They failed the LORD by enslaving the Canaanites. From that day onwards, these Canaanites became thorns on the side of Israel inside the Land of Promise. The period of Judges, where every Israelite did what was right in his own eyes, lasted more than three hundred and fifty years. The spiritual battle was within the nation. Then Israel rejected God as their king and demanded an earthly king like all the Gentile nations around them. The period of the monarchy began.

A spiritual battle on a new level began. There were more bad kings than good kings. King David was the best king who brought Israel to a high spiritual plane. After his death, the decline climaxed with the destruction of the monarchy in 586 B.C. Many spiritual battles were fought within the kingdom, especially after some Israelite kings married foreign wives and brought in many foreign gods. The greatest culprit was King Solomon, a believer without discernment. He regretted his carnal life with a convicting testimony in the Book of Ecclesiastes. One incident in the monarchy period depicted the severe nature of the spiritual attack on the messianic line. A Sidonian princess named Jezebel married King Ahab of the Northern kingdom of Israel. Her daughter, Athaliah, wanted to be the next king of Judah. She killed all her grandsons except for Joash. She would have killed him too if his aunt had not hidden him in the bed chamber. The flame of the light of the messianic line was close to being extinguished.

God exiled His people in Babylon for seventy years. But He never deserted them. The spiritual battle shifted from Israel to Babylon during this period. This battle lasted from the reign of Babylon to the Medo-Persian empire reign. God's people nearly died during the time of Esther when Haman deceived the King of Persia into wiping out all the Israelites within the vast Persian empire. Haman's decree would have severed the messianic line if carried out. The LORD sent His faithful and courageous servants, Mordecai and Queen Esther, to intervene and to save His plan of salvation for mankind.

After the Israelites returned from exile to rebuild the holy witness for Christ, the spiritual battle shifted back to the Promise Land. Enemies abounded to stop the rebuilding of the Temple and the city of Jerusalem. Thank God His people prevailed, and the spiritual witness resumed.

When Jesus Christ was born of the virgin Mary in Bethlehem, Herod called for a census to kill the baby, Jesus. God hid Him in Egypt. After Herod's death, Jesus returned to Nazareth with His earthly parents, Joseph and Mary. The spiritual battle heated up. The devil used every spiritual weapon at his disposal to get Jesus to sin against God. This spiritual battle culminated in the persecution and crucifixion of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. The devil even used Peter at the final moment, just before Christ went to the cross, to get Him to sin. Peter pleaded with Jesus to not go to the cross and leave them. Jesus had to rebuke Peter severely with, "get thee behind me, Satan" (Luke 4:8)! With Israel's rejection of Jesus of Nazareth as Christ, God rejected Israel as His national witness after more than one thousand four hundred years.

The church witness began, and the spiritual battle shifted from national to ecclesiastical. The church witness started in Acts 2 at Pentecost. So did the persecution! The enemies of Christ threatened the apostles with rebukes, beatings, and imprisonment culminating in killing. But thank God, the witness of Christ marches on. Thousands of God's faithful and courageous martyrs testified for Christ during two thousand years of church history. These martyrs' blood cry out of the ground, pleading to all faithful saints to keep fighting the battle as the battle rages on till Christ's glorious return! The 16^th Century Reformation gave believers a fresh start in spreading the gospel to the rest of the world. Persecution ensued. Many died for their faith and the Word of God. The battle rages on today.

Conclusion – The unceasing attack of the evil one on the line of the Messiah began in Genesis 3:15 when God prophesied His Son's coming to save the world from sin. During this period and up to the first coming of Christ, the witness for Christ also came under attack. After the death and resurrection of Christ, the witness for Christ became the primary spiritual battle. This battle has gained momentum and heated up after two thousand years of onslaught by the devil and his minions. But God is always in sovereign control.

God's children must keep fighting till Christ's return. God's Word reminds us of this spiritual responsibility. Hebrews 12:1-3: "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds."