Where is the Church?  Where are the “soldiers” of the army of the Lord?  Where are the faithful, those who profess to be sold out to God’s purpose?  Where are those who stand for righteousness?  Have the soldiers taken their leave?  Are the faithful asleep?  Are those standing for righteousness lying down on the job?  In a time of distress the army is supposed to rise up and protect.  The soldiers of the army of the Living God seem to be AWOL; there is silence in the camp.

The enemy is raging; the thunder in the distance is getting louder by the day.  I can hear the battle cry of those who oppose the Holy One of Israel.

I sound the alarm to those who have avowed themselves with the Lord of Hosts, but there is little response.  Has the Army of God retreated before the advance of the enemy?   Could it be that the army has taken too much wine of the Spirit and is off in a drunken stupor?  Is there too much comfort and complacency fattening the troops till they are out of shape and unfit for duty?  Where are God’s soldiers? 

Where is the army? 

I have heard Christians, both men and women, profess their undying devotion to serving in the Army of the Lord.  The Church as a whole talks a lot about being battle ready, standing for Biblical truth and fighting the good fight of salvation.  Running through a troop and leaping over a wall are nice concepts to sing about, but the words have little genuine meaning to most Christians.  Christians hear an endless stream of teaching on how to evangelize and win others to Christ.  Forces are easily mobilized for the annual bake sales to raise funds for the Sunday school class or even to assist in the long-term fund raisers to build an addition to a fellowship hall, or the like.  All these are good things in their time and place.

Where are the soldiers when they are called to action?

The deafening silence I hear in the camp of the army of the Lord of Hosts concerns me to no end.  In this critical day and time the Church is stumbling trying to find its way, unable to pull together a cohesive army to be effective for much of anything.  What has happened to those who should be patterning themselves after our role models, King David, Gideon, Joshua and Caleb?  Where are the Deborahs and the Miriams of the modern day Kingdom of God?  We have been reduced to holding seminars for men in the Church to help them realize the “manliness” of being a Christian.  In all the teaching of salvation by “grace” the notion that it takes an active determined walk to remain on the path of Godliness is being lost. 

What has happened to the soldiers?

With an estimated 159,000,000 “Christians” in the United States representing approximately 76 percent of the U.S. population, there should be a sizable army to stand against the aggression of the enemy.  There should be thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of faithful men and women who would rise up and join together under the banner of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to resist the forces of Satan plaguing Israel and the Church.  I see Christians getting lost in their drive to “save the lost” and “feed the hungry” while allowing the overt onslaught of Islam to overtake their communities.  I even once saw a pastor allow a Muslim to take the pulpit and proclaim in the Church Body how he had recognized Jesus and how wonderful it was that we all, Jews, Christians and Muslims, serve the same god.  This pastor was blind to what he had allowed to happen in his congregation: the subversion of the truth of Who God is, for Muslims serve a pagan deity, and their Imam, Jesus, plans to break the crosses and crush the synagogues upon his return to Jerusalem. 

This pastor, who is supposed to be leading a regiment in the army of God, did not know his enemy in his midst.

The daily bombardment of Israeli towns with rockets launched from the Islamic safe havens established in Gaza and Lebanon do little to raise the ire of Christians watching from afar in the comfort of their living rooms.  The thought is: all that fighting is Israel’s problem; not ours, as we sit half a world away.  The images of airplanes flown by Islamic soldiers of jihad colliding into the World Trade Center buildings have little effect any more.

What has happened to the soldier in us?

The Church has spent so much time luring people in with the unbalanced teaching that salvation is a “gift,” which is “given freely,” that the pews are filled with people unwilling to give of their own selves in order to fulfill the purpose of God in their personal lives, let alone in the life of the Church Body as a unit.  We failed to inform these new disciples that though salvation was “given” freely, it costs us everything we have and everything we are as individuals.  King David had the correct attitude when purchasing the threshing floor from Araunah so that he could offer a sacrifice to the Lord.  When Araunah offered the threshing floor, the oxen, the threshing sledges, ox yokes, everything needed for the sacrifice at no cost to King David, the king insisted on paying for it all because he refused to offer sacrifices that cost him nothing (II Samuel 24).  Our offerings to the Lord are not holy unless they cost us, unless we have to give of ourselves. 

Soldiers understand what it is to give until it hurts.

If the Church is made up of soldiers she is a soft army.  A true army trains constantly to go beyond the normal limits of self-deprivation.  Real soldiers are trained to be ready at a moment’s notice.  A legitimate army always stands battle ready.  A genuine army of fit soldiers teaches the traits and tactics of the enemy so the soldiers are not easily taken by surprise and overrun.  As an army, the Church is failing.  Soft at the underbelly, the Church is not ready for the enemy that is gathering on the horizon -- and he is a formidable foe. 

What are the Church leaders doing to prepare the troops?

The attacks on the United States by Islamic soldiers were not perpetrated against a government.  The faithful Muslims who carried out the outrage of September 11, 2001 were attacking an ideology: a Christian ideology.  These men who understood what it means to offer themselves to a cause and the belief in their pseudo-god were battling the infidels, the Crusaders -- Christians. 

These were dedicated enemy soldiers.

If the Church is to be an army worthy of its name sake she must put off her slumber, set aside all that hinders her and train to know her enemy.  Understand this Church, you are at war and you do not even realize it.  Islam is a physical force rising up against all who hold to a belief system that is not Islam.  This foe cannot be spiritualized and made out to be an allegorical Sunday school lesson.  The faithful Muslims who read their books and who listen to their Imam’s preaching are serious about their walk.  When will the Church Body wake up and become serious about her walk, as well? 

Where are God’s dedicated soldiers?

Understand the season that is upon you, Church.  In the end the battle may very well belong to the Lord, but we are among the soldiers He has chosen to do battle here on the earthly level.  It is written that we do not battle with flesh and blood, but with powers and principalities, nevertheless, it is also written that there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven -- this is a time of war.  The spiritual realm may, indeed, may be more “real” than the physical realm, for the battle in the heavenlies rages between God’s host and the dark principalities; 

yet as earthly vessels grafted into the commonwealth of Israel, we are God’s war club, and as such, we dare not desert our earthly posts. 

Spiritual warfare, while being the most important aspect of an army’s tactical armory, does not negate the use of physical ground forces.  Christians must still get into the trenches and defend the Honor of the Lord.  Israel learned this reality as her fighting men were paralyzed by fear when facing the giant Goliath, who was taunting the God of Israel.  David, a seemingly insignificant little boy, resolved the blasphemy by conquering the uncircumcised Philistine with a single stone.  Can you imagine what would have happened that day if David had stayed home and called together a prayer group?  Indeed, the Kingdom of God is forcefully advancing and forceful men lay hold of it. 

Successful soldiers are willing warriors.

The war between good and evil forces being waged in the heavenly realm is the driving force behind the physical realties that we see on the ground today.  Islam is setting itself against God’s very throne, Mount Moriah, the Temple Mount, the place He said His Name would be known forever.  Satanic forces have been working tirelessly to thwart God’s plan to redeem mankind unto Himself.  It is for this reason that Yeshuah instructed his disciples to trade in their cloaks (talits or prayer shawls) for swords (Luke 22:36).  Yeshuah knew that peace was about to be removed from the Earth and He wanted His disciples to be of the mind to defend themselves and their beliefs. 

This was the beginning of the preparation of the Christian division of God’s Army for the battles that would come.

Armies must be able to size up a situation and move into action accordingly and without hesitation.  Endless battle scenarios are practiced to instill in soldiers the required discernment it takes to quickly determine a correct course of action.  In Christianity today there is an abundance of paralyzing humanistic teachings.  One such teaching is that disciples are not to judge others.  The Church practices and teaches the doctrine of tolerance, the unilateral acceptance of any belief or culture for the sake of “peaceful” coexistence.  Hellenistic in nature is the belief that everyone has the right to express himself in whatever fashion he so chooses, even to the detriment of those around him.  Those who are negatively affected by the expression of alternate cultures are to be “tolerant,” the buzzword of the new millennia.  In the ‘80s we called it “I’m OK and you are OK.”  The underlying truth is no one wants to be held to accountability.  What about the teaching of Yeshuah in Matthew 7, not to judge others?  Yeshua’s teaching was not intended to be a prohibition of judging the character of another, but a warning not to be hypocritical when you are doing so.  In fact, we are admonished by the Apostle Paul of Tarsus to make sharp and accurate judgment of the behaviors of others, even to expel an offender from the congregation (I Corinthians 5:11-12).  When was the last time you saw an idolater or slanderer thrown out of the congregation?   Disciples today fear being branded “intolerant” and ostracized for making sound Biblical judgments and acting upon them.  The Church has been rendered impotent by these humanistic teachings. 

Soldiers require firm ground, Biblical ground, to stand on.

The Church must shake off the neutering effects of humanism and get back to Biblical reality.  The philosophy of humanism has an incapacitating effect on the ability of soldiers in the Army of God to discern truth from lies as is visible in the case of the pastor allowing a Muslim to hoodwink his congregation into believing that Jews and Christians serve the same god the Muslims do.  Biblical precepts conflict with the godless, or humanistic, approach to life situations, leaving doubt and confusion to set in.  Today we are faced with an enemy that will stop at nothing to destroy both Israel and the Church.  Any weakness will be exploited by our enemy and used as an opportunity to conquer. 

Soldiers must have singleness of purpose. 

Right now the battle for Jerusalem is brewing.  Islam, in the personification of the “palestinian” people, is waging a low intensity war against the Saturday People, the People of Israel.  The outspoken goals of the “palestinian” people and their leaders are to drown the Jews in the Gaza Sea.  These people do not desire peace, they only want the destruction of all that is Godly in the Middle East, thus clearing the way for pan-Arab dominance of the African and Asian continents.  The struggle over the land of Israel is merely a physical outworking of the Satanic effort to thwart God’s purpose to re-gather His People, as prophesied before the final redemption.  Satan knows this will be his end and, therefore, aims to delay as long as possible the demise of his own kingdom.  Do not think for a moment, Church, that it is just a Jewish problem.  The Islamic writings, when discussing the destruction of the infidels, read this way: “First the Saturday People (i.e. the Jews); then the Sunday people (i.e. the Christians).”  Make no mistake, Islam’s sights are set on Christians too. 

For an army to be effective it must understand the war it is fighting.

Just as in the days of Gideon, what the Lord needs is a few good soldiers: Battle ready soldiers who are not preoccupied with temporal trappings and confused by humanistic Church doctrines so that they can concentrate on the battle at hand.  An army of a focused few who will not sit idly by while Satanic forces overrun those who are standing in faith on the hills of Judea and Samaria.  Awake O Church, join in the army of the Lord of Hosts.

Now is the time and the season to rise up and defend Jerusalem.

The Church has the responsibility to stand up and be accounted among the Army of the Lord of Hosts.  When Israel is being attacked we are all being attacked.  Being grafted into the commonwealth of Israel is not a matter of choice, it is an election.  If you follow the Jewish Messiah, then you are elected by The Most High to present yourself as a soldier ready and equipped for battle.  Today this battle is mostly political for the Christian Division.  We can and should be on the front lines with banners in hand announcing to the political leaders that the God of Israel is The Most High God and His land is never to be divided.  Proclaim to the highest office in land that the nation of Israel is Chosen by God Himself for such a time as this.  That the descendants of Jacob will be re-joined to His Land, and their territory shall extend to the fullness of the borders set forth by God Himself in His promise to our father Abraham. 

When the day comes that the Christian Division is called upon to move into the heat of the battle, whether in Israel or abroad, may the Church stand proud and bring honor to the Holy One of Israel.

Today, Israel is being dragged into yet another “opportunity” to reach a settlement with its “peace partner.”  The Bush administration has decided that it needs a legacy to be remembered by and the Jews are just the ones to provide it.  Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is caught up by a whimsical notion that the “palestinian” chief terrorist, Mahmoud Abbas, is somehow parallel to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  Dr. Rice grew up as an African-American living through the civil rights era in the U.S. and now she feels compelled to come to the aid of the poor downtrodden people of the Middle East, freeing the “palestinians” from their “oppressors,” the Israelis.

Christian Soldiers must come together to speak to this mountain of opposition to God’s Holy Purpose and say, “Be removed.”

Rallies have been arranged at the White House and the Naval Academy in Annapolis to pronounce to the Israeli leaders, “not one inch,” and to the Arab leaders, “not one inch.”  The Christian response to the rallies has been disappointing at best.  It is as though the Christians have little concern as to what Islam is perpetrating upon Israel.  It is as though what Islam is doing to Israel will have no repercussion on the Church.  This will prove eventually to be a deadly mistake, both for Israel and the Church.  Much blood will be spilled over the outcome of this conference.  Jewish blood is the same as Christian blood. 

We stand as brothers.

Copyright 2007 by Builders of Zion

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