Dear Soldiers of the Cross:

 

“Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the people of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me.”                 Ezekiel 3:17.

 

This is what your watchman says: “Arise and prepare for battle, for your enemies are at the gate.” From the beginning, from the time of the fall, there has been a demonic war between God and that fallen angel. If we don’t understand how that Fallen One operates, we will lose the war. The consequence of a loss and the reward of a victory are both eternal. Please hear what your watchman has to say about it:

 

There are two fronts to the war. The first front is within our civil realm – within society. Side one on the battlefield is morality and virtue. Side two is immorality and vice. Side two always has the advantage. Man is corrupt by nature and because of that fallen nature is always under pressure to morally devolve. Immorality is like gravity: It is easy to fall down to it, but it is always much harder to rise out of it. To be moral and virtuous requires a lifetime of commitment and sacrifice, love for one’s neighbor, and an altruistic spirit in service to the greater well-being of society.

 

In this battle the Fallen One has the tactical advantage. When the moral and virtuous enter into battle, the Fallen One fires the arrows of their own moral imperfections and thus he condemns all moralists as hypocrites. As a result few people have the courage to stand their ground and fight for moral truth. This is how society develops into a “silent majority.” Silent majorities always yield the high ground to the immoral, which gives them the right to do all the talking and shouting. The immoral also stake a claim to morally superiority by claiming that they are trying to set society free from moral condemnation. Thus the battlefield is yielded to the immoral. One modern example, as one wise pastor observed, “The first wave of feminism made war on husbands. The second was on men in general. Now the third is on children, because it condemns all distinctions between the identities of male and female.” Even the US military, once immune from social fads and trends, is now yielding to LGBT pressures. The only thing that can prevent the collapse of morality is a catastrophe, most often war or famine or disease. The immoral are weak. They live only for themselves and their own pleasures. Catastrophe destroys them, but it also destroys peace and prosperity along with it, which makes the Fallen One happy. So either way he wins.

 

On the other side of the battlefield stands the Christian Church. Only the Christian faith has a weapon that can bring about a Satanic defeat. The Fallen One’s weapons are moral perfection (the Law), with which he can condemn all men, and the fear of punishment for imperfection (sin). Since fear and love are mutually exclusive, in using the fear of judgment, the Fallen One destroys all love for God. How then does the Christian Church win the battle? In Luther’s hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is our God,” we sing, “One little word can fell him.” That word is “Jesus.” Jesus brings divine forgiveness. Jesus covers us with His own perfection. No one is permitted to condemn or stand in judgment wherever Jesus has removed condemnation and judgment. So if “the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin,” then Satanic condemnations cannot harm us, even though the Fallen One and the world might rail against us.

Now you can see how faith works: It turns our hearts to love God for His mercy in Christ, and in loving God we find the power to serve – albeit imperfectly – but to rise against the “gravity” to a holy life that God calls us to live. And that imperfect but holy life is the only weapon our society has against the gravitational forces of immorality and vice.

 

So the watchman is calling upon you to take up your swords and come to the battlefield. Let there be no delinquency in worship. Let there be no apathy. No silence. No lukewarm hearts. Let there be virtue and strength, leadership and sacrifice. We must passionately resolve to fight the battle, not with the weapon of our own perfection, but with grace and mercy and forgiveness – not just for others, but also for ourselves, believing that it is ours despite being the imperfect and sinful people that we are. To win this battle we must step courageously and confidently into our world and take the heat and hatred that comes with speaking the truth. If we don’t speak moral and virtuous truth (condemning ourselves in the process), the world won’t believe us when we speak the truth of God’s infinite grace. Grace and grace alone wins the battle and brings eternal victory.

 

So the watchman says, dear people of Advent, “Arise and prepare for battle, for your enemies are at the gate.”

 

Pastor Fiene