The Army of the Lord - the Church

The army of the Lord is a phrase found only one time in the NKJV of the Bible and
that in the Old Testament in Joshua 5:14 where Joshua in the vicinity of Jericho
meets up with one who says of himself that he is “Commander of the army of the
Lord.” (NKJV) However, having said that, it is clear from many different New
Testament passages that while the church is never called an army it is clearly
described as an army in that each Christian is considered to be a soldier, outfitted
with battle gear, a weapon, and engaged in warfare. Since the church is made up
of its individual members, each individual member to be a soldier, it follows that the
church is the army of the Lord.

In the book of Philippians Paul refers to Epaphroditus as his “fellow soldier.” (Phil.
2:25 NKJV) He does the same with Archippus in Philemon verse 2 and about every
Bible student is familiar with Paul’s admonition to Timothy where he tells him, “You
therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” (2 Tim. 2:3 NKJV)
If we are honest we realize that is an admonition to us as well if we desire to be a
faithful Christian.

We ought to put emphasis on the phrase “must endure hardship” for it is easy to
think in our day and age and in our country there is no hardship to be endured as a
Christian. Wrong! Paul made it clear it is not a matter of whether or not we will be
persecuted but more a matter of when or where or degree for he says, “Yes, and all
who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.” (2 Tim. 3:12 NKJV)

There is, I think, a greater implication in Paul’s statement than we generally are
willing to accept. We think if someone on the national scene has spoken against
Christianity, it makes the news, and we hear about it, then we personally have been
persecuted because we are a Christian or at least consider ourselves to be one.
Yet, in the first century when Paul was writing there was no national news you were
going to get instantly like today, no news magazines, no internet, no TV or radio.

Paul was speaking directly to a single individual in his letter to Timothy and saying
to him, paraphrasing, if you are a Christian and you are living like it and talking
about it – the command is to “go into all the world and preach the gospel to every
creature” (Mark 16:15 NKJV) – then you are going to suffer for it. If we do not suffer
for it (sooner or later) then maybe that says a lot about our failure to live the life as
God intended it to be lived. To me that is the implied teaching of the passage – no
suffering personally then there is likely no actual living of the life as Christ intended
one to live it.

The Christian life is referred to as a warfare. Paul says, “The weapons of our
warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down
arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God…
(2 Cor. 10:4-5 NKJV). Timothy was encouraged to “wage the good warfare.” (1 Tim.
1:18 NKJV) To Timothy Paul says in the second letter to him, “No one engaged in
warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who
enlisted him as a soldier.” (2 Tim. 2:4 NKJV) This was in the very next verse after
having told him he must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ (2 Tim.
2:3).

A lot of people enter into the Christian life sort of unawares. They are thinking love,
peace, mercy, grace, and hope. They are not expecting combat and are ill prepared
and too often unready and unwilling to engage in it. Yes, there is love, peace,
mercy, grace, and hope in Christ but one has to remember these are mostly things
that are found within one’s being because of what he has become in Christ and
what Christ has done for him. As far as the outside world goes it is an entirely
different matter. You have to a large degree become the enemy to the world unless
you are going to try and be a secret disciple and never speak of Jesus and just go on
living like the world. If you decide on that course you will get along just fine in this
world but there is always the Day of Judgment to look forward to. That will be a
looking forward to “a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation
which will devour the adversaries.” (Heb. 10:27 NKJV)

But, as I said, many are not ready for the combat. In the parable of the soils the
one unprepared for combat is the one represented by the stony places soil
(describing the heart of man) where when the seed was sown (the word of God) it
was received and sprouted and came up but “when tribulation or persecution arises
because of the word, immediately he (a man with this kind of heart – DS) stumbles.”
(Matt. 13:21 NKJV) He is neither prepared for nor willing to engage in the fight. The
heart’s desire is only for the smooth things of Christianity, the blessings only.

At the end of his life Paul said he had “fought the good fight, I have finished the
race, I have kept the faith.” (2 Tim. 4:7 NKJV) It had been a fight indeed.
Remember when Paul was being converted the words of Jesus when speaking with
Ananias about him? He said, “I will show him how many things he must suffer for
my name’s sake.” (Acts 9:16 NKJV) One can read about the life of Paul and his
sufferings in summary in 2 Cor. 11:23-33. He talks about his beatings,
imprisonments, being stoned, and many other things that came his way in his life as
a Christian. It had been a fight, a lifelong fight after his conversion. And here is the
lesson all weak kneed brethren need to get out of this and all who desire to live
godly in Christ Jesus – the battle fought was a religious fight, the very kind many
feel it too unchristian, or unchristlike, to fight.

It was a fight over doctrine, over who was right and who was wrong, over who would
be saved and who would not, over the way to heaven. Too many people today see
this as an exceedingly nasty type of fighting that drives people away from Christ
they say. Hey, don’t talk to me. Your fight would be with Jesus, Paul, Jude, and
others.
Jesus said, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to
bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a
daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.’
And ‘a man’s foes will be those of his own household.’” (Matt. 10:34-36 NKJV) Paul
got in trouble because he was unwilling to remain quiet about his religion and
insisted on evangelizing and debating. Come to think about it that was pretty much
the same reason Jesus was crucified was it not? But, all the talk today by the so
called Christian soldiers seems to be about getting along, how we are all going to
the same place no matter what we believe or practice anyway, and how it is so
unchristian to fight one another. Some are willing to go so far with this approach as
to say one does not even have to be a Christian – any religion will do.

Jude says he wrote “exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith.” (Jude 3 NKJV)
One cannot do that and not debate religion. “We do not war according to the flesh.
For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down
strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against
the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of
Christ.” (2 Cor. 10:3-5 NKJV) Christians debate (casting down arguments), enter
into religious discussions with earnestness, but that is as far as it goes. No
Christian, living as a Christian, would ever do harm to another. “Love your enemies,
bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who
spitefully use you and persecute you.” (Matt. 5:44 NKJV) As I once wrote in another
article Christian wars are a misnomer.

When one looks at the armor a Christian is to put on to fight the Christian
warfare,“put on the whole armor of God” (Eph. 6:11 NKJV), that he might stand and
not fall one finds that he is given “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
(Eph. 6:17 NKJV) This is the word which is described in the Hebrew letter as being,
“living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the
division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the
thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Heb. 4:12 NKJV)

There are those today who would remake the sword of the Spirit into a butter knife.
Just sharp enough to cut soft butter and that’s it. They do not want the sharpest
two-edged sword ever made, one that pierces in the way described in Hebrews
4:12. The fear is someone might get hurt, that is get their feelings hurt. They are
not going to wield any such sword and so you can forget them as an active soldier
in the Lord’s army. If you have a rear view mirror you can probably look in it and
see them high tailing it away if any sword fighting with the word gets near them.
They will not debate the truth; they will not contend earnestly for the faith.

One of the great failings of Christian understanding is to fail to understand that until
the heart is pricked with the sword of the Spirit (and someone has to wield it) there
can be no repentance, no seeking of salvation, and no turning from error to truth.
You may hurt a man’s feelings for a day yet save his soul for eternity. Until a man
is convicted of the truth in his heart, the truth of his own sin, of his own error, the
truth of what God requires of him, there will be no movement on that man’s part
and thus no salvation.

I will never forget the wisdom of an old long gone preacher of my youth, one I never
met, one of another race, who has now been gone a few decades. He was talking to
a man who had been convicted of the truth but who was nevertheless unhappy with
the preaching as this man felt the preacher had not spoken as softly and kindly as
perhaps he could have and this offended the young man. The old wise preacher
made a comment along these lines – that preacher is the best friend you will ever
have. He taught you the truth and convicted you of it. Obviously, this is a
paraphrase but that is pretty much the exact thought expressed and how true it
was and is yet to this day. Many is the man who will speak softly to us and who will
allow us to go to hell before they will offend us but how many a man is there who
will tell us the truth? Which of the two is really out friend?

I told my children when they were growing up that one of the worst things that
happens with adulthood is that when you reach that point there are few who are
willing to tell you the truth even when you are dead wrong. When we are growing
up we have parents, teachers, and other adults who do not hesitate to jump in and
let us know we are in the wrong but once a man or woman reaches adulthood
suddenly no one is friend enough to any longer tell us the truth about ourselves.
They nod and say yes to whatever we say. The days of being rebuked for a bad
attitude and wrong doing whether toward God or man have come to an end. We
are thus always right and never wrong and how dangerous that is.

I close with this. God has an army. A man is either going to be in it and be a
faithful soldier and take the sword of the Spirit and use it properly, which means for
something other than buttering his bread, or else he is not. Either way there are
consequences or results that follow. For the one who picks up the sword of the
Spirit and then drops it and turns tail and runs the Bible says, “The cowardly…shall
have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second
death.” (Rev. 21:8 NKJV) That being the case the only real choice a man has,
accept it or not, is fight or die.