The Lord's Battles and Ours
As I was studying my Bible this morning, I was struck by a comparison of two verses. In I Sam. 25:28 it was said of Israel's anointed king, that "he fighteth the battles of the LORD". Then I read concerning Israel in 11 Chronicles 32:8, "...but with us is the LORD our God to help us, and to fight our battles." As I considered these two verses, I was strengthened by the premise: "As we fight the Lord's battles, the Lord will fight our battles." Anyone serving the Lord today has battles. In fact how we understand them and face them will determine if we succeed of fail in the Christian Life.
The Lord's Battles -- Here in Germany the ministry has seemed more like a war zone than it does a green pasture suitable for pastoring a flock; and while I try each week to feed His sheep, it seems I'm spending more and more time fighting off the wolves. In Germany, as in America, pornography is rampant, sodomy is in the open, and apostasy is reaching epidemic proportions. Governmental harassment, higher criticism, anti-missionary and anti-fundamentalism rhetoric, para-church organizations, ecumenical compromise, pseudo-Christianity, and internal conflicts are all being used by the forces of darkness in an attempt to diminish our effectiveness. While somewhat shaken, we at the Word of God Baptist Church in Nuremberg, are striving to stand firm and fight the Lord's battles. I am preaching as hard as I can against sin and -for soul .-We are soulwinning and distributing literature. Last Saturday was cold and rainy, yet over twenty people showed up for soulwinning! While the summer months have brought a bit of a slump in our numbers, we continue to pack out the new auditorium for our afternoon Persian service and have continued to see an average of about seven to ten adults per week following the Lord in baptism. To God's glory, we have now baptized on the last seventy-four consecutive Sundays! Surely the Lord is fighting the Battle.
Our Battles -- In addition to fighting the Lord's battles, each missionary has his own unique set of conflicts. We, like you, battle with the world, the flesh, and the devil. My family's major battle at this time pertains once again to the home-schooling of our children. The humanism; moral-relativism; Marxist-socialism; esoteric (read occult) existentialism; and downright perverted, uninhibited hedonism taught in the German public school system defies belief, both figuratively and literally. We refuse, of course, on both biblical and constitutional grounds to subject our children to this subversive, government-manipulated experimentation with demoralizing, desensitizing, "post-modern a-educationalism".
I marvel that so many agree with our stand in Germany but refuse to take the same stand in the United States. As I write this article, I find the line of distinction between the Lord's battles and my own became somewhat obscured. On the one hand, all these battles seem to be our own. On the other, they all seem to be the Lord's. Either way, I am relieved with the realization, that we won't be fighting any of them alone!
Mark A. Bachman
Missionary, Nurnburg, Germany