Warzone

When Moses and the Israelites cross the Red Sea, they sing a song together (Exodus 15). Because what else is there to do in the middle of the wilderness? Especially when you’ve just witnessed these powerful waters roll back with ease and then crash down on the nightmare that enslaved you and your ancestors for hundreds of years. Let’s sing! In what has come to be known as the “Song of Moses,” the Israelites call the Lord a “man of war” (v. 3). And certainly he is.

“Pharaoh’s chariots and his host he cast into the sea and his chosen officers were sunk in the Red Sea. The floods covered them; they went down into the depths like a stone. Your right hand, O LORD, glorious in power, your right hand, O LORD, shatters the enemy. In the greatness of your majesty you overthrow your adversaries; you send out your fury; it consumes them like stubble. At the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up; the floods stood up in a heap; the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea. The enemy said, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil, my desire shall have its fill of them. I will draw my sword; my hand shall destroy them.’ You blew with your wind; the sea covered them; they sank like lead in the mighty waters.” (v. 4-10)

We see war at Family of God all the time. Sometimes it literally is physical violence due to a family feud, a drug debt, or disrespect. Other times it’s much deeper than that. A man battles his addiction. A woman fights like hell with her depression or cancer. A mother struggles with fear and anxiety as her son suffers in prison unfairly. The unrelenting clash of the titans, however, is “not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against the authorities, against cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly place” (Eph. 6:12).

Just this past week we had a young man who, after years and years of being at war with his heroin addiction, showed up to Family of God with his fiancée and fifteen year old son. We had not seen him in 7 months, which in this neighborhood can indicate a number of different things. As he walked towards Pastor Hill and me, we didn’t even recognize him. Until we looked in his eyes. He was clean, had a home, a job, was getting custody of his daughter in two days. He says to Pastor Hill, “I just wanted to say hi…and thank you.” A great victory for the Kingdom of God!

Almost simultaneously with this young man’s exit to return to his new life, another man (who we hadn’t seen in months) stumbles through the door slurring incoherent phrases littered with cuss words and racial slurs. It was as if the enemy was taunting us, taking our candy, and popping our balloon. “Sure, God can have that one, but I got a million more,” Pastor Hill says, quoting the enemy. Time to stop celebrating and get back to God’s work. There will always be this tension as we, along with our volunteers, combat attacks from the enemy.

Surely the Lord is a man of war. But he uses unorthodox weapons. In the Red Sea event, God uses water to destroy Israel’s enemies. In the great flood, God uses water to wipe out the wicked. Even when Jesus casts out the demons into a herd of pigs, they are drowned in water! In the same way, God destroys our enemies with the water of our Baptism. To return to the song of Moses, the enemy said, “I will pursue, overtake, divide the spoil, draw my sword, destroy them.” But God blew with his wind, and the sea covered them and they sank like lead in the mighty waters…of our Baptism.

God uses another unorthodox weapon in this war against the enemy. On a dark Friday afternoon, God uses a cross as an altar, on which his son hangs in place of all sinners. As Satan laughs, thinking he has finally devoured the Lord, he quickly realizes that death has been swallowed up forever (Isaiah 25:8). God has won. The war is over. Death has been defeated. Satan has no power.

So let’s continue to fight, putting our trust in the Lord, a man of war.