GOOD SOLDIERS OF JESUS CHRIST
[p. 534] GOOD SOLDIERS OF JESUS CHRIST
2 Timothy 2:3,4, Joshua 2:8 - 11; Judges 7:13 - 15
What is in mind to speak of is of a military character, hoping that it will carry with it what edifies and nourishes as the word of God. First, as to the obligation resting upon us to have part in the military feature of the service of God. It will be remembered that in the type in Numbers all the males from twenty years old and upward, those that were able to go forth to war, were enrolled. It will also be remembered that it is remarked in the book of Judges, after the great series of battles ending in the people of God entering on their heritage, that some had not known the wars of Canaan; and so it is, that there are those constantly coming in amongst the saints who do not know war and need to learn it. It is not an optional matter, it is imperative, for conscription is the principle with God in this respect; and we are to understand what it is that is to be contended for, involving, as Jude says, “the faith once delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). What is of God was never delivered to others; not to self-made councils and ecclesiastical dignitaries as historically known, but to the saints. So the idea is that the saints are in possession of it and are to value what they have, “the good deposit”, and maintain it against all opposition; and that in this service they are to be pleasing to the Lord, as we learn in this fourth verse, “No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier”.
In certain services we may perhaps assume that we are pleasing to the Lord; it is imperative that we should be in every service, but as in military service we are apt to forget that it is imperative there also. The idea of being pleasing to God is outstanding from the days of Enoch and earlier. Indeed, as God made one [p. 535] thing after another in bringing the creation into its present form, seen in Genesis 1 and 2, He takes care to pronounce on each; He was concerned that all should be according to His own mind. When we come to Enoch, we are told that “he had this testimony, that he pleased God”;(Hebrews 11:5) not simply as God’s handiwork, as part of creation, but in the outshining of what was there through discipline, through education from God, before his translation. Not that we have the testimony that he pleased God; we have it, thank God, but that he had it. How pleasing to him it must have been that God gave him to understand in his daily walks with Him, as it were, that he pleased Him; for God’s thought in the companionship He takes on is that it should be congenial. In like manner each is to please Him who has called him to be a soldier.
Then what comes out at this point is that soldiership is learnt from God, so that we are to understand it is a spiritual matter. Hence the saints, as come out of Egypt, celebrated Jehovah as a “man of war” — “Jehovah is a man of war”, they say (Exodus 15:3); but then, in the same breath they say, “Jehovah, his name”. There was more there than warriorship and military power; “Jehovah, his name”, a name that is regarded by the spiritual as to be revered. So that the thought leads to worship. That chapter — Exodus 15 — is full of the spirit of worship, including the triumphant note, “Jehovah shall reign for ever and ever!” (Exodus 15:18) No thoroughly subject person desires aught else than that, than that “Jehovah shall reign for ever and ever”,(Exodus 15:18) a settled order of things in which the subjects are satisfied.
Another thing that comes in is that, in our warfare, we go through a certain training, so that the Lord can take His place as Head, as Leader, and not be ashamed of us — because we please Him. Hence in the book of Joshua we have five chapters dealing with the education of Joshua and Israel; particularly their army, but Israel as a whole, before we have the Captain of Jehovah’s [p. 536] host. He does not appear in the first chapter, for now we are on military ground, and military dignity and order and glory must be considered for; it is a matter of divine warfare and a holy matter too; no room for fleshly exhibition, anger or hate, in it. Hence chapter 5 of Joshua records the position at Gilgal, where all that is of the flesh would be a reproach. To bring spiritual matters into an ordinary army of this world would generally bring one under reproach, but in divine warfare, to bring in fleshly feelings, places one under reproach; and that is what Gilgal implies, the reproach of Egypt rolled away; whatever feature of Egypt it may be, it is drastically dealt with in the circumcision. So the passover is kept, and then we have the old corn of the land, the suitable food now is a heavenly matter. Our warfare is spiritual; not with flesh and blood, but with powers in the heavenlies, and we need heavenly food to sustain us for that, and that food is no less than Christ Himself as indigenous to heaven; as belonging to heaven, as He says, “The Son of man which is in heaven” (John 3:13). He is to be apprehended in that light; partaken of, fed upon, in that light, for this warfare.
Immediately after this heavenly bread is spoken of, Joshua lifts up his eyes and sees the Man with His sword drawn. Joshua, being the ostensible leader of Israel, thinks of someone as an addition to his army, to his military power, and inquires, “Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?” (Joshua 5:13) The reply was, “Nay; but as captain of the host of the Lord am I now come”,(Joshua 5:14) as much as to say, as indeed the footnote indicates, ‘for I, the captain of the army of Jehovah, am now come’ — the time has come for it, conditions are ready for it. That is, I think, what is meant. It is a military matter, and the Captain is there; He belongs to heaven, and when suitable conditions exist. He comes in to lead. ‘I as Captain of Jehovah’s host am now come’. I know of nothing more encouraging in times of stress, of [p. 537] conflict, than the sense that the Lord at an opportune moment comes in. Certain exercises have to be gone through by us, and the sense of dependence deepened, and we for a time are to endure the ignominy and stress, but as we make room for Him, He never fails to come in, and the required results are reached. It may be we need to be led on to the heavenly side and to judge the natural ways we have in conflict, but He waits His own time and comes in then and announces Himself as in complete charge of the whole matter, and everyone who knows Him wishes that, and that only. It is entirely His matter now, the conquest of Canaan is not Joshua’s matter; it is a matter for the Captain of Jehovah’s host, and there can be only one end as He takes charge — complete victory.
I wish now to show how in conflicts God places some thing or person in the enemy’s camp that will ultimately disrupt it. One could cite many instances besides those two of which I have read. I believe it is a great principle with God that He not only takes up leadership, but operates, choosing His own battlefields, and causes conditions in the enemy’s camp to disrupt him. The warfare goes on, of course, but the Captain of Jehovah’s host is in position, the ground is holy too; another important matter, “Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy” (Joshua 5:15). Military service is holy, as the service of God in the sanctuary is holy. Dear brethren, this has to be kept in mind. We are told about the Lord Jesus in Romans, “marked out Son of God in power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by resurrection of the dead” (Romans 1:4). Grappling with the great enemy of God and men. He maintained the standard of holiness, and as on the cross, we know He said to God, “Thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel”, Psalm 22:3. So that holiness is to be maintained in all these features of service. As I was saying, the principle of God working in the enemy’s camp for its overthrow is to be noted.
[p. 538] We have, for instance, such a person as the wife of Pilate at Jerusalem — a remarkable personage brought in at the right moment. Had her husband had right instincts he would have been affected, but his conduct is rendered the more reprehensible by the testimony of that woman. She said to her husband, as he sat there on the judgment seat, “Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him”;(Matthew 27:19) that is Jesus. That Pilate was not affected does not set aside the triumph of that; it was a moral triumph that there was somebody in the enemy’s camp — no other than the wife of the judge, who testified to the righteousness of Jesus at that moment. Jesus died, of course, but the moral victory was there, and it is on this principle that God had that woman there. Again, the thief of whom we often speak; he had a moment before been on the side of the enemy, but now is against him as on Christ’s side — witnessing to His righteousness, and condemning the worst feature, perhaps, of the enemy’s camp, that is, what is called the underworld. This man beside Jesus on the cross bears testimony to it. He says, as it were, I know that I am justly condemned, I am one that sinned in that feature of the world, I am dying a malefactor justly; but “this man hath done nothing amiss” (Luke 23:41). And moreover he says, “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom” (Luke 23:42). Christ was to reign for ever and ever, he knows this. Thus one in the enemy’s camp, by his testimony, in principle disrupts it; it is only a matter of time. It could not be without the death of Jesus, but I am speaking now of the testimony that was there. Then again, we have the centurion, the officer who superintended the crucifixion of Christ and the two thieves. He says, as he noticed what happened, “Truly this man was the Son of God” (Matthew 27:54). He is the representative of the Roman army, and his testimony involved the disruption of the whole system. The Son of God sets up another system. The stone cut out [p. 539] without hands (Daniel 2), shall overthrow the great gentile empires, but “itself shall stand for ever” (Daniel 2:44).
Now I come to Rahab the harlot. This designation attached to her, is surely to remind us of what I am speaking of. She is no longer that, she has flax in her house, she has it spread on her roof, she hides the servants of God with it; and yet she is living on the wall of Jericho, she is under the rule of the king of Jericho, outwardly. He sends to her, but she is in principle disrupting his whole system, and what comes out here is, that she speaks, not about herself or anything in her to commend herself, but about God and God’s people; a sure evidence that she has been secured for God, and she is going to effect what He intended she should effect, that is to say, a clear testimony in Jericho to the power of God and the power of God’s people, and that they must prevail, and the world go down. Let us hear such testimonies as these and we shall be greatly strengthened in confessing the name of the Lord. Being enrolled at twenty years old, as they were in Numbers, means that a young Christian believing in the Lord Jesus and believing in his heart that God has raised Him from the dead, confesses His name. That is the idea; one is thus publicly a soldier of Jesus Christ and now henceforth it is for him to please the Lord, as such. How stimulating it is that, although in your workshop or office, or schoolroom, it may be, you feel the power of the world, that there is in you there at any time a testimony to God, a testimony to what will bring down the whole evil system around you. When it was suitable to do so, Rahab went up to the roof and conversed with the two spies. It is a remarkable incident. She says, “We have heard that Jehovah dried up the waters of the Red sea before you”. The saints come into view as the subjects of God’s service. How much God is doing today in all the manipulations among the nations and in the commercial world. What else can it be, but for the saints? “All things”, says the apostle, “work together for good to those who love God” (Romans 8:28). Rahab understands that what God did at the Red Sea He did for His people.
What a word that is for young Christians, as it says in Romans, “who was delivered for our offences” — as if there was nothing else in view — “and was raised again for our justification” (Romans 4:25). Jesus’ death is for us, His resurrection is for us. His present session in heaven is for us, ever living, as it says, to make intercession for us. What then are we doing? That is the next thing that Rahab speaks of; and that is part of the testimony to the world; the power of the saints; what they are capable of. It will come to light when Israel will become the battle-axe of God, but more so now in a spiritual way in this warfare in heavenly places, or, it may be, in the wilderness as we confess the Lord Jesus as our Saviour. So Rahab says, “We have heard ... what ye did to the two kings of the Amorites”. The humble believer would not enlarge on his work, but when one such as Rahab speaks of what the saints do, there is a testimony to the power amongst them. “Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world”,(1 John 4:4). And the Lord says to the assembly in Philadelphia, “Thou hast a little power”, (Revelation 3:8). Rahab knows how to speak of it; she says further. We have heard “what ye did ... to Sihon and to Og, whom ye utterly destroyed”. How fine a thing it is to speak of a work of this kind that is really well done. “Ye utterly destroyed” them, she says. If we understand what Sihon and Og mean spiritually, we shall see the force of this more fully. It is a question of our way of thinking of ourselves — as big — until each can say with the apostle, “I am crucified with Christ, and no longer live, I, but Christ lives in me”, (Galatians 2:20). You can thus see, how as in conflict, what stimulation it is to find in the enemy’s camp the means, in principle, of its destruction.
[p. 541] I go on to Judges. In Joshua it is a question of conflict in regard to the inheritance, and as I was saying, one in Jericho as outwardly of it, but who has completely turned round; she now knows God, and knows what God is doing. She knows the saints and knows what the saints are doing, and as it were she is coming into fellowship; her name is to be perpetually remembered in Israel. It is a question of the inheritance of God and what God places in the enemy’s stronghold to disrupt it.
Now in Judges it is not exactly a question of taking possession of the inheritance, but of maintaining ourselves in it, the enemy seeking to rob us of our food. The Midianites had invaded the land and destroyed the food of Israel; what God had provided for them. How much there is of that today, and what a great service it is to rescue it! The Lord says of one who gives food in season to his household: “Blessed is that bondman whom his lord on coming shall find doing thus” (Matthew 24:46). Thus we see the great importance of food for the saints. In a day of small things God says, “Bring the whole tithe into the treasure-house, that there may be food in my house, and prove me now herewith ... if I open not to you the windows of the heavens, and pour you out a blessing, till there be no place for it”, (Malachi 3:10). That shows the importance of making room for what the Lord is furnishing us with, for it is not God’s way to continue ministering what people do not value.
Now, the Midianites were destroying the food, and Gideon, as first introduced to us, was doing what he could in a very circumscribed environment to defeat what the enemy was doing. He was hiding the food from the Midianites. That was how Jehovah found him employed, and the verses I have read speak of something in that camp that would disrupt it. Numerous as the Midianite hosts were, they were going to be overthrown, and there was a testimony within their own [p. 542] midst to this very thing. Thus Gideon is caused to hear what transpired between these two men in the camp, and, dear brethren, in our conflicts we should understand this matter.
God could have given deliverance otherwise, but He said in effect to Gideon, ‘You are to go down to the camp and see this thing I have put there, and you will be assured that victory is yours’. So it says, “Gideon came, and behold, a man was telling a dream to his fellow; and he said. Behold, I dreamed a dream, and lo, a cake of barley-bread tumbled into the camp of Midian, and came to the tent, and smote it that it fell, and overturned it; and the tent lay along”. There was only one Rahab; only one wife of Pilate; only one thief on the cross who was converted; only one centurion at the cross who confessed Jesus; here there were two men in Midian’s camp speaking of the victory over their own people that God was about to give Gideon. I want you to note that Jehovah directed His servant to go down into Midian’s camp to see what was there.
In the New Testament we may find examples of this kind in the teaching, how the weakness of the world is exposed. You get, for instance, in Revelation 9, apparently great warriors, but they have hair as woman’s hair; meaning that they are morally weak; and so we are told to resist the devil, and he will flee from us. With all his show of outward power, he is a defeated foe, and cannot stand before true Christians, being the soldiers of God. The Christian knows the arch-enemy, he understands by spiritual teaching the weakness that is there. We all are to understand it, what we have to contend with, and how weak the position is, if rightly understood. Scripture abounds with evidence of this. Gideon is to know it in a first-hand way. So Jehovah says, “Go thou with Phurah thy servant” (Judges 7:10). Two are better than one in such matters. Two spies went to Jericho, and here there are Gideon and his servant, and then two men in the camp of Midian. One has the dream, and tells the other, “And his fellow answered and said. This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, the man of Israel: God hath given into his hand Midian and all the host”. Think of that, between two Midianites! The man who dreamed, for the moment, was a servant of heaven in the enemy’s camp, and the other man who had light about the dream, was also a servant of heaven. He says, “This is nothing else ...”. It is a process of reasoning — “save the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, the man of Israel”. What light and encouragement for Gideon at such a moment! And he goes on to say, “God hath given into his hand Midian and all the host”. This interpreter of the dream is as valuable for this purpose as if he were the archangel Michael come down. He is God’s vessel for this service, God may have at any time in the midst of our conflicts in the very enemy’s camp, what discloses his weakness and effects ultimately his overthrow. The knowledge of this gives assurance as we go forward as warriors of God.
One could say much about Ephesians 6, for that is the chapter that enlarges on our position at the present time. What a dignity there is in it! What armour is provided! Nothing less than the whole armour of God. We read of the Lord Jesus coming out presently from heaven and the armies of heaven following Him. We already belong to those armies. The book of Joshua opens it up to us, it is a question of heavenly bread, and heavenly warriors, and the Captain of Jehovah’s host taking His place at their head. Joshua is directed to take his shoes off, as the ground was holy, and he does. And because of the testimony of those two men in the camp of Midian, Gideon worships. So you can see, dear brethren, that what I am speaking of now is no less a matter than the service of God, towards Himself, that all these military matters really have this in mind. Gideon worshipped, as you will observe. “And it came to pass when Gideon heard the telling [p. 544] of the dream and its interpretation, that he worshipped. And he returned into the camp of Israel, and said, Arise; for Jehovah hath given into your hand the camp of Midian”. He is full of assurance, of encouragement to go forward, and we all know the great result — a complete victory over Midian by Gideon and his three hundred men, who are spiritually tested, so “that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us”,(2 Corinthians 4:7) and to show that “the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ”, (2 Corinthians 10:4,5).
That is what I had to say, dear brethren, and I trust it will be of service, for the need of soldiership is great, of contending earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints, and, in doing it, to please Him who has called us to be His soldiers in our times.