The Battle Of Thermopylae And The Body Of Christ Today: The Parable Of The Wheat And The Weeds Series

“The east was on a collision course with the west in 480 BC. The world watched in awe as the largest army in history poured into Europe. Heading this colossal war machine was Xerxes, the king of Persia. His army numbered almost two million foot soldiers, eighty thousand horsemen, twenty thousand chariots, camel-riding Arabs, and war elephants from India. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote that when this beast from the east marched, the ground shook. When it stopped to drink, pools were dried up and rivers reduced to a trickle.

You may remember Xerxes as the husband of the biblical heroine Esther. This self-proclaimed “king of kings” spent four years amassing his titanic force to crush tiny Greece. It was the mismatch of the ages. Greece was a collection of city-states warring against each other. Athens was mired in social stagnation, and Sparta was in economic shambles. Never was a nation so vulnerable. Yet five Greek cities managed to scrape together about five thousand soldiers. They were outnumbered 430 to 1. But at their core were three hundred Spartans. These three hundred had been trained since childhood to stand or die in battle. Every Spartan mother sent her sons off to war with this warning: “Come home with your shield, or on it.”

The Greeks took their stand in a narrow pass, fifty feet wide, with the sea on one side and towering cliffs on the other, at a place called Thermopylae. This battleground has become hallowed in military history. It is to the Greeks what the Alamo is to Texans. In that narrow pass a heroic handful held back the Persian hordes for two days. When Xerxes finally unleashed his crack storm troopers, the Greeks annihilated them. But on the third night, a traitor showed the Persians a secret trail through the cliffs into Thermopylae. Sure death was coming with the breaking dawn. Dismissing the rest of the Greeks, General Leonidas led his three hundred Spartans, along with some loyal Thespians, to a mound where they made their final stand.

This small band of Spartans died without knowing they were changing history. They bought enough time for the Greek cities to raise a great army. Their heroism triggered a surge of national pride that led to decisive victories at Salamis and Plataea. The power of Persia was broken. The future of civilization shifted from Asia to Europe. Athens became the world’s most influential city. Greek culture and democracy would give birth to the modern world. Maybe you are facing overwhelming odds. Perhaps you have suffered a crushing defeat. Take heart from the story of three hundred Spartans. Surely it teaches us a valuable lesson: There are some defeats whose triumphs rival victories.” -Robert Petterson, The One Year Book of Amazing Stories

"Some nations boast of their chariots and horses, but we boast in the name of the LORD our God. Those nations will fall down and collapse, but we will rise up and stand firm." -Psalm 20:7-8

As the body of Christ today, sometimes we feel like the 300 at Thermopylae don’t we? It often seems like the darkness is closing in on all sides, particularly in the west. New forms of evil on every side seem to grow and spread like locusts. Mass systems of public education and universities and colleges grind like gears of secularism mass producing anti-religious worldviews, and growing hatred and mistrust toward Christians and people of faith. We feel surrounded on every side by a growing darkness in these difficult days.

We see strange new technologies being developed, even microchips that can be implanted in people’s brains. We see scientists experimenting, by colliding particles at rapid speeds. We see scientists experimenting with chimeras and gain of function research to viruses, and new weaponry, and we see culture sexualizing children at younger and younger ages. We see violent extremism, we see Marxism, and critical theory, and other ideologies that threaten to disrupt society. We see massive debt in the government in the trillions upon trillions, we see rampant inflation, and economic uncertainty.

Yet we also see that the body of Christ stands firm even now. The Christian movement across the face of the world is growing, not declining. Even in the United States, evangelical Christianity is holding firm, as mainline protestant Christianity is tumbling in memberships, as they compromise with the world on key issues like marriage and life and gender and such worldly ideologies. The body of Christ continues to plant new churches, the body of Christ continues to advocate for life, for marriage, for children, for charity, and for the hurting and the lost. The body of Christ continues to serve at soup kitchens and homeless shelters and evangelism outreaches and coffee shops and women's shelters and human trafficking outreaches and pregnancy resource centers and political action organizations. The body of Christ shares the gospel in unique ways through television, radio, books, movies, the internet, tracts, relationships, groups, street evangelism and much more. The body of Christ continues to pull people from the clutches of sin and addiction and into the kingdom of God by the thousands every day. The body of Christ continues to stand boldly against the darkness, shining ever brighter, and victoriously against sin, death, hell, and apostasy.