What To Wear In A War

This is from a transcript of a sermon preached by Dr. Jack Graham on September 25, 2011

Thank you so much, students. And I would invite you now to take your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Ephesians, chapter 6. If you don’t have a copy of God’s Word there’s one provided for you in the pew rack. If you’re at one of our other campuses our ushers will get you a Bible if you will just hold up your hand and we will get you God’s Word. We want you to follow along and I do welcome not only our North Campus and our Dallas Campus, but also all of you online who are watching right now around the world on the web. So welcome to Prestonwood and welcome to the Word of God.

Ephesians chapter 6 and we’re taking a behind-the-scenes look at the invisible world. A very real, a very powerful world. You know we are not human beings living in a spiritual world; we are spiritual beings living in a human world. We’re not human beings having a spiritual experience but we are spiritual beings, created by God, eternal, having a human experience. And behind the scenes there is an invisible life, an invisible world in which we are all engaged. And it is a critical, critical understanding of this world that our faith, our family, our very future are at stake. That’s why the Scripture tells us that we in these last days are to put away the darkness and put on the armor of life. We’re to shake off the lethargy and the apathy and push back the darkness by engaging in spiritual warfare. But we dare not fight alone; we must fight in the Lord because the battle is the Lord’s. And we dare not fight without the equipment, the armor that is needed to defeat the enemy if we’re going to win this good fight of faith.

Now as we stated last week, Jesus has defeated the darkness; He has defeated the devil at the cross, and by the power of His resurrection the enemy is done. One day Jesus is coming again, the Warrior King, to finish him off completely. But until that time Satan is alive and well and living on planet earth. And behind the scenes he is working along with the invisible host and hordes of hell, the hordes of darkness; and while we have victory that does not mean that we do not suffer satanic attack, demonic attack. And so we must look through the lens of Scripture, through the Word of God, behind the curtain, into this invisible world because what you can’t see can hurt you! What you can’t see can hurt you! The devil means to do you harm, and therefore, we must not be unaware of our spiritual enemy and our spiritual engagement this battle for life itself.

We just got back from a trip to Israel, and while I was there I took time to have a conversation with our long time guide, Yuval Shemesh. Yuval is fifty-one years of age and he had quite a career in the Israeli army before becoming a guide in Israel. When you are 17,18 years of age, get out of high school in Israel, you go straight to the military. No exception, men and women, boys, young men and young women go straight to the military. And so as an 18-year-old Yuval went to the military. He was involved in some of the behind the scenes operations, covert operations of the Israeli army. He ultimately, after spending his term and time in the army became a reserve and so he is called up as most are in Israel in the reserve for about 20 years. When you are 50 years of age you are no longer called to reserve duty.

So now that he is a little bit over 50, 51-52, I asked, “Yuval,” I said, “Okay, so what happens now after all this time in the army and your reserve duty?” And, of course, we know that the Middle East can be a hot spot, and the Israeli armies are on duty on guard constantly. When you visit Israel, there’s always a sense of safety because of the Israeli army and the protection that is there. I’ve never felt ill-at-ease or ill-at-ease for anyone we’ve taken to Israel, but it is true to say that there is a tenseness in the air. There’s this sense that we are at ground zero of the problems of the world when we visit Jerusalem and the Middle East.

And so I asked Yuval… I said, “Suppose that is a war. You’re 50-something years of age. Will you go back into war? Will you go back into battle?” He said “Absolutely!” He said, “Because here in Israel we are fighting for our family, we are fighting for the future of our people, and so we stay on guard we stay vigilant all the time.” And here was a dad, now a granddad who is saying no matter what it takes, because of the realities of the future in Israel, I am ready and I will be responsible to fight for my family because what is at stake here is our future.