And the Lord thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little: thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee. But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until they be destroyed. And he shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven: there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them. (Deuteronomy 7:22-24)

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places). (Ephesians 6:12)

War

God did all the fighting when the Hebrew slaves made their exodus from Egypt. God struck the land of Egypt with plagues, finally slaying the firstborn of man and animal. The Pharaoh of Egypt opposed the release of his slaves but God broke the back of his resistance. No armed rebellion of the Hebrews themselves was necessary to accomplish the obtaining of their freedom.

Christ Himself, with the assistance of no human being, paid the full price for our redemption on the cross of Calvary. The Son of God came into full confrontation with the God of this age, and by His obedience to the Father totally destroyed the authority over mankind maintained by Satan. Jesus—and Jesus alone—destroyed the authority of the devil.

But when the Israelites entered their land of promise, they had to fight. God helped, intervening on their side in many instances. But the Jews had to fight!

Can this be true also of us Christians? Is it a fact that while Christ accomplished our initial salvation by Himself, we also must fight (with God's help) fierce battles against a vicious and determined enemy in order to enter our inheritance, into the "rest of God"?

There is a time when the Christian is to be a sheep, wandering in the wilderness of instruction under the guidance of the Good Shepherd, sometimes fighting minor skirmishes as the Lord leads. But the day will come when the Christian becomes a soldier in the Lord's army and follows his Commander in Chief, the Lord of Hosts, the Lord strong and mighty in battle, into the crushing assault on all the forces of the enemy.

The kingdom of darkness will be destroyed by Christ acting through the Church, the Body of Christ!

Because the battles of the Lord are fought by the army of angels as well as by the army of Israel it was necessary for Joshua to meet the commander of the angelic troops.

And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? (Joshua 5:13)

How often has the Christian Church, and how often have we as individuals, attempted to fight the battles of the Lord using only human strength and wisdom and material resources? But when we come up against strongly entrenched positions of the enemy we begin to understand that the Lord Jesus fights in the spiritual and in the natural realms at the same time.

Our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers of spiritual wickedness in heavenly places. As soon as we achieve victory in the spirit realm, victory is possible on the earth. The cooperation of spiritual and human forces, as the Holy Spirit directs, is necessary before the fortresses of Hell can be demolished.

To be continued.