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Civil War Lessons

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Civil War Lessons

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Civil War Lessons

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What lessons can we learn from the Civil War as it applies to our spiritual battles?

Transcript

[Frank Dunkle] So I want to begin my message, it's somewhat serious, but I hope you'll see some value… well obviously value in it, but maybe I should back up and go sit down, I'll come up here again. Now in your minds with me, go back the year 1864, the Army of the Potomac had already been fighting for about 3 years. It had fought seven major battles, none of them were outright victories, most had been spectacular defeats. So that's why after three years of vicious fighting, the army was only camped a few miles from where it had begun the war. And now another general had taken command, this fellow from out west named Ulysses S. Grant. He was the eighth commander of this army. The common foot soldier therefore had little hope that things would be much different when as they began moving south that May, starting a new campaign season. They were camped near Washington D.C., started moving towards Virginia. Many of the men were veterans of many years of soldiering by this time. They knew the monotonous camp routine, they also knew the terror of being in live battle. And one of them might just guess that things weren't going to be any different this time. In this case, the army, they called it the Army of the Potomac, that was what we call the Union Army, they crossed the Rapidan River, began moving through this juggle-like stretch of territory, it was second growth, where many of thee virgin timber had been cut down and now it'd grown up, there was some isolated farms here and there. It was an area known to area residence as "the wilderness".

The goal of General Grant was to move past that and engage the Confederate Army, called the Army of Northern Virginia, in a more open area further south where his superior numbers would be telling. It didn't work that way though. General Lee moved his army quickly and right in the middle of that wilderness attacked the Union columns. Two days of vicious fighting ensured. The landscape in the woods negated much of the Union's superiority by numbers. And then partway through, the woods caught fire, which was devastating to men who were injured and lying in the field, and many of them died from the burning. By the end of those two days, the Federal Army had suffered 17,000 casualties, and had not gained control of a single foot of ground more than it had before. It looked like once again under General Lee's brilliant leadership, the United States had been dealt a devastating defeat.

Let me quote from Bruce Catton, the famous Civil War historian. He said, "At dusk, the evening of May 7th, the Union troops were ordered back from their firing lines. The men assumed they would march back to the vicinity of Washington D.C. where they would reorganize, refit as they had done so many times before. But as the head of the troops came to a crossroads that smoke stained night, they found that they were taking the turn to the south. They were going to move further into the enemy territory, and not disappointment, but a spontaneous cheer broke out. The men further back heard the further… the men up the front cheering, and as they approached, they realized they were turning south not back north and they began cheering. They realized that whatever else the command of General Ulysses S. Grant meant, it would mean no turning back. The days of retreat were over. It didn't mean no more defeat, and there would be setbacks, there would be more casualties, but always a determination to advance."

Now you probably guessed, especially if you saw the title of today's message, that I want to draw some spiritual lessons from the American Civil War. It's not very far past that many groups and museums across the country were celebrating what's called the sesquicentennial. Took me a while to learn to say that properly. That means 150 years anniversary. And it was a tragic but epic event in American history. I've been cautious to tell myself to say American, I know we have some non-Americans here and when I was in grad school, we learned that saying "Civil War", you had to say "American Civil War" because in England they'd had a pretty big one a couple hundred years before. I'm not talking about that one, no Oliver Cromwell or Roundheads or Cavaliers, except for up in Cleveland. But if you'll turn to 2 Timothy 2, you'll note that I'm not the first to use the analogy of soldering for Christianity. 2 Timothy 2, we'll be begin in verse 3. 2 Timothy 2:3-4. I might say my scriptures several times, I'm breaking in a new Bible.

Paul writing to Timothy says, "You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier." So let's consider some lessons from a great war in our history. By great, I mean big. Not good, I'm not trying to put a positive light on it, but I think we can draw some lessons from those armies and those soldiers to help us to live better as Christians and to fight the good fight that lies before us.

The first lesson is one that might be evident if we have some more older members. I remember when I was in Portsmouth, we had some older members who had been soldiers. And one thing that I learned from my talks with them is that a soldier does have to endure hardship. It's not the comfort in an established base camp that wins wars, it's going out on the campaign, overcoming the stress of the obstacles and of an enemy. Soldier's life is hard. It's not easy. And it's also important to remember it's not how you start a campaign that counts, it's how you finish. I'll quote Mathew 24:13, it's one that many of us have committed to memories, or to our memories, it's Jesus said, "He who endures to the end shall be saved." He was referring to end time prophecy in many ways, but we could take that out of context and say, well, that do you have to endure? Well the Apostle Paul said, "Endure hardship." And when things are good, you don't consider it endurance. You have to endure, get past the easy first times. Let's consider the start of that war.

In 1861 after the Confederacy opened fire on Fort Sumter and Charleston Harbor, President Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to serve for 3 months. They expected the war would be wrapped up that quickly, and they really thought 75,000 might be more than they needed. As it turned out, thousands more than that rushed to join. And I say rushed because many men were afraid that the war would be over before they had a chance to get in. You know, those who have studied the war much might chuckle at that knowing it drug on and on. But the men were so excited and we didn't have a centralized huge army with this great bureaucracy that we have today, it was rather a bare bones and so they let the men form local companies where they would often vote for their own officers and they would choose their own uniforms. A lot of Civil War historians have fun looking at that because there were some who come up with this colorful names and uniforms. A number of them called themselves the “Zouaves” for some companies in the Middle East and they wore red trousers and had fez caps. You might think they were shriners on parade. And others were “Fencibles”, borrowing names from Britain. Many Union companies adopted uniforms of this nice grey, but that's okay there were a lot of Confederates who had these brilliant blue coats, which caused some confusion when that first battle came.

As a matter of fact, I'm going to look at my watch, I can talk about the Battle of Bull Run about… not all day, but for an hour, but I'm not going to. But, you know, they marched into that battle with a lot of spectators coming from Washington D.C. with picnic lunches, "Hey, we're going to go out and watch the war." It was kinda like going tailgating to watch a football game. And it turned into a bloody battle. It was messy, people died. It wasn't going to be easy and quick, and that's when they realized, "It's not how we start, we're going to have to endure a hardship." The war would take much longer. It would require much greater effort, there would be sacrifice. It would take more time than expected. Both countries, although the North didn't want to acknowledge the South as a country, but they were organized as such, they would have to organize regular armies. They were going to have to train troops, get them ready to fight.

Men would have to learn to endure hardship as good soldiers. And enduring sometimes would be enduring boredom. There's a famous quote and I've heard it many times, I'm not sure who said it first, but they say, "The life of a solder consists of months of boredom punctuated by moments of extreme terror." That's what battle's like. And it was that way in the 19th century. Once a soldier was enlisted, he'd go through basic training, he'd be made part of a company and they'd be camped at some base. And bases back then consisted of rows and rows of these tents, many of them two-man tents with the little A-frame that we… you've seen photos of. And they'd be organized around some larger tents that serve for the officers. And very high ranking officers would get to commandeer someone's house perhaps. And the men with several tents together would be organized into what was called a "mess". Now "mess" is not meant to describe what it looked like inside the tent, a "mess" refers to going… it's a military term for having meals. A mess group was men who cooked or prepared, cooked, and ate their meals together, so they were messmates.

And so daily life consisted of morning roll call, get out of bed, stand at attention for inspection, breakfast with your messmates, then parade drill. They'd have to learn to march together, follow commands, turn the right way, move from this formation to that. The officer's goal was to get the men to do what they were told without thinking. Soldiers aren't meant to think for themselves. But even with all the drilling and inspections, soldiers had a lot of extra time on their hands, they didn't have homes to maintain, families to take care of, and they couldn't always be watched by the officers, the officers were in their offices writing out orders and planning strategy. And it's amazing for me to think that the amount of paperwork they produced writing by hand. No typewriters, no iMacs, no any of that, no laser printers. Free time could be a soldier's worst enemy. Many of those young men were away from home for the first time, thrown together without the benefits of their family, and especially the benefits of the women in those family who might have taken objections to the mess. These men easily fell prey to temptations and pastimes that were destructive. For too many of these men, young men, gambling, drinking, visiting prostitutes became bad habits. Those bad habits also didn't help to win the war in the least.

Now stop and think, if we're Christian soldiers, we have some similarities. We are organized and we do have plenty of opportunity to spend time together, good productive time, but we can only be at church services and activities just so much. And most of you don't have offices upstairs where you're engaged like the officers of the army preparing strategy and doing the work. It could be easy in that extra time to get distracted with destructive pastimes. The same gambling and drinking that were common for Civil War soldiers are real dangerous today. And of course we have additional distractions: TV, movies, websites, social trends, sometimes even friends who don't share our calling and our values. You know, a soldier's messmates might tempt them into the excessive drinking, visiting prostitutes, just as we might have friends from school or work who tempt us into things like pornography, and partying, and using drugs, and I could go on and on and on.

On the other hand of course, a good set of messmates would influence a soldier to develop good habits and to resist bad temptations. Same goes for us. Having friends obviously is not bad, it's who are those friends, how do they influence us? We must always choose carefully, choose wisely. I'd like to read Matthew 24, beginning at verse 44, Jesus Christ had something to say about that. Matthew 24:44. This is talking about someone who has time on their hands, the master is gone and he's not coming back as soon as they thought. Said, "Then they will also answer Him, saying, 'Lord...'" Oh wait a minute, that's Matthew 25. I told you I'm breaking in a new Bible, it doesn't turn properly. Said, "Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you don't expect. Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made him ruler over his household, to give them food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. Surely, I say he'll make him ruler over all his goods. But if an evil servant says in his heart, 'My master is delaying his coming,' he begins to beat his fellow servants to eat and drink with the drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he's not looking for him in an hour he's not aware of, and he'll cut him in two and appoint him a portion with the hypocrites. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

A servant who lets down and gets involved in things like excessive drinking and careless fighting, he wouldn't be ready to fight the good fight in the war in which he's engaged. That was true for 19th century warriors, it's true for Christians today. And it's good for us to remember at times when that can come up. I think those long, lull months that come between the fall festivals and the spring festivals, sometimes that's when we get distracted, sometimes with the long hot months of summer. Whenever it is, we want to focus and discipline ourselves. And I say "ourselves", pointing at me, I'm not the drill sergeant telling you what you're doing wrong, it's something for all of us. We need to be like good soldiers, stay sharp, avoid temptation. Another lesson we can learn from the Civil War is one that I think was pretty well demonstrated by that story I was telling at the beginning, and that is that a single battle does not win the war nor does it lose the war. You know, in between that Battle of Bull Run that showed the North that the South isn't just going to be cowed into renouncing their independence and come back again and the final battle that led the South to surrender. Soldiers fought hundreds of battles and skirmishes. Sometimes the Northerners won, sometimes the Southerners won. But as I said, it wasn't winning a small skirmish or even one large battle that mattered, enduring to the end matters. But it's important to remember to do that, you have to be willing after a loss get up, fight again. And that applies with spiritual battles.

We're in Matthew. If you'll flip back to Matthew 18 and we'll begin reading in verse 21. Matthew 18. We often look at this passage for a different reason and helping us to get along with our fellow Christians, but I want to focus slightly different way. Matthew 18:21, "Peter came to Him," that is to Jesus Christ, "and said, 'Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?'" Jesus said, "No I don't say to you seven times… seventy times seven." And He went on then to give a parable about how we need to forgive each other as God forgives us. I'm not going to keep reading the parable, but I want to stress the inherent lesson. If we need to be willing to forgive our brothers many more times than we thought, to be as God who forgives us, it reminds us that God will forgive us, He wants to forgive us. We can lose a spiritual battle and repent and ask God's forgiveness and go on to fight again. The war is not over when we suffer a momentary defeat. It will be over if we don't get up and fight on though. Now that's a determining factor. I suspect that God doesn't necessary limit His forgiveness to 490 times. Now I haven't dealt with anyone who's kept track to tell me if they've reached 500 and they're still going, but I suspect that was a play on words by Jesus Christ to illustrate that God's forgiveness is so far greater than we could think. There're a couple psalms that illustrate that, back in Psalm 118.

If you turn to Psalms, I'm going to look at a couple passages. Psalm 118, beginning in verse 1. Psalm 118:1, “Oh, give thanks to the Lord!” often say the Eternal, "For He is good! For His mercy endures forever. Let Israel now say, 'His mercy endures forever.' Let the house of Aaron now say, 'His mercy endures forever.' Let those who fear the Eternal now say, 'His mercy endures forever.'" Anybody notice a point being made there? His mercy endures forever. It endures.

If you'll turn towards the back a little further to Psalm 136. Psalm 136, I always enjoy sing the hymn that's based on this. But it's not an easy hymn to read or an easy Psalm, I'll read a few verses of it. In Psalm 136, “Oh, give thanks to the Eternal, for He is good! His mercy endures forever. Oh, give thanks to the God of gods! For His mercy endures forever. Oh, give thanks to the Lord of lords! For His mercy endures forever. To Him who alone does great wonders, for His mercy endures forever; to Him who by wisdom made the heavens, for His mercy endures forever; to Him who laid out the earth above the waters, for His mercy endures forever." And I'm going to stop there. But you get the point, His mercy endures forever. God is willing to show us mercy over and over and over and over, again and again and again, as long as we do repent. And I'm not making this message about repentance, but we want to remember repentance doesn't just mean, "Oh I feel bad," I say “I'm sorry.” It should include those, but it means a turn of direction. If you're doing something wrong that's a spiritual defeat, you pick yourself back up and you go the right way, not the wrong way. And as long as we'll repent, God will forgive.

Let's think of the example of the Army of the Potomac. That First Battle of Bull Run, they were defeated. They went back, they regrouped, they fought again. Came down and fought the Battle of the Peninsula, they were beaten there, regrouped, fought again. Fought at Bull Run a second time and they were defeated a second time, regrouped and fought again. They were beaten so badly at Fredericksburg that it's so horrific to even read about, but they regrouped and fought again. Then they were beaten at Chancellorsville, regrouped and fought again. I'm skipping ahead a couple minor victories, but after U.S. Grant took command, they were beaten in that Battle of the Wilderness. They continued on that time, they didn't regroup, they kept moving and fought again. They were beaten very badly at the Battle of Cold Harbor, they moved on further south and fought again. And finally after all those defeats, they won the war. And I don't mean offense to any of your who are from the South, I wrote this from my perspective, but the North would not have won if they'd have quit after any of those battles. If they just said, “Oh, we can't win, we just might as well give up,” the face of United States would be very different today.

If you will turn with me ahead again to Proverbs 24. Proverbs 24 and we'll read verse 16. You know, it's almost too bad, I thought if we got some lighting and thunder right while I was in the middle of this, it might sound like cannon going off and such. But those of you who left your windows open had your prayers answered, so. Proverbs 24:16, "For a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again, the wicked shall fall by calamity." Notice a righteous man can fall seven times and rise again. The falling down doesn't necessary make the man stop being righteous, but he has to rise again. You can fall but you have to get back up. And I will note, it's better to not fall. It doesn't say, "To be righteous, fall seven times," but get up no matter how many times you fall. We're building character. We're in this for the duration. We're in this to win a war, not just a battle.

Now you are not sure that you can keep getting up? Think of all that list of battles I mentioned that the Union lost and still fought. How did they keep refitting and regrouping and fighting again? Well, any Civil War historian knows they had vastly greater resources, they were supported by the Union. The North had more people by a ratio of about three to five. The North had more money. They had far more industrial plants. They had more natural resources, more of all these things than the Confederacy in the south. During the course of the Civil War, the North grew in population, it increased its wealth, it increased its power while fighting this great war. The South decreased in all these things because they were drawing on inferior resources. We're not relying on physical resources like an army does, but the spiritual resources we have to draw on are far greater than our enemies. We draw our power from God. We're soldiers enlisted in, you know, serving Him, and He supplies what we need.

If you turn will turn with me to Romans 14, Romans 14:4. This is one of this cases where a certain phase just jumped out at me, so I'm taking it a little bit out of context. Paul is talking about not judging others for their faults. I want to draw something that he says sort of to support that. Romans 14:4, "Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand." Do you ever think about that? We're God's servants. God is able to make us stand. That means He can give you the strength that you need to get back up when you fall a sixth time, even a seventh time. You don't have to trust yourself, our own reliance to get up and fight again, we're drawing power from God. It's God's strength, and if you call on that strength and ask Him to supply it, it will be there because He has a stake in wanting us to be victorious. As I said, the Union Army knew that it had supplies, it knew it could draw replacement manpower coming back from it's base, and we have an endless reserve of spiritual sustenance available.

Philippians 4:13 I'll read. Philippians 4:13, you can turn there, although if you do, you'll say, "Oh, I knew that already." I don't trust myself to quote it properly if I don't turn there though. This new Bible, I'm not sure I trust myself to be able to find it. Philippians 4:13, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." See I told you you knew that one. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." By "all things", it means all things that He would approve of and want me to do. And I talked about repenting. If you have a failure, if you loss a spiritual battle, can you get up? Can you ask God to forgive you? Yes you can, you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I can get up and fight again. And I say I've had enough experience, I don't want to tell you I've had a lot of experience at sinning, but I've had experience to know that God will help me to repent, grant repentance and forgiveness, and strength to go on.

Also, 2 Timothy 1:7. 2 Timothy 1:7, a favorite scripture, "For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." God hasn't given us a spirit of fear or of defeatism, He's given us a spirit of power, love and a sound mind. I jotted down Zechariah 4:6 although I'm not going to turn there, but God says, "Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit." That spirit's available to us. But while we're thinking of that and we can start feeling, "Yeah, I can't lose, I can keep going." Let's remember something that's also vitally important, one victory does not win a war any more than one defeat loses it. You know, Robert E. Lee was an amazing general and he won several amazing victories with an outgunned, outnumbered army, but he didn't win the war, not actually owing… well in some cases owing to his strategy, but I don't want to get into that, that's a long discussion for another time. But in his case he knew when he won this brilliant victory, he couldn't stop and rest on his laurels, he knew he was outgunned, he knew he had to move forward, and that brought him success.

There was a particular battle that the North did win, the Battle of Antietam, which lead to Abraham Lincoln issuing the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, that's where we usually link those, but the North defeated the Southerners and Lincoln said, "Now you can get them, you can finish them off!” And he pushed General McClellan, he almost… he was willing, almost thinking of going out and pushing him literally. He sent him telegram after telegram and messenger, "Please move forward, don't let them escape." General McClellan was happy to figuratively sit on his laurels. He rested his army, he received telegrams of congratulation, and the Southern Army got across the river back to the South and regrouped and came and defeated the Union next time they met. Lincoln was so frustrated, that was the last of General McClellan. But I'm making this point because we go through times in life when we feel really good. If you're like me after the Feast of Tabernacles, I'm on top of the world, and, you know, maybe you've overcome some bad habits, that's great, but keep pushing up on. Isn't there an REO Speedwagon song that says something like that? Keep pushing on to the next victory, because we have more spiritual battles. Our enemy is Satan the devil, and Peter wrote about what he's like in 1 Peter 5:8, it's worth reminding ourselves.

1 Peter 5:8. For those of you who heard me speak before I found the trick to making me slow down, it's a new Bible. I can't get to these scriptures. 1 Peter 5:8, "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." You know, a lion rarely gives up its prey when it eludes it one time. A lion'll circle around and try again. I'm not an expert on lions, but I've learned that. I know eventually they can get them to give up, and an army that's destroyed or an army that's not destroyed but just defeated, will regroup. You know, that's what Lee's Confederates did after Antietam, and soon after that won one of his greatest victories. And just because we succeed in resisting a temptation once or twice, that's not going to stop Satan from trying to find another way. He'll tempt us again.

Or if we succeed in breaking bad habit, he'll find another way to tempt us. And one way to avoid becoming complacent after a victory though is to immediately move on to another goal, because our ultimate goal is eternal life in the family of God. And until we're there, we still need to keep pushing, keep climbing. General Lee did this after he… one of the examples, he won this great victory, the Battle of Chancellorsville. And instead of sitting and resting, he said, "I'm going to invade the enemy," and he moved forward into Pennsylvania, and come this close to convincing the North to drop out of the war. He made one or two mistakes and ended up losing the Battle of Gettysburg. But even there, his loss was on enemy territory, his army wasn't much damaged and was able to continue. And Lee went from victory to victory. We should go from strength to strength, from faith to faith.

Let's read Philippians 3 if you will, Philippians 3:13. Philippians is right there. Philippians 3, beginning in verse 13. Paul writes, "Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things that are behind, reaching forward to those things that are ahead. I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore let us, as many as are of mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you."

Paul was a successful preacher of the gospel, but he never thought of himself as having won the war yet, he pressed forward, he continued to fight, and that's a mindset for us to maintain as well. I'm relieved, I'm looking at the clock and I'm coming to my next big point, so I'm not as behind as I thought. There is a very important lesson that most commanders in the Civil War did not learn. Now historians and military analysts since then have learned it and realized what they did wrong, but they didn't learn it then and it caused a great deal of needless casualties. The lesson was that technological innovations had changed the weapons of warfare in significant ways. The weapons of warfare changed and the officers needed to change their tactics. But in most cases they didn't.

Now the changes were things that seemed normal to us, for instance most of you have heard of shrapnel, you know, it's shards of metal flying through the air after an explosion. But what you might not realize was that shrapnel was a brand new thing in the Civil War. Just a few years before that, an Englishman by the name of Henry T. Shrapnel, invented a way to forge metal so that it would break apart under pressure, like when it's fired out of a cannon, or has a shell explosion go off. That proved very deadly in the Civil War. Likewise, not long before the Civil War, a Frenchman by the name of Claude Minie, invented a new type of bullet, a conical bullet with a sort of hollowed out lead bottom. They named that bullet the “Minie ball” a variation of Minie. I thought about bringing some up here. I've got some on my desk if you want to take a look when you go out, a member of the church gave them to me as a gift. The reason they're so important is they allow the armies to carry rifles. Rifles? All armies carry rifles. No, the Civil War soldiers were used to carrying muskets. You see, the rifling is important because, I know you hunters know this, that's those spiral grooves inside a barrel of a gun and it makes the bullet spin. And a spinning object, a projectile moves much more accurately in a straight line. Think of Peyton Manning throwing that spiral pass to the end zone, or whoever… I should be saying… my mind just went blank.

Dalton, thank you. I actually like Dalton. I'm not a critic, but... That's okay, I almost said Brett Favre, that shows where... But who knows where he would throw it? But anyways... Okay, let's get back to the Civil War. But those bullets if they touch the groove, you know, it's very accurate. But to get a bullet, you know, for those grooves to work, the bullet has to actually touch. And for a bullet to touch back then meant it was a very tight fit. You know, our forefathers way before the Civil War, you know, the pioneer hunters with the coonskin caps and such, they used long rifles, but to be able to load those was a tedious prospect. It took about two or three minutes, you'd have to load the bullet, wrap it in oiled cloth, and then pound it down the barrel with a ramrod. And then when you shot it, it'd be very accurate, but you had one shot and then it'd be two or three minutes before you get the process done again.

Armies didn't want to mess with that, they needed to fight a lot, you know, shoot a lot, so they used smoothbore muskets. The ball wasn't tight enough to touch the barrel, they can just drop it down with some gun powder and they could fire that thing two or three times in a minute. A lot of fire, but as bullet is sort of bouncing down the barrel with no spin, they weren't accurate much at all. If something was more than 40 yards away, hitting it was pure luck. So they would just get all their guys in a straight line, wearing those bright colored red coats or whatever, and have them shot all together, hoping one of them would hit something. But what they were really aiming at was… or I shouldn't say "aiming" because nobody was aiming, but they were getting their armies closer together so they could rush with the bayonets. They would have that long dagger-type point at the end of their rifles.

It always astounds me when I think about it because up until the Civil War their fighting what amounts to spear battles, moving forward and they would fight hand-to-hand. But remember Claude Minie, he invented a bullet that could go down quickly, be loaded two or three times a minute, but when it fired off, that soft hallowed bottom would expand just enough to catch grooves and it would be ever so accurate. They could hit somebody 200 or 300 yards away, whereas if that enemy commander's thinking, "Oh, march in a straight line they can't hit us. We're getting up close enough for the bayonets." The charges became suicidal. If you've ever studied Pickett's Charge as they went up the field of Gettysburg, the open field, and they just gunned down. The soldiers were thinking of the old tactics, they didn't adjust to the new weapons. It was a disaster.

Now what about… or what does that have to do with us? Well it's worth remembering as Christians we're spiritually begotten children of God, and we have new weapons available to us. I'm not talking about muskets or rifles, but we have to understand how to use our weapons properly. If you'll turn to 2 Corinthians, I think the analogy will become more clear as we read this. 2 Corinthians 10:3. 2 Corinthians 10:3 says, "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh." We're not fighting a battle by the flesh. "For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal,” they're not physical, “but mighty in God for the pulling down of strongholds, casting down all arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled." What are our old carnal weapons? Well they included things like our willpower, our human reasoning, but human reason makes excuses, it creates doubts, that's an enemy of faith.

I won't turn there, but if you reference Matthew 16:8, Jesus Christ told the disciples, "O you of little faith, why do you reason among yourselves?" He's saying you're using your human thought process. You’ve got to count on God. Human reason isn't necessary bad by the way, God made us able to think different than the animals, but human reason is like that old smoothbore musket that's not very accurate compared to faith. Think of it as like a powerful rifle that's very accurate.

If you'll turn to Ephesians 6, we want to remember all carnal weapons, all physical weapons fall short. You know, if we rely on our strength, we're going to tire out and fail. If we rely on our willpower, our stubbornness, that can lead us into a wrong attitude. As I said, we're not fighting against other people, we're fighting against Satan and evil demons and their influence. Ephesians 6:12 reminds us of that, "We do not wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, and against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand.” I'll stop there for a moment.

This whole armor of God, he's talking about spiritual weapons. What are those weapons? Well it's not literal armor. Obviously Paul was using an analogy of weapons that people knew in his day, so that people would understand. I imagine today he would use a different metaphor, or he would and I will because I'm speaking in modern times. But the important thing is they're representing the same spiritual weapons, the spiritual weapons that he would describe are there. Looking verse 16 again… oh wait, actually on verse 14, "Stand therefore, having your waist girded with truth." Truth holds everything together, that's I think why he made that analogy, it keeps things in place. Today we might just say if it has to be a belt, it could be an ammunition belt. "And having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace." Oh, wait a minute, I skipped one didn't I? New Bible, I'm blaming everything on the new Bible. “Take up the whole armor of God,” yeah, “the breastplate of righteousness.” Righteousness protects your inner organs, your vital parts. As long as that righteousness is in place like that shield, you'll stay alive. You know, if he were making a modern analogy, he'd say, "The Kevlar vest of righteousness." And then, "Having shod your feet with preparation of the gospel of peace." Now, preparation of the gospel refers to doing the work, keeping moving. As I said, an army has to move forward, we support the Church's work and we continually make ourselves ready.

Peter reference, "Be ready to give an answer if someone ask you a reason of the hope that lays within you." You can't be ready if you're not doing some work, you're studying, you're praying, you're looking into things, and that keeps you moving forward. "Above all, taking the shield of faith with which you'l be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one." Faith blocks the attacks of the enemy. Faith, you know, as a shield, blocks enemy missiles or bullets, faith can keep enemy ideas or influences from coming in that might cause harm. Again, I'm thinking modern soldiers don't carry shields, they… Paul would've wrote something about the armored personnel carrier of faith. I'm glad somebody finds that amusing. And verse 17, "And take the helmet of salvation,” this indicates that God's redemption protects our head, you know, and what's inside.

I think a modern equivalent to a helmet might be… oh, that'd still be a helmet, but God's redemption protects what's in our head and our thoughts. "And take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." That's the only offensive weapon mentioned. Back then it was a sword, nowadays soldiers carry high-powered assault rifles, but it's something powerful, the sword of the Spirit, the word of God. There's a lot of power there. The one thing I'll say just like when you're trained to use a rifle, you're trained safety measures, use it carefully. You know, use it properly, but carefully, knowing how much power is there. And in verse 18, Paul adds, "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end."

Let's never forget in the midst of this military analogy that we're talking about worshiping and becoming like God. So we do have to pray. And I'm going to make a connection and a military analogy that I don't think Paul thought of. But of course during the Civil War, officers communicated with their troops through sound. They had drummer boys beat certain rhythms to tell them where to go, sometimes buglers. And in the Civil War they had a brand new communication method that had never been used before, the telegraph. Generals could get messages directly from the commander in chief and implement those orders. We can communicate with our Commander in Chief likewise, any time, and He's an infallible leader. We never have to question His strategy or His plan. Now there are times when we say, "God, what in the world are you doing?” But we should say, "This is an order from the commander, I'm going to follow it." And I want to read one last scripture here, 1 Corinthians 15. 1 Corinthians 15:57 to complete our analogy, "But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." God is going to give us the victory, again if we are soldiers obeying His orders, if we get up and keep soldiering on, enduring hardship.

You know, the American Civil War was a long and a horrible ordeal, I don't want to glamorize it in any... it cost many lives, and in many ways it remade the United States of America. You know, from the perspective of 150 years, we can study it and we can learn lessons. We can celebrate the bravery of men who fought on both sides, and what little good did eventually come from the war. You know, it was a major part in ending slavery, although our country still had a long ways to go. Likewise, our campaign as Christian soldiers is a long process. It involves many spiritual battles. We have to pick ourselves up from occasional defeats and go on. We have to push forward from what I hope will be many spiritual victories and not be distracted or let up. We have to use the spiritual weapons that God gives us. And by relying on His strength that He gives us, we're sure to claim victory in the end.