Lessons From Spiritual Warfare

Thank you again, Mr. Call.

I'm getting a little dry. All that extra singing is getting to me.

But I was pleased to have that song. We were thinking about which songs to do, and that one came to mind because, you know, we do often cast ourselves, or we like that analogy of Christian soldiers. Or maybe we don't like it. Actually, when we think of modern warfare, being in that position, you know, being a soldier is not so glamorous or exciting, I say, anymore. Maybe it hasn't ever been, but it seems much so in the past.

With the fighting seeming to break out, or fighting is going out on in the Middle East via through the air.

There's missiles, and there's rockets, and bombs being dropped, and Israel's massing troops. They might actually have a ground war.

But it's more fun. I'd like to go back in history. We can learn a lot. As a matter of fact, when I studied history, people used to say, oh, you know all of this about politics and things. No, I don't like to talk about politics today, because there's too many unknowns, and it's complicated.

To study politics from a couple hundred years ago, you can seem really smart, because you know how it turned out. You know which things are important.

The same can go to some military battles. I'd like to look back a couple of hundred years, partly because this is actually a bicentennial year, or we've got a bicentennial event going on that, even though it was important in Ohio, we've tended to overlook. And I'll explain some of why in a bit. But let's consider what it was like 200 years ago, in this area. We're in a fairly rural area, but 200 years ago it was wilderness.

This part of the country was heavily forested. American Indians traveled in hunting parties. White settlers tended to live either in isolated cabins, whose fields were cleared by very hard labor, and then were still lost amidst the boundless woods. Or perhaps sometimes they lived in small communities whose population might be measured in the dozens. Roads were almost non-existent.

What was called a road was often a clearing made through the woods that was wide enough and cleared of trees enough that you could ride a horse over it, or maybe drag a wagon.

As a matter of fact, there's a famous saying, and I think it probably was true. They said that 200 years ago, a squirrel could leave the Ohio River, travel all the way to Lake Erie, and never touch the ground. The trees were that thick.

Yet, in this wilderness condition, the land had incredible potential. It was some of the richest farmland on Earth, once it would be put under the plow.

Tremendous resources lay under the ground and in the plants and the animals that thrived in the region. The land was worth enough that armies had fought over it.

Even 200 years ago, people could look back in history to wars that had been fought for this part of the world, what we now call the Midwest.

They'd expended, in fact, tremendous resources, European empires.

Now, the Indian nations had also gotten involved and often taken sides, and it almost never worked out to their advantage. Usually, it ended up to their hurt.

And 200 years ago, war was once again being fought for this part of the country, what we now call the Midwest.

Now, the focus of the war that was being fought in this area was a bit north and slightly west from here.

There's a river that flows from Lake Huron and empties into Lake Erie.

And along that river was a wood stockade fort.

A fort had been built in that area by the French many years before, and they called the area Détois, which later re-anglicized to say Detroit.

So, that fort had been there for a while.

But as of 200 years ago, that fort was in American hands, because 220 years before, Britain had gotten tired of fighting against their colonists and finally said, okay, we'll let you have your independence, and they turned over control of all of this area, including what's now Detroit.

But later than that, 200 years ago, the British, along with the American Indians that fought with them, were determined that they would again take control of Detroit.

And they saw that as a key to control not only Detroit, but all of this part of the country.

They had the goal of making all of the region that was to the west of the Appalachian Mountains into an area inhabited only by Indians, keep the Americans hemmed in near the ocean.

And so it was that 200 years ago, 1900 Americans, most of them Ohio militiamen, found themselves locked up in that fort in Detroit.

I'm breaking in partway through the story, because I want to get to the climax as part of this introduction.

They were locked up, surrounded by an army of British.

Interestingly, there were only a little over 700 of the British, but they also had Indian tribes with them. Now, if you were one of those soldiers in there seeing that enemy out there, you weren't so much afraid of those redcoats, even though they were known to fight with machine-like efficiency on the battlefield.

No, many of those American men who lived and farmed right around this area and had gone up there to defend their country were filled with an icy dread of the American Indians.

Now, they weren't as politically correct. They called them engines or redskins or whatever other, you know, not-so-nice term they tended to use.

They were afraid of them because they saw the American Indians as savage devils.

They seldom showed mercy in battle. Matter of fact, I've done some research of some of what the Indians did.

Now, they were known to scalp or dismember an enemy who was wounded while he was still alive.

And those that they kept alive, often they'd do so only to take back to their camps and torture to death, you know, putting them in a fire and burning them slowly and cutting off body parts.

And I'll stop there because, you know, as I said, I did a paper for an academic conference once, and they accused me of just telling gory stories to get attention, and it was kind of like that.

I'll mention, though, among those Indians, there was a famous chief, Tecumseh.

There were other chiefs, but Tecumseh had become well known for his prowess in battle, his intelligence, and some people believed he had magical or even demonic powers.

So, with all that in mind, perhaps it wasn't that much of a surprise when the British general, his name was Brock, sent the American general, William Hull, a call to surrender.

Sent him a note, said, surrender while you still can, and Hull, the American, lowered his flag.

One of the reasons for that is, although the British had fewer soldiers than the Americans, the American general, Hull, believed that it was the opposite was true.

He thought the British far outnumbered him, and there was that fear of the Indians.

When the British general sent in that note, it said, if you refuse to surrender, I cannot take responsibility for my Indian allies, what they might do on the field.

And as I said, the Americans had heard those stories, and so they lowered the flag. Hull became a British prisoner.

Many of the American boys who were in the militia were told to turn in their weapons, and they could go home.

So America lost that battle.

Two hundred years ago, it was in the fall of 1812.

I'm trying to...the exact date, I think, was a little earlier, but I didn't get around to giving the sermon quite on the date when it would have fallen.

But that's okay. The story has two parts.

But before we move on to that, I'll mention that the War of 1812, which is what it's called, not surprising that it's a bicentennial year, is not all that popular among history buffs in America.

Now, history buffs in Canada like to talk about it a little more, but Americans tend to skip past studying it, partly because there wasn't a lot of glory in it.

Few heroes were made.

Some historians, and me among them at times, have called it an unnecessary war.

You know, I picked up a phrase that I heard from one of my colleagues, who said it was a war that was fought against the wrong enemy at the wrong time for the wrong reasons.

Now, I've moderated my thought on that.

I think historians who focus on it have shown, well, maybe America did have good reason to fight.

I still think things could have been different, but we want to focus on what did happen.

Now, the fighting in the West centered around that fort in Detroit, which sat where now the city is.

Of course, the fort itself was much smaller than the modern city of Detroit.

And that fighting didn't give Americans a lot to brag about in following years.

So why in the world am I talking about it today?

Well, as with most episodes in human history, especially ones as traumatic and dramatic as warfare, we can find opportunities to learn lessons that apply to our spiritual lives.

And that's what I want to do. We fight as Christian soldiers.

Now, we're not using Tomahawks and Flintlock muskets, nor are we using modern M16s or laser-guided bombs, but we are in a warfare.

And so there are lessons to be learned from earlier conflicts. And we should give them some of our attention.

And I think especially when there is something as significant as a 200-year anniversary going on.

So if you will allow me, I want to spend the time today talking about that battle, not the entire war.

Actually, even though it was a relatively brief war without a whole lot to it, to discuss it very thoroughly would take more time than I've got for a sermon. But if we focus on that Western theater, where the men who lived in this part of the country, who might have settled in fields that were cleared along the Scioto River, enlisted and went up there to fight.

And I should mention, although the army that surrendered in 1812 was mostly Ohioans, after that, especially the following year, a large number of Kentuckians went up to fight.

And some from Tennessee as well. So those of you down in Prestonsburg, there were probably some young men from your very area who left their farms and went up and joined in the battle.

So let's see what lessons we can learn about our spiritual warfare.

Before I do that, though, I do want to back up and tell a little bit more of the story.

You might have noticed I dropped in saying, okay, here are the Americans surrounded and they surrender.

Well, let's back up and explain, or at least understand a little bit about why in the world there was a war going on in the first place.

Well, part of it was we were a secondary fight.

And we Americans look at things from our own perspective, and often not from the bigger perspective.

But as Christians, we always want to have a larger perspective.

By the time 1812 came along, for nearly ten years, Great Britain had been locked in a life-or-death struggle with the French Empire.

The French had been, well, France had gone through a great revolution, you might have heard of the French Revolution, and eventually Napoleon Bonaparte took control and set out to conquer Europe.

Britain was one of the last bastions to stop him, and so they were fighting for their very lives.

Part of Britain's strategy... strategy, that's hard to say quickly.

Part of their plan to defeat Napoleon, including using their much bigger navy to cut off France from getting supplies from outside sources.

And it's funny, when you have most of your young men off fighting, they can't be at home planting crops and harvesting, so you need to bring supplies in from other places.

So, in cutting off France from trade, Britain was sort of running roughshod over American rights, so to speak.

We wanted to stay out of the fight, we called ourselves neutral, but the British blockade ships captured many an American ship, and either turned them back or sunk them in some cases if they resisted.

More than that, also, the British navy had this little habit of saying, oh, you're a sailor who speaks the English language, you're in the British navy now.

And literally taking them off of American ships and saying, no, we don't think you're American, you're British, you're in our navy.

So, of course, many Americans were outraged by these national insults.

And to add to that, those who lived in our part of the country were upset at another thing that was happening within the British Empire.

At this time, Canada was still part of the British Empire, and the British government there and the army was stirring up the American Indians, encouraging them, sometimes even giving them gunpowder and supplies to come down and do raids in Ohio and western Pennsylvania and even Kentucky.

So the Americans decided they'd had enough.

All of this came together and encouraged the government to declare war in the spring of 1812.

Now, when I teach this in college or when I teach it in classes, I'd always stop and ask my students, okay, we declared war against Britain. How do we do it?

We didn't have much of a navy. We weren't going to go and invade Britain, but there was Canada. We decided we're going to go conquer Canada and take it from them.

And as I said, a lot of Ohioans and later Kentuckians and Tennesseans joined that military campaign to invade Canada and make it, I was going to say the 51st state, but at that point it would have been, I think, like the 17th or 18th state.

I mentioned General William Hull earlier. He was named commander of the expedition.

He gathered a little under 2,000 soldiers at Dayton. Dayton was their gathering point, a small rural community at that point, and they began the long, slow march north towards Detroit.

And when I think about that, it's amazing. I want to come back to this point later, but nowadays if I said, oh, I'm going to Detroit, you might say, oh boy, what a long drive. It'll probably take you eight hours to get there.

No, at that point it was going to take weeks to get there. Fighting their way through that forest that I described being so thick and trying to clear roads so they could bring wagons.

But fortunately, Hull's force didn't have a lot of opposition from the enemy.

As a matter of fact, the Americans learned about the declaration of war before anyone in Canada, so we got a head start.

He moved up there relatively quickly. As I said, it took weeks, but not months or years.

He even reached the Detroit River and crossed over into Canada and took possession of a small town that's opposite of Detroit.

Things were looking good, but it would deteriorate soon.

I'm going to start moving to spiritual lessons soon, but I'm hoping those of you who like hearing military history will enjoy this, and those who don't will put up with it.

One of the things is, General Hull had not realized how difficult it would be to maintain supplies.

Food had to be sent up. Ammunition, replacement tools, and even replacement for uniforms that got ripped up trying to get through that underbrush.

So they needed to bring those supplies all the way. Many of them were coming from areas like this, where Portsmouth is now, Cincinnati, up through Dayton, and then on up through the wilderness.

The longer it was, the harder it was to get things there.

When Hull was so far from his supply base, and before I get to the next thing, he also heard reports up at a little fort called Miss Shilla-Mackinac that's up in the upper peninsula of Canada, was captured by the British.

He heard of forts over in what is now Illinois being captured. He felt like the world was collapsing around him.

And then he heard news that a British army was coming towards him, which he believed was a much larger army.

He moved back across the river, withdrew his men inside that wooden fort that I described, and as I said, he was there looking out at an army that he believed vastly outnumbered his, full of those American Indians who, you know, were vicious fighters and some of them were rumored to have magical powers.

So General Hull lost his nerve, and he surrendered without putting up a fight.

Not a shot was fired in his defense. Actually, I should hesitate. I'm not sure. They probably fired some from the walls, but the battle was never engaged.

He sent an ultimatum, you better surrender or else, and he did.

Now, the story is going to continue because, as you know, Michigan is not part of Canada now, and neither is Detroit. I mean, some people wish it were, but that's...

Before we go on to that next chapter, I said Act II of the War, let's stop and see what lessons we can learn so far from Hull's defeat.

Now, we're going to turn to our Bible. You might have thought I was going to get there eventually. If you will, turn to Luke 14.

Because there is one obvious lesson. We talked about how many soldiers you have and how many you'll need. If we're going to...

Anytime we're going to make an analogy between Christian life and warfare, it's worth considering the words of Jesus Christ, and he went to the analogy of warfare.

Luke 14, beginning in verse 27.

He was talking about people committing to Christianity, which is one reason we all ministers, when they're counseling someone for baptism, always go through this passage.

He said, "...whoever does not bear his cross and come after me can't be my disciple. Which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he'll be able to finish it?

Lest after he's laid the foundation and is not able to finish it, all who begin to mock him..." I can imagine saying, ah, look at this guy! He started building and he didn't have enough to finish.

"...or what king going to make war against another king does not sit down first and consider whether he's able, with ten thousand, to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?

Or else, while the other is still a great way off, sends a delegation to ask conditions of peace." And of course, the analogy what Jesus makes is likewise, "...whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple." As I said, we discussed that with someone considering baptism because you have to count the cost first and say, am I willing to be all in? Am I willing to forsake all that I have? Do I have enough resources?

Because unlike general whole, for us, from the moment we make that repentance and we're baptized, surrender is not an option.

It's not an option. We can't say, we can't be like general whole and look out and say, oh, this is tougher than I thought it would be. The risks are greater. Well, I want a do-over. I want to go back.

We don't get to do that.

Jesus was making an analogy when he talked about counting the numbers in the armies. Of course, as Christians, we're not going to necessarily look out and see an army coming after us. But we will see trials and tests and difficulties that are likely to be greater than we can bear. I'll come back to that. But what if we did look out and see an army? Now, we know that there's a time in the future when Jesus prophesied that we'd be called up before magistrates and judges, and like the apostles, might be beaten for our beliefs.

What if we see armed groups coming after us? Well, we don't need to fear superior numbers. That's one thing where it's different. You know, count to see if I have 10,000, can I go against an army with 20,000? We need to count in a different way. And there's a story in the book of 2 Kings that will show us that. Let's go to 2 Kings, Chapter 6. 2 Kings, we'll pick up in Chapter 6. This is during the life of Elisha. I want to keep clear, Elisha was the prophet who trained under Elijah and took his place. And he asked for a double portion of Elijah's spirit, and apparently, God granted him that. One reason we know that is if you count the number of miracles Elisha worked, it was twice as many as Elijah.

And of course, we don't know how many were performed that weren't written down in the Bible. But this is an interesting case because this is during a time of war. The king of Syria was doing raids on Israel and perhaps preparing for a full-scale invasion. But Elisha had insight from God, and he kept finding out God would give him a message saying, The king of Syria is sending his army over here. So Elisha would then send a message to the king of Israel saying, Well, there's an army coming over there. Go get ready for it.

And they kept stymieing the Syrians. But the word got back to the king of Syria and he said, Hey, this Elisha is messing up my plans. Well, he said, I'm going to send an army to Elisha and take care of him. So this is where we pick it up in 2 Kings 6, verse 14.

Therefore he, that is the king of Syria, sent horses and chariots and a great army there. They came by night and surrounded the city. When the servant of the man of God, that's speaking of Elisha, when Elisha's servant arose early, he went out, and there was an army surrounding the city with horses and chariots. And the servant said to Elisha, Alas, my master, what shall we do? Elisha remained calm. He said, Don't fear. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.

Well, I wanted to pause here because I thought, you know, what that young man Saul might have been similar to what General Hall saw in Detroit when he was in that fort and he looked out and looked like a huge army around him, and he said, Alas, what are we going to do?

And sometimes we might have situations that seem similar, not with an army, but we might be in a situation within work or school where there's a problem that seems greater than we can bear. We might have a problem in our family. Perhaps a family member or a friend is putting pressure on us, and wants us to do something we don't feel is right. But we feel like we don't have the willpower to put up that fight. Perhaps we get in an economic hole and we say, I don't have the means to dig out of this. I'm outnumbered. I'm under, you know, between a rock and a hard place. And we say, perhaps this, perhaps that, perhaps, perhaps.

But the point is, it doesn't really matter what the severe trial is, in a sense, because we have the same support that Elisha had, whether or not we can see it. Let's carry on the story. Because in verse 17, well, I said in verse 16, Elisha said, Don't fear those who are with us are more than those with them.

And he prayed and he said, Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see. And the eternal, open the eyes of the young man. And he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots all around Elisha. So there was an army surrounding the city. But then, when he could see, his eyes were open, he saw a much bigger army surrounding that other army. They were far outnumbered, and these were spiritual forces. And horses and chariots afire, obviously angels there.

And so the story goes on from there, that the Assyrians came down to Elisha, prayed to God that he would strike them blind, and he did. And so he came out and pulled a ruse. He said, Oh, this isn't the place you're looking for. Let me take you where you need to go. And he brought them in where they were surrounded. I don't want to go off on that battle, because I'm still back in the War of 1812. But let's make the comparison. General Hull had a larger force than the army that came against him, but he couldn't see it. He believed the reports that said he himself had the smaller army.

That might be true for us, too. But no matter what the enemy or trial that comes against us, the truth is we have a larger and a more powerful force on our side. Just sometimes we don't see it. We need to pray that God will help us to see the strength and the supply that he gives to us.

Now, that's what it was for Elisha. He already knew what was there, and he prayed that God would help his servant to see. And it occurs to me, I wouldn't be surprised if there are some number of angels right here in this room that we can't see. But any one of them is powerful enough to take care of any problem we could ever have.

Remember that story in the Old Testament. Now, I'm trying to think when Hezekiah was king, and the Syrian army came and surrounded Jerusalem, and finally it says it sent an angel, one angel, and he wiped out like 185,000 of the enemy. So we don't have to have a whole army of angels. Just one is plenty. This is one reason that our great enemy, Satan the Devil, wants us to do what General Hull did. He wants us to give up without a fight. He knows that he can't defeat God's power, which is available to us.

So Satan will try to trick us into giving up the fight. And interestingly enough, this is something I left out of my narrative because it was already seeming a little long for that story, but that British general that came and surrounded Detroit and then sent in a message that said, you have to surrender, he knew how many soldiers were in there. He knew that he was outnumbered because he had captured some documents that were sent, and he got all the troop placements and knew exactly the situation.

But of course, the Americans didn't know. So this British general bluffed. He pulled a bluff, and it worked. And of course, we know likewise, Satan will try to bluff us. He can't defeat the power that supports us, but he'd love to get us to give up without a fight. Let's turn to 2 Corinthians 2. This is a really brief scripture, but it's certainly worth us noting here. 2 Corinthians 2, verse 11. I'm just breaking the thought here because I wanted to make that point.

Lest Satan should take advantage of us, for we're not ignorant of his devices. We're not ignorant. You can make the case General Hall was ignorant. He didn't know that the British were trying to pull a bluff and trick him. But we don't have to be ignorant of the tricks that Satan will pull. They're described here in God's Word. One of Satan's most potent devices, though, is to try to trick us, to make us discouraged, convince us that we can't win so that we give up our spiritual battles without a fight.

As I said, that's what General Hall did. He became discouraged and fearful and then surrendered, lowered his flag. But the truth is, all we have to do is make the effort. Let's go to James 4, in verse 7. If we make the effort, as long as we stay in the fight, we cannot lose because it's not our strength that we're relying on. James 4, 7 is a common memory scripture.

Therefore, submit to God, resist the devil, and he'll flee from you. Just as long as you resist, not because our power is so great that he can't conquer us, but because God says, as long as you keep doing your part, I'll take care of the rest. We can see that if you go back to Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 15, sorry, I should have told you to keep a finger back, Garah the enemy, he managed his campaign very methodically and slowly, according to many, he would move up so far and then build like a large, like a small fort to hold supplies and make sure everything was supplied and everything was taken care of, and then move forward a bit more.

So he built a chain of supply forts on the way up. And then, near what's now Toledo, built a very large fort, incredibly, you know, very big for the time. And with big earth embankments around it, it's what's now called Fort Ma'ami. And there's a recreation of it there that's a nice museum that, I think the Ohio Historical Society's probably put more money into it than they wish they had now that they're broke, but that's another story.

General Harrison would only move forward when he was certain that he had a larger force than any enemy could come against him. So he was progressing well, even though slowly.

Unfortunately, one of his lower generals in his army made a mistake of not doing that. His general, James Winchester, took a force of 1,300 Kentuckians. And some people would say, you know, Kentuckians are a little brash and quick to run off and get into a fight. I wouldn't say that because I live with one, but...

I just saw her grinning when I said that. But he went on without authorization, moved ahead of the main force, and set up a camp at a position along the River Raisin, or you could call it the Raisin River, a little south of Detroit. But what he didn't do, he went forward, and then he went into camp, but he didn't build defenses.

They didn't dig any trenches or throw up embankments, and didn't even post proper sentries. And he should have realized, even though you don't see them, a lot of times the American Indians were watching his movements, and they sent back word to the British, hey, there's, you know, a thousand or so Americans there, and they're not guarded. Let's go get them. And the British general brought down a force, and they launched a surprise attack that was completely victorious.

So this was a setback to the main offense. Not a... wouldn't ruin the battle, but for the men that were there, it was disastrous. They were beaten. About 500 of them were taken prisoner, 300 killed. And then, sadly, some of those who were taken prisoner, the American Indians started just attacking and killing, even though they'd already surrendered and laid down their weapons.

This gave us another battle cry that would be yelled or shouted throughout the rest of the war. Remember the raisin! Which, to me, sounds kind of funny, but it's the river... the raisin was the name of the river. So nowadays, when we... I think of... Remember the raisin? I think of the California raisins, thinking... singing, heard it through the grapevine.

But it wasn't that they were remembering the comrades who were done wrong. So remember the raisin was a good battle cry. But the setback at the river raisin was only temporary. General Harrison did not make the same mistake as his predecessor. He didn't lose his nerve. He held his ground. He continued to build up his forces and move ahead methodically. But there was one way that Harrison's situation was a lot like General Hull's.

He was still bringing supplies all the way up through the wilderness, and he needed a lot more supplies because he had a lot more soldiers. And so his advance, which was already moving slowly, moved slower and slower, and it bogged down because it took all the energy they could have to get enough supplies to where he was, let alone going further.

If his army was going to succeed, he needed supplies from a better source. What he had just wasn't enough. And then a change came from a totally different source that... Well, I wouldn't say that he didn't expect it because he knew something was going on, but it was totally outside of his control, something that he could not do. There was a battle, and actually what would be the decisive battle for this part of the country was not fought with armies of soldiers, but by sailing ships.

Sailing ships are thinking, wait a minute, why aren't we talking about going through the woods and the wilderness? Well, of course, there are the Great Lakes. The British had control of the Great Lakes. They had warships on Lake Erie, and they were able to move their supplies and stop the Americans from moving any supplies. But the Americans decided... Well, they made an effort and said, we've got to stop that. If we can gain control of Lake Erie, we can send the supplies in an easy way. And so they set about doing that.

The British... The U.S. Navy assigned Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry to build a fleet of ships. They were built at what's now Erie, Pennsylvania. And the story behind that is long and involved, but pretty interesting. He took a lot of risks, got them completed, and then brought a squadron of nine ships of war, or some of them were small boats of war, but a couple of them were pretty good sized, and based them at Putton Bay. Anybody here know where Putton Bay is?

Okay. I know it's not as familiar down here in this area. It's on South Bass Island, just across from Sandusky. Matter of fact, if you go to Putton Bay, you can see the roller coasters over at Cedar Point across the water.

So he had his ships there, waiting for the British to make a move and saying, we want to fight. And eventually the British ships came into sight, and they pulled up their anchors, and they went out. The way that sailing ships in those days fought, they had cannons mounted to fire off the side, so the ships would get in two lines and just blast at each other and try to wipe out the other side.

And it was going so-so. The Americans had a big enough force to win this battle, but Perry's ship was getting blown apart because one of his ships stayed back and didn't get involved. So he fought the British kind of to a standstill, but his own ship was about to sink. And then Perry did something very interesting. He got in a rowboat. He took his flag down, his commander's flag, had them roll him across to that other ship that wasn't yet in the fight, took command of it and made the crew get it up there, and with that ship that was relatively undamaged, got in the fight and won the battle. And I'm giving you the short version, but it's a very exciting account. And of course, he won, defeated the British, and sent a message to General Harrison that said, We have met the enemy, and they are ours. Was it two ships, one brig, three sloops? He listed the ships, but we have met the enemy, and they are ours, meaning we got them. We own them. We conquered. With the Americans in control of Lake Erie, they were able to suddenly bring supplies to their troops very easily, and at the same time cut off supply to the British. So General Harrison advanced his men much more quickly, but still methodically and carefully. The British knew that they were outnumbered. They didn't have a hope. So now it's the British who withdrew without a fight. And they retreated back up into Canada with the Americans following them. The decisive battle would finally be fought actually very close to this time, 100 in... I'm trying to think... 299 years ago. Yeah. The bicentennial will come next year. 199 years ago, there was a battle where the Americans defeated the British, and among the significant casualties were General... General. Chief Tecumseh died in that battle. Although I like to note that he lives on in books and magazines and in the longest-running outdoor drama in the country, just outside of Chillicothe. Any of you gone to see that one? Yeah, I've... It's kind of fun. I don't agree... Some of the history is a little off, but it's still a good story. So let's look at some spiritual lessons from this. The United States was victorious in the Western theater during this War of 1812, partly, matter of fact, you could say largely, because it learned lessons from previous mistakes. They learned what didn't work, and they did things differently. Now, the first spiritual lesson I want to learn, then, is that lessons learned make a big difference. Sometimes something that's done a certain way doesn't need to be done that way. You know, I described how General Harrison understood some of the reasons why General Hull had failed, so he decided to do things differently. You could say that Christianity is all about learning to do things differently. Let's read a passage in the book of Ezekiel, Ezekiel 33. I read a fair bit from Ezekiel last week, and most of that was dire stuff that's not fun to read. This is an encouraging account, Ezekiel 33, beginning in verse 14.

We could summarize this with one word, repentance. You change what you're doing and do it differently. And you could say that the U.S. Army, repented of the mistakes it made in 1812, did things differently, adopted that new course of action in 1813, and then won. Our lives, and our lives, we want to do that. We want to look at things we've done wrong and make a course change so that we get different results. Now, I do want to realize that there's one additional thing that's vitally important, actually two additional things. We have to do more than just change our action, because we need to realize that repentance by itself does not remove the penalty. We've all sinned, as it says in Romans 6.23, so we have to realize that no amount of doing the right thing thereafter erases the death penalty. So we have to accept the sacrifice of Jesus Christ in our stead. That's one lesson you can't get from the War of 1812, because, we'll face it, it's something God did that's pretty unique. But accepting that sacrifice and being baptized as a symbol of repentance, beginning that new life, then, are all vital parts of repentance. Let's read one of the best statements of that in Acts 2. Acts 2, verse 37. As I said, this is another familiar scripture. It seems like I'm citing this from memory more and more often, because I've read it so often. But I think it bears going and reading, because we could put ourselves in this situation, as I said, of the American army, who'd made mistakes and then had to go forward. But with us, we recognize that we've made mistakes, and sometimes we'll look to God and say, well, what am I supposed to do? This is the case of those who heard the sermon by Peter. When they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Man and brethren, what shall we do? And Peter said to them, repent. Repent, and let every one of you also then be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Now, this leads to other things—let me say that again. I was looking at my notes and got that garbled. This leads to the other thing that's crucial in our lives that we need. We must have God's Spirit dwelling in us to be able to do that repentance. Now, I want to discuss the power of God's Spirit coming to us in a bit, because I see another analogy with what happened in that American victory in 1813.

And there I want to say, remember, I talked about General Harrison striving to avoid the mistakes of his predecessor, and that he made good progress, but it ground down. He moved, moved, and then it just slowed down to a stop. He couldn't get any further on his own efforts until Commodore Perry's victory on Lake Erie suddenly opened that new supply route. It energized the army and allowed it to move on to victory.

So I might be risking stretching an analogy, but I want to do it anyways. I want to use that story to introduce the idea that we need the supply of the Holy Spirit to continue to advance in our battle, the battle to overcome our human nature. We can make it so far under our own willpower and our determination, but we can only get just so far, and then we find we don't have the power. We need something more.

Without God's Spirit, our best efforts and our most carefully laid plans all fall short.

And when I was thinking about it, I reached a point I thought of another historical story, and it has nothing to do with the War of 1812, but I thought it was worth sharing, because it actually goes back further in history, and it's a good example of a person making the best effort they can and still not able to overcome.

This is the story of Benjamin Franklin. Now, Franklin's famous for a lot of things, and I wonder, have very many of you read his autobiography? It used to be everyone had to read it when they were in school. If you read it, it might have been a long time ago. There was a case where when he was a young man, he said about an ambitious project. He decided that he would become morally perfect. More... He'd say, wow, no small goal. But what he did, he said, I can do this if I take it about with a plan and a purpose.

So he set up a schedule, he put it down on paper, and so each week, what he did first is he laid out which morals he needed and what things to not do.

So he put up a schedule for a week, or sometimes two weeks, he would focus on that moral, on the virtue that he needed. He would work like anything and focus on it until he mastered that virtue. Then he'd say, okay, now I've crossed that line. Now the next one on the schedule, I'll take that on. The goal was, after so many weeks, he would accomplish this, he would accomplish this, and at the end, he would be perfect.

Well, unfortunately, though, he found, as he writes in his autobiography, I mastered generosity, and now I'm working on frugality, or I can't remember all the ones he had, but he'd find that now, while he's focusing on one, he started slipping up on one that he thought he'd mastered earlier.

And then he'd back up and work on that, and then he'd mess up on another one. And in essence, Benjamin Franklin worked out this grand experiment that proved exactly what we always have taught in the Church, that you cannot develop righteous character without God's Holy Spirit. Now, Franklin didn't get the Holy Spirit part, he just determined that no human being can become perfectly more or morally perfect. Now, we know that with God's Spirit, what's impossible for man is possible.

And just like the army led by General Harrison, we have to turn and look for supply and help from beyond our own abilities. And with it, we can succeed. You know, without it, we can't. Now, let's not take my word for it, let's look at some Scriptures. Let's go to John 14, to talk about that Holy Spirit coming into us and giving us that energy and ability to do things. John 14 and verse 15. Here Jesus, of course, is on his last night in his human ministry, talking to his closest apostles.

And he said, if you love me, keep my commandments. And I'll pray the Father, he will give you another helper, that he may abide with you forever. And I should say the Greek, it should be translated, it may abide with you forever. That's the Spirit of truth, that the world cannot receive, because it neither knows it nor sees it nor knows it, but you know it, for it dwells with you and will be in you. We say that's an important point for someone who perhaps grows up in the church or who has that calling, and God's Spirit is opening their mind to begin to understand the Spirit is working with them, as Jesus said, but he says the change comes when it's in you.

And that's what happens at baptism and with the laying on of hands. Let's look across the page to verse 26. It says, The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, it will teach you all things, bring to your remembrance all the things that I said. What a fabulous thing to think that the stuff that we've studied and learned, that we say, oh, what is it, I can't remember.

The Holy Spirit makes it possible for us to learn and remember these things. And of course, that explains what Jesus said a little earlier. Now let's back up to verse 23. And I put it out of order because I want to talk about the power, the things that you can do with the Holy Spirit, but I want to focus on just what it means to have the Holy Spirit in us.

Jesus answered and said to him, If anyone loves me, he'll keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Or I believe that original King James says, We'll come and make our abode with him. God and Jesus Christ will come and live with you. And I'm trying to... I'm still not sure if in English it conveys it the right way, because it's not that they're going to come and stay in the guest room.

It means they're going to come and live in us by the power of the Holy Spirit, which is God's very essence. God, the Father, and Jesus Christ will become into us, and that Holy Spirit will join with the Spirit of man that we already had and make us a new creature, make us able to do things and understand things that we couldn't. As I said, it's a force outside of our own power without which we can't succeed, but with it, as long as we don't surrender, we can't lose.

That Holy Spirit gives us abilities. Let's look at 1 Corinthians 2. 1 Corinthians 2, beginning in verse 9. Remind ourselves of some of this power. It's not just the power to fight an enemy. I think Paul wrote this fairly poetically. He says, Let's also look back a few pages to Romans 5. Romans 5 and verse 5. This is another one I've been quoting a lot lately, it seems, but it's certainly worth reading. Hope does not disappoint because the love of God, the love of God, God's very essence.

Remember, in 1 John 4.8 it says, God is love. And here it says, The love of God has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit that's given us. So we can partake of God's very nature with that Spirit coming into us. If you will, let's go a couple pages further in Romans 8. And we'll read beginning in verse 8. Romans 8 verse 8. So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God, but you're not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.

Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he's not his. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal body through his Spirit that dwells in you.

As I said, that's a way of saying, you can't lose. God is going to give you life. He's going to give us eternal life. I've got in my notes that I might have seemed to have strayed a long way from talking about a line of supply being opened up by sailing ships on Lake Erie. But I hope you see the parallel, that support and that help that you need that you can't get on your own.

So I said that army led by General Harrison reached the limit of its resources, and it was still short of its goal. But when that waterborne supply route was opened to strengthen it, he found success. And that reminds me, of course, the Holy Spirit is often likened or symbolized by water.

Failing ships, water, we'll take them where we can get them. Now, I mentioned also, I gave that story about Oliver Hazard Perry fighting his ship to the limit, and he was going to fail, and then he had another ship available, so he drew on those resources. So God will pick us up when we reach the end of what we can do and make it possible for us to go on and give us that victory.

Of course, one thing we should do different, though, from this analogy, is we should be drawing on the Holy Spirit right from the start. Don't make the mistake of just trying to do everything on your own, and then when you're about to give up the ghost, it's going to say, Oh, God, now help me. We want to call from the beginning. And so, as I said, for Christians, our best laid plans, our mightiest efforts, they won't get us very far on that road to life without the Holy Spirit.

But then, when God sends us that help by the Spirit, we continue on to life. It's worth noting, though, remember, the British wanted very badly to retain control of Lake Erie. They wanted to stop General Harrison from getting that supply. That's the same way Satan wants very badly to cut us off from God. He doesn't want us to get the Holy Spirit. But, remember what I noted earlier, Satan doesn't have the power to overcome us.

He cannot cut off the Holy Spirit from us. But we can quench it ourselves. That's where we have to be on guard. If we don't make use of the Holy Spirit, if we don't pray to God and ask Him to renew it in us, if we're not studying His Word and living the lifestyle, we might eventually just cut it off ourselves than doing something that Satan could never do. But we don't have to do that. We need to remember. And I'll just read Philippians 4, verse 13.

Paul wrote, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I can do all things. You don't have to worry about whether you can do it. Now, I thought I could have made a nice little ending here, and so I've made my analogies. But there's one other thing that I did want to point out that applies to the War of 1812 and to a lot of other wars I've studied.

My specialty was in colonial warfare, so finding the War of 1812 is late by my book. I mean, I like the ones that happened in the 1750s. And those all the way through the 1800s, they had a difficult time progressing. They couldn't get on a train and go to the field of battle, certainly not air transport. And that's one of the things I want to remember in General Harrison's victory, that nice campaign that he had, that advance to victory was not smooth and continuous.

It was never easy. And I try to emphasize that a little, but let's go back and remember that General Harrison's advance was very... he had this methodical approach, but it required so much resources. He had to stop and build fortified positions. He had to feed and supply his soldiers. He had an army hacking its way through the wilderness, trudging up hills and down, crossing rivers without bridges. They had to deal with insects.

Mosquitoes are terrible in some of those swamps they moved into. No air conditioning, no propane or kerosene heat. And they faced rain and then later sometimes snow and ice. And that's... think of that as the life of a Christian. We're facing difficulties and problems. Even with God's Holy Spirit, you know, it can take long years and tremendous effort for us to move down that road. While we're here, let's turn to Acts 14. Acts 14 in verse 22...

This says it much better than I can, although it's very succinct. Acts 14 in verse 22... This is... The Apostle Paul had been traveling back to visit some of the congregations that he and Barnabas had established. And when they were there, it says, strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith. Keep going, even though it's tough, saying, we must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.

Now, many tribulations, not... We must take a sliding board that zips us right in there. And I'm not saying this because I think none of you know that. I think you all know by long experience that many tribulations...

As I said, the American army, I think as they were advancing, they probably thought about it. Every obstacle they overcame brought them closer to their goal. And so we should think that way. Let's look at Romans chapter 5. Romans 5, and we'll begin in verse 3. And they said, every stream they crossed, if they had to cut down trees, and they cut down a lot of trees, every tree they fell to clear the way for the wagons, every hill they climbed up over. And got them closer to capturing that fort. Romans 5 and verse 3 says, Not only that, but we also, like those soldiers, but even more so, glory in tribulation, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance.

Perseverance produces character and character hope. Now, we just read that hope doesn't disappoint because of the love of God being poured on us, but let's focus on that hope. Hope is that vision of what you're working for. The soldiers were just looking at the vision of capturing the fort, but we're looking at a vision of eternal life. And every trial that we overcome makes that hope more real and firm and brings us closer to it.

So, unlike the Americans who probably cursed at every hill they had to climb or stream they had to cross, we can do what it says in James chapter 1, right at the beginning, where he says, Count it all joy when you fall into trials. It's hard to count them joy, but when we think that's building up our perseverance and our endurance and our hope.

And, of course, along the way, we do need to remember, though, that there's an enemy trying to stop us. It's not just the terrain. Remember the raisin. Remember the raisin. That was that battle cry that came only after General Winchester had set up camp and let his guard down.

While they were without proper defenses, the British and the Indians came in and wiped them out and killed many of them and weakened the army. So we need to remember that we do have an enemy. I noted that earlier, that he wants to trick us into giving up. Sometimes he'll even try to fight against us. He's always looking for our weaknesses. 1 Peter 5. 1 Peter 5 and verse 8. We don't want to lose track of this. And this is a scripture many of you might have memorized. Although I'm not going to get it by reading in 1 John. 1 Peter 5 and verse 8. Be sober. Be vigilant. Don't be like General Winchester who set up camp without having any guard or proper sentries. We can never let down our guard. Be sober. Be vigilant. Because your adversary, the devil, walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. He's looking for a chink in our defenses. We don't have to rely on our own power, of course. We've got the power of the Holy Spirit. But we can't be careless with our own lives. If we repeat the mistakes that the military made there along the River Raisin, we, like them, could be destroyed.

And then have other people make a battle cry of our memory. But as we noted, though, the American Army did learn the lessons. They put them into practice, moved ahead to victory. Or did they? That's one important thing. That's one of the reasons historians don't much like to cover this battle. I talked about, you know, okay, we did this, we had this victory. But historians debate about who won this war overall. And as I said, that's one of the reasons we don't like to talk about it a whole lot. Most historians look at what happened and say, well, that was pretty much a draw. You know, rather than one side winning a complete victory over the others, we had a lot of—we had diplomats in Europe wrangling back and forth. And eventually they signed a peace treaty that said, okay, we'll stop fighting and just leave everything just the way it was before. Because the fighting had been kind of inconclusive. You know, at the start of the war, we invaded Canada and they pushed us back. Later on, they invaded from Canada and we pushed them back. And, you know, they landed ships and actually burned some of the buildings in Washington, D.C. But then they got back on the ships and sailed away and we rebuilt. It's interesting, as some of you might say, how could you talk about the War of 1812 without bringing up Andrew Jackson? So I'll mention him at least here. The one battle that was pretty decisive was when, you know, the British tried to capture New Orleans. And, boy, that just made me think of the Johnny Horton song. You know, in 1814, there was a decisive victory interestingly fought after the peace treaty had been signed. They'd already signed the treaty saying we were going to stop the fighting, just the ship hadn't got across the ocean yet to bring news. So even that great victory by Andrew Jackson didn't make a difference. Historians include this among the list of many contradictions in this war. And like a lot of people say, it just seems sort of silly or futile. But there's a spiritual lesson, I think, even in that. And that's why I wanted to draw this out before I wrap up. We want to remember that our efforts are necessary and important, but they're not what gives us victory. In our spiritual life, we have to fight, but we'll never win. We can't win eternal life. That has to come from a source outside of us. We read in 1 Corinthians 15, 57, where it said, Thanks be to God who gives us the victory. Let's also look at 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians 2. And we'll read verse 14.

We're not going to sing until I'm done. 2 Corinthians 2, 14.

I think he said the same thing during the feast, but there are too many people for me to comment on it then. Now, thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ. I love it. God leads us in triumph in Christ. And though He, and through us, diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. We should, of course, take this to mean that, you know, we shouldn't take this to mean that we don't need to fight. As I said, we do. And we can even look at that, turn that back to the War of 1812. If the Americans hadn't even tried, those diplomats in Ghent, Belgium, wouldn't have been able to keep the British from claiming all of this territory that we now, where we now live. As I said, they wanted to turn Ohio into an Indian reserve. So our soldiers had to fight, but they didn't win the battle. And we have to fight, but we won't win the battle. We can't earn eternal life.

But we do have the ability to throw it away. And the interesting, I don't know if I'd call it a contradiction, I think it's part of that why we're made human beings, because we have to develop character to grow before God will grant us eternal life. We can't earn that life, but we could give it up. You know, we could cost ourselves that. But God wants to give it to us. He wants to give us life. He just won't force it on us.

We're called to be good soldiers of Jesus Christ. Let's read, I think, one last scripture. I'm saying I think, yeah. 2 Timothy 2.

I might have gone here first, but I wanted to wrap it up with this.

First, 2 Timothy 2 and verse 3. And that's... maybe I do want 1 Timothy.

Oh, I was looking in the wrong place. Sorry, you're already there ahead of me. He says, you must therefore endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Our lives sometimes do seem like battles, because really they are. They're spiritual battles. We're fighting against spiritual wickedness in high places, and God gives us the spiritual weapons that we need. There might be many times that, like those American farmers who volunteered to go into the wilderness and fight against an enemy, they hardly knew or maybe couldn't even comprehend. There might be times when we, like they did, feel like we're slogging through what seems like thick, dark forests, waiting through cold swampland, trying to ward off the effects of the atmosphere around us, you know, as though they fought with unrelenting humidity and heat and sometimes biting cold. We're struggling through a world influenced by Satan that has every temptation and discouragement and obstacle that he can throw at us. We need to learn lessons from our past mistakes and do better. We need to repent and change.

And we need to keep our guard up, never let ourselves fall victim to a surprise attack. We need to persevere through all the things that I described and much more. And we need to look to and draw on the help that Jesus Christ and God the Father will provide through the power of the Holy Spirit.

We need to overcome fear, see through deceptions, understand that we're mortal but we're not alone. And knowing that, we must never surrender. And that's, to me, one of the, what was really my first spiritual point and I think the greatest. Never surrender. God will give us the victory in the spiritual war as long as we never give up. Never, ever. Through the power of God, we'll be able to say what Oliver Hazard Perry did. We've met the enemy and he's ours.