Spiritual Lessons From the Civil War

Thank you, Laura. That was beautiful, as always. It's interesting how we can have our minds on the same wavelength at different times. While Mr. Call was giving a sermonette, I thought, boy, he's hitting on several of the same points I want to emphasize, and he's using an entirely different analogy to get to it, which is a good thing. It shows you can come at things from different ways. I've got some additional points, partly because I've got to speak a lot longer.

I want you to go with me back in history today. I want to use a historical analogy to make some points about our Christian life. You might not think at first this necessarily ties into the period right after the feast, but I did have that in mind as I was working on this sermon, thinking there are some things we want to remind ourselves of after the feast.

So, if you will, imagine with me that we're going back to the year 1864. In the United States, of course, a terrible war has been raging for several years now, and we're going to join the army of the Potomac. That's the guys in blue, the Northerners.

They'd already been fighting about three years by this time, by the spring of 64. They'd been in about seven major battles. None of those were outright victories. Most of them had been spectacular defeats. And that was why, after three years of vicious fighting, the army was encamped only a few miles from where it had begun the war.

And now another new general had taken command, General Ulysses S. Grant. He was the eighth one to lead this army since it had been formed. And knowing that, the common foot soldier had little hope that things would be any different as they began marching south early that May, once again, 1864. These men were veterans. They've had years of soldiering. They knew the monotonous camp routine, but also the extreme terror of battle. One of them might have guessed that things were not going to be any different this May.

They moved on. They built pontoon bridges and crossed the Rapidan River and began marching through a jungle-like stretch of second-growth timber with some scattered, isolated farms in Virginia called the Wilderness. Their goal, or the goal of their commander, was to pass through the wilderness and then bring the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia to battle in a more open country further south. But that plan was thwarted when the Confederates advanced more rapidly than expected, and they attacked the federal columns right there in the wilderness.

Two days of fighting broke out. The landscape and the woods negated the great numerical advantage that the Union had. So they were just about even. And as I said, the fighting was very vicious, high casualties. The woods caught fire and ended up burning many of the wounded men while they lay down without getting any help. And by the end of these two days, the Federal Army had suffered approximately 17,000 casualties and not gained a foot of ground. It looked like once again, under General Lee's brilliant leadership, the Union had been dealt a devastating blow.

So, dusk on the evening of May 7th, the Union troops were ordered back from their firing lines. The men assumed that they would march back to the vicinity of Washington, D.C., again, where they would reorganize and refit as they had several times before. But when they came to a crossroads that smokestained night, they found that they were taking a turn to the south, further into enemy territory. And many units of spontaneous cheer broke out when they realized that they were not going back to refit. They were continuing on. Whatever else the command of Ulysses S.

Grant meant, it did mean that there would be no turning back. The days of retreat were over. Now, it didn't mean that there would be no more defeat. There would be setbacks. There would be a lot more casualties. But always, there would be a determination to advance. You probably guessed today, and I'll admit that I borrowed liberally from the writings of Bruce Catton for my introduction, so I'm making sure I'm not plagiarizing.

But you might have guessed today I want to talk about the Civil War and about spiritual lessons we can draw from the Civil War. It'd be fun to have just a history lesson, and I could get up here and talk for a couple hours on that. It wouldn't necessarily do us a lot of good. But it's appropriate that we consider the Civil War when we realize that it's been 150 years.

Across the United States, many groups, museums, and reenactors are holding special events and commemorative programs to celebrate... I shouldn't say celebrate, I should say commemorate the 150th anniversary. And the special word for that is sesquicentennial. I haven't decided yet if it's easier to say sesquicentennial with all those syllables or 150th anniversary. But if you'll turn with me to 2 Timothy 2, you'll see that I'm not making a new analogy by any means. 2 Timothy 2, beginning in verse 3.

Here, the Apostle Paul is writing a letter to Timothy, who's a young minister, and he makes this analogy that applied to Timothy, but also to all Christians. Ministers are not. He says, in the things you've heard... Ah, there we go, sorry. Beginning in verse 3, starting in verse 2. He says, Now, we're all enlisted as soldiers of Jesus Christ. And the Apostle Paul said appropriately that, as those soldiers, we have to endure hardship, not become entangled. So, when we think about ourselves as soldiers in that sense, let's consider some lessons that we might be able to glean from this, one of the greatest wars in our history. And I don't mean great in that it was good or fabulous. I mean great in that it was huge. It was a big, major event in American history. And we can learn a lot from it. Matter of fact, I've got three major lessons, if that helps taking notes. It'll also let you know when we're nearing the end. But the first lesson, we can draw... Well, and this is one that'll be evident. I know we have some men that have served in the army. None that are old enough to have served in the Civil War, despite what anybody might say about them, but... And nobody said that, really. I just thought I'd make a joke there. But what 2 Timothy 2, 3 says, A soldier endures hardship. And that's what I want to say. Some of you who have been soldiers know that there's hardship involved. It's not in the comfort of an established base that a soldier earns his place in the country's affection or the little pay he makes, but it's out on the campaign, marching, living on short rations, living in uncomfortable quarters, and risking death. It's the overcoming, the stress of the obstacles, and of the enemy that makes a soldier worthwhile. A soldier's life is hard. It's not easy. And it's also important to remember that when you're enduring hardship, it's finishing that matters, not how you start. We can turn to Matthew 24. Matthew 24, verse 13 is a memory scripture, so you might not need to turn there, but I'm going to read elsewhere in Matthew 24 later. So, Matthew 24, 13 tells us that, He who endures to the end shall be saved. He who endures to the end.

Paul told Timothy to endure hardship as a good soldier. But it's not just enduring, it's enduring all the way to the end. Consider, when the war started, the Civil War, in 1861, the Confederacy opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Okay, there had been, obviously, a lot of stress leading up to that. Southern states had seceded, formed a new union, and planned to be a separate government. They wanted to be left alone. The northern states didn't want their country divided in half, but politicians on both sides were working to find a solution that would not involve war.

But once the firing broke out, it became evident that there would be some fighting. President Abraham Lincoln put out a call to the nation asking for 75,000 volunteers to come forward, to serve for three months. Think of that. 75,000 volunteers for three months. And it was fully expected that that would be enough and more than enough. Matter of fact, many people expected that. So much that many men rushed to volunteer. They rushed because they were afraid the war would be over before they could get in it. And they didn't want to miss out on the fun. Many of the local men formed units locally, and that's the way it was done, then, when the federal government had much less power.

States would organize armies. Men would form their own companies, elect their officers. And they showed great enthusiasm and sometimes a flare with imagination. There were some men that formed companies and gave them colorful names, like the local Zouaves. And I'm still working on the pronunciation.

Jim, I'll bet you could help me with that. This morning I said Zouaves, and one of the fellas said, I'm pretty sure that's not right. But I never was good at my French pronunciation. But the Zouaves modeled themselves after some of the foreign legions from French that would serve in Northern Africa, and they'd wear very bright colored pants, and they'd be often baggy in these fez caps.

And I think when they could get them, they'd carry the curved swords. They called themselves, some others, the local Fenceables. I'm wondering if some Highlanders or Irish even wore kilts as part of their uniforms. I know, I was complimented on wearing my pants today, so that's another story. Some Union troops had very nice gray uniforms. But that's okay, because they were all at the same time Confederate groups that had brilliant blue coats. But the first battle of Bull Run that would happen later in that summer of 61 showed people on both sides that the war was going to be much longer than they'd expected.

It was going to require much greater effort and time than originally expected. And they learned that lesson the hard way. The armies clashed. The Union army, as I said, would be defeated and driven back in great dismay. The men became separated from their units. They were straggling.

To show how much people thought the war would be over with one big battle, and of course the Northerners expected they'd win it, one of the reasons they had trouble getting back is that the road to Washington was clogged with carriages and horses from politicians who had come out and set up picnic lunches on the hillside to watch the war. And they thought it was going to be this great spectacle, sort of like tailgating before a football game on Sunday. And then they saw the blood and the death and the mess.

So both sides would have to organize regular armies. They'd have to train and equip troops. Get them ready to fight. And that's part of where I want to start leading into a lesson for Christianity. One, of course, is the fact that it goes on and on. It's not over in one quick battle. But there's a famous quote, and it goes far enough back. I don't remember who said it first, but many people have quoted it, and now including me. It says that the life of a soldier consists of months of boredom, punctuated by moments of extreme terror.

Months of boredom. Moments of extreme terror. And that's the way it was in the 19th century for a soldier. You know, there was that excitement at first when they mustered in, they were given equipment, went through basic training where they learned to march together, and they tried to get out of their head any thought of thinking for themselves. You have to march as a unit. Turn, do what you're told. But then you get into camp.

And you're there living in one tent that's like many others in a row. A group might be clustered around a larger tent, or sometimes a commandeered house where the commander lives. And the soldiers would be organized into what's called a mess. Mess not as in the way my house looks a lot of times because I've got a one-year-old. But mess as in eating.

The Army calls it a mess hall now, but back then there wasn't a mess hall. The men were all given their rations, and they were formed into groups who would put their rations together and cook. It could be six to eight, or sometimes twelve people, and it would vary according to by company. But your mess group were the ones you spent your time with. As I said, you put your food together and you'd cook, and each one would take turns. So you spend a lot of time with your mess mates.

Your daily life, once you're past the basic training, would consist of the bugle waking you up in the morning. Then you'd come out for roll call. Fall out, be inspected. Okay, you're here. Parade drill. Perhaps. Lunch. Then maybe some more parade drill. Maybe you're done for the day, depending on your commander. It was important for the men to learn this, as I said, drill formation.

But even with all the drilling and inspection, there was quite a bit of free time for soldiers. The commanders were busy doing other things. They were plotting their next campaign, getting strategy together and communicating, getting resources brought in for the soldiers. So the commander was very busy. The common foot soldier had time on his hands. And free time could be a soldier's worst enemy, not knowing when the next battle would come if it would ever come. Many of these young men were away from home for the first time.

They were thrown together with strangers, but without the benefits of family, and especially the benefits of the women in those family who would moderate some of their activities. They too easily fell prey to temptations and sometimes to past times that were destructive. Far too many of them took up gambling or drinking to excess, sometimes visiting prostitutes when they could.

These were habits that sometimes ruined men for life. Another danger in a camp would be infectious disease. They were living in close quarters. If the commander didn't direct them to dig an appropriate latrine, infection could spread like wildfire. And matter of fact, they've done studies, and it seems that more soldiers died in the Civil War from disease in camp than died from the battles.

So, as I said, free time not campaigning was a soldier's enemy. Now, you might be wondering, okay, history lesson. Where is...is there a Christian lesson in this? Well, our life as Christian soldiers can have some similarities to that of men in the Civil War. We're organized, we have a rush of activity as we first learn, but then, you know, we can only be in church services and church activities just so long, and we have other time away.

We're not working day-to-day in the business of preaching the Gospel, like perhaps many of the staff at the home office are engaged all day, every day. But we're not. It could be easy to get distracted with pastimes that are somewhat destructive. You know, the gambling and drinking that was dangerous to Civil War soldiers are still dangerous to us today. And we have other distractions that can be around. You know, the television has endless opportunity, movies, websites, social trends.

Perhaps friends who don't share our calling. You know, a soldier's mess-mates in the Civil War might be the ones who tempt him into going to play cards and gamble away his paycheck, or start drinking too much, or they know where the local prostitute is. And we might not have that, but if we have friends that don't share our calling, they could tempt us into, you know, visiting pornographic websites, partying, drug use, so on.

Now, I should make a note here, and I've got into my notes. A good set of mess-mates could do the exact opposite. Exert positive peer pressure to keep a soldier from going in those directions. And the same goes for us. The right friends can pull us back from temptation, even friends outside the church.

So it's not having friends outside of our calling that's bad, but we have to exercise caution. Think about who those friends are. You know, what are they influencing us to do? Let's consider Matthew 24, if we're already there. We'll look at verse 44. Because remember, those soldiers in camp weren't privy. The commanders, the general, might know when the attack is going to happen, but the soldiers were just there day to day.

They didn't know when the order would come to move, just like we don't know when the big change is going to come in our lives. This is part of Jesus' giving teaching towards the end of his ministry. He says, We don't know when it's coming, just as those soldiers didn't know when they'd be going into battle. Who then is a faithful and a wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season? Who's the wise servant or the wise soldier?

Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. Assuredly, I say to you that he'll make him ruler over all of his goods. You know, he'll promote him to sergeant. That one just popped into my head. But if that evil servant says in his heart, Well, my master's delaying is coming, oh, we're not going to march for days, and begins to beat his fellow servants, to eat and drink with the drunkards, then the master of that servant will come on a day when he's not looking for him, and at that hour that he's not aware of, then he'll cut him in two, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites.

They'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And we certainly don't want that. You know, a soldier who lets down and gets involved in excessive drinking and careless fighting wouldn't be ready to fight the good fight in the war that he's engaged in. So it was true for 19th century soldiers. It's true for Christian soldiers. And one of the reasons I mention that is, it's, you know, the excitement of the feast has us often on a high. And we've been around friends, and we've been encouraged, and...but we know that we're going through a period where we're not going to experience that again for a while.

And little by little, the distractions could start to get our attention. Or the root of some type of spiritual disease could crop up. And the disease always comes, and you're not expecting it. And good soldiers have to focus on being ready all the time. Not just when the excitement of, you know, of a special event happens. I mention that about disease. What type of diseases are we thinking of? Well, you've heard of the root of bitterness.

Bitterness or resentment, vanity. These things can grow and spread in a congregation or a group of people, just like, you know, cholera could through a civil war camp. So that's a danger, just like some of those distractions that could lead us away from being ready to serve God. Let's look at another major point I want to make. This is a lesson, one lesson we can learn from the Civil War, and it's well demonstrated by my introduction.

And I've got to be honest, I debated back and forth which point to make first. And I talked about how those soldiers, that army of the Potomac, moved forward, fought that battle of the wilderness, and got whooped. To be honest, they got beaten, but they didn't stop. And so the lesson we want to consider is that one battle does not win the war, nor lose it.

You can win a battle, the war is not over. You might lose a battle, and often the war is not over. I think, I mentioned the Battle of Bull Run that was the first major battle in the Civil War. Between the time that was fought, and when General Grant sent his army south three years later, soldiers had fought hundreds of battles and skirmishes. You know, there are so many major battles that we tend to recognize the names, but there were lots and lots. When I go down to Prestonsburg, there's a battlefield there for a battle that I'd never even heard of.

But as I mentioned to them there, the soldiers that might have lost legs or arms or their lives in that battle didn't consider it a minor battle. But in all these many battles, sometimes the Northerners won, sometimes the Southerners won. But it's enduring to the end that matters as we've determined.

What also matters, though, about enduring is being willing to get up and fight again. Whether you've won or lost, saying, I've got to be ready to go again. And that applies to us when we might lose a spiritual battle. If you'll turn, we're in Matthew. Let's go to chapter 18. Matthew 18 will begin in verse 21. I'm taking this a little bit out of context, but I think it's appropriate. Peter was feeling pretty good about how much he was learning, so it comes to Jesus that day.

So Peter comes to him, that's Jesus, and says, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times? Seven times I'm willing to forgive, that's pretty good. And Jesus looked at him, and probably did many times, probably shook his head in Peter. You're not quite getting it. He says, no, I don't say to you seven times, but up to 70 times seven. That's how many times I want to forgive you.

You need to be ready to forgive your brother. And then he goes on to give a parable that shows that as God forgives us, he wants us to forgive others. And the inherent lesson is that God does forgive us that many times, and more. And when we lose a spiritual battle, I'm making an analogy, but if we were given to temptation and sin, we fought a battle that we didn't win.

But that doesn't mean the war is over. We can ask God's forgiveness, and we can get up and go fight again. The war is not over just because we suffer a momentary defeat. I suspect that God doesn't even limit his forgiveness to 490 times. You know, that made a good play on words, and I'm making an assumption. God may be later to say, no, it's 490. You go 491, you're out. But I don't think so. Let's turn to Psalm 118. As I said, I think Jesus was making a play on words when he talked to Peter.

And one of the reasons I think that is because of Psalm 118, we'll begin in the first verse. If I could ever get past 119, it goes on for pages.

Psalm 118.

Let those who fear the eternal now say, his mercy endures forever. Now, how many times? I know he doesn't give a number, but he says, forever. That's how long God is merciful. How many times he's merciful. And if that's not enough, while we're here, just for fun, let's go to Psalm 136. Psalm 136. I'm not going to read the whole Psalm because it goes on a bit, but I'll start and read a few verses.

I'm speaking faster and faster, partly out of habit, because I can't help but not do funny voices when I start to read this. But you get the point. I'm sure whoever wrote the Psalm, it might well have been David, but he did this for artistic purpose. But the point is valid. God's mercy endures forever. God was always willing to forgive someone who's willing to repent. God is willing to show us mercy over and over, again and again and again. That means that in that way, we can be like the Union Army of the Potomac. They were beaten at Bull Run, and they regrouped and went and fought again. Then they were beaten in the Battle of the Peninsula, and they regrouped and fought again. They fought at Bull Run a second time, soon after that, and they were beaten, went back and fought again. They were beaten at Fredericksburg very badly. They regrouped and went over so they could fight at Chancellorsville and get beat again in one of Robert E. Lee's most brilliant battles. Then when Grant took over, and Grant is famous for having won the war, but he started out with that Battle of the Wilderness and got beaten, they moved on and fought again. Grant suffered his greatest defeat at Cold Harbor as part of that year-long campaign. Earlier on that point when he was facing trouble, he said, I'm determined to fight it out on this line all summer if that's what it takes. Well, that's what it took, because as I said, beaten at Cold Harbor, carried on, continued fighting, and eventually they won the war. They got up. They got up and fought again. They wouldn't have won, though, if they had not continued, if they hadn't regrouped and fought again. We're in the Psalms. Let's move a few pages back to Proverbs 24. Proverbs 24 and verse 16.

I'm getting choked up. I was going to say this is one of my favorite Proverbs. It's not one that brings me to tears, but... Proverbs 24 and 16 has often been an inspiration to me, though.

It says here, For a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again. The wicked shall fall by calamity, but the righteous man can fall seven times and rise again. Now, it's not the falling down that makes him righteous, but falling down didn't stop him from being righteous because he rose again. But if he wants to be righteous, you've got to not stay down. You might fall. You get up and keep going. Because we're building character. God called us out of this world for the duration, not looking to fight just one battle and be done, but to keep going.

Now, you might wonder, though, it gets tiring falling down, losing those spiritual battles. And coming back to God and saying, God, I really am repentant, but it's hard to repent because I'm asking you to forgive me for the same thing over and over again. But God wants us to. If you ever wonder, are you not sure you can keep getting up? Well, you can. And let's carry the analogy on. How did the Union Army keep getting regrouped? How did they get the resources they needed to fight again and again and again?

Because fighting is expensive. They lose manpower. They lose equipment. They lose supplies. Well, one of the biggest reasons, if you look at the Civil War, the North had vastly superior resources. The North, as opposed to the South, they just plain had more. When I've taught history classes, sometimes I've said, Do you want to know why the North won? You can boil it down to one word, basically. They had more. They had more people. They outnumbered the South at least five to three, maybe more than that. They had more states. Lots more money.

They had more industrial plants. At the beginning of the war, the South had one major industrial plant there in Richmond. The North had lots. The North had more natural resources and the right variety. And it seemed like there was something else I was going to put in, but let me make this point. As the war progressed, with all this killing and losing equipment, the North grew. The North grew in almost every one of these categories. At the end of the war, the North was stronger and richer and more powerful than it was at the start of the war, whereas the South was weaker, poorer, and had fewer people.

Now, there are a lot of reasons for how it was able to do that, but I want to realize the North had those resources. When it comes to us, we're not relying on physical resources like armies are, but we're relying on spiritual resources. And we get our spiritual resources from a source that has more, that has an inexhaustible supply. We draw our power from God, and that supply can never be exhausted.

Let's go to Romans 14 and verse 4. Romans 14 and verse 4. Here's where somebody answered that question, and you say, Can I get back up again? Or can I stay on my feet? Can I do this one more time? And the Apostle Paul is, I'm breaking into a thought here, because he's getting, he's writing this letter, and he's addressing the idea of Christians judging each other, you know, and condemning each other for whatever fault they had. And he was making the point that, hey, that person's not your servant, he's God's servant.

So you shouldn't be judging that person. And he makes an interesting point about the one that he's talking about, the other person who's serving God. He says, Who are you to judge another servant? To his own master, he stands or falls. He doesn't answer to you, he answers to God. But then he says, To his own master, he stands and falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand. For God is able to make him stand.

God is able to make us stand. When we don't have the strength to do it ourselves, we don't have the strength to get ourselves back up. It's God that provides that. Just as that Union army, it wasn't providing its own resources there, it had power and resources coming in from outside. So, of course, just as it wasn't their own strength and their own resources they drew on, it's not by your own strength that you have to fight again. It's God's strength. And if you call on that strength, trust him to supply it.

It will be there. This is one of the points I thought Mr. Call made very well in his sermonette, and I'm just making it in a different way, but it's because it's a very important point for us to know. And you might be surprised, but after the feast is one of the most important times. Let's go to Philippians 4. Philippians 4 and verse 13.

I notice I'm quoting several scriptures that are well known, in many cases memory scriptures, but they're memory scriptures for a reason. They say very important things.

Philippians 4 verse 13 says simply, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Think of that when it comes to getting up to fight again, or having the strength to go forward when... And once again, you can think of the battle, a Civil War soldier going forward while he's being shot at, or he's going up a hill. Our battles are different, but whatever you're facing, you know, is it going to talk to someone that you're having a problem with? Or facing a temptation, or making yourself do the right thing when you don't feel like it? Well, you can't do it, maybe, but you can do all things when Christ strengthens you. He provides that power. Speaking of which, let's go to 2 Timothy chapter 1. That's also nearby. 2 Timothy 1 and verse 7.

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, no matter how bad the battle, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. God gives us a spirit of power. He'll give us the power. So we can go on. We can fight again. But I want to make a turn here, because I'm talking about what happens when you fight a battle and lose, and have to get up again. But there's another thing we also have to remember.

One victory does not win a war, either. You can win a battle, but that's not enough. At least it often is not. Robert E. Lee won several amazing victories with his outnumbered and outgunned army, but he didn't win the war. Now, I want to turn and look at it from another angle, because I don't want to fault Lee.

He had faults, but he was a brilliant general, and a lot of the reason he lost wasn't because of any mistakes he made. In the North, sometimes they would win battles, but also had problems. One particular victory that the Union army did have was the Battle of Antietam. Lee had moved his army north into Maryland. The Union army moved around and was able to launch a sustained attack.

Two vicious days of fighting, the first day, had the greatest loss of life in American history. And I don't remember what the number was, but it was embarrassingly high. And the Southerners were pushed out, forced to withdraw. And General McClellan, who was leading the Union army, did nothing. President Lincoln sent him telegram after telegram, saying, now is your chance! Move forward! You can destroy the enemy army! But General McClellan was happy to rest. He wanted to refit his army, accept congratulations, and enjoy himself, while the enemy moved away out of reach.

Now, I wanted to make this point, especially now after the feast, because for many of us, we can feel like we've had great victories, and hopefully we have. We're coming out on a high. We've gained, we've learned, we've enjoyed great fellowship. But it'd be easy to let down if we stopped there.

We've got to keep moving. We have more spiritual battles ahead. And hopefully the victories we've had will strengthen us, and the encouragement we've had. And so, this isn't a down thing, but we have to remember that the enemy is still out there.

If you'll turn to 1 Peter, skip past Hebrews to get to the Minor Prophets, 1 Peter 5 and verse 8. In another Scripture, you probably know well. But it's important to remember our enemy is not a 19th century soldier. It's not anything physical on earth. Here is our enemy, 1 Peter 5 verse 8. Be sober, be vigilant. That's not hard to say. Because your adversary the Devil walks about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Just as a lion doesn't give up just because the prey eludes him one time, an army that is not destroyed will regroup, as Lee's Confederates did after Antietam.

They were beaten at Antietam, were able to move back and escape, and then won one of their greatest victories shortly afterwards. Now we might win a great spiritual battle, but Satan will attack again. We might break a bad habit. We might resist temptation. We might build a good habit. But the Devil will always work at finding new ways to strike at us. One way an army avoids becoming complacent after a victory, though, is to immediately push on to the next goal. And that's what we need to do.

Immediately push on. Let's go to Philippians 3. Philippians 3, verse 13. Here Paul will say something interesting about himself. And remember, Paul had won many great spiritual victories. He'd faced enemies, he'd preached the gospel, he'd raised up churches, he'd trained other ministers. But he says this of himself in Philippians 3.13. He says, brethren, I don't count myself to have apprehended. Meaning, I don't count myself as having it. I haven't made it yet.

One thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. He didn't think of himself as having won the war yet. He'd won several battles.

But he pressed on and continued to fight. And we need to have that mindset, too. So whether you've lost battles recently and need to pick yourself up, know that you can, because God gives you the power. But if you've won battles, it's still not time to rest. Now, you can't enjoy it, feel good about it. But remember, the war is still on. Press forward.

I'm looking at the clock because I'm deliberately trying not to speak as fast as I do, but I still might be ahead. I'm on to my third point. As I said this morning, that's one of the nice things. When you're giving a sermonette, you have so little time, you've got to do your transitions very carefully and move smoothly through. When you're giving a sermon, you can just say, okay, I'm done with that point, now another point. It's nice to have that. But this is kind of a fun one, but it's an important one for us to remember. And I want to go back to our analogy. An important lesson that most commanders did not learn during the Civil War and were forced to learn the hard way is one that we want to learn. But them not learning that lesson caused a great number of needless casualties. And the lesson was that technological innovations had changed the weapons of warfare. The weapons those soldiers were carrying were different than the ones soldiers used when their commanders were trained. So new tactics were needed. The commanders should have been using new tactics to deal with those new weapons, but they didn't. They kept using the old strategies, not realizing that they had new weapons available. And that caused a great loss of life, a lot of problems. So let me explain, because that phrase can sound kind of vague. And I'll give apologies to our friends from Columbus. You've heard this before, but maybe I'll do it better this time.

Well, for instance, this one I won't spend that much time on, but most of us are familiar with the term shrapnel. Shrapnel refers to shards of metal flying through the air that can hurt you badly. Well, that was a new concept during the Civil War, because it was only a short time before that that an Englishman by the name of Henry T. Shrapnel had invented a type of casting metal that would make the metal break apart under pressure. So he invented shrapnel. That's how it got named after him. But soldiers, the commanders, weren't always expecting that. They were used to those big round cannonballs that fly through the air. And if they hit you, you're in bad shape. But if they hit the guy next to you, well, he's in bad shape. I was thinking, I could be more graphic, but we probably don't need that. But whereas shrapnel can take out a lot of people in a bad way. Okay. There was another new invention that had even greater significance. It was made by a Frenchman this time. A Frenchman by the name of Claude Minet. That's M-I-N-E. I'm not sure if it was E-T, or I think it was M-I-N-E-E, with one of those little accent marks. Now, in English, we don't like those accent marks, so we would just call him Claude Minny. And it's important because he invented a new type of bullet that during the Civil War would be called the Minnie Ball. Any of you studied Civil War, you've seen those... I'm getting blank looks. Mr. Shoemaker knows. You weren't fighting back then, though. You're not that old, right? The Minnie Ball looks like what we think of as a bullet. It's conical-shaped, as opposed to before then they had the round bullets made out of lead. And you might wonder, what's the big deal? Well, maybe I should tell you the Bill Cosby story first. That might help. Now, Bill Cosby also is not old enough to have fought in the Civil War, but he has... he's an observant fellow. He had a story once to talk about warfare, and he put it in an interesting way, so let me share it with you. My humor often comes accidentally, but this is intentional. But I didn't write it, so hopefully it'll be funny. Bill Cosby used an analogy between football games and wars. Because we're familiar, if you watch a football game, you know at the beginning there's a coin toss. Right? The captains from each team come out, and they'll go, okay, Captain Jones of the red, Captain Smith of the blue. Captain Smith of the blue, meet Captain Jones of the red. Okay. Captain Jones, you call the toss. They'll do a coin toss to decide how things are going to go. So he calls heads, it's tails. You lose the toss. Jones, Smith, what will you do? Well, he'll do whatever is advantageous to his team. So, well, we want the ball. We'll receive. Okay, this team is going to receive. This team, what will they do? They'll kick off. And so that's how it goes, determined by the coin toss. What if at the start of a war they had a coin toss?

Okay, so imagine the American Revolution. Captain Smith of the British, this is Captain Jones of the settlers. Captain Jones settlers, Captain Smith of the British. Call the toss, British. He calls heads, it's tails. You lose the toss, British settlers, what do you want to do? You'll huddle up, uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah. Okay. They say that during the war, their team will wear any color clothes that they want to, shoot from behind the rocks, the trees, and everywhere.

It says, your team must wear red and march in a straight line.

Now that seems funny to us, but we think, hey, yeah, why did they wear red and march in a straight line? That doesn't make sense. Well, and now as the historian, I have to come out and say, there is a reason that they did that. The reason was the weapons they carried. The muskets that they used back in the Revolutionary War period were what we call smoothbore muskets. They were muzzle loaders, but all guns were muzzle loaders back then, but the important thing is they were not rifles. Smoothbore means none of those spiral grooves that are inside a rifle. Now, a lot of you are hunters. You're familiar with a rifle. Why are those grooves important? They make the bullets spin, and it'll come out and fly in a straight line. It'll be accurate. It's the same as if you throw a football, you want a good, tight spiral to make it go where you want. Okay, rifles are accurate because of that spin. Okay, but for the spin to work, the bullet has to touch the grooves. That means it's a tight fit. Tight fit means the bullet's got to touch. So, the hunters are forefathers, those settlers that were hiding behind the rocks and trees. The reason they did that is because it would take them a couple minutes to load their gun. They'd wrap a little grease patch around the bullet and then pound it down the barrel with a ramrod. That's why they call it a ramrod. You're ramming it in, then you're ready to shoot. It can be real accurate. But it took you two minutes to load. If the guy you're shooting at was only, like, as far as across the room, while I'm busy pounding, he runs up and sticks me with his bayonet, and he wins. So, a lot of the armies in Europe had said, well, we don't want that. We like the smoothbore muskets because we can load them. A well-trained soldier could load and shoot his smoothbore musket three times in a minute, as opposed to one time every two or three minutes. So, why... Of course, everybody's going to want those. But they're not very accurate. Because the bullet doesn't spin, it might go almost anywhere. And, you know, the army shooting the smoothbore, if their target was more than about 30, 40 yards away, it'd be pure luck to hit it. So, the solution, get all your guys in a straight line, have them all shoot at the same time, and maybe one of them will hit the target. And then, the other guys are doing the same thing, and they might miss you, and you march a little forward, you reload, you shoot, and then you go and you fight with the bayonets. That's the way the British Redcoats fought the war. And, to be honest, although we don't like to brag about it as Americans, it wasn't until George Washington got his soldiers to learn to fight the same way that we could start beating them. Okay. You're with me? I took a little more time on this than I did in Prestonsburg. I'm still getting to the Christian analogy here, but I like talking about the war. Okay, Claude Monet invents this new bullet that is conical, and the bottom is somewhat hollowed out with a softer lead, so it's small enough it drops right down without touching the grooves, but when you fire the gun, the bottom expands just enough to where it catches the grooves, and it works with a rifle.

So now he's invented a weapon that works, you can load and fire as fast as the old smoothbores, but they're as deadly accurate as the rifles. Okay, that's... well, I don't want to say great, because they killed a whole lot of people. But it's a new type of weapon that's very effective. But the commanders are all thinking with the old weapons. They don't update their procedure. And so what they do is they order things like Pickett's Charge. You might be familiar with that at Gettysburg. They lined all these guys in straight lines. They go across that field for a mile, which, if they had the old weapons, they would have been pretty safe most of the way. They couldn't... you know, they weren't accurate enough. But now the Union Army has the new weapons, and they're just cutting them down like flies. The commanders didn't realize to think about the new weapons. And that caused a lot of trouble. Where am I at in my notes here? Ah, let's go to 2 Corinthians chapter 10. 2 Corinthians chapter 10 will begin in verse 3. Because there's an important point for us, of course. As Christians, as spiritually begotten children of God, we have new weapons available to us that we didn't have before. We have new weapons we can use. We need to understand those weapons. We need to use them properly. 2 Corinthians 10, beginning in verse 3. Though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God. For the pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments in every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. Bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.

Those spiritual weapons can punish disobedience. They can help us bring our thoughts into captivity. Our old carnal weapons included what? Now, I'm not talking about muskets or swords or things, but if we were trying to develop character on our own, the carnal weapons might be things like our human reasoning, our ability to think. They might include our willpower. Now, human reasoning and willpower are powerful things, but not necessarily powerful enough for the spiritual warfare we need to fight. Let's go to Matthew 16. Matthew 16 in verse 8. I'm going to take this statement by Jesus a little bit out of context, but it makes an important point. This is at one of the times when they were traveling with the apostles, and he'd been dealing with the Pharisees, and he was upset with the Pharisees, so he told his apostles, Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. And there's a what in the world is he talking about? Beware of their leaven? Well, it's because we're out of bread, and he doesn't want us to get their bread. And he says, No, you numb skulls. Well, he doesn't say that, but in verse 8, Jesus being aware of it said, Oh, you of little faith, why do you reason among yourselves because you've not bought no bread? Don't you understand or remember about the five loaves and the five thousand people? He's saying, I can work a miracle. I can create bread. He says, Why are you reasoning among yourselves? You don't have much faith. So he's saying, you could say human reason can be an enemy of faith, because we can reason something out and say, Well, that can't be done. You can't feed five thousand people with five loaves of bread. Now, human reason is not bad. God gave us this. It makes us different from the animals. But human reasoning could be like the old smoothbore musket that can only accurate up to twenty or thirty yards. But faith is like a new, a powerfully accurate rifle. It's going to hit the target. It's going to work when the old weapon won't. All carnal weapons fall short. We might rely on our own strength, but we're going to get tired. Our strength will fail.

We might rely on our willpower, but willpower can be linked to stubbornness. It can get us into a wrong attitude. We have to remember, we're not fighting against other people. We're fighting against Satan, against the evil demons who follow him. So let's go to Ephesians 6.

Ephesians 6, and we'll begin in verse 12.

That's what happens when you have two glasses. And you might have guessed when you heard the topic of the sermon, eventually he's got to end up in Ephesians 6. So I'm ending up there. I was thinking about that as I was writing this. I said, I'll bet more sermons have ended in Ephesians 6 than a lot of others. Maybe not more than any other, but it's a pretty common place because it's accurate and powerful. Ephesians 6 and verse 12.

So we're not fighting against carnal enemies, physical enemies, so physical weapons aren't what we want.

And verse 13, Paul says, Now I'm going to read through here, and keep in note that Paul uses the terms armor, and he's going to refer to the weapons that were common in his period. And the analogy is true, so let's read through this, but then we can go back and look at how we might put it in more modern terms if we wanted to.

What does the whole armor consist of? Verse 14, So let's think, as I said, the analogy can change because we're not wearing a suit of armor and wielding swords, So let's think if we...as I said, the analogy can change because we're not wearing a suit of armor and wielding swords, but we want to focus on the spiritual weapons. He mentions first truth as though it were a belt. Truth holds everything together sort of like a belt does. But I like in the modern analogy we could even term it as an ammunition belt. Carrying that ammunition in truth is what we can use as ammunition to fight against or destroy enemies. I almost said weapons, but the truth can destroy anything that tries to hurt us if we have the truth. Righteousness. He referred to righteousness as a breastplate because righteousness, if you're doing what's right, it'll protect your inner being.

He referred to it as a breastplate. We might liken it to a Kevlar vest. Have on the Kevlar vest of righteousness. It'll protect you that much. Having your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel. Preparation of the Gospel refers to doing the work, preaching the Gospel. And that means...I like to think that doing the work means you're moving forward, which, like having your shoes on your feet, means you can move forward.

If we're supporting God's work, if we're getting ourselves ready. Remember, preaching the Gospel isn't just for the guys in the studio in Milford. It can be for all of us if someone asks, Hey, how can you go to church on Saturday? Or, Where have you been for the last week? You haven't been at work. I've been keeping the Feast of Tabernacles. Or, if you think they're going to look at me weird if I say Feast of Tabernacles. We've been at a fall festival our church keeps. It pictures the reign of God on earth. That's preaching the Gospel in one or two sentences. They might say, Hmm, I always thought you were weird.

Or, they might say, Really? Reign of God on earth? What's that about? You say, Well, Jesus Christ came, but He's going to come again. And He wants people to live His way of life. Preaching the Gospel is something we can all do, but it means we're moving forward. And that keeps you from being a sitting duck, so to speak, where you can be mowed down by the enemy.

The shield of faith blocks attacks. Faith keeps harmful missiles from getting through where they might possibly cause harm. Paul talked about a shield of faith, and sometimes in those periods, the Romans would carry big shields and they'd all get together to form like a wall. But nowadays, we might liken it to an armored personnel carrier. Instead of a shield, get into an armored vehicle and move ahead, knowing that you're safe from what's bombarding you from outside.

Faith makes the enemy missiles just bounce off. And of course, we don't just have that faith, we ask God to give us faith. It's the faith of Jesus Christ we want, not our own faith. That's just like relying on our willpower, which is a carnal weapon. And we don't want an old carnal weapon, we want the powerful spiritual weapon. And the helmet of salvation. Salvation talks about God's redemptive power. Boy, that sounds really religious. I didn't think of it until it came out of my mouth. God's redemptive power. Of course, He redeems us. He buys us back. And that protects our thoughts. It protects our head, knowing God's got our back.

God is going to take care of us. He'll buy us back. He'll bring us back. He'll give us that strength. And I was thinking, what's a good modern analogy to a helmet? I said, well, a helmet is kind of like a helmet. Helmets are still helmets. We make them out of better material now, but we haven't come up with something better than a helmet, which is good because there's nothing better than God's salvation. And then there's the sword of the Spirit.

The only offensive weapon that Paul mentioned is the Spirit, the Spirit of God. Now, we could liken that to something much more powerful than a sword. We could refer to it like a high-powered assault rifle that protects us.

We can go on the offensive with that. We have that kind of power available. God's Spirit is more powerful than anything else. Now, we have to never misuse that power because it's a lot of power. You don't misuse it or throw it around. God wants you to use that power responsibly. If we look in Ephesians 6-18, we go ahead. Paul ran out of military analogies, and maybe it's good for us to remember that, yeah, it's fun to...

Well, I say fun. Some people like talking about old warfare, and some of you probably think this one was boring things ever, but you can't win them all. But putting aside the soldier stuff, he says, just simply, pray always. Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to the end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints, and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the Gospel.

Praying is something we always have to do, no matter what analogy, whether it's the energizer bunny or, you know, civil war assault rifle. We want to be in contact with God. But I'll say Paul broke down the analogy, but I wanted to bring it back in because I thought, you know, during the Civil War, communication was important. You know, commanders had drummer boys who would beat a certain rhythm to say, go right or left, or go forward or back. They'd use bugles. You know, the Highland regiments even used the bagpipes to play a certain way.

The Civil War also was the first time that the telegraph was used. Now, with the Civil War, the commander on the field could communicate with the Supreme Commander back in Washington, or in Richmond, if you were on that side. I thought that several times a day, I said, I have to be careful. I'm south of the river, so... And some of you are from south of the river, so...

I tend to think of the north as the good guys, and the south as the not as good guys, but... But we're not about that. It's the analogy for a Christian living. And we want to remember, we can communicate at any time with our infallible leader. You know, President Lincoln developed a good strategy, but he made mistakes, and the commander under him certainly made even more. We don't have to worry that our commanding general is going to make mistakes, because he's God. His strategy is always perfect. If he sends us a message, or if we send in a call for help, that message gets through.

If we follow his strategy, we're certain to have victory. Let's go to 1 Corinthians, Chapter 15. I don't know if I should say it, but this is my last scripture. We should have had a potluck. We'd have more time to get the food out. 1 Corinthians 15, Verse 57. As I said, God has a campaign plan that brings certain victory. And I wanted to read this scripture because it just sums it all up.

Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. If we're going to make a military analogy, we want to include this. God gives us the victory. We have to fight. We're good soldiers. We have to endure hardship. Have to use our weapons properly. Get up and keep going. But the victory is not ours to win. God will give it to us if we're fighting on his side. The American Civil War was a long and a horrible ordeal.

It cost many lives. I mean, lives of people dying, it also ruined lives. It damaged men's psyche, ruined their families. But it also remade our country. From the perspective of 100 years, no, 150 years. Where am I? 150 years? We can look back and try to emphasize the good. There are groups out there that like to commemorate the war. We can learn lessons from it. We can celebrate the bravery of those who fought. And many of them were very brave and made great sacrifice for the good of their country. And men on both sides were fighting for their country.

Likewise, our campaign as Christian soldiers is a long process. It has many spiritual battles. And it's not going to be lost with one defeat, but it's not going to be won with one victory. We have to pick ourselves up from occasional defeats and go on. We have to push on from what we hope will be many victories, but keep going. We can't let ourselves be distracted. We can't let sickness spread through our ranks. And we have to use the spiritual weapons that God gives us and rely on His strength, His leadership. And if that happens, He will give us the victory.