We Are Soldiers

Open country, further south. But things didn't go as planned. Robert E. Lee, who commanded the Army of Northern Virginia, quickly moved his troops north and engaged the Army of the Potomac while they were still in the wilderness. This would negate the superior numbers of the Union. Vicious fighting broke out for two days there in this wilderness area. The woods would catch fire. Many of the wounded would end up being burned to death. It was just a very hard, vicious struggle. Fighting going back and forth, many casualties. As a matter of fact, by the end of it, the Federal Army had lost 17,000 dead or wounded and had not gained a single foot of ground. It looked like once again General Lee's brilliant leadership had dealt the Union another devastating blow. So it was at dusk on May 7th. The Union troops were ordered back from their firing lines. The men trudged back, tired, some of them bleeding, hungry, worn out. They assumed that they would march back to the vicinity of Washington, D.C. as they had many other times before and reorganize and get ready for something in the future. But when they came to a crossroads that smokestained night, they found that they were taking a road further south, deeper into enemy territory. Among many units, a spontaneous cheer broke out when they realized that they were not moving back, but rather they were moving ahead. Whatever else the command of Ulysses S. Grant meant, it would certainly mean no turning back. The days of retreat were over. Now, that didn't mean there would be no more defeat. There would be setbacks. There would be more casualties, even another major defeat. But there was a determination always to advance. Now, you might have guessed today that I wanted to talk about the Civil War, and I want to bring out some spiritual lessons that can be learned from the Civil War. Across the nation, and it's been going on for about a year, a year and a half now, groups are conducting special events and educational programs to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. They call it the sesquicentennial, which means 150th. I think it's easier to say 150th sesquicentennial, but I've had to say it plenty of times. This was a tragic but also epic event in American history. If you'll turn with me to 2 Timothy 2, 2 Timothy 2, we'll read verses 3 and 4. I want to show that I'm far from the first in God's ministry to make an analogy among military events or soldiering with the last few days. This is the life of a Christian.

It's on 2 Timothy 2, beginning in verse 3. This is Paul writing to Timothy, who was a young minister. He says, You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier. Let's consider some of the lessons of what some consider the greatest war in our history. Because Jesus Christ has enlisted us all as soldiers in his cause. We're not fighting a civil war, but there are lessons. Those soldiers fought long and hard and endured some special things. I've got three major lessons I want to look at, and we'll explore some of them. The first one is a simple thought that a soldier's life can be pretty hard.

2 Timothy 2, verse 3, Paul wrote to Timothy and he said, You must therefore endure hardship. It's not the time when you're in a war, it's not in the comfort of an established base camp that you accomplish much of anything. The army is only worthwhile when it's overcoming obstacles, when it's marching forward and engaging the enemy. A soldier's life isn't easy, it's hard. It's also important to realize it's not how you begin the campaign that counts. A lot of armies look really good when they start off, but it's how you get to the end. If you want to turn there, Matthew 24, verse 13, is one of those memory scriptures. You might already have it memorized, but I'm going to go there and remind us of what it says. Matthew 24, 13 says, But he who endures to the end will be saved.

What is it that you're enduring? Well, you're enduring some type of hardship. For a soldier, it's often living in a tent far from home, trudging many miles, not having the best of food. We endure various things. But remember, it's enduring it through the end, not just for a little while, seeing it through until it's over. Let's consider that at the start of the Civil War, in 1861, the Confederacy began firing on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. The politicians had been trying to avoid war up until that point. The Northerners wanted to bring the Southern states back into the Union without having to fight. The Southern states wanted to be left alone without having to fight. But once the firing started, both sides knew there would be a fight. So President Lincoln in the North put out a call. He asked for 75,000 volunteers for three months. And 75,000 volunteers for three months. Most people thought the war would be over that quickly. And that would be enough men. As a matter of fact, many thousands of men in the North rushed to volunteer. And I say rushed because most of them said, I've got to get in quick. The war might be over before I get a chance to fight. I want to go teach those Johnny Rebs a lesson. I've got to be careful. I'm south of the river. So I say a lot of Johnny Rebs are saying, we're going to teach those Yanks a lesson. Bring them on down here and we'll whoop them. But nobody thought that it would take longer than that first summer.

And of course, they were all very enthusiastic. They formed local volunteer companies. And I've read some of this. It's interesting. Some of the Northerners, they formed their own companies and adopted their own uniforms and gave themselves names like the Westchester Fenceables and the New York Zoo Aves. I'm never sure if I'm pronouncing that properly, but the Zoo Aves, they adopted the type of uniform that they'd seen that some of the armies in Northern Africa wore in the Sahara, which would include bright red trousers and fez caps and even some of them curved swords.

Some of the Union troops had beautiful gray uniforms. But that's okay because some of the southern troops had nice brilliant blue coats.

And of course, many of you know what happened. Later that summer, they fought the first battle of Bull Run, and they learned from hard experience that it wouldn't be over with one quick battle. It raged all day back and forth, a lot of casualties, and that Union army, consisting largely of men who were rushing to get in unless they missed it, straggled back to Washington and uttered disjambles in defeat.

A lot of the civilians expected it to be over quickly, too. It's interesting. One of the reasons the army's retreat was so disorganized was that it was tangled up with a lot of horse buggies and carts by congressmen who'd come out with picnic lunches and camped on hillsides to watch the war. They thought it was a great spectacle event, sort of like we might tailgate and watch a football game on a Sunday afternoon. Well, this defeat, this destruction, near-destruction of both armies, showed them that the war would take much longer, and it would require a much greater effort and a lot more money, and energy, than anybody had expected. So both sides had to organize and fit regular armies. They had to train and equip troops, get them ready to fight. And, of course, it sounds like a lot of work and being busy. And it is, if you're the one in charge. If you're doing the organization, you're working constantly, and you're appointing men, and you're procuring supplies. But if you're one of those common foot soldiers, what are you doing all that time? Well, I could sum it up. There's a famous quote, and I don't know who said it first, but I've read it in a lot of books. They say, 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. Once a soldier enlisted, he got outfitted, he went through his basic training. Then he'd be part of a company and camped at some base. Camp consisted of rows and rows of tents. And they'd be organized usually around a larger tent, or if they're on the move, sometimes a building, perhaps a house that the commander had commandeered for his headquarters. And a small number of men, sometimes a few tents worth, would be organized into what was called a mess. I'm not sure why the mess, maybe it's mess refers to eating. A mess group were the men that fixed their meals together and ate together. And that's the way the armies worked back then. They didn't have a commissary where they'd go to a cafeteria and be given food, but all the men were given a certain amount of supplies, and they put it together, and they cooked their meals, and they spent time together. A lot of time together. Daily life consisted of morning roll call. The trumpet would you rake you up, you had to get dressed. Fall in for roll call. Are you here? Then some parade drill. Practice marching. An army has to be able to march at the orders of the commander and move as one group, and be taught not to think for themselves. But even with drilling and inspections, and sometimes get up roll call inspection, practice marching, have lunch, march some more, a lot of marching, and then a lot of nothing. Boredom.

As I said, it was easy to be overlooked by the officers. They're busy planning strategy, campaigning, preparing for a new campaign, and they'd be often ignorant of what was going on with the common soldiers. Free time could be a soldier's worst enemy. Many of these young men were away from home for the first time. They were thrown together without the benefits of family, and without the benefits of the women that were part of those family. Far too many men took up gambling, drinking to excess, sometimes visiting prostitutes. And these habits ruined a lot of men for life. So they had the danger of the free time. It was also many of them put together, there was a danger of disease. Disease would run rampant at certain occasions, especially if their commander didn't teach them how to dig a proper latrine. They've done statistical studies to show more soldiers died in the Civil War from disease than from battle wounds or casualties.

Our life as a Christian soldier can have some similarities to these men in the Civil War. We're organized, we have a lot of time together, but we can only be at church services or activities just so much of the time. And then we're on our own. It might be easy for us to get distracted with destructive pastimes. Some of the same ones that afflicted men in the Civil War could still be dangerous to us. Gambling and drinking still exist, but we have a lot of other distractions that are possible, too. We've got television, movies, websites, social trends, and perhaps friends that don't share our calling. A soldier's mess mate might tempt him into excessive drinking and prostitution, just as some of us. And it's more common with younger people, but it's not exclusive to them. Some of our friends, either that we work with or at school, might tempt us into dabbling in pornography or partying, drug use, and so on. Now, I should point out, a good group of mess mates would encourage a soldier not to do things that would be bad. A lot of soldiers occupied the time by playing baseball, which was becoming this new popular pastime. And actually, some people credit the Civil War with the fact that everyone around the country was playing baseball afterwards. And of course, with the World Series going on now, it shows how popular it became.

But, it's the same for us. We can have good friends or bad friends. And it's not wrong for us to have friends outside the church, certainly, but we have to ask, who are those friends? How are they influencing us? We always have to choose carefully and wisely. If you turn to Matthew 24, let's go to verse 44.

And if you haven't turned there, you can go there. 24 and verse 44.

And see what happens here. I'm talking about the soldiers, when they're not marching towards a battle, when they're in camp, and the general is planning what they're going to do, and they've got time on their hands, and they don't know what's ahead, and they're waiting and waiting. It can be similar to us. We're waiting and waiting for our commander to come back and put us into action. Now, there's a good reason for it. We need to be training and drilling just like the soldiers. But in Matthew 24, verse 44, Jesus gives a warning. He said, Therefore you also be ready. The Son of Man is coming in an hour you do not expect. The bugle call to get ready in March might come when you're not expecting. He said, Who is a faithful and a wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food and do season? Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. He wants to find his so doing. Assuredly I say to you, he will make him ruler over all his goods. I don't know why I have trouble saying that. Over all his goods. He'll be the one that gets the promotion. But if that evil servant says in his heart, Ah, my master's delaying his coming. I can get ready for the battle later. And he begins to beat his fellow servants. To eat and drink with the drunkards, The master of that servant will come on a day when he's not looking for him, And in an hour that he's not aware of, And cut him in two, and appoint him apportion with the hypocrites, And there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

These scriptures were true when Christ spoke them. They apply similarly to a soldier preparing for battle, but they certainly apply to us. We've got to not let the time on our hands, not knowing when the time for action or when Christ will return, Or when Christ will lead us astray. We don't want to get caught up with distractions like some of the soldiers did.

One of the reasons I say this, you know, the excitement of the feast, The inspiration of the messages, you know, they're positive. We have tremendous positive peer pressure at the feast. We're among a lot of brethren, and we say, yeah, I'm going to do things right, And we really get excited. But then, as the months go by after the feast, that excitement can sort of fade. And we can start looking at other things that look more exciting, perhaps. But we can't let ourselves be distracted in the wrong way.

We need to be like Christian soldiers, Christian soldiers with the right discipline and focus on what we're preparing for. And also, I was focusing more on the distractions, and later on I said, You know, that whole thing about disease is also important. But we have to think about spiritual diseases that can spread. They talk about a root of bitterness springing up. Some of those diseases, bitterness, resentment, vanity, They're like diseases that can grow within us and can spread through a congregation And can decimate the troops even before they would get to battle. We have to be diligent to keep control of these things.

I want to move to the second big lesson. The second big lesson could have been the first, But I wanted to talk about how hard a soldier's life was. But let's look on the broad scale of what wins a war. The lesson from the introduction showed these soldiers were going in once again, Had a defeat, and thought, oh, we're going to go back and refit. Another lesson we can learn from the Civil War is that One battle does not win the war.

One battle doesn't lose the war either. It goes over and over. It's not over until it's over, as Vince Lombardi. Was it Vince Lombardi that said that? I think so, but he wasn't in the Civil War, I'm pretty sure. But he was a good football coach.

And in between that time, that first battle of Bull Run, I described, And later, when General Grant told his soldiers, no, we're going to keep moving south, The soldiers that fought in the Army of the Potomac fought hundreds of battles and skirmishes. They fought hundreds of times. There were about seven major battles, But a lot of small skirmishes were near a Civil War battle site here. Now, what was the name of it? Mountain... I just saw it on the sign, and I mentioned a forest.

I need to remember that. Middle Creek, that's it. It wasn't one of the major battles, but it was one of many minor battles that happened, And for the soldiers that lost their lives there, or might have lost an arm or a leg, It was just as major as any of the other. But those who fought in many of those battles had to be willing to get up and go fight again, Because the war wasn't over yet, just because of that battle.

And this can apply, likewise, to spiritual battles for us. We're in Matthew. Let's go to chapter 18. Matthew 18, verses 21 through 22. When we're fighting spiritual battles, we have to realize one battle doesn't win the war. One battle never loses the war. Matthew 18, verse 21. I'm applying this, perhaps, in a different way than we usually do, But Peter came to him, that is, to Jesus Christ. Peter came to his master and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?

Seven times? So he's saying, do I have to forgive him seven times? Is that enough? And Jesus said to him, no, I don't say to you seven times, but seventy times seven. Now, I'm going to stop there. Jesus went on and gave a very interesting parable afterwards. And the parable was about how we should forgive the way God forgives us. And his point was seventy times seven, at least four hundred and ninety. He wants us to forgive others the way he forgives us, and he forgives us that much. We might lose a spiritual battle, but we can ask God's forgiveness, and we can go on to fight again.

It's not over just because we suffer any momentary defeat. And to be honest, I suspect that God doesn't limit his forgiveness to four hundred and ninety times. Jesus said seventy times seven. He was probably making a play on words, but I suspect God would forgive us five hundred times if necessary. Five hundred and fifty, as long as it goes. And to show that it's not just my guess, let's go to Psalms 118.

Psalm 118. Let's show how many times God will forgive us. And as I said, each time we're forgiven means we get a chance to fight again. Psalm 118. I'm going to begin in the first verse. It says, O give thanks to the Eternal, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever. Let Israel now say, his mercy endures forever. Let the house of Aaron now say, his mercy endures forever. Let those who fear the Eternal now say, his mercy endures forever. There's a certain theme there. Matter of fact, just because we can, let's go to Psalm 136.

I've always wondered if Dwight Armstrong had written in our hymnal the way this one is written in the Psalms, how it would have come out. It probably would have been tough to sing, but it's kind of fun to look at. Psalm 136. O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever. O give thanks to the God of Gods, for his mercy endures forever. O give praise to the Lord of Lords, for his mercy endures forever. To him who alone does great wonders, for his mercy endures forever. To him who by wisdom made the heavens, for his mercy endures forever. And if you glance down, you'll see throughout this whole Psalm, every other line is, his mercy endures forever. I think, and we presume David wrote this Psalm, if it wasn't David, whoever did, I think was putting the mercy endures forever, every other line for artistic purpose. But it's important for us to note that it's still true. God's mercy endures forever. He is always willing to forgive us if we're willing to repent and say, Oh, God, I'm sorry. I failed. I lost that battle. Please forgive me. I want to fight on. I want to try again. God is willing to show us mercy over and over, and again and again and again. That means we can be like the army of the Potomac. And I just wrote down the major battles, and if there are any civil war experts here, point out if I missed one. But they fought at Bull Run. They were beaten, fought again. They were beaten in the Battle of the Peninsula. They went back and regrouped and fought again. And then they fought at Bull Run a second time. And they lost a second time, and they fought yet again after that. Then they went down to the Battle of Fredericksburg, suffered one of the worst defeats you can imagine. But they regrouped, and they fought again. Then they went on to Chancellorsville and lost one of the most improbable battles you can imagine, because General Lee pulled just a stunt that was almost beyond belief, and beat the Union Army badly, but they regrouped and they fought again. Then, even after General Grant took over, he was beaten at the Wilderness, as I described earlier. And the army didn't go back to regroup, but they marched on and they fought again. Not long after that, they were beaten at Cold Harbor, one of the worst defeats of Grant's whole career. And yet, they didn't turn back. They picked themselves up and moved on, and they fought again. And after all that, they won the war. Now, there's a lot behind why they won the war, but it's important to realize, if they'd have just given up after any of those defeats, the North would not have won the war. Which, as I said, when I'm south of the river, I have to be careful. Some people might think that was a good thing, but we're all on the same side now. But they didn't quit after any of those losses. We're in the Psalms. Let's turn back to Proverbs chapter 24.

This is one of my favorite Proverbs. Of course, if I stick with it long enough, almost all of them get to be a favorite at one time or another, but I really like this one. Proverbs 24 and verse 16. I guess maybe it's been a favorite of mine because I've been someone who's lost a spiritual battle or two, but I've always been encouraged by some of the Scriptures we're reading today. Proverbs 24 and 16 says, For a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again, but the wicked will fall by calamity. Interesting. The righteous man doesn't stop being a righteous man because he's fallen seven times. Now, it's not the falling that makes him righteous, but he rises again. He might fall seven times and rise seven times. And if there's an eighth time, he can rise again. He has to rise again. We're in a battle and in a training where we're building character, and we're in it for the duration. We're looking to win a war, not one battle. And you might think, there's times when you don't feel like getting up. Even if you're the righteous man, you've fallen maybe six times. Can I get up again? You might wonder, and I've been asked this question a lot of times as a history teacher, how did the Union keep coming back if they got beat over and over again? How did they keep regrouping and refitting and then fighting again? Well, the answer to that for the Army was they had vastly superior resources. They were drawn from a country that had what it needed. It was the North, even with the Southern states seceded, the North was bigger. It was stronger. The North had more people and had more states by a ratio of about three to five. The North had way more money and takes a lot of money to fight a war. The North had more industrial plants. As a matter of fact, they had almost all of them before the war started. The South had one big industrial facility in Richmond. The North had more natural resources than the South. And you know how expensive a war can be, how draining. It's interesting when you study the two economies of the Union and the Confederacy during the war. As the war progressed, the Union was growing stronger. It was not depleting its resources. It was literally stronger at the end of the war than it had been at the start. And its population was larger. And it had more industrial capacity, more of almost everything. Whereas the South was becoming depleted. It was losing its manpower. Its facilities were being destroyed. A lot of its natural resources are becoming inaccessible. And that's a big reason why the South declined. Even though they had fabulous soldiers and great generals, the North was drawing on greater resources. Now, how do we apply that to us? I could just talk about the war the whole time and forget about the spiritual lessons, but the spiritual lessons are important. We're fighting spiritual battles and we have spiritual resources to draw on. But we're not relying on those physical...it's not like an army. Our spiritual resources are coming from an inexhaustible supply because we're drawing on God's resources. God is the one that provides for us. Let's read Romans 14, verse 4.

Back in the New Testament, Romans 14. Draw back to your mind that picture from Proverbs of the righteous man falling seven times and rising again.

We can see how he rises again or how in some cases he manages to not fall in the first place. Here Paul is talking about how Christians were condemning each other and judging each other and telling them they shouldn't. He says, who are you to judge another servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Now in this case, the other man's servant, he's talking about another Christian and he's a servant to God. For to his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand for God is able to make him stand. Anyone who's a servant to God, God is able to make him stand. God is providing the strength that we don't have on our own. Just as the northern states were able to provide the resources that army needed to get back up again. God is able to make us stand when we don't have the power on our own. It's not by our own strength that we have to rise again. It's through God's. If we'll just call on that strength, we'll trust him to supply it and it will be there. The Union army knew it was going to have more supplies coming. It knew when General Grant sent his soldiers forward at Cold Harbor, it grieved him that he lost so many men. But he said, I'm not going to go back and quit because I know there are more men coming. I can always get more soldiers. It's going to be like... Let me slow that down. It can be that way for us. When we suffer a loss, when we're depleted spiritually, we can always get more strength. We're never going to run out if we're not trusting on ourselves. Let's go back to Philippians 4.

Philippians 4 and verse 13. It's a simple another one that's a memory scripture, but think of it in these terms. Philippians 4.13 says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. All things. I can get back up. I can stay on my feet. And of course, sometimes physically that's what you need. And I think of this when my grandmother was 92 years old, there was a time when she fell when she was at home alone. She probably shouldn't have been living at home alone, but she insisted. And she said she was laying there praying, God help me to get back up. And I think he did hear that prayer. She crawled her way over to the bed and managed to get back up on her feet. You know, God can do that physically, but even more important spiritually. When we're suffering some tremendous, some devastation in our life, emotionally or spiritually, we can do all things through Christ. We can get back up. We can face that same challenge again, and it doesn't have to be the same. We don't have to be defeated. 2 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 7 is another scripture that we often memorize.

It's often memorized. Usually, you don't have to memorize something once if you truly memorize it. But we hear it quoted from memory many times. 2 Timothy 1 and verse 7, God gives us power. We can draw on strength, and that's why we can fight over and over again. Just like that Union Army was able to fight over and over again. Well, maybe I shouldn't say just like, because it's much better. You know, our strength can be renewed instantly, and there's no politics involved. But I want to look at something else that's also vitally important. Because we think of this a lot of times. Okay, if I'm defeated, I've got to get back up again. And we do. It's important to remember also that one victory does not win a war. Anymore than one loss wins a war. You might have a great victory. Robert E. Lee won some amazing ones. And like I said, if you ever study the Battle of Chancellorsville, it's considered his greatest feat. Because he deliberately broke some of the standard rules of warfare. You know, dividing his army in the face of an enemy and taking great risks, and beat an army almost twice his size. You know, he won this great victory. But he didn't win the war. Because he was drawing on a strength that wasn't great enough. And I don't want to run Robert E. Lee down. The case here is, winning a victory doesn't assure victory in the war. You have to continue. And Robert E. Lee knew this. After he won that astounding victory at Chancellorsville, he advanced and moved forward into Pennsylvania. Now, he then, unfortunately for him, fortunately for the country, was defeated at Gettysburg. But it could have gone the other way, and it was a lot closer than a lot of Northerners like to think. One, and looking at the other side, one particular battle that the Army of the Potomac did win was at Antietam. It wasn't a great victory, but they managed to stop the advance of the Southerners. And once that victory was there, General McClellan, who was in charge of the Army at the time, stopped. President Lincoln kept sending a message, saying, Advanced! The Southern Army is there. You can crush them and win the war. But McClellan was happy to rest on his laurels and accept congratulations. He didn't move on from victory to an even greater victory. And I'm making this particular point now, because it's easy after the feast to feel like we've won some great victories. We're all uplifted. It's exciting. You know, I feel like I have overcome some challenges, and things are really good. But we can't stop there. We can't say, I'm on top of the world, and think that we're just going to stay there. We have to push on, because the war is not over yet. Our greatest enemy is still there. Let's turn to 1 Peter. We're near there now. 1 Peter 5, verse 8. Notice, I'm not drawing on many obscure verses today, but that's because we don't need to. 1 Peter 5, verse 8. Be sober and be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, your adversary, your enemy, the one that you're doing battle against, walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him and be steadfast. If a prey eludes the lion once, a lot of times the lion doesn't just quit and go home. He continues stalking and working around for another opportunity. And an army that's not destroyed will regroup. Lee's army was beaten at Antietam, but he moved them back, got them ready to fight again, and they went on to win it, one of his greatest victories afterwards. So just because we succeed in resisting Satan or overcoming one of our faults once or twice, that doesn't mean we're done. We have to keep on fighting. Let's turn to Philippians 3.

Philippians 3, and we'll begin in verse 13. As we could say, the apostle Paul fought many spiritual battles and was very successful. He's one I looked to. He was a great scholar who wrote much of the New Testament. He went out and risked his life and accomplished much good. But in the midst of this, he writes this to the Philippians, beginning in verse 13. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended.

He said, I don't have it yet. I haven't made it there yet. I have not apprehended. But one thing I do, forgetting the things that are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize, the upward call of Jesus Christ. Therefore, let us, as many as are mature, have this mind.

And if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal this to you. So if you think you've got it made, God will open your mind to see that you don't. You've got to keep pressing forward. You're not there until you're there. Once again, it's not over until it's over. We need to have that mind that whether we've suffered a defeat, it's not over. We can get up and fight again. If we've had a great victory and we feel like we're on top of the world, well, that's wonderful!

Exalt in it! Thank God! But be ready to keep on fighting because there will be another battle later on. Until Jesus Christ comes, the war is ultimately over. One more area I want to look at, an important lesson. That's one of the things I like. When you're doing a sermonette, your transitions have to be a lot more tricky. But when you're giving a sermon, you can just say, I'm done with that point, I'm going to move on to another point. And that is an important thing in the Civil War that a lot of people don't understand that haven't studied it much, is that one of the reasons it was such a devastating and bloody war was that new weapons had been introduced.

New technology had come to the battlefield that greatly changed the way the war was fought. But the generals and the commanders were slow to adopt the new tactics necessary for those weapons. So we had men using old tactics with new weapons, and it made for a terrible war. There's a lesson in that for us. Let me explain some of what I mean. New weapons had guns and cannons and bayonets. But things had changed. For one thing, most of you are familiar with the term shrapnel.

I'm assuming. Shrapnel refers to shards of metal flying through the air, like when a shell explodes into a lot of little pieces. You might not realize that that wasn't always like that. Not many years before the Civil War, an Englishman named Henry T. Shrapnel invented a type of metallurgy to cast metal so that it would break apart into little pieces under the right pressure, like an explosion. So thanks to Mr. Shrapnel, the commanders in the Civil War were dealing with a weapon that they'd never faced before. Now, some of them were using it in a way that was devastating, but they had to learn over time to adapt their techniques.

There's another new invention that had come about shortly before the Civil War. An Englishman named Claude Minet. Claude Minet invented a new type of bullet. Rather than the round lead ball that was conical and had a softer lead at the bottom. And they called this, for Claude Minet, it's spelled M-I-N-E-E, with one of those funny squiggle lines over the E. Americans don't do well with French names, so they called it Minny. And they named that new bullet the Minnie Ball. Any of you studied the Civil War, you've seen Minnie Balls from the Civil War, right? Like bullets. What's the big deal with this? Well, the reason it's a big deal is before that, they'd been using what are called smoothbore muskets that you can load and fire very quickly.

Claude Minet... Well, let me back up. I always get this in class. There's so much information you have to put together for it to make sense.

What happens now... The new armies were using rifles. Rifles are very accurate, because the bullet spins and it stays on target. It can be accurate for hundreds of yards and hit something. Before Claude Minet came along, armies were using smoothbores without spiral grooves in the musket. That meant that they could load the bullet much more quickly. The smoothbore muskets could be loaded and fired by a well-trained soldier about three times in a minute. At least two times in a minute. That's because there were no grooves to touch, so the ball would be smaller than barrel. It just goes down, aim, or pointed at something. Fire goes off. They can all shoot very quickly. Problem is, because the bullet's not spinning, it's not very accurate. If you're shooting at something more than 30 yards away, it's usually pure luck if you hit it. So the generals adopted this tactic of having all their men in a straight line and all shoot at the same time, hoping that one of them had hit something. They march closer and closer, and eventually then they charge with their bayonets, and that's how most of the killing would get done in pre-Civil War days. Do I have time? I should tell you the story. I'd like to thank Bill Cosby. He gave a great line to explain some of this. You're familiar with Bill Cosby, the comedian? He had one of his stories called, The Toss of a Coin. He said, at the beginning of a football game, you have a toss of a coin. Come here. The referee gets the two captains. Captain Smith of the Blue. This is Captain Jones of the Red. Captain Jones of the Red. Captain Smith of the Blue. Okay, call the toss there, Jones. He calls heads. It's Kales. You lose the toss, Jones. Smith, what will you do? Now, he'll do whatever is advantage to his team. We'll receive. We'll receive. Okay, this team will receive. This team will kick off. Okay, you're familiar with that. So Bill Cosby says, suppose that at the beginning of a war, they had a toss of a coin to decide how things go. So, Captain Jones of the Settlers. This is Captain Smith of the British. Revolutionary War. Captain Smith of the British. Captain Jones of the Settlers. Call the toss, British. He calls heads. It's Kales. You lose the toss, British. Settlers, what will you do? Uh-huh. Okay. He says, during the war, they'll wear any color clothes that they want to. Shoot from behind the rocks, the trees, and everywhere. Your team must wear red and march in a straight line. Now, you laugh because, yeah, they did that. They wore red coats and marched in a straight line. Why in the world did they do that? Well, they were doing it because they were fighting with guns that were not accurate. And so, if someone was more than 30 or 40 yards away, they probably weren't going to be able to shoot them anyways. And of course, it made all that smoke. They wore the bright red to be able to see who's on my side and who's not on the other side. The mini-ball changed all that because now, and they could have a gun that they could load quickly. All these soldiers, because they wanted them to be able to fire quickly, they used the smoothbore muskets so you could load and shoot quickly but weren't accurate. You know, they had rifles before then, but you had to wrap the bullet in a piece of grease cloth and pound it down the barrel with a ramrod, and it would take you two minutes to load your rifle. Now, you could hit something pretty accurately, but while you were busy loading it, the other guy would come up and poke you with his bayonet, and you'd lose the war.

Have I lost you yet? I demonstrate this with footballs when I teach in college, but what I'm getting at now is, okay, now, the mini-ball let them have a musket you could load that fast but still shoot accurately. But the commanders were using the old tactics. They were still thinking, wear red, march in a straight line, and they were doing that against men with highly accurate rifles, and their men were getting gunned down. Pickets Charge is the classic example. They were at Gettysburg marching across this open field, and the men in blue looked down their guns and just mowed them down like a scythe through wheat. Tragic.

What does all this have to do with us? You might have been wondering about that, other than it's a good story. As Christians, we're spiritually begotten children of God. God's spirit is put into us, and that means we've got new weapons, too. We've got new weapons that we didn't have access to before, but we need to understand those weapons and use them properly, and we can do that. We can understand them. Let's turn to 2 Corinthians 10. 2 Corinthians 10, we'll begin in verse 3. Sorry, I've got 3 through 6, so I said 6. 2 Corinthians 10, verse 3. See, I'm out of practice. I haven't preached for a couple weeks now. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal. That means they're not physical, but they're mighty in God for the pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, and 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. We don't war after the flesh. We're not using cannons and guns, but our weapons are ones that can overcome persuasions and arguments. Anything that pulls us away from God's life, we've got spiritual weapons to counter. These spiritual weapons can tweak our conscience if we start going the wrong way. What were the carnal weapons we were using? Before, we might be using our willpower, human reasoning. Those things aren't bad. They can go a certain far, but they'd be like the old smoothbore musket that's not accurate after so much. God has replaced that old smoothbore with a highly accurate assault rifle. That's the difference. Let's look at Matthew 16. Matthew 16, verse 8. I'm breaking into a thought here, but there's a certain thing, as I said. The weapons that everyone around us has, those who are not called by God, have certain weapons, mental weapons. Jesus was rebuking his disciples once when they were lacking faith. In Matthew 16, verse 8, he says, He says, This is the case where, you know, he said, And they thought, oh, he's upset because he didn't bring bread. He said, oh, that's your own human reasoning. You think I'm talking about that. I'm talking about something more important. Human reason can be an enemy of faith. He said they had little faith. Now, it's not necessarily bad. Human reasoning is something God gave us that makes us more than the animals. But human reasoning, at best, is like that smooth-bore musket, when faith is like, you know, a highly accurate rifle. All kind of weapons are going to fall short in the spiritual battles we have to fight. We can't rely, or we could try to rely on our own strength, but it's going to wear out and fail. Our willpower, maybe stubbornness, can go just so far, but it often branches off into a wrong attitude and bitterness. We have to remember, we're not fighting against other people. Now, sometimes we're fighting against ourselves, and that can be our worst enemy. But let's look at Ephesians 6. Ephesians 6 and verse 12.

I won't be surprised. I'm guessing even when I got to the subject of the sermon, probably most of you thought we would end up here eventually.

Ephesians 6 and verse 12. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood. We're not wrestling against anything physical, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this age, and against spiritual hosts of witness in the heavens. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God. If we're fighting spiritual weapons, or spiritual enemies, Paul says you've got to take up spiritual weapons to fight them with. And he goes through, now Paul was using the analogy of the weapons that were common in his day. So let's read through as he writes it, and then I'll make some comments. In verse 13, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day.

Now, the evil day is the day of battle, perhaps, or we can liken it to that. Remember, we had all that training where we have to not get distracted, not take care of ourselves so we don't get disease, and get ready for the evil day, the day when you're put to the test. And having done all to stand, stand therefore. Having girded your waist with truth. Having put on the breastplate of righteousness. Shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace.

And above all, taking the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. As I said, Paul was referring to the weapons of his day, maybe if we put it into more modern terms.

He talked about the belt of truth. Truth does hold everything together, as a belt cinches everything in. The truth is what everything hangs on. But in modern times, we might also make truth, not just a belt, but an ammunition belt. Because the truth can also be the bullets that we can fire to knock down any false reasoning.

Righteousness is protection for your inner parts, for your inner heart. Righteousness shields you from anything that would come and damage you. Instead of a breastplate, though today we might refer to it as a Kevlar vest, a bulletproof vest to keep those things out. If you're, he talked about having your feet shot or having shoes with the preparation of the Gospel, I think that's because doing the work, the preaching the Gospel is the thing that keeps us moving. You know, Mr. Armstrong talked about moving ahead. We're moving ahead doing the work. As long as we're supporting the work, having our hearts and our prayers about it, it makes us ready.

We're moving ahead and preparing as Christians. So we're moving forward. And the shield of faith blocks attacks from the enemies. That faith can shield off things that might come through and damage you. He talked about it as a shield. We might make a modern equivalent, something like an armored personnel carrier. That our faith shields us from things coming at us to hurt us.

And the helmet of salvation indicates that God's redemption protects our head, protects our reasoning. That's funny, I thought, what is a modern equivalent to a helmet? I thought, well, pretty much a helmet. That's one thing that hasn't changed. How much just the material they're made of has changed. But we want that helmet of salvation. We need that salvation and that faith in the salvation to protect the way we think and where we're looking. The only offensive weapon that Paul mentioned was the sword of the Spirit.

And I've already mentioned how God's power coming in us gives us a power much greater than we have on our own. Nowadays, instead of a sword, we might liken it to a high-powered assault rifle that has great power and is very accurate. But we have to get that Spirit from God and not trust on ourselves. And then I stopped reading before Ephesians 6-18 because Paul stopped off with the military analogy and he said, Praying always, praying always with all prayer and supplications in the Spirit and being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for the saints.

Paul said, you know, we're still Christians. Military analogy is nice, but one thing we have to do is always pray, trust in God, and he'll provide all those things.

And we know if we do, for one thing, we'll be communicating with our Supreme Commander. And he's one that never fails. A lot of the generals of the Army of the Potomac made some big mistakes. And Forrest and I were talking about how there's a theory that even Robert E. Lee, when he lost at Gettysburg, some historians believe he suffered a heart attack. And that may be affecting his judgment and he faltered at the time when decisive action was needed. You know, others don't have any excuse at all. Some just didn't have good tactics. But our Supreme Commander is God. He's never going to make a wrong decision. He's never going to falter when the time comes. And because of that, we're going to have the victory. Let's turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 15 for a last scripture here. 1 Corinthians 15. We'll read verse 57. Hopefully I can find it. Because if we make any one analogy between us as Christian soldiers and any military action, this is the most important one. 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 57. Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. God gives us the victory. We're going to win. I always like that. And I'll never forget the first time I heard Mr. Armstrong say it. Many people have quoted him when he said, I've read to the end of the book and we win. We're in a battle, a spiritual battle, against hosts of wickedness. And we have to use spiritual weapons as long as we do that. We'll win. The American Civil War was a long and horrible ordeal. It cost many lives. Of course, it also remade our country. Some good came out of the bad. And from the perspective of 150 years, it doesn't seem quite as bad. We can commemorate the bravery and valor and hopefully never forget the terror and the loss. Likewise, our campaign as Christian soldiers is a long process. The Civil War went on four years. It had a lot of casualties. As Christian soldiers, we're in a long war with a lot of battles. We've got to pick ourselves up from occasional defeats and go on. And when we have victories, we still have to push forward, not letting ourselves get distracted, not letting up. And always remembering to use the spiritual weapons that God gives us. And then we have to rely on His leadership, on the strength He gives us. And with that, we can claim victory in the end.