SPIRITUAL BATTLE LINES

SPIRITUAL BATTLE LINES

In other writings I have mentioned that when I was on active duty working with F-15 pilots who intercepted Soviet bombers off the coasts of Alaska, one summer a squadron of F-15 pilots of the Israeli Defense Force came to fly against us in some exercises. 

I was in the lower 48 visiting relatives at the time, so even though I didn't get a chance to meet the pilots, I heard about how it was when they were there. As a parting gift they gave us a big photograph of Masada from the air with F-15s flying over it. Embossed in it were the words, "Never Again."

At that time in the mid-80s, the United States had not yet used the F-15 in combat, but the Israelis had. The pilots I worked with told me some stories about their combat missions and the performance of F-15s that had been shot up. One story celebrated the compensation by the advanced avionics of the jets that allowed a pilot to land his plane safely after one wing was almost totally demolished by an anti-aircraft missile. 

But my pilot friends were more amazed about a story they were told that was more mystical than technical. The Israeli pilots said that just as Elisha and his servants had seen them above the Golan Heights, during their air combat battles, they had seen the chariots of fire.

And of course both in the biblical narration and in the reality of the war in Israel, God brought victory.

So it is important to understand that even when spiritual battle lines have been drawn, the battle belongs to the Lord, and He always has the victory.

We can rest assured in that knowledge as we move forward to work against all that is going on right now that is causing so much divisiveness and turmoil. The Lord has always known that it would be like this, and He is in charge.

During the Civil War when a woman asked Abraham Lincoln if he believed that God was on his side, he told her that the only thing that was important was that he made sure that he was on God's side. 

And his Second Inaugural Address, he noted that both sides read the same Bible and prayed to the same God. 

We are in the same kind of situation now.

Maybe as Rob Reiner said, this is just the last battle of the Civil War. One way or the other, the battle lines have been drawn, and we have our work cut out for us, Beloved.