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There's a War On!
by Commissioner Wesley Harris
Sometimes the battle line between good and evil
is not clear. That may because the issue is complicated or
confused. But more often, matters are fogged by our desire to
accommodate the standards of the world. We may tell ourselves
'everybody is doing it' as though that is enough to make
anything right. Scripture should set our standards and the
Holy Spirit should be our guide. That may mean that as
Christians we will have to dare to be different - something
which some find hard.
Everybody is affected by the culture in which they live but we
need not be infected by the evil that is in the world; we can
be immunised by grace!
The power of evil may be more pervasive and insidious than
ever before so that we cease to see evil for what it is and
thus become part of the problem instead of being part of the
anwer. Jesus recognised the pwer of evil in the world and the
fact that He and His followers were igaged in a war against
that power. The name of our movement (The Salvation Army)
indicates that our forebears also grasped the fact that they
too were called to battle and they spoke of their enemy as
'his satanic majesty', for example. But perhaps the fact that
the enemy is not as clearly defined nowadays could make us
even more vulnerable.
We need to see evil for what it is and detect any sin within
the camp
- that is, in our own ranks and our own hearts. St. Paul was
not lacking in compassion for the 'weaker brethren' but in the
licentious city of Corinth he took a firm stand against
immorality, otherwise the whole church would have suffered.
Jesus said, "This is war, and there is no netural ground. If
you're not on My side, you're the enemy; if you're not helping
you're making things worse" (The Message, Matthew 12.30).
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