Start Stomping
by
Major Stephen Court
Dusk fell on the
remote hills and sparse tree line, playing tricks with your
vision. Was that a wild animal skirting across the valley, or,
more innocuously, a shadow? As night settled into its quiet
somnolence, the highly decorated Commander parachuted in to
enemy territory.
The Reclamation Operation began.
And that, folks, is the beginning of the end of human
history. Jesus undertook to reclaim enemy land and
re-establish the
Kingdom
of God on
planet earth.
The Salvation
Army has a healthy view of spiritual warfare, recognizing
that, in this gigantic reclamation operation, spiritual
warfare is the means to the end of the return of Jesus Christ
as global King. To many people, spiritual warfare, as engaging
as subject as it is, can become the end.
That it is a reclamation operation connotes that the
earth is now not under the control of God. People tend to get
all tied up in knots at this statement, as if it is somehow a
poor reflection on the sovereignty of God. This is poor
thinking. Watch this: God created everything. He set the rules
in this closed system called humanity. These include such
things as free will and consequence. God, having set the
rules, plays by them.
Now, when people, choosing with their free will,
sinned, the consequence was that satan, who had bamboozled
them, lawfully took their dominion over the earth that had
been delegated to them by God. Do you follow?
And so the Bible correctly states that satan is the god
of this age and the power of darkness in this world. He owns
it. That is why Jesus initiated the massive reclamation
operation.
The whole
scenario has been compared to D Day and V-E Day. Though THE
decisive victory was won at D Day, much fighting remained.
Some battles were lost. Casualties mounted. There was much
carnage, before V-E Day arrived.
This is important to emphasize because many Christians
believe, incorrectly, that Jesus crushed satan at the Battle
of Golgotha and that all we have to do is mop up. No no no.
Such thinking has some serious consequences affecting
our battle readiness, our battle performance, our battle
willingness, and the well-being of others.
You see, Jesus
did not crush satan at the Battle of Golgotha. Yes, He
defeated him. Yes, He humbled him. Yes, He won in such a way
that we can compare it with D Day. But the Bible calls it a
bruising, not a crushing.
This bruised enemy is dangerous. The wounded foe is a
dangerous enemy. History records that the wounded foe is a
dangerous enemy. The movies record that the wounded foe is a
dangerous enemy. Rocky made a career of it. The WWE records
that the wounded foe is a dangerous enemy. Nearly every fight
follows the same theme, with one person rising back from the
brink of disaster to heroically defeat the opposition.
Dutch Sheets explains the situation well.
Back in Genesis
3:15, when God is dictating the consequences of sin to Eve and
to the serpent, He asserts that her Seed will bruise the
serpent’s head, and the serpent will bruise His heel. Jesus
will bruise satan.
And He did that at the Battle of Golgotha. But look at
Romans 16:20: “The God of peace will soon crush satan under
your feet.”
Two things are pertinent here:
a) God will SOON crush satan. That means satan isn’t crush
yet.
b) He will soon
crush satan under OUR feet. There is a boatload of good stuff
right here.
First, it shows us Jesus’ modus operandi, His mode of
operation, the ways He does things. We know that Joshua is a
type of Christ. That is, his life foreshadows some of the
things that Jesus does centuries later. They share the same
name. They both lead their people out of the wilderness into
the promised land. And so on.
You may remember
that after Joshua took Jericho the surrounding
nation-states were terrified. A southern coalition was formed
by five kings to rid Caanan of the Israelite intrusion. The
Battle of Gilgal was a historic victory. The five kings
attacked the Gibeonites at Gilgal, knowing that Joshua would
get sucked into the fighting to honour the brand new covenant
he had entered with them.
It was a supernatural battle. The Bible reports that
the sun stood still, waiting for Joshua to finish off the five
armies of Amorites. Not only that, but God directly pitched in
by hurling great hail stones at the enemy and killing more of
them than the Israelites did.
When the battle was obviously lost, the southern coalition
kings hid in a cave at Makkedah. At the end of the day, Joshua
and his army rolled the stone away and yanked out the
frightened kings. Now, Joshua could have easily killed them on
the spot. Instead, he had the captains of his men of war place
their feet on their necks. When you place your foot on the
neck of the foe you are exercising your complete domination
over your foe, Joshua was sharing the domination with his
soldiers and allowing them to share in the victory. THEN he
chopped off their heads.
Catherine Booth exhorts us, "Keep the foot of faith on
[satan's] neck."
The God of peace
will soon crush satan under your feet.
You probably remember Ephesians 1:22,23 on our position
in Christ. We are the body.
Jesus is the head. All things are under our feet. All we have
to do is start stomping.
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