Why Am I Being Attacked?

In 2004 I was in Iraq. I was at an air base called Balad around 30 miles north of Baghdad along the Tigris River. We got mortar attacked every day. If we ever missed a day then the three times we got mortared the next day would make up for it.
Mostly these were mortars and rockets. More often than not they wouldn’t hit anything important. The reason we moved to Balad was because it was open and anyone trying to come into range to shoot a mortar or rocket could easily be seen because there were no buildings or heavy tree coverage to hide in. This forced attackers to have to set up their firing positions so far that they couldn’t really be accurate. They would vaguely fire in the direction of the base and more often than not the explosions would happen in open fields and away from anybody or equipment. They did, however, get lucky shots. I recall one time a truck got hit with nobody in it. A couple times the flight line would get an explosion. And then there were the times they really got a hit. One time they launched nine rockets that all hit our PX. Two guys died in that attack. One was supposed to go home the next day. On September 11th 2004, I remember because of the infamous date, a lone Senior Airman was standing on a street corner in the middle of our “tent city” living quarters. A 57mm rocket practically hit him. He was wearing all his body armor, his helmet was on his head and he had his vest on. The shrapnel brew off his left arm, his right hand and both his legs. At Balad we had the MASH hospital so he was quickly saved.

I have many stories like that. One night a rocket skewered one of our living trailers. It did not explode because, as the EOD team explained, the attackers were incompetent and didn’t arm the warhead properly but the engine was still going and lit a bed on fire.
As for a personal story I was standing one day I was coming back from getting a hair cut at the barber trailer when this US Army Sergeant First Class came up to me and asked, "Hey. Where's your chow hall at?"
I was giving him directions when behind me an explosion went off. (Later found out it was a 57mm mortar.) It hit, I would say 50 yards from where I was standing. I say 50 yards. It seems to get closer every time I tell the story. It definitely wasn't further than a football field. Maybe seventy five yards. I don't know. The point is...
I spun around and the dirt was still in the air and the smoke. Lemme tell you something about what it's like to have a real bomb explode nearby. It's LOUD. You also feel it. You feel the vibration in your feet and legs through the ground.
Well, I tucked and rolled and shucked and jived and got behind this little building that was nearby and was crouched behind that.

This army guy never flinched.

He's just standing there looking over in the direction of where that mortar hit.
I'm crouched behind this wall sucking my thumb and he strolls over to me and says, "How often you guys getting popped around here?"
I said, "Every day."
He says, "Yeah at Al Taji we get it about every other day."
Silence.
"So where's your chow hall at?"
I'm like, "Dude. You're a mile away. It's down there then go right at the long street and then the first right. About a hundred yards and there's the chow hall."
Then the alarm red sirens started going off. I'm thinking I really don't want to be stuck behind just the wall of this building. I'd like to have some sand bag coverage over my head. Right across the street is tent city and there's barricades and some bunkers. So I made the decision to run across the street and make for a bunker.
I'm getting up and start to go and the Army guy points to one of the bus stops. "Is that your shuttle bus stop?"
"Yeah. That's the shuttle bus stop."
The alarm red sirens are wailing.
I ran for cover.
He went to go catch a bus.
Go Army dot com.

But what I want to say is this, in all those attacks and all that diving to the bunkers there was one particular question that I never heard anybody ask. Not even once.
In all those attacks and all that fear nobody ever asked, “Gee, I wonder why they’re shooting at us?” Nobody asked that. Nobody needed to ask that. Everybody knew exactly why they were shooting at us. We were in their country and they wanted us out. If we had been of no threat they never would have attacked us.

So why do Christians ask this question daily? “Why am I being attacked?”

Because we’re at war.

James 4:4
You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Or at least we should be.

But this war is not the same as mortars and rockets…

2 Corinthians 10:3-5
3For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. 4For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

We fight with the gospel, with the truth and we get attacked with lies, deceit, and we get attacked in the spiritual realm.
Why? Because we are in the enemies country and he doesn’t want us here.

Matthew 10:24-25
24 "A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. 25It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household.

This should not surprise anyone.

1 Peter 4:12-13
12Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

What should be disappointing in our Christian walk is when we endure no troubles at all.
If we endured no attacks then we can be sure we are no threat to the enemy.

The attacks are the sign that you are not welcome by Satan. They are your “war stories” of when you were in the war.

And, God bless them, they are making you better.

James 1:2-3
2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.

Your armor is found in Ephesians 6:11-17.
Wear it every day. Do not take it off. Stop wondering why you’re being attacked.

Matthew 5:11-12
11 "Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

You should be more worried if you aren’t being attacked.

Why Are We Still Here?

Why do you think we’re still here?
Why do you think the rapture has not come yet and the Lord waits so long? You would think He could call it the end by now. Jesus said the gospel would be preached to all the world and then the end would come (Matt 24:14).
There has never been a time until now when such a thing could be legitimately said. Television and radio, not to mention the internet, has blanketed the planet with the gospel. The gospel is in every region. Yet the rapture has not happened yet. What could be the reason for God’s delay?
Could it be that God is waiting us to be more spiritually mature? Why not bring us to heaven and make us immediately perfect?

1 John 3:2
Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

In heaven we would share in His glory and perfection. We would see Him as He is because we would be like Him. So keeping us here to grow us to be more spiritually mature can’t be the reason.

Perhaps it’s so we can grow in knowledge? But in heaven we would have perfect knowledge and know as we are known (1 Cor 13:12). There is no way we could ever attain as much knowledge as we could in one second of being glorified in new bodies. We’re not here to get more knowledge.

Maybe the rapture is waiting for us to make the world a better place. There was a time when serious Bible scholars taught this as fact. That we would make this world a Christian planet and then Jesus would come back to take it from us as a gift. But the Bible doesn’t teach this anywhere. Quite the contrary, (2 Tim 3:1-5), and besides we could never make a planet that would be more perfect than the world Christ will make when He returns.

Isaiah 11:9
They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

Or perhaps Jesus is waiting for all of us to repent. The Bible teaches that the world will not get better it will get worse.

2 Timothy 3
1 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.

No, there is only one real reason we are still here and that reason is evangelism.

I don’t know where you stand on the whole Calvinism versus Arminianism debate but the fact is that God has fixed a day in which He will judge the world and that day is when a certain event happens.

Romans 11:25
25 Lest you be wise in your own sight, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And in this way all Israel will be saved,

When the last gentile has accepted Christ and come into His salvation it will make a final member that God has set as the criteria for swapping one branch out for another (Rom 11:24).

Whether you believe God has set that number as people He has selected to come in or has foreknowledge of what that number will be it still remains the “fullness of the gentiles” is a threshold that will mark the end of the church age and the beginning of the “Seventieth Week Of Daniel” (Dan 9:25-27), and the Tribulation.

That threshold is only reached by a set amount of people coming into the salvation of Christ.

How bad do you want the rapture to happen and take us out of here? We are taught to say “Maranatha, come Lord Jesus” (Rev 22:20), but how are we helping that day to come?

There is only one reason we are all still here and that is because there still remain more of our yet unborn brothers and sisters left out there that need to come in before Christ will come in the clouds and take us to be with Him.
A greater, more serious, effort toward evangelism will hasten that day all the more.

Can you see all the more how prophecy can do so much good? The knowledge of fulfilled prophecy can give us assurance and courage (1 Cor 10:11). The fear of the immanent return of the Master at a time we don't know (Matt 24:50), can seal us in a lifestyle of seeking holiness and godly conduct (2 Pet 3:11-12).
And knowledge of God’s time table and plans for the future can motivate us all the more to evangelism and warning a dying world.

Cheap Grace

When Martin Luther was a monk he agonized over a heavy problem in his life.
He could not stop sinning. He wanted to serve. He wanted to follow and please God but he was honest enough to see it was impossible.
A very long story short he found the answer in Romans 1:17 where Paul quotes Habakkuk 2:4, “The just shall live by faith.”
Martin Luther found the answer and the answer is grace.

Ephesians 2:8-9
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.

But the grace Luther found was a “costly” grace. It was a grace that answered his problem, “How can I follow Christ as His disciple and be obedient when I can’t stop sinning?”
Grace is the answer.
It does not make obedience to Christ null and void. It makes obedience to Christ possible. It calls the disciple to leave his nets and his tax collecting and his law as a Pharisee and “follow Me”. It calls the disciple to leave his comfort zone.

John 14:15
“If you love Me, keep My commandments.

Obedience to Christ and His commands has not been made an option.

1 John 2:3-5
3 Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. 4 He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.

Never are we told that we can ignore His commandments and back slide into the life we were saved from.

John 8:31-32
31 Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. 32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

We are identified with Christ by our obedience.
We are saved for obedience.

Ephesians 2:10
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Titus 2:14
who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.

This should be sobering, convicting, stuff. This information should tug on our hearts to submit to His Lordship and obey as slaves to His will.
But at the same time, if this conviction strikes deep, we also must be honest that… We fail.
I can’t obey Christ at all times and in all areas of my life. Try as all of us might.
And we suffer in guilt as Luther did. Until we truly learn the truth of grace. Grace sees to it that we do not perish when we fail in our running the race, (Romans 7:23-25).
Here is “costly” grace. It is the grace that allows the disciple of Christ to follow the “upward call”, (Philippians 3:13-14), and when we fail we have grace to keep us from perishing, (1 John 2:1).

The obedient Christian is the one who is truly living under grace.
What grace does not do is cancel out obedience.

Romans 6:1
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?

And yet we see all around us a “cheap” grace taught and believed.
Cheap grace has taken Christ’s death and our inability and pounded out a heresy called “license to sin”.
There are too many in the church who see their inability to obey, have heard of the riches of Christ’s death and so they shrug their shoulders and continue in their carnal habits and old life. And, mind you, they have been taught in their churches that this is exactly how grace works. Just like food stamps or welfare. You couldn’t possibly make enough to pay your bills so Christ will do it all for you. “Drink up, Shriners.”
Repentance is not preached. Obedience is not taught or sought. Personal holiness is a concept that is foreign at best and rejected as “legalism” at worst.

Right about here is where I typically have to reiterate that I am no where teaching Pelagianism, salvation by works. Works and doing good never saved anybody, (Ephesians 2:8-9), and I’m not saying it does.
I’m not talking about how to get saved. I’m talking about following Jesus and what a follower of Jesus looks like after he has been “bought at a price”, (1 Corinthians 6:20; 7:23). And a disciple of Christ does not look like the “old man”, (Romans 6:6).

Costly grace looks for the answer to “How can I follow Christ as He has called me when I stumble and fall in sin every day?”
Cheap grace looks for the answer to, “How much can I get away with?”

This is dogma in too many evangelical Christian churches today. Don’t think about it. You can’t so don’t. You’re fine the way you are. God loves you and is happy right where you are.
“Right where you are.” is NOT where God ever intended any of us to stay…

Romans 8:29
For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.

God intends us to be like His Son.
How? He will “conform” us.
And we, for our part, obey His conforming.

Cheap grace calls all this false teaching. It insists on calling this salvation by works and preaches to the masses that obedience is legalist, drastic, pharisaical, self righteous, and flies in the face of the teachings of Jesus.
What they recognize is that obedience costs and they see no reason for it since all bills are now stamped “paid in full”.

But what the Bible says is that cheap grace does not understand what has happened in the transaction between the Savior and the saved.

1 Corinthians 6:20
For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.

We are “free” from sin and death and judgment.
We are not “free” from the One who bought us with His death on the cross. Unless, of course, He has not “bought” you in which case you’re not His and can go about your business.
But those of us who are His have a calling, “follow Me”.

1 John 2:6
He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.

To where? To be like Him, (2 Corinthians 3:18).
And that grace costs. It can cost your luxury, your time, your comfort, your habits, your money, but Jesus knows what you can bear, (1 Corinthians 10:13), and He has it all worked out.

1 John 5:3
For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.

Not a legalistic, constantly serious, spiritually superior, Pharisee.
But finally free to live as God wants us to.

John 10:10
…I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.