As Adventists we have many wonderful truths to share with the world. We also have a few areas where we struggle.
One of those areas is that many of us don’t understand what is happening in the world around us, and we don’t wish to come into conflict with the culture. But…those of us who want to win the world for Christ had better be prepared to come into conflict with it in the process.
When we talk about defending the faith sometimes people get upset. They don't like the idea of apologetics. They don't like the idea of us claiming to be right and claiming that other people or ideas are wrong. Some Adventists have a problem with the idea of engaging forcefully in a disagreement over ideology. For them the 11th commandment is “Thou shalt always be nice.”
Illustration
I conducted a week of prayer in Oklahoma, several years ago. One evening, after presenting a topic that I call Eschatological Sodom, I was approached by a mother who said “My daughter was upset with you last night.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
The mother replied, “She said she knows some people who identify as homosexual and they are nice people.”
“How do we decide what is truth?” I asked. “On the basis of who is nicer?”
“I know, I know” she replied. “It’s just that my daughter sees things differently. . .”
Most millennials are more offended by you debating biblical sexuality than they are about the axiological rebellion of the LGBTQIA2+ militant agenda itself. Ironically they will be less than kind toward you about being less than kind. They will feel completely justified in their social media attack on you because you violated the 11th commandment, which is far more grievous than violating God’s biblical morality.
For them, the problem is not homosexuality; the problem is not being loving or accepting enough on the issue of militant homosexuality.
If you want to see this at work, watch a sermon by a pastor in the last five years on homosexuality. Most of them will spend the first 25% of the sermon softening the blow.
They will say “Listen I don't hate gay people. I have family members who are gay. I have friends who are gay. I just want you to know that . . .” The first quarter of the sermon is trying to soften the blow.
They do this in a way that they would never do in a sermon on drunkenness or theft or adultery. Can you imagine?
“Listen church, I just want to say up front as I preach this message I don't hate adulterers. I love adulterers. GOD LOVES ADULTERERS. I have friends who are adulterers, family members of mine who are knee-deep in adultery. So as I preach this sermon I just want you to keep that in mind God loves adulterers.”
You are probably laughing right now, because it's ridiculous, but sermons on homosexuality start like this because we've been effectively jammed by the culture.
Three issues
1. From an ideological or philosophical perspective we don't like the concept of apologetics. We don’t want to come into conflict with our sinful culture.
2. From a dispositional perspective we just we don't want to engage in these battles. In fact we don't even like the word battle. We don't like war language. We're Christians, we should not be engaging in battles with people we should be loving people. We don’t want to come into conflict with our sinful culture.
3. If it doesn’t involve the Sabbath, it isn’t that important (this is an impression given by our PARL departments).
What saith the Scripture?
Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:10-12).
Metaphor number one is wrestling hand-to-hand combat. Remember, I didn’t write this, I’m just delivering the message.
We do not wrestle against flesh and blood. Verse 13 says,
Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 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; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints” (Ephesians 6:13).
This is not a metaphor for wrestling; this is a metaphor for combat. This metaphor is the uniform of a Roman Centurion all the way down to the sword. So if you don't like combat language you may have a problem with God. The next passage is in Jude,
Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ: Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you” (Jude 1-2).
That's three references to the same group of people,
Called
Beloved in God the Father
Kept for Jesus Christ
That's Christians. Believers.
One of the things that people think about this war language in the Bible is that it stands in opposition to things like mercy, peace, and love that we're supposed to be defined by.
In verse 2 he says may mercy, peace and love be multiplied to you. In verse 3 he says,
“I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.”
The word for contend is epagōnizómai. I don't think we need to be throwing Greek terms everywhere but that one I just love. It literally means to wrestle. To engage in hand-to-hand combat.
So in verse 2 he wants mercy, peace and love to be multiplied to you, and in verse 3 he wants you to go hand to hand in combat, which means that there is no contradiction between being a loving Christian and engaging in the combat of confronting the culture..
2 Corinthians chapter 10. Let's begin in verse 1 where we see some really amazing nuances here with the apostle Paul,
“Now I, Paul, myself am pleading with you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ—who in presence am lowly among you, but being absent am bold toward you” (v.1).
“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for 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, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled” (2 Corinthians 10:3-6).
He first refers to the meekness and gentleness of Christ. And then in verse 3 “for though we walk in the flesh we are not waging war according to the flesh”
There we go again with war language. Personal hand-to-hand combat language. Paul is using a metaphor but here and also in Ephesians chapter 6 there is no doubt but he's talking about combat. He's talking about combat. There is a war being waged and it is a war being waged against us. A war being waged against the everlasting gospel.
So how do we do this?
1) Though we walk in the flesh we are not waging war according to the flesh. We're not at war with people. I'm not at war with Robin D’Angelo or Spectrum. I’m not at war with Adventists who have adopted their ideology. I'm at war with those ideas that stand in opposition to the Bible and the Everlasting Gospel.
The enemy has made Christians have an aversion to the very combat that we're called to engage in. That's where we are. But keep in mind that there's a ditch on both sides of the road.
On the one side of the road there's the person who is loath to engage in the combat of apologetics.
On the other hand there's a person that loves engaging in the combat of apologetics, and they make it personal. They're mean or nasty or obnoxious.
The gospel is offensive enough friends; it doesn't need your help.
For though we walk in the flesh we are not waging war according to the flesh. This should keep us on our knees.
We should be forever mindful of the fact that we're not calling upon our own abilities, but we're calling upon God Himself. We're not waging war according to the flesh. This has nothing to do with you being intelligent enough or sophisticated enough or aggressive enough.
In order for us to engage in this battle, we first have to understand that it's a spiritual battle, and secondly, in order to engage in this battle we have to understand the power of our weaponry.
The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to destroy strongholds.
1. Their power is divine and not human
2. Because they are divine they (weapons) have the power to destroy strongholds.
This word strongholds can also be understood as fortresses or castles. This is an amazing use of terminology here and we kind of miss it because of where we're situated in history, but put this in its historical context and Paul is saying that the only way that you can defeat fortresses is through siege warfare.
In other words you would have to encamp around their fortress and it could take weeks or years depending on the size of the fortress that you are attacking.
Paul says our weapons are so mighty that they can do in an instant what it takes man weeks months or years to accomplish. Our warfare is in a completely different realm and that's good news, friends.
I get emails all the time from people who are flat out discouraged.
There are conferences, divisions, academies, seminaries and leaders of seminaries who are espousing the ideologies of LGBTQIA2+ and critical race theory and intersectionality all over the place. It's easy to be discouraged right now.
Is there racism? There is, though it is often exaggerated. Is there injustice? There is some. But one of the major problems is that as we go down this road of social justice mentality, we're going down a road that will distract Adventists from things that need to be addressed, and cannot be addressed properly from that (NAD) worldview.
So it's easy to be discouraged. But remember though we walk in the flesh but we're not waging war according to the flesh.
As we recognize the power and significance of our weaponry so we must “take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ being ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete.” We have to go to war against these ideologies.
We also have to we have to identify the danger that they pose. We have to dismantle them.
Critical theory, critical race theory, and intersectionality these things are satanic and they're antithetical to biblical truth. We simply must destroy these arguments taking every thought captive to obey Christ. We destroy the arguments, not people.
This is about developing a biblical worldview; this is about us as believers learning to think biblically about everything. Had we done this 40 years ago, we would not have been confronted with the errors of women’s ordination for the last 30 years.
As Adventists—to our shame--we didn’t have a well-developed theology about male & female roles or cultural Marxism. Now all of a sudden, here comes this well-developed theology (evangelical feminism, or critical race theory) and we don't have an answer for it so some of our people began to adopt it. In fact, a whole Division has.
We have to take every thought captive instead of just parroting ideas from the culture and falling prey to every wind of doctrine that comes our way. We are in the midst of a battle. We are under attack. We are under siege; liberty of conscience is also under siege.
The Bible is sufficient, friends. We do not need sociologists and psychologists to complete us in our thinking about humanity. We don’t need smug theologians to tell us what the Bible means. I take the Bible and I use it as the lens through which I critique those ideas. We must keep Peter's words in mind,
“Always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks you the reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15).
Do it with gentleness and respect. The way I define apologetics is this, ‘Knowing what you believe and why you believe it, and being able to communicate that to others in a winsome and effective manner.’ We must hold fiercely to biblical truth. Those of us who want to win the world for Christ had better be prepared to come into conflict with it in the process.
There’s one more thing.
Not all of us do this in the same way or to the same degree or from the same position or whatever. Not all of us have to stand in the same post. Not all of us have to do the same work, but all of us in principle have to be about this same business.
Sometimes people say “You talk about all of these ideologies and all these theories and so on and so forth but I don't hear you talking about -------- fill in the blanks.
Friends, nobody can talk about everything. I'm standing on the wall that I was assigned to stand on. For me to go and try to stand on everybody else's wall is for me to not be faithful to my assignment.
I can’t stand on every wall, but I can stand on the wall to which I've been assigned, man my post and defend it to the best of my ability. That's all any of us can do.
Be encouraged, friend. God's not calling you to fix everything everywhere.
Be encouraged, there are thousands of saints who have not bowed the knee to Baal.
Be encouraged, at the end of the age, the Bride of Christ will be defended. She will be protected, she will be preserved, and a true Remnant will be restored, redeemed, and rescued by her Savior, Jesus Christ.
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