By: Shane James O’Neill
All of Life is a Warzone
There are always things we are in conflict with, there is always real adversity in our days. There are goals we’re fighting for and emotions we’re fighting against. Starting the day can be its own battle, along with the real anxiety we have as we try and get to school or work on time. We lash out at people around us, and there is a courtroom always in session in the inner rooms of our mind, as we declare judgments on those around, for better or worse. There is battle in deciding how and where to spend our time, there is a clashing of will to find motivation, and there is conflict to have right affections and desires. Even in reading this article you are keeping other options for your time at bay and honing your attention into this activity.
Physical combat is only an explicit expression of warfare, but it is hardly the only expression of warfare.
It’s interesting to observe how intuitive and natural it is for us to feel and see the world around us through a warfare lens. Warfare adversity is something every worldview tries to give us answers to — answers to the hardships of this life.
The Philosophy and Gospel of Warfare
Warfare language is a very natural category for understanding our days, relationships, hopes, hurts, and work. The Christian just goes a step further and says the reason warfare language fits so well in talking about emotions, national relations, evil and good, and personal issues is because there is a spiritual war taking place behind the physical world. There is more to this world than the material parts.
The Christian worldview says that there is an Evil contorting, fueling, agitating, provoking, and enraging the evil that we see in the world — an Evil behind the evil. But then the Christian also says there is a Good which pours beauty, hope, truth, love, honesty, courage, and gentleness into all that is good in the world — a Good behind all the good that we see. The Christian also says that since Evil is a distortion of Good, Good is the greater and true reality. Evil is a parasite upon the reality of Good. Thus God is the ultimate reality and origin of all that is good.
In Jesus, God has stepped into the war zone. He has experienced the decimation of the frontlines and he took all of its fury into Himself — killing it all, even killing death, on the cross. Jesus has exhausted and subdued the fullness of Evil. Now Jesus invites us to come and know His rest, His shalom, His hope, His grace, His friendship, and His lordship over the dying chaos of Evil.
Ephesians
The letter of Ephesians puts it this way, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take a stand against the schemes of the evil one. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, stand firm.”
Denying the conflict that we feel and see doesn’t do us any good, especially when it comes to sexual purity. Sex is where life begins. The beauty of being pure in sex can build community and impacts generations of lives. And the horror of sex done wrong teaches us selfishness and isolation. Sex is the frontlines of Good and Evil because that is where life is either made or suffocated.
The Ephesians passage begs the question: What is God’s armor and how the heck do I put it on?!
Proven Men has a conference, called This Is War, happening on June 9th. Each Thursday until then we will be writing about how to put God’s armor on in order to protect from the Evil that would destroy our lives by strangling our sexual purity.
Click here to get 30% off the conference, This Is War
We can no longer settle for the mistreatment of women and the self-abuse of lustful pornography. “This is War” is here to train men in honor and integrity and signal a battle cry for men to stand for Sexual Integrity and fight against the use of Pornography.
Shane James O’Neill is the Editorial Director for ProvenMen Ministries. He is currently working on a graduate degree in apologetics at Liberty University’s Rawling School of Divinity.