by EE Greyson
Christian Warfare in Dangerous Times #4 – Christian “Boldness”
“With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.”
— Ephesians 6:18-20 NASB95
In the last article, I wrote to you about the nature, duty, and weapons of Christian warfare. The last item covered was the weapons that we have to fight this war. God instructs us here about how we should fight it. Notice that after Paul speaks of the armaments, the armor supplied to the Christian, he now speaks of the importance of prayer and petition.
With All Prayer and Petition
By this God is telling us that weapons are not enough. With or without weapons the battle belongs to the Lord; our strength to fight it, our wisdom to win it, and our goal to attain it are all of the Lord and for the Lord our God. Many times Israel went out with small numbers and conquered a large army because they did it for and by the power of the Lord. Likewise, when they had large numbers, many horses and chariots, they were beaten back by a small force because they trusted in the weapons, and not in God. Nor did they do it for for His glory but for their own vainglory.
How may we keep our motives pure and display not a false bravado but a true boldness? Naught but by prayer and petition. We have grown so weak we not only do not pray or seek all success by none other than the hand of God, but even when we do pray, we have no idea what that really is. How can we petition God in heaven unless we can be in His presence, and how can we be in His presence but by the Holy Spirit? It is He who prays and reveals the mind of God. It is by His washing of regeneration that we might be fit to be in God’s presence. It is by His anointing that we may enter into the Holy Place.
You think that prayer is calling God down to assist you? No, prayer is when your heart rises to come before God in His throne room. It is where we stand most in the Light, where we partake of the divine nature, where we worship with the angels and commune with the Church Triumphant. We must ascend to be with Him who sits on the White horse; He who is called Faithful and True, who in righteousness judges and wages war.
Unless you ascend to Him you can not descend with Him to the battlefield; here and now as also on the great day when He comes with His armies, myriads of angels, and the Saints, to vanquish the enemy in a moment; the final battle to end all battles. So too, we can do none of these things but by the Holy Spirit and in the way He prescribed by His Word — through prayer and petition.
Alert With All Perseverance
Many things are demanded of a soldier, whether in an earthly army or a heavenly one; but the Spirit here marks out two: vigilance and perseverance. But here the Spirit does not speak of vigilance and perseverance in regards the enemy, though surely that is necessary, but in our petitions, not for ourselves, but for all the saints. This is not a war fought by lone wolves. You are one against an army of demons that you can not see, and against infernal minds that you can not outthink. But in the Lord and in His cause, we are surrounded by a great army such as none has ever seen but by the eyes opened as we pray for the saints.
Recall our war is NOT against flesh and blood, even when we fight on earth, we are fighting not those on earth but against those who have captivated them and bent them, even willingly, toward infernal purposes. Only then do we also occupy high ground as they do in heavenly places.
What was it the great apostle Paul desired prayer for but utterance, boldness, and wisdom to speak as he ought to speak — that is, not for the boldness to speak, but for the wisdom to speak rightly in that circumstance so that he might bring down fortresses destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God.
What Boldness Is Not
Boldness is not loudness! But rather, initiative to speak what ought to be spoken in that situation, which requires wisdom from above and grace so that we speak as we ought, seasoned with salt as it were, so we will know how to respond to every one. If you would do battle, you will need to know how to wield your sword, the Word of God, and know it more than by a passing acquaintance. Learn more than the minimal details of the Gospel. It is easy to declare it clearly only when you know it deeply.
Boldness is not brashness! We fight not as louts; awkward and unacquainted in the use of a sword for cutting rather than bludgeoning our opponents. The Gospel is plain and straightforward, but only to those who already know it after having been saved by it. To those not already in our camp it is a mystery. The Devil did not understand it so neither do his minions of the flesh or of the spirit. Patience brings the captives over as dripping water destroys the rock.
Boldness is not harshness! We may fight as soldiers, but we conduct ourselves as ambassadors. We represent our King who has sent us on a mission of reconciliation. In bringing peace we have conducted the best of war. Forget not that the ultimate goal of war is not victory but peace in victory. You may overwhelm an enemy, only to have them break out in rebellion later on. But when your fighting brings them into your camp. then and only then will you have a lasting peace.
Boldness is not hindered by weakness! Paul was an ambassador in chains. Did this stop Paul from being bold or from winning others to Christ? No, indeed when Paul was “in chains” it meant that he was chained to his guards. From Paul’s point of view, he was not the captive but it was his guards for they could not get away from the constant witness in word and deed of their “prisoner.”
Boldness is not cowardice! This may seem obvious but to those who think bravery is limited to those who charge into a battle with no strategy at all it will seem like cowardice. God does not want us to be canon fodder even when He allows the enemy to overwhelm us, defeating us, and decimating our brothers-in-arms. He guides us by strategy and sometimes the best strategy is to fight the battle on a different hill than the one you are currently on. Know when to push forward and overwhelm and when to retreat and draw your opponent into a more advantageous position. Wars and the battles they consist of are won by timing and the wise application of force, not by the amount of force. But this wisdom comes from God alone, gained only when you train and fight, not when you sit as a casual observer.
Boldness is not precipitous action! Hasty or rash actions are not the mark of the bold but of the faint of heart who panic and act before they are prepared. The lion does not flee nor do the righteous, but the wicked flee when no one is pursuing.
The Meek Are Truly Bold
“Now I, Paul, myself urge you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ–I who am meek when face to face with you, but bold toward you when absent! I ask that when I am present I need not be bold with the confidence with which I propose to be courageous against some, who regard us as if we walked according to the flesh… You are looking at things as they are outwardly. If anyone is confident in himself that he is Christ’s, let him consider this again within himself, that just as he is Christ’s, so also are we.”
— 2 Corinthians 10:1,2,7 NASB95
To the world, meekness in boldness is counterintuitive but not to the saint. In the passage cited above, Paul is answering the false claim by some in the church who thought Paul was weak because he was meek before the church but bold in letters to the church. As if to say that he was bold far away but shrank from his confidence when close up. Boldness is attained not through confidence in who we are but who Christ is, what He has called us to, and to whom He has called us to minister.
A weak man either shirks his duty or compensates for his lack of confidence by overplaying his hand. Paul knew many ways to bring about the obedience of the Corinthians: sometimes by encouragements, sometimes by fatherly instruction and exhortation, and sometimes by courageous confrontation. The meek aren’t there to “prove” anything to anyone but rather to win them to his cause, which in Christian warfare, is to bring them to Christ their King.
The True Nature of the Martyr
We live in a day where the meaning of words are unsure, shifting, and almost lost from view. Take this word “martyr.” When we hear this word we may think of a terrorist who strapped on a bomb and blew himself up along with many bystanders, and thereby felt assured they have a place in paradise.
Or at least, as Christians, we think that we will face death by some jack-booted government official, or cancellation by a mob and that this will be how we become martyrs. This is not the picture of a martyr as given to us in Scripture and as commissioned by our Lord and Savior.
The English word, “martyr,” comes from the same New Testament Greek word that is translated in our English Bibles as “witness.” A martyr is a witness; a witness to truth, to the truths of the Gospel concerning Jesus Christ. And thus our Lord sent out His disciples.
Power-filled Witnesses
“but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”
— Acts 1:8 NASB95
The disciples had asked Jesus when He was restoring the kingdom to Israel. His answer was that it was not our business to know when the events God ordains would take place but rather to be witnesses to the entire world. We still await our Lord’s return from Heaven and our commission, our warfare, is as witnesses until He returns.
Yet Christ instructed His disciples to wait! They were to go, but first they were to wait. Wait until they were imbued with power from the Holy Spirit. Historically, this happened on the day of Pentecost when not a few, but all of the disciples receive the Holy Spirit and with the Spirit came power to witness and to witness boldly.
It is still the case that our witness concerns the Gospel; the good news that Jesus died, rose again bodily, and ascended into Heaven where He received an everlasting Kingdom and will return one day to receive an earthly investiture just as He has a Heavenly one. And we must be true witnesses to what we can bear witness of.
Most think that this involves our personal testimony. While that is partly true it is far from the whole truth. Just as the disciples had to wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon them, so do we. But rather than coming as a rush of wind and tongues of fire, the Holy Spirit enters the heart quietly convicting us of sin, righteousness and judgement; gives us the gift of repentance, washes us clean, renews, and regenerates us to new life, gives us understanding of His Word, teaches us what to say in the hour we need to say it, and gives us an utterance to boldly declare the truth. And the Holy Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.
Witnesses in This Life Until Death
“Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.”
— 1 Timothy 6:12 NASB95
Our warfare then is summed up as a good confession made before others of Jesus Christ; who He is and what He has done for us in making us Children of God, and bearing out this witness in both words and deeds. It is a fight because the world will seek to entice us, delude us, and frighten us from maintaining this good confession. And thus we are to take hold of eternal life and not let go for anything or anyone at anytime. We have need of endurance and we must not shrink back. This is a good fight, indeed it is THE good fight.
Witnesses to the Next Generation
“The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”
— 2 Timothy 2:2 NASB95
Our warfare is one that has been fought from the beginning of time and will be to the end of this age. Each generation passes on a deposit to the next so that they too can fight their battles in this same warfare. We have the great deposit of the written Word of God. We have the same Holy Spirit and power as those who went before and those who will come after. We have the same weapons and the same Enemy.
But we need to pass on the training. We need to pass on the mighty deeds of the Lord in our lives so they will know by a great cloud of witnesses that our victory is not by man but by the everlastingand never changing God.
Witnesses in Death
“I know where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is; and you hold fast My name, and did not deny My faith even in the days of Antipas, My witness, My faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.”
— Revelation 2:13 NASB95
We shall all die one day until the Lord returns. How we live will very much affect how we die. How we die will crown how we lived. So whether we live or die let us glorify the Lord in all we do.
Many of us will die in our sleep, from disease or accident, some full of days, some very young. Some of us will crown our witness with our own blood as many do around the world and throughout all of history. It is not that we die, but how we die that is the strongest witness of all; but only if it was backed up by a life that was a continual witness.
Boldness, then, in the final account is this: To be a continual witness that God is good, that His lovingkindness is everlasting.
One Last Thing
There is but one last thing to write to you about, the one weapon that the Enemy can not understand, nor withstand. He can not counter it. By it, even those enslaved in his service for many years, might be freed to walk in the light and liberty of the sons of God. I shall write to you about that in the next and last article.
