Basic Training: Behind Enemy Lines

· Basic Training – Training to Be Good Soldiers “3 You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. 4 No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.”

· GOING ON THE OFFENSIVE: A lot of the focus of our lessons in this series has been what we need to be dong to defend ourselves as Christians… We have talked about studying God’s word so we can remember God’s power to help us overcome when tempted by Satan. We have talked about how to study scripture so we can guard ourselves from believing and teaching false doctrine... We have talked about prayer and its place in helping us defend ourselves from Satan’s attacks and to show us how dependent we are on God for everything in this life. IN all of these, our main emphasis has been God’s power to help us as the enemy attacks…

· But for today, I would like to look at the mission that the Lord has given us to go on the offensive… The war that we are in is NOT just about defending ourselves against the enemy’s attacks. It is about going out to war to fight for the souls of others…

· We need to go ‘behind enemy lines’ to free “captives:”

o Win recruits to Christ from Satan’s army

o Free those who Satan has made “POWs”

FREEING PRISONERS OF WAR

In our studies of 1&2 Timothy, we have seen many examples of men who had fallen into Satan’s snares and have either fallen in to sin or into teaching false doctrine… Paul says that many “have been taken captive” by Satan to do his will ().

There are two passages I would like us to consider that show us our responsibility to rescue brethren who have been captured by Satan… The first is

· When you find another believer in sin, you recognize that there's a continual pattern there, you go to that believer in confrontation. Keep in mind that your objective is not to crush that individual, not to push that person down, not to render final judgment but to restore.

· When someone is caught, that Greek is paraptōma, snagged in a temptation and falls, you who are spiritual are to try to reach out in order to restore the fallen brother…

· Who are the spiritual? Well he's just defined them as those, chapter 5 verse 16, who walk by the Spirit, those who are walking obediently to God, that's all. Verse 25: "If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit." It's just one who walks according to God's Spirit, and that means walks in obedience to the Spirit who has revealed His will in the Word of God. It's letting the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. Those who walk in the Spirit, which means those who are obedient to the Word of God, those who are filled with the Holy Spirit and who are enjoying the fruit of the Spirit, verse 22, "Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control." If your life is right, that's just another way of saying if your life is right before God, if you're doing your best to obey the Word of God and walk in obedience to it, you are spiritual, and you have the responsibility to reach out to those who have been taken captive by Satan…

· If you or I would say, “this is not a commandment to me… It is not my responsibility to reach out to erring brethren. Because I am not one of the ‘spiritual ones’ that Paul is referring to here, then we are the erring one who needs the spiritual to reach out to us… We would in essence be confessing that I am walking according to the flesh… not doing well spiritually…

· Then we have to help hold up our brothers who are restored so they don’t fall back into Satan’s snares…. (v)… Verse 2 says, "Bear one another's burdens and thus fulfill the law of Christ." The word "burdens" here is baros and it means “heavy loads, hard to carry.” And you know what, temptation is a heavy load, hard to carry; sin is a heavy load, hard to carry, and habitual sin is a very heavy load and hard to carry. It speaks about those aggressive, habitual sins, those...those temptations that just come with such force and regularly seek to pull us into sinful habits. To be picked up from a sin is not to be freed from temptation. Temptation may not go away, so you have to not only pick him up, but you have to hold him up. Help strengthen him to overcome when he goes back into battle so he does not fall back into sin…

A second helpful passage for us showing our responsibility to try to restore brethren who are prisoners of war is …

• This passage is mainly talking to you and I when someone sins against you and I individually… It shows that if someone sins against you and me, each one of us has the responsibility to reach out to the one who has sinned against us… We don’t gossip and tell everyone else about their sin, we show love for their soul and attempt to go to them privately to restore them to Christ…

We need to have a sense of urgency when we learn that someone is caught up in a sin. We need to try to bring them to repentance before their hearts are unable to do so ()…

WINNING RECRUITS FROM SATAN’S ARMY

The Lord has also given us a mission to win Satan’s soldiers to God’s side through the Gospel

· "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you…” ()

· “And He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. 16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned…” ()

· “And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures. 46 Then He said to them, "Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, 47 and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 And you are witnesses of these things.” ()

I would like to ask some questions from these passages.

· Who is to teach? Obviously, those who were originally given this mission were the Apostles of Jesus who He chose to be His witnesses throughout the world. But I don’t believe this mission is just given to them. They were to make disciples by teaching those who are baptized into Christ to observe the commands Christ gave them. Jesus commanded them to make disciples. Wouldn’t this be something that they would have taught Christians to do? It sure seems like in , as we saw in our evangelism lesson in our Organic Christianity series that all of those who were scattered from Jerusalem shared the gospel as they fled Jerusalem… If we want to be like our early brethren, we will show love to the lost in, not just being a good example to them and serving them, but by giving them the Gospel.

· What is to be taught? Mark tells us that we are to go into all the world to preach the gospel. They were to give the good news of the Kingdom; of what Jesus did to make it possible for us to be citizens of the kingdom and have our sins forgiven. Luke’s account tells us that this Gospel message includes the preaching of repentance and remission of sins in Christ’s name. Forgiveness will come to those who submit to Christ’s rule. Another phrase that will be used in the book of Acts as the Apostles go out to preach is the phrase “preached Jesus”. The Gospel is all about Jesus Christ and the work that He accomplished for God’s glory. It is ONLY the word of God that is capable of bringing people to Christ. Only the Gospel makes disciples.

· Who is to be taught? The disciples were commanded to go into ALL the world and to teach EVERYONE. Mark says that EVERY creature (or “ALL creation”) needs to hear the Gospel. We will talk about this more later, but we need to understand that everyone needs to hear the Gospel. I believe you would agree with this fact, but this is not usually what is shown in our practices. Usually we will only share the gospel with those in whom we are most comfortable talking to about Jesus. Some narrow this down to only those who they are friends with or work with. We need to set our sights higher. More than just our friends and families are deserving of hearing the Gospel also. We should not be a respecter of persons when we evangelize. Strangers need to hear the gospel also. And people who are in terrible sin need to hear the gospel. Not just those who we think are “good” people.

CONCLUSION

· Working to restore prisoners of war and winning recruits to Christ from Satan’s army… these are two responsibilities that we have… We need to have enough love for the souls of others to go on the offensive, following the commands of our commander… Many think that these missions are only for the “special forces” of God’s army… For elders and evangelists… but this is not so… it is for all of those who are spiritual… It is for all of those who are to love their neighbor as their own self…

· We are told in , regarding the church of the Lord Jesus, that the gates of Hades will not be able to overcome it… The picture that it seems we have in this passage is not that the armies of death and of Satan are coming against God’s people… what we have in this text is the forces of the Lord’s army fighting against the kingdom of death that Satan reigns over and being victorious over it! We go out to battle as God’s people, taking the Gospel that breaks down the gates of hades so that those who are lost and fallen can be freed from death and the fear of it… This is our mission… A mission that we can be successful in if we desire to be soldiers pleasing to the Lord…

· ARE YOU SPIRITUAL?

o Are you fulfilling your mission? DO you have a concern/love for souls?

o Are you in need of rescue? Have you been entrapped by Satan?

o Are you doing Satan’s will as part of his army?

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Basic Training: Behind Enemy Lines

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