Surrounded by Enemies: A Meditation on Psalm 3, for the 5th Sunday after Pentecost

LORD, how are they increased that trouble me!

many are they that rise up against me.

Many there be which say of my soul,

There is no help for him in God. Selah.

But thou, O LORD, art a shield for me;

my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.

I cried unto the LORD with my voice,

and he heard me out of his holy hill. Selah.

I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the LORD sustained me.

I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people,

that have set themselves against me round about.

Arise, O LORD; save me, O my God:

for thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheek bone;

thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly.

Salvation belongeth unto the LORD:

thy blessing is upon thy people. Selah.

Each day seems to bring with it new reports of violence and attacks against Christ, His Church, and of western civilization as a whole.  The rising tide of Islamic extremism in nominally secular Turkey has erupted as Islamic prayers at the historic Christian church of Hagia Sophia during Ramadan, while Christians are told to hide themselves and their prayers from the public view, lest they be physically attacked by mobs.  Islamic birds of a feather have slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Christians in their historic homelands (Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and others) and brought their barbaric terrorism into western lands, massacring thousands in places of worship, business, recreation, and travel.  Through mass immigration, and with the imprimatur of the Muslim Brotherhood’s grand plan, they have colonized large swaths of western nations, declared Sharia Law for their new colonial neighborhoods, terrorized the local population into submission, and threatened others (including legitimate law enforcement) against entry or influence.  The brand of Islam which follows their founder’s lead in murdering and conquest of not just Christianity but every other form of political or religious system on the planet since the 7^th century, continues its bloody rampage of demonic destruction against a now ethically, socially, and intellectually weak West.

Horrific and dangerous as it is to western civilization, Islam is not the only enemy gathering at our gates and infiltrating our lands.  Atheistic Humanism has largely swallowed the halls of most civic institutions from government to education, causing many historic church fellowships to capitulate to their secularist agenda.  Forgetting the devastation wrought by atheist regimes in the 20^th century, whose most notorious leaders (Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and others) slaughtered or subjugated hundreds of millions of people through their unhinged Darwinist morality and Nietzschean will to power, Western nations have been reforming their communities into amoral dysfunctional cesspools.  Children and adults who have no conviction of their human dignity created in the image of God, treat their neighbors with ever greater hostility and indignity, rioting and polluting the land with murder, rape, theft, abuse, and debauchery.  Never content to coexist with the absolute truth of Christian divine revelation in Holy Scripture, these atheists use their positions of power to attack Christian churches which will not bow to their demands, from the Roman Catholic Little Sisters of the Poor, to Christian business owners who resist supporting or facilitating evil.  Whatever light remains in Western Civilization, born of Christian truth regarding the nature, dignity, and accountability of man before his Maker, and graven into the founding constitutions and preambles of their respective republics, the demonic fire of Atheistic Humanism struggles tirelessly to expunge.

If terrorist Islam and militant Atheism weren’t enough of a threat, there is also the mounting pressure of compromised and apostate churches, which seem to side with Islam and Atheists against confessional, traditional Christians.  Not content to corrupt and persecute the faithful within their own fellowships, these churches often file for legal solidarity against orthodox Christians, provoking and prodding secular government to choke out the free expression and exercise of their faith.  In case after case, in public statements galore, these apostate churches urge the persecution of Christians who won’t support same sex marriages, infanticide, and other noxious residue of the 1960’s Sexual Revolution.  They further attempt to add their false piety as justification for secular or Islamic oppression—not just against pastors in their pulpits whom they seek to gag from critical speech, but against the average orthodox Christian living out his vocation in the world.  The demonic fires of apostasy continue burning away the structure and relevance of these fallen churches, and like a wild fire on the open prairie, is always hungry to devour every adjoining acre.

Of course, many more enemies of Christ, His Church, and Western Civilization could be noted, from the rise of neo-paganism and witchcraft (Wiccan priests are now on the payroll of the US government as chaplains) with its attending diabolical consequences in the lives of its victims, to a nearly infinite spectrum of dangerous philosophies of man and his civic institutions, it is easy to weep with David as he does in Psalm 3 regarding the multitudes of enemies risen up against us.  As in David’s time, many are they that rise up to persecute, torment, and destroy the light of Christ in the world today.  Each of these enemies touts their apparent power or influence, their supremacy in their time in history, and the lack of hope any Biblical Christian should have in their God to save them.  They rise up all around, consuming as many as they can, and menace the People of God so as to break their will, their institutions, and their faith.  The devil and his evil angels peer out through the eyes of those human tools they have corrupted to their use, and with great clamor and hubris declare their irresistible victory over every good and wholesome reflection of God in His world.

Many and terrible though our enemies be, however, they are already defeated—and they know it.  The human puppets enslaved to their demonic masters may not understand the state of the war which rages around them, but the People of God and the kingdom of darkness know it well.  The devil knows that Christ defeated Him through His Holy Cross, undoing the Fall of mankind into sin, death, and hell, and restoring the relationship between all who would repent and believe in Jesus’ Gospel.  David looked forward to this victory like all the Old Testament Prophets, clinging in faith and hope to God’s promise of salvation by grace through His Son.  The New Testament Church looks back upon this victory in faith and hope, knowing that what Jesus began through His life, death, and resurrection, He will bring to completion on the Last Day when He returns to judge the living and the dead.  From the time of Adam down to our own day, and even unto the end of the world, God’s People cling to Jesus and His Gospel Promise, knowing that what God has promised, He is both able and sure to accomplish.

What does that make of our terrible enemies?  Among other things, it reminds us that this same diabolical host has been harassing and tormenting the people of God since the world began… and it is no closer to wiping out God’s people or the light of His testimony than when they started.  Through the primordial history leading to Noah and his time, the enemy raged, and God preserved His remnant.  Through chaos leading to the time of Abraham and the Patriarchs, God preserved His remnant.  Through the bondage of His people in Egypt and their liberation through Moses, God preserved His remnant.  Through the conquest of Joshua and the turbulent centuries of the Judges, God preserved His remnant.  Through the time of the Kings, the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities, God preserved His remnant.  Through the return of His people from exile, the Maccabean liberation, and the surrender to Rome, God preserved His remnant.  Through the fall of Jerusalem, the persecution of Roman emperors, and the fall of Rome itself, God preserved His remnant.  Through the controversies and intrigues which emerged as the Great Schism of 1054 between the Eastern and Western churches, or the Reformation which shattered the corrupted Western church, God preserved His remnant.  Through the political and social revolutions of the Enlightenment, Rationalism, Existentialism, and Post-Modernism, God preserved His remnant.

For over 5000 years of recorded history, God has been preserving His people from all their bloviating enemies, and He will do the same in our age.  Terrible as they seem, they are defeated, and despite the amount of damage they have been able to do across the globe, they cannot ultimately succeed in wiping out the People of God.  Their influence may wax or wane in any given century, and we are right to point them out and resist their demonic influence upon our societies, but we know that Christ has already appointed them their place in the fires which burn forever.  The enemies of God and His People are destined for an eternity of suffering and separation from the God whom they have hated and rejected, forever removed from any ability to harm or harass His People ever again.  Each soul which is born from above by water and Spirit, given the new life which only Jesus can give by grace through faith in His Vicarious Atonement, is a soul which reigns victorious through Jesus over every enemy of God and His People.  Even as these souls pass from this world to the next, they leave the battles and wounds of this Church Militant, to live forever in the presence of Christ their Victorious Savior in the Church Triumphant.  Knowing this, the faithful Christian presses on by faith and repentance in the Word of Christ his Savior, knowing that He is surrounded by an innumerable cloud of witnesses who have fought this fight before him, and into whose presence he will one day step.

Have the ravages and the howling of your enemies tempted you to fear, timidity, or cold hearted indifference?  Take courage, dear Christian—for the enemies which hound your heels in this world shall have no more dominion over you than the great People of God who have gone before you, who like you live by grace through faith in Christ alone.  Christ has given you His life, His victory, His hope, and His promise; and just as Christ has kept His Word to the ancient Patriarchs, Judges, Kings, Prophets, Apostles, Saints, and Martyrs, so too will He keep His saving Word to you.  Take heart, be of good cheer, and stand boldly as a child of God in this your time and place—for yours is the battle, the victory, and the salvation, now and forever, in Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.