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. Ephesians 6:12
It is strange how a fact may
remain fixed, while our interpretation of the fact changes with the generations
and the years. One such fact is the world in which we live. It is here and has
been here through the centuries. It is a stable fact, quite unchanged by the
passage of time, but how different is modern man's view of it from the view our
fathers held! Here we see plainly how great is the power of interpretation. The
world is for all of us not only what it is – it is what we believe it to be.
And a tremendous load of woe or weal rides on the soundness of our
interpretation.
Going back no further than the
times of the founding and early development of our country, we are able to see
the wide gulf between our modern attitudes and those of our fathers.
In the early days, when
Christianity exercised a dominant influence over American thinking, men
conceived the world to be a battleground. Our fathers believed in sin and the
devil and hell as constituting one force, and they believed in God and
righteousness and heaven as the other. By their very nature, these forces were
opposed to each other forever in deep, grave, irreconcilable hostility. Man,
our fathers held, had to choose sides – he could not be neutral. For him it
must be life or death, heaven or hell, and if he choose to come out on God's
side, he could expect open war with God's enemies. The fight would be real and
deadly and would last as long as life continued here below. Men looked forward
to heaven as a return from the wars, a laying down of the sword to enjoy in
peace the home prepared for them.
Sermons and songs in those days
often had a martial quality about them, or perhaps a trace of homesickness. The
Christian soldier thought of home and rest and reunion, and his voice grew
plaintive as he sang of battle ended and victory won. But whether he was
charging into enemy guns or dreaming of war's end and the Father's welcome
home, he never forgot what kind of world he lived in – it was a battleground,
and many were wounded and slain.
That view is unquestionably
scriptural. Allowing for the figures and metaphors with which the Scriptures
abound, it is still a solid Bible doctrine that tremendous spiritual forces are
present in the world. Man, because of his spiritual nature, is caught in the
middle. The evil powers are bent upon destroying him, while Christ is present
to save him through the power of the gospel. To obtain deliverance he must come
out on God's side in faith and obedience. That in brief is what our fathers
thought, and that, we believe, is what the Bible teaches.
How different today. The fact
remains the same, but the interpretation has changed completely. Men think of
the world not as a battleground, but as a playground. We are not here to fight;
we are here to frolic. We are not in a foreign land; we are at home. We are not
getting ready to live, but we are already living, and the best we can do is rid
ourselves of our inhibitions and our frustrations and live this life to the
full. his, we believe, is a fair summary of the religious philosophy of modern
man, openly professed by millions and tacitly held by many more millions who
live out that philosophy without having given it verbal expression.
This changed attitude toward the
world has had and is having its effect upon Christians, even gospel Christians
who profess the faith of the Bible. By a curious juggling of the figures, they
manage to add up the column wrong and yet claim to have the right answer. It
sounds fantastic, but it is true.
The idea that this world is a
playground instead of a battleground has now been accepted in practice by the
vast majority of fundamentalist Christians. They might hedge around the
question if they were asked bluntly to declare their position, but their
conduct gives them away. They are facing both ways.
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