God the Warrior, Gibbor

GOD as Warrior 

As a reminder: Every society needs its warriors to survive.  It is the warrior in men that energizes us and allows us to defend our values.  It’s the warrior in us that allows us to stand our ground and protect and defend even to the point of death.  The warrior is an inherent instinct within the nature of men.

When looking at the term “gibbor”, we know that God Himself is a warrior.  We see the words of Jeremiah, “Forasmuch as there is none like unto thee, O Lord; thou art great, and thy name is great in might. [gibbor] – (Jeremiah 10:6) Please turn to Psalm 89 and you will observe the psalmist saying of God, “Thou hast a mighty arm: strong is thy hand, and high is thy right hand.  Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face.” – (Psalm 89: 13-14)   Righteousness and justice is the foundation of his throne and He is full of power and strength, He is exalted and He acts with love and faithfulness.

When God saves, and vindicates us humans it is His warrior strength that overcomes the enemy. (Psalm 54:1-4, 20:6) God’s warrior strength and the relationship with His character allows His name Yahweh to be identified with gibbor: “Therefore, behold, I will this once cause them to know, I will cause them to know mine hand and my might; and they shall know that my name is the Lord. [Yahweh]” – (Jeremiah 16:21) A commentator has observed, “One thing the Exodus does not require is any military violence on the part of the Hebrews… Moses arsenal does not include a single bona fide weapon – no swords, no spears, bows, or knives, much less chariots and horsemen. It is Yahweh who fights!

God is not passive.  He fights for His people to save, liberate, protect and sustain.  He has all the attributes of warrior.  I’m glad Jesus is a warrior, I’m glad He fought for my salvation by offering up His only son and glad He will fight again.

The Messianic Warrior

In the promise concerning the Messiah, one designation placed on Him will be “El Gibbor” or the mighty-warrior God.  “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” – (Isaiah 9:6) His name is listed alongside eternal Father and Prince of Peace. This indicates that being God is not inconsistent with being a warrior and being a warrior is not inconsistent with being the Prince of Peace. God’s ultimate representative, His own son, the Messiah, is a warrior fighting and laying down His own life for His Father’s cause.  And one day soon He will mount His white horse and slay the armies of the world to establish a perfect and lasting peace. (Revelation 19:11-21)

Gibbor as National Warrior and Hero

All through the Old Testament the use of “gibbor” refers to the experienced veteran of combat or the hero status achieved from spectacular feats of bravery. Psalm 19:5, Isaiah 36:5, Genesis 6:4, Genesis 10:9 are all examples.

Gideon and Jephthath, two of Israel’s judges were called gibbbors. (Judges 6:12, 11:1) In Judges chapter seven Gideon made a name for himself by destroying the pagan altars and fighting the Midianites with a corp of three hundred gibbors.

The reign of David advanced the concept of the gibbor to an outstanding militia and hand-picked corp of warriors.  It was carried on by Solomon and the number of his gibborim grew to 60.  He comments on their “parade dress” appearance in Song of Songs 3:7-8.

The warrior is part of the routine expression of manliness in the Bible. God the Father and Christ are examples of what it is.  As men, we need to embrace the latent or rejected warrior within for our own development and for the sake of our society and church. The warrior never serves himself. The warrior serves his king and his commander.  We must know and understand what and who we serve. The power of the warrior needs to be in the service of a larger view of masculinity.

Let’s be clear, being a warrior is not the goal of manhood.  It is a stop along the way to full maleness. Scripture shows that a true warrior should develop as a spiritual warrior.  This takes more than just being tough, strong, or determined to win.

Gibbor as the Spiritual Warrior

Solomon says, “Wisdom is better than [warrior] strength.” (Ecclesiastes 9:16) The psalmist adds, “He delighteth not in the strength of the horse: he taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man.  The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.” – (Psalm 147:10-11)

Isaiah declares a man’s real strength lies in things like repentance, resting in one’s salvation, and in the quiet trust of God. (Isaiah 30:15)  This is reaffirmed through the prophet Jeremiah: “Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the Lord.” – (Jeremiah 9:23-24)

This clarifies the true warrior.  Not a warmonger or baby-killer but warriors that know their limitations and place their faith in God. The warrior does not trust in his own ability but he puts his commitment, allegiance and trust in God. For a man that has not had a significant male role model in his life this is bad news.  The fatherless generation could learn a lot about being a man through the study of God’s word and witnessing a true warrior in operation.  The true warrior does not trust his own strength but he trusts in the strength of the Lord.

On the other side of things, the psalmist admits that “gibbor” can use power for malevolent causes and become a violent man full of evil.  This is a possibility inherent in the warrior psyche.

“Blessed is that man that maketh the Lord his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.” – (Psalm 40:4) and in contrast, “Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.” – (Jeremiah 17:5) 

Job was told by God to “Gird up his loins as a warrior would do preparing for battle” in (Job 38:1-3) He was telling Job to receive the words of God as a warrior would do.  For three chapters God put Job in his place by reminding him of who he is and asking him to receive the admonition as a warrior would.  The warrior salutes and carries out the order.  No debate, just Yes, sir.

King David was a supreme example of the spiritual warrior and the gibbor.  He always credited his military accomplishments to God and sang praises to Him. (1 Chronicles 29:11-14) David also illustrated the downside of the life of the warrior.  To be a successful warrior, blood must be shed.  There is a certain irony in the life of the warrior. It is a much-needed stop on the male journey. It is where we grow up. But, it still involves, blood, risk, and/or sacrifice. We need to prove ourselves. It is different with each man how that occurs. Sometimes it takes all the warrior courage we can muster up to pull the task off.  Whatever it is, however, we must call forth the warrior within us to kill it. We must trust God with the outcome and risk psychological or physical injury to become men. “What is a man without his sword?”

The challenge of being a warrior is twofold:  Knowing what to fight for, and knowing when to quit and neither of these is easy to learn. Usually it takes a major and very tragic loss or a severe wounding within the life of a man to move him out of the warrior perspective.  The warrior never leaves us but if the warrior fights enough battles he can become seriously wounded.  The arrows find their targets and we become wounded to the point of new an uncharted territory.  It’s a dark and scary place.  It is a stage on the journey to manhood most men would love to skip.  If you are stuck in the wounded male space, you are lost and feel you will never find your way back.

This brings us to the subject for the next post, The Wounded Male- Enosh: The Painful Incongruency, so come back for this in the next posting.

All credit goes to Robert Hicks and The Masculine Journey.

God bless you all,

The Tubthumper

Click Here to jump to next Post- Painful Incongruency…

Are we a Bunch of Losers, Part 5

church29So what is a healthy New Testament Church anyway?

A New Testament church is a church in which God is present through His Spirit, and in which He is powerfully at work to glorify Himself by manifestations of His power and grace. A New Testament church is a church where the fruits of the Spirit are as evident as the manifestations of His power. That is the kind of church we desire to be. We as individuals are “THE CHURCH”.  Remember that it is ‘THE BODY’ of believers.  The saints!  Therefore, we as individuals are to strive to be full of the Spirit, exhibiting the fruit of the spirit and glorifying God by manifestation of His power and grace in our lives.  We are to be different!

A healthy church is one that is founded upon the person and work of Jesus Christ and His infallible Word, the Bible. The first three chapters of the Book of Ephesians deal with essential Bible doctrines. Paul’s appeal to these saints to live godly lives in the last three chapters is rooted in the sound doctrine of chapters 1-3. I don’t have room to address that here but please go and read it for yourselves.

You will also notice that the subject matter of the last half of Ephesians has to do with relationships, primarily relationships in the church. In the first half of chapter four, Paul makes his appeal for unity and growth. Then, in the last half of this fourth chapter, Paul shows how faith in Christ requires a radical change in the way the believer relates to others. Relationships were an important part of Paul’s teaching, and they should be important in our teaching and church life as well. I will point out again that relationships involve intimacy and closeness.  Those are two scary words in our society today.  We rather isolate ourselves and communicate by means of internet like I am now. We communicate through Facebook and email.  Personal contact is the last thing we want to do.  We have become a non- relational world.  Intimate and face to face communication is becoming extinct.  Love and the manifestation of love require action and it requires time.  If we are unwilling to invest the time to show others we love by indicating they exist by showing personal action to speak directly to them and acknowledge them we will always be perceived as unloving.  And the perception by others is everything.  We need to be clear that we have God’s love and we share it.

Let’s get back to the subject before I go off in another direction…

Looking back to the Bible in Acts we see the start of ‘The Church’.  The church that is described in Acts 2:41-47 is a Jewish church, worshipping as we would expect of a group of new Jewish converts. It is a church of very new believers, who exhibit the vital signs of new life in Christ. This is not a church that has “arrived;” it is a church that has a good start and is moving in the right direction.  It is a church that loves God and others. It is a Spirit-filled church that is moving toward the fulfillment of the Great Commission. But it is not a perfect church in any case.  It still has some growing to do and it will.

What does this church have to teach us, to teach our church?  We should always be troubled by the words of our Lord to the church at Ephesus as recorded in Revelation 2:1-7. The Church at Ephesus has “departed from their first love”.

I believe our text in Acts 2 greatly helps us discern the answer to these questions. To lose one’s ‘first love’ is to cease to love as you once did, at the beginning. Acts 2:41-47 describes the church’s first love, and thus it describes the deeds that one who has lost his first love must once again do. The early church in Jerusalem may not be the perfect pattern for all that we do as a church today, but it is an excellent example of a church that is marked by love.  It was an example of a church that has a love for God and love for others.

We should evaluate ourselves and we should evaluate our church of today.  Now when I say our church of today I am talking about the body of believers and the organized church as well.

We see in the book of revelation what Jesus does when he evaluates the church and what He expects.

Take an evaluative look at your local church and then do the same for your life because you are the church and then also think about God’s church in the bigger sense of things.  I mean globally.  Let’s take a look at what Jesus thought about the seven churches he evaluated. Let us evaluate where we are headed.

In the next two posts I will go over what Jesus saw regarding each of these churches and how he addresses them.  It would serve us well to see where we have fallen and how history can repeat itself.  We may want to take note as well to what happened to these churches as a result.

See you next time as we conclude with a walk through the first six books of The revelation of Jesus Christ. (Click Here for continuation)

Please have a Godly day today,

“The Tubthumper”

 

 

 

Only 1 day to go, pray for the Election!

crying-out-to-godDay 39, November 5, 2012

We cry out to You with hearts that need Your blessings.

Hear the right, O LORD, attend unto my cry, give ear unto my prayer, [that goeth] not out of feigned lips.  Let my sentence come forth from thy presence; let thine eyes behold the things that are equal. Hold up my goings in thy paths, [that] my footsteps slip not. (Psalm 17:1-2, 5)

Praise You Jesus, Lord Almighty!  Let us now lift up our hearts, with our eyes and hands, to God in heaven.  Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.

Oh God, we are ashamed and blush to lift our faces to you, our God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens. You have graciously assured us that those who conceal their transgressions will not prosper, yet those who confess and forsake them will obtain mercy.

Dear Lord, truly our hope is in you. Deliver us from all our transgressions. Oh, wash us thoroughly from our iniquity and cleanse us from our sin Oh Lord.  We know our transgressions, and our sin is ever before us.

We thank You, Oh Lord for Your grace and for the blessings you provide. You give to all life and breath and everything.  You are our creator and our source of strength.  We acknowledge Oh God that all we have comes from You. Thank You dear Lord.

Lord, we cry out to You with hearts that need Your blessings.  Give us wisdom to make the right decisions that will bring honor to You. Purify our hearts Oh, Lord. Let the words that we speak draw us closer to Your presence.  We recognize, Oh God, that You are in control of all things. Help this nation to hear Your voice, protect us from evil, and lead us in the path of righteousness.

Place Your hedge of protection around this election tomorrow dear Lord.  Direct the outcome Oh God, that it may glorify You.  Show our people the choice to make.  Direct our paths Oh, God.

Do for us far more abundantly than all that we are able to ask or think, according to the power at work within us and supply all our needs according to your riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Day 16 of prayer for our nation, 24 to go.

heal-our-land-v5-600x300Appoint the leader to bring us back to our roots as a Christian nation.

For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man… And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:14-16, 19)

Let us pray. Blessed are You, O Lord our God, Wellspring of all that is. You are the sea on which we float, You are the wind that fills our sails, You are the storm that buffets us, You are the calm that brings us peace. You are the Almighty King.  We adore you, Lord.

Gracious God, our sins are too heavy to carry, too real to hide, and too deep to undo. Forgive what our lips tremble to name, what our hearts can no longer bear, and what has become for us a consuming fire of judgment. Our nation has turned from you Lord.  We have pushed you out of public life in the USA.  Forgive us O’God.

Lord, we bow before You in humble thanks.  We thank you, as a nation, for your gifts of power and strength.  We thank you, Lord for all of our blessings.  For our freedoms, for our families, for our incomes and for our life.  We acknowledge your presence and all you have done for us in the past.  Father we know that all power, grace and wealth comes from you.  We claim the riches of Your glory and the fullness of Your grace that come through the indwelling of Your Spirit within us. Lord, we praise and thank you today.

We pray for the election in 24 days, we pray for your guidance and protection and we pray You will appoint the leader to bring us back to our roots as a Christian nation.  Father, set us free from a past that we cannot change; open to us a future in which we can be changed; and grant us grace to grow more and more in your likeness and image.  We pray today for our nation to remain firm and steadfast in the knowledge of Your truth and the promise of the victory that is ours through Christ, who loves us. Heal our land, Lord.

We ask this through Jesus Christ, the light of the world. Amen

 

Day 9 of Prayer for Election, 31 to go

praying_hands3powerO’Lord, Let Us Delight Ourselves In You.

The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord: but the prayer of the upright is his delight. (Proverbs 15:8)  Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. (Psalm 37:4)

Dear Lord, You are glorious and all powerful, the almighty King.  Father, we are each here in our place where we choose to worship you.  We are in awe at the privilege.  We look up at Your Face and the radiance of Your presence is beyond description. You are real and You are in this place accepting our worship and prayer. O Lord, great and awesome God, we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws. We have not listened to Your word and we have not followed your commands.  Lord, you are righteous,  please forgive us and our nation for our unfaithfulness to you. O LORD, we are sorry Father, for we have sinned against you.

Dear Lord, Your Word says that if we delight ourselves in You, You will give us the desires of our hearts.  Please direct our path Lord, both our individual path and the path of our nation and our leaders.  Father we pray that Your will and Your way becomes our delight.  Lord, fill us with Your spirit, Your power, and Your presence.  Father, bind us together as a people of one nation under God.  Lord, we pray that each day You will be the glory for all the goodness and blessings that come our way.

We close this prayer by asking for You to shower Your blessings on those with whom we serve.  We pray for our national election and for our local government.  We pray they will draw closer to You and draw upon Your almighty presence. We pray You would renew their commitment to serve by revealing Your desires to them. We pray they will have a season of a fresh, new awareness of  Your beauty and Your ways, and that they will find they have a heart of worship that exceeds anything they ever thought possible.  It is all about You, dear Lord and it is You we worship.  You alone are worthy.  You alone are deserving of our praises.

To You be all the honor and glory, now and for all the rest of our days.  AMEN.