The Complexities of War

Peace is a simple concept, war is not.

Growing up was scary at times. I remember turning on the TV, watching the news, even seeing grainy footage of absurdly named bombs, Fat Man and Little Boy, being dropped on the Japanese, and being really afraid of nuclear war. Looking back, the so-called “Cold War” produced fear on steroids. To a young child with little exposure to the restraining elements of governmental common sense, World War III seemed inevitable. As is usually the case, Hollywood didn’t help either, producing movies like The Day After, an apocalyptic type film depicting graphic nuclear detonations in American suburban communities. At the height of this terrifying era, people had gone so far as to build fallout shelters containing a year or more supply of food and water. There was almost a maniacal obsession with surviving weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).

A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a nuclear, radiological, chemical, biological, or any other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to a large number of humans or cause great damage to human-made structures (e.g., buildings), natural structures (e.g., mountains), or the biosphere.
I often think about the cascading effect this threat of annihilation had on people in America. It was oppressive at every level of society. I remember the cartoons on the back of newspapers, the creepy caricatures of the Soviet Union’s Nikita Khrushchev, and the American propaganda machine all proclaiming that we were fighting real monsters; yet, so few had ever met them, personally. I remember praying that our enemy never chose to “push the button,” that big red one that mirrored the one I had imagined was somewhere on the President’s desk, the one labeled “Nukes.” Nuclear warheads were attached to rockets, fully capable of reaching my front doorstep!

An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a guided ballistic missile with a minimum range of 5,500 kilometres (3,400 mi) primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more thermonuclear warheads).
Uh oh. “Inter-” means between, “continental” implies country. Between countries. ICBMs today travel at speeds over eleven thousand miles per hour, reaching targets six thousand miles away in approximately thirty minutes. This makes intercepting one of these missiles extremely difficult, causing vulnerability to rise exponentially.

ICBMs were the nightmares movies were made of. Now, an enemy was able to launch a WMD called an ICBM pointed directly at ME! The smartest people on the planet pooled their talents and created new and improved breeds of monster weapons that, even if they remained in their silos forever, the very threat of their existence was enough to strike fear in the bravest of men. Even more troubling was that while ICBM’s were the pinnacle of scientific achievement, they immediately demanded an even greater response. Think of how difficult it is to throw a stone at a soda can from one hundred feet away. While we rarely consider all that the brain calculates/executes in order to hit the target, the fact remains that it is an incredible neurological orchestration of scientific application. Now imagine how difficult it would be if a second person was charged with using another stone to knock the first one out of the air, mid-flight, as a defense against the soda can being struck. The second challenge becomes significantly more difficult than the first, agreed? The same goes with ICBMs. A whole new breed of missile defense needed to be created called Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) technology. This latter technology was even more complex than the first!!!

Defense systems are often more complex than their offensive counterparts.

As I previously stated, peace is a simple concept, war is not. Peace presumes tranquility, ease, and no fear. The threat of personal injury, though, demands a response, upsetting said peace. The greatest injury of all, however, isn’t an ICBM hitting its target, but rather our enemies hitting their target in the spiritual realm.

Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
We have enemies whom we know about but cannot see. Ugh. This is worse than the Cold War! They have “WMDs” all their own, too, designed to destroy the souls of mankind. While fellowship with God is a peaceful affair, stepping out on the battlefield is riddled with violence, chaos, and confusion. Our enemies have taken the moral equivalent of scientific technologies (aka doctrines) and twisted them into complex weapons against our peace. These are the “doctrines of demons” (1 Timothy 4:1). In order to defend our “home soil” from the “flaming arrows of the evil one [spiritual ICBMs]” (Ephesians 6:16), we must first understand the “technology” the kingdom of darkness uses to construct its weapons. This is often a complicated endeavor - certainly a departure from the placid form of thinking we enjoy when basking in God’s love.

[Working together] in the word of truth, in the power of God; by the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left.
For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.
Satan’s primary target is always the Gospel of Jesus Christ, though not all of his weapons are created equal. In traditional warfare, there are short-range weapons used on the front lines, such as guns. While such weapons may inflict damage, it is insignificant, relatively speaking. This is analogous to the small spiritual skirmishes we experience throughout our day. However, an “ICBM-level” of weapon is a different story because it threatens the entire base of operations, including headquarters. If we each stand as our own “nation,” so to speak, our base of operations is the Gospel and our headquarters is our innermost self. A weapon that is able to make its way all the way to headquarters must be complex due to the layers of defense we are given in the Bible (presuming a defense exists as per the following, of course).

Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.

Stand firm therefore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH, and HAVING PUT ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, and having shod YOUR FEET WITH THE PREPARATION OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
We are promised fellowship with the Lord God that is simple, pure, divine. Violent disturbances are the schemes of our enemies, meant to distort the Gospel and upset our fellowship with God. These disturbances are engineered to destroy our peace and are launched at us incessantly. We must send up our own “ABMs” to intercept incoming “ICBMs.” We can’t be ignorant and expect to suffer no losses.

When I think about what spiritual warfare looks like, practically speaking, I can’t help but think of the Apostle Paul, who was entrenched in it. For example, Paul had to write in such a way that even Peter describes as “hard to understand” (2 Peter 3:16), implying a certain complexity. Does this mean that the Gospel is difficult to understand? May it never be! However, when a genius such as Satan perverts it, the required defensive response implies not only an understanding of the perversion, but also a response to preserve the “home soil” (akin to shooting an ICBM out of the air with an ABM). The Book of Romans is a perfect example of this, where the doctrine of justification by faith was under attack. Since justification by faith is a lynchpin of the Gospel, Paul’s fight was brought to the very doorstep of headquarters. This mandated a complex dissertation from Paul in order to intercept the attack before it blew up the Gospel in the souls of his disciples. This is why Peter wrote what he did below.

Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless, and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.

You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
I often feel the same way Paul apparently did when he wrote his epistles. While it’s infuriating that anyone would ever wish to attack the Gospel, the truth is that the Gospel is the greatest target of all for our enemies. While it’d be wonderful to live in a world where our enemies slept, it’s just not the case. So, we must gird our loins and prepare for battle daily. As Sun Tzu would say, we must know our enemies. While our relationship with God is pure and simple, our relationship with our enemies is complicated, convoluted, and tricky. If we are unable to identify the schemes of our enemies, we risk personal injury, or even worse, injury to the good name of our Lord and Savior. We must fight the good fight, always (2 Timothy 4:7), never losing heart.

For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Love in Christ,

Ed Collins