We Are in a War, This Is How You Win

Let us turn to 2 Corinthians 10. We are going to be reading from verse 3 to around verse 6. It says:

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.”

Now, meditation is a necessary thing for the Christian. It is necessary that you pray and ask the Holy Spirit to show you things. But it is not just a holy spiritual activity — we are to engage our brains in it, and we can interrogate the text and ask it various questions. It helps to be like a child. What do children do but ask questions? Why, why, why? And remember: the kingdom of God belongs to such as these little children who ask questions. So let us ask some questions of the text. But first, let us put it into context.

We Are Born Into a Conflict

The reality is we are born into a conflict. There has been a conflict in this world ever since Genesis 3. There are two sides to this conflict — the side of Satan, which is the side of the old Adam, and the side of Christ, who is the new Adam. On one side there are the worldly people, many of whom are disinterested, just wanting to get by, but some who are really sold out and self-conscious in their rebellion — self-conscious even in their allegiance to Satan, which we are seeing a lot of at the moment. On the other side, there are believers, some of whom are disinterested, going to heaven but not really seeming to believe that there is any war. And then there are those who are very aware of the war going on and who are engaged in it to a greater or lesser degree.

Genesis 3:15: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head and you will strike his heel.” So there is no neutral ground. There is no middle ground between these two positions. As Abraham Kuyper said: there is no square inch in all of human endeavour or existence over which Christ does not say “mine.” There is no neutrality in this war. We cannot pretend to be non-combatants.

We know that friendship with the world is enmity to God. George Bush said — somewhat crudely, but with a point — either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. And it is something like that here.

Fifth-Generation Warfare

I said this was about fifth-generation warfare. You will almost certainly have heard of InfoWars. And well, here is the definition of fifth-generation warfare: it is a form of conflict in which the primary battlefield is not physical territory but perception, narrative, identity, and social cohesion.

Think about the British army at the moment. While it is very diminished in conventional terms, the army of bots and intelligence operators engaged in fifth-generation warfare at GCHQ and elsewhere — they are legion. The battlefield is perception. What is going on here? Narrative. Putin is evil. Russia is evil. Ukraine is good. President Trump is a madman. Identity. This white versus black narrative — is this what it means to be British? These are questions of identity. And social cohesion — the effect of social media is to take people who were together and shatter them into tiny groups and subgroups. Do you believe in the moon landing? Do you believe that the earth is round? Yes or no. There are all sorts of these tests designed to destroy social cohesion and break groups up into tiny, manageable fragments.

So all this is going on, and fifth-generation warfare seems like a really new thing. How do we manage? Who are we to deal with such well-funded, expertly trained, hugely resourced, AI-powered manipulators at work in the world? Well, it is not new. We do have the tools in Christ to deal with it.

Ephesians 6:12: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” So we are really dealing with demonically derived falsehoods. And there is some interplay between the powers that be in the world and the powers that be in the spiritual realm. The primary weapon of the foe is the weapon of Satan. What is the primary weapon of Satan? Lies. He is a liar from the beginning. He changed the narrative from the beginning. He changed God’s identity: God is not God, he is really just like us, and we can question him, and God is not good, he is probably keeping this thing from you. Social cohesion: he drove a wedge between God and Adam and Eve, and even a wedge between Adam and Eve themselves. Perception: I am not a creature, I can become God.

This is the game Satan plays, and he continues to play it to this day.

The Wrong Ways to Fight

Now, are there areas that you think are neutral but are not? Lord, what areas in my life am I keeping you out of? Am I allowing you in the house but not in the driveway? What areas do I need to open up to you?

The primary battlefield in fifth-generation warfare is not bullets, not bombs, not bayonets. It is grey matter. Combat begins with metanoia — the Greek word for repentance, meaning a total revolution in the way you view everything. Not just: I feel sorry for my sins — which is part of initial and ongoing repentance. But metanoia means a total revolution of thinking. That is where it all begins.

Sometimes this mental war is outside of us — it is a struggle between the Christian on one hand and the worldling, the seed of the serpent, on the other. And sometimes it is internal: the old man in the Christian is struggling against the new man, Christ. The redeemed man is at war with the flesh.

Now there is a wrong way to fight that war. During lockdown, there was a lot of vitriol hurled at the powers that be — bad language, a lot of worldliness, a bitter and resentful spirit that just wanted to pour wrath on these people. There is a wrong way to fight this fifth-generation warfare. Some people pick up the weapon of memeing. Memes can be effective, and they can convey truth. But I do not think that is really the way to win.

There are also people who say: yes, there is a war on, there are very evil people in the world, and this is the history of the bad people. It is thirteen families. They are the Illuminati, they came down through Rome and all the kings and Babylon and Sumer. And they do this and that and the other thing. And they will write a novel as a comment and share Facebook videos and YouTube videos, exposing the truth. And this is how we are going to win — we are going to expose the enemy.

And another mistake: some people divide good and evil the wrong way. There is a war on, they say, and the problem is that there are too many people of this colour or that background. But is this really how we define good and evil? No, certainly not. We draw our lines according to Christ — the last Adam, as opposed to the first Adam and Satan. This whole racial nationalist thing, by the way, it is racialism, and it really was not in anyone’s worldview until Charles Darwin, who divided the world into Mongoloid, Caucasoid, and Negroid. So we cannot fall into that trap. And it is a trap that is laid for young men, and it does not lead to a good place. It is a playbook that was run before with Hitler. He was just following the philosophy of Darwin and the followers of Darwin.

The Real Weapons

So there is a war. That is the first thing we have to admit. If we are thinking: well, there is not really a war, we are just merrily going along in life — we are in serious trouble. The Bible tells us we are in a war. Second: there is a wrong way to fight it. We do not war according to the flesh. Third: there are the right weapons.

“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God.” Wow. These are mighty weapons. We are upping the calibre considerably. But what are these weapons targeted against? Verse 4: “For pulling down strongholds.” What is a stronghold? Physically: a castle, a hardened target, a complex of underground tunnels. Think of Edinburgh Castle sitting on top of its crag. Think of the dug-in positions in the Ukraine war — months and years of constant bombardment required to break through. It is not just a generalised difficulty. It is this military thing — hardened, layered, immovable.

Our bombs cannot touch it? Well, so we are talking about heavy ordnance. We are talking about pounding the thing for a long, long time in some cases until that nut is cracked. Before we go abstract into the spiritual realm, let us consider it in the physical realm first, because Paul is drawing an analogy and we should start there.

Strongholds in the world of ideas — some ideas block the progress of God’s people like Jericho blocked the entrance to Canaan. You are not taking possession of God’s earth — I will not let you pass! And it is deep in us. It is deep in the culture. And it is maybe deep in our hearts as well.

One of those errors is dualism — that the world is split in two, between spirit on the one hand and matter on the other, and matter does not matter. It is a very old fortress, a wicked fortress, full of sin. Very powerful. And many, even the best of Christian men, have been affected by this stronghold. It has plagued the church. It has been a thorn in its side — like those peoples that were not conquered by the children of Israel, left to be a thorn in their side.

Another stronghold might be antinomianism — that Jesus Christ has come to free us from obeying the law, that he has done away with the law entirely. And now we have a new law, which is whatever you like, really, as long as it is basically socially respectable.

Taking Down Strongholds God’s Way

But are you going to go up to the walls of Jericho while they are still erect? Are you going to shout? Throw a rock at it? Pathetic. You will never get anywhere. But if you listen to God and work his way — well, the sky is the limit, in your heart and in the world.

If you think about a siege tower rolling up to a castle wall, it is made of wood. Did the wood self-assemble? Somebody had to chop it down. Did the siege tower build itself? Somebody had to build it. What if the wheel breaks? Somebody has to fix it. There is quite a team: woodchoppers, siege tower builders, siege tower maintainers, soldiers to do the fighting, oxen to pull the heavy load, people to train and feed the oxen, cooks, logistics organisers. It is a whole army — literally an army is required to go up to a castle and tear it down.

What do we call that army? The church. The church is that army. We need everyone. Everyone has a role. And so as we face these great enormous challenges, we figure out: there is a war on, what is my role? The work of the church is the work of the tearing down of these external strongholds. And it takes a body working together. Look at verse 6: “Being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.” The image is not just a family — it is like a military discipline, court-martialling people who will not obey.

And there were so many strongholds in history torn down. The church fathers did a tremendous job through the creeds and councils of the church. But what happened to Jericho? Did it stay torn down? Remember the curse of Jericho — whoever rebuilds Jericho will pay for it with the life of his firstborn. Somebody did rebuild it. And so that is the battle. You can win a battle personally, and if you are not careful, it can be rebuilt. Or through church history, one doctrine is torn down and it re-emerges in another place.

But remember: if we fight according to God’s way — like God said with Jericho, march around it on the seventh day, blow the trumpets, and the walls are going to completely fall down — the archaeologists show us the walls did not crumble gradually. They fell all at once, all around, opened up like that. Somehow God orchestrated it. It was a matter of realising you are in a fight, being subject to your commanding officer in that fight, fighting together, turning up and doing exactly what God told you at that time.

So we fight the fight of the obedience of faith. God tells you: this is the strategy, these are the tactics, this is the target. Okay, let us go. And God does not give us failing strategies, failing tactics, or failing weapons. He gives us successful weapons. It will be at some cost — remember those fathers of the church who lost an eye, an ear, a hand, who were disfigured and tortured. They still won. And those battle scars will be beautified in heaven, just as the scars of Christ are beautified — he still has them, because they symbolise not his defeat but his victory in the battle.

The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God. Casting down arguments — all these narratives, all these questions of identity and social cohesion that are in the air around us. Our enemy, ultimately, is not people who do not look like us. Our enemy, ultimately, are those who are opposed to Christ, the new Adam.

Just some thoughts, folks. I hope you find them helpful.