A Wartime Mentality

"Proclaim among the nations: Prepare for war, stir up the valiant men... Beat your plows into swords and your pruning forks into spears; let the weak say I am strong!" Joel 3:9,10

250,000 troops. $80 billion. $750 average cost per taxpayer. Fear, oppression, evil removed. Victory in one month. It is truly amazing what can be accomplished through focus and determination. The Church has a lot to learn from the Iraq War.

There are nearly 1000 congregations around the world for every unreached people group. Attainable as the goal of reaching all of these people groups in our lifetime is, the Church resembles the United Nations during all those years that Saddam toyed with it. They had their meetings to talk about it. They sent in their short-term delegations. They had committees to cover all the areas of concern. They had great resolve. But all their efforts amounted to nothing more than what Bush described as a crisis of irrelevance. Removing Saddam and the threat that he posed to the world required lots of money, sacrifice, advanced technology, and a massive deployment of troops.

A 9-11 Type Wake Up Call

The Church needs a 9-11 type crisis to help us to grasp the fact that we too are at war with Satan for the 6500 unreached people groups who live under his power. These peoples need a regime change! But unless we wake up to our responsibilities, we too are rightly called irrelevant. We do, after all, spend much more on our dogs and cats than we do on the cause of reaching the lost souls for whom Christ died. Is it not a disgrace that there were four times more troops mobilized to fight in the Iraq War than all of the missionaries deployed around the world combined? Picture carriers with 6,000 young men being deployed to reach the unreached people groups of China! And another boat dropping off soldiers of righteousness in North Africa, and another ship full based in the Gulf to spread out to the newly opened areas of the Middle East.

What about the Finances?

When AOL polled Americans about their willingness to give $750 per taxpayer to pay for the war, most thought it reasonable. Yet the average amount that Christians in America give towards missions (including charities) in a year is less than $200? Of that, only $2.00 (0.1%) actually goes to where it is needed most, to reaching the people who have no church. Al-Qaeda raised over $5 million through a "charity" in Somalia that was actually used for terrorism. And Somalia is the perhaps the poorest nations on earth! Meanwhile, missions giving has dropped dramatically since 9-11. Target is only receiving 40% of what it did a few years ago, and most of our missionaries live well below the "poverty line."

Prepare For War

From intelligence gathered in Afghanistan we now know that Bin Laden's terror network has been crippled mainly because they never thought America would have the backbone to retaliate. Saddam, too, rightly judged the ineptitude of the United Nations. He thought he could do whatever he liked. Both were wrong, but in this sense they represent the powers of darkness, which must also be mocking our feeble attempts to fulfill the Great Commission of our Lord.

But this is about to change. Our quote from Joel is a prophecy which describes an awaking which will take place before the sickle is put in to gather in the ripened harvest of souls in the last days (v. 3:13). In these days, we will shock our enemies and rise up a mighty army. Even those who are weak among us will be called warriors. We will do whatever is necessary to bring about a regime change for peoples who live under the oppression and fear of Satan's hand. We outnumber them 1000 to 1! With a little focus and determination we can win a quick victory. Lord, for the sake of the unreached, stir up your mighty men!