I was praying recently and the Lord reminded me of something he told me in 2019. I was preparing to minister in Kenya and Uganda from August to October of that year. I felt impressed that I needed to minister on a subject I hadn’t talked about in a long time. The subject was spiritual warfare. God was impressing me that it was important because we were about to enter a new decade and it was going to be an historically significant one. I had no idea what 2020 would bring. Since the beginning of the 20’s we have seen plague (or pandemic), social unrest and rioting, political upheaval, economic downturn and a war in the Ukraine that still has the potential to explode into something far worse. The cultural challenge to Godliness in our country is unprecedented in my lifetime
The question is, are we supposed to be a church at peace or at war. I am not talking about inward peace. I am not really talking about political peace or war. I am not talking about fighting over lands, political influence, or economic factors. Are we at peace or at war in the spirit. How we answer determines how we set our priorities in life. It determines the choices we make. It affects how we conduct local church. I want to spend some time as we move to the end of 2022 to look again at what God spoke to me as we entered this decade. What could 2023 hold? We will soon find out.
Ezekiel 13:10-11 (NKJV) 10 Because, indeed, because they have seduced My people, saying, ‘Peace!’ when there is no peace–and one builds a wall, and they plaster it with untempered mortar– 11 say to those who plaster it with untempered mortar, that it will fall. There will be flooding rain, and you, O great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall tear it down.
Ezekiel 13:16 (NKJV) 16 that is, the prophets of Israel who prophesy concerning Jerusalem, and who see visions of peace for her when there is no peace,’ ” says the Lord GOD.
Everyone wants peace. As Christians, we have access to a peace that passes all understanding.
Philippians 4:6-7 (NKJV) 6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
This peace is yours and mine today no matter what we may be facing. It is an inward peace that comes from our relationship with Jesus. We can know this peace by faith when the whole world is at war around us. There are testimonies of Christian soldiers who felt this peace even in the middle of battle. However, as important and powerful as this peace is, it is inward peace not outward peace. It is peace in the middle of a war zone. It is ours and the world cannot understand it.
What people want is a world at peace. They want there to be outward peace. They want everyone to just get along. That is a noble goal, but what are we willing to pay for such peace. In 1938 Neville Chamberlain, the prime minister of Great Britain, returned from a meeting with Adolph Hitler. He held in his hand a signed paper guaranteeing that if the area of Czechoslovakia known as the Sudetenland was given to Germany, Hitler would demand no more territory. Chamberlain declared that this signed paper ensured “peace in our time.” Of course the Czech people of the territory in question would not have peace. More important, Hitler was an agent of evil. He had no intention of keeping his word. Chamberlain’s actions were well intentioned, but his declaration of peace helped opened the door to the suffering of World War 2.
In many ways he was like the prophets in today’s scripture. He was crying “Peace” when there was no peace. I believe there are those in the church doing the same thing. They honestly believe that if we just get along with the world, everything will be fine. We can have peace if we just stop projecting such extreme stances. If we cannot save them, we should at least not offend them. If we make friends of the people in the world, we can eventually introduce them to Jesus. This is partially correct. We are not at war with the people in the world. Nevertheless, we are at war!
WW 2 was the greatest conflict in the history of man. It encompassed the whole world. It had the highest stakes of any war ever fought. It was not really about land. It was about who and what controlled humanity. Evil had grown to a point where it began to believe that the world could be taken and controlled by it. Evil was personified by a few men, but make no mistake, WW 2, like no other war before, was about good vs. evil. I believe it was a manifestation of God verses the devil. We were not at war with the German, Italian or Japanese people. We were at war with an ideology that controlled them. We are not at war with the people of the world. We are at war with the same ideology of evil today. It is, and always has been a war of the spirit even when it manifests in the flesh.
Crying peace in a time of war is deception. It is wishful thinking. That was Chamberlain’s problem, and it was the problem of the prophets in this chapter of Ezekiel. This was a difficult time in Israel’s history. They were under attack, and they were going into captivity. There was a war. Ezekiel was a wartime prophet.
Those who prophesied “peace” were well intentioned. The bible says in Ezekiel 13:6 that they prophesied but they had not heard from God. They said, “God said,” when God did not say. Ezekiel tells us they “hoped the word would be confirmed.” They prophesied what they wanted, indeed what we all want. They wanted freedom from war, and they hoped it would happen. However, when God’s leaders say God has spoken something he has not, they make the people vulnerable to the attack of the enemy.
There is an interesting thing that the Lord says in verse 10. He says the Israelites had built walls, but they had used “untempered mortar.” Walls are for protection. They thought they had protection, but there was a problem with their building material. Untempered can mean something that is not moderated or is uncontrolled. However, the Hebrew also means foolish or unsavory. It was foolish for these prophets to say there was peace when there was no peace. They were at war and the people needed to know that.
The Amplified Bible says that these prophets were building a “flimsy” wall. Instead of covering the wall with something that would strengthen the people, this translation says the prophets were “whitewashing the wall. Whitewash adds no strength. It just makes things look better. We cannot afford whitewash in a time of war.
I think to understand untempered we must understand the word tempered. In the case of steel, it means to improve the hardness and elasticity of it by reheating and then cooling it. Untempered mortar is mortar that is not the right consistency. In both cases to temper a material is to make it stronger by working it until it is as strong as it can be. To preach peace in a time of war does just the opposite.
We will look at this some more next time. However, let me remind you that our warfare is not against people (Ephesians 6:12.) It is against the forces that hold people in bondage and desire to control all of humanity with evil, sin and fear. In the midst of the war, we can have peace. We can walk in an inner confidence born of our relationship with God. Indeed, this is the peace we offer to the world. It is our heritage, and nothing can shake it; not even when we face a time of war.
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