The only places in the United States that came under direct attack during World War II were Oahu, a couple of Alaskan islands, an oil field in California and an army fort in Oregon that were briefly fired on by surfaced submarines, and a handful of wilderness areas that were struck by incendiary balloons (which failed). Yet, if you look at photos and films from that era, or if you read memoirs, reminders of the war were everywhere. The whole country was mobilized. There were scrap drives and war bond tours, rationing of gasoline and sugar and meat, and signs along major highways asking “is this trip necessary?” The railroads were running day and night to move troops, equipment and supplies to the ports. It was impossible to buy a new car, because the auto factories were using their full capacity to build tanks and jeeps and other vehicles of war. Everyone had family members or friends who were in the military. Women took factory jobs to replace men who were fighting. And a running joke in films of that era was to have a character ask, “say, don’t you know there’s a war on?” The point being that even the most oblivious person couldn’t possibly have missed that. The trend in our generation is to make wars as unobtrusive to the public as possible, but in the 1940s everybody was expected to contribute to the war effort.
There’s another war on, and we’re in it, whether we want to be or not. A war that’s much bigger, much older and much more important than the Second World War. We can read in Genesis 3 how humanity first got involved in this war. After the serpent deceived the woman into sin, and she persuaded her husband to join in her disobedience, God confronted them all. And then the Scripture says:
So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. 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” (Genesis 3:14-15).
The “serpent” here is not identified as Satan until Revelation 12:9, but even the very first readers, at the time of Moses, would have understood that this was not an ordinary snake, but rather an evil supernatural being.
And look how the war, or at least our involvement in the war, begins. Did you catch it? God said that he would put enmity between the woman and the serpent, continuing on through future generation. He was the one who declared war between the serpent and the human race. If the devil hoped that fallen humanity would have no choice but to become his allies after rejecting God’s rule, God had a different idea.
Just as humans and snakes are deadly threats to one another, so would humanity and the devil be at war from that day on. I’ve heard some commentators interpret the phrase “you will strike his heel” as a painful, but non-fatal wound. But that’s not how it would have been understood by the people who first read this passage. Remember that when Moses wrote this passage, the Israelites had just come out of Egypt. When they thought about serpents, it would have been the cobras and carpet vipers they were familiar with. A bite from either of those snakes is a deadly danger, and they will strike at the feet of those who don’t watch their step. A lack of awarness can be fatal! In the same way, Jesus himself said that the devil “was a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44). This is not a play fight; it’s a war. And in war, people die.
And yet, in this declaration of war, we actually see something of God’s mercy. Right from the beginning, God gave men and women the will to resist the devil, even if they did not, at that point, have much ability to do so. The ability to fight, after all, would be useless without the willingness to resist.
Humans might be fallen, but we are not naturally allied with the devil. In fact, God’s wrath against those who persist in sin sometimes consists of nothing more than him taking away his protection of rebellious men and allowing their other enemy, the devil, to have his way. This is especially visible in the book of Revelation.
Any alliance between humans and the devil, then, is an individual choice. And when it occurs, it is not only rebellion against God, it is treason against the human race. That’s a sobering thought, because there are human beings who have sold out humanity. Jesus said to one group of Pharisees:
“Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God” (John 8:43-47).
Although they claimed to worship God, they were actually serving the devil; his spiritual “offspring.” And they weren’t by any means the only ones. Christ warned us that the devil would plant enemies even in the church (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43). Not everyone who is biologically human is working on the side of the human race. And the scariest part is that most of the devil’s allies don’t even know it. They believe they’re serving their country, or their political party, or socialism, or capitalism, or their religion, or liberalism, or conservatism, or their family, or – and this is probably the most common – they think they’re working for themselves. The devil has been using false-flag recruitment since the beginning. Even Eve thought she was acting to benefit herself and her husband when she disobeyed God (Genesis 3:6). And Jesus warned his disciples that, “the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God” (John 16:2). This is the reality we live with. All of humanity is at war, even those who don’t know or believe.
Don’t you know there’s a war on? That question from the 1940s takes on new meaning today when we see that even most believers in Christ live as though they’ve forgotten the war. But the war goes on. No longer defensive, God is establishing his kingdom (Matthew 4:17). He’s retaking the world he rightfully rules:
And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross (Colossians 2:15).
Nor is it God’s intention for those of us who follow Christ to simply be spectators. We are fighting as well, “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth:
For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete (2 Corinthians 10:3-6).
And we need to fully understand that we have human enemies as well. People who have, knowing or unknowingly, sold out the human race and allied with the devil. Make no mistake: they are our enemies. And Christ has given us very specific instructions on how we are to deal with human enemies:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:43-45).
And:
Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will (2 Timothy 2:25-26).
Just as God had mercy on us, when we were his enemies (Romans 5:10), so he wants to use us as instruments of his mercy to others, who are still enemies. This is how we fight the battle. Spiritual warfare isn’t about casting out demons (although that may occasionally be necessary), but about shining the light of Christ on those who are still living in darkness. Our weapons, with “divine power to demolish strongholds” (2 Corinthians 10:4), are listed in Scripture:
They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death (Revelation 12:11).
Christ’s sacrifice, our testimony, and our willingness to give up everything for his sake and the sake of his kingdom, because we know that we have something even better waiting for us (Hebrews 10:34, 1 Peter 1:3-5). That’s how we fight, and that’s how we win, until Christ comes and every knee bows before him (Philippians 2:9-11).
We are at war. Let’s start acting like it.