The Principle of Putting to Flight.
Reading 2 Cor.10:1-6 & Lev. 26:3-13
We have frequently as a Church looked at the subject of "Spiritual Warfare." In recent year, due to various wars, we have become somewhat conversant with the language and euphemisms of the military. The strategy and tactics will no doubt be the subject of many hours of study, and many volumes of books, expressed and written for the consumption of any and all that will listen or part with their money. The ability to know and interpret what the opposition is planning, along with other pieces of vital information. Such as your own strengths, weaknesses, logistics, deployment, the weather along with the ability to please ones "Masters," are vital components to the success of any such campaign.
King David has in his company of mighty men, the children of Issachar. These people we are told;
(1.Chron.12:32) "..had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do."
There is the strong sense of the prophetic. Not just as seers, who moved solely in revelation, but as people who were able to interpret the incoming information in the light of what God was doing and had indeed said. These were men who were listed as being a part of David’s army at Hebron. They are included in the list of Mighty Men of Valour. There were those from the tribe of Zebulun, who were "...expert in war with all weapons of war, stout-hearted men who could keep ranks;" Naphtali, with their shields and spears. The Danites; "who could keep battle formation." Asher were the same. So you could go on down the list, each were might men in their own right, yet they were a greater and mightier force when they moved according to the direction of their commander-in-chief.
In our reading in 2.Cor. we are clearly instructed that our weapons of warfare are not things which flow from the natural man. If they were, then what is established, is actually doomed to failure. This is because the very foundation that it is built upon, is a false one. Paul is actually telling us that total domination of the spiritual forces, is not only possible, but can be so. Also flowing out of this will come the changing of peoples thinking, from the ways of the world mind, to the ways of the King and His Kingdom. Each individual has their own particular part to play. Each individual has their own responsibility to maintain their walk with Him, there is also to need to join forces, which will result in the taking of the nation, not just our own individual small sphere of contact and influence.
There is the call, which is reality a demand from our Lord, that we act and an army, as a corporate group. Yes, we are to maintain our own personal walk, so that we might not be disqualified, as was Paul’s prayer. Yet we are to start to learn the principles of warring not according to the flesh. One of these principles is found in Lev.26. As individuals as well as the corporate body, we are to keep the statutes and commandments of our Lord, but more to this we see the principle of linkage. Five shall chase a hundred, and one hundred shall put to flight ten thousand. Five people who jointly agree in warfare, shall put to flight, shall rout a hundred of the enemy. Jesus when talking about dealing with the sinning brother, which is also a form of spiritual warfare, He said;
"..if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven."
In the verse before that He spoke about the binding and loosing principle. Two are agreeing about one, Lev.26:8 tells us that five deal with a hundred. So we have moved from a two to one majority (when dealing with internal Kingdom issues,) to a mightier five to one inferiority. Does God or does God not turn man’s thoughts and ways of doing things upside down. What is more, this principle from man’s perspective, actually gets worse, because the principle goes on to show that one hundred will put to flight ten thousand. That is a one hundred to one inferiority. Let me tell you its gets worse,
Dut.33:30; "How can one chase a thousand and two put ten thousand to flight, Unless their Rock has sold them, and the LORD has surrendered them?”
This verse is telling me that there is victory in the thousand to one inferiority as well as the five thousand to one. Now that word Rock, in the Hebrew, has as part of its meaning "REFUGE and EDGE." It come from another word which holds as part of its meaning, as something which has been confined, something which has been beset and fortified. This verse is saying, " How can one chase a thousand and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their place of refuge, the place where they live on the edge, the place and thing that they have chosen to be their fortification. This putting to flight is true when that has sold them out, because it is the LORD who has caused the surrender of that thing.
Jesus said; "...how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house."
(Matt.12:29)In grouping to gather in prayer, we have the authority and the power to bind the strong man, to cause such a invasion of the heavenly host, that the strong man sells his own out. There is a sudden loss of the refuge, they are on the edge, there has then to be a choice between the Kingdom of Light and the kingdom of darkness.
There is sufficient people here gathered to put to flight ??? as we join in agreement.
