Weapons to Fight in the Light

[i]

Romans 13:12

Good News Translation (GNT)

¹² The night is nearly over, day is almost here. Let us stop doing the things that belong to the dark, and let us take up weapons for fighting in the light.

When I was probably about 8 years old we had a student at Helderberg College who taught our Sabbath School class. He was very persuasive and very knowledgeable. He also had an unshakeable faith in Jesus Christ and His soon return. He looked at current world events—around 1950—and assumed that all the prophecies about Christ’s return had already been fulfilled. He stated that he guaranteed categorically that Christ would return within 5 years at the very most. It made a huge impression on me, or I certainly wouldn’t remember it all these years later.

I got much of his expressed certainty, but I do remember wondering whether it would really happen. The thought of Christ’s coming struck fear into my life rather than wondrous hope. Christ’s coming meant He would judge me, and I knew that my life and thoughts would reveal that I wasn’t ready. What it did mean to be ready? In my young life it meant that I would no longer be sinning—something that still hasn’t happened. I did not understand what the grace of Christ means to every Christian. It is this grace that makes me ready in spite of my sinful nature.

Unfortunately my teacher hadn’t put this verse into either his or my thoughts about getting ready. “Let us take up the weapons for fighting in the light.” A weapon of great consequence is the “Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God” (Ephesians 6:17 KJV). Now close to 70 years later, it appears that we have a new tool in this Sword. Devout men and women of God are demanding that we provide Scripture to each people group in their own heart language. Furthermore they are anxious, willing, and able to step in and provide the manpower to produce these translations. Truly this is a modern outpouring of the Holy Spirit to provide the most powerful weapons “for fighting in the light!” With these weapons against him, Satan is hard pressed like never before. He is redoubling his fiendish efforts to defeat Christ and us. But we have the infinite power on our side, and we can indeed overcome by Christ’s amazing grace.

Thank You, Lord, for giving us this new and most potent weapon against the enemy of all human kind in our day.

---

[i] https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2016/march/wycliffe-associates-leaves-wga-bible-translation-son-of-god.html

When is it Essential and When Not?

[i]

2 Timothy 2:23 

New King James Version (NKJV)

But avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife.

We attended church one Sabbath in one of the larger Adventist churches in Michigan. Two of my cousins were with me, one Adventist and the other Lutheran. We were planning to eat at the Sabbath potluck after the service. (Dad always used to say, “If you want to taste good vegetarian food, attend an Adventist church potluck.”)

While we were waiting for the good ladies to get things going on the potluck, I noticed an old man in a wheelchair. On a second look I recognized him as Edward Specht, my major professor from college days some 50 years previously. He was well up in his nineties but still totally with it intellectually. I knew him to be someone who “did not suffer fools kindly.” We were having a great time reminiscing when a woman walked up to me and demanded, “Are you from La Sierra?”

“I am!” I replied, and turned back to Ed.

“Well, it’s a crime what you are teaching to those Adventist youth.” She was on her soap box in full style. She went on and on with accusations and misinformation.

I tried to gently and politely get rid of her or shut her up: to no avail. She was just itching for a fight. Finally, I assumed my voice of authority and commanded her, “Listen, lady, I am visiting with my former major professor whom I haven’t seen in decades. Leave us alone!” I turned my back on her and continued talking with Ed. She finally left in a huff, figuratively shaking the dust off her feet. Ed looked half amused and half pained. I knew he had been subject to controversies and bigots before that he simply had to walk away from.

I began to sympathize with Paul who had to face bigots who criticized his stance on things like circumcision and eating of certain foods. Over the years the topics have changed from the nature of Christ, to communion service, to baptism, to origins, to ordination, to wearing of clothes or jewelry, to evolution, to the role of women in church, to sexual preference. Historically people have actually died for their stance in the particular argument of the day

La Sierra and all other Adventist universities are walking a serious tight rope between keeping their secular accreditation and meeting church expectations. To best meet the intellectual and spiritual needs of the students, La Sierra requires all students who take freshman biology, where the subject of evolution is ever present, to take a 10 week seminar to help them reconcile science and Scripture.

Lord, may Your prayer for us to be one in Your love be fulfilled in Your church today in spite of our different understandings!

---

[i] https://rogerhollander.wordpress.com/tag/religious-bigotry/