I was reading in I Chronicles. There is a lot of exciting stuff in 1 Chronicles and there is a lot of rather “boring” passages as well. As I was reading, however, my interest peaked surprisingly … not in the exciting sections, but in one of the less so.
“These are the numbers of the men armed for battle who came to David at Hebron to turn Saul’s kingdom over to him, as the Lord had said: men of Judah, carry shield and spear—6800 armed for battle ….” [I Chronicles 12:23-38]
On and on the list goes, men of Simeon, warriors ready for battle; Zadok a brave young warrior; men of Ephraim, brave warriors; men of Issachar who understood the times and knew what Israel should do; men of Zebulun experienced soldiers prepared for battle with every type of weapon; men of Naphtali carrying shields and spears; men of Dan ready for battle; men of Asher, experienced soldier prepared for battle.
As I read, I was also reminded of Psalm 144, a song of David, “Praise be to the LORD my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.”
The Bible is very clear that we have three enemies in this life … the world, the flesh and the devil. It is also very clear that the weapons we use for each of these enemies are different. We do not battle the world the same way we battle the devil or the flesh. Different enemies; different weapons.
The problem sometimes seems to be that often we have no idea who or what we are doing battle with. So we arm ourselves with weapons designed to defeat the devil, when what we really need are the weapons to defeat the world. Battling the wrong enemy with the wrong weapons nets us nothing but frustration and grief.
We need to pray for the ability to discern our enemies and the wisdom to choose our weapons rightly.
