Major Stephen Court, Australia Southern, suggests we should…

Start stomping!

DUSK fell on the remote hills and sparse treeline, playing tricks with your vision. Was that a wild animal skirting across the valley or, more innocuously, a shadow? As night settled into its quiet somnolence, the highly decorated Commander parachuted into enemy territory.  The Reclamation Operation began. And that, folks, is the beginning of the end of human history. Jesus undertook to reclaim enemy land and re-establish the Kingdom of God on Earth.

The Salvation Army has a healthy view of spiritual warfare, recognising that, in this gigantic reclamation operation, spiritual warfare is the means to the end of the return of Jesus Christ as global King. To many people, spiritual warfare, as engaging a subject as it is, can become the end. That it is a reclamation operation connotes that the Earth is now not under the control of God. People tend to get all tied up in knots at this statement, as if it is somehow a poor reflection on the sovereignty of God. This is poor thinking. Understand this: God created everything. He set the rules in this closed system called humanity. These include such things as free will and consequence. God, having set the rules, plays by them. When people, choosing with their free will, sinned, the consequence was that Satan, who had bamboozled them, lawfully took the dominion over the Earth that had been delegated to them by God. Do you follow? And so the Bible correctly states that Satan is the god of this age and the power of darkness in this world. He owns it. That is why Jesus initiated the massive reclamation operation.

Recently, my wife Danielle described the whole scenario by comparing it to D-Day and VE-Day in the Second World War. Although the decisive victory was won at D-Day, much fighting remained. Some battles were lost. Casualties mounted. There was much carnage, before VE-Day arrived. This is important to emphasise because many Christians believe, incorrectly, that Jesus crushed Satan at the Battle of Golgotha and that all we have to do is mop up. No, no, no! Such thinking has some serious consequences affecting our battle readiness, our battle performance, our battle willingness and the wellbeing of others.

You see, Jesus did not crush Satan at the Battle of Golgotha. Yes, he defeated him. Yes, he humbled him. Yes, he won in such a way that we can compare it with D-Day. But the Bible calls it a bruising, not a crushing. This bruised enemy is dangerous. History records that the wounded foe is a dangerous enemy.

Back in Genesis 3:15, when God is explaining the consequences of sin to Eve and to the serpent, he asserts that her seed will bruise the serpent’s head, and the serpent will bruise his heel. Jesus will bruise Satan. And he did that at the Battle of Golgotha. But look at Romans 16:20: ‘The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet’ (New International Version). Two things are pertinent here: a) God will soon crush Satan. That means Satan isn’t crushed yet; b) He will soon crush Satan under our feet. There is a boatload of good stuff right here. First, it shows us Jesus’ modus operandi, the way he does things. We know that Joshua’s life foreshadows some of the things that Jesus does centuries later. They share the same name. They both lead their people out of the wilderness into the Promised Land. And so on.

You may remember that after Joshua took Jericho the surrounding nation states were terrified. A southern coalition was formed by five kings to rid Canaan of the Israelite intrusion. The Battle of Gilgal was an historic victory. The five kings attacked the Gibeonites at Gilgal, knowing that Joshua would get sucked into the fighting to honour the brand new covenant he had entered into with them. It was a supernatural battle. The Bible reports that the sun stood still, waiting for Joshua to finish off the five armies of the Amorites. Not only that, but God directly pitched in by hurling great hailstones at the enemy and killing more of them than the Israelites did.

When the battle was obviously lost, the southern coalition kings hid in a cave at Makkedah. At the end of the day, Joshua and his army rolled the stone away and yanked out the frightened kings. Now, Joshua could have easily killed them on the spot. Instead, he had his captains place their feet on their necks. When you place your foot on the neck of the foe you are exercising your complete domination over your foe; Joshua was sharing the domination with his soldiers and allowing them to share in the victory. Then he chopped off their heads.

The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. You probably remember Ephesians 1:22 and 23 on our position in Christ. We are the Body. Jesus is the head. All things are under our feet. All we have to do is start stomping.