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The Great Battle Of Our Time

Reba and I brought in the New Year by watching the extended version of The Return of the King. We watched the first half on New Year’s Eve and the second half on New Year’s Day.

Since then a question has been haunting me. It stems from a statement Gandalf, the wizard and hero of The Lord of the Rings, makes as Sauron, the Dark Lord, begins to turn his vast army loose on Middle Earth. Gandalf pauses and utters these words, “Now comes the great battle of our time.”

Here is the question that I have been thinking about almost daily since hearing these words: What is the great battle of our time for the Church? I have considered many answers to my question: human sexuality, the place and understanding of the Bible in our lives, war and terrorism, religious liberty, our understanding of Christ, reaching the lost in a tolerant age, and many others. It seems to me that there is one battle that overshadows all of these: our view of God. Who is God? How do we define and speak of him? How do we understand and explain him? How do we respond to him?

There are several reasons I believe this is the great battle of our time. First, I believe James Sire* is correct. How we answer this question determines how we answer all the other questions of life. By questions of life I mean the following: Where did we come from? Why are we here? How do you explain the world and its present state or condition? What is death and why is there death and suffering? What does the future hold? Where is the world headed?

James Sire calls this ultimate reality. He calls it the one thing that explains everything else. Every worldview, philosophy, or religion has to deal with this question. Every approach to life can be boiled down this one question. The answer given determines how all the other questions will then be answered.

The battle today comes because we live in an age of pluralism. Many answers are given and even encouraged when it comes to the question of God. We also live in a tolerant day. Tolerance in and of itself isn’t bad. Unfortunately, in our day it usually means there is no single correct answer to the question of God. The net result of pluralism, and tolerance, is that the sharp edge of belief in one, true God is blunted. In short, it becomes a battle, or struggle. It leaves us confronting a question: Are we willing to become engaged in the struggle to make the one, true God revealed in Scripture known?

Second, I believe we all struggle with making our own personal God. We tend to make God in our image and like we want him to be. We have certain characteristics of God we like so we emphasize them so much that his other traits are pushed into the background. So we end up with a small God. He is a God who is like us.

One antidote is to read, meditate on, and study those portions of Scripture that reveal “the otherness of God.” God is not like us. He is far above us. God’s holiness, glory, and power are absolute. His presence and majesty are overpowering. Where did I get these ideas? These attributes of God are made clear in the book of Ezekiel.

I have been reading and meditating on Ezekiel this year. I have read through the book several times writing down ideas, thoughts, and questions as they come to me. I must say that it has been a humbling experience.

Ezekiel makes one point clear: God hates sins. He takes disobedience seriously. It is staggering to see what is involved when God’s judgment falls on a people. When God is your enemy there is no hope. All of this and more will help you see that our only hope is Christ. If God judged us according to our conduct and practices we could not stand. We can only stand before him in Christ.

I urge you to consider reading Ezekiel. Don’t read a book or commentary about Ezekiel. Read the book through several times in an unmarked Bible. Make notes. Pray through the text. Think about its implications for your life.

You can also start small. Just read Ezekiel’s vision of God in chapter 1. Read also Ezekiel 8:1-4, chapter 10, 11:22-25, and 43:1-12 where the vision is repeated. Compare these with Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4. Then ask: what is the main point of the vision? What does it reveal about God?

Notice the two responses Ezekiel had to the vision of God. First, he wrote in 1:28, “When I saw it I fell facedown.” Then, in 2:15 after being transported back to his home among the exiles he wrote these words, “And there, where they were living, I sat among them for seven days—overwhelmed.”

May we be so moved by God’s revelation of himself in his Word that we become bold representatives of him in the great battle of our time.

Elder Jim Gordon

*James Sire is the author of The Universe Next Door, a worldview textbook.