combat against evil and falsity in our own minds.
The casualties of this kind of war will be those terrible influences of the
hells which have occupied the territory of our unregenerate, natural mind, and
which as a family or enemy of negative persuasion have shaped our former self.
From the willingness to follow the Lord and establish His heavenly kingdom
within us there comes a willingness to lay down His life even as a soldier lays
down his bodily life in an earthly war.
There will always be war in this world. The Lord teaches us about our
personal battles, His own combats and victories over the hells for the salvation
of the human race, and laying down of His own life. The lesson is about spiritual
combat and the Prince of Peace is called “A warrior – a commander of battle.”
When Joshua, the commander, was about to face war, the Lord appeared
to him at Jericho in the form of a great angel. And it came to pass that Joshua
lifted his eyes and behold, a man stood opposite him, with his sword drawn in
his hand, and Joshua went to him and said:
“Are you for us or for our adversaries?” So he said, “No, but as commander
of the army of Jehovah I have now come.”
Joshua fell on his face to the Earth and worshipped and said to Him,
“What does my Lord say to His servant?” And the commander of Jehovah’s
army said to Joshua, “Take your sandal off your foot for the place where you
stand is holy.”
To give up our life or to lay it down for our friends is to turn away from the
evils and falsities that are present in our natural mind, to do combat against
them from the power of the Lord’s Word. This is taking the sandals off our feet
in the holy presence of our Savior and our Deliverer.
To be quiet represents the feeling of this being a selfless act of courage. We
are keenly aware that our gratitude focuses on our willin v