Dennis Tuuri

Sermon scripture is found in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 20 verses 1-9. Deuteronomy chapter 20 verses 1-9. But now goest out to battle against thine enemies and see horses and chariots, and a people more than thou, be not afraid of them, for the Lord thy God is with thee, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And it shall be when ye are come nigh unto the battle, that the priest shall approach and speak unto the people, and shall say unto them, Here, O Israel, ye approach this day unto battle against your enemies.

Let not your hearts faint. Fear not, and do not tremble, neither be ye terrified because of them, for the Lord your God is he that goeth with you to fight for you against your enemies, to save you. And the officers shall speak unto the people, saying, What man is there that hath built a new house, and hath not dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man dedicate it.

And what man is he that hath planted a vineyard, and hath not yet eaten of it? Let him also go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man eat of it. And what man is there that hath betrothed the wife, and hath not taken her? Let him go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man take her. And the officers shall speak further unto the people, and they shall say, “What man is there that is fearful and faint-hearted? Let him go and return unto his house, lest his brother’s heart faint, as well as his heart. And it shall be when the officers have made an end of speaking unto the people, that they shall make captains of the armies to lead the people.”

This sermon will be shorter than normal and as a result the older children in the oldest class, the class normally taught by Robert Jones will stay upstairs today. But the younger classes will go ahead and go downstairs at this point in time to their Sabbath schools. The parents desire that and the babies to the nursery as well.

This morning we’ll be installing and ordaining Kent Canoy as a deacon at Reformation Covenant Church. And our subject for this morning’s talk then is the deacon and the army of God from the text from Deuteronomy 20:1-9.

Now the term deacon—rather, as probably most of you know—simply means servant in the New Testament. There’s not a great deal of detail in terms of what that service is but service is of the essence of the role of the deacon. And so this morning from the text we’ve chosen to speak from we’ll be talking about the deacon as he serves the elder as he serves the army of God and the church and then also as he serves God. And we’ll be looking at from the text before us how the officer served the priest, how they serve the army and also serve God and how the deacon by way of correspondence serves the elder, the church and God.

First of the three points is that as the officers serve the priest by organizing the army, so the deacon serves the elder by organizing the church.

Now, in order to make this make sense, we need to look at Deuteronomy 20 and its relationship to the church. And first of all, there is a relationship, I believe, between the army mentioned in Deuteronomy 20 and the church as we commonly perceive of it in today’s world in terms of the New Testament teaching on the body of Christ in local churches and in the church universal as well. The Christian life is characterized frequently throughout the New Testament as warfare.

And there is by way of analogy here from the teaching in Deuteronomy 20 truths for us as the church goes about the warfare, the spiritual warfare that God has called her to do. 2 Timothy 2:3 and 4 tells us to suffer hardship as good soldiers of Jesus Christ reminding us that we are in an army. And additionally it goes on to talk about how there are certain sins that wage war against our soul. There’s a warfare as it were in terms of our own soul, in terms of our own life that we’re to win. There’s a warfare in terms of the work of the expansion of the kingdom, the manifestation of the kingdom of Jesus Christ in the world around us that also is important to acknowledge and there is spiritual warfare for instance described in Ephesians 6.

Spiritual warfare is the concern increasingly of the body of Christ in America and an individual who is preaching this morning perhaps even now I don’t know at Good Shepherd Church—Frank Peri has done much to awaken the church to the reality of spiritual warfare and its importance in terms of the Christian life and it is important to acknowledge that this morning is by way of analogy the Christian life being warfare the church is compared to the army of God and we’ve talked about spiritual warfare and how there are systems of thought that are produced by forces of darkness in our culture today of collectivism and other things such as that need to be combated. When we do that we are engaging in spiritual warfare.

The scriptures tell us that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church. There is warfare by the church against the gates of hell so to speak in the preaching of the gospel and as this text in Deuteronomy 20 goes on to talk, when the army goes into a city, they’re supposed to try to obtain peace by unconditional surrender of the city to the army of God. So when we go out and preach the gospel, we declare the terms of God’s surrender—unconditional surrender—as we preach the gospel and many either submit to that or are judged by it accordingly. And so there are by way of analogy here relationships between the army of God and God’s church.

But also there is a direct parallel. Too often we look at these texts from the Old Testament and spiritualize them away. Somehow this was an actual physical army that was being equipped here and there were people involved in that. And there is of course a legitimate use of Christian warfare, a biblical warfare throughout the history of men.

God has given us two kinds of men in the world. It is providence. We have a world inhabited by sinners and saints by those who are called into salvation of Jesus Christ and those who are in rebellion against that kingdom and who will continue in that rebellion until their death and consignment to hell. And so there is warfare between those two entities and those two armies and sometimes that results in physical warfare as well.

And by way of parallelism, what I mean by that is that the functions that God gives to the military army here in Deuteronomy 20 should also be applied and has been applied in the history of this country for instance to provisions in terms of exemption for people from warfare and from being enlisted into the army similar to the exemptions that we read here in Deuteronomy 20. And so there are rules I’m saying for actual combat should we be forced to enter into that sometime in the future as a military army not as the church and the way the army is equipped by God in Deuteronomy 20 is the same way he equips other areas of life as well. These are civil things we’re talking about here but they have ecclesiastical ramifications as well.

And so if we look at how God wants us to prepare military armies and we also see that there are parallels between that and how he wants us to prepare for the spiritual warfare that is conducted by the church even though the church as an institution never engages in open warfare. Certainly the members of the church will at some point in time or have at some point in time in the past. So by way of parallelism as well as analogy we can see the church of God compared to by way of analogy and also parallel being managed in the same way that the military army of God is managed in Deuteronomy 20.

Now one thing we want to mention therefore is that notice that both in terms of Deuteronomy 20, the size of the army is not the utmost thing that’s being pointed toward rather the quality of the men that are called to serve. He tells them that if the people are fearful or afraid they get dismissed from the army. Now, lots of guys could feign cowardice if they wanted to get out of the army. And I think from this text you see he just let them go. It’s better to have somebody next to you in a foxhole who knows why he’s there and is dedicated to the cause than to have somebody who’s drafted and who doesn’t want to be there. And so the whole system of the compulsory draft I think should be subject to much questioning based on this text.

And the point is that also has analogies to the army of God in the church. When we call men to do things in terms of the church, the last thing we want to do is impress men into service who don’t want to be there and whose minds are distracted and entangled because you can’t count on those men when times get tough. Point is that the army of God is limited to the dedicated few. The church as the army, it’s like the Marines. We want a few good men. We don’t want a lot of people who are minimally committed to the cause of Jesus Christ. Same way in the days of Gideon, there’s a whittling process that normally occurs as a result of this. And we’ve seen that in our own church and in other churches, of course, as well.

And notice here that the reason for that, of course, is that victory is not based on the number of horses. It’s based on the presence of Jesus Christ. It’s based on the presence of God with the army. And God then makes us know, we talked before about angels, for instance, and how they help in battle. And so there is spiritual aid or assistance to the army of God when it conforms itself to the principles of warfare given to us in the scriptures.

So there’s a relationship of the church to the army. There’s also a relationship of the deacon to the officer. We’ve talked about this before, but the scriptures, the New Testament scriptures don’t give us a lot of material on what the deacon is according to the New Testament, but a whole Bible approach helps us understand the role of the deacon in a much broader sense.

In Deuteronomy 1:15 and 16 we are told there that while there are various incidentary offices in the old covenant community, Moses appointed two primary offices or functions for the covenant community. In Deuteronomy 1:15, Moses said they took the chief of our tribes and he made them heads over you. Heads of tens, fifties, hundreds, and thousands. And then in verse 16, he says, I charged—or excuse me, he goes on to say that he made heads over tens, fifties, hundreds, and thousands. And he also said they make officers among your tribes. And he goes on to talk about how he charged the judges.

Deuteronomy 1 says there’s two kinds of offices that God gives that Moses appointed. Those were the heads of the tens, fifties, hundreds of thousands who were judges. And then there are officers who are administrators. Now, Deuteronomy 16:18—excuse me, Deuteronomy 16:18 confirms this essential two-fold continuing offices in the context of the old covenant. When we read that judges and officers shalt thou make thee, all thy gates which the Lord thy God giveth thee. So whenever they went, they’re supposed to appoint two people, judges and officers.

Now these two functions of judges and officers were established or institutionalized in Exodus 18 and Numbers 11 respectively. Judges in Exodus 18, officers in Numbers 11. While we cannot draw a direct correlation between the offices thus established with that of elders and deacons, we can draw very definitely a correlation between the two functions thus described in the old covenant and the new testament offices or functions of elder and deacon.

The correlation between officers and deacons can be seen by way of comparison with Acts 6 and Numbers 11. And Numbers 11 is the situation where the people complain because of lack of food. Moses went to God and said I need people to help administer this people. And God had them appoint officers. These officers in Numbers 11 are appointed specifically to assist Moses in the administration of large numbers of people to bear the burden of the people in the administrative sense.

It’s very important that we also note that Numbers 11 records the grumbling of people over food as the precipitant for the provision of men who we can assume from the text assisted somehow in the distribution of the massive amounts of flesh that God would then provide for the people. Moreover, the grumbling and resultant weeping in verse 4 of Numbers 11 specifically occurs with reference originally to the mixed multitude the people that were not of the race of Abraham that came out with the people from Egypt.

The mixed multitude again in Acts 6 the initiation of the office of deacon is recorded in Acts 6 and that account recorded the establishment of those to serve at table to administer the food provisions of the early church to assist the apostles and then later the elders by serving at tables so that they might more effectively do the service of the word. The precipitant of the establishment of the office of deacon is again murmuring over food and once again as in Numbers 11 originates with the mixed multitude in this case the Grecian converts as opposed to the Hebrew converts to Christianity.

Now while these two scenarios are not identical the common problems associated with each is the need for godly administrators to assist the covenant community in their physical requirements. And the common provision in both settings in Numbers 11 and Acts 6 is spirit-filled men to do the work that is absolutely essential for the proper functioning of the community.

There is no hint of neoplatonism in the text. No hint here that the physical concerns of the community are somehow not as important or not imbued with some kind of neutrality in terms of how they are to be met. Quite the reverse. In Numbers 11, the account tells us that those who were appointed to this office of administration received of the same spirit that was upon Moses came upon them. The spirit of the living God for empowerment and enabling for proper functioning. And in Acts 6, the account tells us that the men selected by the congregation, the deacons who were appointed by the apostles must be full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom and then are ordained by the imposition of hands indicating the same spirit that is upon the apostles and later the elders in their specific calling empowers the deacons for their particular calling as well.

While the officers spoken of in Numbers 11 and Deuteronomy 1 are civil officers, civil administrators and the deacons in Acts 6 are ecclesiastical officers or ecclesiastical administrators. Nonetheless, the function is the same and that function is administration. And so there is a direct correlation between the function of the officer in the old covenant whether it was civil officer or the ecclesiastical officer and the officer or the deacon in the new covenant community.

There’s a correlation between officer and deacon. There is also a relationship of the elder to the priest. In the text we read from Deuteronomy 20, the correlation between the function of officer and deacon can be used to advantage in understanding the deacon’s calling. And additionally, the text can be seen a second correlation that between the Old Testament function and the New Testament function of judges and priests in the Old Testament and elders in the New Testament.

In Deuteronomy 33, the tribe of Levi is spoken of, and it’s spoken of in its priestly duties. It’s described as the tribe who will teach God’s ordinances to Jacob and God’s laws to Israel, and that they would put incense before God and whole burnt offerings on his altar. That is the specific calling of the priestly tribe of Levi to teach and to sacrifice. Sacrifice having a correlation to prayer today.

In Deuteronomy 17, we see the description of two sets of courts. The ecclesiastical court and the civil court represented by the Levitical priest ecclesiastically and the judge civilly. The death penalty is prescribed in Deuteronomy 17 for the one who acts defiantly against either officer, either judge as it were, the civil judge or the priest, the Levitical priest. And that, by the way, that text is the basis for excommunication, the ecclesiastical death penalty, so to speak, for one who acts contumaciously, which is to say acts with contempt toward the church court or toward the session of the elders when they meet together to consider judicial matters.

The judges were appointed in Exodus 18 specifically to assist Moses in teaching the people the requirements of the law to apply that law in disputes and judge between them according to the standards of the law. So what I’m saying is Deuteronomy 20 or Deuteronomy 1 where it talks about the appointment of heads which are judges and officers takes Numbers 11 where we have officers correlating to the function of deacons and it takes Exodus 18 where we have civil judges correlating to the ecclesiastical judges of the eldership in the New Testament and brings them together. Moses said I appointed two officers. Deuteronomy 17 says those two officers, judges and officers are to be kept in every town, appointed in every town and that those have correlation then to the deacon and the elder in the new covenant community in the ecclesiastical sense.

In Deuteronomy 20, we see the officer assisting the priest—that is he is assisting the one who is appointed to minister in prayer and sacrifice and the ministry of the word in the context of the army. Again, while Deuteronomy 1 and Exodus 18 speaks civilly and Deuteronomy 20 speaks ecclesiastically, the point is that the function is the same between the judges and the priest in the old covenant. That is to teach God’s word to proclaim God’s judgments and in the case of Deuteronomy 20, God’s victorious presence promised to those who serve him in battle. That’s a judgment of God.

So to teach God’s word, to proclaim God’s judgments, and to rule if necessary in the context of their callings. Indeed, it might be profitable to spend a whole sermon or two talking about correlations between the exhortation the priest makes in Deuteronomy 20 to the army of God and the exhortation that the preacher or the elder or the pastor is supposed to make to the congregation every Lord’s day. Reminding the congregation that we are at war. There is spiritual warfare going on within ourselves, within the context of our communities and globally as well.

Encouraging the people for that battle, preparing them, warning them of the evaluation of God that comes upon those who hear the word and respond one way or the other of the impending judgments of God. The Sabbath is a day of instruction, admonition, exhortation, preparation for battle. And it’s a day of evaluation to remind people the judgments of God. Those who respond to God’s word and obey are blessed with victory. And those who break God’s word and who refuse to hear the tidings of peace are condemned to hell and everlasting punishment. And there would be a good use of time perhaps one of these Sundays to talk about those correlations.

Indeed, it is a gospel that is given to the people by the priests in this section of scripture. The gospel that God reigns and that sanctions apply to people on the basis of their reaction to that good news. Acceptance meant, as I said, victory and rejection meant defeat and judgment.

Sometimes we get kind of a funny idea about Old Testament priests and we don’t want to see the correlation between the priest and the elder because we see the priest in the Old Testament as some sort of mediator between God and man who can negotiate as it were both ways and a mediator in that sense. But I don’t think that’s what the Old Testament priest was all about. He was a representative of the people the same way the elder represents the people in holy worship and then in also teaching and exhorting them in God’s word in the new covenant community.

There is a direct correlation there. It’s interesting of course that the word—maybe some of you don’t know this—but the word priest is a shortened form of the word presbyter. And so the two words priest and presbyter—presbyter meaning elder of course—actually come from the same word in the English in God’s providence how the English words have developed. So the correlation between the officer and the deacon and between the priest or judge in the old covenant and the elder can be seen by looking at these two functions in this text and they can be seen as how they relate to one another as well.

How do they relate? Well, the deacon and the elder, the priest and the officer are relating here because the priest is served by the officer—here in this text by the officer making administrative judgments and entering into administration of the people—and so the priest doesn’t have to do those things. Again, there’s a correlation between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Both in Numbers 11 and in Acts 6, as we pointed out, we see the need for godly administers to alleviate men who are called to other functions from distraction from that function they’re called to do. The common provision in both settings is spirit-filled men to do the work.

In other words, both in Numbers 11 and in Acts 6, Moses who had a particular function and the judges who had particular functions were assisted by appointing administrators so that they don’t have to be distracted from their work to do the work of administration. And in Acts 6, the apostles were and later to be the elders are devote themselves to the teaching of God’s word and to prayer, the ministry of word and prayer. And to avoid them being distracted from that work, officers, deacons, administrators are to be appointed.

Here in the text from Deuteronomy 20, the officer serves the priest by relieving him of that duty so that he, that is the priest, can then attend to the ministry of word and prayer or law and sacrifice in the words of Deuteronomy 33. So the deacon serves the elder by freeing the elder to study, to attend to the word of God, to teach that word corporately, individually, in small groups, and to pray and to those ministries.

And so the first point we want to make this morning from Deuteronomy 20 is that as the officers serve the priest by organizing the army, so the deacon serves the elder by organizing the church.

Secondly though, the deacon also serves the army itself by organizing it for battle. He serves the elder, he serves the priest and the elder. And the deacon also serves the church by organizing it for battle. After the charge to the people is given here in Deuteronomy 20 by the priest, the officers then move in to administer the army of God. They are specifically told to perform this administration in strict accord with the requirements of God’s law in relationship to combatants.

The excluding of these groups of men from the ranks of the army should be seen in context of verse 9. In verse 9, we read from the text: “It shall be when the officers have made an end of speaking unto the people that they shall make captains of the armies to lead the people.” It is an administrative organizing function that the officer engages in. The officer administers the armies of God preparing them for the battle administratively and the exclusions that he is instructed here to read to the army are simply part of the overall task of the correct administration of the army.

So the deacon as the officer is a manager and he administers the army by putting people in charge of specific areas and he organizes the church in the same way. The deacon’s ordination then prepares the church for battle because it prepares them for a man who will help organize them for going into warfare. There is a two-fold equipping in the text before us in Deuteronomy 20 of the army of God. The exhortation from God’s word of God’s presence, God’s judgment, and God’s law. And then the application of that and the organization of the army of God.

Having been given the exhortation to fight and to fight bravely, the deacons, the officers rather in this text in Deuteronomy 20 come in and equip the army through administration. The same way the elder instructs and exhorts the army, the congregation of God for battle, teaching them, praying for them, guarding and nourishing them, the deacon prepares the army of God for battle by organizing them into specific battalions, as it were, specific organizational tasks and preparing them for the warfare that is ongoing.

The ordination, which we won’t spend a lot more time on, we’ve talked about this before, but in the New Testament, in the book in the installation of deacons in Acts 6, there is the ordination, the laying on of hands of the deacons. And I’m sure from the text that the ordination is not limited to the apostles, but rather those men, the congregation also gives witness to the fitness of the man for office by laying hands upon the man along with the sitting apostles as well. And so this morning when we ordain Kent Canoy, we will have the covenanted male heads of household come up at that time to lay hands upon him as I also laid hands upon him. And we have a third witness of the sitting deacon as well. And so we have this three-fold witness to Kent’s fitness for office. And all that is demonstrated by the ordination process in which Kent is ordained.

Additionally, however, we must understand ordination from its Old Testament texts and those texts are found originally in Numbers 8:10 and 11. The Levites are ordained there through the imposition of hands to their special service to God and his people. And in verse 12 of that text of the same chapter, it notes that the Levites are then to lay their hands upon sacrificial animals, thus identifying themselves with the animal. The animal has done nothing wrong, of course, but the Levite himself was on the animal as it were, and the animal was thereby identified with the Levite. In the same way, then the people of Israel had laid hands on the Levites, not to charge them in isolation from themselves, but rather identifying themselves with the Levites in the ordination process.

Therefore, while the Levite is given specific special function and office, yet it’s not given so as to remove the requirements of the rest of God’s people from holy living according to God’s holy requirements. Just the reverse. Just the reverse was therefore signified by God when he instructed the imposition of hands as the means of ordination to function in office. God was teaching them and he’s teaching us this morning that with the ordination of special officers or functions in the church, these officers are given so that we all may function more fully in accord with God’s requirements of us.

The people of the church in a very real sense then when you come forward and represent your family and by the imposition of your hands, you will affirm and confirm Kent’s special calling of administrative service, but you will also thereby identify with him in your own general calling of serving God in your administration of your household and every other sphere in which you move. Like the officers from Deuteronomy 20, the deacons will now serve not to do the work for you but rather to assist and serve you that you may better perform the work of service yourself. And so he will appoint captains over various church ministries so that the war might be waged and waged successfully by the army of God the church.

The deacon organizes the army for battle. By way of example for instance Roy has given certain people heads or responsibilities over certain portions of preparation for Sunday worship. I got a call from one of you who wanted to know who you should talk to about not doing something and I said well don’t bother Roy if you don’t have to. Talk to the captain that Roy has appointed over that area. Roy has appointed certain captains over certain things. Arie Maymand for instance is the captain over setup Sunday morning. Anybody responsible and working under him should talk to Arie the captain about what he is doing before he then takes it up to Roy. So the idea is the deacon establishes organizational skills within the church and puts people as these captains in and they help equip the people for their work.

We’ve talked before. We this morning essentially Kent’s calling is to administer benevolences, prepare the church of God financially and the army of God financially. Financial woes can be a real demoralization to the army as it attempts to do his work. And so it’s important we see that we’re going to be in the future talking about Doug Garrett and ordaining him to office as a deacon to administer finances. And we were going to talk about—we were going to have Howard L. in terms of conferences. The idea I’m trying to get you to picture here is that deacons over specific areas then assist the congregation in doing the work of that area. They’re not supposed to do all that work necessarily. They’re to administer that particular calling or functional part of the army.

Okay. So in other words, ordination means every believer ministry. And a good example of that this last week was how you all called various churches. The idea is ordination is given to you. You’re given a specific task to complete and the whole army he then went into battle this week looking for a facility for us to meet in. And so that’s the idea of organization equipping the saints for the work of ministry to do the work that’s necessary in terms of the church.

1 Corinthians 13 I’ll be coming back to a little later. Remember we said that 1 Corinthians 13 defines love. Love is patient. Love is kind. And the word kind means useful. The deacon is given to make you more useful in terms of God’s service in the army of God. Okay.

So the officer serves the elder. The deacon serves the elder by not letting him be distracted. The deacon serves the church by organizing them, equipping them for battle and the officer serves God by managing in conformity to his law. So that the deacon then also serves the church by knowing and applying God’s law in his area.

The idea is that the officers here the exemptions were specific portions of God’s word. And then the final exemption the terms of fearfulness is also then a reflection of the instruction of the priest to the congregation to the army of God not to be fearful. Point is that the deacons administer in terms of God’s word in terms of God’s law and they learn that law the way you do through personal study through hearing the exhortation of the teaching ministry of the church the elders.

And so while the elders are necessary for defining policy and teaching the word of God as it applies to these specific areas the deacons then take that teaching administer that teaching in terms of that calling and prepare the people organizationally for battle. And so they are to administer that and in so doing they serve God of course through all of this by managing in conformity to God’s law.

Very important here that the deacons as the officers did submit themselves then to the teaching authority the eldership particularly in areas of controversy. There are areas of controversy in this church. It’s important not to take those areas of controversy make judicial pronouncements in terms of the diaconate because that’s not their facility. They’re job is to organize the church. The deacons don’t serve as judges in any sense of the word. The elders do. The deacons are administrators while the elders do the teaching and judging. And so in areas of controversy, there must be communication amongst the officers of the church and there must be submission to the authority of the teaching eldership by the diaconate as well.

Okay. So the deacon is a servant and he serves in various ways here. Now what is the application to today? Well, the walls are crumbling. In point four of your outline, I’ve got one long sentence broken up into four points. Since great walls are coming down and since the war is therefore heating up, although victory is assured, the deacons organizing the army for work is vital.

The walls are crumbling. Topical illustration of course is the Berlin Wall coming down. But if you think the Berlin Wall coming down is a big momentous affair in history, think through what kind of other walls are coming down as well. We talked about this Friday night at Richards and Doug’s Bible study. The wall between law and grace that has been erected by the church and has stood in place through much of evangelicalism for 100 years or more is coming down now. The wall between law and love, separating law from love and love from law and ending up with some sort of sloppy agape version of love without reference to God’s law, that wall is coming down now.

The wall between the law and the spirit, somehow the spirit-filled walk has nothing to do with the law of God is coming down. And people realize now that the Old Testament said the Holy Spirit would come to write the law in our hearts to teach us that law and then to lead us into victory through the preaching of that law and the calling man in the great commission to become converted and then to obey those laws of God and all that they say and do.

These walls are coming down and by way of application then the wall between Christianity, between religion and politics is also coming down and the church of God now moves as an army into the political arena as every other arena and particularly in terms of the political arena because that is where Christ’s work is being done today. These walls are coming down.

Now it may seem in the context of this church, we know these things. But think that 30, 40 years ago, almost nobody in the church knew these things. There was no application of this. There was no calling for repentance on the part of the nation because of the violation of God’s law. There was no calling for churches to understand the word of God as it applies to all these areas of the whole Bible approach. This is a momentous affair that has far greater importance in terms of the kingdom and the reality of the world that God has created than does the Berlin Wall coming down.

Okay, it is a momentous affair. It is one we should all be rejoicing in because it means that the Holy Spirit whose job is to teach that law is now in motion in this world. It is a reduction of the Holy Spirit to see his manifestation in terms of spiritual gifts and fail to realize that he is here to teach us God’s word and to help us apply that word and his power to all that we do and to lead us then into victory.

The Holy Spirit is moving in America and the breaking down of these walls between law and love, grace, and the spirit-filled walk is an indication of that and that as is the taking of God’s word into all areas of life. This is something we should rejoice in greatly in this church as we see it happen. But it should also be something that causes us a little bit of concern. We should be rejoicing, but we should also be getting ready because when the church moves forward that way, that’s when the war heats up.

The war is being engaged now. The battle against the church is heating up. Why? Because the church is coming to life. And now there’s something that the state has to worry about in terms of asserting its sovereignty over the sovereignty of God. In other words, as the church comes to life, that provokes the wrath then of the messianic state. We are no longer content to keep our rubber duckies and to stay home in the bathtub, as it were, of our private lives.

We’re no longer content to exercise freedom of thought, but not to exercise freedom of action. We want to work. We know that the scriptures are about orthodoxy, but it’s also about orthopraxy. And if we don’t practice what we understand the word of God teaches us to, then we’re in violation of God’s law. So we’re going to take that word and not just have freedom of thought, but have freedom of action in terms of what we’re supposed to do in requirement of God’s word.

And so the state doesn’t like that. And so the war is heating up. And also the war is heating up because it’s God’s way of chastising the church to make it realize that it’s done these sins of breaking up the spirit and the law and law and love etc. God’s judgment is upon the world and as a result of that there is warfare going on. The spirit comes, the spirit burns some and baptizes others with water. And that’s what’s happening today in the context of the world.

But rest assured because victory is assured. We know that’s true. I saw I was watching The Hobbit with my son this last week and after Smaug, the great dragon is killed, the dwarves, I think it was, who are in the mountain, the men come against the dwarves and the elves come against the dwarves. They’re going to—here you got basically three good cultures and they’re all going to war together because the common enemy Smaug is out of the way now. But then just as they’re about ready to engage themselves in war, here comes the orcs and the goblins to wage war against them. And then all three of them join together.

What’s the point of that? The point of that is that as the state continues to press warfare against the church, we will see for instance the Episcopalian, the congregational and the Presbyterian distinctives get second billing as it were as we all join forces together to combat the state and indeed we may well see in terms of the global messianic state that we are in the process of seeing today and I think that’s the real message of what’s going on at Paris strike and in East Germany. It is a global humanistic state that is being envisioned but in event as that continues to wage war against the church, we may even see the three armies of Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, and Eastern Orthodoxy eventually come back together, uniting over a common understanding of salvation in Jesus Christ and of the common foe, the messianic state.

Victory is assured, and God’s judgment brings us to that victory. But although victory is assured, preparation for the battle is still necessary. What we are considering this morning, the proper role of the deacon in relationship to the army of God is, I believe, of much more importance for the warfare we are now engaged in this country than how to cast out demons or some of the other more ear-tickling aspects of spiritual warfare that are being discussed.

Because what we’re talking about across the church is calling the church back to reading the role of the deacon for equipping the army of God for the battle that is now coming upon us. The church does not have a three-man army, Dennis, Roy, and Kent. The church is the army of God, and the proper restoration of the office of deacon in the churches will prepare the church for the spiritual battle that is upon us now in this nation.

This church is the army of God and is uniquely equipped by God to teach and preach the message of the crown rights of King Jesus over many nations. We are an army moved by the spirit of the Lord, a spirit of might and power and victory, and one that is marked most importantly by service. And to this end, the special officers of the church function to organize the army of God to do the work of the ministry in all things.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you that your spirit is moving in the land and that men’s hearts are being taught again from your scriptures and from your law word. Help us, Lord God, in this church to be willing servants of you in all that we do. Help us, Father, to rejoice for the victory of Jesus Christ and for the gift of the Holy Spirit to write law upon our hearts and help us Lord God to understand the function of the special officers as to assist us in the work of the ministry that we all might go forward into combat for Jesus Christ our great head. In his name we pray. Amen.