“Prepare for war! Wake up the mighty men…Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears…” Joel 3:9,10
When the Hamas paragliders descended upon innocent Israeli revelers on October 7th, a cataclysmic rift ripped open in its wake. The rape and brutality that followed dropped a pin on history’s pages. Evil now had a face.
Political wrangling abruptly stopped in Israel. Against the backdrop of RPG-induced explosions of homes with families huddled in their bowels, mudslinging and vain arguments over petty political differences were put to rest. Israel, for all her military prowess, had been caught completely off-guard. Bombs served as alarm clocks as clueless eyes burst open from idealism-induced slumber. Despite black coffee’s reputation, nothing sobers like war.
The media’s reaction to President Reagan calling the USSR an “Evil Empire” in 1983 was bellicose. Predictably, when George Bush called out North Korea, Iran, and Iraq as an “Axis of Evil” in his State of the Union address in 2002, news outlets also went berserk. Western “civilization”, according to our media gatekeepers, had embraced a laissez faire mindset in the aftermath of the 60’s I’m OK, You’re OK generation. The Bogeyman was no longer in vogue. Evil? How dare you malign those people over there? If you’ll just bow here at the altar of tolerance, you’ll be woke like me and realize they’re just different, or themselves victims of oppression!
Scripture has no such scruples. In Romans 12:17-13:4 Paul uses the word “evil” seven times in nine verses. He exhorts the Ephesians to not walk as fools but as wise, “redeeming the time because the days are evil” (5:16). God put two trees in the Garden, one of which was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We better learn to know the difference! No wonder Hebrews states that mature believers “by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil” (5:14).
How can we “abhor what is evil” (Rm 12:9) if we can’t identify it? How can we “prepare for war” if we have yet to realize we are under attack? Why should we beat our plowshares into swords? Is it really that bad yet? Yes!
The volume of voices crying in the wilderness increases by the hour. The foreboding goblin drumbeats are past being heard, the ground itself is quaking under our feet. Murderous hordes have already paraglided into our schools and halls of entertainment, kidnapping our vulnerable. I am not prophesying gloom and doom; I’m only acknowledging the facts. It is not hyperbolic to say “the whole world is under the control of the evil one” (1 Jn 5:19). It is the Word of God.
Friends of mine have held services in rubble-filled sanctuaries in the aftermath of bombings, walled in by mourning loved ones. Reality is be a cruel pill to swallow, but our health depends upon receiving a daily dose of this bitter tablet. Remarkably, this did not deter my friends; they only become more determined!
We mustn’t let the pill swallow us. As ominous as this impending battle may seem, in the hours before Evil’s watershed moment, Jesus’ crucifixion, our Lord exhorted His disciples: “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33).
Joel’s prophecy is eerily relevant to us in our day. We may not see paragliders in our skies yet, but beloved, we are under attack. An alarm is sounding. It may not be a whirring rocket, but for those who have an ear to hear, it is ringing loud and clear. It’s time to blow the shofar, to rouse the mighty men, and awaken a royal regiment to fall in line behind the mounted King of Kings who comes out “conquering and to conquer” (Rev 6:2).