Roots by the River

  “'Let all who are simple come in here!' she says to those who lack judgment” (Proverbs 9:4, 16). This quotation is taken from two different persons, Wisdom and Folly. They say it from the same place, “the highest point in the city” (9: 3, 14), and they say it to the same people, “those who lack judgment.” Then a difference takes place. Wisdom offers food, wine, and life openly and honestly, but asks for repentance (9:5-6). Folly offers a lie: "Stolen water is sweet, food eaten in secret is delicious!" (9:17), but does not ask for repentance. Wisdom gives life. Folly gives death. Folly offers present benefits which are called sweet and delicious , “but little do they know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of Sheol” (9:18). This post coordinates with tomorrow's reading in the To the Word! Bible Reading Challenge . If you are not in a daily reading plan, please join us at TotheWord.com . We would love to have you reading with us.

  If I purchase what I covet, I am no longer coveting my neighbor’s stuff. It is mine. "As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. 'Good teacher,' he asked, 'what must I do to inherit eternal life?' 'Why do you call me good?' Jesus answered. 'No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: "Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother."' 'Teacher,' he declared, 'all these I have kept since I was a boy.' Jesus looked at him and loved him. 'One thing you lack,' he said. 'Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.' At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, 'How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God !' The di...

" You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor" (Exodus 20:17). Coveting often precedes purchasing, borrowing, stealing, and cheating. The success of free enterprise and capitalism is largely based upon it. God is not opposed to free enterprise or capitalism, but He is opposed to coveting. This commandment to not covet is very close to the First and Second Commandments: "You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand [generations] of those who love me and keep my commandments" (Exod...

Because Christians have a tendency to concentrate at non-decisive points, it may be difficult to get more than a few away from places of mislocated concentration to points where decisive battles are being fought. These few may not be enough for effective concentration, but their proper deployment is a step in the right direction, a step toward economy of force. Not to send them to the decisive points would violate several principles of war; economy of force uses what is available to do the job. When there are many decisive points and the Christians are congregated away from the front, we ought to plead with God for economy of force: “And I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found none” (Ezek. 22:30). Concentration in a noncombatant area is legitimate for training, to receive power or to prepare to attack, but if concentration remains after training has been accomplished or if we di...

  "The more the concentration can be compressed into one act and one moment, the more perfect are its results." —Carl von Clausewitz, On War "And the three companies blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers, and held the lamps in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right hands to blow withal: and they cried, the sword of the Lord, and of Gideon. And they stood every man in his place round about the camp; and all the host ran, and cried, and fled." —Judges 7:20–21 Economy of force is efficiency in fighting, effectiveness in warfare. If our objective is the annihilation of the enemy army, we will take the offensive at the decisive point. In order to do this effectively, the combined application of all the principles of war is necessary. This statement by General Erfurth mentions of most of these principles: “To concentrate overwhelmingly superior members at the decisive points is impossible without strategic surprise. The assembly of the shock-group must be d...

  I would like to talk about two “Christian” expressions which are not Christian. The first is “I’ve been struggling.” This expression would be a fine one if it were used biblically: "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (Ephesians 6:12). We are in a struggle. That is a fact. However, when people use the phrase today, what they mean is, “I am losing the struggle, and there is no way to win it.” They have fallen into sin, and they are trying to make a “spiritual” excuse for their defeat. The second expression is similar: “It was a real learning experience.” That also sounds spiritual, but it really means, “The whole thing was a spiritual loss.” We come out of both situations discouraged because both the “struggle” and the “learning experience” were sins that needed to be confessed. We give them spiritual na...

  "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness" (Matthew 23:25-28). "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell a...

"I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified" (John 17:14-19). Not “of” the world but “in” it. “Sent” and “sanctified.” Although we are not of the world, we can handle being in it because we have already been sanctified, set apart. Because we are not of the world, the world hates us. Jesus prayed that the Father would protect us from the evil one, and we are to also pray that He would “deliver us from the evil one” (Matthew 6:13). We have a problem. We do not want to be hated by the world. How do we prevent it? Easy: compromise. *Excerpted from  Being Christian . To purchase, ...

  The most effective way to pursue the beaten enemy in physical war is to hit him from his unprotected flanks. If a direct pursuit is carried out, the victors run into the deadly sting of the rear guard and into many roadblocks and blown bridges, and so the retreating enemy gets away. To avoid these, the victors should travel a parallel path, outrun, and intercept the retreating enemy. To continue direct pursuit after the battle is won is to lose the retreating enemy. In order to effect an interception in the pursuit, mobility is needed. If immediate pursuit is undertaken, as many more captives as were taken in the battle can be secured. Prior to the Megiddo battle in September 1918, Allenby promised his cavalry thirty thousand prisoners of war. His staff thought he was presumptuous. In reality he ended with fifty thousand prisoners, having reduced the Turkish Seventh and Eighth armies to a few columns. Let us consider how to do spiritual pursuit. First, we must be convinced th...

  It is mandatory in the war with Satan that we have daily communication with our source of supply. We must receive from the Lord via the Word enough for all of the day’s needs, and we must store up provisions of the Word of God in our hearts and heads for any future time when we have a prolonged engagement with Satan. Daily time with the Lord is far more than our line of communication for the battle. Fellowship with him is really our objective. We were created and redeemed to walk with God. In fact, this is the reason why we are engaged in war, so that others may be brought into fellowship with him. “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you [proclaim also to you], that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1 Jn. 1:3). Our lines of communication can be overextended as well as cut. In Korea it seemed more important to implement the principle of pursuit than to keep in touch with supplies; th...

  God’s means of communication with us is the Word of God. Any other spiritual communication is subject to test by this authoritative standard. He first spoke to men through the prophets and later through His Son, and then through the apostles. We have these communications in the Bible, comprising all of our orders for the war with Satan. But the Bible is more than that. It is our complete source of supply. It is our spiritual food. Job said, “I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food” (Job 23:12). Jeremiah said, “Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts” (Jer. 15:16). The Word of God is our weapon: “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). By the Word God develops faith, ...

  Napoleon expressed the principle of communication very well. He knew that a front-line army without food and ammunition cannot fight or move, and invites defeat. Napoleon himself lost two armies, one because he neglected this principle, and the other because the English severed his line of communication. The official definition of lines of communication is: “All the routes, land, water, and air, which connect an operating military force with its base of operations, along which supplies and reinforcements move” (U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dictionary of U.S. Military Terms for Joint Usage , s.v. “lines of communication”). Adequate supplies must continue to move along these routes until a campaign is over. If an army is in pursuit, its supplies must move all the faster and farther. The principle of communication is violated whenever an enemy is allowed to cut off supplies or when an army advances too far and too fast for adequate supplies to keep up. Napoleon was defeated on b...