Freedom Isn't Free - 2 Kings 18:1-7; 2
Chron. 29-31
Principles from the Battle of Iwo Jima
- We need to understand the defensive thinking of
the enemy. That is always important in any battle in any military
campaign. Sun Zu said that we need to know our enemy. We need to
understand the strategy and tactics of Satan in the spiritual warfare in
which we are engaged. The Japanese understood that they were not going to
get off the island alive. Their aim was for every man to kill 10 Americans
before they died themselves. They understood what was at stake and that
they must face the battle as total conflict with no quarter. This is true
with the enemy that we face in the spiritual warfare; it is all or nothing
for Satan and his forces. He is going to use every trick, everything he
has at his disposal in order to influence human history to his advantage,
and to attack and destroy the witness and effectiveness of believers. If
we do not recognize the kind of enemy that we are facing and what his
objective is in terms of total warfare, then we will easily be defeated.
As is true in physical life and physical warfare we just don’t want to
believe about some people, and we don’t want to believe the worst about
Satan. We see this in the United States today where there are still way too many people
who do not want to come to grips with the thinking of radical Islam. And
even though there may be large numbers of Muslims who do not buy into the
thinking of the radical Islamists—if we look at Germany in the 1920s there
were not many Germans who bought into the philosophy and thinking of the
Nazis, and if we look at the Russians there were not that many people that
bought into the thinking of Lenin or Stain; it was just a minority of
power brokers that rose to a position of control and influence that shaped
the thinking and the direction of the rest of that society—if we do not
come to understand who is the most influential, who is getting the most
attention, and who is attracting recruits, as the radical Islamists are
with each perceived victory that they have, then we will easily be overrun
by a declared enemy of western civilization and the United States. The
same thing happens with Satan. Evil is a product of arrogance: arrogance
is blinding and tenacious. Arrogance clouds our thinking.
- The
need to completely conquer the enemy’s stronghold. This is a principle
laid out in 2 Corinthians 10:4, 5 NASB “for the weapons of our
warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of
fortresses. {We are}
destroying speculations [ideologies, religions, philosophies] and every
lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and {we are} taking
every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” Part of total warfare
is that we have to destroy all of the fortifications that the enemy has in
our own thinking.
- One of the things that we have to do in order to
understand that is how the enemy has constructed their defenses. We have
to study the enemy to some degree so that we are able to not be taken by
his deception and wiles. During the time of the build-up on Iwo Jima the Japanese had built hundreds of underground
bunkers and an enormous network of tunnels underneath the volcanic ash—16
miles of tunnels, 1500 caverns. Visually they had built over 300
fortresses and that expanded to 450 during the bombing campaign that
preceded the invasion. These tunnels meant that the Japanese defenders
never had to come above ground. Most marines that fought on Iwo Jima during the 36 days of that campaign never saw
the enemy, except for those who were firing out of caves or bunkers. So
they were fighting a largely unseen enemy. That is true for the believer
today. Ephesians 6:12 NASB “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood,
but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of
this darkness, against the spiritual {forces} of wickedness in the
heavenly {places.}” We do not see our enemy; therefore we have to learn
what the principles of spiritual warfare are: we have to understand how to
pray and what to pray for, and we have to trust in God as the overall
Commander-in-Chief and follow His strategic commands that are given to us
in the Scriptures.
- From the fortress that the Japanese had on top of
the mountain the Japanese had complete control of the beaches, complete
control of the island, and that is why it was so necessary for the marines
to capture it at the beginning of that campaign. This is where the company
of the flag raisers landed, at that end of the beach, and why they were
given that particular mission of taking the flag to raise on top of the
mountain. They recognized the principle that they had to control the high
ground if they were going to protect their fellow soldiers so that they
could be successful in the warfare. So we learn from that is that it is
important to take the high ground. The high ground in the spiritual
conflict was taken almost 2000 years ago by the Lord Jesus Christ. We are
told in passages such as Hebrews 12:2 NASB “fixing our eyes on
Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him
endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand
of the throne of God” and 1 Peter 3:22 NASB “who is at the
right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities
and powers had been subjected to Him.” The Lord Jesus Christ, when He
ascended to heaven after He had been resurrected and been forty days on
the earth, He was seated at the right hand of God the Father. And it is
from that position that He as the head of the church exercises His role as
Commander-in-Chief in overseeing the spiritual conflict that is unique to
this age and time. It is from that seat at the right hand of the Father
that He will descend when He returns at the second coming to finally
defeat Satan, the Antichrist and the false prophet and to set up His
kingdom upon the earth. In terms of His deity He was always over the
angels but in terms of His humanity, because of His victory at the cross,
He is elevated to a position of authority over the angels and over the
authorities and invisible powers that are involved in spiritual warfare.
He took the high ground. The flag had to be taken to the top of the
mountain on Iwo Jima so that the marines along the beach would
recognize that the high ground had been taken, and that this would then
encourage them. The great application for that for believers in Christ is
that we see others in the body of Christ who have victories in their
spiritual life. That encourages us because we all face very similar kinds
of battles and struggles.
- We are to encourage one another and be involved
in a teamwork in this whole spiritual conflict that we are involved in; we
must care for one another. Many times in the Scripture we are told to encourage
one another, strengthen one another, pray for one another; we are to come
together in the body of Christ and worship together.
- It was a time of tremendous horror for the men
who had to fight their way across the island of Iwo Jima—6,821 died, 19,270 were wounded during the 36
days of battle and that included three of the men who raised the flag. The
principle that we learn from that is that freedom is purchased with blood.
We do not have the freedoms that we have apart from those who are willing to
fight and die for those freedoms because there are always those who seek
to take those freedoms away from us.
In our study in 2 Kings we
have focused on the rededication of the temple and the sacrifices under
Hezekiah. Blood was poured out and used to cleanse the altar. We need to think
about the juxtaposition of those ideas. The blood was used to cleanse the
altar. How much blood is used when we clean things? In the cleansing of the
temple sacrifices were made, and not only did they have to remove a lot of the
junk and the pagan idols that been put there under Ahaz but they had to come in
and rededicate and reconsecrate all of the articles of furniture inside the
temple. That involved a number of sacrifices because they would go in and then
sprinkle the sacrifices on the altar, the candlestick, the incense altar, the
ark of the covenant. Beyond that we see in passages such as 2 Chronicles 29:21
that after cleansing the temple and when they are rededicating it they brought
in seven bulls, seven rams, seven lambs and seven male goats for a sin offering
for the kingdom, for the sanctuary and for Judah. So there were 28 animals that
were brought in for that sin offering and that would have produced about 113
gallons of blood, about 525 gallons of gastro-intestinal content that had to be
removed. All of those animals would have been skinned in the process and the
hides used for something. Then in 2 Chronicles 29:32 we read that following
that, NASB “The number of the burnt offerings which the assembly
brought was 70 bulls, 100 rams, and 200 lambs; all these were for a burnt
offering to the LORD.” Verse 21 dealt with the initial cleansing and
dedication of the temple and then the people were brought in so they had
another series of sacrifices. Then, 2 Chronicles 29:33 NASB “The
consecrated things were 600 bulls and 3,000 sheep.” As we look at that and
begin to add these things up, the 70 bulls would have produced 11,340 gallons
of blood; the 600 bulls would have produced 97, 200 gallons of blood; the 100
rams would have produced 162 gallons of blood; the 200 lambs would have
produced about 108 gallons of blood; the 3000 sheep would have produced about
4,860 gallons of blood.
There are those who read this
in the Old Testament and think well, this God that the Israelites worshiped was
an extremely primitive God who must have had this fixation with death and
blood. Often people are somewhat revolted by this whole picture of this God who
wanted so many sacrifices. But that somewhat misses the point while it comes
very close to catching the point. That was the feeling that God wanted people
to experience: a sense of revulsion, a sense of horror, because He wanted
people to realize that that was exactly how we should respond to sin. Sin is
the source of death and suffering and sin cannot go without a penalty, and that
penalty must be paid. In the Old Testament se see that it was paid for
provisionally by these animal sacrifices, but the purpose was not only to depict
the necessity for the sacrifice and the need for God’s righteousness to be
satisfied, it was also to teach a spiritual lesson to the people on the horrors
of sin and that sin could not go unpunished.
2 Chronicles 29:34 NASB
“But the priests were too few, so that they were unable to skin all the burnt
offerings; therefore their brothers the Levites helped them until the work was
completed and until the {other} priests had consecrated themselves…” Then in
chapter thirty which takes place about a month or so later as they are going to
celebrate the Passover Hezekiah is going to bring in a sacrifice of a thousand
bulls and seven thousand sheep. The leaders will then give to the assembly
another thousand bulls and ten thousand sheep. And so we are left realizing the
enormous amount of blood that was poured out on the altar in front of the
temple. All that was designed to get out attention and to focus it forward:
that sin must be paid for and the only way that the shackles of sin can be
removed is through the shedding of blood—just like the only way that we can
have freedom is through the shedding of blood.
In John chapter eight the
Lord Jesus Christ had a confrontation with some of the Pharisees. As He was
teaching His disciples in verse 31 He said: NASB “If you continue in
My word, {then} you are truly disciples of Mine; [32] and you will know the truth, and the truth will
make you free.” The truth that He is speaking about is the truth related to sin
and related to the payment of the sin penalty. The truth that he is speaking of
is, as we see in His high priestly prayer as He is praying to the Father,
“Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.” So the Word of God,
specifically the gospel, is the source of real freedom. He met some opposition
from the religious leaders. John 8:33
NASB They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never
yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, ‘You will become free’?”
They really had missed the point, this time they were under the domination of
the Roman empire so they were not free politically. They missed the
point in relation to their own legalistic system that they were not free
spiritually because of the bondage of the system they had put upon themselves.
But ultimately they were not
free because of the bondage to sin. John 8:34 NASB
“Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is
the slave of sin. [35] The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son
does remain forever. [36] So if the Son makes you free, you will be free
indeed.” The only way to be free from the bondage of sin is through the
shedding of blood. Hebrews 9:22
NASB “And according to the Law, {one may} almost {say,} all things
are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no
forgiveness.”
Galatians 5:1 NASB
“It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and
do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.” The real freedom that counts is
the freedom that we have spiritually because of what the Lord Jesus Christ did
on Golgotha. Because He paid the penalty for sin the sin penalty
was cancelled. Paul writes in Colossians 2 “…the certificate of debt consisting
of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the
way, having nailed it to the cross.” It was paid in full.
Illustrations