The Fighting Father
Personal Matters
In a week when I grew increasingly conscious of my lack of energy to deeply intercede for my natural and spiritual children two people told me I was “looking angry”, a little later I sensed a leadership crisis in a Christian ministry to which I belong. I knew somehow all these things were related, but how? Then the Lord began to tell me he was a “fighting Father” and our root crisis in the Church today is a lack of godly fathers who know how to fight in the Spirit. This message represents a huge personal challenge. My natural father was a street fighter and soldier, but being left fatherless very early in life and being a convinced atheist he had no moral or spiritual capacity to fight for his son. Whilst the Lord has given me spiritual sons, I am acutely aware that I cannot claim a father figure who has laboured for my spiritual maturity. Such deprivation is not mine alone. Symptoms of the lack of fighting fathers are everywhere both in Church and wider culture.
The Failure To Fight
I have often heard a testimony from a man who attributes his coming back to God to the fervent continual prayers of a mother/grandmother. I cannot however recall anyone saying his father was “wrestling in prayer” for his salvation (Col 4:12). I have met many robust and testy men with a distinct call, gifting and vision who have not been lovingly acknowledged by a persevering “father” in God (1 Cor 4:15). This applies as much to the 5-fold ministries (Eph 4:11) as it does Christian service to the marketplace. Some years ago I heard of mass prayer meetings in the UK interceding for the return of prodigal children, but has/could this ever happen here? My wife was for years part of a regular mothers group that met to pray for their children. Why not this as a focus for a fathers group?
Americans might rally to the Pilgrim Fathers and hope that their President will be a father to the nation, but such aspirations have no home in Australia. Even more acutely, as I watch the bands of Indigenous young people roaming the streets of Belmont I know that many of them have seen fathers fighting, but how few of these deprived souls has seen a father fighting for them spiritually and morally. We have come to take it for granted that children in single parent families will predominantly take their source of identity from the commitment of their mother; but where is the stamp of the father?
The connection between the natural and the spiritual worlds of F/fathering is intense. As a younger man I came to realise that I had an underlying rage problem with my own biological father, and I have counselled many others with similar issues. A huge amount of inner effort, both within and outside Church, is consumed in resisting God the Father (Rom 1:18) and managing wounds from human fathers. Only a very rare wisdom directs all a believer’s energies to fight the false father Satan and all his evils (John 8:44). Scripture however testifies that the Father, Son and Spirit are constantly engaged in this warfare.
The God Who Fights
Observing the slaughtered Egyptians on the edge of the Red Sea the Israelites exclaim, “The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name.” (Ex 15:3). The war cry of Israel was to be, ““Arise O LORD, let your enemies be scattered.”” (Num 10:35). The ultimate weapons by which the God of the old covenant fights against all destructive forces are mercy, justice and righteousness (Isa 30:18; Amos 5:24). With the coming of Jesus divine warfare is intensified and personalised. In Jesus is a mighty force which forcefully frees men and women from the powers of darkness; the sick are healed, the hungry fed and good news is proclaimed to the poor (Luke 7:22). ““But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you”” (Matt 12:28). The “deep anger” that welled up in Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus was like that of a war horse snorting as it went into battle (John 11:33). Such holy anger broke the grip of sin, Satan and death on the life of Lazarus. God’s consummating conflict of God with evil takes place however in Jesus himself.
The sin of the world was concentrated in Christ on the cross (John 1:29) so that God’s wrath might climactically fight its guilt and power to the point of extinction. Through the sacrificial love of the cross the authority of Satan and death is rendered powerless (Heb 2:14-15; 1 John 3:8). The resurrection is the Father’s victory action in the life of the Son manifesting to all that the final End of all evil is near (Acts 2:24). Soon Jesus as the “Faithful and True” witness will return in power “to judge and make war with justice” (Rev 19:11) casting away all causes of evil forever (Matt 13:41-42). The Father, the Son and the Spirit all fight for us. What is our response?
Fighting Fathers
Jesus expectation is clear; ““The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it.”” (Luke 16:16) ““Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.”” (Luke 10:18). Paul engages evil with “the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left;” (2 Cor 6:7). When James says, “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!” (2:19) he points to a profound strategic truth. Satan fears more than anything else a community of believers unified in Christ who will storm the battlements of his evil empire inflamed with the holy anger of the Son of God (Mark 3:5).
Conclusion
Paul warned, “if the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle?” (1 Cor 14:8). It is time to confess that we have not been ready for battle, we have inadequately held up each other’s hands in the fight (Ex 17:8ff.), and we have failed to adequately acknowledge one another with the heart of the Father. The time of false peace is over. Father, Son and Spirit are calling for a cohort of fighting fathers; not insecure macho men but a company who will confess together our spiritual weakness to be the men of war to which we are called. If we allow ourselves to be threaded together into a network of forceful love for the sake of the last, lost and least Jesus will powerfully and visibly prove himself to be all that we have ever hoped him to be (Acts 1:3). In this way the world will see and believe that Jesus is the Son of God, the Son of a Father who fights for us all (John 17:21). May the Lord mercifully give us energy and unity to be one with him in such fighting love.