From August of 1942 to February of 1943 the world’s deadliest battle raged in a city on the bank of the Volga river in the country of Russia, Stalingrad. Over 2 million soldiers and civilians died during that time when the German army attempted to take the city from the Soviets. In the middle of that city is a famous fountain, famous due to the photograph that was taken during the battle. It is called the Barmaley fountain and its main feature is a circle of children dancing around a playful crocodile. The fountain stood in the center of a square in front of the main railroad station. This square and fountain would be one of the first images travelers would see upon leaving the station and was situated in a park-like setting. It was a place for people to congregate and for children to play. A playground if you will. What many people didn’t know was they were to be witnesses and casualties in an epic battle for survival for themselves, their city and their country. It would be the battleground that would be enigmatic of the war they were all in, whether they wanted to or not.
Such it is with those of us who are followers of Christ. We find ourselves in a war but oftentimes we are not fully convinced of that fact. We are more focused on the fun and frolic of the playground than in the harsh realities of battle. A. W. Tozer puts it this way, “Men think of the world, not as a battleground but as a playground. We are not here to fight, we are here to frolic. We are not in a foreign land, we are at home. We are not getting ready to live, we are already living, and the best we can do is to rid ourselves of our inhibitions and our frustrations and live this life to the full.” Ouch. When I read that it gave me a reason to pause and to consider how I’m viewing my time on this earth. Am I looking to get all I can out of this life? Is that my focus? Do I really consider myself a stranger and a sojourner in this world? How should I live differently if these things are true? Paul says in Acts 20:24, “but I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself so that I may finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God.” Paul knew he was on the battleground and was willing to give his life for the cause of Christ. Now I may not be in such physical danger but how important is my life, my comfort, my retirement, my time, etc. Am I held back by those things? They are not bad in and of themselves but where do they land on my value list? I think that as we get older and as we go through difficult times and we turn to gaze upon Jesus, God loosens our grip on the things of this world. As the hymn states, “the things of this world grow strangely dim.” But we must submit to this purging in our lives or we face the real danger of becoming quite comfortable in this world that is not our home. One way of noting if we have settled down in this life is to ask ourselves: how often do I long for my heavenly home? Or I can’t imagine living anywhere else than in this world, and heaven isn’t that appealing. Or what is my attitude towards the world? Do I go along to get along? Questions like these can be unsettling. I know they are to me, because they often show me where my heart really is at, and it is at those moments I must confess my wrong thinking and change my thinking and actions to line up with God’s word.
We live in a battleground, all one has to do is look around at the decay of our society, our morals and our values to know a war is underway. We must have an understanding and conviction that lines up with the truth of God’s word if we are to navigate the bombed-out landscape that is our culture. “A right view of God and the world to come requires that we have also a right view of the world in which we live and our relation to it. So much depends upon this that we cannot afford to be careless about it.” – A.W. Tozer
It is no small thing that the theme of this year’s Mega Kids Camp was “Keepers of the Kingdom”, and in that theme a phrase that was often put to the children to recite was “decide your side”. There are two kingdoms at war: the kingdom of darkness ruled by Satan, and the kingdom of light which the Creator God rules over. You are in one or the other, there is no neutrality. James puts it this way: “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives so that you may spend it on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” (James 4:1-4) There are only two sides and we have to decide which one we are on. There is no middle ground; we can’t just “sit this one out.” We are involved whether we believe it or not, just like those in Stalingrad those many years ago.
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