Many in the congregation have yet to do National Service (NS), but do we know why it’s necessary for Singaporean men to train for 2 years and to go back for several years of reservists?

In the last few in camp trainings, the speaker remembers that they’d invite a General to address the entire camp. Reason being the General would explain the importance of serving NS to all who had gone back to work - we should not take the peace we have in Singapore for granted. Then he’d start to tell stories about Lieutenants he trained with in the last who have become Generals. During training, the foreign Lieutenants were rather antagonistic. Some would jump up on the table and say, “Why should we listen to the Singaporean?!” The General reminded them it was these Lieutenants they trained with that are now the Generals of other countries. Therefore we must never take the peace we have for granted. Instead we should always remain vigilant.

As Christians, are we equally vigilant? Are we aware that a spiritual warfare is happening around us? That requires us to prepare, guard and equip ourselves so we can protect ourselves? Not only to defend, but also to conquer.

Paul said that he fought the good fight and encouraged Timothy to be a good soldier of Christ, because as Christians, we are constantly in a spiritual battle. But who are our enemies? Who do we fight against?

A reminder: one enemy we face is actually our own flesh. This body of ours has a tendency to sin; it has lust and desires counter to what God wants to do. Vices in the world can be very tempting. In our bodies, we also form bad habits we may not be aware of and naturally do.

Rom 8:6-8
To be carnally minded (to only think about our flesh) is enmity to God. But he also reminds us in v37 “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”
Christ has already promised that we will be conquerors, and we can overcome our flesh.

Another enemy of ours is the devil, a roaring lion seeking whom he May devour. Therefore Paul encourages us in Eph 6:10-11 (read). This is a reminder/call for us that the devil is someone we should withstand by putting on the whole armour of God. The devil tempts people. The devil creates lies so we aren’t able to discern between what’s truth and what’s falsehood. Therefore we need to equip ourselves with the whole armour of God. The devil is the other enemy we must face.

The third enemy is the world, the people in it, and the way the people think. Paul encourages us not to be conformed to the world. Instead we must be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Instead of being swept by the principles and false ideas of the world, our duty is to capture people, subject their thoughts to submit to Jesus Christ.

2 Cor 10:4-5
The world will have its own ideas/principles and ways that slowly creep into our minds. Not only are we supposed to be victorious, to not allow these things to affect or change us, through our weapons which are spiritual, we should bring other people’s thoughts to be subject to Christ.

One of the ways we hence have to face the world is to preach to the people around us, so they can come to the true knowledge of God and be subject to God.

The three arenas we must fight in/enemies we face:

1. Our flesh
2. The devil
3. The world and it’s ideologies

But in these arenas, are we compromisers or conquerors? Do we surrender halfway or do we gain absolute victory?

The book of Joshua will be studied to learn a bit more about compromisers and conquerors.

Joshua 1-12 show the people of Israel moved as an army and conquered as a whole united front. As an entire army, they attacked Jericho. After that, they were able to be victorious over Ai. And then there was a sudden campaign where they had to attack city after city. Then there was a northern campaign which was longer. So as a whole they were generally victorious, winning battle after battle.

Joshua 13 continues to talk about how the land would be distribute amongst the tribes. For example, the 2.5 tribes would get the land on the east of river Jordan. Joshua 14 onwards talks about the distribution of land on the western side of river Jordan. When these tribes were allocated the land, the land wasn’t fully conquered yet. As an individual tribe, they were to sweep/mop up the enemies that were left. And it is at this juncture that we see tribes that were compromisers and tribes that were conquerors.

Joshua 15:63
The tribe of Judah weren’t absolute victors but compromisers. The Jebusites continued to remain in the land, and did so all the way until the time of David where he conquered and gained the fortress of Jerusalem. Let us take note that Judah could not drive out the Jebusites. One way people compromise is because they could not overcome their weakness.

Joshua 16:10
The tribe of Ephraim were compromisers; they didn’t gain absolute victory. “They did not drive out be Canaanites”, the Bible recorded.

What type of compromise is worse? Judah who COULD not drive out or Ephraim who DID not drive out?

If we think about “COULD not”, it means you have tried but were unsuccessful. This means the people of Judah tried to drive out the Jebusites. But likely because their fortress was too sturdy, the people of Judah couldn’t drive them out. We know this is the case because during the time of David when he was going to attack Jerusalem, the Jebusites were so proud, they said even the lame and blind can repel their attacks, because Jerusalem was fortified, a strong fortress (2 Sam).

So Judah wasn’t able to get the enemy out. We can compare it to what the people of Manasseh did.
Judah 17:12
The people of Manasseh tried but also couldn’t drive out the Canaanites (who were determined to dwell in the land). This means the Canaanites must’ve dug in and we’re determined to stay in the land, to the point Manasseh concluded they weren’t able to destroy the Canaanites.

If we try to apply this idea to ourselves and think about the various arenas we have to fight in - our flesh, devil, world - sometimes when we’re trying to overcome or break a bad habit, there’ll be a backlash. And this backlash will be strong. So much so it feels harder to stop in that particular vice. For example smoking. We want to stop and go cold turkey? We feel the urge immediately. Or when we start to preach the gospel and we say certain things and hear the opposition who seems to be very antagonistic towards us.

This would be the case of the enemies digging in, determined to dwell and remain in the land. At that time, if we give up, then we’d just like Judah and Manasseh who weren’t able to drive out the enemies.

Now let’s consider Ephraim who DID not drive out the enemies. Joshua 16:10 tells us the reason why they DID not drive out the enemies. Sometimes when we don’t do certain things, it’s because we have actively calculated we don’t want to incur certain costs and so decide not to drive out the enemies. For the case of Ephraim, they saw that the Canaanites could become forced labourers. Interestingly this is what Manasseh did as well when they grew strong (Joshua 17:13).

Those who DID not drive them out are worse (than those who COULD not drive them out). They think “because of my wisdom, this is the best course of action”. “Instead of losing the precious lives of our people when we go to war, if we keep them they can potentially become resources to serve us and become our labourers.” So they must have analysed the situation and weighed the costs and benefits, they decided this was the best course of action. There’s danger if we compromise in this particular way. Especially if the cost benefit analysis only takes physical things into account, only things that benefit our bodies, e.g. how much money we can gain from such an arrangement.

An example of such a compromise:
We know that many nations in the world have started to legalise the use of drugs like cannabis. We thank God that Singapore continues to remain steadfastly strict against drugs. But how did the other nations come to the conclusion it’s better to legalise drugs like cannabis? Because they used an economic standpoint. They used cost benefit analysis while only looking at things of the world, things that would benefit the physical body. So the argument these nations use are like what happened to America in 1930-23 there was the great prohibition where drinking alcohol was made legal. But because people still wanted to fulfil this need, a ‘black market’ was set up; people brewed their own alcohol. Soon after that, the mafia started to get into the action of selling illegal alcohol. So they would distill and sell alcohol, resulting in gangsters making a lot of money. But because the gangsters wanted more sales, there were turf wars and a lot of people died. So these countries say, “In those days when the manufacturing of the alcohol was in the black market and not controlled, many people were poisoned. When the prohibition ended, the manufacturing of alcohol is controlled and became so much safer to drink. The Mafia no longer made money off selling alcohol and there were less turf wars and less people died. It’s better for society as a whole.”

If we only do a cost benefit analysis by looking at things of the world; things that are physical, we’d probably buy into the argument of the other nations of legalising drugs as well.

Jesus does want us to do a cost benefit analysis before we make decisions. We shouldn’t anyhow do things without weighing the costs. We need to be fully aware of the decisions we make.

Luke 14:26-32
Here Jesus tells us that if we want to be His disciples, we need to be clear about the cost of being His disciple. Whether we’re willing to pay the price and receive what we’re supposed to receive after paying the price. Jesus gives the example of deciding to build a tower and a king deciding whether to go to war. When Jesus tells us to do a cost benefit analysis, it doesn’t just concern the physical, it concerns our very souls. If we’re clear about this, we will never compromise.

We’ve read about two types of people who compromise:

1. The type that tried but the enemy remains strong so they compromised
2. The type that weighs costs and benefits according to the values of the world, failing to consider the soul. Ultimately they chose to leave the enemies thinking they can become their labourers.

Being compromisers is a very sad state to be. Instead we ought to be more than conquerors as God says we are.

Let’s look at an example of a conqueror.
Joshua 14:6-12, 14
Caleb was able to be a conqueror. What makes Caleb so special? What is Caleb’s identity? What’s our first impression of him? Perhaps we recall him as someone who was so old but willing to fight. But in this passage, there’s a description of Caleb that repeats over and over again which the speaker reckons is more characteristic of Caleb. v8, 9, 14 tells us Caleb was a man who WHOLLY followed God. It was a COMPLETE following of God, not a half-hearted following of God.

That was the reason why he was able to conquer. Because he completely entrusted his life and direction to God. We see this description in Numbers and Deuteronomy as well. There’re around 5 mentions that Caleb WHOLLY followed the Lord. Age and the passage of time didn’t diminish his resolve to complete what God had entrusted him. For 45 years, he continued to hold on to God’s promise and so he asked Joshua for the land allotted to him.

To wholly follow the Lord is to continue to fully trust in and follow His words and promises regardless of the time that has passed. Continue to hold on to the promise that God has given.

To wholly follow the Lord also means to do so regardless of the difficulties we face.
Joshua 14:12
Caleb asked of this mountain and we always know that when trying to conquer something above you, the one on higher ground has the advantage because they don’t need to compete against gravity. The challenge wasn’t just the mountain but also the Anakim described as giants (which is why the 10 spies said they were like grasshoppers to them). Furthermore, the cities were greatly fortified. Look at the challenges before Caleb. If we compare it to what the people of Judah did when they COULD not drive out the enemies because they endeavoured to stay in the land, Caleb faced giants, a mountain, great fortified cities, still he believed in God and that this was a promise given to him and so he would be able to drive them out.

Caleb wasn’t the only one who had such a faith in God. Caleb was able to encourage others also to have the faith to conquer the land. In Joshua 15:16 he promised that whoever was able to attack Kirjath Sepher, he would give his daughter to him. Caleb didn’t want to be the only leader, he wanted others to step up too.

Do we fully trust and follow the Lord? Then regardless of how long it takes, we’ll hold on to the promise. Regardless of how strong the enemy may be opposing us, we trust we’ll be able to overcome and that we will be victorious. And at the same time we encourage others to fully trust in God and attain the promises God has given us.

Are we compromisers? Or are we conquerors?

God has already promised us the victory. The question is: are we fully trusting in Him?