By Rev Nicholas Sykes

We learn from the news every day that we are under attack of some kind; for instance, terrorists wage wars from east to west. The benign tropical climate of our region also, we learn, takes on a nasty aspect and turns to attack mode from time to time, especially at this time of the year.

Times come in a person’s life, too, when he is attacked by diseases of various sorts. In the middle of a family argument a man and a woman consider they are being attacked by their loved ones, and sometimes too we are attacked by the forgetfulness or perhaps the condemnation of our own minds.

For many people, their workplace is not a very happy one, or there is in the air the danger of being laid off or reduced benefits, and they feel threatened. It often seems to us that we have lots of opportunity in life, but we just can’t seem to get things right. And then, for many, the blame game takes over.

Taken as a whole, the Scriptures suggest that in this life we cannot realistically hope for an elimination of such attacks. They will always come in one form or another: it is part of our life as fallen human beings in a fallen world. God’s Word shows us, however, that there is a way of dealing with this circumstance that the baptised people of God are called to engage in. The way I am talking about has to do with a vital relationship with God.

Indeed there are many other ways than this of dealing with attacks. Governments typically refer to the legal status of their actions under legislation when they answer their attackers. The underlying theory is that legislation will have a universal agreed legitimacy, which will be agreed to by all, whether Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, animist, or those claiming to be without faith. Yet what we believe about the rights and wrongs of a situation will be affected, sometimes radically, by our basic belief and in particular, by our theology.

Having a true understanding of what is the right thing in all cases is dependant upon what we believe at the deepest levels. Those people who caused planes to crash into the Twin Towers, or who caused a plane to crash at Lockerbie, Scotland believed that what they were doing was right. We believe that all such acts of terrorism are wrong. Why do we believe that at the deepest level? Not because of any international agreements, but because our consciences agree with what is revealed to us by the Word of God and the Holy Spirit.

In Joshua chap 24 verses 14-18 the great leader Joshua challenges the people of Israel concerning their deepest levels of belief. Do they vitally believe, he asks, in the God of their fathers, who brought them from bondage to freedom and did great signs and preserved them? Or will they depart from that belief and adopt the beliefs of their own ancestors earlier than Abraham, or perhaps belief in the gods of the land of Egypt in which they were enslaved, or perhaps the gods of the Canaanite and Amorite areas in which they had settled?

At no time, was it ever suggested that these were alternative manifestations of the God who had delivered them. Because of this distinction, already there was a huge difference between the way of life of the Israelite peoples and those that surrounded them. It was obvious that if the Israelites succumbed to the pressures of the local belief-systems, their way of life would be swamped by their neighbours also.

Such warnings were delivered repeatedly by the Old Testament prophets. And in our own time such things are very little different. The attack on the whole Western way of life has increased and become focussed. We will not withstand the attacks by legislation only or by strange religious beliefs. Generations of Israelites succumbed often to the lure of such things, so that we might be warned by their experience.

“The whole armour of God” about which St. Paul spoke and told us to put on (Ephesians 6: 13), was a reference to places in the Old Testament where it is said that God Himself put on His armour and fought for His people. In the New Covenant we have become privileged to be members of the Body of Christ, and Christ is the Lord, the Son of God. So the armour of God is not what He has dispensed to us to wear separately from Him.

If we wear it and use it, it is He who is wearing and using it, for His purposes in this world. It is used defensively and offensively, the shield of faith and the sword of the Word of God, for example. This is a picture of a vital identification at the deepest level between the Lord and His people, and between commitment and action. This is the commendable ethical basis for a response to all attacks.

For commentary, information and devotional material see www.churchofenglandcayman.com and www.anglicansatprayer.org