102 - Freedom Isn't Free [B]

Freedom Isn't Free - 2 Kings 18:1-7; 2 Chron. 29-31

Principles from the Battle of Iwo Jima

1. 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. 
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.

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