You’re in a Spiritual Battle

‘...Be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.’ Ephesians 6:10 NIV

In 1917, Aqaba seemed impregnable. Any army approaching its port would have to face huge naval guns. Behind it in every direction lay barren, waterless, inhospitable desert. To the east lay the deadly ‘anvil of the sun’, the hot sands along what is now the border between Saudi Arabia and Jordan. The Turks believed Aqaba to be immune to attack, but they were wrong. Lawrence of Arabia led a force of irregular Arab cavalry across the ‘anvil of the sun’. Together they rallied support among the local people. On July 6, 1917, they swept into Aqaba from the north, from the blind side. A climactic moment of the film Lawrence of Arabia is the long, panning shot of the Arabs, their camels and horses, with Lawrence at their head, galloping past the gigantic naval guns that are completely powerless to stop them. Why? Because the guns were facing the wrong way! Aqaba fell and the Turkish hold on Palestine was broken, to be replaced by British mandate and eventually by the nation of Israel. The Turks failed to defend Aqaba because they made three mistakes: they did not know their enemy; they did not know their weakest points; they did not have the right weapons. There’s a lesson here: (1) You must know your enemy. Satan will downplay, or even deny his own existence to convince you that ‘you’ are the problem. That way you’ll fight the flesh in the power of the flesh and lose every time. (2) You must know your weakest points. Be honest. Fortify yourself before the attack comes. (3) Know your weapons. Armed with God’s Word, protective prayer and Christian fellowship, you’re more than a match for the enemy.