If there was ever a lesson we must learn from the disaster of Afghanistan it is this, victory comes from motivation from within not support from without. The Afghan army had the firepower and support from arguably the greatest military power on earth so why did they fall quicker than a snowman in a sudden heatwave? Pres Biden rightly said it was because they had no will to fight.
My great fear is that we in Western democracies will cave in to the ever constant assault on our freedoms and values by the Socialist Marxist forces of the left. This ideology has been marching through our universities for years undermining steadily the Judaeo-Christian values that have been the bulwark of Western democracy. The important thing to realise is that there is a powerful spiritual dimension to this, in short, it is a revolt against God. Karl Marx revealed his allegiance with the enemy of God in his dark poem. “The Fiddler”. “With Satan I have struck my deal. He chalks the signs, beats time for me, I play the death march fast and free”. We may feel outgunned and out numbered, but take heart from the lessons of history. Gideon with just 300 defeated the great Midianite Army. Fast forwarding to 1948, the small Israeli army armed with not much more than Lee Enfield rifles, defeated six heavily armed Arab armies.
In a different arena men like Wilberforce, Shaftesbury and other slavery abolitionists, although greatly outnumbered, took on the might of the prevailing powers and won. There is a common dynamic here and it is this, they all had an unshakeable belief in the rightness of their cause and above all a willingness to fight to the end. They did not live with their heads in the clouds, they knew that “faith without works is dead”. In America they sent petitions to Congress, ran for political office and inundated people of the South with anti-slavery literature. Wilberforce did the same in the UK parliament.
The great cosmic battle between good and evil is spilling out onto the stage of human history as never before. It is so easy to get conditioned by the Marxist influences which are designed to do just that, condition us slowly but surely to accept their Godless worldview. Marxists know how to manipulate a crisis to achieve their own agenda, I believe we are seeing this happening before our eyes.
We are at war
Rod Dreher remarked, “The future of Christianity depends on the ability of believers to find effective ways of living out our faith in an increasingly hostile and chaotic culture.” Does this just mean we turn the other cheek and accept our lot? I think not, the New Testament uses military terminology to a great extent in describing the Christian life.
We have lost the ability to travel freely, meet with loved ones even at a funeral, and even when State borders are open, passports will no doubt be required. Religious freedom is also under attack, as the “left” see that “freedom” as code for anti-gay bigotry and are campaigning strongly against it. Our ANZAC history and indeed history in general tells us freedom comes at a cost. The apostle Paul encourages us to “Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men and be strong.”
If we lose the will to fight, all will be lost. That is the lesson of Afghanistan.
