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Hendersonville Seventh-day Adventist Church, NC

Brian Hindman

Battlefield Earth

Good morning brothers and sisters, it's a privilege to stand here before you and to present the message this morning, the Word of God.

Well our subject this morning is entitled, Battlefield Earth.

And as we get into our message, if you would just bow your heads with me as I'd like to seek the Lord in prayer.

Father in Heaven, Lord it is a privilege to be here in this church and to stand before your holy people and I pray Lord today that the message would be clear it would be from your word and that it would be empowered by the Holy Spirit to show us and tell us just what we need to know for this stage of Earth's history.

Bless us now, I am but dirt, but a jar or vessel of clay.

May the treasure of the gospel shine forth in my own experience as I too am changed by the message which you have given to me.

And I pray this prayer in Jesus' name, amen.

The location was Long Island, New York, And the event was the Revolutionary War.

Back in 1776 in August, just 1 month after the United States had declared independence from Great Britain, we were in jeopardy.

The United States was in jeopardy because the British sent a huge fleet of soldiers and a huge navy of ships to come and attack New York City, this key critical location, and to take an overwhelming, which attempted to be our first nation's capital.

And so George Washington, who had been placed in charge of the soldiers, knew the British were gonna come here, and he did his best to try and defend New York City.

But it didn't take long, because the Americans were outnumbered, depending on the estimates that you look at, 3 to 1, possibly 4 to 1.

We're looking at about 40, 000 British soldiers against about 10, 000 US untrained, or not at this time, the United States doesn't exist.

They are just green troops that are not really prepared, they're not battle tested, and they did their best to try and hold off the British but it didn't take long.

The British came in with a 3 pronged attack and they made their way and surrounded, virtually surrounded the Patriot forces and had their backs pushed up against the East River of where New York City is located.

Well, as their backs were against the river and the British decided, well, they can't go anywhere, we have the the channel and the shipping lanes controlled by our Navy, we have an overwhelming amount of soldiers, we'll lay siege to this location and we'll just starve them out and we'll slowly just force them to surrender.

And this is our whole army essentially at that point that existed.

If they are trapped, if they are surrounded and if they surrender, you can forget about the rest of the events of the Revolutionary War?

Well, you know that things turned out a little differently, or maybe hopefully, so what happened?

Well, Washington was actually, if you study any books about him, I've read biographies of him, he actually had a strong, firm faith in God.

And a lot of that was attributed really to his mother, by the way.

The influence of a godly mother is tremendous.

And we're told that an inspiration, that it was largely his character was shaped by his mother.

But that's another sermon for another time.

And Washington, though, pleaded and sought with the Lord for help.

He came up with a plan to try and evacuate his army under cover of darkness at night time right under the nose of the British soldiers across the East River without them knowing it.

There was no other option, and so he came up with this plan and said, we're gonna have to have people on the perimeter where they have what are called picket lines.

They're gonna have to remain in their location because If they all retreat as the pickets, those are the soldiers in between the armies, they always are kind of skirmishing.

And if they remove themselves, that is the patriots, then the picket lines will be wondering, well where did they go?

And so we have to keep them in position at any rate Washington has this plan as they begin to retreat This is 1 month in August 29 August 30 of 1776 in darkness They began to get all the possible boats small fishing boats every vessel that could be found and rummaged up there amongst the Patriots, and started to evacuate 10, 000 soldiers.

All the soldiers were instructed, don't talk, keep silent, because we can't allow any noise to possibly give away any talking that we are moving out of our location and we're trying to evacuate and get across the East River and to the mainland of the United States and then of course be able to escape.

And so all night long this plan goes on And it's interesting to notice that as the day began to dawn, there were still many thousands of soldiers that had not actually made it across safely.

And if the lights come on, as it were, they would be sitting ducks.

You're trying to escape, you're not in a battle formation, and the British would see that, pounce, they'd be wiped out.

But it's interesting that a mysterious fog began to come into the area.

And it began to, this is at sunrise, a fog came in and covered all the area where the Americans were retreating.

So much so, this fog was so thick, they said, some eyewitnesses said, you could barely see, you know, 5, 6 feet in front of you.

And as they're retreating across, an eyewitness account says, the last person to step on the last boat was none other than George Washington himself.

He would not get on the boat until all of his soldiers were safe and secure on their way to the other side.

And as he stepped on that boat, and the fog began to raise, and the British began to wake up and look around and start pushing around for the picket lines and noticing that they too were gone, they found to their surprise the whole American army had vanished right under their nose, right within their grasp seemingly, and lived to fight another day.

You know, it must have been amazing to fight in the Revolutionary War, to fight for freedom, for independence, for taxation with representation, as they tell it in the history books, that they were fighting because they wanted to be represented to be with their taxes.

But did you know, and I think you do know, because our Sabbath school quarterly this next quarter is on, in times and this morning we looked at an understanding of the great controversy that you and I are born on a battlefield.

And we read in the Bible that we're actually engaged in a war fighting against much greater, much more significant and important things than just the United States colonists were back then.

Yes, those were important principles, but we're fighting for the highest principles, heaven-ordained principles of truth and righteousness.

And if you have your Bibles, let's take a look at just a cursory view.

I'll go quickly through some of these early points that relate to the war that we are fighting.

In Revelation chapter 12, this was actually in your Sabbath school study lesson, and I'm assuming you read the whole chapter because that was 1 of the things that we were supposed to do.

But I'm just going to highlight 3 verses in Revelation chapter 12, verses 7 through 9.

And right from the beginning of these verses, it tells us, and there was war, where?

A war broke out, a controversy, a battle in heaven itself.

And this war that broke out in heaven, it continued, it says, Michael, which is a name for Jesus, and his angels, fought against the dragon, which is a symbol for Satan.

And the dragon fought, and his angels, and prevailed not.

"'Neither was there a place found any more in heaven, and the great dragon was cast out, ' and here we have an identification of that dragon, that old serpent called the devil and Satan, which deceives just the wicked." That's not what it says.

"'Which deceiveth, ' the policy of deception, is to try and deceive the whole world, good and bad, wicked or righteous.

The policy of deception is to try and deceive the whole world.'" It says, "'He was cast out into' where?

"'The earth and His angels were cast out with Him.

So we have a battle on our hands, and it is a battle between truth and error, righteousness and unrighteousness, good and evil, and we all have a part and a factor to play in this battle.

Now, the battle was limited in the Garden of Eden to just the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

But when our parents, Adam and Eve, chose to disobey God and chose to sin against God and allow for a greater entrance of sin into this world, we find ourselves in a much more perilous situation and condition with the devil having greater access to our hearts, our minds than he ever had before when he was restricted in the Garden of Eden.

Notice what it says in 1 Peter 5 verse 8.

It says, 1 Peter 5 verse 8, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil as a what?

As a roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom he may what?

It is the idea, it is the work and policy of the devil to devour people.

Our eternal salvation, our souls are on the line in this battlefield.

This is a life and death struggle between good and evil.

And we all are in this battle, and we have a part to play.

Ephesians 6, verse 12 says, in this chapter of Ephesians, where it describes putting on the armor of God.

It says, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, not against human beings, it's not a physical battle, but against what?

Against spiritual wickedness, against the forces of evil in heavenly realms.

We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers.

We are wrestling against none other than the devil and his angels, and we all must make a choice in this matter.

Not to choose is a choice to be on the devil's side.

To put it plainly, not to choose to put on the Christian warfare and fight vigilantly and actively against Satan is to just follow and coast along with Satan and really be in his camp fighting on his side.

It says in Joshua 24 verse 15, and if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you when whom you will serve.

It is a choice and a decision to make daily to serve and follow God.

Choose you this day whom you will serve, and he goes on and says, Joshua says, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, the other side of the Red Sea crossing in Egypt, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land ye dwell, that is the current land of Canaan, which still had Canaanites and idolatrous worship there.

And then he concludes by saying, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

We are choosing to put our allegiance on following the Lord.

So the question for us today, have we put our allegiance fully to Jesus Christ?

I pledge allegiance to the Lamb in terms of giving my loyalty, my love, and my support.

Not because it's some boring or difficult requirement, but because God has called us to be soldiers in His army because He loves us.

At what age are soldiers usually chosen and brought about to be in the military?

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Battlefield Earth

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