I love the way C.S. Lewis describes this conflict. He wrote it in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, as well as in the Problem of Pain that while we're on Earth we're part of this conflict, this sort of civil war of the heavens and earth. And we're losing. We've been summoned from the fire by the Lord Jesus Christ. Our motivations have been regenerated and we're begun the journey of lifetime sanctification (growth in spiritual terms). But we're still desperately marred by the curse of sin. Jesus has sent us to the frontlines in the war, and the Holy Spirit has taken the position of Supreme commander of the forces on Earth by the will of the President of sorts Jesus Christ who has all authority on heaven and on earth.
We've seen incredible things since the first Christian apostles fled from Jerusalem and began evangelizing ancient Greece and the Roman empire. From then until now we've seen Christianity grow from a few hundred to over 2.1 billion today claiming faith in Jesus Christ. Yet it's like as the war continues we keep losing, and pulling back, because Satan and his evil forces still have power and still draw so many untold billions into sin.
That's the state of it, and if you read into Revelation you'll see that we don't turn things around in the end, we lose and they execute the Christians and exterminate them from the Earth. And then Jesus Christ returns, and deals with the world, and the world is remade by God the Father and all is made new.
I love how Os Guinness explains it when dealing with the problem of evil, he says that becoming a Christian is similar to joining the French resistance, the Maquis, during World War II. You meet in this dark alley with a resistance leader and this resistance leader tells you that you're going to commit your life to me and we're going to fight this evil. But things are not always as they seem. The next time you see me I might be in a Nazi uniform escorting one of your buddies to the prison blocks. But you have to trust me, that we're working in an undercover manner to deal acts of sabotage to the enemy.
It reminds one of the Polish insurrection at Warsaw during World War II. I come from a proud heritage of Polish on my mother's side, and Austrian, French, and Swedish on my father's side. Unlike the consumerist post-modern globalist society around me who cares for nothing but entertaining themselves into stupification, I love and cherish my heritage. And the history of Poland is the history of chaos, suffering, and war present in the world at large.
I don't know that there's another nation on Earth that has been rolled over, conquered, taken, reconquered, subjigated, manipulated, betrayed, and even exterminated more so than Poland. The story of Poland in World War II is a terrible one. According to the Jewish Virtual Library "Of the 11 million people killed during the Holocaust, six million were Polish citizens. Three million were Polish Jews and another three million were Polish Christians." And atheists have the audacity to say that Hitler was a Christian. Hitler was a Nietzschian atheist, tried and true.
At the beginning of World War II Germany invaded Poland and captured Warsaw the capital a month later. The Polish government functioned in exile but the Polish army supported allied military operations all over the world. In Poland was a resistance movement called AK with over 140,000 fighters.
I come to 1944, US troops are sweeping across Europe crushing the Nazis. From the East the Soviet Union is pushing the Germans back toward Poland. The Poles knew that if the Soviet Union swept through and captured Warsaw they would end up under communist control after the war. So the AK began an uprising. If they could retake Warsaw from the Germans before the Soviets arrived they could make sure they had a sovereign government after the end of the war. Intense fighting began between 20,000 heavily armed german troops and about 16,000 Polish resistance fighters armed with small arms. There was a brief moment, when the Germans had been driven out, and the Polish resistance had taken Warsaw. I recall watching a documentary on the event. The civilian population was finally free, when during the whole war they had been under brutal Nazi control watching friends and family be systematically exterminated.
During those few moments they danced, and had meals, and just enjoyed a few moments of liberty. Of freedom. The fighters were out of ammunition, and the Soviet Army led by Stalin were ordered to hold back from the area. And then the German army counter attacked, and destroyed the resistance. It was then, after the resistance had been crushed that Stalin gave the order to take Warsaw, and he was able to successfully conquer and control Poland after the war.
Liberty to me is celebrating as opposing armies destroy everything around me. In the war on Earth there are enemies in all directions. And sometimes you have to just stop and enjoy a little bit of liberty between enemy assaults.
