Denying the Foothold

This month, we marked the 81^st anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 1944.  On that date during World War II, Allied forces representing the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and other countries launched the greatest naval, air, and land invasion in world history.  By 6:30 am on June 6, the amphibious invasion began.   Over 5,000 ships and landing craft carrying troops and supplies were arriving from England across the channel to France.  Meanwhile, more than 11,000 aircraft provided air cover and support for the invasion.

The strategy, under the direction of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, was to open up a second battle front in northern France by attacking the beaches of Normandy which were controlled by Nazi forces under Adolph Hitler.  Bent on defending his control of the European mainland, Hitler had ordered the construction of the “Atlantic Wall.”  This coastal defense consisted of over 2,400 miles of coastal bunkers, landmines, and obstacles including heavy fortifications on the heights above the Normandy beaches.

The immediate objective of Allied forces on that June morning was to establish a beachhead or foothold from which to accomplish the landing of more troops, vehicles, munitions, and other equipment.  Over 2,000 American lives, representing about half of total Allied casualties, were lost on Utah Beach and Omaha Beach on the first day, and thousands more were wounded or missing.  But, by day’s end over 156,000 Allied troops had survived and secured a foothold on the beaches of Normandy.

D-Day military strategy was not the first in world history to depend upon securing a foothold against enemy forces.  Success in any military effort depends upon gaining control of sufficient ground to establish a staging area for more powerful and sustained frontal attacks on the enemy.  Likewise, on D-Day, success of the defending Nazi forces depended upon denial of the foothold.  Their failed efforts to deny the Allied forces a foothold signaled the beginning of the Allied advance to liberate western Europe and eventually their defeat of Nazi Germany.

Recognizing Our Enemy
Throughout God’s Word, we encounter the words “foothold” and “deny” as metaphors in the teaching of Scripture related to how we can resist and be victorious against the spiritual attacks of Satan.  The first step to be victorious is to recognize our Enemy and not “deny” his existence and schemes.

Six years before D-Day, British Prime Minister Arthur Neville Chamberlain met with Adolph Hitler and signed the Munich Agreement which ceded the German-speaking Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany.  Within the following year, it became evident that Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement that promised “Peace for Our Time” would not stop Hitler’s aggression.  Chamberlain had mistakenly denied Hitler’s evil intent to dominate Europe and eventually the world. 

Chamberlain’s error should teach us that simply denying the existence of something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.  Today, many mistakenly deny the existence of God and His objective revelation in the Holy Scriptures.  Having denied God’s existence and His objective truth, the next step is to deny the existence of good and evil.  But if we are honest with ourselves, denial of our own personal tendency toward pride, selfishness, and conflict is really a denial of reality.   This denial is a spiritual consequence of our sinful nature inherited from our father, Adam.  Romans 5: 12 affirms this truth:  Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned —

Jesus’s half-brother, James, recognized that we all have a “sin nature,” and asked probing questions about its consequences in his epistle, in James 4: 1-2:
What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you?
Is not the source the evil desires that wage war in your members?
You lust and do not have; so you commit murder.
You are envious and cannot obtain; so, you fight and quarrel.

Wars throughout world history and the current wars in various parts of the world, all began within “the evil desires that wage war in [our] members.”  The good news is that when a person yields to the authority of Jesus Christ, he or she is “united with Christ in the likeness of His death” and “raised to new life (‘born again’) in the likeness of His resurrection” (Romans 6: 5).  Born again Christ-followers are “no longer slaves to sin.”  Because we still possess a sin nature, we remain a target of Satan who is our "adversary," "accuser,” and also "opposer" or "obstructor," along with his hellish minions (demons).  But under the “new Master,” Jesus Christ, every born-again Christ-follower is indwelt by God’s Holy Spirit who enables him or her to oppose sin’s reign in their mortal body so that they “need not obey its passions” (Romans 6: 12-14).  In other words, when Christ is our new Master, Satan no longer has free access to our lives.  But, as in any warfare, our victory over sin depends on how well we can recognize the strategy of our enemy and then respond so as to deny the enemy even a foothold.

Strategy of Our Enemy
Psalm 36: 1-4 provides what can become a clear battle plan for recognizing and resisting our spiritual enemy.  First, unlike Neville Chamberlain’s naivety toward scheming Adolph Hitler, we must recognize the deceptive nature of the messaging that bombards our eyes and ears every day.  The messaging from the “world system of thought” will tend to appeal to the evil desires that wage war in [our] members (recall James 4: 1-2 above).

Second, we must resist ungodly messages we see and hear by remembering God’s goodness and love that sent His Son, Jesus, to the Cross to intercede and deliver us from the dominion of sin and Satan.  The Apostle John wrote (1 John 2: 14b-16; emphasis added), I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the Word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.  Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.

When the Enemy Gains Foothold
What happens when we fail to recognize our Enemy and do not resist his attacks?  When this happens, we allow the Enemy to gain a foothold in our heart and mind. The table below outlines the unfortunate progression of spiritual defeat.  But, in the right column are samples from God’s Word that can be used to counter the Enemy assault:

My study of Psalm 36 has reminded me of my own proneness to “listen to sin” speaking to my heart which is the center of the nature of who I am as a person.  On the one hand, I must not trust my heart; but instead, recognize that “nothing good dwells in me; that is, in my flesh (Romans 7: 19) and that my heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who can really know how bad it is? (Jeremiah 17: 9).

On the other hand, I must remember that “Calvary is always on the way” and has come to my aid (Recall the bugles when the U.S. Cavalry comes to the rescue?)   Titus wrote the following to first century believers, and to us (emphasis added):  For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds. (Titus 2: 11-14).   

Denying a Foothold
Titus 2: 11-14 is a great passage to memorize.  Note that while God extends His GRACE (“God’s Riches at Christ’s Expense) freely, it is not “cheap!”  Grace came at the great expense of Christ’s leaving Heaven’s glory to die on a Roman cross, bearing our sin, and our pain and sorrow in place of us.  Therefore, Titus 2: 12 reminds us that God’s priceless GRACE not only “brings salvation” but it also “disciplines us to deny ungodliness and worldly passions.”  “Deny” here means to “refuse access” in the same way athletic coaches teach their players how to play defense so as to “deny” their opponent access to the goal line in football or to the rim in basketball.

Spiritually, we must “deny” our enemy access to our minds lest he gain a foothold.  The Apostle Paul cautions us about unrighteous anger and unresolved issues in relationships:   BE ANGRY, AND yet DO NOT SIN; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil a foothold (Ephesians 4: 26-27).  Paul recognized, and so must we, that our major challenges in life are not primarily the threats from a “physical” enemy.”  He wrote in 2 Corinthians 10: 3-5:
For though we live in the world,
we do not wage war as the world does.
The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.
On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.
We demolish arguments and every pretension
that sets itself up against the knowledge of God,
and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.…  

In Ephesians 6, Paul uses the analogy of a well-equipped soldier armed for battle (Ephesians 6: 10-18).  He explains, as shown in the graphic, how each piece of armor that provides physical protection also has a spiritual significance.  I encourage readers to study this passage, and note specifically how the Word of God is the offensive weapon while the other pieces are defensive and must be put on “while praying at all times” (verse 18).  Christ-follower, wouldn’t you agree from your own experience that “effective, fervent prayer” is your most important spiritual “weapon” both in defense against the enemy, and in achieving victory in your service of our King?

The Power of Prayer
In conclusion, as we remember D-Day and the thousands of Allied troops that stormed the beaches of Normandy 81 years ago this June, we imagine that many of them advanced courageously because they knew they were being held up in prayer by loved ones at home.  Many others carried a military Bible near their hearts as they scaled the cliffs against enemy fire and experienced boldness and yet peace of mind in the midst of conflict.

May we each take to heart the lesson of the prepared soldier and the strategy of denying the Enemy a spiritual foothold in our lives.  We close with a quote from Andrew Murray, the great South African pastor whose writings continue to offer deep spiritual insight.  The quote is from Murray’s book, The Prayer Life:

“When a general chooses the place from which he intends to strike the enemy, he pays most attention to those points which he thinks most important in the fight. Thus, there was on the battlefield of Waterloo a farmhouse which Wellington immediately saw was the key to the situation. He did not spare his troops in his endeavors to hold that point: the victory depended on it.  So, it actually happened.  It is the same in the conflict between the believer and the powers of darkness. The inner chamber is the place where the decisive victory is obtained.”

“When the Church shuts herself up to the power of the inner chamber, and the soldiers of the Lord have received on their knees 'power from on high', then the powers of darkness will be shaken and souls will be delivered.  In the Church, on the mission field, with the minister and his congregation, everything depends on the faithful exercise of the power of prayer.”

Care to Comment:
We hope you have given high priority to gaining and maintaining a foothold on the firm ground of faith, able to withstand our Enemy attacks and the inclinations of our sinful flesh.  Maybe you have a question about something you have read, or about how to surrender your life to Christ.   You may contact us using the “Comment” link below, or use our e-mail address:  silviusj@gmail.com  We would love to hear from you.