Counterfeit Christianity

Chapter Seventeen- The Army of God

        During the first three and one-half years of Tribulation, the true church of God travails, pained to be delivered. She births a man child that is immediately taken up to the throne of God to be protected from the dragon. Who and what is this man child? The answer is a very important one for all Christians as we approach the end of this age.

A GOD OF ARMIES

               There are over two hundred and seventy-three scriptures in the Old Testament that state that God’s name is “the Lord of hosts.”  Isa. 22:14; 18:7; Zech. 4:6; etc. The word “hosts” means "a mass of persons (or fig. things) espec. reg. organized for war (an army): by impl. a campaign, lit. or fig. (spec. hardship, worship): - appointed time, (+) army, (+) battle, company, host, service, soldiers, waiting upon, war (-fare). (Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary, #6635.)

            God is the Lord of armies - plural, and God's people have always been called to be soldiers to war against the kingdom of darkness. In 2 Timothy 2:3-4, the apostle Paul instructed Timothy, "Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier." 

            Timothy was not the only one called to be a soldier. Every Christian has been called by Jesus Christ to be a soldier to fight against Satan’s kingdom.

THE LORD JESUS IS THE CAPTAIN OF THE LORD'S HOSTS

               The Lord Jesus is the captain of the Lord’s hosts or armies. When Israel crossed over the river Jordan and was about to enter into their first battle against the inhabitants of Canaan, the Lord appeared to Joshua:

            And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Artthou for us, or for our adversaries?

            And the captain of the LORD'S host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest isholy. And Joshua did so. Josh. 5:13-15.

The captain of the LORD’S host was no mere angel. Joshua would not have worshipped an angel. He was the Lord Jesus.

            When our Lord Jesus Christ returns to earth, He will be on a white horse leading His armies on white horses.

            And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head weremany crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.

            And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. Rev. 19:11-14.

One army will be God's angels; the other will be people redeemed from the earth. When the man child of Revelation 12:5 is taken up to the throne of God, it will stand on the mount Zion with the Lamb of God, the captain of the Lord’s hosts.

            And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Zion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads.