Devotionals

Going To The Enemy's Camp

by Terry Barlow
03/13/15
Free to Share
Author requests article critique

  Message Writer
  Hire Writer

Tweet

   There is a song I love to sing about “going to the enemy’s camp to take back what he stole” from us. Maybe you are familiar with this song that offers us an opportunity to actually speak with authority to Satan our spiritual adversary, to speak in the name of Jesus and inform him that he is under our feet as believers filled with the Spirit of the living God!

 This theme of entering the enemy camp to reclaim our rightful possessions is a familiar one in Holy Scripture. We first encounter it in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis when “Abram heard that his relative (Lot) had been taken prisoner” and “assembled his 318 trained men, born in his household, and they went in pursuit as far as Dan. And he and his servants deployed against them by night, attacked them, and pursued them as far as Hobah (“hiding place”) to the north of Damascus. He brought back all the goods and also his relative Lot and his goods, as well as the women and the other people. Notice that ALL the goods were restored, and there is no indication that even one person was lost either from Abram’s or Lot’s party. The restoration brought about by Abram’s raid into enemy territory was complete. The enemy was flushed out of even his favorite hiding places and positions of secret influence.

 A similar incident occurs in the 30th chapter of First Samuel with King David and his men at Ziklag (“winding”) The Amalekites had raided Ziklag and burned it to the ground, kidnapping all the wives, sons and daughters of David and his men. David was in danger of being stoned by his own men, even though his wives had also been kidnapped. But scripture tells us that, after weeping with his men over the loss, he “strengthened himself in the LORD his God.” The Hebrew word for strengthen or encourage implies that David attached himself closely and tightly to his God. Nor did David assume that he would chase the Amalekites, but he sent for Abiathar the priest and the ephod, consulting God. God gave him the go-ahead, and with 400 men David overtook the enemy and routed them. “David recovered everything the Amalekites had taken (sound familiar?); he also rescued his two wives. Nothing was missing from the youngest to the oldest, including the sons and daughters, of all the plunder the Amalekites had taken. David got everything back.” (1 Samuel 30, v.18-19) David even made sure that 200 men who had been too exhausted to complete the mission got their fair share of the plunder, even though in the eyes of some they were undeserving. It became an ordinance from that day in Israel that those who stayed with the supplies would receive the same share as those who went to battle. Though it was a bumpy ride and he arrived there by a circuitous and "winding" route, David was already thinking with the mind of Christ!

  Which point brings us appropriately to the fact that these raids by two great generals of Ancient Israel, Abram and David, were clearly foreshadowings of the greatest raid into enemy territory of all time by that Commander-in-Chief of All Angel Hosts, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who through His atoning work on the cross and subsequent resurrection and ascension has led captivity captive (Ephesians 4 v.8) and ransomed us with all we possess from the clutches of the god of this world (the devil) who had laid claim to us! (2 Corinthians 4, v.4) In leading captivity captive as in destroying death forever (Isaiah 25 v80) as an outworking of what was achieved on his cross, He is dismantling the very ability of the devil to hold a person or a nation in bondage.   Bondage is itself to be bound up forever, and death itself killed! Multitudes of those who lived before the time of Christ or Messiah looked forward in faith to His preaching and redemptive work.   Much of this has happened and is happening on an individual basis, but as with the 3000 harvested in the book of Acts through Peter’s sermon, there are “raiding parties” going forth into the darkness even as I write that will in this last hour ransom great numbers of those who are being prepared by the Spirit of God to hunger and thirst after righteousness and truth.