The Great War: Casualties on Both Sides

Posted on October 9, 2026 by russellmckinney

Series: “The Great War” (post #3)

In the previous post, we named the first result of the ongoing war between Satan and God. That result is: Soldiers are enlisted for the war. The soldiers who fight in Satan’s army are the lost unbelievers of this world. The soldiers who fight in God’s army are the saved believers. To be enlisted into Satan’s army all you have to do is be born into Adam’s fallen race. To be enlisted into God’s army you must be born again by placing your belief in Jesus Christ as your personal Savior.

Now let’s move on and look at the second result of The Great War. That second result is: This war (like any other war) produces casualties on both sides. We’ll start by looking at the casualties inflicted by Satan and his army.

In John 8:44, Jesus says about Satan, “He was a murderer from the beginning.” What’s interesting about that statement is that we can study the Bible from Genesis to The Revelation and not find even one verse where Satan personally takes a sword or some other instrument and kills someone. So, how could Jesus call him a murderer?

Satan uses two methods to get his killing done. Method 1: He creates circumstances that result in the loss of life. Method 2: He uses some of his soldiers (lost unbelievers) to get his killing done. I’ll provide a scriptural example from each method.

For an example of Method 1 we can look to the story of Job. In Job 1:18-19, a great wind suddenly sweeps across the wilderness and levels the house in which Job’s seven sons and three daughters are dining. Even though the text doesn’t specifically say that Satan created that wind and aimed it at that house this implication is clear based upon the events of the previous chapter. That’s the chapter in which God agrees to allow Satan to touch all that Job has (Job 1:6-12). Therefore, it is perfectly legitimate to classify Job’s ten children as casualties of The Great War.

As for an example of Method 2 we can look to the story of Herod the Great. In his attempt to kill the baby Jesus, Herod had all of the infants two years old or younger from Bethlehem and its surrounding districts put to death (Matthew 2:16). Someone might say, “But Satan didn’t directly order Herod to kill those children.” No, he didn’t, but we have to keep in mind what Jesus said about lost unbelievers. He said their father is the devil and the devil’s desires they want to do (John 8:44). This means that those poor infants can also be classified as casualties of The Great War. They take their place alongside other martyrs such as Abel (Genesis 4:1-8) and Stephen (Acts 8:54-60).

By now you might be thinking, “Boy, Satan has certainly been responsible for a lot of casualties of war!” Well, he has, but let’s not make this particular result of The Great War a one-sided deal. The truth is that God has claimed a lot of lives Himself. Consider the following list of examples:

  • It was God, working through a worldwide flood, who killed the entire human race except for Noah and his family (Genesis chapters 6 through 9).
  • It was God, working through two of His angels, who killed the inhabitants of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by reigning fire and brimstone down upon those cities (Genesis 19:1-29).
  • It was God who killed all of the Egyptian firstborns as the tenth plague that He inflicted upon the Egyptians (Exodus 12:29-30).
  • It was God who drowned Pharaoh’s army in the waters of the Red Sea (Exodus 14:1-31).
  • It was God, specifically Jesus in the form of The Angel of the Lord, who passed through the ranks of the Assyrian army one night and killed 185,000 soldiers (2nd Kings 19:35).
  • It was God, working through one of His angels, who struck Herod Agrippa dead (Acts 12:20-23).

And then there are the stories in which God works through His soldiers (saved believers) to take human lives. Here are some examples of those stories:

  • God worked through the soldiers of Israel to kill thousands of the inhabitants of the land of Canaan and claim that land for Israel (Deuteronomy 20:16-18).
  • God worked through the judge Gideon to kill Oreb and Zeeb, two Midianite princes (Judges 7:24-25).
  • God worked through the judge Samson to kill thousands of the Philistines (Judges chapters 14 through 16).
  • God worked through the prophet Samuel to get Agag, the king of the Amalekites, hacked into pieces (1 Samuel 15:32-33).
  • God worked through David to get the giant Goliath killed (1 Samuel 17:1-58).
  • God worked through the prophet Elijah to get 450 of the prophets of Baal executed (1st Kings 18:20-40).

All these stories, as well as others that could be listed, show us that God hasn’t exactly been passive in The Great War. Let the record show that He isn’t anything like the mush-and-gush, grandfatherly deity that so many people envision in their minds. Much to the contrary, He understands fully that He’s in a war with an enemy who doesn’t play nice. God’s original plan for the human race was the idyllic conditions of the Garden of Eden, but once war was declared He got up to speed quickly on what it takes to fight it.

And what is the greatest piece of evidence that proves that God understands that His war with Satan produces casualties? It’s the fact that He Himself, in the form of God the Son (Jesus Christ), became a casualty of the war. While it’s true that Judas Iscariot’s betrayal kickstarted the chain of events that led to Jesus being arrested, tried, and crucified what most people don’t understand is that Judas became demon possessed by Satan just before he betrayed Jesus (John 13:27). Therefore, because of that Satanic possession we are right to say that Satan worked through Judas to get Jesus killed. Think about that. The Great War is so bad that it actually claimed the life of Jesus. That’s why we shouldn’t be surprised to learn that it has claimed the lives of many others as well.

Posted in Angels, Christ's Birth, Christ's Death, Crucifixion, Death, Demons, God's Wrath, God's Work, Human Life, Satan, Series: "The Great War", Spiritual Warfare, The Devil, War | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Great War: Soldiers Enlisted

Posted on October 8, 2026 by russellmckinney

Series: “The Great War” (post #2)

Satan and God are at war. They have been at war since at least Genesis chapter 3. Despite the fact that this greatest of all wars is supernatural the results it produces are the same as those produced by human wars. There are four of these results, and with this post we’ll identify the first of them. That result is: Soldiers are enlisted for this war.

First, who are the soldiers who get enlisted to fight for God? They are the people we call “saved believers.” These people aren’t saved because they fight for God; they fight for God because they are saved. We refer to the saved believers from the Old Testament era as “Old Testament believers,” and we refer to the saved believers from the New Testament era as “Christians.”

You see, Christian, you need to get your mind wrapped around the fact that you got drafted into God’s army the moment you placed saving belief in Jesus. You might as well have gone down to God’s local recruiting office and signed your name on an official document. Of course, if your salvation experience was anything like mine nobody told you that placing your belief in Jesus enlisted you in God’s army automatically. But trust me, it happened.

This metaphor of the Christian as a soldier was one of the apostle Paul’s favorite ways of describing the Christian life. Most prominently he featured it in his writings to his protege, Timothy. In 2 Timothy 2:3-4, he tells Timothy:

Join with me in suffering, like a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his commanding officer. (N.I.V.)

In 1 Timothy 1:18, he says:

This charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according to prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may wage the good warfare (N.K.J.V.).

Finally, in 2 Timothy 4:7, he says of himself:

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. (N.I.V.)

Another passage where Paul evokes the imagery of the Christian as a soldier is 2 Corinthians 10:3-5. There he says to the church of Corinth:

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. (N.I.V.)

And so, Christian, when you stop thinking of your time in this world as a vacation and starting thinking of it as a war, you’ll understand this life a lot more accurately. No matter where you find yourself you are on a battlefield. Even if everything around you is tranquil the fighting continues unceasingly in your own mind as you strive to take each of your thoughts captive and make it obedient to Jesus.

Okay, so what have we learned thus far? We’ve learned that saved believers (Christians in this New Testament age) get enlisted to fight for God in the great war. Now let’s identify who gets enlisted to fight for Satan. Those soldiers are the people we call “lost unbelievers.” No matter what the era is — Old Testament or New Testament — these people do Satan’s bidding. In 2 Timothy 2:24-26, Paul describes them as being “in opposition” to God’s people and says they need to “escape from the snare of the devil” because they have “been taken captive by him to do his will.”

Likewise, Jesus once told a group of lost Jews:

“You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do…” (John 8:44, N.K.J.V.)

The apostle John hits this same vein in 1 John 3:10 when he describes two categories of people: “the children of God” and “the children of the devil.” He writes:

So now we can tell who are children of God and who are children of the devil. Anyone who does not live righteously and does not love other believers does not belong to God. (N.L.T.)

But at this point a good question to ask is, “How does a person get enlisted into Satan’s army?” The unfortunate answer is that all a person has to do to get enlisted into Satan’s army is be born into Adam’s sin-fallen race (Ephesians 2:1-3). That, by default, makes the person a child (a soldier) of the devil, and the person remains that way until he or she switches armies by making the decision to believe in Jesus as Savior.

So, tell me, have you made that decision? You say, “But I don’t want to be a soldier in any army; I want to be neutral.” Friend, that’s just not an option that is available to you. There is no Switzerland in the great war. You have to be in one army or the other. The only question is: Which army will it be?

Posted in Belief, Change, Depravity, God's Work, Righteousness, Salvation, Satan, Series: "The Great War", Service, Spiritual Warfare, The Devil | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Great War

Posted on October 5, 2026 by russellmckinney

Series: “The Great War” (post #1)

It is difficult to count the number of wars that have been fought throughout mankind’s history. The difficulty lies in the question of what gets classified as an actual war. There are skirmishes. There are clashes. There are battles. There are campaigns. And then there are actual wars.

In a New York Times article entitled What Every Person Should Know About War, a war was defined as “an active conflict that has claimed more than 1,000 lives.” The article also stated that over the past 3,400 years humans have been entirely at peace for only 268 of those years. That’s just 8% of the time. As for how many people have been killed in all the wars throughout human history, the article estimated the death toll ranges from 150 million to 1 billion.

And does warfare continue today? Absolutely. Right now, there are well over 20 million soldiers serving in armies around the world. The largest current army is China’s which has over 2 million soldiers. The army of India is second in size with close to 1.5 million soldiers. The United States army’s size ranks third at approximately 1.3 million soldiers. North Korea and Russia also have armies consisting of over 1 million soldiers each. Needless to say, war continues to be a trademark of the human race. It reminds us of what Jesus said in His time some 2,000 years ago: “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars” (Matthew 24:6).

There is, however, one war that is the longest running one on record and is still raging today. No official records have ever been kept for this war, but it has covered more earthly territory than any other war and cost more lives than any other war. What war is this? It is the great war between Satan and God.

This war began at some unspecified time way, way back when the angel Lucifer, who was one of God’s mightiest and most beautiful angels (Ezekiel 28:11-19), not only himself rebelled against God (Isaiah 14:12-14) but led one-third (Revelation 12:7-9) of all the other angels to join him in that rebellion. The rebellion ended in God casting Lucifer and all those other rebel angels out of His presence (Luke 10:18). Consequently, Lucifer — who is better known as “Satan” or “the devil” — now walks the earth seeking whom he may devour (Job 1:7; 2:2; 1 Peter 5:8). That is how he showed up inside the serpent in the earth’s Garden of Eden to tempt Eve (Genesis 3:1-6). As for Satan’s fellow fallen angels — who are now better known as “demons” or “unclean spirits” — they too have free run of the earth (Ephesians 6:10-12).

Yes, the ancient war between Satan and God is still being fought today and we are all part of it. This brings me to the purpose of this short series “The Great War.” Over the course of the next few posts, we’re going to learn that the war between Satan and God produces the same results human wars produce. There are four of these results, and we’ll devote one post to each result.

This is a series I think you’ll find interesting, and it’s one that I know will cause you to think in new ways about not only Satan but also God. So, tune in next time as we look at the first result. And until then start thinking of our planet Earth as being the battlefield where The Great War rages every day and every night.

Posted in Adversity, Angels, Death, Deception, Demons, Eternity, God's Sovereignty, God's Work, Heaven, Hell, Persecution, Problems, Rebellion, Satan, Series: "The Great War", Spiritual Warfare, Suffering, The Devil, War | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

When False Teeth Become a Problem

Posted on October 2, 2026 by russellmckinney

but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, “Be holy for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:15-16, N.K.J.V.)

In his booklet How to Kill a Church Without Really Trying, Dr. Tom Malone tells the story of a female church member who didn’t live a life of personal holiness. As bad as that was for her it caused even worse repercussions for a local dentist who knew her. I’ll let Dr. Malone tell the story in his own words. He writes:

I will never forget meeting an unsaved dentist. I tried every way in the world to get him saved but could not. Finally, I got him to come to church during a revival meeting. During the invitation someone went back and spoke to him and said, “Doctor, we would like for you to be saved.” The dentist said, “There will have to be some changes made before I get saved.” The person asked, “What do you mean?” The dentist answered, “There is a woman up there in that choir with a set of false teeth in her mouth for which she has owed me for two years. She has been singing to me tonight about Jesus and a Christian life; but if that is the Christian life, I don’t want it.”

Dr. Malone closes that story by saying of the dentist, “I don’t blame him.” Speaking for myself I’m with Dr. Malone on that one. Why would anyone want to embrace a Savior whose followers don’t pay their bills?

Christian, let this short post find a lodging place in your heart and life. When you use profane language, engage in sexual sin, gossip, lie, cheat, steal, get drunk, get high, slack off at work, don’t pay your bills, etc., you hurt more than your own reputation. You also hurt the reputation of the Savior you profess to love and serve. Remember that you are the only Bible some people ever read and they are drawing their opinion of Jesus and Christianity by watching you.

Posted in Addiction, Adultery, Alcohol, Backsliding, Business, Character, Church, Church Attendance, Discipleship, Doing Good, Dress and Appearance, Drugs, Evangelism, Faithfulness, Gambling, God's Holiness, God's Work, Holiness, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy, Influence, Lying, Making Restitution, Money, Personal Holiness, Racism, Repentance, Righteousness, Salvation, Sanctification, Sex, Sin, Temptation, The Tongue, Witnessing | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Church Attendance Decline

Posted on September 30, 2026 by russellmckinney

A school teacher told her students to bring an item that represented their religious faith. The little Jewish boy brought a menorah. The little Catholic boy brought a crucifix. The little Baptist boy brought a casserole.

Speaking as a Baptist pastor, I have to admit that this joke hits way too close to home. Actually, it could be a true story! We Baptists do like our fellowship meals. As another joke says, “What do you call a Baptist preacher’s belt? A fence around a chicken graveyard.”

I don’t mean to imply that there is anything wrong with fellowship meals. The early churches actually held them each Sunday in conjunction with their observance of The Lord’s Supper (1 Corinthians 11:17-34; Jude v.12). Likewise, the Old Testament provides the record of many different times of feasting, and in the New Testament we read about Christ’s last supper, not to mention the prodigal son’s father killing the fatted calf.

But what we must guard against is making fellowship meals our main reason for attending church. We mustn’t let our churches become community clubs or social clubs that have little more than a religious undercurrent running through them. Our primary feasting at church should always be on the living Word (Jesus) and the written word (the Bible), not the fried chicken.

What each church-goer should ask himself or herself is, “What is my motivation for going to church?” If the answer is something that can be just as easily gotten at a ball game, a concert, the local school, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, the Kiwanis club, the Ruritan club, the Optimist club, the Lions club, or the Rotary club, then something is very wrong with the motivation. And, unfortunately, this seems to be the case with far too many church-goers.

Studies are now consistently showing that church attendance is declining here in the United States. The theorized reasons for the decline are numerous: the country as a whole is shifting away from its Christian roots, today’s young people are a different breed who have little interest in attending church, the local church is no longer the focal point of community life, etc. While I certainly wouldn’t dismiss any of these reasons (or some others we could name), I would like to suggest one that I’ve never seen cited on a list. Maybe the reason why church attendance numbers are dwindling is the fact that we have gotten so far away from what church is supposed to be.

Imagine a housewife who uses her oven to dry clothes because she doesn’t have a dryer. As soon as she gets a load of clothes out of the washing machine, she opens the oven door, puts the clothes into the oven, sets the temperature for 350 degrees, and dries the clothes. She does this day after day, load after load. Then one day her husband buys her a dryer and tells her to start using it to dry the clothes. The housewife does so and after just a few loads exclaims, “This dryer is so much better for drying clothes. I’ll never use that oven again. I don’t even need it anymore.” Would you say that housewife was being fair to that oven? Of course not. She wasn’t using it for what it was actually made to do.

The same can be said of our churches. If we don’t use them for what they are made to do, we shouldn’t be surprised when attendance declines. The hard, cold truth is that the world can do everything better than the church except those things for which the church is the specialist. This means that the church is never going to be able to outperform the world when it comes to meals, entertainment, community service, sports leagues, Christmas productions, Easter dramas, Independence Day celebrations, and a vast assortment of other activities. No matter how hard we try and how much time, effort, and money we spend, the world’s versions will always be more appealing (at least to average person).

That’s why we are crazy to try to stop the decline in church attendance by making our churches more like the world. What we need to do instead is make our churches less like the world and more like the church ideal that is described in the New Testament. Of course, this isn’t something the so-called “church growth” movement cares to hear, but the numbers are beginning to prove that what that movement has pushed for decades as the way to grow a church doesn’t actually work in the long run. How could it when it is so shallow and superficial? And besides, even if it does draw a crowd, just having a crowd doesn’t automatically mean that you are having church anyway, right?

Posted in Bible Study, Church, Church Attendance, Current Events, Discipleship, Entertainment, Evangelism, God's Word, God's Work, Intercessory Prayer, Ministry, Salvation, Scripture, Sunday School, Teaching, The Bible, The Gospel, Worship | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

A Night in the Barn

Posted on September 28, 2026 by russellmckinney

One day a young boy committed a very serious offense. When the boy’s strict father heard about it, he said to the boy, “Son, no one can commit such an act and still sleep under my roof. You must spend the night in the barn.” The boy knew that arguing with his father was no use, and so he gathered up a few things to make a crude bed in the hayloft and went to the barn.

His crude bed proved to be plenty soft enough for the boy to get a good night’s rest, but he just couldn’t sleep. Over and over again he tossed and turned. His problem was the guilt he was feeling over not only committing the offense but also grieving his father so badly.

It was sometime along about midnight when the boy heard the sound of someone climbing up the ladder to the hayloft. He was frightened by the dark outline of the shadowy figure until he realized that the intruder was none other than his father. The father asked him, “Are you sleeping?” The boy answered, “No.” “Well, I can’t sleep either,” said the father, “so I thought I’d come out here and join you.” Then he added, “Now, don’t think I’m changing my mind about your punishment. As I said, anyone who does what you did can’t sleep under my roof. But I didn’t say that I couldn’t sleep with you. So, move over, son. Put your head on my arm, and let’s get some sleep.”

This story beautifully illustrates what God did for us. The human race had fallen into sin, and God couldn’t just ignore that fact. Punishment had to follow, and follow it did as Adam and Eve were banished from their home in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:22-24) and left to produce a race of descendants who would each be born spiritually dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1). But God, in the form of Jesus Christ, left heaven, joined the human race by becoming human Himself (having bypassed the spiritual death aspect by way of being born to a virgin), lived among humans in the “barn” of this world, and ultimately died on the cross as the potential payment for all the sins the human race had ever and would ever commit. So now anyone who places saving belief in Jesus does not have to suffer the eternal punishment that comes as the result of his or her sins (John 3:16-18).

Oh, and by the way, that story about the father who joined his boy in the barn is true. It was one of the stories that F.B. Meyer used to tell about his childhood. And who was F.B. Meyer? He was only one of the most legendary preachers who ever lived. He was an English Baptist pastor and evangelist in the late 1800s and early 1900s who pastored several churches in England, made successful ministry trips to the United States and Canada, wrote dozens of books and commentaries, and fought so hard against drunkenness and prostitution that he is purported to have been responsible for the closing of hundreds of saloons and brothels.

All that causes me to ask, “If we had more fathers who were strict enough to inflict punishment when it was deserved, but loving enough to join their children in the punishment, would we be producing more F.B. Meyers today?” Maybe. Without doubt, it surely couldn’t hurt.

Posted in Belief, Children, Christ's Birth, Christ's Death, Discipline, Fatherhood, God's Holiness, God's Love, Grace, Guilt, Parenting, Salvation, Sin, Youth | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ministering to Lost People

Posted on September 25, 2026 by russellmckinney

And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. (Matthew 5:41, N.K.J.V.)

This verse has nothing to do with putting in the extra hours required to become a success in the business world. Neither does it have anything to do with outworking the competition in the realm of athletics. No, “going the second mile” is all about one thing: a Christian rendering service to a lost person.

In the empire of ancient Rome, a Roman official or soldier had the right to press a common citizen into compulsory service to carry a load or run an errand. This explains why the Roman soldiers who were in charge of Christ’s crucifixion were able to force a Cyrenian named Simon to carry Christ’s cross (Matthew 27:32). However, the customary limit was that the citizen could only be made to perform the task for one mile. This made Christ’s command about going a second mile quite striking.

Think about the first time a rough, rugged Roman soldier brutally drafted a follower of Christ into action. “You there, get over here and carry this load for your required mile.” Imagine the soldier’s surprise when, at the end of the mile, the Christian kept going. Perhaps the soldier said, “That’s enough, you’ve done your duty” only to have the Christian say, “I know, but my Lord says that I should go with you a second mile.”

What kind of influence do you think such an encounter would have had on a spiritually lost Roman soldier? Even as some of the soldiers no doubt mocked Christ’s followers and took even greater advantage of them, other soldiers must have been touched by the encounters and had their hearts softened toward Jesus and His people. After all, voluntary, unexpected service to others is a powerful thing.

Of course, going the extra mile was just one of the ways in which Jesus commanded His followers to act differently than the rest of the world. He also said, “Rather than seek the revenge of an eye for an eye, if an evil person slaps you on your right cheek, take the brunt of the blow and present your left cheek for the person to strike as well” (Matthew 5:38-39). “And if someone threatens to file a lawsuit to take away your tunic, go ahead and let the person have not only your tunic but also your outer cloak” (Matthew 5:40).

For us to get the full depth of these commands we must realize that each of them deals with a cruel injustice perpetrated by an evil person. As Jesus put it, “But I tell you not to resist an evil person” (Matthew 5:39, N.K.J.V.). This means that the Christian should perform these difficult tasks as nothing less than acts of service to lost people. While it’s certainly true that professing Christians sometime commit evil acts, the assumption is that the Christian operates in a manner that is holy rather than evil. Therefore, the “evil person” Jesus had in mind would have most frequently been a lost person.

You see, when the Christian serves a lost person in this way the Christian evidences the difference that being a follower of Jesus has made in his or her life and (ideally) creates a thirst for Jesus within that lost person. This is why it is so unfortunate that most Christians take an adversarial approach to lost people rather than a service approach to them. I know that I myself tend to say of lost people who do me wrong turns, “How can I get even with them?” rather than, “How can I serve them?” I mean, let’s admit it, these commands from Jesus are pretty hard to swallow and even harder to live out.

And yet, the commands stand right where they have stood for 2,000 years. So tell me, Christian, are you obedient enough to put these commands into action? The next time a lost person treats you badly will you force yourself to think, “What good thing can I do for this person in return?” Again, that’s a difficult assignment. But if you complete the assignment, you might be amazed at how Jesus uses your actions. Who knows? You might even play a major role in winning that lost person to Christ.

Posted in Adversity, Anger, Attitude, Character, Commitment, Complaining, Discipleship, Doing Good, Dying To Self, Evangelism, Extending Forgiveness, Faithfulness, God's Will, God's Work, Good Works, Humility, Influence, Ministry, Persecution, Perseverance, Personal Holiness, Problems, Revenge, Service, Suffering, The Sermon On The Mount, Trials, Witnessing | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

God’s Mirror

Posted on September 23, 2026 by russellmckinney

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. (James 1:22-24, N.K.J.V.)

A trader from India once asked a European trader to get him a European Bible. The European trader said, “Why? You wouldn’t be able to read it because you can’t read English.” “That’s true,” said the Indian trader, “but I still want a European Bible.”

The European trader asked again, “Why do you want a European Bible?” This time the Indian trader answered by saying, “When a ship brings a trader who is unknown to me but wants to trade with me, I place my Indian translation of the Bible in front of him. If he opens it and reads it, I know that I can trust him. But if he sneers at it or throws it aside, I will have nothing to do with him because I know that I cannot trust him. So, I want to be able to use this same test for the Europeans who come to me to trade.”

Sadly, most of us know that the trader’s simple litmus test doesn’t always ring true. Some of the most devious, crooked, deceptive people in the world claim the title “Christian” and are quick to sing the praises of the Bible when it serves their purposes. Nevertheless, what the trader correctly understood was that the Bible should make a profound moral difference in the life of anyone who reads it.

James 1:22 commands us to be doers of the word and not hearers only. James then illustrates that command by describing a person who merely glances in a mirror and then goes about his business unchanged by what he saw (James 1:23-24). That’s the relationship some people have with the Bible. They read a few verses and then rush off to continue living the way they’ve been living rather than let what they read have a positive moral effect upon their behavior.

The contrast to such a person is the one who doesn’t just read the Bible but lives it out in everyday situations. In keeping with the mirror illustration, this person is like someone who spends quality time in front of the mirror, allows the mirror to do its work of revealing any areas that need work, and then puts in the work to fix the problem areas. Using the Bible in this way allows it to become an effective tool by which God helps the individual clean up his or her conduct. It’s one thing for you to read the Bible; it’s something else for the Bible to read you.

Have you read something in the Bible recently that spoke to a problem area in your life? And if you have, did you apply what you read? You say, “No, I can’t say that I did.” Then what you are telling me is that you glanced at God’s mirror, it showed you your defect, but you didn’t fix the defect. Friend, that’s not making proper use of God’s mirror, and it makes it impossible for you to bring your life in line with God’s word. Therefore, I would encourage you to revisit whatever passage you read, spend some serious time pondering it, and then apply its teachings to your situation. By doing this you’ll make yourself a doer of God’s word rather than just a hearer of it, and you’ll allow God to help you make the appearance of your life more godly.

Posted in Bible Study, Change, Character, Confession, Discernment, God's Will, God's Word, God's Work, Obedience, Personal Holiness, Rebellion, Repentance, Scripture, Sin, The Bible | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Shekinah Glory of God

Posted on September 21, 2026 by russellmckinney

In my previous post, I dealt with the name/word “Ichabod” and how it means “the glory has departed” or “there is no glory.” The “glory” in question is God’s glory, but it’s a specific type of God’s glory. The theological term for it is shekinah.

Don’t bother looking for the word shekinah in either the Old Testament’s original Hebrew or the New Testament’s original Greek because it isn’t there. It’s found in the post-Biblical writings of Jewish rabbis. They use the word to refer to God’s dwelling or abiding. Any place that God chooses to grace with His abiding presence showcases His shekinah glory.

It is fascinating to trace God’s shekinah glory throughout the pages of scripture. The first mention of God’s glory abiding within a place is found in the book of Exodus, which tells us that God’s glory was in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night by which God guided the Israelites as they traveled (Exodus 13:21-22; 16:10). Since God Himself was always in the pillar — whether it was a pillar of cloud or a pillar of fire — it makes sense that His glory was in there.

The second mention of God’s shekinah glory is also found in the book of Exodus. In Exodus 24:16-17, we read that the glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai. Again, this makes perfect sense because God personally came down to the top of the mountain to meet with Moses and impart to Him the law.

Third, once Moses and the Israelites built the Tabernacle per God’s instructions, God’s shekinah glory moved into it and filled it (Exodus 29:42-46; 40:34-35). The Tabernacle was the portable tent-like complex that served as Israel’s first site of centralized national worship. It was where Israel’s priests offered up Israel’s sacrifices to God.

The Tabernacle complex was completely surrounded by a fence of white linen curtains and consisted of three distinct sections: The Outer Court, The Holy Place, and The Most Holy Place (The Holy of Holies). The Outer Court was where the bronze altar stood. That was the altar upon which Israel’s sacrifices were offered. The Holy Place was exclusively for the priests and held within it The Table of Showbread, the Golden Lampstand, and The Altar of Incense. As for The Most Holy Place (The Holy of Holies) it was where The Ark of the Covenant was kept. Only the High Priest could enter that section, and even he could only do so once a year on the Day of Atonement.

Fourth, God’s shekinah glory remained in the Tabernacle until the time of the story that served as the text for my previous post. For those who didn’t read the post, that story is the one about how the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines during the days when Eli was serving as Israel’s High Priest and his two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were serving as priests (1 Samuel chapters 2 through 4). Once the Ark of the Covenant was no longer resting inside the Tabernacle’s Holy of Holies, God’s shekinah glory left the Tabernacle.

Phinehas’ widow, as she was dying in childbirth, named her newborn son “Ichabod” (“the glory has departed”). That name symbolized the Tabernacle’s loss of God’s shekinah glory. Even when the Philistines soon returned the Ark of the Covenant to Israel (1 Samuel chapters 5 and 6), there is no mention of God’s shekinah glory returning to the Tabernacle and filling it. I would guess that it did, but perhaps it didn’t.

Fifth, the next time God’s shekinah glory is mentioned in scripture came when Solomon built the Temple to replace the Tabernacle as Israel’s site of centralized national worship. As soon as the Ark of the Covenant was brought into the Temple and placed inside the Holy of Holies, God’s shekinah filled the Temple (1 Kings 8:1-13). At this point, all was right with Israel’s worship, just as it had once been at the Tabernacle. Unfortunately, over the centuries that followed, Israel’s spiritual state again sunk to a low ebb as idolatry and sin came between the nation and God. This set the stage for the next movement of God’s shekinah glory.

Sixth, the prophet Ezekiel, in a vision, watched God’s shekinah glory depart from Solomon’s Temple in a step-by-step route (Ezekiel 10:1-22). Ezekiel first watched as God’s glory lifted up from between two literal cherub angels (Ezekiel 10:4). The symbolism of this lifting up centers around the fact that on each end of the Ark of the Covenant’s lid (which was called The Mercy Seat) a fashioned cherub angel stood whose wings were spread out to cover the lid. Between the wings of those two fashioned angels was where God met with Israel (Exodus 25:17-22; 2 Kings 19:15; Isaiah 37:16). Therefore, what Ezekiel saw in his vision symbolized God’s glory lifting up from off the lid of The Ark of the Covenant.

Ezekiel watched as God’s shekinah glory lifted up from between the cherub angels and then paused over the threshold of the Temple for a while, as if God was waiting to see if the people would repent and return to Him (Ezekiel 10:4). Then the shekinah glory departed from the Temple’s threshold and was lifted up, along with the literal cherub angels, out of Jerusalem (Ezekiel 10:18-19; 11:22-23). The obvious symbolism is that God’s shekinah glory had now departed from Solomon’s Temple and the city of Jerusalem. This departing took place during the lead up to the Babylonians conquering Jerusalem and destroying the Temple.

After the Babylonian’s destruction of Solomon’s Temple, the people of Israel ultimately built another Temple to replace Solomon’s original one (Ezra chapters 1 through 6). Despite the fact that this Second Temple was not nearly as grand or beautiful as Solomon’s had been (Ezra 3:12), God was pleased with it and accepted the worship that took place there. It is significant, however, that the Bible never mentions the shekinah glory of God abiding within or filling that Second Temple. Perhaps not coincidentally the Bible never mentions The Ark of the Covenant being inside that Temple. The fact is, the whereabouts of the Ark have remained unknown since the Babylonian destruction of the Temple.

Israel’s Second Temple actually stood longer than Solomon’s had and remained unchanged for centuries until the Romans conquered Jerusalem and installed Herod the Great as the ruler of the city and the surrounding territories. Herod was a prolific builder, and he oversaw a major expansion and renovation of the Second Temple in an effort to make it as impressive as Solomon’s had been. This Temple, often referred to as Herod’s Temple, is the one that is spoken of in the New Testament. Again, though, there is never any mention in scripture of God’s shekinah glory abiding within or filling that second Temple either before or after Herod’s renovation work.

This shouldn’t be taken to mean, though, that God didn’t honor that Temple. Jesus actually called that Temple “My Father’s house” (John 2:16) and “My house” (Matthew 21:13). Therefore, the point is not that the Second Temple was illegitimate in the eyes of God. Scriptural evidence indicates that it wasn’t. The point is that the Bible makes no specific reference to either The Ark of the Covenant or the shekinah glory of God ever being inside that Temple.

Seventh, where the shekinah (abiding) presence of God first shows up in the New Testament is found in Matthew 1:23. There the angel Gabriel quotes a Messianic prophecy from Isaiah 7:14 in saying of Jesus, “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel.” The verse then points out that Immanuel means “God with us.” You see, as long as Jesus was with us on planet Earth there was no need for the shekinah glory of God in the Jewish Temple. As John 1:14 describes the situation:

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. (N.K.J.V., emphasis mine)

And now, with all this in mind, we come to the question of where God’s shekinah glory currently abides in this world. Is there such a place? Absolutely!

Following Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection, and ascension back to heaven He kept His promise to send God the Holy Spirit to indwell the body of each saved believer (John 14:26-27; Acts 1:4-8; Romans 8:9-11; Ephesians 1:13-14). What this means is that each Christian’s body is now God’s “temple,” the place in which God dwells and abides in this world (1 Corinthians 6:19-20; 2 Corinthians 6:14-16). Because of this the Christian should honor God with what he does with his body, puts in his body, or puts on his body. To do anything less is to defile God’s temple. Remember Christian, with every breath you take you are carrying on an ancient tradition of God’s abiding presence. That is an awesome responsibility, and it’s one that you dare not take lightly.

Posted in Angels, Bible Study, Christ's Birth, God's Holiness, God's Work, Holiness, Scripture, The Ark of the Covenant, The Bible, The Holy Spirit, Worship | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ichabod

Posted on September 18, 2026 by russellmckinney

Ichabod is an odd name. When you mention it the average person’s mind goes to Ichabod Crane, the schoolmaster character in Washington Irving’s famous short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Students of the Bible, however, know that the name actually has a Biblical origin. The birth of the Bible’s Ichabod is recorded as part of the sordid story of Eli, Hophni, and Phinehas, and it’s one of the saddest tales in scripture.

In the days when the prophet Samuel was young, Israel’s high priest was a man named Eli. Eli was almost 100 years old (1 Samuel 4:15), obese (1 Samuel 4:18), and virtually blind (1 Samuel 4:15). Because of his physical condition he delegated to his two sons the responsibility of sacrificing the offerings the people of Israel brought to the Tabernacle (Israel’s site of centralized national worship). Those two sons were named Hophni and Phinehas.

Unfortunately, Hophni and Phinehas were spiritually lost unbelievers (1 Samuel 2:12) whose wickedness was evidenced in not only the unholy way in which they conducted their priestly duties (1 Samuel 2:13-17) but also in the rank sexual sin that marked their lives (1 Samuel 2:22). How bad were the two men? They were so bad that the Bible actually says the Lord desired to kill them (1 Samuel 2:25).

Their deaths came by way of a battle with the Philistines. As priests Hophni and Phinehas carried Israel’s Ark of the Covenant into the battle, the idea being that Israel’s army couldn’t possibly lose as long as it had the Ark within the ranks. But that assumption proved to be a wrong one as the Philistines won a resounding victory in which Hophni, Phinehas, and 30,000 Israelite soldiers lost their lives (1 Samuel 4:10-11). As for the Ark the Philistines captured it and took it to Philistia.

When all this tragic news reached Eli, he fell off his seat backward and died by means of a broken neck (1 Samuel 4:18). It is at this point that the story turns its attention to Eli’s daughter-in-law, who was the wife of Phinehas. She was far along with a pregnancy on that fateful day, and the news of all the happenings caused her to go into hard labor (1 Samuel 4:19-20). She was able to give birth to a son, but she died as a result of the delivery. Just before she died, she named the boy “Ichabod” and said, “The glory has departed from Israel, for the Ark has been captured” (1 Samuel 4:21-22). “Ichabod,” you see, means “the glory has departed” or “there is no glory.”

The Bible’s only other reference to the man Ichabod comes years later when Saul was reigning as Israel’s first king. Even then Ichabod’s name is only used in reference to him being the uncle of a priest named Ahitub (1 Samuel 14:1-3). Other than that single reference, though, we know nothing about the actual person. Perhaps that’s why the name itself has become more well known than the man who originally bore it.

In regards to how the name is used today “Ichabod” has come to symbolize any situation in which God’s glory has departed. The name is most often used in reference to a church or a denomination that has abandoned its Biblical moorings in favor of liberalism and worldliness, but it can be applied to any circumstance that reeks of a lack of God’s presence. And if you are looking for a classic tell-tale sign of an “Ichabod” circumstance, look for a circumstance that is operating without God’s word, in direct contrast to God’s word, or completely outside of God’s word. Remember, God’s presence and God’s word always walk hand in hand. Therefore, if God’s word isn’t part of a situation, it stands to reason that God isn’t part of that situation.

Posted in Backsliding, Church, Coming Judgment, Discernment, Disobedience, God's Wrath, God's Judgment, God's Word, Problems, Rebellion, Scripture, Sin | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment