The War to End All Wars
by R.C. Sproul Jr.

(2 TIMOTHY 1:13)

This is not an unfamiliar verse to us. There are verses in the Bible that we often don't recognize, and many that we hear and see all the time. Pastors are known from time to time, when reading through a portion of Scripture to exclaim, "Now that'll preach.' We ascribe differing levels of importance to difference portions of Scripture. I don't expect you can blame us, for in a sense, Jesus did as well. When He praised the Pharisees for being scrupulous in their tithing He went on to say, "But you neglect the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy and faith.' We're touchy about it because we think that in saying one thing is more important than another that we therefore are saying the first thing is unimportant. But that's just silly, like saying that because one billion dollars is less than a trillion that a billion is a mere trifle.

And the truth is that we all weigh the words of God. When we commit to memory John 3:16 we're not saying John 4:17 doesn't matter. And so when we chose the name of this publication, we did it with care. We didn't throw a dart into a Bible and pick what we landed on. We chose our title in accordance with our goal. We want to help our readers take every thought captive. Now we know that the Bible teaches nowhere "Take every thought captive and thou wilt be saved." But it does say, though not in so many words, "Be saved and thou art called to take every thought captive." All commands from God are important. Slipping up in the least weighty matters earns us eternal damnation. The least little thing is not so little because it is, at base, still cosmic treason against a very big and very holy God. But some commands are more important than others, if only because obeying them helps us to obey others. Some sins are just sins. Other are breeders, creating still more sins. It is our conviction that we are weak and anemic because we think like the world. It is our conviction that in order for us to wage battle faithfully, we need to wage the most important of battles, to launch D-Day to take back our minds, to think separately and deliberately, to take every thought captive.

We are persuaded that perhaps the first thought we must reclaim is the understanding that we are indeed at war. As we read Paul's words, as he tells us that we do not wage war with carnal weapons, because we think like the world, believing that only that which is flesh is real, we conclude that we are not really at war. Which pleases us, because we are all, at heart, deserters, and want nothing more than peace with the world we love, even when it costs us peace with God. But that is precisely what Paul is not saying, The war is very real, more real than any other war. World view War is war on a far grander scale than mere world wars, because it makes us what we are. A defeated Nazi is still a Nazi, but when we think the world's thoughts we are worldly. As a man thinks in his heart, the Bible tells us, so he is. Being made a slave by a superior power is nothing over which to be ashamed. Being made to love our servitude is the real tragedy. Being vanquished is not so bad. Becoming a traitor is horror.

Paul is telling us that the world's ideas are not merely mistaken. Our pagan neighbors are not merely misguided rubes. Rather they are lifting their world view up like a tower of Babel, exalting themselves and their thoughts against the God of all things. They are constructing an alternate reality that says, "WE ARE GOD. God is not." That's a holodeck we dare not play on. And our calling, like the valorous Gideon, is to tear them down. And like Gideon, we need to begin at home.

If we learn that these ideas are not benign we will treat them like the cancer that they are. We will be on our guard when we step out into the world, steering clear of known carcinogens. And perhaps most importantly, we won't be satisfied with taking only some thoughts captive. We won't be happy with the news that the tumor has shrunk. We will get it out, eradicate it, knowing that it is a killer.

And then, finding that there is strength in our health, we find that we are able to go out into the world and tear down the altars of our neighbors. Knowing that they are equipped only with lies, we will wield the truth with power, and with that truth, set other captives free. That is what Paul is calling us to do, to become more than conquerors. And it all starts when we realize that there is a war on.

If we fight the good fight we will also find that our standards for weighing the Word of God were not our own, that we too are like the Pharisees, only worse. Were Jesus to speak to us He might say, "You aren't sodoniites. You don't vote Democratic. Such is good, but you neglect the great bulk of the law, large and small, keeping what is easy to keep because it holds no appeal to you." We must not be satisfied by merely being cleaner than the pagans. We must be spotless, bringing each and every thought into the obedience of Christ, who was spotless for us, that we might grow to become like Him, our mighty Warrior King.