While we can underestimate the power of darkness, we should never overestimate its power. A single believer exercising faith is more powerful than an army of hell. “Each one of you will put to flight a thousand of the enemy, for the Lord your God fights for you, just as he has promised” (Joshua 23:10). 

I came across an old photo from 50 years ago. It is a photo of what was then called the Crowd Control Unit when I served as a deputy at the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office in San Jose, California. Our unit was called up when peaceful protests were hijacked by radicals who were in operation at the time in the San Francisco Bay area. These protests that had gone awry were as violent as the worst of the worst of the Antifa protests and the associated nonsensical violence we see happening today. Sharpened spears and Improvised bombs were dropped on officers from high-rise buildings along with buckets of human waste. It was a level of violence most people cannot imagine by simply watching a TV report on the evening news.

Each of us was trained in Bokendo, a Japanese stick-fighting technique. When our team arrived at an incident and exited the transport bus we would march in strict order in a loud foot-stomping cadence as we moved forward. The sound of our arrival was unnerving and was used o serve notice. On command, we would break up into five-man teams and form the phalanx of a marching triangle, not breaking our original cadence. At this point, the lesser committed members of the mob would begin to run. Some of these violent mobs numbered in the thousands. As the crowd began to run, we never broke ranks or lost the sound of our marching cadence. We didn’t run. The saying at the time was “a single team of five Crowd Control Unit members can put a thousand to flight.” Our training, team unity, and confident appearance were enough to put an end to some of these riots.

Our team reminds us of how we can appear to the enemy when as a Church we are well-trained as noted by Paul in Ephesians 4 when we sit under the instruction of the five equipping gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher. David reminds us of what our training in spiritual warfare will accomplish. “He trains my hands for war and gives my fingers skill for battle. (Psalm 144:1).

Paul went on to say, our training brings us to a place of maturity when we choose to put aside our personality issues and preferences and get to work taking down works of darkness while remaining undivided in our love and mission no matter what the devil throws at us.

(In case you are wondering. I’m the young officer in the photo standing in the back row wearing a mustache, third from the left.)