To strike a larger target, hell must first come after the individuals who make up that larger target. The bigger picture of any widespread spiritual conflict is a huge mosaic made up of individuals. The individuals that make up that mosaic are the real targets of hell’s assault. Nations fall because of one reason – individuals chose to follow the author of fallenness.
“How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations!” (Isaiah 14:12).
The word “weakened” used in the verse above describes the work of Satan. His goal is to weaken. Weakened has been translated as to cause something to waste away, to become frail, to decay, or to be destroyed. In our personal lives when we believe the lies offered to us by the fallen one without investigation as to its source and fail to offer a righteous challenge, our faith weakens with each compromise we allow. A weakening of our faith also happens when we believe the bluffing from the bully of hell and shrink away in silent fear or allow our need for group acceptance to control our speech and actions with the fear of rejection.
While each of us should be concerned and involved in the welfare of our nation through prayer, service, and sacrifice, we should not forget the first and foremost assault on any nation does not begin with its institutions. The initial target is the faith of the Church. We hold the destiny of nations in our hands. With a successful assault against truth and faith on an individual level, a nation cannot stand.
The word “nations” was mentioned over 60 times in the New Testament, many times by Jesus. Most noted was His use of the word in The Great Commission. Nations is a word that can refer to a tribe, race, or nation. These are groups of people where we live and work. Our faith needs to remain strong and not compromised so that our tribe, race, or nation can survive long enough to flourish under the influence of God’s love. Maintaining a strong faith is what loving our neighbor as ourselves looks like and it is what will help a nation stand in challenging moments of history. One person with strong faith can become the ignition point of a wildfire of revival and reformation in any nation no matter how dire the situation of that nation might appear.
From a marvelous sermon by Helmut Thielicke on the Parable of the Importunate Widow: “Are we to believe that this church, which is represented as a defenceless widow, that this church which folds its hands in prayer as a sign of its defencelessness, that this church by its intercession before the throne of God actually shares in the government of the world and participates in the divine ordering of war and peace and curse and blessing? Is this not simply too fantastic to believe? But nothing less than this is assured and promised. It is in times of war and chaos that suddenly the power of the pray-ers begins to gleam like shining armour, and it begins to dawn upon us that this power is more real than all the feckless maneuvers of all the so called “real factors” in life. Were not all the doers and so-called real factors cast in a play that Another was directing? Has a single one of all the doers in the world’s history ever actually carried out a program in which he realised his own will? In the end, was not all that he did always deflected from its original course, taken out of his control and swept away by mysterious waves? Was he not himself on the program drawn up by Another – Another whom he never dreamed of, because he was always thinking only of himself? What did Cyrus and Nebuchadnezzar, what did Hitler and Stalin really knew about their role in the drama which Another had written and was then staging, the last act of which will end before the throne of God at the coming of the Lord? But one thing this church, this company of believers, does have. It has access to that Other who causes the unfolding of the drama of the world. And therefore it has a power greater than the magnificent and arrogant figures in gleaming armor who enter and leave the stage.”