The only thing worse than the foxhole mentality, is the besieged mentality. There’s no doubt that the church has shut her gates, stored up her food, gathered her subjects to safety, and clamped down the padlocks, hoping to wait until the enemy gives up and returns to his kingdom. The only problem is the church has been planted smack dab in the center of the enemy’s land.
The besieged mentality says “save yourself and don’t worry about anything or anyone else.” It is the “to heck with the world—it’s headed to hell in a hand-basket anyway” mentality. This is a defensive posture—wait and see—don’t shoot unless shot at kind of mindset. It is one of those “whatever you do, don’t draw any attention to yourself” ideals.
The problem with this defensive posture is that sooner or later the devastating effects of a spiritual siege take on the same deadly results as a historical siege. A city under siege was faced with famine and starvation. There was no way to replenish food supplies. Water supplies soon ran out and thirst began to take its toll. Disease and plague wasted the inhabitants. Cannibalism for survival soon ruled. The weak and young disappeared first, and those who had any means soon resorted to bribery, willing to make any deal to survive.
That, my dear friend, is a picture of many churches in America. We have allowed the enemy to come out from behind the gates of hell and we have run to our little cities on a hill and closed our gates. He is eating our inheritance and drinking the new wine of our vineyards, and we are surviving on empty fluff and faithlessness.
The time has come to stop playing defense and go on the offensive. Defense means you try and hold on to what you’ve got. Just a note: Jesus told us to give it away not hold on to it. Offense means you take something—you score early and you score often. Eventually, a besieged defense will make a deal and the only deal available from our enemy is slavery. Defense is a recipe for disaster. The only choice we have is to play offense. We are at war. If we remain on defense we will disappear.
Open the gates to your safe little compound and join me with Jesus. He came the first time to destroy the works of the devil. He invaded the kingdom of darkness to destroy it—to conquer it—not to leave it for us to defend in little denominational subdivisions. It’s time to drive the destroyer back into his hole and lay siege to it.
The way we do this is through prayer—kingdom prayer. To do this you must first make the decision to move from being a defensive player to an offensive player. You must declare war and fix your bayonets and charge. If you choose to remain behind the safety of your city walls you will become a slave in a grave and there you will probably die awaiting your deliverer. He probably won’t come because He is busy leading our charge against the gates of hell