In the US. Navy submarine fleet we have a very specific training and education cycle expected of everyone whose goal is to become a member of the Silent Service. The uniform decoration for the successful achievement of this long and arduous phase, which can commonly take 8 months to a year, is the Submarine Qualification Certification, also known as getting your Dolphins.
In the lives of most young men (when I served, only men could volunteer), the achievement of becoming “Qualified in Submarines” is an enormous source of pride. The experience builds self-confidence and is rewarded with a level of camaraderie and acceptance as a trusted crew member, capable of stepping up to greater responsibilities.
All of this positive developments among the officers and sailors aboard submarine would not be possible except for the proper functioning of the complex organization of a U.S. Navy submarine and all the supporting aspects of maintaining a properly performing vessel at sea.
Whether sailors remain in the Service or return to civilian careers, the extraordinary experience of serving aboard a nuclear submarine form the foundation for heightened levels of performance no matter which avenue a serviceman or woman chooses in life. Career courses may not be as coveted as being able to wear the uniform and knowing one is making sacrifices in service to their country in such a unique and exceptional manner, but even if a path in the civilian world does not rival military operations, a man can exert influence through his hard earned experience and the requisite character of becoming a submariner no matter where he is.
The drive towards military readiness never ends inasmuch as vigilance can ever be halted or interrupted.
This pathway to excellence is something that would well serve the Church and family.
Church Qualifications?
When a person in a congregation becomes a Christian, they may not, or most likely not, have had the “qualification training” that people normally go through to become part for. high performing organization. Church is often treated as a social organization, an alternate volunteer activity, with a religious tag on it.
Western culture has suffered a great amount of destabilization of the family and in the church, to the point where the church has lost its salt, its primary call, because the duty of a person who attends church is doing just that, attending church, and not necessarily devoting their life to God. Unlike volunteering to serve on submarines, the expectations in a church does not rise to much of a formal path to understand and practically apply the foundations that build and strengthen the Church but more importantly one’s own spiritual growth and personal relationship with The Living God.
The Church should be a special source of a spiritual education. Much has been afforded the practice and development of Emotional Intelligence, and the similar Intelligence needs to be educated and nurtured in the Church so that a call to follow Christ results in the strengthening of “Spiritual Intelligence.”
Unlike the natural progression in military service or any advancement in most careers, the maturity of a Christian gradually leads them away to our attachment to the world apart from advancing God’s kingdom. Developing genuine servitude to the Lord Jesus Christ does not manifest in our own self-promotion, maintenance of personal self-pride, self-righteousness, or necessarily comfort (as opposed to Peace).
As we study Scripture and pursue spiritual maturity, we shine the light on our sinful bastions connected to an unregenerate flesh who we all are or were in servitude to. In the Letter to the Romans, The Apostle Paul writes extensively of this dynamic between being delivered from sin through Grace coinciding with the struggle still being attached to the body which is at the root of our personal sin.
Regarding the spiritual life of a Christian and their walk with the Lord Jesus Christ: “Believers view their own sinfulness in direct proportion to how they see the holiness of God and perfection of His law.” (MacArthur Study Bible, p 1556).
It’s been my firm belief that most people who believe they are Christians are stalled and in danger of maintaining an unregenerate view or even remain in unregenerate (unsaved) state. This is revealed in Christ’s exhortations in Matthew 7.
At the foundation of this spiritual weakness, is merely committing to a weak and academic assessment of God’s Holiness and Righteousness and the Moral Law (i.e. The Ten Commandments). Without a supernatural intervention by the Holy Spirit, an unregenerate mind cannot even begin to consider the reality of the infinite Holiness and Righteousness and the consequences of the worldly attitude towards reconciliation with God, even through practices found in religion and ritual asceticism.
In the Bible, there are some human reactions to being the the presence of Holy God, one of my favorites in Isaiah 6, where even Isaiah (humanly viewed as a righteous priest) sees his own sins for their damning nature in the presence of the God and the Truth. It’s sobering when Isaiah is crushed by his own guilt.
I get concerned when a self-proclaiming Christian expresses his belief that Surrender to Christ is not necessary. When you consider that a Christian is one who is the servant or a slave to God and to the Lord Jesus Christ, despite the rattling of our modern Western sensibilities by the word “surrender”, this is an obvious doctrinal relationship between one who is born-again and one who is not.
It’s reasonable to assume that surrender may be experienced by degree, depending on how destroyed our own sense of self-pride and self-righteousness has been. Surrender is good if it is done for the right reason and at the feet of the right power.
In order to emphasize the need for a powerful leadership figure, let me digress a bit with a scene from the movie Ford vs Ferrari:
After losing the first attempt at Lemans with the GT-40, Carroll Shelby exhorts Henry Ford II, “You can’t win a race by committee… you need one man in charge.” This is the ethos taps into of the American Spirit and one founded on the principles of rights endowed to each person by God and some individuals are endowed with great talent.
Then Henry Ford II, the powerful leader gives license Carroll Shelby as they stand in the 18th story windows overlooking the Ford plant, with the understanding that the Ford Motor Company knows how to fight a war:
There’s one man running this company. You report to him. You understand?
That’s one of the reasons why this movie is so great, why the American innovative and entrepreneurial spirit has been first class in large part because individual achievement and greatness is largely celebrated and encouraged. This is shadow-like to the relationship with individual rights bestowed directly from God.
Back to the submarine analogy, in strategic reaction to the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor against an undefeated enemy bent on domination of the Western Pacific and all its territories, the aggressive innovation and tactical genius of a new generation of submarine commanders was a major factor of shortening the war in the Pacific during World War II. The submarine on patrol in WWII was an example of autonomy (and enormous trust) in combat with the operational order to engage in “unrestricted warfare” in distant enemy controlled seas.
Without diving into arguments, I speculate based on anecdotes in all levels of the military, there are strong reasons why American resolve flourish under pressure with the ability to operate effectively with leadership at all levels. Along with effective cross training and promotion based on merit, created a more effective fighting force down to individual units.
It’s not that God will not judge our nation for its trends into utter depravity, but the greatness unleashed by individuals given the freedom to achieve and do good in a nation under God, and given personal rights directly from God is powerful, less hindered by the dictatorial precepts of corrupt leaders and those who do not value the power of of E Pluribus Unum and In God We Trust. At least for the United States, the foundations are rooted in the God of the Bible not the pantheon of the world’s idols.
I’ve suggested in this article how spiritual qualification comes through the local church, but ultimately, if Americans can rebel more restored within Marriage and the family, e.g. a father who understands his Christian role, that is truly fighting the Spiritual War at its most effective unit.
Christianity as a path, Christ as Lord
Christian Boot Camp
Christians, as part of his or her basic training, one should be able set course in a life long search to grow in understanding the essential truths beginning with the Good News ( the Gospel ) of Salvation through Jesus Christ’s sacrificial death and Resurrection while understanding that the Gospel is at the center of every action of the Christian life.
With many self-proclaiming Christians, like myself, the realization of this critical nature of this education may not come as early as you might think. It wasn’t until I was 59 years old when I surrendered to Christ and then the Scriptures spoke to me, and I believe, the true nature of the Gospel, because I was in despair and critically emptied of foolish pride.
Early on, the sinfulness of Sin needs to be effectively understood, enough to understand the need for divine mercy and grace. Again, this is better done within the family and not relying on the local church who does not oversee the day to day life of its congregants.
We are all prone to self-pride and self-righteousness and those remain obstacles to a servant in God’s Kingdom and an obstacle in recognition of God’s Holiness and Righteousness. Ironically, these roadblocks to the Gospel can be propped by your own church leadership if they do not emphasize the sinful nature of sin and the perfection of the Moral Laws.
The education of a Christian should contain an intimate understanding of the reasons why God necessitated the sacrifice of His Son for the sins of the world. One must learn more about God’s character, the human need for God’s Grace, and the symbolism and purpose of a man and a woman in Marriage anfollowed by the importance of families as well as the extended community that forms both the local and international Body of Christ (the Church).
The damage done to the family, having been assaulted from many directions, will have greater effect on the Spiritual health of a nation which leads to a number of depravations in society. Ultimately, in all their insidious natures, the damaged Marriage and family institution rivals the damage done by foreign military and economic aggression, not to mention the eternal destiny of many a soul. History proclaims that most great nations die from within as rot hollows out what was its moral strength. However, the American experiment has survived so far, God willing, despite the many indications of being under His judgment for a wide spectrum of societal depravation.
Without the foundation of a population founded on the a strong family unit with a reverence for the Living God and His Commandments, one may expect divine Judgment. Such is the case of many earthly and unrepentant kingdoms in the historical records, many which are recorded in the Bible.
Perhaps the greatest truth, however, are the Eternal Truths that offer Christians hope that go well beyond national sovereignty, because the future of all nations and the world itself has everything to do with the Sovereignty of God and the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords.
Despite the rise and fall of world rule, empires and peoples, even persecution of Christians, entry into the kingdom remains an individual and divine calling. The Gospel allows a sinner to become justified by the Mercy and Grace of God through Christ’s perfect redemptive work on the cross. Entering the Eternal Kingdom begins a path that leads to the ultimate joys of service, with God given Qualifications to serve.
In all truth, let it be known, it is not our work as a Christian that justifies our acceptance by God but all Glory goes to Jesus Christ and His perfect redeeming work calling us who were yet enemies of God, unregenerate and spiritually dead without God’s intervention.
Here’s a few passages that emphasize Salvation by God’s Grace:
And you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom we all also formerly conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. – Ephesians 2:1-3
For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. – Romans 5:10
I’l leave you with this inspiring passage from Romans 8:
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who indeed did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; 34 who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will affliction, or turmoil, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 Just as it is written,
“For Your sake we are being put to death all day long;
We were counted as sheep for the slaughter.”
37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. -Romans 8:31-39
For a one minute explanation of the Gospel from the late Pastor John MacArthur, watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCP9UcC7BzE
For a review of the Ten Commandments: https://www.challenyee.com/the-ten-commandments/
ACT LIKE MEN a short talk given by John MacArthur (click on the link)
All quoted excerpts have footnotes removed, usually from Legacy Standard Bible (LSB), sometimes from New International Version (NIV), on rare occasion the Amplified Bible (AMP).
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08-09-24