Building a fighting force

I circled the first place in the Old Testament where Israel is called an “army” or a “host.” It is Exodus 12:41, and it comes out of the blue. A ragtag bunch of grumblers of dubious potential, hiking their skirts to run from the “hosts” of Pharaoh (Exodus 14:28), are suddenly and improbably “the hosts of the LORD.” When in Exodus 15:3 we read that “The LORD is a man of war,” we start to catch on to what He is up to.

The Lord is building a fighting force. It will demand boot camp–style training as depicted in American Sniper, where Navy SEALS jump to commands that come with a double whammy: First, they are hard, and second, they seem unreasonable.

You must first appreciate what went into setting up and breaking camp in the wilderness. This was no willy-nilly, helter-skelter, debris-strewn Woodstock 1969 campsite. There were bolts of curtains, pillars, utensils, altars, tables, sockets, incense, a bronze laver, lampstand, mercy seat, and screens to be transported—and they had to be picked up and put down just so. Only the sons of Kohath, sons of Gershon, and sons of Merari, and their caravans could handle the holy things.

As for the 11 tribes who were not responsible for the tabernacle care, they were assigned specific positions around the portable worship edifice, and had to move out in the precise order Moses gave, at the signal of the moving of the cloud of God that hovered over the camp. That is to say, it was a bear to make and dismantle camp. And God would have them drop, or pull up stakes, for no apparent reason at a moment’s notice:

“So it was always: the cloud covered it by day and the appearance of fire by night. And whenever the cloud lifted from over the tent, after that the people of Israel set out, and in the place where the cloud settled down, there the people of Israel camped. At the command of the LORD the people of Israel set out, and at the command of the LORD they camped. … Even when the cloud continued over the tabernacle many days, the people of Israel kept the charge of the LORD and did not set out. Sometimes the cloud was a few days over the tabernacle, and according to the command of the LORD they remained in camp; then according to the command of the LORD they set out. And sometimes the cloud remained from evening until morning. And when the cloud lifted in the morning, they set out, or if it continued for a day and a night, when the cloud lifted they set out. Whether it was two days, or a month, or a longer time, that the cloud continued over the tabernacle, abiding there, the people of Israel remained in camp and did not set out, but when it lifted they set out. At the command of the LORD they camped, and at the command of the LORD they set out …” (Numbers 9:16–23, ESV).

Tired yet?

There is a man I know whose cloud lifted, as it were, in 2006, and it made no sense to him, but he knew it was God’s call. The Lord was telling him to leave his work at America’s Keswick residential addictions recovery ministry in the scenic pine barrens of New Jersey and to set up camp in notorious southwest Philadelphia to help found New Hope Philly, a discipleship ministry for men who have come out of life-dominating sins.

“This made absolutely no sense to me: ‘I have no money, the church has no money and I love my ministry at America’s Keswick,’ but there was no mistaking God’s call,” Bill Pruitt wrote on his new website, where recently I got word that the ministry is up and running.

That’s God for you. “The LORD is a man of war.” His mission—to reclaim all the territory that the Enemy has stolen. His training—hard and unreasonable. He makes no apologies and gives no explanation for the inconvenience.