What's in your camp?

“For the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and give your enemies over to you; therefore your camp shall be holy, that He may see no unclean thing among you, and turn away from you.” (Deut. 23:14)

You may be familiar with a certain TV commercial of a well-known credit card company, which says at the end of the dialogue, “what's in your wallet?”

The church in a similar way needs to ask, “what’s in your camp?” Discerning exactly what is in your camp can make all the difference between victory or defeat, between rejoicing or devastation, and ultimately between life or death.

Clearly, God says He is ready to deliver our enemies into our hands that they may be defeated before our face. He promises us that He will make us the head and not the tail, and that we shall be above only, and not beneath (Deut. 28:13). While we have these great and precious promises, many Christians are still being defeated in their spiritual battles.

According to our lead scripture there is at least one concrete reason why believers are not winning in spiritual warfare.

Now, that one primary reason for defeat is if we allow any unclean thing into our camp. Take for example the defeat of the Israelites in the first battle for Ai (Josh. 7:1-26). After losing 36 men in battle, Joshua cried out to the Lord, in anguish of heart, basically saying, “Oh Lord why were we defeated in battle?”

God answered him and said, get up from your sniveling on the ground and face the fact that there is an is an accursed thing in the midst of your camp. God went on to say that because of this, Israel could not could not stand before its enemies, and that the nation was doomed to destruction.

Furthermore, He said, neither will I be with you anymore, unless you destroy the accursed thing from among you (Jos. 7:12).

Yeah, that's right, God guaranteed Joshua that His chosen people would suffer sure unmitigated defeat every time they went up against their enemies. Talk about taking the air out of your balloon, undermining your confidence, and releasing dread into your heart. So much for our well planned strategy to drive out the enemy, possess the land and, establish Gods kingdom purpose in our assigned territory.

It’s great to know God is with you in your battles, but it’s more than mind-numbing and down-right terrifying to know that He has distanced Himself from you, and your camp, and is sitting on the sidelines. Not only that, but now you’re a sitting duck for the relentless onslaught of your spiritual enemies.

Looking at the Israelite nation’s example we can see that all it took was one unclean vessel to pave the way for the enemy to defeat the whole nation. The whole Israelite nation team suffered because of one defiant, disobedient, and spiritually defiled individual. This should make leaders reconsider the vetting process when selecting their core team members, if they have one.

The leaders of God’s armies must understand their role as gatekeepers. God says to “set the gatekeepers at the gates of the house of the Lord, so that no one who was in any way unclean should enter” (II Chron. 23:19). We are admonished by God to make sure nothing unclean enters the area of our designated responsibility and stewardship. Yet, there are many leaders in the body of Christ that have not heeded God’s warning.

Instead, every spiritual Tom, Dick, or Harry, along with their profane spiritual perceptions, out of body angelic revelations, or occult connections are allowed to regularly dump their defiled droppings upon the very sheep God ordered them to protect. Now the whole house becomes spiritually infected with a virus that taints and neutralizes a once powerful gospel.

To ensure He was with them, whether in peace or in battle, God instructed His leaders to make sure that their camp remains holy. When God says holy He means a clean camp, a camp undefiled by anything that spiritually pollutes or contaminates those that are in the camp. This means anything that God considers spiritually impure must be put out or removed from the camp.

Paul demonstrated this principle when he had the gatekeepers in the Corinth Church put out the young man who was committing sexual immorality with his father’s wife. He said such a one was to be delivered to Satan that he might come to repentance. Basically, Paul said, don’t you understand that a little bit of leaven leaven’s the whole lump? (I Cor. 5:1-7)

So, what constitutes unclean? Again Paul gives us a glimpse of what unclean means when he instructs the Corinthian believers to not keep company with certain individuals who claimed to be Christians but whose behaviors and lifestyle spoke otherwise (I Cor. 5:11-12). By the way, the phrase to keep company – in the original language – means to “mix up together,” or to “associate with.”

Paul’s list begins with the sexually immoral – this includes any type of sexual activity outside the God’s defined parameters for human sexuality (Lev. 18:1-30) and also includes those prone to excessive indulgence without any moral restraint. Next is the covetous – these individuals have an inordinate desire for the wealth and possessions of others. Then we have the idolater – this person is consciously sold out to anything else but the One True Living God.

Next we have what Paul calls the reviler – in contemporary terms this would be what is called an abusive personality. The final two are the drunkard and the extortioner. The drunkard is the person who is habitually intoxicated by any type of chemical substance, and the extortioner is a person who uses coercion, intimidation, violence, or psychological pressure to obtain what he wants.

Of those mentioned above I would consider the sexually immoral, the abusive personality, and the extortioner as the most defiling behaviors of the six characteristics outlined. Paul encourages true believers to not even eat with such persons. While the list provided by Paul, represents a certain level of uncleanness, there are deeper dimensions of defilement that are dangerously toxic and even more demonically binding.

Whenever one crosses over into the occult realms of activity one enters into the most foul, contaminating, and dangerous of all levels of uncleanness. The list here involves mixing any of the activities mentioned in verses 9-14 in Deuteronomy 18 with Christianity. This includes taking any of the world’s traditional religious ceremonies, rituals, or worship practices which have occult origins and blending or mixing them into any type of Christian service or activity.

Anyone who is part of, or connected to secret societies, or other illuminati structures has been contaminated by the sheer allegiance of such organizations to the occult. Any form of integrating New Age ideas and practices into Christianity is also a very defiling practice. Last of all there is a form of spiritual witchcraft that operates through certain aspects of today’s prophetic activity that seeks to control and dominate others. This too is a form of uncleanness that warrants rejection and renouncing.

Finally, God says His priests are “to teach My people the difference between the holy and the unholy, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean” (Ezek. 44:23). We, the church must return to once again teaching His people to discern between the clean and the unclean. If we are to win the upcoming end time battles it is required of us. Otherwise we face sure defeat.