The Day of Battle

Psalms 78:9 KJV

The children of Ephraim, being armed, and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle.

The occasion of this Psalm is indiscernible. It was most likely written in or around the time of David and therefore long before the rebellion under Jeroboam.  Ephraim is often used as a name to describe the ten northern tribes just as Judah is often used to refer to the two southern tribes. No doubt that it is being used in that manner here. Still; though this is previous to their rebellion, given that

• The ten northern tribes were never completely loyal to David
• There is no reference to a battle when Ephraim turned back on the rest of the national and
• God (nor His Word) is not bound by the limitations of time so that the penmen often wrote concerning things they personally had no knowledge of

It is, in my understanding, best to attribute this as the rebellion of the Northern tribes from God's kingly line.

And what I learn here is that loyalty to God's principles is a battle. It is hard fighting. Though God has armed us well, we still must do the work of hard combat if we are to remain true to the Lord and His Word. The world, the flesh and the devil give us constant conflict and what we might often see as reasonable excuses to defect from what we are taught and remove our loyalties to another cause. The good fight of faith is not just a fight for souls and a fight for doctrinal truth; it is often a fight for loyalty.

• Loyalty to our church
• Loyalty to our commitments
• Loyalty to our marriage vows

That is a fight failed as often as we see

• Marriages, even among professing believers ending in divorce and
• Christians today who move church membership as casually as we might change which shopping center we prefer

It's a battle out there. As we fight the good fight, never lose sight that the battle for loyalty to God's church and our commitments is as much a battle front as is souls or fundamental doctrines.