This post is a follow-up message from Pastor Chris's sermon entitled "Seasons of Sacrifice". [Watch video]

When Satan is up at night worrying, I imagine it is often about men like Joseph. Men like (and this is the name that really makes him shudder) Jesus. Men who are meek. More on this in a moment.

A missile is a fascinating thing. Danger at one end, disaster at the other. It has all the ingredients of chaos, and yet it is not chaos. My grandfather, a very interesting fellow, worked for a time developing intercontinental ballistic missiles. In fact, I am told, though I haven’t had a chance to see it personally, that one of his hand-assembled missiles can be viewed in the Smithsonian. That missile is the product of thousands of hours of patient study and lots of math to take some of the most powerful and destructive forces known to man and control them completely. A missile is only valuable if you can get it to do absolutely nothing until you want it to. Then you need to be able to get it from here to there predictably and with precision. Finally, once it gets there, it needs to have the strength to accomplish its mission, even if that means rending steel and concrete. A good missile is a fearful weapon. And this brings us back to talking about men.

This world needs more men who are like good missiles. Too many men cultivate power without restraint. They proudly bask in the glow of their own magnificence. Yet, for all their bluster, they are like unpacked gunpowder fizzling violently but uselessly on the ground. Satan need not fear such men, though he employs quite a few.

Other men have perfected the art of lying dormant. They sit securely and safely and cause no harm. But they lack the willingness and ability to do good when the need arises. Satan finds such men perhaps amusing, but delightfully irrelevant.

Finally, there are meek men. Men with power under control. These are men who will live a righteous life because they have developed an increasing immunity to the lusts of their flesh. These are men who will take a wife in love and sacrifice and not as a trophy to personal ego. These are men who will submit to unreasonable governors and pay taxes without complaining because it is the right thing to do. They are also the kind of men who can smuggle their family into a foreign country in the middle of the night. They are the kind of men who can set personal hopes and dreams aside in a moment to follow the orders of their God.

There is no manipulating a meek man. You can’t disarm, distract, or detonate him. He will wait and prepare patiently until called upon, and then he will fly true and inexorably towards his goal. Once there, he is a terrible force to be reckoned with for he represents not his own strength but the strength and wisdom of the One who has hand-assembled him.

When God decided it was time to send Death itself to its grave, He launched an infant into a manger. When He needed a man to watch over His only begotten Son, He reached past all the Rambo’s and hand-wringing Dudes and chose Joseph. God had His Joseph; Satan had Herod and all his armies. We know which side chose best.

We need more men like Joseph. Men meek like a missile.