There exists the notion that victory speaks only of joy, peace, love, rest in their counterfeit forms, the wishy-washy, mushy-gushy kind that has no place in reality. This song expresses the reality. There is war before victory. With war comes bloodshed, hard times, threatenings, loss and destruction, but the victory is there in real terms, earned and established by the Lord.
We wash our feet in the blood of our enemies;
Not in vain have we believed for our victories;
Though the trek has been long and full of miseries,
Still the worth has been there all the time.
CHORUS:
We are crowned with the helmet of His glory,
Our scabbard filled with the power of His Word;
Though the battle is bloody and gory,
His life He gives by the good news which is heard.
Not in vengeance nor in spite do we revel;
We wrestle not with flesh and blood but the devil;
We fill the valleys and the mountains we do level;
Our goal is righteousness and peace in all the earth.
There was a time when on our backs all men did trample,
At times unbearable if only but a sample,
But His grace He gave to us was more than ample;
He is the Captain of the hosts and our Lord.
Let the powers of Hell advance and do their utmost.
Here on earth we will stand guard at our outpost.
Standing for us, all around us is the Lord’s host;
There is nothing in this whole world to fear.
Lethbridge, AB; February 12, 1985
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We encountered an incident wherein religious people, friendly and all, counseled us to reconsider an undertaking we knew was the Lord's leading. We were learning that Satan's servants are ever there, with Bible under arm, God's praises on their lips, prepared to do battle "with love." The strange thing is that while I recall the Lord giving me what to say to these people, I do not recall what those words were, so occupied I was with learning another lesson.
Twice in my life has the Lord enlightened me on this person in particular, once by revelation without the experience and the second time by a taste of what Job suffered, taking me back to my mother's womb, my earthly origins. It is not our righteousness.
While I called this song the above name 20 years ago, I would not do so now. The power of Jesus as the Pentecostal circles like to call it is nothing less than Christ in us, the hope of glory. His Spirit we receive not while seeking power but while seeking to do His will in reality and not as we perceive it.