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Praise for Called to War...
"Called to War is a critical book for men in our time a "War Manual" that teaches a man, step-by-step, how to stop playing defense and then begin to prevail against the gates of Hell in his marriage, his job...as a parent...and as a friend"
-- Frank Pastore
"Women, buy this book for the men you love! Called to War will most assuredly be compared with Wild at Heart, Healing the Masculine Soul and Raising a Modern Day Knight. Art Hobba's resourcefulness takes new ground earning inclusion in this unique fellowship of unabashed Servant Warriors. Men-of-God, saddle up; you have been Called to War! "
-- Marc Stein, President, Gospel Light Worldwide
"American Christian men in these troubled times require antidotes to extricate us from ignoble material ends. Art Hobba's experience with a church crisis in 2007 and his studies in Gideon is a profound work of God that is the medicine for mens souls perhaps even for salvation from death.
As he rightly says, Christian men are made for glory in heaven as a reward for acts of integrity and courage every day."
-- Sam Jackson. World Vision
This book is so needed by men today. It helped me realize how much I needed to stop standing alone against the spiritual battles I face, and lock shields with a few good men. Read it it will strengthen you as a husband, father and as a man So others may live!"
-- Dr. Terry Schroeder, Head Coach Mens USA Water Polo, Mens Team Silver Medal, Beijing Olympics 2008
"As a Christian therapist I see men every week who have lost their way due to a false masculinity that abdicates their role as a servant-warrior who loves and protects his wife and children. Called to War is not about macho, but about freedom. Art takes a man through the journey of Gideon from a fearful farmer, to mighty warrior. Men can be freed from the very false and often toxic armor we put on for self protection, and learn a new openness before God and other men. Men who read this book will discover their divine destiny and the courage, in Christs armor, to fight and win, their spiritual battles."
-- Rick Blackmon, Ph.D., co-founder Pacific Psychological Resources
"Art's ability to rally men around the idea of stepping into the arena, and out of our comfort zones, is just one of his leadership attributes that draws us into his sphere of influence and man-to-man accountability. This is a polished, well organized, and extremely inspirational message. He is able to mix his vast biblical knowledge with a lifetime of pertinent personal experiences and challenges. His use of scripture and often disarming transparency speaks to Art's firmly grounded Christian faith."
--Bruce MacDonald, President, OSI Electronics
"Art Hobba is effectively tapping in to what is needed to engage American men in powerful kingdom-focused ways in their families, churches, and communities. Using Gideon as a case study, he uses the biblical themes of the warrior to challenge us to "get into the arena" -- first by building interdependent relationships with other men, then freeing us from the dark bonds that drag men down, and finally by "spurring us on to love and good deeds" in practical ways. Both the content and the approach are motivating and transforming."
--Steve Adams, Christian Associates, Latin America Director
"Even though it was originally written for men, I find it even more challenging for me to dig deeper. I have learned so much about myself as well as others, and God has used this book to challenge me in areas of my life that I have been shoving in the back corner of my heart, and also challenged me with my relationship with my boyfriend...we have both grown because of this study. I have had to make sacrifices, BUT I love it! And love learning how to be a Warrior in the arena!!"
--Kaila Shull, Catcher, UCLA Womens Softball, All Pac 10
"God does not call the "equipped". He "equips" the "called." And that is why men need to pick up this book and use it as a "tool" in their arsenal of weapons to fight the battle of the day with care, compassion, and due diligence."
-- Fr. Joseph Scerbo, S.A., Ph.D., Franciscan Friar of the Atonement, former Dean of Trinity College of Graduate Studies, past president of the Association of Christian Therapists.
"I am a man and love being one because of what this book talks about. This is a powerful book. If you read it, pray to the God mentioned in it, and take the next steps Art Hobba recommends, you will be a changed man. And, while you are at it, put on your seatbelt right now . . . because you will surely need it. The ride you are about to take will take you over terrain youve never be on.
Having personally witnessed God's transforming grace in action in Art Hobba's life compels me to recommend this book to you."
-- John Tolle, Supervisor, Pacific Coast & Valleys District, The Foursquare Churches
"Every man needs to be exposed to this book. We are at war and Called to War is a refreshingly honest analysis of our war with Satan, our enemy, and shares with us how to deal with the struggles we as men face. Then it shows us how to win! It is time that the church demands that we become the men that God has called us to be. Read this book, recognize your enemy, put on your armor, and get into the battle".
-- Kent Humphreys, Ambassador and Former President, FCCI /Christ_Work
"Called to War is a poetically inspiring, yet substantial book critical for men in our time. It awakened in me a passion to become who I want to be verses who I am. If we men can't identify with the need to go to war for God today, as presented by the author, then the image in the mirror that looks back at us tomorrow may merely be a dead man walking."
-- Ted Bagley, Vice President of Human Resources, Amgen
"Art Hobba's Called to War is not just a book but a road map that every man should use to align himself with other men to stand their course. It not only challenged me personally, but it opened my eyes to how important we are as men to our families, community, churches, and to one another."
-- Chris Hayes, former NFL Super Bowl Champion, Green Bay Packers
"You're tired, hurting, and convinced you're alone. Your wife doesnt understand what you're going through and your children have become a burden. Work is drudgery laced with fear of losing your paycheck. Your glances at other women have become lustful stares and you cant wait until work is over so you can have a drink. You've lost your way. Then along comes a book that extends its hand to you and wraps you in the armor of God protecting you with the shield of faith. Suddenly, you awaken the Warrior within!
Art Hobba has crafted the remedy that will bring men back from the brink and restore their soul. This is a groundbreaking work that every man must read!"
-- Dave Tofanelli, Vice President, WellPoint-Anthem, Professor of Business, California Lutheran University
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Table of Contents
Praise for Called to War..................................... 6
Dedication......................................................... 9
Acknowledgements.......................................... 10
Prologue.......................................................... 11
Chapter One: Beginnings.................................. 18
Chapter Two: Gideon: Alone, Hiding and Disqualified....................................................... 27
Chapter Three: Blood on the Floor.................... 39
Chapter Four: A Primer on Spiritual Warfare.......50
Chapter Five:From Fearful Farmer to Baal Buster.64
Chapter Six: From Asherah to Ashes.................81
Chapter Seven: Blowing Your Own Horn..............96
Chapter Eight: All Other Ground is Sinking Sand.......................................................... 111
Chapter Nine: The 12 Strategies of Defensive Warfare ..................................................... 122
Chapter Ten: Dressed For Success--Body Armor........................................................ 140
Chapter Eleven: Total Annihilation .............. 155
Chapter Twelve To Know Me is to Love Me .................................................................. 168
Epilogue: What’s Next? ................................ 179
Appendix ................................................... 188
End Notes ................................................. 192
About the Author ....................................... 196
Prologue
The life of a man upon earth is a warfare
Job 7:1
The Christian radio talk show host asked the well known womens ministry leader the question, So what do you think about the statement that men in the church have been feminized? Her immediate response was, I totally disagree. Men in American have not been feminized at allthey have been emasculated. Men dont feel a need to be more like women they just have lost their identity as men.
This book begins with the true story told by a washed up minister whom God forgave, restored, and reenlisted in his service. The real story lies, however, with a few men, discontented with the state of men in their church. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, we discovered a pathway to re-engagement as Gods man in this ever darkening hour. What unfolded was not a program, but a divine movement that radically changed the lives of hundreds of men in our church.
At the urging of a friend and the CEO of a major publisher who heard the story, I felt compelled far beyond my zone of comfort or ambition, to write of both the movement and its focus on the timeless biblical story of Gideon. shed in the light of the man of God as a warrior. It has been made clear to us that, in these dark and uncertain times, God intends to mobilize men in this hour and call them to war with Him.
Many of you who are reading this book have suffered through some potentially debilitating failures. We have much in common. My first call to serve came as a young man and that call launched me into a two decade journey that included obtaining a degree in pastoral theology, several ministry appointments and capped with 8 years as senior pastor at a southern California church. We spent much of this time in the teeth of a spiritual battle, but both my wife and I were ill equipped, inexperienced and too immature to navigate the barrage of assaults successfully.
From ministry assignment, to ministry assignment, the state of our marriage deteriorated, even though we both worked hard, with scores of hours of counseling, to repair it.
Our two sons suffered some deep scars and it has only been within the last decade that God has healed and redeemed our relationship, as father and son. After 22 years of marriage, I hit a wall where I could no longer minister. Thankfully, I was given the grace to have wise and caring denominational leadership around me that helped facilitate a very healthy and peaceful transition to a new pastor. However, after, attempting to bring our marriage to a place of health, we finally separated and 12 months later, divorced. My direct Supervisor at that time was a good friend and wise counselor. He told me, “Art, you will need to recover and heal for at least 7 years before you will be ready again to resume your calling. That “prophecy” turned out to be spot on.
Continued…
Introduction
The postmodern church in America today is on its heels, reeling from culture wars on the outside and from structural resistance and generation gaps within. All this is magnified by renewed financial pressures as giving has plummeted due to the global economic crisis. Yet, in many churches, attendance and needs are on the rise. Many churches have been squeezed close to, or beyond, the breaking point as staffs are cut and programs left unfunded. There has never been, in this writer’s lifetime, a greater need, or opportunity.
We have all, it seems, been placed upon a mandatory fast of sorts, where the once attractive pursuit of opulence and acquisition has faded to Spartan black and white. Most guys I know are playing defense or ducking for cover.
The condition at our church was that a majority of men who attended were “in the stands”. For years, I was also content to sit in the stands and watch life go by, accompanied by my other male “Jesus fans”. But something was missing…I sensed that my colleagues were bored…and being picked off by peripheral and direct hits from some unseen enemy’s artillery…or worse yet, disabled by phantom snipers hidden in the many traps placed in our paths in the great cosmic war against Christian men. Most men I knew were good guys but they had no real practical way of living out their faith in the world. But, until recently, we always had our work and toys to salve our souls. However, God has planned a new “game” for us. It is “in the arena” advancing God’s purposes on earth. It is beyond success…a call to significance…and it is why you were born.
Sometimes what we don’t know can really hurt us. The Bible teaches us that were all born into an invisible but deadly war against our souls and the souls of those we love.
Like it or not…admit it or not, as long as we have breath, we will struggle against the aligned strategies of World System, Human Carnality and the Cohorts of Satan’s Kingdom. As real, yet invisible as the air we breathe, you and I awakened this war this morning…and we will tomorrow, every day, until we die or return to Christ in glory when he comes again as our Warrior-King.
Twenty-four seven
“The Lord is a warrior and the Lord is His Name”
- Exodus 15:3
Many of us have never heard the message preached clearly from our pulpits. This book, then, is a necessary boot camp training manual to prepare you for victory…and equip you, and those you enlist, to engage and win in this arena as God’s Kingdom warrior.
Why men? A Focus on the Family study stated that if a child is the first person in a household to become a Christian, there is a 3.5 percent probability everyone else in the household will follow. If the mother is the first to become a Christian, there is a 17 percent probability everyone else in the household will follow.
But if the father is first, there is a 93 percent probability everyone else in the household will follow.1
Many have seen the breadth of devastation that impacts a church and community when a pastor or elder fails to guard their spiritual and emotional thought life, becomes isolated, and then falls prey to sexual temptation or some other moral sin. It is a strategy Satan has employed with many leaders because he knows that if he can “strike the shepherd, the sheep will be scattered”2.
Men have been marginalized by gender blending, paralyzed by the assault of sexual perversion, and waylaid by the promise of fulfillment in achieving success in their work. In addition, many churches have overplayed the quality of “niceness” as a sanitized substitute for godliness and exchanged church-centric “ministry” conscription for the calling to the adventure of a dynamic faith walk in God’s Kingdom.
This is why men are the focal point of this book…and also why men are the fulcrum upon which Satan leverages his war on this planet. Unless the individual man recognizes that he is called by God to prepare, act, think, and respond as a Warrior in this life, he will fall far short of his created potential.
With so many pulpits focusing on only the more popular New Testament writings, the American church has been for too long fed a pabulum rich diet based on taste alone, while two-thirds of Old Testament references are relegated to excerpts that include the ten commandments, the Genesis story, Psalms of comfort and Joseph and his technicolored dreamcoat! The fact remains that a full one-third of the Bible was written in the context of War. The victories and defeats of God’s people, often leading to bondage and the victorious deliverance achieved as men went to war for, and with, Yahweh.
Chapter One
Beginnings
“Those faithful who have gone before us…and the very angels of God look down upon those of us who remain on earth and cheer us on in the coliseum called Life. They watch as witnesses and in rapt amazement, as we compete for the prize and engage in the battle for our lives…and for those we love. Yet most American Christian men are hamstrung and ill-equipped for the incessant warfare that rages around us…locked into spectator status in the grandstands of life.”
Hebrews 12:1. AHUV Bible (Art Hobba Unauthorized Version)
A Few Things I Learned the Hard Way
Last year our family went up into the Colorado Rockies for a week of adventure based out of a Dude Ranch at 9,000 feet. For one of our days, between horseback lessons in the arena and riding in the woods, I had the chance to talk my wife Sharon, into a white water rafting trip down the upper Colorado River. The rapids were “only” Class III and IV., and being pretty big for his size and an expert swimmer; they allowed him to participate even though the cut-off age was thirteen.
I had done Class IV before, and attempted to convince Sharon that it was just fine. She was pretty nervous…not only for her life for her son as well. She tried to persuade me to go it alone so she could go shopping (which many men have found to be an even more frightening experience, personally).
She said, “Honey, look at you…you have scars all over your body from these kind of adventures…a titanium hip, both your shoulders and one of your knees has been rebuilt, but that doesn’t mean we have to follow in your footsteps!”
I assured her, “We have helmets, wetsuits, lifejackets, and an expert guide…what could go wrong?” Being practical and wiser than me, she retorted back that if we had to wear all of that stuff, it must be pretty dangerous. Anyway, my son and I prevailed upon her best judgment and the three of us armored up and, equipped with paddles, launched downstream.
We only capsized once. I was launched into the air from the port bow when our “expert” guide ran us up on a huge boulder, midstream. Apparently, I inadvertently took both my wife and son overboard with me with what amounted to a cross body block.
We were invigorated, wet, and safe again on dry land. In the gift shop, they were selling some mementos of the experience and I found, and bought, a great t-Shirt that said, “Scars are Tattoo’s with Better Stories.”
Unfortunately, I have rarely been one to be content to watch and learn from others. My seasonal penchant for arrogance, blended with an almost unreal optimistic outlook, has gotten me into some pretty bad skirmishes with circumstances beyond my control and not a little loss of blood and… scars with stories.
However, I think, even though God may have had a preferred way (like obeying the Bible and sometimes even learning from books like these, which could have forewarned and fore-equipped me) to teach me life’s lessons.
However, I have too often chose the path of hard knocks, some of which left deep scars. More on your and my scars in a later chapter.
Why are men so disengaged?
I think there are several reasons why this happens to men more that it appears to happen to women. If we are to learn how to step into the arena, we must first clearly understand what God’s objectives are, what we will be facing and the nature of our enemy.
“Well then, my boy, develop your strategy so the prizes in games won’t elude your grasp. Strategy makes a better woodcutter than strength. Strategy keeps a pilot’s ship on course when crosswinds blow it over the wine-blue sea. And strategy wins races for charioteers. One type of driver trusts his horses and chariot and swerves mindlessly this way and that, all over the course without reigning in his horses.
But a man who knows how to win with a lesser horse, keeps his eye on the post and cuts the turn close, and, from the start keeps tension on the reigns with a firm hand as he watches the leader.”
-- The Iliad, Homer, 9th Century B.C.
Lack of strategy
One of our most basic reasons for disengagement is that we have not been taught the nature of the forces and entities arrayed against us, or the seriousness of our Adversary’s intent. In this book, we will walk together through an unfolding process of discovery regarding the ultimate goal of the Church and the ultimate goal of our adversary, the Devil. Scripture teaches us, amplified through the lens of history, that the Devil’s ultimate objective is to destroy the Church1. In Chapter Four, A Primer on Spiritual Warfare, we will delve in more detail about the dimensions of war so we can be prepared and form a strategy for victory.
Chapter Nine brings us to the Armor of God, its tactical usefulness and strategic application for preemptive and defensive warfare.
Lack of modeling
Some of men remain in the stands for much of their lives because they have never seen a model of a spiritual man, other than the called, trained, and paid professional minister, who can easily be elevated to such an state as to be admired as an anomaly of manhood. “Called,” yes…admired, absolutely, but not someone to practically emulate in my “dog eat dog” world.” Men need a tangible, Christian model to mentor them; someone to show them the ropes of a masculine faith. Most Sunday school teachers and schoolteachers are women. Many men, even in the church, don’t pray at home or read the Bible. Many fathers today, and in past generations, are absent from involvement in the lives of their sons and daughter even if they did come home every night.
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