Combat Faith: Now, as We Head Toward the Last Days, Finding Inner Peace and Stability Requiresa New Dimension of Faith Far Beyond Positive Thinking and Positive Confession

by Hal Lindsey

In his most important book to date,  New York Times  bestselling author Hal Lindsey shows us the way to the one kind of faith tough enough to meet the tough times combat faith.

World events clearly indicate that our generation has been chosen to witness the prophetic last days of this age. During these troubled times, the Bible tells us, ordinary faith will not be enough and many will be lured from God’s truth.
 
Now, more than ever, we must learn to break the “faith-barrier”; to overcome worry, anxiety, and fear and enter into a new dimension of peace and stability; to claim the invincible inner peace that God has promised each of us—no matter the circumstances.

Genres: Christian, Inspirational, Religion

256 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1986

About the author

Harold Lee Lindsey was an American evangelical writer and television host. He wrote a series of popular apocalyptic books – beginning with The Late Great Planet Earth (1970) – asserting that the Apocalypse or end time (including the rapture) was imminent because current events were fulfilling Bible prophecy. He was a Christian Zionist and dispensationalist.

Reviews

[Don Incognito · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the rarity of reviews, I assume this book has been largely ignored. My library had a copy, but purged it from circulation long before now. If it rarely got borrowed and read, I can figure out why. Hal Lindsey is now also largely ignored as far as I can tell; and that would be because he was rightfully discredited when his apocalyptic predictions of the 1970s and 1980s did not come to pass in those decades. I know that in the 1970s (the decade before my birth), substantial numbers of young Christians gave up their lives to wait for the apocalypse because people like Lindsey convinced them that the end times were coming soon. Lindsey ignored or didn't know the fact that everyone in history who has tried to predict the time of Christ's return has been made a fool of. All those discredited predicters, including Lindsey, should have paid more attention to the Bible verse in which Jesus said only His Father knows exactly when. Also the principle (not a Bible verse) that to have credibility as a prophet of God, a predictor's predictions must be correct one hundred percent of the time. In my Southern Baptist church, I have never heard Lindsey's name mentioned, although the pastors and the older members probably know who he is.

So, then, why have I read Combat Faith? Only curiosity: I am typically attracted to books by their titles, and ever since I saw it in my public library in the early 2000s, I simply wanted to know what "combat faith" meant.

It is absolutely too bad, then, that most Christians probably ignore anything Lindsey writes or says since the 70s and 80s (again, if younger Christians have even heard of him), because Combat Faith suggests that whenever Lindsey is not unwisely claiming to have pinned down the end times, he is actually an intelligent teacher and man of faith. If people think Lindsey was only the Tim LaHaye of the 1970s, they would be mistaken. There's evidently more to Lindsey than that.

Combat Faith as a concept is simply trusting God in the most difficult circumstances; there's nothing complicated about it. Lindsey explains the dynamics of it through quoting many Bible verses (often explaining their original meanings in the Greek or Hebrew), and gives various figures from the Bible as examples of this faith, particularly Abraham; Moses; and of course Jesus Christ himself.

(I understand that later editions of this book were published under some different title. Possibly the original title was misunderstood to mean "fight faith.")

The main reason I appreciate this book and plan to keep it (I didn't plan to, when I started it) is not the lessons in faith, it's the significant amount of Biblical knowledge that I didn't know. Little bits of information given in support of points Lindsey is making. For instance, when discussing the very extensive symbolism of the first Passover, Lindsey observes that when the believing Hebrews smeared blood on their doorposts (top, left side and right side), the motions they made were the sign of the cross. The sort of fact I am typically delighted to learn.

I feel compelled to read this book at least once more. Recommended.

[Steven H · Rating 1 out of 5]

LINDSEY PROPOSES PREPARATION BEFORE THE "FULL-FLEDGED PERSECUTION BEGINS”

Harold Lee "Hal" Lindsey (born 1929) is a best-selling author, who is currently host of "The Hal Lindsey Report" TV program. (He formerly hosted International Intelligence Briefing on TBN, but the show was removed as being too "pro-Israel"/"anti-Arab"; he provides the financing for the Hal Lindsey Report himself.) Controversially, he has divorced three times and married four times. (His second wife, Jan, was the best-known, as she was featured on the back cover of his earlier books.)

He wrote in the first chapter of this 1986 book, "Do not be afraid of these times... We are the generation that is going to see [the Rapture/Second Coming]... I'm excited to be alive now... Not all of us may experience the coming persecutions, but we all need to learn how to appropriate God's provisions for daily living. Now is the time---before full-fledged persecution begins here---for us to become skilled in combat faith." (Pg. 19)

He explains (perhaps thinking of his own situation), "Many in the Church today teach that divorce and remarriage disqualifies a person from the LORD's service. What about Moses? He killed a man, divorced, and remarried. I'm not trying to minimize sin. I'm only seeking to maximize God's forgiving and restoring power through His grace.

"Divorce is a sin, but not an unforgivable sin. If God could and did forgive this sin under the age of Law, is it not possible for Him to forgive the same under the age of Grace?... There are many wounded and battered people in the Church today who, because they have been divorced and remarried, are given the idea that repentance and forgiveness just don't apply to them. They are consigned to perpetual mediocrity and second-class citizenship in the Church community... Thank God Moses didn't believe his brother and sister's legalistic attack, or we would have a completely different Bible." (Pg. 87-88)

He suggests, "I believe Satan is convinced that he can win an acquittal from judgment by causing so many humans to be lost that God would bend His justice and not judge them. In Satan's reasoning, once a precedent is set with mankind, God would have to do the same for him and his demons. His second objective is to neutralize, and if possible destroy, a believer. Once we are lost to Satan's kingdom, he focuses his attack on preventing us from walking by faith, since it is the most essential key for living and serving God effectively." (Pg. 161)

He asks, "Have you ever found that the harder you tried to live by the law principle the more miserably you failed? I call this experience 'Christian schizophrenia,' because the two natures within us (the sin nature and the new spiritual nature) are clearly in opposition to each other. All true born-again believers will experience this struggle between their antithetical natures." (Pg. 175)

Lindsey's relative lack of discussion of "prophetic" events in this book makes it of some lasting value to Christians.

[Linda Yezak · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an oldie but goodie by the late Hal Lindsey. I loved the reminders of how strong we are in the Lord. Not a fan of how much time he spent in Exodus story. After a while his concentration on it bogged me down in my reading. Still, the book is a good source of encouragement.

[Rhonnie Cough · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is better than the cover makes it out to be. Good insights, I thought. I would have liked more Biblical evidence to some of the things he said but it was pretty good, but a tad disjointed. Good commentary on the stories of Moses, Job, and Abraham, and bold statements against prosperity gospel.

“The Christian life is a matter of becoming by faith what you already are in Christ.” - Hal Lindsey

[Gregory Booker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone who want a deeper look into the life of Moses and God's introduction to faith among his people will find this a good read. The down to earth writing of Lindsey and his spiritual insight into to the ways of God is refreshing.

[Forrest · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lindsey stepped away from prophecy for a moment and the result is a great book about faith and the armor of faith.