On this day in 1836, the siege of the Alamo began in San Antonio.

Today, we fight for a cause even greater than that of Texas independence from tyranny. We fight in the battle of our lives. We fight for the Lord Jesus Christ, His lordship, and His law in the hearts of men and over our nation.

Yes, we do care about righteousness in a nation. The Bible tells us to care. And the defining battle of our generation has personal and national implications. It is the battle over whether men will submit to the Lord (and, consequently, to His created law order), or whether they will idolatrously substitute and worship their own antinomian vision of reality. The present-day manifestation of the great war for the Lordship of Jesus Christ is most clearly seen in the battle for the meaning, preservation, and promotion of the Christian family.

We are presiding over a litany of historic firsts in the annals of Christendom. Our widespread ignorance of history and the progressive desensitization of our consciences to the paganism of our culture has blinded us to the battle lines.

These “firsts” have been incubating for more than half a century, but most are being hatched before our eyes: They include the widespread toleration of homosexuality by the professing Christian community; the mass exodus of mothers from the home and into the workforce; the propagation of the family-destroying doctrine of evolution with our children; the mass rejection of babies as a blessing and the prevention of children through artificial technologies as a norm for professing Christian families; the neutering of our sons and daughters through dress, lifestyle, and roles such that the spirit of cultural androgeny is alive and well; a higher than 50% divorce rate among professing Christians; and the horrific acceptance of the “abomination” of women being sent to war. Behind all of this is an atrocious ignorance of Holy Scripture and a rejection of sound doctrine for “itching ears” theology.

Does God care about discipling nations and teaching them the love of His Son and the beauty of His righteous law order? The Great Commission commands us to “make disciples of nations” and to “teach them all things whatsoever I have commanded.” “All things” is Genesis to Revelation.

The Great Commission is not part of the palsied, weak, blasphemous “gospel” message so popular today, but part and parcel to a victorious, life-changing, nation-transforming Gospel vision. This vision is not realized by political or military top-down takeover of culture, but is advanced from the bottom up as men submit their hearts to the Lord Jesus Christ and honor His lordship in every area of life.

With this in mind, let us not only remember the glorious Alamo, but a far greater wall-protecting battle of Nehemiah’s day:

And I looked, and rose up, and said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, Be not ye afraid of them: remember the Lord, [which is] great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your houses. (Nehemiah 4:14)