Battlefield Earth

The above video conveys a subtle but profound message. We see everyone from everyday professionals and people in the service industry to high profile entertainers (Jimmy Kimmel) and athletes (Kobe Bryant) enmeshed in an epic battle sequence. The ad ends with a deli worker (or is it a butcher) striding like Scarface toward the camera, emptying cartridges of ammo from two 9mm to either side before dropping both pistols nonchalantly. Fire and plumes of smoke fill the background, and the subtitle appears:

"There's a soldier in all of us."

What's the message? We all have an inner soldier, who yearns to enter the battle. What's the implication? There's a video game that can sate that urge. A video game! The "Call" is to let that inner warrior play war in a virtual world--to fight a virtual battle from the safety of his or her own couch.


Does this not beg the question, "It there not a real battle in front of all of us; one which our inner soldier must fight?" I would argue the answer is yes! How can it be otherwise?



Actual slavery and exploitation are rampant in our world. Genocide, starvation and abject poverty too. Real orphans and widows and homeless and poor and starving and broken and abused people live within walking distance of the majority of us--not to mention the spiritual deprivation of those who live without the gospel and its fruits!


Even in our homes and families there are battles to fight. Will we fight for the well-being of those under our own house through sacrificial love and prayer?


Or will we spend our hours and days and weeks and months gaming away our lives? The sticker price of the aforementioned  game is $40.00. It's latest iteration prices at $60.00. For the price of this game alone, you pay to feed a needy child through Compassion International or World Vision. Or you could give flocks of chickens to needy families through Heifer International. (This video portrays this very poignantly!)


There is a soldier in us all, and we are all in the actual war-zone of our fallen world! 


The late Stephen Ambrose recounts the account of a group of paratroopers who, on DDay, discovered an abandoned French town. They also discovered an ample supply of liquor and food, which they amply partook of. During the bloody events of DDay and the invasion of Normandy, these soldiers were carousing. They ate, drank and made merry while their fellow soldiers were slaughtered attempting to dislodge the most evil regime in modern history; while millions died in death camps.


In essence, this is the mentality being celebrated by the above ad. This mentality has deluged our society. Video games, reality TV, even sports and celebrity fixation have supplanted our ability to live and engage in the world around us. They have pawned themselves as acceptable substitutes, but they are not. They aren't even amoral diversions. The quantity with which we indulge in such activities can be nothing but immoral when we consider the scope of need in our world--the real battles raging among us. Why would we judge the DDay paratroopers under a different standard.


How this reality is confronted and lived out is a matter of personal discretion, but to do nothing cannot be an option.


In this post I do not intend to present a picture of what this looks like, but I want to give comment to this unchecked mentality. 


Men and women, there is indeed a soldier in us all! Let's never loose sight of the very real battles in which this soldier must engage.

"Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due,    when it is in your power to act." 

Prov. 3:27