Richmond Castle

According to the internet, which is a totally reliable and accurate guide to everything, Richmond is the most common place name in the world, with over one hundred locales bearing its syllables. The oldest, and quite likely the prettiest, is Richmond in North Yorkshire, which has one of the best preserved Norman castles in the country. Though now ruinous, the dizzying heights of its walls and towers, and the steep drops of its ramparts and banks, cause the visitor to marvel. Running up that slope and assaulting those walls seem a well-nigh impossible task. Yet Richmond Castle is a ruin; a redundant collection of roofless shells and broken walls. Although it played a necessarily important role in the various wars which medieval kings and nobles were pleased to wage, it seems to have acted only a minor part in the later Civil Wars on account of its poor condition and limited defensive capability. Weaponry had developed which made castles rather old fashioned and superfluous. A wall might keep one safe from an arrow, but not an 80lb stone ball fired by gunpowder.

The apostle Paul talks about the Christian’s state of combat; often, he or she is compared to a warrior or soldier. He writes:

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Ephesians 6:12, NKJV

Those of other religions who believe in killing, maiming, kidnapping, or blowing up, are using apparently powerful but ultimately outmoded weapons. Prayer and fasting make a more devasting assault upon enemy fortresses than wounding flesh or lopping heads. The days may come when we are faced with beheadings and imprisonments because of our faith in Jesus, much like our brethren elsewhere in the world, but always remember that such tools are ultimately useless, and that great strongholds shall fail and fall.

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Matthew 10:28, NKJV