Thoughts on a battle.

I don’t have an internet connection at home, having no electricity or telephone restricts some of the things I can do and internet is one of those things! So when I need to use the internet I have to go three miles to my brother in law’s place, the effect of course is that I don’t use it all that often, it costs 50 cents in fuel to drive over there so I have to think, is what I need to do worth 50 cents or can I do it another day? The benefit of it is that he has high speed wireless which means I can do some things that our old dial up connection wouldn’t allow, like downloading and watching videos. The other evening I was over there and realized that I could finally watch a documentary I had wanted to watch for some time called America, Freedom to Fascism done by Aaron Russo. It’s a documentary on some of the corruption that is going on at the moment in the U.S. government and spends a great deal of time on the income tax and Federal Reserve/money system problem. If you haven’t seen it I would recommend checking it out, the information is good, though I don’t entirely agree with his end conclusion, and I’ll address that a little later.

I’ve often noticed that it seems like muggers and politicians are both after the same thing, it’s just that the politicians get away with it. Stories of atrocities done by the very same people or organizations that are claiming to protect and serve us are everywhere, the current buzzword seems to be security and safety but it looks to me like America is trying to save itself from itself! There are a lot of people around that talk in hushed voices about how “They” do this or that and “They” have this new plan, weapon, program or that “They” are listening to every word, watching every move and tracking every transaction. “They” are beginning to sound like God more and more all the time! An all seeing, all knowing, all powerful entity that is controlling every aspect of life and has eyes and ears hiding everywhere just waiting to grab you and whisk you away to a secret jail cell where you will sit and rot for saying the wrong word or for not paying your taxes or for driving with a suspended drivers license. Soon we have a national ID card to look forward to, May 2008 I believe. Of course that will be sugar coated in the safety and security speech and disguised in the form of your driver’s license so that every 16 year old will move heaven and earth to sign up and get one. I guess I’ll have to stay within bicycle distance of home from that time onward!

I could go on and on but people do enough of that without me already so I don’t need to step into the waiting line of mass fear and wait to be swallowed up at the end like everyone else waiting in line. I also can’t step in line with all of the people that are praying to the government “Give us this day our daily check…deliver us from terrorists and we will give you the power forever…Amen”
Speaking of power, how did all of this come about? Where did these evil minded entities get the power to do all of this? How have they succeeded in enslaving practically the entire world? How can it be stopped? It’s a question that should be asked more often and it should be answered more often. Sadly, most people would rather jump on the fear and worry bandwagon and talk about what “They” can do than take a good look at the real problem and real solutions.
I was talking with Dad a couple of weeks ago and he told me about a video he watched, I think it was the Matrix. He said that there was this machine and it needed power to run so it eventually captured all of the people and plugged them into its power source using the power they produced to fuel itself. A sick thing if you ask me but I think the concept is based in reality. To put it bluntly, “They” have no power to do these things that they do on their own. Even Satan couldn’t do anything to Job unless he had prior permission and authority to do it from God, which is a lesson that I think we don’t apply enough.
I’ve often wondered why, if “They” have so much power, can hear everything, monitor everything and track everything, they don’t stop all of the people that are spreading the stories about them. Things like certain publications and programs like AFF. Would especially be worth stopping I’d think. Most of it does a really good job of spreading fear and worry but it also does wake some people up. Then I realized what the reason is. “They” don’t want it stopped! “They” feed off of the fear of the people. It is actually furthering their agenda! They don’t have power of their own, they have to get it from somewhere else, us usually. We open the doors and invite them in to do their work. Notice I said invite, they don’t usually force their way in, we let them in.
Unless people realize what it is that we are looking at they will never find the true solution and will continue to beat their heads against a wall of illusion. Ephesians 6:12 says “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” There you have it! We can bark at the Illuminati, the Masons, the government, the bankers, the United Nations, the Jews or the Communists or whatever you like at the moment, it may all be true or it may be a figment of some writer’s imagination, I don’t care because none of that is going to the cause! In the health training I have gone through the big thing that was constantly pounded home is “Go to the Cause” If you have a sliver, pull it out, don’t put a band aid on it and whine to everyone that it still hurts. Of course it still hurts; the sliver is still in there!
So, with that said it should be very plain that we need to find out the cause in order to find the solution; if you don’t know that the sliver is in there you can’t pull it out can you?
It is clear from the above scripture that, though it may appear that we are fighting men and machine that is just an illusion to throw us off the real trouble. I’ll quote it again “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Most people don’t want to deal with such things, preferring to go for things they can touch and see to those that are invisible and that they don’t understand. Too bad. Life isn’t about what we happen to want!
So how do we combat it? Read on in Ephesians! “Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” The first thing in fighting is to get ready! If you study wars a little you may find as I have that it is usually the guy that has the element of surprise that has the advantage, catching his opponent when he is not ready, usually sleeping without his armor on (who would be able to sleep in heavy armor?). Fortunately, the armor we need, and have available to us, is the kind that we can wear at all times! There is no cause to be caught unaware and unready because we can, and should be, ready all the time. Let’s read on. “Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness.”
So here are the first two pieces to put on, truth and righteousness; both are strong, pieces of armor, but the enemy has found a way to get past these in the past and has used the same ploy again. To save space I won’t put down the entire story here but I’ll encourage you to go read it for yourself so you get the whole context. Numbers chapters 22 through 31 tell the story of Balaam and how he couldn’t curse the Israelites because they were blessed by God, but he was cunning and knew how to get in through a back door; just get them to sin, throw off that breastplate of righteousness and they would be vulnerable, God would be displeased and withhold His blessing and the Israelites could be attacked.
Let’s continue with the armor. “And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.” To make it easy I’ll make a list of the armor.
Truth
Righteousness
Preparation of the gospel of peace
Faith
Salvation
Word of God
Praying always
I don’t intend to write an essay on these as I am sure it has been done many times and anyone can just look up what they would like. Whatever the case we need to take our focus and apply it to these things rather than to what the “Bad guys” can or are doing to us.
An interesting point I would like to throw in here is when you look at the pieces of armor talked about in Ephesians you may notice as I did that while each one is strong armor against the evil one, the opposite of each one is a door to let him in. I’ll brush the surface of them so you can see what I mean and come to your own conclusions on the matter.
Truth/ Lies.
Righteousness/ Unrighteousness, sin, wickedness.
Gospel of peace/ Turmoil, depression and despair. This is a good one to really contemplate for yourself to thoroughly understand what it means for you. What would life be like for you without the Gospel?
Faith/ Unbelief, no conviction, no reliance on Christ.
Salvation/Slavery, no defender.
Word of God/ Word of man or the evil one.
At the end it says we should pray always, the opposite of which would naturally be to not pray always which I see is a big trap very often fallen into. When a soldier is not in constant communication with his General how is he supposed to know what to do or how to fight? He absolutely cannot and when the whole army is not in communication the battle is just a mass of confusion. It’s not an accident that in war the first two things an enemy wants to take out are the supply lines and the communication. In the case of this spiritual battle that means the Word of God and prayer are of utmost importance for the enemy to take out, the supply and communication! It is not an accident that the Bible has seen so much persecution in the past, when that didn’t work so well they finally got smart and realized that what they needed to do was start being effective, that means to get us to throw the Bible out ourselves since we were not giving it up when they tried to grab it from us. (Think communist China and Russia) Going to Church I find that in the past month there has been only one Bible carried into the building, mine. Even the pastor finds it unnecessary to bring his to church. Maybe they all have it memorized so they don’t need to carry it around and I am just behind the times or something. Have you figured out what it is that has gotten the Word of God out yet? I’ll tell you, it’s easy. Just flood the world with it, make it so common that nobody appreciates it anymore, make it too easy to get, no cost to it. That is just the first step though, the final and most effective step is to make the children and young people forget it. That’s simple when you have their full attention all day long at school where the Bible is not usually a part of the day, then their attention is fully taken as soon as they get home from school by the TV which of course has no good thing to say about the Bible if anything at all. So far it has been more of an effective attack on the communication and supply line than ever before I think, Lenin, Stalin and Hitler must be green with envy. The reason I think it is more effective is because this is more lasting and even those who read and study the word don’t do it with half of the fervency and discipline of those who were under persecution like those in China or Russia in the past.
So what am I getting to you ask? Well, what I want to say is, let’s quit feeding the enemy with our fear and worry and really fight the battle instead of whimpering and sulking in the shadows of the sidelines waiting for it to magically end. It is not going to until we stand up, stop opening the doors to the evil one, stop giving him entrance, stop building the evil by feeding the lusts of the flesh and building the fleshly kingdom. It is nice to know that though at first when we start to starve the flesh it whines and begs for feeding but if you keep up and don’t give in it soon grows weak and the cries get smaller and easier to disregard until they finally die altogether when the flesh dies. In the meantime let’s put on the armor of God, make use of the Sword, build up the lines of communication, and feed the spirit at the supply line which builds it and strengthens until we turn and find that there is no battle at all, the enemy has been vanquished already. The enemy has no power but what we give or what God gives in order to try us like in the case of Job. I think for us to give our power-which is from God-to be used against ourselves, is a terrible thing, and it’s rather stupid isn’t it? Like giving bullets to the enemy when he doesn’t have any so he can keep shooting at us!

The information given in the documentary “America, Freedom to Fascism” was excellent, though as I said I think the end conclusion has missed the boat. One point Aaron Russo said at the end was really good though, he said “The government gets the power from us, not the other way around” If we give our lives to God instead of trying to keep them for ourselves and in the process giving them to the enemy, we will find true life and freedom and safety. That means we won’t have to worry about terrorists taking over airplanes or suicide bombers. And we won’t need national ID cards with RFID chips, cameras at every corner, informants, surveillance, world police and troops invading every country imaginable to be safe. We really ought to put this in a priority position in our lives. It seems that, just like in the parable of the sower in Mark 4, the cares of this world get in the way. I’ll probably write about that in a few days since it has been on my mind lately.
What are our goals? Is everything that we do working toward the Kingdom of God or are we working towards establishing our own and feeding the flesh?
I’ll leave you with a little something to think about.
Everything I do, no matter how big or how small is either taking me closer to my goal or further away from it-Everything counts, I am either getting better or I am getting worse. Of course if you have no goal you are probably going in circles, ending up nowhere. There are other reasons people go nowhere even when they do have a goal but since I am just now figuring that out for myself I’ll have to write my thoughts about that another day!
In the meantime, I really would like to encourage everyone to think about the armor of God and how you are using it in your life. Or not using it.