Call to Battle

And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land. -- Exodus 2:22

You are warned.  This is different, and I won’t blame you if you think I’ve breathed too many paint fumes over the last two or three weeks.  If it doesn’t speak to you, just ignore it.  Not everyone is called to the same battle.

Though not my favorite Heinlein novel, the phrase does summarize my feelings about life sometimes.  I said recently that I thought the Tabernacle Moses built was a better type than the Temple of Solomon in representing our earthly journey.  No one symbol can ever carry the full message, and we need the temple in the holy city to speak of all that waits when our battles are finished and peace reigns. 

Meanwhile, we may cross into the Promised Land, but there are still battles, enemies to be overcome, and adversaries to be conquered.  The older I get the more alien and hostile the world seems to me.  It surprises me that I have made it this far in such a long, strange trip, to find myself, in an odd way, a point man.  If silver hair gave us wisdom, I would be in pretty good shape.  Back in the freak days, someone would say that there are a lot of rednecks hiding under long hair.  So I see a lot of empty heads sprouting gray thatch, and I wonder about my own store of wisdom. 

It doesn’t matter.  I don’t know what else I might be left here to do if it is not to watch and pray. 

I was reading something yesterday, and it suddenly struck me that the internet is a lot like a college dorm or frat house.   No matter how stupid something is, if two or three people argue for it, it begins to sound more sensible.  The internet is a veritable fever swamp of stupidity.  It’s also filled with good things to learn and be enlightened by, but we all know there is a dark pool in its midst that is sometimes difficult to avoid. 

I think, if you look at how opinions have shifted and civilization has deteriorated over the last fifteen years, a lot of it can be traced to the increasing exposure to sin, sickness, and depravity.  Don’t misunderstand where I’m going with this.  I’m not going to tell anybody to cut off internet service – not that a router filter or the deletion of some bookmarks would necessarily be a bad idea. 

It is a strange land.  Christians, even with the proliferation of Christian sites and resources available, are strangers in it.  We have to understand that we are waging war against an adversary who is real, more intelligent than we are, and truly diabolical.  Jesus didn’t call the devil the father of lies for no reason.  Nothing is easier to do than corrupt a mind through the web of false words and images spun in cyberspace. 

Call it a vision if you want, I could see all this in a moment.  I was convicted, not just about my own dalliances with evil, but about my nonchalance regarding those who become trapped in the web of deception, who are relentlessly sucked down into the bottomless filth.  Sex and perversion are no doubt a major contributor but hardly all the problem.  There is the glorification of the useless, the encouragement of consumption, and the enhancement of envy. 

Again, there is a lot that is positive; we have to recognize the rot.  My heart was broken by what I was shown, and I realized that I needed to pray.  We don’t need to limit freedom.  We need to pray that people will be set free.   Minds and lines don’t need to be closed; they need to be opened to see the truth.  I am praying that the Holy Spirit will convince us of the truth, show us where we have strayed and turn us back to the path of righteousness.  He is the only one who can do it, the only one who has ever been able to do it.  He is God, and He does not change.