Slaughter Your Enemies

QUICK! Before thy Lord Returns…

SLAUGHTER YOUR ENEMIES!

GROWING UP, I never felt a desperation to follow the in crowd. I’d go with the flow until activities crossed my moral values, and then I’d turn a different direction and seek new friends. I owe my earthly, albeit non-believer, father a big “thank you” for his compassionate and wise fathering. (Having been born in 1909 and old enough to be my grandfather may have affected his value system.)

ENTERING MIDDLE SCHOOL, my BFF since age 3 and another friend innocently told me, “We’re going to become popular. Do it with us.” ⇐ That’s verbatim. Back then, ‘popularity’ translated into: alcohol, drugs, and sex. I silently & politely refused their offer and sought different friends. No hard feelings at all. Just a separation of ways.

SURE ENOUGH, her friend was pregnant by our junior year in high school and had to drop out. I’d say, yes, her name became pretty popular at that point.

IN 1982 I arrived at the university. A campus group told me about Jesus Christ, and I made Him my Savior. A year later, after I left the ‘Christian’ cult that introduced me to Christianity (another story//another time), I met the 3rd member of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit. My spiritual life has deepened and thrived ever since.

TODAY, I was studying ISAIAH 30, which exposed the delusion behind our world’s façade of intelligence and prosperity — a revelatory message I’ve been hearing EVERYWHERE.

SIMULTANEOUS MESSAGE FROM MULTIPLE SOURCES:

…warnings expressed through Isaiah 30

Verses 1-2

• Submit your plans to the Spirit; distrust your own understanding
• Follow the counsel of the Lord over the ‘wisdom’ of worldly leaders
• Ask for, and trust in, God’s advice over following the latest economic trends
• Make the Lord your only strength and shield

ESSENTIAL! To survive the end times, follow the above to the max, without exception, and be empowered by the Holy Spirit.

BACKWARDS THINKING. God desires our freedom, yet we ‘trust in oppression and perversity,’ verse 12 . Over the past 70 years, moral corruption has so pervasively infiltrated our culture that, today, if a leader, program, business, or agency does not humbly and sincerely operate by biblical principles, they do not have the wisdom from above, as described in James.

THEREFORE . . .

BELIEVING everything we SEE & HEAR with physical eyes and ears leads to worry and stress.

Succumbing to worry is not an option in a nation that’s pursuing immorality.

BREAK OUT OF SPIRITUAL bondage by planting, or sowing, the Word in your heart and living it. Hear and do!

As Pastor Jimmy Evans puts it, “Fall in love with Scripture.”

TOO LATE?

WHAT IF you’re already trapped in the world’s system and bound by worry? As long as you’re breathing and willing to change, there is a way out.

“This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: ‘Only in returning to me and resting in me will you be saved. In quietness and confidence is your strength.'”   verse 15

SPIRITUAL REST, QUIETNESS & CONFIDENCE ⇐ This condition of the heart trumps worry-filled existence any day. Yes! Live a lifestyle of contentment amid chaos by fighting for your faith and clinging to the principles of a Kingdom your physical eyes cannot see.

verse 18 (Amplified version)

Therefore, the Lord earnestly waits,

expecting, looking, and longing to be gracious to you;

Therefore He lifts Himself up,

   that He may have mercy on you

   and show loving-kindness to you.

For the Lord is a God of justice.

Blessed are all those who earnestly wait for Him,

   who expect and look and long for Him

   for His victory, His favor, His love, His peace, His joy,

and His matchless, unbroken companionship

BUT WHAT ABOUT THAT SLAUGHTER?

GOD’S JUDGMENTS and justice are not aimed at people but at the thing that separate us from His Love—sin. He goes to war on our behalf, and He willingly bruises me solely so I will turn from a wrong path and back to him. Talk about tough Love!

WHO ELSE is willing to do that for you?

In that day, when your enemies are slaughtered and the towers (our idols) fall, there will be streams of water flowing down every mountain and hill. The moon will be as bright as the sun, and the sun will be seven times brighter—like the light of seven days in one! So it will be when the Lord begins to heal his people and cure the wounds He gave them. verses 25-26

The Great Slaughter!

All things that stand between me and God’s Love:

• Pride
• Haughtiness
• Arrogance
• Unbelief
• Unfaithfulness
• Impatience
• Hatred
• Fear
• Immorality
• Lust of the eyes (covetousness)
• Lust of the flesh
• Bitterness
• . . .

WHAT’S ON YOUR SLAUGHTER LIST?

OR IS IT TIME TO CREATE ONE.

Surrendering all!

The Way of the Embattled Spirit

P.S. If the “S” in Slaughter = sin, what word do you get when the “S” is gone? Post the answer in the comment section.