And it starts at home…

…it has the unfortunate acronym of CIA, no matter where you put a hyphen e.g. CI-A, C-IA, -CIA, CIA-, whatever, etc…CIA is CIA is CIA wherever you are…so what? Just don’t have your CIA handbook in your back pocket when backpacking through countries ending in -stan…

Some call it COIN, the Marines called it Countering Irregular Threats (CIT), and the Brits call it Countering Irregular Activity (CI-A, note the hyphen, apparently it is important, like anyone cares – who is going to say CI Hyphen A? It’s CIA, get over it!). CIT and CIA take a broader focus than focusing purely on insurgency. The essence of CIA is that any activity that affects the regularity and stability of our normality is irregular. The key to countering irregular activity is the Comprehensive Approach – identifying the appropriate mix of measures from all of those available from across Clausewitz’s Trinity:

• Government/leadership. Government agencies and ministries, incentives for programmes, supporting legislation.

• ‘The People‘. The community, including the business community, aid and welfare organisations, churches and agencies, the media.

• The action arm. Military or police involvement, the threat or application of force and occupation.

I was just over at Crimestoppers and read this blog piece about a BMX park in Papakura being abandoned by the community. The community was unable to manage criminal activity there by a group of 8-11 year olds. 8-11 years old? Why not? In other parts of the world, they’d probably have their own AK-47s by now…So what?

Well, here’s the so what: this type of activity destabilises our communities. If unchecked, these little thugs just go on to become bigger thugs. Without intervention, this is NOT something that they will grow out of. The Trinity in and around Papakura needs to get together, decide what the underlying real issues are and do something about it. And here’s a heads-up, the solution is unlikely to be one that can be enforced by the Police…curfews etc only cover the symptoms…what this requires is a comprehensive approach within the community otherwise it might as well withdraw into its walled compounds and abandon Papakura to the Cursed Earth…

Jesus tells us in Luke 17:21, if you are born of God, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” Knowing that there is a flip side to every thing, if heaven is within the child of God; the attributes of hell reside within the children of the devil. I am not saying there is not another heaven and another hell where the spirits of men go when the physical body dies because that would be misleading. But what Jesus is telling us in this scripture is that when we are born into the kingdom of God, we become the temple of God on earth where the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit take up residence. And that newly recreated spirit within us is as holy and pure, vibrant and strong, as it is ever going to be. How is that possible; you might be wondering? It is so because of who has joined themselves with our spirit when they came to live in us. We are now and forever more the temple of the living God, because the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, triune Godhead has taken up residence in their Temple. And all that is in heaven in the form of life, power, love, goodness and virtue, is inside us right now; and the devil knows it. That’s why we undergo the many trials we endure in this life. Jesus tells us in Matthew 11:12 “And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.” The trials and temptations we face in this life is an attack on the kingdom of heaven within us. It’s the devils attempt to overthrow the kingdom of God by destroying the physical temple that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit live in. The devil does not seem to understand that is an impossibility. When he had Jesus killed, he actually thought he had seen the last of Him. But, we know the body of Jesus, which was the physical temple of the Living God, was only in the tomb for three days before it was resurrected. And when the Spirit that had been in Jesus had completed its mission in hell, it came back, picked up its physical body, was seen by hundreds, and ascended into heaven a complete person; Spirit, soul, and body. This is what is going to happen after the physical body of the child of God dies. Our body will go into the earth temporarily, our spirit will go to be with our heavenly Father in His heaven of heavens, and on the day of resurrection when Jesus makes all things new, our spirit will return for its new, eternal body, they will come together in the air, and our spirit, soul and body will ascend into heaven with the Lord to be with Him forevermore.

I mentioned above that hell resides within the child of the devil. By that I mean there is no peace, no hope, no holiness, no virtue, no chance, that body, soul, and spirit will reside with God forever in God’s heaven of heaven. Quite the contrary is true however; that body in which hell resides will be cast off because of what it truly is: a place where evil abides. All that is good in heaven is in the child of God, and all that is evil in hell is in the child of the devil. Having said that, there is hope for the child of the devil. If that person repents of their sins, turns away from their evil ways, and accepts the Lordship of Jesus Christ, God will forgive that person. They will become a new creation in Christ Jesus,  and the triune Godhead of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit will take up residence in them, and they will have the assurance, they, too, will spend eternity with Him in heaven. If a person never makes that decision; they will be thrown into the pit of everlasting torment as an evil doer, along with the devil and all who follow him in his rebellion against God.

NO PERSON is so evil that God will not forgive them of their sins. There are former muderers, thieves, liars, fornicators, terrorists, or whatever they might have been, that sought God’s forgiveness, and He changed that person from a child of the devil into a saint. He made them what He calls, ‘a new creation,’ saying, old things have passed away, all things have become new inside that person. The truth is that every person that is going to heaven were all evil doers and had to make a decision to turn away from their evil ways, submit to God, and make Jesus the Lord of their life. Every person who does the above will be granted eternal life. God looks at our heart, which is really our spirit, and for those that are sincere in their request, God assures them they will not be cast into the pit of fire at the end of days. 

One last thought before I close this short message: Each person is responsible for the decisions they make in this life, whether they are good or bad. NO ONE will be able to point the finger at someone else on judgment day; that future day, when every person will stand alone before God Almighty and give an account for what they did with their life on this earth, and say that another person is the reason they are where they are. Point number two: There is NO ONE on this earth that really cares about what happens to you except God Almighty. They might say they do; but I can tell you from experience; that when your money is gone, so are they. Also, people really need to understand the devil hates your guts, whether you are saved or lost for the simple reason that you are made in the image of God; and he has already been sentenced him to hell for his crimes against the kingdom of heaven. Satan’s thought is, that if he couldn’t destroy God; he will focus his attention on man and attempt to destroy his life. He attempts your destruction through the people who know you best. This group includes your family and friends, and if he can’t get the job done through them, he uses sickness, disease, financial problems, and so forth. (John 10:10) “The thief (or Satan) comes to steal, kill, and to destroy, but I have come that you may have life, and life more abundantly.” Satan, the devil, doesn’t care how he destroys you, as long as you do not come to the realization of how much God loves you, and the horrible price He paid so you could have a close, personal relationship with God Almighty. John 3:16-18 tells us; “For God so loved the world, (that’s you and I) that He gave His only Begotten Son (Jesus Christ) that whosoever believes in Him, should not perish, but have everlasing life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. (Again, people make up the world; so He is talking about you and I.) He who believes in Him (Jesus) is not condemned; but he who does not believe (in Jesus Christ) is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” DThrash

The nice people in G7 loaned me a copy of David Kilcullen’s Accidental Guerrilla to read on the promise that I would give them a book review in return – fair trade, I think, and one which provides me an opportunity to assess the actual time required to review and read a book for future jobs. I missed David Kilcullen’s briefs when he visited in October, having been required to save the free world at the CLAW in the UK that week. While I enjoyed that professionally and personally, I would much rather have had the afternoon listening to him talk…

First impressions of Accidental Guerrilla are that the author has not been well served by his editor…the sections where he talks about his own experiences flow very well; where he launches into more academic discourse, he becomes verbose and complex – if in doubt, use short sentences and don’t be shy to bullet lists – some parts so far (have just finished Chapter 1) are like playing literary Where’s Wally? when trying to filter out key points and themes. I’ve noticed the same in the other book I am struggling with at the moment, Brain Taafe’s The Gatekeepers of Galatas, a great story that deserves to be told – but told better than Taafe does…I track a number of writing blogs and I think it was John Birmingham who couldn’t emphasise enough not only the importance of a top editor but also the need for writers to retract their egos and take aboard the value an editor provides to a successful product…

I have no problem with the concept of the accidental guerrilla but do debate that it is anything new – almost by definition most guerrillas are accidental, born when the outside world, usually brutally, intrudes into their lives….the little people = the little war…Nor is the concept of global terrorist/guerrilla networks that new either…as far back as the American Revolution, global communications have been adequate to support international networks and the Great Game of international espionage and intelligence has been played across the known globe since that time. I agree with Rupert Smith that there are those who might be best described as the ‘franchisers of terrorism’ who target the disaffected and essentially sell their brand of terrorism, with commensurate training, networks and support. These are the people who need to be tracked and targeted a la Michael Scheiern’s ‘individual-based tracking’ concept – manage them and you open up a range of alternate approaches to mitigate potentially accidental guerrillas.

One of the problems I have with The Accidental Guerrilla to date is that it describes Al-Qaeda as an aberration, an exception, to the rules of guerrillas and terrorism, but keeps drawing upon AQ-based examples to support arguments in the book. While it is true that Islamic terrorism has a firm base in the tribes of Afghanistan and Pakistan that includes strong family links as well and that this extends back over a number of generations, I think it is a big leap to state this as standard practice for these type of organisations. This weakens the Infection, Contagion, Intervention, Rejection cycle that Kilcullen proposes, again relying on an AQ example. I agree with the takfiri model and think this would be a better one to promote over specific groups  like Al-Qaeda – more so since his definition of takfir lends itself to causes beyond those based upon an interpretation of Islam…takfir holds that those whose beliefs differ from the takfiri’s are infidels who must be killed. Takfir might apply to ANY hate-based xenophobic cause around the planet and if The Accidental Guerrilla achieves nothing else beyond bringing this phrase into more common usage, it will have achieved something.

In all fairness, I am only at the end of Chapter 1 and should suppress of any feelings of ‘old brass for new‘ and ‘publish or perish‘ til I get into the meat of it…onwards into Chapter Two…

…just a little luck and a charged up camera handy…

If you’re on Facebook (like, who isn’t?), here’s a fan page you might want to keep an eye on if you’re into things like the Information Militia, social Networking, just just trying to keep up with the chaos that surrounds us (our contemporary environment is not described as ‘complex’ for nothing…). It’s Kendall Langston Social Media and Management Consultancy and has some great and very topical advice and links to articles etc…Yesterday or today – who can understand the Facebook clock system? – Kendall linked to this NY Times piece Buying, Selling and Twittering All the Way – it’s pretty light but an example of the information militia at work: only loosely organised at best but too much organisation would probably stifle the flow of information…thousands of people all adding their little bit to the picture…getting the information THEY need, when THEY need it and (hopefully) knowing what to do with it when it arrives…

That last section is one we added to the popular definition of knowledge management: it’s all very well getting the right information to the right people at the right time, as the KMers would have us do, but there didn’t seem to be much point if the recipients lack the skills or knowledge to employ it. We added ‘…and ensuring that they (the right people) know what to do with it – in this way we join the dots between lessons, doctrine and training.

In reading the NYT article, I was reminded of the picture painted by John Batelle in The Search ( a well-recommend read if you have any interest at all in information management and manipulation – it is fascinating look at Google from its early days and makes you wonder what ‘do no harm’ really means) of being able to shop and by using a bar scanner built into your phone, compare prices, create wish lists, check items against stock on the shelf at home (assuming you run an online domestic goods database, I guess). It’s all happening now and is being driven by ‘the people’, the information militia…

PS. I got my copy of The Search from Audible.com – worth a look if you do a lot of driving or gym work and need something to occupy your mind…

It was quite sad really, the final crescendo of Aussie Masterchef last night…we’ve been fans of the UK original since we got a home where we could get to from work by 5-30…at first we hated the Aussie version but it really grows on you. UK Masterchef is very traditional and (Fulda) Gapist – all about the food – we could never keep track let alone identify with the people, although the food was our initial attraction – and a direct linear progression to the finals.

The Aussie version, on the other hand, is all about ‘the people’, although at first it did kinda come across like Julia Childs (well, it did have its own Julia and Julie!)meets Big Brother…the finale only screened here last night – onya Julie for taking out the First Aussie Masterchef!! I think she deserved every bit of it last night and managed to delivered a cliffhanger that hung onto the the last dish in the competition…I missed the previous couple of eliminations in the final week and was amazed to find Julie in the finals – nothing about her skills but I thought that the pressure would have been too much for her over Chris and Poh.

The Aussies took a simple linear concept and turned it upside down, shook it all about, introduced uncertainty and complexity, mixed with a  good measure of apparent chaos – sound familiar? And all about the ‘the people’ too – not just those in the MasterChef house, but also all those out there supporting it – and they were: apparently the finale episode was the third most watched TV event in Australia this decade. That the focus was on the people was all too clear when Justine was eliminated and tough guy judge Greg Mehigan had to turn away and wipe his eyes – and who didn’t have a little lump in their throat when top chef, Matt Moran, turned up on Justine’s doorstep the night she was eliminated and offered her a mentorship…

Well done, Aussies – now we’ll have to see how the Kiwi version plates up…

Like any good businessman, the Lord knows it takes money to operate a business. And as I have written before, the Lord is in the business of saving souls from the firey pits of hell, and for every soul saved from that horrible place there is a battle that must be fought for the right to claim that soul because the devil doesn’t like giving up property he thinks belongs to him. And as with any army involved in war, there must be a support system in place to supply those on the front lines of the fight. Every person that God has saved from the fires of hell has a job to do in His service. Either we are on the front lines of the fight, or we are a part of the support system. Any army that goes into battle without a strong support system in place will soon find themselves at the mercy of the enemy when their ammunition and food runs out. And for any war to continue for very long, there must be soldiers willing to fight, and there must be people who are willing to support the cause. People who support the war effort make sacrifices in whatever area necessary that will help ensure victory for their sons, daughters, fathers, mothers or friends involved in the fight.

Because the Lord understands how important finances are to fight a war; He has put into place a reward system for those people who support Him and His cause. Luke 6:38 “Give and it shall be given unto you, good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.”

However, there are many people in the church who claim they support the cause of Christ, but never give anything to Him. There is a story in John chapter six where Jesus has just finished feeding the five thousand from two fish and seven small loaves of bread, He then sends His disciples across the sea, while He Himself remains behind to pray. Later, He walked on the sea and joinde His disciples in the middle of a storm. The people who had been fed by Him, took notice that He had not joined His disciples in the boat when they departed. The next morning when they came looking for Him, but could not find Him. Knowing He had sent His disciples on to a certain place, they got in their boats and crossed over to the other side where they saw Jesus standing with His disciples. One of the five thousand, asked Him, John 6:25 “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus replied, “Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves, and were filled. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.”

The reply Jesus gave to that man in this story is a very fitting description of people who fill our church pews every meeting date. The majority of them come seeking what the Lord can do for them, but the thought of what they can do for the Lord never enters their minds. I have been just as guilty of self seeking as everyone else. The following is a quote by John F. Kennedy from one of his speeches, “Ask not what your country can do for you; but what you can do for your country.” This is precisely what Jesus expects from His disciples. And if the church ever gets its priorities straight; the soul saving business of Jesus will prosper and grow, and the church will be abundantly blessed because of the support they lend to Him and His cause. If not, we will continue to settle for what comes our way, like we have been doing for some time now. DThrash

Temp: -2 C / + 28 F
WC: -8 C / + 18 F
Winds: 13 kts

This one’s for Gus, who just asked what the population was. Must be on the same wavelength. Also, thank you to Gus and everyone else who obliged me with the House/Chase Bank/Facebook request. You are most kind!…if you are on Facebook and haven’t yet voted, please see my post from a couple days ago.

A small sign outside of HR on station gives us updates on our little community. As of today, our town’s population is 1121 with 839 men and 282 women.

Whoa.

I realize there are many people who would be and are excited about these stats. I don’t really fall into that particular category. Happily, the first couple of weeks of being one of the only straight, single ladies has passed and there are now younger, cuter versions of me on campus (see previous pictures of Ly and Mil). You’d be surprised how many times you can get hit on in a day. And by “surprised,” I mean “eww.” How many 60 year olds really think this is going to happen? A lot. And they all live here. There are also something like 50 firefighters on station. So, that pretty much covers the testosterone portion of today’s lecture.

I even got an email from someone asking me on a date. Really? Email? And who are you again? No idea. But apparently we had “spoken one time in the cafeteria” and, therefore, must be meant to be. Being the only Marika on campus means it’s easier to get sussed out via email. Being sussed out via email means it’s easier to press the delete button.

[Matthew 9:35-36] “Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered. like sheep having no shepherd.”

If we look closely at the needs of the people in front of Jesus they are a microcosm of the needs of ourselves, our friends, our neighbors, the people who live just down the street, and people from all around the world. People who are weary, loaded down with problems, sick, diseased, demon possessed, and harrassed by the enemy of man. Jesus said, “We are like sheep without a shepherd.” And in [John 10:12] Jesus tells us who is doing the harrassing. “The wolf (Satan) catches the sheep and scatters them.” What a terrible condition for God’s Crown Jewels to find themselves in.

Jesus is telling us, man whom He referred to as sheep because they are slow to understand and easily frightened, has an enemy lurking just out of our line of sight who causes the sheep to scatter in fear. Frightened sheep running wildly through the briars and the brambles are easy targets for the easy loping, intelligent wolf, who possesses a keen sense of smell. Jesus is the Shepherd of the sheep, but those dim witted sheep who stray away from His flock become easy targets for the packs of predators lurking in the brush. A sheep separated from the main flock becomes easy prey for the wolf pack. Now what do you suppose happens to stray sheep that are caught by the wolf? That’s right; the wolf does everything within his power to kill the sheep. Should the sheep somehow escape the sharp teeth of the wolf, they will be cut, wounded, and possibly have mangled parts that will never heal or function properly again. This is the condition of the people standing in front of Jesus on the day He made the above comment. Do you see the relevance of this picture? This is the condition of all those people you know that are sick, depressed, harrassed and plagued with problems. They have been separated from the main flock of sheep and scattered. They are weary, tired, injured, hurting, and dying by the thousands every day. People say they are in the condition they are because they are not interested in the things of God. That is what the enemy wants you to think. These people are scared, hurting and need help. But they have been largely ignored and abused by the church. They no longer have faith in the church to help them. So they continue to wonder the deserted places of life looking for someone to help them who will not turn them away because they are damaged goods. 

Jesus said in [Matthew 9:37-38] “Then He (Jesus) said to His disciples, the harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”

The lost, wounded, and hurting people of this world is the mission field of the church. Jesus said the harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. This was His way of telling His church body that their assignment in this life is to seek out those who have been taken captive by the wolf and take care of their needs; whatever they might be. The above scriptures said, Jesus moved with compassion on the people before Him, and that is the same method we are to use to meet the needs of those who live around us and down the street. What an awesome responsibility the church has been given to oversee.

The wolf (Satan) is a seasoned hunter. He is the alpha wolf of the pack. He is intelligent, and since he can’t outright kill man, he uses his wisdom to get man to help him destroy the lives of other men through war, greed, famine, and so forth. When he is done with the perpretrator, he will discard them as well. He has alternative sites set up for people to visit who don’t receive the help they need from the body of Christ. For those sheep that are not in war zones, or areas of famine, he has set up alternative sites, such as bars, nightclubs, porn houses, drug houses, and so forth. He provides his victims with what the victim believes is a temporary help in relieving their hurts and weariness, but in reality is something that will further damage them and rob them of the blessings God desires to bestow upon them, and in the end, the side effects of their activities take their life. The hope of mankind, lies in the hands of the church body of which Jesus assigned the awesome task of being shepherds over His flock. Does the church really understand its mission in life? I don’t think so at this time. DThrash

The thud of my fingers (all both of them) on the keyboard is accompanied by the staccato of two sparrows tapping away at their reflections in the stainless rubbish bin in the kitchen. Both the big bi-folds are open so these two have quite happily hopped into the house, oblivious of the two very large dogs stretched on the floor following their every move…obviously the two little sparrows are keener on challenging their reflections in the stainless steel than the potential consequences of their action – quite brave really…

Courage is something I have been thinking about recently; not so much the Victoria Cross/Medal of Honor kind of courage but the simple courage to stand by your beliefs when the going gets tough and to do the right thing.  In Lucifer’s Hammer, Jerry Pournelle says “…it was the right thing to do – in any ethical situation, the thing you want least to do is probably the right action…” What brought this onwas a post on The Strategist quoting another blog proposing that COIN techniques could be successfully employed to counter urban crime…I tend to agree because the bottom line in COIN is still to address, one way or another, the core issues behind the problem. What really caught my eye in this post was the quote from the Naval Postgraduate School study regarding the mindset of the local law enforcement “..But Fetherolf, who took office this year, also blamed a tradition of police officers who “love the chase. They get into this business to kick ass and take names, by and large. We’re at odds with ourselves because of the people we hire...”

Police officers operate as individuals and are a great example of the Strategic Private, that one individual who by a single callous or careless word or action can inflame an environment, who in the space of seconds, can undo years of relationship building. Michael Scheiern’s shift from platform-based tracking to tracking individuals works both ways; in the good old days of the Fulda Gap, we were interested in creating effect with mass: brigades, battalions, squadrons and fleets. In these massed forces, one or two bad eggs would really do little or no damage in the big scheme of this. In today’s complex conflict, amongst ‘the people’, just ONE individual who fails to uphold generally accepted ethos and values can lose the war…and the only way to ensure that those ethos and values will be there on the day, is to live by and apply them EVERY day…

“If a Marine fails to uphold our standards and dishonours oneself or the Corps in peacetime, by failing to do his or her best to accomplish the task at hand, or by failing to follow ethical standards in daily life, how can we expect that same Marine to uphold these critical foundations of our Corps in the searing cauldron of combat?” – FMFM 1-0

Another point to ponder concerning who is and who isn’t in the army of God. How do you feel about Israel? Are you for them, or are you against them? Geographically, Israel is about the size of the state of New Jersy, and is a representative picture of God’s true church. We are both small compared to the whole world. We both belong to God, and both of us are involved in a life and death struggle for survial. The battle for Israel is a physical fight, but the battle for the spiritual life of America and every other country on earth is raging within the walls of government buildings, and church houses all around the world making plans about how to best restrict the freedoms and the liberties of the true church. However these people who wage war against tiny little Israel and God’s true church do not understand; the actions of man cannot restrict the Spirit of God whose job it is to protect and comfort the property of God. He does what He wants, to whom He wants, when He wants, and there is nothing man can do to stop Him, because He reigns supreme over all of creation. People foolishly say and do all kinds of things not understanding we are but men who are destined to die and a new generation will take our place. God describes mankind as being the clay, and Himself as the potter, who has the power to squash us and our puny defense systems into smitherenes anytime He chooses. If you don’t understand what I am saying, watch a potter work the clay. A piece of clay that is flawed is flattened and put back on the potters wheel and reworked. Once it has been decided by the potter that the clay is good for nothing, that piece of clay is tossed into the trash pile and gotten rid of. That will be the end result of all those who resist God’s plan for this earth, and for His true church, which is the bride of His Son.

God has placed Israel and His true church into precarious places for a reason. We are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. The mission of Israel and the true church is to keep the light burning for as long as we are in this world, but Satan wants the light put out. Therefore, we are both surrounded on all sides by enemies whose only desire is to destroy us and remove us from the face of the earth, but that won’t ever happen. I know some of you won’t believe that last statement, so you won’t believe this next statement either, but if you are against Israel, or against God’s true church; you are supporting a lost cause. Neither the enemies of Israel or the enemies of God’s true church can win. Anything God is for; Satan is against. But Satan is a defeated foe and knows he can never win. It’s too bad that man won’t listen to the truth. When Satan attempted to overthrow heaven and failed, he was judged on that day and his punishment was set. Later, he thought if he couldn’t defeat God and rule from God’s throne in heaven, he would take man captive on earth and rule from God’s footstool – and when God’s sentence would be carried out, he would take all of mankind to hell with him. That’s how much he hates God, and His highest creation; man. But, that plan didn’t work out either. He was defeated by Jesus, the Son of God, and the Son of Man; and since that day 2000 years ago; man has been given the choice of serving whomever they please. But let it be known that Satan was created a servant angel, and he remains a servant angel. (Hebrews 1:13-14) And like all angels, he can only do what God allows him to do, (Job 1:6) and that within the confines of the limitations God has placed upon him (The Book of Job) for the purification of His church. If Satan wasn’t free for that reason, God would have cast him into hell the moment his judgment was handed down. DThrash

446

“The people can always be brought to do the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.” – Hermann Goering

One Sunday afternoon back in the middle 1970’s some friends and I were in a little park in southern Illinois drinking beer and shooting the breeze when I looked up and saw a revival tent pitched about 400 feet from where we were sitting. I noticed there was a little man in a white tee shirt walking around outside the tent, and when he disappeared into the tent; I made a quick decision I was going to go have a talk with the preacher man. I was two sheets in the wind at the time and told my friends I would be back in a little while and staggered off across the park towards the little man’s tent.

Without so much as a ‘knock’, or a ‘hello’, I entered through the tent flap like I owned the place and saw the little preacher man sitting on a three legged milk stool reading a bible lying open on a fold-up canvas army cot he used for a bed. The man never looked up when I entered though he knew I was there, and my impression was that he was expecting me. I don’t remember the whole conversation we had that day, but I remember very clearly, asking him, “Why do you believe in Jesus? How do you know that He is even real?” He said to me, “I was sick and in the hospital in a bad way. One day when I woke up, Jesus was sitting beside my bed. He said to me, “You will not die; but live!” I told Him, “If I lived, I would preach His gospel until the day I died.” Many years have now passed and I am still preaching His gospel everywhere I go.” What the man said to me that day never made an impact, nor did he convince me that Jesus was real, but what He said about Jesus visiting him when he was at his worst has played through my mind, many, many, times since that day back in the 70’s.

I have not seen Jesus in person, but I know at the lowest points in my life that I was being ministered to by the Spirit of God. I would not be sitting here writing this today, if He had not ministered to me during those times in my backslidden past. I was not always faithful in serving Him, but my prayer throughout those days was that, “He would never forget me.” He hasn’t, and I am more in love with Him today than at any time I can remember in my thirty year walk with Him. Thank you, Lord, for the little preacher man in the tent, the young Baptist boy who came to my door some months later, and for the books my sister in law, whom I couldn’t stand, gave me to read. I now know it was an accumulation of all these events that opened my heart to you. Thank you for always remembering me, and thank you for never leaving me when I strayed.

I have come to understand that those events I have written about were all planned by the Lord. He knew who was available at the time to minister His love to me. I might have had evil in my heart the day I visited the little preacher man in his tent, but the Lord knew what I needed and turned it into something good. Though nothing appeared to change that day, a seed had been planted in my heart that would later lead to my salvation.

The ironic thing about my visit with the little preacher man is that just a few short years later, I, like the little preacher man, would be in that very same park during a town festival, preaching the saving grace of Jesus Christ to many of those same people who were present with me that drunken Sunday afternoon when I went to visit the little preacher man. As I looked out over the people that day, I thought, “God really has a sense of humor.” I have learned that He will move mountians to get to one of His children if they are crying out for help. I didn’t realize I needed help the day I visited the little preacher man, but I certainly did not long afterward. And I have since thought, I very possibly could have been and very well might have been the reason the little preacher man came to that park that week back in the middle 70’s, because it was his testimony about what Jesus did for Him that played over and over in my mind prior to my conversion to Christianity. DThrash

Jesus said in John 5:39 & 40, “You search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, and these are they which testify of me. But you are not willing to come to me that you may have life.” This means people hear the Word of God, and sometimes even read the Word of God, but it has no meaning to them. And because they do not understand what they read or see, they do not apply His Word to their life that they may have life. It’s pretty plain that Jesus is telling us in these two scriptures, “There is life in God’s Word.” And it is also pretty plain that He is telling us, if we go to Him and receive Him (because He is the Word of God as explained in John 1:14) into our sprit; we will have eternal life. And if we do not have eternal life in us it’s because we are not willing to obey the Word we hear and see.

In Matthew 5:26  Jesus asked the question, “If the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness?” Many people hear and occasionally read the Word of God, but if they do not apply the Word to their life any light it produces is not reflected outward for the unbelieving public to see. If they cannot see the light in us, they cannot be drawn to the light. That is why I believe the unbelieving public is not beating down the doors of our churches to get into our services. If the light is on, the power is there to drive out the darkness. And if the power to drive out the darkness is present, the unbelieving public would be beating down the doors of our churches to get in. God is light and and as we know, light attracts.  If there is no attraction; does that mean there is no light? And if there is no light to attract the unbelievers into our churches, does that mean God isn’t in our church services? I certainly hope not! But if that is the case, there is only one option left for the church; and that is to repent and beg God’s forgiveness for letting the light go out. “If the light in our churches is darkness, how great is that darkness?” DThrash