Avalon Chronicles #30: "Defecting to the Enemy"
By Allen Clark allenbclark@aol.com
www.combatfaith.com www.combatfaith.blogspot.com
When the Korean War started on June 25, 1950 with the attack on South Korea by the North Korean Communists, I was in Sendai, Japan where my father was an officer in the Army of Occupation. I remember going to the railroad station and seeing off the troops traveling south to go to war. During the war many of our troops were captured by the Communists. My father was in Korea when the war ended in 1953. During the war when I was in Japan, I avidly read the Star and Stripes newspaper and kept up with the war. After the war I was appalled to read an article that about 23 American prisoner of war soldiers had chosen to remain with the enemy when prisoner repatriation occured. They had defected to the enemy. As a West Point cadet, Army officer, and Vietnam War Special Forces officer involved in clandestine operations, keeping my activities and information confidential, and especially away from the enemy, was a part of my life. Especially in Vietnam, we were always on the alert for any of our agents to have been defectors to the enemy. Military enemies are pretty well-defined. They are in the history books and deeply embedded in the memories of those of us in military and diplomatic circles.
Less well-recognized are our own personal spiritual enemies. Unequivocably, undeniably, and emphatically I believe in personal spiritual warfare. In my previous Chronicle I addressed "strategic" spiritual warfare. It is now time to address "tactical" spiritual warfare, the incessant and constant struggle we face each and every day to combat our individual enemies in the spiritual realm, wherein we are tempted mightily to defect to the enemy and leave God's protective fortress.
Back in the 1970s Flip Wilson starred in a television series and when he acted wrongly, he always claimed, "The devil made me do it!" There is great wisdom and truth in that simple comment and claim to deflect accountability for our inappropriate thoughts, words, and deeds, some not just "stupids," but also outright sins.
There is not time to reflect extensively on my beliefs in spiritual warfare, but allow me to be as succinct as possible. This is what I believe. Take it or leave it! An angelic being at one time high in the Heavenly power structure decided to defect from allegiance to God and became the "enemy." That being was Lucifer, and God evicted him from Heaven with one third of the angels who became the enemy force. In the New Testament in I Peter 5:8 it is written, "Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." The footnote in my KJV LASB elaborates thusly, "Lions attack sick, young, or straggling animals; they choose victims who are alone or not alert. Peter warns us to watch out for Satan when we are suffering or persecuted. Feeling alone, weak, helpless, and cut off from other believers, so focused on our troubles that we forget to watch for danger, we are especially vulnerable to Satan's attacks." In James 4:7 it is written, "...Resist the devil and he will flee from you." The footnote states this, "Satan is here now, however, and he is trying to win us over to his evil cause. With the Holy Spirit's power we can resist Satan and he will flee from us." Otherwise we may be taken in by the devil's wiles and if we succumb, by definition, we have defected to the enemy.
Back to those angels thrown from Heaven to earth. Their assignment is to oversee the toils, tribulations, and trials perpetrated by the higher earthly powers addressed by C.S. Lewis in the previous Chronicle. Our daily adversaries are demonic spirits. There is much discourse about from whence they emanate. I put all that academic discussion aside and just believe thay are prevalent as the enemy foot soldiers of Satan. Just as I was cognizant of my military enemies, I am cognizant of my spiritual enemies. If I allow them to direct me rather than following God's direction for my behavior, I have, in effect, "Defected to the enemy."
A friend of mine sent me just today a perfect scripture that relates how we can be armed to fight the schemes of the devil. It is Philippians 4:8, "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." I add also, ACT on these things. Stay tuned as to how we must continue to arm ourselves to counter the personal spiritual enemies we face each day so that our behavior honors the Creator God and does not cause personal discord and unhappiness for us or others.
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Monday, May 19, 2014
Avalon Chronicles #29: "Life's Contrasts"
Avalon Chronicles #29: "Life's Contrasts"
by Allen Clark allenbclark@aol.com
www.combatfaith.blogspot.com www.combatfaith.com
I attended my daughter Elizabeth's wedding in early May in Solothurn, Switzerland, a country of unparalled natural beauty. She married Patrick, a gentleman and Swiss citizen. We celebrated the days there on two leisurely boat rides, one on Lake Thun, adjacent to Interlaken, with snow-capped Swiss Alps looking down upon our tranquil waters. There were several social events with wedding guests from England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Lichtenstein, and of course, the U.S.. The family and friends of the groom welcomed the American visitors with warmth, kindness, and great generosity, emotions significantly in contrast to those evidenced in the stories I read upon my return to the real world in the newspapers whose absence from my thoughts was very pleasant during my days abroad. It was most peaceful and elevating to visit that neutral nation, bask in its sunlight, wind through hilly curves to remote mountain hideaways to dine on the staple cheeses, and to stop at riverside spots to experience the charm of its ancient cities and villages untouched in centuries by warfare.
Now it is off to California for a series of opportunities to be a guest in Manteca and Lodi at ceremonies honoring our war dead. The wedding and these upcoming activities are great contrasts of life; Switzerland's peaceful mountain villages, historic walled towns, clean and clear rivers, gracious people and the somberness of our Memorial Day weekend when we recollect all the sad past times as we honor the great young Americans sacrificed so we and others might have tranquillity and peace in a strife-torn world. I will join the assemblages as we mourn the memory of our young men and women offered on the altars of freedom in faraway foreign lands.
Upon my return to my homeland my thoughts dwelled upon the same problems and challenges prevalent prior to my pleasant experiences at the wedding; Benghazi and terrorists, deaths in Ukraine, Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko Haran, Iranian and North Korean sabre-rattling, Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. They are still there and I suppose always will be since they started in the Garden of Eden with disobedience to God and will continue until the final return of the Messiah, our Lord Jesus, the Christ.
The bottom line in the strategic sense is that there has been from time immemorial a focus by most on the created, ourselves, rather than the Creator, our God. C.S. Lewis in his Mere Christianity captured this eternal struggle we face as humans on this earth, contrasted by the peace and beauty of our earth created by God and the turmoil and tribulation perpetrated and practiced by us humans also created by God. Lewis wrote, "Men and women have always hoped that...(they) could set up on their own as if they have created themselves-be their own masters-invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside of God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history-money, poverty, ambition, wars, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery-the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy."
True happiness and peace for ourselves cannot be found outside God. For the world it cannot be found outside God. We, God's created, and recipients of my writings, cannot do much about all the interruptions to world peace, but we can seek and find our own personal peace. Stay tuned for my thoughts on how to attempt that for ourselves.
by Allen Clark allenbclark@aol.com
www.combatfaith.blogspot.com www.combatfaith.com
I attended my daughter Elizabeth's wedding in early May in Solothurn, Switzerland, a country of unparalled natural beauty. She married Patrick, a gentleman and Swiss citizen. We celebrated the days there on two leisurely boat rides, one on Lake Thun, adjacent to Interlaken, with snow-capped Swiss Alps looking down upon our tranquil waters. There were several social events with wedding guests from England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Lichtenstein, and of course, the U.S.. The family and friends of the groom welcomed the American visitors with warmth, kindness, and great generosity, emotions significantly in contrast to those evidenced in the stories I read upon my return to the real world in the newspapers whose absence from my thoughts was very pleasant during my days abroad. It was most peaceful and elevating to visit that neutral nation, bask in its sunlight, wind through hilly curves to remote mountain hideaways to dine on the staple cheeses, and to stop at riverside spots to experience the charm of its ancient cities and villages untouched in centuries by warfare.
Now it is off to California for a series of opportunities to be a guest in Manteca and Lodi at ceremonies honoring our war dead. The wedding and these upcoming activities are great contrasts of life; Switzerland's peaceful mountain villages, historic walled towns, clean and clear rivers, gracious people and the somberness of our Memorial Day weekend when we recollect all the sad past times as we honor the great young Americans sacrificed so we and others might have tranquillity and peace in a strife-torn world. I will join the assemblages as we mourn the memory of our young men and women offered on the altars of freedom in faraway foreign lands.
Upon my return to my homeland my thoughts dwelled upon the same problems and challenges prevalent prior to my pleasant experiences at the wedding; Benghazi and terrorists, deaths in Ukraine, Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko Haran, Iranian and North Korean sabre-rattling, Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. They are still there and I suppose always will be since they started in the Garden of Eden with disobedience to God and will continue until the final return of the Messiah, our Lord Jesus, the Christ.
The bottom line in the strategic sense is that there has been from time immemorial a focus by most on the created, ourselves, rather than the Creator, our God. C.S. Lewis in his Mere Christianity captured this eternal struggle we face as humans on this earth, contrasted by the peace and beauty of our earth created by God and the turmoil and tribulation perpetrated and practiced by us humans also created by God. Lewis wrote, "Men and women have always hoped that...(they) could set up on their own as if they have created themselves-be their own masters-invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside of God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history-money, poverty, ambition, wars, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery-the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy."
True happiness and peace for ourselves cannot be found outside God. For the world it cannot be found outside God. We, God's created, and recipients of my writings, cannot do much about all the interruptions to world peace, but we can seek and find our own personal peace. Stay tuned for my thoughts on how to attempt that for ourselves.
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