The Sword of Truth

A war rages all around us. This is not a metaphor. This war is a very real cosmic conflict that has raged since before the dawn of man. God “beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light ”. God brought forth light, but then a star fell from Heaven and he brought with himself a third of all the lights in the sky. These lights forsook their Maker, choosing to cast shadow instead of reflecting the Radiance of The Everlasting God who had created them. I present to you within the pages of this book, the story of the epic battle between God and Evil. Although this cosmic conflict is not always readily apparent to mortal eyes, it is always raging on behind the scenes of our seemingly mundane world. If we look carefully and prayerfully, we will see evidence of this war written on every page of human history. We will see the fiery darts of The Devil launched at those who were tasked with receiving, preserving and preaching God’s Word. We will see the Hand of Providence shielding and aiding God’s Chosen People in the Holy Crusade that we weary pilgrims must wage in this Kingdom of Satan. We will see that God offers us the power to defeat Satan, the power to defeat our own damning pride and yes, even the power to defeat Death itself. We will each play a part in this battle between God and Evil. We must choose wisely, because we shall receive Eternal Damnation, or Eternal Life in accord with the allegiances we swear. Evil exists. It has a name. It has a primary incarnation. This creature is the first and most powerful of a myriad of agents of Darkness. This Evil Being has a battle strategy. His methods are well known to those who have chronicled his story and history. He knows that all warfare is based upon deception and he is the master of deception, he is The Father of Lies. He would prefer you to doubt, or to deny his existence. You need not believe in him for him to believe in you. He knows your name. He knows your darkest secrets. He has some notion of your potential to do him service, or to do him harm. An irrevocable sentence of eternal death looms over his head. He is eternally damned. Perhaps his great pride and his ambition to claim the Throne of God blinds him to this fate. But surely he must have moments of clarity. I suspect that it is in these moments that he ponders the fire that awaits him, that his thoughts turn to you. He wants to share his fate with you. His greatest joy is to cause God pain. He knows that God Loves you and wishes to spare you Satan’s fate if you allow Him to do so.   Nietzsche writes in Thus Spake Zarathustra: Thus spake the devil unto me, once on a time: “Even God hath his Hell: it is his Love for man. Truly, God has suffered His own Hell to redeem His Creation. In the space between the two heartbeats, between the time you were not old enough to understand that you must choose a side, and the moment that you knew… In that moment, you became Satan’s bond slave. The first man, through sin, gave Satan the title deed to the earth and all that is in it. Your own sin gave The Devil your soul. At the moment of the accountability of the soul, each human being perceives the need for God in his heart. Christ redeemed the cursed earth and all the souls that call upon Him. This is a free gift given, but purchased at the price of His own blood. Suppose a benevolent friend knows you to be in debt to the point of ruin and out of the kindness of his heart, he writes you a check that will satisfy your debtor. This check is of no good to you unless you accept the free gift and present it to the one to whom you are in debt. Christ’s gift of Salvation must be recognized and claimed if you are to free yourself of your debt to God. The Scriptures tell us that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. If you do not claim this gift, then you remain a child of Satan’s kingdom. This is a free choice. It will do no good to stand before the Throne of God and plea that you made no such choice. We choose by our inaction. It has been said that the opposite of Love is not Hate, but rather indifference. You need not love Satan and hate God to be damned. Your indifference towards God damns you. The heart by its very nature must be consumed with love. If it is not consumed with Love for God, then it will be consumed in self-love. What was Satan’s sin, if not self-love over all else? Yes, Satan knows you… His minions know you... Neither he nor they are omnipresent, but they are Legion. Satan is not omniscient. We have no evidence that the Powers of Darkness can see into the desires of your heart, or into the thoughts within your mind, but they watch. They analyze, they chronicle our comings and our goings. They see the patterns of our behavior. They psychoanalyze. They strategize. Satan is wiser than Solomon. He may know you better than you know yourself. If he is your master, he is no friend. His gifts are fleeting, his pleasures are ephemeral and they come at the highest of costs. The joy of all the evil pleasures that this world offers shall evaporate in the first second of Hell’s torments, like a thimble of water cast into the fiery furnace. Satan is a master of strategy. He knows that victory comes from knowing one’s enemy. The war is lost for him. But he may still yet have conquest in the battle for your life. If you are a servant of Jesus Christ, then you have the victory over Satan and over all his legions of the damned, but do not be deceived. Though you have eternal security and Salvation, Satan can still cause all your works to be burned with fire, if they be found to be hay and stubble instead of precious gold. Satan cannot touch the soul of the Believer, but he can destroy your life. He can render your ministry ineffectual and he can rob you of the crowns that God would like to place upon your head. Do you have no craving for crowns? If you are washed in the Blood of The Lamb, one day you shall stand before His throne when all the rewards are given for the service you rendered in this fleeting life. We know that these crowns shall not long be worn by those who win them, but shall be cast before The Throne as an offering to our Heavenly Father. What a sad day that shall be for those who Satan has robbed of their crowns. Imagine a child standing before a beloved parent as all his siblings offer gifts of Love and gratitude for the mercy they have been shown. Imagine hanging your head low because you have no gift to offer. Though you are poor and naked and wretched, you are no less a child of The King and as such, you shall be granted entrance into His Kingdom. But you come into the Kingdom with no token of your Love through service to be offered to The Father. In this light, how sad are the words of Katherine Kennicott Davis’ 1941 classic Christmas carol: I am a poor boy too, pa rum pum pum pum I have no gift to bring, pa rum pum pum pum That's fit to give the King, pa rum pum pum pum, Rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum We are told that Christ shall wipe the tears from our eyes in this day. These shall be tears shed for lost opportunities. When we shall no more, “see through a glass darkly”, when we shall “know even as we are known”, on that day we shall all weep. On that day God Almighty shall show us what we could have done for Him! It is with these thoughts in mind that I write the words that you see before you. It is because I am compelled by the fear of this day of which I have spoken, that I have written this book that has come to be now in your hands. This is a book that I have desired to write from the earliest days of my youth. There were always so many distractions on this journey… There were always so many fears... I know that the great story that I am about to attempt to present is well beyond the wisdom of my feeble intellect to convey. I could study another 50 years and still be ill prepared to present this message.