General Sherman knew what was needed to defeat the enemy during the American Civil War. In Texas terms, his army had to follow the following directive: “If it moves, kill it; if it stands, level it.” Harsh? Yes. Necessary for victory on the battlefield? Yes. The same mind-set is necessary when it comes to spiritual warfare which demands a HAND-TO-HAND, UP-CLOSE-AND-PERSONAL, ONLY-ONE-SURVIVES mentality. One must fear nothing and no one. One must not care about the attitudes, beliefs, practices, feelings or future effects such warfare has on others.

I am not here to make you feel good about yourself. If that is what you are seeking, go to church. I am here to tell you what God arranged to be written in His Holy Bible, which He preserved for thousands of years so that we who are living in the last days this world have it as our template, our plumb line. The Bible reveals His ever-present, unchanging rules of engagement for our 24/7/365 war against the forces of evil. As a man, Jesus of Nazareth fought the same war against the same enemy using the same weapon–God’s Word–His (and our) SWORD OF THE SPIRIT (Eph. 6:17) that cuts going in and coming out: “For the WORD OF THE LORD is sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, joints and marrow.” His sword even exposes the thoughts and intents of the heart/mind (Heb. 4:12,13). If we are obeying His Word exactly as He wrote it, then we are right with Him. If not, then we are wrong and with Satan and are using his book (church doctrine) as our truth. The question is, whose word to we trust to lead us into God’s kingdom–His Word or Satan’s church doctrine?

The Holy Bible is the Truth we must live before the world for all to see (Jn. 17:17). And when the situation is right, we must proclaim that Truth to the world, BUT ONLY IN THE PROPER VENUE AND UNDER THE PROPER CIRCUMSTANCE. In my next series I will teach God’s rules concerning witnessing, sharing His message, etc. Like everything else within true Christianity, there is a right way and a wrong way to be the Lord’s “light to the world.”

The reason America is in the moral, social, educational, economic, political, etc. condition she is in today is because her light went dark. She lapsed into a state of apostasy by abandoning God’s scorched earth Word. In doing so she proved that she despises both Him and His Son (Lk. 10:16). She then bowed to Satan, embraced him as her god, then match-lighted her way into the sin-saturated, Satan-serving vomit (see Rev. 3:16) she is today. Her only connection to God is when she mentions His name.

When it comes to ridding ourselves of Satan’s influence, anything less than scorched earth is an abomination to the Lord and a waste of time. We must take a wire brush, not a napkin, to ourselves when it comes to spiritual cleansing. We must “purify ourselves” (1 Jn. 3:3) by the continual “washing by the water of (that is) the Word” of God (Eph. 5:26). The things of Satan are like cancer cells that, if allowed to remain, multiply until they consume and kill their host. “A little leaven leavens the whole loaf.” We must attack, attack, attack that leaven until it is completely gone. There can be no compromise with the devil. The true Christian walk is an all-OR-nothing, life-OR-death war with the forces of evil. We must choose EITHER the strait gate and narrow way of God OR the wide gate and broad way of Satan (Mat. 7:13,14). In other words, ONE IS EITHER THE FRIEND AND BROTHER OF JESUS OR THE ENEMY OF JESUS. Read The Friend and Jesus’ Brethren. Key words–Friend and Brethren respectively.

In Revelation 3:14-20 we find Jesus prophesying about the character future church ages would assume over time, ending with the Laodicean age which has developed before our eyes. As goes the church, so goes the nation. When Laodicean leaders stopped attacking Satan and joined him, the nation followed suit. As a result, the church has become exactly as Jesus prophesied she would be during the Laodicean era. The nation followed in her spiritual footsteps. The church and the world are at the end of that era now. What awaits us is the Great Tribulation into which the Institutional Church will lead the world. Up next is 3 1/2 years of literal hell on earth. Why? Because the biological and spiritual descendants of ancient Israel have, like their ancestors, gone the way of Satan. Read Who and Where is Israel Today? Key word–Who?

Why is the church the bastion of failure today? Because God’s scorched earth ministers are, with the exception of a minutely few true servants, a thing of the distant past. And when the church happens to hear or read their words, God’s servants and their message are rejected in favor of the smooth, user-friendly, feel-good mutterings of her hirelings. “God will throw your Law-rejecting soul into the Lake of Fire if you don’t kick it into obedience mode” has been replaced by “Jesus loves you just the way you are. Just take Him as your Savior and remember to repent each time you sin.” But what they do not know is that in so doing they “crucify Christ afresh (again) and put Him to an open shame” (Hebrews 6:4-6). Note it: IN THE EYES OF GOD, EACH TIME WE SIN WE NAIL JESUS TO THE CROSS. The repeated crucifixion of Jesus takes time. Serial sinning necessitates serial repentance, which is time-consuming for the busy sinner. A man I know saves time by accumulating his sins, then repents of them all at one time. I assume he performs his mass repentance, sin-dump on Sunday morning during the preacher’s final statements, known as the “alter call.” The AC was concocted by the fallen church several hundred years after her founding. Music became part of the preacher’s “Come down now and get saved now” ruse in order to add a bit of emotion to the ritual. Biblical Salvation is a time-consuming, gut-wrenching, scorched heart process–not an emotional, instant, one-and-done act. Read the Process of Salvation. Key word–Process.

Conversion involves a total reversal of life that results in the burning up of everything in hone’s past. Then one is totally remade new which affects everything he thinks, says and does (Mat. 3:12). Every aspect of the old man dies as the convert becomes a totally new creation (1 Cor. 5:7,8/ 2 Cor. 5:17). The conversion PROCESS is spiritual warfare on its most personal, life-or-death level. What passes for salvation in the church is nothing more than an introduced to Jesus Christ. The church calls that introduction “salvation.” One need only complete the sect’s prescribed ritual and, presto, one is saved, sanctified, born again, sealed and rapture-ready. The fix is in. But what did Jesus say?

Recall that Christ’s first recorded Words of ministry were: “Repent and believe the Gospel” (Mk. 1:15). Repent of what? Sin. What is the Gospel definition of sin? Let us read it for ourselves: “To sin is to transgress the Law, for sin is the transgression of the Law” (1 Jn. 3:4). This is the same Law the church claims was nailed to the cross and therefore plays no part in a believer’s life. The church has never confessed and repented of her sins–breaking of God’s Law. Therefore, SHE HAS NEVER RECEIVED FORGIVENESS OF HER SINS, WHICH IS THE VERY FIRST THING THAT HAS TO TAKE PLACE ON OUR JOURNEY TO SALVATION/REBIRTH, WHICH WILL BE AWARDED UPON THE ARRIVAL OF JESUS CHRIST TO EARTH. Read Born Again. Key word–Born. L.J.