This Kind of War

 This Kind of War – Pete Garcia - https://www.rev310.net/post/this-kind-of-war In military terms, the Center of Gravity (COG) is a concept that links some central thing or idea, to whatever an army, a population, an enemy, a force, or a nation centerstheir strength upon. It could be national pride. It could be ethnic or tribal allegiances. It could be advanced technology, or perhaps a particular industry. It could be ideological, religious, or political. For example, America’s COG used to be defendingfreedom and promoting the American way of life across the world. As of late, however, I’m fairly certain our COG has been bought and paid for by the Military Industrial Complex. Carl Von Clausewitz was a 19th-century Prussian General and about as famous a military theorist as you could get, made famous, the term Center of Gravity. To which, COG hasbeen long debated by both scholars and generals as to how best to apply it in regard to military strategy. The thought was, that if you could identify and then attack an enemy’s Center of Gravity, you could effectively defeat said enemy by weakening them tothe point of collapse. Now, we live in a day and age in which everything is accelerating at a dizzying pace, and Christendom is trying really hard to make itself relevant by blending into a worldthat is continually changing. In fact, the only thing changing faster than our technological advancements is its rapidly declining cultural norms. Churches here in the 21st century are continually being pressured by society to compromise and replace theirCOG with that of the world by compromising on doctrinal truths. As believers, our Center of Gravity must be God’s Word, for without it, we would neither know God, nor know the means of salvation vis-� -vis the Gospel of Jesus Christ, orhow to live and function while operating in enemy territory. As believers, we must come to grips with the reality that we are at war, all day, every day. In order for us to grasp the level of conflict we are in, we must first understand that every philosophy, every ideology, every religion, and every source of wisdom or knowledgethat is not from God, comes from Satan regardless of how harmless or benign it may appear. Two-thousand years ago, the Apostle Paul, as moved by the Holy Spirit, also addresses this kind of war… For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickednessin the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Ephesians 6:12-13 On Truth While somewhat difficult to explain regarding a simple, comprehensive understanding, it is simply coming to terms with the absolute truth about our reality here, so stay withme on this: If the God of our Bible is real, and everything in our Bible is true…then everything that is, must conform to that truth no matter how it is being presented by whichever societyor era you find yourself in. Charles Spurgeon once wrote, “The Word of God is the anvil upon which the opinions of men are smashed.” For instance, that the Genesis account of Creation, in which God speaks reality into existence ex nihilo, in six literal 24-hourdays, has to be as it is described in Scripture. If you accept and believe that, then no matter what the science of the day proclaims contrary to that, you stand on God’s Word. Sooner or later, man’s anti-Biblical theories ALWAYS fall apart because they arenot based on reality, but a false foundation. Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.Colossians 2:8 By the late 1800s, the ages of Rationalism, Enlightenment, and Secular Humanism were in full swing and there were philosophical & “scientific” theories aplenty being testedon the general populace with little regard as to the effects they would unleash. For example, the two big ones of the 19th century were Darwinian Evolution and Marxism. With the luxury of hindsight, we’ve seen the tragic effects that both Darwin’s Theory andMarxism have wrought over the past 150 years through the development of eugenics (racial selection) and communism. Tragic would be an understatement. Yet at the time, these were radical and cutting-edge ideas. They were revolutionary and went against the status quo of the day. Years and decades after they were formulated,they were lauded by the academic elites as being ‘the truth’ whilst simultaneously mocking the Bible as being archaic and woefully inadequate to deal with the new scientific breakthroughs and geo-political issues of their day. Yet today, they’re considered both laughable and disastrous models by anyone who has a couple marbles rolling around in their head. This was all because three men (Karl Marx,Friedrich Engels, and Charles Darwin) thought they knew better than God. Neither did these reprobates live to see their philosophical abortions play out. Nevertheless, because of them, we endured: •Bolshevik Revolution •National Socialism (Nazis) •A second World War •70+ years of communism (complete with matching Iron Curtain) •Stalin’s murderous purges •Mao Zedong’s disastrous Great Leap Forward •The Korean and Vietnam Wars •50+ years of Abortion on demand •A 70+ Cold War complete with a permanently embedded deep state intelligentsia undermining western governments All of these came with the hefty price tag of hundreds of millions of dead, and entire generations lost forever. As for an economic and philosophical model, Marxism (as it’scome to be called), was, and will always be an utter failure…because it attempts to redefine human nature as something it is not…naturally altruistic. Darwinism was doomed from the beginning, all it needed was for science to catch up and disprove the samescience they claim it demanded. Scientists are beginning to realize that there is a lot more to our existence than what they once thought. Much of Darwin’s ideas are laughable today, even by secular scientists. Our world, when broken down to the molecular level, is far more complex than they could have understood it to be. Simply put, had the technology been available to people then,we would not have had generations be taught that we crawled out of the primordial soup, or even that our existence here is purely accidental. Had the science been available then, they wouldn’t have had the academic support to promote Social Darwinian, whichmeans we wouldn’t have had ideas such as ‘survival of the fittest’, eugenics, and the “Final Solution”. And yet, for all of Darwin’s so-called genius, and for his dismissal of Scripture as being the one, true, source of truth, Scripture concludes… For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things werecreated through Him and for Him. Colossians 1:16 (my emphasis) On War We, humans, exist in a physical, dimension whose boundaries are time, gravity, and space. We are confined to planet earth, with little prospect of successfully existing anywhereelse due to our own mortal constraints of requiring oxygen, heat, water, food, and gravity to live. Our enemy, however, is not bound by these things. Satan and his fallen angels are spiritual beings who have their own Center of Gravity, and it is centeredon attacking, corrupting, and destroying the three things that stand in the way of their only chance of thwarting God’s plans: the Church, the Jew, and Jerusalem. You will see very clearly that the world hates, mocks, and despises, the Church (true Christianity),the Jewish people, and Jerusalem…irrespective of religion, ethnicity, or academic grooming. We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. 1 John 5:19 (my emphasis) Having previously attempted to wage war on God directly, and subsequently cast out of heaven (along with a third of his fellow, fallen angels) to the earth, Satan realizesthat a direct attack against heaven is his last resort. In the meantime, he has been busily attempting to circumvent God’s plans and His structuring of our reality here. The fact that man has been given free will to decide on whom he will follow, has givenSatan the notion that he might have a chance at succeeding after all. While Satan was cast out of heaven initially, he has retained the ability to transform himself in order to present himself in heaven, yet there is coming a day when he will also lose thatprivilege and be cut off from the Third Heaven altogether (2 Cor. 12:2). In your bible study, simply consider the chronology of events here: Ezekiel 28:11-19, Isaiah 14:12-15, Job. 1:6-7, and Rev. 12:7-12. At the halfway point of the Tribulation (i.e., the time of Jacob’s Troubles which is 3.5 years into Daniel’s 70th Week), Satan will attempt another coup d’état in heaven andwill lose again (Jeremiah 30:7-11). But this time, Michael the Archangel will cast him out down to earth, and he will be confined to our physical realm. Because of this, he will furiously possess the man we know as ‘the Antichrist’ and spend the next threeyears, feverishly pouring out his persecution upon the Jews and Jerusalem. This is why Christ returns at the Second Coming, because, between this persecution and the divine judgments, if He doesn’t, no flesh would survive. (Matt. 24:21-22) Notice, I didn’t say the Church? That is because the Church is nowhere to be found inside the confines of the 70th Week of Daniel. The Church, that is the universal body of believers from Pentecost untiltoday, who make up the corporeal, corporate, multi-membered yet singular, body of Christ…will one day be taken/caught/snatched up to meet the Lord in the air before even one minute of it begins (John 14:1-3, 1 Thess. 4:13-18, 1 Cor. 15:50-55, Rev. 3:10). With regard to military maneuvers, the Rapture is in effect, a triumphal victory parade upwards through Satan’s domain (Eph. 2:2), with full honors and angelic escort. Thisis why the timing of the event itself is shrouded in secrecy (no man knows the day or hour), why it could happen at any moment, and why the ‘shout’, the ‘trump of God’, the immediate resurrection of the dead, and the translation of the living- from mortalto immortal, has to happen in that order...as we will be marching straight through the enemies stronghold. It is Christ, triumphantly presenting His workmanship ‘the Church’ (Matt. 16:18), to His enemy…and Satan not being able to do a single thing about it.The intended effect then is that Jesus begins deconstructing Satan’s COG by effectively removing one of the three main targets who had been under his satanic persecution for millennia. Those who come to faith in Christ after the Rapture of the Church, will be the next group who Satan (via the False Prophet and Antichrist) targets and will produce an untoldnumber of martyrs in the process, from all tribes and kindreds (Rev. 6:9-11; 7:9-17; 13:7). At the midpoint of the Tribulation when the Tribulation martyrs run out, Satan then turns his furious focus on the final two objects of his wrath, the Jew and the Jerusalem.It is at the mid-point that the Antichrist becomes indwelt by Satan himself, sets himself up in the newly rebuilt, Jewish Temple, and declares himself to be God (Dan. 9:27, 2 Thess. 2:4, Rev. 13) and attempts to finish what the Holocaust did not, that beingthe total annihilation of the Jewish people (Matt. 24:15-21). Jerusalem then becomes the flashpoint for all of humanity as the nations of the world, led by the Antichrist, descend upon Har Megiddo (Armageddon) in which he prepares forall-out war. It is here that Christ returns, peeling back the sky for the whole world to see, and returning triumphantly with the Church, to destroy Antichrist, the False Prophet, and the Antichrist’s armies. Satan’s very best, the Antichrist and False Prophet,are cast alive into the Lake of Fire, while Satan himself is bound in chains in the abyss for 1,000 years, thus ending man’s long march to ruin (Zech. 14, Rev. 19-20). Conclusion Going back to what the Apostle Paul wrote though, is understanding that we are at war with fallen angels who hate us with every fiber of their corrupted, condemned, beings.Understanding that the Charles Darwins’ and Karl Marxs’ of the world, aren’t our enemies per se, they are simply the pawns in which the enemy uses to try and destroy Biblical truth and the human race. Think of these men as you would Islamic suicide bombers,who instead of using explosives, use false ideologies, false religions, and humanist philosophies to kill, maim, and destroy…while also blowing themselves up…for a lie from Satan, the father of lies. And while we are still at war, realize fellow believers, that this war is coming to an end very soon. Having already won the victory at the Cross, Jesus Christ thus becamethe Center of Gravity for all of human history. And now, having joined with Christ through the free gift of salvation, all we are waiting on now, is the victory parade upwards. Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.” Luke 21:28 Maranatha!