Who let the dogs in...

I grew up in a “gun-less” home and don’t really miss having a gun. My child, on the other hand, wants to learn shooting as well as archery, and probably will do both because she is like that... The apostle Peter carried a sword and the Lord Jesus did not tell him to get rid of it! The Apostle Peter apparently carried his sword for personal defense. However, he was wise enough not to think that mere possession of a sword could protect his “freedoms” and “civil liberties” against the occupying Roman war machine. The other apostle also called Simon, who was himself a zealot (i.e. revolutionary or jihadist), probably knew firsthand the powerlessness of the ragtag civilian militias against the Roman legions: the legions crushed them! Even though the Lord did not pronounce a ban on ownership of weapons by his disciples, he did warn Peter of the moral danger of undue reliance on the sword and eagerness to use it, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword” Matt 26:52.

Contemporary with the recent shooting of school children here in the USA has been the knife attacks on school children in China, as I remarked somewhere else, “same demons instigating, but different weapons”! But the Chinese babies were not killed, just maimed. The real gun control issue is not prevention of attacks but the limiting of the lethality of the attacks. Swords in Judea, knives in China and muskets in early America could never achieve the horrible lethality of the Newtown incident. Every thinking human being already has a personal limit on what arms should be readily available to civilians as a “freedom”. I personally would not like to see RPGs as instruments of “freedom” and potential “defense against tyranny”, become readily available to all citizens. It is the responsibility of the people and their politicians to adjust laws to try to minimize the occurrence and lethality of such events.

But Darrell Scott, the father of the Columbine victim, directs us away from the superficial, (though necessary) responses to the tragedies and bids us “look into our hearts to find the real villain”. Considering the extent of the tragedy at Newtown and the fact that such incidents have become all too familiar occurrences we do need collective and individual introspection. Who is the real villain, is it our culture? Chinese culture is quite different to ours, so why the similar occurrences there and in other places?

In dark corners of the globe, in all cultures (by dark I mean remote due to physical isolation or intentional concealment), there is still clandestine and sometimes open religious abuse of children (The abuse of children by priests nearer home is a small part of this picture. It is directly consequent to ignoring Paul’s warning to Timothy: “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, men who forbid marriage…”

Taken to its logical end, this devaluing of children (or the diabolical evaluation of the worth of their innocence) includes what the bible describes this way: offering “my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul”. The notion of sacrificing children is a demonic doctrine that deceives human beings into participating in the destruction of their own offspring. The devil seeks to kill and destroy; how more effective than to persuade parents to kill their unborn or their female infants (add to female infanticide the genital mutilation of females that often results in female emotional castration) or to give up the lives of their children to the “gods” to ensure prosperity or health.

The historical consequence of Christendom down through the centuries, being that the true light now shines, however obscured by the failures of individual Christians, is that certain evils are not openly tolerated. There is no way that child abuse or child sacrifice will be allowed to take place openly in Christendom. The demons have found another way (in addition to indirect methods such as wars, genocides etc.) to kill children even here in this Christendom, which is more and more “this Babylon” in reality. They influence individuals to do it in such a way that protectors are caught off guard, the body count is increased, and the soul of the parents and communities is damaged. The demons wait for the doors of opportunity to be opened. In folklore it is said that vampires can only come into the house if the occupant invites them in. I this case they come in, for example, through the open doors and windows of the immoral, violent, vile satanic lyrics that are found in heavy metal/ hard rock, with its limited appeal. Now the same evil lyrics reverberate into the ears of our young through the mass appeal of hip hop and other genres. So many TV shows and movies have demonic themes. Even werewolves and vampires and “ghosts” are presented in a human, sympathetic light. Sci-Fi covers up demons as “aliens” …superior aliens with whom humans may mate, producing heroic hybrid children, in effect, modern day “nephilim”! These are some of the portals through which demoniacal influences have entered.

The malevolent spirits are everywhere, “spiritual wickedness (or wicked spirits) in the atmospheric heavens”, but their influence is limited by the light. Allowing the light to be occluded by noxious influences is the moral equivalent to letting the dogs in… The dogs were let in, and they prey on the drug addled brain, on the mentally disturbed, on the unprotected young!

The legitimate (as well as some unnecessary) cultural/economic claims on the attention of parents i.e. working more than one job to make ends meet, divorce, no monitoring of what media the young are exposed to, engaging in wealth creating/enhancing activities to enable the indulgence in empty materialistic fantasies…these activities and situations leave little time for parents to be their own children’s friends, to provide emotional buffering, guidance and warnings concerning the barrage of ideas and influences that bombard all day through the eye and ear.

Those of us who have young children, and all who care about our youth, must pray fervently and effectually, as well as continually. Christians should not allow themselves to be distracted by the so-called culture wars. Why focus on men when the men are mere tools of the real enemy? Why attack men and risk attacking fellow believers with different views? The bullet or the ballot cannot usher in Christian utopia! If they could they would have done so already. Righteous government will come in with the king and his kingdom. In the meantime, there is a spiritual battle going on. The offensive weapon for believers is the word of God. The word of God, expertly used by the courageous but humble individual Christian, whose life is in keeping with it, can produce the “salt of the earth” effect and the “lights in the world” effect on our environment. The light forces the dogs back out into the shadows. But even if Christians as a body remain ineffective, individual Christians can let their light shine and provide a spiritual bubble of protection around the young people we know. We can pray for them, listen to them, talk to them, and guide them.

Makiliwè Colin Younge

December 22, 2012