D-Day Today

"And there was a war in heaven.....and the dragon fought and his angels.  And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.  And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.....Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them.  Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea!  for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time (Revelation 12:7-13)."

A war that the Eternal Father did not avert, in a place where peace eternally purls, rages on.  From John we learn, it is waged no more in heaven but continues on earth.  This wider war was not won at Normandy.  The hostilities did not end at Yorktown, or Appomattox, or on V-E Day, or with the close of the Cold War.  No union or league of nations has preserved a peace.  More impermanent, more unsustainable is peace to this war than it has been in the Middle East.

James Joyce once asked, with all this world's war-weary:  "Are you not weary of ardent ways?"  Many, like John Lennon, suggest we should surrender to a certain peace and brotherhood:

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace

You, you may say
I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Many suggest that we should surrender our ideals--that the impediments to peace are aspirations for eternal life and inhibitions about eternal damnation or, in other words, are religious.  These theorists often assert that religion is the cause of conflicts--as if the Jews brought on the Holocaust by their beliefs.  Put aside God-ward aspirations that divide, and lay aside arms, they assure us, and we will have peace on some sustainable terms--theirs (or their Father's below?).  They assure us that love or peace, not human or terrestrial or galactic domination, is their acme aspiration--and should be ascendant over our eternal aspirations.

But if God did not preserve peace in heaven, how will we preserve it here?  If the contest of opinions was worthy of warfare in heaven, should we disarm and seek détente on terms dictated by mortal deceivers and convenient deceptions?  Jesus sent not "peace" but a "sword" (Matthew 10:34-36).  This original civil war pits one against himself:  "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit" (Galatians 5:17).  This war within bursts outward:  "From whence come wars and fightings among you?  come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?" (James 4:1).  Failing to overcome us, our enemy seeks hostages among those who are dear to us.  In this way, one may be pitted against his own:  "a man's foes shall be they of his own household" (Matthew 10:34-36).

Our adversary informed Sun Tzu's strategies.  He would never declare war when peace and 'normalcy' disarms the complacent majority.  Instead, he recruits turncoats at the top--executives, administrators, judges, legislators, academics, and influencers in media--people who turn laws, institutions, bureaucracies, and media against God, people who dismiss even reasoned dissent as 'conspiracy theories' from 'anti-intellectuals' and 'haters'.  Their Father below will not risk bullets when he already controls most ballots, federal benches, blogs, and big screens.  Like Sun Tzu, his strategy puts victory before violence.  But this is his endgame--violence--even against his adherents.  So revolting are his intents that they must be kept from daylight.  His thralls (ie. some religious thralls) use insinuations, secrets, darkness, dossiers, lies, libels, mobs, terror, vigilantism, and violence.  He wants us to affirm his 'altruistic' plan before we know what it is:  fetters and fear for everyone.

Thoreau observed that "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation"--perhaps like homesteaders in a holocaust.  Always, the ignorant and timorous deny the desperate conflict around them with inanities like "shit happens".  But to lay aside arms is to become a casualty.  To affirm every act and every actor in this conflict is to inflict casualties (ie. to right and truth and innocence and innocents), to kill, without a cause.  The hot battles happen in a fog, at the exposed flank--between those who recognize the momentous stakes.  Usually, right appears outnumbered and outgunned (ie. at Calvary).  This persuades many that might makes right and that truth and faith cannot prevail--let alone endure.

Recognize that peace and brotherly love are ideals, but apparently they aren't, according to the word of God, paramount.  The first commandment, Jesus taught, is to love God with all our heart.  To love God is to love good--He is goodness itself.  When some were estranged from Him--that is from goodness--our Good Father did not compel reconciliation, peace, fraternity, or love (ie. of Him) as heavenly brothers took up arms.  He respected right and righteousness, truth and freedom, and his children so much that arms were admitted into heaven.

As fallible, mortal combatants, we overcome, we triumph, in this mortal combat, "by the blood of the Lamb (Jesus Christ), and by the word of (our) testimony" that Jesus is Savior.  He will prevail again.  The time is short.  At the front, there are perils of every nature.  Will you join this original and final battle?  Those who conquer will "love not their lives unto the death" (Revelation 12:7-13) and will "lose their lives".  And finally gain eternal life and real peace through Jesus Christ.