AS IT WAS SO SHALL IT ALSO BE

AS IT WAS SO SHALL IT ALSO BE!

2 Tim 3:1

3 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.

Luke 17:26-29

26 And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.

27 They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.

28 Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;

29 But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.

That heaviness you feel in your spirit is real. Karl Payne, pastor of leadership development at Antioch Bible Church and the former chaplain of the Seattle Seahawks. highlights the double standard being shown in America's media and court systems, where free speech is considered "intolerant" if it is religious, conservative and offends others, yet legislators and courts go "deaf, dumb and mute," if the offense is against conservative religious or political views.

I feel it myself! For believers, some of the trouble we experience is demonic. Not that we battle actual demons but we battle those affected by demonic influence. For a snapshot of demonic characteristics, nothing is so graphic as the demoniac of Gadara. The Bible describes him as having an unnatural affection for death and morbid things. He lived in a graveyard! He shunned clothing and preferred nudity. He demonstrated superhuman strength by breaking the chains that bound him. He was wild and untamed. He was miserable and self destructive. His actions disturbed an entire city.

Mark 5:3-5

3 Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains:

4 Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him.

5 And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.

James 4:7

7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Dear Lord, do not let me misinterpret my troubles but neither let me ignore the fact that the devil is behind much of it. Give me thy Spirit and thy strength. Let me stand firm. AMEN