Alone With God
“Do
not consider it a great deprivation, that you
must go into the hills and mountains, but seek
for that retirement where you can be alone
with God, to learn His will and way….”
CL 14.
The
Silence of the Soul Makes More Distinct the Voice
of God-Here Rest is Found in Him
“[T]he
education that has God back of it, will lead men
to seek after God, “if haply they might feel
after Him, and find Him.”
The
Infinite is not, and never will be, bound about
by human organizations or human plans. Every
soul must have a personal experience in obtaining
a knowledge of the will and way of God. In
all who are under the training of God is to be
revealed a life that is not in harmony with the
world, its customs, its practice, or its
experiences. Through study of the Scriptures,
through earnest prayer, they may hear His message
to them, “Be still and know that I am God.”
When every other voice is hushed, when earthy
interest is turned aside, the
silence of the soul makes more distinct the voice
of God. Here
rest is found in Him. The
peace, the joy, the life of the soul, is God.”
FE 440, 441.
A Forest in
the High Mountain Country
One of
America’s greatest criminal defense
attorneys, though we cannot say that he is right
in all his concepts by any means, yet has
understood the need to be alone, we would say,
before God. He writes,
“Let
me take you to a forest in the high mountain
country of Wyoming. The spruce and lodge pole
pines rise as tall as grasses to the ant. No
sound except the wind through the needles. No
sound except the chipping of an irreverent
squirrel. And then no sound at all.
“I
stood there as a frightened child, the snow
falling, each horizon looking the same, the
towering trees in every direction blotting the
way…
“I
have stood there alone in the forest waiting for
my father to return from the hunt to fetch me,
like a doe returning for her deposited fawn. I
have strained my eyes to see the dark form appear
from the shadows, his legs, long and sure, the
toes turned slightly in like those of an Indian.
Where is he? I peer into the trees ahead, but the
way is dark, and the snow falls on the lids and
leaves large drops on the lashes…
“Now
I see the movement through the shadows, I stare,
my eyes bulging like the eyes of a fawn in panic.
The movement is in my direction. I cannot make
out its form in the shadows. Then I see my father
moving easily as any forest creature. Now he sees
me and smiles. The face, the face of God, the
snow gathering on his shoulders, the steam coming
from his lungs. He has come for me, and all is
right in the world once more, and I will never,
no never, be alone again.
The Father’s
Presence Changes Our World in an Instant
“As
he walks up to where I stand, it is as if he had
never left, and as if I had never been alone. His
presence is the infinite magic of God. He has
changed my world in an instant.” Gerry
Spence, Seven Simple Steps to Personal Freedom.
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001, pp. 69-70.
We Are
Completely Secure in The Presence of the Mighty
Unconquerable One
Therefore,
it is when God’s presence goes with us, as
He promised to Moses. “My presence shall go
with thee.” Exodus 33:14. When God’s
presence, His face, goes with us, everything
is changed. Now ere are completely secure.
One mightier than all the universe, one unbounded
in power, wisdom, intelligence, love, and might-the
Mighty, Unconquerable One-goes with us now. The
aloneness from man opens us up to the presence
of God.
I
remember walking alone at night in winter on the
prairie. My path led through our pasture, and as
I hiked under Orion and the Pleiades, I suddenly
became aware of two powerful presences walking
with me. It was our two horses. They loved to
walk with me, and gave me their fellowship to the
far end of the pasture. I remember being in the
depths of the mountains in the dead of winter,
far from the haunts of man, working to survive
the cold that dipped to twenty-five below zero.
In the midst of the struggle, a stellar jay
appeared, and went out of his way to sing his
jaunty song of triumph, courage, good will and
friendship, just for me. I have, like Elijah
with the ravens, even after treasured stellar
jays. They have a special place in my heart.
Greatest
friendship Known to Man
To be
alone with God is to have the greatest Friendship
ever known to man. I have had a Companionship
with Him in the mountains for years on my cycle,
riding past waterfalls, rivers, lakes and forests
that could never be obtained in the same way on
the college campus in those years.
If a
Person Has Ever Learned to Act Alone, How Will He
Ever Forsake All to Follow Christ?
There
are certain critical passages in life that have
to be accomplished alone-that is, alone from man,
and in the company of God alone. One of these is
the answer to Christ’s call to discipleship.
If a person has never learned to be alone, to act
alone, to move out alone, how will he forsake
all to follow Christ?
“So
likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh
not all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple.”
Luke 14:33. “And every one that hath
forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters,
or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or
lands, for My name’s sake, shall
receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit eternal
life.” Matthew 19:29. The power of being
alone with Christ moves the world-forsaking all,
putting the heavenly Fellowship above the earthy lies
at the foundation of the gospel.
Learning
to Stand and Struggle Alone With God
“I
have never known a daffodil that failed to bloom
because it stood alone. I have never known a
chickadee that failed to fly because it struggled
alone in learning the use of its wings. I have
never known a man who grew unless he experienced
alone time to discover himself.
Alone Is When
It Happens
“Alone.
Then is when it happens. In silence, alone. The
radio off. How could the radio in the car be off?
I have seen people panic at such silence grab for
the knob, like a drowning person for the life
buoy. When the voice on the radio is off, they
are like ducklings who, when the mallard mother
has ceased her soft quacking, swim in tight
little circles in a great pool of terror…Cell
phones now insure us that we need not be alone
while we drive, while we eat, while we walk down
the street. Out television, sets protect us from
being alone…
“People
who do not experience aloneness have breathed
only the stale air of others. However, in
aloneness I say it happens. I write alone-my gift
to myself and to you. I dream alone…
People
Want To Be Swallowed Up By the System, to Be a
Slave in the Presence of Slaves
“We
wish to be swallowed up. ‘Swallow me up,’
we cry to the mob called system. ‘Take me.’
It is better to be taken than to be alone. It is
better to be a slave in the presence of slaves
than to be free…
The Mystery
“When
I walk through the woods alone, I am not alone…I
feel the mystery-yes, the spiritual. I sense an
attachment to the world that I rarely experience
in the company of others. Alone, I am not alone.
Some call the experience God.” –Gerry
Spence, Seven Simple Steps to Personal Freedom.
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001, pp.
70-74.
Out
of Aloneness Rises the Mighty Soul Power That
Alone Comes From God’s Presence
Out
of aloneness rises the mighty power of soul that
comes from knowing God. It happened to Elijah,
Moses, David, John the Baptist, Enoch, and Jesus-the
mightiest that have ever walked the earth. Out of
this being alone with God is built the shelter of
the presence of God in the soul-he who dwells
in the secret of the Most High, shall abide under
the protection of El Shaddai, the Mighty,
Overpowering One. This is the most secure
place of all places on earth. No citadel offers
such protection, no fortress such safety.
The
mighty power of God is received into the soul in
one way only-the way of absolute self-surrender.
Then the soul is held by Christ as a fortress
against everything Satan can throw against it.
The soul is then impregnable to the assaults of
Satan.
“When
the soul surrenders itself to Christ, a new power
takes possession of the new heart. A change is
wrought which man can never accomplish for
himself. It is a supernatural work, bringing a
supernatural element into human nature. The
soul that is yielded to Christ becomes His own
fortress, which He holds in a revolted world,
and He intends that no authority shall be
known in it but His own. A soul thus kept in
possession by the heavenly agencies is impregnable
to the assaults of Satan.” DA 324.
This
is precisely why Neuro-linguistic programming [NLP]
is so utterly satanic. It seeks to break down
this fortress that Christ erects in the heart.
The erection of this Christ occupied fortress of
the soul is the only defense against satanic
attack.
No
One Else Can Do the Wrestling, No One Else Can
Make the Decision
The
surrender to Christ takes place in the awesome
aloneness of just Christ and me-in the soul.
There is no one else there. No one else can make
the decision. No one can do the wrestling. This
is the taking of personal responsibility at it
most primal level. This is the foundation of
Protestantism and Republicanism-those principles,
which are daily being erased from the hearts,
minds, and laws of the nation.
This
self-surrender to Christ results in invincible
individuality that is produced immediately when
the soul surrenders to Christ. This is the
opposite of the weakness, debility, and
perversity of pantheism. That is how important
aloneness with God is for the triumph of the soul.
Wrestling
With God
Jacob
knew all about this when he turned aside to pray
as Esau and his 400 men advanced upon him. It was
night. Jacob had to be alone. Out of the darkness,
surrounded by danger from bandits, robbers, and
Esau’s men, suddenly a hand was laid on his
shoulder in the dark, and the fight of his life
was on. Jacob wrestled with Christ until the
breaking of the day-alone, apart from all the
rest of mankind. This is the kind of valor, the
kind of courage, and the kind of will, necessary
for us as we wrestle alone with God in the dark.
A
Faith That Can Endure Weariness, Delay, Hunger
and the Great Tribulation
“The
season of distress and anguish before us will
require a faith that can endure weariness, delay,
and hunger-a faith that will not faint though
severely tried. The period of probation is
granted to all to prepare for the Great
Tribulation coming very soon. Jacob prevailed
because he was persevering and determined. His
victory is an evidence of the power of
importunate prayer. All who will lay hold of God’s
promises, as he did, and be earnest and
persevering as he was, will succeed as he
succeeded. Those who are unwilling to deny self,
to agonize before God, to pray long and earnestly
for His blessing, will not obtain it. Wrestling
with God-how, few know what it is! How few have
ever had their souls drawn out after God with
intensity of desire until every power is on the
stretch. When waves of despair which no language
can express sweep over the suppliant, how few
cling with unyielding faith to the promises of
God.
Learn
Lessons of Faith Now to Protect Yourself From
Satanic Delusion
“Those
who exercise but little faith now, are in the
greatest danger of falling under the power of
satanic delusions and the decree to compel the
conscience. In addition, even if they endure the
test they will be plunged into deeper distress
and anguish in the time of the Great Tribulation,
because they have never made it a habit to trust
in God. The lessons of faith which they have
neglected they will be forced to learn under the
pressure of discouragement.” GC 621, 622.
An
Ever Deeper Coming to Christ
Since
heaven is a ceaseless approaching to God through
Christ, we must now master the art of coming to
Christ, for we will be coming to Christ
throughout eternity. Now is the time to advance
into this unexplored territory of an even deeper
coming to Christ, an even ever deeper self-surrender,
when we wrestle with Him alone in the darkness,
as did Jacob, we will learn wrestling skills that
will be invaluable in the terrible days to come.
Advance into this territory. Conquer the darkness.
Build the terrain of light in the soul. This is
where victory comes from-self-surrender to God
resulting from wrestling with Him until every
power is on the stretch-sometimes for hours.
The
Terrain of Our Soul Must Be Occupied by Christ
The
terrain of our own soul must be occupied by
Christ. New Victories, new advances, must take
place on the hard-fought battlefield of self-surrender
to Christ in our own soul. In our soul the demons
must be conquered, the darkness cast out, the
light admitted, the presence of the Most High
must occupy.
This
battle in the soul was what educated Oliver
Cromwell to become the greatest general on the
field of battle in his day.
The
Same Formula Used in Germany is Now Being Applied
to America
The
very same recipe used by the Jesuits in Germany
is now being used in America. Germany is a
microcosm of today’s macrocosm. In Europe,
the Jesuits spawned World War I to depose the
German Protestant Kaiser and replace him with a
Roman Catholic dictator.
In
1914, World War I began. By the time it ended,
the Protestant Kaiser was no more in power and
the Jesuits, banned from Germany since 1872, were
readmitted in 1917. After the War, the Weimar
Republic was set up. In 1919, Hitler received
funding from Cardinal Pacelli to start the Nazi
movement.
Germany
Swung to the Left
The
nation was swung into a radical leftist
orientation in the Weimar Republic. Things were
done in Germany that went beyond Paris in
immorality. By 1928, the German hippie movement,
the Wandervoegel, was underway and German
youth gathered in the forests around campfires to
read Nietzsche.
The
Meaninglessness of Nihilism Creates a Desperate
Hunger for Certitude
The
combination of secularism, relativism, Marxism,
left-wing immorality, Nietzscheism,
hyperinflation, and nihilism, dislocated the
German people psychologically, creating a great
hunger for certitude. Hitler provided that
certitude, that certainly with the power of the
will. Youth, middle-aged, and aged were swept
into the tide of fanatical fascism and
totalitarianism, which provided a solution for
the ache of the meaningless of nihilism, offering
a belonging to assuage the terror of alienation.
The
Roman Catholic Formula For Taking Over a State
Germany
was a single nation state with a very cohesive
society. The process is taking longer in America,
a much larger and much more diverse society,
which has deeper religious roots. What took place
in Germany from 1914 to 1940 over twenty-six
years, is taking longer in America. We are now
some forty years into the experiment, but it
is proceeding down the same lines as it did in
Germany. It is the same formula precisely:
Drive
the nation hard to the
left
in immorality, empty the
soul
of the people with the
meaningless
of nihilism,
and
then fill the raging
vacuum
with Roman Fascism.
“Military
Commissions Act of 2006”
Removing
Habeas Corpus; Establishing Ex Post
Facto
Law
Recent
legislation just passed by the House and Senate,
strips away from men designed arbitrarily to be
“enemy combatants” the most sacred
rights established in human law known to man-rights
such as habeas corpus, held sacred since
1215 when the famous barons forced the wicked
King John to sign Magna Carta on the fields of
Runnymeade. This legislation gives the executive
branch the power it has been seeking for to run
secret prisons around the world where torture has
been used, hidden away from the light of the day.
Commentator Marvin Kalb on Fox News said that
this bill simply tells the administration to keep
on doing what it has been doing. (10-17-06) It is
a terrible day for America and the world. However,
it has been foretold in Bible prophecy. America,
while professing to be the lamblike beast,
championing “freedom” around the world,
is speaking like a dragon.
The
bill is labeled the “Military Commissions
Act of 2006,” S. 3930. On October 17, 2006,
president Bush signed it.
“Chapter
47A-Miltiary Commissions
“Sec.
7. Habeas Corpus Matters.
“’(e)
(1) No court, justice, or judge shall have
jurisdiction to hear or consider an application
for the writ of habeas corpus filed by or on
behalf of an alien detained by the United States
who has been determined by the United States to
have been properly detained as an enemy combatant
or is awaiting such determination.’”
Thus
people determined arbitrarily to be ‘enemy
combatants” will be stripped of any ability
to have their case heard in court, and be thrown
into a black hole with basically the key thrown
away without any way of getting out if they were
improperly detained. Just months ago Hamdan won
his case before the Supreme Court because he
invoked Habeas Corpus.
Another
extremely dangerous precedent, removing
Republican and Protestant principles, set by this
bill; it is the establishment of ex post facto
law. This law is made retroactive to time
preceding the act, something that is forbidden by
the Constitution of the United States, which
reads,
“No
Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be
passed.” –Article 1, Section 9, Part 3,
of the United States Constitution.
“No
State shall…pass any ex post facto law.”
–Article I, Section 10, United States
Constitution.
Ex
post facto means “Done or made after the
fact; having retroactive force or effect.”
-Black’s Law Dictionary, 7th
ed.
The
Bill removes the ability to invoke the Geneva
Conventions as a source of rights:
“S
948b. Military commissions generally…
“(g)
GENEVA CONVENTIONS NOT ESTABLISHING SOURCE OF
RIGHTS. –No alien unlawful enemy combatant
subject to trial by military commission under
this chapter may invoke the Geneva Conventions as
a source of rights.”
The
bill defines Geneva Conventions:
“S
948a. Definitions…
“(5)
GENEVA CONVENTIONS. –The term ‘Geneva
Conventions’ means the international
conventions signed at Geneva on August 12, 1949.”
The
Bill attacks the Fourth Amendment:
“S
949a. Rules….
“(B)
Evidence shall not be excluded from trial by
military commission on the grounds that the evidence
was not seized pursuant to a search warrant or
other authorization.”
The
bill violates the Eighth and Fifth Amendments:
“(C)
A statement of the accused that is otherwise
admissible shall not be excluded from trial by
military commission on grounds of alleged
coercion or compulsory self-incrimination so long
as the evidence complies with the provisions of
section 948r of this title.”
The
Bill also eliminates the Sixth Amendment “right
to a speedy and public trial.”
“(D)
INAPPLICABILITY OF CERTAIN PROVISIONS. –(1)
The following provisions of this title shall not
apply to trial by military commission under this
chapter:
“”(A)
Section 810 (article 10 of the Uniform Code of
Military Justice), relating to speedy trail,
including any rule of courts-martial relating to
speedy trial.” –S. 3930.
Thus
the Bill negates the safeguards of the Geneva
Conventions, passed internationally in the wake
of the revelation of the horrors of the Nazi
death camps designed to put to death Germany’s
enemies of the state, and utterly guts the
US Constitution’s Bill of Rights.
A
Generation of “Shock Troops”
A
swelling tidal wave is now threatening to engulf
America and the world. The new burgeoning youth
movement is the application-the action dimension
of the well thought plan of the “Christian
Marxist” ideologues which have gained
control of each branch of government:
A
New Youth Movement-Counterculture Fusion of
Politics and Pop
‘There’s
a new youth movement afoot in this country. It’s
a counterculture fusion of politics and pop, and
it’s taking over a high school near you.
Like the waves that came before it, it’s got
passion, music, and antiauthority posturing, but
more than anything else, this one has God.”
–Laureen Sandler, Righteous: Dispatches
from the Evangelical Youth Movement.
New York: Viking, 2006, flyleaf.
The
same whirlwind forces that gathered and swept
Germany into Nazism in the 1920s and 1930s is now
gathering force for a potential tidal wave of
change. The minds of the youth are being
corralled, channeled, and directed into a new
tyranny of thought by the master of the left and
right wing ideologies persuasion.
When
allied prisoners of war broke out of their prison
camps in Nazi Germany, the greatest threat that
they faced was the hundreds of Hitler Youth that
were immediately locally called up in a hue and
cry to search every corner of the woods, villages,
roads, and towns.
New
Youth Movement Uses the Modes Operandi Of the
Sixties Fusing Pop Culture, Politics and Religion
The
new youth movement is called “the
alternative Christian explosion. Using the
grassroots modus operandi of the 1960s,
these religious kids-part of the ‘Disciple
Generation’ as Sandler calls it-turn an
antiauthoritarian sneer toward liberalism,
feminism, pacifism, and every other hallmark of
that era’s counterculture. And they’re
engaging their peers with startling success,
fusing pop culture, politics, and religion as
they preach from the pulpit of the skate park,
bar, and rock concert.” Sandler, Righteous,
flyleaf.
Rock
and Roll, Rap Preachers, Hip-Hop, and
Fundamentalism
They
are skateboard missionaries, tattooed members of
the post punk Seattle mega church that has
evolved into a self-sufficient community, a rock
and roll antiabortion group, rap preachers
merging hip-hop’s love of money with old-fashioned
Bible-beating fundamentalism. [Adapted from the
flyleaf of Righteous.] “One must not
overlook the fact that the Disciple Generation is
foremost a growing fundamentalist population.
The apocalyptic imagination, the annihilation of
the individual, the subjugation of women, the
resistance to competing ideas-all these startling
facts of this movement are conventional aspects
of fundamentalism of any kind, anywhere…
“…We
need only look eastward to see how
fundamentalism can gather its angry power, fanning
jihadist rage under the daily threat of violence
in Baghdad or Gaza, as fear mounts and spreads.
A
Cocktail of Fear and Loneliness
“…The
experience of modernity for many people is a
lifetime of loneliness, the ache of utter
isolation in an impossibility huge and uncaring
world. It is a cocktail of fear and loneliness…
There
is a Tyranny Over the Hearts and Minds of this
Generation
“…It’s
no overstatement to declare that there is a
tyranny over the hearts and minds of this
generation, which is swiftly being exported
abroad…The ache of modernity, as Hannah
Arendt wrote in The Origins of Totalitarianism,
is a great enabler of the rise of fascism, which
‘bases itself on loneliness, on the
experience of not belonging to the world at all, which
is among the most radical and desperate
experiences of man.’ Further, Arendt
remarked that ‘in this situation man loses
trust in himself as the partner of his thoughts,’
a symptom that is clear in the Disciple
Generation’s triumvirate of emotion,
politics, and anti intellectualism, even what
Arendt called the extreme contempt for facts.’
That
Is Their Program, To Get the Children
“…I
often recalled what a priest in Germany warned
journalist Dorothy Thompson in 1934 – ‘That
is their program, to get the children.’”
Sandler, 240, 241.
Marxist
Cultural Tactics Used in Mass Outreach on the
Christian Right
“I’m
willing to bet members of the sixties New Left
could have ever dreamed they’d see their own
cultural tactics achieving mass outreach on the
Christian right, nor could they have imagined how
inclusive a revolution could be….”
–Sandler, 241.
Theocon
Strategy Applied to a Hitler-youth Style Movement
It
looks like a burgeoning new Hitler Youth style
shock troop fusion of right wing Catholic/evangelical
agenda wedded to the organization and reality
perceptions of the Marxist/pantheistic Jesuit
hippie revolution of the 1960s unleashed in the
ruling philosophy of the theocons, fueled by the
intensity of rock, rap, and hip hop is emerging. This
one bears watching.
The
fusion of the fury of the radical revolutionary
heartbeat of hip-hop, generated by the gangs of
New York and Kingston, Jamaica, with the
religious agenda of the Catholic/evangelical
movement is quite shocking. One of the enormously
popular neo-Nazi style rock bands that is shaking
up Germany today and is even heard on radio talk
shows in America is Rammstein, which is
appealing to the deepest gut levels of a modern
nihilistic adaptation of the kind of thing that
drove Nazi Germany psychologically.
Rammstein-Neonazism
and the New German Hardness
Claire
Berlinski, writer for the New York Times, The
Washington Post, National Review, the
Weekly Standard, Policy Review, and other
publications, with a doctorate in international
relations from Oxford University, who has worked
in Britain, France, Switzerland, Thailand, Laos,
and Turkey as a journalist, academic and
correspondent, devotes 51 pages-an entire chapter-in
her book Menace in Europe to the danger of
ne0-Nazism from this one group-Rammstein.
Claire
writes, “Last September, the strong showing
of far-Right and neo-Nazi parties in Germany’s
regional elections, particularly in the formerly
Communist East, sent a chill through Europe. Did
the cultural transformation associated with
Rammstein’s “neue deutsche Harte’
– the new German hardness-help these
parties return to the mainstream?…
“The
Nazis conceived of hardness as the
hallmark of the New Nietzschean superhuman…
“…The
killers at Columbine loved Rammstein. According
to Russian authorities, the murderers at Beslan
were listening to Rammstein during the
school siege.” –Claire Berlinski,
menace in Europe: Why the Continent’s
crisis is America’s Too. New York: Crown
Forum, 2006, pp. 205, 225, 226.
An
Entirely New Perception of Reality
An entirely new perception of
reality is emerging, shaped by the ideologies of
the far right who were nursed and cut their teeth
on the revolutionary strategies and tactics on
the far left. Sandler writes, “Our president
seems to be playacting Left Behind’s Steele
at the helm of the Tribulation Force- ‘Mission
Accomplished,’ indeed.” Sandler, 224.
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