ARE WE LOSING THE WEST? Part 1
2 Corinthians 10:4-5 “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
I was on Operation Mobilization’s first trip out to India. I arrived in New Delhi on January 1, 1964. After nine months in India the Lord led me to go back to my home in the States to get more people in back of me with prayer. To get back to the States I went to Calcutta and went from one American ship to another until I found one going back to the USA that would hire me.
For the next month we sailed to Bangkok, Thailand where we picked up cement and brought it to Saigon, Vietnam. The war in Vietnam was just beginning. We are entering into a new-year (2014) known as the year of the ‘open door.’ Larry Edelson, who has studied 19,000 wars over the past 5,000 years states that there are cycles to these wars brought on by economics and government. In his study he says the time is ripe for a cycle of war to start in 2014 and reach its peak in six or seven years.
When we look at the situation in the Middle East (Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Egypt) as well as the Far East (Japan, China, Philippines) we see the real possibilities of war breaking out. Also we have the rise of militant Islam and communal riots in India as well as China. We see that there are danger spots all over the world that desperately need prayer and the Gospel of peace to penetrate hearts.
God is opening doors in many parts of the world, but here in the West and especially in Europe we see a decline in our Western culture. I have been reading a book called “APOSTATE,” about the men who destroyed the Christian West. The Apostle Paul told us that our weapons can and should be pulling down strongholds. These strongholds have been built over a period of time. They did not pop up over-night, but we will see that in one period of time a seed (an idea, philosophy) was planted and in the next generation another thought was built on the previous one until there is what we have in our society and culture today.
I sense a need in my own life, and I hope in the lives of others as well, a desire to understand the philosophy and ideas that has brought us to the place where we are today in our society. Who would have believed that a generation ago we would be redefining marriage as well as family? That we would be tolerating the things that we hear in our music, see on our TV screens as well as movies; that we would be in the situation described by Isaiah: “So justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter. Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey.” Isaiah 59:14-15
Over the next few weeklies when we look at some of these men who were instrumental in destroying the West; that they were intellectual giants with a wicked twist that has brought about the decline that we have in the Western world today.
If, according to 2 Corinthians 10, we are to destroy strongholds then it is imperative that we understand what the strongholds are. So often we are putting on band-aids when what is needed is surgery, a cutting out of the cancer that is eating away in our society.
When we look at these men, who through their ideas, had such a tremendous influence on billions of people around the world over the centuries it is truly amazing.
A question that we need to ask ourselves: Is God, God, or not? Are we taking the God-ness out of God believing that man is becoming God? Because man makes a really ‘bad God!’ This is why we have some of the atrocities that have taken place in the 20th century which has become known as the century of genocide. Because man has not done a very good job acting as God he needed to turn to something else to become God to him, and this is where he comes to the ‘state.’ Isn’t this what we are seeing in Europe and here in the USA today?
I was asked to speak in a men’s retreat and they asked me to speak on the subject: Being a Christian Man in the Post Modern World We Live In. Often in this spiritual warfare the way we fight is to produce the opposite spirit of what is being manifested. If there is a prideful spirit we show humility; if there is falsehood then we reveal truth, etc.
Once we begin to understand the philosophy behind the decline in the West then it will also show us how we should live.