LOOK OUT FOR LANDMINES!
Landmines are explosive, concealed, military devices, which
are designed to passively destroy or disable enemy targets without the risk of directly
engaging the warring adversary. Injury
or death results, either from the direct blast or from lethal fragments hurled with
great force from its epicenter. During
past wars, landmines were detonated by direct pressure, i.e. the weight of the
person stepping on the landmine or the vehicle driving over it.
The latest
generation of landmines is deployed to destroy military personnel and
vehicles. These weapons are called “IEDs”
or improvised explosive devices. During our
most recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, numerous allied combatants lost both life
and limb as the result of these IEDs. The
use of such landmines remains controversial because they were originally condemned
by “The Geneva Conventions” [seven treaties and protocols that establish standards
of humanitarian treatment during warfare – 1949], and later legally prohibited
by “The Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and
Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines.” [1997]
It is important
to recognize that landmines are typically deployed by cowards who seek to destroy their enemies from a safe
distance. It occurs to me that the chief coward, Satan, plants
spiritual landmines in his desperate attempts to “kill and destroy” the people
of God. (John 10:10)
How so? The archenemy of the cross of christ and all it represents is fully aware
that he could never damage or destroy Almighty God. Recognizing this, every satanic strategy of tactical
destruction is aimed directly at the “children of God,” whom he recognizes as “heirs
of God and joint heirs with Christ.” (Romans 8:17)
Satanic
landmines are deployed by a variety of agents and in a myriad of life
circumstances. The IEDs of Hell include all
of the following, and many more: 1) Our perceptions of hurt and abandonment when
we are on the receiving end of unwarranted criticisms; 2) The temptation to
become divided against our spiritual siblings over transient and trivial
matters; 3) The human tendency to embrace anxiety, loneliness, isolation and depression
during times of loss or grief; 4) Our habit of holding on to stress, doubt and fear
instead of trusting in our God and His unfailing Word; 5) Etcetera, etcetera
and etcetera.
We are warned by
the Apostle Peter to constantly be on the lookout for cataclysmic landmines. “Be sober, be vigilant, because your
adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may
devour.” (I Peter 5:8)
Nevertheless, there
is exciting news! GOD has endowed and
armed us with robust weapons of spiritual warfare that will obliterate every
IED deployment of our sworn enemy. (II Corinthians 10:4) Additionally, we are privy to advance
intelligence briefings which precisely identify the location and potency of all
destructive landmines. By what means are
we provided such life-saving information?
Whenever we “pray without ceasing” – whenever we “study to show
ourselves approved unto God” – whenever we “walk in the Spirit” – we become amenable
and available for THE HOLY SPIRIT to teach and reveal to us those potentially
destructive “things to come.” (I Thessalonians 5:17 – Galatians 5:25 – II
Timothy 2:15 – John 14:26-27 – John 16:13)
Finally, we are assuredly shrouded and safeguarded within the “whole armor
of God,” through which no satanic weapon could possibly penetrate or prevail.
(Ephesians 6:11-18 – Isaiah 54:17)
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