Fear Isn’t Always a Bad Thing

I actually hesitated before I published this post. Why? Because someone is bound to misunderstand, or think I’m a whacko, or something like that. But, as John Loeffler says, your failure to be informed does not make me a whacko. What brought this entire thing to mind is an article published in 1998, Prepared for the Slaughter. As always, I didn’t come at this article directly, but rather I found it by following a link, and then to another link, and so on, wasting a half an hour or so in the process.

But I want to point out a set of trends, and ask if you see the same pattern I do.

The drive to eliminate “large vehicles” in our society and culture.
The drive to ban the private ownership of firearms on the national and international levels.
The drive to place our healthcare—in fact, our entire economy—in the hands of the government.
The drive to push aside “alternative media.”
The drive to regulate the Internet at large.
The drive to dependence on the Internet, and technology in general (how many people today can use a compass, or even know what one is?).
The drive to eliminate the private ownership of entire classes of knives.

In fact, overall there is a drive in our society to leave “all things” to “experts.” We won’t teach our children, because we’re not trained in that task. We won’t take care of our own health, even in the little things, because a doctor is so much better equipped to do so. We won’t defend ourselves physically, because the police are trained in this area, and we aren’t.

The common theme, if you’ve not already seen it, is self-reliance, or independence. The carrots and sticks are being put in place to force everyone to conform. But conform to what? And here is where the article I pointed at above comes in: We are being prepared for the slaughter. The key indicator is this isn’t just happening in the physical realm, but also in the spiritual realm. For you can extend the list above with two more items. We are being pushed into not being literal in our reading of the Scriptures, to not take God “seriously.” Fundamentalism, we are told, is the problem. To interpret this, fundamentalism is the belief in absolutes. To say fundamentalism is the problem is to say believing in absolute truth is the problem (never mind the inherent self-contradiction). We have stopped reading the Scriptures for ourselves, and expect our pastors and teachers, who have been through years of school, after all, to read them for us. Yet another area of our lives given over to the experts.

Those who would remove the defensive weapon of discernment are binding the hands of the Church. They are preparing God’s people for the slaughter. Why are they doing this? Why would they want to expose millions to the myriad deceptions of the enemy with no protection. Why do they take away what the Father has given? The Church is becoming a slaughterhouse slick with the spilled blood of saints who have been seduced by false teachers. The faithful plod forward to the killing floor, their trusting eyes fixed on their leaders. Error and deception runs rampant. Charlatans rule the bestseller list. Pseudo-knowledge is dispersed around the world, speeding through electrical synapses. Make no mistake. It is a battle, and much is at stake.

Yes, we are being prepared for the slaughter. A spiritual slaughter backed by the iron clad fist of physical repression. It will soon be the case that if you don’t go along with the world’s system, you will not get health care. You will lose your right to self defense, and the police will not protect you. And your children will be taught what the world wants them to learn, no matter what you might think about it.

This is where fear comes in. Courage is not lack of fear, it is the ability to do what’s right even though you are afraid. Much maligned fear is a leading indicator of a bad situation, and nothing more. When people become afraid, they either find courage, or they collapse. Right now, we have both. We have people who are rediscovering their rights, their independence. People who are home schooling, teaching their own children. People who are arming themselves against crime, learning skills our society is trying to suppress. People who are reading the Scriptures, and learning for themselves, rather than always listening to the shallowness coming from most of our pulpits. We also have people, and churches, who are collapsing. Ignoring doctrine because its so divisive. Teaching their children the emergent way (in fact, I can’t find a church around where I live that doesn’t teach children emergent principles, inoculating them against Christianity in the future). Crying out to the government to fix their finances and health care, and crying out to their pastors to fix their spiritual emptiness.

Fear is not always a bad thing. Especially when you are being prepared for the slaughter.