Editor’s Note: Today Meridian Magazine begins a serialization of “The War in Heaven Continues: Satan’s Tactics to Destroy You, Christianity, the Family, the Constitution, and America” by Gary Lawrence. The book will be published in September. The following article is an excerpt from the introduction to the book.
Next week’s excerpt: “Nice Try, Pinocchio.“
If you do not believe Satan is a real being, this book is not for you.
But if you do, then you probably already believe that there was a war in heaven. And that it continues here on earth.
Same participants, same issues, new location.
Up there … Satan drew away a third of our spiritual siblings using tactics that worked even though all of God’s children had a perfect knowledge of His plan and His wish that we follow it.
Down here … why shouldn’t Satan use those same successful tactics plus more?
Funny, isn’t it, that some can discern coming events in the slightest of signals, while others refuse to accept stark evidence in plain sight.
In the first group are poker players who look for clues that signal what kind of hand a player holds and his intentions. Known as a tell, it can be a change in breathing, the force with which chips are placed, fidgeting, eye movements, tone of voice, among numerous others.
We also have baseball players who watch for inadvertent signals from the pitcher – body language, angle of the glove, a wiggling of a finger – that tip the batter to what pitch is coming.
In the second group, those who don’t see the obvious, we have comfortable businesses. Why didn’t IBM see the signs and become Apple? Why didn’t Kodak invent, or run with, digital photography? Why didn’t Sears become Wal-Mart?
Not paying attention to the signs can especially infect nations. Japan refused to believe that the United States had cracked its naval code even though the Chicago Tribune broke the story as the Battle of Midway was ending, and how this breakthrough led to our victory.[1] They ignored the almost treasonous leak and continued to use that code for the remainder of World War II, which ironically enough gave us to know the flight plans of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, perhaps the most influential believer in the invincibility of the code, and shoot him down ten months later.
Great Britain in the 1930s is an even better example as Winston Churchill repeatedly warned of the evil emanating from Germany. He saw amassed power in the slavish worship of one man, free speech extinguished in the book burnings, racism and subjugation in the fiction of a superior Aryan race, the cessation of reason in the hysteria of torchlight parades, an excessively deep cobblestone base that made the autobahn strong enough to accommodate tanks, the Hitler Youth Movement as surreptitious infantry training, Hitler cleverly skirting Versailles Treaty sanctions against a German air force by training pilots with glider aircraft, and that Hitler was building justification for violence by scapegoating Jews as the villains and cause of Germany’s troubles. All signs that Germany was preparing for war.
But Great Britain laughed at him. Windy Churchill’s crackpot theories, they mocked, despite a trail of hints that cause historians to wonder why they couldn’t see what was happening.
Well, they couldn’t see because they wouldn’t see.
Although the signs of the coming disaster were all around them, they were too comfortable, even in the middle of the Great Depression. They had already fought Germany and put her in her place, right? They actually believed the Kellogg-Briand pact that outlawed war would work, and that the sanctions of the Versailles Treaty would surely protect them. In short, they refused to look at the evidence. They paid dearly for their willing blindness.
Because of opposition in all things, there will always be a competitor, a challenger, an opponent, a rival, an enemy, or an adversary trying to beat us. Those who refuse to analyze and understand the guy on the other side … will lose. Or at least pay a high price for their ignorance.
As we know, Lucifer was an angel “in authority in the presence of God,”[2] who rebelled against the Father and was expelled from heaven, thereafter to be forever known as Satan. The name Lucifer means “Light carrier or bringer,” which harmonizes with his description as a son of the morning – positive connotations all. Therefore, his rebranding was necessary and he became Satan, which in Hebrew means, appropriately enough, adversary.
While God and His Son are the embodiment of good, Lucifer chose to become the embodiment of evil. He lives. Here. He has only one other place to go. He is desperate to bring us into his misery before he is banished.
Though today’s elite – those who are “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth”[3] – contend that Satan is a fictitious character, a majority of Americans fortunately disagree. Unfortunately, this majority has been conditioned by the others that it is not politically correct to discuss him.
But discuss him and his plans we must, just as poker players, athletes, and nations’ intelligence services study their opponents.
The Lord promised that in the last days He would hasten His work, and with it an attendant acceleration of earthquakes, pestilences, sickness, wars and rumors of wars, and general commotion.Who does not sense that the pace is quickening, serious geopolitical events are converging, economies are shaking, and things could explode any day? Things will get grim, as prophesied.
Satan’s plan has kicked into full battle mode. This book is about recognizing the patterns, tells, and tips that give us to know what he is up to. Its intent is to show how religious principles interact with current events, such as the stories in the Book of Mormon selected by Mormon and Moroni who saw our day and knew what we would face. It is about understanding what Satan is doing on five battlefields to defeat God’s plan. Though we may be mocked for seeing boogeymen under the bed, it is a plea for us to connect the dots and speak boldly about what is happening in the world and especially in America.
At the very least, I hope this book will help you to better recognize and resist Satan’s cunning, his wiles, and his snares, and not only strengthen your defenses, but give you the courage to lob a few grenades of truth into the battle.
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Gary Lawrence is a pollster and author who lives in Orange County, California. He welcomes comments at ga**@la**************.com.
[1] “Echo From a Past Leak Probe”, Wall Street Journal, August 7, 2013, A4, regarding a story on June 7, 1942 that was headlined “U.S. Navy Knew in Advance All About Jap Fleet.”
[2] D&C 76:25
[3] 2 Timothy 3:7
Gary LawrenceJuly 3, 2014
@ Karen. Will soon be offering a pre-publication special. The book will also be available at Deseret Book in September and on Amazon. Thanks for your interest.
L. Karen Platt July 1, 2014
Where can I buy your book? Karen Platt