I Saw Three Unclean Spirits Like Frogs.....

Self-Righteousness: the Devil's Favorite Tool
(c) 2011 by Tom King

"And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.  For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the Earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty."  Revelation: 16: 13-14

Something is worrying me lately. When I see liberals on the left and conservatives on the right converging on talking points, I begin to wander what's the devil up to. Two I'm seeing a lot of just in the past few days:

1. Glenn Beck is a wacko. (Hearing it from MSNBC and the Weekly Standard)
2. Reagan and Obama aren't that far apart. (Time Magazine and conservative blogs).

A strategy the enemy uses is to confuse the issue is to create common targets and issues that his enemies can share to distract them while he does his real work. He's got liberals saying Obama is more like Reagan than Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck. In knee jerk fashion, now conservatives are pointing out that Reagan was "not so hot and made lots of mistakes" in an effort to further distance themselves from the liberal talking points. Sadly, it puts them on the same side as the liberals in muddying the character of Reagan.

The Arab proverb, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," tain't necessarily so, but it is a great way to forward an agenda - especially an evil one. Both sides figure they can agree for now and slip a dagger into the other guy's ribs later if they need to. Acquisition of power is the most important thing to people like this. The devil uses such "deals with the devil" to manipulate for his own ends. The left/right sanctimony over Reagan and Beck is really a sad commentary on how petty and naieve some folk can be.

I think the conservative community has become so enraged with how things are going that we've abandoned clear cool logical thinking. There's a reason somebody is orchestrating an attack on conservative icons like Reagan and Glenn Beck (and Abraham Lincoln for that matter). It's what you do if you want to confuse your enemy and marginalize its leaders.

If you can, you turn your enemy against its own leaders; against their own symbols.  Then, you can convince them they are more holy practitioners of their particular political philosophies - whether it's conservatism or Marxism it does not matter. Get them all puffed up with pride before you stick a pin in them.

If you are intent on seizing power, it's best to eliminate or marginalize anyone with passion and you do that by setting them up for a fall. That's what happened to Robespierre during the French Revolution. He became a fanatic and convinced of his own righteousness and invincibility. As a result he wound up with his own head in a basket.

There's the story of the Greek King who showed a neighboring king how to rule his people and hold his power. He had his soldiers go into a ripening cornfield and lop of the heads off any corn stalk that stood higher than the others.

It's a very effective technique for crowd control. It seems lately the strategy is to fertilize any potentially troublesome stalks so they can grow large enough to warrant pruning. We must not let them get away with it. Particularly, we need to protect our prophets and preachers from ourselves.  Any human, no matter how effective he or she is, no matter how sincere their beliefs or how righteous their cause can be found to have flaws. Let's not convince ourselves that we are so righteous we need to lop the heads off anyone who isn't as righteous as we are. "Pride goeth before destruction," it says in Proverbs, "And a haughty spirit before a fall."

The Satanic method of rule is to find flaws in your opponents and attack them, turning their own supporters against them if possible.  There's no tool quite so effective as self-righteousness for doing that.

Jesus' method is to let us find those flaws in our own selves, bringing those flaws into the light of his love, where he forgives them and then forgets you ever had them.  Lots of men and women, whom I believe God called to service at key moments in history, had forgiven flaws.

• Lincoln set aside "habeus corpus" while trying to figure out how to hold the United States together in the middle of a bloody Civil War.
• FDR talked pacifist, almost lying to the American people, while building an army to fight a war he knew would come.
• Teddy Roosevelt bought into some pernicious socialist ideas, while breaking up some nasty business trusts and strengthening America's position in the world at a time when foreign powers were eyeing the Americas with thoughts of conquest.
• Reagan compromised with Democrats to accomplish things he felt were more important - like ending the nuclear threat and bringing down communism..
• Beck was a drunk who cleaned up and became a spokesman for hard work, family values, clean living smaller government and the preservation of the constitution.
• Martin Luther was an obsessive compulsive self-abuser who led the Protestant revolution against the excesses of a politicized, corrupt church.
• Joan of Arc had problems with authority, but led her nation to independence.
• Martin Luther King had indescretions with women and inspired the civil rights movement with his "I have a dream" speech.
• So did Kennedy who pointed the way to the moon and possibly Eisenhower who quietly held us together during the darkest days of the cold war.
• St. Peter used swear words under pressure, buckled under social pressure and allowed racism to raise its ugly head in the early church and yet he always admitted his guilt freely and came back to lead the fledgling church to become a great movement for good.
• St. Paul had some issues with women, admitted he had a secret problem he did not share with others that made it hard for him and admitted that he sometimes spoke on his own hook without God's express guidance on the subject, but wrote some of the most inspiring words of scripture and raised up churches far beyond the borders of Israel.
• George Washington had some impulse control issues, but didn't lie about it. He set the model for what a president and principled leader should be for every president that came after.
• Ben Franklin was a rake and dandy, but he brought a keen intellect and love of freedom to the creation of a new nation, conceived in liberty..
• Thomas Jefferson was lonely and fond of a black girl that worked for him, but he also wrote the breath-taking Declaration of Independence and made sure the constitution included a bill of rights for all Americans.

The great men and women of history have inspired us to be the best we can be. So, why all of a sudden are we going after our own icons. Why are their flaws suddenly so important? Is someone trying to take our eyes off the prize?

Ships once depended on lighthouses along the coast to warn them of rocks ahead. If an enemy wanted to confuse and wreck the coastal commerce of its enemy, it burned the lighthouses so the ships could not find their way. I think that's what is happening now.  I look for more of it in the future.

It may come as a surprise to some of my readers, but I HATE POLITICS!. It's a nasty evil power game that illustrates perfectly what Satan's world would look like if he ran things - a seathing, self-dealing bureacracy intent on growing itself until it encompasses and controls all life on the planet.

This world may not survive much longer against the encroaching evil that Revelation talks about. Preachers will tell you they know who the three frogs are. Perhaps they do.  But it doesn't matter what powers will unite to bring the kings of Earth to Armageddon. Glenn Beck suggests three such powers that may be linking up to dominate the world. My own church believes it's a slightly different three. The mainstream media says it's all balderdash and there is no one in the world who wants to be Tolkien's "One ring to rule them all."  I'm here to say the media are wrong. Evil forces do crouch in wait, ready to pounce at any opportunity like the "roaring lion" Scripture talks about.  They walks about seeking whom they may devour.

While the world lasts, it is our duty to keep the lights burning bright upon the heights. It is our mission to make clear what is right and good and beautiful.  We have to resist with all our might, being pulled down into the mud to wrestle pointlessly with one another while the devil stands over us and laughs. Let's focus on the real issues and not on whether Ronald Reagan should have signed an unbalanced budget or Lincoln sat in on a seance to appease his mentally ill wife.

Let's turn our eyes to the heavens from whence cometh our help and not obsess over the dirt at our feet, which only bogs us down and offers no help at all.

Tom King - Tyler, TX