The War At Hand

When I was a teenager, there was an evangelist that traveled around talking about the dangers of rock n roll music.  We were in the days when records were being replaced by cassette tapes, but the mixture was about like CDs and mp3s are now.  He would come and tell us that when you played songs backwards ( you could play albums that way) that there were subliminal messages that could be heard.  Although you cannot hear these 'messages' when you play it forward, your mind can pick up that message and influence you.  I did not understand that, because my parents could not understand the music when it was played normally, nor did it seem that we could subliminally entice them with the genre of our music.  They say that there were blips of coke or popcorn in movies that would move you to go buy more.  I don't know if there is.  I buy before I go in there and I don't need a mid-movie message to tell me that too much popcorn will make you sick on your stomach.  I feel that internally, without a need for subliminal. 

Let me not transgress further, the evangelist would tell us how the Eagles dedicated their album to Satan, Queen told us subliminally to smoke marijuana, and Elton John was gay (you don't say!).  He would encourage record burnings and tape smashings and it was effective.  All jokes aside it was not a bad thing.  I had just a shoebox of cassette tapes then that were (sshhh!) secular.  Instead of throwing them out, I boxed them up and put them away.  My brother saw them later and said, "Hey, if you are not going to listen to them...." I have not seen them since. 

One message the evangelist would say over and over again about subliminal messages in music was, "Somebody is messing with your mind and you don't even know it!"  I have never forgot that....and he was right.  Somebody is messing with our minds, hearts, lives, and loved ones, and we better know it.  Revelation 12.17 puts it this way- Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.(www.lifejournal.cc)  Whether the woman is Israel, the Church, or however you handle it, the offspring are those changed by the Lord.  We are in a war.  Ephesians 6.12 puts it this way: For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
We are in a war.  The enemy is not Obama, the Mormons, record albums or your boss man.  The dragon, the evil one himself, has went off to make war with us.  If you are not aware of it, you are losing the battle. 

Fight the fight!  Finish the Course!  Walk with the Lord today!