The Cyclone

The whole city was on alert, and people yelled as they ran past me, “Get out of here!  There is a tornado coming!!”  Immediately a deep and penetrating fear struck my soul and left me paralyzed as I watched the last people evacuate a gray and colorless city.  For a moment I just stood there and stared at the bleak and empty buildings that surrounded me.  Something about the situation seemed distorted and unnatural, and the sense of fear I had exceeded the gravity of my situation.  Then from the core of my being a sense of anger began to well up, and I spoke to the air of the empty street I stood in, “NO… I am NOT afraid of death.”  At that moment I turned to look deep into the heart of the city where I saw a whirling cyclone descend from a sheet of dark clouds above.

The cyclone looked like a giant pillar whirling with clouds from the sky, and its cylindrical shape from top to bottom seemed decidedly unnatural.  While I pondered about the unusual nature of the cloud formation, several beams of light shot from the sky around the sides of the pillar to the ground – confirming my suspicion that it was in fact unnatural.  Even though the cyclone was miles away from me I had the distinct sense that it was ‘watching’ me from afar.  Again my spirit rose in anger as I squared my shoulders against the adversary of my soul, and I identified him saying, ‘SATAN’.  The cyclone then responded by moving towards me at a rapid pace.  Standing my ground I watched as the pillar approached me, prepared if necessary to meet my death.  The cyclone enveloped my body for a moment – and then disappeared without a trace, leaving me standing alone and at peace.

When I awoke from the dream I had a new understanding of the tactics that SATAN uses to control and manipulate us.  Oftentimes SATAN will package a spirit of fear in legitimate circumstances around us – and like a virus attached to an email we accept it into our lives.  The moment we have accepted that spirit of fear, we can be controlled into doing his will without even realizing it.  It is important for us to realize that even though God has called us to use wisdom and common sense in interpreting the events that are going on around us; we must not rely on our own understanding over God.  The moment we bow to the altar of our own understanding over the Holy Spirit is the moment we have given SATAN a foothold into our lives.  Proverbs 3:5 reminds us to “Trust in the LORD with all your heart; and lean not unto your own understanding.”

In my dream it was only through the Holy Spirit that I knew something was awry with my situation, even though my mind had a very different interpretation of the surroundings.  Regardless of what is going on around us, we must NEVER allow ourselves to make decisions out of a spirit of fear.  Sometimes we can confuse a spirit of fear with the leading of the Holy Spirit, because they are both supernatural sources of insight.  One source however is demonic, and to distinguish between the two it is important to remember that, “God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” -2 Timothy 1:7 Before making any decisions in haste, it is always good to take a quiet moment between ourselves and God – and make sure that fear isn’t a motivating factor behind our actions.

When we understand that a spirit of fear really IS trying to motivate us – a decision to resist will almost always be met with a test!  As in my dream, almost all fears that we have are rooted in the fear of death.  If death is the worst possible outcome of any situation, and we are NOT afraid of it – then SATAN really can’t have that strong of an influence on us.  Scripture tells us that JESUS died to free us from the fear of death saying, “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them, who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” –Hebrews 2:14-15 Because of what JESUS has done for us, we should no longer fear death!!  Having that confidence produces a great boldness in us, and like the Apostle Paul we can declare over ourselves, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” –Philippians 1:21

The Red Dragon

In a dream roughly seven years ago I found myself standing in what looked like a large underground subway station.  The room I was in was dank with pieces of garbage strewn around a massive stone floor.  Something about the scene was deeply eerie and troubling to my spirit, but all I saw in front of me was a huge tiled wall with greenish squares.  The portion of the wall I stood before was actually a corner, where two sides of the wall met at a right angle.  As I looked at the wall a deep sense of fear unlike anything I have ever felt struck through the core of my being, and the ‘wall’ dissolved away to reveal a giant creature that I can only describe as a ‘dragon’.  The term ‘dragon’ is actually a flattering description for what I saw, because this ‘creature’ was an utterly distorted mess that lacked any real form or symmetry.  It appeared to be a twisted red mass with many tentacle-like appendages that terminated with ‘heads’.  The heads were the most defined characteristics of the creature.  I realized that what I stood before was the Kingpin of this world, Satan himself.

I heard the sound of ‘sloshing’ or liquid underneath the beast, and realized to my horror that it was ‘bathing’ in human blood.  It was as if it was being nourished through a continual supply of slaughtered humanity – and my stomach was sickened as I beheld the living portrait of all things evil.  The creature then began to ‘speak’ – but its language was unlike any human language.  The vocalization that it produced sounded like pipes from an organ – but the ‘notes’ were exclusively ‘flats’.  If you were to press the flat keys of a piano in random sequence that is what it sounded like.  In the dream somehow I was able to understand what the creature was saying: it was communicating to other unseen powers its plan for humanity.  The plan revolved around human sexuality.

The words of the creature were something to the effect of, “We will give them what they want… their desire for love through touch…”  Immediately following I saw an image of prostitution and violence.  The plan of Satan was clear – he would give humanity a distorted version of a legitimate desire, and in so doing fuel the violence and blood he craves.  I would never have made a connection between the blood under the beast and human sexuality – and the creature with one of its heads lurched out to snap at me when the dream ended.  It was only sometime after the dream that I remembered that Satan is described as a red dragon in Revelation chapter 12.

In the few short years since that dream, our society like never before has become flooded with sexuality.  In the past pornography was something that people had to make very deliberate steps to access, but now it is literally only a few clicks away for just about everyone on the earth.  Beyond the internet, our television and media is saturated with sexuality and sexual images.  To a large degree the human body is no longer presented as a container for souls, but as an object for our own gratification.  Pornography trains us to view one another as hollow soulless entities, and once we view one another as objects instead of souls: the door is opened for unspeakable violence on the earth.  Beyond that, there is nothing like sexual immorality to harden people’s hearts to God.  Convinced that their behavior is ‘love’, people are willing to trade Love Himself for a shallow and self serving sin.

The ‘love’ that Satan has offered us is really no different than ‘lust’ – and the very nature of lust, or strong desire is that it is never satisfied.  People often enter into relationships out of a desire to satisfy a personal desire instead of genuine love for a soul, and once the desire is satisfied there is no longer any basis for a relationship.  Aside from the physical violence that our culture’s distorted sexuality has produced, the emotional violence and brokenness it has produced in the hearts of others is unmistakable.  The greatest lie our culture has spun is that our hedonistic ways are purely personal activities that hurt nobody – lust kills hearts.  As Christians we MUST turn from the things that are destroying ourselves and the society around us.  It is idolatry as well, and repentance is critical (Colossians 3:5). There has never been more temptation around us than now, but God has told us we have been given everything we need for a life of godliness. (2 Peter 1:3).