[Biblemat] A) THE WAR AGAINST EVIL

[J5827Sasser at wmconnect.com]

Brethren and Friends, Jim Sasser here.  A very good Thursday
morning to each and everyone.  May God bless you and yours.
Here is an article from my recent files:

THE WAR AGAINST EVIL

     Life in a small rural community continues at its relaxed pace...and then 
someone commits a horrific crime.  A child is
abducted, abused and murdered or someone commits an ex-
tremely violent murder.  The community is shocked, traumat-
ized.  Residents begin locking their doors, watching their children more 
closely and life doesn't return to normal for a
long time.

     I am writing this article on the anniversary of the terrorist
attack on the twin towers of the World Trade Center.  It was
two (six) years ago today that a nation was shocked, traumat-
ized.  Few of us will ever forget the feelings we had as we saw
the jetliners plow into the towers.  We knew that there were
people who committted atrocities out of hatred, but that was
primarily in other places around the world.  This happend in
OUR nation, to OUR neighbors!  The amount of physical dam-
age and loss of life incurred in the attacks against the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon and on an airplane that fell 
into a Pennsylvania field was so huge that it simply left many
of us stunned.

     I think that Americans learned some things from the exper-
ience.  I am convinced that some Americans still do not under-
stand the true nature of Islam, but we have definitely learned
some other things.  We learned, for instance, that evil is real
and perpetrated by determined individuals.  Satan is evil and
he has many workers in the world who use deceit and schem-
es even as he does (Jno. 8:44; Eph. 6:11).

     Our inability to anticipate or stop the attacks brought home tous the 
fact that we are not invincible, either as individ-
uals or a nation.  We are often affected by the evil committed
by others.  We learned the power of hatred and malice (Eph. 4:31,32).  
Terrible things sometimes happen in this world be-
cause there are people who have given themselves over to
hatred and the schemes which hatred breeds.  Those who try
to live by the high ideals of the gospel are sometimes shock-
ed at the unconcern that others display as they murder fellow
human beings.

     The heroism of the firefighters and policemen in New York
City, along with the benevolence shown to the victim's fami-
lies by Americans in general, reminded us that there is also 
the potential for much good in this world, that people can be
drawn to new levels of compassion and character.  As a nat-
ion we were impressed with these lessons.

     Do we realize that evil marches on?  The war against evil
is being pursued by our government in places that we can't
even spell or perhaps locate on a globe.  There are signs, however, that some 
Americans are tiring of the fight against
terrorism.  As Christians we are fighting a different kind of
war against evil.  We seek to rescue those overcome by evil
by means of the preaching of the message of reconciliation
(2 Cor. 5:17-20).  We must not grow tired in the battle for good, nor can we 
allow ourselves to be overcome by evil (Heb. 12:1-4; Rom. 12:17-21).    ------ 
Allen Dvorak via Gospel
Power, Vol. 14, No. 37, Sept. 16, 2007.   </HTML>
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