Standing on the battlefield of evil

Standing on the battlefield of evil 

A recent message from a TV preacher used the past series “The Twilight Zone”  to make a point regarding our own place in this ongoing war of good and evil.  It Appears we are in a battle of spiritual warfare if left alone has the power to destroy us.  This destruction is not physical but spiritual.  When St. Michael the archangel and others with him successfully threw Satan and his followers out of heaven, it wasn’t a fight in the cosmos but the beginning of what each of us is now involved in.

Unlike the stories from the Twilight Zone where a point is made and we as viewers walk away being entertained, this battle we are in goes beyond the entertainment we can watch, it is a reality that we are a crucial element of every rifle fired or all the bombs that explode around us.  When the devil and his cohorts were banned from the beauty and safety they rejected they still had the power to attack you and me and they certainly are making headway in this fight.  

Looking at the strife all of us are experiencing every day as the world and it’s unreasonable demands confront us, remember these are just some of the weapons Satan will use to disrupt our faith in God.  The prize in warfare is the victory we successfully capture after the enemy is defeated.  The prize that is being fought to win is our immortal soul.  Make no mistake that the souls God gave to each of us is a treasure that will determine the victor of this war.

Just as the final scene from the Twilight story proves a victory for a particular point so the soul that ends up in the hands of the victor can either rejoice with God, or inherit an eternity of grief belonging to Satan who will not comfort your existence.  

The scrimmage on the field of eternity is real and we are players in this spiritual upheaval using weapons of faith and replenished by grace.  How we use the weapons at hand will be the manner of how we do our part in the fight for our lives.  Our training of battle tactics is found in the manuals we received through the Sacraments we grew up with.  Never forget the fight we will be involved with is not physical; it is deeply spiritual and our commanders will be the angels led by the Holy Spirit guaranteeing a victory in the end.

Ralph B. Hathaway