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HOW TO RESPOND TO OUR ENEMIES
Kris Vallotton
October 13, 2016
There is a threat in the world today that demands our attention. I do mean demands our attention! I don’t think you can talk about cultural transformation without addressing the huge elephant in the room, called ISIS or ISIL. And then there is also al-Qaeda. These Muslim radicals are raping our women, beheading our children, and torturing and executing our men. Check out my friend Stacey Campbell’s blog on Chapter 9 entitled Isis of the revised and expanded Heavy Rain
book.
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I wish we didn’t need this book but, sadly, we do. There is much confusion these days about how a Christian should engage in warfare. Should all Christians be pacifists? Are our only weapons spiritual? How do we live out the Sermon on the Mount in our daily lives when surrounded by terrorists, violence, and bomb threats? These questions are decreasingly theoretical in our current world. They need practical, viable answers for the situations many are finding themselves in in airports, schools and the everyday places they frequent.
Kris Vallotton goes through many New Testament Scriptures and shows clearly that the Bible makes a great divide between personal and national responses to attacks by our enemies. Kris demonstrates that, in many cases, our primary weapons are spiritual (2 Cor. 10:4) because the enemy we fight is a spiritual one (Eph. 6:12). But he also demonstrates that the Bible tells us that natural weapons are sometimes called for in cases of national and personal self-defense when real enemies and terrorists are at our doors (Rom. 13:1-7). Governments and police departments need to protect people from violence of all forms. And the Bible endorses the fact that sometimes they have to use force to subdue force. Kris shows that this is true on a personal level as well.
Heavy Rain is a much-needed book to dispel the confusion that is rampant in Western churches. Since most of our generation has grown up in relative peace, the questions Kris brings up in the book are rarely discussed in Christian circles. Today, however, as in many times throughout history, believers in Western nations are coming face-to-face with terrorists, anarchists, and perpetrators of violent acts. Kris gives us practical steps on how the Bible teaches us to respond to such things, both before they happen and while they are happening. He gives us a biblical framework, mostly from the New Testament, on how we deal with the spiritual forces of violence, as well as the natural ones. It is a book that will provoke you to search the Bible for yourself and be equipped to face the new challenges that are emerging in our world. Pastors, especially, need this book train their people to have godly responses in dangerous situations.
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For more on this subject, check out the Revised and Updated Edition of Heavy Rain: How to Flood Your World with God’s Transforming Power at HeavyRainBook.com
and watch the video below!
Are you ready to be a catalyst of hope in the world today? Tell me about it in the comments below.
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Stacey Campbell is the founder and facilitator of the Canadian Prophetic Council and serves as an honorary member of the Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders, presided over by Cindy Jacobs. She and her husband, Wesley, are on the apostolic team of Harvest International Ministries (H.I.M.) under Dr. Ché Ahn. They are also the founders of a church (New Life Church, Kelowna, BC) and a mercy organization for children at risk called “Be A Hero.” As conference speakers, they have ministered in over 60 nations, laboring to see revival and social justice transform the world. Stacey’s personal experience as a church planter, pastor, and missionary gives her prophetic teaching a depth and authority that can only come from personal experience. The Campbells have five grown children and live in Kelowna, B.C., Canada. Find out more about Stacey here.
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