Rapture 3

Fight with men

January 6, 2007

Joel Akin

Every word and every thought have to be part of the overall consideration. Thus if I ended it on a foot or on a heel it was up to me. I am writing this and I have decisions to make as one who is given choices. Being given a choice means I have a right to end a chapter in a way that I think brings Glory to God. For example I struggle with Sin and that is truth. Truth is one who has hidden truth from us because we are blinded to it. Thus if our history of the church were hidden from us by Sin then what do we as Christians do? Do we hide frightened as many have said of sin? For sin is the one spirit that could not be fought without the help of Christ. I am helping to fight Sin and I do not, even for a moment, think I could fight without the help of God. God is fighting Sin with me and He is helping me to write this as a book which I hope will be published. It is a book that is meant to glorify God in all ways.

Now as a man who has been fighting spiritually I did not understand the natural connection. If I were fighting in the spiritual and then, as God put it, in the natural, how do I fight in the natural? If I said Sin poisons my food that wouldn't sound very romantic because you'd have visions of Sin as a roach. In reality he is a spirit and a small spirit to God. And if that doesn't make sense then think of what standards are. Imagine you are God and everytime you create something there arises a spirit like sin and it destroys things. Its like there is a bug and that bug is part of the soup. You complain to the waiter and he says "There's more of that where that came from." Now maybe it would bug you but maybe it would encourage you to know that there is a man who is fighting the most impossible foe that ever existed. It is Sin and I not only had to fight my own sin until it was dead but I was given responsibility over Sin because Jesus died that you might fight sin. Now if that doesn't make sense think of it like this; man came into the universe. God created man with one purpose; to help Him fight an impossible foe. The problem wasn't that God wasn't God and couldn't destroy sin; He could and did destroy it. The problem is that it kept coming back and like the last roach that checked in it always seemed to find a way to check out what God had made the next time.

So God said "Enough" and He waited until there was someone who could help Him fight Sin. Now if you think you fight sin then you are right. Its personal. Now if you think you fight Sin you are wrong because God saved Sin for a man to help Him. And I was that man.

Now if that bothers you then don't read further. You wouldn't enjoy me explaining things nor would you know why I speak like I do. I think it might be hurt but that might be pride. So how then do I carry on knowing that I would not belittle what Jesus did for me for all the wealth in the Universe. And that is the best that God could provide. And I say that because I believe with all my heart it is true; because I love the Trinity like they were my family.

To begin a story like this is to know a friend named God. God created me and I was part of His story for this story. He helped make me what I am and He has said if I get out of line He'll straighten me out. He'll figure out a way. I know one thing and I think I speak with total honesty. It is this. God has told me that I will be under his personal teaching for something like the next two trillion years on one subject. Love. And that is something I cannot wait to learn. For I feel like the worst of failures and I feel like the worst of men. I do not feel as if I deserve anything. Yet God saw me in the moment of my worst and in that moment I was loved. Like a child that had fallen and broken a leg God literally picked me up and He rocked me. He cared for me because I was on the way to my death. I didn't know it nor did I care. But I was in the throes of death and it had shadowed me and burdened me and I was fighting with all that I was worth. Part of the reason might seem foolish in hindsight; but I think it was because I never really heard God speak. It had been a lifelong desire that would not quit. I went everywhere trying to understand what everyone said was myth or part of scripture only. Why did God not speak to us like He did in scripture.

Now I heard prophets and teachers and others speak and I was raised in a Holy Spirit inspired church with a father and mother who believed in prayer. I came from a historical legacy that is amazing. God will reveal it someday.

Yet the fact remained that no one I knew could speak to God whenever they wanted. It were as if it were a story from scripture and we marveled and we wondered what it really meant.

And it was on a walk with my parents that I fell into what I can only describe as a weird experience. I didn't see a bright light but I did have my eyes go wild and my eyelids started blinking outside my control. I felt as if I were in a dream. I couldn't move and I couldn't walk and God provided with half a dozen cell phones in less than a minute. It also happened to be near a neighbor my father had befriended more than three blocks from our home.

They put me into emergency and doctors consulted and said I was fine and sent me home. Within days I started going into darkness and I started losing ability after ability until I was close to comatose on my bed. I had will power and that allowed me to get up and on occasion do foolish things like try to drive. I refused to let this thing conquer me and it was a good thing no one stopped me because I wouldn't have been able to speak or move or do much. I was on automated and I went from point a to point b, said what was needed in a prerehearsed manner and then go home and lie there unable to speak or move or even look at anyone. People came to pray but I could not answer them. They finally gave up trying to get through to me and left me there and my parents and family came down and waved. I blinked once or turned my head lest I fall into a faint. It sounded rude but it was indescribable. And instead of getting better it got worse and worse and worse until about the second or third week after the faint I entered what I thought was the worst imaginable head pain I had ever conceived. I equated it to having my head immersed in fire. It wasn't a migraine or a headache or anything I had ever been through. I have had my hands seared and the flesh melted off by hot tar when I was about 18. This pain went beyond that but here was the rub; I could not speak or shout or yell. I just got into pain.

Now it was in that second or third week in the moment of worst suffering imaginable that God came and said "I'm here" and he began what I thought was the most impossible twist in the turn of state that had ever existed. I knew I was dying and I thought I was in Hell. Yet God didn't worry about it He just began to teach me. Now if this story doesn't make sense its because I had to be brought to one place in my life where I could hear God speak. I had lost my sense but I had not lost my sense.

Now that might not make sense to all but it will to some. It wasn't me that was causing this pain; it was Sin. Sin had seen me as a threat and as most threats he had shown up as the Angel of Death and had tried to kill me.

Now it was this Sin which I fought and I didn't know it at the time. I thought it was some inconceivable pain that everyone insisted couldn't be that bad. Some, when I could reason, said it was like their arthritis or their headache or whatever. I didn't know then what I know now that Sin had carried a spirit called Pain to me.

Now it wasn't the only spirit I had to fight. There were others and they came one at a time to try and stop me. Sin sent a few and then they were overcome. Then he sent in assassins and they were overcome. Finally he sent in one assassin and that was a spirit and God didn't tell me what or who it was.

Now while I was dealing with those things God was teaching me. I didn't know for a long time what was going on and I didn't care because I was growing in amazement. You have to understand I had heard God speak to me a few times in my life when I was on the verge of something new. This was different. God didn't stop and since I could not do anything I just listened. And in listening I found that there were things I didn't know. Maybe others did but they were raw and refreshing for me. And it encouraged me because I've asked questions about creation for years and I didn't have a clue what it meant. It was full of mystery and wonder and still is to me. The more I find out the more complicated it gets. Still I enjoy it.

Now during this period God allowed men who were of spirit to come into my life. He also closed a door which was of a friend. And it was these things that allowed me to find out some freaky things. First that even a Holy Spirit inspired man could be under authority of Satan. I didn't know it and I didn't understand it then but I do now. People who stop in their relationship with God in order to do works or ministry are caught up in sin. Now that might sound cruel but here is the gist of it.

First men are created to help men fight sin. Jesus came that we might have life. He said go but he meant for us to go when we were prepared. He tried to prepare his disciples and he was speaking to them and they were speaking to future people who also had overcome.

The problem is that no one knew or understood what it meant to overcome. We had fallen into a lie and it was the biggest lie the world had ever accepted. And that was that God wasn't speaking anymore. We believed it so strongly we would curse any man who added to scripture. That is how strongly we accepted it. God spoke, the Bible was written, and how dare any man, woman or child dare even say that God does speak to us just as He did then.

The fact is I was amazed because God wanted to speak to us and explain the scriptures. That is the main reason He had men write these things so that we who were still alive or were to be born could read and then ask Him what these things meant. The problem is we fell into something that is dangerous to say but it was denom which is a twist of demon. And that is dangerous because I was raised in a church that believe the Bible as the inspired word of God. It was and is and will always be. Yet it was meant to be questioned and it was meant to be searched and it was meant to be part of our relationship with God. It was meant to be part of that which God could search so we would know it and could talk to Him about it. Thus those of us who had read the Bible, and I had, about ten times, plus the thousand plus sermons I had heard my father preach plus many hours searching scripture on my own for various reasons including preaching and doing mission work. I loved God. And I hated it that I was told that God doesn't speak like He did in the Bible. It bothered me but I didn't let it get to me. Its just that it didn't make sense and one reason was "Why hadn't the rapture taken place?" What was it that was holding back God? If God was as big and powerful and mighty as the scripture I thought "What is it that will take us two thousand years to learn?"

The fact is all that was part of Gods plan for my life. I ended up in the hospital many times and under scanners and drugs as they tried to trace down why I suffered. No one knew. The doctors were mystified. It seemed there was something mental about it but no one really said that. It was hinted at and there were those who tried me on various drugs. I stuck to my Tylenol once a day and it kept the worst of the pain at bay. And if that is still beyond description it is because it got worse. So bad that if it began at a 1 the day I fell then it reached a crescendo that is so bad I said "There is no way to describe it." And there wasn't.

It was around this time God began to go into complicated teaching and I began to learn and get my teaching straightened out. I didn't know it but I was backward in almost everything I had learned and I thought I knew a lot. I did and others did but we hadn't finished the course. And that meant we were out of time and Sin was on the rampage and he was trying to find a way to destroy me. And in the midst of that destruction there was a battle that was brewing over the things of God. And God was being wrenched about by those things that were yet to come. For the battle of mankind had started and around the world there were three things happening. Knowledge was on the increase. People were betraying Him right and left and people were falling under the snare of Satan like there was no tomorrow.