I arrived for my first day of training in a uniform with no visible rank insignia. I walked into the classroom and there were test tubes, flasks, and all manner of items found in a chemists laboratory. I was curious, but having volunteered I continued. As I began to meet my classmates, they all talked of the curriculum and after school activities, the most distasteful was going to church. I did not comment. I next remember my rank insignia was revealed to the class. My sharply creased uniform revealed to all that I was the senior ranking student. This fact and my calm manners and silence drew much criticism from my peers. As the day progressed, a classmate approached me about going to church. They asked sarcastically and with much malice, "Do you plan on going to church?" I replied, "Yes, absolutely. Where can I go to church?" They replied, "You WANT to go to church? That's an hour lost every week when you can sleep." I replied, "Only an HOUR!" "I would like to go an hour and a half or longer!" The shocked look on their face mirrored their next comment, "Why do you want to go to church?" I looked into their eyes and asked softly, "Do you really want to know?" "Yes!" they replied. I looked around and noticed we were in the courtyard of the school and a considerable crowd had formed and was listening to our conversation. I asked them quietly, "Here?" "Now?". "YES!" they yelled. The courtyard grew quiet as I looked all around me, the courtyard was full from every aisle and doorway. As I returned to the person asking the questions, I replied loudly for all to hear "I go to church because Jesus Christ is my salvation." I paused in the silence, then added "And yours." The faces drew in as if contemplating another angle of questions to approach me with to reveal a weakness. I stood in thundering silence and looked around me seeing the faces that were curious and shy to ask more, peer pressure held their tongues.
The crowd stood in silence then slowly dissipated. I awoke.
There is a nice house, typically a middle income family. Well kept and strong. It is evening as the family sits down to dinner. They begin to speak of their day as the meal is brought to the table. As the children speak and the conversation slips softly to more worldly notions, there comes a harsh banging, like a closed fist upon the main door to the home. The mother returns from the door and tells the father. "Dear, it is Satan and he want to come in" The father passes it off without losing focus of his children, casually he says "no, he may not enter." As the conversation continues and the children speak more and more of worldly things, the banging becomes more strong and rapid. The father ignores it. Finally just as the family joins hands to pray, the door is blasted from its posts cleanly without a splinter and Satan enters the home. Immediately Satan rushes to the dining room where he find the family, now heads bowed, hands joined in prayer. The father does not lose his focus in prayer for h is family. He continues to pray and bless the meal and the evening to God's glory. As the father completes the prayer, "May the grace and mercy of God be with us in our salvation bought with the blood of Jesus Christ, Amen." The room is immediately still, the door returned to it's post and lintel as if never disturbed, as the family rises from prayer and is blessed by His holiness. Spiritual warfare i not thi plainly visible in our lives. It is often subtle and approaches in the rear door. Satan I a coward after all. Jesus Christ is the way the truth and the light. Let Jesus enter your home and defend you from the enemies attack.