Sell Your Coat and Buy a Sword

Be ready.

Sell your coat

And buy a sword.

The time is coming.

Countries will sever ties.
Dictators will threaten presidents.
Rioters will destroy property.
Reactors will explode.
Temperatures will surpass records.
Forest fires will ravage.
Diseases will take lives.

The time is coming.
So sell your coat and buy a sword.
Stockpile your pantry.
Put essentials in a backpack.
But most importantly,
Don't go to sleep on your watch.

The devil has asked to sort you
Amidst the anger and cowardliness

Your friends will publicly display,

While one of your own sells out
And intellectuals crucify Jesus.

What can you do but draw your sword
And wound those who threaten you
And your ideas of Heaven on earth.
What can you do but hide in your upper room
Until the threat is past and you know what to do next.

You sold your coat and bought a sword.
You stockpiled the safe room.
You put all essentials in a bag.
But it wasn't enough

Because you fell asleep,

Lulled by easy living.

The constant acquisition and the screen's diversions

Took the edge off your heart's deepest hankerings.

Thus, when Christ said "sword,"

You thought he meant
The winning argument

Supported by data,

When, really, he meant

The only weapon

That will win this fight,

This invisible battle.

The battle for human hearts is on.

These earthly disasters
Are merely the upper crust

Of the unseen world grappling for souls,

For your soul.

All is at stake.

Will you sell your comfortable coat

For the sake of buying the Sword?

Will you fill your mind's storehouses

With words from God's own mouth?

Will you daily pack your bag

With only the bare essentials:

His power, his love, and his protection.

And above all else will you pray

That you will not give in,

"That you will have the strength and wits

To make it through everything that's coming

And end up on your feet before the Son of Man." (Luke 21:36 MSG)

Be Thou my Breastplate, my Sword for the fight;

Be Thou my whole Armor, be Thou my true Might;

Thou my soul’s Shelter, be Thou my strong Tow'r:

O raise Thou me heav'nward, great Pow'r, of my pow'r.

-Be Thou My Vision (1912 Translation by Eleanor Hull Versus 3)

Comments

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