Searching for the Truth in the King James Bible;
Finding it, and passing it on to you.

EDITOR:
Steve Van Nattan

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ASYMMETRIC CHRISTIAN WARFARE
AND DESTROYING THE ENEMY
BY STEALTH
PART THREE-- WAR STORIES
FROM CHRISTIAN WARRIORS

By Steve Van Nattan

I find it very helpful to think of Satan as the Ultimate Terrorist. He doesn’t fight fair, he doesn’t play by
the rules, and he attacks us when we least expect it.We can make war better than he does through Christ.

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Regular posts give you tactical suggestions in your Christian warfare,
and Christian warriors report on the battle.

PART THREE-- WAR STORIES FROM CHRISTIAN WARRIORS

PERSONAL EXPERIENCES OF THE AUTHOR WITH ASYMMETRIC WARFARE

It really helps a person develop asymmetric warfare if he has a heritage of being eccentric and a bit odd in his humor and thinking. That might be me if I were rash enough to admit it.

My history also has helped me think asymmetrically I do believe. I grew up in the Ozark Mountains, the Mojave Desert, the forests of the Kenya Highlands, and the savanna of Tanzania. My Dad was a master improviser out of necessity, and I was forced to live in cultures alien to my origins.

So, if you grew up on 73rd Street in Manhattan or Omaha, are you at an disadvantage? Not necessarily. I all depends on whether or not you regularly stepped out of the official cultural and social path of the masses and sheeple.

In any case, we are talking about the battle NOW, not the past. For this section of the discussion I will share with you some of the asymmetric warfare ventures I experienced in the life of my parents, myself, and other Christians I have known. You job is to apply principles here to your warfare.

 

Throwing tracts in LA and Africa
Back in the 1950s many Christians handed out Gospel tracts. Christian marketers were looking for any new way to hand out tracts. Some company came up with a really frightening one which fit the tolerant society of the '50s.

In the 1950s cellophane was still popular and used for all sorts of packaging tricks. A Christian publishing company cut squares of all sorts of colored cellophane that were about two inches larger than most tracts were tall. They sold stacks of colored cellophane squares with a wooden stylus. You laid the tract down on a piece of cellophane, you used the wooden stylus to roll up the tract inside the cellophane into a tube, and you used the wood stylus to force the excess cellophane on the ends back into the tract, making a pretty tube.

Then, as you drove down the street past bus stops and pedestrians, you pitched the tubed tracts at people. This would make them jump in shock, thinking it was a fire cracker. When they saw it was a pretty tube, they would almost always open it up to see what was inside.

When I was a kid growing up in Africa, my missionary parents used to do these tract bombs, and we threw them out the car windows as we passed through African villages. In the 1950s in Africa these people had NOTHING to read, but many African kids could read because they were going to school. If father or grandfather wanted to know the tract's content they had to ask their son to read it for them. I am sure you see the plan.

I know, it sounds crazy, and today you would find yourself at the police station trying to prove your name was not Ahmed bin Fulani. So, do we have any asymmetric options today?

Have we maxed out the creativity yet?

I don't think so.

On Word Pad make a page of boxes, and put QR codes in each box. I Googled the QR code above, embedded the URL of my web journal in QR code, and posted it here in two minutes. Go here to make a QR code from a Web address. Insert these in the boxes on your Word Pad and print several pages. Cut them up into single pieces, and stick them all over where ever you go. Try to find some web location which is King James Bible only and where the Gospel is the main message. If you would like to put a link to a Bible verse as a QR code, go to this web page where you can get a link to a Bible text like John 3:16. The web master will not care. Do not tell me if you do this with a page on my web journal. That way, if the police call me from your town and want to know why I did this, I can honestly say I had nothing to do with it.

Now, another rather extreme option presents itself. This is the high tech version of bright colored cellophane from long ago. Go to Vistaprint, or some similar business card producer. Almost all of these companies offer a rubber stamp option. Send them a QR code for your own web site or blog in graphic (image) form, or send the QR of the URL of some other very sound Bible believer online, and order it on a rubber stamp. Most QR generator sites also offer text QR codes, as the one at the right shows. Get the kind of rubber stamp that flips down and back so you can shoot and run.

Now, use some consideration please. Do not destroy valuable books or personal property, and do not cover the walls of a public restroom with these. One idea would be to stamp the white space in a newspaper (today's please), and leave it on the subway train or on a bus. If you get Country Magazine, or some other high end magazine, leave one of these with a QR in any white space in the thing.

You could stamp file cards with the QR and slip them into back packs etc. Put a card in a manilla business envelop, slip it into your outside coat pocket, and get on the bus or subway. Grab a strap and stand as you ride with your back to the mob. Someone will slip it out of your pocket, and he will think it is a secret code. This is sure to work. I have offered you a directed QR just for this action plan. Make sure you read it and approve before you use it.

Now, just use your imagination, or have a jam session with your buddies, and see what you come up with.

Caution: You may find that the simpler the QR code, the better change a rubber stamped code reads.

 

Substitute Teaching in California
While I was pastoring a church in the California High Desert in the town of Yermo, I did substitute teaching in 21 different schools to add needed income. Many allegedly Christian Baptist colleges mock at preachers who work on the side. They are said to be failures because they cannot build up the numbers enough to support themselves full time. Yermo was a town of 1200 people, with empty desert surrounding it, and 50+ of the town's population were sitting in our church on Sunday morning. John MacArthur, in Grace Community Church of the Valley, surrounded by a population of 3 million people, has about .05% of the area population in church every Sunday. We had 5% of Yermo in church on Sunday, and there was no way they could pay me a full salary. The Jackboot Baptists logic would be, "Find another church in a big city." But, in spite of the amazing logic of Jackboot Baptists, my Lord kept telling me to stay in Yermo.

You will learn in this story why working on the side is highly recommended by God and the Apostle Paul.

Paul, according to the early Church Fathers, visited the shambles (market place) in the morning while he was at Ephesus, he held a Bible institute in the Hall of Tyrannus in the mid day, and in the afternoon he mended tents to make income to support himself. Was he a failure?

Acts 19:11 And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul:
12 So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.

Clarence Sexton, founder of Crown College in Tennessee, mocks at preachers who have such a small church that they have to work part time to sustain themselves. This fact was delivered to me by a Crown College student who heard this taught there during a class.

The Apostle Paul did exactly that as he was starting the local church in Ephesus. Thus, Clarence Sexton would classify the Apostle Paul as a failure if it were not for the fact that the founding of the Christian faith to the Gentiles, and to Clarence Sexton, was in the very hands of the Apostle Paul.

Ephesians 3:8 Unto me, (Paul) who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ;

I would remind Clarence Sexton, under the assumption that he did a little research somewhere in his past into the life of a Jewish Rabbi in Israel, that all Rabbis were required to have a second trade other than religious ministry in old Israel. This was in the Levitical model in which a Levite was to have a garden outside the city of Jerusalem so that he could not be starved to death during times of religious backsliding. Paul was trained to be a Rabbi and a tent mender. AND, sir, I remind you that one Rabbi, Yeshua Bar Yusuf Bin Nazareth, was well known for working with his divine hands in a carpenter's shop. And, I note that the Pharisees never accused Jesus of making substandard benches and tables. When you enter the marketplace, sir, you have WORK HARD to earn a good Christian testimony among the local peasants and sinners.

This is why nine out of ten Fundamental Baptist preachers in America, and in most other nations, are prissy soft handed Popletes. They are bold when hiding behind their pulpits, but they wince when handed a hammer. They fully believe they are to be completely supported by taxing the flock of God. You need to know that the hands you see on Jesus when you arrive in Heaven will be hardened by work. Are yours?

Furthermore; If Paul had NOT been willing to work on the side in Ephesus, he would have missed thousands of opportunities to talk to people in the tent mending trade about Jesus Christ. By being an honest and excellent tent mender, Paul would have had the ear to every caravaneer in the Middle East, and he would be well received by local business men in Ephesus. I do not exaggerate since Ephesus was, in its day, the focal point of all caravans in the Middle East.

Finally, one reason so many preachers are out of touch with the world around them is because they AVOID the market place. As a tent mender, travelers from all over the Middle East would have been in Paul's work place, and he would have some of the most up to date intelligence into the political, cultural, and social conditions in that world. THAT is what a part time job does for a servant of God. He would also have been in regular contact with Roman soldiers and officers.

“It is the business of a virtuous clergy to censure vice in every appearance of it.” Patrick Henry The question is, if a preacher avoids the market place, how much vice will he censure?

One reason some preachers are worthless as tits on a boar hog is because they grew up in the incubator of the Christian Church, a Christian home, and no one had the sense to kick their young butt out the door and tell them, "Get a job." In Clarence Sexton's case, he has no excuse-- he has a teaching degree and would have been hired in any part-time teaching position in Tennessee, had he tried.

Also, in the event that you want to claim that Paul was out of God's will in working part time to feed himself, why then did God allow someone to take his work apron home, lay it on their Daddy, and find him healed of disease? God does not bless disobedience. I do believe they still preach that at Crown College. If Paul had been violating some divine law, forever settled in Powell, Tennessee, God would not have allowed Paul to have a healing ministry, ESPECIALLY BY USING THE TOOLS OF HIS PART-TIME JOB.

As to Asymmetric Christian Warfare, one very good trick to sneak up on the devil is to do some substitute teaching in local schools. The pay is terrible, and the kids are crazy, but you will be getting close to a whole sub-set of modern society which is almost impossible to approach if you come on as "The Reverend" in your three piece suit

My own experiences substitute teaching were priceless in advancing my ministry. I was able to case out almost all the schools in the High Desert so that I could tell Christian parents what teachers to avoid in public school. I was able to make friends of students by the way I handled trouble and showed the spirit of Christ. One Catholic kid decided I was his personal "Padre" at school, and I helped him find reasons to doubt Catholic teachings.

One member of the local school board, an Episcopalian man zealous to do good deeds, was alone on moral issues on the school board. I went to board meetings, and I took positions, during audience discussion time, that almost always supported his arguments. He decided I was somehow the real thing, at least as well as he understood the Christian life, and he would forewarn me of ugly issues coming up before the school board. The school board officials figured out that this man and I were ganging up and blocking their evil tricks, so they moved school board meetings from Thursday to Wednesday evening, thinking I would have to be absent due to our church prayer meeting on Wednesday evening. So, we moved prayer meeting to Thursday evening, and they gave up and just learned to live with our two-man insurrection.

This man and I had a lot of visiting times together, but the Lord seemed to hold me back in talking about whether or not he was born again. The man and his family were living very decently, but they had certain times when they went to battle, and they felt terrible later. They had a family talk, and they decided that if Jesus was real, Satan was real also. They decided that Satan could be the only one who wanted them at war as a family. They then made a promise to each other that when a fight started they would all run together and ask, "What would Jesus do about this?"

This man then went to his Episcopal priest and told him he had come to the conclusion that Satan was very real and trying to destroy all Christians, but especially his own family. The Episcopal priest told the man that he was thinking the same thing, even though, he told the man, he had been taught nothing about Satan and evil in Episcopal Seminary.

After this, one day, the man shared his experiences dealing with Satanic power in his home, and he asked me what I thought. I decided I needed to hammer in some clear biblical teaching on evil, and I showed him that Jesus himself was constantly at war with Satan. I told him that the High Desert was saturated with evil spirits because witches and Satanists could easily hide their evil practices in the desert.

The man told me this, "Pastor, if you had said these things when we first met, I would have fled from you and thought you were mad." He then told me that God had used me to help him make sure his family was really worshipping Jesus as Lord and Savior. His spiritual vocabulary was not exactly like mine, but I became satisfied that he was truly born again. Later, a lady from the Episcopal church attended by the man came to attend our local church. She craved Bible teaching from the pulpit. Her former Episcopal pastor later called her and asked her to ask my permission for her to teach a Bible class in his church. He told her people in the church wanted a Bible study, and he openly admitted that he did not know how to study or teach the Bible. He said he would be in the class, and once he learned how to do a Bible study, she would not need to help anymore.

I struggled with the issue of a lady teaching, but I decided this was soul winning, not local church leadership. The lady returned to our church after several months, and the last I heard, the priest was having a regular Bible study and actually doing whole book studies. This battle action was tied in with the fact that the man on the school board was a member of that Episcopal church.

PUNCH LINE:
If I had taken the pious attitude that I must not dirty my hands working in the market place I would never have been chosen by God to be a part of such a priceless bit of Christian history. Honestly, I would not trade the possibility of seeing a bunch of Episcopalians in Heaven because I was faithful for the pulpit in any Fundamental Baptist pulpit of 5000 people.

"The lions' den was nothing to him. He had rather be with God in the lions' den than out of it without God." DL Moody Daniel 12:13 But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days. Saint, have you forgotten that the path to a place in the kingdom leads through the lion's den?

PREACHER: What are you missing out on because you are obsessed with sheering sheep instead of rustling mavericks off of Satan in the market place?

It is NOT about nickels and noses and a butt every 24 inches. It is all about Jesus and him magnified-- too ALL men. Give me my asymmetric Jesus, and you keep the big church up town.

I do not have time to tell you about the Pentecostal preacher teaching in public school who turned a public school lunchtime chess club into a prayer meeting, and the Seventh Day Adventist shop teacher who added Christian youth magazines to his rack of trade magazines, or the preacher in a Michigan public school who had a Bible on his desk as "reference material" for the kids to use, or the time I taught a class in Biology II and astronomy, and the kid in the back row figured out I was a Bible believer and Creationist and asked me loaded questions over and over that he knew I could use to talk about Creation and Genesis.

By the way, whenever the Hispanic teen boys passed the SDA teacher in a hallway, they would raise their right fist in the air and say, "Mr. R____ save souls." This is a take off on a Catholic repetitious prayer, "Jesus save souls, Mary save souls," repeated a dozen times in ritual. Those Hispanic kids had met a man who really DID save souls, and he was their hero. Though he was an SDA, I was delighted to see a man accomplish this in a public school.

My war stories would fill a large book, friend, and all because I simply went out the door about four mornings a week and entered the war zone the rest of you preachers only WISH you could enter. The public schools HIRED me, so they were stuck with me and my faith in Jesus Christ. By the way, if you do this, you MUST become famous as totally honest, able to forget and forgive the sins of the worst brats, get order in any class, and be on time and do an exceptional job. This sounds like a tall order, but it is not nearly as hard as you might think, especially for a man who knows how to assert himself with kids-- a man who goes to war with God the Holy Spirit in command.

Sometime, ask me to tell you the story about teaching in the public school in Eldoret, Kenya while my wife and I were missionaries there. I will tell you about two kids in every desk eager to hear some John Wayne English, and about the four Catholic boys who asked questions about Catholic doctrine. I would load them up with King James Bible verses, and they would go across town to the Catholic Dominican Mission "fathers" and hammer the priests mercilessly with the Bible. I handed off the class later to a cowboy Southern Baptist missionary, and he gave those kids more Gospel, along with real John Wayne English.

My life has been, at least at times, a virtual rodeo because I stepped out of the approved methods of Christian service. But, don't follow me, follow Jesus, Gideon, Paul, and Jael. You ladies need to read that one HERE. Read the whole chapter please, and then see what God said about that asymmetric housewife in Judges 5:24-27. By the way, only two ladies in the Bible were directly classified as "blessed"-- Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Jael, that hammer swinging Mamma from Zaanaim. Sir, are your daughters growing up to have heroes like Jael?

 

Fighting a porn store in Barstow, California
While I was pastoring a church in the California High Desert, in a railroad town named Yermo, we lived 12 miles from Barstow, a hub city for three railroads and for desert people to shop at large stores. When we got there main street had one adult bookstore, and no one wanted any more. But, one man decided to open another porn store right downtown across from the Greyhound Bus terminal.

I learned of the store permit application with the Barstow City Planning Commission from a pastor in Barstow. I called all the pastors in Barstow and told them what was going down, and I asked them to all be at the Planning Commission meeting. When I got there NONE of those pastors showed. Oh, they all groaned and moaned about the porn store possibility, but they were too lazy to show, not one of the bums.

Time for asymmetric methods.

The City Planning Commission decided the issue was too hot to handle, so they kicked it up to the Barstow City Council. This time I threw the Barstow preachers under the Devil's bus, and I walked Barstow's main street. I talked to every store owner, and I told them that a porn store right downtown would cause all the Barstow parents to forbid their kids from shopping in downtown Barstow. There was a US Military base out in the desert some miles away, and Barstow was their only city to visit when on pass. This porn feature would also change the nature of those soldiers' visits.

The business owners all panicked. When the City Council met, all the downtown merchants of Barstow were there, and what do you know, all the preachers where there. Somehow the panic on main street caused the preachers to panic too. All the merchants were seated in the main area of the chamber, but all the preachers were lined up along a side wall frowning, especially when my deacon and I walked in. GLORY TO GOD, what a time we had. The more people talked, the madder the preachers got. It was like they all WANTED the porn store.

Well, different citizens spoke against the porn store, and the prospective builder had an ACLU lawyer with him sneering as we all said our bit. The ACLU lawyer finally got up and threatened the city with a monster law suit if the porn purveyor could not exercise his free speech and pour filth on the city of Barstow. Same old same old we had heard before from the ACLU, and they DO have enormous financial resources they use to virtually overwhelm their victims. Everyone was dejected, and those demon possessed preachers all started perking up and smiling as we all became depressed. I have never seen a whole batch of preachers look so possessed of devils in my life, and that includes my years in Tanzania, Kenya, and Ethiopia.

Well, the city of Barstow had a city attorney, previous to the meeting, who had been found to be totally corrupt. They had fired the old pest and hired a young law student fresh out of law school. Bless that lawyer, and that is hard to say, the young man had done his digging. Al Virgil, the good Hispanic Mayor of Barstow, turned to the new city attorney and asked him for his observations. He had said nothing all through the proceedings. We all waited for his contribution hoping for nothing.

Well, God had other plans.

You poor creeps who are not so sure about the sovereignty of God will not understand this, but in 1947, when the City of Barstow had been first incorporated, they added one interesting phrase in a section of the city charter which read, "The City Council shall have the power to decide when and where any new business is to opened in the city." The city attorney read this statement to the council members, and one by one they sat up and brightened. Mike Kravich, a Bible believer friend of mine who lived in the city, shouted "Glory," and my deacon grinned from ear to ear. A wave of enlightenment and relief swept across the room, and the ACLU lawyer slumped in his chair. The man applying for a permit to open the porn store started raging under his breath.

The City Council had a quick meeting in the corner with the mics off, and when they returned to their chairs, the mayor, Al Virgil, said, "Mr. L_____, the City Council has decided that you have the right to open your adult bookstore, but we have also decided this is not the best time for this, and we have decided that there must be a better location"

Friend, you would have thought an old fashioned sawdust and folding chairs revival had broken out in city hall with all the shouting. The only preachers shouting were me and a lady Pentecostal preacher. The rest sat along the wall and scowled. It had been full on war in that room, and all the preachers in town were pulling for the devil except for two of us. I look forward to having another shout in Heaven with that lady preacher. God may not approve of lady preachers, but I suspect he and the angels were shouting along with her that evening in Barstow.

After the meeting, as we were leaving, several preachers were hanging out on the steps of the City Hall. One of them spoke to Mike Kravich and said, "Mike, don't you think you were a bit to harsh on the City Council?" Mike snapped right back, "You have to get their attention," and Mike laughed heartily at the preacher. Then, Mr. L_____ who wanted to open the porn store came up to me raging and roared at me accusing me of destroying him. The Lord gave me the words, and I swung my fist around in the air and said, "Mr. L_____, I have the freedom in America to swing my fist anywhere I want to." I then swung my fist right at his nose, stopping just before hitting him and said, "But Mr. L_____, my liberty ends right there where your nose begins." He raged and stormed off into the dark.

My contribution to that evening in Barstow ended just before the City Attorney spoke. God had honored my asymmetric action in abandoning the dead beat preachers in Barstow and turning to the business men of the city. I recall walking the main street of town and wondering if what I was doing really would help. But, I gave it my best, asking God for help, and I described to those business men other cities in California which let porn into downtown, and I graphically described what happens when military men and porn are mixed. There are plenty of examples around America.

God honored my zeal and effort, but he had been, in his omniscience, planning on that event all the way back in 1947.

The lesson is this: You often will find that conventional methods, like petitions and preacher demonstrations, do not work or totally fail because of lack of zeal for Christian warfare. You are the man, just like Gideon. Go in this thy strength. At that point you must come up with a battle plan, and you may even have to go to war alone.

For the sake of Jesus Christ and his glory..... DO IT.

 

I have many more war stories I would love to include here, but there is not enough space. I hope to start posting them on my Blog- HERE.

 

TWO EXTREME WARRIORS FOR CHRIST
These stories will startle you. Everyone in your Christian warfare group should watch them.

What do you learn here?

DIETRICK BONHOEFFER, THE GERMAN PASTOR WHO PLOTTED THE DEATH OF HITLER
Bonhoeffer was very troubled that the American and German church had abandoned the Gospel. He also, while studying in New York City, was troubled by the racial discrimination against Blacks in the USA. Once his convictions had solidified, and after Hitler set the German people against German Jews, Bonhoeffer went home to Germany and joined a plot to assassinate Adolph Hitler. This is the extreme of asymmetric warfare by a Christian. You must understand that this extreme of battle action will very likely get you killed, as it did Bonhoeffer. This is a rare case where a Christian felt called to enter the arena of human government and do battle against evil. Nor did Bonhoeffer mix patriotism with his zeal. He wanted to kill Hitler solely to save the Jews from persecution.

While I believe Bonhoeffer was born again, you need to examine the Word of God very diligently before you conclude that you need to follow Bonhoeffer's example. It is very hard to justify his actions. But, he loved not his life unto death, and for this he is posted here.
________________________________________

The "Vicar of Baghdad," Canon Andrew White
HERE IS AN ASYMMETRIC ANGLICAN CHRISTIAN WARRIOR
This man will shake you up a bit. Do not get bogged down in the details please. I believe he is truly born again. But, I want you to see that, like TE Lawrence, being an asymmetric Christian warrior means being totally unconventional, AND totally bigoted about the King James Bible and Christian truth.

SETTING:
Andrew White is pastor to Chaldean Christians in Baghdad. This Christian community, originally known as "The Church of the East," has been in place since Bible times, being evangelized Assyrians left from ancient times, who received the Gospel from one of the seven churches of The Revelation, Chapters 2-3. Though doctrinally off in some areas, they have kept the faith as they knew it, and they refuse to give it up for anyone.

NOW..... An on site video news coverage of Canon Andrew White in Baghdad
HERE IS PART ONE OF THE "VICE" SERIES, THE VICAR OF BAGHDAD (Canon Andrew White)
This is downright creepy, but the man is doing exactly what he believes Christ called him to do.
Part two and three are easily linked on the page.

Last thought:
Canon Andrew White is also fighting a battle with MS. But, he does not let that stop him.
What's your excuse?

ASYMMETRIC CHRISTIAN WARFARE
GO ON TO PART FOUR

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