The Underground Men

To deal, or not to deal: that is the question. How strong is our will to remain free? Why must deals be made in every political situation? When will leaders understand that the "let's make a deal" philosophy does not work, especially with dictators? Does God make deals with the devil? Does He work in darkness with him? Absolutely not! One cannot make a pact with the devil without taking a part of the devil with him. Such is the case with today's politicians and all workers of terror who consider themselves to be not just "above God" and His commandments but also evil as well - as if the stroking of Medusa's hair would produce no bite! Seeking the applause of the world, these parrot-men of today only call out the non-controversial while remaining silent in the presence of overwhelming evil. That is like crying over spilled milk while the whole house is on fire. Today, we find ourselves dealing with manic compromisers rather than statesman who ascribe to their weaker wills instead of their first principles. For example, Congressman Boehner chose to play golf with the President as a means to talk about the current debt ceiling fiasco, or more likely, be swooned into a deal. What!? Such lighted settings among the political elite are specifically designed to heighten the suggestibility of weaker wills instead of an awareness of deception and trickery. To compromise in this way begins the slippery descent down the pyramid of choice, where at the bottom the now servile fool is farther away from his highest beliefs. So subtly are the moral strings of corruptible men plucked, pulled, and loosened until finally the once principled tune of freedom and virtue becomes nothing more than an unwanted sound. Unmelodiously, Congressman Boehner allowed himself to be played. 

"We do not compromise principle. We do not surrender our standards regardless of current trends or pressures. As a church [people], our allegiance to truth is unwavering. Speaking out against immoral or unjust actions has been the burden of prophets and disciples of God from time immemorial. It was for this very reason that many of them were persecuted. Nevertheless, it was their God-given task, as watchmen on the tower, to warn the people. We live in an age of appeasement - the sacrificing of principle. Appeasement is not the answer. It is never the right answer." -Ezra Taft Benson, God-Family-Country

Secretary (President) Benson continues with the words of John A. Widtsoe:

"A milk-and-water allegiance kills; while a passionate devotion gives life and soul to any cause and its adherents. The troubles of the world may largely be laid at the doors of those who are neither hot nor cold; who always follow the line of least resistance; whose timid hearts flutter at taking sides for truth. As in the great Council in the heavens, so in the Church of Christ on earth, there can be no neutrality. We are, or we are not, on the side of the Lord. An unrelenting faith, contemptuous of all compromise, will lead the Church and every member of it, to triumph and the achievement of our high destiny. The final conquerors of the world will be the men and women, few or many matters not, who fearlessly and unflinchingly cling to truth, and who are able to say no, as well as yes, on whose lofty banner is inscribed. No compromise with error.... Tolerance is not conformity to the world's view and practices. We must not surrender our beliefs to get along with people, however beloved or influential they may be. Too high a price may be paid for social standing or even for harmony.... The Gospel rests upon eternal truth; and truth can never be deserted safely."

We must also not forget that virtue lives on after death, and, so do all the unforsaken vices. It is unbecoming of righteous men to lay their first principles before the golden calfs of worldly desire and for the senseless fame of equal flesh. As Gary North described in his book, Conspiracy: A Biblical View, "God does not lodge absolute sovereignty in any human institution. Men are sinners, and no single institution [or thing] can safely be entrusted with absolute sovereignty. Absolute power would corrupt sinful men if it were available, but it isn't. Nevertheless, some men seek it, and this search is a sign of their own corruption and a means of corrupting them further."

Surely, there can be no excuse for sin just as there can be no happiness found in doing iniquity. Any fool who subscribes to the opposite is unfit for the Kingdom and a traitor not only to himself, but also to his country and to God. The righteous contrarian does not apologize for his beliefs. He embraces them. They are one with him - woven tightly through every fiber of his being to be undone only by sin's entering in. And while many people seem to surrender their rights and freedoms at every whim and occasion, the more justified approach expressed by the dedicated citizen ought to be the same as what King Leonidas of Sparta said before the Persian Army when asked to surrender his weapons: "Molon lave," meaning, "Come and get them." To be sure, "an indignation against evil is an element in all truly noble character. A complacency towards sin, with a constant apology for it, or palliation of it, or excusing it, is a weakness, or rather it is an iniquity, and may make us partakers of the offense." - James McCosh

In 1949, Dwight Eisenhower made this searing statement about freedom and American honor:

"If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison. They'll have enough to eat, have a bed and a roof over their heads. But if an American wants to preserve his dignity and his equality as a human being, he must not bow his neck to any dictatorial government."

And so he bowed.

Our own President and Commander in Chief practically fell to his face in reverent awe before the Saudi Arabian king, King Abdullah bin Abdul Azziz, as if he really were a king. Surely Balaam's ass showed greater wisdom and regard in its saving response to Balaam than Obama did to our own national sovereignty with his undignified ankle grab. Still, our nation is about to take a serious and unsalutary course toward immense suffering - all at the cost of our freedoms, and all because our chosen leaders have chosen to bow rather than stand. How does this happen? Why do our eyes close to such unworthy and foolish behavior? Perhaps, in many ways, it is because we are the children of disobedience ourselves. Why else could we have elected a far left radical as President of the "free world?" History has taught that the tyrant always wants to shine alone in his glory - as if the sun could only light a single blade of grass from the rest of the world. In front of such egos, we must not lower our convictions but instead raise them high as a hammer about to fall upon the anvil of arrogance and self-aggrandizement. And since Obama's open march into office, all those who have raised their voices against him and the establishment are laughed at, defamed, ridiculed, and mocked, ofttimes exchanging their hammer for a feather. "Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?" (Galatians 4:16)

One of my favorite books is the journal of Frederich Percyval Reck-Malleczewen, a German citizen who witnessed firsthand the moral decline of his people under the rule of Adolf Hitler. Later denounced for rivaling "German purity," he was sent to the Dachau concentration camp and shot in the back of the neck in 1945. His entries were later compiled and given the appropriate title of Diary of a Man in Despair. This steadfast contrarian to the Nazi establishment made the following statements about evil and the pull of his people toward the nature of the beast, even hell itself:

"My life in this pit will soon enter its fifth year. For more than forty-two months, I have thought hate, have lain down with hate in my heart, have dreamt hate and awakened with hate. I suffocate in the knowledge that I am the prisoner of a horde of vicious apes, and I rack my brains over the perpetual riddle of how this same people which so jealously watched over its rights a few years ago can have sunk into this stupor, in which it not only allows itself to be dominated by the street-corner idlers of yesterday, but actually, height of shame, is incapable any longer of perceiving shame for the shame that it is.
Yet when I voice a long-held theory of mine, that behind all this horror and this unprecedented denial by a basically well-meaning people of all decency - that behind it, there lies concealed a cosmic process, a gigantic psychosis and the unleashing of a horde of demons, I am laughed at. I am called a fabricator of nightmares, and am told that a certain amount of physiological coarsening is always observable in people during wartime [moral crisis]. I have witnessed the festivities. I heard the clamor, saw the enraptured faces of the women, saw, also, the object of this rapture. There was no light in it, none of the shimmer and shining of a man sent by God. And through it all this bovine and finally moronic roar of "Heil!"... hysterical females, adolescents in a trance, an entire people in the spiritual state of howling dervishes. These people are insane. In their immense vanity, Satan's own have overreached themselves, and now they are in the net, and they will never free themselves again. That is the fact, and this it is that rejoices in my heart. I hate you. I hate you waking and sleeping. I hate you for undoing men's souls, and for spoiling their lives; I hate you as the sworn enemy of the laughter of men.... Oh, it is God's deadly enemy which I see, and hate, in you. In every one of your speeches you make a mockery of the Spirit, which you have silenced, and you forget that the private thought, the thought born in sorrow and loneliness, can be more deadly than all your implements of torture. You threaten all who oppose you with death, but you forget: our hatred is a deadly poison. It will creep into your blood, and we will die shouting with joy when our hate pulls you down with us into the depths."

The moment Obama bowed before an unrighteous king was the moment the flaxen cord around our nation's neck became a chain. Indubitably, "the devil laugheth and his angels rejoice" at such careless submission. Appropriately, philosopher James McCosh stated, "It is said that in moving his finger a man starts a force which may take the round of the universe; it is certain that, in performing a particular act [bowing before dictators] or in uttering a word, good or bad, he may put in motion a moral potency which may reach over widely scattered nations, and go down through many generations."

So, where have all the good men gone? How can the works of darkness continue to exist in the light? Perhaps they are away from the corruptive influences of the world, living beneath the higher heads of power who refuse to bend low enough to hear the united voice of freedom and truth. Can you hear their songs of redeeming love about God and His Christ, the cry of patriots? Or, do you acknowledge the low, concerted droning of the bees?

"The grain has gone to seed,
Transformed are the nations,
Our lives are a degradation
While the bad boys laugh.
What has happened before
Has become true once more:
The good have disappeared,
The bad are everywhere.
Once this misery is
Broken as is ice,
People will speak of it
As of the Black Death.
Then the boys on the moor
Will make a figure of straw,
Will turn pain to delight,
And the old horror into light."
                             -Gottfried Keller

One of my favorite movie scenes is contained in the film, El Cid, which vividly portrays the historical account of Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, a Spanish war hero and nobleman who stood in defiance to tyranny and the Muslim advance against Spain around the year 1094 A.D. In 1072, Sancho, the rightful successor to his father, King Ferdinand, was assassinated. It was deeply suspected that his brother, Alfonso, and sister, Urraca, had been involved in his murder. Though when all of Sancho's power ended up being passed to Alfonso himself, he demanded all of his subjects to kneel in fealty in a public display of allegiance to settle the matter of conspiracy and doubt against him. What ensues is one of the most poignant and moving scenes ever depicted in the history of film. While everyone falls prostrate before the king, Rodrigo does not. He remains standing - firm and absolute in his conviction of the truth and of Alfonso's hand in corruption. He could not kneel in good conscience before Alfonso unless he swore fealty himself to God before everyone present that he had nothing to do with the death of his brother, something he reluctantly does. In the end, Rodrigo fights for Alfonso and commands the armies of Spain in a dramatic defeat of the Moorish advance at Valencia. We would all do well to consider how the valiant actions of one man can alter the course of history and the heritage of his people beginning with our same refusal to bow before any earthly king and tyrant.

Similarly, in ancient Sparta, the Board of Ephors consisted of five Spartan citizens who represented a check and balance over the nation's dual kingship, casting the deciding voice whenever the kings disagreed on a particular matter. To do so effectively, every month these individuals would remind the kings of their moral responsibilities and limited power with the following phrase, "We who are as good as you, will continue to obey you only as long as you obey the law; if not, not." Or, in other words, "if you do not obey the law, then we will not obey you." In like manner, Robert E. Howard's Puritan hero, Solomon Kane, also reveals man's divinely appointed purpose, to vanquish evil at all costs by making low that which is falsely assumed to be high. Alma, the mighty prophet and missionary in the Book of Mormon described this mandate in plain detail:

"And now, as the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just - yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them - therefore Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the virtue of the word of the God." (Alma 31:5)

"And this he did that he himself might go forth among his people, or among the people of Nephi, that he might preach the word of God unto them, to stir them up in remembrance of their duty, and that he might pull down, by the word of God, all the pride and craftiness and all the contentions which were among his people, seeing no way that he might reclaim them save it were in bearing down in pure testimony against them." (Alma 4:19)

And thus WE STAND in defiance to the evils of men until that great day when our Lord and Master, even Jesus Christ, descends from heaven, at which point every knee will bow and tongue confess that He is the Christ! Until that time, may our blades remain true and straight, fixed to the hands of the valiant and pointed in the direction of our enemies who cannot ever strike down the truth (or ourselves) while we stand united. Like the Greek General Xenophon declared, "I am sure that not numbers or strength bring victory in war; but whichever army goes into battle stronger in soul, their enemies generally cannot withstand them."

Intentionally, the path to Godhood is not made with the skulls of the wicked, but rather the blood, sweat, and tears of the Christian soldier. The pure in heart walk the path of justice, not vengeance, just as the 16th century artist Albrecht Durer so masterfully carved in his copper image of the "Knight, Death, and the Devil" (1513) wherein the Knight is embarked on a righteous mission, determined in his purpose and looking ahead, drawing on his faith to give him the moral courage to confront evil. In it he sits upright upon his horse, not hung carelessly forward before Death and the Devil himself in foolish fealty. He remains focused, armed, ready, willing.

                                                
However, the works of men are not always as pure. There is much evil in the world that seeks after our own destruction, both individually and as a nation. But the ungodly can never overcome us as long as we choose to stand and maintain the will to resist. The proper counter-measure is to learn the truth and resist evil no matter the odds and no matter the cost. If you prefer the more ignoble existence like that of a sheep, then you must understand the painful price you pay - submission, cowardice, shame. The time is soon at hand when evil men, even our own chief judges and leaders who sit in excess and pride, will be brought to awareness from their Borg-like alcoves by the sound of drums in their own yards. God will not allow evil to prosper while righteousness stirs. Wickedness never was happiness and a heaven hell cannot make. As the Great Shawnee Warrior and Statesman, Tecumseh, once said,

"Live right so when it comes your time to die,
you will not be like those whose hearts are filled with
the fear of death, who weep and pray for a little more
time to live their lives over again in a different way.
Sing your death song and die like a hero going home."

The war between good and evil is not made at a distance. It is at our very doors, before our very eyes. Therefore, to produce the greatest effect, both psychologically and emotionally, our manner of delivery must be made at short range, with bayonets fixed. Then, when the enemy is on the run, will we be able to answer the call of the ancient Psalm, "Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? or who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?" (Psalm 94:16) We are to stand, not bow. Rise, not fall. Fight, not withdraw. Then the wicked will one day be brought low as the dust from the weight of their own boastings and godless actions and great and terrible shall be their fall.

"And he shall spread forth his hands in the midst of them, as he that swimmeth spreadeth forth his hands to swim: and he shall bring down their pride together with the spoils of their hands.
And the fortress of the high fort of thy walls shall he bring down, lay low, and bring to the ground, even to the dust.
For he bringeth down them that dwell on high; the lofty city, he layeth it low; he layeth it low, even to the ground; he bringeth it even to the dust." (Isaiah 25:11-12; 26:5)

Like the Areopagus in Athens during the apostle Paul's day, the same inscription, "TO THE UNKNOWN GOD," will be found among the rubble - a reminder of what happens when the Spirit of Liberty is put off and the Prince of Peace rejected. And when the cloud of smoke and dust clears and the howlings cease, there will come up the majestic sound of a marching host declaring Him, even Jesus Christ, as the only One to worship, to stand before that great gulf and with one voice shouting down the following words:

"If you banish God from the earth, we will meet Him under the earth. And then we, the underground men, will once again mount and sing a song to God, who is Joy...."

Long live the fighters