Fictional Reality?

I went to see Dark Tower yesterday.  It had been on my “want to” list, but a close brother at church Sunday said, “Mike, you’ve got to see it!”  So, I got it done.  It was a fun action adventure film with all the dark and weird things you’d expect from Stephen King.  It was another story about the battle between good and evil – light and darkness, but it was totally free of any religious or spiritual themes.  It was up to the watcher to ‘fill in the blanks’ as to when, where, and what it was all about.  Having said that, the Dark Man, played by Matthew McConaughey, was as wicked and satanic as any dark movie character you’ll ever see.  Like I said, it was fun, and for a PG13 it had all the expected action, violence, and scaring you’d expect.

This is not a recommendation or a review.  It just reminded me of what I had originally intended The Judas Sword to be, but obviously – and maybe providentially – failed to do.  I did not want to write a Christian Fiction book, but when my wife and another “trusted adviser” read a rough copy of it, they both declared it clearly Christian Fiction.  My attempts to avoid focusing on spiritual warfare and angels actually thrust me into the middle of both, and that’s okay.  After all, maybe I was given some unseen guidance to make that happen.  My fiction became my reality.  I’m receiving questions about both of these topics, and Sunday I began a series of lessons entitled The Whisper of War, which is about the spiritual war we can’t see and mostly ignore.

There is a war going in the spirit realm.  It is the war for the world, in general, but the war for your soul in specific.  Let me remind you that our first introduction in the Bible to an angel is one holding a sword – and that was long before swords were invented!  There are around three hundred references or allusions in scripture about angels or spirit beings.  I said Sunday, “If you don’t believe in angels you don’t believe in God.”  The same book tells us about both and they are both declared to be real without need for explanation or proof!  Angels seem to carry out the providential work of God.  They are messengers, guides, helpers, warriors, and protectors, to name just a few things.  They walk amount us at times, but we don’t know it, and they seek to help us fight against the influence of Satan and his angels – who oddly enough can look like “angels of light.”

So, yes, I wrote an action/adventure book that is the first in a series of stories, but – the reality is – I’m writing about something that I believe truly happens.  Maybe not the way my fictional world describes it, but the principles are based on reality.  How much?  That’s another blog.