The Secret War: The Struggle for Your Last Freedom

By Ellen Jeter Walker

There is a war that you will not hear about in the news. It is the war for your last freedom. This Secret War rages every day and impacts every person on this planet. It is a war of strategy, choices, and monumental decisions. Unfortunately, people are often ill prepared for the challenges they face. Battles are lost before people realize they are happening.

The enemy is seeking to rob you of your last freedom in subtle and devious ways. This book is designed to help you understand the situations you face and to equip you for the battles ahead. It offers strategies, practical scenarios, defensive and offensive tools, weapons, rules of engagement, and access to exceptional power to help you be victorious in the war.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 14, 2018
• ISBN: 9781973630494

Ellen Jeter Walker

The wife of a retired pastor, Ellen has been active in music and Bible teaching ministries for over forty-six years. Passionate about worshiping God and sharing His Word, she is a public speaker, Bible teacher, soloist, pianist and worship leader. She is committed to encouraging local churches and small groups. She is the mother of two and grandmother of five.

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Copyright © 2018 Ellen Jeter Walker.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

WestBow Press

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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ISBN: 978-1-9736-3048-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-3050-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-3049-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018906800

WestBow Press rev. date: 06/14/2018

Dedication

To Jonah, Carly, Sarah, Liam and Riley with gratitude for the special people you are and with prayers for who you will become. May you love God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength, and trust and obey Him in all things.

May the peace of God and the joy He brings dwell in you richly all of your days until He comes again and we meet before His throne.

Contents

Introduction

The World

The Coming Darkness

The Secret War

The Battle

The Front Line

The Dilemma

The Heart of the Battle

Solution

Unconventional Strategy

Bootcamp - The Basics

Poor in Spirit

Mourning

Meekness

Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness

Merciful

Pure In Heart

Peacemaking

Persecution

Summary of the Basics

Special Training

Higher Standards – Practical Tactical Scenarios

Readiness For Battle

Daily Briefing

Priorities, Authority & Trust

Night Vision – Day Vision—Eternal Vision

Persistent Effort

Advanced Individual Training (AIT)

Humility

Obedience

Servanthood

Submissiveness & Service

Sacrifice

Transformation

Weapons of War

Armor

Overcoming Distractions

Rules of Engagement

The Ultimate Weapon

War Games Not Really A Game

Trials, Temptation and Testing

Mind Control

The Reality

The Ultimate Victory

One Last Thought

Introduction

To my grandchildren and whoever may want to read this,

As I look at events and trends in America and around the world, it often seems as if the social, moral, spiritual and physical fabric of this world is spiraling from bad to worse. This is not a new development.

Every generation has its share of ungodly behavior and troubling circumstances. There are always wars, famines and climate disasters, people seeking or abusing power, people living in poverty and others taking advantage of those who are vulnerable. As Solomon wrote, "There is nothing new under the sun." Ecclesiastes 1:9

The goal of this book is to help you prepare to meet the trials and the challenges you will face in the coming years. You make choices every day. Those choices have all kinds of short- and long-term ramifications.

Regardless of the circumstances around you, you can have victory in your life if you understand your real choices and stay focused on the One who controls everything—the God of the universe and beyond.

The truths in this book have taken me a lifetime to learn because sometimes I’m a slow learner. I hope that by putting them in this format, you can learn them more quickly than I learned them.

There is nothing new, novel or unique about what I am sharing. These things are written about extensively in Scripture and are the result of my relationship with Jesus Christ and of knowing, loving and following God.

My goal is to tie them together in a way that will impact your life and help you begin an earnest search of Scripture and dependence upon God.

It is my prayer that you will read this with an open heart and a thoughtful mind. Allow God to speak to you and to work in your life through Jesus Christ. May you experience the joy and inner peace that comes from walking with God and allowing Him to be the Lord of your life.

With love,

Grandma

The World

It is not hard to be discouraged if you watch the daily news. There are always reports of death, war, financial problems, political controversy, corruption, accidents, terror, and the list goes on and on. Even if you just watched the weather, there are earthquakes, floods, droughts, fires, storms, avalanches and all types of disasters.

We are bombarded with events, opinions, bad news, good news, fake news, movies, social media and funny videos. We can see things happen in real time all around the world. Sometimes it is filtered and at other times it is just raw. It is hard to comprehend or distinguish between what is real and what is not real, what is opinion and what is fact, what is important and what is not important.

Every day we experience information overload as the amount of data, technology and knowledge exponentially increases. Things are in constant change and it is easy to become overwhelmed or manipulated by what is happening around us.

On top of that, we have personal experiences and interactions with other people every day that influence our decisions, our relationships, our health, our future, our lives.

It is imperative that we learn to step back, take a deep breath, evaluate the reality of what is happening, seek a different perspective, and refocus on what is important. There are different ways to do that, but the best resource is God’s Word.

There is a lot to be learned from history, especially as it is recorded in the Bible. These are not random encounters or fictional events. These are real people who had to deal with their world and the situations they were given, and make choices. They were all given the opportunity to trust God or to do things their own way.

The Bible not only gives the narrative of how things occurred, but it also shows the short- and long-term results of their decisions—good and bad.

In Noah’s day, "the Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become and that every inclination of the thoughts of his [man’s] heart was only evil all the time. The Lord was grieved." Genesis 6:5-6a Sadly, the people of Noah’s day did not realize how bad things were until the flood began. At that point it was too late for them to change anything.

The last verse of the book of Judges says, Everyone did as he saw fit. Judges 21:25 That could be a description of today’s generation, where people are encouraged to do your own thing.

The book of Judges details a long list of things that people were doing that were outside of God’s will for them, yet they did not want to understand God’s will or listen to Him. Their solution was not God. Their solution was government. They wanted a king. The rest of the Old Testament reveals that Israel’s desire for a king led to other problems and eventually to the destruction of their government, captivity and slavery.

In Jonah’s day, Nineveh was a wicked city, but when Jonah shared God’s evaluation of their situation, the people turned their lives around and sought to follow God. God honored that decision and spared the city from destruction.

People are doing the same things today that they did ages ago, and there are still consequences for the way people think and act. For Noah’s generation, the consequence was the flood. For Nineveh there was a second chance. For other generations and populations around the world, the consequences of rejecting God have included slavery, captivity, war and death.

Scripture is very clear that a time is coming when the entire world will be judged, and life as we know it will be over. God will say, Enough is enough!

I believe that Christ’s physical return is imminent. Christians have looked for His return since the day Christ ascended into heaven over 2,000 years ago. An abundant number of signs and events point to His return and signal that the last days are here. However, life goes on until God chooses to end it. You need to know how to live in these last days and where to put your loyalty and your energy.

As a young person, I hoped and expected that Christ would return in my lifetime. Now, my lifetime is almost over, and although I believe we are very close to His return, a question posed by God through Amos the prophet makes me have second thoughts about witnessing His return. It says, Why do you long for the day of the Lord? That day will be darkness, not light… pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness Amos 5:18b, 20b

There are many circumstances that are beyond our control, and we may feel discouraged, disheartened and defeated. Yet in those circumstances, God has chosen to allow people to survive (or not) and He has allowed the world to continue.

Even as today’s world plunges into darkness, Christ may indeed delay His return for several more decades. His will is that none should perish. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9

Always hold to the fact that God is in control, even when it does not look as if He is in control. His timing is different from ours. He is working things out according to His plan, not ours. And above all, remember that God loves you and every person on this planet. He will not let you down. He will, however, allow you the freedom