Don't Pet The Dragon

This book will not save you from hell nor will it answer all of your questions about spiritual matters. What it will do if you are borderline in determining whether to believe or to reject the idea of God and Satan or of heaven and hell, is to help you with the thinking process. If you are already a believer, hopefully this book will help you develop the study method of going to the Bible with questions. This book reveals how God spoke to me through the events in my life and the people He placed around me; not one soul was there by coincidence or mistake. None of us were just wound up like some toy and turned loose to make it on our own, although I've felt that way at times. This book is about my journey from seeing God as being about religion to knowing Him as my Father and personal Savior. It is about how I moved from thinking of Satan as a religious myth to realizing just how real, evil and active he is in our lives and the lives of those around us. Believe me, evil is not just a plot in a Steven King movie, it is permeating our society more and more as society turns its back on God, drifting into the secular snare of the dragon. Think about what is considered comedy or what is now considered acceptable for small children in the form of cartoons. Pay attention to the suggestiveness of commercials on television and in magazines. Be more sensitive to the process used to make you believe that being, acting and dressing dumb is cool. Do you no longer wonder about what happened to the high standards that made this nation looked up to? How are we viewed today? Our flag is burned and hung upside down within our own borders. I began the writing part of this project while living in Wedgefield, South Carolina, where I taught an adult Sunday school class for two years. God began His part of this project...Well your guess is as good as mine as to when He planned my life and the workmanship it would take to bring me from a tadpole to a frog, from a caterpillar to a butterfly, from a sight walker to a faith walker! Being born again into God's family is God's work and it is accomplished with each beat of our heart for as long as we live; it is not brought about by a big bang. When did He start His good work in any of us? The work of God in the birth of a Christian is as mysterious as God Himself. I do not want you to come out of this book blaming everything on Satan, saying, "The devil made me do it".[2] We must take responsibility for our own actions. I do, however, want you to know that Satan is not a joke, he is not a Hollywood creation; he is very real and very interested in every move we make, especially in the direction of God. He is not only interested, he is actively involved in attempting to lead us astray from our devotion to Jesus Christ and blinding our minds to all truth by keeping us out of Bible study, prayer and meditation. We need to be alert to the fact that there are many voices influencing the way we think therefore affecting our choices, our behavior and our reactions to the events and people we deal with daily. The voices of radio, television, music, books and the people around us are all influences on our thinking. Satan and the demonic forces that chose to join him (Revelation 12:7) are involved in keeping as many people as possible from accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior by raising all sorts of speculation about the truth; beyond that he is involved daily, moment by moment, attempting to keep the follows of Jesus Christ from concerning themselves with the Truth of Scripture by having them focus on religious activity rather than a personal relationship with Jesus. If Satan can get you to work for God rather than with God, Satan still runs the show. Satan manipulates people into writing and producing movies and television programs that cast doubts in the minds of everyone; The Da Vinci Code is just one example.