The Artwork used in this poster is something I did when the concept for this website first came to me in October 2008.

I had in mind the words of Peter – “Your adversary the Devil walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.” 1 Peter 5:8 – now on the site header.  The painting itself was on the site header for awhile too, until I had second thoughts – feeling it might be a bit much of a blast on the header for people coming across this site for the first time!

Raging Lion Poster

Below the painting, I’ve put the inventory of the armor, listed in the order given by Paul in Ephesians 6:13-17.

Click on the images below if you’d like to buy eithe of these versions as a wall poster:

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Enjoy – More to Come!

Addicton to pharmaceutical drugs is sad.  Many people got that way through advice and treatment which they were entitled to rely on as in the best interests for their health and wellbeing.  But the medical profession is in tow with the pharmaceutical industry, which  though it produced some  great emergency treatments in the past,  is now well in the serpent’s grip, and driven by the mighty dollar.

Addiction to Pharmaceutical Drugs

Pharmaceutical drugs are not by any stretch of the imagination natural to the human body, so they have undesirable side-effects. This in itself should limit their use to serious conditions, emergencies or epidemics.

But instead of looking for other ways to achieve improved health, Western medicine created more chemicals to overcome the side-effects of the first – and so on.  Once a person admits themselves to the regime of treatment by pharmaceuticals, they are guaranteed a trip into wacky drugland – only a couple of steps better than the rest of the drug scene.

“Oh but,” the industry cries, “we have manufacturing controls and testing protocols before we release.” Sure – there are no backyard brew-ups here, you won’t find cyanide or rat poison in your fix …   BUT – and it’s a big but – just how responsible is it to push billions of dollars worth of artificial chemicals down the unsuspecting public’s throat per year? And just how many class actions are currently under way for drugs that on release were promised to be tested and safe?

My own life from the age of 16 has been a testimony of what havoc can be done by pharmaceutical drugs when their effects are not properly understood. As most of them are not – whatever the industry and the medical profession may say.

Patients are often told that once on a drug, they have to stay on it for life. Which is a bad option – see my experience with my mother and high blood pressure medication HERE. Before being given a life sentence, patients should at least have an honest opportunity to canvass all their options for treatment. And that means information and knowledge.  No way is the industry going to release that.  Thank goodness the Internet is now making information on treatments, both pharmaceutical and alternative, more available to people.

Of course, the industry and the medical profession are hedged with a mystique of authority that dupes patients into regarding medication as a badge of honor, and the brave new world of artificial chemicals as “God’s gift” to to the world of health care. It’s like The Emperor’s New Clothes.

Stand Your Ground.  For more help visit:

http://robertwheelerministries.com/default.aspx

More coming …

The process that Satan uses to bring about drug addiction is very similar to the slippery slope of alcoholism. The innocuous bait, the peer pressure – and so it begins, probably with something “soft”, but nonetheless addictive.

I can remember on several occasions in the early 80′s spending evenings in the company of 4 or 5 males, all stoned out of their minds with pot, listening to music – Springsteen, Clapton, Dylan and the like. I loved the music (another bait, in this case).  But the peer pressure was enormous – not only in the obvious sense, either -  guys stoned out of their brains are not the most scintillating company if you are stone-cold sober.

Drug Addiction

I’d read Huxley’s “Doors of Perception: Heaven and Hell”.  I was a seeker and a so-called but lukewarm Christian.  It was a blessing for me that I had never smoked in my life. Along with my job as a lawyer, that was ostensibly what saved me: I have to admit being Christian never even entered into the equation then, whereas now it would be the first consideration. But I am truly grateful those other safeguards had already been put in place on my behalf, when the time came to meet this challenge.  I finally made an escape, and often look back with gratitude to the Hand that guided me, like a babe in the wood, through this minefield.

I wish others could be as fortunate.  Especially the young people of today, when the pressures are so much heavier, and the available drugs so destructive.

Like the alcoholic, the drug addict is seeking the “high”, the “ultimate experience”.    This is all an illusion – every artificial chemical has disastrous effects on the human system, and if you doubt me, click the following link for a neurosurgeon’s revelations on the effects of chemical taste-enhancers on the human brain.

The only real, enduring “high” is to be found in  turning to the supreme power of the universe and letting Him lead you to find His peace, joy AND POWER in your life, now and forever.  “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  Jeremiah 29:11.

Go the alternative route, and the chemicals take their toll, requiring ever higher doses of an ever stonger “fix” to do their counterfeit work.  Meanwhile. the devil runs his destruction rampant through brain, body, mind, soul and lives.

Find your Peace.

For more help visit: http://robertwheelerministries.com/default.aspx

More to come …

The devil operates very smoothly here – he has his plan of attack all set up. It is supremely cunning.

First of all come the innocuous baits that sound so tempting – just a “little social drink”, a short “wind-down” after a day at the office, that “necessary” beer after a day’s hard physical work …

Alcohol Addiction

Add to that the other operators the serpent has waiting in the wings – peer pressure, discord at work, discord at home, and soon that little social drink becomes more and more of a habit, more and more of a necessity and a crutch.

Sadly, this is only the start of the slippery slope because that temporary euphoria, that drink-induced “high” becomes frighteningly elusive.  This much I know – I was once blessed to work alongside  a colleague in the law who’d been all the way through the process.  He explained it to me as I saw it happening in others working around us.   Before long it takes ever-increasing alcohol intake to produce the desired effect … until finally the euphoria doesn’t come at all.

I can remember another departmental professional drinking his fill at one of the after-work, Friday night parties I used to hold from time to time at my nearby flat.   His wife was there too, and he got more and more grumpy, finally stomping off in a rage.  “What’s wrong with him tonight?” I asked my friend.  “The high hasn’t come,” he replied. “He is in big trouble and will not admit it.”

This is the dark night of alcohol addiction, the nightmare of the alcoholic. It leads to physical, mental and spiritual destruction.  The devil has done his work.

Find your Peace – God’s Peace.

For more help visit:   http://robertwheelerministries.com/default.aspx

More coming …

There are many ways the serpent attacks us in our daily lives – notably by deception.  He is an expert at setting people against each other and letting them fight it out, getting more and more embroiled in bad attitudes, stand-offs, yes – and criminal behavior.  Situations like this go on for years, resulting in broken marriages, broken homes, disfunctional families and damaged, disillusioned kids.

The truth of the matter is the devil has us deceived into thinking it is the other party who is at fault, so we take it out on them, when in reality, he has created the situation and will continue to inflame it.

Monitor your thought-patterns and watch how he attacks your mind by continually running scenarios like, “That was a horrible thing he said about my mother”  or,  “I didn’t like her attitude when she said that.”  He fires the dart, and then twists it in the flesh for ALL IT’S WORTH.

Family Strife

Paul was fully aware of this when he wrote in Ephesians 6:11-12 :

“Put on all the armor that God gives you, so that you will be able to stand up against the Devil’s evil tricks.

For we are not fighting against human beings but against the wicked spiritual forces in the heavenly world – the rulers, authorities, and cosmic powers of this dark age.”

Ephesians 6 : 11-12  Good News Bible

Speaking from experience, it is the hardest thing to get out of this trap.  It takes a supreme effort, coupled with prayer and God’s grace, to separate the behavior from the person and see the truth in what is going on.  It is a battle we fight constantly – not only at home, incidentally, but also in the workplace, social groups, and even in the Church.  It is actually not just a battle – it is more like a campaign, because the devil will return again and again to the attack, always hoping to score a victory.  If he can leave people feeling bruised, battered, unhappy and desperate, HIS MISSION – FOR THAT MOMENT – WILL BE ACCOMPLISHED.

If we can “stand firm” as Paul puts it, the reward for this effort is a new freedom, a new sense of the peace of Jesus Christ,  less stress, and a triumph over the greatest enemy of mankind.  Remember,  Christ said, “My peace I leave with you.” It is the devil’s greatest pleasure to deprive us of that birthright that belongs to us.

Incidentally, it helps to remember that Paul knew full well what he was talking about, from 30 years of service bringing Christianity to the Gentiles and Jews in cities around the Mediterranean.

It was not a comfortable life. Before long he bore the marks of Roman and Hebrew punishment on his body, having been both scourged and also stoned and left for dead.   He suffered character assassination from the “prophets” of rival religions trying to hijack his churches – especially in the trendy city of Corinth. He travelled gruelling distances in difficult terrain, was nearly shipwrecked, and he suffered from some painful illness that we have no details of.   He was finally executed in Rome during Nero’s reign, probably on the same day that Saint Peter was crucified there.

As a Roman citizen by birth, he met a Roman’s death by beheading.   And shortly before his execution he was able to write, “I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (2 Timothy, 4 : 6-7).

I am hoping this artwork will provide a mental picture for every one of us struggling with personal relationship issues of any kind and that, along with the Full Armor of God, it will help us identify the truth.  We can bring that truth into any form of discord we encounter. By so doing, we cheat the devil and his associates out of the satisfaction of stirring up strife and misery for people everywhere at every possible opportunity.

More to come!

Two weeks off the net due to computer problems has given me time to get some design work done – Full Armor of God Warriors and also a rather graphical series I’ve called “The Attacks” – ways the devil has of socking it to us in our daily lives.

I’ll be putting up the Attack sketches shortly, but first of all here’s the first of the full-color Warrior Posters:

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Click Here to buy this Poster and More.

The sketch for this new design pleased me so much I decided to go straight ahead and create the first of the color posters with it – I hope the male warriors out there don’t feel deprived because this first one happens to be a female !!

As I worked on her it came to me that this little warrior girl is carrying out the great commission.  She isn’t just armed against the attacks of the devil in her own life – here she is, storming the Gates of Hell, taking the battle right to the serpent in his lair, in order to free the untold millions of people trapped in a living hell in this world by the wiles of the devil and his associates.

I was thinking especially of the spirit demons that operate in Africa and Asia, keeping multitudes in spiritual darkness under their domination.

Click on the images below if you’d like to buy this artwork in wall poster orm:

If you are in any doubt AT ALL about the reality of all this, I recommend you go straight to the Gospel for Asia website and order the free book “Revolution in World Missions” by K P Yohannen, the missionary leader of GFA.  You will not even have to pay postage on this book. K P has a unique insight into the plight of Asia, having been born and called to missionary work in India before God brought him to Dallas, Texas to gain an understanding of Christianity in the west and to develop his mission.  Don’t continue in darkness about the realities of spiritual warfare in this world – if you haven’t read it, read this book SOON!

Blessings and more to come

Patricia

http://patriciahowitt.com

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