Spiritual warfare is both real and perpetual.  The evil one is either waging battle to prevent unbelievers from coming to salvation and to receiving eternal life or he seeks to render believers disobedient, ineffectual, or undisciplined, thereby, failing to achieve God’s great goal for them, that is, “To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.”

I can still picture Mr. Sells, our Old Testament professor at Columbia Bible College holding up one hand and shouting in his booming voice, “El Shaddai, the God Who is more than enough!”  He taught Survey of the Old Testament, and we were studying the names of God.  Despite the fact that it was a survey course, he pressed us to study the Old Testament in depth and to glean principles for everyday life, as well as to learn facts and history.  I doubt that any student who passed through that class will ever forget the name, “El Shaddai.”
The common translations of El Shaddai throughout the Old Testament are Almighty God, God Almighty, or the Almighty.  El Shaddai also carries the meaning of sufficient, hence, “The God Who is more than enough!”  If we think long enough on the subject of God’s sufficiency and the fact that He is Almighty, we can derive a limitless source of comfort, encouragement, and satisfaction.
When I first came to Christ as my personal savior, I knew an elderly 90-year old Christian woman.  Mrs. Kirkpatrick taught Bible to the women of the inner-city church where I grew up.  I remember her saying often, “Satan is mighty, but God is almighty.”  This dear lady was keenly aware of the spiritual battle being waged.  She was not ignorant or unaware of Satan’s power; however, she focused on the fact that God is more powerful and He is sufficient for any trial or battle.  We cannot afford to underestimate the power of the Christian’s archenemy.
A. W. Tozer wrote, “A right conception of God is basic, not only to systematic theology but to practical Christian living as well. It is my opinion that the Christian conception of God current in the middle years of the twentieth century is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the most high God and actually to constitute for professed believers something amounting to moral calamity.” If Tozer is right, and he was a unique, prophetic man of God, we are in serious trouble.
It is rare that spiritual battle is mentioned today.  One of the few times we hear it referred to is when there is serious illness.  Perhaps we’re too sophisticated and don’t want to draw criticism for conjuring up images of warfare.  We may prefer the respectability gained by being just plain, “normal” folks.  If this is true, then we have one fine indicator of just how mighty Satan is—mighty enough to lull us into spiritual complacency, and for some—spiritual death.
Spiritual warfare is both real and perpetual.  The evil one is either waging battle to prevent unbelievers from coming to salvation and to receiving eternal life or he seeks to render believers disobedient, ineffectual, or undisciplined, thereby, failing to achieve God’s great goal for them, that is, “To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.”
It’s up to us to recognize the danger we face daily and unrelentingly.  The spiritual battle might be on an individual basis.  No matter who we are, “El Shaddai” is on our side.  However, the battle also faces us as a corporate body, especially at this time in history—when the culture around us becomes more paganistic—the evil one will seek to take advantage to discourage, and divide the children of God.  But God Almighty, our all-sufficient God, is the same and has not changed.  He is with us and for us.
Let’s focus on “El Shaddai, the God Who is more than enough,” to be our arm and strength in these days.  Let’s not forget that Satan is mighty, but our God, “El Shaddai,” is Almighty!  Let’s join those who sing the song, “El Shaddai, age to age You are the same by the power of the Name.”  Let’s praise Him forever.
Helen Louise Herndon is a member of Central Presbyterian Church (EPC) in St. Louis, Missouri. She is freelance writer and served as a missionary to the Arab/Muslim world in France and North Africa.

The South Carolina Supreme Court has ruled that 14 parishes that left the Episcopal Church in 2012 to join the Anglican Church in North America must return their property to the Episcopal Church. The parishes had left the denomination over its acceptance of same-sex marriage and its policy that allowed the ordination of gay clergy.
The court ruled April 20 that the churches had agreed to an Episcopal Church tenet that places all parish properties in a trust belonging to the national church—meaning the properties, including the St. Christopher Camp and Conference Center on Seabrook Island, belong to the diocese, Episcopal News Service reported.
The court also found that 15 of the total 29 parishes that left did not agree to such a trust and will retain title to their real estate.
Churches that must forfeit their property include Christ Church, Mt. Pleasant; Good Shepherd, Charleston; Holy Comforter, Sumter; Holy Cross, Stateburg; Holy Trinity, Charleston; St. Bartholomew’s, Hartsville; St. David’s, Cheraw; St. Luke’s, Hilton Head; St. Matthew’s, Fort Motte; St. James, Charleston; St. John’s, Johns Island; St. Jude’s, Walterboro; Trinity, Myrtle Beach; and Old St. Andrew’s, Charleston.
The Rt. Rev. Ruth Woodliff-Stanley, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, said that while the decision will “no doubt bring joy to many in our diocese…there will be grief in the possible finality of a loss they have been feeling for nearly 10 years.”
The Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina was one of the nine original dioceses that formed The Episcopal Church in America in 1785.
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One day, Britain as we knew it will be gone. Some may so, “Well that’s always the case; nations always change.” Perhaps so; but how did it change? According to what principles? Along what lines? Who gets to decide how it changes? If the Nazis had won the Second World War, would it have been right to simply accept the “change” that would have been wrought in Britain as a result? Would it not have resulted in a distinct loss of identity? “Don’t be absurd! That was different!” may be the reply. Perhaps. But if a government—whether your own or another nation’s—decides to do things which will drastically undo the foundations of what you believed your country stood for, and you essentially have no say in it, one may start to observe a few parallels.

For many people, home no longer feels like home. They do not know where or how they belong anymore. Such fragmentation did not happen by accident, but by policy. Those who disagreed with the mass renovations to their societal home were not consulted. There was no planning permission. No referendum. It just started to happen. And then it kept happening.
Those who opposed it too strongly were soon demonised as hateful and unwelcoming. It became increasingly inconvenient to oppose it, so most simply gave up. They opted to keep their heads down and try to live their lives as normal, as if the industrial diggers all around them were not really there, upturning the foundations they thought they knew.
The Rupturing of Foundations
As I write this, I can see literal diggers across the road from our house, tearing down hedgerows of what have been—for centuries—horse fields, paddocks, and woodland, in order to build 400 new houses.
Local residents here long before us had been fighting the “development” for over a decade, and finally lost on appeal last year. It has caused much sadness, even anger, in the area (there is a local Facebook group called “Rage” dedicated solely to the development, for example!).
Even knowing it was going to happen did not prepare many of the neighbours—even my own family—from visible upset at the physical destruction to the surrounding environment. This is natural greenery which many have known to be there for decades, something we can see being tangibly undone before our eyes.
Things like this are happening in similar places across the country. There are many reasons for the housing crisis but few can argue it is not determinatively exacerbated by the kind of mass scale immigration—undergirded by the doctrine of multiculturalism—which requires a country to need over two hundred thousand new houses per year.
But aside from the particular issue of the destruction of the English countryside, what is currently happening across the road is also an apt metaphor for what many people feel about what is happening across the nation. They are seeing their culture and traditions torn away before their eyes. They are feeling utterly helpless to do anything about it. They are worried they might be labelled “selfish” for wishing that it was not happening, let alone saying so out-loud.
Death By Ideology
The tensions borne from the rupturing of a culture can be made to sound sensible by the all-encompassing ideology of “multiculturalism” but they cannot be buried for long. They have a tendency to erupt. This is what we have seen in recent times, however regrettable the events have been.
Douglas Murray warned about this problem almost a decade ago in The Strange Death of Europe. At the time, Murray was deemed something of a pariah for talking about immigration in civilisational terms, especially for highlighting the particular danger of a culturally embedded religion like Islam taking root in Britain as a result.
Indeed, the infamous political spin-doctor of New Labour, Alastair Campbell, recently suggested that Douglas Murray be investigated by the police for writing such a book, arguing that it may have helped incite some of the recent riots. As Konstantin Kisin highlighted regarding Campbell’s accusation, you can tell something’s very wrong when people are castigated not for being proven wrong but for being proven right!
As Murray pointed out—and has continued to point out—multiculturalism is essentially an ideological myth. It is the idea that multiple divergent cultures and traditions can be peacefully imported into co-existence with a dominant and/or host culture without causing the kind of real-time aggravated tensions we have seen manifested in recent times.
One may always be able to point to positives here and there about the comingling of cultures, of course. There can indeed be moments of mutual appreciation and learning when different ways of life coalesce. Not only this, but there are also negative—often horrendous—examples in history of where dominant cultures have sought the kind of conformity that refuses to tolerate peoples different to them.
The fear of becoming—or seen to be becoming—anything like such negative examples is powerful. It is this fear that dupes so many British people today into believing that multiculturalism not only makes sense, but believing that to disagree that multiculturalism makes sense probably indicates a fascist, racist, or xenophobic trajectory.
This is why the ideology of multiculturalism is so dangerous, because it seems so unassuming, so virtuous, so “obviously” true, as though we shouldn’t even need to think about it. People who adopt it tend to see the world not with it but through it. This is why they often cannot see it as an ideology. Multiculturalism is seen as the fundamental solution to societal disharmony when, in fact, it has caused—and will continue to cause—major societal disharmony by ignoring the significance of what culture truly means to people.
This is the case not only in those cultures now being drastically altered by uncontrolled mass immigration, but even among migrant communities themselves. The desire of immigrant populations (especially Muslims) to cling to the cultural and religious moorings of their own families and traditions rather than assimilate under the multicultural banner is hardly surprising. No doubt, many will continue to make use of the multicultural vision, but only in order to assert their own cultural values.
It’s understandable that people from other cultures wish to preserve their own way of life when they come to a different place. It’s not a strange thing at all. What is strange—as Murray well observed—is that the host culture (western Europe and its anglophone siblings) does not seem to think there is anything particularly worth preserving. In fact, as was reemphasised to me on a trip to Washington earlier this year, we are increasingly taught to be embarrassed of our cultural heritage rather than proud of it.
The Melting Pot and Islam
The myth of multiculturalism is that everyone can put a little of their own cultural “spice” into the melting pot without fundamentally upsetting the overall flavour, consistency, and viability of the whole.
No doubt this is possible here or there. There are plenty of examples of mutual flourishing in the growth and development of cultures. All cultures have already done this in one way or another at some point in their formation, and will continue to do so. But cultures adapt best when they do so gradually, organically, and according to established principles, rather than via swift revolution (violent or bureaucratic).
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