Ned Lud

“No king is saved by the size of his army, no warrior escapes by his great strength. The horse is a vain hope for deliverance.” - Psalm 33:16–17 

The Misunderstood War

The word warfare has been co-opted by their government and their media.

Our enemy, our “government” has lost its spiritual and philosophical way. It has created a daily mass shooting event environ. That is the fruit of the U.S. Governments “spirit.” We are no longer "we the people" -- we are "We Their Enemy."

Cable news talking heads, militia messiahs, and political influencers spit it out as if it were a call to arms, a recruiting jingle for the next riot. Their version is always flesh and blood - riot gear, rifles, hashtags, and hashtags about rifles. If the very kingdom of God could be won with ballots or bullets.

But the New Testament rips that illusion out by the roots. Paul’s letter to Ephesus is not polite theology; it is an indictment of every empire that pretends to save you. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood,” he thunders, “but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 6:12).

In modern history, the serpent has dwelt among us in policy and office…

Let us be exegetical here, not sentimental. This is not a metaphor for “try harder,” not more vote harder mantra This is an alert of the Spirit- a wartime memo that your enemy is invisible, systemic, ancient. It wears the mask of empire, the grin of a politician, the white smile of a corporate news anchor, the bland speech of a press secretary. It is the spirit behind the Pentagon press release, the algorithm that turns citizens into enemies, the bipartisan snake pit that turns would-be reformers into Bush-Cheney-Obama-Biden-Trump-style potentates. 

If you do not believe in evil, in newspeak, in doublethink, go back and listen to George W. Bush’s The "Axis of Evil" speech (2002). This was the last nail in America’s coffin. This is not Bush speaking; it is an ancient Legion of Demons speaking.

The Axis of Evil, 2001 to the Present, is The Courts, The Legislature and the Office of the President and The Patriot Act. Trump is parading military might down Grandma’s street as part of the Axis of Evil Bush spoke about in 2002.

Your SUV is not going to shelter you from government painters who illustrate you as one more terrorist. Turn from your illusion of faux freedom and yuppie dominance. Your shiny object consumerist illusions are feeding the serpent-government. Stop listening to Trump’s press secretary speaking Harry Potter Parseltongue. Stop listening to Obama newspeak. They are but two heads of the same serpent. Your daydream sanctuary is immersed in their spiritual vacuity.

The prophets of Israel knew this spirit by name. Isaiah called out the rulers who “make unjust laws, to deprive the poor of their rights” (Isaiah 10:1–2). Amos roared against the elites who “trample on the heads of the poor as on the dust of the ground” (Amos 2:7). Jeremiah wept because the nation would not repent - because it trusted alliances, armies, and idols.

If anyone causes one of these little ones-those who believe in me-to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Matthew 18:6, Netanyahu.

This is why political violence is a counterfeit victory. It overthrows a tyrant only to enthrone another evil potentate. It is an altar call for Caesar, not Christ. Jesus saw this temptation in the wilderness and spat Satan’s offer back in his face: “The kingdoms of this world… all this I will give you if you bow down and worship me.” (Matthew 4:9–10). Jesus refused. So must we.

I. Gird Your Mind

Peter’s phrase is bracing: “Gird up the loins of your mind.” (1 Peter 1:13). It is not Victorian poetry - it is battlefield prep. In the ancient Near East, a man would tie up the long folds of his tunic before running or fighting. A loose mind will tangle your feet. Pray for the Mind of Christ to inhabit your thoughts.

Jeremiah uses the same image when he says, “For as a waistband clings to the waist of a man, so I made the whole house of Israel… that they might be for me a people, for renown, for praise and for glory; but they did not listen.” (Jer. 13:11). To gird your mind is to cling back to God, to be fastened to Him as a belt is fastened tight before battle.

This is step one in the battle plan: sobriety. Discernment. Mindfulness. Refusing the intoxication of media outrage and algorithmic hate-feeds. If your mind is ungirded, you will become a mob - raging, thrashing, wasting your strength against flesh and blood. If your mind is girded, you become prophetic - focused, unflinching, immune to manipulation. Your spiritual salvation in God is your force multiplier in HIS Spirit.

 “Do not summon the National Guard - summon the Holy Ghost.”

God does not call you to become the next fearful, pus-filled regime. He calls you to become a thorn in the side of the current regime - a living conscience. Psalm 91 paints the image: “You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day… a thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.” (Psalm 91:5–7).

This is not escapism nor fantasy. This is spiritual defiance. Your protection is not in the Second Amendment or in a Secret Service detail - it is in the blood of Christ, the covenant seal of the Spirit, the shelter of the Most High. It is a protection that allows you to stand against corruption without becoming corrupted. 

Call him what he was: the serpent in the desert. Not merely a man, but the moment when a nation bartered its soul for the promise of security. When the Patriot Act became liturgy and the apparatus of fear took on a lawlike demon face. That serpent coiled around Congress, around the courts, and around our nightly news. It begot legal precedents and bureaucratic appetites that outlived its original mouth. The laws and the memos are not the point themselves. They are the footprints of a spirit that prefers tribunals to repentance. Wiretaps to false witness, indefinite detention to due process. To name the serpent is not an act of partisan spite. It is exegesis: to trace the lineage of an idol so that we may pull it up by the roots. Congress.gov Patriot Act.

To be crystal clear: George W. Bush is not the serpent himself; he is a flawed human instrument through which the serpent’s policies walked the land. Obama’s disposition matrix and Trump on the greens with snakes and demons in his hair are only surface pustules of a much deeper demon legion. The legion of demonic forces now uses “the rule of law” as a noose around our necks.

USA PATRIOT Act: Signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001. 

NDAA Sections 1021 and 1022: Signed into law by President Barack Obama on December 31, 2011. 

These three laws are an ancient, evil serpent that must be overcome. They were enacted via 9/11 lies stacked upon lies, 9/11 was and is The Gleiwitz incident, a false flag attack on the radio station Sender Gleiwitz in Gleiwitz staged by Nazi Germany on the night of 31 August 1939. 9/11 is our Gleiwitz.

- “The Patriot Act, signed in October 2001 under President George W. Bush, accelerated the surveillance worship that feeds empire.” 

- “Later statutes and authorizations (notably the 2012 NDAA controversy over §§1021–1022) extended the legal architecture that lets the state treat suspects as objects, not persons.” Congress.gov+1

II. The Nonviolent Arsenal - Your Armor Is Not Decorative

Paul does not tell the Ephesian church to “be nice.” He tells them to arm themselves. But notice: not with steel, not with mobs, not with the thunder of National Guard boots. He gives them a Roman soldier’s kit as a metaphor for nonviolent systemic resistance.

This is not costume jewelry. It is a war plan. Not the war of the false media. This is war on a spiritual realm. The opposite of docile surrender to empire.

The daily mass shooter fights weakly flesh and blood with an impaired soul, becoming part of the serpent. Shooting children and grandmothers with an A4 is cowardice and weakness.

The Belt of Truth - Buckle Up

Truth is not a trending new vibe. It is not “my truth.” In Paul’s world, the belt of spirit held the entire armor together - it let the soldier move without losing his gear. Without truth, your resistance collapses into conspiracy theories and rage-bait. Stop trying to go viral in their lying media. Learn to live in The Spirit.

• Exegetical Edge: John 8:32 - “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
• Action: Fact-check even the stories that make you feel good. Drag corruption into the light - even when it is your own tribe’s corruption. Truth is dangerous, but it is the first blow against the spiritual Babylon that feeds on lies.

 “Truth is not partisan. It is a weapon.”

The Breastplate of Righteousness - The Standing Rebuke

The breastplate is your visible integrity. It covers the heart - the seat of will and courage. Paul is not telling you to strut in self-righteousness. He is telling you to wear Christ’s righteousness as armor - to live so openly that corruption cannot bribe you, blackmail you, or recruit you.

• Exegetical Edge: Isaiah 59:17 - “He put on righteousness as his breastplate.”
• Action: Live in such a way that your very presence rebukes crooked systems. Advocate for just laws. Refuse to launder your conscience for a party platform. Righteousness makes you dangerous to every idol, every lobbyist, every PAC that counts on your silence.

“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act” – Goerge Orwell.

The Gospel of Peace - Footwear for the Frontline

Sandals were the mobility of a Roman legionnaire. Without them, the soldier could not advance. The gospel of peace is not a retreat into kumbaya docility. It is your ability to go anywhere with a message that cannot be co-opted.

• Exegetical Edge: Romans 10:15 - “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.”
• Action: Be a walking ceasefire. De-escalate culture wars. Bring reconciliation into spaces where Twitter wants blood. Peace is not weakness - it is psychological warfare against the spirit of Cain that feeds on vengeance.

The Shield of Faith - Extinguish the Arrows

Paul saw the Roman scutum, a shield big enough to cover a man from head to knee, soaked in water before battle to quench flaming arrows. Faith is that shield - trust in God’s government over the farce of human governments.

• Exegetical Edge: Daniel 2:21 - “He deposes kings and raises up others.”
• Action: When despair shouts that everything is lost, raise the shield. When cynicism whispers “they all sell out,” raise the shield. Faith is a refusal to worship despair. It is not optimism - it is insurgency against fatalism.

Ask God to cover you and your message with His righteousness, His truth.

The Helmet of Salvation - Guard the Mind

A soldier’s head was the prime target. The helmet meant survival. Salvation guards your mind from propaganda, despair, and the mental colonization of empire.

• Exegetical Edge: 1 Thessalonians 5:8 - “Put on… the hope of salvation as a helmet.”
• Action: Renew your mind with the victory of Christ. Refuse to give ultimate loyalty to parties, presidents, or media personalities. Your thinking belongs to the Kingdom, not the algorithm.

Pray for the mind of Christ to permeate your thoughts.

The Sword of the Spirit - The Only Weapon that Cuts Both Ways

The sword Paul names is not the long broadsword of conquest - it is the short gladius, designed for precision. The Word of God is not for slashing neighbors; it is for cutting through deception.

• Exegetical Edge: Matthew 4: Jesus meets every satanic offer in the wilderness with “It is written…”
• Action: Speak Scripture into lies. Comfort the oppressed with promises, rebuke the oppressor with prophets. Do not proof-text for your ideology - do what Jesus did: wield the Word against the Accuser, not against the weak.

“This is not cosplay Christianity. This is combat readiness.”

III. Spirit Fire, Baptism, and Sealing - The Engine of the Resistance

Political revolutions run on rage until they run out of fuel. Spirit-born revolutions run on fire that cannot be extinguished.

John the Baptist was blunt about it: “I baptize you with water for repentance, but after me comes one who is more powerful than I… He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” (Matthew 3:11). That fire is not candlelight ambiance. It is a refinery furnace. It burns off dross - nationalism, tribalism, self-worship - until what remains is fit for God’s use.

 “You cannot overthrow Babylon if Babylon still lives within you.”

Pentecost as Prototype

The book of Acts does not open with a militia forming in the desert. It opens with a prayer meeting that erupts into tongues of fire. (Acts 2:1–4) That fire turned fishermen into fearless public witnesses who confronted both religious courts and imperial magistrates. They did not lob grenades; they spoke truth so sharp that rulers called them “men who have turned the world upside down.” (Acts 17:6)

This is the power we are missing. We do not need more strongmen. We do not need another Caesar. We need the Spirit who makes people immune to Caesar’s bribes and threats.

Sealed for the Day of Redemption

Paul’s language is legal and political: “When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance.” (Ephesians 1:13–14) This is not a goosebump feeling. This is God’s royal stamp saying: “This one is mine. Hands off.”

In a surveillance state, this matters. Babylon wants to mark you too - with its data, its debt, its digital profile and facial recognition panopticon. But the seal of the Spirit is a counter-mark, a defiance that says, “I am not owned by the market, the state, or the algorithm.”

The Blood That Speaks

The book of Hebrews calls Christ’s blood “better than the blood of Abel.” (Hebrews 12:24) Abel’s blood cried out for vengeance, Christ’s blood cries out for mercy. It is this blood that justifies you - that makes you righteous in God’s courtroom. This is the only righteousness that survives Judgment Day and the only one that can give you courage to face corrupt powers without fear. 

Remember this is not just a battle against; it is also a battle for: the wounded, the confused, the disenfranchised and the seekers. If our enemy is not flesh and blood, then our weapons cannot be flesh and blood either. Here’s how Paul maps our arsenal…

Paul does not leave us with fire and sealing as a private mystical experience. He drives it straight into public witness. After telling the Ephesians that they are “sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,” he turns immediately to how that seal changes their citizenship: “You are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household.” (Ephesians 2:19).

This is why Paul can sit in a Roman jail cell and write hymns instead of manifestos for insurrection. He knows that Caesar can chain the messenger but not the message. He can seize the body but not the citizenship. Paul’s chains are a political statement - living proof that the Kingdom of God does not need to storm the barracks to overthrow the empire.

That is the hinge, the fastener between Spirit baptism and political witness: if your citizenship is already secure in the Kingdom, you do not have to kill for it. You do not have to burn cities for it. Paul calls the church a colony of heaven planted inside Rome itself - a subversive outpost that resists corruption without becoming a mob. Spiritual Revolution is not against the law. Spiritual overthrow is not a hate crime. Free speech is not hate speech.

And this is where we turn next: why political violence is a counterfeit Pentecost - why it cannot birth a just world, only another tyrant.

IV. Why Political Violence Fails - Paul’s Chains, Not Caesar’s Sword

Paul is the prototype of Spirit-born resistance. Paul is not a revolutionary who trades one tyrant for another. He is a prisoner who sings in chains, proving that Caesar’s sword cannot sever heaven’s citizenship. His letters drip with political defiance, but never with the call to riot. He tells Timothy to pray for kings, not because kings are holy, but because God overrules them. (1 Timothy 2:1–2)

This is where the counterfeit is unmasked: political violence is just empire swapping masks. It baptizes vengeance, calling it justice, and crowns the next strongman, calling it salvation. But Paul, writing to a persecuted church, never issues the order to assassinate Nero. He issues the order to outlast him. The true Church, the Church inside of all of us, is older and wiser than the serpent in the desert. You and the Spirit within you must outlast the George Bush-Obama-Biden-Trump Patriot Act serpent in America’s Spiritual Desert.

The Cross as the Great Refusal, Jesus could have led an insurrection. Palm Sunday could have been a war march. Instead, He rode a donkey, wept over Jerusalem, and walked straight into a show trial without lifting a sword. The cross is not just substitutionary atonement; it is the unmasking of the empire’s only real weapon - fear of death. When Jesus rises, He shatters the state’s monopoly on terror. The state wishes you to believe they can kill your immortal soul. All the state can kill is freedom and physical persons. The state cannot kill the desire for freedom and liberty within you.

Paul sees this clearly: “Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” (Colossians 2:15) Political violence is obsolete in the light of resurrection. The state can still crucify - but it can no longer win.

The Devil’s Bargain of Violence 

Violence always offers the same lie: “Take matters into your own hands. Kill for peace. Become what you hate so that you can stop it.” It is the same bargain Satan offered Jesus in the wilderness: “All these kingdoms I will give you if you bow down and worship me.” (Matthew 4:9) Jesus refused, because to gain the kingdoms that way is to lose the Kingdom.

Paul’s strategy is harder, but it is the only one that works. He calls the church to overcome evil with good to heap burning coals on the heads of enemies - not Molotov cocktails, but conscience-fire. (Romans 12:20–21).

Rome Falls Without a Shot Fired 

History vindicates Paul. Rome is not overthrown by a Christian army but hollowed out from within by a Christian conscience. Gladiatorial games are shut down, child abandonment is abolished, slaves are emancipated - not by assassinations but by a stubborn minority who would rather be martyred than join the mob.

This is the battle plan: suffer without bowing, witness without killing, and watch Babylon collapse under its own rot. Paul’s chains were more explosive than Caesar’s legions. The government wants us to fear them. Refuse.

Nonviolence is not passivity. It is active siege warfare on the powers and principalities. Every act of forgiveness is a battering ram. Every refusal to fear is a breach in the wall. Every prophetic word is a torch thrown into the armory of the Accuser. The statists immortality is Facial Metrics on NSA servers in their data warfare centers. Statists have no immortality; they only have death as a weapon. The State and Statists are a temporary “Kingdom of Death.”

The goal is not to win an election or topple a regime. The goal is to unmask the powers so thoroughly that they lose their spell over the people. That is victory. That is why political violence fails - because it tries to replace the idol with a new idol instead of grinding it to dust.

V. Prophetic Prayer & Peaceful Resistance - The Battle Plan in Motion

Paul wrote from prison not as a man crushed, but as a commander dispatching orders from a forward outpost. His chains were not a sign of defeat; they were the very platform from which he broadcast hope into the empire’s bloodstream. Prayer was not his private comfort. It was his weaponized communication with the Commander-in-Chief of Heaven.

Prophetic prayer is not polite, perfumed, or partisan. It is the cry that topples idols and shakes prisons. When the early church prayed in Acts 4 after Peter and John’s arrest, they did not ask for safety. They asked for boldness: “Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” (Acts 4:30). The place where they were meeting was shaken - and they spoke the word of God boldly.

Prayer as Intelligence Gathering 

Prayer tunes your ear to heaven’s frequency. It gives you reconnaissance on what is truly happening in the spiritual realm - which often runs opposite to what cable news is telling you. When Elijah prayed, God opened his servant’s eyes to see the hills full of horses and chariots of fire (2 Kings 6:17). Prayer keeps you from panicking when the headlines scream societal collapse.

Intercession as Resistance 

Intercession is not passive sympathy - it is active interference. It is standing in the gap so that judgment is delayed, so that mercy can break through. When Abraham interceded for Sodom, he was negotiating with God over the soul of a city. When Moses interceded for Israel, he stopped God’s wrath in its tracks (Exodus 32:11–14). Prophetic prayer names the injustice, confronts it before heaven, and refuses to let go until blessing or justice comes down.

Peaceful Resistance as Siege Warfare 

Nonviolence is not passive. It is siege warfare without the sword. It is sitting in the jail cell and singing hymns until the jailer converts (Acts 16:25–34). It is walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge and refusing to strike back even when the dogs and clubs come. It is filing lawsuits, testifying in hearings, exposing documents, protecting the whistleblower - all without letting the serpent recruit you into his cycle of vengeance.

Identify one corrupt law, policy, or practice in your community. Pray over it daily. Name it before God. Then take one concrete, nonviolent action to expose, challenge, or reform it. 

Form a small circle that prays and acts together. This is not a social club. This is a resistance cell. Keep it clean, keep it accountable, keep it dangerous to the powers of darkness.

Prayer and peaceful resistance are not the prelude to real action. They are the action. They are the mustard seeds that grow into trees and crack concrete empires apart.

“Prayer is the war room, not the waiting room.”

Stand, and Having Done All, Stand

Paul ends his letter to the Ephesians with a single, repeated command: Stand. Not vote harder, not sharpen the spear, not panic and not senseless violence. Stand. 

Stand against the spirit of fear that sells you wiretaps as security and endless war as safety. Stand against the algorithm that wants to turn you into a product, partisan, a pawn. Stand against the bipartisan serpents that hiss lullabies about “national interest” while feeding the machine that crushes the poor. Stand against National Security that is anything but.

This is not a call to retreat into a bunker or a pew. It is a call to stand in the public square with a different flag - the banner of the Kingdom that cannot be bought, cannot be co-opted, and cannot be killed. The prophets stood. John the Baptist stood. Jesus stood silent before Pilate but did not flinch. Paul stood chained to a guard and wrote manifestos that detonated in Caesar’s palace.

You stand not because you are strong but because Christ is. You stand not because you will win the next election but because the resurrection is already the decisive victory. You stand because truth is still truth when shouted down, because righteousness is still righteousness even when mocked, because peace is still peace when the world calls for blood.

Let Babylon pass its next surveillance bill. Let Caesar crown his next Caesar. Let the princes of this age plot in their think tanks. Your orders have not changed. Your Commander still speaks: “Take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” (Ephesians 6:13)

Stand. And when the dust clears, you will still be standing.

Dedicated to Bob Dylan

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Patriot Act to NDAA: the U.S. as the Serpent in America’s Warfare Desert

Ned Lud