Advent Logos

If you have followed my blog you have heard me refer to the upside down before. Of course, this is in reference to the pop culture series “Stranger Things”. For those of you who know the show, all manner of dark and terrible things reside in what is known as the upside down. An overarching theme in the show has been the inescapability of this shadow realm and the monsters that lurk within it. The upside down is a very appropriate representation of the spiritual realm. 

Similar to the upside down, evil forces are at constant work around us.. toiling, mostly unnoticed within the spiritual realm. They have an agenda. This agenda is to steal, divide, kill, and destroy. Of course, knowing the goal of their work is only part of a much larger picture. Have you ever sat and wondered how their goal is to be achieved?

The answer is simple. Reverse and demonize the natural order that God has placed within the universe through instilling a false morality that is 180° opposite of the divine order of God. This is what I have come to refer to as the upside down.

The upside down, though technically is in reference to the spiritual realm, can be seen through the messages the world is currently pushing. For example:

•Don’t get married

•Don’t have children

•Go into debt and go to college instead of learning a usable skill

•Sodomy is love

•Loans are good and required for your education, your car, your house, your phone, etc.

•Sexualizing children is a preference

•Patriarchy or Hierarchy is evil

•In group preference is somehow racism

All very common place parts of society nowadays in modern America. Most of us have encountered the majority, if not all of the listed above. It’s very hard not to have when these things are published by the media, filmed by Hollywood, and taught in our institutions and social circles. To understand fully one must understand the term cultural subversion.

Cultural subversion is a process by which the values and principles of a system in place are reversed, in an attempt to transform the established social order and its structures of power, authority, hierarchy, and social norms. Put simply, it is the undoing of a designed structure or system.

For time and ease of reading I’m only going to tackle the big 3.

God mandated marriage to be between a man and a woman. Not because he doesn’t want 2 people to love each other, but because members of the same sex cannot create life. Same sex marriage can only ever create death. Never will it result in the creation of life. A man and a woman are biologically designed to function together to create life. Marriages soul purpose is for rearing children. Otherwise, if people are not going to have children, why not just stay together without getting married? Why ruin the sanctity of marriage? The creator of the heavens and earth purposefully create us and endowed us with the responsibility to create. Having children is not only a divine mandate, but a means of finding purpose within life. The world has been successful at convincing us that not only is marriage not sacred anymore, but also that you shouldn’t have children. They have even gone as far as saying that not having children is a public service to humanity because of global warming and over population. Are you beginning to see the wizardry at work here?

As far as college goes, I believe God wants us to be educated and pass down what we have learned to the next generation. That said, proverbs 22:7 says, “..the borrower is slave to the lender”. With 1.3 Trillion dollars in student loan debt, I can say with certainty that God does not want his people to be slaves. None of us can serve 2 masters as it would divide our loyalties away from God because we would have to be serving the loan lender. Bankruptcy does not cover student loans meaning that if you don’t pay, men with guns show up to take you to jail. The master you serve is therefore chosen for you.

Patriarchy of course is being demonized and undercut like never before. God mandated the husband be head of the household as Christ is the head of the Church. Most people get defensive about this concept now-a-days because the church has been ineffective at communicating the roles a man and women play in a household. In fact, the man is to lay down his life in service of his wife. That part often gets over looked. 

Without dragging this on for too long, one can easily see that the upside down is the inverse of Gods creative design and order. The entire culture is hell bent on progressing a new pseudo morality. It has been successful at demonizing God’s design so that we uproot it. How far will this unraveling continue? 

Much like in season 2, the upside down began infecting the real world while it burrowed under entire towns. The Hawkins town residents were completely unaware, oblivious to the evil at work against them. It took the faith of a small group, when no one else would believe, to stand against the spreading darkness.  More of the real upside down is being brought into this world with every passing day. We too must be diligently aware of the workings around us and stand up against the spreading darkness. Cheesy reference, but a darn good metaphor.

God Bless 

AL