AND HE’S LULLED THE WHOLE WORLD TO SLEEP
Lethargy is a spirit of the world, of the Devil, and he’s lulling everyone to sleep. He’s going to be able to walk right on stage when his time arrives and take over, because there’ll hardly be anyone to say he shouldn’t! He will have lulled almost everyone to sleep and taken care of all the avenues of possible resistance, and the world will let him have his way.
Lethargy is one of the Enemy’s principal weapons. He doesn’t have to use a show of force to terrorize the Lord’s children and take them down and destroy their effectiveness for Him. He’s going to come in very subtly. He’s going to come in quietly, unobtrusively, sneakily.
Since you are in the Last Days, you will find more and more that you’ll be fighting some of these spirits that plague the world. The Lord has promised to keep you from them, but there is a condition to that promise.
“If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in His sight, and wilt give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee” (Exodus 15:26).
The Lord isn’t just referring to physical diseases here, but spiritual diseases. And the cure for those diseases is to listen to Him and obey what He tells you to do. The Lord needs you, His soldiers, to not just hear His Word but do His Word. He needs you to fight!
The Lord will heal those of you who are afflicted with this spirit of lethargy and any other spiritual problem. Take a stand against the Enemy and his attacks and get delivered. Watch out for the spirit of lethargy! Don’t let it ruin your effectiveness for the Lord! (End of message from Dad.)
(Jesus speaking:) This spirit is the way of the Enemy, the way of the world. It’s one of Satan’s favorite devices with which to hinder and trip up humanity in these Last Days, by deceiving and deluding them, by putting them to sleep. Why would the Family be immune to it? You are not! It’s everywhere. It’s in the very air, the atmosphere. It surrounds you. It’s Satan’s gas of deceit, which little by little has seeped across the world, so slowly, so gently, that few have noticed it. Now even those who do see it, who speak up about it, are more often than not met with resistance. Even others who claim to see it and notice it, who agree with those who speak out against it, have been affected by it. It’s the spirit of apathy.
You, My Family, have been strong soldiers, and you received good training from David and a solid foundation of faith. You knew truth from lie, right from wrong. Everyone, from the smallest to the greatest, knew what My standard was, and accepted nothing less. You were radical, zealous, sometimes even overzealous, but you knew where your convictions lay. However, little by little, as the Enemy’s spirit grew stronger in the world, his compromising attitudes entered your ranks as well.
Sometimes this spirit of lethargy came in as a result of doubt–of beginning to question whether the things that you had always believed and stood for were really so, or if they were open to interpretation.
Sometimes this spirit came in simply because people were weary in well doing, tired of working so hard and living in such an “extreme” way. It’s human nature to be selfish, to want to work as little as possible and put forth as little energy as possible, especially when it comes to spiritual matters. As your older members got older, these weaknesses were more easily able to enter in. And as your young people got older, the desire grew in them to become more knowledgeable of the ways of the world, to be more accepted by their peers in the world, and this in turn further brought in the spirit of lethargy.
Look around and you’ll see how in some form or another this spirit has permeated society. Look at the young, hip dudes with their pants hanging loose and their hair dyed. What does that portray? Well, that one’s obvious. But then, look at the generation X’ers, the workaholic dot-com millionaires. Are they lethargic? Yes, they are, spiritually. They are self-satisfied and so caught up in the rat race that they have in most cases all but neglected their spirits, and even their loved ones and families.
Being a hard worker doesn’t make you immune to spiritual lethargy. Being an energetic person physically doesn’t give you any advantage over someone older or more tired. It’s all about attitude. It’s all about your spirit. You can still be supposedly “living the life” of a missionary, but becoming lethargic in spirit, doing as little as possible.
What has allowed this spirit into the Family is human nature–instinctive proclivities toward selfishness, carnal-mindedness, and laziness. But these things can be overcome. (End of message from Jesus.)
(Coming Persecution? [#3361])
(Jesus:) The reason the spirit helpers’ and even demons’ names so often coincide with words that you’re familiar with is because I choose to do it that way to make it easy for you to remember them and associate them. It’s not necessarily their name in Heaven or in the spirit world, but it’s the handle I assign them for you on Earth to use. (ML#3485:174)