Our warfare is in the moral realm.
We live in the Fallen Realm. God’s revelation of truth falls into the Moral Realm but bears implications for our lives in the Fallen Realm. Please note that the Moral Realm is the interface between the Spirit Realm and the Fallen Realm; it’s a label for something difficult to explain. The bulk of human focus cannot discern any part of the Moral Realm, and imagines that the Fallen Realm is the extent of reality. Human government reflects that false understanding. We could adopt the label “resistance” only because the vernacular imagines that human government is actually in control.
Insofar as we resist in this moment in human history, it is through moral opposition to a fallen understanding of things. While we might take the implied actions with tools and weapons and hands, the real conflict is in the Moral Realm, in that we assert the moral character of God in this world. So we tend to vary between us in the actual tactics in the moment, but we do need to share a common moral truth. We also emphasize the shared weapons of truth, the means to delivering the ordinance that destroys deceptions.
In ancient times, that was primarily the matter of going physically to those in moral prisons and telling them the truth. It has always been in God’s hands alone whether that truth is received; it was the matter for His people to go and tell. The expensive and specialized task of writing and sending a message that way was merely an adjunct. When writing became cheaper, the message became more deeply invested in that means of transmission. With electronic transmission, the message went even farther with less use of resources. The Internet is our Roman Road system. Nothing can replace face-to-face contact and the merging of hearts’ auras, but God has seen fit to bless the virtual medium for His use.
My calling emphasizes the means and methods of virtual communications. My fortresses might be a desktop system or server somewhere, and my maneuver weapons system in the field is a laptop. There are variations: For now, my “desktop” is a bigger laptop and my maneuver weapon is a netbook. But the meat space specifics matter less than how something is used. Depending on how you do things, you could substitute a smart phone or tablet for my netbook in your own service, but the point is the message backed up by how we live for the Lord’s glory.
We reflect His glory by how we live according to His revealed character. We bring that divine Presence by proxy into every sphere of human experience. We correct false impressions about the whole range of what people do. In general, we strive to show how God intends we as humans relate to everything around us, including how we relate to each other. That means we have to gain a certain expertise in virtual human relations over the networking devices we all use. We have to assert God’s truth regarding virtual space. I assure you that most people do not rightly understand the virtual realm, and it creates a lot of moral havoc.
One particular issue is that the medium itself is content neutral. That is, what passes over the wires will always be nothing more than electrical impulses. What that stuff looks like on the either end is a human construct that is imposed through the devices, but the wire knows nothing about that. It’s just a stream of binary data, zeroes and ones. In order to exploit this medium to the fullest potential, we must not concern ourselves with what other people choose to send. The freedom of our message means freedom of the most morally despicable things humans can imagine. Restricting the latter also restricts the former.
What people choose to transmit is not our problem, any more than what human governments imagine they must do. Do you imagine the Apostle Paul would attempt to stand in the path of Roman government shipments traveling over the Roman road system simply because his gospel message was morally superior? It doesn’t work like that. We insert ourselves into the stream of human activity as a whole, merely displaying the truth for all to see. God alone decides who will notice and be drawn.
