Phoenix Bird

LIFE AFTER THE BEAST

After reading the following paragraphs, take a moment to close your eyes and envision this scenario. Then ask yourself how you and your family would cope with the situation.

Drafted from various nations and cultures, the officers staffing this agency are stationed in countries that are foreign to them, to prevent mixed loyalties from clouding their judgment and impeding their ability to perform their duties. Driving through the countryside, you have noticed several large camps with military style barracks and barbed wire fences. These camps are usually located near one of the many checkpoints that have been set up to conduct random vehicle searches to ensure compliance with firearms bans and the National Identification Law.

The National Identification Law, enacted to aide enforcement of immigration laws, requires every adult to carry an identification card listing their name, birthdate, occupation, physical description, national origin, and the names and identification numbers of all members of their household. Last year the use of this card was expanded to include financial information including your pay, savings, retirement fund, insurance information and purchases. This financial data is maintained by a central computer which is operated by the Federated Government of Earth, and is required in order to receive a paycheck or make a purchase at any type of retail establishment anywhere in the civilized world. This new form of currency is also used to pay income taxes, sales taxes, real estate taxes, and other taxes and fees such as Driver's License fees.

Recognizing this system as the "mark of the beast", you have refused to carry one of these cards or use one. For the past year you have been living off your stock of food and other supplies that you wisely stored away. You have been able to do pretty well so far, but you are beginning to run low on fuel and a few staple items. You have been living without services from the electric company, telephone company, cable company and municipal water agency. Yesterday you received a notice in the mail that your property is being seized and you are being evicted for non-payment of taxes. You have fourteen days to vacate the premises or you will be forcibly removed. For two years you have wondered when the American people, especially the patriots and survivalists like yourself, would rise up in revolution against this tyranny. Now it feels as though it is too late. You are being thrown off your land and out of your home, your supplies are quickly dwindling, and your buried cache of now-illegal firearms and ammunition may have to be left behind.

You have only a handful of trusted friends who are survivalists and patriots, but they are in the same predicament. They too are being evicted and have nearly run out of their supplies. You all have heard news reports of families and groups that have resisted confiscation of their weapons or their land. They all have been killed or imprisoned by the new police force. You know that if you leave your land, you will have to drive through a checkpoint and your vehicles will be searched, so your weapons must be left behind. But you also know that if you try to stay on your land and resist the eviction, you and your family will certainly face the same fate as those before you.

You now have only three choices. You can stand and fight, which will almost certainly result in your death and the death or imprisonment of your family members. You can give in, go rent an apartment with your National ID card and try to start your life over again. Or you can flee into the wilderness with only what you can carry. Close your eyes, envision this problem, and ask yourself what your choice would be.

To stand and fight could be considered noble and valiant. It could also be considered stupid. Even if you have built a literal fortress on your land, and your survival retreat was designed for battle, you will lose and lose quickly. To borrow a theme from Star Trek, The Next Generation, "resistance is futile". You will be absorbed into the collective (conform to society) or you will be destroyed. The most careful planning and most devious defense systems you could dream up will be no match for Apache gunships and artillery. If you choose to stand and fight, you will die, plain and simple. To most Christians, this should be preferable to the second choice.

If you give in, conform to society and try to get on with your life, the new worldwide government will probably leave you alone. You can use the new currency to rent a house or apartment, or maybe even buy a new house. You'll be able to buy fuel to drive to your new job, and you'll finally be able to take your kids to McDonald's again. You can go to the grocery store and buy your food, so you won't have to live on beans and homemade bread any more. Everything will be so much easier if you just give in and go with the flow. But as Christ said in Matthew 16:25-27, "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works."

What does this passage mean though? Most Christians could easily interpret this as saying that if someone values their physical life or possessions above Christ, they will lose their eternal life. This definition is certainly true, but there is more to it than just this. Benjamin Franklin said something quite similar: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." When someone is willing to give up liberty in exchange for temporary safety, an easier life, they do not deserve their liberty. But someone who thinks safety is more important than liberty doesn't deserve safety either.

Why? For the simple fact that people are only willing to give up liberties which they personally feel no desire to exercise. Those who are opposed to firearms rights, for example, are usually those who don't want to own guns. They don't care if these rights are infringed upon, because they don't use these rights themselves. However, if they are willing to see the liberty of others trampled on in order to gain an easier, safer life for themselves, there will inevitably come a time when a liberty they cherish will come under attack. When this happens, they will wonder why no one will help them preserve their rights, and the answer will lie in their own actions.

In the same way, a Christian who is more concerned with having an easy life than with following the instructions of the Lord is undeserving of either an easy life or the Lord. If you gave in and went along with the new system and the new laws of oppression, what would you profit? You would save your life and make things easier on yourself and your family. But you would most certainly pay for these things with your eternal life, for no one who accepts the mark of the beast or honors the beast in any way will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. On the other hand, if you lose your life for Christ, and your faith in Him and His Word, you will find eternal life as your reward. Any person, whether Christian or not, will lose any chance of entering God's Kingdom if they accept the mark of the beast. So this second choice should not even be considered a choice.

If you don't want to die on the spot, and you are unwilling to accept the mark of the beast, there remains only one other choice - fleeing into the wilderness. When the mark of the beast becomes a reality, you will not be able to pay your mortgage or taxes, so you will lose any land or home you may have. Burying huge stores of food, weapons and other supplies on your land is not the answer, because you will eventually be forced to leave these things behind. What is the answer? Learning how to live in the wilderness is the answer. There are literally millions of uninhabited acres of wilderness in this country alone, most of it so rough and desolate that a thorough search of it would be impossible. An individual, a family, or even an entire group could get "lost" for years in the wilderness.

You will need to know how to pick an appropriate site, how to grow your own food in season, and store it to eat out of season. You must learn to hunt wild game and raise domestic food stock. You'll need to know how to make cloth to fashion clothing, or make it from animal hides. You should learn how to use herbs and other plants for cooking and for medicine. You must know how to find and develop a source of pure water. You will have to build a home that will protect you from the environment, as well as from occasional looters and other unwelcome company. All of your survival efforts must begin with increasing knowledge. Living in the wilderness is something that is completely foreign to most people. We have grown accustomed to having our morning cup of coffee, turning on the radio or TV to catch the news, stopping by the convenience store for a Coke, going to the supermarket to pick out vegetables and microwave dinners, and going to the doctor when we get the flu. None of these things will be possible when you are forced to flee.

What will you use for deodorant, toilet paper, soap, and toothpaste? How will you make the shoes you need? How much food will you have to plant to feed your entire family or group throughout a year? How many deer will you have to harvest, and how many chickens should you raise? What kind of shelter will you build and how will you get the materials you need? Where will you go when you have to leave, and how will you get there? These questions and many others have to be answered now, not when the time for fleeing comes.

Think of having to live for the rest of your life without ever being able to purchase a single item again. No Coke, no coffee, no cigarettes, no frozen pizzas, no gas, no motor oil, no Levis, no Redwings, no Right Guard. Do you know how you will live without these things? It all begins with a plan, but that plan must take into account a realistic look at what the situation will be. If you act early enough, you will be able to drive to your destination, but what do you do with your vehicle when you get there? Eventually there will be checkpoints and vehicle searches, so you will not be able to use your vehicle for transportation. In fact, you won't be able to go anywhere without fear of being caught. You will be confined to the site you have chosen for your escape. But what if that site is discovered? You should have other sites in mind nearby, and know how to get there without a vehicle.

When you are forced to leave, you will have the available space in and on your vehicle, if you're lucky and have planned ahead. What will you put in that space? Certainly a year's supply of food for each member of your family or group would require far too much room, even if everything is dehydrated and powdered. But you may very well have to survive in the wilderness for ten years, or twenty. You may even have to teach your children and grandchildren to teach their children and grandchildren to live in the wilderness. You obviously could not bring enough food and other supplies to last that long. So what do you bring - what are the items that you cannot live without and cannot make, grow or improvise for yourself?

Remember that you will have to be prepared not only to survive, but to start your life over in the wilderness. You will be planting foods, so seeds or starter plants are essential. You will be building a home, so basic tools will be required. There will be a time of one to two years before you will be able to cultivate herbs for cooking and medicines, so initial supplies of these are necessary. You will not have immediate harvests of the food you grow, so canned and preserved foods will be needed for the first several months. You won't have sufficient numbers of hides for quite some time, so a supply of clothing and shoes are important. You should learn how to make your own soaps, toothpaste and deodorants, but a starter supply of these will tide you over until you begin making them. For everything that you use in day-to-day life, as well as the things that are only needed once in a while, you should know how to make or obtain them in the wild.

You should also prepare yourself and your family for the fact that some things simply are not available in the woods. Coffee, for example, cannot be grown in most parts of North America. Unless you plan on carrying a few hundred pounds of it with you, accept the fact that you will have to do without coffee eventually. You won't be able to sign on-line and chat with friends, you may not ever be able to see your buddy Joe again, or your sister or nephew or cousin who thinks survivalism is for rednecks in camouflage. Say good-bye to Marlboros, Charmin and Betty Crocker. Even if you bring a supply of these things with you, sooner or later you will run out and be forced to live without them. Get used to it.

When making your survival plans, you should know precisely where you plan to go when you are forced to leave. Take several camping trips in wilderness areas within a few hundred miles of your home. Pick a primary site and a few alternate sites that will be easy for you to find again, but difficult for others to find. Once you have picked some good sites, explore the area around each of them and get familiar with the territory. Use your camping trips to practice living a primitive life. Bring your Coleman stove and Jiffy-Pop, but don't use these things unless you absolutely have to. Knowing the theory of living a primitive life and actually being able to do it are two totally different things. Realizing on the day you flee that you've never actually built an emergency shelter or cooked on a fire you started without Kingsford will not be a good thing. Forcing yourself to survive without all of life's little luxuries is the only way to truly find out what you will need when you have no other choice.

Take these camping trips with your family or survival team so that everyone can learn and practice how to live in the wilderness without modern conveniences. These trips should also be taken at different times of the year. Going only while the weather is nice will not teach you what it takes to survive in the snow or rain seasons. Make a preliminary list of items you think you'll need, then take your camping trips to learn what you really need. You'll find that a lot of the things you thought you couldn't live without are actually unnecessary and only weigh you down and take up space. But you'll also discover dozens of things you forgot about. These trips will also be a good time to test all of the equipment you've acquired. Finding out at the last minute that your $150.00 survival knife is cheap junk with an expensive name or your rain poncho isn't actually waterproof will be a bit discouraging.

Knowledge is the key to survival, but knowledge acquired through books and videos is virtually useless. Knowledge acquired by doing is the only thing that will save your life and the lives of family or group members. It's like learning how to shoot a gun. You can read all the books and watch all the videos, but until you actually do it and practice it, the knowledge means nothing. You can read all the trendy survival books and the manufacturer's instructions on all your gear, but until you actually do it, your knowledge doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

Just as we can look at a tree with buds forming and know that summer is near, we can look at the signs of the times and know that trials and tribulations are just around the corner (Matthew 24:32-33). Preparation and knowledge gleaned from experience will help us to cope with these things and not give in. Every Christian should strive to run a good race and fight the good fight. Anything less would be an insult to our Lord and Savior.

Christ laid down His life for us. He has called us His friends, and gave His life to save ours. If we would call Him our friend, can we do any less for Him? We obviously cannot save the life of Christ, but will we be willing to give up our lives on His behalf? Are we willing to not only die for Him, but to give up our easy, modern life for Him in exchange for a life of hardship in the wilderness? This is our command from God, that we come out of Babylon (the worldly system) and flee into the wilderness. He has promised that if we do He will provide food, water and shelter, and protect us from the plagues of His wrath. He will lead us through these tribulations to try us and purify us. Those of us who persevere unto death or overcome till His return will receive eternal life, and will reign with Him in His kingdom. The trials and hardships will be great, but the rewards will be far greater.

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