Cookies, Cars, and....Broccoli??

Tonight I bought a car! My other one had some problems, and I finally bought a better one. The past few days we’ve been looking at different cars, and at first I really wasn’t that excited about my dad helping me pick one out. I figured he’d want me to buy something that looked like a family car, practical by all means, but not something I would like my friends to see me driving around town.

“Yes, dad, I know this minivan only has 30,000 miles on it and has a perfect engine, but I like that sports car over there with 180,000 miles on it and the hubcaps falling off….”

(Not really, but you get the idea)

But you know, as we started to look at cars, he showed me some cars I really liked. He did look at the practical side, like the price and mileage, but he also looked at what I liked in a car. Saturday we found a car I liked, so we went to look at it. As the salesman came out to let us test-drive the car, he told us there was another, similar car I might like as well. It was black and shiny, and definitely looked newer. I loved it! We took it for a test drive, and it was perfect, except it had quite a few more miles on it than the other car. The other car also had a few extra features, and it looked like the practical choice to me.

The salesman asked if I wanted to test-drive the other car, and I was about to, but dad stopped me. He said, “You don’t like it, do you?” And I told him no, not really. I liked the black one.

So dad told the salesman we didn’t need to drive the other one. Tonight I drove home with the black one because dad understood my desire to have a nice-looking car. It’s a good car, but it may not last as long as the other one. I know that. I still like the black one better, and dad was okay with that. He knows that I’ll be much happier paying for something I like than something I never really liked in the first place.

As I was thinking about this, I started thinking about how we so often don’t want God to help us make decisions in our lives because we think He’ll make us do the thing we don’t like. We get this idea that God is like a mom who always wants you to eat broccoli, and never cookies. But God isn’t like that!

If you want to be healthy enough to enjoy cookies, you have to eat some broccoli and other stuff you don’t like because that’s what your body needs. If we always ate cookies, we’d get sick and die.

But you know what? Cookies are awesome!

And the things God has for your life are awesome, too! Sometimes we have to go through things we don’t understand, and sometimes we don’t get what we want when we want it. But it’s not because God doesn’t want us to be happy. It’s not because God hates cookies…. In fact, He loves “cookies”! He loves the sweet things in life, the things we love.

He just knows that in order for us to enjoy them, sometimes we have to go through things we don’t understand. Maybe you have to keep working in that job you can’t stand because God has a promotion around the corner. Maybe that girl or guy in your life had to leave to make room for that person God is sending you. Maybe that door to your ministry closed because God wanted you available for something He’s about to open up.

He knows your desires! He wants you to be happy! The phrase “joy of the Lord” isn’t just some spiritual lingo that actually means a depressed feeling you get when you do God’s will. You really can be happy doing God’s will!

If we believe that God's plans are the best for our lives, and then we try to bargain with God, doesn't that mean we're trying to get God to allow us to have something less than His best? Wouldn't it be better to just trust God and wait on His timing? He really does know best. We just have to trust Him and believe He has our best interests in mind. If He sent His Son to die so you could have eternal life when you were so lost you didn’t know you needed it, don’t you think He will take care of the smaller things, too?

What's under the blanket?

Company’s coming over, and you have 15 minutes to clean the house! Yikes! Sweeping, picking up clothes off the floor, putting the dishes in the dishwasher, what else, what else? And then you see the laundry basket. You’ve been putting off doing laundry for a while, and there’s no way you can do it now. You look around and see a blanket. Perfect! You throw a blanket over the laundry. Yeah it's pretty pathetic, but at least it’s covered up, right? The rest of the house looks great, and maybe your friend won’t notice.

Just like the dirty laundry, so often we have areas of our lives that we know aren’t right, but nobody else knows, so we just put a blanket over it. We hide things in our lives we don’t want people to know about, things we should have dealt with a long time ago, but they’re still hiding under the blanket where we put them. Three things I think we specifically hide are bitterness, sin, and our past.

Bitterness

The other day I was holding my cat when my brother decided to jump up on the porch. My cat panicked and scratched me pretty bad. The scratch was deep and about two inches long, so I put a huge bandaid on it. I decided to wear long sleeves the next day because I didn’t want anybody seeing my bandaid, didn’t want to have to explain. At work the cut started hurting, and the bandaid was annoying, but nobody knew because it was covered up.

Sometimes people hurt us, and we try to doctor it up, try to put a bandaid on it. Then we go to church and wear our long sleeves, figuratively speaking. We smile and act like everything is great; we sit in the pew and listen to the message, but nobody knows we’re sitting there hurting and wounded.

But Jesus doesn’t want you to have to go around with a fake smile, covering up your hurts. You’re trying to put bandaids on wounds that Jesus wants to heal!

Maybe you’ve been living with hurts and bitterness for a long time, so long you’ve gotten used to it. You’ve felt the pain for so long that it’s normal. Every now and then someone comes along and bumps it, and ouch! It hurts!

Do you have any hurts that you’ve held for a long time? It shouldn’t be normal to live with constant pain, and Jesus can heal those hurts if we let Him.

Sin

I remember an Adventures in Odyssey episode about a little boy whose mom sent him with some money to the store to buy flour. On his way there, he stopped by the ice cream shop and spent her money on ice cream. He had a wonderful time, eating ice cream with his buddies, but then he remembered the flour! It had been a long time since he left. He went home without any money or flour, and decided to tell his mom someone took his money.

She panicked and called the police. They came and asked the boy a lot of questions. He told them about the big man who demanded his mom’s flour money. He told them how he tried to fight the man off, but the man was too big. They searched for the man, but of course never found him. The local news station found out and decided to do a story on it. Soon the whole town knew of the boy’s supposed bravery. The mayor eventually found out, and decided to give the boy an award. The boy accepted the award, and it hung in his room for a long time.

During the whole story, I was waiting for the boy to get caught, but he never did. Nobody ever knew the truth, except him. He finally took the award from the mayor down and put it in his closet, but he knew it was there. It was a constant reminder of what he had done.

Do we have anything in our lives that is a reminder of our sin? Do we still have sin in our life? If we do, it’s time to clean house. Nobody else might know about that hidden thing in the closet, but you know, and God knows. It’s time to get rid of it and get forgiven.

Our Past

Maybe it’s a memory you wish you could forget. Maybe it’s guilt or shame that you can’t seem to get rid of. You’ve lived with shame and regret all this time, and you’re sick of it. It’s like a trial, and the devil is constantly bringing accusations against you. The good news is that when you got saved, Jesus became your defense.

If you’re innocent, Jesus can stand up to the devil and say “You’ve been the accuser long enough. The Judge has said my client is innocent, so what are you doing trying to still tell them they’re guilty?”

And if you are guilty, Jesus already took the penalty when He died on the cross. He removed your guilt when He did that. So when the devil comes to accuse you of things you’ve done in the past, you can remind him that Jesus took your punishment and guilt, and he has no right to accuse you any more.

If anybody had a past, it was Paul. He was a murderer and persecutor of Christians. He was also one of the top religious leaders of the day, and very well-known. Almost everyone knew of all the bad things he had done. If someone had seen him before his conversion and knew he had gotten saved, they probably would have thought, “That’s awesome he got saved, but he’ll never have a ministry.”

But how do we remember him? We don’t remember him as Saul the murderer, but rather as Paul, the great apostle and writer of almost half of the New Testament. He traveled and took the gospel all over the world, suffered beatings and persecution, and discipled young Christians like Timothy.

If you give God your past, He can replace it with an amazing future! He can give you such a turnaround that people will have a hard time even remembering who you used to be because you’ve changed so much.

Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” He has a plan for your life, and He can work in impossible situations like Paul’s.

What do you have hidden under a blanket? Is it bitterness? God doesn’t want you to have to keep that bitterness any longer. He wants to replace it with healing.

Is it sin or disobedience? If so, God wants to forgive you and make you righteous. Forgiveness is available if you’ll remove that hidden sin out of your life and give it to God.

Have you been hiding your past? God loves you too much to make you hang onto your past. He doesn’t want you to have to hide it any more, and He wants to give you a great future. He is the only One who can fix an impossible situation. He can take you further than you ever thought you could go and ever could have gone on your own.

What’s under the blanket?

Hearing the Voice, Part 2

Two anointed kings, one kingdom. David has learned to hear the voice of God, but Saul has not. Saul is still listening to Samuel to direct him, but then...

Samuel dies.

Now Saul has a really big problem, especially the next day when the Philistines attack. The only voice he has ever listened to for advice has been Samuel because Samuel heard from God. So he goes to the only other voice he knows can give answers - the witch of Endor.

While Samuel was alive, he and Saul had commanded that all the witches be destroyed. Saul had tried to cleanse the land and people, and live holy while Samuel was encouraging him. Then when Samuel died, the thing Samuel and Saul had worked so hard to get rid of was the very thing Saul sought. We can clean up our houses and teach our kids to stay away from all kinds of sin, but unless we teach them to hear God’s voice for themselves, once we are gone, they will seek out the very things we worked so hard to remove.

 So Saul, with the help of some servants, finds the witch of Endor. He asks her to call up Samuel, which gets interesting. Some people believe Samuel did talk to Saul, but others believe it was a demon taking the form of Samuel, because the Bible says in 1 Samuel 28:14 that “Saul perceived that it was Samuel.” The spirit also told Saul that Saul and his sons would die the next day and be with him (the spirit).

I don’t want to mess up your theology if you don’t go with the spirit in 1 Samuel 28 being demonic, but I want to bring out the point that there are a lot of voices in the world that claim to be religious, claim to have the word of God, but are not of God. They are there to deceive us, and will not help us in our time of need. The spirit that Saul saw was correct, because Saul and his sons did die in battle the next day. Not only Saul, but also his children, died because Saul failed to hear God’s voice for himself. They met with a terrible end.

 But look at David! He hasn’t met with a terrible end. In Psalm 23 he writes, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” In Psalm 142:3 he writes, “When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path.” Look at the difference between David and Saul! Saul and his sons died, but look at David’s sons. His family became a long line of kings that eventually led to the King of Kings, Jesus. He has been referred to as the Son of David.

Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” When we learn to hear God’s voice and follow it, He has a good end in mind for us! He has good plans, better than we ever could have accomplished on our own!

 Looking at the lives of Saul and David, you can see how vital it is to hear God’s voice. It not only affects you, but it affects your children and grandchildren. Pray that God will teach you to hear His voice, no matter what it takes. Also ask Him to allow you to teach others to hear His voice for themselves, and He can change this generation.

Touch Not God's Anointed

In the last blog, we saw how Saul lost his anointing and his kingdom because he didn’t hear God’s voice for himself. At the same time, David is also anointed king. Look at the difference even right after he’s anointed. Samuel leaves him in the field alone, and David has little choice but to hear God’s voice for himself. Sometimes God has to let us go through things alone so we'll learn to hear His voice, and sometimes God anoints us for tasks so big that He has to be sure we can hear His voice, because the task is too important not to.

What I find interesting is that Samuel has now anointed two kings, who are both still alive, but only one can be on the throne. David has been anointed king, but he's sitting in the field watching sheep. It would have been easy to get frustrated and try to figure out how to fight his way to be king. But David knew that God will work out His will in His time, and we don't have to try to figure it out for Him.

Later on, David is on the run from Saul. David and his men are in a cave when Saul comes in. Saul lays down and goes to sleep right in front of them, unguarded. If I were David, I probably would have taken it as divine providence. "God has anointed me as king, and given me the perfect opportunity to kill this king and become king! This must be God's will." But David doesn't do that. His men even think he should, but David says not to touch God's anointed. Wow! Think about how many church splits would have been prevented if people had read this verse and understood it.

Maybe God has put a great anointing on you (David was anointed, too). Maybe the leadership in place right now is out of the will of God (Saul was, too). Maybe you even have a chance to undermine that authority, and others are willing to follow you (David had this opportunity). But wait on God! If God has called you, He will place you. Be careful not to touch God's anointed! Respect authority, and God will promote you.

Hearing the Voice, Part 1

Scripture References: 1 Samuel 3:2-4, 7-10

How do we hear the voice of God? Is it audible, or something we sense in our spirit? How do we learn to hear God's voice?
We see Samuel had learned to hear the voice of God as a little boy. Eli, the priest, had helped Samuel recognize God's voice. Samuel eventually learned to hear God's voice on his own, and God then raised Samuel up as a prophet to lead the nation of Israel. Things are going good; the people are following a man of God who can hear God's voice, and everything seems to be on the right track.
Then all of a sudden the people decide they want a king...

God hadn't raised up a king yet, but the people asked for a king so much that finally God told Samuel to anoint a king. So he goes and anoints Saul. Wouldn't it be a terrible thing to pray against God's will for so long that He finally gives you what you want because you weren't willing to wait?

So Saul has now been anointed king, but right away we see problems. Samuel tells Saul to wait for him in a certain place so they can offer sacrifices, but Saul gets restless and goes ahead and makes his sacrifice. Then Samuel tells Saul to kill all of the Amalekites, but Saul spares the king and the animals. I see two things: 1) Saul keeps disobeying, and 2) Samuel is constantly giving Saul directions.

We read in 1 Samuel 10:1, 5-8 how Samuel tells Saul to go to a particular place, and there would be prophets coming down a hill. Saul is supposed to meet with them, and then God's spirit will come upon him. Then after that, he is supposed to go to a particular place for Samuel until Samuel can give him more instructions. Wow, so many instructions!

Saul goes and he does meet the prophets like Samuel says. Then God's spirit comes upon Saul, and he prophesies! The people even ask whether Saul should be counted among the prophets. Saul is a mighty man of God, but yet he is still getting instructions from Samuel. He hasn't learned to hear God's voice for himself. It is easy to follow God's call and have a close walk as long as you have people walking right along side you and encouraging you, but there are times you will have to walk alone and must learn to hear God's voice for yourself.

Another note is that when we take God's instructions from other people, we'll eventually get frustrated. People are going to make mistakes and have bad days and sometimes even misunderstand God's will. If we rely on people to hear from God, we'll be frustrated. But what a great thing it is to hear from God, who is never late, doesn't make mistakes, and whom you can always depend on!

Because Saul was listening to a man instead of hearing God's voice for himself, he got frustrated and disobeyed and lost the kingdom. We must learn to hear God's voice for ourselves if we want to keep our ministry and do big things for God!

An Important Meeting

There was a professor at my college who valued his time very much. Students were required to make appointments up to two or three weeks in advance to see him for 15 minutes. I met with him a few times, and it always felt like a privilege to be able to talk with him. I planned my meetings in advance so I could make the best use of my time and not forget anything I wanted to ask him (it didn't always work, but I tried). When I did meet with him, though, it was special.

In the Old Testament, the high priest could only go into the Holy of Holies one time per year, once a year to experience God's presence in a more intimate way. Only the high priest could even enter the Holy of Holies. One man, one day a year.
Fortunately for us, on the day Jesus died, the curtain in front of the Holy of Holies was ripped in two, and we can enter God's presence with unrestricted access. We can enter into God's presence any time. He has an open-door policy, so to speak.

If we were allowed an hour, or even 10 minutes, with our favorite celebrity, we would be enthralled, and there would be almost a sense of reverence in their presence. Wouldn't it be awesome if we could get that same attitude about prayer? How amazing is it that we can talk to someone so much more important than anyone on this earth, and receive His undivided attention? We can know that He hears us when we talk to Him, and that He answers!

When we kneel down to pray, could we say, "God, I am so thankful that you have given me the opportunity to talk with you. You take care of the whole world, but yet you're giving me your undivided attention. I don't want to waste your time with vain repetitions, but I just want to say thank you for what you've done for me today. Thank you that I can live free from sin because You gave Your Son for me. I didn't deserve it, and still don't, but you saved me and you listen when I pray."
Don't make prayer an obligation, make it a priority!

Is "I Love You" Enough?

One of my favorite worship songs came on the radio this afternoon, and I began to thank and praise God for how beautiful the day was, and just for how awesome God is. Then I began to really think about praise. God loves it when we tell Him how awesome He is, how much we love Him. The Bible says He delights in our praises. But is that all there is to it?

Imagine a girl having a boyfriend who told her all the time that he loved her and how special she was. That would be nice, but what if he never bought her flowers, rarely took her out on a date, and acted like he didn’t want to talk to her? Would she believe then that he really loved her, or would the phrase seem empty?

I believe that so often we end up doing this to God. We tell Him how much we love Him, and how amazing He is, but we fail to live out our praise. We tell Him, “I love you,” but has it become an empty phrase we say to make it seem like we still have a good relationship with Him?

Can we really say we love God when we don’t keep His commandments?

Can we really praise God with our lips when we aren’t living a life of praise?

True praise comes from living a life of praise to God. God loves praise. He loves the adoration we give Him when we say how much we love Him, but what makes Him even happier is when we have the lifestyle to back it up. His desire is that when we say we love Him, we should also show Him that we love Him.

The next time you begin to praise God when your favorite worship song comes on the radio, or when you’re having a great day, or when you’re in church, ask yourself, “Is my life also giving praise to God?” If it’s not, your praise is empty. Don’t let your praise be empty.

John 3:16 says that God loved the world so much that He demonstrated His love by giving His only Son to die for us, His only Son that He loved. He’s already shown us how deep His love is for us, that He gave what was most precious to Him. How are we demonstrating our love for Him?

The Sure Cure

The Pharisees were happy! After many days of closely watching Him and analyzing all His moves, they finally caught Jesus! Oh, He was in for it now. They caught Him eating with publicans and sinners! And He claimed to be the Son of God….

I love how Jesus handled the situation. The Pharisees had learned it didn’t do any good to approach Him with accusations, so they approached His disciples. They asked why Jesus was eating with publicans and sinners. Before the disciples could answer, however, Jesus overheard them. He gave probably one of the most simple yet most profound statements in the Bible, saying “They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

It seems so simple that a healthy person wouldn’t need a doctor, but it seems that so often this is what we try to do with Christianity. Think about what would happen if a doctor refused to see patients who were sick because he was afraid he would catch what they had. The doctor wouldn’t be able to see or touch any patients because he might get sick as well. The doctor wouldn’t be doing his job, and nobody would be getting better. But isn’t this what we often do as a church? We accept people who are well, but if someone really deep in sin came to us, would we be so afraid of contamination that we would refuse to help them?

Think about the huge responsibility doctors have. If they refused to care for a patient, they wouldn’t be doing their jobs and perhaps even get sued. Yet how much greater of a responsibility do we have as Christians to reach out to the lost? We’re not dealing with bodies. We’re dealing with souls. Our responsibility as Christians should be even greater than a doctor feels his responsibility.

How horrible would it be if you had the only cure for an incurable disease and you kept it to yourself? People would be dying, but you could help stop it. The reality is that souls out there really are dying, and we have the cure. Many people in the world claim to have found another cure, but Jesus is the only cure that can save souls. Let’s take this cure to a lost and dying world.

The More I Seek

Wednesday night I accidentally dropped my phone in the parking lot and didn’t realize it was gone. I went back over every place I had been and searched with a fine-toothed comb, but it was to no avail. I had nearly given up hope, but this morning someone turned my phone in to security (thank you!).

During the time I was searching, however, I felt like God was trying to show me something, but I wasn't getting it. This morning when I woke up, I had a song stuck in my head. I found the song on Youtube, and began to listen to the words. The first line says, “The more I seek you, the more I find you.” As I began to hear the words to that song, I began to think about how it tied in with losing my phone.

No matter how much I looked for my phone, I wasn’t able to find it. I wasn’t looking in the right spot, so no matter how much effort I put up, or how much I tried looking for it, I wasn’t going to find it. But thankfully God isn’t like that! The Bible says in James 4:8 that if we draw closer to God, He will draw closer to us. In fact, He wants us to seek and find Him!

I thought about giving up in looking for my phone because I had no guarantee that I would find it, no matter how hard I looked for it. But the Bible says in Matthew 7:7-8, “Seek and ye shall find.” If you knew that if you looked hard enough for something you wanted that you would find it, would you stop looking after five minutes? Would you give up so easily, saying it wasn’t worth it? Why then do we seek God’s presence only to give up after a short time of prayer? Why do we stop seeking revival after one dry service?

I spent hours looking for my phone. Why? Because I felt like I had to have it. It was important to me. I dropped everything I was doing to try to find my phone, even calling my friends to have them help me look. How much more important should God’s presence be to us? To where we can’t be satisfied if we don’t have it with us constantly?

Let us not be satisfied with just a mediocre experience, with just a five-minute prayer life. Let us not be satisfied with just a routine search every week, going through the motions of church, but never really finding God’s presence.

Let us not be satisfied to stop seeking for revival until every part of our inward man shouts renewed, and our outward man lives it. Let us get so hungry for God’s presence that we have to stop everything we are doing in order to find it.

Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:

Isaiah 55:6

Let's Clean House!

So just a really simple thought tonight.

I’ve been so busy with homework this week that I’ve let my room go. Last week we had a lot of snow days, and I let it go then, too, so I could hang out with friends. Every day, I think it has gotten increasingly worse, and tonight, even though I have a lot of homework I could and probably should be doing, I’m cleaning my room. It has gotten to the point to where I can’t stand it being so messy, and no matter what I have to put on the back burner, I’m cleaning my room.

And so it is with our relationship with God. Sometimes we get so busy having fun and being with friends that we just put our relationship with Him on the back burner. Maybe we push our Bibles to the side. Maybe we even let ourselves slip and do things we know better than to do. Then so often we give the excuse of being busy, even putting things we claim to be doing for God before God, instead of putting God first.

I was trying to justify not cleaning my room because I have so much homework and don’t feel like cleaning. How many times do we justify not reading the Bible or praying because we feel overloaded or just not in the mood? Sometimes we just have to drop everything and clean house.

There are times that no matter what we have to put aside, we should say, “God, I’m going to make time for you. I’m not going to allow interruptions. This is me and You time, and I need your help to clean up this house.” Don’t forget that when you invited Jesus into your heart, you invited Him to live there; wouldn’t it be terrible if He couldn’t live there any more because it was too messy?

Time for a house cleaning!

From Prison to Praise

Paul and Silas had been thrown into prison after casting out the demons in a woman known to be a fortune-teller. The men she was working for were angry, because now they couldn’t make money from her. They immediately had Paul and Silas thrown into prison after being stripped and beaten in front of the town.

Imagine doing what God asked you to do, and then being beaten, humiliated, and thrown into jail. They had probably planned to preach to the town, but they find themselves beaten and bleeding in jail at night, their plans put on hold. The same people they had planned to win to Christ had just thrown them into prison after publicly ridiculing them. It would have been so easy to give up and have a self-righteous attitude. They could have prayed, “God, we were doing your will, just like you asked, and now you let this happen?”

How often do we find ourselves in the same situation, feeling like we’ve done God’s will and it somehow didn’t end up like we expected? Maybe you went to a part-time position to dedicate yourself more to the ministry and find yourself struggling financially. Maybe you are a pastor who preached what God told you to preach, but you’re getting verbally crucified by congregation members. Maybe you’ve simply been faithful in your walk with God, but can’t understand why you are going through so many trials.

Paul and Silas were in a similar situation. They didn’t even know if they had hope in their situation. In prison after being beaten, their death sentences could have been the next day. Instead of fretting and complaining, though, we find Paul looking over at Silas and maybe saying, “Silas, how did that song go that we sang in the temple the other day?”

And in prison in their darkest hour, they started singing and praising God.

All of a sudden they heard a rumble, and the ground began to quiver. Then it began to shake violently, and all the doors in the prison were opened! You’ve probably read the story, that Paul and Silas were then able to lead the prison guard to Christ, and they were freed. Why did this happen? Because they praised God even in their trial! When we can praise God in our darkest trials even when we don’t understand why, that is when God will come on the scene and open the doors to our prison! Prison doors can't contain our praises to God!

Be encouraged that God not only knows where you are, but that He knew you would be there before you did. He has not forgotten you, and He has a greater plan than you could imagine. Trust Him that He is working His plan out, and never cease to praise Him!

Points to ponder:

• If Paul and Silas had not gone to prison, would they have still been able to lead the prison guard to Christ? Sometimes we have to go places we don’t like, not because of something we’ve done, but perhaps because our being there is the only way someone can be reached for Christ.
• When Paul and Silas praised and their prison doors opened, the other prison doors were opened as well. When we praise God despite our trials and are set free, we are not the only ones affected. How many other people can be blessed and set free by our victory and testimony?
• Toward the end of the chapter where this story is found, the Bible says these are the men who turned the world upside down. Battles must be won in the prison before the world can be turned upside down.