SPECIAL PRÉCIS ON THE POWER OF SOUND DOCTRINE IN THE DEMONIC AGE OF ANTICHRIST II: WHY TRUTH MUST LEAD! – (WITH VIDEO)  

1. THEOLOGY

SCRIPTURE. “Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.” – 1 TIMOTHY 4:16, NKJV

KEY TERM: “THE DOCTRINE.” ‘Didaskalia’ [διδασκαλίᾳ]: “From a root word meaning, ‘An instructor, doctor or master [of the Law];’ also: ‘The Teaching’ [precepts, education, training].” NOTE: “Greek word: διδασκαλία – ‘Systematic instruction, authoritative teaching or doctrine that shapes belief and conduct.’ From the Law given through Moses to the Incarnate Word and the Apostolic Witness, God has always regulated His people by Revealed Instruction. In the New Testament διδασκαλία designates: ‘That body of truth which accords with The Gospel and, by extension, any competing body of ideas that challenges it.’”

QUOTATION. “Let [Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter? Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing.” ― JOHN MILTON, Areopagitica, 1644; edited

·       NOTE: “Areopagitica” is a 1644 prose work by John Milton advocating for Freedom of the Press. It’s a powerful defense of Free Speech and an argument against Censorship, particularly the licensing system imposed by the English Parliament. Milton uses historical and philosophical arguments to contend that Censorship stifles Truth-seeking and intellectual progress. The work is considered a cornerstone of free speech philosophy and a landmark in the history of press freedom. – From an AI Overview, ret. Aug. 21, 2025; edited

COMMENTARY. “‘Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them.’—’THE TEACHING is a more accurate rendering of the original Greek word than ‘THE DOCTRINE.’

The Apostle in these words sums up the TWO CHIEF PASTORAL REQUISITES and then points out the mighty consequences which will result from faithfully carrying them out. ‘(1) The Minister of Christ must keep his attention fixed on his own demeanour and conduct; (2) And at the same time give equally careful heed to the quality and character of his teaching’. This Teaching must be true and ‘manly,’ and, above all, it must be ‘faithful’ in Doctrine; and he himself must ‘exemplify’ it in word and deed. Without true and efficient teaching, the pure and upright ‘Life of the Christian Pastor’ will fail to win souls for his Master; and, on the other hand, the most efficient instruction will be of no avail unless the life corresponds to the words publicly uttered.

‘For in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.’—‘Thou shalt save’—that is, in the Great Day of Judgment; for only one meaning, and that the highest, must be given to ‘thou shalt save.’  Eternal happiness for pastor and flock is the double reward offered to the faithful servant of the Lord. In striving to save others, the minister is really caring for his own salvation.” – CHARLES ELLICOTT, An Old and New Testament Commentary for English Readers, 1878, 1897; edited

II. TESTIMONY

As many of you know for reasons that are only now beginning to take definitive shape for me now, nearly 45 years into ‘Following the Christ,’ the Lord virtually branded me with one word as my LIFE MISSION:

‘TRUTH!’

Throughout my life even in my growing up years Before Christ, I was impacted by this Calling. Here are just a few PERSONAL ILLUSTRATIONS of this Call to Veracity.

• THE PUPPET. I could not have been more than 5 or 6 years old in the early 1950s when shopping with my Mom, I stole a 99 cent puppet and hid it under my shirt. Completely ineffectively of course. So, when we went through the checkout line, Mom gently but firmly confronted me with the theft in front of the checkout clerk. Without the details, I tearfully confessed, returned the puppet to the rack, and apologized rather profoundly. I never forgot this lesson. Not ever.

• THE BRIBE. Fast forward to the 1960s while pursuing my Master’s Degree at California State University at Long Beach. To help pay for my tuition, I was working at Disneyland West and this particular night in 1963 was taking tickets at the entrance gates. Next thing I know, this rather shady, well-dressed character with a lady on his arm slipped a $100 bill into my  hand and said, “You can let us in, right?” I was 19 years old, still wet behind the ears, and could not think (or man up) fast enough, and for the rest of the night was plagued by guilt. Called my supervisor, Joe Meck, and gave him the money and he nearly cried when he said, “Oh, Cliff, not you!” I never forgot this important second lesson. Not ever.

• THE PH.D. We are now in my late 20s in the early 1970s as I matriculated into the Bowling Green State University (Ohio) Doctoral Studies program. I had also been accepted to Purdue University’s excellent Ph.D. program in Political Communication, but due to a late letter of recommendation from a faculty member at Long Beach State, panicked and enrolled at Bowling Green. Bathed heavily in an interdisciplinary curriculum that included Social Theory, Philosophy, Social Psychology and Multivariate Statistics, I found myself diving into the research of a Jewish-Canadian psychologist named DR. SIDNEY JOURARD. I was absolutely captivated by his seminal work, The Transparent Self (1964). His Thesis: ‘Self Disclosure of the Truth leads to a healthy, fulfilling life (while Non-Disclosure leads to pathology).’ I have never forgotten the rich lessons he taught me. Not ever.

• REGENT UNIVERSITY. In 1984 I was appointed Founding Director of the University’s graduate program, the Institute of Public Affairs Journalism with little formal preparation for the position. Yet God made it clear to the then President, Dr. Richard Gottier and Dean of the School of Public Policy, Dr. Herbert Titus, that they had simultaneously heard the Lord speak my name. When Pat Robertson interviewed me in front of a large crowd at a major fundraiser in Norfolk, Virginia around 1985, he asked me what the Goal of the Institute was, I answered, clear as a bell: “To teach our young journalists to tell the Truth!” The place exploded in sustained, raucous applause and whistles. I have not forgotten this lesson either. Not ever.

• FOCUS ON THE FAMILY.  Now it is the year 2000, and I was hired as the Founding Academic Director of the Focus on the Family Leadership Institute to construct the curriculum for our honor students and teach a course in Biblical Worldview for the next five years or so. My Fundamental Presupposition for the entire worldview endeavor was summed up in a Plaque that we ended up hanging on the wall of the major classroom: “Truth and Love.” Extracted from the classic Letter to the Ephesians from the Great Apostle: “But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ” (4:15, King James Version). I have never stopped believing in and teaching this, beloved. Not ever.

• THE THIRD FIRING. After my teaching contract at Liberty University was summarily terminated by JERRY FALWELL JR. in March 2016 after a successful 10-year tenure there, God was not finished with His severe instructions to me about Truth. Two more Religious institutions would ultimately have nothing to do with me unless I bent the knee to DONALD TRUMP. One was a well-known organization that supports the State of Israel, the other a European Mission agency that I directed for a few short months in 2019. Previous to that last firing, the Chairman of the Board had twice warned me about writing against Trump, and after only four months, the Chairman and a fellow Board member came to my office late one afternoon and demanded that I clear out of my office in one hour. As I walked to my car loaded with my office materials, I looked up at the sky and asked the Lord: “Father, what was that?” His Answer, and the only time I have ever heard these words from Him in nearly 45 years: “I’m proud of you.” With tears, beloved, I have never forgotten this last important Lesson about telling the Truth. Not ever! Selah.

DIGITAL CIRCUIT RIDER. ‘Nine months later (and 70 years since my First Lesson), God raised up this present Mission and the Peloton Confessing Fellowship to SPEAK TRUTH TO  POWER.

ThoughI had not planned to include this Personal Story in this Commentary, I wanted you all to know: ‘SPEAKING TRUTH has become the Centerpiece of all that I am.’ While I may not always strike that Center, It always remains My Goal.

‘And now in the Hour of Antichrist – Speak Truth all the more!’

III. TEACHING I

Beloved, there is a massive and historic SPIRITUAL WAR taking place all around us in the United States, though most of our churches seem somewhat oblivious to it. Which I daily find, “Astonishing!”

My research had led me to identify at least TWO MAJOR ARMIES in this Epic Battle for the Truth. In what follows, I will briefly outline the contours of each one, and more than emphatically argue that we are to be found in only ONE Spiritual Force that advocates unceasingly for God’s Biblical Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth – so help us God.

THE FALSE ARMY OF GOD. There is currently in American Christianity an ostensible, self-proclaimed (rather than Divinely-ordained) “Army of God” incisively defined by a superb essay by STEPHANIE MCCRUMMEN. She is a staff writer at The Atlantic. Her professional honors include the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting, for coverage of Roy Moore’s candidacy for U.S. Senate; the George Polk Award in Political Reporting, in both 2018 and 2020; the 2020 Scripps Howard Foundation Ernie Pyle Award; and the 2016 Mayborn Institute Prize for Best American Newspaper Narrative. 

Her article is titled, “The Army of God Comes Out of the Shadows,” published by The Atlantic on January 9, 2025 (edited). Here are a few of her MAIN IDEAS.

• OPEN. “the Thursday night after Donald Trump won the presidential election, an obscure but telling celebration unfolded inside a converted barn off a highway stretching through the cornfields of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The place was called Gateway House of Prayer, and it was not exactly a church, and did not exactly fit into the paradigms of what American Christianity has typically been. Inside, there were no hymnals, no images of Jesus Christ, no Parables fixed in stained glass. Strings of lights hung from the rafters. A huge Map of the World covered one wall. On the others were: ‘Seven framed Bulletin Boards, each representing a Theater of Battle between the forces of God and Satan—Government, Business, Education, Family, Arts, Media, and Religion itself. Gateway House of Prayer, it turned out, was a kind of WAR ROOM.’”

• SHIFT. “What was happening in the barn in Lancaster County did not represent some fringe of American Christianity, but rather what much of the Faith is becoming. ‘A shift is under way, one that scholars have been tracking for years and that has become startlingly visible with the rise of Trumpism.’ At this point, tens of millions of believers—about 40 percent of American Christians, including Catholics, according to a recent Denison University survey—are embracing an alluring, Charismatic Movement that has little use for religious pluralism, individual rights, or Constitutional Democracy. It is mystical, emotional, and, in its way, wildly Utopian. It is transnational, multiracial, and unapologetically political. ‘Early leaders called it the New Apostolic Reformation, or NAR.’”

• ORIGINS. “‘How all of this came to be is a Story with many starting points, the most immediate of which is TRUMP HIMSELF.’ In the lead-up to the 2016 Election, Establishment leaders on the Christian Right were backing candidates with more pious pedigrees than Trump’s. ‘He needed a way to rally Evangelicals, so he turned to some of the most influential Apostles and Prophets of the NAR, a wilder world where he was cast as God’s “wrecking ball” and embraced by a fresh pool of so-called Prophecy Voters, people long regarded as the embarrassing riffraff of Evangelical Christianity.’ But the DNA of that moment goes back further, to the Cold War, Latin America, and an iconoclastic seminary professor named C. PETER WAGNER.”

• DOMINION. “‘Wagner [had] became captivated by a concept called Dominionism, a major Conceptual Shift that had been emerging in conservative theological circles.’ [He was to REJECT ‘THE PREVAILING VIEW’]that God’s mandate for Christians was simple Evangelism, person by person; the Kingdom would come later, after the Return of Jesus Christ, and meanwhile, the business of Politics was, as the Bible verse goes, rendered unto Caesar. ‘THE NEW WAY’ of thinking was that God was calling his people to establish the “Kingdom Now.” To put it another way, Christians had marching orders—A MANDATE for aggressive social and institutional transformation. The idea had deep roots in a movement called Christian Reconstructionism, whose serious thinkers—most prominently a Calvinist theologian named R. J. RUSHDOONY—were spending their lives working out the details of what a government grounded in Biblical Laws would look like, a ‘Model for a Christian Theocracy.’”

• TRUMPWORLD. “[These] ideas have seeped into ‘Trumpworld,’ influencing the agenda known as PROJECT 2025, as well as proposals set forth by the America First Policy Institute. A new book called ‘UNHUMANS,’ co-authored by the far-right conspiracy theorist JACK POSOBIEC and endorsed by J. D. VANCE, describes political opponents as: ‘“Unhumans’”who want to “undo Civilization itself” and who currently “run operations in Media, Government, Education, Economy, Family, Religion, and Arts and Entertainment”—[LANCE WALLNAU’S] “Seven Mountains.” The book argues that these “Unhumans” must be “CRUSHED!”’

• INSURRECTION. “In 2016, [DUTCH] SHEETS began embracing Prophecies that God was “using Trump,” telling fellow “Prophets and Apostles” that his victory would bring “new levels of demonic desperation.”’ In the aftermath of the 2020 Election, Sheets began releasing daily Prophetic Updates called ‘Give Him 15,’ casting Trump’s attempt to steal the election as a ‘Great Spiritual Battle against the Forces of Darkness [GOD!].’ In the days before The Insurrection, Sheets described ‘A DREAM’in which he was charging on horseback to the U.S. Capitol to stand for the Kingdom. Although he was not in Washington, D.C., on January 6, many of his followers were, some carrying the ‘Appeal to Heaven’s Flag’ he’d popularized. Others from Wagner’s old inner circle were there too. Wallnau streamed live from near the U.S. Capitol that day and, that night, from the Trump International Hotel. CINDY JACOBS conducted spiritual warfare just outside the Capitol as rioters were smashing their way inside, telling her followers that the Lord had given her ‘A VISION: they would break through and go all the way to the top.’ In his most recent book, The Violent Take It by Force, the scholar MATTHEW TAYLOR details the role that major NAR leaders played that day, calling them ‘The PRINCIPLE THEOLOGICAL ARCHITECTS’ of The Insurrection.’”

DK’S TAKE. So here we all are, some 7 months later and into the first half year of the TRUMP COUP D’ETAT of the American Constitutional Order, because beloved, that is precisely what it is. Perhaps with this inside intelligence from The NAR Army, you can better appreciate what the next four years will bring.

IV. TEACHING II

As we soberly ponder what has gone before, therefore, let us turn to the crucially necessary ALTERNATIVE to what has become a Spiritual and Political Juggernaut to destroy the American Order. and REPLACE IT with a Brutal Dictatorship headed by PRESIDENT DONALD JOHN TRUMP.

THE TRUE ARMY OF GOD. We therefore move from the outrageously seditious imitation of God’s Army to the one He defined in no uncertain terms by His Word. I do so with the assistance of an excellent monograph by a relative unknown Expositor of the Word, STEVE IGNELL, a physicist, biometrician, fishery scientist and administrator.

In an intriguing piece, he articulates “95 Theses for the 2025 American Church” in his personal Blog, Missing the Mark (July 4, 2025; edited). While I shall not burden you with the entire list of his Theses, he has highlighted certain ones that work instructively toward a theological definition of GOD’S ARMY.

• OPEN. “Every 500 years, the Church has undergone a Seismic Shift—a ‘PARADIGM SHIFT’ that redefined its identity and witness. I believe we’re at such a Moment again. In the ‘Spirit of Luther,’ I’m proposing a NEW SET OF 95 THESES to confront today’s Syncretized Faith with a renewed call to follow Jesus wholeheartedly and embody His likeness in a divided world.”

• FOLLOWERSHIP. “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Follow Me!’ He willed the entire life of believers to be an imitator of His Life and Teachings.”

• COMPROMISE. “When the Church chooses Power over the Ways of Christ, it becomes a ‘Compromised Church,’ undermining its moral integrity, distorting its mission, and forfeiting its Gospel witness.”

• CORRUPTION. “When the Church integrates Political Values with Christ’s Kingdom goals, it becomes a ‘Corrupted Church,’ mirroring the very systems it was sent to redeem.

• CARNALITY. “When the Church trades Christ’s Kingdom Character for Worldly Strategies, it becomes a ‘Carnal Church’ that reflects the works of the flesh rather than the Way of Christ.”

• DIVISIVENESS. “When the Church allows a Factional Perspective, it becomes a ‘Divisive Church,’ trading its ministry of Christlike Reconciliation for Tribal loyalties that foster enmity.”

• CALLOUSNESS. “When the Church prioritizes the culture war, it becomes a ‘Callous Church,’ forsaking the Compassion of Christ for the Unbiblical fruits of Ideological Combat.”

• CITIZENSHIP. “When a Church forgets where its true citizenship lies, it becomes a ‘Lost Church,’ forsaking its calling to be Salt and Light.”

• FOUNDATION. “Christians must return to the Foundational Principles of the Christian faith through an ‘Unwavering Commitment’ to follow the Life and Teachings of Jesus Christ [alone].”

• ENDURANCE. “Christians are to be taught that ‘Follow Me’ cannot be understood as a ‘One-time Verbal Confession.’”

• SELF-DENIAL. Christians are to be taught that ‘Follow Me’ starts with ‘Let him DENY HIMSELF and take up his cross.’”

• CHRIST-LIKENESS. “Christians are to be taught that ‘Follow Me’ has, as its goal, to make us progressively ‘Christ-like’ in attitudes and actions.”

WARRIORS FOR CHRIST. “A ‘Warrior for Christ’ describes a Christian believer who is dedicated to Spiritual Struggle and living out their Faith with courage and purpose. This concept involves ‘Fighting the good fight of Faith’ through prayer, using ‘Spiritual Weapons’ like the Bible and God’s power, and ‘Resisting spiritual enemies and the World’s influences.’ The term emphasizes Strength, Resilience, and a willingness to Endure Hardships to please God and serve Him.” – AI Overview, ret. Aug. 26, 2025; edited

V. LAST THOUGHTS

We have covered a lot of ground, so I will be brief. In honor of ‘The Spirit of Luther’ that Mr. Ignell so accurately summarized for us, I shall close with a little-known Declaration from the Great Reformer that remains obscure.

But not today. It is a CALL TO ACTION to all our Pastors, Warriors, foot soldiers and Commandants in God’s True Army in these Last Days.

“If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every proportion of the Truth of God except precisely that little point which the World and the Devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the Battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.” – c. 1530 AD

To This Point:

CODA Suit up, beloved, for the Great Adventure before us. Not for the faint of heart nor the sunshine soldier. No, no. This War is for God’s mighty men and women, the Spiritual Combatants who “Overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.” – REVELATION 12:11

Selah.

MEDIA

YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/5U-LSHn6RfM