NOTES ON THE ERA OF THE SCOFFER: YESHUA’S FINAL SIFTING OF LIGHT FROM DARKNESS IN THE LAST DAYS Part III
PART III: “THE MIGHTY THRESHING FLOOR OF GOD”
SCRIPTURE: “When you enter the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to imitate the detestable (repulsive) practices of those nations.” – DEUTERONOMY 18:9, AMP
QUOTATIONS
“The line separating Good and Evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart … even within hearts overwhelmed by Evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains … an uprooted small corner of Evil.” – ALEKSANDR SZHOLTZENITSN, ‘The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation,’ 1973; edited
“A truly good person will speak truth, act with truth, and stand for Truth. A truly good person is not afraid to think from their heart; therefore, allowing nonconformist decisions, viewpoints, and perspectives to lead their life. By following their heart, they stand with their conscience, and only with God.” – SUZY KASSEM, ‘Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem,’ 2011; edited
“There are so many ways to be Brave in this world. Sometimes bravery involves laying down your life for something bigger than yourself, or for someone else. Sometimes it involves giving up everything you have ever known, or everyone you have ever loved, for the sake of something greater. But sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it is nothing more than gritting your teeth through pain, and the work of every day, the slow walk toward a better life.” – VERONICA ROTH, ‘Allegiant,’ 2013; edited
Selah.
- FIRST THOUGHTS
I have come to the opinion that almost all of life is a Grand Test. Especially for the larger events that cross our paths, and all the more so for those who try to live their lives honorably, for God.
As illustration of this Thesis, I propose:
In this regard, I believe firmly that Donald Trump, and all that he represents, says, does and embodies, was sent to America and the Church as a Divine Litmus Test, a Final Exam if you will, to reveal to each of us who we truly are, and whether or not we know the real differences between Good and Evil.
And even though He made it easy for us – America and the Church have failed, and failed catastrophically.
WHAT’S WRONG WITH US? That is surely The Question that we have all been confronting in recent days, especially since the Bloody Insurrection of January 6. I mean, what in God’s Economy is going on inside the American Soul?
Some years ago I read a provocative book by a conservative Democrat, DR. JOHN SILBER, at one time the irascible, outspoken, Texas-bred and quite unlikely President of Boston University: ‘Straight Shooting: What’s Wrong With America and How to Fix It’ (1989).
Here is a Brief Summary of Silber’s thinking, sounding very much like a modern Founding Father.
“Silber posits that ‘On many moral and social issues we can observe Laws of Natural Sequence as predictable and as certain as any to be found in the natural sciences.’ In other words, we are all bound by the reality of Moral cause and effect, just as we are bound by gravity. What a man sows, he will also reap. Obey and be blessed; or assert your ‘Autonomy’ and deal with the predictable consequences. Effective education must clearly illustrate ‘the essential role of Virtue in the attainment of Happiness,’ as well as the stark truth that ‘the degenerate society consumed in pleasure-seeking will not survive.’ The wages of sin is death.” – IVAN SQUALL, ‘The Forerunner,’ April 3, 2008; edited
In my research for this piece, I came across various Lists of the more secular diagnoses of what ails America. Here are a few items, for comparative purposes. Adapted from: ‘EDITORS, ‘The Top Ten’s,’ retrieved January 14, 2021; edited
- Racism
- Donald Trump
- Violence
- National Hubris
- Lack of Respect
- Anti-Government Movements
- High Taxes
- R&B, Hip Hop & Rap
- Troubled Youth
- 2016 Presidential Candidates
PARTIAL TRUTHS. Each of these reasonable observations present some truth, but they miss that all important, ‘First Cause’ Principle. To that crucial point, I quote mathematician DR. THOMAS STARK at some length to drive the point home.
“The Ultimate Cause of matter must be immaterial. The Ultimate Cause of entropy must be free of entropy. The Ultimate Cause of time must be outside time. The Ultimate Cause of space must be outside space. The Ultimate Cause of temperature must be without temperature. The Ultimate Cause of physical motion must be without physical motion. Why? Because everything on the left belongs to the temporal and contingent while everything on the right belongs to the Eternal and Necessary. Only the latter can explain the former. The former cannot explain themselves. The latter belong to the Order of Eternal Truths.” – ‘God Is Mathematics: The Proofs of the Eternal Existence of Mathematics,’ 2018; edited
Oh, how I love that! To my Fundamental Argument mounted by the good Drs. Silber and Stark: America and the Church have forgotten their ‘First Cause.’ Until they remember that loss, they cannot possibly bring Repair to our broken Republic.
- A DIVINE AWAKENING
When most of us think of America’s First and Second Great Awakenings, we usually envision a grand descent of the Spirit of God on the crowds, swooning to the powerful presence among them, falling to their knees by the clusters.
While there is some truth in this somewhat romanticized version of that Event, the finer truth is that prior to the First Great Awakening, the Colonies in the 1700s had begun to grow doctrinally ‘Loose’ and increasingly Profligate, as we used to say it. Though not nearly as debauched as America is today, these conditions inspired a young preacher to set the First Spark to the Spiritual Bonfire that would soon follow.
JONATHAN EDWARDS. inarguably the Father of the First Great Awakening, Edwards preached the Sermon of the Ages for his time, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” on July 8, 1741, at his own church in Enfield, Connecticut.
Here is how the Sermon began.
“‘Their foot shall slide in due time (Deut. xxxii. 35).’ In this verse is threatened the Vengeance of God on the wicked unbelieving Israelites, who were God’s visible people, and who lived under the means of Grace; but who, notwithstanding all God’s wonderful works towards them, remained (as ver. 28.) void of counsel, having no understanding in them. Under all the cultivations of Heaven, they brought forth bitter and poisonous fruit; as in the two verses next preceding the text. The expression I have chosen for my text, ‘Their foot shall slide in due time,’ seems to imply the following doings, relating to the punishment and destruction to which these wicked Israelites were exposed.”
And this is how he ended it.
“This acceptable year of the Lord, a day of such great Favours to some, will doubtless be a day of as remarkable Vengeance to others. Men’s hearts harden, and their guilt increases apace at such a day as this, if they neglect their souls; and never was there so great danger of such persons being given up to hardness of heart and blindness of mind. God seems now to be hastily gathering in His Elect in all parts of the land; and probably the greater part of adult persons that ever shall be saved, will be brought in now in a little time, and that it will be as it was on the great out-pouring of the Spirit upon the Jews in the apostles’ days; the election will obtain, and the rest will be blinded. If this should be the case with you, you will eternally curse this day, and will curse the day that ever you was born, to see such a season of the pouring out of God’s Spirit, and will wish that you had died and gone to Hell before you had seen it. Now undoubtedly it is, as it was in the days of John the Baptist, the Axe is in an extraordinary manner laid at the root of the trees, that every tree which brings not forth good fruit, may be hewn down and cast into the Fire.”
WHY GOD SHOUTS. And you think I’ve been tough on you. Please understand my Purpose is the same as Mr. Edwards’: To send out such an Alarm that it would ‘Awaken’ the many who were at Slumber – as with America and her Church today, only vastly, vastly worse.
Here then is the Apostle Paul’s shout.
“Therefore, He says, ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine (make day dawn) upon you and give you light. Look carefully then how you walk! Live purposefully and worthily and accurately, not as the unwise and witless, but as wise (sensible, intelligent people), making the very most of the time [buying up each opportunity], because the days are evil.’” – EPHESIANS 5:14-16, AMPC
Do I think America is going to resound to God’s Shouts, and turn 180 degrees and Repent ‘en masse,’ and storm Heaven’s Gates? No, no. But I do believe that many will in fact Amend their hearts and ways, and Return to that Eternal Rock from whence they were first hewn. – cf. Isaiah 51:1
First Things first then, beloved, always and forever.
- THE TEACHING
“When you enter the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to imitate the detestable (repulsive) practices of those nations.” – DEUTERONOMY 18:9, AMP
ON BEING DIFFERENT. When I was a kid growing up in San Bernardino, as a ‘half breed’ (one of the labels occasionally given me) of Hispanic, Jewish and Scottish ancestry, living in a modest neighborhood, I so, so wanted to be like ‘Them.’
I’ll let you figure out the ‘Them’ are on your own. It ain’t rocket science.
Even after becoming a Christian in 1979, I longed for the things I thought would be necessary to define real Success in America: Great job with a respected title; big house in the right neighborhood; the correct clothing and hair style; and oh yes, the proper car to drive.
Now in fairness, there were some underlying issues beneath this need for validation from the ‘Them,’ that I won’t detail here, not yet at least. The point is, I approaching American life, even Christian life, as an ‘Imitator of the Culture’ in so very many ways.
THE MOSAIC PRINCIPLE. Simply stated: ‘Do NOT imitate that which is detestable in the sight of God.’
We every one of us grow up by mimicking or imitating those who we consciously or unconsciously learn to “Imitate,” as Role Models. TWO IDEAS issue from this Learning Principle that bear close scrutiny.
- IMITATE RIGHTEOUSNESS. “To follow in manners; to copy in form, color or quality. We ‘imitate’ another in dress or manners; we ‘imitate’ a statue, a painting, a sound, an action, when we make or do that which resembles it. We should seek the best models to ‘imitate’ and in Morals and Piety, it is our duty to ‘imitate’ the Example of our Savior. But as we cannot always make an exact similitude of the original, hence, to attempt or endeavor to copy or resemble; to counterfeit.” – NOAH WEBSTER, 1828; edited
- AVOID ABOMINATION. Here we are to labor, I say, labor to RESIST the Temptation to do that which we ‘want’ to do, but must not; and it is a titanic struggle, even for the righteous (cf. Paul, Romans 7:24). From the Hebrew, ‘Toebah’ [תּוֹעֵבַה]: “Detestable act or thing; that which is loathsome [in the sight of God]; something that is morally disgusting, belonging to the worship of idols; also sexual perversion, human sacrifice, dishonest business practices, engaging in cultic practices.” IN SUM: ‘Imitating or bonding with evil people or actions that are destructive to one’s witness, one’s family, or one’s nation. Selah.
CHOOSE WELL. The Idea here is found in God’s strongest of admonitions to prudently and fearfully Select our teachers, our pastors, our friends, and our business associates. PAUL was inordinately clear on this:
“Do not be so deceived and misled! Evil companionships (communion, associations) corrupt and deprave good manners and morals and character.” – 1 CORINTHIANS 15:33
We have all heard it said to us many times growing up in Christ: We are most certainly to be ‘In’ that fallen world, but never allow ourselves to become ‘Of’ that fallen world. Which, tragically, is clearly the case with the American Church today. – cf. John 17:15-19
- THE CORE TEMPTATION
It is hard to ‘Become ourselves’ in light of this powerful process of Social Imprinting that we engage from birth, artifactually ‘Teaching us to become accepted’ by a certain Group. We are thus caught in the usually quiet, yet powerful tide of what JAMES MADISON called, “The Tyranny of the Majority.”
“In the Federal Republic of the United States … all authority in it will be derived from and dependent on the society, the society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the Minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the Majority … It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard against the oppression of its Rulers, but to guard one part of society against injustice of the Other.” – ‘Federalist 51,’ 1788; edited
All the more so then, does Jesus command us in this Dark Time, to ‘Be Different!’ As in, ‘Be like Him,’ beloved, rather than a member to DAVID REISMAN’S anomic, identity-less ‘Lonely Crowd’ (1950), most of whom ‘Knew not Joseph,’ nor even themselves.
And tragically, even for those who do know him, we have discovered that they too believe and act like, the ‘Them.’
THE CALL. Again, to be perfectly clear and even severe, God commands the following, and nothing less. Quoted at length to give you the full measure of God’s fervency on this grave matter of the American Church’s unholy alliance with President Trump.
“Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers [do not make mismated alliances with them or come under a different yoke with them, inconsistent with your faith]. For what partnership have right living and right standing with God with iniquity and lawlessness? Or how can light have fellowship with darkness? What harmony can there be between Christ and Belial [the devil]? Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? What agreement [can there be between] a temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God; even as God said, I will dwell in and with and among them and will walk in and with and among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
So, come out from among [unbelievers], and separate (sever) yourselves from them, says the Lord, and touch not [any] unclean thing; then I will receive you kindly and treat you with favor, and I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” – 2 CORINTHIANS 6:14-18, AMPC
I ask you now, beloved, and all you Pastors and Leaders: Can there by any shred of a Question left among you who read and grasp this incandescent Command? But just in case there may be, consider this last Sacred Nail driven deep into such Delusion.
- COME OUT! From the Greek, ‘Exerchomai’ [ἐξέρχομαι]: “To depart [with haste]; to escape; to get out, proceed forth, or issue out of; to act vehemently or heartily.” MATTHEW HENRY: “It is wrong for believers to join with the wicked and profane. The word unbeliever applies to all destitute of true faith. True Pastors will caution their beloved children in the Gospel, not to be unequally yoked [or allied with unbelievers].”
- BE SEPARATE! From the Greek term, ‘Aphorizó’ [ἀφορίζω], or: “To mark off by [firm] boundaries; to set apart or rail off; to remove from a previous condition; to completely exclude from the disreputable [abominable, contemptible, despicable, deplorable]; separated for the Gospel.” ALBERT BARNES: “‘And touch not the unclean thing’ – In Isaiah, ‘touch no unclean thing;’ that is, they were to be pure, and to have no connection with Idolatry in any of its forms. So Christians were to avoid all unholy contact with a vain and polluted world. The sense is, ‘Have no close connection with an idolater, or an unholy person.”
THE TRUMP RIOTS. To this fiery point, in the words of BEN SASSE, the Republican Junior United States Senator from Nebraska.
“The American people have been lied to, chiefly by Donald Trump, and lies have consequences. And those consequences are now found in [six] dead Americans and a Capitol building that’s in shambles. Legislators should not be aiding and abetting those kinds of lies. The president has disregarded his oath of office. He swore an oath to the American people to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. He acted against that. What he did was wicked.” – GRANT SCHULTE, Associated Press, in ‘sfgate.com,’ January 8, 2021; edited
Note: It was The Church that placed this man in power, supported him blindly for four years, and it is still The Church that defends him even now, even now.
- GOD’S THRESHING FLOOR
Enter stage right, God’s mighty Threshing Floor. The Prophets and Apostles speak here with a Single Voice.
“Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as the dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root shall be like rottenness and their blossom shall go up like fine dust—because they have rejected and cast away the law and the teaching of the Lord of hosts and have not believed but have treated scornfully and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel …
[For] His winnowing fan (shovel, fork) is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear out and clean His threshing floor and gather and store His wheat in His barn, but the chaff He will burn up with fire that cannot be put out.” – ISAIAH 5:24; MATTHEW 3:12, AMPC
Deep breath right about here. Deep.
WHAT IS GOD DOING? I have intentionally saved the very ‘Best,’ however difficult it may seem, for the very Last. More to the point, the ‘Last Thing’ that Jesus the Messiah will do in His Church, just prior to His Catastrophic Return.
Consider one eloquent Summary of this ‘Divine Sifting’ that is going on right now, even as I write these words in January 2021.
“Observe here, the outward Church is Christ’s Floor (Isaiah 21:10). True Believers are as ‘Wheat,’ substantial, useful, and valuable; Hypocrites are as ‘Chaff,’ light and empty, useless and worthless, carried about with every wind; these are mixed, good and bad, in the same outward communion. There is a Day coming when the wheat and chaff shall be SEPARATED. The Last Judgment will be the Distinguishing Day, when saints and sinners shall be Parted Forever. In Heaven the saints are brought together, and no longer scattered; they are safe, and no longer exposed; separated from corrupt neighbours without, and corrupt affections within, and there is no chaff among them. Hell is the unquenchable fire, which will certainly be the portion and punishment of hypocrites and unbelievers. Here life and death, good and evil, are set before us: According as we NOW are in the field, we shall be then in the Floor.”- MATTHEW HENRY, ‘Exposition of the Old and New Testaments,’ 6 vols., 1708-1710; edited, emphasis my own
“According as we NOW are in the field, we shall be THEN in the Floor.”
TRANSLATION. How we are Presently dealing with Today’s American Crisis, caught up in this wretched admixture of a Timid Church and deeply Corrupted State, is quite literally Determining our Eternal Destiny, beloved.
Nothing less, beloved. Or as PAUL writes of it:
“So then, my dear ones, just as you have always obeyed [my instructions with enthusiasm], not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation [that is, cultivate it, bring it to full effect, actively pursue spiritual maturity] with awe-inspired fear and trembling [using serious caution and critical self-evaluation to avoid anything that might offend God or discredit the name of Christ].” – PHILIPPIANS 2:12, AMP
I love the way the English ‘Nonconformist’ (i.e., Reformer, Puritan) MATTHEW POOLE puts this in elegant perspective, the Old-World language style notwithstanding it.
“‘With fear and trembling;’ i.e. with a Holy Care to do all acceptably: he doth by these two words mean not any servile fear and slavish despondency, arising from doubting (Philippians 4:4), but only a serious, filial fear, implying a deep humility and submissiveness of mind, with a reverential awe of the Divine Majesty, and a solicitude to avoid that Evil which is offensive to Him and separates from Him.” – ‘Annotations on the Holy Bible,’ 1685; edited
Selah, beloved. Selah once again.
- LAST THOUGHTS
Miracle off miracles, this will prove to be the shortest Lesson I have ever constructed (but only by 500 words or so), yet it may well be my most important one. The ‘Best for Last’ sort of thing again, not unlike Yeshua ben David at the Wedding of Cana.
“And said to him, Everyone else serves his best wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then he serves that which is not so good; but you have kept back the good wine until now!” – JOHN 2:10, AMPC
The Lost Point: These ‘Last Days’ are become in many hidden ways, ‘God’s Best Hour,’ since all of it points directly to our BLESSED HOPE: The Return of the true King to govern us forever.
WILLIAM MACDONALD COMMENTS. “There is a spiritual meaning in this for us. The world commonly offers people the best it has to offer at the Outset. It holds out its most attractive offers to young people. Then when they have wasted their lives in empty pleasure, the world has nothing but dregs for a person’s old age. The Christian life is the very opposite. It gets better al the time. Christ keeps the best wine until ‘The Last.’ The feast follows the fast.” – ‘Believer’s Bible Commentary,’ 1995, p. 1475; edited
Caveat: “No Easy Button.” This phrase is taken from a courageous book I am just finishing, ‘The Immoral Majority,’ by BEN HOWE. The reason I raise it here is that I believe that American Christians are largely spoiled, childish and as a result, grossly absent of the character and courage needed for the Hard Choices ahead.
THE EVIDENCE. The Deafening Silence streaming from Church Leaders in the aftermath of the January 6 Horror proves that to me in prima facie fashion.
The thing that Howe identifies as the Cause of this reprehensible condition is what he labels, SELF INTEREST.
“The common theme here among Christians and their leaders is their lack of faith in the Goals of God, favoring instead their personal goals … From Oxford’s online dictionary, ‘One’s personal interest or advantage, ‘especially when pursued without regard for others’ … To put it in a more popular context, ‘The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men.’ It’s hard. Not easy. And sometimes it’s not obvious. In the matter at hand, it is also unpopular among one’s peers.
But God didn’t promise Easy, did He?” – 2019, pp. 209-210, 212; edited
No, beloved, He didn’t. But for two generations or more, we’ve been persuaded by the Faith Movement hucksters, innumerable sleight of hand Prosperity soothsayers, timid ‘Seeker Friendly’ pastors, American Gospeler’s and sacrilegious, social psychology shamans that “God just loves you, brother, He adores you, sister, and there is nothing He won’t do to make you happy.’
THE RECKONING. In Divine, and what may be best described as Furious Retribution, the Almighty is for all intents and purposes Done with America’s staggering, shameless Profligacy and Spiritual Adultery. I mean, Done.
In effect, I am convinced that the Lord has already begun His Judgments of America and Church leaders. Need I name them? WEBSTER (1828) again helps us to understand this Divine Assessment, if you will:
“A statement of accounts with another; a statement and comparison of accounts mutually for adjustment; as in the Proverb, ‘Short reckonings make long friends.’”
BOTTOM LINE CHRISTIANITY. So do I leave you with another Rumination from Moses, as God begins to ring Final Bells and blow Final Shofars, before He Comes for us, beloved.
“When you come into the land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of these nations … And whoever will not hearken to My words which he shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him.” – DEUTERONOMY 18:9, 19, AMPC
Require WHAT, dear friends? What does God mean by this admittedly ominous warning?
- REQUIRE. From the Hebrew, ‘Darash’ [דָּרַשׁ]: “To resort to seek; to investigate, search, study; to ask [as in an interview]; to make inquisition; to tread down [as with wheat being threshed]; to demand; to ask, as of right and by authority [expecting one to give an account].”
- OBEDIENCE. “‘And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words’ …To the Doctrines of the Gospel, but slight and despise them: Which he shall speak in My name; in whose name he came, and whose words or doctrines he declared them to be; not as his own, but his Father’s (John 5:43). I will REQUIRE it of him; or, as the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan: ‘My Word shall require it of him, or take vengeance on him;’ as Christ, the Word of God did in the destruction of the Jewish nation, city, and temple (Luke 19:27).” – JOHN GILL, ‘Exposition of the Old and New Testaments,’ 6 vols., 1746-1763; edited
Then glance down to the NEXT VERSE (20): “But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.”
Selah. Selah.
CODA. Pastors, Teachers, Priests, Rabbis, Evangelists, Elders, Prelates – I simply don’t know how else to say this: Yeshua is Coming to His House to settle accounts, starting with The Leadership. You have seen Him already begin this Final Threshing.
Are you ready? Are you truly, fully ready?
The Good News is that when in Verse 19, God says He shall “Inquire” of us, implying some Room for ‘Adjustment’ to a better course. But once He moves to Verse 20, it will be too late.
THE GATHERING. By then, His Axe will have been laid to the root of all the trees, those not bearing righteous fruit, cut down and thrown into His all-consuming Fire. But, but – All His precious wheat is faithfully ‘Gathered into the Barn.’
As the Old Testament Prophet declares to this precious Remnant:
“I will gather them that are sorrowful for the solemn assembly, who are of thee, to whom the reproach of it was a burden. Behold, at that time I will undo all that afflict thee: and I will save her that halteth, and gather her that was driven out; and I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame.” – ZEPHANAIAH 3:18-19, KJV
The Time is now, right now, FOR CHURCH LEADERS to ‘Fess up’ before the Lord your God. And, if necessary, before the entire Nation. Though it hurt for just a little while, the Grace to be shown you is beautifully captured in what I shall heretofore call, ‘THE BROWN MAXIM’:
“I am in pain, but I am not suffering.” Selah.
Ever your servant, DK
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