“LAST THINGS III” – NOTES ON THE HISTORIC REBELLION OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH: LAST WARNINGS FROM AN ANGRY GOD – (WITH VIDEO)

1. THE TEACHING

SCRIPTURE. “‘Woe to the rebellious children,’ says the Lord, ‘who take counsel and carry out a plan, but not Mine, and who make a league and

pour out a drink offering, but not of My Spirit, thus adding sin to sin.’” – ISAIAH 30:1, AMPC

KEY TERM: “REBELLIOUS.” ‘Sarar’ [סֽוֹרְרִים֙]: “A root word meaning, ‘to be morally refractory [stubborn, unmanageable];’’ a revolter [or ‘revolutionary’], backslider, one who moves away [from the Law]; stiff necked; withdraws [from legitimate authority]; forms dark alliances; performs improper sacrifices; worships ancestors; turn their shoulders to God; also describes an immoral woman [‘harlot, adulterer’]; renouncing the authority and dominion of the government to which allegiance is due; traitorously resisting [proper] government or lawful authority.” Selah.

JEFFERSON’S FOLLY. “‘I hold it that a little Rebellion now and then is a good thing,’ and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions indeed generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest Republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. ‘It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.’” ― THOMAS JEFFERSON, “Letter to James Madison,” Jan. 30, 1787; edited

COMMENTARY. “‘Woe to the rebellious children, saith the Lord.’ – The Jews, who were, by national adoption, and by outward profession of religion, ‘the children of God, but were Apostates from Him,’ had turned their backs upon him, deviated from His Law, and departed from His worship and ordinances; and therefore ‘a Woe’ [heavy calamity] is pronounced against them, or they are called upon to consider of their evil ways, and Return, that iniquity might not be their ruin.

‘That take counsel, but not of Me.’ – They met and consulted together about their safety, when in danger, but did not ask counsel of the Lord; they did not consult His Word, nor His Prophets, nor by ‘Urim and Thummim’ [cursed or faultless] as in case of war they should more especially.

‘And that cover with a covering, but not of My Spirit.’ – They sought for a cover, a shelter, a protection from the enemy, but not from the Spirit of the Lord, in His Word and Prophets, who would have directed them to a more suitable and sufficient one. [David] Kimchi [the Jewish Rabbi, ‘RaDak’] understands this of their covert and secret counsels, which they laid deep, as they fancied, and sought to hide. The Targum of the former clause and this is, ‘that take counsel, but not of My Word; that consult a consultation, but do not ask of My Prophets.’

‘That they may add sin to sin.’ – The sins of consulting others, and of putting confidence in a creature, to their other sins of Rebellion and Apostasy: So wicked men, who are enemies in their minds, by wicked works, to God, and commit acts of hostility against Him, and are ‘in danger thereby of Eternal Ruin,’ do not consult the Word and ministers of the Gospel, but flesh and blood, carnal sense and reason, and seek to cover themselves with the rags of their own righteousness, and not with the robe of Christ’s Righteousness, and garments of Salvation, which the Spirit of God reveals and brings near; and so to their other sins they add that of trusting to their own righteousness, and not submitting to Christ’s.” – JOHN GILL, An Exposition of the Old and New Testament, 9 vols., 1746-1763; edited

THESIS ONE. In addition to my specification of the FOUR FLAWS IN THE FOUNDING (Slavery, Native American Policy, Theft of Mexico, and Freemasonry), I now add A FIFTH ELEMENT:

‘The Romanticized Love of Violent Revolution.’

Neither am I the only one who holds this admittedly controversial Biblical View of Rebellion early on deposited in our Political and Spiritual DNA. Hold on to your tricorne hats, all you conservative Christian patriots; this is very likely going to earn me even more enemies.

It was sometime in the 1980s when I had occasion to meet a brilliant Christian theologian-historian name NORMAN GIESLER. I had read some of his work that proposed that the American War of Revolution was thoroughly, indefensibly – wait for it – ‘Unbiblical.’ Told you. Here is some of his reasoning.

“‘Over the past several centuries, people have mistakenly linked Democracy and political freedom to Christianity.’ That’s why many contemporary Evangelicals believe the American Revolution was completely justified, both politically and scripturally. They follow the arguments of the Declaration of Independence, which declares that ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’’ are Divinely endowed rights.

Therefore those believers say ‘such rights’ are part of a Christian Worldview, worth attaining and defending at all cost, including Military Insurrection at times. ‘But such a position is contrary to the clear teachings and commands of Romans 13:1-7.’ So, the United States was actually born out of a violation of New Testament Principles, and any blessings God has bestowed on America have come ‘in spite of’ that Disobedience by the Founding Fathers.” – N. Geisler, cited in Brannon Howse, “Was the American Revolution Unbiblical?” Steven Camp Blogspot, Aug. 4, 2008; edited

WHO IS BRANNON HOWSE? He founded a National Homeschool Training Program in the early 2,000s (think MICHEAL FARRIS here as well), and later became a popular conservative Christian radio talk show voice for the Christian Right. Most recently (here we go again), he teamed up with Pillow Maker MIKE LINDELL to become President and Chief Operating Officer for Patriot TV, a ribald Conspiracy Theory partner to the GLENN BECK’S and DONALD TRUMP’S of the Radical Christian Right. NOTE: The Christian attorney Mr. Farris also turned Trumper in recent years!.

Likewise,Mr. Howse moved from a thoughtful critic of American History in 2008 to savagery against all those of us who believed it was the Biblical position to take the anti-Covid vaccines to protect our neighbors. Beloved, this influential Christian leader and Mr. Farris constitute Corrupted Microcosm of what has happened to American Christianity.

To Wit: ‘The Biblical Canon has been hijacked by a New York con man who thinks most Christians are useful idiots’ (and that most of us have become, beloved!). Beginning on that fateful day on June 21, 2016, via a “Backroom Deal” that Trump struck with such Christian elites as MIKE HUCKABEE, JAMES DOBSON, GARY BAUER, SAMMY RODRIGUEZ, RALPH REED, TONY PERKINS and eventually every other leading Christian light in the country.

THE FAUSTIAN BARGAIN.  Though I could not locate the exact transcript of that private meeting, several sources said it boiled down to this: ‘If you will overlook my faults, I will guarantee Christian religious freedom [that you no longer have] in America on your behalf.’ As Huckabee and many others would later agree, Trump’s then flailing candidacy took on enormous, and ultimately unstoppable power. This this searing historical point:

It was and is ‘the American Church’ that won Donald Trump the Presidency in 2016. And by all accounts we have learned nothing since then, as they are likely to Reelect him on November 5, 2024. Selah.

II. THE PRINCIPLE OF ORIGINS

Well now boys and girls: If all this is accurate historical and theological assessment, then it logically follows that the nearly worshiped American Founders like Jefferson were at best deeply flawed in their early formulation of American Political Philosophy. And at worst, they were tragically inescapably ‘wrong!’

Listen now to what Christian attorney, apologist and founder of a respected legal journal, DAVID W. GILMORE, has to say of these crucial reconsiderations.

FIRST THINGS. “‘The First Premise of our argument is that everything that begins to exist has a Cause.’ This just seems like common sense. As we go about our day, things don’t just appear from nothing. If things could appear from nothing, then why doesn’t money or ponies or cookies and ice cream just appear in front of our very eyes? WILLIAM LANE CRAIG likes to point out that getting something from nothing is worse than a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Because, at least with the magic trick, you have a magician and a hat!

If you want to deny Premise 1, then you have to deny the Fundamental Principle of Science – ‘The Law of Causality.’ Science is the search for Causes. The job of a scientist is to try and discover what caused what to happen. We string together thoughts (the Causes) that give us conclusions (the Effects). To deny the Law of Causality is to deny rational thought …

It is at this point that this Question may arise: if everything has to come from somewhere, then: ‘Where did God come from?’ But look at the Premise again. Everything that begins to exist has a Cause. ‘GOD is the Uncaused First Cause!’ God is Eternal, so He doesn’t need a cause. Asking who made God is to misunderstand the Nature of God. It is like asking, “How much does the color red weigh”? Or, “How many inches is the note C in a musical scale”? Or, “How many sides does that circle have”? These questions do not make sense because they misunderstand the nature of the object they are trying to measure. The Creator of the Universe has to be ‘Uncaused’ because [He] Caused everything to exist!” “Everything That Begins to Exist Has a Cause,” Legati Christi [Ambassadors of Christ], Oct. 13, 2020; edited

THESIS TWO. After years of agonizing thought, much study and prayerful reflection and observation of the Current Trajectory of the Church and State in 2024, I am convinced:

‘America is Failing Because America’s Foundations Were Flawed from their Beginning.’

If I am correct in now agreeing with the arguments of the late Dr. Geisler and a few other ‘outliers’ who do not worship the American Founding, then we can better understand how the United States has gone from the ostensibly ‘Greatest Nation on the Earth,’ to what I am more and more convinced is the theological opposite of that: ‘Babylon the Great.’

Selah.

The Scriptures:” ‘If the foundations are destroyed, what can the [unyieldingly] righteous do,’ or what has He [the Righteous One] wrought or accomplished?” – PSALM 11:3, AMPC

JOHN GILL COMMENTS. ‘If the foundations be destroyed.’ Or, ‘For the foundations are destroyed;’ all things are out of order and course both in Church and State; the Laws, which are the Foundations of Government, are despised and disregarded; Judgment is perverted, and Justice stands afar off; the Doctrines and Principles of Religion are derided and subverted; so that there is no standing, either in a political or religious sense. Jarchi [Biblical Cyclopedia] interprets this of the priests of the Lord, the righteous, who are the ‘Foundations of the World,’ particularly the priests of Nob, slain by Doeg. Other Jewish writers, as Aben Ezra, Kimchi, and Ben Melech, understand it of the purposes and counsels, nets and snares, laid by the wicked for the righteous, which are broken and destroyed; not by them, ‘for what can they do? but by the Lord,’ whois in His Holy Temple.

‘So what can the righteous do?’ Or, ‘What does the righteous one do?’ That is, the righteous Lord, He sits in the Heavens, He beholds all the actions of the wicked, He distinguishes the righteous from them, and rains a violent ‘Storm of Wrath’ upon them, as in the following verses; or, ‘What has the righteous man done?’ What has David done, that the priests of Nob should be slain? Nothing that was criminal; nor shall he bear the sin … or rather, ‘What has he done that the wicked should bend their bow, prepare their arrow, and attempt to shoot privily at him, and to overturn the foundations of justice and equity?’ Nothing that deserves such treatment: ‘Or if the Fundamental Doctrines of true Religion and everlasting Salvation be subverted, what can the righteous do?’ He can do nothing to obtain salvation, nor do any good works of himself …

‘If fundamental truths are destroyed:’ Or, ‘What should he do?’ Something the righteous ones may do, and should do, when men are attempting to undermine and sap the Foundation Articles of Religion; they should go to the Throne of Grace, to God in His Holy Temple, who knows what is doing, and: ‘PLEAD WITH HIM to put a stop to the designs and attempts of such subverters of foundations. And they should endeavour to build one another up on their most holy faith, and constantly affirm it while others deny it; and should contend earnestly for it, and stand fast in it.’”

IN SUM. We are to continue to do precisely what we are now doing in this Peloton Remnant Fellowship: (1) PRAY for God to bring the Subversion to an end; (2) ENCOURAGE one another in the Faith by staying close to Christ (and each other); (3) AFFIRM the Truth at every opportunity; and finally, (4) CONTEND for the Gospel and stand firm in it –

‘No matter the personal cost!’

III. LAST THOUGHTS

As I begin to conclude, I want to make clear that I no longer believe that the American Order can be restored. A clear eyed, objective look at the Historical Trajectory of the Nation and its Church confirms that our ‘National Dégringolade,’ to use British historian PAUL JOHNSON’S term (Modern Times, 1983), began around the Turn of the 20^th Century and rapidly accelerated after the 1960s.

I have said it before: I see not a scintilla of desire from the American Church to Repent or Reform. None, beloved! Certainly the secular culture is not going to lead the way, though I frankly find more discernment and moral fiber among them for knowing who Trump is than I find in the House of God!

SLOUCHING TOWARD BABYLON. I bluntly repeat my argument that when Donald Trump rises to power a second time shall be the First (and Last) ‘American Führer’ (Absolute Leader, Guide). It shall prove to be the Beginning of our Ending. Further, the American desire for Independence was not rooted as much as we had originally conceived in the Biblical Canon as it was in the hearts of wealthy, white religious men who fervently desired ‘their rights, but to do what?

‘Yes, to worship as they pleased. But also, to make as much money as they pleased, without taxation. And to have the freedom to take as much land as they pleased by whatever means necessary from the original population.  And why? Because God had given them a ‘Divine Right’ to do so, never mind its violent disregard for Scripture, and never mind that those same rights were denied the original citizens and people of color, nor those who owned no land. And they eventually gave this New American Freedom a name:

MANIFEST DESTINY. The term was defined by Democrat partisan newspaper editor JOHN L. O’SULLIVAN who had complained about the meddling in the Nation’s business by France and England. In response, he wrote this as the beginning of the emergence of a mid-19^th century political policy that hung God’s name on it for presumed legitimacy.

“For the avowed object of thwarting our policy and hampering our power, limiting our greatness and checking the fulfillment of our Manifest Destiny ‘to overspread the Continent allotted by Providence’ for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.” – DAVID S. & JEANNE T. HEIDLER, Britannica, Mar. 4, 2024; edited

This “God-Sanctioned Policy” would come to justify everything from the plague of Slavery to the savage Native American policy culminating in the ethnic cleansing ordered by ANDREW JACKSON’S “Trail of Tears” involving the forced march displacement of 60,000 people from the “Five Civilized Tribes” from 1830-1850. Some 16,000 Native Americans would be killed, including men, women and little children who were buried along the trail, to be later pirated by curiosity seekers and and scientists alike, an abominable desecration of their cultural prohibition against disturbing their honored gravesites.

Finally, it would fully ‘justify’ the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848 during which the violent theft by the United States Army of 55% of Mexican lands to include California, Nevada, Utah, most of Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona, and a small portion of Wyoming. The despicable Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo paid Mexico $15 million for the lands and was officially proclaimed on July 4, 1848.

CODA. Yes, this is extreme and vitally necessary Historical Reinterpretation, beloved. But are we not living in the most Extreme Times very probably in the entire history of the American Experience and World Order (or ‘Disorder’)? What else would explain America’s brutality toward African slaves, Native American peoples, Mexican territorial rights and the violent theft of 500,525 square miles from the Montana-Wyoming borders to the Gulf of Mexico?

For these and many other reasons I have presented in previous Commentary, I believe nearly conclusively that America is rapidly fulfilling the theological requirements, again, of BABYLON THE GREAT.

And on November 5, 2024, we have the very nearly unavoidable probability of reelecting the BEAST OF BABLYLON as our next (and again, ‘our very last’) President. ‘Think, Church! Wake up, Church!’ – a practice we have not done very much of for the last 50 years or so.

Yale University Sociology of Religion Professor PHILIP GORSKI anchors this historic designation in his penetrating book, American Babylon: Christianity and Democracy Before and After Trump (2020). He attacks head-on the reasons leading to over 80% of White Evangelicals voting for Trump in 2016. And he sets the ideological stage for why they are very likely to vote for him in droves in 2024.

CODICIL. We are rapidly headed toward the Darkest Terminus our Nation could ever experience should these sobering prognostications prove accurate. Perhaps now we can better understand a bit more about why this devastating ‘Telos’ uniquely belongs to the American people and the American Church.

As JOHN THE REVELATOR records in stunning prose, if America and her Church do not radically and quickly change course, then this:

“‘Because in one hour’ all the vast wealth has been laid waste. And every ship captain or navigator, and every passenger and sailor, and all who make their living by the sea, stood a long way off, and exclaimed as they watched the smoke of her burning, saying, ‘What could be compared to the great city?’” – REVELATION 18:17-18, AMP

This is what awaits the Greatest Nation on the Earth, beloved. ‘Unless we repent!’ And very, very soon indeed. ‘Even today!’

YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/mbMrX87kpCs