NOTES ON THE GREAT AMERICAN DELUSION:  APOSTASY, ANTICHRIST, ANNOUNCEMENT, ASCENSION, & FINAL APPRAISAL – A PREQUEL (WITH VIDEO)

1. THEOLOGY

“AUGURY.” ‘Refers to an omen, sign, or the practice of interpreting natural signs (like bird flight patterns) to Predict the Future.’ It comes from the ancient Roman religious practice where priests called ‘Augurs’ looked for these portents to guide.

“MADAME BOVARY.” Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert, is a landmark novel of Literary Realism about Emma Bovary, a doctor’s wife who seeks escape from her mundane provincial life through romantic fantasies, adultery, and lavish spending, leading to her tragic downfall. Published in 1857, it caused a scandal and trial for obscenity due to its realistic portrayal of ‘Adultery and Lascivious Desire,’ but is now considered a masterpiece for its psychological depth and precise writing style. 

SCRIPTURE. “But relative to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah) and our gathering together to [meet] Him, we beg you, brethren, Not to allow your minds to be quickly      unsettled or disturbed or kept excited or alarmed, whether it be by some [pretended] revelation of [the] Spirit or by word or by letter [alleged to be] from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has [already] arrived and is here.

Let no one deceive or beguile you in any way, for that day will not come except the APOSTASY comes first [unless the predicted Great Falling Away of those who have professed to be Christians has come], and the man of lawlessness is REVEALED, who is the SON OF DOOM (of perdition), Who opposes and exalts himself so proudly and insolently against and over all that is called God or that is worshiped, [even to his actually] taking his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming that he himself is God.

Do you not recollect that when I was still with you, I told you these things? And now you know what is restraining him [from being revealed at this time]; it is so that he may be manifested (revealed) in his own [appointed] time. For the mystery of lawlessness (that hidden principle of rebellion against constituted authority) is already at work in the world, [but it is] restrained only until he who restrains is TAKEN out of the way. And then the lawless one (the Antichrist) will be REVEALED and the Lord Jesus will slay him with the breath of His mouth and bring him to an end by His appearing at His coming.

The coming [of the lawless one, the Antichrist] is through the activity and working of Satan and will be attended by great power and with all sorts of [pretended] miracles and signs and delusive marvels—[all of them] lying wonders—And by unlimited seduction to evil and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing (going to perdition) because they did not welcome the Truth but refused to love it that they might be saved.

Therefore God sends upon them a misleading influence, a working of error and a STRONG DELUSION to make them believe what is false, In order that all may be judged and CONDEMNED who did not believe in [who refused to adhere to, trust in, and rely on] the Truth, but [instead] took pleasure in unrighteousness.” – 2 THESSALONIANS 2:1-12, AMPC

KEY TERM. “STRONG DELUSION.” ‘Plané’ [πλά]: “From a primitive root [‘planos,’ πλάνος] meaning, ‘To rove, as with a common tramp, imposter or misleader.’” ALSO: “A straying from orthodoxy or true piety toward fraudulence; ‘synonymous with deceit or error.’” NOTE: “Strong’s Greek 4106 speaks of a Spiritual and Moral Wandering that pulls people away from what God has revealed as True. Whether manifested through False Teaching, Ethical Perversion, or End-Times Delusion, the concept always sets a contrast between God-given Truth and human or Demonic Deceit.”

QUOTATION. “‘And America, too, is a Delusion, the grandest one of all.’ The White Race believes—‘believes’with all its heart–that it is their right to take the land. To kill Indians. Make war. Enslave their brothers. This Nation shouldn’t exist, if there is any Justice in the world, for its Foundations are murder, theft, and cruelty. Yet here we are.” ― COLSON WHITEHEAD, The Underground Railroad, 2016; edited (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2017)

COMMENTARY. “‘And for this cause’—i.e., Because they did not care whether things were true or not. This verse is not a mere repetition of 2 Thessalonians 2:9-10. There we were told of external dangers which would attend Antichrist’s coming for them that perish: ‘Because they had not cared for Truth, therefore the presence of the Man of Sin, which could not even imperil the Truth-Lovers, would for [others] be full of special marvels and frauds by which they might be misled.’ 

‘Here is set forth the effect upon their own ‘SELVES’ of refusing to accept God’s gift of Love of Truth: God takes from them (by His Natural Law) their power of Discerning the True from the False, and thus (as it were) actually deceives them. Every wilful sin does this double mischief: it strengthens the power of the Temptation without; it weakens the power to resist within. For an illustration, see 2 Chronicles 18:7; 2 Chronicles 18:22: Ahab cared only for the pleasant, not the true, and the Lord requites him by sending forth a ‘Lying Spirit’ to entice him.

‘Shall send.’—The Greek has ‘sendeth:’ so ‘is’ in 2 Thessalonians 2:9: ‘ST. PAUL SEES’ it all going on before his eyes. A STRONG DELUSION should be an effectual inward working of Error’—no longer a mere Indifference to Truth, but a real Influence of Error upon their hearts. This inward work of error is sent with a view to their ‘Believing the Lie’ (the Greek has the definite article)—’THE LIE (that is) which ANTICHRIST would have them believe. A terrible combination when God and Satan are agreed to deceive a man!’ Yetwhat an encouragement to see God using Satan for His own purposes.” – CHARLES ELLICOTT, An Old and New Testament Commentary for English Readers, 1878, 1897; edited

1. TEACHING

In this important section we are going to deal with TWO ISSUES that all American Christians must confront as we see the Nation begin to disintegrate before our very eyes. At least for those who are willing to ‘HUMBLY LOOK’ at America’s Present (and Past) Darkness.’

ONE: THEOLOGY OF DELUSION. Though I do not always agree with his teachings, I do often turn to the usually careful exposition of Scripture by DR. JOHN PIPER. In a piece titled, “Does God Send Strong Delusion into the World?” he addresses this thorny issue with considerable wisdom and clarity (Desiring God, July 8, 2022; edited).

• OPEN. “So here in 2 Thessalonians, Paul is describing that ‘hardness’ as a refusal to welcome a Love for the Truth. It’s as if love for truth is being offered, and the human heart says, ‘No, no. Not only do I not want Truth, I do not want to Love the Truth. I don’t want Truth in my mind. I don’t want Love in my heart.’ And that Condition — that deep Resistance to Truth, to God, to Gospel, to Reality, and to Love for Truth, and Love for the Gospel, and Love for God — is described as the reason for both Satan’s deceiving and God’s Deluding. It says that Satan, in the form of this Lawless One, comes with ‘Deception of Unrighteousness for the Perishing.’ And then it says, ‘Because they REFUSED to love the truth’ (2 Thessalonians 2;10). And verse 11 says, ‘God SENDS a strong delusion’ because they ‘REFUSE’ [“To deny a request, demand, invitation or command; to decline to do or grant what is solicited, claimed or commanded”] ‘TO LOVE THE TRUTH.’”

• MYSTERY. “‘Now, Paul doesn’t explain how God does this — that is, HOW He sends this Delusion.’ It may well be that God does it by means of removing all the barriers to that Satanic Deception. There are many places in the Bible where God governs the acts of unrighteous men and demons in order to achieve his righteous purposes. So this is not unusual. It’s as if God would say, ‘Okay, if you want to love Falsehood and love Unrighteousness instead of loving the Truth, I’ll see to it that your Delusion is overpowering.’ In other words, God gives them up to their ‘OWN MIND,’ just like Paul says in Romans 1:8. He says, ‘Since they did not approve of having God in their knowledge.’”

• LUST. “So I put it together like this. Their ‘Unwillingness’ to welcome a Love for the Truth was owing to their Love for — that is, their Pleasure in — Unrighteousness. ‘I love it. I love it. I find pleasure in it!’ This was their most basic condition: Deep, deep heart love, heart delight, heart pleasure in unrighteousness. And since the Truth stands over against Unrighteousness, that more basic Love for Unrighteousness prevented them from loving the Truth.”

• QUESTION. “‘Can a person PRAY in that condition? Can a person pray for Deliverance from deceptive bondage to pleasure in unrighteousness, which prevents love for the truth and belief in the truth? And my answer is YES … Ultimately, I don’t think it matters whether Satan is deceiving or God is deluding. It’s not hopeless to cry out, ‘O God, I cannot change my heart. It’s hard. It’s lifeless. It’s cold. And it takes pleasure in unrighteousness. O God, do anything — do whatever you have to do to take out my heart of stone. Cause my heart to find pleasure in your truth, your gospel, yourself. If you don’t do it, O God, I am undone.’ I don’t think that’s a hopeless prayer.”

• DK NOTE: The Debate on this matter is not settled. Dr. Piper and other Calvinists are more optimistic than their Arminian counterparts who believe that the ‘Divine Delusion’ is synonymous with the theological ironclad of Apostasyfrom which there is no rescue. SO PRAY NOW! If you have even the slightest doubts about your ability to hear God’s Truth plainly.

TWO: THE AMERICAN REALITY. As I have mentioned on numerous occasions over the years in my writings and lectures, “I am a Truth Guy,” through and through. Started when I was a kid in the 1950s when my parents gifted me a ten-volume set of World Book Encyclopedia, and my obsession with ‘Knowing stuff” took off and just never stopped.

Author Note: That Drive for Knowledge took me to both very Dark and very Luminous places, by the way. But SINCE CHRIST – Even the Dark Places are lit with His Light! “This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5, NKJV).

We now turn to DR. LAWRENCE GOLDSTONE, who holds a PhD in Constitutional History from The New School (New York). He has also been a teacher, lecturer, senior member of a Wall Street trading firm, taxi driver, actor, quiz show contestant, and policy analyst at the Hudson Institute. His essay is titled, “America, Then and Now” (The Fulcrum, Sep. 6, 2022; edited).

• OPEN. “‘For some time, “White Christian Nationalism” has been forced to lurk in a dark corner of American society but, with the encouragement of DONALD TRUMP, it has been thrust fully into the light.’ Many of Trump’s followers on the Far Right have become more than willing to openly voice support for a Doctrine that, until recently, had been dismissed as bigoted fringe ideology, outside the realm of legitimate political discourse.”

• NEO-ARYANISM. “‘The United States, these Archconservatives insist, was NOT founded to be a racially diverse, religiously homogeneous society, but rather one in which Racial Purity and what they define as “Christian Values” would form the core of both Government and Civil Society.’ Some go so far as to insist that the United States was never meant to be a Democracy at all, ruled by a majority of its adult citizens, but rather a Republic in which Representative Government was chosen by a limited segment of the citizenry whose principal task was to perpetuate those values.”

• DENUDATION. “While such sentiments leave Liberals and many Centrists aghast, the Conservatives are, in fact, to a great degree correct. President Biden, in his [2022] speech attacking the Far Right, claimed, ‘This is not who we ARE.’ But it is who we ‘WERE.’ For many at the Constitutional Convention, which convened shortly after the populist insurrection known as Shay’s Rebellion, the aim was to Limit Democracy, not expand it. Connecticut’s Roger Sherman, a key player in Philadelphia, insisted ordinary citizens could not be trusted to encourage sound government and that the Nation already suffered from ‘an excess of democracy.’ Another prominent delegate, Virginia’s Edmund Randolph, exhorted the Convention to save the United States from Democracy, believing, correctly, that such a sentiment would strike a sympathetic chord. Electoral districts were kept large in order to inhibit campaigning by all except those wealthy enough to travel within their expanded limits.”

• OLIGARCHY. “‘Rule was to be by the FEW, not the many.’ Virtually every member of the Nation’s Elite believed that the right to vote should only be available to those who owned real property. ‘James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Adams are all on record as opposing granting the vote to ordinary citizens, who, they claimed, were incapable of making vital decisions freely and wisely.’ As a result, only 6 percent of the Nation was eligible to vote in the first presidential election, and only 42,000 did – this in a nation of more than 3.5 million people.”

• SLAVERY. “‘Except for SLAVES, who were not considered fully human and deemed by most to be property, the country was certainly supposed to remain WHITE.’ Although there was no definition of ‘Citizen’ in the Constitution, the Naturalization Act of 1790 declared ‘only White Males of good character’ could apply for citizenship. While this obviously excluded Black people, the Doctrine was later applied to Chinese, Japanese, and East Asian people. Even certain White people were not good enough. In the first decades of the 20th century, immigration by southern and eastern Europeans was severely curtailed.”

• HYPOCRISY. “‘While many of the Founders, including Washington, Madison, Jefferson and Hamilton, could hardly be described as “devout,” there was certainly a tacit understanding that the United States would be a “Christian Nation,” although by “Christian” they meant “PROTESTANT.’” There was widespread distaste for Catholics, and in a number of States they were restricted from partaking in many civic activities, including, for example, teaching school. So indeed, the United States was hardly founded on the Principles most Americans claim to value and respect. But that is only half the story.”

• INCONGRUITY. “‘Whether the United States was created on the Prejudices of the Day, be they Racial, Religious, or Class-Oriented, the glory of this Nation, what has made it the envy of the world, is its STRUGGLE over the ensuing two and a half centuries to EXPAND the very Rights that the Founders sought to limit.’ One by one, previously banned groups were allowed into the political process, first in choosing the Nation’s leaders and then by becoming them. Property-holding requirements to vote were eliminated in the first decades of the 19th century. Black Americans were guaranteed citizenship and the right to vote by the 14th and 15th Amendments and were allowed to become naturalized citizens in 1870. Women were granted the vote by the 19th Amendment in 1920.”

• VISION. “‘What White Christian Nationalists are trying so hard to achieve is a legal and philosophical U-TURN, to Return the United States to the very outmoded values the Founding Fathers foisted on the Nation at the end of the 18th century.’ Voting is to be limited, citizenship restricted, religious dogma “ substituted for tolerance, the legal system structured to keep minority groups from threatening ‘White Pre-Eminence and warmed over Theocracy’ substituted for Democratic Rule. And all this under the Banner of: “Make America Great Again!’”

• CLOSE. “‘What has actually made America Great was the willingness by those in power to SHARE it, however grudgingly, and create a semblance of Equal Opportunity even though some in theTtraditional Ruling Groups would lose privileges they often had not earned.’ People from virtually every country in the world wanted to come to the Nation that Americans struggled for decades and decades to create, as imperfect as it remains. They did not come because its leaders disparaged the poor, incarcerated racial or political minorities, or mocked the handicapped and those whose sexual orientation did not fit in faux religious boxes. If that is what they wanted, they had any number of other choices, such as Iran, Russia or Hungary. ‘IF America genuinely wants to “Be Great,” it will have to move forward, not backward. Only in REJECTING values that are little but thinly disguised bigotry can Americans [recover and survive].’”

1. LAST THOUGHTS: WHAT LIES AHEAD?

To Conclude our discourse, I will return to a brief review of THE SEQUENCE OF EVENTS clearly inferred from the chronological account of Paul’s Epistle, 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12. This to clear up some longstanding misconceptions about such matters confusing the Church for generations.

1. APOSTASY. ‘Apostasia’ [ἀποστασία]. “‘Beyond its root sense of ‘Departure’ [from the Faith], the term carries the weight of a conscious, culpable TURNING AWAY from Divinely Revealed Truth.’ In Scripture it is never a neutral change of opinion; it is a Moral Revolt against the Covenant Lord. Hence English renderings such as ‘apostasy,’ ‘rebellion,’ or ‘forsake’ all capture aspects of its gravity.” DK: Taking place all around and within the entirety of the White Evangelical Church. ‘IF’ one cannot recognize its occurrence, the First Event in this sequence, then one is ‘Self-Condemned to Blindness’ to bearing witness to what follows and is lost.

• ANTICHRIST. ‘Apóleia’ [ἀπωλείας]. “‘The word translated ‘Destruction,’ ‘Perdition,’ or ‘Waste’ gathers within itself the ideas of ruin, loss, and utter undoing.’ It can describe the squandering of material goods (Matthew 26:8) as easily as the irreversible fate of the impenitent (Matthew 7:13). The nuance must be discerned from context; but whether temporal or eternal, the focus is always on: ‘A State that Opposes all the Good Purposes of God and stands under His Judgment.’” DK. Do not miss the point that all who follow the Antichrist, whatever label they may wear, are self-condemned to “PERDITION” – ‘A state of eternal damnation and punishment in Hell.’ Thus the deadly importance of knowing who the Antichrist is or to avoid alliance with him in any case, is vital.

• ANNOUNCEMENT. ‘Apokaluptó’ [ἀποκαλυφθῇ]. “‘The verb ἀποκαλύπτω stands at the heart of Biblical Revelation, describing God’s gracious ACT OF UNVEILING truths, events, persons, and destinies previously hidden.’ Across its twenty-six New Testament occurrences the term consistently testifies that God, never humanity, is the Ultimate Revealer; what He discloses is authoritative, trustworthy, and oriented toward redemption and judgment.” DK. ‘Note here that only those whose spiritual eyes are OPENED by faithful obedience, knowing God and His Word, and full of His Spirit, will recognize the Antichrist at this point.’ The whole Blind World (and Church members) cannot ‘see’ him yet., but will when it will be too late.

• ASCENSION. ‘Ginomai’ [γίνομαι]. “The opening verses of the Gospel of John establish γίνομαι at the very Foundation of TRUE REALITY: ‘All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not one thing came into being that has come into being’ (John 1:3). The verb marks ‘Creation Ex Nihilo’ and underscores that the Universe owes its existence to the Word. he Thus the Greek word ‘ginomai’ (γίνομαι, pronounced ghin-om-ahee) fundamentally means ‘to become real,’ or ‘to happen.’ Unlike words that mean simple existence, it describes a process of transition, emergence, or undergoing a ‘TRANSFORMATION from one state [Natural] to Another state [Immortal].’” DK. The Bible describes Immortal, Resurrected Bodies as imperishable, glorious, and powerful. Transformed to be like Jesus Christ’s Post-Resurrection body, they will never decay, age, or die. They are no longer limited by physical weaknesses or earthly Laws of Nature. Selah. Selah.

• FINAL APPRAISAL. ‘Krinó’ [κριθῶσιν]. “The New Testament consistently presents God as the perfectly Righteous Judge. ‘On the day when God judges the secrets of men through Christ Jesus’ (Romans 2:16) expresses both certainty and universality. Revelation repeatedly places κρίνω on God’s lips or in heavenly doxologies: ‘You are just, O Holy One, who is and was, because You have judged these things’ (Revelation 16:5). Such uses reinforce Divine Holiness, Vindication of His people, [and Eternal Fire for Apostates] (Revelation 6:10; 19:2).”

CODA. Beloved, in these very ‘Final Hours of the Church Age’ before we ‘Cross Over’ to the Next, all comes down to our FINAL CHOICES about whom we shall call God: Jesus Christ OR Antichrist. ‘You cannot love both!’ Nor is there any “In-between,” my friends. No Judgment-Free Zone. There is only Right and Wrong, True and False, Good and Evil.

Both Jesus and Paul clearly taught:

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon [money, possessions, fame, status, or whatever is valued more than the Lord] … You cannot drink [both] the Lord’s cup and the cup of demons. You cannot share in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons [thereby becoming partners with them].” – MATTHEW 6:24; 1 CORINTHIANS 10:21, AMP

Stop wrestling further, Saints, simply HEAR what He says, and like the Nike Narrative puts it: ‘Just DO it!’

For Him.

MEDIA

YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/qkKV-L1cNas?si=YcVs0f6t_XSeZCVy