NOTES ON THE NEUTERING OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH: PHASE ONE OF ANTICHRIST’S SEIZURE OF POWER

SCRIPTURE. “You were running [the race] well; who has interfered and prevented you from obeying the truth?  This [deceptive] persuasion is not from Him who called you [to freedom in Christ]. ‘A little leaven’ [a slight inclination to error, or a few false teachers] leavens the whole batch [it perverts the concept of faith and misleads the church]. – GALATIANS 5:7-9. AMP

QUOTATIONS

“Three hundred-fifty years after the Israelites entered the Promised Land, their tribal leaders demanded the prophet Samuel make them a king. Despite Samuel’s warnings, the people persisted in their requisition of a human leader. God relented and told Samuel to grant them their wish … Although a godly man, who enforced the Levitical Law against witches and wizards with great zeal, Saul soon proved fallible. Because of his sins of pride and rebellion, the Lord struck him with madness and wrestled the kingdom from his grasp.” – JOHN BUZZARD, Cover Promo, ‘The Madness of King Saul,’ 2011; edited

“The attacks on the US capitol on January 6th, 2021, will have ripple effects for years to come. We’re no longer in the September 11th era. We’re now in ‘The January 6th Era … “When the rest of the world watches the news from America, they see a Third World dumpster fire. A failed state.” ― OLIVER MARKUS MALLOY, ‘American Fascism: A German Writer’s Urgent Warning To America,’ 2019; edited

SAMUEL THE PROPHET. “For rebellion is as [serious as] the sin of divination (fortune-telling), and disobedience is as [serious as] false religion and idolatry.”  – God’s rebuke to King Saul and subsequent removal from leadership and capital punishment; 1 Samuel 15:23, Amplified

Selah.

1. FIRST THOUGHTS

THESIS. ‘America is dying.’ The primary cause of her death is the seditious compromise of America’s Church.

I tried to think of a more subtle open than that, but I kept circling back again and again to that stark and stunning Thesis. Which I don’t believe is a thesis at all anymore, but what I believe to be an existential, demonstrable Truth that both America and her Church are not yet facing squarely.

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. The great majority of you are far too young to remember a 1956 science fiction classic that was remade in 1978 by this title. The movie plot was quite simple: Plant-like aliens referred to as “pod people” from another world come to Earth to systematically inhabit certain individuals in key positions to gradually take control of the entire planet in order to exercise their treacherous agenda. Or something like that.

But before sniffing at such a silly premise, listen to an astute analysis of the movie in relation to the American Culture of the 1950s. A post World War II triumphal Decade of Destiny, as I’ve written before, that translated the American Dream from one of a comparatively Moral and Ethical one, to that of an increasingly ‘Material obsession.’

The following superb review is provided by ADMIN Editors of the online journal, ‘Jotted Lines,’ on July 21, 2019; edited.

“A small-town doctor learns that the population of his community is being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates.

As both a tale concerning invading alien pods and a stark critique of Small-Town America, ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ stands as a significant US film; whether it is considered merely a low-budget science fiction B movie, a fantastic story that serves as an allegorical warning or an accurate portrayal of suburban life in the 1950s, the film continues to challenge Modern audiences.

This is a taut mixture of Conspiracy Narrative and contemporary fears; a film noir tale (Booker, 2006, p. 59), as told by its main protagonist, Dr. Miles Bennell, of the ‘Outsider’ as threat to a supposed tranquil American Idyll. David Seed rightly places the film within its cultural contexts, stating that 

‘A cluster of films from the mid-fifties demonstrates a consistent paradigm of such ‘Invasion-as-Conspiracy’ where the Battle for the Nation’s Mind is played out in Smalltown USA.’

In Invasion and these other contemporary films, ‘The instrumentality of threat comes from outside (creatures from Mars or Venus, pods from outer space) but the real power of these films is carried by their transformation of humans rather than the crude ‘monstrous’ devices, their fracturing of the nuclear family or local community’ (Seed, 1999, pp. 132–133).” 

THE APPLICATION. The rather in-your-face Irony here is that I have been teaching and preaching against the entire Conspiracy Framework  invented by the Trump-fed MAGA Movement, members of the Q Anon fantasy world, the Lance Wallnau Dominionists, and the supernaturally empowered “New Apostles” of the heretical NAR doctrines for over two years now.

And yet, there is indeed A TRUE INVASION originating in the bowels of Hell, created and led by Satan and his demonic forces, even now being carried out through “transformed human beings” – including countless millions of so-called ‘Christians’ – who have allowed themselves to ‘become infested’ by this villainous Spiritual Virus, 10,000 times more toxic then Covid 19!

Welcome to what I increasingly envision as the Seedbed of ‘Donald Trump’s  American Reich,’ beloved. I fear that it is so deeply entrenched now that it is here to stay to the very End the American Road.

1. THE ART OF SPIRITUAL WARFARE

The famous Chinese military general, strategist, philosopher and writer who lived during the Eastern Zhou Period around the 5th Century BC, SUN TZU, penned ‘The Art of War.’ A brilliant Military Field Manual that is still taught at America’s war colleges to this very day.

Among his many Principles of Warfare, he wrote this:

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

A DELUDED CHURCH. I continue to submit to you that the American Church today is virtually clueless as to who the real Enemy is, who God’s Friends actually are, and therefore how to wage effective battle against the Forces of Satan. We are, as the old children’s saying goes, sitting ducks for a most formidable Enemy who right about now is laughing in twisted derision at the so-called “Army of the Lord.” 

What a shameful travesty!

As a side note by the way, I was just yesterday reflecting on a MAJOR QUESTION that is in the hearts now of many of you recently: ‘How’ could a truly, biblically informed believer in Christ be so easily seduced by such a foolish figure as Donald Trump?

I was quickly reminded of this passage that is astonishing Answer to that painful Question.

“The coming of the [Antichrist, the lawless] one is through the activity of Satan, [attended] with great power [all kinds of counterfeit miracles] and [deceptive] signs and false wonders [all of them lies], and by unlimited seduction to evil and with all the deception of wickedness for those who are perishing, because they did not welcome the love of the truth [of the gospel] so as to be saved [they were spiritually blind, and rejected the truth that would have saved them]. Because of this ‘GOD will send upon them a misleading influence,’ [an activity of error and deception] so they will believe the lie, in order that all may be judged and condemned who did not believe the truth [about their sin, and the need for salvation through Christ], but instead took pleasure in unrighteousness.” – 2 THESSALONIANS 2:9-12, AMP

DIVINE SANCTION. This devastating phrase comes to us from two Greek words – ‘Energeia’ [ἐνέργεια], or, “Supernaturally powerful enabling superhuman action derived from God’s Divine energy.” And ‘Plané’ [πλάνη]. Meaning, “a wandering or straying from orthodoxy; deceit, error; fraudulent, as with one who roams about as a tramp or impostor seducing others to the deception.” – Strong’s ‘Concordance,’ 1895; edited

Are you getting this, beloved? What the Apostle is telling us here is that IF a believer ‘resists the Truth’ long enough and fervently enough, God sends him the desire of his heart: ‘Delusion and Deception!’ I cannot think of a more shameful, grave sin than this one, which is on the same level of that which was executed by Judas Iscariot in brutal betrayal of his Messiah.

The price for which was Death by hanging, followed by Eternal Perdition.

I am rather desperately at this point laboring to drive home the violence of this sin, and I don’t know how else to do it beyond what I write here. Is even a single pastor or church leader listening anymore? I truly wonder.

Appropriately, the following interpretation of this passage left me nearly breathless with its severity of impact, the likes of which I have not heard proclaimed in an American Church in decades – if ever.

THE 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 them 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 willful sin does this double mischief: It strengthens the power of the temptation without; it weakens the power to resist within. For an illustration, see 2Chronicles 18:7; 2Chronicles 18:22: AHAB cares only for the Pleasant, not the True, and the Lord requites him by sending forth a lying spirit to entice him.

‘Shall send.’—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 Lie (that is) which Antichrist would have them believe. A terrible combination when God and Satan are agreed to deceive a man! Yet what 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

THE IMPLICATIONS. The element that took my breath away as I studied these sobering matters, is that when a so-called ‘believer’ reaches this point of having both God and Satan ‘send them a spirit of delusion,’ they are lost. As in forever. Consigned to the Lake of Fire.

So we must rescue them ‘before’ they reach this point, beloved! After which we are commanded by Christ Himself to do the unthinkable: Walk away.

“If [the family living in] the house is worthy [welcoming you and your message], give it your [blessing of] peace [that is, a blessing of well-being and prosperity, the favor of God]. But if it is not worthy, take back your blessing of peace. Whoever does not welcome you, nor listen to your message, as you leave that house or city, shake the dust [of it] off your feet [in contempt, breaking all ties].” – MATTHEW 10:13-14, AMP

This is the True Jesus in His own Words (they are written in Red in your Bible in case you forgot) that you never hear in your American Church anymore. This is the Biblical Jesus, Lord of the Canon, the very Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Living, vibrant  Word, the incandescent, all-consuming Fire, the very son of Yahweh, King of the entire Universe!

Completely alien from the ‘Jesus of Soft Pillows’ (Ezekiel 13:18) we so often hear from our timid pulpits today. The One is very real and coming to the earth very soon. The Other is mere figment of man’s deluded imagination, and is already here.

Selah.

1. THE TEACHING

SCRIPTURE. “You were running [the race] well; who has interfered and prevented you from obeying the truth?  This [deceptive] persuasion is not from Him who called you [to freedom in Christ]. ‘A little leaven’ [a slight inclination to error, or a few false teachers] leavens the whole batch [it perverts the concept of faith and misleads the church]. – GALATIANS 5:7-9. AMP

We have all heard teachings on this well-known passage to be sure, as have I. However, and it’s a very big “however,” the application of this ‘Big Idea’ to what’s now taking place in the American Church it’s beyond important.

Quite frankly, it’s EPIC: “A poem [or Grand Story] which narrates events, real or fictitious or both, representing, in an elevated style, some signal action or series of actions that include the Fable, the incidents, episodes, characters, morals and machinery. The end of which is to improve the morals, and inspire a love of virtue, bravery and illustrious actions [in contrast to their destructive opposites].” – NOAH WEBSTER, 1828; an adaptation

So now to the KEY CONCEPTS in this passage which set us up nicely for the analysis to follow.

• HINDERED YOU. Taken from the Greek term, ‘Anakoptó’ [ἀνακόπτω], defined as: “Beat back or check; by analogy, obstructing a road; to stop; to interrupt; to impede or prevent from moving forward by any means possible; to retard or to render slow in motion; or hinders from coming to maturity in due season; in sum, ‘to prevent’ some important action from taking place.”

• FROM OBEYING TRUTH. Please do not miss the absolute centrality of this, since it goes to the very heart of all that Satan and his associates, both demonic and human, labor intensively to achieve. ‘They are terrified of anyone who is obedient to God and Truth’ – because it ‘exposes them’as frauds (cf. John 3:2). Taken from the Greek word, ‘Peithó’ [πείθω]: “To be persuaded to comply, consent or believe; to be made confident; to be set free from fear or doubt; to become trusting and trustworthy; to become powerful in the pursuit of pleasing God.”

• A LITTLE LEAVEN. The idea here is a lamentable one: Churches that are not anchored solidly in sound doctrine are easily overthrown – ‘It didn’t take very much.’ From the Greek, ‘Zumé’ [ζύμη]: “To ferment or boil up; a mass of sour dough that overwhelms the rest of the bread; anything that makes a substantial change in the mass; something which corrupts or depraves that with which it mixes; as with ‘Syncretism,’ that would blend the holy with the profane; the amalgamation of different religious ideas that were never intended to combine; to corrupt and render useless.”

COMMENTARY. “‘A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.’ A proverbial expression pretty much in use with the Jews … To which the Apostle replies … the error was not a slight one, that as a little sour leaven influences and ferments a large mass, or lump of dough, and makes it of the same nature with it, so a small error in Doctrine, as it may be thought to be, increases to more ungodliness, and eats as doth a canker; and though a few hands may be first concerned in propagating it, and but few be infected with it, yet these may soon spread the contagion through the whole society:‘Wherefore errors and false teachers should be nipped in the bud, and stopped in their beginnings,’ how inconsiderable soever they and their tenets may be judged to be.” – JOHN GILL, ‘An Exposition of the New and Old Testament,’ 9 vols., 1746-1763; edited

DK. Those of you who know me and still love me understand what I’m going say next: “Wherefore errors and false teachers should be nipped in the bud and stopped in their beginnings,” but are NOT! I have been writing exhaustively and increasingly severely about this Travesty of Error and Cowardice in our pulpits for years now – to virtually no avail.

Nothing ever changes as our thoroughly impotent churches continue to just “go along to get along” in culture wide Hubris, brazenly violating our sacred charge to expose and challenge false teachers and false doctrines. This, a sustained and blasphemous Slap across the very Face of the Messiah!

RE-CRUCIFIXION. I tremble, beloved, at the enormity of this ongoing American sin. It has the stench of the Pagan Romans’ complicity with the corrupt Jewish religious elites 2000 years ago. If you listen carefully beloved, you might just hear that ancient rabble screaming lustily at the top of their lungs: “Give us Barabbas!”

Without hesitation anymore, I dare to translate it into the vernacular of today’s American Christians who by the 10s of millions similarly shout: “Give us Donald Trump lest we perish as a nation! Give us MAGA! Give us America made great again! What need have we of this, Jesus?’

Selah. Selah.

1. AMERICA’S FIRST CHURCH OF THE EUNUCHS

C.S. LEWIS. “And all the time—such is the Tragi-Comedy of our situation—we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our Civilization needs is more ‘drive’, or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or ‘creativity’. In a sort of ghastly simplicity, we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise.We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. ‘We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful!” – ‘The Abolition of Man,’ 1943, pp. 35–37; edited

More than a little shocked at my language, beloved? Don’t be. Don’t be. I tell you the truth: When the Spirit of God inspired Mr. Lewis to write what he wrote in his day, I claim the same privilege and even the moral duty to write in similar severity in our own day.

And, I say, all the more!

THE SEDUCTION OF AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY. Second only to Adolf Hitler’s sweeping ‘neutralization’ of the entire German Evangelical and Catholic communities in the 1930s and 40s, the singular reduction of American Christianity to a simpering mound of Trump ‘Stepford Wives’ is beyond breathtaking. In just four years of his ill-fated presidency, the prodigious scope and seismic impact of Trumpism has shattered a Nation and Church and disrupted the entire post-World War II International Order.

Not bad for a guy who can’t put two grammatically synchronous sentences together.

To begin this part of the discussion, please consider how ‘Rawstory’ journalist SARAH K. BURRIS introduces us to Trump’s takedown of the Church through the eyes of one American Pastor who is microcosm for many. Or at least should be.

Taken from her compelling analysis titled, “How Donald Trump Has Destroyed the White Evangelical Church As We Know It,” published on May 9, 2022; edited.

“An extensive report in the New York Times follows a pastor who thought he would lead his hometown church for the rest of his life, until he started to question the role of the Baptist Church in American politics. Arkansas Pastor KEVIN THOMPSON explained that things have changed a lot for him over the past several years.

‘Across the country, theologically conservative White Evangelical churches that were once comfortably united have found themselves at odds over many of the same issues dividing the Republican Party and other institutions,’ said the Times report. ‘The disruption, fear and physical separation of the pandemic have exacerbated every rift.’

For Thompson, he thought of the ‘Teachings of Christ,’ letting those guide him as he questions the turn of Christianity. ‘Jesus talks about how He is the Truth, how central truth is,’ Thompson told the Times. ‘The moment you lose the concept of Truth you’ve lost everything.’” Selah.

TRUMP AS OLD DELUDER. In 1647, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts passed something called the ‘Old Deluder Satan Act’ for their budding public schools that was designed to thwart “Ye old deluder, Satan” in his goal “to keepe men from the knowledge of ye Scriptures.” To this end, the law required every town with 50 or more families to hire and maintain a teacher to instruct all children in reading and writing. Towns of 100 or more families were required to support a grammar school to prepare students to attend Harvard College. Similar acts were soon adopted in the other New England colonies, except Rhode Island. – DAVID CARLETON, ‘The First Amendment Encyclopedia,’ 2009; edited

Now put together the statements by Mssrs. Thompson and Carlton, and you have the very Nexus of the current American Crisis: THE LOSS OF GOD AND TRUTH. As the wise pastor observed, once you lose that, you have lost everything. And I mean, ‘everything’ beloved – Church. Nation. Life itself.

Whatever else Donald Trump and a shamefully, dangerously complicit American Church have done, therefore, is to strip Christian Orthodoxy and doctrinal soundness from our Pulpits, leaving countless millions of Christian churchgoers ‘theologically barren,’ no longer capable of discerning the simplest distinctions between good and evil, right and wrong, true and false.

Now just think of the implications of that dreadfully fatal condition, and you instantly grasp the gravity of the American Condition.

DR. GEORGE BARNA. On June 22nd, 2021, Barna’s highly regarded Research Group reported THREE SURVEYS conducted by the Arizona State University’s Cultural Research Center, revealing startling results that clearly explain everything from the January 6th 2021 Christian Insurrection to the very probable MAGA-fueled reelection of Donald Trump to the presidency in 2024.

Pay very close heed here. Taken from a Barna report by MOLLY CORMAN titled, ”The Extent of America’s Loss of Faith.”

• FIRST SURVEY. Concluded that America’s dominant worldview is ‘Syncretism,’ which isn’t actually a worldview at all but rather “a disparate, irreconcilable collection of beliefs” that people paste together to suit themselves.

• SECOND SURVEY. Concluded that America’s most popular worldview is what can be called ‘Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.’ Components of this worldview include: “Belief in a God who remains distant from people’s lives” and “the universal purpose of life of being happy and feeling good about oneself.”

• THIRD SURVEY. Found that Millennials are “substantially more likely” than previous American generations to “Reject biblical principles in favor of more worldly spiritual perspectives and practices.”

Ms. Corman’s Conclusion is most gravely instructive to all true American believers. “But even though our Culture does not want the Bible, God, or the Church, it is important for followers of Jesus to ‘Remain faithful.’ As fewer people share our theological and worldview commitments, Christians will need courage that was not required of recent generations of believers. Of course, standing for God’s Truth in a world that is increasingly dark spiritually can be difficult [and increasingly dangerous], ‘and it’s not easy to stand alone.’”

IN SUM. So let me be clear. We are no longer in the business of saving a Nation. No! We are no longer in the business of even saving a Church that has become corrupted and redefined in the tawdry image of Trump Christian Nationalism. May Almighty God forbid it! Nor am I particularly enamored of saving pastor’s jobs!

Rather, we are quite Providentially brought full circle back to the Great Commission’s historic objective which has never changed by a single jot or tittle:

‘To save souls!’ Or in the Words of JESUS CHRIST Himself:

“‘Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations’ [help the people to learn of Me, believe in Me, and obey My words], baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always [remaining with you perpetually—regardless of circumstance, and on every occasion], even to the end of the age.” – MATTHEW 28:19-20, AMP

Thus are we ‘all the more’ on a GRAND MISSION OF RESCUE to the unsaved of the world – from both inside the House of God, and the ones who remain outside. Selah.

• LAST THOUGHTS

Permit me to close out our discussion on a somewhat unusual note this time, and share with you the reason why. Seems that all week as I have been pondering what to write in this Commentary, I was led to THREE SCRIPTURES  that may well tie all this together for us.  So here we go.

• THE MAGA MOVEMENT. “Then the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go down from here quickly, for your people whom you brought from Egypt have acted corruptly [perversely]. They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them; they have made (cast) ‘a molten image’ for themselves’” (Deuteronomy 12: 9, Amplified). DK: Donald Trump and his Christian Nationalism Movement constitute America’s Golden Calf and is surely NOT the answer to the American Crisis. Indeed, it shall as surely prove to be our very destruction.

• THE PELOTON FELLOWSHIP. “Now listen, Joshua, the high priest, you and your colleagues [or close companions] who are sitting in front of you—indeed they are men who are a symbol [of what is to come]—for behold, I am going to bring in My servant the Branch [in Messianic glory]” (Zechariah 3:8, amplified). DK: Clearly a direct reference to God’s Remnant in the Last Times, all those who are intent on carrying out Christ’s Great Commission represent “a miraculous, prophetic sign” or living illustration of the Lords power, wisdom and love.

• FINAL MISSION. “From that time Jesus began to preach and say, ‘Repent [change your inner self—your old way of thinking, regret past sins, live your life in a way that proves repentance; seek God’s purpose for your life], for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’” (Matthew 4:17, Amplified). DK: The Greek used here for the phrase, “at hand,” literally means ‘has come nigh,’ or is ‘at the very door!’ Thus does the Prophet Isaiah eloquently capture and restate  the sense of a LAST CALL, the very same one, beloved, given to our King He now hands to us in Royal Benediction:

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to bring good news to the suffering and afflicted. He has sent Me to comfort the brokenhearted, to announce liberty to captives, and to open the eyes of the blind. He has sent Me to tell those who mourn that the time of God’s favor to them has come, and the day of His wrath to their enemies. To all who mourn in Israel He will give: beauty for ashes; joy instead of mourning; praise instead of heaviness. For God has planted them like strong and graceful oaks for His own glory” (Isaiah 61:1-3, Living Bible).

‘GRACEFUL OAKS OF GLORY.’ I mean, what higher honor could our Sovereign bestow upon His Faithful than what is contained in this phrase. (1) “OAKS” – Signifying strength, righteousness and justice, with unbending commitment to Truth and Integrity. (2) “GLORY” – To give Honor and Beauty and highest Distinction to the King of the Universe, to vaunt and raise up His name above all others; indeed, to dare ‘boast upon Him’ and all of His mighty, loving works.

And above all beloved: TO INVITE ALL WHO HEAR HIM, to come sit at His Table and dine with Him forever and ever and forever. Selah. Selah.

Ever your servant, DK