Folks, I have spent the last three days in prayerful writing many things that I believe God poured into my heart. These words flowed out of me quite effortlessly. I don't claim that they are without error and they may, indeed, be wrong in some things. But, I submit them to you for your prayerful consideration.
I'll happily discuss whatever from it if anyone wants to. If it gets into argument --- and it may well --- I'll apologize and know I was wrong for posting it. Debate is not the point. Seeking God and the truth of what He is now doing here in America (or, more to the point, identifying what He is not doing so people will see the error of our ways) is my only heart purpose here. If it offends anyone please forgive me. It isn't my intent.
I'm broken over where we are. I'm an evil man, carnal still in so many ways and I need cleansing still. Whatever it may require of me to be detached from this world and its ways is yet to be seen. Pray for me that I will be faithful and not abandon our Lord Jesus; I pray that now for each one who reads this forum or listens to the sermons found on SI.
This is about 4400 words or so, so it is long. I've put it in a giant quote box. Since footnotes don't copy and paste as formatted in Word, I've boxed out footnotes marked by * immediately following the paragraph where the footnote mark is. Feel free to ignore these as you read; they just clarify what I thought would be helpful to express what was in my mind and heart.
Jesus, Jefferson and the Present American Church: A Way Out, An Alarm, and A Way ForwardWhen the drafters of the Declaration of Independence stated that we are endowed by God with certain rights and that governments are formed by men to secure them, they were wrong. Twice.
God has given us no rights (except, according to some translations of John 1:12, the "right” of those who believe on Jesus Christ to become sons of God and for which "power” as in the KJV is a better rendering). To suggest that God gives us rights misunderstands that revelation of God in Christ.
Furthermore, those who believe God would entrust to men the security of His gifts to men know nothing of the Giver nor the gifts nor of themselves. These are delusions of atheists whose appeals to "Creators” and "Providence” are sophistries used to make palatable to fools the claimed moral rectitude of unbelievers.
God Does Not Give Rights:
No Scripture is given by the Framers, Founders and Enlightenment thinkers , nor is any given by God, to assert God’s rights given to men. This is no surprise.
Thomas Jefferson was opposed to the biblical revelation of Jesus Christ. He compiled his own edition of the gospels and eliminated all references to supernatural events and miracles. Jefferson made Jesus a caricature of Himself as revealed in the Bible. The "Jefferson Bible" is still in publication.
Jefferson wrote to John Adams in 1814, "The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it; and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine.” In other words, among Jefferson’s ideas of God-given rights is the right to reject Jesus Christ as revealed in Scripture and to reject Scripture itself. Thomas Jefferson was, as much as anything else, an antichrist and it is HIS personality that thoroughly saturates Americanism.
Jefferson wrote to another man that even if "[you] neither believe nor reject anything … Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable, not for the rightness, but the uprightness of the decision…”. Or, if you will, "as long as Enlightenment Reason is your guide, God is pleased with whatever you believe.” Churches actually celebrate him.
Biblical Christianity lends no support to the idea of "rights of men.” The Framers and Founders did not bow to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. They did bow to Reason as formed in the bowels of the Enlightenment as a "god” over nature. (Reference the "laws of Nature and Nature’s God” in the Declaration of Independence and quoted enthusiastically by Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore.) Natural law in this sense, and Reason as "God” ”“ in the Enlightenment and since -- are no more than warmed over Gnosticism. Using God’s name to explain it simply gives it an appearance of virtue that could never stand on its own as the human, sinful invention it was and is. Yet, these ideas of "laws of Nature”, "Nature’s God” (that is, Reason, not the God of the Bible; He’s not real per Jefferson), and "rights of men” are forms of evil cloaked in lamb’s wool. The disguise has worked so extremely well that 240 years later American Christianity hails the Declaration of Independence as a document written with quasi-inspiration of God.
How is the Enlightenment idea of Reason mere Gnosticism? Simply put, the Enlightenment held that God is revealed by Reason (natural observation and thought only) and that God is knowable as much as He may be known by merely watching, then thinking of all the duties and actions of men that the mind can comprehend from what is seen, and doing those duties. As applied by Jefferson’s definition of what is right, a person should appeal to his own reason and do well whatever he believes is right for him to do, and that in doing so, he will please God. Earlier, Gnosticism held that God is revealed by Wisdom (natural intuition and thought only) and that God is knowable as much as He may be known by merely thinking until one became enlightened with knowledge ("gnosis”), then because of the enlightenment one is no longer bound to do anything or not do anything with regard to his body. As applied by Gnostics, a person should appeal to the thoughts of his own wisdom/intuition/knowledge and do whatever he wants for himself to do, and that in doing so ”“ simply because one is enlightened -- God is satisfied. Enlightenment and Reason are an avenue; Gnosticism and Wisdom are a street.
Standing opposed to these ideas is the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. God has always revealed Himself through the mediation of words, and ultimately in the living Word, God the Son, Jesus Christ. Any Christian who actually believes this can refer simply to Genesis 1 and 2, John 1, Philippians 2 and Hebrews 1 for a refresher. In these words, God never grants rights to men; however, the Enlightenment form of Gnosticism is a litany of rights centered on man yet attributed to the Enlightenment/Gnostic false version of God as Reason or Gnosis.
God Does Not Count On Men To Secure What Is His:
In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson stated that God entrusts men to secure rights by forming governments whose powers come, not from God, but from the consent of the governed. One must understand that the consent is based on Reason (in the Enlightenment sense of the word as a substitute for the true God). It is diabolically clever. The governed are those Enlightened men of Reason who, following their own personal sense of duty and being true to themselves, thereby aggregate power over all in a small number of men who are especially Enlightened men of Reason also following their own personal sense of duty and their own truths. These, per Jefferson, secure what is given by God.
God does not count on men to secure what is His. There is no Scriptural teaching that God gives gifts to men and entrusts them to civil government or to any unredeemed, unregenerate people or organization such people may form. The sole witness of the New Testament as to God and government is this: (1) that God is the only potentate; (2) that He has a kingdom that He currently rules and does not currently designate any reign to anyone outside of Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit; (3) that He has a people in the Earth that He calls the ekklesia to whom He gives gifts of Himself and a government of Himself that has as its specific end the glory of God in Jesus Christ according to the various means related in the New Testament (and you’ll simply have to read it to know what those means are); (4) that He will ultimately (and, I believe soon) destroy all other forms of human government (civil, corporate, etc.) and exercise full authority over them as conquered rebels, not as stewards; (5) that He will ultimately (again, soon) and directly rule over all His creation, and those resurrected saints whom He esteems as worthy joint-heirs of His kingdom will exercise some measure of rule though we are now hard pressed to say exactly what that will be.
American Evangelicals have been trained by those steeped in Jeffersonian faith to assert Romans 13 as a source of their belief about God’s ordination of government. But Jefferson made no appeal to Scripture to find the authority of God in government. Jefferson himself said, "History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance…”. Letter to Baron Von Humboldt, 1813. In short, government minus true faith in the biblically revealed Jesus Christ is the best government, at least by Jefferson’s own summation. He would never appeal to any writing by the apostle Paul (i.e., the epistle to the Romans) since Jefferson considered Paul "the first great corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus”.
But, Jefferson did believe in men as supreme governors. American Evangelicalism today simply does not distinguish between Enlightenment/Reason forms, functions and powers of government from the relationship of believers to it, which Paul did describe. For Americans who profess Jesus, civil government is the relationship of believers to one another and the world around them. They cite Romans 13* and other passages (incorrectly) and aphorisms such as "we are called to be good stewards of democracy as a gift from God”. Church government mirrors civil government in structure and polity. Yet, this is a thoroughly Jeffersonian slander against Romans 13 . American Christians cannot distinguish because they cannot discern.
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*I have written on this separately although not in relation to Jefferson or the Enlightenment in particular. In short, Romans 13 does not establish that God ordains civil government as His instrument and that Christians are bound to obey it. Romans 13 must be read as part of Romans 12, and as part of Paul’s description of what loving one’s enemy looks like, and where Paul describes civil government as the epitome of the enemies of Christ who must nonetheless be loved for the sake of Jesus Christ. Romans 13 yields nothing of import about civil government and laws as being something approved by God; however, it insists upon Christian love to those who operate the evil of civil government and upon submission as an expression of that love. In this, Paul is keenly aware of the historical rejection of God by His people, Israel, in 1 Samuel 8 and the indelible, unshakeable impact that event still had on his own day. It is no coincidence that Jefferson’s own impact corrupts Christianity in America 240 years later, but it is incredible that Christians do not see it.
________________________________________________________The Declaration’s assertion that God uses government to secure His gifts of "rights” to men is, then, a satanic bait and switch. The rights which Jefferson there proclaimed are not from God, but God is used to make them seem so. Then, human institutions are described in terms of nobly securing these apparently God-given rights. The rights themselves are self-serving with roots in heretical belief and a rejection of Jesus as God the Son, but they are labeled with God’s name and accredited to His benevolence and coupled to a call to do justice to them, hence the "consent of the [Enlightened] governed” as a source of "derived powers” of government. It is all very holy sounding. Except, it is the opposite.
The powers of civil government have long been the province of satan. Most American Evangelicals would gasp to learn that some of their 19th century forbears in the faith understood this. David Lipscomb, notable early figure in the development of the Church of Christ movement in America* , wrote, in Civil Government: Its Origin, Mission and Destiny, and the Christian's Relation to It, published first as a book in 1889, "All the wars and strifes between tribes, races, nations, from the beginning until now, have been the result of man's effort to govern himself and the world, rather than to submit to the government of God." "Human government,” he wrote, "bears the same relation to hell as the church bears to heaven." Nearer to the early church, Tertullian wrote of Christians, "nor is there aught more entirely foreign to us than the affairs of state”. Origen wrote early on that "Christians decline public offices, but that they may reserve themselves for a diviner and more necessary service in the Church of God”“for the salvation of men”.
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*This should not be read as an endorsement of the Church of Christ or any denomination over against any other.
______________________________________________In 1 Samuel 8, God’s people rejected the personal rule of God Himself in favor of a fallen human government. God honored that choice and gave the people what they demanded. It was a continuation of the rejection of God’s personal rule over the first humans in the Garden. Satan interposed himself in the Garden to appeal to human observation (much like Jefferson’s Enlightenment era Reason) and intuition (before Gnosticism was even a word) as their ruler versus God’s personal, intimate rule. Humanity has consistently inserted their own mediators between God and themselves and dignified such rebellion with noble, lofty words: knowledge, wisdom, kingdom, authority, reason, civilization, rights, laws, constitutions, security.
Jesus, however, came to announce the arrival of the kingdom of God. Hebrews 1:1-3; Luke 4:18-19; Luke 9, 10; Matthew 3:2; Mark 1:15. God now commands all men everywhere to repent and believe. Acts 17:30. God, in Christ, now asserts His personal authority over everyone, everything and every place. Jesus ”“ crucified, resurrected and ascended to the Father’s right hand -- is the ruler of kings on the Earth. Revelation 1:5, 17:14, 19:16.
It is crucial to note now ”“ and cannot be overstated -- that Jesus is the only mediator between God and man. 1 Timothy 2:5. The "end” or purpose of His sole mediation is to "have all men be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” 1 Timothy 2:4. To override the ongoing rebellion of human mediation since the Garden and since 1 Samuel 8, we give "supplications, prayers, intercessions and … thanks, for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.” 1 Timothy 2:1-2. This will persist until "the kingdoms of the world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ”. Revelation 11:15-17. That will only be realized through wrath on the very civil institutions American Evangelicals hold dear. Revelation 11:18.*
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* I am realistically certain that American Evangelicals will not repent. Revelation 9:20, 21. I am realistically certain that a remnant of people have repented and will repent and enter lives of true faith in the genuine gospel of the one Lord Jesus Christ in this part of the world and that we/they will be rejected by American Evangelicals in keeping with the New Testament. Matthew 10:21-23; Luke 12:52-53; 2 Timothy 3:1-5.
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I will restate the previous paragraph: Jesus alone is God’s expression of authority and power, not civil government nor any of its philosophies. Only Jesus and His authority in the kingdom of God is the worthy "knowledge” because it alone leads men to truth and salvation. Only the truth of Jesus (as revealed in the Scriptures) and the salvation of men by His Way is the proper government of men; all others are "thieves and robbers” (cf. John 10:8). Only those who hear and obey His Word ”“ rejecting the rule of men ("my sheep did not hear them”, John 10:8) and the schemes of Satan in the world to interpose men as mediators via civil government ”“ are in right relationship with God.The present mediation of men ”“ the "government of the people, by the people and for the people” ”“ is, then, a rebellion against God in Jesus Christ disguised as being rooted in Christianity. It is, in a biblical word, antichrist. The Declaration of Independence urges men to that which is inherently antichrist. This, of course, is consistent with Jefferson’s thought process. But, my hope is that you will understand or at least begin to meditate on this: God is actively undermining this rebellion while the American Evangelicals fervently support it. God is NOT securing it, and men are not securing it for Him; to the extent it is secure at all, it is being secured by antichrist rebels. The great danger is deception even of the saints in these times of the end.
How To Avoid Deception And Come Into Truth:
It is a rocky beachhead for American Evangelicals to crawl over under severe strain to arrive at the truth here presented. They cannot do it in human power. They must have an illumination from the Holy Ghost to see and know and do. But, then that very Spirit-induced illumination as to their own state and of the person and work of Jesus Christ and the hope of redemption in Him is necessary to be an actual Christian in the first place. It is not as if God is unwilling or unable to save; it is, though, as if men and women who won’t walk out of the dark deception of Americanism and Constitutionalism and all of that will not endure.
The power of the lie of Americanism has been restrained. On the one hand, Satan has restrained it. Like the evil leaven of the Pharisees (themselves ancient ministers of this very rebellion), Americanism has required much time to work its way thoroughly into the hearts and minds of every American so that, when Americans profess faith in Christ, they bring the evil with them. The church itself has so embraced the lie that all of what is American and patriotic and constitutional are treated as virtues by the church. Full presentation of the lie would not work; blindness to it has depended on decades and centuries of leavening. Satan’s restraint of the lie has been wildly successful; but this has all been preparatory for his agenda and is a means to another end.
On the other hand, the Holy Spirit has worked in the remnant church to subterfuge the restrained satanic lie. He has always worked through a handful only of people who He enabled to see the truth until now. Now, by the Spirit, more are seeing and coming to knowledge of the truth. Why now? Because the restraint of Satan has been discarded so that the power of the lie will kill the witness of Christ in America.* Only now is the greater power of the truth in fuller measure necessary.
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*Unless anyone find this strangely American-centric and conclude that I view the Bible through American eyes, I want to make clear that the activities and lies of Satan in other parts of the world have been advanced farther along in different ways than America has experienced. Like the sun rises in the East and sets in the West, so to speak, the advance of Satan’s lies have first matured in the East. Since I live in America and this is what God is saying to me, I am speaking to the American facets of this issue.
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We live in the time the Bible describes thusly: "A falling away first [shall] come”; "him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders. And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” (2 Thess. 2:3, 9-12). "[I]n the last days, perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. … Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. … [M]en of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.” (2 Tim. 3:1-8).This reads like a classified ad for a staff position at 95% of American churches. Patriotic ("working of Satan with all power”). Engaging the culture (able to deceive the perishing because they do not love truth; pleasure in unrighteousness). Relevant (lovers of their own selves). Successful (covetous, boasters, proud). Immersed in current language and trends (blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unholy). Embracing in fellowship those in sexual perversion and sin (without natural affection, heady). Emphasizing a message about grace and love and dreams and destinies and identities (lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof). Antagonistic to biblical truth and scoffing at anyone who rejects the institution of American Evangelicalism (fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded).
Paul describes these times as "perilous” to believers. They are spearheaded by "men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith”. The deception works from within the church. It is active now, like evil leaven in its full power. It makes people "perish”.
The power of the Holy Spirit is needed now more than we ever have needed it because the restraint of the lie has been removed. The fact is that unless time is shortened, the saints of God themselves will be deceived, such is the power of the lie now.*
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*Mark 13:20; Matthew 24:22, 24; Isaiah 1:9. The remnant of God are those who endure, are saved, and who have not fallen away (apostasized). Men are deceived when they believe doctrines of demons. 1 Tim. 4:1. Faith in civil government and patriotism is a doctrine of demons. But, it is only one of many.
______________________________________________The first question every one must ask God is this: Am I truly a joint-heir with Jesus Christ of eternal life in the kingdom of God? Leonard Ravenhill, long-time prophet and evangelist of the 20th century, quite correctly said, "I doubt that more than two percent of professing Christians in the United States are truly born again.” The American Evangelical church is awash in deceit, self, sin, demonic doctrines, divisions, power-grabs, turf wars, personality cults and every unclean thing that the defines the fallen world itself. We are functionally 100% apostate. Until we repent and cry out to God in sorrow of our sins and in complete abandonment of ourselves, our lives, our livelihoods, our families even, our own minds, our brick and mortar churches, our friends, and our finances, we will remain apostate and we may as well embrace Satan personally. We are the sevenfold children of hell even if we raise our hands and sing love songs to God and read our bibles through every year. No amount of taking the "right” position on any number of issues or anything that passes for Christianity in this country is actual Christianity. We must come back to the cross and look upon the crucified God-man Jesus, whom God the Father was pleased to crush for our sins, and be honest with the Judge of our souls about our own sin that served to nail the Lamb to the cross. We must reckon with our sin and repent of our sin and flee to Christ alone for salvation at the cost of everything and everyone we know and love. Otherwise, we are hell-bound and without hope. The American Evangelical church is even guiltier than the world that never professed belief or even opposed belief because we are the ones who co-opted Jesus for our own benefit instead of for His glory. We must ask if we are truly His and we must repent regardless of the answer to the question.
Next, we must get alone with God and His Word. We must learn prayer as a discipline of listening rather than a discipline of petitioning. Jesus spent more time alone with God the Father than He did alone with the 12. He learned from His Father and He learned obedience, received anointing from the Holy Spirit to speak with power, cast out demons, and to heal the sick and raise the dead ”“ by quieting Himself before the Father to hear and see what the Father was saying and doing. We must get the Word of God into our eyes and ears and hearts and minds; we must do it now fervently. There is little time to polish ourselves in the most skilled handling of it by human standards. There is the most urgent need ever now to ingest it and meditate on it day and night.
We must be baptized in the Holy Spirit. Whatever else some may insist is an outward sign of this biblical experience with God that He promises to believers today, the inward work is undeniable and consistent among those who are baptized in the Spirit. We are given a power from on high to obey God, to learn quickly His Word and understand it, to be able to determine what God is doing versus what the seducing spirits in the world are doing while disguising themselves as Christians, to actually do what Jesus actually did, and to actually say what Jesus said we should actually say and when and where and how to do and say these things as the Holy Spirit will equip us.
We must gather with believers in small places and in small numbers more frequently than we are accustomed to doing. Online gathering does not suffice. The New Testament church did not come to life in brick and mortar buildings specially designed for large meetings with concerts and speeches. The New Testament church came to life ”“ and even today lives powerfully ”“ in small gatherings of believers that look nothing like our "church services”, and even then it was almost exclusively in believers’ homes. Wherever the gospel of the kingdom is going forward in the world today, it is in these settings that believers meet most often. The American Evangelical form of meeting is a result of its co-opting the ways of the world and is evil. We must repent of this and come small, come close, come humbly, come with no agendas, come together and come day-to-day as we possibly can. We cannot afford to quibble or question this. We must do it, now.
Most people who profess Christ do not yet believe that Americanism is evil. Most don’t accept that the American Evangelical church is deceived. Most still will want to defend the Constitution and wistfully hope for some day when common sense overrides the madness of the world. Most just will not readily understand that the American political system is rooted in satanic thinking and is antichrist. How do such individuals, then, having started down the path of true faith in Jesus and true conversion to Christ, move toward what they don’t yet know for themselves?
First, understand that all human power is a form of satanic activity. Read the Bible slowly and always watch what those with human power do. Watch how they leverage the name of God and faith in God to promote themselves. Compare them to businessmen, governors, presidents, prime ministers, and any person of power in the way of the world. Note the common threads they share with one another and with the personality of Satan as he is described throughout the Bible. Pay particular attention to their disguises and to those Scriptures that show Satan as the master disguiser, and analyze how the powers of men are like the powers of Satan. Analyze how men and Satan utilize what appears to be good and holy and of God to reach their own goals, desires and ends.
Second, practice treating all actions and words of people in worldly power --- especially those most noble sounding acts and words that are done in the name of God or Jesus Christ --- as lies in your own mind. Go beyond skepticism. Surpass cynicism. Understand that the one certainty these all share is that they are of their father the devil and they only and always seek power and speak lies. For example, when a politician (especially those of your own party ”“ while you still haven’t rejected politics outright) or business mogul (especially connected with those corporations you like) speaks of God and of faith, reject it as a lie and only as you have done so then hold that statement up against the backdrop of the Christian witness of that speaker, hold it to the light of Scripture, and ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten your understanding of the true nature of that person’s words or actions. You will develop a fairly quick sense of seeing them as they really are.
Moreover, always stay alone with God and His Word and in fellowship in small quiet places with a handful of believers who seek Jesus completely. Submit to one another. Learn of Him with one another. Test yourself in their Spirit-filled counsel. Be patient. Devote yourself to the love of the truth. Shed whatever is not of God in your life and thoughts and beliefs.