There is nothing more delusional than for anyone to read exactly what God’s Word in straight forward declaration says and not accept it on its face. Instead, they read into or spin it to say what they want to support their own ideas confident God approves. Why would any professed Christian that truly knows and loves God purposely delude themselves and if a pastor, elder, teacher, preacher, prophet, evangelist or apostle (missionary) other people too, in this way? Fortunately for those of us that care, God in His Word objectively read, interpreted and applied with the leading of the Holy Spirit provides some answers and warnings about persons that deliberately disobey and corrupt it.
Before going further, I must disclose the divine burden on my heart that has led to this post. It is directly tied to the uniquely American professed Christian conservative delusional narrative that has caused many to pray and act at cross-purposes with God in the times we are in that I wrote about last week.1 I have read through the Bible many times since my surrender to Christ in 1979,2 but have not come across any promise of perpetuity for any nation but Israel! Also, it is certain not the American flag or any other nation’s flies in Heaven since Christ is and “will set up a banner for the nations” as He “assembles the outcasts of Israel...” in His Kingdom coming to earth (Isaiah 11:10-12; NKJV).
Having written the foregoing, you would be very mistaken to accuse me of not caring about my nation and its welfare! Because I deeply care about America, I have been faithfully obedient to the Lord at great cost to keep crying out against the wickedness bringing it down and proclaiming His way of salvation in the Gospel to fellow citizens of every hue--that He died on the cross for our sins, was buried and rose again to save sinners who will repent and believe! And realizing my natural allies on earth in helping our nation besides the Holy Spirit are ostensibly fellow believers He fills, empowers and leads in their churches that in the many are not, I have cried out with His grief for repentance.3
Alas though, in their largely compromised, corrupt, self-absorbed and divided state, the many guilty professed Christians and their churches in America also resist God's call to repentance and count me an enemy as the spiritually deluded and dead religionists have done from time immemorial (Genesis 4:1-8; Jeremiah 26:1-9; Matthew 23:27-39; John 8:37-47; Galatians 4:16).4 And so, once again the hard truth: how can any serious Christian really believe our nation will long endure without repentance by all the guilty from sin plainly defined and described in God’s Word? To think this is possible is to be completely deluded which apparently is acceptable among professed Christians.
Indeed, the American right and freedom to think, believe or say whatever one wants has led to the prevalence of false teaching from among many professed Christian liberals (progressives) and conservatives!5 Amazingly, many of these false teachers use Scripture as they deceptively assert it is written to undergird their particular philosophical narratives, related doctrines and opinions voluminously disseminated from pulpits and in Christian media. And because it is a permitted Americanism, the deluded, loyal followers of these false teachers will defend their right to teach falsehood to the death! But what men approve is not necessarily so with God (Luke 16:13-18)!
Everyone wants to believe and act on the Word of God as they see it rather than as it is. Scripture is clear, this was never God’s will nor is it now (2 Peter 1:16-21)! The average American in the pew does it deceiving him or herself to believe God is fully supportive of the American way of individualism, freedom and tolerance. The willfully deceitful false teachers do it puffing themselves up in pride to believe they are great teachers and their spin is right; competing with others to gain the largest possible following and income that in America’s free marketplace of ideas is acceptable. Such wicked motives, however, are not acceptable to God (Acts 20:25-31; 2 Corinthians 2:12-17, 4:1-6)!
We are supposed to come humbly to God and His written Word as eager learners ready to be taught His knowledge in Christ by the Holy Spirit (John 16:12-15; 1 Corinthians 2:6-16). If this were more widely the case now, there would not be as it is thousands of interpretations, false narratives, doctrines and opinions lest someone would even arrogantly believe God is the One confused about His own Word and the cause of confusion in His house (1 Corinthians 14:33)! But now, for those still mystified about what possible reasons the Lord might be put out enough with the current state of American Christianity and its churches to bring judgment, know that disobedience and corrupting of His Word causing “one of these little ones...to stumble” remains among them (Mark 9:42-48, NKJV).
1 See the January 10, 2021 post, Praying At Cross-Purposes With God, under the category, Bible Prophecy. Purely prophetically speaking, some generation had to roll up
on being close to the last before Christ’s coming. What does that say about the depth (not to mention authenticity) of relationship one has with Christ to selfishly want
Him to delay His coming because it interferes with your world narrative and plans? Seriously? The Lord instructs that we take the signs of His coming to heart and while
we keep living for Him and serving His causes, watch expectantly until He comes (Mark 13:28-36)! This is the heart of every aspiring strong man and great woman of
God in the image of Christ I write about in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics published by Open Door Communication Ministries, Inc. and available in
print or digital formats at major internet booksellers. You can also purchase a print copy in the Strong Man Store
2 Read my February 17, 2019 testimony in part, Surrendering All To Jesus, under the category, Glory To God!
3 Survey my posts in the categories Call To Repent and The Cause to see the consistency of the Lord’s message and heart through me to His Church in America.
4 “Well, maybe it would be different if you were not so harshly direct,” some have told me over the years. Without getting into the religious subterfuge behind such state-
ments, I cry out what God puts in my mouth with the same spiritual urgency all of the prophets of the Bible before me did and one that cares in the moment a person
about to be run over in the street needs to be warned to get out of the way! More poignantly, what is going on with the folk that have to be harshly spoken to (Ezekiel 33:
1-11; Matthew 3:1-12, 23:33; Galatians 5:7-12; James 4:1-10)?
5 As examples, consider the following. On this Sanctity Of Life Sunday created righteously by conservative President, Ronald Reagan’s 1984 proclamation to uphold un-
born life in the womb as sacred from God and to protect this life from murder by the parents (Genesis 9:5-7; Job 10:8-12), professed Christian liberals reject the occa-
sion falsely teaching a woman’s right to murder nowhere to be found in Scripture supersedes the unborn right to live. Tomorrow, many professed Christian liberals and
their atheist allies from many hues will celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the holiday in his honor (quite apart from the God he honored) as one who fulfilled Scrip-
ture’s mandate of concern for the less fortunate, while many political and religious conservatives will falsely teach in denial the numerous historically documented acts of
oppression visited upon blacks and other American minorities by them and their forefathers has any application to them as “the oppressor” named in Scripture (Isaiah 1:
17, NKJV).
Why is there still apparently so much angst and now, tumult among many that are politically conservative and profess to be Christians including those self-identified as evangelicals after this year’s Presidential election? Is it not because a year after the Coronavirus pandemic that persists, social unrest and political losses many are squaring up with the reality conservatism as it has been practiced in America may not endure? This is truly a frightening prospect to those that have rested their hope in this life almost exclusively on the control of human institutions of society to perpetually ensure their religious, moral, social and political values, dominance as well as prosperity. I get it.
Indeed, this line of thinking is by no means unique to American conservatism. It has been displayed by the peoples, nobles and royals of every nation and kingdom of men since the beginning. However, from the beginning also, the Almighty God, man’s Creator has been involved and at work in the affairs of men as His Word affirms (Genesis 3:9-11, 17-24, 6:5-22; Job 12:13-25). It is certain that neither Adam nor the people of Noah’s day that perished in the flood wished for an end; nor did king Nebuchadnezzar to whom God through the prophet Daniel revealed the future of His work to raise up and bring down kingdoms starting with Babylon until the coming of His own (Daniel 2:14-45).
The sovereign God has been in charge of the rise and fall of kingdoms up until now, and still is! Grasping this truth, the faithful in Christ understand our times are in His hand and accept His will to move them along even with judgments in accord with His plans and timing no matter how inconvenient, troublesome or adverse to our own plans, hopes and dreams (Psalm 31:14-15).1 While in general it is not wrong to pray for God to continue His gracious and merciful acts to preserve our nation and way of life as they are, it is to pray at cross-purposes with Him if it is abundantly clear as it is today, that the early warning judgments of His foretold end have begun to come upon the earth!
The generation that perished in Noah’s day had 120 years of his preaching as warning to prepare (Genesis 6:3; 2 Peter 2:4-5). Israel had all of the prophets from Moses and finally, Jesus of Nazareth, God’s Son--some 1,400 years--to warn them before their nation was destroyed and the people scattered a generation after His death, burial, resurrection and ascension (Ezekiel 7; Luke 19:41-44, 21:5-6, 21-24). Now, God has patiently given the world nearly 2,000 years since those days; time lengthy enough that some foolishly dare to scoff at us who continue to steadfastly wait for Christ’s promised glorious return and wrath as foretold (2 Peter 3:1-9; Revelation 6:12-17).
That a holy God has given sinners even one day is gracious and merciful (Ezekiel 18:4), but almost 2,000 years with the preaching of the Gospel (Acts 17:30-31)? As the Lord led me to write last year, the prayers of those professed Christians that He move His Coronavirus judgment and save our republic for among the emotionally manipulative and selfishly hypocritical reasons “the sake of our children and future generations” will not be answered by Him the way they want.2 If you truly cared about the children’s future, then, you would have fully repented from all of your biblically defined sins, rebellion and wickedness by now as God calls for (Numbers 14:1-3; Jeremiah 8:4-7).
Instead, by your refusal to repent, cavalier attitudes about and disbelieving denial of the consequences until now, it is too late to delay His on the way judgments more severe than losing elections, a nation and way of life (2 Kings 20:12-19; Ezekiel 12:21-28).3 And though they will suffer short-term, the eternal fortunes of our saved children will be infinitely greater than the inheritance of a crumbling nation and world facing divine wrath (Numbers 14:26-33; Hebrews 3:7-19). This is why the best inheritance to give our willing children is the Gospel of Jesus Christ that they might be saved and instruction about how to faithfully endure suffering persecution to the end (1 Corinthians 15:19)!4
It is time to stop denying the present and warnings about what is coming we Christians have as a legacy of hope from God through His prophetic Word; His plans and purposes now, in play! Therefore, let those that repent of all selfishness and rebellion pray in accord with His will for God to restore you through the Holy Spirit. Pray for strength and wisdom to be a bold witness for Christ. Pray to stand firm in faith throughout all that is unfolding against believers in the darkness as trouble and be encouraged in it (Psalm 46; John 16:33; Philippians 4:4-6; 1 John 5:4-5).5 Pray for all your sustenance. Pray for and support fellow persecuted brethren everywhere. Pray for the expeditious coming of our God’s Kingdom to the earth (Matthew 6:5-15; 1 Peter 5:5-11; Revelation 6:9-11, 7-8:6)!
1 This is a reality the Lord had me address early on during the spread of His Coronavirus judgment in a May 3, 2020 post, Why Now, Lord?, under the category, Encour-
agement.
2 See the April 5, 2020 post, God Is Speaking and that of April 19, 2020, Does Anybody Repent Anymore?, both under the category, Call To Repent.
3 In a chapter aptly titled, God And Politics in his 1989 book, Against The Night, (Vine Books, Ann Arbor, Michigan), political and biblical conservative, Chuck Colson, is
unambiguous in asserting the 80’s Reagan Presidential era and height of evangelicalism’s Moral Majority had “failed” in the attempt to effect a swing in our nation to a
decidedly Christian morality. Religious conservatives, he contends, ignored “two key truths” as reasons writing: “first, the solutions to all human ills do not lie in political
structures; and second, it is impossible to effect genuine political reform solely through legislation,” (p. 117). Colson ought to have known since he came to know Christ
while incarcerated for crimes committed carrying out political dirty tricks in the cause of a conservative President. Too, the historic sinful duplicities of religious conser-
vatives such as upholding systemic racism also contributed to their failure. The failure of the 80’s continues into the present hour where a divided nation is crumbling
into ruin as the Lord led me to warn in a two-part post beginning September 11, 2016, American Culture’s Religion, under the category, Call To Repent. Consequently,
Colson also affirms my conviction from the Lord that any real national reformation would have begun with individuals which only He can effect through Holy Spirit em-
powered salvation (Titus 2:11-3:8).
4 My book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics can help in this instructional effort. A print copy or digital download of the book published by the Publishing Division
of Open Door Communication Ministries, Inc. with fresh editing in 2019 for greater clarity and updated web addresses in the footnotes is available at major internet
booksellers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, ChristianBooks.com and Apple (digital only). You can also purchase a print copy in the Strong Man Store. Too, parents
and church leaders can teach, disciple and equip the next generation through The Strong Man Of God Men’s Group Study and The Great Woman Of God Women’s
Group Study also in the Strong Man Store.
5 Colson in his book earlier referenced and others that followed is not calling for disengagement from culture, but for the Church to be the Church as salt and light serving
God’s Kingdom purposes which include holding up “the blood stained banner” of Christ and His transcendent morality, (pp. 118-121, 135-137). This is not possible to
any effective extent of course, if the many that profess to be Christians are corrupt and complicit with this dark world in its rebellion against God. For this reason, Colson
also calls for repentance among guilty professed Christians and their churches, (Chapter 15 and beyond).
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