We in America....and in evangelicalism....and even in much of the church....no longer fear God. The Republican Party simply is no more.....just like the Democrat Party is no more.....and has not been for a couple of decades. What replaced the Republican Party may win elections....but it is no longer a political party....for we are now only a movement or a machine....attempting to be a juggernaut....who along with the democrats....are no different in tactics than the communists vs the national socialists of a hundred years ago.....two forces that will employ any means available to get or keep power. I have been a republican since Reagan....and I have no plans on changing my registration....but I have no part with these people anymore....at least on a national level. Trump has destroyed that party. The national socialists had their demigod....they used broadcast propaganda to perfection....and the demigod swooped out of the sky to the rallies....they established their youth corps....they had their enforcers....who purged everyone that did not go along with them....and that is what we are doing. It took Martin Niemoller a while to see his mistake.....Bonhoeffer saw what was happening right away....and that also is about where we are in the church. The following was posted a few days before the 2020 election....the preface and the short prayer at the end from July of last year:
Preface" Someone once referred to the Puritans in conversation with J. I. Packer....as giants....whereas he promptly replied that it was not that the Puritans were giants....but that we were Pygmies. In that vein it is not that I see things on a prophetic scale....but that most cannot see what is right before their face! Jesus is coming back to judge this world....and soon.....Webster's definition of soon. We will be held accountable for every moment that we waste ignoring this....ignoring the specific warnings....the repeated warnings for emphasis....that Jesus Himself gave us.....you and me....for there is no excuse. I wrote the following post on October 20, of 2020. As bad as that year had been so far.....it was going to get much worse. There is no effective or discerning evangelicalism left....not even any Christian bookstores to reach the few inquirers that may be out there....but the Wedding Banquet will be filled even if by those fortunate enough not to be stuck in our modern church pews....as these pastors will also be held accountable by God....for telling us so often to trust in God....when they themselves refuse to even seriously examine let alone trust His warnings.
That Which We Have Lost.....We Must Regain
I think that it's time to retell this story. Twenty years ago....at age 50....I went back to college to work on a masters degree program in higher education. I was very hands on with our son's education. If he had a book to read in high school.....I read it also. He would be heading off to college....as I had about thirty years earlier....and I wanted to know more about our entire higher education system....to see what he was getting into.
I loved every single minute of it....a cohort of.....I can't remember.....about twenty of us....consisting of mostly fresh college graduates....and a couple in their thirties....and a couple in their forties.....and me. (this was a Christian college so I got the straight story) These classes were very interactive....with conversation going on all the time....and one particular Tuesday evening....the topic would have been some kind of current events....I stood up for emphasis....we were all friends by this time....and I tried to explain the best that I could how those were not normal times that we were living in.....with disagreements that were not normal.....it was serious.....and it was going to get much worse. As I remember....everyone listened politely....but I doubt if there were any who even understood the scope of the warning I was trying to give.
I'm trying to do the very same thing today.....only we have been in those troubling times for quite a while....and what's ahead for us is beyond what even the most concerned people today believe or probably even can envision. I could see this back then in God's Word....as many could see it.....and I can see it again in God's Word....the only difference is that not as many see it today....for not as many desire to see it.
This is part of the reason that I mention in these posts that this election is essentially meaningless. God has warned us very specifically for a half century....two-thousand years to be more precise....and these are the times that God's Word pointed to....but oh we don't want to say things like that.....date setting don't you know. Folks....two-thousand years exactly....Israel....violence as in Noah's Day....Big Brother like Orwell didn't even imagine....antichrists running all over the place? Top all this off with today's evangelicalism that is extraordinarily weak....weak sermons....entertainment evangelism....so very modern....faddish greedy doctrines run amok....and false teachers and false prophets leading the way....with delusion upon delusion.
There is a winnowing coming in the church....(the visible church)....and I've said that often....brothers and sisters....the others are not going to like us....to put it mildly! It's going to look so clear to them.....and we will appear to them as stuck in the sixteenth century or somewhere. God may indeed bring a reformation within the church....and that is certainly our prayer....but it won't change the events that are already in motion.
This is part of the reason that MAGA is so absurd. This is why we have to get our minds off Donald Trump....and back on God's Word where it belongs. We will find out shortly who God will have sit behind that Resolute Desk....(it took a little longer than I even thought)....but this is God's choice not ours.
God is taking veil after veil off of our eyes. John penned in Revelation...."[Blessed is the one who reads aloud]....the the words of this prophesy.....and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near." (Rev 1:3)
We may on the whole....have lost our fear of the Lord....and I'll repeat these words that Charles Spurgeon used to describe what that fear is....."It is the fear which bows the tall archangel in adoration before the throne....it is the fear which makes the cherub veil his face with his wings while he adores his Lord." Folks....there is no place in the fear of the Lord....for politics that takes the place of....that supercedes....and that pushes out of the way....our only true hope in Jesus Christ.....and it is that fear of the Lord which we must once again rejoice in....and of which we must quickly return!
Lord....open the eyes of we your children to the horror of this antichrist who came into evangelicalism as a wolf in sheep's clothing....and has devoured and scattered us. These people do not like masks Lord....so take off his mask....and show us what is underneath it....so that whatever these who call themselves conservative might choose to do....that your children will have no part of it....and give us the courage Lord to deal with the repercussions....even within your church....from those outraged that we will not follow this false prophet.
