Preface: I have posted this message on the 2020 State of the Union a few times under different titles. One title was....Our Watershed Moment....another was the title I choose to use here....A Night To Remember....referencing the classic Walter Lord book on the sinking of the Titanic. Brothers and sisters...you cannot escape this. Politics....at this stage of our collapse....if not in moderation....and humility....ethically sound....and entirely dependant of God's will....will do nothing....but drag you further away from discernement on what God is doing. The only good that it can do would be to better prepare us for what we already have brought upon ourselves. We have to confront and admit the fact that pride overtook us. That is the first step back. What you see below was posted in July of last year.
It appears to me that February 4, of 2020 may have been a watershed moment in American history.....certainly in the history of American evangelicalism. Let me set the stage....economic statistics were going through the roof. A second term for Donald Trump seemed to be in the bag. Rush Limbaugh was being honored at the State of the Union Address after announcing his illness. The statistics were good....but we in evangelicalism had moved away from Christ....consumed with issues of power and wealth. I had been disgusted with these State of the Union addresses for many years....a decade or more....and could not bring myself to watch it.....until later when I reluctantly sat through the tape. Trump was Nebuchadnezzar.....who on top of his palace......proudly proclaimed for maybe only he himself to hear.....how great was this Babylon that he had built. God brought Nebuchadnezzar down that very day....and as Trump boasted on this great America that he had built.....it seems that God brought him down on that very day also.....as this coronavirus was about to ravage....and we have had nothing but disaster ever since. Please at least give a few moments to the underlined words in the post below. Are these words not a genuine prophecy? Are they not given primarily to evangelicals.....and we have not fallen for these false words of prophecy? The following was first posted on January 3 of this year:
Preface: if you are a pastor....and Satan's minions are not after you....then he really has no complaint against you.....for you are not causing him any trouble. You can grow your church into the thousands and he will be right there celebrating with you. All of the men who God has used mightily over the centuries were constantly under assault....in one way or another....often fighting off depression. None of these men took the easy way. None thought of themselves as worthy. None of them would sit back in a situation as we have today....and let false prophets and false teachers lead the sheep away from Christ....which is what this political movement is doing.
Consider this if you would....the first fifteen verses of the prophet Joel....a plague had absolutely ruined the land....a plague of locusts. Is not our land at this time just as ruined....as one type of 'locust' after another has eaten away at the fabric of our society? If you would even partially agree with this....then consider what God said to do in verses 13 &14...."Gird yourselves and lament, you priests; Wail, you who minister before the altar; Come, lie all night in sackcloth,You who minister to my God....Consecrate a fast....Call a sacred assemble....Gather the elders....And cry out to the Lord."
A Night To Remember....To Think Upon....And To Repent Of
We need to be reminded of the evening of February 4, 2020.....the State of the Union Address....and repent of what we either ignored or took part in....where on our side of the aisle we gloated....repeatedly shouting....."four more years"...over economic statistics that would have come with any republican president to have succeeded the policies of Barack Obama. As Trump boasted of his accomplishments....he skillfully covered up the greed and the pride and the selfishness that he alone truly did instill in us.
The celebration of that night was not unlike that of Belshazzar's Feast....where we brought out references to God....captured from a true Christianity far removed from the church of today....displayed in one instance as...."talent on loan from GAWD"....as Rush Limbaugh was given a medal that night....not for his decades of service to principles....but his four years of service to a man who merely uses those principles to seek glory for himself....and all this as there was handwriting on the wall....ignored as 'fake news'....of a judgment from God about to be revealed to the whole world....in a pandemic....a judgment that we mocked....and continue to mock....just as Pharaoh mocked God in the face of Moses.
Read the words that night from a genuine biblical false prophet....a false prophet that so much of evangelicalism fell under the influence of...."Tonight I stand before you to share the incredible results....(of the past three years)....Jobs are booming....Incomes are soaring....Poverty is plummeting....Crime is falling....Confidence is surging....and our country is thriving....America's fortunes are on the rise.....America's future is blazing bright....our pride is restored....("Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall" Proverbs)....we are moving forward at a pace that was unimaginable just a short time ago....and we are never going back....we are advancing with unbridled optimism"....and the address ended with this...."This nation is our canvas, and this country is our masterpiece. We look at tomorrow and see unlimited frontiers just waiting to be explored. Our brightest discoveries are not yet known. Our most thrilling stories are not yet told. Our grandest journeys are not yet made. The American Age, the American epic, The American adventure has only just begun. Our spirit is still young. The sun is still rising, God's grace is still shining, and my fellow Americans, the best is yet to come."
Our shepherds had utterly failed us....and continue to fail as they fear repercussions from the pews....people taken in by the false prophet. We defend a constitution while ignoring God's Word and the warnings therein....as the words of the prophet Amos to Israel are now directed to us...."Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God..." (Amos 4:12)
"Please forgive my rambling like this, for I look lovingly at these men but fully realize that it is Christ who redeemed me, it is the Father who chose the weakest, unsightliest jar of clay and it is the Holy Spirit who dragged me to belief, opened my eyes and gave me faith. And it is Christ again who keeps me, who keeps all of us, though we let Him down time after time. The modern church bears scant witness to the glories that underlie the gospel. Its doctrines permit man to credit His own choosing of Christ as evidence of his salvation. Christ is less than sufficient, the Bible is less than adequate and the Holy Spirit hastens to our beckon call. Large churches legitimize us, oblivious of the warnings to the Laodiceans. Reformed churches sit on the laurels of sound doctrine forgetting the command to the Ephesian church to return to their first love. Evangelicals pass out 'four spiritual laws' booklets with a place for a signature for salvation as if they were handling out coupons for a free Big Mac. Pray for a Reformation, that we return to the cross of Christ, that pastors would preach His glories, that fathers would teach His truths and that we would be salt and light to a destitute nation."
Addendum.....March 12, 2023: I've reposted the above many times....but today....after reading it anew....I wanted to expound a little on the comment on 'reformed churches'....my own denominational theology. First of all this is a large contingent....and not all are the same. It is not in any way that they do not love their brothers and sisters in Christ....or do not seek to see people converted and rejoice when they are converted. No....there is love abounding here.....especially in missions. It is rather that those loves can be made subject to rules....where the ship is sinking fast....and the lifeboats need filled now. A more modern example would be....the plane has made an emergency landing....and a fire is starting to consume the fuselage.....the inflatable aircraft escape slide has been employed. No one is going down that slide if they do not first unbuckle their seat belt. We are not making a training video....this is the real thing....it may not be pretty. We need only to trust in that lifeboat....trust in that inflatable slide....which are Christ. We are not getting in the lifeboat which is the church. We are the church getting in the lifeboat which is Christ. We are not sliding down the church....we are the church sliding down Christ.
