Isaiah 5:18-19
"What sorrow for those who drag their sins behind them with ropes made of lies, who drag wickedness behind them like a cart! They even mock God and say, 'Hurry up and do something! We want to see what you can do. Let the Holy One of Israel carry out his plan, for we want to know what it is.'”
The soul believes that God is. The hearts believes that Jesus is the truth and full of grace, the heart believes that he's telling us the truth. And the Spirit through the word of God reveals the truth about grace and brings that truth both into recognition and into remembrance, making that truth clearer and more relevant for the believer. Spirit, soul, and body. By the works of these supernatural forces, faith comes to the hearer. Christianity then becomes what that hearer does with that truth and grace.
Today, there's a dichotomy of worldly ideologies surrounding the Christian church. The polarization is split between progressivism and bigotry. Neither is a good thing. Neither is a Christian worldview. The progressives starting in the era of "the enlightenment" began questioning the historical Jesus and elevating grace above truth and ultimately producing and practicing a universalist gospel. And at the same time there was a push back pendulum swing of conservative thought that has pushed truth beyond the limits of grace and into a gospel of bigotry. Fact of the matter is, Christianity should not be elevating either grace or truth, one over the other. Jesus Christ testifies to the truth, for this reason he was sent to be among us. And the fruit of his testimony, about the truth, is grace. These two elements of faith shouldn't be divided, they shouldn't be deconstructed by leftist ideology, and they shouldn't be subverted by fundamentalism. These elements of faith are basically homogeneous in Jesus Christ. They are who he is, together.
Today there is exactly a doctrine of demons invading Christian churches across America, twisting the Bible to advance a leftist political ideology that divides Christian people with superficial beliefs about truth and grace. And it's coming soon to a church near you. But the answer to that influence isn't a nationalist fundamentalist church. There shouldn't be PRIDE flags or any other idyllic flags pushing any untruthful and graceless ideology in the sanctuaries. I'll probably piss off someone with this, but I don't need or want the American flag in the sanctuary either. Outside the doors in the Narthex? Maybe. It really depends upon why it's being given and space in the church. But that's kind of the point of this devotional message.
The day is coming when demonic worship of these corrupted gospel ideologies will be inescapable. The meek and mild Christian world will no longer be tolerated. Neither progressive or conservative churches will tolerate any form of religious moderation (grace). The extreme Church is coming with judgment. Whether it's progressive or conservative, judgment just the same. Judgment without relief.
Today we see a cultural shift in our society. Cords of deceit are being incrementally fabricated with Marxist ideologies to indoctrinate the people. These ideals are not solely Democrat, they are Marxist. They have a deeper purpose than getting Democrats elected.
The Marxist goal is this:
The first sin seems harmless enough and perhaps the second, but soon the sinner is trapped in the Marxist webbing by these shifts in ideology. The believers begin to believe and ultimately embrace unbelief. They cry out with atheist mocking, “If what you say is true, show us. See, it won't happen.” And these mocking demons are released upon the people to sow lies and divisions, and the deliberate falsification of reality. In other words, wokeness.
Isaiah 5:20
"What sorrow for those who say that evil is good and good is evil, that dark is light and light..."
They misappropriate justice, they elevate unholy men to portray themselves as righteous experts in defense of all that is right and good, but their motives are darkness. They are corrupted spirits; drunk on their own lies and the power they hold over the uninformed. There is no truth or grace in them.
Isaiah 5:21
"What sorrow for those who are wise in their own eyes and think themselves so clever."
And judgment is coming. They have rejected the word and law of God, the Holy One of Israel, and God will destroy them with fire.
Like it or not Church, the Christian life, is locked into a socio-political struggle because of these demonic beliefs that are no longer just creeping around in the sanctuary, have purchased the buildings, occupied the seminaries, and populated the pulpits with these demonically influenced players.
Ephesians 6:12
"Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."
Rival wicked spirits, counterfeit religions, divination, astrology, deceptive appearances of supernatural beings, influential dreams, a drug induced capacity for greater perception, bodies inked with spiritual lies, false peace, and ascetic dreams, all these things are coming in greater frequency and importance among the churches. They are the demons of old. The very same fallen spirits who worked in the ancient Greco-Roman ages.
Demons are harming the people of faith with their spiritual sickness. Deluding some into believing in heresy and idols, and creating evil thoughts in the minds of others, through hardhearted acts of unkindness, darkness of thought. It's feeding the spirit of division. It's grace verses truth. Truth becomes idolatry, and grace becomes murder. Families are dissolving, children are killing children, unborn children are treated like a cancer. Unnatural attraction is perverting sexuality. The globalists are poisoning the people with healthcare. The conservationists are promoting the destruction of humanity and welcoming war and famine as a vehicle toward end. And the church is where they will get it all done, where the people will adopt these immoral atheist ideologies as a spiritual awakening, we call the woke Jesus.
Immorality is the vehicle for these demonic powers. Sexual expression becomes the faith. Sexual revolution is a color revolution. Pornographic and symbolic impure imagery becomes their idolatry. They wear it stained upon their bodies.
It's all really just witchcraft.
Wearing pink is said to ease aggression. Red is lust, desire, seduction and rage. Green is greed, gain, wealth, prosperity. Yellow is transmutation, change. Blue is spirituality, idealism. Violet is visionary sacrifice. And black is void, darkness, final endings. In adopting these colors into their being (soul), on their bodies, and into their thoughts about faith (mind), they've abandoned themselves into a perverted carnal sexuality disguised as spirituality. And their idol is PRIDE.
They are no longer thinking reasonably. They've chosen the path of trans-insanity. The reprobate mind.
Romans 1:28-30
"Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents."
And the funny thing is, its divine judgment being played out in the demon infested church. God is giving them their desires. And their god is the woke Jesus.
But friends be careful, because Jesus is both truth and grace.
If the demons can't destroy all the church with progressive values eroding the truth, they'll tear apart the rest with bigotry, by eroding grace.
What should we do?
The best thing I can suggest is listen to the Word, keep it holy and shine the light of the gospel...feed that light with the oil of the Spirit. Fight the wicked spirits with the Spirit of Truth and with a heart filled with Grace.
Philippians 2:14-16
"Do everything without complaining and arguing, so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people. Hold firmly to the word of life; then, on the day of Christ’s return, I will be proud that I did not run the race in vain and that my work was not useless."
God bless you and keep you always in his Son Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Video clip from the Babylon Bee:
Philippians 1:10b-11
"Live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return. May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation—the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ—for this will bring much glory and praise to God."
Since the fall of man, Adam and every human being that followed, lost the capability to exercise holy reign over the whole of creation. Adam violated the holy command and every generation that followed did likewise. David and the nation of Israel continued this sinful trend. They too were unable to fully manifest God’s kingdom here on earth because of their unrepentant sin. Zerubbabel’s lackluster performance after returning to Jerusalem following the exile into Babylon proved that there always remains a spiritual problem of faithlessness to the law of God, a problem so prevalent that even God's wrath cannot cure it.
And I suppose this is why many Israelites rejected Jesus as the Messiah. His earthly mission was to inaugurate the kingdom and restore ...
Zechariah 14:4-5
In that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley...Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him."
The Mount of Olives is east of the city across the Kidron Valley and is higher than the temple mound. Jerusalem becomes the source of living water when The Lord splits the Mount in two and a valley opens up from East to west. And a vast underground river rises up and pours out over the land towards the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean. The Dead Sea is healed and becomes a fishing resort. And Jerusalem will be raised up, elevated above her geographical surroundings.
Zechariah 14:10
"The whole land shall be turned into a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem."
And all the heavens will change. All we know about the universe will change. There will no longer be day or night. No darkness. Only the light of The Lord. One day, neither day nor night, as if ...
Zechariah 1:13
“In that day a fountain will be opened for the dynasty of David and for the people of Jerusalem, a fountain to cleanse them from all their sins and impurity."
Nothing is sacred about a moment.
Nothing is sacred about a relic.
Nothing is sacred about idols.
Zechariah 13:2
“And on that day,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “I will erase idol worship throughout the land, so that even the names of the idols will be forgotten."
A man desires God's presence he's lost. He creates an idol to make a remembrance, and that idol becomes his god.
That lost blessing?
He's forgotten it, too busy remembering his idol.
In that day, the Lord himself will do battle against the AntiChrist. His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, and a fountain will open up. A new creation. A new river will spring forth from Jerusalem and cleanse the land and its people.
Ezekiel 36:25
"I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols."
...
Matthew 1:16
"and Jacob fathered Joseph the husband of Mary, who gave birth to Jesus who is called the Messiah."
Joseph and Mary were engaged. In the Hebrew culture this was the first of three steps in the marriage process. This engagement is basically an arrangement to be married. This could have taken place very early in their lives, even as small children. Engagement was usually arranged by the parents. Espousal followed this arrangement period and lasted about a year in the case where the couple are of age. This espousal stage was considered to be marriage to a certain degree, but the couple were set apart to prepare themselves for full consummation and so they were kept apart sexually. In fact the father kept tokens of his daughter's virginity in case any questions arose later on. It was at this point that "it was discovered before they came together that she was pregnant from the Holy Spirit." (Matthew 1:18b)
Joseph was a righteous man, a Nazarene, a descendent of David. And he didn't want to disgrace Mary and open her ...
Matthew chapter 1
"This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham..."
From Abraham to the Messiah, by his seed (Abraham's), some 42 generations later, the birth of Jesus Christ (the Messiah) came to pass. Jesus' earthly father Joseph, the descendant of king David by the line of David's son Solomon, bore the genealogy of a cursed royal line because of Jeconiah. And yet Luke looks to Jesus as the son of Mary who traces her lineage from Nathan the son of king David, though Nathan is not of the kingly line, but he's also not cursed by the sin of Jeconiah. It seems that Jeconiah birthed quite a bit of trouble, I'm thinking about his grandchild Zerubbabel who was particularly problematic. Looking back to the minor prophets we've recently studied, maybe we'll recall, that Zerubbabel tried to lead a messianic movement for himself. Whether or not he did indeed try to lay claim to Messiah status is a little unclear, but he was indeed involved in the coming of Christ. Both Matthew and Luke list ...
Yesterday I wrote an article/devotion about Nostra aetate and the notion that some hold that there are many paths to God, or that all religious paths lead to the same cross of Jesus. The impetus was the Pope's recent comments about his belief in what I believe is a heretical doctrine.
Today, I want to address what's really going on here for so many in the Catholic Church and in Christian universalism in general. It's really about evangelism, or the lack thereof. Maybe you could say, if you were Methodist, it's about prevenient grace. The desire is to open doors for evangelism. I get that. I also know it only ever really opens the window, but hardly ever the door.
Why?
Why doesn't it work to convert and disciple the worshippers of other "gods" to just meet in ecumenical mingled worship?
Simple answer:
They aren't making disciples, they're making excuses.
And unfortunately this Nostra aetate universalist notion has bled out into all the many Christian communities. And the result is, evangelism and disciple making has been nearly eliminated in most Christian ...
