It is Judgment when lost people who have suppressed the
knowledge of God are better able to see the propaganda and manipulation of our
consumer system and the values it teaches.
Our society has been brought under Judgment on many levels.
Morally it has been inverted and embraced that which is against nature. The Image
of God is destroyed and people behave quite literally as sub-humans.
But it is also Judgment against the Church, when these same
God-haters possess a moral compass that points accusation and denunciation at a
system that combines Corporate Greed with International Military Power. And
rather than denounce it and expose it, the Church baptizes it and celebrates
it...even in the worship of God.
It's as if the Gentiles are behaving more like Jews in some
ways.
And that same inverted morality has long been at work in the
Church. This cannot be reduced to homosexuality. That's simply the last phase
of a deep cancer which has been at work in society. And since the Church
largely follows and endorses society, the cancer is no less present in the
Church. There's more to Romans 1 than homosexuality. And people wonder why that
too is invading the Church?
Some might say it starts when Christians embrace feminism
and divorce. Fair enough, but as the culture changed and women went out into
the workforce, the economic dynamic changed. At first those with working wives
had more money and then later as the economy adjusted many wives worked just to
help their families get by.
And this was the point the Church sold out. Rather than be
morally right and poor as a consequence, the Church embraced the expected standard
of living. Blinded by greed and consumer manipulation, our culture's
sanctification of covetousness, families were destroyed, selfishness reigned
and divorce became a normal part of American Church life. We had to remain
relevant, and in the process became assimilated and destroyed our testimony to
a dying world.
It also starts with morally weak parents who have followed
the lies of the world and raised their children to be beasts. They have loved
themselves more than their children or the truth. Rather than do what's right,
they want to feel good about themselves, have their children love them and
never have to feel 'bad' about saying 'no'. Then when their children err, they
defend them. When their children do evil deeds, they make excuses for them.
Then when their children embrace sin and decadence, they blame it on others.
Then when their adult children despise them, they are puzzled and defeated. But
when the Church (which basically functions as business) is confronted with
this, the last thing it wants to do is drive away customers. After all they're
paying the bills.
You really see it in small towns. One person engages in sin,
but the Church leaders know if they address it and put the unrepentant person
out, they'll lose extended families and groups of friends. An incident like
that could almost destroy a congregation. The truth is that those who love that
unrepentant family member more than the truth are enemies of Christ.
So rather than do what is right, everyone turns a blind eye
and makes excuses. These things become normalized. The only sin is to challenge
the social status quo. We think we're challenging it when we complain about the
culture, but all too often we're wrangling over symptoms. Our leaders should
help us dig down to causes and foundations. But that's one thing they won't do.
If people start to really think, that will lead to trouble. I'm generalizing,
but this is the rule more than the exception.
In all things the Church just follows the world.
We (the Church) have erected social power-theologies that
embrace and endorse our immoral system. The Church looks like a lamb but is
speaking with the voice of dragon and teaching its people to worship and
support a very powerful manifestation of the Beast... a self-deifying Imperial
Power and the culture it has created.
Our worship of money, which is really just a tool of power
has led us to contort our values about marriage, family, the raising of
children, and time itself. We've eagerly supported an economic system and
attitude that have contributed to the destruction of the family and society. We
mock societies that value time and experience while we measure our value and
success in terms of acquisition. Italian families take siesta, French families
vacation, we buy Cadillac's and worthless junk we've produced from theft and
slave labour. We're the moral ones.
And then we're led by fools who think they stand for the
family, focus on its flourishing and yet do everything in their power to
support social, economic and cultural values which destroy the family.
I shake my head at the irony. It's akin to seeing the
American flag flying over Wal-mart. Wal-mart is perhaps the most destructive,
subversive, anti-social, anti-family organization that has ever existed. And
yet how many have been brainwashed to think it stands for truth, justice and
the American way? Well, at least they say 'Merry Christmas' right?
And yet for all this, our so-called leaders believe that if
we can just get people to 'vote their values' that somehow this will clean up
the system. If we can just get the right people into office who will provide
moral (???) leadership, then our society can become stronger, more stable and
God honouring.
These people are delusional. I have to believe they are but
children when it comes to their understanding of the world. They profess to be
wise counselors, discerners and cultural commentators but seem to lack even a
basic understanding of how the fallen world functions.
The tools they offer are not to the tools that build Zion.
They are the building blocks for the Tower of Babel.
Judgment has come on the Church because she has gone whoring
after the Beast and all its offers of power. Christ rejected Satan's offer to rule
the world, but His followers have sold themselves into bondage and joined with
the Deceiver. Together they have built a masterpiece. I cannot imagine a more
clever but ultimately deceptive system that baptizes evil and teaches the
doctrines of hell from the pulpits and airwaves that claim to speak for Christ.
What will it take for the Church to wake up and be stirred?
The false leaders are doing all they can to stir the people sitting in the
pews. But they are leading from the dark into greater darkness... in the end to
violence and further strife.
I tremble and weep when I think of the state of things and
what is to come. I weep not for the Babylon of America. Those come and go. I
weep for the Church, for many will fall in the coming days and great evils will
be perpetrated in the name of our Lord Christ.