"Rum Thing:" Christianity A Fairy Tale Come True?

It seems like only a few short years since the Biblical story of the birth of Jesus was treated respectfully by the general population, if not quite as true at least without challenging it. Now you find on many websites, except of course the Christian sites, it's treated as "The Christmas myth."

In those "olden times" you could ignore the Christian message if you wanted to, and emphasize the pagan aspects of the holiday, the Santa Claus myth, the Christmas tree, mistletoe and all that, but there was enough of a blending that if you believed the Biblical story you could also include the pagan elements as holiday color without taking them too seriously. The Christmas tree was included by Martin Luther in the celebration after all, and some Christian churches made a Christian symbol out of it too. Nativity scenes and Christmas cookies shaped like trees and Santas all came together in one merry mélange.

Or if the pagan aspects were objectionable to them, some Christians would stick entirely to the Christian meaning of the holiday. It couldn't have been the actual birth of Jesus but it's as good a time as any to celebrate it since the actual date isn't given in scripture anyway.

The last few years I've written posts critical of being too strict about the pagan aspects since nobody today celebrates them as such, they are just part of the festive atmosphere of the season. Nobody's heard of Saturnalia except a few owlish types, for instance, so there really isn't any danger of many if any actually celebrating it.

But this year I find my emphasis changing. Now the Christian meaning of Christmas is being more aggressively treated as a myth than I recall being the case before. There's also quite a bit of mockery out there. I was looking for nativity scenes at Google image and found I had to look very closely to be sure I wasn't getting something even possibly obscene. There have always been unbelievers of course but for the most part they've entered into the festivities with Christian family and friends without feeling the need to Grinch it up. I loved Christmas long before I was a Christian, and don't recall ever feeling "offended" by nativity scenes or any of the rest of it that now "offends" some people. But even this growing grinchiness about offense didn't become a generalized mythification of Christianity. And I don't know if I'm being hypersensitive this year or if I've really tuned into a point where the whole culture has stepped over a line, now treating the central holiday that celebrates the birth of the Savior of Mankind, the defining holiday of Christendom, as a myth, in a way that severs the church from the culture more definitively than ever before.

I doubt it's going to show up among the holiday crowds out shopping, it's just something I've encountered online so far. It just seems like there's a lot of it. Sites that display iconic Christmas decorations and images call it all a "myth." I found it jarring to be looking for such images and encountering that term. These are people who are celebrating this myth too. At least there's that, I suppose, they don't want to do away with it.

The Myth

What about it is a myth? Well, everything. The idea that angels exist is a myth. The idea that an angel told Mary she would give birth to a special child is a myth. The idea that a woman was made pregnant by God is a myth. The idea of a virgin birth is a myth. The idea of an angel's telling Zacharias of the pregnancy of his wife Elizabeth is a myth too. The idea of a special star that pointed to the birth of the Messiah is a myth. The angels who announced the birth to the shepherds is a myth. The whole thing is a myth, even the nonsupernatural parts. Was He born in a manger? "Oh probably not."

And think how foolish we all are who believe all this.

I remember when I first believed in it how astonishing it was. It really IS astonishing, you know. It's easy enough to see why modern man has such trouble with it. But when I believed I simply believed. I suddenly knew God was real and if God is real then all these things are also real. That's what we're supposed to do, you know, simply believe. Getting hung up on astonishing supernatural things is just a sign we're not believers, we're still worldly. If God be God what problem can there be with all these things?

Oh astonishing yes, especially for those of us who grew up in today's scientifically biased secular rationalist environment. The earth only 6000 years old? It made me laugh. I didn't doubt it, God is God, the Bible is His word, but it made me laugh out loud. Angels, oh lovely, I'm so glad there are really angels. That makes me very happy. And God Himself become a Man, what a wonderful thing to try to understand. It takes a while to understand it, you have to grow into it, hear a lot of sermons, do a lot of reading, but from the very beginning a believer is a believer, it's just that the new understanding you now inhabit is much too large for you at first.

When I first heard all the old familiar carols sung at my first Christmas in church I couldn't stop crying for recognition and joy. All those words I'd sung all those years by rote had become real. It reminds me now of mystery writer Dorothy Sayers writing about her discovering as a new believer herself that King Ahasuerus was real and all the Biblical events surrounding him were real. She knew her history but somehow had never put the Biblical figure together with the historical figure Xerxes. And C.S. Lewis too, a scholar of the literature of myths and legends himself, comes to realize that the God who died and rose again that is a theme in many of the mystery religions, actually happened in reality. It's hard to forget his phrase: "Rum thing." A friend remarks to him that "it seems it really might have happened once." Such recognitions are powerful.

The Christmas carols still make me cry sometimes, because they tell of an unbelievable mythical story that has become believable reality for me.

Angels we have heard on high... It came upon a midnight clear... O Little Town of Bethlehem... Joy to the World the Lord is Come... God rest ye merry gentlemen let nothing you dismay, remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day, to save us all from Satan's power when we were gone astray...

I'd never actually thought about those words before. Now they shook me to the core. They still do.

It's real, but it's like a Fairy Tale that has turned out to be real, the most amazing thing. Or "Rum thing." It all occurred in historical time. The account of the birth of Jesus in Luke is full of historical markers, there is no doubting it all happened on this real Planet in real time. In fact a lot of the fairy tales echo elements of this True Story.

Because there is a way it is very much like a Fairy Tale. The true Prince whose rightful position has been usurped by the prince of the wicked spirits, has been tasked with saving the people of His Kingdom who were put under a spell by this wicked prince and are now held captive by him. The true Prince, the Son of the Great King, had to become a human being Himself in order to be our Savior and Mediator, then performed the self-sacrificing deed that was the only thing that could defeat the wicked prince and set us all free from captivity. He won Himself a Bride by doing this, His Church. The story is still in progress. Great things are prophesied to come before Satan, the wicked prince, is completely vanquished, and the true Prince, now both perfect God and perfect Man, can be united with His Bride and All Live Happily Ever After.

O join the happy throngs you silly people who refuse to believe this Fairy Tale that is realer than real.

Here comes Christmas.

Bird post link

I don't have anything to post right now so here's a link to this most recent post on my other blog, A Trio of Feathered Characters

Happy Thanksgiving!

Bad times are at the door but we still have much to be thankful for. I wish us all a blessed and joyful Thanksgiving Day full of genuine gratitude and love to our Father in Heaven who provides for us so abundantly in every way.

All three branches of the govt are rotten to the core

Headlines say House Republicans are looking for a way to stop Obama's Imperial Act of illegally using the Executive Order to protect millions of illegal aliens from deportation, which he is expected to do tonight.  His action is unconstitutional but Congress just tied their own hands as far as God's blessings on their endeavors go, by having an imam give a prayer for them.  Obama's plan is illegal, but Congress is not in any position to do much about it. 

The whole lot should be impeached, Obama, the entire Supreme Court and most of Congress.  Send them all packing, then demolish the Capitol building which is just a copy of St. Peter's basilica in Rome, including its pagan obelisk in the Washington Monument, and has portraits of a couple of Popes in it too  -- how on earth did they get away with that?  The Pope should feel quite at home when they welcome him next September.  Demolish the Supreme Court building too since it has icons of supposed legal minds on it that include the likes of Mohammed.  How did they get away with THAT? And all over Washington are images of pagan gods and goddesses. When did they sneak all that in?

The US has a powerful Christian history, but you wouldn't know it by these architectural symbols which reek of paganism and Romanism.  Perhaps what's going on inside them these days is simply fulfillment of their anti-Christian symbology. 

Yes, Church, we could still turn America around, Yes, but it would cost. And we need a George Whitefield. Or two or three.

A great exertion, a great commitment of time, by a great number of God's people, especially the pastors, really could very possibly turn this nation around even at this very very late hour. If we dropped everything else that could at all conceivably be dropped, and that's got to be a lot more than we think we can drop, did some fasting, did a lot of praying, and tried to coordinate our efforts with one another across the nation, surely we would be a formidable spiritual army. Surely.

We all see it don't we?  The dire need of it I mean.  I open the internet to all kinds of everyday trivia, how to roast the best Thanksgiving turkey, what's the best brand of makeup, where's the best place to retire, and the dissonance makes me a bit crazy.   Maybe it creates enough of an illusion of Normal Times to put a bunch of us to sleep?    I'd love to drift away on the illusion myself, I'm not looking forward to what's coming on this nation.

When God plans to bring Revival, they say, "He sets His people to praying," so if they don't feel the urge to pray then it must not be God's will.  So what do we do, have our perfect Thanksgiving turkey, lean back and watch the nation go down under His judgment?  I guess we could, you know, if that's His will.  But how can it be His will?  Really?

I went to Sermon Audio and clicked on "Sermons by Date" just to see what was being preached this month,   Some of the titles are obscure but most look like Preaching as Usual.  Probably many good sermons for the growth of Christians, certainly the necessary work of pastors, but forgive me if I say this is not the time for that, we have a nation to save.

I know most of us have given up.  We know the nation is already under judgment but we've given up.  I guess we're not feeling it enough yet, or maybe we just can't tolerate the news so we've gone into ostrich mode, or maybe we just don't know what to do.  Shouldn't the pastors be more like the Black-Robed Regiment these days, dedicated to preserving the nation against the tyrannical foe of freedom?  Any Christians can do something of course, like Christine Weick I mentioned in a recent post, but shouldn't it be the pastors leading us?  They put together a meeting in Houston to respond to the mayor's encroachment on their freedom in the pulpit, but it was just a few hours.  Maybe it had something to do with ushering this great conservative wave into Congress, but nothing much seems to have been happening since.  We've even had the abomination of a Muslim imam "praying" in Congress since then, and also in the National Cathedral.  Not a peep out of our leaders that I'm aware of, though the usual ministries took note of it.   They send out their usual scary news stories and warnings and exhortations, but otherwise not much seems to be happening.

Some are focusing this in a different direction.  No mention of the imam in Congress but we don't really have to get upset about the National Cathedral because after all the Episcopalian Church has been apostate for a long time already, nothing unusual about having an imam there.  The idea seems to be Therefore it's nothing to get all worked up about.  Well, OK, but that's the church where Presidents have their most high-profile religious events, such as  Bush's ecumenical prayer meeting for the nation after 9/11.  This is the church that has positioned itself to be representative of the nation, so anything that calls it down for its apostasy is a good thing.

We also shouldn't just be engaged in lamenting the darkness, this trend of thought goes, but in actively doing something, and the something we should actively be doing is taking the gospel to the Muslims.   I'm not sure why this is an either/or but it seems to be.  I can agree that among all the tasks I'd list for what the Church should be doing now that we're not doing anywhere near enough, taking the gospel to the Muslims should rank fairly high.  But I put saving the nation above that myself, because if we can't save the nation the Muslims are going to rule us.  And Revival would go a long way toward accomplishing both forms of salvation.

Seems to me the important thing to keep in mind is that all this is God's judgment on the nation, it's already here, the imam in our government buildings, so many Muslims in the nation too, and saving the nation means moving God to forgive and renew us.  Starting with the Church, where judgment begins.

Interestingly, just as a side note, Norway has been deporting its illegal aliens for a while now, which means Muslims, and their crime rate has been reduced by a third as a result.  France should do the same as Muslims are trashing the city of Marseilles.  This isn't the Christian solution of evangelizing them but I'm not sure there's anything wrong with deporting criminals from a Christian point of view either.  A safe society is the responsibility of government, and ours is rapidly losing all sense of that duty.  The original Christian colonies of America had strict laws against foreign or nonChristian intrusion and influence, and the Black Regiment of pastors preached for, and then fought for, freedom in the Revolutionary War, because political freedom is necessary for all the projects of Christianity from spreading the gospel to providing a Christian moral environment. 
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I often think it's too late, and I know others think the same, that all we can do now is prepare for the disaster, for the persecutions, for horrors upon horrors to come.

But you know what, it isn't too late.  It's only too late because we aren't going to do anything, not because it isn't possible to do something.  Again, are we or are we not "Terrible as an army with banners" as the Church is called in the Song of Songs?.  Right now we don't seem too terrible, but there's no reason we couldn't come to live up to our name.  Hooray for every Christian who is doing something already, but I think it's the pastors across the nation who need to be organizing this, leading this, preaching it, exhorting it.  It would take dedication, time, stripping our lives of everything else, some fasting, a lot of prayer, a lot of seeking the Lord for guidance and wisdom, a lot of coordination with the rest of the Church, a lot of prayer for each other, for all the pastors, a lot of denouncing the sins of the churches and separating from those who are in serious error, a lot of praying for cleansing of the Church, a lot of praying against the sins of the nation after the sins of the Church are dealt with.   

I Stand Sunday wasn't enough.  We need every Sunday, and really every day, dedicated to the work that's cut out for us. 

And we need a George Whitefield.

Congressional Treason: Pope Francis to darken the doors of Congress next year, following this year's darkening by an imam

Insult to Injury: Not only did our traitor Congress have an imam as "guest chaplain" yesterday [I've been getting this wrong -- this all occurred on November 13th, apparently I just got the news late], which ought to be impeachable as treason, but the Pope they invited some time back has now confirmed that he plans to visit the country next year, and Congress is on his itinerary. According to the Constitution Congress decides the punishment for treason, apparently not anticipating that Congress itself would be guilty of it.   I'm quite serious.  This should be a treasonable offense, both these violations of our governing body, because it puts the nation under God's wrath.

Two antichrists in our Congress, THE Antichrist to come next year, and this year the other leg of the Roman Empire ac illustrated by Nebuchadnezzar's statue in the Book of Daniel. All those who are waiting for some unknown personage to appear in the role of Antichrist have been blinded by the Jesuit invention of Futurism, which was created for the purpose of leading us off the trail of the Pope as the Antichrist, and the Jesuits know their business. He's here, he's been here for centuries. The Reformers knew it, what's the matter with today's Church?

Here are a couple of stories about his planned visit, from Yahoo and NBC.

He is to speak at the RCC's World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia on the last day of the conference, September 27th, and perform the blasphemous rite of the Mass on that day in front of Philadelphia's Museum of Art.  Over a million, even up to two million, are expected to gather in the streets for this event.  The Families conference extends from the 22nd to the 27th and the Pope's visit is to be three days from the 25th to the 27th.  The planned visit to Congress was not announced by the Pope himself but mentioned in the Yahoo story as part of the trip, no date given as yet, along with a visit to the White House and the United Nations.

The dates reminded me that the Jewish High Holy Days usually fall in that time period every year so I looked them up.  I also thought of the Blood Moons that have been getting a lot of attention recently, a "tetrad" of complete lunar eclipses expected to occur on Passover and Sukkot in both 2014 and 2015, those on Passover and Sukkot in 2014 already having occurred. 

So I was curious enough to look up the dates and found that the World Meeting of Families begins the day before Yom Kippur and ends the day before Sukkot or the Feast of Tabernacles. The last moon of the tetrad is to occur on Sukkot, September 28th. Here's a page on the blood moons in Jewish history.

The Fall Feasts in 2015:
* Rosh Hashanah (The Feast of Trumpets), Sept. 14
* Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement), Sept. 23
* Sukkoth (The Feast of Tabernacles), Sept. 28

I just thought this timing very interesting.  Those who have been making much of the blood moon tetrad are of course very involved in trying to understand the prophetic "signs of the times" and since there are to be signs in the heavens associated with the return of Christ these are being watched very carefully.  The link I posted above refers to many events considered to have prophetic significance in history and even already in association with the blood moons that have already occurred.  I haven't become involved in the tetrad discussions because there are credible people on both sides of it, some saying for instance that it is quite common for blood moons to occur on the Jewish Holidays so that these don't have any particular significance.  As with many things that come out of the prophecy ministries these days I just don't feel the information is clear enough to take a stand on it one way or the other, so my position is Watch and see. 

But this coincidence of the Pope's visit with the last moon in the tetrad is very interesting.  This Pope tends to have strange events dogging his steps already, and I'm sure I haven't kept up with the most of it.  I just found out that the rare event of an earthquake occurred in Israel on the morning of his visit there in May of last year.  I've noted in my blogs the odd facts of the timing of the announcement of his appointment as Pope, 3/13/13 and the clock time at that very moment that adds up to 666, then that strange event of the seagull and crow that attacked the peace doves he released from the Vatican. 

But the main symbols that identify the papacy as the Antichrist include his having the title of the Caesars, Pontifex Maximus, certainly nothing Christian about that title;  his wearing of the garb of Roman pagan religions as well as the mitre of the ancient Babylonian religion of Nimrod, and I particularly like the way the Roman numerals in the title VICARIVS FILII DEI ("in the place of the Son of God" which is in itself as good as an announcement that he is the Antichrist), add up to 666.  Beyond that there are the decrees down the ages that give the Pope power over the entire world, over kings, and over you and me.   Oh there's so much more that I've wanted to try to collect in one post but haven't yet.

Stop looking for some other Antichrist, Church.  He's here.  Oh there may be a political leader  associated with him as well who rises at the appointed time to a position of power, along the lines of another Hitler, who was backed by the Pope of his time, but I'd guess it's going to be more directly a papal usurpation of power than that this time. 

Watch and see.

Thank You, Lord, for Christine Weick, who stood up and denounced the Muslim prayer meeting in the National Cathedral, please send us a lot more like her

Congress actually welcomed an imam as "guest chaplain" today, (well, yesterday by the time I got this written) and then he went over to the National Cathedral to conduct a Muslim prayer service.   Members of our American Congress actually bowed their heads in this prayer to a demon god. How long can God's judgment wait when we do things like this?

Here's video of the travesty in Congress if you can stomach it.

I believe we've come to this point because of the years and years of "ecumenical" prayer for the nation that naïve Christians have been pursuing, apparently without noticing that the only results they're getting are anything but God's blessings.  To have Muslim services in the heart of our nation ought to be a wakeup call that we're doing something wrong.

But there was good news:  a woman stood up in the National Cathedral and denounced the Muslim gathering in the name of Christ. 

Donna Wasson at Rapture Ready tells it like it is, first about the imam in Congress, and then about the event in the cathedral:

Let me give a shout out to our national heroine of the week, Christine Weick. She’s a 50-year-old woman who felt the leading of the Holy Spirit to drive from Tennessee to Washington, gain entrance to the Cathedral, and stand up and make a public statement condemning the apostasy she was witnessing.

Just as the imam was approaching the podium, she boldly stood up, pointed to the cross and shouted “Jesus died on that cross. It is the reason we are to worship only Him. Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior. We have built enough of your mosques in this country. Why don’t you worship in your mosques and leave our churches alone?”

The authorities couldn’t escort her out fast enough! She was shocked she wasn’t arrested. Please pray for this warrior of God; she is newly divorced and estranged from her two children because she refuses to accept homosexuality and same-sex weddings. She has literally lost her family for Christ’s sake. I look forward to witnessing her receive her reward at the Bema Seat!

A secular source reports it this way: Washington Cathedral’s first Muslim prayer service interrupted by heckler, of course reducing this brave woman to a mere "heckler."   

Lots of sweet talk there about uniting against hate and violence, by the very people who are responsible for all the hate and violence and are going to go on with the hate and violence, now against America, as soon as they are in a position to do it. What's the matter with our "Christians" that they don't know such a service is as good as invoking Baal and inviting God's wrath against the nation?

There's more information about Weick here: Satanic Monster Energy Drink Lady Goes Ballistic in Muslim Prayer Service, again denigrating her character, which also has a You Tube video of her interruption of the Muslim service. 

Turns out she is known for various bold statements of her Christian faith, including protesting at gay events and protesting a drink called Monster Energy Drink. There is a video of that demonstration here. She points out various satanic symbols on the can as well as obscene language.  Such expressions of sheer evil on a drink can are depressing, but I guess I don't have the guts she has.  I applaud her boldness. 

Donna Wasson at Rapture Ready goes on:

A phobia is an irrational fear of something. Yes, you’d better believe I’m fearful of an ideology which seeks to eradicate in the bloodiest ways possible, every vestige of Christianity off the face of this earth. And no, that fear is anything but irrational. Duh! If you’re NOT islamophobic, you obviously hold little regard for your freedoms and the lives of your family.

Have you figured out yet that the overwhelming majority of our government officials are assisting the Occupant in committing national suicide, or are you still in la-la land over the election theatre? In January, the incoming newbies, faces shining with hope and purpose, will be sworn in. And within 6 months or so, they will have sold their soul to the Globalist luciferian elite and will toe the line of their new masters. It always happens. After all, membership has its privileges.

I had a moment of hoping against hope that something good could come of it and I'm still not completely ready to give it up, or give up hope for revival either.  Not so much because I believe it could happen any more but because it makes me too heartsick to think it can't. 

Get ready: real Christians—those of us who proudly proclaim the name of Jesus and the authority of His Word, will see more and more persecution in this country. The pseudo-churchgoing-we-all-worship-the-same-god ‘Christians’ will continue to malign and marginalize us in the workplace, marketplace, schools and even within the church itself.

We can expect more lawsuits from the atheists and homo mafia when we don’t capitulate to their du jour version of morality. We can expect to lose our jobs. We can expect to have our kids expelled from school when we speak out against the filth and nonsensical common core garbage they’re being taught. We can expect to be harassed by governmental agencies of all types.

I've been trying so hard to come up with ways we could stall it off but I'm sure she's right, this is where we're headed. It would take a massive effort to overcome it. It could be done, theoretically, if we put in that massive effort, but it's not very likely to happen. At least perhaps we can hope to see more Christine Weicks out there standing up against the devil's encroachments.

Otherwise, in the immortal words of Bette Davis, "fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy ride."

Congratulations to the Devil!

Gosh the devil is clever. I'm in awe. Take a law of God and criminalize it so that anyone who obeys it is a criminal. Man, that's clever. So by obeying God in refusing to validate gay marriage a person is now committing the crime of "discrimination," which is very interesting in itself since the whole idea of equality of treatment was originally Christian. But to accomplish this the devil has also redefined a class of people who are not a race or ethnic group but people who happen to share a sexual aberration, which God calls sin, turned them into a legitimate Minority Group which must be protected by law from "discrimination," and by such Word Magic has gained enough popular support to deprive Christians of their American rights and push us into a corner, which is what his aim was all along.

Let's see, he did the same thing centuries ago when he got the Bible outlawed. And before that he got the Romans to call us atheists for refusing to bow down to Caesar. Man did they persecute us then! But he obviously hadn't run out of tricks with those. Gosh this latest ploy is clever! Congratulations to the devil! I have to admit he's won, he's got us where he wants us. I wonder what he plans to do to us next.

Oh worry not.  God is still in charge and this sort of thing has a way of driving His people closer to Him which is the best possible thing that could happen. What the devil means for ill God always means for good and getting us detached from this world can only be a good thing.

A Glimmer of Hope that the Church can still make a difference in politics?

I just woke up (it's 2 AM) with the glorious thought in my mind that Houston's I Stand Sunday did get God's ear and that's why conservatives did so well on Election Tuesday.  I'm so slow these days, so used to earnest gatherings of Christians not making a difference, those ecumenical gatherings I keep talking about in particular. 

But it's begun to dawn on me that maybe Houston did make a difference.  I've been getting emails from conservative Christian groups that emphasize how big a victory this last election really was, voting in not just a huge number of Republicans but the most conservative Republicans and rejecting the liberals and RINOs.   The call to pledge to vote that was made at I Stand Sunday must have made a big difference.

Can we actually say that the Church stood and God brought the victory?  I'm slow to be sure of it even now but it's a glimmer and I want it to be true and I want it to continue if it's true.  Can we yet be that terrible army with banners that God leads to more and more victories if we hang together?

I'm so used to being disappointed these days it's a strange feeling to have something to cheer about, so used to crying over the terrible shape the country is in it's a strange feeling to cry for joy.  I so want to cheer for this and believe that the Church did do what the Church is supposed to do, and did it despite whatever imperfections we have -- and whatever they are the Lord graciously overlooked them. 

Is even revival possible then? 

I'm scared of being happy because things have been so bad lately but I am happy, and hopeful. Such an odd feeling.

The Oily Voice of the Serpent; and Jesuits: The Engineer Corps of Hell

Apparently The Christian Post is a Romanist publication, or perhaps an ecumenical effort. They have a Romanist columnist in any case. He wrote a piece back in October in anticipation of Reformation Day on the 31st, in which he pretends we're just all one big happy church family, Protestants and Romanists together, which of course means he subsumes all churches under Rome. He even pretends the Reformation was a welcome event for the RCC, a "renewal" of necessary but lost doctrine. But he treats Ignatius Loyola as somebody to learn from rather than the founder of the bloodthirsty Jesuits who masterminded the Counter Reformation, the Inquisition, and persecutions of true Christians for centuries:

He calls himself the The Public Philosopher:

Public Philosopher

Martin Luther, Ignatius Loyola, and Protestant Reformation

By Paul de Vries

Paul de Vries portrait
The Reformation was a precious but complex step in Church history, where the beloved Biblical teachings of the amazing grace of God were renewed. We are all beneficiaries – Protestant, Roman Catholic, and everyone else. What can we learn from Martin Luther, Ignatius Loyola and others from that era – and especially from the Living Lord now – so that we can approach this 500th anniversary with a renewed awareness of the Lord and his purposes for his whole Church?

There you have it, the "whole Church" which of course pretends we're all Christians, and course means means all of us under Rome.

I wonder how many fall for that oily tone of his, that "precious but complex step in Church history," by which the "beloved Biblical teachings of the amazing grace of God were renewed." I wonder how many are deceived by such a disgusting saccharine lie. The Roman Church has never rescinded the anathemas (curses) of their Council of Trent against all the doctrines of the Protestant Reformation, nor have they closed their Office of the Inquisition, which was still racking up murders in the 19th century and probably more recently than that; nor have they ever acknowledged the actual enormities of the Inquisition. They play down the numbers, and Pope John Paul blamed the "people" for the enormities, not the papacy or the Church leadership which was the real source.

The Jesuits were called "The Engineer Corps of Hell" by Edwin A. Sherman who wrote a book by that title in the 19th century. They were known for their subversive activities against all the nations of Europe and had been kicked out of all of them many times. John Adams said of the Jesuits, "If ever any congregation of men could merit eternal perdition on earth and in hell ... it is this company of Loyola."

More later.

Futurist Premillennial Dispensational End Times thinking actually creates a smoke screen for the Antichrist, who has already been revealed

I don't spend a lot of time thinking about the end times scenarios though I do believe we must be in the last of the last days.  For whatever reason none of the eschatological systems is completely convincing to me although parts of some of them seem to make sense. 

Over the last few years I've become most persuaded by the historicist views of the Protestant Reformers, and certainly most persuaded by their view of the Antichrist as the papacy which they argue so well, and that gives me some foundation for rejecting other systems. 

Today I read this from a Bible prophecy teacher, Dr. David Reagan and object to it because it contradicts the view of the Reformers:

I devote an entire chapter to surveying different attempts to identify the Antichrist — all of which are fruitless since the Bible clearly teaches that we cannot know the identity of the Antichrist before the day of the Lord, which begins with the onset of the Tribulation (2 Thessalonians 2:1-3).

This is the passage he says tells us we cannot know the Antichrist yet:

2 Thess. 2:2-4 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.

Later addition:  Dr. Reagan is wrong to say that we cannot know the identity of the Antichrist before the day of the Lord.  What the passage actually says is the opposite, that the day of the Lord won't come until after we know his identity.  The order of things is 1) the falling away, also called the Great Apostasy, 2) the revelation of the man of sin, also called the Antichrist, which could occur simultaneously with 1), and 3) it is after these things that the day of Christ will come, but it doesn't say how long afterward, just that it can't happen until after the apostasy and the revelation of the man of sin. /end addition.


Aside from that, Dr. Reagan's expectation of a future Antichrist is true only from within the Futurist eschatological system.  However, all those he is answering are also within the Futurist system, as well as all those he agrees with.  Most of Protestant Christianity is busy expecting a future Antichrist.

But from the Reformers' point of view the Antichrist was revealed back in 606 when the papacy was made official after the fall of the Roman Empire, which couldn't have occurred until then. That is, the Antichrist couldn't have been revealed before that. The Pope put himself in the seat of God himself, taking the title of the Holy Spirit, "vicar of Christ," and he "sits in the temple of God" which is simply in the midst of the people of God who are the temple of God according to the New Testament. This becomes clearer the more you know about the powers the papacy has taken to itself over the centuries, usurping all the titles of God:  Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The falling away was the apostasy of the Roman Church which increased over the centuries during which the institution was presided over by one Antichrist after another.

It was this apostasy and the usurpation of the role of God Himself by the papacy that eventually led the Reformers to recognize the Pope as Antichrist, repudiate the whole system and found the Reformation on the Bible alone.

If this understanding is correct, and as I say I've been persuaded of it, the Futurist system of eschatology actually serves to create a cover for the papal Antichrist and divert attention to irrelevancies.  The Antichrist is here already.  The Reformers knew it and the sad thing is that the entire Protestant world has been led away from recognizing him. And in fact many have accepted the RCC as a Christian church, and given the Antichrist himself the cloak he needs for his stealthy work.  

And guess what:  It was a couple of Jesuits who invented the futurist system:

This is from Wikipedia:

To counter the Protestant historicist interpretation of Daniel and Revelation,[3] Roman Catholic Jesuit Francisco Ribera (1537–1591) wrote a 500 page commentary on the Book of Revelation. This commentary established the futurist interpretation of Bible prophecy.[4] ... The futurist view was first proposed by two Catholic Jesuit writers, Manuel Lacunza and Francisco Ribera. ... today it is probably most readily recognized. Books about the "rapture" by authors like Hal Lindsey, and the more recent Left Behind novels (by Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye) and movies, have done much to popularize this school of thought.

The Jesuits have been working indefatigably ever since Ignatius founded their order, to bring down Protestantism and reestablish the Pope as ruler over the nations. They've plotted against Protestant monarchs and they've infiltrated the government of the United States and we've all been blind to it. They present themselves as helpful little lambs but there they are in all the places of power, in their own Jesuit universities where they can influence the next generation, at the right hand of political leaders where they can influence the running of the whole country.

How clever of them to invent an eschatology that has captured the attention of most of Protestant Christendom, getting us to focus on a future personage rather than the one who has already been revealed, undermining the Reformers' hard-won recognition of the Pope as the Antichrist.

Jesus can indeed come at any moment.

Pinto on Rome in America

Still hoping to get up a series on the history of Roman Catholicism. Meanwhile, here's a link to Chris Pinto's radio show for the 3rd, Elton John, the Pope, and Fox's Book of Martyrs, in which most pertinently he reads from the Preface to an 1833 edited edition of Foxe's Book of Martyrs, which is essentially a warning to America because the RCC wolf is now loose in our midst. (Let me add again: it's the papacy that is the subject of such warnings, not ordinary Catholics who don't usually know much about the papacy or RCC history.) 

The Colonies had laws that severely restricted Roman Catholicism from any political or other influence in America, but with the First Amendment they got freedoms which gave them free rein, and which they immediately took advantage of.   Would that all those who call themselves Protestants made themselves aware of this history we've been deprived of.  It should help to wake us up. 

Wishing I Stand Sunday could prevail with God.

I wish I could say something really positive and supportive of the I Stand Sunday effort. I did watch it, there were many solid Christian messages preached, including the need to be bold in these days, willing to sacrifice, the importance of repentance, how it begins with the Church and is the Church's responsibility. There was also mention of revival, how God can turn a nation in a moment's time. They had an altar call and many of the pastors came forward to pray. All very moving really. I just wish I could believe it could accomplish anything.

They showed video of the business owners who have been persecuted by the gay marriage people, fined, driven out of business. I don't get why that can't already have been turned back because it's so obviously against the First Amendment. Why do we need complex legal actions in the case of a clear violation of the Constitution?  The Houston mayor withdrew her subpoenas in the face of all this uproar over it, which is great, but did the message come through to her that her action was illegal or is she just waiting for another opportunity?  If they realized it's illegal would they stop, however, or don't they care if it's illegal, all that matters is their own agenda? I suspect that in the highest places of the land they don't care if it's illegal, I'm not sure at the level of a mayor. One thing that's clear, though, is that their disqualification of a huge percentage of the signers of a petition against her "civil rights" ordinance was illegal, and she must know that.

The illegality starts in the Supreme Court that has been passing down twisted misinterpretations of the First Amendment for decades now, and slapped down the will of the people all across the nation where they have made their views of gay marriage known; but it's all accepted as if it's legal because, well, they're the Supreme Court.  With such a dysfunctional system what is anyone to do?  It makes no sense to appeal legally to a court that is clearly rotten and perverse, yet that's all anyone does or thinks possible to do.  Not that I have an alternative, except resistance, and that always works against the resistor in a tyrannical system of government.

So it's nice all these pastors got together to exhort one another to stand firm in the evil days, but I wish we'd do something to overthrow those evil illegal laws and I don't see why we can't.  Except for the force the government would bring against us of course, more lawlessness.

The call for revival is so sad it seems to me, because so futile.  Yes, of course Catholics were involved and accepted last night but we won't have revival as long as that is the case.  There are many Catholics in politics these days and some of them are great people and great Americans and great politicians.  One of them, Rick Santorum gave a filmed greeting to the group.  Another speaker mentioned Roman Catholicism in passing.  I think I could vote easily for Alan Keyes or Allen West for President, but they're both Catholics.  Then there's Ben Carson, another black man I also love as a political voice, not a Catholic but a member of another really iffy cult.  I guess I could vote for him if I could vote for the others.   Mitt Romney is a nice guy with some acceptable political views, but his cult is the weirdest one of them all. What has happened to Protestant America?

God isn't going to bless a mixed gathering of religions that has a spiritual purpose as the I Stand Sunday gathering had.  I can't say God told me so, and I can't point to really clear evidence, I'd just hope there would be enough appreciation for what the Reformation did to show the folly of it in the case of Roman Catholicism. I would also mention that there's been lots of ecumenical prayer for the nation over the last decades and especially since 9/11 and I don't think anyone can say God has smiled on any of that prayer.  I'm talking about Bush's prayer meeting in the National Cathedral right after the twin towers attack, including an RCC priest, a Muslim leader and I forget who else; and I'm also talking about yearly gatherings of ecumenical groups in the D.C. area for God to bless the nation, and what's the fruit of all that, pray tell?  How do people explain it to themselves that they pray with such good intent and such fervor and things get worse?  Surely it's obvious things have been getting worse, isn't it?  How do you explain it?  Islam is more influential and threatening than ever, growing so year by year by year since 9/11.  How do you explain that?  

And I'd mention the fact that we have so many Catholics in office too, which would make the earliest settlers of the nation weep since they came here specifically to try to head off the influence of the RCC in the new land, which had caused so much grief for Protestants in Europe. Our Catholics don't seem to be anything but good Americans, and especially the conservatives we Protestants love and support, but then we have Boehner and Pelosi inviting the Pope to speak to Congress next year and that should ring loud bells in a true Protestant's head.  They seem to have ear plugs in though.

How do you explain all that?

Has God deserted us, is that the explanation, just not hearing our prayers?  Well, many recognize that the nation is under God's judgment, but the point of the prayer meetings is to repent in the hope He'll turn back from judgment.  If we believe in an omnipotent God who is intimately involved in human affairs it seems to me that should have happened by now.  Why hasn't it?

That's what I've been thinking and praying about in recent posts, and the ecumenical effect is number one on the list that I keep coming up with to explain why we haven't had revival.  Leonard Ravenhill's passion alone through the last decades of the last century should have produced revival but nothing, silence from heaven and the continued proliferation of sin and threats to our wellbeing and corrupt politics.

I've come to think that Ravenhill may have compromised his own plea for revival with his acceptance of Roman Catholicism and of the charismatic movement.   That's my theory.  I need an explanation and that's the one that comes to mind.  And if it explains his failure to light the spark it must also explain why the wood has remained wet ever since despite efforts by many to reach God's ears.

Of course God is sovereign and we can't force Him to act, it just seems that He should have acted already in our present condition, and if He hasn't there must be a reason for it.  Of course the condition we are in includes deviations within the churches for starters, taking the word "church" to refer to any body that claims the name of Christ.  That would include "churches" that have been swayed to liberal doctrines, deny the truth of parts of the Bible, accept evolution and even in some cases abortion and gay rights and gay marriage.  Would God give us revival when there are so many "Christian" churches that hold such views?  The only revival He could give would have to change such views, but while revival reforms people I'm not sure it's ever done so to that degree.  And those are things we know from the Bible alone are violations, to be dealt with by solid Bible preaching.

Well, I've pondered a lot of the reasons in previous posts and still hope to get up a permanent Page where I try to be exhaustive though that isn't happening yet.  But here I just want to say I don't think the earnest prayers at the I Stand Sunday gathering are going to bear fruit any more than all the previous earnest prayers have done.  Something else has to happen.  There are people in the camp who have taken accursed things from Ai, that's why Ai has been able to defeat us.  That's the thought anyway.  Get rid of the accursed things, the pagan things the church has been accepting, and God may see fit to bless us after all.  Seems to me that would involve churches that have not done this denouncing those that have, making a public issue of it.

There's really not much chance churches are going to repudiate all those nice Catholics though, is there?  Or that nice lady pastor, who is also in violation of Biblical truth, no matter how good a preacher she is.  And all the other churches that have women pastors and elders, and there are many of them.  We shouldn't have to argue about what the Bible says about this, it's all too clear. 

But that's just the start of the problems.  There were calls to repentance at the I Stand Sunday gathering, though mostly personal repentance, which of course is necessary.  But we need to name the sins of the churches and repent as churches and denounce them as churches.  That's how I'm reading the problem, that's why I think we aren't having revival and can't have revival until this is done. 

I'm nobody of course, just an opinionated blogger out here in nowhere land thinking about these things.  And I'm a woman and I have no authority over anybody.  All I can do is hope that if I'm right about any of it others will pick it up and spread it and exhort the churches to it. 

Please Lord.  We SO desperately need revival.

So, Houston, are you prepared for a crash landing?

So we're getting some action.  That's what I wanted isn't it?  Pastors uniting behind the Houston pastors as well as behind the Christian businesses who are being harassed by gay rights activists.  So they've organized a gathering today for the purpose, called I Stand Sunday at 6 PM Central time.

For some years now there has also been a yearly gathering of pastors in protest of the IRS' requirement that they can't make political statements from the pulpit, or lose their tax-exempt status,  called Pulpit Freedom Sunday.  In fact, if I understood correctly, it was this year's Pulpit Freedom Sunday in early October that was the provocation for the Houston mayor's subpoena.

All this sounds good, you'd think it would make me happy, but all it does is raise questions in my mind.  Are Catholics part of these events?  They are advertised as "nondenominational" which often suggests something ecumenical, and if that is the case the whole project is doomed.

But another problem is that one of the Houston Five pastors is a woman.  I cringe at having to object but I have to object.  No wonder the churches are having a hard time, we're under judgment.  You can't have women pastors, that's against God's word.  You can't be a woman pastor and you can't stand with a woman pastor.  I suspect she's very gifted for what she considers to be her calling, it looks like she has a big Hispanic church, and she is after all one of the ones who protested the gay mayor's ordinance and got herself subpoenaed, so how can I even think of objecting? 

I've been writing for some time about how we can't have revival, God isn't going to bless us, if we are in disobedience to Him, and that's the case with allowing women pastors.  Isn't that only too obvious?  But they are having these meetings and expecting God to bless them when they are in disobedience?  Or are they even appealing to God in any serious way? Looks like a lot of fleshly work from here, and that certainly can't succeed.

I don't know if Catholics or other nonChristian bodies are included, so far I haven't found any information on that, but that would certainly be another reason for the failure of any such gathering.  Do you really think you can push back the gay agenda while you're actively denying God?

I'll try to watch the gathering today, wish I could think better of its prospects.

Preaching and praying the Bible far more effective than sending them

Heard a report that Houston's mayor got something over 500 Bibles sent to her in protest of her subpoena of the writings of Houston pastors.  Also heard that it wasn't just Mike Huckabee who made the call for this form of protest but also Ted Cruz and Glenn Beck.  Well, Ted Cruz is a Protestant, at least he belongs to a Southern Baptist church according to Wikipedia, so he can put out a call to pastors for such a purpose. 

But not dear Glenn Beck, smart lovable solid patriot conservative Glenn Beck the heretic.  He's also calling for revival but this is just another way revival is hindered because a Mormon can't call us to genuine revival.   If people responded to his call to send  Bibles that is NOT a good sign.

There are some great conservative Catholics we have to leave out too. I think first of Alan Keyes and Allen West, but there are lots of others. Can't include them if we want genuine revival.

But I don't really think sending Bibles or sermons does much to deal with what we are facing in such unconstitutional actions as taken by Houston's mayor.  It's a good sign that the Church is paying attention and cares enough to try to do something, but it isn't the something we need.  Michael Brown's suggestion would have been more effective in my opinion: that pastors across the nation preach that following Sunday on what the Bible says about homosexuality.  And the reason it would be more effective is that it would be an act of boldness that pastors are likely to be intimidated out of these days, and it's a spiritual action that could get God's ear.  Whereas sending sermons and Bibles is just human action.  Preaching and prayer are a much better direction for the Church to take, and especially in bold declaration of God's word, and I wish those who called for the sermons and Bibles had instead followed Michael Brown's lead.

The headlines are hard to take again today.  Some of the stories I can't even get myself to read because it will just upset me.  Islam encroaching further, more stupidity in high places, or is it malice, more evil for good and good for evil.  And a story about a study of beliefs of evangelicals that shows a lot of confusion about major doctrinal issues, especially concerning the Trinity.

I'm going to put up a permanent page on the possibility of revival, collecting my recent thoughts on it.  It's the only solution possible, nothing we do at a human level will accomplish anything which ought to be pretty apparent to us by now.   And we've been doing something wrong in our attempts to reach God too, which is my main concern.  God must act or we're lost.  We need revival, we need His direct revitalization of the Church.  And yet in the current situations we're facing nothing could be less likely.  Still, God is the God of the impossible, sovereign over all things.  And if we make a concerted effort to honor His conditions...   well, I haven't given up yet.

Time to act but where's our leader?

Mike Huckabee today is calling for moral and spiritual renewal of the nation, since we're now beyond anything that can be fixed in the normal ways, such as by elections. I'm certainly for that, since I've been blogging about wanting revival and how we need to go about it for days now.

Huckabee also mentions the Christian businesses that are being targeted by gay rights activists for refusing to provide any kind of service that supports gay marriage or any other part of the gay agenda. The latest is the Christian wedding chapel in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho, that refuses to marry gay couples. They can go to jail or pay a big fine.

I kind of wish Huckabee would do what he did about the Houston problem: call for pastors and a bunch of us to bury the Coeur D'Alene court in sermons against homosexuality. Not just sermons, not just Bibles, but sermons specifically against homosexuality, gay marriage and so on. And it wouldn't hurt to include some American documents such as the First Amendment and anything any of our American forefathers wrote against homosexuality as well, which I made the subject of a post a while back.

In other news:  Eric Metaxas responded on Fox News to the Houston massacre of the First Amendment's freedom of religion by saying the whole nation should be freaked out by it, and "if there was ever a time for throwing the tea into the harbor, this is it." In other words we are now facing the same kind of tyranny and deprivation of our rights and freedoms that brought about the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution, AND IT'S TIME TO ACT.

Well, sound the trumpet, guys, and tell us how to act! If the trumpet gives an uncertain sound how are we to know what to do? How do I throw tea into the harbor?

1 Corinthians 14:8: For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?

I'd make the suggestion myself that a few thousand of us get on our knees and pray our hearts out for a solution to these problems. Or a few hundred. If we can't be a David church maybe we could be a Gideon church.

Quotes from some of the Founders Proving America was Bible-Born. Yeah, and Antichrist-born too.

Update 10/29:

I'm disgusted, horrified. We need to know about the genuine Christian foundations of this country but what we get is a mixture of Christian influences with who knows what else, paganism, Romanism, even Mohammed in the frieze above the Supreme Court building, and either naivete or lying deceit in palming it all off as Christian. It wasn't until Part 3 of Dave Miller's Silencing of God that I realized I can't trust anything he says, and I don't know if he's deceived himself or fudging the information for some reason.

So he points out the quote by Jefferson on Jefferson's Memorial which is all about God as Judge of nations, and says he wasn't a Deist by our standards today, which is true, and emphasizes that he believed in "the God of the Bible." Yeah, about the way Mohammed believed in the God of the Bible, by denying Christ. Jefferson was a Deist in the different meaning of that term in his time, and certainly no Christian, and why does Miller withhold that information from us? It would be enough, and important in itself, for us to recognize his Biblical allusions and especially his concept of a God who will judge the world, but to create the impression that the man was a Christian is criminal in my opinion.

I'm waiting with keen anticipation for what he's going to say about the Washington Monument, which is a pagan obelisk that completes the image of the Roman basilica that disgraces our Capitol. Let me guess, he'll mention the inscription at the top as if that transforms it into something Christian. Woopsie, 30:02 here it comes, I'm holding my breath. No, I think I'll resume breathing and wait a bit before I listen further. Time to get a sandwich anyway.

Yes as expected he does make much of the inscription at the top, Laus Deo, which a good Mason could accept. Lots of current events in newspapers were preserved in the cornerstone which he does note make no mention of God, but there is a Bible there too. But antichrists also like the Bible you know. And stones inside were donated to the project, many of which refer to God. Not Jesus Christ though. And I know maybe I'm nuts but there is a carved relief of two men shaking hands, showing unity, supposedly of "God and country" and it took me ages to see the men as all I could see was the image of an owl the two sides of which are formed by the two male figures. In fact I can't not see it without making a big effort. Of course as I say I'm probably nuts, but on the other hand any artist worth his salt knows how to create visual emphases to avoid such ambiguities. But then maybe this one just wasn't worth his salt.

Miller keeps saying it would require a lot of changing to eliminate the references to the God of the Bible in our national symbols. Really? Most of what I've seen is perfectly generic stuff that doesn't refer to Christ at all, and He's the target after all, not a generic "God" which is perfectly consistent with the Masonic order, Roman Catholicism or Islam. Give us a break you "Christian" apologists! What IS your game anyway?

Update 10/28:

Well, that's what I get for doing a post on a presentation of the Christian nature of America before I've watched it all to the end. I was happy to hear all the very Biblical sentiments in the speeches of so many American leaders, and that does seem to point to a powerfully Christian framework for the nation, but then he goes on to supposed evidences that simply are not evidences for Christianity.

This whole project turns out to be very similar to what David Barton does. I'm in Part 3 of Dave Miller's "Silencing of God" right after he's started talking about the supposed Christian meaning of some of our national symbols, which I know are not Christian but Masonic. He's now moved on to the architecture which Chris Pinto has shown definitively is full of nonChristian and antiChristian imagery. It's nice to see the Ten Commandments illustrated in the Supreme Court but Moses was far from the main inspiration for the artwork of the building. He comes to the frieze at the front of the building and still tries to palm it off as mainly Christian because Moses is depicted in the center. But he can't ignore Solon and Confucius, who have nothing to do with Christianity, and doesn't mention Mohammed at all!

WHY? Why the subterfuge? What is gained by pretending the imagery is Christian when so much of it is not? I could say I'm relieved to see that some of it is, but not when it's compromised by so much else that contradicts it. I'm writing this now before seeing it through to the end, just writing as I go. He's just shown the prayer on the White House mantel that goes back to John Adams without mentioning that John Adams denied the Deity of Christ so what good is his prayer? And since the prayer is for nothing but good and wise men to inhabit the house I think we can suggest that God didn't accept it. Really he's having to reach for the occasional Christian sign now and even those that seem most clearly Christian may not be.

17:36 moving to the capitol building. IS HE AWARE THAT IT IS MODELED ON ST. PETER'S BASILICA IN ROME? Have you ever wondered about that? And now he's going to point out some portraits inside put up about 1950, and guess what, A COUPLE OF POPES wearing the tiara designating world political power! Yet he's trying to show us how Christian and specifically Protestant the nation has been from the beginning? Obviously some other influences managed to sneak in by a back door and put their paw print on the nation when nobody was looking. As I think I recall from Chris Pinto, those two Popes are associated with the Inquisition yet. Also, thanks to Chris Pinto again, I'm aware that Christopher Columbus was a Romanist. Sure he sounds Christian at times, but his objectives were to honor Popes and Catholic monarchs.

Rather than celebrate these things perhaps we should raze the buildings to the ground and start over if we want a Christian nation. I just about can't go on watching. I guess I need to eventually but I'll have to put it off. This sort of deception is very disturbing.

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Update: Been listening along to the series of videos of Dave Miller talking about the Christian heritage of America, and being impressed at the concentration of very Christian views in the many documents he's collected, but he doesn't show the other side, which unfortunately eventually eats into his credibility. As with other apologists for the Christian nature of America, like David Barton for instance, he plays down the nonChristian and even anti-Christian beliefs of some of the main Founders, which I mention below. He doesn't discuss them, but allows the Biblical references in their writings to give the impression that they were Christians although they were not. He does mention that the Colonies restricted the rights of Roman Catholics but doesn't mention that Maryland had a Romanist origin and that their motto referring to God is one of the few that doesn't emphasize the Protestant view. Another thing that jumped out at me:   He does mention that the majority of the Colonies restricted the rights of Roman Catholics but doesn't mention that Maryland had a Romanist origin and that their motto referring to God is one of the few that doesn't emphasize the Protestant view.

Then in Part 3 he interprets the "all-seeing-eye" on a coin from the Revolutionary War period as God's eye, either unaware of the Masonic influences often imputed to that imagery or deciding to ignore them, I really don't know which. The Masonic influence, and in fact the Roman Catholic influence, are both in evidence in early America, in the Greco-Roman art in government buildings for instance, where there isn't a shred of Christian influence to be seen.  All this I learned from Chris Pinto's documentary series on America. 

Unfortunately the talk goes on treating Masonic imagery as Christian.   It doesn't help those of us who deplore the loss of the Christian foundation of America to ignore the anti-Christian elements that go back to the very beginning.  They represent a mindset that no doubt had a big role in undermining the nation in the first place and continues to contribute to destroying it.  It's probably too late, but I'm still pursuing the hope that the Church could yet turn the tide.  It isn't going to help that effort if we're ignorant of the nature of the enemy. 

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Original post:
The video embedded below is of Dave Miller of Apologetics Press, quoting directly from the Bible-saturated speeches of America's first leaders. I haven't heard him discuss the actual Christian lives of the men he's quoting but it does seem necessary at some point to acknowledge that some of these men were not Christians. (Patrick Henry was, however, a genuine Christian.)

 John Adams was a Unitarian, denied the Deity of Christ, Thomas Jefferson eliminated all the supernatural references from his own version of the Bible, Thomas Paine gave a very Bible-knowledgeable defense of revolutionary war but then wrote the Age of Reason which showed him not to be a Christian; George Washington kept up church-going with his wife until the pastor told him he was setting a bad example by not sharing in communion, at which point he decided not to attend church on communion Sunday any more. And another pastor of his called him a Deist. Ben Franklin heard George Whitefield preach but never accepted the message.

 Yet all of them extolled the God of the Bible as the protector of the nation, and the Bible as the source of the only morality for such a nation. Despite their deviations from orthodox belief, which deny the Deity of Christ and therefore make them antichrists, they promoted Biblical religion quite sincerely.

 Miller goes on quoting from Presidents and others beyond the founding generation. After hearing all this, to deny that this was once a Bible-soaked Christian nation should be impossible. If only we could get it back, because if we don't the nation is going to be destroyed.

Revival starts with seeking God and expecting answers

Another thought occurred to me in the hope of encouraging others to fast and pray for revival, starting of course with cleaning up the church and your own life. I'm aware that I'm a believer that the Lord does communicate with us in knowable ways, which is denied by some leaders of the Church, or seems to be. Of course everyone encourages prayer as a necessity, and believes in answered prayer, but the idea that we can get identifiable knowable answers doesn't seem to be acknowledged, and is often denied, as if it were in the same category as charismatic beliefs. But I'm convinced the charismatic "gifts of the Spirit" are false and that it's important to discourage that belief in any seeking of revival. Nevertheless, I've had too much experience of a kind of answered prayer that is very real to confine myself to intellectual understanding, which is often what seems to happen with those who preach against such communication.

The main thing I'm thinking of is that prayer for answer to specific questions usually gets those answers in my experience, and I think it very important that we be seeking for answers to questions related to these revival concerns. If my list of problems that hinder revival is true others should arrive at the same list by asking God to show them what hinders revival. If the lists are somewhat different that could mean human error at any point in the process, but if we're sincerely asking God to give us His wisdom the lists should look very similar. God shows us such things sometimes directly to our minds, sometimes through other means. But I think those who aren't expecting God ever to answer in such a knowable way probably don't recognize the answers when they come. They might even think I'm a heretic for believing this. I believe pastors can be guided by God to sermon subjects, and have a strong conviction that God led them, and that all of us can be guided to spiritual issues in our own lives that we need to deal with, and so on and so forth.

I don't really want to get deeply into this subject, just want to encourage anybody who wants to pray for revival to expect that God will answer prayer for knowledge and wisdom, will show us where we need to focus our prayers and other things we may need to do. So much of the work of the Church is intellectual, and it's good work, good sermons are preached, good analysis of problems in the Church and the nation and the world are arrived at, things in accord with God's word. But that doesn't guarantee that the message of the moment is the one God would want given, and messages that God gives come with a power to affect others that messages we put together from our own knowledge usually don't have.

But if we pray for that kind of light, and especially if we add whatever degree of fasting we can manage to that prayer, and especially if we extend the prayer beyond our usual time limits, I think we can be sure we'll get the light we ask for and we'll know it when we get it. And maybe if enough of us are doing this to whatever little extent we can we could be the beginning of a revival.

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Afterthought: The two issues that are my own personal hobbyhorse at my blogs, the Bible Versions controversy and women's head covering, are usually decided intellectually, by argument alone. No doubt with brief prayer, but not the kind of prayer that seeks God's understanding of the matter. If those who have decided them that way would take the time to fast and pray and ask God about them my guess is that you'd have to come to the conclusions I've come to.

Of course the issues must be argued intellectually, but not ONLY intellectually. Perhaps if we all fasted and prayed over everything we think we'd get closer to agreement with each other on doctrinal questions.

And, perhaps more important than any of the rest, though it's all tied together in the end, is that if enough genuine Christians, those saved by faith alone in Christ alone, fasted and prayed for God's wisdom in general, I suspect that the Lord would finger Roman Catholicism as still the main enemy of all Christendom, and what a boon it would be if more people came to realize this. So many good preachers in all kinds of churches, so many good discernment ministries, apologetics ministries, and most of them are blind to the Biggest Baddest Wolf that looms behind so much of the apostasies and heresies and destruction of the Church and the nation.

Hey, guess what! George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were "Homophobes" and "Haters"

And they weren't even Christians! Today's Gay Rights bullies are as un-American as you can get!

I mentioned Chris Pinto's radio program on this subject in the previous post, but he got much of his information from a website called Apologetics Press on the attitude of the Founders to homosexuality.

A pernicious plague of sexual insanity is creeping insidiously through American civilization. Far more deadly than the external threat of terrorism, or even the inevitable dilution of traditional American values caused by the infiltration of illegal immigrants and the influx of those who do not share the Christian worldview, this domino effect will ultimately end in the moral implosion of America. Indeed, America is being held captive by moral terrorists. The social engineers of “political correctness” have been working overtime for decades to restructure public morality.

The Founding Fathers of these United States would be incredulous, incensed, and outraged. They understood that acceptance of homosexuality would undermine and erode the moral foundations of civilization. Sodomy, the longtime historical term for same-sex relations, was a capital crime under British common law...

...In the greater scheme of human history, as civilizations have proceeded down the usual pathway of moral deterioration and eventual demise, the acceptance of same-sex relations has typically triggered the final stages of impending social implosion. America is being brought to the very brink of moral destruction.

But none of those other civilizations had the Biblical basis we have, which makes us more morally culpable, but also gives us the possibility of rescuing the nation that no other ever had. Oh if only we could wake up and have a drastic housecleaning, a drastic selfdenying repentance of everything we KNOW is against God's word, and fast and pray in prodigious numbers for as long as it takes to persuade God to come down and turn us back from destruction.

Gay Agenda a "high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God" and needs to be pulled down by a revived Church.

Watching America being destroyed from within keeps driving me back to revival as the only possible solution.  Which amounts to saying that God is the only possible help but He isn't answering prayers for revival these days, as I've noted before.  Either He's determined on judgment as the only righteous response to our condition, or we aren't meeting His conditions for revival.

I keep hoping the latter because that at least gives us the opportunity to ponder what conditions we aren't meeting and whether we could meet them.  The ones I listed in an earlier post are probably not the full list.  In fact I can hardly believe I left out the gay agenda, because there are churches that have capitulated to that too.  The nation is suffering from every kind of Political Correctness and the Gay Agenda is the latest and most aggressive version of it, but I've been thinking of the nation's ills as those the Church is to tackle after we've cleaned up our own act.  How can we rally against violations of the First Amendment freedom of religion when we're full of offenses against God within our own ranks?  Problem is all the ills of the nation are to be found in the churches as well.    We even have "gay churches."   And all churches that call themselves by the name of Christ need to be addressed by the Church at large, meaning denounced in many cases.  I don't know if God would give just a certain collection of repentant cleaned-up churches a revival but if the point is to turn back the evils in the nation, God's judgment on the nation, I don't know how far that would go anyway.  To be effective it would have to be contagious and change minds all over the country.  Genuine revivals do have that effect, but could it happen on the scale we need it to happen?

The main symptom of God's judgment is the ineffectiveness of the churches.  The Wimp Factor as I called it a while back, our inability to act.  Not only the churches but conservatives in general, witness Congress.  It was nice, sort of, to see some pastors in Houston confronting their anti-Constitutional major, and also nice that pastors and others responded to Mike Huckabee's call to send her sermons and Bibles.  Seems to show there's still a pulse in the Church.  But it's a pretty weak pulse.  The call wasn't even for sermons against homosexuality, but that's what has to be confronted by God's word.  I wonder how many were on that topic?  My guess is not many.   Because of the Wimp Factor.

Yes, we're afraid of the gay rights people.  They're a nasty aggressive bunch.  We don't like being called "haters" and "bigots" and "homophobes" which is the tactic of Political Correctness invented by Cultural Marxism aimed at bringing down America.  And they can get nastier than that under certain circumstances.   That's why I liked the idea of pastors across the nation committing to preach specifically against homosexuality in one voice in response to the mayor's move against the Church, for strength in numbers.  It's easier to preach on a controversial subject if you know you are backed by thousands of others.    I still wish something like that had occurred.  If the sermons they sent her were against homosexuality that would maybe have a similar effect but since there is silence on that subject I assume most of them weren't, maybe all.

Chris Pinto had a very interesting radio show recently, The American Founders on Homosexuality, which makes it clear that the founding of this country included a view of homosexuality as sin, and abominable sin at that.  That's the view of the Bible and whatever individual founders may have believed about traditional Christianity, most of them were steeped in the Bible and accepted its moral judgments.   Some of the original colonies had the death penalty for homosexual behavior.  George Washington had to dishonorably discharge a soldier for attempted sodomy.  There was certainly no attitude of tolerance toward homosexuality in those days, but a couple of centuries later we're now bullied into accepting it as a normal sexual preference.

For years we've been subjected to Gay Pride parades which are in themselves a disgusting display that is hard to tolerate, but even the police are required to support the event.  We watch all this happen and don't do much, just let it all roll over us.  Well, what CAN we do?

It's like we're bound and gagged.  If one person speaks up a dozen opponents shout him down with all the PC epithets.  And now if a Christian business refuses to fill an order for something that supports the gay agenda, particularly gay marriage, they are getting sued and fined.  This is a horrendous violation of the First Amendment, a horrendous miscarriage of justice, but it's like we're so used to the reversal of good an evil, or so stunned by it, or so afraid of being targeted ourselves, we let this evil triumph.

But again I'm taken back to the need for revival.  The main reason we're paralyzed has to be that we're deep in sin ourselves, as I've started to outline.  I'm adding tolerance of the gay agenda to this list now, and certainly eliminating churches from any call to revival that endorse homosexuality as a normal lifestyle, ordaining them as preachers and so on.   Also churches that allow women pastors need to be eliminated.  Revival only comes to a biblically pure church, I'm sure of that.  It usually starts with moving people to repentance, but these are huge offenses against God that don't need some special touch of the Holy Spirit to make us aware of them. 

How many churches are free of all those offenses?  Well if you don't count my own concern about the Bible Versions and women not being required to cover our heads in church, there may be some that are free of such offenses.  Again, could we seek revival just for those churches? 

If we don't have revival, if we don't have a waking up of the churches, if we don't get some boldness against the incredible accumulation of sins in America and the west we're just lost, absolutely lost, there is no hope.

The Church does inherit many of the promises to Israel but God still has a plan for Israel

Back in the late 80's and early 90's, when I was still a new Christian, all I ever heard was the pro-Israel or Christian Zionist point of view. I heard it in Church and in Bible Study and in parachurch organizations and in the popular books of the day.

At first it was exciting to hear about fulfilled prophecy, but eventually it started to bother me as it seemed to relegate the Church to some sort of afterthought of God's while supposedly His main concern was always the nation of Israel. The Church just sort of interrupted His plan but after "The Church Age" is over we are to expect that He would resume His dealings with Israel.

 I'd done a lot of reading on my way to Christian belief and always found that the Church was the whole point of redemptive history, not some afterthought.  So this emphasis on Israel was starting to get to me. Since then the Reformed churches have become more influential and now the Christian Zionists complain that we're making Israel irrelevant, and call the theology that I'd always regarded as orthodox traditional theology by the pejorative term Replacement Theology.

Jan Markell sent along another piece on the subject of Israel, this one objecting strenuously to "Replacement Theology" as the devil's work within the Church against Israel, "Christian" Palestinianism: More Lies From the Pit of Hell by Geri Ungarean for the website Rapture Ready.

I wrote an article on Replacement Theology not too long ago. The main proponents of this lie from the pit are the main stream denominations - Presbyterian Church USA, Lutheran, Methodist and some Baptist churches, among others. The Catholic Church has been teaching RT since its inception...

We can see the finger prints of Satan in every church who is turning its back on God’s Holy Word. There is a new outcry from the pulpits of the PC crowd.

They yell, “Free Palestine! Israel is occupying land which is not theirs! Israel is an apartheid state! Down with Israel! Boycott products made in Israel!” They compare Israel with Hitler’s SS. To them, Israel is the oppressor, and are occupiers of their own land.

I agree with her that such accusations of Israel are very wrong, as I just wrote in a previous post, and it's fair to call it the work of Satan too, but I disagree that any of this has to do with theology. Apparently some kind of theological excuse for denouncing Israel is made in those pulpits, but it's hard to see how they could use Replacement Theology for that purpose;  probably it's more along the lines of the typical liberal misuse of the teachings about love and kindness and the denial of the right to self-defense, such as were directed against Israel in the film I discussed in the previous post.

Again, what does Replacement Theology have to do with whether or not Israel is at fault as they claim?

Interestingly most of the churches Ms. Ungarean lists are known as liberal churches, but what she calls "Replacement Theology" is taught in conservative churches as well, particularly Reformed or Calvinist churches.

I've never wanted to get very deep into this controversy, but every time it comes up and I post something on it I am forced to learn a little bit more about it.   I don't enjoy it, the disputes can be rancorous.   I recently listened to some dispensationalist arguments against Replacement Theology at Sermon Audio but I'll never be able to learn enough to have more than a broad grasp of the issues.

They often start off saying something like "Replacement Theology is the belief that God is finished with Israel, that He cast them off for their sins and particularly their rejection of the Messiah, so now the promises He gave to Israel all belong to the Church."  Then if their focus is on Covenant Theology, the theology of the Reformed or Calvinist churches, they'll go on to characterize Replacement Theology as related to Amillennialism and the allegorizing of scripture. 

None of this addresses any of my own concerns.  I strenuously oppose Amillennialism, have never seen any reasonable excuse for allegorizing anything in scripture, don't believe that God has completely cast off Israel, and I continue to appreciate the insistence of the Dispensationalists on the literal interpretation of numbers in scripture (if it says "a thousand years" it means a thousand years and not just "a long time" and so on.)  

And yet I do think that many of the Old Testament references to Israel refer to the Church.  I think this because I think this is what the New Testament says.

Geri Ungurean continues:

Another NEWSFLASH: God Himself is a Zionist.

“For the Lord has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His habitation. ‘This is My resting place forever; Here I will dwell, for I have desired it. I will abundantly bless her provision; I will satisfy her needy with bread.

Her priests also I will clothe with salvation, and her godly ones will sing aloud for joy. There I will cause the horn of David to spring forth; I have prepared a lamp for Mine anointed. His enemies I will clothe with shame, but upon himself his crown shall shine’” (Psalm 132:13-18).

Such a flat statement applying this passage to ethnic Israel is simply not true. The New Testament refers to Zion in spiritual terms as the heavenly Jerusalem, and specifically not a something of the senses that could be touched:

Heb 12:18  For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest...,   Heb 12:22  But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,

This is the dwelling place of the living God, not earthly Zion. He dwells in His people as the New Testament says, not in buildings made of stone or on earthly mountains. And what could the "horn of David" refer to but the Messiah?

Here's what Matthew Henry says:

Here will I dwell, for here he adhered to his principle, It is good for me to be near to God. Zion must be here looked upon as a type of the gospel-church, which is called Mount Zion (Heb. 12:22), and in it what is here said of Zion has its full accomplishment. Zion was long since ploughed as a field, but the church of Christ is the house of the living God (1 Tim. 3:15), and it is his rest for ever, and shall be blessed with his presence always, even to the end of the world. The delight God takes in his church, and the continuance of his presence with his church, are the comfort and joy of all its members.

Ms. Ungurean's article continues with more analysis of Political Correctness in the churches and Christian Palestinianism, and I agree with her in general about the errors there, but my interest is more in the meaning of Replacement Theology.

As I say above I believe that the New Testament requires us to interpret many of the references to Israel, Zion, and other terms in the Old Testament, as applying to the Church because they all point toward the coming of the Messiah and the fulfillment of God's plan of redemption in a heavenly and not an earthly Jerusalem. There is a general complaint by the Dispensationalists that we "spiritualize" the Old Testament references to Israel, but in fact it's the New Testament itself that spiritualizes them.

The New Testament also clarifies that Abraham himself was not looking to earthly Israel as the promised land but to a better country, that is, a heavenly promised land:

Hebrews 11: 9  By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: 10  For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God...
13  These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.  14  For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.15  And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. 16  But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.

Paul in Galatians 6:16 refers to "the Israel of God" in a context that clearly defines it as referring to the Church, to believers in the Messiah:

Gal 6:14-16  But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.  15  For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.   16  And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.

Although this passage is often disputed it seems to me that the Israel of God can only be believers, certainly not unbelievers, and if it's believing Jews then they are part of the Church just as believing Gentiles are, and they can't therefore be a different group from those who "walk according to this rule" and that includes all believers, both Jew and Gentile.

Then another distinction is made between ethnic Jews and believing Jews, further "spiritualizing" terms that are earthly or fleshly in the Old Testament, including circumcision:

For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:

There are also all those New Testament passages that show the Church to be God's chosen people:

Eph 1 4  According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

2 Thess 2:13  But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:

James 2 5  Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?

1 Peter 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:

Concerning the covenant with Abraham the New Testament is clear that all who live by faith in Christ are inheritors of that covenant, though it could possibly also be said that as long as this earth exists the land of Canaan was clearly given to the physical descendants of Abraham. The only problem there is that it is an everlasting covenant and we know from other scripture that this earth is passing away, and the "everlasting" covenant could therefore only be the spiritual covenant, the covenant with the Church.

Here's Matthew Henry again:

GENESIS 17:6-7 Here is, I. The continuance of the covenant, intimated in three things:-1. It is established; not to be altered nor revoked. It is fixed, it is ratified, it is made as firm as the divine power and truth can make it. 2. It is entailed; it is a covenant, not with Abraham only (then it would die with him), but with his seed after him, not only his seed after the flesh, but his spiritual seed. 3. It is everlasting in the evangelical sense and meaning of it. The covenant of grace is everlasting. It is from everlasting in the counsels of it, and to everlasting in the consequences of it; and the external administration of it is transmitted with the seal of it to the seed of believers, and the internal administration of it by the Spirit of Christ's seed in every age. II. The contents of the covenant: it is a covenant of promises, exceedingly great and precious promises. Here are two which indeed are all-sufficient:-1. That God would be their God, v. 7, 8. All the privileges of the covenant, all its joys and all its hopes, are summed up in this. A man needs desire no more than this to make him happy. What God is himself, that he will be to his people: his wisdom theirs, to guide and counsel them; his power theirs, to protect and support them; his goodness theirs, to supply and comfort them. What faithful worshippers can expect from the God they serve believers shall find in God as theirs. This is enough, yet not all.

2. That Canaan should be their everlasting possession, v. 8. God had before promised this land to Abraham and his seed, ch. 15:18. But here, where it is promised for an everlasting possession, surely it must be looked upon as a type of heaven's happiness, that everlasting rest which remains for the people of God, Heb. 4:9. This is that better country to which Abraham had an eye, and the grant of which was that which answered to the vast extent and compass of that promise, that God would be to them a God; so that, if God had not prepared and designed this, he would have been ashamed to be called their God, Heb. 11:16. As the land of Canaan was secured to the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, so heaven is secured to all his spiritual seed, by a covenant, and for a possession, truly everlasting. The offer of this eternal life is made in the word, and confirmed by the sacraments, to all that are under the external administration of the covenant; and the earnest of it is given to all believers, Eph. 1:14. Canaan is here said to be the land wherein Abraham was a stranger; and the heavenly Canaan is a land to which we are strangers, for it does not yet appear what we shall be.

In all of this there is no necessary idea that God is completely through with Israel and I don't see anything in scripture that says so. There are passages that speak of their failure to uphold their end of the covenant but there are passages that promise that He won't abandon them completely anyway, and how much of that refers to the Church I really don't know. We know from Romans 9 through 11 that He plans to save "all Israel" in the end and that definitely refers to earthly Israel. That to my mind is enough to give earthly Israel a place in God's plan. and I can't ignore the fact that their defeat of the Arab states who attacked them was nothing short of miraculous. This is all based on history and not scripture but nothing happens without God, the state of Israel couldn't be there at all if God weren't superintending the whole thing, and again their defeat of their enemies shows to my mind God's hand in their affairs. God isn't finished with Israel and He isn't finished with Planet Earth. Although the heritage of the Church is spiritual, and that includes believing Jews as well as Gentiles, a transformed body, a transformed life, God began His work with earthly people on an earthly planet and there's no reason to think He would not bring that work to a fitting finish, and for that earthly Israel has to play a gigantic role.

HOW it all is to happen I haven't sorted out in my mind.