God provided the Ten Commandment for the Christian to follow, and our leaders once held to these Ten Commandments and the nation was in a far better state than it is currently. When we reject the God of the Bible, as we drift far from His Commands and continually rebel against Him the consequences multiply exponentially. Of idolatry, God says:
Deuteronomy 5:7 - (Second Commandment) You are to have no other gods before me. You are not to make for yourselves a carved image or any kind of representation of anything in heaven above, on the earth beneath or in the water below the shoreline - you are not to bow down to them or serve them; for I, ADONAI, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sins of the parents, also the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but displaying grace to the thousandth generation of those who love me and obey my mitzvot (commands).
As stated in part 1, idolatry is anything which draws us away from Jesus Christ and seeking after His kingdom first. What idolatry is America actively engaged in? The worship of money. What began with Enron has culminated in the meltdown of Wall Street and the public exposure of the failed policies of Fannie Mae and Mac. Politicians forced lending institutions to approve risky loans which but for those new regulations would never have been approved. As a result of this meltdown, thousands of Americans who toiled for decades, saving for retirement, have seen their savings vanish! There has been no mention of a bailout - with our tax dollars - for J.Q. Public; yet, AIG, one of the companies which received millions still continues to send it’s executives on tropical holiday! While necessary to prevent our economy from tanking, we are told it is necessary to bailout the very corrupt institutions which put the economy in this position … perhaps it would be better to clean house and rid the Capitol of those who profited from the Fannie Mae and Mac debaucle. What idol motivates the absolute disregard for others so long as it increases one’s own bottom line? The love of money and the idol of covetousness. Many in this nation seek after money at the expense of their integrity because money is their god! Of the love of money, Yeshua said:
Matthew 6:24 - No man can serve two masters: for he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. (cf Lk 16:13)
Proverbs 15:27 - He that is greedy for gain troubles his own house.
Many have been seduced by the trinkets of the world and have been deceived by the riches of it into believing material wealth is the pathway to happiness. Marriages are sacrificed by workaholics. Children grow up in pain as they would much prefer their parents attention and guidance over the things that working 60-80 hrs each week affords them. This frenetic pursuit of wealth comes at a high price! Many live far beyond their means in a vain attempt to fill an emptiness inside, an emptiness only Yeshua can fill. As the saying goes, many in an attempt to “keep up with the Jones” (who are they anyhow?!) seek after material wealth only to discover everything that is gold does not glitter and they are just as empty inside even after attaining ’success’ by the standard of the world. God warns against debt because we become enslaved to the debtor, as many a person who has had to file bankruptcy can attest. This is the idolatry of covetousness:
Exodus 20:17 - Do not covet your neighbor’s house; do not covet your neighbor’s wife, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor.
Matthew 19:23-26 - Then Yeshua said to his talmidim (disciples), “Yes, I tell you that it will be very hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Furthermore, I tell you that it is easier for a camel to pass through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. When the talmidim heard this they were utterly amazed. “Then who”, they asked, “can be saved?” Yeshua looked at them and said, “Humanly, this is impossible; but with God everything is possible”.
God warns against seeking after wealth because once seduced by riches, it is far more difficult to see our need for Yeshua as Savior. We all know that in this world money talks; however, in the next it has no voice. We are to seek after the kingdom of God and His righteousness and everything else (our needs) shall be added unto us (Matthew 6:33, Luke 12:31). The Lord says wealth draws a person, and a nation, away from seeking after God. Material wealth can vaporize in a moment, but treasures stored up in heaven have an eternal value. The price tag of trusting in money is very high:
Ephesians 5:5 - For of this you can be sure: every sexually immoral, impure or greedy person - that is, every idol-worshipper - has no share in the Kingdom of the Messiah and of God.
Another idol Americans pant after is fame and celebrity. We have become a nation that will sit before television, or idiot box as my grandmother used to refer to it, each week to watch American Idol. Recently in the news was the tragic story of a young woman who became so distraught after being let go from the competition for top spot that she went home and shot herself in the head! Apparently, the felt that life was no longer worth living because she had so set her heart upon being the next America Idol. This nation places Hollywood actors on a pedestal, and treats them as if they are worthy of homage! Our youth seeks after their five minutes of fame and places their photos on MySpace, only to face the music when said photo appears in a background check and costs them the position for which they labored so long in college. The celebrity mentality has so infected our nation that two twin women have undergone extensive plastic surgery to look like Barbie (yes, the doll). We have become a culture obsessed with celebrity as the Anna Nicole Smith saga kept people riveted to their tv sets. With a sick voyarism, photographers clamoured after ‘the shot’ by storming Smith’s funeral - it was absolutely shameless! This is idolatry.
Sexual perversion, in all forms, is rebellion against God. People across the nation who hold membership in a church, live together in direct violation of the Command of God to not commit adultery. Any sexual relation outside of marriage is fornication. The Creator instituted marriage (Genesis 3), the family, and instituted moral laws for each from which our nation is far adrift. A clear indication that a nation is in rebellion against God is sexual perversion. Christ instituted the church at Pentecost (Acts) and He has established her heirarchy, qualifiers for those in leadership, and the discipline the pastor is to utilize in the case of a brother or sister that remains in unrepentant sin despite having followed Matthew 18:15-17. Having been a member of a church that exercises discipline as outlined by the Lord, who has absolute authority over His own Body, I know it works. People are restored, if they are part of the flock; however, if they are not they remain ‘in the world’. After having had membership in a church that did not exercise church displine, I can attest to the fact that there is a darkening in that church as sin burns through the flock drawing many away until it seems as though the church is absolutely powerless over sin.
Any pastor who refuses to obey ADONAI in this regard will one day stand before Him and give an account. This is what God writes through Paul about the brother who remains in sin:
1 Corinthians 5:6-13 - Don’t you know the saying, “It takes only a little hametz (leaven, sin) to leaven a whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old hametz (old nature/flesh), so that you can be a new batch of dough, because in reality you are unleavened. For our Pesach (Passover) lamb, the Messiah, has been sacrificed. So let us celebrate the Seder (Lord’s supper) not with leftover hametz of wickedness and evil, but with the matzah (unleavened bread) of purity and truth. In my earlier letter I wrote you not to associate with people who engage in sexual immorality. I didn’t mean the sexually immoral people outside your community (the church), or the greedy, or the thieves, or the idol-worshipper - for then you would have to leave the world altogether! No, what I wrote to you was not to associate with anyone who is supposedly a brother but who engages in sexual immorality, is greedy, worships idols, is abusive, gets drunk or steals. With such a person you shouldn’t even eat! For what business is it of mine to judge outsiders (unbelievers)! Isn’t it those who are part of the community that you should be judging? God will judge those who are outside. Just expel the evildoer from among yourselves. (cf. Deut. 13:6; 17:7,12; 19:19; 21:21; 22:21,24; 24:7)
At the summit of rebellion is the sin of homosexuality, which God calls an abomination and unnatural. History’s lesson is that every nation that embraces homosexuality (Sodom, Greece, Rome) is destroyed. In America, once again the few again have raised their voices against the majority. The evil behind the movement, the devil, is quite cunning in attempting to promote homosexuality as a ‘civil rights’ matter. Of course this is an absolute lie. Civil rights have to do with non-discrimination against people due to the nationality, disability or religion. There is no special protection for me, as a heterosexual, to walk the streets skyclad and gyrate against my spouse while marching in a parade. This is the very sin that God rained down brimstone (fire from Heaven) upon Sodom and Gemmorah … (Gen 19). The men of the city engaged in homosexual behavior in the streets of Sodom. Our nation hosts ‘gay pride parades’, without regard for the Word and the judgment we are courting. One of the saddest spin off of the homosexual activist movement is the attempt to paint the Christian, who does not hate them but seeks to warn them of the coming judgment, as ‘bigots’ and ‘haters’. Behavior like this from those who say they want ’tolerance’ and ‘acceptance’. Apparently only for themselves and if Christians are to be persecuted in order to gain such special protection under the law through proposed legislation such as ‘hate crimes’, so be it. Is that tolerant? No, that is idolatry … mankind seeking to do what is right in his own sight.
America has lost it’s ability to blush! We are the biggest exporter of pornography. Commercials run all day which would never have been permitted even 15-20 years ago. Parents must needs hold the trigger finger on the remote to avoid the inevitable inappropriate content that will come on the screen. When a nation refuses the commands of God and His ordinances, they will sink to debauchery that is a pit seemingly without bottom. This pursuit of pleasure is in itself a form of idolatry because it seeks to gratify the lusts of the flesh, which leads to all forms of evil.
As with Israel, unless America repents on a national level, judgment is certainly coming. In the Old Testament books we learn of the judgment God issued against His chosen people, and it is folly indeed to imagine He will not likewise deal with any other nation who refuses to honor Him, obey Him and, moreover, love the apple of His eye - Jerusalem. Our national policy is well known in that regard. In 2 Kings 11:4, ADONAI directs Elijah to shepherd the flock of Israel, both Yudah and Israel, for slaughter. Elijah took two staffs one called No’am [pleasantness], the other Hovalim [bound together], and he shepherded the flock. Elijah snapped in two the No’am staff, “in order to break my covenant”, which I made with all the peoples. The people took note that this was indeed judgment at the hand of ADONAI. I said to them, “If it seems good to you, give me my wages; if not, don’t”. So they weighed out my wages, 30 silver shekels [that is 12 ounces] and threw them into the treasury in the house of ADONAI. (1 Kings 11:10-13.) (This was a foreshadowing of what would happen to Yeshua when Judas and the priests deemed Him worth only 30 shekels!) Then I snapped in two thy other staff Hovalim [bound together], in order to break up the brotherhood between Yudah and Israel. ADONAI said to me, “This time, take the equipment of a worthless shepherd. For I am going to raise up a shepherd in the land who won’t bother about the ones who have been destroyed, won’t seek out the young, won’t heal the broken and won’t feed those standing still; on the contrary, he will eat the meat of the fat ones and break their hoofs in pieces [Speaking of the antichrist.] “Woe to the worthless shepherd who abandons the sheep! May a sword strike his arm and his right eye. May his arm be completely withered and his right eye totally blinded (2 Kings 11:14-17)
The antichrist is coming upon this earth and it is at the Hand of a Sovereign God who orchestrates history. Every single event in recorded history was in some fashion guided by God’s permissive hand. Evil men who plot evil schemes have been permitted to do so only as it serves to fulfill the prophetic purposes of God. The moral decline of the country, and other nations around the globe, loss of natural affection (caring about others as much as oneself), greed and every other vice are each indicative that the prophetic clock which is leading up to the end of the age has accelerated. In the hearts of all men is a blackness that is so vile, cold, conniving and deceptive that apart from the saving work of Yeshua, God’s miraculous intervention in the sinner’s heart, every person who was ever born would be remain an idolatrous pagan.
“The secular worldview holds that there is no god, and if it feels good do it.” “Climb the ladder even if you must compromise your integrity.” Men desire to be captains of their own lives and do not take kindly to the Sword of Truth which is able to discern the inmost thoughts of the heart. Men continue to reject the absolute right of a Sovereign Creator to dictate the lives of His creation. God has an absolute duty as a Holy, Just God to judge those who insist upon rejecting Him and the things of His kingdom in favor of the vain pursuit of the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and the pride of life (1 John 2:16).
Many of the churches in America have been so infiltrated by satan, and the world system, that seminars on ‘growing your church’ often seem to take precedence over preaching. Unlike the first century church in which discipling believers to maturity, and then going forth into the community to “make disciples of all men”, the American churches today seem more inward-focused. Let’s consider the many thorns among the wheat.
A large portion of churches in this nation see nothing amiss in: holding membership in both Freemasonry and church, despite what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10:18 - So what am I saying? That food sacrificed to idols has any significance in itself? or that an idol has significance in itself? No, what I am saying is that the things which pagans sacrifice, they sacrifice not to God but to demons, and I don’t want you to become sharers of the demons! You can’t drink both the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons, you can’t partake in both a meal of the Lord and a meal of demons.
Like the corporate world, today’s pastors measure success by how large the church roll is rather than how many of their flock are born again in the Spirit of God and growing under the preaching of the Word. Seeking after bigger buildings, more programs, increasing entertainment and choices of worship music, expository preaching takes a back seat to the ‘felt needs’ of the church attendees. How very sad that people will die in their deception and the so-called pastor who befriended them did not care enough to tell them about the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the Author and Finisher of our faith - Jesus Christ. Of living like the world, 1 Peter 4:3-4 says: For you have spent enough time already living the way the pagans want you to live - in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, wild parties and forbidden idol worship. They think it strange that you don’t plunge with them into the same flood of dissoluteness, and so they heap insults upon you.
Try living distinct and separate from the world by not hanging out at the proverbial watercooler, and partake not in the coarse jokes or gossip. Do not stand by as a coworker, neighbor, friend or family member blasphemes God … you will not be popular. The FOX News channel will not ring you up to be featured on a show to hear how you ‘keep growin in it’. No, to stand on the Word, to remain on the narrow road with the blessed Savior requires one to forever veer off the broad way which formerly held sway. Just a few verses later 1 Peter 4:12-14 says, Dear friends, don’t regard as strange the fiery ordeals occuring among you to test you, as if something extraordinary were happening to you. Rather, to the extent that you share the fellowship of the Messiah’s sufferings, rejoice; so that you will rejoice even more when His Shekinah is revealed. If you are being insulted because you bear the name of the Messiah, how blessed you are! For the Spirit of the Shekinah, that is, the Spirit of God, is resting on you!
Another idolatrous practice common today is chanting, mantric prayer, contemplative prayer (which is babbling the same word over and over again); practicing the ’silence’ or emptying one’s mind to listen for the ‘divine within’. God forbids this very clearly in the word. Such practices are not Christian and end in death.
1 Corinthians 10:14 - Therefore, my dear friends, run from idolatry!
1 Timothy 6:20 - Oh, Timothy, keep safe what has been entrusted to you! Turn away from the ungodly babblings and argumentative opposition of what is falsely called ‘knowledge’. For many who promise this ‘knowledge’ have missed the mark, as far as the faith is concerned.
2 Timothy 2:16-17 - But keep away from godless babbling, for those who engage in it will only become more ungodly, and their teaching will eat away at people like gangrene.
Another reason America has fallen so far from the Lord is a pastor sees nothing wrong with holding membership in the Council on Foreign Relations. This group teaches that we are to make peace, improve the world and solve all it’s problems by working in tandem with other nations. There are some who promote a social gospel and these promote the idea that the mission of the church is to feed the poor, clothe the naked, which is partially true and has always been the good works God works in we who are His ambassadors; however, the Great Commission remains the mission of the Body of Christ. Yeshua assured us that hunger, poverty and war would remain part of the human condition until His Second Coming upon the clouds at the end of the Tribulation. As people of the Book, we are to expect persecution. Persecution has existed since Yeshua walked the earth and will remain until His return. Indeed, the enemies of God have declared open season on Christianity and Christians because of their hatred of Christ and love of sin.
It is heartwrenching to watch my nation turn to paganism and from ADONAI, and just yesterday while praying and crying I said to the Lord that I now realize how the Jews felt when they saw their nation dying. Nevertheless, as believers we can rejoice - if through tears - because the prophetic Word of God is coming to pass before our very eyes! The Jewish people are making Aliyah (return) to Israel currently in unbelief, but 1/3 of them that survive the Tribulation, or Time of Jacobs Trouble, will be mercifully granted of God national repentance as they see Yeshua returning to the Mount of Olives with His saints and holy angels. They will proclaim, “Baruch ha B’Shem Adonai” - Blessed is He Who Comes in the Name of the Lord” as the spiritual blinders are removed and they recognize Yeshua for who He is … their long awaited Messiah. Israel is the only nation promised national repentance, every other person on earth must come to rebirth in Christ to have hope of eternity with Him.
The nations are coming against Israel in fulfillment of Zechariah 12:2, and America is heading the push for the division of Jerusalem. God has sent judgment each time in the form of weather disasters, fires, etc. There is no discernment among our leaders it seems and we are on course toward global governance as the recent proposed solution by the G20 for a global currency indicates. How can their be global currency if there is not a concurrent global government? May God have mercy on many souls as they seek to learn the Truth that is found only in Jesus Christ!
Tags: 5 'til Midnight, CONTEMPLATIVE 'SPIRITUALITY', Contemplative Prayer, GENESIS 2 REVELATION, PERSECUTION // Add Comment »
