Hi! '
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I've read your Comments throughout this Thread and I wanted to shout HURRAY! At least we have someone willing to put everything at risk to speak the truth.
Ours is a time when the evil one is entering into a frenzied mimetic rivalry with God, “because he knoweth that he hath but a short time”.
We are living in an age of "AFRAIDS".
We all know of course that AIDS is the abbreviation for 'Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome'.
Spiritually speaking, there is also something which I name as "AFRAIDS" ... that is: '
A Factor
Related [to an]
Acquired
Immune
Deficiency [of the human]
Spirit'.
We are a generation that has been fastidiously trained from a very early age to believe our own propaganda.
When my generation was growing up, we became aware about how power corrupts. But in this present day, we are witnessing the corrupt seeking power.
When we began to attend a community church years ago, we became concerned with the unfaithful falsehoods being uttered by those wearing the garb of clergy.
But presently, we are witness to spiritual sociopaths who traffic in disturbing news and pass on destructive prophetic rumors; falsifying information which damages and injures the “hidden man of the heart”.
It has always been a difficult task to come against the domination system. We are always coming up against an ideology which is more anxious to be right than in doing right. Truth is the thing that is really hated. Those who are transfixed on the counterfeit reality expose their secret need for enemies because they inadvertently disclose a preoccupation with superiority. Previously, cultural Christianity was busy with devaluing evil doers. Today, their ideologies have horribly matured and people are busy to dehumanize an entire people or race. No longer content with merely separating themselves from evil doers, they now demand to completely eradicate them. When people suppress the truth and worship the domination system, they succumb to darkened minds and folly and become overwhelmed by a sense of induced powerlessness. So it is that people live within a lie. In most cases, it is not as if the multitudes happily accept the delusionary web; rather, it is that they have accepted their life with it and in it. They unwittingly confirm the lie, fulfill the lie and ultimately become the lie.
The domination system is by its very nature in a permanent crisis of legitimization. Because its captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It pretends to pretend nothing. Because it is so utterly foreign to the composite of man, it became an artificial amalgam held together through violence. This is why falsehood and delusion are so essential to it.
Not surprisingly, transparent spiritual truths are the most hateful of all to the lovers of lies. Delusion possesses nothing more than the power which we confer on it; its powers of persuasion are limited only by the measure of our own acquiescence and complicity. The strength of the powers behind the domination system are never more determinative than when they constrain us invisibly; when they exert their power by extracting genuine being (life) from the dominated. The body, soul and spirit of humankind are being torn, ripped, shredded, ravaged and exhausted by entanglement with the web of deceit which upholds the domination system. The counterfeit reality’s atmosphere is spirit killing; teaching us not only what to believe but also what we can value and what we can see.
I have learned that spiritual eyes are the indispensable precondition to our healing. We need eyes that see the invisible if we are ever to escape the delusions of the domination system ... the counterfeit reality. After all, the powers only have whatever persuasive power which our blindness allows them. And, I have learned too that we must “redeem the time” and overcome our sense of powerlessness and recognize it for the killing spiritual disease it is; of how we were deliberately induced by the counterfeit reality which keeps us complicit in our own spiritual alienation. The defeat of the powers occurs by dying to their control; by dying out from under its jurisdiction and command. Therefore, with the unmasking of our oppressors, there must also be a healing of the servile will in the victims. If the rich young ruler of the Bible narrative must die to his egocentricity, then Nicodemus too must die to his hopelessness, fatalism and acquiescence to his own despoiling.
Ours is a time too of increasing falsehoods which are buried under many layers of doctrinal confusion and stiffened by decades of ideology and politics. It has always been a difficult task to come against cultural Christianity’s fraudulent gospel. We are living in a time when the invisible things from out of the kingdom of darkness are becoming visible on the earth. This could be named a ‘counterfeit reality’; "Having a form of godliness but denying its power", (2Tim 3:5), "evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived", (v13). The combining of the Israeli Zionist groups with the Evangelical Christian groups has produced what has been named the ‘Armageddon Alliance’. The counterfeit reality is becoming increasingly evidenced and, in particular, masquerading as an Israel ‘after the flesh’ and, as such, “shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if [it were] possible, they shall deceive the very elect”. So it is that yet another delusion known as the ‘Hebraic Perspective’ is being feverishly embraced today by countless Christians. While it is true (for instance) that Hal Lindsay’s Apocalyptic Dispensationalism theology during the 1970’s proved to blind the cultural church, (just as Darby and Scofield before him), the ‘Hebraic Perspective’ theology is something much more insidious and harmful.
Like vultures eager for their carrion, the cultural church feeds on every new cognitive dissonance. A people kept ignorant of reality will by default believe in falsehoods. People seem to be much more emotionally committed to ideologies as opposed to what we once knew as the ‘doctrines of the ancestors’. When both the eternal and temporal things become horribly twisted into a single strand, the predominant emotive fabric of a person’s consciousness becomes all the more hardened and threatening. Ideology is always more anxious to be right than in doing right; focused more on the ambition to succeed rather than with the call to faithfulness; more preoccupied with producing results than seeing the invisible. In these days we are confronting intransigent ideologies which are even more insidious and difficult to unveil.
Previously, the ‘doctrines of the ancestors’ were busy with devaluing evil doers. Today, ideologies have people busy to dehumanize an entire people or race. While Jesus taught the love of enemies, the ideologues of today encourage their extermination. No longer content with merely separating themselves from evil doers, they now demand to completely eradicate them. Those who are transfixed on the counterfeit reality expose their secret need for enemies because they inadvertently disclose a preoccupation with superiority, (Mark 7:3-5).
The acclaimed teachers of today have supplanted awakening with destroying and purification with annihilation. This is exactly the same sentiment of redemptive violence which ushered in the Crusades of earlier times. None of the false prophets of today can conceive their God as also being the God of those who may differ with them. While the unanswered question prior the Reformation was, “How can I find a gracious God?”, the question sadly remaining unanswered in these days is, “How can I find God in my enemies?”.
The counterfeit reality comes into being by those who seek to grasp the “substance of things unseen” with hands of flesh. The counterfeit reality’s atmosphere is spirit killing; teaching us not only what to believe but also what we can value and what we can see. Since the incident in the Garden of Eden there is the tragic history of the body, soul and spirit of humankind being torn, ripped, shredded, ravaged and exhausted by entanglement with the web of deceit which upholds the counterfeit reality. In my opinion, the goal of the antichrist has always been to import a counterfeit mirror image of the “substance of things unseen” into the visible realm. When this counterfeit has completely developed on the earth (fully manifested to mimic the invisible kingdom of god), we are then entering Armageddon. In other words, the spirit of antichrist is the instrument by which the genuine purposes and intents of God become manifested as a counterfeit on the earth.
Visible things are the nutrient of the counterfeit reality and form the ideologies which serve to confirm it. It is the visible things which construct the false center of the world and which serve to spiritually imprison humanity. Yet, the counterfeit reality could not exist if it were not for the undergirding of blinding ideologies. It is not for nothing that the Bible names the Devil as the ‘god of this world’; meaning to say, the controlling agent of the visible dimension and its ‘domination system’.
Even at the time of Jesus, the Romans were a model of lucidity with the domination system. While they did not worship the seated emperor, they were not shy of worshiping the ‘spirituality’ which inspired the ruler. Jesus perceived this counterfeit reality, (“all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them”), and refused to succumb to the temptation of having a position in it. The Bible speaks of another incident “when Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone”. “For what shall it profit a man, if he may gain the whole world (kosmos/system), and forfeit his life?”; “My kingdom (basileia) is not of this world (kosmos/system): if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence”.
Domination is significantly more than a power relation; it is a spiritual state of being. While fear forms its visible chains, shame and rejection are its invisible chains. The result is that which compels a human sense of spiritual insignificance; an internalized oppression which deprives one of godly worth and esteem. “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood (human foes), but against principalities (cosmic powers), against powers (authorities), against the rulers (potentates) of the darkness of this world (age), against spiritual wickedness in high places (invisible realm)”. What we are talking about here is of a struggle to the death for recognition. One does not merely desire the other, but forcibly desires to be desired by the other. It is this compulsive desire to be desired that has the evil powers sharing their consuming lies from the very beginnings. The strength of these powers is never more determinative than when they constrain us invisibly; when they exert their power by extracting genuine being (life) from the dominated.
When the Bible speaks of “principalities and powers”, it is speaking of the economic, political and cultural institutions which give form to the counterfeit reality. We need to perceive a distinct difference between the “principalities and powers” and the “rulers of darkness” and that of “spiritual wickedness”. While the principalities and powers speak of the influences affecting the visible dimension of our existence (outer), the rulers of darkness and spiritual wickedness speak of the influence affecting the invisible dimension (inner). While “powers of the air” speak to a collective manifestation of evil which permeates the counterfeit reality, the spiritual wickedness speaks to a deeper and more destructive evil; a layer of sludge beneath the murky waters, a hellish hatred of light and truth, a brute lust for violence and annihilation.
The body, soul and spirit of humankind are torn, ripped, shredded, ravaged and exhausted by entanglement with this deceitful reality. When Paul speaks of a life lived “according to the flesh”, he is speaking of a life subordinated to a counterfeit reality; a life subjugated to the inauthentic values which form the domination system. It is the carnal mind which seeks complicity with the “powers of this age”; “Behold, they [are] all vanity; their works [are] nothing: their molten images [are] wind and confusion”. While the faithful are imprisoned for their faith, the unfaithful are imprisoned by their faith. We note throughout the Book of Revelation the refrain: the Beast was allowed to exercise authority; was allowed to make war; was given authority; is allowed to perform miracles; is allowed to make the image of the first Beast speak. Delusion possesses nothing more than the power which we confer on it; its powers of persuasion are limited only by the measure of our own acquiescence and complicity.
“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ”. The counterfeit reality is by its very nature in a permanent crisis of legitimization. Because its captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It pretends to pretend nothing. Because it is so utterly foreign to the composite of man, (“no so from the beginning”), it is an artificial amalgam held together through violence. This is why falsehood and delusion are so essential to it. When people suppress the truth and worship the created things, (counterfeit reality), they succumb to darkened minds and folly; become overwhelmed by a sense of induced powerlessness. So it is that people live within a lie. In most cases, it is not as if the multitudes happily accept the delusionary web; rather, it is that they have accepted their life with it and in it. They unwittingly confirm the lie, fulfill the lie and ultimately become the lie. Our triumph over the domination system occurs as we overcome the “present evil epoch” (aion) who “has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ”. In this sense, we “redeem the time”, (Col 4:5). The wonderful testimony of our gospel is not that it is a convincing substitute for the counterfeit reality; rather, it is in its being hated by it. Thus, our gospel has no need of salesmanship because genuine reality is eager to confirm it.
Paul wrote, “Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what [is] that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God”. Spiritual eyes are the indispensable precondition to our healing. We need eyes that see the invisible if we are ever to escape the delusions of the counterfeit reality. After all, the enemy only has whatever persuasive power which our unbelief (blindness) allows him. We must therefore “redeem the time” and overcome our sense of powerlessness and recognize it for the killing spiritual disease it is; of how we were deliberately induced by the counterfeit reality which keeps us complicit in our own alienation. The defeat of the powers occurs by dying to their control; by dying out from under its jurisdiction and command. So it is that, with the unmasking of our oppressors, there must also be a healing of the servile will in the victims. “Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?” If the rich young ruler must die to his egocentricity, then Nicodemus too must die to his hopelessness, fatalism and acquiescence to his own despoiling. Even those whose lives have been stolen from them must lose their lives to find them; they must die to what killed them. I am not speaking here of those who are preoccupied with the delusional practice of dying to ego. Rather, I am speaking of dying to the powers which hold us captive and subservient to the counterfeit reality.
After the Fall, the weeds (“sons of the gods”) began to be sown. The resulting atmosphere of the ‘domination system’ is subsequently described as “corrupt before God”. The ‘domination system’ caused the earth to be “filled with violence through them”. While the weeds were maturing in his midst as “mighty men which [were] of old, men of renown”, Noah remained busy with things centered on that which was producing a “plant of renown”. While the ‘domination system’ was producing weeds which manifested themselves as “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart [was] only evil continually", Noah “found grace in the eyes of the Lord”. At the time of Noah’s Flood, it was said, “the wickedness of man [was] great in the earth, and [that] every imagination of the thoughts of his heart [was] only evil continually”. The domination system had full sway; evil had become a contagion. Noah had refused to participate with the counterfeit realities of the domination system and as such it is said of him that he “walked with God”.
To Noah it was said, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth" (Gen 9:1); but then we read later of people saying, "Let us make us a name lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth", (Gen 11:4). Only eight people descended from the Ark. Those people worshipped God. But at some point an influential person became opposed to God and gathered others to his side. The evidence points to Nimrod as the one who did it. Cain had done similarly before the Flood, founding a new city and importing a counterfeit reality; the domination system. Nimrod’s descendents were the ones who began building the tower in Babel. It is the spirit of the antichrist which counterfeits the ‘Gate of God’ with Babylon’s domination system, (social structure and economic organization). Violence always animates the very thing it opposes. Murder calls forth murder and an entire chain of slaughter is the consequence; which even today we see the war machine celebrated and haloed by memorials and parades. It is the religion of Cain which lends the lie which depicts the only good and perfect God as engaging in violence. It is the counterfeit reality which argues that God is inherently violent; that God is the angry and aggrieved party who must be placated by blood sacrifice. It is not God who must be appeased, but humans which must be delivered from their hatred of God’s creation laws. It is Cain who initiates the counterfeit reality; for he pretends to be able to bring about by his own temporal means the eternal purposes of God. Jesus said, “No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon (‘the domination system’)”.
Cain as a wanderer builds a city. Spiritually, Cain abandons the opportunity to live after the “substance of things unseen” and proceeds to build a counterfeit reality, an earthly city. His city will be his protection, as well as the iron instruments which his descendents will forge. All of this is placed under the sign that Cain chooses. He calls both his son and his city "Enoch," which means "initiation". Cain lays down his beginning which opposes the one which God had decided for him; a reality closed to God’s order. Because Cain was busy with the domination system, we should not be surprised by the violence which instigated the murder of Abel. (“… Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother”, (1John 3:12). Every place the sons of Ham went, ‘divine kingship’ was established. In Mesopotamia, Cush (or Kish) was the founder; in Egypt, Mizraim. In Canaan, named for one of Ham's sons, it follows that ‘divine’ kings controlled the city-states. In those kingdoms, religion was the cultural ‘opiate of the people’. It was used by rulers to bind the people's highest loyalties to themselves. So there was plenty of pomp and circumstance, special feast days and rituals during the year to support the counterfeit reality which they controlled. Cain’s language is no longer the same as Adam's before the Fall. He no longer speaks as by the extension of his Creator’s words. While Adam’s position was one of dominion, Cain speaks from out a relationship of domination. He begins to rule the visible reality by instruments of domination rather than love. It is the spirit of antichrist which builds the “city of blood”, Nineveh; which enshrines Asher’s illustrious power and which venerates the wisdom of Nabu.
The Bible says that, “when the fullness of the time was come”, the “tender plant” of Jesus, (Isaiah 53:2) was ‘planted’ in the field. But simultaneous to the appearance of the “tender plant”, the weeds were already in the process of being “gathered to be burned”. The Old Testament speaks at length about how it was that “noble plants” degenerated into “strange vines” while the New Testament speaks about the planting of a “tender plant”. Over the centuries, the bounty of the antichrist was already becoming evident, (as described in Deut 28:15-31). This is the reason that John could plainly say, “This is that [spirit] of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world”. The spirit of the antichrist was already producing weeds (a counterfeit species) long before; centuries before. Jeremiah had already spoken of this many years earlier saying, “Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?” Similarly, the scripture reads, “I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the shame of the heathen any more. Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I the Lord build the ruined [places, and] plant that that was desolate: I the Lord have spoken [it], and I will do [it]”.
So it is that weeds (counterfeit species) have been sown throughout the generations but the wheat was once again planted with the birth of Jesus. Concerning the “strange vines”, Jesus declared, “Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up”. For example: the weeds were sown as “children of the wicked one” but, at the time when they are completely bundled to be burned, they have become mature “sons of perdition”. (“Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?”). In the same manner, the wheat was planted as “children of God” but, at the time of their appearance “in clouds of glory”, they have become mature “sons of God”. (“… thy soul shall live, and this city shall not be burned with fire; and thou shalt live, and thine house”).
While the wheat is preoccupied with the “substance of things unseen”, the weeds are nurtured by falsehoods fixed on the things which are visible.
In other words, the kingdom of darkness supplants reality through a counterfeit reality with the domination system at its core. This domination system has its tangible temples and commandments and symbols demanding obedience. Thus, the “weeds” have their false hopes manifested in the same reality with which they are preoccupied (earth) while the wheat have their hopes manifested in the invisible dimension (heavens). In a way it could be paraphrased as, ‘For where your treasure is manifested reveals your reality also’. Therefore, it should not surprise us that the cultural (unfaithful) church has as its primary centerpiece the visible temples and visible symbols in a visible Israel. This will continue and with even greater intensity as the endtimes unfold, “if [it were] possible, they shall deceive the very elect”.
Since you mention 'closer looks', lets have one or two, shall we?
I don't think the thread is becoming pro-Islamic or pro-communist at all. Quite the contrary those political groups have not been examined in detail and for good reason. Most of the writing is from Americans who are unhappy with the direction our nation is taking. The future doesn't look good for us. Nobody cares about improving Islam or Communism (except you-know-who in DC).
I for one care more about drug dealing in my own neighborhood than the slaughter of thousands in Syria. I'm not really happy about either, but I'm most frustrated about my town. So I focus on the conditions I'm most familiar with and the nation I grew up in, work in and live in and am increasingly frustrated with. I think a lot of folks feel the same way. A lot of people are finally waking up and what they see is making them very nervous. Nervous. Nervous. Do you know which industry is growing the fastest these days. Bang bang the private arms business. Gun makers can't make guns fast enough for private sales. America is waking up and we are very nervous. Will Obama take credit for increased jobs in the gun business? <grin> You know he won't...gee whiz why?
Terrorists and rebels? What about them? The contras in Nicaragua were recruited, armed and trained by the CIA. They were mercenary death squads whose sole object was to overthrow the Communist Sandanistas. The whole thing was illegal but in spite of a specific law passed by congress to forbid such covert actions it went on anyway. In the end the Sandanistas won by default and are still in power albeit much changed from the days of 1979 when they first walked in. Thousands died because of American sponsored terrorism.
How about al qaeda and the taliban? Do you remember what nation created them? By created I mean recruited, trained, equipped and guided into their murderous goals. If you guessed the United States you guessed right. The Afghan mujahideen were the parents of the modern groups which our infamous leaders are trying to persuade us need to be killed. How about Libya? Since you mention it, did you know that members of al qaeda were part of the 'rebel' groups that overthrew Moamar gadhafi? US Senator John McCain was even quoted as calling them 'heroes' in the conflict.
Tell me if I get this wrong, ok? In 2001, we were told that al qaeda were the bad guys. In 2011, we're told they're heroes. I'm writing this in 2012 and I think they're bad guys again. Not sure, but I think so.....maybe...the year is young yet.
Then there was Iraq. Oh yes, we had to invade because they had WMD's and an affiliation with al qaeda or the taliban or Ronald McDonald or somebody. We all know now that the whole thing was a pack of lies. America goes to war why? It's ok to believe a lie and to kill people and destroy the lives of folks who've done nothing to us because of lies. American lies.
I was in Chile by the way for the party with marxist president Allende. My military team supported a group of Navy seals who went in to do a little mischief with explosives. The American government only supports fascist dictators because its easier to bribe one man or group of men than to try to influence a parliament or entire nation. We won that one, by the way. Hoo Rah for our side. More innocent deaths, but what the hey they weren't Americans so why worry.
Lets bring it home for one last verse of the popular song 'What's Wrong With America'. Let's keep it simple too and put it right in everybody's face.
Do you love God? Do you know Jesus? Does your faith mean anything to you? It probably means a lot. It does to me.
I am first an foremost a Christian and an American last. That means that if I put things like truth, life, kindness to others, etc. on a high scale it pretty much looks like America is falling short. How short?
In the front of most American churches the American flag is displayed. Its displayed to its own right if I read flag etiquette correctly. That means the American flag is displayed to the left of all other symbols, stage right if your in front of the sanctuary looking out toward the congregation. The cross is in the middle of most Protestant churches. That's where the crucifix is in Catholic houses of worship. On the other side may be displayed the church flag.
Does symbolism mean anything to the reader at this point? The American flag is just a striped piece of cloth, but its a symbol of our nation and there's a lot of meaning to it. Still following me are you? The cross is just a piece of wood or bronze or other material. The cross means something too. It means a lot more than any flag and that's saying a lot. It's meaning is more than a particular congregation or church or denomination. It stands for the very salvation and person of God.
Where do these symbols stand in relation to one another in our churches? The American flag is in the position of superiority and the cross is to its left - a position of lower importance. If symbolism means anything it means that America is bigger and better than God. It means that every church recognizes that God is a vassal of the United States. Maybe we've seen this so much that we don't think about it any more, but I guarantee that the next time you look at this arrangement in church you'll think about it. Is it right? These are only symbols and they don't mean anything. Or do they?
Bottom line is that Americans love the proud new fascist police state we've created. God is an object of ridicule and scorn as are things like morality and truth. Wisdom, always a rare thing more precious than gold, is nowhere to be found in our land. If any of us pretend to love the truth and Jesus and what Christianity is all about we cannot love what is happening in America today. We cannot make excuses and we cannot simply sit on the side lines. Christianity is not a spectator sport.
But that's just me, hollering from the choir loft...
