Patriotism

Patriotism is the opium of the masses. Those who are caught up in its euphoric urges are controlled and manipulated outside their own consciousness. Patriotism, at its heart, is built on depraved and wicked impulses. Those who desire to follow Christ in purity should be purged of its influence. Do it, throw it away, or it will destroy you. With it, the masses are led to hell. “God and country” is the refrain at which Satan cackles in delight; it is the idol which he has created. The diabolic nature is seen in the sheer numbers which are deceived. Those who have escaped its grasp (whom I know personally) are so few that I think I could count them on my hands.

Patriotism, in essence, requires holding a relatively small group of people in higher regard than all the other inhabitants of the earth. The deep rooted selfish nature seen here is of the same strain which caused Adam to fall in the garden. It is a concept which drives one to hope that one’s self and friends are treated well in life, even if at the expense of all the other inhabitants of the world combined. A patriotic fellow desires that the goods he buys in his country are cheap, the goods his country sells are expensive, the foreigners in the country are treated as a second class part of humanity; in short he hopes that all of humanity is beaten down that he may be exalted. Could a more selfish attitude ever be promoted in the name of Christianity? Never! The real Christian attitude is to hope for the betterment of all humanity (not just your part), to desire that all receive justice, and to work for the advancement of all in the world. Patriotism, by its definition, ceases to exist when the above criteria are true. According to Funk and Wagnall’s Desk Dictionary, a patriot is “one who loves his country and zealously guards its welfare.” Part of the deceptive nature of this issue is that one can feel good that he is looking out for others, helping them in their pursuit of happiness. The deceived scarcely realizes that he is included in this class that he desires to do well.

Those who resist the revealed truth of God in this matter are either agents of the devil or deeply deceived. The former are of no concern to us; it is the church that is deceived that the full might of spiritual intensity should be directed. Because of the promises of God toward His church, I can in confidence pray for the deceived knowing that God will hear. Nevertheless, the example of Lot is always in front of me, reminding me that indeed it is possible for a Christian to waste his whole life and end up being more of a curse than a blessing to the world. How then can I sin against God in ceasing to pray for the church? It is the glory of Christ; He will not cease pleading for it. I too should follow in His footsteps.

Three Classes

It has become clear to me over the weekend that there are three classes of those who are outside the real church of Jesus. There are the Pharisees, Samaritans, and the Barbarians.

The Barbarians are those who are completely unexposed to any sort of sort of Christianity and have very dark spiritual lives. Their societies are often cruel and barbaric compared to the societies where the first two classes live.

The Samaritans are those who have a more developed form of so called righteousness than the Greeks, but still are far away from God. These people work a little harder than the Greeks to make the outside of the cup clean, but they are still full of wickedness. Jesus encountered a Samaritan woman at a well in John 4. As can be seen from this passage, the woman had a form of religion, but it seemed to be less formal than that of the Pharisees. Also, she had sin in her life that the Pharisees would condemn, thus showing that the outward morals of this group were less developed than the Pharisees. She and her kind worshiped in a set place and knew of the One God.

And lastly are the Pharisees. Among all the classes, this group comes the closest to authentic Christianity, but since it remains outside the real church, it is the most deceptive of the three. Its adherents work the hardest to appear righteous; the outside of the cup is the cleanest of the three. But it could be argued that the inside is darker than the other two because of the self-deception that goes on.

When I view these three groups today, I see much intermingling such that the lines dividing them are not clear often and become less clear all the time. Additionally I see that the natural progression in the world is from the society of the Barbarians into the society of the Samaritans and then finally into the Pharisaical society. This is inevitable for two reasons. First God declared of Jesus that of the increase of His kingdom and power there would be no end. So we know that the real church is always in the long run advancing. But secondly, we also know that the Devil always sows tares wherever Christ sows wheat. Thus, though the church advances, the latter group also is gaining converts and grows in power and influence all the time.

It seems almost certain to me that when Satan comes and the full power of the Anti-Christ is made manifest on earth, he shall use the Pharisees to accomplish his designs. The mighty sorcerers of Egypt were able to duplicate the first two miracles of Moses; so shall it be with the anti-Christ. He is the great imposter, the deceiver of all mankind. He shall set himself up as Christ and duplicate what signs he can in order to deceive the greatest number. A religion that mirrors Christianity concerning the “outside of the cup” shall be established and all the inhabitants of the world, outside of the elect, shall be deceived.

Brethren, if these things be so, how now shall we live? Should we not be wary of those who are clean on the outside, having a facade of religion, but deny its power? Should we not be most concerned that those who are forerunners of the great church of the anti-Christ not infiltrate our churches and mislead us? Indeed, I put forth that it is this Pharisaical group of which we should most closely examine and watch lest they deceive even us (Matt 24:24).

But even now the power of anti-Christ grows strong and has deceived many people…especially by way of politics. Satan has set up the Samaritan group; in this country they are called the liberals. Just like the woman of John 4, they have a form of religion, but it is less developed than the Pharisaical system. They also are corrupt on the inside, but because the cup is not as clean on the outside as the Pharisees are, their wickedness is more easily seen. However, these Samaritans have a form of religion that is far more advanced than that of the Barbarians. But they lag behind the third group. The Pharisaical group in this country, who are also often called the conservatives, delight in viewing the wickedness of the Samaritans for it makes them feel more righteous. These Pharisees view the Samaritans as one of their worst enemies and gather together to plot their destruction. The Samaritans do likewise with the Pharisees, and both call upon God to bless them and curse the other. However, both groups are deceived by The Deceiver, who uses their self-righteous feelings to lead them to hell. Both groups are set up by Satan to attempt to mislead the elect who may be deceived into taking sides in the fight. But their wrangling is no concern of ours; leave them alone for they are both blind leaders of the blind. Brethren, I urge you to instead follow Christ and derive your sense of righteousness from how well you compare to Him.

There is one last thing to note concerning the Pharisaical group. It is my strongest conviction that the full deceptive power that this group will wield as it is used by Satan has not ever been seen by the world. Any deception that the Pharisees exude at the current moment is in its infancy compared to the mighty horrors that Satan will unleash to deceive if possible even the elect. It is safe to note therefore, that this group will at that time advance to a level that sophistication that is not seen today.

Democracy. A higher form of government?

My thought this evening was that concerning democracy and its evils. Relative to other forms of government, it has pros and cons. But relative to Christ, it is a wicked system deserving of destruction. Democracy, like all other systems, promotes the concerns of its citizens above all the rest of the inhabitants of the world, thus showing its core selfish nature. Democracy is not closer to Christianity because of this. Voting is merely a form of spreading the evil around such that all citizens of a nation will share in the wrath and judgment of God upon this sin. This is because those elected are individuals who will only look after the voter’s selfish desires. Therefore, to vote in a democracy is a fearful thing. Why not allow those in power to suffer for their sins alone? Why do you wish to share in their condemnation? Why do you desire to improve your life at the cost of those believers in other nations? Democracy is a divisive instrument in the hands of Satan who aptly uses it to make the believers in one nation distrust those of another nation.

Fear and Belief in God

There was a time in my Christian life that I looked around my world, the world in which I lived, and observed that it did not match the world that the Bible talked about. In the Bible I saw a world of supernatural power, that of God. In His word, I read about the promises toward the believer; and especially I read about the greatness of the new covenant. I read about the surpassing greatness toward those who believe. In Philippians I thought about the promise that “He who started a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Elsewhere I saw that “sin shall not have dominion over you.” Yes, this all was encouraging…but reality was not. In my reality, I saw believers oppressed and harassed by sin. I knew people who loved God and were seemingly enslaved to sin. Many, many were like this. I looked around and saw very few who could gain ground, who overcame deceptions. And the disparity between scripture and reality drove me to despair. I felt as if there was nothing in scripture that I would not believe. But the brutal contrast between the word of truth and what I saw happening caused me to doubt for just a moment what God had spoken.

I asked in fear whether it was possible that God could be mistaken. Fear is the operative word because, for me to believe that I was wrong in this regard would be a change in my worldview, and one’s worldview affects every decision and action. I was immediately comforted by the thought that God can not lie for that would be wrong. I was flooded with relief at this thought that even God was held to a standard and could not transgress against His word. But even in my relief, something seemed to be wrong with this analysis. However, it was what all other Christians thought… how could it be wrong? I was struck with the realization that the definitions of what is good and evil would not exist if God did not exist. We Christians use that logic on atheists all the time. We ask them “how can you speak of right and wrong when you don’t believe in God?” Our logical assumption is morality can not be created out of empty space. So, then how can God be held to a standard outside Himself? Indeed He can not. Therefore, what God says is good must be good. I then asked something I have never seriously considered before…”what prevents God from pronouncing something as good at one time, and later on pronouncing it as evil? The standard answer most Christians would give is that God can not do this because he is changing His mind and God can not change because that would be wrong. Thinking this through though, I saw that this answer is flawed, for it again holds God to a standard outside Himself. What keeps God from never changing?

Christian, I ask you, how do you know that God won’t lie to you? How do you know that God will not change His mind about things that He has told you? My conclusion was that we do not know with 100% certainty the answer to that. I do not know for sure (100%) that God will not change. And this, I am persuaded, is a good thing because it causes the Christian to have a righteous fear of God. Psalms says “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” The second good thing that this realization brings is faith. Faith is needed when something is not known with absolute confidence. And without faith it is impossible to please God. God wants us to believe Him when He says something because we have faith, NOT because God is held to a standard and cannot change even if He wanted to.

I ask the reader, do you dislike this analysis? If so, what do you think it promotes that is wrong? Does it promote disbelief in God? Never may it be! As far as I know, I am the only one who has thought about this, and my end conclusions have driven me closer to God. I can say that I would hope to serve God and love Him even if He should hate me and even if He should thrust me into hell. This belief fosters true faith, not a non-biblical faith in a God that can not do what is wrong supposedly because this God is constrained by the higher laws of morality outside of Himself.

The use of “we” by Christians in this country is for the most part, deceptive, damaging, and a major contributor to wrong thinking and false ideas. It must be stopped. The only “we” the bible knows is that of “we Christians” and NEVER “we Americans.” As pointed out in Genesis 3, the entirety of history is composed of the children of God and the children of the devil. If “we” is ever used in a significant way, it must mean the church. Never, ever should that word be used to combine the church and the world into a party with a common goal. Such is the prevalent error today though. And it must be stopped. It is a lie from Satan, helped along by Christian Reconstructionists and foolish conservatives who should study scripture and real history instead of whatever it is they do read.