who is on the Lord’s side?
Aligning ourselves to Divine purposes. Is the Church really where it ought to be?
The classic battle of the ages continues to rage on Planet Earth. The forces of evil and darkness that have aligned themselves against “the Lord and his Messiah” continue to engage in a life-or-death struggle with the forces of righteousness and light. Indeed, they have reinforced themselves and redoubled their efforts to prevent the coming of the Messiah and the redemption of the world.
The current bold and audacious attacks on Western Christianity that have been mounted by those with secularist, humanist agendas are nothing more than an extension of the ongoing effort of the powers of evil to subvert and overthrow the faith of the righteous in a desperate attempt to gain total and final victory over the God of Scripture. The ultimate goal of the mindset of the flesh that hates God (Romans 8:7) has always been – and will always be – deicide, the total annihilation of the God of Scripture, the event about which secularists have already boasted for nearly a century.
The subtlety of Satan
The insidious nature of the current engagement is the diabolical subtlety that Satan and his forces employ. The evil one has transformed himself into an angel of light, preaching tolerance through syncretism and promising prosperity for all through global redistribution in a one-world economy controlled by a one-world government that espouses a oneworld religion: secular humanism.
What is most insidious about this effort is the subtle message of: I’m ok, you’re ok. Let’s all just coexist. You have your truth; I have my truth. Let’s all live in peace and not offend one another with our patriotic nationalism or by clinging to our own brand of religion. Liberty, justice, and tolerance for all! Sadly, these messages of tolerance are promoted by the most intolerant people on the planet, most of whom are apostles of intolerance!
The current agenda of postmodernism which combines New Age philosophy with Neopaganism is based on the view that there can be no such thing as absolute truth. For this reason, the only thing of which postmodernists are absolutely certain is that there are absolutely no absolutes. Such a philosophy can, therefore, be tolerant of anything and everything – everything, that is, except the God of the Jews, the God of Scripture. This God cannot be tolerated because He makes demands on people and speaks about sin and guilt. Those who represent this God cannot be tolerated because they refuse to bow in submission to the god of this world.
In truth, however, the Ten Commandments are not the ten suggestions, and the teachings of the Christ are not options for the enlightened to consider, to accept, or to reject. There can be no compromise between the laws of God and the hedonism of humanity. Truth cannot be mixed with error. Like oil mixed with water that is neither potable nor a good lubricant, truth mixed with evil is utterly worthless.
The blind following the blind
In reality, postmodernism represents nothing more than the ancient pagan emperors and their priestly cults all clothed in a new set of glamorous, but transparent, garments. The naked truth is this: postmodern humanism is just the newest manifestation of ancient Babylonianism, the reign of confusion. Its polytheism – and its vicious drive for total domination – has been packaged in slick, even glitzy propaganda so that the unsuspecting masses are wooed by its siren song into the brainwashed and brain-dead catatonic state of the zombie-like living dead who gladly follow the beast wherever he goes.
Unfortunately, most Christians and Jews don’t have a clue. They are so blind that they are unaware that they are following blind guides (Matthew 15:14). They are caught up in the euphoria of their quixotic quest for utopia, and they don’t care if that dream world is “big-brother” dominated. Who cares if there is one world economic system wherein people can neither buy nor sell if they do not toe the party line and compromise – even surrender – their most treasured beliefs and practices? Peace, peace, we want peace! And, we’ll give up land, family, and religion if that’s what it takes to acquire it.
People who have values are no longer valuable. As a matter of fact, they are valueless and worthy of extermination, of being sent into extinction in the way of the dodo. They’re just not with it. Who do they think they are, anyway, condemning our lifestyles and saying that we shouldn’t?! We are free from the constraints of these antiquated moralist fossils!
The mounting dangers
As the coming of the Messiah draws closer, the world will enter into the birth pangs of the Messiah, a time of great turmoil—politically, economically, sociologically, and religiously. A cry will be made for a saviour, but not the Saviour. Millions will hope that the next world political figure will be “The One” who will realize the culmination of what they believe will be the inevitable physical, intellectual, and emotional evolution of the human species. In their dreams, this will be the leader who will create utopia and find a way to give everybody everything they need and even what they want. More and more, economics – not morals and ethics –will control the destinies of nations and peoples.
Control and domination will continue to be the dominant theme. While philosophers, academicians, and politicians speak words of freedom, the undercurrent of totalitarianism will be just behind the scenes waiting for an auspicious moment to seize control and then to maintain total domination with murderous efficiency. Indeed, the rulers of the earth have already risen up “against the Lord and against his Messiah, saying, ‘Let us break their chains and free ourselves from slavery to God’” (Psalm 2:1−3, NLT; Acts 4:26). With the amalgamation of these world powers, dissent will not be tolerated. Everything will be assimilated into the grand design for a globalist utopia. Resistance will be futile.
What are believers in the God of Scripture to do in these dangerous times and the more dangerous ones that are just over the horizon? The stand for truth will once again expose people of faith to martyrdom, for enlightened, postmodern man is no more gracious and tenderhearted than the Pharaohs, Nebuchadnezzars, Caesars, Attilas, Genghis Khans, Napoleons, Hitlers, Stalins, Pol Pots, and others who have marched across the pages of history in an unending parade of tyrannical and merciless rule.
As the world moves into the future, however, by far the most dangerous of all challenges will be that of syncretism, the same ploy that Antiochus Epiphanes used in an effort to subvert the faith of the Jewish people. This diabolical effort has already begun to put all religions and all peoples into some massive mystical blender and syncretize them into a homogeneous and homogenized mass of mindless lemmings.
Sadly, a significant portion of the Christian church has already been lured into the beautiful Venus flytrap that the Enemy has set for them. They have been caught up in the propaganda of academicians, politicians, and sociologists who rail against the absolute ethics of the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Jesus. In fact, with Christian help, the Ten Commandments and Jesus’ instructions are being constantly updated by people who ‘possess greater insight so that they are able to see past the limitations of the antiquated and expendable past’.
Like the people and their political and religious leaders in the time of Isaiah, these Christians – theologians, priests, and laypersons alike – take delight in substituting “evil for good and good for evil, light for darkness and darkness for light, bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Isaiah 5:20). And, sadly, they do not hesitate to take away the righteousness of the righteous whenever they can, labelling biblical morality as intolerant and judgmental relics of the prejudiced past that must be jettisoned in favour of tolerance.
Time to repent and turn to God
Now is the time for Christians to share what Isaiah experienced when he confronted this same dilemma. It is time for believers to see “the Lord high and lifted up” and to have their lips purged with coals of fire from the altar in heaven so that they can speak the Word of the Lord with authority and power. It is time for a revival of restoration and renewal to sweep through the Christian church that will cause the people to turn to God and love Him with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. It is time to put God and His Word first by rededicating the church unequivocally to the life and teachings of its Lord, Jesus Christ.
With most of the world frolicking in the abominations of postmodernism and its attendant atheism and hedonism, it is necessary to lift up a standard and call the people of God to make a stand for truth. Syncretism with perversion or compromise with evil being accommodated can no longer be tolerated. A clear stand must be made. It is time for the international believing community to draw a line in the sand. Spiritual and academic leaders must make the same proclamation that Moses of old made when he returned from Sinai with God’s Torah only to be confronted with the awful scene of the children of Israel worshipping the golden calf: “Whoever is on the Lord’s side, come to me” (Exodus 32:26).
The church cannot possibly weather the storm that is brewing unless it is solidly anchored on the Rock – both the person and the teachings of Jesus (Matthew 16:18; 7:27). When faced with the last great onslaught of the enemy, the only believers who will survive will be those who turn to the Rock with all their hearts and keep His commandments (John 14:15-31). Any individual or community that is built on anything else is doomed for destruction. Without the Rock of Ages, there is no hope.
Now is the time for true Christian believers to prepare for the battle that is ahead. When the onslaught reaches its full intensity, it will be too late. Who will stand up for the Lord and His Messiah? Who will invite the Holy One of Israel to assume total control of fallible human vessels and endue them with power from on high? Without a doubt, this battle must be the Lord’s battle. Human reason and the machinations of men will be powerless in the face of the last great eschatological onslaught of evil that is now amassing itself.
Christians today have no option for compromise, complacency, or procrastination. The church faces the same choice that Moses offered the Israelites in Exodus 32. In the confrontation between good and evil, the question is never, “Is the Lord on our side?” It is always, “Who is on the Lord’s side?”May all believers in the body of the Messiah around the world – including those who, as Jesus predicted in Matthew 25, “slumber and sleep” – hear the midnight cry and align themselves squarely on the side of the Lord and his Messiah!