{"id":1082,"date":"2016-01-13T15:29:47","date_gmt":"2016-01-13T15:29:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/?p=1082"},"modified":"2017-01-31T22:23:00","modified_gmt":"2017-01-31T22:23:00","slug":"the-way-it-used-to-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/?p=1082","title":{"rendered":"The Way It Used To Be"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhen I remember these\u00a0things<\/em>, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise,\u00a0with a multitude that kept holyday.\u201d \u2013 Psalm 42:4<\/p>\n

We have all heard and engaged in conversations about how life used to be.\u00a0 The elders can tell some fascinating tales of no running water, of walking miles on a dusty road to the store, of freezing cold winters, frost so thick that it looked like snow, and a single pot-belly wood stove for heat.\u00a0 But those were still the good ole days, deemed such because life seemed simpler and better.\u00a0 The elders were respected, children more obedient, people kinder, compassionate and honest.\u00a0 Hedonism existed only in the largest cities and only at night.\u00a0 There wasn\u2019t as much on TV, but there was more of what mattered in people\u2019s hearts.<\/p>\n

Today, the world is a dangerous place, and wickedness rules the night as well as the day.\u00a0 Our children and young people are under vicious attack by liberalism\u2019s ripening and poisonous fruit.\u00a0 There is virtually no sector of society that has not been invaded and infected by the toxic atmosphere being made ready for the Antichrist kingdom.<\/p>\n

It is a perilous time, a time of great stress.\u00a0 Professing Christians who are casual and passionless in their relationship with God cannot accept the reality, much less endure the weight of it.\u00a0 The specter of a brutal future is too much for them to consider and prepare for.\u00a0 Innumerable people, including a vast number of professing Christians, are buying into the lies of psychiatry and psychology that label every spiritual malady as a disease.\u00a0 Some have become legal drug addicts.<\/p>\n

Churches are founded, and in a few months, grow exponentially with stress-free preaching and world-centered entertainment.\u00a0 Truth is being banned as the glaring factor hindering not only world peace and unity, but also the brass ring prize, a human-contrived utopia.\u00a0\u00a0 In a number of venues today, declaring oneself a Christian is to become a social pariah. \u00a0Jesus is the most hated name in the world.\u00a0 Sin is honored, godliness cursed.\u00a0 Political leaders now lie so profusely that they create a fantasy world each time they speak.\u00a0 Up isn\u2019t up any longer, and down isn\u2019t down, unless it is convenient.\u00a0 Traditional morals are being rolled in the mud of tolerance and political correctness.\u00a0 And it\u2019s not going to get better.<\/p>\n

In the midst of this caldron of diabolical influences and sin’s consequences, there are people who refuse to relinquish what they know is true for the obviously evil new social paradigm.\u00a0 Good for them.\u00a0 That paradigm is composed of several tenets.\u00a0 Here are a few of them:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. There are no absolutes, especially moral absolutes.<\/li>\n
  2. Humanity does not need a god. We can solve our own problems.<\/li>\n
  3. Christianity and Judaism are the remaining hindrances to world peace and unity.<\/li>\n
  4. Global Socialism is the panacea to all of society\u2019s ills, including poverty and war.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The world\u2019s societies are merging because of the Internet and digital technology.\u00a0 Thus, the new paradigm requires a New World Order.\u00a0 To succeed in establishing a New World Order, forces in the secular and religious world are systematically breaking down the old order.\u00a0 The fact is, they will accomplish what they are attempting to do, because eschatological prophecies must be fulfilled.\u00a0 There will be an Antichrist heading a global government, and a False Prophet leading the one-world religion.\u00a0 No one but God can stop that from happening. \u00a0It will come on the heels of a cashless economy, which in the hands of evil people will bring every individual on this earth under submission to a ruler.<\/p>\n

    If we are at that point in history, we will have to face some facts, make some adjustments to our mindsets, and cease trying to conduct \u201cbusiness as usual.”\u00a0 Professing Christians must cease dodging the reality checks, or deception will overtake them.\u00a0 The storm is coming.\u00a0 It will arrive, no matter how well people manage to avoid the reality of its approach.<\/p>\n

    Now for some harsh truth that does not bring me joy to report.\u00a0 America is not going to be restored to some point in history when we enjoyed the \u201cgood, ole days\u201d.\u00a0 America is under judgment, and the worst is yet to come.\u00a0 Our nation has slaughtered over 50 million babies.\u00a0 Aborted babies (I reject the word \u201cfetus\u201d) have been harvested for decades for cosmetics and scientific research, but sufficient outrage and appropriate action never materialized.\u00a0 Now the merciless and calloused abortion industry is selling the body parts of aborted babies.\u00a0 The outrage over the revelation of that latter atrocity did not linger openly in society longer than the outrage over the killing of Cecil, the lion.<\/p>\n

    America\u2019s leaders have kowtowed to liberals, especially in the news media, and have permitted the incremental expulsion of God and His word from public recognition.\u00a0 However, our government infested by the same liberals insists that we honor Allah, Islam, and the Koran.\u00a0 Allah does not have the attributes of God, Whom the Scriptures clearly portray as love.\u00a0 The first Commandment is not ambiguous as God declares, \u201cYou shall have no other gods before Me.\u201d \u2013 Exodus 20:3<\/p>\n

    America has accepted and honored the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, homosexuality, which is the ultimate defilement by Satan in effigy of the image of God.\u00a0 Professing Christians who condone this sin join the rebellious besmirching of God\u2019s nature.\u00a0 They are subject to becoming just as reprobate as homosexuals (Romans 1:28-32).\u00a0 Thus, there is now a significant number of ordained ministers, and even some denominational leaders, who are reprobate or apostate.<\/p>\n

    That leads me to another point, but not by any means the final factor in America\u2019s spiritual declension.\u00a0 American Christianity is now accepting to a significant degree the worship and prayer practices of people who worship false gods and idols.\u00a0 Israel was repeatedly judged for this sin. With the acceptance of Contemplative Spirituality, professing Christians have opened the religion to the entrance of many corrupt activities and heresies.<\/p>\n

    Millions of people have accepted Rick Warren\u2019s book, The Purpose Driven Life<\/strong>, in which he promotes Contemplative Spirituality.\u00a0 Warren was appropriately named \u201cAmerica\u2019s Pastor\u201d.\u00a0 It seems as if the gates were opened and the walls were breached.\u00a0 A flood of New Age doctrines has poured into Christianity.\u00a0 Sarah Young\u2019s \u201cJesus Calling\u201d has influenced millions of gullible professing Christians.\u00a0 Other heretical books by influential professing Christians, such as Sue Monk Kidd, Ruth Haley Barton, Richard Foster, Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, et al., have flooded the Christian literature market.\u00a0 Numerous conferences convene across the nation to disseminate more of the heresies.\u00a0 Entire denominations have embraced the spiritual sewage. \u00a0One of the most troubling consequences is that Protestant leaders are encouraging ecumenism with Roman Catholicism.<\/p>\n

    Christianity (the religion), now riddled with vile and extremely dangerous heresies, is too weak to mount a viable protest against the marketing of baby body parts.\u00a0 It cannot mount a defense, much less an offense, as a diabolically controlled society aggressively forces its evil agenda, systematically erasing every vestige of God.\u00a0 I keep waiting for a response that is significant enough to at least slow down the encroaching evil, but it never comes.\u00a0 There are only smatterings of pitiful complaints that have about as much effect and power as vapors in the wind.<\/p>\n

    Finally, I want to point out the fallacy of longing for and striving for a return to the good ole days.\u00a0 In every statement and every effort to return Christianity to the good ole days, there is a mistaken belief that referencing a certain period in history, promoting a religious paradigm, presenting a particular societal pattern, and so forth, can undo the apostasy that permitted this catastrophic and ubiquitous invasion of evil.\u00a0 The modern world does not want the good ole days.\u00a0 They have bought into the promise of a new world of peace and unity.<\/p>\n

    However, not even the dreamers of the good ole days are being honest.\u00a0 Do they wish to return to the time of a Great Awakening, when people were honest with God?\u00a0 Or do they desire to return to the era when they had a measure of respect in the world, when they had the means to influence society, yet frittered it away by focusing on the gifts more than the Giver.<\/p>\n

    Long before Contemplative Spirituality, before New Age gurus masquerading as Christians spoke at denominational conventions, before Sarah Young channeled a demon impersonating Jesus, and before Rick Warren\u2019s heretical bestseller, Christianity was being inundated by the Positive Confession doctrine and the excesses of the Charismatic Movement, including its host of false prophets and money-hungry false teachers.\u00a0 Nobody stopped this horde of wicked people.\u00a0 Their heresies were not rejected, but adopted.\u00a0 No wonder that many evangelicals today cannot recognize or resist this new wave of heresies.\u00a0 A significant number did not reject the first wave.<\/p>\n

    Listening to popular preachers today, I recognize in their statements the influence of decades-old heresies.\u00a0 They take up offerings as if God is desperate and the givers need to be promised a return (something that cannot be delivered). \u00a0I have watched recent conferences designed to mount a pushback against the diabolical tide.\u00a0 They want to return to the days when they played loosely with the gifts of God.\u00a0 It was an era when numerical growth was the standard of success.\u00a0 During that period church buildings were built, not as tools for the kingdom of God, but as monuments to the pastor presiding over numerical growth.\u00a0 Now that the halo of that period has past, and the gloomy cloud of apostasy looms over everything, they frantically attempt to revive religious patterns and practices.\u00a0 They hack at the symptoms while leaving the roots intact.\u00a0 They are more interested in their demonstrative and exciting style of preaching, and in peppering the congregation with provocative buzz words and phrases, than in dealing with the underlying problem.<\/p>\n

    The problem is not alcohol consumption, the worldliness of professing Christians and their church meetings, lack of preaching the Gospel and no altar calls, the absence of emphasis on certain fundamentals of denominational belief systems, etc.\u00a0 The reason the world system has now become more powerful than Christianity in American society is simple:\u00a0 Christianity has proportionately become so weak because devotion to God, His nature, His authority, and His truth has been abandoned.<\/p>\n

    \u201cOh, but that\u2019s too simple,\u201d people may declare.\u00a0 There’s no denying that everything in the kingdom of darkness is designed to distract people from being devoted to God.\u00a0 Adam and Eve sinned after listening to Satan.\u00a0 The first and major casualty of their sin was devotion to God. \u00a0God came as usual in the cool of the evening, but they hid from Him. \u00a0The fact is that professing Christians have been prayerless, have not maintained intimacy with God, became materialistic, frolicked with the world system in numerous forms of entertainment, and allowed their spirits to be plundered by diabolical indulgences.\u00a0 Church meetings are either cold, formal, and dry, or are hyper-charged with licentious reveling in spiritual wickedness.\u00a0 In either case, the result is the same\u2014departure from fellowship with God.<\/p>\n

    Thus, I do not believe professing Christians wish to return to a life of commitment, passion, devotion, and total obedience to God\u2019s will.\u00a0 They only want to return to an illegal status quo, a period when God was dealing with them but they were too busy enjoying His benefits to respond to Him.\u00a0 It was a period during which He was pointing out their unfaithfulness and warning them of the consequences, if they persisted in doing things their way. \u00a0However, they were too preoccupied enjoying the fruits of Churchianity.\u00a0 While they played, Satan worked.<\/p>\n

    In my opinion, we are now at the point where judgment has arrived.\u00a0 Judgment is coming in greater measure.\u00a0 The condition of the world is too far gone to turn around.\u00a0 Diabolical forces are ravaging society.\u00a0 An exceedingly dangerous response would be to lead people to believe that everything is going to be okay.\u00a0 It is not going to be okay.\u00a0 It does not matter how much professing Christians are electrified with emotion by demonstrative and stimulating speeches, books, or meetings.\u00a0 The world system outside of the church building is in exactly the same condition as before—and worsening.\u00a0 In fact, during the time of the Sunday morning church meeting, its condition may have actually worsened.<\/p>\n

    Our response to the impinging wickedness must remain to expose and oppose it.\u00a0 However, our response to the reality of its unprecedented gains in modern society must be to prepare for more and increasingly harsh judgment upon this nation and the world. \u00a0We are at the point when pastors and other Christian leaders ought to be informing their listeners that we can no longer expect God to bless America. \u00a0I do not expect many of them to do so, because neither they nor their congregations can endure the negativity.\u00a0 However, the only way to survive this end-times darkness and subsequent judgment is to prepare for it.\u00a0 Not one person will be prepared who does not believe that he or she has to prepare.<\/p>\n

    This is not a pleasant article to read.\u00a0 It is not pleasant to think about, to consider the ramifications if it is true, and to motivate oneself to respond accordingly.\u00a0 The temptation is to flee to the safety of churches and preachers who are placating the stressed-out masses with prophecies of peace when there is no peace.\u00a0 There will be strong impulse and subsequent temptation to reject the message by impugning the legitimacy of the messenger.\u00a0 The overwhelming desire will be to deny that things are as bad as represented here.\u00a0 There will be reverse optimism of pointing to the minuscule representations of godliness while ignoring the preponderance of wickedness.\u00a0 Verses will be taken out of context, conjecture added, and the result confidently preached and repeated to persuade minds to accept a different narrative.\u00a0 In spite of all the effort to project an alternate portrait of the period we are in, each day will bring news and information to the contrary.<\/p>\n

    We may be aboard a mighty ship navigating through icy waters.\u00a0 One each side and in front there are floating masses of ice.\u00a0 They increase in size and number as the captain, crew, and everyone else reassure us that we will eventually break into clear water.\u00a0 But look ahead, if you can bring yourself to do so.\u00a0 See that solid mass of ice?\u00a0 There is no clear water in the direction we are headed.\u00a0 However, no matter how much we protest or attempt to get people to see what we are seeing, the ship continues on the same course.<\/p>\n

    Do we join the deluded ones, eat, drink, and be merry?\u00a0 Should our response be to remain silent, pray, and hope that we are wrong about what we have seen?\u00a0 Do we continue to warn people even when they are becoming angry by our intrusion into their fantasy of a safe voyage to a secure harbor?<\/p>\n

    The case could be made, based on the weight of majority opinion, that I am wrong.\u00a0 Of course, I could in fact be wrong.\u00a0 History is evidence that Christianity and subsequently the world have righted themselves repeatedly.\u00a0\u00a0 Someone could point out that the world system has never been godly.\u00a0 True, but it has been influenced by godliness to the extent that it was much less obtrusively antichristian.\u00a0 But can one conclude that I am wrong by considering relevant data?<\/p>\n

    At some point, the utopia the multitudes under diabolical influence are striving and cajoling for will be reached, albeit briefly.\u00a0 If people hold out from recognizing the truth until that point is reached, then they will be deceived and join the world-wide partying.<\/p>\n

    To convince the majority of Christians at this moment that we are not in the end-times, all that’s necessary is for Satan to throw them a bone\u2014a semblance of peace, prosperity, and security.\u00a0 In America, a conservative or republican president would do it.\u00a0 The church bells would ring, horns would honk, and millions of professing Christians would breathe a massive sigh of relief heard and felt around the world.\u00a0 They would engage in highly emotional high-fiving, flock to the pleasure pools, revel in sports, go shopping, and bury their minds in television for several hours each evening, only without the portent of government oppression.<\/p>\n

    They would also consign the \u201cnaysayers\u201d (and I am one) to oblivion.\u00a0 All the excesses, the heresies, heretics, prayerlessness, and every other aberration in Christianity, would be embraced with renewed vigor and a sense of vindication.\u00a0 In fact, Christianity would enter the fast track to apostasy with no hills and roadblocks to slow down its ecumenical consummation with Roman Catholicism and other religions.\u00a0 There would be no impending doom to deter the remaining holdouts.\u00a0 No one would think about God\u2019s judgment and certainly would not consider the ramifications of the merger.<\/p>\n

    Truly, they will deem the dark cloud to be lifted.\u00a0 The party will begin.\u00a0 Weak professing Christians will be swept up in the celebration of the apostate ones.\u00a0 They will readily accept the laws and regulations that would alarm them if the same legislation were introduced today.\u00a0 Individuals crying out warnings will be demoted to the status of yapping dogs.\u00a0 In the inebriating ecstasy of perceived \u201cvictory\u201d over the forces of evil, they will be susceptible to anything.\u00a0 They will have narrowly \u201cescaped\u201d a dictatorship, the presidency of the \u201cwicked witch of the south\u201d, and believe that they have the upper hand.<\/p>\n

    What would be lost in such a celebration is the fact that the ship was still headed for a massive iceberg the size of a large city.\u00a0 Still remaining would be the underlying factors that caused apostasy and a hedonistic antichrist spirit in a huge section of Christianity and the world system.\u00a0 There would not actually be a victory in the election of a conservative or republican president.\u00a0 It would merely be a deceptive fa\u00e7ade that millions of professing Christians will mistakenly view as a spiritual turnaround in America.<\/p>\n

    While it would be less stressful, and we would enjoy a period of joy and excitement, there would be at least four more years before we would again consider our nation\u2019s decrepit spiritual and social condition.\u00a0 Although there would be a reprieve from the prophetic voice, it would be very dangerous for the spiritual condition of America, if a conservative or republican were elected president.\u00a0 We would not return to the good ole days.\u00a0 Instead, we would have taken a philosophical drug that, like a terminally stricken patient on morphine, would immunize us from the pain of an advanced spiritual cancer.\u00a0 Our appointment with judgment would still be fulfilled at the appointed time.<\/p>\n

    Therefore, I will not join in the desperate hubbub to select a \u201cdeliverer\u201d from the consequences of this nation\u2019s wickedness.\u00a0 I will vote for a godly person as a matter of duty.\u00a0 But I have no unction to view such an individual as the answer to this nation\u2019s affliction.\u00a0 Besides, at any moment, a catastrophic terrorist or natural event could devastate our nation or world.\u00a0 I will hope that with more four years we will win some people to Christ, and convince more people to prepare for the coming storm.\u00a0 It may be more difficult to accomplish those goals, but I will always hope.<\/p>\n

    The fact is, we are as fragile eggs being rolled about in a room of sharp corners by forces that we cannot control.\u00a0 The answer is not in or of this world.\u00a0 The answer is to return to God, to devote our lives and put our hope in Him and His great salvation.\u00a0 The danger is in trusting that humanity and its devices will somehow overcome the judgment and wrath stored up by a godless and rebellious society.\u00a0 That won’t happen.\u00a0 If professing Christians believe that it is, and that somehow emotional church meetings, elections, or anything else can bring it about, then self-deception has broken through the last barrier.<\/p>\n

    \u201cO Israel, return unto the Lord thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.
    \nTake with you words, and turn to the Lord: say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us<\/em> graciously: so will we render the calves of our lips.
    \nAsshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses: neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, Ye are<\/em> our gods: for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.\u201d \u2013 Hosea 14:1-3<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    \u201cWhen I remember these\u00a0things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise,\u00a0with a multitude that kept holyday.\u201d \u2013 Psalm 42:4 We have all heard and engaged in conversations about how life used to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,13,6,5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contemplative-spirituality","category-ecumenism","category-for-the-remnant","category-the-great-apostasy","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paIm2N-hs","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1082"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1418,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082\/revisions\/1418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}