Keeping the modern gospel charade going or getting the victory over the beast's Ponzi scheme

Grace, grace, only super-sweet grace” was heaved upon the people. The super-sweet gospel looked good, really good because the high and holy Law of God was never brought into the gospel equation. God was never authorized to condemn their sins. Needless to say, it never panned out in abundant peace with God and strong faith in Him. The most vocal were only a charade. The reality was that, in spite of all the preaching of grace, the people couldn’t come to Jesus because they never needed a Saviour from sin. Not a hint was ever given them that they were super-gross sinners and in danger of the second resurrection and eternal damnation, regardless that such had ever been the message from the patriarchs and prophets, apostles and reformers.

This is what the dragon has done, through his beast, to destroy the mighty and holy Reformation Protestants. By peace he destroyed them. “His power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully [amazingly, subtly, ingeniously], and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people…. Through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand... and by peace shall destroy many.” (Dan. 8:24,25).

It’s not a new scheme from the devil. It’s as old as fallen mankind. “They [the priests of Baal] have healed also the hurt of the daughter of My people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.” (Jer. 6:14). Even Cain accepted the scheme when he decided that he would no longer let the dying, innocent lamb make him feel guilty of sin and shamed.

Eventually, though, even the super-sweet grace message and its gaudy ephod of righteousness grow old. But, a stale and distasteful satanic gospel is as much his plan as is his perpetual soul-destroying super-sweet scheme. If some of the people lose interest, others never will, as we still see today in almost 50% of apostatized Protestant America. So, the Evangelical churches will always be spiderwebs to catch sin-weary, truth-starved newcomers who truly want to come to terms with God and want to be a pillar in His museum of saints, rather than party to weekly visits in a country club for sinners.

But, for those who grow tired of the same old intellectual pursuit of evasive good news, another strategy is attempted to keep the spiderweb alive and well, a church that looks even healthier and more vibrant, and approved of God. That strategy involves an emergency, a crisis, an issue that presents a personal danger. Something arises for the supposed movement of God to attack with all its might. But, actually this threat is simply a tool to allow the leaders to appear super-serious, grave, and fully engaged for the eternal safety of their flocks. Of utmost importance is the new threat that makes victims of the flock. No one of the flock is allowed to call the emergency a trumped up exaggeration of reality, which it is. Nobody is permitted to label it a Ponzi scheme for fooling foolish virgins, into which they must pour all of their holy angst. Thus the bodies and souls of men are bought and sold by the great deceiver and his deceitful favored earthly organization.

This new issue begs involvement, not only of the leaders, but also of the flock. Now the deception takes on its final form. While the victimized people get grossly engaged with the fabricated crisis, they are kept busy in a spiritual drama of being in terrible and wonderful need of God’s protection and help—the God who they never gave permission to condemn their sins. And their fanatical fixation of foiling the imaginary evil locks them in to seeing themselves as faithfully obedient to God, by their obvious living “soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world” (Titus 2:12). This is tremendous success for Satan. God has never humbled them into the dust; the pastors have never assaulted their pride by the true gospel. All that they have ever heard was grace, grace, nothing but grace—along with many hints that they are good people. They are exalted as next to the angels while the atheistic Democrats and Communists and gay drug abusers are the devil. Therefore, they are workers of iniquity. And even if they have knowingly sinned, they have a convenient alibi: “That’s not to be worried about, because everyone has sinned and nobody is perfect, and we aren’t nearly as wicked as the wicked atheists”.

So, there we have it, the church of God has now become habitations of demons and holds of every foul spirit. Just as it was with murderous Cain, the leadership under good King Joash (see 2Chron. 24:20-22) and the later holy Sanhedrin; and again just as it was with the ancient post-apostolic church which at one time was persecuted for calling sin by its right name, likewise the church of the Reformation is now totally ruined by flattery and self-exaltation. Its exalted pride and brain-washed self-pity seem to be authorized by the Bible, and therefore its self-righteousness can never be abolished in their hearts. In the people’s minds God is for them; God is with them. Like righteous king Jehu they drive furiously on the broad way, to their utter demise, and like the self-justified Israelite northern kingdom that had “no light” from above, and was “driven to darkness” (Isa. 8:20-22). But, what about the Sabbatarian Adventists? Are they following the path of the ancient southern kingdom of Judah?

“Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel [the northern kingdom] hath done? She is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot. 

And I said after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto Me. But she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah [the southern kingdom] saw it. 

And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also. 

And it came to pass through the lightness of her [the northern kingdom’s] whoredom, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks. 

And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not turned unto Me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the LORD. 

...The backsliding Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah.” (Jer. 3:6-11).

The tall, red dragon whose height reached up to heaven, “beholdeth all high things: he is a king over all the children of pride.” (Job 41:34 ). Through the dragon’s highly lifting up his vicar beast power upon a throne and exalting it seemingly to heaven it has co-opted, and replaced the Prince of the covenant. The deceiver suggests divinely invested greatness for the head of the beast as savior over all enemies, ideological and tangible. The great red Dragon has given his earthly religious leader unprecedented political authority over the then known world. And through his beast power, the mighty god of this world placed himself in the seat and power of the almighty God; and then he rewarded his beast as his viceroy. And the people loved to have it so. They chose cheap peace, safety and security, over liberty and the right of a man before God. Identically has this happened in the past, “The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their [willpower, by their own personal resources]; and My people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?” (Jer. 5:31).

Today we are living in another papal beast power. The church’s fallen natures have never been scourged by the truth from God, the God who would immediately and gladly receive them if they would accept the truth and then, through its scourging, fall helplessly in repentance. Laodicea needs no repentance because it has need of nothing. Nevertheless, they feel justified. Without ever having known what guilt and shame are or what justification is, either as a doctrine or more so as an experience, yet they are taught that they are right with God. And they sincerely believe that they have peace with God. Yet it is all a fantasy; it is an abominable assumption, an intoxicating imagined peace that disappears instantly under the least provocation.

Hosea prophesied of this pagan substitute for the original Hebrew religion from Jehovah. “O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away. Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of My mouth.” (Hos. 6:4,5).

Moses also spoke against this age-old spiritual affliction. “Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the [devils] of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood; and it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst.” (Deut. 29:18,19). 

The god of this world has made a niche for himself in the Godhead, by his placement into the church’s hearts, minds, and religious consciences that are hardened in pride by Baal priestly flattery. As the pastors and popes were worshiped because of their perceived holiness, the people then worshiped Satan through those leaders. And then they turned their attention to their own perceived holiness. Yet they were persecutors, oppressors, murderers, assassins of heretics. So is it today, and even more so in the future. “They worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?” (Rev. 13:4).

This flattering and imitation peace with God, which wins over unhumbled and unconverted hearts, and turns the charmed multitudes of the church into deadly armies for doing the work of the deluding Destroyer, was foretold and is what created the Dark Ages papacy with its indisputable and unconquerable power to persecute the true saints of the most High.

“And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars [“the mighty and the holy people” (vs. 24)] to the ground, and stamped upon them. 

Yea, he magnified himself even to the Prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of His sanctuary was cast down. 

And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practised, and prospered.” (Dan. 8:10-12).

“Such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries.” (Dan. 11:32). The flattered flock became the beast’s unwitting army, a deceived, ignorant, militant “host” (Dan. 8:12) for the purpose of  Satan’s and his beast’s extermination because their humbled spirits were quickened by the power of God, and they powerfully exposed the great, destructive wickedness foisted upon the church of the living God. “But the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits. And they that understand among the people shall instruct many: yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil, many days.” (Dan. 11:32,33). “The same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them.” (Dan. 7:21). “He shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High.” (Dan. 11:32,33).

But, that Dark Ages beast was greatly wounded by the word of God when the Reformation brought the Bible to the Catholic peoples. “And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.” (Rev. 13:3). That deadly wound was healed. How? By the beast’s beast, the apostatized Protestant grace-only America. The horrible beast of the Dark Ages was healed by the very people it sought to exterminate.

When open warfare of the crude Dark Ages couldn’t extirpate the truth from the earth, another strategy must be used, a more subtle, sinister strategy of a quiet warfare, not against their bodies, but against their faith. Then the non-discerning masses, pampered by their much loved super-sweet gospel, drunken by their lead-laden wine, would heed the glorified falsehoods of a corrupted specie of the one-time apostolic faith.

How could such an injustice happen? By the dragon doing the very thing to the Protestant church that he did to the apostolic church. “He shall cause craft [“fraud”] to prosper in his hand ... and by peace shall destroy many.” (Dan. 8:25). And afterward, “an host [‘the masses’, ‘an army’] was given to him by means of transgression.” (Dan. 8:12). “Now when they [‘the people that do know their God’ (vs. 32)] shall fall, they shall be holpen with a little help: but many shall cleave to them with flatteries.” (Dan. 11:34). 

Satan repeated his old strategy of flattering,  God “chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth” (Heb. 12:6). While His Law stops every mouth that “all the world may become guilty before God” (Rom. 3:19), Satan uses his lying peace to destroy the people who God has graciously brought to Himself. In Protestantism it would again be grace, grace, super-sweet grace, as every soul would die of spiritual diabetes. This most ancient scheme always works. It requires no trust in God’s justice, that He would lovingly and wisely mix His justice and truth with mercy and grace. Only God’s true, fearing and faithful, people possess the fruit of faith. They had been “kept under the Law...wherefore the Law was [their] Schoolmaster to bring [them] to Christ to be justified by faith.” (Gal. 3:23, 24). But, for all who disdain the scourging of the Father’s Spirit, “whereof all are partakers” (Heb. 12:8) there exists no trust in His grace. Until they feel the pinch of His furnace of affliction, and repent they increasingly become “[illegitimate], and not sons” (vs. 8), children of the same mother church, but conceived by another father, the Devil. They receive grace—but not from God—and Jesus never knows them. This is the message from the song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32.

So, the Protestant peoples from every denomination are destroyed by a peace that doesn’t come from Jesus. They never strove with Him for His mercy to remedy the powerful tonic of God’s Law that could have set their teeth on edge. They were never under the curse from the Law that would have positioned them to be “shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.” (Gal. 3:23). Never allowing God’s Law to do its condemning and humbling work, they could never become recipients of Christ’s grace, which is His Spirit. Yet, such a divinely designed construct was the secret from the Master Architect for the apostolic church’s success. This is exactly what created the apostolic, the Protestant, and the Adventist “time of reformation [‘thoroughly straitened rectification’]” (Heb. 9:10). For every truly humbled and converted soul, the sacred mantra and motto will be: “The Law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith” (Gal. 3:24); “The Law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul” (Psa. 19:7).

To the current Protestant church faith cannot descend from above because it refuses to be humbled by the convicting and quickening Law of God. If today’s proud churches could admit condemnation into their altered gospel, they would have the Saviour and His perfect peace. “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be.” Only by surrender and subjection to the Law of God can God-given righteousness be realized. “If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” (Rom. 8:7,10). 

Paul’s assumption in Romans 8:7 is that only the carnal mind will not be subject to God’s Law, the Ten Commandments. The mind that will not be subject to God is at odds with God. Therefore it can never have peace with Him. It is at enmity with God, animosity exists there. He is an enemy of God’s. Still under the ruse of Satan, the condemned soul sees God as a tyrant. It sees condemnation as only evil; no divine mercies or benefits or kindnesses could ever come out of it. The mind under the devils’ manipulations fears the fear of God because the devil fears when anyone fears and loves God. Whosoever will.... Whosoever will drink of the water of life, and whosoever will drink of the wine of Babylon, is what the battle is all about. Any mind not willing to be subject to the Law’s condemnation cannot be reconciled with the Schoolmaster God of Law. And that lost soul, even if churched, is as estranged to God as during the pregnancy it was shapen in iniquity and as the day when it was born into this world of sin. God cannot deceive the lost soul into eternal perdition by suggesting that reconciliation between man and God exists, when only estrangement exists. “There is no peace, saith My God, to the wicked.” (Isa. 57:21).

To such an imperious, whorish church Jesus says, “Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.” (Rev 2:22,23).

Here is the secret to Satan’s success, and to God’s .Whether or not the soul will be willing to be condemned by the Law of God is where the great battle over the lost soul rages. God begins His science of salvation with His condemnation of sin. The mystery of godliness starts with infinite guilt and shame. “For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.” (Heb. 12:6-8). But will we accept or reject such a proposal of infinite insult upon our pride from our omnipotent and omniscient King? The battle over our self-will for our ultimate salvation begins at the curse of the Law. Condemnation of sin is where Paul wisely began his gospel message, which is “the power of God unto salvation”. (Rom. 1:16). 

“Now we know that what things soever the Law saith, it saith to them who are under the Law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.” (Rom. 3:19). Contrary to most Christians’ opinions of themselves, not a one of us is basically good. Nobody is instinctively loving. No, not one is even a little gracious. “The scripture hath concluded all under sin.” (Gal. 3:22). All of us naturally deride every accusation against our goodness. Human nature always condemns its condemner. It always contemns its humbling accusers, it destroys the credibility of its credible insulters, and God adjudges that all are bound under sin at the genetic level—utterly unredeemable by any self-devised measure. 

Why must God begin His salvation with a closed case against our desolate moral condition? For His mercy’s sake. “That the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given.” (Gal. 3:22). Beautiful thought! Theme for the most profound meditation! Everyone must submit to the hostile wrath of God against sin in order to hear His provision for acceptance into His bosom where His Son has ever been. Before they learn of a Saviour for sinners, they must see and acknowledge God’s infinite hatred for sin. Then and there each individual soul makes its decision whether to fold its gambling hand or to shake its rebellious fist, whether to surrender to the power of God or to resist His powerful rejection because of determination to sin. God must begin with an honest, true appraisal of our condition that we must honestly, whole-heartedly admit to. We must do like He demanded of Job, “Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou Me.” (Job 38:3).

“JUST HOW BIG AND BAD AND GOOD REALLY ARE YOU, JOB? HOW HIGH IS YOUR TOWERING GOODNESS, O RIGHTEOUS SINNER?”

At this first, private juncture in the secret recesses of the heart, eternal destiny is determined. Satan’s science of damnation, his mystery of iniquity, begins with a simple waving off of the Spirit’s conviction and condemnation of sin, “You don’t have time for this archaic, musty nonsense!”. Satan whispers that God not only hates all sin, but He despises all sinners too. Before Christ can get opportunity to sweep aside all the lies of the adversary, Satan has already worked feverishly to convince him of God’s animosity toward him personally. Before His Spirit can prove the faithfulness of the love of God and His only begotten Mediator for every sinner, distrust, unbelief in His mercy, has been cultivated in the heart, and a harvest of rebellion springs up. But can God, by His Law and His hewing prophets, be to blame for the lost souls’ rebellion and its renewed determination to accept eternal destruction?

God forbid. If God had not brought to bear such voluminous accusations in the consciences of humanity, then Satan’s work of libeling the Father of every perfect gift would go completely unchecked. To fully gain control of humanity, Satan’s seductive work to possess souls would go so undetectable that the still, small, merciful voice of the great Shepherd, could never be heard. The din of delectable idolatry would drown out the habitation of God by the Spirit of His Son. The web of still, small, insinuations that Satan would weave around his billions-fold victims would remain undetected and inescapable. Our spiritual radios are more tuned to the carnal radio waves of the seducer than to Jesus’ pure radio waves. But, like the father who walked a long way to Jesus for his child’s healing, the “divine telegraphy” of the Saviour will enter everyone who turns from transgression in Jacob.

“...these brief and simple words thrill through the heart of the father; he feels the holy power of the Speaker in every tone. Instead of going to Capernaum, Jesus, by a flash of divine telegraphy, sends the message of healing.…” Redemption: Or, the Miracles of Christ, the Mighty One, p. 17.

Total determination to be rid of the super-sweet seducer’s constant suggestions of wickedness will empower the true, newborns of the Begotten Son of God, to accept His deliverance from Satan by the waves of divine telegraphy sent down from the Father of glory. Yet, in the midst of all the good news this caveat must endure forever: in a universe of eternal free will, we all must decide for idolatry or for our Maker.

If they choose the Father of glory and His only begotten Son, then they are reconciled to Their holiness. Love to God their Saviour makes His most difficult requirements easy, and His heaviest duties light. Their constant cries and sighs and eternal surprise are, “His commandments are not grievous!” (1Jn. 5:3). All things have become new because of the love of God, His bosom of reconciliation, His agape embrace who is all in all. “Who is he that condemneth?” “It is God that justifieth.” (Rom. 8:34,33).

Every command is happily obeyed with dispatch. Search is continually made for more commandments hidden in between the words of truth. Eternity begins now. A long life of continual advancement in sanctification within the divine bosom of loving-kindness and tender mercies is the high privilege of the redeemed of earth. Higher attainments will forever be required. The redeemed will happily expect continual conviction from God, and God will lovingly expect continual penitence and competence from the redeemed. Yet, the penitentiary in the new heaven and new earth will resemble nothing of the holds of every foul spirit and cages of every unclean and hateful bird, such as world produced under the rule of the destroyer.

In the bosom of God’s love everything now is, and will forever be, justice and mercy perfectly combined in the tightest bonds. The redeemed have learned from their struggles with self in preparation for an eternity with the infinitely unselfish Father and Son. The children of God will have learned that conviction and repentance, the fear of God, the humbling, that surrender to God brings, always and faithfully, will end in a perfectly calm and beautiful submission to the true and right, perfect Law of liberty. They have graduated from earth’s school of hard knocks, having learned the eternal truth that “The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.” (Psa. 19:9).

And all this eternal bliss began with the rebuke of our God and His total decimation and demolition of grace, grace, super-sweet grace.