Mystery Babylon and the Stone Kingdom, part 72—Specific instructions for Christian soldiers
In teaching about the titular subject of this chapter, we have been analyzing Isaiah 52, verse 1, and showing its prophetic application to USa (not a typo but a deliberate combination of the words “us” and “USA.”) in these early years of the 21st century. Let’s look at the next phrase of Isaiah 52:1:
...put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city:...
Let’s begin with the last few words: O Jerusalem, the holy city. This is clearly speaking of the holy city of the Jerusalem of Bible prophecy, and that is NOT the old city of Jerusalem in the present Israeli state. There is absolutely nothing holy about that old city.
Instead, this refers to the New JerUSAlem, and we will have more to say on that in a moment. For now, let us turn to Paul’s letter to the Philippians, chapter 4.
The first part of the phrase says to those who have awakened that we should put on our strength and our beautiful garments. What is our strength and what are our beautiful garments? Is our strength our ability to organize and to arm ourselves with firearms and try to throw off our Mystery Babylonian captivity?
Not at all! I have stated before that violence against our captors is not the answer. It is a sure way to get yourself killed or locked up indefinitely, though. So don’t be foolish, thinking that the arm of flesh is your strength.
I looked up the word “strength” in the Septuagint version (The Greek version of the Hebrew Old Testament), so that I could discover which Greek word was used for “strength,” and then see how that Greek word was used in the New Testament. The Greek word is ischuo [is-khoo’-o]. Among the 29 uses of ischuo in the New Testament, verse 13 of Philippians 4 speaks to our strength. Paul says:
Philippians 4:13 I can do (ischuo) all things through Christ which strengtheneth [endunamoo] me.
The interesting thing about this verse is that the Greek word ischuo is not behind the English word strengtheneth, but rather it is that which is translated “can do.” Paraphrasing Paul, it says:
“I ischuo, that is to say, I have the power, strength and might to do all things through Christ who strengthens me. The Greek word for strengthen is endunamoo {en-dun-a-mo-o}, from the root dunamis, from which we get our word dynamite.
Now, I want to read to you one of the Bible lexicon definitions of ischuo. And it is “to have power as shown by extraordinary deeds”.
So while Babylon is falling, the first thing we need to be doing is coming out of her. I will not have time to get into the details today of what I believe that all entails. Then, we also need to awaken, and that is not up to us.
Believe me, when God awakens you, you will know. You can take that awakening to be a purely spiritual occurrence, but I believe it has a broader application. And this comes from my own personal experience which I know from talking to many people is not unique to me. It is the fact that many of us became awakened spiritually by first being awakened politically.
In my case, I was a nominal Christian back in the 70s, in that I had been born and raised in a Roman Catholic home. I left Catholicism when I was 18. However, I never discarded my belief in God or, for that matter, in Jesus Christ as God.
I won’t repeat the whole story here, because I have shared it in previous lectures in this series, but it was after college when God put information in my path which showed me the tremendous threats to our freedoms.
After coming to a realization of the gravity of our national situation, I also realized that our nation was already so far gone, that only God could save us. That indirectly led to my “getting saved” and then joining a fundamentalist church in Columbus, Ohio.
The point of sharing that much with you again is that first I was awakened politically and then I had a spiritual awakening. I “got saved,” “born again,” or whatever term you care to use. The term I would use in my understanding is that that is the point where I was led to my first stage of salvation as pictured in the Tabernacle in the Wilderness. It was my justification stage of salvation.
Speaking of fundamentalist churches, along with their escapist-rapture mentality, I passed a fundamentalist church the other morning and its sign said: “Everything is in God’s hands; leave it there!” ...which to me is so typical of the slumbering Christians.
I have known enough of them to know that the sign implies that God’s got everything under control, so that other than trying to bring other people to church and get them saved, there is not much else you need to do. These Christian brethren are asleep in the pews; therefore, they are not ready to be threshers for God.
In contrast to that, just the night before in an instant classic, [the following happened in February 2012], the Duke basketball team had defeated the North Carolina Tar Heels in a down-to-the-wire buzzer-beater. The Duke hero was a freshman named Austin Rivers who sank a very deep three-point shot over the head of seven-foot-tall Tyler Zoeller as the clock ticked off the last second.
Anyhow, young Austin was interviewed after the game and he was a typical Mike Krzysewski (Duke’s head coach) product who was trying to give credit to his team mates while the interviewer was trying to get him to talk about himself and take the glory. So finally, young Austin told the interviewer, “Well, I just took the shot and God made it go in.”
The point being that Rivers was not a sit-back and let-somebody-else-do-it-type of individual. He played his heart out; he gave everything he could; he sent the ball flying; but you notice he gave credit to God for making the shot go in. Bravo, young man! ...Not only for your great ability, but that you give your heavenly Father credit for it.
The threshers first need to wake up; then put on their strength which is Christ. The beautiful garments are the garments of salvation. Isaiah 52, verse 2. Those who are awake and who have their strength and their beautiful garments are now called to get up and shake the dust off themselves. The dust symbolizes man’s word and doctrines in contrast to God’s Word.
So the threshers are those who seek to be guided by the pure truth of God’s Law-Word. And then it says we are to take that last-second, three-point shot to win the game. We are to loose ourselves from the bands around our necks.
The bands symbolize the means of our slavery. Yes, one could totally spiritualize this and say that is the bondage of sin. While that is true, it goes without saying that all Christians are striving to remain free from sin, so how does that help us to be free from the shackles of Mystery Babylon?
I believe that the ungodly money system is the immediate means (bands) of our captivity. It is the means by which politicians are controlled. Remember how I stressed several messages back: They control nations through the power of money!
When Christians remove from them (Financial Mystery Babylon) their control over the issuance of money, we are then making a great first step towards threshing the Babylonian system.
I have reported in a blog earlier this year how President Trump has almost casually grabbed the reins of the Federal Reserve. The Lying Legacy Media (LLM) are nearly silent about this monumentally important assumption of control by POTUS. When the dust clears from the present (November 2020) confusion and if Trump remains in office, he will surely continue dismantling it in his second term. This has to be part of the fall of Mystery Babylon!
There is a bumper sticker I have seen on a number of cars around Asheville which says: “Think globally; act locally.” It is usually on a car that has about a hundred other stickers plastered all over the back of the car. Judging by those stickers, you can discern that the driver is most likely very liberal to socialist in their mindset.
Be that as it may, can you see that it is good advice to think globally and act locally? I can. They might be dreaming of a New World Order with a one-world utopian government—and so are we! Ours is called the Stone Kingdom and our world government leader is our Lord and Savior King Jesus Christ.
So while we think globally of the perfected Stone Kingdom, we must remember that we are going to get there by the actions of awakened Christians. And given that our national political system and government are so utterly corrupted, I find it pointless and futile to think that somehow a truly godly and good person can be elected president through the present two party system. That can change.
And I firmly believe that did change in 2016 but is now in doubt as the 2020 election occurred just two weeks ago. Not that Mr. Trump is a spiritually, lily-white Christian, but I do believe he is a good man with very good intentions. We are being told by the wicked Medianites (Lying Legacy Media) that Joe Biden won. But they are not in charge of determining the winner, so that remains to be seen.
For now, my advice is to act locally. I know that we all have our plates full with just trying to make a living and raise families. However, in my studied opinion, it is without question that one of the key tactics of the Mystery Babylonians is to keep ordinary folks so busy that they have no time for being involved in government.
But, as I have said before, paraphrasing Edmund Burke, if good people are not involved, then we should not complain when evil people control our government.
For many reasons that I do not have time to delineate now, I believe it is very important that to the extent of our time and resources, that those of us who are awake must get involved in our local government in one way or another.
Go to some meetings; get to know people. Get to know your local officials: city or town council members, county commissioners, your local state representatives and state senators. Even your U.S. congressional representatives. It is not hard to do. Just start going to some meetings where he/she will be speaking.
I have done it and continue to be involved, and I can tell you that I am as busy as any of you. We’re all busy, but we have a calling. And if there is not an acceptable candidate to run for some local office: school board, town council, county commissioner, etc., consider doing it yourself. Sarah Palin began that way. Now POTUS’ Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, and Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan were Tea Party candidates, and look at how powerful and influential their voices have become on the national scene.
This lecture was originally written in February 2012. I began refining this blog this morning and then went lunch with two of my newly-elected county commissioners and the county Registrar of Deeds. Good people.
It is good to know them on a first-name basis to hold them accountable to their professed ideology and campaign promises. Look at what can be accomplished when we have a President who keeps his promises!
My prior county commissioner and friend, Charlie Messer, recently deceased, had introduced me to the young Madison Cawthorn almost a year ago, and he is now a friend and our Congressman-elect, whom I believe will help President Trump continue to drain the swamp.
Mr. Trump, Mr. Cawthorn, Mr. Meadows, Mr. Jordan and others with them will continue to shake D. C. to its foundations so that what remains will be the best godly government we can achieve short of the Kingdom of Heaven/Kingdom of God on earth.
That is our end goal and it requires you, Christian brother and sister, to awaken, shake of the dust, and thresh as the Lord leads you! (Again, we speak spiritually here, not of taking up physical arms, except in self-defense.)
I have a very dear lady friend on the west coast who has served on her town council for many years now and while she is sometimes swimming against the tide, I applaud her and encourage her to stay in there as long as she can.
Another friend of mine on the east coast ran in 2010 for county commissioner with some other like-minded individuals on a “throw-them-all-out” platform. They won and he is now a county commissioner.
Another dear lady friend recently called me and told me she was asked by her mayor to run for council and to help her drive the community in the right direction. Having been asked for my advice, I strongly encouraged her to run and she is running.
We don’t have time to discuss the “men only” mindset of some of our brethren, but I did address that to some extent in my six-lecture series on Sarah Palin from 2008.
As usual, I did not get as far as I had hoped in this lecture. So do not think that this subject has been exhausted. I do not know if we will pick up here next time or come back to it later, but there are two main ideas I want you to take away from this lecture:
Number 1: If you are awake and have put on the beautiful garments and are shaking off the dust, then remember to be patient with others who are still sleeping. Plant seeds, but if there is no desire or present ability to receive the truth you are offering, then restrain yourself. And,
Number 2: Think globally; act locally. Amidst all the busy-ness that we all experience in trying to stay afloat in this economy, do what you can in your own local community to bring about good government. Do not, I repeat, do not go trying to dump all your truth on everybody you meet.
Be wise; discern where people are at. We do not need to have them on the same page with us in all points of doctrine in order to work with them for godly, local government.
We are up and off the bench, we are in the game, and with a few seconds on the clock, we have sent the ball flying from almost half-court. May God bless our efforts while we depend totally on Him to cause our three-point shot to go in the basket and win the victory for God’s Stone Kingdom. Amen!
(Series to be continued.)
