5-21-22 What’s Next?

What’s Next? :: By Jason Laufenberg Published on: February 7, 2022 by RRadmin7 Category:General Articles As we consider America’s role in prophecy and what lies around the corner for this once proud nation, we must start with the real light and focus of our nation–the church. Unfortunately, as is more than evident by now, there are many problems plaguing today’s Laodicean church that keep it from shining the truth during today’s dark times. Jesus lays out those charges in Revelation 3:15-16. These sins include: not preaching the full word of God and ignoring God’s tenets about sin, judgment, hell, and prophecy, introducing a brand of contemporary music that is theologically unsound, vapid, and more in line with secular love songs than worship songs conducted in praise of a holy God, embracing a seeker-friendly church building model set upon a foundation of good works, praise music meant to create an experience, and pop psychology mini-sermons that include little if any word of God (and at the expense of doctrine, holiness, and righteousness), accepting an unhealthy lifestyle and diet that has led to overweight church members who participate in “beast feasts” and pot lucks that contain a variety of unhealthy and addicting foods, contradicting 1 Cor. 3:16-17; 6:19 (consider: when is the last time you heard a sermon on the sin of gluttony?), allowing seminaries to be taken over by liberal theologians who question the word of God and deliver a brand of wokeness nearly on par with state-run universities, brainwashing a generation of pastors, permitting pastors who are theologically weak, are not students of God’s word, are lazy in their preparation, and are not courageous in their preaching of truth. As crippling as any of those problems are by themselves, there is another that during this era of covid, lethal injections, restrictions, mandates, lockdowns, and “vaccine” passports that is just as lethal. And that would be an adherence and blind obedience to government and its dictates. Typically, Romans 13:1-4 is stated as the reasoning for submission to those in governmental authority, “For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil” (v. 3a). If the opposite is true, however, and rulers are a terror to good works, then Christians are released from just such an obligation so that we might practice civil disobedience. The clearest example of this is Paul, the apostle who wrote these very verses. If he had obeyed the Roman authorities of his time, we would not have near as much of our New Testament, as Paul would never have ended up in prison to write it. For the thousands that would follow Paul in a martyr’s death, they stand as a testament to courage and opposition to tyranny and the tools of Satan. One of the names I hear repeated periodically today is Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The German theologian and pastor was an ardent opponent of the Nazis, so much so that he was eventually executed in 1945 by them. Of his many quotes on courage in the face of evil, some contain special relevance for today in the face of an even greater satanic deception. On speaking of the Jewish situation in Germany, he stated, “The Church was silent when it should have cried out because the blood of the innocent was crying aloud to heaven. She is guilty of the deaths of the weakest and most defenseless brothers of Jesus Christ.” And as Michael Spielman writes in the “Apostasy of Silence: Lessons from Dietrich Bonhoeffer,” “‘It must be made quite clear—terrifying though it is,’ Bonhoeffer wrote in 1934, ‘that we are immediately faced with the decision: National Socialist or Christian.’ According to Bonhoeffer, a church that failed to oppose the Holocaust was not simply in error; it was in apostasy. It could no longer be called the church of Jesus Christ.” And while the actors have changed, the situation today hasn’t. The question today remains a Marxist/socialist overreach for power–this time by globalists–while attempting to persecute a minority population (the unvaxxed) for not capitulating to government demands. As such, these demands have grown over time, from two weeks to flatten a curve, to submitting to injections that do not prevent the transmission of covid or even produce immunity to it, to a constantly changing definition of what a vaccine is, to a just as fluid definition of what it means to be “fully vaccinated.” By now, the why should be obvious; there is a depopulation agenda at work through the use of an experimental biological agent that has people muzzling themselves like sheep out of fear. The world calls this mass formation psychosis; the Bible calls it satanic deception. And it is real, and it is prevalent. A country gets the leaders it deserves. It happened with Israel when they wanted a king to rule over them instead of the Lord. They were given Saul, a man who stood head and shoulders above everyone else (1 Sam. 9:2). The quintessential king. By the end of his reign, Israel found themselves defeated and their dead king beheaded and his body fastened to the wall of a Philistine city (1 Sam. 31:8-10). Later, when Israel let David lead them, a man after God’s heart and chosen by God (1 Sam. 13:14), the nation experienced victory and prosperity. In America, the founding fathers sought to follow the Lord, but the anchors of faith were pulled up, and America was allowed to drift in its own vices. Since World War II, the descent into sin has quickened to a race for the wicked and “reprobate mind” of Romans 1:28, with Satan and his minions cheering and encouraging our nation along the way. As a result, darkness has descended upon our nation. The cycle of nations is clear when viewed through the lens of history. No nation, kingdom, or empire lasts forever. Even the mighty Roman empire eventually broke apart and fell. Scottish historian Alexander Tytler has a fascinating theory to this cycle that bears relevance to our own nation right now. Tytler said the cycle starts out with a society in bondage. Then it goes in this sequence: Bondage Spiritual Faith Courage Liberty Abundance Selfishness Complacency Apathy Dependence Then starting over with Bondage At this point, I think it is clear that we have moved from complacency and apathy to dependency bordering on bondage. With dependency, many Americans believe they have to go to our government to get their freedoms and assortment of handouts (stimulus checks, child tax credits, etc.). Bondage will soon define America in that it will only be a matter of time before vaccine passports take hold. Those that are unvaxxed will be shut out of society, and those that are currently vaccinated will have to subject themselves to more and more injections so as to keep their freedoms, as has already been the case in Israel and will soon begin in Austria. For America, pastors and Christians must find their courage in the Lord (Eph. 6:10) and speak out for truth in whatever arena God provides. It might be a pulpit; it might be a classroom; it might be while in front of a computer screen; it might be while running errands at the store. Let us not be found silent by God. The truth must be preached. Dietrich Bonhoeffer stated, “Silence in the face of evil is evil itself.” And this world has never known a greater evil. Yes, the Holocaust killed millions of people, but worldwide, the numbers of those dying from the covid injection are even greater, with numbers beginning to skyrocket due to blood clotting and a variety of heart conditions. Therefore take up your shield of faith, Christian. The Great Reset spoken of so often by Klaus Schwab is the Tribulation, and it is coming. America’s role in the world is diminishing for a reason; the coming antichrist will rule the world with an iron fist and through a government that will make North Korea’s seem dovish. Think about it. During the Third Reich, there were ways to get around the Nazis. Papers could be forged, people could be hidden, trips could be made into Switzerland. None of that will be possible with the coming reign of terror. The antichrist will have at his disposal millions of cameras, thousands of satellites, a cashless (and thereby tracking) economy, total control over every country, and people that have nowhere to hide because they have already been injected with a biometric digital ID. All that awaits this man’s step onto the world’s stage is for the restraining influence of the church to be taken out of the picture (2 Thes. 2:7). May we pray that our influence would grow as we grow in our faith and seek to persuade as many as possible to enter the ark of Christ and escape the flood that is about to overcome the world. Maranatha! Jason Laufenberg earnestlycontend.net earnestlycontend@yahoo.com