Once in a while, when the world around me is waxing even more insane than usual, I think about the way my wonderful America was during my childhood and teen years (1940’s and 50’s). Even though we were poor share croppers, and later not quite so poor land renters, life was good in the sense that people were much more sane, making the world much less chaotic much more enjoyable. Though life was hard and more physically-demanding than today, the atmosphere was more much peaceful and predictable. And equally important, the future looked much more positive for both the individual and the nation. In that world there was a general trust of our fellow man, even strangers. Of course there were the occasional crimes–a few of them terribly personal–but nothing like what we see happening today. There was not the insane fighting, killing and hatred among those who simply disagreed with each other that has become routine in today’s reality and common sense rejecting, woke-crazed, insanity-is-en vogue world.

In those days people actually communicated with each other using vocalized words. People did not carry their brain in their hand in the form of a plastic box with a screen on it. People thought, reasoned and came to their own conclusions. Group-thought was the thing of fiction. The world was a much safer place. People would could leave their car keys in the ignition while they shopped. Many people did not lock their doors in the rural area of Missouri where I spent the first 18 years of life. UNTIL MY LATTER TEENS, MY FAMILY DID NOT OWN A HOUSE KEY. Men and women were what God designed them to be and did what they were designed to do. People were basically honest. Almost everyone was religious. Those who were not respected the beliefs of those who were. Children knew their place and how to occupy it.

Looking back, that world seems like a very pleasant dream. In those days, to do and say publicly what is done and said publicly today would get you either beaten up or killed. And there would be no lawsuit afterwards. People actually turned in their own children for committing crimes. I remember two cases in which police personnel turned in their own children for murder. In those days if you murdered, you died. In both police cases, the parent took their children to the police station and made them confess. Like I said, it was a different world.

As a life-long student of human behavior, I have noticed that the easier life becomes for humankind, the less humane humankind becomes. Over time mankind has reaped the rewards of hard work, sacrifice, etc. Due to a myriad of inventions and discoveries, life has become much easier, more convenient, more mental and much less physical. Unfortunately, easiness and convenience of physical life has had a negative effect on the nation’s spiritual life. Though there have always been those in the Institutional Church who were not what God commanded them to be, and the man on the street was not always what he made himself out to be. In spite of those truths, human kindness, respect, honesty, intelligent decision-making, etc. has plunged to an all-time low and picking up speed.

As a result of churchman’s gradual slide away from the morality taught by the Holy Scriptures, the church has reached into the ebb and flow of the carnal world and gained control of it. She has not only lost her way, but taken the reins of societal leadership and has pulled the nation into the moral sewer where she abides. As I have often said, “As goes the church, so goes the nation.” Also, as goes America, so goes the world.

Unlike in the past when she set the standard for Bible-based living, America now leads the world in sin–both in the amount of sin and in the variety of ways to commit it. Today her people openly commit sins that were not even talked about in private in the old days. As a result, today’s world has become reprobate relative to the ways of the Biblical God that are plainly stated in His Holy Bible. And as global studies show, America is leading the way in every category of reprobatedness.

As previous series have revealed, the church’s backsliding began within a generation of her founding in 31 A.D. and has progressed steadily ever since. Reading the apostles’ letters to the churches makes this Truth abundantly clear. As a result, “the church” has lost the spiritual power with which God infused her initially. Compared to the original church, today’s Laodicean version (Rev. 3:14-18) is shallow, weak and indistinguishable from the world which she so completely fits and greatly influences. Professing Christianity has become so much like that world that the only difference between the church world and the nonchurch world is where the church world spends a couple of hours on Satan’s Sunday sabbath. The most looked-forward-to part of that day involves professional sports on television. But man’s honoring of Tammuz the sun god on his day (Sun day) is not the worst part of man’s Sabbath sins. God’s holy Sabbath (Saturday) is desecrated and defiled by man’s self-centered activities. Religious man has found a way to doubly desecrate commandment #4 of the Lord’s stone-etched Law. He first rejects and defiles God’s Sabbath, then he celebrates and exalts the heathen sabbath.

Man’s, including religious man’s, attitude toward God’s Word has made the Holy Bible irrelevant to both the churched and the unchurched. The only time God is remembered, if at all, is at mealtime and bedtime, and as a hand-carried symbol of what religious man claims to be. Because of their loss of righteousness, holiness and godliness, church people have grown spiritually powerless and have lost contact with the Biblical God. As Isaiah 59:2 warns: religious man’s (niquities (breaking of the Law) have separated him from the true God and have joined him with the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4).

God’s power (His Holy Spirit) does not abide where sin abides. Sin forms a brass heaven over the church sinner (Deut. 28:23). Read Second Corinthians 6:14-7:1. This explains why 99% of church prayers go unanswered. God said that if He hears our prayers He will answer them. If we are separated from Him He does not hear our prayers. Read Second Chronicles 7:13-15. Note verse 14 concerning what man must do BEFORE God will hear “hear from heaven.” Notice the words “TURN FROM HIS WICKED WAYS (PERMANENTLY) and THEN He will hear …. ” Nothing is said about repenting after each inevitable, Adam-caused sin. Read Original Sin. Key word–Original.

As a result of her powerlessness, the church world has absolutely no effect on the world around her. She has not merely become LIKE that world, she has become the leader of that world. The church was designed to be the world’s standard in terms of people’s “walk.” Simply put, the church that began 2000 years ago in an explosion of holiness and power has lost her way. Today she has neither holiness nor power. The only explosiveness she demonstrates is to call good evil and evil good. Therefore she has no positive influence on the world around her. She has, in reality, become the face of that world. Unlike her ancient spiritual ancestors, she is not the opposite of, nor is she hated by that world. Instead, she hates the true saints of God whose light illuminates the darkness of the church world. And being the unchurched world’s trend setter, the world will soon follow her lead in the persecution of God’s people.

Righteousness and power go hand-in-hand. Neither hand can be found operating in the Catholic/Protestant Religious System. With one exception–God’s tiny, socially insignificant, totally ignored church which numbers a few thousand world-wide. THINGS ARE ABOUT TO CHANGE relative to the Lord’s true church, as the following segment will bring to light. Read The Gun, The Miracle and the Message. God has spoken and confirmed His message to me. The world is about to see a church-wide return to the Book of Acts, only much, much more powerful and, thanks to information age technology, much more widely known. Anyone having a screen will be able to watch God’s power on display, often in real time. And yet, THE INSTITUTIONAL CHURCH WILL REACT TO GOD’S MINISTERS EXACTLY AS THE JEWS REACTED TO JESUS AND THE APOSTLES. THE CHURCH WILL EMBRACE WHAT GOD’S APOSTLES DO, BUT WILL REJECT WHAT THEY SAY. For this reason they will be sent into the Great Tribulation and the Day of the Lord. Read Who Are “My People who are Called by My Name?” and Who are God’s People? Key words–Called and People respectively.

Because of God’s Holy Spirit power, Holy, Spirit-filled men within God’s tiny, socially insignificant and ignored “little flock” will demand the world’s attention by way of signs, miracles and wonders. As I wrote in a previous series, the Institutional Church, in conjunction with national, state and local governmental entities, will do their best to shut down God’s end-time ministry. They will fail. This move of the Holy Spirit will be followed by the Great Tribulation which will be followed by the Day of the Lord. This 3 1/2 year period of unheard-of destruction, death and terror will be followed by the return of Jesus Christ to earth. Read about this soon-coming time using the key word–Tribulation. L.J.