Over the past couple of days I have been seeking the Lord’s will concerning the subject of my next website series. This morning as I sat in my office awaiting the answer, God spoke two words to me loud and clear:. He said: “SCORCHED EARTH.” Being a history buff, I knew what those words meant from an historical perspective. “Scorched Earth” dates back to the American Civil War. It was the label given to Union General Sherman’s method of waging war. When asked what to do about the crops, homes, businesses, etc. his army would encounter while fighting its way across the state of Georgia, he replied: “Burn it all.” Why did the general use such a laser-focused, all-out, leave-nothing-standing approach to the enemy confronting him? Because desperate situations call for desperate measures. In the war for the heart of a nation, it was all or nothing–total success or total failure.

The future of the nation was at stake. Failure meant that the God-created union of His people called America would become just another failed enterprise as had been the outcome of her ancestor–the nation of Israel. The Lord had raised up the Israelites to be His “light to the (Gentile) world.” Israel failed and had to be defeated by heathen nations, enslaved and scattered throughout the world.

Civil war success meant that America COULD rise up to be light-bearing “city on a hill” as its Creator designed it to be. Evil men were threatening to destroy what He had established. God won the geographical round, but Satan would eventually win the spiritual war. As I have stated many times, as goes the church, so goes the nation. And just as had taken place, first in Eden, then in the Promised Land, God’s modern day church fell under the sway of His enemy. The Church of Eden’s fall later resulted in the death of all but eight of the world’s population. Later, the nation of Israel’s fall resulted in the defeat, enslavement and scattering of God’s Chosen People. In the same way, the result of the modern Catholic/Protestant church’s apostasy will be the death of two-thirds of the world’s population during the soon-coming tribulation period. Fortunately, God has always had a tiny “remnant” of true believers who refuse to bow to the forces of evil. These He has kept so as to carry on the spreading of His Truths. The same is true today. World-wide there are a few thousand true saints whom He has promised to save and protect from the carnage to soon come upon the earth Biblically known as the Great Tribulation and the Day of the Lord.

Question: how did the Lord’s light (America) that once shined into the dark world that surrounded her become a mirror image of that very dark, very Satanic world? Answer: her parishioners refused to use General Sherman’s “Scorched Earth” method of spiritual warfare against the one who spiritually attacked her. From day one God’s people have been at war with Satan and his fallen angels. Satan’s modus operandi warfare technique is to attack relentlessly with every weapon in his arsenal. The church’s meeting-attending, Bible-carrying, smiling, “Jesus loves you,” “only believe” “come as you are, stay as you are technique has turned her into low-hanging fruit for the devil. The church has become his playground filled with spiritual children who do not realize that they are living a lie. Again, how did this happen? Read The Apostasy of the Church and America: National Suicide on International Display. Key words–Apostasy and Display respectively.

A look back to the past helps us to understand why the church early on fell away from God and has continued to do so . Let us turn to Second Thessalonians 2:7-12 where we are told that, during the days of the original apostles, iniquity (Lawlessness) was “already at work” within the church. The presence of Satan’s false prophets within her produced unrighteousness in the majority who died spiritually because they did not love God’s Law. Later on they would come to “know” that it was nailed to Christ’s cross. “And FOR THIS CAUSE GOD WILL SEND (DID SEND) THEM STRONG DELUSION SO THAT THEY WILL BELIEVE (BELIEVED) A LIE AND BE (WERE AND ARE) DAMNED BECAUSE THEY REJECT THE TRUTH AND EMBRACE SIN.” Read John 14:15,23; 15:10/ Matthew 19:17 and First John 2:5; 3:4. Their lack of love for God’s Law (Word) proves that they do not love Him and His Son (Lk. 10:16). Note that it is GOD HIMSELF Who sends “strong delusion” to the iniquitous (Law-rejecting) members of the church.

True believers are never found in in the citadels of rebellion which identify themselves as “the (Catholic/ Protestant) church.” Having obeyed His command found in Second Corinthians 6:14-7:1, they have “come out of her” and remain separate from her. For this cause God is their God and they are His children.

Over time the vast majority of God’s Chosen People answered Satan’s call to rebel against God, just as had their ancient ancestors. Because of their desire to sin, God took His hand off of them and allowed them to do what they wanted to do–sin. The early church followed in the Israelites’ moral footsteps. We read in Romans 1:21-32 where, because those who knew God had rejected Him, He “gave them up” (set them free–vs 24) to give in to their sinful desires. This perfectly describes so-called “sinners saved by grace” that fill the pews of professing Christendom today. Nothing has changed. The basic problem is now as it has been all along. There are no General Sherman-type leaders who actively lead the parishioners in a Scorched Earth style of fighting against Satan. As a result they have all gone the way of Adam and Eve. They have all waved the white flag of surrender to God’s enemy, and in so doing have become His enemy by embracing him as their god.

The Institutional Church long ago became spiritual Gentiles whom the Apostle Paul describes in Ephesians 2:11,12 as being “without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the (Old and New) covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in this world.” This perfectly describes all those who have “nailed the Law to the cross” and call themselves “sinners saved by grace” whose “only believe and repent” theology is taking them ever farther away from the Lord Who, through the Apostle Peter, commands all to be holy as/for He (God) is holy (1 Pet. 1:15,16). Peter also reminds us that judgment is on-going in the church, and that only the righteous within her will be saved (4:16-19). Read Romans 5:21 and 6:22).

In the following posting I will once again remind all salvation seekers, including myself, of God’s Words concerning what is required of those who would receive salvation and rebirth at the return of Jesus Christ to this world. L.J.