IX.     Democracy’s Secret War Against the Saints

Rev. 13:7 It was also given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them, and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him.

By understanding the principle of the tare, we’ve come to see how Daniel’s beast of human liberty has been “on the grow” in our midst for generations—long before its true tyrannical nature is to openly appear. What is true about its existence among us is also true about its ability to make war against us.

When we read of war, we unfailingly bring up images of violent conflict—the thunder of battle—weaponry, hoof beats, hand-to-hand combat, the shouts of armies, the screams of the dying. So when reading here about the beast’s war against the church, we instinctively picture a violent war of persecution such as has been (and in darker cultures still is) perpetrated against our people by open tyrannies.

But war has many faces, and not all war manifests as violence. Everyone knows about “psychological warfare”—the use of threat to demoralize an enemy (as with Sennacherib), or seductive lure to get him to voluntarily disarm (like Samson). Everyone has heard of espionage. And every adult reader is familiar with the “Cold War” between world democracy and communism which President Reagan is said to have won “without firing a shot.”

As we discussed in The Gibeon Mirage, all war has a covert side as well as an aggressive side, and the two aren’t necessarily fought at the same time. So—when Revelation says the beast makes war against the saints and overcomes them, violent persecution is not the only meaning that fulfills these words.

The truth is that, as a counterfeit of divine freedom, the beast of World Democracy is already at war with us, and has been since its tare inception in America. It’s just that, with a more benign appearance, it has conducted a psychological war of generational seduction against earth’s end time saints. Through the use of public school brainwashing, political flattery and government enticements, Daniel’s beast has already been overcoming us for a long time!

Generation by generation, the western church has been suckered into accord, allegiance and dependence on the manmade systems of liberty built off the church’s own blessing. Now, we feel so “religiously free” and “socially secure” under democracy that most defense against its true nature has vanished—so much so that for the last 40 years, the beast has dared to move from covert seduction to intimidation against us—showing more of its true nature.

The beast plans to continue its war of the mind, alternating between seduction and intimidation as necessary, until it is fully confident of its ability to openly conquer God’s people everywhere. At the perfect moment, it will spring its trap of attack—shutting down the church altogether, squashing us like sleeping bloated bugs. The beast knows that—as Sisera discovered—one can be killed in his sleep as easily as on the battlefield!

X.     Recognizing Generational Deception: "What's Wrong With This Picture?"

Rom 13:11…knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep.

It’s not as if our blindness is totally inexcusable. World democracy’s power to deceive us so greatly has been due to the extraordinary time it has taken between its seemingly “righteous” American planting and its final to-be-revealed harvest of earthwide tyranny—a time covering hundreds of years.

Those closest to the planting of American liberty could not see it as a tare off the gospel. Believers of that time saw their new national liberty purely as God’s blessing, so close was it to their message. Fooled by the look-alike countenance of “patriot” doctrine that exalted man’s capacity for self-government, these first generations understandably passed on to later generations that Kingdom liberty and patriot liberty were of one Father.

Today, having been raised on the tare’s original image passed down from our forefathers, our generation has come to a place of inner consternation as the tare has begun showing its real nature in our time. The beast has begun turning on us and seriously oppressing us. We are perplexed and confused:

“How can this be? In the beginning, when he was little, he looked just like us! He was our pet and played with us in the fields. He was a little twin brother to us! That’s what our fathers always told us. But now, he’s grown into a mean Big Brother. And He doesn’t even look like us anymore! Each day he looks more like some kind of perverted monster.”

We now know there is something really wrong at the heart of American government and society. But we still don’t awake to perceive the tare. We can’t seem to break out of the myth—the dream—that this beast is our brother:

“Surely, there must be a way to get ‘little brother’ to look like and act toward us like he did when he was small, when he ‘acknowledged God.’ Whatever this monster-like ‘disease’ of his is, we know he’s no beast!”

We keep convincing ourselves: “After all, America was founded by Christians, wasn’t it?”—“The government isn’t coming right out and killing us for preaching the gospel (yet), is it?”—No beast is ‘forcing’ us to worship it, is it?” (—as we sit spellbound before blasphemous political talk-masters who boast their talent to be “on loan from God.”)

So what do we do? Our forever solution is to every four years “toss in our sleep” for awhile—throw some feverish intercession into correcting and preserving this “God-blessed” creature—to somehow “cure” it—return it to its “true roots” in our gospel—pray to get the “right man” (preferably a “believer”) elected—pray for “revival” (of Christian Americanism)—pray for the political prophets to repent—(while applauding their brags of how “our military will bring freedom to all the world.”)

Yet year by year, election by election, he only gets worse.

Good friends, if we ever hope to escape the imminent trap being laid for the whole world, we’re going to have to finally answer that inner gnawing in our sleep that tells us,

“Something is wrong with this picture!”

XI.    Overcoming Generational Deception: Repenting For Ancestral Idolatry

II Chr. 7:14 If…My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, …

Something about this picture must indeed change—but it is we, not the beast, that must change!

The beast of democracy is here to stay and will not change. As a leopard cannot change its spots, the beast cannot repent. Neither can it be put back into its original box. It is what it is—a ripening tare in the earth—the breath of the dragon upon our anointing. It is here to stay until it either defeats us or we somehow defeat it.

At every election cycle, we apply II Chronicles 7:14 to the beast, ie, to “America”—this indefinable democratic entity disguised as a cast iron woman with head spikes holding a torch—as if it had a soul that could repent. But Chronicles is addressed—not to a beast or its statue, but to a people—and not just any people, but to “My people”—the called-out saints of God among the nations.

If the original blessing of American liberty due to our influence was meant to lead men to repentance, more certainly the fruitlessness of our actions and intercessions over increasing American tyranny and immorality should be leading us to repentance.

But of what then is God calling us—His end time kingdom saints—to most fundamentally repent?

- Credit for Liberty Where Credit Is Due

Jn. 6:31 [Jews to Jesus]: "Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, `He gave them bread out of heaven to eat.' "

32 [Jesus:] "Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven.”

At the outset of this article, we saw how the Pharisees attributed their freedom to their Abrahamic lineage. Now, we are to find out just what they meant.

Here, in another spiritual skirmish with Jesus, we find the Jews ascribing their national blessings directly to the work of their ancestors, specifically to Moses. In the case at hand, they are crediting Moses for the blessing of manna in the wilderness.

But the manna was only part of an entire package of national blessing the Jews attributed to Moses. That package included not only their provision, but their legal system (the Law), and most basically, their freedom from Egypt.

If we harmonize the original discussion about freedom (see Part I) with this story about where the manna came from, the present conversation would now sound like this:

Jn. 6:31 [Jews to Jesus]: "Our fathers gave us freedom in the wilderness; as it is written, `He led them out of Egypt.' "

32 [Jesus]: "Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you freedom from Egypt, but it is My Father who gives you the true freedom from heaven through the truth.”

In essence, the Jews were saying, “Moses delivered us from Pharaoh’s tyranny, taskmasters and taxation. Moses gave us our Law—our ‘Constitution.’ Our fathers fought and gave their lives for the conquest of Canaan.” This is what the Pharisees most deeply meant behind the words, “We are Abraham’s children and were never in bondage to any man.”

In short, the Pharisees were the consummate patriots of their day. And yet, Jesus rejected their patriotism as an affront to the glory and credit that belongs only to the Heavenly Father and His Truth of salvation from sin through Christ.

Has the application by now become painfully obvious? It should be! Because this exact mentality is what defines the American church’s understanding of the source of our few remaining external liberties.

Disregarding the hollowness of most of what is still called “freedom”—if you ask the everyday American believer in Christ “Who is responsible for our freedoms today?” the answer will invariably be,

“We are free today because of the sacrifices of our founding fathers—Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Patrick Henry— and all the patriots who gave it to us, and because of those who fought and gave their lives in all the wars ever since.”

But as Jesus rejected patriotic adulation of Moses then, so He would rebuke us today, “Truly, truly I say to you, it is not Washington and your founding fathers who gave you liberty, but My Father who gives you the true freedom from sin.”

Dear readers, if we—and I especially speak to “my fellow American believers”— are ever to escape generational deception to find deliverance from the beast of World Democracy, especially before it’s too late to resist, the first and most fundamental thing our generation must change its mind about is where our natural liberty came from, and who receives the credit for it.

Until we stop venerating founding fathers deceived by their own capacity for self-government apart from the gospel (—whose Constitution offers no mention of freedom from sin);

—until we stop eulogizing all of democracy’s dead lusty-eyed, profanity-mouthed generals and soldiers (“our boys”) who now lie imprisoned in hell for their sins;

—and until we start crediting the Lord Jesus Christ and the sacrifices of those who sacrificed their natural lives, liberties and fortunes only for His kingdom gospel of Spirit-Liberty,

we have no hope of overcoming the beast of World Democracy.

“Except your belief in liberty exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no wise inherit the true Kingdom of the Free, and the Home of the Brave.”

[In Conclusion: Saddling Up to Our True Destiny]

Chris Anderson
New Meadow Neck, RI

First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.org

9/04

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