GET OUT BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE July 10, 2002 by: S.R. Shearer   "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell "Things are not always what they appear to be." Paul Neuman to Sally Fields in Absence of Malice

Prophecy is like a road sign saying: "Slow down, sharp right hand turn ahead!" But if we fail to heed the sign, if we fail to slow down before we get to the turn, it will be too late to brake once we finally get there, and we will surely slide off the road and crash. Like a road sign, the Scriptures tell us things before they happen so that we can take evasive action before events catch up with us. If we wait until they finally overtake us, it will be too late to do anything - we will crash!

The great tragedy of today's American Christianity is that it has so OPENLY and SHAMELESSLY permitted itself to be transformed into a CO-CONSPIRATOR with America's Business Elites in their effort to create a "New World Order System."

Think about it: a CO-CONSPIRATOR! - and most Christians don't even "get" (i.e., understand) what's happening. EXPECTING THAT THE CONSTRUCTION OF A "NEW WORLD ORDER" WILL BE ORGANIZED OUT OF THE UNITED NATIONS OR SOME OTHER MYSTERIOUS AND ILL-DEFINED "INTERNATIONALIST GROUP" SUCH AS THE "BILDEBURGERS" AND THE SO-CALLED "ILLUMINATI," CHRISTIAN EVANGELICALS CONTINUE THEIR SHADOW WAR AGAINST THESE SPECTRAL CABALS WHILE ALL THE TIME THE VERY ELITES THEY HAVE ALLIED THEMSELVES WITH IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY (GOP) ARE CONSTRUCTING THE "NEW WORLD ORDER" RIGHT UNDER THEIR VERY NOSES.

And there certainly CANNOT be any argument as to the REALITY of the American church's alliance with the business elites of the Republican Party. After all, that's what the Bush Presidency is all about - cementing once and for all the Christian Right into its spot as the Republican Party's core constituency, and in the process making it a CO-CONSPIRATOR in the business elite's economic subjugation of the world. [Please see our article, "George Bush, the Promise Keepers, and the Principles of Messianic Leadership."]

What's so poignant about all this, is how CHEAPLY the American church has sold itself out. The fact is, the business elites that run the Republican Party are so small numerically that without the support of the Christian Right they wouldn't even register as a blip on America's political radar screen.

According to Michael Zweig of Cornell University, the business elite that runs the country - taken as a whole - numbers no more than 200,000 separate individuals. From among these individuals, a smaller number (about a quarter of them) sit on the governing boards of two or more large American multinational corporations and form a link between the major banks and non-financial corporations. This network of individuals works closely with political leaders, judges, top government bureaucrats and generals. Together they form what the late Professor C. Wright Mills of Columbia University called America's "elite of power."

These are the people that make the fundamental decisions about American society, and - as Zweig starkly points out - this entire elite could easily be seated in Yankee Stadium, which holds 57,000 people. VERY OBVIOUSLY THEN, WITHOUT THE SUPPORT OF THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT, THEY WOULD BE EASILY SWAMPED POLITICALLY. Given this reality, one wonders why Christians have sold themselves off so cheaply, and - like Esau - exchanged their birthright for a "mess of pottage" (Gen. 25:34). Money makes chumps out of us all!

But somehow or other, all this doesn't seem to impress many Christians. These are just airy notions that fly by them as small, ghostly will-o-wisps that portend little danger or importance. To most Christians, the kind of sin that offends God and sends people to hell has very little to do with "right action" on a societal, political or business level (i.e., the kind of sin that manifests itself as WORLDLINESS and makes us collaborators with the rich and the mighty against the poor and the powerless), but rather character flaws of a PERSONAL nature, such as homosexuality, adultery, fornication, etc. It is precisely for this reason that Bernard J. Ebbers - the former CEO of the now disgraced firm WorldCom Inc. - was given a "pass" by his fellow parishioners at the Easthaven Baptist Church in Brookhaven, Mississippi when he strode to the front of the church to declare to his congregation:

"I just want you to know you aren't going to church with a crook."

For those of you who have been living on the other side of the moon for the past four or five months, WorldCom Inc. is being investigated by the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) for "cooking its books" to the tune of $4 billion over the past five quarters (which is the single greatest business fraud in the history of the NASDAQ), and which precipitated the evaporation of $175 billion (that's B as in billion) in investor equity. Ebbers continued:

"More than anything else, I hope that my witness for Jesus Christ will not be jeopardized."

The congregation erupted in a standing ovation for Ebbers. But why wasn't this kind of "understanding" extended to former President Bill Clinton when he asked the nation for forgiveness for his tryst with Monica Lewinsky four years ago? And more than that, which sin - Ebbers' or Clinton's - had the greater impact on people? Strictly speaking, the only person that really got hurt in the Monica Lewinsky affair was Clinton (and, of course, Clinton's wife, Hillary, and - naturally - Lewinsky herself); but Ebbers destroyed an entire company, defrauded millions of small investors, and threw thousands and thousands of WorldCom employees out of work. But it was Ebbers who was given the "walk" by Christians, not Clinton. And more than that, Clinton asked for forgiveness, while Ebbers did not. Clinton admitted his guilt, Ebbers stubbornly refuses to do so, though to believe that the heretofore punctilious Ebbers knew nothing about what was "going on" at WorldCom insofar as this fraud is concerned is a stretch so vast that it defies all logic and turns reason on its head. The difference here (other than the fact that Ebbers claims to be a "born-again" Christian) is that Clinton's sin was of a SEXUAL nature, while Ebbers' sin was not.

Commenting on this proclivity in the thinking of most American Christians, Gore Vidal - whose critical essays on the "American condition" (and particularly that sex-obsessed form of it that passes for "right religion" in this country) have driven him into expatriate status in Ravello, Italy - writes in his elegant book America: The Last Empire, that insofar as most Christians in the United States are concerned,

"... MORALITY HAS NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH ETHICS OR RIGHT ACTION OR WHO IS STEALING WHAT MONEY - AND LIBERTIES - AND FROM WHOM. MORALITY IS SEX, SEX, SEX."

Vidal has noticed what so many other critics of American Christianity have taken note of over the years: that most Christians in the United States think that sexual sin is the only kind of sin that counts; the only kind that God is concerned about.

This isn't, of course, what most Christians would say openly (after all, only one of the Ten Commandments - the Seventh - deals with sexual sin as such), but it certainly is what their actions imply. For example, where is the outcry among evangelicals over the sins of Wall Street - about the lying and cheating that goes on in the business community in the REGULAR course of doing business; about the fraud that Tyco, Adelphia, Enron, Global Crossing, ImClone, Arthur Anderson, Merril Lynch, Merck, etc. have been implicated in; and about the injustice of what Nike, General Electric, Ford Motor Company, Liz Claiborne, Boeing, etc. are involved in, in setting up what amounts to be "slave labor" production facilities in Mexico, the Philippines, Indonesia, Red China, etc.?

Where is the outcry against this kind of sin? There is none, and there is none for two reasons: (1) MUCH OF OUR NATIONAL WEALTH IS PREDICATED ON THESE BUSINESS ACTIVITIES (i.e., raping the Third World of its wealth, and reducing these populations to the status of "slave-laborers" in the employ of America's giant multinational corporations), and (2) THE AMERICAN EVANGELICAL COMMUNITY IS IN LEAGUE WITH THE AMERICAN BUSINESS COMMUNITY.

It's as if the other commandments against lying (Ex. 20:16), cheating and stealing (Ex. 20:15), paying a FAIR wage (Jer. 22:13, James 5:4), honest business practices (Ex. 20:16), greed (Ex. 20:17), etc. have all been excised from the Bible - and that's exactly the way the mouthpieces of the Business Establishment - i.e., The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times - want it. It's suits the interests of the business community just fine. Let Christians rant and rave against sexual sin "until the cows come home" - i.e., about abortion, about homosexuality, about divorce, about unwed mothers, about Hollywood, etc. - so long as they stay clear of the sins the business community is involved with.

What got Vidal's ire up was an ad that appeared in the New York Times. It had been placed there by the Wall Street Journal. The ad tied morality to only one kind of morality: sexual morality. The ad concerned a New Jersey girl - Melissa Drexler - who had given birth to a baby in the bathroom at her high school prom, and who had then dumped the baby in the trash and went out to ask the deejay to play a song by Metallica - for her boyfriend. The ad went on to link Drexler's laissex-faire attitude toward her baby to what's wrong generally with America - and most especially, to what's wrong with America's youth, especially the youth of America's "lower classes."

Concerning Drexler, Vidal writes:

"... I visualized a panicky pubescent tot. But days later, when one Melissa Drexler was indicted for murder, she was correctly identified by the Times as a 'woman, 18'. In a recently published photograph of her alongside her paramour at the prom, the couple look to be in their early thirties. But it suited 'the world's most important newspaper' (i.e., the Wall Street Journal) to misrepresent Ms. Drexler AS YET ANOTHER INNOCENT CHILD CORRUPTED BY LAISSEZ-FAIRE AMERICAN LIBERAL 'VALUES', SO UNLIKE LAISSEZ-FAIRE CAPITALISM, THE GREAT GOOD."

According to Vidal, this is PRECISELY the problem with the American evangelical community - i.e., that evangelicals can find it so easy to condemn what he calls the laissex-faire "liberal" values of today's American culture while saying so little about the laissex-faire values of the Business Establishment it has allied itself with - and to this end, Vidal believes that Christians are being -

"CYNICALLY EGGED ON BY THE BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENT ..."

The fact is, of course, Vidal is right here! - to the great consternation of evangelical leaders like D. James Kennedy, Jerry Falwell, Tim LaHaye, C. Peter Wagner, etc. Jesus said:

"... the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light." (Luke 16:8)

To American Christians, SINNERS are people like Melissa Drexler: ner-do-wells the Wall Street Journal calls "... odious Metallica-listening druggies who drop babies in johns (i.e., toilets);" welfare recipients whose sexual mores permit them to make babies and little else; "queers," junkies and dope dealers; rapists, muggers, and prostitutes who would just as easily kill you as look at you; cracked-crazed moms who abandon their children. These are the people that are condemned as "SINNERS" from the pulpits of today's churches, not the Bernnie Ebbers of this world.

And even here, insofar as sexual sin is concerned, the "right people" are given a "pass" as "SINNERS," because the label of "SINNER" in the lexicon of the Christian Right (even when applied to sexual sin) does not apply equally across the board. It applies only to those who are "liberals," or to those who don't hold down "descent" jobs; or to those who come from the "wrong side of the tracks." For example, Christians did not apply this odious label to Newt Gingrich who dumped his first wife, Jackie, in 1980 because she "... was kind of frumpy" and it didn't "... look good for an articulate, young, aggressive, attractive Congressman to have a frumpy old wife." Think what Christians would have said about a "liberal" who had done such a thing? - about a Kennedy, or a Jesse Jackson, or an Al Sharpton, etc.

And Christians were also certainly loathe to "tag" Rep. John Livingston (R) of Louisiana - the former Speaker designate of the House of Representatives and the author of the federal "Three-Strikes Law" - a SINNER for having a "love child" that he refused to take care of, though they certainly had no misgivings when they trashed Jesse Jackson for having one, even though Jackson - unlike Livingston - assumed financial responsibility for his "love child."

Nor did they rush to stamp Rep. Henry Hyde (R) of Illinois a SINNER for having a torrid affair with Cherie Snodgrass - a married woman half Hyde's age who had three children, and whose husband begged Hyde - in the "name of Christ" - to call off his affair with his wife. [Hyde refused to do so, and Cherie ended up divorcing her husband.]

All this to say nothing of the "kid-glove" treatment Christians gave Rep. Dan Burton (R) of Indiana, another Religious Right favorite, who had a long-lasting sexual fling with an ex-model named Claudia Keller whom he set up in an apartment and paid $40,000 a year. Or Tom Delay (R) of Texas, another "dear" insofar as the Religious Right is concerned, who is alleged to have had countless numbers of sexual encounters with prostitutes (in fact, Newsweek Magazine is reputed to have in its possession a picture of Delay locked in a sexual embrace with a Mexican prostitute), and who is also rumored to have a grown daughter not by his wife for whom he has never taken responsibility - financial or otherwise.

All these people were given "passes" because they were allies with the Christian community in its effort "to take the country back for Christ and the church." Ironic, isn't it? - take the country back for Christ and the church using fornicators and adulterers like these? But these people hold "responsible jobs," pay their bills on time, and - most importantly - "dress for success." They look like they are righteous, so, ipso facto, they are righteous.

LOOKING THE PART! - that's what's important today insofar as American Christians are concerned. That's what John Ashcroft, Bush's Pentecostal Attorney General, says is important: if we "look the part," we can "play the part." It's what's on the outside that counts, not what's on the inside.

That's the problem with today's Christians. They judge men by the way they look on the outside, not according to their inner reality. And that's PRECISELY why today's Christianity gives the business establishment a "pass." As far as the Tim LaHayes and the D. James Kennedy's of this world are concerned, the three-piece suits that adorn the leaders of the business world - together with their Armani shirts, their manicured fingernails, their coiffeured hair, and their high-priced cologne - elevates them to the status of "sainthood."

"... STRAINS AT A GNAT, AND SWALLOWS A CAMEL." (Matt. 23:24)

Ashcroft says he learned this (i.e., "dressing for success") from his father, a former high official in that by-now spiritually BANKRUPT denomination, the Assemblies of God. Ashcroft writes:

"If you don't look like you'd fit ... you won't fit."

Wow! If you don't look like you'd fit, you won't fit." Truly, with these words Ashcroft has fulfilled the words of Christ when He said:

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.

"Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity." (Matt. 23:27-28)

Nonetheless, Ashcroft seems to think that "looking the part" is what it's all about. But, of course, it's not! The truth is, "looking the part" is the way we hide who we really are. It's the way we appear "beautiful" on the outside, while all the time we are "ugly" on the inside, and it reveals the moral BANKRUPTCY of those who subscribe to this kind of thinking.

But "looking the part" or "dressing for success" is the way to get ahead in Ashcroft's form of Christianity. [And we're not talking here about wearing clean clothes and having a pressed suit to wear - we're talking about the thousand dollar pin-striped suits that adorn Christian leaders like D. James Kennedy and Charles Stanley as they "strut their stuff" on stage once a week at Sunday services.] In this kind of Christianity, it's not too much to say "Clothes make the man" - and that's exactly what Ashcroft's father was really telling Ashcroft when he was a little boy.

But, I say again, this kind of attitude is COMPLETELY foreign to genuine Christianity - a Christianity whose Author warned His disciples:

"Therefore I say unto you, take NO thought ... for ... what ye shall put on. Is not ... the body more than raiment?" (Matt. 6:25)

And Who cautioned His disciples against those who -

"... make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but whose inward parts are full of ravening and wickedness." (Luke 11:39)

The very real fact of the matter is, "looking the part" is a concept that is ENTIRELY alien to the concepts of authentic Christianity. The truth is, Christ Himself - when He appeared on earth 2,000 years ago - didn't "look the part." The Bible says:

"... he (i.e., Christ) hath NO form NOR comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is NO beauty that we should desire him." (Is. 53:2)

That's why the religious establishment of today has so COMPLETELY missed Him: "... he hath NO form NOR comeliness ... (and) there is NO beauty that we should desire him." Christ didn't "look the part" two millennia ago when Herod and the entire religious establishment of that day missed Him - and that is PRECISELY why the religious establishment of today has so utterly failed to find Him: He doesn't "look the part."

My! Oh my! Oh my! - somewhere along the line, American Christianity has certainly lost its way. Where did American Christians get such ideas? Obviously, NOT from the Bible. The Bible is very clear on these matters. Then where did these ideas come from? Clearly, they've seeped into American Christianity's mindset as a DIRECT result of its alliance with the Business Right. They could have come from no other source. It's not without reason that the Bible says,

"A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." (Gal. 5:9)

That's what happens when one allies himself - for whatever reason - with people whose hearts have been corrupted by money. They are eventually corrupted too, and the sad fact of the matter is, they often don't even realize that they have been corrupted.

And make no mistake about it! - the hearts of the rich are not for Christ! Dom Helder Camara of Brazil has been much maligned because of his connection with Liberation Theology - a theology which attempts to involve Christians in left-wing (as opposed to right-wing) political causes. But Camara was right at least on one point when he wrote:

"I used to think, when I was a child, that Christ might have been exaggerating when He warned about the dangers of wealth. Today I know better. I know how ... (impossible) it is to be rich and still keep the milk of human kindness. Money (or the desire for money) has a dangerous way of putting scales on one’s eyes, a dangerous way of freezing people’s hands, eyes, lips and hearts."

The Bible says:

"... THEY THAT WILL BE RICH FALL INTO TEMPTATION AND A SNARE, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which DROWN MEN IN DESTRUCTION AND PERDITION.

"For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." (1 Tim. 6:9-10)

The Bible says that people who "desire money drown themselves in destruction." Wow! - this certainly is not what most American Christians believe! Nonetheless, it surely is what the Bible teaches - and while the rich may manifest a certain Christian "spirituality" when circumstances demand it, they are nonetheless a dangerous and extremely loathsome species of mankind - dangerous not in the fact that they are immoral (that would imply that they possess a conscience), but that they are amoral - i.e., that they don’t even possess a sense of "right" or "wrong." "Right" is simply that which advances their own selfish pecuniary ends; "wrong" is that which hinders them; these words possess no other meaning beyond this. Commenting on this, Professor Mills writes,

"The pursuit of the moneyed-life is ... (the elite's) commanding value, in relation to which the influence of other values has declined, so ... (that they have) easily become morally ruthless in its pursuit ..."

"(They have) narrowed the meaning of 'success' to big money and in these terms condemn failure as the chief vice, raising money to the plane of absolute value."

Mills continues:

"Whenever the standards of the moneyed life prevail, the man with money, no matter how he got it, will eventually be respected. (In America), it is not only that men want money; it is that their very standards are pecuniary. In a society (i.e., the American society) in which the money-maker has ... no serious rival for repute and honor, the word 'practical' comes to mean 'useful for private gain' and 'common sense', THE SENSE TO GET AHEAD FINANCIALLY."

And it is PRECISELY these standards - i.e., the standards of the moneyed elite - that have "wormed" their way into the American church today AND HAVE RENDERED IT AN INSTITUTION WITHOUT SUBSTANCE. This is exactly the kind of Christian D. James Kennedy is, the kind of Christian that Jerry Falwell and Tim LaHaye are: Christians without substance; men devoid of all private convictions and who think nothing of taking money from the Moonies (i.e., people who believe that Jesus had sex with the women who followed Him); such people have been emptied of any form of real Christianity - and while it’s true that they continue to preserve a certain "front" of purpose and idealism in their lives, there is nothing behind that "front" except a vacuum - a hollowness that resembles the emptiness of a body without a soul - though all three of them (i.e., Kennedy, Fawell, and LaHaye) possess an uncanny and extraordinary way of hiding this fact behind a pretense of flattery and charm. [Please see our material concerning this topic on C. Peter Wagner in our article, "Today's Church: Making Zombies Out Of Christians - The Prophets and the Apostles Movement."]

This kind of Christianity serves the world, not the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the kind of Christians that have "bought into it" somehow or other believe that the economic elites with whom they have have allied themselves can help them in "gaining the world for Christ." BUT THERE IS NOTHING THE WORLD, OR THE INSTITUTIONS OF THE WORLD, OR THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD CAN DO TO HELP THE CAUSE OF CHRIST - AND SO MUCH SO THAT THE BIBLE WARNS US:

"Do not love (rely upon) the world, or ANYTHING in the world. If anyone loves (relies upon) the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

"For EVERYTHING in the world ... comes NOT from the Father ..." (1 John 2:15-16)

But isn't that what today's Christianity is doing: relying on the world; relying on the alliance it has made with the "biggies" of the Republican Party. I REPEAT, THERE IS NOTHING THIS WORLD CAN DO TO HELP THE CAUSE OF CHRIST. Jesus said:

"My kingdom comes not from hence (i.e., it has nothing to do with this world) ..." (John 18:36)

The Bible says:

"The whole world lieth in the evil one (i.e., Satan)." (John 5:19)

Think about that! - the WHOLE world is controlled by Satan! - and although we have explained over and over again what the Bible means when it employs the term "world," it's perhaps necessary to review this matter again: the word "world" is the translation of the Greek word "kosmos," which means an harmonious order or arrangement, and it is used in three ways in the New Testament:

1. First, it means the MATERIAL UNIVERSE (Acts 17:14; Matt. 13:35; John 1:10; Mark 16:15).

2. Second, it means -

(a) THE INHABITANTS OF THE WORLD as a whole (John 1:10; 3:16; 12:19; 17:21);

(b) THE WHOLE RACE OF MAN ALIENATED FROM GOD AND HOSTILE TO THE CAUSE OF CHRIST (Heb. 11:38; John 14:17; 14:27; 15:18).

3. Third, it means the whole circle of WORLDLY goods, endowments, riches, advantages, pleasures, which though hollow and fleeting, stir our desires and seduce us from God, so that they are obstacles to the cause of Christ (I John 3:17; Matt. 16:26; I Cor 2:12; 3:19, 7:31; Titus 2:12; II Peter 1:4; 2:20; I John 2:15-17; James 1:27). It is the world of our split level homes, two cars, good careers, good educations, bank accounts, vacations, etc. It is when these pleasures and even so-called necessities of life "possess our hearts" and crowd out our commitment to the Lord and to His people that they have in reality become part of the kosmos.

Again, it's the WHOLE world, not just part of it, that "lies in the evil one." (John 5:19) There are no exceptions here. THERE'S NO EXCEPTION FOR AMERICA! THERE'S NO EXCEPTION FOR "WESTERN (i.e., Christian) CIVILIZATION." THERE'S NO EXCEPTION FOR THE "AMERICAN FREE ENTERPRISE SYSTEM" (i.e., CAPITALISM)! THERE IS NO EXCEPTION FOR THOSE CHRISTIAN GROUPS THAT ARE STRIVING SO MIGHTILY TO REFORM THIS COUNTRY LIKE THE PROMISE KEEPERS. THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS! The Bible says, the WHOLE world is controlled by Satan.

Satan is the KOSMOKRATER or "world-ruler" of this planet - a word which, however, appears only once, and is used in the plural of his lieutenants: "the WORLD RULERS OF THIS DARKNESS" (Eph. 6:12). So completely does Satan hold the world in his grip, that the Bible says:

"Whosoever ...will be a friend of the world is (automatically) the ENEMY of God. (James 4:4).

Whoever is a friend of the world is an enemy of Christ? Wow! In view of this, what does that say about today's evangelical church and it's alliance with the Bush presidency? Plainly it says that TODAY'S CHURCH HAS BECOME THE ENEMY OF GOD! And if that's the case, what's that say about YOU if you remain in today's church? It means that YOU are in danger of becoming the ENEMY of God! THAT'S WHY IT IS SO IMPORTANT THAT YOU GET OUT, BEFORE YOU BECOME GOD'S ENEMY. Remember, brothers and sisters,

"A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." (Gal. 5:9)

YOU ARE TO FLEE - AT ALL COSTS. The Bible says:

"COME OUT OF HER ..." (Rev. 18:4a)

And warns us that if we don't, we will become -

"... partakers of her sins, (and that we will) receive ... of her plagues (i.e., her punishments)" (Rev. 18:4b)

Pretty heavy stuff! Nothing to be trifled around with! Don't make the mistake here of agreeing to what is being said here, and then doing nothing about it. That kind of inaction will lead to your destruction. Concerning faith and action, the Bible says:

"Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils (demons) also believe, and tremble." (James 2:19)

The clear implication here is that if you do not come out, you will eventually contaminate yourself BEYOND REMEDY - and you will be punished for it. (Rev. 18:4) The truth is, trying to fight the misdirection in today's evangelical church while remaining a part of it will prove an impossible task for anyone who tries. It isn’t that there are not countless numbers of godly men and women who are part of this church and who fervently love the Lord and who are honestly seeking to do His will; it’s just that they are a part of an institution that is, SADLY, going in the wrong direction, and there is nothing you can do - other than tampering with odds and ends on the periphery - to change that. It’s like someone who is walking west towards New York on a ship which is sailing east towards London and who thinks that by doing so he can with much effort at last reach New York. It’s impossible!

Finally, you need to understand something here! "Coming out of this system" is NOT something you can do as group. It is a personal thing. It's something you must do as an individual. When you were "born again," it's not something you did as a group, it's something you had to do as an individual. It's the same thing with God's call to you in Rev. 18:4 (above). If you predicate your decision on "coming out of today's Christianity" on what others do, you will never "come out."

It's PRECISELY this kind of individual choice that the Jewish Zionists faced when they left their families for the Holy Land prior to the Second World War. In the end, they all came as the result of an INDIVIDUAL decision they made for themselves. This is what Rachel Yanait Ben Zvi faced when she left as a PIONEER for the Holy Land in 1905.

Amos Elon tells her story in his wonderful book, The Israelis: Founders and Sons: Rachel had played a prominent roll in the "Lovers of Zion" movement in Czarist Russia prior to her departure for the Holy Land. At the age of seventeen she had been arrested by the Russian police for participating in a clandestine "Lovers of Zion" meeting in a small town outside of St. Petersburg. At her release from prison more than a year later, her apprehensive father had assured the director of the prison: "I promise you, sir, that she will stay out of trouble from now on. We will keep her at home." But the young girl broke in: "No, I will not!" She then went on to tell the warden,

"But have no worry, I HAVE NO USE FOR THIS RUSSIA OF YOURS. I DON'T NEED IT. WE HAVE OUR OWN COUNTRY - THE LAND OF ISRAEL."

Her parents, hoping to divert their young firebrand to more sober pursuits, sent her to St. Petersburg to study. There, in 1908, she later recalled, she was sitting with her books at the Hermitage Library, when she was suddenly seized by so strong a desire to become a PIONEER girl in Palestine that she left her books on the table, ran home, packed her things, and took the first train south to Odessa in the Crimea. There, while waiting for a boat to take her to Israel, she encountered Chaim Nachman Bialik, the leading Hebrew poet of the time, and a resident of Odessa. Bialik asked her, "But what will you do in Palestine?" She answered him: "I will live." AND LIVE SHE DID - BECOMING ONE OF THE FOUNDING DAUGHTERS OF THE NEW ISRAEL.

There is a lesson here for all of us: what Rachel did, she did as an individual.

Moreover, Rachel was a firebrand; in other words, she was a RADICAL - indeed, she was so much a RADICAL that she was imprisoned for her beliefs. Brothers and sisters, you can't get anywhere with God unless you are a RADICAL. There is no room in the Kingdom of Heaven for those who are lukewarm in their faith. Jesus said to the Laodiceans:

"I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.

"So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue (i.e., VOMIT) thee out of my mouth." (Rev. 3:15-16)

It's the same with us! If our radicalism is any thing less than the kind of radicalism that gripped young Rachel, WE WILL GET NOWHERE WITH GOD. Christ is a RADICAL - and so much so that it was said of Him,

"... the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up ..." (Ps. 69:9)

We, of course, have our own "jails" and our own "Russias" - i.e., the churches and denominations in which we are imprisoned. Are we ready, like Rachel, to say to our jailers, "We have no need for your brand of Christianity? - the kind that is willing to make peace with the world; the Ashcroft kind of Christianity; the kind that has become a CO-CONSPIRATOR with George Bush's 'New World Order System'; the kind that equates patriotism to what Vidal calls the 'American Empire' with loyalty to the Kingdom of God?"

Are we ready - like Rachel - to answer that call on our lives to pick up our books (as it were), "catch the next train to Odessa," and "Come out of her." And are we ready to say to our detractors - as Rachel did to Bialik - when they ask us what we will do,

"Somehow we will live."

There is no other way to get to "our Holy Land," - the "Holy Land that's in our heart," "whose builder and maker is God." (Heb. 11:10) If we are to get there, we must get their by faith - faith in the One who has called us. We must believe that -

"God is faithful, by whom we were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord." (1 Cor. 1:9)

And we must believe that with all of our hearts.

Listen dear brothers and sisters in the Lord: God is calling you, just as He called Rachel Yanait Ben Zvi so many years ago - and contrary to what you have probably been told by your pastors and the leadership of today's apostate church (i.e., by the C. Peter Wagners, the John Eckhardts, the Ted Haggards, the Cindy Jacobs, the John Kellys, the Dutch Sheets, the Mike Bickles, the Reuven Dorens, and the Ern Baxters of this world), the call of God is not to the special few, IT IS FOR EVERYONE! He is saying:

"Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" (Isaiah 6:8a)

And we must answer:

"... Here am I: send me." (Isaiah 6:8b)

But - as Oswald Chambers has said - whether or not we hear God’s call depends upon whether or not we are daily IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD. Many are called but few are chosen, that is, few prove themselves the chosen ones. The chosen ones are those who have come into the PRESENCE of God and, as a result, hear the still small voice calling all the time, "Who will go for us?" It is not a question of God singling out a strong man or woman and saying, Now, you go. Isaiah was in the PRESENCE of God and because of that he overheard the call, and realized that there was nothing else for him but to say, in conscious freedom, "Here am I, send me." Get out of your mind the idea of expecting God to come with compulsions and pleadings. When our Lord called His disciples there was no irresistible compulsion from outside. The quiet passionate insistence of His, "Follow Me" was spoken to men with every power wide awake. If we let the Spirit of God bring us face to face with God, we too shall hear something akin to what Isaiah heard, the still small voice of God; and in perfect freedom we will say,

"Hear am I; send me." (Isaiah 6:8)

How we answer this call will determine whether we feel ASHAMED at His appearing or not. Paul says,

"My eager desire and hope is that I may never feel ashamed, but that now as ever I may do honor to Christ in my own person by fearless courage - whether that means life or death, no matter! (Phil. i, 20-21 (Moffatt)

Again, while we admit that leaving one's "church home" is easy to suggest, but difficult to do - still, it's not, as we suggested in the Antipas Papers, an impossible task, at least not yet. What it probably will mean, however, is ostracism from your circle of friends, and maybe even your families. But the fact is, if you can't face that, then you have no right to call yourself a "Christian." Jesus said,

"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." (Matt. 10:34-39)

You say that leaving your church home will mean a life of loneliness. But that is not necessarily so at all. The fact is, there are many others just like you. You say, How will I ever find them? Well, I'll tell you how - by opening your mouth and speaking forth the truth that God is showing you. BEGIN BY DOWNLOADING OR PRINTING OUT OUR MATERIAL! It's yours FREE and distribute them in your church. THAT'S WHEN THINGS WILL START HAPPENING! That's when - speaking metaphorically - you will be "arrested" and "put in jail" (so to speak) like Rachel Yanait Ben Zvi. And when people tell you to be a "good person" and not to "rock the boat" - like Rachel's father said to Rachel - you will answer, just as Rachel did:

"No, I will not! But have no worry, I HAVE NO USE FOR THIS RUSSIA (i.e., this church or denomination) OF YOURS. I DON'T NEED IT. WE HAVE OUR OWN COUNTRY - THE LAND OF ISRAEL" (i.e., the church "whose builder and maker is God").

After your first "arrest," things will begin in earnest for you. From that point on, your journey out of today's apostate church to your (our) "Holy Land" - i.e., to "that city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God" (Heb. 11:10) - will really begin. Yes, there will be persecutions! But persecutions are the lot of any real Christian in this life. If you are not persecuted for your faith, you should stand in fear as to its reality. Jesus said:

"Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you ..." (John 15:20)

But be of "good cheer" - there will be people in your churches watching what you do. They will take note of your courage and read the material, and, eventually - IF you are PERSISTENT enough - they will come to you and ask questions; some will even "rally to your cause."

As we said in our last article, take these people, and begin meeting with them. There doesn't have to be many. Meet in your homes - in your living rooms. This is what the churches in China do! In the early church, meetings rarely numbered more than twelve people or so. Remember what Jesus said:

"For where TWO or THREE are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." (Matt. 18:20)

AND IT IS HERE - IN THESE SMALL MEETINGS THAT WILL EVENTUALLY DEVELOP AROUND YOU AS YOU PERSIST IN DISTRIBUTING THIS MATERIAL - THAT YOU WILL FIND THAT - READY OR NOT - GOD HAS MADE YOU A SHEPHERD IN HIS FLOCK. YOU HAVE THE WORD (i.e., the BIBLE); AND YOU HAVE HIS SPIRIT IN YOU - and if such is the case, you can say with Paul -

"I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." (Phil. 4:13)

God bless you all!

S.R. Shearer
Antipas Ministries