SABBATH

God's Gift to Us

Sermon: Is America a Christian Nation? (Part Four)

#1374B

Given 17-Apr-17; 67 minutes

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description: The synagogue of Satan in Revelation 3:9 is a group of people who claim to be of Jewish descent. They are neither ethnic nor spiritual Jews, but an insidious persecuting sect of vile, irreligious humanist elites, currently characterized by the Media as the "Deep State." This group of oligarchs have attempted to control the finances of the entire world, including the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, and the Council on Foreign Relations, all having the common aim of seizing control of governmental and economic power by ruthless, underhanded, and criminal means. America, from its founding, has never been a Christian nation, even though it received moral underpinnings from the Puritans and from British Common Law, established on a modicum of biblical principles. "Christendom" itself considers God's law, especially that 'odious and burdensome' Sabbath, done away, and have instituted pagan holidays replacing God's Holy Days. The Constitution, in some ways, makes a mockery of God's sovereignty, preferring a hodge-podge of syncretism of the world's religions. Neither the Puritans of yesterday nor today's amalgam of Protestant evangelicals have ever embraced God's Law or followed in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, but have had an indistinct—and wrong-headed—vision as to what constitutes real Christianity.


transcript:

I was asked this past week whether there is a problem in the Church of the Great God, or in the scattered churches of God, regarding the subject of, is America a Christian nation. The answer as far as I know is, not at this time. But who knows, one may be building. Just the same, I foresee the possibility that this issue has some fairly strong probability of becoming a major problem in the not to distant future, if a speculation of mine comes to fruition.

I am going to begin this sermon today by sharing this speculation with you. I want you to know that it is speculation, and that it is at least somewhat strengthened by the number of years that I have been reading all these things about the end time. But something I believe may be beginning to take shape that will have an impact on our lives in the future.

The Bible is written for the benefit of all mankind, however, at this time in mankind’s history its focus is truly on Christ’s return, and what is happening preceding that return, and therefore, what is happening in the Israelitish nations.

I have reached this speculation I am making because Israel and Israelites are the subject of so much of the Bible. In addition, because they are also descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, about whom so much prophecy pertains—to them and their families. In addition, the Israelites are even related somewhat loosely to the Promised Seed, because he was born into the same general family of people. That is quite an important heritage in terms of prophecy.

Where geographically is the primary location of the Israelitish people? It is what the news people call the Western world. The Bible pays no attention to North Korea, or India, and little attention at all to China, which shows you that in terms of the end time events, and prophecy that is given, they will not play a big part, but Israel is going to play a very large part, and some of these other nations as well, they are all located in the same area of the world. The Bibles focus is on what the news media calls the Western world, and the Middle East. Why do you think that this is so? It is because of prophecy, and what God is working out.

In the Western world, who are the dominating ethnic groups who share the space, politics, religions, and economic concerns with the Israelitish people? Perhaps they also may even share some close physical, and spiritual relationships as well.

Check me out on this grouping: In this grouping are the Israelites and their religions of Christianity, Judaism, and I will add, humanism, because it is a religion—they worship mankind, they worship science. Add to this mixture that is already existing, Muslims, Edomites, Arabs, and Islam, and also the Turks, they too are generated from the Middle East.

There are also physical ties between these families, through the ones I just named—Abraham, Esau, and Ishmael. You can see from this mixture that has formed around the Middle East and the Western world, that probably billions of people are somewhat related.

It is also true that in these parts of the world, that the beast and the false prophet are prophesied to arise and dominate life for a period of time.

Then there is another group that has actually been together for quite a while, but you do not hear much about them, but Christ Himself warns the church of them twice. It is without a doubt an end time context, and He names them the synagogue of Satan.

In the letter to Smyrna, Christ says to His church, to be applied at the end time:

Revelation 3:9 “Indeed I will make those of the synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews and are not [Jews], . . .

Notice they are in touch with and within the true church of God, even if they are not actually within it, they are persecuting it. This is why they were admonished to be aware of these people and to be aware of the lie that they are saying they are Jews, and they are not.

We may easily pass that off as being something these people say but it is not true, and that it really does not matter because what they are saying is that they are religiously Jews. They might be ethnically Jews, but I think I prefer from what I am seeing, both here in the Bible, and also reading in the newspapers now, that these people are not Jews at all, ethnically But they are going to be in contact with the church of God.

Even more interesting is that these warnings to both the Philadelphian and the Smyrnan congregations appear to be two especially faithful congregations. You can read about both Philadelphia and Smyrna and they are what we would call good congregations.

What about the word synagogue? It can be taken a couple of different ways. It can mean congregation, and just like the word church, it can also refer to a building. It can refer through the word congregation to a group of people who are part of one specific organization.

Another thought that I find interesting is that both mentions are at the end time, and both in a warning directly to God’s church, no other context except the letters to the churches, and most especially to those two that are noted for being especially faithful congregations.

Here is a name: The synagogue of Satan. I thought all false churches were Satan’s. It is interesting here that in one case in Revelation 2:9, it uses the general article a, but in Revelation 3:9, it uses the definite article the, as if it is alone, singular, the only one that really has this designation as the synagogue of Satan.

As I said earlier, this is a bit mixed up, but there are definite signs beginning to point in a certain direction. I stated that I thought all false churches were Satan’s. They are, but the indication here can also be reached: this particular one mentioned in Smyrna and Philadelphia is far more to be feared than all of the others. That is why it is singled out.

When you read the context, you will find out that they are persecutors. If they were not going to persecute the true church, there is no use in warning us.

One very interesting remark by Christ is that these people say they are Jews, meaning ethnically, and perhaps spiritually, but they are not really Jews in either case. Paul makes a designation about who was a real Jew. They do not fit that, and they do not fit ethnically as Jews either. Christ has them nailed to the door, you might say, in both cases.

They are from some other family grouping, but hypocritically pretending to be Jews for some religious, political, or economic benefits.

Incidentally, I did read in a commentary, a question was asked, “Why are these people lying about something so obvious?” Well, it is because they are getting some benefit from pretending hypocritically that they are Jews. That is why they are lying.

They are on the scene just before Christ returns. That is what Revelation 2 leads to. This is why I said earlier this might be something that is building, and possibly in a short period of time it is going to cause some trouble.

I will admit this: they are not called the synagogue of Satan during news broadcasts, but they are now beginning to be mentioned. This is what alerted me. They are rising to sight, as it were, people in the news are beginning to blame things on them.

I began looking into conspiracy theories all the way back in the 1960’s. It never was a full time search by any means, but on the other hand I understood from my interest in history, which as far as I can remember has always been there, as well as the fact that the Bible reveals that conspiracies are always going on. That should be obvious to every one of us, because who is the god of this world? Is he a conspirator? Is he always attempting to turn one people, or one group against another? And to use conspiracies to undermine a relationship, maybe even a good relationship that they once had.

The Bible makes clear Jesus was killed by the participants in a conspiracy. That is very clear. Paul also was threatened by one, and he had to escape that conspiracy by being let down in a basket outside of a city wall by friends in order to escape it. There is also a conspiracy at the end that is going to help enable the beast to rise.

Psalm 2:1-3 Why do the nations [can be translated Gentiles] rage, and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, “Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us.”

I believe that this is an end time psalms. It makes that very clear, and at the time of the end there is going to be a massive conspiracy going on that involves the great powers of this world.

Where is the head of the conspiracy now? By head, I mean the brains, the motivators, the movers and shakers. I believe in what is referred to in the news reports, rather obscurely of course, by the title, the Deep State. You are beginning to hear more and more about the deep state.

The very fact that they are possibly being named indicates people are becoming aware of them as a real force. The term deep is used in this title, or name. It means mysterious, hidden, operating below the surface. State is, I believe, is being used to indicate a separate sovereign community operating under a distinct government. Otherwise they are not connected to the world, except they are a part of it, and they are the whole world’s enemy. They have designs of taking it over completely.

It is gradually becoming clear that the Deep State is a relatively small group of incredibly wealthy, and therefore very powerful, people. They are neither Americans, nor Brits, nor Jews—even the Bible says they are not Jews. Rather the most powerful organizations in all three of those nations are controlled by the men in the Deep State.

I first read of these people in 1985 when Evelyn and I were in Chicago. I soon learned that they existed long before that. They control the Bilderbergs, the Club of Rome, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Order of the Garter, and on and on. Everybody is subservient to them, and when they speak the rest of the world says, yes sir, and does their will. They speak and everybody else jumps, and they are moving to control the world. They are maneuvering their leaders into positions to be part of the biblical beast, and the false prophet. It is their religion and governance that will be somewhat patterned after the combination of those nations I mentioned earlier—false Christianity, and Islam—that will be practiced under the beast.

Their governance and their religion is Satanic in origin and operation. Satan is gathering his forces for his last push at God through men. Between now and the rise of the beast and false prophet, you should be absolutely sure that you know what true Christianity is, and that you are faithfully practicing it, regardless of what is already going on in the world. It is to those people that Christ will provide help to understand, and to protect them. I hope this mystifies you a little bit, and makes you start thinking about this, and makes you start praying about this.

My sermon on the first Day of Unleavened Bread was devoted to showing you through generalities along with a number of specific quotations from the founders, that the founders never intended that the Constitution of the United States be dedicated to establishing the Christian religion as being by law the religion of the United States of America.

Do you understand that if they truly intended Christianity to be America’s national religion, the constitutional package the founders organized, makes a mockery of the sovereignty of God, as compared with what God shows about Himself in the Bible. The true God’s governance of a nation, any nation that He chooses to do so, will not be shared with any other mixed up system men throw together, while each group claims their version is God’s version.

So, we can be absolutely firm in our understanding to know that this nation, though it practiced some forms of Christianity, never was Christian. It just had some people who obediently did some things that are right.

Now, that arrangement, if indeed the founders were attempting to do so, that they did put together, immediately violates the first commandment! How then can this nation ever possibly have been a Christian nation at any time in history? I think the logic is clear and simple if one will believe it.

Here then is the major theme of this series of sermons. It is, regardless of what men believe, claim, and literately do to support their concepts, God has still been faithful to His purpose, and all the while America has existed, God has been busy fulfilling His purpose. Set this clear in your minds: America’s founders had no intention of making Christianity the official religion of the United States of America. In addition, neither the leaders nor the citizens made any formal covenant with God.

The leadership and citizenry in early America, respected what they called Christianity, and sincerely practiced aspects of their version, but what they were practicing in and through were simply organizations of religious men, using some teachings appearing in the Bible that appealed to them, and not one of them was the true religion of God. This was because they did not know God’s purpose, and God had not called them into that purpose.

Each organizations teachings were different from the others also calling themselves Christians, and just because they had some things correct, does not mean they were the true church planted here in America.

What Abram’s descendants do religiously and politically in no way means that God had assigned us as His nation, either then or now. That assignment was made long ago, and nor does it indicate that God has been unfaithful to His commitments to Abram and his descendants.

In this sermon I will show you this in more detail, as we proceed. People indeed had some truth (I am talking about those settlers.). However, in this sermon I am going to define and apply a number of common biblical terms that show the weakness of the concept that this nation has been Christian from its beginning.

The major weakness is that those who are being proclaimed as Christians as this nation was founded, were not practicing Christianity as established by God through Jesus Christ. But the name recognition, Christian, is present, making people think it really was Christianity. You know the principle. You say something often enough and many people will think the lie being told is indeed true. At the very least it creates confusion useful to the enemy, Satan, but how can they possibly be Christian when all those groups believed that two-thirds of the Bible, the Old Testament, was done away?

Their logic to all of this is incredible, yet people get so enthusiastic about something they do not really know much about, at all, they just accept it. Their belief that the Old Testament was done away immediately puts them in opposition to Him. Christ, the founder of Christianity, clearly states in His book, in Matthew 5:17, that not one jot or tittle would pass from the law until all is fulfilled.

The terms that I will give you in these illustrations are all used metaphorically in the Bible, and are commonly understood by us, and all other biblical researchers, as spiritual descriptors of what godly, biblical personalities were doing in their lives.

We are going to begin with a simple basic premise that is easily understood, and is true. Is not a Christian one who is a follower of Jesus Christ? In the sense the term followers is used in virtually any given circumstance, do not followers conduct their life imitating the one they are following to where He is going? I think you can agree with that.

Luke 4:16 So He [Christ] came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read.

Did the first century Christians follow Christ by observing the Sabbath as a holy day to God as He clearly did? That tells us what He did. Keeping the Sabbath was His way, His manner of life. Nothing today is different in regard to the Sabbath. Here is an excerpt from the commentary, The Life and Epistles of Saint Paul, authored by two English men, Conybeare and Howson. This is on page 346, regarding the keeping of the weekly Sabbath and annual festivals by the apostle Paul, and Christians in general.

The specific festival that is the point here in this comment is Passover.

The festivals observed by the apostolic church were at first the same with those of the Jews, and the observance of these was continued, especially by Christians of Jewish birth, for a considerable time. A higher and more spiritual meaning, however, was attached to their celebration, and particularly the Paschal feast was kept no longer as a shadow of good things to come, but as the commemoration of blessings actually bestowed in the death and resurrection of Christ.

I do not see how much clearer anybody could possibly get.

Exodus 31:12-13 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak also to the children of Israel, saying; Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you. You shall keep the Sabbath therefore, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people.”

Exodus 31:16 “Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant.” [perpetual means never ending.]

So it was, and still is, God’s holy day, set apart by Him for worshipping Him, and in Genesis 2:1-3, where it is set aside, it is to be perpetually observed. Nothing has changed in regard to the Sabbath. For those sanctified by God it is still God’s holy day, here, meaning at the time that was written, and in the 21st century in our day.

People can always come up with justifications for their not keeping it, and I am not going to say to you that if you give them these scriptures that all arguments will cease, because they will continue to come up with justifications. But you should be able to hold that solidly in your mind as a truth from which you will not turn aside, because you believe God’s Word. He said it is to be perpetually observed.

The major question before us (within the context of this sermon), concerns the earliest Americans as a government was being formed in the 1700’s, calling themselves Christian, and in comparison with the 20th and 21st century people calling themselves Christians. We cannot hear from the early Americans, but we can still hear from those who are part of the 20th and 21st century, because they are still making noise about these things.

The question is this. Are the 21st century people making all this political, religious, and social noise in America, faithfully judging truthfully, out-right lying, or completely deceived by Satan regarding what a Christian is, and what a Christians requirements are?

Here is the usage for the term follow according to my Reader’s Digest Encyclopedic Dictionary. The term has many usages, but all those usages have one central thought. That thought is, “to come after whatever or whoever is leading.” It is that simple.

I will give you a few more examples that I have chosen but think of them in relation to Jesus Christ.

First: “to go or come after, and in the same direction.” Are we supposed to do that with Jesus Christ? If we are following, we are going to go or come after Him, and we will be going in the same direction.

Second: “to hold to the course of the one being followed.”

Third: “to act in accordance with.”

Follows synonyms are also clearly defining: trail, shadow, obey, and imitate. The general thought regarding the imagery of following in the Bible is clearly correct. When the Bible is compared with a modern dictionary, follow means exactly the same in both languages.

A Christian is a person who holds to the same course as Jesus, and behaves according to the patterns of Christ’s life. In our time, do those claiming Christianity in behalf of those who lived at the founding of this nation, follow Jesus Christ? Do they? Only in narrow areas of behavior. In other words, they still really do not know Christianity’s purpose either, any more than the first settlers did, except in generalities.

You are going to find these terms I am going to give you will intensify in their application, as we go along here. They have the same general meaning but, they are intensifying the responsibility of those who follow. We are going to add the term walk, to follow.

Please turn to Ephesians 5, then we will go to Ephesians 2.

Ephesians 5:1-2 Therefore be imitators [followers] of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.

Ephesians 2:1-3 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

Walking is a term the Bible uses that pictures a person’s steady, normal progress along a path or road, headed in a predetermined direction and destination. I warned you that these are going to get more descriptive and intensify the application as we go along.

For a Christian, that means he is not meandering all over the place in either doctrine or practice. His course is set. It is used well over two hundred times in most translations, and in some versions almost three hundred times. It is a significant descriptor. Christians walk in love, and love is the keeping of the commandments. Did they keep the commandments in the colonial days? They believed then like people do today that the law was done away.

From the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery it states this, “Beyond the literal mechanics of movement by foot, walking at a figurative level becomes a prime metaphor to two motifs: inner action with someone else, or with a person’s lifestyle, suggesting progress in time and direction.” As I said to you, these descriptors get more demanding than just merely going behind.

Walking has purpose to it when it is used as a descriptor. In this scripture Ephesians 2:1-3, Paul is reminding us that earlier in life we were moving along, following the course, the way of this world—being guided on a path that is headed toward death—with no way to change directions unless one is called by God. So the course of this world is most certainly not a godly path.

Walking in this context thus illustrates one living in his conduct as the way of the world. It was a path one followed blindly and slavishly because we did not know any better in terms of spiritual salvation.

We simply followed basically the same conduct of all those in the world, living in spiritual blindness. Walking that way was a matter of moral carelessness—it really did not have any good spiritual purpose to us. In most cases, we did not know that we were even following a personality, and that personality was Satan. We were then unknowingly following the prince of the power of the air, and those first colonists in America were unknowingly following the revelations of the Protestant Reformation, which were not the full truth of God’s Word.

I John 2:15-17 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.

This is the course we were all following before God called us. If the apostle John had happened to write this specifically for the religious colonists in the United States of America, it makes for an interesting picture of the colonists’ spiritual state. This is because the first phrase in verse 15 can easily be translated as stop loving the world.

This changes the thrust of this verse from an appeal by the apostle warning the Christians that loving the world is dangerous, so they should not even consider the thought of loving it. However, stop loving the world is an urgent command to cease and desist from dangerous activity that had already begun, and that was the reality.

So I submit to you that this was the case regarding the colonists, because following the teachings they were bringing with them from Europe that they accepted from the Protestant Reformation, was not the same thing as following the true God. They were already following the world. I believe that this is evidence that the people were already loving the world when the overall picture of their lives is calculated, and thus seen, but brethren they were blind to the truth.

There is no evidence in profane history that God had a major work of His, and His church, underway in colonial times that would have given these people an open door opportunity to make a choice to break away from the world, and choose to worship Him. Religiously they were doing what other pious immigrants were doing. They were following the tenets of the Protestant Reformation that they brought with them, they acted consistent with what the world was doing, not with what a true follower of Christ would do.

Maybe your knowledge of history of that time is not as complete as mine, as detailed as mine. Maybe you just have not paid much attention to it, but I paid a lot of attention to it, especially in these last twenty and thirty years, because of all of the noise that the Evangelicals have been making, claiming that this was a Christian nation from the beginning. Brethren, it was not.

Have you heard of any group of religious people in colonial times who were not following the way of the world? Brethren, they did not have any choice, because God was not calling them, and that is the only thing that would break them away from being part of the world. And here we have these Evangelicals trying to convince people that these were true Christians. Impossible!

I believe that it is true that the people then were more religious citizens than we have today. That it is entirely possible that they did not sin as frequently, nor as profanely, or violently as our generations are now, but they, and we, were still going along with the world. They were as pious as they could be, under the circumstances, but it still was not God’s way.

John 8:12 Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”

These are two of the most significant descriptors in the entire Bible. We are only going to begin to touch on them, but they are very purposeful. They are so significant, the Bible begins with both of them mentioned within its first three verses, thus suggesting right at the beginning of God’s revelation to mankind, of their overall significance to our lives and God’s purpose. These are often things that we do not grasp until later.

Notice that the revelation begins with earth in darkness, but then what does God do? He creates light. Why? It is to dispel darkness, thus allowing us to see clearly what is going on. We will add a spiritual insight that we find in the book of Job.

Job 26:7-10 [describing God and His power] He stretches out the north over empty space; He hangs the earth on nothing. He binds up the water in His thick clouds, yet the clouds are not broken under it. He covers the face of His throne, and spreads His cloud over it. He drew a circular horizon on the face of the waters, at the boundary of light and darkness.

What God says here is important to our understanding because in an overall sense, light metaphorically symbolizes truth, or clarity of vision, regarding God and His way. It is truth that makes understanding of life and its purpose possible. Light literally, physically, provides clarity so that we can thus see, giving one the advantage of making right choices and avoiding pit falls that might even destroy. Light, in its broadest sense, metaphorically symbolizes everything good within a relationship with God.

Meanwhile, the Bible gradually comes to use darkness as a strongly negative image. It is even physically oppressive, frightening, and it signifies an environment in which everything evil may happen—an environment of fear, death, disorder, slavery, and Satan and his way.

Back to the thought in Job 26, we will tie it to Genesis 1:1-3, which shows what God did physically, thus providing a precursor of what He is doing spiritually. Job speaks of a boundary between light and darkness. Consider the light and darkness imagery as being good and evil, truth as opposed to deceptive lying.

Only God knows exactly where that line of division is at all times in everyone’s life, and only He has the creative power to enable us to see them as well, which is exactly what He did physically. Do you get the picture? In order for people to worship God, God has to give us discernment between light and darkness. Only He can actually do that. That is impressive to realize that, and its importance.

God’s purpose for mankind is to dispel darkness, and release mankind so that we can use and enjoy all the good things that He has created for us. The only catch, if we can call this a catch, is we must believe Him. This the world will not do, so the darkness is never dispelled until mankind permits it on the calling of God.

This is overwhelming in its importance to understanding what has happened to us. God has removed the obscurity of darkness, He has replaced it with light, which is truth, so that we can begin to discern what is going on with the same sort of eyes as He has.

John 12:30-35 Jesus answered and said, “This voice did not come because of Me, but for your sake. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out [meaning Satan]. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.” This He said, signifying by what death He would die. The people answered Him, “We have heard from the law that the Christ remains forever, and how can You say, “The Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?” Then Jesus said to them, “A little while longer the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you; he who walks in darkness does not know where he is going.”

He is describing the world as it appeared to them spiritually. They did not have the light, because they did not obey God.

John 12:36 “While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.” These things Jesus spoke, and departed, and was hidden from them.

We can take something from this that is very important, and that is, we must follow Christ’s counsel, making good use of the time, all the time. There is no evidence the colonists in early America were truly converted, and that includes the founders. They were surely sincere, and perhaps as pious as an unconverted human can be, but they left no strong evidence whatsoever that they knew God, His purpose, and were steadfastly living by it.

I know that if you would tell a very zealous Baptist, they would not believe you at all. But it is the truth. They do not have the truth by which to judge properly. What they had was a bad mixture of light and darkness, truth and error. They perceive God’s Word much like one experiences during any given day. During that period before the sun rises, or the period after the sun sets in the evening, and that is when vision is very indistinct at best. It is when one sees vague shapes but no clear outlines. They had only the bare basics of God’s way.

I Corinthians 11:1 Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.

There is no doubt in any true Christian’s mind that the apostle Paul was a zealous follower of Jesus Christ. He here uses a term describing that he was fulfilling his responsibility as an apostle by imitating Christ. According to my Reader’s Digest Great Encyclopedia Dictionary, it defines imitate as to behave, or attempt to behave, in the same way as to mimic, to copy, to duplicate. We are thus commanded to follow or imitate Christ.

Imitation is far more precise and demanding than merely following. Did the vastly divided early Christians in the United States of America do this? Be very careful, because the carnal mind is quite tricky—give it an inch and it may very well take a mile. But when that sort of perversion is added to what I first described, it greatly intensifies the original division created by listening to and believing false teachers and their doctrines, making religious life chaotic.

Those colonists were not only badly divided, they were also easily confused—as people are today—about God Himself. His sovereignty over all sorts of teachings important to salvation are unknown.

Listen to this example from Jesus’ experience with the Jews. The Jews claimed, in John 8, that God was their Father. That is, spiritual Father, Jesus on the other hand said that, “The Father and I are one.” That is, one in agreement. Who told the Jews that bold faced lie that they believed? It was those who taught them, and the Jews believed the lie, and they believed differently than either Jesus or the Father, and yet they believed that they were in agreement with the Father! Of course, did they not later brutally murder Jesus? Why? A simple explanation is because they thought differently than Jesus and the Father.

Therefore, they behaved differently, because they were taught differently, and believed the falsehood. Now forms of this process happened in colonial days, and it is still happening today. Listen to this evidence: Are there not thousands or so separate denominations all believing somewhat different doctrines, and therefore, practicing somewhat differently right now, in our time?

It is a fact that some Christian groups have bitterly persecuted others who also call themselves Christian. Are not Catholics, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Methodists, and Church of Christ members, who all claim they are Christians, and yet they do not believe or follow Christ in the same way, and they all disagree with the one that they claim to be following. In addition, they do not agree with each other politically either, some are Republicans, some are Democrats. What party would Jesus be a part of?

All I am getting to here, at this point in time, is to overload you. You are probably getting sick of what I am saying here, because I keep going over and over it from every different angle that I can think of, that you have to throw out this junk that they are putting out there as false news. These people never were Christians. That does not mean that we should think evil of them. They were deceived. They simply did not have the truth, and God was not taking the opportunity at that time to change their minds, so He just allowed them to pick up the lessons of life as they lived them, two hundred and fifty, three hundred years ago, and they were not converted.

I will tell you, those people today who call themselves Evangelicals, are really beginning to stir up a mess of confusion. The end result of this is that people are not going to know truth. They do not know where the dividing line is, as Job was describing.

Not until God comes to their rescue and gives them the truth, separates light from darkness so that they are able to make right choices regarding their lives. Do not buy into this false news that you are hearing almost daily from these people, that America was a Christian nation.

Some people practiced some Christian doctrines, but America was never a Christian nation.

JWR/cdm/drm