“Blessed is the one who does not judge himself by what he approves.” (Romans 14:22)
As the fervor of Christian Nationalism continues to expand within the American evangelical Church, it’s vital that sincere, covenant followers of Jesus Christ be able to distinguish between what is New Testament Christianity, and what is a perversion of the Way. This task of discernment requires at least four critical elements. 1. It requires that we accept the Word of God as the first, last and foremost resource for the formation of true spiritual understanding. 2. It requires that we be people who actively listen to, and dialogue with the Holy Spirit, Who illuminates, and “teaches us truth”, from the Word. 3. It also requires that we cultivate an ear to hear the Spirit’s circumspect truth re the external issues in the fallen world, as well as honest perspective re the true, attendant issues (pride, fear, lust, hostility etc.) in our own heart. 4. It requires that we have a primary predisposition to die, and submit our sin-disposed selves to an ongoing journey of applying the truths that the Holy Spirit shows us in the Word, in our world, and within our own selves.
It is primarily in the neglect of this fourth element that many in our Christian family are becoming ensnared in the allurement of American Christian Nationalism. We say that we are people who “rightly divide” the Word of God, and apply its true light with objectivity to our lives and our culture. And so we may rightly deduce that the Word of God stands firmly against matters of sexual infidelity, atheism, destruction of human life, and the honor of God. But do we also hear what the Word says about the innate predisposition of our own soul to self-gratification, self-glorification, self-evaluation, self-determination, and self-sufficiency? Who is helping us to ruthlessly, and responsibly apply the truths of the Word that expose the pride, the lust, the covetousness, and the hostility that vexes our own souls? Are we committed to such excruciating integrity of character, even at the expense of our own “image”?
Simply put, where zeal for truth exists alongside a spirit that has no will or intent of being leveled by that truth, truth profits us nothing. Indeed, where this spirit persists you will find all kinds of pretentious viciousness, depravity and wickedness.
Where the corrupting plots of Christian nationalism are concerned, I do not pray for individuals to find “true truth”; by either discovering how evil, or good an individual, or talking point is. I pray for our neighbors, sisters, and family members to be swallowed up in a spirit of humility and cross-bearing that surrenders to Jesus, as the Way of truth…
This is an ENORMOUSLY IMPORTANT distinction.
It isn’t the false narratives that chiefly corrupt Christian nationalists. The subversive force of Christian Nationalism is its stubborn repudiation of the baseline dynamic that connects human beings to a Savior, and a King – humility, gratitude for mercy, meekness, quietness, deep trust, repentance, chesed-love, and despair of self.
What Christian nationalism offers our greedy culture is an endless appetite for “truth storylines” that will “guarantee” greater security, stability, and self-worth. By contrast, what heaven offers this same homicidal, and unstable world, is a baby.
This personalization of truth is what Pilate stumbled over. (John 18:38) It was also what offended the Pharisees when Jesus answered their theological questions by pointing to Himself. “Before Abraham was, I Am” (John 8:58), and “unless you believe that I Am He, you will die in your sins” (John 8:24), and “I (Myself) Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6), and “This is the work of God, that you believe in the One Whom He has sent.” (John 6:29).
Jesus’ scandalous personalization of truth is what offended many of His disciples to the point that they no longer followed Him. “Unless you eat My flesh and drink My blood…” (John 6:53) Essentially Jesus was saying, “I Am pure theology. And I AM all the theology you need. Unless you feed on Me, all your theology getting will not profit you one bit. Unless you lose your life-seeking ways, you are not worthy of anything else I’m going to say.”
This is why Jesus didn’t feed His disciples nefarious conspiracies about the workings of an evil world. He knew their uncrucified selves wanted to build utopias on earth with this “dirt information”. Jesus knew what was in the heart of humanity… They wanted a king; a king who would make sure they had an abundant supply of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil… so that their unbowed souls could attain to the levers of power and influence that their prideful selves believed they deserved – and were even destined for. This innate, ubiquitous desire is common to all of mankind. It was what the Lord abhorred in Israel when they clamored for a king in (1 Samuel 8:7) “The Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do everything the people request of you. For it is not you that they have rejected, but it is Me that they have rejected as their king.'”
(Aside: This is also the root of why the Christian nationalism that’s festering in our nation, directly parallels with the Christian nationalism that overtook the church in Germany less than a century ago. There was a reason the devil gave the Nazi’s a broken cross for its emblem. And through it, he achieved some of the greatest evil ever perpetrated in human history… something to meditate on…)
In place of our daily reach for “the truth”, the Lord, Who is Spirit gives us great grace to lay down our lives for the increase of His desire to intimately reign over all people. If you can receive it, this grace is an even more endemic and life-giving truth about ourselves, and His ability to intimately lead us; one that isn’t built on merely collecting greater insight and being able to identify the machinations of a curse-riddled world, but one which brings forth the breaths of life itself, through deeper, and more wholehearted unity with, and sacrificial love for the Lord of life, Himself.
9 The LORD is not slow concerning HIS PROMISE, as some regard slowness, but is being PATIENT toward you, because He does not wish for any to PERISH but for all to come to REPENTANCE. 10 But the DAY OF THE LORD will come like a thief; when… the earth and EVERY DEED DONE on it will be LAID BARE… (therefore) WHAT SORT OF PEOPLE SHOULD YOU BE, CONDUCTING YOUR LIVES IN HOLINESS AND GODLINESS, 12 while WAITING FOR and HASTENING THE COMING OF THE DAY OF GOD? … According to His PROMISE, we are WAITING for new heavens and a new earth, in which RIGHTEOUSNESS truly resides. 14 Therefore, DEAR FRIENDS, since you are WAITING FOR these things, STRIVE to be found AT PEACE, WITHOUT SPOT OR BLEMISH, when you COME into HIS PRESENCE. (2 Peter 3:9-14)
The Lord’s preparation of the Church is one of the most overlooked, New Testament dynamics that is (day by day) impacting the people of God right now. Whether we see it or not, the truth is, the closer we get to the return of Jesus, the more the heart and the collective mind of the Bride is being refined to both understand and champion the reign of our King!
Jesus is not coming to “take us home”. If we’re in Christ, we’re already home! He’s coming to rule and reign on the earth, WITH HIS BRIDE IN GLAD-HEARTED CELEBRATION of the way He administrates His Kingdom.
Right now, the Church is still “working the issues out” in our collective thinking. Our narratives are not filled with appreciation for the ways of our King. We don’t esteem the values of meekness, holiness, patience, and mercy-giving the way our King does. In fact, we count much of what He wants to work into our world as foolish, unpractical, and/or too religious. Where Jesus calls us to “serve”, we want to dominate. Where Jesus calls us to “pray”, we want to rush to action with human power. Where Jesus wants to aim at relationship, we want to build laws and structures. This disconnection from Jesus’ mind is what both Peter (here in 2 Peter 3:14), and Paul (in Ephesians 5:26,27) call “spots, wrinkles, and blemishes”. This is where the Bride is operating unlike Christ – where we are not Christlike!
So, how does the Lord bring us into like-mindedness? How does He conform us to His image?How does He cultivate both an understanding and appreciation of the ways of His leadership?
He shapes us by employing two living and active realities. The first are the affairs of 200ish nations, and the pressure points in our own lives. These are actually “grinding bearings” that the Lord uses to drive us to Himself. Where the answers are “out of our reach”, and “beyond our under-standing”, He nonetheless calls us to bring the tension points to Him, in both humility, and honesty. This means that we don’t allow other players to become the primary “shapers” of our narrative. It means that we bring what we see, what we know, and what we feel, into the “tent of meeting” with Him, and allow Him to illuminate our minds, and our hearts about both the facts of the storylines, and the issues they create in our own lives. He may or may not want to tell us the details about the nefarious activities of globalists. But He will most certainly want to talk to us about how these true or false reports are shaping our trust in Him, and our love toward others. Make sense?
The second living and active reality that He’s using to shape the Bride is His own Word.
Paul writes: “He (Jesus) sanctifies her, and cleanses her by THE WASHING OF WATER WITH THE WORD, that He might present to Himself the Church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.” (Ephesians 5:26-27)
Jesus uses both the crises in our world, and our daily, disciplined commitment to engage Him in prayerful dialogue with His Word, and in this kinetic mixture, He shows us how He leads, how He redeems, how He analyzes, how He rewards, and how He purges humanity, and the human spirit. And then He calls you and I, His Bride, to agree in prayer with Him about the ways and the intents of His government.
It’s in this turbulent forge that our Bridegroom King forms and purifies our thoughts, responses, attitudes, countenance, and will. As we bring our outrage, passivity, temptations, and promises in the context of these worldly, national and personal crises into His courts, with truthfulness, a spirit of yieldedness, a dash of expectation, and a will that is prepared to give Him the gift of repentance, He is faithful to remove the impediments (the spots, wrinkles, and blemishes) so that His authority can freely work in, and through our lives. This is how we, the Bride, are conformed to His Image. This is what it means to be aligned to the “true righteousness” (v.13) that He will manifest on the earth when the fulness of His Kingdom comes. We do this by faith, now, in anticipation of it fully coming when He comes. And this is, according to 2 Peter 3:12, (wonder of wonders) how we “hasten the coming” of that Day – His Day – when He rules in our physical presence!
Until that Day comes, 2 Peter 3 tells us to “wait” three times! This is an exhortation to a.) abide in, and not lose touch with this truth, b.) to walk in growing patience and peaceable confidence in the Lord, and what He is accomplishing, and to c.) give ourselves to these conforming dynamics with abandon.
However, the Kingdom of God is always a paradox. In the context of patiently “waiting”, v.14 also charges us to “strive”. (This paradox keeps us from turning the dynamics of the Lord into a math equation – and keeps us close, and reliant upon the nimble, intimate, breath-by-breath leadership of the Spirit.) It is by the Spirit that we “strive” toward coming to the place of “peace” with the Lord’s Bridal purification process. We are in His more than sufficient Hands. We belong to Him. We are in His care. He knows how to get ahold of us. He has our number. He knows how to call us out. He isn’t perplexed about how to bring you, your family, your Bible-study group, your community, and your nation into agreement with His ways. v.14 is the Spirit’s loud encouragement to “TRUST THE KING’S PROCESS!” He will bring us forth, into His Presence, without “spot” or “blemish”; purified; like a sacrificial lamb; ready to be offered up to Him; wholly yielded to His majestic reign.
This is His goal: that we come forth, by His power, united to Him, and each other, loving Him and His ways with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. (Mark 12:30)
This has massive implications for HOW WE “DO CHURCH”. It underscores the vital necessity that we become a people of daily, reliant PRAYER. WITHOUT BEING MUCH IN PRAYER THE BRIDE WILL NEITHER BEHOLD NOR YIELD OUR HEART AND OUR WAYS TO THE LORD’S REFINING WORK. NOR WILL WE LEARN TO WALK IN THE AUTHORITY OF HIS DIVINE ORDER.
This brings us to the other side of the coin. And it is the reason that spurs the apostle Peter to write these injunctions in the first place. Should we neglect, and/or withdraw from Jesus’ capable, prayerful, purifying process; should we instead, give ourselves to spiraling conspiracies, spouting our own opinions, -becoming rigid in our carnal thoughts, we will not come forth in mature love. We will actually come forth with a mutant love – shaped by our world, the devil, and our own corrupt soul. Perhaps, (or perhaps not) filled with “Christian-sounding” rhetoric – but no substance, and no fruit.
When we neglect Jesus’ prayerful, purifying process, and instead, give ourselves to spiraling conspiracies, opinions, and rigid carnal thoughts, we will not come forth in mature love. we will come forth with a mutant love.
The wretched truth of the matter is, when we refuse to give ourselves to His ongoing refining process, we are in essence saying to Jesus: “WE REALLY DON’T LOVE YOUR RULE AND REIGN in our world. We would rather continue to have our own way, under our own power, than have You remove the SPOTS and BLEMISHES from our hearts… We’d rather You NOT do what You want to do to manifest Your vibrant RIGHTEOUSNESS through our lives.”
This is the spirit of antipathy. This is the spirit Peter calls us to “strive” against. This posture will produce endless enmity (and never “PEACE”) in our lives. And, truth-be-told, it is the sentiment, and slant that accounts for SO MUCH of the hostility in the Church today.
Beloved, the Lord is not relenting. He will not let us sleep-walk through the fires that He has kindled in our world. He is a holy-disturber of our “false peace” Who is making every provision for us to be aligned to Himself, in joyful unanimity with His Kingdom.
Let’s go into the place of prayer, and wholly give ourselves to His refining process. Let’s hasten the return of our King!
“Each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.” (1 Corinthians 3:13-15)
The FIRE of the Lord is SO COMPASSIONATELY UPON the Church in America right now. And the heart of our God is for our good, our nobility, and for our blessing. He’s especially bringing His judgment FIRE to MAGA leaders and believers.
Today, who has eyes to see beyond the headlines? Who has the moldable will to yield, celebrate, bring everything in, bow down, surrender, be illuminated, purged and re-empowered by our God’s heavenly FIRE?
Beloved. His heart is for redemption, FOR EVERYONE WHO ENTERS INTO HIS FIRE!
For the last year, the Lord has been speaking to our household from Isaiah 1, telling us that this day was coming. Here are five truths about the FIRE of the LORD from Isaiah 1:27-31
THE FIRE OF THE LORD IS ABOUT REDEMPTION v. 27 Zion shall be redeemed with justice, and her penitents with righteousness. The Lord is moving proactively, by His own sovereign will to REDEEM His covenant people; those who already belong to Him. No one has earned this. It’s His initiative. It’s coming from His zeal to war against the UNRIGHTEOUSNESS that’s threatening His people. He promises to REDEEM our UNRIGHTEOUSNESS with His RIGHTEOUSNESS if we merely come to Him in REPENTANCE. This is the FIRE of His ZEAL TO REDEEM.
THE FIRE OF THE LORD DESTROYS ALL THAT IS IN OPPOSITION TO THE LORD v. 28 The destruction of transgressors and of sinners shall be together, and those who forsake the Lord shall be consumed. There is also a DESTRUCTIVE nature to His FIRE. The Word of the Lord promises it will CONSUME those who “FORSAKE THE LORD”, meaning those who refuse to REPENT, who refuse to become PENITENT, and will not let the Lord REDEEM them from UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. We “FORSAKE THE LORD”, when we don’t come to Him for REDEMPTION. He is the God of Redemption. If His people will not let Him REDEEM them, He knows (much like the children of Israel in the desert) the FIRE that’s on the earth will DESTROY them in their TRANSGRESSION and SIN.
THE FIRE OF THE LORD ILLUMINATES AND EXPOSES v. 29 For they shall be ashamed of the terebinth trees which you have desired; and you shall be embarrassed because of the gardens which you have chosen. The FIRE of the Lord is illuminating the foolishness of man’s DESIRES, right now. In the light of the Lord’s FIRE, it’s showing millions and millions of hearts how deceived, foolish, and ultimately, how destructive their hearts’ inclinations really have been. This illumination naturally breeds SHAME and ignominy. But it isn’t a SHAME that shuts one up in condemnation. It’s a SHAME that’s meant to serve as an internal alarm that screams, “run into the shelter of the Lord! Don’t cover yourself with fig leaves in the GARDEN you’ve chosen. Go to the Lord for His covering in the ‘sure mercies of David.'” (Isaiah 55:3). He has no desire for us to experience SHAME any longer than we need. He’s made every provision for our idolatrous hearts, through the lovingkindness of His Son’s own blood. THIS IS IMPORTANT! When the Lord’s FIRE illuminates what you’ve been believing, and what you see causes you to be conscience-stricken regarding where you’ve CHOSEN to put your hope, let even a tinge of SHAME be a sign that the Father is compelling you to be clothed in the righteousness of His Son.
The tinge of shame, or disappointment that you feel when the truth of your champion is being illuminated is actually an internal invitation to come into the Lord’s shelter of cleansing grace while the fire passes through the ranks.
THE FIRE OF THE LORD COMES WITH PERFECT PATIENCE v. 30 For you shall be as a terebinth whose leaf fades, and as a garden that has no water. The TEREBINTH tree is one of the most hearty, resilient, draught-resistant trees in the world. The Lord is saying that those who refuse to come to Him, are like this tree. Although they can “hold out” for long periods of time, they cannot outlast the patience of the Lord. He is saying to them: “If you continue to spurn My invitation, and if we DON’T “reason together” about your adultery, I promise you, you will eventually become like a WITHERING TEREBINTH tree.” The Lord prophesies, He Himself will withhold the life-giving RAIN from the GARDEN where their false beliefs, values and ideologies are being grown.
THE FIRE OF THE LORD IS INESCAPEABLE v. 31 The strong shall be as tinder, and the work of it as a spark; both will burn together, and no one shall quench them. The Lord promises/warns that even the STRONGEST of men will not be able to withstand the illuminating, consuming, heat of His FIRE that’s falling upon us. We should not be deluded into believing that our STRONGEST narratives, prophetic words, ardent work or human emotions will be safe from the Lord’s FIRE. The STRONGEST WILL BURN. NO MAN will be able to QUENCH the Lord’s FIRE. This is meant to engender a healthy, necessary fear of the power of the Lord’s FIRE, that drives EVERYONE into deep, honest conversations with the Lord about the nature of our sinful, and idolatrous ways.
Friends, the SPARKS of what will eventually CONSUME MAGA are flying. Through the heat of scrutiny over our President’s character, his previous life, and a number of theological/ideological schisms within the ranks, the TINDER in this movement is being set ablaze. Much like His Word to Judah through Jeremiah, the Lord is actually calling our family to seek shelter WITHIN THE FLAMES THEMSELVES, so that He can purify our ways, and establish us in the eternal hope found in Isaiah 1.
Again. Should we continue to avoid Him, know that as more and more is exposed, and you feel increasing SHAME over what you’ve been championing, understand that the remorse, the indignity, and the disrepute are all gracious, internal signs that God is summoning you into the eternal security of His FIRE.
Today is a good day to enter into the fire of the Lord, and pray: “Father, redeem me, purify me, and consume me. I want all that I am to be wholly Your’s – with longevity, depth, authentically, and without reservation.”
Proclaim this among the nations: “Prepare for war!” (Joel 3:9)
One of the two greatest crises of the soul is fast approaching our MAGA brothers and sisters in Christ. Faster than I would like to believe. Right now, the topics of Antisemitism, Zionism, the nature of Islam related to the God of Abraham, Replacement theology, etc. are steaming through a plethora of statements, debates, exposes, and teachings from Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Nick Fuentes, Joel Webbon, Glenn Beck, and thousands of evangelical leaders – unlike any time in the history of the American Church. THE controversy of the nations: “WHAT ABOUT ISRAEL?”, is about to reach a boiling point within the ranks of Christian Nationalism.
Here’s the alarm: When Donald Trump finally turns on Israel, MAGA believers will be confronted with the consequences of the decisions and talking points that they’re cultivating now. Will they act in fidelity to the God of the Bible Who is pressing His character through the affairs of this tiny nation? Or will they (once again, as they have with Canada, Mexico, Greenland, the Ukraine, Denmark, Panama, NATO etc.) come up with a defense for Trump’s storylines, and take up this man’s offense against Israel?
It’s coming. As sure as every part of the Bible is true, it’s coming, friends.
What makes this inevitable internal, “anfechtungen” most alarming is this:
1. MAGA has spent nearly every day of the last decade developing spin redactions and apologetics to defend Trump’s outrageous unrighteousness. That’s a LOT of gravity to go against. I believe the devil has purposefully accrued this inertia for the sake of ultimately bending the will of many sincere MAGA Christians re: Israel when all the chips are on the table… in spite of the fact that millions now ardently protest: “But we will never betray you, Israel.” In the day of great threat and temptation, MAGA will walk in the pattern of deception, and have cultivated no integrity of will to stand against this lawless man’s hot displeasure.
2. The second alarm deals with the realty that it is God Himself Who is going to be behind the crux of this confrontation. (See Joel 3 below) MAGA won’t be fighting against political opposition. It will be wrestling with God Himself. It is His penultimate test to the faith of the Bride. “Will you stand with your Bridegroom, and with Israel? Will you believe My promises for Zion are true? Will you even let go of your fascination with an unrighteous leader in order to remain champions of My heart, My expressed plan, and My vision for the redemption of the people of this land, and the nations?”
This is the way the question will be framed: “Will you betray MAGA? Or will you betray Israel?”
It’s coming, beloved. As crazy as it seems that a controversy over this one, small, resilient people-group could embroil the whole earth, it’s coming…
AND, it’s coming to a church near you.
JOEL 3:9-21 9 Proclaim this among the nations: “Prepare for war! Wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near, let them come up. 10 Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, ‘I am strong.’ ” 11 Assemble and come, all you nations, and gather together all around. Cause Your mighty ones to go down there, O Lord. 12 “Let the nations be wakened, and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; for there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations. 13 Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, go down; for the winepress is full, the vats overflow – for their wickedness is great.” 14 Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. 15 The sun and moon will grow dark, and the stars will diminish their brightness. 16 The Lord also will roar from Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem; the heavens and earth will shake; but the Lord will be a shelter for His people, and the strength of the children of Israel. 17 “So you shall know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Zion My holy mountain. Then Jerusalem shall be holy, and no aliens shall ever pass through her again.” 18 And it will come to pass in that day that the mountains shall drip with new wine, the hills shall flow with milk, and all the brooks of Judah shall be flooded with water; a fountain shall flow from the house of the Lord and water the Valley of Acacias. 19 “Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom a desolate wilderness, because of violence against the people of Judah, for they have shed innocent blood in their land. 20 But Judah shall abide forever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation. 21 For I will acquit them of the guilt of bloodshed, whom I had not acquitted; for the Lord dwells in Zion.”
The Holy Spirit is leading millions of believers around the world to accelerate intercession for Israel, and agree with the eternal promises that He has established with the sons of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
7 Reasons to Pray for Israel
1. We believe the best thing that could happen in the Middle East is for millions of both Jews and Arabs to make covenant with the God of the Bible, through the blood atonement of His Son, Y’shua of Nazareth.
2. When the Lord touches the Jewish people with salvation through their Messiah, the whole earth will be provoked to wonder and receptivity re the unique claims of Y’shua.
3. The Lord is serious about intercession. He wants His own people (the Church) to partner with Him as He accomplishes His promises on the earth. He wants us to read about them in the Word, believe that He wants to do them, and then pray with faith, believing that He will do what He’s promised to do.
4. The more we look into the scriptures and see His heart for Israel (and the Middle East), and the more we understand Israel’s key role in the end times of this age, the more the Church will “purify” ourselves (1 John 3:3) “make ourselves ready” (Revelation 19:7) and “hasten the return” of Y’shua to the land.
5. We pray knowing the hearts of billions are gradually being drawn into intense contro-versy (Jeremiah 25:31) with the Lord re the promises that the Father has made to the Jewish people re His Son, Y’shua of Nazareth.
6. We pray out of respect and gratitude for what our “older brother” (Israel) has endured in order to display the love, the mercy, the faithfulness and the holiness of the Lord.
7. Praying for Israel prepares our hearts to learn how to yield, and trust, and celebrate the reign of a real Jewish Man Whose Kingdom is meant to be established in real human hearts, in preparation for His ultimate expected earthly reign in the Millennium.
NOTE: When we pray for Israel, we’re praying for the Jewish and Arabic-speaking people living in the Promised Land as well the Jewish people living in the nations (the Diaspora).
Scripture Prayers for Israel Listed below are numerous prayers we can confidently pray for Israel that come directly from the Word of God.
1. Father of glory, APPOINT WATCHMEN, who will stand on the walls of Jerusalem, WHO WILL PRAY ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT. Give them grace to never keep silent.(Isaiah 62:6)2. Father of glory, how shall they hear without a preacher?RAISE UP REACHERS AND SEND THEM FORTH. As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring the glad tidings of good things!” (Romans 10:14-15)
3. Father of glory, POUR ON THE HOUSE OF DAVIDand on the inhabitants of Jerusalem THE SPIRIT OF GRACE AND SUPPLICATION; let them they behold Your Son today whom they pierced. Cause them to mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn. (Zechariah 12:10)
4. “THE LORD BLESS YOU AND KEEP YOU [Israel]; the LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:23-26)
5. Father of glory, speak the Name of Your Son, Y’shua to Israel. “SAY TO THE DAUGHTER OF ZION, ‘SURELY YOUR SALVATION IS COMING… and His work before Him.’”(Isaiah 62:11) 6. Father of glory, ARISE AND HAVE MERCY ON ZION.. SO THE NATIONS SHALL FEAR THE NAME OF THE LORD… build up Zion; appear in Your glory… that a people may praise the LORD. Look down from the height of Your sanctuary… and hear the groaning of the prisoner, release those appointed to death, and declare the name of the LORD Your Son, Y’shua… and His praise throughout Jerusalem… (Psalm 102:13-21)
7. Father of glory, POUR OUT YOUR SPIRIT ON ALL FLESH; cause sons and daughters to prophesy. Cause old men to dream dreams, and young men to see visions… Show them wonders in the heavens and in the earth… Turn the sun into darkness, and the moon into blood. Let all of Israel know that whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. Assure them that on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance… among the remnant whom You call.” (Joel 2:15-32)
8. Father of glory, cause Your face to shine on Your sanctuary… Incline Your ear and hear; open Your eyes and see our desolations, and the city which is called by Your name… because of Your great mercies. O, LORD HEAR! O, LORD FORGIVE! O, LORD LISTEN AND ACT! Do not delay – for Your city and Your people are called by Your name.” (Daniel 9:4-19)
9. Father of glory, LET ALL OF ISRAEL SEE THE GLORY OF THE LORD, THE EXCELLENCY OF THEIR GOD.Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are fearful-hearted, “Be strong, do not fear! Behold, your God… will come and save you.”Open the eyes of the blind, and unstop the ears of the deaf. Cause the lame to leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb to sing… (Isaiah 35:1-9)
10. Father of glory, for Zion’s sake DO NOT HOLD YOUR PEACE, and for Jerusalem’s sake do not rest, UNITL HER RIGHTEOUSNESS GOES FORTH LIKE BRIGHTNESS… (Isaiah 62:1-2)
11. Father of glory, RAISE UP THE TABERNACLE OF DAVID, which has fallen down… Raise up its ruins, and rebuild it… that they may possess the remnant of Edom, and all the Gentiles who are called by Your name… (Amos 9:11-12)
12. Father of glory, cause Your backsliding children to return… Remind them that You are married to them… Bring them to Zion.GIVE TO THEM SHEPHERDS AFTER YOUR HEART, who will feed them with knowledge and understanding… (Jeremiah 3:14-17)
13. Father of glory, RELEASE SINGERS THROUGHOUT ISRAEL WHO SHALL SING; FOR THE MAJESTY OF THE LORDand shall cry aloud… glorifying the LORD in the dawning light… Let the ends of the earth hear their songs: “Glory to the righteous!” (Isaiah 24:14-16)
14. Father of glory, LEAVE IN THEIR MIDST A MEEK AND HUMBLE PEOPLE… a remnant of Israel that does no unrighteousness… Cause all of Zion to Sing…rejoice… as You cast out their enemy. O King of Israel… be in their midst… (Zephaniah 3:12-15)
15. Father of glory, SHEPHERD YOUR PEOPLE… the flock of Your heritage. As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt, show them wonders. Cause the nations to be ashamed of their might… and to be afraid of the LORD… (Micah 7:14-17)
16. Father of glory, SAVE ALL OF ISRAEL. Cause them to look to You, and be saved… Tell them that You have sworn by Yourself; the Word has gone out of Your mouth in righteousness… Assure them that to You every knee shall bow, every tongue shall take an oath. Let them know that surely in You they have righteousness and strength. (Isaiah 45:17-24)
17. Father of glory, let wisdom and knowledge be the stability of Israel’s times, and the strength of their salvation. Show them that the fear of the LORD is their Messiah’s treasure… Arise, O LORD… CAUSE THEIR EYES TO SEE THEIR KING IN HIS BEAUTY. (Isaiah 33:17)
5 years ago, the American church rebelled against the judgments of the Lord in our land. In 2025, the Lord is shouting Isaiah 1 to us, telling us that our stubbornness is making us increasingly hostile towards Him and His end-times purposes on the earth.
“Alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity… they have forsaken the Lord, they have turned away backward. Why should you be stricken again? You are blatant in your rebellion.” (Isaiah 1:4-5)
ROUND 1 In 2020, (through COVID, race-riots, and election controversy) the Lord brought numerous judgments to our American way of life. And although the purpose for His judgments was to reward, as well as refine, the American church’s response to these pressure-points was mostly “revolt” and “insurrection”. We did not learn to humble ourselves. We did not come to Him in need, in brokenness and repentance, and “learn righteousness” (which is what Isaiah 26:9 tells us the Lord’s judgments are meant to afford us). Instead we clothed ourselves in layers of conspiracy, concocting self-saving narratives that desensitized our hearts from righteousness, and caused us to “go backwards” (Isaiah 1:4) from the ways of the Lord.
ROUND 2 Two years ago, the Lord exposed hundreds of cases of spiritual and sexual abuse within the western church, bringing His purging fire upon an epidemic of corrupt leadership within His House. This judgment contained a corporate call to Joel 2 repentance unlike anything ever seen in American Christianity. And although Joel 1:2 exhorts “the elders” to lead the people to the place of honest humility, the majority-response of the fathers in the house was to point fingers, write reports, write self-saving rebuttals, hide, wrap ourselves in social media litigation, redact our histories, and rebrand. There was no trumpet set to the mouth. (Joel 2:1) and no concerted thrust to bring our family to the threshing floor of the Lord. It was a massive, and obstinate failure of leadership.
Throughout these many episodes, our family has resoundingly chosen pretense, over being purified. And the pretense we’ve allowed to germinate in our soul has become a petrie-dish of the devil.
ROUND 3 Consequently, in the fall of 2025, the Body of Christ in America finds herself proudly clothed in fig-leaves, instead of adorned with the sure mercies of the Lord – brandishing the counterfeit gospel of “hostile selfism”, that waves sin away without repentance, despises Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, and refuses to bear a cross for His preeminent glory.
Our stiff-necked refusal to let the Lord deal with the reality of our perversion and unrighteousness, has left us tremendously defenseless to a delusional spirit. Without coming into the light of His holy gaze, our household has no way of discerning the beguiling trickery of the flesh, and she is left hostage to a ravenous lust for power, and supremacy within our society – spirits that always spell “insurrection” against the ways of Christ.
In the place where true prophets would pierce the spirits of the age, and call the church to surrender to the fear of the Lord, false prophets titillate the people of God with gilded promises designed to entrench them deeper and deeper in self-determined fantasy, and falsehood.
Last November, (2024) the Lord supernaturally visited our house of prayer with the message of Isaiah 1, and told us of a holy fire that was about to visit our land; a judgment from the Lord that would strike the people of God with even more intensity than those in 2020.
Contained within this Word of warning, the also Lord issued a gracious invitation from Isaiah 1:18-19, “Come now, and let us debate your case,” says the Lord, “Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall become as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool.”
Over this past year, our house of prayer has taken the Lord up on His invitation, prayerfully allowing the Spirit to show us where and how His Words in this chapter apply to the sticky issues in our heart, and our family’s current relationship to the Lord.
In Isaiah 1, the Lord identifies the root essence of the people’s unbending refusal to come to Him in five ways…
1. He calls our stubbornness, a “BETRAYAL and REBELLION” (Isaiah 1:2-4) of the ways of the Lord. And to betray God, is always to fall in league with the enemy of our souls. Under the sway of a spirit of “betrayal”, we increasingly see the “commands of the Lord” (Matthew 28:20 essentials for all authentic disciples) as “optional”. And what becomes “optional” to us, ultimately gets twisted into being perceived as “inconvenient”, and “non-expedient”, until we are found in full disagreement with our King, and the ways of His Kingdom.
2. The Lord calls our stubbornness, a “CORRUPTION” (Isaiah 1:4) of our heart that keeps us from a tender, humble, and nimble responsiveness to the Word of the Lord. Being corrupted from His intimate counsel perverts and distorts our thinking and reasoning about any number of important Kingdom issues in our world. Not only are our views about righteousness corrupted, our relationship to others, and our witness to a curse-riddled world is corrupted, deficient, and lacking both transparent truth-telling, and vulnerable grace-giving.
3. The Lord calls our stubbornness, “SICKNESS” (Isaiah 1:5-6). This is a two-fold condition whereby being racked with a feverish, delusional disease, we don’t come to the Lord to let Him treat the wounds of our relational iniquities, or the sores that are eating away at our flesh. Consequently, our ways, that were meant to be healthy, warm, compassionate, and meek, become deformed, putrid, rigid and cold.
4. The Lord calls our stubbornness, “EVIL” (Isaiah 1:16). What began with “tolerance for the lesser of two evils”, has caused us to become blind and deaf to the evil of our own ways, to the point that, just like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, we manifest a brooding defensiveness of the evil that we’ve allowed to grow up within ourselves.
5. The Lord calls our stubbornness to come to Him, “PROSTITUTION” (Isaiah 1:21). We refuse to come into the tent of the Father, precisely because we are still too busy entertaining other lovers who promise us security, adulation, comfort, and pleasure. We play “fast and loose” with our covenant to God, and His Son, assuming we can remain “married” to Him, while also joining ourselves to other men, movements, parties and ideologies…
Days ago, New Yorkers elected a virulent, antiZionist, Muslim man to become the mayor of America’s largest city. In Mamdani’s rise to power over a true “nerve-center” of our society – the home to our nation’s financial structure, I believe we’re witnessing the fulfillment of another portion of the Isaiah 1 prophecy. Unfortunately, even as many evangelical, orthodox, and Messianic leaders have rightly sounded the alarm about Zohran Mamdani (see *footnote quotes below), the accompanying “call to action” has (once again) been to fester in our hatred, and become more strident in our political opposition.
The Word of God clearly tells us that a big reason cities (ie. New York city) are DEVOURED and OVERTHROWN by STRANGERS (ie. Mr. Mamdani) is because the covenant people of God (ie. evangelical followers of Christ) resist God’s call to repentance, defend their EVIL ways, and refuse to let the Lord purge them of their rebellion, corruption, sickness, and evil prostitution.
“Alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corrupters! They have forsaken the Lord… and their wounds have not been closed or bound up, or soothed with ointment…Therefore, your CITIES are DEVOURED BY STRANGERS in your presence; and they are DESOLATE, as OVERTHROWN BY STRANGERS.” (Isaiah 1:4, 6-7)
Stated clearly: the solution to the threat of radical Islam (as well as other dangers contained in Isaiah 1) isn’t so much dependent upon how the pagans vote in the election booth, as it is upon how the household of God does (or does not do) business with the Father on His threshing-floor.
Beloved. The Lord is saying: “If you will not allow me to break this stubbornness off of you, I promise, this stubbornness WILL break you.”
Throughout 1980, in defiance of all the seismologists warnings about the impending eruption of Mount St. Helens in southern Washington, one intransigent man named Harry R. Truman mulishly chose to remain in the life that he’d known on the side of the mountain, rather than be evacuated to safety. Inevitably, on the fateful day of May 8, the volcano exploded with the force of 1600 atomic bombs, forever burying Mr. Truman in ash.
This is a parable for the message of Joel, and Isaiah. Unless we push pause on our status quo, humble ourselves, and seek shelter within the mercy and ways of the Lord, our stubbornness will cause us to be swallowed up in the current fire that’s now upon us.
“Those who forsake the Lord shall be consumed… The strong shall be as tinder, and the work of it as a spark; both will burn together, and no one shall quench them.” (Isaiah 1:28, 31)
Is there hope? Absolutely. This short message is a call to true hope in the Word of the Lord. But our delusion has grown deep, pervasive and supernaturally headstrong. We will only live into that Spirit-borne hope as we embrace the place of abasement in the courts of the Holy One.
But we need to come. He will not tolerate a Bride who is filled with rebellion, corruption, sickness, evil and prostitution when He returns.
“Come now, and let us debate your case,” says the Lord, “Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall become as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool. 19 If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best of the land; 20 but if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.” For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. (Isaiah 1:18-20)
____________________ JSB • November (Edited), 2025
*FOUR NOTES RE: MAMDANI ONE Zhran Mamdani is a long-time member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) which has openly, and often-stated its intent to enact the following extreme anti-Israel policies for the governing of New York City: • Divest City pension funds from Israeli bonds and securities • Withdraw City funds from banks that lend money to Israel or do business in Israel • End City contracts with companies that do business with Israel • Operate City-run grocery stores free from Israeli products • Investigate real estate agents hosting illegal sales of stolen lands in the West Bank • Evict weapons manufacturers and transporters from the NYC Metro Area • Remove non-profit status from charities that raise funds for IDF • Divest CUNY endowment and reinstate wrongly fired professors • Dismantle Eric Adam’s NYC-Israel economic council • End NYPD training with IOF End repression of demonstrators and the SRG • Arrest Netanyahu and active IDF soldiers for war crimes
TWO On October 8, 2023 (one day after the horrific October 7 attacks) Mamdani tweeted the following: “Statement on ongoing violence in Israel and Palestine: I mourn the hundreds of people killed across Israel and Palestine in the last 36 hours. Netanyahu’s declaration of war, the Israeli government’s decision to cut electricity to Gaza, and Knesset members calling for another Nakba will undoubtedly lead to more violence and suffering in the days and weeks to come. The path toward a just and lasting peace can only begin by ending the occupation and dismantling apartheid.”
THREE Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove is the highly respected leader of Park Avenue Synagogue in New York City’s Upper East Side. On Shabbat October 18, 2025 he gave what might be the most important sermon in his life. Here are some brief excerpts: “To be clear, unequivocal, and on the record: I believe Zohran Mamdani poses a danger to the security of New York Jewish community. Mamdani’s refusal to condemn inciteful slogans like “globalize the intifada,” his denial of Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state, and his many long-standing calls to support BDS, make him a danger to the Jewish body politic of New York. Zionism, Israel, Jewish self-determination – these are not political preferences or partisan talking points. They are constituent building blocks and inseparable strands of my Jewish identity. To accept me as a Jew but to ask me to check my concern for the people and State of Israel at the door is as nonsensical a proposition as it is offensive – no different than asking me to reject God, Torah, mitzvot, or any other pillar of my faith. Mamdani’s distinction between accepting Jews and denying a Jewish state is not merely rhetorical sleight of hand or political naivete, though it is, to be clear, both of those things. His doing so is to traffic in the most dangerous of tropes, an anti-Zionist rhetoric that, as we have seen time and again – in Washington, in Colorado, in ways both small and large, online and in person – has given rise to deadly antisemitic violence. This past summer, you may recall, at the Glastonbury Music Festival in England, the crowd erupted into chants of “Death to the IDF.” Where exactly would a Mamdani administration stand should that happen next summer in a concert on Governors Island, or in Central Park? Today, as I have before, I am throwing a flag on the field and calling out a threat to the Jewish people five minutes early rather than risk being five minutes too late.”
FOUR Mamdani is a “stranger” to the covenant promises of the God of the Bible. AND, he is a danger to the Jewish people, New York’s support of the Jewish state, and by extension, the purposes of the Christian’s “King”, Y’shua of Nazareth, as He marshals His return to the earth. The salient question for us is this: “WHY is this man now where he is?” More pointedly, “WHAT IS THERE IN US, that has put him in a place where he may “OVERTHROW” God’s purposes for the city of New York, the Jewish people, and Zion, the throne of Y’shua’s ultimate reign?“
The Babylon of the end of the age is Sodom with all the wealth, and commerce of the nations. It’s the consummate picture of the unfettered, dominant, excess-driven human heart. Babylon will be God’s way of showing all of human history: “See? This is who humanity will continually tend to become, apart from yielding to the reign of My Son.”
Babylon is the spirit that refuses restraint; the natural spirit that lies within every one of us. Babylon is a mirror to our own uncrucified soul when we have all the wealth, all the power, all the freedom, and all the unifying potential to do, create, say, conspire, and believe anything we want. Babylon is the unsurrendered rich, young ruler on demonic steroids.
There’s never been a generation on the earth that’s fit this category more than us.
If this IS the hour of Jesus’ return, Bible believers need to spend much less time wondering “Who is the antiChrist?” – and MUCH MORE TIME inquiring of the Lord: “How are we (how am I) operating in the spirit of Babylon?”
Instead, the Church (who claims to be experiencing great revival) is found blindly, and with seared consciences, trumpeting the dominion of Babylon.
The difference between the court prophets in Jeremiah’s day, and the court prophets in our own day is that in Jeremiah’s day, the court prophets saw Babylon as the looming threat to Judah, and the covenant people of God. The court prophets in our day make no distinction between Babylon and the Kingdom of our God and King – and patently refuse to stand up to a Babylon who even claims to have the power to “save God” Himself – while they heartily defend and take part in her excesses.
Friends. This is about SO MUCH MORE than politics. It’s an MRI into what’s at work within our souls. Where are the people of God who will come to the Lord in an hour of propaganda, and lavish abundance and ask, “Holy Spirit, show us our ‘whoredom’!”??
SPIRIT WORD & CROSS 