THE RISE OF FALSE KINGDOM TEACHING THROUGH TWO RESTORATIONS

     Earlier in our study, we noted five precedents for patterns that were established when Old Israel reverted back to babylonianism. One of these was the rise of a counterfeit kingdom message. By redefining the purpose of God's People  in babylonian terms, this message could give the babylonian-at-heart people justification for living "like the nations" while allowing them to profess faithfulness to the way of faith. We saw how the Jews failed to receive Messiah Jesus because they redefined the prophetic promises to expect a king like Nimrod. Later, we saw how the Gospel of the Kingdom was redefined to allow the Church to cohabit with the Roman Empire in the name of establishing the kingdom of God.

     The development of false kingdom teaching has been a master stroke of genius on satan's part. It has allowed him over the centuries to garner from the ranks of his most dangerous opposition his best allies in promoting world collectivism - all without their knowing it. The strategy of subverting God's People through false kingdom teaching has done more to bring the world under complete collectivization than the overt effort of any single empire.

     During the true Gospel's 470 year Restoration from the total darkness induced by counterfeit teaching, false kingdom teaching has not remained dormant. With each degree of Restoration, the spirit of this teaching has redoubled its efforts to keep the Church bound to Her remaining ties to fixed society. In our last section, we saw how the Church has gained gradual freedom from the political works of babylonian society. In this section we will observe how that, in the wake of Her freedom from political works, the Church has become more enslaved to the works of human economy and social community through false kingdom teaching.

False Kingdom Teaching: Reformation Brand

     Through the Reformation, the first degree Kingdom Gospel was recovered - spiritual salvation from the wages of sin.¹ This recovery broke the power of the totally false kingdom message of the Roman Catholic Empire which identified the (Holy) Roman Empire as the kingdom of God. But because the Reformers recovered only the first degree of the Gospel and remained enslaved to the dead works of that empire, their teaching concerning the kingdom of God spelled a new mixture of truth and error that left behind an even more insidious brand of false teaching than the one out of which they had recovered.

     The Reformers had restored the truth that only those who are saved by grace from sin's penalty constitute the true kingdom of God in the earth. But they still believed in the dead works of collectivized society, including union of Church with state-babylonianism. Instead of pressing on in kingdom truth to break free from those works, they mixed their seed truth concerning God's kingdom with their remaining darkness. They extended their definition of God's kingdom to include the church-states inhabited by the saved. They said in essence:

     "The kingdom of God is a nation like the nations except that all or most of its people are saved by faith and its rulers are saved and in good standing with the National Church."

     Because of the truth in this definition which recognizes the essentially spiritual nature of God's kingdom, true believers were made more loyal to babylonian society and government rather than freer from it. Therefore this form of false kingdom teaching was more captivating and harder to break than the more obvious total lie of the Roman Church-state message. It gave rise to the indelible false term "Christian nations" applied to the various European church-states of the Reformers. Today, Christianity in the western world is still held in the grips of this lie. What is more, this "reformed brand" of false kingdom teaching became instrumental in bringing the drive for world collectivization to new reaches throughout the earth.

A New World Headquarters for False Kingdom Teaching

     In the 1620's (one century after the Reformation began), certain spiritual descendants of the Reformers called "Puritans" left Europe to establish new colonies on the shores of North America (- a land which to that time had almost never seen a fixed society and to which the drive for globalism had hardly reached). With them, the Puritans imported the reformed brand of false kingdom teaching. They intended to build from scratch what in their minds was the "pure" kingdom of God. (This was in contrast to the European "kingdoms of God" which were converted from originally pagan societies.)

     For establishing their new fixed society, the Puritans took as their model Old Israel. They called their settlement "New Israel" saying, "We are a citty set on a hill." In so saying they failed to realize that the "citty" they were fashioning themselves to be was babylonian at root, contrary to the way of faith, and therefore NOT the true kingdom of God. The "New Israel" they thought themselves to be was molded after that Israel which had sown the seeds for her own destruction by becoming a fixed society like the nations. In establishing themselves after that model, the Puritans likewise planted the seeds for the destruction of their society.

     No, the Puritans did not establish the kingdom of God on earth. They did not advance the way of the true "pilgrim" Abraham nor fulfil the Great Commission. Instead, through their deceived kingdom teaching, they unwittingly became the instruments for bringing the satanic drive for world collectivization to the New World. In the name of God's kingdom, they advanced the kingdom of God's enemy.

     By transplanting their reformed brand of false kingdom teaching to a virgin land which had not known the evil of collective society, the Puritans served to give this teaching a new world prominence. The major world focus of false kingdom teaching shifted from Europe to America.  By its prominence, this form of teaching became rooted in Christian thought as it otherwise would not have. To this day, American babylonian government and society have been confused with the kingdom of God in the minds of the Church and the world more than any other nation. Today, the teaching which identifies the United States government as the kingdom of God permeates the thinking of many quarters of American Christianity and is enshrined in that particular doctrine called "Anglo-American Israelism". The greatest manifestation of the continued force of the Puritans' teaching is the slavish involvement of the Church in the political affairs of the United States.

     Why were the Puritans so deceived? It is because within their false teaching they possessed the seed of truth that recognizes the intrinsic spiritual nature of the kingdom of God. Most of them had personally entered the first degree of kingdom salvation by grace recovered through the Reformation. To that degree, they truly were (part of) the kingdom of God. But this did not make their collective society Christian nor their church-state government the manifest kingdom of God in the earth.

     Perhaps the deep, tragic irony in all this is that the declared purpose for starting this colony was to reach the native Indians with "the Gospel". But in reality, the lifestyle of the loosely knit, roaming Indian tribes was much closer in practice to the way of faith than that of the babylonian "Puritans" who possessed the letter of it.²  The Indians lived after the purest tradition of man before Nimrod. Except for their lack of true spiritual life through Jesus Christ, they were actually a truer model for the kingdom of God in the earth than either Old Israel, the Puritans, or any society in the West called "Christian" over the preceding 1300 years to that time! At the end, instead of converting the Indians to faith in Jesus Christ, the Puritans either destroyed them or absorbed them into their collectivized society.

     From this point, our study of false kingdom teaching centres on the United States of America. Because of the initial transplanting of false kingdom teaching to America with the Puritans, and because God's further works of Restoration  centred in His People in America, all the central developments of false kingdom teaching occur in the context of American babylonian society.

American False Kingdom Teaching and the Holiness-Pentecostal Restoration

     Despite the special deceptiveness of the reformed false kingdom teaching and its American prominence, God broke the back of that teaching and, through the ministry of Roger Williams, set the Church free from union with state babylonianism. It was in this context that the American colonies united in 1787 to become the first nation of Roman descent since 323 A.D. to be free from official relationship to the Church.

     Contrary to what one would expect, though, this did not destroy the power of false kingdom teaching. Instead, counterfeit teaching retrenched itself to secure the Church's remaining bondage to American economy and society. Once the United States was founded free from official tie to any National Church, it became fairly clear to all but the diehards of puritan spiritual descent that the government of the United States could not possible be the seat of God's kingdom in the world. But if it became obvious that the U.S. Government is not the seat of God's kingdom, it became less obvious that U.S. economy and social community are also not God's kingdom.

     After the official relationship of Church and state was broken in America, the political power in the Church passed from the state to the denominations with their synods, conventions, headquarters and hierarchies. With the state no longer in the running, these structures became considered to be the seat of God's kingdom. This was a slightly more accurate lie than that which identified the state as the seat of God's kingdom. It was more accurate because it restored the truth that the kingdom of God is found wholly within the Church. But it was a lie because all these denominational structures were not of the Spirit. They were man-made and man-governed by the same parliamentary procedures as the governments and organizations of the world.

     Because the denominations were man-made, their life was not drawn from God but from the Church's remaining relationship with American economy and social community. Since the denominational structures were considered to be the seat of God's kingdom, and since they depended on American society for their life, it became necessary to impute "kingdom status" to the rest of American society as well and commit the Church to its preservation.

     This imputing of "kingdom status" to American society and the committing of the Church to its preservation is the essence of the new brand of false kingdom teaching that replaced the more obviously false reformed brand. The new American brand of this teaching is more dangerous than its predecessor because it accomplishes this imputing of "kingdom status" to American society without saying so. This teaching doesn't call America the "kingdom of God". Instead, it euphemistically refers to "America's Christian heritage". But the effect is the same. It unites into one concept the advancing of God's kingdom (ie, the Church with its man-made structures) and the preserving of American babylonian society.

     This is the brand of false kingdom teaching that was spawned when the United states was founded and that continues in one form or other to this day. By it, the Church in America has been kept from fulfiling the Great Commission and deluded into a program of "regressive evangelism" whereby, in the name of fulfiling the Great Commission, She devotes Herself to preserving America's babylonian institutions on which She depends for Her life. As the Holiness-Pentecostal Restoration has progressed over the two centuries since America's founding, the good moral side effects that have rubbed off on surrounding babylonian society have served to keep retrenching the lie that American society is Christian and basically "good". In turn, the Church has continued to re-cycle the blessings She receives through Restoration back into the false quest to preserve American society.

     One doctrine that articulates this teaching especially well is called the "Cultural Mandate". This teaching charges the Christian with the obligation to permeate every sector of American babylonian society with Christian influence until it can be made righteous. Some forms of this teaching go on to say that, once the Christians have purified all babylonian society, Jesus will be able to return and receive it as an acceptable offering over which to rule!

      Especially  since the Holy Spirit began openly manifesting His own political control in the Church at the turn of the century, false kingdom teaching relative to American society has taken on a supernatural life of its own. Men under the anointing of the Spirit for the miraculous now use the miraculous to teach that God will "turn America around". They teach that by the miraculous  He will overcome all America's inherent evils and will usher in a new age of American peace and prosperity culminating in the return of Jesus Christ. (One group has claimed that Jesus will return to a specific hillside in Tennessee while another well-known prophet of this teaching has claimed Jesus will return to Tulsa, Oklahoma!)

     In reality, all such diversion of the Spirit's power into supporting the cause of American babylonianism has worked to prepare the Church to eventually unite with other religions of the world who also anticipate a coming age of peace and prosperity. (American Christian political organizations already unite with other religions and cults in the common goal to "save America".) Based on this unified expectation, the Church will be deceived into receiving the miracle-working false messiah who promises to usher in the kingdom of God. The fever pitch to which such teaching is climbing in the Church in America is indeed alarming.

False Kingdom Teaching and the Transitional Moves Toward Complete Salvation

     So far we have looked at false kingdom teaching in specific relationship to United States government and society. But not all false kingdom teaching in the Church in America directly relates to the United States per se. False kingdom teaching occurs anytime the work of God's salvation is redefined in terms of fixed politics, economy, or social community, - within or without the Church, with or without specific regard to U.S. society. Keeping that in mind, we turn to see how two of the earlier cited transitional moves toward complete salvation have been affected by false kingdom teaching.

The Faith and Prosperity Movement

     The closer a move of God approaches complete salvation from all the works of the world, the greater the stench that arises when that move is subverted,  - the greater the stumblingblock³ when it is counterfeited. This is seen no more clearly than in the subversion of the Faith and Prosperity Movement.

     By this movement, God would prepare His People for life outside collective society. He would enable them to call on Him to obtain the minutest physical, material, and financial provisions so they might be able to fulfil the Great Commission. Yet the wolves⁴  of false kingdom teaching have redirected the message. Instead of teaching the sheep how to use the laws of faith and prosperity to deliver themselves from American society, they teach them how to entrench themselves more deeply in it - building to themselves financial empires featuring cadillacs, mansions, jewelry, and the finest food and clothing.⁵ This teaching is featured in everything from direct sales companies supposedly based on the "golden rule" to the justification for building America's third largest entertainment centre in the name of "Christian rest and recreation".

     Yet what is true of collective population is also true of collected material possession. God abhors it. If it remains collected together, God must scatter it in judgment. As God has willed His People to disperse, so has He willed them to disperse what they have and live by faith through an economy based on giving.⁶  This alone is true kingdom prosperity. Any teaching however that encourages the collectivization of people or possessions is false kingdom teaching.

The Christian Rural Retreat Movement

     Here too is a move of God which emits a terrible stench when it is subverted to promote collectivization in the name of fleeing it. God has shown many the need to break their ties of dependence upon American fixed society by moving out into remote, rural areas ahead of the time when God will thrust out all His People. In the meantime however, many of these groups have merely retrenched themselves into their own private brand of fixed society. They have created a mini-babylonian society within the borders of the larger surrounding one. False kingdom prophets have arisen to rule these little babylons through their equally fixed doctrines. They often proclaim their community to be the new and only true manifestation of the kingdom of God in the earth (shades of the Puritans).

     One of the worst manifestations of this perversion was the Jonestown commune in South America which culminated in the mass suicide of about 900 people. (This commune was led by a man who began as a preacher of the Pentecostal Gospel.) Other communes have been formed with much purer intentions and guidance from the Lord. Yet they have succumbed to becoming their own fixed societies with closed circles of fellowship, slavish political structures, and peculiar terminologies designed to distinguish them from all other Christians. All such aberrations of this move by God to the wilderness have earned for these moves the name "cult" (a name which is unfortunately meted out without distinction upon even the faithful groups). In their closed fixation of thought, practice, and locale, these cultic Christian groups have given way to warped teachings and strange practices. This is the product of false kingdom teaching.

Assessing the Cumulative Effects of False Kingdom Teaching on the Church in North America

     Never has the time been nearer for the Church's salvation from the dead works of collective society. There is virtually nothing more that can be restored to the Church short of this. The Church in North America has recovered all it can of salvation and still remain shackled to American babylonianism.

     But at the same time, the Church's lostness in the works of babylonian society through false kingdom teaching has never been greater. The enemy's greatest bondage is always manifest just before the time of salvation, "because he knows his time is short."⁷  It is darkest just before the dawn.

     As we step back to assess this intense darkness, here is what we see:

     - We behold a North American Christianity transfixed with its life "at home". We see a Christianity that has failed to enter mobility to fulfil the Great Commission  apart from American society. Instead it is obsessed with its passion for building with brick and mortar.

     - We see a Christianity that does not call collective society out of its dead works. Rather, it is dedicated to restoring its society's "democratic" brand of those works because it believes it to be essentially of God. We see a Christianity that uses evangelism as a tool to plug the moral holes in a society that must collapse because it is intrinsically anti-christian. It fights an ever-losing battle against political, moral, economic, and religious corruption. We see a Christianity that through its "regressive evangelism" is drowning in its involvement with the babylonian political, economic, and social community.

     - We see a Church equally dependent upon American society for Her survival in that society:

        - dependent on babylonian politics for Her "tax-exempt status" and other laws to preserve the "rights" of Her stone temples and schools;

        - dependent on babylonian economy for Her support, courting the rich, merchandising the Gospel, and pleading for money from Her babylonian donors locked in their "9-5" jobs - jobs which support the drive for globalism;

        -  dependent  upon  the technology of babylonian social community ("the media") for Her cohesiveness through the artificial images of radio, television, satellite, and glossy magazine.

     This is the sum and substance of a Christianity in the West that is two parts saved, one part lost, and sealed in that lostness by false kingdom teaching.

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1 Rom 6:23  

² Rom 2:14-19  

³ Mt 23:13 > Rom 2:24        

⁴ Acts 20:29-30  

⁵ I Ti 6:5-11  

⁶ Lk 6:30,38  

⁷ Rev 12:12