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Thursday, October 3, 2024 - 08:23 PM

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

First Published in 1994

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF
UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

A SERMON:

Tower of Babel whlamb
The Ziggurat of "Babel," AKA "The Tower of Babel," constructed on "The Plain of Shinar" in Southern Mesopotamia, ca. 3000 BC.

GENESIS 11:1-9—NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION:

(Amplification in parentheses mine—whl)

“(1) Now the whole world had one language (after the flood of Noah’s time) and a common speech. (2) As people moved eastward (from the Mountains--a mountain ‘range’, NOT one mountain) of Ararat (that mountain in the modern nation of Turkey is NOT the grounding spot of Noah’s Ark) they found a plain in Shinar (in Babylonia, i.e. Mesopotamia, or present-day Iraq) and settled there.  (3) They said to each other, ‘Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly’.  They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. (4) Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth’. (5) But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower (that became known as The Tower of Babel) that the men were building.  (6) The LORD said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. (7) Come, let us (i.e. The Triune God) go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other’.  (8) So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city (for they had disobeyed God’s command to ‘be fruitful and multiply and replenish the whole earth to the extent they were able at that time—rather than all of them staying on the ‘Plain of Shinar’, which they had done).  (9) That is why it was called Babel (in Hebrew the word means ‘confused’)—because there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.”

So, very early in the historical record of mankind we have a leader—a strong man, a “tribal chief”, or “war lord” we might call him today—called NIMROD, shaking his fist at God and directly challenging God’s commands to swiftly increase the numbers of people and then spread into all the areas of the earth that they were able to reach on foot.  Instead, Nimrod and his followers decided to stay on the Plain of Shinar, build a city, and soon thereafter started to build a large “ziggurat”, a tall pyramid-like structure that could, in Nimrod’s reasoning, reach to the heavens so he could be like God—so he, Nimrod, could create ‘Heaven on earth’—so that he and his followers could puff themselves up in their own eyes.  But the Creator, in His wisdom,  in order that His created ones could no longer communicate easily with each other and act as “one”, divided the people into groups of some sort and caused each group to speak a separate language that was not understandable to all of the other groups, thus causing them to leave the Plain of Shinar and seek a ‘homeland’ for their own language group, thus becoming  the forerunners of countries as we know them today.

Ressurrection Sunday whlamb 2024
This is how we survive the "Woke" Church! (Picture courtesy of The New American Magazine, December 21, 2020).

CAN CHRISTIANITY SURVIVE THE “WOKE” CHURCH?

Is there a modern parallel in today’s world?  Could it be that a large segment of modern-day so called “Christian” churches—at least as organized denominations--are also thumbing their noses at God, and are disregarding His Word—His commands, and are proclaiming their own “gospel”?  Let’s examine that possibility.  Several years ago I read a quite disturbing yet thought-provoking article on this very subject, in The New American magazine of December 21, 2020.  The article was titled: “CHRISTIANITY TODAY: Surviving the “Woke” Church”, by Dr. Duke Pesta, who is currently the Executive Director of Freedom Project Academy, which is affiliated with The John Birch Society.  His article  inspired this  essay, and I quote extensively and freely from it.

Although most people today, especially most “modern” Americans, have never read the works of one of the greatest and most insightful authors of the 19th century, the great Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881), his twelve novels, plus numerous other works, have ranked him, according to Dr.  Pesta, as one of “the most significant and prescient Christian apologists to emerge since the Enlightenment”, which generally began in the late 17th century.  Most people today, especially American Christians, would never have considered Dostoevsky in that light, but by the early 20th century he had been awarded that distinction by educated and intelligent people who, like him, could already see the misguided direction in which the Christian church was headed.  And believe me, there were many who did see the leftward, unwise,  and harmful liberal direction of Christ’s Church from the late 19th century through the first half of the 20th century (and who suffered merciless attacks by other “Christians” and their supporting organizations), a liberal/collectivist drift that continues unabated even into the 21st century, prompting many faithful Christians to become warriors for the historic Christian faith in opposition to the modernism of today’s would-be “reformers” who seem to prefer “Marx” over “Matthew”.

Forty or more years before the 1917 Marxist Revolution in the Kingdom of Russia, Dr. Pesta wrote that in his writing Dostoevsky, not only anticipated the communist takeover of Russia, but also saw the inevitable persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church and the subsequent driving of Russian Christians underground.  More than any other thinker of his age…Dostoevsky recognized that the church and her teachings were not being out-argued by a superior form of socialist dialectic---rather the Christian narrative was being slyly coopted by a new breed of socialist evangelism that methodically confused and replaced the ideals and aims of Christianity with those of socialism.”

It is my contention, as well as Dr. Pesta’s, that in so many cases, increasingly throughout the 20th century and now well into the 21st century, the Christian Church as painfully and slowly constructed, hopefully in God’s Will and under His direction (although some Christians disagree over this)  over many centuries, was and is succumbing to not only worldliness and indifference, but is also succumbing to the FALSE notion that Christ was the “first socialist”, and that “socialism” is not only Biblical but is the “essence” of Christianity.  If that nonsense is a part of your so-called “Christian” beliefs, you are operating under a vast misapprehension, and you need to immediately separate yourself from that error!

IS CHRSTIANITY IN OUR TIME BECOMING A MODERN “TOWER OF BABEL”?

Many years ago in university, I read my one and only book by Dostoevsky—his ‘magnum opus’—titled The Brothers Karamazov, published in 1881.  I remember it as being  very long, involving what appeared to be a totally dysfunctional family, violence, immorality, and lots of plot “twists”.  In those years I totally missed the real message of this book, but Dr. Pesta explains it this way:  “Dostoevsky engages with questions of faith and doubt, existence and negation, and salvation and damnation…. The Brothers Karamazov marks Dostoevsky’s most direct link between socialism and disbelief.  ‘For socialism is not merely the labor question, it is before all things the atheistic question.  The question of the form taken by atheism today, the question of the Tower of Babel, built without God, not to mount to Heaven from Earth, but to set up Heaven on Earth.’”

I contend that it is plain to those who look below the forms of worship used in our day by the many different “Christian” denominations, and who read what these denominations would have you believe, that what they are really proclaiming in many cases is NO LONGER the Gospel of our LORD Jesus, the Messiah.  Instead, many modern—or rather modernistic “churches” with Christian in their name and a cross on top of their steeples or at the front of their sanctuaries--have adopted the “dogmas” of “popular worldliness” and atheistic socialism, and this has negatively impacted both their membership numbers and, most importantly, has watered down or obliterated Christ’s message of redemption through faith in Him, and Him alone.  Over much of the 20th century, Christian churches/denominations, and those of the liberal/brainwashed/deceived persuasion have incorporated into their “gospel” such heresies as ‘liberation theology’, ‘democratic socialism’, ‘social justice’, “wokeism”, and even support for the Marxist/communist violence proclaimed by the thugs and anti-Americans and anti-Christians of  Black Lives Matter and AntiFa!  As Dr. Pesta reminded us: “…The results (of this incorporation of non-Christian “theologies”) are always the same: the calculated erosion of values and traditions linked to the practice and celebration of faith-based  liberties and freedoms.”

Has much of the so-called Christian Church today succumbed to the devilish urge to create “Heaven on Earth”?  That’s a challenging question to answer in terms that will not offend some real or nominal Christians.  But let me make an attempt (offensive or not).  Over the past almost a century, the Christian Church—at least the Church in the western world, i.e. most of the major denominations—seems to be flirting with the heretical and dangerous fire of ‘socialism’, and grafting this destructive doctrine onto or in place of historic and Biblical Christianity, which has always taught that our present world is broken, consumed by sin and rebelliousness, and will never be more than a pale shadow of the glory of eternal life that welcomes us after our earthly bodies perish.  But according to those who claim to practice and who worship “socialism”, mankind’s original and only home is this planet we inhabit, a totally perfectible  world that can one day become a terrestrial utopia.  Worship of a transcendent God, then, is the opiate that fixes our attention on other-worldly fairy tales that distract us from radical social change NOW,” according to Dr. Pesta’s appraisal of this problem.  Karl Marx would have endorsed this concept 100%!

For those of you who bow before the altar of socialism, I assume you realize that leftist socialism (and ALL forms of socialism (Nazi-ism, fascism, communism) are on the left wing of the political spectrum) implies, in very certain terms, that our Savior’s horrible death on the cross for the sins of mankind—for US—and His miraculous resurrection from death to redeem mankind is, to unbelievers, just an offensive and elaborately conceived lie that goes against man’s innate rationality and his “inherent moral goodness”.  That is—there “is no God”.  (Of course, if you really believe that “man” can be “morally good” on his own, then you probably do believe that “there is no God”!)

All Christians know, or should know, our LORD Jesus’ final words to His followers before he returned bodily to Heaven.  It was our Savior’s “Great Commission”, his magnum call to EVANGELIZE the Earth:  (Matthew 28:19): “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”  His command was direct yet simple.  GO—TELLTEACH—REPEAT THE PROCESS—i.e. share Jesus’ love for mankind with all who will listen.  That is the heart of evangelism, something that Christians, and especially Christian missionaries, have been doing (to a greater or lesser degree) for almost 2000 years.  Starting with “The Great Awakening” in 18th century British America, the fervor of faithful Christians to bring or listen to Christ’s Gospel, proclaimed by both acclaimed and lesser-known evangelists and lay people, changed the national perspective of the then British colonies and led untold thousands to salvation.  And this continued throughout much of the 19th century; even well throughout much of the 20th century there were well-known evangelists who drew multiple thousands to their meetings, proclaiming without apology or shame  our LORDS’s Gospel (or at least THEIR versions of it)—people like Billy Sunday, Bob Jones Sr., Fulton Sheen, and Billy Graham. 

  In more recent decades, however, the emphasis on “evangelism” seems to be decreasing ominously.  For much of the Christian church, at least in the “mainline” denominations, the old-time evangelism has essentially been virtually rejected.  What has replaced Jesus’ command to “preach His gospel”?  Dr. Pesta calls it “a frail and scripturally unjustifiable form of multicultural ecumenism.  Not ecumenism in the sense of a call for all Christian people to unite, but rather a multicultural mandate to downplay any aspect of Christian thought or practice that suggests Christianity might be true or exclusively in possession of truth.  Christian…theologians of almost every stripe not only reject evangelism, but often exhibit shame and embarrassment at the prospect of preaching the particularity of Christ or the idea that salvation comes through Him alone.”  (Which, of course, is true.—IT DOES!)

Apparently, at least in the minds of these leftist/liberal/modernist theologians, our LORD Jesus was mistaken when He assured his followers that the ONLY way to eternal life was through faith in Him, and in Him alone.  Perhaps to their minds Jesus misspoke, or those who heard His words misunderstood their meaning; perhaps those who wrote the Gospels inserted their own interpretations of Jesus’ teachings.  On the other hand, perhaps Scripture reports the truth accurately, and perhaps it is the modernists who have agendas of their own.  Perhaps “social justice” activism is NOT ScripturalPerhaps “woke-ism” and “pronoun insanity” really IS offensive to our Creator, and have NO place in historic Christian doctrines!  Perhaps the goals of these modernists is to strip away everything sacred and Scriptural from the Christian faith in order to foster the left wing/socialist faith in materialism and “social justice” so beloved today by leftists and liberals, both in and out of the “church”. 

Why is it that in today’s “modernist” world of so much “pseudo-Christianity”, so many who call themselves Christian deacons, elders, priests, pastors, ministers, reverends, bishops, etc. are anything BUT Christians, and who increasingly are proclaiming “other” gospels?  For example, back in 2008 the then-Archbishop of Canterbury (England) was Rowan Williams.  “Rev.” Williams had a “unique” understanding of Jesus’ Gospel and how it might better pertain to the greatly expanding Moslem population in the United Kingdom.  This “man of God” assured his hearers and readers that Christian doctrines were “inherently offensive to Moslems”. (Now isn’t THAT a surprise)? So how better to relate to Moslems (perhaps by discussing the true Gospel with them?) than to suggest that “key aspects of Christian belief” could be “negotiated away” so the two faiths could be brought closer in “a material alliance.”  (Welcome to my “web”, said the Islamic ‘spider’ to the ‘gullible’ Christian ‘fly’)!

Apparently, “Rev” Williams , according to Dr. Pesta, was willing to barter in the name of multicultural understanding …the very idea of the Trinity itself”, which this “man of God” claimed was “sometimes offensive to Moslems”. (I remind those of you who buy into this nonsense that being “offended” is a basic part of Islam, and that many non-Christians, other than Moslems, are also “offended” by Christian doctrines.  I guess they’ll have to blame our Creator for His “offensive” teachings.)   “Rev” Williams further suggested that Moslems find Christianity offensive because over the centuries it was forced on people at the point of a sword.  Of course, despite the Satanic religion of Islam being forced on millions over the centuries at sword point (convert or die), Williams declared that it wasn’t necessary for Moslems to alter or reject any part of their faith to bring about this new “fairytale” of a partnership with Christian doctrines.  If you believe that you’ll probably believe that from that point on we’ll all join and sing “Kumbayah” together.  Yeah, sure we will, just before they start to behead as many of us as possible!

Christians and patriots must understand that our enemies are very deliberate, very crafty in their ability to delude gullible people, and have an agenda to subvert God’s church and totally change our LORD’S commands and teachings—from Godliness to worldliness---from resisting error to embracing falsehoods---from loving and respecting  each other to hating and attacking each other.  These enemies are followers of  “The Great Deluder, Satan”, whose prime goal in this day and age is to move both individual pastors and churches, and entire denominations, to the liberal, Marxist “left” on issues like “environmentalism, racism, immigration, climate change”, “woke-ism”, and other topics of concern to Christians and citizens. 

And this anti-Christian slide into liberalism and error is being financed behind the backs of the church by anti-Christians and anti-Americans like George Soros and his Open Society Foundation, by the Rockefeller Foundation, and other ultra wealthy groups, individuals, and foundations who have invested vast sums of money into our evangelical organizations for one purpose:  TO HIJACK BIBLICAL TEACHINGS AND BELIEFS, and persuade gullible believers to aid the political andNew World Order” goals of the left!

Sadly, many deluded Christians—real or nominal—have fallen for Satan’s lies, fostered by anti-Christian groups like The World Council of Churches, The National Council of Churches, and their deceived supporting churches and denominations, and have “bought into” the leftist/collectivist attacks against historic Christianity and western civilization, with their support of the communist Black Lives Matter and the fascist AntiFa movements, with condemnation of the western world in general, and the U.S. in particular, of being veritable “racist societies” that must be overthrown in favor of a liberal, socialist-oriented, “loving” community where human perfection reigns and the sins of white people and those who believe in our original Founding documents (and “original sin”) have been purged away with love (or force, whichever is needed).  If you believe that, you are truly pathetic and are totally in ERROR!

These sinister forces of the Marxist left---anti-Christian, pro-socialist, anti-American deluders of the first magnitude--are pouring huge sums into their efforts to make a significant, culture-changing impact on both our pastors, our local churches, and within the denominations to which they belong.  Their goals are out in the open now, and they may be impacting a church to which you belong.  What are some of these goals that the “woke” church is embracing?  They include, per Dr. Pesta:

  • Eliminating opposition to homosexual “marriage”;
  • Planting seeds of doubt and confusion into our impressionable kids regarding what ‘gender’ they are;
  • Undermining the Church’s position on illegal immigration;
  • Pushing the communist dominated “Black Lives Matter” agenda as a viable alternative worldview in the Church, even though this movement is totally anti-God, anti-church teachings, and anti-family;
  • Creating division and hatred between racial groups within churches and within denominations and communities via the subversive Critical Race Theory communist propaganda;
  • Promoting “divergent lifestyles” as perfectly acceptable, when they are actually unbiblical.

If your church or your pastor is teaching/preaching the above Marxist, anti-Christian, anti-American LIES, you need to do all you can to educate your pastor and your fellow church members as to the truth, OR you need to find a new pastor OR a new church!  That is the solution, and by your ignoring of the anti-Scriptural, anti-Christian lies and Satanic deceptions you are telling the rest of us that YOU are part of the problem!

ARE YOU A PART OF A “WOKE” CHURCH?

If one is an anti-Christian socialist, a “woke” progressive, or a dedicated Marxist, this push within modern so-called Christianity is to, as Dr. Pesta puts it, “awaken the (Christian) faith from the nightmare of transcendence, subordinating it instead to the imperatives of materialism.  A critical aspect of this ‘Wokening’ is VIRTUE SIGNALING What, you may ask, is meant by a “wokened” church?  Unlike historic Christianity taught in God’s Word, which involves INDIVIDUALS turning away from sin and loving others as our Savior loves us, “today’s concept of virtue is wholly collective; attained without sacrifice  simply by espousing the ‘correct’ ideas and opinions.  Claims to ‘inclusivity’ are the hallmark of virtue signaling—the eager willingness to reject any deeply held belief, break any longstanding vow, or abandon any moral precept that doesn’t also embrace and promote its opposite,” is how Dr. Pesta so clearly explains this socialist/modernist compulsion.

Essentially, in the “Woke Church” everyone who “believes” is taught that it is perfectly acceptable to see Jesus the Messiah as if He was THEM, and NOT the Second Person of the Triune God---i.e. a “Savior” totally different from what Scripture has always taught.  Sad to say, this new “wokeness” approach to “salvation” (i.e. Satan’s definition) is now taught in most universities that have schools of religious studies, wherein diversity for diversity’s sake, not Christ at the heart of Christianity; projecting Christ’s divinity onto ourselves in ways that align perfectly with socialist understandings of human nature.” 

WHAT REAL CHRISTIANS SHOULD GUARD AGAINST

Christians must recognize that Christ’s True Church—THE ENTIRE BODY OF FAITHFUL BELIEVERS THROUGHOUT THE AGES—is now and always has been Satan’s biggest fear, for he has always fought to divorce true believers away from the Spiritual origins of Christ’s church.  That battle continues to this very day.  Satan’s perpetual strategy to defeat individual Christians—especially newly born-again believers (but even those long in the faith)—is to deceive them into doubting the truth—the validity—the eternal assurance—of our Savior’s teaching.  Sadly, one of his main tools today is his subtle and covert incorporation of modern atheistic SOCIALISM.  Get a believer to forget the spiritual, the transcendent makeup of Christ’s Church that centers on Christ as LORD and Savior, and get him to focus mainly on the material aspects of the “church”—i.e. the building, the interior, the music, the pastors, the classes, the entertainments, committees, personalities, etc.  But NOT on “proclaiming the Gospel” to the lost.  He loves disputations on just “where” Christians should meet—i.e. in corporate sanctuary worship, or only in private homes, for example.

I opened this article with a discussion of the great Russian novelist, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and his greatest book, The Brothers Karamozov.  This book told of a world unfolding rapidly, wherein atheistic socialism was undermining Christ’s Church and corrupting young people (just like today).  Long before most other writers, Dostoevsky recognized, as we who live today must also be aware of, that there was then, and IS TODAY, A CERTAIN TYPE OF SOCIALIST THAT ALL FREE SOCIETIES MUST FEAR.  He wrote these very chilling words:

          “We are not particularly afraid of all those socialists, anarchists,

          atheists, and revolutionaries….But there are a few particular

          men among them who BELIEVE IN GOD AND ARE

          CHRISTIANS, but at the same time are socialists.  These are

          people we are most afraid of.  They are terrible people!  The

          socialist who is a Christian is more to be feared than the

          socialist who is an atheist.”

I’ll let Dr. Pesta close this article with his words of caution, and warning: The socialist ‘Christian’ is especially dangerous—perhaps the only type of socialist who is truly dangerous at all—precisely because as a Christian he has replaced the transcendent nature of God with an utterly fictional narrative about materialist limits and boundaries.

Beware of the “socialist Christian’s” power to deceive, both himself and others. Perhaps to deceive YOU! Beware of his forked tongue as he smiles at you and assures you that without any doubt our Savior, Jesus, was a socialist, and preached about how His followers should be socialists and share all the wealth (especially yours) with “the less fortunate” among us.  By all means, Christians must VOLANTARILY help our fellow men who can’t help themselves.  But don’t listen to the same lies that Satan told our first parents.  Reason together Scripturally with a Christian socialist if you can, but flee from his lies, lest he deceive you eternaly.

 

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A native of Cleveland, Ohio W. H. (Bill) Lamb was graduated from Cleveland State University (Ohio) in 1960, and relocated to South Carolina in 1964.  For many years he was an Industrial Engineer, Chief Industrial Engineer, and plant manager in the steel, electronics, and apparel industries in Ohio, South Carolina, and Alabama. 

An avid and long time writer concentrating on political and cultural issues of concern to America’s Christian Patriot community, he was published in the Lancaster, S.C. “News” during the mid-to-late 1960’s and in Greenville’s “The Times Examiner” since 1999.   The late Christian Patriot, Col. Bobby Dill, was his first editor for The Times Examiner, the publication he always refers to as “a great journal of truth”.

Married to Barbara for 65 years, he has two adult kids, five grandkids, and six great grandkids, plus a “feisty and opinionated” 80 lb. Pit Lab named Hayley, who runs the entire house.

A long time member, with Barbara, of the patriotic John Birch Society, he believes that it is the duty of ALL Christians to first, share the love of his Savior, Jesus, with others, and then to be dedicated patriots and do everything possible to both resist the evil of collectivism that is smothering Western Civilization and educate and motivate his fellow Americans in the preservation of our unique Constitutional Republic.