Pentecostalism, Politics and Prophecy - Lea-Anne Smith - GTAN2539

Jesus said in Matthew 28:19, Go, therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Welcome to Go Teach all nations, bringing you Christ's teachings through Australian and international speakers. And here is today's presenter, Lea-Anne Smith. SPEAKER 2 Dear Father, as we continue on our journey this afternoon, I pray that you will guide our hearts and minds and that you will help us to see where we fit in the picture of what's developing in this world. In your name, amen. You know, there are moments in time when in an extraordinary way, people live through history. And right now is one of those times. And, you know, we've looked at the last session, we've looked at the beliefs of the new Apostolic Reformation. So we looked at these four beliefs. We looked at Dominionism, we looked at the restoration of prophets and apostles, very briefly, signs and wonders. And we're going to talk a little bit more about spiritual warfare in one of these. But understanding times of rapid change is like living through it while living through it. It's like trying to see a big picture with your nose pressed up against the glass. And I suspect right now is one of those times. You know, we're going through so much rapid change that it's very hard to see the whole picture from beginning to end because we're up so close to it. And so this session particularly, we're just going to pull back and look at the big sweep of some things that have happened in the last few years. So back in 2003, there was a certain New York businessman flipping between religious TV channels late one night when a very attractive blond preacher caught his eye. And it wasn't just her beauty that captured him. The sentiments that he heard and the tenor of her theology was very familiar to him because it's what he'd grown up with. So that person that was flipping the TV channels, the businessman, of course, was Donald Trump. The preacher was a hyper charismatic word of faith teacher, also very much a part of the new Apostolic Reformation by the name of Paula White. And this is, this is the pastor that had been Donald Trump's pastor when he grew up, Norman Vincent Peale, who wrote this book, the Power of Positive Thinking. So this was very early word of faith movement stuff, which we won't get into now, but it attracted him. And much of the theology of some of the big megachurches is very much along these lines today. So Trump reached out to her and he invited her to visit him in Trump Tower the next time that she came to New York and she did. And in that meeting, she presumably led him to cross. And he shared with her his musings about maybe one day running for presidency. And after they talked about it, he decided that the time was not yet. So he put those presidential ambitions on hold until 2016. And then he asked Paula White for help in reaching the evangelical community of ministers, and she facilitated their meeting. But the trouble was that the crowd that Paula White ran with wasn't your typical Baptist evangelical theologians. They were charismatic Dominionists and people from the new Apostolic Reformation. And he quickly discerned the agendas of her dominion as friends, which, as you now know, include capturing the seven mountains of culture. And he promised to help. And he perceived what his opponents didn't, that here in this basket full of deplorables, as Hillary Clinton later called them, these were people he could win and who in turn would help him win. And it shook the nation to the core. When he won, few people took him as a serious contender. For a long time, he wasn't taken seriously. So what happened? You know, in the media at the time, it was reported that he received 80% of the evangelical vote. But what is little known is that he also won 80% of the Pentecostal vote. Now that, that is interesting because Pentecostals have traditionally been apolitical. On election day, they just don't turn up. They were premillennial like us originally in the beginning, and they were very heavenly minded. So voting, you know, just wasn't, wasn't a thing that changed in 2016. By then, Dominionism had started to take over. And as the fourth wave evolved and Dominionism evolved, they started to look for ways by which they could achieve culture, cultural transformation. And so when Paula White introduced Donald Trump to all her Pentecostal colleagues, they began to see potential for success. They quickly rallied around him, and they gave his presidential campaign early on momentum. And it was aided by a couple of things. Paula White loudly trumped her claim that she'd led Trump to Christ. And a number of prophets actually rose up and predicted that Trump was going to win the 2016 election. And Peter Wagner, who we talked about earlier, that very influential Christian who engineered the third wave and much of the fourth wave, just weeks from death, he got on his rarely used Facebook page and he did something that he rarely did. He endorsed a presidential candidate, and that candidate was Trump. And that gave the green light to the entire network of leaders in the new Apostolic Reformation that who to vote for. So in the final analysis, both the evangelical vote and the Pentecostal vote, which of course, they overlap quite a bit, that they were both critical in him crossing the line. And, you know, the early Pentecostal support was important, but the later evangelical vote was really more of an anti Hillary Clinton vote than it was an enthusiastic endorsement of Donald Trump. But what we should be clear about here is that quite possibly for the first time in history of America, Pentecostal support had actually determined the outcome of an election. Now, there were some interesting things that happened in that first term of Donald Trump. Some of you might recall that in 2018, he shifted the US embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. And it was a politically risky move, you know, the potential of upsetting the Arab nations who claim the heritage of Jerusalem. And now it looked like, you know, Donald Trump's claiming it for Christians, the Jewish desire for Jerusalem. So why did it happen? Well, it happened because Donald Trump likes to keep his election promises. And in that room where he'd met with the leaders some years before, now, just a few years before, he'd made a promise to his base, and that was that he would shift, he would shift the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. So that base, well, there was a Jewish contingent, but there was also that sector that we met earlier, the crowd that Paula White ran with. And they see great significance in the future of Israel. Even though dispensationalism has collapsed in much of the Christian world and Dominionism has taken over, they still hang onto this significance of Israel somehow in the scheme of things. And there's a thousand different ideas out there about how that's going to happen. And to add to the intrigue, the new embassy was opened exactly 70 years to the day after the modern state of Israel was created by May 14, 1948. It was created in the wake of the Second World War and the Holocaust. And May 14, 2018, was the day that the new embassy opened. And that had great prophetic significance to the Jewish people and to the right wing evangelical base in the US because it was exactly 70 years from the time that Israel was exiled to Babylon when Cyrus actually set them free. And so for that reason, Trump became known as the second Cyrus. And in fact, in fact, the rabbis in Jerusalem actually produced a biblical half shekel. So it's not legit tender, but there is two heads on the coin. And who are they? They're Trump and Cyrus. Trump and Cyrus. Yeah. Amazing, isn't it? So Lance Wallno, the author of Invading Babylon that we looked at earlier, he once said that Trump's administration was a spiritual Warfare presidency. Now, we need to unpack that a bit. What did he actually mean by a spiritual warfare presidency? What does spiritual warfare mean to these folks, and what does it have to do with politics? And we're going to answer that one by one. Firstly, the current spiritual warfare movement, as it stands today, was built by Peter Wagner in the late 1990s. And he did it in conjunction with this lady here. Her name is Cindy Jacobs. Anyone heard of Cindy Jacobs? Yeah, a few people have heard of her. Take a look at the book, the Reformation Manifesto. Okay, so you can see some of these ideas that we've been talking about. And we've talked about how apostles and prophets tend to work in pairs. Okay? So when it comes to the world, Peter Wagner was considered the head apostle for the world. And this lady stepped in and took over the role of being the head prophet for the world. So she was Wagner's prophet, and he was really captivated by her ideas on spiritual warfare. And he took them and he weaved them into the intricate theological system known as strategic level spiritual warfare. So what is this warfare? Well, basically it says that warfare happens on three levels. The first level is ground level spiritual warfare. This is the person level. This is where we talk about things like the demon of depression or the demon of pornography or anxiety or whatever. So these are the sorts of ideas that were floating around from the 1970s that we talked about this morning. The second level is the occult level. This deals with demonic forces released or activities related to Satanism, witchcraft and astrology. And the third level is strategic or territorial level. This is where binding and bringing down spiritual principalities and powers that rule over governments and another obsession of the NA, demons that rule over entire nations. So it completely redefined evangelism for the NA because one of the presumptions of strategic level spiritual warfare is that you have to be strategic. You have to go over the higher level demon. So it's like this. Forget the demons of pornography and depression. If you really want to be strategic, you go after the higher levels demons, and they're the ones that control the nations. You see, in this gospel, demons are more powerful than the gospel message. And you have to dispel the demons through decreeing and declaring before you can actually share them. Good news. And we looked at this this morning. You know, modern spiritual warfare shifts the focus from a war on truth to a war on territory. So only trouble is, you had to know who the demons were in order to cast them out. And so that gave rise to a whole new practice called spiritual Mapping. And so spiritual mapping was the process whereby you found out what demons were ruling and then you went after those demons. Now, if you think that this is just crazy, it's for real. If you go into coorong, you'll find all of these books and basically they're all on this idea of strategic level spiritual warfare. And you can see from the titles, you know, things like defeating water spirits and the Python spirit, exposing prophetic witchcraft. There's one by Chris Vollerton, the prophet of Bethel, Spirit wars, one called the Queen of Heaven by Peter Wagner. It tells the story of how they went up to. They discerned that the Queen of Heaven lived on Mount Everest. So they actually planned something called Operation Castle. They cast her out and they went up and camped at base camp and did a lot of decreeing and declaring to actually cast out the Queen of Heaven. So you can see, you know, the drive to discern the different types of demons. So these evangelicals, many of the new apostolic Reformation variety, very quickly started deploying spiritual warfare to help Trump. So breaking territorial strongholds is essential for dominionism. And that's where it often starts. You've got to break the power of the demons before you can talk about the gospel. And we talked about this again this morning. Biblical spiritual warfare orientates itself around truth, not taking back territory. So what are the methods for transforming culture? Well, they're both earthly and supernatural. So earthly power legislation, placing believers into high ranking positions and influencing the kings in society. And the spiritual, the supernatural is the strategic level spiritual warfare. And the whole goal of all of this is to legislate or influence legislators. So when it came to Trump, these are some of the books that came out when he was in his first term, many of them in his first term because Trump was someone that they could influence, they could bring, they could influence the legislation that he would then bring about. And so that was that. They're amazing, amazing. And you know, in the middle of Trump's impeachment, during 2019, just before COVID Paula White organised a bunch of her evangelical friends to visit the White House for a praise and worship session. And this was part of the spiritual warfare, this was spiritual warfare of protection over Trump during the Democrats attempt to impeach him and for attempting, you know, you might remember, he'd attempted to influence the outcome of the US election through asking President Zelenskyy of Ukraine to dig up dirt on Biden. And then as a bit of incentive to secure Zelenskyy's approval, he'd temporarily frozen 400 million in aid to the Ukraine. So the ever helpful Paula White organised this event and you may have seen this photo before, to boost the spiritual forces in the White House. And it resulted in this photo. They had a praise and worship session. You can see it on YouTube if you want. They're singing charismatic Pentecostal songs and then they gathered around Trump. Now, I've got a list of the folk that are in this photograph. Just reading through the list, I know that about at least half of them are Dominionists. And if I did a deep dive into the rest of the other half, I'm quite sure I'd find out that a lot of those are as well. About half of them are actually worship leaders and involved in music. And the ones in the circles in the red dress is Paula White. The one right above her is our own Bronco. And on the other side, the one that's reaching out and touching Trump, that's Sean Foyt, which I'm going to talk a little bit about in a minute. He's from Bethel, he's politically involved and he's a worship leader at Bethel. So I just want to make an observation here. The power brokers in this new type of Christianity, they're not the theologians, the conservative evangelicals or the faithful pastors and evangelists, they're Dominionists and worship leaders. These are the powerbrokers in Christianity today. So just a few things leading up to the 2020 election. You know, firstly, there'd been some prophets who'd predicted Trump would win the first election. And here's an account given by Stephen Strang. I think he's an editor of a Pentecostal magazine and he's written quite a few books. He says on May 31, 2008. So this is a long time before Trump won. In 2016, Chuck Pierce, a prophet who I respect, predicted Trump would win the White House. Eight years later, he told me he received the Word during a four hour visitation from the Lord in Liberty Park, New Jersey. So this is very typical of these types of prophecies. And there were others, and some of them actively prophesying that Trump was going to win when it seemed highly unlikely that he would win. Well, when Trump won that first election, it sent certain profits soaring into the stratosphere. And then there were many prophets now trying to cash on by prophesying that Trump was going to win a second term. There's around 500 of them. And these weren't nobody prophets. These were notable prophets. They were actually prophesying that Trump was going to, to win the next election. But at the same time, Trump having not done so well in the pandemic and sensing that perhaps his election was not going to go so well for him, he started to inculcate these ideas that maybe the election would be stolen. And it was just a rumbling byline right through the election. And several factors ended up working together to produce the perfect storm. So firstly, there was a certain level of frustration on the part of the Dominionists that Covid had interrupted the the whole plan and Trump hadn't done everything that he said he was going to do. He was a man who'd never been a good loser. Now he's the most powerful man in the world, and he's a man who also believes in alternative facts. There was a lot of spin that the election was likely to be stolen. And this idea was firmly planted in those who did believe every word that he spoke. And then you had these 500 prophets who were all actively prophesying that Trump's going to be re elected. And what happened? The election fell to Biden. It was a recipe for complete disaster. There were these two converging narratives. You know, on one side you had Trump with the election's going to be stolen because he would not be able to accept defeat. And on the other hand, you had these prophets saying, Trump's going to be re elected. And so the profits couldn't back down, and Trump was not going to back down either. And so these narratives reinforced and supported each other and they became an interlocking delusion. And the Republican base basically largely bought the lie. So those in the prophetic movement kept believing that somehow God was going to overrule and Trump would be returned to the White House. And the day that the power was to be transferred, you know, that very morning, they were still broadcasting that Donald Trump was going to remain in power. And if you listen to those prophecies, as I did in real time on January 6, there was this sense of anticipation that God was going to act and overturn. And we all know where that ended. January 6, 2021. A day the world saw scenes that we never thought we would ever see. The leading nation, the free world, a place where democratic processes came close to being overturned. And I know I was transfixed by these images flooding the news of the insurrection. And one of the first observations that was made that just stunned observers, both Christians and non Christians alike, was the presence of Christians and Christian symbols in the crowd on January 6th. And this appeared in my newsfeed just a few days later. How self Proclaimed prophets from a growing Christian movement provided religious motivation for the January 6th events at the US Capitol. Well, in the days that followed, we thought Trump was going to be impeached. You know, Trumpism was just going to die a quiet death and the world was going to become a saner place again. But it wasn't to be. The province did a bit of self reflection. Some of them apologized. Chris Valletin was one of those from Bethel. But now he's claiming that his prophecy was right because Trump has been elected this time as several of them, quite a number of them who apologize for getting it wrong have come back and said, actually, I was right. The long shot of all this prophetic self reflection was that they ended up drawing a code of conduct for prophets. Now, we should note here that incorrect prophecies are not a big drama for this movement. You know, they have supernatural schools of ministry. You just practice till you get it right. But the problem here was it was the very public nature of all these prophecies and that it was the public nature of the Trump prophecies that caused all of the self reflection. I need to say a few words about Christian nationalism, because a lot of people are talking about it and it's a problem. It's a problem. But I want to point out something. You know, Christian nationalism is a very diverse group and it encompasses a bunch of different ideologies and they're not necessarily white and they're not necessarily even Christian. They've just adopted the name because they've adopted the cause, the new Apostolic Reformation. The NAR actually forms a sector of Christian nationalism and they're the ones that are politically organised. They're most certainly Christian nationalists and they're not necessarily white. Some of the biggest leaders in that movement are not white. And they're actually more globalist than nationalists because they see that this revival and this dominionism is actually worldwide. So there's been a few scholars around, you know, sounding the alarm. And one of them is this man here. He's a religious scholar by the name of Matthew Taylor, and he's an expert in independent charismatic Christianity and Christian nationalism. And he wrote this book and released it earlier this year called the Violent Take it by Force. And the byline there is the Christian movement that is threatening democracy. And he provides a compelling account of the road to January 6th. And if you just look at the titles of his chapter titles of his books, of his book, the first one is a tele evangelist in the White House, and that's Paula White, the Genesis and Genius of The New Apostolic Reformation. That's Peter Wagner, Generals of the Spiritual Warfare. Cindy Jacobs, the Second Apostolic Age Xian. He's head of the largest network of churches in the world, but nobody's heard of him. It's amazing. Seven Mountains. That was Lance Walner and we've already met him. Worship is a weapon. And that's a really interesting one. That's Sean Foyt from Bethel who ran Let Us Worship tours right across the US During COVID And then the last one, a government war. Dutch Sheets, another pioneer of the nar. And I thought you might be interested in the Watchman Decree. So this was written by Dutch Sheets. And so basically it says some very interesting things. We, the Church are God's governing body on the earth. We've been given legal power from heaven and now exercise our authority because of our covenant with God. We're equipped and delegated by him to destroy every attempted advance of the enemy. We decree that our legislative branch, Congress, will write only laws that are righteous, Constitution constitutional. And number seven down here, we decree that we take back and permanently control positions of influence and leadership in each of the seven mountains. You know, I'm not making this up, folks. This is for real. This is how these people are taking back the nation of the US to be a Christian nation. And there's another one there as well, but you can have a look at that if you want. So these are the people that turned up at January 6th. And they'd been inciting, you know, violence for months. They hadn't intended to, I don't really think, but they spoke in militant language. They built a case through their false prophecies. They supported the narrative that the election had been stolen. They booked the protests at the Capitol for January 6th. And then they came along to conduct warfare, spiritual warfare on the day. And what did that spiritual warfare actually look like? Well, they did several things. They did things like Jericho marches around the capital for three days prior to January 6th. Because on site warfare is more powerful than just praying. In their theology, praise and worship is considered to be a spiritual war. And so there were. If you listen to audio of the day, there's people groups around singing praise songs at the Capitol. You can hear people speaking in tongues over the speakers. Because glossolalia is now considered to be a spiritual warfare weapon. There's decreeing and declaring. We just read some of those. And then blowing the shofar as well. Most of these leaders, they ended up decrying the violence. They didn't expect it to turn violent, that they had actually Incited it through the things that they'd done through demonising the opponents of Trump. You know, this violent rhetoric towards Biden and that it had played out in rallies, it had played out on social media and this unique type of political rally that had evolved, which has actually combined praise and worship as well as a political rally together. And even after January 6th, these guys still expected that God was going to stop Biden and from taking power. And this was a pretty typical post. This popped up in my post at the time. Note the date. January 19, 2021. This is after January 6, two days before Biden took power. And Pastor Greg Locke, to be clear, I've changed my mind about nothing. Trump will remain president, Biden will be exposed. America will remain free. Revival is coming. Now, I want you to just note this linking of Trump with coming revival. No, that's because Trump was supporting the Dominionist agenda. The inescapable conclusion is that prophets who uttered false prophecies helped generate an insurrection that aimed to subvert democracy. And, you know, I want to. I want you to think about, you know, the spiritual warfare that we've been talking about. It's experiential. It doesn't play to the head, it plays to the heart. And Matt Taylor, Matt Taylor in his book says this. He says the Trump prophecies rely on the authority of charismatic experience, which, for many of the prophet's followers who showed up on January 6, sidestepped all evidence across rational inquiry. I don't know how else to put this than to say that we're in the midst of an epistemic crisis. Now, just let me decode, that's the big word for you, epistemic. What does it actually mean? Epistemic is just the way we get knowledge. So what he's saying is we are now gathering knowledge and information in such a way it is so flawed, it's bringing about a national crisis and threatening. Can you see how this whole experiential thing that we've been talking about this weekend is playing out? This is experiential spirituality taken to its logical conclusion. Because what happens is this is where you get your information and then this is how it unravels. This is a type of spirituality that's unraveling the world. Actually, it's not just the us and we could go to other countries and see how this has worked as well. And I'm sure by now you've all heard of Project 2025, captured the attention of Adventists because of the reference to a Sunday law, which is really, you know, it was a bit of a yawn for us Australians because we've had penalty rates for years. But what's a big deal is the language that actually surrounded it. And, you know, it was spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation. Heritage foundation has long Catholic roots and it's been around, it's played into other presidencies in certain ways as well. But what was different here is you had the Dominionists, so you've now got the Catholics and the Pentecostal Dominionists. You work together, along with hundreds of other organisations, to create the playbook by which the presidency would actually play out. And our own Australian, Bettina Krause said, we can and should condemn policy proposals that disregard our Constitution's limits on governments or which attempt to impose a religious orthodoxy or preference. And that's the litmus test that the Project 2025 fails spectacularly. So it's this idea of religious power and civil power coming together that makes Project 2025 so dangerous. So last year, last July, I'm rushing along here, you'll remember there was an assassination attempt on the president and this his survival was quickly seized on by the prophetic community as evidence that God has ordained him and basically protected him to help return America to its Christian roots. And it seems that Trump himself has adopted the mantle of some sort of divinely ordained messiah ship to save America. It's deepened his belief that he's a political savior. And this is Carolyn Levitt, the White House press secretary, who in a recent article claims that there's spiritual warfare around Trump. And she says in the first paragraph, she says, the article, White House Press secretary Caroline Levitt said during a recent interview that she's seen spiritual warfare during her close proximity to President Donald Trump, but that she believes God has raised him to his position despite evil forces coming against him. You know, it becomes dangerous when political enemies are branded as evil forces. That's, you know, that Trump's presidency is divinely mandated is a common belief by Dominionists. And Levitt says, I think that the President was saved by the grace of God on July 13th in Butler, Pennsylvania. And he's the moment for a reason. He's in this moment for a reason. A bit about Levitt. She's a devout Roman Catholic and she helped contribute to Project 2025. So that brings us to this year. So much happening so fast, impossible to keep abreast of the news. And that's the way that it's been planned. The world is rapidly being reshaped and a lot of people are very worried. About what happens next. I want to focus on two massive shifts which haven't really received a lot of press time. We've seen this authoritarianism, this power grabbing, this retribution. We're watching someone try to dismantle democracy. And I think, you know, I think we've possibly seen the last free and fair election in the United States. But secondly, what we haven't been so aware of is that we've seen the rise of a religio political power unlike we've ever seen in the United States before. In this country that was founded on this principle of keeping religious power and civil power separate. This is one of the most momentous events to have happened in our lifetime, probably in the last hundred years. So how is this merging happening? We now have an official Department of Faith in the White House, and it's not interfaith, it's Christian faith. And it's held by a Dominionist. Paula Wyan. We know that of the various factions in the White House, the most influential one is the na, the New Apostolic Reformation. And it's been estimated by people who are watching this very closely that at least two thirds of the executive orders signed by Trump have actually come out of Project 2025, and they've been drafted, designed and drafted by Christians from both the Dominionist stream and the Catholic stream. Both Trump supporters and Trump himself see him as some sort of savior, saving Christianity in America. And I want to suggest that these two simultaneous events, the slipping of democracy in the US and the rise of a religio political power is something that we should be paying attention to. I guess the question is, you know, is this, is this pointing towards the picture that happens at the end of time? And, you know, I want to go to Revelation 13 because I believe that we're living between some of the verses in that chapter. And but before that, I'm just going to give you a little bit of background. We're going to go to Revelation 12:19 before we go to Revelation 13. And it says this. Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring, those who keep God's commandments and hold fast their testimony about Jesus. Now, he's particularly vengeful against those who hold God's commandments, who keep God's commandments. And this prompts him to take an action. And that action is found in Revelation 13:1. And it says, the dragon stood on the shore of the sea, and I saw a beast coming out of the sea. So what the dragon has done is summoned. This Friend, you know, this beast up, and we don't have time to work through an ID kit on this beast this morning. But what I would say is this. There's only one energy that fits the description and that's the papacy of the Dark Ages. And we talked about how, you know, that returned the spirituality to an experiential spirituality. And so the second beast, then I saw a second beast coming up out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon. And I'm not going to run through an ID kit on this beast either. I'm going to assume that, you know, that that's the United States of America. It arose as the papacy was going down in the late 1700s. And exactly in the sequence that's depicted here in Revelation 13, where this first beast rises and then you have the second beast that rises. And I want you to note this. It has two. It starts out as a lamb, it has two horns, but it becomes a dragon. And you know, now while the reformers of the Protestant Reformation knew that the first beast was, they knew it to be the papacy, they weren't sure who was the second beast because it hadn't risen at the time of the Protestant Reformation. That was actually put together by the early Adventists. And they said that second beast, that's got to be our America, because they were Americans who actually did that. And so these are those three beasts. And it's very interesting because they actually form a false trinity. One mimics the Father, one mimics Christ the Son, and one mimics the Holy Spirit, which is the one we've been talking about. And so you can do your own homework on that. Read through the chapters and look for the clues, what they're mimicking, because it's really interesting. We don't have time now. So it's lamb like it's Christ like those two horns represent the founders attempts to separate civil power and religious power so that the inhabitants of America can have freedom of conscience. And we looked at that second part where it starts to speak like a dragon and says that America's going to one day lose its democracy. And I grew up as a small child knowing that one day America would lose its democracy. Why did my parents teach me that? Well, it had everything to do with that verse. It starts out as a lamb and speaks as a dragon. And also probably this quote that's found in five testimonies, and it says this. When Protestants shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with Spiritualism. When under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its constitution as a Protestant republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvellous working of of Satan and the end is near. And I want you to catch that. We've looked at these alliances today, Catholicism and the dominion of sin. And we've looked at how the new Apostolic Reformation has embraced Spiritualism. And we're now watching as Project 2025 dismantles democracy. What's next tells us the marvelous working of Satan and how that's going to play out? Well, we'll see as it actually does play out. This gives us a bit more detail too. It, the second beast exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf and made the earth and its habitants worship the first beast whose fatal wound had been healed. We talked this morning about how worship is at the center of the spiritual war. And it certainly is. It certainly is. So you know what astounds me is that these two things that we've seen this year, this slipping of democracy and this rise of a religio political power, have happened simultaneously. And that's the most staggering fulfilment of prophecy that I think has happened in probably 150 years. And we're living through it. We're living through it. And my fellow abdinists, this is time to rise up and proclaim fulfilment of prophecy. You know, the concept of denominations is pretty well done. Churches no longer cluster around shared understandings and truth. They cluster around shared experiences and shared ministry paradigms. And that's the ecumenism that comes from experiential spirituality. And how does this work? Let's look at the next verse. And it performed great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to the earth in full view of the people. Because of the signs. It was given power to perform on behalf of the first beast. It deceived the inhabitants of the earth, the fire falls from heaven. And it's clear from the context that this fire is about deception. It deceives the earth. And how does it do it? These verses tell us it's a religious power that. That arises in the United States. Does it with signs? With signs. So here we have this religious power rising in the United States of America. A religious power that's using signs and wonders to deceive arises in America, this country that was lamb like Christ, like in this land that was called a Protestantism. But it sets up this ecumenical alliance where it deceives the world. And then the next few verses tell us that eventually becomes a persecuting power. Now, what amazes me that one of the most oft used words in this movement is fire. They refer to what the Holy Spirit does as fire. And I don't know whether there's more to come. I'm sure there is, actually. But what that fire refers to, what we've seen or what's coming or all of it, I don't know. And scholars also agree that this power that goes from land like to dragon is also called the false prophet. Not going to look at those references. You can snap that and look them up yourself if you want to. But what an apt name for this power, this religio political power that is so full of false prophets. And scripture actually says this movement is a false prophet. I think we need to be reminded for false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you ahead of times, you know, this is the most sophisticated spiritual deception this world has ever seen. It's happening in our lifetime. Happening now. I want to share with you a quote that Ellen White wrote to two leaders back in 1884. And the setting is a vision that she saw. And it's set in a period of time that the Bible depicts as being the time of trouble, shortly before Christ returns. And she sees God's people being mocked and taunted, particularly for taking an independent position from the rest of the world. And it was a time when those who were following God were unable to buy and sell. And it looks like the whole world is against them and those who are faithfully following God. And she says this about the people who are persecuting God's people. She says they declared that they had the truth. The miracles were among them. The angels from heaven talked with them and walked with them. Their great power and signs and wonders were performed among them, and that this was the temporal millennium that they had been expecting so long. The whole world was converted in harmony with the Sunday law. And this little feeble people stood out in defiance of the laws of the land and the law of God and claimed to be the only ones right on the earth. I want you to think about that for a moment. A group of people who declare they have the truth, they have miracles, they walk and talk with angels, they perform signs and wonders, and they're fixed on a Coming millennium, a temporal millennium, a time of peace and prosperity on earth, and that behind the enforcement of a Sunday law. I have no doubt that we're coming up to a seminal moment in the history of this earth and will likely see Christ return in our lifetimes. This movement is gaining traction and they have the potential to be oppressive and persecuting. We looked at the Passion translation in the last session where they. It's written in there, the human messengers will be the ones that do the judging. They're talking to deceptive angels and taking their cues. You know, it looks very much scholars. When I read this stuff in scholarly stuff, there are people saying this looks like Catholicism in the Middle Ages. And here are some of the things that I think they hold in common. They have a sense of elitism, that they have the truth. They're very much into authoritarianism. They have a certainty that God speaks directly to the head of the church. So in this case, you know, it was the Pope, in this case, it's the prophets. The Church in the Middle Ages believed it had a special role in ushering in the next stage of human history. It was Dominionist. The Catholicism was Dominionist. And they both believe in post millennialism and amillennialism. So this is a moment in history that we need to be clear about what type of spirituality we're engaging with. And just as I finish, I want to talk about one aspect of genuine spirituality that we haven't talked much about this weekend, which I think as a people we need to grow our muscles on like nothing else. And it's found in this verse here, Revelation 14:12. Here is the patience of the saints. Here are those who keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus. You know, when we go through difficult times, either personally or as a result of world changes, faith is the key that sees us through. And that is what is majorly disrupted by the type of spirituality that we've been talking about, that experiential, expectational spirituality. Feeling close to God might feel good, but it doesn't save you. Something seriously disrupts faith in the end times. You know, Jesus says, when I come, will I find faith on earth? Because faith has been disrupted. And what does it mean to have the faith of Jesus? I think this is what it means. You know, when Jesus couldn't see the future, when he was here on earth, he walked by faith. And that's what we need to do. When he was tempted, he overcame by faith. And there's the playbook for us. When he passed through Gethsemane he did so in faith. And when he hung on the cross, he hung onto faith, perfect faith connection with the Father. And now we have the opportunity of putting our faith in Jesus. And what does it mean to have the faith of Jesus? To trust contrary to feeling, to step out when you feel a fade. To know that God is there when you can't sense his presence. To hang on to hope and deep adversity and to not lose sight of heaven. Hebrews 12:1 2 and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us. Looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him, endured the cross disregarding its shame and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. You know therein lies our roadmap friends through the end time events to get us safely home. We run with perseverance the race that's set before us. It's been 150 years for this church, waiting and wondering. And I fear that at a time when we're closer to wrap up events than we've ever been before, we're less focused on the second coming than we've ever been before because we're tired of waiting. And we now live in this world of shiny stuff and we get easily distracted and the stuff gets shinier every passing year. But Paul wrote to those discouraged Hebrews waiting for Jesus to return. Let us run with perseverance the race set before us. And how do we do it? Looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. Now Jesus lived this earth, on this earth to show us how. He's the pioneer, the author of our faith so that we can be the people who keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus. So faith is the engine. Faith is the engine in the divine human connection. Jesus said to his disciples on the eve of their entering a great time of confusion and anxiety, he said to them these words, I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart, I've overcome the world. God doesn't want us to be anxious in this moment and I don't want you to leave here feeling anxious. I know that's very easy to do when we take a deep dive into what's happening in the world. But he's told us these things will happen so that when we see things unfold, we have peace. We have peace. He does not want us to be afraid. He wants us to know that he's got the future in his hand and that this world and its tumultuous events are still within the bounds of his control. Now is not the moment to be fearful, but to be confident. Because like the lights on the edge of a Runway that guide the pilot in on the blackest nights, we have the light. And the greatest joy lies before us. And that seeing our Lord and Satan, saviour Jesus Christ, the one who gave up his life for you and for me. And that, my friends, is what we need to keep our eyes on much more than those beasts. Now lift up your heads because our redemption is drawing near. Let's pray and then I'm open for questions. Dear Father, I know there's a sense in which these sessions just got heavier and heavier. So probably a good thing this was the last one. Father, as we look at what's happening in the world, it's stunning, it's amazing. But it lines up with your book and in that it gives us great comfort. And we thank you so much for the words that you've left us. Help us not to be distracted. Help us to dig into your word daily. Help us to grow our faith. Father, we pray to give us faith, just like that person in scripture that spoke to you that said, no, I've got faith, but give me more. Father, we place to you. We all have people that we worry about. People aren't walking so closely with you anymore. And Father, we place those people in your hands and we ask for opportunities to talk to them about what's happening in the world and ways to draw them back to you, ways to give them hope and purity and assurance in such an uncertainty. Help us to keep our eyes open. And we pray for this message that it will go forward to many more people in your name. Amen. Foreign. SPEAKER 1 This message was made available by. SPEAKER 3 The Watara Seventh Day Adventist Church. For more resources like this, visit waitarachurch.org hello friends. Today I would like to talk a little bit about the subject of joy. My name is William Ackland. Joy is a word more easily understood than explained in my dictionary of synonyms. The closest word, among others suggested, is gladness. However, like most synonyms, the supplied words seem to skirt around the exact meaning of the word in question. Mirth, merriment, glee and gaiety are altogether too light hearted, and felicity and fruition seem to miss the point altogether. Joy, therefore, is a state that must be experienced to understand its depths, for it has a deeper meaning than happiness. We may use the word in a bright, cheery fashion but we have to do better than that to really convey the true nature of joy. Joy can be described as a guiding principle in the way we live, as well as for its emotional dimension. While an event may bring us joy, a joyful person is someone who can see the good side of life and while recognizing that the alternative exists, refuses to dwell on the negative and instead grasps the joy of the positive. Joyful people are good to be around. They exude a positive spirit. They are in fact the original glass half full people. They demonstrate by their attitude that it is far better to be positive than negative. At the end of each day, when we mull over the circumstances and events that have captured our attention, how much better to think about the good things that have happened and ignore the less positive ones. So far we have focused on joy in a more general day to day way. But real joy is found in the spiritual realm. It is directly connected with an ongoing relationship with God, who is the source of true joy. The announcement of Christ coming to this world was a truly joyful event, and that is recorded in the second chapter of Luke, especially in verses 10 and 11. There is joy in heaven when a person finds that spirit guided way into Christ's kingdom. Jesus told his disciples that their sorrow would be turned to joy when, after his crucifixion, they realised he had risen from the grave. There are of course, many events in our lives that give us joy. That word is far more meaningful than glad. For example, the time when we meet the one whom we later marry is certainly a joyful event. The wedding day is perhaps the peak of joy in our lives, equaled only by the joy of of seeing that tiny, squealing, wriggling little human being that we brought into the world. Every family has life stages through which they pass. A child's first day at school can admittedly be either joyful or fearful. But joyful is better as we realise that this young life has come to a milestone and has survived and thrived as we have practiced being new parents. Has my child been chosen as school captain? Now that is something to be joyful about. Even a little parental pride may be permissible. If you'll excuse me. And so it goes through life. Joyful moments, events and happenings are experienced that, with an attitude of joy deep within us, make even hard times more endurable. Keep being a joyful person if that is what you already are. For those whose personality is less so, you can change, realize that a smaller number of joyful experiences always outweighs many more. That we would rather not have had in our lives. Joy has a positive effect on others. How much better it is to spread a little love as evident in Joy, but than to spread an atmosphere of gloom that makes others miserable. Try Joy. Others will be glad you did. SPEAKER 1 It's been our pleasure bringing you this program Today here on 3 ABN Australia Radio.