Luke 21: 29-31: Some Signs of America’s Abandonment and Spiritual Bondage

In our time Christendom is dead and America is rapidly transitioning from post-Christian to actively hostile ‘woke’ secular paganism.  America’s apostasy, subjectivism, idolatry, occultisms, pan sexuality, rampant abortion, drug use, sodomy, homosexual marriage, and other evils are  similar to those of the post-flood generation of Babylon, Sodom and Gomorrah and Egypt. 

 Following the 2015 Obergefell v. Wade decision, Dr. Peter Jones said the Supreme Court’s ruling represents a historic sign post for the United States in its apostasy.   In “The Body Politic is Queer,” Jones argued that the Declaration of Independence declares that unalienable rights and laws endowed by our Creator have been rendered meaningless by the Supreme Court’s fake redefining of marriage.  With this ruling, the USA is clearly a godless nation.  (truthxchange, Jun 26, 2015)

In a 2007 sermon entitled “A Nation Abandoned by God,” the highly respected pastor John MacArthur said, “I’m convinced beyond doubt that God has abandoned America,” meaning He has removed its hedge of protection. After the Obergefell v. Wade decision MacArthur said this exchange of one set of values in favor of another does not come as a surprise to us who already know that the god of this world has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe (2 Cor. 4:4). June 26th, 2015 stands as a significant milestone in the American demonstration of this ancient reality and it is Romans 1 that clearly identifies the evidence for the wrath of God on a godless nation:

“….sexual immorality followed by homosexual immorality culminating in a reprobate mind. This most recent step reminds us that God’s wrath has come in full. We now see reprobate minds at every level of leadership – in the Supreme Court, the presidency, cabinet, legislature, press and culture.” (An Open Letter to TMS Alumni, John MacArthur, June 27, 2015)

The Abyss

In his book “The Unseen Realm,” Dr. Michael Heiser sees Deuteronomy 32:8-9 as the Old Testament equivalent of Romans 1:18-25, a passage wherein the Lord gave men over to their rebellion (Psalm 50:16-22) and into spiritual bondage (Acts 7:42; Matthew 12:43-45.  Heiser describes how Yahweh’s judgment upon Babel resulted not just in the dispersal of the nations but in the disinheriting or abandoning of those nations by God and in His giving them over in spiritual bondage to the corrupt, lesser Elohim of Psalm 82.

In “More Than Conquerors,” William Hendrickson writes that when God gives men over to rebellion the prince of darkness receives the power to open the abyss and let the demons out.  As soon as the abyss is opened, it belch’s forth the smoke of deceptions, delusion, sin, sorrow, moral darkness, and degradation:

“…by God’s permissive decree (the devil) is not prevented from carrying out his wicked designs in the hearts the children of men, a wickedness for which he—not God—is responsible….God uses even the work of the devil as a punishment and as a warning for the wicked, a warning in order that they may repent.” (More than Conquerers: An Interpretation of the Book of Revelation, p. 120)

The Biblical explanation of the abandonment of societies uses the concept of judgment and spiritual bondage rather than spatial explanations such as rise and fall.   According to the Revealed Word, a society is either collectively submitted to the Will and Authority of God or it is in rebellion against Him.  For example, the book of Ezekiel portrays Israel as having become a rebellious, idolatrous, therefore evil nation fully deserving the judgment meted out by God.

In Ezekiel 1, we learn that the voice of God has come to his prophet Ezekiel by the Holy Spirit regarding the coming judgment of Israel.  According to Matthew Henry, the first part of Ezekiel’s visions, (ver. 4-14),

“…. represents God as attended and served by a vast company of angels, who are all his messengers, his ministers, doing his commandments. This vision would impress the mind with solemn awe and fear of the Divine displeasure…”  (Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentaries, Ezekiel 1:1-14)

In Ezekiel 9 the prophet sees angelic executioners issuing forth to do the work of God’s judgment upon an apostate society. Henry believes there may be an allusive reference to the Chaldeans as the actual human instruments of judgment.

 In Luke 21: 29-31, Jesus taught his disciples a parable pertaining to judgments of God and our need to discern the signs of judgment:
 
“Look at the fig tree, and all the trees. As soon as they come out in leaf, you see for yourselves and know that the summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.”
 
Christ tells his disciples to observe the signs by which they might judge.  In our own age then, take heed that you be not deceived by the following modern leaven: evolutionary theology, Revoice, CRT, and other false teachings such as the social justice gospel and prosperity gospel; occult pagan doctrines such as evolutionary ascent from apes, practices such as yoga, sensitivity training, and transcendental meditation.  Do not be seduced by worldly temptations such as pornography, drugs and depraved entertainment nor be betrayed by your own sin nature lest the day of death and judgment should come upon you when you are not prepared.  For so it will come upon demonically subjected worldly men whose minds are on earthly things.  For them, judgment will be terrifying.

Between spiritual and temporal signs, it’s the spiritual that are most important since they subject and shape the minds of people.  

In “Occult Bondage,” Dr. Kurt Koch (1913-1987), a highly respected German Protestant minister who pastored, counseled and delivered more than twenty thousand people suffering from demonic subjection in its various forms and manifestations throughout the world, provides us with spiritual signs of bondage.   Rather than spiritual bondage Dr. Koch speaks of occult or demonic bondage and says the first things to become subject are a person’s thoughts and feelings:

“This often results in a complete attitude of indifference to any spiritual influence, and to an open rejection of any belief in God.  The Word of God loses its power to speak, and God’s promises become meaningless.  The person finds he can only entertain evil thoughts in his mind and ideas which are opposed to God.  He is gripped with a passion for lying and impure thoughts.  Indeed, the desire to lie so fills him that he does so unconsciously. In spite of feeling no remorse for his sins, he will be plagued with a continuous feeling of restlessness, with a lack of peace, and depressive moods.”  (Occult Bondage, p. 140)

MacArthur puts it this way: The reasoning faculty has been corrupted, and when that happens, the entire sense of morality is warped and the conscience, being ill-informed, doesn’t function.  So then we see unconscionable behavior and people laughing at aberrations on television and elsewhere rather than falling on their faces and weeping because they have been given over to a depraved mind. They’re filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, envy, murder, deceit, malice, slander and hatred of God.

In the following examples, Dr. Koch elaborates on conditions of thought and emotions denoting the demonic subjection that with every day becomes increasingly descriptive of American culture.   By these overlapping signs you will discern the hand of God’s judgment:

1. Warped, distorted character resulting in malignant narcissism, hard egoism, uncongenial dark nature

2. Extreme passions resulting in abnormal sexuality such as homosexuality, sodomy, pederasty, sadomasochism, and lesbianism; violent temper, fits of rage, belligerence, addiction, meanness

3. Compulsive thoughts of suicide and murder; persecution complexes; paranoia, psychosis

4. Demonic possession signified by moral imbecility, narcissism, delusion; destructive, murderous urges; fits of mania, tendency to violence, hearing voices, conscious atheism, simulated piety, blasphemous thoughts, words and acts and bigoted, intolerant attitude against Christ, God, crosses, prayer, Ten Commandments monuments, faithful Christians and faithful Jews. (Occult ABC, Koch, pp. 266-282)

In clinical terms, psychopathy describes people suffering from one or more of the preceding spiritual conditions. In “Leftism as Psychopathy,” John Ray, M.A., Ph.D., argues that moral imbecility is a primary characteristic of psychopathy before briefly outlining some of its other defining features: 

“(the psychopath) is unmoved by brutality (except to enjoy perpetrating it); he has no moral or ethical anchors or standards; he is deeply (but discreetly) in love with himself so secretly despises others and thinks they are fit only to be dominated and exploited by him and those like him; he is a great manipulator who loves getting others to do his bidding by deception or otherwise; he is the master of the lie and the false pretense but sees no reason to be consistent from occasion to occasion; he will say anything to gain momentary praise or admiration; his only really strongly felt emotions seem to be hate and contempt and he is particularly enraged by those who have what he wants and will be totally unscrupulous in trying to seize what others have for himself. But above all, the psychopath does not seem to be able to tell right from wrong and, as a result, does sometimes commit or connive at murders and other heinous crimes with what seems to be a clear conscience.”  

According to Ray, psychopaths of our own time include the average left-wing academic, George Galloway, Castro, John Kerry, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

MacArthur summarizes psychopathy thusly:  “…they are without reason, without conscience.  This is what it means when God abandons a society.”

In “Hostage to the Devil: the Possession and Exorcism of Five Contemporary Americans,” (1992) Malachi Martin presents five cases expressing important elements and basic attitudes characterizing the signs of demonic subjection and possession overtaking America’s godless society. In the possessed person these elements and attitudes are pushed to a very narrow and frightening extreme. Martin summarizes these overlapping signs in the following points:

A. Moral imbecility, meaning sense suddenly seems like nonsense; nothing is ever right.  For example:

1.”Fresh off the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage, Democrats in California have introduced a bill that would ban the words “husband” and “wife” from being used in federal law because they are “gendered terms” and discriminate against gay people.”  (redrocktribune.com, July 10, 2015)

2. From an almost boundless menu of absurdities, AP award winning columnist Richard Larsen supplies the following examples:

a. you can get arrested for hunting or fishing without a license, but not for being in the country illegally.

b. school children have to get parents’ permission to go on a field trip or take an aspirin in school, but not to get an abortion or take a morning after pill.

c. we have politicians who want to ban law-abiding citizens from owning guns but give fighter jets to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and want to give weapons to the resistance in Syria that beheads opponents and eats their hearts.

d. a seven-year-old boy can be thrown out of school for saying his teacher is cute, but hosting a sexual exploration or diversity class in grade school is perfectly acceptable.

e. you pay your mortgage faithfully, denying yourself luxuries, while your neighbor buys iPhones, TV’s, and new cars; and the government forgives his debt when he defaults on his mortgage.

f. school children are allowed to spew the most vulgar words and expressions, but face suspension if they talk openly about God or Jesus Christ.

2. Hopelessness, exhaustion, death, suicide, cruelty and contempt become cultural norms  

3. Moral relativism and/or subjectivism: the depraved insistence that there are no essential differences between good and evil and male and female; all ‘truth’ and ‘moral’ values are subject to one’s personal preference.   Pre-flood people were subjectivists. Early Church Father John of Damascus uses the term barbarism instead of subjectivism to describe the days of Adam to the time of Noah:  

“Barbarism is that which prevailed from the days of Adam down through ten generations to the time of Noah. It is called barbarism because of the fact that in those times men had no ruling authority or mutual accord, but every man was independent and a law unto himself after the dictates of his own will.” (John of Damascus, “The Fount of Knowledge,” Political Apocalypse, Ellis Sandoz, p. 131)

4. Scientific empiricism which excludes the supernatural and miraculous on the grounds that everything must be explained in ‘natural’ or empirically verifiable scientific explanations

5. Naturalism: This means that since all that exists is the evolving universe of matter and energy there can be no relevance for the modern person in anything that cannot be rationally understood and no ‘truth’ important beyond what is this-worldly or natural.

8. Androgyny: the merging of male with female which from ancient times has been the pagan ideal. Today it means there are multiple and ever-expanding ‘genders’ and expressions of ‘love’

9. Fatal confusion between spirit (mind, will, conscience) and DNA and grey matter, or brain. If everything of spirit can be made to seem a product of DNA or the firing of synapses or movement of chemicals in grey matter then sin and evil can be made to seem only chemical interactions or genetically caused.  An example of the madness induced by fatal confusion is seen in the 2013 article, “Deep Divide of ‘Evil Genes.”  The article reports that evolutionary biologists at the University of Connecticut analyzed mass-murderer Adam Lanza’s DNA in the hope of determining if whether an evil gene caused him to go on a murderous killing spree. (Deep divide of ‘evil genes, Julia Llewellyn Smith, Age of Technology, April 11, 2013)

10. Satanic inversion: One basic sign of demonic subjection is the inversion of lie above truth; evil above good; the devil above God.  Satanic inversion is a primary weapon of evil spirits.

In “Painted Black,” Dr. Carl Raschke, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Denver and leading authority on America’s spreading subcultures of darkness,  connects the pieces of a terrifying puzzle to reveal the chilling facts and cases behind an invisible wave of evil sweeping our nation. He points out that the hard egoism, decadence, pornography, drugs, heavy metal rock, mass murders, criminality, ‘new religions’ and occultisms in American culture have  social and spiritual ties that bind them together, revealing that these diverse evils are part of a similar spiritual genus manifesting itself in a will to do evil. (p. 406)

In this brief overview we have seen certain signs of God’s judgment as well as what happens in a godless society when God turns the rebellious over to spiritual bondage and depraved minds. The depraved think they’re scientifically enlightened, that they’re brilliant forward-thinkers while faithful orthodox Christians are stupid, backwards prescientific traditionalists or fundamentalists.  But so-called forward thinkers are imbeciles whose minds are depraved, consciences are evil, and wills turned to wickedness.  The demonically influenced compulsively lie and invent bizarre religions, ideologies, boogiemen such as extraterrestrials, climate change, and worship evolving energies and forces. Moreover, they like to talk about being spiritual as though it’s entirely reasonable for imbeciles to invent and worship their own spirituality.  According to MacArthur this is man all the way at the bottom.  It’s complete rejection of the Holy Triune God and the true faith.   

At certain points in history, Yahweh acts as judge and gives sinners over to spiritual bondage and the effects of their sins. (Romans 1:26, 28)   Dr. Peter Jones comments:

“This act of God, the righteous Judge, in giving them over means ‘his abandonment of the persons concerned to more intensified and aggravated cultivation of the lusts of their own hearts with the result that they reap for themselves (in this life) a correspondingly greater toll of retributive judgment.”  (The Other Worldview, Peter Jones, p. 187)

This action of God within history is in anticipation of His final judgment, when it will be too late for mercy.  Hendrickson comments:

“Under the symbolism of a locust plague John describes the powers and influences of hell operating in the hearts and lives of men.  No ordinary locusts are these; they do not destroy vegetation (or) even harm it.  They harm the men who have not been sealed (Rev. 7:1-8).  Yet—glory be to God—the duration of their destructive work has been definitely determined by God’s permissive decree: five months no longer.” (More than Conquerors, p. 121)  

In closing,  as we discern the signs of judgment and spiritual bondage and their resulting evil and madness, our hearts are broken because God has abandoned godless America and handed large numbers of people–especially religious, political, and cultural leaders—over to spiritual bondage and depraved minds. Such a state may make us want to give up.  But the faithful must never give up.  “If God is for us,” said Paul, “who can be against us?” (Rom. 8:31)  We must persevere in faith and not give up the hope that God’s patient kindness in postponing the final terrible judgment in order that people may see their sin will lead them to repent.

Mar. 2023@Linda Kimball