Revelation 2:7–The Cataclysmic Closing of a Steel Door

In “Papacy in Collapse: “The Crisis of the Bergoglio Party (which will leave the Church devastated) has begun” we read:

“It’s beginning to look as if Jorge Bergoglio is the man who inherited the papacy and then broke it. (Bergoglio) has caused the Church to collapse into doctrinal confusion which is much, more serious than any financial scandal. Is it the fault of obscure opponents? Nonsense. Only in dictatorships are the failures of the regime justified with presumed sabotages from its opponents. The Argentine Pope has said many times that he wanted chaos as he considered it creative: he should be pleased now.” (rorate-caeli.blogspot, 2015/11)

Years ago, long-time Vatican observer Malachi Martin (1921-1999) described a situation in which the Curia is divided between ‘progressives’ and ‘traditionalists;’ between adherents of change, science, evolutionary conceptions, abortion, women and ‘gay’ priests, openness to nature religions and ideologies (i.e, CRT, Social Justice) and those who oppose such an agenda. According to Martin, ‘progressives’ hold all the important positions of power, so are able to bring about a major revolution that if unchecked will constitute,

“…one of the most spectacular expressions of apostasy in the modern era, dressed up in all the traditional robes and much of the terminology of Christianity but denying its essence.” (Jesus and the Den of Thieves, SCP Journal, Dr. Peter Jones, p. 17)

Chaos, confusion, defiant autonomy, nihilism, and devastating crisis of faith are not unique to the Roman Catholic Church. This toxic virus infects much of the denominational spectrum of Christ’s Church.

Though written for a Roman Catholic audience, James Hitchcock’s powerful analytical piece “Off the Rails: Was Vatican II Hijacked?” contains much that parallels the crisis of faith within the body of the Protestant Evangelical church. (Crisis Magazine, June 2014)

For instance, among unworkable church-growth tactics employed by the Roman Catholic Church is the strategy of countering secularism by accommodating the Church to the secular culture and its’ idolization of entertainment, science, ideology, and evolution. Since much of the Evangelical church employs the very same strategy, the devilish spirit driving the crisis of faith has for many years been entering through the open front door of accommodation. 

Decades ago, Francis Schaeffer perceived this devilish spirit already at work amongst evangelical Protestants. In “The Great Evangelical Disaster” he wrote:

“Accommodation, accommodation. How the mindset of accommodation grows and expands…For the evangelical accommodation to the world of our age represents the removal of the last barrier against the breakdown of our culture. And with the final removal of this barrier will come social chaos and the rise of authoritarianism in some form to restore order.” (p. 401)

Schaeffer rebuked evangelical compromisers, warning them that to accommodate,

“…to the world spirit about us in our age is the most gross form of worldliness in the proper definition of the word.” 

By the logical consequences of accommodation, promoters inevitably end up negating the right of the Christian Church to remain faithful to its authentic identity, and this ends in “a moral obligation to repudiate as much of that identity as possible” (Hitchcock).

The dogged pursuit of this scheme eventually forces older saints (salty traditionalists) out of the church in favor of younger, culturally saturated, spiritually and morally immature members. These actions give birth to Christless Christianity and a crude form of democracy:

“…doctrine as determined by opinion polls. The liturgy (ceases) to be a divine action and (becomes) a communal celebration… with every moral absolute treated as merely another wall needing to be breached” (resulting in a demand) “for liberation from all restraint on personal freedom.” (Hitchcock)

A further consequence is that the theological frontier, “…. is nothing less than the stark question of whether there is indeed only one God and Jesus is His only-begotten Son.” 

Dr. R. Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, concurs. Dr. Mohler describes our age as marked by so much spiritual and theological confusion that the God of the Bible has largely disappeared from view and been replaced by less imposing,”… deities that are more amenable to the modern mind.” (The Disappearance of God, Mohler, p. xiii)

We are witnessing the secularization, paganization and evaporation of orthodox Biblical theism to which must be added rebellion against every vestige of authority, immutable truth, and moral law, in favor of an inversion of history caused by evolutionary thinking, new-pagan ideologies, the privatization of truth (nihilism) and, “…..the fact that millions of Americans claim a divine right to their own spiritual cocoon and belief system.” Americans, “now lay claim to their ‘own personal Jesus.’ This personal vision of Jesus Christ may well bear little or no resemblance to Jesus as He is revealed in the Bible.” (xiii)

One of the central realities of America’s apostasy and moral decay is the dawning of a post-Christian, paganized culture now rapidly transitioning into an anti-orthodox Christian society with an anti-orthodox Christian consciousness that is already well developed. Tolerance has been perverted into a radical secularism that is wholly open to worldly bread – ‘gay’ marriage, sodomy, abortion as legalized ‘choice,’ perverse sex education for children, drag queen story hour, mutilating sex-changes for children, mystical mindfulness meditation and other occult practices, Baphomet, Satanism, sorcery, Wicca, magic, nudity, pornography and Burning Man Festivals but intolerant of God’s Word, His Authority, Moral Law and sexual ethics:

“But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Matthew 4:4

The post-Christian mind is closed to the eternally unchanging transcendent truths of the Holy Trinity but completely open to the idea that truth has no objective or absolute basis whatsoever. Indeed, the postmodern mind has a fanatical dedication to relativism (nihilism), love of autonomous self, pleasure, and its own personal Jesus idols and gods, be they “me, myself and I” gods, evolution-gods, big bang-gods, mystical passion-gods, Omegas, Yogic Christs, Christ-consciousness, gods-of-reason or some other idol.

The post-Christian West and America have entered into an age of deep and undeniable breakdown, an age of spreading darkness and evil where moral constraints and restraints have been thrown off in the name of a liberation that does not emancipate but enslaves, does not save but condemns. Our increasingly bizarre age is marked by a fundamental failure of conviction in unison with deepening corruption and lawlessness characterized by pathological lying, hard-edged egotism and warped, distorted personalities.

Something is happening to the consciousness of this age. It is a counter-conversion of consciousness closing the souls of Westerners and Americans to Jesus Christ while opening them to powers of darkness. If we listen closely said Dr. Mohler, we can hear something,

“…like the closing of a steel door – a solemn, cataclysmic slamming of a door.” (p. 166)

But for all who have ears to hear,

“let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.” Revelation 2:7

updated2023@Linda Kimball