Captivity--The Cause and Solution

When we look at our present situation in the world, we must always keep in mind that our captivity to Mystery Babylon did not just suddenly appear out of nowhere. The bigger context tells us that we are at the tail end of a captivity that began in biblical times as a combination of Assyria and Babylon.

Assyria took Israel captive; Babylon took Judah captive. With Israel, it was an immediate iron-yoke captivity; with Judah, they spent only 70 years under an iron yoke, and the rest under the wooden yoke until 70 A.D., when their revolt against Rome brought the nation back under the iron yoke.

At this end of the age, America and most of the world is under the wooden yoke. In other words, we are allowed to pay tribute to Babylon without being displaced and deported to other nations. We are captives in our own land to unseen and hidden money-masters who use politicians as their "fronts."

The iron-yoke captivity of Israel technically ended in 1776 after "seven times" of punishment for the sins of Samaria (745 B.C. to 1776 = "seven times," or 2,520 years). At that time, God began to establish a new nation where we were to recognize His sovereignty over the nation. Every State constitution in the nation recognizes the sovereignty of God in its opening preamble, and the Constitution was written to forbid the newly-created Federal government to get involved in religious legislation that might interfere with (or overturn) the religious convictions of each State.

Nonetheless, because Israel's release from captivity in 1776 was not accompanied by the fulfillment of the feast of Tabernacles, we did not obtain leaders who were overcomers that could guide the people in obedience to the laws of God. So it was inevitable that we would follow the same degenerative path as did the Israelites in the book of Judges, where "every man did what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25).

When America was founded, many Christians understood that the law of God was the model for any Christian government. They knew the essential difference between law and grace and saw no contradiction between faith and obedience. They knew that we are justified by faith alone, but the daily Christian life was about learning obedience by the instructions of the law.

But their understanding was only as good as the people who professed Christianity. In those days the Roman Church was still forbidding its members to read the Bible for themselves. So their understanding of the Word was based fully on what little they were told by the priests. And because the Church itself had developed its "traditions of men" much the way the Jews had done in earlier times, they often destroyed the law in the same manner as well (Matt. 15:6).

Even those who respected the law did not often understand it through the eyes of the New Covenant. Having lost "Pentecost" many centuries earlier, most did not enjoy its benefits. Having lost the Sword of the Spirit, many had taken up the physical sword as their weapon of choice in establishing the Kingdom of God. In this they were not unique, of course. Such methods had been long thought to be virtuous and right in the sight of God. After all, had not Joshua done so in his conquest of Canaan?

They did not understand that each Covenant had its own sword. Their lack of Pentecostal insight caused them to believe that the physical sword was the weapon of choice. The direct result of this was that they began to compete for land with the Native Americans and soon saw them as "the enemy."

Once we view people as "the enemy," we no longer see them as future Christians. Secondly, we begin to think that "survival" is more important than giving our lives for the sake of others. It is not long before we think it virtuous to "kill God's enemies," rather than to give our lives for the sake of others, as Jesus did. An "enemy" in war is something less than human.

So the Americans, who had a strong sense of "manifest destiny" in establishing the Kingdom of God in this continent, conquered by immigration, which often involved murder, theft, and broken treaties--all of which are a direct violation of the law of God. The key problem was that they were Old Covenant Christians who idealized the methods of Joshua rather than of the New Testament Yeshua.

One misunderstanding of the divine law led to another. There were many who opposed banks and usury in those early years, but ultimately the banks prevailed. Finally, the money powers consolidated their power in 1914 by means of the Federal Reserve Act. By 1933 the nation was bankrupt, and the banks foreclosed on the nation, turning it into a servant of the rising money power.

Then, knowing that the real strength of America lay in its obedience to God, they began to systematically eliminate God from the Federal Government and (as much as possible) from the State governments as well. To prevent a Christian slave revolt, they opened up the gates of immigration to as many non-Christians as possible in order to dilute the Christian vote. Pluralism and multi-culturalism became the new "strength" of America. Having conquered by immigration, we were now, in turn, conquered by immigration.

And now true Christianity itself is under attack. We are moving toward the Communist idea of "freedom of religion," whereby churches are only legal if they are recognized and controlled by the State. Once controlled, they will have to edit many objectionable laws from the Bible, so that sinners are not offended.

If this continues, it will become illegal to speak of Christ outside of one's home or personal property. This was actually the case in the Greek world of Paul's day.

The next step will be to ban all home meetings altogether. "Freedom of religion" will be defined as allowing an individual to hold religious beliefs, but gatherings will be restricted under the Patriot Act, due to possible "terrorist" activities that might be planned. Only State-recognized churches will be allowed to gather in groups, and if they do not edit their Bibles, they will lose their legal status.

We are not there yet, but this is what is being planned. The only thing that will stop this trend is for the Church to repent of its lawlessness. It will not help to simply oppose the New World Order. Behold, I show you a mystery, a secret--God is on the side of the New World Order. He is the One who raised it up and empowered it to bring judgment upon the Church for its lawlessness. Instead of fighting the NWO, we should be repenting before God.

It was the same in biblical days. Israel was brought into captivities when they rejected Him as their King and Law-giver. God reversed the captivities when they repented. It is no different today. We must deal primarily with God, not with men. Fighting the NWO is fighting symptoms, rather than the causes. We will never overthrow the NWO without first repenting.

Likewise, I do not think that a national repentance will occur apart from a tremendous outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We can talk about repentance and even show where we have gone wrong, but this will not affect more than a few individuals until God intervenes directly.

God's intervention is sure to come at some point. But He requires certain things to be in place first. In every past "revival," He has always prepared the ground before the Spirit was poured out. I believe that the current preparation is the Joshua-Elisha work that we are doing even now. To me, it is the key to the future. It is the only long-term solution to the problem we face today.

You are part of that work, if God has placed this on your heart to do so. We are all in this together.