Sermon: Strategies for Interfacing with Babylon Without Becoming Assimilated (Part Three)

Noise, Hurry, Party Spirit, and Contention
#1778B
David F. Maas
Given 24-Aug-24; 38 minutes 2024-08-24

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Greetings brothers and sisters from Colton, California, from the heart of the Golden West.

Daniel 12:4 “But you Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”

The New English Translation renders this passage: “But you, Daniel, close up these words and seal the book until the time of the end. Many will dash about, and knowledge will increase.” Both renditions indicate that the end of the age will be accompanied by a turbulent, cyclonic information explosion with a startling plethora of data, but sadly a concomitant dearth or scarcity of godly understanding.

In his CGG Weekly article, “Beware the Second Flood (Part One),” David Grabbe warned us of an overwhelming deluge of misinformation spewed out from Satan’s deceitful lips, declaring in Revelation 12:15, “So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood.” David continues, “In this scene Satan aims a torrent of water with deadly intent at God’s people. And in this symbolic description, God reveals one of Satan’s tactics. That the Devil spews water from his mouth indicates we are to understand that what he emits consists of words. A flood of words—of information—fits the figure quite well, as we will see.”

Continuing, “Notice that the immediate danger lies not as much in the specific teachings or meanings of those words but in their sheer volume. Rather than succumbing to deception, a person’s primary peril lies in being swept away and overwhelmed. We, of course, should not think all the words are harmless, since anything and everything coming from Satan’s lips will be twisted.”

Consequently, Revelation 12:15 warns us that one of Satan’s tactics is to sweep believers away by an overwhelming volume of information, its massive quantity threatening more than its corrosive quality. Then, David pointed out in his recent sermon, “Why Did Jesus Say, ‘Peace to You’?,” that in the current information explosion prophesied in Daniel 12:4, mankind adds an insurmountable 358 billion words each day—impossible for any human being to absorb and process.

Let us look at Daniel 7:25 which describes the utterances of the satanic beast power—the Babylonian system which is hell-bent on wearing out the called-out saints of Almighty God.

Daniel 7:25 He shall speak pompous words against the Most High, shall persecute the saints of the Most High, and shall intend to change times and law. Then the saints shall be given into his hand for a time and times and half a time.

The New American Standard Bible renders this passage, Daniel 7:25, “And he will speak against the Most High and wear down the saints of the Highest One and will intend to make alterations in times and law; and they will be handed over to him for a time, times, and half a time.” God’s called-out saints (you, brothers and sisters) apparently are not in for smooth sailing in the foreseeable future, but we are challenged by our Creator and our Savior to strive for the peace, made possible by exercising the precious gift of His Holy Spirit—the Spirit of truth (John 16:13), the mind of Christ (I Corinthians 2:16), enabling God the Father and Jesus Christ to make Their abode (John 14:23) with God’s saints.

Mark Schindler explained that the temporary dwellings (our earthly tents in which God the Father and our Savior Jesus Christ dwell) pending our resurrection into permanent spirit bodies constitute the very offspring of Almighty God. Last week, in his sermon “All Sifted Like Wheat (Part 3)” he suggested that the longer we are in God’s church, the more we realize that each successive message we hear has been carefully selected and miraculously woven together by God for our edification. Like Mark, I have continually experienced a constant shaping or remodeling process as speakers before me use ideas and scriptures I mistakenly thought were my own personal property.

In his July 27, 2024 sermon “Facing Cultural Headwinds: Living in an Anti-God World,” Richard Ritenbaugh added another dimension to the cacophonic Daniel 12:4 information explosion of the end times, depicting struggling against cyclonic or hurricane headwinds as a picturesque metaphor of a fighter going against something that seems hopelessly futile. In this current satanic Babylonic cultural environment of non-stop lies from the evil mainstream media in all lands governed by Jacob’s offspring, endorsing and encouraging woke behavior while simultaneously rejecting God’s holy and spiritual laws, God’s called-out saints encounter extreme difficulties keeping their balance.

Several years ago, Julie and I severed all connections with the legacy, mockingbird, drive-by media (CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN) and instead have found qualified media analysts to keep us apprised. Recently I learned that one of my former Ambassador College students, Kelly Walker, has established his own independent news network Real Freedom Talk on Instagram and YouTube. It might be a good idea to find alternate sources like these for our news sources.

In John 17:14-16, Jesus warned His disciples that they would be left in the world, battling these cyclonic headwinds their entire lives. Realizing that God’s saints cannot grow without a continuous climate of peace, our Lord and Savior commanded us to develop enclaves of peace inwardly by exercising the precious gift of His Holy Spirit, along with fervent prayer and meditation, producing an inexplicable supernatural peace which passes all understanding (Philippians 4:6-7), protected from lethal outside forces—the satanic deluge of destructive negative information forced on God’s people by the incessant cultural headwinds designed by the prince of the power of the air to discourage, dishearten, and wear out God’s saints.

In this penultimate installment of the “Strategies for Interfacing with Babylon Without Becoming Assimilated,” we are going to explore some practical techniques for battling these stormy cultural headwinds—headwinds which consist of noise, hurry, party spirit (sometimes called mob mentality—alternately referred to as democracy), which is now tearing apart the governments presided over by Jacob’s offspring in America, Canada, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and brother Judah’s fragile domicile in the state of Israel.

Last week, Mark Schindler completed his series of sermons, “All Sifted Like Wheat,” somberly warning us that the spirit of contention and rivalry which currently threatens to rip the world asunder is sadly alive and well in the scattered churches of God, just as it was when His disciples at His last Passover were speculating as to who was to be greatest—ironically at the precise time our Lord and Savior was castigating the tyrannical Gentile (A has power over B) style of leadership, demanding that His disciples, then and now, strive for humble servant leadership, always esteeming others over self (Mark 9:35, Philippians 2:3, and Philippians 3:7). Though I have no intention of launching into a fourth installment of “All Sifted Like Wheat,” Mark’s caution or warning about embracing a spirit of contention and competition among spiritual siblings constitutes a major focus of this message.

In the deadly cyclonic headwinds of this culture, hurry, noise, mob mentality, division, and contention are all some of Satan’s favorite tools. While the Beast, False Prophet, and Satan’s ministers may prefer bedazzling pyro-techniques or shock and awe to attract a following, our heavenly Father prefers to conduct His massive creative enterprise with careful, steady, well-planned out steps—not rushing the process as Satan tried to persuade Mother Eve to do. To be sure, many luminaries in the Scriptures became enamored of, or fixated upon dazzling, dramatic spiritual pyrotechnics, such as James and John, the sons of thunder (Mark 3:17, Luke 9:54), suffering what David Grabbe has described as the Elijah syndrome (I believe a close relative of the Phineas syndrome—practiced throughout some of our sister splinter groups) in his CGG weekly series “The Elijah Syndrome” appearing January 2020.

I Kings 19:9-13 And there he [Elijah, running in abject terror from the presence of Jezebel] went into a cave, and spent the night in that place; and behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and He said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah? So he said, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left; and they seek to take my life.” Then He [Almighty God] said “Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord.” And behold the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice. So it was, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Suddenly a voice came to him, and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

The prophet Elijah, James and John, the sons of thunder, the petulant prophet Jonah, and those of us over the years whom God has called out to be His saints, also need to learn that noise, hurry, and shock and awe are not Almighty God’s preferred modus operandi. In his article, “How the Devil Detests Silence and Fills our World with Noise,” Philip Kosloski proclaims, “Silence provides a valuable way to hear God’s voice, but unfortunately our world has been saturated by “noise.” The “noise” that we encounter today is audible, but it has also taken the shape of constant advertising and numerous images and media vying for our attention. The Internet is full of “Noise” that can distract us as well.”

Richard Ritenbaugh posted on Facebook yesterday that 33 years ago in 1991, the Internet was first opened to the public. That is not to say that the entirety of the Internet is somehow tainted, evil, and the spawn of Satan. The Internet is a great tool, one which many have used to spread the Gospel of Christ. However, at the same time we must carefully monitor our Internet use and discern if we are being distracted from hearing God’s voice.

In C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, the “senior demon” Screwtape discloses one of the Devil’s favorite tools: To drive us away from God, Satan attempts to distract us with “Noise.” He realizes that if we are overrun by countless distractions, we will be unable to hear the voice of God in silence. In the milieu of the Daniel 12:4 information explosion, God’s people must use resourcefulness to push back on the incessant noise, seeking enclaves of solitude, such as our Savior modeled for us, making it a regular practice to seek out quiet, peaceful places to commune with our heavenly Father. Throughout the gospels, we find many instances of His going alone to pray, despite a busy ministry schedule. For example, in Mark 1:35, we read that “very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where He prayed.” His grandfather David proclaimed in Psalm 119:97, “Oh, how I love Your law! All day long it is my meditation.”

Those of us who have to navigate through the current maelstrom of excessive noise and information, must develop resourcefulness to escape into the wilderness to commune with our Creator in prayer and meditation. Those of us who live in urban areas must investigate the possibility of a community, regional, state, or national parks. Throughout my last 58 years in God’s church, I have been able to find enclaves of peace, merging the Romans 1:20 public revelation with the private revelation conferred on God’s saints making them stewards of the mysteries of God (I Corinthians 4:1).

Back in 1967, the late Karl Beyersdorfer counseled the Duluth, Minnesota congregation that our time was our life, and that the only practical way of scheduling our time was to set aside time for prayer, time for study, and time for meditation before we scheduled anything else, adding that everything else will fall into place.

We cannot let the cares of the day encroach on the time we have allotted for Almighty God. In her insightful article, “Three Ways to Fight the Busy Life and Set Biblical Priorities” appearing January 1, 2023, Tiffany Montgomery proclaimed, “The biggest enemy of biblical priorities in my life is an inconsistent time with God. Period. When I don’t know what He says should be my first and second priorities, I easily default to what is easiest or most fulfilling including skipping entire days or weeks of quiet time. I must remind myself that my quiet time is between me and God,” She is right here—our time with God should not be shared with annoying social media or distracting worldly pursuits, including the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (I John 2:16).

Deeply imbedded in our carnal natures is the desire to advance ourselves, exalting ourselves over our fellow human beings, mirroring the mindset of the covering cherub Helel who said in his heart, “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north” (Isaiah 14:3).

Some of the cardinal values espoused by the children of Jacob include rugged individualism and competition which often militate against God’s purpose, both sadly encourage one to exalt self and put down others. Though the apostle Paul certainly used athletic metaphors of running a race or boxing (I Timothy 4:7, II Timothy 2:5, I Corinthians 9:26), his purpose was to stress sacrifice and self-discipline rather than lording it over others or demonstrating self-exaltation.

Along with his caution to the Philippians to “let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself,” he also warns the Corinthians that comparing themselves to others is not wise. The Amplified Bible renders the passage:

II Corinthians 10:12 (AMP) We do not have the audacity to put ourselves in the same class or compare ourselves with some who [supply testimonials to to] commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they lack wisdom and behave like fools.

Not only did our Lord and Savior at His last Passover have to discipline ambitious self-centered disciples for exercising Gentile style authority over their spiritual siblings, but also Paul had to discipline the Corinthian congregation for comparing their superior spiritual gifts over the less important gifts of their brethren. Perhaps one may have said “I’m in charge of the electronics, having the ability to plug this cord into an amplifier, while all you get to do is to set up chairs or pass out songbooks.”

Paul put an end to this competitive nonsense by using the interdependent body metaphor in I Corinthians 12, verses 18-26. You can follow along as I read this passage from the Amplified Bible:

I Corinthians 12:18-26 (AMP) God has places and arranged the parts in the in the body, each one of them, just as He willed and saw fit [with the best balance of function]. If they were all were a single organ, where would [the rest of] the body be? But now [as things really are] there are many parts [different limbs and organs], but a single body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” But quite the contrary, the parts of the body which we consider less honorable, these we treat with greater honor, and our less presentable parts are treated with greater modesty, while our more presentable parts do not require it. But God has combined the [whole] body, giving greater honor to that part which lacks, so that there would be no division or discord in the body [that is, lack of adaptation of the parts to each other], but that the parts may have the same concern for one another. And if one member suffers, all the parts share the suffering; if one member is honored, all rejoice with it.

Karl Beyersdorfer, former pastor of the Duluth, Minnesota congregation, once made the statement, “Some people feel if they can put down a fellow church member, it brings them up in comparison, while just the opposite is true.” When we gossip or put down another spiritual sibling, we attack the entire Body of Christ and consequently hurt or injure ourselves as well.

The severely mangled splinters of the greater church of God provide testimony of successive groups of people offended by viewpoints considered heretical to others, a process described in Bill Onisick’s message “Fire Igniter or Fire Extinguisher,” in which he demonstrated that relationships in the church have been charred by loose lips and careless tongues described in James 3:2, setting on fire the course of hell.

People have thrown down litmus tests determining doctrinal purity such as counting to Pentecost, the identity of the Azazel goat, the identity of the False Prophet, the Beast, or the Whore Riding the Beast. In all splinter groups of the greater church of God are abundant nuggets of truth as well as serious blind spots. Even with our best insight and understanding, we are all looking though a glass darkly (I Corinthians 13:12), navigating through thick, pea soup fog, having incomplete knowledge as to how God is using us or leading His church.

Currently, the state of the scattered church is marred or destroyed by ugly party spirit, the same kind of party spirit Paul had to contend with in the Corinthian congregation—I am of Paul, I am of Cephas, I am of Apollos. Similarly, we hear I am of CGG, I am of UCG, I am of COGWA, I am of Father’s Call, or perhaps we could bring it into our fellowship—I am of Ritenbaugh, I am of Schindler, I am of Collins, I am of Grabbe, I am of Onisick, etc.

In my April 22, 2023 message “Avoiding Party Spirit,” I explained that when our forebears in I Samuel 8 made the tragic decision to reject God’s rule over them, demanding with mob mentality and groupthink a government ruled by carnal men like every other nation, free from God’s influence and especially His “pesky” laws, they brought a perpetual curse on all the governments of Jacob’s offspring.

Every form of government fashioned by carnal human beings, including democracies or constitutional republics, are riddled with fatal flaws, as attested to by Winston Churchill and the first two Presidents of the United States who realized that a constitutional republic could only exist with a moral and religious people. Furthermore, rabid, toxic, party spirit (the kind warned about by the apostle Paul (Galatians 5:20 and I Corinthians 3: 3-5) would shred such a government in pieces as is now taking place in America, Canada, and Britain as well as the other lands governed by Jacob’s offspring.

Party spirit and gang warfare emerged well before the foundation of the world, when one of the covering cherubim, driven by pride, self-exaltation, and ambition, drew one-third of the angels into battle with Almighty God (Ezekiel 28:12-15, Revelation12:3-4), who, of course, effortlessly cast these demonic entities to the earth where they now apparently influence identity politics throughout every human government, a highly refined application of the Darwinian survival of the fittest, nature red in fang and claw, which our Lord and Savior warns God’s people to avoid like the plague (Philippians 2:3-4).

As Mark Schindler explained recently, each successive message given each week has been authored by Almighty God for a specific purpose God has intended for that group of listeners at a particular time. For this reason, I have become convinced that trying to pick previous messages apart, finding inconsistencies or falsehoods in these messages constitutes a highly unproductive and potentially divisive practice. As we learn from Proverbs 6:19, one of the six things that the Lord hates is a false witness who speaks lies, and one who sows discord among brethren. The Amplified Bible renders this passage: Proverbs 6:19, “A false witness who breathes out lies [even half-truths], and one who spreads discord (rumors) among brothers.”

Our Savior Jesus Christ, in giving us the command to love one another as He has loved us has placed the bar of our relationships with one another—especially our spiritual siblings—on a much higher level than it currently is. I am sure that every congregation in the CGG and the greater church of God has been plagued with the tendency to gossip, criticize, and attribute negative motives to our spiritual siblings.

Some of the biggest sparring matches have occurred here during the time which should have been allotted to fellowship. In General Semantics parlance, we must be prepared to be misunderstood, and we must be prepared to misunderstand. Regarding seeming apparent contradictions or inconsistencies in previous sermons, articles, and Bible studies, it might be more profitable to examine the context in which previously assumed contradiction is valid. As my friend Dave Havir has always stated, “Preach the rule but counsel the exception.”

Throughout our lifelong sanctification process, we should expect that there will always be more we do not understand than we do understand. We look through a glass darkly (I Corinthians 13:12), but our spiritual trek will brighten considerably when we love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and with all our mind and our neighbor, especially our spiritual siblings, as ourselves (Luke 10:27) with the sacrificial love Christ bestowed upon us (John 13:34-35).

In the past several months it has become apparent that we have to put aside all negative arguing and love our spiritual siblings because we are going to need each other in the times ahead.

DFM/jjm/drm