Roundtable Discussion:

Another Kingdom Masquerading As Light

“We all worship something” – Tim Keller

Wherever the church leaves a moral vacuum, culture and society will fill the void.

You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

Matt 5:13

Scripturally, the bible boils everything down to two Kingdoms: The Kingdom of Babylon (evil) and the Kingdom of Heaven (good). However, it is not always so obvious which Kingdom is which. Satan from the beginning said “Did God really say?” (Gen 3:1) There will always be confusion as to what is right and wrong once worship of and obedience to the true God is challenged.

And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness.

2 Cor 11:14-15

This topic came to light when praying for the Next Generation – Gen Z. Gen Z has been created by God as adventurers, pioneers, warriors, passionate for a cause. And what we prayed about was to expose the “false dichotomy” of independence and obedience. Meaning, God gives us the freedom and free-will to chose Him (or anything actually), but if we choose Him, we freely submit our free-will back to Him as “bond-servants”.

For he who was called in the Lord as a bondservant is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise he who was free when called is a bondservant of Christ.

1 Cor 7:22

This is also known as Permission and Prohibition. In Jesus, they go hand in hand. Back to the garden of Eden – “you are permitted to eat of any tree, except one.”

However, when the next generation looks back at how U.S. Christianity got syncretized with free-market capitalism and how the church looked the other way regarding: environmental pollution, exploiting the poor for profits, socio-economic inequalities, etc., THE CHURCH is now perceived as hypocritical. Against abortion, sexual promiscuity, for Israel, but greedy for profits.

When the Church pulled back from/got pushed out of government, business, economics in the United States, the cry was “separation” of “religion” from everything.

Yet, paradoxically, Judeo-Christian scripture was the very basis of our law, our morality, our ethics and our character. But once the “obstacle” of religion was removed, it left pure market-based capitalism in its wake. It also left a government hungry for money and power. And it also left a moral vacuum to be filled. A blank canvas. Filled with what? Well it certainly can’t be religion, so in the wisdom of man and the absence of God, we as a society started creating a hodge-podge, cottage industry of morality and ethics. Of what the new “right and wrong” are. A weird “politically correct” balancing act of worshiping fame and fortune – but feeling good about it in the process. We see this reflected now in Hollywood, Washington D.C. and Wall Street. There is a new hegemony emerging between these three camps.

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

Isaiah 5:20

Have you heard of “ESG” scoring? That stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance scoring for corporations and investments.

For example, “Social” was defined in 2017 as being computed using inputs from: Human Rights, Labor Standards, Gender Equality. Sounds good so far, right?

Read more here: https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2017/07/27/esg-reports-and-ratings-what-they-are-why-they-matter/

However, quickly revealed is ESG hypocrisy. For instance, Disney and Apple scored high in ESG, yet somehow these scores overlooked sweatshop Asian labor and Chinese persecution of those who believe in religion, such as Christians, Uyghur Moslems and others.

An interesting video on ESG hypocrisy:

Regarding environmental hypocrisy – this is sometimes referred to as “Greenwashing”, whereby the corporate citizen builds a marketing case for how they are “carbon-neutral”, when in fact underneath it is just a shell-game to avoid social shaming of politically correct critics.

This then all becomes about one “feeling good” about how people perceive their actions, as more important than actually doing good according to the Bible.

We already have extensively discussed the pitfalls of FICO credit scoring for consumers, masquerading as a pseudo-character score of how good of a slave you are in paying your debts.

Or how the Chinese regime uses a “social credit” system to reward and punish people in what it deems as good and bad behavior, thus the government redefining people’s morality.

Or have you heard of stakeholder capitalism?

“We should seize this moment to ensure that stakeholder capitalism remains the new dominant model.” – Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum

Now, as we look toward Jesus’ return, we find ourselves in a time where the line is greatly blurring between right and wrong. We need to be vigilant. We need to be “watchmen” on the walls of our hearts. First, the Church must REPENT OF ALL OF ITS SIN THAT HAS LEFT THESE VACUUMS and return to its rightful place among a remnant of God’s people – God’s Israel. Second, we must become the “Two Witnesses” of Revelation 11, willing to stand up against (militant witness) and call out those who are calling evil good., lobbying for a “new morality”.

For what appears to be good at first, or for a season, can be a temptation to “bite into the apple” and then we are hooked into deception. This is how the Antichrist will fool the world, starting with a false peace masquerading as good:

He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.

Daniel 9:27

Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.

2 Thessalonians 2:3