Christ As the Suffering Servant

37. Q. What do you confess when you say that he suffered?

A. During all the time he lived on earth, but especially at the end, Christ bore in body and soul the wrath of God against the sin of the whole human race.1 Thus, by his suffering, as the only atoning sacrifice,2 he has redeemed our body and soul from everlasting damnation,3 and obtained for us the grace of God, righteousness, and eternal life.4

1 Is 53; 1 Tim 2:6; 1 Pet 2:24; 3:18. 2 Rom 3:25; 1 Cor 5:7; Eph 5:2; Heb 10:14; 1 Jn 2:2; 4:10. 3 Rom 8:1-4; Gal 3:13; Col 1:13; Heb 9:12; 1 Pet 1:18, 19. 4 Jn 3:16; Rom 3:24-26; 2 Cor 5:21; Heb 9:15.

It is during Lent that we find ourselves concentrating on those truths of Christianity that if they are brought up at all are brought up in a light and tertiary manner as if they are secondary issues. Huge Churches are built on the basis of not touching the issues that surround Lent. However, as we learn it is these subjects that often are at the heart of the Christian religion. We have taken up a couple of those truths the last two weeks. We looked at the subject of Repentance and the necessity, that because we are creatures, and because we are never completely free from the effects of Adam’s fall, our leaning into life should be characterized by repentance. We noted that because we always fall short of God’s perfect standard of righteousness in all that we think, do or say, our lives should be characterized as one of repentance.

Last week we considered the Lenten theme of humility. We said that if pride is the mother lode of all other sin then humility is the Round-up that kills pride. We spent some time considering the plethora of Scripture that reminds Christians over and over that God resists the proud by gives grace to the humble…. to the Scriptures that teach we are to clothe ourselves with humility. We insisted that it is only the Christian who ever pursues humility since the non-Christian, by definition, lives with self at the center of his whole existence. We insisted, that like repentance, the Christian life is one of constantly pulling the weed of self.

Most importantly, we noted that the Cross is at the center of repentance and humility. If we are to learn repentance and humility we must be students of the Cross. The Cross exposes our need for repentance reminding us of God’s righteous and holy standard by which sin is judged. If the price of sin was the Cross and if we grow in that understanding, then sorrow for our sin that issues in repentance is the hum of our lives.

Our repentance doesn’t improve our standing with God, but it reflects a growing gratitude for the Cross, and this gratitude demonstrates itself by a lifestyle of repentance and ever-growing obedience.

When we learn the Cross, we also learn humility. It is impossible to carry a proud and haughty mien when we consider the humility that Christ suffered. The Cross teaches that there Christ paid for all our pride, and the Spirit poured out because of the Cross works in God’s people to put to ever increasingly put to death pride, selfishness, and the desire to live with ourselves at the center.

This week we take up the subject of suffering. This is another motif of Lent along with Repentance and humility. This week we will take up the suffering of Christ and next week we will consider the call to our own suffering.

During all the time he lived on earth, but especially at the end, Christ suffered bearing the Wrath of God.

Here we find some surprised that it could be said that Christ suffered during all the time he lived on earth, thinking that the only suffering of Christ would have been restricted to when He entered into His passion … perhaps starting at Gethsemane and continuing on through the Cross. The Catechism teaches here that thinking is not accurate.

Here our Christian theologians introduce the distinction between Christ’s active and passive obedience. Here is a distinction that seeks to not isolate the whole of Christ’s obedience one aspect from another, but rather seeks to give us handles to better understand the suffering of Christ.

When we talk about the active obedience of Christ we mean the obedience Christ offered up during life with regard to His perfect obedience to the requirements of God’s Law. When we speak of the passive obedience of Christ we are referring to the fact that Christ, in spite of His perfect obedience to the Law during His life, Christ received the due penalty for God’s law having been violated.

Now, it is easier to think of Christ’s suffering under the distinction of His passive obedience whereby Christ suffers vicariously in our place for our sins. On the Cross Christ suffers the wrath of God as a sin offering, suffering as our substitute for the sin of the elect. The suffering in his passive obedience is not a suffering He deserves in Himself but a suffering He is required to meet as our representative – as in our place.

This passive substitutionary obedience and suffering is clearly taught in passages like,

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. II Cor. 5:21

For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. I Pt. 3:18

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” Gal. 3:13

So, it is easy enough, to trace the suffering of Christ in relation to His passive obedience … In and through His passive obedience Christ suffers the just penalty of the wrath of God against Sin. In His passive obedience Christ on the Cross is the representative sinner vicariously suffering for the sins of the elect.

But now we pause to ask if the Catechism is correct by teaching that Christ suffered during all the time on earth? Scripture here points us in a direction that confirms the Catechism’s teaching when Isaiah writes;

He is despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. (Is. 53:3)


The Scripture teaches here that Christ suffered as despised and rejected. Christ is characterized as a man of sorrows acquainted with grief and for anybody who has knows even a wee bit of sorrows and grief, certainly we understand the suffering of that.

Jesus Himself speaks of His suffering when He teaches;

If the world hates you, understand that it hated Me first. / If you were of the world, it would love you as its own. Instead, the world hates you, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. / Remember the word that I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you as well; if they kept My word, they will keep yours as well.

Here again is that idea of the suffering Messiah. Who would gainsay that universal hatred is indeed suffering – especially when that hatred is completely unjust? Yet, here is Christ testifying to His own suffering… His own persecution.

Now, the Catechism does teach that His suffering was especially at the end but the suffering at the end was of a piece with all the suffering the Lord Christ underwent during His whole life.

So, when we think of the active obedience of Christ wherein He fulfills all the demands of the law in our place we also think of the suffering of our Lord Christ. We are reminded that this suffering in His active obedience was a suffering that was redemptive – that is to say it is suffering in our place and for us. It remains a vicarious suffering.

We are reminded then of the suffering Messiah. We see His suffering as He lived His life in a world that was in unremitting rebellion against His Father. We see His suffering in His tears over the death of His friend Lazarus and in the lament we find Him anguishing over the refusal of Jerusalem to repent. These could not be isolated moments of suffering. Our Lord Christ healed the sick, delivered the possessed, raised the dead but in the doing of all that would He not have suffered seeing the weight of sin’s curse and its effect on creation?

In teasing this out … the suffering found in both the active and passive obedience of Christ we learn that the Catechism is Scripturally correct in putting in our mouths and in our memories the truth that;

“During all the time he lived on earth, but especially at the end, Christ bore in body and soul the wrath of God against sin”

The Hymn writers teach us the same;

Man of Sorrows
What a name
For the Son of God who came
Ruined sinners to reclaim
Hallelujah, what a Savior

There is something else going on here in the Catechism as it reflects Scripture that is going on here. In the Catechism’s question and answer with its emphasis on the suffering of the Lord Christ is pointing us towards the fact that the Christian faith is definitionally cruciform. By this I mean that the Catechism, when it teaches us about Christ’s suffering, in it’s relating that suffering to Christ and His being the sin-bearer.

There is a subtle point I want us to see here. It is subtle but vitally important all the same. By connecting Christ’s suffering as being related to bearing God’s wrath against sin the Catechizers, following Scripture, teaches us that the heart of the Christian faith is Christus pro me – Christ for me…. or in the corporate … “Christ for us.”

The Christian life though it is definitionally inclusive of “following Christ,” does not find its beating heart in a definition that Christianity means following Jesus.

I bring this out because I heard Tucker Carlson, say this week;

“A Christian is one who follows Jesus.”

Tucker Carlson

We give Carlson some latitude because he is young in the Christian faith. However, this is not the heart of what it means to be a Christian. No … this is the liberal definition of Christian. Liberals are forever asking “What would Jesus Do.” It is the Biblical Christian who promotes instead as the main question; “What did Jesus do.” And the answer to that question is the Gospel … is the primary definition of Christianity. What Jesus did is in the incarnation he added a Human nature, with the purpose of obeying all God’s law perfectly vicariously (in the place of) His people as conjoined with the purpose of suffering the just penalty of God’s wrath against both our sin nature and all our sinful acts that flow from that sin nature.

The proper definition of Christian is one who owns the sacrifice and suffering of Jesus Christ for their sins. That needs be the first thing that is said when someone asks “what is a Christian.” A Christian is someone who confesses;

A. During all the time he lived on earth, but especially at the end, Christ bore in body and soul the wrath of God against the sin of the whole human race.1

Now, let us begin our descent in landing this morning by noting the whole theme of Christ’s suffering being substitutionary. I haven’t used that word yet in this morning though I have frequently used the words “vicarious” and “vicariously.” This is a word, like propitiation, that we seldom use anymore in our communication. As Christians though it needs to be in our vocabulary because it is at the heart of our Christian faith.

Vicarious communicates the idea of substitution and so, vicarious suffering refers to the concept of enduring pain or hardship on behalf of others.

We have heard already the verses that teach that Christ suffered in our place, in our stead, on our behalf, in our place … or simply for us.

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, I Peter 3:18

And again,

so also Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many; and He will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who eagerly await Him. Hebrew 9:28

Here we are required to bring out the truth that Christ suffers as our representative. He suffers the suffering and death that we deserved. The wrath of God against the Messiah is not a wrath against His person. Scripture gives us the voice of the Father saying twice; “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”

So, the suffering of Christ explained as the wrath of God is not against The Lord Jesus Christ in and of Himself. The suffering of Christ is explained by the fact that Christ is in our place. He suffers the suffering that was ours to suffer. He suffers as our Federal Head. All the deserved suffering of the elect in His redeemed church Christ suffers in our stead. He suffers the wrath of God so that we have peace with God.

This explains why every Christian minister of every generation commands all men everywhere to repent. If they will not own this suffering of Christ in their place … if they will not see the love of the Father and Son in His suffering vicariously then the terrible eternal wrath of God remains upon them. Oh, why will you suffer God’s eternal judgment? Why will you continue stiff necked and unrepentant? Why will you curse humility and continue to walk in pride?

So vicarious is the idea of substitution … Christ vicariously suffered in our place, on our behalf, for us. This is the beating heart of our undoubted Christian faith and during a Biblical Lent it is the theme that we are drawn back to over and over again.

And it is this Reformed theme that makes Lent different from the Lent of Rome. By learning the Cross we understand that Christ’s suffering requires no improvement on our part. Our repenting during Lent, our clothing ourselves with humility during Lent, our suffering during Lent are done out of a pursuit for an unsure redemption … a wrestling with God to gain a still uncertain salvation. Our repenting, clothing ourselves with humility, our suffering during Lent is in gratitude for the certainty of the salvation that could not be improved upon because of Christ’s humility and suffering in our place.

Now, there is just one more loose strand to clarify before we close and that is the language used by the catechism can easily confuse some folks. It is this phrase I refer to;

“During all the time he lived on earth, but especially at the end, Christ bore in body and soul the wrath of God against the sin of the whole human race.”

Now, we have learned this morning about the vicarious nature of all this. We have labored to demonstrate the suffering that was found both in Christ’s active and passive obedience. Now we want to clean up that little phrase “the whole human race.”

People will and do easily walk away from this thinking that Christ suffered and died for each and every person who has ever lived. We want to draw out that is not the intent of the Catechizers.

First of all, we note that the Catechism has taught us that we are redeemed by this vicarious suffering of Christ. Now, if we take that idea and marry it to the idea of Christ bearing the wrath of God against the whole human race we would have to conclude that the writers of the Catechism were Universalist. If Christ suffered for the whole human race in the sense of every man who has ever lived than every man who has ever lived would be redeemed. This is Universalism.

The catechism nowhere else teaches this idea.

Now, some will insist that Christ suffered for the sin of every single man but every single man, they will say, has to have faith in Christ and if they don’t have faith in Christ then they will die in their sins. The problem here is found in the fact that a lack of faith is sin and if Christ suffered for the sins of every single person who has ever lived then His suffering paid for the sin that is found in a lack of faith.

So, unless we believe that the Catechism is teaching Universalism we cannot believe that it is teaching that Christ died either literally for each and every person who has ever lived or even hypothetically for each and every person who has ever lived. Saying Christ bore the wrath of God for the whole human race proves too much.

The resolution to this is to understand that the death of Christ is sufficient for the whole human race … that is, that the death of Christ is not lacking in any degree

The Canons of Dordt teach this;

The death of the Son of God is the only and most perfect sacrifice and satisfaction for sin, and is of infinite worth and value, abundantly sufficient to expiate the sins of the whole world.

The Canons of Dordt also teaches the particularity of Christ’s death;

For this was the sovereign counsel and most gracious will and purpose of God the Father that the quickening and saving efficacy of the most precious death of His Son should extend to all the elect, for bestowing upon them alone the gift of justifying faith, thereby to bring them infallibly to salvation; that is, it was the will of God that Christ by the blood of the cross, whereby He confirmed the new covenant, should effectually redeem out of every people, tribe, nation, and language, all those, and those only, who were from eternity chosen to salvation and given to Him by the Father; that He should confer upon them faith, which, together with all the other saving gifts of the Holy Spirit, He purchased for them by His death; should purge them from all sin, both original and actual, whether committed before or after believing; and having faithfully preserved them even to the end, should at last bring them, free from every spot and blemish, to the enjoyment of glory in His own presence forever.

Stating Reality Does Not Equal Black-Pilling … Maat & The PWC

Imagine you were among the Israelites living under the Egyptian Maat system. The Egyptian Maat system (there was a Goddess Maat) represented the divine force that governed Egypt’s cosmos, law, and daily life through principles of truth, justice, harmony, balance, order, reciprocity, and property. Further, the Egyptian Maat system was a social slavery system that provided order and was arranged in the shape of a pyramid. At the very apex of the pyramids was the Pharaohs. Everybody in Egypt was a slave of Pharaoh. Then there were those immediately beneath Pharaoh who were his slaves but had for slaves everyone socially inferior to them. Down and down it went until you found the Hebrews at the bottom of the pyramid social structure. They were slaves to all. This is part of what the Maat system provided for the Egyptians.

Now, the problem here was never any one Pharoah. The problem was Maat … the false goddess and the system that she inspired.

In this context, imagine any Egyptian saying … “If we just get a new Pharaoh, everything will change.” That would be an obvious falsehood since any new Pharaoh is still going to be working in the context of Egyptian Maat. Oh, he may tinker around the edges, but real change was never going to come until Maat was brought down.

This is illustrative of where we are at now in the post-war consensus (PWC). The PWC is our Maat. Voting is not going to bring down the PWC because the PWC is the system that we live under and voting is part of our Maat. Politicians, Clergy, Corporate Chieftains, etc. will come and go but Maat isn’t going to change without counter-revolution. The Maat system will not let you vote to replace Maat.

So, it is not black pilling to recognize Maat and the implications of living in the current Maat. Electing a new Pharaoh is not going to get us out of Maat.
Vote if you please … but don’t believe that it is going to fundamentally change anything.

Voting may get you a different form of Maat. Kamala Harris would have given you more faggotry, trannie-ism, and boys in girls locker rooms, but Trump has given us more foreign wars, more Israel bonding, and more lies about getting rid of immigrants, however, it all remains within the bounds of the PWC — within the bounds of our current Maat system.

Working within Maat will never cast Maat out. These things go out only by prayer and fasting …. and counter-revolution.

So, as your anger rises against Trump, just keep in mind, that they are all just like Trump. They all are spit up from the Maat system. From Woodrow Wilson forwards they have all been just playing a role dictated to them by the Maat. You will NOT elect someone better or worse than Trump. They are all part of the Uniparty and the Uniparty is run by the elite Maat.

Since that is true … it really doesn’t matter who sits in the oval office.

Correcting Wesley Huff

Apparently, Wesley Huff is currently all the rage among apologists today. I first heard of him today. He was being interviewed by a chap named “Bartlett.” Below you will see an exchanged between Bartlett and Huff. It is my opinion that Huff’s answer was inadequate to the question.

Huff is reportedly Reformed Baptist. However, I am inclined to think he is some form of evidentialist in his apologetics.

HC91. What are good works?

Those only which proceed from true faith, and are done according to the law of God, unto His glory, and not such as rest on our own opinion or the commandments of men.

____

Bartlett to Huff: So if I don’t believe in Jesus, I don’t believe in the Bible, but I live a “good” life – I’m nice to people, I’m charitable, I’m trying to be kind wherever I can be – and I don’t believe in God am I going to hell or heaven as it relates to the scriptures?

Huff: Well, I don’t think if you’re living your life rejecting God, God is not going to force you into his presence.

—

Bret offers a better answer than Huff;

The problem here Mr. Bartlett is according to the Scripture “good” is defined as doing what we do for the glory of God. If you don’t believe in Jesus then while it may be the case that you do “comparative good,” you do not do “good” by God’s standard for “good.” The Bible teaches that “all our works are as filthy rags,” and this includes your being “nice,” “charitable,” and “kind.” God is not impressed with those behavioral traits because they fall short of the glory of God. To be honest, Mr. Bartlett, the behavior you describe as embraced by those who hate Christ are really just “splendid vices.”

Another problem here, Mr. Bartlett, is that you’re talking about being good, nice, charitable, and kind, but if you don’t believe in God how could you possibly be able to define what good, nice, charitable, and kind is? Without God, you’ve made yourself to be your own standard as to what constitutes virtuous behavior and that by itself will cast you into hell since making yourself your own standard is to make yourself out to be God. Now, why would God allow a false god into His heaven?

No, rebelling against God is rebelling against God and those who are comparatively virtuous as compared to others will be cast into hell along with those who were bad, mean, stingy, and hard-hearted.

The good news though Mr. Bartlett is that God will receive those who look to Jesus for forgiveness, repent of their attempt to be god and so their rebellion, and own God’s standard found in Scripture to be the norm that norms all norms.

Will you not trust Jesus Mr. Bartlett? That is His command to you.

Truth is the first casualty of war … Worldview, Spin & Narrative Creation During War

Most people have heard the old bromide; “Truth is the first casualty of war.” 

This explains why I listen to war reports from Iran in a very jaded manner. I have learned how truth gets so badly mangled during war. In World War I there was the propaganda from the Allies that Germans were throwing Belgian babies in the air and catching them on their bayonets. Also, there were multiple reports of how the Germans would crucify farmers on the farmer’s barn doors. In World War II we all know of the propaganda that advanced the nonsense that the Germans were making fine bone China out of Jewish bones, or how the Germans were turning Jews into soap, or how the Germans used Jewish skin to make lampshades. The Soviets lied about Katyn forest. The Kuwaitis lied about Iraqi soldiers dumping Kuwaiti babies out of their neo-natal units in hospitals.  Artist Frederic Remington who had been assigned to cover the building Spanish-American conflict in 1897 once famously cabled Newspaper Magnate Randolph Hearst who had assigned Remington to cover the war; “I can find no war.” 

Hearst cabled back; “Please remain [in Cuba]. You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.”

From Abraham Lincoln’s propaganda that pinned the blame of the war on the South when he was the one who had committed a naked act of aggression — all of which vaulted the nation into the War of Northern Aggression, to Hitler’s dressing up German soldiers as Polish soldiers in order to contend that the Poles attacked the Germans to give pretext to German invasion of Poland, to the British bald face lies to their public about the Boers being the aggressors in the Boer War, one has to be a fool to believe anything that they are being told by media outlets during a war, because truth is the first casualty of war.

So, where does that leave us in our (US) tidy little war with Israel against Iran? It means that we have to be very jaded about any and every report from anybody and everybody. The incentive to lie and propagandize during war is massive since the stakes are so high. War, you see, is as much about public perception as it is about the bombs being dropped. He who can create the war narrative will have the odds on their side when it comes to winning the war.

This means, that one can’t not buy into just one information outlet. One should be dipping into (as they can) different outlets for information. Also, one has to keep in mind that when they are dipping into different information outlets that they are learning more about the worldview of people who run those outlets then they are learning about the war. Wars, are events that create the possibility of changing the world but the change comes not so much from bombs dropping as the ability to create and foster a new macro narrative. In War (and other like events – the myth of climate change comes to mind) what is being sought out to accomplish is the ushering in of a new narrative template by which the world will be organized and so during war, all the information outlets are doing their damnedest to have the narrative they’re spinning to be the narrative that  attains hegemony. So, because that is true, you’re information outlets giving you “news” about the war, is in point of fact giving you their narrative they want you to accept — a narrative that is based on their worldview. The reporting of information outlets during the time of war tells you more about the worldview of the outlet reporting the news than it tells you about what is happening in the war.

So, for example, if you listen to Iranian outlets, they will give you a completely different accounting of the war than you will get from Jewish information outlets. FOX news on the war will give you a different war than the war you’ll be told about at CNN or MS NOW, will give you a different war than Al Jazeera, will give you a different war than Russia Today. The reason for all these different wars, which are reputedly the same war, is because it is not the war reporting that is really important but the narrative that can be spun out of the war reporting. You can count on the fact, that when it comes to these world changing type of events that information outlets are not trying to tell you about the event itself but are seeking to shape your worldview.

When we get to the nitty gritty that means when you watch Tucker Carlson or Joe Scarborough, or the maniac Sen. Lindsey Graham, or Douglas MacGregor, or Jeffrey Sachs, or John Mearsheimer, etc. you have to try to spend some time digging into their worldview in order to discern what spin they are seeking to put forth.

I am not saying that all that exists is spin and the truth is impossible to arrive at. That would be a post-modern view of truth. What I am saying is that you can’t allow yourself to be spoon-fed by any one information outlet. The truth is, as they say, out there, but in a spin heavy environment, tracking it down is not easy to do.

Also, in this context, I would champion the idea of learning worldview thinking. Worldview thinkers are equipped to smell spin. Christian worldview thinkers are better able to identify the presuppositions that are governing the information outlets. Christian worldview thinkers, having a Christian world and life view can spot when reporting is being driven by an ideology/theology that is discernably false.

We piece together the best we can from various reports what is happening in our war du Jour. We piece it together based on our worldview and not based on the worldview of the talking head who is trying to sway us with misinformation. (And most of them know they are dishing out misinformation.)

It is a complicated world and for the consumer of information one has to remember another old bromide …. “Let the buyer of war information beware.”

From The Mailbag — Tearing Down The Simulation/Matrix

 Dear Pastor;

“How do we overthrow the system that is serving as our Simulation/Matrix.”

Hello Evan,

Thank you for the question.

The answer is manifold.

First, folks like Ben Mordecai have to realize that we are living in a Matrix. We will never overcome the Matrix (The Simulation) by thinking that working within the context of the Matrix — by the rules of the simulation — we will overcome the simulation. So, there is the work of awakening people to the fact that they really are living in a simulation/Matrix.

Second, we overthrow the the Simulation by doing all we can to unplug from it. Many people are doing that by prioritizing family life, by raising their children in the fear of the Lord and so not sending them to the Simulation Education boxes. If we cannot raise our children aware of the need, for the cause of Christ, to themselves see the Matrix for what it is there will be no overthrowing the Matrix/Simulation.

Unplugging means also building parallel but not isolated sub-cultures. People have talked about developing a currency that could be used on a local basis. (This is not my strength but I have read some of those floating this idea.) People have talked about building businesses that especially but not solely cater to the needs of a Christian community. By doing so, we could increasingly unplug from the Simulation/Matrix.

Unplugging also means understanding the doctrine of interposition. If, by God’s grace alone, our numbers become sufficient, at some point larger attacks on the Simulation/Matrix will have to be considered. Since, we will not have the support of Magistrates (who are now serving Baal) we will have to operate via the doctrine of interposition as headed by Clergy/Elder magistrates — if we can find any. Much like Elijah interposed himself against Ahab and His priests on Mt. Carmel, so at some point Christian Elders/Clergy will have to rise up to stand against the prophets of Baal as serving our current Ahabs.

Unplugging also means we have to start connecting the teaching of our Catechisms and Confessions with Worldview teaching. Being in the ministry almost 40 years now I have discovered that even people well catechized often end up being normies living in the Matrix/Simulation. In my estimation only a people thoroughly training in Christian Worldview training as combined with the teaching of the Confessions and Catechisms will ever get out of the Simulation/Matrix that we are now living in.

Unplugging also means (and people aren’t going to like this one) departing from the NAPARC/CREC/SBC churches. Certainly, there are some congregations in NAPARC that are healthy, but considered generally, NAPARC/CREC/SBC congregations are the problem. NAPARC/CREC/SBC churches, generally speaking (which is different than Universally speaking) are supporting the Simulation/Matrix system that needs to be torn down brick by brick. In attending and supporting these denominations we are working against the need to get out of the Matrix/Simulation. If we want to tear down the Simulation/Matrix we simply must quit supporting these derelict institutions with their derelict ministers. (Hey guys … if the shoe doesn’t fit don’t wear it.)

Unplugging means a return to God’s Law-Word as the standard by which we live, move and have our being. The Simulation/Matrix we are living in exists because God’s Law-Word (especially in its politicus usus) is being set aside for humanist Law-Word. We see this in postmodernism which teaches, at best, that law-words are community relative. We see this in Legal-Positivism which teaches the Rousseauian idea of the General Will in one form or another. We see this in Natural Law theory that posits that fallen man is not so fallen as to no longer have the ability to even want to live by God’s law. The Simulation/Matrix we are living in will not be torn down until there is a return to the foundation upon which real reality can be built.

We remember the words of Christ that some things only go out by prayer and fasting. I take this to mean that we have to understand that tearing down the Matrix/Simulation is first and foremost a spiritual endeavor and by that I mean we have to see that that which is animating the Simulation/Matrix is principalities and forces. Before unplugging can be successful we have to understand that the Simulation/Matrix is an expression of this present evil age as animated by the Prince of the power of the air. Because of this we must be instant in connecting the dots between the corporeal realities and the spiritual realities that animate them and then we must pray God that He might let us land just one Samson like blow (think Pillars and Philistines) in order to bring the whole Simulation/Matrix down on their heads.

Or we could just ignore all this like good little amillennialists and live in the Simulation/Matrix telling ourselves that this is the way God intends for it to be until He returns.