Puppets of the Principalities and Powers
The Cosmic Drama Behind the World of Politics — aka “The Great Reset”
© 2020, John Freeman
6/21/2020
Chapter Five
Living as a Christian in a World Effectively Ruled by the Principalities and Powers
Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! — John 4:35
As we emerge from what some are calling the post Covid-19 pandemic, we are seeing quite a few solid Evangelical pastors call to their flocks to get busy with the business of taking the message of Christ to the unsaved world. In the spring of 2021, as we began to relax shut downs, mask requirements and get back to somewhat “normal life” we found a populous searching for answers.
The pandemic has forced millions of us to re-evaluate the purpose and meaning of life. Likewise political upheaval during the 2020 election cycle and the actions of the newly elected Democratic president, house and congress in 2021 has upended any sense of normalcy in the American way of life. BLM, ANTIFA, CRT and WOKENESS have become household words that most had never heard prior to 2020. The LGBT+ communities, especially the trans-sexuals have emerged more vocal than ever demanding to be able to force their sinful behavior as the “new normal” onto the entire world.
The 2020 election brought a new era of government which threatens our long enjoyed freedoms we have long held dear. The Socialist Left threatens to overthrow our constitution and replace it with a socialist/communist form of government that will remove our freedom of religion.
We are living in a postmodern, post-Christian, and post-Biblical culture here in the United States. While the beginnings of the degradation began in the early 1900’s, the rate of the slide into this state took a significant increase during the early 1960’s when I was between my 5th and 6th grade. In the years prior to my 6th grade year, every morning at 9am the entire two room school, with 28 students, would gather in a room for 30 minutes. We would recite the Pledge of Allegiance, standing with our right hands over our hearts, recite the Lord’s Prayer and then sing various patriotic songs and Christian hymns. That practice ended when I started the 6th grade because on June 25, 1962, the United States Supreme Court ruled that prayer in school violated the First Amendment and constituted an establishment of religion. The following year the Court ruled Bible readings also violated the First Amendment using the same reasoning. In 1980 another ruling came down that outlawed the posting of the Ten Commandments in school classrooms. Thus, over the past 59 years we have seen a moral decay within society and the rate of decay seems to grow exponentially each year.
Sadly, as we previously discussed in Chapter Two, much of the blame for this moral decay falls squarely in the lap of the Christian church. The task of carrying the message of salvation to the masses sits squarely on the shoulders of the small remnant of Christians that follow a truly Biblical Christian World View. We must get off of our proverbial pew warmers and get about the harvest in the time remaining before Christ’s return. God is calling us to be Salt and Light to a world full of people otherwise destined for damnation. This includes the many “make believers” that are entrenched in the “quicksand” of the liberal, progressive, emergent, seeker friendly church movement.
As we interact with non-believers we must be gracious and compassionate. Our modern culture demands “tolerance” and expects Christians to tolerate their sin. In today’s culture of secular/post modern/ Moralistic Therapeutic Deism world views, tolerance is love. However, true love doesn’t ignore sin. Christ commands that we love our neighbor as ourselves. If we truly love our neighbor and recognize that their sin is destining them to hell, then the loving thing to do is call out their sin. In our modern post modern culture, that act is viewed as being hateful, when in reality; it is the most loving thing we could do, to help them recognize their sin that is destining them to hell. The person that loves you most isn’t the one that tells you what you want to hear. The one that truly loves you will tell you what you need to hear.
“There is not one square inch of the entire creation about which Jesus Christ does not cry out, ‘This is mine! This belongs to me!’” – Abraham Kuyper
The Great Commission compels us to carry the message of salvation to the world’s ripe harvest fields.
And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20</span
As Christ’s ambassadors here on earth we must equip ourselves to be ready and able to witness to anyone we encounter.
Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. 2 Corinthians 5:20
As Christ’s ambassadors, we must be able to recognize from what World View the unbelievers we encounter see the world in which they live and have a strategy from which we approach our witness to them.
What is a Worldview?
A person’s worldview is the philosophical viewpoint from which the individual perceives the world and universe and everything that exists and matters. It reflects how they answer the fundamental questions of “Who and what are we, where did we come from, why we are here, where we are headed, the meaning and purpose of life, is there an afterlife and what constitutes a good life in the here and now?” Influences from society, culture, religious upbringing (if any), and life experiences drive a person’s worldview. A person’s worldview will, to a large degree, determine their opinions on matters of ethics and politics.
No two people will share an identical worldview. However, various regions and countries will share the same basic type of worldview. For example, western civilization began to be dominated by a Christian worldview starting around the fourth century. This includes Western Europe and the Americas. Over the past two centuries technology and theological influences has resulted in the Biblical Christian worldview losing its dominance in western civilization and competing worldviews gaining far more prominence. As noted earlier, over the past 50-60 years, in the US, Europe and Canada, we have witnessed a tidal wave of these competing worldviews replacing the Christian worldview that our countries were founded on.
When I ask and answer the question, what is behind this tidal wave of changing worldviews, I would argue that it is the result of the ongoing cosmic drama of satanic forces striving to overthrow the only true God ordained world view, which is the Biblical Christian worldview. I would contend that the Biblical Christian worldview based on fundamental Biblical values is the only true God ordained worldview and that all others are satanic counterfeits used by Satan to try to deceive mankind.
While there are literally thousands of worldviews, when you boil them down to the fundamentals we can categorize them into seven groups:
- Biblical Christian Worldview
- Islamic World View
- Hinduism/New Age Spirituality Worldview
- Post Modernism Worldview
- Secularism Worldview
- Marxist Worldview
- Moralistic Therapeutic Deism Worldview
Here is an overview of these dominant world views:
I highly recommend the book “Understanding the Times: A Survey of Competing World Views” by Jeff Myers & David A. Noebel. This book is one of the recognized sources of information to help one understand the influence the world view people from various countries of the world hold and how it influences their perception of religion, politics and how they live their lives. It is not my goal in this manuscript to do any type of deep dive into the ideas and concepts that these alternative world views hold. Our main goal is to investigate how these “false” satanic world views have been introduced and used by Satan to deceive and corrupt mankind.
It is disheartening to me that many of us don’t truly know or understand what a Biblical Christian worldview actually entails. When confronted, many that claim to be Christian would be hard pressed to list the characteristics of a Biblical Christian worldview. To be totally honest, I must confess that I myself, until I started researching for this manuscript, would not have been able to describe those characteristics.
Peter exhorted believers to be ready and able to defend why they believe and from where our hope comes from.
But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; 1Peter 3:15
In chapter 3, I used data from the study that Dr. George Barna, Director of Research of the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University that showed that a mere 6% of professing Christians actually held a Biblical Christian worldview. That figure of 6% was arrived at by surveying professing Christians and asking the eight questions listed in chapter 2. Here are the eight questions again:
- Do absolute moral truths exist?
- Is absolute truth defined by the Bible?
- Did Jesus Christ live a sinless life?
- Is God the all-powerful and all-knowing Creator of the universe, and does He still rule it today?
- Is salvation a gift from God that cannot be earned?
- Is Satan real?
- Does a Christian have a responsibility to share his or her faith in Christ with other people?
- Is the Bible accurate in all of its teachings?
The documentation about this survey did not reveal if deeper questions were used. In reality, the eight questions Dr. Barna listed are still very basic “surface level” questions. We need far more than surface level understanding of what our Biblical Christian worldview is based on. I am convinced that lack of knowledge of and understanding of the Biblical truths and foundations we base our faith on, is a major cause of the decline of the Christian Church over the past 2-3 generations.
In the next chapter we are going to take a deep dive into what a Biblical Christian worldview includes from the categories from the chart on the previous page. In subsequent chapters we will explore each of the false satanic counterfeit worldviews and how our enemy uses them to manipulate and deceive mankind.