The Modern False Prophets

Glenn Beck

Like a modern day John the Baptist, Glenn Beck has been traveling around the United States for the past several months, speaking to tens of thousands of people in order to prepare them for the coming of the messiah.

However, in this case the messiah is Sen. Ted Cruz, the Republican presidential candidate that Beck hopes will deliver Americans from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the same way that Moses--with the hand of God--delivered the Hebrews from Pharaoh, the wicked ruler of ancient Egypt.

Beck truly believes that unless America elects Cruz to the White House in November, the United States is doomed to fall under God's judgment. Beck has become quite a preacher lately, combining Mormonism with charismatic Pentecostal-evangelicalism to warn America that her hour of reckoning is near. Either elect Cruz, or else.

Beck is seconded by the Rev. Rafael Cruz, Ted's charismatic, born-again father who claims that God ordered Ted to run for the presidency. Here's what Pastor Cruz said recently:

My son Ted and his family spent six months in prayer seeking God's will for this decision. But the day the final green light came on, the whole family was together. It was a Sunday. We were all at his church, First Baptist Church in Houston, including his senior staff. After the church service, we all gathered at the pastor's office. We were on our knees for two hours seeking God's will. At the end of that time, a word came through his wife, Heidi. And the word came, just saying, "Seek God's face, not God's hand." And I'll tell you, it was as if there was a cloud of the holy spirit filling that place. Some of us were weeping, and Ted just looked up and said, "Lord, here am I, use me. I surrender to you, whatever you want." And he felt that was a green light to move forward.

Is that a true story? Let's hope that Pastor Rafael isn't making that up because Christianity already has a lousy image in the world, courtesy of all those pedophile scandals and prosperity scams. Prosperity scams? Think of them as modern indulgences, or the promise of blessings and answered prayers for money.

Beck certainly isn't making it up because he admits that he's spent about $500,000 backing his messiah wannabe. What's intriguing about that admission is Beck's further admission that he recently laid off 40 employees from his Blaze media company, although the political commentator claims that the layoffs had nothing to do with his spending spree on Cruz.

Rather, he claims the layoffs were done to satisfy a bank that loaned him a large sum of money to help him keep the financially struggling Blaze going. Certainly, that's business, but it looks and smells extremely bad when innocent folks lose their jobs while their boss is blowing a ton of cash on what looks to be a loser presidential candidate.

But maybe God did speak to the Cruz family. Maybe we'll witness a miracle in Cleveland at the Republican convention in July. Maybe front-runner Donald Trump will announce that God has told him to step aside and make way for Ted Cruz. Anything's possible, isn't it? But that's highly unlikely.

There are two valuable lessons to be learned from this: (1) True Christians don't try to do God's will via the ballot box and (2) the bible warns us that many false prophets will appear in the last days and deceive multitudes.

Concerning the first lesson, the apostle Paul wrote this: "No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his commanding officer. Similarly, anyone who competes as an athlete does not receive the victor’s crown except by competing according to the rules." (2 Timothy 2:4-5)

Paul reasoned that the gospel is advanced by the power of God rather than by secular means such as elections. In other words, godly civilizations don't come about by elections; they come about when the church successfully contends for the faith by making and keeping it relevant to the world. A godly civilization produces godly politicians rather than the corrupt and lying wretches that have become commonplace in America and in other places in recent decades.

Secondly, many people invoke the name of God to lend credibility to their endeavors. While some folks fabricate prophecies, others do hear things. Unfortunately, they hear the words of demons rather than the word of God.

Paul warned: "The (Holy) Spirit clearly says that in later times, some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons." (1 Timothy 4:1) And Jesus Christ Himself issued this prophecy: "At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people." (Matthew 24:10-11)

I seriously doubt that God spoke to the Cruz family. Certainly, God does allow nations to choose their political leaders. And as a wise man once said: Wicked people choose wicked leaders after their own hearts. Reality tells us that unless Ted Cruz is wicked, then he's not the leader for modern America. 

Blind Guides

Glenn Beck

According to Glenn Beck, a controversial conservative political commentator, if the country is lost, it will be lost because of the Christians.

What was Beck referring to? Was he referring to the Christian church's abdication of its role in keeping the Judeo-Christian worldview relevant in the United States? Was he referring to the sorry fact that the church has failed to adequately contend for the faith in America for over three generations? Or, was he referring to Christians who've sold out Christ for the temporal pleasures of this world?

Beck wasn't referring to any of that. Rather, he was referring to Christians who refuse to support Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and help him get elected to the presidency. You see? In Beck's eyes, it's just that easy. Just elect Cruz to the White House in November and that will stem the tide of godless secularism that's been steamrolling across America for the past 50 years.

Beck continued: There will be no one else to blame. You can’t blame the progressives. You can’t blame the left. You can’t blame Hillary Clinton. You can’t blame anyone else but the Christians who are not living and voting their principles.

If Cruz isn't elected as America's 45th president, it won't be because Christians didn't vote their principles; it will be because there aren't enough genuine Christians left in the nation to make a difference. 

Beck doesn't seem to realize that the United States circa 2016 isn't the United States of 1980 when Ronald Reagan soundly defeated Jimmy Carter for the presidency. That America doesn't exist anymore. 

That America consisted of a majority of conservatives who recognized the evils of big government, godless humanism and Marxist economic principles. They recognized that the ideals of Jimmy Carter and his political party were anathema to freedom and prosperity. And they refused to send Carter back to the White House for a second term.

Not so with Barack Obama, whose presidency is so failed that it makes the Titanic look like a fender bender. You could understand why Obama was elected in 2008 after eight years of George W. Bush, and during a calamitous economic time. But 2012? Even a circus clown should've been able to defeat Obama in that election. 

But Obama was reelected because half of the nation was woefully ignorant of his character and too apathetic to bother finding out. Obama's reelection was blamed on the alleged five million or so conservatives who stayed home that year and failed to vote. But in reality, they didn't exist. Because if they did, Obama would've been a one-term president like Carter. 

If you have your doubts about the apathy and ignorance of today's Americans, then consider this:

A national survey by FindLaw.com, a legal information Web site, found that nearly two-thirds of Americans can't name any of the nine members of the Supreme Court of the United States. In fact, results show that only 34 percent of Americans can name any member of the nation's highest court, and only one percent can correctly name all nine justices.

That's tragic. Why? Because that's a barometer of the ignorance of today's American voters. But wouldn't Beck argue that he's trying to overcome such ignorance by informing the voters? If that's his argument, then it's a misguided one.

Ignorance is the first cousin of apathy. If people possess a debauched worldview that makes hedonistic pleasure sacrosanct and the only thing worth living for, then they won't have any use for patriotism or Christian values or moral decency. Rather, they'll embrace politicians who promise to protect their "freedoms" while punishing those who would deny those freedoms.

Glenn Beck wants to elect Ted Cruz as America's next president so Cruz can select a conservative Supreme Court justice to replace the recently deceased Antonin Scalia, who was a staunch conservative. However, conservatism and the return to a prevailing Judeo-Christian worldview in America doesn't begin with SCOTUS or the presidency.

It only begins when the Christian church in America wakes up from the spiritual coma it's been in for the past 50 years. As the apostle Paul so aptly wrote: "No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his commanding officer. Similarly, anyone who competes as an athlete does not receive the victor’s crown except by competing according to the rules." (2 Timothy 2:4-5)

If Glenn Beck and other conservative Christians who are concerned about America's slide into moral depravity would heed those words, then they wouldn't be wasting their time with ballot box evangelism. Rather, they'd be trying to change a culture that's been contaminated by the rot of secular humanism for an awfully long time.