Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.
Revelation 2:10 KJV
And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
Ephesians 5:11, KJV
After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.
I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.
I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire.
A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened.
I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake: I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame.
Daniel 7: 7-11 on the 4th Beast
And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
The Apocalypse of John, Chapter 13, Verses 15-18
In a recent and yet unpublished interview with the Fars News Agency of Iran, I was asked for my opinion of the present state of “American Democracy.”
My response was succinct and clear: “‘Democracy’ in the United States has 5th stage terminal cancer. Both major political parties are financed and controlled by the Military-Industrial Complex, the Central Banks, the National Security State, the Israeli Lobby, and the Multi-National Corporations. All of these entities control Mainstream Media (MSM) in America. True political representation of the average American has evaporated since the Kennedy Assassination in 1963. Add to that the Voting Machine and Mail-In Ballot Fraud in 2020, and the total evisceration of the First Amendment and freedom of speech by the social media giants, and one begins to understand how hopeless the situation really is.”
I should have added that the New World Order’s demonic brew of Multinational Corporate Capitalism, the Federal Reserve Board, Zionism, and Cultural Marxism is aimed primarily both at any responsible form of Christianity or Islam historically and is the very embodiment of the ideology of the coming Antichrist (2 Thessalonians 2; Revelation 13). Sadly for me as an American, the American Empire is at the center of this Satanic manifestation and is its chief enabler, along with the eschatologically deceptive modern State of Israel, which has absolutely nothing to do with its Old Testament counterpart or the New Testament’s Israel of God, which is the Confessing Church of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The escalation in the persecution of Christians witnessing for their faith and the truth about what has been happening in the United States was evident on this past November 29th with the publication of an article by Charles Bausman, editor of Russia Insider, entitled, “Why This Site Is the Very Opposite of Hateful – A Christian Letter to My Hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.” Anyone who knows Bausman personally, as I do, can testify to the excellence of his web page, his profoundly devoted Russian Orthodox faith, his compassion for people, his innate sense of fairness, his hospitality to a fault, and the Christ-motivated character of what he does within the confines of the respectable and responsible wing of alternative media. The notion that he would become a target of the forces in his own hometown that have targeted me for 20 years is an especially ominous sign of what is just around the corner.
Then there is his colleague, Father Joseph Gleason of Russian Faith. Even a cursory look at a You Tube video on Father Gleason’s moving of his family and himself to Russia reveals the same type of profile extant in the analysis of Charles Bausman. If one surfs the Internet, it becomes obvious that Father Gleason has been targeted by the same forces as Bausman and myself over time. Buy into their worldview or not, who in their right mind can believe that these men represent malevolent forces targeting their American homeland and communities as agents of evil subversion commissioned by Vladimir Putin himself? The fact that they have been so tagged by the American media and political elite only underscores the reality of the Satanic hijacking of the latter. I now believe that hijacking to be irrevocable and irreversible with the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Which brings me back to yours truly and an article I penned for both Charles Bausman, Father Gleason, and Texas homeschoolers quite some time ago now. It is entitled, “Christian Martyrdom and The American Empire.” From the time of the commissioning of the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani by Donald Trump in early January of 2020 to the present, the themes of that essay are only accentuated by the relentless developments of the past 14 months. Biden’s wholesale alliance with the LGBTQ and abortion industries, the latest illegal attack on Syria by the United States for Israel, the Gates-Soros COVID-19 Plandemic and its advancement of the American police and surveillance state through the targeted coercion of the globalist medical establishment, the ongoing threat of a regime change war with Iran, and the clear desire to intensify the encirclement and subversion of Putin’s Russia, are but a few of the clear evidences of the evil of the Godlessness engulfing America which will only increase in intensity before the Second Advent of the Lord Jesus Christ. Make no mistake about it. God will judge the United States as comprehensively as Daniel’s 4th Beast.
And as I mentioned in that presentation seemingly authored 1000 years ago in linear time, the intensification of the persecution and demonization of Christians and Christianity in the United States and the West will worsen beyond that seen since the Ancient Roman Empire of Nero and Domitian. I said then that:
Let me add one sobering thought for your long term consideration tonight. My final premise is this: It may not simply be enough to refuse to kill innocents on behalf of the American Empire and its Emperors. The Lord may require that we be willing to die a death of Martyrdom Witness by the hand of this Empire at a time of His choosing. Stephen, Peter, and Paul come to mind instantly as New Testament examples. Revelation 2: 8-11 and The Cry of the Martyrs found in the 5th Seal of John’s Apocalypse in Revelation 6: 9-11 are verses which accompany these Saints of God in constant reverberations within the heart, the mind, the soul of those in closest union with Christ.
And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write; These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive; I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death. . . .
And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.
I believe these cited verses, among others, provide us with a New Testament doctrine of witness and faithfulness unto death. It is not an accident in redemptive history that the first example this post-apostolic faithfulness unto death proves to be St. Polycarp of Smyrna.
Polycarp (A. D. 69-155) is one of the 3 chief Apostolic Fathers, along with Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch. His name translates into Greek as “much fruit” (Πολύκαρπος). The two chief works which enable us to have some access to his life and death in Christ are The Martyrdom of Polycarp (Μαρτύριον του Αγίου Πολυκάρπου) and his Letter to the Philippians (Επιστολή προς Φιλιππησίους). You are assigned each of these for reading and contemplation, as your parents work these into your homework schedules. Of the many things that are exciting about homeschooling, the experience of an entire family learning together is chief among them. So shall it be here also.
Irenaeus indicates that he heard Polycarp in his youth. Tertullian informs us that Polycarp had been a disciple of John the Apostle, our author of the Gospel of John, 1st-2nd-3rd John, and the Revelation on Patmos. Jerome later conveys to us the fact that John had ordained Polycarp the Bishop of Smyrna. Keep in mind that the Church of Smyrna in Revelation 2 was the economically poor but spiritually rich church, the church in Asia Minor warned specifically about the Synagogue of Satan, and the church instructed to be faithful unto death against the backdrop of an evil Roman Empire. It is the prototype of the remnant Israel of God at the end of history, as the people of Christ watch spiritual darkness and apocalyptic political developments engulf the planet while clinging to the Word of God, the Holy Sacrament, and the testimony of Prophets, Apostles, and Saints.
Lutheran scholar turned Orthodox, Jaroslav Pelikan notes this backdrop of the execution of Polycarp in Credo: Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition, page 223:
When, in the first postbiblical account of a Christian martyrdom, The Martyrdom of Polycarp, the Roman proconsul, Statius Quadratus, the political and spiritual descendant of Pontius Pilate and the representative of Emperor Antoninus Pius, orders the aged Polycarp, “Swear by the fortune of Caesar!” Polycarp instead confesses “with boldness, ‘I am a Christian. And if you wish to learn what the doctrines of Christianity are, appoint me a day, and you shall hear them.’” And so he went to his death. The twentieth century, which saw the rise of both Nazi and Communist totalitarian regimes that were inimical to Christianity, also therefore produced several such confessions that were political acts in this special sense. [see Barmen Declaration of 1934]
And so we come to the end of the hour with the question of the day being this: While virtually everyone here will accept at face value the evil character of Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon, the Ancient Roman Empire, or the Hitler and Stalin regimes, is the American Empire somehow a beacon of light and hope to the world as our educational system, pastors, and churches often insist that it is, or is the verdict of the Activist Post more devastatingly accurate over 7 years ago in its essay, “10 Reasons America Will Be Judged as the Most Brutal Empire in History?” Put another way, will our young people be doing the will of the Lord in serving in The Empire’s War on Terror, or is the way of Polycarp, the way of Peter and Paul, and the exilic path of John, Solzhenitsyn, Sununu and Assange, His will for the lives of those who gathered here tonight if the situation so requires?
For the Christian living in the United States, that question will not go away. I hope each person here tonight will avail himself or herself of the links to articles and broadcasts over time necessary to examine the question at hand, and to search the Scriptures prayerfully and diligently. I am thankful that a remnant of people in this city have sought to examine the evidence for themselves and to allow the Lord to lead them in the truth over time as He wills. And in these dark days and nights, with the eschatological time clock of God ticking to the end of this present cosmos and the beginning of eternity, let us think tonight not only of our own families and friends, but those around the world already mentioned as among those most presently persecuted and endangered. The Lord’s admonition of Revelation 2:11 echoes once again in our hearts, our minds, and our souls: “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death. . . .
And so we close tonight with that prayer. May we have ears to hear. May we hear what the Spirit says to the churches. May we overcome. May we be spared the second death in the Lake of Fire. For the end fast approaches. Amen.
And so I now conclude on this Day of Polycarp of Smyrna, Pastor and Martyr on February 23, 2021, that the Christian believer in the United States and the West must be more deeply in prayer, meditation, and study of the Word of God than ever before. The increasing danger to the Confessing Church of Christ posed by the New World Order has its counterpart in the blessings of God for those who remain faithful unto death (Revelation 2: 10-11). Time’s speed increases as the cosmos hurtles toward the last events in history before the return of Christ. Watch. Wait. Be ready.
There is a sobering corollary. Those who worship the American Empire as the personification of Christ shall die the Second Death (Revelation 20: 14). And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both body and soul in hell (Matthew 10: 28).
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches (Revelation 2:29).
