TITLE: UNFRUITFUL WORKS OF DARKNESS

Subtitle: God's Description Of The Occult

"Take no part in and have no fellowship with the fruitless deeds and enterprises of darkness, but instead [let your lives be so in contrast as to] expose and reprove and convict them"  Ephes. 5:11 (Parallel Bible, KJV/Amplified, emphasis mine).

Cutting Edge Ministries continues to be criticized by those who claim the message is being driven by paranoia. And we acknowledge that such a claim is understandable! After all, the definition of paranoia is as follows:

"Paranoia--A nondegenerative, limited, usu. chronic psychosis marked by delusions of persecution or of grandeur, strenuously defended by the patient with apparent logic and reason" (Webster's II New Riverside University Dictionary, ISBN: 0-395-33957-X, Riverside Publishing Company, copyright 1984).

But please note the key terms are "psychosis" and "delusions"-- both of which denote mental illness and to that we plead not guilty.

Persecution for the genuine child of God is a given! It is an everyday fact of life, even though at times it is very subtle.

"Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution" 2 Tim. 3:12 (KJV)

At the present time persecution in America remains subtle because it is still being limited by the wonderful religious freedom afforded us by our Constitution. But ungodly societal upheaval backed by the courts continues to bait believers into speaking out and demonstrating against the various issues involved. And as a result of those taking a stand on principle, small fires of overt persecution are beginning to flicker across the whole of our nation. Sooner or later abortion, homosexuality, stem cell research, IRS regulation of churches, and the ever-present evolution vs. creationism debate, etc.--taken collectively--will prove to be the "straw that broke the camel's back." The freedoms our Illuminist forefathers provided (particularly those that were historically unprecedented, such as freedom of religion and speech) were intended to be the very tools with which Christendom would eventually destroy itself--thereby paving the way for their occult "christ.". (I use the term "Christendom" to include all who profess faith in Jesus Christ--both genuine and false).

Satan has learned the hard way that frontal attacks upon the Church always causes the good news of the Gospel to spread like pouring water on a gasoline fire! Genuine believers are indwelled by the Holy Spirit and whenever severe persecution scatters them, His influence in and through their lives has always resulted in more believers! So to destroy that influence, the devil's strategy is to corrupt Christendom from within. And that strategy is working--especially in America, the largest "Christian" nation on earth--because tares greatly outnumber the wheat in most of our churches.

Over two centuries of "freedom conditioning" has developed a "you can't do that to us" mentality among Americans in general and professed believers in particular--a stance so strong that many stay upset and ready to fight at the slightest provocation. In fact several accusations of being bloodthirsty were hurled at the "Christian Right"--predominantly Republican in politics--during the rush to judgment after the events of  9-11. Reason, logic, and a rule of law that demands proof beyond resonable doubt were cast aside as many angry believers followed their Commander-in-Chief into prosecuting what is, for all intents and purposes, a war against Islam. And when the inevitable scapegoat is sought to blame for the monstrous mess currently unfolding in Iraq, guess which group made themselves a leading candidate?

All genuine believers need to understand there is a line we must not cross. Exposing and speaking out against wickedness is scriptural, but resorting to active physical intervention is not! We must realize there is a God-given responsibility to be "subject unto the higher powers" (Romans 13:1). And when our government orders its military forces to engage in warfare, believers within those units must obey and trust God for the outcome. But if anyone feels in their heart that an order is unjust or will violate their faith in Christ, seeking the status of "conscientious objector" is the only legal option. Any direct order to do wrong--such as murdering innocent civilians, torturing captives, etc.--must be disobeyed as respectfully as possible and if punishment follows, it must be accepted with a humble attitude. Our duty to Jesus Christ must always outweigh patriotic devotion to country.

The world has plunged headlong into a day in which evil is called good and good evil. Spiritual darkness is being touted as "enlightenment":

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" Isaiah 5:20 (KJV)

"O Timothy, guard and keep the deposit entrusted [to you]! Turn away from the irreverent babble and godless chatter, with the vain and empty and worldly phrases, and the subtleties and the contradictions in what is falsely called knowledge and spiritual illumination" 1 Tim. 6:20 (Parallel Bible, KJV/Amplified, emphasis mine).

Multiplied millions--many of them genuine believers--continue to be deceived by the occult religion of Gnosticism. Because what so few of them understand is that the pursuit of "spiritual illumination" is the stock and trade of Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry. According to the tenets of Gnosticism, hidden knowlege--spiritual illumination--must be imparted to those termed "the elect" before they can ascend into the "pleroma" and become a part of their concept of god. (Pleroma is a Greek word having a basic connotation of "completion" and is used to denote their pantheistic version of heaven). But the Apostle Paul drove a stake through the wicked heart of that ungodly belief when he said this of Jesus Christ:

"For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" Col. 2:9 (KJV, emphasis mine).

The word translated "fulness" is pleroma and Paul's divinely inspired statement sets forth Jesus Christ as being the "pleroma"-- the full and complete bodily representation of the Godhead! And the gnostic principle of the "elect" is meant to counterfeit the concept of God's elect ones as we see them mentioned in the following 17 passages:

Isaiah 42:1 (KJV)
    Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.

Isaiah 45:4 (KJV)
    For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.

Isaiah 65:9 (KJV)
    And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains: and mine elect shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there.

Isaiah 65:22 (KJV)
    They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.

Matthew 24:24 (KJV)
    For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

Matthew 24:31 (KJV)
    And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Mark 13:22 (KJV)
    For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect.

Mark 13:27 (KJV)
    And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.

Luke 18:7 (KJV)
    And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?

Romans 8:33 (KJV)
    Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth.

Col. 3:12 (KJV)
    Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;

1 Tim. 5:21 (KJV)
    I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality.

Titus 1:1 (KJV)
    Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness;

1 Peter 1:2 (KJV)
    Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.

1 Peter 2:6 (KJV)
    Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.

2 John 1:1 (KJV)
    The elder unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth; and not I only, but also all they that have known the truth;

2 John 1:13 (KJV)
    The children of thy elect sister greet thee. Amen.

Gnosticism is as old as man himself--having its inception when Satan put doubt in the mind of Eve concerning the final authority of God's Word. We see that demonstrated in what Satan told Eve she would receive when she was "illuminated"--when her eyes were opened to the "truth":

"For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil" Genesis 3:5 (KJV).

Satan hates God with a fiery passion born of jealousy and uses every available opportunity to cast doubt upon His truthfulness. And the reason all of humanity is in this present spiritual mess is because Adam and Eve were illuminated! Their eyes were opened to a different sphere of reality and they gained the knowledge (gnosis in the Greek--the root word of gnosticism) of good and evil that God had previously kept from them for their own good! And the devil continues to tempt mankind with an occult gnosis that only his elect can access.

Gnosticism is a subtle counterfeit--so subtle in fact that some of God's elect continue to be deceived by its tenets. And I intentionally highlighted in red the two passages of Scripture earlier (Matt.24:24 and Mark 13:22) in order to point out what the Lord said about that deception. As I tried to prove in a previous article (https://www.cuttingedge.org/articles/p231.htm), deception is a distinct possibility for the Christian. Gnosticism has plagued the Church since its very inception and today the degree of deception is intensifying at an exponential rate.

Are you aware that the ideals of freedom, equality, and "the universal fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man" are gnostic in origin and promoted through Rosicrucianism/Freemasonry? Our nation was literally built upon such unattainable myths and yet very few have ever recognized that fact! Unbridled freedom is a lofty notion and in the real world it does not exist. As a minimum most ordinary citizens of the United States of America are slaves to the Internal Revenue Service and their jobs. No one truly owns property (real estate), because we basically rent it! If we fail to pay the property taxes it will be confiscated. And unless you are just returning from a long trip to outer space and are unaware of it, the freedom to speak out against the policies of our government--such as getting involved in Iraq--are being severely criticized and in danger of curtailment by consensus! Many Christians who should know better are joining the protest by insisting such criticism is unpatriotic and should be silenced. Their minds are increasingly blinded to the fact that this whole scenario has been orchestrated against them and a day of reckoning is rapidly approaching.

Equality? Yeah, but it is fairly obvious some are more equal than others! The Declaration of Independence defiantly declares "all men are created equal," but try selling that concept to an short fat ugly person who is homeless! It sounds good, but just like liberty it is mostly smoke and mirrors. And the "universal fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man" has no scriptural backing whatever. It also sounds good to the natural man--the unregenerate man--but conveniently overlooks the scriptural fact that Satan has many children! The only individuals who can legitimately claim God as their heavenly Father have been born into His family through the new birth in Christ. But lodge members of widely differing faiths refer to each other as "brother"--something the Bible expressly forbids.

"Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?" 2 Cor. 6:14 (KJV, emphasis mine).

A requirement for membership is that they believe in "god." But which god is the million dollar question! The average member is intentionally kept in the dark as to the true identity of the G.A.O. T. U. ("Grand Architect Of The Universe") and only a relative few who reach the upper degrees are chosen (the elect) to learn the truth that their god is Lucifer--the bright one, the bringer of light-- the "god of this world":

"In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them"2 Cor. 4:4 (KJV, emphasis mine).

The letter "G" so prominently displayed along with the the square and compass in the official Freemason emblem--variously claimed by some masonic writers to stand for "the grand Geometrician", or the "Generative principle" by others--actually denotes Gnosticism.  And in one of the encryption methods used by Francis Bacon ("K cipher"),  the letter itself has a numerical value of 33! (Scottish Rite Freemasonry was established by Bacon and the highest degree attainable is the 33rd).

See what I mean about Gnosticism being subtle? It breeds spiritual darkness disguised as light! (Please refer back to Isaiah 5:20, cited earlier).

Pastors are now being investigated by the FBI because they preach against homosexuality. Why? Because that view is not  politically correct and therefore unacceptable. But what about our rights concerning freedom of speech? The degree of any freedom in this nation is whatever the Supreme Court currently determines it to be. And as the vise (or noose?) tightens, it is highly probable that a point will be reached at which some otherwise good and godly preachers are going to incite rebellion. That is precisely what many did prior to (and during) the War of Independence as Freemason agent provocateurs fanned the patriotic flames of freedom and nationalism. And today ongoing attempts to form a movement which will "take back America for Christ" continue to garner support among evangelicals. The Moral Majority was but the first of several subsequent forays into politics by the "Christian Right" and they have finally succeeded in putting their poster child in the White House--again. So what should we expect in the future? Well, I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but one would be safe in betting the farm that nothing of any real spiritual value is going to come of it. To the contrary, trying to force Christian values upon an unwilling public through politics will inevitably backfire. And that is precisely the Illuminist goal for America. The bigger they are, the harder they fall and when this nation goes totally apostate the shockwaves will reverberate around the world.

What should God's people do? First of all we must realize that, as J. Vernon McGee of Radio Bible Class once said, "God did not tell the children of Israel to plant flowers in the wilderness!" Trying to make the devil's domain pretty is a total waste of time. This world is not our home and we are just pilgrims passing through. Our sole responsibility is to be the best Christian we can be with God's help. The Holy Spirit exerts His influence upon humanity through His Word and through the lives of His children. And where individual believers are concerned, the degree of that influence is directly proportional to how obedient we are to His will for our lives. To be greatly used of God is to be empty of self and that is a tall order for us sinful humans. So pray for America and try to brighten the corner where you are--then rest in the assurance that our Sovereign God continues to be in complete control of the situation.

If you have been born again and received Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, but have been very lukewarm in your spiritual walk with Him, you need to immediately ask Him for forgiveness and for renewal. He will instantly forgive you, and fill your heart with the joy of the Holy Spirit. Then, you need to begin a daily walk of prayer and personal Bible Study.

If you have never placed your trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior, but have come to sense His reality and the approaching End of the Age, and want to receive His FREE Gift of Eternal Life, you can do so now, in the privacy of your home. Once you truly believe in Him as Lord and Savior, you are spiritually Born Again, and are as assured of Heaven as if you were already there. Then, you can rest assured that the Kingdom of Antichrist will not touch you spiritually. If you would like to become Born Again, turn to our Salvation Page now.

We hope you have been blessed by this ministry, which seeks to educate and warn people, so that they can see the coming New World Order—Kingdom of Antichrist—in their daily news.

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Finally, we would love to hear from you. You can write us at:
Cutting Edge Ministries, C/O Pastor Ron Riffe
P.O. Box 26
Gordo, AL 35466

You can also E-Mail  Pastor Ronald Riffe  regarding questions or comments about this article.

God bless you.