The Mystery of Lawlessness in Western Culture: A Study in the Power of the Great Apostasy

By James A. Ray

The Mystery of Lawlessness in Western Culture-Part I, explores the roots and rise of lawlessness within the Christian church as it is defined and described by the biblical authors, i.e. J-sus, the apostles Paul and John. Part II follows their predictions through the book of Revelation by tracing the record of prediction and fulfillment from the 1st century A.D. to the present day with consequences reaching far into the distant future for society and culture.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796049039

James A. Ray

James A. "Jim" Ray lives in the small town of Amsterdam, Ohio, near the Ohio River, with his wife, Jennifer. Together they own and operate a Bed & Breakfast Inn and Christian Retreat while at the same time hosting a small house church on the 91 acre property. Jim and Jennifer both are ordained ministers who served as pastors in Indiana and Ohio from 1979-2005.

Book preview

Copyright © 2019 by James A. Ray.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2019910744

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-7960-4905-3

                Softcover         978-1-7960-4904-6

                eBook              978-1-7960-4903-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 09/17/2019

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

796513

CONTENTS

Prologue

Part I

Chapter One: Changes Wrought to the Christian Faith

Chapter Two: The Power of the Great Apostasy

Chapter Three: How Could the Apostasy Have Happened?

Chapter Four: Making the Commandments Relevant Again

Part II

An Introduction

Chapter Five: For Whom Is this Study Guide Written?

Chapter Six: A Summary of Revelation 1-5

Chapter Seven: How to Use This Study Guide

Chapter Eight: The First 4 Seals Are Opened

Chapter Nine: The Fifth Seal is Opened

Chapter Ten: The Sixth Seal is Opened

Chapter Eleven: A Dramatic Parenthesis

Chapter Twelve: A Multitude in White

Chapter Thirteen: The Seventh Seal is Opened

Chapter Fourteen: The First 4 Trumpets

Chapter Fifteen: Warnings and Woes

Chapter Sixteen: The First Woe

Chapter Seventeen: The Second Woe

Chapter Eighteen: The Little Scroll

Chapter Nineteen: Measure the Temple

Chapter Twenty: The Two Witnesses

Chapter Twenty-one: The Seventh Trumpet Sounds

Chapter Twenty-two: The Beast from the Abyss

Chapter Twenty-three: The Beast from the Sea

Chapter Twenty-four: The Beast from the Earth

Chapter Twenty-five: The Lamb with the 144,000

Chapter Twenty-six: The Flying Angel(s) Message

Chapter Twenty-seven: The Harvest of the Earth

Chapter Twenty-eight: The Seven Bowls of Wrath

Chapter Twenty-nine: A Summary of the Third Woe

Chapter Thirty: The Seven Bowls

Chapter Thirty-one: The Three Frog-like Spirits

Chapter Thirty-two: The Seventh Bowl

Chapter Thirty-three: Reasons for Judgment

Chapter Thirty-four: Judgment on Babylon the Great

Chapter Thirty-five: Babylon the Great: Its Judgment

Chapter Thirty-six: The Reason for Eternal Joy

Chapter Thirty-seven: Coming Warrior King

Chapter Thirty-eight: The Judgment of the Beast and False Prophet

Chapter Thirty-nine: The Millennial Reign of Messiah

Chapter Forty: Satan is Freed and Doomed

Chapter Forty-one: The Great White Throne Judgment

Chapter Forty-two: The New Heaven & New Earth

Chapter Forty-three: The New Jerusalem

Chapter Forty-four: The Final Message

Concluding Remarks

Epilogue

PROLOGUE

I NEVER ENVISIONED MYSELF writing a book. But here I am at age 67 doing just that. The project has taken me 2 years to complete. I didn’t realize how much work was involved, how much study and persistence was required to finish it with some measure of thoroughness and excellence. Of course, the reader will have to be the judge. I feel a sense of relief but also satisfaction now that it is completed, especially since I felt compelled to put in writing my observations and discoveries. It all began when it dawned on me that almost every Christian believer, if asked, would endorse the 10 Commandments. Yet, in truth, they only see 9 as relevant for their obedience. Which one would they choose to excuse? It was number 4, Remember to keep the Sabbath holy. I was no different. I just thought that somehow, someway it simply got changed to Sunday. Although, I never really investigated to learn when or how it was changed. However, as I have watched America’s secular and religious culture slowly remove any reference or signage of those Commandments from public life, I became more and more troubled and helpless at their demise. Something seemed amiss. Where had we gone wrong as a people that we could dismiss these precious foundation stones of love for G-d and our neighbor to the point of embarrassment and apology for even seeing them in public? The question has haunted me. And then I realized that the door to removal began some time ago, when a case was made and an argument rationalized that Commandment No. 4 could be changed. That didn’t make sense to me. That’s like Moses coming down off Mt. Sinai with the two tablets of the 10 Commandments as G-d whispers in his ear, Oh, by the way Moses, I gave you 10, but the people will only accept 9 later on, so we can just go with 9 Commandments. As ridiculous as that sounds, that’s exactly what happened. Man changed the 10 to 9. One man in particular. You say, How is that possible? Because when the door to that change opened it also opened another door that has permeated our entire culture. That door was lawlessness. At its root and in its fruit lawlessness removes all restraint, all absolutes, and ultimately removes even the existence of G-d. As one reads the Bible the influence of lawlessness has been at work now for over 1900 years (since 125 A.D.) and is predicted to last until the return of J-sus Chr-st to the earth. The Bible is rich in information about this subject, yet few people talk about it. Because it was buried and hidden some 300 years ago. That sounded like a great mystery worth my research and discovery; hence, it resulted in the writing of this book to unearth this mystery and why the Commandments has remained hidden from public view, but especially from the constituency of the Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Churches. Once the religious establishment accepted the change, so followed modern culture and society. It is far past the time for the Christian Church to awaken to this travesty leading so many astray who desire to believe and obey the G-d of the Bible.

PART I

CHAPTER ONE

Changes Wrought to the Christian Faith

I T IS NO mystery, but rather a well-known fact that Western society and culture have been experiencing a rapid decline in biblical moral values. The values under attack have often been referred to in the past as Judeo-Christian values in the areas of marriage, abortion, sexuality, gender identity, male-female roles, etc. When we define our values as Judeo-Christian, we are saying we draw our beliefs from the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments. During the time of J-sus and His disciples there was a perfect harmony and connection between these two that does not exist today. One flowed into the other without ambiguity. However today, by in large, the Old Testament is no longer relevant for the modern Christian believer whether Catholic or Protestant. Yet Judeo-Christian values have held a prominent place in the life and thought of many countries of Western Europe and America for more than 300 years. These traditional Christian values have shaped society and government, owing their genius in a large part to a corrective movement called the Protestant Reformation begun by Martin Luther in 1517, and subsequently, The French Revolution in 1789. The impact of these movements was designed to break free from the corruption and power exercised over the common man by the influence and union of the Roman Catholic Church and European kings. For the most part those efforts were successful giving birth to democracies around the world, not to mention atheism and communism. Yet, at what cost? For with this new found freedom of thought and lifestyle came an insatiable quest for human rights and equality, at least in Western societies. These pursuits, though in themselves are not necessarily wrong or bad, they nevertheless carried with them the seeds of lawlessness and rebellion, and the questioning of all absolutes, even Gd’s existence. This falling away (apostasy) from the Christian faith is still with us today and has successfully penetrated the fabric of everyday life in the Western world and brought us into conflict with the biblical standards of righteousness. Surely this was never Martin Luther’s intent when he began to confront the power and authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church. His hope was simply to reform or change it from within, and where possible, to return it to the age old beliefs of the 1 st century church. Though Luther was successful in many ways, he was unable to root out the seeds of lawlessness and rebellion residing in and first exercised by the predecessors of the Papacy, the universal bishops of Rome.

The Protestant Reformation, by its very name, was a protest and therefore reactive in its struggle against abuses in the Church. The beliefs of the leaders of this movement were far from perfect, and their Christian practice was both better and worse than their theologies. We must realize that they both OVERREACTED and UNDER-REACTED in ways that distorted, or may have even denied biblical truth and continued the apostasy predicted by the Apostle Paul in II Thessalonians 2. The Chart (below) is a means of comparison without qualification as it reveals some of the differences between Catholic, Protestant, and a 1st century model of the beliefs and practices within Christianity. (The 1st Century Model is drawn from the teachings of J-sus and the Book of Acts.)

The Gospels, and the demonstration of those teachings in the book of Acts, combined with the Letters of Paul, Peter, James, and John are primary sources. The asterisk (*) in the Chart below under the 1st Century Model stands for a radical change to Christian doctrine and theology not yet demonstrated within the ranks of evangelical Protestant circles. This change requires a new understanding of key passages of Scripture regarding the relevance of all of G-d’s commandments as taught by J-sus, Paul, James, and John (including the book of Revelation). What exists today in Protestant denominations is first of all, no longer a protest, but rather a shadow of the Reformation started by Luther, and what Paul, the apostle would call Christ divided (I Cor. 1:13). It demonstrates for all the world to see a different gospel (Gal. 1:6), and what J-sus would call lawlessness (Matt.7:23). The Christianity visible today is disconnected from its roots and is free-floating as it own brand of religion on the sea of an ever changing culture demanding new freedoms and rights, devoid of absolutes. These changes wrought to the original Christian faith came not long after the first twelve disciples and Paul, the apostle, had died. As prophesied by Paul the apostasy came, and after it the man of lawlessness, who has accomplished what would have been called blasphemy by the Jerusalem Council in the book of Acts (See Acts 15.), having intended to change times and law. (Daniel 7:25; and II Thessalonians 2).

The Chart below serves to familiarize the reader with a comparison of changes instituted upon N.T. Christianity by both Catholic and Protestant doctrines, revealing the impact of the apostasy that has now been underway for almost 1900 years. As one begins to consider the truth that the Christianity of today is a different gospel from that of Paul, Peter, James, and John, then it is possible to accept the fact that the apostasy is not something off in the future, but rather is present with us now. If one can acknowledge the strength of this possibility, then what follows is the very significant reality that the Antichrist or man of lawlessness has indeed already appeared and is now among us working, and has already worked blasphemous changes to the Christian faith. A time is approaching when the G-d of Creation and the Father of J-sus will call and implore all deluded by his system of lawlessness to repent and return to a biblical orthodox faith and worship.

(*Not included in this chart are the Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox doctrines)

The Chart also includes a summary of the thoughts presented by J.T Ruthven’s book: What’s Wrong With Protestant Theology? Tradition vs. Biblical Emphasis (published by Word and Spirit Press, 2013, Tulsa, OK). The overall premise of his book is correct, i.e., that the Protestant Reformation fell short of restoring the true biblical faith once for all delivered to the apostles. However, his work, though insightful, itself falls short of the true apostolic experience and understanding demonstrated by the book of Acts, as testified by J-sus Himself in the Gospels and the book of Revelation. These testify to a Christian faith that includes all of G-d’s commandments, not just the Ten Commandments, giving them a more relevant place in a Christian’s life than Ruthven is willing to acknowledge.

An additional asterisk (*) is provided to show where Ruthven stops short of including all of the Ten Commandments, the Hebrew Calendar, clean and unclean foods, moral relations regarding the poor, strangers, fellow countrymen, and sexuality; minus the commandments associated with the Temple, Priesthood, and various sacrifices. (Although Paul himself sacrificed in the Temple before it was destroyed in c.70 A.D., in order to prove his obedience to the Law.)

We begin this journey to discover the truth of these assertions comparing side by side not only the Catholic and Protestant views, but also a 1st Century Model which supplies an alternative and corrective view to both in preparations for a study of the Power of the Great Apostasy.

The chart ¹ above is only a partial list of the changes wrought to 1st century faith by the Catholic and Protestant Churches. However, if you are as shocked as I was by the discovery of such vast differences in the Christian faith that exists today in the Catholic and different Protestant denominations, then your eyes are beginning to open as you consider the mixture (additions) present within Christianity. The question is, can you simply go on as usual now knowing what you know? Or do you desire to know and rediscover the original faith as delivered once for all to the first apostles? If so, then you are ready to Dig Deeper, to find the answers you are looking for. But where do you begin? At the beginning, of course. How did all this happen? When and how did the Christian faith become separated from its ancient roots; in particular, from the faith practiced by the original 12 disciples and those they taught? To answer these questions we have to closely examine the power of the great apostasy predicted by the apostle Paul, and study the book of Revelation from a historical approach and perspective.

CHAPTER TWO

The