One of the clear Bible truths regarding nations is that God elevates nations in their seasons as instruments to accomplish specific purposes relative to His chosen redeemed Body.
One of the clear Bible truths regarding nations is that God elevates nations in their seasons as instruments to accomplish specific purposes relative to His chosen redeemed Body.
Examples of this are easy to come by. Concerning Pharaoh (thus Egypt), God said, “For this cause I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you and my name may be declared in all the earth.” Again, Jeremiah and Daniel testify that God raised up Babylon for His purpose. Calling Nebuchadnezzar the Lord’s “servant,” Jeremiah notes that God ordained Babylon to judge other nations, including Israel.
Remember, when talking about nations, we are talking about cosmic beasts. These examples show that God holds direct control over the animal kingdom of human empires. They don’t just exist on their own as if out in the wild. But God handles them and tames them to His own ends as in a zoo. He is a cosmic animal trainer!
The Cyrus Anointing
God can raise up beast empires for destructive or constructive purposes. Today, we want to look at the Lord’s constructive use of a beast for supporting His greater purpose for His Body.
The most significant constructive use of a national beast in scripture is God’s use of Persia (the ram of Daniel 8)—specifically through King Cyrus. Hear Isaiah’s prophecy about Cyrus, noting especially the phrases in bold:
“[The Lord] says of Cyrus, ‘He is My shepherd, And he shall perform all My pleasure, Saying to Jerusalem, “You shall be built,” And to the temple, “Your foundation shall be laid.” ‘ “Thus says the Lord to His anointed, To Cyrus, whose right hand I have held—To subdue nations before him And loose the armor of kings, …I will give you the treasures of darkness And hidden riches of secret places, That you may know that I, the Lord, Who call you by your name, Am the God of Israel. For Jacob My servant’s sake, And Israel My elect, I have even called you by your name; I have named you, though you have not known Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other; There is no God besides Me. I will gird you, though you have not known Me, That they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting That there is none besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other.”
Isaiah 44:28 - 45:5 NKJV
From the highlighted phrases, two parallel truths emerge regarding the constructive taming of nations:
1. God is able to use (i.e., “anoint”) beast empires for ends to serve His Body. He is not prevented from using adamic peoples for noble purposes even though they don’t share the nature of His Body. Here, we see God anointing Cyrus and the Persian beast for the exalted purpose of releasing Israel from captivity. As we know from Joel, anointing—like rain—can fall on any and all flesh, redeemed or not.
2. Though God anoints a nation for constructive purposes, it doesn’t mean that nation now shares the identity of His Body. National anointing does not convert a national beast into the corporate Body of the Lord. Note that Cyrus did not “know the Lord.” He was not redeemed by the Lord—nor was His nation—as if to become joined to God’s people.
God carefully contrasts His favored use of Cyrus with Cyrus’ ignorance of Him. He especially makes it a point to associate His Own Name strictly with the people of Israel—not with Cyrus or with Persia. Persia is never “converted” to become the object of His redemption.
The distinction in these parallel truths is not small. It’s in fact vital for discerning the true relationship between the Body and the beasts. The key truth is that in using beasts for His glory, the Lord never muddies the distinction in identity between beasts and His Body. God’s use of something says nothing about its identity in Christ nor alters its essential nature.
Despite the Lord’s favor on Persia, the anointed beast still remains a beast. Cyrus, though anointed, remains the head of a beast, a cosmic corporate ram. Though the Lord elevates the ram to bring the Lord’s Body back to her land, the ram never becomes the Body—not even a part of it. God never denominates Himself as the “God of Persia.” His exalted use of the spiritually ignorant beast doesn’t change its essential nature, destiny and inheritance in Adam—which is death.
Some may insist that Cyrus himself came to know the Lord. That is fine. But even if so, it did not change the nature of the beast which he headed. Daniel shows us that, even after the Lord anoints the ram of Persia for limited use, He ultimately fights against it as a beast, brings it down, and replaces it: “And now I must return to fight with the prince of Persia.” Dan. 10:20
By contrast, the plan for God’s Body—His People—remains forever. The Body remains unchanged by the changes at the zoo.
- Confusion Between Identity and Anointing
Of all blindness crippling the mortal church, none is greater than our inability to discern between the Lord’s changeable work of anointing upon flesh, and His immutable work of identity transformation within the human heart. We persistently misbelieve that anointing gives evidence of identity transformation in Christ.In recent times, with the failure of some prominent televangelist ministries, many have come to understand that ministerial anointing doesn’t prove the eternal state of the minister. We recognize that:
“Many will say to Me in that day, did we not [display the anointing] in Your name, and I will say to them, Depart from Me, you workers of iniquity.”
But if anointing on Gospel ministries proves nothing about their identity, how much truer must it be with anointing on unbelieving masses of nations?? Yet so many “prophetic” ministries today make no distinction between God’s anointed use of fleshly nation-beasts and the separated identity of His redeemed Body.
When God visits a nation and its leaders with revival, affecting the culture and government for good, the church begins attributing to them the immutable virtues and eternal identity that can belong only to the Lord and His spiritual people. Thus in the prophetic, we hear innumerable vainglorious carnal prophecies about “national destinies.” The entire Western prophetic mind is under the spell of such babble.
The truth is that beasts can only be tamed. They cannot be converted into humans. No matter how much a beast is tamed, its beast nature ultimately remains and will ultimately show itself. Even collies and golden retrievers, the most beloved pets among men, still return to their own vomit.
America’s Nature and Role Relative to the Church
So let’s flip forward now from Cyrus to the present and the last 400 years. Do you suppose the Cyrus anointing has anything to do with America? The answer is: everything.
If ever there was a time and place in history the church needs to get it right in discerning a beast’s anointing from the Body’s destiny, that time is now and the place is America.
- Understanding the Contradictory Faces of America
There are and have always been two conflicting realities in America. Unlike any gentile nation before it, America has had an unusual exposure to the Gospel, been under the uniquely powerful influence of the evangelical church, served as a housing and launch pad for the church’s worldwide mission, and reflected many of the fruits of that influence in its policies at home and abroad.
Yet simultaneously, America has demonstrated the bestial instincts common to all nations: wanton commercialism, consumerism, moral debauchery and banality, murder and infanticide, witchcraft and militarism. Its leaders and marketers have exported the nation’s sins, vices and weaponry to the farthest reaches of the globe, playing people off against people for commercial, political and military gain.
The stark contrast of these faces throws a real “curve ball” to the blind prophetic church. Generally, we all feel forced to embrace one of these realities to the near total denial of the other.
On one hand, some of us see America strictly as an evil heathen entity (Babylon II), founded purely by commercialists, and ready for nothing but the imminent judgment of God yesterday. For such, the godly spiritual influences marking the nation from its beginning are blips in history that never carried any real significance and are dismissible. (This is the wilderness prophetic position.)
On the other hand, many of us embrace America as our own, as if it shares the church’s identity, nature and personality before the Lord. As for the present evils, we just hope and “pray like mad” that God will somehow “have mercy on her” and miraculously “turn her around.” This—the majority prophetic position—believes that America’s true nature is that of life—“destiny”—“covenant”—in Christ, but that her life is simply being perverted by “the enemy.”
But both positions are erroneous. The only real way to reconciled understanding of America’s two faces is to understand the Cyrus anointing. Our problem is that we’ve never discerned between the genuine taming power of national anointing and the true remaining animal under the anointing.
- America Is Anointed
Let’s start by facing the fact that, like King Cyrus, America was indeed raised up and anointed by the Lord for a definite purpose. All inherent fleshly evils in America’s founding aside, the Lord’s clear purpose was—as many have rightly observed—to provide a safe house for the development of the western evangelical church and a launch pad for the church’s worldwide missions.
It’s incontestable that so many of America’s founding events could only have happened by God’s direct intervention. They were not accidents. The wisdom marking the founding documents clearly came from a realm beyond men. The effects of the Spirit’s anointing gave power and illumination to the early settlers, founders and to the general life and enterprises of the nation as a whole. Like Cyrus, God has “subdued many peoples” before the American people.
It remains today that we in the west and beyond owe our spiritual development to the preservation of the American society—serving as it has to host the free dissemination of God’s Word in every form worldwide. Where would any of us be today in our spiritual growth were it not for what God has made possible through the American nation? (Like Paul, we too are “debtors to the Greeks and Barbarians.”)
- America Is a Beast
But let’s equally face this fact: anointing notwithstanding, America is a beast nation like all nations of the earth. It is an animal.
If one looks at America’s founding and history, he will see that the same events explainable only by God’s intervention also happened in spite of the driving vices, petty politics, vanities and human-centered philosophies common to religiously-tamed adamites. (Sure, the founders “prayed”—largely to an unnamed God. Sure, they “quoted scriptures”—along with the Greek philosophers. Sure, they believed in “Divine Providence”—as do the devils, who also tremble.)
America didn’t come about because its governing founders and people-at-large possessed vision for eternal life in Christ Jesus, or the self-denying commitment to perfect holiness in Christ, or had a prophetic commission to establish themselves as a nation to these ends. The saving name of Jesus appears virtually nowhere in the political discussions surrounding America’s actual independence and establishment.
Accounting for America’s Evil
So what is happening today with all this evil? What’s happening is this: the anointing influence that has tamed America for hundreds of years is reaching the end of its appointed cycle (as do all anointings) and is being lifted off of the nation. Consequently, the true underlying beast nature of the nation is being revealed for what it has always been. Why this is happening now is not important. What’s important is that this is the way it is with the anointing. (For more perspective on this, consult Part VIII of this series as well as Parts II and III of Unmasking the Beast of World Democracy.)
The lifting of the Cyrus anointing is proving to us that America is not, has not been, nor ever will be or become part of the Body of Christ! America does not “know the Lord.” America cannot “know the Lord.” Like all natural human corporations small and great, America belongs to the lineage of Adam, from whom all the earth’s nation-beasts are descended. It occupies its own unique historical cage in the zoo of empires.
America is not “born again.” America—a flesh and blood people—is not and cannot “inherit” the Kingdom of God. America belongs to the “kingdoms of this world,” all of which are to be subdued and ruled with a rod of iron by the Lord and by His Christ—His overcoming Body!
America’s “destiny” is the same as for every beast in the zoo of nations—to be brought together for judgment at the Revelation of Jesus Christ, to be stripped of authority, but to continue thereafter “for a season”—all as Daniel was shown. America ultimately shares in Adam’s final inheritance, which is death. And in the immortal age at hand, the names of its lands, its cities, and its governmental bounds and structures will all be changed under authority of the saints.
Failing to “Discern the Body of Christ”
Until the prophetic church awakens to discern anointing from animal, its mission to conduct us toward holy maturity in Christ above the nations will be seriously compromised. Right now, the prophetic’s highest vision is to inspire the Body to “crawl on all fours” in emulation of the beasts around us. (Could it be that because of pride and rejection of the true bread, God has already consigned us—like Nebuchadnezzar—to the mind of animals to eat grass with them?)
Paul warns that failure to discern Christ’s Body leads to weakness, sickness and death in the church. This has prophetic meaning on the national level. If the church fails to discern her identity as the Body from the beasts of the garden, she cannot help but become sickly and weak. And that is what we have in the prophetic today—a sickly, weak, anemic priesthood bound to fairytale dreams of The Body and the Beast.
Let’s get it straight: there’s no self-sustaining virtue in belonging to any beast—no matter how highly tamed by anointing or how highly appointed for God’s purpose in serving His Body.
Later, we will come back and drill down into the true anatomy of America. But first, in Part III, let’s go further with this problem of discerrning between body and beast by talking about the concept of the “Christian nation”….
Chris Anderson
New Meadow Neck, Rhode Island
First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.org9/03
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