Clash of Gods

Speaker: Pastor Darin Browne

I first read Return of the Gods by Jonathan Cahn and preached on this three years ago, but I believe God has asked me to share it again, because it explains the spiritual basis for the incredible rise of wokeism.

GOOD VERSES EVIL

Why is our society so messed up today? What has happened so that even intelligent people are struggling with basic concepts like gender and murder? What has changed this last decade, and why is the woke influence so strong and universally entertained in our society?

There is and has always been a struggle on this planet between good and evil, even before Eden, when Satan was ejected from heaven. Jesus said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” (Luke 10:18)

Ever since Satan’s fall, when he took one third of the angels to become his demons, he has opposed God, and everything about God. But let me start this with triumph: I do not preach dualism, God and Satan equally opposed. Jesus has already defeated the enemy, but the enemy keeps fighting.

Romans 1:21-26
For although they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonouring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonourable passions.

C.S. Lewis said that, when a society stops believing in objective virtue, it doesn’t become tolerant, it becomes manipulatable.

WHEN WE REJECT GOD

Our society has rejected God, and His standards. This opens the door for satanic influences to make a comeback, for ancient gods to rise again. Today society is ridiculous. We have people changing gods, changing sex, changing morality like they change socks. We have a seemingly all-powerful media that calls for tolerance in everything, except Christianity. Australia has a prime minister who funds and supports terrorists in Mosques, while refusing to help churches. Why attack Christianity? Because this is a spiritual battle: it’s our God versus other gods.

The Bible is full of altercations between God’s guys and the ancient gods. Elijah, Gideon, Joshua, and many others. Our whole society is sliding into a depraved, confused mess.

1 John 5:19
the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.

Australia today lies in the power of the evil one. I will show you how the same gods the Israelites fought in the Bible are back again, taking the form of the woke, the PC, the LGBTQ+ lobbies. They’re back, and they’re evil, and they’re fighting hard! But remember, they are a defeated foe. When the allies invaded Europe in 1944, Germany was defeated, but they fought hard for a year and took many lives before being finally subdued. Jesus has already won the victory on the cross, and kick as hard as they might, the enemies cannot ultimately win, but they can cause plenty of damage.

ANCIENT GODS BANISHED AND RETURNING

Colossians 2:15
He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them

Jesus won the battle against evil at the cross. Satan was defeated, demons were defeated, but they kept fighting and influencing for centuries. Eventually they were expelled from high places, cast out of their temples, and removed from memory as Christianity became the dominant religion in the western world. Our society, morality, and laws, are built on Christianity, on the Bible. But over the last century, man decided he had no more need for God, and he glorified himself above God, much like Satan had in the past. Now he has opened a portal for the same ancient demonic spirits to make a comeback.

Deuteronomy 32:17
They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded.

ANCIENT GODS, NEW GUISES

The ancient gods are demonic spirits who knew their presentation would not be accepted by modern man, so they altered their appearances, taking on new identities and names. They came as spirits of enlightenment, freedom, tolerance and inclusiveness; secular gods, gods that declared that there were no gods. The gods of ancient Canaan and Phoenicia to which the Israelites sacrificed were not simply the figments of pagan imagination but actual spiritual entities. The gods of the Greeks and the Romans are the same entities, called daimonia in Greek, “demonic spirits.”

Ephesians 6:12
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

21st CENTURY CLASH OF THE GODS

People can be demonised, and so can entire cultures. When Jesus died on a cross, He conquered them, and they were expelled, but not yet destroyed. Jesus said demons come back stronger than ever…

Matthew 12:45
Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.”

Generation, not just individuals, but generations and cultures can be fooled by these satanic gods, who return with a vengeance if the door is opened for them. This happens when there is a falling away of a nation from the One true God. According to Jesus, our modern state will be worse than the ancient pagan world. Let me remind you. Ancient cultures did not give us Communism, Nazism, Fascism, the Holocaust, abortion on demand and the atomic bomb.

THE RETURN ANCIENT EVIL

The Holy Trinity is, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In Revelation we see an unholy trinity: the Dragon, beast and the false prophet. Here’s another three remerging ancient gods.

1: BAAL – THE POSSESSOR

Baal means Lord or owner, and he was the Chief of the gods, lord of rain, clouds and fertility.

Judges 2:11-12 (ESV)
And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals. And they abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the LORD to anger.

What made Baal attractive? He promised increased prosperity, material gain, and fertility. Known to the Greeks as Zeus, or Jupiter Belus (Baal), or Rome’s Apollo. The mission of Baal is to cause nations that have previously known God to stop knowing Him and then to forget Him, and then to forget that they ever knew Him. As this ancient god resurfaces, he tries to turn whole nations away from the things of the true God, causing the Word of God to be mocked instead of revered and obeyed, and the laws of God are forsaken for a “new” morality.

BAAL’S AGENDA

So, Baal’s agenda today is to control nations, so he targets the media, universities, governments, schools and children’s programmes.

2 Kings 17:16
And they abandoned all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made for themselves metal images of two calves; and they made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal.

Baal comes in initially via a spirit of openness and a call to tolerate and then embrace new ideas and ways. Ancient Baal was a god of prosperity, promising followers material and money. The ancient symbol of this god was a golden bull. Guess what is on Wall Street?

Baal worship is idol worship, previously statues and temples, today footballers and movie stars. It is prosperity, previously rains and harvests but today stocks and properties. It is also the occult, previously in temples and high places, but today we see this on TV, movies and in markets, psychic fairs, mung beans and cheese cloths. Just walk down Queen Street!

TECHNO BAAL

Baal knows that, if he can target children, he can win whole generations. Let me reference Paul preaching on Mars Hill in Athens…

Acts 17:29
Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.

The Greek word for art, is TECHNE, from which we get technology. So, the form of our new idolatry uses technology. You see this in so many young people today, as gamers get absorbed into the matrix of the virtual world. The virtual world of online becomes real for them, and Baal has them where he wants them. In 2019 a thirteen-year-old Victorian boy took his own life after a year long addiction to the game Fortnite.

This is not ancient Bible history; this is happening right now! So, the ancient god Baal turns our people away from God, harnessing media, technology and popular culture, creating a godless vacuum and thus opens the door. But he is not alone, he has a mistress. She stepped in…

2: ISHTAR – THE ENCHANTRESS

Surely one of the most remarkable traits of the last twenty years is the prolific rise of sexual deviancy. Ishtar is the goddess of sexuality, often called the Queen of Heaven. Ishtar was her Babylonian and Assyrian name. Romans called her Venus, Phoenicians as Astarte, and Greek called her Aphrodite. In the Bible she was Ashtoreth – Asherah poles and temple prostitution.

This goddess was all about sexuality, the patron goddess of prostitutes. Her worshippers reflected her promiscuity, with temple prostitutes, male and female, homosexuality, bestiality and, surprisingly, in ancient times, transgender prostitutes.

Judges 2:13
They abandoned the LORD and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth.

WHAT ISHTAR LOOKS LIKE TODAY

Our society, following America, began to move away from conservative Christian morality and God’s Word in the 1960s, the so-called sexual revolution. The goddess Ishtar was the spiritual force behind this, and society bought it hook, line and sinker after Baal drew them away from God’s standards. What was branded “new morality” was in fact the ages old immorality, repackaged. Like before, what promised sexual freedom produced bondage and misery.

In the 1970s and 80s, sex was deified, marriage mocked and sleeping around became a badge of honour. In the noughties, society got even naughtier and homosexuality, so long in the shadows, became legitimate, as did having affairs and the party lifestyle. You see, Ishtar has always been about sex, and instant gratification. I want it all, and I want it NOW! Add technology to the mix, and you have close to one in three of all internet downloads are porn.

Ishtar is subtle, taking what was once forbidden, unspoken, and taboo and, slowly, step-by-step, introducing it into the mainstream culture, via the media and now social media. So, the shock of sexual changes is followed by a sliding scale…shock, familiarity, numbness, then tolerance, then acceptance, and then celebration. Then persecution of those who disagree.

ISHTAR THE TRANS-FORMER

Ishtar is beautiful, feminine and sexual, but also strong, aggressive and masculine. And in ancient days, her followers exhibited the same traits. Her temple worshippers were often homosexual, transgender, or asexual. Transgenderism is not a modern phenomenon, it’s as ancient as the goddess herself. Her mission is to emasculate and feminise men, just like in ancient times, and she targets the easiest ones to confuse and turn…children.

In schools, TV shows and movies, transgenderism and bisexuality is being openly pedalled. Amazingly, Disney is among the worst. It is promoted as inclusive, as tolerant, as anti-discriminatory, but behind it all it is Ishtar sinisterly taking control of young minds, saying. If you want to change sex, you can. Behind that, maybe God made a mistake.

Genesis 1:27
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Back in ancient Mesopotamia, worshippers of the goddess Ishtar combined illicit and hallucinogenic substances with music as they worshipped, sex, drugs and rock n roll if you will. And the explosion of sex and drugs was also accompanied by an explosion of the occult.

Today, we must recognise that homosexuality, transgenders, drag-queens, are influenced by demonic spirits. We must love and tolerate the people but never tolerate the ideas or the spirit behind them. We must love them, reach out to them and care for them, but not accept the false ideas they peddle. The church has largely got this wrong.

3: MOLECH

The third spiritual deity making his entrance is the ancient god Molech, and he is clearly identifiable in our modern Australian society.

Leviticus 18:21
You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech and so profane the name of your God.

Molech was a god who was infamous for the sacrifice of children. People placed their kids onto the arms of the idol, then they rolled into the fire beneath the idol to perish. There is a clear connection between Molech and the rise of abortion, both here and around the world. This ancient God is arising, and now our government have legalised abortion up until birth, even beyond birth. In Australia 90,000+ abortions are performed every year. Guttmacher Institute reports that worldwide there are 73 million abortions per year.

Jeremiah 7:31
And they have built the high places…to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind.

The Bible teaches that life begins at conception, so this wicked demonic god encourages us to use words like foetus instead of baby. 99% of abortions are for convenience, and many times the mums are offered no alternative, so they are victims too. Note the sliding scale…the state sanctions it. Once we were outraged, then tolerant, then accepting, and now abortion is celebrated and those who disagree are persecuted. Same sliding scale.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE AND MORE AND MORE

Can you see a pattern here? Baal turns our nation away from God and godly principles towards greed, creating a void in our society. Ishtar steps into it, sexualising everything and doing all she can to ruin God’s image, male and female, and Molech legitimises the slaughter of the next generation in the womb. This is not idle talk, let look at some little-known facts.

The 26th June was one of Ishtar’s ancient holy days. On 26 June 1969 the warrant was obtained to raid the gay bar Stonewall in New York, the recognised start of LGBTQ movement in Western society. On 26 June 2003 homosexuality was decriminalised in the USA and on 26 June 2013 defence of marriage was overturned. Gay marriage was passed on 26 June 2015 in the USA. There’s a pattern. There even the same holy day for this ancient goddess!

The parallels continue. The ancient followers of Ishtar had huge parades, exactly like the Gay Pride Mardi Gras parade that our Prime Minister likes to join in with. Gay symbols from ancient Ishtar worship include the double-edged axe, the colour purple, and what ancient text call MANZAT ISHTAR, which translates as rainbow Ishtar. That’s right, the perversion of the rainbow, with six colours instead of seven, man’s number instead of God’s, is also a throw back to the ancient gods. It’s about time we took God’s rainbow back!

ADVANCE AUSTRALIA…WHERE?

Our nation and our culture are under attack. Ancient gods bearing a 2000-year-old vendetta are rising, and people, especially our leaders, are blindly following.

2 Corinthians 4:4
In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

Australia is blinded by these demonic forces, and no one is brave enough to say so, not even in the church. Tolerance once called for has been replaced by a new, enlightened intolerance, manifested as woke, political correctness and cancel culture. And Australia’s woke tolerance is anything but tolerant if you happen to disagree. We cannot say a thing against gays, because it is considered hate speech, but they can dress as nuns and mock Christianity.

Note the sliding scale, shock, then tolerance, then acceptance, then celebration and the persecution of objectors. It’s the same as it always has been. Same attacks, same enemies.

Proverbs 14:34
Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.

I’m ashamed of my nation, and of those churches that have embraced this demonic agenda in the name of tolerance. Let’s get this clear…as a Christian, you are called to love and be tolerant of people, even those whose actions defy everything we believe in. But we are not called to tolerate bad ideas and sinful behaviour. I can love someone without agreeing with them and giving them everything they want. We can love without permitting. We must love gays, transgenders, abortionists, and be kind to them, treating them with respect, but we must not tolerate blatantly sinful ideas, philosophies or standards.

HOW MUST WE RESPOND?

Esther 4:14
And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

We have been called here for such a time as this, to stand for what is right and true, in love, kindness and decency. It doesn’t start with politicians, the media or social media opinion, they are all under the enemy’s control. It has to start with us, God’s people, if my people!

2 Chronicles 7:14
if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

So, what must we do?

• WE MUST PRAY – Pray for our nation, leaders and people
• WE MUST STAY – Stay our hearts on God Word, stay together in unity
• WE MUST SAY – Speak out for righteousness and against woke, regardless of the consequences
• WE MUST PORTRAY – Live a life that speaks Jesus and His righteousness to this sinful, depraved, confused, intolerant world. We must love and care for everyone, including gays and transgender, without condoning what they do. We must love unconditionally, but we must also speak out and not be strangely silent and tolerant.

Edmund Burke: “All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing!”

Philippians 2:14-15
Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world,