Day 15: The Unstrung Life

Pulpit Puppet Masters and the Curated Gospel Reclaiming the freedom to choose in an age of manufactured faith

Yesterday we met the Stronger One. We saw the strong man bound, the armor stripped, the spoil divided. We heard the invitation to come to Jesus Christ, not to a system, not to a movement, but to Him.

And perhaps you responded. Perhaps something broke loose. Perhaps you felt the strings fall away and the board disappear beneath your feet.

Now what?

This is the question that haunts everyone who steps off the board. The exhilaration of freedom gives way to the vertigo of open space. You know what you’ve left. You’re not sure where you’re going. The strings are cut, but you’ve never walked without them.

Today is for you. For the one standing in the clearing, blinking in the light, wondering what the unstrung life actually looks like.

The Wilderness Between

Let’s name where you are.

You’ve come out of Egypt, but you haven’t reached the Promised Land. You’re in the wilderness. The place between captivity and home. The place where the old provisions have run out and the new ones haven’t appeared yet.

This is disorienting. And it’s supposed to be.

“And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.” (Deuteronomy 8:2)

The wilderness is not punishment. It’s formation. God led Israel there deliberately. Not to abandon them but to humble them, test them, reveal what was in their hearts. The wilderness strips away the false provisions so you learn to depend on the true Provider.

But here’s what you must understand: the wilderness is not the destination.

Some people leave Egypt and never reach Canaan. They camp in the critique. They build an identity around what they’ve left rather than who they’re following. They become professional exiles, experts in what’s wrong with Babylon, but never citizens of the Kingdom.

The wilderness is for passing through, not for settling in.

Grace for the Journey

Before we go further, let me say something clearly:

If you’re still in process, you’re not failing.

Fourteen days of prophetic confrontation can feel like fourteen days of accusation if you’re already wounded. The voice that exposes can sound like the voice that condemns. And some of you have heard enough condemnation to last a lifetime.

So hear this: conviction is not condemnation.

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1)

The Holy Spirit convicts to heal. The enemy condemns to destroy. Conviction draws you toward Jesus Christ. Condemnation drives you away from Him. Conviction is specific, actionable, accompanied by grace. Condemnation is vague, crushing, accompanied by despair.

If you’ve felt convicted over these fourteen days, good. That’s the Shepherd’s voice calling you closer. If you’ve felt condemned, that’s not from Him. Lay it down. He’s not standing over you with a clipboard of failures. He’s standing at the door, knocking, inviting you to eat with Him.

You don’t have to have it all figured out. You don’t have to be fully detoxed from the system. You don’t have to perform your freedom perfectly. You just have to keep walking toward Him. Grace does not remove cost. It gives you strength to bear it.

“A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench.” (Isaiah 42:3)

If you’re bruised, He won’t break you. If your flame is faint, He won’t snuff it out. He’s gentle with those in process. Be gentle with yourself.

The Tools Are Not the Enemy

Let me clarify something that fourteen days of critique might have obscured:

The tools are not the enemy. The idolatry is.

Podcasts are not Babylon. Books are not the beast. Conferences are not the mark. Church buildings are not the strong man’s palace. Structure itself is not captivity.

The enemy is anything that demands your loyalty in place of Christ. The enemy is anything that cannot survive His presence. The enemy is anything that offers you a photograph when you need bread.

But a podcast that points you to Jesus Christ and then gets out of the way? That’s a gift.

A book that drives you to Scripture and deepens your hunger for God? That’s a tool in the Shepherd’s hand.

A conference that humbles the speakers and exalts the Savior? That can be holy ground.

A church that gathers around the Word and the Table, that practices the one-anothers, that holds its leaders accountable and its people close? That’s the Body.

The question is never “Is this a system?” The question is “Does this lead me to Jesus Christ or substitute for Him?”

“Test everything; hold fast what is good.” (1 Thessalonians 5:21)

Test everything. Not reject everything. Not suspect everything. Test. And what proves good, hold fast. The unstrung life isn’t a life of total isolation from every resource. It’s a life of discernment, receiving what nourishes and releasing what replaces.

What Presence Actually Looks Like

We’ve said repeatedly: Jesus is a Person, not a program. Liberation is relationship, not method.

But for those who’ve only ever known programs, this can feel impossibly vague. How do you relate to a Person you can’t see? How do you practice presence without turning it into another system?

Here are some handles. Not a method. Handles.

Silence.

“Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)

The content flood has trained you to fill every silence. Presence begins with stopping. Not productive silence where you’re waiting for the next input. Actual stillness. Letting the noise settle. Creating space where His voice can be heard.

You don’t have to hear anything dramatic. You just have to be there. Available. Unhurried. The relationship is built in the being, not just the hearing.

Scripture as encounter.

“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” (John 5:39-40)

The Pharisees studied Scripture and missed Jesus. You can do the same. The goal isn’t information extraction. It’s encounter. Read slowly. Read expecting Him to speak. Stop when something catches. Ask Him what He’s showing you. Let the Word read you as much as you read it.

Prayer as conversation.

Not performance. Not formula. Conversation. Tell Him what’s actually happening. Ask Him what He thinks. Listen. You don’t need special language. You don’t need to impress Him. He knows you fully and loves you anyway. Talk to Him like He’s real, because He is.

The Table.

We covered this in Day 10. The communion meal is not mere symbol. It’s encounter. Whether you practice it weekly, daily, or occasionally, approach it as presence, not ritual. He said He would be there. Believe Him.

Obedience as intimacy.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15)

This isn’t legalism. It’s love. Obedience is how you stay close. When He shows you something, do it. Not to earn His love. Because you already have it and you want more of Him. Every act of obedience is an act of trust. Every step of trust deepens the relationship.

None of these are formulas. They’re postures. Ways of being available to the One who is always available to you.

Community Without Babylon

Day 7 addressed the trap of isolation. The enemy doesn’t mind if you leave the system, as long as you leave alone. The call was never to isolated faith. It was to come out of the false bride and into the true Body.

But what does healthy community look like when you’ve been burned by unhealthy versions?

Here are some marks to look for:

Small over impressive.

“For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” (Matthew 18:20)

Jesus didn’t set a minimum of two hundred. He said two or three. Stop looking for the impressive gathering. Start looking for the faithful few. A living room with three believers who actually know each other is more Body than an auditorium of strangers.

Mutual over hierarchical.

“Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” (Ephesians 5:21)

Healthy community has mutual submission, not just submission to leaders. Everyone is accountable. Everyone can speak. Everyone serves. The moment one person becomes untouchable, you’re back on the board.

Presence over production.

No fog machines required. No countdown clocks. No performance. Just people gathering around Jesus Christ, the Word, the Table, and each other. If the production disappeared and no one showed up, it wasn’t community. It was an audience.

The one-anothers practiced.

Love one another. Serve one another. Bear one another’s burdens. Confess to one another. Pray for one another. Forgive one another. Encourage one another. Admonish one another.

These require presence. They require knowing and being known. They cannot be done through a screen or from an auditorium seat. If your community isn’t practicing these, it’s not functioning as the Body.

Freedom to question.

Healthy community welcomes questions. It doesn’t punish doubt or exile those who push back. If you can’t disagree without being labeled divisive, you’re in a control structure, not a family.

Fruit over metrics.

“By their fruit you will recognize them.” (Matthew 7:16)

Not attendance numbers. Not social media following. Not book sales or conference invitations. Fruit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Are people being transformed into the image of Christ? That’s the only metric that matters.

You Are Not the Elite

One more thing must be said, and it’s important.

Seeing the board does not make you better than those still on it.

The temptation for everyone who wakes up is to look down on those still sleeping. To build a new identity around being the one who sees. To trade one form of pride for another.

But how did you come to see? Did you figure it out through your own brilliance? Or did grace open your eyes?

“For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7)

Everything you have, you received. Including the sight. Including the freedom. Including the unstrung life. It was all gift.

Those still on the board are not your enemies. They’re the spoil not yet divided. They’re the captives not yet freed. They’re what you were before grace interrupted.

Your job is not to despise them. Your job is not to build an identity around being different from them. Your job is to love them enough to tell the truth and humble enough to remember you were there too.

“Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.” (Galatians 6:1)

Restore in gentleness. Keep watch on yourself. The moment you think you’re above the temptation is the moment you’re most vulnerable to it. Day 13 reminded us: the shaking comes for our castles too. Including the castle of spiritual superiority.

What Now?

So what do you actually do tomorrow?

Not a program. Not a method. But some first steps.

Keep coming to Him.

Every day. Not as a discipline to check off. As a lifeline. The unstrung life is sustained by daily connection to the One who cut the strings. You will drift if you don’t stay close. Not because He moves, but because you do.

Find one other person.

You don’t need a church home by next Sunday. But you need someone. One other believer who is also walking this path. Someone who can hold the mirror. Someone who can pray with you and for you. Someone who will tell you the truth. Start there. Let it grow organically.

Practice discernment, not suspicion.

Test everything, but don’t become cynical. Not every voice is a puppet master. Not every leader is compromised. Not every system is Babylon. Ask the Spirit to show you what to receive and what to release. He’s faithful to guide.

Extend the grace you’ve received.

To those still in the system. To leaders who may be more captive than they know. To yourself when you stumble. The unstrung life is not a performance of perfect freedom. It’s a walk of dependent grace.

Keep your eyes on Him.

Not on the problems you’ve left. Not on the purity of your exodus. Not on the failures of others or the failures of yourself. On Him. Jesus Christ. The author and finisher. The Stronger One. The Shepherd who knows your name.

“Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.” (Hebrews 12:2)

The unstrung life is not about what you’ve escaped. It’s about who you’re following.

Damascus Road Moment

The strings are cut. The board is behind you. The road is ahead. This is the unstrung life.

STOP

“Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)

Stop looking for the next system to join. Stop trying to perform your freedom. Stop building a new identity around what you’ve left. Be still. You are held by the One who holds all things. That’s enough.

LOOK

“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” (Galatians 5:1)

Look at the freedom you’ve been given. Real freedom. Costly freedom. Freedom purchased with blood. Don’t trade it for a new set of strings, even religious ones. Stand firm in the freedom of Christ.

LISTEN

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” (John 10:27)

Listen for the Shepherd. He knows you. He calls you by name. In the silence, in the Scripture, in the community of the faithful, His voice can be heard. Follow that voice. No other.

LIVE

“Now this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.” (John 17:3)

Today, take one step into the unstrung life. Sit in silence with Him. Reach out to one other believer. Practice receiving instead of performing. Let the relationship with Jesus Christ be enough.

You were a pawn. You are a person.

You were goods. You are beloved.

You were a piece. You are a child.

The strings are cut. The Stronger One has set you free.

Now walk.

This concludes “Pulpit Puppet Masters and the Curated Gospel: Reclaiming the freedom to choose in an age of manufactured faith.”

The journey continues at onetrulight.org

The Stronger One

Reclaiming the freedom to choose in an age of manufactured faith

Yesterday we stood in the shaking. We felt the ground move beneath every human construction, every system, every wall we’ve built or been trapped behind. We saw both castles exposed, Babylon’s and our own. We heard the promise: what can be shaken will be shaken, so that what cannot be shaken may remain.

But shaking is not the end. Exposure is not liberation. The walls coming down doesn’t automatically mean the captives go free.

Someone has to enter the breach. Someone has to bind the strong man. Someone has to divide the spoil.

Today we meet Him.

The Parable Fulfilled

Thirteen days ago, we began circling a text. We touched it in Day 9 when we first saw the board. Now we return to it, and everything we’ve traced converges here:

“When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are safe; but when one stronger than he attacks him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his spoil.” (Luke 11:21-22)

The strong man. We’ve seen him now. We’ve traced his walls, his strategies, his methods of control. The content flood that keeps eyes down. The embarrassment strategy that keeps mouths closed. The spectacle preacher that redirects resistance. The curated gospel that offers photographs instead of bread. The mise-en-scène that makes the stage look like reality. The maze with no exit. Babylon baptized. The mark worn by those who don’t know they’re wearing it.

All of it, every mechanism we’ve exposed, serves one purpose: the strong man guarding his palace, keeping his goods safe inside.

And we were among his goods. The souls he captured. The minds he blinded. The lives he stored behind his walls. Pawns on his board. Pieces in his game. Property in his palace.

But the text doesn’t end with the strong man’s security. It ends with his defeat.

One stronger than he attacks him. Overcomes him. Takes away his armor. Divides his spoil.

This is Jesus Christ. And this is what He came to do.

Not a Better Player

Here is what we must understand, what fourteen days have been building toward:

Jesus Christ did not come to play the game better. He came to end it.

He is not a more skilled player moving pieces more wisely on the same board. He is not a better puppet master pulling strings more righteously. He is not the leader of a winning faction within the system.

He overturns the board.

Every other solution we’ve considered, every strategy for escaping the curated gospel, every method of resisting the puppet masters, operates within the game. Better discernment. Purer doctrine. More authentic community. Leaving one church for another. Building alternative structures. Consuming different content.

All of these keep you on the board. Different squares, maybe. Different allegiances, perhaps. But still a piece. Still being played. Still within the system that the strong man built.

Jesus Christ doesn’t offer a better position on the board. He offers exodus from the board entirely. Not propping up Babylon’s structure, but coming out of anything that demands your loyalty more than Christ does. Not improvement of the game but freedom from it.

The strong man’s genius was making us think the board was reality. The Stronger One’s victory is revealing that it never was.

What He Attacks

Notice what Jesus attacks in the parable: the strong man himself.

Not the walls. Not the systems. Not the puppet masters in pulpits. Not the institutions or the structures or the mechanisms of control. The strong man.

We’ve spent thirteen days exposing walls. Naming systems. Identifying mechanisms. And all of that was necessary. You can’t escape what you can’t see. You can’t leave a prison you don’t know you’re in.

But exposing walls doesn’t bring them down. Naming systems doesn’t end them. The walls we’ve identified are not the enemy. They’re the armor. The strong man wears them. He trusts in them. They protect him.

Jesus doesn’t attack the armor first. He attacks the one wearing it. He overcomes the strong man, and then the armor comes off. The walls fall because the one who built them has been defeated.

This is why human strategies ultimately fail. We attack walls. We critique systems. We expose mechanisms. And the strong man just builds new ones. Different walls. Updated systems. More sophisticated mechanisms. The game continues because the player continues.

But when the Stronger One comes, He doesn’t negotiate with walls. He binds the one behind them. And bound men can’t maintain their fortresses.

The Binding

When did this happen? When did the Stronger One attack and overcome?

“Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” (John 12:31-32)

Now. At the cross. When Jesus was lifted up. That’s when the ruler of this world was cast out. That’s when the strong man was bound.

“Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” (Hebrews 2:14-15)

Through death. Jesus destroyed the one who had the power of death. He delivered those who were subject to lifelong slavery. The strong man’s ultimate weapon, death itself, was turned against him. The cross that looked like defeat was actually the binding.

“He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.” (Colossians 2:15)

Disarmed. The armor the strong man trusted in has been taken. The principalities and powers have been put to open shame. The triumph happened at the cross, in Christ.

This is already accomplished. The Stronger One has already come. The strong man has already been bound. The armor has already been stripped. The victory has already been won.

So why are people still in the palace?

The Spoil Being Divided

The binding happened at the cross. But the dividing of the spoil is ongoing.

“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” (Ephesians 4:8)

He led captives. Past tense. The liberation procession has begun. But it’s still processing. Still leading out. Still dividing spoil.

This is where we are in the story. The strong man is bound. The walls are shaking. The armor is stripped. And Christ is dividing the spoil, calling His own out of the palace, leading captives into freedom, giving gifts to those who were once goods.

Every person who steps off the board is spoil being divided. Every believer who leaves Babylon is plunder being reclaimed. Every soul that moves from pawn to person is proof that the Stronger One has won.

The puppet masters are still pulling strings. The systems are still operating. The walls are still standing in places. But they’re operating on borrowed time with borrowed power. The strong man is bound. He’s thrashing, but he’s chained. Bound in the sense that Christ has broken his ultimate claim and authority, though the evacuation of the palace unfolds as captives hear the Shepherd’s voice and come out. His palace is being emptied. His goods are being liberated. His game is ending.

You are the spoil. And Christ has come to divide you from the one who held you.

The Puppet Masters Were Puppets

Here is the revelation that reframes everything:

The puppet masters we’ve been exposing were never the final enemy. They were puppets themselves.

The pastors who built platforms instead of shepherding sheep, they were being played. The institutions that traded prophetic voice for cultural power, they were pieces on a board they didn’t see. The teachers who curated the gospel into something safe and marketable, they were moved by a hand they didn’t recognize.

“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.” (Ephesians 6:12)

Not flesh and blood. The puppet masters in pulpits are flesh and blood. The compromised leaders are flesh and blood. The architects of the curated gospel are flesh and blood. And they’re not the real enemy.

Behind them, pulling their strings, stands the strong man. The ruler of this world. The god of this age who blinds minds. The prince of the power of the air. He’s the one who built the board. He’s the one who set up the game. He’s the one who moves the pieces, including the pieces that thought they were players.

This doesn’t excuse the puppet masters. They chose to be used. They accepted the strings. They traded truth for position, prophetic voice for platform, faithfulness for influence. They will give account for every soul they damaged, every mind they confused, every heart they led astray. Forgiveness does not erase consequences, and restoration is not automatic. But grace can reach even there.

But understanding this changes how we see them. They’re not masterminds. They’re captives who became collaborators. Prisoners who became guards. Pawns who were promoted to queens but never left the board.

And that means they can be liberated too.

The Spoil Includes Them

This is the scandal of grace: the spoil Christ divides includes the puppet masters themselves.

Saul of Tarsus was a puppet master. He held the coats at Stephen’s stoning. He breathed threats and murder against the church. He was a piece on the enemy’s board, useful for persecution, advancing the strong man’s strategy.

And Jesus knocked him off his horse and made him an apostle.

The strong man lost one of his best pieces. The persecutor became the preacher. The puppet master became the bondservant of Christ. The one who guarded the palace became the one who led others out of it.

This is what the Stronger One does. He doesn’t just liberate victims. He liberates perpetrators. He doesn’t just free the pawns. He frees the queens. He doesn’t just rescue those who were trapped. He rescues those who did the trapping.

Not because they deserve it. Because He’s stronger than all of it. Stronger than their sin. Stronger than their complicity. Stronger than the strings they pulled and the strings that pulled them.

The strong man’s greatest fear isn’t losing pawns. It’s losing queens. It’s watching his most effective pieces get divided as spoil, transformed from collaborators into witnesses, from puppet masters into prophets.

What Liberation Looks Like

So what does it mean to be divided as spoil? What does liberation actually look like?

It looks like Saul on the Damascus Road, blinded by light, every certainty shattered, asking “Who are you, Lord?” It looks like the total collapse of everything you thought you knew, followed by the slow rebuilding on an entirely different foundation.

It looks like the healed man in John 9, cast out of the synagogue, found by Jesus in his exile, worshiping the One the system rejected. It looks like losing your place at Babylon’s table and discovering you’ve been invited to the true Table.

It looks like the prodigal son coming to himself in a pigpen, realizing even his father’s servants have bread enough to spare. It looks like the long walk home with a rehearsed speech, and the Father running to meet you before you can finish it.

Liberation doesn’t look like victory. It looks like surrender. It doesn’t feel like winning. It feels like dying. The pawn doesn’t defeat the player and claim the board. The pawn gets picked up by a different hand and discovers it was never meant to be a piece at all.

You don’t overcome the strong man. The Stronger One does. You don’t bind the enemy. Christ already has. You don’t liberate yourself. You get liberated. You become spoil. You get divided from everything that held you and given to the One who bought you.

“You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

Bought. Purchased. Acquired. You were goods in the strong man’s palace. Now you’re treasured possession of the King. Not by your effort. By His.

The End of Systems

Here is the answer to the question that’s been hovering over this series: How does Jesus bind the strong man without turning liberation into another system?

By being a Person, not a program.

Every system can be co-opted. Every structure can be corrupted. Every method can become a new form of control. We’ve seen it happen throughout history. The pure gospel gets systematized into Christendom. The Reformation gets institutionalized into denominations. The revival gets packaged into conferences. The liberation becomes a new captivity with different walls.

But Jesus Christ is not a system. He is a Person. You cannot institutionalize a relationship. You cannot package presence. You cannot systematize the voice of the living God speaking your name.

The curated gospel tried to turn Him into a product. The puppet masters tried to use Him as a mascot. The compromised church tried to manage Him into a program. And He keeps walking out of their structures, standing at the door, knocking, calling people out.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” (Revelation 3:20)

He’s outside the system, calling people out of it. Not into a better system. Into relationship with Himself. Not onto a different board. Off the board entirely. Not as pieces in a new game. As children at His table.

The Invitation

Fourteen days ago, we began with a stolen voice. The choice that makes love possible. The freedom that the enemy works to eliminate because genuine love requires genuine choosing.

Now we end where we must end: with the choice itself.

The Stronger One has come. The strong man is bound. The walls are shaking. The opening is here. The spoil is being divided.

And you are being invited to be part of it.

Not to join a movement. Not to align with a faction. Not to adopt a new system of beliefs that positions you correctly on some theological board.

To come to Him. To be known by Him. To hear His voice and follow. To step off the board entirely and discover that you were never meant to be a piece.

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

The yoke the system put on you was heavy. The burden the puppet masters loaded was crushing. The game was exhausting. The performance was endless. The consumption never satisfied.

His yoke is easy. His burden is light. Because He’s not asking you to play better. He’s asking you to stop playing entirely and come to Him.

Damascus Road Moment

This is the final day. The final invitation. The choice that everything has been building toward.

STOP

“When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are safe; but when one stronger than he attacks him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his spoil.” (Luke 11:21-22)

Stop fighting the strong man in your own strength. Stop trying to out-strategize the system. Stop attempting to liberate yourself through better discernment or purer doctrine or more authentic practice. The strong man is already bound. The Stronger One has already won. Stop striving and start receiving the victory that’s already been accomplished.

“It is finished.” (John 19:30)

Stop acting as if it isn’t. The work is done. The price is paid. The enemy is defeated. Stop living like a captive when you’ve been liberated. Stop playing the game when the board has been overturned.

LOOK

“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” (John 12:32)

Look at Him. Not at the systems. Not at the puppet masters. Not at Babylon’s walls or your own constructions. Look at Jesus Christ, lifted up, drawing all people to Himself. The cross where the strong man was defeated. The empty tomb where death lost its power. The ascended King who is dividing the spoil.

“Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2)

Look to Him. The founder. The perfecter. The One who endured, who despised the shame, who is seated in victory. Stop looking at the board. Look at the One who overturned it.

LISTEN

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” (John 10:27-28)

Listen for His voice. Not the content flood. Not the spectacle preachers. Not the curated gospel. His voice. The voice that knows you. The voice that calls you by name. The voice that promises you will never perish, that no one will snatch you from His hand.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” (Revelation 3:20)

He’s knocking. Can you hear it? Beneath all the noise of the system, beneath the flood of content, beneath the embarrassment and the spectacle and the shaking. He’s at the door. He’s calling. Will you listen?

LIVE

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

Today, come to Him. Not to a system. Not to a movement. Not to a better position on a board that’s being overturned. To Him. Jesus Christ. The Stronger One. The One who bound the strong man and is dividing the spoil.

Let yourself be divided. Let yourself be separated from everything that held you. Let yourself be taken from the palace and brought into the Kingdom.

You were a pawn. You are a child.

You were goods. You are beloved.

You were a piece. You are a person.

The Stronger One has come. The strong man is bound. The walls are falling. The game is ending.

And you are free.

The strings are cut. The board is behind you. But freedom can feel like falling.

Tomorrow: The Unstrung Life — what happens when you actually step off the board.

The Opening

Reclaiming the freedom to choose in an age of manufactured faith

Yesterday we exposed the spectacle preacher. The controlled opposition. The outer wall of the castle built from critique itself. We saw how the system doesn’t just silence dissent; it platforms safe versions of it, turning confrontation into content, channeling righteous anger back into consumption.

Both tactics serve the same end. The embarrassment strategy suppresses. The spectacle strategy redirects. Either way, the board stays intact. The pieces keep moving. The castle walls stand.

But the walls will not stand forever.

Something is coming that neither suppression nor redirection can contain. Something that doesn’t negotiate with systems or accommodate structures. Something that shakes everything shakeable until only the unshakeable remains.

The Promise of Shaking

The writer of Hebrews recorded a promise that should stop us cold:

“At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.’ This phrase, ‘Yet once more,’ indicates the removal of things that are shaken, that is, things that have been made, in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.” (Hebrews 12:26-29)

Yet once more. One more shaking. But this time not just the earth. The heavens too. Everything that can be shaken will be shaken. Everything that has been made, every human construction, every system built by hands, every structure erected in the name of God or against Him, all of it will be shaken until only what cannot be shaken remains.

This is not a threat. This is a promise. And it should fill us with hope.

The shaking is how God separates the real from the counterfeit. The unshakeable from the temporary. The kingdom that cannot be moved from the kingdoms we’ve built in His name that were never His to begin with.

Why Shaking Is Mercy

We’ve spent twelve days exposing walls. The content flood. The invisible fence. The spectacle preacher. The mise-en-scène. The curated gospel. Layer after layer of construction designed to keep you on the board, consuming photographs of bread, silent or safely vocal, never actually free.

How do you escape walls you can’t even see? How do you leave a system that’s convinced you it’s reality? How do you step off a board when every square looks like the only ground there is?

You can’t. Not on your own. The walls are too high. The deception is too thorough. The system is too skilled at absorbing resistance and redirecting energy.

But God shakes.

The shaking is mercy because it does what we cannot do for ourselves. It exposes what was hidden. It destabilizes what seemed permanent. It cracks the walls that kept us in and collapses the floors we thought were solid.

The shaking feels like destruction. It is salvation.

“See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven.” (Hebrews 12:25)

The warning comes before the shaking. The shaking comes for those who refused the warning. But even then, the shaking is not primarily punishment. It’s exposure. It’s the removal of hiding places. It’s God loving us enough to collapse the structures we trusted instead of Him.

Both Castles Fall

Here’s what we haven’t fully reckoned with yet: the shaking doesn’t just expose Babylon’s castle. It exposes ours.

We’ve spent this series looking outward. Naming the puppet masters. Identifying the strings. Tracing the systems of control. And all of that is real. The enemy has built walls. The compromised church has constructed systems. The curated gospel has trapped millions.

But we’ve built walls too.

We’ve constructed our own refuges. Our own sense of having figured it out. Our own identity as the ones who see clearly while others remain blind. We’ve built a castle called “discernment” and furnished it with critiques and positioned ourselves safely inside, looking out at the deceived masses with something that feels like concern but might be closer to pride.

The shaking doesn’t spare our constructions just because they’re made of better materials.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)

Our hearts built walls too. Walls of self-righteousness. Walls of theological certainty. Walls of “at least I’m not like them.” The same heart that was deceived by Babylon is capable of deceiving itself about having escaped Babylon.

The shaking comes for all of it. Not just their walls. Ours too. Not just the obvious idols. The subtle ones. Not just the systems out there. The systems in here.

This is why the shaking humbles everyone. No one stands confidently when the ground moves. No one points fingers when they’re struggling to stay upright. The shaking levels the field. It puts everyone in the same position: dependent, desperate, reaching for something that won’t move.

The Sifting

The prophet Amos saw this dynamic centuries ago:

“For behold, I will command, and shake the house of Israel among all the nations as one shakes with a sieve, but no pebble shall fall to the earth. All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, who say, ‘Disaster shall not overtake us or meet us.'” (Amos 9:9-10)

A sieve. The shaking is a sifting. Everything goes through. Nothing is exempt from the motion. But what falls through and what remains depends on what it’s made of.

The pebbles don’t fall. The genuine remains. What’s real passes through the shaking and comes out the other side still intact.

But notice who dies: those who say “disaster shall not overtake us.” Those who assume they’re exempt. Those who watch the shaking happen to others and think their walls are different, their castle is secure, their position is safe.

The shaking comes for the confident. The comfortable. The certain. Not because confidence and comfort are sins, but because they become hiding places. Places where we stop depending on God and start depending on our position, our understanding, our tribe.

Haggai’s Question

In the days of Haggai, the people had returned from exile. They were rebuilding. The temple was going up, but it was smaller, less glorious than Solomon’s original. The older generation wept, remembering what had been. The younger generation wondered if this diminished version was all they could hope for.

Into this moment, God spoke:

“Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the LORD. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the LORD. Work, for I am with you, declares the LORD of hosts, according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. For thus says the LORD of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, declares the LORD of hosts.” (Haggai 2:3-7)

Yet once more. The same phrase Hebrews quotes. The shaking that’s coming.

But notice the context. God isn’t speaking to the wicked. He’s speaking to the faithful. To those who’ve returned. To those who are building. To those who feel like what they’re constructing is small and insignificant compared to what was lost.

And He says: be strong. Work. I am with you. My Spirit remains. Fear not.

The shaking isn’t meant to paralyze the faithful. It’s meant to liberate them. The shaking removes everything that isn’t God so that what IS God can be clearly seen. The treasures of the nations come in. The house gets filled with glory. But first, the shaking.

Neutrality Ends

The shaking forces a choice.

When the ground moves, you can’t stand still. You either grab onto something or you fall. You either reach for the unshakeable or you go down with what’s shaking.

This is why the shaking is an opening. Not just destruction. An opening. A crack in the walls. A gap in the system. A moment when what seemed permanent is revealed as temporary and what seemed impossible becomes available.

Every great movement of God in history has come through shaking. The Exodus happened because Egypt was shaken with plagues. The early church exploded because Jerusalem was shaken with crucifixion and resurrection. The Reformation happened because medieval Christendom was shaken with corruption so obvious it could no longer be ignored.

The shaking creates the opening. The opening is where God moves.

But the opening requires response. The Israelites had to walk through the Red Sea. The disciples had to leave the upper room. Luther had to nail the theses. The shaking creates opportunity. It doesn’t guarantee outcome.

“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” (Hebrews 3:15)

Today. The shaking is happening. The walls are cracking. The systems are destabilizing. Can you see it? Can you feel it? The question is not whether the shaking will come. The question is what you’ll do when the ground moves.

Will you grab onto Babylon’s collapsing walls, trying to prop up what God is bringing down?

Will you grab onto your own castle, the one built of discernment and critique and spiritual superiority?

Or will you reach for the kingdom that cannot be shaken?

What Cannot Be Shaken

Not every wall falls. Not everything shakes loose. The passage is explicit: the shaking removes what can be shaken SO THAT what cannot be shaken may remain.

There is an unshakeable kingdom. A foundation that doesn’t move. A reality that survives every tremor.

What is it?

Not your theological system. Systems can be shaken.

Not your church structure. Structures can be shaken.

Not your community, your movement, your tribe. All of these can be shaken.

Not your understanding. Not your certainty. Not your position.

What cannot be shaken is the kingdom of God. The rule and reign of Jesus Christ. The reality of His death and resurrection. The truth of His word. The presence of His Spirit. The love from which nothing can separate us.

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)

That’s unshakeable. Not because we hold onto it tightly enough. Because He holds onto us.

The shaking reveals what we’ve actually been trusting. If we’ve been trusting Babylon, we’ll panic when Babylon shakes. If we’ve been trusting our own constructions, we’ll panic when those shake. But if we’ve been trusting Jesus Christ, we’ll find that He doesn’t shake. He remains. He holds.

The Consuming Fire

The passage ends with a phrase that should mark us:

“For our God is a consuming fire.” (Hebrews 12:29)

Fire consumes. Burns away. Reduces to ash everything that isn’t fireproof.

This is the same God who appeared to Moses in a burning bush, present in the fire but not consumed by it. The same God who led Israel as a pillar of fire, guiding but also warning. The same God whose presence on Sinai made the mountain smoke and the people tremble.

The shaking and the fire are the same mercy. They remove what can’t remain. They purify what can. They expose, refine, reduce, clarify.

The consuming fire is not opposed to love. It IS love. Love that refuses to let us remain in bondage. Love that burns away the chains even when we’ve grown comfortable in them. Love that would rather shake our world than leave us trapped in it.

The Opening Is Now

The walls are cracking. Can you see it?

The systems that seemed unassailable are showing their fragility. The institutions that seemed permanent are losing their grip. The narratives that seemed unchallengeable are being questioned. The confident are becoming uncertain. The certain are becoming confused.

Sometimes the shaking is sudden; sometimes it is slow. Either way, it is certain.

This is not the end. This is the opening.

The shaking is not God abandoning His people. It’s God liberating them. It’s the removal of everything that kept them from Him. It’s the collapse of every wall between the captive and the freedom that was always available.

But the opening requires movement. The walls falling down doesn’t help you if you stay inside the rubble. The crack in the system doesn’t free you if you don’t walk through it.

The shaking creates opportunity. What you do with it determines what comes next.

Damascus Road Moment

The ground is moving. The walls are cracking. The opening is here. This is not a moment for spectating. This is a moment for decision.

STOP

“See that you do not refuse him who is speaking.” (Hebrews 12:25)

Stop refusing. Stop resisting. Stop trying to prop up what God is shaking. Stop holding onto walls that are coming down whether you release them or not. The shaking is not your enemy. Your grip on the shakeable is.

“Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” (Psalm 127:1)

Stop building what God hasn’t authorized. Stop laboring on structures that won’t survive the fire. The shaking reveals whose house you’ve been building. If it’s shaking, let it fall.

LOOK

“Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” (Hebrews 12:26)

Look at what’s shaking. Not just out there. In here. Not just Babylon’s castle. Yours. What are you trusting that isn’t Jesus Christ? What are you gripping that won’t survive the fire? What walls have you built that you’ve been calling “discernment” or “faithfulness” but are really just different bricks in a different cage?

“The heart is deceitful above all things.” (Jeremiah 17:9)

Look at your own heart honestly. The shaking exposes everyone. Including you. Including me. The question isn’t whether we built walls we shouldn’t have. The question is whether we’ll let them fall.

LISTEN

“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” (Hebrews 3:15)

Listen for His voice in the shaking. The shaking isn’t random. It isn’t chaos. It’s Him speaking. Moving. Working. Exposing. Liberating. His voice shook Sinai. His voice shook the temple when the veil tore. His voice is shaking now. Can you hear what He’s saying?

“My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not.” (Haggai 2:5)

Listen to the promise beneath the shaking. He is with you. His Spirit remains. The shaking isn’t abandonment. It’s presence, fierce and refining. The same God who shakes is the God who holds. Fear not.

LIVE

“Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe.” (Hebrews 12:28)

Today, let go of one thing you’ve been gripping that isn’t the kingdom. One wall you’ve built. One refuge you’ve constructed. One certainty you’ve clung to that isn’t Jesus Christ Himself. Open your hands. Let the shaking do its work. And grab hold of what cannot be moved.

The opening is here. The walls are falling. Tomorrow we meet the One who makes them fall, the One stronger than the strong man, the One who doesn’t just create an opening but walks through it to set the captives free.

The shaking is not the end of the story. It’s the beginning of the rescue.

Tomorrow: The Stronger One

Day 12: The Spectacle Preacher

Pulpit Puppet Masters and the Curated Gospel Reclaiming the freedom to choose in an age of manufactured faith

Yesterday we exposed the embarrassment strategy. The invisible fence. The social pressure that keeps people silent even when they know something is wrong. We saw how the system doesn’t need to convince you the truth is false; it just needs to make speaking it expensive enough that you stay quiet.

But what happens when someone does speak? What happens when a voice rises that seems to name what everyone else is afraid to say?

The system has a response for that too. And it’s more clever than silencing.

It’s platforming.

The Voice That Seems Different

You’ve heard him. Or her. The preacher who says the hard things. The teacher who calls out the compromise. The voice that seems to cut through the noise and name what everyone else is tiptoeing around.

Finally, you think. Someone is saying it. Someone sees what I see. Someone has the courage to speak.

And you feel a rush of validation. You share the content. You subscribe to the channel. You buy the book. You attend the conference. You feel like you’ve found your people, the ones who get it, the ones who aren’t afraid to confront the problems in the church.

But here’s the question no one asks: If the system is as controlling as we’ve been describing, how did this voice get so loud? If the embarrassment strategy silences dissent, why is this dissent being amplified?

The answer is uncomfortable. Some opposition is allowed because it serves the system it appears to oppose.

The Outer Wall

In Day 9, we described the strong man’s castle. The hidden king, castled behind walls, protected by pieces that do his fighting while he stays safe. We named the content flood as one of those walls, keeping eyes fixed on squares so no one looks up to see the board.

But there’s another wall. An outer wall. And it’s made of something unexpected.

Critique.

The system doesn’t silence all criticism. It platforms some of it. Carefully selected criticism that gives the appearance of accountability without ever threatening the actual structure. Voices loud enough to make people feel like someone is fighting, theatrical enough to provide the catharsis of confrontation, but ultimately safe enough that nothing actually changes.

This is the spectacle preacher. The controlled opposition. The release valve that lets pressure escape without ever reaching the boiler.

“See?” the system says. “We allow hard conversations. We platform difficult voices. We’re not afraid of critique.”

And everyone relaxes. The appearance of accountability substitutes for actual accountability. The performance of prophetic confrontation replaces the reality of it. People feel like the problems are being addressed because someone is talking about them loudly.

But talking about problems and threatening the structure that creates them are not the same thing.

Entertainment, Not Transformation

God showed Ezekiel exactly this dynamic:

“As for you, son of man, your people who talk together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses, say to one another, each to his brother, ‘Come, and hear what the word is that comes from the LORD.’ And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear what you say but they will not do it; for with lustful talk in their mouths they act; their heart is going after their gain. And behold, you are to them like one who sings lustful songs with a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument, for they hear what you say, but they will not do it.” (Ezekiel 33:30-32)

Read that carefully. The people come. They sit. They listen. They even talk about the prophet, invite others to hear, treat the word as an event worth attending.

And they do nothing.

To them, Ezekiel is entertainment. A beautiful voice. A skilled musician. Something to experience, discuss, share with friends. But not something to obey. Not something that changes how they live. Their hearts are going after their gain while their ears enjoy the show.

This is spectacle prophecy. It looks like confrontation. It sounds like truth. It gathers crowds and generates buzz and fills seats. But it produces no repentance. No change. No threat to the systems that profit from the audience’s attendance.

The people in Ezekiel’s day consumed prophetic content the same way we consume it now. They came, they heard, they talked about it, they went home unchanged. The prophet became a content creator. The word became a product. And the appearance of engagement replaced the reality of obedience.

The Appearance of Godliness

Paul warned Timothy about this:

“Having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.” (2 Timothy 3:5)

The appearance. The form. The outer shape that looks right while the inner reality is hollow.

The spectacle preacher has the appearance of prophetic power. The confrontational tone. The willingness to name names, call out movements, challenge popular teachers. It looks like courage. It sounds like the real thing.

But watch the fruit. Does anything change? Do the systems being critiqued actually lose power? Do the audiences move from consumption to obedience? Or does everyone just keep watching, keep sharing, keep attending, keep consuming the critique as another form of content?

The appearance of godliness denies its power by substituting performance for transformation. You can have all the right words in all the right tones aimed at all the right targets and still produce nothing but an audience.

And audiences are exactly what the system wants. Audiences consume. Audiences watch. Audiences feel like they’re participating while remaining passive. The spectacle preacher builds an audience for opposition the same way the prosperity preacher builds an audience for blessing. Different content, same consumption. Different message, same passivity.

Peace, Peace

Jeremiah confronted prophets who told people what they wanted to hear:

“They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.” (Jeremiah 6:14)

Healed lightly. Applied a bandage to a hemorrhage. Spoke comfort when surgery was required.

But there’s another way to heal lightly. Another way to apply a bandage to a hemorrhage. You can acknowledge the wound loudly while never actually treating it.

“Yes, there’s a problem. Yes, it’s serious. Yes, someone should do something about it.”

And then nothing happens. The acknowledgment becomes the treatment. The naming becomes the solution. Everyone feels like the wound has been addressed because someone important is talking about it.

This is “peace, peace” for the discerning. The original false prophets told comfortable people they were fine. The spectacle preacher tells uncomfortable people that their discomfort is being heard. Both produce the same result: no change. No repentance. No actual healing.

The wound remains. But now it has a platform dedicated to discussing it, which somehow makes everyone feel like progress is being made.

Why It Works

The spectacle preacher serves multiple functions for the system:

Release valve. People who sense something is wrong need somewhere to direct that energy. The spectacle preacher provides an outlet. You can feel righteously angry, share the confrontational content, signal your awareness of the problems, all without ever having to do anything that costs you personally. The pressure releases. The boiler doesn’t explode. The system continues.

Identification mechanism. Watch who engages with the spectacle preacher’s content. Now you know who the potential troublemakers are. Now you know who sees through the official narrative. This is useful information for the system. Better to have dissent visible and trackable than hidden and unpredictable.

Inoculation. Once you’ve consumed the critique, you feel like you’ve engaged with it. You’ve heard the hard things. You’ve nodded along. You’re aware. And now you can return to normal life feeling informed rather than convicted. The critique inoculates you against actually being changed by it.

Containment. As long as the opposition stays theatrical, it remains contained. It doesn’t spread into action. It doesn’t organize into genuine threat. It stays in the realm of content, where it can be managed, monetized, and ultimately neutralized.

The spectacle preacher may be entirely sincere. Many are. They genuinely see the problems and genuinely want to confront them. But sincerity doesn’t prevent co-optation. The system is skilled at using sincere opposition for its own purposes. This isn’t coordinated in a room; it’s coordinated by incentives. What gets amplified is what serves the structure, regardless of the speaker’s intent. The question isn’t whether the spectacle preacher means well. The question is whether the fruit is transformation or just more consumption.

Still on the Board

Here’s where this connects to everything we’ve been building.

The spectacle preacher is still content. Still part of the flood we described in Day 9. Still keeping your eyes on a square, even if it’s a different square than the one the mainstream voices want you watching.

You’re still consuming. Still a pawn moving through the content landscape. Still being positioned by what captures your attention. The spectacle preacher’s square might feel more truthful than the squares around it, but you’re still on the board.

Remember: the content flood doesn’t care what you’re consuming as long as you’re consuming. Prophetic content and prosperity content serve the same function if both keep you in the position of audience rather than participant. The spectacle preacher can become another photograph of bread, an image of confrontation that you consume instead of confronting anything yourself.

You watch someone else name the problems. You share someone else’s courage. You feel the catharsis of someone else’s confrontation. And you remain exactly where you were, except now you feel informed about your captivity.

The strong man doesn’t mind if you learn about his castle, as long as you never actually leave it.

The Test

How do you distinguish genuine prophetic voice from spectacle preaching? The fruit.

Genuine prophetic confrontation produces repentance. People change. Systems lose power. The comfortable become uncomfortable enough to move. The audience becomes participants. The consumers become actors.

Spectacle preaching produces engagement. Views. Shares. Comments. Discussion. Awareness. And then everyone goes home and nothing is different.

Genuine prophetic voice costs the speaker something real. Position. Platform. Access. Income. Relationship. The prophet Jeremiah was thrown in a cistern. John the Baptist lost his head. The cost was not theatrical.

Spectacle preaching builds the speaker’s platform. More followers. More influence. More bookings. More sales. The confrontation becomes a brand. The critique becomes a career. The opposition becomes an industry.

Genuine prophetic voice points away from itself toward God. “Thus says the LORD.” The prophet is a mouthpiece, not a personality. The message matters more than the messenger.

Spectacle preaching builds a personal following. The preacher becomes the brand. The personality becomes the product. People follow the voice more than they follow the God the voice claims to represent.

This is not a judgment on any individual. Only God knows hearts. But it is a diagnostic for you: What fruit is being produced in your own life by the voices you consume? Are you being transformed or just entertained? Are you being mobilized or just informed? Are you leaving the board or just learning more about it while staying in place?

The Prophet vs. The Performer

Ezekiel wasn’t trying to be entertainment. He was delivering the word of the LORD. But the people received him as a singer with a beautiful voice. The problem wasn’t with Ezekiel. The problem was with how the audience consumed him.

You can turn any genuine voice into spectacle by how you receive it. You can take the most costly, authentic prophetic confrontation and reduce it to content by consuming it passively, sharing it socially, and doing nothing personally.

The question isn’t just “who are the spectacle preachers?” The question is “am I being a spectacle audience?”

Are you consuming confrontation as entertainment? Are you using awareness of problems as a substitute for addressing them? Are you building an identity around being someone who “gets it” while remaining functionally identical to those who don’t?

The spectacle preacher might be a problem. But the spectacle audience is definitely a problem. And that’s a mirror, not a window.

What Babylon Allows

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Babylon allows what doesn’t threaten Babylon.

The system permits critique that stays theatrical. It platforms opposition that remains content. It tolerates confrontation that doesn’t disrupt the actual flow of power, money, and control.

What Babylon doesn’t allow is action. Exodus. People actually leaving the system, actually forming alternative communities, actually withdrawing their participation from the structures that depend on their compliance.

Babylon doesn’t mind if you’re angry, as long as you stay. Doesn’t mind if you’re aware, as long as you keep consuming. Doesn’t mind if you critique, as long as you don’t actually threaten anything.

The embarrassment strategy (Day 11) keeps people silent. The spectacle preacher keeps people vocal but passive. Both serve the same system. One through suppression, one through redirection. Different tactics, same outcome: the board remains intact and the pieces keep moving.

Damascus Road Moment

The spectacle is exposed. The outer wall is named. The question now is whether you’ve been consuming confrontation or being confronted. Whether you’ve been watching someone else’s courage or finding your own.

STOP

“And behold, you are to them like one who sings lustful songs with a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument, for they hear what you say, but they will not do it.” (Ezekiel 33:32)

Stop treating prophetic voices as entertainment. Stop consuming critique the same way you consume everything else. Stop letting awareness substitute for action. The beautiful voice and skilled instrument are worthless if you hear but never do.

“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” (James 1:22)

Stop deceiving yourself. Hearing is not doing. Sharing is not obeying. Being informed is not being transformed. The self-deception is thinking engagement with content equals engagement with God.

LOOK

“Having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.” (2 Timothy 3:5)

Look at the fruit. Not the tone, not the boldness, not the willingness to say hard things. The fruit. Is anyone actually changing? Is the system actually threatened? Or is everyone just consuming the appearance of power while nothing actually shifts?

“They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.” (Jeremiah 6:14)

Look at whether the wound is being healed or just acknowledged. Loud acknowledgment can be another form of light healing. Naming the problem publicly can become a substitute for actually solving it. Is there peace, or just talk about why there isn’t?

LISTEN

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” (John 10:27)

Listen for the Shepherd’s voice beneath all the other voices. The spectacle preacher is loud. The content flood is constant. But the Shepherd’s voice calls to action, not just attention. Calls to following, not just listening. Can you hear the difference?

LIVE

“But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.” (James 1:25)

Today, identify one thing you’ve heard repeatedly from confrontational voices that you’ve never actually acted on. One critique you’ve consumed and shared and discussed but never let change your behavior. One piece of awareness that’s been sitting in your mind as information rather than transforming your life as obedience.

Then act on it. Not by consuming more content about it. By doing something. By changing something. By letting the word accomplish what it was sent to accomplish instead of reducing it to another piece of your curated identity.

The spectacle ends when the audience gets up and leaves. Not to find another show. To become participants in the reality the show was only describing.

The outer wall is made of your attention. Stop giving it, and the wall comes down.

Tomorrow: The Opening

Day 11: The Embarrassment Strategy

Pulpit Puppet Masters and the Curated Gospel Reclaiming the freedom to choose in an age of manufactured faith

Yesterday we saw the Table. The real bread broken, the true cup poured, the presence that fills the empty house and keeps the seven worse from returning. We saw the difference between consuming photographs of food and actually eating. The invitation was clear: step off the board, sit at the Table, let Christ fill what leaving Babylon emptied.

But something keeps people from responding. Something more effective than doctrine, more binding than theology, more paralyzing than any argument the system could construct.

Embarrassment.

The Invisible Fence

There’s a technique used to contain livestock called an invisible fence. The animal wears a collar. The boundary is unmarked, no posts, no wire, nothing visible. But when the animal approaches the edge, the collar delivers a shock. After a few shocks, the animal learns. It stops approaching the boundary. Eventually, you can remove the collar entirely. The animal has internalized the fence. It polices itself.

This is how social control works in compromised Christianity.

The boundary isn’t doctrinal. It’s not written in any statement of faith. No one will tell you explicitly what you cannot say, what questions you cannot ask, what observations you cannot make. But approach that invisible line and you’ll feel the shock. A shift in the room. A change in how people look at you. The sudden cooling of relationships you thought were solid.

After enough shocks, you learn. You stop approaching certain topics. You learn which questions make people uncomfortable. You discover what concerns are acceptable to voice and which ones mark you as a problem. Eventually, you don’t need the external pressure anymore. You’ve internalized the fence. You police yourself.

The collar is embarrassment. And most believers are wearing it without knowing it exists.

The Glory That Comes From Man

John recorded something devastating about the religious leaders of Jesus’s day:

“Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.” (John 12:42-43)

Read that again. Many of the authorities believed. They saw who Jesus was. They recognized the truth. And they said nothing.

Why? Fear of the Pharisees. Fear of being put out. Fear of losing their place, their position, their belonging. They loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.

This is not a failure of intellect. This is not doctrinal confusion. This is not lack of evidence. They believed. They knew. And they stayed silent because the social cost was too high.

The glory that comes from man. That’s what the invisible fence protects. Your reputation. Your relationships. Your standing in the community. Your sense of belonging to something larger than yourself. The system doesn’t need to convince you the truth is false. It just needs to make speaking it expensive enough that you’ll stay quiet.

And it works. It worked on the authorities in Jesus’s day. It works on authorities in ours.

The Healed Man’s Choice

In John 9, Jesus heals a man born blind. The man can now see. This is not ambiguous. This is not a matter of interpretation. He was blind from birth. Now he sees. The evidence is standing in front of everyone, looking back at them with eyes that work.

And the Pharisees cannot accept it.

They interrogate the man. They interrogate his parents. They look for any explanation that doesn’t require acknowledging who Jesus is. They threaten. They pressure. They deploy every tool of social control available to them.

Watch what happens to the parents:

“His parents answered, ‘We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.’ (His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.) Therefore his parents said, ‘He is of age; ask him.'” (John 9:20-23)

The parents knew. Their son was blind. Now he sees. Someone did this. But they would not say who, because they feared being put out of the synagogue.

The synagogue was everything. Community. Identity. Belonging. Economic relationships. Social standing. Their entire world was built within those walls. And the threat of expulsion was enough to make them abandon their own son to the interrogation alone.

This is the embarrassment strategy. Not persecution. Not violence. Not martyrdom. Just the quiet threat of social exile. And it works.

But the healed man makes a different choice:

“The man answered, ‘Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.'” (John 9:30-33)

He speaks. He reasons. He states the obvious that everyone else is too afraid to say. And what happens?

“They answered him, ‘You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?’ And they cast him out.” (John 9:34)

Cast out. The thing his parents feared. The social death that keeps most people silent. It happened to him.

And then:

“Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ He answered, ‘And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?’ Jesus said to him, ‘You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.’ He said, ‘Lord, I believe,’ and he worshiped him.” (John 9:35-38)

Jesus found him. The one who was cast out for telling the truth, Jesus went looking for him specifically. The system expelled him. Christ received him.

This is the pattern. The embarrassment strategy works by threatening expulsion from the human community. But expulsion from Babylon is the doorway to encounter with Christ.

What Embarrassment Replaces

In the early church, the cost of following Jesus was clear. Persecution. Prison. Death. The threat was external and obvious. You knew what you were risking when you confessed Christ.

In comfortable Christianity, persecution has been replaced by embarrassment.

No one will kill you for speaking truth in most Western churches. No one will imprison you. No one will take your property or threaten your family. But they will look at you differently. They will whisper about you. They will stop inviting you. They will reframe your concerns as bitterness, your questions as pride, your observations as divisiveness.

“I’m concerned about you.” “I think you might be in a hard season.” “Have you talked to someone about why you’re so negative?”

The language is pastoral. The effect is silencing. Your concerns aren’t engaged. They’re pathologized. You’re not wrong; you’re wounded. You’re not seeing clearly; you’re processing trauma. You don’t have a point; you have a problem.

This is cheaper than persecution and often more effective. Martyrdom creates witnesses. Social exclusion creates silence. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church, but the embarrassment of the questioner just makes people keep their heads down and comply.

The Fear Beneath the Fear

Why does embarrassment work so well? Because it threatens something we need at a primal level: belonging.

We were made for community. We were designed for connection. The Table we discussed yesterday isn’t just about bread and cup; it’s about eating together, being known, being part of something. The isolated believer, as we saw in Day 7, is vulnerable. We need the Body.

The embarrassment strategy exploits this God-given need. It says: speak up and lose your community. Ask questions and lose your friends. Name what you see and lose your place at the table.

And here’s the cruelty of it: the table they’re threatening to remove you from is Babylon’s table. It’s the photograph of bread. It’s the counterfeit community that was never actually nourishing you. But it felt like belonging. It looked like connection. And the threat of losing even a counterfeit can be enough to keep you silent.

The fear beneath the fear of embarrassment is the fear of being alone. And the enemy knows that isolated sheep are easier to destroy than those in a flock.

So he offers you a choice: stay in the false flock and stay silent, or speak and be expelled into what feels like wilderness.

What he doesn’t tell you is that the Shepherd is waiting in that wilderness. That Jesus specifically goes looking for the ones who get cast out. That expulsion from Babylon is the first step toward the true Table.

The Reproach of Christ

The writer of Hebrews understood this dynamic:

“Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.” (Hebrews 13:13-14)

Outside the camp. Where the unclean were sent. Where the rejected belonged. Where Jesus Himself was crucified, outside the walls, outside the system, outside the respectable religious establishment.

The reproach He endured. Jesus was embarrassed. Publicly. Deliberately. Mocked. Stripped. Displayed. The crucifixion wasn’t just execution; it was humiliation. The system didn’t just kill Him; it shamed Him.

And we are called to go to Him there. Not to avoid the reproach but to share it. Not to find a way to follow Christ that preserves our reputation but to bear the embarrassment that comes with belonging to Him rather than to Babylon.

Here we have no lasting city. This is the release from the fear. The community that threatens to expel you is not your permanent home. The belonging you’re afraid to lose was never the belonging you were made for. You’re seeking a city to come, a Table that cannot be threatened, a community that no human system can expel you from.

The Silence of the Knowers

How many people in your church know something is wrong?

Not suspect. Know. They see the board. They recognize the game. They feel the manipulation, sense the control, notice the gap between what’s preached and what’s practiced.

And they say nothing.

Not because they’ve been convinced the problems aren’t real. Not because they lack the words to articulate what they see. But because they’ve calculated the cost and decided silence is cheaper.

They’ve learned where the invisible fence is. They’ve felt the shock enough times to know which topics to avoid. They’ve watched what happened to others who spoke up, how quickly “beloved member” became “divisive influence,” how fast “valued voice” became “bitter critic.”

So they stay silent. They nod along. They sing the songs and attend the services and write the checks and keep their observations to themselves. They know. And they say nothing.

This is the victory of the embarrassment strategy. Not to change minds but to close mouths. Not to convince but to silence. The system doesn’t need you to believe the lie. It just needs you to stop telling the truth.

“For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” (John 3:20-21)

The light exposes. That’s why it’s resisted. Not because people love darkness in the abstract but because they fear what light reveals. And the embarrassment strategy works by making the cost of bringing things to light higher than most people are willing to pay.

What Are You Protecting?

Here’s the question the embarrassment strategy doesn’t want you to ask: What exactly are you protecting by staying silent?

Your reputation? With whom? With people who would reject you for telling the truth? Is that reputation worth having?

Your relationships? Which ones? The ones that require you to be silent about what you see? Are those relationships or performances?

Your belonging? To what? To Babylon’s table where you’ve been eating photographs of bread? To a community that would expel you for following Jesus the way the healed man did?

The glory that comes from man. That’s what you’re protecting. And the authorities in John 12 protected it too. They believed in Jesus. They saw who He was. And they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.

What about you?

The Other Side of Embarrassment

The healed man was cast out. And Jesus found him.

The pattern repeats throughout Scripture. Those who were rejected by the religious system were received by Christ. Those who lost their place at Babylon’s table were invited to the true Table. Those who bore the reproach found themselves in the company of the One who bore it first.

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5:11-12)

Blessed. Not merely endured. Blessed. The embarrassment that feels like death is actually the doorway to life. The expulsion that feels like exile is actually the path to home.

The prophets knew this. They were mocked, rejected, cast out, killed. And they are honored in heaven while their respectable critics are forgotten.

The disciples knew this. They rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the name (Acts 5:41). Shame. The very thing the embarrassment strategy uses as a threat, they received as an honor.

There is a glory that comes from God that makes the glory that comes from man look like the cheap counterfeit it is. But you cannot have both. The invisible fence exists precisely to keep you from discovering this.

Damascus Road Moment

The fence is invisible, but it’s real. The collar has been delivering shocks for so long you may have forgotten what it feels like to approach the boundary. The embarrassment strategy has been working on you, perhaps for years, keeping you silent, keeping you compliant, keeping you at Babylon’s table when the true Table has been set all along.

STOP

“The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe.” (Proverbs 29:25)

Stop letting the fear of man determine what you say and don’t say. Stop calculating social cost before speaking truth. Stop wearing the invisible collar that shocks you every time you approach honesty. The snare is real, but it only catches those who keep fearing.

“Am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.” (Galatians 1:10)

Stop trying to please man. Paul understood that servant of Christ and pleaser of man are mutually exclusive categories. Which one are you?

LOOK

“Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.” (John 12:42-43)

Look at what you’ve been protecting. Look at who you’ve been silent for. Look at the glory you’ve been loving more than the glory that comes from God. The authorities believed and said nothing. Is that you?

“And they cast him out. Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him…” (John 9:34-35)

Look at what happens to those who speak anyway. Cast out by the system. Found by Jesus. Which outcome are you actually afraid of?

LISTEN

“Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.” (Hebrews 13:13)

Listen to the invitation. Not to avoid embarrassment but to share it. Not to preserve your place at Babylon’s table but to go outside the camp where Jesus is. The reproach He endured is the reproach He calls you to bear. Can you hear Him calling you out?

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.” (Matthew 5:11)

Listen to what He calls blessed. Not comfort. Not acceptance. Not the glory that comes from man. Reviled. Persecuted. Slandered. These are the blessed ones. Is this the blessing you’ve been avoiding?

LIVE

“But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” (John 3:21)

Today, identify one truth you’ve been afraid to speak. One observation you’ve kept silent because the social cost felt too high. One question you’ve swallowed because you didn’t want to be “that person.” Ask the Spirit whether the silence is wisdom or fear. And if it’s fear, ask for the courage to come to the light.

The invisible fence only has power while you believe in it. The collar only shocks if you’re still wearing it. The embarrassment strategy only works on those who love the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.

Which glory do you love?

The healed man was cast out. And Jesus found him.

Will you let yourself be found?

Tomorrow: The Spectacle Preacher