[Darris McNeely] I truly believe that something awful has been unleashed in the United States of America. I've yet to make a comment on the attack on the United States Capitol building on January 6th of this year that, of course, just stunned everyone, something that was terrible. It was horrible. It was wrong. Two people died in that. And I thought it might be time for us to put that into a little bit more perspective with the few weeks that have passed by since that time. I think we were all shocked by that and condemn any effort to attack the United States Capitol. It was the first time that something like that has happened there since the war of 1812 and it was British troops at that time that took place.

But what I wanna really focus on is perhaps something that no one else has talked about. No news coverage has said this. I've written about it in an upcoming "Beyond Today" article in our magazine. Three days before that event took place on January 3rd, the present Congress was sworn in. It was a Sunday. As that Congress opened up, a particular Congressman, his name was Emanuel Cleaver, from Missouri, gave the opening prayer. And as he gave that prayer and brought it to a conclusion, here's what he said, "May the Lord lift up the light of His countenance upon us and give us peace, peace in our families, peace across this land, and dare I ask, oh, Lord, peace, even in this chamber." So far, so good. But then he concluded, "We ask it in the name of the monotheistic God, Brahma, and God known by many names, by many different faiths." And then he said, "Amen," and then he said awoman. Most people focused on the amen and the awoman and the point that he was trying to make about gender issues and gender politics. But what he said before to me is far more interesting to look at and important because he called upon the name Brahma, the chief deity of the Hindu religion, a pagan deity and the God He said known by many names by many different faiths.

This Congressman invoked a pagan deity by prayer upon the House Chamber in the United States Capitol building. That was a sacrilege. That in itself was a desecration.

It was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that America was founded upon and people believing in that God, the God that is revealed in the Bible. That was the God that is intended in the model of the United States of "In God we trust." And it is that same God, who in the Pledge of Allegiance we ask and say that we are one nation under God. It's not Brahma. It's not God known by any other religion. What that congressman did was invoke the name of a pagan deity.

The Apostle Paul had something to say about demons and idolatry. In 1 Corinthians 10, he said this, "What am I saying? That an idol is anything or what is offered to idols is anything, rather that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of the demons. You cannot partake of the Lord's table and of the table of demons." That's 1 Corinthians 10:19, 21."Those who worship idols," Paul says, "are worshipping demons behind those."

Pagan deities invoked in the House of Representatives brought down the name of a pagan deity, behind which is a demon. This is what the Bible says. It was, as I say, a desecration and a sacrilege and it was invoked in the Chambers of the United States House of Representatives. Three days later, a mob attacked and those lawmakers had to flee for their lives in the moment, in the business that was taking place. That I think is what people haven't focused upon.

I think something awful has been unleashed upon this land. And it bears our consideration, as we think through the events that we are living through right now and have been for several months with problems and difficulties in America. God is not pleased with what happened. I ask myself and I wonder, has God began the process of removing His presence and His blessing off of this great land?

Time will tell. But what happened in that House Chamber that day was not good. And all of us should think about that and understand it, in light of the Biblical revelation that God tells us.

That's BT Daily. Join us next time.