It is theological in nature, these cycles in history always have been, related to ultimate truth and anti-truth. If we are to escape this cycle without mass death and long-term slavery, we will need to reform everything, beginning with the theological. This I came out of silence to tweet to a fellow that almost grasped the gravity of it all. [1] By ‘theological’ I do not specifically mean complex academic terms, nor do I mean various camps of theological outlook. I mean “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” While I generally prefer the ESV I intentionally used the KJV of Ephesians 6:12 there because it better reflects the metaphysical meaning of the verse in context. It does mean in ‘heavenly places’ as the ESV states, but it also means ‘high places’. There is a physicality to all of this, it is not just an overly-spiritualized concept that we can allegorize and mystify into meaninglessness. We are told of it in Genesis 3, and chapter 6. We are told about high places and the ‘gods’ of this world ruling over geographic localities. We are even told that Jesus stood at Caesarea Philippi and essentially pointed to the Grotto of Pan, in sight of a ‘high place’ with dark and esoteric mythological meaning (Mount Hermon) and said “I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” He was not speaking of Peter as a rock, he literally meant the big rock where the worshipers of dark power believed rested their gods. The gates of Hell were literally represented in the nearby Grotto of Pan(I also accept that verse can have two meanings that are both true, but almost all modern Christians ignore the physical one). When Jesus ascended into the high place after that, Hermon being the only one nearby, and transfigured, it was a statement to the powers and the princes of this world that things had changed. In Revelation 1:13 John writes that Antipas was killed where Satan dwells. That was in Pergamon, where a physical altar to Zeus existed, the same throne taken and rebuilt by the Germans in Berlin. Mythology speaks to the truth of what the Christian Bible only hints at. Mythology twists, inverts, and perverts it but the essential theme is there. The ‘gods’ worshiped across time and among disparate peoples are not new and unique creations. Within the twisted corridors of fabulous tales of myth from around the world, we can discern specific personalities being portrayed over and over again.
There is something to it all. The esotericists among us believe it. A Christian knows that the gods they revere are gods of lies and deception and we know that what esotericism believes as truth is not so, but it would be foolish to dismiss that they believe something that is true. They do stand in recognition of the powers of the princes of the air, the gods of this world. Those gods have merely lied to them about their intent and purpose. Oddly enough mystics, esotericists, Luciferians and Freemasons know more about the true cosmological nature of the universe than many Christians. They know it falsely but they at least understand the fundamental nature of it.
Human history is, as I have discussed, a line running from the Garden to now reflecting progressive elaboration of Grace and the means of Grace as well as progressively elaborating revelation of the Nature of God from the Garden until the last book of the canon was penned. It has also consisted of cycles. Many antichrists and one beast system, true truth versus anti-truth. In times and places in history there has been an ebb and flow, sometimes the mind of the people become depraved and greater antichrists rise among them and attempt to build the beast system. These are always dark times, they do not always begin as such. Usually, they begin with hope, idealism, hubris, and progress. Wars, oppression, tyranny, sadness, and death always follow. This is the ebb and flow of history. It is Spengler’s seasons, new civilizations arise filled with hope and virtue, things turn to sloth and greed and tyranny, oppression and war follow and then collapse. [2] There are of course other threads running through history, sin and corruption build as sins in one generation have effects felt for many subsequent generations. Juxtaposed against that are humans, image bearers of our creator doing much of what we were made to do, adding sub-creations to the world God built. This too often begins with hope and idealism, but fallen man in a sinful world always turns the best invention toward the purposes of building our own cages and serving the beast kingdom. Lurking in the shadows, and sometimes residing in high places the agents of the oppressor work. Men are easily seduced, the harlot has ridden again and again throughout history. In the shadows others have remained adherents to dark mystery religions, acting as a vanguard in even the most just societies while time and fallen nature eventually turn the rest toward passive acceptance. Above all of that, God dispenses what surely must be immeasurable amounts of Common Grace into the system, just to keep us civilized and prevent us from killing and eating one another. That is history, and that will be our future until the end of days.
Something else occasionally happens. As in the Tower of Babel, the Flood, or the judgement of the Watchers occasionally God himself intervenes, directly and in a profound way. At other times, such as the Christians persevering through tribulation under the Romans until Roman Civilization collapsed and was replaced. [3] We have the example of the Reformers, men that stood against a Catholic Church that had at that time become the literal seat of a greater Antichrist and if left unchecked would have built a beast system upon the earth. It was already burning Bibles and executing Christians. In those two cases, just like all such cases where men come together to stand for truth, there was hardship and struggle, followed by victory and blessings. The blessings come to many generations after. The dark ages were not nearly as dark as pagan-loving historians have led us to believe. Europe enjoyed relative peace compared to the Roman days. Christianity replacing the Roman civilization was a net positive for mankind. And then the Catholic Church reintroduced war, hatred and lies. A thousand years later the reformation freed a large swath of mankind once again. The enlightenment, scientific revolution, and all of our ‘progress’ was a result. It was also the trojan horse, the very thing that would reintroduce the beast system.
That too is history, sometimes men act and the cycles of beast kingdom history are broken. As a man that firmly believes in the sovereignty of God, Him being outside of time I know he is the master of all of history. Yet, the tension between free will and God’s sovereign will is real, at least from our perspective. Consider 1 Samuel 23. David is being pursued by Saul who is intent on killing him. David and his men had entered Kailah the news of which greatly pleased Saul as his army would merely lay siege to the city. David prayed and asked the Lord if the people of Kailah would turn him over to Saul, the answer was ‘yes’. David asked if he and his six hundred men would be killed, again the answer was ‘yes’. David had a free will choice to make. In hubris he might have decided to make impassioned speeches to the people of the city and redouble the defenses, believing he could best Saul from the walls. What we find in that chapter of Samuel is two prophecies of two separate possible futures, which one becomes reality is seemingly in the hands of David to choose. Stand and fight and die, or flee. Both could have become reality, David had a choice. The future was seen, but not preordained in that case it seems. It seems also that Martin Luther could have chosen to nail his complaints to a church door, or perhaps he could have decided to be afraid. We cannot, it seems, fully answer what it means for God to know and be in charge and for us to have a choice, but it certainly seems like we do have some agency and do get to have an impact.
Perhaps that is it. We could consider the Germans, after a century of toying with tragically flawed ideology and having never fully thrown off their pagan ways are we surprised that they as a people collectively made the choices they did in 1933. They had help, certainly, dark and nefarious groups lurking in the shadows and the powers of the princes of the air urging them on, but ultimately and absolutely it was the German people that allowed the debauchery that was Berlin to persist and it was they that fell prey to seducing words of a greater antichrist. We sometimes paint them all as victims, there were very few that saw it all as it was and spoke up, very few. Far fewer took any sort of a stand. [4] The Germans needed much more than a bold statement saying ‘this far and no further’ in 1934. They needed a cultural reformation that purged the deranged filth that had made a home in Berlin (long before the Nazis arrived) and a theological reformation that could serve to sanctify and correct all the ideologies in the air.
Are we so very different? If 2020 taught us anything is that we too love the beast system, all of it. Even today on one side of the political spectrum drone armies dedicated to one false man that has proven his willingness to be a lesser antichrist argue with mindless twits that support a Straussian who would also merely build nice roads and continue/start wars for evil.[5] Many of us are fine with ‘bold’ Barmen statements and would willingly turn back the clock to 1985 or 1990 never realizing that real reformation was required then too. Others cling to the notion that we have to protect the ideals of the enlightenment or idealized notions of the founding. We miss the point in those claims too.[6] Anyone that wants to reset clocks or make anything great again has to be honest and informed about what was really wrong with the periods we idealize – we did not get here without something being very wrong in 1990.
When others now quip that the end of all this progress is death they are not being hyperbolic. Death, tyranny, and oppression are the foundational nature of the anti-truth beast empire that has attempted continually through history to assert its domination upon the world. Tyranny and death are its nature.[7] If people in this age, not just a few but some significant amount as to form a consensus, do not recognize the nature of the system forming around them and then find the will to stop it – it will engulf us all and usher in a new dark age that is much worse than any conceived before. But like David at Keilah, we have a choice in it all – stay in what will become our prison and suffer and die or change our environment.
The real problem becomes how. It requires a hero, but I see just a handful around and most do not notice them. Most notice the charlatans. It requires a significant change in a sufficient number of hearts, but again, the institutions that are supposed to preach that truth to us are mostly filled with liars now. The megachurch was designed to build the beast kingdom.[8] All the mainline denominations turned to apostasy a century ago and most of the rest are slowly following. It requires a battle of ideas but the battle must begin from true truth. There are some gaining notoriety at present attacking the absurdity of the various postmodern ideologies using enlightenment arguments – failing to realize just how far the enlightenment itself must be reformed and reset for it to be of any use. It requires something of God and something of us, it would seem, using the David example. It requires the right something and enough people that understand both the problem and solution for success. Tall orders.
We do have heroes. We do have the promises of God. We do have true truth and we are made in the image of God. Despite living in a fallen and corrupt world we have the capacity to see both the full problem and the solution. It remains to be seen if we are made of the sort of stuff the times require. Thus far, it appears we are made of much lesser stuff.
God did not make me in this time to be a hero or to have all the answers. I, like many of you, have merely been gifted (or cursed) with the ability to see the nature of the thing as it is. Such knowledge changes everything. You cannot see politics the same. It is impossible to excuse preachers for failing to speak out against the total reality of it all. One cannot go to work anywhere in the government without seeing the hand of evil at work even in small projects. You cannot read the news and see past all the noise and drama to make out the dim outline of something darker behind it all. I am not alone, but there seem to be so few of us that truly see. Fewer still believe they have an answer and perhaps just a handful that in my assessment has a shot at having part of the solution. Read the Word, Pray, and love others. Be watchful and discerning but not so skeptical that if God sees fit to provide us legitimate reformers in this age that we ignore them. Also, do not be so naive as to believe all the guys claiming to be such are. Be prepared for this to be the beginning of the end of all things, and live as if we are in their world and history will go on until it stops.
Remember, I grew up a country boy and spent my life as a soldier. I have no answers other than pray, hope, be vigilant, and act when and if the time is ever right, otherwise persevere and endure. Live as if through faith and duty we can change things, and be realistic enough to know the means are for us and the ends belong to God, it is all in His time and for His purposes. And whatever you do, avoid all the deceptions that are around us and the many more to come.
