Ummm, I waz lookin' fer duh non-existent James 15:23 verse.
Yer first glance assumptions about me are mistaken. I'm neither African nor a teenager. I'm jus' a plain o'l white North American and a Pensioner.
And, having been previously employed as managing editor of a Christian magazine, I'm with adequate vocabulary.
Itz jus' that I've chosen to scale down my vocabulary and sentence structure in here with the hope to encourage my being welcomed.
Anyways, thanks for giving answer to my question.
Evidently, you prefer to interpret the verse in as being 'literal'; as opposed to being 'figurative' and/or allegorical. However, you did quickly add: "John was watching a movie in God's cinema, so what he was was all in pictures".
Yes, the Book of Revelation is mostly a parade of pictures; perhaps a better word: 'parables;. (Matthew 13:34). Our task is to have these pictures, (which are drawn from the canvas of the visible world), to give us insight into the canvas of the invisible world. This is in keeping with Rom 1:20, "God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made ..." .
Throughout the scriptures we encounter pictures and/or parables which are intended to help us visualize invisible/spiritual realities. The "things which have been made" reveal invisible realities and therefore we Christians too are "without excuse".
The identity of the beast is quite another matter. The problem is not that the Beast remains hidden from our view. Rather, it's that many are much too afraid to speak it's name aloud.
"Look around you!", is the refrain. The Beast is rising and is becoming increasingly visible. Look around you. The identity of the Beast is being clearly revealed in your midst. No one needs to be especially gifted to identity it. It's staring you in the face!
The Beast is not a specific man nor particular clergy; although many of these are indeed frantically seeking to cooperate with it.
To begin with, the task of identifying the spirit of the anti-Christ is made easier because we know that it's primary function is the origin of all falsehood ... lies. So, you would do well by beginning to focus on a propagator of lies and you will be well on your way to identifying the suffocating influence of the anti-Christ. It's always the entrance of the suffocating lies first and then the compelling powers demanding that the people subjugate themselves to them.
"Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ”. The counterfeit reality is by its very nature in a permanent crisis of legitimization. Because its captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It pretends to pretend nothing. Because it is so utterly foreign to the composite of man, (“no so from the beginning”), it is an artificial amalgam held together through violence. This is why falsehood and delusion are so essential to it.
When people suppress the truth and worship the created things, (counterfeit reality), they succumb to darkened minds and folly and become overwhelmed by a sense of induced powerlessness. So it is that people live within a lie.
In most cases, it is not as if the multitudes happily accept the delusional web; rather, it is that they have accepted their life with it and in it. They unwittingly confirm the lie, fulfill the lie and ultimately become the lie.
Our triumph over the demonic system occurs as we overcome the “present evil epoch” (aion) who “has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ”. In this sense, we “redeem the time”, (Col 4:5). The wonderful testimony of our gospel is not that it is a convincing substitute for the counterfeit reality; rather, it is in its being hated by it. Thus, our gospel has no need of salesmanship because genuine reality is eager to confirm it."
Additionally, I don’t believe that nominal Christians today are fully cognizant of the dramatic meaning behind Cain's desire to build himself a city. Not unlike earthly Jerusalem, Cain's city too is a visible image of an invisible reality. By its very construct, Cain's city was fundamentally opposed to God; a counter-creation possessing a negative spiritual identity ... a counterfeit reality.
Cities throughout the Bible are parables revealing a pervading domination system which violently compels to subjugate and control in order to sustain itself. This explains why violence adorns its very core.
The birth of our modern cities and the dominating powers behind them goes back to Uruk in Mesopotamia, 4th millennium BC; and other great cities like Ninevah, Khorsbad, Nimrud, Babylon and so on. The city was the center of political and religious culture. Its walls were not only physical but also spiritual; thereby giving the pretense of form, purpose and meaning to man's counterfeit and alienated existence.
At the moment that Cain decided to "build himself a city", he began to sanctify, justify and glorify the violence (against the human spirit) contained within it. Cain's city especially has spiritual significance because it's capable of directing and changing a man's spiritual life. It brings its domination powers to bear in man and swallows up his life, (his entire being, not simply his 'house'). And that is both the fearful legacy of Cain and also its dreadful mystery.
From the times of Cain, Nimrod, and through to Babylon, (including our present day), the city represents a desire to violently dominate and destroy the intents and purposes of God towards man.
Less and less people are able to intuitively realize that, underneath and within their social, economic, cultural and political institutions, are profound spiritual realities which must be confronted. Every aspect of our visible world has spirit at its core. This knowing is critical if we wish to give shape to our faith and prayer.
We would also do well to make a distinction between ‘shadow of death’ and the ‘spirit of death’.
The spirit of the anti-Christ can be likened to the spirit of death in that it forms a ‘shadow of death’ which encompasses everything we know and experience .. every minute of our every day.
While the ‘shadow of death’ is related to every cultural, political, economic and religious activity, the ‘spirit of death’ is the predominant power behind the shadow … what one could define as the spiritual power which is the origin of the shadow. In a sense, those who live in the ‘shadow of death’ (under the ‘domination system’) are already tasting death … suffering various forms of poisonous damage to their inner man.
All our cultural, political, economic and religious activities give substance to this ‘shadow of death’. In other words, we are born into a social world which is the “deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in”. It is the ‘shadow of death’ which is the thief that steals, kills and destroys”. It is also the ‘shadow of death’ in 2Sam 22:5-6, “… the floods of ungodly men made me afraid”; “The sorrows of hell compassed me about; the snares of death prevented me”.
It was the ‘spirit of death’ which cast the ‘shadow of death’ after the Fall. It is the ‘spirit of death’ which interferes with the proper and orderly functions of the physical dimension itself. It could be said that while it is the ‘shadow of death’ which injures the invisible inner composite of man, it is the ‘spirit of death’ which is the lawless agent that degenerates and profanes the laws and substance of the God’s creation. It is the ‘spirit of death’ which attacks the "blue prints of life" and overwhelms the laws of God’s creation. It is the 'spirit of death' which alters and damages the substance of this physical world.
Since the Fall, the entire visible creation has been suffering under the ‘spirit of death’. For example: there is multiple evidence that genetic damage can be caused by man-made effluents and pollutants which can affect the very survival of a species and alter their evolutionary destiny. So too, genetic damage can be caused by lawless influences and pollutants from out of the invisible world which degrade and alter the intrinsic creation laws of God operative in the human body.
Today cultural Christianity speaks about the necessity of evil and humanity’s common identity and bondage in guilt. They participate in an unconscious conspiracy with the ‘domination system’. Everyone knows of the fallacy and yet deny that the fallacy exists and continue their unwitting participation and involvement with the devices behind the ‘shadow of death’.
Cultural Christianity prompts a docile acceptance of the ‘shadow of death’; still more have eagerly become complicit with it and find no shame in their having resigned to the tyranny of darkness which is unfolding as their degenerate reality. They affirm the god of Mammon without qualification, are infatuated with sin, and even take pains to testify that they can never rid themselves of it. Where there is no more wrestling with death, the struggle for genuine life is deserted and people surrender willingly to the ‘shadow of death’.
While it is true that many in these days shout about expecting God’s future, most are without the slightest inkling of what God’s absolute will is for the present. Mainstream Christianity is like a man about to be buried alive in a tunnel collapse: at first he flails blindly in the foul darkness; but when he suddenly claws through the layers of rubble, light extinguishes the darkness and refreshing air rushes in. He is once again united with the atmosphere for which he longs, even if he cannot immediately climb up into it.
Thankfully, we have a Gospel for those suffocating under the ‘shadow of death‘! It is the Gospel of the Kingdom which alone equips man with the powers of eternity as soon as they dare to open themselves to the eternal and perfect plans of God for their lives. Our inner man earnestly seeks the day that God, Who until now has been blasphemed, might at last be deservedly honored. Our Gospel testifies that we, as the living seed of the God’s Kingdom, have been entrusted with the spirit of life.
Therefore, we remain “aliens” and “foreigners” to this present world order precisely because we are citizens and ambassadors of an eternal divine order. To testify otherwise causes the message of our gospel of restoration to become a Utopian fantasy, a self-deceiving madness.
Thankfully, our Gospel has its roots in the certainty that every person and atmosphere now straining under the ‘shadow of death’ can be truly freed and restored to the original intentions of God. I am not speaking here about a movement of conscience which might camouflage itself as socialism or communism or other such “isms” Ours is not the task to remedy the coercive powers. The domination system (‘shadow of death’) is beyond both contempt and repair.
Rather, ours is the task to triumph over the ‘spirit of death’ and it’s suffocating shadow by becoming “equipped for every good work” and thereby immune to its killing spirit and degenerate constraints. In this way, we disarm the tyrant of the earth and strip him of power to occupy our land and to destroy his evil achievements and works.
Cultural Christianity says: depart this world and go to the other! But Jesus says: The kingdom of God will come to this world!
Cultural Christianity speaks of a transition from the visible to the invisible; but Jesus spoke of something entirely the opposite; a transition from the invisible to the visible.
Cultural Christianity tempts us to give up being godly, but it is precisely because the Word became flesh in Jesus that permits us full Redemption.
So it is that our Gospel has us desiring nothing else but to become truly human (the ultimate intention of God with man);
His Seed (Word) has been planted in the earth (us) and we earnestly await His glory to be revealed in us.
This is the festival of our hearts; the embryo of our eternity!
