A message

[ClaytonB]

This post is spiritual and it is not directed at RPF. But those who need to read it will find it here.

I'll start by highlighting one of my favorite Twilight episodes, A Nice Place to Visit (compressed version here). While it gives no canonical insight into the nature of the afterlife, I think that it does make an important point -- be careful about your assumptions about the way the world is, and especially about the way things will be in "the other place".

I've been thinking a lot lately about the end of the Age. In particular, I have thought a lot about the return of Christ and what exactly that means, what it will "look like", so to speak. Some people say it happened already. Others say a great cataclysm will happen first. Some say all the believers will be spirited away. And so on. There are many opinions.

But on his return, would Jesus actually proclaim himself as such? After all, from the time of the resurrection until the return, he is sitting at the right hand of the Father. When he returns, he returns not as the Son, but as the King and Heir, as such. That is, on his return, Jesus will be indistinguishable from the Father. He will be, simply, God.

I am the vine; you are the branches ... apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:5)

The one who is apart from Jesus can do nothing. He or she is utterly helpless. This is not merely a statement about what you ought to do, it is a statement about spiritual reality. As humans, we are sheltered in many ways from the comings and goings of the spirits. So, we are blind to our own weaknesses. In fact, we are so weak and vulnerable that we would likely experience an existential crisis if we even came to tangibly understand our own weakness vis-a-vis the spirits. This is certainly part of Jesus's meaning in John 15:5. You are like a small child whose neck is clamped in the jaws of an enormous lion, but the jaws are being kept from closing completely and, not only this, you are being shielded from realizing that you are in the jaws of an enormous lion. That is the true nature of your spiritual jeopardy.

To the unbeliever, "the name of Jesus" is just a meaningless string of symbols. It has no more significance than any other magic talisman. To those who want to traffick the Holy Spirit like a prostitute (e.g. Simon Magus), the power of the name of Jesus is useless since it cannot be used in summoning or conjuring, as in witchcraft or by the demonic djinn. Rather, its power consists in its eternality and in its centrality to the glory of the Father. The Father has chosen to glorify himself in the name of Jesus (Phil. 2:9-11).

Today, we are closer than ever to the end of the Age. And the world has been groaning in birth pains for a very long time. Jesus promised that his return would be soon, swift, unexpected. Those who think he will delay indefinitely are gravely mistaken. In his bodily absence, two major threads of rebellion have emerged. The first thread is that of occultism. In ancient paganism, spiritual wickedness used to be practiced openly. One of the things that the first coming of Jesus changed in history was the widespread practice of open devil worship and witchcraft. In the wake of the spread of reason and the Gospel, spiritual wickedness has been driven underground. There, it has festered in the dark. After many centuries of hiding, the occultists believe they are ready to emerge upon the world once again, in full display. The second thread of rebellion is in the atheistic reinterpretation of natural science. Many changes in technology are soon to arrive and these new technologies will be, for the vast majority of the public, indistinguishable from magic. So, the occult and high technology are on the verge of a Satanic union in order to pave the way for the revealing of the antichrist. Satan wants nothing more than a return to the open, wanton wickedness of the pre-Flood world.

To those who are in the occult or are fascinated by the occult, I have a message:

Woe to those who go to great depths
To hide their plans from the Lord,
Who do their work in darkness and think,
“Who sees us? Who will know?”
You turn things upside down,
As if the potter were thought to be like the clay!
Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it,
“You did not make me”?
Can the pot say to the potter,
“You know nothing”?
(Isaiah 29:15,16)

To those who believe that science and technology are about to abolish religion and establish a global secular power, I have a message:

... Once more I will astound these people
With wonder upon wonder;
The wisdom of the wise will perish,
The intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.
(Isaiah 29:14)

You can be certain that whatever reasons you think you have that your occult powers or your high technology gizmos will challenge the power of God are moot.

Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket;
They are regarded as dust on the scales;
He weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.
(Isaiah 40:15)

No matter what ancient spirits you have summoned, no matter what whiz-bang quantum holographic projector your priests in lab coats have constructed ... it is all nothing to the living God. Your own understanding of the power of God is so impoverished that you don't even know what power actually is. Whatever you believe about it is just a lie that you have been duped with.

The highest stakes of all in the coming spiritual war -- Armageddon -- are over the name of Jesus. He said, "Whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven." (Matthew 10:33) It's a high-stakes game because (a) the name of Jesus is the central jewel in the glory of God and (b) hell is forever. In this world, there are not only humans, but also the spirits of the churches and many other witnesses besides. Everyone who has succumbed to luciferian pride and has allowed their ego to grow without bound and has begun to think themselves God, or even greater than God... is in for a shocking day of reckoning.

The Lord Almighty has a day in store
For all the proud and lofty,
For all that is exalted
(And they will be humbled)...
The arrogance of man will be brought low
And human pride humbled;
The Lord alone will be exalted in that day,
And the idols will totally disappear.
People will flee to caves in the rocks
And to holes in the ground
From the fearful presence of the Lord
And the splendor of his majesty,
When he rises to shake the earth.
In that day people will throw away
To the moles and bats
Their idols of silver and idols of gold,
Which they made to worship.
They will flee to caverns in the rocks
And to the overhanging crags
From the fearful presence of the Lord
And the splendor of his majesty,
When he rises to shake the earth.
Stop trusting in mere humans,
Who have but a breath in their nostrils.
Why hold them in esteem?
(Isaiah 2, excerpts)

The most accursed are the reprobate, the children of the Devil. They will never change. They not only refuse to believe in God but, as they worship the Devil as god, they actually believe they are doing the will of God by serving Satan. This is why they blaspheme the Holy Spirit, which sin will never be forgiven.

Finally, I want to close by recommending the book of Hosea. Sometimes, doing the will of God looks very strange. At a glance, it might even look like opposition to God. But the only way to eliminate the violent is with violence. This is why God is passionately, violently angry with the wicked. Those who go to great lengths to conceal their plans (the occult), those who dig a pit for others to fall into (high technology) do not understand that they are merely drinking the maddening wine of delusion which God has given them in final judgment for their wickedness. They will join the ranks of the reprobate and become the children of Satan. With him, they will be thrown alive into the Lake of Fire. They sealed their fate when they crucified the Son of God, not in hypothesis, but in actuality. No more excuses, Satan. You and your angels are going to hell for what you've done.