1) The Antichrist will be the ultimate epitome (the very climax) of human evil, which is why he is referred to in Scripture as the “man of lawlessness” (2 Thessalonians 2:3). Although Trump is an egomaniacal rascal, dissembler and compulsive liar, he cannot possibly fit the epitome of evil mentioned in 2 Thessalonians 2. There have been many in history who have been far more lawless than Trump; but even so, none of them was the Antichrist, and neither is Trump.

2) The Antichrist will be revered as the leader of the whole world, voluntarily revered by all (and that “all” will even revere Satan who energises the Antichrist), heading up a global government, rather than merely being the ruler of a single nation-state (Revelation 13:3-4, 8). Before going any further with this section, I should explain here that the “beast” set forth in the thirteenth chapter of the Book of Revelation depicts the way that the “mystery of lawlessness” and the “spirit of the Antichrist” have manifested exponentially in governance and world culture during the whole Gospel Age as a satanic world-system which climaxes in the actual “man of lawlessness”, the Antichrist. The two beasts mentioned in that chapter represent symbolically a different aspect of the “spirit of the Antichrist” and the satanic world-system — two sides of the same coin, as it were. Thus, the first beast out of the sea is the political, governmental, and administrative aspect of the enforcement of Satan’s kingdom-building across the planet, leading ultimately to the creation of a global government. Whereas the second beast out of the earth involves all the ‘spirit of the antichrist’ influences in society of a pseudo-religious nature, the application of godless philosophy and science — along with the supportive unethical use of technology — which will endorse, prop up and advocate the first beast. Therefore, the second beast provides the undergirding religio-philosophical rationale and the scientific foundation for the whole political beast-system, and culminates in a kind of global oneness religion alongside the global government. [For a detailed explanation of all this, please see sections 5-8 of Chapter 6 in my commentary on the Book of Revelation, “The Essential Apocalypse”,  which you can download freely here: https://diakrisis-project.com/2024/10/06/the-second-edition-paperback-of-the-essential-apocalypse-is-now-ready-for-purchase-delivery/ ]. The only dissenters of that reverence toward the Antichrist will be genuine disciples of Christ, who will be increasingly bumped off for their awareness of who he is and their refusal to submit to him (Revelation 11:7; 13:7). It is very obvious that Trump is not the revered leader of the whole world. In fact, the majority of people in the world regard Trump as an uncouth ‘potty-mouthed’ moron — the very opposite of how the real Antichrist will present himself, who will have the whole world eating out of his hand, so to speak, with his demonic leadership skills, smooth-talking sophistry and mesmeric attraction. Therefore, Trump cannot possibly be the actual Antichrist.

3) The Antichrist will put himself above every religion/belief/philosophy and proclaim himself to be God (2 Thessalonians 2:4). Trump has never made such assertions about himself and even if he was to do so, very few would take him seriously as he has no spiritual credentials whatsoever (apart from spouting utterly false “Christianity”) and he comes across as the ultimate material man. Thus, he cannot be the Antichrist.

4) The Antichrist will counterfeit the second coming of Christ and will be extolled as the ‘World Teacher’ which many religions claim will come to save the world and bring in utopia on this present earth. In His sermonic context of the great tribulation on the Mount of Olives, Jesus says, “At that time, if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There He is!’ do not believe it” (Matthew 24:23). Of course not. For at the time when the great tribulation begins, the only ‘christ’ on the scene will be a false one: Namely, the Antichrist!

The Greek word for Antichrist, ἀντίχριστος, antichristos, has the prefix ‘anti-‘ which in Greek means both “against” and “in the place of”. This has serious implications for the identity of the Antichrist. For it shows that his coming will be a counterfeit of the second coming of Christ and this will fool many. In fact, this deception is shown in the use of the same Greek word being used for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and the coming of the Antichrist. Theologically, the word παρουσία, parousia, has always been associated with the second coming of Christ; yet in the same chapter describing the two events, that same Greek word is used for both (see 2 Thessalonians 2:1, 9). This surely more than hints that unless great discernment is exercised, the parousia of the Antichrist will be mistaken by many for the parousia of the Christ. In fact, knowing the difference between the coming of the Antichrist and the coming of the true Christ — distinguishing between one parousia and the other — will be a hallmark of true faith. For the coming of the Antichrist will be steeped in deception of the highest order. Thus, the Jewish people will think that their Messiah has finally arrived (as is even hinted at in John 5:43). Most Muslims will welcome the Antichrist as their expected saviour, the “Mahdi”. Buddhists will welcome the Antichrist as their expected saviour, “Bodhisattva Maitreya”. Theosophists and New Age folks will welcome the Antichrist as their expected “World Teacher” (as touted by Alice Bailey and her ilk). Hopi Indians (and those who revere them) will welcome the Antichrist as their expected “Pahana”. Many other traditions are expecting some great “World Teacher” and saviour to arrive on earth and save it. Even (God forbid!) many of those who profess to be “Christians” (but aren’t really) will fall for the deceptive sway of the Antichrist, believing him to be the returned Christ. The Antichrist will be welcomed with open arms by ET and UFO lovers, not to mention those in hock with the World Economic Forum who are fomenting a global religious alliance as well as a global government. [For much expanded information on this whole subject area, please read section 7 of Chapter 6 in my commentary on the Book of Revelation, “The Essential Apocalypse”, which you can download as an e-Book here: https://diakrisis-project.com/2024/10/06/the-second-edition-paperback-of-the-essential-apocalypse-is-now-ready-for-purchase-delivery/ ]. Suffice it to say that a man like Donald Trump is not remotely a candidate for these expectations of world religions and philosophies as their avatar of the world’s salvation and bringer of utopia to planet earth! Therefore, Trump cannot pssibly be the Antichrist.

5) The Antichrist will be energised by Satan with supernatural powers, the presentation of “signs”, and the ability to perform false miracles (2 Thessalonians 2:9). The coming of the Antichrist will be a satanic supernatural event of great sophistication and he will have advanced supernatural capabilities, being directly energised by Satan, as that Bible text explicitly states. Does that in any way describe the characteristics of Donald Trump? The very idea is utterly ludicrous, and needs no further exposition! Therefore, he cannot possibly be the Antichrist.

6) The Antichrist will direct the mass slaughter of genuine disciples of Christ (Daniel 7:25; 12:7; Revelation 11:7; 12:7). This is the action of someone who has total global power and the support of the whole world. Can you imagine Trump being involved in such an act? He has neither the power nor the capability and following to do so. Therefore, he cannot possibly be the Antichrist.

Postscript

Now, having shared all those hallmarks of the genuine Antichrist, it is clear that Trump does not even exhibit one of them. However, although Trump does not match up with any of the hallmarks of the actual Antichrist in the Bible, his and Vance’s advocacy of A.I. and Transhumanism will pave the way for the actual Antichrist, and he still has a few lesser ‘mini-antichrist’ characteristics. For example, he has an exaggeratedly high opinion of himself, bordering on mental illness, having delusions of grandeur. (In fact, I would say that his entire cabinet and entourage share in that and are plainly afflicted with multiple personality disorders). He runs his acolytes (MAGA adherents) like a cult, believing that he can commit any evil act and still retain his voting base. He uses known hypnotic techniques in his speeches. [As I have shown in a previous article: https://diakrisis-project.com/2024/07/17/the-cult-of-trump-and-how-he-was-able-to-create-it/ ]. He is a proven liar and dissembler. But he comes nowhere near matching the full picture of the Antichrist presented to us in Scripture, who will appear to be extremely sophisticated and a practising magician, shaman and wizard to boot, with a hotline to Satan, using extreme deception, with the ability to mesmerise and control others well beyond normal human capability.

Really, only those who are genuine disciples of Christ will be able to resist and oppose the real Antichrist and his whole rotten entourage; and only they will understand what is happening and why (which will be why they will have to be killed). So, if you want to make sense of everything that is coming and will come upon this earth, you really should devote yourself to the truth about Christ right now, complete with sorrow for your previous denial of who He is and what He stands for. Then life on this planet will begin to make sense at last. [Please message me if you want to know more].

Now, after all the words I have shared above, I sincerely hope that I have convinced you that any claim of Donald Trump being the Antichrist, when compared with Scripture, must surely be entirely bogus, and those who claim it are false teachers and false witnesses in the face of all the biblical evidence. He has a few ‘mini-antichrist’ characteristics but he cannot possibly be the actual Antichrist. That heinous revelation is still reserved for a future date.

Alan Morrison

© Copyright, Alan Morrison, 2025
[The copyright on my works is merely to protect them from any wanton plagiarism which could result in undesirable changes (as has actually happened!). Readers are free to reproduce my work, so long as it is in the same format and with the exact same content and its origin is acknowledged]

Copyright Kärlek till Sanningen All Rights Reserved 2021

[HERE IS AN EXTRACT from my recent 212-page book, “Discerning the Signs of the Times: The CIA & Subversion through Mind-Control, Satanism, Sorcery, & the Use of Religion & Cults as Tools of the New World Order” (now on v.1.8). In a discussion concerning the role that psychedelic drugs has played in the furtherance of the New World Order, I inserted an “Excursus” (sidebar exposition) about “The Thread of Satanic Religion from Antiquity to the Present”. I present that section to you here (in its context) as a taster for the book which, as you will see here, involves dealing with many subjects more than the CIA’s New World Order antics. You will find a free download link to the book at the foot of this extract]

THE USE OF PSYCHEDELICS falls neatly within the province of the sorcerer, who essentially indulges in black magic, the dark arts; though — true to demonic strategy — it all masquerades as being beneficial. It is no coincidence that the Koine Greek word for sorcery or magic arts is φαρμακεία, pharmakeia, from where our word “pharmacy” is derived. This word-origin goes back to the common use of drugs as potions for trance possession, the casting of spells, and other activities in the pantheon of the dark arts. What we are dealing with in all this LSD mind-control business is diabolical sorcery plain and simple — dark arts by numbers for the masses. It masquerades as being spiritually beneficent, but in reality it is a deception designed to induce people into a satanic web of intrigue and, ultimately, insanity — although that insanity does not have to mean a psychiatric diagnosis and hospitalization, for it can also simply refer to being under the control of the demonic realm.

This sorcerous aspect of hallucinogens makes one wonder why conspiracy character, David Icke, should be promoting “Ayahuasca Healing Retreats” which encourage people to ingest one of the most potent psychoactive substances known to humanity and to engage in remote viewing techniques, as used by the CIA. [See https://davidicke.com/2020/02/07/ayahuasca-ceremonies-holistic-sanctuary-heres-work/ . For Icke’s comments on Remote Viewing, see https://davidicke.com/2022/08/14/native-elder-i-was-told-that-there-are-four-violent-species-in-the-universe-humans-were-one-of-them/ . I will be saying more about Remote Viewing in Part 9 of the book]. This is the way that disinformation and deception operate today — especially in regard to how Icke pulls conspiracy-minded people into his web of neo-Gnosticism, shape-shifting “lizard-people” (a cheap and kitsch parody of genuine demons) and shamanism and deludes them into believing that they can change the world into some kind of utopia. And all this, despite his false prophecies that there would be cataclysmic pole-shifts in the 1990s and that the world would end in 1997! [Sidenote: It is a tragedy that so many who wake up to the conspiratorial nature of life on this planet get ‘nobbled’ by shill neo-Gnostic occultists such as David Icke, thus drawing them away from the genuine spiritual truths which lie behind all this dark activity and pulling them deeper into the rabbit warren of darkness masquerading as light. This is why merely calling oneself a “Truther” is so inadequate in terms of the profound perception of truth. At best, it is only a stepping stone. To read more about this, see my article, “The Inadequacy of Being Merely a ‘Truther’”, https://diakrisis-project.com/2022/07/12/the-inadequacy-of-being-merely-a-truther/ ].There is no doubt in my mind that David Icke is ‘controlled opposition’ — of which there are now many — a one-man MI5 counter-intelligence shill in savant clothing to lead seeking people ‘away with the fairies’ into fantasies about shape-shifting “lizard people” and the big lies inherent in neo-Gnostic teachings. As the late ‘old-school’ conspiracy researcher, Alan Watt, rightly put it:

“MI5 and MI6 have a place outside The Cotswolds where they train people to go out into the world and create mysticism and confusion. And Aleister Crowley was one of the first men they sent out there to set up the OTO, The Ordo Templi Orientis, a higher Masonic group, which most people in Hollywood join and most musicians join, and they followed him [Crowley] up with many others, since. Now David Icke took everyone else’s work who’d done the real investigations. He shot to the top. All the doors opened for him. You couldn’t buy that kind of publicity unless someone gave the nod at the top. It costs millions just to publicize him and he became a superhero, leads all the people using all of this information of other authors, and then leads you off like the pied piper in a circle to the lizard people, and all of those authors in the backs of his book are now ridiculed into the same place that he’s taken you: that’s called “counter-intelligence”… I’m sure he knows exactly what he’s doing”. [This is an excerpt from a video on “David Icke and Counterintelligence Operatives”, in which the late Alan Watt is calling out David Icke as being an asset or agent of MI5/MI6, the British intelligence services. (MI5 is the UK equivalent of the FBI; MI6 is the UK equivalent of the CIA). The link is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K4dOnhOCmo ].

I felt compelled to share this about Icke in the middle of a section about mind-control through hallucinogens, which he is also advocating through Ayahuasca. It is a major element in the waylaying of people to prevent them from growing in real knowledge and truth and instead leading them down a dark rabbit-hole. It involves modern shills teaming up with ancient shamans to hijack the mass of minds — satanic religion from olden days to the present. This is why I feel moved to share this. There are now so many ‘controlled opposition’ shills in the shadows of the internet spewing out disinformation mingled with enough truth to make them seem credible. People need to be hugely vigilant; but their prejudices can prevent them from being so.

Readers can come to their own conclusions about the real aims of these Ayahuasca retreats in the dark agenda of the demonic realm. Retreat attendees regularly describe staying in the midst of representations of multiple Peruvian deities while imbibing the psychotropic beverage. Mark my words: Ayahuasca is a pathway to spiritual ruin — either by being lulled into a false sense that one is ‘evolving’ and becoming more “spiritual” (when one is really being profoundly influenced by, and opened up to demonic entities), or through entering a nightmarish hell from which there is no escape.

In this respect, I was not shocked to discover that one of the principal organizers of Ayahuasca retreats in Peru, Malcolm Rossiter, Director of “Blue Morpho”, who had years of experience as a shaman, tragically decided to take his own life in November 2018. Please be aware that I am not at all gloating about this, as I would never do such a thing; for it is tragic. I am simply sharing it as a heartbreaking and salutary lesson to dissuade readers from indulging in this hyper-trendy drug, which will either suck you into a world of demonic influence (which deceptively feels sooo wonderful and enlightening!) or it will back you into a nightmare of madness, a huis clos of excruciating psychic pain which will overturn your existence.

Malcolm Rossiter’s Facebook profile, still open, announced it like this: “It is with great sadness that I am ending my existence on this earth. I am energetically backed into a place I envision not returning from”. [See https://www.facebook.com/MalcolmRossiter1 ]. That is New Age jargon for the fact that he had come face to face with the darkness which lies behind all shamanistic enterprise — a cul-de-sac from which there is no exit, if penetrated deeply enough. It is heart-rending to see comments under his announcement like, “If this happens to you, what hope is there for the rest of us?”

New Spirituality folks always romanticize (and gloss over) the religions of ethnic peoples without realising that prior to the coming of Christ almost the whole world was given over to satanic religious practices, which have now been portrayed as if they were true spirituality and incorporated into the New Age Movement, with participants all imagining this is the way to go.

Therefore, at this almost exact median point in this little book, before resuming our exploration of the ‘brave new world’ of mind-control under Aldous Huxley and the CIA’s involvement in distributing hallucinogens to fulfil its own agenda, in order to clarify why I should take issue with New Age and ethnic religions and the destructive nature of taking potions for the purposes of alleged ‘mind-expansion’, it would be prudent to insert here, as a kind of sidebar, a detailed excursus on “The Thread of Satanic Religion from Antiquity to the Present”. Then, hopefully, readers will understand my lack of leniency towards those influences. For all the subject matter in this book concerning intelligence services and mind-control is not taking place in a vacuum, but is symptomatic of the spiritual warfare being waged by the fallen archangel, Satan, and his demonic realm in order to install their usurped kingdom on earth, culminating in a one-world government headed up by the “man of lawlessness”, the Antichrist — thus bringing before you the central leitmotif that I mentioned right at the beginning of this book, which is, if you recall: “That everything written in this book concerning governance, politicking and other world developments is leading inexorably to the formation of the above-mentioned one-world government which will be headed up by that ‘world leader’ whom disciples of Christ will have no trouble identifying as the Antichrist”. So here is the excursus:

______________________________________________________

EXCURSUS: “The Thread of Satanic Religion from Antiquity to the Present”

This is a difficult truth for many, but all the world’s religions are a warped external parody of genuine inner spirituality. Their robes, rituals, chanting, idols, rosaries, prayer beads, oblations, animal and human sacrifices, superstitions, hierarchies, temples, etc., are outward tokens intended to provide a whiff of spirituality to the dead husk of religion. There are very many lovely people in the religious scene all over the world doing good, often in dangerous circumstances. But that is not because of their religion but because of their varying levels of internal light. The stark reality is that all religious enterprise outside of the Christ is ultimately going to be satanic because it denies the centrality of the Christ to the existence and continuation of this creation, and rejects the fact that He came as God manifested in the flesh to transform the world. That is the ‘spirit of the Antichrist’ right there.

“Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus has come in the flesh is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist” (First Letter of John, chapter 4, verses 2-3).

In contrast to that, the sacred texts say of the Christ: “All things were created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” and “in Christ all the fullness of the Deity dwells in bodily form” (Letter to the Colossians, chapter 1, verses 16-17; chapter 2, verse 9). All religious enterprise which operates outside of that knowledge nullifies human regeneration through the Holy Spirit, and it contradicts the Divine restoration of all things through a supreme act of recreation into a wholly new unfallen cosmos. Here is the terrible Truth spoken by Christ Himself concerning all the teachers and gurus from the past who have claimed ‘messiahship’ or who have not led people in the direction of Christ as the promised Saviour: “All who came before Me were thieves and robbers” (Gospel of John, chapter 10, verse 8).

Until Christ was revealed, with few exceptions, darkness reigned over the earth in great measure, the legacy of the Fall. Since that Fall, initiated by the fallen archangel, Satan — as recorded in the Book of Genesis, chapter 3 — satanic religious pursuits came to be the dominant influence in the world. All the various kingdoms of the world — from Mesopotamian and Sumerian to Babylonian, Assyrian, Grecian and Roman — have been satanic in their predatory, plundering vision under corrupt self-deifying leaders, priests, generals and emperors; while their religious activities were full of superstition, idolatry, sorcery, temple prostitution, and even human and child sacrifice. This was also the case in lesser empires, such as Aztec and Mayan, the latter of which is considered to be hyper-trendy in New Age circles, despite the fact that Mayan children would be killed in sacrifice and thrown into cenotes (waterholes) in little pieces in order to appease the ‘gods’ for the harvest — the same cenotes today in which New Age folks love to swim to plug into the Mayan ‘energies’.

It is trendy in the New Age scene and ‘woke’ thinking to put ancient ethnic religious practices on a pedestal and romanticize them (Satan’s little trick to blind you to their evil). But there was nothing noble or romantic about them whatsoever. They were gross manifestations of darkness utilizing sorcery and magic arts; but it takes a cleansed heart to see that and to acknowledge it.

Until the coming of Christ, Satan had been “the ruler of this cosmos” as usurper for an exceedingly long time — right from the Fall at the beginning of human history. Christ’s coming was to evict Satan from that position, which was why He said shortly before His death, “Now is the judgement on this world. Now the ruler of this world [i.e. Satan] will be cast out” (First Letter of John, chapter 3, verse 8b; Gospel of John, chapter 12, verse 31). Thus, the major religious and spiritual influences throughout history have been largely under Satan’s domain as humans sought warped ways to make sense of their alienation from the Divine in this world. All the idolatry, false gods, sorcery, human and even child sacrifice, priestcraft, temple prostitution, wacky mythologies through the ages across the globe, with vast war campaigns carried out in their name by emperors who even demanded divine worship of themselves, have plainly been under Satan’s instigation — avatars of Satanism posing as religion and empire — right through to the present day. All those idols! People made their gods as projected images of their own twisted fears, desires and superstitions. Or they deified themselves (as do all those today who follow in their footsteps). Satan’s perfect work. This is why serpent-worship has been so prevalent in so many ancient religions. That is the symbol of Satan and those religions were his babies.

All that satanic mess of religion has been continued today in the vast number of occulto-magical offerings in the spiritual scene — especially the New Age and shamanistic strains. In this sense, we can also include all religions (including the false-church version of “Christianity”) as varying forms and degrees of Satanism, for they fulfil Satan’s ambition to keep people ignorant about the true Christ while, at the same time, imagining they are becoming “enlightened” or, in the case of false disciples of Christ, deluding themselves that they are “loved by Jesus” or that they are “moving in the Spirit”.

In his warped wisdom, Satan has provided a religion to suit everyone, according to their cultural bents and personal tastes. For, if I may put it like this, most people choose the religion which best suits their personality disorder, personal and cultural idiosyncrasies and social status. Their religious choices are therefore merely a subjective extension of their egos rather than an engagement with the challenge of objective truth. Raging, sexually-repressed people will go for the religions with a fundamentalist dogma. The more liberal ‘bypassing’ types who are sitting on a pile of dark anger but want to disguise it with an outward cloak of smiling benevolence and repressive pseudo-calmness will go for Buddhism and Zen or wishy-washy liberal mainstream or Evanjellycal style of “Christianity”. [I call them ‘Evanjellycal’ rather than Evangelical because of the way that they wobble around like a jelly about everything, fail to stand up unequivocally for truth and light, always sit on the fence and exercise compromised hyper-diplomacy instead of clearly ‘calling a spade a spade’ — all of this being done to show how ‘super-tolerant’, ‘reasonable”, and ‘loving’ they are, “just like Jesus” (so they falsely think)]. The hordes of poor people who need a load of amulets, rosaries/prayer beads, statues, priestcraft, superstitions, worthless mythology, comforting afterlife fantasies about reincarnation or purgatory, idols, gods and goddesses, will go for Hinduism or Vatican-style ‘Marian’ Catholicism. Intellectuals who believe that organised religion is beneath them and who want to feed their egos with notions of penetrating realms normally hidden from the masses will go for Theosophy, Anthroposophy or neo-Gnostic Alice Baileyism. Trendy fashionistas who want to convince their egos that they are more spiritual than any of the rest (yet who also want to make loadsamoney out of it) will go for New Ageism, pseudo-shamanism, yoga and meditation (all of which, through spiritual bypassing, also mask a mass of unresolved baggage). There is something for every surfer on Satan’s religious or super-spiritual smorgasbord!

Going through the Old Testament, we find that even in the midst of all the horrific bloodbaths and religious darkness of the satanized kingdoms and religions, there was always a minority of humble, faithful seekers who eschewed the prevailing Satanism which surrounded them and were filled with Light and “looking forward to the city with firm foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Letter to the Hebrews, chapter 11, verse 10. This was also Paul’s reasoning when he told the people of Athens about the “unknown god” whom they worshipped: “What you worship without knowing it, this I proclaim to you”, Book of Acts, chapter 17, verse 23. He was completing their inadequate light). That “city” (which is symbolically spiritual rather than of earthly origin) was known as “Zion” in the Old Testament (which would be established by Messiah) and “the New Jerusalem” in the New Testament [The spiritual word “Zion” has been hijacked by people calling themselves Jews today who do not believe the Messiah has come and who have put all their hope in an earthly territory called Israel. Even many so-called ‘Christians’ revere Israel and support its atrocities. To read more about this, see my article, “Abraham our Father: Jerusalem our Mother”, https://diakrisis-project.com/2020/07/08/abraham-our-father-jerusalem-our-mother-substantial-update/ ].

This was the case right from the beginning, although always very much a minority in the midst of the web of satanic religion which stretched across the globe and which, in Noah’s time, had become so downright evil that the judgement of the flood was pronounced. Later, into the midst of the resurfaced evil, we had the ancient nation of Israel instituted by God to be an example of His spirituality and obedience to His will — as opposed to all the other nations who were steeped in satanic darkness. However, even though the people of Israel were clearly shown how to be ‘in sync’ with the Divine, the majority of them kept rebelling and apostatized while a comparative few (including the prophets) remained faithful and were persecuted by the apostates. The history recounted in the Old Testament shows this over and over again.

Thus, by the time that the Christ finally came, Messianic expectation was huge. Yet, the divide between the faithful and the unfaithful continued to play itself out in the responses of the people to His coming. There were those materialists in Israel (the majority) who had no understanding of spiritual light (just like in so much of the visible church today), and who wanted Messiah to come merely in order to liberate them from the Romans, in the manner of a fancy king, a majestic earthly figurehead. Then there were those (very much the minority) who understood Messiah in a spiritual way as being the one who would restore the universe from its satanic stranglehold into a new universe wherein no darkness remained — the ultimate manifestation of the kingdom of God, exactly as predicted in the Book of Isaiah, chapter 65, verse 17: “Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind”.

From the coming of the Christ, His resurrection and ascension, until now, despite the fact that Christ won a victory over Satan and his demonic cohorts, that satanic religion of the past has continued unabated and has even developed new forms. Whereas in ancient times it was sufficient to inveigle the people with satanic religious cultic practices, Satan is now far more subtle in his strategies, for he is looking towards the time when his kingdom-building will give way to a global government over which his own man will preside.

As the population of the world has hugely grown over the past two thousand years and technology has advanced along with many potentially-destructive scientific discoveries, Satan has been at the heart of those areas using them for his own kingdom building. Thus, all political/governmental developments have been secretly machinated by human cabals under guidance of demonic direction, either wittingly or unwittingly. Satanic religion today is not about bowing before wood and stone idols or sacrificing children to Molech or whomever, as it was in the ancient past, but it is now about giving one’s allegiance to leaders, experts, scientists, gurus, and others who have a satanic agenda — a development which will build up to the formation of a global government under a leader who will be Satan’s own man for the job. That allegiance is the real ‘mark of the beast’, as I have shown in previous articles [see, e.g., https://diakrisis-project.com/2021/12/26/identifying-the-mark-of-the-beast-the-number-666/ ].For the new interfaith religion of the world is “let’s all come together in peace and unity”, but imagining they can do that without acknowledging the One who created the world and still continuing in narcissistic endeavour and complete disregard for God’s laws.

Over against all that, throughout this age, since the time of the ascension of Christ, souls are being called out of this world to be His disciples. People may say they are following the Light or are ‘lightworkers’, but one’s understanding of the Light of God and the way it has dealt with (and is still dealing with) the darkness of Satan can only really be fully understood through a knowledge of Christ and His unique work in the cosmos. To know Christ is to have a fuller understanding of spiritual realities than is possible through any other means. If anyone has some light, it is only because it has been imparted by the Spirit of Christ in the first place.

I have known a number of people who have said that they would prefer to stick with their present teacher or guru, whom they claim has been ‘enlightened’, rather than learn more about Christ; to which I always reply: “If you believe that, then why hang around with the monkey when you can enjoy the fellowship of the Organ-Grinder Himself?” Christ is the real thing. Gurus who do not acknowledge Christ as God uniquely manifested in the flesh are just pretenders, thieves of your soul and robbers of your future telling you about what amounts to an unattainable ‘enlightenment’ — the ultimate satanic ruse to befuddle those who are seeking truth.

Then there are those who have said to me: “But why do I have to be a disciple of Christ? If I love the Light and reject darkness, isn’t that good enough? What’s all this stuff about Christ?” This is precisely why I write what I do: To show how Christ is the centrepiece of everything. The Light would not exist without Him, for He IS the Light!

I do believe that it is still absolutely possible to follow the Creator, love the Light and reject the darkness, waiting on His leading and watching out for what He reveals, if one has never heard about Christ — being a kind of ‘disciple-in-waiting’, as it were, lacking full knowledge yet still having one’s heart in the right place. In this way, one would still be received by God as if one is a disciple of Christ, for Christ is that Light. But when one loves Light, eschews darkness, and hears about Christ, thus receiving the fuller understanding, the fulfilment of it, it is as if something within has silently and irreversibly fallen into place. It is as if one is receiving primordial knowledge that one feels one must surely have known already. If one loves the Light and rejects darkness, then one will in fact rejoice to hear about Christ and will be filled with love for Him and feel fulfilled to know that Christ’s Spirit indwells the one who loves the Light (Gospel of John, chapter 10, verses 4 & 14). By that stage, one will realise that one has really been a disciple of His all along. It is as if the long-awaited teaching has finally arrived. The knowledge of Christ is the ‘missing link’, that final piece of the jigsaw puzzle, in the profound quest for the Light.

So do not be seduced into believing the spiritual-chic jive about ethnic religions. All that idolatry, superstition, magic and mumbo-jumbo has to go, if one wants to be cleansed. The pathway to spiritual truth is not through some attachment to superstition, or some kind of mystical but unattainable “enlightenment”, or the achievement of ‘personal divinity’, for these are illusions hatched by the demonic realm to fool the seeker unawares. I have watched people chase those elusive (and illusive) goals through their entire lives, always imagining that they are on the verge of achieving something. But it is all a chimera designed to lock you into an unfruitful lifetime pursuit that can never be achieved and can only lead to personal spiritual ruin.

True spirituality is not about a nebulous ‘enlightenment’ or the delusion of achieving godhood but is about submission to a higher being than oneself; and that higher being is one’s Creator. Submission is almost a curse-word for many today, especially for neo-Gnostic folks who revel in their imagined personal divinity and see themselves as ‘God’ or striving to be that. But when one willingly submits oneself to discipleship to Christ, a whole new realm opens up and one becomes adopted into the family of God and a harbinger of the future new creation. [It might be worth reading, as this point, my recent article, “Knowledge Which Has Deliberately Been Kept From You”, https://diakrisis-project.com/2021/09/22/knowledge-which-has-deliberately-been-kept-from-you/ ]. For the disciple of Christ is certainly a “partaker in the divine nature”, receiving all the benefits of being no longer alienated from God; but disciples are never partakers in the actual divine essence. For that is what marks out the vital difference between the so-called ‘New Spirituality’ of the neo-Gnostic and pure discipleship to the Christ. Being a servant of God and disciple of Christ is infinitely more spiritual than foolishly imagining one has ‘found one’s personal divinity’. The former is a Divine gift while the latter is a satanic delusion.

This excursus has been shoehorned into this book to give the spiritual background to all that is being written up in it, so that readers will have a context for my findings, statements and conclusions. I do not want this work to be a dry rehashing of conspiracies. But, rather, I want it to open the door to a deeper understanding of world events and show how they are intimately related to spirituality and the ancient battle between light and darkness.

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Now to return to looking into the role of Aldous Huxley, his CIA and other reprehensible connections, plus the role he played in proselytizing hallucinogens as the answer to the world’s problems. For, ironically, the blissed-out druggie “Soma” dystopia he lampooned in his book “Brave New World” is the very world that he was himself advocating!

Alan Morrison

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[The above is an extract from my recent book, “Discerning the Signs of the Times: The CIA & Subversion through Mind-Control, Satanism, Sorcery, & the Use of Religion & Cults as Tools of the New World Order”. You can download the entire 212-page book (now on v.1.8) free of charge from this link: https://diakrisis-project.com/2022/09/14/new-book-discerning-the-signs-of-the-times/ ]

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© 2022, Alan Morrison / The Diakrisis Project. All Rights Reserved. 
 
[The copyright on my works is merely to protect them from any wanton plagiarism which could result in undesirable changes (as has actually happened!). Readers are free to reproduce my work, so long as it is in the same format and with the exact same content and its origin is acknowledged]

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INTRODUCTION

If you were so inclined, the two books of Samuel could be read solely as historical literature. No doubt that is how many would approach them. But that would entirely miss the primary Divine reason for these works ever being included in the books of the Bible.

Books I and II of Samuel are Spiritual Documents

The two books of Samuel are first and foremost spiritual documents. It is true that they are real history, that it all actually happened. But the fact that they are history is secondary to their didactic (teaching) function in the Word of God. Paul the Apostle tells us that there are other purposes than the mere conveyance of historical facts in the books of the Old Testament: “For everything that was written in the past was written for our instruction, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope” (Romans 15:4). There is a teaching element, “for our learning” and, through that teaching, comes the engendering of hope.

Books I and II of Samuel are Full of “Types”, Warnings, and Exhortations

Another radical element in these Old Testament history books is that of warning, or exhortation. If we listen to “the music behind the words” of the Bible, we can look at what happened to the characters of the Old Testament and see them serving as “types”. A “type” is a pattern or a kind of example or a forerunner, a symbol, a very powerful symbol — so powerfully symbolic that it carries many lessons for those who will learn from the example; and the Bible, especially the Old Testament, is full of “types”. Again, Paul specifically refers to these typological examples when he says: “Now these things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come” (1 Corinthians 10:11).

In other words, the principal characters of the Old Testament and the historical events in which they were involved contain a spiritual significance which must be understood properly if one is to grasp the deep things of God in His word. The Greek word translated as “examples” in the above Scripture verse is tupos, from where our word “type” is derived. Therefore, these things happened to them so that they could serve as “types” or patterns — spiritual examples from which we can learn.

Examples of this sort of “typology” can be seen over and over again in the life of numerous key Old Testament characters. For instance, look at Moses. His life and experience was a model of Scripture typology. As but one example, he leads the children of Israel to freedom out of the house of bondage under Pharaoh, through the wilderness into the promised land. The typological significance of this is parallel with the fact that Christ leads His people out to freedom from being under bondage to Satan, then leads them through the wilderness of this world into the heavenly life to come. Moses was thus a “type” of Christ, as also were Samuel and David.

The three central characters of the two books of Samuel — Samuel, Saul, and David — provide us with hugely important general typological lessons for our spiritual life, our growth as children of God and our understanding of ourselves in relation to the world around us and our fellow professing Christians. Familiarising ourselves with these three men and the events surrounding them provides a key to grasping not only our salvation in Christ but also the actual outworking of it in our lives.

In an earlier CyberSermon, I looked at the great, symbol-laden story of David and Goliath and we saw how the little man David, who is deliberately said to have had no sword or spear, conquered the three-meter-tall giant, Goliath. [That CyberSermon was called “Lessons from the Conflict Between David and Goliath”. Just click on that title to read it]. In this present message, our text is 1 Samuel, chapter 18, in which we are now looking at David’s conflict with Saul.

NB: David and Jonathan Were not ‘Gay’!

Immediately, when we look at 1 Samuel 18, I am forced to mention David’s relationship with Jonathan. It is a very well-known relationship, and it furnishes us with a great example of an honourable, faithful, trusting, and beautiful relationship that can exist even between two men whose hearts are in the right place.

As you may be aware, this relationship has been seized upon by homosexuals to prove that sodomy is a perfectly legitimate activity, even for a Christian person who walks closely to God. If you ask any well-versed homosexual person, they will tell you without any hesitation that David and Jonathan “were gay” and provide proof that God’s people can practise guilt-free sodomy. I think that is not only playing fast and loose with Scripture, but it is also an insult to the very idea that two men can have a close relationship without engaging in homosexuality. I think we need to recognise that and rejoice in it — that two men can be extremely close without a trace of sexuality being involved.

Very often, men are portrayed as being unable to have close relationships other than a casual one over a glass of beer in a bar. But it is a fact — and it has biblical authorisation here — that it is good for men to be close to one another if that is possible and it should be encouraged.

However, my purpose here is not to concentrate on the relationship between David and Jonathan; I will save that for another time. I am here contrasting Saul and David as two very different individuals.

• First, there is Saul — an unbeliever who has some religious tendencies but never learns from his mistakes, never really honours God, disobeys Gods commands, often defies God’s word, and even engages in activities, feelings and actions which encourage the presence of evil spirits.
• Second, there is David — a flawed believer, a very spiritual man, but who suffers a great deal, especially in this early part of his life.

The contrast between these two men tells a hugely significant backstory, and we need to take the lessons on board for our own comfort and in order to provide us with explanations about the circumstances in which we can so often find ourselves.

I want to look first at those actions of Saul’s which betray the true state of his heart, followed by showing what are David’s responses to Saul’s actions. Then I will look at what it is that actually provokes Saul to jealousy, because this tells us a great deal. Remember, we are supposed to be learning lessons here for ourselves. Above all, we are supposed to be applying these things to our own lives. If we fail to do that then we are wasting our time going through these Scriptures.

Then I will present a revealing summary of Saul’s character followed by some of the overarching spiritual lessons that we can receive from this portion of God’s word.

I. THE ACTIONS OF SAUL WHICH BETRAY WHAT IS REALLY IN HIS HEART

The first action of Saul which betrays what is really in his heart is that…

1) He is Willing to Sacrifice the Happiness of both of his Daughters (and also Get his Son-in-Law Killed!)

 “Then Saul said to David, ‘Here is my older daughter Merab. I will give her to you in marriage. Only be valiant for me and fight the LORD’s battles’. But Saul was thinking, ‘I need not raise my hand against him; let the hand of the Philistines be against him’… ‘I will give [Michal] to David’, Saul thought, ‘so that she may be a snare to him, and the hand of the Philistines may be against him’”.1 Samuel 18:17,21

We see here that Saul is perfectly willing to sacrifice both of his own daughters’ happiness. He is going from bad to worse. You can see by this that the spirit of God has left him. He is no longer empowered to act in his role as king and it has left him very open and vulnerable.

He is filled with dangerous feelings and jealousy towards David. And even here, in verse 17 of our chapter, we see that Saul was perfectly willing for his own daughter to marry somebody who he was hoping would get killed off by the Philistines and who would therefore be widowed. This is the kind of thinking that was going on in Saul’s mind. Is that the mind of a man of God?

Again, in verse 21, he is not at all concerned about his daughter’s happiness. Any father, when he gives away his daughter’s hand in marriage, wants her to be happy more than anything else in the world. You want the very best person for your daughter — you want the very best situation for her. But he is totally unconcerned about his daughters’ happiness. He is willing to sacrifice their happiness in order to pursue his own hateful ends. This is Saul.

And let me say this: He was not “a carnal believer” — as some people actually claim, with those ridiculous words, for there is absolutely no such thing! The conceit that there can be a “carnal believer” is to fail completely to understand the Spirit’s work in the heart of Christ’s disciples. Carnality — wallowing the mere fleshly aspects of life — is not an indulgence of a genuine disciple of Christ. In fact, Saul was a complete hypocrite masquerading as a believer. He talks about “fighting the Lord’s battles” out of one side of his mouth while out of the other side he is scheming to have the commander of God’s troops slaughtered.

He is willing to use his daughter to entrap David into a horrible situation. Already, we see that he has an attitude problem in a major way, and it comes through in all his activities. Such people — and there are always many all around us, even in churches! — are unstable and highly dangerous.

Another action of Saul which betrays his heart is

2) His Jealousy

 “Saul was furious and resented this song. ‘They have ascribed tens of thousands to David’, he said, ‘but only thousands to me. What more can he have but the kingdom?’ And from that day forward Saul kept a jealous eye on David. The next day a spirit of distress sent from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied inside the house while David played the harp as usual. Now Saul was holding a spear, and he hurled it, thinking, ‘I will pin David to the wall’. But David eluded him twice… When Saul realized that the LORD was with David and that his daughter Michal loved David, he grew even more afraid of David. So, from then on Saul was David’s enemy”.1 Samuel 18:8-11, 28-29

It is important to look at Saul’s jealousy because this is one of the main driving forces in the man’s life. If you just look at the above verses, you will see that Saul’s life is now empowered totally by jealousy. It has become his all-consuming passion. I want to talk a little bit here about jealousy. Because jealousy is very prominent in many areas of life. It is even very prominent in the life of many churches. Sibling rivalry among those who claim to be brothers and sisters in Christ is a real problem, as any perceptive pastor will concur.

The interesting thing about jealousy is that it very often does not reveal itself publicly. It is something that a person can hold within their heart. Fortunately (or unfortunately from the jealous person’s point of view), jealousy has a tendency to come out in certain obvious ways. And people who are discerning can notice it in other people from time to time. Thus, jealousy is something that gets harboured in the heart; and as we will see very shortly, there is nothing more dangerous for a person than to harbour something of this kind in their heart. This is one of the main fuels behind all Saul’s actions towards David — his abiding jealousy.

A Serious Question for You

At this point, I want to ask you a serious question here. When you see somebody else that you know — and this needn’t necessarily be in the church, it could be anywhere; it could be at your place of work, it could even be in your family — maybe you see your wife or husband or even a child, somebody that you know who is much better at something than you are, shining in something in which you would like to shine, receiving congratulations from other people for something that you want to have but haven’t got… what do you feel in your heart? How do you respond to that? This is very important because jealousy arises from pride. That is the root-cause of jealousy; and pride is the first sin. It is the primal sin that came into this universe. Jealousy results directly from that.

It would be interesting to speculate here about what it was that fuelled Satan’s original rebellion. Was it jealousy of God’s status as God? I put it to you that it was. When he came to Eve and said, “has God really said…”, what lay behind that contemptuous question? Surely, Satan, the mere angel and creature, was jealous of God’s position as God. I put it to you that the sin of jealousy very possibly fuelled the rebellion that happened at that early point in history.

Jealousy is something that lies at the very root of pride in the human heart. I think it is something that we can all harbour in ourselves. So, I ask again, how do you respond, how do you feel when you see somebody excelling at something at which you want to excel? Does it fill you with joy or with jealousy.

Many years ago, a man came to my house who was going to lead a service for me in the church in which I was being installed as pastor. At one stage, he turned to my wife and said, “How do you feel about your husband’s ordination?” She said “well, I feel very happy about it, why do you ask?” He replied: “When I was being ordained I discovered later that my wife was seething with rage in the congregation because she felt that it was she who ought to be ordained in my place”.

Apart from the mistake of the lady wanting to be a pastor herself, how bizarre it was to be jealous of her husband’s pastorship. But it just shows what an awful thing it is for someone to be eaten up by jealousy in that way. This was not the only time that I became aware of such an Amazonian element in a pastor’s wife. And jealousy can so easily eat any of us up.

I want to warn you seriously against jealousy with all my heart because when you see somebody else who is shining at something at which you would like to shine, you should be only too pleased. You should want to follow their example. You should find them an inspiration. You should be happy for them. You should see them as someone to emulate and copy rather than someone of whom to be jealous. Saul’s jealousy was all-consuming. And it IS an all-consuming thing. I want to counsel you never to let jealousy even have a moment’s place in your heart. You will shortly see why I counsel you about this so earnestly.

What about David’s responses to Saul’s actions?

II. DAVID’S RESPONSES TO SAUL’S ACTIONS

The primary response that we see from David to Saul’s actions is

1) His Continuing Respect for His King

Well, first, you find David responding here like a gentleman. You see him behaving with continuing respect for his king. In spite of all that Saul has done — even throwing a spear at him when all David was doing was playing a harp in order to try and encourage him to feel better, using music as a form of medicine — we always find that David’s behaviour is immaculate towards him. He shows great humility and graciousness, and that should be an example for us whenever we are under any kind of persecution and attack. Jesus commands this all the time, saying that you are blessed when you suffer for righteousness sake. And in such a situation you must, as Jesus says, “turn the other cheek” (Matthew 5:39).

The True Meaning of “Turn the Other Cheek”

Incidentally, this does not mean that if any young punk comes up to you in the street and tries to slit your throat with a razor you should just stand there and offer it to him meekly. The law of non-retaliation when someone slaps you “does not repeal the law of self-preservation”, as Matthew Henry puts it so succinctly. In such an instance, the law of good order must be upheld, and you have a right to defend yourself — although without becoming a vengeful vigilante. In Matthew 5:38-42, the Lord Jesus is speaking against the automatic use of vengeful action (the “eye for an eye” mentality).

When it comes to persecution for our faith, we are encouraged to “heap coals of fire on their head” as the Proverb puts it (Proverbs 25:22; cf. Romans 12:20). Do you know that phrase? What it means is this: the nicer you are in the face of persecution, the more the symbolic “coals of fire” are heaped on that other person’s head. It is their problem, they are going to have to deal with it, and you must simply maintain your integrity, because once you respond in a negative way, they’ve got a moral case against you.

The book “1984”, by George Orwell, was designed to show what the world is really like under a totalitarian regime (and also to provide a glaring depiction of betrayal on multiple levels). It is an interesting book for Christians to read because it gives a little glimpse of what the world will be like under the Antichrist. At one point, the main protagonist of the book, Winston, is being interrogated by the state police in ‘Room 101’. All the interrogator wants to do is demonstrate that Winston is actually just like him — a nasty person with no moral scruples. He manages to do it — he breaks him and proves his point. And that is what they want to do to you too: they want to break us — they want to be able to say: “You see! You are just like us! When the veneer of peace and love is stripped away, you behave in the same way as us. You are just as morally repugnant as we are!” That is why it is so important, when we are being persecuted for our faith, that we must respond in as gracious a manner as possible, at all costs. And that is David’s response here with Saul. He shows continuing respect for his king, in spite of all that he is undergoing at his hands.

Another of David’s responses to Saul’s actions is

2) His Constant Humility

His constant humility throughout all these difficult situations. The king wants him as his son-in-law. Some people could get swell-headed at that point. But not David; not at all. Instead, he says ‘But I’m just a little nobody’ (1 Samuel 18:18). David’s humility in his dealings with Saul is something we observe continually.

III. WHAT IS IT THAT PROVOKES SAUL TO JEALOUSY?

We need to look at this because it tells us a great deal more about Saul. First of all, Saul is provoked into jealously by

1) David’s Popularity, Talents, and Abilities

When Saul hears that the women are all singing ‘Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands”, his anger is aroused:

 “And as the women danced, they sang out: ‘Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands’. And Saul was furious and resented this song. ‘They have ascribed tens of thousands to David’, he said, ‘but only thousands to me. What more can he have but the kingdom?’ And from that day forward Saul kept a jealous eye on David”.1 Samuel 18:7-9

David was very good at his job. He won campaigns. He was a great soldier. Saul also used to be the great soldier. Now David is an even greater solider. In verses 14-16 of our text we see Saul’s jealousy consolidated:

“David continued to prosper in all his ways, because the LORD was with him. When Saul saw that David was very successful, he was afraid of him. But all Israel and Judah loved David, because he was leading them out to battle and back”.

The Sauls of this world will always refuse to recognise the true talents of other people. That is one of the main problems in jealousy: A refusal and a failure to recognise the greatness of others and honour the talents of others. The mark of a truly big person is one who can find a welcome space for anybody’s talent, no matter how great. There should be no question of ever having to be jealous about it.

Another thing which provokes Saul to jealousy is

2) God’s Obvious Presence with David

Secondly, Saul was jealous of the fact that God’s presence was clearly with David. This is the very last thing that a believer needs to be jealous about. An unbeliever, yes; but a believer? Never! If you see somebody who looks very obviously as if they have the Lord’s presence with them, what feelings do you have? Just imagine, here is Saul who is jealous and filled with hate and enmity because of David’s clear spirituality: “Now Saul was afraid of David, because the Lord was with him, but had departed from Saul” (1 Samuel 18:12).

If the Lord has ‘left you’ for a time and you see somebody else who the Lord is with, what do you do? Do you set out to destroy that person through spreading nasty rumours about them? You might think, “well no-one would do that”. My friends, I can assure you that they would do so, and I have seen it many times. It happens repeatedly, even in churches — especially in churches. This is the sad truth.

When you see somebody who plainly has God’s presence with them, who is obviously a godly person, and you feel as if the Lord has left you, then you should say, “I must make that person my teacher. I must make that person into one whom I must follow and find out why they’ve got what they’ve got. I’m going to follow that person and take them as my example in my Christian faith”. That is the response of the true believer — the David. However, the false professor — the one who is merely playing the role of a believer, the Saul — will indeed be jealous and embittered when they meet a person of true faith.

A Little Anecdote on this Subject

Here’s a little anecdote: I remember a time when I was preaching at an evangelical church in Scotland and I was having a conversation with a woman after the service while we were all quietly sipping tea in the genteel environs of a well-furnished, restored 17th century hall attached to the church. She was a lawyer of some repute and a big wheel in the congregation. You could tell by the way that she swaggered around. It all proceeded calmly until she suddenly asked me the question: “You’re not one of those fundamentalists are you?” I replied politely: “Well if by that you mean do I believe that the Bible is the word of God and that Jesus Christ was the Son of God who came to take the penalty for our sins on the cross, then yes I am”. In an instant the calmness gave way to a violent tirade in which she began to yell at me, saying: “You people make me sick with your arrogance and narrow-mindedness. Who DO you think you are?” The word “do” was king-sized. She went on for a few sentences more of similar invective while the conversation in the hall stopped and all were in rapt attention on the unfolding scene. My wife was standing next to me open-mouthed. You could have heard the smallest sugar-lump fall to the floor. When she had finished, I said to her very gently and quietly: “I simply responded to your question. Do you not think that it is you who has been arrogant and narrow-minded in your quick condemnation of someone who you do not even know?” At that point the minister intervened and tried to smooth it all over, as ministers are wont to do, and everything soon returned to normal with the quiet sipping of tea and scattered hushed conversations. She then calmed down and continued to talk to someone else as if nothing untoward had ever taken place. However, in the car park as we were just about to get into our car, she came rushing up to me, grabbing my arm, and said, with a manic, desperate look on her face, “Where do you people get your faith?” There was the key. She was a Saul. She went to church each week; she sang the hymns; she prayed the prayers; she put her cheque in the bag; she carried her Bible; she called herself a believer. But when a genuine Christian had come to her church and preached a sermon which revealed her heart, instead of humbly embracing the Lord herself, she had to attack the one responsible for showing the wretchedness of her situation. I said to her that I would be happy to talk to her in depth about my faith whenever she wanted, but I could see that her question was rhetorical rather than desiring a real answer. We gave her our phone number and said she could phone us anytime. Needless to say, she never did.

If you are lacking God’s presence in your life and you meet a person of faith, it is so ludicrous to go down the road of jealousy because what happens is that God’s presence will go even further away from your life! This is the loop in which faithless people find themselves when they belittle the faithful. Do you see here how blind a person becomes? Once they go down the pathway of hardening their own hearts and then God hardening their hearts even more, and them then hardening their hearts even more, it gets increasingly difficult to get back on the true pathway once more.

This is why I say to all Christians, look out for somebody who is obviously more mature in the faith than you and follow them, make them your role model, attach yourself to them and find out what makes them tick. How do they actually work? And make sure that it all rubs off on you — as it always does. Whenever you hang around with spiritual people, it rubs off on you. Just the same as when you hang out with evil people, it will rub off on you. No doubt about that.

Another thing that provokes Saul to jealousy is

3) His Daughter’s Love for David

This, again, is ridiculous. There is nothing more that a father wants than to see his daughter fall genuinely in love with somebody noble and upright — especially an admirable person such as David, and a humble person such as David was. You notice how he said, “I am a poor man and lightly esteemed” (1 Samuel 18:23). He hadn’t even got enough money for a dowry. What father could possibly be grieved by his daughter falling in love with and marrying a humble and brave man? Yet we read that “When Saul realized that the LORD was with David and that his daughter Michal loved David, he grew even more afraid of David. So from then on Saul was David’s enemy” (1 Samuel 18:28-29).

What ludicrous grounds to be jealous of, or at enmity towards, David. The fact that his own daughter loved him. Amazing. That was a threat to Saul of course. Saul just wanted to use his daughters to marry David so that he could have power over David and use them to get at him, as you will see later on in the Scripture. However, if his daughter was going to be “in love” with David, that was going to cause severe problems, because she wasn’t going to be able to be manipulated by her father. And in fact, Michal was not able to be manipulated by him, as we discover later.

Here we must ask ourselves some questions: Are these the signs of a true believer in the Lord? Would such behaviour characterise a genuine disciple of the Lord? Many say that Saul was merely a “carnal believer” who had not matured. But he never did! He remained David’s enemy “the rest of his days”.

There is no such thing as a “carnal believer”. There are certainly immature believers; but the Christian life is an upward path from the beginning — gently sloping to start with and steepening throughout our lives. Far from being worldly and superficial, all the immature believers I have known have been actually extremely keen and almost over-the-top in their dedication to the Lord, still buzzing on their new-found faith. Yet the kind of enmity and jealousy, coupled with the desire for manipulation, which we see in Saul is endemic in so many churches today, primarily because there are so many false professors — so many Sauls — masquerading as the faithful.

Another thing which provokes Saul to jealousy is

4) His Deep Fear

We see here what is, at root, the main cause which lies at the back of of jealousy. Yes, pride is there. But pride too is a result of fear. This is what you can say about yourself or about any other jealous person that you know of: What ultimately lies behind jealousy is fear. In verse 12, we see that fear is intimately linked in with jealousy, which is very psychologically acute here. “So Saul was afraid of David, because the LORD was with David but had departed from Saul”. The Lord was with David, so Saul was filled with jealousy. But it was fear which undergirded that jealousy.

Again, in verse 15: “When Saul saw that David was very successful, he was afraid of him”. And that is what fuels jealousy: fear. Afraid that this other person will look better in the eyes of the world than we look.

Again, in verse 29, we see that when Saul realised that the Lord was with David and that his daughter loved David, “Saul grew even more afraid of David. So from then on Saul was David’s enemy”. There is fear right there. Three times it is mentioned very plainly that behind Saul’s jealousy lay fear. You will surely have found all this out for yourself.

Have you ever worked in an office where the manager or boss is clearly an incompetent person who doesn’t even deserve to have that job? Everyone knows it, although no one would ever dare broach the subject. So he looks at you, an underling, just a little person in the firm and sees somebody of integrity, intelligence, ability and so on. What happens next? Does he seek to promote you and even benignly regard you as his protégé — a future successor to his job? No. Instead he becomes filled with jealousy. Why? Because he’s afraid that you will expose the fact that he doesn’t deserve to have that job and that you might actually be deservedly in line for his job. There is a fear there, an insecurity. But instead of improving himself, the boss sets out trying to undermine your work and even to destroy you.

All this is classic behaviour. I have seen it so many times (mainly because the world is full of incompetent bosses). I have even seen it in many churches (mainly because the visible church is so full of puffed-up pastors!).

Another thing which provokes Saul to jealousy is

5) The Presence of an Evil Spirit

There was something else which lay at the back of Saul’s jealous actions. Two verses are pivotal to the whole story of the life of Saul: “from that day forward Saul kept a jealous eye on David. The next day a spirit of distress sent from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied inside the house while David played the harp as usual” (1 Samuel 18:9-10). Saul’s jealousy takes a quantum leap in his heart at that point. It is no coincidence that this happened, as the Scripture plainly shows. From the moment that Saul began to keep a jealous eye on David, the very next day an evil spirit from God came powerfully upon Saul. (Regarding Saul’s “prophesying”, see the special Excursus on this subject further below).

Notice that this was an evil spirit sent from God. It always is. No one is afflicted by an evil spirit unless the Lord condones it. In the Book of Job we see that He outright directed it! (Job 1:6-12; 2:3-6; cf. 2 Corinthians 12:7-9).

It is God who is in control of everything. Satan cannot just go around afflicting anybody he wants, anytime he wants, at random, at his own will, whenever he likes to do so. He is subject to the will of God. He is subject to the sovereignty of God. We see that very plainly here. But God allows people to be afflicted by evil spirits when they do things which are deserving of such affliction. As William Green put it:

“If you steadfastly resist the devil, confiding in the grace of God and the salvation of Jesus, he cannot touch a hair of your head. Temptation and sin, if you bravely resist them, will react to your everlasting welfare: your position is impregnable, the protection is ample, the armament is invincible, the supplies abundant, and the fortress can never be entered by the enemy, unless betrayed into his power by your own treacherous hands”.W.H. Green, The Argument of Job Unfolded, Klock & Klock, 1978), pp.68-69

“Unless betrayed into Satan’s power by your own treacherous hands”. This is just to let you know that evil spirits do not go around doing exactly what they want to do; they are under the judgement, sovereignty, and permissive hand of God. This is an evil spirit sent from God which came forcefully upon Saul because Saul himself already provided the foothold for this to happen. Gradually, Saul is being set loose to be overwhelmed by the destructive power of his own sinful madness.

In case there are any readers who may still imagine that Saul was simply a wayward believer, I will now give a summary of Saul’s character.

IV. A SUMMARY OF SAUL’S CHARACTER

Saul is not a “carnal believer”, as some would put it. I do not believe that he was a believer at all. When we compare David and Saul, they are as different as chalk and cheese. We are seeing the difference between the devout believer and the carnal professor — someone who is of the world but who professes to be a believer. It is to demonstrate this difference that I am writing this piece at all. This is why I ask the question: “Are you a Saul or a David?” Are you a genuine disciple of Christ, or are you someone who merely professes to be a Christian — a charlatan?

The centrepiece of chapter thirty-one is the suicide of Saul. This is really the climax of the contrast we see between Saul and David. Saul is an object-lesson in the essential difference between the unbelieving but quasi-religious carnal man and the believing spiritual man (David).

In Saul, we have an awesome study of a nominal believer — a believer in name only. There is a pattern to Saul’s life. His downfall did not happen in a vacuum. One sin never terminates in itself. It always leads to greater sins, and so on, down the line. One sin opens the door for another. It always involves progressive disintegration ultimately leading to destruction (which is complete separation from God, 2 Thessalonians 1:9). This is plainly shown in the Scriptures. As one example, we see that a refusal to acknowledge the reality of God and subsequently indulge in in idolatry leads inexorably to sexual perversion (Romans 1:21-27).

So how can we summarise Saul’s character? What brought him to the wretched point of consulting a witch and then committing suicide? If you look back over his life you will see that the futility of his dying moments was rooted in all that had progressively deteriorated in the previous years of his life. Let us just trace some of the events which shaped Saul’s life.

1) He was the People’s Choice

Saul was not made king as a result of spiritual deliberation and Divine consultation. The people of Israel merely wanted a physically big man — a mere warrior, an Arnold Schwarzenegger or Robocop — at their head so that they could be like all the unbelieving nations. He was the people’s choice, and the Lord merely gave them what they wanted in order to show them the foolishness of their ways. You can read all about this in this example here:

“But when they said, ‘Give us a king to judge us’, their demand was displeasing in the sight of Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD. And the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you. For it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected Me as their king. Just as they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking Me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you’… Nevertheless, the people refused to listen to Samuel. ‘No!’ they said. ‘We must have a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to judge us, to go out before us, and to fight our battles’”.1 Samuel 8:6-8, & 19-20

Saul as king was the result of a petulant ‘democracy’ — people power being exercised in defiance of God’s will being expressed through the prophet. Need I say more?

Another betraying aspect of Saul’s character was that

2) He was Just a Military King and Nothing More

Because he was not chosen on the basis of spiritual deliberation and Divine consultation, Saul was merely a military king over the Lord’s people. He was good at smiting Amalek, but he could never provide the people with spiritual nourishment. Even in the last event of his life, he was a total failure.

This was because God had forsaken him; and you can guarantee that God had forsaken him because he had already forsaken God. The one is the natural fruit of the other.

Another betraying aspect of Saul’s character was that

3) He Set Himself up as a Priest

Saul, through impatience, arrogated to himself the priestly office, offering sacrifice at Gilgal (1 Samuel 13:7-10). For this sacrilege his rejection from the kingship was prophesied by Samuel.

Another betraying aspect of Saul’s character was that

4) He was a Wanton Murderer of the Lord’s Priests

In Saul’s fanatical desire to find David and kill him, he paranoically presumed the conspiratorial guilt of the priests in harbouring David. As a result, off his own bat, he not only had eighty-five priests put to death (1 Samuel 22:18) but also “Nob, the city of the priests, he struck with the edge of the sword, both men and women, children and nursing infants, oxen and donkeys and sheep — with the edge of the sword” (1 Samuel 22:19). Do you really consider that to be the work of a devout follower of the Lord?

Another betraying aspect of Saul’s character was that…

5) He was Only a Religious Man

He had a complete lack of genuine spirituality. He certainly participated in religious festivals (e.g. 1 Samuel 20:5,24) but such participation was so empty that Saul was willing to kill someone on that very feast day! (1 Samuel 20:31, David; & 33, Jonathan). One is reminded of the Pharisees seeking to kill Christ on the Passover (John 18:28)!

The Sauls of this world always busy themselves with religious activities. They love to be seen to be doing “the right thing”. They thrive on public shows of religion. True spirituality, however, does not reside in such externalities, as David knew very well and expressed in his psalms:

“For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart — These, O God, You will not despise”.Psalm 51:16-17

It is true that Saul is said to have prophesied, but again that is no proof that he was a spiritual man or a believer. (See the Excursus on this subject of Saul prophesying a little further below).

Another betraying aspect of Saul’s character was that

6) He Often Behaved as if he was Demon-Possessed

As we can see very well from these verses:

• 1 Samuel 16:14: “After the Spirit of the LORD had departed from Saul, a spirit of distress from the LORD began to torment him”.
• 1 Samuel 18:10: “The next day a spirit of distress sent from God came upon Saul”.
• 1 Samuel 19:9: “But as Saul was sitting in his house with his spear in his hand, a spirit of distress from the LORD came upon him”.

Another betraying aspect of Saul’s character was that

7) He was an Inconsolably Jealous Man

This we have already shown in looking at 1 Samuel 18 & 19.

Another betraying aspect of Saul’s character was that

8) He was very Disobedient

A classic example occurred when Saul was given the Divine command to destroy Amalek (Samuel 15:3) and he decided to pursue a different pathway (1 Samuel 15:9). In fact, that all went back to a stark original prophecy in Deuteronomy 25:19 which Saul was supposed to faithfully fulfil:

“Therefore, it shall be, when the LORD your God has given you rest from your enemies all around, in the land which the LORD your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance, that you will blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. You shall not forget”.Deuteronomy 25:19; cf. Exodus 17:14-16

We see here how God deals with subsequent generations of nations just as He deals with subsequent generations of families “of them that hate Me” (cf. Deuteronomy 7:2-6; 12:2-3; 20:10-18).

Another betraying aspect of Saul’s character was his

9) Failure to “Take the Rap”

The classic example of this occurred in 1 Samuel 15 after Saul had been found out for not having obeyed the Lord’s commandment to destroy Amalek. He made numerous excuses, even lied (1 Samuel 13:9) and blamed everyone else but himself (1 Samuel 15:13-15). Are those the actions of a man of God?

Another betraying aspect of Saul’s character was his

10) Fear of Man

The key to this entire incident in 1 Samuel 15 lies in Saul’s own ghastly admission: “I feared the people and obeyed their voice” (1 Samuel 15:24). Just has he himself had been “the people’s choice” rather than the Lord’s, so he tended to play to the desires of the people rather that find out what the Lord wanted. “The fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe” (Proverbs 29:25).

Another betraying aspect of Saul’s character was his

11) Phony Repentance

Again, we see this typified in the incident in 1 Samuel 15. On two occasions Saul made out that he was repenting. The first time (1 Samuel 15:24) was so obviously just to get himself off the hook; the second time (1 Samuel 15:28-30) it was an act of hypocrisy in order to avoid any shame before the people.

These are a few of the aspects of Saul’s character which should demonstrate to us that the man was not a believer but a false professor. Obviously, all believers do stumble from time to time; but the key is that they always learn from their mistakes and grow accordingly. We never even once see that in Saul’s life but always in David’s. This is the key difference between the two men which demonstrates the fact that the one was a true believer while the other was a false professor.

Before continuing our study with some spiritual lessons to be gleaned from our text in 1 Samuel 18:1-30, here is a

BRIEF EXCURSUS ON THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY IN SAUL

On three occasions in the First Book of Samuel, we read that Saul prophesied (1 Samuel 10:10; 18:10; 19:23-24). Many assume that this shows that he was a true believer; but this is not the case at all.

We need to understand what is meant here by prophesying, and what is meant by the Spirit of the Lord coming upon him. We must never have a stereotyped idea of prophesying. Prophecy is not merely speaking God’s word about the future — making divinely-appointed predictions. That is a very limited view of prophecy. For prophecy is also just as much about singing and praising God with thanksgiving (1 Chronicles 25:1-3). It is also about strengthening, encouraging and comforting God’s people (1 Corinthians 14:2-4). Sometimes, as we see in the New Testament, this sort of prophesying was given in other languages (though never in gibberish), e.g., Acts 2:11: “We hear them speaking in our own languages the wonderful works of God”.

This is plainly what was happening to Saul in 1 Samuel 10 when the Spirit of the Lord came upon him. In saying this, it doesn’t mean that Saul was regenerated and had the permanently indwelling Holy Spirit. Rather, he was receiving a temporary ‘anointing’ for the purpose of being transformed into an aggressive warrior and leader of the Lord’s ancient Covenant people.

We see these special anointings with God’s Spirit in other places in Scripture. For example, Bezalel son of Uri was “filled with the Spirit of God” by the Lord, “with skill, ability, and knowledge in all kinds of craftsmanship to design artistic works in gold, silver, and bronze, to cut gemstones for settings, and to carve wood, so that he may be a master of every craft” (Exodus 31:1-5).

Again, we see that the LORD “raised up Othniel son of Caleb’s younger brother Kenaz as a deliverer to save them. The Spirit of the LORD came upon him, and he became Israel’s judge and went out to war” (Judges 3:9-10).

Thus, when the Scripture says that God changed Saul’s heart, and that he was changed into a different person, this was a complete change of personality to equip him for his kingly role. It was not regeneration or conversion.

Many claim that Saul was indeed regenerated but was a carnal believer who never matured. This is a woefully inadequate view. “By their fruits you shall know them”. A survey of Saul’s life reveals it all, as we have shown in our main text. He was repeatedly and wilfully disobedient to both Samuel and the Lord; he had an evil spirit; he was consistently jealous and murderous towards his rival David; and the last religious act of his life was the consultation of a known witch. If that is what it means to be a believer, then we might as well go and live on the planet Zargon!

This idea of the “carnal believer” who persistently behaves like an unbeliever is just an excuse for professing ‘Christians’ to live how they want, and it is one of the biggest delusions in the history of the Church. The play-off between Saul and David, which takes up so much of Bible history in this book is not the play-off between a “carnal” believer and a more “spiritual” believer, as some would claim. It is the play-off between an unbeliever masquerading as a believer and a genuine believer who is flawed.

So, what was Saul doing when he prophesied? Nothing happened of any spiritual significance. Even after all his prophesying Saul was still the same wicked man as before — worse even. In 1 Samuel 18:10, here was a man who was rejected by God, empowered by an evil spirit, expending all his energy on killing a servant of God and is now engaged in prophecy! He was entranced but he was not truly changed. In 1 Samuel 19, he was a madman who picked up in a contagious way what his servants experienced. One can see this in church meetings. The same contagious madness which characterised the “Toronto Blessing” and other Charismatic atrocities came upon Saul when he saw others engaged in this ‘prophesying’.

We have here something corresponding to mesmerism. It was like a contagion which he contracted. Remember, the gift of prophecy has sometimes been given to men who knew nothing whatsoever of the grace of God, such as Balaam (Numbers 22-24), and even the evil high priest Caiaphas (John 11:51).

Why did the Spirit of God come upon Saul?

Firstly, the Spirit of God came upon Saul to give him a further opportunity to repent of his wicked ways? The Lord often places people in certain circumstances which can affect their lives to such an extent that they come to Him. A marriage, a bereavement, a change of circumstances, etc.

Secondly, the Spirit of God came upon Saul to show him that it was God with whom Saul was dealing, not David.

Thirdly, the Spirit of God came upon Saul to restrain Saul so that David could get away (1 Samuel 20:1a). The Lord uses many varieties of means and instruments to bring about the safety of His servants.

We must bear in mind that religious experience or activity do not indicate spiritual standing before God. In 1 Samuel 19, what happened to Saul was that he was riding on the crest of an emotional wave. He was like the man in the Parable of the Four Soils who received the Word with joy, but who had no real root, and so withered away (Matthew 13:18-23). Saul is like the man who received the seed that fell on rocky places who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. Riding on a religious and psychological high, he was carried away here. But it was not to last. Outwardly he was changed in order to fulfil his office, but there was no real work of the heart happening.

If you want an explanation of Saul prophesying, you need turn no further than to the following searing statement of the Lord Jesus, who shows that even the manifestation of prophecy in a person is no witness to their true spiritual condition:

“Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore, by their fruits you will know them. ‘Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”Matthew 7:17-23

What a warning that is to us too. Has a real work been done in us, or is it just a pretence, as with Saul? So ends this excursus.

As we bring this study to a close, after that brief excursus, let us examine some of the spiritual lessons we can learn from the relationship between David and Saul and their lives.

V. SOME SPIRITUAL LESSONS TO BE GLEANED

The first lesson that you will notice relevant to your Christian life is that…

1) Blessing and Affliction Follow as Surely as Night follows Day

Look at the context in 1 Samuel 18. David has just scored an enormous victory over Goliath. This is a highpoint in the history of Israel, and surely in David’s life; the little man conquers the great big warrior who nobody in Israel would take on. The possibility is there for David to feel very pleased with himself. So you find that whenever you have great blessing like this, a great victory, just to prevent you from getting any grand ideas about yourself and beginning to imagine that you are the greatest thing that has ever been invented on this planet, the Lord comes in there and pulls the carpet out from underneath you, just to keep your growth going and to remind you of His motto: “Without Me, you can do nothing”.

David becomes a huge hero in Israel and then is humbled. This is repeated so many times in Scripture, where the Lord has somebody who is an absolutely remarkable person, a hero in every sense of the word, humbled. The Lord humbles that person for a reason. We have looked at this phenomenon many times. It happened to the Apostle Paul. Paul had vision of heaven — more than a vision, he went to heaven, he saw it. Any normal person would have come back saying “Hey guys, you’ll never guess what I’ve seen. I’ve been to heaven, and I’ve seen the whole thing”. Well Paul says, “just to keep me in my place and prevent me from the sin of pride, God gave me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger from Satan” (2 Corinthians 12:7-9).

We are dealing with the same thing here with David. It is a pre-emptive action on God’s part so that one of his saints doesn’t become filled with pride. And so it is here. Hot on the heels of his victory over Goliath and the subsequent hero-worship of the people, we find that David begins to be persecuted by Saul. Just look the sequence. First, we read:

“As the troops were returning home after David had killed the Philistine, the women came out of all the cities of Israel to meet King Saul with singing and dancing, with joyful songs, and with tambourines and other instruments. And as the women danced, they sang out: “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands”.1 Samuel 18:6-7

Then, two verses later, we read: “From that day forward Saul kept a jealous eye on David”. Blessing and affliction follow as surely as night follows day. All the way through here, you find that whenever David has great blessing in his life and has great victory, the Lord tempers it with affliction. That is why David could say in a song; “Before I was afflicted I went astray, But now I keep Your word”, and “It is good for me that I have been afflicted, That I may learn Your statutes” (Psalm 119:67 & 71). David learned his lessons; Saul didn’t. That is the fundamental difference between the believer and the false professor. Forgive me for asking but which one are you?

The true disciple of Christ has a wholly different understanding of affliction from the rest of the world. That is why James says at the very beginning of his letter the most remarkable thing: “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience” (James 1:2-3). “Hold on a minute”, you may say, “what can possibly be joyful about that?” It is a different perspective, a different mindset, a different way of looking at things altogether. The Lord is afflicting me, He wants me to learn… He is teaching me a lesson… He is keeping me humble… He is keeping me faithful… He is keeping me close to Him… He is reminding me that He is present with me. When I’m being afflicted, I know that the Lord is with me. That is the rule. And that was the rule for David here.

Look at Jesus’ temptation. We can see the pattern very powerfully there:

“Then a voice came from heaven, ‘You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’ Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to Him”.Mark 1:11-13

That is a pattern in all our lives. Victory and blessing, immediately followed by humbling affliction — but always with the Lord keeping us and ministering to us (even through His angels!).

So that is the first lesson that we can draw from here: blessing and affliction follow as surely as night follows day.

You see it in Revelation 12:16, where you read in symbolism that “the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth”. Then at that point, straight away, in the very next verse (breath), we read that “the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Revelation 12:17). The woman is a symbol of God’s people, receiving help in the wilderness of this world in various situations, and then, next minute — boom! — the dragon, the symbol for Satan, was enraged at them and began to persecute them savagely. For the man or woman of God, where blessing is, affliction will surely follow.

However, the last thing you should think is “well that must mean that God has left me”. Quite the reverse is true in the Christian’s life. Affliction is God’s school for the saints and a sure sign of His presence rather than abandonment. It is God’s gymnasium, where the saints are exercised. That very word “gymnasium” is the one that is used in Hebrews 12:11, where it says that whenever you are afflicted through God’s chastisement, it is not pleasant at the time, but grievous, very painful, “but afterwards it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it”, or exercised by it. The Greek word for trained/exercised there is “gumnadzo”, from where we get our very word “gymnasium”. Affliction is God’s gymnasium, to exercise us spiritually — and it really works, every time! (For an in-depth discussion of the presence and purpose of evil and affliction in the world, please read my free-to-download article, “Tested by Fire — The Origin & Purpose of Suffering and Evil”. You can click on the title to go there.).

David actually provides for us a model of how to deal with affliction:

“Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God”.1 Samuel 30:6

But David strengthened himself in the Lord. When do we read that Saul ever did such a thing? Never. For that is the hallmark of the spiritual person and Saul is not a spiritual person.

Another spiritual lesson that we can draw from this part of God’s word is that

2) All the Scheming of Satan Always Comes to Nothing

Satan must have really hated David here, and I mean really hated him. Do you remember how Goliath looked at David, at this nice ruddy fresh-faced little boy. Instead of saying “I can’t fight this child, this is totally unfair”, the Scripture says that he looked at David and despised him (1 Samuel 17:42). Well that is Satan, when he looks at believers, looks at Christians, we pathetic little people on the face of this earth, he despises us. He doesn’t ever feel compassion for us. There is no point in asking him to show mercy to you; he despises us. But yet, all the schemings, anything that he can do, have to come to nothing, because he is completely under God’s control. And in fact, the Lord uses them to His advantage, especially with those who are His.

Here was David being persecuted. Saul has an evil spirit which is making him do all sorts of nasty things to David, but ultimately this is going to work out to David’s advantage, because it is training him for his future office as king. That is what is happening. Affliction is the very best training one can receive for a position of leadership in the Lord’s work. Moses knew it. Paul knew it. All true leaders know it.

Satan must have thought he was being very cool when he had Christ put to death; but in doing so he undid everything that he had worked towards down through all the ages on this earth. All of it came to nothing, backfired on him. This was what happened with Christ’s crucifixion. Satan made a total fool of himself (as did his human earthly agents). “Having disarmed the powers and authorities, God made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Colossians 2:15). All the schemings of Satan always ultimately come to nothing. Remember that fact. It will serve you well to do so.

Another spiritual lesson we can glean is the importance for us to

3) Understand the Vile Lengths to which Wicked People will Go in Order to Achieve their Goals

 Saul’s speech in 1 Samuel 22:6-8 is the master work of manipulation and paranoia which we typically find in the words and behaviour of all the Sauls of this world. First, he appeals to their personal interests in v.7 (neat move that; always works). Then he falsely accuses them of conspiring against him, v.8. Then he makes out that Jonathan has encouraged David to lie in wait for him, v.8, when nothing could be further from the truth. The Sauls of this world always project their own rubbish onto the people they envy. It was actually Saul who was lying in wait for David, not the other way round! What a classic case of projection that was. Then he accuses the priests of conspiring against him with David, v.13, which was not true. Finally he orders Doeg to kill all the priests, eighty-five of them, and gives orders to destroy the priestly town of Nob, including the women and children and babies.

There is nothing worse than a cornered Saul in this world. They will stop at nothing to achieve their own selfish ends. So always beware of cornered Sauls.

Another spiritual lesson we can glean here is that

4) David is a ‘Type’ of Messiah

Finally, we see David as a type of the Messiah who was yet to come. I have mentioned this many times. David is a type of Christ; he brings pictures to us of Christ. What we see here concerning David in his humiliation and his affliction on the way to taking the throne mirrors exactly the Lords humiliation on His way to his Ascension to heaven and taking his rightful place next to the Father. “In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting for God, for whom and through whom all things exist, to make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering” (Hebrews 2:10). Completion comes through suffering.

When the Lord Jesus Christ came to this earth, the beginning of His humiliation was his incarnation and it just goes down… and down… and down… increasingly persecuted and then eventually killed, buried, raised from the dead and ascended to heaven once more to sit at the right hand of the Father. That is the way of growth in the Christian life, through the refining fire of suffering.

But the awful irony is this: That later, David would take a leaf out of Saul’s book, when he arranged to have Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, killed in battle because he was physically attracted to Bathsheba. He had seen her bathing in the nude from the roof, and he thought “I’ll get her husband bumped-off and then I can have her all to myself”. That was a leaf straight out of Saul’s book on powermongering. Isn’t it remarkable? But how did this happen? Well, so long as David walked with the Lord, he remained with the Lord, and he remained out of trouble. But you’ll see that David virtually brought it on himself because of the state of his life at that time.

The big difference though is this: Saul never did repent. Never at any time did he feel any genuine, lasting remorse for any of his actions. He never repented of what he wanted to do to David, but yet David did repent, and we have it clearly laid out in Psalm 51 in Scripture. That is the crucial difference between a believer and an unbeliever. It is the difference between a true believer and the one who only plays at being a believer.

 Before our conclusion to this message on 1 Samuel 18:1-30, here is a

BRIEF EXCURSUS ON SAUL’S CONSULTATION OF THE WITCH AT EN-DOR

Saul’s consultation of the witch at En-Dor (1 Samuel 28:7-25) has often proven to be a difficult text for many. Did Saul break God’s law because it was only Samuel who appeared? How could a believer consult a witch? Was it really Samuel who appeared? The questions are many on the lips of many.

Firstly, it must be acknowledged that consulting mediums is contrary to God’s Law (Exodus 22:8; Deuteronomy 18:9-14). The increase of such mediums is a sign of a corrupt and unclean nation. They bring a curse down upon a nation. Sorcerers “shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death” (Revelation 21:8; 22:15). Was it Really Samuel who appeared? Some have said that it was, that God permitted this in order to bring judgement on Saul. Another more satisfying explanation is that this is a demonic manifestation — as are all alleged spirits of dead people. Some reasons which can be given to show that it could not have been the actual Samuel who appeared are as follows:

1) There is a vast unbridgeable gulf between the living and the dead: “As the cloud disappears and vanishes away, So he who goes down to the grave does not come up. He shall never return to his house, nor shall his place know him anymore” (Job 7:9-10). “But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me” (2 Samuel 12:23).

In Luke 16:19-31, Abraham refuses the rich man’s request to send Lazarus to his father’s house to preach to his remaining brothers: “They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them”. And it is said there that a great chasm has been fixed between the living and the dead (v.26). Just as there is a gulf fixed between heaven and hell, so there is also one fixed between this place and that of the dead, good or bad.

2) If it had been the real Samuel, it would give credence to the power of a witch and to the effectiveness and usefulness of sorcery. In fact, it would virtually have legitimised sorcery. Would God want that to be the case recorded in His word?

3) If it had been the real Samuel, the apparition would not have been said to have come “out of the earth”.

4) God had never answered Saul by the living prophets or in any other manner (see 1 Samuel 28:6), so why should he do so now with the dead prophet Samuel?

5) The real Samuel would not have received such homage as this from Saul (1 Samuel 28:14), which even angelic spirits have refused (cf. Revelation 19:10; 21:9-10).

6) The apparition only appeared to the witch and not to Saul himself, as is plain from 1 Samuel 28:13-14. Clearly, she conversed with an evil spirit and thus by its assistance pretended to bring up a dead person.

7) If it had been the real Samuel it would lend credence to the reality of ghosts. But alleged ghosts are all about trickery and delusion on the part of demons; for there is an unbridgeable gulf between the living and the dead.

8) If it had been the real Samuel, the prophet would not only have accused Saul of failing to kill Agag (1 Samuel 15:18), but he would also have accused him of consulting a witch instead of the Lord!

9) There is no disturbance (see 1 Samuel 28:15) which could be worked on the departed in heaven by people such as Saul.

10) The real Samuel would not have said to Saul “tomorrow you and your sons will be with me” (1 Samuel 28:19). For Saul would surely not go to the same place as Samuel after death (although Jonathan no doubt would). This is a horrible lie of the devil, who continually tries to make all people think that they will go to heaven.

For these reasons, I do not believe that the apparition conjured up by the witch could have been the real Samuel. There is also an important spiritual lesson to be learned here: Demons can speak the truth when it suits their cause. With God’s permission, this demon neatly sets out the reality of Saul’s situation: 1) Abandonment by God; 2) Taking of the kingdom from him and the giving of it to David; 3) Failing to kill Agag; 4) Forecasting defeat in the battle.

Like all demonic entities, his purpose is to make people despair. But you see here how demons are even willing to highlight men’s sins for their own purposes. In the final analysis, it was Saul’s consultation of a witch which was one of the principal reasons for the Lord killing him (1 Chronicles 10:13-14).

Yes. That’s right. God kills people. Are you shocked? The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Even life itself. So you had better get over it. He is the Potter, and we are the clay (Romans 9:20-21). He moulds as He wishes and discards as He desires. Let that be a major warning to us all.

So ends this excursus on Saul’s consultation with the witch at En-dor.

CONCLUSION

The question remains: Are you a Saul or a David? You now have enough data to give an intelligent response to that question.

When we sum it all up, we simply have to say that Saul was not a saved man. For there is no evidence of a relationship with the Lord. There is no evidence of learning from his mistakes. There is no evidence that he did anything other than follow his own course in life without any thought for where the Lord wanted him to go and what He wanted him to do.

So when he was confronted with the choice between being tortured by the Philistines and taking his life, he took that latter course. If he had been a believer, what do you think he would have done? His epitaph tells it all:

“So Saul died for his unfaithfulness to the LORD, because he did not keep the word of the LORD and even consulted a spirit medium for guidance, and he failed to inquire of the LORD. So the LORD put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse”.1 Chronicles 10:13-14

Saul’s history is the product of that pivotal verse in the First Book of Samuel which says: “Those who honor Me I will honor, and those who despise Me shall be lightly esteemed” (1 Samuel 2:30). As Matthew Henry puts it in his comment on this verse:

“Not only God will lightly esteem them… but they shall be lightly esteemed by all the world; the very honour they are proud of shall be laid in the dust; they shall see themselves despised by all mankind, their names a reproach; when they are gone, their memory shall rot, and, when they rise again, it shall be to everlasting shame and contempt. The dishonour which their impotent malice puts upon God and his omnipotent justice will return upon their own heads”.

Such is the fate of all active atheists — of all those who do not love God and His truth, all those who have open or secret contempt in their hearts for things Divine and for the true people of God.

Saul was a man who professed outwardly a concern for the things of the Lord, but inwardly he was in opposition to the real intent of the Lord. He was for himself rather than the Lord. He was the perennial pretend-believer. The Lord Jesus warned us about these “tares” (or ‘Zizania’, Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43). The world is full of them, and churches are brimming over with them. Many churches are even run by them! They are the leaders of denominations. They even head up ministries on the internet. And the corridors of political power are clustered with them as they overlay their strange understanding of Christ and the Bible on their bellicose governmental machinations.

Remember this: Sauls always spell trouble for believers. But what the Sauls of this world will never understand is that — by a masterstroke of the Lord — whatever trouble they bring into the lives of true believers, it can only strengthen the faith of those believers. Saul’s persecution of David drove him ever closer into the arms of God. As he says so eloquently in a Psalm, plainly in reference to this Saul-stricken period in his life:

 “In God alone my soul finds rest; my salvation comes from Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation. He is my fortress; I will never be shaken. How long will you threaten a man? Will all of you throw him down like a leaning wall or a tottering fence? They fully intend to cast him down from his lofty perch; they delight in lies; with their mouths they bless, but inwardly they curse. Selah. Rest in God alone, O my soul, for my hope comes from Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; He is my fortress; I will not be shaken. My salvation and my honor rest on God, my strong rock; my refuge is in God. Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts before Him. God is our refuge”.Psalm 62:1-8

Not only did David predict the death of Saul in v.3 of that psalm, but he provided us with a model for our devotional life in times of affliction. But be warned: when the Sauls of this world see your increased devotion, they will only increase their malice. In the final analysis, your only defence is to do what David did in his seemingly hopeless situation: To strengthen yourself in the Lord your God, who is your refuge.

Alan Morrison

© Copyright, Alan Morrison, 2023
[The copyright on my works is merely to protect them from any wanton plagiarism which could result in undesirable changes (as has actually happened!). Readers are free to reproduce my work, so long as it is in the same format and with the exact same content and its origin is acknowledged]

“CounterCulture Disciples of Christ”. That is what we are or what we should be. “Do not be conformed to this age but be transformed through the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2) — the ultimate CounterCulture statement. A lot of folks think that simply means not getting involved in the typical culture of ordinary society — hanging out in bars and nightclubs, street-life, drug use, non-stop consumerism, self-centredness, materialistic living, and so on. But it goes so much deeper than that. Let me expand…

You probably read that above quote from Romans and thought, “Hang on, that should really be ‘conformed to this world’. He must be using one of those New Age Bible versions instead of the Authorized King James Version”. Actually, almost every single Bible translation that you could gather uses the word “world” there (including the KJV, which also has its flaws, as any student of the original languages will affirm). But the Koine Greek word in the original manuscripts does not use the word which is normally translated as “world”, which would be κόσμος, kosmos. Instead, it uses the word αἰών, aión, meaning “age”. This is subtly significant. As Kenneth Wuest puts it in his “Word Studies in the Greek New Testament”:

“The word ‘world’ is aión, which Trench defines as follows : “All that floating mass of thoughts, opinions, maxims, speculations, hopes, impulses, aims, aspirations, at any time current in the world, which it may be impossible to seize and accurately define, but which constitute a most real and effective power, being the moral, or immoral atmosphere which at every moment of our lives we inhale, again inevitably to exhale”, — all this is included in the aión (age), which is, as Bengel has expressed it, “the subtle informing spirit of the kosmos or world of men who are living alienated and apart from God.” The Germans have a word for it, the zeitgeist or spirit of the age. This masquerade costume which saints sometimes put on, hides the Lord Jesus living in the heart of the Christian, and is an opaque covering through which the Holy Spirit cannot radiate the beauty of the Lord Jesus. The world says to that kind of a saint, ‘The modernism of your appearance nullifies the fundamentalism of your doctrine’”. (Kenneth Wuest, “Word Studies in the Greek New Testament”, Vol.3, William B. Eerdman’s, 1955, p.207).

So, when the word, aión, is used in the New Testament, it does not so much represent the kosmos as it does “the subtle informing spirit” of it — whatever happens to be the current zeitgeist of the age. Thus, when we are called not to be conformed to this age, we are being exhorted to keep ourselves unaffected and uninfected by the trends, fads and fashions, popular ideas, bandwagons, lifestyles, moral philosophy, or whatever else is in vogue at any particular time in this fallen world and also in the visible church which has been well and truly corrupted. The same word, aión, is used in 2 Corinthians 4:4, “the god of this age which blinds the minds of unbelievers”. That same “god” also blinds the minds of many of those who profess to be ‘Christians’, as I will show below.

The Lord Jesus Christ actually “gave Himself for our sins” precisely “to rescue us from the present evil age” (Galatians 1:3-4), where the Greek is also aión. It is to this evil age — out of which Christ has rescued us — which we are not to be conformed. This evil age in the midst of which we are presently living is coming to a climax via the “mystery of lawlessness” which undergirds it, and which energizes it, but which has been under some Divine restraint to prevent it from climaxing before its time (2 Thessalonians 2:7-8). From this — this evil age and the mystery of lawlessness which permeates it — we who are genuine disciples of Christ have been rescued and should therefore have no part in it whatsoever otherwise we make a mockery of that rescue.

Currently, the “subtle informing spirit” of this kosmos — the zeitgeist of this present evil age — would involve all the ‘wokeness’, political correctness, all the facets of warped sexuality and what I call ‘Pride-ism’, gender ideology, ‘spirituality’ based entirely on subjective experience rather than objective truth (e.g. New Ageism), the glorification of freewill, feminism, disinformation and lies, the so-called “Law of Attraction”, widespread narcissism, psychological operations and mind-control, ‘apocalyptic’ hysteria (false teaching about the end of this age), Transhumanism and “Human 2.0” alongside one-world globalism, and so many other aspects of lawlessness before God.

Much of that list has spilled over into the visible church too, as I will demonstrate here, resulting in the likes of the “Gay Christian Network” and “OneBodyOneFaith”, plus many denominations which have compromised regarding matters of sexuality. We have whole movements in the Christian scene which are based entirely on subjective experience rather than objective truth (e.g. the Charismatic-Pentecostal Movement, “slain in the spirit”, tongues-babble, false revivals, etc.) or on the “Law of Attraction” (Prosperity Theology, Power of Positive Thinking churches, such as Norman Vincent Peale’s church in New York which had such a formative influence on that deceptive clown, Donald Trump). We have women pastors and teachers (“Christian” feminism). We have a blasphemous and narcissistic glorification of freewill which has spun way out of control (as I demonstrated in my previous paper, “You Were Once Darkness”). We have disinformation psyops disseminated by many professing ‘Christians’ (e.g. QAnon). We have ‘apocalyptic’ hysteria (false teaching about the end of this age in the form of much baloney about the ‘mark of the beast’, ‘666’, Christian Zionism, the whole Israel-first schtick, the Hebrew Roots Movement, a pre-tribulational “rapture”, appalling interpretations of the Book of Revelation, etc.). We have Vatican support for Transhumanism and globalism. We have so many different “movements” and -isms which all vie to present themselves as the “real” Christianity but are up to their eyeballs in the zeitgeist of this age. The unclean foulness of this aión has come into the visible church with a vengeance (literally, cf. Revelation 12:17). But as Kenneth Wuest put it: “The world says to that kind of a saint, ‘The modernism of your appearance nullifies the fundamentalism of your doctrine’”. Conformity by the believer to the zeitgeist of this age is, as Wuest similarly put it, “a masquerade costume”. If worn often enough, it becomes one’s skin rather than merely one’s costume.

Do not be conformed to the zeitgeist of this age, whether it is in the world or in the visible church. If necessary, you will have to make a stand to the ‘Nth’ degree, even standing contra mundum (one versus the world).

When you were spiritually “dead”, as an unbeliever, “you walked according to the aión of this kosmos” (literal translation of the Greek in Ephesians 2:1-2). You walked according to the aión, the zeitgeist of this present evil age. But now you have been “delivered from the dominion of darkness and transplanted into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13). That aión is like a cult — an ungodly culture. Now you know what it means to be a CounterCulture Disciple of Christ.

So you will need to stand apart from the practitioners of the zeitgeist of this age — apart from those who you consider as “friends” if they do not share your stand — apart from your family if they try to undermine your faith and drag you down into their conformity to this evil age — apart from your work colleagues if they try to use their positions to undermine your spiritual stand — even apart from your church and all churches if they are drinkers of the spirit of this evil age. That is what it means to be CounterCulture. Instead, you will love to live in that state of continual transformative metanoia which renews your mind — “mind” there meaning the very heart of you with all its godly desires, righteous will and devout aspirations.

Alan Morrison

AT THIS POINT IN OUR EXPLORATIONS, it would be prudent to write a few words as another Excursus about why the phenomena we have just explored in the previous section should happen at all. If we understood the reasons behind the development of religion and phony spirituality, we would be far less easily taken in by them.

Obviously, one of the reasons for these phenomena is that people are seeking in some kind of way — even if it is only to be distracted from the humdrum patterns of everyday life. Some are more serious, therefore their involvement with those phenomena will be a temporary distraction through which they have to pass before they can stabilize into true spirituality. I have experienced the difference between those two types, the dilettante and the serious. The former will become defensive and even vicious if they read my writings. The latter will be inquisitive and want to know more. However, by far the biggest reason for these phenomena is that most people in this world are influenced according to their subjective experience. It is all about them and a feel-good factor rather than finding comfort and faith in the purity of objective truth. Let us look at some typical examples of this phenomenon in three case studies:

CASE #1: “As I entered the vast cathedral, a choir was singing the Miserere by Gregorio Allegri and I was immediately overcome by a sense of the presence of God”.

Here the person imagines that the understandable awe at the architectural achievement of the edifice and the audio-reverb of the choir echoing around the rafters signifies the presence of God. There is no doubt whatsoever that a vast cathedral can be awe-inspiring and Allegri’s Miserere is a very beautiful piece of music which can instill a sense of peace in the listener. But neither of those things are in themselves exclusive indicators of ‘the presence of God’. Of course, God is surely present in that cathedral, but He was also present in that muddy puddle which you stepped in (and bitterly cursed) on the way to the cathedral, for God is omnipresent. You do not have to visit a cathedral or listen to Allegri for God to be present. You are confusing the release of dopamine, oxytocin and endorphins in your body with the presence of God. For those are all released when listening to fine music (and even more so when singing it). Essentially, your quasi-religious experience in the cathedral was based on pure subjectivism rather than objective reality. When you can laugh instead of curse when you step in a muddy puddle, knowing that God is right in there too, then you will have a better understanding of the presence of God — one which is rooted in objective truth rather than in mere subjective experience, as I will show below.

CASE #2: “As the pastor tapped my forehead with his hand and spoke in tongues over me, I felt the Holy Spirit enter me and my knees went weak and I collapsed in a heap on the floor as if I were drunk. From then on, I believed”.

I can assure you that this had nothing whatsoever to do with the Holy Spirit entering you, but was simply the result of hypnotic suggestion. You had seen the pastor performing this trick many times and watched all the people go down like ninepins under his hand. You knew what you had to do. So you were already primed like a clockwork toy for this to happen to you, too. I have seen exactly the same trick performed by Eastern gurus such as Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh — a hedonistic charlatan who changed his name to OSHO, and whose ashram was known to have been infiltrated by the CIA [see https://indiafacts.org/religious-crusades-cia/ ]. [See the photo attached to this piece comparing the charismatic “Christian” practice of being “slain in the spirit” and OSHO’s administration of the same devilish initiation]. And, no, that was not a ‘counterfeit of the Christian experience’ as until the charismatic movement came along no God-respecting pastor would entertain such stupidity with the people in his care. These are satanic tricks to inculcate the illusion of genuine spirituality, yet they are taken as normal in so many churches today. It is merely one more example of subjective experience being used falsely as a yardstick to trounce the objective power of God.

You say that from that phony experience onward you believed. Believed what? That a pastor can ‘zap’ you into imagining you have been indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God? The Holy Spirit is described as the One to “whom God has given to those who obey Him” (Book of Acts, chapter 5, verse 32). Being ‘zapped’ by a huckster pastor (like in the image above) does not constitute obedience to God. The same idea of preliminary obedience is present when Jesus said to His disciples, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to be with you forever — the Spirit of truth” (Gospel of John, chapter 14, verses 15-17). So, keeping His commandments. There is yet another preliminary element as well. It is what is conveyed in the Koine Greek word μετανοέω, metanoeó, which is often translated as “repent” but in the Greek it fully means vowing to live a totally different life, with a completely transformed mind, turning your back on your former ways (Book of Acts, chapter 2, verse 38). That vow of transformation, coupled with obedience to Christ and keeping His commandments, are what gives rise to the Holy Spirit coming into a person and ‘taking up residence’ there. That is objective truth in action. I do not see any of that present in your unfortunate subjective experience at the hands of that impostor who laid his filthy hands on you. So now you know what to do if you are serious about being Christ’s disciple and wanting to receive His Holy Spirit: Obey God, love Christ and keep His commandments.

CASE #3: “As I listened to the Tibetan singing bowls ringing out, I felt a sense of deep relaxation and amazing things happening inside my body. The vibrations resonated with my energies and I felt myself align with my higher self, the God within”.

I am sorry to tell you that what you experienced was mostly the placebo effect coupled with a reduction in your stress-inducing cortisone levels and an enhancement of the same hormones I mentioned above in relation to music-listening, which brings feelings of relaxation that those hooked on subjective experience translate as a higher spiritual phenomenon. New Age practices are predominantly emotional/ hormonal highs involving autohypnotism to induce an altered state of consciousness, making the experiencer confuse that with some kind of spiritual occurrence. Getting ‘blissed-out’ has nothing to do with true spirituality. It is instead a self-indulgent practice which has been mistaken for spiritual advancement. The demonic realm uses subjective experiences to deceive you into imagining that you are advancing spiritually and to deflect you from discovering the objective truth which will set you free. Like the ‘slain in the spirit’ experience of “Christians”, New Age folks have been programmed about what will happen when they undergo various ‘therapies’. It is entirely subjective, which is the axis on which all New Age workshops and experiences turn. New Age religion dines on a smorgasbord of subjectivism, which is just another form of narcissism.

(NB: I should also add that the illusion of “the God within” is another lie sold to you courtesy of the demonic realm. I have already addressed this lie in full in earlier sections of the book, especially in the Excursus on “The Thread of Satanic Religion from Antiquity to the Present”].

I could share many more cases, but I hope the point has been made. It is not on any subjective physical or emotional experiences that a disciple should base his or her sense of peace but, rather, on the objective fact of having been reconciled to God through Christ, exactly as promised in the sacred texts to those who align themselves with the will of God. There is a vast difference between ‘feelings’ of peace and actually knowing that peace has been forged. The first is an artificial peace based on subjective experience, while the latter is a true peace rooted in the objective work of Christ. The world will offer you an earthbound peace which will either be the space between two wars or the illusion of bliss (cf. Gospel of John, chapter 14, verse 27). But Christ will bring about an actual condition of peace which is permanent and spiritual — a state which persists even in times of affliction and regardless of how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ we may feel. Subjective experience is not a litmus test of spiritual truth. As Jesus said to His disciples, “Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Gospel of Luke, chapter 10, verse 20). That is objective truth!

The visible “Church” is now in the throes of a major time of sifting as a result of Divine judgment, in which there is increasingly a visible separation into two distinct kinds of gatherings — one true, the other false. The true Ekklesia consists of disciples who are naturally and effortlessly obedient (and love to be so) to the teachings of Christ and the Apostles, who establish their gatherings through healthy teaching, who base their salvation on what Christ did in space, time and history, and who are willing to lay down their lives in order to defend the truth. The false ‘Church’, on the other hand, consists of those whose ‘Christianity’ is based on personal revelations, fashionable ideas, and cleverly manipulated subjective religious experiences. The one is obedient to the revealed will of God, the other is manipulated by the forces of darkness.

This is why I have entitled this excursus “The cult of subjectivism vs the truth which sets you free”. The false ‘Church’ indulges in the former, whereas the true Ekklesia rejoices in the latter. When Jesus wanted to finger some people who had falsely claimed to believe in Him, He uttered these all-important words: “If you continue in My word, you are truly My disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (Gospel of John, chapter 8, verses 31-32). Those people then went on to show their true colours. Objective truth, spiritually speaking, involves knowing the truth which sets one free; and the only way to know that is to live your life according to Christ’s word and thereby to truly be His disciple. When you live according to Christ’s word, you know for sure that He cast out Satan from his usurped rulership of the world when He died and rose again and ascended to heaven. It is recorded… objectively. That is it. All your subjective experiences are meaningless spiritually — mere shiny dross on the stinking carcass of life in this corrupted fallen world. But living in the knowledge that Christ, through His death, resurrection and ascension, has cleared the way for you to overcome spiritual death and to be freed from living a life of moral failure is the truth that makes you free. This is in complete contrast to the prevailing cult of subjectivism (and it IS a cult!) which is not only the basis of New Age and other merely religious experience, but has now also become the dominant yardstick in so many churches.

Finally, we cannot ignore the fact that the visible church has become a hotbed of infiltrators and even spooks (as we have seen in previous sections of this book) who have crept in, influencing people with phenomenal, entirely subjective experiences to distract them from ‘the simplicity which is in Christ’ and what should constitute the true regeneration (and, ultimately, resurrection) of a human being. What we mostly have now representing “the Church” in the world is a hotch-potch of crazy subjectivist ideas which have initiated movements, megachurches and ministries influencing millions upon millions of gullible folks with fantasies and fallacies that beggar belief. During the coming years, or however long remains of this present evil age, that ‘hotch-potch’ of crazy subjectivism (which is essentially a lie) will massively increase and the love of truth will decrease commensurately, climaxing in the time when they will have “refused the love of the truth that would have saved them” (Second Letter to the Thessalonians, chapter 2, verse 10). Until people learn the difference between the cult of subjectivism and the objective truth which sets them free, they will continue to be inveigled by strange teachings and practices which are very far removed from truth.

Alan Morrison

[The above is an extract from my recent 210-page book, “Discerning the Signs of the Times: The CIA and Subversion through Mind-Control, Satanism, Sorcery, and the Use of Religion and Cults as Tools of the New World Order”. You can download it for free here: https://diakrisis-project.com/…/new-book-discerning…/ ].

© Copyright, Alan Morrison, 2022

[The copyright on my works is merely to protect them from any wanton plagiarism which could result in undesirable changes (as has actually happened!). Readers are free to reproduce my work, so long as it is in the same format and with the exact same content and its origin is acknowledged]

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[BELOW are some thoughts about a strange teaching in many churches known as “The Rapture”, in which disciples of Christ will allegedly suddenly disappear off the face of the earth, while all others will be left behind to undergo the great tribulation under the Antichrist. My thoughts on this actually constitute a 4000-word ‘excursus’ related to Rev.11:11-12 in chapter 5 of my upcoming pastoral commentary on the Book of Revelation, “The Essence of Apocalypse”. I have extracted it here as a stand-alone article. I hope that you find it helpful and encouraging]

At this point in the book, as we are dealing with the resurrection of the saints (as depicted in the Book of Revelation, chapter 11, verses 11-12), it seems judicious to divert ourselves for a few moments in an excursus about what is commonly called “The Rapture” — a term which seems to have captivated the minds of so many church-people, for whom it has become their go-to heart’s desire. I keep seeing, “I can’t wait to be raptured!” or “The Rapture is the next item on the prophetic agenda”, or I read about rear car bumper stickers advising the driver behind to keep well back as the driver in the car with the sticker “could be raptured at any moment”, implying that the vehicle in front will have no driver and the car will go out of control! Right off, let me say that all these sentiments are totally misplaced as the next items on the prophetic agenda are the firming up of the great apostasy and the formation of a global government along with the revealing of the Antichrist which triggers the great tribulation (Second Letter to the Thessalonians, chapter 2, verses 1-3).

This ‘Rapture’ craze has arisen historically in the USA in the 19^th century through Plymouth Brethren teacher John Nelson Darby, then eventually massively popularized through the Scofield Reference Bible in the 20th century. I remember someone giving me one of those ‘bibles’ in my early believing days. As I perused the extensive notes, I had the distinct feeling that I was holding something really tacky in my hands. I will never forget that feeling, which is a bit like having something dirty on your skin which needs to be washed away as soon as possible. I truly enjoyed throwing it in the bin. Thank God for the gift of discernment!

When I was looking into all this, I watched a number of the “Left Behind” movies. All I can say is, “What a load of old codswallop!” Really, what are people coming to that they make a comic-strip story out of thin air and completely undermine what the Ekklesia should really be looking forward to in prophetic and eschatological terms? Is the Church on crack? Seriously! This idea of the ‘rapture’ has evolved partly because of a Greek word which occurs in the First Letter to the Thessalonians, chapter 4, verse 17. The text in English says:

“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will be the first to rise. After that, we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord”.First Letter to the Thessalonians, chapter 4, verse 17

The idea of the “rapture” comes from the words “caught up” in the above text. This is a translation of the Greek word, ἁρπάζω, harpazó. The Latinization of that word is the origin of the English word “rapture”. One Greek word-study source states that this word means “to take by an open display of force (i.e. not covertly or secretly)”. The same Greek word was used in the Bible to refer to Christ “plundering” Satan’s possessions: “How can anyone enter a strong man’s house and plunder his possessions, unless he first ties up the strong man?” (Gospel of Matthew, chapter 12, verse 29). So we can be certain that the act of being “caught up” (essentially ‘plundered’ or even ‘taken forcefully’!) in that text is not some secret phenomenon but is a sudden, openly-viewed one. This is important, as I will show below.

In the above text, we see that the saints at Thessalonica had become concerned that those who had died may not be resurrected, so Paul was putting them right. The dead who have been faithful disciples of Christ when they were alive will be reunited with the transmuted particles of energy which made up their physical bodies (wherever, and in however many many bits, they may be!) and raised from the dead first, then those who are alive would be transmuted too (“changed in the twinkling of an eye”, First Letter to the Corinthians, chapter 12, verse 22), and would join them in the presence of God (which is the symbolic meaning of “clouds” here and in many other texts, as I have discussed at length in chapter 3, §6).

It is obvious that the text above which speaks of “we who are alive” being “caught up” together with those who are “the dead in Christ” is a direct reference to the resurrection of the saints at the time of the end, at the second coming of Christ, just before judgement rains down on the earth. In that event, the dead saints will rise first with their resurrection bodies, then those who are still alive will be transformed too, and it will be witnessed by the world (Book of Revelation, chapter 11, verse 11). People will see the risen saints! There is no rapture as a separate incident happening out of the blue before the great tribulation or years before the second coming of Christ. That is a completely false teaching.

Paul speaks in the “caught up” text about “the trumpet of God”. That is symbolic of the Divine fiat which draws the saints heavenward. We see in the Book of Revelation that it is styled there symbolically as the seventh trumpet — the final trumpet which heralds the end and gives way to the judgement bowls of the fury of God being poured out on the cosmos. It is clear that the resurrection of the saints will come after a good while of the great tribulation, and immediately before the judgement. [In chapter 9 when dealing with chapter 20 in the Book of Revelation, I will show that there will be no thousand-year reign of Christ on the earth, as that is another literalist fantasy which is cut from the same cloth as the ‘Rapture’].

The resurrection of the saints coming right on the heels of the great tribulation (and therefore leaving no place for a secret advance ‘rapture’ or any earthly millennium) can be demonstrated in many places. For example, in the Book of Revelation, chapter 11, verses 1-6, we read about the “two witnesses” — a symbolic literary device depicting the Ekklesia testifying to the world about Christ throughout the Age of the Ekklesia, the period of time between the ascension of Christ and the resurrection of the saints. I have taken readers through this already earlier in this chapter. Then we read, “When the two witnesses have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will wage war with them, and will overpower and kill them” (Book of Revelation, chapter 11, verse 7). This is a clear reference to the Antichrist, empowered by Satan, persecuting and killing the saints, such as we will discover in chapter 13, verse 7: “Then the beast was permitted to wage war against the saints and to conquer them”. As we see above, that will be straight after the Ekklesia has “finished its testimony” (i.e. the end of all gospel proclamation has been reached).

The same timeline is emphasised in a prophecy in the Book of Daniel, when he speaks of “a time of distress, the likes of which will not have occurred from the beginning of nations until that time” — plainly the same time of great tribulation as that to which Christ refers in chapter 24 of Matthew’s gospel and those two references from the Book of Revelation above. Again, this is immediately followed by a reference to the resurrection from the dead: “But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered. And many who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, but others to shame and everlasting contempt” (Book of Daniel, chapter 12, verses 1-2).

So it is obvious that the saints are not going to be secretly ‘raptured’ off the earth but will go through the great tribulation and then be resurrected at Christ’s return. No ‘rapture’ and no ‘thousand-year’ reign of Christ on earth. This is precisely why Christ said that those who persevere to the end will be saved (Gospel of Matthew, chapter 24, verse 13). They must persevere because of the tribulation. The Lord Jesus said Himself that the time of great tribulation would be triggered by the revealing of the Antichrist (Gospel of Matthew, chapter 24, verses 15-22). [I should also add that the “abomination of desolation standing in the holy place” in verse 15 of that text is clearly parallel to Paul saying that the Antichrist “will seat himself in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God” (Second Letter to the Thessalonians, chapter 2, verse 4). Although this is an echo of what Antiochus IV Epiphanes did in 168 BC, when he sacrificed a pig to Zeus in the temple in Jerusalem (for Antiochus IV was a type or forerunner of the Antichrist), the words of Jesus and Paul have nothing to do with any physical temple but point to the Antichrist (the “man of lawlessness”) who will set himself up as God to be worshipped in the minds and hearts of humanity — the ultimate blasphemy].

We also see that immediately after the tribulation of those days:

“The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. And He will send out His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other”.Gospel of Matthew, chapter 24, verses 29-31

Again, we have that phrase, “coming on the clouds”, symbolic of the Divine presence (see chapter 3, §6, above for more on this). What so many call “the Rapture” is actually the resurrection of those disciples who are still alive at the second coming of Christ which comes at the end of the great tribulation (in which the saints will have suffered but which time is cut short for their sakes, as Jesus clearly states, Gospel of Matthew, chapter 24, verses 21-22) and precedes the terrible judgement on the world which comes immediately after it. The passage above from Christ is exactly as Paul said it would be. That is not some secret rapture prior to everything else eschatological. It is the resurrection! Why do people have to invent these diversionary comic-book scenarios which are an embarrassment to truth rather than an enhancement of it?

So it is after the tribulation that the saints will be resurrected. There is no place anywhere in the scriptures for a separate previous “rapture” off the earth of the saints before the tribulation or resurrection. Not only that, but the resurrection and accompanying judgement form the immediate precursor to the new heavens and new earth, and not to any thousand-year reign of Christ on this earth as it is presently constituted. We can see this from Peter’s words here, when he speaks of

“the coming of the day of God, when the heavens will be destroyed by fire and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with God’s promise, we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells”.Second Letter of Peter, chapter 3, verses 12-13

In the same context, Peter says that “the Day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar, the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and its works will no longer be able to be found (literally ‘unfindable’)”. So Christ returns and then the present heaven and earth will be destroyed. No place then for any dodgy thousand-year reign of Christ on this earth, for the false state of Israel will be long gone! [I mention Israel here because it plays a big part in the Endtimes of the ‘rapture/millennium’ folks. One could almost say that the ‘rapture’ and ‘thousand-year reign’ have been invented specifically to accommodate the judaizing which is so popular in dispensationalist rapture/millennium circles]. So what we are looking forward to is not a secret advance ‘rapture’ or a thousand-year reign of Christ on the earth. Those are will-o-the-wisp inventions. Instead, we are looking forward to the return of Christ and the new heaven and new earth.

The “day of God” or the “day of the Lord” are interchangeable phrases which refer to the return of Christ. To enlighten some who were saying that ‘Day’ had already passed, Paul showed the disciples in Thessalonica that the global apostasy and the coming of the Antichrist had to come first, who “the Lord Jesus will slay with the breath of His mouth and annihilate by the majesty of His arrival” (Second Letter to the Thessalonians, chapter 2, verse 8. But see the whole chapter). There is no place for any rapture there — no place for any thousand-year earthly reign of Christ in that entire prophetic passage. For these are fantasies which have been generated by hyper-literalists.

Now you may say to me that old chestnut, “What about where it says the one taken from the field, etc.?” This is a reference to the text which says, “Two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left” (Gospel of Matthew, chapter 24, verses 40-41). This is used as a classic proof-text for the ‘rapture’ by those promoting it. But if one looks at it in its context, then one will discover that it means exactly the opposite! So many cultish ideas develop when people take a small portion of scripture out of context. So, here is the full context:

“No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark. And they were oblivious, until the flood came and swept them all away. So will it be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left. Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day on which your Lord will come”.Gospel of Matthew, chapter 24, verses 36-42

The context is clearly the second coming of Christ, which He had just been specifically speaking of in verses 30-31 of that 24^th chapter in Matthew’s gospel. Christ is comparing that time to the time of the judgement of the flood and how similar many elements will be when comparing those days with the day when Christ will return. So already this text is not about a secret rapture prior to the great tribulation. It is about what happens at the globally-witnessed return of Christ, for openly “every eye will see Him” (Book of Revelation, chapter 1, verse 7). The unbelieving, scoffing people in Noah’s time were oblivious of the impending judgement but were then “swept away” by the flood. Similarly, when Christ returns, there will be a division. There will be those who are taken away into judgement and those who will remain under the protecting hand of God and spared from such judgement. It is a classic case of the kind of parallelism which one finds throughout the Bible. The parallelism here is between those who laughed at Noah and those who have disbelieved in Christ. The scoffers of Noah were swept away by the flood and the disbelievers in Christ will be “taken away” for judgement. So, the ones who are said to be “taken” in this text are not disciples of Christ being ‘raptured’ but they are those who are not His disciples being taken away to judgement — the exact opposite of what the ‘rapture’ fantasists say!

Some may say (in that rational-sounding condescension of pretended peacemakers), “Well we have to be gracious and accept that there are differences of nuance between believers about the timing and various aspects of the second coming. After all, Scripture hasn’t been 100% clear on this”. I agree that we should always do everything we can to be gracious, but I cannot accept that Scripture has not been clear on this. I believe I have already been gracious enough as I haven’t publicly said much or written anything about the ‘rapture’ during the many decades that I have been aware of it. But now enough is enough. In a world stuffed full of dissembling, dissimulation, deception and counterfeit, I do not believe that the Ekklesia should stick its neck out to be gracious towards a teaching which has become a cancer in its midst along with many other nutty teachings. I have therefore come to the conclusion that these are not teachings about which one can graciously ‘agree to differ’. Those who have been deceived by such teachings I do feel gracious towards; but not towards the teaching itself. Like any wildfire, it seems containable at first but then it gets out of hand. And all these hyper-literalist fantasies have got out of hand. What is more, it is a terrible thing to evangelise new disciples into the Ekklesia, who will say, “What am I supposed to believe about x or y?”, and then bombard them with a pile of comic-book manufactured baloney about the Endtimes.

Imagine the pastoral fallout when the expected ‘rapture’ has not happened and the Antichrist is revealed and then tribulation against the saints goes ballistic. Many who believed that “the rapture is the next item on the prophetic agenda” (as I have read many times and heard many say) will be devastated and think that they have been “left behind”. The Ekklesia should always be prepared for persecution rather than imagining it will escape it. One of the main reasons that what presents itself as “the Church” to the world is not hideously persecuted is that it is not really counterculture and does not challenge the fundamental satanic nature of the world-system. In the main, it supports illegal genocidal wars (provided they are only initiated by the US or UK, and I remember vividly when the US/UK-initiated war on Iraq was raging, by far the most criticism of my articles proving there were no weapons of mass destruction there came from those calling themselves “Christian”. The “my government, right or wrong” attitude of many professing Christians is evidence of its failure to be counterculture). In the main, it slavishly adheres to the notion of “government good” even when it is corrupt and plainly serving satanic interests. In the main, it operates on the basis of “bums on pews” (with a ‘megachurch’ as the pinnacle of that) as a mark of success, rather than the quality of soul-growth of individual disciples, or the ability of disciples to communicate truth into a mendacious and deceptive world.

Frankly, the “Church” as the world sees it has become a laughing stock with its fads and fashions, fat-cat televangelist baloney, phony healers, Sunday-best error-spotting sexually-repressed legalistic Pharisaism, sacerdotal fetishism, with ‘woke’ figureheads of the likes of the Archbishop of Canterbury and pseudo-state pontificating rulers like the Pope of the Vatican. Sadly, the Church has, in so many areas, become a joke. This is partly why it is not generally severely persecuted. It doesn’t need to be. It destroys itself from the inside outwards. And now a great many believe with conviction that they will suddenly be transported in a ‘rapture’ off the earth before any persecution can happen to them. Is it possible that Satan himself could have planted such a ‘snowflake’ notion in the minds of so many who profess to be disciples of Christ? I believe so.

Now, if you want to say, “I believe in the ‘rapture’ but I’m not pre-trib but post-trib”, I reply thus: All that pre-trib/post-trib stuff is jargon which you do not need to spout. And you certainly do not want to be using the word “rapture” as it is so loaded. All we know is that the Ekklesia, dead and alive, will be “whisked away” by Christ when He brings the tribulation to a close (shortening it for the elect), destroys the Antichrist and brings judgement on the world. As soon as you say, “I’m post-trib”, you become embroiled in an “I’m this/I’m that” dispute, which is harmful and unnecessary. Forget the jargon. I simply declare that there will be a time of great tribulation for disciples of Christ followed by His return to judge the world and inaugurate the new heaven and new earth.

In this world, disciples of Christ “will have tribulation”. But, as Christ said as a counter to that, “Take courage, for I have overcome the world” (Gospel of John, chapter 16, verse 33). This is the essence of the teaching on tribulation for disciples. That they will undergo such affliction but that they will have more than adequate spiritual protection against it through being “sealed by the Spirit” (See Book of Revelation, chapter 7, verse 3; chapter 9, verse 4). This is why, immediately after writing at length about the horrors of the satanic world-system which climaxes with the Antichrist and terrible persecution of the saints being “conquered” by him, and the mesmerized world wandering around with the “mark of the beast” (all of which is in chapter 13 of the Book of Revelation), we are told that all the saints have Christ’s “name and His Father’s name written on their foreheads” (Book of Revelation, chapter 14, verse 1). We may well undergo hideous persecution in the physical, but we are spiritually protected. There is no need for any ‘rapture’ to whisk us away from persecution, for we have all the protection we need and will even be strengthened by it. This is why, when speaking about the great tribulation, Christ tells His people that in the midst of “the multiplication of wickedness” and “the love of most” growing cold, “the one who perseveres to the end will be saved” (Gospel of Matthew, chapter 24, verses 12-13). Similarly, in each of the letters to the seven ekklesia in chapters 2 and 3 of the Book of Revelation, those gatherings of disciples are each given a promise if they “overcome”, precisely because they will be subjected to persecution by authorities and overrun by pseudo-apostles and false teachings. Overcoming is a major hallmark of the genuine disciple of Christ. In fact, the bigger the obstacle to be overcome, the more victorious and comforted the disciple is!

What the saints need is not to be whisked away from persecution but to be sealed by the Spirit in their own spirits, which is what happens to all genuine disciples of Christ. The true disciple relishes persecution, for s/he knows that it is a faith-strengthener and courage-developer, not to mention a revealer that one is speaking the truth and doing the work. I suspect that the reasons for so many having to rely on a non-existent guarantee of being whisked away from persecution by a fictitious event is not only the poor level of teaching in the churches but the unwillingness by many to be taught and the lack of Spirit-sealing in their ranks. What other reasons could there be? It has puzzled me for decades, as the world rolls ever-closer to those prophesied times of affliction.

Alan Morrison

.© 2021, Alan Morrison / The Diakrisis Project. All Rights Reserved. [The copyright on my works is merely to protect them from any wanton plagiarism which could result in undesirable changes (as has actually happened!). Readers are free to reproduce my work, so long as it is in the same format and with the exact same content and its origin is acknowledged]

Spänningen att äntligen ha samlat mod övervägde min rädsla när jag ropade hennes namn och cyklade fram till henne. Efter lite ytligt snicksnack tog jag mod till mig och ställde frågan. Hon sa tvekande ja, exakt samtidigt som en vit Nissan Patrol med ett brett grönt streck på sidan tvärstannade bakom mig – en tydlig avvikelse från trafikflödet på Shariati-gatan. Ur bilen steg två gigantiska män (jag är knappt 1,70 i strumplästen nu). En av dem kom fram till mig, tittade ner på mig och frågade om hon var min syster. Jag ville säga nej, att vi bara var grannar, men jag hann bara säga nej innan örfilen fick mitt öra att ringa och sänkte mig till marken. Jag reste mig snabbt upp, men rädslan och skammen satt kvar. Med tårarna nästan rinnandes och gråten i halsgropen försökte jag ljuga att hennes familj var vän med vår och att jag bara ville lämna ett meddelande om att de skulle komma hem till oss imorgon kväll. Men han lyssnade inte, han drog mig i håret medan han skrek okvädningsord, vars innehåll jag inte längre minns. Han avslutade med att rycka loss en tuss av mitt hår vid tinningen och drog ner hennes slöja framför ansiktet för att sedan slå henne på hjässan med något hårt innan de åkte sin väg till nästa samhällsviktiga uppdrag. Den dagen blev det ingen glass, och inte heller någon annan dag. I stället fick jag känna och lära mig godtycklighet och underkastelse in på bara skinnet.

Tvingades sluta

Islam sägs betyda underkastelse, och det är precis vad själva religionen handlar om. År 1979 blev Iran en islamisk republik. Allt skulle bli så bra, hävdade Imam Khomeini, den andlige ledaren, och det blev bra för somliga. Vi skanderade “självständighet, frihet, Islamisk Republik” på gatorna, men islam som ideologi och statsskick hade en annan definition av frihet. Först var det frivilligt med hijab, sedan blev det obligatoriskt att bära islamisk hijab, eller som de sa, klä sig enligt islamisk sed, på myndigheter och senare överallt på offentliga platser för att inte hetsa upp män och skydda sig. Min syster tvingades sluta simträna på elitnivå. Min gymnastiktränare lämnade landet när tjejerna inte längre fick vara med i laget och träna. Alkoholhaltiga drycker och kassettband med oislamisk musik beslagtogs, och överträdelser kunde leda till arresteringar, örfilar eller piskstraff. Skräck och terror var det vi kände.

Ni kanske tänker att jämförelsen med Iran haltar, eftersom vi lever i Sverige. Visst, jag håller med, men jag vill ändå påminna er om att tänka efter. Känner ni igen vissa av dessa restriktioner på vissa håll även i Sverige? För 15 år sedan, hur många av er kände till eller brydde er om begrepp som omskärelse, haram, halal, niqab, hijab, hedersmord, moralpolis, oskuldsintyg, oskuldsoperationer, barnäktenskap och sharialagar?

Vår regering i världens mest sekulära land utnämner koranen som helig och överväger lagändring

Vi måste förstå att Sverige sannolikt är det mest toleranta och vänligaste landet för muslimer. Både ni etniska svenskar och vi med muslimsk bakgrund måste komma ihåg de anpassningar som det svenska samhället har gjort för att få alla att känna sig välkomna, och inte minst allt stöd och bidrag som har getts till olika samfund. Jämför detta sedan med hur sunniter har det i Iran eller shiiter i Saudiarabien. Fråga troende inom den islamiska grenen ahmaddiya hur många moskéer de har i Kuwait, Saudiarabien och Iran sammanlagt jämfört med Sverige och England. Ändå har man mage att kräva ännu mer underkastelse från just Sverige. Ändå är det just Sverige man fördömer.

Ni som vill förändra den svenska lagen. Ni vill väl. Men innerst inne börjar ni känna skräck. Kanske inte in på bara skinnet men likväl fruktan. Vår regering i världens mest sekulära land utnämner koranen som helig och överväger lagändring. Det är ett tydligt tecken på skräck. Kom ihåg att islam är på riktigt. Inte utspädd på gränsen till oigenkännlighet som den kristendom vi känner genom Svenska kyrkan. Om man är muslim på riktigt så vill man förbjuda all kränkning av allt som har med Islam att göra. Den franske läraren Samuel Paty hade inte kränkt någonting.

Omöjligt att avgränsa

Men var snälla och sluta låtsas att det ni gör handlar om att värna om muslimer och inse att det i själva verket handlar om skräck. Ni vet att det är omöjligt att på ett förutsägbart sätt avgränsa vad som inte är heligt, var gränsen går för skändning och ta höjd för religiösa känslor och förbli sekulär samtidigt. Det är med andra ord omöjligt att stifta lagar baserade på vidskepelser. Ändra lagen om ni vill, men det kommer aldrig att räcka – aldrig. Det är total underkastelse som gäller.

Pouya Movahed, överläkare och forskare i psykiatri vid Lunds universitet

https://www.facebook.com/groups/defriafaren

OJ, VEM KAN VARA OBERÖRD AV ALLA DESSA VITTNESBÖRD?

Känner igen mig i mycket, eftersom jag (för länge sedan) blev offentligt brännmärkt p.g.a mina varningssignaler för trosrörelsens förgrundsgestalter (Kenneth Copeland & Co). Denne svenske pastor inom en trosrörelseförsamling fick jag förlåta och har nu en bra relation med.

I dom många inläggen ser vi att upplevd skuldbeläggning från både Gud och människor, är ett återkommande begrepp som många av dessa f.d. kyrkomedlemmar, de “fria fåren”, för fram.

Så väsensskilt detta framstår jämfört med min egen vandring mot frälsning i Jesus Kristus, där ett år efter år alltmer intensifierat behov av syndernas förlåtelse växte fram, tills jag en dag lutad mot motorhuven av min bil, till sist insåg att jag inte kunde fortsätta mitt liv i synd.

Då, direkt, blev detta behov så akut, att min första prioritet blev att jag bara måste få syndernas förlåtelse i Jesus Kristus. Per omgående.

Min undran är nu, har alla dessa “fria får” aldrig subjektivt fått ta emot syndaförlåtelsen som vår Skapare erbjuder i Jesus? Har dom ingen egen personlig erfarenhet av detta? Det är nämligen här det nya livet startar. Det är här djupa känslor av frihet kan välla fram ur en människans inre. Tacksamhet. Frihet från syndens slaveri.

Kan detta vara huvudorsaken till alla deras problem? För om man fått förlåtelse, så är det möjligt att förlåta andra människor, även om det inte alltid är en engångsföreteeelse, utan kan behöva återkommande initiativ från den förorättades sida.

Och: Erbjöd och fokuserade alla dessa kyrkor, främst inom pingst/ trosrörelsen, på något annat än syndernas förlåtelse, fördelar av olika slag för den som ville “tro på Jesus”?

Om inte den rätta grunden blir lagd i en människas liv. kommer bygget att rasa. Jesus själv är ju den som lär oss denna princip.

Har kyrkorna förkunnat frälsning genom enbart “tro” utan omvändelse?

Är detta vad som drabbat de “fria fåren”? Dom fann kyrkornas gemenskap attraktiv och behövde inte vända om för att få syndernas förlåtelse? Och dom köpte smidigt och lätt in sig på det konceptet?

Om svaret är ja, kan vi ju bara förvänta oss sabbade människoliv, tragedier i den kristna religionens fotspår, ett livslångt lidande där dom “fria fåren” behöver all hjälp dom kan få, för att kunna leva ett liv med nya möjligheter för framtiden.

Har inte hela bilden. Synpunkter och tillrättalägganden uppskattas därför.

PRIVATE GROUP • 720 MEMBERSDe fria fåren – Vi som dekonstruerar, lämnar eller förändrar vår tro

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Friends, I know a lot of very good people are very sincere when they do altar calls. And people get saved…despite the altar calls, not because of them.

Why don’t I do altar calls or lead people in a sinner’s prayer? Because those things can’t be found in the Scriptures. Also, those things can convince people they’re saved when they’re not. When that happens, people will continue wallowing in sin, thinking they’re saved (I have met many of those), or else they’ll say, “I tried Christianity and it didn’t work” (I have met many of those). They only think they tried Christianity, because they did what the preacher said, and the preacher said they were saved…but they weren’t.

The Lord commanded people to “count the cost” before committing to follow him (Luke 14:25-33). Emotional altar calls (EACs) short-circuit that process. EACs use soft music, closing the eyes, and a well-intended preacher who persuades sinners to “come forward” before some are ready to repent. It’s like delivering a baby at four or five months instead of nine. Some ‘babies’ live, while some do not.

Even worse is when preachers say things like “You’ll be happy” or “Your life will be better” during EACs. Well, God did actually give promises about the Christian life. He said it would be a life of suffering, crucifying self, and opposition from this world’s system (Romans 5:3-5; 1 Peter 5:10; James 1:2-4; John 16:33; 2 Timothy 3:12).

The Lord saved thousands of people in different ways in the book of Acts, and their experience was expressed in different ways, but they all had these things in common: They heard the Gospel, they repented by faith, and they were baptized (immediately!). Oh, there’s one more thing they had in common: None of them were converted while listening to soft music with their heads bowed and their eyes closed.

I know good people will disagree with me on this. I still love you, as I’m sure you love me.

P.S. Yes, I used the word ‘manipulation,’ but I said repeatedly that they are well-intended.

This is only an effort to persuade. I don’t mean to insult anyone.

John Allcott