Diabolos: King of the Infernal, Part 2: A Friend of the Devil

The cause of the fall from heaven is often misunderstood. Lucifer became Satan as we know him now at a steep cost. Some writers think that he was then cast out of heaven (Luke 10:18) and then made the ‘air’ and the ‘earth’ the settings for his unholy activity (Ephesians 2:2; 1 Peter 5:8). The haughty ruler of Babylon and the miserable King of Tyre (Ezekiel 28:12-18) is fittingly described in parallel with the once glorious chief in heaven. Ezekiel 28’s passage is a lamentation against the king of Tyre that describes a figure of perfect wisdom and beauty who falls because of pride. Though the prophecy is directed at a human ruler, many rightly allegorically interpret it as describing Satan's fall from heaven.

The description of a created, perfect being in "Eden, the garden of God," adorned with gems, is seen as referring to Satan's origins rather than the human king. The "guardian cherub" (Ezekiel 28:14) is understood as representing Satan's former position as a high-ranking angel before his rebellion. The passage's mention of the cherub's heart being "proud because of your beauty" and the finding of "unrighteousness" is interpreted as describing Satan's motive for rebelling against God. The fire that consumes the cherub symbolizes divine judgment and Satan's ultimate destiny; a concept found in other scriptures.

So, his pride was his downfall, as he elevated himself because of his exceptional beauty and brightness. Such a shallow reason to be doomed and condemned. We see the same often in the haughty behavior or celebrities and so called ‘stars’.

"Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So, I threw you to the earth; I made a spectacle of you before kings" Ezekiel 28:17

In this passage he is also expressly called an angel (Ezekiel 28:14-16) and a fallen angel. He was an "anointed" cherub, set apart for a God given task. He is spoken of as having dwelt in the garden of God, the paradise of God, the holy mountain of God, the sanctuary in Exodus 38:13. Because of the enormous and eternal issues related to Satan's fall, we need to more closely examine the causes of his rebellion. That pride and ambition were especially the sins by which Satan fell is sufficiently evident from Paul's warning about being lifted up with pride.

Lucifer exceeded all other angels in power and glory was made something of an equivalent to "Secretary of State" to represent God, Satan was not content with a place of subordination to the will of God. He rebelled against divine sovereignty and allowed self-will to assert itself in defiance of God's will (Isaiah 14:13, 14; 2 Thessalonians 2:4). The exact point in time in which Satan rebelled against his Creator is known only to God and Satan. Was it an instantaneous decision or a long festering grudge only they would know. What we do know is there was a point or decisive moment in eternity past when this ‘prince’ of the Most High renounced his allegiance to God, and thereby changed from "Lucifer," the "light-bearer" of divine glory, into an "adversary" of God and a "slanderer" of His people. In that exact moment he became a fallen being before the world we understand today and before man and woman were created as evidenced from the fact that he appears to Eve as the serpent and deceived her in Genesis 3.

Because of His sovereign will, God gave to angels and men, regardless of the perfection of intellect and will, the ability to choose between good and evil. It was at this point that Lucifer used his gift against the Giver. Created in grace and lifted to the supernatural plane, we would have thought that his dazzling quality of angelic perfection would have precluded the very thought of sin. Instead, he symbolically and through actions spit in God’s face. In essence, Satan failed to make his will one with God's will. The two purely spiritual sins of pride and envy are the primary culprits. Since envy demands pride as an absolute prerequisite, it becomes clear that the sin of Lucifer was pride.

The form of pride resulting in the fall of Lucifer was the pride of position. He wanted not only to be equal with or above God (Isaiah 14:12-14), but to prevent the divine purpose for the Son of God and for the sons of men. Some of the writers argue that the devil rebelled against God because of His desire to make men like angels and to take the place of fallen angels. The redemptive purpose of God is not to give men the vacated thrones of evil angels but to fashion all who believe into His church.

... that the angels, learning of the setting up of a kingdom for the man Christ Jesus, and of the divine purpose that the human nature was to be united to the Second Person of the Trinity, and that He was to be the Head of all principality and power, became envious of their own position. God having thus declared His great love for mankind, Satan, or Lucifer, being the archangel, the very highest and brightest of all God's creatures, could not bear it, thought it below him and a great debasing of his exalted position. So, he conceived rebellion against the Almighty, and drew a vast company with him: their refusing to be subject to Christ, as man thus assumed, was their first sin and in opposition set up another kingdom against Him. ~ Jonathan Edwards

It was through pride that Lucifer became Satan, the "black sheep" in the family of God. Satan was God’s original Judas. Through this opposition to God, he brought a curse upon himself. God never cursed sinful man, but the serpent is under a curse that can never be repealed. That is why man's pride makes him a friend of the Devil. How true it is that the Devil sleeps like a dangerous animal in the shadow of good works, when we conceive a secret admiration for ourselves, we too condemn ourselves. Wise are those who become poor in spirit. Humility is the core of the Godliness and the path to righteousness. That is why Philippians 2:5-11 says:

“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.:

Jesus in Philippians 2 does the exact opposite of what Satan did in his fall thereby losing the exact thing he wanted…God exalting him to the highest places and exalting his name before all other names. Arrogance equals failure, humility equals God-like character. Blessed are the meek…

We must never lose sight of is that the devil, although a fallen angelic being, is still an angel. True, he is a rebel angel, but he is still an angel created being having been created by God with and among the other celestial spirits; even his fall and disgrace did not deprive him of the angelic nature. Satan retains the privileges of his unchanged nature and is still able to display his original grandeur (2 Corinthians 11:14). Although now the angel of darkness, the devil persists because, in spite of everything, he is still an angel. We do not know the breathless height of perfection from which Satan fell: we only know that he carried this ‘perfection’ with him into darkness.

This should give us pause before arrogantly proclaiming that we can easily vanquish him as a foe. That is foolishness. By his angelic nature, the devil enjoys that independence distinctive characteristic of a pure spirit. Because of his angelic independence he is immune to pain, to injury, to sickness, to death; indeed, he is even immune to human discomfort. All though he is already morally corrupted, there are in him no possibilities of corruption and physical decay, no threat of a separation of parts that will result in death. He is physically incorruptible, immune to the pains, the limitations of flesh, immortal. Only God, by His almighty power, could destroy Satan, recalling the borrowed existence by which the devil lives; and this God will not do. Angels are spirits as opposed to flesh and blood. God’s main purpose to maintaining Satan’s existence is to have him serve as a bad example.

"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms Eph 6:12 also Luke 24:39). 

One of the most startling characteristics of the devil, to us who are constrained by time is his agelessness. It surprises many to see him as young now as when the world was born. He is undiminished, unweakened by age. Even now he has all the undiminished energy and dynamic robustness of full youth. Yet the fact is plain enough: a spirit does not grow old. They only age through eons. Since before Genesis 1 there is no moment in which he does not possess the full strength of angelic life. From the very first instant of his existence down. The Devil still lacks nothing of his perfection except for his morality. He has watched for millennia, the world grow old and the generations of men and women pass in unending procession from birth to death; when the last of that long line has passed, and the sun has set for the last time, Satan will still be young and vibrant. Yet, he will be condemned even in this pristine condition.

Although created to prominence in the realm of angels and of men, Satan is doomed to eternal remorse and torment. Cast out of heaven (Luke 10:18), then to the earth (Revelation 12:9), he is to be restrained for 1,000 years in the bottomless pit (Revelation 20:1-3) before being thrown into the lake of fire, the final depository of the devil, his fallen angels, and the wicked.

"And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever" (Revelation 20:10).

Engulfed by the blackest despair, and bitterly hating himself for his plight and for his burning opposition to God, Satan's terrible doom has been announced since time immemorial. Never to hope again. Condemned, just as the arrogant men who say this is no God or act as if they are gods.

Diabolos: King of the Infernal, Part 1: They/Them

Diabolos. Διάβολος. Devil. He goes by a litany of other names, but we know him best as The Devil, Lucifer or Satan.

…God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment. ~2 Peter 2:4

And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home-these he has kept in darkness, bound everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. ~Jude 6

It seems almost incomprehensible to me that any being so near to the throne of God, beholding His glory, would sin against Him and consequently suffer expulsion from His presence. But here we are…eons later contemplating this very thing. Wondering how something so smart could be so stupid. Something so esteemed by God could be brought so low. How something so beautiful could be made so ugly.

The Scripture is not silent as to open rebellion in the angelic hierarchy. The majority of the angelic beings have been true to God since their creation. They never cease to do His will in heaven. I wrote about them earlier this year. They have never defaulted, have ever been ready to run His errands. These are the angels who excel in strength and who, as God's ministers, messengers, do His commandments and heed His voice and His word.

"Praise the Lord, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word. Praise the Lord, all his heavenly hosts, you his servants who do his will" ~ Psalm 103:20-21.

We need to consider the highest angelic being responsible for the angels' rebellion against God. He is the pinnacle of hubris and spit in the eye of God. This type of arrogance and audacity is beyond human fathoming and apparently beyond otherworldly angelic fathoming too in many cases. We now enter the mind of darkness and try to consider the highest angelic being responsible for the angels' rebellion against God. It is evident that Satan is the leader of the fallen angels, for our Lord speaks of "the devil and his angels.” Revelation, reason, and experience warn us that there is a spiritual intelligence abroad in the world which is malignant and ceaselessly hostile to men.

So, what else can be discerned from Scripture? The Bible teaches that this intelligence is a person, not in the same sense as the Holy Spirit is a person, nor in the same sense as you and I are individual persons; but he has real personality or persona, in some sense comparable to divine and to human personality, but by no means the same as either. Clearly nefarious and not on the level though. Somehow corrupted, warped or debased.

The devil is certainly not a man with horns, hooves and a tail, as he is usually depicted; nor is he a entity to joke about. He needs to spiritually be dealt with in a somber manner as he is exceptionally dangerous. Personal pronouns are used to describe him, and we are warned to beware of his subtle craftiness. Currently, all forms of pronouns are used too, him, her, they, etc. Of course, the devil's best trick is to convince men that he doesn’t exist. If he is non-existent or dead, there must be someone carrying on his devilish work-which was never more evident than it is today. The modern mind may reject the idea of a satanic ruler because of the popular, repulsive and grotesque representation of him the Middle Ages gave the world, but the fact is that he makes plans with highest intelligence and is exceedingly powerful. His existence and influence were firmly believed by our Lord and His apostles.

Many Names (Therefore Pronouns)

Scripture, the only source of correct information concerning spiritual beings, makes it clear that one of the evil angels is vastly superior to the rest in capacity and influence, possessing far more power than the others, and referred to singly as being the grand enemy of God and man. Satan's name appears fifty-four times in the Bible. Hence Satan is designated by various names and titles of peculiar significance, which apply to one being only, revealing features of his character as is common in the names in the Bible:

Satan means "Adversary" (1 Peter 5:8, KJV)

Abaddon, Apollyon (Revelation 9:11) both mean "Destroyer"

Lucifer (Isaiah 14:12) means Daystar, Bright One, Morningstar or "Shining One"

Devil (Revelation 12:10) means "accuser," "slanderer"

Dragon (Revelation 12:9) indicates his power

The accuser of our brethren (Revelation 12:10)

Beelzebub (Matthew 12:24) means "lord of flies" or "prince of demons"

Belial (2 Corinthians 6:15), the low, abject one, means "worthlessness" in Old Testament

The deceiver of the whole world (Revelation 12:9)

An enemy (Matthew 13:28)

The wicked one (Matthew 13:19)

The father of lies (John 8:44)

A murderer from the beginning (John 8:44)

The prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:2)

Prince of this world (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11)

The god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4)

The prince of demons (Matthew 12:24)

That old serpent (Revelation 12:9)

The tempter (Matthew 4:3; 1 Thessalonians 3:5)

The tormentor (2 Corinthians 12:7)

Surely such an array of dreadful identities reveals the character of the devil is and provides the exact reasons why we should steer clear of him. HE is by no means a pushover and we should not engage him without the power of God and his Word on our side. He is a mighty angel, superior in natural capacity, power and wisdom, he excelled all other angels in honor and dignity and still outdoes them in discernment and shrewdness. Yet he was not always a who he is now.

Who then was he and how did he become what he is? At first, the light bearer now the prince of darkness, earning for himself the moniker as enemy of God, enemy of all that is good. We should never underestimate his power to cultivate an ignorance of his reality in modern society. Most of atheistic and unspiritual people are ignorant of him or worse, think he’s hip or cool. Blindness to the existence of an enemy makes it impossible to overcome his stratagems. It is foolish to underestimate his abilities and thereby invite defeat and welcome slavery to him. So now we need to understand him. To understand the depth of his malice and hatred of God and men we need to see just how far he fell. We need to understand his origins and of the devil's original angelic splendor. This way we can fully comprehend the misery of his current existence and future punishment.

While God is the Creator of all angels, strictly speaking He did not create the devil as he is now. He created a unique angelic being who, by a free act cut himself off from God. He therefore turned himself into an adversary of God. Originally, he was Lucifer, and the highest of the angels, but who lost nothing of his natural supremacy-which he still exerts over the hierarchy of angels who fell with him.

Hogwarts and Our Political Education System

Harry Potter depicted how tyrannical regimes take over society. When Hogwarts fell under the grip of Dolores Umbridge, it wasn't through conquest or violence, it happened with paperwork, new titles, and a flood of rules from the Ministry. That's how authoritarianism actually shows up, not with tanks, but with memos, safety policies, and smiling officials including religious leaders who tell you it's all for your own good.

After her time at Hogwarts, Umbridge rises to prominent and influential positions in the Ministry of Magic in the Improper Use of Magic Office. After a while, Umbridge became the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge. Umbridge used this position of power to satisfy her hatred of part-humans, for example through new Anti-Werewolf Legislation which made it nearly impossible for Remus Lupin to find a new job after resigning his post as Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor at Hogwarts in 1994. This is an eerie parallel of all the liberal malcontents of the 1960’s taking over judicial and institutional power in America.

JK Rowling's story reads less like fiction and more like political propoganda and a warning of how our own American institutions have gone rogue. Umbridge didn't arrive with soldiers, she walked in wearing a pink cardigan, has kitten plates on the wall, and called herself High Inquisitor, a title invented by decree. That's where real tyranny begins, in the administrative state where power hides behind process.

Once inside, she did what bureaucrats do best: multiply the rules. Enforce absurd degrees like forcing vaccination and accepting the lunacy of the transgender movement. Accepting that biological women are men and men are women. One decree after another turns normal behavior and normal people into something punishable because they do not toe the line of the absurd laws and forced conversions. That is a two-tier justice system in practice. Villains rule while everyone else chokes on unobeyable laws.

Umbridge like most politicians is depicted as being an evil, cruel, authoritarian, power-hungry, bigoted and despicable woman who represented the worst of political power, under a sweet image filled with kittens, fluff, and girlishness. Strangely, just as we see in feminism, transgenderism and a bevy of other ‘isms’ pushed by the progressive leftists. In truth she is sadistic and overwhelmingly corrupt, to the point of finding joy in torturing students like Harry.

Just as in the Hogwarts School, so too the American political structure. We see mandates and paperwork for citizens, indulgence for gangs, cartels, and well-connected insiders. The infiltration of education at Hogwarts and in America were the opening salvo in this strategy. Defense against the Dark Arts was neutered into theory only, stripping students of the skills to defend themselves from the actual evil. Then the Carrows (Death Eaters or pure-blood supremacists who use evil to enforce their ideology) turned classrooms from the youngest to the oldest into indoctrination halls to push their agendas.

This is how totalitarians operate: capture schools, rewrite curricula, and shape the next acolytes before seizing the true centers of power. Essentially, creating an army of indoctrinated mindless evil. It is the line often attributed to Lenin:

"Give me four years (college) to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.”

We see the very same things in today's schools, universities, and hiring offices of companies and gathering some of societies most confused malcontents where slogans and box-ticking beat actual intelligence, skill and courage.

“Free Palestine” …as if it wasn’t already. Their own violence reaped violence upon themselves.

“Love is Love” …as if it is when in reality it destroys life, spreads disease and sexually depraves minds.

“Defund the Police” …as if more disorder is going to quell the chaos.

“No Human is Illegal” …except when they have in fact violated longstanding laws.

“No One is Illegal on Stolen Land” …even though it was conquered land.

Propaganda then seals the fate of all those under these monsters at Hogwarts and in America. Daily Prophet denies Lord Voldemort's return, smears Harry, prints only the official line. Language becomes a weapon. Educational decree: Undesirable Number One or as in America...'Basket of Deplorables'. We could see this in the lead up to the murder of Charlie Kirk too. Charlie’s words were viewed as violence and as such justified a violent/deadly response. Euphemisms that soften reality while hardening control and them hardening hearts.

Surveillance and informants follow as the inquisitorial squad deputizes students to police other students. The objective isn't truth, it's fear, compliance, humiliation, silence, violence and then eventually...death. We saw this in the forced masking and vaccination of Covid. Ironically, this would come full circle and fall back on the diehard liberals who, to this day six years later, are mocked for still wearing a mask.

Umbridge's blood quill makes Harry carve lies into his own skin. Real regimes do the same with forced apologies, public shaming, and required statements. In the 1960s Hannah Arendt coined the phrase, "The banality of evil” referring to the takeover of totalitarianism in Nazi Germany by the likes of Adolf Eichmann. She said this when she attended the trial of the Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961.

Arendt was one of the first to discover what was happening in the camps in Nazi Germany and the first to study the new system of Concentration Camps or the “corpse factories”, as she called them. When she watched the Nuremberg trials in the 1940s, she was aghast. She thought the Nazis had, "exploded the limits of law". This changed when she went to Jerusalem in 1961 to cover the trial of Adolf Eichmann. What she saw in Eichmann was an under-ordinary person who believed he was far more important than he was. He was not a figure of radical, awful, evil, but a small, pompous man – talking in cliches, self-important and radically unable to think about where he was and who he was talking about. Eichmann was banal. Just like liberals, educators and American politicians. Totally out of touch with reality.

Like Dolores Umbridge, not outwardly monsters with sharp teeth, but regular people doing harm because that's the policy and those are the rules. That's why the parallel should be so obvious to those of us who are not brainwashed and swept into the insanity. Tyranny rarely marches in boots. It comes with flowers, love and pleasant voices. The kittens on Umbridge’s wall are the point. It's meant to feel normal. When in reality it is insanity and evil directly below the facade.

Hogwarts wasn’t saved by more idiotic laws and a politician (like Trump) coming to save the day. It was saved because students or the plebians refused to bow like slaves. The answer to today’s societal ills lies with the blue-collar everyman. The burden is on the common man and woman. The answer is to tell the truth and be Biblical in our stance. We need to learn to defend, and push back early. I’ve been doing this for two decades and only now are people starting to see and understand the truth.

The Enlightenment Darkened The World

The Enlightenment and/or the Age of Science promised liberation from God, but delivered moral confusion. Western philosophers like Kant and Voltaire believed reason could replace religion, freeing man from superstition and leading to a more rational ordered society. Instead, we are left arguing over whether men can get pregnant.

The enlightenment assumed that reason is a neutral unbiased tool, capable of guiding humanity towards truth without ideological influence, but Frederick Nietzsche saw through this claim. He noted that reason is not independent of human drives; it is shaped by them. What people call rational argument is often just instinct in disguise.

In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche argues that philosophers do not discover truth, they justify their temperament. In this manner some of the most horrid evil can be justified under the banner of ‘justice’, ‘tolerance’ or ‘progress’.

Every human drive or more accurately desire, wants to be master and it bends reason to serve that aim. The Bible has repeatedly shown this. Man is a slave to his desires and man strives against God by his nature. The phrase "the carnal mind is enmity against God" comes from Romans 8:7, indicating that the natural, human mindset is inherently hostile to God, rebellious, and unable to submit to His laws. This state of "enmity" means it is an active enemy of God, focused solely on worldly desires, which leads to spiritual death

The enlightenment believed it had escaped dogma. It believed it had finally broken a chain of almost a millennia of unnecessary wars fought mostly on the basis of earthly manmade religions that had nothing to do with the God of the Bible. The ideas of the Enlightenment not only pervaded 17th and 18th century Europe but its godless influence had a profound effect on America and its founding fathers like Jefferson and Franklin.

By the 19th century Nietzsche saw that The Enlightenment had only replaced one set of dogmas with another. Instead of blasphemy against God, there are penalties for speech that offends protected classes. Instead of a shared pursuit of truth, expression is filtered through political correctness. Instead of holy wars, we see ideological purges. This helps explain why ideologies that claim to be rational so often become tyrannical. We saw this in the Nazi’s Third Reich. We saw it in Mao Zedong’s ‘Great Leap Forward’ and we see it today in radical Leftist/Marxist agendas and even in the blind allegiances to the persons of Trump and Conservative figures.

Even systems that present themselves as scientific, like communism, do not arise from detached reason. They emerge from a desire to rule, then dress themselves in the language of inevitability and logic. But Nietzsche's deeper critique cuts deeply against this assumption by the intellectually arrogant and ‘educated’. He argued that enlightenment ‘morality’ is Christianity without God.

Man attempted to keep the moral framework while discarding its foundation. In the absence of God man is let loose to his worst and most base desires and evil.

"If there is no God, everything is permitted" ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky’s character Ivan Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov.

The Bible states in 1 Corinthians 6:12 and 10:23 that "everything is permissible," but Paul immediately counters this by saying "not everything is beneficial" or constructive. While Christians are free from the law due to Christ’s work on the cross, this freedom is not a license to sin, but a call to love, using discernment to choose actions that glorify God. A man without God or Christ is cut loose from any restraint. Evil reigns supreme.

What we learn from the Bible and realize after watching 300 years of the effects of the Enlightenment is simple but striking. Values like equality, universal dignity, and compassion were not born from reason alone. They were inherited from Christianity and the Judeo/Christian ethic, then reframed as self-evident truths. The enlightenment severed these values from their metaphysical and spiritual roots while expecting them to hold meaning and sway over people’s behaviors.

Much to modern society’s chagrin, this has been a massive and horrible failure. It is like cutting down a tree and expecting the fruit to keep growing. This is the source of much of our modern confusion and is why things are so horribly confused and upside-down.

We live in a world where the language and morality of Christianity remain, but its grounding has absolutely been annihilated. Even many of our conservative evangelical and formerly biblical churches have been amputated from their Biblical foundations and would be unrecognizable even to Christian brethren of only a hundred years ago. We have business structured, Enlightenment influenced congregations cutoff from their apostolic roots.

Nietzsche saw where this leads. When God dies, the structure of meaning built around them begins to collapse. In the case of American Christianity and even Christian evangelicalism it has already imploded under the weight of their own hubris and theological errors trying to chase after a secular scientific world. The church has tried so hard to appease a godless science-based society, it has lost itself. We are to be in the world but not of it. Therefore, the last anchor or mooring to morality has been cut loose to the storm of godlessness.

As believers, we should be set apart from the world. This is the meaning of being holy and living a holy, righteous life—to be set apart. We are not to engage in the godless activities the world promotes, nor are we to retain the corrupt mind that the world creates. Rather, we are to conform ourselves, and our minds, to that of Christ

Romans 12:2 ~ Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

You cannot discard metaphysics, abandon Godly spirituality, weaken objective truth, and elevate skepticism without consequences. The result is nihilism, not dramatic collapse, but a slow drift as we have seen since the Enlightenment. Because of this we all now live in a world where people no longer believe deeply enough in anything to anchor their lives. Decades before the catastrophes of the 20th century, Nietzsche saw this trajectory clearly. The enlightenment did not end belief, it changed its form, and in doing so, made it less stable, less honest, and more dangerous. That is why we now live in such a dangerous world.

America has become the summation of Englightenment philosophy. Financially, morally and spiritually bankrupt. Untethered to objective morality and true reason. Therefore, a land of immorality, chaos and godlessness. To this end we will reap the storm of what we have sown.

We abandon God and in so doing we abandon an anchor to true morality. Our society is now only a morass of subjective immorality and chaos.

A Defense of My Sons, Men and Christian Values

I present here an apologetic for a generation that is already being forgotten even now as they come of age as men. It is much broader then just Gen Z though. It affects all men but affects young men of my children's generation the most. An apologetic is a reasoned defense or intellectual justification for a specific belief, position, or worldview. It most commonly is associated with defending the Christian faith. Derived from the Greek word apologia (a formal, verbal defense), it aims to provide evidence for truth claims and answer objections, distinct and unrelated to "apologizing" (expressing regret) which I have absolutely no intentions of doing here. In fact, I intend just the opposite. No more cowering or bending to the will of the woke mob. I'm going on the offense. Society is out of control and needs to be brought to heel like the dog it is.

The kickback is here. The Right and an angry new generation of conservative young males didn’t appear out of nowhere. A decade of gaslighting from the media, colleges and government that told a generation of young men like my sons that their very being was a problem to be solved, every classroom, every film and every corporate memo carried the same message. If you're a straight white male, you're the cause of society's ills. You're an oppressor by birth.

They said your success is theft. You should feel ashamed. Step aside and be grateful for it. The picture being painted for a teenage boy through these years is bleak. You watch as your future is traded away under the banner of equity not equality. Jobs, scholarships and public praise are handed out based on identity while you're told to sit still and shut up. You deserve nothing no matter how hard you work.

Inflation spirals so ridiculously out of control that my son’s generation will not be able to afford a mortgage without six-figure incomes or a wife working. The stress this will cause will inevitably equate to strife within a marriage and likely a divorce in which nearly everything will be stripped from the man financially by a state that heavily favors and coddles women whether they deserve it or not. Even more so if there are children involved in the marriage.

The unspoken deal once made with men was: Work hard, grind and earn respect and you will establish yourself in this life. That idea was torn up and in its place straight white males have been scorned. Men have always been viewed as expendable. However, they were at least respected for carrying the heavy load, fighting the wars and laboring or defending their families. But when they stripped away basic dignity, the resentment has started to rise to the surface and boil.

Modern voices have tried to speak for Judeo Christian justice and fairness in the likes of Jordan Peterson and Charlie Kirk. They argued for equal treatment, free speech and individuality. In short self-worth. But while Jordan and Charlie debated, the woke ideologues and brainwashers built legal apparatus and institutionalized laws and ideas against the once largest population of labor and enterprise in the United States. 

The men.

HR departments enforced their version of moral conformity, universities purged dissent, governments wrote hate speech laws to silence opposition. In truth all of them are pushing a biased injustice on young men. All in the name of politics and social justice. By the time the 2020 lockdowns came, these young men were already ostracized from society and were now trapped indoors. They were cut off from any like-minded peers that were left to find belonging and comradery in. When we focus to the online world, these male’s heroes were stripped of platforms, their questions banned, their voices treated as threats. They were effectively silenced.

When every fair or justified complaint from a conservative or even a moderate was branded as hate speech, many stopped speaking and trying to prove their innocence. They thought, if I'm going to be damned either way, I might as well deserve it then. Then a flashpoint moment shattered the entire illusion. Charlie Kirk's assassination was a pivot point. For years, moderate conservatives believed conversation could still bridge the divide. Kirk’s death shattered that illusion.

When a man known for debate and restraint was gunned down and a significant portion of society celebrated it, a dark diabolic realization set in. These people on the far left and progressives weren't interested in dialogue. They were celebrating death and shedding blood and still are.

That's why many young men decided if you can murder someone for trying to talk, then there's nothing left to talk about. The splinter within the right became a breakpoint. Moderates still hoped reason can win. Still others now want revenge. Into this gap steps resentful men. We that are quickly losing patience with the unjustifiable abuses they we're being subjected to not only by our peers but by their own families, government and educational institutions. Conformity to an immoral society be damned.

Shame and exclusion...the very thing the left was trying to save minorities and fringe groups from for centuries has been foisted up a category of society that didn’t deserve it. A segment that helped build the society these malcontents seek to tear down. My son’s generation and their real gender…male. Toxic masculinity is what its been labeled. This injustice is now curdling into fury just as it did in African Americans, gays and women. The pendulum has swung all the way back and has successfully victimized yet another generation of people that don’t deserve it. 

Think of it like a bar. One loud drunk begins mouthing off, putting drinks on other people's tabs and puffing their chest. Most people walk away, but if it keeps going on long enough, someone throws a punch. That's where we are now, standing between the shove and the swing in a brewing caldron of rage.

This flame in turn is being fanned by rich old men and radicals bent on bringing the entire system down. It is being instigated by the rhetoric of morally debased politicians that seek nothing more than to line their pockets illicitly with another million dollars. All the while my sons and their generation are being thrown under the wheel of corruption and greed. The system will break and the ending will be violent. I pray that my sons will not be caught up in the conflagration. 

The only hope I have is that some see what is really happening here. It is Cultural Marxism at its root. The continual division for the sake of division to weaken the system enough so that a small cabal of people can take the entire system over. They haven’t been able to do it yet but they are close and they’ve even admitted as much. Those people will be the people with the money and the technology in AI. The AI will be harnessed to control the masses. This too is only a matter of time as we are racing towards both cliffs simultaneously.

Just be warned though...if you're coming for my sons, you're coming through me first. You had better be ready. I'm not your 'take it on the chin beta-male' cuckolded into submission by rhetorical bludgeoning and societies decline. I will bury you in debate and if you attack me, you will regret it.

Terrors In The Apocalyptic Sky

In Luke’s passage about the last days, he writes of a statement Jesus made about those days.

Luke 21:11 There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.

I want to focus in on: “…and there will be terrors (φόβητρα) and great signs from heaven."The Key Word: φόβητρα (phobētra). Phonetra / φόβητρα is a plural noun from the root φόβος (phobos), meaning fear from which we get the English phobia. The word literally means "things that cause terror", "terrors", or "frightening apparitions".

In some older and less formal Greek usage outside the Bible, it could even suggest unnatural creatures or monstrous appearances. In apocalyptic Jewish literature (like in 1 Enoch or 2 Esdras), this word could be used for bizarre and terrifying creatures or events. They were not in the modern fantasy sense of "monsters," but in the sense of things so terrifying and unnatural that they evoke intense fear or dread. The idea here is that the dread they induce literally make you feel as if your internal organs have been turned inside-out.

So, does it mean "monsters"? Possibly but not directly. I should note that the word φόβητρα could encompass terrifying beings, visions, or phenomena—monstrous in the sense of terror, possibly even supernatural or demonic. This could mean obvious demonic manifestations, portents of doom that cause one’s stomach to sink or…possibly even strange, fearsome creatures or signs in the sky. It will be a fear that solicits a desire to flee from the object of terror or try to shield oneself or withdrawal from it.

Jesus is describing signs of the end times, using vivid and fearsome language on purpose. The use of φόβητρα reflects unnatural terror—not just everyday fear, but something so out-of-place that it shakes the soul of the observer. Whether that’s through supernatural beings, catastrophic events, or otherworldly signs, the effect is the same: a divine shaking of the world. In Scripture it is never a mere subjective emotion but an objective phenomenon that rightly elicits fear because it signals divine intervention or judgment.

Its conceptual roots run through the Hebrew Scriptures. The Septuagint uses related terms for the “terror by night” (Psalm 91:5), the “terror” sent ahead of Israel to dismay enemies (Exodus 23:27), and the “terrors” that seized Job (Job 7:14). In each setting God is either the source or the active governor over the dreadful event, underscoring His sovereignty both in salvation and in judgment.

What does it mean as an End Times foreshadowing? They are heralds of the Day of the Lord. The fearful sights function as preliminary birth pains (Luke 21:9-11; Matthew 24:8), signaling that the age is drawing to its God-ordained conclusion. It is a sign of Divine Justice. By intertwining terror with celestial “signs,” Scripture portrays these events as courtroom evidence that human rebellion will not stand unchallenged. Finally, it should be the catalyst for repentance: The passage immediately exhorts believers to steadfast endurance (Luke 21:19) and cautions the unregenerate to flee to Christ before judgment falls.

What theological lessons can we learn from this passage? We see God’s providence on full display. Fearful sights are neither random nor solely satanic; they operate with God’s permission and discretion. They will directly of God’s will (Isaiah 45:7). The one who speaks this prophecy is very same whole will have them come to pass, reinforcing His divine omniscience and authority (Revelation 1:17-18).

Could it be nuclear phenomena? Could it be biological phenomena? Well, it would need to be visible to the populace. It would need to be visible to the entirety of the world. Would it need to be a global scale phenomena or a localized broadcast by the internet and television? All these things need to be considered before arriving at a conclusion. I personally believe that it would need to be global and personalized to solicit the tpye of terror stated by Jesus. It would need to be able to convince the entire church that it was in fact ‘those days’. These phenomena would also be occurring simultaneously with earthquakes, food shortages (famine) and pandemics (pestilence). Could AI be behind all of these phenomena? Possibly. Humans (therefore AI) can create food shortages, release of biohazards, extreme weather phenomena through cloud seeding and yes, even earthquakes via extreme low frequency wave manipulations, dam creation, etc. Of course God can use all these methods and supernatural ones beyond our comprehension.

Properly understood these terrors will be tangible manifestations of divine power that shake the created order and the human heart. Though dread-inducing for the unbeliever, these events are simultaneously signs of redemption drawing near for those in Christ. Correctly understood, they summon the church to holiness, perseverance, and urgent witness to the Gospel until the Lord Himself dispels the terror by the light of His coming kingdom.

Flow State: In The Zone

The concept of flow is rooted in the idea that individuals are happiest when they are fully engaged in activities that challenge their skills and abilities. Flow occurs when there is a perfect balance between the level of difficulty of a task and one's level of skill, leading to a state of effortless concentration and enjoyment. When in a state of flow, individuals experience a sense of timelessness, heightened focus, and a deep sense of fulfillment.

Through research, a man named Csikszentmihalyi identified several key components of flow, including clear goals, immediate feedback, a balance of challenge and skill, a feeling of control, concentration, a loss of self-consciousness, and a transformation of time. These components work together to create a state of flow that leads to increased creativity, productivity, and overall well-being.

Having been an athlete since my early teens and now a theologian I have seen that flow has had a profound impact on athleticism, business and my relationship with others through God. I’ve found that individuals who experience flow on a regular basis are more likely to lead fulfilling lives and achieve optimal performance in their chosen activities. 

The importance is in finding activities that are intrinsically rewarding, In the case of myself, they are physically and spiritually/intellectually oriented. External rewards such as money or fame are not sustainable sources of happiness, and that true fulfillment comes from engaging in activities that are inherently enjoyable and meaningful to the individual.

In essence, God created and worked Creation into existence. In the original plan men were to given dominion over Creation because they were to ‘work’ the creation. That plan got skewed but the main premise underlies the world still. We are to emulate God in our behavior and the closer we come to that ideal state of which we were created for the closer we come to the ‘flow’ state.

People that are more readily able to achieve flow state have autotelic personalities. Autotelic individuals as those who are able to find meaning and enjoyment in almost any situation, and who have a natural tendency to seek out challenges and opportunities for growth. To autotelic people all things have purpose or meaning in themselves/itself. That is why a person who believes in the God of the Bible and understands the theological concepts of sovereignty and providence so readily can adapt and understand a chaotic world.

The idea that a person in the state of flow loses self-awareness to the task of challenge at hand aligns very well to the harmony of the Holy Spirit in line with an individual imbued by the Spirit of God. John 14:3 is clear in this state of mind and being. The kingdom is where he King is.

John 14:1-4 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”

This state is also mentioned indirectly in John 12:24-26.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.

Therefore, what we see is if an individual’s heart is aligned with God and they are pursing the very thing they were created to and for, they will become less of their sinful selves and more aligned and akin to what God always wanted them to be. They can and are the proper vessels that God needs them to be. The idea of ‘flow state’ in my opinion makes perfect Biblical sense. I have experienced it often. In wrestling, running, biking, writing, speaking, preaching and even walking in the woods. I have most intensely experienced it while preaching and lifting. In flow state I believe I am reaching my optimal state of discipleship.

When we are doing what God created us for, we are in fact serving Him. It also means God is always working and present in m life, even in hardships. Jesus told is to follow Him on the path of self-denial to the cross, leading to eternal fellowship/flow state with Him. I believe this is why believers who reach this state stand out and are often pronounced in relation to their surroundings.

They are the people that others make statements about like, “The environment doesn’t shape them, they shape their environment.” The other comment most often heard about people in flow state is, “They seem to have a supernatural ability to know things before they happen. They can do things that seem to defy normal convention.” That is because the something ‘extra’ isn’t really them, it is God manifesting in their behavior. At some point the very gifts God gave them morph into something ‘more’. The gift stops and the Spirit takes over.

It is cultivated and developed over time too. Individuals can learn to increase the frequency and intensity of flow experiences by seeking out challenges, setting clear goals, and honing their skills in a particular activity.

Csikszentmihalyi being atheist argued that ‘flow’ is actually a universal experience that can be achieved by anyone, regardless of their religious beliefs. He suggests that flow is a state of optimal experience that occurs when individuals are fully immersed in an activity that challenges them at just the right level. This follows the idea of Christian grace. Yes, the flow state can be experienced by all. 

Concurrently, in Christian belief there is common grace and efficacious grace. All people experience common grace from God. So, flow state can work through a non-believer also for the purposes of a sovereign God but they more effectively or efficaciously work through the Christian when fulfilling the purposes God has set on their lives. That is why I believe when preachers are in the flow state, their sermons are profound and deeply moving. They initiate actions even in other people. It is the Fruit of the Spirit ‘overflowing’ like a cup being overfilled and spilling out to others. It is the same when the bike rider merges with the highway becoming the environment. It is the gardener in their greenhouse, they are euphoric. When the wrestler is stringing moves together effortlessly, always one step ahead, he is like a machine. When the writer is writing and types or writes out 50 pages in one sitting. Then reads what they wrote and doesn’t even remember writing half of it.

Flow for Christians is God’s deepest potential for you realized. You become what God wanted for you to be. It’s the closest you will come to the Kingdom this side of Heaven. Flow in Christian behavior involves a state of intense focus and presence, where the individual is fully engaged in the present moment. Christians often use specific mindsets (pray unceasingly) or scriptures to anchor and connect with God.

The signs….

Effortless Actions: The acts of speaking or serving, feel guided and unforced, as if God is working through you. Presence of God: A tangible sense of God's presence and the nearness of His Kingdom. Overcoming Distractions: Freedom from anxiety, self-concern, and worldly worries, allowing full engagement with the task(s) at hand. Intrinsic Joy: Deep enjoyment and fulfillment found within the activity itself, not external rewards. Mental Stasis: One is neither anxious or bored. They're somewhere in between. Hence the Bible telling is to be industrious but not anxious.

This is why the very things that flow state autotelic people engage in are so fulfilling. It is God in-filling them. Pushing out other things that don’t belong. The person is closer to Kingdom. Flow is a state of complete immersion and focus in an activity, where one's sense of self fades away and they are fully present in the moment. Flow is transcendence of self and a connection to God.

How to cultivate it? Read your Bible. The more you understand it the more it becomes self-evident. Prayer, Christ did it constantly to rejuvenate his Spirit with the Father. He told us too also. Quiet yourself and separate yourself from everything other than the task you’re engaged in. Be single-minded in your approach. Seek to glorify God in your actions or words.

I leave you with an example from Christ’s on life that looks strangely akin to a flow state. It comes in John 4. After talking with the Samaritan woman about the Kingdom doing the Father’s work, Jesus returns to the disciples who are in disbelief Jesus would talk to a Samaritan. What do they say? “Rabbi, eat something.” His reply? But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”

“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.

Jesus was so involved in the work of saving souls for His Father, it usurped the desire to eat. As John Gill’s Bible commentary put it: “ The harvest of souls he had a prospect of was as meat unto him, delightful and refreshing; and his mind and thoughts were so taken up with these things, that he had no inclination to any corporeal food.”

That my friends is ‘flow”. To emulate it in our behaviors is Christ-like.

The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Friend

I used to do a series of posts called "In Their Own Words". There were about 30 of them. I have a tendency to use Roman numerals when I have ideas that run too long and won't fit comfortably in one post so sometimes I spread them over one to ten posts. What I realized is that when people see Roman numerals in double digits after the title they think that they need to read all of the posts in the series to catch the drift of the post they're reading. This isn't true, but because of feedback I am slowly moving away from this type of title or limiting the posts to ten or less. This post would've normally been an "In Their Own Words" post but here it is as a stand-alone. It stands on its own merit. The rabidly anti-Christian atheist Richard Dawkins inadvertently defends a Christian position and the irony was not lost on me so I had to post this.

In a Breitbart article from September 2025, Richard Dawkins declared that “trans women are men,” and that transgender ideology is part of a movement to undermine biological truth. The world’s leading atheist and emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, Dawkins decried the infiltration of postmodernism and transgenderism into the halls of academia. He is now decrying the very thing that he does to Christians when he makes unsubstantiated absolute truth statements about Christianity which he seems to have an incomplete grasp.

Dawkins went on to further state, “Both politics and personal feelings don’t impinge scientific truths and that needs to be clearly understood. I feel very strongly about the subversion of scientific truth. I think part of what’s happened is the move of academia towards postmodernism, which is pernicious, and probably does account for the current vogue for the nonsense lie that sex is a spectrum.”

So here we have the direct statement from the preeminent expert in biological science who just happens to be a militant atheist stating that the current trend of gender identity and body dysmorphia is a mental issue not based in science at all. Furthermore, he disavows the politics behind it trying to force it into everything from entertainment to the academic fields of college campuses.

He realizes that there are in fact, absolute or objective truths. Surprisingly, this undermines his ability to refute the absolute truth claims of Christianity. By allowing himself to make absolute truth statements about gender and not allowing gender to be subjective and non-scientific he is insisting on a worldview and logic process that also needs to allow for Christians to make their claims to objective truth also.

Dawkins has even stated that, “There’s this post-modern hubris which presumptuously and falsely dismisses science as a social construct, the human conceit here is the idea that personal feelings can change reality.”

The irony is that you can replace Dawkins statements of science with religion or specifically Christianity and the statement would still be valid from Dawkins’ statement: “There’s this post-modern hubris which presumptuously and falsely dismisses religion/Christianity as a social construct, the human conceit here is the idea that personal feelings can change reality.”

Dawkins is literally arguing for support of not only his views but also Christianity (or any religion for that matter). In a war of ideas, those on the side of objective/absolute ‘truths’ like Christianity and science will often makes strange bedfellows.

While the “scientist-trans gender-ist” at first may seem as if it is amusing, what is going on in with Dawkins and other like-minded scientists might be more notable. There, the transgender siege appears to be lifting; its effectiveness is clearly on the wane.

Let us hope this modicum of reason catches hold on this side of the Atlantic not just in Oxford in England.

For me as a Christian, it has been intriguing to watch the culture wars end up on the doorstep of the atheist community. What has happened because of Dawkins’ stance is even more telling of the powers in play and the world we are currently living in. These political powers are all encompassing and are overbearing. Its influence is insidious and pervasive. Its probably worse than even I, a Christian Apologist even imagined they were. These activist ideologues are eclipsing actual scientific truths never mind the spiritual truths they are violating. Scientific and spiritually logical truths which are both based on legitimate Aristotelian philosophy.

The repercussions for Dawkins? The American Humanist Association has already withdrawn Dawkins’ “Humanist of the Year” award in 2021. The organization justified the move based on the biologist’s “history of making statements that use the guise of scientific discourse to demean marginalized groups, an approach antithetical to humanist values.”

While I have to admit, because of my constant debates and arguments with intellectually arrogant atheists, there is more than a touch of smirking from me watching the anti-theists realize that the atheist “apocalypse” they are experiencing is just as dogmatic as the Christianity they disparage or even hate. It has all come home to roost right on their doorstep. So, unless Christians befriend them (pray for them) in what needs to be understood as a spiritual war, they will be hapless. They would be doomed because they don’t even believe in the powers and entities they’re truly battling…they don’t believe or acknowledge the spiritual realm exists.

I will acknowledge that it the notion of “humanist values” has always been nebulous at best, but it is usually based in a firm belief and understanding that science correctly deduced is objective truth. So, for the Humanist Society to fold to these politics is astounding and I can only attribute its power to do so as being spiritual in source. Science endeavors to demonstrate what is; the idea of a godless ideology is overriding this shows its enormous power over the world.

I suppose Dawkins is to be commended for his defense of biology against the transgender assault on scientific truth but he needs to realize in doing so that he inadvertently is defending the objective philosophical truths of Christianity. He can’t have it both ways. If you’re going to fight and fend for the veracity of objective/absolute truths being real in science…you cannot deny them to Christianity. It becomes double standard and hypocritical. Strange bedfellows indeed.

We need to remember that Dawkins has long championed a humanist post-Christian society that has made the transgender movement not just possible, but perhaps even inevitable. Two avenues or routes to the same end. By his arguing against Christianity and belittling of it, he opened the door to everything godless including the very things he is now fighting against. Conversely, before we become too optimistic over the reasons that Dawkins is defending his science or other “defenders of truth,” we should recognize that atheists are doing this for their own selfish reasons and as soon as they destroy this current ‘anti-science’ enemy (which Christians in fact are not), they will just turn on us anyway. We will be adversary number one again instead of being the second most hated enemy. Since they are helping us in our cause we should assist them until at such a time they turn back against us.