my confessions and the revelator's beast

“…The heart of the sons of men
is full of evil,
and madness is in their heart
while they live…”
(Ecclesiastes 9.3)
 
Wherewith shall I come before the LORD,
and bow myself before the high God?
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good;
and what doth the LORD require of thee,
but to do justly, and to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with thy God?
 (Micah 6.6, 8)
​

my confessions and the revelator's beast
​revelation 13
​

  first confession

Many of my homilies, especially those that focus of the just society, are headed, as this one is, with the passage from Ecclesiastes.
 
“…The heart of the sons of men
is full of evil,
and madness is in their heart
while they live…”
 
This is an assertion about which scripture is adamant.
 
“All have sin and come short of the glory of God.”[1]
 
“…All are hardened; yea, all are fallen and are lost, and must perish except it be through the atonement which it is expedient should be made.”[2]
 
“…For we know that… we are unworthy before thee; because of the fall our natures have become evil continually…”[3]
 
“Behold Satan hath come among the children of men, and tempteth them to worship him; and men have become carnal, sensual, and devilish…”[4]

There can be no hedging and no denial about this. Scripture is equally adamant that we acknowledge our sins and sinfulness, our hardness and madness, our evil and unworthiness. We must make open and honest confess before God.
 
“Speak unto the children of Israel, ‘When a man or woman shall commit any sin that men commit, to do a trespass against the Lord, and that person be guilty; then they shall confess their sin which they have done.”[5]
 
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”[6]
 
“… if he confess his sins before thee and me, and repenteth in the sincerity of his heart, him shall ye forgive, and I will forgive him also. Yea, and as often as my people repent will I forgive them their trespasses against me.”[7]
 
“Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more. By this ye may know if a man repenteth of his sins—behold, he will confess them and forsake them.”[8]
 
There is no blessed forgiveness outside this confession. The Psalmist of the Hebrew Bible is aware of the blessedness of divine forgiveness. He is also aware of the difficulty of confession. Speaking of the blessedness of forgiveness, he affirms,
 
“How truly blessed is the one whose rebellion is borne away
   and whose sin is buried.
How truly blessed is the one whose guilt YHWH does not consider
   because there is no attempt to obfuscate.”[9]
 
The Psalmist, however, had learned this the hard way. He informs us of a time when he refused to confess and suffered the consequences of his pigheaded refusal.
 
“Because I remained silent, my frame wasted away
   while I raged all day long.
Because Your power rested heavily upon me day and night
   my moisture turned into summer draught.”[10]
 
Realizing the error of his obfuscation or his unwillingness to confess, he repented of his failure to confess.
 
“I’ll confess my sin to You
   and no longer hide my guilt from You.
I decided, ‘I’ll confess my rebellion to YHWH,’
   and You, You bore away my sinful guilt.”[11]
 
I appreciate scripture’s admonitions toward confession and acknowledgement of sin and error. I appreciate the Psalmist sharing his difficult experience. I try to follow scripture’s admonition. In this case, I try to not repeat the Psalmist’s stubborn refusal to confess.
 
So, I have a confession to make. Or, rather, several of them.
 
I confess that there was a time when I wanted to be thought of as a “Christian.” I confess that there was a time when I resisted the sentiment that Joseph Smith claimed God possessed toward Christianity.
 
“…They [Christian sects] were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: ‘they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.’”[12]
 
But no more. I want nothing to do with American Christianity. I do not want to be associated with it. I accept God’s estimation of it: it is an abomination.
 
Please, Lord, forgive my previous unholy desire and my obduracy toward Your faithful word.
 
If the abomination was there some 200 years ago when God spoke in a New England forest, then it has been there throughout my lifetime. There were hints, of course, that could and did make me squirm uncomfortably at times. Sadly, it has taken something extraordinary to make me know what I would not know. This leads to my second confession.
        


  second confession

I was wrong about him. At first, I thought he was simply an evil, lying narcissistic man. At this stage, I seldom referred to him other than as “that man.” Calling him by his name was giving him too much power and undeserved respect. He quickly graduated in my mind to a sick, twisted, perverted sociopath. At this stage, I did name him. He became “Caligula.” However, as his influence continued to grow and he captured American Christianity, this man, this crazed Caligula became a “cult leader.” His movement had become religion. He remained cult leader even after defeat, even after insurrection, even after indictment after indictment, even after becoming a felon three dozen times over.
 
It was at this point, as his supporters doubled down, as Americans rewarded him with millions of dollars—many millions, it seems, per felony account—and as many of his critics who had seen him as unworthy and unfit for office rallied around him that I concluded that we were dealing with a phenomenon. Something paranormal. We were dealing with a demon. Many Americans, including an unbelievably large portion of American Christians—legions and legions of them—were possessed. Taken over, captured, enslaved, possessed by a powerful demonic force.
 
But, once more, I might have been wrong. I may have underestimated the depth of his wickedness. He may be something more than demon. If he is not stopped now, he may graduate to beast status. This is at least as likely as the silly comparative analogy so many American Christians have drawn between him and the ancient Persian emperor, Cyrus.
 
How I hope he is only demonic! I, at least, can escape his demonic allure, as it holds no allure for me. But there is no escaping the beast, if beast he be. There is no escaping the beast to whom the dragon gives “power, and his seat, and great authority.”[13] There is no escaping the beast with the “deadly wound” to the head that “was healed.”[14] There is no escaping the beast whose mouth ceaselessly spews “great things and blasphemies.”[15]  There is no escaping the beast after whom so many “wonder”[16]—American Christians, those of centuries long abomination, being foremost among them; first to bend the knee and “worship the beast.”[17] There is no escaping the beast if “power [is] given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.”[18] There is no escaping him if he joins the dragon in “mak[ing] war with the saints,” even “to overcome them.”[19]
 
The future looks bleak. The sociopathic narcissist has already ushered in a post truth era. If he is not stopped and becomes the beast the post truth era will become the era a blasphemy.
 
A time of blasphemous lies and wonders. Most will believe and wonder at his words and wonders, not recognizing that what comes from his mouth are blasphemies against God, blasphemies against God’s power, blasphemies against heaven, and blasphemies against all who dwell in heaven.[20]
 
The beast has no intention of governing. He is intent on ruling. Like is inspiration, Lucifer, he seeks power. Power over men. Power over angels. Power over God. He is intent on punishing. Chasing. Oppressing. Imprisoning. Enslaving. Despoiling. Warring. He will likely end up killing. His people, his worshippers love him for his transgressiveness, just as they love his fraud and theft and rape. They would have it no other way. They are of the same spirit as the beast. They too possess beastliness. They too glory in lies and blasphemy.
 


  so, what’s next

What is to be done in the face of the beast and his worshipers swept up and away in the tail of the dragon? Visitors to this site have read my past imprecations against him and his worshipers. They have heard a hint of the screams that I have aimed at God in the secret closet of my prayers. They know of my wish to be rid of the creature, in whatever iteration he has taken in my past—man, sociopath, Caligula, cult leader, demon, beast.
 
But it seems he is not going anywhere. He may have another life ahead of him. The dragon, the dark “prince of this world,”[21] the Devil protects and empowers him as he protected and empowered so many beasts before him: Roman Emperors, Stalin, Hitler, etc.
 
It is highly unlikely that I have uttered my last imprecation against him and his. It is highly unlikely that I will quit screaming at God for deliverance from the beast. In doing so, I do as the inspired Revelator said I must do when he, faced with his own beast, admonished:
 
“If any man have an ear, let him hear. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.”[22]
 
Now, don’t be fooled by that word, “patience.” As Inigo Montoya once famously observed, “I do not think it means what you think it means.” The patience that the Revelator calls for is not quiet. It is not passive. It is not submissive. “In most of the NT,” the Greek word, hypomonē, “refers to the steadfast endurance of the Christian under the difficulties and tests of the present evil age.” But this “steadfast endurance,” or “patience” is indicative of a “courageous endurance which… defies evil. Unlike patience, it thus has an active content. It includes active and energetic resistance to hostile power.”[23] The “patience” that the Revelator calls for is centered in God. It trusts God in dark and dangerous ties, It waits on God. The Revelator’s “patience” is confident and firm. It is also active and energetic.  
 
I will continue to wait on God. I will continue to scream for and at Him as I wait. But I will not wait passively or silently. I will wait patiently, defiantly enduring in resisting the beast and his beastliness. The beast need not look here for another convert.
 


  conclusion and benediction

In following the New York sociopath turned beast, American Christianity, long deep in the waters of abomination, has further immersed itself in the bowels of abomination, willfully accepted baptism into the cult of abomination. They have and will continue to proclaim the beast as godly, a manifestation of God. They will claim that it is God who preserves and empowers him.
 
But the people of God must not be fooled. They must understand that it is the power of the prince of this world that preserves and empowers him. They must understand that it is Lucifer—the one who tries to look like God, replace God, be God—who protects the beast. They must understand that the dragon declared war on God a long time ago and that we are simply seeing the continuation of that war. The beast is a warrior from hell.
 
This war will require the people of God to be patient—to steadfastly resist the beast.  They must do so with the word of God, “powerful and sharper than any twoedged sword.”[24] They must gird their loins with truth. They must resist and fight with the greatest weapon ever devised: the testimony of Jesus that lays bear and exposes the real darkness of this world, its prince, and the demons and beasts that follow him, serve him, and do his bidding.
 
We ask, again, with those slain under the altar
 
“How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?”[25]
 
“O LORD God, to whom vengeance belongeth;
   O God, to whom vengeance belongeth, shew thyself.
Lift up thyself, thou judge of the earth:
   render a reward to the proud.
LORD, how long shall the wicked,
   how long shall the wicked triumph?
How long shall they utter and speak hard things? 
   and all the workers of iniquity boast themselves?
They break in pieces thy people, O LORD,
   and afflict thine heritage…
Understand, ye brutish among the people:
   and ye fools, when will ye be wise?
He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? 
   he that formed the eye, shall he not see?”[26]
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!


[1] Romans 3.23
[2] Alma 34.9
[3] Ether 3.2
[4] Moses 6.49
[5] Numbers 5.6-7
[6] 1 John 1.9-10
[7] Mosiah 26.29-30
[8] DC 58.42-43
[9] Psalm 32.1-2 (author’s translation).
[10] Psalm 32.3-4 (author’s translation).
[11] Psalm 32.5 (author’s translation).
[12] JSH. 1.19
[13] Revelation 13.2
[14] Revelation 13.3
[15] Revelation 13.5
[16] Revelation 13.3
[17] Revelation 13.4
[18] Revelation 13.7
[19] Revelation 13.7
[20] See Revelation 13.6
[21] See John 14.30
[22] Revelation 13.9-10
[23] Theological Dictionary of the New Testament
[24] Hebrews 4.12
[25] Revelation 6.10
[26] Psalm 94.1-5, 8-9