Don Quixote sets out alone as a man, a traveling knight, who in the spirit of the tale of chivalry wants to help the humble to what is their right…. Since he departs alone, the matter turns out relatively well, because when he comes to this famous inn and wants to be dubbed knight there, the innkeeper and his staff enter into Don Quixote’s tomfoolery and play the dubbing of a knight with him…. Then he returns home highly satisfied. [It] goes relatively well, as long as he is alone and others benevolently enter into the tomfoolery. So let the buffoon go; he is a buffoon!
Eric Voegelin, “Hitler and the Germans”
Voegelin’s discourse on Don Quixote appears in a book titled Hitler and the Germans. This is no accident, for Hitler was Germany’s buffoon – posing as Germany’s savior. Buffoonish antics, in history, often entail serious consequences. Today we have a new set of buffoons, on the left and on the right. Therefore, nobody should be caught off guard by what is coming. But they will be caught of guard for the very simple reason that they have not been paying close attention. Everything “goes relatively well,” wrote Voegelin, “as long as … others benevolently enter into the tomfoolery.” We are beyond that now. Others are not “benevolently” entering into it. Quite the opposite.
When Don Quixote acquires Sancho Panza as a squire, Voegelin tells us that a “conversation” develops; for when Quixote goes off to fight windmills, Sancho warns him to be careful as they are only windmills and not giants. What does Don Quixote say to this? He basically drags Sancho Panza with him, and Sancho ends up joining in the madness. Why join in the madness? One might ask why the German people followed Hitler, or why various politicians in the United States, who are buffoons, are likewise followed? Over time the politician (as buffoon) draws people into his false reality. The very act of following a buffoon, and of being entertained by him, triggers a process akin to seduction. “He really is entertaining,” they say in the beginning. Then, after the passage of time, the public begins to believe in him; and they even vote for him.
There is a story I heard from a psychologist years ago. It was about a clinician who was treating a delusional patient immersed in an imaginary galactic empire. The psychologist began to enjoy his sessions with this imaginative patient; for the imaginary galactic empire was full of fascinating people and adventures. Over time the psychologist began to believe in his patient’s delusions; that is, until one day the patient announced that he was cured, thanked the doctor, and discontinued the treatment. The psychologist was devastated, for he had fallen into the delusion himself.
According to Voegelin, moral decline reflects a certain boredom with reality. This boredom, wrote Voegelin, produces a readiness “to fall in with a second reality … of a revolutionary type and … join in the intellectual playing … because it’s fun.” [p.242-243] So what you have in the case of Hitler and the Germans, or Karl Marx and the left, is a madman who devises an alternate reality (through a new way of political talking or writing); then, you get a host of people who prefer the false reality to real reality. In fact, says Voegelin, people readily become infatuated with the tomfoolery of the make-believe. In that case, the buffoon is no longer a buffoon. He then becomes venerated, if not worshipped.
What happens to the truth when the buffoon is believed, when the buffoon is trusted, when the buffoon rules the world (or America)? What then happens to the man who cares about the truth? Behind closed doors, the cynic says to the truthful man, “Your concern for truth is academic. This is politics, which depends entirely on lies. We rule the people with lies because the people will not believe in the truth. We even tell lies to our bosses in government because our bosses would dismiss us if we told them the truth. Besides, lies are more expedient for saving the country. If you told the truth, nobody would follow you and nobody would ever hire you. The truth has nothing to do with anything.”
This argument has been directly made – to me. It was made by a well-respected person with a long history of government service. It reflects the most fantastic fantasy of all. Here we find the highest level of madness. In Miguel de Cervantes book, Don Quixote, the buffoonish hero makes similar arguments. For example, he argues that if enough people believe in his tomfoolery, then this will nonetheless become the dominant social reality.
Voegelin added, “and whoever criticizes [this tomfoolery] … must then be punished.” This leads to Don Quixote’s second argument for a falsification of reality: “Books which are being printed by royal license and with the approval of those to whom they are submitted, and which are read with universal delight and applause by the great and small, poor and rich, learned and ignorant, plebians and gentlefolk – could they be lies and at the same time appear so much like the truth?”
In other words, if a lie succeeds, then who is left to say it is a lie? If a buffoon can mesmerize a crowd, and win that crowd to his buffoonery, and get them to participate in it, then the buffoon can become an authority in his own right. Voegelin noted: “Thus you have the condition of a totalitarian regime – where determinate ideologies are prescribed and propagated to those under subjection to the state, and which must therefore be OK.”
The allusions to Hitler throughout Voegelin’s text, are obvious; but we might plug any homespun American demagogue into that template. All the mad ideas we see prevailing today, from global warming and a jab in every arm, to narratives opposed to an honest election audit, are framed by lies. The same mendacity also attends the right-wingers – the Q-tards, the conspiracy freaks, the neo-Nazis, and even those who think Donald Trump is the Second Coming or that Mike Lindell has “Absolute Proof.”
Are you angry with me now? If you want to go mad directly, there are plenty of ways to get there. Jump on any bandwagon and say goodbye to your sanity. The argument of Don Quixote, that his lie is noble and everyone therefore must believe, is the usual argument heard behind closed doors. According to Voegelin, “Don Quixote is no longer acting in good faith but, within his tomfoolery, consciously begins to lie.” [p. 245]
Once we participate in a lie we are forced to participate in its logic; and this logic always brings us to a paradox; for every lie is paradoxical from the standpoint of truth and reality, forcing man to adopt a faulty way of reasoning to get past the truth. We see this in all totalitarian regimes (e.g., in how they justify mass murder, or in the way they mock honesty). When a false reality is taken as real, language itself is corrupted, logic is corrupted, thinking is corrupted. Words are then used to distort reality rather than to clarify it – as we saw in General Mark Milley’s recent remarks before Congress. Oh yes! Milley referred to the break-in at Capitol Hill on January 6 as an assault by “thousands” to “overthrow the Constitution” because of “white rage.” General Milley, in that ugly outburst, gave himself away as a dangerous fantasist. According to Voegelin, “when loss of reality and lack of contact with reality occur … certain problems … of … paradox appear….” This is by no means a phenomenon of the left only – as noted earlier. One of the symptoms of this crisis is that words no longer signify realities, but refer to unrealities: “social justice,” “equality,” “white privilege,” “climate change,” “sexism,” “socialism.”
The breakdown of contact with reality – with the inner reality of the spiritual life – leads to a disintegrative process. It is not reality that disintegrates, but the fantasist. A loss of personality, of authenticity, of creativity, of clarity, occurs. Here we find the roots of modern narcissism. As some psychologists have asserted, narcissism is the “denial of the true self.” Voegelin pointed out, “If man doesn’t love this core, and thus his own self, he has lost contact with reality. This self-love, of course, is not the same as selfishness.”
For love to work, you have to have a self. That is why, the very apocalypse of Dr. Carl Jung was titled Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self. Here we find chapters on the ego, the shadow, the anima and animus, the sign of the fishes, the prophecies of Nostradamus, together with an inquiry into evil. Here the struggle against disintegration, against dissolution, against mankind’s destruction, is seen as epochal. [p. 164]
Yet here we find a paradox within the truth. Jung held that it was “extremely important to tell children fairytales and legends, and to inculcate religious ideas (dogmas) into grown-ups, because these things are instrumental symbols with whose help unconscious contents can be canalized into consciousness…. Failing this, their energy flows off into conscious contents which, normally, are not much emphasized, and intensifies them to pathological proportions. We then get apparently groundless phobias and obsessions – crazes, idiosyncrasies, hypochondriac ideas, and intellectual perversions suitably camouflaged in social, religious, or political garb.” [ p. 169]
How can this be?
The center of our being – our soul – does not lie in the ego, said Jung, “but outside it.” That which is true to reality, that which is authentic, does not flow from the despair and self-loathing of a distended ego. It is not self-hating and neurotic, like General Milley. His denunciation of the “racist insurrection” of January 6 is all ego, all ambition, all theater, all grandstanding. Milley is not a general. Milley is an actor. As such, he does not see off-stage; for the stage-lights are in his eyes.
As Voegelin emphasized, blindness toward reality is at the core of it all. The blind want, in Voegelin’s words, “to force something through somewhere, for example, a revolution. As a result, other people fall under the wheels, with disastrous consequences.” [ p. 253] Voegelin pointed to the work of the Austrian novelist, Heimito von Doderer and his novel The Demons. The possessed are not merely demonic. They are imbecilic. Doderer shows that one must not have “discussions with imbecility.” As Voegelin put it, “Faced with a corrupt society, all that’s possible is the boycott – the refusal to get involved with it – or its adequate representation in literature, that is, the transmogrification of imbecility into farce (which is not the same as satire).” [p. 256]
To indulge in satire for a moment, let us paraphrase Karl Kraus on Hitler vis-à-vis Mark Milley: “I can’t think of a thing to say about Milley.” Imagine if George Washington came back from the dead and strolled into the Pentagon. How would he behave toward “General” Milley? Can we imagine Washington speaking to Milley? Can we imagine him speaking of Milley? The mind reels at any juxtaposition of George Washington and Mark Milley. You cannot put them in the same room. You cannot have the one uttering the name of the other. No. George Washington would not condescend to a uniformed obscenity. Imagine Washington’s sarcasm if he ever deigned to speak to such a person: “Yes, General Milley, all white people are racists if you say so! – you crawling, cringing, toady!”
Self-loathing imbecility in a skin-sack must be held far from one’s nose. Doderer characterized a person of this type as “someone who wants to change the general situation because of the impossibility or untenability of his own position….” Doderer further stated, “A person who has been unable to endure himself becomes a revolutionary; then it is others who have to endure him.”
I once listened to a schizophrenic describe the joy of torturing cats to death, and in the next breath he lamented being barred from purchasing a handgun. As I lived in a small town, I had a conversation with the chief of police the next day. How much more justified are we to warn the chief of police about our psychologically disturbed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – General Mark Milley?
But Milley is only one madman out of many. And then there is that imbecile in the White House. How would George Washington address him? Doderer said there can be no “discussions with imbecility.” Voegelin wrote, “If the second [false] reality becomes dominant in a society, there is indeed … a community made up of members of that society. But such a society perpetrates the highest betrayal of humanity. And in this kind of society anyone who is not alienated from the first [real] reality can only commit high treason.” In other words, in a mad world the sane man is traitor.
Of course, the world is not entirely one thing or the other. The world is a mix of sanity and madness. As of this writing the world has tipped into madness; and many a madman are out there, telling you they have the answer, or they have the truth. Indeed, you should not believe in them; and you should not to be disappointed at their apparent fraudulence. Perhaps they were, as Don Quixote – unwitting frauds, sincere in their buffoonery. Yet they are all the more dangerous for being sincere.
Keep your head, if you can. It is going to be a wild ride.
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Notes and Links
Eric Voegelin, translated by Detlev Clemens and Brendan Purcell, Hitler and the Germans (University of Missouri Press, 1999).
Carl Jung, translated by R.F.C. Hull, Aion: Researches Into the Phenomenology of the Self (Princeton University Press, 1979).
Mr. Nyquist, speaking of Mr. Wurmbrand and his work, I am again reminded of those problematic people who yet seem to be very holy and very profound…Like Sergei Nilus-as long as one didn’t know he was the original publisher of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. You said ;
”Wurmbrand qualified the question of Marx’s Satanism on the authenticity of one source. He admitted that he could never find the book which made these claims about Marx. I found the book — a battered old copy at the UC Irvine University library. The book used as a source for these claims was written by someone who was mentally ill or they were mimicking a mentally ill person. The alleged encounter with Marx’s maid, Helen Demuth, took place after her death — an obvious fabrication. This means the evidence for actual Satanic practice by Marx is worthless. One must always check more closely the source of claims.”
I discovered Rev. Wurmbrand after researching the Romanian Fascist ”Iron Guard”/Legion of St. Michael the Archangel, the followers of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, because Wurmbrand spoke very highly of them as his fellow inmates in the Communist jails….As I said, problematic.
And since that odd feeling usually doesn’t go away, that feeling one is being swindled in some manner, one discounts the Wurmbrands and the Nilus’ type persons and everything they say or write becomes tainted and suspect.
Vladimir, I have read several of Wurmbrand’s books, though not all of them. I never got a bad feeling about him. It has been a few years since I read any of them, but do you remember in what context was he speaking highly of the followers of Codreanu? I only ask, because Wurmbrand seemed to love all people with the love of Christ, and seemed to try to say what good he could about them. I remember he told one of his torturers that he was praying for him. I am disappointed that his book on Marx and Satanism was only based on one source, and that not a reliable one.
I will say that Wurmbrand spoke of the Iron Guard prisoners of Romanian Communism in terms of their fortitude in the face of suffering. But then, some of these people were just a few short years before, fanatical fascists, rapists, murderers and torturers themselves. Had Wurmbrand spoken of individuals who happened to be in jail without mentioning who they were, I might have had less doubt about Wurmbrand, but he mentioned the Iron Guard collectively, and to me it served to elevate and humanize them much too much. When I get the chance I’ll try to find the citation.
I understand what you mean about Wurmbrand personally, but it’s something I wrestle with and is hard to bear, I must admit.
Allow me too to expand on what I’m saying, with an example about Sergei Nilus. He too is a person who appears to breathe holiness and is broad hearted. But as I said, he published the ”Protocols” among his own works. He was a disciple of Nicholai Motovilov, who was a disciple of the subsequently canonized St. Seraphim of Sarov. Turns out Sergei Nilus is our primary source for Motovilov’s information on St. Seraphim. And it appears that possibly Motovilov was a bit mad according to other people who knew him…Or a ”Fool for Christ’s Sake”.
Reliable and trusted sources are very important. It’s possible that alternative sources are true, but discernment and wisdom are absolutely necessary to either accept or reject the information. Appearances can be deceiving.
The book was not based on one source. But the testimony as to literal Satan worship depended on one source. The other sources were more like window dressing — suggestive or ambiguous.
Nothing is ever quite so simple, is it?
No, it’s not.
Mr. Nyquist, you replied to R.O, so I want to comment on what you said. So you said to him;
”You baffle me by offering historical proofs of spiritual truth. Does the spirit depend on history for its reality, or is it the other way around? You have upended your own ship — if you want to talk of shipwreck. The Reformation belongs to the history of Western philosophy. After all, theology is a branch of philosophy. The Reformation was a series of theologizing events — was it not? Then how could it not be a part of Western philosophy? Given its antecedents in Greek philosophy, how could you absolutely separate theology from ancient philosophy? Are not New Testament’s precepts found in Seneca? — found in Socrates? — found in Aristotle? I find in Greek philosophy many things that are in the Bible. How then could philosophy be “empty”? Is the mind a useless instrument? Is it best to let cobwebs form between our ears? — or did God give us intellect for a purpose? Our problems, in part, begin with this rising anti-intellectualism which has completely won over the “intellectual” class on the left and the right. There is no reward in the unexamined life. Socrates and the holy fool share some interesting traits.”
These are all interesting questions. It appears in the West that Francis of Assisi begat Joachim of Fiore the Immanentist and Occam the Nominalist. And these the children of Francis begot Fideism from Nominalism, which shattered the Scholastic consensus, and in fact, shattered any intelligible future consensus at all.
I do not come from this special western background I think.
I, like many of my people-long before the coming of Dialectical Materialism-have had a special aversion inside to Aristotle’s principle or axiom of non-contradiction. Maybe we just don’t want to be piano keys or door stops. I know that what I say is terrible, and isn’t much of an answer at all to a thinking human being.
Consider that Socrates himself honestly and sincerely said at his trial that he had a ”Daimon” who he conversed with and obeyed, and I am not one to challenge him on that. Where, from realm Celestial or Diabolical, such a being came I won’t say, but I suggest that from this and other examples that the Truth is something far beyond what our philosophies and ethics and morality can ever suss out from the great mysteries of life.
I cannot disagree.
Mr. Nyquist, all the same I do not believe that we should leave our brains at the door, lol…
Vladimir, I think the book where he talked about the fortitude of the Iron Guard, is either In God’s Underground, or Tortured for Christ.
I have to admit, one of his books, I think it is With God in Solitary Confinement, bothered me because some o the things he says are clearly anti scriptural. They are supposed to be sermons he put to memory while he was imprisoned. He does admit, that under extreme duress as he was when he developed them, some of the thoughts may not be right and even appear shocking to himself.
But I had to wonder, why even publish them if he realized they did not all line up with Scripture? That book did give me pause about him.
I mean some of what he said in that particular book was blatantly unScriptural. I hadn’t though about it in a long time until I got to thinking about what you said.
I really hate to get into problems with what I believe are basically good and decent people. But what I hate more is seeing good and decent people become twisted by just a few lies. It’s like poisoning an apple; 99% of the apple is the same,but the 1% will kill you to the death.
Does seem to be a hard thing to accept. But don’t let ”Christians” disappoint you with Christianity. We’ll overcome all this, with God’s help and the help of His holy ones.
I think your feeling about Wurmbrand is well-founded. When a man elevates his writings and thoughts to the level of Scripture, something isn’t right.
Thought Bombs
Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Marx, Darwin, & Freud
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Satan_Is_Alive_and_Well_on_Planet_Earth/kyCLzgvwIL0C?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=thought%20bombs
I do not like Hal Lindsey. I can smell his insincerity — it rises up from every paragraph.
Please cite an contextual example.
I have noticed that Presbyterians in particular have difficulty with Prophecy. A good friend of mine, a Presbyterians pastor, ignores Prophecy. His father was even friends with Jack Van Impe, yet he doesn’t accept Bible Prophecy.
Hal Lindsey has explained that during the Reformation, Prophecy was not relevant to that time in history. As the Books of Daniel and Revelation are sealed for the future, Prophecy didn’t make sense to the Reformers.
Protestant tradition has put the blinders on, for Prophecy.
My personal opinion, is that the Strong Delusion has begun, with the Covid Live Exercise. Paul warns that even the most ardent believers could be fooled if not careful.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Thessalonians+2&version=KJV
I have said again and again, I do not like when these discussions devolve into sectarian religious dogmas. If I agree with you or disagree with you, it takes away from the work of this site. I want people from various theological and philosophical backgrounds to feel comfortable here. If we descend into this kind of theological detail, we are going to lose sight of the communist threat. If we monopolize this discussion board with off-topic deeply divisive denominational particulars, the site will have five readers from “the Church of the Chosen Few” who then break into two warring camps — pre-trib Rapture vs. post trib Rapture (whatever). Remember Nyquist’s Law: Everyone believes something that someone else thinks is crazy. I do not care about Hal Lindsey’s interpretation of the book of Daniel. Frankly, he is an ignoramus and a fraud. I will not discuss it further as it is a hot button with me. Christian writers who get rich writing about prophecy or Satan have always struck me as salesmen — as the modern equivalent of money-changers in the temple. I am sick of the grifters, the fraudster/Godsters, the televangelists with their divorces, affairs and encounters with prostitutes. If it’s popular, if it is a bestseller — 99 times out of 100 it is poison. If it’s a mega-church, I harbor the deepest suspicions. If they play rock music in the service, I feel rage. You feeling me here? There is no rational discussion to be had when things are so superficially represented as “faith”; all we can get is a heated disagreement over underlying realities and plausible appearances. Read something really deep
and scholarly on Daniel. Don’t throw a Hal Lindsey advertisement at me. Beat me, whip me, make me shop at the Dollar Tree. But don’t subject me to Lindsey.
I read his first book The Late Great Planet Earth when it first came out. My first reaction was that this book is wrong, wrong, wrong. Since then I’ve been exposed to other people pushing the same ideas, and they’re still wrong. Many of those “prophecies” I cannot find in the Bible.
The most destructive ones I hear are of the “rapture” and the “seven year tribulation”.
Because of the former, many people are not preparing for persecution. They even don’t prepare for hard times. But hard times and even persecution are coming, even here in the U.S. If Jeff’s informants are correct, within a couple of months there will be nuclear war here in the U.S. connected with an invasion. “Ah the rapture will take us out” so they are completely unprepared. They will suffer.
Another bad result of that teaching is that it makes many of its followers passive instead of actively working for the good. “The rapture is coming soon, so why prepare for the future?”
As for the “seven year tribulation”. the only passage I can think of that refers to that is a mistranslation of Daniel 9:24–27. The last verse and a half of that passage refer to the seven year campaign by the Romans to put down the Jewish revolt from 66–73 AD. And it’s an accurate description of that campaign. There are other misuses of that passage.
What I learned years later is that Hal Lindsey didn’t write that book, nor its sequel. That was dishonest on his part to claim sole authorship.
Don’t get me riled up to write a book on all the errors of Hal Lindsey and the Plymouth Brethren who started those teachings. I’m not anti prophecy, just against the misuse of prophecy. For example, I think that this coming war against the U.S. is the same war that Ezekiel mentioned in chapters 38–39. But don’t push all sorts of weird prophecies that can’t be found in the Bible.
He’s a con, delusional and deluding others
Laszlo Tokes wrote” With God for the People” The man who sparked the Romanian Revolution….Ceausescu . Canada shut down many churches in Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario,
Nobody got riled about that. Seemed like people in Romania got riled and replaced Ceausescu.
https://web.archive.org/web/20000915181325/http://www.jvim.com/daniel/
Dr. Van Impe: Well when I was awakened that night I thought I was the only one who had ever seen this and I have never read it by any other author until I came to the statement of Rabbi Shvili who in 1935 in his book entitled “Reckonings of Redemption” said, we Jews can know our entire history right to its conclusion from the twelve chapters of the book of Daniel. And I’m going to show you why that’s true.
https://web.archive.org/web/20001008103303/http://www.jvim.com/daniel/daniel_part1.html
Daniel’s 70th Week is the seven year Great Tribulation. Hal Lindsey has exhaustively pointed out all Prophecies. John Hagee cites more than 1,200 on over 800 subjects. I just posted one a couple comments above.
Lindsey credits his co writers.
—-
Special Report: The ‘Great Escape’ Misunderstanding
http://omegaletter.com/articles.asp?ArticleID=4722
In Defense of the Faith
Tuesday, February 15, 2005 Special Report: The ‘Great Escape’ Misunderstanding http://omegaletter.com/articles.asp?ArticleID=4722 In Defense of the Faith Tuesday, February 15, 2005 Jack Kinsella – Omega Letter Editor
One of the principle misunderstandings concerning the Rapture revolves around its purpose. Critics of a pre-Tribulation Rapture deride it as some pie-in-the-sky ‘Great Escape’ for Christians living in the last days.
There is no such promise of ‘escape’ from tribulation, they argue, and (correctly) point out the Bible’s promise that ‘in this world ye shall have tribulation’ so the pretribulational hope of a ‘Great Escape’ is not only delusional, it is unscriptural.
The fact is, if the pretribulational hope WAS for a ‘Great Escape’ from tribulation, they would be correct. There is NO promise that the Church will escape tribulation, but there is an iron-clad promise that the Church will not go through the seven years of tribulation described by Jeremiah as the ‘Time of Jacob’s Trouble’ or outlined by Daniel as Israel’s ’70th Week.’
There are several reasons for a pretribulational Rapture, not the least of which is the purpose of the Tribulation in God’s unfolding Plan for the ages.
The purpose of the seven year Tribulation Period is two-fold. The first reason is to fulfill Daniel’s prophecy of the 70 Weeks. The angel told Daniel that:
“Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.” (Daniel 9:24)
Note there are six elements to the fulfillment of this prophecy. First, to finish Israelís sin Ė the rejection of the Messiah at the First Advent.
Then there is a skip forward in time to His Second Advent, at which time, an end will be made of sin, reconciliation will be made for Israelís iniquity, everlasting righteousness will be introduced to Israel, Israelís Scriptures will be vindicated by the fulfillment of all prophecy and finally, the return of Christ at the conclusion of the war of Armageddon, at which time He will be anointed and will take His seat at the Throne of David.
Between the First and Second Advents there is the Church Age, a ‘mystery’ unrevealed to the Hebrew prophets. That is why Daniel’s outline of 490 years of Israeli history doesn’t anticipate a gap between the ‘cutting off of the Messiah’ at the end of the sixty-nine weeks of years and the confirmation of the covenant by the antichrist at the onset of the 70th. (Daniel 9:27)
From Daniel’s perspective, it is an unbroken narrative of what would befall ‘his people’ (the Jews) and ‘his holy city’ (Jerusalem), culminating with the ‘anointing of the Most Holy’ at the conclusion of the 70th week and the ushering in of Isaiah’s Millennial Kingdom. There is no role set aside for the Church in prophecy during the 70th Week, since it is reserved for Israel’s national redemption and their acceptance of the Messiah.
The Church has, by definition, already accepted the Messiah and was redeemed at the Cross.
The second purpose Scripture gives for the Tribulation Period is that it is a period of judgment against those who reject Christ and embrace the antichrist.
Since Christians who accept Christ were already judged at the Cross, there is no role set aside for the Church in the judgments pronounced because, “Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.” (Revelation 9:21)
Repentance is a necessary condition of salvation, it is that repentance that causes us to seek forgiveness at the Cross in the first place. Since believers in the Church Age became believers by repenting, there is no purpose for bringing the judgment of an unrepentant world on the Church.
The Rapture isn’t a ‘Great Escape’, contrary to popular belief. The Rapture occurs when the restraining influence of the Holy Spirit is removed with the Church to allow the onset of the 7 year period of unrestrained evil that occurs during the Tribulation. (2nd Thessalonians 2:7)
The Rapture is the Blessed Hope of the Church, but it’s primary purpose is not so much a ‘rescue mission’ as it is a necessary function of the withdrawal of the Holy Spirit’s ministry of restraining evil. Since we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, when the Restrainer is withdrawn, so are we, since we are His vessels.
Therefore, it is certain to conclude that the Church won’t be here for the Tribulaton itself, since withdrawing the indwelling of the Holy Spirit from the believing Church would leave them spiritually defenseless at a time of maximum need, something Jesus promised He would never do.
Jesus said we could trust Him that He would never forsake His Church, and His Church is defined as being composed of believers who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit.
“And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you FOREVER. Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth Him: but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”
But there is no reason to conclude the Church will be Raptured for the purpose of providing a ‘Great Escape’ for, as I said, the Rapture is necessary to withdrawal of the Restrainer, rather than a rescue mission to the Church. “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” (John 14:18)
Christians have suffered in every generation, and continue to suffer persecution and death for their faith today in places like Vietnam, China, Sudan and most of the Islamic world.
There is no promise to the Church of the last days for a ‘rescue’ but rather, the Rapture is the fulfilment of an EXISTING Promise Jesus made that the Holy Spirit would Personally indwell believers and guide us in all truth ‘forever’.
“In My Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” (John 14:2-3) For believers, our finite understanding of ‘forever’ begins with Pentecost and continues to the Rapture, at which point ‘forever’ takes on its eternal meaning for all believers covered under the Covenant between Jesus and the Church.
“Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” (1 Thessalonians 4:18)
Jack Kinsella – Omega Letter Editor
Ezekiel writes of Gog and Magog in the far North. That’s Russia. Moscow is the only far North city from Jerusalem. Russia doesn’t start WWIII until the mid point of the Great Tribulation when the Antichrist is unconscious. China of the Kings of the East, is the last to enter the war, at the Battle of Armageddon. The United States is nowhere to be found, but if Russian or China were to start something now, they wouldn’t be around in the Great Tribulation. The Rapture will remove America, if not the Yellowstone caldera.
No, I have shown you several times now where you and all the ”Magog is Russia” people are flat wrong. One source in Ancient times, Josephus, said that ”Magog” is the land of Scythia. The land of Scythia covers what is now the Ukraine, Southern Russia north of the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Most scholars today, drawing on the records of the Assyrian Empire, place Magog in what is now Turkey and the Caucasus region, and the same with ”Gog’s” lands/peoples ”Meshech” and ”Tubal”. The traditional heart of Russia is quite far from these areas, although Russia has had those lands under it’s rule at times. Your idea you keep spreading is a vicious and stupid racist slur, theologically untenable,malicious and ignorant of history, archeology, and basic intelligence. It started spreading like the moral and intellectual cancer that it is during the Crimean war in England and France as wartime anti-russian propaganda, right up there with WWI propaganda stories of Germans raping nuns in Belgium and bayoneting babies for fun. Vile, evil, and very stupid. I have met many Westerners who quite literally personally hate me and my family for no other reason than some bastard tells them Russia will join up with Muslims and invade Israel in the End Times… To the Devil with these Devil’s lies!
Likewise, the ”Kings of the East” is a title given in ancient times to the Persian and Parthian Empires of what is now Iran/Pakistan/Afghanistan/ Central Asia/Iraq, the land in Muslim times still called ”Khurasan”. It has absolutely nothing to do with the Chinese at all whatsoever. It too is complete falsehood that a Chinese cavalry of 200 million men and horses will invade the Middle East, conflating two verses mashed up from the Book of Apocalypse.
Furthermore, the ”Rapture” is yet another load of evil fantasy, coming from the fevered delusions of a young mentally ill girl in the British Isles about 150 years ago as I recall. Before that, absolutely no Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox Christian in the entire world for all of Christian history held to this sick and unscriptural garbage. The only reason some Boomer generation Americans hold to this crap is because in an Non-Christian way they want to cheat death and avoid suffering, just catch the ”rapture bus” and miss out on all the possible terrors…
But this is in keeping with the rest of your posts commenting on this blog of Mr. Nyquist’s, which are for the most part totally irresponsible nonsense feeding on and reflecting the paranoid fears and delusions of others, stoking hatreds and divisions and ignorance, and leaving others cynical and with a hatred for what they falsely believe is ”Christianity”..
No way is Turkey capable of leading a unified Islamic attack on Israel to grab its resources without any concern of military repercussions from the West. Putin, who has described Russia as the natural protector of Islam – (https://jamestown.org/program/putin-protects-islam-and-praises-democracy-in-grozny/ – is already positioning himself as grand arbiter of peace and stability in the Middle East, which Russia recently described as its “near abroad”.
Setting Ezekiel 38 aside for one moment, the facts are: Russia’s economy is massively based on supplying gas to Europe, hence Putin’s fixation on the Nordstream pipelines; that being the case, how do you think he feels about Israel’s Southstream project to supply a rival source of gas to Europe via Cyprus, Greece and Italy? And then, imagine if you will, a world in which the US has been militarily depleted / distracted through engagement with China or chaos at home… what would there be to stop him from advancing his forces from Syria into Israel to seize the gas fields? Firmly worded howls of protest is the worst he might expect from the US. You don’t want to believe such an outcome is possible but not only is it plainly possible going by present events and trends in geopolitics, it’s looking increasingly inevitable.
And for the record, I do believe Russia – not Turkey – is the modern day Land of Magog. And Putin – or his near-term successor – is probably Gog. But I also believe Orthodoxy is an apostate form of “Christianity”, with its idolatrous icons, Babylonian pantheon of “saints”, superstitions and false doctrines of salvation.
Key term: Far North.
Not far North-West.
Gog and Magog, could however be Russia and Belarus.
Furthermore, the Antichrist is European not Turkish. The Messiah is Jewish. The Christian Church does not replace the Jews as God’s chosen people.
The term, Rapture, was coined by the Catholic Church, but it’s based entirely upon many passages of ancient Hebrew Scriptures.
Jeff neglected to post an article which explains.
The Rapture is not to spare Christians any tribulation, merely the Great Tribulation. The Antichrist can’t fully express Satan’s power, as long as the Holy Spirit is present, with the Body of Believers.
I’m starting to hear chatter from folks worried about the new strand of Coronavirus. I’m a contractor, I remodel houses, build additions, and just about anything related to residential short of building new houses. Been starting to hear chatter from some of my customers. While a large minority of folks in my area didn’t buy into it the first go round, a great many did, though we were all tolerant of each others opinions. But now, if folks fall for it again, I truly think there is no hope for the ones who do. I live in the great state of Alabama. I believe we have the least percentage of “vaccinated” of any state. Have to say, I’m pretty proud about that, lol. But many of the elderly have fallen for getting the so-called vaccination, and I hate that. We need them to be around, but I fear they wont be in a couple years
We really do not know what this massive experiment is going to cause. Will we be forced into monthly vaccinations? How will this be used to decide — obliquely — the fate of millions?
Fellow I was working for today is a timber cruiser approaching retirement age. He just got over the “delta variant”…and he had had one of the “vaccines”. This is all so pathetically sad.
So the vaccine is worthless.
It’s like I read in something you wrote a few months ago, there has been a massive failure of good, common sense leadership on this. That wasnt your exact words, but that was the first of what you were saying.
Also interesting, a friend of mine works in the lab at a local hospital. Tmshe and some of her coworkers did a Covid test *on a Covid test*.
And the results came back positive, lol.
I did not know you could do that.
I hope it does not cause the deaths, or suffering of all the otherwise reasonable people I know who have got the shot. I know of a few people who have taken it for noble reasons.
A friend of mine’s wife is a supervisor at a nursing home. The nursing home staff was told that if they didnt all get vaccinated, the patients would still not be allowed to have visitors. My friend’s wife, because of her position and her love for her patients, took the shot. She now has heart palpitations, and dry mouth pretty regularly. Sad.
My pastor and his wife took it. He didnt believe in the hype around the virus, but quite a few of the older folks were fearful of it. He is a true man of God, and well respected. Some who wanted to get the vaccine, look to him so much, that they hesitated to get it if he didnt. So, when it first became available, he and his wife took one of them, solely so he wouldnt cause any to think he frowned on them for getting it.
Seems a bit misguided to me, but I know them well enough to know they were only thinking of the fearful folks in the congregation. I wouldn’t have done it though.
Everyone has antibodies to SARS which immunizes everybody to all strains.
I wonder if since the virus is inert as Fauci concedes, and it the gain of function modification is to track how a virus spreads, as Paul asserts, the perhaps all the ever increasing dosages of subsequent vaccinations is to see how much will kill a virus, inert or not?
The hubris of chauvinistic political scientists assume that the vaccines won’t kill significant number of test subjects.
My suspicion is that It started out people died in typical numbers of cases of Flu, and it was attributed to Covid. Then vaccinations for SARS were produced as the remedy. As people die of vaccinations, it’s attributed as a surge due to new variant equally inert strains.
We still don’t have any reported numbers of deaths due to Flu. Did SARS kill it?
I meant that was the *gist* of what you were saying.
That is what she told a group of friends at a get together one evening. I felt she was being truthful, but there is always the possibility she was lying.
Greyknight, you said;
”I think your feeling about Wurmbrand is well-founded. When a man elevates his writings and thoughts to the level of Scripture, something isn’t right.”
I agree. There is a concept in Scripture and Russian Orthodoxy, it’s called ”Prelest”, in English most like ”spiritual deception”,with the suggestion of deceits clothed in imaginary imagery (one monk was on top of a mountain praying, and he thought a chariot flew to him to ride. He stepped onto the ”chariot” and fell,dashed to pieces on the ground) or seductive enticements to spiritual pride…Humility is key.
Amen. Pride goethe before destruction.
Indeed it does, but the proud do not learn. Perhaps that is part of the punishment for pride itself?
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2021/07/20/15k-migrants-apprehended-in-one-week-in-busiest-u-s-border-sector/
Wow, what a debacle. 15,000 people is the size of a small town! One apprehended bunch reportedly contained almost 800 people. It is like an invasion, this tide of humanity showing up on the southern border, especially in Texas.
Vladimir, that is very possible. Remember Pharoah’s pride against God? Even after the ten plagues, he didnt learn.
Oh yes, Pharoah did not learn,and so with his refusal the glory of God was displayed to the Israelites and to the world. To this day there exists a Papyrus manuscript,the ”Lamentations of Ipuwer” which records calamities in Egypt that are too close to the Biblical account to be a coincidence. Secular historians of course reject any connection between the two…
“And he said unto him, if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” Luke 16:31
i dont think it is at all helpfull to qualify Hall Linsdsey as an ignoramus.What he did was to present biblical prophecy in an accesible manner;he made the Bible relevant to people outside the fold.Like it or not,but he for instance laid out the 666 one currency-globalism in a way that people certainly (at long last) now ought to relate to.Furthermore he connected ufo-ism to the powerfull delusion (more than 25 years ago).
Interestingly he also alluded to a secret Russian-German agreement.Seeing the pipelines and Angela Merkel;are you sure he wasnt on to something?
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2021/07/22/report-chinese-company-central-player-shipping-sanctioned-iranian-venezuelan-oil/
This article is an example of why I’ve often found foreign policy/current events to be so fascinating: Secrecy! Intrigue! Bad actors acting badly! 😛
@JRNyquist: I recently watched a video, posted on Youtube, of a lecture that you had given back in 2007 in California. In this lecture, you had laid out the “stages” of a potential Russian communist attack on the United States. My question to you is, why has this state of “grey terror” lasted so long (since 09/11/01)?
They did not — so far — elevate grey terror to red terror. Why? This is unknown. This length of time was not what the defector Suvorov suggested. Lunev was more ambiguous as to the timing. The enemy apparently modified their strategy to drag it out. Possibly they felt this would not work quickly and their move to nuclear terror would be detected. Perhaps we have an intelligence advantage in analyzing the source of a nuclear weapon. Or they were getting small advantages by waiting and felt more comfortable.
Thanks!
Greyknight, you replied;
“And he said unto him, if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” Luke 16:31
Indeed, right to the end;
”The coming of the lawless one will be accompanied by the working of Satan, with every kind of power, sign, and false wonder, and with every wicked deception directed against those who are perishing, because they refused the love of the truth that would have saved them. For this reason God will send them a powerful delusion so that they believe the lie, in order that judgment may come upon all who have disbelieved the truth and delighted in wickedness.”
I believe we are seeing that strong delusion taking place now. What kind of madness will it end with?
I’ve read most of what Dave Hunt wrote. He is not as you characterize him.
I’ve read Hunt too, his words about the origins and nature of the ”roman catholic church” are historically and theologically inaccurate and misleading, and I say that as an opponent of the Papacy as an Institution.
How is Trump miscalculating?
Taiwan is not part of the PRC. It never has been. If economic ties were all that was required to be part of another country, then what you get is a mass of contradictions. The people of Taiwan have no desire to be part of the PRC. They are quite aware of the sort of regime that has its boot on the throat of red China.
There are things that can be said about Hal Lindsey, but insincerity is one the things I would have to strongly reject.
You would be well advised to stick to Eastern Orthodoxy and its aberrations. You have bought into the myth of a British girl being the source of the rapture doctrine. She was not. Her vision is post-tribulational. Your ignorance on the subject is palpable.
When someone starts off as you have with your comments I know from the flak that I am over the target, as your characterization of her vision as ”post-tribulational” is irrelevant… She still spoke of the ”Rapture”, a novel doctrine unknown to any Christian of any kind for most of Christendom’s history and still not believed in by most.
Classifying Lindsey as an ignoramus, or insincere is way off base. Perhaps Jeff has seen some so-called prophecy scholars that were grifters. I have not, but such people are not part of the Christian circles I run in. Some of what Lindsey wrote in “Late Great Planet Earth” was wrong, and he has pointed those things out himself.
I hold the position that the great delusion is already here and is the first part of the wrath that God promised in His word.
The ”Rapture” as believed in by many, is part of that ”Great Delusion”. We’ll see in any case.
The comments by “Anonymous” 2:10 thru 2:59 are mine. WordPress does not seem to be logging me in properly when I use Brave. The handle should be ohengineer.
I don’t bother to log in, rather just fill in my email and name each time I post. That seems to work. I use Brave on a Mac.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/07/23/prisoners-birth-control-transgender-men/
This is an action that is irresponsible, rash, and stupid. Typical California politics. 🙄
They’ll suffer an analogue to the judgement of the ”cities of the plain”,of which the Dead Sea is an immortal memorial.
It cant happen soon enough.
Yes, America does seem a lot like Sodom and Gomorrah these days. Sometimes it feels like we are “waiting for the other shoe to drop,” so to speak.
Greyknight, you said about the new ”cities of the plain;
”It cant happen soon enough.”
Still many righteous people in them, whom St. Abraham prayed for to God. And recall God brought them war first, to get them to repent, then the Angels came, before the Judgement.
Yes, Lot and his daughters were saved, according to the Biblical text.
I should have said;”a few”, but thank you.
That is true.
The great cities anywhere these days,they seem so un-natural and anti-human by their very design, don’t you think? There is a long Russian ”Old Believer” tradition that the cities in this age are part of the ”Spirit of Antichrist” Scripture speaks of, or ”Antichrist” for short. And yet, honest folk live in them still, and so they are not destroyed.
@Vladimir: Sure. I understood what you had meant.
thank you.