A Dispensationalist Shepherded Tone

 

    “My brothers, my sisters these are the prophesied days. The end is near...”

    The superposition of sine waves separated by octaves. Start low, rising higher.

    “Look to Israel regathered. God’s time clock. The infallible sign. Only a breath away...”

    Continually rising. Higher, higher, ever higher, never higher.

    “The rapture is imminent. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe today. Two thousand years. Maybe today...”

    Ever increasing intensity. Perpetually sustained anxiety.

    “You’ve seen the signs – You have heard of wars and rumors of wars – Russia is on the move. China is assembling an army of millions. Germany will invade. Nation against nation. Kingdom against kingdom. Famines and earthquakes in divers places. Plagues and pestilence and devastating disease...”

    Reaching for resolution. Reaching. Reaching. Rising. Reaching.

    “Mussolini is the Antichrist. Kissinger is the Antichrist. Gorbachev is the Antichrist. Saddam is the Antichrist...”

    Rising. Rising. Still Rising.

    “The future is now. It’s later than it’s ever been. The signs have been fulfilled in our our lifetime. This generation. Now. The dawn is rising…”

    Imminent but never here.

The Pentecost Machine

    My wife and I went out for dinner this evening. She recently discovered that she likes the burgers and fries at the Family Diner that’s just a few blocks from our home. So we’ve been there a number of times in the past couple of months – enough times to sample of variety of their meals. But there was something new there tonight.

    Just inside the door, to the left of the hostess stand, next to the Claw game was a Pentecost Machine. “Whoa!” I exclaimed as we entered. “I haven’t seen one of these since I was a kid”

    “What is it?” she asked dubiously eyeing the mechanical man inside the glass box. He was dressed in the baby blue suit jacket, white shirt, and black tie that I remembered. He wore the same large, black rimmed glasses and held a floppy, dog-eared leather-bound Bible. “It’s a Pentecost Machine – a kind of mechanical genie, like Zoltar in the movie, Big. That’s Johnny Pentecost in there. You drop in a quarter and he gives you prediction about the future from the book of Revelation. It prints out on a little card.”

    Just then the animatronic preacher inside the glass began to move. “The Antichrist now walks among us. Do you know the number of his name? Insert twenty-five cents to find out.”

    “Just like I remember,” I told her. “A church we sometimes visited in Logansport, Indiana had one in the fellowship hall of their building. I thought it was awesome but my dad sneered at it and said that ‘parlor games and carnival amusements don’t belong in church.’ He was right of course, but I was always disappointed that he wouldn’t let me drop in a quarter.”

    “Behold the things to come!” the mechanical voice boomed again. “A sure word of prophecy, only twenty-five cents!”

    “I think I’ve got a quarter in my purse,” my wife said. “Do you want to fulfill your childhood dreams?” I laughed and nodded. She dug in her purse and found a quarter for me. “Go nuts,” she said. I dropped the quarter into the slot. The machine lit up and came to life. I could hear the servo motors whining and could smell the burning rubber odor of faulty, old wiring.

    “Gomer – which is Germany – will send tanks and armored vehicles, submarines, and helicopters to invade Israel. Ezekiel 38.” A printed card, slightly smaller than a playing card dropped into the slot below the figure. I fished it out and put it in my pocket.

    My wife rolled her eyes at this and I laughed. “These things were really popular back in the day. Do you have another?” She didn’t bother to roll her eyes again, but I knew. I knew… She found another quarter and handed it to me. “You have fun. I’m going to go find a booth.”

    “Sure. Sure,” I nodded. “I’ll catch up,” I said and dropped in the quarter.

    “Your VISA card is the mark of the beast, 666. VI is Roman numerals for 6, as is S in Greek and the letter A looks like the Babylonian cuneiform for 6.” Another card dropped out.

    I didn’t have any more quarters, but I had a fiver and the hostess was willing to make change for me. I dropped in another quarter.

    “Vladimir Putin will invade Cyprus when Europeans have a crisis to manage,” Johnny Pentecost said and the card dropped down into the slot.

    “Putin?” I wondered. “I would have expected Brezhnev or Gorbachev. When was this thing made?” I examined the casing for a model or serial number. I even pulled the machine away from the wall a bit so I could look at the back – but the hostess gave me an evil eye. I apologized and pushed it back into place and dropped in another quarter.

    “There are eighty-eight reasons that the Lord Jesus Christ will return in the year 1988,” Johnny Pentecost told me. And a card dropped into the slot.

    And then another. And another. Card after card after card. They began spilling out of the machine onto the floor in a heap. They wouldn’t stop.

    “Hey!” My wife said from behind me as I was gathering and shoving cards into my jacket pocket. “Should I order for you?”

Nothing Much Matters after the End

The day that the end of the world began started like any other day; alarm clocks buzzed, the sun came up in the east, and men and women drank cups of coffee as they made their way to work. It was over before most of us had clocked in for the day; it was over before we even realized what had happened.

This isn’t to say that no one had anticipated the events of that morning. The members of the lunatic fringe, those of the tinfoil hat brigade had been watching the skies for decades for just this sort of thing. That guy on the History Channel, the one with the hair and the Greek name, said, “I told you it was aliens.” But by then it didn’t really matter.

At 6:45 that morning officials at NASA called for an emergency press conference to announce the arrival of several large spacecraft, alien spacecraft, approaching the Earth. With long-range radar sweeps and satellite photographs they presented overwhelming evidence that, indeed, we were about to be visited by intelligences of unknown origin. When asked, at the end of the press conference, why this information was being shared with the general public, instead of being kept secret and classified, the NASA spokeswoman said, “there’d be no point. The aliens will be visible to the general public – to anyone in the northern hemisphere with a telescope, even a cheap one, would be able to see them in a matter of hours.”

That day was spent in arguments over cubicle walls and lunch tables, on the airwaves and around government agency conference tables. How would we respond to these visitors? Did they come in peace or intend upon the destruction of the human race. Some said that we should be prepared to welcome these guests from beyond our solar system. Others argued that we need to begin readying our missile defense systems and mobilizing our military forces – immediately – before the invasion began.   Plans were drafted. Resources were mobilized. But none of it mattered. The aliens didn’t stay long enough for us to put any of our plans into effect.

Their space craft entered the atmosphere just after 9:30 AM Central Standard Time. They hovered over the Atlantic Ocean for about 20 minutes – long enough to dump something into the atmosphere. And then they left. There was no communication from them at all during that time. Nothing. They made not radio broadcast and did not respond to our frantic transmissions.

They stayed just long enough to jettison a toxin, or poison of some sort into the air and then they were gone, leaving the Earth along the same trajectory that brought them here. They didn’t stick around to see the result of their arrival. They didn’t stick around to enslave or consume the human population, or to count the dead.

The question of motive – Why? Why did they come? – remains. Was the poison they released into the jetstream a weapon?  Or were they merely emptying the trash before they made the next leg of their intergalactic journey? Did they know that it would have a fatal effect on the human population (and on many animal species as well)? Did they care?

But that question remains unanswered. They’re gone, and do not seem to be returning any time soon. And if the death they dropped into the skies continues to kill at its present rate, there will be few, if any, who will be around to ask them should they return. Nothing much matters after the end. 

The Earth Is Patient

The Earth is as patient as it is old, but it is tired. It is worn.
An involuntary subject of another’s will,
the Earth knows futility.
The Earth knows frustration.

With ineffable, tectonic groans
and tidal sighs
it waits for liberation,
for salvation.

It was said once that
The day will come when the vines will grow with ten thousand shoots
and each shoot will have ten thousand branches
and each branch will have ten thousand twigs
and each twig will have ten thousand clusters
and each cluster will have ten thousand grapes.

And in that day humankind will be pressed out.
Make no mistake – the natural world is not neutral. 

(See Romans 8: 18 - 27 and II Baruch 29: 5)

Gaudete - A Sermon for the Third Week of Advent 2016

The third Sunday of Advent is named Gaudete Sunday – “Gaudete” is the Latin word “Rejoice.” Today is a day for rejoicing. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say rejoice. Let your forbearance be known to all, for the Lord is near at hand. Have no anxiety about anything, but in all things, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God.” (Philippians 4: 4 – 6).

Today we rejoice. And this is different somewhat than happiness and good cheer. We hear a lot of songs during these extended weeks of Advent/Christmas about being happiness and good cheer and being merry and bright. But Joy is different. Joy is bigger, deeper, and less dependent upon external circumstances.

Today we rejoice – even if we don’t feel happy and gay and merry and bright. Today we rejoice, even if we don’t have the “Christmas spirit” and our hearts aren’t full of good cheer.  As Pope Francis said in his Gaudete Sunday Sermon last year, “We cannot let ourselves be taken in by weariness; sadness in any form is not allowed, even though we have reasons (for sadness), with many concerns and the many forms of violence which hurt our humanity, the coming of the Lord, however, must fill our hearts with joy.” (Francis)

Even though we may have reason to feel anxious  - world events seem as close as ever to explosive calamity – even though we may have reasons to feel worry – friends and family members in the hospital – even though we may have reasons to fear, we will choose to rejoice today. We will be joyful (if not happy and cheerful) because we know that the Lord is near.

Many biblical scholars believe that the book of Isaiah was not written by one single prophet, but that it is a composite work composed of the words of the prophet along with his students and followers who came later. They believe that our text for this morning (Isaiah 35) and the previous chapter (34) were probably written by two different authors, at different times, but that they have been purposefully arranged this way, next to each other, to heighten the dramatic contrast between them. (Kilpatrick 358) So, even though our text for this morning is a reading from chapter 35, it is good to begin by taking a brief look at chapter 34.

Chapter 34 is filled with doom and destructive gloom, with the stench of rotting corpses. There are mountains flowing with blood and the stars have all disappeared. It is the day of vengeance, burning pitch and billowing smoke. There are dangerous and wild animals in that desert, monsters and desert demons, snakes and buzzards. The land is full of thorns and thistles. And there is no kingdom there.

It is bleak. It is dark. The burning land of despair. It is the wastelands. It is apocalyptically dark, the end of the world as we know it.  It is the place of fear.

But then we turn to chapter 35 and the arid desert now blooms with new and glorious life. The wilderness rejoices and blossoms like a crocus. The Israelite people, living in Babylonian exile, looked back across the burning sand of the Syrian Desert that separated them from their homeland and saw, not the trackless wastes of apocalyptic ash of ruin and decay, but joyful hope.

“At the heart of their dream of a Messiah and his Kingdom has been the vision of the homeland and the return of the exile. Greater than the passion for vengeance on their foes, deeper than the exultation of victory has been the comfort of God’s promise that for them there would come at last a glad homecoming, the great ingathering of the ransomed and the redeemed” (Kilpatrick 358 – 359). They saw a highway leading through the desert of their despair, and they called it The Sacred Way – the road of the redeemed. And they saw themselves - the ransomed of the LORD – returning home, coming back to Zion with shouts, and being crowned with joy everlasting.  Their external circumstances didn’t speak to joy. They were captive. They were prisoners. They were exiles in a foreign and hostile land. Broken. Destroyed. But they saw a vision of joy.

Today, was we wait and anticipate the coming of our Lord Jesus, in his coming as an infant in Bethlehem – which we will celebrate in not too many days, in his glorious coming with his peaceable Kingdom, and in his everyday coming into the now-present of our lives we are standing at the in-between point – between chapters 34 and 35. We are standing between the apocalyptic ash of the burning desert and the lush blooming of crocuses and roses, between streams of burning pitch and streams of water in the desert. We are standing between the long dark nights of cold winter and the increasing light and warmth of spring renewed. We are standing between weak-kneed fear and “Be strong; fear not.” We are standing between despair and joy. Which way will we turn?

Which way will we turn? Back toward the world as it is with chaos and danger around every corner? Or will we turn toward the dawning light of hope and the joy of his coming? Toward the promise of restoration and fulfillment and the blossoming of beautiful life?

Gaudete. Rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say rejoice for the Lord is near.

The Blessing of the Crocus

Kilpatrick, G.G.D. “Isaiah: Exposition” The Interpreter’s Bible Volume V. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press. 1956. Print.

Pope Francis, “Gaudete Sermon – December 13, 2015”

The End is Near - This Time We Mean It

Aren’t our ink-stained fingers enough proof? Don’t our innumerable books and pamphlets demonstrate our unflagging dedication to this literary art? Especially in this era of easy inkjets and laser printers? No fuss, no muss.  But we stain our fingers and cramp our hands with writing so that you will be frightened, and that frightened you will believe.

But you have refused to take fright. What is wrong with you?

Was it our fault that the Soviet Union never invaded Israel? We said that it would happen – and it would have, except that the beatified Ronald Reagan was just too much for those Ruskies to handle. That man just starred them down, wouldn’t blink. The evil empire would have invaded the Holy Land of Israel if the leader of the free world hadn’t so effectively held them in check.

Was it our fault that Jesus didn’t return in 1988, that he didn’t come roaring through the sky like a crack of lightning? Perhaps he would have if the Soviet Union hadn’t begun restructuring itself toward a mixed economy. (Again, we must give thanks to the beatified Reagan.)

Gorbachev was the Antichrist, of course. We told you that. But you didn’t listen. You wouldn’t believe it. Not enough of you, anyway. The faithful fundamentalists believed, and for that they are blessed, but they were not enough. And so the Antichrist's mantle was passed to Saddam Hussein.  But, again, you would not believe us or our books.

The world was not frightened enough.

You laughed when we told you about that supercomputer in Brussels known as ‘the Beast.’ You laughed when we said that the internet was the 666 mark of the beast.

The world did not take our threats seriously.

But we mean business. There will be no more screwing around. No more paper dragons. The world will end. And soon. The End is near - this time we mean it.

One Final Limerick for Tim LaHaye

I don’t wish to be rude, cruel, or snide
but his eschatology was fried;
despite his frequent claim
the rapture never came
and now “Left Behind” LaHaye has died.

Tim LaHaye – evangelical, “prophecy expert,” died at the age of 90.

What I’m Reading: Pontypool Changes Everything

“A face is a marvelous thing for those who possess it. It is really the only thing that distinguishes us. Not quite enough to recommend us, just a trickster feature of our anatomy that makes everyone appear famous. But still, the face is beautiful. A sensitive sign of obscure integration. And every once in a while that integration is challenged” (Burgess 184).

Zombies are the thing these days–though maybe the craze is starting to wane. Even so, we’re fascinated by the bleak, apocalyptic horror of the zombie story. They’re not like other monsters, not like other supernatural creatures of the night; they’re worse, more frightening because they are us. “[W]hat is especially terrifying with zombies is that their monstrous state is their human state, it never transforms or goes away” (Paffenroth 9).

Most Zombie books, graphic novels, movies, video games focus on the horror that arises from the disintegration of human society – the collapse of modern culture and the breakdown of human relationships. But Pontypool (both the novel (1995) and the movie (2009) are different; indeed, as the full title of the novel declares, Pontypool Changes Everything. Pontypool features that same psychological terror–the horror of watching human characters, not only being eaten by the undead, but also the horror of humans slaughtering creatures that still so closely resemble us humans, that is humanity consuming itself. (Paffenroth 9) But even more the disintegration of human civilization, Pontypool is about the disintegration of human language.

The novel is not a ‘regular’ novel. It’s a bit like the Dadaist poetry of Tristan Tzara and the cut-up writings of William Burroughs. It’s a pile up of nonsense, non-sequiturs like a multiple vehicle collision on the highway that eventually creates something that resembles reality, albeit a terrible, burnt out, wrecked and ruined reality. The movie, the screenplay of which was also written by Tony Burgess, is more straightforward, more linear than the novel, but is still fairly unlike most other zombie films.

“I’m not the person who wrote this book,” says Burgess in the afterward to a 2009 edition of the novel; “I remember him. He had just graduated with a degree in semiotics, which is to say he was insufferably preoccupied with literary malformations… He wanted to magnify the least recognizable parts of his thoughts and feelings” (Burgess 253).

In Pontypool, the zombies are not brought to unlife by mysterious radiation from a space probe returning from Venus (as in George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead) or some sort of divine wrath, not by a disease or virus (as in Romero’s Dawn of the Dead) or some sort of biological weapon (as in Resident Evil or 28 Days Later). But neither is it left forever unexplained (as in The Walking Dead graphic novels and television series). In Pontypool the zombie virus is spread through language; the ‘virus’ infects words; its victims lose the ability to understand or communicate and are driven to states of rage and brutal animalistic violence, including the inevitable cannibalism.

“That night I had terrible dreams I was killing people. When I awoke it took some serious self-examination to convince myself that I was not repressing real acts of murder. So completely vivid was my sense of guilt that I felt nothing short of running through a full account of my life could provide me with the peace of mind I needed to fall back asleep. In spite of the three hours I spent combing over the details, I have, to this day, a persistent certainty that hidden inside me is the revolting knowledge of days when I wasn’t quite myself. I now suspect that my inexplicable bouts of exhaustion are due to the massive effort of keeping those days behind me” (Burgess 10).

Acclaimed horror writer, Stephen King says that we should “[b]egin by assuming that the tale of horror, no matter how primitive, is allegorical by its very nature; that it is symbolic” (King 31). The monster, the horror at the symbolic, dark heart of Pontypool is the fear that the world that we inhabit is inevitably and utterly incomprehensible, that we cannot make sense of the universe. In the end everything is madness and frenzy, and rage, and despair.

“You can’t pretend that you don’t feel very sorry for this man and his self-portrait. He has completely lost the ability to take care of himself. He will die soon, and the fact that that is merely all he ever wanted doesn’t make you feel any less protective of him now. You remember looking in the mirror and feeling awe: the self-portrait is complete.You think that you have found the face that can finally say goodbye” (Burgess 109).

“There is no life without prayer. Without prayer there is only madness and horror.” -Vasilii Rozanov

Burgess, Tony. Pontypool Changes Everything. Toronto, Canada: ECW Press. 1998. 2009. Print.

King, Stephen. Danse Macabre. New York, NY: Berkley Books. 1981. Print.

Paffenroth, Kim. The Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero’s Visions of Hell on Earth. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press. 2006. Print.

A Dark Rapture

And Jesus answered them, “Take care that no one deceives you with carefully constructed government cover-ups and misinformation. You will hear of gyroscopic propulsion systems and secret spy planes, but these are not the end; see that you are not alarmed. Nation will fight against nation and kingdom against kingdom using the advanced technologies but this is only the beginning.

Then you will be handed over to be tortured by the FBI and interrogated before the Committee on Science and Astronautics. You will be hated and denounced as a whistle-blower, conspiracy theorist, lunatic. And many will fall away. Many false prophets will arise offering Communion; they will deceive many. But anyone who stands firm to the end will be saved. This good news of kingdom will be proclaimed to the entire galaxy as evidence to the species. And then the end will come.

So when you see the appalling abomination, of which the prophet D. spoke, flying over the windrowed heartland try to remember that you have a camera. But let the reader understand, you may see nothing more than a dancing blur of unfocused light, ill-defined shapes screaming toward the horizon. Escape to the mountains if you can.

There is evidence of galactic maleficence at work here. Alas, alas for those who have been abducted, raptured by large eyed demonic manifestations from space. Pray that you will not be among their missing numbers. For then there will be great distress – explosions of radio transceivers, lethal light beams and heat rays, colored lights that hypnotize and mass hallucinations – great distress unparalleled since the world began.

If anyone says to you, “Look, here are the crop circles of the Cosmic Christ,” do not believe him, or, “Look, he is in the desert of New Mexico,” do not follow. Because the coming of the Son of Man will be like lightning striking in the east and flashing far into the west. Where the corpse is, there the vultures gather.

Immediately after the distress of those days the sun will be darkened and the moon will be bloodied. Televised preachers will write books about the convergence of holiday festivals and lunar events and the power of reason will be shaken. He will send his angels with a loud trumpet to gather the elect, but a louder Trump will unleash great winds upon the land. Sky and earth will pass away. You don’t know when, but sky and earth will be burnt away.

As it was in the days of Deucalion, so will it be again: people eating, drinking, taking husbands, paying taxes, right up to the day Deucalion went up into that floating casket. And they suspected nothing. Then of two men in the fields, one is abducted and probed, one is left; of two women grinding their teeth, one is taken and impregnated with alien seed, one is left.

So stay awake, because you never know when the night is coming. It may already be too late. Get on your radios and sound an all points alarm. Block all highways, stop all traffic, and call every law enforcement agency in the state. They're here already! You're next! You're next, You're next...

This is not Christmas, but Armageddon

From the bright burning star of the east comes the fire that will burn the cities of earth, the Wormwood starfire that destroys Russian villages and all immorality along with the liberal press and its persuasive power. Spray gasoline on the flames, for Gogmagog! is almost entirely destroyed.

Scandalous as it seems, the scriptures are not specific on this point. Will the singing sons of morning or the dancing daughters of darkness prevail? Will we sit on the hillsides of winter, repeating the sound?

It is true apostasy, news of the mysterious: “Nowell.” How we marvel at the wonder of the age. “Nowell, nowell, nowell! Nowell sing we clear,” and the result is a rising tide of communists and socialists. “Holpen are the folk of earth” with their mob mentality. “Cast-a down the proud” indeed!

We would be free. We would be jolly, but our efforts are cut, ripped by the terrible claws of a perverted Santa Claus. Look how charming is this world dictator in red, the king of climate and coal and conflict. “Aye! and be merry,” they say, “put sorrow aside.” This is not Christmas, but Armageddon.

Millions of beleaguered fundamentalists and right wing supermen will mount a Christmas counter attack. No more holiday or season greetings, but a shout! Russian Bolsheviks pour across the border chanting “re, mi, fa, sol!” in accents coarse and thick, but we will greet them on this happy morning with a hail of potash and bullets. We will not allow them to destroy Christmas forever.

Your Daily Apocalypse

This is your daily apocalypse,
the regularly scheduled end of the world
created by the empty hands of men.
A hanging clock,
a ticking judge
writing in blood
drawn from the veins of a missing cloud.

What failsafe? What protection?
Will you attribute all of this to the mind of God as well?

The lights in the sky over the northwest
are part of the program;
there is no need for your consternation.
Pack up your objections and go home;
we’ll call if we need anything from you.

Biblical Limericks: Dispensationalists Like To Say

Dispensationalists like to say
that Christians will be raptured someday-
but I think they’ve ignored
the last prayer of our Lord:
“I don’t ask you to take them away…”

John 17: 15

The World Was on Fire

As I rounded the corner from crowded Fourth Street to the dark and narrow alleyway I realized I was being followed by three men attempting inconspicuousness and failing. They looked exactly like what they were: cops trying not to look like cops. She called them; I was sure of it, called them and told them where I’d be. But it was too late to do anything about her, or her paranoia, so I ran through the rain. It was cold and miserable, and I was already soaked through my clothes. I ran on. If I wanted to save the Manuscript I couldn’t let her hired security thugs stop me. And if I couldn’t save the Manuscript from the encroaching darkness, the whole world would soon feel it.

All I know is what I’ve heard, and what I’ve heard recently is that dark strangers are moving in, coming in from the forest, riding tall horses. They come in after sundown and congregate at pubs and inns, sitting together, drinking pints of ale, but speaking to none but those like themselves. Folks round these parts are getting nervous. We don’t much care for strangers and these particular strangers especially.

 The streets were ruled by dealers–heroin, grass, cinnabar, Ouroboros-Benzene dream pills, mercury shots, contraband fireworks and firearms–you could get it all for the right price. And it was King Louis who ruled the streets of our neighborhood. His name wasn’t really Louis. It was Larry. Larry Allan. I knew him from grade school, back when we both lived off Fifth Street, down past the Polish bakery.  But once he dropped out of high school in the middle of our junior year, and took over the Revelators–a lousy, piss-ant street gang-he began fancying himself as some sort of urban royalty, even if the entirety of his kingdom was only a few square block and his subjects were nothing but hookers and junkies and thieves. He insisted that anyone who wanted to do business in his neighborhood call him by his full title: King Louis, the Sun King, dealer of light and ecstasy, supplier of desire and joy.

In those days it was all quick and nasty scrambling for a brief moment of relief, a few spasms of pleasure. There was little actual joy. People were hungry. They were slaves to needs that they couldn’t even begin to articulate. They were people whose dirty, little lives were bought and sold by powerful men on far away estates. And King Louis was content to rule over this squalor, playing puppet to these more powerful men. He ruled like a rooster, strutting about with a cocksure swagger, wearing a riotous combination of colors like any pimp street dealer. He squawked and flounced about, confident of his place on top of the heap.

He ruled and reigned until the day he forgot that the ax is always ready for the rooster’s neck.

In those days of 200 kilometer wide crude oil spills and perpetual forest fires, eco-disasters failed to garner any attention. The media had already moved on to the sexual misadventures of the thirteen year old princess of Wales. Amoral paparazzi celebrity stalkers feeding the insatiable habits of comfortable, old ladies who pretended to be shocked by, but secretly envied, the stories of sex, and drugs, and bondage by the pre-teen royalty. The world was burning. Thick, oily smoke choked the skies and snuffed out the sun, but no one was watching. No one cared. They snorted another line of coke, and screwed another 11 year old boy. They bought and sold guns and carpet bombed another developing nation into complete commercial submission. They twittered and texted the whole thing. But no one cared.

The Manuscript could have saved us.

I ran out of alleyway before I could break away from her street-clothes goon squad. I could hear their foot falls closer and closer. I needed an escape that I couldn’t find. The trio of coppers closed in on me.

“Hey guys,” I ventured with the lopsided grin that my wife thinks is cute and everyone else doesn’t think about at all. “How’s tricks?” They didn’t laugh. I think one of them said something in Russian. I really don’t remember. The beating lasted a few minutes, but I can only recall the first few seconds. A punch to my stomach followed by another into my left temple and I was out before I could tumble to the ground.

I do remember that the strangers from the forest wore hoods. “They look like the Unabomber,” my wife joked. But when one of them turned towards where we were sitting, she muttered an apology and we got up and left. We didn’t want any trouble with these strangers. It was enough to work our little jobs and to live in our little home without being molested by street gangs or squashed by the militaristic, neocon government. We didn’t want to compound our lot by messing with the inexplicable strangers.

We didn’t have the power to control our own lives, ruled as we were by various and competing forces. The reactionary Tea-Party government won the last free election by the slimmest of majorities, but used their ascendance to power as a public mandate to decapitate the nation, and to deliver its head on a platter to transnational corporations and the military industrial complex. Local and Municipal Police forces were outfitted with assault rifles, rocket propelled grenades, armored personnel carriers, and Blackhawk helicopters-all in the name of national security. And, just like that, the new arms race was off. The gangs responded by driving captured tanks through the streets of Los Angeles.

I never actually saw the Manuscript, though it was in my possession for a short time. It was wrapped inside a waterproofed oilskin pouch that I kept it in the inside breast pocket of my coat. But it was taken from me before I ever had a chance to examine it. And I would never persuade the police to investigate. How did we ever come to this?

How did we come to such a state of antinomian lawlessness? How did we get to a place where executives at entertainment conglomerates would dictate who our children’s heroes would be? How did we come to desire sexy vampires? Sexy?  Like ticks and leeches? Vampires are parasitical creatures that gorge themselves on the blood of their hosts and then fall away to digest. They use a combination of mucus and suction to keep themselves attached to the host's body, and secrete complex anti-clotting enzymes into the blood of their hosts so the blood will flow freely. How is this sexy? Why would we desire something like that?

I woke up several hours later, my face aflame even though I was laying face down in a puddle of muddy rain water, and what hoped was my own vomit. My wrists and ankles were tied, but only very loosely. I managed to stretch the loops of rope enough to pull my wrists through. The knots were poorly secured. Her coppers must never have been boy scouts. When I stood, I realized that my pockets were empty. I felt the absence of familiar weight. While I was unconscious they took my wallet and the handgun I’d bought from a couple of teenage punks that used to hang out on the stairs in front of my building.  I bought it from them for 50 bucks plus the promise that I would drive them to the cinema show every now and then. But the wallet had been empty anyway, and the gun was a cheap Chinese job. It probably would have backfired on me, and blown off half my face if I’d actually tried to use it. The worst of it was that her plain-clothes coppers had relived me of the Manuscript.

The Manuscript was gone, and the world was on fire. Who cared about going to the cinema show anymore?   

An Interview with John the Apocalyptic Schizophrenic -Part 2

The trail of blood through the centuries is an unerring and infallible mark of their activity.  It covers a period of six thousand years of history.  Metatron, aided by Melancthon, have traced a $500,000 wire transfer from the bank of Commercial Finance in Geneva, Switzerland.  They are contending against a massive organization of terrorist operatives within the Mainstream Media.  Religious, or more accurately, Irreligious persecutions in Tunisia and England are linked by this same trail of blood money.  These are acts of terror and tiresome lectures, a satanic sign in this contemporary dark age.  Look for the Ankh sign in her face-an ankh cross symbolizing sexual intercourse.  The mainstream media does not see the evil here.  They are blind. Oblivious.

The Second Amendment was granted to us by God.  I have, you have, we have a God given right to bear arms.  The amendment is divinely inspired-inerrant and infallible.  An inalienable right, and not for illegal aliens, sneaking into this country to steal our jobs and our women.  You are an enemy under an umbrella, kicking me in the teeth.

There are machines that can help you to meet attractive women, sensual women.  There’s music and they sing…it’s great. You’ll love it.  I’m not a poet.  I write in FORTRAN. I compose in Cobol.  What was she wearing?  She wears the sun and the moon.  She is clothed in the sky.  She hides in the desert where she imagines that she is secure.  The machine pursue her.  It is now or never, close upon the point of no return. Your world is on fire.  Your world is on fire. Can you see what is happening to her?  It is a disaster.  The whole world is on fire.  This is why she flees: she is soft and beautiful. She is brittle.

The prophet-the TRUE prophet- is honored to be mocked on the internet.  He has a feeling.  He has an intuitive appreciation of these things.  Korean pop stars are completely unable to answer the questions that he asks.  The AntiChrist will stand trial in a US court – but not today.  Today is he being held back by the prophets Enoch and Elijah. 

MONDAY: And these signs shall follow them that believe; in my name shall they cast out lawyers and other devils; they shall speak with new patronizing tongues.  They shall take up serpents.  They shall swallow swords and snakes, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. 

Interviewer: Do you believe this?

John: Should I?  Dr. Domitian says that he’s been bitten, that he’s survived over 446 snakebites…but no. I don’t think I believe him.  There’s death in the box.  Painful death and long lasting tissue damage.
Interviewer: So you don’t believe it?

John: No.  I think Dr. Domitian has been lying to me.  He lies.  I don’t trust him.

TUESDAY: The flood did not kill all living things.  The deluge that missed some of the Nephilim.  Did they cling to the sides of the Ark?  Did they escape on an ark of their own construction? 

The Great Mother, Babylon, came in remembrance before the Lord God, an apostate, rebellious woman in purple and scarlet.  Myriads of precious stones were scattered at her feet, silver strands were spun into her hair, and flakes of gold drifted through the air.  Despite this, the price of Gold on the worldwide market is in decline.  She is the mother of harlots, drunken with billions of dollars in blood money disguised as foreign aid.

This is a cause of wonder to John.  He cannot understand it.  It is beyond him.  He is astonished, for the angels said nothing to him about her.  Why wouldn’t they tell him?  Did they forget?  Or were they hiding her from him.  And if so, what else were they keeping secret.  He trusted them.  They were his friends.  No one else would visit him, talk to him like they did.  And now he discovers that they’re keeping secrets! Lying to him! Misleading him!

The beast that he saw was and is not swimming up from the bottomless abyss into perdition.  This world is hell.  When that lizard breaches the surface and steps one scaly foot upon dry land, he is setting foot into hell.  And here in hell, this hell, there are seven hills and seven kings.

Interviewer: What does that mean?  Seven hills and seven kings?
John: I don’t know.  They told us about it at school, something about Rome?  There was a dictator, a triumvirate, and an empire.  Oh, and the pope. Right? 

Interviewer: I don’t know. You tell me, John.  That’s why we’re here.
John: Overthrow the government is always money in the bank.

Interviewer: What?

John: Money in the bank. But I’m broke.

WEDNESDAY: The UFO was an abandoned Russian satellite.  Its booster rockets failed to fire and it dropped out of orbit, crashing into the Pacific Ocean sometime early this morning.  I’m seeking a presidential order to have all the pertinent surveillance systems audited for errors and malfeasance.  I just need one hour, one hour of power with the Beast.  The Kingdoms of Europe have already given their unanimous support for this investigation.  Why won’t the president drop the pretense and let us know what is going on?  They shall hate the harlot and make her desolate and naked and eat her flesh and burn her with fire.  Is one hour too much to ask before all of this? 

When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers. The list of possible targets is disturbing.  Air Force patrols have been placed on high alert.  Unidentified planes (not to mention UFOs) will be shot down without warning or hesitation. 

Make war with the Lamb.  Make war with Cuba and Puerto Rico.  But for God’s sake, try to appear impartial.  Make the Whore desolate, strip her naked, and leave her abandoned on an inflatable life boat on the waves of the Pacific, drifting aimlessly without food or fresh water, but don’t take sides against the family.  Don’t disparage the country.  Never, on any consideration, oppose the interests of this great organization.

Tortured and depleted uranium fuel rods are inadmissible.  We will burn her with fire, with Thorium. Thorium glows blue when it is superheated.  Widespread panic and chaos, darkness and corruption-this is the theology of the end of days.   Relics of prophecy, discarded remnants of the reformation.  Her virtue is weak, yet she is convinced of her invincible righteousness. She retains in her barely covered bosom a desire for ecclesiastical worship-the prick of the little horn and she bleeds.  She bleeds, but she will burn. 

THURSDAY: Her Spiritualism is astonishing.  The real people of the world are astonished, but it is her elemental power.  She calls upon the wind, the water; she calls upon scorched earth and fire-the fire that will eventually consume her.  We have intercepted cellular calls between her and her agents in Kuwait.  All available American carriers are already on route to the Gulf of Suez. But put substance over shadow and you will drive out the counterfeit sheep.  She is clothed in ribbon and wires found in dungeons of stake and blood.  She wears the Pope’s tiara.  She wears the number 666, and she wears it with pride.  It is not the number of a man, it is her number.  She was offered the hereditary government of Egypt and Syria, from the Gulf of Suez to the Lake of Tiberius.  The Ottoman fleet is returned to safe harbor.  And where is the Sultan’s independence? GONE! Who has the Ottoman Empire in her smooth hands?  Her well-manicured nails are already tracking down our spine.   

Make a note of these judgments: the events that will transpire under the thunder of the sixth trumpet.  Call Anastasia. Ask her if you doubt, but make note of these judgments.

The worship of devils-all demons and dead men deified-will be brought into the light.  Idols of silver, statues of gold and brass, little gods carved of wood, and stone, and water, all of them exposed to the sun.  Wars need to be declared in public if they are to be legal wars.  No jus in bello in the dark, in secret.  Murders, sorceries, pretend miracles, fornications and thefts – this is not at all humorous.  We are not laughing.  Manifest Destiny was an undeclared war trumpeted in every newspaper from coast to coast.  Hordes of Saracens and Turks were loosed upon the world as a scourge and punishment are nothing compared to what we deserve.  Men suffered but we do not yet know the lesson thereof.

I’ve been following the angle of prophecy, but I think that I’m lost.  I stumbled somewhere in Daniel’s 70 weeks.  The little horn, tin horn dictator shouting in my ear, “And some of them of understanding shall fall. To try them, and purge them and make them white, even to the time of the end.”  The Red Mass appears here. I’m white with fear. Bloodless. Pale. I’m white, not clean.

Interviewer: Tell me about the year A.D. 1798.

John: What can I say?

Interviewer: I don’t know, John.  What can you say?
John: The year 1798 started on a Monday… by the Gregorian calendar, anyway.  It was a Friday by the Julian calendar, but I don’t think that means anything.

Interviewer: Anything else?

John: I think that was the year that Saint Helveticus hid from the French in Geneva and Napoleon defeated the Ottomans near the Pyramids.  I can’t tell if that was a good year for the French or not.

It has been said by those who have examined French records that France is one of the ten horns that gave their power and strength to the beast, filling France with bloody carnage and horror.  Well supplied infidels and survivalists with guns have barricaded themselves within their Iowa farmsteads.  They are making graves for themselves and for our children.  They are bringing down the wrath of man, employing wicked men to tarnish the glory of God.

Behold!  Let the third woe come quickly.  The fearful second woe has passed, but we cannot long endure the sounding of the trumpets, neither can we withstand the flash and bang of flash-bang grenades with light seven times brighter than the sun.

John: Did I tell you that the prince of hell, Satan himself, is fully aware of his failure? 

Interviewer: How do you know this? 

John: Because I’m him.

Interviewer: …

John: It’s me. I’m him.  I’ve read the owner’s manual. I’ve read the ending; I know how this all turns out.  I am trapped in a corner, raging against the heavenly foes arrayed against me.  I know the mystery of iniquity.  I know how to pretend and prevaricate.  I am God- this is what I will tell you.  I am the mongrel son of perdition.  I was conceived in sin. I live in the hidden recesses of the wind. I was spewed out of the serpent’s mouth, born of deluge of water and foul spirits.

I have no children. And God! if that isn’t a relief.  They, the children I don’t have, won’t inherit this curse.  My brother, though, will take the throne, sending his ambassadors out and presuming to call himself the new sovereign. 

Did you know that a prophetic year is only 360 days? The other five days - those missing days are stampeded by an innumerable horde of horses ridden by Turkish warriors the color of fire, the color of jacinth, the color of brimstone-that is sulfur.  Red. Blue. Yellow with a star in the center of their heads.  The riders discharge their firearms from horseback in a cloud of smoke. The artillery of Mahomet.  I remember Goths, the Huns, the Avars, Persians, Bulgarians, Saracens, and Russians, Turks, and Kazakhs.  They were all reduced to rubble and rune by the cannons, hostile violence, the sound of musketry, the smell of blackpowder smoke, collapsing towers mixed with blood.

Interviewer: Tell me more about the angels that visit you.  Do you see the Archangel, Michael?

John: Just the once.

Interviewer: Gabriel?

John: No.

Interviewer: How about Raphael, Uriel, Raguel, Remeil, or Saraqael?  … Why are you looking at me like that?  I read.  I know things.

John: No.  I’ve never met any of them.

Interviewer: Which angels have you met?

John: Phenanthrene, Chrysene, the Twins: Pyrene and Benzopyrene, and Ovalene.
Interviewer: Ovaltine?

John: Ovalene.  He has orange hair and likes deep-sea diving.  He swims down around the hydrothermal vents.  Chrysene dresses in gold and always smells like pine.  The Twins smoke incessantly.  And Phenanthrene is nearly insoluble in water.

Interviewer: Nearly?
John: Nearly insoluble.

I once saw 240,000 meteors falling above the horizon of Boston.  The firmament descending in fire and hail mixed with blood.  Never did rain fall so thick, never a snowstorm so dense as these stones from space.  I lay on the ground, prostrate, speechless.  How was it formed? Of what was it composed?

I have no weapon against idolatry.  No cannon. No rocket. No sword.  I can only write, making scribbles on scraps of loose paper that I lose in my pockets. Illegible. I am unarmed. Powerless.

Woodrow Wilson, AntiChrist

Today being the day that we all grumble about having to set our clocks forward an hour because of Daylight Saving Time, I thought it appropriate to share this fragment from the writings of my friend, Dr. Tarrec.

***

The number of the beast, says the prophecy, is the number of a man, and his number is Six hundred threescore and six (666).  This is very easily understood when it is remembered that the Hebrew and Greek systems of writing did not, at this time, have separate characters for numbers.  Their alphabets served double duty as both letters and numbers; each letter also had a numerical value.  Recall, that the Hebrew letter “Vav” has the numerical value of six.  Recall, also, that the English equivalent of “Vav” is the letter W.  Therefore WWW equals 666.  And as the number of the man is his name this is immediately recognized in WoodroW Wilson.  The 28^th President of the United States is the AntiChrist spoken of in the Holy Scriptures…

...and he shall “think to change times and laws.”  What laws and whose?  Not the laws of other earthly governments, though he attempted even this for nothing was beyond his vainglorious ambition, and it was nothing marvelous or strange for one power to change the laws of another.  No, not content with altering human laws of every kind, the Little Horn-that is, Woodrow Wilson-had power to change the very times and laws.  This, most audacious of all, refers to his introduction of the (so-called) Daylight Saving Time.  The world was his for a time, times and the dividing of times, moving the hours by his tyrannical decree. 

…John saw that one of the seven heads of this blasphemous beast rising up from the sea was wounded, as it were, to death.  What else is this, but the stroke suffered by President Wilson on October 2, 1919? The president was confined to bed for weeks, unable to meet with anyone.  His presidency was effectively over, dead.  And when pressed further we find that this fits with the predictions made by the prophet Zechariah, who wrote, “Woe to the worthless shepherd who leaves the flock! A sword shall be against his arm and against his right eye; His arm shall completely wither, and his right eye shall be totally blinded.” (Zechariah 11:17).  The stroke that, as it were, killed the seventh head of the beast, left President Wilson paralyzed on his left side, and blinded in his right eye.

…Do not be deceived! The League of Nations is the AntiChrist’s revived Roman Empire-the one world government, new world order at the end of the world.  And he will rule this evil empire from his throne at the pit of the world, Belgium.  …

Transform the Apocalypse (A Nonsense Song)

Sing to me of the twisted man
     the man who’s half alive.
The Queen of England is in the hive;
     she’s reading the Quran.

Francis knows how the heretics
     are going to respond;
they’ll destroy a chemical bond
    and beat us all with sticks.

But if God will bless
and prosper us
we’ll transform
the Apocalypse
into something we can use.
The dragon and his rich cronies
     have never read Camus.
His scaly skin is iron blue,
     they’re actors and phonies.

He makes his bold accusations
     to provoke a cold war;
he’s using uranium ore
     to buy wealthy nations.

But if God will bless

and prosper us
we’ll transform
the Apocalypse
into something we can use.

There -Literally- Is no Battle of Armageddon

We are, we are told by some Christian teachers, to read the Bible literally; that is, we are to read it in a plain and straightforward manner, accepting that it says exactly what it means and that it means what it says – unless, of course, it is absolutely, unarguably clear from the context that it should be taken symbolically or metaphorically, and even then we should try to be as literal about it as possible.

But many of those who cry the loudest about the necessity of reading the bible with a strict literalness fail to pay attention to what they are literally reading.  For example: there literally is no battle of Armageddon. 

Read Revelation 16 carefully.  The sixth angel pours out his bowl of wrath and the waters of the River Euphrates are dried up. The way is prepared for the kings of the east. They are assembled for battle in that place which in Hebrew is called Harmageddon…

…but there is no battle.  They are gathered for one, but they never get around to actually fighting it.

The seventh angel pours out his bowl, there’s a loud voice, thunder, lightning, a great earthquake, and hailstones weighing about 100 pounds.  But no battle; there literally is no battle of Armageddon. 

(Not So) Biblical Limericks: Tim LaHaye’s Not a Great Military Strategist

Tim LaHaye would like us to believe
that some soon apocalyptic eve,
Russia, with bow and spear,
with club and wooden gear,
will attack and invade Tel Aviv.

based on a very faulty interpretation of Ezekiel 39: 9 -10

(Not So) Biblical Limericks: Hal Lindsey Makes a Confession

The end is coming soon, I’ve seen it,
about time too! This world’s gone to shit.
And though my predictions
are mostly just fictions,
I’ll keep selling books to the half-wits.

Biblical Limericks: Relevant, Schmelevent…

If Revelation was relevant
to the people to whom it was sent
the Mark of the Beast’s not,
despite what we’ve been taught,
a microchip from the government.

Revelation 13: 16 - 18