Faith and Justice was practiced from principle, without the compulsory force of law in Aurea Ætas-The Golden Age

Hierocles commented upon the Golden Verses of Pythagoras in order to explain the Aurea Ætas.

We say the Golden Age was the best among the generations of men, by reason that we make a comparison of manners from the difference of metals; for, gold is a matter wholly pure, and not at all allied unto earth, as other things are of the same kind, as silver, brass, and iron. Among all which, nature has ordained the principality unto gold, which alone does not contract rust, but every one of the rest does, in proportion as it partakes of the earth. Now the rust of the earth, being compared with the corruption contracted from the body, that holy and pure age, wholly purged from all infection of wickedness, was very rightly called Golden.

Did we not know that the Bible tells us of a time of innocence when man rested in the Presence of God and walked with Him?  Enoch walked with God as did Noah and before them Adam and Eve resided in the Garden of Eden in perfect harmony with their Creator. Interference from a being locked into a serpent and speaking to inspire a fault in the innocent caused a sudden break in the relationship between God and His children.  They did not think it unusual to speak with God and walk with Him nor notice their appearance to be any different than that of God. They resided in His Presence in the Garden of Eden for aeons with the Kingdom of Heaven being upon the earth, veiled from the roughness of time, space and matter.  Some call the Aurea Ætas, Paradise, and Milton writes giving color and detail to the story of it and its loss with reference to the gods losing their first estate.  The loss of Paradise is definitely marked by the loss from a spiritual point of view and from that of the Kingdom of Heaven.  By the time Moses went to Mount Sinai Moses was not even able to look upon the front side of Yahweh and the people were shielded from his face because it shone brightly even at that.  Mankind had corrupted from the stay in Eden and before the Great Flood.  By the time of the Great Flood mankind had entered into the succeeding ages over time to where corruption and violence flourished.  It appears that the angels who left their first estate had corrupted the whole of mankind causing incredible evil.  The Sabbath year recalls the day Yahweh rested from His work and reminds us of Paradise when God dwelt with mankind on the earth both pointing to the Presence of Yahweh.  Ovid also relates the time Saturn was upon the earth.

Ovid writes down the conditions for the passing of the Ages before the Great Flood when mankind was wiped out.  The Ages describe the same procession of life on earth beginning with an Age when mankind lived without rancor and strife that Ovid called the Aurea Ætas. In Ovid's Metamorphoseon the Ages are what goes on in each World as the Hopi would describe the end of that set of Ages.  Our time since the creation is divided similarly by the Bible.  The Bible refers to different creations in Genesis and it is clear that the revelation of God as recorded by Moses depended upon the reader knowing of them.  These creations may correspond to the beginnings of the Worlds of the Hopi or one complete set of the Ages of Ovid.  The Bible begins with the last World in the days of Noah.  Jesus said that when He comes back, things will be as they were in the days of Noah.  Noah was righteous and walked with God.  Those around him did not walk with God and in fact were violent.  After the Great Flood life began anew. After Jesus comes back, life will begin anew.  Daniel was given the knowledge that there would be four Ages and they were as in Ovid's description the Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age, and the Iron Age.  In Daniel's revelation given to him by the Holy Angels the last Age would be Iron mixed with Clay when the last empire rose that would be ruled by anti-Christ.  As with Ovid giving the view that is more in tune with kosmos gods and demigods and mankind the visions given to Daniel are from the view of God covering the same ages in general.  As such Ovid gives his account of the Last Four Ages more from the view of the gods and mankind, where the Bible focuses on the information we need to know from God's point of view and the acts of God.  The view of the Bible is concerned with explaining our position and history in reference to God, His Salvation, and how it is that we may be reconciled to Him.

The last World before the Great Flood that wiped out most of the earth was remarkably conformable to what we know from science.  The Bible says that there was a canopy of water over the earth and Ovid too describes the Great Flood introducing the earth to the heavens.  Ovid describes the Aurea Ætas corresponding to the time before the Great Flood as being perpetual Spring.  Toward the end of the Aurea Ætas the earth warmed and the climate that had been so steady began to change radically.  At the present time the solar system is heating up due to geomagnetism with the planets heating up from the inside out.  It appears global warming is a fact and the days of Noah that correspond to the last days of the Aurea Ætas give us a prediction as Jesus said.  The Great Flood occurred during the Ice Age that had lasted over 200,000 years.  The Sumerian King's List records a time before the Great Flood when the King's lived thousands of years as the Bible records the lifespan of mankind being nearly 1,000 years.  However long people lived, the Sumerian record spans a time approximately equivalent to the duration of the Ice Age.  After the Great Flood the Sumerian Kings did not live nearly as long as before.  As the earth heated up due to geomagnetic conditions that caused the earth to heat from its center outward, the same geomagnetic conditions brought about the strike of a piece of a comet that caused the Ice Age to cease.  The Ice Age would not have ended on its own and the great masses of ice sheets would be even larger. 

In areas not too distant from the mass of Ice the climate would be moderated by the frozen mass.  The Biblical account of a protective canopy could be explained by the Ice.  The revelation of God does not go into details about climatology or meteorology and the purpose is to give witness to God and how He is relevant to history and the pleroma (fulness) of time as well as the pleroma of times (Ages and Worlds).  We find in the records of many different civilizations affirmation of the record left in the Bible.  In fact Ovid passes down descriptions of the way things degraded in reference to climate and morals.  The fallen angels mentioned in the Bible and the offspring of giants are also explained in the record of other ancient civilizations.  Ovid takes the time to convey the acts of the giants and Ovid also says that they were responsible for great violence just as the Bible does. The Bronze and Iron ages were times when morality degraded with giants leading rebellion against God.  In the description by Ovid Jupiter visits earth to see just how degraded mankind had become and as he sat to eat was served a person that had been prepared for the meal.  Indignant and outraged he went back to Heaven to convene a meeting to decide what to do, the Concilium Deorum.  The decision was to wipe out mankind.  Genesis mentions that the gods (elohiym) decided that mankind had grown so evil that people had to be destroyed.

In the stories from around the world, every continent has stories of the Great Flood.  Not noticed as a rule, every continent also has stories and symbology that suggests outright that a piece of a comet or an asteroid was the cause for the Great Flood. The comet pieces or asteroid hit in the ocean and hit with a force sufficient enough to cause the earth's axis to tilt as it now does.  The Old and the New Testaments predict with clarity that the earth will suffer earthquakes and the heavens will rain fire down upon the earth.  People will hide in holes and caves to no avail.  Pieces of the story of the happenings that radically changed the world physically are in another writing.  This is an outline of the conditions of the last Ages as described by Ovid and explicated by the author cited below and seem to have written much of what is going on now. 

We do not know the day or the hour of the return of the Lord Jesus, but we do know it will be as in the days of Noah.  Will mankind have a chance at repentance, self-correction, and therefore a respite enough as Jonah's preaching to Nineveh inspired?  It may be possible, yet greed and power are great attractions to go on as we have to the end described by the Bible, Ovid, and many others who recorded the end of the Last World.  There is a push to congeal different beliefs into a morphing of religion into a false religion based on unity of all people rather than God in order to blind people to that which is coming. That which is coming is the Great Tribulation cut short only because Jesus will return.  He will  gather up His own and there will be a Great Tribulation, after which He will return and defeat the kingdoms of the world in opposition to Him. The truth of the Bible is being hated and  rejected more as time goes on.  People are turning to evil practices and reliance on private belief rejecting God that assures people we have no need of Him and everything is good or relative to what we think is good is becoming more common.  The Bible gives details of what people are becoming and have become.

Finally, this is written in hopes that one person who thought that the Bible does not record something that was well-known at one time may reflect anew and see for himself or herself in the Bible the warning there. If you are a Christian and do not read the Bible daily searching the Bible led by the Holy Spirit, now is the time to start. This is not written with syncretism or ecumenism in mind at all.  The few vignettes recorded by Ovid give some idea of how the ancients saw a path to the destruction of the world. The Bible predicts with greater detail and accuracy how moral degradation occurs and it is being fulfilled at this moment in those details.  The Bible teaches that people will grow to hate God, His Word, and His people, precisely because the truth becomes detestable as it stands in the way of evil. Ovid is a testament to the truth contained in the Bible as the direct revelation of God with Jesus as the only Way to Salvation.

Shame, truth, and faith fled away.  Where shame might restrain a person from doing evil and it is forsaken then regard for truth might.  Finally, if faith would restrain evil after truth has been forsaken and it too is disregarded then comes the final degradation of people.  Mankind descends into a state where fear of punishment holds no weight and people trade in power without regard for the laws of man or God to do evil for their own satisfaction.  Sating any appetites that one might wish no matter how harmful to others or the self becomes unrestrained.  People are actually trying to change laws to conform to immoral and evil acts being normalized and are succeeding.  A Bishop was elected who practices fornication and has an openly homosexual relationship with another man.  This was done within the confines of the Episcopal Church and goes against all of Scripture.  Now, there is a great push to establish legally the status of same sex couples as equal to marriage.  Same sex couples enjoy benefits formerly only given to married couples beforehand.  Mumia Abu Jamal enjoys celebrity status as a hero and is a mentor to the current counter-cultural movement even though he was twice convicted for murdering a policeman in cold blood.  People dote on evil and sympathize with murderers while victims have value only as long as they can be exploited for gain.  When Charles Manson was convicted of his murders people considered him as evil or having done evil.

Shame resides in segregated isles in the world and people do not even dare to speak the word, nor do many even understand what is meant by it. Why would shame have fled, or truth or faith?  When mankind had abandoned any recognition of them and rejected them the poet Ovid says they left mankind, no longer welcome here upon the earth. In my short lifetime shame has taken a beating and few keep her close.  It is not a coincidence that the pagan, the secularist, the atheist, and the hedonist all agree that the Ten Commandments can no longer be seen in public.  Legal steps have been taken to take the Ten Commandments from buildings associated with the government.  They are coming down or being hauled off.  The name Jesus cannot be spoken in public without fear of reprisal from someone in a position of authority.  At the present time people are abandoning the truth in favor of evil doctrines against God and humanity, against the commonweal and common good.  Faith is not to be seen in more people in positions of power and authority.  Even fidelity to the country we live in here in the United States is shunned with TV personalities eschewing any loyalty to their country and accusing people of faith as bad as terrorists and worse.  Bible believing Christians are the American Taliban, a term of derision and reflection of the hatred of us.  The Bible tells us that a Great Delusion will be poured out upon mankind as we near the end of days.  Once this is done, it will only be a matter of time before the restraining of evil by the Holy Spirit is stopped.  Shame, truth, and faith will have then fled.  

Fraud as vice gives way to fraud that is treacherous and worse still calling together others to accomplish its goals.  It finally leads to violence.

In the 20th century the world has seen horrific evil.  The debacles of great corporations who cheated their employees are known now and more expected.  Just lately Halliburton cheated the government of the United States out of 60 million dollars.  Conglomerates form and employees are cut so slave labor or cheap labor can be had.  Nike made shoes that cost over $100 while paying slave labor wages so production costs would amount to 25 cents.  Nation has risen against nation and fraud perpetrated by the Nazis in alliance with the two other Axis powers against countries in Europe culminated in the horror of war. Empire succeeded empire and countries sought to take over other countries on a global basis. Excesses were such that places on the planet became known as killing fields.  The Rape of Nanking, the Gulag Archipelago, and the Death Camps are only a very few examples of conditions that encouraged experimentation on humans, the repeated rape of women until they died, the most horrible tortures, and death by starvation that was planned so the maximum work would be gotten for the least amount of food given.  

Amor sceleratus

Covetousness is wicked and evil as it incites people into every form of evil. One company desires that which another has and a hostile takeover accomplishes the desired effect.  Another man's wife seems better suited for someone else and an affair begins that ends with a family being destroyed.  Gambling is a form of covetousness that is addictive and destroys the core of a person over time. Being something like an idol encourages children to grasp for sexual identity and sex while still children.  Children are seen as chattel and convenient for sexual use by adults who want that which is unlawful and harmful to the child.

The atomic bomb ended WWII sparing the eventual loss of millions of more lives and averted more horror from being perpetrated by the Japanese.  Now, because the Allies stopped the designs of Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo the victory over them is seen as more evil by the counter-culture worldwide.  Some people teach that what the Nazis did was normative for them and therefore the United States was wrong to enter the fray and help stop Hitler.  Plenty of criticisms are leveled against western civilization in general and the United States in particular because the Cold War was ended and the Soviet Union dissolved. 

Now, the United States and much of the world wishes to stop the insanity of North Korea and the militant Islamic Jihadis, but how?  The evils that have spread such as slavery and worldwide organized crime threaten to compromise western civilization or supply the money and power to end it.  Greed still reigns supreme and is growing with less regard for those that are caused harm by it.  Profit is no longer enough for corporations and scandal seems normal. 

Non hospes

The rites of hospitality were deemed sacred even by the barbarians and became a snare to entrap an unwary guest.

The host with kindness greets his guest no more,

and friends and brethren love not as of yore.

Hesiod

Fratrum gratia

The love of brotherhood became rare

But when the earth was stained with wickedness,

And lust, and justice fled from every breast,

Then brethren vilely shed each other's blood.

Catullus

Paul tells us that in the last days people's hearts will grow cold and brother will hate brother.  

Imminet exitio vir conjugis, illa mariti

Men watching for the destruction of their wives

Now we read and hear of spousal and child abuse on a large scale.  Additionally, men watch for the destruction of their wives.  The case of Terri Schiavo is chilling and seems to be the ushering in of the legal approval of destroying a wife for gain.  George Felos and Michael Schiavo are being supported by different groups including the ACLU to murder Terri Schiavo with the sanction of the law.  These things happen on a regular basis now.  One woman who had Fibromyalgia was convinced by her psychiatrist husband to commit suicide because she was miserable.  Depression and pain along with the badgering husband anxious to see the death of his wife no doubt takes a toll on the will to live. Jack Kevorkian was the executioner along with the husband.  In his efforts to kill people he had hoped to be able to reach a place where he could experiment on people as they died.  He has an unusual fascination with death and blood.  His paintings are described as ghoulish and Satanic and he liked to mix human blood in with his paints.

Lurida aconita

The color of the dead is lurid and the wolf's-bane (or any poison) is lurid as well, signifying the son waiting for the premature or natural term of life of his father to be shortened. When people are starved to death the blood in their bodies concentrates about the heart and their extremities begin to change color so the hands become mottled with a bluish color The pallor of death in ashen gray is mixed with this mottled blue color as lips crack, eyes become dry in their sockets, and the body slowly dies in lurid colors.

Patrios annos

The son enquiring into when it might be the father will die, inquires into his father's years with astrologers.  Horace recognized the Babylonians as being astrologers and as things in society degraded they were consulted to find out when their wish for the father's things might be theirs. Employing spirits to help predict death of a father is the logical next step beyond the pale as people embrace death in lurid fascination.

And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits and after wizards, I will even set my face against that soul, and I will cut him off from among his people.

Leviticus

Astrologers assure long life, you say,

Your son can tell you much better than they,

Your son, whose hopes your life doth now delay.

Poison will work against the stars; beware!

For every meal and antidote prepare.

Juvenal

The father wished the funeral of his son;

The son to enjoy the father's relic wished.

Catullus

Jacet pietas- piety lay neglected

The duty and affection to God, family, and country lay neglected, much as is urged today by those who profess themselves wise in secular society.  The secularists and all their disciples in organizations that have ghoulish and lurid appeal to the devotees of death and destruction such as the ACLU, People for the American Way, and others strongly urge against family and friendship expressing any ties with God.

And thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever: so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end of it.

Therefore hear now this, thou that art given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children: But these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood: they shall come upon thee in their perfection for the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great abundance of thine enchantments. For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness: thou hast said, None seeth me. Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee; and thou hast said in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me. Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know from whence it riseth: and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it off: and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know. Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy sorceries, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth; if so be thou shalt be able to profit, if so be thou mayest prevail. Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee. Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before it. Thus shall they be unto thee with whom thou hast laboured, even thy merchants, from thy youth: they shall wander every one to his quarter; none shall save thee.

Isaiah 47:7-15

Those who practiced cult prostitution aborted their babies and threw them into a ravine where garbage was thrown during the time of Isaiah.  The Jews worshipped false gods and as a result were given over to captivity by the Babylonians.  All of the excesses and evils of worshipping the false gods ended by God ending the kingdom of Babylon. In the United States the law was changed so that 35 million unborn children have been killed and thrown into the garbage.  Legislators demanded that partial birth abortion be kept legal which amounts to infanticide. Astrologers, stargazers, monthly prognosticators and those who worship the creation rather than the Creator boast that Christianity will be gone soon and we only believe in the End Time predictions of Jesus because we need an excuse for our God being defeated by their silliness.  This Age will end but not due to what they think. Common love of family and country and God is being derided and ridiculed in concert with all of this. 

Cæde madentes- reeking with slaughter

For the earth is filled with violence through them

Genesis 6:13

The abortion of 35 million children in the United States constitutes one of the last requirements for society to be considered ripe for dissolution and destruction. The final degradation of society in Ovid’s scheme is a society that is reeking with slaughter.  On the ruse that women have a right to murder as long as it is in private the United States reeks with slaughter.  Now that slaughter is not only legal in this one area of modern America, but seen as a greater good, we have set the stage for the slaughter of others that are considered unfit. The Whore of Babylon is drunk with the blood of innocents.

Michael Schiavo is pressing for the death of his wife. He has a girlfriend he has lived with and has one child by her with another on the way. He stands to gain $750,000 by her death. She is able to be rehabilitated but he has kept this from happening. Judge Greer is the presiding judge that has an overweening desire to see her die and has ruled in favor of Michael Schiavo. She will be starved and dehydrated to death which will take 10 to 14 days, while she is conscious and aware of what is happening to her. It is an inhumane and painful death. Despite the fact that the Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush has filed an amicus brief on her behalf and the Florida legislature passed a bill to prevent her death, a judge has ruled that Terry Schiavo must die. The ACLU intervened to make sure that she has the "right to die" in order to ensure her murder. If there was a case that has spiritual darkness at work in the background this is it. How is it that an injustice like this can occur? Greed, lust, and narcissism have worked their will in the heart of Michael Schiavo, a corrupt society that loves death more than life looks on and does little or nothing.

The upshot is that the deaths of people who are considered not having full capacity will go on, just as they did in Nazi Germany. The beginning of the concentration camps began with the court ordered deaths of those who were considered mentally deficient or required hospital care. The harvesting of organs from people while they are alive is being advocated in this country and the case of Terri Schiavo may provide the basis for a new industry. Patients who are unfit human beings by whatever standards will become cash cows being slowly killed as they watch themselves being robbed of their organs for the profit of the new industry. Would this be horrific if done to anyone? Would those like Terri Schiavo be filled with terror, pain, and despair dying alone with no one to reach out to and be comforted?

The Whore of Babylon is watching carefully to see what we will do.

The invasion of Iraq has had mixed reviews by people around the world.  Whether weapons of mass destruction would have been distributed in the Middle East and had a harmful effect, or if history will prove the efficacy of Sadaam Hussein being toppled, something significant was announced to the world.  600,000 to one million people were killed during his reign in the sense of cæde madentes.  Chillingly the secular faction within the United States, supposedly composed of more caring liberals, tosses it off as of no consequence.  The destruction of human beings in other countries in so capricious a manner from the will to power is not considered tragic in any meaningful way and is welcomed if those slaughtered are Christians.  The Black Caucus from the United States went to Durban, South Africa in August of 2001 to side with the suicide bombers and those who employed methods cæde madentes in Sudan, Ruwanda, and anywhere as long as it was against Christians or Jews. The justification for this stance was the old Soviet slogan to promote local violence against Jews of "Zionism is racism."  Secular America is essentially anti-American and any pretensions of seeing a better world for all dissolves in the face of reality.  The million people slaughtered in Sudan, the 4 million slaughtered in the Congo, the daily rape and slaughter of innocents in these countries today is seen as essential to the secular elite of the United States.  In Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe presided over the slaughter of white farmers seen as enemies because they were left over from a time of colonialism.  This was fine by those who wish to see a new way of doing things and the end of Christendom.  The strongest ally of radical Islam and tyranny have is the secularist world that turns its face from the world cæde madentes. Europe makes a point of siding with evil, enriches itself off of the nations left cæde madentes as a matter of course and it may not be a coincidence.  To the extent that the United States gravitates in agreement with a corrupt and jaded EU and World Court, it appears that we will become complicit in cæde madentes as becoming the normative state in the world. The Whore of Babylon is watching with interest, drunken with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.

By the Holy Scriptures, also, God the Creator is known. We ought to consider what these Scriptures are; that they are true, and have proceeded from the Spirit of God; which is proved by the testimony of the Holy Spirit, by the efficacy and antiquity of the Scriptures, by the certainty of the Prophecies, by the miraculous preservation of the Law, by the calling and writings of the Apostles, by the consent of the Church, and by the steadfastness of the martyrs, whence it is evident that all the principles of piety are overthrown by those fanatics who, laying aside the Scripture, fly to revelations.

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Henry Beveridge, translator

Will we abandon Scripture and our fellow humans to fly to revelations and ignore the slaughter around us?  Will signs and wonders replace our care for others?  Will we fall prey to devils that appear as angels of light so that we can turn a blind eye to the evil that is pervading the earth?

In the 20th century 135 million people were murdered by state sanction in order to rid these governments of Christians and Jews and any who held a high view of God or a religion of any type in some cases.  These governments were exclusively socialist and communist countries, although the National Socialists are not considered as similar to Marxism due to the occultic and pagan influence of the Nazi ideals and theories.  Muslims murdered some 50 million people in the last part of the 19th century and the early 20th century to rid their countries of Eastern Orthodox Christians.  The extermination of Christians is still going on in Muslim countries with 7 to 10 million killed in the 20 years of the 20th century. The two world wars are examples of the world reeking with slaughter. John saw this coming. Vine says that:

The apostle saw the woman "drunken with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. Everything that has been and is represented by mystic Babylon is chargeable with the slaughter of saints of God. The same spirit that leads men to the spiritual abominations of setting up any other object of worship than the true God, likewise instigates them to the persecution of His people. While the political rulers of the earth, allured by the woman’s pomp and grandeur, are intoxicated by the wine of the cup of her abominations, she herself is intoxicated by the blood of the true followers of Christ.

W.E. Vine, Collected Writings of W.E. Vine [computer file], electronic ed., Logos Library System, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson) 1997, ^©1996 by W.E. Vine Copyright Ltd. of Bath, England.

I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I marveled with great amazement.

Revelation 17:6

Ultima cœlestum- the last of the celestials

Hesiod represents Modesty leaving the earth simultaneously with Justice.  The point is that the ultimate corruption of public morals lay in the indifference to feminine virtue and the sacredness of the marriage tie.  Today, this has been realized in the United States and Europe to a great degree.  Now marriage is proposed to be between two women or two men, people have begun to press for the lowering of the age of consent so consensual sex between children and adults will not be punished by law. Ancient writers and modern have warned of this peril to society to some avail, yet not effectually.  With all of the constraints at our disposal to self-correct the times reflect the demand of some that debauchery and moral degradation publicly be given legal status.

When the fate of Terri Schiavo is decided, will the last of the Holy Angels look down and decide that they have seen enough of depravity? Have we watched enough of our fellow human beings slaughtered as pre-born infants that we will somehow deserve to then watch the harvesting of organs from humans while they are still alive? Will we encounter people who choose to live by acquiring organs harvested from helpless victims? In turn will we witness an evil greater come upon us and receive the punishment given to people abandoned by God and His Holy Angels?

Fruitful of crimes, the Age profaned,

At first, the nuptial bed, and stained

Their hapless offspring, whence the woes,

Both virtuous and unnumbered rose

From this polluted fountainhead.

Horace

terras Astræa reliquit

The goddess Astæa abandoned the earth along with the other deities which in the Hebrew and Christian testimony would be known as Angels elohiym.  They abandoned the earth and mankind was forsaken due to the wickedness on earth of mankind.

Thus right and wrong, by furious passion mixed,

Drove from us the divine propitious mind.

Catullus

Astræa was the daughter of Astæus and Aurora, though some thought the daughter of Jupiter and Themis.  She was the goddess of Justice and by metonymy justice itself.  After abandoning the earth due to its impiety she was translated into Virgo.

A virgin pure is Justice, and her birth

From Jove himself, a creature of much worth.

Hesiod

A Few Aspects of the End of This Age According to the Bible

Jesus taught that this Age is the last Age.  It is the Age of Grace where God has offered salvation to the world.  It is also the Age that corresponds to Ovid's Aurea Ætas-The Golden Age.  The Bible gives information by which society and individuals can self-correct. The Bible is specific and gives information as to how we can live our personal lives as well as how we can live in families, communities, and the nations and not give in to the weaknesses that lead to destruction. Ovid describes a few characteristics of the degradation of mankind and the Bible gives a fuller picture.

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.

John begins with a double command, "Do not love the world, nor the things in the world" (v. 15a). Wuest, in his comments on this passage, quotes Vincent as affirming that the double negative and the double usage of the word kosmos refers to the biblical view of the world as "the sum total of human life in the ordered world, considered apart from, alienated from, and hostile to God, and of the earthly things which seduce from God" (John 7:7; 15:18; 17:9, 14; I Corinthians 1:20–21; II Corinthians 7:10; James 4:4).

He comments further saying, "much in this world system is religious, cultured, refined, and intellectual. But it is anti-God and anti-Christ," so it is understandable why John continues with the shattering affirmation "If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (I John 2:15b).

The word for love here is agape, but without the unique Christian meaning given when it refers to God’s love and the love of true believers, or self-sacrificing love. According to Wuest, in secular Greek the word means "fondness or affection for an object because of its value [to the lover]."

Wuest then states that, "This is how John is using the word here to refer to love for the world. It is a love of approbation, of esteem. Demas is said to have loved this present age. He found it precious and thus came to love it" (II Timothy 4:10). Wuest next points out that the main verb in this sentence is a present imperative and speaks of "the act of forbidding the continuance of an action already going on." The world was still precious to some of the Christians of John’s day. Is it still precious to us in our day? I am afraid it is.

John then affirms that if one continues to regard the world or the things in the world as precious, it reveals that God is really not precious to that person.

John next gives two basic reasons why the Christian is to love God and his brother (I John 2:5,10; 4:19–20) but is not to love the world. First, John says, love for the Father and love for the world are mutually exclusive. "If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (v. 15).

John Stott explains, 

"If a man is engrossed in the outlook and pursuits of the world which rejects Christ, it is evident he has no love for the Father"

 (James 4:4; Matthew 6:24).

Next John points out the transience of the world as contrasted with the eternality of the one who does the will of God: "And the world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God abides forever" (1 John 2:17).

One’s view of reality determines one’s values. Four basic affirmations underlie the Christian’s belief systems. These in turn determine both the Christian’s values and the conduct that results from those values.

1. God has revealed Himself in human history as ultimate, absolute reality.

2. Because of God’s self-revelation, the human race has a perfect and unchangeable foundation upon which to build its beliefs and its values and to which to conform its conduct.

3. Humanity cannot know true reality apart from a meaningful relationship with this self-disclosing God.

4. Without a relationship with God based on God’s self-disclosure (primarily in the Scriptures and in His Son), humanity’s beliefs will be flawed, their values distorted, and their conduct unwholesome. Tragedy will result and increase.

This traditional, historic biblical view of reality is being aggressively and persistently challenged and rejected in contemporary Western and American culture, even though these cultures ultimately owe their uniqueness to the biblical world view.

Yet Western culture seems adamant in progressively rejecting its own historic, theistic roots and abandoning itself to a lifestyle described in Scripture as the pursuit of "the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life." (I John 2:16). In verse 15, John directs us not to love "the things in the world," thus giving us a fourfold description of "the things in the world," all it has to offer. He begins with "the lust of the flesh."

As already examined, these lusts represent the personal dimension of sin, the warfare that wages within us (Galatians 5:17). The word lust literally means "strong desire" and can refer to good desire, even God’s desire for us (James 4:5). It is usually used in Scripture with a negative connotation, however. Wuest says, 

"The lust of the flesh is the passionate desire or craving that comes from our evil nature."

Slavery to the lusts of the flesh, John says, is really all there is "in the world." While often outwardly paying lip service to high ethical standards, the world is powerless to live by these standards. They are violated everywhere, by almost everyone, all the time. Of course, if the non-theistic view of reality is the correct one, there really can be no moral absolutes. One is really free to satisfy himself. That’s what the media in most of the world tells us, daily.

This is not so for the church, nor for the Christian, however. We have moral absolutes given to us by God. He has caused them to be written in the Bible for our benefit. While the world shouts to gain our attention and to undermine our morals, all the believer is responsible to do and able to do is to say "No!" We are able to say "No!" because "those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires" (Galatians 5:24). This is how we win the battle against the lusts of the flesh which are daily stimulated to action by this evil world, Paul says. To the world and to the flesh we say "NO!" In contrast, to the Holy Spirit we say "YES!" (Galatians 5:16–17).

In his excellent appendix entitled "The Term Flesh in Galatians 5:24," Needham develops this truth in greater detail. He writes:

In other words, God himself has already brought about the death of the old self, the old I, by union with Christ in his death. Paul declares this both in Romans 6 and in Galatians 2:20. Now, as a new person in Christ, I am able to say "no" to the lusts of the flesh. I am able to crucify the flesh with its passions and lusts.

For this reason, the believer is able to win the battle with the lusts of the world, also. Indeed, he is guaranteed victory over the lusts of the world because he is crucified to the world and the world to him (Galatians 6:14) and because he is born of God (I John 5:4–5). By union with my loving Lord in His crucifixion I am dead to the world and its lusts and the world is dead to me. As Charles Spurgeon is said to have declared, "Come, world, with all your allurements. What can you do to me, a dead man?"

John next describes the world as a system of activity energized by "the lust of the eyes." The former lusts, those of the flesh, come from within us. The latter, those of the eyes, come from without, from the world which surrounds us.

C. H. Dodd says that "the lust of the eyes refers to the tendency to be captivated by the outward show of things, without inquiring into their real value." William Barclay carries this one step further, writing:

The "lust of the eyes" became the downfall of many persons in Scripture. In fact, humanity’s original sin was partially precipitated by just such lusts. Genesis says, "when the woman saw . . . it was a delight to the eyes . . . she took . . ." (Genesis 3:6).

We are all familiar with the sin of Achan. By his own confession things went well with him until "I saw among the spoil a beautiful mantle from Shinar and two hundred shekels of silver and a bar of gold fifty shekels in weight, then I coveted them and took them" (Joshua 7:21). "I saw . . . I coveted . . . I took."

And who does not know the story of the double sin of David, that of adultery and, indirectly, that of murder? It all began with the lust of David’s eyes (II Samuel 11–12).

The "lust of the eyes" continues to be a major stumbling block for Christians in general and Christian leaders in particular. One of the major problems with bondage to "the lust of the eyes" is lack of satisfaction. We obtain what our eyes have lusted for only to find that our appetite is not satisfied, so we look again and lust for more. The writer of Ecclesiastes wrote long ago that "the eye is not satisfied with seeing" (Ecclesiastes 1:8). In Proverbs he says, "the eyes of man [are never] satisfied" (Proverbs 27:20).

This is what is "in the world," John says, "the lust of the eyes." Wuest calls these lusts "the passionate cravings of the eyes for satisfaction." What do we know of such passionate cravings? How guilty are all of us of the lust of the eyes? What do we do with our eyes when we are alone, when no one is watching us? If we obey God’s Word in Romans 6:13 and present the members of our bodies "as instruments of righteousness to God" that will include our eyes. We will then begin to enjoy the victory over the world’s attempts to captivate our eyes through lust.

John next reveals that "the things in the world" include "the boastful pride of life." Wuest says this phrase refers to "the vainglory which belongs to the present life." He says the word life used here refers to that which sustains life like food, clothing, and shelter. The picture is that of the man and woman who seek a life built upon all that the world has to offer.

John Stott writes about "the boastful pride of life."

A repulsive new theology has developed in our day to justify a luxuriant lifestyle. Its emphasis is on this-world prosperity, an "all this and heaven too" theology. "Something good is going to happen to you." "Seed money." "Name it and claim it." "God wants you to prosper." "Wealth is a gift from the Lord." "Health and wealth are always God’s will for his children." "God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. He wants to share them with you. Visualize what you want. Speak the word of faith, and it will be yours."

Such a prosperity doctrine is possible only in an advanced middle-class economy. I would like to see its advocates proclaim it among the starving Christians of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the thousands of true believers who are found among the homeless in the Western world.

This is not the supracultural gospel of Scripture with its emphasis on a simple lifestyle. It is a culturally distorted message based on faulty exegesis of a few Scripture passages twisted to advocate wealth and prosperity as the norm for all God’s people. The prosperity message conflicts with Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 6:19–21 and 19:16–26. It is contradicted by the apostle Paul’s words in I Timothy 6:6–14 and Hebrews 13:5,13–14. In I Timothy 6:6–11 Paul writes:

Syndicated columnist Cal Thomas sums up the pride of life of much of American culture and the contemporary U.S. religious prosperity theology:

The apostle Paul expresses the New Testament view of the world and the Christian’s relationship to that world in two passages in Galatians. The first is Galatians 1:4. There Paul writes that Jesus "gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us out of this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father."

Paul uses aioµn (aeon) in Greek to express the "world" here. Literally it means "age, a period of time." Vine writes, "It is marked in the New Testament usage by spiritual or moral characteristics and is sometimes translated ‘world.’ "

Trench vividly describes the aioµn, the age referred to here by Paul as God’s and the believer’s mortal enemy. He writes that the aioµn represents

Thus Paul asserts this age, this world, is evil. It threatens the believer’s relationship to God so much that, while being forced to continue living in this world, the believer must be delivered from its power and its control.

Paul also says that this world is so totally evil that one of the major purposes of the redemptive work of Christ was to "deliver us out of this present evil age." Wuest says that the word translated "deliver" (exaireoµ) means "to pluck out, to draw out, to rescue, to deliver."

Wuest comments on the Greek word chosen here by Paul to express evil, poneµros. He contrasts poneµros with another and more widely used word for evil in the New Testament, kakos. Poneµros is the stronger word for evil, revealing evil that seeks not only to express its own evil nature but also seeks to draw others into its evil web.

The kakos man may be content to perish in his own corruption, but the poneµros man is not content unless he is corrupting others as well, and drawing them into the same destruction with himself. Satan is not called the kakos one but the poneµros one. This present age is described by Paul as poneµros. . . . This present age therefore is not content to perish in its own corruption, but seeks to drag all men with it down to its own inevitable destruction.

Paul’s second major reference to the world in Galatians is found in Galatians 6:14. There the apostle writes, "But may it never be that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." The world (here, kosmos) is so evil, Paul is saying, that the only way of deliverance from its power is through a double crucifixion. The world has been crucified to us and we to the world.

The idea of being united with Christ in His death and in His crucifixion is a familiar teaching of Paul (Romans 6:1f; Galatians 2:20; 5:24; Colossians 2:20f; 3:1–4). In Galatians 6:14 the idea is the same, this time with focus on the world. "The world," Paul is saying, "strives to bring us into bondage to its declared values and philosophies be they secular or religious. We reject both. We are released from the world’s point of view through our identification with Christ in his crucifixion. He died in our behalf unto the world’s ways and we have been united with God in His ways. The world, in turn, no longer has any claims upon us. It is dead to us, crucified unto us."

John Eadie focuses his words on Paul’s personal experience in Galatians 6:14, which is applicable to all believers:

These are gripping words. They present to us the truth that we, as Jesus, are not of this world (John 15–17). He has set us free from bondage to this world. The longer I live my Christian life in this world and the more I counsel bruised and afflicted fellow Christians the more the words of Jesus in John 16:33 ring in my mind and heart:

While living in this world, the world is not my true home. I am a citizen of the kingdom of God, not the kingdoms of this world. He has defeated this evil world in my behalf and brought me into His kingdom. Never in the world will I find true peace, but only in Him. In Him I can, daily, win the war with the world.

Lastly, John affirms that "the things in the world" are transitory. He writes, "And the world is passing away, and also its lusts" (v. 17a). If the world itself is passing away it is obvious that the things in the world will go the way of the world. Again he sums up the world and all it has to offer in one word, "lusts."

We know the world is "passing away" because we see its values destroying goodness, freedom, and even life itself. The pragmatism we discussed in the last chapter is called "vulgar relativism" by the well-known Christian writer, Michael Novak. Novak affirms that this world view "undermines the culture of liberty. If it triumphs, free institutions may not survive the twenty-first century." His reasoning? "An age wrong about God is almost certain to be wrong about man." Ours is an age which is certainly wrong about God. And it is increasingly obvious that it is an age which is clearly wrong about man.

The late General Omar Bradley, one of the great heroes of World War II, put it this way: 

"We have grasped the mystery of the atom, but we have rejected the Sermon on the Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants, but we are ethical infants. We know more about war than we do about peace, [more about] killing than living."

The lie about both God and man that permeates Western society—and the entire world for that matter—must be challenged by truth. In the final analysis, Jesus Himself is the truth (John 4:16). He came to bear witness to the truth. His Word is truth. This truth sets men free. But to bear witness to the truth to a world which has strayed from the path of truth, the Church must overcome the world as Jesus overcame the world. Too many of us have become so much like the world we have lost the right to speak of truth. As author John White states, "the world at present influences the Church more than the Church influences the world."

For a Christian to be overcome by "the world and the things in the world" is one of the greatest of all tragedies. He will find he has lived for that which is only transitory. When his life work is tried by fire, as the apostle Paul affirms it will, he will find that his work will "be burned up." True, "he himself shall be saved, yet so as through fire" (1 Cor. 3:13–15). Who wants to be saved that way?

This is the world with which we are at war. It is our enemy just as it is God’s enemy. We must choose to be obedient to God and reject the deceptions of the world. Finally, we must never forget that the world’s god is the devil (2 Cor. 4:4). This is a thoroughly demonized world.

Edward F. Murphy, Handbook for Spiritual Warfare [computer file], electronic ed. of the revised and updated edition, Logos Library System, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson) 1997, ^©1996 by Edward F. Murphy.

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There Is and Will Be a Falling Away, This is Happening Now

Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? ⁶And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 

And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: 

That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. 

II Thessalonians 2:3-12

Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. 

Hebrews 3:12

For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. 

Hebrews 4:2

Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed. 

I Peter2:7-8

For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? 

I Peter 4:17

The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil. 

John 7:7

If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. 

John 15:18

⁹I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. (John 17)

I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 

John 17:14-16

Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. 

I Corinthians 1:20-21

For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: 

but the sorrow of the world worketh death. 

II Corinthians 7:10

The Anti-Christ will betray many

Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.

And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him. 

John 13:1–2

Jesus washed their feet because He knew that He would "depart out of this world." His ministry would continue after He went back to heaven. He has identified Himself with His people, and today He still washes the feet of His disciples. He says that He will depart out of this "world" (kosmos), meaning the world system. It is man’s world, a world of sin. It is a civilization that is anti-God and anti-Christ, and it is under judgment. Because He is leaving this world, He washes their feet.

J. Vernon McGee, Thru the Bible Commentary [computer file], electronic ed., Logos Library System, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson) 1997, ^©1981 by J. Vernon McGee.

The Anti-Christ will deny the nature of Christ, He Will Minimize Who Jesus Is

He who was promised immediately after the fall of man, as in the fulness of time to be born of a woman, has now come in the flesh; and whosoever denies this is an antichrist (I John. 4:3), he is actuated and influenced by the spirit of anti-christ; but those who are the true apostles and ministers of Christ, and are directed and guided by the Spirit of Christ, evidence that Christ has come according to the promise which all the Old-Testament believers died in the faith of, Hebrews 11:39. Christ has come in the flesh. Inasmuch as those whom he undertakes to save are partakers of flesh and blood, he himself also took part of the same, that he might suffer in their nature and stead, and thereby make an atonement. This coming of Christ the gospel is very plain and circumstantial in setting forth; but there is a second coming, which it likewise mentions, which the ministers of the gospel ought also to make known, when he shall come in the glory of his Father with all his holy angels, for he is appointed to be Judge both of quick and dead. He will come to judge the world in righteousness by the everlasting gospel, and call us all to give account of all things done in the body, whether good or evil. 3. And though this gospel of Christ has been blasphemously called a fable by one of those wretches who call themselves the successors of St. Peter, yet our apostle proves that it is of the greatest certainty and reality, inasmuch as during our blessed Saviour’s abode here on earth, when he took on him the form of a servant and was found in fashion as a man, he sometimes manifested himself to be God, and particularly to our apostle and the two sons of Zebedee, who were eye-witnesses of his divine majesty, when he was transfigured before them, and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light, exceedingly white, as snow, so as no fuller on earth can whiten them. This Peter, James, and John, were eye-witnesses of, and therefore might and ought to attest; and surely their testimony is true, when they witness what they have seen with their eyes, yea, and heard with their ears: for, besides the visible glory that Christ was invested with here on earth, there was an audible voice from heaven.

Henry, Matthew, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Bible, (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers) 1997.

The Anti-Christ Will Be Proven to Be a Liar, Satan is a Liar and the Father of Lies

The Anti-Christ Will Gain Power and Keep It with Accusations, Satan is an Accuser

Things to Avoid

The Bible warns clearly that we are not to practice witchcraft. The admonitions against the things that weaken and degrade people personally as well as communally are plain enough still.  I have noticed that those who are wise in the things of this world and of the kosmos would teach and rebuke the Christian who holds to the direct revelation of God as it is found in the Bible.  Although there is not a religion composed of murderers that call themselves by that name, there is a religion that commonly accepts the term witchcraft as descriptive of it. I have also noticed that the truth scandalizes people to where they are deeply offended and have many good reasons as to why the admonitions of the Bible are not true, or at least do not apply to them.  Jesus is the stumbling stone and we get the English word scandal from the Greek which Paul calls a rock of offence. 

Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.

I Peter 2:6-8

Those who are at variance with Jesus or find that they are at enmity with Him are scandalized by the Bible, hotly angered by its words.  Being double-minded some who would fancy that light and dark go together find that their claim to follow Christ is used in discussions to disprove or judge God's revelation, reviling the Bible with its own words.

I know one witch who takes great delight in finding a nominal Christian who is for all intents and purposes a fool and converts them to paganism as a lark.  One time she took someone who was very anti-Catholic and convinced him to convert to Catholicism to show her abilities of persuasion.  Within a year she was delighted to take things that he had confided in her about and expose him publicly in a humiliating way and mock him for being so easily led. I think she could have been harsher and he may have deserved the humiliation in some sense.  Sometime ago I met someone from the town of Salem who told me the attitude of the witches that were around when he was growing up many years ago. Pretensions to tolerance are encouraged only as a means of disarming the Christian as a rule.  Most of the time I have seen their pretensions dissolve into judgment and finally expressed contempt and hatred towards Christians.  Very young people often are idealistic and sometimes tolerance and idealism truly motivate sharing their beliefs to a large degree.  Seldom is it that someone who is a pagan is truly seeking a way out of it or has anything less than contempt with arrogance for Christians.  

I have found that sometimes we can stand in between someone who really is seeking answers and the Holy Spirit.  We see that the point is to convince them of the Lord on our terms in a controlling way.  There is a fine line and it is best that we truly know ourselves should we decide to take a witness of the Lord Jesus to them.  More than self-awareness is awareness of the Holy Spirit.

Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these;

Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry,

witchcraft⁵³³¹,

hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like:

of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past,

that they which do such things

shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

Galatians 5:19-21

Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.

For without are dogs, and

sorcerers⁵³³³,

and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.

I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.

And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

Revelation 22:14-17

Summary Afterword

The poet Ovid set about to portray the worldview of his generation in an order that suggested cause and effect for the state of affairs in which he found his world.  His assessment has application today in that the world we find ourselves in seems complex and faced with nations and forces at odds with one another.  Nations rise against nation in ways that seem subtle as well as violent and sudden.  The United States was changed, some say forever, with the attack on our soil for the first time on September 1, 2001.  The threat of terrorism had loomed however briefly upon the horizon with attacks on embassies, the World Trade Center, and the U.S.S. Cole from the 1980's into the 1990's.  Since 2001 over 1000 acts of terror were stopped in the world by the intervention of law enforcement in different countries working in cooperation with the United States, including threats from within the country.  By different means, terrorism had been dealt with up until the event now called 911 but open war had never been declared against the shadow enemy.  The United States launched an attack upon the heart of terrorism in Afghanistan and soon invaded the country of Iraq.  

Over the course of the last half of the 20th century the United States proved to be the one major military and economic force in the world that effectively led the "free world" that opposed or alternately counter-balanced the Soviet Union and the Soviet Bloc countries.  The Cold War ended and the Soviet Union did as well, leaving the United States as a single major world power as a nation.  Even so, the United States led a coalition against Iraq of over 60 countries that are still essential to the effective stabilization of Iraq.  Cooperation among sovereign nations remains an effective means of solving conflict, whether unanimous cooperation among all friendly powers is solicited and gained or not.  Social and economic theory has been driven in part by the ideas put forth in the latter half of the 19th century that helped influence how countries gained and lost preeminence in the affairs of nations.  The world has record of the success and failure of the different applications of these theories.  One of the most profound influences upon the governance of a people was the establishment of the United States.  Decidedly The United States provided a model of a way to get along as a nation while maintaining internal consistency, economic well-being, and personal freedom.  The influence of Marx and Darwin has shadowed the efforts of the United States and now is in open conflict with the first principles our country was built upon.

The United States was established as a government as a Federal Republic and a nation upon Judeo-Christian principles with the country being a Christian nation.  The Marxian and Darwinian world views say not and propose that we will not continue as we have.  Efforts to rid the country of any traces of Christianity are underway along with efforts to remove national sovereignty in lieu of personal freedom.  The "greater good" is called upon as a justification.  Market forces on a global scale do not demand this, nor do socio-economic forces within.  Yet, we see greed and avarice impelling corporations to employ foreign illegal aliens at near slave wages to poverty wages, or exporting jobs from the United States to countries to take advantage of slave labor or at least labor costs much reduced.  The educational system costs more to maintain than any country in the world and produces students who are functionally illiterate at a rate that compares with the Third World.  Social theories based on egalitarianism have produced the desired effect, so that the people receive the poorest education money can buy.  Although students are unknowingly among the worst educated in the world, the thought is that it does not matter because a greater good is achieved.  The greater good in education is not how well-informed a student is, but how comfortable an unknowing students are with being ignorant in comparison with almost any student from another country on the planet.  It also allows ignorant men and women to have a profound effect upon things and they in turn are able to manipulate people for political and economic gain relatively unfettered.  Those who might know where a state is located in this country and which cities are in which states are becoming rare.  The ability to make change and tell time occupy adults as an insurmountable challenge and these same adults can be swayed by the most ignorant and emotional appeals to the basest of human desires.

Seeking to concentrate wealth into the hands of a few, while impoverishing the people intellectually has been the steady drumbeat of those who contend with the present system in the United States.  Social evolution to a greater good turns out to be at odds with equipping the people with personal knowledge and individual freedoms.  The lie that is promulgated is that an ignorant and economically powerless populace malleable to the whim and caprice of those who hold onto power and wealth are best served, while it appears that "rights" take the place of freedom.  This in turn encourages an unusually litigious society.  It is not supposed to be harmful to negate moral values and moral absolutes as long as "rights" are doled out by power brokers.  People suppose "rights" are inviolate and operate independent of any moral force and that in the final analysis "rights" will mediate any evils that emanate from the abandonment of moral values and moral absolutes.  The rugged individualism that is celebrated has been replaced by weak narcissism without any notice.  It is felt that any harm or evil can be attributed to a worldview that is arbitrary and not founded on objective reality, once having done away with standards that society will no longer be troubled by any recognizable ills.  This is the ultimate shell game with people believing that real harm and want will not have an effect upon society if no one calls it harm or want.  Children are taught in schools that the murders of millions of people in Nazi Germany cannot be judged to be wrong or harmful because it was all part of the Nazi worldview and to say it was wrong is wrong.

Ovid maintains the opposite worldview than that promoted by the social Darwinians, the socialists, nihilists, and anarchists.  He outlines mankind as having steadily degraded from a state of well-being to that of strife and harm. A sub-culture is emerging as more visible that is an outgrowth of the counter-cultural revolution of the 1960's.  Hippies chose either to gain through greed in the last years of the 1990's, seek first principles in normative and historic Christianity or hearken to a return to paganism.  A large core population that mainly watched the counter-revolution has chosen their way as well. Paganism in large measure is an attempt to return to an Edenic state and is really the resultant backlash against the ills of social and moral degradation in the world.  The most powerful country in the world is recognized as the United States and it is still a Christian nation, drawing negative attention from countries opposed to us based on their philosophical or religious opposition to Christianity.  Morally, philosophically, and religiously normative and historical Christianity is attacked from within and without.  The attack on 911 was essentially an attack on western civilization and the continued existence of western civilization lay in the balance.  

The rallying point behind which the Taliban and allied radical factions have formed is Christendom, more as a paper tiger than anything else.  The struggle seen effected in the microcosm of individual choice-making or the macro world is essentially that of power. Greed and avarice are opportunistic forces that have become an amoral and immoral force in how power is gained and maintained and then enlarged upon. Europeans who are the among leading lights sometimes muse that the United States as a whole still believes in right and wrong or that there is a God and if so, that He matters.  The balance between secularism and faith in the United States has not been wholly tipped in favor of a pristine secular society where the voice of God is no longer heard.  Secularists are taking care of that by legal means in hopes that God will no longer function in the affairs of mankind in any practical way.  They say they do not mind God, just His followers.  That would include all people of faith.  Minority religions are being given free reign until Christians are muted, otherwise the shill of "rights" offered instead of freedom will not come off well.  

Pagans wish to return to first principles based on a religious world that existed thousands of years ago that is operated by gods and goddesses while secularists wish to usher in a world with "new" first principles based on a new religion that does not include God.  Islam wishes to usher in a world that is free of any religion but that which is Muslim, either exterminating or converting all non-Muslims.  A great segment of the population of the United States wishes to reinvigorate the first principles that led to the formation of the country and brought it to greatness, recognizing Christianity as having effected freedom as we know it. Jews and Christians recognize that loss of Christianity as the dominate force in this country will spell the end of the United States as a viable sovereign nation.  As Christians we formed the country in a way that chose the law as the light and recognize no other king than Jesus Christ, rejecting men as being kings over us.  We left Europe to escape the establishment of religion by the state because we saw that in so doing our faith was made subservient to the will of kings, kings who were not always just.  The divine right of kings was rejected in this country by law. Now the ruse is made that we rejected God when we formed the country. The cultural civil war being fought with words and factionalism is accepted as part of the ebb and flow of things and a continuation of our heritage. Jefferson thought that this might eventuate and citizens might be in  contention with the government itself someday. He most likely realized that worldview has changed in nations and would change, producing strife.  The battle for ideas has legitimacy as having the ability to change how a nation gets along with its people as well as the world.

Reviewing the pagan heritage of Ovid and the Christian heritage in comparison it appears that morality mattered to the pagan world much as it does to the world of Christendom. Ovid reflects a deterministic view with similar moral predicates as that recognized by Christians.  In some sense Ovid recognizes what is moral with more similarities to Christianity revealed in his worldview than that of secularism.  He does not show any nervousness in discussing ideas based on premises that employ words eschewed by the secularist of today.  Words like faith and virtue are derided in the secular world and morality is the cause for immediate hostility on the part of the secularist and pagan today. Rebellion, strife, and contention seem good things to the secularist with little qualification, whereas rebellion, strife, and contention are seen as unhappy outcomes based on how one lives out his or her faith in a Christian worldview. The pagan world of the Romans that Ovid was born into was on the cusp of the effects of instituting men as gods with the first two Caesars still guided more by the former republic's principles.  The Caesars that followed declined to madness, moral depravity, and evil that went unchecked by law and resolved by others gaining power through assassinations and military force.

Jesus was born at the time when the second Caesar ruled Rome and the province of Judea.  Ovid died before Jesus became an adult.  The first Christians were around when 3 million Jews were killed as the Romans put down their rebellion against the Empire and destroyed Jerusalem.  The early church saw many of its gathering killed for sport in the coliseums, hounded, persecuted, and exterminated.  The Apostles Paul, James, and Peter were executed because they were Christians in ways that are still memorable.  Peter was killed in the circus during the reign of Nero. All of the Apostles were killed for their faith except for John. The Apostle John was dipped in hot oil and when he survived it, he was exiled to an island according to Tertullian, probably Patmos.  Christians know that millions were martyred in the last century and it has only slowed a bit so far in this century.  If we only had the witness of the early church it would be enough to say with certainty that worldview matters.  The paradigm of the last half of the 20th century to illustrate death by reason of faith was the Holocaust at the hands of the Nazis who adopted a secularized hybrid of paganism and socialism with a German Caesar, Adolph Hitler under the Third Reich. One way or another the siren song to hand over power asks that the United States to entrust its fate to factions with differing worldviews or accommodate them by submission to the reign and rule of others. Some wonder if we stand at the cusp of time when a mad Nero is possible to reign over some of us once again.

1, 2 James Strong, New Strong’s Dictionary of Hebrew and Greek Words [computer file], electronic ed., Logos Library System, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson) 1997, ^©1996.

Important Lies of Satan Today to Pave the Way of the Anti-Christ

Just as John the Baptist paved the way for Jesus, the spirit of the Anti-Christ is paving the way for the Anti-Christ

Here are the top lies.

• The Bible is fallible
• God can lie and does
• The Holy Spirit is a feeling 
• God is a force like electromagnetism
• God is love but His Holiness isn't as important
• God doesn't value and respect women
• True fulfillment can be found in the world
• Nationalism is not important it is pointless
• Love of country is not valid
• We need a worldwide judiciary to solve world problems
• We are not capable of self-governance 
• The USA is not a nation under God
• Christianity has nothing to do with freedom as established in the USA
• Society must abandon morality in favor of anarchy
• Sexuality is fun, especially outside the context of marriage, therefore it is better outside the context of marriage.
• Homosexuality is as valid as heterosexuality
• All religions are the same basically
• Christianity is a religion
• Christianity is a religion of violence
• Wars and persecution are primarily due to religion, Christianity being the chief reason
• Christians are not being persecuted
• Finding the right political system or philosophical system will cure our problems
• In order to be acceptable to God, we have to live by certain rules not faith
• Morality, values, truth and the relevance of God is determined by men and it is "in the eyes of the beholder"
• Man can do what is right in his own eyes without God
• Honesty, fidelity, honor of parents, truth, and all absolutes are merely utilitarian ideas that can be used and ignored at will