Apocalyptic Reflection

 

Ferocious rain whips against this old wooden house as thunder rumbles and lightning flashes apocalyptically across the night sky. What is it about Stations of the Cross on a Texan Thursday evening that brings this on. I don't know, I can't fathom the ways of our old enemy the Weather, but it seems appropriate to this evening's devotion.

After all, what is the crucifixion if not the seeming triumph of Antichrist and with that we're reminded of a bestial number, a threefold series of sixes. St. John casts light on infernal mathematics in his Gospel.

At the sixth hour Christ is met by the harlot at the well. Again at the sixth hour, the followers of Caiaphas the false prophet stamp themselves with the mark of the beast, crying out, "We have no king but Caesar." Then darkness falls upon the land at the sixth hour as Jesus hangs dying on Calvary.

There it is, 666 and the character of Antichrist spelled out, whorish infidelity, idolatrous irreligion, and the murderous extinction of life itself. Such is Satan's revolt against God and the serpent appeared to have won, but not so fast.

The Samaritan woman at the well repents and becomes a great evangelist and martyr, St. Photina, in receipt of living water. The false prophets are swept away and the darkness of the cross gives out to the light of Easter and the empty tomb. Life, light and truth win over the deathly night of the beast.

All this played out in Christ's life, setting the template, model, figure and type of the final battle between good and evil. Every day draws us closer to this point and with it the lines are ever more clearly drawn and distinct. Hasten to enlist on the right side of this divide.

In the meanwhile, thunder and lightning crash down with the very force of the Eschaton itself.

Here endeth the Lesson,

LSP

Dove Hunt Fail - Rule of 666

The plan was elegant in its simplicity. Load up the rig with a CZ SxS 20, ammo and decoys, then head out to the country, set up in a tree line and shoot dove. What a good plan, but it fell apart when a storm blew in from the East.

Wind and ferocious rain put an end to today's pleasant vision of avian acrobats falling under a flak barrage of birdshot and ending up as jalapeno poppers on the grill, so I took refuge in Walmart. A lesser thing, for sure, but interesting nonetheless. Why?

Because around a quarter of the shoppers weren't wearing masks. They weren't into them at all and strolled around the store without a seeming care in the world. This seemed pleasant to me, so I took off my stupid election mask of fear and bought some steak and wine, MAGA style.

All good, unlike Great Britain which has just told everyone that gatherings of more than six people are illegal as of Monday. Offenders will be fined and possibly arrested, who knows, perhaps they'll be sent to special camps. Churches, pubs and restaurants are exempt though, and it's a fair bet that mass gatherings of  BLM, dinghies full of POCs and Extinction Rebellion art commies are too.

In England, from Monday, we are introducing the rule of 6. You must not meet socially in groups of more than 6 - and if you do, you will be breaking the law.

We must do what is necessary to stop the spread of the virus and save lives. pic.twitter.com/tKWa9sK1wr

— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) September 9, 2020

What's this all about? Here in the US Democrat virus panic's understandable, after all, it's an election year and the disloyal opposition want to ride the pandemic to a win they wouldn't achieve normally. Mail in voting, stopping Trump rallies, crashing the economy and all of that. OK, fine, but what's in it for the UK's so-called Conservative government? A government with a massive 80 seat majority in the Commons.

Good question and I don't have an answer. It's almost as though some strange force is driving BoJo to set himself up as the most unpopular Prime Minister in the history of ever. Is he being blackmailed, is he a puppet shill of the sinister New World Order, are evil spirits involved? Who knows, but he looked demented in today's bizarre "Rule of 666" broadcast.

We must hope it has nothing to do with demons.

Cheers,

LSP

Woman At The Well

In tomorrow's Gospel we hear the remarkable story of the Samaritan woman at the well. Consider the narrative's apocalyptic aspect.

At the sixth hour Christ meets the Harlot at the well and confronts her infidelity with truth. Likewise, at the sixth hour, Pilate condemns Christ, and the followers of the False Prophet Caiaphas write the mark of the Beast on their foreheads saying, "We have no king but Caesar!" Again, at the sixth hour, darkness fell over the land as Jesus was crucified and Antichrist triumphs, for a time.

The woman at the well, curiously, is venerated as a saint in the Eastern Church and is believed to have witnessed before Nero, a type of the Antichrist, before her eventual martyrdom. 

God bless,

LSP

Nero, The Rainbow Emperor

Christians who support gay marriage might like to consider the marriage equality activism of their forbear Nero.

Nero married three men, Sporus, Doryphorus and Pythagoras. As described by Seutonius and Tacitus:

"[Nero] had a boy named Sporus castrated and tried to transform him into an actual woman; he married him in a regular wedding ceremony, with a dowry and a bridal veil, took him home in front of a great crowd, and treated him as his wife. A witty remark that someone made about this is still circulating: that human kind would have been well off, if his father Domitius had had the same kind of wife” (Suetonius, Nero 28-29).

Here's Doryphorus:

“…he invented a new kind of game (so to speak) in which, dressed in the skin of a wild animal, he was released from a cage and attacked the private parts of men and women who were bound to stakes and, when he had had enough of this savagery, he was finished off (as it were) by his freedman Doryphorus. This Doryphorus he took as his husband, just as Sporus had with him, and in doing so he imitated the cries and wailing of a virgin who is being raped” (Suetonius, Nero 28-29).

And Tacitus gives us Pythagoras:

“A veil was placed over the emperor, the interpreters of the auspices were sent; a dowry, a wedding bed and marriage torches -- in the end, everything that is concealed by night even in the case of a woman was on display” (Tacitus, Ann. 15.37).

A Couple of Rainbow Clowns

The Emperor Nero wasn't just famous for marrying men, he also has a place in history for persecuting the church. According to Tacitus:

"And perishing they were additionally made into sports: they were killed by dogs by having the hides of beasts attached to them, or they were nailed to crosses or set aflame, and, when the daylight passed away, they were used as nighttime lamps. Nero gave his own gardens for this spectacle and performed a Circus game, in the habit of a charioteer mixing with the plebs or driving about the race-course." 

Christians might want to think twice before following the example of the Rainbow Emperor, Nero.

LSP

Mark of the Beast

Who is the Beast and the False Prophet, and what does the bestial number, 666, signify? Everyone wants to know. But before we get carried away and leap to obvious conclusions, pointing our fingers at Barack, Hillary and Soros, consider St. John's numeric source, namely Solomon, who serves as a type, or forerunner, of Antichrist.

Recall Solomon's apostasy after the departure of the Queen of Sheba, in which he breaks the laws of kingship, multiplying horses, women and gold to himself contrary to Dueteronomy 17: 16-18. How much gold did the Astaroth, Moloch worshiping king amass? We're told in I Kings. 10: 14, "The weight of gold that came to King Solomon in one year was six hundred and sixty six talents of gold."

There you have it, the infernal number of idolatrous abomination and a blasphemous parody of 888, which is the number of Jesus reckoned by rabbinical Gematria. But if Solomon serves as a type of Antichrist, how was that played out in St. John's time? Here's Farrer; after discussing the sixfold pattern of divine judgement in the Apocalypse, he writes:

"On the sixth day of the week, and the sixth hour, says St. John (Jn. 19: 13-22), the kingdoms of Christ and Antichrist looked one another in the face in Pilate's court, and the adherents of the False Prophet (Caiaphas) firmly wrote on their foreheads the mark of the Beast, when they said, 'We have no King but Caesar.'"

We have no King but Caesar. How does that differ, in effect, from the present spirit of the age? 

Beware the wrath to come,

LSP