Parasitic Darkness
The Spiritual War For Your Mind
Darkness has a funny way of eclipsing everything else. Iโm sure youโve noticed that.
People worship darkness everywhere and see it as an enduring power that can never be quenched. A monster wandering the halls of life, a voracious beast devouring any who dare cross its path.
Used to be horror movies were enjoyable because they told good stories. The knight would slay the dragon, the priest would vanquish the demon, the cop would catch the robber, and on and on it went.
But now, each tale is about how the force of evil, the hideous killer, is unstoppable.
Every character on the side of good dispenses mounds of energy, fighting the beast unto exhaustion, but the beast never dies. Even when victory seems achieved, evil resurrects and kills the good guys.
Culture has been inundated with this story template. Made numb to danger.
So much so that even popular conservative influencers like Brett Cooper (former host at the Daily Wire and alleged Christian) have admitted to enjoying witchcraft, finding it harmless.
The so-called โEnlightenmentโ promised to dispatch the โspiritualโ and โsuperstitious,โ but it only inspired interest and investment in the occult en masse. People flock to the spirit world in record numbers.
Why?
Because the dragon is real and has never played fair. He devised making evil appear good to gain influence and control, purged of truth. And his demons have favored his tactics since the dawn of timeโฆ
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Serpent of Chaos
When youโre hopeless or unaware, youโre vulnerable to anything. Those states are chaos for the human mind, and thatโs where the dragon is at his best. He is the orchestrator of chaos.
And he used to be recognized as such by almost every ancient culture.
Take, for example, Babylon, Egypt, and Canaan.
Babylonian mythology attributed the loss of immortality and the darkness of chaos to serpents. Tiamat was a great serpent goddess who threatened the existence of the cosmos with her mastery over the waters of chaos. Marduk became god-king of Babylon by slaying Tiamat and forming the universe from her mutilated body.
And it was a serpent who stole the tree of eternal life from the hero-giant Gilgamesh while he slept.
The Egyptian sun-god Ra, joined by his brother Set, was thought to be trapped in an endless battle with Apophis, the serpent of darkness. Each night, they would fight to the death, and Egyptians would pray the serpent vanquished so the light would return.
Yamm, the Canaanite sea-god, contained the leviathan, the serpent of chaos, within the earthly and cosmic waters. And he was unruly in his use of the powers of chaos against the gods. Baal became lord of the gods by going to war with and defeating Yamm, thereby destroying chaos.
Similar myths are found everywhere in the ancient world. Light vs. darkness, order vs. chaos. Skeptics dismiss them as humans trying to explain natural phenomena. But if so, there wouldnโt be so many parallels.
What if the ancients were expressing a collective memory, in their own words, of real events that transpired, the destruction of a being responsible for the collapse of order?
If so, each story shows the serpent as good when in its place. But when it chooses to cross the boundaries into order, it becomes a trickster, destroyer, and eater of worlds. And it hides in the darkness.
The Bible affirms all the above themes; only the serpent hides in plain sight.
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Defender of the Tree
Adam and Eve were in a state of blissful unawareness when the serpent struck. Walking about the garden like children, enjoying the comfort of their Fatherโs home. And it wasnโt their first meeting.
In Genesis, God makes the heavens and the earth from nothing and sets up boundaries to keep the something from being destroyed by the nothing. The tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil are the boundaries he appoints.
No explanation is offered in the other mythologies about how order and chaos came to be. Theyโre merely presumed. But God is the clear maker and crafter of the universe in the Bible, instilling it with life and purpose. And setting up guardians to protect creation.
The serpent, often mistaken for a regular snake, is much more. The Hebrew word nachash (serpent/snake) could also be rendered nochesh (diviner). So, the most likely identity of the serpent was a seraph or cherub (angelic guardian of the heavens).
Eden was Godโs garden. Temples and their gardens were intersections between the mundane and the divine. Hence, Godโs garden was his throne on earthโฆyet another parallel in the ancient world.
This, paired with the identity of the serpent, suggests the heavens and their beings, members of Godโs creation, could live alongside and interact with Adam and Eve, his human imagers.
Ezekiel seemed to think in chapter 28 of his letter that since the serpent was a guardian, protecting was his duty in the mountain of God.
He was the defender of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The guardian against chaos. And his mission was to ensure Godโs command to humanity (not to eat from it) was never violated.
Protector Turned Parasite
Adam and Eve met the serpent and were not shocked to see him talking because theyโd met others like him or met him personally and knew he was from the heavens. And that he was supposed to be there.
Plus, he was beautiful. So they trusted him.
Itโs no coincidence the Bible later refers to the serpent as an โangel of light.โ In his prime, he was like the rest of the angels of the heavens, cloaked in resplendent rays reminiscent of the most valuable gems.
And Ezekiel says he was granted wisdom beyond his years. He knows every secret of the cosmos.
But he coveted the throne of God. What he lacked was control, absolute autonomy, so he directed his cleverness and beauty toward usurping what belonged to God alone.
Adam and Eve were easy prey because they had no experience with evil. Evil was nothing. It was the inversion of order, and until their journey to the tree that fateful day in Genesis 3, evil (chaos) had been contained in its proper place. Away from Godโs very good design.
The dragon, that vile seraph, persuaded Adam and Eve so easily because heโd never done wrong. And the only way they knew wrong was because of Godโs own commands.
โDid God really say?โ
The Father was their source of knowledge, and he was taking his time. Teaching them slowly.
The serpent knew all the worst things happen with speed. In his cleverness, he leveraged his authority and knowledge over the two unsuspecting victims by offering a shortcut to power.
โYe shall be as gods.โ And they ate.
When they were away from God, slumbering away from the side of the divine like Gilgamesh, the dragon swooped in with deceit, stole the tree of life from under them by giving them what they thought they wanted: an easy way to more.
A chance to become as gods that only led to death.
Chaos was unleashed on order, and now, you suffer. Satan was the first gnostic, the first communist, the first mutineer, enacting his grievances to demolish all things good and holy.
Woe to Those Who Call Evil Good
Our intellect has become our trap. Our refusal to surrender to God, our tomb. Because we must have the forbidden fruit no matter what.
Many in society may not consider the supernatural world real. They claim the material world is all that exists. But they rehash the same ancient myth in different form.
A single cell emerged from the primordial goo, from the inanimate waters of chaos, and somehow evolved over millions of years into all life from non-life on its own. But it also exists alongside this pesky anti-life force called entropy that decays and erodes everything it touches from the inside out.
Entropy and order are presumed to reside together. Only there are no gods to fight death. No spirits to contend for life.
โDid God really say?โ is replaced with โIs God real?โ
The resounding answer from the skeptics is โNO.โ So carpe diem. Seize the day. Live however you want because YOU are God.
Same world, same lie, different look.
Darkness isnโt really the problem. Nor is stupidity. Nor is religion.
Our greatest weakness as humans has always been secret shortcuts to the divine.
The Ouji boards, the spells, the drugs, the porn, the secret knowledge, the illusion that this world is all there is. Theyโre the forbidden fruit. Temporal leeches offering power but sucking the blood from your soul.
Theyโre our Tower of Babel, our Great Pyramid, our Ladder to the Heavens. Built on sinking sand, with cracked clay or crumbling boards. Touching the sky while never reaching beyond.
A path promising eternal glory with a trajectory to hopeless misery.
Satan knows you know the truth. There are no shortcuts. But his greatest ploy is to keep you trapped in your misery, thinking thereโs no end to the suffering.
Life, death, doneโฆas the nihilists would have you believe. While you always progress to nowhere.
The Blind Shall See
Your blindness is why the actual Light canโt be allowed to defeat the darkness in your mind. Why the knight canโt beat the dragon, the priest canโt vanquish the demon, the cops canโt catch the robbers.
As long as you see chaos as eternal and all-powerful, the dragon gets to keep you chained and tormented, living your premature hell on earth. Never tasting the real goodness offered within the Fatherโs garden.
BUT
The knight already beat the dragon, the priest already vanquished the demon, and the cop already caught the robber. ChristโฆGod-made-flesh, Heavenโs Commander, the Great High Priestโฆbattered Satan with a stick and stomped his head into oblivion.
The clutch of chaos was pried free so order could reign supreme through the Great Orderer. The Maker of heaven and earth.
Once the veil is torn and you see you were made for much, much more, you render the dragon and his legions powerless. The darkness that seemed unstoppable becomes mere shadow.
And you get to expose that crafty serpent for the fool he really is.
I enjoy horror movies for the same reason. One day, one friend who was going to become a priest told me: As long as you are with God, nothing can hurt you.
Beautifully put...such wondrous faith! ALL PRAISE& GLORY to our Lord Jesus our beyond loving wondrous Saviour...who erases our sins so that we may live eternally without sin..
Thank you for these loving reflections@