5.1 Seven Anti-Christ Spirits
And when his servants had slept, an enemy came and planted tares among the wheat (Matthew 13). Even now many anti-Christs have become… speaking against and contradicting the Father and the Son. – Any spirit that does not speak the same word with Jesus Christ having come now inside of flesh is not out from God. And this is that spirit of anti-Christ (1 John 2 & 4).
The scroll [our human hearts of flesh] was written on both sides, within the curve as well as on the back, and it was sealed with seven seals. – [Jesus] has overcome to open the scroll and to break off its seven seals (Revelation 5).
Satan did not sow his seed randomly, but with perfection.
A Perfected Opposition. The demons of anti-Christ, that are the seven seals preventing Christ written upon Christian hearts from being read by all, are together as a “perfect storm,” a perfected opposition. These seven stand always together; remove one and the others resupply it. All must go at once – Kaboom!
Applying Our Weapons. Because of the integrated strength of these anti-Christ spirits working together inside of Christianity, we do not want to confine ourselves to saying that weapon “A” is for demon “1” or that weapon “B” is for demon “2.” Rather, all of our weapons work together against each enemy, AND all of our weapons together are a far greater integrated strength against these lying spirits, taking them all out at once. We do see correlations between particular weapons and particular demons, but we do not make such a way of seeing rigid or restrictive.
In this lesson we want to set out the nature and argument of each of these demons so that we might be effective in battle. In the next lesson, we’ll see how they work tightly together.
A Caricature of Christ. God places this filthy thing at the top of the list, even though it is not a cause and others are more at the heart of darkness. Yet this is the Lord Jesus they have polluted, the All-Speaking of God, and God magnifies His word even above Himself.
“Caricature” is the best English word to call this set of despicable images these demons have woven into the minds of Christians for them to call “Jesus,” or “Christ,” or “God the Son.” Don’t be mistaken. Jesus is Jesus, and He is real and close inside the hearts of all who long to know Him. Here we are speaking of un-Godly images that spring into the minds of Christians, especially as they sit under power-hungry preachers, bringing people under the sway of their anointing.
Two Broad Categories. These false images called “Christ,” though somewhat unique to each individual, are found in two broad categories. The first category is a Jesus far away, and the second is the grandiose nonsense placed upon what it means to be “like Christ.” Here is an example of each. How can Jesus be inside of you since He is seated (far away) at the right hand of God? – You can’t be like Jesus because you don’t walk through walls.
I will try my best to explain rather than counteract. John described this demon, the first part of anti-Christ, in two ways. The first is as a conqueror sitting on a white horse and holding a bow, and the second is a resemblance of a lamb with two horns, but which speaks the words of the serpent in the garden.
A Jesus Far Away. Once at Lakewood Church, when someone other than Joel Osteen was ministering the word, the preacher spoke with great strength in the anointing, “When Jesus comes back.” I was astonished at the power of those words piercing into me as an arrow shaft, eliminating for a brief moment John 14:20, replacing it with an image of a “Jesus” far away from me.
One of the great tares planted into our Bibles by the Calvinist translators is the Greek word, parousia, always meaning, Jesus present-here-now, but translated into “coming – someday.” One word, turned into its opposite meaning by deceit. And so this demon presents an image of a tiny humanoid demigod far away from us and “coming” only someday, which they call by an un-Biblical name, “God the Son.”
A Ridiculous Image. The first part of this caricature of Christ eliminates John 14:20, and the second part eliminates the Covenant, that we are just like the Lord Jesus. And so, this ridiculous image of “being like Jesus” is waved at God’s people, something no one is or could ever be, something Jesus never was. “Jesus is perfect, and you are NOT.” “If you’re a ‘son of God,’ I’ve got some sick people here. Come and heal them. Prove your super-ness to us.” They say these things, in the anointing and ministry of Christ, and as the Lamb, yet the words of demons are in their mouths.
Then, one anti-Christ spirit always leads right into the next.
The Motivation of Contempt. You will notice in the diagram that contempt is colored differently than the other demons, and that it is the same color as the arrows connecting all the demons together. In actuality, all of the other six are as imagination only, but it is contempt that spews their outline across the human mind.
Adam’s contempt for his wife came third. His first contempt was for God/himself, and his second was for the Tree of Life. Yet the action of Adam, out from contempt, that sealed his children and the age of human folly into death, those were spoken words of contempt linking God and his wife together. Adam’s spoken contempt for Eve and God was the most murderous action in history.
Empty of God. The problem is very simple. God gave us hearts to rule, just like His own, and then He divested Himself of authority inside creation and gave it entirely to humans. A human heart empty of God is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.
Contempt, then, is the source of all other wickedness, and the glue that binds it all together. We want to understand how contempt works under all. John’s picture of contempt is as one who removes peace from the earth. This is exactly what Adam did when he blamed Eve. Wow. Yes. Understanding how the parent-child relationship works, it’s easy to see that Cain chose to murder his brother out from his dad’s choice to blame his mom.
Contempt as Source. We look often back to Genesis as the Source in order to understand God through us now as the Completion. For 930 years, Adam muttered under his breath that all this ruin was his wife’s fault. We know that is true, because we see the same curse ruling across the earth today. Cain grew up inside this seething environment of contempt. Abel did to, but Abel drew near his mother who held to the promise God spoke to her in spite of her pain.
Just as with the second seal, peace was removed from the earth by the hand of Cain, contempt putting faith to death. It is always contempt out from which flows the actions and death of sin, contempt for self and God, but expressed as contempt for others.
An Ineffective Atonement. There are few things more evil in Christian utterance than the words “limited atonement.” Although this is the center of Calvin’s theology, the L in TULIP, it does not come out from intellectual reasoning, but rather, out from a deep contempt.
What is happening? Christians are looking at this picture from the outside and screaming, “Not enough, not enough, not enough for me!” – The very worst expression of contempt.
The Catholic Mass. Confrontation with Jesus is UTTERLY personal and UTTERLY absolute. No one ever recovers from such a confrontation, and those who experience it require God to remove all contempt. “God, save me from death!”
But how does the anti-Christ spirit use “not enough” to prevent Christ from being seen in the hearts of believers? Here is how John saw this demon seal. “A pair of scales in his hand… A measure of wheat for a denarius and three measures of barley for a denarius, and you will not do wickedly against the oil and the wine.” A false scale, a false set of values. Then, you have to purchase with penance a small measure of Christ and don’t touch the anointing or the life. – i.e. the Catholic Mass.
A Sinister Refusal. Then we see two other ways by which this demon binds the Christian. One is the focus on outward appearance – “We walk by sight and not by faith.” This is a refusal to see one’s own desperate need, even while magnifying one’s self above others. But the other is Constantine’s cross, turning the cross into an instrument of torture by which Christians hack away at their flesh, but mostly at the flesh of their brothers and sisters.
Having crafted by Himself the full cleansing away of all falling short. – Every attempt to rid one’s self of sin, all the trying and lying, denying and crying, is nothing other than a sinister and deceitful refusal of the Sacrifice of Jesus.
Death as the Way to Life. This is the only one of these demons given a name – Death, with hades following after. The slaughter described is not predictive of “the judgment of God,” but rather denotes the reason by which Death replaced Jesus as the way to life through the first centuries of the church.
There is no greater enemy of Jesus in the minds of Christians than the un-Biblical claim that the goal of salvation is to “go to” heaven after one dies. God our Father desires to come through us His church into His creation that He might be known as our love for one another. Yet Christians are too busy trying to “get out of here,” that they have no thought at all for the Father’s Heart.
A False Death. Having positioned Jesus as far away from the believer now, this demon presents itself as the only way for us to see Jesus – through physical death. This is presented as literal, yet there is also a “mystical” aspect to this false death, and that is the most evil part of Constantine’s “cross” as it is used by power-hungry people.
Having already positioned the cross of Christ as inadequate, insufficient, and not-enough, this anti-Christ spirit then places the cross in-between the believer and the knowledge of God. “If you want to know Jesus, then you must get up out of yourself – you must keep yourself upon the cross – you must die to your flesh. Only then will Jesus deign to receive you – except, your efforts are false, unless we approve.”
Hades Following After. The hades following after this false death, then, is that which places the believer in Jesus into the horrors of Sisyphus and Tantalus, but only in the imagination of their minds. A ‘death’ that can never be achieved, but you have to keep trying if you want to know Jesus. A Christ so close, so real, BUT – just out of your reach, for you have not ‘died’ enough.
And yes, I lived inside of this very Christian hell for many years, frightened out of my wits.
If God’s people in Egypt had waited outside the door painted with blood, refusing to enter, they would have been struck down by the angel of death for real. All those who wait outside the Door of the cross, refusing to enter into Christ, are the same.
Refusal to Believe. The fifth anti-Christ demon preventing God’s people from reading Christ upon their hearts is pictured to us by a bunch of dead Christians in the heavens, hiding out under the altar of incense, refusing to enter into the knowledge of God.
The altar of incense has a specific and critical role for us in the Way into life, that is, into the knowledge of God, and does require a short space of time to bring the believer through. But just as with every other part of God’s pattern of the Way into knowing Him, Christians stop and set up camp, so to speak, refusing to go on to know the Lord, turning their particular dead-end into the entirety of “the gospel.” Hiding out in the altar of incense in front of a wide-open veil into all of God is the worst place possible to refuse God.
“Me, Me, Me.” Hebrews 10 does NOT say that we are “to enter” into the Holy of Holies. It says that we possess a bold proclamation of entrance, for God has already placed us utterly and fully into Himself. Those who proclaim through faith, “I am inside of God and God is inside of me,” with no consciousness of sins, please God.
But I have known many saints over many years who draw near with great longing and tears, singing with all fervor, “That I might enter in.” Yet they refuse to do so; they refuse to acknowledge that God has already placed them into His fulness. In the end, they never wanted to know God at all. What do they know? Me, me, me, me, me – not Christ.
Screaming at Jesus. Two things are required for us to know that God has already placed us utterly into Himself – seized into God and into His throne. First, we must abandon forever any thought of “I – not Christ,” of a “me” that exists separately from the Lord Jesus Christ, from Christ as me, Galatians 2:20. This is the only True repentance; this is real surrender. Then, we must “take our brethren with us”; we must see our brothers and sisters as this same Jesus towards us, regardless.
Look again at John’s description of these dead Christians in heaven. They are screaming at Jesus to use violence against those humans whom they despise. They refuse to love their enemies. They refuse God.
Requirement of Outward Show. Here is the picture in the beginning. – Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. And they heard …God… and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. – So [Adam] said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”
Here is the same thing in the fulness of times. – Then [everyone] hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall upon us, and hide us away from the face of the One sitting upon the throne and away from the WRATH of the Lamb. – Hating God without a cause.
Lying about God. In the beginning, it’s fig leaves and tree trunks, but in the end, even caves and rocks are not enough to hide their insane lying about God.
Fig leaves and tree trunks, caves and rocks, these are metaphors of every possible way in which Christians require of themselves and of others the pretense of an outward show of performance in order to “prove” themselves holy and “like God.” They do this because they are insanely afraid of God. And they are afraid of God because they do not fear Him.
One who fears God steps out into the light and says, “God, do with me as You wish; I place myself entirely upon You.” Those who do not fear God scream false accusations against Him. God becomes the “cause” of their pretending.
Outward Performance and False Identity. Putting on an outward show and requiring others to put on an outward show, in order to prove one’s “godliness,” that is, “God-like-ness,” is the normal practice of Christians in this world. – “I’m just loving everybody.” Pretending to be “righteous” is the constant antithetical response to the caricature of the “above-you Christ.”
Now, this performance is always displayed towards Church “leaders” and towards other Christians. It is a social response for the “man of God,” the wearing of many faces. Outward performance and false identity exist always to mask over and to hide the refusal to live only inside of God through faith.
Accusing God. When the Lamb removed the seventh seal, there was silence inside of heaven for about half an hour (Revelation 8:1).
Right now at this moment, more than 50 billion sentient beings, whether humans dead or alive, or the multitudes of fallen angels, are screaming one thing at the top of their lungs. “God – you know evil. God, you are evil. God, it’s your fault. God, you are a jerk. God, get out of my life.”
If God were to open our ears in the heavens, we would hear this cry coming from everywhere, so beyond comprehension. In fact, the awful din would kill us. Yet our Father has endured it with pain for six thousand years.
They hated Me without a cause.
It is far more amazing when that evil cry goes SILENT!
The Greatest Tare. We are looking at the greatest tare sown into our Bibles by a son of perdition, “Saint” Jerome. Consider Genesis 3:22 as it reads in the Hebrew. – Now man has become like one who knows good and evil.
What did Jerome do? You see, Jerome was convinced that the devil spoke the truth in the garden, that the devil’s words define God, and he lived in isolation because of his overwhelming contempt for his fellow Christians. Here is the tare Jerome inserted into your Bible. Now man has become like one OF US, knowing good and evil. The words “of us” are not in the Hebrew and they do NOT belong in any translation, yet all translators copy Jerome and ACCUSE God of knowing evil – God you are evil.
The Center of All the Others. This accusation against God, that He knows evil, underlies all human thought concerning the Christian “God” and is the bottom line definition undergirding Nicene theology. Our diagram places accusing God of knowing evil as the center of all the other demons of anti-Christ, for out from this accusation flows all other perversities. God knows evil. God is evil. God uses violence against those whom He hates. God burns the majority of His creation in hopeless torment forever, rejoicing every moment over their pain.
The most evil actions that humans commit against each other are then placed upon God and called “holiness.” This “Christian” accusation against God is supreme evil.
A Stronghold of Demons. Each one of these spirits of anti-Christ inside the Church is a horror in itself, yet Satan as the prince of the “air” has woven them together all through “Christian” thinking. Together, they are the mighty fortress, the very gates of hades, that works as one to keep the knowledge of God away from believers in Jesus, that works to prevent God from ever being at Home inside of His creation.
In the next lesson, we want to look at how these seven things work together as a mighty stronghold of demons, how they are woven together in so much “Christian” argument, and how they always seem to show up as one entire package. Then, in the third and fourth lessons, we will set out the simple gospel truths, personal and real, that blow this whole thing apart like a mighty shotgun blast.