Hello my para beauties! I trust you had a great day and are in good health. This is a subject I've been asked to explain to the best of my knowledge. This is from the book of Revelations. The book of Revelations can be very intimidating. But we know who wins in the end.
The first Horseman is the rider of a white horse, carries a bow, and wears a crown. He is described as a conqueror. For this reason, he is sometimes interpreted as the Antichrist or as a false world leader. This Horseman is also sometimes called Pestilence.
The second Horseman is astride a red horse and carries a sword. He is associated with war and slaughter, and the Bible attributes to him the power to take away peace and to make men kill each other.
The third Horseman rides a black horse and carries scales. This Horseman, popularly called Famine, is thought to represent not only scarcity of food, but also the strict rationing or unfair allocation of goods and the exploitation of the poor.
The last of the Four Horsemen, Death, rides a "pale horse" of a sickly hue and is followed by Hades, or Hell.
The nature of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is hotly debated by theologians and Christians, but they are almost universally fascinating, regardless or perhaps because of their mystery. They were popular subjects for art during the medieval period and the Renaissance, and references to them continue to crop up in popular culture in our own day and age. Whether or not Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death are the correct interpretations of the Biblical Four Horsemen -- which will likely remain in debate for the foreseeable future -- it is safe to assume that that is what they represent in a cultural or literary context.
In many opinions The book of Revelation in the Bible is real and does not need one to read the hidden truths. When it says Jesus Christ is coming back again it means Jesus Christ is coming back again. When it says the Horsemen it means exactly that.
Since Christ is the One opening these seals and revealing what will happen in this world prior to His return, is there anywhere else in the Bible that He discloses these events? In fact, He did so shortly before His death in a section known as the Olivet Prophecy (given on the Mount of Olives), recorded in the Gospels of Matthew (chapter 24), Mark (chapter 13) and Luke (chapter 21) Seeing what Christ said in this prophecy helps us identify what each of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse represents.
In Matthew 24:3 Christ’s disciples asked, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” In the comparison chart below, notice how Christ’s answer lines up exactly with what He gave years later in the book of Revelation through the apostle John.
Notice the enormous effect of these first four seals (horsemen) in Revelation 6:8: “And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth.” This indicates that the first four seals will ultimately result in a death toll of one-fourth the earth’s population. This summary statement also adds something else that will contribute to the death toll—beasts of the earth, which kill as carriers of pestilence and as ravenous predators.
The first four seals are clearly already open in our day now, and the four horsemen of the Apocalypse have been riding through the years, taking their toll on populations. But many other prophecies in the Bible show that their destruction will multiply greatly as the next seal—the fifth seal or Great Tribulation—is about to open. Christ reveals that this world is about to undergo great devastation due to the rebellion of humanity against our Creator.
May God Help us All.
Written By Jennifer L. Auld
NOTE: This blog was originally posted in May 2014.
Looking inside the spiritual & literary worlds
Showing posts with label revelations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label revelations. Show all posts
Sunday, May 15, 2016
Sunday, September 14, 2014
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Hello my para beauties! I trust you had a great day and are in good health. This is a subject I've been asked to explain to the best of my knowledge. This is from the book of Revelations. The book of Revelations can be very intimidating. But we know who wins in the end.
The first Horseman is the rider of a white horse, carries a bow, and wears a crown. He is described as a conqueror. For this reason, he is sometimes interpreted as the Antichrist or as a false world leader. This Horseman is also sometimes called Pestilence.
The second Horseman is astride a red horse and carries a sword. He is associated with war and slaughter, and the Bible attributes to him the power to take away peace and to make men kill each other.
The third Horseman rides a black horse and carries scales. This Horseman, popularly called Famine, is thought to represent not only scarcity of food, but also the strict rationing or unfair allocation of goods and the exploitation of the poor.
The last of the Four Horsemen, Death, rides a "pale horse" of a sickly hue and is followed by Hades, or Hell.
The nature of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is hotly debated by theologians and Christians, but they are almost universally fascinating, regardless or perhaps because of their mystery. They were popular subjects for art during the medieval period and the Renaissance, and references to them continue to crop up in popular culture in our own day and age. Whether or not Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death are the correct interpretations of the Biblical Four Horsemen -- which will likely remain in debate for the foreseeable future -- it is safe to assume that that is what they represent in a cultural or literary context.
In many opinions The book of Revelation in the Bible is real and does not need one to read the hidden truths. When it says Jesus Christ is coming back again it means Jesus Christ is coming back again. When it says the Horsemen it means exactly that.
Since Christ is the One opening these seals and revealing what will happen in this world prior to His return, is there anywhere else in the Bible that He discloses these events? In fact, He did so shortly before His death in a section known as the Olivet Prophecy (given on the Mount of Olives), recorded in the Gospels of Matthew (chapter 24), Mark (chapter 13) and Luke (chapter 21) Seeing what Christ said in this prophecy helps us identify what each of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse represents.
In Matthew 24:3 Christ’s disciples asked, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” In the comparison chart below, notice how Christ’s answer lines up exactly with what He gave years later in the book of Revelation through the apostle John.
Notice the enormous effect of these first four seals (horsemen) in Revelation 6:8: “And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth.” This indicates that the first four seals will ultimately result in a death toll of one-fourth the earth’s population. This summary statement also adds something else that will contribute to the death toll—beasts of the earth, which kill as carriers of pestilence and as ravenous predators.
The first four seals are clearly already open in our day now, and the four horsemen of the Apocalypse have been riding through the years, taking their toll on populations. But many other prophecies in the Bible show that their destruction will multiply greatly as the next seal—the fifth seal or Great Tribulation—is about to open. Christ reveals that this world is about to undergo great devastation due to the rebellion of humanity against our Creator.
May God Help us All.
Written By Jennifer L. Auld
NOTE: This blog was originally posted in May 2014.
The first Horseman is the rider of a white horse, carries a bow, and wears a crown. He is described as a conqueror. For this reason, he is sometimes interpreted as the Antichrist or as a false world leader. This Horseman is also sometimes called Pestilence.
The second Horseman is astride a red horse and carries a sword. He is associated with war and slaughter, and the Bible attributes to him the power to take away peace and to make men kill each other.
The third Horseman rides a black horse and carries scales. This Horseman, popularly called Famine, is thought to represent not only scarcity of food, but also the strict rationing or unfair allocation of goods and the exploitation of the poor.
The last of the Four Horsemen, Death, rides a "pale horse" of a sickly hue and is followed by Hades, or Hell.
The nature of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is hotly debated by theologians and Christians, but they are almost universally fascinating, regardless or perhaps because of their mystery. They were popular subjects for art during the medieval period and the Renaissance, and references to them continue to crop up in popular culture in our own day and age. Whether or not Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death are the correct interpretations of the Biblical Four Horsemen -- which will likely remain in debate for the foreseeable future -- it is safe to assume that that is what they represent in a cultural or literary context.
In many opinions The book of Revelation in the Bible is real and does not need one to read the hidden truths. When it says Jesus Christ is coming back again it means Jesus Christ is coming back again. When it says the Horsemen it means exactly that.
Since Christ is the One opening these seals and revealing what will happen in this world prior to His return, is there anywhere else in the Bible that He discloses these events? In fact, He did so shortly before His death in a section known as the Olivet Prophecy (given on the Mount of Olives), recorded in the Gospels of Matthew (chapter 24), Mark (chapter 13) and Luke (chapter 21) Seeing what Christ said in this prophecy helps us identify what each of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse represents.
In Matthew 24:3 Christ’s disciples asked, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” In the comparison chart below, notice how Christ’s answer lines up exactly with what He gave years later in the book of Revelation through the apostle John.
Notice the enormous effect of these first four seals (horsemen) in Revelation 6:8: “And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth.” This indicates that the first four seals will ultimately result in a death toll of one-fourth the earth’s population. This summary statement also adds something else that will contribute to the death toll—beasts of the earth, which kill as carriers of pestilence and as ravenous predators.
The first four seals are clearly already open in our day now, and the four horsemen of the Apocalypse have been riding through the years, taking their toll on populations. But many other prophecies in the Bible show that their destruction will multiply greatly as the next seal—the fifth seal or Great Tribulation—is about to open. Christ reveals that this world is about to undergo great devastation due to the rebellion of humanity against our Creator.
May God Help us All.
Written By Jennifer L. Auld
NOTE: This blog was originally posted in May 2014.
Saturday, May 10, 2014
The Four Horseman of The Apocalypse
Hello my para beauties! I trust you had a great day and are in good health. This is a subject I've been asked to explain to the best of my knowledge. This is from the book of Revelations. The book of Revelations can be very intimidating. But we know who wins in the end.
The first Horseman is the rider of a white horse, carries a bow, and wears a crown. He is described as a conqueror. For this reason, he is sometimes interpreted as the Antichrist or as a false world leader. This Horseman is also sometimes called Pestilence.
The second Horseman is astride a red horse and carries a sword. He is associated with war and slaughter, and the Bible attributes to him the power to take away peace and to make men kill each other.
The third Horseman rides a black horse and carries scales. This Horseman, popularly called Famine, is thought to represent not only scarcity of food, but also the strict rationing or unfair allocation of goods and the exploitation of the poor.
The last of the Four Horsemen, Death, rides a "pale horse" of a sickly hue and is followed by Hades, or Hell.
The nature of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is hotly debated by theologians and Christians, but they are almost universally fascinating, regardless or perhaps because of their mystery. They were popular subjects for art during the medieval period and the Renaissance, and references to them continue to crop up in popular culture in our own day and age. Whether or not Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death are the correct interpretations of the Biblical Four Horsemen -- which will likely remain in debate for the foreseeable future -- it is safe to assume that that is what they represent in a cultural or literary context.
In many opinions The book of Revelation in the Bible is real and does not need one to read the hidden truths. When it says Jesus Christ is coming back again it means Jesus Christ is coming back again. When it says the Horsemen it means exactly that.
Since Christ is the One opening these seals and revealing what will happen in this world prior to His return, is there anywhere else in the Bible that He discloses these events? In fact, He did so shortly before His death in a section known as the Olivet Prophecy (given on the Mount of Olives), recorded in the Gospels of Matthew (chapter 24), Mark (chapter 13) and Luke (chapter 21) Seeing what Christ said in this prophecy helps us identify what each of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse represents.
In Matthew 24:3 Christ’s disciples asked, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” In the comparison chart below, notice how Christ’s answer lines up exactly with what He gave years later in the book of Revelation through the apostle John.
Notice the enormous effect of these first four seals (horsemen) in Revelation 6:8: “And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth.” This indicates that the first four seals will ultimately result in a death toll of one-fourth the earth’s population. This summary statement also adds something else that will contribute to the death toll—beasts of the earth, which kill as carriers of pestilence and as ravenous predators.
The first four seals are clearly already open in our day now, and the four horsemen of the Apocalypse have been riding through the years, taking their toll on populations. But many other prophecies in the Bible show that their destruction will multiply greatly as the next seal—the fifth seal or Great Tribulation—is about to open. Christ reveals that this world is about to undergo great devastation due to the rebellion of humanity against our Creator.
May God Help us All.
Written By Jennifer L. Auld
The first Horseman is the rider of a white horse, carries a bow, and wears a crown. He is described as a conqueror. For this reason, he is sometimes interpreted as the Antichrist or as a false world leader. This Horseman is also sometimes called Pestilence.
The second Horseman is astride a red horse and carries a sword. He is associated with war and slaughter, and the Bible attributes to him the power to take away peace and to make men kill each other.
The third Horseman rides a black horse and carries scales. This Horseman, popularly called Famine, is thought to represent not only scarcity of food, but also the strict rationing or unfair allocation of goods and the exploitation of the poor.
The last of the Four Horsemen, Death, rides a "pale horse" of a sickly hue and is followed by Hades, or Hell.
The nature of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is hotly debated by theologians and Christians, but they are almost universally fascinating, regardless or perhaps because of their mystery. They were popular subjects for art during the medieval period and the Renaissance, and references to them continue to crop up in popular culture in our own day and age. Whether or not Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death are the correct interpretations of the Biblical Four Horsemen -- which will likely remain in debate for the foreseeable future -- it is safe to assume that that is what they represent in a cultural or literary context.
In many opinions The book of Revelation in the Bible is real and does not need one to read the hidden truths. When it says Jesus Christ is coming back again it means Jesus Christ is coming back again. When it says the Horsemen it means exactly that.
Since Christ is the One opening these seals and revealing what will happen in this world prior to His return, is there anywhere else in the Bible that He discloses these events? In fact, He did so shortly before His death in a section known as the Olivet Prophecy (given on the Mount of Olives), recorded in the Gospels of Matthew (chapter 24), Mark (chapter 13) and Luke (chapter 21) Seeing what Christ said in this prophecy helps us identify what each of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse represents.
In Matthew 24:3 Christ’s disciples asked, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” In the comparison chart below, notice how Christ’s answer lines up exactly with what He gave years later in the book of Revelation through the apostle John.
Notice the enormous effect of these first four seals (horsemen) in Revelation 6:8: “And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth.” This indicates that the first four seals will ultimately result in a death toll of one-fourth the earth’s population. This summary statement also adds something else that will contribute to the death toll—beasts of the earth, which kill as carriers of pestilence and as ravenous predators.
The first four seals are clearly already open in our day now, and the four horsemen of the Apocalypse have been riding through the years, taking their toll on populations. But many other prophecies in the Bible show that their destruction will multiply greatly as the next seal—the fifth seal or Great Tribulation—is about to open. Christ reveals that this world is about to undergo great devastation due to the rebellion of humanity against our Creator.
May God Help us All.
Written By Jennifer L. Auld
Saturday, April 19, 2014
Demonic Strongholds
What is a stronghold ?
Hello my parabeauties. I hope you have had a fantastic weekend and free from bad weather. Many across the world are suffering so lets be sure to keep them all in prayer. I'd like to add that my blogs are simply my humble opinion and in no way am I claiming fact. I thought this goes without saying but apparently not. It's all based on biblical laws and scripture.
Demonic Strongholds Leading To Possession Or Oppression
"For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through god to the pulling down of strongholds;" -2 Corinthians 10:4
A Legal Right is how the devil gets in, and a stronghold is how the devil stays in. A Stronghold is something that you have to attack and go after and remove or "pull down". In Most cases, A Legal Right- you renounce through some declarative process - you say, "this is something I want to be free from."
A Legal Right, for example, being involved in the occult, or committing a willful and deliberate sin, is something that gives the devil a Legal Right to attack your life. So, If you've done this (involvement in the occult or willful sin), you have to repent, you have to renounce, and that is how you get free of the Legal Right.
But, what the devil does with the Stronghold is much more subtle. For The Record, what the devil actually does is three-fold :
(1) he gets a Legal Right
(2) he establishes a stronghold
(3) he declares dominion in every area of your life
The Strongholds And Principalities
The principalities waging war on earth have gained footholds by pagan worship. The sons of light have battled these principality's by overcoming the peoples that worship these entity. That's why God commanded the Israelite's to:-
(Numbers 33:52 KJV)
Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places:
Depending on the obedience of the sons of light the stronghold is held or lost. Islam and its demonic principalities are fighting back and in fact will win for a while and triumph temporarily over the sons of light.
(Revelations 11:7 KJV) And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
Iran and Iraq have been the major strongholds of the principalities of demons. And guess where that hatred is directed..Israel and the "Christianised".
(Ephesians 6:12 KJV) For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Identifying Strongholds And How They Enter
Our thoughts influence our emotions and our physical reactions. A thought may seem harmless, but it can become physically, emotionally or spiritually dangerous. Satan will bring evil thoughts into our minds. We cannot entertain these thoughts. Doing so will give way to the enemy. We need to rebuke the evil thoughts from our minds immediately. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. (Romans 8:5 NKJV) Our way of thinking determines the way we feel. As we entertain our thoughts, our emotions become involved. Negative thoughts will bring about negative emotions. But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. (Matthew 15:18-19 NKJV)
Giving in to our emotions eventually leads to taking some sort of action. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. (James 1:14-15 NKJV) This is very evident in the life of Amnon and his lustful desires for Tamar (2 Samuel 13). His lustful desires for his sister led him to rape her. Absalom was so angry at Amnon for raping their sister that he plotted to kill his brother Amnon in revenge. Anger, unforgiveness, pride, etc. If there is sin in your life that you are unable to break away from, you need to be set free from the demonic stronghold that keeps you bound. The demons controlling the stronghold need to be rebuked from your life, old habits need to be broken, and your thoughts and emotions need t need to come under the control of the Holy Spirit. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. (Romans 12:2 NKJV)
This subject can go on and on and on. Feel free to research this yourself and compare it to what the Bible says. It's hard to really have a proper ending to this. This was a request so I hope I am ble to answer a few questions and clear up what the Bible says regarding this subject.
Written By Jennifer L Auld
Hello my parabeauties. I hope you have had a fantastic weekend and free from bad weather. Many across the world are suffering so lets be sure to keep them all in prayer. I'd like to add that my blogs are simply my humble opinion and in no way am I claiming fact. I thought this goes without saying but apparently not. It's all based on biblical laws and scripture.
Demonic Strongholds Leading To Possession Or Oppression
"For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through god to the pulling down of strongholds;" -2 Corinthians 10:4
A Legal Right is how the devil gets in, and a stronghold is how the devil stays in. A Stronghold is something that you have to attack and go after and remove or "pull down". In Most cases, A Legal Right- you renounce through some declarative process - you say, "this is something I want to be free from."
A Legal Right, for example, being involved in the occult, or committing a willful and deliberate sin, is something that gives the devil a Legal Right to attack your life. So, If you've done this (involvement in the occult or willful sin), you have to repent, you have to renounce, and that is how you get free of the Legal Right.
But, what the devil does with the Stronghold is much more subtle. For The Record, what the devil actually does is three-fold :
(1) he gets a Legal Right
(2) he establishes a stronghold
(3) he declares dominion in every area of your life
The Strongholds And Principalities
The principalities waging war on earth have gained footholds by pagan worship. The sons of light have battled these principality's by overcoming the peoples that worship these entity. That's why God commanded the Israelite's to:-
(Numbers 33:52 KJV)
Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places:
Depending on the obedience of the sons of light the stronghold is held or lost. Islam and its demonic principalities are fighting back and in fact will win for a while and triumph temporarily over the sons of light.
(Revelations 11:7 KJV) And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
Iran and Iraq have been the major strongholds of the principalities of demons. And guess where that hatred is directed..Israel and the "Christianised".
(Ephesians 6:12 KJV) For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Identifying Strongholds And How They Enter
Our thoughts influence our emotions and our physical reactions. A thought may seem harmless, but it can become physically, emotionally or spiritually dangerous. Satan will bring evil thoughts into our minds. We cannot entertain these thoughts. Doing so will give way to the enemy. We need to rebuke the evil thoughts from our minds immediately. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. (Romans 8:5 NKJV) Our way of thinking determines the way we feel. As we entertain our thoughts, our emotions become involved. Negative thoughts will bring about negative emotions. But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. (Matthew 15:18-19 NKJV)
Giving in to our emotions eventually leads to taking some sort of action. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. (James 1:14-15 NKJV) This is very evident in the life of Amnon and his lustful desires for Tamar (2 Samuel 13). His lustful desires for his sister led him to rape her. Absalom was so angry at Amnon for raping their sister that he plotted to kill his brother Amnon in revenge. Anger, unforgiveness, pride, etc. If there is sin in your life that you are unable to break away from, you need to be set free from the demonic stronghold that keeps you bound. The demons controlling the stronghold need to be rebuked from your life, old habits need to be broken, and your thoughts and emotions need t need to come under the control of the Holy Spirit. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. (Romans 12:2 NKJV)
This subject can go on and on and on. Feel free to research this yourself and compare it to what the Bible says. It's hard to really have a proper ending to this. This was a request so I hope I am ble to answer a few questions and clear up what the Bible says regarding this subject.
Written By Jennifer L Auld
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Babylon the Harlot, Part 2
Continued from Babylon the Harlot, Part 1
The Bride of Christ is
called a city, and that is the portion of the church which has not compromised.
The other (opposite) side of that is the harlot. It is also called a city but
is evil because of compromise. This is not only the apostate church in Rome,
but the apostate in many other churches, as well. Again, the waters let us know
that this apostate church is throughout the masses of people.
17:2 With whom the
kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth
have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.
We see here, that this
universal apostasy (unfaithfulness to God) does not affect just one class of
people. This unfaithfulness is from the very rich and powerful (kings) to the
very poor.
The same way a drunken
person naturally has no earthly idea what he is doing, this apostate group is
so carried away with the world that they, too, do not realize the terribleness
of what they are doing. God will judge this idolatrous church. Judgment begins
at the house of God.
17:3 So he carried me
away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet
coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
This
"wilderness" here, I believe, means the world. This "scarlet
coloured beast" shows evil world power.
Since this woman sits
upon this beast, it means that her power comes from this evil beast in
Revelation 18 verse 2, Babylon the Great as It supports her. This woman, it
appears, has decided to trust the powers of this world over God's power.
Seven denotes
spiritually complete, ten denotes world government, and horns denote power.
You can easily see,
since she is on top of this thing, she guides it, but receives her support from
the beast. The word "scarlet" can be very good or very evil. In this
case, it is very evil. This great evil (blasphemy) that this woman (church) has
committed is spiritual adultery (the watering down or changing of the Word).
17:4 And the woman was
arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones
and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness
of her fornication:
The elegant clothing
and jewelry of the woman show her wealth and attractiveness, but her activities
are filthy and abominable to God. Her mystery name is Babylon the Great verse
5. Ancient Babylon is a type or prefigure of this future Babylon. Babylon the
City The harlot will do what literal Babylon did in the past:
(1) Oppress God's
people, and
(2) Propagate a false
religious system. Much of the world's idolatry can be traced back to historical
Babylon (Gen. 11:1-9), including the mother-child cult of Semiramis -Tammuz
(Jer. 44:16-19; Ezek. 8:9, 14), which entered other cultures as Ashtaroth -
Baal, Aphrodite-Eros, Venus-Cupid, and even Madonna-Child.
Semiramis, who was both
Nimrod's wife and mother, was worshiped as the "mother of god" and a
"fertility goddess" because she had to be extremely fertile to give
birth to all the pagan incarnate gods that represented Nimrod.
Cush begat Nimrod: he
began to be a mighty one in the earth.
The color scheme of
this one world religion as defined in Rev. 17 v.4 is most revealing: "The
woman was dressed in purple and scarlet." If you are familiar with
pictures of the Vatican Council as published in national magazines, you will have
observed that the bishops and cardinals wore purple and scarlet robes.
Revelations 17:5 And
upon her forehead [was] a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER
OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
Just as God marked the
144,000 with the name of the Father, and just as the bride of Christ is marked
with the name of Christ, we see here this group marked on the forehead. This
name alone makes you know how evil and worldly this church is.
This worldly part of
the church, though nominally Christian, is yet more faithful to the world than
to God. Notice here, that the church that pretends to be Christian and is not,
does more to cause harm than those worldly people who claim to be lost. The
worldly church always persecutes the faithful church. This evil in the church
is an abomination to God. It is a mystery how this could happen in the church.
As the fountainhead of
idolatry, Babylon the harlot is the MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE
EARTH; the harlot has killed many of God's saints and Christian martyrs
throughout the ages, and will do so again during the Tribulation period.
17:6 And I saw the
woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs
of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.
The faithless part of
the church is guilty of the blood of the saints. In Matthew 12:20 we read that
Jesus says "He that is not with me is against me". This watered down
church is actually causing great problems for those who are sold out to God. We
do know that Rome had a great deal to do with the death of the martyrs and even
had a hand in crucifying Jesus.
Of course, the Jews
(church) of that day had even more to do with the crucifixion of Jesus.
However, the most blame for His death has to be placed on each of us. Sin
placed Jesus on the cross. He went to the cross to crucify sin. His sacrifice
stopped us from being a servant to sin.
The wonder of it all
is, that with the Bible as their guide, how could these people get so far away
from God and still occupy a pew? The answer is quite simple. They never read or
study their Bible themselves. They allow someone else to read it and tell them
what it is saying.
I truly believe that
much of the problem lies at the shepherd's feet. So many preachers are overlooking
the need for the spiritual growth of their people. In the 34th chapter of
Ezekiel, it says God will take the sheep away from the shepherds that do not
care for them. Shepherds BEWARE! We are not to be as concerned with
"our" needs as we are with the needs of "our people".
We see from the last
few scriptures above that this is probably speaking of Rome and the Catholic
Church, who have brought the compromise. Even more than that, it is speaking to
individuals in all churches who have compromised themselves.
"Having a form of
godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away." 2 Timothy
3 verse 5. A person claiming to be a Christian on the outside, but who is not
on the inside. It's so easy to point to someone else, but in so doing we should
examine ourselves as well.
17:7 And the angel said
unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the
woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten
horns.
Next week - Part 3
Written by Jennifer Auld
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Babylon the Harlot, Part 1
Hello my parabeauties.
I trust you had a fabulous weekend.
Now the subject I am
getting asked the most revolve around the book of Revelations. Revelations is a
VERY difficult book to understand and comprehend. It's interpreted many ways.
So this again is just my humble opinion on how I see it according to Biblical
views but let the Holy Spirit guide you when you reading the Lords Word.
Babylon the Harlot or
the Religious Babylon is Destroyed.
Babylon the Harlot
Archaeologists tell us
that Babylon is the cradle of civilization. Located on the shores of the
Euphrates River, the ruins of this city have revealed some of the most ancient
documents of past generations.
This city begun by
Nimrod, who was a rebel before the Lord, authored some of the greatest evils
ever to fall on humankind. Two of these evils will be destroyed during the
Tribulation period. Revelation 17 is the destruction of the religious Babylon
that takes place about the center of the seven years after the Antichrist
declares himself to be God and no longer news the One World Religion.
In chapter 18 we will
read about the destruction of the commercial, political Babylon when takes
place at the end of the Tribulation.
In ancient days Satan
seemed to make Babylon the capital of this evil operation. From this
headquarters was started false religion, humanity's attempt for self-government
in defiance of God's will and city dwellings for commercial and social purposes
contrary to God's command to "be fruitful and increase in number and fill
the earth." (Gen. 1 v.28)
These great evils,
which have damned the souls of millions by substituting counterfeit solutions
to natural human problems that would ordinarily lead a person to God, will all
be destroyed at the end of the Tribulation period. Chapter 17 describes the
coming judgment of God on the religious system that has enslaved the human race
in superstitious darkness for centuries.
The woman is a great
city: "The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of
the earth" (Rev. 17 v.18) Many have taken this to mean that the woman
represents the capital city of Antichrist's kingdom, but his cannot be, for
Antichrist himself rules over the kings of the earth.
If, then, the women is
not the Antichrist, what other possible explanation can we have for such
unanimous world dominance? The only answer is the one system before which all
kings, dictators, and nations have been forced to bow down throughout history,
that is, the Babylonian religion of idolatry. One cannot go anywhere in the
world without being confronted with some semblance of the idolatry.
No system in the
world's history has enslaved more people than this awful religion. It should
not take us by surprise that this prostitute woman, the religious system, is
referred to as a city. When used symbolically, a woman is always intended
throughout the Scripture to signify a spiritual or religious movement. If a
good woman, it is "Jehovah's wife" or "the bride of
Christ". If an evil woman, such as "a prostitute," it represents
the evil religious.
Spirit of adultery
Since the woman who
rides the beast gets her authority from the beast, the Holy Spirit uses this
description to show how religious Babylon and governmental Babylon are so
intertwined they are presented together. However, they are destroyed at
different times. The prostitute (religious Babylon) is destroyed by "beast
and the kings of the earth," who "hate the prostitute" and kill
her.
This clears the way for
Antichrist to fulfill the lifetime dream of Satan to get people to worship him.
She is destroyed in the middle of the Tribulation; Babylon the governmental
system will be destroyed at the end, when commercial, political Babylon is
destroyed (Rev. 18). With "Mystery Babylon, the Mother of Prostitutes"
out of the way, "all inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast, all
whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb
that was slain from the creation of the world". (Rev. 13 v.8).
The Vision of the Woman
- Ten details describe this woman:
The great prostitute
Who sits on many waters With her the kings of the earth committed adultery. The
inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries. A
woman sitting on a scarlet beast Dressed in purple and scarlet Glittering with
gold, precious stones and pearls She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with
abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. On her forehead: Mystery
Babylon the Great, the Mother of Prostitutes and of the Abomination of the
Earth. 10. Drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of those who bore
testimony to Jesus Even before we come to the angel's interpretation of this
vision, it is clear that we are not dealing with a mere human being, for no one
woman can commit fornication with the kings of the earth, nor can a woman be
"drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of those who bore testimony
to Jesus." Chapter 17
17:1 And there came one
of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto
me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that
sitteth upon many waters:
This "whore"
here is not a literal woman. In Hosea, his wife (who was a whore) was speaking
of Israel. Here, this "whore" is speaking of the idolatrous church.
Mystery, Babylon the Harlot
This statement
"sitteth upon many waters", speaks of large groups of people. This is
not the true church. This is the apostate church. God calls it the harlot
church; the church that is not faithful to God, the church that is worldly.
This church, while claiming to be Christian, finds many reasons to conform to
the beast and the evil world system. This will be the one world religion which
will appear which the church (Christians) have been raptured.
One World Church
This, without question,
is the part of the church that has compromised with the world and is no longer
a chaste virgin in the sight of God. I truly believe that a large portion of
the church falls into this category today. Worldliness has crept into our churches.
The sad thing is that if she would repent, God would take her back, but she
will not repent.
To be continued next Sunday.
Written By Jennifer L
Auld
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Demons Are Real And They Can't Be Controlled
I have to discuss some topics that are graphic in nature but it has to be done in hopes it would help at least one person...some of this Blog will contain some disturbing content. Consider yourself forewarned.
We have people attempting to summon Incubus/Succubus demons for sexual pleasure and/or companionship. This is not safe and you will regret what you open up. Incubus/Succubus given legal ground are very hard to get rid of. We have people attempting Black Magic, Summoning Practitioners are fooled as they believe demons can be controlled and will do their bidding. The fact is these demons ONLY OBEY SATAN! Listen to me please....Do not be fooled. Do not let your curiosity get the better of your judgment! Seriously.....once you open yourself up to that it becomes very real. In a moment I will have scripture for you to read for yourself. I do not waiver outside of the Gospel, it's God's Word. Our instructions for life. No one is perfect. That is not what this is about. I'm receiving disturbing information and it concerns me. I will never say names of who confides in me or the church so this is my only way in doing so. Let Jesus Christ help you with any problems. There is no need to summon any dark force I beg of you. You will regret it. They can NOT be safely called upon.
There are many examples in the Bible that validate these demonic beings are very much real and the time they have is numbered. This is why I personally believe in my humble opinion the 2nd coming must be somewhat near. There are still more events that need to pass, but that's a whole other subject I can go over in another blog. It's not just the book of Revelations that discusses demons and what they're true nature is.
The following are verses from the Bible which speak about the enemy and his ways. There are more but here are many examples per request of a reader.
1 Peter 5:8 ESV / 155 helpful votes
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
1 John 3:8 ESV / 101 helpful votes
Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.
John 8:44 ESV / 73 helpful votes
You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
2 Corinthians 11:14 ESV / 61 helpful votes
And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
2 Corinthians 11:3 ESV / 58 helpful votes
But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
John 10:10 ESV / 56 helpful votes
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Revelation 12:9 ESV / 47 helpful votes
And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
Romans 16:20 ESV / 40 helpful votes
The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
Helpful Not Helpful
2 Corinthians 4:4 ESV / 31 helpful votes
In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
Luke 10:18 ESV / 30 helpful votes
And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.
Matthew 16:23 ESV / 27 helpful votes
But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Ephesians 6:12 ESV / 25 helpful votes
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Ephesians 4:27 ESV / 24 helpful votes
And give no opportunity to the devil.
James 4:7 ESV / 23 helpful votes
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Revelation 20:2 ESV / 20 helpful votes
And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.
I wish everyone a fabulous week. God Bless.
Written by Jennifer Auld
We have people attempting to summon Incubus/Succubus demons for sexual pleasure and/or companionship. This is not safe and you will regret what you open up. Incubus/Succubus given legal ground are very hard to get rid of. We have people attempting Black Magic, Summoning Practitioners are fooled as they believe demons can be controlled and will do their bidding. The fact is these demons ONLY OBEY SATAN! Listen to me please....Do not be fooled. Do not let your curiosity get the better of your judgment! Seriously.....once you open yourself up to that it becomes very real. In a moment I will have scripture for you to read for yourself. I do not waiver outside of the Gospel, it's God's Word. Our instructions for life. No one is perfect. That is not what this is about. I'm receiving disturbing information and it concerns me. I will never say names of who confides in me or the church so this is my only way in doing so. Let Jesus Christ help you with any problems. There is no need to summon any dark force I beg of you. You will regret it. They can NOT be safely called upon.
There are many examples in the Bible that validate these demonic beings are very much real and the time they have is numbered. This is why I personally believe in my humble opinion the 2nd coming must be somewhat near. There are still more events that need to pass, but that's a whole other subject I can go over in another blog. It's not just the book of Revelations that discusses demons and what they're true nature is.
The following are verses from the Bible which speak about the enemy and his ways. There are more but here are many examples per request of a reader.
1 Peter 5:8 ESV / 155 helpful votes
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
1 John 3:8 ESV / 101 helpful votes
Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.
John 8:44 ESV / 73 helpful votes
You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
2 Corinthians 11:14 ESV / 61 helpful votes
And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
2 Corinthians 11:3 ESV / 58 helpful votes
But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
John 10:10 ESV / 56 helpful votes
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Revelation 12:9 ESV / 47 helpful votes
And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
Romans 16:20 ESV / 40 helpful votes
The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
Helpful Not Helpful
2 Corinthians 4:4 ESV / 31 helpful votes
In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
Luke 10:18 ESV / 30 helpful votes
And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.
Matthew 16:23 ESV / 27 helpful votes
But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Ephesians 6:12 ESV / 25 helpful votes
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Ephesians 4:27 ESV / 24 helpful votes
And give no opportunity to the devil.
James 4:7 ESV / 23 helpful votes
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Revelation 20:2 ESV / 20 helpful votes
And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.
I wish everyone a fabulous week. God Bless.
Written by Jennifer Auld
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Demon Voices or Mental Illness?
Demon Voices or Mental Illness. This is an article written by Stephanie McCrummen, published by the Washington Post, and reprinted in a magazine “The Last Word”. As you read this article keep asking yourself is this Demon Voices or Mental Illness that the family is dealing with.
This is just a sample of what we have to decide when contacted about if this is Demon Voices or Mental Illness. We always fast and pray for God’s wisdom and discernment as we approach each client that comes to us. Take notes as you read along, as at the end we want to hear your viewpoints, and perhaps even tell us what you would do if you were on our staff. Demon Voices or Mental Illness
The mother drives her son everywhere because he is not well enough to drive. He sits next to her, and at the red lights she looks over and studies him: how quiet he is, how stiffly he sits, hands in his lap, fingers fidgeting slightly, a tic that occasionally blooms into a full fluttering motion he makes with his hand, as if clearing invisible webs from his face. He is 19 years old, 6 feet tall, 250 pounds. His eyes are more steady than bright at this particular moment; his mouth is not set in a smile or a frown but some line in between.
It has been 10 years since Spencer Haskell began thinking his classmates were whispering about him, four years since he started feeling angry all the time, and two years since he first told a doctor he was hearing imaginary voices. It has been 20 months since he was told he had a form of schizophrenia, and 15 months since he swallowed three bottles of Benadryl and laid down to die, after which he had gotten better, and worse, and, for a while, better again, or so Naomi Haskell had thought until an hour ago, when they were in the therapist’s office and Spencer said that his head was feeling “cloudy.”
Cloudy was the big, flying red flag that she had learned to dread. It might simply be a side effect of one of his five medications. But it could also be the quiet beginning of her firstborn son falling apart again, of hallucinations, or a dive into depression, or some other dimension of his illness that Naomi has yet to fathom.
This is what it is like to be the mother of a son with a severe mental illness — an hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute vigil. At a time of increasing public concern about the role mental illness might have played in mass shootings in places like Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., Naomi’s worry on a Tuesday in Texas is different. It’s about keeping her son well.
So what Naomi is thinking about now is helping Spencer make it until Friday, when he has another therapy appointment, and when the effect of a new medication he has just started taking might become clear.
They drive to the apartment where he moved in January, when Naomi had thought Spencer was stable enough to leave the home where he had been living with her, his stepfather, and his younger brother. He had made it through the busy Christmas season working as a cashier, handling his symptoms with promising self-assurance, telling a customer who wondered who he was talking to not to worry, he just had a thought disorder.
Naomi knew that he wanted to get back to everything he had been doing his senior year in high school, when he was first told he had early-stage schizophrenia, a diagnosis later refined to schizoaffective disorder, bipolar subtype with obsessive-compulsive elements. He wanted to study math, go to college, go out with girls. He wanted independence, and Naomi thought the apartment would be a step toward that.
Then the first week he was there he got the cloudy feeling. He said that his brain felt like it was “under a hair dryer.” He told Naomi he felt “unsafe.” He checked himself into a psychiatric hospital.
When he was released 11 days later, he insisted on returning to the apartment rather than home, because he wanted to keep moving forward. Naomi’s 70-year-old mother moved in with him, setting up a single bed in the living room.
Naomi parks the car. She watches her son trudge up the three flights of open-air stairs, a slow, lumbering figure in jeans and a sweatshirt.
The signs she looks for: how he walks, whether he is quick or slow or heavy or aimless. How he talks — crisp or sluggish, or perhaps angrily to no one, as he had done in December, when he yelled “Stop following me!” down an empty hallway. Spencer had become deeply religious during the advent of his illness, and Naomi checks his Facebook page to see how many posts are there about Revelations, or Deuteronomy, or other biblical arcana. More than two or three is a warning sign, not because it is religious but because it is obsessive.
At lunch, she glances at the news blaring on the TV. A young man has just stabbed 14 people at a community college campus.
She is sure that in the coming days, it will come out that the young man had an untreated mental illness, and that the parents had tried to help or didn’t know. With Newtown, Aurora, Tucson, and so many other violent episodes, she had felt the same, horrible way. She felt devastated for the victims’ families. And she felt devastated for the parents who, she imagined, had struggled in their own way just like her to save their sons.
But she doesn’t see that kind of violence in Spencer, not at all. She has read statistics that show her son is more likely to be a victim of violence than a perpetrator of it. She has also read about the elevated risk of violence among people with schizophrenia, and knows the statistics that show their risk is higher if severe symptoms such as paranoia or hallucinations are not controlled, or if they have a history of violence or drug abuse. But that isn’t her son.
As she says one day when he is not there: “I don’t see that in him. And I hope I’m not fooling myself. What I see is a kind, loving, empathetic boy struggling to regain his footing in this world. That’s who my son is.”
Wednesday morning, he lumbers down. He piles into Naomi’s car in sweatpants and a T-shirt, and they drive toward the psychiatric hospital near Houston for his electroconvulsive therapy appointment, a treatment for severe depression.
First comes the anesthesia through the IV, which he can feel moving through his hand and up his arm and then dissolving through his system. He had tried to resist sleeping before, but the feeling was so uncomfortable that he has learned to just give in. Next comes the gel, which is swabbed on his head, and then the electrodes pressed into the gel, and the electrical current, which triggers a controlled seizure, which requires placing a guard in Spencer’s mouth to keep him from biting his tongue. The seizure, it is hoped, will trigger a change in his brain chemistry that might bring some relief.
On Thursday morning Spencer doesn’t see his mother. Instead, while she is away, he talks about his life.
He says it’s been almost three years since a miracle happened. He says he was a junior in high school and developed a crush on a girl who was a Christian, which led him to become a devout Christian himself, which allowed him to begin to see his intense, manic anger and paranoid thoughts as “delusional beliefs,” which opened the door to understanding he had an illness.
He says it has been two years since he first heard voices — what he describes as “whispers” that would come mostly at night, along with brief flashes of images he describes as demons. If his mother was afraid of him, he says, it was because he had become terrified of himself. He says he tried to manage by working out, by doing martial arts, not because he enjoyed beating people up but because it felt good, somehow, to get beaten up, and when nothing worked he asked his mother to take him to the doctor, where he heard words like “psychotic,” which terrified him even more.
He says he was angry at his mother, at his teachers, at everyone for not figuring out what was wrong with him sooner.
He says he moved briefly to Austin to attend college and study math, because he had somehow managed, even as he was becoming sicker, to get the highest score on the most difficult Advanced Placement calculus exam. But then he says he started “freaking out” that the world was going to end, which led him to think he should learn carpentry to help Jesus rebuild after the apocalypse, which he now understands was one of his first psychotic episodes.
He says he understands why, when his mother found out, she went to a court and convinced a judge that her son was a danger to himself or others, then tricked him into getting on a bus back to Houston, where he was handcuffed and taken to the psychiatric hospital, where he began to accept that he would have to manage delusions and paranoia and mania and depression for the rest of his life.
He says his medication was changed and he got better, and then he got much worse, and all the bad feelings came rushing back.
“I looked at the past and the future and I decided there was no way out of it,” he says, and that was why he walked out of the facility one December day into the freezing cold and kept walking 15 miles to a Target, where he bought the Benadryl, and then went to a Wendy’s, ate several burgers and chicken sandwiches and washed down three bottles of the pills with a Diet Coke, and then went to a mall and walked in circles until he got sleepy, then looked for a place he could die, and went into a dressing room at Sears.
He says he was found vomiting and seizing, and that four days later he woke up in an intensive care unit. He says people told him it was the best Christmas present ever, but he was not so sure. He says he came home, which is when Naomi told him about what she did in the days before:
She had made sure the gun at home was locked in its safe. She had put away the kitchen knives and then found herself wondering whether she should also remove the forks, and maybe the cleaners, until she started to see everything as a hazard — the trees in the yard, the car, the traffic on the road. She told her son that she loved him, and that she wanted to help improve his odds of surviving his illness, but that she knew that she could not ensure it, that it was ultimately up to him.
He says he understands that, which is why he is willing to bear the electrical currents, the pills, the constant shuffling to doctors and the constant scrutiny, and why he wants also to pull away from all that, to get in shape, to be better, to get back to studying math, to college, to driving, to everything he was doing when he first got sick.
He says he wants to reach the point that he knows is possible for people like him, where he can manage his illness instead of the other way around.
“I’m really not afraid of breaking down anymore,” he says. “I’ve gained a lot of knowledge and control. I’m not afraid I will relapse into chaos.”
©2013 by The Washington Post. Reprinted with permission.
Sometimes people need help from God, doctor’s and support from the church sfprs.org/
Now you decide, is this a case of Demon Voices or Mental Illness? Write us with your knowledge and experience, and put yourself on our staff and explain how you would handle the circumstances above.
This is just a sample of what we have to decide when contacted about if this is Demon Voices or Mental Illness. We always fast and pray for God’s wisdom and discernment as we approach each client that comes to us. Take notes as you read along, as at the end we want to hear your viewpoints, and perhaps even tell us what you would do if you were on our staff. Demon Voices or Mental Illness
The mother drives her son everywhere because he is not well enough to drive. He sits next to her, and at the red lights she looks over and studies him: how quiet he is, how stiffly he sits, hands in his lap, fingers fidgeting slightly, a tic that occasionally blooms into a full fluttering motion he makes with his hand, as if clearing invisible webs from his face. He is 19 years old, 6 feet tall, 250 pounds. His eyes are more steady than bright at this particular moment; his mouth is not set in a smile or a frown but some line in between.
It has been 10 years since Spencer Haskell began thinking his classmates were whispering about him, four years since he started feeling angry all the time, and two years since he first told a doctor he was hearing imaginary voices. It has been 20 months since he was told he had a form of schizophrenia, and 15 months since he swallowed three bottles of Benadryl and laid down to die, after which he had gotten better, and worse, and, for a while, better again, or so Naomi Haskell had thought until an hour ago, when they were in the therapist’s office and Spencer said that his head was feeling “cloudy.”
Cloudy was the big, flying red flag that she had learned to dread. It might simply be a side effect of one of his five medications. But it could also be the quiet beginning of her firstborn son falling apart again, of hallucinations, or a dive into depression, or some other dimension of his illness that Naomi has yet to fathom.
This is what it is like to be the mother of a son with a severe mental illness — an hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute vigil. At a time of increasing public concern about the role mental illness might have played in mass shootings in places like Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., Naomi’s worry on a Tuesday in Texas is different. It’s about keeping her son well.
So what Naomi is thinking about now is helping Spencer make it until Friday, when he has another therapy appointment, and when the effect of a new medication he has just started taking might become clear.
They drive to the apartment where he moved in January, when Naomi had thought Spencer was stable enough to leave the home where he had been living with her, his stepfather, and his younger brother. He had made it through the busy Christmas season working as a cashier, handling his symptoms with promising self-assurance, telling a customer who wondered who he was talking to not to worry, he just had a thought disorder.
Naomi knew that he wanted to get back to everything he had been doing his senior year in high school, when he was first told he had early-stage schizophrenia, a diagnosis later refined to schizoaffective disorder, bipolar subtype with obsessive-compulsive elements. He wanted to study math, go to college, go out with girls. He wanted independence, and Naomi thought the apartment would be a step toward that.
Then the first week he was there he got the cloudy feeling. He said that his brain felt like it was “under a hair dryer.” He told Naomi he felt “unsafe.” He checked himself into a psychiatric hospital.
When he was released 11 days later, he insisted on returning to the apartment rather than home, because he wanted to keep moving forward. Naomi’s 70-year-old mother moved in with him, setting up a single bed in the living room.
Naomi parks the car. She watches her son trudge up the three flights of open-air stairs, a slow, lumbering figure in jeans and a sweatshirt.
The signs she looks for: how he walks, whether he is quick or slow or heavy or aimless. How he talks — crisp or sluggish, or perhaps angrily to no one, as he had done in December, when he yelled “Stop following me!” down an empty hallway. Spencer had become deeply religious during the advent of his illness, and Naomi checks his Facebook page to see how many posts are there about Revelations, or Deuteronomy, or other biblical arcana. More than two or three is a warning sign, not because it is religious but because it is obsessive.
At lunch, she glances at the news blaring on the TV. A young man has just stabbed 14 people at a community college campus.
She is sure that in the coming days, it will come out that the young man had an untreated mental illness, and that the parents had tried to help or didn’t know. With Newtown, Aurora, Tucson, and so many other violent episodes, she had felt the same, horrible way. She felt devastated for the victims’ families. And she felt devastated for the parents who, she imagined, had struggled in their own way just like her to save their sons.
But she doesn’t see that kind of violence in Spencer, not at all. She has read statistics that show her son is more likely to be a victim of violence than a perpetrator of it. She has also read about the elevated risk of violence among people with schizophrenia, and knows the statistics that show their risk is higher if severe symptoms such as paranoia or hallucinations are not controlled, or if they have a history of violence or drug abuse. But that isn’t her son.
As she says one day when he is not there: “I don’t see that in him. And I hope I’m not fooling myself. What I see is a kind, loving, empathetic boy struggling to regain his footing in this world. That’s who my son is.”
Wednesday morning, he lumbers down. He piles into Naomi’s car in sweatpants and a T-shirt, and they drive toward the psychiatric hospital near Houston for his electroconvulsive therapy appointment, a treatment for severe depression.
First comes the anesthesia through the IV, which he can feel moving through his hand and up his arm and then dissolving through his system. He had tried to resist sleeping before, but the feeling was so uncomfortable that he has learned to just give in. Next comes the gel, which is swabbed on his head, and then the electrodes pressed into the gel, and the electrical current, which triggers a controlled seizure, which requires placing a guard in Spencer’s mouth to keep him from biting his tongue. The seizure, it is hoped, will trigger a change in his brain chemistry that might bring some relief.
On Thursday morning Spencer doesn’t see his mother. Instead, while she is away, he talks about his life.
He says it’s been almost three years since a miracle happened. He says he was a junior in high school and developed a crush on a girl who was a Christian, which led him to become a devout Christian himself, which allowed him to begin to see his intense, manic anger and paranoid thoughts as “delusional beliefs,” which opened the door to understanding he had an illness.
He says it has been two years since he first heard voices — what he describes as “whispers” that would come mostly at night, along with brief flashes of images he describes as demons. If his mother was afraid of him, he says, it was because he had become terrified of himself. He says he tried to manage by working out, by doing martial arts, not because he enjoyed beating people up but because it felt good, somehow, to get beaten up, and when nothing worked he asked his mother to take him to the doctor, where he heard words like “psychotic,” which terrified him even more.
He says he was angry at his mother, at his teachers, at everyone for not figuring out what was wrong with him sooner.
He says he moved briefly to Austin to attend college and study math, because he had somehow managed, even as he was becoming sicker, to get the highest score on the most difficult Advanced Placement calculus exam. But then he says he started “freaking out” that the world was going to end, which led him to think he should learn carpentry to help Jesus rebuild after the apocalypse, which he now understands was one of his first psychotic episodes.
He says he understands why, when his mother found out, she went to a court and convinced a judge that her son was a danger to himself or others, then tricked him into getting on a bus back to Houston, where he was handcuffed and taken to the psychiatric hospital, where he began to accept that he would have to manage delusions and paranoia and mania and depression for the rest of his life.
He says his medication was changed and he got better, and then he got much worse, and all the bad feelings came rushing back.
“I looked at the past and the future and I decided there was no way out of it,” he says, and that was why he walked out of the facility one December day into the freezing cold and kept walking 15 miles to a Target, where he bought the Benadryl, and then went to a Wendy’s, ate several burgers and chicken sandwiches and washed down three bottles of the pills with a Diet Coke, and then went to a mall and walked in circles until he got sleepy, then looked for a place he could die, and went into a dressing room at Sears.
He says he was found vomiting and seizing, and that four days later he woke up in an intensive care unit. He says people told him it was the best Christmas present ever, but he was not so sure. He says he came home, which is when Naomi told him about what she did in the days before:
She had made sure the gun at home was locked in its safe. She had put away the kitchen knives and then found herself wondering whether she should also remove the forks, and maybe the cleaners, until she started to see everything as a hazard — the trees in the yard, the car, the traffic on the road. She told her son that she loved him, and that she wanted to help improve his odds of surviving his illness, but that she knew that she could not ensure it, that it was ultimately up to him.
He says he understands that, which is why he is willing to bear the electrical currents, the pills, the constant shuffling to doctors and the constant scrutiny, and why he wants also to pull away from all that, to get in shape, to be better, to get back to studying math, to college, to driving, to everything he was doing when he first got sick.
He says he wants to reach the point that he knows is possible for people like him, where he can manage his illness instead of the other way around.
“I’m really not afraid of breaking down anymore,” he says. “I’ve gained a lot of knowledge and control. I’m not afraid I will relapse into chaos.”
©2013 by The Washington Post. Reprinted with permission.
Sometimes people need help from God, doctor’s and support from the church sfprs.org/
Now you decide, is this a case of Demon Voices or Mental Illness? Write us with your knowledge and experience, and put yourself on our staff and explain how you would handle the circumstances above.
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