Woodstock and eschatology?

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Jerusalem Blade

Puritan Board Professor
Woodstock — from its Poet
Its day is over​
now but a tattered gateway​
in the winds of the abyss​
the demon horde already passed through​
into the human heartland​
our collective consciousness​
the promise of its sacraments​
acid, mescaline, grass, ‘shrooms​
to bring us divine light, and life​
to our horror we saw​
was pure sorcery​
opening that dread gateway​
the promise of Woodstock​
a Trojan Horse from Hell​
whose glories I once sang​
its youths now on heroin​
while I sing its demise​
and the Armageddon it ushered in.​

_____

To substantiate what's in this poem see, OUR SORCEROUS AGE – Prelude To Armageddon:
 

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These are not ordinary times. The demonic has come into our collective consciousness and lives like a flood — just witness the degradation of public discourse and conduct. And where did it come from? How can we be ignorant of the opened inter-dimensional gateway?

Influences from many quarters have come into our midst to disrupt our society, but the vanguard — the leading — spirit is one of vile, blasphemous mouth, hatred of authority, particularly the Bible, God’s Law, and Christ’s Gospel, ready violence and killing, perversion, and the making of all these things either norms or worse, laws to govern us! Are we so jaded and dull of mind not to recognize the tree from whence comes this quickly ripening festering fruit, poisoning the very air?

Getting “high” was and continues to be the wavelength bearing the seeds of this spirit, the key to its opening — what amounts to a very invasion. As the slow-to-boil water renders the frog in the pot insensitive to its lethal end, we have become insensitive to the radical evil permeating our culture, or at least blind to its source.

When this source makes its way “legitimate” in the precincts of the house of God — the church of Jesus Christ — then shall those assemblies die, having given shelter to demons. These are not ordinary times, as the wine of latter Babylon seduces many to invite the coming plagues of judgment, “for by [her] sorceries were all nations deceived” (Rev 18:23).

I will write a little more on why this has not been noticed by more of our scholars, teachers, and pastors.
 
I’ve been looking at commentaries on Zechariah lately to see which have a clear Amillennial exposition of the first four verses of Zec 14:1,2,3,4, and only Richard Phillips fits the bill with excellence, although Barry Webb does minimally, and an older commentator H.C. Leupold somewhat, although he leans a bit too much to the “consistent idealist”, yet still does refer to the end as well. (Caveat: There may be other good amil commentators on Zec 14 I am ignorant of.)

So I looked at Richard Phillips’ fairly new commentary on Revelation (2017) to see what he had to say about sorcery, and also about the war of the beast and his “ten kings” against whore Babylon — and what that might look like (Rev 17:15,16,17,18). I have 30+ commentaries on Revelation and I know what they all say on these topics. Although Phillips is very good in the main, he was disappointing in these particulars — extremely significant particulars.

In a paper I wrote, “New Insights in Amillennial Eschatology”, in the opening paragraph are these words,
I will argue in this paper that a lack of understanding concerning the word “sorceries” (Greek, pharmakeia, φαρμακεία) and its cognates in The Book of Revelation have led to overlooking key elements in some of its prophecies, and thus inability to appreciate their import and relevance to the times. It is accepted that the “eclectic” or “modified idealist” view (Beale) [1] allows some departure from the idealist, though as to where the line is drawn there is no clear consensus. Beale himself says, “...certainly there are prophecies of the future in Revelation. The crucial yet problematic task of the interpreter is to identify through careful exegesis and against the historical background those texts which pertain respectively to past present and future.” [2]​
[1] G.K. Beale, New International Greek Testament Commentary: Revelation (Eerdmans 1999), pp 48, 49.​
[2] Ibid., p 49.​

With a few notable exceptions, the top exegetes and linguists don’t really get what sorcery is. And why would they? What have fairly clean-living students and scholars to do with the underbelly of society’s dark depths? But multitudes in the world — some of them now in Christ — are all too aware of sorcery’s depths. Those who have no experience in these depths of Satan ought heed Bob Dylan’s words, “don't criticize what you can't understand” — but some folks will nonetheless.

At any rate, the experience of being transported psychically or in spirit to a “wavelength” where spiritual (call it psychic, if you will) phenomena occurs is common today — but this getting “high” takes place in a realm where the bottom often drops out and the “innocent” soul becomes aware of things they wish they never had.

Or, those entities in the demonic realm around the sorcery partaker choose to make it a “good” experience, and the person finds himself enlightened, energized, and living in depths of their own soul they did not know existed. They now have a sense of the spiritual potency within them, and insight into the depths of other souls, and even into the essence of being — a sort of experience of the “divine”, both within them and without.

Multitudes have known such things from using grass, acid, and mescaline (and there are many other like substances), and are now powerfully sold on the idea — the experience — that divinity is within them and not without. A paradigm shift that has seized all the world.

When this experience pervades a culture — or the “influencers” in that culture — this indicates that those entities allowed entrance into the collective awareness of the culture (for these drugs are widespread, including the stronger psychedelics / entheogens they are also called) will be able to be active — even if hidden — in many lives and hearts.

The surface, rational, thought-life of a society — the intellectuals, theologians, academics, ministers out-of-seminaries, godly Bible believers in churches, etc — do not perceive all that is in words like “sorcery”. It is just a word without experiential knowledge of its content. That’s why there is such ignorance of the reality of this word. Not a thing we should be ignorant of in these times. Wait till the virus is over (a vaccine that works?), and the new normal obtains. Other things will require our attention. This one ought not be neglected.

With regard to the war of the beast and ten kings against Babylon, I have found none in the Reformed amil camp with a good take on this. I long have wondered what this would look like. My best take on this is that the global anti-Christian world system — harlot Babylon — will have a headquarters nation (even as the Chaldean and Roman empires had), and the beast will turn against this headquarters nation, destroying it, yet still able to function sufficiently so as to decree the destruction of the Christian churches across the entire remaining globe.

The scenarios the amil commentators present are couched in vague terms. Their views are not adequate to explain what is written. When Daniel was given to write his book, the details regarding Antiochus Epiphanes were sufficient to enable the seers in Israel to see what was coming and maintain their faith even when the one place in all the world where the true God was worshipped was defiled and the worship ceased. The elect knew that their Sovereign had foreseen this catastrophe and would sustain them.

When the Babylon headquarters nation is disabled and destroyed — likely in the latter time of the 6th trumpet, when one third of humankind are killed (Rev 9:15) — there will still be many Christians in the world, and they will need to be fortified to endure what Zech 14:1, 2, 3 shows is coming to the saints. Phillips tells this vision well in his Zechariah commentary, and the heart — courage, loyalty to Christ — the saints must have.

These are not ordinary times. There is a need for the Apocalypse to make its name good — uncovering, revelation — that we saints may all have the light of Christ to walk by in the days to come, whatever lands we live in.

An extended paper on these things, "The Fate of Babylon, A study in determining the identity and demise of Babylon in John’s Apocalypse" :
 

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why this has not been noticed by more of our scholars, teachers, and pastors
I've often wondered how the apocalypse will come in full force with the Scriptures still being extant. How can someone remain asleep whilst the building is burning. But I guess that examples like these gives some insight:
With a few notable exceptions, the top exegetes and linguists don’t really get what sorcery is. And why would they? What have fairly clean-living students and scholars to do with the underbelly of society’s dark depths?
 
Don't you think that because some people (and pastors) group drugs together with alcohol, they give poor reasons for the dangers of the former? (As you mentioned in one of your essays - the panel discussion on YouTube)
 
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