Horned Prophets (3) Political and Military Power
Horned prophets and political and military power go together (like the beast and the false prophet in Revelation). It is often hard to tell which came first. Confidence in military power opens a young prophet to a warring and violent spirit. The words of a prophet who loves war deceive the people into trusting the military strength of their political leaders.
Political leaders are drawn to the horned prophets because their words feed their desire from more and more power. The people love the horned prophets, because it makes their words make them feel good about their nation, but they eventually lose their freedom.
Initially, the words of the horned prophet are self-fulfilling, the leaders of the nation are successful, and the people prosper. However, the deceptions of the horned prophets are eventually exposed. God’s judgment destroys the political leaders and the people who trusted them suffer defeat and terrible loss.
America has a problem with horned prophets. America has such immense military strength that some prophets get dazzled with it and fall in love with war. This makes them dangerous. Horned prophets tend to produce ruthless military and political power. They deceive the people into accepting big government and stir up their leaders to undertake grand military adventures. This seems to be happening now. However, the words of horned prophets will eventually be exposed, because military and economic disaster always follows close behind them.
Horned Prophets are really dangerous for America, as this is pivotal time for the nation. It seems to be poised on becoming a Beast that controls the whole earth. That might not happen, if there is a move back to God, but the political, cultural and military leadership seem to be going the other way. By supporting them, the horned prophets could be instrumental in making America into the Terrible Beast. That would end in terrible disaster.
2 comments:
Oddly, there is a strong militaristic component to American evangelicalism because of a reaction against secular peace movements. Belief in strong, proactive military action is seen as an antidote to cultural relativism and defeatism. Because the student movements of the '60s effectively produced a cultural revolution that took over the Democratic party and completely changed the character of liberalism (most Americans don't know, for instance, that the CIA in its Cold War heyday was largely an old-style liberal organization), the center has slowly collapsed in US politics. For Christians who rightly reject the belief that mankind can save itself via peace movements that don't recognize man's fallenness, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that foreign interventionism--military or otherwise--is somehow godly because it's not associated with hippies. As for the US being a Beast, it is not inconsistent with Biblical symbology to suggest that the Antichrist might be a type of person--democratic man--of which today's American is the epitome. Just as American leftists believe that all evil originates with white elitists and large business enterprises, American Christians are in danger of believing that all evil originates with Big Government (excepting the military, of course) and Ivy League intellectuals. No one is questioning the righteousness of the Ordinary Person--who votes, creates money via easy credit, and determines the direction of culture via consumer preference. Since the entire American way of life now depends on foreign petroleum and cheap Asian consumer goods, there is considerable potential for international mischief stemming from the appetites of the same ordinary person who has been absolved of all blame for anything that has ever gone wrong.
Good comments, but note that the Revelation never refers to the Beast as Antichrist. The word is not used in Revelation at all. Antichrist is theological term, for those who deny the truth that Jesus was God and man. In his letters, John says there are many antichrists.
The Beast is a political empire, not a false theology, although of course empire-ism is rooted in false theology.
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