Tag: bible

Trump’s Satanic Tactics

~ Jim ~ Leave a comment

It is said that actions speak louder than words, and Jesus made this clear when He taught that people could be known by their fruit. This is a sobering observation to make about the current administration, because many of its actions align with those that are associated with Satan in the Bible. If we are taught to look for the fruits of the Holy Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control – but our leaders exhibit different fruits – death, fear, lying, and greed – what does that say about the spirit behind them?

Consider these examples:

Satan is described as one who comes to steal, kill, and destroy — an agent of death (John 10:10, Hebrews 2:14–15). While every administration has made decisions that resulted in loss of life, the scale and nature of recent policy changes have provoked widespread public outcry for their apparent needlessness and avoidability. Cuts to PEPFAR funding have resulted in hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths. Extrajudicial executions of alleged “narcoterrorists” have proceeded without due process. Blatant calls for the assassination of foreign leaders have been made publicly. High-pressure immigration policies have contributed to the deaths of innocent people. And cuts of over 90% to the Pentagon’s Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Office — made just before airstrikes killed nearly 200 civilian children — reflect a stunning disregard for human life. Unprecedented, avoidable death has become a defining feature of this administration.

Scripture is clear that the spirit we have received is not one of fear (2 Timothy 1:7), and that perfect love drives fear out (1 John 4:18). Satan, by contrast, uses fear of death and loss to manipulate and control (Hebrews 2:15). The current administration has made fear a primary instrument of governance: threatening to cut funding unless DEI programs are eliminated, issuing military threats against sovereign nations to impose its agenda, pressuring media companies with the threat of blocked mergers, threatening political opponents with unwarranted prosecution, and moving to revoke broadcast licenses of outlets that report unfavorably. The consistent pattern is coercion through intimidation.

Jesus identified Satan as “the father of lies” and said that there is no truth in him (John 8:44). The current administration has become widely associated with a willingness to state things that are demonstrably false — a pattern so consistent that it has been systematically documented by multiple independent fact-checking organizations, and there is even a Wikipedia page devoted to Trump’s false statements. This is not ordinary political spin. It is a settled disposition toward falsehood.

Paul calls greed a form of idolatry (Colossians 3:5, Ephesians 5:5) — the worship of wealth in place of God. The current president has openly described himself as greedy, and his conduct has borne that out: leveraging his position for personal financial gain through the cryptocurrency market, accepting extravagant gifts from foreign entities, and pursuing displays of opulence such as the lavish redecorating of the Oval Office and the demolition of a historically significant portion of the White House to construct a ballroom.

None of these characteristics are new, of course. Deception, greed, manipulation through fear, disregard for human life — these have always been present in human governance, and in human hearts. What is different now is the scale and the openness. These things are no longer hidden or carefully managed. They are displayed, even celebrated. In that sense, the current moment may be spiritually instructive: not merely as a political crisis, but as a kind of revelation — an unveiling of forces that have long been at work beneath the surface.

In addition to the tactics themselves, many associate the current administration with God – claiming that Trump is doing God’s will in the things that he is accomplishing. However, God does not work this way. These are not the tactics of the Holy Spirit, and claiming that they are is a form of blasphemy – speaking lies about God. The church today needs to be very clear about this, and let people know that these tactics do not represent the fruit of the Holy Spirit, but of the spirit of Satan.

(Note : This is a modified version of my previous post, used for sharing in a particular context.)

Naming the Darkness: A Biblical Look at the Present Moment

~ Jim ~ Leave a comment

One of the recurring themes of this blog is the apparent lukewarmness of the Western church, the growing spiritual darkness of Western society, and the relationship between them. One way to explore this is to look at specific cultural and political examples through a Biblical lens — not primarily as political commentary, but as spiritual diagnosis.

Whatever one’s views of the current administration, it has done something revealing: it has brought certain patterns of darkness into the open. Behaviors that in previous eras were hidden, excused, or quietly tolerated in people’s hearts are now on full public display. And many of these behaviors are ones that Scripture specifically associates with Satan. That is worth paying attention to.

Satan is described as one who comes to steal, kill, and destroy — an agent of death (John 10:10, Hebrews 2:14–15). While every administration has made decisions that resulted in loss of life, the scale and nature of recent policy changes have provoked widespread public outcry for their apparent needlessness and avoidability. Cuts to PEPFAR funding have resulted in hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths. Extrajudicial executions of alleged “narcoterrorists” have proceeded without due process. Blatant calls for the assassination of foreign leaders have been made publicly. High-pressure immigration policies have contributed to the deaths of innocent people. And cuts of over 90% to the Pentagon’s Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Office — made just before airstrikes killed nearly 200 civilian children — reflect a stunning disregard for human life. Unprecedented, avoidable death has become a defining feature of this administration.

Scripture is clear that the spirit we have received is not one of fear (2 Timothy 1:7), and that perfect love drives fear out (1 John 4:18). Satan, by contrast, uses fear of death and loss to manipulate and control (Hebrews 2:15). The current administration has made fear a primary instrument of governance: threatening to cut funding unless DEI programs are eliminated, issuing military threats against sovereign nations to impose its agenda, pressuring media companies with the threat of blocked mergers, and moving to revoke broadcast licenses of outlets that report unfavorably. The consistent pattern is coercion through intimidation.

Jesus identified Satan as “the father of lies” and said that there is no truth in him (John 8:44). The current administration has become widely associated with a willingness to state things that are demonstrably false — a pattern so consistent that it has been systematically documented by multiple independent fact-checking organizations, and there is a Wikipedia page devoted to Trump’s false statements. This is not ordinary political spin. It is a settled disposition toward falsehood.

Paul calls greed a form of idolatry (Colossians 3:5, Ephesians 5:5) — the worship of wealth in place of God. The current president has openly described himself as greedy, and his conduct has borne that out: leveraging his position for personal financial gain through the cryptocurrency market (reportedly to the tune of billions of dollars), accepting extravagant gifts from foreign entities, and pursuing displays of opulence such as the lavish redecorating of the Oval Office and the demolition of a historically significant portion of the White House to construct a ballroom.

It is worth noting that none of these characteristics are new. Deception, greed, the manipulation of fear, disregard for human life — these have always been present in human governance, and in human hearts. What is different now is the scale and the openness. These things are no longer hidden or carefully managed. They are displayed, even celebrated. In that sense, the current moment may be spiritually instructive: not merely as a political crisis, but as a kind of revelation — an unveiling of forces that have long been at work beneath the surface of Western culture. For the church, the appropriate response is not partisan outrage but spiritual sobriety, renewed intercession, and a fresh reckoning with what it means to bear witness to a different Kingdom in a society that is showing its spiritual hand.

Finding Kingdom Hope Beyond Empire

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The church today seems lukewarm, a description that was given to the church in Laodicea, one of the seven churches in Revelation: lots of activity, but ultimately ineffective. I’m not the only one making this observation. Much has been written about the decline of Christianity in the global West, especially in America, and the possible solutions. While some claim a revival is underway, many disagree, and the evidence suggests the church remains lukewarm.

This blog reflects my intention to dig into these issues from new perspectives. The Laodiceans’ lukewarmness stemmed from reliance on self and worldly things — part of a pattern of compromise with the world that runs through all seven letters. This theme is central to Revelation and remains a challenge the church faces today.

Although references to Revelation in contemporary commentary are increasingly common, they typically focus on one particular aspect at a time. I see an opportunity for broader exploration. Revelation depicts the conflict between worldly systems and God’s way, between empire and kingdom, between the way of the beast and the way of the Lamb.

My approach, drawn from Revelation, involves four steps: understanding dangerous trends in today’s world, examining how Revelation and Scripture address them, identifying how the church is being challenged, and seeking faithful responses.

Consider, for example, how greed may be endemic to our economic systems. Given Scripture’s strident opposition to greed, we should be wary of its influence today, especially in subtle forms. Similarly, some thinkers have identified social cycles related to the rise and fall of empires throughout history, including patterns like the “great awakenings” that have occurred multiple times in America. These frameworks can help us understand large-scale trends in spiritual terms.

Even a cursory examination reveals dangers that mirror those in Revelation: dependence on worldly systems instead of God, allegiance to earthly powers over God’s sovereignty, false witness about God, the exaltation of commerce over humanity itself. These dangers are as present today as they were two thousand years ago.

Yet Revelation also highlights the church’s role in providing hope and rescue from the inevitable problems of increasing evil. There are multiple calls for the church to avoid entanglement with these forces, to come out before it’s too late, and to fulfill its mission of witnessing to the truth. Through obedience to God’s call for love and witness, the Kingdom can be manifested against evil.

The letter to Laodicea, though addressed to a congregation and depicting Jesus challenging the group, ends with an invitation to individual response. It is with this perspective that I seek understanding.

Pride and the Things of This World

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President Trump’s pattern of renaming public institutions and government programs after himself — from the U.S. Institute of Peace to the Kennedy Center, from a new class of battleships to prescription drug benefits and children’s savings accounts — seems to offer a good contemporary illustration of what the Bible calls “the pride of life.” In warning against loving “the things of the world,” the Apostle John identifies a spiritual danger that transcends any era: the human temptation to seek immortality and significance through the perpetuation of one’s own name. This self-glorifying impulse, which transforms public institutions meant to serve the common good into monuments to individual ego, exemplifies the kind of worldly vanity that Biblical teaching warns against.

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Kingdom of Love

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It often seems that people approach Scripture through different lenses. Some see it as a form of legalistic instruction manual. Others see it as a historical document. To anyone trying to understand the fundamental truths revealed in the Bible, it can seem confusing. In trying to do this myself, I noticed that Jesus basically states what all of Scripture is all about and, with that in mind, it’s clear throughout the rest of the Bible.

In several places, Jesus stated that all the “law and the prophets”, essentially all of Scripture, can be summed up by loving God with our whole being and loving others as we love ourselves. Love God and love others. In other words, the fundamental lesson of Scripture, at least according to Jesus, is to love. His statement implies that, when we try to understand anything in the Bible, we should look at it through this lens.

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Testing the Spirits

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In these contentious times, many people are claiming to have heard from God. However, one thing that is generally missing from such pronouncements is how the person knows that they have heard from God.

This is especially interesting since the Bible is clear, in both the Old and New Testaments, that we need to be discerning about such claims, and that while we should not despise prophecy, we should carefully test the spirits. Jesus, Paul, and John all warned us about the deceptions that would occur. In most cases, the context is when people are claiming to speak for God. In those cases, Scripture is clear that they need to be tested because the danger of false prophets is real and significant.

Thus, while we should probably be open when others claim to have heard from the Spirit, we should be discerning and careful to test. This is particularly important when what is said affects other people. This is certainly true when the guidance affects many people, but probably applies even when it affects one other person. In generally, whenever someone claims to speak for God into someone else’s life, that claim should be tested.

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Beyond Antioch

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Recently, I’ve been part of some conversations where Acts 16:5 has been used as an encouragement for pursuing church growth. Here’s the verse:

“So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and they increased in numbers daily.”  Acts 16:5 (ESV)

It is indeed an uplifting passage, describing churches that were flourishing both spiritually and numerically. But the natural question is: what was happening that led to this kind of growth—and what might it teach us about how the Spirit can still work among us today?

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False Witness and the Politics of Blasphemy

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Revelation pulls no punches in unveiling how empire works against God’s kingdom. The dragon’s chosen servants are not only soldiers and governors, but storytellers—mouthpieces who shape the imagination of the world. Revelation 13 portrays the beast rising from the sea, armed not only with power but with propaganda:

And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months. It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven. Revelation 13:5–6 (ESV)

Here we learn something critical: empire’s greatest weapon is not its armies, but its lies. It reshapes God into its own image and invites the world to worship the counterfeit.

Blasphemy is not merely swearing or mockery—it is the slander of God’s character, the peddling of false testimony about who He is and what He desires. It is the beast taking the holy name of God upon its lips and twisting it into a justification for its violence, its greed, its lust for power. And this, Revelation insists, is not an ancient relic but an enduring temptation for every age. The beast still speaks.

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Seeing the Mark of the Beast

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In the book of Revelation, the “mark” or “number” of the beast has often been used throughout history to target particular people, movements, or institutions. In many end-times interpretations, someone is linked with the number of the beast as if Revelation were predicting a specific person, event, or organization. The number itself—666—most likely refers to Nero, the cruel Roman emperor who was the first to really persecute Christians. Although Nero died before Revelation was written, rumors persisted that he might return.

Yet, given the symbolic nature of Revelation, the number was probably never meant to point to a single individual alone. Instead, it seems to represent recurring spiritual forces—patterns of evil—that can appear in many forms throughout history.

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Revelation and Human Objectification

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The book of Revelation is notoriously difficult to interpret, filled with vivid imagery, mysterious symbols, and dramatic pronouncements. Yet, amidst its complexity, some passages resonate with unmistakable clarity. Revelation chapter 18, for example, paints a haunting picture of the fall of corrupt powers, where the wealthy and powerful weep—not for justice, but for their lost ability to profit. In particular, verses 11–13 depict merchants lamenting that no one buys their luxurious cargo anymore. The detailed list of goods includes precious metals, spices, animals, and—most strikingly—“slaves, that is, human souls.”

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