1 00:00:04,940 --> 00:00:09,820 Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a 2 00:00:09,820 --> 00:00:14,480 moment of truth where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith. 3 00:00:14,919 --> 00:00:22,480 And today I want to ask you, how do we account for the bizarre, widespread evil behavior of those 4 00:00:22,480 --> 00:00:31,899 in power over us other than that we are in days of demonic delirium? Days of demonic delirium. 5 00:00:31,899 --> 00:00:40,140 And what do we do about it? Delirium is defined as an acutely disordered state of mind involving 6 00:00:40,140 --> 00:00:47,140 incoherent speech, hallucinations, and frenzied excitement. That's all according to the Oxford 7 00:00:47,140 --> 00:00:54,840 English Dictionary. And I would submit to you that we are in days of demonic delirium. Now, 8 00:00:54,840 --> 00:01:04,260 throughout history, there are periods where evil seems to be more present, more intense, 9 00:01:04,400 --> 00:01:10,560 more palpable, more evident, and widespread in society than there are other times. There have 10 00:01:10,560 --> 00:01:16,420 been, indeed, times when evil is ever present with us. Indeed, since Adam and Eve first sinned in the 11 00:01:16,420 --> 00:01:21,760 garden. But there are historical cycles of waxing and waning, of increase and decrease, of ebb and flow, 12 00:01:21,760 --> 00:01:28,120 when evil seems sometimes more and sometimes less present in a society than at other times. 13 00:01:28,840 --> 00:01:33,340 Oh, we've seen that in the past. In the Bible, of course, we have Sodom and Gomorrah, a good example 14 00:01:33,340 --> 00:01:40,780 of a time when, indeed, evil was ever present. Lot, you remember, housed the angels for a night in his 15 00:01:40,780 --> 00:01:46,640 home, and there was the crowd of perverse men outside who wanted to have sex with them. We also 16 00:01:46,640 --> 00:01:52,379 saw the days of Joshua and the conquest when the Nephilim were present, indeed, giants in the land, 17 00:01:52,500 --> 00:01:59,640 evil, demonic giants, or the days of Elijah versus the prophets of Ba'am. And in history, we see it in 18 00:01:59,640 --> 00:02:08,840 our own day, too, in our own present day, when we saw the demonic times in Cambodia, when, indeed, 19 00:02:08,840 --> 00:02:14,560 over two million people were slaughtered. And we see times of the French Revolution, for example, 20 00:02:14,780 --> 00:02:22,039 another period of time when, indeed, the demonic seemed to be ever present in history. Such 21 00:02:22,039 --> 00:02:28,580 societies are at their worst when they reach the point of the antediluvian world, that is, 22 00:02:28,639 --> 00:02:33,819 the pre-flood world, when, we see in Genesis 6, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great 23 00:02:33,819 --> 00:02:38,560 in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 24 00:02:39,780 --> 00:02:46,360 That is the absolute corruption of the human soul, the nadir of human behavior. What awful days 25 00:02:46,360 --> 00:02:52,539 in which to live, dear listener. God's wrath towards that generation was such that, the Bible 26 00:02:52,539 --> 00:02:57,020 tells us, the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the 27 00:02:57,020 --> 00:03:02,659 Lord said, I will blot out man, whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and 28 00:03:02,659 --> 00:03:08,280 creeping things, and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them. Ergo, the flood. 29 00:03:08,919 --> 00:03:13,639 Yes. And although God subsequently promised Noah that he would never again inundate the world with 30 00:03:13,639 --> 00:03:19,479 another worldwide catastrophic flood, that does not mean that there would be no more days of demonic 31 00:03:19,479 --> 00:03:26,099 delirium, when man's wickedness is such that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil 32 00:03:26,099 --> 00:03:31,819 continually. Note the thoroughness, the completeness of corruption, when every intention of the thoughts 33 00:03:31,819 --> 00:03:37,340 of man's heart is only evil continually. Three things I want to observe there. First of all, 34 00:03:37,819 --> 00:03:44,340 when those conditions obtain, man's whole will is committed to evil. We see this in many a person 35 00:03:44,340 --> 00:03:51,460 today. That's the sense of every intention. He wills evil with intent. He propagates. He commits 36 00:03:51,460 --> 00:03:56,900 all his faculties towards evil. And secondly, we must observe that when these conditions obtain, 37 00:03:56,900 --> 00:04:05,099 evil is that man's precious. If you are familiar with Gollum from the Lord of the Rings series by 38 00:04:05,099 --> 00:04:13,120 J.R.R. Tolkien, you know how completely given over, supernaturally obsessed, this fallen hobbit 39 00:04:13,120 --> 00:04:19,639 Gollum was with a ring of power when he had it in his possession. Every thought of his heart was for 40 00:04:19,639 --> 00:04:26,060 it. It was his precious. And so it is with evil in the heart of those in days of demonic delirium. 41 00:04:26,639 --> 00:04:34,839 And thirdly, we observe that in times like these, evil is exclusive. It excludes all else. There's no 42 00:04:34,839 --> 00:04:39,939 room for good in the heart of the man living in the days of demonic delirium. He is too busy with a 43 00:04:39,939 --> 00:04:45,980 task before him to the exclusion of everything else. Only evil continually, as the Bible says, 44 00:04:45,980 --> 00:04:52,300 day in and day out, his feet hurry to do evil, as the Proverbs say. Now, I call these days of 45 00:04:52,300 --> 00:04:58,459 demonic delirium because the presence of the demonic is manifest. In Genesis chapter 6, for that 46 00:04:58,459 --> 00:05:05,540 matter, it's preceded by the descent of the sons of God onto the earth, and that's reputedly on Mount 47 00:05:05,540 --> 00:05:11,620 Hermon, the descent of the sons of God in order to cohabit with the daughters of men, that is human 48 00:05:11,620 --> 00:05:17,980 women. These were the fallen angels spoken of by Peter and Jude in the New Testament, and by Enoch 49 00:05:17,980 --> 00:05:24,160 in the Pseudepigrapha. Consequently, what was born to them were the demonic monsters of the Old 50 00:05:24,160 --> 00:05:31,100 Testament, the Nephilim. As verse 4 in chapter 6 says, the Nephilim were on the earth in those days, 51 00:05:31,160 --> 00:05:36,360 and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man, and they bore children to 52 00:05:36,360 --> 00:05:42,540 them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. Well, one of the reasons that 53 00:05:42,540 --> 00:05:47,519 pre-Diluvian man found every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually 54 00:05:47,519 --> 00:05:54,819 is precisely because of this fallen demonic presence of the Nephilim. The adversary of our soul, Satan, 55 00:05:55,180 --> 00:06:01,860 never ceases to tempt and coerce and beguile us to do evil, and this becomes transparent during days 56 00:06:01,860 --> 00:06:09,779 of demonic delirium. It is important to recognize the signs of days of demonic delirium, too. We are 57 00:06:09,779 --> 00:06:16,420 not yet, nor will we ever be, hysterical sensationalists who see a demon behind every 58 00:06:16,420 --> 00:06:23,240 bush, but neither are we naive Pollyannas who deny the living intersection between the physical world 59 00:06:23,240 --> 00:06:28,860 and the spiritual world. Oh, just as our physical world teems with countless species of flora and 60 00:06:28,860 --> 00:06:35,319 fauna, so the spiritual world teems with countless spiritual creatures, both angelic and demonic. 61 00:06:36,199 --> 00:06:41,759 And the Bible is, in many ways, a historical account of the interaction between these realms. 62 00:06:42,779 --> 00:06:48,180 Oh, and we humans, made in the image of God, are the only creatures who inhabit both realms 63 00:06:48,180 --> 00:06:54,620 simultaneously. That is, we inhabit both the physical and the spiritual at the same time. And as we have 64 00:06:54,620 --> 00:07:02,279 seen in our study of John's apocalypse, too, and we have just finished that in our teaching series in 65 00:07:02,279 --> 00:07:08,259 the church, we humans are destined to be lords of the new world that God will make out of these two 66 00:07:08,259 --> 00:07:14,300 realms. It will be a union of the physical and the spiritual, like both of them, but greater and fuller 67 00:07:14,300 --> 00:07:21,439 than either one individually, a new heaven and a new earth, as the Revelation says, and one city bride 68 00:07:21,439 --> 00:07:27,620 coming down from heaven, as the closing chapters of Revelation put it. But until then, we live in both 69 00:07:27,620 --> 00:07:33,959 discrete worlds simultaneously, discerning between the two as best we can, as God gives us grace. 70 00:07:34,500 --> 00:07:41,800 What then does a period of unusually heavy demonic presence that intrudes upon us look like, such that 71 00:07:41,800 --> 00:07:50,100 we call it demonic delirium? Well, some point to the increase of the sensational. Indeed, they do. 72 00:07:50,100 --> 00:07:57,019 There is indeed, at times like this, an increase of the sensational. The acutely disordered state of 73 00:07:57,019 --> 00:08:01,600 mind, as our definition of delirium puts it, that accompanies those demonically possessed, 74 00:08:01,899 --> 00:08:06,180 like we see in the New Testament, who live in the tombs, like the gathering demoniac, 75 00:08:06,339 --> 00:08:12,500 or throw themselves into fire or water, like the poor son of that father who appealed to Jesus for 76 00:08:12,500 --> 00:08:18,019 exorcism. Or even incoherent speech, right? The howling of the gathering demoniac, or the muttering, 77 00:08:18,019 --> 00:08:24,560 peeping, and chirping of the prophets of Baal in Isaiah's day. Or the hallucinations, as Paul says, 78 00:08:24,879 --> 00:08:29,920 those insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, 79 00:08:30,339 --> 00:08:36,120 puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind. Or even, as our definition of delirium puts it, 80 00:08:36,220 --> 00:08:41,759 frenzied excitement. The priests of Baal, who cut themselves, leaped and danced in great agitation. 81 00:08:41,879 --> 00:08:46,440 Or the twisted men of Sodom, who lurked outside of Lot's house all night, seeking to have sex with 82 00:08:46,440 --> 00:08:52,779 his angel guests. These kinds of sensational outward manifestations are indeed present in days 83 00:08:52,779 --> 00:09:00,080 of demonic delirium, but they are not the surest and most objective way to index when demonic delirium 84 00:09:00,080 --> 00:09:07,039 is on the increase. The sensational is but the tip of the iceberg. Nine-tenths of the demonic delirium 85 00:09:07,039 --> 00:09:12,980 lies below the surface and must be identified for what it is, that is, evil behavior by the bulk 86 00:09:12,980 --> 00:09:19,460 of mankind. We are able to tell when we are in such periods. And this is because we can know evil when 87 00:09:19,460 --> 00:09:26,860 we see it, because God has identified for us it as sin, right? As wrongdoing, as transgression of his 88 00:09:26,860 --> 00:09:33,419 law. In times like these, men practice evil and they enjoy doing it. Solomon puts it this way in Proverbs 89 00:09:33,419 --> 00:09:41,720 2. He calls it the way of evil. Men of perverted speech, who forsake the paths of uprightness to 90 00:09:41,720 --> 00:09:47,279 walk in the ways of darkness, who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil. 91 00:09:47,700 --> 00:09:54,279 Men whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways. Unquote from Proverbs 2. In short, 92 00:09:54,399 --> 00:10:00,279 we know when we are in days of demonic delirium, when sin increases such that every intention of the 93 00:10:00,279 --> 00:10:08,159 thoughts of our heart is only evil continually. Only evil continually. And this now characterizes 94 00:10:08,159 --> 00:10:13,879 enough of us, I think, that we can confidently assert that we are in days of demonic delirium. 95 00:10:14,320 --> 00:10:21,159 And one metric that helps us measure the extent of our demonic delirium is an old one that's long 96 00:10:21,159 --> 00:10:29,840 employed by the church, and that is the seven deadly sins. The seven deadly or mortal sins. There are as 97 00:10:29,840 --> 00:10:34,740 many types and kinds of sin in the world as there are human sinners, but seven of them in particular 98 00:10:34,740 --> 00:10:42,700 have been identified as death-dealing. That, when practiced as a way of life in which one rejoices and 99 00:10:42,700 --> 00:10:49,860 delights, as Solomon says, these seven deadly sins kill the soul and condemn the man to eternal damnation. 100 00:10:49,860 --> 00:10:57,820 And consequently, they are mortal sins, that is, deadly sins. The seven deadly sins are, as articulated 101 00:10:57,820 --> 00:11:06,399 by the church, pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust. The church throughout history 102 00:11:06,399 --> 00:11:12,500 has used this list as a kind of shorthand for what the man given over to evil looks like in the particular 103 00:11:12,500 --> 00:11:20,039 sins he commits. If a man can be likened to a prism, evil is a hole when it enters a man, 104 00:11:20,480 --> 00:11:27,899 as is a ray of light entering a prism. It is one whole indistinguishable ray, but as a prism breaks 105 00:11:27,899 --> 00:11:36,580 down the single beam into a separate colors, so man is the prism of seven deadly sins, breaks down evil 106 00:11:36,580 --> 00:11:42,899 as a whole into its ugly dark spectrum and separate components so that we might more easily identify 107 00:11:42,899 --> 00:11:49,419 it and fight it. One of my favorite examples in history is a tract called The Lantern of Light 108 00:11:49,419 --> 00:11:57,600 written by an early English reformer. These early English reformers were called Lollards. In the early 109 00:11:57,600 --> 00:12:03,000 15th century, that is, 1409 or 1410, it's speculated that this tract was written. But in any case, 110 00:12:03,000 --> 00:12:10,080 by its tone and spirit, this author was most likely a follower of John Wycliffe. The anonymous author 111 00:12:10,080 --> 00:12:15,860 felt that evil had become especially manifest in his own day, too, within the established Roman 112 00:12:15,860 --> 00:12:22,980 Catholic Church, which he identified with the spirit of Antichrist. What is of added interest for our 113 00:12:22,980 --> 00:12:31,980 purposes, though, is that church tradition assigns a particular fallen angel, then, from each of the 114 00:12:31,980 --> 00:12:38,279 seven angelic rebels who led a third of the angelic host in rebellion against God. That's chronicled in 115 00:12:38,279 --> 00:12:43,440 a rollicking good tale in the book of Enoch, too, by the way, if you can find access to it. And they were 116 00:12:43,440 --> 00:12:49,580 called Nephilim, from Genesis chapter 6. And to each of the seven deadly sins, they were assigned as chief 117 00:12:49,580 --> 00:12:57,399 tempter of that sin, ergo, for every deadly sin, a deadly demon, to lead it in luring the human race to 118 00:12:57,399 --> 00:13:05,779 its destruction. Now, these deadly sins, with their corresponding Nephilim, tempters are, and I quote, 119 00:13:05,940 --> 00:13:14,360 pride, and Lucifer as chief demon over it. Envy with Beelzebub as chief tempter of envy. Wrath, 120 00:13:14,700 --> 00:13:24,700 with a Nephilim called Sathanas, tempting humans to wrath. Or Abaddon, tempting humans to sloth. 121 00:13:24,700 --> 00:13:31,440 And then over greed, there is Mammon, of course, from the New Testament. And then Belphegor, who was 122 00:13:31,440 --> 00:13:38,340 chief demon tempter, over gluttony. And then finally, Osmodeus, who was the chief tempter for 123 00:13:38,340 --> 00:13:45,299 lust, the seven deadly sins and their tempters. Well, dear listener, let me be clear. This is all 124 00:13:45,299 --> 00:13:53,460 apocryphal stuff. It is not inspired scripture by any means. And I use this template merely to 125 00:13:53,460 --> 00:14:00,340 illustrate what is real. And that is the oscillation of good and evil in history. When evil reaches such 126 00:14:00,340 --> 00:14:07,399 a pitch of manifestation in the world that we can call it days of demonic delirium. Indeed, evil is 127 00:14:07,399 --> 00:14:13,659 practiced to such an extent at times like this, that we can use this grid of the seven deadly sins as a 128 00:14:13,659 --> 00:14:20,240 kind of metric to gauge its extent. And what I want to do over the next few weeks is take these one by 129 00:14:20,240 --> 00:14:26,340 one and illustrate the extent of the demonic delirium in our world today. So let me first take 130 00:14:26,340 --> 00:14:34,000 pride. Pride, indeed, as the first of the seven deadly sins. And we see it rife in our culture, 131 00:14:34,179 --> 00:14:41,500 in our day and time today. Now, the Oxford English Dictionary, once again, defines pride as a high 132 00:14:41,500 --> 00:14:48,840 or overbearing opinion of one's worth or importance, unquote, from the Oxford English Dictionary. It's a nice, 133 00:14:48,840 --> 00:14:54,860 clean, economical definition of pride, isn't it? And Lucifer is certainly the appropriate fallen angel 134 00:14:54,860 --> 00:15:02,340 to tempt us with this deadly sin. It is, after all, the first and original sin which caused Lucifer to 135 00:15:02,340 --> 00:15:09,279 be cast down from his exalted place as the angel of light. Here is how Isaiah puts it in Isaiah chapter 136 00:15:09,279 --> 00:15:17,039 14. He says, how you are fallen from heaven, O day star, son of dawn, from which we get our term, 137 00:15:17,039 --> 00:15:23,279 Lucifer as an angel of light. How you are fallen from heaven. You said in your heart, I will ascend to 138 00:15:23,279 --> 00:15:29,779 heaven above the stars of God. I will set my throne on high. I will sit on the mount of assembly in the 139 00:15:29,779 --> 00:15:33,340 far reaches of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will make myself 140 00:15:33,340 --> 00:15:42,259 like the most high. Indeed, pride was the first and original sin of the serpent, right? And Ezekiel 141 00:15:42,259 --> 00:15:49,080 says of Lucifer, your heart was proud because of your beauty. You corrupted your wisdom for the sake 142 00:15:49,080 --> 00:15:55,059 of your splendor. Yes, pride is the first and original sin. Behold the heart and soul of the 143 00:15:55,059 --> 00:16:00,759 demonic, dear listener. Do not think for a minute that Satan or any of his lesser minions care one wit 144 00:16:00,759 --> 00:16:11,120 about you when they tempt you. Indeed, Luke tells us that Lucifer, that Satan took our Lord and he took 145 00:16:11,120 --> 00:16:15,700 him up, as Luke says, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time and said 146 00:16:15,700 --> 00:16:21,460 to him, to you, I will give all this authority and all their glory for it has been delivered to me and 147 00:16:21,460 --> 00:16:27,539 I give it to whom I will. If you then will worship me, it will all be yours, unquote. It is no 148 00:16:27,539 --> 00:16:35,039 coincidence that power either is the chief drug this peddler of pride uses Satan to addict men to evil 149 00:16:35,039 --> 00:16:41,720 and manifest himself through them. And since we, as human beings, aspire to be like our Lord of the 150 00:16:41,720 --> 00:16:46,779 covenant, who is Lucifer, the serpent, being our covenant Lord since the fall in the Garden of Eden, 151 00:16:47,340 --> 00:16:53,820 pride becomes our overweening sin as well. Can you see it in yourself, pride, as well as those 152 00:16:53,820 --> 00:17:01,679 manifesting it all around us? Oh, indeed, pride is the ruling sin of our age. Saint Augustine puts it 153 00:17:01,679 --> 00:17:07,940 this way in his work, The City of God. He says, pride is the beginning of sin. And what is pride but 154 00:17:07,940 --> 00:17:15,859 the craving for undue exaltation? And this is undue exaltation when the soul abandons him to whom it 155 00:17:15,859 --> 00:17:24,619 ought to cleave as its end and becomes an end to itself, unquote. Yes, when the soul of the proud 156 00:17:24,619 --> 00:17:31,980 becomes an end to itself. Undue exaltation is the essence of pride. Pride is the beginning of sin. 157 00:17:32,779 --> 00:17:39,259 Others have since observed this too. Henry Fairley, in his book, The Seven Deadly Sins Today, 158 00:17:39,720 --> 00:17:45,759 he calls pride the keystone of the arch of sin. It runs through everything we do, everywhere in our 159 00:17:45,759 --> 00:17:53,460 natures is pride. Pride is the cause of disobedience to God's law, right? Satan said to Eve, God knows 160 00:17:53,460 --> 00:17:59,599 that in the day you eat of it, you will become as God's knowing good and evil. Pride also prompts 161 00:17:59,599 --> 00:18:05,319 boasting and hypocrisy. The Pharisees were hypocrites, or the magistrates and their lockdown orders, right? 162 00:18:06,700 --> 00:18:13,259 Ah, pride motivates scorn and presumption and arrogance. Pride trips the wires of impatience and 163 00:18:13,259 --> 00:18:20,779 abstinence. Pride sets off the flares of self-centeredness and vainglory. Your heart was proud because of your 164 00:18:20,779 --> 00:18:26,759 beauty, Ezekiel says of Lucifer. You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. And we will see 165 00:18:26,759 --> 00:18:36,500 pride then. We will see pride in all the other deadly sins as well. Men are delirious with pride, and few 166 00:18:36,500 --> 00:18:44,859 even in the public eye then bother to hide it anymore, do they? Men have sold their souls for power 167 00:18:44,859 --> 00:18:50,619 and riches and fame. And this they have done for centuries, but how empty and dark and open it has 168 00:18:50,619 --> 00:18:58,380 become in our day of demonic delirium. For example, all of modern entertainment has become the haunt of 169 00:18:58,380 --> 00:19:04,079 demonic pride, as Luciferian rites are a regular feature of everything from Super Bowl halftime shows to 170 00:19:04,079 --> 00:19:10,799 rock concerts. And recently I saw it in the simple inauguration of a transportation system in Europe. 171 00:19:11,640 --> 00:19:18,160 Scratch the surface of Hollywood and its stars, and you will find wormwood crawling with fallen stars. 172 00:19:18,660 --> 00:19:26,420 Souls from the pit stinking with sulfur are our entertainment stars. Arrogant, mindless entertainers 173 00:19:26,420 --> 00:19:31,140 presume to lecture us on everything from climate change to racial hatred to our Second Amendment rights. 174 00:19:31,140 --> 00:19:40,460 In it all, it is the undue exaltation of the self, self being the end in itself. And in exchange for 175 00:19:40,460 --> 00:19:45,960 their wealth and their power and the fame, they have traded their souls, empty husks now, fearing the 176 00:19:45,960 --> 00:19:52,240 grave and their eternal destinies. And then when carried to its logical conclusion, when one is 177 00:19:52,240 --> 00:20:00,599 completely surrendered to pride's power, a demonic delirium begins to set in, where in place of logic and 178 00:20:00,599 --> 00:20:06,779 reason one begins to see in these people, acutely disordered states of mind, as our definition for 179 00:20:06,779 --> 00:20:13,740 delirium puts it, right? Characterized by incoherent speech. Do not expect to hear a logical reasoned 180 00:20:13,740 --> 00:20:19,140 argument from the likes of Joy Behar or Robert De Niro or Keith Olbermann. What you will hear from 181 00:20:19,140 --> 00:20:24,559 them, however, is a disordered state of mind in frenzied excitement, exactly as our definition of 182 00:20:24,559 --> 00:20:29,880 delirium describes. And then also as a second example, most of government across the world has 183 00:20:29,880 --> 00:20:35,500 become the haunt of demonic pride, hasn't it? Indeed, government has always been the stronghold 184 00:20:35,500 --> 00:20:41,740 of Lucifer. What he dangled before our Lord as a bauble of pride was power. Remember, he told him 185 00:20:41,740 --> 00:20:45,440 the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time and said 186 00:20:45,440 --> 00:20:50,019 to him, to you, I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me and I 187 00:20:50,019 --> 00:20:57,380 give it to whom I will. If you then will worship me, it will all be yours. Now, our Lord, of course, 188 00:20:57,519 --> 00:21:07,660 resisted this temptation, did he not? He certainly did. But most men fall prey to this irresistible 189 00:21:07,660 --> 00:21:14,859 temptation. Eric Hoffer puts it this way, it is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often 190 00:21:14,859 --> 00:21:22,900 attracts the weak. Eric Hoffer, indeed a philosopher of the 20th century, had it right. 191 00:21:23,859 --> 00:21:29,519 They worship Lucifer and the power that he bestows as an illusion. Scratch the surface of 192 00:21:29,519 --> 00:21:35,779 Washington, D.C., the district of Columbia teeming with politicians, and you will find demonic D.C., 193 00:21:35,779 --> 00:21:42,559 the district of criminals crawling with goblins and ghouls, empty husks of humans bought and sold 194 00:21:42,559 --> 00:21:48,279 and compromised doing the will of their master, Lucifer, driven by subdemons like Xi Jinping in 195 00:21:48,279 --> 00:21:54,960 China or Nancy Pelosi in Andrew Cuomo. The revelation of Jeffrey Epstein and his Lolita Express were 196 00:21:54,960 --> 00:22:05,839 politicians and, as well, powerful then, powerful politicians, right, and businessmen were compromised 197 00:22:05,839 --> 00:22:10,880 at Mediterranean getaways with young girls and drugs. That's only a small segment of the devilish modes 198 00:22:10,880 --> 00:22:16,220 of behavior that formed the regular lifestyle of these empty-suit demons. And then when carried to 199 00:22:16,220 --> 00:22:21,940 its logical conclusion, when one is completely surrendered to pride's power, a demonic delirium 200 00:22:21,940 --> 00:22:26,180 begins to set in where, in place of logic and reason, one begins to see in these people are 201 00:22:26,180 --> 00:22:32,720 politicians acutely disordered states of mind characterized by incoherent speech. Don't expect 202 00:22:32,720 --> 00:22:38,539 to hear a logical, reasoned argument from the likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Kamala Harris or Joe Biden. 203 00:22:38,539 --> 00:22:44,900 What you will hear from them, however, is a disordered state of mind in frenzied excitement, 204 00:22:45,799 --> 00:22:51,059 exactly as our definition of delirium describes. Well, we can go on and talk about the mainstream 205 00:22:51,059 --> 00:22:56,720 media. The same thing obtains there. Pride has been cultivated in the United States of America 206 00:22:56,720 --> 00:23:03,480 to the point of demonic delirium now for generations. We have been taught to crave undue exaltation, 207 00:23:03,480 --> 00:23:08,980 as if it were a legitimate thing to us. Kids growing up would rather be famous than good. 208 00:23:09,559 --> 00:23:14,799 When they do seek virtue, they preen their egos with empty virtue signals like being anti-racists 209 00:23:14,799 --> 00:23:21,920 or giving to Black Lives Matter or wearing useless masks to save lives, ostensibly. People are nurtured 210 00:23:21,920 --> 00:23:29,299 to live their truth. Howsoever contradictory or incoherent it may be to reality, pride in one's 211 00:23:29,299 --> 00:23:34,240 gender. There are now over a hundred genders at last count, is an unquestioned fact of life, 212 00:23:34,299 --> 00:23:39,700 even though it qualifies as a hallucination of a disordered mind from our definition of delirium, 213 00:23:40,200 --> 00:23:47,259 if anything does, right? Pride drives us to see ourselves as the original self, the center of 214 00:23:47,259 --> 00:23:53,259 all things, despite our prime directive given by God in our creation. And that was when God created 215 00:23:53,259 --> 00:24:00,859 man, he made him in the likeness, did he not? In the likeness of God. Male and female, he created 216 00:24:00,859 --> 00:24:07,579 them and he blessed them. Our very imaging of our creator requires the other. We cannot be a true 217 00:24:07,579 --> 00:24:13,380 self until we look beyond ourselves to the other, most intimately and authentically in our spouse. 218 00:24:14,259 --> 00:24:19,460 And our prime directive, when acted upon, also drives us to humility, to suppress pride, 219 00:24:19,460 --> 00:24:25,380 if we are to fulfill that prime directive, which is from Genesis chapter one, be fruitful and multiply 220 00:24:25,380 --> 00:24:30,359 and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the 221 00:24:30,359 --> 00:24:36,500 heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Oh, dear listener, the proud man does not 222 00:24:36,500 --> 00:24:43,380 multiply in the biblical sense. The proud man may bear offspring, but only as baubles orbiting his fear 223 00:24:43,380 --> 00:24:49,180 as the center of the universe, as mere extensions of self, even as the devotees of Lucifer are nothing 224 00:24:49,180 --> 00:24:54,460 more than contemptuous creatures of hubris, objects to be destroyed and stripped from their creator 225 00:24:54,460 --> 00:25:00,900 for Lucifer's pride. Even subduing the earth, taking true dominion of it requires humility, 226 00:25:01,259 --> 00:25:07,819 not pride, if it is to be done according to God's will. True husbanding of the earth requires 227 00:25:07,819 --> 00:25:13,819 sacrifice and cooperation with one's fellow man. The proud man may crush and tyrannize the earth, 228 00:25:13,819 --> 00:25:20,619 but it's not the same thing as subduing it. The proud man indeed may rape and pillage creation 229 00:25:20,619 --> 00:25:25,519 in satisfying his pride, but it is not the same thing as taking dominion of it, which requires 230 00:25:25,519 --> 00:25:31,480 careful husbanding of resources, nurturing of one's fellow man and the animals entrusted to his 231 00:25:31,480 --> 00:25:37,740 domesticating care. Oh, let us be true men who sacrifice so that there is a next generation, 232 00:25:37,900 --> 00:25:42,460 dear listener, that's one of the solutions, so that there is indeed a creation that is fruitful 233 00:25:42,460 --> 00:25:47,839 and multiplies rather than being consumed in a frenzied excitement in one generation, 234 00:25:48,140 --> 00:25:53,660 his generation. And for the proud man, it's more to the point, it's about him. Dear listener, 235 00:25:53,759 --> 00:26:01,319 it's not about us. Indeed, the solution is to focus on Christ, for it is about Christ and not about us. 236 00:26:01,319 --> 00:26:09,700 It is about him. So let us begin to solve this problem of pride in our demonic delirium, 237 00:26:09,700 --> 00:26:15,099 in the days of demonic delirium by humbly submitting unto Christ and proclaiming him in this day. This 238 00:26:15,099 --> 00:26:20,720 has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. We meet for holy worship on 239 00:26:20,720 --> 00:26:27,859 Sunday at 10 a.m. And we indeed are not taken by demonic delirium, but we indeed see the world for what 240 00:26:27,859 --> 00:26:33,539 it is, and we have the solution in Jesus Christ, and we preach him every Sunday. Come and join us on 241 00:26:33,539 --> 00:26:39,119 Sundays at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. And you can call us for feedback, 242 00:26:39,319 --> 00:26:50,220 give us some feedback on this or more information perhaps at area code 208-523-0196. That's 208-523-0196.