Dear Friends,
It seems to me, during the temptation of Jesus Christ, Satan told him that the world could be his… if only Christ would bow before Satan. To which Jesus refused. This story illustrates that in the eyes of the Holy Bible, our world is in the hands of Satan. Because it would be absurd to bring someone to a hill on their own land, and tell them you will “give” them that land. The presumption must be that the world is the property of Satan… even if only temporarily. If that is the case, then power will always be abused. Because it must be abused. A world that’s under the dominion of the Devil will not be one where power helps, but only harms. In the fashion of the Great Deceiver, power will be sold as a good, but under his perverted influence, it will be turned to evil.
If indeed there is some malevolent force working within human hearts, call it Satan, the Id, or something else, that darkness will get into everything the person touches. Like a pathogen from dirty hands. Then that germ will infect the result for the worse. This doesn’t take a supernatural being locked in an eternal war with God. It only requires a flawed human heart. Moreover, I would argue, every human heart has an imperfection. It doesn’t have to be from a bad childhood, an evil nature, or the influence of the Devil… it only requires appetite. The hungry will kill for food, the aroused will make a fool of themselves, and the ambitious will tread on as many people as needed. This means the world can be run by Lucifer… if only symbolically. The result, however, is the same.
Any look at history proves the world is the domain of the Devil. Power is always used to harm. Though it’s sold as a means to save, benefit, and protect. Just as a world run by the Devil would be. In every city state in the ancient world… when the power of the State was low, their fortunes were high, and when the power of the State was high, their fortunes were low. The ancient city of Ur was a beacon of civilization, until it wasn’t. Moreover, I think that the Sea Peoples weren’t the primary cause of the Bronze age collapse, but a tangential one. I believe Old Nick wormed deeper and deeper into their government, and set them up for collapse. Had it not been the Sea Peoples, the collapse would have happened anyway. Because systems of power are designed to corrupt and destined to fail.
A world that is the domain of the Devil will naturally have strong incentives for people to seek power. Luxury, celebrity, and diversion are but a few. One of the strongest and most pernicious is the call to save mankind from itself. The bleeding-heart who wants to right all the wrongs, punish the evil, and lower heaven to Earth… is certain in their stupidity. The more noble the ideals at the start, the more heinous the results at the end. As with Pol Pot. I’m sure in his own mind he was the hero. Forcing the world to become the ideal. An ideal that justified any atrocity. Because what are a few atrocities today, when literal heaven on Earth awaits the future? But heaven on earth never materializes, only escalating atrocities, as utopia recedes into a foggy distance.
Meanwhile, those few times power has been restricted, the fortune of the people has exploded higher. Take the 1920s for example. Coolidge cut taxes, slashed spending, and regulated regulations. The outcome was the Roaring Twenties. A decade of growth so singular they named it. All of which shows that our world is the domain of the Devil. Whether that Devil is Satan, or our own Dark Sides working against us, the proof is in the pudding. As Lord Acton said, “Power tends to corrupt…” History shows us that power leads to suffering and never prosperity. Though the selling point is always prosperity. That means ideologies that call for centralized power are, by definition… “Satanic.” The answer then is to limit power, and thereby limit the power of Lucifer, or our own flawed heart, to harm us.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
