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You really can't go wrong with the trio of Bunyan, Spurgeon, and Pink. Of Calvinist theologians they offer the most on-the-mark school. No fear school. And with Pink of course he saw the full truth half way through his writing career, i.e. was Dispensationalist early then came to understand covenant theology [Edit. Actually see this, it was only four books he wrote from a Dispensationalist perspective].

The subject of Anti-Christ is confusing. Is it one person? Many? A spirit of iniquity? All the above? Bunyan in this book very clearly defines it all:

http://www.monergism.com/antichrist-and-his-ruin-ebook

He also uncommonly expresses what I learned from Kline and have been writing recently on my Plain Path Puritan blog: that Anti-Christ seeks to take over the entire world. We're seeing it now, aren't we? Only a finite amount of real estate on the planet. Ronald Reagan once said, if we let evil capture America there will be no where left to go. Same idea. Same reality.

Once Anti-Christ asserts dominion over the entire planet, just like before the flood, then the end is triggered. I.e. the Devil doesn't get to experience victory. He is allowed to trigger his own demise but not to experience victory. - C.

Asserting dominion over the entire planet

There's a school of theology that says God made a deal with the Devil saying I will give you common grace. The sun will shine on you just as it shines on my people. The seasons will turn, food will grow for you. But...if you assert dominion over the entire planet that is when I'll bring my fist down upon you.

The Devil's religion today is cultural Marxism and Islam. Cultural Marxism softens up the target, and Islam is the active force. Today all Islam has to do is walk over a border and flip off cameras and take down stop signs, and...victory. That's how much cultural Marxism has softened up the target.

Prior, Islam and Marxism never had more than a third of the planet. Today it is in parts of the world it was never able to penetrate before.

To all you unbelievers: there is only a finite amount of real estate on this planet. Once you allow the Devil to have it all you will be living in a very different universe; and no longer will you be able to seek protection from Christians and Christian culture and civilization. You'll then be encased in the chains and darkness of the Devil's kingdom, the scenery of which only changes when it is tossed into the Lake of Fire.

How much worse?

The Devil's children are known by their ingratitude, arrogance, and treachery. They are currently flooding the world with their evil. Asserting dominion over the entire planet; lands God did not give them they are asserting ownership of. When Satan and his army and spiritual children assert dominion over the entire planet this is when God brings his fist down and the consummation of the plan of redemption commences. Just how worse it can get before triggering Divine action is the question. Probably best to assume a lot worse.

Right now Satan's religion is cultural Marxism and Islam. Cultural Marxism is providing the lunatic passivity in the face of the active force of Islam on the march. Any push back has been mostly an impotent chorus of words mixed with a "what the hell is going on here" resignation or dispiritedness. Not giving in, yet passive against a seeming omnipotent and omnipresent force of lunacy and evil.

Neh 10:28 And the rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the porters, the singers, the Nethinims, and all they that had separated themselves from the people of the lands unto the law of God, their wives, their sons, and their daughters, every one having knowledge, and having understanding;

Everyone having knowledge, and having understanding; you know who you are. Remember who you are in all this dispiriting flood of evil. A pious approach is not called for at the end. One must be bold to separate oneself and claim the righteousness of Christ in the face of evil. At the end if you don't recognize and hate evil you are showing sympathy to God's enemies. This next point will be a hard thing to see, but here it is: Satan and his followers counterfeit aspects of the plan of God. When they preach absolute hatred of you and no mercy for you (as Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot taught their followers, and Islam's holy book teaches) they are counterfeiting how Christians are to view God's enemies at the consummation. Loving your enemy is a common grace era ethic. Figuratively dashing their very children against a wall is consummation ethics (God takes care of it, vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord). No sympathy for the Devil at the consummation.

Much of Michael S. Heiser revealed in a footnote in Unseen Realm

Utopianism is a familiar theme in classic literary works of Western civilization. Plato’s Republic, Augustine’s City of God, and Thomas More’s Utopia are the more obvious examples . In the Christian context, utopian communities that sought to separate from the world or reform the culture according to Christian ideals include Calvin’s Geneva, the Shaker movement, and the Ephrata Cloister . The Transcendental movement and sociopolitical ideologies like Marxism are also well-known secular examples. All attempts at creating a perfect harmonious society are doomed because people are imperfect, and total conformity is contrary to human nature. [footnote 4 of chp. 11 in Unseen Realm]

Heiser, in all his writing, keeps his doctrinal beliefs close to his vest (or at least makes them not easy to find), but this note shows a lot. City of God utopian? Calvin's Geneva utopian? On par in some way with Marxism? That all is a combination of ignorance and angry bias.

Elsewhere he's shown sympathy with Open Theism (in Unseen Realm as well). I guess he's Arminian. He just doesn't come straight out with these things. What makes this all relevant is he makes noise here and there of being Reformed to some degree.

Mixed in with his take on the Divine Council is a typical liberal theologian's (or biblical scholar's) presuppositions regarding Scripture, ancient near east literature and its supposed influence on the Bible, but also an irreverent quality or tone when discussing the Triune God. For instance kind of making God one of the guys in the Divine Council. I suspect this is due to a lack of awareness of the reality of sin and the seriousness of God's wrath.

Though I would still recommend a reading of Unseen Realm due to it at least broaching subject matter Heiser admits biblical scholars avoid for the most part.

The Holy Spirit is the one you don't want to mess with

Jesus said mess with me, kick me, spit on me, mock me, kill me; but don't mess with the one who is coming after me. After Him you have nothing.

People, if they think about it at all, think of the Holy Spirit (the third Person of the Godhead, or Trinity) as being innocuous, and not threatening. Yet it's the Holy Spirit among the Persons of the Trinity that you don't want to mess with.

The Holy Spirit is quick-triggered if you deny His work, for instance. Never tell somebody they're not a Christian, for instance, because you can't know what is going on between them and God. You can confront and engage someone on doctrine or behavior, just don't make pronouncements about whether they are Christian if they self-identify as such.

In many ways the Holy Spirit is the most detached of the three Persons of the Godhead in his role in the economy of redemption. He is applying what the Son has accomplished to those the Father has chosen. Thus He seems to perhaps have less patience for human arrogance and intransigence.

He is, though, willingly grieved by man when He takes up residence in man, but the impatience with man can have effect in areas of sanctification.

Seeing life more fully

Here's a way to see life more clearly.

Think of the charms of girls and young women. Physical charms and all other charms. The power of yes included in those charms. The ability to have fun with other females as well as males included. I am positing attractive charm here.

Now see how it is real yet lightweight and shallow when it comes up against the weightier things of life and this world. Again: real, as in something; pleasant; life is worse without it; yet lightweight and shallow nevertheless.

Now see what it is that charm collapses in the presence of. Matters of life and death, war and peace, health and sickness, freedom and tyranny, hunger and prosperity, salvation and eternal damnation.

Now when your thoughts and orientation in life are focused more on the latter you are by default more awake and more serious, and more inclined to desire understanding of yourself and the world around you and ultimately understanding of your eternal future.

Elites: not the trace of a clue

The Trump candidacy has exposed the 'elite' virus that infects so many in our society. It's not just establishment politicians, Hollywood actors, journalists and pundits though. We also see these self-bemantled elites in Christian environments. The shallow and/or juvenile intellectuals who emerge from seminaries and proceed to engage in guild-like behavior rivaling the Romanist Magisterium of any era. And notice in the case of the GOP establishment elites and the Reformed seminary elites the cause they claim to be working for can actually be going backward, and they don't have the beginning of a clue.

Erasmus quote James White and other Jesuitical Critical Text stooges don't want you to see

O, sit anima mea cum Puritanis Anglicanis! - Erasmus

"O, let me die with the Puritans of England!"