ClaytonB
Member
- Joined
- Oct 30, 2011
- Messages
- 10,245
Now that Epstein has apparently died, I have renewed interest in the case. As long as he was (officially) alive, there was no reason to believe his network had actually been shut down... that is to say, he (and/or his handlers) still had enough strings to pull to keep a known pedophile out of prison, so the dirt-machine was still operational. Now, however, it's clear that the network that he and Maxwell built (under the umbrella of unknown actors with the real kind of power that makes running criminal rings like this possible) has been completely shut down although it remains to be seen how many real consequences are going to come out of the whole affair. The spin doctors are spinning like tops and the entire Establishment's cover-up machine is running in high gear. Like any non-psychopathic human being, I hope they completely fail and all the bad actors are held accountable.
But even in the best case scenario, the guilty in this whole affair will be subjected to merely human justice. Human justice is as unlike divine justice as a guppy is different from a fully-grown Great White Shark. So, I thought it's worthwhile to take a look at the Epstein network through the lens of spiritual truth.
A recent Twitter post shows a large chunk of the known facts about the Epstein network. Most of these facts are merely suggestive. If this were a mob investigation, for example, most of the individuals on the poster would be scheduled for an interview with a detective, not as suspects, but in order to get a more detailed picture of the specific nature of the network... who was going where, when, how often, and so on.
Using probabilistic inference (not suitable for legal indictments but extremely useful in ascertaining the general picture of what was almost certainly going on in the Epstein network), we can surmise that the Epstein network was a large, cross-border network of child prostitution camouflaged behind ordinary prostitution and utilizing cover of shadowy actors with detailed knowledge of how, when and where to get away with breaking the law in such a way as to avoid attention or scrutiny from mundane law enforcement agencies. The purpose of the network was not merely to satiate its clients specific sexual appetites, it was also to build dossiers on wealthy and powerful individuals that could then be used to blackmail them or, even better, their families. Prince Andrew appears to have been a "big fish" who was caught early on and compelled to do the bidding of Epstein and Maxwell on pain of having the entire royal family reeled into the scandal. That Andrew is being thrown to the wolves is not the result of any crimes he committed at one of Epstein's parties but, rather, in his having mismanaged the whole situation so badly that it is now bruising the reputation of the royal family. The royals don't often turn on their own blood but he should definitely avoid driving through tunnels just to be safe.
Growing up in conservative Christian churches, I sat through many a sermon on this and other related passages (Ephesians 6, etc.) As a kid, you try your best to follow along but there are a lot of times that Paul or other biblical writers "wax poetic". It seems that they're making a relatively simple point: demons are invisible spirits and so you can't fight them with guns, you have to pray and rely on God to fight your battles. Paul, known for his rhetorical flourish, turns 15 words into 50. *sigh
However, I have been taught along the way and I've learned that a lot of the stuff that just seemed like rhetorical flourish when I was a kid isn't. What, really, is a "stronghold"? Is it really just some invisible thing that will always be beyond our comprehension so don't worry about it? Or is Paul talking very specifically and literally about something that, while spiritual, is as real as a kick in the pants? I think the answer is that the devil's strongholds are real, existing things, even though they are invisible and cannot be destroyed with human weapons (not even the intangible weapons of spycraft and psychological warfare).
What I realized while looking at the linked image showing a lot of what we know about the Epstein network is that the Epstein network is an example of a stronghold. To be clear, I do not mean that the devil's strongholds can be dismantled by courts and police because Epstein's network has been. Rather, I mean that the operation of Epstein's network functioned on the same principles as a stronghold of spiritual wickedness. In short, the "spider's web" of Epstein's network is a visible picture of the invisible reality of how the devil operates throughout the world, on many levels and in many ways. And no, pedo networks are not "the top of the food chain" of spiritual wickedness, even though they are supremely evil. The wickedness of the wicked is terrible to even contemplate. "They are skilled in doing evil with both hands" (Micah 7:3, paraphrase) In other words, they are ambidextrously evil.
Returning to the matter of strongholds, it is important to understand the nature of how the wicked go about doing what they do because, well, you have to understand your enemy in order to defeat him. "Be ... wise as serpents and harmless as doves" (Matthew 10:16) "We are not unaware of [Satan's] schemes." (2 Corinthians 2:11)
All the devil's strongholds are built on the same foundation. They may have a vast array of different architectures but, underneath, they all have the same foundation. Explaining why Jesus had to become human, Hebrews tells us:
The devil's strongholds are where the lost are being held hostage. Ultimately, this includes everyone who has ever been born in the fallen world, but it's hard for mere mortals to keep such a broad view in mind. So, we tend to look at specific cases -- demon possession, substance addiction, alcoholism, sex addiction, and so on. And this is why I think that the picture of the Epstein network is valuable for thinking about the true nature of spiritual warfare. The Epstein network was built on fear. Fear of rejection, fear of loss, fear of not succeeding, fear of imperfection, fear of not belonging, fear, fear, fear, as far as the eye can see. The root of all fear is the fear of death mentioned in Hebrews 2. Behind all other fears is the mother of all fears... the fear of being blotted out of memory and disappearing without a trace. Why exist when the fruit of our labor is doomed to futility anyway? Death, the devil argues, is why you need whatever it is that he's hustling.
But note that fear and sin go hand-in-hand. The recruitment of young girls into the Epstein network doesn't appear to have happened through out-and-out coercion or kidnapping. I'm not downplaying the really coercive nature of what Epstein and Maxwell were doing. I'm simply pointing out that it's a much subtler and more invisible form of coercion than the outright kidnapping and ankle-irons that is regularly used all around the world to force young girls into prostitution, many times at the point of a gun. The very real flaws and bad choices that these young girls were making or had made were exploited to manipulate them into doing what Epstein and Maxwell wanted them to do. Behind the whole charade of initiating them into underage prostitution was an implicit accusation. "You've pretty much f***d your own life up. Let's face it, you're a failure. You are unlovable. You will not succeed at life. With time, you can learn to love your life here and you will be well taken care of. We accept even flawed, broken people like you." This could be the opening paragraph of a sermon preached by the Antichrist himself.
The key is to realize that the devil's main modus operandi is deception. He presents a face of honest, hard self-assessment. "Take a good look at yourself in the mirror. I'm not lying to you like your teachers and parents did, telling you that you can grow up to be President if you want. That's all a fairy tale and you're old enough to know better now. They were just flattering you to keep you turning in your assignments on time. I'm not going to roast you but I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that you have no flaws. Be honest, do you think you are a winner? Do you think you're 'making it' in life?" This facade of brutal honesty is a cover-up for the real agenda: spiritual imprisonment and slavery through fear. Whether this fear or that fear, every fear the devil uses to control us is but a branch on the main trunk of fear... the fear of death.
Our specific flaws, sins and other failures are the "bricks" from which the devil builds the prison he keeps us in. We're not talking generalities, here. We're talking about the specific things you have done to hurt others in your life. It is from these sins that the devil extracts guilt, fear and shame and, ultimately, more sin to make more bricks. From this self-reinforcing cycle, he has an endless supply of bricks and he uses them to wall us in, brick-by-brick, until we're entombed and, quite literally, spiritually dead. Fearing the death that does not matter to those who are being saved (bodily death), we run headlong into the death that we ought to fear (spiritual death)!
As you can see, the devil's strongholds are inherently invisible and they are spread through every fiber of the social fabric. He has a stronghold in your job, in your school, in your bank account, in your property, in your family, in your church and, most importantly, in your own mind and heart. And that's where the real war is at. That's where the spiritual trench-warfare occurs, inch-by-bloody-inch. I hope that the Epstein network will spark broader awareness that eradicating political corruption is not just a matter of "draining the swamp," something that we can outsource onto a politician without having to look too close to home. In the same way, the believer must wake up and realize that the spiritual war is not something being fought "somewhere out there" by angels on our behalf. Wouldn't that be convenient? We wouldn't have to tolerate any disruption to the daily flow of entertainments that we are addicted to in order to distract ourselves from the Big Fear that is always gnawing at the back of our minds.
Political activists who really care about rooting out political corruption are going to have to start at the most local possible level... their own home. If you want to combat the kind of Machiavellian evil that is capable of constructing a soul-less meat-grinder like the Epstein network, there is no such thing as "outsourcing" the risks, dangers and hardship involved. You're going to have to get your own hands dirty. You're going to have to put your own money where your mouth is. You're going to have to put real stakes on the line. You're going to have to take the real risk of losing everything. These people are not playing, they are very diligent. They are ambidextrously evil.
In the same way, the believer who is serious about fighting the spiritual war is eventually going to have to realize that this war starts within. The evil of the Epstein network (and all other evils like it) are the handiwork of the literal children of the devil (John 8:44). The devil isn't playing. He's got his tentacles in every single heart and mind on this planet and he intends to use them to colonize every human soul in order to bring about universal, eternal spiritual death. That's his goal, anyway. He intends to fight each and every individual for every single inch of turf in their own mind and heart. And this reality is why the end of the world is going to involve unprecedented agony (Matthew 24:21). There's no quick, easy or risk-free solution. You don't get to wash your hands of the whole affair. You can't outsource this battle. You, yourself have to come to the front-line and fight. You have the power of God on your side, so you have no reason to be afraid. But you can't sluff off the danger and hard work of spiritual battle, either.
I want to emphasize that, as Paul says in Ephesians 6, spiritual warfare cannot be fought using human methods. The government's investigators will investigate the Epstein network. The prosecutors will prosecute. The judges will judge. The jailers will jail. Even if every last criminal that has been part of the Epstein network is caught and put away on the maximum punishment, Satan's work in this world will not be inconvenienced in the slightest. It's not even so much as a hiccup for him. That's the part that the worldly minded will never understand because it can only be understood spiritually.
The real war is being fought by God and God chooses to work through us. Yes, this means sharing the Gospel, prayer, fellowship, teaching, reading the word. But it is not just these things, it is living out our witness, being a light in the world that is seen by other people but not just by other people. What we do is seen also in heaven and that matters in ways that we cannot fully realize (1 Cor 6.3). In addition to the well-known fronts of the spiritual war, there are two areas that I think often get neglected: (a) the inner war (the war for your own heart and mind, mentioned above) and (b) the war against the Spirit. The war against the Spirit is invisible but we can see its effects as a result of the retardation of the influence of the Spirit since the outpouring at Pentecost. Here, we cross over into the darkest dimension of the spiritual war... Satan's war within the church. The gifts of the Spirit have been suppressed for 2,000 years. About the end of the Age, God promises:
In other words, the weapons of spiritual warfare we hear talked about most often -- evangelizing, prayer, fellowship, etc. -- are really the easiest to wield and have primarily to do with the least dangerous and difficult part of the spiritual war. The darkest war is yet to come, the hardest battle is yet to be fought. Armageddon is still future-tense.
But even in the best case scenario, the guilty in this whole affair will be subjected to merely human justice. Human justice is as unlike divine justice as a guppy is different from a fully-grown Great White Shark. So, I thought it's worthwhile to take a look at the Epstein network through the lens of spiritual truth.
A recent Twitter post shows a large chunk of the known facts about the Epstein network. Most of these facts are merely suggestive. If this were a mob investigation, for example, most of the individuals on the poster would be scheduled for an interview with a detective, not as suspects, but in order to get a more detailed picture of the specific nature of the network... who was going where, when, how often, and so on.
Using probabilistic inference (not suitable for legal indictments but extremely useful in ascertaining the general picture of what was almost certainly going on in the Epstein network), we can surmise that the Epstein network was a large, cross-border network of child prostitution camouflaged behind ordinary prostitution and utilizing cover of shadowy actors with detailed knowledge of how, when and where to get away with breaking the law in such a way as to avoid attention or scrutiny from mundane law enforcement agencies. The purpose of the network was not merely to satiate its clients specific sexual appetites, it was also to build dossiers on wealthy and powerful individuals that could then be used to blackmail them or, even better, their families. Prince Andrew appears to have been a "big fish" who was caught early on and compelled to do the bidding of Epstein and Maxwell on pain of having the entire royal family reeled into the scandal. That Andrew is being thrown to the wolves is not the result of any crimes he committed at one of Epstein's parties but, rather, in his having mismanaged the whole situation so badly that it is now bruising the reputation of the royal family. The royals don't often turn on their own blood but he should definitely avoid driving through tunnels just to be safe.
Growing up in conservative Christian churches, I sat through many a sermon on this and other related passages (Ephesians 6, etc.) As a kid, you try your best to follow along but there are a lot of times that Paul or other biblical writers "wax poetic". It seems that they're making a relatively simple point: demons are invisible spirits and so you can't fight them with guns, you have to pray and rely on God to fight your battles. Paul, known for his rhetorical flourish, turns 15 words into 50. *sigh
However, I have been taught along the way and I've learned that a lot of the stuff that just seemed like rhetorical flourish when I was a kid isn't. What, really, is a "stronghold"? Is it really just some invisible thing that will always be beyond our comprehension so don't worry about it? Or is Paul talking very specifically and literally about something that, while spiritual, is as real as a kick in the pants? I think the answer is that the devil's strongholds are real, existing things, even though they are invisible and cannot be destroyed with human weapons (not even the intangible weapons of spycraft and psychological warfare).
What I realized while looking at the linked image showing a lot of what we know about the Epstein network is that the Epstein network is an example of a stronghold. To be clear, I do not mean that the devil's strongholds can be dismantled by courts and police because Epstein's network has been. Rather, I mean that the operation of Epstein's network functioned on the same principles as a stronghold of spiritual wickedness. In short, the "spider's web" of Epstein's network is a visible picture of the invisible reality of how the devil operates throughout the world, on many levels and in many ways. And no, pedo networks are not "the top of the food chain" of spiritual wickedness, even though they are supremely evil. The wickedness of the wicked is terrible to even contemplate. "They are skilled in doing evil with both hands" (Micah 7:3, paraphrase) In other words, they are ambidextrously evil.
Returning to the matter of strongholds, it is important to understand the nature of how the wicked go about doing what they do because, well, you have to understand your enemy in order to defeat him. "Be ... wise as serpents and harmless as doves" (Matthew 10:16) "We are not unaware of [Satan's] schemes." (2 Corinthians 2:11)
All the devil's strongholds are built on the same foundation. They may have a vast array of different architectures but, underneath, they all have the same foundation. Explaining why Jesus had to become human, Hebrews tells us:
The devil's strongholds are where the lost are being held hostage. Ultimately, this includes everyone who has ever been born in the fallen world, but it's hard for mere mortals to keep such a broad view in mind. So, we tend to look at specific cases -- demon possession, substance addiction, alcoholism, sex addiction, and so on. And this is why I think that the picture of the Epstein network is valuable for thinking about the true nature of spiritual warfare. The Epstein network was built on fear. Fear of rejection, fear of loss, fear of not succeeding, fear of imperfection, fear of not belonging, fear, fear, fear, as far as the eye can see. The root of all fear is the fear of death mentioned in Hebrews 2. Behind all other fears is the mother of all fears... the fear of being blotted out of memory and disappearing without a trace. Why exist when the fruit of our labor is doomed to futility anyway? Death, the devil argues, is why you need whatever it is that he's hustling.
But note that fear and sin go hand-in-hand. The recruitment of young girls into the Epstein network doesn't appear to have happened through out-and-out coercion or kidnapping. I'm not downplaying the really coercive nature of what Epstein and Maxwell were doing. I'm simply pointing out that it's a much subtler and more invisible form of coercion than the outright kidnapping and ankle-irons that is regularly used all around the world to force young girls into prostitution, many times at the point of a gun. The very real flaws and bad choices that these young girls were making or had made were exploited to manipulate them into doing what Epstein and Maxwell wanted them to do. Behind the whole charade of initiating them into underage prostitution was an implicit accusation. "You've pretty much f***d your own life up. Let's face it, you're a failure. You are unlovable. You will not succeed at life. With time, you can learn to love your life here and you will be well taken care of. We accept even flawed, broken people like you." This could be the opening paragraph of a sermon preached by the Antichrist himself.
The key is to realize that the devil's main modus operandi is deception. He presents a face of honest, hard self-assessment. "Take a good look at yourself in the mirror. I'm not lying to you like your teachers and parents did, telling you that you can grow up to be President if you want. That's all a fairy tale and you're old enough to know better now. They were just flattering you to keep you turning in your assignments on time. I'm not going to roast you but I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that you have no flaws. Be honest, do you think you are a winner? Do you think you're 'making it' in life?" This facade of brutal honesty is a cover-up for the real agenda: spiritual imprisonment and slavery through fear. Whether this fear or that fear, every fear the devil uses to control us is but a branch on the main trunk of fear... the fear of death.
Our specific flaws, sins and other failures are the "bricks" from which the devil builds the prison he keeps us in. We're not talking generalities, here. We're talking about the specific things you have done to hurt others in your life. It is from these sins that the devil extracts guilt, fear and shame and, ultimately, more sin to make more bricks. From this self-reinforcing cycle, he has an endless supply of bricks and he uses them to wall us in, brick-by-brick, until we're entombed and, quite literally, spiritually dead. Fearing the death that does not matter to those who are being saved (bodily death), we run headlong into the death that we ought to fear (spiritual death)!
As you can see, the devil's strongholds are inherently invisible and they are spread through every fiber of the social fabric. He has a stronghold in your job, in your school, in your bank account, in your property, in your family, in your church and, most importantly, in your own mind and heart. And that's where the real war is at. That's where the spiritual trench-warfare occurs, inch-by-bloody-inch. I hope that the Epstein network will spark broader awareness that eradicating political corruption is not just a matter of "draining the swamp," something that we can outsource onto a politician without having to look too close to home. In the same way, the believer must wake up and realize that the spiritual war is not something being fought "somewhere out there" by angels on our behalf. Wouldn't that be convenient? We wouldn't have to tolerate any disruption to the daily flow of entertainments that we are addicted to in order to distract ourselves from the Big Fear that is always gnawing at the back of our minds.
Political activists who really care about rooting out political corruption are going to have to start at the most local possible level... their own home. If you want to combat the kind of Machiavellian evil that is capable of constructing a soul-less meat-grinder like the Epstein network, there is no such thing as "outsourcing" the risks, dangers and hardship involved. You're going to have to get your own hands dirty. You're going to have to put your own money where your mouth is. You're going to have to put real stakes on the line. You're going to have to take the real risk of losing everything. These people are not playing, they are very diligent. They are ambidextrously evil.
In the same way, the believer who is serious about fighting the spiritual war is eventually going to have to realize that this war starts within. The evil of the Epstein network (and all other evils like it) are the handiwork of the literal children of the devil (John 8:44). The devil isn't playing. He's got his tentacles in every single heart and mind on this planet and he intends to use them to colonize every human soul in order to bring about universal, eternal spiritual death. That's his goal, anyway. He intends to fight each and every individual for every single inch of turf in their own mind and heart. And this reality is why the end of the world is going to involve unprecedented agony (Matthew 24:21). There's no quick, easy or risk-free solution. You don't get to wash your hands of the whole affair. You can't outsource this battle. You, yourself have to come to the front-line and fight. You have the power of God on your side, so you have no reason to be afraid. But you can't sluff off the danger and hard work of spiritual battle, either.
I want to emphasize that, as Paul says in Ephesians 6, spiritual warfare cannot be fought using human methods. The government's investigators will investigate the Epstein network. The prosecutors will prosecute. The judges will judge. The jailers will jail. Even if every last criminal that has been part of the Epstein network is caught and put away on the maximum punishment, Satan's work in this world will not be inconvenienced in the slightest. It's not even so much as a hiccup for him. That's the part that the worldly minded will never understand because it can only be understood spiritually.
The real war is being fought by God and God chooses to work through us. Yes, this means sharing the Gospel, prayer, fellowship, teaching, reading the word. But it is not just these things, it is living out our witness, being a light in the world that is seen by other people but not just by other people. What we do is seen also in heaven and that matters in ways that we cannot fully realize (1 Cor 6.3). In addition to the well-known fronts of the spiritual war, there are two areas that I think often get neglected: (a) the inner war (the war for your own heart and mind, mentioned above) and (b) the war against the Spirit. The war against the Spirit is invisible but we can see its effects as a result of the retardation of the influence of the Spirit since the outpouring at Pentecost. Here, we cross over into the darkest dimension of the spiritual war... Satan's war within the church. The gifts of the Spirit have been suppressed for 2,000 years. About the end of the Age, God promises:
In other words, the weapons of spiritual warfare we hear talked about most often -- evangelizing, prayer, fellowship, etc. -- are really the easiest to wield and have primarily to do with the least dangerous and difficult part of the spiritual war. The darkest war is yet to come, the hardest battle is yet to be fought. Armageddon is still future-tense.
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