From Mark 13:24-26 / Seeing The Son of Man Coming With Great Power and Glory – As with this entire passage, working through such prophecies takes a lot of careful consideration. And contrary to some popular concepts of this scene, let me offer an alternative. If the “stars” and “powers” in verse 26, form the antecedent to “they” in vs. 26 – then this portion is a reference to the angelic hosts observing the ascension of Jesus to His judgment throne. “Powers” is being used the way it is later in Rom. 8:38, Eph. 1:21; 3:10 & 6:12. And as they observe (especially His angelic adversaries) His Kingdom beginning to make its advance upon the earth, they know their time is short. And the age of grace, with the righteous angelic hosts busy at work, will have dawned. So Jesus’ ascension is a cosmic event. All the angels, principalities and powers will witness how the elect are being drawn to their King from this point on, in spite of all the opposition Satan and his minions can muster. For “He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet.” (I Cor. 15:25) And so it shall be. Christ will rule over all. Oh happy day! Keep looking up Christian. Hell cannot stop Him.
From Mark 13:14-23 / Abomination of Desolation / There are perhaps no more debated words from Jesus than these. Oceans of ink have been spilled in trying to define with absolute certainty just what the “abomination of desolation” is, and its importance. It certainly has reference to the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, and perhaps also to a future event nearer Christ’s return. But in either case, the warning is powerful. When God sends judgment, it is devastating. And there is nothing in this world to be clung to in that hour. Nothing material, religious, seemingly supernatural, nothing. So He warns His hearers then, and us now, to flee the destruction to come; to flee to Him. Politics cannot save. Financial stores cannot save. Family cannot save. No society or culture can save. God is going to judge this world in righteousness, and there is deliverance only in the Son of God, who shed His blood so that all who believe in Him, might have forgiveness of sins, reconciliation to the Father, and eternal life. So we too must be on our guard. He has told us all of this beforehand. What a gracious Savior.
From Mark 13:9-13 / The Proof Is In The Pudding – As Jesus continues His discourse on both Jerusalem’s destruction and the intervening years before His return – He does not paint a picture of Christians living “their best life now” by worldly standards. Just the opposite. 1st, He gives the Disciples some assurance: Yes, there will be great upheaval – but the end? Be aware of a global plan of getting the Gospel to permeate the earth first. Do not be drawn into schemes which look for doomsday too soon. 2nd, because the Spirit will give them things to say when persecuted, does not mean they will be given epic, earth shattering things to say at that moment. They may even be given things to say that are very small and of no seeming import to those who are persecuting them – as testimonies before God of His judgment upon the persecutors. They (and we) are responsible to speak the truth. We are not responsible for how it is received. 3rd, Many profess many things. But those who are true – endure. Those who are not, fail along the way. Do not be fooled, those who do not endure, were never His. The proof of genuine conversion, is endurance, persisting in trusting and living for Jesus – to the end.
From Mark 13:-18 / Birth Pains – It is important to read these words of Jesus carefully. In His opening to unfolding when Jerusalem will fall (which came about in 70 AD) He also gives them 2 warnings. Two things which will characterize the entire time between His ascension and His return. 1. False Christ’s and self-proclaimed Messiahs will pop up all over the place. There will be many of them, and they will lead many astray. The Jim Joneses, David Koreshes, Sun Myung Moons and countless others are to be expected. Ignore them. 2. Wars, rumors of wars, geo-political upheavals, earthquakes and famines will be prevalent too. But these, are just the “beginnings of the birth pains.” They are not the “signs of the times” that so many assure us prove Jesus must return in our lifetime. He may. But since these things will be part and parcel of the whole intervening time – His counsel is to be aware that this is the way it will be all along. He will summarize how we are to live in this knowledge in vs. 37 “And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake.” That’s all. Don’t run, hide, panic or grow overly anxious. Stay awake. Follow Him. When He comes – you won’t be able to miss it.
From Mark 12:41-44 / Giving – God is not looking for people with a great capacity to serve, but with great willingness. We so often confuse the two and imagine if we cannot do a lot – then what we CAN do, is not acceptable. But it is not so. He only asks we be willing to do what it is in our hands to do. In the parable of the talents (a talent being a sum of money), He says that The Master gave something “to each according to his ability.” God will not demand of you what He has entrusted to someone else, nor vice versa. And such abilities often change with age, resources and circumstances. He knows your gifts and abilities, and your inabilities. And He only seeks your willingness to be used according to what you CAN do, not according to what you can’t. But let us take note of the dear woman here – when it came to God’s service, she gave proportionally more than those who gave out of their surplus. Know well – HE knows well what or service costs us. He is never blind to our “two small copper coins.” Note too, that while Jesus’ criticisms are most often in terms of groups or categories – His commendations are most often individual.
From Mark 12:38-40 / Beware! / Three things stand out in this short passage.
a. When Jesus says to beware of “the scribes”, He is not speaking of individual personalities, but of a school of thought and action. The chief issue being hypocrisy. Teaching one thing, but doing something else. In this case, preaching and teaching Biblical morality, while having hearts steeped in sinful motives. b. His criticism is not for the mere cause of criticizing – this is a warning of love to those who might end up influenced by this thought system. c. It is a loving rebuke to those already in this thought system. He is seeking their deliverance in the process – not merely lodging a complaint. Though as God and Judge – He can in fact lodge such complaints in ways we cannot. But note this – those who have the Scriptures and imagine themselves to know the truth are held to a higher standard than those who don’t have such benefits. We are responsible for the grace we have received. See: Isa. 5.
From Mark 12:35-37 – Think About It / In this portion, Jesus is specifically asking the religious to think carefully about the question of the incarnation. But He does not do so in the abstract. He does so, by asking them how they understand the Scriptures. He‘s not asking for mere feelings, impressions or opinions, but after careful examination, how do they understand a passage like Ps. 110:1. Remember, the Pharisees also held that the Messiah would descend from David’s bloodline. But one can hold some deep truths, and yet still be lost apart from knowing the whole truth. We can read our Bibles, even study them deeply, and never actually wrestle with truths of ultimate importance. Gathering data, but not hearing what is being said by The Spirit. Like these, we too could hold the truth of Jesus’ Davidic descent and yet be ignorant of His deity. And this omission is absolutely paramount. To hold Him as only a good, righteous teacher, is still to remain in darkness. And Jesus is forcing this issue in this place. For apart from this crucial point, one is still without salvation. He is revisiting with these, the very same thing He questioned His disciples on in 8:29. And if we do not know that He is the Christ, God’s sent anointed one to rule and reign – we do not yet know Him.
Nefarious is a supernatural horror/thriller, based on the 2016 book “A Nefarious Plot” – by Steve Deace.
The movie, written by Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon, portends to be the back story of how Deace’s book came to be. That book is an attempt to emulate the genre of C. S. Lewis’ Screwtape letters. It loosely does. But with nowhere near the literary or theological sophistication of Lewis. The book however does come with endorsement blurbs by Mark Levin, Ray Comfort, Kirk Cameron, Ben Shapiro and others. Though I am not quite sure why.
Steve Deace is himself an interesting figure. The brief bio provided in the book says that “Steve Deace is a nationally-syndicated radio host heard each weekday in top markets from coast-to-coast. The national media recognize Deace as an influential voice in his home state of Iowa’s first in the nation presidential caucuses. He’s frequently quoted in the national media on political and cultural issue. Deace has also appeared on all the major cable news networks and writes for the Washington Times, USA Today, and Conservative Review. Deace lives in Iowa with his wife, Amy, and their three children, Anastasia, Zoe, and Noah.”
His chief outlet appears to be “The Steve Deace Show” hosted on Blaze Media. Deace enjoys a robust calendar of speaking engagements on various culturally and politically conservative venues, and presents himself as a Christian – though of what particular stripe I’ve not been able to tell so far.
With that sparse background, let’s get into the movie itself.
The basic plot line as given on IMBD is: “On the day of his scheduled execution, a convicted serial killer gets a psychiatric evaluation during which he claims he is a demon, and further claims that before their time is over, the psychiatrist will commit three murders of his own.” The bulk of the film being a wide ranging dialog between Psychiatrist Dr. James Martin (played by Jordan Belfi) who is called in on the heels of his mentor’s suicide to conduct said evaluation, and convicted multiple murderer Edward Wayne Brady (excellently portrayed by Sean Patrick Flanery). The plot twist is that Brady is supposedly possessed by a demon named Nefarious. And most of the dialogues are between Martin and the Demon, with a few scant and tortured appearances by Brady.
And I really must remark that I found Flanery’s complex portrayal the best part of the movie. I hope to see more of him as an actor in days to come. But I will have to add to that remark, that this really is the only thing in the film I found worth applauding. The rest, sadly, is a troubling litany of mixed messages, with some pretty skewed theological underpinnings.
We aren’t too far into the protracted interview before Nefarious announces to Martin that before they are done with each other, Martin himself will commit 3 murders. And this is where the mixed messages begin.
Nefarious claims that murder one was the death of Martin’s mother by assisted suicide – to which Martin had consented given her terminal cancer. Just how he personally ought to be charged with murder in this case is not explained. I guess simply because he consented to it. But to make him an actual murderer in this case is to reduce the complexities of such things a tad too much without more explication. I am no proponent of euthanasia or physician assisted suicide. It is morally reprehensible. And in the history of the Church it is considered self-murder. But I find the flat accusation over the top. Reductionism writ large. In this case, the mother committing suicide seems to not even be under consideration – only Dr. Martin’s consent. This needs to be explored, but is beyond the scope of a review such as this.
Murder two, is the abortion which the Dr.’s girl-friend undergoes at a critical point in the movie. Something the Dr does try to stop at the 11th hour, but fails by acting too late. Is abortion murder? You bet. Was the Dr., to be considered a murderer at this point? Again, this requires a much deeper discussion. But the movie’s reductionism leaves no room for that.
Murder three is the murkiest of the lot. In this case, it is because the Dr signs off on Brady’s execution. He declares Brady mentally competent. Never mind that Brady did in fact commit 11 murders. So is this a referendum on capital punishment? It sure comes off that way. Is lawful execution – the “the sword” of Romans 13 really murder? That is never dealt with. It is just let to stand as murder. The writers are confused.
As stated already, the messages are mixed at best. And when all is said and done, the murderer is basically portrayed as an innocent puppet. He is just made to do bad things against his will. The old “the Devil made me do it” defense of Flip Wilson. And it is here that the all-too common myth of the nature of free will as somehow something so sacrosanct that God cannot even violate it is perpetuated.
Nefarious contends (which appears to be an assumed truth for us all) that even God is powerless to violate human will. The argument is that unless free will includes the ability to choose one of two or more options, it’s not really free. And therefore, we cannot truly love God unless we also have the power to refuse Him. This fallacy gets repeated over and over in Christian circles to the extent that it is almost a universal given. But as theologians in all generations have reminded us – there are three inherent fallacies in the view.
First, there is nothing in all of Scripture that teaches that God cannot violate the will of the human being. Says who? It is simply absent from the Bible. It is a human invention of hubris. There is nothing at all which somehow prevents God from doing as He pleases with His creatures. We might imagine that God either cannot nor will not ever ever violate human will – but there is no reason why this must be so.
Second, if free will requires the ability to choose something other in order for love to be free and authentic, it fails to account for the love between the members of the Godhead, or of our love in the perfected state in Heaven. God is certainly the freest or all beings. But must the Father have the power NOT to love The Son in order for His love toward the Son to be real? Or the Son toward the Father. Or either in regard to the Spirit? Or in Heaven after the resurrection – will we need to retain the ability NOT to love God in order for our love toward Him to be free and authentic? Such thoughts are patently false on their face. All that is needed for free will is that one can will as they please. God always loves holiness – and it is all He desires. He does not need to be free to sin in order to love holiness. Nor do we need to be able to hate God in order to love Him freely. But the authors appear to have no concept here beyond the pop version of love perpetuated by so many. Praise God that in the eternal state, we will no longer have the ability to choose evil. And will we be in a better state then than now? Indeed.
Third, the view implies that mankind stands somehow in a neutral third position between loving and hating God, and therefore have the option to choose one or the other from this imagined middle place. All of which is deny that we are born in sin and are already the enemies of God. This underlying concept informs the rest of the author’s presuppositions whether they know it or not.
This is played out in how events unfold with the Dr., at Brady’s execution. At that point, the Dr., is temporarily possed himself, but is somehow given the option to either succumb to the demon’s influence or not. Thus the movie implies all humanity is in that same place. We are not already God’s enemies by birth as Scripture declares – but merely need to make our choices for good or evil. We do not need the supernatural work of God to change our wills that we might love Him. The human race can derail the grand plans of the demonic world if we just all choose the right. Which (and I cannot go into detail here) in the original book is posited as saving Americanism by simply choosing the moral good in the face of a coming demonic invasion. This so informs the presuppositions of the movie, that in the book for instance – Nefarious can say: “Obviously this self-governing precedent is one we couldn’t allow to stand, for if you remove top-down power structures you essentially remove every successful scheme we’ve ever had.” The skewed presupposition is that self-government actually has the power to successfully thwart all demonic plans. This a a horribly twisted theological position. And why I’ve taken the time to unpack so much of it here. Scripture declares: “2 Corinthians 10:3–6 (ESV): “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy 1arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.” Whereas Deace, Konzelman and Solomon would tell us that there is a political weapon which alone can defeat demonic and spiritual attacks.
I need to rein myself in here with a few closing comments.
1 – Nefarious is not a Christian movie per se. It is a supernatural thriller with some Biblical themes. Do NOT take your theology from it. It is a revisitation of the imaginary themes of Frank Peretti’s This Present Darkness. It’s demonology is not Biblical, but fanciful.
2 – Nefarious is theistic in that it deals with some Biblical/Moral/Supernatural themes – but it certainly never expounds or conveys the Gospel. Indeed, it only uses the word “Gospel” when the “demon” says he wants James to see that the demon’s “dark gospel” is published. Jesus is never even referred to as anything other than “The Carpenter.”
3 – The message that there are dark demonic beings bent on destroying mankind because we were made in God’s image is true enough. But the way it is cast, it seems as though mankind is basically in a neutral position to be on one side or the other in this cosmic battle between good and evil and we can choose on our own which side that will be. It has no grasp that we are all born as God’s enemies already and need to be transferred out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of His Son.
4 – The introduction of Glenn Beck at the end as the ostensible Christian influence is so skewed in that last I knew, Beck is still a professing Mormon. One who rejects the Biblical Jesus, has no concept of Biblical salvation and too thinks that moralism and politicism can “save America.” In the book the downfall of America is really the main thing the demons are after – not combating the Kingdom of Christ. It is massive misdirection.
5 – The superstitious idea the demon resurfaces in another person has no Biblical backing. This occurs at the end of the movie and promotes superstitious views of spiritual warfare rather than Biblically informed ones.
Conclusion. I cannot recommend the movie. And especially cannot recommend it as a “Christian” movie. It isn’t.
rom Mark 12:28-34 / To Know Him, is to Love Him – The first commandment is to hear and know God as He is. And once we are confronted with Him in this untold glory – we can do nothing but love Him, and let that spill over to others. We would imagine the commandment of highest priority is to worship Him. But we cannot worship aright what we do not know aright. So here is the question – do we hear the Word of God concerning its revelation God? Do we comprehend the revelations of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in all of their redemptive wonder? And does it reduce us? Does it dwarf us and bring us to true humility? Not by making less of us, but making much of God, as is proper. Oh that we might truly know Him. For that can only lead to our truly loving Him. As is sung of The King in Song of Songs 5 – He is “altogether lovely” (KJV) If He is not – you do not know Him yet. And I pray you will – soon.
From Mark 12:18-27 / A “Tense” Situation – As for the question put to Jesus in this way, J. C. Ryle rightly notes: “let us remember that an infidel will always try to press us with the difficulties and abstruse things of religion, and especially with those which are connected with the world to come.”1 People often try to skirt the great questions about their souls and their standing before God, by bringing up arcane and foolish issues, rather than taking the plain teaching of Scripture at face value. As with Jesus’ example, there is no need to go very far with such things. But note secondly how Jesus relies on the Scripture to the degree, that even the very tense used in Exodus 3 regarding Abraham – that God says “I am the God of Abraham”, not “I was” can be appealed to as authoritative. How do we know we can trust our Bibles? Because Jesus did. But that means we’ll really have to study it very carefully, not casually or haphazardly. If they could misconstrue a passage so easily – so can we. But the Word itself, is always reliable.
ResponsiveReiding 