Undesirables

 Unless it’s one of those Indie flicks no one likes, but everyone pretends to understand and love because they think it makes them seem sophisticated, most movies, at least the good ones, the film regular folks like, are made up of a three-act structure.

Whether you call it the inciting incident, midpoint, and climax, or the setup, the confrontation, and the resolution, there are still three components that make the whole of a movie.

I’ve been noticing of late that even though we are barely into the first act of this global drama, some believers are insistent that this is the climax, and we must act accordingly.

“This is it, baby, fourth quarter, no downs, seventh-inning bases loaded,” I don’t know; I mix metaphors, and I’m not into sports, but let’s just say that there are many insisting that the jab and poke are what the book of Revelation was referring to as far as a particular mark was concerned.

If it sets anyone’s mind at ease, it’s not. Not saying the ouchie isn’t nefarious, not saying that it is, just saying that it’s not the Mark of the Beast. That said, looking at the entire situation dispassionately, it sure is a nice way of paving the way for it and removing those not readily given to blind obedience from positions of power and authority. Isn’t it?

Because it makes Beth Moore fans feel empowered, for the longest time, we’ve been teaching the church that the devil is nothing more than a naïve with a dunce cap and a drool cup sitting in the corner trying to trip people as they walk by. We ignore the Biblical description of him as a roaring lion because that would make it more challenging to sing, ‘we’ve got the enemy under our feet, wouldn’t it?

What’s the point? Am I trying to make you scared of the devil? No, I’m trying to make you understand that the devil is smart enough to engineer a test run before the actual unveiling of the mark of the beast.

You don’t just come charging out into the open, unveiling your diabolical plans. First, you probe the outer perimeter, identify the weaknesses, see how compliant the majority are, how far you can push them with fear until they realize the object of their fear is an illusion. Then, and most importantly, you identify those who aren’t so easily culled and remember them for later.

I promise you, if you have been deemed undesirable if you somehow made it known that you’re not up for going along with a global suicide pact, then your name is on a list somewhere.

If this was a test, we failed. By ‘we,’ I mean the royal ‘we,’ and include everyone from the church on down. While I can’t throw too much shade at the world because for the past two decades, they’ve been conditioned and programmed to be soft, spineless, their men to be dainty and effeminate, I can and do find fault with the church.

How easily we succumbed to fear and pressure and fell in line, some even doing the bidding of that oddly reptilian fellow with the gravelly voice and New York accent.

Gone are the days of being bitten by a viper and nonchalantly shaking it off into the fire as though nothing untoward occurred. Gone are the church services where pastors read the scriptures that in no uncertain terms insist that if you drink poison, it will not harm you.

We don’t have the faith for that kind of stuff anymore, but we sure do have enough faith for prosperity. Ah, the wonders of the modern-day Christian Church.

More to be said on this topic. Maybe I’ll make it a series.   

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.