The velvet glove removal

Because I never bothered to hook up a converter box when the analog era ended---and I hadn't really watched television in decades anyway---I didn't know who Rachel Maddow was. A few days ago, while looking into the Trijicon dustup, I made her acquaintance on YouTube where she ended her news report for MSNBC by addressing the weapons manufacturer personally, venom dripping from the corners of her mouth:

"You self-righteous, self-centered, endangering-the-troops idiots!"

If anyone out there still believes that the book of Revelation is meant for reading and understanding, and for examining current events watchfully, it comes as no shock to see the velvet glove of civil atheism removed to expose the iron fist of pure hatred toward God and His people. As we careen toward the end, the mild and latent will give way to the explicit and violent---at first the barely suppressed violence, and finally the unleashed dam:

". . . and those who dwell on earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents"

That verse above describes the orgiastic frenzy of delight following the mob killing, at long last, by the Beast and his minion, of the righteous witnesses for Christ.

If you have never seen Anthony Laughton's performance of The Screwtape Letters, you owe it to yourself to do so---but I would advise parental discretion. Each "letter" from the chief tempter to his underling Wormwood is set off by a brief dance number performed by the black-suited bureaucrat Screwtape and his sinuous secretary Toadpipe. The interludes start mildly enough but become increasingly hateful and ferocious, bullwhips and all.

A day is coming when all ambiguity will be removed and your next door neighbor who pulls into his driveway every evening and gives you the cold shoulder because of Christ will swell up into the full measure of what he is presently in potential. This is not guesswork but the Word of God. If Christ came to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law (Matthew 10:35), then what will it be like between you and the people on your block, and the well-coiffed television anchorwomen?

To hear commentaries by Andrée Seu, click here.