Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”
“Legion,” he replied, because many demons had gone into him. And they begged Jesus repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss.
A large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside. The demons begged Jesus to let them go into the pigs, and he gave them permission. When the demons came out of the man, they went into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

• Luke 8:31-33

The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss.

• Revelation 9:1-2

Now when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will attack them, and overpower and kill them.

• Revelation 11:7

The beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and yet will come up out of the Abyss and go to its destruction. The inhabitants of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the creation of the world will be astonished when they see the beast, because it once was, now is not, and yet will come.

• Revelation 17:8

“ ‘Man is a Rope – Tied between Beast and Superhuman – A Rope over an Abyss.’ – Friedrich Nietzsche”

• Bryan Magee, The Story of Philosophy

“Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.”

• C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Freidrich Nietzsche (1818-1883) was a German philosopher.  He was into life-affirmation and nihilism.  He felt we should overcome biblical morality.  He was in Turin when a cab driver whipped his horse. He ran to the horse and embraced it, saying that he understood the horse’s pain.  After that encounter, he drifted into a mental breakdown.  Some thought the cause was the horse incident, but he also was rumored to have syphilis, and he was addicted to opioids.  He studied under Schopenhauer, but as his mental faculties declined, he rejected Schopenhauer and God, claiming God was dead, but then he had a period where he thought he was Jesus Christ.  And with all this, he is one of the most studied philosophers.

I marvel at the inconsistency of nihilism. Why would anyone argue for a worldview where there is no meaning to anything?  If there is no meaning to anything, why argue the point?  Why impose your point over others?  In your demented mind, those people who think they have a purpose are dilutional.  So, why not allow them to stay that way?  And having the purpose of imposing a lack of purpose in others is a contradiction of your own basic belief.

But maybe that is part of his mental breakdown.  When we are made to worship and glorify God, fighting against that can put a lot of strange ideas in your head.

But the rope between the beast and the superhuman.  There is a sin nature within us, so we have a “beast” that tempts us.  It is in our nature.  We are not superhuman at any point, but accepting Christ and being a new creation, and in Heaven not having that sin nature, we have the capacity with Christ in us to be a better version of the human that we are.  But the rope is over the Abyss.

The demons avoided the Abyss when possible; see the Luke Scripture above.

The Abyss will be opened in the End Times.  It will be bad for a while, but in the End, Jesus will win the last battle.  And then there will be no more Abyss, no Hades, no sin, no death, no pain, no crying.

Let’s not worry about the Abyss.  That is unless you don’t know Jesus.  And if you do not know Jesus, you should embrace the Love that He has for you and accept Him into your life.

If you like these Tuesday morning essays about philosophy and other “heavy topics,” but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Tuesday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.