Dear —
We are surely entering another age of prophecy. For the conventional mechanisms of political change—elections, petitions, protest—have failed to bring humanity back from the brink of self-destruction.
And the Covid virus, which at the outset brought such promise of reform as it choked fossil-fuel production, swept clear the skies, housed the homeless, and emptied prisons, has not yet brought about enduring transformation.
Worse, some governments, such as the UK, have co-opted Covid as a pretext to exert more control through fearmongering.
Are they not like the Pharaoh of Moses' time who, when called upon to set free an enslaved people, reacted by imposing harsher measures on them instead?
And what was Moses' response? To up the ante with plague upon plague until the hard-hearted ruler finally had to relent! So what is Covid's next move?
I often recall the words of the late British parliamentarian Tony Benn from March 2006, when he spoke on Democracy Now: "I was brought up by my mother on the Bible, and she told me something that I've never forgotten. She said the stories in the Bible are stories about the conflict between the kings who have power and the prophets who preach righteousness, and she taught me to support the prophets and not the kings."
Like Moses, Elijah was an exemplar in this regard, telling King Ahab in 9th-century BC Israel that no rain would fall in the land but by his word, leading to years of drought. As Dave Mason tells it in The Lamp of Darkness (now free across retailers), Elijah had gone up in spirit to Heaven to obtain the Key of Rain, and the Holy One, over the objections of angels, granted it to him. Thus was he empowered to pronounce his curse upon a king who allowed his wife Jezebel to institute idol worship in the land of Israel.
And this royal couple learned the hard way that all their armies and weapons could do nothing against a prophet's curse, let alone a prophet who could call down fire from Heaven to destroy entire battalions of soldiers sent to apprehend him!
I finished reading Mason's book yesterday, couldn't put it down, and my review is here. Meanwhile, my own book, Elijah, reimagining the life and miracles of the great Old-Testament prophet, and written in the spirit of epic poets such as Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare, will return to its normal price of $7.99 tomorrow, from $2.99 today.
Before I go, two more things: 1/ You can see my one-minute Tribute to Christ Jesus here; and 2/ You can find my book Verses Versus Empire: II free on Amazon tomorrow and Tuesday (Sept. 21/22) only.
Until the next time I "unclasp a secret book..." (To quote Shakespeare, as I often do.)
Abdiel
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