How to Deal with Fake Elijah

God has His Elijah.
The devil has one too. 

‘The second beast was like a lamb―it had two horns. But it spoke like a dragon!’ -Rev 13

AS WITH MANY OF the images in Revelations, commentators who are my intellectual superiors have a divergence of views on how this may have appeared in history. In early encounters, many Christians thought that Islam was the anti-Christ and Mohammed the fake prophet. Some have thought this beast to be a reference to the pagan priests in the Roman Empire. Some Protestant Reformers perceived fake Elijah to be in the Roman Catholic Papacy. Others thought him to be Karl Marx and his socialism. Some see him as a yet to come, future figure.

Now there may be some truth to all of these. For now, let us simply understand this faux prophet as a spirit that incorporates yet transcends all of these manifestations. If what is written here seems a bit more abstract than other readings, please read slowly and up your caffeine intake.

One of the features of this spirit―whenever it manifests―is fake moralism or justice. There is an appeal to moral principles to try and get its own agenda across. Fake Elijah is reminiscent of Jezebel in this regard. She cried out that Elijah should be killed because he executed Baal’s preachers. It was an effort to appeal to the ‘eye for an eye, life for a life’ principle. In regards to Naboth’s vineyard, she told the King that it was wrong for him to act the way he was acting and then had circumstances spun in order to make a righteous man look guilty. Those who persecute the church always disguise their hatred with some culturally acceptable, moral goal. They use an ethical mask in order to justify their malicious acts against the saints.

Evil as Moralism

It may surprise some of you to hear that evil can be moral―but pagans can be Pharisees too. In the last few years in the West, we’ve seen the rise of food Pharisees as people adhere to particular diets with righteous zeal and label other people’s food as ‘bad’. But veganism imparts no virtue and one can be paleo and still be a pervert. Souls that are soured with sin still want to feel saintly, so they go on compensatory crusades over the food we eat, where we buy our clothes, what political party we MUST vote for, and other issues that help one feel righteous. All this activity allows them to look down on other people and feel less bad about their own guilt. Men who yell at their children and look at porn feel better about themselves because they drive an energy efficient car and campaign for wealth distribution. Their sense of personal accountability is lessened when they can blame some other social, political, or culinary group that they are not a part of as the main source of evil in this world. Many of today’s social justice and moral crusades are driven by nothing less than a Satanic spirit.

And here a word about what is sometimes called ‘national’ or systemic’ repentance is in order. There are indeed times when such repentance should be done. There are a few instances of this in the Scriptures. When all the facts are clearly established―and not just someone claiming to be in the know because he saw a documentary online―then large-scale group repentance can be done.

But we live in an age where these things must be approached cautiously. Our generation has been trained to live guilt free, so we have the tendency to unload our guilty angst onto the nearest abstraction: the State, Big Business, Immigrants, Cis-White-Males, the Free Market, Labour, Tories, Republicans, Democrats, etc. The laws of the Universe cry out that sin must be punished. In order to satisfy this cry, we unload our psychological guilt onto ‘the system’. We then whip it so that we can feel justice has been served and still walk away with unrepentant hearts of stone.

There are times when systemic repentance can and should happen. But the vast majority of moral instruction in Scripture, especially in the New Testament, is not given to ‘the system’. It’s given to the individual.

Hijacked Conviction

Fake Elijah has the ability to hijack people’s moral compass in order to condemn that which is righteous and celebrate what is shameful. Whereas Elijah leads people in a movement of true righteousness and justice, fake Elijah leads a counterfeit justice movement not based on godly righteousness. This spirit manifests itself in the BDS movement against Israel or the Pro-Choice movement against unborn children. These movements promote wicked acts by hijacking moral language―often trying to disguise their work as one of liberation from oppression. They take a perceived victimhood and weaponise it. 

Just as Elijah called down the true fire of judgement, fake Elijah has its own fire. But this flame is man centred―it does not cause people to fall down in worship before a holy God.

Perhaps you have seen this happen to people around you in a subtle way. They begin their spiritual lives burning with a flame of contagious loyalty and affection for Jesus. But then they get swept up in a social or political cause. At first it all seems well-intentioned. After all, it aims to help people―something we should all want to do. But after a while your friend is no longer aglow for their Saviour. They are no longer humming hymns or praise songs. Instead they seem jaded and angry at those who are not joining their crusade. They have lots of zeal for changing this world―which in its proper perspective is not wrong. But they no longer have a vision for preparing people for the Eternity to come. Their method of changing the world does not centre on people bowing their knees to the true King. Their devotion to Christ has been distracted by this ancient serpent who appears like a lamb.

And its power is in its appearance. This beast is the ultimate spin master. It postures with appeals of a quasi-Christian morality. But make no mistake―this dragon is a monster who will devour its opponent. The dragon is an evil that appeals for tolerance until it is in power―then it rains down punishment on the righteous. What it is really after has little to do with what it says it is after. Regardless of what it says, this dragon is not interested in equality. It is after power. The compassion language of ‘siding with the oppressed’ is little more than a cloak to cover its maddening rage against God and all that is truly righteous.

It was not long ago that the West was inhaling a prodigality of postmodern fumes. Upon hearing a Christian witness, people often retorted with, ‘That may be true for you, but it’s not true for me’ or ‘Christianity may work for you, but I have my own truth. To each their own.’ But a society can only take this type of faux tolerance for so long before totalitarianism takes over. In urban Britain just try saying to two ‘married’ men, ‘Gay marriage may be true for you but it’s not for me.’ Or try refusing to use feminine pronouns for a man who thinks he is a girl. ‘Yes, use whatever language you like for yourself, but that gender ‘change’ is just not true for me.’ You will then find that the trendiness of personalised truth has somewhat lessened of late.

This is the beast out of the Earth. Fake Elijah is the bully who portrays itself as the perpetual victim―a master of emotive words. In the name of justice, the dragon-lamb establishes totalitarianism. 
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Extract from Elijah Men Eat Meat: Readings to slaughter your inner Ahab and pursue Revival and Reform (Get Here)