Psalm 9:30

the vomit of lies and deception and goodies

His eyes are upon the poor man: He lieth in wait in secret like a lion in his den. He lieth in ambush that he may catch the poor man: to catch the poor, whilst he draweth him to him. (Psalm 9:30 DR)

The devil is said by St. Peter to prowl around as a lion seeking whom he may devour (cf. 1 Peter 5:8), and this image is transferred by the Psalmist prophetically to the Antichrist, who will be the man of sin (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:3). But here this image is one of perhaps greater danger and subtlety, for this lion waits in ambush to strike, which entails that its prey wander too near its den rather than it going out to hunt.

It is perhaps good to not push this analogy to far, but many of the Church Fathers saw the final persecution by the Antichrist as combining the violence of the initial persecutions by the Roman emperors with the craftiness of the serpent’s deception. St. Didymus the Blind hints at the seeming nuance that the devil uses in temptation (and thus by extension the Antichrist in his deceiving the world), for he often tempts us into sin by means of what appears to be a virtue:

Wild beasts are threatening, and especially so the lion. Often, therefore, lying in wait, while he discusses fasting, he openly persuades them to greed; and addressing modesty, he introduces them to a certain appearance of luxury. Thus, he pushed Eve deceptively in the garden to commit transgression, saying she was going to be equal to God. (St. Didymus the Blind, Fragments on the Psalms, 10.8., ACCS VII.)

It is not simply the violence of persecution which will cause even the elect—if it were possible—to apostatize, but the inversion of evil for good and good for evil that gives vice the appearance of virtue. Thus for Eve her disobedience became couched in terms of self-actualization, and her desire for knowledge (which was a good) was perverted towards an evil end. Yet the subtlety of the temptation gives the appearance of virtue, which makes the evil more difficult to detect. If you have ever read Perelandra by C. S. Lewis, you will instantly remember the dynamic of the Un-Man trying to deceive the Eve figure of Perelandra by such arguments and temptations.

This deception will be compounded by the seemingly very real success of the Antichrist in bringing about prosperity and peace, which the world will see as miraculous signs and wonders. And just as heresies contain a great deal of truth with a fatal admixture of error, so the doctrine of the Antichrist will be one that is intended to deceive and will succeed in doing so:

Initially the persecution of the Church was merely violent, when pagans attempted to force Christians to sacrifice to idols by use of proscription, tortures and beatings. The second kind of persecution is by guile, which now employed by heretics and false Christians. The final form is still to come, and it is predicted here that it will come through Antichrist. Nothing will be more dangerous than this, for it will be extremely violent through the power of that unique kingdom, and through miraculous events it will mislead “so as to deceive,” as the Lord says in the Gospel, “if possible even the elect.” So the word lion denotes violence, and the expression “in his den” guile, and thus both vices are suggested by the individual expressions. (St. Cassiodorus, Explanation of the Psalms, 10.29-30., ACCS VII.)

The violent persecution of the righteous will be seen as a virtuous act by those who follow the Antichrist, and thus the deception will be complete. Our Lord foretold to His apostles that they would experience this inversion of evil and good:

These things have I spoken to you, that you may not be scandalized. They will put you out of the synagogues: yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you, will think that he doth a service to God. And these things will they do to you; because they have not known the Father, nor me. (John 16:1-3 DR)

One might wonder, however, why the Psalmist speaks in such manner about the rich evil man seeking after the poor man? St. Chrysostom gives voice to this:

Just as the inspired author describes them as a wild beast, so he talks about them in these terms, making a show of their tricks, ambushes and schemes. What could be more pitiful than that, what could be more desperate, to feel the need of the possessions of the poor? So shall we call these people rich, tell me? (St. Chrysostom, Commentary on the Psalms, 10.10., ACCS VII.)

It is a puzzling thing on the surface, that those who already possess so much should feel threatened by the relatively scant possessions of the poor. In terms of the coming of the Antichrist, he is to deceive the world and rule it without apparent rival; why then will he be so singularly intent on this final persecution of the Church?

There are two approaches to answering this, the first of which is the nature of sin which is in essence (so to speak) the absence of being. It is a diminution of the good and thus of existence and essence, and as such is the defect of good where good should exist. The more one sins, the less one ultimately possesses of the good. The creates a black hole of sorts in the soul by which greater vice is enabled and sought as virtue decreases.

A corollary to this is that evil cannot abide the reproach of the good, which occurs by virtue of it existence. The very presence of goodness or righteousness is an affront to the pride of the heart that revels in its reprobation, as the Scriptures explain:

Let us therefore lie in wait for the just, because he is not for our turn, and he is contrary to our doings, and upbraideth us with transgressions of the law, and divulgeth against us the sins of our way of life. He boasteth that he hath the knowledge of God, and calleth himself the son of God. He is become a censurer of our thoughts. He is grievous unto us, even to behold: for his life is not like other men's, and his ways are very different. We are esteemed by him as triflers, and he abstaineth from our ways as from filthiness, and he preferreth the latter end of the just, and glorieth that he hath God for his father. (Wisdom 2:12-16 DR)

It should be noted that the wicked say that the righteous are grievous even to behold, which on the practical level means that there can be no common ground or live and let live with the wicked, for their consciences are reproached by the very existence of the righteous, no matter how few or powerless. The very fact that the righteous will not sear their consciences along with the wicked or partake in their depravity or call evil good along with them in intolerable. This is precisely why in the final culmination of the mystery of iniquity (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:7) the persecution will follow the twofold progression St. Cassiodorus explained above.

It will not be enough for the Antichrist and those who follow him to have the “freedom” to do as they wish or have the power they crave. For if any righteousness at all still exists in this world in the Church, it will stand as a reproach to their consciences and thus will not be tolerated, even though toleration will likely be one of the Antichrist’s marketing words (not that we have any experience with that today…).

In the passages immediately preceding the verses in Wisdom quoted above where the wicked decry the presence of the righteous as a reproach to their consciences, they muse in similar words as the Psalmist employs here:

Come therefore, and let us enjoy the good things that are present, and let us speedily use the creatures as in youth. Let us fill ourselves with costly wine, and ointments: and let not the flower of the time pass by us. Let us crown ourselves with roses, before they be withered: let no meadow escape our riot. Let none of us go without his part in luxury: let us everywhere leave tokens of joy: for this is our portion, and this our lot. Let us oppress the poor just man, and not spare the widow, nor honour the ancient grey hairs of the aged. But let our strength be the law of justice: for that which is feeble, is found to be nothing worth. (Wisdom 2:6-11 DR)

In these passages we see the end of sin in which man lives only for his appetites and has the “freedom” to indulge his every desire. He not only does so through normal fallen human weakness but by a deliberate intention of the heart. In fact, he has made what we moderns know as the will to power the complete end of man, such that their strength be the law of justice. In other words, might makes right, do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law, and even—as the game Bioshock has it in the city of Rapture—no gods or kings, only Man.

All of these phrases and the myriad others throughout human history have been the sad refrain of the wounded and sinful soul which strives to attain but diminishes in its effort. Like the pathetic rich man who cannot abide the meager property of the poor man (cf. 1 Kings 21), the wicked soul will always fund the gnawing discontent of its evil ways and seek out relief through lashing out at those who do not share in its misery. In the final confrontation of good and evil this will be brought to its final logical culmination as evil is turned into good and good evil, and the deception will lead the world to fully embrace the lie of the serpent through the mouth of the man of sin. He will not conquer like the lion chasing down its prey but rather wait for the opportune time in his lair, as the unsuspecting world creeps closer and closer to where he lies, prepared to strike.

We are perhaps currently tiptoeing around the entrance of the lion’s den, for every time we as a society or as a race invert evil and good, we prime ourselves for the deception of the Antichrist. As we make our wills and desires the end of the law and the whole of it, we ready our necks for the yoke of servitude to the man of sin. We do not know the times when these things will take place, but as the Psalmist says elsewhere:

Today if you shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts. (Psalm 94:8.)

The world will be deceived because their love will grow cold and their hearts will become hardened. Understanding therefore that this coming of the man of sin will be accompanied by a great deception, it is incumbent upon us now to put away any deceptions to which we cling, to put away all sin and uncleanness that we will have clear eyes and hearts to resist the lure of the serpent’s tongue.

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I found this excellent image of a roaring lion and isolated it in Photoshop and precomped it in After Effects. I then came across a fiery looking texture and precomped it and applied Stretch to it so as to create the animation of the fire coming out of its mouth. I then applied some motion hold wiggle to the position and rotation lion and parented the fire to the lion to get a bit of movement there. I then added in the text and applied the same motion hold to each piece of text for a bit of random movement.

I finally added in some color correction to balance it out and give it a more focused look into the center.

Enjoy.

View a higher quality version of this gif here: