Back in Eden, the fire-serpent tempted Adam and Eve with the beguiling thought: ‘You can be like gods.’ That idea emanated out of the nachash’s own heart—to raise his throne above the stars of God.

The motivation behind all the enemy’s mimicking of God is being like Him. So it should really come as no surprise that, because God has different names and titles, so too do the ungodly spirits of the threshold. They claim for themselves a range of names including, naturally, ones belonging to God. Perhaps, though this is just speculation on my part, those entities with multiple heads—such as Leviathan—have a name for each face.

The spirit of abuse, Belial, certainly has at least one other name that ancient people gave to it: Kronos. Somewhen along the centuries, Chronos—the being associated with time—got merged with Kronos, the sickle-wielding giant who was the most powerful of the Titans. So, I’m not going to treat them separately and, even though it may sound like I’m indulging in Greek mythology and not Scripture, it’s important to understand that the Greeks didn’t get the facts entirely wrong. This is evidenced by Peter’s remarks in his second epistle where he references the angels imprisoned in Tartarus. He used exactly the same word as the Greeks used for the place where the titans were incarcerated. In Jewish thinking these wild elemental giants were fallen angelic majesties.

Kronos was described in very early writings as a three-headed serpent—thus fitting, in biblical terms, the description both of the seraphim with their fire-serpent bodies and the multi-faced cherubim who guarded seasonal thresholds and were charged with watching over the four divisions of the year.

The stories about Kronos describe him as a child abuser and father-hater. He castrated his father and, on hearing that one of his children would take his throne, he swallowed them whole as they were born. Eventually he was tricked with a stone and Zeus was saved. Growing up to war against his father, Zeus compelled Kronos to vomit up his lost brothers and sisters.

The Phoenicians merged Kronos with worship of Melqart— sacrificing their children to him. The Israelites knew Melqart as ‘Moloch’.

The sacrifice of children was seen as eating the future. Kronos was viewed as so voracious that he would not only consume the past but, if not restrained, the future too. That’s why he had to be locked up.

As human beings, we struggle with this spirit because we are deeply immersed in time. Even if we are not complicit with Belial, it’s easy to default into agreement with Kronos through impatience, frustration—or even the opposite, too much patience, too much appeasement. So many people hope that, if they wait long enough, their problem will simply fade away. This is using time as a false refuge. It is looking to the spirit of abuse and hoping it will be a saviour.

This is Grace Drops and I’m Anne Hamilton. May your only saviour be the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thank you to Lorna Skinner of www.riversofmusic.co.uk for the background music.

More on the spirit of Belial can be found in the paperback, Dealing with Belial: Spirit of Armies and Abuse, Strategies for the Threshold #8. More on the spirit of Kronos (another face of abuse) can be found in the paperback, Dealing with Kronos: Spirit of Abuse and Time, Strategies for the Threshold #9.