Read 2 Timothy 3:1-5
ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.” (Matthew 7:1–2 NLT)
I grew up in the shadow of black eyeliner and distortion pedals. Not in rebellion—but in revelation. From an early age, I was drawn to the mystical, the heavy, the emotional weight of sound and silence. My love of metal and dark expression exists in large part because of Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath. Later, I followed Marilyn Manson. As a teenager, I was the front person of a short-lived heavier goth band called The Skeletal Procession. To this day, I still dress in all black. I’m a goth. A metalhead. A lover of all things mystical, dark, or otherwise. And I am a mystic because of people like Ozzy Osbourne, who dared to burst through the bubble of puritanical bullshit.
Ozzy gave me—and so many others—permission to feel. To cry out. To name the darkness instead of pretending it wasn’t there. He didn’t hide from pain. He screamed through it. And because he did, I found a kind of sacred honesty that the Church, too often, had buried beneath polite plastic smiles and judgmental glares.
Real Biblical Satanism isn’t eyeliner and guitar riffs.
It isn’t Anton LaVey.
It isn’t witches on broomsticks (hello, ’Merica!).
And it isn’t worshiping Baphomet while listening to Moonspell.
Real Biblical Satanism is spiritual arrogance dressed up as righteousness.
It’s pulpits with microphones and TV empires (here’s looking at you, Mr. Miracle Man Jimmy Swaggart).
It’s placing yourself on God’s throne and calling it holy.
They called Ozzy the Prince of Darkness. Said he glorified evil. But the real evil wasn’t on his album covers—it was in the pulpits that pronounced judgment with polished teeth and dead eyes. It was in the comment sections that declared he was in hell before his body was even cold. It was in the churches that taught kids like me that being honest about your pain made you dangerous—or damned.
Paul’s warning to Timothy wasn’t about rock stars. It was about religious performance. About people who act godly but have no power in their love. No truth in their eyes. No Christ in their judgment. “They will act religious, but reject the power that could make them godly.” Sound familiar?
Jesus didn’t cast out the ones wearing leather. He flipped the tables of the ones wearing robes.
Ozzy battled the Satanists. And the Satanists weren’t the ones with guitars. They were the ones with microphones and no mercy.
What’s darker—accidentally biting a bat’s head off onstage (poor thing), or biting into someone’s soul online because their grief doesn’t match your doctrine? What’s more demonic—wearing black lipstick, or spreading death disguised as discernment? And that sitting on God’s throne business: THAT leads to death. Plain and simple.
Ozzy didn’t get everything right. But he never pretended to. And maybe that’s why I—and so many others—trusted him more than the ones who said they spoke for God.
The truth is, the Armageddon we fear isn’t coming. It’s already here. And it looks a lot like judgment without love. A lot like country without conscience. A lot like religion without Jesus. A lot like the throne…with us sitting right the hell on it.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Ozzy didn’t unleash Satan. He just exposed how many Christians already worship him.PRAYER
God, save us from ourselves. And help us stop mistaking our thrones for yours.
[i] Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).