Saturday, October 18, 2025

The Cost of Love: Freedom’s Shadow in Creation

 “Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”Ruth 1:16

Every distortion—the Beast, the frogs, the False Prophet, Babylon—exists only because love refused to force obedience.
When God chose to create beings with free will, He invited the risk that they might turn away. Yet, like Ruth clinging to Naomi, true love never coerces; it chooses freely, faithfully, and fully. Ruth’s devotion captures the heartbeat of the Kingdom—love that follows not because it must, but because it wants to. In that same freedom, creation must decide daily between the Bride’s loyalty and Babylon’s seduction, between the Spirit’s truth and the frogs’ deception, between the Lamb’s humility and the Beast’s pride.
The entire drama of Revelation unfolds from this single principle: love gives freedom, and freedom exposes the cost of love.





Summary Grid — The Five Mirrors of Love and Rebellion

LevelKingdom of GodNature of LoveKingdom of DarknessNature of DistortionScriptural Echo
1. The Father vs. The DragonThe Uncreated Source — Love that gives life.Sovereign love that creates out of generosity.The Dragon (Satan) — The counterfeit father.Prideful independence that imitates creation but breeds rebellion.John 1:3; Revelation 12:9
2. The Holy Spirit vs. The Three Frog SpiritsThe Breath of Order, Discernment, and Worship.Love that restores harmony and reveals truth.Three Frog Spirits — The anti-breath.Perversion, deception, and oppression masquerading as enlightenment.Revelation 16:13–14; 1 Corinthians 14:33
3. The Son vs. The BeastThe Lamb who rules by sacrifice.Servant kingship—power expressed as mercy.The Beast — Empire and domination.Self-exalting power that demands worship.Revelation 13:1–8; Philippians 2:5–11
4. The Two Witnesses vs. The False ProphetEmbodied Testimony of Truth.Prophetic love that warns, confirms, and redeems.The False Prophet — Voice of illusion.Religious manipulation that justifies lies.Revelation 11:3–6; Revelation 19:20
5. The Bride vs. The Harlot (Babylon)Faithful Covenant Community.Love that abides freely in covenant and worship.Babylon the Great — The corrupted system.Pleasure without covenant, spirituality without obedience.Revelation 17–21; Ruth 1:16–17




1. The Father: Source of All Beings

At the summit of reality stands the Father—the uncreated One.
He exists independent of all other powers, the fountain of life from which every created being—angelic or earthly—has its beginning.

Because He is love, He chose not to exist alone.
Love, by its nature, longs to be shared; it must give itself away.
To make love genuine rather than mechanical, the Father granted His creatures free will.
Free will carries a cost: wherever light is freely chosen, the possibility of shadow also appears.
Thus, the by-product of love is the potential for darkness—not because God desired evil, but because He desired relationship.

“God is love… and perfect love casts out fear.”1 John 4 : 8, 18


2. The Holy Spirit and the Three Frog Spirits

The Holy Spirit is the breath of God—order, discernment, and worship flowing through creation.
He is the living current that keeps every soul aligned with divine intention.
When we walk by the Spirit, chaos gives way to seder (order), confusion yields to discernment, and every act becomes worship.

Out of free will’s shadow, however, emerged the three unclean frog spirits described in Revelation 16 : 13-14.
They are the anti-Spirit: the counterfeit breath that produces
perversion instead of order,
deception instead of discernment, and
oppression instead of worship.
They are the reaction to divine motion—the cost of freedom echoing through the moral universe.
While the Holy Spirit unites creation, these spirits fragment it, whispering the ancient question, “Did God really say?”


3. The Son and the Beast

Where the Father reveals His heart, the Son reveals His face.
Yeshua is the King who rules through humility, conquering not by the sword but by the cross.
He is the true image of divine authority—kingship expressed as service.

Opposite Him stands the Beast, the counterfeit of Christ: political and cultural systems that exalt power over mercy.
The Beast promises safety through control, salvation through empire, and peace through domination.
Every generation meets this mirror whenever government or ideology demands worship that belongs to God alone.

“The kings of the earth set themselves… against the LORD and against His Anointed.”Psalm 2 : 2


4. The Two Witnesses and the False Prophet

In the battle of voices, God appoints the Two Witnesses—embodied testimony that truth still speaks.
Their identities remain hidden (Revelation 11), but their office is clear:
they stand before the Lord of the earth declaring His word with fire and compassion.
They confirm that God’s revelation is not silent; His truth is always established by witness.

Facing them is the False Prophet, the mouthpiece of the Beast.
He works lying wonders to make deception appear divine.
Where the Witnesses call nations back to covenant, the False Prophet calls them into delusion.
One prophesies to restore; the other to enslave.


5. The Bride and the Harlot

The Bride, the redeemed community and New Jerusalem, is the culmination of God’s relational design—the family He always desired.
Her beauty is covenantal faithfulness: she loves freely, not under compulsion.
Her garments are woven of righteousness, worship, and unity.

The Harlot, Babylon the Great, is the parody of that union.
She offers pleasure without covenant, abundance without gratitude, and spirituality without obedience.
Where the Bride lives for her Bridegroom, Babylon lives for herself.
One embodies eternal communion; the other eternal consumption.

“Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.”Revelation 21 : 9
“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great.”Revelation 18 : 2


Love’s Final Word

From the Father’s uncreated heart to the Bride’s perfected devotion runs a single thread: love that honors freedom.
Every distortion—the Beast, the frogs, the False Prophet, Babylon—exists only because love refused to force obedience.
The cost of that love is the presence of opposition; the triumph of that love is the Spirit-empowered choice to overcome it.

Ruth’s vow to Naomi—“Where you go, I will go; your people shall be my people, and your God my God”—is the voice of that same love echoing through eternity.
It is the language of the Bride, who follows the Lamb not by compulsion but by covenant desire.
Her loyalty is not purchased by fear but born of revelation—she loves because she has seen the worth of the One she follows.

In the final vision, that voluntary love becomes the anthem of the redeemed:

“The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’”Revelation 22:17

The Bride’s invitation completes the circle that began in the Father’s heart.
Love began by giving freedom, and it ends by freely responding.
In the end, every voice that opposes love will find its end in the Lake of Fire,
but love itself will remain—the breath, the word, and the dwelling of God with His people forever.

“Behold, the dwelling of God is with mankind… and He will wipe away every tear.”Revelation 21 : 3-4

From the Father’s uncreated heart to the Bride’s perfected devotion runs a single thread: love that honors freedom.
Every distortion—the Beast, the frogs, the False Prophet, Babylon—exists only because love refused to force obedience.
The cost of that love is the presence of opposition; the triumph of that love is the Spirit-empowered choice to overcome it.

In the end, every voice that opposes love will find its end in the Lake of Fire,
but love itself will remain—the breath, the word, and the dwelling of God with His people forever.

“Behold, the dwelling of God is with mankind… and He will wipe away every tear.”Revelation 21 : 3-4

The Three Frog Spirits and the Cost of Freedom

 “And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are spirits of demons, performing signs, who go out to the kings of the whole world to gather them for the battle of the great day of God Almighty.”Revelation 16:13–14

Freedom, Love, and the Cost of Choice

From the beginning, God desired a family of free sons and daughters—a people He could father, who would reign with Him in love. That kingship is revealed through Yeshua the Messiah, the true King who shows us how to rule by love rather than by domination.

But true love requires free will, and freedom always carries a cost. When God created beings who could choose, He also allowed the possibility of rejection. Every “yes” to God carries the shadow of a potential “no.”

That “reaction” to God’s creative action—the by-product of freedom—is symbolized in Revelation by the three unclean frog spirits. They are not random demons; they represent the opposing current to the Holy Spirit, the counterfeit breath that continually tempts creation away from its Source.





The Fruit of the Holy Spirit

Paul tells us that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22–23).
These virtues can be gathered into three living currents that continually sustain the Kingdom:

  1. Seder — Divine Order

    “For God is not a God of disorder but of peace.” — 1 Corinthians 14:33
    The Spirit brings alignment, structure, and clarity to all things. Where He moves, chaos becomes creation.

  2. Discernment — Seeing as God Sees

    “But solid food belongs to the mature, who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” — Hebrews 5:14
    The Spirit trains our perception so that deception loses its grip.

  3. Worship — The Atmosphere of Heaven

    “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”John 4:24
    Worship is the natural expression of hearts aligned with divine order and filled with discernment. It is the fruit of communion — the continual response of creation to the presence of its Creator. Where the Holy Spirit reigns, worship flows as the pure language of love and reverence.


The Anti-Spirit and Its Fruits

Where the Holy Spirit produces order, discernment, and worship, the anti-Spirit—those three frog spirits—brings the opposite:

Holy SpiritAnti-Spirit (Frog Spirits)
Seder (Order)Perversion – twisting what God made straight
DiscernmentDeception – blinding the eyes of understanding
WorshipOppression – crushing the soul under fear and guilt

These three dark breaths are the spiritual opposites of God’s own breath. They tempt kings and nations to replace divine order with self-rule, to trade truth for illusions, and to suffocate joy with control and despair.


The Lake of Fire and the Ongoing Test

Scripture promises that all forces of evil—the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet—will be cast into the Lake of Fire (Revelation 19:20; 20:10). There the entire empire of corruption meets its end.

Yet the spirit of deception—the frogs that slither through human words and choices—continues to test every soul. Even in the new heaven, new earth, and Jerusalem there will remain the awareness of sin. Death itself will be gone (Revelation 21:4), but the call to discern and resist will remain, for love can only exist where choice endures.

Those who persist in perversion, deception, and oppression will not physically die; rather, they will be given over to the fire prepared for the rebellious spirits. Awareness of that end is not meant to frighten but to anchor us in love. Perfect love does not fear the fire—it simply refuses to walk toward it.


The Triumph of the Spirit

In this view, salvation is not merely escape from punishment but the perpetual victory of awareness—living so fully in the Spirit’s order, discernment, and worship that the anti-Spirit has no place to rest.
The Bride, empowered by the Holy Spirit, continually chooses the light of Yeshua over the whisper of the frogs. This is eternal communion: freedom that never stops choosing love.

“The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’” — Revelation 22:17


Conclusion

Evil is not evidence of God’s failure but of His generosity—He gave us freedom.
The frog spirits are the echo of that gift, the cost of love.
And yet the same freedom that allowed their birth allows us to silence them through the Holy Spirit.

When we walk in seder, discernment, and worship, the counterfeit trinity of perversion, deception, and oppression loses its voice.
Love remains the greatest force in the universe—and the more aware we are of its opposite, the more steadfastly we choose the light.

Note: this blog post was inspired by the reemergence in interest in my original frog post called The Nature of the Impure Frog Spirits written November 2013.