The recent serial killer in Kerala, Jolly Thomas who killed nine people through cyanide administrations, family members and known people over nearly two decades has the nation shocked. I had people asking me how if she is a pious Christian who was a regular churchgoer, and a Sunday school teacher, how could she do this? Since they asked me this, I decided to write this down.
Jolly Thomas was born into a Catholic home and brought up in a Godly atmosphere She had a sunny happy face, attractive, loved by all. Her first victims were her in-laws, then her husband, then she murdered a few others who suspected her, finally the wife and one-year-old child of the man she wanted to marry and eventually did. She killed for property, power, control and for infatuation. She was finally caught when her brother-in-law of her first husband who lived in the US asked the Kerala crime bureau to do an investigation.
Why would a woman brought up with the Word of God regularly going to church do this? Should not the presence of God in the church change her?
The answers and reflections are humongous: I. Jolly, like any other human is prone to evil, wickedness and crime unless born again in the Holy Spirit of God. She also opened avenues to this nefarious murders by what she read, I believe she read Agatha Christie, the criminal mystery author and got inspired by the murders in those stories. This does not mean everyone who reads Agatha Christie would become a murderer! I grew up on Agatha Christie in my school days, loved the suspense and mystery, but in real life, if a person was killed or murdered, it haunted me for days, nor can I bear to even see an insect being killed in real life. So there are some who read such books to draw from them and there are others who read and disassociate from books and movies in real life, which is the majority of us, though they do influence us subconsciously.
Once again, there are millions of people in the world who are essentially “good” people with pure consciences. They would never steal, lie, kill, rape, or harm anyone. These are the morally good souls.
However, millions too are not “morally good.” They lie, steal, rape, murder etc., without batting an eyelid. Their faces tell their stories of crime.
There is a third category that Jolly falls into. It is a person with a split personality. Jolly had a split personality on an intensified scale. This personal operates under the garb of goodness and sweetness. Their countenance is open, smiling, likable people with helpful hearts. People are drawn to them irresistibly like magnets and pour out their problems before them. They are the helpers and doers, energetic and involved in activities. This is why the world is stunned when such people are caught as serial killers. How could Jolly operate this way is our big question? 1. The soul of a split personality is unlike a normal soul. A normal soul is whole and healthy. 3 John 1:2 Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth. This is a healthy soul. However, an unhealthy soul is splintered with fissures and cracks. Because of defense, deceit, survival and ambition, it goes on to develop compartments to hide its different functioning. This is a compartment soul. A compartmentalized soul hides different personalities in its different boxes. Each personality lifts up to operate on different occasions. Each personality is disconnected from the other. The personality actually represents a person. So one person have have different people living in them. Soon in time, demons attach themselves to each of the personalities (persons) inside that split soul. That soul can rise to commit a murder spurred on by the demon that empowers it. Then that personality goes back to its box, and disconnects from the other personalities. After that, another personality of kindness, helpfulness and even seeming compassion rises to operate. This personality disassociates with the murderous one, and human goodness operates. Their countenance takes on a pleasant demeanor. A lot of charisma flows around them again empowered by the demon attached to them. In psychiatry, this kind of person is identified as having schizophrenia – defined as people having mixed false perceptions. There are different kinds of schizophrenia.
This is why Psalm 86 is a powerful prayer: Unite my heart to fear Your name. The soul split in compartments has to be prayed whole. One can take that entire Psalm and translate it into a personal prayer.
One may ask: If that is so, how would we know such a person? Three important giveaway signs are: 1. A person who never apologizes. The disconnect between their different personalities never allow them to feel guilty. We would need to watch out for such. They could have a dangerous split personality or compartment syndrome of boxing their different “persons.” 2. We would need to be aware of people with sharp drastic changes in behavior, one day sweet,another angry. They could be defined as biploar but these personality is worse than bipolar because a spirit behind them propels them to extremes of behavior, from good to evil. 3. We would need to be aware of people who rarely share their thoughts, feelings, or explain anything in their lives. Though they may be sociable, friendly and interesting, we may never really sense who they are. It seems a shutter is closed over them and we often cannot figure them out.
II. Another reason why a person like Jolly could commit such crimes without conviction is because she was not born again. On a pure faith transaction on believing in Christ on conviction and repentance, Christ imparts His Holy Spirit in a human soul. This is called “Born Again in the Spirit.” Even if the person sins, they are immediately convicted by the Holy Spirit. A born again soul is very alive to the Spirit of God. They just cannot live in continual sin. If a person lives in persistent sin, in all probability, they are not born again. Some people struggle with their flesh, but they are convicted and keep trying and that is a carnal believer who is born again, but has surrendered again, but living in wickedness is definitely unregenerate and not born again in Spirit. Even though we are born in a Christian home and are Christian by name and identification, we may not be born again if we have not surrendered to Christ, have not been convicted of our old sin nature and do not spiritually believe on Him and accept Him as our Savior. Unless one has an inner spiritual awakening, they will not have to power to be delivered from sins dark operations in their soul. Such people can live in constant darkness and lies, such as Jolly Thomas and many others, who come as wolves in sheep’s clothing, Matthew 7:15: Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. (false prophets and also people who pretend to be good, but essentially evil inside).
III. Many of the churches today are asleep. The anointing of the Holy Spirit is not working and being released unto the people. Unlike the early church in the Book of Acts, where there was a holy fear of God, where miracles happened, people got convicted and lives changed, today’s churches are spiritually dead. People read religious dogmas, pray piously, but their spirits are not connected the God.
If revival falls over a church, surely people like Jolly and others living in secret sins would get convicted, get saved, may make confessions and lives would change.
Over the ages, the same revival rain falls and people transform. In India, we had very powerful repentance revivals over time. In 1976, there was a great awakening in Nagaland! The glory of God fell upon Nagaland and people recall those glory days with awe and wonder. They sensed the glory of God all over the land which burst into a blazing fire during the crusade of Billy Graham in the 70s – spiritual fire which brought many souls into the Kingdom. Thousands repented, weeping, crying, and worshiped the Lord, many saw angels,visions, and could not stand in the glory of God. The supernatural manifestations were great with salvations and miraculous healings. The fruit of that revival was thousands of Nagas had a closer walk with the Lord, thousands went to Bible College and are serving in ministry, these revival spread all along the North East in Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya and others.
A continuous prayer chain was organized across Shilling for revival in each region, with one church, every day of the year, praying for revival. in 2006 in Shillong.From April 18-23, 2006, the Presbyterian churches of the region conducted a Revival Centenary Celebration to commemorate the 1905-1906 Khasi Hills Revival. The celebration was held at the Mairang Presbyterian Church. There was fervent prayer exercising faith that a revival would come, it was on Saturday, April 22, 2006, that the Holy Spirit fell upon them, and about 300 people were so overwhelmed by the presence of God that they fell unconscious to the ground, with thousands more being greatly affected. People were repenting of their sins and crying out to God for mercy. The next day 300,000 attended from all the synods of the Presbyterian Church of India. In the days that followed reports began flooding in that the Holy Spirit was being poured out in many different locations, with thousands of churches being greatly impacted. The revival was touching mostly the younger generations in the Presbyterian churches, though other churches were also affected. The revival also spread to the neighboring states of Assam and Mizoram. There was a wooden cross at Malki Church that started to glow and showed the image of Christ! The people who were screaming and those who had demonic possession died down after seeing that cross.
People could not get enough of the presence of God. After three years of prayer, revival had come and the people wanted to enjoy the fruits of their labors.School administrators were shocked when the children would break out in songs, praying, as well as falling down under the power of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes this would take place during the morning assemblies, and at other times during class hours. Some schools administrators threatened to expel students if there would be repeated outbursts of weeping and crying. Newspaper headlines reported of children conducting protests of schools that expelled their friends due to them experiencing revival during school hours. Reconciliation did eventually take place, and all the children that were expelled were welcomed back again.
Following that, when schools would experience an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the administrators would declare a holiday, and classes would be canceled. The pattern in these schools would be that a couple of middle school students would begin singing a worship song, and immediately it would be followed by fervent prayer and confession of sins and repentance, as well as intercession for families. This move of the Holy Spirit would quickly move from one class to another—engulfing the entire school in a flash.
Children experienced deep conviction of sin, leading them to weep bitterly in repentance. In the town of Shillong, the young people, so overcome by the presence of God, were weeping and crying, some of them so overcome that they were carried to a local hospital, as the school administrators had never seen nor heard of this type of phenomena before. A national news television station from Delhi, and BBC also reported on the revival happenings, and labeled it as mass hysteria. As they did not understand this commonly takes place in revivals, the secular media could only attempt to describe what was happening in rationalistic terms.
On New Year’s Day, in 1739, John Wesley, Charles Wesley, and George Whitefield and many others met together, praying through the night and at 3 a.m., the power of God fell down on them, fell to the ground, overpowered by the Presence of God, crying tears of joy in Christ’s Presence. Over the weeks that followed, they started open-air preaching for the first time, since the days of Jesus and the Apostles, where thousands in England would gather to hear them. Crowds of 20,000 would gather and weep with tears of conviction. Initially, John Wesley was alarmed when people fell down under the power of God, but came to realize it was a sovereign work of God in which he must not interfere or try to stop.
Charles Finney greatly impacted America in the mid 1800s. People got so convicted by sin that they could not sleep. Weeping, sobbing, and crying for God where people became alive to God’s Presence was commonplace. In one event, a man blaspheming the revival fell down dead. The revival kept spreading. In Northern Ireland in the 1800s, great conviction of sin, and glorious conversions happened all the time. Business came to a standstill as people gathered in cottages on the hillsides, singing, praising God and praying. People did not sleep for nights, and drunk men were awed by the Holiness of God and gave up alcohol instantaneously. Thousands upon thousands gathered together, praying and crumbled to the ground by God’s Power. No one was making it happen, there was no leader. The Holy Spirit was the Leader. Thus, we see here that people can be transformed when the Holy Spirit is present; but the Holy Spirit is rarely invited to gatherings and churches these days, thus, sin abounds.
As we see here, the Holy Spirit was present mightily and conviction of sin was extra strong. People did not have to be told to repent or even preached the Gospel. They automatically responded to the Holy Spirit. In such glory days, people with such hidden sins as Jolly would either repent or be judged and there are no two ways. There is no middle path here and one has to be on fire or cold, not lukewarm or they would be spewed out of the Kingdom of Heaven. People who are cold still have a chance because they have not experienced in His grace and God can lead them to that, but people who are lukewarm have tasted His goodness and still walk in darkness, such are judged by the Spirit of God.
The soul working in a natural life does his own work, makes his plans, and has a racing mind, constantly thinking, planning, even plotting. This soul will try to understand God through his or her natural mind, never through the power of the Holy Spirit. They even try to draw close to God through their own efforts, and block the Holy Spirit’s work in their lives because their soul life is so strong, demanding, greedy, ambitious, taking, and lusty.
If a person does not receive God’s revelation of Himself and does work for God through the ability of his or her naturally created life, he or she will suffer the greatest spiritual loss. All their good works will lack true spiritual fruit where souls truly change. If people claim to be spiritual but have hatred, they are not of God, too. Traditions, customs, religious acts are not from God. These are man-made and have no power to transform and deliver a soul.
Only on revelation through the Holy Spirit, one will know what is sinful, wrong, unholy. They are almost like brats, children who boast, try to show themselves better than others. This is the soulish soul which never relies on the power of God. If we seek preeminence before others, we are living a soulish life. As we see in the case of Jolly, she wanted social preeminence, position, power, had soulish desires. Natural talent can also become soulishly overtaken to be used negatively if it is not surrendered to God. All our natural gifts, singing, preaching, serving as teachers, Sunday school teachers, writers have to be consecrated before God. We need to surrender them to God or they would be used by the enemy to bring out a dreadful stench.
Therefore, it is so important in this life to first surrender to Christ, seek the presence of God each day, ask for the Holy Spirit to work in us, convict us, and revive us constantly. Unless we do this, we would not be able to discern the Jollys in today’s world and get duped by them. Many of us cannot discern between the spiritual and the soulish because of our disconnect with the Holy Spirit most of the times. Though He convicts us of active sin, we cannot discern between the grays and whites. We need constant revelation from the Holy Spirit to make us aware of the dark workings in our natural life and also discern the evil operations in other people’s lives. We have to be humble and willing to change if God shows us a sinful stronghold in us. We have to be honest, humble, and willing to remove what the Holy Spirit enlightens us to eliminate. Once we are clean, we can discern, and deal with people with split personalities and also bring them unto pure deliverance. Also, a person living in constant sin is not born again and a pure believer does not have the license to live in sin, or if they do, they are probably not born again. Remember, Jesus said, Luke 4:18: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because of which He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim deliverance to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to send forth in deliverance the oppressed.”
Only life in the Spirit of God delivers people from the dark operations in the soul!
Rita F. Kurian
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