Introduction

The Olympic 2024 summer games held in Paris was something I was looking forward to sharing with my children. We don’t have cable and we don’t have an antenna like we used to, and I’m glad we didn’t. The opening ceremony was something that belonged more in an R rated movie than on cable for the world (including children) to see.

My kids can’t watch a Superbowl halftime anymore, and now they can’t watch the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies. The world is becoming less and less accommodating to followers of the one and only true God. Christianity has left France, and its empty condition is worse than before the gospel was ever first delivered there. See Jesus’ teaching about this in Matthew 12:43-45. It is a nation of apostacy now. Every fourteen days, a church in France is a victim of arson. Every 15 days, a mosque is built. A once pagan people became monotheistic under the Church, but now polytheism and hedonism has returned with gusto. The “eldest daughter” of the Church is leading the way into a new era of depravity. Will her sisters follow? The lies of Satan and the delusions of men were once driven out by the gospel, but now the dark pantheon of demons has returned with a vengeance.

I am so deeply troubled by what was openly flaunted in Paris and on screens all around the world. Just as Democrats were shocked at the mental decline of Biden during the first presidential debate of 2024 (which is something that shouldn’t be shocking if you follow certain news channels, especially Biden’s gaffs), so have I felt shocked by the 2024 Olympic ceremonies. This is something that had been planned for years and those who made it knew it would be for a world audience. It has been a seed, an embryo, a spark (to use the Olympic commentators’ own metaphors) that I believe is ready to grow, mature, and spread. What I saw in those ceremonies was satanic.

I heard from a couple people online that the ceremonies mocked Christianity and revealed ungodly influences, so I decided to watch the full ceremonies themselves to test what they said, and what I saw was much worse (in its extent throughout the entire ceremonies) than what they said.

Unlike watching the Disney Star Wars movies, every bit, every detail, every single chorographical movement and image has been well thought out and has meaning in this Olympic show. One commentator said, “All of them [the athletes]—all of us—have been told that we are about to witness one of the greatest shows on earth.” You don’t do a show like this thoughtlessly.

When the Apostle Paul went to Athens, he was just passing through. He didn’t intend to stay and make big waves. But while he was there waiting, “he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there” (Acts 17:16b-17). I did not intend to linger on the opening and closing ceremonies, but because of my distress, here I am. Paul was invited to the Areopagus to explain his argument. I will probably get censored or cancelled, but that is not going to stop me from trying to reason with whoever happens to come across me on the internet. People tried to “cancel” the prophet Jeremiah several times, and he even wanted to stop prophesying because of it, but he couldn’t. In fact, he said:

Whenever I speak, I cry out
    proclaiming violence and destruction.
So the word of the Lord has brought me
    insult and reproach all day long.
⁹ But if I say, “I will not mention his word
    or speak anymore in his name,”
his word is in my heart like a fire,
    a fire shut up in my bones.
I am weary of holding it in;
    indeed, I cannot. (Jeremiah 20:8-9)

My audience may just be a few, but I am compelled to compose and share this if it helps one person interpret the danger of our times. I’m not doing this to get paid. I’m a stay-at-home homeschool mom with a master’s degree in English literature. I am trained in rhetoric and how to explicate literature and film. I don’t like conflict, and I removed myself from social media and the internet years ago because I couldn’t say anything without condemnation and it stressed me out too much. But if sharing this is God’s will, he will give me His peace, he will protect me, and maybe take my argument to a modern-day Areopagus. If He doesn’t want this read, He will quench it. I’ve prayerfully considered this, and He hasn’t stopped me or changed my conviction. It’s my job to obey God. It’s His job to determine the results.  

Forward

Before I get into it, I want to make it very clear that this analysis in no way reflects on the athletes who participated in the 2024 Paris Olympic games. In fact, there were Christians and Jews who competed, won gold medals, and glorified God and promoted good wholesome values, ethics, and morals. They did not have a part in the planning of the show, nor did they have reason to know about its elements or plot in advance.

Secondly, I am not saying that the Olympic committee or the French who created the show are blatantly saying that Satan is taking the world to hell in a hand basket. It is possible for spiritual forces to work through humans while humans are oblivious to their exploitation. According to the Bible, God has used the nations for His purposes though they don’t acknowledge Him or give Him glory. God used Egypt to save Jacob’s family during the seven-year famine. God used Assyria and Babylon to judge Israel and Judah for their apostacy, and God used Babylon to judge other nations for their pride or their part in the destruction of Judah. God used Persia to judge Babylon. God used Greece to judge Medo-Persia. God used Rome to judge Greece. All of this is recorded in the Bible. But just as God can use nations for His purposes, so demons can use peoples or nations for their purposes. Satan is called “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11). Ephesians 2:1-2 says, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—.” Did the directors and committee members know what they were doing? Maybe. Based on some of their comments, I could say so, but did they fully know what they were doing? Probably not. So my argument isn’t necessarily to prove or disprove the intentions of the people.

My critique is about the message of those spirits influencing the people. The planners of the show must have some doors wide open to dark spirits. Their inspiration didn’t come from the Church or a saint. It was not bright and cheering or inspirational. It was dark. It was demonic. The inspiration for the show came from collaboration in 2021. What is significant about 2021? It is the year the world began to recollect itself after the pandemic. So the “embryonic” “spark” as the Olympic commentators call it for the 2021 planning likely was started even before that, perhaps during the pandemic, when people were isolated. The commentators called the show “infectious.” I don’t know what I don’t know, but it sure seems contextually that the planners of the show opened some dark doors during that dark time for our generation. And so the following criticism concerns what spiritual elements came through those doors, not necessarily the intentions of the people.

The organization of this critique is so difficult to tackle because there is so much that was demonic. Basically everything. I don’t know where to start. But I have to start somewhere. I will begin with explicating the setting, the Seine River, by analyzing 1) the symbolism of rivers and how it relates to Biblical imagery and Greek mythology, 2) a holistic interpretation of the narrative itself performed by the French, and 3) the words of the commentators and speakers of the Olympics.

The Significance of Rivers in the Olympics, Greek Mythology, and the Bible

Instead of holding the opening Olympic ceremonies in an arena or stadium as is traditional, the French decided to use the Seine River as the stage for the event. Instead of the nations parading around and arena, the worlds’ athletes were conveyed in boats down the river. Instead of having a segmented time to focus on the competitors and their countries, their presentation was sprinkled amidst the show and spectacle, detracting from the whole point of the modern Olympics and turning more toward the theme of the French show. They say it was about unity, and even if that is true, that unity is a dark inverted one. Let’s begin with analyzing the choice of the main setting for the opening ceremonies, the Seine.

First, the word Seine in French means “a fishing net that hangs vertically in the water, having floats at the upper edge and sinkers at the lower.” It also means “to fish for or catch with a seine.” The Bible records various stories of the calling of Jesus’ first disciples, one of them being the calling of Peter. After Peter casts his net in the water and catches a net full, Jesus says to him and the others, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19). Jesus is saying to the disciples that they will catch people out of their lives of sin. The earth was judged by water in the flood, and the only people saved were inside the ark. Before creation, the Spirit of God hovered above the waters (an ancient symbol of chaos). When creation began, God made order out of those waters and separated things. So too, the disciples would call people out of the chaos of judgment into the only vessel of salvation, Jesus Christ. Before Jesus’ ascension to heaven, He gave those same disciples the great commission: “Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). Now, in an inversion of those stories, the river becomes the stage of debauchery, catching the performers and spectators in a net of sin. The lewd dancing, the homosexuality, the implication of group orgy, the glorification of abortion, the presentation of pagan gods, all take place on the River Seine, the river catching the people in its net, its course; the nations, all people, literally being paraded in its stream. One commentator said, “And there it is—laid out in front of us—the River Seine, and we will have a procession laid out and demanded by the river, and there are some real twists and turns on the way.” What did she mean “demanded by the river”? Is the river alive? Does it demand the procession? It sounds more like she is describing a pagan god “demanding” something than an inanimate body of water. My hope is to show you the danger of these “twists and turns” of such a river. God’s way is straight, not veering to the left or right. Proverbs 11:5 says, “The righteousness of the blameless keeps his way straight, but the wicked falls by his own wickedness.” The Olympics opening ceremony is a true fulfillment of Proverbs 29:27: “An unjust man is an abomination to the righteous, but one whose way is straight is an abomination to the wicked.”

And in English, the name of the river is a homonym with sin. English was also the second language used in the ceremony. If you think this pun is too far of a stretch, a member of the Olympic committee said at the closing ceremony, “These games were sensational from start to finish, or should I say—’sin-sational.’ The Olympic Games 2024 are games of a new era.” What kind of era? Well, by context, a new era of sin. Based on how the audience responded to his “sin-sational” speech, I believe this is the right interpretation. This is so obviously evil. There’s even a Disney animated villain who calls his plan sensational.

In the Bible, rivers are first mentioned in Genesis at the creation of Adam and Eve, one river divides into four rivers (Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates). You could say five rivers. Well, as I will explain, there are five rivers of Hades in Greek mythology.  At the end of time, one river of life flows out of Jerusalem (Revelation 22:1). In an inversion of the Biblical symbolism of rivers, Satan takes it and makes it evil. These are the five rivers of the Greek underworld:

• Styx (Greek for hatred)
• Lethe (Greek for oblivion or forgetfulness)
• Archeron (Greek for woe or misery)
• Phlegethon (Greek for fire)
• Cocytus (Greek for wailing)

Styx

Modern depiction of Charon of the Greek underworld, ferrying souls across the Styx.

Charon, the ferryman of the underworld, carries the dead across the river Styx into Hades. In the Olympic opening ceremony, three children carry the torch of the Olympic flame through the subway and into the catacombs, past a wall of skulls. They come to an underground river. The Phantom of the Opera music plays, then spooky haunted house type of music, as a dark faceless hooded figure rows a boat up to the children and holds out its hand to take the flame and guide the children into the boat. The dark figure then rows away with the children down the river. The figure looks like death. The buttons they designed going down the back of its coat look like a spine. Its white sheer hood makes it look ghostlike. the wraps on its wrists look like mummy wraps. It’s like the Canaanite god Molech receiving child sacrifices. It’s like the Greek god Charon ferrying their souls into death. The screen goes dark and displays in French, “It’ll be fine.” Really? Why am I not convinced? Why do you feel the need to say, “It’ll be fine”? Those are the words the beheaded Marie Antoinette sings later. Was it fine for her?

Like Charon ferrying souls to the underworld, the faceless hooded boatman takes the children and torch into the boat before the directors feature the words, “It’ll be fine” in French.

In ancient Greek depictions of Charon, he is not hooded. Sometimes he is wearing a black robe, but he is not hooded. In modern artistic renditions of him, he is hooded like a grim reaper. With as much Greek mythology as they incorporate throughout the rest of the opening and closing ceremonies, it is hard to imagine that the masterminds of this show were unaware of the mythological associations, let alone not understand the symbolic attire of this silent figure who takes the children with the torch as anything but dark and ominous. It is basically Charon, taking children to Hades.

There is so much imagery in this show that screams Satan, that whoever produced it would have to be totally Biblically illiterate and ignorant of basic imagery of good and evil, or they at least somewhat understand it depicts evil. I would not expect some of the other participants to have as much intimate knowledge of all the nuances and symbolism in the show, and I wouldn’t expect the athletes to know ahead of time at all. But you see the most ignorant members of the ceremony being swept down the Seine while the more knowledgeable and involved members are either along the sides of the river or not in the show at all. In fact, the most involved and understanding planners were not in the show. They were directing it, just like spiritual forces direct the lives of people and events of history. These evil spirits are behind the scenes, orchestrating human events, just like the directors were behind the scenes directing the Olympic show. I’ll get more into this later when I do a focused analysis of what I call the hooded oarsman/torchbearer.

Lethe

Lethe means forgetfulness. Indeed, the western world has become so Biblically illiterate, most people may not have known what was going on at all. As Hosea 4:6a says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge.” Deuteronomy 8:11 says, “Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today.” The once Christian France has definitely forgotten God. Nothing in the show was acceptable by God’s law. None of the homosexuality, none of the extramarital sex, none of the crossdressing, none of the inappropriate clothing or dancing, none of the glorification of abortion advocates, none of the glorification of death. 2 Kings 17:38 says, “you shall not forget the covenant that I have made with you. You shall not fear other gods.” Tons of other gods were featured in the opening ceremonies. They had the Sequana the goddess of the Seine, Nike, Bacchus, Apollo, to name a few. Thus do the multitudes float down the Lethe. “Mark this, then, you who forget God, lest I tear you apart, and there be none to deliver!” says Psalm 50:22. Am I taking this out of context applying it to a Gentile nation? Well, why then is it written, “The wicked shall return to Sheol, all the nations that forget God” (Psalm 9:17)? When it comes to all this, I am like the psalmist of psalm 119: “My zeal consumes me, because my foes forget your words” (verse 139).

Archeron

As to the river Archeron, which means woe or misery, I don’t know if there is much more I can say. The magnification and glorification of the gore of the French Revolution was an event of woe and misery for these people, both the aristocracy and the people alike.  A bunch of Marie Antoinettes were depicted in the windows of the Conciergerie dressed in blood red. Red ribbons and red smoke gushed out of the building, symbolizing blood. Water fountains across the river in later parts of the show were lit with blood red lights. A pianist had blood red hair. The director said it was a celebration of life. Uh, how? How is blood and decapitation a celebration of life? That’s suffering. That’s misery. I don’t know what universe he lives in, but it’s not the normal one. Even the heavy metal musicians sounded like they were screaming in misery. Romans 3:10-18 (emphasis mine) says:

“None is righteous, no, not one;
¹¹     no one understands;
    no one seeks for God.
¹² All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
    no one does good,
    not even one.”
¹³ “Their throat is an open grave;
    they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
¹⁴     “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
¹⁵ “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
¹⁶     in their paths are ruin and misery,
¹⁷ and the way of peace they have not known.”
¹⁸     “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Phlegethon

The River Phlegethon or Fire is easy to see as huge flames shoot up from below the Conciergerie, basically the flames of hell. Marie Antoinette sings “It’ll be fine” (Really?) in the mingle of tons of headless Marie Antoinettes in red dresses smattered throughout the windows of the Conciergerie. Fire shoots up from the ground below the Conciergerie like the fires of hell, between skeleton-white decapitated manikins in black dresses. Heavy metal guitarists play dark music out of the tower windows. The hooded oarsman stands on the roof opposite the Seine, holding the torch and looking on. A ship appears, “sailing” in front of the Conciergerie, a woman at the helm singing opera to the heavy metal music. The ship is decorated with emblems of a Greek-looking ship from stem to stern. Is this another version of the ship crossing the Styx, conveying the souls of the beheaded into death? At the end of the song, instead of a spray of confetti, ribbons like blood shoot out of the Conciergerie, followed by red smoke (again the color or blood) and fireworks and smoke (like fire from hell) coordinated with another big blast of flames from below.

There is fire all throughout the show. The piano is lit on fire as a woman sings John Lennon’s “Imagine,” and the floor of a barge of dancers turns to lava as they fall down and turn dark like they died. This symbolism is pretty self-explanatory, but for the record, I have to note it here. I will explicate John Lennon’s song in the context of the opening ceremony more later.

Cocytus

The River Cocytus (wailing) is not as obvious to identify, but it is definitely there. I don’t know what the songs in French were all saying. Some of them were very beautiful, and they could have been singing about massacring babies for all I know (they did enshrine two women who advocated for abortion with golden statues rising out of pedestals). But there were two songs in English. One, I have already mentioned, is by John Lennon, and the other was “Supernature” by Cerrone. The second verse and chorus are as follows:

They were angry with the man
‘Cause he changed their way of life
And they take their sweet revenge
As they trample through the night
For a hundred miles or more
You can hear the people cry
But there’s nothing you can do
Even God is on their side

[Chorus]
Supernature, supernature
Supernature, supernature
Supernature, supernature
Supernature, supernature

In the tribulation, you will hear the people cry, or wail, as Satan and his fallen angels take their sweet revenge on mankind who was made in God’s image, and they will not show any favors to human accomplices. Thus the river Cocytus is revealed in the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic games. I will explicate this song more fully in a later post. Again, the screaming of the heavy metal music does go with wailing.

Arguably, all five rivers of the Greek Hades are put into one river, the Seine, with the demons ready to escort human souls from life into death like Charon on the Styx. Jesus’ parable of Lazarus tells us that angels are conveyers of the saints to Abraham’s bosom or heaven (Luke 16:22). Conversely, the rich man that denied poor Lazarus went to Hades. The New Testament uses the Greek word Hades to describe hell. Charon is the conveyer of souls to Hades. Charon is a demon. Demons are ready and waiting for souls to convey them to hell if they do not know God. 23 Minutes in Hell by Bill Wiese is one firsthand accounts of death experiences of unbelievers.

Hopefully this gives you a good idea of the symbolism of rivers in the Bible, the inversion of those rivers in Greek mythology, and their connection to the Seine as the stage for the dark opening ceremony. Now it is noteworthy to point out that all of Paris is the stage of the beginning ceremony, in the words of a commentator, “the city of innovation, the city where no idea was too ridiculous to be tried and where new undertakings have been developed and established. It’s the place where tiny ideas have become global movements.” The commentator also compares the rebirth of the Olympic games to the Eiffel Tower, which was constructed around that same time. Both projects, he said, sparked debate.

Two parallel projects, once embryonic, are now universally acclaimed. The landmarks of this cosmopolitan capital, like those ideas once temporary, controversial, or outrageous, stand proudly as monuments to human endeavor at a time when and in the city where we are set to celebrate the greatest of human endeavors.

Please think very carefully about those words, about how Paris was the stage of the beginning ceremonies, and compare it to how they used a stage in the shape of the world for the closing ceremonies. Today Paris, tomorrow the world. The same man who called the Olympics “sin-sational” told those present at the closing ceremonies to take the “peace” there back home with them and to live it out every day. If those words came from a normal person, they wouldn’t be suspicious at all (Peace is good right?), but they came from this man who glorified the sin nature of these Olympics from beginning to end. Remember that. Please don’t forget the significance of that. This is an inversion of the Great Commission. Again, the athletes are just there to compete, but the organizers are talking about something that goes beyond sports.

If you know God, let this be an admonition to you to pray all the more fervently, live all the more for Him, and number your days. This world is passing away. The souls around you will exist forever somewhere. Its your job to tell them the way to heaven. It’s God job to stir their hearts.

If you don’t know God already, I would ask you to seriously consider these things. Understand that you and I are sinners who deserve eternal wrath because of our transgressions against the holy God. Satan deceived our ancestors Adam and Eve into disobeying God, ushering sin into the world. People became spiritually dead on that day, and we cannot earn right standing with God. Satan was cast out of heaven for his disobedience, and he wants to do the same thing to people, who are made in God’s image. The good news is that God did not leave us in the dark condition of deception by Satan. He sent His Son Jesus Christ to earth to live the perfect life that Adam and Eve did not. Jesus has no reason to be cast out of God’s presence. The perfect life Jesus lived, He gives to us through faith in Him. His obedience is credited to us as if we had perfect standing before God. Moreover, Jesus suffered the punishment for our sins on the cross so we don’t have to suffer that. We take His reward and He takes our punishment. Salvation is a gift of God, but a gift is not complete until the recipient accepts and opens the gift. God already loved you. Jesus already died for you. But His gift does you no good unless you receive and open His gift of salvation with your faith. Believe he did this for you, that He saved you. Ask Him to forgive you, admit your sin, and thank Him for His great mercy. Stop living as a slave to Satan and start living as a free person in Jesus Christ. If you want someone to talk to about these things more, feel free to write me. Contact a local evangelical church. Read your Bible. Ask God to help you understand these things.

Next week, I will post my section titled “Angels’ Wings and Light”. I will explain how this is a revelation that Satan is behind the inspiration for the show, that he wants to deceive the world with lies, and he wants to destroy the world with his hate. I hope you come back next week to read that post and I hope you keep coming back to see my other future posts: “The Hooded Torchbearer,” “The Silver Rider,” “The Golden Bull and the Golden Voyager,” “Rewriting the Last Supper,” “The Message of Music,” “The Bad Good Alien,” and “So What?”

Sources

The Bible. English Standard Version, Crossway, 2001.

“Seine.” Dictionary.com. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/seine. Accessed 13 September 2024.

“The Ferryman Wallpapers.” https://wallpapercave.com/the-ferryman-wallpapers. Accessed 10 September 2024.

“‘So metal’: Headless Marie Antoinette steals the show at Paris Olympics opening ceremony.” Salon. https://www.salon.com/2024/07/26/so-metal-headless-marie-antoinette-steals-the-show-at-paris-olympics-opening-ceremony/. Accessed 13 September 2024.

Tadie, Solene. “Why France is losing one religious building every two weeks.” https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/247514/why-france-is-losing-one-religious-building-every-two-weeks. Accessed 10 September 2024.