Attention Hounds That Don’t Deliver

Posted on November 2, 2020 by ehurst

This is just a personal rant.

Since I’m retired, I have plenty of time to read stuff on the Internet. I read widely because I’m not committed to any partisan position. It’s all evil, but some things are simply less evil. But I’m not looking for stuff that supports my preferences; I’m actually trying to find information that will shed light on what the activists really plan to do. I don’t like wild conspiracy nonsense, but I do want exposure of real conspiracies.

I truly despise gatekeeping. Not just gatekeepers, but the whole frame of mind and habit that attempts to sucker folk in to giving long attention. I learn quickly who does click-baiting with exaggerated titles and headlines. I get tired of people who keep harping on the same thing over and over when the underlying story hasn’t changed. I’m okay with better explanations and clarifications, but this business of trying to grab peoples’ eyeballs is evil in my view.

There are some people out there who do share some interesting stuff that is worth the time it takes to absorb. I admit that I generally hate videos for taking way too long to say the same thing that could be more briefly covered in print, but I can tolerate a video that offers graphics that help drive things home. What I don’t tolerate is blatant manipulation. So, for example, I can put up with some of Corbett Report’s videos because Corbett tends to keep things brief (I dislike his goofball pal James Evan Pilato). I don’t at all like Whitney Webb and Ryan Cristián (Last American Vagabond, Unlimited Hangout) and their long-winded bantering conversations that rehash old stuff as if it were new. They spend three hours dragging over news that can be covered adequately in ten minutes of reading.

It’s the sensationalism that offends me. This is why there are so many sources out there I don’t look at because they rarely share anything useful, and never cover the subject as efficiently as they could and should. It’s always a matter of thinking too highly of themselves and too little of your time. These people do not trust in the Lord to provide, but are greedy, slimy leeches on the unwary.

Eternal truths do warrant a frequent review, and from different angles. Mundane human political activity warrants only a quick exposure, and only rarely do the details justify an involved review. That’s why I so seldom offer links as anything more than just a point of reference. On rare occasions I’ll point to something and suggest you actually invest the time to absorb what’s there. Most of the time I simply offer a digest of the pertinent material.

Notice how I started this post with a warning? Only a few of my readers actually like my work enough to read everything. I’m out on the fringes of human society, and most people should not want a close friendship with me. Sure, prophetic material does justify a wider exposure, so I try to note up front that’s what I’m doing, but most of my stuff is of no real use to most people. So I hope and pray that God guides me to indicating early in every post where it’s going so folks who don’t need it can move on and not waste time.

I don’t take myself seriously, and I’m not impressed with folks who do take themselves seriously. I have a mission to serve, not a professional career to maintain. Thanks for praying with me and supporting this ministry. You are my real wealth.

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Children of Heaven

Posted on November 1, 2020 by ehurst

It’s all about building the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

You are a citizen of His Kingdom, a child of His household. This is a feudal covenant. He is Your Lord and Father; your life new belongs to Him. All your human plans and hopes for tomorrow are subject to change. Too many people don’t understand just how deeply true this is. They keep trying to hang onto the things of this world, as if that were all they had.

In just a few days, we will begin to see if this teaching is true, or if I’m just a madman. Either way, I’ve given an honest report of what is on my heart. But the election coming Tuesday will be the symbolic space-time turning point. None of us can predict what kind of idiocy will descend over the USA, but we can see that idiocy is coming.

The Word teaches that, in times of tribulation, we should mostly fly below the radar. But by the same token, it says we should never cower in fear. This is our Father’s world. There are boundaries we cannot cross without crossing Him. We must be careful to walk the path of His glory, and focus on our mission. We leave the outcomes to Him, whether He wants to bring us Home or to stay around a bit longer, and in what conditions.

He has granted us a vision of outcomes on a higher level than this world, but most certainly affecting this world. His Word paints a vision of what His glory can do when His people fully seize the mission, and are fully seized by it. That mission is to portray His revelation, to live by moral perception written as conviction in our souls. It makes us consistent with how Creation works, and how it builds a society that reflects His glory.

It’s not quite like the rosy human visions of building civilizations. Rather, it’s a community that doesn’t need to accomplish anything, only to live according to His Word.

Which is worse — to wade through a lifetime of rationalistic atheist conditioning to be struck by a divine calling, or to wade through a lifetime of rationalistic religious conditioning that gives only lip service to faith? We will see plenty of both kinds of sorrow, of people who have a very long journey back toward the Gate of Eden.

What we seek to build is a community, a society that rests on the mandate to make that journey. That is the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven. We aren’t building anything here on earth aside from the lore arising from our unique position in time and space. Religion is the activity of responding to the context as it bounces off faith and the moral understanding that comes from the Presence of the Holy Spirit. Our minds must become accustomed to what our convictions say, and what God has done in other contexts as recorded in His Word.

Thus, a faith community is just a matter of living, not actually doing anything in particular. A primary mark of God’s favor is the increasing love between us, as we seek to invest time and energy in each other. That’s what makes us rich together, for the treasure of the Kingdom of Heaven is souls.

Here on the “eve of destruction” we should stand ready to see the awesome power of God opening doors to rebuilding His Kingdom yet again, in a fresh manifestation of His glory. Will we make mistakes? That’s inevitable; we are fallen creatures. The Lord is looking for children who love Him; He doesn’t judge you on your performance. He measures the desire to please Him. There are consequences for our inevitable performance failures, but faith carries us through them.

Children of Heaven, build His Kingdom!

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Law of Moses — 1 Kings 14

Posted on October 31, 2020 by ehurst

We’ve noted before that the Northern Kingdom had long drifted farther and farther from the Covenant given at Mount Sinai. By the time Solomon passed the throne to his son, she also pulled away from the Davidic Dynasty. Despite the greatness of this tragedy, we could also say that God was doing Judah a favor by removing this massive morally dead weight.

Our narrative opens with King Jeroboam’s heir in distress with sickness. So the King directed his wife to visit the Prophet Ahijah in Shiloh, the one who had prophesied that Jeroboam would be king. But he wanted her to disguise herself as a subject, not appearing as Queen. The offering she bore was substantial, but not at all typical of royalty or nobles, who would bring animals or meat.

Keep in mind that virtually nobody did this stuff alone. An aged prophet would live in a larger household with servants and usually family, and the Queen would never travel alone and unguarded, though she might leave her entourage somewhere out of sight to approach the prophet’s dwelling with one or two servants carrying her gift. Aside from the lowest peasants, nobody in these narratives went anywhere alone, or did any physical work without assistance. Servants and/or slaves were always there, doing the actual labor attributed to the central characters. It was taken for granted that readers would understand this.

Despite being blind from age, Ahijah had hardly gone deaf to God’s Word. Jehovah warned him who was coming and what her mission was. So as she came into the room for an audience, he called out to her by name and gave her a harsh message. Her son was going to die for the sins of his father, but the Lord in His mercy would allow a proper public mourning and burial. No one else from Jeroboam’s household would be that lucky. They would all die violent deaths, and be eaten by scavengers.

The whole point was that the God of the Covenant had lifted Jeroboam to his throne, and wasn’t kidding about what He expected in return. Jeroboam had refused to serve Jehovah, and raised up his own competing temples with idols, as well as permitting every form of idolatry that had for so long been suppressed. Worse, God had decided already that this Northern Kingdom would someday be taken away into exile and dispersed among the Gentiles, never to be seen or heard again as a people.

Meanwhile, as soon as the Queen got home the boy would die. This happened just as the prophet had said. So the public burial ritual took place, also as he had promised. The narrative then telescopes out and tells us that Jeroboam reigned a total of twenty-two years and died. Another of his sons — Nadab — inherited the throne.

Now we jump to Rehoboam, whose conduct was no better. His reign was five years shorter than Jeroboam’s. He never cleaned up his father’s legacy of letting the people turn to idolatry. Instead, it got worse and God was highly embarrassed. So during Rehoboam’s fifth year on the throne, Pharaoh Shishak (Egyptian Sheshonq), who rose to power out of Libya, invaded Judah. Rehoboam bribed him off with the Temple treasures and some of the royal collection. To hide his shame, Rehoboam had bronze shields made to replace those of gold that Shishak had taken. They were guarded just as fiercely as gold.

The text notes in passing that the two rival kings had fought skirmishes off and on during their entire shared reigns. Rehoboam’s heir was named Abijam.

Over the next two centuries, the kings of Israel went through nine dynasties and nineteen rulers, and were carried away by Assyria. They had not a single faithful king. Judah continued under the dynasty of David with only one brief interruption, and lasted almost twice as long before their Exile under Babylon. Judah featured a handful of good kings who feared the Lord.

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Lessons Learned

Posted on October 30, 2020 by ehurst

Radix Fidem is faith-driven. I’ve consistently taught that you should follow your own convictions, and that the only reason we have anything to share is to offer examples of what’s possible. The whole idea is to drive you to look inside your own soul for the living Christ to guide you.

My convictions tell me that my recent 3.5 day experience in the aftermath of an ice storm served as a warning. It was designed to let me experience the kind of challenges I’m likely to face during a more serious tribulation time. I’ve made some miscalculations that were exposed by this challenge.

Some things should be obvious, simply because it’s so human. You are limited in the conveniences for personal sanitation. I typically do things daily that weren’t going to happen without electricity, because bathing and shaving with cold water is more work. The food you buy is based on the need to avoid cold storage, so that only the highest priority items get stuck in the ice chest. Some of this I learned quite well serving in the US Army in a specialty that was always out on bivouac. It’s not a bad way to learn such things.

But some challenges are purely contextual to your mission and calling. Whatever else, I still need to maintain a strong presence on the Internet. I discovered that a laptop is not the best way to do that around here. I’m going to have to change my thinking on the whole business of being online.

I’ll still keep my desktop, in part because I’m running network services on it for both my wife and I. And for serious writing, this machine remains the tool of choice. But for mobile computing, that laptop is the wrong tool. It got to be a real boondoggle during our time without electricity. So I’m going to switch over to a tablet with a keyboard. I can’t get away from needing a keyboard, but having a smaller machine with a different set of connectivity tools is simply necessary. Furthermore, it will be a tablet with a SIM card, because I need to use it in places where no wifi is available.

We also learned how cloud storage is essential. There were hiccups with one of our Win10 systems coming back online. We experienced one of those Windows updates that wiped all the personal files, reset all the configurations, and removed some installed software. Without the OneDrive backup, that would have been a total disaster. Now, I am pretty fastidious about backups on my own collection of files on physical media, but I can see how easily one could lose the use of such things, so I’ll be evaluating the ways I can keep things available both ways.

Granted, Android isn’t known for that kind of borking the way Windows updates do sometimes, but the point is some of my friends have asked me to keep my archives available, and I’m working on a plan to store that stuff online somewhere that’s accessible to all, maybe in more than one place. I’m trying to find the cheapest, yet most reliable, route. The question is complicated by the turmoil among the Big Tech operations.

Pray with us as we contemplate the necessary changes. I don’t mind the personal discomforts; my childhood was one long and continuous discomfort in that sense. But it gets really lonely when the few real friends I have are hard to reach, and the majority of them are accessible only through the Internet. I need you folks.

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Law of Moses — 1 Kings 12

Posted on October 24, 2020 by ehurst

We may never understand what God had in mind by dividing the Kingdom. What is not in doubt is that both sides of the division utterly failed to take the wiser path. What we have here is a tragedy of the highest order.

Today we use the term “corvee” (kor-vay) to describe the system of labor as feudal taxation in the Ancient Near East. We’ve already discussed how Solomon’s demands for labor were unconscionable. The Bible doesn’t say much about what would be reasonable, but we know for sure that Solomon was overbearing and the Israelis resented it.

Solomon had appointed Jeroboam as the minister of labor over Ephraim and Manasseh. At some point Solomon made yet another round of oppressive labor demands, and dispatched Jeroboam along with his peers over other tribes to drag in yet another army of workers. Jeroboam had met a prophet who told him God intended to tear away the Northern Tribes into a separate kingdom, and offered Jeroboam the same deal He had given David. Solomon found out about this and sought to execute Jeroboam to prevent a wider rebellion. The noble from Ephraim fled to Egypt.

Solomon anointed Rehoboam his heir and rested in his grave. Rehoboam decided to hold his coronation at Shechem. This is the ancient city that had been friendly to Israel since before the Conquest, an old sacred site between the two mountains Ebal and Gerizim where the Covenant was celebrated by reciting the blessings and curses. It was also a reasonable choice as midpoint for a meeting of the tribal and national elders between the northern and southern ends of the Kingdom.

The elders of Ephraim called Jeroboam back from Egypt to represent their interests. His message to Rehoboam was to lighten the excessive load that his father Solomon had levied on them. If he would do that, the Northern Tribes would agree to support his rule. Rehoboam responded that he needed three days to consider his answer. Upon consulting his father’s advisers, they quickly advised him to take them up on the offer. They would have been the first to warn anyone that Solomon had demanded far too much.

Then Rehoboam consulted with his age peers, who advised him to be even harder than Solomon had been. It’s hard to imagine the kind arrogance this represents, but Rehoboam took that message back to the tribal elders of Israel: His little finger would be thicker than Solomon’s thigh, and he would exchange the whips for scorpions.

So the Northern Tribes declared they would no longer serve under the House of David, but would form their own separate kingdom. When Rehoboam sent his chief tribute officer to collect the symbolic tribute the tribes had brought with them to Shechem, the elders captured him and stoned him to death. The noise of this wild response caused Rehoboam to flee back to Jerusalem.

He began the process of mobilizing the army to fight this rebellion, but was warned off this course of action by the prophet Shemaiah. Rehoboam heeded this warning and accepted the new state of affairs as the decision of God.

This was tragedy enough, but Jeroboam went back on his word to God. Not trusting in the promises of Jehovah, Jeroboam feared that having the people keep going down to Jerusalem to worship would weaken his position, so he commissioned two rival temples at Bethel and Dan. Being twice the fool, he used in both temples the failed image of the rebellion during Exodus: the Golden Calf. This was poking God in the eye. He also anointed priests who were not Levites.

It’s hard to overstate just how awful this whole situation was. Two idiotic kings now face fierce tension and neither was willing to listen to the God who brought them out of slavery. The shalom of Israel took a major hit that day. The Southern Kingdom was ruled by a fool and the Northern Kingdom had taken the first step to abandoning the Covenant.

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Who Am I?

Posted on October 21, 2020 by ehurst

God has commanded me to ready myself to lead a group of people in a faith community.

As I’ve been devoting myself in prayer to preparation for leading a congregation, there’s been a lot of soul searching. It’s important to know for myself consciously what kind of elder I’ll be, and what are the pitfalls that come with that. I’m not silly enough to imagine I can conquer all my flaws; some are hard-wired, or nearly enough to it that God tells me it’s not worth fighting.

So the first thing is that I’m very introspective, very self-conscious in the sense of praying often that God would reveal myself to me (see Psalm 139). Like most introverts, I draw strength from time alone, and I use that strength for performing publicly when it’s appropriate. I can’t do it all day long, day after day. It’s not fair to the audience; I wouldn’t be able to give them what God says they need.

I’m a nonconformist. Not in the sense of rebelling against everything, but in a more substantive way of wondering and questioning everything I’m told is good and right. Indeed, I work hard at not rocking the boat unless I see it sinking already. Most of the time it’s just good tactics to play along with what’s common around me, but the underlying strategy is to look for things that justify rebellion. And at the point of rebellion, it’s likely worth my life.

I grew up in the rural economic lower class; I’m a peasant. I have a strong distrust for people who appear to be middle class in cultural orientation. Upper class folks don’t bother me much, but the pretense of the middle class has been no end of pain for me. I’m perfectly willing to skip all the so-called opportunities to avoid having to act like the materialistic, often prissy, middle class. I don’t even own a tie, nor a shirt that would permit a tie. I’m quite comfortable being a pauper; I’ve been homeless a few times and quite often nearly so in my adult life. I’ve been hungry plenty of times. Often it was because I refused to compromise on something that drove my conscience, and I regret none of that.

And I’d rather do without if “help” means compromising on things God requires of me.

I’ve noted in the past that I’m neither left nor right. The division between those two is artificial, in part because the civilization behind it is inherently wrong. But in practice, I wind up supporting things that are characteristic of both sides; I’m rather eclectic about it. In terms of government policy, my values come from a totally different civilization. So, for example, I prefer libertarian social policy, but not their economic policies. That’s because, under Western social values, I’d rather be free to do what God says I should do. But in terms of economic policies, I’d rather the government did some things libertarians don’t like.

Thus, I don’t think much of the American tradition of absolute property rights when it comes to real estate. I believe a certain amount of public access is a divine mandate, and I’m not troubled much by the use of legal condemnation of property and seizure to gain that access. I’m sure we’d all draw the lines differently, but I’m not troubled by the federal government nationalizing some property. I am troubled by the use of arbitrary wildlife preservation policies that justify some of the silliest and most useless seizures, because it often hides a corrupt agenda. I don’t support the Greens by any means; that’s pagan idolatry. On the other hand, Creation is sacred in its own right, and it’s provided by God for our use. I have no hope that the US will ever see it done right, but I do want some freedom of access so I can do what’s required of me.

I’m always perfectly willing to volunteer my time and effort to improve public access lands, too. The problem is that most people want that done in a highly organized fashion that grates on my nerves. So most of the time I just do stuff I know will improve the experience of users on my own without help. It’s easier to be ignored, or to at least get forgiveness, than it is to get official permission.

I really detest high taxation and confiscation of movable property. I have no use for Child Protection services and I think this warrants a deadly violent response where possible. I note that it’s rarely possible, so I’m not suggesting open warfare. Still, this tendency of the Nanny State is by far the most evil thing in American society. I am convinced that the US system of government offers no grounds for restricting the “rights” of any sexual perversions people can dream up between consenting adults, but child molestation is generally a violation of parental rights, and bestiality is violence against Creation. I don’t care for public education and if we don’t regulate vehicle traffic pretty tightly, experience alone shows it would be a massive disaster in our society. I favor open carry of firearms, and I don’t give a damn about people’s feelings when it comes to “speech codes.” Those are just samples.

I realize that I’m out on the fringe in many ways. I’m difficult for a lot of folks to take. What that means is that I don’t expect to touch a wider audience in meat space. The online world is a wholly different matter, but in the flesh, I doubt there’s a large number of people who could commit to working with me that closely. Rather, I’m here to shepherd those who aren’t going to fit in with the mainstream in the first place. That means meeting such people will be a miracle of God, because people like me hang out in the shadows already.

That doesn’t mean I can’t work with a more mainstream group if they want me around. So far, my presence and calling has been disruptive, and I would rather leave than confuse folks about what I’m there to do. I’ve been accused several times of trying to hijack ongoing activities. I’m not angry about that, just disappointed, and determined not to give that impression again.

This is why I use the label “Christian Mystic” a lot. For most people, that’s about as close as we are going to get for the purpose of discussing my mission. If they aren’t turned off by that, maybe we can talk about it. Otherwise, it serves as a warning to folks who have no real interest in what I’m doing, because they are selling their own brand.

I fully expect to compromise on some issues; that’s how real life works. Spiritual wisdom is knowing which compromises dilute your mission, and which ones just mean extra work and worry. I don’t take myself that seriously. I take the mission very seriously.

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Ruled by Compassion

Posted on October 20, 2020 by ehurst

As Jesus’ cousin and possibly His closest human friend, John is considered the Apostle closest to the Master’s heart, particularly in his writings. It was John who revealed that Jesus said at the Last Supper: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34). Yet it John himself who also wrote: “For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another” (1 John 3:11). In similar words, he also wrote:

And now I plead with you, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have had from the beginning: that we love one another. This is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it. (2 John 5-6)

When it comes to agape, it’s a command that goes back to the very beginning of divine revelation. Jesus nailed it down quite succinctly:

And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?” So he answered and said, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.'” And He said to him, “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.” (Luke 10:25-28)

While Jesus used that same teaching in other contexts, this one is where He goes on to tell the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Our point here is that this business of agape is founded in the Covenant of Moses, and was well established in rabbinical teaching long before Jesus was born.

What made that commandment new during the Last Supper, at the initiation of the New Covenant, was that Jesus specifically pointed to His sacrifice on the Cross as the new standard defining this ancient command. He personified the Law of God, regardless whether we call it the Old Covenant or the New Covenant. It was the Old Testament renewed in His Person, which made it fresh and new.

The issue with the Good Samaritan hints at a radical change between the Old and New, in that it renews the meaning of the Old Covenant itself, long forgotten by Jews. The definition of “neighbor” was essentially “covenant brother/sister.” The lawyer was looking for an excuse to restrict the meaning to those who were on his side of the partisan divide in Judah at that time. But Jesus was pointing back to the Covenant itself: Your neighbor is anyone who clings to the meaning of the Covenant. The Samaritan acted according to the Covenant, despite not being officially under the Covenant. Your neighbor is whomever shows brotherly compassion as God defines it. Racial identity and Covenant rituals didn’t mean anything against the sincere manifestation of commitment to God’s ways.

And this was the proper answer based on Moses. Yet it was also the proper answer based on Christ, the initiator of the New Covenant. Don’t get hung up on the words “old” and “new” in connection with God’s Law. In a very fundamental way, nothing has changed since we were expelled from the Garden of Eden. It’s all still a matter of God’s divine moral character. What’s new is that it’s now revealed in a Person who still lives, and we can get to know that living New Testament in our hearts.

One of the things that was very much changed at the Cross was the order of things. In the Old Covenant, we are were required to submit to the Law in order to find redemption. In the New Covenant, we are permitted to find redemption first, so that we can go back and find out how to submit to the Law. We are allowed to discover up front that the Law of God is its own reward.

This is the “treasure in clay jars” (2 Corinthians 4:7) — the power of Christ as the revelation of God living in our convictions. This is a precious thing we have rediscovered, and it’s clearly not what one gets from mainstream Christian religion. Radix Fidem is not a new religion; we are simply trying to recover what God says is ours. Of course we want it for other folks. We could wish that all of God’s children could discover what we have found. How can we not love the other children of our Father? We find them lying in the road, beaten down and nearly dead. Call us what you will, but we are determined to provide whatever we can to bring healing.

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Backdoor BLM Crusade

Posted on October 18, 2020 by ehurst

There’s something I’ve noticed when reviewing all the articles about religious organizations and “racial healing” conferences, etc. — it’s just bringing BLM through the backdoor of the church.

Keep in mind that BLM’s leadership has already admitted straight out that it’s a Marxist and anti-Christian organization. It’s intention is to force communist solutions into American society and politics. We’ve seen enough of how churchianity is nothing more than painting Bible verses on worldly values. This is just one more flavor of that. When you pay attention to the ideas and suggestions that are offered as solutions to racial conflict, it always boils down to making the church accept communist doctrine in one form or another. It’s always a cover for materialistic forced transfers of property and wealth. When it’s less blatant, it’s still wedging through the door a very materialistic brand of name-it-and-claim-it religion that sees whites being the primary source of fulfillment.

For those of us who eschew materialism in the first place, we never get invited to these conferences and such. Of course, the reason is that we have nothing to give except our heart-led obedience to the Word. Actually changing the cultural habits of people to line up with the Scripture is not considered a valid solution in this strange religious-political movement. But we make room for every color and culture to join us in the heart-led walk of Biblical Law. That’s all we have to offer.

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Law of Moses — 1 Kings 11

Posted on October 17, 2020 by ehurst

This is a long chapter, and all of it is required to understand a very broad context. However, the key issue in the narrative is just a short section.

Over the previous chapters, we learn that Solomon dramatically changed Israel from a warring loose confederation to a very civilized and united kingdom. We noted previously that the Northern Tribes had long differed somewhat from the Southern in vernacular speech and culture. This was led by the tribe of Ephraim that never seemed to have gotten over certain perceived slights during the Exodus, Conquest and Period of Judges. So while they capitulated to making David king, Solomon managed to reawaken the division.

But first, we must understand why God allowed this division to fester in the first place. It could have gone quite well under Solomon’s reign, but for the wisest man in human history, it was another matter to actually walk in his own wisdom. He failed grandly.

We are treated early in the chapter to a long and sad recitation of his moral failures. Like his father David, Solomon was a skirt chaser, but his father had been too busy to indulge that much. David had pacified every nation around, but Solomon had leisure to develop a high culture and art, along with a massive harem. He compromised with his thousand plus wives and concubines, allowing them to keep their idolatrous practices, and even participated himself. In the end, Solomon actually rebuilt a whole host of cults that previous generations had labored so hard to stamp out.

So the narrative warns us gravely that Solomon provoked the Lord’s wrath. However, that wrath was tempered by mercy. Nothing really bad would happen during Solomon’s reign, but would be inherited by his son. Instead, his reign was shortened a bit. The heir wouldn’t just inherit political instability, but he would be as stupid as Solomon was wise. That was part of the curse, and critical to the longer chain of events.

The previous chapters recount the extravagant building projects of the Temple and the Palace of Cedar (AKA House of the Forest of Lebanon). Those same chapters give us a hint of just how much the royal palace consumed. It’s hard to imagine, and it required Solomon to make a very concerted effort to organize thoroughly and keep the tribute flowing in sufficient quantity. That thousand plus wives and concubines weren’t cheap. But then, nothing about Solomon’s reign was cheap. Keep that in mind.

So while Solomon didn’t face any serious threats to his actual rule, the Lord raised up several significant figures to oppose him and cause some trouble. There was Hadad the Edomite. He was a surviving royal son of Edom who escaped with a small band of supporters from the slaughter dealt out by Joab during David’s reign. There weren’t many adult Edomite men who survived that war. Hadad went down to Egypt and nursed his hatred for Israel living on Pharaoh’s support. Eventually he went back home to rebuild Edom during Solomon’s reign.

Rezon escaped his servitude in Damascus and raised up a raider force that eventually went back and captured that city. He became another thorn in Solomon’s side, never submitting and never being driven out.

God also raised up a domestic rival for Solomon. An Ephraimite noble named Jeroboam was talented enough to be hired for royal service. Solomon was the kind of man who knew it was wise to keep the real talented men of his nation close to him so he could watch them. But it’s clear that Jeroboam wasn’t thrilled with the way Solomon did things. It was part of his duty to insure Solomon had enough bodies for the endless building projects.

I have yet to understand why so very many commentaries avoid discussing verse 27. You won’t find much discussion on it. What difference did it make to Jeroboam that Solomon had this one project to expand the Temple plaza (“Millo” — a terrace filled with rubble and dirt) and turn the patchwork protection around Zion and the Temple into a massive single continuous wall? If we understand correctly, this was all one project, as the two structures were merged.

The issue was the business of forced labor as tax. Solomon’s taxation was downright vicious, well beyond what God said was appropriate (roughly 10%). The royal labor projects were particularly rough, consuming up to a quarter of the year for every able-bodied man in the nation. Solomon didn’t make it easy by taking this labor tax during the off-season, either. It was all year round with every man rotating in and out on a schedule convenient to the royal administration, not to the men doing the labor. And this was on top of other taxes levied against their productive work at home.

So what we learn in verse 27 is that the wall and plaza was the straw that broke the camel’s back. This was the source of unrest in Solomon’s reign. So on a day when Jeroboam left Jerusalem, heading toward his own subordinate tribal headquarters in Ephraim, probably on yet another draft mission to seize more workers, he was met by a prophet in disguise, named Ahijah.

The prophet told Jeroboam what God had planned, and roughly the schedule. The Northern Tribes (later called “Israel”) would split from the Kingdom and and be given to Jeroboam. The Southern Tribes (called “Judah”) would remain under David’s dynasty, and all of this would happen only after Solomon had passed. Jeroboam was told in no uncertain terms why God was doing this: idolatry. If Jeroboam would remain faithful to Jehovah, he would inherit the promise granted to David regarding a royal dynasty.

Solomon caught wind of this little meeting and sought to arrest Jeroboam and execute him. However, the latter escaped to Egypt. We are then told that Solomon reigned only forty years. For having started so young, that wasn’t a long reign.

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Can AI Govern?

Posted on October 16, 2020 by ehurst

First, I consider it a doctrine of faith in God that AI cannot possibly become self-aware. The problem is that anyone trying to build a self-aware AI would simply lie about the results. Indeed, I am utterly certain that this is exactly what is happening behind the scenes. Perhaps some participants will be self-deceived, convinced that AI had become self-aware simply because they are so devoted to the idea. However, there will no doubt be some involved who would willingly lie about it because of their lust for control. Either way, a purported AI will be programmed by people with certain values, and those values already exclude faith in God as a hostile element of human tendency.

So what it would look like? We can get an early taste of this bogus AI government by seeing how a bit of political wargaming turned out. You see, the globalists have been plotting rather in the open about this very thing.

Game 3 “Clear Trump Win”, simulated not only how Republicans could use every option at their disposal to “hold onto power”, but also how Democrats could do so if the 2020 election result is not in their favor.

Joe Biden — played by John Podesta, retracted his election night concession and convinced “three states with Democratic governors — North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Michigan – to ask for recounts.” Then, the governors of Wisconsin and Michigan “sent separate slates of electors to counter those sent by the state legislature” to the Electoral College, which Trump had won, in an attempt to undermine that win.

Then, the Biden campaign encouraged Western states to secede from the Union unless the Congressional Republicans agreed to a set of structural reforms. With advice from former President Obama, the Biden campaign listed the reforms as follows:

  • Give statehood to Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico
  • Divide California into five states “to more accurately represent its population in the Senate”
  • Require Supreme Court justices to retire at 70
  • Eliminate the Electoral College

These structural reforms will lead to the U.S. having 6 additional states. These six new states will ensure a perpetual majority for Democrats because only Democrat-majority areas are given statehood. Notably, in other scenarios where Biden won the Electoral College, Democrats did not support its elimination.

The TIP claimed that the Trump campaign would seek to paint these “provocative, unprecedented actions” as “the Democrats attempting to orchestrate an illegal coup,” despite the fact that that is essentially what those actions entail.

The Biden campaign “provoked a breakdown in the joint session of Congress by getting the House of Representatives to agree to award the presidency to Biden. The Republican party did not consent, noting that Trump had won the election through the electoral college victory.

This is a sample of the kind of people involved in this project and what they would be willing to dream up in their lust for oppression. It’s also a tip-off to just how chaotic and ugly things will get here in the US with the next election and the days following. That they would pretend to do such things in a gaming scenario is an indicator of what they plan to actually do in real life.

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