The Best This Life Has to Offer

Posted on January 31, 2019 by ehurst

The will of God is its own reward.

We can call it all kinds of things — Biblical Law, the character of Christ, the Word of the Lord — but the will of God for you is, in the most absolute terms, the very best you can hope for in this life. It is fundamental to your creation and purpose; it’s who you really are. Your highest potential is bound up in knowing what God wants for you.

This is not some perfect Nirvana state, either. It’s a living thing, something dynamic and shifting with the context. Your mind can’t know it; it can only implement that moving target of personal holiness. You should never expect to be done, to take a break from holiness. There’s always the next righteous choice to make until He brings you Home.

That’s because this world cannot be redeemed. I often make it a point to assert that Creation isn’t fallen, but we are. The problem is that you also need to understand that we were made by God to manage this Earth on His behalf, and in our fallen state, it’s pretty poorly managed. So it’s not what it should be, but it’s our fault. We are fallen; we are born in a state of rebellion against God’s will. At some point in our human development, we become culpable for our sins. And the world we make for ourselves is thus inherently wrong because we are wrong. So when Christ returns to restore all things, that means He will undo all that has happened since Adam and Eve made that fateful choice in the Garden of Eden. That will restore this Earth to what He intended, what it was in Eden. That’s the only “fix” possible for what’s wrong with this world.

So we are left with fixing only ourselves, and that requires direct help from God. It requires that He elect to commune with you, to invade your soul and breathe His Spirit into your dead spirit and make it alive. Thus, it won’t matter if you earn a PhD in Bible, you don’t know God’s will until you know God in that sense of His divine Presence living in you. And the only way you know about that is in your heart, because He does not invade your mind. It’s a separate faculty that comes to life with His Presence, something we call faith. The one and only thing you can contribute is the will to accept His will.

You have to open your mind to hear that inner voice and choose in every moment to obey that voice. Your intellect rebels at the mere thought of such an arrangement. Your intellect very much believes in itself, but your ego must choose to ignore that boastful voice and hear the voice of God in your conscience. Because that’s the only clue your mind has to God’s will. You must obey your conscience as it is today, right now. You do so knowing it will begin to change and shift in valuation of what is good and what is evil. That’s the whole purpose of seeking Him in worship; it is to open up that link and purify any fallen tendencies, little by little (Exodus 23:20-33). The more you worship and pray, the more you know, and the more of your divine heritage you reclaim.

We try to help each other by sharing our experience. Not that any of us are masters of all this, but perhaps in some ways we are simply down the same road ahead of you. Some of what we can share will be pertinent, and the farther you go, the more you will share of your own discernment about such things.

You see, insofar as there is a goal in this life, it’s developing the ability to fellowship and commune with others who are pursuing that same will of God for themselves. The only true fellowship comes from sharing your real self, the self God made you to be, with others who experience Him in similar ways. If you get this for yourself alone, you didn’t get it. If you don’t hear God urging you to fellowship with others, you aren’t hearing from God. That’s so fundamental to what He’s doing in this world that you simply cannot obey Him without engaging fellow believers. The character of Biblical Law is summed up in how you commune with others. Of course, that “others” includes all of Creation, but humans are the focal point.

Because everything in the written record of revelation — the Bible — counts as the endpoint this one thing: our ongoing fellowship and communion with others who have been brought to this eternal life. The fullness of His promised blessings reside in the community of faith. You haven’t gotten your share of the divine estate until you are sharing it with His other children. He won’t divide the inheritance; it’s a living thing we all have to share.

This is the reward of God’s will in this life.

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Where Are You?

Posted on January 30, 2019 by ehurst

Claiming monotheism is theology. It’s an intellectual position derived from a very non-intellectual faith. Henotheism is not theology; it’s a practice. In case that’s a new word to you, I’ll save you from looking it up: henotheism is the belief that, while there may be other deities out there, I am accountable to the God who called me, not those others.

Keep in mind the philosophical foundation on which this all stands. My epistemology is not based on reason and logic, but on conviction. You can say whatever you want to about that, but I walk by my convictions. I am what I am in this place and time, and all I really have is my faith, experiences and perceptions (this is closely related to phenomenology). I don’t trust my perceptions all that much and I find them variable. I regard faith or conviction as a higher faculty superior to my mental abilities, something far more consistent and trustworthy. I believe the very living Presence of my God is there in my convictions, and nothing my senses and logic tell me can be allowed to argue with that divine Presence.

So my mind and my ego are servants of this higher power that speaks from my convictions. In the most blunt terms, the whole world is going to Hell, but I’m following my convictions. If you share some sufficient measure of my convictions (“sufficient” cannot be defined), then I’ll listen to you. If you present too much that is contrary to my convictions, then I will not listen to you. The only way you can make yourself significant to me is by expressing a common faith through words and conduct.

So we establish covenants of words that represent covenants in our hearts, shared convictions and faith. We agree to work together and treat each other as covenant family. If you get too far away from that common understanding, your status as family weakens. At some point, you aren’t family. Sure, it’s possible to cross back and forth over that line, but it’s not a matter of you watching that line. From where I stand, it’s a matter of you obeying your own convictions, even when you may actually be obeying something else. I give you credit for obeying your convictions because I can’t always tell what’s going on inside of you. But I have to set boundaries or I’m not obeying my own convictions. I’ll treat you accordingly.

Let me take a moment to define shalom. It’s not the same concept as the English term “peace.” The latter is loaded with baggage that doesn’t belong to shalom, which is specifically “peace with God.” Peace with God requires faith, and total and unreserved commitment to God. And with His divine favor comes a lot of blessings that are visible to outsiders. It starts with the idea of moral stability. If you apply it to a covenant family, it’s also social stability. It includes reasonable prosperity, health and safety. Those are not absolutes, but the person of faith can recognize them for what they are in God’s promises. But shalom equates to clinging faithfully to the applicable covenant.

If you are a faith covenant family member, I’ll sacrifice on your behalf. I’ll encourage you to return the favor. As the covenant family grows, the priority shifts to the whole family, not just a matter of you and me. The only way a family can grow like that is if other folks see a powerful shalom rising from our shared faith. God will draw them into the family.

By no means is our family the only one God blesses. And it may well be that there are other gods out there, but we need only a very clear sense of who our God is. With that, we need a clear shared sense of what He requires of us. If you aren’t part of my faith family, I don’t have to know what He requires of you, or what other deities may require of you. That’s your problem. Nor am I obliged to give you more than the amount of room to operate near me that my God tells me through my convictions. If you transgress too closely on the boundaries drawn by my convictions, I’ll be obliged to take some action to protect whatever shalom I have and share with others.

There will be time and place to compare notes on these things, but at some point your pursuit of your convictions will separate us. Separation does not imply sin in either of us, only a painful reality of living in a fallen world. The more we share, the harder it is to let go, but I will obey my God and let you go where you feel led by your convictions that call you away from my family.

But if your convictions depart and you stick around to make trouble, I’ll obey my convictions and try to deal with you. The symbolism of Genesis 9 tells me that I am obliged to assess just how much of a problem you are, and what remedy God demands. What does it take to overcome your disturbance? That’s up to you, but God Himself demands I be ready to take your life if necessary. “Whoever sheds man’s blood” in that context means preying on people, instead of the creatures God granted for our needs. In case you don’t quite grasp this: The Covenant of Noah is part of the Covenant of Christ, a critical element in Biblical Law.

Indeed, the Covenant of Noah is now the single incontrovertible Law Covenant for all the world until Christ’s Return. It does not depend on whether those covered under that covenant — all of humanity — consciously assent to it. I embrace it; that’s the grounds for acting. If any human, or group of humans, on this earth transgress my shalom sufficiently and God moves me by my convictions, I will then be obliged to kill as many as it takes to stop that threat.

It may well be that I am supposed to just let it all go to Hell. I’ll know that in my convictions; I’m prepared to take that path. But to the degree the Lord through my convictions speaks of resistance to the threat, I’ll fight. It has nothing to do with whether I expect to win or succeed. It has nothing to do with whether it makes things better or even more unstable. It has everything to do with my convictions. So if you and your group plan to do things with my fleshly existence, you take your chances whether God will move me to respond in ways you don’t like. And in that moment, I don’t give a damn what you think. Your thoughts and feelings and convictions aren’t my problem. Your intrusion into my shalom are the problem.

And I don’t give a damn what deities you answer to, or even if you claim it’s the same God. You have zero authority to inspect and adjust my beliefs, and you sure as Hell aren’t the God who breathes life into my convictions. I’m not going to poke around in your beliefs, either. I’ll share mine and compare notes under certain conditions, but I’m not going judge your soul, only the actions you take that impinge on my sense of mission and calling.

On top of all this, since part of my divine calling is as prophet, I may well be driven to verbally harass you about what my God has revealed about your conduct. Again, I don’t give a damn how you feel about it. Granted, there is a very high probability I won’t intrude on your personal space. If you claim to hold reins of authority over others, you are fair game for sure, but my convictions won’t permit me to aggress on your personal domain, virtual or real. Either way, I most certainly will deliver my burden from God and your feelings, beliefs of convictions don’t matter at all.

That is, unless you are part of my covenant family. Then I am required to stop and consider your sensibilities, because I’ll be in a position to know something about them. And I’ll be obliged to leverage that kinship as best I can to seek delivery of that message. That applies to all those other things I do as the shepherd of my flock. I’ll try to operate on the basis of kinship and tenderness that isn’t necessarily required with outsiders.

And the same goes with Noah’s Covenant. If my government proclaims the Covenant of Noah, it binds me in a lot of ways. If they don’t claim it, then that business of “don’t curse the king” no longer applies. Without the Covenant protection, no government is valid before God. Some are useful to Him, but none of them are protected. All rulers outside the Covenant of Noah are accursed already by default.

On the other hand, it is my compassion on God’s creation that moves me to kill or heal or whatever I feel obliged to do. But those who share my covenant get a special consideration. The human race at large has no claim on me without embracing a covenant. Those who do nothing to fellowship in the covenant, or whose words and actions convince me they no longer wish to share a covenant, don’t get that same treatment. And there is a sliding scale on that as to how close they want to be, just as there is a sliding scale on the quality of mercy and grace I give accordingly. Furthermore, your position can slide back and forth moment by moment. You get to choose. Even if you aren’t aware of how it works, that’s how I am obliged to operate.

So you tell me: Where are you on that sliding scale?

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Boundaries with Women

Posted on January 29, 2019 by ehurst

There are women who don’t demand control.

I’ve gotten more than one response to my post on the Bitch Goddess. The post was aimed at the Satanic corruption of womanhood, not womanhood itself. The Lord made woman from the same flesh as man and you can’t have one without the other. And there are most certainly things women should run for their men, because men can be quite incompetent at some tasks.

Even the best of men are distracted by their own callings from God, but it doesn’t excuse anything approaching the Western masculine misogyny. That was part of my point: Western culture has created an image of men built on the effects of the Curse of the Fall. Traditional Western manhood is evil, indeed.

The biblical model is hardly quite what Israel made of it, either. Jesus condemned the Talmudic position that made women mere chattel. As noted often on this blog, the Law of Moses was not universal; it was for those people, that place, that time. Those people came out of a bad context for women. Thus, the Law of Moses elevated women substantially over neighboring cultures. Jesus took it even farther and gave them unprecedented authority within the marriage covenant.

So the thing we seek in the balance between man and woman has no absolute definition. Biblical Law is a moral relationship, not a bunch of principles. Within each social context in human history, there is always a distance between where the folks are versus where they ought to be. Right now, we have a serious problem with Western feminism, but the primary issue is that it is Western.

Not every pagan deity is inherently evil; it’s a question of whether the mythology and worship threatens shalom. Under the Covenant of Moses there was no room for any pagan religion. However, that wasn’t the issue with pagan neighbors within their own societies. The Hebrew experience with Canaanite Astarte worship included temple prostitutes, and there is no way to put a good spin on that. The Canaanite intrusion into the Hebrew society was the problem. Sex outside the marriage covenant is evil, period.

But for all the problems Israel had with such things, there were also male homosexual temple prostitutes (“dogs”) who were considered even worse. But perhaps the most pernicious outsider pagan influence on Hebrew culture came from the various cults of Baal. The array of images of Baal constituted a horrible influence on Hebrew manhood. What made it so difficult was that the idolatry of Baal included a lot of ritual that was also found in the worship of Jehovah. That’s because both drew from the same broad cultural background and protocols for dealing with important and powerful men.

However, the Canaanites were uniquely perverse and morally filthy and God condemned all the Canaanites to death for a very good reason. That Israel failed to carry out this command is part of why they ultimately failed as a nation. They corrupted the witness of God’s truth, so He had to send His Son to die on the Cross to get that message across. You’ll notice that only Israel was expected to obey Moses. And plenty of allies were known to worship other deities without sparking any kind of conflict. They agreed on the terms to honor each other’s commitment to their own gods.

Once again: You will find elements of divine truth in a lot of places outside proper worship of Jehovah. The local Canaanites were pushy about their perverse cults, doing their best to suck Israel into it. The primary temptation of Baal worship was the familiarity of ritual and some of the symbolism. Baal worship was loaded with parables, as was that of Astarte. All otherworldly truth is transmitted properly via parables. Nothing you can state factually can cover the Spirit Realm. Any scholarly awareness of pagan religions and mythology, particularly those arising from the Ancient Near East, requires you understand the vast amount of common background they all share with the Old Testament.

All truth is God’s truth. But if you then settle on some pagan religion for that reason, and it causes you to distort or desert Jehovah, I have little sympathy for your choice. There has only ever been one God and Creator of all things. His only Son, Jesus Christ, was His ultimate revelation. Everything else is just a bad understanding of His revelation. In Christ there is no room for pagan idolatry. At the same time, I won’t harass you for pursuing some other religion.

Yes, we have made progress, in both good and evil in our civilizations since the Fall. Moses doesn’t fit our world, but his writing does point us back to the Father of all things. Jesus also ministered and taught within a historical context, seriously tightening the soft parts of Moses, and we can see how the rest of the New Testament built on that foundation.

We can also see how some parts of those New Testament letters arise from a specific context, so that the precise teaching may be difficult to match with our lives today. I don’t pretend that what I believe and practice based on my best understanding of that teaching is appropriate for everyone. There is no universal religion possible to meet all human need. That’s what the Tower of Babel was all about; we are supposed to be divided into thousands of little tribes and associate between tribes only as our human existence makes it possible within the context. Otherwise, we should all have varying customs, rituals and even varying theology. Following Christ can take on a lot of human variation.

I know what I’m called to do, and make no apology for that. Feel free to join or not, or to stay and then move on as you feel led. You are not me and I am not you. Take what you can use and serve God as you know Him. Meanwhile, I’m going to call it as I see it, and you should do the same. If we can agree enough, let’s fellowship. If not, let’s stay out of each other’s way. Nobody knows the whole story except our Creator. The best we can hope for is a solid sense of assurance about our own individual calling and mission, a sense of peace with God that you are accountable to Him first.

The mission here is to develop an approach to religion, not a religion in itself. My religion insists that you need to come up with your own religion. There should be enough room in our Radix Fidem covenant that we can share a lot of faith-driven activity and chatter without rubbing each other raw. This blog is just one virtual parish within a much larger space, so you need not confine yourself to my weirdness to belong to Radix Fidem. Everyone’s welcome to this parish, but it means you’ll have to tolerate me. If that’s too much, go and build your own ministry and make your appeal to the wider community at the forum. That forum isn’t supposed to be just the Kiln of the Soul parish, but the wider Radix Fidem community.

If you join us in dumping Western Civilization, as our covenant openly requires, then I don’t see how you can cling to American style feminism and the resulting political agenda. I also don’t see how you can support the American masculine backlash. There are elements in feminist doctrine that we frankly agree with, as we do with their antagonists, but I take particular exception to the feminist demand for what amounts to compulsory socialism/communism in economics and social policy. Against this I am willing myself to take up arms and fight, but I’m just about as likely to pull the trigger on necons, for that matter. What hinders me is not a question of whether I can get away with it, or whether I could join with others of the same resolve. It’s a question of whether my convictions demand it in any given context. Right now: No way. Unless God provides a path that my convictions recognize, I’m letting it all pass by me.

But in this climate, I trust precious few women I encounter in this world. It’s not that they can’t move from a bad place to a better understanding, but that God has laid down standards for me in how I operate. I’m friendly to everyone; I am a self-deprecating clown among my fellow humans. Still, I seldom give strangers any actual information about me. My experience has told me that I’m a very long way from most people culturally, and it takes time and interaction before I can discern how I should relate to them, women in particular. Too many really bad things have come into my life from being careless around women. It’s not so much that they are evil, but the Devil is too deeply involved in America and has spoiled things. I treat very few American women as part of my faith family.

So, for example, I am very stand-offish with women who expose too much flesh. I stay away from public pools and such. The same goes with any form of immodesty, such as form-hugging clothing. I’ll talk to most kids in my path because I know how (having been a public school teacher), but I don’t seek their company unless they express a strong desire to be near me. The key issue is people who feel drawn to me; I try to discern why. Anything like flirtation or adulation is a real put-off for me. While physical proximity may not be within my control, I’m often reserved until the Lord says it’s show time.

As things get more crazy and tribulation deepens, the polarity between people I’m called to serve and those who are a problem will become more pronounced, while fewer and fewer will be simply part of the context.

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Dragging in the Dead Rat

Posted on January 28, 2019 by ehurst

The world is worldly. Shocking, isn’t it? The mass of people in this world will approach life from a worldly viewpoint, and do worldly things. Even when they claim a spiritual element in their lives, it’s just an element. It’s often compartmentalized so that “spiritual stuff” is confined to a certain range of activities acceptable to this world.

We don’t go along with that. Of course, the biggest single problem we have is defining how the New Testament uses the term “worldly.” It depends on which English translation you prefer, but the concept shows up prominently in a few places:

Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (James 4:4 NKJV)

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world — the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life — is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever. (1 John 2:15-17 NKJV)

What isn’t immediately clear to folks who read it in English is that the entire Western frame of reference is one of the best definitions of worldliness. I suppose some may get tired of hearing about that, but this is a core element of our teaching: Western Civilization arose in defiance of revelation. Worse, the organized Church was complicit, falsely enrobing the core mythology as approved by Christ.

I’m going to skip the normal pattern on this blog for a moment and jump into the next lesson in our series on Teachings of Christ — Luke 17:1-4. The first thing you notice is the warning Jesus gives to His disciples: There is no way we can avoid encountering human sin in this world. In the particular context of the previous lessons in our series, we know that Jesus is referring to the leadership of the scribes and Pharisees. Within their society at that time, the scribes and Pharisees were the single largest manifestation of worldliness. And while God will bring wrath onto them for that, He also warns His followers not to be smug about it. Watch out for the sinner in the mirror.

None of us is so spiritually developed that we can just coast along. By implication, we should watch out for the other sinners within our fellowship. None of us is flawless. Penitence is a critical element in daily living for those of us following Christ. One of the primary reasons for congregating is to keep an eye on each other. We are all appointed as shepherds in one sense or another. This is family; we make room for mistakes. The point is the health and welfare of the family, not the stuff families do as seen by outsiders. The world is never going to understand our private communion, so let’s not pretend its opinion matters. Rather, let’s keep the door open for our brothers and sisters to repent, so they can in turn offer the same grace to us when we inevitably fail.

Don’t put anyone on a pedestal. Leadership is not based on perfection, but first a divine calling despite character flaws. Then we look at how the mixture of imperfection and divine grace will affect the family shalom as a consideration of what their leadership role will be. The individual can claim anything they like, but credibility comes by how you build up the shalom through sacrificial love. Every day that you visit this blog, you should be evaluating whether the stuff I write helps or hinders your faith, or if it’s pertinent at all. Your convictions always have the answer.

This is not the way the world does things. The world is obsessed with results in concrete terms. Outsiders evaluate things in terms of presumed logic, based on the mythology of objective reason and facts. And of course, all of this is merely a cover for the lusts of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and boastful pride of life. This is why so many people claim that objective facts back their position, and yet the world always seems to have conflict. Everyone holds forth their own idols as the only true and righteous deities, and themselves as the only true and righteous adherents of that deity.

If we surrender to the worldly system, we are enemies of the God who called us. Jesus described someone who returns truly penitent up to seven times a day on the same kind of mistake. The value that member of the family has is in their love for the family, not the perfection of their performance. There is no single right way to do much of anything, but when something injures shalom, heart-led people can tell. You can’t get that with your reason and facts. Your heart knows when to forgive, so listen to it.

Your heart also knows when someone is trying to pull in worldly considerations, and you need to reject that.

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Teachings of Jesus — Luke 16:19-31

Posted on January 26, 2019 by ehurst

Jesus is still poking at the scribes and Pharisees. After hammering them for their insistence on perverting Moses to feed their idolatrous materialism, He points out how there was no way they could qualify for entrance into His Messianic Kingdom. He chose as an example His standard for dealing with divorce and remarriage was much tougher than Moses, contrasted against the Pharisaical teaching that was much looser than Moses. God could see their evil hearts.

Then Jesus tells another parable. He starts off with some unnamed rich man whose wealth was off the scale. Wearing purple was for emperors because this particular dye didn’t fade, but actually got brighter with age and exposure to the sun. The dye was cooked in vats and it was thread they dyed before weaving, not finished cloth or garments. Something like a million murex rock snails died to make something the size of a beach towel, and the fabric was quite literally worth it’s weight in gold.

Naturally, this man dressed in purple could afford the most expensive habits. Perhaps you are aware that for Jewish folks in Jesus’ day, “bread” meant a flat cake like modern pita. This rich man did as many others, keeping a stack of this flat bread on hand at meal times to wipe his hands. This was often tossed out to beggars as a way of keeping the Mosaic Law about being generous to beggars. Nobody was fooled at how this was an insulting gesture.

This time Jesus gives a name to the other figure in the story. Lazarus was a common nickname to represent Elazar (or Eliezer), Hebrew for “God is my Helper.” His point is the meaning of the name, of course, for this fellow got precious little help from any man. He was covered in sores and often set at the gate of the rich man’s house so he could catch some of those cast off pieces of bread. While sitting there in the heat of the day, dogs would come up and lick his sores. Keep in mind that dogs in that time and place were seldom friendly to humans, and Jews hated them, so this was way more attention from dogs than any Jew could tolerate. Yet it was this canine instinct to lick his wounds that positioned him as accepted among them.

So how degraded was this poor Lazarus? We recall that the scribes and Pharisees taught that wealth was the mark of God’s favor, while they spoke of the peasants as accursed. Poor Lazarus was the cursed of the accursed, the most pitiful wretch in Israel.

Immediately Jesus knocks holes in Pharisaical teaching. This pitiful wretch ended up in Heaven, while the rich man was in Hell. The tormented soul of the rich man cried out to his presumed patron saint, Abraham, for relief. He asked only that Lazarus do for him what he had done for Lazarus, just one little taste of the thing he needed most. Doesn’t that sound fair? You’ll notice the rich man does not complain of any injustice in his fate, knowing that he had rejected the honest demands of the Covenant.

Apparently Lazarus was true to his name, having maintained a trust in God despite the circumstances of his life. Abraham responded to the rich man that this eternal outcome wasn’t the only thing he didn’t understand. It wasn’t some kind of cosmic balance, as if being rich was a sin and poverty was a virtue, but in Hebrew society it often worked out that way because the likes of the scribes and Pharisees took advantage of their positions. In other words, it wasn’t God who made them wealthy; they got it by oppression.

Furthermore, while the good and bad were sometimes hard to tell apart in human existence, in eternity the moral polarity was absolute. Those who had accepted the good with the bad and clung to Abraham in their lives could expect Abraham to cling to them after death. Those who rejected the more weighty demands of the Covenant were outside of any blessings of Abraham. They weren’t his children.

And was it noble for the rich man to plead that Lazarus return to life lone enough to testify to the five wealthy brothers? Surely they would believe if they saw someone raised from the dead! Well, another Lazarus that Jesus actually did literally raise from the dead didn’t change any of the Pharisees or Sadducees, for that matter. They plotted to put that other Lazarus back into his grave. And they sure didn’t believe Jesus after He rose from the dead. So Abraham justly notes that it won’t make any difference if this Lazarus goes back and warns them, because their hearts are what condemned them, not merely their beliefs and actions.

Sharing DNA with Abraham meant nothing, as Jesus will eventually tell them. It required the faith of Abraham to inherit his blessings, a commitment from the heart to the God of Abraham.

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You Know the Drill

Posted on January 26, 2019 by ehurst

This is not so difficult to understand; all I’m doing is voicing what most of you already know.

If you’ve read much history at all, you know that Western Civilization is the result of Germanic tribal hordes conquering the last vestiges of Greco-Roman Civilization. It’s the rationalist approach of the ancients with a distinctly materialistic mythology from the Germans. How do I explain a mythology that is both deeply materialistic and worships youth, but still holds the craziest superstitions? The result was the European Middle Ages. The official church helped to steer this thing by compromising what was left of their biblical outlook with the bogus morals of Germanic mythology. The Church recast some elements of theology in terms of the tribal epistemology and rewrote the gospel to match.

So Western Civilization is a very ugly bastardization of badly misguided spooky mythology under a veneer of materialistic logic and reason. It’s by far the most hideous and Satanic civilization in human history up to now. It has introduced the most damning dumbing down of human thinking by attacking divine revelation in every way possible. It’s a miracle God can get through to anyone, yet He does, and it comes at great cost to the individual having to nail so many things to the Cross that you wonder if there are enough nails in the world.

Running in the background of the biblical narrative is something that was plainly stated in Genesis 3:16, but is often poorly translated into English. Properly stated, the curse on Eve — as the symbol of womanhood — is that she would be given a natural instinct for love-hate with manhood. She would desire the man and desire to dominate him, but he would always be able rule when it mattered to him. This is not how we are designed, but is a part of the Curse of the Fall.

Patriarchy is not a part of the Curse, but how it plays out is. Instead of the caring shepherd watching over his living treasure, the man is a distracted lazy bum who can dominate only when he gets off his ass. Because he’s reluctant to take the moral leadership and invest the constant watchfulness of the shepherd, he will suffer the nagging misguided leadership of his woman on lots of things wherein she is incompetent by God’s design. Thus, she will neglect those things at which she excels, and between the two of them, society can never know shalom.

Throughout the biblical narrative, we then see the constant threat from the Bitch Goddess (example: Zechariah 5:5-11*). It was represented by the Canaanite fertility cult of Astarte, but was recognized as having roots in Mesopotamia in particular, though is also noted in Egypt. It really doesn’t matter what the actual deities were supposed to be nor the proper mythology; the Astarte idols became the excuse for the Devil to get women to secretly lust for control.

Well, it’s no surprise that same Bitch Goddess stuff shows up in Germanic mythology. Wherever the Devil has held sway over darkened moral souls, a consistent element is the presence of the Bitch Goddess in one form or another. It’s not fundamental womanhood; it’s Eve under the Curse of the Fall. It’s the debased flower of femininity erupting like a volcanic sewer, and the Devil loves it.

Here in America the problem is that we have this long tradition of Anglo-American paganized Churchianity. On top of this is a long tradition of treating the State as god, something distinctly Germanic. At least the Greco-Romans didn’t take government so seriously, but the Germanic tribal mythology has deeply corrupted our understanding of what was already a problematic rejection of revelation.

So we have the combined Satanic lie that women should be in control of society, empowered by a false reverence for the State. Given the near universal ignorance of genuine biblical moral reasoning, this means that bloody conflict is inevitable. The pendulum will swing back and forth between lazy-assed patriarchal harshness with venomous vengeful feminist oppression. Right now we are seeing the Bitch Goddess raise her head afresh.

At some point you should expect traditional manhood to reassert itself very late in the game. And because men won’t do it right by taking a shepherd-like command early on, by the time they can’t take any more feminist crap, it will require a violent outburst. That’s because feminists will not hesitate to use the bloody sword of government. Men typically underestimate the contemptuous spite that drives feminists. It’s burned into our culture that men imagine reason will win the game.

Neither side in this back and forth will ever listen to revelation. That’s precluded by the culture itself. A few rare individuals will be moved by the Spirit and restored to sanity, seeking God’s original design. We will endeavor to search and teach that ancient legacy. But what we should expect is that the collectivist urges of the fertility cult of the Bitch Goddess will result in a godawful oppressive mess for a short time. It will be intense, but because it is based on delusion, it will fail. When it does, it will unleash a crushing wave of counter-violence. And where it goes from there is anybody’s guess, because once the patriarchs have won, they have no idea how to proceed, and will quickly drift back into smug laziness again.

All we can do is offer the sanity of the biblical model and wait for the Lord to get people’s attention.

* The vision Zechariah reveals here was meant to convey a condemnation of Israel for their commerce and trafficking (“going forth”) in moral violations of the Covenant. The ephah is a large clay pot used for storing and shipping grain, among other things. They find a woman inside that the angel calls “Wickedness,” that business of the Bitch Goddess, the market demand for things that should not be. The angel quickly shoves this harlot back into the pot and slaps the lid back on. You notice he describes how good women of virtue will mount up on wings of faith and take this idol back where it came from, the Land of Shinar, a name for the plains in central Mesopotamia. Let it stay there, the angel says, and let Israel stop worshiping this thing.

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In the Grip of Faith

Posted on January 25, 2019 by ehurst

In Daniel 3, we see the three Hebrew gentlemen subjected to persecution for their faith.

It wasn’t a matter of ritual worship of one deity or another; that was merely the symbolism. It was their previously stated commitment to what their faith in Jehovah demanded of them. They would rather starve than violate kosher; they would rather burn in the furnace than dishonor their God.

They were bound to the Covenant of Moses. If it got them killed, that was simply the way they manifested Jehovah’s glory. Nothing they said ever condemned anyone for worshiping the deities of their choice. Rather, it was their victory in trial that condemned everyone trying to deny their choice.

Joseph in Egypt pursued his faith, too, and it brought him blessings and troubles. The mixture of blessing and sorrow was merely the symptom of his context, not some flaw in his faith. He predated Moses, so he wasn’t under that Covenant, but his faith was based on the Covenant of Abraham.

Paul says that embracing the teachings of Jesus is a restatement of Abraham’s Covenant, while the Covenant of Moses has passed away. More to the point, we are bound to faith itself, and we obey Biblical Law. We learn from the testimony of these people who came before us and now stand in Heaven watching us run the race set before us.

Tribulation is upon us, and it will try souls. If your faith holds you firmly, you will persevere in the glory of Christ regardless of how you are tested. Joseph prospered in bad times for Egypt; the Hebrew boys survived the furnace. Daniel survived the lions. Others died what to men appeared meaningless deaths. The results don’t matter. What matters is staying in the grip of faith. We do not justify faith; faith justifies us.

You should be able to lift your palms to the sky and joyfully tell the Lord, “Bring it on!” Genuine faith is its own reward.

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How to Answer Fools

Posted on January 24, 2019 by ehurst

I’m getting some minor harassment from someone who calls himself Zeno the Stoic. There is no reply to such men because they are driven by the same lies from Satan that got us into this fallen condition in the first place. Do not debate with such fools; let them serve their master, the Devil. However, there are things we can say that will help us understand in our own minds just how wrong such people are.

Zeno, like his namesake, stands on the outside of faith and throws rocks. He cannot possibly understand faith because he mistakenly believes that his reason is the highest faculty of man. He trusts the one thing that by necessity rejects the Creator of all things. Intellect is fallen and hostile to God and the faith He pours into our souls.

There can be no justification for faith on his level. Faith is the faculty that eclipses reason from above it; you either have it or you don’t. Zeno does not, so there is no possible dialog except to warn him that his epistemology is no better than any other failed false religion. Every one who surrenders to mere reason will insist their own logic is the universal default, refusing to understand that the whole range of Greek philosophy was a novel rejection of an epistemology that stood for thousands of years before the Greeks even had writing.

I realize this sounds like a harsh counter-attack, but the whole point is to establish clearly for people like him that his evangelism on behalf of damnation is not welcome. He is driven to attack because he is excluded from us by his own lack of faith. You don’t have to be nice to people who hate everything that matters to you. It won’t matter how he imagines that he is being kind and reasonable; he’s on the way to Hell and wants to drag everyone down with him.

Zeno, don’t come back until you accept the validity of faith as the foundation of an epistemology that is different from yours. We are glad to compare notes, but we will not be lectured and insulted by fools who refuse to understand. Ask questions and stop the condemnation, as if your approach is inherently superior. We won’t take you seriously until you return the favor. And please, stop assuming that we are part of the mainstream Christian religion you disparage. If you can’t take the time to investigate how different we are from them, you will continue to assume all kinds of nonsense about us. Either way, human reason is not the answer to anything that matters.

Addenda: Jesus did not teach inclusion. He taught that the door of repentance was open to everyone. You are welcome to join us as penitents who confess just how wretched they are without Christ. Without owning your personal moral depravity and confessing sin, you exclude yourself from Christ. He told Nicodemas that without spiritual birth, it’s impossible to understand His teachings and miracles.

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A Little Background: Joseph in Egypt

Posted on January 23, 2019 by ehurst

As you may know, the Nile River Basin is Egypt; the open desert on either side is mostly empty of life, and certainly never saw much human life. In ancient times this was more so the case. Today’s modern Cairo (ancient Memphis) is centered more or less at the head of the Nile Delta. The famous Giza Pyramids cluster is nestled against the southwestern edge of Cairo. It’s somewhat off the Nile Valley.

When Joseph was brought down to Egypt, it would have been roughly 1880 BC, during the early Middle Kingdom Period. By this time the Giza Pyramids were already centuries old. The Djoser Pyramid was farther south along the Nile and almost as old. This cluster of monuments weren’t too far from the cities these ancient pharaohs had built in or near ancient Memphis.

Somewhere farther south was an oasis that had come and gone several times over the centuries. It was fed by a slender branch of the Nile somewhat west of the main valley. While it initially gained attention as a very large, spread out lush green area for hunting, this was also the primary source of papyrus at that time. It drew a lot of attention and during the 12th Dynasty saw the construction of canals ordered by Pharaoh to spread the water across the area between the huge oasis lake and that branch of the Nile. This was all in place when Joseph arrived.

Pharaoh’s capital at that time was where one of the canals fed into that slender river branch, and was named al-Lahun. This 12th Dynasty had a somewhat lesser interest in the Nile Delta. Instead, there had been some efforts to suppress the Nubians far to the south, upstream on the Nile River. It’s quite likely Joseph came to serve in the House of Potiphar during the reign of Sesostris II (AKA Senworset or Sunusret). This ruler’s position as Pharaoh was a little weak against the independence of the nobles in Egypt at that time.

But it was likely Joseph entered court service under Sesostris III. We know from Egyptian records that this Pharaoh managed to centralize political authority during his reign so that he was actually the master of Egypt. It was also the peak of prosperity and power for the Middle Kingdom Period. The Faiyum district in particular became the hub of national wealth. The crops grown here were considered the best in the whole country. They were traded far and wide.

Thus, when Joseph moved his tribe into the Nile Delta, they were among many other wandering tribes coming down from farther north. Large sections of the Delta were grassy and perfect for herd animals, while the imperial center farther south was more about farming and using water buffalo for agricultural work. It’s no surprise the Bible says Pharaoh’s court had a low opinion of shepherds. Eventually the 12th Dynasty declined and Faiyum fell into some neglect. Meanwhile, some of the migratory outsiders in the Delta rose to oppress everyone else there.

I teach that the Pharaoh who rose up and didn’t know Joseph was Hyksos, the non-native invasive nomads (likely some Semitic tribe) who rose to relative independence from the native Egyptians farther upriver. They never took over much of the rest of Egypt, but dominated the Nile Delta. Once they gained some level of power, they did as most other conquering hoards in the Ancient Near East and adopted some measure of the local language, culture and religion. The Hyksos worshiped mostly Set, which they considered the closest Egyptian version of their actual deity, Baal. Set was the snake god typically regarded by native Egyptians as somewhat like the Hebrew Devil. These Semitic rulers would have found the Hebrews a hostile influence in the Delta, since they were so favored by the previous native dynasty. Thus, it was the Hyksos that first began the oppression and enslavement of the Hebrew people.

However, the Pharaoh of Exodus was from the dynasty of native Egyptians who drove the Hyksos out. This was the 18th Dynasty, and the Exodus pharaoh was most likely Thuthmose III. The biblical narrative takes little interest in the details of Egyptian history, because the focus is the Hebrew nation. What we see is that this new dynasty destroyed everything the Hyksos built, then took over the same enslavement policy to build their own stuff in the Delta. While the Hyksos were a little rough on the Hebrews, the new rulers saw them as dangerous allies of those foreign invaders. Thus, the slavery became far more brutal under the native rulers.

The 18th Dynasty began with the expulsion of the Hyksos a century before Moses’ time. What few people consider is that Moses had been raised in Pharaoh’s court, with Hatshepsut most likely his foster mother. That means the pharaoh he faced off against was his foster brother, which tempered how Thutmose could treat him.

Another issue that too many people miss is that much of what is given to us in the biblical narrative took place at a very slow pace. For example, the interaction between Moses and Pharaoh played out for roughly a year. It was a long trip upriver from the Nile Delta to Pharaoh’s court at Thebes, far upstream.

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Life Mission

Posted on January 22, 2019 by ehurst

It’s more than a dream; it’s the story of what God is doing right now.

The sun shines in my soul, regardless of the conditions outside my bedroom window. It warms me at night as I fade off into sleep. It’s the vision of building a definition of heart-led shalom so people of this age can rediscover what has been buried in the dust for almost two thousand years.

We aren’t better than anyone who came before us. This is a simple matter that God has chosen to move in our day, and we are blessed to see it. If we seize this opportunity, it will change tomorrow for a lot people. I’ll grant you it isn’t changing much for today, but our mission is to establish this thing so that others can later find something that answers to that longing call in their hearts.

This is my mission. It can be yours, since it’s hardly defined by my vision alone. Don’t ask me how I got started on this path. All I did was keep seeking until I found it, not settling for lesser answers that couldn’t bring peace. But now that I’m here, I find it’s just the bare beginning. It’s like clearing away the dust of massive buried ruins using a toothbrush. I can’t do this alone, but I’m not intimidated by the size of the task.

Does it call you, too? We have to start somewhere. We will hardly be able to finish anything this monumental, but if we don’t start, nothing will change. What needs to change is that people are granted once more the full revelation of God, the whole truth of how we are designed for better things, but we must escape this world. Our hearts are the part of us that crosses over the boundary first. Somewhere down the road, the Lord bring the rest of our selves across that invisible boundary.

This is my mission in life.

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