The Theology of Division

Posted on May 30, 2018 by ehurst

There is so very much that we simply cannot see unless God shows it to us. I’m not sure there is any way to draw a line between heart-led moral perception and a direct move by God to point something out; I don’t think words can delineate the boundary line. But I’m convinced there’s a huge difference between those two together versus human intellectual capability.

Stop for just a moment. Let’s understand something; let’s get our minds used to how this works. Review: There is no objective body of truth out there. Ultimate reality is rooted in God’s Person. Reality is flexible in the sense that the only thing that matters is what God wants you to do. And that includes realizing that God may want others to do things entirely different, and that leading them into that path may require giving them a radically different perception of things. Perception is reality in the sense that your reality is as good as anyone else’s so long as you are confident in the Lord’s guidance. So the key is not what is objectively real, but what fits into your sense of mission and calling.

Fallen human minds cannot grasp ultimate reality, so the question of what is ultimately real is a waste of time. We can’t get there, not even in theory. What we need is enough to move forward and act in serving Christ. This is the divine moral equivalent to “need to know.” The difference is that God is not like the government, keeping hidden a supposed body of information that is actually true. God isn’t hiding anything; He’s been trying to reveal Himself and His Creation since the Garden of Eden. The only limiting factor is our own internal resistance to His truth. Our minds reject the notion that they are limited and fallible.

This is why the idea that faith can be reasonable is so very wrong. True faith — commitment and trust in God — is entirely unreasonable. It demands things that no human reason can possibly justify, since human reason cannot grasp the true nature of God’s intent. Only the heart can handle that sort of truth. It won’t hurt you to be aware of the deception by which the rest of the human race lives, but we cannot live there ourselves.

Mainstream organized religion subverts faith by insisting that faith be reasonable. Whatever they have after passing it through the intellectual filters is no longer faith. They seek to build unity on the basis of shared logic, not the Person of Jesus Christ. (This is the same mistake of Judaism, confusing the orthodox image of God with the Person of God.) How many of you, after having experienced mainstream religion, struggle with the idea of fellowship and unity that doesn’t require having the same intellectual understanding of things? How many of you are prepared to work with a brother or sister who holds a different theology? We are taught to believe that such is not possible.

This is what happens when you build religion on presumed factual knowledge. Mainstream religious leaders assume the facts are immutable, but even if that were true, no living human is capable of knowing the facts in full. Not even in theory can any human mind really lay hold of the facts. Instead of seeing the ineffable truth of God, they chase the presumed factual historical basis of certain events, when those who recorded those events worked under no such delusion.

It’s not as if the mainstream religious leaders are so devious and capable of foreseeing this enslavement of billions of souls. This is merely the net result of Satan working through his agents over centuries. But make no mistake; this is not some dark evil plot predicting every move men have made; it’s opportunistic. The Devil is quite happy with any answer but the right answer. That’s what makes his job so easy; all he has to do is keep you away from God’s calling on your life.

I got close enough to religious leadership to see this stuff up close and personal. There is a great love for talent, but that talent has to be recognized by the right patron. It’s pure politics. One rises in the system solely by sucking up to the right people. What isn’t so obvious is how there are several different routes; it’s not always just one right group of people. One need only gain any sponsorship that can grant momentum; the system is based on herding, not shepherding. Popularity comes in many different forms, but without some kind of popularity, there is no advancement. The individual in question need not be ambitious himself, only sponsored.

People who still attend churches I once did have asked me why I don’t come back. Of course, their question assumes I’m wrong for following the call of God instead of knuckling under the current leadership. Somehow I must be rejecting Jesus and His gospel. I don’t tell them that they don’t know Jesus, only that they don’t know Him well enough to grasp that He can call people outside of the existing institutional churches.

Here at Kiln of the Soul virtual parish, the only membership requirements are that you look at my teaching and say, “I can tolerate that.” It’s this instinct to correct everyone who thinks differently that kills genuine spiritual fellowship. It you can’t tolerate the teaching here, do your own thing. If you are following the call of God, He’ll make sure you don’t have to work alone. But by all means, have enough faith to do it alone if necessary.

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Bits and Pieces 33

Posted on May 29, 2018 by ehurst

Got a new headshot. I’m still letting the hair on top — such as it is — grow as it will. But despite all my best efforts, the beard was not viable. It wasn’t just itching constantly. Even when I trimmed it back, it was itchy and downright painful. Some of the hair follicles on my face began to close up and swell. So I cut it back to the minimal length so I could see to shave all but the parts I simply cannot shave (nor grow).

We are having unseasonably hot temperatures here in Oklahoma. Before the heart problem, I never gave it much thought, but my research indicates there is now some greater risk for me with hard workouts when it gets much above 90°F (32C). The trick is to get out and ride early enough and get back before it gets too hot. Right now, it gets too hot by 10 AM. I’m substituting longer hikes as my primary workout, because I can finish that before 9 AM. Then all I have to worry about is putting an ice pack on the bad knee.

I can still drive out to Draper and take pictures of the progress on construction of the bikeway. I’m also not worried about those longer trips I was making, except for the places where a lot of hiking is necessary. Walking some is not a big deal, but climbing on rocks and so forth is ill advised in our wilting summer heat. What held me back was the sudden rise in gas prices and one final front-end part that needed replacing. It’s fixed now and I plan to drive out to a couple of lakes in the near future. Up near Chandler is a pair of lakes close together, named Bellcow and Chandler. I’m told it’s worth seeing.

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Technology: Keep Watch

Posted on May 28, 2018 by ehurst

We need to prepare for tribulation, which will include a vicious rise in censorship on the Internet. Here in the US, various government agencies have long practiced limited forms of disinformation and squelching those who told the truth. Now they are becoming more active in blatant silencing of select groups.

We’ve always had political conflicts; now each party is becoming more determined than ever to “take back the country” from the others. There’s less and less talk of compromise for the sake of preserving the system. But nowhere is the battle more nasty than in cyberspace. Recent information warfare fired by partisan agendas has seen the rise of actions that will spill over to those of us not directly involved. Many of the most popular services used by millions, even billions, of ordinary clients have begun silencing voices that dared to go where politically correct censors don’t want anyone to go. The changes in how these various services handle this endeavor have come so frequently that it’s hard to keep track.

If you take the time to contemplate this in your heart, you can discern a very disturbing shift in the moral realm. Some of us saw this coming a long way off, but now it’s quite close upon us. I can’t offer a timetable of any sort, but this is going to get worse. Your elders here at Kiln of the Soul virtual parish have taken steps over the years to reduce our reliance on the more dangerous services. For example, several of us who were previously on Facebook closed our accounts some time ago. We sensed the futility of trusting such a service to keep open the channels of communication for us there.

While that did mean reducing our exposure, it also meant reducing liabilities. I’ve elected to pay for the service on this blog to improve our chances of keeping it open as unseen forces work to shut down messages like ours. We’ve opened the Radix Fidem forum as a place for you to interact without having to worry about having your own blog. We still hope to see more of you join us there. Jay is hosting this for us and there seems for now little likelihood his provider will pull the rug out from under him.

But things are very unsettled on the Net. There are several simultaneous efforts to squelch freedom of expression from different angles. I’ve warned that we are headed for a genuine bloody civil war here in the US, and we have already seen how most of the early battles have been on the Net so far. This is going to get worse with each side seeking fresh advantages to silence the other. In the process, their huge and clumsy weapons could fall on us without them even noticing.

One of the biggest threats right now is one you don’t hear much about: blocked access at the consumer level. There are several ways different actors may deny you the freedom to read this blog or even visit the forum. This could remain up and running, but that doesn’t mean your local ISP is going to allow you full access even if you keep paying the bill. This is just one way things can go bad for us all. Try to understand that almost everything we do right now is via the Internet; we are a virtual parish. If this community of faith means anything to you, be aware that its existence is currently fragile.

This is in part why I’ve been trying to teach in such a way that you can keep going on your own without my daily blather. This is not about me keeping you on a leash. I’m not a cult leader seeking to control others. This is about you reading and learning enough to stand on your own. Our current level of ready contact could disappear without warning.

I remain firmly convinced that God changed things sometime ago, so that we are on a different track than before. I called it a “shift in reality.” Instead of a truly apocalyptic experience, we are simply in for some tribulation. It’s still tribulation; it still means human suffering and governments collapsing, along with the failure of many non-government institutions upon which we rely. His wrath is falling on America right now. But I feel certain the Lord has promised it will be bearable for us, if we seek His face on what it takes to be ready.

We’ll keep an eye on things and do what we can to maintain open lines of communication. If something happens on your end to make it difficult, we’d like to know. I still have five email addresses, one of which is posted in the right column on the blog interface here. You can also click the big icon for the Radix Fidem forum and post a comment there. Jay keeps an email address in plain sight on his blog (look at the top line). Try to get hold of either of us if things start getting blocked on your end. Maybe we can help you get around it for awhile at least; we’ve learned a few tricks over the years of messing with computers and software.

Still, understand this: As the world around us gets crazier, it also gets more open to hearing our message. If God permits you to be isolated from us, it’s likely because He’s preparing to build a literal church around your faith. Keep watch.

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Embracing the Enlightenment from Heaven

Posted on May 27, 2018 by ehurst

One more time: Under the Radix Fidem covenant, our teaching emphasizes living by Biblical Law. We teach that “Biblical Law” is a term equivalent to the moral character of God, equivalent to Jesus Christ Himself as a person. It’s not about directives, but the personality of our Lord and Savior. Truly living by Biblical Law requires spiritual birth, but Scripture says there’s virtually nothing we can do about spiritual birth.

Instead, our whole emphasis is on committing to Jesus as your Lord, and embracing His offer to make you part of His family. That’s the sort of language the Bible uses most consistently. It’s the imagery of Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) culture in general, and of the Hebrew language and culture in particular. The language about spiritual birth is then attached to that of adoption into the family of God. Further, the New Testament makes it clear that you cannot even want this unless the Spirit of God invokes it in your soul.

So all this business of “Decision Theology” is unbiblical. It’s a lie from the Devil. You are not capable of making a rational decision to serve Christ. We believe you can reject the sense of conviction, but you cannot do anything at all to trigger the call of God. Nothing anyone on this earth can do will awaken your sense of repentance. It’s totally and completely in His hands to choose you or not. That’s the language of the New Testament. Any other concept, theology or mental frame of reference is a lie.

The business of church is not “getting you saved;” it’s helping you discover the implications of spiritual birth into God’s feudal household after you embrace it. That is typically discussed in terms of getting you out from under Satan’s feudal dominion. That means learning to reject his authority and claiming your divine birthright. That means living by Biblical Law, which is nothing more than mimicking how Jesus would live if He were born in your place. It’s incorporating His divine moral character into your personality. He is the Living Law of God.

It’s not that hard. In fact, it’s hard not to. The Law of God is its own reward. Once you settle into the truth of who God is and how He wove His character into His Creation, you realize it’s what you were designed for. It’s your own nature come to life. It comes to us as quite a relief from living under the Devil’s lies. We start begging for the power to live by His personality in us, and we start to separate from the fleshly nature. That fallen nature is the only part of us that dreads having it’s “fun and freedom” curtailed by God’s revelation. The fallen fleshly nature is wholly deceived about what “fun and freedom” is. Your reason and intellect is part of that fallen nature.

By that definition, most mainstream church folks are still serving the Devil. Certainly they won’t agree with that, and they would reject the notion that Scripture teaches that. It’s not our job to debate with them, only to declare the truth. We declare it most strongly by how we live and harvest those blessings, appropriating our divine birthright. Our longing for His Law, our passionate commitment to His glory, is the core of our testimony. Everything else is just manifestation.

Now go back and read all those popular New Testament passages in light of this understanding. It changes everything. This is the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.

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Teachings of Jesus — Matthew 15:1-20

Posted on May 26, 2018 by ehurst

The first few verses give us the context. It refers to the Talmudic ritual hand-washing that the Pharisees had made into a binding customary law. It appears to be one of the oldest and most revered customs in Jesus’ time. Hand-washing was not in the Covenant Law. We’ve previously noted how the underlying drift of the Talmud and rabbinical traditions was to hedge about the Law of Moses, as if the Covenant needed protection from the nation, instead of the Covenant protecting the nation. The emphasis was on the Law, making it a deity. This is completely backwards from the ancient Hebrew tradition of understanding Law on a deeper level than the words and ritual provisions. This is another case of legalism, extending mystical rituals into binding nit-picking regulation of mere human behavior.

By Jesus’ time it seems that there had been some resistance to the hand-washing ritual from working peasants, for whom it was quite burdensome to keep the necessary equipment and provisions at hand. It’s no big deal for those whose only work was running their mouths inside nice buildings. This was very much a social status symbol. It was part of the rabbinical standards that one could not be taken seriously without keeping the ritual and teaching it. But Jesus was the rabbi who lived among the rabble and kept most of their habits, to include eating without this prissy ritual washing.

When asked about this, Jesus answered with His own question. It was very pointed: Why do Pharisees use the ancient korban law as an excuse to defy the very heart of the Covenant? Originally korban was a way of designating and setting aside a sacrificial animal or portion of crops for special treatment in preparation for making it an offering in the Temple. It served notice to one’s extended family household take extra precautions and not treat it as just the ordinary product of the family’s agricultural enterprise.

Pharisees found in this a loophole so they didn’t have to share their material wealth with their aging parents. The priests in the Temple began encouraging a special kind of pledged donation trust. Someone would gain all sorts of social religious merit by designating their entire estate for korban, but could still use it while they lived. Thus, the individual Pharisee could then act as if it was a holy duty to protect the value of this “estate in trust” and not give any support to their indigent household elders. This defies one of the Ten Commandments about honoring your parents.

Jesus castigates them using Isaiah’s warning about just this kind of Talmudic nonsense (Isaiah 29:13). Don’t claim to obey the Lord when you’ve piled up customs that pervert the whole purpose of the Covenant. This is a direct attack on the moral character of God, an insult to all of Creation. This is exactly how the Talmud works.

This private conversation took place during a break in Jesus’ routine of teaching the crowds. So Jesus turned to the crowd and said something that pertained to this very issue. It wasn’t the issue of kosher, but specifically the stupid matter of ritual hand-washing. He told them it wasn’t necessary to listen to the Pharisees about that. The Pharisees conflated “dirty” with “ritually impure” — two different concepts in Greek and Hebrew. It’s not what goes in your mouth, but what comes out of it that defiles you.

This infuriated the Pharisees who had come out to investigate Jesus’ ministry. When the disciples mentioned it to Jesus privately, He pointed out that this was a sign that these Pharisees were damned already. This echoes His previous teaching about wheat and tares, but in this case their downfall would come in good time. Evil hearts cannot produce success except in the most artificial contexts. The Pharisees had constructed a society that guaranteed their safety, but sooner or later reality would devour them in their sin.

As they absorbed this, they asked about the meaning of Jesus’ parabolic reference to input and output of mouths. His question back at them was a bit of rebuke, as if they were still too worried over literal meanings instead of testing things with their hearts. So He reminded them of blunt biological facts they already understood. What goes in your mouth is processed and dropped in the chamber pot. What comes out of your life reflects what is in your heart. If your heart is darkened and committed to anything but God, you’ll defile your existence by how you live. He implies that the Pharisees were committed to their own personal comfort, and willing to justify almost any sin through legalism.

If sanitary facilities are convenient, sure, wash your hands before handling food. But don’t let someone load you up with false guilt that misses the whole point of revelation.

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More Hydrology: Draper Bikeway

Posted on May 26, 2018 by ehurst

We proclaim in our Radix Fidem covenant an affinity for the natural world. We seek to understand God’s moral character by understanding how Creation works. That includes some grasp of the mechanics. It’s not as if everyone should become an herbalist, but we sure need a few folks like that. We also need folks who can deal with animals, weather, geology, soils, etc. That includes what is generally referred to as hydrology: the earth science of water and flows. Earth Sciences in general are something that we tend to emphasize.

I am by no means an engineer or scientist, but I have learned an awful lot through my own inner drive and talents for understanding certain aspects of nature, to include a lot practical experience in hydrology. I learned most from mistakes, my own and those who were paid to know better. Seems to me that a major element of failure in construction engineering is not paying attention to hydrology. Having the leisure to play with fixing the mistakes of others has taught me an awful lot. Our first image above shows water collecting in a driveway to an picnic area, because it has no place to go. It’s not too bad simply because there is plenty of gravel embedded in the soil. Even when totally saturated, it gives only so far and then remains stable. You can drive through that standing water and not get stuck.

Part of the game is that there isn’t a lot of water flowing into that puddle from somewhere else. It’s just a couple hundred square feet (19m²) or so of watershed. So while I’m not happy about this image on the right where the bike path is cut almost a yard/meter deep in the soil, it’s a relative hilltop. There will be no great amounts of water flowing into this spot. It’s not good engineering, but it’s not a disaster, either.

Consider the soil in these parts. That red clay tends to get saturated quickly in rain showers, and run-off is a high percentage after just a few minutes of hard rain. However, leave that water against the soil for long periods, and capillary action will see a very deep lateral penetration. So if the water pools up, or simply slows down across a nearly flat grade, you’ll see a fairly deep saturation of this red clay that spreads over wide areas. The image on the left here shows just such an area.

I swear there weren’t any actual trail users on the team of folks who engineered this bike path. They would have known that this section of lake shore road (laid way back shortly after the lake was built in 1962) has always been a mucky clay mess. It’s near the bottom of a funnel capturing an acre or more of watershed. This image of an aerial view of that same area shows a lavender line parallel to the currently planned bike path. It represents the portion that is a funnel for the entire area outlined in yellow. All that water runs across there, and the road is an artificially raised area that slows the flow dramatically. This thing stays mucky for weeks after the last rainfall. It really should be elevated, graveled, and a couple of culverts run underneath. Even better would be a small catch basin on the high side of the trail that allows the flow to proceed under the path following heavier rains. We do have flash flooding around here.

A couple of other interesting notes. Stanley Draper Lake is also known as East Elm Creek Reservoir; it captures East Elm Creek and a few tributaries, plus all run-off from the surrounding terrain. I previously noted on this blog there were plans to extend Draper Lake to include West Elm Creek. I noted that a short section of dam west and north of the main dam would likely have water on both sides if they ever did build that extension. But apparently the West Elm Creek project has been tabled indefinitely. In this image we see the bike path dropping below the short dam, in what would be underwater in any proposed expansion of the lake.

What I previously called “early crop blackberries” is actually dewberries. It’s closest relative is the raspberry, and these are properly called “black raspberries.” They taste very close to blackberries, though. These aren’t anywhere near ripe. They produce generally far more berries that our local wild blackberries, and the season runs late May through mid-June at least. These things are close to the ground and grow like thin vines, whereas blackberries grow in very thick branched and very thorny stems that stand upright. They come out just as the dewberries begin fading. In ideal soil, the two overlap a week or two, growing sometimes side by side.

It’s all part of knowing our Father’s Creation, in turn part of knowing God.

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Speaking to Plugged Ears

Posted on May 25, 2018 by ehurst

I’ve tried to make it clear that in this world our biggest problem is Satan and his use of deceived people. I’ve written about how we very much need to see the Devil as a real person, no less than we see God as a Person. And the logic of how we deal with all of this, both the divine moral character of God in His Creation, and the way in which Biblical Law binds His servant the Devil, requires that we understand most things in terms of living people, agents of our Creator for one purpose or another.

Thus, I insist we treat reality as a person, as we do all of Creation. Go outside and speak to the sun, the wind, the flowers, birds and shrubs; hug a tree along with some humans. Talk to so-called “inanimate objects” in your residence. I personified The Cult as people when in reality, it’s a demonic force working in some people in the world. I wanted to give the concept life so that you would understand how this particular force operates in human guise. I wanted to give it character and shape, the same as I do other forces for good and evil in this world. Personifying things that our Western culture depersonalizes helps to recover and restore the biblical approach the life.

I try to name things as they did in the Bible. I am utterly convinced that this is the best way to understand things, that it’s the way God taught us to handle life in this fallen world. And consistent with the biblical text, I use names and labels that refer to leadership of various identifiable political forces, by which we understand what the fallen world does. There’s a reason for that: reality itself is feudal. If someone has risen to a position of leadership in their identity group, then the group cannot disown the leader without getting rid of that leader.

For example, we all know that a great many people in this world who identify themselves as Jewish don’t support what famous and influential Jews do. But unless they take action to disown and depose those famous and powerful figures who also identify as Jewish, then they can’t complain when their identity gets dirt on it. If there’s any identity group notorious for failing to do this, it is Jews.

Sometimes, representative voices admit to Jewish domination in American politics and culture. Yet, the same Jewish voices scream and punish a Gentile who dares to point it. What would we call this? Cowardly bullying. What else would you call it when an identifiable group of people brag to each other and celebrate their power, but do everything possible to hide that power over the people they strive to dominate?

But because of how things work in this world, we avoid saying “Jews” when we talk about this problem. And unlike Philip Giraldi, I’m not going to bother distinguishing between admitted Zionists and neocons, versus those who act like Zionists but don’t embrace the label. It’s a functional label that covers our needs when we talk about them as the human face of demonic powers.

So one more time: Zionists rule the US. The USA is a subservient client state of Israel. Our government policy is set in Israel first, then propagated here through any number of manipulations. The Zionists silence all honest discussion, using their effective ownership of the publishing and entertainment industry. They hold themselves as truly superior to Gentiles, as if the latter were simply useful intelligent animals — their words, not mine (look at the second answer). Zionists typically deny that their Scriptures (specifically, the Talmud) say any such thing, but it’s there, plain as day. Yet, they fear Gentiles when everyone gets tired of serving the Zionist agenda.

I could be wrong about a lot of things, but I believe I will live to see the US broken up into smaller regional states. A primary cause of this will be our government’s subservience to Zionism. I also believe I will live to see the modern state of Israel destroyed, at least to some degree, in part because their bully-boy — the US — will be humbled.

None of this requires our hostility. It’s going to come because it’s the natural result of transgressing the divine moral character of God programmed into reality itself. But it’s also going to come because of the active hand of God in His wrath against insufferable insult to His glory. So we can just back off, even remain friendly with the Jewish folks we know, including Zionists and their Gentile servants. Their time is coming, and it’s closer than anyone imagines. We should consider ways to manifest His grace poured out upon our lives, and share some of that grace with the doomed Zionists. It will ensure they have no excuse when they stand before God in full guilt for rejecting His ways and His commands for them.

And we certainly can do little to halt their headlong rush to destruction. Just point it out now and then — again, so that no one can pretend they weren’t told of their sins. We know Zionists can’t hear that message, but maybe some bystander can catch it and be moved to bow before the Lord.

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Tribulation Is Our Natural Element

Posted on May 24, 2018 by ehurst

I’m neither conservative nor liberal. Both of those terms presume a placement within the dominant culture. I rejected that a long time ago; I’m a primordial. I adhere to something that came before there was a Western Civilization. It’s a value system so alien to the common assumptions of today that you simply cannot understand it from within those common assumptions.

Thus, one of the things I take for granted is that folks will not understand my motivations most of the time. The vast gulf of difference tends to make me reticent about the whole thing. Until I am granted a reasonable space to explain at length, I tend to avoid explaining anything at all. My responses to simple queries are often designed to stop the questions that will surely go in the wrong direction and entangle me, typically at the very moment I most need a free hand to work.

Since I don’t believe in objective truth, I don’t feel guilty when people accuse me of misleading them, as if they could pin on me a charge of lying. It’s not a lie; it’s a functional answer that fits the context. Since the questioner will not and cannot enter the realm where the answer stands, I have to find a way to prevent their interference in something they refuse to understand. It sounds patronizing, but it’s unavoidable. I don’t feel guilty because I’m not the cause of truth being hidden from them.

But I keep the door open, should it appear to me someone is being drawn into the truth. I’m not some keeper of secrets, only the keeper of my own mission and calling. I’m called in part to defend the mission from interference, but that defense itself includes welcoming those who may be in transition, ready to enter into the mission themselves. The mission is not the objective; the driving interest here is the Lord’s glory.

Even in saying that, the inherent meaning is outside the prevailing culture. The world defines glory quite differently, as it does with things like truth, revelation and moral discernment. It gets them all wrong, but trying to tell them that provokes charges of arrogance and even more truculent misunderstanding.

This is why Jesus was crucified.

This is why His followers tribulate. Either we get entangled in ways that hinder the gospel truth, or we serve faithfully and piss off everyone around us. It’s why we are in turn so deeply incensed about the sins we see in the world.

Recently we hear the most egregious blatant lies from government officials. It gets to the point you run out of words to express the depth of offense those lies give. The typical partisan bickering and propaganda wars are bad enough, but we have officials lying about the rest of the world, too. The lies are so insufferable and insulting to God, how do we not react with anger? And it’s more than just having to hear this crap, but we and our resources are being conscripted to serve these audacious lies. It’s like acid to your soul.

Yet, if we dare to say anything, we are castigated as traitors. Again, that’s why Jesus was crucified.

I don’t have any good easy answers. You’ll find it in your own mission and calling. Your faith commitment to Christ comes in the same package with His choices for you. The mere act of staying in this world takes monumental faith in the Lord to accomplish something worthy in our lives in the midst of such chaotic evil. Don’t ask me why I’m still here; ask God. He hasn’t granted me permission to leave yet.

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Photography: Road Flowers

Posted on May 23, 2018 by ehurst

On the one hand, I had some flower shots left over from the Draper ride the other day. On the other hand, I took a road ride today up near Jones and saw some more, plus a few scenery shots. Again, there will be some chatter to go along with it.

What separates your own fantasies from a subtle impression from the Holy Spirit? Why, it’s the humility and wonder, of course. Visions of truth coming down into our minds from the heart will activate the same part of the brain as your imagination. The difficulty is your mind has a bunch of crap that tends to filter such impressions and limit what you can make of such visions. Once you get used to it, you’ll be more free to see what the Spirit wanted you to see.

We can take a cue from Islam in referring to this as the “imaginal realm” (approximate translation from Arabic). It’s as good a term as any, especially since it activates the same part of the brain as more common imagination. Nobody can do this for you, but you can pray about it and ask God to guide you so that you can recognize the difference between your self-willed wishful thinking and a moral revelation.

We borrow this from the Muslims because Western Civilization is so hostile to mysticism in the first place. We’ve allowed ourselves to be robbed of biblical mysticism, so we take our cues where we can find them. The problem, of course, is filtering out the legacy of nonsense that attaches to the term. In a desperate search for any good answer at all, previous scholars who studied the concept of mysticism and the imaginal realm often lacked a solid biblical foundation for discerning how God actually does business with His children.

Take a cue from the alfalfa image here on the left. It is grown from tiny seeds that, when spread, tend to drift on the wind. They’ll take root anywhere along the road where mowing is infrequent, where this sample was found. Mysticism itself can sprout all over the place, but there’s not much use for it growing where you can’t get a good harvest. Our covenant here at Radix Fidem starts from Scripture, but it’s Scripture as written by Hebrew mystical people, or those who learned it from them. Our mysticism is not as everyone else’s mysticism.

Once you get used to how it works, you may start seeing visions at the oddest times and places. You’ll have to learn to make sense of what it is supposed to tell you, in the sense that you’ll have to unlearn the wild self-centered imagination stuff.

It comes easier to some than to others. The problem is that our society offers few opportunities to handle it with the seriousness it deserves. This is why we wind up with so much wasted energy in chasing mere self-indulgent fantasy entertainment. It’s also why so many people are treated as nutty because they choose to be familiar with the imaginal realm. A great deal of what passes for mental illness is just folks who aren’t allowed to use their gifts, and the urgency of it all drives them nuts, so to speak. I take the line of Dr. Thomas Szasz: There is no such thing as “mental illness,” only maladaptive moral choices. Some of those choices are forced upon us a by a hostile society.

That kind of frustration results in all sorts of maladaptive behavior. It’s the society that is sick more than the other way around. People shouldn’t be pressured to adapt to a broken society. After all, it’s the Bible that insists humans are fallen by default, and in need of redemption from slavery to the Devil. People are labeled “crazy” because they have all this bubbling sense of drive to escape the chains everyone else takes for granted. So the victims are tormented by demons who capitalize on the confusion it causes. A great deal of demon “possession” comes from that very conflict.

In less tortured souls, it shows up as maladaptive reflexes. Some part of you knows a particular habit or reflex is inappropriate, but you keep doing it without thinking. You lack the power to manage it because you live in a broken and neurotic world. It’s not because you are messed up inherently, but in a messed up environment. It won’t excuse you from being lazy about it, but if you really do want to get it right and simply can’t, try some contemplative prayer. Take the time to just sit in a calm place where Creation speaks to you more loudly and hear the non-condemning celebration of life. That heals all kinds of things.

Learn to laugh at yourself when there is no apparent way to change something. Don’t take yourself too seriously; don’t get distraught because there are things you can’t control. If God made you a thistle, then blossom and be sharp, like those on the right. You aren’t supposed to control everything, so stop condemning yourself. Some elements of life in this broke world are supposed to suck. Learn and adapt to the collection of things God hasn’t placed in your hands.

Get the focus off yourself in that sense. It’s okay to focus on your need for penitence and humility. That’s a symptom of the Holy Spirit’s presence. But focus on God’s glory and His divine moral character in Creation, and that includes you. We are a part of Creation, and we need to embrace that.

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We Need Ehud

Posted on May 22, 2018 by ehurst

If we disobey, we leave a door open for demonic presence in our lives. Obedience is the hedge of protection. You don’t have to pay attention to what follows — it’s kinda long — but I must write it.

Read about Ehud (Judges 3:12-30). Eglon lived in fear and suspicion because he wasn’t all that popular with the Moabite nobles. That’s why he was willing to trust Ehud’s claim to have a secret message; the Israelis were not restive and had no plans to resist his rule. But Ehud had a mission from God, and went in faith trusting that God would back him. His convictions told him that God was going to raise up the Israelites to fight during the chaos after Eglon’s death.

How does that square with Exodus 20:13? The Ten Commandments were not absolute law in our Western sense of legislation. It was an ancient suzerain-vassal treaty common at that time in that part of the world. The Ten Commandments were a summary of what their ruler — Jehovah — cared about in general terms. It was just an outline to become acquainted with their sovereign more personally. After all, this is a matter of Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) feudal custom. Jehovah was adopting Israel as His family, His household. They needed to know what He expected of His family, what sort of agenda He held, how He would operate.

Most Western Christians do understand that “thou shalt not kill” refers to murder, not a just execution or an act of war. The rest of the Pentateuch liberally sprinkles in examples of justified execution on the grounds of how certain human activities were a serious threat to covenant peace (AKA social stability). You can’t afford to leave a big door open for the demons. But more than that, it was based on the divine moral character of God, and was thus reflected in how Creation worked. Creation itself operates according to the personal character of God, and included ANE feudalism and covenant law.

So we here at Radix Fidem boldly declare that reality is a living person, a reflection of God’s personality, and everything is personal and alive. We treat Creation as living, sentient and willful, because God’s revelation makes no sense any other way. And we declare that all mankind is outside God’s favor unless they live in feudal societies under some kind of covenant.

Obviously, America is nothing like that. We are not a covenant nation and our laws are not even on the same planet with ANE feudalism. But then, Christianity grew up under the Roman Empire and that was hardly ANE feudalism, either. A little closer than American government and society, but not by much. Yet Paul and the other Apostles taught that we must strive to live in peace with an unjust government and society. All the while, we must strive to live with our fellow believers within small private ANE feudal societies they called “churches” back in those days.

Is your church feudal and covenental? Not likely. That’s another problem we talk about here on this blog. In that sense, it doesn’t matter what your Christian religious organization calls itself; it is not what the Bible calls a church. Unless you can make yourself part of a faith community that is, your faith and service in the Kingdom of Heaven will be hindered.

But you can commit yourself individually to seeking God’s face about that until He opens the door somewhere. Like Ehud on his mission, sometimes you just can’t talk about everything in your heart. Since we aren’t gearing up to kill Eglon, it’s not that severe, but you and God can work out how much to say and when. Meanwhile, pray that God provide a real church community where you can serve Him as He intended.

And live as peacefully as you can under a government that is far worse than Rome was in the First Century. Do that with prayerful consideration of what your mission and calling is, and what God requires you to do. I’ve already hammered out why we can refer to the US Constitution as something that tends to affect how US Government operates, but recognize that the vast majority of what our federal government is violates that constitution, even when the government does nothing. It’s just a piece of paper, as one recent president said, and that’s how our government works. Get used to it; this really isn’t all that important since the US Government is nowhere close to God’s revealed form of government, and never will be. Just play along cynically and infiltrate the system knowing that you have a calling and mission from God and that He will keep His promises to those who are faithful to His glory.

Now, be aware that God still works through guys like Ehud. His killing was an act of war under covenant feudalism, and faithful to his God. Was Israel a good and righteous nation? Not at that point in time. Still, Ehud’s faith spoke and he obeyed. And if Israel had refused to rally to his call, he still did the right thing. Consequences are in the hand of God. Would he have gotten much help beforehand? Likely he would have gotten a lot of interference from Israelis living in dread of provoking their Moabite overlords.

I’ve warned prophetically and according to the Bible that God intends to crush the US Government. It’s coming; get ready. America is under His wrath. I’ve also sought to explain as concretely as I can just how this is going to go down. I’ve tried to teach how Democrat and Republican parties mean almost nothing, that the real issue is globalists and imperialists. I’ve sought to explain how they are different from the one alternative agenda possible that comes close to satisfying Scripture: nationalism. It’s not the same as covenantal feudalism — not by a long shot — but is the single closest point of approach between what God said compared to what is just barely possible in our world today. So it’s not so much that we cheer for nationalism, but that it’s the least evil agenda we will see in our political situation.

Do I need to explain what’s wrong with the globalist agenda? It’s a big freaking lie. It’s not any part of what its proponents claim; they are lying and trying to sucker everyone into buying the lie. They plan to make us slaves, only it’s the worst form of slavery seen in human history. This is not about fear, but awareness of the moral truth. They will fail, of course, because the globalists do not have the intelligence or sense of moral discernment to pull it off. God is going to crush them first.

Feel free to help Him do that, if you sense His call in that direction. Need some more justification? These globalists are at war with God and His plans. I’m not telling you that Trump is God’s man, but I will tell you that God chose Trump as His instrument of wrath. He’s going to hurt Americans. But that hurt has to come one way or another, and Trump is part of that. Don’t resist God’s wrath. Indeed, we should be praying that His wrath fall on us first so we can be cleansed, but that’s how wrath works in a believer’s life. Then we’ll be ready to ride out the tribulation that follows. Get to the place where you can see the possibility that God may call you to help bring down the globalists.

You may not get Ehud’s call, but there are thousand different ways to help weaken their hands. If nothing else, talk to others about globalist evil plans when the Spirit prompts you to speak. Still, they are at war with America’s best interest. They are quite willing to shed blood in favor of their agenda. They are the ones paying the Antifa rioters, for example.

Now, I suppose it seems rather clear that we are headed for an ugly mess of a civil war on America’s way down. There is a shortcut, but I’m willing to bet not many folks would consider it — Ehud’s mission. Yes, it’s technically illegal and there will be consequences, but if someone doesn’t take this seriously, it will be even more messy and far longer and hurt a whale of a lot more people. And the same warfare and bloodshed will most certainly come sooner or later. If you think this doesn’t make me tremble, you don’t know anything about me. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t do Ehud’s mission here in America. Having none of his talents or training, I also don’t know enough about who should be targeted, nor any other practical details. But if God doesn’t raise up some disciples of Ehud, we are in for a very, very rough ride.

And the same way I can see the truth of that, I can tell you that Trump didn’t have to go through as much hassle as he has so far. Again, I have no love for that man at all, but he is the instrument God has chosen. I thought he was a lot smarter and tougher than he has shown himself to be so far. So I’m watching and praying for some Ehuds to rise up and help clean up this mess. Otherwise, this thing will drag on and on until it turns into a bloodbath.

Only after God has crushed the globalists will He deal with the imperialists and Zionists. Keep your heart in charge, and keep your eyes open; see if I’m just making noise. My faith says I have to reveal these things regardless of the consequences.

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