Prayer Request: Damsel in Distress

Posted on May 18, 2018 by ehurst

Her name is Johnna (jaw’-nuh). She is the daughter of someone who has supported my ministry for more than a decade, including taking us into her home for a time when we had no where else to go. Johnna is in her 20s and having health issues uncommon for her age. She suffers from some sort of spinal disc degeneration that makes one leg numb and treatment has not yet been determined. She also appears to have something in her brain that afflicts the optic center, because her vision goes black for a few moments two-three times daily. She is getting care, but this is not easy stuff to live with.

Pray with me as you feel led on her behalf.

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Constitutional Deception

Posted on May 18, 2018 by ehurst

There are few things more annoying than getting lost in debate with someone who believes the US Constitution is somehow sacred writ.

First of all, on a legal level, the Constitution was a coup. It was the product of a cabal of conspirators who exceeded their mandate. The folks at the Constitutional Convention were not the same group that got things rolling in the first place with the Articles of Confederation. Each of the delegates had been commissioned individually by their sponsoring states to amend the Articles of Confederation. In order to do that, they were granted exceptional authority, which they abused.

They all but admitted they had wangled their election as delegates on false pretenses in each of their sponsoring states. The states’ governments remained firmly libertarian Enlightenment idealists, while the folks at the convention were sneaky centralists. Not every one of them, but a core group intended to destroy the libertarian vision of the founders and steer deliberations toward centralized tyranny. But they kept a veneer of libertarian language with all sorts of semantic traps (lawyer language) designed to hide from the various state legislatures the trap doors.

When some of the states reconsidered later, their changed vote was improperly ignored because the conspirators had no intention of being honorable and lawful. On this level, the US Constitution was a complete fraud in the first place.

Second, it was based on false assumptions. It assumes the broad voting population will think and act in ways that they never have and never will. There is some proof that the hijackers at the Constitutional Convention knew this and took advantage of it. Some of them appear to have known the libertarian founders were deluded about human nature. They were counting on people being too busy to rise up and in arms against bad government, something that was generally considered legitimate at the time. Still, the main point is that the federalists were liars; they were dishonest and willing to deceive to press their agenda. Their opponents were generally more honest about their intentions.

So The Federalist Papers is a collection of lying propaganda. They are revered today by people who regard themselves “strict constitutionalists,” but who are willingly deceived by the same lies that took America down the path to where it is today. What we have today with the corporate welfare and police state conditions is pretty much what the Federalists had in mind, as the ancestors of the elitist one-percenters who rule us today.

Finally, both the naive libertarians and predatory Federalists were building on an anti-biblical basis. Both were flavors of the same barbaric and deeply heathen cultural background of Western Civilization. To this day, their political descendants celebrate and defend Western Civilization, itself the result of an anti-Christian conspiracy to keep the religious tyrants of the church hierarchy in place. They knowingly altered the ethics of their message to sucker the invading Germanic tribes into buying a perverted version of Christian religion, thus preserving the pretense of evangelizing the invaders.

The resulting shift in philosophical approach to reading the Bible eventually gave birth to the conflicts of the Crusades, Renaissance, Reformation, etc., until we came to the highly secularized Enlightenment. And reading the Bible through Enlightenment eyes brought forth a horde of discordant heretical sects no better than the official church that had spawned them. And while the original Articles of Confederation rested firmly on such Enlightenment idealism, it simply opened the door for the slimy cabal that eventually took over America.

No, I don’t care for the Enlightenment “gospel” of the mainstream churches today. And I certainly don’t revere the US Constitution. Nor does much of our US government, apparently. It was carefully formulated to encourage tyrants to violate it with impunity. The will of the people can be safely ignored because what the Constitution demands us do to preserve our rights and liberty is precisely what we cannot do. We don’t have time for that ritualistic nonsense, and the Constitution has encouraged the elites to rob the masses and prevent us having leisure to revolt.

The US Constitution remains one of the biggest lies ever perpetrated on any country anywhere.

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Colors and Chatter

Posted on May 17, 2018 by ehurst

This is the first good ride I’ve had all week. I decided today was the day to shoot all those flowers I see growing along the routes to Draper and visible from the road around it. I don’t know the proper names for much of any of them, and I didn’t shoot any but the most eye-catching stuff. Meanwhile, I’ll throw in some chatter of this week’s events.

Because I worked on the car Sunday — and it was hard work — I decided to rest Monday. I chose Sunday to do the work so no one from the apartment staff would be here to notice; they fuss about anything that looks like major surgery. I had to disassemble my right-front McPherson strut and replace the upper seat and that would look like a big deal to them, since none of them are mechanics.

But I had to buy some more tools to finish the job so I couldn’t afford to fill the tank and take a drive to my next picturesque location: the Black Kettle National Grasslands. That’s an all-day trip out west of here, and there’s several historical sites and museums in the area. Plus, the place does offer a semi-rugged terrain that can be quite lovely in some places. Maybe I can get out there later this month.

I also missed my heavy workout because of weather and because I had a new computer tech support client this week. It was pretty simple stuff for me, just figuring out that some expensive printers were not wireless, but required ethernet cables to become network available for the home office.

Someone had mistaken a phone wire for an ethernet cable. The ends fit in the same port, but the contacts don’t match at all.

It looks like I’ll be working tomorrow for one of my old clients. Every time I visit her, I am reminded how pitiful it can be to rely on DSL with ancient rural wiring.

We are supposed to stay in a rain pattern off and on through Monday. This stuff usually comes through as a broad storm front covering the whole state, sweeping west to east. Several areas have suffered flash floods. It’s delaying the work on the new bike trails at Draper Lake. It looks like they have about eight or ten miles of trail ready for paving, but there are a couple of spots where it runs over fairly deep ravines. It looks like they are trying to cut into the hillside next to the main road to take advantage of the fill work done way back when, but that won’t be enough. Just one heavy rainstorm could run over that and wash it out, so I’m waiting to see how they’ll brace it up.

I expect to see a lot of heavy stones packed into the exposed dirt slope in the next week or two. As I was heading toward the exit trail from the lake area, I passed two very large asphalt paving machines borne on long lowboy trailers. That signals the paving will start in the next few days.

Another place I hope to visit is the Wichita Mountains in southeastern Oklahoma. I could stay down there a week and not see half of it. I took US Army Basic Training at Ft. Sill in one corner of that Wichitas back in 1979 and remember hiking through some of those mountains. It’s where I learned land navigation and reading topo maps. Apparently I learned it better than I realized, because several times afterward I was assigned to tutor folks who struggled with it.

I can visualize to some degree what the contour lines on the map represent. But I’ve long wanted to go back and revisit the area when I was free to choose where I wandered. The whole area is filled with major tourist sites, numerous long equestrian trails, gold rush relics, etc. I could spend the rest of the year just taking trips down there.

I’ll finish with a shot of red clover. It’s not rare in these parts, but it is unusual. The white clover is ubiquitous; you can’t get rid of it around here. The other thing that’s extremely common is honeysuckle. Even before I got to the lake area, it was sometimes overwhelming along the route. I never ceased smelling it around the lake. Here in central Oklahoma, it grows wild and can be found in almost any shady area that isn’t mowed.

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Futile Genealogy

Posted on May 16, 2018 by ehurst

By the time Apostle John died, around 100 AD, there were already a handful of Christian scholars rising to occupy the apostolic leadership of the early churches. We are not in any position to argue either way whether anyone was justified in claiming apostolic office, but we see clearly their influence was on that level.

John had several disciples who led churches and wrote about him and his teaching. They in turn taught others who rose to prominence and some of their writings have survived. What you can notice is the sad truth that very early these leaders began a drift toward cerebral orthodoxy and forsaking the mystical approach of the first apostles.

But their drift was not without a great deal of prodding from what they perceived was the greatest threat to the gospel: the Judaizers. The Early Church scholars were reacting to a lot of garbage. Reading between the lines, we grasp that these Judaizers had used several common tricks to derail churches from the gospel message. One of them was the debate about the genealogy of Jesus.

As noted in the linked Wikipedia article, there remains some dispute even today. Matthew and Luke apparently gave us different genealogies, and reconciling the difference is a real headache. That is, if you think it matters, then there is a problem. You can’t just embrace one explanation or another and wave your hands to dismiss those who disagree, if you are going to operate in the realm of law and historical research.

The proper approach is to first understand why either of the gospels include the list. Matthew is attempting to answer lingering questions Jewish believers may have. Yes, Joseph could legally adopt Jesus as his human son, for what it’s worth. Luke offers to a Gentile audience a scholarly statement that Jesus was a real human, not a fable. Whether or not Luke’s list is actually Mary’s genealogy is rather beside the point. Consider that Luke is working from Jewish records as an outsider, but as one familiar with Jewish scholarly traditions. Was it simply a matter of key figures, not a direct lineal descent? Was it a matter of different names for the same guys, something quite common in Hebrew history?

We don’t really know — and we shouldn’t get wrapped around the question as if it really mattered. What qualified Jesus for the title, “Son of God”? The issue was actually settled at Jesus’ baptism by His cousin’s hands in the Jordan River and again on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 3:17, 17:5; Mark 1:11, 9:7; Luke 3:22, 9:35; 2 Peter 1:17). If you aren’t going to buy that, then there’s no point in pursuing any of this.

Jesus as the Son of God, and therefore rightly Lord of your life, is a truth that calls to you regardless of alleged factual data. I’ve said repeatedly that there is no such thing as objective truth. If you think objective facts matter, then you’ll never understand the gospel. Every mighty miracle of God comes with plausible deniability for the human mind. As long as your intellect rules your life, you cannot hear the voice of God in the first place.

If we cannot establish the facts about Jesus’ genealogy, it’s because they don’t really matter. The notion, commonly assumed in the West, that truth arises from facts, and that the facts must first be established before we can have truth, is the Devil’s trick from back in the Garden of Eden. If you don’t understand that what mankind commonly assumes to be “reality” is likely variable, then you’ll always struggle to hear the voice of God calling you to follow in Jesus’ footsteps.

Yes, I’m suggesting that alternate realities exist. It’s not just human perception that cannot be trusted, much less human memory, but that we cannot trust the human drive for seeking certitude, the myth that we can possibly arrive at objective factual certainty about much of anything. It’s not just miracles that affect reality — Jesus born of a virgin — but miracles abound in that space of uncertainty where humans differ on what they experienced in a particular moment of time.

It was part of the Judaizers’ game to act as if facts really mattered. All that really matters is narrative, the story we tell of God’s greatness in our personal lives. We should act as if reality is a person we all experience differently — the same person seeming different to different folks who encounter him/her (gender is immaterial and depends on your perception). This requires a heart-led level of awareness that never presumes to establish some alleged factual account, but decides whether it is justified at some point to take seriously the narrative someone offers.

Even if there was an objective reality, it’s highly doubtful that any human would be capable of knowing, much less communicating such knowledge, with sufficient reliability to compel others to agree.

John’s Revelation should teach us one thing: Trust your heart first over your intellect, or you’ll never understand anything that matters.

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The Bottom Line

Posted on May 15, 2018 by ehurst

What drives us? There is one primary thing we hope to see, and it can be worded many different ways, but it’s all the same thing. We want for other people:

  • set free from Satan’s deception and slavery
  • reclaim their lost divine heritage
  • find the shalom God holds for them
  • absorb the divine moral character of God
  • embrace the living Biblical Law
  • live as members of God’s feudal household
  • merge their sense of purpose with Creation

And on and on I could go, but these all boil down to the same thing. We speak much about the heart-led way, but that’s the means, not the end. It’s our first major milestone on the way to walking in Christ. It is the necessary precondition for living by faith. It is the fundamental correction of what’s wrong with our world, just to make those other things possible.

No part of the gospel message, the divine revelation from God, means anything until you shift your conscious awareness into your heart and out of your intellect. That’s what it means to walk by your convictions.

Yes, we make a lot of noise about that, but only as the first step. What we really want is for people to use that new heart-led awareness to embrace Jesus Christ and follow Him. Once we get past that major hurdle, it’s all about becoming a fresh incarnation of Christ ourselves, living the life He would live if He were born in our place.

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Are We Ready?

Posted on May 14, 2018 by ehurst

Pray with me. I have a vision that the time has come, that our first real-world congregation is upon us. The vision doesn’t include any details, only that it will happen soon. The vision itself demands I make myself ready for it. So let’s pray together, because it also tells me there will be other physical congregations. No, I don’t know who or where, only that it will be. Prepare your hearts for the work.

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Jeremiah 17:9

Posted on May 13, 2018 by ehurst

Several people have asked me how to reconcile our talk here about being heart-led with this verse in Jeremiah. Most English translations go something like this:

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?

Hebrew is a contextual language. Words in Hebrew are not carriers of thought, as it would be with the English language. In Hebrew, words are sign-posts, indicators of things that often cannot be put into words. Thus, we say the Hebrew language is indicative, not descriptive as most Western languages are. You cannot expect to read an English translation of Hebrew writing from English linguistic assumptions. The meaning of a Hebrew word is more flexible, most especially in the context of divine revelation. Look at the context of that verse:

So says the LORD, Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from the LORD. For he shall be like a juniper in the desert, and shall not see when good comes. But he shall live in the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land that is not inhabited. Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, and Jehovah is his trust. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters; it sends out its roots by the river, and it shall not fear when the heat comes, but its foliage shall be green; and he is not worried in the year of drought, nor will it cease from yielding fruit. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings. (Jeremiah 17:5-10 MKJV)

In this context, a more accurate translation of the Hebrew word for “heart” would be “human will.” Notice how he says the will can be harnessed to the wrong thing. If you aren’t committed to the Lord and Creator of all things, you’ll make a mess of your life. In Hebrew thinking, the heart is the seat of the will, a metaphor for a faculty they considered quite separate from the intellect. Your heart is where faith resides — “faith” being a much abused word that should mean your capacity for commitment and trust.

In English-speaking societies, the heart is merely a repository of sentiment. It’s just feelings and emotions. This is part of the dirty secret that Western society rejects the notion there is anything above the intellect, whereas ancient Hebrew society — along with the entire Ancient Near East — presumed the intellect was meant to be subservient to the heart as a faculty of commitment and faith. In their thinking, the moral realm of truth was far above the intellect, and only the heart could go there. The heart was a metaphor for moral discernment. This is why in English-speaking societies, faith is equated with mere sentiment and emotion. It’s an assumption no one questions, yet it totally backwards from what’s in the Bible.

We who share the Radix Fidem covenant never said that getting a correct idea about the heart would save you. The heart is the necessary foundation for truth faith, but is not sufficient of itself to bring you peace with God. That heart must be committed to Christ, not any number of other things in which people have placed their faith since leaving the Garden of Eden. That’s just what Jeremiah is saying in that passage. You can’t trust the heart alone; it has to be yielded to the Lord. But he spoke from within the context of a society that already knew the power of the heart to also lead you astray. Our Western society denies that very possibility; it denies that the heart has such power. Western assumptions deny that there is anything above the intellect.

It’s a trick of the Devil to make you read that verse from a legalistic point of view, insisting that “the heart” is not trustworthy as the means to full faith and obedience to Christ, that you must rely on the intellect. Jeremiah isn’t addressing that issue at all. People who read English and think in English will completely miss the point of this whole passage. They are at least two giant steps away from understanding and being touched by the message of God, having a false view of the heart, and then a false view of what Jeremiah is actually saying. Read that passage again with a more Hebraic frame of reference.

Satan has been very successful in veiling the Scripture from Western minds.

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Teachings of Jesus — Matthew 13:24-43

Posted on May 12, 2018 by ehurst

This is about the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus contrasts its nature with that of human kingdoms. The key is His quotation (v. 35) from Psalms 78:1-4. The context of the psalm is a reminder that the language of parables was well established from ancient times, and the symbols were hardly foreign to the Hebrew people. It was necessary to teach parabolic language because that was the nature of the Hebrew language, and of divine revelation itself. The divine character of God cannot be shared in direct descriptive terms. Hebrew language is inherently indicative, not descriptive.

The gospel is not addressed to the mind; it is not a question of knowing and deciding. It cannot be simplified and pre-digested. The gospel is not meant to be persuasive by reason or emotion. Rather, it calls to the heart alone. If the heart does not respond, then the gospel has not been received. Dead spirits are not raised to eternal life through the mind, but through the heart. There is no Kingdom of Heaven outside the hearts of redeemed people.

The heart can grasp parables directly; it’s the language of the heart. Symbolic logic is the logic of the heart. For the disciples, it was a matter of reawakening the symbolic thought process already native to their culture. The mind is equipped to handle such things under the guidance of the heart. It is a lore of understanding that can be taught, and as the psalm indicates, it is a dereliction of our covenant duty to God if we don’t pass on this lore to future generations.

The Parable of the Tares presents the basic problem we all face as covenant people: the presence of folks who are not heart-led. That’s because their hearts were hardened, as the previous lesson indicates. Such people are, by definition, children of the Devil. For us today, it’s more a matter of no heart-mind connection at all, and no lore or legacy of thinking in parables.

Scholars believe “tares” (Greek zizanion) indicates darnel, a false wheat. It looks very much like edible wheat, and only experienced farmers can detect the difference. However, once the two ripen, wheat is yellow-brown, while darnel is black. Further, if you eat darnel, the symptoms are like drunkenness and it’s often fatal. But once it manifests its true color, even children can be taught to pick it out before the harvest actually begins.

Every covenant community will always have its tares. If you yank them out before God’s judgment comes, there’s no way you can keep from harming the wheat. Let them bear their nasty fruit so they can be known. The Law Covenants are designed to accommodate this mixed population, and only the most egregious violations warrant harsh actions. For the most part, a covenant community thrives on the tolerance of people who are simply going through the motions.

Then Jesus offers two more parables regarding how this works. The Parable of the Mustard Seed is cited often these days. The gospel truth may start from a very small seed, like mustard seed, but the life within that message is capable of phenomenal growth into a very large community. This is not to crack the whip and make you get to work, but to show you that growth is in the nature of the Kingdom. Expect it grow, and expect it to draw folks who don’t belong.

The Parable of the Leaven teaches us that living the gospel truth also changes the situation. I believe it’s a mistake to think of this is merely evangelism, as is commonly taught in many churches today. The context is the power of parables and the heart-led way, and how that changes the situation. So not only does the Kingdom grow larger, but it changes the atmosphere. When we invest ourselves fully in the heart-led way of truth, of living according to the divine moral character of God, everything around us will come to life and fill out with the joy the Spirit. This is what makes a covenant community the kind of place that changes people.

There’s a certain amount of tolerance we can afford in our covenant community of faith. The people most likely to be changed by the gospel are those we allow to participate who aren’t yet bearing fruit. There’s really no way to keep them out, so we must learn to grow the Kingdom according to its true nature.

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Prophetic Word to the Aging

Posted on May 11, 2018 by ehurst

My Mom likes to share some of her emails with me because she knows I’ll have a reaction. Recently she passed along a message with 21 items of advice for folks aging and retired. I won’t copy it here because it was a nauseating list of middle-class Baby Boomer materialism.

Boomers (my generation) are convinced they built this country; they lead the way in a sense of entitlement as a whole generation. Most of them are relatively conservative and big on the Constitution and Bill of Rights in very literal applications. They will jump to defend the American way and Western Civilization. Most of them would quickly shoot a robber or home invader. But when it comes right down to it, their whining about the police state is about as far as it goes. Almost none of them would actually take arms against the state. And they are easily the most self-indulgent generation in American history.

All of that was plainly obvious in the advice this email offered. I’m writing my reaction here, because it’s a prophetic reaction.

This is a bad time to trust institutions: government, churches, banks, funds, etc. When any of them decide to fail you, it will come without notice, and without the least bit of regret. For example, in legal terms, the bottom line is that when you deposit your money in a bank, it’s their money. They can do what they want with it, and you really have no recourse if they lie and persuade you to let them keep it up until the day they lock the doors and declare themselves insolvent. You may get some back from the FDIC, but if other banks shut down the same day, that fund can disappear in a few hours.

Don’t trust them. You may well have to leave your money there because of how the system works, but don’t be surprised if any institution goes belly-up any day now. Pray and make plans to deal with that as best you are able. I will tell I personally believe most banks will survive the coming turmoil, but a lot of government pensions will disappear, as will an awful lot of union pensions. A great many municipalities, counties and some states are near bankruptcy right now.

Your material possessions are a grant from God for service in His glory. So if you feel led to let your progeny inherit things, consider passing it over now. Be aware of how turmoil can affect keeping anything you give them. Pray for guidance, but surely you know that some things are more likely confiscated or stolen than others. And in the end, you should only give what you have. As long as it is in your hands, whining is not a valid counter to the moving of the Spirit. I recommend doing it in steps, not all at once, unless you have a compelling reason for it.

Otherwise, my teaching would assume that you had begun seeking to live and give by the Spirit’s guidance long ago. That means use what you have for the glory of Christ, whether in your hands or in passing to the hands of others. If God put it in your hands, you are His steward, accountable to Him alone. You are not responsible for hustling to gather up stuff that someone else tells you is necessary, unless that kind of hustling is your calling and mission in Christ. Never listen to charity experts; the only way they can take such a position is by moral compromise. Don’t listen to investment counselors who can’t give evidence of being heart-led and prophetically oriented.

Follow your convictions. Strive to do what you feel compelled to do. That’s how we live at all times, but it becomes more critical in times of tribulation such as we face now. The biggest task for any of us it train the conscience to listen to the heart, not the logic and certainly not dominant social “wisdom.”

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The Blood Is Sacred

Posted on May 10, 2018 by ehurst

First, I refer you to a couple of references: Genesis 31:25-35 (emphasis on the last verse) and Christine’s post about feminine blood.

Second, I remind you that a great deal of Moses’ Law pulled in existing ancient custom and belief. Laban was unwilling to put his hands on his daughter’s camel saddle — which made a pretty convenient chair for folks traveling without furniture — as part of Ancient Near Eastern custom and Laban’s pagan religion, too.

Maybe you already understand that a lot such ancient law and custom was a simple matter of survival in Ancient Near East (ANE). Some of those people lived very long and healthy lives without the modern obsessions with bathing every day and dashing all manner of toxic chemicals on themselves so they would smell nice. They smelled like humans. It’s not that they were unsanitary people, but they handled sanitation differently. It’s a simple fact of life that in the semi-desert lands of the ANE, a menstrual flow constitutes an easy vector for infection unless it’s contained.* Not so much a threat to her own health, but once the flow is outside a woman’s body, it has to be properly handled. In the minds of those people in that part of the world, it had to handled like something that had died. Shed blood was sacred.

What may not be obvious is that there is another element to this whole picture: There are some places where men don’t belong. In that sense, it’s something sacred, reserved for women only. Men rightly back off and treat it with some reverence. Thus, it’s not because Laban was repulsed by some imaginary nastiness of women in menstruation, but he was respectful enough to avoid messing with it, despite the high likelihood she was lying. Reverence for God includes reverence for His Creation.

Western culture is deeply confused and perverted about a lot of things. This is one of them. Christine in her post refers to the weirdness of women both aping and denigrating men, when the divine design was the utter necessity of male and female working in harmony, doing those things each does best to preserve moral stability in Creation. Western Civilization took all the worst ideas about reality from the European Germanic tribal roots, and the conflict between the sexes is one of those very bad ideas. It’s strongly tied to the obsession with the individual as a free agent versus the biblical understanding that we are all one in Creation. The Western way leads to isolation and a host of perversions.

So with our ultra-sanitary lifestyle, there’s nothing inherently immoral about sex during menstruation if the woman finds it comforting. Leviticus 15 is very easily misunderstood without the cultural context of the ANE. The high degree of ritualization was simply their way of provoking a moral sensitivity. But it fit their lifestyle, and a great many elements of Moses and ANE culture simply have no place in our world. You must learn to see through the Old Testament law to the character of God Almighty.

The very thing that Jesus condemned was mindless legalism, seizing upon the words of the Old Testament without any measure of contextual moral discernment. The Law of God is no longer written in stone, but in our hearts. It’s meant to be alive. This is why we teach that Jesus is the Living Law of God. God’s truth is intensely personal because it’s alive in itself.

* Note: Christina insists that a healthy woman’s menstrual flow isn’t a threat to anyone. My intent was to point out how the Hebrews and other ANE folks approached the matter.

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