Readiness without Limits

Posted on August 11, 2024 by ehurst

Do you understand the joy of testing?

God binds the Bible; it does not bind Him. He is the ultimate free agent, the only one in a position to have His will every time in every thing. There are a whole host of things He does for His children that are never mentioned, nor even hinted at, in the record of Scripture.

Over the years I have grown what some would call a yearning for adventure. I’m sure there’s something in my personality that enhances this, but the real issue is I’m a junkie for His miracles. He provides every time, without fail. I have failed repeatedly, but He always provides an answer. This is what I really crave; I delight in being thrown out into some situation I can’t predict. My heart always tells me that God is watching and arranging things for His glory. All I have to do is discover where that glory stands.

This is why I still long to go bikepacking in the countryside. Sometimes I don’t get where I think I want to go, but everything turns out alright, every time. He always provides an answer to every challenge. It rekindles the experiences I had in the military. I admit that I didn’t enjoy it so much at the time, largely because of my own lack of spiritual maturity, but I can look back and see how God took good care of me despite my attitude. I would relish being ordered to pack up and deploy somewhere I’ve never been and set up a bivouac.

This is the stuff that invades my dreams in bed at night. It echoes in my reading of the Bible, when God’s people moved at His command and it was considered a virtue to endure some level of deprivation simply to avoid becoming trapped in hedonistic comforts.

Nor should you imagine He does not take care of your soul. If anything, that’s more important than your flesh. He provides everything we need for His glory, and that includes a whole range of spiritual and psychological experiences that change your perspective, moving you closer to where He wants you at the time. More importantly, He moves you to a better standing to face what’s coming down the road.

This is why you should not question why God delays acting on things that seem so obviously in need of His hand. Sometimes you are the problem. Usually there’s something you don’t see, don’t quite grasp, but sometimes He won’t act until you are standing in the right place. You need to understand that this is all part of the adventure, that enduring the waiting and not knowing is part of His provision for His glory in your life.

Finally, you wouldn’t want to tell God where the boundaries are. There are whole raft of ways and experiences through which God has led His people, spiritual effects that defy explanation, in part because they aren’t mentioned in Scripture. Get used to the idea that God is not limited by what makes sense to you.

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NT Doctrine — Hebrews 1

Posted on August 10, 2024 by ehurst

This treatise was written by an Alexandrian rabbi thoroughly acquainted with Second Temple literature, and perhaps that of the Qumran Community. We are assuming he wrote to Hebrew Christians in Rome who were suffering under persecution and tempted to slip back into Judaism to escape the pressure. Judaism remained legal, but for a time, Christian faith was not. This letter is a definitive statement that the Covenant of Moses died on the Cross, and that going back there is deserting God.

God revealed Himself in highly varied ways and fragments in ancient times, and then more definitively in the prophets and literature of Israel, but the final revelation was Jesus Christ. It was a Hebrew doctrine that referred to God’s will as a Person, and that was Jesus, the agent of Creation. He was as much God as any human can possibly know, and He trumps every other revelation — past, present or future. Now that He has offered the final sacrifice for sins for all time, He sits on the throne as God’s Heir and ruler of all things. He outranks the Divine Council and certainly all the angels.

Quoting liberally from the Old Testament (Septuagint version), the writer refers back to God’s declarations that He adopted both David and Solomon as His sons. He elevated these two men above the rest of humanity. When their descendant and heir comes along as the Messiah, this latter Son of God was far more than just an honored man, for God commanded the angels to worship this One. So, while the angels are very powerful servants of His throne, this Son is the Heir of Heaven.

The author continues quoting various Psalms that identify Jesus the Messiah with descriptions and titles that can only mean this is God, and yet an extension of God. The Hebrew doctrine of Two Powers in Heaven is quite obviously where this points — God and His Word. Thus, this Son was there at Creation and preexists all other beings. These are things God never said of anyone else, much less angels nor even the Divine Council.

Jesus Christ is the long-awaited promise that God would finally send a definitive representation of Himself to His people. He came, He taught, He paid the final price for our redemption. He is the New Covenant in Himself. The Old Covenant is closed; there’s nothing to go back to.

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His Sacrificial Love

Posted on August 9, 2024 by ehurst

Two problems — (1) It’s one thing to recognize the utility of simple observation and analysis. It’s another thing to imagine that your analysis answers all the pertinent questions. (2) The miracles of faith are extraordinary, and yet should be common in a community of faith. The whole point is to wrap your existence in faith so that God’s promises to intervene become routine in a certain sense.

Do I need to explain this? Vox Day is surely one of the sharpest minds on the planet. Unfortunately, his written output almost never reflects a genuine faith in God and His promises. The whole thrust of his work is what men can understand by their talents and intellect, not a constant reliance on God. This is the crux of the Fall, folks. It has nothing to do with whether the man is Elect or spiritually reborn; he doesn’t operate in a spiritual orientation.

He is religious, not spiritual. Religion is a compartment of human endeavor; faith is God’s Presence and power overcoming human limits.

So, it should be obvious that his famous Socio-Sexual Hierarchy (SSH) is a human secular framework, and in no wise a matter of spiritual insight. It is worldly from start to finish. Yes, it is a reliable gauge of human response to various contexts. No, it does not yield in any way to God’s work in human lives. The whole SSH frame of reference shoves aside faith.

The biblical model of manhood is a shepherd; that is God’s Word. For the SSH, only Alphas can be shepherds. That’s flat out wrong and wrong-headed. The shepherd image crosses all the boundaries of the SSH. The hierarchy makes no room for men finding their dominion from God in the moral sphere. The SSH assumes most men are incapable, that the categories are essentially immutable, and this is a flat rejection of God’s Word.

That the biblical model does not easily match human observation is simply proof that our culture is anti-Christian. Americans in particular don’t see the difference because they read their cultural bias back into the Bible. This is the old problem of a biblical worldview that is radically different from what most Bible wavers and thumpers hold.

The issue is not rejection of the information gained from the construction of an SSH. Rather, the issue is letting that model dominate what we do about the human condition. That model excludes the power of faith and prayer, and closes the door on how God calls His Elect. A great many of His Elect prior to embracing biblical faith would be judged severely by the SSH and rejected.

Do you realize that Peter was mostly a Gamma (immature) before the coming of the Holy Spirit? And Paul would be a genuine Omega (damaged and creepy) to most. Jesus tolerated Peter for several years; Vox would have kicked both apostles to the curb in seconds, never to tolerate either of them again for a moment. They would have to go away and “get right” on their own first. Jesus doesn’t operate that way, and He has commanded us not to operate that way.

If we obey and conform to the structure of spiritual fellowship that the Bible outlines, then we will manage just fine by absorbing into our community a lot of people in our search for the Elect, while eventually rejecting those who will not repent. The Presence of the Holy Spirit demands that we reach across all the human barriers to offer His sacrificial love.

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It’s Already Enough

Posted on August 8, 2024 by ehurst

There are plenty of times when silence is significant in itself.

God is not revealing anything to me about the tribulation coming at us. All I can say for sure is that there will be tribulation. I can also read what others predict through their fleshly intelligence, and I can make sense of that with my own fleshly intelligence (such as it is). To some degree, some estimates echo in my convictions, and that’s what I write about here.

However, I do not get a word from God, even for myself. All I get are echoes of my convictions telling me things I can do right now, not why. You should get the idea that God is choosing to be coy.

Let’s remind ourselves: At various times in the history of Ancient Israel, various prophets would lead academies for other prophets. What do you suppose was their curriculum? It was primarily getting used to the way God does things, getting acquainted with Him and His character. The whole point was to know what to expect, primarily by getting to know what He has already done, and why.

There is no magical method by which you start hearing from God. If you feel drawn, you will hear. Typically it will be just for you alone. That’s the nature of biblical mysticism: You get to know God personally. You have a personal relationship with Him and talk with Him frequently.

At the same time, there are those with the gift of prophecy. There is a sense in which there is a constant stream of traffic in the wider Spirit Realm that prophets are called to tap into; that’s the fundamental meaning of the gift of prophecy. But sometimes that traffic is simply indecipherable because God isn’t translating it for us. Prophets no less than Daniel sometimes had to get a translation for things they saw in visions and dreams.

I can detect the traffic, but I can’t discern it right now. Only a very little bit here and there comes through unencrypted, as it were. That traffic is privileged communications, and a lot of it is not for me in my mission calling.

Thus, aside from generalities of economic distress, political and social chaos of some sort, I can’t tell you what specifically is going to happen, and I especially cannot tell you when, aside from certain things I’ve already offered in the past, or that others have shared that were echoed in my convictions.

1. If the US attacks Iran, it will go very badly for our forces. It won’t matter who else is involved.

2. Israel will eventually be destroyed. When that happens, western church Zionism will also collapse and there will be an exodus from churches.

3. While the Internet will keep working in some fashion, things will become very chaotic and the established software giants will suffer greatly. Some will collapse; lots of devices will be orphaned.

4. At the very moment when human governments seek to centralize control, it will slip through their fingers. Decentralization will come by default, rather like a force of nature. Those who embrace it will do a whole lot better than those who fight to maintain their oversized grip.

Most of that you could probably see coming without me telling you. My convictions tell me to expect Trump to be in control, at least for a while, primarily because his opposition will suffer major setbacks. Instead of suggesting he’ll win, it’s more like he will be the only who doesn’t fail completely. All he really has to do now is just stay alive and keep his face in public.

That’s just my best guess, not a word from God. The only word I have for you is what God has already revealed. Be faithful and it will carry you through the tribulation coming at us. We have more than enough on our hands with what we already know.

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A System Recovery

Posted on August 7, 2024 by ehurst

This is shop talk; you can skip this post.

The new laptop was doing something inappropriate, so I tried to recover my Win11 installation from backup just so I could see if the problem persisted. The warranty would not be honored running Linux. Turns out Win11 doesn’t have the drivers to read my SSD, and decided to install the OS on an attached USB drive. That happened to be the drive containing all my archives, files, photos, etc. from the past 10+ years.

I gave up and reinstalled Mint Linux (it found the SSD easily). Nicely enough, the original inappropriate behavior went away. Apparently the last Mint OS upgrade borked something and a fresh install solved it. But all I had were some recent backups online and the most important files, but all of my drop-in configurations were gone, of course. It took a couple of days to go back and reconstruct everything I had done over the years.

It was a good time to examine all my built-up habits from years of use. For example, I ditched Thunderbird for Evolution mail client, because the latter works with Gmail and Outlook, and imports all the calendars and address books. For stuff which requires MS Office, I just use the online version. For my own use, I’ll stick with LibreOffice.

Also, I found a place that sells and ships tractor feed paper for my new printer, and more cheaply than everyone else. I’ve also found a Linux driver that works okay with the Epson LQ-590ii — it’s the Epson generic driver. Turns out the printer understands generic ESC/P2 commands just fine. The only thing I still cannot do is identify software that will send formatted print jobs that use the built-in native fonts on the printer. I really do like the results, but neither Linux nor Windows has any software that will do that, so far as I know. Some years ago, the predecessor of LibreOffice would do that, but that feature died a while back.

At any rate, it’s all working again.

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Until It’s Ripe

Posted on August 5, 2024 by ehurst

The hardest thing is the waiting.

The key is more than obedience. It’s not what you know or can do. It’s a feudal submission to Christ, a total commitment of desire for His glory. It’s a heart aflame for Him and His servants. Even then, it’s only the servants He brings into your life, because you must know them personally for this to work. It is relentlessly personal — with Christ and with His people. This is the standard by which all things are measured.

When I say America is doomed, it has nothing to do with looking back over the country’s history and picking out moments based on some human standard of evaluation. I say “America is doomed” because that’s the word of the Lord to me and my spiritual family. In my ministry, there came a day when the Lord said my call for repentance was done. It has nothing to do with individuals here and there repenting when the Spirit moves them. Rather, what I’m pointing to is the moment when the Lord commanded me to stop making that call. Whatever else is going on in this world, the ministry He gave me shifted away from the call for folks out there in my world to repent.

It’s a question of as far as I’m concerned there is no repentance left for this country. Whether or not that registers with you is for you and God to decide. My mission is going to proceed as if it’s no longer possible for Americans at large.

In my heart, I know there was a time when people could join themselves to a core group of genuine followers of Christ and they would harvest some of the blessings. Because some small core of people were truly committed to Him, He would tolerate the presence of a bunch of people who simply hung out with that devoted bunch. A lot of churches experienced some measure of His covenant blessings. For whatever reason, that time of tolerance is over.

From that day forward, it has become a matter of God giving folks enough rope to hang themselves. Why is He so tolerant of the insulting rejection of His message? Why does He put up with folks doing such a hack job of misrepresenting Him, lying about Him and His character? Because the gate is closed and they are all doomed together.

Only the Eye of the Needle is left. That’s where you unload everything you have and come to Him on the most severe terms of personal submission. He’s only accepting individual submissions; the nation as a whole is lost already. There is no longer any way for His blessings to fall on nations — none of them. Even what little they could have had in the past is gone now. The gate kept getting narrower and narrower until it was gone. Now you must throw away everything you have to enter.

Right now, there aren’t many who are ready for that. They will have to hit bottom first, reach that point when nothing else matters. Do you suppose they’ll reach that bottom when everything they know, everything they thought they had, is gone? God’s wrath will fall on America, but not all at once. It will come bit by bit, occasionally in big chunks, testing to see how much pain it takes to move people to seek Him.

How long until the fruit is ripe? Wait and see.

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Saddling Up

Posted on August 4, 2024 by ehurst

I had another message ready, but the real world has intruded once again. I believe I should meet the need as it arises.

I suppose most of you are aware that we are on the brink of war in the Middle East. The Israeli government is striving to drag the US into a major regional conflict. They have done their best to provoke everyone they hate, going so far as to assassinate a negotiator they were already talking to. That alone should indicate that Israel’s government desperately wants to be attacked.

If nothing else, the chaos will cause the world to ignore the blatant war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank.

The thing to watch for is how Iran, Syria and Lebanon respond to those provocations. It will escalate quickly once it gets rolling. Moreover, it’s hard to imagine Russia and China won’t do something to protect Syria and Iran as their allies. We might not be able to guess what that support will look like, but I’m quite certain it will be there.

This is not prophecy; I’m hardly the only one who sees things this way. Quite a few others out there have said it could start today, and will almost certainly do so by tomorrow. I’m not affirming the timing here, just pointing out the consensus among those whom I read. It certainly appears to be that close.

In general, their opinion says that the US will lose; the only question is how badly. I still stand by my prophetic warning about the US attacking Iran. If someone invokes nukes, then things will be awful beyond any estimate. It could happen, though I tend to doubt it will. No one is more likely than the US to play that card.

Still, this is not a time to fear, but trust in the Lord. And you may think it odd, but I don’t promote the idea of warning outsiders at this point. The window for repentance is closed on these issues. We have been warning them for a long time already. There’s nothing to gain by standing up later and saying, “We told you.” Rather, it’s a time to be ready for acts of compassion in helping the victims around us who will suffer the consequences of this war.

This is an apocalypse we knew was coming; the Four Horsemen will ride.

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NT Doctrine — Titus 3

Posted on August 3, 2024 by ehurst

The world is hopelessly lost. There is nothing we can do to redeem the human condition at large, even on a small scale. What we can do is show God’s mercy and compassion for humans in their fallen situation. We don’t seek to change the world; we seek to draw God’s Elect to disconnect from it.

Persuading Cretans to become harmless would be a miracle in itself. But the Lord’s work in our lives is to redeem us and transform us into His kind of people. That means we cooperate with human government authorities as much as possible, and avoid provoking anyone else, for that matter. The same mercy has changed all of us; everyone started out as a moral degenerate in one way or another. All of us were born as self-centered predators.

Our salvation in Christ was not the result of our efforts, because we could do nothing other than evil. Rather, He chose to redeem us for His own personal motives. He sent His Spirit to clean us up and make us presentable to His Father. By His own initiative we have become heirs of His divine realm. Notice how Paul points out that works do not get us there, but they follow us out into the world afterward. They are His works.

We know where we are going. This sense of assurance is what drives us. We invest time and effort just dreaming up ways to glorify His name by how we act in a fallen world. We do things that bless others; this is what marks us as His children. It is not based on complicated rules of inheritance, silly legalism, or anything else promoted by mere men to curry God’s favor. If someone gets wrapped up in promoting Judaizer nonsense, warn him once or twice, then ostracize him as an outsider. They are in it only for themselves, still a swindling Cretan.

The letter ends with some administrative details, but Paul notes in passing that helping missionaries along the way was of critical importance in demonstrating what really matters to God’s people.

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Be the Gospel

Posted on August 2, 2024 by ehurst

We give the nickname “bibliolatry” to the odd mental habit of evangelicals who worship the Bible instead of the Living Word. They invest so much reverence into the physical artifact, or the body of content, that they lose track of what it’s about. To them, the book is the Savior, and it manifests in a bunch of ritual instincts about the physical artifact. For them, the book is the only way God can speak to the world. This is what happens when you embrace the obsession with “propositional truth”.

For example, we know the Bible cannot be simple, easily within reach of everyone who can read. The mere fact that it has to be translated into vernacular languages of our day is proof enough of that. We don’t have a single original, because that wasn’t important to God. He did not give Scripture to the world. He didn’t give it to the institutional church. He gave it to His covenant children; there’s a difference. It’s not the institutions, nor the individuals, but in the community of faith.

It’s not the book, but the gospel message should be simple, and that message is His children. That’s because the Word — His Son — is incarnated in His people. We are the message. The Bible is the background material we use to refine our understanding of the message, but Jesus the Person is the message.

This is right in line with the wild notion that the Holy Spirit will guide you to a proper understanding of the text of any Bible passage. It’s true that He will inspire you to obey, but He does not communicate data. He communicates moral truth. Moral truth is not a proposition. Just because you are comfortable with your analysis of what it says is no sign that God wants you to teach that particular set of notions to the whole world.

Many theologians, great men of God, have gone before us, asking the same Holy Spirit to guide them in deciding what to make of the text of Scriptures. They all disagreed and taught differently. The question is not binary; it’s not who is wrong versus who is right. That’s a human fixation that God will not endorse. They obeyed their convictions; you need to do the same.

If you absorb the message in the Bible, then you are the gospel.

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Ride Photos 29

Posted on August 1, 2024 by ehurst

Our first image juxtaposes a fine park area with an industrial installation.

Things went much better today. With the fancy fabric rim tape, hard and thin thorn straps inside the new tires, I had no tire trouble at all. Today was the River-Grand Boulevard loop. I can tell you that the fatter, softer tires do offer a bit of roll resistance compared to the high-pressure road tires, but I had far more control on the frequently poor pavement, sand and gravel patches, grassy areas, etc. I feel that it was worth the trade-off.

The second image is another mismatch between lovely park area backed by an industrial feed mill. That mill has been active longer than I’ve been alive; this was once the southern edge of the city, and this whole area was the first expansion from Downtown OKC. It’s called Capitol Hill. More on that later. The River Trail runs past it, but so does the Grand Boulevard Trail. The feed mill really stinks up the area once in a while when they are turning out a batch of dog food, because it contains rendered trimmings from a nearby cattle slaughterhouse, meat that isn’t refrigerated during transportation.

At the far western end of the loop, near Portland Avenue, the grass will sprout these mixed trumpet flowers when it gets enough rain. This time, there were two distinct patches of different colors. To be honest, the pink was much brighter to the naked eye. This particular variety of wildflower can grow as a climbing vine, too. It’s visible this time of summer all over this part of the state, climbing hills, fences, posts, etc.

There had been a brief shower passing over the OKC Metro just before I headed out the door this morning. I was trying to beat the heat, so I rolled at about down. The distance is roughly 30 miles and I drank all four bottles of water I had with me.

I mentioned how Capitol Hill District was second in age only to the original downtown. This southern expansion was originally the bedroom community for service workers, the lower class “brown color” types. This fancy high school was built in 1928. As was common in those days, it resembles a castle somewhat. This particular facility is considered a historic landmark now, especially since so many other Metro high schools from that period were demolished and replaced. At this time in OKC’s life, this whole district is mostly Hispanic, and the student body is something like 80% Latino.

A couple of miles east of the high school on the Grand Boulevard Trail is this Cesar Chavez Elementary, built in 2011. Huge difference in architecture, and frankly an ugly building if you ask me. The interior is laid out well, but the exterior design is altogether uninspiring. I can recall riding by one summer and that sucker had been slapped together in just weeks.

It was a good workout.

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