Radix Fidem Blog

Bits and Pieces 20

Posted on September 3, 2016 by ehurst

While I’ve left Debian Jessie on the server, I found too many things implemented wrong for my laptop. So I moved back to Mint 18 (Sarah) and I’ll just grit my teeth on the suspend issue. Part of what drove me to this is that I couldn’t get anything off the iPhone without major hassles and nothing at all from the camera. With Mint it’s all pretty much automatic.

For quite some time I’ve not had any calls for my computer tech support ministry. Out of the blue yesterday someone asked for a little help. As usual, most of it was a matter of explaining things to someone who isn’t tech savvy, and that’s my specialty. All the other stuff I do is just routine maintenance, but the real blessing his helping people get used to the way things actually work.

Oh, and the earthquake that hit us this morning did no damage here. Our apartment complex sits on deep sandy soil, so shaking tends to be harmless. The sand absorbs a lot of the violence. Sites with more clay or rock get a much bigger shock because it’s less forgiving and transmits more of the motion to objects on the surface. But it did wake us up from an attempt to sleep a little late.

Yesterday’s ride really wore me down and my right knee was quite sore. However, a good night’s sleep did help. So after a rather lightweight morning activity, I decided to take a few laps with the bike around Heritage Park Mall. After a couple of passes on the two ring roads, I stopped and took this selfie reflected in the glass on the offices of Life Church, and it was a breeze to pull it off and show you. After only three laps my knee felt pretty good, actually, so I went home.

Regulars may be aware that I am still getting lots of hits on my old caustic review of Life Church way back when they ran me off (early 2012). By the way, it’s no longer LifeChurch.tv; they took advantage of the new TLDs and now you can find them online at Life.church — and they haven’t changed. They are still a religious entertainment franchise with no moral depth at all. Decent folks go there, but the organization itself will soon experience the wrath of God.

That’s not just wishful thinking from a grouchy reject. I said there are some decent people there and they will suffer greatly when God starts shaking things in earnest. Millions of Western Christians will be in shock as the true moral nature of church leadership is stripped bare as the thin veneer crumbles away. Far too much of what churches do rests entirely on an economic and social system that is going away. I’m not looking forward to seeing that trauma, not looking forward to how it will dirty the reputation of religion. What Western churches have made of religion is an awful, blasphemous thing, and we cannot avoid having mud splashed on our virtual parish here.

Lots of folks are still predicting some kind of apocalypse. If you rest your evidence on what you see the elite doing, you might find an awful future reasonable. For example, our US Department of Homeland Security is ordering stuff like mad — radiation detectors, massive quantities of bottled water (demanding immediate delivery), and all kinds of stuff. Just the list itself would make you think they knew something was coming, but let’s be honest here: Have you seen the unspeakable incompetence these people exhibit every time there’s a real catastrophe (via FEMA)? Even if the massive purchases reflected evil things DHS actually plans to do to us, should we imagine they actually know how to carry out their evil plot? These people can’t even tie their shoes without a detailed instruction manual.

What’s coming will be rough, but it won’t be what most people expect. God is more creative than that.

Posted in personal | Tagged computer technology, cycling | Comments Off

Cycling: Just for Me

Posted on September 2, 2016 by ehurst

As always, click on any image to see it full-sized. CTRL-click will open the image in a separate browser tab.

Today’s pictures are not meant to stir moral recognition. Rather, they simply mark a day’s outing where the moral considerations were of a totally private nature. You’ll catch on, though. This was a day to just play and fulfill an unfinished quest, at least in part. On the day of the crash I had been on my way to shoot some pictures of Bricktown and Downtown OKC. Still, it’s just a playful ramble on the bike, so I started off cutting through the side streets. On the way was this little neighborhood playground called Holoway Park. The sidewalk ends just around the corner there and I took that street straight across the area westward.

I crossed Sooner Road into Del City and it was pretty much a straight shot along Judy Drive, past the ratty and rowdy Del Crest Junior High and into Ray Trent Park. On the other side was some more neighborhood, and I crossed Sunnylane Road and kept heading west until Townsend took me north back to Reno Boulevard. By now it was just a half-mile to the entrance of Eagle Lake.

The lake was deserted of visitors, but a work crew was there installing a new boat ramp. The trail around the lake is gravel, mud and some grass. On the far eastern edge is the jurisdictional boundary between Del City and OKC, the the OKC Parks bike trail beings abruptly at the tree line. So today when I cross the bridge, there was no big movement in my heart. That blue tractor has a mowing deck mounted on a hydraulic arm dropped over the fence and cutting grass there. This one was easy to avoid; I simply took a sharp left off the end of the bridge on the grass and caught the path, where I turned around to snap this shot back up the hill.

The accident scene was just a short distance beyond there. It’s not as I remembered, but in late April there is only some grass, none of the massive head-high weeds. I paused a bit and felt nothing unusual about the place, so I turned and took a shot of the remnants of previous bridges across the river before all this massive work was done where I-40 and I-35 cross. That’s three generations lying standing or lying in the mud there; how the mighty have fallen.

I’m learning to mix using my cellphone for quick and simple stuff, and dragging out the real camera when the shot justifies more effort. I carry my camera in a second fanny pack on the right hip. However, I didn’t try to take any pictures of the second mowing rig I encountered. He was blocking the whole path. This one had a rear view mirror (!) so I waited behind him until he glanced at it. With my bright orange and yellow safety vest, he reacted quite visibly. He half turned and held up one finger, then began pulling over to the right while retracting the mower boom. I never moved until he actually waved me by. It wasn’t long before I crossed under the Eastern Avenue, crawled on the gravel road between the rowing course and the Indian Heritage Center, followed by a dip under I-35 to where the actual official bike trail begins for the south bank.

One my left was the central railroad yard. Across the river was the new rapids park (above right), which is a big deal — it’s gotten attention as a certified training center for all kinds of stuff. This Chesepeake Boat House district has turned into a really huge tourist trap with a cable slide across the river, a tall water slide and other water rides, and even a nifty humpy bike park (free access). It’s coated with a special rubbery asphalt to reduce injuries. And of course, they accommodate wildlife; Canadian geese are federally protected and can be found all along the river course. I note with some amusement most of this stuff is not visible on Google Earth because it’s all so recent and was finished quickly.

I climbed up and down some overpasses, but the newest one that connects all of this to Bricktown isn’t finished, so it’s not open to traffic. So I took the shortest route over and down into Bricktown. Talk about an expensive tourist trap. I stood on a large stone sitting out in front of Outdoor Sports and faced ENE back across Bricktown. You can probably make out the baseball park in the distance (over the trees in the center of the picture). There are several hotels, dozens of bars and restaurants, and a sort of quiet water canal for which you can rent peddle boats. This is all just east of the center of Downtown OKC. I found a high spot that allowed me to shoot back into the city center and our skyscraper district.

This whole area is a mixture of preserving historical buildings in what was once an industrial area built almost entirely from bricks. Up that quick rise to the north is Deep Deuce, which has become a dense collection of those tiny, expensive yuppie apartment buildings. Still standing in their midst is the old Calvary Baptist Church. If you could see the sign up close, the last line at the bottom where they used to show the pastor’s name says in small letters that it is actually the law offices of a notorious ambulance chaser. That’s a much as they would let him do to mark what is actually inside. There are quite a few of such historic structures in this part of the the city.

By this time I was quite sore from climbing so many hills. I’m still riding in lower gears a lot of the time. So I limped over the 4th Street and headed straight east back toward home. Again, I’m not into touristy shots like this, but it was something I had to do.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cycling, photography, psychology | Comments Off

Shine That Light

Posted on September 1, 2016 by ehurst

I really would like to have one of these t-shirts. They say they took the idea from this video:

This is near and dear to my heart. You’ll notice that my books, articles, blog posts and even my images are all free to copy. I have chosen the Creative Commons License 3 (CC BY-SA 3.0) — asking that you let people know who did the work (attribute, the “BY” part) and that any modifications you make, you then share freely under the same license (share alike, the “SA” part). And the only real reason for using that license in particular is because of it’s widely recognized. The only reason I want attribution is, not so much for the recognition, but so folks who need something else in the same vein will at least have some idea who to ask for it. I have also released quite a few projects under public domain. It’s really a matter of conscience and conviction. I practice what I preach.

This is the virtual economy, and to some degree, the economy of the future. It’s also the essence of the most powerful weapons on this planet. Already, leaking secret stuff has become the ultimate weapon against oppression. One of the most enduring prophecies attached to tribulation and wrath is the principle that God exposes hidden sins. Let us pray that God continues to rip the cover off of dark places and shine His glory into every corner.

Posted in sanity | Tagged economics, internet, Network Civilization, photography, publishing, writing | Comments Off

Photography: Overcast Test

Posted on September 1, 2016 by ehurst

As always, click on any image to see it full-sized. CTRL-click will open the image in a separate browser tab. Note that this thing got accidentally posted way before it was finished.

Today was overcast, a good time to test the new camera. It wasn’t much of a test on my knee, though. I’m at the point where it grumbles, but cooperates and I had no trouble making a 16-mile (26 km) ride. That is, the knee wasn’t a limiting factor so much as the rest of my body. My muscles can remember long rides, but that doesn’t mean they can do it right away after just a few days back in the saddle. Actually, my hands caused me more discomfort having to adapt again to long rides leaning a bit on them. The bike itself is just dandy; I have a kickstand now. I wore a bright reflective safety vest because I intended to stop often and take pictures next to busy roads.

The first shot above is Pecan Grove Park on the way out. This is mostly chasing north on Midwest Boulevard up to Wilshire and back. The cloud cover was very thick, but it still came out rather well. On the northbound pass I stopped to catch this shot of the new levy extended out under the eastern side of the Midwest Boulevard bridge over the North Canadian River. The far shore behind the levy has the same massive boulder rip-rap and the river has a decent flow after the rains.

I very much love how this ridge stands above the river valley plain, so I grabbed several shots. This is viewing NW from NE 63rd just off Midwest Boulevard. Farther north along the same ridge the slope is adorned by massive oak trees.

On the east side of the Midwest Boulevard sits a huge sod farm. I rode down the stub of Wilshire Boulevard to the river banks and turned back to capture this view (right) that eluded me with the little camera. The same sod farm viewed from the front side (left) looks back down toward the river where it turns north.

As I headed back south, the same ridge line kept calling out its beauty. Viewed SW up near Wilshire it shows another property with an old barn and deadfall that hasn’t been picked up since the massive storm that hit this last spring. Farther down the trees obscure those houses we saw earlier.

That really is a beautiful spread those folks have; I couldn’t resist this view from farther south along the same road. It eventually brought me back to that enigmatic stone wall with wrought iron gates. It’s all closed up now and the landscaping site on the north bank of the river is all fenced in completely. The saplings are still held upright by poles.

Here’s the south bank in summer dress and with a good flow in the foreground. Recent rains have been just enough to deposit a substantial buildup of sand, making the higher cut bank look rather short. I’ve seen this same bank looking like a cliff taller than my own head, but I could climb this one, even with my bad knee.

Panning left along the same bank (southward) you can see where the new levy juts right out from the tree-lined shore. They have cut-outs to plant young trees, but I guess that comes later. I went on over the bridge most of the way to show the size of this thing; wide enough to accommodate a one-lane road. This also shows how they almost closed up that flow that blocked my escape back in April when I came riding out the woods there behind where they built the new levy.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged photography | Comments Off

Cycling: Gym Day

Posted on August 31, 2016 by ehurst

As always, click on any image to see it full-sized. CTRL-click will open the image in a separate browser tab.

Today I didn’t have to wear the neoprene compression sleeve on my knee. The issue was less of pain in the joint and more of tightness in the quadriceps. I was able to ride about four miles today, but part of the limitation was that I engaged in my upper body workout at Barnes Regional Park. Our first image is looking back up Key Boulevard to indicate what a quiet old neighborhood this is where I live. The second image indicates that we still have a few pockets of nice, undeveloped wild land, as well.

Over the past decade, Midwest City government has really developed Barnes Park a great deal. It’s busy at mid-morning when the weather is warm. The whole park trail system hugs Soldier Creek. I remind my regular readers that this area was heavily occupied by native tribes before the European settlers came. It’s always been an open park since then.

This raised area on the right holds a series of soccer fields (“pitches” outside the US). I used to run sprints up that sharp embankment, but it will be a good long while before I do any of that again. There’s even a dedicated dog area, separated between small and large dogs. People who own the latter wanted a smaller space away from the boisterous larger dogs. You can probably see the benches for owners. There are water spigots mounted over permanent water troughs and something that might serve as playground equipment for canines. The whole thing is marked with big fancy entrances, but this was a better view in the morning sun.

To access the northern half of the trail system, I took the west route that runs between the library and a senior day center. Those buildings are both visible here. Looking back up the trail through this trellis, you can just barely see off to the right a very large senior care home, too. There are pockets of undeveloped woodland all over this park system, and one of them hugs the “old folks home” off camera too the right.

About a quarter-mile farther north on the same western trail is this playground that I use as a gym. It’s been a long time, so I couldn’t do very many repetitions and I even skipped a few exercises, like the push-ups facing head-down on the long purple slide. It’s been since April that I did anything like that, so I need to build back up. It’s not because of any particular fitness goals; I do this purely for the fun of it. For me, it’s like playing. Of course, I can’t get a full workout on this gym, so I always head up around the end of this park, through the pecan grove, and around to the “blue monster.” Unlike the green one at the far opposite end of the trail system, this one sees less use and abuse, so it works much better. The hydraulic assisted footrest actually has some lift to it, for example.

From there I followed the eastern trail and spotted this new fitness gym under construction. There are no signs yet, but I can guess what each of the fixtures is for. Lots of things like this are receiving attention all at the same time, so the progress tends to be episodic.

Edit: That unfinished gym was actually a private project by an Eagle Scout that that was vandalized. The only thing I got right on this is that the city parks division will restore it sometime in the near future.

Then I rode back down to Reno Avenue and worked my way along the back streets before crossing over and heading back home. This last image is looking down Pratt Drive towards the apartment complex, just visible in the distance. All of these shots were taken using my iPhone, but I expect to need my better camera starting tomorrow.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cycling, photography, physical fitness | Comments Off

Cycling: Restart

Posted on August 30, 2016 by ehurst

The first block is the hardest.

Once I get going, after a few minutes it starts to feel okay. I’m doing my best to hear when my heart says the body has had enough, but I managed to cover a couple of miles today. East from our apartment and up the rise is Key Boulevard, a winding path that runs across a couple of sections of the original Midwest City residential area. It hearkens back to when Douglas Aircraft drew a massive workforce at what is now Tinker AFB. So this old railroad bridge still stands, and the underpass still floods in heavy rain as it always did. It’s part of a long stretch of decommissioned rail line not yet removed, but the city still talks about making it a recreational trail someday.

This was sort of a gateway to my turn-around point, the old Uptown Center at Key and SE 15th. It’s still alive, but not currently more than half occupied. The angle of the early morning sun was wrong for taking pictures of it, so maybe another day. It was once a bustling center of Midwest City commerce, but the anchoring businesses were bought out and closed down. Like the petty fights between bums, Goodwill Thrift Stores drove out a competing thrift store, while Hancock’s sewing goods shut down. The employees got together and bought out some of the remaining inventory and opened up in the same place but with much higher prices — another bright idea foolishly implemented.

The old grocery store was eventually taken over by Locke Plumbing and that’s as good as it gets in these times. Locke is a huge outfit with an excellent inventory of obscure stuff; they draw customers from all over several counties. Again, pictures on another day when the sun is at a better angle.

I headed back across the maze of curved streets toward Country Estates grade school, which sits directly next to one of the municipal water storage stations. There’s nothing to see; it’s a massive concrete tank mostly underground. This is all next to the Midwest City High School campus, separated by another section of that dead railroad track. In other words, unless I rough-ride down the track, I have to go the long way around this whole thing. So I wound my way back home, passing this remarkably ratty old satellite receiver dish. I wonder how many of these forgotten technology remnants still infest yards in the OKC Metro.

It felt better on my knee today. This is distinctly therapeutic; let’s see what tomorrow brings.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cycling, health, photography, physical fitness | Comments Off

Darkness Stirs on the Net

Posted on August 29, 2016 by ehurst

On October 1 this year, the US will surrender it’s de facto control over the Internet. There is a lot of noise on both sides of the debate as to whether this is really a good idea. I’ve been aware of it from some years, but the arguments were mostly full of unrealistic expectations and imaginary scenarios. We have had precious little leakage of the intentions of some of the major actors in this changing of the guard. Now we have something more concrete.

I’m keeping an eye on this: Leaked Soros Document Calls For Regulating Internet To Favor “Open Society” Supporters. Perhaps you heard that a computer cracker got into Soros’ computer servers. Some of the documents nabbed from Soros’ Open Society were made public, and one is of particular interest.

[The document] is also presenting underaddressed challenges, including lack of regulation of private operators that are able to decide, without due process procedures, what information is taken off the Internet and what may remain. A “race to the bottom” results from the agendas of undemocratic governments that seek to impose their hostility to free speech on the general online environment. We seek to ensure that, from among the norms emerging in different parts of the world, those most supportive of open society gain sway.

From this turgid bureaucratic legalese, we discern that Soros intends to shoulder his way into the debate about policies and controls of the future officially internationalized Internet. He intends to shape that policy to favor those who support his agenda.

Now, if you know nothing of Soros’ Open Society organization, it is a doctrinal assertion that humanity must be forced into a cosmopolitan mix without any national borders. Some of you may recognize that we at Kiln of the Soul are directly opposed to this. From Scripture we learn that humanity in a fallen state is required by God to live in a tribal society and under some sort of feudal government. This is hard-wired into human nature, so fighting it guarantees rejection by Creation, not to mention the direct wrath of God.

Also, Open Society is inherently atheist and buys into Western materialism.

So we have two issues here. One is whether Soros and friends can manage to assert their influence to bring about their regulatory dreams. It may not happen, but I wouldn’t bet on that. Given the known record of his influence on things so far, he may well get almost everything he wants. Two is whether such controls will affect our message on this blog.

As you might expect, I’m not likely to tone it down or keep things under my hat. A fake message is worse than no message at all. This is one of those things where the nature of what we do is all or nothing here. This is partly the reason I am working to reformat and edit my archives into a compact format. This is partly why I opened a second blog on my own server space. In my calculus, the privately hosted Kiln blog is not such a soft target as this blog. Also, this one gets way more traffic and attention from folks likely to take offense and complain.

This is behind some of my warnings that this blog could go away suddenly. However, you need to keep in mind that the freewheeling techies who make the Internet possible, and who keep it viable, aren’t going to tolerate too much squelching and censorship. While I can’t promise things will be alright for all of us, I can assure you the technicians are watching and their plans are far more activist than mine. Depending on how things turn out, I will likely share what I learn about their efforts. This is also part of why I previously mentioned using DD-WRT on routers; it’s a hacker’s answer to crappy software on those routers and the numerous backdoors already discovered in some of that software.

I’m keeping track for those of you who wouldn’t know where to begin.

Posted in computers | Tagged feudalism, internet, Law Covenants, tribal society, western intellectual heritage | Comments Off

No Ecstasy

Posted on August 29, 2016 by ehurst

I’m surprised; I really expected more emotion.

Today I finally got my knee to tolerate the full cycle of motion for pedaling my bike. I kinda knew it was gonna happen, so I had time to put on my peaceful determination. It took a few tries for me to learn how to relax the muscles at the critical point around the top of the stroke, but once I got going I grabbed my helmet and gloves and headed out across the neighborhood.

In the end it was just a little less than a mile. Yes, I could have ridden farther, but I want my knee to adjust gradually, not seize up from over-use. From here on out, though, I think it will be far less pain than walking. Four months and one day after the collision and surgery, I’m back on my wheels — new wheels at that.

Rejoice with me!

Posted in cycling | Tagged health, personal, physical fitness | Comments Off

On the Recent Hack of NSA Tools

Posted on August 28, 2016 by ehurst

It’s been a couple of weeks now, and the mainstream press has twisted this thing completely out of shape. They don’t have a clue what is really happening, but they’ll use anything as an excuse to stir up fear and push their perverted agenda.

Maybe you have heard this brouhaha about “the Russians” breaking into a computer network run by Equation Group and making off with some software tools used by the NSA to snoop on other computers. Equation Group is basically an arm of the NSA, rather like the way the CIA has hundreds of little front companies that are nothing but contract spies. So these supposed hackers are now offering the biggest and baddest tools for some outrageous price, but offered as proof the publication of some of the not so amazing sneaky dirty tricks for breaking into computers. In other words, they gave away some long secret vulnerabilities the NSA would use to break into computers and smartphones.

Right away the vendors went about patching those holes, and they were scary holes. These were vulnerabilities that the software makers didn’t already know about. The NSA, along with a lot of other agencies and criminal organizations, are known to seek and collect the knowledge of these holes in case they feel the need to use them for their own hacking. There is a thriving trade in these secret back doors. Face it: All software has holes and bugs that allow people to break into the computer running that software. The difference is that some of those holes aren’t that easy to exploit.

On the one hand, us nobody common folks aren’t likely targets for some of these elite hacking tools. On the other hand, criminals would love to use these tools to get their hands on things like your banking information. Failing that, they’ll gladly extort money directly by holding your system hostage. Someone who has amassed enough criminal funds can decide whether they want to pay the outrageous price this secretive “Russian” criminal group is asking for the really evil stuff. But notice something else here: Criminals don’t have much use for controlling the whole Internet. They are more interested in preying off some small portion without killing the whole herd of prey. Governments, on the other hand, are ambitious enough to try taking total control over however much of the Internet they can seize. Maybe they aren’t interested in letting us know they have that control, but that they want it is patently obvious. Governments bureaucracies are not nice and by no means the least bit reasonable about seizing control.

I’m not going to tell you what to think, but I’ll tell you what I think after reading lots of technology articles on this stuff.

1. It wasn’t the Russians; it’s almost surely an inside job. Someone with legitimate access has decided to keep their day job with the NSA and try to make some extra money on the side. This is not another Snowden, but something far more sinister. There is no pretense of public interest here. And you should start to realize that the NSA is full of people like that, but that this particular effort marks the forward edge of those willing to take risks. Please notice that the tools released were from three years ago, so you can bet the current tools are even nastier.

2. There is no such thing as “herd immunity” in computers. It’s just the opposite — the majority target gets the majority of hackers’ attention. Whatever most folks are using is what they’ll spend the most time trying to crack. If the vendor of that software happens to bungle a lot, it simply makes it easier to find the holes that affect the majority of computer users. Hint: Microsoft recently fired the majority of their quality control and testing staff and decided to let their users become their testbed for Win10. But switching to something else is a lot of work, so be aware of what’s involved.

3. We are over a barrel in one sense: We all have become utterly dependent on the Internet, even for folks who don’t actually use it directly. The world itself — commerce and government — is wholly dependent on the Net. At the same time, it is the single most insecure part of our existence. Some of you need to think more about self-reliance when the system breaks down (unlikely to be permanent), and some of you need to become more self-reliant about facing the cyber threat head-on. Maybe some of both. If you are going to use it, make sure you have at least one trustworthy expert on hand in your household or business. Cultivate friendship with expertise.

4. Reevaluate what you are using a computer for in the first place. While the levels of competence vary radically, the whole system of modern life rests on it now. Yet, everything you do with a computer is a form of exposure, and some risks are far higher than others. Contemplate why you do some of the things you do on a computer and be sure it really is necessary for your divine calling. Your heart will know.

5. In the background of this, the world is going crazy like never before. We are already seeing the most bizarre stuff happening around us, stuff none of us could guess or predict, stuff we likely won’t believe when we see it. Keep your eye on one factor: trust. This is where I stand in the pulpit and warn you that cynicism is a blessing from God. If you can’t learn to evaluate the context with your heart-mind, you are doomed to suffer. By the same token, if you can’t switch over from the intellect to a heart-led awareness, you are probably carrying a lot of baggage you don’t need, so the wrath of God will set you free from it.

FYI: I’ve come to trust DD-WRT as the operating system for routers. I’ve been running it on a D-Link N-300 (DIR-615) for a couple of weeks and it’s faster and smarter than what the factory put on it. It’s not the simplest thing in the world to use, but there are videos on YouTube showing how to install it and set it up for most common types of home Internet routers. At the same time, it has already proved to be one of the best things you can do to improve security. It’s very strong firewall, including protecting itself from being hijacked. Did you know that routers were little computers in themselves, and that they could be hacked like any other computer?

Posted in computers | Tagged computer security, internet | Comments Off

Psalm 115

Posted on August 27, 2016 by ehurst

This and the next three psalms were traditionally sung after the Passover meal. However, we also know such usage came somewhat later in the life of the nation. This hymn in particular was originally composed for general worship. It’s laid out in responsive style: The leader would chant one line, the congregation would respond with the second. This back and forth went for the entire song.

The first verse establishes the principle that we exist for our Creator’s glory, and it is always in our best interest to seek His glory alone. Instead of glory, we want for ourselves His mercy and to know Him better. The heathens who don’t know Him might well ask where He is, because they see only with the eyes in their heads, not with the eyes of their hearts. A real God would not be restricted to a material form, but resides in the Spirit Realm. Nothing on this earth can resist His hand because He made everything.

Sure, the heathens can see their gods, because the are but mere idols. The Covenant forbade portraying God as having a physical form, even in visual symbols, because you dare not confine God to any particular notion of His Person or character. But their idols aren’t mere symbols; that’s all the god they have, formed by their own hands from precious materials. They seem to have all the same features as any man, except none of their parts work. It would appear those deities match all the features of the dead. The dedication to these gods consumes wealth, but the gods return nothing because they are imaginary, inanimate and dead. In some ways, so are the heathens who worship such gods.

Don’t do what the heathen do, Israel. Place your faith in Jehovah. Again and again, the echoing refrain: He is our aid and protection. Have we not seen it over and over again? He’s a real God. Can you see around you all the things He has done for us? Marvel at it! He resides in the Spirit Realm, and has given this whole universe into our hands if we simply embrace His truth.

Don’t stand in the graveyard and beg your dead ancestors to praise Him and intercede on your behalf. Worship is not for the dead, but for the living. When was the last time you heard the graves singing? But while we live, we will seek ways to make Him smile and to bring Him joy. Hallelujah!

Posted in bible | Tagged Psalms, worship | Comments Off