We Testify of His Glory

Posted on February 3, 2025 by ehurst

For me, it’s not enough to say simply that tribulation is coming. In order for me to effectively testify of Christ and His Covenant, I will need to discern whatever I can about how things will happen. To the degree I fail, I trust in divine mercy, but I have a calling to investigate and see the hand of God.

Something I read this morning struck a chord of recognition; it seems a workable explanation — Trump’s Grand Strategy. It would appear that Trump is trying to prepare America for a multipolar world and reassert the old Monroe Doctrine.

All of Trump’s policies, from Panama to Greenland to shutting down the USAID make sense in light of this. Consider:

  • Tariffs on Mexico and Canada. These are, in part, about getting them to crack down on illegal migration and drug trafficking across their borders with the U.S. But they are also a signal that both countries are going to be managed more firmly in the U.S. sphere of influence from now on.
  • Tariffs on China. In a multipolar world, it doesn’t make sense to continue to outsource crucial manufacturing industries to your largest geopolitical competitor.
  • Deportations. It was never in America’s economic interest to tolerate migration of people who consume more in government resources than they pay in taxes. Now it’s not in our geopolitical interest to do so either.
  • The Panama Canal. Bringing the Canal back under U.S. ownership is—as with pressure on Canada and Mexico—reasserting America’s Monroe Doctrine. We are moving from globalism back to the Monroe Doctrine.
  • Greenland. Buying Greenland is consistent with the Monroe Doctrine, as it is part of North America geographically. Pulling it away from Denmark is also consistent with the Monroe Doctrine as it distances the U.S. from Europe.
  • Shutting Down The USAID. This is also consistent with retreating from globalism to the Monroe Doctrine. Under Trump, we’re no longer going to be using NGOs to foment color revolutions in countries like The Ukraine and Georgia.

This analysis gives coherence to the choices Trump appears to be making. We know only what has been reported, and that in itself requires a good bit of discernment.

Unlike the linked article, we have little interest in the investment implications. We still need to notice the economic probabilities, but not for the sake of some investment portfolio. Rather, we should watch and notice how God is working. If we know what humans expect based on their best understanding, we can then discern the things God does in coloring outside those lines.

Our primary aim is to testify of God and His glory.

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I Will Testify

Posted on February 2, 2025 by ehurst

There’s nothing special about me. Any one of you could have ended up in my place. I could easily have ended up dead long ago. I didn’t choose this role; I had other plans. It was thrust upon me. My only contribution was praying rather early in my life that God would find a use for me. What I had imagined that would mean at the time bore little resemblance to what God chose to do with it.

The Covenant stood long ago. For whatever reason, the Lord gave me a vision for it. The longer I looked into it, the more I realized nobody I knew even saw it, much less tried to embrace it. I cannot say what held them back; people who came before me certainly saw it more clearly than I ever did. They were constrained by something that didn’t have a hold on me.

There’s no way I can think of it as anything but a Person. He called and drew me. Whatever you want to call it, this Person knows my name. I have no choice but to obey. I can assure you it has put me in conflict with a lot of people, and that part has only gotten worse. But the Voice is still stronger than the whole world of people trying to hinder me. It sure feels like I’m almost out here alone in some kind of wilderness.

Best I can tell, the Covenant places certain obligations on me. Among those obligations is that I must call on God for His Covenant justice. Another thing is recognizing what isn’t part of that justice. Thus, I have some idea of specifics I can pray about.

I recognize that the country where I live is not just far away from the Covenant, but openly hostile to it. The US pursues a different vision entirely, and has no patience for my message. The mainstream churches ran me off after I had jumped through all the hoops to be ordained. They certainly won’t entertain the message I have. I don’t have much choice but to stand with the few who recognize this message as their own. I’m convinced He wanted someone involved and has accepted our little community simply because we made ourselves available in some way that really pleases Him.

We pray for His justice to fall on America. If the Covenant means anything, that calls for horrific changes. Indeed, an awful lot of injustice has to be broken down. I have no doubt He could have done it at any time, and I’m pretty sure it was in the works in some fashion. It’s going to happen. However, I really do believe our prayers will shape the details to some degree. We keep praying for His glory and Covenant to shine.

Our best understanding is that it leads to some very powerful influences on the coming destruction. Not that we made such specific requests, but that the core issue of divine justice results in God’s decrees to the agents of His wrath. We recognize His fingerprints based on His Word. He has taught us to see moral truth behind the actions of men at large in this world. They don’t have to know, and most of them don’t. That’s just how it works.

Along these lines, I’ve sought to understand some of the mechanics that reflect how God works among men who ignore His Word. That would include things like history, economics, politics, etc. I agree that I’ve come up with an understanding that is radically different from a lot of other people. I can’t speak for them, only what my convictions tell me. Right now, things are looking really good for America, if you tend to think along secular political lines of a conservative flavor.

For now, the policies and economy will look like they are headed for better things for those who embrace a western orientation. It will be pretty shaky along the way (like when some stocks crashed after the Chinese introduced DeepSeek), but it appears that things are getting on a better track. Look for the economic indicators that most people watch to improve.

But at some point, the choices that worldly people make will run into surprises they didn’t expect because they don’t know the Covenant and how God does things. It will be a shock, and it will be very messy and painful. I have no idea when, but my personal sense is that it will come during Trump’s administration.

You can ignore me, or maybe watch to see if I’m a fool, but I challenge you to watch either way. I don’t believe my God was joking when He said He gets involved when His people pray. We are praying for His wrath to fall on sin.

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NT Doctrine — 1 John 1

Posted on February 1, 2025 by ehurst

What made John unique among the apostles is that Jesus caught him rather early in his life, probably just a teenager. There was a very strong personal bond between as they were first cousins, and Jesus acted as if John were His best human friend. Thus, Jesus’ teaching of the ancient Hebraic way versus the Talmudic Judaism of that day really struck John powerfully. He ended up being the most Hebraic of the Twelve.

He wrote this letter around AD 85 from Ephesus. By that time, the city had become the western capital of Christian religion. John had stayed in Judea as long as he could in order to keep his promise to take care of Jesus’ mother. Eventually he had to leave the area. Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Roman army in AD 73 and a great many Christians in Jerusalem ended up in or near Ephesus.

Unlike Greek correspondence, John launches immediately into a prophetic warning: John had been with Jesus during His ministry, saw and heard everything firsthand. Thus, it was easy for him to teach what he experienced personally. He freely shared the whole message, not keeping anything secret, so that his audience could be touched by the Lord and commune in the Holy Spirit. The message itself drew the people, and they became part of John’s treasure on this earth. He was rich!

Being the western capital of Christian religion, Ephesus was also the home of some major heresies. Most of them shared a basic major flaw in denying that Jesus was the Son of God. By this time the Gnostic heresy of legalistic Platonic Dualism was well established. They insisted the Jesus was a man who worked with the Holy Spirit, but the later left Him before the Cross. And it was all based on speculation and reason, whereas John’s message was direct from Jesus Himself.

God does not divide Himself between competing philosophical assumptions. He has only one message, and it is His Son. If anyone keeps walking in the flesh, then they know nothing of Jesus. It has always been God’s requirement that people repent and condemn their fleshly lusts. The fleshly nature must be bound and forced to serve the spirit. God is all about holiness in this world and in Eternity. Anyone who taught that God didn’t care about what your flesh did was a liar. Those who would become part of His family must join Jesus on the Cross. But how sweet was the fellowship of those who did this!

Thus, you must confess that your flesh is wicked and sinful and then seek to lock it down by the power of Christ’s Spirit. Our Lord is faithful in forgiving our sins. His power is sufficient to cleanse us so that we can walk in purity in this life.

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Dear Junia…

Posted on February 1, 2025 by ehurst

You’ve offered several comments on this post, and I’m grateful for the attention and lack of rancor; you are not a troll. You want the story told clearly and honestly. I get that, and I’m going to return the favor — for the record.

I refer you back to the first few paragraphs of the blog post itself. We have been talking past each other; I’m aware of it, but I don’t believe you are. While this blog is certainly open to everyone, and I generally don’t censor anything but the most egregious trolling, it remains a pastoral blog for the Kiln of the Soul parish. Our teaching includes an endeavor to embrace the Hebraic viewpoint of the Bible. The Hebraic epistemology is radically different from that of the West. I recently waded through an exhaustive book review of Thorleif Boman’s Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek to highlight not only fact of a difference, but what kind of differences. It’s typical of an ongoing effort to migrate our minds to the Hebrew viewpoint since this blog began years ago.

If I were to answer you point for point, I would be missing the biggest point of all: VD is a western man, not a biblical man. You cannot approach the Bible from a western viewpoint and understand what it’s really all about. You might get some things, but the real depth will be out of reach. My comments here about VD are from a Hebrew point of view. I have tried to encourage him and his allies to recognize the huge difference, and had some hope that maybe someone would embrace the task. Sadly, it appears no one in his orbit has done that. As long as they keep trucking down the western way of thinking, they will not grasp what God is doing, and how to get involved.

Because they have not done so, I was left to warn my parish of the dangers of VD and his western approach. Whether VD likes or not, he is a leader, and he is leading people down the wrong path. He’s a bad shepherd. God is not going to look kindly upon this when He comes to visit in His wrath.

I’ve allowed your comments. Until you grasp the radically different approach of the Hebrew mind, my answers won’t have much meaning to you. Answering point by point would be surrendering the whole point of this blog. The SSH is western; it is anti-biblical. The whole of Western Civilization is doomed. All of it is an inherent rejection of Christ and His teachings.

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Never Arrive

Posted on February 1, 2025 by ehurst

Do you admire people with a “mind like a steel trap”? Sorry, I’m not one of those. It might take me a few days to discern exactly what the substance of an issue is because my fleshly nature still fights the Spirit of God. My flesh wants to hide God’s truth. Thus, I may take a few days at the least to answer something that isn’t already obvious to me.

I don’t trust my own intellect. It hasn’t been a consistently good servant, frequently misleading me into chasing false leads. I’ve learned over the years to put off answering something that stirs me until the wisdom of the Lord surfaces from my convictions.

Some issues have taken years to get the right answer. So, if you propose to discuss something with me, don’t get in a hurry. If the question is entirely a matter of human intellect presented for debate, I may decline to answer in the first place. If there is a moral issue at stake, it may take me awhile to be satisfied that I know what I need to say. It all depends on whether I’ve dealt with something similar in the past.

I’m still learning, and I will never arrive in this life.

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Sorry, He Doesn’t Follow Christ

Posted on January 31, 2025 by ehurst

I have a burden on my heart: Bad times are coming, and will include a large number of threats we cannot imagine. I want God’s people to come through this with power and glory. I pray that people who call our Savior “Lord” will seek His face and be ready for testing. I pray that His people build on His Covenant message. I am praying for Vox Day, as well, since he claims Christ. We are assuming he is a fellow believer.

Unfortunately, Vox does not actually follow Christ and will not be able to dodge the bullet. His efforts up to now have been in the flesh. He should turn to eternal things or he’ll have nothing when it’s all done. That’s the same warning I give everyone.

In biblical terms, “truth” has nothing to do with the facts on the ground. Truth has always been a Person, our Creator. The facts on the ground are variable, subject to His whims. Reality as we know it is dubious at best. Our understanding of it is dubious, and the thing itself is inherently dubious. Our world is not real; it is an artificial construct, a simulation in which eternal matters are in dispute. Sure, it’s real enough to us who live here, but we live in a model constructed solely for a demonstration of higher principles.

Our lives are meaningless altogether unless we takes sides with the Creator who is involved in proving something to an audience we cannot comprehend. Though He does love us dearly as individuals, humans in the aggregate are simply pawns in a game far beyond us. Our human concerns are of no significance. Everyone who fails to enter into His Covenant are simply a living testimony against the Creator and in favor of the rebels on His staff in Heaven (see Heiser’s Unseen Realm).

So, I will give one example why I say Vox is working in the flesh. I return to the discussion of Vox Day’s SSH (Socio-Sexual Hierarchy): The longer I look at it in light of my convictions and the Word of God, the more disappointed I am by it. I regret promoting it in the past. The SSH concept remains an observation devoid of spiritual meaning. Yes, it seems to work on a secular level, but the only way to use it rests entirely on first rejecting and ignoring Christ. The SSH is worldly, a declaration that Christ’s Covenant is wholly impertinent. Anyone who uses it as a guide to living must first push God out of the way. As explained by Vox and his acolytes, the SSH rests on the assumption that there is no God who gets involved in our lives.

So, it’s not a question of whether the SSH is useful. Rather, it represents a rejection of Christ and His claims. At it’s best, it serves as a model of how humans are trapped without Christ. What makes it immoral is Vox’s claim that “it just is”. The assertion that it has no moral component is the sin here. It leaves men hopeless unless they assert some limited power of their own to change themselves, with only the thinnest hope of rising up the hierarchy. All of the advice attached to the hierarchy is secular and contrary to the moral structure of the Kingdom of God. It denies the healing power of Christ in our souls, His power to remake us on-the-fly.

Worse, it promotes a rejection of people just like the folks Jesus chose to be His disciples. Which of the Twelve were good men in the flesh? In general, they were losers in this world. Which of them did not need miracles to make them powerful servants of the gospel message? There is no SSH category for the shepherds of God. The SSH locks men away from such miracles, denying that they exist. There is nothing in it for the servant of the Lord. In the Covenant, miracles are the norm. The Covenant teaches us to rely on divine power to love people the way Jesus loves them (Christ’s Law), working with them until they catch hold of that power. The SSH justifies a vile hatred, rejection and abuse for people who happen to fall into a bad category on the hierarchy.

If you keep trusting Vox’s judgment on things, you must abandon faith in Christ. His rhetoric in favor of certain elements of the gospel, the ones VD finds convenient, does not resolve the problem. Satan is using Vox to mislead people to a false Christ, away from taking up the Cross of Christ and sacrificing for those He has chosen for His kingdom.

Nobody here is pretending to know Vox’s heart. It’s not about the man, but the virtual man he presents to the world. I’m careful to not call his real name, but refer only to the online identity. Whatever he might be privately is masked by his online persona. If the two are different, then he is lying to the world about who he is. Christ Himself commands us to be transparent and accountable. We can see Vox’s message and the effects; it’s about his influence in this world. He does not present a good testimony of Christian faith. His claim to being a Christian is effectively a lie.

Tribulation is rising; those who cling to the Covenant and humbly await the visitation of God will be blessed. Those who reject the Covenant will have no covering, and they will be subject to the whims of the Powers of Darkness. My point here is that Vox is not covered; watch and see his downfall. My words will not precipitate a crisis for him; it will be the hands of higher powers, things God has revealed. I cannot offer any time factor, only that this is coming soon.

I realize VD is not the least bit interested in this prophetic warning. I believe he has been hardened against the Spirit. My message is to others who might not be aware of the danger. Disengage VD and his works lest you be burned by divine wrath. There is good precedent in Scripture for warning others about a fake promoted by Satan, someone who lives only for their fleshly lusts and pretends to represent Christ (see 2 Peter). Had VD never claimed Christ, he would not be of interest. Were he to promote the Covenant and exhibit humility, we would praise him to the skies. It’s not about us; it’s all about the Covenant of Christ.

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Reversed Community

Posted on January 30, 2025 by ehurst

We’ve looked at reversing the world’s influence.

Now, let’s go back and look again the Great Commission and the fundamental law of the Covenant of Christ: build a community of faith, loving as He loved. It means you don’t take yourself seriously; you aren’t easily offended by folks who struggle with humility so that they crap on you. You know it’s not about you, but about themselves and something not yet redeemed in their lives. The single most powerful miracle of all is the power to operate in compassion among those who burn with anger against you.

That does not automatically prevent a shepherd from using violent force to protect their domain (people) from a very foolish threat. Jesus cracked a whip at least once. The point is not a question of violence or not as legalistically defined in the West, but of the humility to act without arrogance. The Hebrew concept typically translated in English as “violence” is more about abuse, oppression and injustice, not the use of firmness enforcing God’s will.

The whole point is not classifying the actions based on what they are, but the intentions of the heart. With fear and trembling before the Lord, we exercise His authority, not to change the world, but to change human hearts. Again, we reject the world’s evaluation of things and press ahead on the eternal track.

That is what’s behind our assertion of the gospel message in the face of believers promoting worldliness. We will not take seriously your claim to Christ if you reject His message. Again, Jesus was a Hebrew mystic with eternal priorities, and often criticized the worldly approach to things.

The Great Reverse is a concept that leads directly to better church life.

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Reversing This World

Posted on January 29, 2025 by ehurst

Someone who calls himself “Jack” offered a very useful comment on the Great Reversal. That term is more common among liturgical churches and is rarely encountered among evangelicals. I note that Kiln of the Soul parish is composed mostly of refugees from the evangelical background, so I haven’t used that term on this blog.

However, now is a good time to bring it into our vocabulary.

The idea is that Christ reverses the value system of this world. Christ chooses His family from among the losers of this world. It’s easy to lose track of the Hebrew frame of reference here, and a great many churchians do. The key is not that God favors all the losers; He favors those who know they are losers. Blessed are the poor in spirit.

Thus, Jesus’ comments about the “poor of this world” has more to do with humility than one’s economic condition. The Hebrew concept of “poor” is people who recognize their dependence and don’t exhibit arrogance. They don’t crow over the losses of others; they don’t dance on the corpses of their enemies. Those who do that are worldly “winners”. The majority of Jesus’ Twelve Disciples were men this world had already rejected. About half of them were His cousins and He had been rejected quite a bit already by the time He began His public ministry. That rejection only grew up through His crucifixion.

Consider how Apostle John referred to himself: the one whom Jesus loved. The emphasis in Hebrew phrasing is that Jesus chose him on His own whims. John would deny being anything special, same as Paul and the other apostles. What they were was Chosen, Elect of God. The whole frame of reference was the greatness of the One doing the choosing.

Thus, you realize that the term “Great Reversal” is rooted in eschatology, too. We can endure our own crosses because we know that the Day of Judgment will reveal a great many reversals. This world does not have a clue that matters and what is valuable. The world picks its own winners, but none of that will matter when the Lord returns to establish once and for all what is pleasing to Him. That’s the only question that matters. He defines the meaning of “good” and “true” and “beautiful”. His definition seldom resembles that of this world in any way.

The world has turned everything on its head. This world was delivered into Satan’s hands and there it remains until the day Christ returns. Peter and Paul both tell us that on that day, the very energy bonds of matter itself will all be broken and every molecule will dissolve in a fiery flash. Only what is eternal will remain. Nothing of this world will be around. Nothing men have accomplished by their hands will even be remembered. Those who regard themselves as independent and standing on their accomplishments will be humbled even more severely than was Paul on the Road to Damascus.

Instead, God will recognize only those who embraced feudal submission to Him. People who call themselves “Christian” will suffer the most severe examination, being judged first whenever God comes to visit His wrath on sin. Knowing this, His family typically beg for Him to come and start His inspection with them. “Clean us up, Lord! We are unable to do it ourselves; we have no power.”

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Eternal Economics

Posted on January 28, 2025 by ehurst

Do you remember the Parable of the Unjust Steward? See Luke 16.

People miss the point because they aren’t willing to embrace the fundamental principle that Jesus taught in other ways, like in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:19-21). This is not just a homily; it’s a full-blown economic theory. It’s not simply a matter of where your heart is. Invest your money where your heart should be.

Recently thieves used explosives to steal ancient gold artifacts from a museum in the Netherlands. Why do humans put so much stock in those artifacts? Why are they so valuable? Is it possible to store them in a situation where they can be studied without the risk of loss? I’m not saying it’s utterly pointless, but that you should expect that kind of threat from those who worship Mammon.

And it applies to the whole gamut of human investment. The common ways of creating and preserving wealth are inherently immoral. Christians have no business putting their money into any market on those terms. When God grants you material resources, invest in people. The Unjust Steward was investing in the human component of economic activity. The welfare of your tribe is by far the most important investment. That’s the message of the Unjust Steward.

Don’t try to make parables walk on all fours. See the moral truth behind the particulars of the story. The steward made life better for some people, and they in turn would welcome him into their community and provide for him. Build communities based on God’s covenant, not on the man-made principles of greed.

God’s covenant says that the focus of your economic activity is not the stuff, but the people involved. You should strive to build communities and provide for their needs. Not the fleeting contract-oriented perversion of “community” but the lifelong commitment to each other. It’s part of the economic truth of God’s Word that you build covenant communities in the first place, not the isolated single-family households of western culture, in which law assumes that the primary meaning of a household is merely an economic unit. You cannot isolate the truth into little bits and pieces of proposition. It’s a tapestry woven into a whole.

It’s the image of God. It’s not impersonal; you can’t claim, “It’s just business.” Your decisions should not be based on a spreadsheet analysis of profit and loss. The Unjust Steward, worldly as he was, understood that it was better to take some losses in favor of building community. People come first. Build an ethical frame of reference that recognizes that, not a predatory dehumanizing pursuit of material wealth.

If you die, who will own all that stuff? Jesus asked that question in the Parable of the Rich Fool (Luke 12). He was totally consistent in this warning that, in all your economic reckoning, your tribe’s welfare comes first. What most people forget is that you must have a tribe first. Your instincts should start with the assumption that life is not possible alone and that “standing on your own” as commonly envisioned in the West is anathema.

God promises that if obeying Him leads to economic ruin and even death, it’s far better to come into His Presence as a faithful steward. Live as if Eternity is real.

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Creatures of Eternity

Posted on January 27, 2025 by ehurst

Our God has revealed Himself in the context of this fallen world. He has gone out of His way at great personal expense to reach out to us and not only show the truth, but to empower that truth to save us. He does all the work, all the heavy lifting, so that our only contribution is the desire to call on Him.

Once He does empower us, we are then obliged to live by that revelation and power. You cannot claim Christ as Lord and continue working through life as if He has no interest. If you do not demonstrate that He owns you entirely, and live accordingly, He might as well not exist. You would thus testify against Him.

Christ will not compete on a human level. He is Lord of all Creation. If you keep grubbing around on the human level, then you exclude Him. All your talents mean nothing; it goes to waste serving the Devil. And sooner or later, the Devil is going to exercise his authority and take what you imagine you have.

Stopping building on the sand. This is Christ’s warning to Vox Day and anyone else who aspires to the same things. Stop chasing man-made answers. Build on Christ, the Rock. Do you not understand that the entirety of Western Civilization is built on a man-centered orientation? All of it will soon come to the same end as all human empires and civilizations. Human ambition and desire is just a thin veneer for what Satan desires for us. We are empty and have nothing in ourselves; we are either creatures of destruction, or we accept the offer of Christ and become creatures of eternity.

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