Micah 6

Posted on August 18, 2012 by ehurst

The mission of Israel was to be a living receptacle for the revelation of God to a fallen world. God built them up from nothing into a mighty nation, but their very existence was by trust in God, sufficient trust to obey Moses’ Law even when it didn’t make sense to them on a human level. By living the Law, they released God’s mighty blessings for miracles incomprehensible. By the time of Micah, they had already compromised on far too many issues, and no longer possessed a glimmer of vision for the wonders of serving Jehovah.
So with Micah standing as witness and prosecutor, and the mountains (as a proxy for Creation itself, with its ancient memories) sitting as jury, the Lord presses His case against Israel. Of course, Israel has no defense, so the Lord proceeds with His arguments. How much does it take to prove His generosity? How many miracles must He offer them before He can justify His demand they worship and serve Him according to the Covenant? Had any other nation experienced so much as the Exodus, the deliverance from Moab’s attempt to curse, the dry crossing of the Jordan to Gilgal, they would have never dreamed of cheating on such a God.
Let’s assume an honest seeker, even from one of those other nations. Such a one would ask how much it costs to make a fit offering to Jehovah. Should he do all the grandstanding done by kings and nobles in Judah? Would it be as the filthy religion of Molech, even then reintroduced in Judah? Hardly. God owns all the resources in the world, but the one thing the Law says we can actually give Him is our commitment to walk in His justice, to be steadfast in loving the rather tame and sensible requirements of obeying God’s commands. You are the one who benefits from all this. Is anyone paying attention to this simple message? God never ceases calling out to His people.
But He won’t wink at your corrupt practices. He’s keeping a very full and detailed account of your unjust gain, and all the ways you cheat your neighbors. Nor can He ignore the reflexive violence of the wealthy ruling class, who can hardly be described as “noble.” Those who ignore His commands to any degree will face His wrath. It won’t matter how much you have, because you won’t enjoy it. Even if you manage to hang onto all your worldly gains by predation, God will send someone to rob you. They won’t leave so much as the herbs in your window boxes. Ever try extracting oil from olives by stomping like grapes? It does no good to the olives nor your feet, and produces no significant oil. How about squishing grapes between your fingers? So is the depth of your commitment to God’s ideals. Instead, you ape the Northern Kingdom in the worst of their idolatries.
The utter destruction of God’s wrath will leave Jerusalem a stinking ruin people will avoid.

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Legend of the Illuminati

Posted on August 18, 2012 by ehurst

I typically use the term “Illuminati” with a note of sarcasm.
The question is not whether there exists a group of exceptionally intelligent psychopaths conspiring to rule the world, and coordinating their efforts on some level. So much is obviously fact. The question is whether they are as competent as is popularly assumed by such a very wide range of theorists. These theorists also encourage you to take all sorts of action to hinder them, action which is almost certainly a waste of resources.
I contend the distinctly Christian position is these people cannot possibly be as competent and coordinated as the fear mongers assume. By no means do I deny Satan can always find willing humans to promote his evil schemes. But it surrenders ground to the Devil to assume he will pull it off on the scale and level suggested by the activists. They are jousting with a Straw Man.
The Ancient Hebrew outlook does not consider the Apocalypse a literal future event. It’s a type, a symbol of human trend. Only after embracing Hellenism did the concept become concretely defined. It is not native to Scripture. The Book of Revelation aims at explaining the nature of our existence after the Fall here on this plane of existence. This is how things work, how they have always worked, and John was trying to explain to his parishioners how to build a mystical understanding so they could make sense of all the nasty things they faced. There have been multiple apocalypses, and many more to come. The persecution of Christians under Rome was just one, and unless you see John’s pastoral work as meaningful to those living then, you have no clue what John was like. It predicts future events in the sense nothing changes much from age to age, until it all Ends. That the final endpoint is associated with apocalypse as a concept is taken for granted.
So, yes, we face another apocalypse, but it’s hardly the last one. We’ll see the Four Horsemen for the hundredth time in human history because they represent the undying urge of humanity to dominate and control things they cannot and should not.
On top of this there is a huge false mythology about Satan and his function and powers. In case you didn’t grasp a fundamental element in the Book of Job, God does not allow Satan carte blanche. We can’t even guess what it would mean if He did give Satan free rein, but we can be sure His character means He does not. Satan is obliged to execute God’s wrath on sin, effectively serving God in ways Satan would rather not. We can’t comprehend all the details of this situation, but so much has been declared in Scripture be means of characterization. The Devil is bound by the moral laws of the universe, largely because he’s bound to this sphere of existence as part of his punishment. He’s not limited in the sense you and I are, but he’s not permitted to do everything our Western mythology assumes.
Despite the peculiar variations in religion and philosophy among the activists communities, Western Christian mythology flavors the underlying assumptions of what they post endlessly on their sites and their conversations with each other. The generally unspoken assumption behind most of it is these conspiring psychopaths have concrete plans, and if we don’t rise up and stop them, everything we see going bad must be viewed as part of those plans. These activists keep trying to describe their discoveries as exposing the plans of some variously defined Illuminati-type elite tribe.
Part of the reason all those alleged plans seem coherent and consistent is because dreams of dominating the human race always seem to take on a limited array of possibilities. It’s hard to imagine such overwhelming universal control without seizing various elements of political control and whatever it is humans regard as wealth. Such things are necessarily pretty narrowly defined, and there’s only so many ways you can grab them. (Part of the answer is valuing things they can’t grab, which leaves an awful lot.) All this frantic noise about protesting or preparing to kill people is just another form of political leverage, and requires using a certain expenditure of wealth.
Christian doctrine pretty bluntly says you can’t change anything significant in politics because God is in control and seldom consults us on it. The wild imagination of people who have embraced Western assumptions that they can and should be directly involved are deceived about the possibilities, as can be seen on even a purely intellectual level from that very same set of assumptions. Not because the Illuminati are so all powerful and all knowing, but because God is. On the other hand, the evil scheming of the psychopaths are a factor, as it can help us understand the specifics of what’s coming. We are taught to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves, which are Hebrew symbols. In that context, those symbols point us to grasping the devilish nature of things (wise as serpents, aka demons), but without having much effect on things any more than doves might change a city’s politics. We are peaceful and disengaged from the ruckus. I expect non-Christian activists to miss the point, I am often amazed at how Christian believers can read the New Testament and still insist God wants them involved in political campaigns between two very evil political parties.
Thus, the majority of those conspiracy theories do indicate some factual awareness of some human ambitions for dominance, but most of them are unlikely to pan out even if we do nothing at all. At the same time, we will experience a lot of ugliness, but not so neatly coordinated on the human level as activists assume. Whatever the Illuminati might be, they are still utterly human with all the same biases, tastes and wishes, and all the same failures and weaknesses. They are hardly so neatly united in aspirations and objective intelligence, with secret plots so neatly capable of manipulating things with any lasting effect. They would like that, and surely hope we believe they can do it, but it won’t happen with any consistency. It’s better to recognize on a broad scale things are going bad because it’s the death throes of another civilization doomed to the same death all previous civilizations have suffered. While the activists warnings aren’t utterly pointless, the seriousness of the threat in terms of depth are overblown.
So do take some precautions and be wary of everyone and everything, but you should never imagine you can predict with any useful accuracy what’s coming. The Illuminati are not all that.

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A Prophet's Diet

Posted on August 17, 2012 by ehurst

This is not meant to be didactic, despite how it may sound. I’ve been asked to describe my diet. The primary label is modified diabetic diet. I’m not diabetic, but the diet works for me. If you’ve heard of the Primal or Paleo Diet, there will be some similarities. It’s also vaguely similar to the old Atkins Diet. However, the focus is more eclectic than those. There are guidelines which cannot be considered absolute rules:

  • No grains; no sugar added or any other sweetener except Stevia.
  • No GMOs, especially soy or corn, nor any products from them.
  • A predominance of fresh raw vegetables, though cooked is fine.
  • Limited fruit consumption.
  • Meats from free-range animals or wild game; no CAFO meats at all.
  • Canned fish is fine, fresh or frozen is better, but currently I try to avoid Pacific sea food (Fukushima).
  • Eggs, dairy, and especially yogurt are good.
  • Nuts and legumes are good.
  • Butter, olive oil, sunflower oil, coconut oil are all good.
  • Filtered water, coffee and tea made from them; no juices.

I didn’t get to this regimen overnight. I first went semi-vegetarian to flush toxins, and stopped all processed meats. At some point, my body complained it was too weak, and I begin searching out sources of safe meat. Once I found them, I began tapering off on breads, then dropped grains altogether. I tolerate whole grain rice flour added to some meat dishes, or perhaps something like organic blue corn flour, but not much. It sounds austere, but I eat as much as I want of everything, and often break up meals. Thus, after a morning workout, I might have a meat dish alone. Then later I’ll make a huge salad (oil and vinaigrette dressing, pepper and salt only).
I drink an awful lot of filtered water all day long, mostly in conjunction with workouts. When it’s over 80°F (27C), I come close to drinking a gallon during a 26-mile bike ride. However, once I actually began feeling the weight loss, water consumption did reduce a bit naturally.
Since beginning serious efforts at fitness in May, I’ve dropped from 235 to 218 currently. I don’t have a target weight, nor do I aim at any particular visual effect, though less is more, obviously. I’m simply trying to be faithful to what I sense is the leading of the Spirit. Some of this is miracle, so don’t imagine it has to work the same for you.

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Socially Independent

Posted on August 16, 2012 by ehurst

The prophet tends to stand alone a great deal, in human terms.
I love people; I really do. There are plenty I’d rather not spend time with, but that’s a function of my calling and ministry. Some people have demonstrated a propensity to suck up all my energy and demand more. I can’t be faithful to God when they are around. I know how to handle them, and a big part of that is limiting contact. Those I can help can hang around and absorb whatever I have to offer.
I’m at the place spiritually where I don’t really feel a desperate need for other people. There are a dozen ways to explain that, but I sense those who understand what I’ve been writing here will already know where this is going.
When the mission requires other people to help, God will move them into my orbit. Same thing if they need my help for anything important to God. In between I can enjoy the company of a lot of people, but I don’t have much time to invest in mere socializing. By itself, it has no value in the Kingdom, beyond establishing the civil connection necessary for human coexistence.
Even back in my military assignment in Europe, I had a senior officer think out loud about having all of us Military Police folks get together for a formal military dinner. He said something about it being mandatory. I took out my handcuffs and put them on his desk, extended my two hands together, and said, “Put me away now, because I’ll refuse to come without these.” He knew what I meant, that I would not socialize under any conditions with some of our crew. It would be unbearable, a punishment that would make him my enemy. That dinner never happened.
I did just fine on the road hours on end four or five days per week, because I needed little supervision, but some of these people had no business carrying a weapon, especially in public.
For those with whom I feel a strong affinity, it’s okay if you don’t call or write to me for years. Whatever we share is still there, safe in eternity. When you need me, get hold of me and we’ll do something which matters eternally. That can include just chatting about some ideas, or comparing notes on the most esoteric subjects imaginable. Each of those things adds to eternity. It’s okay if we don’t have that much in common any more, that we’ve both drifted off in all sorts of different directions. And if we are brothers and sisters who simply haven’t met each other yet, call me any way.
As long as you understand eternal imperatives often don’t translate well into human needs, you’ll understand there is no need to be embarrassed or hesitant. I don’t take myself that seriously. We both have things to do in service to the Lord, and socializing is definitely a low priority.

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This Is Not Our Fight

Posted on August 16, 2012 by ehurst

Hear the burden of the Spirit: This is not our fight.
If we embrace the Enlightenment principles of morality, then a rabid involvement in politics is necessary. No one can deny this is the philosophy undergirding modern Western governments as a whole. We do not pursue democracy or republican government as it was in the heyday or Ancient Greece, but as it was envisioned by those who claimed to revive something of that ancient belief in justice. They viewed such ancient thoughts through a highly jaundiced assumption deeply affected by the European experience with feudalism. To sing the praises of the US Constitution and other similar forms of representative government theory is to embrace that Enlightenment philosophy and make much of direct participation in politics as a dire necessity.
That this is not the philosophy undergirding the message of Scripture is painfully obvious to anyone who is intellectually honest about it. Modern Western politics is not our fight.
If you pay any attention at all to the Gospels, you can sense the disciples asking often of Jesus, “When do we ride into Jerusalem?” The implication was they expected Jesus to use His miraculous powers to overcome the current political machinery of their nation, and perhaps even of Rome, and restore the ancient Davidic rule. Jesus told them, sometimes coyly using Hebrew symbolism, and a few times quite bluntly, that was not going to happen. That is, at least not as they envisioned it. His reign is in the hearts of humans who follow Him to the Cross, because human politics is just background noise.
This is not our fight.
Paul made it plain we recognize whatever government is over us simply because it really doesn’t matter in the long run. Give it respect within its realm. Human governments exist within boundaries set by God, and they’ve never failed to transgress those boundaries. We are called by God to cynicism and to expect conflict. We are called by God to stand ready for our turn at crucifixion by human governments because that’s their doom, and our loss of life in this world is simply our release from prison. To imagine any human government can rise above a reflexive rejection of God’s ways is to call God a liar, for Jesus said this very thing again and again.
This is not our fight.
Stand aside and watch, but give your passions and energy to serving His calling on your life. He calls His saints from all walks of life, but no one serious about carrying their cross will enter politics, unless they are deeply deluded. Turn, turn away from the pagan Enlightenment ideals, and every other human philosophical regime since the days Our Lord walked this earth. You’ll find the mind of Christ in the intellectual atmosphere of the Ancient Hebrews, and no other place.
This is not our fight, says the Lord.

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Ruth — Intro and Chapter 1

Posted on August 15, 2012 by ehurst

Introduction
The story of Ruth is an exceptional example of Hebrew literature, almost certainly written during King David’s reign. The primary purpose was to document David’s pedigree. The story takes place perhaps a century after the Conquest, which offers difficulties to the traditional dating system. Standard genealogies make Boaz the direct son of Rahab of Jericho fame. Tradition says he was about 80 when he married Ruth, which does not allow much time for three generations to David’s birth, if the Exodus was approximately 1440 BC. It could well be the genealogy at the end of Ruth follows the more ancient Hebrew practice of skipping generations here and there in genealogies, listing only more well known figures, but it seems unlikely. We may never know the solution to this riddle, but we do know the story clarifies so very much the imagery for the Messiah as Redeemer.
Chapter 1
The Period of Judges was quite chaotic. While we have a solid explanation of Israel’s mission as the primary vessel of direct revelation from God regarding His will for humanity, we are told by the prophets God knew Israel was by far the worst nation He could have chosen. Indeed, we are told no other nation would have struggled so hard to embrace the Covenant as Israel did. So it’s no surprise what should have been the beginning of a golden age for Israel very nearly saw her destroyed repeatedly, sometimes by her own hand with internal rivalries.
Yet, for everyday peasantry things were often more mundane. A famine strikes the Land of Israel, and families migrate to better opportunities. Elimelech took his wife Naomi and their two sons to neighboring Moab. It seems apparent whatever residual hostility from Israel passing through Moab on the way to Canaan Land was at low ebb. While there, Elimelech dies and his two sons marry local Moabite girls.
We have to understand, in pious Israeli families, these women would have been required to renounce their devotion to Moab’s deities, chiefly Chemosh, and embraced the God of Israel in order to marry into this family. The context of the narrative strongly supports the likelihood this was the case here. God made women capable of a certain flexibility about such things. In the random way of things, the two sons of Naomi also die, leaving only her and the daughters-in-law. At the same time, news of the famine abating in Israel gave Naomi cause to go home. She had no family ties, no means of support in Moab, and some small hope of survival through her husband’s title to land in Israel. Such claim was hardly relinquished by a sojourn away, though probably in care of some relative.
Naomi blessed the girls for wanting to stay with her, but encouraged them to remain there in Moab among their own people in hopes of marrying again. Orpah took her advice, but Ruth refused. The conversation as recorded indicates she was deeply attached to Naomi, but also deeply touched in her heart by the worship of Jehovah. It’s hard to imagine she did not accompany the men on their mandatory return to the Temple annually for the Passover observance, along with any other holy days they might have observed. They would hardly have been the only Israelis living in Moab, probably residing in enclaves scattered across the land of Moab, so it’s easy to imagine them traveling in a large group for such festivals as was the custom in those days. Ruth insists she will keep Jehovah as her God. It was the morals of this God which compeled Ruth to stay with Naomi and help her survive, trusting Him to make it work.
Upon arriving in Bethlehem, Naomi keeps the customs of the time. While receiving the welcome of her kin folks, she asserts her unfortunate status. Insofar as any charity is possible, she now qualifies for any outreach her kin can afford. It would not have been very much, it seems. But at least they have come during the grain harvest time, late March or early April of that year.

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On Humor and Companionship

Posted on August 15, 2012 by ehurst

It was a full belly laugh, with a clear note of derision he just could not hide.
The face of his companion was vaguely pained. “Thanks for your support, dude.”
“Aw, com’on man! That was hilarious!”
Without a trace of emotion, “I’m not laughing.”
Fighting continued spasms of laughter while attempting to look a bit sheepish, “Com’on; I don’t mean it like that…”
His expression was impassive, his tone mild, betraying no sense of anger. “Oh, no. You should never apologize for what you find genuinely funny. I’d rather know the real man behind that social mask. However, I reserve the right to consider you an ass and seek other company. I suggest you find someone else to hang out with who appreciates your brand of humor. There’s no friendship where there’s no respect.” He walked briskly away.
“Wait! It’s not like that…” He still struggled to contain his laughter while looking rather lost.

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The Levirate Law

Posted on August 14, 2012 by ehurst

God’s Laws require keeping it all in family.
In the Law of Moses is a provision which requires a man marry his childless brother’s widow and raise up children to claim that brother’s inheritance. If she already has children, it would already be the duty of the extended family to manage things for them.
We understand so much without trouble these days, but we struggle over why this seemed so important that failure to perform carried such a high penalty. God took the life of Onan, son of Judah, for refusing this duty prior to the Law of Moses. It was a common Ancient Near Eastern custom which God included in the covenant of Israel. We may not know much about the origin of the custom, but we can abstract the Law of Moses enough to understand why God included it.
There are two things at issue here. First, DNA is God’s thing in this world. Don’t mess with it. God decides when people conceive children, and has a plan for each life. It is wholly His prerogative, when people have sex, what comes from it. I’m not suggesting contraception is evil, nor artificial insemination; raising that issue simply confuses the deeper moral considerations. It’s not about performance, but about the moral fabric and how we understand it. That we struggle to understand simply indicates how far we have drifted from the truth of God’s Laws. In the broadest sense, ancient peoples regarded childlessness as shameful, as children were one of the highest blessings and privileges of life. If God doesn’t want you to have children, nothing you do can frustrate His will. Neither can you prevent them if He requires it of you. God is in charge and humans can only make their situations more or less painful within His plans.
Second is the fundamental requirement of all God’s Laws which demand social stability. That’s pretty much the whole point of every commandment regarding our conduct with each other. After the Fall, there are limits to what we can do about social stability, but God’s Laws are the path to the pinnacle, and any departure guarantees His wrath because it guarantees some measure of failure. All the business of sex restrictions and requirements touch on this, and all our human ingenuity will hardly change human nature. What matters here is building a communal life based on observing limits God says are hard-wired into our very existence, limits which the human intellect cannot discover any other way except through revelation. God requires certain things in order to offer His promise life will be as good as it can be.
We were designed, and God demands, we live communally in an extended family setting. There may be reasons for rare individuals to depart that setting, but the basic requirement stands. There is no better life possible on this earth than the tribal setting. It’s all about cohesion, and human cohesion reaches it’s highest state in the tribal lifestyle. This is the single greatest factor in keeping Satan out of your lives and being open to the higher provisions of what the Laws of God offer. If you cannot live in close proximity to your kinfolks, you are damaged, and need healing. Nothing man can devise will offer a stronger bond of cohesion. (Yes, the covenant community of faith can fulfill this, but that’s another article.) In essence, the only people with any just authority from God to exercise influence and power in your daily existence are those related by blood or covenant. Fundamental to the Covenant of Noah was that necessity of executing those who pose a serious threat to social cohesion fell on the shoulders of blood kin, particularly the nearest clan elder. Consider the implications if the only person who can hold the duty of taking your life over criminal acts is your own grandfather, as it were.
So when your life is mostly a matter of rural agriculture, as it was for ancient Israel, land ownership becomes an issue. Starting at the tribal level and working its way down to the smallest extended family household, real estate needs to be kept in the family. The idea is to avoid inserting aliens into your clan society. It’s okay if someone in the neighboring community, who happens to be wealthy, should temporarily hold title to a field in your village, but it shouldn’t be permanent. This disrupts social stability, introducing an element of lesser accountability. Everything must remain a matter of relations between persons, and any degree of depersonalizing business is simply wrong, in the sense it removes that accountability. While there are good people out there, there are at least as many bad people, and lots of folks who aren’t very much of either good or bad, just sort of decent. The threat is generalized; in a general sense you can’t allow outsiders to hold property inside your communal boundaries.
So God left this Levirate Law as a provision to strengthen the local claim over the turf. It’s not really about the real estate itself, but the mechanism of cohesion. God can still destroy the local society by way of attrition, if He sees the need by His own divine estimation, but our attention is focused on the mechanisms for making and keeping a stable society. It’s fundamental to human nature we treat our blood kin better than anyone else, and so we should. That’s proper moral living. Thus, the Levirate is all about preventing property from drifting out of the local ownership, and keeping the proper lines of inheritance working.
So what’s wrong with, say, nepotism is not bringing in the family, but it’s wrong to assume someone wouldn’t and shouldn’t bring in their family. The system is wrong when nepotism is regarded as a problem. Creating a system which is designed to operate best without nepotism is an evil system.
We have so very much to learn and unlearn to live justly before the Lord.

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Just Me and My Salt Shaker

Posted on August 13, 2012 by ehurst

Transparency is a virtue.
Having nothing to gain makes it easy to be honest. No agenda here except encouragement to remain totally free of agendas and hoping you’ll treat the noise like a buffet. Take only what appeals to you, including my noise. You get to listen in on my conversation with myself, as if it mattered.
How many places did you read dire warnings of a false flag disaster at the London Olympics? I recall about a half-dozen sources claiming it was likely, and two who were so certain it was unavoidable. And nothing happened, aside from the typical bureaucratic bungling which saw income from the Games far below the potential. Brits don’t seem to understand serving the customer. So the real disaster was the management of the Games.
I rather doubt there will be a big event of that sort coming this fall. Not that we won’t see bad times; I’m still pretty sure the Euro will come apart and the US dollar right behind it. But it won’t be the end of the world, just some pretty nasty times for a large portion of humanity. Banking will go crazy, but for the average Joe, who is already in pretty bad shape financially, it won’t be anything new, just different. Here on the ground in everyday life, it will seem the grind lurches a bit but continues apace. I don’t expect another 9/11. That seemed almost plausible until the past few weeks.
Not that I can explain exactly what, because this arises from intuition, not logic. It’s the bigger pattern of things. Obama has seemed pretty reluctant to get much involved in foreign affairs, and he’s allowed others to decide and do what they want, but with much restraint. He hasn’t stopped anything, just held it back. Instead, he turned his oppression on the US itself, preferring to attack his own. That was his job, and it’s about done. Whatever passes for liberalism these days is fragmented and there is simply no real excitement behind Obama, none possible.
Israel has made lots of noise about attacking Iran, but I honestly doubt they could possibly accomplish much alone. They simply don’t have the firepower to seriously affect Iran’s nuclear plans and programs. They also know Obama won’t give them the go-ahead, so I believe we can be relatively sure Romney will win the election. That’s because he would most certainly be glad to attack Iran. Not that he really cares, but that’s what his party (Neo-Con Fascist) likes, and he’s on the team. Paul Ryan is an even bigger cheerleader of such, imminently more eloquent about it. I think they will struggle to keep Romney the center of attention. Meanwhile, the real conservatives have been told to sit down and shut up, and they probably will, with some token resistance here and there. They lack the courage of conviction to gut the party and start fresh.
Viewed collectively, the situation here at home has been tightened up so it will be easier to force Americans to support the next war with Syria and Iran, Lebanon as a side-dish. I can’t discern how the timing of events will collide, and how the propagandists will use each one, but I’m pretty sure the trend remains increasingly harsh slavery for us, a rising proportion of all economic activity spent on warfare, all as a means to further enrich those who already control the system.
Among central themes will be domestic police brutality rising exponentially, with zero accountability to the citizens. That’s because there will be a growing separation between those governing and those governed. The system will be overwhelming to anyone coming in with a will to make things better, compromising those with any weaknesses and spitting out those too tough to manage. Those who really care about people, and have a measure of wisdom, will avoid law enforcement.
Meanwhile, those who can think only of their discomfort with the bad economy will begin beating on the door of government recruiting offices, especially the military, or contractors thereof. Pay and benefits will decline according to market pressures, but this rush will paradoxically not reduce the likelihood of a revival in conscription. I rather expect to see a whole new class of half-military, lesser privileged, lower status jobs to free up combat-ready personnel. Maybe a sort of forced re-activation of retired and even some marginally disabled. The point is a new, even more insatiable demand for warm bodies involved in warfare. At the same time, the term “lowest bidder” will take on a connotation in ever more faulty and useless equipment. Not everything, but far too many new items will be junk before shipping.
Sure, crime and social unrest will rise, too. I still believe all those fine plans for handling domestic resistance will miss the point entirely, as the resistance will be less turf-oriented than officials expect. We’ll have our own American version of Taliban, complete with IEDs. At the same time, narco-terrorist parallel government stuff in Mexico will become more prominent here. It will be very confusing with a proliferation of interests attacking government control, and the bureaucrats generally unable to distinguish properly, and thus unable to respond appropriately. They’ll simply get rougher on the innocent. But most of this will creep into the fabric of American life, having already begun in many places.
So while there may be some dramatic events, they’ll be mere distractions. I sense the really substantive change will be a series of things connected to enslaving us more forcefully than we can imagine. The old canard of “FEMA Camp roundups” will not be a matter of course, but a threat held over the heads of folks to make them fearful. The means of economic exchange will be tightly controlled, and independent commerce of any sort will be flatly illegal, including barter and even gifts. I expect a lot of charities will be taken over or shut down. We already see religious charities requiring you register first with the government welfare system, with all the hateful oppressive and stupid restrictions that means. People will be progressively debased under the most obscene bureaucratic assumptions. More and more we will find ourselves forced to surrender wealth of all types, and virtually compelled to work as slaves in service to the war efforts.
At any rate, I tend to think most of the resistance press, particularly on the Net, is missing too much the point. They keep predicting things which don’t happen because their orientation as a whole is something which cannot be, and never was. They envision an America living the Constitution, with memories of some fake Golden Age of national greatness. All their rhetoric is aimed at claiming that vision, but it won’t be. And the survivalist preppers who know better on that point are still wrong in assuming how this will all go down, though I suppose they come close in some particulars. Still, in the cacophony of all the chatter from the MSM versus indies and alternatives, you could get lost and never find your way out. Am I any better?
Let’s hope to God I’m deluded on at least some of this.

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The Wrong Path

Posted on August 12, 2012 by ehurst

Got an illegal robo-call on my cell phone yesterday from “Prophet Manasseh Jordan” which was basically an appeal for donations.

Manasseh Jordan is the son of Bishop E. Bernard Jordan, and is linked to T.D. Jakes, Joel Osteen, Steven Furtick, and Craig Groeschel of Life Church. There are wider linkages — Benny Hinn, Pat Robertson, James Robison, Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar — because they are all part of a much bigger Word Faith movement, a relatively recent offshoot of the old Pentecostal movement. All of them have worked with each other, at least indirectly, offering many kind words about each other’s ministries, each with varying styles and portions of the basic teaching.

It’s a false teaching, typically ridiculed as name-it-and-claim-it. It’s a sort of magical invocation, using spells to obtain desired ends. It is, at best, a half truth. Please note I don’t say it doesn’t work that way. Anything you really want bad enough is likely in your reach, but at what spiritual cost? People who believe they can verbally demand something and see it happen are typically operating off the basic principle of desire. That is, if you are obsessed with something which is honestly possible, your subconscious will steer you into decisions which tend to optimize the opportunities for that obsession. It works often enough simply because that’s the way the world is, for now. It’s a portion of the moral fabric of the universe, just enough to get by with it in the context. Missing many of the finer points of God’s Laws, what they promote is little more than a newer version of Pharisaical legalism with a softer tone. Even when they talk about “born again,” it’s a matter of what man can accomplish.

Do they really believe the churches in Macedonia, wracked by poverty, was somehow lacking faith? Paul said they were quite faithful, fully loaded with grace. They gave sacrificially, painfully depriving themselves of worldly goods their bodies needed in order to participate in the gospel. They never harvested a vast reward of more money, but form of riches which ignored this world. They understood nailing the flesh to the Cross.

The bottom line is the Word Faith god is a slot machine which pays out more often than not — “seed faith giving.” Their measurable success does not mean their massive programs come from Jehovah as a good and blessed expression of His will. God will certainly give people enough rope to hang themselves. These folks are avid participants in the anti-spiritual crusade which forms the bulk of what Christians churches do. Church History is replete with rejecting the clear and sharp division between the Spirit Realm and the Fallen Realm, having absorbed without question Aristotle’s false unified reality. They read the Scripture with bald literalness by default, and insist symbolism is reality.

In the Old Testament, the terms “holy” and “sacred” did not carry the same pool of meaning and intellectual assumptions they do today. When Moses was told to take off his shoes before the Burning Bush, it wasn’t because the bush was holy, but God’s Presence was. Moses and most of his audience would understand those terms with that very kind of symbolism. You show respect as a commitment to God and His requirements, as One who rules over your very being. Calling that “sacred ground” was never meant to be taken literally. So when religious officials refer to their buildings as sacred, they often mean something completely different, and treat it differently than what the Law of Moses meant. The church serves the same mistaken assumptions which provoked a few Israelis to idolatry with the Bronze Serpent.

The Word Faith teachers treat stuff as literally sacred and blessed, and their whole world is a matter of what man can accomplish. They don’t even comprehend what it means to take up your cross and follow Jesus. They dumb down the meaning of nailing your life to the Cross of Christ to a simple mind trick. I wonder what their robust little kingdoms will be like when the underlying world economic system breaks? God only knows whether they will panic and start acting crazy, seek compromise with the Beast of human government, or get right and embrace the otherworldly ways of Christ. A real church needs nothing, only the people committed to Christ.

What they have right now, what they seem to believe is so all important, given by God, won’t be worth much against tribulation.

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