Sampling Flood Damage

This is the Britton Road bridge over the North Canadian River in eastern Oklahoma County. Just three weeks ago I visited this bridge over several days to cut the greenery intruding over the railing so cyclists could ride through safely on the shoulder.

First, we look at how the river has been trying for several years now to change its course. The recent heavy rains and flash flooding have encouraged this trend. Thus, in this image was once a rather large acreage of livestock pasture, but the river has curved deep into that space. The bridge is off camera to my right. Ten years ago, the river ran almost straight under the bridge, what would be the far right edge of this image. It’s now nearly a quarter-mile east (left) of that original course.

Simply turning to my right and taking a few steps toward the bridge, the asphalt apron has collapsed because the ground underneath has washed away. The railing had been deeply planted in gravel and protected by rip-rap, but now hangs in the air. You can see the concrete pylon wall against which the dirt and rock were packed.

Viewed from the side, the big hole now looks right out into the water. Some of the apron surface is visible below, but the scope of what has washed away is easier to see. Keep in mind that the sloped bank was covered in tons of boulders as rip-rip, extending up to the pylon wall on which the bridge itself is resting. The actual bridge is just fine; it’s the apron that has been washed away.

Standing on the bridge itself and looking back upstream, there had been some twenty feet of dirt and rock protecting the roadbed, now washed away by the flash flooding. From what I understand, it was just a substantial surge of water some six feet deeper than the already swollen river visible in this picture.

We had two weeks of rain off and on. There is a massive high pressure dome south and west of Oklahoma, and a massive low pressure zone north and east. Between the two, unstable air was spun into the skies over Kansas, Oklahoma and northern Texas, and sweeping eastward into other states. It ran into the moisture blowing north from the Gulf of Mexico and produced storms. While the storms themselves were damaging enough, in our case the biggest problem has been the flash flooding. While it’s not quite the same as the damage from ten years ago, where I had to take a lot of detours on my country rides because just about every culvert was washed out, this is a major structure on a very busy thoroughfare that won’t be repaired easily. Between the city and county, they don’t even have the materials to fix this, and it will almost certainly be reviewed by the US Army Corps of Engineers before they can do anything.

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NT Doctrine — Romans 12

God is all knowing and wise. His plan throughout the ages has been to welcome people from all nations into His household. Everyone must now come through faith. Because of this, Paul urges his readers to become a part of the offering Christ made on the Cross. Present yourselves on the new Altar of Sacrifice, made of wood and nails. Except, now it’s a symbol; Christ wants you to be a sacrifice that keeps on living, something He can use to glorify His name. Nothing else makes sense, given the opportunity offered to us.

If we are His, then we must not let this world shape who we are, but must pass through a renovation of our whole orientation on life. Demonstrate the kind of life that boosts His reputation. Learn not to take yourself so seriously; your human existence is just a tool for His glory. Learn to read your own convictions so you’ll understand how He intends to use you.

Paul draws the image of someone’s body with all the different parts — Christ’s body, in this case. We are all parts of Him with different functions. He rattles off a sampling of things people can do to make sure the spiritual body of souls work together better for Christ’s glory. It’s not so much about what kind of people He appointed, but what kind of work they do: prophecy, service, teaching, encouraging, contributing material needs, leading, showing mercy, etc.

These are like vitamins that make our testimony grow bigger and stronger. It shows the world what they are missing by not being a part of Christ. Then, Paul matches them with a list of traits that should mark the believers: love unreservedly, detest harm, seek to bless, show fondness for each other, promote each other, always looking for new ways to make things work better, on fire for the Lord, cheerful about the possibilities of blessings coming out of everything, undeterred by challenges, always talking to God like He’s right there, picking up the slack and welcoming visiting believers into your home.

When people oppress you for your faith, act as if they are decent people who are simply misguided. Be sensitive to what people go through. Look for ways to promote harmony and avoid acting like anyone is beneath you. Absorb the evil actions of others without responding in kind. Always promote good moral choices.

Give everyone plenty of chances to live in peace. It’s not our job to discipline outsiders, but to give room for God to handle their recompense. God says that He takes personally attacks on His people. Show mercy to the Devil’s lackeys, because they have it hard. There’s a good chance your assertive kindness will cause them to come under conviction for their sins. Don’t surrender and let evil prevail.

This is like our code of honor as ambassadors who belong to another world.

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Official Evil

Several times I’ve taken the position that sexual assault of children is not the ultimate crime some make it out to be. Not that it isn’t evil, but that it does not warrant the hysteria it usually gets, particularly in the US. I’m not the only one who ties that hysteria to a peculiar weakness in Western Civilization: the idolatry of youth. The Bible as a whole does not justify the American hysteria. We need to take our cues from Scripture, not our pagan cultural background.

Part of my complaint here is that all the obsession with child sexual assault is just a cover for the very real issue of profligate sexual sins in general. In our culture, we actually promote sexual sins of all the other types. And we promote them in churches, though not always directly. Rather, they are promoted by enabling the various “adult” obsessions. Sex outside of God’s very limited permit is evil, and all of it is just as destructive as raping children. The Bible condemns sexual sin in total, and it reserves the darkest shadowing for homosexuality, not pedophilia. In God’s eyes, men seducing little girls is not quite the level of nasty as men having sex with men. The former is lack of restraint; the latter defiles the people and the land in ways we cannot comprehend. Even religious leaders will seldom touch that subject.

That said, child sex trafficking is very much a sin, and it’s a very good indicator of just how evil our rulers are. Here is a very good round-up of where we are right now: Global Pedophile Trafficking Cartel That Doesn’t Exist…. Please note that the title is sarcasm; it’s a reaction to false claims that there is no child trafficking. The point of the article is that the mainstream media participates in this scandal by striving mightily to cover it up.

It becomes a very reliable litmus test. Anyone who denies it is likely in on the conspiracy, participating in the abuse and much more. Anyone who doesn’t condemn it is, at best, a complete fool you cannot trust for anything else.

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NT Doctrine — Romans 10-11

Paul has established the firm principle that God’s decrees are not frustrated. The lack of willing participation does not alter the final results. That’s the whole point of using the word “predestination” — it’s about the destination, not how things get there. Thus, the Jewish zeal for a particular path misses the point. The end of the Covenant of Moses was Christ, and if the Jews missed that, it doesn’t change Israel-the-mission.

Paul quotes directly from Moses to capture the whole point of Moses: God wants hearts (Deuteronomy 30:12-14). In the process, Paul makes clear that the revelation through Moses was summed up in Christ. It was right there in plain sight all along; there was nothing hidden out of their reach. Your heart is where you lock onto trusting Him. Then Paul reminds his readers how, in the Hebrew mind, a confessing mouth presumes a matching conduct. Thus, the promised salvation is by definition the privileged life of faith.

This is the same for the whole human race. The distinction between Jew and Gentile was gone in Christ, as Paul reveals on the basis of the Jews’ own prophets (Isaiah 28:16; Joel 2:32). And it’s not as if God didn’t keep trying to call the Jews. The good news was delivered to them first; it couldn’t be more timely (the meaning of “beautiful feet”, quoting Isaiah 52:7, echoed in Nahum 1:15). Yet, Jews as a whole rejected the message.

Yes, messengers aplenty were sent to the Jews. They were warned by the prophets that God would turn to redeem the Gentiles and bring them into His divine household in order to make the Jews jealous.

It’s not that God has completely rejected the Jews for all time. Paul reminded his readers that he was a Jew himself who received the message. And it wasn’t because Paul had a mind to listen; quite the opposite. God overwhelmed his fleshly resistance. Just so, when Elijah feared he stood alone, God responded that He had kept by His own grace some 7000 who were faithful.

Paul notes that God knew how things would turn out. There was a long-term plan at work in the case of Israel. They would not turn to faith except a tiny few. The rest would be blinded to the purpose of the Covenant. Did God intend to destroy His own nation? No, He used Israel as a means to reach the rest of the world. He intended to offer everyone the same deal all at once.

Paul mentions the practice in the Law of delivering to the priests a tithe from every batch of baked bread, rather like Firstfruits. His point is that, if that tithe is acceptable to God, He would surely be willing to accept the rest of the same batch, if it were offered. A tiny remnant of Jews coming to Christ should indicate that God has no problem with calling out even more of them, the same way He did Paul, if necessary.

Paul goes on to make a similar point with a parable about olive trees. The trees live quite long, but don’t bear fruit without pretty harsh purging of excess growth. After a decade or so, what does sprout will tend to be fruitless. Wild olives don’t bear much fruit, but if you graft in a carefully selected wild limb to a domesticated tree, you’ll get a fresh crop again. Paul warns his Gentile readers not to get arrogant with the Jews, as if God cut them off because He gets more fruit among Gentiles. Jews are not out of the picture. The root of the gospel message is still Israeli, and the Gentiles had better absorb the juice of Hebrew identity in order to bear fruit.

Then Paul writes something that most people miss in their English translations. Perhaps a better translation goes like this: “Israel was hardened against the gospel just until enough Gentiles are gathered” (into the covenant). In other words, it’s not about Israel-the-nation, but Israel-the-mission. Gentiles will become part of what Israel-the-nation was meant to be; the True Israel will be saved complete. The result will be a purged kingdom that bears fruit in righteousness.

Working through an obstreperous people, He managed to declare the promises of rich blessings to all nations. He still loves Israel, and there will come a day when He touches them one more time to harvest souls. But for a time, He has pushed them out of His camp so that everyone outside the camp could be received again on better terms. It’s all grace, and it’s all greater than any words can say.

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Ready to Meet the Lord

It’s quite possible I’m just an idiot or madman, but if people keep discussing with me certain topics, they’re going to get what I believe is the answer to their questions.

Start with the fundamental truth: Satan is the god of this world. There might be some details with that, but we must embrace the basic truth of this. The political events of this world are under his control, and God Himself made it that way. Never mind why; this the reality we have to face. Speculation about Satan’s motives in tempting Adam and Eve may not be that helpful. All we can be sure of is that he did something that displeased God and has been demoted to a lower position, and that position is God’s prosecutor and jailer. Satan is constrained; he is not in rebellion in the sense of doing whatever he wants.

Next, we must confront the basic pattern of how Satan executes his mission from God. His fundamental purpose is to deceive. The one thing he wants most is to keep God’s Elect from claiming their divine heritage on this earth. The Fall has happened already; we are now stuck in these mortal bodies and are no longer God’s managers of the earth. We agreed with Satan’s claims about what God was doing in Eden and now we have to work our way back to what we lost. God has revealed how to do that (faith = feudal submission to Him), and Satan keeps trying to deceive us about how it works.

God chose Israel as His own possession among the nations of the earth. He chose them as the means to reveal His message to fallen mankind. Satan already had substantial control over all the other nations, so it was a special incentive that drove him to target Israel. He eventually succeeded in driving them so far off course that they couldn’t find their way back. They no longer knew the God who called them, and didn’t recognize His Son, who came according to all the promises they had heard.

Satan burned some bridges in seducing Israel, and is now trapped. The Messiah paid the awful price for sin and the whole world is now eligible for a spiritual kingdom, a “national identity” and covenant that isn’t fleshly, and so, is not under Satan’s dominion. He’s not happy about that. Instead of shutting down revelation and faith, it suddenly spread throughout his domain. Shutting down faith in one nation was within reach; shutting down faith that has no worldly anchor is far, far more difficult.

The only advantage Satan has is that he now holds what is left of Israel as his own special people. They had gained some serious advantages under God’s dominion, and still have a lot of those advantages under Satan’s dominion. They have a drive to take over the world like no other nation on earth. Satan has empowered them to do so.

But their methods are different from that of most human nations. For them, it’s almost like a game, with lots of strange rules and tactics that essentially seduce humanity into voluntarily enslaving themselves to what’s left of Israel. They don’t want to give away their advantages, so the game is to seduce their toughest enemies into destroying themselves.

A core of evil grew from the center of Israeli leadership (more or less the Pharisees). They use their fellow Jews cynically, misleading them, too. From a broad movement in control, an evil core arose. This core of evil leadership (The Cult) is deceiving everybody, but are themselves deceived about what Satan can actually deliver from his promises when he seduced them in the first place. This core evil group uses the Jewish ethnic nation as their cover, in their overall plan to take over the world.

Historically, their toughest enemy has turned out to be white people. It is generally Northern Europeans, but the Germanic folks in particular. Worst of all were the Anglo-Saxons. Not just their genes, but the influence of their culture. This culture was not godly in any way, just tactically challenging to Jews. Indeed, there is no moral difference between the Germanic Tribes and the Jews, but the Jews had Satan himself as their master. The tribal deities of the white folks were lesser powers. In Jewish efforts to seduce these folk, they discovered that this one culture was most resistant, and caused them no end of trouble, so they have become obsessed with destroying it.

And the best way to destroy it has been to deceive those vulnerable to their deceptions, in whatever way they are vulnerable, so that they will choose actions that would lead to their own destruction. The left-right divide was a major triumph in destroying the tribal unity of the white people who had stymied The Cult in the past. You see, that’s one of the keys to Jewish power: their feudal-tribal cohesion. It’s also the single greatest defense against their agenda, so they teach everyone else not to be feudal-tribal, even while they reinforce it among their own.

So, Satan tricks The Cult into serving his agenda. He leads the The Cult to trick Jews into serving The Cult’s agenda. Jews in turn trick whites and everyone else into serving their ethnic agenda. All of the crafty and sneaky plots by the neocons and globalists actually serve this higher agenda of destroying the civilization whites built.

If you can swallow that, then you’ll understand why I say that neocons used Trump to scare the globalists and make them work harder. Trump is by no means a good guy, but getting people to embrace him as a figurehead is simply a handy deception to keep the division going. Those on the right who don’t buy into the Trump cult are deceived in other ways, offering them a plausible enemy in the globalists, or even Jews, so they don’t focus on the real agenda.

Those few who sense that Jews are a serious problem are manipulated into becoming buffoons. Nobody takes their message seriously unless they become buffoons, as well. Meanwhile, all of their organizing efforts (seeking that tribal advantage) are tightly controlled by Jews and their lackeys. Yeah, Jews are running the current Nazi organizations.

Meanwhile, a global war between the West and Russia and/or China is also a proximate goal. For globalists, they believe it’s a conquest they must have. They don’t know they can’t possibly win, but the folks steering them aren’t concerned with winning or losing such a war. The sheer level of destruction is what they want, because it puts them in a position to seize control of whatever is left. And it is Satan deceiving them that they can actually seize control of the world, as if it’s worth having.

It’s not worth having; God gave it to Satan. It’s slated for destruction. I tend to doubt this is the final end of all things, because I don’t see what I believe are the earmarks the Bible warns will identify the Great Tribulation. I’m pretty sure this is just another reset, rather like the Flood of Noah. However, this won’t be a walk in the park. Even without weapons of mass destruction, a global war today is beyond comprehension.

And if a global war doesn’t do it, the coming natural catastrophes will take care of it. Within the next 20 years (roughly), the Earth’s magnetic poles will swap to new locations and there’s no way to predict all the cataclysms that come with that. All we can tell for now is that they are converging, apparently headed to a meeting point in the Andaman Sea. What happens after that, we aren’t sure, but it will be destructive. That will mean the Earth’s magnetic shield will be pretty much down, and even the normal solar activity is threatening. And the slightest burp from the Sun will be even more destructive.

Don’t get trapped in the deception as to what’s happening. Satan has been allowed to lead fallen humanity to this crisis point, and there’s nothing we can do to slow this train wreck. Even if we did, the cyclical changes in the Earth will finish it off. Civilization is doomed, and it would appear a majority of the human race will die. The best we can possibly do is spread our faith so they are ready to meet the Lord.

The outline of this is a basic Radix Fidem teaching. Some of the details are my own thoughts.

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Windows File Sharing — SMB3

The current emphasis in Windows world is file sharing via the cloud. However, there may be good reasons to avoid that. You could use the SSH server in Windows the way Linux does, and install an SFTP client such as FileZilla, but it’s very complicated to set up. The old SMB file sharing protocol is still native to Windows, but it does require a few more hoops to jump through than in the past.

Whatever you do, avoid any tutorial that includes using SMB1. That’s terribly insecure and wholly unnecessary. However, using the latest SMB protocol (SMB3) is not enabled by default.

On the hosting system:

1. Select a folder or some folders you want to share. In my house, we use the built-in Windows “Public user” folders, all of them, on the host computer (the server). Just open the file explorer, select the folder, click the View tab and select “Options”. In the window that opens, select the “View” tab and scroll down and insure the “Use sharing wizard” has a checkmark in the box.

2. Open the services control utility. Just open your Windows menu and start typing in “services” and it should be listed there among the options. Scroll down to FDResPub (Function Discovery Resource Publication). Double-click and open the dialogue to start the service (click the “Start” button), and then switch it to Automatic. Do the same for FDPHost (Function Discovery Provider Host).

3. Turn on network discovery. (Menu > Settings > Network and Internet. Then select whichever item provides your LAN connection — wifi, ethernet, etc. Click on the properties for whatever your network name is and make sure the “private” button is clicked. That enables the rest of the devices on the LAN to see your computer as part of the network.

4. Turn on file and printer sharing using the Control Panel. Same as before, click the menu button and start typing in “control panel” and it should be listed first. If you don’t know where to find it, look that up online, because you’ll need to remember how to do it for every system on the LAN that you wish to grant access to your shared folder. Keep that control panel page open and…

5. While you are there, scroll down to “Advanced sharing” and make sure that all those items are properly enabled: private network, network discovery, file and printer sharing, etc. I’ve seen it where they were somehow disabled even after turning it on as in the previous step. Keep it open…

6. Under “All networks” turn off “password protected sharing”.

7. Go back to your file browser and find the folder you plan on sharing. Right click on the folder and select “Properties”. Hit the “Security” tab and walk through the process of ensuring that “Everyone” has access to that folder, to include read and write access.

8. Close all that stuff and right-click on your Windows menu button so you can select to run PowerShell as administrator. Paste the following into the terminal window:

Set-SmbServerConfiguration -EnableSMB2Protocol $true

Hit your ENTER key. Hint: Enabling SMB2 includes SMB3. Type “exit” in the window to close it.

9. On both server and all clients, do the following:

Menu button > type in CMD and select to run it as administrator. I suppose you can do it in PowerShell, but you aren’t supposed to. Paste into the window these commands, and hit the ENTER key after each one:

sc.exe config lanmanworkstation depend= bowser/mrxsmb10/mrxsmb20/nsi
sc.exe config mrxsmb20 start= auto

That should do it. All the clients should be able to check the “Network” icon on the side-panel of the file browser, and after a few moments, see the sharing server listed.

To find out what your server calls itself, right-click on the menu, select “System” and in the window that opens, you’ll see near the top “Device name”. It’s typically in the format of “DESKTOP-[random string]”. (For laptop clients, Windows usually calls itself “LAPTOP-[random string]”.)

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NT Doctrine — Romans 9

Paul has already established in the earlier chapters that when someone chooses to reject His guidance, they are delivered over to the Devil. They are granted all the evil they want, and more. It will fill their lives until it consumes them. This is what happened to the Nation of Israel.

Paul would be willing to exchange his own election if they were released from that curse. That’s not how God works. The glorious touch of Christ is more generous than anyone deserves, and yet His Presence is freely given to all who seek Him. This glory belonged to Israel, the nation that rejected the terms that came with it.

Not every Israeli in the flesh belongs to the divine promise that goes with the name “Israel”. Paul differentiates between the human birthright and identity of Abraham’s descendants versus the spiritual birthright of the covenant promise God gave him. He notes that Abraham had other descendants, but only one covenant heir. The same goes with Isaac, whose wife bore twins. God favored one twin over another before they were even born, Jacob who received the name Israel.

This brings up the issue of predestination and election. Not every event in history is predestined, but some events are because of God’s plans. Just so, not every human born is elect. It is impossible to justify such a thing by human reckoning. All that’s left is simply embracing God’s decisions and making the most of it.

As we read the account of the Exodus, we learn that Pharaoh was chosen by God to rise up, to build a great empire, and then to have its economy destroyed. He was not hardened until he rejected God’s claims over Israel. Had he accepted God’s choices, he would not have suffered so badly. He could give up one bunch of slave laborers, or have all of his agricultural output and society destroyed.

Paul goes on to restate the common reasoning of people about this situation, that God punishes those who do what He ordains. That’s the wrong approach to the question. It assumes the authority to judge God by human standards. It doesn’t work that way. God can choose what pleases Him and it is, by definition, good and right and in everyone’s best interests.

That’s because the most important thing God could do for fallen mankind was to reveal Himself at all, never mind how. The prophets had warned that God could unmake Israel easily, by replacing them with some other nation. Indeed, at some point He would do so. Indeed, the greatness of the name “Israel” would go on to outshine all that had already happened, because that name would apply to a different kind of nation that could not be counted.

Thus, a host of Gentiles who never heard of Jehovah would be adopted as His family. This was predestination, a decree from God. If Israel chose not to participate, that was on them. He would reveal to these other nations the righteousness of faith and they would embrace it. Meanwhile, Israel the people would be driven to chase a superficial righteousness of legalism and not even succeed at that.

It was because they rejected the one and only choice God gave them: faith. Without faith, they were unable to recognize the cornerstone of the New Covenant of Christ. Instead of being part of this great new Temple, they stumbled over it and chose to build a hovel somewhere else. But those who built on the Cornerstone of Christ would celebrate His glory poured out on them.

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NT Doctrine — Romans 7-8

Paul begins Chapter 7 explaining that the Law is binding on mortal flesh, not our spirits. He uses the symbolism of a wife; once her husband dies, she is no longer bound to him. But in Christ, it is we who have died. He calls us to nail our fleshly natures to His Cross so that we walk free to serve Him.

Part of the Curse of the Fall is that our fleshly nature cannot respond to the urgings of the Law. All it gets from the Law is a guide on how to sin more completely. Does that make the Law evil? Not at all. It’s the flesh that is evil. It sees the law code and awakens all manner of evil desires to transgress God’s boundaries. The flesh wants to drag us off to Hell, but the Law wants to awaken in us a need for redemption.

The fleshly nature is utterly perverse. It’s at war with our hearts, for the Law also awakens a moral awareness, making us long for redemption, but our flesh overwhelms that. What a horrible situation! How can we escape? It’s through Jesus Christ.

The next chapter leads off with the declaration that the Holy Spirit of Christ is the key. His divine Presence and power in us put the death sentence on the fleshly nature. His righteousness marks us out for redemption.

For us, the battle then is to reorient our conscious awareness. We must embrace the spiritual outlook supplied by the Holy Spirit. This begins the lifelong process of killing off the fleshly nature. We reclaim our human existence here as territory to be won in battle against our fleshly nature. This puts us at peace with our Creator, as our spirits cry out to Him as Father.

Our fleshly natures are part of the created world we are supposed to manage on behalf of the Creator. Instead, we are stuck within this world and cannot manage it, so it is subjected to chaos. Like the rest of Creation, we cry out for redemption. It grants us a vision of enduring this travail because we can see His Day coming.

Indeed, we don’t even really know how to pray for victory, but the gift of the Holy Spirit includes a voice that God can hear. On our end, that divine Presence reassures us that everything in on track, despite how awful it appears to us in our limited fleshly existence. We were chosen before Creation, so we know He will make everything happen as it should.

No agency in all of Creation can break our election, and God does not contradict Himself. We can rest assured that physical death is actually our ally, and we are eager to get it over with, but in God’s good time.

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Kingdom Warfare

We are in the world, not of it.

Fundamental fact: This world sucks. It’s a prison; to be a mortal human is a curse. We were designed for Eden and this world is outside Eden, where the ground grows for us thorns and thistles. We are obliged to operate by the sweat of our brows, not the miraculous powers God vested in our eternal natures.

This curse is mitigated by the Cross, and the ultimate penalty is wiped away, but we are compelled to remain under the Curse until we die. We still live in fallen flesh, dragging it around like a ball and chain. God grants to — His eternal children — various samples of our divine heritage, in part to encourage us to stay submissive to His revealed will. You cannot fix this world, but you can participate in God’s work of fixing yourself. That fixing is a process of alienation from this world and our fleshly nature, so trying to fix this world is a distraction from that process.

Instead, we do things that manifest His glory in this world. Worldly people will often mistake those things for “trying the make the world a better place” — which we know is actually impossible. And all too often, they simply cannot grasp it even if we try to explain it. All that’s left is to demonstrate it and let the Lord speak to them when and if He will.

God delivered this world to Satan, referring to Him as “the Prince of This World”. Humans are born by default under his lordship, regardless of whether they recognize that. Indeed, Satan has worked hard to hide that truth. Whole nations are founded on that big lie, and are devoted to making their paradise in this world.

This is how the human nation of Israel lost their Covenant. The Gospels demonstrate generously how the Jewish people had gone too far, rejecting the otherworldly premise of the Covenant to the point they no longer had a clue about God and His character. The Talmud asserts a false image of Him, and they were wholly unable to recognize His Son. As God had promised since the beginning, He rooted His Covenant dealings in the Heavens, through His Son making the New Covenant of hearts, not bodies. It’s a spiritual kingdom, not a political entity.

But the Jews rejected that New Covenant. Having also rejected the Old Covenant in the first place, they made a covenant with Satan, and he promised to give them this world, not the one God promised in the Spirit Realm. For the time being, Satan appears to have delivered on that promise. It’s the same false offer he made to Christ in the Wilderness Temptations: they can control worldly wealth, get to know the secrets of how this world works, and can gain a form of political control. But this world is slated for destruction, so it’s not worth much.

This is a part of what I was trying to explain when I wrote The Cult. It’s not enough to say “Jews” are the problem. Jews are simply a false mask used by the truly demonic forces, some of whom operate in a human form. If you waste all your energy promoting hostility to Jews, you’ll always miss the point. As others have noted, slaughtering all the Jews will not solve the underlying problem. Others will take their place; Satan has a whole world of humanity to serve his schemes. Indeed, this has actually happened. Today’s ethnic Jews have precious little Hebrew DNA.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens. (Ephesians 6:12 NET)

This is the real “spiritual warfare” — using God’s power against our fleshly nature and it’s allegiance to darkness. The struggle is to focus on our response to Satan’s activities in this world. Our weapons are spiritual, not worldly. The only thing we can do to help others is to reveal the truth of this situation.

The majority of Jewish people are just as manipulated as the rest of the human race. The Jewish ethnic culture teaches them they are superior to Gentiles, and that they deserve to rule the earth. Let them have it; it’s worthless. That their ethnic leadership (including The Cult) can seize control the way they do is proof it’s not worth having.

Jews are not the problem, though Satan uses them to drag everyone down. It’s wise to point out what they do and how they do it, but only so that believers can stop buying into the lie that they matter. They are devoted to the idea that they are the greatest and most important people in the world. Their crafty scheming serves only to reinforce our commitment to the Kingdom of Heaven. They cannot stop our faithful service of Christ.

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NT Doctrine — Romans 4-6

In Chapter 4, Paul gives the example of Abraham, the man whom all Jews count as their forefather. His calling and favor with God was before his obedience. His faith in God’s favor is what brought him into compliance with the covenant God offered him. Abraham was the father of many nations, not just Israel, because it was a matter of faith, not DNA. And it wasn’t the code of the covenant that defines his heirs, but the faith that distinguished Abraham from the rest of humanity.

But that Abraham might be the anchor of faith’s testimony, God promised him a literal heir. Despite their far advanced age, Sarah bore him a natural heir, and Paul insists that it was solely because Abraham had faith to believe that promise. The covenant and the promises would have been dead without faith. The reason all of this is recorded in Scripture is so that everyone else could see his example and come to God on the same terms. Faith precedes and is the foundation of any covenant God offers to anyone. Faith is submission to God’s claim on our lives.

Jesus is the final covenant, who died so that we may live in faith and be accepted by His Father. He stands today as the living revelation of God.

Paul continues into the next chapter that, on the basis of that feudal commitment to Him as Lord, the Father calls us to stand in His Presence as family. This is our power to face tribulation, and to convert human sorrows into glory. It gives us hope. There was every justification for God to send us all to Hell, but instead He opened the path for us to redemption. Through His Son, we who were His enemies are now His children.

The reason Adam’s sin condemns us is that Creation itself is feudal. If our progenitor sinned and gained for himself the penalty of mortality, we can hardly escape, because that is our birthright. We are born mortal, which means we are born doomed. So it didn’t matter that there was no revealed law; we are born in sin. It’s our nature; we don’t choose it. This is what we inherited from Adam.

There is one common element: One man put us all under death, and one man brings us life. Unlike the curse, which we all could have easily gotten for ourselves without Adam’s help, the gift of redemption could have come through only the Son of God. That’s how the two are different. But we would not have even longed for redemption unless God had not given the Law of Moses to point out our sin nature. And the grace that God offers is more than sufficient to cover all our sins.

In the sixth chapter: Does that mean we should keep sinning so that grace may abound even more? What kind of silly logic is that? The whole point of redemption is to take sin out of our lives. The symbolism of baptism is that we die with Christ so that we can rise with Him to walk in a new life. We take the old dead man down to a water grave so he can stay there, while the new man walks away in grace. Live that new life in purity.

You can play all the word games you like regarding the symbolism and mysteries of faith, but it becomes an excuse to drag your old fleshly nature along, feeding and enabling the ongoing death that comes with it. The fruit of grace is holiness, not the filth of the flesh.

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