Until It’s Ripe

Posted on August 5, 2024 by ehurst

The hardest thing is the waiting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Saddling Up

Posted on August 4, 2024 by ehurst

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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NT Doctrine — Titus 3

Posted on August 3, 2024 by ehurst

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

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

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

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

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

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Be the Gospel

Posted on August 2, 2024 by ehurst

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Ride Photos 29

Posted on August 1, 2024 by ehurst

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was a good workout.

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Benevolence in Control

Posted on July 31, 2024 by ehurst

Comments and discussions indicate it’s time to review a couple of fundamental principles.

Under the Covenant, the sole justification for engaging in business is to bless the employees first, and then the customers. Granted, this is ideally a matter of you employing your kinfolks first, but that is rather rare here in the US, in the sense that you are more likely to have outsiders in your business than family. Still, the moral principle is that by employing others, you provisionally adopt them as family.

Under the Covenant, your priorities will always be God’s glory, and we get our best clues from the Bible as to what He considers critical to His reputation. Read between the lines, particularly in the Old Testament, and you should understand that the whole point of doing anything is to bless your tribe. If you run a business, your employees are your tribe for the sake of the business.

This undercuts the reason workers might consider unionizing. Communism (the workers’ revolt) is nothing more than a secular tribalism that substitutes Mammon for God. If you as management include everyone in your tribe, keeping them informed and invested in the common welfare of the tribe, they have no need to engage in that particular idolatry.

At the same time, you as business owner are the elder, and this tribe is feudal. In accordance with ANE tribalism, your employees are also your treasure. They are the most valuable asset you have, and they warrant the biggest cut of your expenses. They are the only reason you can justify before God engaging in something that requires hiring employees. DO NOT embrace common business ethics and philosophy.

The same principle applies to any endeavor that includes participatory groups. In God’s eyes, they are all tribal associations under His feudal reign. What advice would I give a criminal gang leader? That’s easy: What you are doing is raising up a rival government, a parasitical shadow nation. The parasite the lives the longest is one that is symbiotic to the host. Your host is the folks within your territory from whom you make your living. There are no innocent bystanders; spread the love to everyone whose life you touch. Be a benevolent dictator.

Understand human nature: If you govern well, they will gladly pay tribute. Some of the most useless pastors I’ve ever met were fat and comfortable because the church members believed in that man. Yes, you can fake it, but in the long run that will fail. Far safer it is to simply be the best, most benevolent government your host has ever seen. You must do better than the official government against which you are competing. They are the plundering outsiders; you play the role as the people’s family savior.

Don’t run off of short-term calculations. It’s too easy to lose your plunder if no one has any vested interest in what you are doing. If the people love you, they will protect you. Cultivate their affection.

All of this can be done even when you are fighting common perceptions about morality. If you love them, they will tend to forget the mythology of democracy. You don’t even have to talk about it, unless that’s your forte. Just decide that you do love them and solve some of the problems that torment them most. Bring peace and security, and make it possible for them to prosper. When they prosper, you will, too.

Vice is a crappy business model. It kills all your clients. The most prosperous business is government. Everyone needs it and no one complains when it is better than what they have already. If you are trafficking in human vice, push that crap out away from the community where you live. Don’t foul your own nest. Decide where you want to reside and turn it into a fiefdom if you like, but don’t prey on your own. Do what government is supposed to do, and do it better. Solve human problems.

Also, only a complete fool will engage in the same vice they sell. Everyone knows that, but I see people who could make it just fine destroying themselves. And this is just the mundane truth of human experience without spiritual insight. We can debate what really constitutes human vice, but the whole idea of dealing in human moral weakness is serving the Devil. That is its own kind of stupidity.

My point is that, if you engage in the economy as any kind of provider, you become a defacto government for those who depend on the activity in any way. It may be limited to the specific domain of what you provide, but it is still government in effect. Act with benevolence and you are more likely to stay in business longer.

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What They Want You to Believe

Posted on July 30, 2024 by ehurst

I’ve written recently about what we can see in this world from the Covenant perspective that outsiders cannot grasp. From time to time, outsiders have asked for my take on current events, I suppose just as a thought exercise, since they rarely take my advice. Then again, sometimes it coincides with their own inclinations.

This past week, Brandon Smith at Alt-Market offered his own worldly assessment of the situation. He echoes the danger I see in leftism from a conservative perspective, and we agree that lefties are at war with America.

I agree the right will fight back at some point, though I believe he’s optimistic about how soon. That is, not so much in terms of the timeline, but at what stage of the conflict. What would it take to provoke regular people to recognize that it’s war? I think it will take longer, but I agree it will totally surprise the lefties when the righties respond appropriately.

If Trump returns to office, “This means a campaign of ‘monkey wrenching’ followed by riots, looting and disruptions in major cities.” That should surprise no one. We should recognize that the basic tactical organization has been shared broadly across the left in social media, so that they stand ready to converge on a scene, having never met each other before, and pull off a very strong show of force.

To this, I say to covenant folks, anyone with a calling and inclination to use force in defense of life and property should be ready to make them pay every time. Don’t go looking for trouble. By the same token, don’t worry about confronting them with tactics; just aim for targets within the crowd if it comes too close for comfort. In other words, respond to a threat to life and property, never mind why the threat exists. You don’t need to take sides in the political debate. Defend what God has given you in the fashion you feel led. This is about crime and stability of life, not politics.

For the outsiders, I should think their tactics would aim at defending conservative areas. When the riots hit leftist cities, they are fouling their own nests. It’s when they come into right-wing areas from the outside that conservatives should organize a militia to defend themselves. Your government will not do this for you in most cases.

It would be extremely rare that even a conservative local government will understand the nature of the threat and organize accordingly. Some few sheriffs might be that smart, but I’m not counting on it being common.

I agree with Smith’s warning that the organized destruction and predation can easily spread out into the suburbs and rural areas. However, we have a unique culture. Our biggest problem will be local gangs trying to get in on the plunder action once social order breaks down. Again, same as with the local governments, local gangs in the US are more likely to suffer from shallow thinking and petty greed. Gangs in the US tend to lack the kind of intelligent foresight that comes with ambitions to govern. They aren’t thinking in terms of taking over, just plundering and destroying. The danger is what however much organization they have is already there, whereas the defenders of social order will need to catch up.

It would be very, very wise for conservative local governments to start discussing the reality of this situation.

The biggest threat is the invisible one: governments in deep debt. The federal government is approaching the point where just the interest payments alone will devour all the tax receipts, and they will start borrowing just to service previous loans. The budgeting will crash, and government services will grind to a halt. That is what will set off the real firestorm, because the most rowdy humans in this country are on the federal dole.

That said, I am under the impression this issue is still a couple of years away. The more immediate problem is the purely political violence that will result from a Trump election win. Despite all the noise about Harris surging in the polls, I am pretty sure that the Zionists would prefer Trump. The Democratic National Convention could easily turn out to be a riot of sorts and nothing is certain for them.

What you see and hear from the media is mostly wishful thinking; it’s what they want you to believe.

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Ride Photos 28

Posted on July 29, 2024 by ehurst

I never even heard of rim tape slashing an inner tube, but that’s what happened to me today. I was all set for a long ride and I was testing some ideas for making my tires and tubes more reliable, but it turned out that I suffered something I could not have predicted. I was about 13 miles out when the normal flex in the tire eventually caused a stiff spot in the plastic rim tape to saw back and forth until it sliced open the inner face of the tube. Without a heavy automotive tire patch, there was no hope for even a temporary fix.

I went through the hassle of turning the rim tape over to lessen the risk, but I had no such patches and no spare tube. Once again I was pushing the bike. This time, I was within reasonable distance from a bike shop, so I headed that direction. About halfway there, some dim memory tickled in the back of my mind. I stopped and whipped out my phone to look it up. Nope, they are closed on Mondays. Lacking any other plan, I headed on into downtown. Passing two tire shops on the way, I asked if they could sell me a tire patch. They were both Mexican owned and neither was willing to even talk to an old Gringo pushing a bike.

I walked a little farther and ended up in the deep canyons of downtown; eight miles to go. Another memory tickled in the back of my brain. I called a sweet old lady whose computers I’ve fixed often over the years, and she was quite willing to pick me at the Bass Pro Shop in Bricktown because she knew where that was. So I hustled over there and had just enough time to fold up my bike before she rolled up.

God bless you, Sister Ruth!

I got home and replaced the rim tape temporarily with Gorilla Tape. I’ll have to ride back up to that bike shop tomorrow and get the real stuff. They keep some nice fabric stuff that works really well and fits better.

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Abiding Wrath of God

Posted on July 28, 2024 by ehurst

Does God punish nations for wickedness? Of course He does. However, He has made it clear that His agenda includes using such nations for His divine purposes. His purposes exceed our understanding, but He sometimes gives hints.

The hints in Scripture portray God as an eastern potentate. He has his council and staff, creatures He made for the purpose. They are “people” in the sense that they live and have some freedom of will, same as human people. We catch a glimpse of them in John’s Revelation, where the narrative describes the presence of “elders” and so forth in His divine council. A proper imperial lord would have a very large staff.

God has a ceremonial bodyguard, troops the Hebrew language refer to as “cherubs”. These would have a pretty high level of power and authority. One of them (we call him Satan or Devil now) embezzled some of the tribute of glory and worship meant for God. He had gardeners, too — us. As you might expect, we would be at the bottom of the scale of power and authority for eternal beings. Whoever got caught embezzling the Lord’s tribute was punished, and he appealed to the council for support. Some of the council endorsed his complaint.

Satan likes worship and praise; so do the members of the divine council. Something about their status as elohim (small “g” gods in the Bible) makes them vulnerable to the temptation to claim divinity in competition with God (elohim singular). At some point, Satan and his allies decided that they hated us and have stated their intention to destroy us. Satan took advantage of his superiority over us and manipulated us into allegiance to ourselves, convincing us that we could be gods of some sort, just like him. His primary claim is that the Creator is not that special, not inherently superior to the other elohim. By embracing his claim, humanity left the covering of God, and were forced out of the Garden. We received a pitiful symbolic covering instead, to remind us of what we forsook.

We cannot comprehend why God is so patient and magnanimous about all of this, but we can understand what He wants from us: to testify of His singular greatness, that He alone is worthy of worship and glory. Our feudal submission to, and worship of, Him is our sole duty. This is how we escape out of Satan’s dominion. God offers a covenant, a privilege within this life that elevates us partway back to the position we lost in the Garden. It gets us started on the path back to Eden.

Most of humanity, to include a solid chunk of the eternal Elect, aren’t walking in the high privilege of the Covenant. It’s not the question of what they do, but where their commitments are. This is the very fundamental core of morality in this world — covenant submission to Christ. The particulars of our performance is supposed to be a manifestation of that submission, not the thing itself.

The revelation of that covenant includes a whole range of model behaviors, contextual declarations that indicate what it should look like. In our American vernacular, you could refer to that body of guidance as “law” as long as you are careful to avoid legalism. Americans don’t live by that law. Indeed, you could make the case that the Constitution, along with the host of regulations supposedly derived from that constitution, are antithetical to making Jesus Lord.

Absent His lordship, America was born outside the privilege. Thus, America was born in sin, and continues in sin to this day. America is inherently immoral and totally lacking in moral covering. It has been under His wrath all along. Sooner or later, our usefulness to God, and to His elohim opposition as well, expires. The same goes for every other human government that doesn’t bow the knee to Christ, doesn’t embrace the law that represents His reign. The same goes with modern Israel. In due time, when these governments no longer serve God’s inscrutable purpose in proving His case, it will be destroyed.

The word “wrath” depicts a moral condition, not a factual condition. Flesh cannot discern the connection between moral truth and factual conditions. Only a mind led by the heart, which in turn is led by the Spirit, can discern how it works. The intellect can’t get there by itself. The intellect can deal with only its perceptions and reason. It will always miss the point, no matter how high the IQ. The facts matter only to the flesh; the moral truth is the concern of the redeemed heart.

Regardless of whether Trump ever serves as POTUS again, his presence on the national stage is a sign of God’s wrath. He already has a destructive effect on things. He rules over some elements of our country’s existence. Don’t get wrapped around the importance of the office; the man has an influence that will yield results, steering the facts to some conclusion. While I believe he will win the coming election, that isn’t the point. His life will be preserved until his mission is accomplished, and we aren’t there yet.

Most certainly by his own confession, Trump has never spent a single moment in submission to Christ. He gets used as any other disposable tool, like a shovel in a sewer or a disposable razor shaving off a beard. Don’t be a part of that. Play along because there is nothing we can do to change it, but keep your distance as much as possible. The wrath of God abides on him and his works.

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NT Doctrine — Titus 2

Posted on July 27, 2024 by ehurst

(I cannot improve on my previous commentary for this chapter…)

Why do we bother? If our whole aim and focus is Heaven, why do we linger on this awful plane? We remain because it’s not about our personal benefit, but of Heaven’s business. That business is the message of Christ; for as long as He is pleased to leave us here, everything we do must point to His message. It so happens that such is truly in our best interest.

We do not act according to the ways of this world because our reasoning is not according to that of this world. It’s not only the elders on Crete who need to think and act clearly in demonstration of the gospel message, but every member of each church family has a role to fulfill for the Spirit Realm. If there was one place on earth where the gospel life was a radical change requiring the full power of the Holy Spirit, it was Crete. These people were argumentative, selfish and given to boozing it up, so showing the better way was a mighty challenge, a life possible only by grace. What does a healthy teaching produce?

Older men should not wallow in the Cretan lifestyle, but must carry themselves with a full awareness of the context in which they are bearing the name of Christ, taking seriously the mission to which He calls us all. Older women can never forget that they set the pattern for the younger women, so they have to avoid slanderous gossip and teach righteous living. They will encourage family unity and solidarity, because the community’s social stability is committed to their care. We sense that the modern feminist wildcat has nothing on the First Century Cretan woman. Young men were tomorrow’s leaders, training themselves to be that noble elder who put to shame the average Cretan man. Titus was reminded to make it obvious that his life was the example for the things he taught, leaving everyone struggling to find a bad word to say of him.

What would it say to a pagan Cretan master if his Christian slave carried both the power to change the world, yet was restrained and gentle, more noble and trustworthy than his master? The whole point in denying this world is to break its power and live holy lives. We are focused on the Return of Christ, living as much as possible as if He had already come to find us faithful. The awful price He paid was not to make us libertines, but to free us from our sins, from their power to corrupt us. Titus didn’t need a writ from Paul or any other earthly authority to wave about as his warrant to teach the truth; truth is self-evident by its power. No man on this earth can stand against it.

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