Not a Popularity Contest

Posted on May 17, 2021 by ehurst

Faith is the center of my existence.

As previously noted, I am willing to sacrifice everything to follow my Savior to the Cross (Galatians 2:20). I don’t evaluate things from a human standpoint; the life I now live, I live by faith.

It’s easy to say those words, and most professing Christians do. But they don’t mean them. As soon as they actually start walking by faith, their own brothers and sisters call them “crazy.” This is a critical element in tribulation: We face persecution from our own.

John the Baptist was labeled a madman. Even as so many were coming to him for the cleansing ritual, most were just getting their ticket punched, just in case it turned out he was the real deal. They had no clue about God’s heart, so they regarded the situation as a crap shoot. So it is with churches today; they don’t actually know the Lord they claim to serve. It’s religion based on sentiment and tradition, not a living awareness through conviction.

This is why we do not hesitate to withdraw into a more cloistered existence. Sure, it could include simply heading out in the wilderness and living off-grid, as it were. However, that’s not required. What’s required is maintaining a strong awareness of the boundaries of conviction. We live by the Covenant. It’s largely private, with a conscious awareness of when and where we have to make it visible to others.

It’s not that I don’t need other believers. What I don’t need is their lack of faith. For too many, it’s a matter of putting religion first, a cultural adaptation. They mistake that for faith. Too often the word “faith” in their minds means the traditions and sentiments of men. We use the same methods as the disciples did in their nation during Christ’s ministry on this earth. We go to them and try to gain a hearing, but at some point we should hardly be surprised when they run us out of town. Genuine faith proposals threaten established interests. We get good practice in the ritual of shaking the dust off our feet.

Until they repent and call us back, we don’t go to them again. I’ve abandoned various Christian forums over the years, despite how much I enjoyed the fellowship, because they rejected the centrality of faith. They kept promoting various incarnations of human reason in place of raw faith in God. There’s nothing wrong with knowing stuff on a human level, but if faith does not rule, it’s just noise.

Tradition has its place, as long as you recognize that it is never more than a contextual adaptation humans make to save time and resources. Tradition is not to be an idol. If you can’t be bothered to examine what it all means, then you have no business proposing to lead anyone else in any way at all.

The biblical model of leadership is a man who is going about his business serving the Lord and finding himself with followers drawn to his convictions. No good shepherd sets out to lead. He simply wanted to do his best to protect what God had given him. Somehow, that was what made the Lord’s flocks want to follow. Sheep are herded by voice, not by force. If you are the shepherd, they will follow when you move.

The traditions of certifying with established human authority are just traditions. Sometimes the Lord is ready to do His work in new ways. It’s too easy to invest so much authority in the system that you cannot hear when God says it’s time to change. I’m convinced He says it’s time to change a lot of things right now. You don’t have to believe what I say; check your own convictions.

But I see no need to justify ditching a fellowship that stands more on human tradition than on faith. I’ll stand where faith moves me. You can join me or not, according to your own convictions, but I’m not moving back to you. I cannot in good conscience surrender my faith to please your system. If this means standing alone, I’ll do so. This is not a popularity contest.

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New Testament Doctrine — Luke 1:26-38

Posted on May 15, 2021 by ehurst

Whence came the Messiah? Part of what we do here is demythologizing the narrative, removing the gilding from the lily. What we need is to breathe life into the narrative as it stands. We’ve looked at the Forerunner, and we know that John the Baptist is a cousin of the Messiah. Now we need to see how the Messiah came into the world.

If you go out to the Bible Lands of the New Testament and travel from Jerusalem, through the Samaritan Hills on one of the main roads to the north, you eventually come to that broad Plain of Esdraelon, right where it joins with the Jezreel Valley off to the east, forming a large smooth belt of relatively flat land. Off to your left hand in the distance is the mound of Meggido, behind which stands the grand Mount Carmel. On your right is the spine of Gilboa running down from the peak to meet you. You can see the City of Jezreel on the nob at the very end of that ridge. You would be standing rather near that ancient city of the Summer Palace.

Off to the north of the City of Jezreel is the Hill of Moreh, and beyond that the vast high slopes of Mount Tabor, standing almost wholly alone. Just to its west, and directly in front of you across a wide portion of the plain is a slightly less majestic high ridge, running at an angle from the northeast to the southwest. It stands like a sentinel watching over the valley. One high peak is about halfway between the Jordan Valley and the Mediterranean Sea, and it’s protected by cliffs. The road you need to take runs west of those cliffs, and winds sharply up into the hills atop the ridge. The city there on the eastern slope of the peak is named Nazareth (Heb. the guardian).

Somewhere in this small city is a young lady who is engaged to marry a builder named Joseph. She’s in that period of waiting between the marriage proposal and the wedding, typically a year later. Because of his trade, he’s building their home himself, but in his spare time when he’s not working on any number of building projects commissioned by Herod the Great. While builders worked in all kinds of materials, wood was rare in those parts, and the local limestone was so abundant that you could have called Joseph a stonemason.

His young bride-to-be was named Mary (Heb. Miryam). Luke tells us it was the sixth month since the Temple vision of Zacharias, whose wife Elizabeth felt it was safe enough to announce publicly that she was pregnant. It’s likely that Zacharias had taken the time to tell, via that wax tablet and stylus, at least part of the story of his vision to some of his relatives. Chances are good Mary had gotten the news, and was contemplating all the strangeness that came with it. She would have wanted to review the common teaching about the Messiah and Forerunner.

At some point, that same angel Zacharias saw appeared to Mary. He gave her the oddest greeting, calling her “favored one.” That term was seldom used of anyone living in Galilee, since they were regarded by the elite as bumpkins. That kind of language was heard more often in palaces of the wealthy and powerful. Gabriel also said that Jehovah was close to her, and that He held her in high esteem among Covenant women. She was shocked, trying to grasp the implications of what he said.

Gabriel then said she should not be afraid; his errand was to bring good news. She really had come to God’s attention, and He was favorable to her. Then he got down to business. His errand was to let her know that she had been selected for a special mission. She was to become pregnant right away with a son, and would name Him Jesus (Heb. Jehoshua or Joshua).

He would grow up to be a real big shot, referred to as the Son of the Highest. Jehovah would give Him the throne of King David. Mary knew that Joseph belonged to the old royal family, so this wasn’t impossible, at least. But there was more; Gabriel said that this son of hers would reign over Israel as king, and that His reign would be eternal.

What the angel said up to this point was plausible in one sense, in that it was according to the rules she knew about. She didn’t know the particulars, but it could well be her fiancé was, by some obscure reckoning, in line for the throne, despite the Edomite usurper currently sitting on it. She knew enough about Jewish politics to know everyone despised Herod, so some kind of revolt to replace him with a real Covenant king was a longstanding dream of the Jews.

The part that puzzled her was getting pregnant right now, when the date of the wedding hadn’t even been set. How would a virgin get pregnant? If this was all about the Covenant, there were too many alternative routes closed off, things that no one dared to think. She knew their future home wasn’t ready yet, so just how was she supposed to get pregnant if they kept with their traditions?

Gabriel explained that this would quite literally be the Son of God, so the glorious power of God would wash over her and make her pregnant. Did that sound impossible? He reminded Mary that her cousin Elizabeth had gotten pregnant well past the age for such things. Formerly tagged with the embarrassing label “barren,” she was now six months along, right? God isn’t hindered by human impossibilities.

We can’t know what was in her mind at this point. This was no ordinary human she was talking to, and already there had been many impossible things happening. Why not this, too? Who was she to argue? Her response was the standard feudal protocol. She was God’s property and stood ready to go along with His plan. The angel disappeared and she started packing for a quick trip to see Elizabeth. She needed to talk to somebody older and wiser, who would understand enough of the impossible on her own terms to give Mary support to handle the likely unpleasant fallout she would face. What was she going to tell Joseph?

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Another Way to See It

Posted on May 15, 2021 by ehurst

There is a God and Creator. Not only did He make all things, but He owns them as Lord and Master. All of it is alive and accountable to Him. He intended for His whole creation to respond to Him as His children, His extended family household. But at some point, some of His children — humans — took a different path. Doing this moved them outside of His household. It placed them within a world that was false, a Big Lie, something quite different from the blessed life God intended.

The only path back is to restore what was abandoned back inside the household: submission to His moral character as Master and Lord. The biggest hindrance is that life out in the Big Lie creates a wholly different perspective that blinds them to the power that draws some of us to the reality within God’s household. If it depends on making sense according to the Big Lie, then no one will return.

So God does even more of the work for us. He awakens in humans a desire, a driving sense that something is just not right, even if they cannot comprehend exactly what it is. Then He placed cues and clues within the Big Lie so that at least some of the folks would be awakened to what that driving hunger demands. And those who stumble upon this means of returning to His household would live for a time within the Big Lie, giving off even stronger clues and cues to what God intended for us.

He revealed a covenant by which we breathe life into His intentions. It’s meant for us to see that Covenant as a manifestation of what it means to restore the privileges of divine childhood. The boundaries are meant to keep us inside the household, because He has warned over and over that we cannot have those divine privileges if we stray outside of His household.

The mechanism by which He draws us back inside remains invisible to our fallen human perception, but we are told that it is a miracle of His grace. It cannot be understood based on what makes sense from within the Big Lie. It requires the exercise of that ultimate human capability: faith. And the whole point is that we amplify that sense of gnawing hunger by showing the fallen world what it’s like to taste the provision from God’s household table. We are the delicious aroma of His provision.

It remains for us that there are two tracks through life in this Big Lie. There is the Covenant by which we return to Him. And then there is everything else. That “everything else” outside of the Covenant is any number of ways humans might imagine the world works. All humans have an instinct that causes them to seek a frame of reference for dealing with this Big Lie, but without that element of faith to see what’s really real, the answers will always arise from within the Big Lie. It will seem random where God says there is a divine purpose. Thus, the bulk of humanity will at all times live under a very false narrative of life.

We who live under the Covenant have no business asking those outside to take us seriously. They cannot. Without that divine faculty of faith in the forefront of their consciousness, they simply do not have the ability to take us seriously, except on their own terms. And those terms are from within the Big Lie. There is a serious mismatch there. Instead, it is we who hold forth a proper standard by which we judge all things. We should never want to be taken seriously by those under the Big Lie. We should hope to demonstrate the jarring discontinuity between their false perception and how God blesses us through His revelation.

Only those within whom the Father has awakened faith can hear our message. We need to carry a basic assumption, as a matter of practice in any given context, that humanity at large will never get it. Some few will, and it is these for whom we keep an open eye. There is no way our human abilities will take them across that eternal boundary. But if God moves them, He also grants us the ability to see it by our own faith, and so we are there to heal their wounds and help them exercise the clear sight of their new faith.

This is what fellowship means. It is the place where we gather within that Covenant, with a far higher faith perception of what’s real. Our whole purpose is to press forward with the changes the Covenant demands. We don’t have to accomplish anything; we are driven to draw closer to His image, His Son, who is the very incarnation of His Covenant. It’s all personal; we are getting acquainted with people, not mere ideas.

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Mid-May 2021 Ministry Status Report

Posted on May 14, 2021 by ehurst

As always, let me remind you that if my message doesn’t call your name, you should not listen. This is not about my credibility; it’s about the divine message that moves in the hearts of men. If your heart does not affirm my message, then I’m just making noise.

In my drive to make an honest report of what my heart tells me, I’m compelled to deal with something that has been popping up in the news lately: allegations that the vote fraud in some states is a well established legal fact. I’m not ignoring this stuff. However, some would probably wonder how this affects my self-imposed silence in what was once a prophetic ministry.

Keep in mind what I contend are my underlying philosophical assumptions. I judge myself by the same standards I promote for everything else. It’s not a question of exact quotes in writing; referring to what I actually wrote is not the issue. The issue is what I was trying to get across at the time: I believed in my heart that Trump was going to win in the legal challenges to the vote count. That conviction still stands, despite what we see in the real world up to now. It’s a disconcerting mismatch.

Nor is this a question of liking Trump; I do not. I wasn’t disappointed that Trump was pushed out of the Oval Office, despite liking his successor even less. I was disappointed that my convictions didn’t seem to bear out in reality. I still believe that he was appointed as God’s scourge, and I still believe he failed that mission. However, whether Trump obeyed his commission is one thing, and whether he wins in the courts is another. So if this background noise of ongoing legal challenges gets anywhere in the long run, would that change my decisions? Would this somehow vindicate my words?

Of course it would change things — some things. It won’t change my underlying sense of divine calling, since my apparent failure did not affect it, either. It will change what I consider to be the open doors through which I can pass in that calling. I would mean my prophetic gift is not so questionable. The biblical standard remains the same; I still have a heavy burden in claiming to represent God’s moral character and reputation.

The old blog is going to disappear regardless. That’s a matter of WordPress reneging on their promises. More importantly, it’s a much bigger issue of censorship via a hundred different ways. Redesigning the software to fight people whose brains work as mine does, to interfere with the writing and publication process, is still censorship in effect. Whatever else happens, I’ve lost that audience. It’s time to move on.

But there are plenty of other virtual mission fields ready for the harvest. I’m already exploring them.

Take a moment to go back to that question linked above. What would it take to vindicate my convictions? I’m no legalist, but I did say then that it would be the law courts, and my convictions still stand on that. Unless there’s a judge somewhere that’s going to do the right thing, then I’m still having to deal with a sense of conviction that doesn’t match the real world. Some of that is altogether natural; we should always feel strongly led against a fallen world. What most people call “reality” is just a huge lie. Still, whether I can communicate the gospel is affected by the outcome. I can’t ask people to follow me as shepherd if I can’t discern the difference between what God likes and what God actually intends to do.

I don’t think any of my readers doubt that God hates Biden and everyone behind him. But that’s a separate issue from whether God will use him in the short term. It’s the question of how God intends to portray His biases. If I claim to commune with Him, you shouldn’t listen to me if I can’t accurately portray what He’s actually doing. If things in the courts somehow turn around and start favoring Trump, then it’s just a matter of drama and delay, and that’s always in God’s hands. If not a single judge favors Trump’s claims, which is the crux of what I proclaimed, then I can’t lead. It has nothing to do with Trump actually returning to the White House.

That’s where it stands, folks. In the meantime, I can’t shut up about my faith. Did you think this was an issue of self-doubt? I still have all the confidence in the world about the underlying assumptions, if not my own words. I’m going to share one way or another. It won’t be on WordPress, so I’ve been looking at other ways to make noise.

Side note: This blog depends in part on the old blog. When I close my WordPess.com account (likely first of August), this one stops being nearly as useful. I lose the subscription and notification functions. I won’t be able to comment on other WordPress blogs that require an account. It’s likely this blog will become silent. My online fellowship will become centered on the forum, and I’ll do my blogging there.

I’m still planning to see in the long run a fellowship in meat-space grow up around my faith. My confidence in God’s Word is going to draw others; it never fails. It may take a while yet, but it will not fail. That’s my faith. But there remains a fellowship of faith already online. How can I make the most of the virtual tools to do with that fellowship all the things fellowship is supposed to do? That’s what I’m working on.

Working with a couple of other folks, I’m trying to find a way to fire up a diaspora* server that we get to control. We can then become part of a very large global online audience, yet protect our data, and avoid censorship. For now, I’m asking an old friend who happens to lease a server in a very good place that can offer excellent service — highly reliable with a very fast network connection. Diaspora’s social network is somewhat like Facebook, but with none of the hassles. There are other social networks, but this one gives us the greatest control over our participation.

It would be an excellent way to serve a virtual fellowship, and it opens doors to communications within a meat-space congregation, as well. It will probably cost a bit of money; we’ll see what my friend feels he needs to make it work. He’s always served generously for what little I paid him in the past. Meanwhile, I wanted to answer the questions some of you alluded to in recent weeks.

Here’s the bottom line: All it takes is one judge in a court of law to side with Trump and his supporters. The published vote tallies will have to overturned in at least one jurisdiction. That will vindicate my prophetic declaration. I don’t care if it changes the political situation at all. It was never about that. Indeed, I suspect it will do nothing more than increase the tension and conflict with the current government remaining in office. I think it is likely to be a major element in the collapse of the federal government system somewhere down the road. It will certainly fire up some of Trump’s supporters, renewing their will to activism.

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Ransomware and Colonial Pipeline

Posted on May 11, 2021 by ehurst

There are too many sources I could link, so I’ll just summarize what I’ve read so far.

I’m sure it’s no consolation to anyone, but I learned yesterday that the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack affected only the office computers and network, not the systems that run the pipeline itself. Technically, Colonial could easily pump the fuel, but they don’t have a back-up system for getting paid for it. And apparently they don’t have a good computer data back-up system, either. A normal part of IT security is occasionally testing your back-up recovery procedures to discover all the glitches in the system that otherwise do not manifest.

On the other hand, that means spending money on personnel, equipment and software. These folks are running huge networks of Windows machines. If you have ever experienced the back-up process built into Windows, it can be quite painful. Last night I ran back up on a laptop that has only a few files on it, nowhere near the 1TB capacity of the hard drive. It took over an hour for the system back-up. If you use free alternatives, their procedures are Byzantine, with all sorts of crazy terminology and nothing that could pass for “user-friendly” execution. The easy stuff costs money, but is far superior to what is built into Windows.

I’m really not surprised at how few businesses and governments — and individual consumers — do this right. The reported plague of ransomware exposes just how few they are.

In related news, the folks behind the ransomware attack have made some odd claims. You have to understand: There are two different groups in operation here. One is the folks who create and maintain the ransom-seeking software. They offer to manage this part by contract for any partners who are better at simply breaking into the computer networks. Two is the freelance hackers who do that dirty work. It’s called “ransomware as a service” (RaaS). The ransomware source takes a 30% cut, but handles the encryption, receives the money, moves the copied data, and interacts with the victim. The affiliates who perform the more time-consuming task of finding the victims get the rest of the money. It has evolved that far.

At any rate, the folks who run the show have offered a press release that they failed to keep their affiliates under control, and that they would not normally have approved this kind of disruption to society. Several RaaS outfits have noted they try to avoid hitting hospitals and charitable organizations. So this particular organization said they have promised to assert more control over the process to prevent future incidents of this magnitude. And just to show their sincerity, they diverted a significant amount of payment to some charities. The charities in turn have refused the money.

Crazy world, no?

Anyway, the fuel shortage has hit all over the southeastern part of the US, including a number of military installations. The FBI and other LE agencies are all hot on sniffing out the perpetrators. There is a fair chance this will lead to some arrests, and the folks who manage the ransomware operation know this. Thus, their unusual press release. Network and Computer Forensics is one of the fastest growing disciplines in the world today, and pays exceptionally well. You’d be surprised how many experts would simply volunteer to look into this from their own angle; it’s great PR.

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When Real Change Comes

Posted on May 10, 2021 by ehurst

If it involves donations and advertising, then the people’s hearts are not in it. It doesn’t take a whole lot of money to inform; it takes billions to provoke emotions. Political events that rest on mere sentiment are wholly ephemeral. What you do with it today will be undone tomorrow. There can be no genuine change unless it comes from the hearts of the people, because it first most be a change in their hearts.

This is why you have Republicans taking seriously candidates with major moral compromises. It proves yet again that there are no good moral candidates in any election, because good moral people don’t want the power to rule. A truly good moral leader rises up only to throw off the bonds of tyranny and set people free. People do that without elections, because it’s the power of God at work, not mere men.

And true freedom is invariably tribal and feudal, according to Scripture. The only reason any of us would ever address ambient politics is to weaken centralized government in favor of the tribe, not in favor of the individual.

But when you see people “taking a stand” without training for combat, then it’s just noise. The underlying assumption is that mere noise can somehow save the republic. It cannot; the republic was lost a long time ago. It was hijacked by hateful oppressors. The only thing left is to fight for release from their oppression. That means dissolving the republic. As long as people aren’t seriously preparing for a revolt, don’t look for any real change in the government.

Don’t look for any one event to signal big changes, as if to proclaim it’s prophetic. It’s always a concert of things coming together. Vaccines or vaccine passports as the Mark of the Beast? Don’t get too literal on that prophecy; there are dozens of ways the Beast will mark us. Israel reclaiming the Temple Mount, preparing to erect a Third Temple? It won’t mean a thing until there is an Israel that actually obeys Moses. The Talmud can not substitute for the Word of God. Things that mere men do don’t signal much of importance.

Only the hand of God alone can signal major changes. If the earth’s poles shift dramatically, that will signal big changes. If chunks of the US fall into the ocean, that’s the hand of God. Volcanoes, earthquakes, genuine killing plagues — those things bring real change.

When God moves in the people, it’s always spontaneous, arising from something other than politics. It comes through prayer, not donations to some PAC. It’s the people rising up to pull down genuine moral threats. A move of God in America would destroy the political system altogether, since it rests on sheer falsehoods in the first place. A move of God in America would emphasize covenants, and any leadership would avoid collecting funds. They would instead ask for direct action to change things, or perhaps material contributions that don’t have to pass through their hands. Real leaders delegate, because if the people can’t do it themselves with just a little encouragement, it’s not going to happen at all.

Organic leadership arises by acclamation alone, as the people are moved by God to follow someone who most likely had other plans. God’s appointed rulers never aspire to lead, but are men who simply know what their convictions demand of them, with or without help from others. This is what moves people to real change. Everything else is schemes of the Devil.

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Nit Picking?

Posted on May 9, 2021 by ehurst

Perhaps it is just nit-picking. Still, I am troubled by a mythology that is used to justify all kinds of manipulation and plunder among people who claim Christ.

Satan did not want Christ on the Cross. He did his level best in the Temptations to keep Jesus from taking the path that would lead to the Cross. Instead, Satan wanted Him to claim the title of the Talmud’s version of the Messiah, a form of proto-Zionism. It was secular and worldly, not spiritual and otherworldly. Satan already knew that Jesus could and would raise Himself up from the grave. He knew that this business of railroading an innocent Lamb of God would turn out for a loss to his Kingdom of Darkness. Things were much better for Satan before the Cross. His profits took a major hit after the Cross.

So this notion that Satan was caught by surprise by the resurrection is a lie Satan himself tells. If he can get Christians to believe that lie, he keeps them from understanding and claiming their divine heritage. There was no battle in the Garden of Gethsemane except in the soul of Jesus Himself. He was tempted to call those legions of angels and refuse the Cross. That would have been a victory for Satan. The suffering on the Cross was not Satan trying to silence the Messiah; it was not an attempt to snuff out redemption. It was too late for that.

So I get a little visceral reaction when I hear otherwise marvelous songs parrot this old lie of the Devil in the second line here:

On the cross God loved the world
While all the powers of hell were hurled
No one there could understand
The one they say was Christ the Lamb
(“Lamb of God” Phill McHugh and Greg Nelson;
most popular recording by Steve Green)

You could make the case that the composers didn’t mean what everyone thinks those words do. I am in no position to ask them about it. But what I do know is how most listeners use those lyrics to support that vile mythology that Satan is somehow an enemy of Christ, that Satan is not operating fully under the authority of our Savior. Western Christians want a nice Western Jesus, not the hard and mysterious Master of ANE feudalism. That kind of false imagery of Western niceness weakens our vision of God’s authority over His own Creation. When sorrow comes, it is most certainly the hand of God; His power hasn’t failed. Maybe we could trace the lie to Zoroastrianism, with its western Asian version of yin and yang. Good and evil are not in balance; it doesn’t work like that.

This is part of the foul mythology that insists anything we find unpleasant is somehow an attack from Satan. The thing you are experiencing is wholly in God’s control; the only problem is your reaction to it. God is sovereign. Suffering and sorrow are part of this fallen existence. The flesh cannot be redeemed; this world is inherently false. It can be subjected to spiritual and moral controls, but it cannot be redeemed. This it the root of the lie that stands behind all the attempts to “make the world a better place.” It’s behind the deception that this world can be saved, that we can somehow seize human governments and compel them to obey God’s Law.

At the Burning Bush, the ground was sacred only because God’s Presence was there at that moment. Once His Presence departed, the ground was just dirt and rock. There is no sacred soil on this entire planet. It’s the intrusion of Divine Presence that changes things. Your church house is not a sacred place; it’s the Presence of God that matters — provided He’s actually feeling welcome there in the hearts of the people. This is why “inviting people to church” is a meaningless act. We are the church on foot. Proclamations that some facility is devoted to God don’t change anything; it’s whether His people actually manifest Him there by their obedience. Once the building is empty of that manifestation, it’s just a building. It may be invested in your mind with a lot of sentimental value, but you should not imagine God wouldn’t burn it down in a second for ineffable purposes. Everything in this world is ephemeral.

There’s a reason the Temple Veil was torn in two that day: The symbolism died on the Cross. That was “the hour” —

Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:21-24 NKJV)

The Temple was not for God, but an accommodation to fallen men who struggled to understand what Jesus told the Woman at the Well. In order for this to have meaning, we must ditch the notion that Satan is a rebel against God. The Devil’s current role is a punishment for rejecting the boundaries of his previous role as God’s Covering Cherub. The Devil does not enjoy tempting, but it’s his job, and like any other angelic being, he’s good at his job. But you can never claim that the Devil made you do something; as a believer you have full authority to reject his lies.

I’m not really fussing about the song, but how people interpret the lyrics through the popular mythology.

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New Testament Doctrine — Luke 1:57-80

Posted on May 8, 2021 by ehurst

The very last three verses of the Old Testament (Malachi 4:4-6) mention the Forerunner of the Messiah coming in the spirit of Elijah. Luke notes for us that the Messiah is a cousin of His Forerunner (their mothers were cousins). Eventually five of the Twelve Disciples are also cousins of the Messiah. Nepotism is a virtue in Biblical Law. The tale of this meeting between Mary and Elizabeth add support to Luke’s contention that Jesus was the Messiah. We don’t know if Mary was there to witness the birth of John, but it would seem obvious this was the whole point for staying that long.

The birth itself was quite conventional for Jews of that time. However, it was viewed as a miracle that a couple this age could bear a son. The eighth day after birth was marked by circumcision, much as we christen children today. Everyone assumed he would be named after this father, but the mother insisted his name would be John (Heb. Jochanan “Jehovah is gracious”). Why would she choose a name shared by none of the boy’s relatives?

The folks who had gathered to celebrate the moment beckoned for his father to name the boy. Let’s take a moment to dispel the notion that Zacharias was somehow deaf, as well as mute. The phrase for signaling Zacharias was a common expression for trying to get the attention of someone distracted by some task. They didn’t shout at him; that would be rude in this setting. They tried to get his attention politely.

He hadn’t even managed a whisper since facing the angel in Temple. Zacharias asked for a tablet. This would have been the drill for the past 9 months at least, so there would have always been a soft wax tablet pressed into a wood frame with a stylus attached so Zacharias could communicate. It was a common implement in that day. Someone passed it to him and he marked it with Aramaic letters indicating the boy would be named John. It was highly unusual, but the message was obvious to the folks in attendance that day: the aged couple were naming the boy in celebration of God’s grace on them.

But of course, for Zacharias, it was also obedience to the message delivered in that shocking meeting over the Altar of Incense. Not that he could have told them the whole story that easily. The moment they read this, Zacharias got his voice back. This simply amplified the atmosphere of wonder. This thing was told over and over again for quite some time, far and wide. Everyone marveled at all the signs and wonders attending the boy’s birth, causing a lot of speculation about what it presaged for him.

Zacharias’ first words were in praise to the Lord. We are treated to the prophecy he spoke that day. It was plainly Messianic. Granted, the majority of the Jews, the leadership in particular, were deeply mistaken about what these words indicated, but that didn’t hinder Zacharias’ blessing. He knew beyond all doubt that his son was that promised Forerunner. John would call for repentance in preparation for the dawn (“dayspring”) of a new age in divine revelation. The ultimate purpose was to establish a new level of shalom.

Luke summarizes the boy’s upbringing. He was ever sensitive to spiritual things, something exceptionally rare in children. Since ancient times, the vast majority of people gained such sensitivity through a lifetime of ardor for divine truth, but this boy was born with it. So unique was he in his personal drive that he spent a lot of time in the high semi-desert wilderness east of his home. He just didn’t fit in with the normal social activities of children around him.

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Bricktown Canal

Posted on May 7, 2021 by ehurst

I decided to try running my wheelchair along the Bricktown Canal. These are the pictures. First is the entrance down near the southern end of the canal. I rolled up the ramp from the parking lot, then turned back to shoot across the parking lot. I can tell you that whoever designed the wheelchair accommodations never used one. Still, it was mostly adequate in the southern half of the canal.

The southern end is quite nicely landscaped, but the slopes were rough on my cheap wheelchair. Still, the stuff looks pretty nice, and there’s plenty of shade from the heat of Oklahoma’s summer. By the way, the canal is only a few feet deep.

Down at this end, the canal is dominated by the Oklahoma Land Run monument. It gives the appearance of running across the canal like it was just a shallow stream. The statues run in a wavy line all around this part of the park.

This southern half of the canal features almost all new buildings that replaced some structures that were unsafe or otherwise unusable as part of a tourist attraction, along with the interstate highway that once ran through here (it’s been rerouted since). The idea to capitalize on the nostalgic aspect dominates the northern half of the canal. So here we have the national headquarters of the Sonic Drive-in restaurant chain. It’s a bunch of little drive-in fast food places all over most of the US. There is a working restaurant on the opposite side of this thing.

There is a canal taxi system with yacking tour guides. This is about the half-way point, where the canal runs under Reno Avenue. After passing a large number of newer buildings (including Toby Keith’s big place) with lots of decent wheelchair access, the shaded passage under Reno begins the section of relatively ancient buildings, all from before WW2. The wheelchair accommodations disappear, because those buildings stood long before such access was fashionable or mandated by law.

The sidewalk turns to laid bricks, and they aren’t kept smooth. It’s humpy and bumpy, and rather narrow. The canal is one floor down from street level in this section. The restaurants here are more expensive, and accessible only when they have room for tables on the sidewalk level. There was one little wheelchair lift up to a single restaurant’s platform. There were a few doors down at the sidewalk level, but I couldn’t see inside to discern how much trouble I’d have. But then, I could never afford those places anyway. This shot shows one of the water circulation pools that keep the canal from stagnating and stinking. It makes a hard left turn at this point.

Following the canal to its far end, it stops at the infrastructure for the rail line that passes through the old city center (running north-south). There’s lots of nice artwork here, and it’s the only wheelchair ramps, which run off to the north (right side of the image) in a long sloping series. I didn’t try to get to the other side of the canal here, but I know it’s pretty tricky, since the only way back down on the other side is an elevator inside of a building with a lower-level restaurant on the canal sidewalk.

This far end of the canal spreads out a little, with an arm that runs back south a short way for some more artwork. It also allows the canal taxis to turn around. While some of this is tiled or painted permanently, a few places I noticed had shrink-wrapped plastic prints, glued to the old brickwork. This is a nice place to hang out, but it’s out in the open sun. I’ve seen it packed with tourists nonetheless.

On my way back, at the hard corner where the canal taxis take on passengers, I spotted this miniature golf course, really tiny. There were some carnival rides scattered along this section, but nothing easy to line up with a camera. There was very little activity during my visit.

Farther back toward the end where I started stands this Native American monument on the far side. It’s a little ironic, standing so close to the Land Run monument. The Land Run was to parcel out real estate left over once the tribes were forced to surrender their tribal holdings. That was a sad chapter in Oklahoma History.

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Space Weather and Disasters

Posted on May 6, 2021 by ehurst

Today, I want to address a hobby of mine: astrophysics and geophysics. This will be a bit long, because I want to introduce a set of ideas about how God does things. Let’s not forget that Our Father controls all things, so the outcome is always in His hands. However, it would appear that the grave warnings about God’s wrath on human societies that reject His revelation may include wrath from directions the vast majority of humans would never expect.

I don’t believe God created a world all shiny and new. I’m convinced He built something in a usable condition, and that such condition includes something that was well developed and ready to receive human life, with a distinct end point programmed into it. Whether or not the rest of the universe was already existing, or whether it’s just background, is unknowable. What we can deduce from Scripture is that our world had a distinct purpose and shelf life. So on the one hand, we can examine the wider universe, but the focal point is how the things we see affect our lives in our fallen state.

To no one’s surprise, the wider universe is apparently cyclical. The mechanics of everything runs through a pulsating rhythm with vastly long time ranges. Our God is truly wise and intelligent, and the beauty of this system is beyond our knowing. We do get to catch hints now and then of some parts of it. Thus, stars can be seen in various stages of their own individual cycles, and give us clues about how our star might act on a longer time frame.

I’ll over-simplify, introducing the basic concepts so you can make sense of the more in-depth material, if you are inclined to pursue it. It’s a tremendous amount of evidence to absorb, especially if you haven’t had much curiosity about it in the past. I’m not hard driven to learn such things, but I do have a broad curiosity, so I was already familiar with some of what I’ve learned recently. Over at the forum, Jay DiNitto mentioned this particular source and I’m rather intrigued. I took the time to review their basic thesis and some of the evidence they present.

According to their research, a part of our broader cyclical existence is that our sun can periodically spew out a micro-nova. It works like this: As our solar system rotates in its cycle through the galaxy, every 12k years or so, it passes through a dust cloud. Being a natural gravity well, the sun absorbs a lot of this stuff and it affects the equilibrium. At some point, the sun then ejects this excess mass in a kind of nova, but which isn’t so destructive that it changes the sun forever.

This means that super-heated particles are spewed across our solar system, and they crash into all the planets. It’s somewhat like a very massive CME (coronal mass ejection). The particles aren’t just hot, but magnetic. Thus, their effect upon impact includes a lot of things hard to explain. But part of that explanation is that it could easily overload things like our electricity grid, all electronic devices, etc. More than that, it would overload the protective magnetic field around the earth. It would cause the poles to shift, for example.

But it gets even more complicated. It appears the earth itself is sort of aware of all of this, and internally acts to prepare for it. There’s that idea that all of Creation is alive; the folks at this source don’t say it like that, but what they do say leaves the door open for it. The earth is not a neat little ball with nicely layered spheres inside. There are bulges and imbalances that drive long term changes on the surface, and those bulges make the earth vulnerable to sudden shifts along its own set of cycles.

Part of what makes all of this seem so wacky is that this stuff has been intentionally hidden. Not completely buried, but like everything else it seems in our world today, the information has been discredited by the mainstream system. This is part of the same system trying to cram evolution and materialism down our throats.

Anyway, these “suspicious observers,” as they call themselves, theorize that our near future is likely to go one of two ways. In one scenario, if our sun’s own cycle of surging and sleeping continues according to the established pattern, then we are going to pass through a very quiet period this next year or so for things like sunspots. That means it’s absorbing the dust quietly. Then, in a couple of decades, it will produce one of the micro-novas that it does every 12k years or so. So we have only to wait until 2030 to 2040 to see this happen. It would provoke that pole shift, making the earth’s polar ice caps migrate to new positions. It would also bring on a general ice age of sorts. A lot of modern infrastructure would be fried by the magnetic swamp of particles washing over the earth.

The other possibility they cite is that the sun could flare up quite a bit and get rid of any excess load of particles more slowly. It’s the same effects, but with a lower intensity over a longer time frame. It would still produce disasters. And the earth’s poles are still drifting, anyway, a process that has accelerated in recent years.

As you might expect, this group appears to cherry pick the data they use. That doesn’t make it false; you have filter out the crap that means nothing. A lot of crap is tied to the very big lie we call “global warming.” The GW nonsense is politics with a scientific mask. Still, there may be other explanations for what these “suspicious observers” are citing. I’m not saying this is the best answer to all the questions. Rather, I’m intrigued by something I honestly confess is partly over my head. It certainly fits with my moral understanding of things, and gives what seems a viable explanation for some of the prophetic parts of the Bible.

I still say this is not The End. Rather, it’s more like a pretty strong combination of the Flood with the Tower of Babel, a sort of divine reset. I would think the Lord is going to act strongly merely on the grounds of moral discernment. Scripture says during times of apocalypse, there are signs and wonders in the skies that go along with the moral revelation through natural processes on our shorter time scale. Celestial events as part of the cycle of sin and wrath on the way to the Final Apocalypse do fit right into all of this.

At any rate, if you are interested in checking out this stuff, start with this series of videos that run a couple of hours together. They have several affiliated sites across the Net; try Space Weather News. If you have money to throw around, they would naturally be glad to take it. They sell books and other merchandise. They’ll even offer you a chance to join their little community out in the boonies to prepare for the coming disasters. I don’t think that’s the right approach for Covenant people, but it’s not stupid altogether. It could be handy for a lot of other reasons.

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