Where mercy prevails there is no need for sacrifices. Men can be expected to behave like animals, devouring and robbing their neighbors, often in the name of nobility and rightness.

Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.

Hosea 6:1

He himself tears up Israel and will heal her. Forget that line-up that says human behaviour leads to indictment and justice. God takes responsibility for ripping Israel to pieces.

Israel’s flaky goodness

O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away.

Hosea 6:4

The score so far: shaped by the prophets and put to death by Yahweh’s words.

Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth: and thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth.
Judgments are like light that exits (and does not return?). Hosea 6:5

For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. But they like men have transgressed the covenant: there have they dealt treacherously against me. Hosea 6:6-7

Dysfunction in surprising places

Gilead appears in the prophets as a place for healing, agricultural abundance, and animal farming, but here Gilead is indicted as the HQ for murder and theft by the priests.

Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity, and is polluted with blood. And as troops of robbers wait for a man, so the company of priests murder in the way by consent: for they commit lewdness.

Hosea 6:8-9

Compare this prophetic word in Hosea with the life-giving words of Yeshua. Behold the mercy extended to all humans! Compare a thousand years of animal sacrifices with the day the Lamb of God laid down his life, and behold mercy’s dismantling of the sacrificial system (May. 27:51). Compare the death of sinners under Moses (Hebrews 10:28, 2 Cor. 3:19) with Yeshua’s refusal to condemn the guilty (John 8:11, 3:17) and behold the priority of mercy.

Mercy not killing

Human judgment cannot be trusted with questions of the life and death of human beings. The record shows that we will accuse and condemn innocent people when given the chance. It is not a human trait to forgive offence and we have not stood with God in his demand for mercy. The day of Pentecost confirms that mercy is king and sacrifice has left the building.

Originally published August 2019, updated April 2020

List Jerusalem as a virgin for being declared as Israel’s capital by a corrupt Gentile head of state. List Israel as the witting pawn and manipulator of another superpower. List the role of the United States as powerbroker in the peace and security of the Levant as effectively finished. The vast majority of Israel’s kings were bad actors for rejecting the instructions and mercies of Israel’s rightful monarch, and there can come no good of an alliance that recognizes the proclamations of the king of crap.

American kingdom

Jerusalem is not looking for a king and has political parties like the nations. The ruins of Israel’s heritage tell us that Jerusalem needs a course correction. Israel’s greatest and most loved king bought a threshing floor from a Jebusite (one of the 7 nations that were to have been annihilated) to be the site of the temple. The southern portion of this same tract of land is Zion (proper) and it is there we find the royal palaces and royal tombs. The two locations are distinguished by name and content: Jerusalem with the temple and Zion with the palace. All those tourists to the Holy Land and archaeologists seem to close their eyes to the facts. This is the hallmark of the American kingdom. “What racism, what genocide, what coverup” they ask. I like my truth straight from horse’s mouth, not smeared with European bigotry and ignorance. A republic is a thinly veiled kingdom. In a trice, we could all wake up to a strongman in the US, the EU, Russia or China, telling the world what it needs to do stat.

A place for all to worship and live

The idea that the interests of Israeli citizens are advanced by a United States president whose trademarks are bigotry and xenophobia is all landfill material. Israeli citizens cannot decide the fate of Jerusalem because the pride of being chosen and circumcised cannot be reconciled with the manifest destiny of Jerusalem or even with the house of bread, Bethlehem. Mountainous places of worship are irrelevant. No one since the days of John the Baptist needs a mountain anywhere to worship.

King David, King God

“King” is either David or God.   David’s city is either Bethlehem, his native town and famous for the approved inclusion of Moabites into Israelite life, or David’s city is Zion, captured from the Jebusites and dedicated for royal residences. What happens when David’s house is as God?

Zion has no nationalist future

Israel’s neighbours have a place in the royal city, and the ones that were hostile to Israel are named as native: Rahab Babylon, Philistia, and Tyre.

Fundamental Zionism has taken a U-turn because Jews have been unwilling to embrace the cosmopolitan nature of Zion

The king’s home is not the temple and the myriads of people who will worship in spirit and truth will not be flocking to Jerusalem or Gerazim (the Samaritan holy place).

His foundation is in the holy mountains. The Lord loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God. Selah. I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon to them that know me: behold Philistia, and Tyre, with Ethiopia; this man was born there. And of Zion it shall be said, This and that man was born in her: and the highest himself shall establish her. The Lord shall count, when he writeth up the people, that this man was born there. Selah. As well the singers as the players on instruments shall be there: all my springs are in thee.

Psalm 87

A Song and Psalm for the sons of Korah.Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness. Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King.

Psalms 48:1-2

Israel has had its share of crappy kings and the United States’ DNA is dominated by a conflicted anti-monarch gene. Americans can pretend all they want but they want a king, a conquering warrior, a wise prophet, and a generous priest in the oval office. Their slogan “God and country” is twin to “Calf and Exodus “.

Racist empires and their wisdom are all rubbish.

The UK, the US, Spain, Portugal, The Netherlands, Belgium are all states with people God wants to save. Not so long ago they were all raping Africa and giving her people a perverted version of the Bible’s promise. Is there a New York or Paris in Africa? Paul the apostle to the Gentile world, told us that all the things he cherished as a Jew turned to rubbish – by comparison – ( σκύβαλα skubala ) when he ran into Messiah. The dream of most people in the world is to get comfortable with Mammon. The American dream is simply that, at any cost, and especially with free labour. No matter what wisdom or cute sayings are in circulation in the United States or Israel the content and purpose is bound to be deceptive and oppressive crap. We’ve forgiven Germany and Japan but the crappy kingdom will never repent. What’s that saying supposed to mean, the one about the ax and the tree? The one John the Baptist used to strike up his audiences? Or can we adopt the popular and truthful saying “We have no king but a foreigner, the emperor of Rome”? Yeah, there is supreme crap passing for truth.

A beggar can be expected to share the scraps he has collected. A prince can be expected to treat someone to a full course feast. Each offers supplies in accordance with his realm. When we say that God does or gives something in accordance with his kingdom, grace, or glory, we expect to find unique dimensions defining the activity or supplies.

My God will use his glorious riches to give you everything you need. He will do this through Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:19

This saying from Paul is intended to raise the expectations of his readers. They were to expect God to address their needs in accordance with his significant riches. As such, groceries, precious metals, and real estate are not part of Christ’s glorious inheritance. They are certainly in his control and he gives commands concerning our requests for everything, even when the things are in our power.

Perhaps it would be good to recall that Paul had just finished saying that he has everything he needs. This saying shows Paul’s contentment with God’s gifts and his awareness that God gives in line with extreme generosity and unlinited means and resources. This means that a commensurate gift or a gift from the glorious riches does not need to be 6-figured, made of precious stones or metals. Exact change for $3.65 from an unexpected source just when one needs it is a riches in glory gift.

Say “Terror” and all kinds of pictures spring to mind, many photo-shopped and many unrecognizable. Black men were supposed to be a terror to Caucasian women, but the rape and incest was coming from White men. Hooded Klansmen, nationalist talking heads, any nation teeming with swords and not food, and masked religious people calling for America’s death are all cut from the same cloth. Let me clean up the montage just a little. Suicidal killers seem to be a Jewish invention. There may be other individuals who thought and followed through on the thought “Let me die with my enemies” but Samson, the first real and successful strongman, was a Hebrew. The ability to silence one’s neighbour has been the tool of bad actors from earliest times.

To the guillotine

God did not silence Satan. God locked up – first prison on record – some of the angels in thick darkness, rendering them useless to Satan. God did not execute the leader of rebellion in heaven. He wisely removed him from his court: flung him far away, from heaven to earth. Our modern cosmology allows us to think of heaven and earth as neighbours, but to the ancients they are distant realities. The terrorism of some nations is cleverly hidden behind platitudes and empty gestures: saluting, parading, slogans, maxims, and punchlines. The backstop is always going to be: worship the state or die.

For as the heaven is high above the earth, [so] great is his mercy toward them that fear him. KJV

Ps 103:11

Killing offenders and the innocent in the attempt to be right, both the sacred and the secular worlds have been terrorizing people with loss of liberty and life, the very things both the secular law and sacred conventions guarantee to all.

One nation cage

Our greatest word-worker is Paul, a man who terrorized the church to the n^th degree. If a man like that can tell you that the whole of his heritage, up to being confronted by the Risen Christ, seems like rubbish, do we not need to make a similar leap? People are afraid of being sent to prison: it is supposed to be a good thing to be chastened and corrected, but the state does not guarantee anyone’s safety, even in prison. How deluded can people be in thinking that throwing the book (Bible and law) at someone can be a reliable means of realizing God’s will! We should never alloww ourselves to be trapped in a patriotic maze, especially when the nation is one huge cage for demonic ventutres.

Mobs that call for blood

Forgive me for thinking that the nations teeming with guns and violent mobs are capitalizing on the potential to silence people who ask questions and people they think are undeserving of the common rights and privileges. If you can incite a mob to kill and maim you are in very bad company. When you can no longer incite a mob to follow you blindly you are a toothless terrorist. When people reject the priorities of their only guide (Moses/Jew, Constitution/Americans, Jesus/Christian, etc.) they are in very bad company. This helps us understand why the American death trap persists – scapegoating the unpatriotic and unbaptized by forcing people to fear expressing their opinion even dispassionately. To express ones views passionately is an invitation to the assassins.

No-one can terrorize a worshipper of the true God. One may think that Elijah’s fear of Jezebel points to the contrary, or that the sword wielded by secular power should scare people into doing the right thing. That did not work at Sinai, when the the people said “yeah” and did not follow through. It did not work in Babylon when only three Hebrew individuals refuse to worship a false God. If you were not one of the guilty before God would you be stoning and hanging people? Since we know that God has no interest in condemning anyone – we are all born into – what would appropriate chastening look like, and there is no law to be applied to those who have escaped the terror of sin and death.

We find no-one saying “I love the law” except the songwriter with a fried-conscience in Psalm 119. If you love the law, then you ought to love its consequences. But how can you, knowing that where you are not could not be possible if the law had its way? We can treasure thge glorious freedom in Christ or revel in terrorizing our peers with our denial of our stated treasures, namely, sin, law, and death.

What faith is driving the agendas of the GOP and religious fundamentalism?