The wheezing bigot in the White House is deemed by my one eye to have swallowed a camel while trying to strain out a fly. The fly – honesty – demanded of the United States and China by the World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Drs. Ghebreyesus and Fauci are real experts unlike some moneychangers, and misogynist media-manipulators we know.
The Lord Yeshua- yes, HIM of Nazareth – makes rich and poor.
Did he not tell the evangelical televangelists, the moral majority, or the commandment keepers?
Look around you! Have you seen the whited sepulchres (Big Penny, Little pistol, the great Barrier Cop) teeming with Black corpses?
Ruth 4:22
And Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David.
The conclusion of Ruth’s story (4:22) might leave some people wondering, a huge “So!” filling the thoughtscape. A famine brings a Jewish family to Moab, a land that was no friend of the seed of Isaac and Jacob. Emigration seems to mark every important development towards the unveiling of global salvation. Some of us can pretend we do not see how abominable a racist and homicidal immigration policy is and always was, there is a malingering nod to dire circumstances that open up our most treasured encounters.
Ruth’s story belongs with the Joseph legacy. We remember that a hated teenager was forced into a new land and from there became the instrument of keeping the Jacob-Israel clan alive, and kept the promise of land and national identity on everyone’s mind. Ruth is no patriarch. She is a matriarch of unparalleled majesty. She left Israel to bring back the woman and the womb that God wanted to separate a household for Christ to be born.
Ruth 4:5
Property:
Then said Boaz, What day thou buyest the field of the hand of Naomi, thou must buy it also of Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of the dead, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance.
Ruth 4:10
Marriage
Moreover Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased to be my wife, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren, and from the gate of his place: ye are witnesses this day.
In our 2020 first quarter circumstance we see homicide-by-virus bringing the planet to a new level of terror and interpersonal abuse. Fear has been the preferred tool of people carving out religious and politics space for superiority. Our love, that supreme gift, will not allow us to take a dive into the animalistic pools where everything despicable seems to collect. Let us avoid the rumours of war and peace. When the most disturbing events in the time of unprecedented trouble begin to occur we stand resolute on the promise of redemption. Catch up with David’s son!
Someone at peace does not try to get you to earn God’s peace by loving the law. Someone who is anxious will not have God’s surpassing peace because we pray or send ’em soothing music and Bible verses.
Philippians 4:7
And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
This verse, Phil. 4:7, prominent in many encouragements during crises, is not a promise to the lost or unbelievers. It is not an unconditional promise to believers. God’s peace comes – on top of peace with God and peace of mind – to unsettled people – believers – who have taken certain steps.
Stemming Anxiety & Grateful Prayer
[1] Be anxious for nothing,[2] but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
Philippians 4:6
Offering peace through loving the law is like telling the people in darkness to find a match to light a lamp. It is like asking a person who has never heard the gospel to display its effects. When did loving the law ever impress God or anyone else and does loving the law have anything to do with complying with all its demands? That road to peace has been ttally debunked by Jeremiah, by Amos, by the confession of the exiled community, and by Yeshua.
Jeremiah 9:13-15
13. And the Lord saith, Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein; 14. But have walked after the imagination of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them: 15. Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.
Amos 2:4
Thus says the Lord, “For three transgressions of Judah and for four I will not revoke its punishment, Because they rejected the law of the Lord And have not kept His statutes; Their lies also have led them astray, Those after which their fathers walked.
Nehemiah 9:34
“For our kings, our leaders, our priests and our fathers have not kept Your law Or paid attention to Your commandments and Your admonitions with which You have admonished them.
John 7:19
“Did not Moses give you the Law, and yet none of you carries out the Law? Why do you seek to kill Me?”
Let us leave peace in God’s gift box, please.
Who can believe that the world’s merchants and bankers will abandon the mother of merchants? Who has seen a giant shrink to a midget? Or who can relate to something in the making for over a century crumbling in one hour? When we do not see change coming and it overtakes us we can create talking points to say we are still the same. We can even convince people that greatness is increasing. When, however, the bankroll for one’s greatness is not one’s own a good laugh is in order.
The woman whom you saw is the great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth.”
Revelation 17:18
The only power with the global reach and influence to lead the nations does not want the job any more and the economic and technological ace can barely bring itself to admit that the centre of the world has shifted eastwards. It was not so long ago that it was said that Brittannia rules the waves. Can God be expected to command a blessing or fan the flames of war and its rumours when the rulers set their sights on terrorizing the meek of the earth?
These entities – horns, beast, and harlot – are nation states and authorities, existing now, not hiding, though it might appear that the prophets were all mad. Expect to see great powers shrunk to pathetic worms. The example of the Soviet Union in recent times should suffice but we can revisit ancient times
Despair and heartache stallk many consumers because they have a cheap view of the agent with remedies and his product. Salvation in Christ suffers the same fate. We routinely bypass fresh fruit for their processed versions. We are doing the same when it comes to the equally important spiritual life and health. Calvary is not the same as the Exodus. Of course not. It is like the Exodus, but the Exodus is not able to show the high definition of the cross. Old wine and new bottles end in disaster. Salvation is not only an old idea and expectation; it is a divine and timeless mystery unveiled completely in 3½ years.
It was a full moon, 14th of Nisan, a high festival in Judea when Christ died. The Passover was a real event that doubled as a picture of the liberation of people all over the world from sin’s bondage. Now that Passover is no longer a local affair its Lamb selection and routines are irrelevant. There is only memory of the event. For Christians the Passover is an eternal reality that touches down when people come to faith. That day put a cap on 3½ years of public service – preaching, teaching, healing.
Most people who say they are into something special with God are likely to be far from him. Look no further than our own fathers in the Christian faith. Paul was a virulent antagonist before his conversion. James tried to turn the church into Israel after his conversion. Far too many believers are eager to lay aside the gold of Christ for the tin of Moses. It seems so much more easy to subscribe to rules and regulations. To associate with a Saviour is to admit the need, and that need is inconsistent with “good people”, people who are not afraid of death, or people who “don’t understand how humans can disobey and rebel against God and man”.
Salvation’s door is open. The day it closes is the day we die or the day God rolls up the sky and land and put them away. Christ’s work is done. He passed the torch to the Holy Spirit who alone can keep people in the truth and guide them to more treasures of divine majesty. He is not dying today and cannot die again. There is no need for a second death. He dies once. We die with him once – no repeat – in order to life in him.
We will never find access to the truth beneficial if we keep distancing ourselves from the ancestors as if we were automatically better off or in possession of better and mightier things. The Christ who cried, took the side of the oppressed, owned no property, had dinner dates with sinners and prostitutes, and died, is not a hero. Far from it! Many of us actually despise Christ for not making us spitting images of our heroes. He made a troublefree life for noone. It is a Balaam attitude to expect a life of ease – a crossless and stagnant (no growth) life.
Salvation is not a good or better job. Just looking at the people who profess this kind of salvation delivers a shock. Everyone is aging and decaying. Salvation is not improved health or healing. It is not getting a victory in every circumstance. It is wholeness that needs no human contribution. Christ saves us or we are not saved at all.
Salvation will mean nothing at all to people with a sense of “I never” because that is precisely the last thing God wants to hear. How Hollywood and abominable it is to put on an air of disgust and personal achievement of a sinless “victorious” life! Eternally sinless people cannot call God Father or pray to him without reference to how one becomes his child, because his children always need a Saviour.
People who like avoiding contact with other people will see the covid-19 crisis as a blessing. People who thrive on contact with their peers (including strangers!) will see the viral outbreak as a blessing in disguise. The exposure of our natural attitudes and practices are challenges we cannot ignore and yet the truth about our communities and love of nature will still not lead to change. Not much of a change will be noticeable to people whose lives in addition to employment are simply eat, drink, and play.
How do I know that people are not going to change? The point is repeated in the movie about how our world comes to an end. There is the decline of love and faith and (Mat. 24:12, Luke 18:8). What is another government edict going to do to convict a person about his access to a life that is abundant? God is not a terrorist!
And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.
Matthew 24:12
I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man comes, shall he find faith on the earth?
Luke 18:8
1 Corinthians 2:14
But the natural man does not receive the things of God’s Spirit: for they are foolishness to him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
We want Eden without the
How good can the world be without all its parts? Do we really believe that there is excellence in all the earth?
We have long ago discarded our respect for nature. We like our fruits and vegetables seedless, and artificial flavours and colours do not disturb us. We could have a world with fewer cans and bottles. Our governments have outlawed cannabis and legalised alcohol, legalized theft and outlaw enterprise. We can love a car but there is no relationship. We prefer the world with people who are spitting images of ourselves. That is xenophobia in disguise.
How much smaller and ridiculous can the pride of the nations and any of the globe’s clans get? NOT MUCH!
THE COMPONENTS OF LIFE
1 John 2:16
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
Life is Fun, But Not a Joke 