Author: eejoseph

Elevate

eejoseph
Crowtrail Productions ©️2022

making up my mind what to eat and drink and what to say

whether to be sober or just dance and play

all across my neighbourhood

people are calling bad things good

rating foolish things as wise
   
turn people into merchandise
good news in the city these days hard to find

people so let down they're literally blowing their minds

Shake the tree

shake the tree, see if leaves and fruit will fall

oh no! with deep roots producing won't stall

lace up your boots, climb before it gets too late

stop looking down, time for our eyes to elevate

Attack like wild beasts

eejoseph, ,

I am pretty sure that the proponents of an artificial intelligence powered world have already gotten the memo.  Like the Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Roman empires the highly anticipated AI world is going to crash.  Yes, it will crash even though the engineering geniuses know that there are unsurmountable problems with trusting unthinking robots with navigating the highways and lanes of human dignity and diversity.  For the same reason that humans need to go where only machines currently go and explore human societies need the best of human integrity and intelligence to generate meaningful momentum towards sustainable civic society.

Since we have a full array of witnesses concerning the perfection of human civilizing attempts on every continent and island a non-human basis for maturing human societies cannot be more vacuous, rebellious and futile.  With five entities holding veto power at the United Nations and the member nations settling into their tribal and national delusions I think it is time to ask two critical questions. Why are the nations in a seemingly endless uproar? Why are the nations imagining emptiness?

Why are the nations in an uproar And the peoples devising a vain thing?

  Psalm 2:1, NASB

The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying…

Psalm 2:2, NASB

Are the goyim the only people who RAGASH (רגש)? The verb appears once in scripture so we can best tell what the word means by observing what nations do.

It may not be obvious to the casual or avid reader that the nations – the goyim – were a kind of whipping boy or scapegoat.  The wish and prayer for the nations to be blessed as Israel was or could be is indeed rare. God never asked for the world’s nations to emulate Israel.   It is no surprise that the mention of the nations (the Gentiles) was (and likely still is) derogatory and unrealistic, not to mention being out of line with Abraham’s vision and his descendants’ experience of bondage and out of line with the blessing of all families on earth.

Like wild beasts

People who believe that God is not an absent landlord and is willing to invest in human welfare by a personal intervention are going to be attacked and threatened with death by the communities in which they live. Christ impressed his disciples with the certainty of attack with these words, “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you.” (John 15:18, NASB)

THE BEAST. And he opened his mouth in blasphemies against God, to blaspheme His name and His tabernacle, that is, those who dwell in heaven. (Revelation of John 13:6, NASB) It was also given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them, and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him. (Revelation of John 13:7, NASB)

A SECOND BEAST. And it was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast would even speak and cause as many as do not worship the image of the beast to be killed. (Revelation of John 13:15, NASB)

The lunatic world of demonic warfare

eejoseph, , ,

You may not have heard it and hopefully you will not have to endure the sideshow but blaming every variation from our creature comforts on spirits.  Children behaving badly is because of a spirit.  Financial,  interpersonal, and interracial problems are the result of spirit activity.  If humans were something more than flesh (and  blood!) the analysis might hold water.  The decisive battles of human existence  and destiny are not being fought against evil spirits; demons.  Christ has so destroyed the devil’s works, there is no need to create the impression that Christ’s followers are enrolled in an “arrest and jail” operation against demons.

Angels and people

Demons are not flesh and blood creatures, and humans are not spirit beings.   Demons are angels, beings in essence more like God than humans.   They exist in three environments: heaven, earth, and tartarus (a kind of house arrest action for rebel angels, mentioned by Peter 2:24 ),  The idea that humans can send demons to a hell is not merely without foundation, it is lunacy. 

Demons, the engine for bogus discipleship

But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons…

1 Timothy 4:1

If you read what follows the first verse from 1st Timothy 4 you would have discovered that there is hypocrisy in the demonic influence and that the hypocrisy is the behavior of the departing believers.  They are the ones “speaking lies” (a once-used term, oral falsifying, ψευδολογος, pseudologos) in playacting.

A demon-influenced person can be expected to have a primary interest in the following:

  • forbidding marriage (total ban, interracial, international)
  • advocating for abstinence from foods (seasonal and  categories such as clean, unclean, vegan, animal)
  • denying God’s creation of all good things
  • showing their ingratitude for all things (and people)
  • opposing the sanctifying power of God’s word and prayer (1 Timothy 4:3-5, NASB)

There is no question that Catholicism is a hotbed of playacting doctrines.  Catholicism recommends seasonal food restrictions, celibacy regimes and perpetual virginity.  There are rules about who one can marry, there are prayers to saints, there is making Mary a mediator, and the veneration of objects.  This departure from the faith is seen in one or more particulars all over Christianity.

A notch below angels

A popular mantra, which does not deserve the label “doctrine” is  “man is a spiritual being”, because it stands opposite the facts.  God formed man “dust of the ground”, and refers to him as follows.

  • flesh and blood
  • flesh
  • all flesh

What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him?  Yet You have made him a little lower than God, And You crown him with glory and majesty!  You make him to rule over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet,  All sheep and oxen, And also the beasts of the field…

Psalms 8:4-7

Good and bad service providers

Humans are at their best in this age as servants and have a date with angelic likeness. The great among us are those who serve.  Of the angels we read, “Are they not all ministering [[on-duty]] spirits, sent out to render service [[= doing “deacon” service]] for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?” (Hebrews 1:14, NASB). 

In the likeness of angels

The Lord himself gives a picture of what the future eternal existence is like when he says, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; for they cannot even die anymore, because they are like angels, and are sons of God, being sons [[the products]] of the resurrection.” (Luke 20:34-36, NASB). 

Now we know that angels are not the way they are through resurrection, so let’s not take this saying out of its field.  It is a bogus Christian who claims to have no service commission.  It is equally bogus for citizens of any country to think that they have only the pursuit of liberty and happiness and no duty to serve their families and communities.

The possible and the inevitable

There is another narrative that talks about the eternal – unending – punishment of those who have not measured up to God’s call and standard. This narrative runs parallel to the one about how separate God is from sin without acknowledging God’s personal investment in paying the price for sin.  In a rush to make God a hardline law and order operative they have created a case in which the world would never be rid of rebellion and resistance as long as there are demons and people burning forever in torment.   At some point the universe will be rid of all such annoyances and Scripture is graphic about that as well. The lunatic fringe is on display everywhere dishonouring the name of Christ with political convictions, neo-Israel and mighty warrior delusions.

Gods of no account

eejoseph

The difference between god, gods, and God may make little sense, but in a world where a single deity is said to be real the difference is like night and day,  and quite literally, like life and death.  We may think it is weird for a person to have a god fashioned by human hands, but even the people with an invisible deity have tons of objects that assist them in their devotion; objects ranging from literature to charms, amulets, objects of mysterious origin and worldwide fame.  When a city gangster pulls a pocket knife on Crocodile Dundee, a rugged Aussie outdoorsman, he pulls out a humongous blade, saying, “That’s not a knoife. This is a knoife”.  A real deity cannot be ranked by size, or the number of devotees. Most ancestral or tribal deities are just that; ancestral and tribal, and the imagination of people wanting to be recognized as associates and friends, if not outright deities themselves, of a great deity are too many to count.

Wazzup and what’s coming up

An incident in Yeshua’s life illustrates how connected intelligent people can be to daily life.  The Pharisees and Sadducees came up, and testing Jesus, they asked Him to show them a sign from heaven. But He replied to them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ “And in the morning, ‘There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ “Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot discern the signs of the times?  An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and a sign will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah.” And He left them and went away.” (Matthew 16:1-4, NASB)

Isaiah had a rough time dealing with people who saw themselves as God’s messengers or officials of some sort.  I suspect he may have had a chuckle or two from what they were claiming.  Isaiah’s generation was not very different from ours in this century 2500 years later.  People expected God to advance their interests and they put God, his interest and his instruction, at arms length.  They could not be convinced that calamity was knocking at their doors.

Let them bring forth and declare to us what is going to take place; As for the former events, declare what they were, That we may consider them and know their outcome. Or announce to us what is coming; (Isaiah 41:22, NASB)

A genuine deity ought to know past and future equally

Declare the things that are going to come afterward, That we may know that you are gods; Indeed, do good or evil, that we may anxiously look about us and fear together. (Isaiah 41:23, NASB)

Behold, you are of no account, And your work amounts to nothing; He who chooses you is an abomination. (Isaiah 41:24, NASB)

Mankind has built nothing bigger than a single neighbourhood. The gods we have fashioned are dwarfed by the failed empires. There are god who affect nothing in the world, who do not see or hear, and are carried about by people even when they have legs and feet. We have not forgotten the Egyptian deities who were decisively exposed by the events in the Hebrew exodus from Egypt. It is surprising that the Egyptians did not calculate that the sun was going to die, or notice that the moon was scarred by meteorite bombardment and was barren lifeless. The ancestral homeland of Jacob was known for its amulets – called gods, elohim and teraphim in Jacob’s departure from Padan-aram.

Now you have indeed gone away because you longed greatly for your father’s house; but why did you steal my gods (elohim)? (Genesis 31:30, NASB)

Jacob’s uncle wants to know

“Now Rachel had taken the household idols (teraphim) and put them in the camel’s saddle, and she sat on them. And Laban felt through all the tent but did not find them.” (Genesis 31:34, NASB)

Exactly what was Laban looking for

“She said to her father, “Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise before you, for the manner of women is upon me.” So he searched but did not find the household idols (teraphim).” (Genesis 31:35, NASB)

The household gods were untouchable because Rachel had put them in a virtual vault: the circumstance of her menstrual flow and the camel saddle on which she was sitting.

Why one is more than enough

Hold your horses, tanks, missiles, firearms, homicidal state warriors, and perjured justices! Most people expect a deity to protect, defend them, and supply their needs, even those things people can easily do for themselves. Deities are supposed to have excessive kinds of powers that are represented by military and people-in-council. Obviously, amulets, charms and idols neither see, nor hear, much less aim, fire weapons successfully. They most certainly do not have any wisdom to impart to intelligent human beings. One blank stare from a carved deity, one sacrifice it can never consume, one tear it can never dry, is sufficient to end the illusion that any dead material or living entity we can control, can be confined to a country, city, house or box is a deity.

Drinking up the battle sauce in Texas

eejoseph

When David, king of Israel, led astray by his regal pride and human desires killed a man after sleeping with the man’s wife, the Lord took notice and imposed a penalty.  It seems to me that people think that atrocities like Israeli theft of East Jerusalem property or homicides with guns in the United States of America will have no consequences. An eighteen year old shooting up children in their classroom in Texas is another example of evil individuals trying to stop the education of the next generation.  The next generation, despite being targeted for assassination, will  be more than patriotic and insular robots and the leadership that thinks it can stack the courts with tainted judges will wax worse and worse. Who can forget Mitch McConnell’s version of impartial justice or Devin Nunes’ trips to the White House during he impeachment of the 45th president?  The homicidal outbursts in human history are the direct outcome of both of lawful and lawless obsession.   In Texas they proudly drink the sauce of armed insurrection when a crooked businessman calls, and they guzzle inaction when the lives of innocent educators and their students scream, for almost an hour, for service and protection.

A drunken stupor affects large swathes of humanity, and it is not an exclusively American phenomenon.  

What a pathetic besotted mob!

The institutions and traditions of Israel and Judah have not been adopted by any civilization, so neither Jerusalem, the original beneficiary, nor any of the capitals claiming inspiration from Sinai or Golgotha have seen even a truncated era of proven viability.  The fearful (and abominable, see Revelation 21:18) Caucasian crew that sees immigrants as a threat cannot be expected to be rational or neighborly.  If a repeated mantra could convince the public that MAGA fans were to be trusted the quasi-governor of Texas just brought the house down.

Get the narrative straight or let the police tell it

The performance behind the microphone in Uvalde was Governor Abbot’s trademark bluster and bravado but it could not hide the outrage of police holding back the parents while an eighteen  year old slaughtered their children in their classroom.  People sworn to go towards gunfire in a jurisdiction where eighteen year olds can acquire a weapon designed for war who choose to wait while ten year olds are murdered need to be sworn out.

The time is way past up

Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in His sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Ammon.  Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.  (2 Samuel 12:9-10, NASB)

Perpetual violence in David’s household

The sword shall never depart from your house

There is a fantasy parading as fidelity to noble ideals is spreading all over the world.  It sneaks around in places of worship and in legislatures desperately trying to wed the underlying evils of politics to a spiritual accountability. 

Bribed to do nothing about mass murder

The revolution will not be replayed and guns have not prevented the spread of fascism, nazism, or lying ignorant people posing as experts and leaders. 

Cursed is he who accepts a bribe to strike down an innocent person. And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

Deuteronomy 27:25, NASB

But your eyes and your heart are intent only upon your own dishonest gain, and on shedding innocent blood and on practicing oppression and extortion.

Jeremiah 22:17, NASB

Nothing to see here

Freedom denied and slavery forgotten have unsheathed a sword on the United States that will never depart and the  proof that one idolized amendment to a constitution will make an entire nation a bleeding mecca.

War – homicide – death

It is questionable that homicide – The American War of Independence –   cut the ties between brutal England and her North American colonies.  The military and peace officer services of the United States have not failed to keep alive atrocious attitudes, policies and practices. Texan official leadership publicly wants to be the Keeper of the Keys of the Right of Violent Insurrection, which only means that the rule of law is bovine fecal matter to such people.   By their repeated kicking their responsibility for all the people and especially children down the road the people’s representatives – Democrat, Republican and Independent – are mired in genocidal icecream. They think that guns will save them when their day of decision comes.  The civil war and the world trade center inferno have taught them nothing.  So political hacks can say there’s nothing to see here. Whoop de do! Another bad guy committing a crime while they have done nothing to make sure that that crime can be reduced.

Resources to reduce murders are not in place but access to  weapons of mass destruction is a rite of passage in Christian America.   Politics and faith are strange bedfellows no matter what cliches believers use to prostitute themselves to the state.  They really do not know what JESUS thinks of the enablers of the massacres of innocent children and non-Caucasian people. They ought to know what he has to say to the National Rifle Association and the political charlatans it bankrolls.  Time’s up, pals.

Quebec’s Quixotic Quest

eejoseph

Quebec’s politicians have no real concerns about Canadian respect all across the country.  That Quebecois have a special place in the Canadian federation may be a rabbit hole in the service of jealousy and antagonistic attitudes towards newcomers and Canada’s First Nations.  Even when the Parti Quebecois rises to speak in the House of Commons and speaks against the Head of State no one seems to notice.  Canadians are that forgiving.  Our neighbours to the south  and their struggle with states’ rights seem to have gone over the heads of Quebec’s politicians.  Practically no one wants a state within a state. 

That is a recipe for civic disturbance and failure.  The late Honourable Rene Levesque tried. Jacques Parizeau tried.  40% of Quebecers may still be in favour of a nation within a nation and separatists (by any name) can count on conservative support for negotiating the break up of Canada. No one can figure out how a family in a family works. No one can give a reason why the idea doesnot work for Canada’s First Nations. I propose that since we count two founding peoples, Francophone and Anglophone, we need to go back to the first grade.

From the heart

eejoseph

The calling card of God’s kingdom and the gospel’s measuring stick are essentially matters of the Father’s privy council.  We cannot see the contents of the human heart but we are able to perform certain actions that might be interpreted as the Spirit’s fruit.  No-one need pretend: the life itself has the microchips for the believer to do God’s will from the heart (Greek, ek psuches), that is, not mere outward expression, such as sabbath-keeping.  There is no necessary spiritual foundation for a person to be off work on the weekend, and not have to report to his workplace. That same person can harbour thoughts on the sabbath day or any holy day that go seriously offline from the sabbath-keeping integrity.

Both God and the pastor remain on duty on the sabbath day; the pastor in violation for which he does not get prosecuted, and God because he works non-stop and is not subject to the fourth commandment or any other law aimed at pointing out sin (and the need for atonement). God’s Son was not a sinner until he was in the cross.

The idea of behaviour “from the heart” aims at anchoring behaviour in the cleansed heart, because one can truly say “I followed my heart” when one has followed the deceitful and destructive passions of the heart.

The holiness of God, the day and the person

  • that God is idle, not doing whatever work occupied his 6 days in any week
  • that God is subject to do not work orders
  • that a special holiness affects human beings from the rotation of our planet
  • that the Holy Spirit’s presence for the six previous days can be outdone
  • that a holy walk with God gets amplified from the day before the sabbath 
  • that a holy walk with God gets dialed down  the day following the sabbath 

What was in Yeshua’s heart

When the disciples fed themselves fresh wheat on the sabbath day it was an offence to the Pharisees. When Yeshua healed a man on the sabbath day he was accused of being a doctor – not the bishop of all souls – working outside his hours. The extent to which the Incarnate Word was a genuine human does not veer off when the content of his heart is to be revealed. Were the residents of his heart not the same as his contemporaries evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. (Mark 7:21-22, NASB) he could not say that he is familiar, by experience with the common temptations of human life.

Whether or not you believe it, Christ was born into a unique situation. He was not born of human desire and was born of a woman only. This makes it possible for him to be Holy God and sinless lamb. God’s will for Yeshua was written in his heart, not the hundreds of commandments against this and that or for this and that, but the order to lay down his life to save humanity.

“From the heart” must take its shape and dimensions from the Saviour. The believer’s hearty conduct of life needs a North Star. It most certainly cannot be grounded in a hundred or ten commandments. It must be cognizant of both old man and new man passions and desires, respectively for mortification and nourishment.

Canning a basic can do

eejoseph, ,

There are fourteen “can you” questions in Job. The most riveting are Yahweh’s to Job at the end of the human speeches. It seems that it was popular in antiquity to question a person’s ability on a superhuman scale when a person seems to have fallen off the bus. What ever happened to the basic can dos? Asking a mere mortal to explain his own origin and experience can result in a mountain of lies and fantasy. There is a question that comes, having legs that decisively force a person to can even the most basic human “can do”.

Ability addressed four times

The verb that designates ability (like Greek’s dunamai, I can), appears 183 times in the Hebrew Bible, but yukal, he is able, appears three times in the human speeches and once in Job’s response to Yahweh’s.

If one ventures a word with you, will you become impatient? But who can refrain from speaking? (Job 4:2, NASB)

“Who can shut up?” argues Eliphaz.

For calamity from God is a terror to me, And because of His majesty I can do nothing. (Job 31:23, NASB)

Job confesses “I am helpless”.

Refute me if you can; Array yourselves before me, take your stand. (Job 33:5, NASB)

Elihu throws out a challenge, “Prove me wrong”.

I know that You can do all things, And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. (Job 42:2, NASB)

Job confesses Yahweh’s ability

Basic “can do”

“Can do” to the waste bin

The canning begins when Yahweh rips into Job, not Job’s miserable comforters. It is humanity’s relationship with an animal that comes under scrutiny without a line on actual ability. The question that puts human can-do in the can is “How is your dominion over leviathan?”, and it has fourteen legs.

  1. Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook?
  2. Or press down his tongue with a cord?
  3. Can you put a rope in his nose
  4. Or pierce his jaw with a hook?
  5. Will he make many supplications to you,
  6. Or will he speak to you soft words
  7. Will he make a covenant with you?
  8. Will you take him for a servant forever?
  9. Will you play with him as with a bird
  10. Or will you bind him for your maidens?
  11. Will the traders bargain over him?
  12. Will they divide him among the merchants?
  13. Can you fill his skin with harpoons,
  14. Or [fill] his head with fishing spears? (Job 41:1-8, NASB)

All the people running around with an “I can do all things” attitude are practically incapable and seem to have little understanding about the primary responsibility for humans over the planet in having dominion over animals of the sea, the sky and the land and in the water! Straight to the can!