The stories of the Old Testament are full of wandering and incomplete spirituality. The hope was that one day the journey would end and the knowledge of God and His guidance would be the joy and security of all, but we are left asking “What happened?”
Then there are predictions like Isaiah 40:1.
He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.
This tender care is for everyone. I think shepherd and my mind cannot stray from the Lord and Saviour Anointed Yeshua.
The trail of denial is long and winding, disguising itself as the way of a chosen people, pilgrim people, as the global standard, and the principles that guide judge and jury. The denial of one’s roots can only end in catastrophe and in the nations of the modern era we find both the oppressed and the oppressors are busy denying their origins. With this level of denial here come old lies, shallow slogans and senility.
Divisive Diplomacy
Some leaders might just as well be senile, schizophrenic or bewitched. They lap up the vile soundbytes from the gutters of Nazism, dictatorship, and religious fantasy.
The religious people have been trafficking in doublespeak and a whole lot of Talibanism: segregating churches into ethnic enclaves, denying women and children the right to life and liberty. They want a state where biblical law (Mosaic legislation) gets superimposed on the capitalist and imperialist policies that have been the cause of every kind of evil.
A vile virus
Nationalists will deny George Washington, the House of Windsor, and the Lord of heaven and earth as long as these stand for justice that demands equal treatment of all human beings. That is the viral infection that has been allowed to take hold in public spaces.
After reading Luke 2:4 I find myself assailed by the memory of David’s other residence. Bethlehem is where the king’s family was planted.
And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judæa, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:)
It was in Bethlehem that Ruth, a Moabite, David’s great grandmother, married Boaz.
Then it was said of Ruth:
Ruth 4:11
And all the people that were in the gate, and the elders, said, We are witnesses. The Lord make the woman that is come into thine house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel: and do thou worthily in Ephratah, and be famous in Beth–lehem:
However, David’s name is also attached to fame and royalty via another city.
When David captured Jebus (יבוס yebûs) he named it Zion, and inherited the domain of Melchisedec, the ancient Salem (shalem שלם). This is the part of the hills of Moriah designated City of the great king. (Gen. 14:18, 2 Sam 5:6-7, 2 Chr. 15:2, and Psalm 48:1-2)
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.
There are two different Davidide cities and neither is Jerusalem.
Hey preacher!
Before we try to impress the saints with our testimony (very often it is a story common to believers) and after we have grabbed attention, ought we not to have a crystal clear story, complete with action shots, of the great and wonderful Saviour?
If there’s a different interest we ought to verify who it was that sent us.
Say, preacher! Say on!
America! America! Your chief executive is demon-possessed. He steals, he lies, he destroys, and does not know he does. If those observations were not sufficient the present occupant of the white house is also an avowed sexual assaulter, champion of failed and autocratic states, coward on the international stage, and dunce.
Test him, America. Give him a book and have him read cold turkey. You will see how literate the person is to whom you have entrusted the guidance of your nation.
America! America! Pay attention to your radio stations, not the ones with buffoons like Limbaugh, but the ones with tons of religious programming, the ones putting country on the same level as God. There you will see Satan at work. There you will hear legal opinion incorporating ancient Israel’s playbook and there you will experience the abject lipservice to the gospel led by half-baked scholars and zealous ignoramuses, young and old. There you will see the products of a homeschooled generation of bigots.
America! America! Since you are satisfied with being the great home for demons, a massive cage for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast, get ready to pay the price.
Every nation is intoxicated with American booze: merchandise and false gods.
The Bible, gives certainty,
not confused arguments about eclipsed arrangements
of gold silver, food and drink.
Luke lifts the veil off the process and shows the reliability of the New Testament in 1:4
that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.
Certainty over endless speculation and lipservice
The gospels, in particular, shatter the reality tv of the Old Testament because they deal with the substance of God’s gift, God-with-us. The gospels show us God’s yeah and amen, nothis you’d better note.
There’s no version to compete with or accompany the accounts of the four evangelists. There are no eyewitnesses or servants that have anything seismic to say in addition to the “We heard the Father say ‘Pay attention to my Son'” of Peter and his companions.
Moses, Annas, Caiaphas, and the elders of Israel got it wrong. God’s message is not terror and corruptible things but a welcoming Father-love.
Hebrews 12:18-24 paints the contrast in stark terms. For you have not come, says the writer, to
what may be touched
a blazing fire
darkness
gloom
tempest
the sound of a trumpet
a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them.
The gospel came in due season to show God’s timeless design for the human race. If we believe that a tent and its regulations are that design does that not mean that we have trashed the Son of God?
For they could not endure the order that was given, If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned. Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I tremble with fear. (vss 20-21)
But you have come to
Mount Zion
the city of the living God
the heavenly Jerusalem
innumerable angels in festal gathering
the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven
God, the judge of all
the spirits of the righteous made perfect
Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant
the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13 CSB
https://bible.com/bible/1713/jhn.15.13.CSB
While most Christians stand securely on this set of facts, there is a constant erosion of the believer’s confidence. That supreme love sets the tone for the believer’s love life. The corruption in our souls does not allow us to settle for God’s highest expression. We insist on sinking to the sterile lowlands of noncompliance and curse. We equate the cross with the tools of condemnation.
Just the facts
No one but Christ has laid down his life for (those destined to be) his friends so they can live
There is no reason or logic for all of us to lay down our lives for our friends
God has not invited anyone to imitate the Messianic death and resurrection
What love looks like
We can see how the multitude that wants to prove their love by succeeding where no one has is trafficking in oppression and emptiness. We must conclude that a bewitching is responsible for the supposed greatness of obedient love.
The churches in North America need to hum to another tune this weekend. The clap offerings for Christless slogans in the mega churches must be seen as a clanging symbol that is more trash than Saddam Hussein’s statues, more rubbish than Israel’s wailing wall, more useless than the U.K.’s unity, more moronic than the juvenile morality of law-abiding citizenship, and more predatory than any previously known cannibalistic quest.
Trash to be discarded
Most cultures and social norms resist change. They resist growth. We should not need to be reminded that a change of mind became the litmus test for embracing progressive revelation, or that successivee generations have stubbornly inventing standards in order to avoid moving past useless and irrelevant traditions. Paul, the eminent teacher and preacher of the gospel, discared everything his context had fed him. The rubbish that came to light when Christ confronted Paul (Saul of Tarsus) included:
circumcision on the eighth day,
belonging to the people of Israel,
belonging to the tribe of Benjamin,
a Hebrew of Hebrews;
as to the law, a Pharisee; Phil 3:5
as to zeal, a persecutor of the church;
as to righteousness under the law, blameless. Phil 3:6
Every individual has a pedigree that shrinks on contact with genuine excellence. We have no leg to stand on when we find an informed Jew saying “Enough!” to Jewishness. This is the courage that distinguishes Christian faith, though it may be labelled as unpatriotic.
Rubbish to sober us
When nations rise and fall people think that the international competition has yielded results, but the truth is more that the human race’s follies are being put on display. All the great ones have crashed, and the powers that be are a mere candle compared to the bright stars of the world-ruling powers. We can only imagine the inner heavings of the Jewish heart to see the temple in ruins or to witness the violation of the covenants. I think both Christians and Jews understand that there is practical and eternal value in our painful experiences. God chastens us by reducing our idols to nothing. Great Britain has shrunk to a great little island and a few friends. The Asian giants are wisps of bird feather floating out of the coop. Israel’s temple mount ought to sober up everyone who wants to play lord of all I survey.
Useless Unity
No nation should be known for its uniting to go to war. War is no-one’s friend. When Americans and First Nations look for greatness it is not in the alliances they have formed. We see a hollow, burned out shell, devastated by tribal oppression. That is what is left of genuine collective wisdom and shared values. The unity forged between lawyers, constitutional experts, and the religious community, and a home-schooled generation turns out to be the same racist and xenophobic attitudes that caused the civil war.
The unity of patriotism, flag reverence, and honouring civil and military service is not compatible with defending the unborn while resolutely murdering Black and Brown people and doing nothing to stop the mass murder of children in their schools. If you want to see how united the United States are just look at the passion for mistreating foreigners in the border states or the legislation to prevent women from rejecting unsolicited conceptions.
Moronic morality
Who wants a standard of right without a positive example? Lazy people. We live in air: we were born into it, and like the fish in the sea, we never need to hear “How’s that air working out for ya?” The morality that tags all the stuff we were born in – or born with- is depressing, not elevating.
Morality needs a dramatic leap because badness comes from within: no devil or enemy of the state is needed
Evil thoughts
Adulteries
fornications
Murders
Thefts
Covetousness
wickedness
Deceit
Lasciviousness
Evil eye
Blasphemy
Pride
One does not need to imagine how effective reciting God’s commands can be for creating moral values. Neither selftalk nor repeating what God says have proven successful to any of the peoples who have instituted ritual recitation. We are likely to find that there moral or royal value in the holistic lifestyle of First Nations peoples than in the communities that have created ornate buildings and complicated legal systems.
Predator
Who needs perfection when the chief executive sees his personal goal so close? Who needs perfection when the evangelical heavyweights turn out to be blind watchmen and barkless dogs? More predatory behaviour is in the works as personal business deals loom on the horizon. His pussy-grabbing, racist, and quasi-patriotic propaganda may excite people in Russia, North Korea, and Israel, even though none of these states see anything but juvenile bully-puppet in the latest bigot of Mar a Lago.
Yes. Go back, Europeans. Go back to Syria and Mesopotamia, Hebrews. Go back, everybody, to where we all mix without feeling we are better than our neighbours. There will be a very loud amen if in every church this weekend the pastoral prayer resolves to end the theft and rape that started when the Pilgrim Fathers landed in Turtle Island.
Well, maybe.
Not one evangelical leader has spoken up against the racism the bigotry that is sweeping across America. The stacking of the courts against women’s rights and the right of people to migrate in search of the common dream may please you today, but they will come for you tomorrow, if you have the guts to say no to the worship of the state under God. Yeshua and Jeremiah are right. The pastors are lying greedy and cowardly noisemakers. They concur with xenophobia and genocide. Racism is in American DNA. The GOP see it like fish see water. They also see the thief coming and flee.
But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep.
Life is Fun, But Not a Joke 