Deception

The new dangerous alliance

eejoseph, ,

When the funding of the Freedom Convoy came to light the deer frozen in the beans were churches and parachurch organizations, many of whom were proponents of religious liberty. There never was an official barrier to the expression of religious faith in Canada except the campaign to snuff out First Nations culture. A nastier alliance is hard to find. Christians who have nothing to hide have no fear of government. Those who want to turn Canada into an imitation of any of the religious states of ancient or modern history are intoxicated with the wine of male chauvinism and intolerance. They do not see how every state claiming to have a religious foundation has descended into fascism, thinly disguised civil dysfunction and civil war. They do not see Rome, London and Washington as little bits of tinder-dry kindling. They learn nothing from Pakistan and the Islamic Republics. They are creating a narrative bolstered by legal jargon about the denial of fundamental rights. The Freedom Convoy, they say, was a peaceful protest, as if Canadians are all drunk with visions of a state dominated by right wing Catholics and colonialist Protestants and everything between.

The Freedom Convoy had everything to do with terrorism. Conservatives who want to copy the wild American West are the only ones begging for violence to be a mainstream means of conversing with the government. It is a complete red herring. It is poorly disguised Islamophobia. It is a lack of sensitivity to the plight of Canada’s First Nations to be pushing legal buttons in pursuit of a doomed to fail front seat in government.

Real Christians are nauseated by religious government. Since churches cannot come up with a regime to enforce their internal administration of justice, they will never find one for the country. The fundamental rights of Canadians are secure. The Church needs no alliance, not with Caesar or any of the many wannabe emperors and kings. The priorities of any state and The Christ will eventually be seen in stark contrast no matter how similar they appear. The book is rightly thrown at the Freedom Convoy and its funders.

More from the dark web

eejoseph

The 45th president was and still is a despicable brat, unprincipled even in business, which was his livelihood, and a proven liar. Those who admire him are a generation of vipers, xenophobes and fly-by-night warriors for justice and truth.

Do today’s intellectual minds want us to see every pastor as a theologian  and exegete, even though most of what they do is tell us what the Bible says and not what it means? 
Far too many do not read well enough to ensure our congregants have even a surface understanding of the Bible’s content.

Do you want to hear us  say that every prime minister is a very decent human being and every head of state is a kind and gentle spirit.

You know full well that believers do not hate any one, no matter how many times a psalmist might sing that he does.

Give us a break please.

Human Sleight

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Paul warned the Ephesians about the activities of deceivers  (4:14) the result of which, is that believers acting as juveniles are “tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming”; it is a magician’s m.o. to have people believe everything they see.

Yahweh, God the Almighty and the Lamb are heaven’s temple

Old is not new!

The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing: 8). Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience; 9). Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation. (10)

Hebrews 9:8-10 

Believe the Bible or believe in God

Cutting the fat from the spiritual diet simply means recognizing that there are things done and recommended in the Bible that we have no business embracing.

The separation of temporary measures from permanent arrangements often eludes us.  Accurately interpreting the messages in the Bible is not merely a function of separating the Old Testament from the New.  A kind of cowardly laziness has kept Christian witness from its blazing and pervasive perfection.  We dilute the wine by mixing it with every ancient liquid we can find. It is as if Moses did not say that the buck did not stop with himself.  Reducing the royal priesthood to a Davidide person executing levitical operations is perhaps the most deceptive of international approaches.

What is in heaven?

A structure with all the installations for dealing with sin located in heaven or on earth says the same thing: people are going to sin.  A temple in heaven is an outright fable.  The permanence of salvation never depended on created space, such as a laver, a lampstand, a covenant box. It most certainly has no need for the intervention of human agents. 

Access to God through Christ does not need the help of a building. Even if the Jewish people built another temple its functions would have nothing to with redeeming humans.  It would be desolate from the start because animal blood is inadequate.  Christ, in his atoning work, is all alone.

The devil gets a hold of our doctrine and turns it into a geography lesson, a nutrition regime, a priesthood system,  anything beside the actual work of God’s Only-Begotten; authorizing sonship for anyone who believes.

But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; 11) Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us,(12)

Hebrews 9:11-12

The trickery of men will always end up grounded, exposed as empty clanging, because Christ is not the Alpha and Omega of their reasoning.

One would have to be pretty messed up to think that the true place of atonement is a location where hands and feet are washed, where blood is sprinkled, where bread is laid out etc. The heaven of Hebrews 9:24 is more than God’s residence. It is the eternal fact of essential saving grace in the face of Christ.

One can read the fact in plain language in Revelation 21:22,
“I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple:.

Not another video

eejoseph

Moral sense has little to do with to watching any video. That source of information does not work for me. It is rare to find a video, whether of teaching, preaching, or power demonstration, that brings the stills and clips of the Bible leaping into our reality. I hope you vet your video shares and not expect your contacts to wade through a pot pourri of half truths and unholy concoctions.

Beware of the video glut and learn to read your Bible without idiot middlemen.

if you have not noticed yet this is a good time to take particular interest in seeing how many of our brothers and sisters are being taught by videos (or zoom meetings where credible contributions are seen as hostile) whose sources remain either hidden or are openly questionable.

Beware of nonsense content! I recently received a version of THE OLD RUGGED CROSS in which the lyrics were “for a world of lost sinners was saved”.

Are you telling yourself Deuteronomy 28:x?

eejoseph

I recently received a “tell yourself” video featuring things – a selection of Bible verses- people should tell themselves. I do not want to tell myself anything that I shouldn’t, just because it is in the Bible, and Deuteronomy 28 is not a blanket of blessings anyone who was not there can wrap himself in. In that video I could not get past “Tell yourself Deuteronomy 28 … I am the head and not the tail”. It is this kind of mixing truth and lies that has brought the world of information sharing to a destructive new low both in the political and religious world

Today, yesterday and careful compliance

How can I tell myself what the Bible says about me without a full hug, unless the self-talk is just a thing to create a good feeling or adjust our comfort level with reality? The only way to be head and tail is to get in touch with what Moses was saying as Israel neared Canaan.

Today’s darkness drives a mean bargain

eejoseph

Some people think that they can pray away things that God predicts, even the very things we need as believers to help us learn dependence on God, while  even a mention of the darkness that defines all of humanity is hard to find. Fantasy has no place in the delivery of hope and support to an adult population and therefore we find ourselves walking away from the bargains of the decades-long evangelical revolution.

John 9:39-41

39. And Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.” 40. Those of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, “We are not blind too, are we?”

Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.

Darkness on the face of the deep

Darkness stalks us primarily because we were in that deep – the primeval abyss –  of which the world was hatched.  Our attempts at fixing our problems seem only to plunge us deeper into the cave where light gets scarcer. 

Neither sun nor moon

The time is right for us to be shielded from the light.  When light parades as police brutality and public service is billed as corrupt, and violent self-defense is a human right, who needs light?

Psalms 121:5-6

5) The Lord is your keeper; The Lord is your shade on your right hand. 6) The sun will not smite you by day, Nor the moon by night.

The night of the day

I know, everyone wants a cloudless day every now and then, and some strange people think that the light humans need can be created in a lab or industrial complex and, to satisfy the buyers and sellers, never turned off.  In a way we have, in some places, no difference between night and day.  I also know people who talk a great light show who are really employees of the father of lies.

But in this period – how many days are still unknown – of dark days there is the sense that a death angel is visiting. 

If the sunlight is not breaking through the clouds it is dark.  Even with the moon nights are dark

The bright night
The day after

I am pretty certain that Hades, with its big mouth gaping, is right now gobbling up another batch of victims.  The darkness into which the American and Canadian) churches have just plunged with their support exposure for a deeply flawed mouth speaking abominable things without a rebuke from the messengers of light marks the deepening of  trouble and a betrayal of the poor and marginalized.  In that same darkness we will find a refuge. 

Between the murderous and the lifesaving programs of today’s religions is a hard line of conspiracy, not the hard line of mercy and compassion.  There is no Christian morality apart from the work and person of Christ.

Guess who matters more to Jesus and any God we can name?  It is not the rich and successful, those who want to be listed as loyal to high virtue,  who refuse to sell and give to the needy.   I can just hear the hard bargain of the status quo:  “what poor, what vulnerable, what injustice?”  and “Let them enjoy their three and four jobs”. Obviously there is no positive thinking or praying that turns around the death toll.  What God did for the Syrian military commander while Israelites were being ravaged by leprosy is not happening in the United States . The bargains promised by what-he’s- done-for-others-he’ll-do-for-you profiteers are not worth a half-penny.

Caring Canada Cringes

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Premiers, police chiefs, and God knows who else thinks they are leaders are quick to say that Canada does not have racist structures. Not the prime minister: he of black face funignorance. One is either blind or corrupt not to recognize that in Canada’s history atrocities related to racism have shaped the country. The videos and stories of brutality and inhumanity will surface and the evidence will challenge the caring citizens of this country to cringe and do what civilized people do: renounce and withdraw from corrupt associations.

Not in my backyard

They swear that they have black or native friends or that their religion is against racial discrimination, but we have been surprised to find that institutions are riddled by ignorant and cowardly noisemakers. The RCMP and our local service agencies are getting a long overdue makeover.

  • Your church, mosque, temple, and synagogue
  • Your employer
  • Your car dealer
  • Your grocery checkout staff
  • Your health care practitioner

These are all condemnable. We can ignore the garments and medals these parties wear. Do not tell me “all doctors and lawyers are great guys and great public servants”. We are aware that the welcoming public signs and reminders of civility in these places may be pure sham. The time has long gone for a redemptive change.

Caribbean justice

It is still a matter of pride that Haitians rose from the bondage of the European slave trade to become the first independent state of dispersed Africans. The other path taken by our island nations has perpetuated the very tools of injustice that the colonial powers used. Aren’t they just another cog in the colonial gear box?

Holding our noses

The suicidal crew are so accustomed to presidential comedy that nothing in the excreta range registers any more. The ideal scenario for 45, the GOP and the DOJ would be for the population to stop listening while the things American governance stands for get pushed into oblivion. It is a phenomenon worth seeing: serpent tongues flicking to and fro, so much prey, strike ’em all. The land of the free looks more like one giant prison.

A great secular entity becomes a prison

And he cried out with a mighty voice, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird.

Revelation of John 18:2

Everywhere we look there are signs of decay. If we look we will see it. Every time we look southward we cringe because many think that Canada needs what the United States has. If our education and nurture is full of double speak and elitism we will neither care about the history we share nor cringe at the resurgence of corruption and deceit.