Delusion

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.

Love enforced is freedom’s wasteland

eejoseph

The commands to love God or one another only make sense in a culture or environment where hearts are deemed to be incapable of doing what comes natural to God and by any reckoning is the normal human pattern. I am pretty sure that parent-child love does not need to be commanded, so the presence of water in that bucket after hundreds of years of being under orders to love God raises questions about human freedom to hate and God’s love for freedom. The glorious liberty – not yet seen in full bloom – of God’s people is inconsistent with the indecision about what love between God and humans really looks like. Love for one another faces unsurmountable problems in the tradition of Mosaic instruction and levitical ministry.

It is incredible that we have not thought of asking Yeshua why a priest can violate Sabbath regulations and be blameless. The answer is quite simple and shows people in the grip of deception with their most precious possession being outrageous righteousness defined by the law of Moses. You can be forgiven for not believing Moses when he said “Ask Yeshua”. At least Moses knew who was in charge!

It is public knowledge – yet even the prophet and the prelate do not know – that a hungry person could enter the priestly compound, eat food expressly forbidden to anyone who is not from the priestly family, and face no charges. It is obvious that the sabbath and the law are lords of people who are mired in idolatry.

When I speak of love and God as inseparable I take my cue from the New Testament’s declaration that “God is love” and that God demonstrates that love tangibly. I also refer to the Old Testament declaration of God’s enduring goodness, lovingkindness and mercy. It was a big deal, that the people celebrated in the central shrine in a big way.

and it was the duty of the trumpeters and singers to make themselves heard in unison in praise and thanksgiving to the LORD), and when the song was raised, with trumpets and cymbals and other musical instruments, in praise to the LORD, “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever,” the house, the house of the LORD, was filled with a cloud,

2 Chr. 5:13

Let us suppose that in the three years of Christ’s public ministry he never helped a needy soul on the Sabbath or that he did nothing that was thought to be God’s prerogative salvation would still be a dream and God’s love and the human response would be respectively a thing he demonstrated by choosing one of earth’s family and a thing demonstrated by obedience to a covenant that had neither forgiveness or adoption. The facts are not supposition.

God’s love and human salvation are entirely in the divine love stream. The love demonstrated by God in saving (pardoning all sin, adopting believers by means of the Holy Spirit). Salvation is not a condom and the Holy Spirit is not a agent of law and sin. So even with the law written in their hearts believers need forgiveness every day, or Christ and John are unreliable witnesses.

What future does a woman from one of Israel’s neighbours have when she becomes the wife of an Israelite, having been on the enemy list along with all her compatriots?

Human freedom to hate and divine love for freedom.

We cannot imagine God saying that his ultimate goal is expressed in the jubilee and at the same time I want you to be loyal to a a human, or human agency, or a particular family. What have we learned about a father’s love,

Abraham can enlighten us.

He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” Gen. 22:2

Love in Mosaic instruction stands opposite particular behaviours: vengeance and grudging.

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD. Lev. 19:18

Love insists on including outsiders

You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. Lev. 19:34

Love directed at God is on the same level as that directed at one’s neighbours

  • You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD. Lev. 19:18
  • You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Deut. 6:5
  • Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. Deut. 10:19

Loving God seems equal to fulfilling covenant duties

“You shall therefore love the LORD your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always. Deut. 11:1

Loving parents and loving a spouse are very different matters

And Samson’s wife wept over him and said, “You only hate me; you do not love me. You have put a riddle to my people, and you have not told me what it is.” And he said to her, “Behold, I have not told my father nor my mother, and shall I tell you?” Judg. 14:16

Loving things like traditions or practices stand opposite standards and practices

  • ​you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions; Ps. 45:7
  • You love evil more than good, and lying more than speaking what is right. — Selah Ps. 52:3
  • You love all words that devour, O deceitful tongue. Ps. 52:4

Contrast these “loves” with a personal love.

Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun.

Eccl. 9:9

Loving God is not transactional; no benefit for which we can pay

Rejoice not, O Israel! Exult not like the peoples; for you have played the whore, forsaking your God. You have loved a prostitute’s wages on all threshing floors. Hos. 9:1

Loving God is not to be reduced to rituals

offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving of that which is leavened, and proclaim freewill offerings, publish them; for so you love to do, O people of Israel!” declares the Lord GOD. Amos. 4:5

God’s love and hate are real but unlike the human versions

“I have loved you,” says the LORD. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the LORD. “Yet I have loved Jacob Mal. 1:2

Serving one master and hating the other

Hate is legitimate behaviour when it comes to choosing a certain kind of relationship. This kind of hate does not attack, assault, or plot the demise of its object. This hate starves the lines of fellowship. The object of this kind of hate gets little, if any, of one’s time. The hated master or mistress loses the ability to command or instruct.

Matthew 6:24

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

Matthew 6:24

An entity deserving to be called masster has no rival. Humans are not equipped to be mastered by more than one entity. Yeshua addressed having two masters as impossible not as a problem anyone can resolve. This demonstrates the folly of sitting on any fence when matters of God’s kingdom are the concern.

Love needs no reason. One “like” or a thousand professions even for the ultimate reasons is not lovemaking.

For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

Matthew 5:46

“You shall love me no matter what your life looks like, no matter where life leads” is a hard call. It is so hard that everyone practically looks elsewhere for relief every day. If we could eat something different every day we would. That love seems to apply only to God, and that kind of love has not been accepted by any culture. Who else, holding the keys to life, death, liberty and bondage, deserves to be loved and adored?

Love’s unfinished business

There has to be a thing called love beyond being obedient like a servant or a child. Divine love is not a construct of the created world. It transcends creation. Natural and supernatural love part ways, and the recognition and acceptance of it shapes the concept of life unmistakably. The endurance of the Jewish people shows us that love is not the transactional affair our teachers have told us it is. Seeing that love is a matter that God reveals to individuals (Matthew 16:15-20) prevents lipservice and ritual from overrunning the relationship. Seeing it is unlikely and problematic if proof of love is loyalty and obedience. That picture is simply the cause of tension and anxiety: anxiety over whether to swerve God or to love one’s neighbour. Should there not be a love for God outside of hearing everything he demands? There has to be lovemaking after the covenant obedience is achieved.

God reveals vital matters to individuals not groups

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Matt. 16:15
Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Matt. 16:16
And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. Matt. 16:17
And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Matt. 16:18
I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Matt. 16:19
Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ. Matt. 16:20

Thankfully the covenant that is open to all humans demonstrates the greatest love known, and does not depend on human loyalty to the covenant’s stipulations. The covenant that brings humans into God’s family is entirely God’s doing. The covenant path is uncomplicated: God gives His Son, His Son dies, and His resurrected Son sends the Holy Spirit to seal everyone who believes the gospel.

Swimming in the shallow end

eejoseph

Is it possible that this intellectual enterprise – populated by many whose testimony concerning the Lord Yeshua I have personally witnessed, and by many who remain unknown to me – has the diagnostics of Isaiah 29? It is not strange to me that what is advertised as nourishment turns out to be a dangerous diet. It is not wierd that there are people wanting to put their deep end diving into matters of the mind on public view who are actually swimming in the shallow end of the pool of redemptive matters.

Since when is it not noble to be one-track? We are in good company when our eye is single. This could be the kind of evidence that convinces people that the final hours of grace are indeed unfolding. Truth is not anything that fits the scenario we desire. Paul could retreat to the crucified Yeshua and John could was consistent in preaching repentance and the imminent kingdom of God.

But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;

1Cor. 1:23 (KJV)

For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

1Cor. 2:2 (KJV)

Hate speech is fine: perhaps accepted as animated opinion, but criminal.

A Christian worldview and Judeo-Christian entities

There is no heroic alliance between the Messiah and any government. The god of this world is Satan. There is no heavenly government – no matter what their religious claim may be – therefore it is an abomination to slap a divine label on any government. The fact that there are Christians in the legislatures across the globe does not make the governments Christian. Jews and Christians recognize humanitarian values and on that basis are able to work together, but it is a either a coward or a novice who thinks that committed followers of Moses can be committed followers of Yeshua the Messiah. We say,  without reservation, that the buck stops with Yeshua on all matters. Judeo-worldview should be happening all over the globe since it had a massive headstart. Both testaments confirm that the disciples of Moses were present all over the known world from in Bible times, with some success. The Jewish people have preserved the Bible for the world, but that way of life is attractive to fewer and fewer people. A Christian (or Judeo-Christian) worldview is a view that comes from observing , for example, that legislation across the nations have elements from Mosaic Law. Theories about secular government are fair game and I know that the paths of Christ and Caesar are on a collision course.

Tell us you are not Jerusalem

Isaiah 28:14-15

14) Therefore, hear the word of the Lord, O scoffers, Who rule this people who are in Jerusalem, 15) Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death, And with Sheol we have made a pact. The overwhelming scourge will not reach us when it passes by, For we have made falsehood our refuge and we have concealed ourselves with deception.”

Matthew 6:24

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

Tell yourself that this cannot happen in the 20th century

Sleeping on the job

The Lord has poured over you a spirit of deep sleep, He has shut your eyes, the prophets; And He has covered your heads, the seers.

Isaiah 29:10

I am a witness to the parade of shallow diving

Here is why discussion and genuine education is in the dump. Does it surprise you that people love little milky soundbytes instead of hard food? Do you think you know what excellence looks like?

VISION! Do not talk about it, coreect your way

11) The entire vision will be to you like the words of a sealed book, which when they give it to the one who is literate, saying, “Please read this,” he will say, “I cannot, for it is sealed.” 12) Then the book will be given to the one who is illiterate, saying, “Please read this.” And he will say, “I cannot read.”

Isaiah 29:11-12

We have seen Isaiah 28 and 29 play out in New Testament times and I am not taken by surprise when the faith of Christ is ignored in personal responsibility and then shot like an arrow into the secular world to create the appearance of an exalted nation. The only secular government sanctioned by the Sacted Text is the Levitical model. Its best expression comes in the reign of Solomon. His unique gift was wisdom to govern. His success did not include compliance with the primary proposition in Mosaic instruction. He worshipped the gods of the neighbouring nations.

Does not our passion deserve the label lipservice?

Then the Lord said, “Because this people draw near with their words And honor Me with their lip service, But they remove their hearts far from Me, And their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote,

Isaiah 29:13

I know of no serious interpreter of the gospel who has proposed that any nation adopt the governance model of ancient Israel and you cannot find a coherent set of rules for government in the teaching of the apostles. I have not seen any nation, ancient or modern, that has adopted the content of the Old Testament (the Law, Prophets, and Writings).

Political inventions of any stripe by Christians is a dereliction of duty. The call to hallow the divine name, to depend on Him for daily sustenance, to forgive are not government business. We know what judges do to our loved ones in accordance with secular law. We know what officers of the law have been doing to innocent people.

Our dinner was once waste

Where does the idea of righteous nation come from? Can there be biblical government without a king, or more precisely, can there be biblical government without a priest-king? Let the arrival of the Christ-child inform your answer. We can also let the modern state of Israel and the host of nations giving up the idea of monarchy or those jurisdictions making the monarch ceremonial guide our feet into the contemporary political situations.

Due to what people were consuming for guidance God evaluated the table as ineffective.

Deadly Intoxication and Poor Nutrition

7) And these also reel with wine and stagger from strong drink: The priest and the prophet reel with strong drink, They are confused by wine, they stagger from strong drink; They reel while having visions, They totter when rendering judgment. 8) For all the tables are full of filthy vomit, without a single clean place.

Isaiah 28:7-8

The half-cocked leadership

14) Therefore, hear the word of the Lord, O scoffers, Who rule this people who are in Jerusalem, 15) Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death, And with Sheol we have made a pact. The overwhelming scourge will not reach us when it passes by, For we have made falsehood our refuge and we have concealed ourselves with deception.”

Isaiah 28:14-15

Excuse me for kissing the sky when it comes to taking refuge in the Rock of Ages. Christian people do not fake respect for men and when they say they know anything we can be sure it is not secondhand. News is news, truth is truth, but truth seekers have reliable means of getting to the core.

The believer is Jerusalem

It is in the believer that God has chosen to live. The privileges and obligations of the believer can only be exported to a corporate entity at the risk of wasting the pearls. If there were to be a corporate entity (secular by default) composed entirely of Christians it would suffer defeat because of discrimination and nepotism,  especially if it were Levitical. Alliances between the holy city and other similar entities formed the basis for a curse and for the indictment of harlotry. We do well to take cues from these early developments and warnings.

Cursed for relying on human help



Thus says the Lord, “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind And makes flesh his strength, And whose heart turns away from the Lord.

Jeremiah 17:5

An expectation of good government has to be rooted in the person and work of the Lord Yeshua and Daniel predicts a spectacular inauguration.

Raging prostitution, popular among the chosen



Their deeds will not allow them To return to their God. For a spirit of harlotry is within them, And they do not know the Lord.

Hosea 5:4

Christ’s government

Yeshua needs no help in setting up his government. There is no believer preparation for his reign except to simply live their lives as witnesses to the cross. For now, believers experience the kingdom of God in our participation in the daily work of the ministry. The kingdom comes every day as we submit to our pastors and every good thing.

Without (human) hands

34) You continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands, and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and crushed them. 35) Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were crushed all at the same time and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them was found. But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

Daniel 2:34-35

ALL THE NATIONS

For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed acts of immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality.”

Revelation of John 18:3

No Christian or other government in sight

And the nations were enraged, and Your wrath came, and the time came for the dead to be judged, and the time to reward Your bond-servants the prophets and the saints and those who fear Your name, the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth.”

Revelation of John 11:18

Let me be mad, a sold out fan, for holding up to the light of the gospel all the theories of government, progress, and excellence.