Hypocrisy

New generation of hypocrites

eejoseph

Former governor George Bush was a thunderous old boy. Former governor Haley will be a thunderous old girl. Sharing the stage with John Hagee should send shivers up the spine of everyone who discerns what is good, does justice, loves kindness, and walks humbly with God. (Micah 6:8, NASB)

Invertebrate leadership

Where was the light of this new GOP star when 45 and the Congressional Republicans plotted and executed an insurrection? Where was Nikki Haley’s voice as the MAGA Republicans gut and demolish democracy did nothing to end – yes, end – the racist banking and real estate industries’ terrorism of Black and Brown people? Her record is a fireman’s record: reporting for duty at the station. Her association with John Hagee leads to the long overdue exposure of the popular support by Christians for the state of Israel as a flawed supremacist last hurrah. Some people have no spine and inserting the rebar of fine speeches of national pride will not prevail as the present truth. No-one gets away with nice talk and miracles to cover an abomination.

Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’

Matthew 7:22-23

Let all the nations currently crumbling under the rubble of their religious and cultural pride be a warning against the new brood of vipers.

The next generation of vipers

eejoseph

February 8, 2023 was a good day.  The wingless birds of prey in Canada and the United States are bouncing on the pogosticks of misinformation hoping that people will mistake their motions for flight.  Goodness gracious, what did you expect from a professional adult woman, who grew up in the Christian church, and spent the first years of the 45th president fabricating for him daily before the Press?  I did not waste my time listening to that chunk of coal fantasizing about being a diamond.  Whatever the Arkansas governor had to say as a response to President Biden’s State of the Union speech had to be hatched in the same web of lies that has 33% of the American population ensared.  Racist, nationalist, quasi-Christian morality gets no spotlight except in the lairs of Herodian foxes and  the white-washed tombs of homicidal rulers.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.”

Matthew 23:27

“Behold, your house is left to you desolate; and I say to you, you will not see Me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’”

Luke 13:35

The Pharisee and Sadducee will not go away

“But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” (Matthew 3:7, NASB)

We see, as clearly as John the Baptist, the poverty of mind that defined the zealots of his times   There was no cold war in the Judea of New Testament times.   Scribes,  Sadducees, elders and ruling priests conducted a hot war for the full three and a half years of Yeshua’s public life.  John sees the Pharisees as doing the same thing; pretending to be responding to God’s voice and sharing- relishing – their descent from Abraham (Matthew 3:7-9) but violating the law to maintain their influence over the people.  The zealots are still around, replicated all over the globe.

Time is not on the side of the viper generation

The people who are not nauseated by the GOP venom are today’s vipers.  The Arkansas governor is a representative of the generation that sees the mass murder of children in their classrooms as unresolvable, immigrants as criminals, women as property of men,  and law and order as the means to advance the monstrous Judeo-Christian priorities of the colonial empires the American Revolution was supposed to have rejected. If you love the truth, facts, shun all cults, and uphold the dignity of all human beings you can expect viper venom to be aimed at you. We will hear the Arkansas governor and her allies for the foreseeable future because the devil is exceedingly angry because his time is running out.

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.

A Common Regression in Holiness (part 2)

eejoseph

The voices calling for your holiness to be based on the same things as the prophets said are proof that attacks on the church are still happening, and the assaults come from entities that identify themselves as church. I love what Peter has to say about how we got it and how we certify it. Holiness is not stuff that puts the individual in better light with God than others. Make no excuses. Make no mistake! The tradition, no matter how grand, is inadequate.

I am confident that my holiness comes from Christ’s sacrifice. By that sacrifice alone – he by himself – removes my guilt, and he infuses life to the dead. That is primary holiness. It is a change of identity: new creation, redeemed and justified. It is the core of Christ’s mandate: to brings sons (children) to glory. The holiness we pursue is not identity. The holiness that is required – if we are expecting to see the Lord – is the cooperation we give to the avalanche of truth that the Holy Spirit makes available to us. We have infinitely many more days of journeying into the heart of God than those we spent coming to him. One has to have a low view of God to think that covering our bases with signs, symbols, festivals, prophecies and miracles can be the progress of Christian holiness.

18) Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; 19) But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: 20) Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,

1 Peter 1:18-20

Our redemption and consequent holiness stand out in stark contrast to silver and gold and any other corruptible thing in anyone’s tradition.

Simply Faith, Hope, and Love

When either our identity or activity is shaped by how we treat people we can be certain our holiness (purity) does not need accusations or

21. Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God. 22. Seeing all of you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto sincere love of the brethren, see that all of you love one another with a pure heart fervently:

1 Peter 1:21-22

Dis this and die

eejoseph

Having seen that loving people is God’s example and expectation how did those New Testament Pharisees dare to keep slapping loving God and circumcision on everything?

Sinai was not a love-in if we are measuring human love. They did not want to hear God’s words.

Commandments and obedience is what builds empires, cults, corrupt societies, and sin-laden peoples.

They did it with darkened minds, and all who try to cover their Christlessness with an obedience culture are swimming in deception.

All the earth; a very big deal

eejoseph

How excellent your name!!! The first and last expressions of Psalm 8 are identical. MAH ADDIR SHIMeKA is a striking call out and “all the earth” is an unstoppable attention-getter because it is the superlative expression of global harmony and community.

The narrative runs from the proposition to the punchline through one request and a few pitstops;

The storyline gets expanded only once from (1)” you remember humanity” (2) “you visit him” with YOU KEEP HIM LACKING JUST BELOW ANGELS

Narrative thread

  1. Request: Please put your glory above the heavens.
  2. Surely I keep looking at your heavens
  3. you remember humanity
  4. you visit him
  5. you chrown him
  6. you make him ruler

Wanna know who the actors are? By name? David and Yahweh.

This query – who are the actors? – highlights the peculiarity of usage of the divine name: God’s actual name. It is both mystery and enigma. Conscience demanded that Moses had a name to attach to his message to Pharaoh. The patriarchs, built altars and vocalized towards God using several distinct names.

  1. He was EL-something in patriarchal times; EL-OLAM, EL-BERIT, EL-ELYON etc.
  2. Adonay is not a name; it is “owner”, “lord”, a term one uses to show respect to one’s peers.
  3. Abigail’s servants used adoneynu of their boss Nabal (2 Sam. 25:14, 17).
  4. David is “our lord” (1Kgs. 1:11, 1Kgs. 1:43, 1Kgs. 1:47) spoken respectively by a Levite (priest’s son), Bathsheba, and David’s servants).
  5. “Our Lord” is also on the lips of the returned exiles (Neh. 8:10 , Neh. 10:29)

It is not merely curious that the sacred name YHWH is not spoken and that ADON takes its place. It is as if one rejects using one’s wife’s name, and insists of calling her “my wife”, “ISHTI” but the name, the same name, put into the temple, becomes a wall of injustice, a pretext for xenophobia. The excellence of the name is denied when women and Gentiles are treated as strangers to God’s glory and strangers to the glory assigned to all humans. Glory that is above the heavens has been dragged through earthly things: wood, precious metals, blood, leather, and fine cloths.

All the earth seems to be on the backburner for the religious classes who have their heads locked into place between law and prophet, between the secular and the profane. All the earth does not stand a chance in their books. They will have a mighty explanation for standing afar off when the call has been going out for God’s people to mingle with all the earth and spice things up with heaven’s light.