Some words should wake every sense. The command by Paul and Peter to the saints to respect the government goes all the way back to Yeshua. For Jews to recommend a position relative to those in authority has to be most thoughtful. Honouring the rulers of the day has always been problematic, unless one wants to prove that honouring the king with cooperation is either a blasphemous relationship between equals or an admission that the state can command where God in Christ is silent or demand that we reject what God has said, even temporarily.

Let us make sure we are not playing the political card. We are not servants of the state or the prime minister, and we, as churches, are not allowed to enter into partnership with the state. We are servants of God. We have official duties in the household or family of God. The way some people deny their own partiality to secular authority is childish and cowardly. It is not as if we do not have examples of Yeshua’s affirmation of secular power.

Not a word to the local king

When he was in custody of the state Yeshua responded to the questions posed by Roman governer, Pilate, but had nothing to say to Herod.

When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had long desired to see him, because he had heard about him, and he was hoping to see some sign done by him. Luke. 23:8, So he questioned him at some length, but he made no answer. Luke. 23:9,

Luke 23: Herod meets Yeshua

There will come a time when the wholeness of our relationship with the state will suffer because of those actions of the state which inevitably will turn to oppress believers in the Living God. The world, including its government, will hate Yeshua’s followers. In the meantime, we give Caesar what is his.

This time of denial ranks with the darkest hours of the western world, both ancient and modern.   Forgive me, please, for saying that the movements of today’s world-ruling powers are not more sinister than those of the third millennium. Hostilities between  Israel and Syria, and Israel and Judah and the Moabites dominated the news.  We are grateful to be able to see that humanity has changed little. We cannot miss the bad things like knees on the neck that the law – sacred or secular- does because they are the signature of the powerhouses including the white house.

Military operations against civilians

Now on the same occasion there were some present who reported to Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.

Luke 13:1

Next on the agenda is a violent campaign by bigots, maverick politicians and corrupt generals. Political power using the military against civilians is not new. They will soon thereafter plead for the cover of the rocks and mountains. How bad can if get?

A time of reckoning

15. Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; 16. and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb;

Revelation of John 6:15-16

Approving of the African slave trade because the Bible contains accounts of and regulation for the treatment of slaves is shortsighted and incoherent. After the example of Judah’s judgment for not releasing servants as prescribed (in the seventh and fiftieth years) it is clear that the United States legislators have condoned for hundreds of years a practice that could result in exile and more.

• Personal and voluntary slavery to God was a desirable profile
• Roman slaves had rights
• Israelite slaves disappeared every 50 years
• A servant was Abraham’s CEO before he had a son
• American, British, Belgian, French, Spanish and Portuguese slaves were treated as less than human beings

Deuteronomy 24:14

“You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your countrymen or one of your aliens who is in your land in your towns.

Deuteronomy 24:14

Israelite servants had rights and abuse was decisively chastised after many centuries by exile, terror, famine, destruction, and sword (Jeremiah 34:17-22)

The misery of American slavery continues disguised as rights without life

Fate has us dependent on the government – flesh – for our security. That is anathema.

Jeremiah 17:5

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.

Redeeming the Nazis and Taliban of America

Psalms 40:4

How blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust, And has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse into falsehood.

Forgetting that a civil war failed to bring a nation to its humanitarian ideal is deliberate amnesia. The captive, enslaved and unpaid workforce that made pride in prosperity possible gets no respect. Mankind has not often been lower or more corrupt than in this recent era. America’s flirting with Biblical paradigms resembles the Taliban and Nazism more than it does the commonwealth of Israel under prophet, priest or king.

How much of the ten commandments is in any modern constitution?

The marketplace of food and clothing is a massive theft operation. Gouging and wage abuse is phenomenal.

Caesar kills. GOD gives life and saves lives. Stop being a pied piper.

Trusting the superpower

Peace officer complicity in the oppression of Black people and the suppression of dissent for the full duration of independent America’s history is incontrovertible. If the laws of Moses were incapable of bringing rest to Israel’s weary souls what can any ill-conceived modern constitution hope to achieve? How much oppression does anyone want to approve?

Isaiah 31:1

Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help And rely on horses, And trust in chariots because they are many And in horsemen because they are very strong, But they do not look to the Holy One of Israel, nor seek the Lord!

The beast introduces a plain demand, not a disguised regime of new legal tender, mandatory vaccines or world government. Guess who has been rejecting United Nations resolutions, hides behind the veto power, and has had martial law against Black people disguised as law and order and dares to call it a package of Judeo-Christian principles?

Just imagine! The police want to investigate the police. How many times have we said no to that unfortunate practice? Enough. Now that the world – really more people than ever before – can see that the police, their commanders, their unions, and the elected officials that say that the safety of the nations depend on the police and military. That is certainly not a Christian or Jewish view. Let us not forget that a city’s defence is the protection of lives and the right to life. The video evidence over the last few decades is clear. The long history of the intimidation of Black people and the widespread lynching by White mobs, often with the assistance of “lawmen” is also incontrovertible. Neither the White House, the department of justice, nor the police agencies can be the agent of change. The current head of the DOJ is a man dedicated to covering up the misdeeds of the president. Those parties have no sudden conversion. There are other opinions and conclusions arising out of the current awareness of the effect of police brutality and the lack of consequence for bad behaviour. The opinion or conviction that is going to be shredded on sight is the one that says a thriving society needs laws. We say “Show us the nation that has built – not merely talked about – a refuge for the poor and oppressed while amassing great resources and influence”.

It makes little sense to believe that a nation is going to allow its young people to plug in the coordinates for the nation’s trip into its most recognizable destiny. We understand that America (or any other nation) does nor have a constitution that merely describes where the nation is. Invariably, a constitution sets out a road map towards ideals. That is a huge problem for the MAGA mantra. When was she great?

All of the known barriers erected by lawmakers, all the partners contracted to deny people their human rights, the huge industry of crime and punishment, can only be reversed by striking the laws that enable these inhumane practices to destroy life and hope. Do not believe the prophets of positivity. Of course the church will thrive. We are always improving what we do by what we discover in Scripture. Makeovers are the hardest things for humans. Get this dig from Jeremiah.

​Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil.

Jer. 13:23

In the land of milk and honey

It is baby food – like milk and honey – that reconditions the adult mind to distinguish good from evil. Peter urges believers in Christ to be eager to partake of the nourishing milk (1 Peter 2:2) that the word of contains. We have to say “contains” because some of our consumption includes hard or adult food (Hebrews 5:12).

He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good.

Isa. 7:15

Ready, set, pretend

A makeover scares the proud, those dug in to their traditions, and especially those who love to think of themselves as the head. The new dimensions of Yahweh’s plans were not going to get into bed with the levitical system or with the prophets. Messiah does not need a temple to deliver his grace to the world. The temple served to highlight wickedness in high places and to signal the end of the system that it served. “Ready, set” to many in John’s audience meant one revival or other of some Mosaic or patriarchal practice. They knew that the prophetic age had come crashing down when John said “Time’s up!” Those who knew what the Scriptures said about David’s throne or the priesthood and what they had observed for three years consistently was a far cry from temple practices. What kind of evidence can convince us today that a new civic order is on the horizon? In the face of ongoing brutality, magnified deception, and wickedness in the relevant high places

“Ready, Set, Start Over!” comes with a price. Drop the traditions.