liberty

Christians are not in the Zionist pocket

eejoseph, , , ,

Mr. Netanyahu and his armed comrades may never realize that having the United States in their pocket is not as easy as having evangelicals do tours in the Holy Land or having the United States president put out a blurb about Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, or naming a doomed accord with Arab states after the revered father of the Hebrew people.   The government of Israel does not even have the committed followers of Moses in their pocket and never will, because they are too proud of the remains of their failed Levitical system to see the truth written all over their Scriptures.  Even though many Christians are increasingly duped into syncretizing Messiah and Moses it is quite obvious, from the poster boys in the UK, the US and Canada, an evangelical in one’s pocket is not worth a half-penny.

When the past is whitewashed everything washes out

The sooner they realize that most Americans are neither evangelical nor Christian the sooner they can lock onto peaceful coexistence with all their neighbours.  Israel is an embarrassment, has been from the day the descendants of Abraham departed Egypt, and no amount of spin, hype or violent repression can keep the truth out of the spotlight. Both Israel and the United States are intent on denying the prostitute in their DNA.  Books are being banned in Florida, and the Republicans, with rare exceptions, the American equivalent Hezbollah, don’t know whether they are coming or going.  The legislative agenda comes straight out of the playbook of Ahab and Jezebel.  They simply do the most outrageous things that come to mind, and think that by shocking the population, they can become the new heroes in the second attempt at Revolution in North America.

Genuine revolution begins with a man named Yeshua

The evidence of the success of the United States and the United Kingdom, though short-circuited by greedy and tyrannical persons, is the number of people who flock to live in these two countries is due to a small but determined cadre of citizens who will never yield the flag of human liberty.   Freedom is not a tenet in Islamic states or in Israel.  Foreigners who work in those countries have tales of sheer misery and abuse.  There are even Christians who would rather prove that God wants people enslaved and subject to the whims of ancestral rulers.  Liberty is just a word to some people.  Ignoring the fact that his contemporaries were lying through their teeth, asserting that the Hebrew people had never been in bondage to anyone, the Lord Yeshua reminded them of the source of genuine liberty. Subjection to hundreds of ready-to-perish ordinances is not freedom.

36) So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. 37) I know that you are Abraham’s descendants; yet you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you. 38) I speak the things which I have seen with My Father; therefore you also do the things which you heard from your father.

John 8:36-38, NASB

Pilgrimages to sacred cities and sites are a cheap thrill.  Until the Zionist pocket is ready to admit that Zion is not Jerusalem and Zion is a cosmopolitan citadel of the great king, Davidide and divine, the pocket will be inadequate housing for anyone.

The Zionist nightmare exits

The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the other dwelling places of Jacob. (Psalms 87:2, NASB) Her registry includes the following nationalities, and despite all the huffing and puffing the Holy City’s residents cannot be exclusively Jewish.

  • Rahab
  • Babylon
  • Philistia
  • Tyre
  • Ethiopia

Freedom, sons, and slaves

eejoseph,

“Free for real” is a proposition that people complicate with common sense, traditions, and the rules and regulations they think are necessary under all circumstances.  The Son makes people free on the basis of his decree, confirming that freedom is not related to any constitution or body of laws.  Christ liberates people without reference to the law of God/Moses. The certainty of real freedom as proposed by the Lord Christ puts pretend and ritual freedom, the stuff of which levitical ministry was made of, in clear contrast.  This means that the recognition that “… through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses.” (Acts 13:39, NASB) may have emboldened early believers like James (our Lord’s brother) to try to bring circumcision and dietary restrictions.   The truly free person does not have to keep proving his liberty to anyone.  He is free because of Christ’s exclusive intervention.  The liberated simply decides to abide (meinete) in Christ’s words, and his freedom is assured.  Most people who have recognized their need for salvation will tell us that their satisfaction wasvinconsistent with chains of pride, playacting “family”,  and a meager awareness of service.

Tribal tensions

It is a sad state of affairs when the people who believe that Yeshua is God’s Son and Saviour of the world think that their badges and books, prophets and patriarchs, seers and scribes are some kind of super currency in God’s ledger.  The son and slave, and house reference in John 8 was Yeshua’s way of alerting his audience to the fatal disease of playing the tribe card.

God allowed both Sarah and Abraham to play their cards in the dust up over Ishmael and Isaac. She recommended that Abraham sleep with Hagar.  Then Abraham cooperated with Sarah’s expulsion of Hagar from the household.

“So Sarai said to Abram, “Now behold, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Please go in to my maid; perhaps I will obtain children through her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.”

Genesis 16:2, NASB

5) And Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done me be upon you. I gave my maid into your arms, but when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her sight. May the Lord judge between you and me.” 6)  But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your maid is in your power; do to her what is good in your sight.” So Sarai treated her harshly, and she fled from her presence.”

Genesis 16:5-6, NASB

Yahweh’s view of the family

18) And Abraham said to God, “Oh that Ishmael might live before You!” 19) But God said, “No, but Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. 20) “As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I will bless him, and will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall become the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation.” (Genesis 17:18-20, NASB)

Paul’s insight on the issue of son and slave is riveting. He flips the son/slave rhetoric between Sinai and Calvary, assigning Hagar’s slave experience to the Israelites and the Sinai covenant and he assigns the promise and the global agenda to Abraham’s descendants who follow Abraham’s example of believing God’s offer.

22) For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman. 23) But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and the son by the free woman through the promise. 24) This is allegorically speaking, for these women are two covenants: one proceeding from Mount Sinai bearing children who are to be slaves; she is Hagar.” (Galatians 4:22-24, NASB)

So now there are two great nations coming from Abraham’s immediate family.  Whence then the tension and the animosity between ishmaelites and Israelites? Should not there be a measure of respect and love?  I guess not before hearts can confess that all men are equal before God’s saving grace.  So what do we think and what do we do with this son-freedom?

Thinking and doing

Treating the action option first, we get ahead of the crowd with our appreciation of God as exclusive and inimitable Father.  Most people are comfortable saying that they have a God, a prophet,  a master, or some kind of caretaker, but not many are willing to say that God is their father or that they are God’s child.  There is  not much to think about when one considers how important sons are to their fathers, in the Bible and outside it.  Given the historic and documented fatherhood of good men and scoundrels we accept the proposition that God sees humans as potential children of his.

Skip past Abraham if you dare
Significant patriarchal example
Even people facing execution are called “son”
A soundrel calls the hated “son”
Jealousy should not prevent recognition of the family idea between God and Israel
No angel or official has the privilege of a son

The test to which we might want to subject those who call themselves sons of God should prioritize engagement in God’s business. Reading what precedes Luke 2:48 to see what being in the house and free can look like.

48) When they saw Him, they were astonished; and His mother said to Him, “Son, why have You treated us this way? Behold, Your father and I have been anxiously looking for You.” 49) And He said to them, “Why is it that you were looking for Me? Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house?” (Luke 2:48-49, NASB)

Loving freedom comes painfully slowly

eejoseph

At the end of Judah’s Independence Jeremiah preached a message of extreme urgency, offering the kingdom a chance to avert the dire consequences of death, destruction and exile. 

Talk about freedom is not cheap.  It is an insult to the God of Abraham.  He is a god who does not fabricate, abdicate, or refuse to accommodate. We know how long he had sheltered his people from disaster,  how many of his messengers had been assassinated, and how many times the people had demonstrated they meant business (by returning to covenant ways).  King Zedekiah however was not a guy prone to change or repent.

This is the word that came unto Jeremiah from the Lord, after that the king Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people which were at Jerusalem, to proclaim liberty unto them;

Jeremiah 34:8

They did, temporarily, showing that they truly did not treasure their liberation from Egypt. Even when the triumph of David’s Son had been clearly demonstrated, freedom was a thing for oneself, not everyone. People like Saul and James kept up the bogus freedom rhetoric. But thanks be to God that Messianic liberty is firmly entrenched in the heart – attitudes – of the followers of Christ. We want our peers to own and enjoy whatever God has given us.