life

Give me a moon, a star, an idol

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Day moon

Sun and moon serve God

Light is introduced in the creation narrative mysteriously and without fanfare, but we also see light in that narrative as commonplace and serving as everyone’s clock. Day, month, year, seedtime and harvest (cold/hot and wet/dry) are functions of light sources, both the great and the lesser.

Light mysteriously from God’s command

Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.  God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. (Genesis 1:3-5, NASB)

Photo zoo, big light, little light

We live in a photo-op zoo, but death is also ionized as darkness.

Light separator

Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so.  God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth…

Genesis 1:14-17, NASB

From this narrative in Genesis we learn that light has a purpose, that being to separate, to create the ability to distinguish created elements. It does not seem that ELOHIM created light to banish or condemn the darkness. The deep was dark, not conducive to his plans for life. ELOHIM is light but he also created light, and that created light made it possible for distinctiveness to be made.

What time is it?

As surely as the information in Genesis 1 is unique and I inimitable so is the appearance of God in the flesh.  The appearance is one of a kind and timelocked. When we answer the question “What time is it?” we synchronize our clocks with day or night, or one of Yahweh’s annual festivals.  The architecture of human times has made it so that whether it is night or day light is available.

Lesser light and stellar apostles

“Lesser light” is moonlight, and if someone was mindful of the arrival of a light-bearing era the time is permanently day. We cannot imagine who needs moonlight in the daytime.

But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness;

from 1 Thessalonians 5

Sleepyhead and drunkard

Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness; so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober. For those who sleep do their sleeping at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night. But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him. (1 Thessalonians 5:1-10, NASB)

Give me the Sun of Righteousness

People are known to walk in the night and stumble, because light is either minimal or absent (see John 11:10). Indeed when the moon is under the feet of the woman who gives birth to the church (Revelation 12) it is certain that moonlight is the least of our concerns. Furthermore, the woman is clothed with the sun, she has stars (suns) forming her crown! Just think how inescapable is our obligation to avoid elevating moonlight to appear as the high and glorious riches of the gospel. The life shared by believers by means of faith is not an outcome of the creation of big or little light, but the will of the Light becoming our very clothing.

Contradicting the Lord

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Leader says “you can’t”, the people say “we will”

Joshua 24:19-21 lays out the hard facts about serving God.


19. Then Joshua said to the people, “You will not be able to serve the Lord, for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgression or your sins.

20. If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you after He has done good to you.”

21. The people said to Joshua, “No, but we will serve the Lord.”

Exodus 23:25 is a conditional statement about sustaining life and guaranteeing health.

But you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water; and I will remove sickness from your midst.

Ruth 1:1 establishes famine in the land
Now it came about in the days when the judges governed, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the land of Moab with his wife and his two sons.

Nehemiah 5:3 reports famine
There were others who said, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards and our houses that we might get grain because of the famine.”

They should all be alive today if they had served (had not forsaken) Yahweh.

Spiritual Being Spin

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You are dust.  Man enjoys being as long as his dust endures.  There is nothing that people do or plan on doing when the dust fails.  The devil has cleverly planted alternate truth alongside the lifesaving message.  If humans are spiritual beings they do not show it and most people do not know

1 Corinthians 15:49

Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly.

Even in the bosom of the Christ  – gospel received and Holy Spirit given – believers do not carry the image (likeness) to the heavenly progenitor.  This saying distinguishes Adam from the heavenly Father and so does the essential hope of resurrection and kingdom inheritance.

Deeper into the comparison of man born  Adam and man born of God we find that humans have no access to God’s kingdom in their original state.  God shut Adam off from of his home where he might have launched the unthinkable; an immortal being disfigured by lies (Gen. 3:1-6, 22-24).

1 Corinthians 15:50

Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

Humanity’s natural condition and nature needs a makeover.

Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed,

Paul to the Corinthian church 1:15:51

Some things a spiritual bring could never be

Spiritual humans are born twice.  Without the birth from above we face a very different reality from being like God in essence and character.  The product description defies the notion that we are spiritual beings or spirit beings.

  • Sold under sin
  • Born into failure
  • Shaped for hostility to God
  • Carnal and imprisoned by law and sin
  • Flesh and blood
  • Mortal

Back to dust

You turn man back into dust And say, “Return, O children of men.”

Psalm 90:3

We get a sense of how deeply deception has set in as an entire generation trashes what David and Solomon (!) has to say about death.  The standing up of the early lie – you shall not certainly not die – with the theory that the dead are active illustrates Satanic strategies as strong and bold as ever.



Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might; for there is no activity or planning or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol where you are going.

Ecclesiastes 9:10



10) Will You perform wonders for the dead? Will the departed spirits rise and praise You? Selah. 11.)Will Your lovingkindness be declared in the grave, Your faithfulness in Abaddon? 12) Will Your wonders be made known in the darkness? And Your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?

Psalms 88:10-12

The grave, from which the saved and lost will come (John 5:28-29) is silent and still.

The dead do not praise the Lord, Nor do any who go down into silence;

Psalms 115:17

Safe!

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Then he brought them outside and said, “Men, what must I do to be saved?”

Acts 16:30

Are Christians trafficking in guilt and illness? What raises such a question?  The lipservice given to the Sinai Covenant and the essential reality of falling short of God’s glory.   Since claiming sinless nature or conduct is false (1 John 1:7-10) and since no Christian is in perfect health we can say guilt over sin and illness are being used to oppress and harass the elect.

“Be saved” is passive action. Passive action puts the person receiving the action as the actor. I must be saved, but who saves me is the question that will sniff out the truffle. As long as people keep separating the promise that makes lost people sons of God from generosity no safe space exists. Nothing is guaranteed. There is no real gift.

Here are two pairs of passive action and active action.

  • He was saved by grace
  • Grace saved him
  • They are often kissed by their mother
  • Their mother kisses them often.

Simple vs Infinite


Who is doing the kissing? Who is doing the saving?

In Ephesians 2 :8 “saved” is also passive but it is definitely not an ordinary (finite) action word. It is the linked condition or identity to “you”. Sesosmenoi (safe or saved) is like a colour or some other quality: in this case persons are sesosmenoi.
We cannot twist “saved” into an active statement such as
• Grace saved you
• Grace saved you through faith

Paul is describing an outcome or status. You are safe by grace through faith.
Saved, though it is a based on a verb, lacks person. It has the characteristics of a verb except for person (actor)
• I
• You (one or more)
• He / she
• We
• They
It is a statement of fact, not action.
You are light.
You were blind
You are my friends

Need to come and let Christ save us

This is one of many cases where translations have failed to state what the text says. One is safe and cannot drag works into the picture, except perhaps if one wants to brag about one’s contribution to the redemption that is exclusively by Lamb’s blood.  Moreover, if one accepts that Yeshua’s gift of the Holy Spirit is a downpayment towards (or a guarantee of) resurrection one cannot harbour the thought that Yeshua’s eternal will can be thwarted by human will or action. He did not need our will to shed grace on us, and he certainly does not need it to keep us graced. We only needed to come to him.  We only needed to surrender our record and efforts to set ourselves right. Apparently most of us stil do.

Raining Down Vomit and Excreta at the Dinner Table

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Watching the circus across the United States I get a jolt of pride that my mother, Africa, is not an imperial serial rapist. My smile is not without a twinge of pity for the deceived millions, who have bought the idea that capitalism and democracy are the essential paths to greatness.

The GOP and its heartless talking heads are temporarily incapable of repenting of following a broken foundation. At least there is hope that a remnant -preferably young people – will call the the attempt to make a beast a person what it is: silly rebellion. The U.S. was born out of rebellion. Remember?

Maintaining
America’s
Greedy
Aspirations

Idiotic isn’t it? Any fool with a gun becomes a patriot, defending stolen land, and denying people the very cradle that bore the nation.
By the way, any nation built by bloody hands is, to speak kindly, an abomination.

People are gobbling up what ever is on the table: at church, work or school. The enduring foundations of family life and secular society did not begin in the middle ages or in the 19th century. If the leaders who got us into the Middle East mess or the abominable support for Nazism, violence against women, and misogyny or sold our future to China, had glanced at Abraham, father of the Jewish people, we would be light years ahead of the current devastation that makes even a civilized conversation implausible.

Let us watch the game until the next revolution comes around. It will not be on TV or YouTube.

Demons and Doctrines that Kill

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A rash of TV programmes with supernatural themes are grabbing attention. Both the sci-fi and religious worlds are pulling out all the stops to create narratives and discussions that they hope will convince the audience of life after death, long-standing and ongoing contact with extra-terrestrial beings.

I don’t have to wonder why. The practitioners of sorcery, necromancy, and witchcraft are often the religious. In the modern era psychics can be found in most neighbourhoods. The newspapers have several pages of spiritualist advertisements. However, Saul’s visit to the witch of Endor, people consulting the dead instead of the [L]iving in Isaiah’s days, and the insistence of people all over the globe from antiquity to the 21st century that the living can contact the dead, or be contacted by the dead is condemnable as the lie, that humans do not (cannot) die.
Greek mythology, Dante’s inferno and other extra-biblical sources of thanatology are utterly false and contradict the facts and explicit wisdom of the two Testaments of the Christian Bible. When the dead are not really dead and God is not unique and incomparable in the area of life and death we can be sure that the source of these sentiments are the same as that first lie. Demonic doctrines should not dominate Christian beliefs.  For an introduction to demonic influences in religious circles please read 1 Timothy 4:1-11

Posted from WordPress for BlackBerry by Dr. Elbert Joseph.