Life is not a straight road, neither is it a steep mountain climb, and it is not a descent into a valley. Hungry people have the power to feel that they have a destiny that includes food. For some there’s no food in the pipeline. There are people who believe that they have found a gemstone of a lifestyle in which none of life’s changes or challenges can appear.
If God is with a person all of the forces arrayed against that person will have to reckon with God. Increasingly we are hearing that God erases all problems and that the common problems do not occur in the lives of the chosen. The notion uproots the expectations of those who are in God and depend on God.
The Bible records the story of Jesus’s friends from Bethany village, whose brother had died and the sisters were convinced that if Jesus had been in Bethany the brother would not have died.
Martha then said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. (John 11:21, NASB)
So when Mary came to the place where Jesus was, she saw Him and fell at His feet, saying to Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” (John 11:32, NASB)
Consider the argument completely false, that anywhere Jesus is people don’t die. I’ll take it a little further to say that where Jesus is there is calm, joy, health and goodness. Or if we apply that rationale to God then we have to go back to Eden and see that Adam and Eve died with God watching. Distance is not an issue in the application of God’s power. He sees everything and is never incapable.
Our lives are not problem free or pain free because God is with us. That has never been true of any of the heroes whose experience comes to us in the Bible. Sometimes we operate in a fog, not knowing ourselves or our companions. The God-with-us is not a supernatural handyman nor is he a contractor specializing in all problems.
Thousands of people became Christians on the day of Pentecost and following that day the sizes of the congregations multiplied and people were added daily, and yet we only read of James and Paul being put to death by the government, so who else became true witnesses of Jesus, counting the cost and paying the price by daily cross-bearing? We should know where the biblical GPS locates Jesus and what are the diagnostic effects of his presence.
Criminal, crooked and perverse powerbrokers keep trying to terrorize people into robots of a cultural revolution. The failure of Israel’s encounter with law and prophets has not impressed the fundamentalist and conservative fronts. Are not Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome in tatters after God gave them authority over large swathes of humanity? Legislation and enforcement work for God because he is pure and absolute order. Divine harmony and balance expose the needs of all creatures. Principles, character and natural law need neither writings nor proclamation. Gravity and reward are evident in the Messianic revelation, so let the followers of Moses and all the neo-Pharisees commit suicide with their ball and chain religions, and pretend that their life is anything more than a name.
“To the angel of the church in Sardis write: He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars, says this: ‘I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.
Covering their tracks
Today’s law-abiding citizen in North America and the Caribbean is a descendant of the first century Pharisee. A massive con is their primary occupation. They vainly hope that God is impressed with their rituals, festivals, long robes, wordy prayers, recital of supposed sacred texts, and well-rehearsed dramatics. According to Jeremiah:
They steal
They murder
They commit adultery
They swear falsely
They offer sacrifices to Baal
They walk after other gods
They go to their sacred gatherings
They say, ‘We are immune!’
“Law and order” is a catch phrase used by governments for signaling that enforcing laws and policies take precedence over the will of the people, and often in defiance of statistics and the felt needs of the population. They talk about reducing crime as they plot the demise of the poor. They plot cruelty to migrants and refugees in the name of security and self-defense. They strain out flies and swallow camels. They massacre the starving, render hundreds of thousands homeless and then complain that they are under attack. Gaza, a Philistine city and stronghold, has entered the consciousness of 21st century people as a place where Jewish criminality goes to die. What are the odds that Israeli politicians did not know that the Philistines captured and detained an Israelite hero until his death at his own hand?
Criminality and vice abound in church and state
Only the fascist and nationalist mentality in the Israeli leadership and settler community could have prevented Israel’s depravity because they are responsible. Invoking the holocaust is close to becoming like the boy who cried wolf once too often. There is no excuse for denying people inalienable rights, and calling oneself a democracy in a sea of authoritarianism delivers little credit when democracy is merely a tool to cling to Western support. Democracy in some countries is merely an attempt to bring everyone to the table, essentially to the voting booth. However, there is no sense of the distance needed to be separate from the despicable ideologies held by the disparate groups. If it is only by having all viewpoints and political stripes represented in leadership that there can be genuine democracy then we are affirmimg solidarity with the perennial villains and despots. When a society descends to a level where males can drag a female to the city square we can conclude that gross darkness has enveloped the people. Wickedness in high places is neither strange nor infrequent.
“Law and order” is the cry of bankrupt people, all of whom will admit that law in its iconic and Jewish expression did not stabilize any society on the planet. Those who use law as the paramount divine demand will soon commit themselves to ending free speech, defend at all costs the subjugation of women, girls and children, and among them will be the cream of the crop of Christians, Muslims, Jews, and the ungodly.
Demoniac homicidal genocidal maniacs
People like the criminal heads of Israel and the United States are the international poster boys for people whose overwhelming delusion is they have to kill innocent people they have labelled as evil. Law and order as public policy never made a sustained contribution to genuinely strong leadership anywhere on earth.
People are reversing the meaning of human, public, private, citizen, patriot, felon, and migrant, and they are comfortable inventing alternate truths such as Israel is a chaste virgin, and Black people in America are the beneficiaries of the transatlantic slave trade. Religious people are in the same boat: the experts, the mediocre and the extremists are getting ready to announce the equality of Jesus, Moses, Muhammad Ali, and whatsizname! Talk about scrambling up the downside.