The Disquieted Earth

Post 284

Desert: (dez’ert), noun [Old French., fr. Late Latin desertum, from Latin. desertus solitary, desert, past part. Old French deserere to desert, from de + serere to join together.] 1. A desert region; a region left unoccupied. 2. An arid region lacking moisture to support vegetation.
Synonym Desert, wilderness. A desert is not only relatively uninhabited, but commonly uninhabitable, through barrenness. A wilderness is an unrecliamed, but not necessarily irreclaimable, tract of land; it often suggests pathlessness.
- adjective 1. (pronounced de zurt) Archaic. Deserted; forsaken. 2. Of or pertaining to a desert; waste; barren; wild.
* * *

In the previous section; The Uncommon Christian Walk, we left the failed Hebrew people, led by Moses, to wander the desert until they all died off, which was prophesied to be 40 years.
But isn’t it curious that they never just picked a spot to settle and call home? Why not? What motivated them to keep wandering year after year? Clearly it was not a false hope that they would one-day return to cross the Jordan and claim their land… or was it?

As you wrestle with the perpetual vacillation between Law and Grace; first convinced that “this is the way” and then equally convinced; “No, that is the way,” How is it that the internal war never ends? I believe it is because of a foundational knowledge that you do not belong here in this desert!
To set up a home in the desert is to “put down roots” and choose to belong, it is to give up the hope, the dream, the promise. And although the people failed to achieve when their time came, there is the next generation that has not yet failed. There is still hope. This is the reason why their leader Moses would not allow them to settle in; the children were their future.

But jumping ahead a bit to understand a present condition: what was the first thing commanded when that next generation actually got across the river?

“And it came to pass, when all the kings (west of the Jordan) heard that the LORD had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children of Israel, until we were passed over, that their heart melted, neither was their spirit in them any more, because of the children of Israel.
At that time the LORD said unto Joshua,
Make thee sharp knives, and circumcise again the children of Israel the second time… and this is the cause why Joshua did circumcise: All the people that came out of Egypt, that were males, even all the men of war, died in the wilderness by the way, after they came out of Egypt. Now all the people that came out were circumcised: but all the people that were born in the wilderness by the way as they came forth out of Egypt, them they had not circumcised” Joshua 5:1-5.

So here is the problem:
How did these uncircumcised Hebrews get across the Jordan in disobedience?
Remember the law:

“And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed. He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant” Genesis 17:12-14.

Yet there they stood in the Promised Land on the other side of the Jordan with the blessing of God…Uncircumcised!
* * *

Moses; The Unorthodox Jew:
Before we explore how such a thing is even possible, let’s first consider that Moses-- who led them for these 40 additional years-- right at the start seemed to immediately abandon this covenant that God gave them as a people! Moses; the Type of Christ! What is going on here?
We see the answer emerge way back at the beginning of the adventure when God called him back to finish the job that he started 40 years before they started out (Exodus 2:15+23-25+3:8):

“And Moses spake before the LORD (in reply), saying, Behold, the children of Israel have not hearkened unto me; how then shall Pharaoh hear me, who am of uncircumcised lips?” Exodus 6:12.

What did Moses, the Type of Christ, mean by declaring he had uncircumcised lips? Well, that answer seems to emerge by his previous statement about the Hebrews not hearkening (8085) to him as their savior.

Hearkened 8085 shama’; a primitive root; to hear intelligently (often with implication of attention, obedience, etc.; causatively, to tell, etc.):-- X attentively, call (gather) together, X carefully, X certainly, consent, consider, be content, declare, X diligently, discern, give ear, (cause to, let, make to) hear(-ken, tell), X indeed, listen, make (a) noise, (be) obedient, obey, perceive, (make a) proclaim(-ation), publish, regard, report, shew (forth), (make a) sound, X surely, tell, understand, whosoever [heareth], witness.

Why didn’t they understand that he was their savior? Because although he was born as one of them he did not present himself as one of them; in essence he was seen as the son of the persecutor! (Matthew 12:24). He was an enigma to them, what he had to say was a threat to their slave mind. They were captives under harsh oppression and he was actually answering their cry for God’s rescue, but Moses didn’t come to them in the way their “Jewish” mindframe was looking for; “That is not how God does things.”
Jesus was rejected by the “Hebrews” for the same reason (I have reversed these labels; Jews and Hebrews on purpose for aiding the cross link). He did not come to them with the speech of the Sanhedrin or the Pharisees; he came with uncircumcised lips to speak to them of their faith in a non-orthodox way!
I hope to later address who Pharaoh types, and this strange deep meaning as Moses was concerned that if God’s own people didn’t comprehend who he was and what he would do, how much less influence might he have with Pharaoh himself! (Exodus 6:29-30).

So now, after having received the confirmed command of the Abrahamic covenant by circumcision, on the very day they departed Egypt (Exodus 12:43-51, confirmed in Leviticus 12:3), Moses somehow never got around to circumcising any of the children born along the way after leaving Egypt:

“Now all the people that came out were circumcised: but all the people that were born in the wilderness by the way as they came forth out of Egypt, them they had not circumcised” Joshua 5:5.

Yet we never see God confront Moses about this. Not from the very first day of the Exodus until after Joshua takes them across the Jordan into the Promised Land! (*1)

So what was the point of the sign of the covenant in the first place?!
* * *

The How and Why:
Do you suppose that God determined to destroy every living thing on the Earth with a flood because they had ChristmasTrees in the temple, or ate pork, or honored the Sabbath on Sunday…or never got around to circumcising their sons?
Let’s do a refresher and see God’s declared reason:

“And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them (all flesh)…” Genesis 6:13.

The question of importance then becomes; “How did that violence come to happen?”

The seed of violence begins when we hold God’s declared rules as so insignificant that we push our own agendas and desires into them and thereby “adjust” them to better suit our own ideas while thinking we are still obedient to God (Romans 1:18). The results are quasi-rules under Color Of Law (*2) that appear to be God’s but are not (II Corinthians 11:13), just like prophets that appear to speak for God but don’t, or Congressional laws that don’t conform to the U.S. Constitution. Then the next generation feels confused and restricted by those quasi-rules and so changes them too, long forgetting the meaning and importance of the original and actual Law of establishment that safeguarded against such things, and in so doing they think to improve the original by “fixing” the rules now in place that masquerade as honest representations of their failures (II Corinthians 11:14-15).
Eventually we are passing laws legalizing drugs that alter our personalities, as well as move us to murder our unborn children and feel no guilt whatsoever because it’s legal. So the next obvious step of progression is to legalize and start killing those not unborn. Ta-da! Violence-in-a-can!

So, First off: Why did Moses not circumcise the children as they were born on the way,
and secondly: Why did God not confront him about it?

We don’t find that answer in the Old Testament; we find it in Jesus Christ’s fulfillment of that Type. And by identifying it in Christ we can then go back and overlay in onto the Old Testament to see Grace was extended to them even before the New Testament.
The Children of those who refused to enter in, did not succeed because they “toed the line.” And just to make sure we really get that point, Moses did not circumcise a single child along the way. Circumcision of all things; This was the singular sign of covenant that made them God’s people!

So HOW is it possible that they found themselves standing on the other side of that river where their circumcised parents could not go?

There is only ONE possible answer; A circumcised heart:

“Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked” Deuteronomy 10:16, as a result of understanding 10:12-15 and 17-20;

“And now, Israel (People of God), what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the LORD, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?
Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the LORD’S thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is. Only the LORD had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day.

Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.

For the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward: He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God; him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name” Deuteronomy 10:12-20.

If the heart is circumcised unto God, then who needs a circumcision of the flesh to convince them they are the people of God by covenant? Do you understand what this means? God’s covenant is with the heart and not the flesh even though the command is “specifically” to the flesh. But if the heart is circumcised then what will the rest of the body do but what it loves, even though it is uncircumcised? Who needs the Law? Only those who’s hearts are not yet in love with God because of the uncircumcised foreskin of the heart. Was God mad at Moses for not circumcising the people? NO! Was he mad at the people for not being circumcised? NO!
And if the orthodox Jew cannot please God without the actual wearing of the phylacteries because the law “specifically commands it,” why then do they not go to the surgeon to have him cut off some of their heart too as it is also specifically commanded?

God’s full concern for the Jew in the desert, as well as in the Promised Land, is their heart exclusively toward God, and really God couldn’t care less about the circumcision of their flesh…at that point.
So why then did God command Joshua to circumcise them after they entered the Land? For the very reason that nothing of the actual flesh of the heart is actually circumcised. In affect, the circumcised flesh of the heart can “grow back” quite quickly with a forgetful change of mind:

“Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the LORD your God. Ye shall keep my Sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the LORD…

But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments; if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments but that ye break my covenant: I also will do this unto you;…(you really need to read it)...
If they (who are left of your children after I have destroyed you for turning away) shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespasses which they trespassed against me…if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity: then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land” Leviticus 26:1-42.

This is a pre-instruction of God for when they eventually get into their Promised Land as a repeating pattern. This is for AFTER they successfully cross the Jordan River. So does it apply to them on the way? Yes, but only as a secondary application regarding their heart.
By circumcising the flesh that does not grow back, God sees that as a permanent covenant of ownership like a marriage, but the Jew (and the Christian) sees it as a one-time “I did that” event, that because it cannot be rescinded they feel no further obligation to maintain.
The circumcision of the heart is not like that. It takes careful maintenance to keep current, much as the engaged girl not yet married is careful to maintain her desirability lest she loose what seems secure. But after marriage she lets herself go because she is now secure in “half ownership” of everything and cannot be so easily cast off. This is the same mindframe of Hezekiah in his “bonus life” (II Kings 20:11-19).
The wedding ring in this case is the Type of the physically binding circumcision, while the heart no longer in love with her husband is the real circumcised/uncircumcised part that matters to the marriage.
Somewhere between the happy wedding ring and the painful divorce there is quite a variable slide of “re-growth” while still married, until you find yourself suddenly on the street Divorced and Uncircumcised wondering; “How did that happen?”
* * *

First Quiet, then Disquieted, then Violent:
If the world ends in violence as described in Genesis 6:13 and Typed in Ezekiel 7:11-27, Habakkuk 1:6-10, 2:8, Zephaniah 1:9, etc., then we can understand that before global violence comes a disquieted Earth:

“For three things the earth is disquieted, and for four which it cannot bear:
1. For a servant when he reigneth;
2. and a fool when he is filled with meat;
3. For an odious woman when she is married;
4. and an handmaid that is heir to her mistress” Proverbs 30:21-23.

• The unfaithful servant who does not have the heart of a son, makes for a very obnoxious lord (Matthew 24:45-50, Mark 13:34, vs. Galatians 4:7).
• A fool has no restraint to his boisterous proclamations of confidence, when everything is going his way.
• I have just described the prophetic odious woman who makes her husband sorry he married her.
• And as was so strikingly made clear by Sarah’s handmaid with Abraham’s only child, the suffering of her inappropriate glorying cannot be endured (Genesis 16:4-6).

So speaking of Sarah’s handmade; the mother of the Arab nations through Ishmael (Genesis 17:20), Where do you suppose all the world’s wealth has gone? As the economy of the globe comes crashing down nation by nation, who do you suppose has all those global funds able to rescue the planet, (with stipulations of course). The world has been sending all our money to the oil rich nations of the Middle East for decades and the handmaid is about to become heir in place of the odious woman who has killed her only Son (Issac on the mountain as a sacrifice: Genesis 2:22).

But, before this unbearable disquieting occurs there must first be a quiet to disquiet.

“And they answered the angel of the LORD that stood among the myrtle trees, and said, We have walked to and fro through the earth, and, behold, all the earth sitteth still, and is at rest” Zechariah 1:11.

“Then the angel of the LORD answered and said, O LORD of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah…?” Zechariah 1:12a.

Yes, this is on the surface layer a prophesy regarding the 70 years in Babylonian captivity long ago, but on another more complete Hypercube layer, since WWII the earth has been reasonably at rest but though the nation of Israel has been reestablished in that time of rest, the cities of Judah along with Jerusalem have failed to experience it though they have long tried.

The disquieting is about the break out in the most unbearable “fourth” way.
* * *

High Places, “Degrees” of God, and an Unhappy Marriage:
The first three phases of disquiet have already long been growing and building up to the fourth. But how do you “grow” such a disfavor with God? Christians have long assumed, like the permanent circumcision or the legally binding wedding ring attaching all her husbands goods; that “we now got it” and it can’t be “Un-got.” But it wasn’t the circumcised people who crossed…though they didn’t end up in hell. Without the loving heart, the ring means little to God but a sorrowful burden. As long as you don’t care what God feels and are only in this for what you can get, then by all means; “you’re in”… but that doesn’t mean God cannot make you wish you weren’t!
It usually starts by letting you have what your self-centered heart wants, and goes worse from there.

The books of the Kings and the Chronicles are all very good reads that outline the condition of the Israeli nation based wholly on the relationship their kings had with God. Some kings were fully devoted to God and God blessed them, some were fully turned away from God and the consequences were severe, but between these two types there are far more kings that were neither fully devoted or fully adulterous, and the blessings and consequences were proportional.
Does that mean that you can be “mostly” a Christian or “hardly” a Christian? No. You either are or you aren’t; you can’t be mostly married. But what the narration of these books does show is a great variation in the conditions of the marriage and the extenuating consequences to far more than just the king Typed as the wife, by condition you can in fact be mostly or hardly married.
In this Typology the people of the nation are the children and the nation itself often depicted as the city Jerusalem is the family home and community, the temple is the Church and the surrounding nations are neighbors and business associates. All of them are greatly affected by the relationship between the husband (God) and the wife (the king). Each successive king represents the next generation daughters growing up and marrying, and what their mothers and societies passed down in raising them often compounded in their own marriage to God. Yet some broke out of the trend and took another course.

God provided the many kings, and the many various approaches, to give us a great menu to choose from; “How will your personal marriage to God go?” If you have ever wondered “what if?” you can actually know by finding it written in the history of these books; There are relationships that start off good and go bad, there are those that start off bad and turn good, there are those that start off neutral and go either way, etc., etc.
Because of our present day condition the ones I find very interesting are the bad relationships committed to becoming better. Among the many variations of these, there comes a point at which the little things that irritate in a good marriage can break the back of the proverbial camel in a bad one.

Something fascinatingly curious is how long God tolerates the High Places in spite of how often he condemns them through his prophets.
There are quite a few example marriages where the kings, that in every other way served God admirably, nonetheless failed to tear down the high places; Asa being one of the best that surely must have tried:

“Asa did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD, as did (King) David his (George Washington type fore-)father. And he took away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers made. And also Maachah his mother, even her he removed from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove; and Asa destroyed her idol, and burnt it by the brook Kidron. But the high places were not removed: nevertheless Asa’s heart was perfect with the LORD all his days” I Kings 15:11-14.

Many other pretty good kings also failed to remove the high places, and some even set them up, while still admirable in most every other way. And while each generation grades their king’s admirability based on other king’s conducts, God holds David; their first king, as the standard of comparison. So how did George Bush compare to Bill Clinton? Great! But how did he compare to George Washington? Pathetic! Are you seeing the idea Aim high; achieve high. Aim higher…
In sports we hold these kinds of goals as obvious; Track Record, State Record, Nation Record, World Record, but somehow we erase these kinds of goals in our personal lives when evaluating our success in relationships and personal moral conduct; There it becomes; “we’re only human.”

In many cases it is very hard to identify the reason why the high places were not removed by a good king, but in Asa’s case it seems obvious that he gave it an earnest try but the people would not allow it:

“And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the LORD their God, and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city” II Kings 17:9.

So if Asa removed from the land all that he did, what could a high place actually be that was so much a part of the people it couldn’t be also removed without a rebellion? I’m going to be clear; I don’t actually know. But it seems evident that they are in the same class as the groves and the altars:

“But the high places were not taken away: the people still sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places” II Kings 12:3.
“And he sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places, and on the hills, and under every green tree” II Kings 16:4.

Now if a king is going to be known for successfully removing the idols from the land, it would seem that he would also be able to remove altars upon which the people sacrificed, it just makes sense.
But when the people in mass get in their heads that something is not going to stop even if the government declares it unlawful, there is just nothing that the government can do to eradicate it, much like drugs and porn today. Every TV, every computer, every cell phone, is a potential alter where innocence is sacrificed secretly. I humbly propose that America’s High Places are our Televisions and Movies. And though the government might successfully remove Manger Scenes and even ChristmasTrees from public view by the demands of a few, once rooted, drugs and porn will not be stopped outside of a civil war…or a totalitarian dictatorship of blood, such as Islam. But TV? Don’t Even Ask! Asa was a totally committed king to God’s way, but he couldn’t uproot the TV.

A nation’s government is as dynamic as a family, and the complexities of actual power are many. Here in America (at least until Obama) the “family” selected the “mother” they wanted, and gave him the authority to represent them before God the Father as a whole.
Let me just say: “In order to conclude that Obama is the best guy to make that representation; That is one very dysfunctional family!”
* * *

I was born in the year 1963 when our national “family” formally chose to remove God from our institutions of education and governance. In the wake of that pivotal decision came the Congressionally charted dramatic increase in all things violent from that moment forward.
It has been 50 years. And now another landmark choice has been made by the “mother” that we have stood by even after he formally ejected Christ from our land with the public words;

“Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation...” - Obama.

And as a recently self-declared single parent family, we seem to be confident that we can overpower our dispossessed Father to get our way. The funny thing is that He will indeed let us have it:

“How long will thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? for the LORD hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man” Jeremiah 31:22.

You just better be sure that you really do want to make your home in the Desert as a whore rather than cross that Jordan River into the Kingdom of Heaven (see Zechariah 5:5-11).
But the actual wonderful part of this story is that you don’t get across the River by toeing the line! You get there by trusting God in the devotion of love with a circumcised heart. We call it Faith (Joshua 1:16-17).

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report…by faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh” Hebrews 11:1,4.

What does your faith do?
* * * * * * *

(*1) Did Moses Misunderstand?
In case you might think that Moses just didn’t comprehend the importance of circumcision for God’s people, The scriptures provide positive proof that he understood it quite personally before he got to Egypt: Exodus 4:24-26.

(*2) Color Of Law:
“The appearance or semblance, without substance, of legal right.
Misuse of power, possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only because wrong doer is clothed with authority of state, is action taken under “color of law.”
As used in Civil Rights Act means same thing as “state action”, and means pretense of law and includes actions of officers who undertake to perform their official duties.
Acts “under color of law” of a State include not only acts done by State officials within the bounds or limits of their lawful authority, but also acts done without and beyond the bounds of their lawful authority; provided that, in order for unlawful acts of an official to be done “under color of law”, the unlawful acts must be done while such official is purporting or pretending to act in the performance of his official duty; that is to say, the unlawful acts must consist in an abuse or misuse of power which is possessed by the official only because he is an official; and the unlawful acts must be of such a nature or character, and be committed under such circumstances, that they would not have occurred but for the fact that the person committing them was an official then and there exercising his official powers outside the bounds of lawful authority.” - Blacks Law 5th addition p. 241.
*

Chicken Whaling

Post 283

Perhaps the #1 response I get from readers of The Uncommon Christian Walk is that I didn’t resolve the question about the Saturday Sabbath for Christians.
How can I simply move forward from the last post, without further explanation, from the obviously “Are you kidding?” kind of statements that I proclaimed there? Do I really believe that America is now on Death Row because of the day of the week we choose to worship God, or the kind of meat we choose to eat, or the decorations we put up in our homes and churches? “I thought this blog was centered around the title “When Did Reason Die?” so what kind of “reason” is this legalistic religious garbage you are trying to sell?”

Here’s the thing: If it’s religious, then it is garbage. But I am not speaking religiously:
IS there REALLY a God who ACTUALLY made reality?
Did he REALLY write his instructions in what we now call the Bible?
Do you REALLY believe it?
I do.

“But how can these silly “disconnected religious practices of the Old Testament law” actually affect current reality in such a temporal way?”

Well, primarily because God does not figure them silly… or religious… or disconnected… or non-reality, and the connection between the spiritual and the temporal is not “second-hand” as we too often imagine (I Corinthians 1:27-29+2:12-14).
It’s not as if I just sprung this wild concept on you; we have been carefully and logically coming to this conclusion. But now, finally this is tangible; it’s not ethereal or vague or symbolic; this applies in a way that is actually real to you. This actually demands a change in your life. Real, Unpleasant, Actual, Change. We’re not talking about murderers or thieves or sodomites now; Now we are talking about you and your Christian condition of stiffnecked disobedience in grace. And that’s not fun anymore as you ask;
“Can I really be found guilty?”

Do I think America has fallen because of these simple and seemingly disconnected things? N-nn-nnno-o-o-Yes. These “things” are simply the outward “acts” of an inward perspective. It’s the perspective that has caused America’s demise; the acts are only the tangible evidences of the perspective. But because they are tangible then they are what is pointed at to declare; “GUILTY!” And though a nation pays the price for the acts of immorality by its heathen, it’s the people of God who hold the power of destruction or life for the nation through theirs.

The thing is; these three idols are merely the few that I specifically pointed out in this post; there are many others (Ezekiel 18:10-13 vs. 5-9 as one example, Psalm 15 as another). By the time God sets up to destroy a nation it’s not just about three things (Proverbs 30:15,18, Proverbs 30:29), but three things are all it takes to disquiet the earth:

“For three things the earth is disquieted, and for four which it cannot bear:”… Proverbs 30:21.

But by context we understand that this is meant conceptually and not specifically… though if we read the specifics listed in the passage we can glean some very important prophetic wisdom that turns conceptual lists quite specific. But for now let’s just move on.
Until now, in spite of my efforts to the contrary, for the most part my writing has been sometimes personally irritating but nonetheless generally interesting:

“…the children of thy people… speak one to another…saying, Come, I pray you, and hear what is the word that cometh forth from the LORD. And they…sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they shew much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness (1215). And lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not” Ezekiel 33:30-32.

Covetousness 1215 betsa’; from 1214; plunder; by extension, gain (usually unjust):-- covetousness, (dishonest) gain, lucre, profit.

That last Post’s “particular song” does not set well in the belly, but give it time, I know you will make it settle; Did you actually change your ways for Christmas? NOPE! So now how real is this historical Ezekiel prophesy to us today? As real as if it were written about you reading this. And that’s pretty real!

“Don’t be ridiculous!” you contend; “how can the ChristmasTree decoration I bought on the corner last week have anything to do with the collapse of the national economy?”

Have I not made that clear?
It shows that you don’t actually believe in God anymore (Jeremiah 2:11-13), but instead believe in a warm-and-fuzzy concept of God that fits your desires. And that green Pagan idol long traditionally in your home and now on the Church’s front stage is a very accurate description of how America changed her God by the “virtue” of tolerance to sin. And as Bill Gothard has said:

“Tolerance is the virtue of a man without conviction.”

America has made a premier virtue of tolerating virtually everything and everyone but God and the godly.

It may seem that I have been running long in expounding on this concept of Dirty Grace that was sufficiently covered in the posts of “The Uncommon Christian Walk”… and that is true.
But the reason why I continued to write even more detail expounding on the sin of Simon found in the first chapter of that book (post 227 “On Tongues”), is because of the unfathomable hold that an addiction of sin has over a person once it’s iniquity is rooted in the heart;

“For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity” Acts 8:23.

My heart breaks for those caught in the addiction of iniquity for whatever reason, and though they try earnestly and meaningfully, seeming to make progress, they find themselves suddenly back in the confusion at the first available temptation (post 239 “Stuck at the Law”), they simply cannot let it go. The American Christian’s primary iniquity is Intellectual Faith that allows the secondary iniquity of Dirty Grace. (Post 279 Intellectual Faith http://when-did-reason-die.blogspot.com/2012/12/intellectual-faith.html).

So we talk, and you happily “get it,” and become excitedly committed to the strait path, and then suddenly you find yourself right back in what you left. So we talk some more, and you “get it” again, but somehow can’t keep it as your faith returns to intellectual information and concepts unapplied by your toxic Dirty Grace Heroin, yet still excitedly you are eager to teach others about what you know but don’t do. So like Caleb in the desert, we talk some more…
There is after all, a very hopeful concept in the scriptures that yet remains: It is that although America, as a Hypercube, has been judged and sentenced to Death-Row without the option of appeal or parole because of the Jerusalem-like murdering rejection of Christ Jesus (“…no longer a Christian nation” -Obama, Ezekiel 9:5), If we unroll the hypercube we see individuals that can still find last-second redemption through a “presidential pardon” if they would but repent of their self-love and turn to a new life of service to the kingdom of heaven (Ezekiel 9:4).

By the long-winded cry against Dirty Grace my compassion is great and longsuffering, because I have fought such impossible addictions myself (Post 240 “Rehab”). But even though Our Lord’s compassion and longsuffering is far greater than mine, his too has an end when the addicted gives up the fight and chooses the drug over a life of sobriety at exactly the wrong time (Post 238 “Nine Times Forgiven”:

“In thy filthiness is lewdness: because I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged, thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more, till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee.
I the LORD have spoken it: it shall come to pass, and I will do it; I will not go back, neither will I spare, neither will I repent; according to thy ways, and according to thy doings, shall they judge thee, saith the Lord GOD” Ezekiel 24:13-14.

Most of the addicted I know are simply guilty victims; Yes, they disobeyed God and used the “free sample” of the personal Knowledge of Good and Evil that the serpent offered them, but the addiction that came with it was not at all what they thought they were getting into. But regardless of the degree of understanding, the act has fundamentally changed their life; much as fallen man in general must now deal with the struggle to eradicate the addiction to sin. How much worse is the confusion of addiction when that “free sample” comes at the hand of a loved one such as Eve to her husband… or God forbid, a mother to a child?:

“"Mommy, I'm trying to rule my spirit and give my heart to Jesus, but all I can think about are monster trucks!" Said a four year old Wes, in tears and torment over a wrapped present under the tree.” - FB post 12/21/2012.

This is a problem of the Ezekiel 33:31 covetousness that will exist in this child’s life whether there is a ChristmasTree or not; it’s a human condition that must be dealt with, individual by individual. But what is this very solid Christian family doing compounding this problem by bringing the god of covetousness into their Christian home and willfully heaping this human problem on a four-year-old as if it’s a wonderful thing related to the celebration of Jesus’ birth? (Ezekiel 20:24-26);
“It’s traditional; we ALL do it.”

And somehow, that’s reason enough?
The real reason is because we, the parents, are intoxicated by the idol’s spirit of covetousness and want to share it with our children! This is why a broke drug addict offers some of his precious drug to a friend… But the reason why the serpent-Dealer offered it free to Eve is another reason all together; for him it’s about a future client!
Is he lying when he says; “You’re going to REALLY like this!”? No, but by the delightful presentation he neglects to tell you that even when you love it, it will remain your hated enemy that you both know wants to destroy you!

Today, at the end of America and the world under her care, this green Christmas idol is not tolerated; it’s loved, and loved with an intoxication that is unbreakable. Yesterday, when it first showed up in the Church foyer, it was loved by the few who put it there and tolerated by the others, but through a transformation from tolerance to love by the experience of familiarity, the church leaders and the people moved it from the foyer to the front stage (Ezekiel 44:6-8). This is precisely how Obama was elected back into office; no longer forced on us by unlawful ballot stuffing, now he was actually chosen by the majority votes of Americans who liked his candy of covetousness prettily wrapped as free gifts (Ezekiel 20:39).
Likewise the Antichrist will not force his way into the Holiest place; Christ’s Swine people will put him there with love, hope, and expectation that he will fundamentally change the faith for the better! (meaning according to their covetousness).
And frankly, this transformation of tolerance-to-love scenario played out even earlier when the tree first showed up in our Christian homes a few generations ago; a day when the Christian home was indeed as sanctified as the church and it was a shock when it first arrived there… but it was tolerated for the pleasantries it brought… until the family was no longer sanctified; we passed that buck on to the organized church so we could enjoy our non-Jesusy things of a delightful life at home and periodically make our way to the “more holy place” to perform our worship.
And now the green tree is there too.

This has happened without opposition because the thing is beautiful, harmless, defenseless, non-aggressive, and delightfully gift-giving until it is eagerly invited yearly like a rich uncle to a birthday party. Being invited it shows up and stands there silently spilling gifts until it is loved by a four-year-old who battles a family-encouraged-covetousness by celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. Talk about confusion in the Church!
Do you suppose after opening presents they might all head into the dining room for a wonderful Pork Roast dinner and bow their heads giving thanks to God for the gluttonous consumption of God’s symbols for apostasy?

Am I being legalistic? Am I abusing or misusing God’s Grace by the word of God? Does disobedience even matter to God now that Jesus his Son has been slain…by our sin? Is my song irritating? Are you starting to hate me for bringing this truth up and forcing you to face it? Or do you nod righteously in full agreement but do virtually nothing to actually change? Please open your heart to God and let him have whatever he wants. Is your eternal soul really worth the addiction to a ChristmasTree, or the day you go to church, or what you will have for supper?
By your uncontrollable clinging to a perverse rooted perspective of Grace in the face of my reasonable argument, you begin to understand how the idols of the Jews found their way into the temple (Ezekiel 8:7-12, 11:18-21, 23:37-39)…and how they have again: They loved them, they could not give them up because they brought delight. And it even broke their hearts because of the conflicted war they could not win in their soul. And they wept, but God would not hear them (Isaiah 59:2).

If you decide not to continue eating Pork it won’t change a thing but to deny you a tasty meal and win you condemnation by the burden it creates (Jeremiah 23:38-40). But if you understand why God made the commandment, then by voluntarily not eating Pork you have a loved tangible practice that reminds you that hypocrisy is so hated of God that Jesus Christ will vomit it from his mouth as a revolting pretense for food! (Revelation 3:15-16). Like Meth, you love it because you tried it, and now Christ’s bride is an addict just like God’s. But addictions can be broken!

Legalism is simply obeying the commands without a clue as to why (Ezekiel 18:31a). Obedience is obeying the commands with understanding and heart (Ezekiel 18:31b). But show me a verse in scriptural context that actually warns against the law and not simply the “Chicken Whaling” (*1) of the Law by the hypocrites. (Matthew 15:7-9, try Galatians chapters 3,4,5, or I Corinthians 10:23-24). Be careful that you do not reject what is pure because the hypocrite has made it seem perverse! (Post 237 “Laws of faith and liberty”).

“For not the hearers of the law are justified before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)” Romans 2:13-15.

Am I suggesting we should return to legalism? Of course not! We have an answer far greater than the law. But that answer is not anarchy! A legalist, though greatly troubled by his ignorance as a child under a schoolmaster, is not a Swine! And shockingly; in all reality, though unclean, a Muslim is not a Swine either: They ruminate on the Mosaic Law but don’t even pretend to be God’s people (though they are Typed as the unclean camel that puts on a good show of confusion. Leviticus 11:4 *2). The above passage actually implies that there is far more hope for a murdering Muslim than an American Christian Swine!

“And the disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel (a specific kind of unclean) to go through the eye of a needle (see Matthew 7:14), than for a rich man (Revelation 3:17) to enter into the kingdom of God.
And they were astonished out of measure, saying among themselves, Who then can be saved? And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible.
Then Peter began to say unto him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee” Mark 10:24-28.

Were the disciples physically rich or retaining the human dreams of prosperity? No; Peter declared this point for us (see Matthew 4:20,22). Then why were they so completely astonished beyond measure at what Jesus said? Because they understood what Jesus meant by the use of “camel” and “rich man.” And so I have stated. They were thinking; “If this is so; then Who was going to accept their message of salvation? It is virtually impossible for people to accept its difficulty, Jew/Christian or Gentile!”: The Jew because their riches are a gift from God, and the Gentile because they don’t even know this God who requires so much devotion… but the Muslim can go in with ready comprehension.
Jesus made very clear to them what it would take to be among those who enter the kingdom of God and his example was not received as vaguely symbolic. Even as his followers, who had given up everything to follow him; the disciples were suddenly shocked beyond expression at what Jesus was requiring; that which they themselves had willingly given up without previously knowing this truth; i.e. their very lives and dreams and ambitions, yet even they could not conceive that anyone but them would do such a radical thing! They were indeed astonished beyond measure that Jesus would require such exclusive faith! (Mark 10:19-23, Matthew 22:21-22).

…“From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.
Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?” John 6:66-67 (read from v.60, and don’t miss Peter’s profound answer in the continuing verses).
* * *

“Who then can be saved?” Matthew 19:25,
So what just happened to all that easy grace where all you have to do is say the magic words asking Jesus into your heart and then just like that you have a free confirmed ticket to heaven where what you do cannot affect it? It seems evident that this easy faith concept is not what Jesus had in mind:

“And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean” Ezekiel 44:23.
(Please review Post 031 http://when-did-reason-die.blogspot.com/2009/11/as-i-said-obama-shows-himself-to-be.html).

Who are these that teach such things? They are those “well balanced” (Ezekiel 44:20) that kept the charge of God’s sanctuary when His people went astray (Ezekiel 44:15).

In 1948 the Jews returned to their homeland-- the Holy Land of Israel-- but not understanding the grace that brought them home without a temple, they still have no idea how to comprehend the difference between the holy and the profane. And although America was gifted a similar glorious land under the protection of Jesus Christ’s grace without the law, they now have likewise forgotten the distinction between unclean and clean.

If there is no law (I have no law to obey but the obedience to God), then we are not talking about the law but the Romans 2:15 work of the law. So then being free from the law, how does the law actually apply? It applies by understanding the heart of our God through a loving knowledge of the law:

“What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet…Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good” Romans 7:7-12.

If I find a need on the Sabbath and fill it on the Sabbath because the need requires it on the Sabbath, my heart might condemn me for offending what I know to be God’s desire regarding the Sabbath, but my conscience, by understanding God’s love in practice, excuses me for filling the need, and God confirms his approval (I John 3:20) which I knew he would (v.21).
So what good is the law if I am not bound to the law? It shows me the heart desire of God; and Frankly, God hates Pork and ChristmasTrees and a reasonless Sunday Sabbath.
And though your heart does not condemn you because you have cast off the law as clothes on a nudist beach, your I Timothy 4:2 seared conscience should be pained because of your nudity, but it is not (Ezekiel 16:36-38, read all of chapter 16). Your spiritual public nudity is a great offense to your supremely moral husband and God, but it’s even more an offense that you don’t even see it as a problem because “as the greatly loved bride of Christ, you can do no wrong!” (I Corinthians 10:23, I John 3:9; seen through willing blinders to justify self-will and ignoring v.10).

I know you are better than that, and that’s why I expect better than that from you. I know the strong pull of your addictions that feel so good and comfortable that you can’t actually see yourself living without them, but that is a choice that I cannot make for you. And until you choose to see your addictions as the enemies of your God and soul, you will never be free from your iniquities though you will weep and cry about how much you wish you were.
Jesus came to buy you back from your addictions; to redeem you to a drug free life, to give you life from the death of your intoxications. But every time you “try” through rehab and fail, is another of the nine nails in your coffin that you yourself drive home. Stop playing games with God through the excuse of Dirty Grace. That is an illusion of the drug. There is no such thing.

Ask yourself why Jesus never condemned the Jews for the phylacteries; but only for their pride in displaying them (Matthew 23:5). What is a phylactery? (http://judaism.about.com/od/prayersworship/a/What-Are-Tefillin.htm). It is the law implemented in legalism. And this legalism did not save the Jews from the Holocaust. Why?

It’s because even while religiously wearing them as the law “obviously” commands, they completely forgot to wear on their hearts what was in them. Did God really intend the Jews to wear these silly boxes? I honestly don’t think so, but because the law “obviously” commanded it, Jesus did not condemn the “accurate” application even though it completely missed the point. Jesus condemned the pride that misapplied the misapplication of the law. Even the misapplication of the law can be useful to some as they earnestly seek to understand God; we call this legalism. Jesus declared this law was as being under a schoolmaster while we tried to comprehend what he was teaching:

“But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith” Galatians 3:23-24+.

But what happens when those who have graduated out from under the schoolmaster raise children who never went to school? The parents fail the children for a lack of “home schooling” and the children fail God in a faith they don’t understand.
Since that “school” in America was closed in 1963-64 by the removal of God from our institutions of education, we are that generation of children, now grown with children of our own. I am simply showing you the schoolbooks of an education long abandoned, in the hopes to teach you the difference between the holy and the profane, to help you discern between the unclean and the clean.
* * *

So, About the Sabbath:
I find it interesting that honoring the Sabbath Day is the only one of the Ten Commandments not specifically reconfirmed by Jesus. This is often the excuse of “Sunday worshipers” who explain how grace replaces the law (though contrary to Jesus’ own words in Matthew 5:17). So why did Jesus leave this “loop hole” by the omission? I believe it is explained in the departure of God from the godly man Hezekiah:

…“Howbeit in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent unto him to enquire of the wonder that was done in the land (by his obedient faithfulness to God), God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart” II Chronicles 32:31.

Of course Hezekiah failed that testing, as we know by the prophet Isaiah:

“Then said he (Isaiah), What have they seen in thine house? And Hezekiah answered, All that is in mine house have they seen: there is nothing among my treasures that I have not shewed them” Isaiah 39:4.

“Then said Isaiah to Hezekiah, Hear the word of the LORD of hosts: Behold the days come, that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried to Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the LORD. And thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon” Isaiah 39:5-7.

“Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, Good is the word of the LORD which thou hast spoken. He said moreover, For there shall be peace and truth in my days” Isaiah 39:8.

Don’t forget that this Hezekiah was one of the Godliest kings of all times! (II Kings 16:20…18:1-7) But that didn’t mean that everything went wonderfully (II Kings 18:13-37); This trouble was because of the wickedness in the land that Hezekiah worked hard to drive out...even from his own heart.
God performed a wonderful and miraculous work for Israel because of Hezekiah’s faith (II Kings 19:34-37) and therefore God expected Hezekiah to be strengthened in what he saw of God’s divine protection. And so he was. And in that strength, when it came time to die, Hezekiah was not yet ready to go, and so in his power with God, Hezekiah convinced God to let him live another fifteen years (II Kings 20:1-6).
This should already be a red flag to notice that something doesn’t “smell right” in his thinking, and by study we learn that Hezekiah had SO much experiential faith in God’s divine protection, and the specific promise of 15 years, that he was utterly careless as to what he showed the Babylonians. Can we blame him? God utterly blessed him with miracles and “can do no wrong” kind of leadership for his nation and then he even talked God into giving him 15 more years of life! This guy was on fire! What did he have to be afraid of?!

“The LORD is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?” Psalm 118:6.

But what happened?
Hezekiah had succumbed to the perverted Dirty Grace perspective from his personal Divine protection and promise. In essence, He had lived out his life carefully obedient to God and reaped the temporal and spiritual rewards, but now, having received a pre-allotted promised fifteen years of borrowed time, Hezekiah lived as if what he did couldn’t matter anymore; He had lived his appointed life, and lived it holy. God even promised him peace in his extended time. In fact his reply to Isaiah’s harsh judgment for his carelessness shows that his heart was completely self-absorbed in knowing that nothing could touch him for 15 years, when he would die anyway by divine schedule! What happened to the great king of God? What happened to the great national leader? What happened to the man who obeyed God to such a degree that he was more successful at restoring Judah than any previous king? Where did that man Go? He died on that sick bed when Hezekiah’s heart was lifted up (*3) and turned inward and self-centered in a “retirement” mentality. But that inward and selfish perspective was fueled by the Blessings of God himself. (Deuteronomy 8:7-14).

Jesus Christ confirmed nine of the Ten Commandments and then left one dangling like bait to see how we would respond without the declared confirmation. Stop Chicken Whaling the nine by abandoning the tenth in the scrutiny of legalism and start figuring out how you can fulfill God’s desire even without a law.

IF you are still struggling with these concepts of law and grace then I urge you to go back and re-read The Uncommon Christian Walk, because we are simply running out of time to continue dealing with this first grade stuff. Mystery Babylon is now rising and THAT will be a war of confusion to make this law and grace stuff look like child’s play!
* * * * * * *

(*1) Chicken Whaling:
This is a term that I have coined to describe a concept almost too big for a few simple words. In essence it is not only the wearing of phylacteries but the grand display of them. It is the use of very grand tools to pursue a prey wholly unworthy of the application. Using the magnificent Creation to prove Evolution is just such Chicken Whaling.
The tools of the trade applied are very grand tools as is a whaling ship with her great captain and crew, capable of navigating the great oceans to slay great beasts of the deep, but when the pursuit is not a whale but a... chicken, the whole thing becomes a tragic mockery; ship, tools, captain, crew, sea, and goal. The only thing that is thereby glorified is the chicken, never mind that chickens doesn’t even ply the great sea, the pursuit itself is all that is needed to make the chicken a terrifying legend as a Seamonster.
Applying the Grace of Christ to permissive sin is the greatest of all Chicken Whaling endeavors and Jesus describes this by hunting the elusive chicken while completely missing the whale:

“Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel” Matthew 23:24.

Again note the specific use of camel. Since we now recognize Muslims as Typed by the camel, we can glean a very current-events concept as the entire Middle East is driven by the bloodlust of a hatefilled faith consuming the world, but we have no problem accepting that with open arms while the tiny peaceful nation of Israel is the great focus of all the earth’s unrest. The story is epic, it’s huge, I can see it now; “Ahab and the great white... chicken.”

(*2) The Deceptive Camel Toes - (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloven_hoof):
Deuteronomy 14:7 makes clear that the camel does not possess a cloven hoof. But because it has a very unique foot with only two toes it is quite often assumed to be a hoof rather than a foot and therefore cloven. In a photo it becomes clear that these hairy toes have toenails at the end and so the entire toe is clearly not a hoof, and science will show that there is an actual foot behind those toes, unlike with a hoof. With the guttural slang associated with a camel’s foot it is quite difficult to come up with a photo of an actual camel’s foot (http://www.flickr.com/photos/alasam/2750075919/), please see this link for a safe example.

(*3) The Heart That Is Lifted Up:
Deuteronomy 8:14, II Kings 14:10, II Chronicles 17:5-6 (note the cause of why his heart was lifted up in the ways of the LORD!), II Chronicles 26:16 (similar), II Chronicles 32:25 (similar), Psalm 24:4, Ezekiel 28:2-6,17 (similar), Ezekiel 31:10 (similar), Daniel 5:20 (similar), Daniel 11:12.
Note that all these examples of scripture show that this lifted up heart of pride came at the blessing of God that somehow was corrupted to provide the feeling that they were powerful and invincible. This is the heart of the American Christian confidently saved by grace and no longer living in the fear of the LORD; “Let the world go to Hell, I’m not gonna see it!”
That attitude of irresponsibility is what is bringing Hell! The shadow of darkness cannot come if the sun does not go down... but it's not the darkness that drives away the sun. Think about it.

“Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid” Matthew 5:14.

Chicken Whaling is torching your own city because of the significant increase of light that it produces for the world of darkness!
*

The Sunday Rest, the Pork Roast Dinner, and the Christmas Tree

Post 282

This is the American Christmas Season and across our land Christians and Pagans both are busily shopping for gifts, preparing great family feasts, decorating their homes and businesses, taking their children to the Christmas/“holiday” program practices at school and church, and generally buzzing about in the exciting seasonal Christmas activities added onto their normal-life things. Christmas is a happy time of year when brotherly love for total strangers just wants to burst out from somewhere deep inside… but the overloaded schedule of Christmas-things-to-do seems to change the nature of that heart-felt joy by the time it actually exits the mouth.
How is it that we really-- and I mean really-- want to be happy and loving and joyful at this time of year but the person you find yourself being is not at all what you intended?

“Where did that sudden anger come from? Why did I snap at that person? How come I cannot seem to make this Christmas thing work the way I really feel that I want it to?”

This is not an unusual personal scenario, and the disparagement between these desires and conditions is growing yearly at an alarming rate; two years ago the feeling was just irritation, last year it was agitation, this year it is actual anger… a scary kind of anger that seems like “it’s someone else not me!” Why?
* * *

The Rat Race:
Have you ever had a pet mouse or gerbil or such? Even if you haven’t, everyone is familiar with the signature round-exercise-wheel found in most every cage. It’s rather interesting to see your mouse climb onto the wheel and spend several minutes running in place before tumbling to a stop and climbing off like a six-year-old from a merry-go-round.
Do you suppose the mouse has intelligently decided that his paunch is getting a bit flabby and he needs to exercise for a few minutes to stay in shape? Why does he run? If you bought him a little set of running clothes would he put those on before exercising? What’s actually going on in that little mouse head?

It’s my unscientific observation that leads me to believe that curiosity moved him to climb on, just as it led him to climb onto the top of the empty Clean-x box you put in there too.
And because of the nature of the wheel it began to rotate as he moved around looking at stuff. As his weight shifted, it rotated, and he found himself stepping forward to maintain balance, and so it rotated more, etc. The mechanics of animal nature combined with the rotating wheel just drew him into running an unplanned exercise; “Why not run?” Cooped up in that cage he perhaps found himself just feeling good about running, and when he got a bit tired he felt just as good to stop running… “But how do you just stop?”
Now of course I don’t speak gerbil, but watching a first-time runner it is almost audible to see him contemplate his situation as you observe his obvious desire to stop while he continues to run. Eventually he just gives up running and finds himself doing “a cat in the clothes dryer” for a few revolutions until it comes to a stop and he climbs off to go look at something else like the toilet-paper cardboard tube over there; “I wonder if it chews?”

The “rat race,” as it’s commonly called for a reason, is the same way. We are just naturally inclined to step forward in the effort to maintain our balance and the wheel of life just rotates as a natural reaction. So we step again, and so it rotates just fast enough to keep us a little behind. We don’t know why we find ourselves running, it just seems like we have no choice, and we kinda like the adventure of it anyway, so we keep running. But the more we run the faster it spins and the faster it spins the faster we run, more and more, faster and faster. But unlike the mouse, somehow we have allowed the rules of society to tell us how long we must run before climbing off; 65 years. Run, run, run, you’re not there yet. So we run.
Why?
Even the simple-minded mouse knows that a crashing tumble is undesirable.
* * *

The Sunday Rest:
The LORD’s Sabbath was God’s very kind intrusion into that regimented schedule of compelled running, where as long as the obedience to our God was premiere in our lives we would not... No; we could not, allow “someone’s” rules to keep us running non-stop; “God’s commandment says I really need a regular rest from the running, sorry.”

But somewhere along the way God’s “the Rest" seemed to get in the way of our socially compelled running goals and then instead of an anticipated break from the running we found it a hindrance;
“I really want to reach the recommended 3120 revolutions before I break” says the mouse.

To make a long story short, after fully corrupting the actual intent of God’s Rest (carefully laid out in the practical application instructions of Isaiah 58:13 for the express purpose found in Isaiah 58:14), we choose to alter the use of “the rest” to more suite our own goals;
“If the rest is for my best interest then why not “adjust” it to better serve my interests?”

Eventually Saturday just didn’t work out well as a Sabbath, for a number of practical reasons, so we switched our Sabbath to Sunday and chose to rest from our work by finding pleasure in non-paid labor and other activities that we deem rest;
“God’s happy because we get a day off of work, and we’re happy because we learned how to say ‘No’ to a day of employment, which allows us to do things we really want to do; It’s a win-win!”

But God doesn’t really see it like that. Let’s review the rules:

“If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:”… Isaiah 58:13.

“Are you kidding me?” You reply, “What are we supposed to do then? I’m just not wired to do nothing!”

It really does seem that with such tight restrictions on your Saturday activities there is just no way you can possibly call the Sabbath a delight without lying… I mean SATURDAY of all days! Why demand my Saturdays? UGH!

LOL, Who’s Saturdays?
Have you considered that without God’s law it would just be another of the 7 days a week that you would be required to labor at your job. In fact you have so corrupted God’s Sabbath that you honestly believe that it’s YOUR day!
“How unfair of God to demand the ONE day I have to myself! Let him have Sunday if he wants a day so badly but Saturdays are MINE!”

So before we get too worked up here, let’s step back a bit and reason this out.
God gave you six days of the week to do whatever you felt pressed to do with your life… WHATEVER you feel pressed to do. Do you want to ignore your family and spend all six days at the office? Go ahead (though I wouldn’t recommend it!) Do you want to be a bum and spend all six days with your family and friends? Go ahead (though I wouldn’t recommend that either). You see it really doesn’t matter what you do with your six days (though the consequences will be yours to collect or pay), God requires the seventh day to be His…and since God is the one who made up the week, he gets to determine which day is the Sabbath, and… uh… contrary to all the explanations, the Sabbath has always been Saturday not Sunday. I’m just sayin’. (Genesis 1:1-2:3, Exodus 16:26,29-30, 20:9-10, 20:11, 31:13-17, 35:2, etc. etc.).

The funny thing is that if we actually figured that Saturday was off-limits to our own ideas of how to spend it, that would restructure our minds to figure out how to better order the six days that do belong to us. Maybe I shouldn’t spend six days at the office because my family needs me to give them at least one day a week (kinda like I need God to give me his attention at least one day a week, wow, what a thought…). And in such a possible “restructure option” it may be that I am much more able to give my labor a full vigor in the five days left over to schedule for it.
You see, if the increase of mammon is not the driving force that runs your life, but instead God and family, then your job really just gets the leftovers after the important things are taken care of off the top. Funny how God “accidentally” Typed that into his requirement of paying tithe first and of our best (Leviticus 27:30+ Exodus 22:29, 23:19+ Malachi 1:8) leaving the remainder for us to use as we see fit.

Go back through this chapter of Isaiah and we see this “cause and affect” principle described several time by various promises in several lifestyle commands. God is not selfish or greedy or a tyrant that wants to ruin your Saturdays; God is the God of all wisdom and His Sabbath is indeed for your best interest to obey, if for no other reason than to teach you by experience how to easily stop and climb off the exercise wheel without a regular bruising. This regular practice can diminish our slavery to the wheel that cries; “Run, run, run or you’ll crash!”
And this simple practice of obedience to God without debate is why Satan, through your own corruption of God’s Sabbath-- albeit encouraged by society-- has made Saturday seem like the only day of the week that is yours, and God as a merciless tyrant wants to take it away!
But since you gave up all your six days to your god of increase, you now want to take from God the one day that was not yours to give up and use that for giving to your family. How easily we turn everything fully upside down; Saturday is the only day NOT yours!
Do you want a day of the week? Go get it back from your god of increase and then learn how to deal with life without so much increase… you and your family will be surprisingly far better off for it!

“Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it” Isaiah 58:14.

Do you even know what the heritage of Jacob is? No? Then this promised reward is hardly an incentive is it? And if you don’t know what you aint got, then who cares? “PARTY ON SATURDAY AT THE BEACH! We’ll rest up on Sunday and make us all happy, isn’t that what Jesus’ grace is for?”
* * *

The Pork Roast Dinner:
As a child, in our house we had Turkey for both Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. It was nothing to even contemplate otherwise; it was traditional; “it’s just what you have on those holidays.”
Later in my life I discovered that many Christians instead have a large Pork Roast on those holidays with the same perspective of traditionally “nothing to contemplate as an option.” Apparently it’s really just a matter of family traditions.
And since the grace of Christ has eliminated the law, allowing us to pick our own day of rest and how we choose to use it, then what you choose to eat on the holidays is really irrelevant to God too, what matters to him is your heart of worship as you eat it, right?
“Isn’t that the real meaning of the grace of Jesus Christ?”

But let’s contemplate this a little with an open heart and mind: Why pork?
“Well, because it’s cheep, and it REALLY tastes good!”
Fair enough.
But is that any kind of legitimate justification for a possible breach of the law? I mean my neighbor’s wife sure looks tasty and with her husband out of town she sure would come cheap (Proverbs 7:7-21).
So, since we are pretty sure that Christ’s grace is not intended to cast away that law, what makes us use the same ridiculous excuse for breaking a similar law? Give me another good reason; Why pork?
Nothin? Then please allow me to continue with a contemplation:

Of all the clean and unclean animals distinguished as such in the law (Leviticus 11:1-8), I don’t think that even a casual reader of the scriptures can claim that they don’t see swine as a uniquely unclean animal to God (Leviticus 11:7, Proverbs 11:22, Isaiah 66:3, Matthew 7:6, Luke 15:15, etc.). In fact with all the scriptures that specifically address swine, I have little qualms in declaring that God would rather see you cook up a nice horse rump or even your own pet schnauzer for a Christmas Dinner rather than a pork roast.
Am I being legalistic? Not if I say any other unclean animal would be better!
Have you actually studied even a little of what the scriptures have to say regarding God’s feelings toward pork? No? Then how can you be so quick to already know the right answer, and mine is not it? Give me an honest ear before your determined doctrine writes me off as a legalistic ignoramus of Christ’s grace. Contemplate my actual argument before you decide.

Has God offered a New Covenant salvation to the Gentiles? Sure (Isaiah 42:9,16, 43:18-19, Jeremiah 31:31-33, Hebrews 8:7-8,12-13=Hebrews 12:22-24, I John 2:8-10, Acts 13:47, 14:27, 15:3,7-9, 26:19-20, etc.). So does that mean that all Gentiles are equal in that offer? Hardly. It seems to me that God declared a special and eternal hatred toward one specific brand of Gentile:

“As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated” Romans 9:13 referencing Malachi 1:2-4.

“…the people against whom the LORD hath indignation for ever” Malachi 1:4b.

But in our very thin cosmetic veneer (*1) of Christ’s Grace, we just cast away the law and love everybody into the kingdom under Jesus’ blood, contrary to not only the whole witness of the scriptures but even many very specific passages and verses (Luke 18:17-23+ Romans 1:32, 2:2-3, II Peter 2:20, Ephesians 5:5-6, I John 2:4, 3:6,10,18, Matthew 5:17, etc., etc., etc., *2).

So tell me again, why of all flesh do so many Christians eat a Pork Roast on Christmas? There is only one reason, (it comes with many complexities); but simply put, it is that Satan giggles gleefully with pleasure because we are so gullible as to “choose” pork because it’s cheep and it tastes sooo good, and because conveniently Christs’ grace let’s us get away with it “Scott Free” (Acts 11:9).
Maybe that’s good enough…
Maybe.
But if we review the unclean animals on the sheet, which God now called clean (Acts 11:5-6), we really have no idea what specific animals were included that Peter saw! Are you so sure that pigs were among them? Hold that thought.
* * *

The ChristmasTree:
Drive through most any subdivision in America, walk through most any store, stop by most any Church, and you will find a beautifully decorated evergreen ChristmasTree displayed quite prominently in most every window; It’s Christmas!
Christmas and ChristmasTrees just go together like Easter and EasterEggs; you just can’t have the one without the other. And besides, it’s just a harmless tree; a decoration, it has no significant value one way or the other; it’s not like Santa Clause who competes with the Christ Child for the glory of the Holiday; it’s just a tree.
Perhaps.

I know by now you have probably heard all the contending origin-stories of the ChristmasTree and somewhere among them all might be an element of truth, but today none of that really matters because we don’t even know what that truth is let alone see the decorated tree in that perspective. Maybe the Babylonians did set it up as a god or something, but that has virtually no influence on me today, it’s just a pretty and aromatic decoration that significantly adds to the Christmas joy.
Right?
But just how significant: Somewhat? A little? Irreplaceable?
Try Christmas without it and you find that Christmas is just not Christmas. Break the Mary figurine in the Manger Scene on top the TV, and though a bit disappointing, Christmas goes off just fine without the display this year. And if the summer rats have made a nest in your box of Christmas-stockings, any old stand-in socks will perform so well that it almost adds to the novelty as you hang them over the hearth. But a happy family Christmas without a ChristmasTree? FORGET IT!
Why?
“Well, because that’s where we put all the presents.”
I see.
So Christmas is all about the presents?
“Well, not really… but ya, if I’m going to be honest, it is.”

Of course we all know that Jesus is the main theme of Christmas, but look around. Do you see Jesus anywhere as the actual main theme of your Christmas and not just a token? (*3)
“Well, Jesus is a concept; the spirit of “Jesusness” just fills the whole house, it’s not something you can display.”
I see.
But while we don’t actually see anything “Jesusy” in your family Christmas, Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without a displayed tree? Can’t you just have the spirit of a ChristmasTree without displaying one… like you do with Jesus?
Why does it so easily work the one way but so doesn’t work the other?

As a child, my Christian family celebrated Christmas with a central ChristmasTree like everyone else... sort of.
But even as a child I had such an education of faith from my Dad, that the ChristmasTree, though quite central to the joy of a child’s Christmas, never was mistaken for Christmas itself.
In time this “theoretical perspective” became noticeably fact as we saw the ChristmasTree make it’s first appearance in the foyer of our Church. I don’t remember how old I was but walking through the doors to see that tree standing there in the Church, the ChristmasTree instantly screamed; “I am a god.” Its grand “nothing to do with Christ” display, just didn’t belong in the Church.
That afternoon at home we talked about it and why it made me feel uncomfortable there, but not at home. It was not at all hard to see that the very prominent and singular purpose of a Church is to proclaim Jesus Christ the Son of God come to Earth for the Salvation of mankind. Christmas is like the quintessential focus of the church’s whole purpose. And while there were garlands at the ends of every pew, candles and green bows in every window, they all without explanation just pointed to the very special day that Jesus came, we call it Christmas.
But a ChristmasTree in the foyer? That just screamed Pagan; the tree without words, in that place, glorifies itself and all the presents of covetousness that it encompasses in its skirt of bows. By its presence alone, the special ever-“green tree” (I Kings 14:23) standing in the holy house, passively contests Jesus Christ as the center of Christmas, while at home, our daily lives are just by existence not so sanctified holy as is the Church, and the stark contest is not as easily noticed among the other “not so obviously Jesus related” stuff.
This concept of “holy contest” is confirmed when within a few years the tree suddenly appeared on the sanctuary platform no longer content to remain in the foyer. The shock was again as strong as when it first appeared in the church at all.
Yet the preacher still preached, the Christmas Pageant was still about the Christ Child, and life went on as always… but that ever-present tree, standing as a silent unmoving sentry that moved, now suddenly on the side of the front platform like a Weeping Angel when we blink, seemed to be the encroaching symbolic presence of Satan’s representative standing in the “Most Holy Place” (Exodus 26:34, Daniel 8:24-25, Matthew 24:15 = Mark 13:14).

“And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries” Daniel 11:21.

“But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,)…” Mark 13:14.

Now obviously I am not saying the ChristmasTree is the Antichrist… but as a probable Type we can really see how this guy creeps in to take such a powerful hold… on Christians! So maybe the ChristmasTree is an Antichrist type after all!
And if it is, what are we doing comfortably allowing its encroachment into the most holy place? Today, not many years later, the preaching has been watered down, the pageant has been replaced by “a play” at best, and life is just not the same… just not the same. But the tree is still there.
Hmmm.
* * *

What’s it all mean?
In a panic we can go all legalistic and burn our pickup trucks in case they might somehow represent the Philistine cart on which they transported the Ark of the Covenant, but that doesn’t get us any closer to understanding why God was angry with the Jews for using that technological example of modernized transportation (II Samuel 6:7).
Am I recommending that you rip out your ChristmasTree six days before Christmas? Am I suggesting that you toss your Pork Roast in the dumpster and go buy a turkey for Christmas dinner? Am I implying that you cancel all your scheduled Saturday activities and reschedule what you can for Sunday?
How do I simply answer that simply, besides a simple “Yes.”
The answer is not simple. And doing these three things will not cause God’s anger to asswage (*4). It’s the reason why these three things are even an un-discussible presence in your life that is the cause of God’s anger (Acts 8:22-23). If you don’t fix the reason, the solution is no solution at all… Except; According to I Samuel 15:22, to obey is better than sacrifice, and so by understanding, though terrifyingly sounding blasphemous, obedience is better than even Jesus’ sacrifice (*5). The problem is that you feel absolutely no compunction to obey. And you’re using Jesus’ sacrifice to justify it!

Now of course by these three existing breaches of the law alone, you are obviously not in obedience… so you need a sacrifice. Jesus’ sacrifice then is pretty important isn’t it?!
Jesus’ sacrifice cleans your slate of wrong as the price has been thereby paid; and that is some serious grace! But now that you’re clean what are you going to do? Continue in sin that grace may abound? (Romans 6:1).
Hmmm. (Romans 6:2).
* * *

Which is better: A metaphorical shower, or avoiding the need for a metaphorical shower?

“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. (Period. New Sentence.) And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” I John 2:1-2.

So does this mean that the whole world is run under the blood of Christ and we’re all good now?
Hardly.
John declares that his purpose for what he writes is so that we do not sin.
This is not hard to figure out; he makes this very clear. But if we begin to dissect his meaning through the microscope of the Dirty Grace doctrine that commands us to sin as sinners, then we must torment the data until it complies with our doctrine.
But lay your pre-determined doctrine lens aside for just a moment and read the very short book of I John with unbiased eyes, and tell me how it’s purpose can be anything other than a very clear warning NOT TO SIN.

The trouble is that your doctrine of Dirty Grace makes Jesus’ sacrifice a holy shrine as the end itself and not the means to an end. But is not our Lord’s sacrifice intended for the very purpose of making us clean? Is not our cleanliness the very goal? But your doctrine will not allow us to be clean! You actually wallow in the filth for the very purpose of glorifying Christ’s sacrifice that cleans you! What kind of pointless insanity is that?!
You bring the neighbors over and show them how it works; Dive off your back deck into the opened septic tank and then run into the bathroom and shower with a quick; "dear Jesus, please forgive me" and Vwa-La! “check this out, I’m all clean!” then run back out and dive in so you can show them again; “Look at that, I’m all clean again!” and you go back at it again, and again, and again.
How long will it be before your friends wander off to watch football, realizing that you just want to play in the septic tank?
Your shower has no purpose unless you get dirty and so to glorify the shower you can’t stop! So while you are out swimming in the septic tank renewing your filth, your Godless friends are not getting any filthier by watching the game. And frankly, you smell a whole lot worse than they do! (II Kings 21:9, Ezekiel 5:6).
The shower is not the point! It’s not the end goal. Sitting on the sofa watching the game without stinking is the goal of the shower!
And periodically if you have a need to work on the septic or even if you just happen to fall in, we have a shower that can clean us up, in fact it can clean up all your friends, even their less stinky BO.
Do you have someone sitting on the sofa that smells like he just climbed out the septic? Show him to the shower! But you know? You don’t have to personally demonstrate it’s cleaning-power every time; that’s why God gave us speech. You TELL him how the shower works and how it worked for you, You SHOW him that even though you were once in the septic tank yourself, you don’t stink anymore! (I Corinthians 6:11).

If the goal of salvation through Christ’s blood was to allow us to continue swimming in the tank, then he would have put the TV and sofa in there too. But God called us out of the septic (II Corinthians 6:17, John 13:9-10), he doesn’t want us in the septic, he wants us to be cleansed from the filth of the septic (I Corinthians 6:11). In fact, even with a regular shower, if you spend too much time swimming in the septic tank your gonna get a disease! (Romans 1:32+8:6,9) The shower is not designed to hose off a disease that you contracted because you went back into the tank! (Hebrews 10:26,29,38). Read I John and tell me I’m wrong!

“My little children, I write these things so that you do not sin… SO DON’T SIN!”

Does the shower work if you need it again? YOU BET IT DOES! (John 13:10, I John 2:1). How hard is this to figure out?
Are you going to go to hell if you eat a pork roast for Christmas dinner? That all depends on if you have contracted a septic disease yet! (Romans 2:12, 8:6, 10:2-4, James 1:20-22, Hebrews 12:15-17,10:26, etc., etc.), but the fact that you are so determined to continue with your traditions without a serious investigation to the validity of my cry should tell you that the disease is already quite likely taken hold:

“They have blown the trumpet, even to make all ready; but none goeth to the battle: for my wrath is upon all the multitude thereof” Ezekiel 7:14.

America could not be in the fallen state that it is if Christians were walking as Jesus commands! (II Chronicles 7:14). So although I cannot wish America a Merry Christmas this year because of her sins (II John 1:8-11), may Christ actually find his way paved into yours for the purpose of making it his:

“The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God” Isaiah 40:3.
* * * * * * *

(*1) Swine’s Flesh:
(Deuteronomy 14:7-8, Isaiah 65:3-5, 66:15-17 = Proverbs 11:21-23, Isaiah 66:3-4, Matthew 7:6, 8:30-33, Luke 15:14-16, etc.) I hope to later develop this line of thinking, but suffice it here to note that by the almost clean; cloven-hoof-but-not-cud-chewing-nature, Swine represent the Romans 1:18 men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. The Edomites of Esau (Hebrews 12:16-17) are the Type of these swine people who call themselves Jews but are not (Revelation 2:9, 3:9). Christians who continue in sin have the cloven hoof appearance of the clean animal but don’t bother to ruminate on God’s word (Psalm 119:11, Hebrews 5:14, Ezekiel 2:8b-3:3). The Swine is in the short-list category of unclean animals for this reason, but because he physically appears to be clean he is indeed the worst of the unclean (the “almost” of Hebrews 9:22), different from the others who internally chew the cud but are obviously not presenting themselves to be clean animals (Deuteronomy 14:6-8, John 5:39) though the camel puts on a good show.
By your Paganized abandonment to eat whatever you want in the freedom of grace, you have not bothered to consider the unchanging point that God intended by his law in the first place. On the contrary, while by ruminating on God’s word the righteous discovers that intent, and so finds himself free from the law and able to be inoffensive to God and man when invited to Christmas Dinner of Pork Roast or gratefully receiving a gift from under a tree (Mark 2:16, Acts 15:29+ I Corinthians 10:27-28). The point is that the righteous knows an unclean animal when he sees one, while you just think you do. In fact, he can close his eyes and smell one! Even with a cloven hoof it smells like septic.

(*2) Veneer: 1. A thin sheet of a material; specifically: a. A layer of valuable or beautiful material for overlaying an inferior one, especially such a thin leaf of wood to be glued to a cheaper wood.

(*3) Original “Where’s The Line to See Jesus?” by Becky Kelly (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qowxxEFuuPg) before the message was diminished by the glory of being commercialized (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OExXItDyWEY), (i.e. made merchandise).

(*4) Asswage 7918 shakak; a primitive root; to weave (i.e. lay) a trap; figuratively, (through the idea of secreting) to allay (passions; physically, abate a flood):-- appease, assuage, make to cease, pacify, set. (Genesis 8:1).

(*5) BLASPHEMY! I am in good company (Mark 14:63-64).
Yes, I suppose I have opened a door and then refused to walk through by explaining it at this time. But this is not a random and thoughtless statement and is quite pivotal to the whole argument between Clean and Dirty grace, which I have covered extensively. Those who cling so tightly to the shrine of the cross have made a religion of that cross no different than the brass serpent (Numbers 21:8) that King Hezekiah eventually brake in pieces to end the worship of it, calling it “a thing of brass”(II Kings 18:4). Neither of these “brass serpent” or “slain body” worshipers are different than those ignorant souls who so worship the scriptures as to actually miss the Christ that they reveal (John 5:39-40). Was it a chunk of brass in the desert that gave life to the bitten, was it a dead body on a tree? Was it ink in the pages of a book, or was it the resurrected living Word of God in Power? Salvation is simply the means to a greater purpose! Stop camping on salvation! (Hebrews 6:1-3).

So if I have ended my play in the septic tank years ago, why do I still feel the importance of a daily shower? Because there is a sin not unto death (I John 5:17). Even sitting on the sofa, a guy by nature just starts to smell bad and he needs a shower. And, having stepped straight from the shower, to ensure he is not offensive to anyone, he puts on the aftershave of righteousness (Romans 5:21).
Jesus’ footwashing of his disciples explains this difference of sins as the dirt of their daily travels through this earth gets on their feet. This is effectively (but not completely) my example of sitting on the sofa watching the game. And while an unattended BO can really start smelling rank, it is not quickly the same thing as a swim in the septic tank.

“Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth (5532) not (*5b) save to wash his feet, but is (nonetheless) clean every whit (3650): and ye are clean, but not all (of you are, there are swine among you)” John 13:10.

(*5b) No Needs:
“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want (2637)” Psalm 23:1.

Want 2637 chacer; a primitive root; to lack; by implication, to fail, want, lessen:-- be abated, bereave, decrease, (cause to) fail, (have) lack, make lower, want.

Needeth 5532 chreia; from the base of 5530 or 5534; employment, i.e. an affair; also (by implication) occasion, demand, requirement or destitution:-- business, lack, necessary (-ity), need (-ful), use, want.

Whit 3650 holos; a primary word; “whole” or “all”, i.e. complete (in extent, amount, time or degree), especially (neuter) as noun or adverb:-- all, altogether, every whit, + throughout, whole.
*

American Witchcraft

Post 281

Surprise of surprises; the boy that this week killed his mother, stole her guns, and went to an elementary school to kill 26 children and teachers in Newtown Connecticut before offing himself with a bullet to the head… was quietly reported to be on long-term, prescribed pharmaceutical medications.
Yet the instant outcry from government and do-wellers is to bring up the tormented topic of gun control as the always-ready immediate answer to violence.

It is a true marvel to me that we are so self-sophisticated that Uganda’s Kony style witchcraft is beneath us but we are utterly blind to our very successful replacement; Pharmaceuticals.
While Kony stole away the Ugandan’s children to “cleans” them with sacred water and “cure” them with incantations to make them killers, our American Demons are circumventing your Kony doctors as the pushers they once were, and the pharmaceutical manufacturers supported by our governments are now using our TV to push their witchcraft directly. Our own parents then run to their doctors as street-dealers from which to buy their latest fix, and then often drugged themselves they force it on their children who usually don’t want it. How completely backwards is that?!

Like the number of fatal vehicle accidents would plummet to almost none if you removed those related to alcohol, so would the accounts of mothers killing their children and children killing their parents, friends, and total strangers, if we removed those events that include people on pharmaceutical “medications.”
But the great champion illusion of these medications is “the great need”;

“My child is hyperactive, unruly, or A.D.D., I am under stress, I can’t sleep, I’m depressed…” the list of excuses is near unending and the promised fix is the designer drug, and hey; “the government carefully regulates the drug industry to make sure they don’t sell us anything dangerous.”

Really?~

As the many TV adds warn: “…Stop taking ____ if you have thoughts of suicide or feel nausea or…”
SAY WHAT?!
When did drug induced thoughts of suicide become a casual “side affect” like nausea!?
And if the government is so carefully regulating these manufacturers as to require the very long list of side affects that range from rash to death (another casual side affect), why don’t they require “strong thoughts of murder” in that list as well? Oh, I remember; it’s because you only get those feelings when experiencing withdrawals! A designer drug with a built in grave deterrent that ensures you never detox from it…; Brilliant!
* * *

The word pharmaceutical comes directly from the Greek word:
5331 pharmakeia; from 5332; medication (“pharmacy”), i.e. (by extension) magic (literal or figurative):-- sorcery, witchcraft.

5332 pharmakeus; from pharmakon (a drug, i.e. spell-giving potion); a druggist (“pharmacist”) or poisoner, i.e. (by extension) a magician:-- sorcerer.

And although that is itself quite shockingly revealing, the bible translators actually used the English word “witchcraft” for the rightfully direct Greek word meaning a pharmaceutical medication:

“Now the works of the flesh are manifest (obvious), which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft( 5331), hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings [as in “letting loose”: Partying], and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” Galatians 5:19-21.

Yet while Christians don’t "Party like animals," commit fornication or join seditions, many, MANY, Christians drug themselves and their own children, ensuring that they do not enter the kingdom of God!
Do you actually believe in God and his word, or is that really just a comfortable religion to you that doesn’t actually translate into reality? Am I striking too close to home now?

“But what about the very real condition that ‘needs’ the drug to manage it?”

Am I denying the condition exists? Not at all; rather I am confirming the actual condition. But because we are already so doped up on our spiritual drugs that we cannot “see straight” to make right decisions; we simply cannot recognize these very real conditions as spiritual problems manifesting in the temporal; We simply don’t actually believe the two realms are actually that connected, so having prayed, we leave God at church and then run to the approved witchdoctor for real help. Yet somehow it’s the backward black Ugandan savages that should be pitied as so simple of understanding that they are hardly human and deserving of human dignity, right?

“…behold, to obey is better than (Jesus’) sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft (7081), and stubbornness is as iniquity (205) and idolatry (8655). Behold thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee…” I Samuel 15:22-23.

Witchcraft 7081 qecem; [Hebrew] from 7080; a lot; also divination (including its fee), oracle:-- (reward of) divination, divine sentence, witchcraft.

Although the English translators used the same word “witchcraft” for both the Hebrew and the Greek words, they are not actually the same thing, though they result in the same condition; that is a sought out deviation from the way God intended but the fabricated illusion that this is what he wants. A false prophet is just such a pharmacist as is the whore prophetess that dispenses these “much-needed” medications;

“…there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcases; and there is none end of their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses: Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the wellfavored harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts” Nahum 3:3-4.

Medications for these presumed exclusively temporal conditions are not God’s answer. How many more murdered innocents are needed before we see this very plain truth? The guns are merely the amoral means often used, as is the car. God tells us the actual issue is a stubborn persistence in denying God his role in solving our problems that present as “conditions,” and this stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry; meaning we make gods of our other answers and those answers are created from a mind that thinks only to foolish and empty ends of further destruction (Romans 1:21-22).

Iniquity 205 ‘aven; from an unused root perhaps meaning properly, to pant (hence, to exert oneself, usually in vain; to come to naught); strictly nothingness; also trouble, vanity, wickedness; specifically an idol:-- affliction, evil, false, idol, iniquity, mischief, mourners…

Idolatry 8655 teraphiym; plural from 7495; a healer; Teraphim (singular or plural) a family idol:-- idols (-atry), images, teraphim.

Sure, we can blame the pharmaceutical companies for their greed, and the governments for playing along for the same (though more complex) reasons, but when it really comes down to it the parents that refuse to turn to God in personal obedience, willingly turn to the family idols of pharmaceutical witchcraft to answer their children’s problems when God doesn’t come through for their own problems.
But ignorance of God is no excuse, just as ignorance of the drug does not negate the affect; God holds the parents accountable first for their own sin and then for those that they force on their children… But you can sure see how the Godless leadership that they have elected in ignorance has steered them to their committed destruction, and the resulting destruction of the innocent “collateral damage” (Genesis 6:5).
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Am I suggesting that medicine is never rightly needed? No, in fact there will be a tree in the restored kingdom city of Jerusalem-- which through it flows a new river-- whose leaves will be used for medicinal purposes (Ezekiel 47:12). But what I am saying is that long-term medication, especially one that alters the nature of the individual, is a violation of God’s design and intent; it is an alternative to God himself.

In a similar way we see Americans flocking to churches, lighting candles and saying prayers for the recently lost: Candlelight vigil (http://abcnews.go.com/US/connecticut-shooting-computers-home-gunman/story?id=17989753).
But honestly, what is the actual point? Is it an earnest clothes-tearing agony of heart and spirit begging God to show us our sin that has allowed this to come upon our land? Or is it rather a knee-jerk emotional expression that simply says to the hurting; “It’s the only way I know how to show my sympathy”?
What is the actual point of the sudden shrine built from a heap of junk placed reverently and ceremoniously at the place of bloodshed, as if we are guiltless to a meaningless tragedy that just must be suffered. The makeshift shrine itself is actually our way of agreeing with the hurting, but in the agreement comes the feeling of innocence; “I am a victim too,” "We're all victims here." Such a functionally useless reaction is too reminiscent of the Jews who likewise quietly and mournfully endured the Holocaust as just something that must be suffered on the innocent.

Where is the expectation that God should have kept this from happening? WHERE IS THE BEGGING GOD TO SHOW US OUR GUILT that has obviously disallowed that protection He wanted to provide? Where is national Repentance in recognizing this as a national consequence?

"We don’t need to repent we just need to outlaw guns and make better drugs."
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