God Is, and You Aren't Him

Get over it. Seeking in any way to make your mark on the world, to make a name for yourself, is one of three fundamental failures of fallen human nature: the Boastful Pride of Life.

Very rich people like to flatter themselves that they are geniuses, and that their skill or luck at marketing music or computer code qualifies them as arbiters of taste. Successful business people typically are extremely clever, but they tend to be idiot savants, with sharp insight into some detail of industry that produces great wealth, but no concept whatever of issues outside their immediate field of expertise. Because the world conspires to flatter the wealthy, rich people are more prone to think of themselves as little gods than ordinary people, and far more susceptible to the cult of creativity in art.

Naturally, we remember the warning in James, particularly 2:1-7. Fawning over those with worldly importance is not merely idolatry, but a despicable attempt to splash oneself with the false glory of another. The difference between fame and infamy is merely a matter of taste, for seeking either is sin.

Even within the church, I have found the most obscure and ordinary servants of the Word have the most remarkable effect on those they serve. Some actively avoid the limelight, but most simply don't consider it either way. What they consider is their role in the world as revealed by the Holy Spirit living within. What He calls their highest purpose is sufficient glory for them. These are the real heroes of the faith, not those whose faces are splashed on TV screens and other media. The mere act of seeking publicity for yourself or your work is rooted in sin. Believing you are critical to the process, even if you gain the impression by the urgent insistence of others, is the beginning of foolishness. God can use rocks on the ground to glorify Himself.

To be an important person in this perverse scheme means to shake one's fist at God and define one's own little world, however dull, tawdry and pathetic it might be. To lack creativity is to despair. Hence the attraction of the myriad ideological movements in art that gives the despairing artists the illusion of creativity.... The modern cult of individual self-expression is a poor substitute for the religion it strove to replace, and the delusion of personal creativity an even worse substitute for redemption.

All our human striving is chasing after the wind, for when we are gone, who will remember? Nobody who matters, that's for sure. Nail it to the Cross. Turn your mind and will to the fire which burns in the your spirit. God needs none of us, but chooses to include us in the glory of His revelation for the incomprehensible reasoning of grace and the Kingdom. In my better moments, I know nothing I've written here or on my Bible Application site is either new or unique. If not me, it would have been someone else. Indeed, it's likely I simply haven't read the better explanations of others. Don't remember my name; remember what I teach, and the God to Whom it points.

Compliment: I'm a Hard-Head

Actually, the comment I heard about myself today went something like this: I tend to hold tenaciously to the ideas and ideals I espouse. That's a symptom of conviction, of course. That is, when an idea seizes you by the power of the Holy Spirit, you can't shake it.

While this can happen to some degree unconsciously, it works best when you actively seek the Holy Spirit's action to clarify things to you. A commitment to truth comes from Him. A willingness to be proven wrong is a mark of His work in you, because you'd rather throw away just about everything you thought you knew to nail down a better understanding and acquaintance with God.

The man who made the comment about my tenacity noted I didn't let any other purpose interfere with my efforts to understand the world. He was referring to my willingness to put up with harassment from powerful people because I was not for sale. When an unregenerate soul recognizes such things, it's a very big compliment.

Call It What It Is, AT&T: A Fraud (Revised)

Revision: I'm taking the unprecedented step of adding a major revision of this post at the top because the picture has changed a great deal over the day. I've left the original and updates intact below.

Enhanced Services Billing, Inc. (ESBI) was hammered by the FTC in 2001. In essence, this is a collection agency. While they may have legitimate customers and do the filthy work such companies typically do, they also have a very illegitimate side. They own one or more subsidiaries which do nothing more than create bogus charges against telephone bills, called "cramming."

I'm not really sure how they do it, but it appears they simply do nothing more than sift through various forms of credit bureau databases, collate it with names, phone accounts and email accounts. If they get a legitimate profile, they tag the account and submit a bill through the common carrier phone company, such as AT&T. By FTC rules, AT&T is required to accept this billing as genuine, and will add it to your phone statement.

Most customers don't notice because the charges are given various fraudulent names which may or may not have anything to do with the actual service billed. It's quite possible the service actually works, but that's not the point. Apparently not one of their customers has ever requested this service. Currently, it's a voicemail account with an 800 number. AT&T will reverse that charge one time, but requires you to contact ESBI directly to get the service rescinded from your account.

If you call ESBI under any of their other names, they will say almost any lie necessary to prevent cutting off the service. A favorite is claiming it was an accident, that their number was off by one digit. Lately, they've gotten better at collating their data sources, so they don't use that excuse so much any more. They insisted we had signed up for it on a website. AT&T suggested it was via a popup on certain websites. I'm guessing the popup is connected to a cookie scan in your browser's cookie cache to find an email address. Once they can connect that to other data, they have their accurate profile to justify the bogus account creation. They also have been known to use spyware to sniff data from computers to create these profiles. At any rate, the data in the profile is sufficient to appear it had to be given voluntarily by the new "customer."

I've found three websites they might claim to use, each built on the same boilerplate of content, and two of them appear identical in styling. The service is called "Total Protection Plus" and "VoiceXpress." If you see them on your bill, fight immediately. If you do not take appropriate action, ESBI will take the charges as an account for collection, using the full weight of credit reporting and various state laws to ruin your credit.

We pestered AT&T until they helped us. I suspect they enjoy the fees ESBI kicks back to them. They told us to call ESBI. When we got hold of them, we argued and firmly ordered them to remove the service and remove the billing entry. AT&T promised to reverse the charge. I also filed a complaint with the FCC on their website.

Now, my original post...

---

Like most people, if I want to stay connected to the rest of the modern world, I'm forced to maintain a certain number of utility services. We have long experience with this stuff and have learned how to budget our income and expenses. Things are tight, but we generally get by without heroic juggling.

That is, until there's a mistake somewhere. Okay, not mistake -- fraud. In the old days it was slamming by phone companies, then bogus 900 calls, and who knows what else. Nowadays there's also criminal installations of spyware using the numerous vulnerabilities MS keeps building into Windows. When the two combine, you end up with all sorts of services you never asked for, and didn't want. This fraud is Total Protection Plus or Total Enhanced Services, something related to Verizon, as far as I can tell. They claim it's some sort of 800 number with voicemail or something equally bogus.

This happened to us. Details are a bit sketchy, but it seems someone has cracked my wife's email account and used it to sign us up for some silly enhanced service through AT&T, our current phone provider. Because AT&T has off-shored so many of their services, like everyone else, it's a complete case of one office having no knowledge of what another is doing. So calling them up and contesting a new added service means calling several different numbers and arguing with each of them.

There was a time when utilities companies were quite reasonable, but no longer. Nor are they interested in being reasonable, because that represents a revenue loss. This is something cooked up by Verizon and AT&T to steal. That is, they are doing nothing to stop this, when it is most certainly within their power. You would think they'd know to cut off any shady operations like that.

Updates as warranted.

Update: We did eventually persuade AT&T to do their jobs and help us with this. Frankly, I don't understand their reluctance, except as the typical dismissive attitude one gets from large corporations.

This TPP company has been doing this for a long time. I'm guessing they did it through cookies on my wife's computer from her Gmail account. They won't tell us how this happened, only that someone used that account to enroll us on a webform. The bogus service provider insists we responded to a confirmation email message, but that's a lie. They also claim to have gotten from the confirmation email certain personal details. It seems to me they are all too willing to keep the barriers way too low for getting charged for bogus services, and entirely too difficult about closing the service on demand. When we spoke to their representative on the phone, we got all sorts of run-around and tricks.

At any rate, I've reported it to the FCC via their webform. This nasty company needs to be shut down and everyone working there imprisoned.

Update 2: I don't have the expertise to chase all the various threads, but I find the owner of the websites associated with TPP is using no name, but a search of the primary domains (peak-10.com and dadata.net) return a ton of spam complaints. The name "Don Lundquist" shows up in all of these registrations. I'm going to assume this fellow is a major spammer. That figures, since all his operations use an address in Florida, the spammer capital of the US.

Oh, and I've found this outfit also goes by VoiceXpress and a few others. These and a dozen or more company and service names have been used as branch companies owned by a collection agency. If you don't get this resolved, they naturally report your bill to their parent company for collection. This fraud goes way back, and apparently no enforcement agency bothers to do anything about them. See this post on cramming, which goes back to 2005 at least.

Figuring a Figure

I'll be the last person to tell you it's necessary for you to be trim and svelte. I'm pretty comfortable on the heavy side myself. Pack it on, as long as you don't see a conflict between corpulence and your Christian calling. Nothing in Scripture demands a particular effort, though many have deduced and taught there was a "godly shape" and a "holy diet." Being under grace and not under Law, I find nothing about Kosher binding on my conscience. I will agree it reflects a fairly healthy diet, but I reject the notion bacon is sinful. The issue remains: Your body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit, and He's the only one allowed to comment.

Of course, we all know there is a liability for excess flesh. An obvious one is you can't serve in the US military with it. In my case, about the time I hit 260 lbs. (118kg), I noticed my blood pressure was too high. I didn't mind having trouble tying my shoes, and I didn't mind having trouble fitting clothing -- my God could handle that. Even the blood pressure wasn't a big deal, but it indicated to me God wasn't going to solve that problem. If I was going to offer Him long service, or at least vigorous service, I needed to fix that. I did the only thing I knew I could do; I prayed.

After nearly 15 years of serious knee trouble, and a hip problem which started a year ago, it was not in my power to solve this problem by changing my activity. Could I have done that, I would have a lot sooner, because I was still quite sad about never running again. At that point, I was in constant pain, and any activity made it worse. Also, I was in poor position to change my diet much, because at that time I lived in someone else's home, and there had to be some give and take. Of course, there was no funds for the likes of swimming for exercise, or hitting a gym for alternative workouts. No, I was up against a wall, and prayer was all I had left.

The Lord heard, and answered. There was a miracle healing, right in the middle of a move to new quarters. The knees and hip quit hurting so bad. The apartment sits right in the middle of a complex of fitness trails. I explored them all, took charge of my diet, and the lard began fading. That was mid-March. Today I hit 225 lbs. (102kg). I haven't checked my blood pressure lately, but I'm sure it's quite a bit lower. I have none of the associated symptoms of hypertension: headaches, eyes feeling pressured, tinnitus, etc. It did some other nice things. So far, my once active allergies are quite mild, if noticeable at all. Now my whole wardrobe fits loosely. I stopped snoring, sleep better, my energy level stays pretty high, and I generally am eager to exercise when I wake up at 4:30AM. I don't quite have washboard abdominal muscles yet, but it's getting closer.

My body tells me what to eat. My tongue loves meat, but my stomach complains if I get more than a couple of ounces at one meal. I can't get enough of the multi-grain stuff, love fruit more than ever, and nuts and legumes. I get sick if I consume anything with high fructose corn syrup, MSG, and just about anything we might call "junk food." I don't like doughnuts anymore! I take a bunch of vitamins supplements and herbs, and I'm quite the happy camper.

I can offer only one reason why I'm doing this: It's what God demands of me. Part of it I know quite consciously: If the situation in the US gets as bad as I expect anytime soon, I'll need to be ready to respond quickly. You can't plan for every contingency, but my military career taught me a smaller and lighter body could take a lot more abuse, such as lack of sleep, suddenly traveling long distances, doing without standard sanitary facilities, and just tolerating bad conditions. The healthier you are before it starts, the healthier you'll be when it gets better. Healthy may mean something else for you, so follow His hand in your own life.

Take the path which promotes your best service of the Kingdom.

Mammon, Anyone?

A major element of God's promise to Abraham was to give his descendants the land occupied by the Hittites and Canaanites at that time. The promise was passed to his natural heir, Isaac, who in turn passed it to Jacob, also known as Israel. None of them took possession of the Land, but in due time, Jehovah called Moses to lead the nation from their temporary home in Egypt. However, Moses sinned and had to pass the mantle to Joshua, who led the actual Conquest.

All along the way, they were warned not to emulate the nations they conquered. Yet, under Samuel's judgeship, they insisted on having a king. Their first was a mere warlord, but their second was a genuine king. It was the third man on the throne who became a full monarch -- Solomon. Under his reign, the Kingdom of Israel reached the zenith of power and wealth. That in itself was no problem, for it had been promised. Indeed, Solomon ruled a much bigger area than Abraham was promised. Yet, for all his legendary wisdom, Solomon was probably the biggest failure. His actions destroyed the nation forever. The rest of the story was a long downhill slide.

His first mistake was letting it go to his head, as exemplified by his dealings with the Queen of Sheba. We get a hint when we are told he received 666 talents of gold. Yeah, the number of the Beast. The comment stands out as peculiar in the records (1 Kings 10:14; 2 Chronicles 9:13). Throughout most of the OT, we see references to "about 600," but here it was specific. It coincides with the beginning of his fall. It's about this time Solomon begins learning about finance from Hiram of Tyre. For Tyre and Sidon, the secrets of finance and debt were a part of their pagan religious lore, and the demon behind their pagan idols repaid them richly. Solomon learned the practices, and began marrying pagan wives contrary to the Law, pampering their religious demands contrary to the Law, buying horses and chariots contrary to the Law, etc.

So now we have all these weird, dark mystical cults today which seek to claim a piece of Solomon's legacy: the Templars, the Freemasons, the Kabal, etc. Each carries it's own brand of gnostic claims to secret wisdom, supposedly hidden by Solomon and those associated with him. On top of this, we have a large body of mystical Jewish material which essentially says Solomon was the Messiah, and the Coming Messiah will be his equal. They refer to this One as the "Son of David" literally. If you had a chance to read the false Messianic Expectations of the Post-Exilic fame, you'd see more echoes of Solomon and his royal glory. That is, everything is described in terms which fit specifically his reign.

For those who expect a final Anti-Christ in connection to the Second Coming, look for someone advertised as possessing the wisdom of Solomon. Look for promises of the same peace, but mostly look for the promises of prosperity (and specifically promises to make the Jews world rulers). That's the key to everything we see here: the god Mammon. It was this worldly wealth and power the Jewish leaders of Jesus' day worshiped. It was the basis for their oppression of the Jewish peasants. Since the Pharisaic orthodoxy was that wealth was the primary mark of God's favor, poverty was the mark of God's disfavor (Mark 10:23-27). Controlling wealth was the primary mission in life for Meyer Amschel, the original Rothschild. It was the means for taking control of the English banks under Nathan Rothschild, and the reason for secret lobbying for the US to come under the Federal Reserve system.

I suspect the final attempt to enslave us all will begin with a global economic crash. It seems to me the easiest route, and the shortest, to forcing us all into compliance with police state controls. For those of us with little or nothing to lose, either because we don't have anything or because what we possess doesn't have us, the coming upheaval won't touch us. We'll be in a position to think clearly about God's calling on our lives in light of the dramatic changes.

Bits and Pieces

I wanted to cover more than one issue today, but none of them merit a full posting alone. I've decided to offer them as a short list.

1. A poll indicates some 18 percent of Christians actively watch R-rated movies. Well, this R rating is part of a system designed by the world, so it doesn't mean all that much to Christians. What bothers me is that so many Christians are watching movies in the first place. Giving your mind to be shaped by one of the most godless industries on the planet is downright foolish.



2. The United Church of Christ is trying to be more even-handed about Israelis and Palestinians. Nice idea, but look out for the Dispies to attack, along with the neocons. If we could but for a moment set aside in our minds the necessity of viewing the modern nation of Israel as essential to Christ's Return, we could look at all their brutality, trickery and deceit, their blatantly racist behavior, and all the other evil they do, and hold them accountable for their sins. But no; we're going to give them a few more billion in aid this next year. Oh, wait -- we do some of that stuff, too.



3. What does it say of a preacher when he is endorsed by Senator Obama? I hope I never have to contend with that.



4. I can't imagine how Cruise's membership in the Scientology cult has any bearing on his role in a film about Nazi Germany. I know my way around Germany, having learned some of their language and sojourned there twice. I have never had much appreciation for their government, but I can't with any certainty say it isn't what the people want.

The Dangers of Linear Thinking

I'm not sure what to make of Michael Crichton's speech on complexity. I won't boast I am somehow able to grasp all this complexity. On the other hand, I've long been skeptical of linear thinking. In my push to help the Church begin moving toward a more biblical Eastern view, I've done my best to expose the inherent flaws when linear thinking is applied in all those places it doesn't belong. That is the one part of Crichton's speech I get.

Most of what drives people today is linear thinking about complex issues. They don't mix too well. Surely our world will someday experience unforeseen catastrophes, but that's the whole point: they will be unforeseen. We aren't wise enough to second guess God.

The biggest problem I keep running into is getting people to realize where linear thinking doesn't fit. They keep sticking it on everything.

Hijacking or Trashing?

Mr. Obama says the Christian Right has hijacked the faith. I suppose so. If we are referring to a political voting block, characterized by noisy expressions of religious fervor, and predictably supporting the most hideous and oppressive police state behavior, I guess he's right. These people are the Party of Corporate Socialism.

However, the Christian Left has trashed the faith. They use the Word, but won't let the Word use them. It's all about post-Enlightenment rationalism dressed up in religious language. Meanwhile, it's just another form of moralistic elitism, in favor of making it look like democracy, but steering the masses from their ivory towers. Yes, it's the Party of Social Communism.

So, my friends, we have Socialist Party A and Socialist Party B. Actually, it's more like one team with two uniforms.

It's A-Parent

Parenting is notoriously difficult. We all seem to have some trouble doing it, but have no trouble recognizing when it fails. Or so we think.

First, let us establish clearly Western culture in general, and American culture specifically, militates against just about everything Scripture has to say about parenting. Even more to the point is the wide array of things Scriptures assumes about parenting, but doesn't directly say. Once again, we confront the largely Eastern assumptions of the Kingdom, which are foreign to our secularized worldly Western assumptions.

Children are placed under the authority of the parents who bear them. God says they are considered the greatest asset. At the same time, they are too valuable to pamper -- the usual paradox. Everyone knows pampered, soft living destroys character. Some things cannot be understood by hearing, but by first hand experience. At the same time, there is a wealth of wisdom which the mind can receive from a parent. No one expected the children to be carbon copies of their parents, but to take what they could and make their own peace with God.

The old adage, "spare the rod..." refers to the human developmental necessity of grasping the nature of authority. Exercised judiciously early, it's necessity wanes quickly, because the child ceases questioning parental authority. By the same token, the whole point is to give the child a solid grasp of role-based authority as a critical element in living under civilization. No one has to be slavish to authority, but accept the consequences, and take responsibility for hard choices. The world is fallen, and dodging legitimate suffering is the beginning of madness, and social breakdown.

While parents do owe something to their neighbors, this is under the assumption of clan living. Strangers have precious little say in anything. A community where all are strangers to each other is unconscionable in the Kingdom. Where blood ties are lacking, one is obliged to build covenants. Yet almost none of this impinges on the authority of parents over their own children. For the most part, parents misjudging things is expected. Should that misjudging include a child's death, all mourned. The community might shun the parents, but would be horrified at the idea of intruding in such a personal matter. However, if a foolish parent engages private discipline in a public place, they should expect some intrusion. In general, there were no known laws or customs permitting anyone to stop a parent from destroying their greatest legacy and treasure. This was a matter of sacred trust, and one did not presume to take the place of God in such things.

The greatest tragedy today is the same all the way back to ancient times: People did not submit to God. This is true in all of life, as surely as in parenting. Assuming our Western sensibilities reflect God's Word is a major error. Frankly, parenting successes today are often more by accident than by careful planning. The parts we plan too often reflect the wisdom of fallen mankind, leaving to chance too much we can't be bothered to consider. We allow the world to press its demands on us, never questioning who benefits from all these expert pronouncements. Even the experts are merely tools of nefarious plans, for many truly believe what they say. Need it be noted a degree signifies only conformance to some majority viewpoint of other self-appointed experts? Without Christ as their Lord, we cannot trust much of anything they say.

For example, Scripture never mentions adolescence, and makes no allowance for it. People transition from childhood to adulthood at different points in the different requirements of life. For war, it's men at age 20. For owning a business and taking part in public community affairs, it's 30. For women, they were usually married shortly after puberty, typically to men a decade or more older. Marriages were always arranged, and divorce was justly scandalous, because it would have to be adultery or something equally grievous. Simply having trouble getting along was assumed to reflect a lack of maturity in one or both. Obviously, some of this reflects the necessities of an agrarian society, but we cannot dismiss everything on those grounds. Since we haven't bothered to study it much, we cannot presume to "rightly divide" what should apply to us, and what should not.

Education or Training?

One of the greatest difficulties we have is getting a solid grip on the difference between God's expectations for His Elect, and for everyone else in the world. The latter are under Noah's Covenant, we under Christ's. To some degree, we take no personal interest in their political doings. That is, we obey the Higher Power Who made all things, including the Covenant of Noah, and ordains all earthly rulers under that rubric. We know a great deal of our Kingdom interests overlap those of the world, and we know the world will seldom compromise for long. That is, where our calling and command by the Holy Spirit differs from that of strictly Noahic concerns, we should expect trouble. Otherwise, Jesus would not have died on the Cross.

We do not hold the world to God's standards for us. We cannot, because our standards are holiness under the Holy Spirit, a change of motivation and will so fundamental, it brings dramatic new demands. They cannot love ultimate Truth because they cannot know it. At the same time, we have been granted through God's Word a wise understanding of their covenant. We are in a position to discern what it is they can do to make the world as tolerable as possible after the Fall.

Most Christians are unacquainted with this frame of reference, and reject it when they first hear it, for the most part. In time, the Holy Spirit brings them around. Much depends on their level of sensitivity to Him, and how much trash must be removed to see things clearly. Unlearning is very hard work.

This brings us to a salient point: human education. Most of the world has a rather false idea what this is for -- they insist it's all about preparation for the job market and economic productivity. Wrong. That's the way the world views it, and they are wrong, too. When we buy into it, we are twice as wrong. Human education is about intellectual development, to equip the human for independent thought and action. A primary element in maturity from the psychology point of view is taking responsibility for oneself. That is hardly accomplished if one is woefully ignorant and foolish.

Thus, human education is theoretically about equipping the mind to reason, evaluate, and decided. The foundation is communication, so verbal language with maximum vocabulary and grammar orthodoxy is critical. Following that, humans must learn to communicate non-verbally by reading and writing. This is best done by learners absorbing the best of literature, not the trash we see in most libraries and schools today. From this foundation we go on to establish a broad and detailed frame of reference by exposure to all manner of human knowledge: maths, sciences, history, etc. Doing this with a complete lack of love and artistry guarantees they will not learn, and will hate the whole experience. It creates a class of people who would rather not know, rather not decide, rather not grow up.

The evil elite actually strive to create such a society. We know it's evil, because it leads to slavery. It's not about preparing people to take their place under some plan devised by sinful humans, who cannot possibly see the vast harm they do. It's about making people as free as they can be without Christ. Then, when He calls, they are rather well equipped to move quickly into effective Kingdom service. We can see all too clearly, if we look with the eyes of the Holy Spirit.

Mere career preparation is training, something monkeys can get most of the time. Soon, it will be robots. In the Kingdom view of things, material prosperity is a mere circumstance, not a major concern. We who follow Christ want minds ready for Him when His Spirit moves. Squashing the intellectual life from their souls and turning them into trained monkeys, always easily bored, looking for the next new toy, aching to make enough money to buy all the junk no one needs -- all of that makes Satan so very happy, for it makes new Christians have to struggle so very hard and long to become mature servants of the Lord.

Church, it's time we recognized one of the greatest gifts we offer each other is a solid intellectual stimulation. Downplaying it, substituting shallow rote memorization, and manipulating via silly emotional come-ons are simply not what Christ had in mind when He spoke of His Bride. Sure, some people simply aren't equipped because of DNA. However, we have very little idea how few these are, because we do almost nothing to encourage them to rise. Sadly, much of what we embrace only makes it worse.

It's not snobby elitism to make Sunday School more intellectually stimulating, for we are to engage the whole of a man's soul.

Burning Up the Time with Debian

Danger: Geek talk ahead!

I've decided to switch to Debian Testing ("Lenny") by installing it to my other harddrive (80GB SATA). This allowed me to salvage all my personal files and settings by copying direct from one drive to another. Turns out I need the old Maxtor 40GB to replace one dying in another system.

At any rate, there was one hiccup: My attempt to install Lyx choked on a flawed package in the Tetex system, which Lyx uses for backend formatting and print execution. After reading the error messages, I copied missing files from my old Debian Etch installation and got it working.

At any rate, it appears I got things working normally, and we'll return to our regularly scheduled blogging tomorrow.

Closing the Circle

We return to where this series started: What is the biblical response to the police state? I would be the first to seek a peaceful response (1 Peter 4:11-16). Still, there are limits. In my previous post I indicated the one issue where compromise is not possible. God will hold you accountable for passively letting the State harm your children. This one is so obvious I felt it unnecessary to cite Scripture passages. Indeed, it's the same territory as abortion. To close this exploration, I wanted to address two final issues already introduced where resistance may be the Christian answer.

The first is torture. I've already laid the ground for holding all the world, including governments, accountable under the Noahic Code for dehumanizing people. The issue with the State is not mere rudeness, but driving someone across the line of sanity. It's one thing when soldiers suffer such emotional trauma on the battlefield they can no longer function normally. Training someone to break things and kill people usually results in their experiencing things for which normal humans have means to assimilate. Brave tales notwithstanding, I doubt war was ever noble and clean, but for centuries most men have found ways to continue living after the sheer terror. Theoretically, there remains at least a semblance of choice, a sense one can still seize the situation and take some meaningful action. In torture, the whole point is to remove all sense of hope. Christ on the Cross was unbroken to the last, yielding up His Spirit when He knew it was time. The rest of us are somewhere short of that.

A few rare individuals have the personal integrity to face anything man can devise, without Christ. Even many with Him would fail in torture. The substance of the Noahic Code calls for valuing human life, not destroying it. The State is fully authorized to bear the sword and take the life of those who threaten civilization. After that, it's likely they'll be turned over the Satan for their eternal punishment. Satan has no authority to raise Hell on earth, and all who aid him in creating that unspeakable dread and horror before the end of life have crossed the line. It is they, the torturers, who have become less than human, and are not fit for this world. No part of Scripture authorizes the State to torture for any cause; the same applies to brainwashing. Harsh labor, mundane misery, starvation even, are all acceptable; even beatings, when attached to a specific violation, are acceptable in the Bible. These are all matters of flesh. Violating the integrity of the soul is forbidden, for it belongs to God alone.

There is one matter of the flesh which bears an ancient prohibition: homosexual rape. Indeed, mere homosexuality is uniformly condemned, as is rape of any kind. However, homosexual rape is particularly odious, going all the way back at least to the time of Noah. Consider the meaning of the event in Genesis 9:18-23. This was no mere naughty peeking in Father Noah's tent; the Hebrew phrase "uncover nakedness" is a euphemism for sexual relations. Start with Leviticus 18:6 to see the context. Ham was not cursed simply because of something which happens in locker rooms and gym showers all over the world. He raped his father, taking advantage of Noah's incapacity. It is safe to assume that curse remains a part of the context of God's covenant with Noah.

As with modern law, enabling others to commit these two crimes carries the same liability before Jehovah. Regardless whether the State takes appropriate action, believers cannot tolerate them. Our choices may remain limited in differing circumstances. God alone can declare to you what your response will be. However, it is safe to say you are not required to submit to either of these. That is, even in persecution for your faith in Christ, if you suspect either of these await you, I am convinced resistance is an option. Property loss, pain and death, these are things we have been told to expect, to embrace as the legitimate suffering of this fallen world. However, these three things are special cases:

1. Children: These are not normally in a position to build the faith it takes to embrace suffering for Christ. Further, we have a general responsibility to protect the defenseless, which includes the old, disabled, etc.


2. Torture and brainwashing: Breaching the human ego boundaries by any means is never justified, regardless how noble the cause claimed for it. This authority is permitted to no human or government.


3. Homosexual rape: This touches the soul of a man's sense of being, and is itself a specific form of torture.

Please note I do not diminish the trauma women suffer when they are raped. However, very few women are equipped to put up the resistance men can offer. Violent and deadly force is hardly a sin in preventing any kind of rape. Indeed, for women and children, primary coverage on this comes from the the nearest male who is their spiritual covering, not to mention any responsible human capable of providing aid in an emergency. However, women of faith have a historical record of surviving this far better than men. Further, it seems Scripture treats it differently, and not merely for cultural reasons.

If a thug tried any of these, we would not hesitate to shoot. Should you face these from a fallen State government, no one can condemn your decision to resist with violence. The State must not seek to commit these against you by action, or force you into them by any measure of neglect. I don't see how any true believer can remain passive. As with all issues in the Kingdom, it helps to seek the Lord's face before you have to choose.

The Line Drawn in Blood

From our position standing on the Word, we recognize every cultural milieu contains sinful elements. Even when we recognize the authority of fallen humanity under the Covenant of Noah, we note civil law and social rituals generally fail to recognize the sovereignty of Jehovah. All human organizing runs quickly to stasis, for this allows the predictability essential for a human-based stability. In Christ, many of the details of interaction are far more fluid, subject to God's refinement as a living thing. We find true spirituality requires a flexibility not possible to those spiritually dead. Remembering we were once dead in our own sins, we develop a spiritual cynicism regarding our fallen world. The Lord cautions us never to forget what we were before His grace pulled us from the fire. We hold forth the same grace in responding to the spite of a world which cannot understand what we see with the eyes of the Holy Spirit.

In general, we prepare our hearts to absorb a certain amount of human cussedness. Love for the fallen, however, can sometimes hold them accountable. The difficulty is in realizing we cannot possibly hold them to the standards God applies to us. We can indeed legislate morality, because all law is morality applied to specific situations. We cannot legislate holiness, for that is purely a matter of the spirit. Because of our consuming orientation on operating from the Spirit, we are ill-equipped to judge things from a carnal level. Indeed, we hope to leave that far behind, nailed to the Cross. We are sheep, not goats. Jesus warned us to leave civil affairs in their hands. We live agape, which satisfies God's Law.

In living above mere human law, our commitment to Christ will unavoidably draw the ire of human governments. "If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before you" (John 15:18). The conflict is altogether natural and expected. As with the early disciples, we can rejoice in sharing His glory if we are abused for our faith. Losing our property to persecution is of no great significance, since this world's material goods are no more than tools in Kingdom service. Their loss simply signals He didn't need them any more, so prepare to serve without them. Indeed, we view death itself as a mere circumstance, one to be welcomed in His service.

When we become responsible for the lives of others, this is not so clear cut. Dying for His name means leaving them in His care. Should He grant an extension of this life, I remain concerned for their welfare, just as Jesus would do in my place. I find it hard to imagine a circumstance in which passively watching them be abused or hauled away to death for my faith -- or theirs -- would be consistent with my calling. All the more so when I have entered a marriage covenant, for that carries tremendous responsibilities. Children of such a covenant are covered the same, but a fraction below the level of care I expend for my wife. Should I be rendered powerless, I am free of guilt, if not sorrow. As long as any means remain to resist my family's harm, be it for the cause of faith, or simply an expression of general human malice, I am bound to oppose it.

That opposition to harm covers much lesser territory, too. Today I bear a load of regret for turning them over to the government for purposes of education. Both my children bear some noticeable loss from that choice, and I am guilty. Today, I loudly proclaim: "Render not your children unto Caesar!" It's spiritually no different from tossing them in the arms of Molech. While failure to make a fortune, so as to pamper them, brings me not a sliver of discontent, I shudder at the thought of raising spiritual barriers in their lives (Matthew 18:6).

In the days to come, Church, one of the greatest dangers I anticipate for us in dealing with the State would be child custody issues. In this one thing, even persecution of our faith cannot justify simply letting Child Welfare kidnap our progeny. Already, in many jurisdictions, valid expressions of faith find children taken away from the home in which God placed them. I cannot declare to you a command from God to fight with violence, but I can tell you God requires you to fight. The secular State taking custody of Christian children simply is not acceptable. After praying and pursuing Scripture and godly counsel to insure your fears are justified, should you in any degree believe this sort of confrontation is near, at the very least you should plan immediately how you will flee. All you possess in this world means nothing by comparison, so plan accordingly. Should you feel led, let no one condemn your preparations for violent resistance.

Further, I would contend we who are called to leadership hold a similar, if somewhat lesser, burden of care for all those we lead. Should the Lord draw to my care a number of people under a pastoral covenant, my responsibilities would parallel the care I owe God for my children. Depending on the nature of the situation, I would not hesitate to resist violently their abuse at the hands of sinners. It remains for each believer to search this question before the Father afresh these days. Night is coming.

Civility and Civilization

In the Fall, mankind lost the open path of communion with the Creator. We have sins which must be covered, symbolized by God's command we cover our naked flesh. That's because in losing communion with Him, we have no path to communion with others. In fallen humanity, there is an inherent distance, a barrier which must be overcome by degrees via trust building. In Christ, by the presence of the Holy Spirit, we regain some of the lost communion, but retain the command to cover ourselves because the flesh remains fallen. As the Elect, redeemed from the penalty of the Fall, we are half-way between two worlds. We are bound to this damned race of humanity because we have not yet shed the flesh, but our spirits are made alive in Christ. We long to be home in Heaven. Until then, we have a foot in both worlds, and must act accordingly. That means we do not live as the unregenerate, but must make our holy way among them.

Christians are bound to human laws via the Covenants. That is, the laws of human government are a direct result of a covenant God made with the whole human race.

[T]he Covenant of Noah [is] something widely recognized among Jewish scholars. It applies to all humanity, and particularly aimed at sinners. Taken from the Genesis 8-9, it cites God's promise to maintain a natural order, with predictable seasons. This is tied directly to the requirement to hold men accountable for murder. That symbolizes a much larger requirement to maintain a civil order. Civilization is defined as the set of habits required for large numbers of people to live in close proximity without killing each other. Allowing humans to become predators is unacceptable. No civil order, no natural order.

As already noted, Romans 13 describes the relationship between human law and God's Law:

After describing that system, starting in verse 8 Paul reminds his Roman brothers and sisters they don't belong to it. They are stuck in it, and must respond to it, but it doesn't own their souls. It can take their stuff, and even their lives, but those aren't that important to Christians compared to the treasures of the Kingdom. Indeed, by our focus on following and obeying Jesus, we are relieved of our responsibilities under the Covenant of Noah, as far as God is concerned. Indeed, even under the Law of Moses, it was a matter of dealing with the things of this world. However, we are under the Lord of all Creation (Matthew 28:18). His power is love, and "Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law." That "law" is a reference to both the Law of Moses and the Covenant of Noah.

With an eye on the Noahic Covenant, we note a subset of God's Law is civility, as a precursor to civilization. Civility can be defined in this setting: The habits of individuals which reduce the natural frictions of human social interaction. The natural frictions come from the Fall, which alienates all from God and from each other. Each of us brings our own needs and demands into every encounter. If we thrust them out nakedly, it constitutes an assault. It signals you are beneath equal treatment, demands you accept a demeaning role. In civility, we hold things in reserve. We don't bring up our needs, demands and thoughts. On the one hand, it is because the other has yet to earn the privilege. On the other hand, we don't assume the privilege over them. There is no agreement for shared exposure, no compact of interdependence, no assignment of roles. Without roles, we hardly know what to expect from another, and high tension and distrust leads to a greater likelihood of combat. God commanded us in the Noahic Covenant to value human life.

Civility is the compact of peaceful coexistence, a preliminary agreement to treat each other as human and equal, by assigning a default role which evokes a minimum of courtesy. It assumes something minimal about a person being decent and tolerable, and waits for them to prove otherwise. That "otherwise" might well be a bit more, even honorable. All too often it will be far less. Even then, civility requires we still withhold harsh dealings until it remains the only option left us. We seek a quick and peaceful exit from the encounter. Thus, we maintain God's command under the Covenant of Noah, because we maintain a social order which minimizes human suffering, not to mention bloodshed.

For so long as some critical mass of a society remains civil, we have civilization. The particular rituals of social lubrication vary with time and place, but a pattern is clear. Historically, at some point the civility breaks down in every civilization. It can resemble a breakdown when conflicting rituals are advocated. Radical social change is a threat to fallen man. This constitutes a war of cultures, but is not any less an act of aggression. Either way, civilization dissolves into various expressions of warfare, an invasion. From this angle, patriotism is an instinct to protect and preserve the established and functional system of civility, which is the only peace and stability most will understand. While individuals may well adapt to multiple systems, history proves whole societies cannot and should not attempt it. Under the Noahic Code, it is a failure to not fight off such an invasion. Any stable social order is acceptable; demanding a wholesale change for any reason violates the stability and the Covenant -- it is a sin before God.

While we rightly expect the fallen moved by patriotism to reject, and even to fight major changes in civility codes, the Redeemed must hesitate. We understand the combative resistance, and in a sense applaud it, as we would any move to uphold the Noahic Covenant. The current rise of police state behavior in the US is an attack on an established civility code, an attempt to destroy a civilization. As the agents and enforcers of government policies become more alienated by their uncivil abuse of the populace, they make themselves a foreign invader, and surrender legitimacy. No one can predict the breaking points, nor the location of the flashpoints, but we should hardly be surprised by violent uprisings.

As the Redeemed, we are largely called to remain aloof from such things. Most certainly we will be touched by the turmoil. How we respond to that will be addressed in the next post.

Wrong Hands, Right Hands

Child of God, keeping guns and protecting your property has nothing to do with the Bill of Rights. It is a grant directly from God, regardless which human government does or does not recognize it.

The US Constitution doesn't matter. That is, it's a dead letter by now, as the US government only pretends to abide by it. All the conspiracy theories about hidden executive orders, secret congressional legislation, and any number of other legal maneuvers are all pointless, even if true. Most likely our country and government will be absorbed and subsumed under some other government, making the Constitution officially obsolete.

For now, there is an ongoing pretense the Constitution matters. Even from the start, it was fake. It was pure propaganda, sounding quite moral, but carefully crafted to remove God from the picture and place the will of fallen men at the apex of legitimacy.

Thus, the U.S. Constitution represents an attempt by autonomous man to enjoy the blessings of God, apart from God himself. There is no higher court of appeal beyond the Constitution itself, or its official interpreters in the Supreme Court. This in spite of the fact that many of the founders were to one degree or another "Christian" in outlook, if not in fact.

The whole thing was carefully maneuvered past the popular objections, objections often not mentioned in histories of the period. The document was deeply flawed, based on purely secular concerns. This is as it should be, in a certain sense. Those earlier organizing documents were short-lived largely because Christian faith cannot possibly be enforced righteously at the point of a sword. The sword of man and Sword of the Spirit operate in totally separate realms, assigned their proper roles by the Creator. The sword of man is for sinners to enforce civil law on other sinners. For His Elect, all human legislation is merely advisory. It is by no means ultimately binding on those who live under God's Law of Agape. Even Christians who have sworn some oath, such as military enlistment, are bound first to Christ, and only secondly to their oath.

For me to suggest we will soon face conflict with the State can stand only on the foundation of The Covenants. To reference the Constitution as grounds for resistance plays directly into the State's hands. We agree to keep the issue on purely secular grounds, and can make no appeal to God. It all becomes a matter of mere human will whether to obey or fight -- "the consent of the governed." The current ruling regime in America fully intends to keep up the pretense until it is too late. At that point, you will be told your consent is no longer necessary, so shut up and obey, slave. By appealing to a far higher Law of the Kingdom, we stand on holy ground. Any resistance we offer will be based on our best understanding of His command, but the outcome must be left in His hands.

His hands are where everything belongs, of course.

The Line We Do Not Cross

In another place, I described how there is a thread throughout Scripture noting a basic principle regarding human lusts. All sins reflect one or more of the triad: lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and human pride. If we were to boil it down further, we might find a unifying element: idolatry. As my good brother Eduardo notes for example, the real sin of porn is idolatry. With all the other damage such sin might do, the root element is displacing God from His rightful place on the throne of your soul. Another brother once noted in a sermon all discussion sin and righteousness could be summed up in the root meaning of "confess" -- to stand with -- what God says. Sin is saying anything other than what God says. God says, "thus;" to say anything else is sin. What God says is truth, a revelation under which we are held accountable. The path to all sin -- arguing with God -- is to accept some other being as god.

Fallen humans do possess a measure of moral freedom even in their fallen state. It is what distinguishes humanity from the rest of Creation. That freedom is limited, but is directly related to God's declaration we are morally liable under His various covenants with His Creation. Under the Covenant of Noah, humans can choose to be civilized or brutal. However, while being righteous means being moral, being moral is not inherently righteous. True spiritual freedom comes only in Christ. When the Holy Spirit invades your soul, awakens your dead spirit, and brings you into communion with God Almighty, you are bound to Him by the covenant in Christ's Blood. At this point, we finally have an option to argue with God in a substantive way. As long as our spirits are dead, we cannot avoid sin. Indeed, we are sin; it is the very defining characterstic of our existence in God's eyes. We might do a lot of things called "good" in a moral sense, things which promote civility, but we cannot ever bring a single particle of our existence over the line into holiness without God's power. Those without redemption, not born again, do not have access to God. No one can enter His presence without the Blood of His Son. Thus, while He may still use the unredeemed for His purposes, that use is contrary to a consent they cannot give, contrary to their allegiance to some other god.

Once under the Blood, we are granted a measure of freedom impossible any other way. That is, we have the power to adopt a holy desire, while the power to actually perform remains with the Father. At every step of our spiritual growth, there is an element of choice for us to accept that growing desire for holiness, or to defer. Defer too often, and He may choose to bring us out of this world. Still, the emphasis while we live here is a growing intimacy with Him. He judges harshly those who interfere with the process. While we remain weak and immature in our communion with Him, he lays upon His called servants the responsibility to follow His hand in making these weaker ones stronger. There are grave penalties for those who fail in leading, all the more grave if there is some intent to do wrong. Yet, the freedom to choose that wrong remains a part of the complicated matrix of human servants interacting in His Spirit.

Should those whom He hands authority under the Covenant of Noah interfere with the growth of His Children, no one is surprised. Secular government is focused on altogether lesser concerns, and is hardly able to comprehend such matters. That does not remove from those fallen rulers God's condemnation for their sins. It is the nature of fallen man to make some aspect of his lusts a god, though often highly masked under some grand vision of fallen purpose. When granted political power, he typically seeks to subject all under his power to his particular god. Living as a Christian under such a regime places us under the tension of discerning how far we can go before it's too far in our communion with the Father.

The greatest challenge I face personally is the huge number of fellow believers who reject my understanding of where the line should be placed. The depth and breadth of my dispute with many in the Body of Christ is the major cause for this blog appearing as a quiet conversation mostly with myself. I tend to believe most of my brethren render to Caesar far too much which is rightly God's, because they are confused about the distinction between Caesar and God. I doubt we would argue about fending off an attack from the State against our families. Threaten my wife and I'll not hesitate to take your life, if necessary. They would agree to that. The difficulty seems to be over what constitutes a threat.

The thug from "that bad neighborhood" they rightly fear. Should he menace them, they'll try to take defensive action, if only to call the police. They hardly argue with the idea I arm myself, stay fit and practice martial arts so as not to rely on police except after the fact. They get apoplectic when I suggest the police are, in some cases, a bigger threat than the thug. In their eagerness to censure the thug, they have advocated increasingly harsh measures against crime. Their very words show they hold the thug as less than human. It's one thing to note sinners will treat others with dehumanizing contempt; that's what emboldens the thug in the first place. But they forget secular government is sinners ruling sinners, and fallen agents of the government will hardly be any closer to God than thugs. The only real difference is their particular collection of sins are politically approved.

We end up promoting violations of the Noahic Code, which violates our commitment to Christ. Need it be restated here, Christians were commanded to stay out of civil government? We are sheep, not goats. The nature of government without fail includes dehumanizing anyone who partakes of behavior not politically approved. As we press secular government to gather more power to fight our fears of the nasty thugs in the world, we cannot avoid granting that government more power over us. Satan will most certainly rub his hands with glee as we create a system perfectly suited to his machinations, and will fool us into advancing to high power his chosen servants. Thus, the police who take away that evil thug will treat him in ways we would not, by seeking to break him, to take away his humanity. While such brutality was always present in law enforcement to some degree, it is now the doctrine. Further, it is the doctrine for all police dealings with other humans. This violates the very nature of the Covenant of Noah, for it is a direct threat to civil stability.

When we grant government the freedom to torture, to create prisons without internal order, to shield it's agents from all accountability, we are putting our hands to sin. I am utterly convinced we cannot turn back this beast now without bloodshed. Indeed, a great many of we believers will bleed and die at the hands of our government. Those who are truly unfortunate will suffer some of the most unconscionable abuse well before death. Yes, the US federal government will soon be coming for anyone who displays a conscience, a resistance to making it god. You will be classed with the common thugs, treated the same as them, if not worse. While God alone knows for sure, I believe that day is within a couple of years from now.

What will you do?

Police Insanity: No Reason to Cooperate

Paul warns us in Romans 13 to obey civil authorities. Naturally, the one caveat is to obey God first, for there will surely come a time when secular government will demand we place it before God in one way or another. Thus, we are told in verse 10 agape is considered by God sufficient obedience to secular government. Sacrificial love accepts unjust penalties for telling a sinner with a sword we refuse to sin.

By no means is there one simple standard for living in agape applied to every Believer in every situation. No other Christian has the authority to demand you obey as he obeys, and most certainly no sinner can define obedience to God. In a given situation, each of us must examine our own conscience and convictions to find the proper application of agape. Yes, loving someone can certainly include telling them, "No."

Mainstream Christians refuse to discuss this, for the most part. It's a question they won't allow anyone to ask in their presence: What do you do when those secular civil authorities provide every incentive for reasonable men to be combative? Consider these two outcomes from obeying:

1. Unnecessary destruction of your private property, and violation of your constitutional rights. You saw it in New Orleans. Did you know they did it again in Greensburg, KS? That's because the Senate has been dragging their feet on "The Disaster Recovery Personal Protection Act." In both cases, there is evidence FEMA demanded this action from behind the scenes. So, if the authorities require you to evacuate because of real or imagined disasters, they will not let you take your personal protection weapons. Instead, once you are gone, they'll confiscate them and try to keep them. By the way, as far as I can tell, New Orleans is still defying the judge's orders and refusing to return confiscated property.

It happened twice. Next disaster, reasonable men will wonder if it's best to engage in armed resistance once the evacuation order is given.

2. Going to prison is worse than merely losing liberty. Consider the vast number of complaints judges are less and less reasonable about challenges to government over constitutional rights. If you know there is a warrant for your arrest, and suspect you won't get a fair trial, there is every reason to believe every man will be threatened with rape in the prison system, especially if he happens to be Caucasian. While it is recognized this is hardly ubiquitous, it figures largely in taunts policemen use to coerce those they arrest, as I've heard with my own ears in real life.

Those subject to arrest will have to weigh their chances of ending up in the system, even for a short time, and having to face this extra-judicial punishment. Reasonable men will wonder if it's best to flee or resist from the start, because unless they escape, there's little difference in the outcome. Do you wonder why escapees insist, "They'll never take me alive"?

Surely we could find other examples. It is becoming easier and easier to find oneself identified as a criminal for the most insignificant things. Making it worse, it seems nothing ever happens to the government agents who violate the law. Daily the price of obeying authorities rises exponentially, and people are beginning to notice. Church, we are going to see a sudden rise in civil unrest; don't assume it's all unjustified.

Not for Everyone

It can be said of just about any form of leadership: You do it because God calls you to it, not for any other reason. In other words, having prayed about it, you do it because you can't avoid it.

Of late I've been privileged to offer a little advice on leadership to someone close to me. While I do have a bit of written teaching on leadership for Christians, these are merely general principles. True Christian leadership begins with personal holiness, which then makes it possible for the Lord show you it's His calling for you. From there, you must understand biblical standards for leading.

In Scripture, the quintessential image of a leader of any kind is the shepherd. I suppose there's a parallel to sheep dogs: If it's not in your DNA, you won't do it properly. In our case, we are referring to spiritual DNA. In other words, I can teach principles all day long, but if God doesn't burn it into your soul, it's just people skills minus the power of the Holy Spirit. Without His love and commitment in your heart, there will be huge gaping holes in your leadership service. In other words, as with all general spiritual principles, it must be caught; it cannot be taught.

I teach leadership as I lead, just the same for all spiritual encounters with others. You reveal the Lord by poking people with that two-edge Sword of Spirit (Hebrew 4:12). It must first be turned on yourself, changing you. Then it is turned against Satan, because without first cutting away our sins, we cannot attack his power. When we thrust that sword into the life of anyone else, whatever their spiritual status, it changes things. We reveal Him by our living death in Him (Galatians 2:20). We live sacrificially, and that is the foundation of leadership.

Your Government Is the Problem

There's government, and then there are rulers. Don't be fooled into thinking there are no rulers in America. They've been involved in running this country since before the Constitution was ratified. They are the people who have money and power, and work to rebuild their world to suite their personal desires. They seldom ever show their hand, choosing instead to steer and influence the actions of those who actually gain office in government.

For example, young teens in Dallas are drawn increasingly to "cheese". Read the article and you'll learn it's low grade heroin mixed with over-the-counter mild depressants. Kids are dying from this stuff.

We also read the DEA is working hard to stop this stuff. That's a case of the right hand and left hand warring against each other. It's no secret the DEA, working with other agencies, is trying very hard to stop drug trafficking, and thus make it more difficult to abuse deadly substances. In fact, they try so hard they've ended up stealing and destroying private property, and taking the lives of people who were totally innocent of drug crimes. The rulers of America have steered our government to such brutality because the only property they care about is their own. Weakening or removing any substantial organic right to private property is in their best interests.

Meanwhile, it's not hard to understand why there is such a huge market in illegal drugs. These same rulers have built a society which can be manipulated in any direction they choose. They own the newspapers and all network news outlets, barring a few small independent and privately owned operations. They planned and created a public education system with the specific intent to make everybody shallow, ignorant, easily manipulated by marketing, always looking for the next new thrill. When your intellect is deprived of substance, the only thing left in life is shallow passing entertainment: movies, music, games, and drugs. Oh, and they own the production and marketing of movies, music and games, too. Do you doubt they have a financial interest in the production and trafficking of these drugs? Then you would be as gullible as the teeny boppers buying this cheese for a cheap thrill.

There is nothing you and I can do, short of engaging in violent uprising, to stop most of this. They are patient in the extreme, and every political effort is, at best, short-lived. Jesus certainly knew not to trust human politics (John 2:23-25), and neither should we. The righteousness of God cannot be had that way. Instead, we should take a cue from Roger Williams, and divorce ourselves from any reliance on human government. That is, withdraw from participation as much as possible, especially regarding children. Children are simply not equipped to face the hostile anti-Christian environment which is government education, and it's just plain wrong to burden them with evangelizing when they can't even keep their own faith intact. The most mature adult believer would be harshly tested in that cauldron, as I can testify personally from my own experience.

In this case, the term associated with Williams -- separatism -- means to pull away completely from engaging secular government. Indeed, it implies pressing government to get out of private religious concerns, too, including keeping intrusive noses out of all family concerns. You see, human government has only three concerns in this world: control, control and absolute control. That control will always be dehumanizing, destructive of faith, and destructive of life and safety. If you don't find that in Scripture, you aren't allowing the Holy Spirit to instruct your reading.

Open Your Hearts

You've seen them, maybe met one or two. In schools, they cluster in the cafeteria on some corner table, keeping to themselves. There is a chaotic quality to their unity: all quite unique, marching to a different drummer. "Freakazoids" is a common nickname. Some small handful are aggressive about it, but most of them passively reject the mainstream. It doesn't matter how, as long as it isn't typical. Few of them are getting much support except from each other, seeking to understand why the drumming in their ears makes the world seem out of step. Don't call it perversity and sin; they may express something resembling perversion only because they are reacting to mainstream perversions. They know there's something wrong, even if they can't coherently tell you.

They'll wear odd-fitting clothing you can't buy at Wal-Mart. Currently, most of them wear a lot of black, dye their strangely cut hair in odd colors, pierce odd parts of their anatomy, and generally avoid being common in appearance. Yes, it is a recognizable style, because it's one of the few means they have for identifying each other quickly. Their mannerisms will also be a rejection of mainstream standards. They don't embarrass easily, but will tend to do what you least expect. They tend to be brighter than average. Despite what you think, the Freaks are not easily manipulated, nor easily deceived. It takes a truly superior intellect to catch them off guard.

He gave some to be apostles, and some to be prophets, and some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. And this until we all come into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a full-grown man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; so that we no longer may be infants, tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine, in the dishonesty of men, in cunning craftiness, to the wiles of deceit. (Ephesians 4:11-14)

Paul addresses the Ephesian Christian community on their primary failure: lack of unity. Specifically, Jews and Gentiles would tend to maintain their separate identities. Many Jews wanted to keep dragging the Law back into it, and the Gentiles had grown weary of the smug superiority of Jewish Christians. So Paul hammers them on a very basic fact of Christian existence: It's all a miracle; our very faith is a miracle handed down from God (vv. 2:8-9). Whether Jew, Gentile or Space Alien, to be in Christ is a grace miracle. It was a mighty act of charging straight ahead to the Cross, then rising up from the grave by sheer authority from the Creator. He conquered all things, and like a Roman conqueror on parade in Rome, tossed trinkets to the adoring crowd. From His plunder of the Kingdom of Darkness, Jesus pulled out rescued souls to lead His church. Those trinkets included apostles, prophets, evangelists and pastor-teachers.

When allowed to serve according to their calling, a primary effect of their ministry will be to bring a measure of maturity in understanding: We are included by God's choice, not because of anything inherently valuable in any of us. Thus, all we have now is a gift from Him, and it was given for one purpose. We are to serve Him side by side, as if one living organism. Each of us contributes our unique calling and faith, making one mighty Body of Christ.

On the way, we take on a measure of maturity. That maturity is characterized by having feet solidly anchored on the Rock. We aren't pushovers, not easily taken in by spiritual con men. We don't buy into the latest trend, the next big selling book by some hotshot TV pastor. We don't find ourselves drawn off into chasing political rabbits, but keep our hands and hearts on the task of revealing the Lord to a world which does not know Him. We don't demand everyone else adopt our particular brand of service and calling. True believers are not produced by some spiritual cookie cutter. They are each quite different. If not, the Body of Christ would be a bland and lifeless unitary blob.

I assure you, Church, the Freaks in the Kingdom are probably way out in front, on the cutting edge of faith. It is they who become apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers -- or perhaps they lead in some other way. Sameness is from the world, dehumanizing, a way of reducing your created uniqueness, to keep it convenient when dealing with you. In Christ alone will you see a demand for each and everyone to stand singly before the Lord. He calls many you'd never choose. Don't reject the package because you don't like the wrapping. Today's freakazoid lost teens are tomorrow's visionary leaders, and Christ calls them, too.

Wasting Ammo

As she passed by, she spoke to someone else, just loudly enough to be heard inside the booth: "I won't ever buy anything there again. I bought these earrings..." She passed beyond the range of our hearing. He knew she was talking about his booth. Instead of coming to him with a complaint about the merchandise, she made ugly remarks as she passed, at least once every week. He would have been glad to resolve whatever issue she had, but it seemed she just wanted an excuse to hurt him.

It worked. It tormented him, and he asked me, "How should I handle that? It bothers me; it really does. I know it shouldn't. How do you keep from hurting when people do that to you?"

You don't. People who really want to hurt you will usually succeed, unless you are a sociopath. Sure, I've heard the pop psychology answer: "You're a good person. You don't own the problem; it's not in your hands. Let them be ugly and play games, because you don't get involved in their problems." In other words, "Stop caring." Sorry, but Christ won't authorize that nonsense.

We must care, and that means exposing our hearts, putting ourselves out there in a risky place. Without making ourselves vulnerable to petty digging like that, we can't be in a position to share His love. No, it's not a matter he was seeing me cool and unconcerned. He was seeing me absorb the pain and stay focused on my calling and service.

Consider: The default spiritual condition of all humanity is sliding quickly down into Hell. We are born in sin, fully deserving a short miserable life, and lingering agonizing death, and eternity roasting in Hell. It's all proper, right and just. We deserve it. For reasons no human can grasp, some of us selected for rescue from this doom. Nothing in us can purchase His grace -- He does this for His own reasons, of His divine whim. We do not question, except rhetorically: "Lord, why would You care for such a hideous creature as I?" Not that any answer would come, because we are not capable of grasping it.

Instead, we take note of this unspeakable riches of His grace and love. We note the limitless power of His Holy Spirit in us, bring to life that love and grace in our outward witness to the world. That witness is ever bumbling, stumbling, destroying the very things we want to build up. Yet, in His continuing love and grace, He makes it work out anyway. Born into His Kingdom by a miracle, we live daily by His living miracle, His very real and literal presence in our persons.

When someone wounds us, they wound God. We feel the pain; if we did not, we could not commune with Him. But it is His pain, and we share it with Him. In due time, we become aware of such a vast store of love and grace in us, flowing through us, we can bear these things. They don't hurt less, they simply don't distract us from serving. Satan's darts become wasted effort, for they do not inflame our ire, but our love -- His love.

Zechariah Predicted the End of Israel

In chapter 11 of his prophecy, Zechariah predicted Israel would reject the Messiah. Bringing Him to the world was their ultimate purpose. To reject Him would be rejection of their only reason for existing as a nation.

He opens the chapter with a scene of destruction. He names the three primary forests of his day and describes their burning to capture the depth of God's wrath on the nation and her land. Beginning in verse 4, he warns the nation would be prepared for slaughter, using the image of a new owner taking possession of a flock of sheep for liquidation.

For so says the LORD my God: "Feed the flock for the slaughter. Those buying them will slaughter them, and regard themselves blameless. Those who sell them say, 'Blessed be the LORD, for I am rich.' Their shepherds do not care about them. Thus, I will never again pity the people of the land," says the LORD. "Instead, I will deliver each one into his neighbor's hand, and into his king's hand. The land will be invaded, and I will not deliver them." (11:4-6)

Staying with the image of shepherding, Zechariah describes the two primary hand tools of sheep herding: the club ("Grace") and the staff ("Unity"). The former protects from external threats, while the latter is used in various ways to keep the sheep together in a single herd. First, the club is rendered useless, and the Covenant is dissolved. That's because the chosen leaders had come to hate Jehovah. Of course, they were convinced He loved them, for they had by the time of Jesus long been convinced the only mark of God's favor was material prosperity. To be poor was to be accursed, so the peasants and common folks were not loved by Jehovah, they assumed. Because they did not care for the sheep as proper shepherds, they showed a complete lack of interest in what Jehovah had already said was important.

Meanwhile, in verse 11 we see it was these "accursed" poor who were the only ones paying attention to God's hand. It was they who flocked to Jesus, who responded to the gospel message. Never forget Jesus made frequent reference to preaching the gospel to the poor as a signal blessing. They knew the old covenant was passing. Jesus presented this claim to the whole nation. To the leaders, He made a point of offering them a fair chance, without coercion. Those whose hearts were open to the Lord would accept: "If you are willing, give Me My wages. If not, fine; never mind" (v. 12). It's the same as challenging them to evaluate His claims by the Law. They refused, of course, for they had long chosen a corrupt understanding of that Law, giving their Talmudic traditions precedence. Instead, they offered Him the most insulting evaluation possible: He was worth no more than a rented slave who died on the job. He scoffs at this, sarcastically referring to "that princely sum" (v. 13). This was fulfilled quite literally when the Sanhedrin paid Judas 30 pieces of silver for betraying Jesus to the arresting detachment of troops.

For this final rejection, the Lord removed the internal unity of the nation. Even today, a Jewish parable says, "The worst enemy of a Jew is another Jew." Insofar as there is a curse on Jews as a nation, this is it. They will never reunite as one people. They have no reason to maintain their Jewish identity, for it means nothing. God now deals only with His Son, and those who follow Him. More literally, during the three decades following the Ascension, Jews suffered constant internal bickering, leading to a Roman crack down on Jerusalem. The climax was the Siege of Jerusalem by Titus, the Roman general, 66-70 AD. Zechariah ties the rejection of the Messiah directly with the destruction by Rome, and the final dispersion. Indeed, they were eternally dispersed to live under Gentile rule.

The Lord said to me, "Take up the tools of a foolish shepherd. For I will most certainly raise over them in that land a shepherd who will not care at all about those who become lost from the flock, nor check on the newborn lambs, nor heal the injured, nor even bother to pasture those surviving. Instead, he will devour the fatlings and sell their remains." (v. 15-16)

Finally, Zechariah warns all future pagan/secular governments hosting Jews would be chaotic. That is, they would be brutal, but at the height of their power, would become vulnerable to failure. To some degree, we can see historically countries in which Jews have lived in large numbers were seldom kind to them. Those who were never managed to last that long, but were replaced with those who hated Jews. Those originally appointed by God to lead His nation -- prophets, priests and nobles -- refused to do it His way. Thus, the nation (the flock) was torn from them, and delivered to fools. Frankly, it was an improvement in their fortunes, not least because no one expects tyrants to do good.

Not Necessarily Exclusive

I've done my best to clarify one need not reject Western rationalism in its proper place. Rather, I find it important to insist the Kingdom viewpoint -- the Spiritual Mind -- realizes rationalism's limits and applies the mystical logic of revelation from God as the basic assumption.

Too often, people are just so very certain it's a case of either-or, and you can't mix them in the same head. For example, Fred Reed expounds on his economic conclusions regarding the world as he has experienced it. As with too many pastors, he assumes acquisitiveness is a good thing, and that economic prosperity tends to separate "success" from "failure" in this world. He refers to a quality of "half-assedness":

You go into houses and never see books. A man will start a garage to repair cars for a living. He won't think of expanding and owning a chain of garages. His family has enough to eat, so why do more? The young, though they could pursue school beyond some pre-high school level, don't. They marry early instead of establishing themselves first. They live in the present, whereas people in rich countries have one foot in the future. An American thinks college, grad school, career. He is going somewhere, or trying to. He may not adhere to his plan, but he has one.

If ambition in acquiring goods were a virtue, he'd be right. In the Kingdom of God, such ambition is a major distraction from the calling of God on every Christian's life. I do see his point about books, but being satisfied with getting by is hardly "half-assedness" by itself. Nor is it a lack of virtue to live more or less in the present, when you realize the Lord did not promise tomorrow. Devising a career plan in the Kingdom comes after you know for certain what God requires of you. As Fred seems to understand a little, your plans should always be subject to new information.

In Christian psychology we refer to a "mental map" -- the sum total of your assumptions and expectations for your world. It's certainly not the whole world, just the part you have to deal with, so it's a limited road-map. In the Kingdom, we know to draw its features in pencil, because it is subject to change at God's whim.

Thus, the Spiritual Mind does not reject planning and thinking for the future, nor keeping appointments and being prompt. Rather, it faces all these things tentatively, with the sure expectation it can and should be changed at any moment by God's hand. We do not disregard them, but attach a far lesser importance to them. There are moments in life when it just doesn't matter what you planned and committed yourself to do. That is in part because the next moment may be the beginning of Eternity for you.

We can never afford to take our eyes off our mortality. Many things are much more important than pleasing other people, than making a buck, than piling up possessions, or keeping appointments. We neither focus on them, nor neglect them, but place them all in their proper role, under grace.

Of Course They Are Lying

Anyone who trusts law enforcement agencies (not to mention the mainstream media) to tell the truth really isn't paying attention. They'll tell the truth when it suits their purpose, as much of it as they decide suits their purpose, and are untrustworthy for the most part. Anyone who believes what the President of the United States says, and what the US Congress wants you to believe, and all the pronouncements of the Supreme Court, has chosen to remain ignorant. We call ignorance-by-choice "being stupid."

Solomon said there was nothing new under the sun. He should know, for his own father attempted to deceive the world about Solomon's mother. Her name was Bathsheba, you may recall, the widow of Uriah the Hittite. The awful tale of how David was taken by lust, committed adultery, tried to cover up the crime and eventually had Uriah killed by taking advantage of his bravery in battle, is one of the best told in Scripture. David was called a man after God's heart in spite of that.

Law enforcement people may well be decent in the main, but so deeply taken by a lust for control over citizens, they end up doing some truly awful things. For example, we know lying in official statements is a sin. It is their job to lie, in order to protect the government. Indeed, protecting the government against the citizens has become their primary function. Forget about protecting the citizens; they are usually the enemy. Everyone is a crook waiting to be caught. We may have at one time believed differently, but I'm not too sure how true it was outside a few fictional tales. In the long run, the lust for power is just too much for humans. Those who are wise don't handle it better; they avoid it.

If you visit today's front page at Prison Planet, you'll see the headline stories are about Ed Brown, his wife, and their trials at the hands of government, especially various police agencies. The Browns are correct in some ways. There really is no valid constitutional grounds for taxing your personal income. The 16th Amendment was not properly and legitimately ratified. The IRS is not a government agency, actually. These and many other assertions by the Freedom Movement and underground patriots are all pretty much true. And particularly in this story, the Feds and all other police agencies are liars, wholly untrustworthy.

None of which matters much. We are long past the time when we could expect our federal government to play by its own rules. We haven't had a genuine rule of law since before the Constitution was written, since it was written in violation of the rules existing at the time. No surprise the government arising from that document would violate it, and do its best to convince you it's all good and right. The pretense of being honorable, proper, and even godly, has never been more than a paint job. And none of it is of any great concern to those of us who follow Christ. That is, we are commanded to stay out of it if we can, in general. It may well be the Browns are called of God to do this, but we all know where it will end. I don't support their path, but don't have authority to condemn it as wholly sinful.

While I don't expect anything as dramatic as another Waco, I do expect the same sort of dirty dealing, the same casual disrespect for life, the same extensive coverup, all completely senseless and brutally violent. We will get one more demonstration, a very important public lesson from our slave masters, how we must bow the knee. There was a time it would end with a much simpler solution, but the incredible arrogance of government figures has risen to fever pitch.

This is depressing only if you take your eyes off the Lord. We should expect fallen men to govern without much conscience. Christians who try to serve in government either compromise their faith or show themselves incompetent at their jobs. It's not for me to demand the Browns surrender, nor demand my fellow believers quit their government jobs. I have all God's time to wait for His Spirit to correct their behavior in His own way. My role is limited to speaking and writing the truth, as best He can show me.

Who Took My Old Bones?

Something happened today. After several weeks of trying to re-institute a little joyful jogging in my life, my right hip and both knees have complained quite a bit. They continue to work, but hurt when I start out, do okay during the jog, then hurt most of the day afterward. Not a lot, but they hurt like most arthritic joints do. This week has been especially bad, to the point I've actually jogged shorter distances and a little slower. Today I tried a free sample of an herbal ointment. Now I am wondering who sneaked off with my old painful joints.

It doesn't hurt very much at all. Better, it really perked up my energy level. I don't feel like napping twice-a-day. I'm not getting a thin dime from these people, nor free product, but I'm telling you this stuff is so good, I'm giving them a link on my blog. They have lots of different stuff, and there's no way I could afford to test all of them. The one I tried is Joint Rescue, which is all herbal:

Devil’s Claw (supports joint cleansing), White Willow (analgesic), Comfrey (joint repair), Arnica (analgesic and tissue repair), Celery Seed (clears toxins from joints) and Poke in a water-based gel.

It feels like my body dropped a couple of decades. I'm not planning to go into business selling anything, and I don't even seek offerings to fund any part of my ministry. People give when the Lord prompts them, and that's good enough. Still, I can't resist sharing with you this really neat stuff. I'm blessed!

Southern Baptists Shooting Their Wounded

The Southern Baptists were once altogether Calvinist. With the rise of cultural accommodation and Market-Driven ecclesiology, the Doctrines of Grace have fallen out of favor. Attacked in depth in nearly every Baptist college (including mine) and seminary I know about, it's no surprise Calvinists are in the minority now. Further, they are subjected to the same vicious tactics which now characterize political partisan wrangling.

Start a fight; it won't matter if it's accidental or intended. Make a token effort to clean up the mess, but reject the idea of offering equal time to the other side. First in Texas (whose state convention is decidedly liberal). Now in Florida. Notice it comes from state convention offices, and there is a distinct note of "Your view doesn't deserve equal time!" It's not as if this is some evil heresy, but well established as the historical position of Baptists. This allegation sounds accurate to me:

I believe this is actually a strategy by some who oppose Historical Baptist Doctrine. Throw the theological grenade to misrepresent and undermine Reformed Doctrine, once it explodes issue an apology to put out the fire of those who are offended, and then not allow a response in order to "bring unity" and stop the strife. At the end of the day, the attack is complete, those offended are appeased and [the attackers'] point of view remains the final word out there. If it is a strategy, it is a brilliant one. This has now happened in two state conventions and how many more before it becomes a trend? (from Tom Buck)

This is the kind of hateful dealing which drove me to consider house church in the first place. When the institution becomes god, this is what we should expect. Some suggest this is grounds for cutting off funds to local and state conventions. Given money and numbers is what stands behind this whole debate from the Market-Driven/Arminian side, I'd say that's a good start.

That Explains a Lot

Polling will show us the way to Heaven, right? Okay, polling among Christians only; is that better? Here's the stats: The 50 Most Influential Christians in America. God help us.

As I gaze over this list, I admit a few names are new to me. I never pretended to have a pulse on the major events in US Churches. Still, the ones I recognize don't make me smile, for the most part. Of those I recognize, I rather like Piper (#9), am favorably disposed to about three or four others, and am neutral to a half dozen. The rest of those I know make me tremble with sorrow for faith in America. Barna (#38) has said straight out marketing is evangelism. Others I've already commented on here before. I'd probably enjoy the company of many of them, and have no trouble praying and worshiping beside them. That doesn't mean I approve of their work.

Maybe it simply says a lot about me, how out of touch I am with "what God is doing in the world today." Maybe. Yet, when I get on my knees, or bury my nose in the Bible, I find many of these influential folks are serving some other god. Not that any of them care what I think, nor should they. Each has to follow their own sense of calling, their own reading of the Bible. Still, I think it indicates a lot so many of these clearly care an awful lot what the numbers and/or accounts look like in their ministries.

The Christian rock band Bloodgood had a song I still love, but don't have an audio copy: Shakin' It.

Who will stand and who will fall?
Who will be there after all?
Shakin', shakin' His body

When the hard times arrive, I wonder who will consider it a blessing when God tests their work.

Trial by Fire

Picture yourself homeless, living pretty much in the same town you do now. Not because I want to stir sympathy for the homeless, but I want to offer a glimpse of a likely future. Humor me just a bit longer as I delve a little farther into preparing for Tribulation. An integral part of persecution is driving us out of our comfort zone, quite literally.

For anyone who has served in the military, especially training in the field, you already have some idea what's coming. The difference is, so very many never really got comfortable with it, in the sense of taking it in stride. The vast majority of my fellow Army troops never made it. To them, every field training exercise was to be endured, with a constant eye on the departure date. With this in the forefront of their minds, there was never any question they would not adapt and make the most of it. Learning to thrive was not possible. They rejected this setting as their official norm, the sort of existence they should expect when actually doing their jobs. The hours were filled with constant griping and whining about the conditions, even when they knew in advance what was required of them. There was constant seeking for angles, for ways to shortcut or reduce the stress in ways unrealistic to the purpose of the experience. Part of it was because everyone knew it was merely training, not the real thing.

In the days of tribulation sure to come soon, how will you face it? Can you picture yourself without a safe shelter, owning only what you can carry, what you can keep others from taking? How about food and water? Any idea how to get them, do with less, or do without for a time? Do you even know how your own body will react under physical stress? Living without climate controls; bugs crawling, buzzing, biting; infrequent hand-washing, never mind bathing; no access to standard sanitation facilities? Just once, out in a rural place, try going potty without any structures designed to accommodate such things. Suddenly, the list of things you wish you could carry changes dramatically.

You learn you can wear long sleeves in blasting heat because exposed skin can't take it. You discover sleeping in the heat of the day is about the only sane way to face summer climates, and unwashed skin stays warm better in winter. You find most underwear holds the stink and bacteria next to your tenderest parts. Stealing things you desperately need becomes more attractive. Far fewer things are repugnant, and you spend all your waking hours considering how to get food and drink. Upper respiratory allergies? A mere head cold can quickly become a fatal sinus infection. You won't believe how tired you'll stay. That is, unless you have something you really need to do, and you'll be surprised how long you can endure.

Church, the biggest mistake you'll make in this is fearing hardship. Your second biggest mistake is giving it no thought, and believing it won't happen. It's coming.

End Times Q&A

What are you worried about?

I read lots of conspiracy junk. Some of it is simply ludicrous. The only reason any of it remains is because most of the really good theories carry an element of truth. At the bottom level, we all realize Satan has since Eden been trying to organize his servants to destroy what God has made. After the Cross, he has been busy trying to destroy the message of the gospel. No one should be surprised he would subvert the wealthiest and most powerful humans on the earth, by sending lying spirits to beguile them into believing they can actually gain total control, and should want it.

It's been tried repeatedly for all sorts of reasons in the past, and will continue for some time. In the sweep of history we see how things coalesce for these global pretenders, only to see it fall apart. While we know God has His active hand at work, we know at the same time it's a basic fact of human nature in this fallen world such schemes can never succeed for long. When these rulers are at their very worst, they are at their weakest. Their primary failure is ignoring what God said about such things, so of course it won't work, no matter what new tricks they believe they have up their sleeves.

We are heading for another round of oppression. This may be the first time we can find in human experience when it will be spread over such a large scale. While the Tower of Babel seemed to include all living humans of that day, there weren't quite so many living then. I suspect the current round of global enslavement will go down in the future as yet another unfinished project. Meanwhile, a really huge number of people will suffer greatly, and just about everyone will suffer some. A lot of that will be right here in the US.

Because Jesus so very firmly warned us we cannot possibly discern the End of Time -- not even He knew -- I don't believe we can plan on that happening anytime soon. That is, don't look for the Rapture, because you will fail to pay attention to your calling. What follows are questions I've been asked at one time or another in teaching the Word.

Q: Will we experience persecution?
A: We already do, and it will get really bad very soon. Some places will be worse than others. Eventually US federal policy will turn against those most faithful to Christ. I note in passing some persecution is merely a matter of perception and frustration over issues purely cultural in nature. Others will be far more substantive, actually worthy of death.

Q: Will it be all encompassing, the way it's shown in movies and described in books?
A: I have serious doubts any human government is competent enough to pull it off. All governments attract the worst of any given society, and truly oppressive ones are run by them. If not at the top, all over the middle levels, there will be deceptions, inefficiencies, petty nest-feathering, etc. Oppression will still be awful, but not consistent across the board. Further, in many places there are those with the will and means to resist on a large scale.

Q: What are "they" after? More money, absolute power over others?
A: Yes. That is, wealth and power are inextricably entwined. Further, there are quite a few factions at the top level of all these global conspiracies. The moment they ever become united on current questions, fresh wrangling will break out over new questions. There may be brief periods when it appears they are of one mind, but in the real world -- unlike fiction horror stories -- no group of humans numbering greater than two will ever remain united long. There are literally hundreds in the world seeking agree to world domination.

Some will do what it takes to get wealth; others will spend any amount to gain absolute power. A few are true believers, that they deserve to run the show. They probably do, playing games with those possessed of more modest lusts. Most are intelligent enough to read this and know I'm talking about them, and laugh at what they consider my ignorance, or will decide to keep an eye on me and others who say similar things. Actually, they will not bother themselves, but have someone else keep track of all this. It is those lower levels of servants who will be most likely to fail at some point. It requires tremendous self-discipline to rise to the top, at which point they can't do it all themselves.

Meanwhile, most of them do not truly hate the Lord. They simple view true faith in Christ another delusion of fools, and not a problem until it gets in the way of their plans. That's why they'll persecute us. They'll use those who truly hate the Lord, but very few at the top will actually possess such hatred, though by no means will their number be zero. Genius or not, true evil is flawed, and won't recognize that at some level.

Q: Should we arm, organize, prepare for disaster?
A: Sure. But only if you sense that is your calling, in accordance with the bedrock of conviction deep in your soul. Do that only if you can't keep from doing it. The greatest preparation is in your soul, making sure you become familiar with the territory, the Way of the Kingdom. By that, I mean able to discern the leading of the Holy Spirit by referring back to your convictions. That is the primary means of Him speaking to us. The greatest threat to all of us is trying to hear Him some other way, any way at all contrary to what the Word teaches. Shortcuts are enticing, but not God's way.

When you are certain of what He requires of you, your actions will be His choice of preparation for you. Along with that, consider whether that includes keeping an eye on these things. View them with some detachment, with some dispassion. Sure, there will be tremendous betrayals against all we know as right and legal. No human government can be trusted; none merits more than a provisional loyalty, for in the end they will come after you precisely because you obey the Holy Spirit first rather than the State. There must surely come a day when you will either capitulate to slavery, flee, or fight. Only He can rightly decide which of those you should choose, but you most certainly will be forced to choose.

I suspect it will be sooner than later.

Comments: The Forgotten Netiquette

Netiquette. It's bad enough we have so many Net users who believe it's just fine to flame over truly minor issues. As a grammar curmudgeon, I am particularly annoyed by people born in English-speaking families who can't write well enough to make any sense at all. Most of us can work our way past such problems, but the one thing we can't fix is most painful discourtesy of all: Ignoring you.

For purists, the Internet's single greatest use is communication. That is, communication with potentially millions, all over the planet, all for the same low price of connecting in the first place. You can meet and become friends with folks you'll never see. For Christians in particular, it opens up the communion of saints like nothing else. This breathes a fresh life into the sacred act of fellowship (koinonia), of sharing our oneness in Christ, which He commanded we do.

For people you see in "meatspace" (a Net term for the real world of the flesh), the fellowship is maintained simply by going where you are supposed to go in assembling with other believers. On the Net, it seems it's much easier to forget. Net fellowship can die, or weaken greatly, because it requires more of a conscious effort to maintain a fellowship.

This is not a matter of sin versus righteousness, but a simple fact: A spiritual asset is a living thing. If you don't feed it, the fellowship dies. If you intend to call on your Net brothers and sisters for spiritual support, you need to be there for them. If you want comments on your blog, make comments on those of your friends. You need not delve into the subject at hand which you find boring; just make a lightweight statement to let them know you were there.

Should you find your meatspace existence more pressing, then learn to back off starting fellowships online. Give your time -- God's time, actually -- to the calling He's given you. People on the Net you never see, and certainly don't touch, are still real people, with real needs, and will be blessed by a reminder you are praying for them.

I note in passing this is getting bad enough in our modern day in meatspace, where churches are filled with people who are no closer than to qualify as acquaintances. We have allowed this world to load up our days with things which don't really matter, instead of time with each other. Time with God's people is time with God, for His people are His designated representatives in the world.

Lotsa Noise Out There

It matters not whether you believe this is "The Last Days;" we are seeing almost daily a raft of fresh blarney offered as fresh truth.

For example, you can see this wild story which claims a large number of Hebrew words in the Old Testament have long been wrongly translated, because the work had been done by Western scholars, who didn't really understand Aramaic, etc. Anyone who reads this site for a bit can see it's a big fancy sales pitch of some sacred talisman which has been found after all these years. Naturally, it's attached to some really inventive eschatology.

While it is just possible we've gotten everything wrong since God-only-knows-when, some stuff is just too obviously bogus. Then again, I am one claiming the mainstream churches are off-base. Yet, I'm not asking anyone to believe I have somehow stumbled upon the ultimate answer, and if you would just send me $19.99 this week only, I'll be glad to share it with you. Next week the price goes up, because -- you see -- I have all these inflationary expenses... Yeah.

Rather than getting all up in arms, trying to shout down dissenting voices the way politicians and governments do, I'm letting it ride. I rely on the Holy Spirit to convince. I'll offer my best understanding of the truth, but it's His job to write it on your heart. Or not. It's His problem, not mine. So along with all the other stuff I've been writing, let me encourage you to counter the countless counterfeits with a simple commitment to the truth, the kind of commitment where we simply assume it's true in everything we do. You know, that thing in Scripture called "faith."

Lunatic Fringe

In this world, people cannot be mainstream and follow Jesus. Among Christians, true followers of Christ are also on the fringe, though they tend to lead. Plenty of true visionaries aren't even allowed to lead much during their lives. How far out on the fringe it "too far"?

From the very start of my Kingdom walk, I knew I was not in the mainstream. At first I very much wanted to be there, and really believed it was right. At the same time, something deep in my convictions wouldn't let me stay there. This, despite the accolades of many encouraging me to be typical, especially once I publicly surrendered to the ministry. Don't think I didn't give a fair chance, but I never belonged there. Not simply mere discomfort, and certainly not whining about it, just an assurance I wasn't supposed to be there.

The further I went from the center, the more my convictions clarified. After some 41 years in Christ, and 34 years in ministry, I have come to a very strange place. On the one hand, I realize His calling and leading have brought me to a very isolated place. I can find no trail blazed by anyone else before me. Sure, some things have already been established in teaching in other places, but much of what has seized me in the past decade hasn't been trod in so long, it's like virgin wilderness. Yet the vision has never been more clear.

So I come to the place where I realize I am either very much in the right, or too deeply deceived to be considered sane. If we regard my political perceptions, I have plenty of friends. Yet most of them promote actions I could never engage. However, in matters of faith, my push into Hebraic-Eastern-Mystical thinking seems rather unique among Western Christians. I can't say how it compares with Middle East Christians, because I'm not much in position to chat with any. Most of them are refugees far from their most recent home, so email might be a bit of a stretch right now.

None of this should be taken as a complaint. I have been rather isolated most of my life, at least in the sense I knew I would have to keep a lot of things to myself to prevent unnecessary discord in the churches I served. Since I can't find anywhere a church which would welcome my teaching, I find house church a pretty attractive option. I publish my ideas on the Net, because books are out of the question. About the only what this will change is by God's divine fiat. That's good enough for me.