05 July 2022
What did Jesus say about Pharisaism? Among other things, He said it was an empty legalism. It was not rooted in hearts committed to Jehovah. He said that taxation at the point of the sword was not the real issue -- "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Mark 12:17). The face of our God cannot be stamped into coins, but only in hearts.
American conservatism is evil and materialistic. It is built on partial agreement with the Pharisees, in that it worships Mammon. It's just an ideology of political control. That there are so very many churchians lined up with political conservatives only proves this point; churchian religion is words without the power of the Holy Spirit. It is ideas and ideology, but any mention of the heart is just rhetoric. It's western mythology that assumes the heart is merely a repository of sentiment. There's no actual faith involved at all.
Obviously I am not an ally to American right-wing politics. Nothing they can accomplish will mean a thing; Satan still rules after their work is done. This is not a covenant nation. The only way to unseat the Devil in human affairs is if the hearts of the people change and they embrace the Covenant. The Covenant of Christ is not about joining a church or "gettin' saved". It's about changing your heart, your commitment.
Insofar as I have a prophetic ministry, I am calling for a change in hearts. The Word says flatly that what God wants is your heart and that you do have the option to change your commitments (Deuteronomy 30:11-20). This is behind all that noise in the New Testament about how the law code cannot save you; it must be a change of heart. Even Moses understood it that way. Changing the form won't help if the heart is still eclipsed by the flesh.
And in that passage in Deuteronomy 30, Moses doesn't even mention going to Heaven. He quotes God as saying that the issue is what you can claim in this life. You want shalom? Operate in faith against all the inherent failure and deception of this fallen existence. You want to go to Heaven? Whatever it is you can do here and now toward that goal starts with faith enough to walk in His revealed will.
It's not as if the Old Testament never talks about Heaven, but that it follows a vastly different cultural orientation that assumes there is very little we can understand about eternal things. Election is how you get to Heaven; there's nothing any man can do to change that eternal status. It was set before you were born. But the process of discovering your eternal status includes giving your heart to Him and obeying His revealed will. It means embracing what you can understand of His divine moral character and emulating that.
The majority of the human race is not Elect. Does that drive you nuts? You don't understand what God has revealed. You are still seeking the human way of rounding up unwashed bodies and hosing off the dirt that clings. That changes nothing. You will have to change what's inside of them, and only God can do that. Nowhere in Scripture does it explain how that works; the mechanics are opaque to us. Rather, Scripture hammers home over and over again that your part in awakening faith in others is to awaken your own. Live like God designed you and He'll use that in his miracle process. Fail to do that and He'll still do His miracles, but you won't be blessed by it.
There is nothing more we can do. All those marvelous sales and manipulation techniques called "soul-winning" don't change anything that matters. Having a really cool spiel, a grand organization and getting people wet does not make one iota of difference in whether someone goes to Hell. All of that organizing and training is aimed at the wrong goal. The orientation of western church activities is all wrong. The goal is to change ourselves. The more we move into the Covenant obedience, the more loudly our witness speaks. We shine the light so that the unwitting Elect are drawn.
Yes, it will also draw many who are not Elect. We cannot know if another person is Elect, though the New Testament does talk a great deal about clues. Still, there is no certainty because the certitude we seek cannot be found in our heads, but in our hearts. There is, was and always will be a plausible deniability for the fleshly nature we all bear. It's not checking off a list, but a subjective reaction in the heart: Shall we treat this person as a Covenant brother/sister? That's how it is supposed to work.
That's what's behind the whole New Testament, to include that passage in Romans 10 where Paul quotes the other passage in Deuteronomy 30. Get the right foundation so that when you read the Bible, you know what it's telling you. I guarantee you Paul would not be happy about American Christian religion. All the problems he had with the Corinthian church pale in comparison to how Americans do things.
I wrote in a previous post that this blog was a sideline. Don't miss the point; my mainline is teaching biblical content. But it's teaching the Bible to a mass of people who are so very slow to understand, whose hearts have been hardened by centuries of cultural sewage. It's the same thing Jesus experienced trying to explain the Bread of Life to a bunch of folks whose lives were ruled by their stomachs. I can't tell my main audience what I write on this blog. Here, I can cut loose and say the things in public anonymity that I dare not say elsewhere.
Stop being American. Start being a Covenant brother or sister. The two are mutually incompatible.
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