18 September 2022
We are brought back to the question of what we should do in the current context.
What would be the ideal? What does the Covenant call for us to aim at, regardless whether we can actually achieve it? By now, I hope it's obvious that Covenant people don't look or act like anyone else in this world. We can't keep compromising with worldly ways and expect the blessings of a very otherworldly covenant.
If you don't believe in the blessings of Covenant shalom, there's nothing I can say that will help you. We really need a vision of what the Covenant can do in this fallen world. All the miracle stories recorded in the Bible are samples of what God does consistently for His Covenant people. Yes, the relative size of the Covenant community is a significant factor. One Covenant believer alone cannot expect to see all the power of God working in their lives. Keep your expectations realistic. Still, there's an awful lot of blessings granted to lone individuals under the Covenant.
Those who pray for the Lord to grant community and fellowship will eventually see it. And as soon as just two or three take the Covenant boundaries seriously, it changes everything. Should there ever be a day when your faithfulness in the small context brings a harvest of souls that constitute a large community -- you cannot imagine what God will unleash in your favor. Take this seriously, folks. Jesus said that it could quite literally move mountains.
Let's review some basic principles of God's Law on this earth. The Covenant is ultimate reality; it is the basic truth of how this universe operates. It is feudal; tribalism is required for a covenant community. If your tribe is just one person, that still gives you an advantage over the rest of humanity. If there are two or more, it amplifies. God is paying attention to His Covenant people. Everyone else has to deal with Satan first, but people inside of the Covenant boundaries have God's full direct attention.
Now, if anyone does injustice to your tribe according to God's Law, then it's a unique situation. Instead of the random hassles of living under Satan's dominion, God signals to His Blackhat (the Devil) that someone merits special attention of the other kind. This is related to things like that business of shaking the dust off your feet -- you don't want to be defiled by the special attention Satan gives these enemies of the Covenant. These enemies have no covering or hedge, regardless if they claim to follow Christ. Even the "demon-slapping Pentecostals" lose their covering.
While the context matters, you should expect the Devil to start treating them with special care. They lose their sleep; every little thing that could go wrong does go wrong. Accidents on the job increase, and nature itself starts attacking in every way possible. Everything they touch and everything they do is defiled. This is why you should mark them well and know what they claim to hold, because it will all be defiling to you. Again, it's that "shake their dust off your feet" kind of thing.
You offer none of your covering; you turn them over to Satan for discipline. Granted, non-believers might not notice much of anything new. However, believers will (or should) know something isn't right. They will come under condemnation. They are the ones being disciplined for putting their hands to injustice -- all the more so if they make any claim to the Covenant. But in a much broader sense, the Lord will see to it that they do not prosper as long as their actions toward His tribe is unjust.
If possible, you owe it to those people to warn them of their injustice. They need to know that you have marked them for avoidance. No, we do not get directly involved; that would only defile us. We don't fight them until they invade the domain God has granted us. As long as the injustice is a matter of contact in the wider world, the only proper response is to avoid getting defiled by their operations.
Obviously, I'm not talking here about every defiled operation that you encounter; virtually every one of them is defiled. Rather, I'm referring to those that do you an injustice. Stay away from them; walk away and let God carry out His own vengeance.
Of course, the obvious converse of this is that you pray a blessing on those who do justice, particularly to your tribe. Sometimes it's just a matter of them staying out of the way of anything God commissions you to do, when it's obvious how they could interfere. This is the principle behind our preference for libertarian political theory in Western settings. Now, I'll grant the libertarian politics eventually leads to the most awful abuses as private business powers always rise to monopoly under libertarian policies. It's not good for the people, but among the other brands of political theory you encounter, libertarian is the easiest for Covenant communities to face. Their live-and-let-live social policy keeps them from interfering with how God says we should live. We can be tribal and exclusive without conflict from them.
So, while we know that libertarian policy isn't good for the country in the long run, it's good for our tribe. Anyone who clearly avoids hindering us is an ally. We pray for God to bless our passage through their domain, as it were. We pray for the Lord to prosper them however much He will.
All of this assumes you know your commission and convictions, and that you live inside the Covenant boundaries. These powers are not imaginary, and they aren't toys for experimentation. There is plenty of precedent in the Bible; just use them as your convictions demand. You'll know injustice when you experience it; something about the experience will make you feel morally dirty, like someone crapped on you. Don't take your anger out on them. Get away from them so you aren't defiled. Pray the Lord take away any hedge your presence might have provided so that your hedge isn't defiled. Pray that He reveals to you where the boundaries are so you'll stay away from Satan's special attention. Without fail, God notices when someone defiles your mission. Let Him work.
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