10 January 2025
Some of us have a strong sense of our convictions regarding individual actions. We can generally figure out what God wants from us on almost everything. I tend to believe this is normative. At the same time, I have found in practice that the majority of those I work with struggle at times on critical issues. Those are the folks who would benefit from the knowledge of divination.
When discerning God's will as a matter of leadership, the usefulness of divination rises quickly. Sometimes it's the best way to convince folks to go along with the decision, but be sure not to cheat or deceive. The Covenant is no joke.
It's not a question of whether your decisions affect others. It's likely almost everything you decide will affect others one way or another. Rather, the question is loving those you lead enough to care about their convictions and concerns. On top of this, you must contend with the likelihood that any community in which you lead will include folks who are not empowered and led by the Spirit.
Theoretically, we distinguish between Elect and Damned. In practice, we discern between those who walk by the Covenant and those who struggle with it. Either way, it's nearly impossible to build a faith community that excludes these other folks. This is why "rule of law/law of rules" is such an awful lie of Satan. Rules must be stated as propositions, and every proposition will be twisted sooner or later, because the whole concept comes from the Devil. A faith community must be people led by people, not ideas.
The Bible is filled with wisdom about how to handle conflicts between persons; such is the bulk of Scripture. This is how God chooses to work with His human family.
This includes dealing with outsiders and outsiders-in-effect. The West is especially perverse on this. The West was born in paganism, an inherent rejection of divine revelation. Currently, the West pretends to be secular, which is just an odd brand of idolatry. It raises up a false god that says whatever the social/political leadership wants it to say. It's just a means of keeping in power those who seized power in the first place. It's always "might makes right" but they don't want to admit that. Rather, once they have the authority, they philosophically ban any dissent on the grounds of manifest destiny -- "I rule; it is obviously the will of the gods."
This ugly Beast is peeking out from under the facade these days.
We have an answer, and on the fleshly level, it's pretty simple. We know that any false god is just a manifestation of one or more members of the rebellious Divine Council working with Satan. Their power is great, but not the ultimate power in the universe. On a purely human level, the mere fact you live is all the justification you need to fight for survival. It has nothing to do with moral obligations, rights, authorities, etc. It simply is what it is. No human needs to justify their urge for survival. There is no moral judgment involved at all; the Creator wired us that way. It's neither right nor wrong; it simply is.
Only after we establish this can we discuss the moral fabric of reality, and how it may respond to the individual choices made in pursuit of survival. If we are referring to the non-elect, then it's entirely random. This is why some Scripture passages lament that the wicked can at times prosper. There are way too many cosmic factors involved to explain it simply by moral questions of right and wrong. Human reasoning on that question will always be flawed because humans cannot grasp moral truth.
However, if the individual at question is Elect, this changes everything. At that point, you should assume nothing is random. While you may never grasp in this life the moral meaning of some events, your entire existence is covered and nothing is without meaning. A major element in whether you understand what happens is your ability to connect with your convictions (i.e., the Holy Spirit) and the Covenant. God will never tell you everything, but if your grasp of convictions and Covenant are weak, you most certainly will not understand.
During those few moments when Israel was keeping their covenant, you might read about how they would use divination to ask the Lord two questions regarding threats: (1) Shall we attack and (2) should we expect expect victory? Yes, God can sometimes require you to proceed with something that will appear to fail on the fleshly level. Success is seldom the point; obedience is always the point.
Contemplate these things for a moment. Then you should be able to understand why I promote resisting censorship on issues of divine revelation when it condemns the sins of secular government and society. It's why I can assert that the government has lied about vaccines and you are entirely justified in resisting them, even with violence. In the same breath, I'll tell you it is probably not worth the trouble to resist some of the silly social restrictions imposed during officially declared pandemics. We have no expectation of persuading government to change its policies, but if it threatens your survival, you need to decide whether God wants you to resist.
Jesus took that final hike to Jerusalem knowing He would die. Sometimes death is God's will. But if you aren't under conviction to die, then maybe you don't need to. And any amount of fleshly suffering short of death is also a matter of conviction. For the Damned, it's generally non-negotiable, but we have an eternal hope they lack.
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