31 January 2025
I would have thought this was rather obvious, but it seems some of my readers haven't caught on yet.
What is obvious to everyone is that tribulation is here. Things are going to be rough; the Lord is coming for a visit and bringing a fistful of wrath for America. Sure, He's got enough for the whole world, but God says my mission is to America. I'm not supposed to be concerned too much about other countries.
God defends His glory. That includes His reputation, His revelation and His Covenant. In the Bible, the words translated "law" and "covenant" are typically the same Hebrew concept. More to the point, Jesus is the Covenant; He's the Living Law. Granted, no one really obeys His Word fully. We all fail, and the whole image of His dominion as Lord, as it was with His Father in the Old Testament, is that He didn't push obedience (performance), per se. Rather, "keeping His covenant" has always meant guarding and protecting it from loss -- defending it in your own domain of life. In other words, keeping His covenant means maintaining an obvious commitment and submission to His Lordship.
In common church lingo, it means making Jesus Lord, but church people don't typically think about it that way. Churches rarely even have a clear concept of the Covenant; they don't think in feudal terms. Still, it's not what's in your head but what's in your heart that gets God's attention. If you really love Jesus, He knows. He responds accordingly. He plays favorites for those who love Him.
Thus, the real issue is that if you want His protection through the tribulation, then you must be as deeply invested in His glory (reputation, revelation and covenant) as possible. You will lose less if what really matters to you is what you need for your mission. And He tends to be rather generous in granting and preserving a lot of stuff that probably isn't essential, but maybe it helps us stay sane.
And if you are the kind of person who loves Jesus, then you would welcome God's wrath on sin, begging Him to start the cleansing with your sin first. No, literally: I want to be first in line to taste His wrath. This is what should be obvious; His wrath is simply the back edge of the sword of glory. It's wrath on sin and blessings for faith. You should know instinctively that whatever He takes a notion to do is always in your best interest. Nothing better could possibly happen to you.
Thus, God will hear when you pray. Now, if it happens that you manage to cultivate a fellowship with other folks who love Him and operate in faith, then your prayers together are not additive, but exponentially stronger.
But have you ever been to a church that was uniformly all about the Lordship of Christ? Do not they all have a little bit of spiritual dead weight hanging on to the organization? That doesn't hinder the faith of the righteous remnant, but the worldly members do drag down the organization itself. You should know that this is why every faith covenant in Bible History carries with it a law code. The Covenant of Abraham eventually had the Law of Moses. They were concurrent covenants, symbiotic even. In the Covenant of Christ, we have the Code of Noah. Same situation.
God is typically rather indulgent with people of genuine faith, but He's pretty harsh with organizations that include people without faith. That's because people of faith instinctively act like family, while those with little or no faith tend not to do that. Indeed, here in America, it's wholly unlikely. Instead, the worldly ones drag the church down into institutional behavior. God is really hard on institutions because the personal connection is missing. It's not His family, just employees.
Institutions are worldly. I'll let you consider for a moment how worldly some particular church organizations are, given that virtually all the ones we know about were organized under tax codes to get the exemptions. If that's just a formality, it's not too bad. However, if the organization tends to operate mostly by institutional rules, then it means a lot more of their activity comes under God's wrath during tribulation.
Radix Fidem is not a group; it's just a way of approaching faith. Kiln of the Soul is the body of people who consider themselves covenant family. There's no tax status, no budget, no buildings, just people who have adopted each other virtually as family. Tribulation wrath will be pretty light because of our covenant covering. That doesn't prevent bad things happening to our fleshly bodies, up to and including some of us dying. However, that was never the point. Rather, the Covenant protects whatever we have that belongs to His glory.
The key issue for everyone else in this world is a covenant identity. The more deeply your life confirms His Covenant, the stronger your covering during tribulation.
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