Jim Alseth is a friend and physician from Alberta, and he penned the following, that I would like to set forth as a way to better reframe marriage vows. Something to ponder and apply as you see fit, gang.
Jim writes:
Much has been said about the necessity of renouncing our hidden agreements with death.
Michael C. King spends time on that one in his book.
This morning I found myself going over that ground—in particular, our wedding vows, of all things. “Till death do us part”, and “in sickness and in health” are common components of those vows. We said them ourselves (or at least the pastor did, of which we came into agreement).
Isn’t it interesting how an event so innocent and precious to the human community can get unknowingly infected with sickness and death! This is not hyperbole, friends. Remember, the unholy realm are legalists, to the extreme.
I understand we had only good intentions and romantic notions in uttering those vows. We all want to be loved when we’re down, but the fact is they weren’t necessary. In our allegiance to Christ we already made the vow to love: “love one another”, “love your neighbor as your yourself”, etc., etc.
When we say to our future spouse, “I love you”, this ground is already covered. There simply was (is) no need to open the doors of sickness and death to the predatory legalists—in front of a house full of witnesses, at that—in such a binding agreement.
In Matthew 12 when Jesus says we would have to give account for every careless word we have spoken, He’s not being the legalistic, harsh judge I just mentioned. He himself is Love and He knows how powerful words are, for good or for evil, AND what a predatory legalist our enemies are. He doesn’t want us to get caught in our words. Praise his Name.
So I spent time confessing, repenting of and renouncing those words uttered in innocence, yet ignorance, and sending them and all their effects to the Cross of Christ; and further, asking Him to close those doors to sickness and death forever. Hallelujah.
May the Life and Health of the King be upon you undiminished this day, beloved. Amen and Amen.
There have been a few times where I told the story of my divorce. And while I mentioned the adultery and the emotional abuse and the other dynamics, I will note that the divorce in the spirit did not coincide with the divorce in the legal sense.
Sure, my legal divorce was filed Pearl Harbor Day 2012 and finalized the day of the Boston Bombing, but the actively divorce took place a couple of years earlier, in March 2010.
At that point, my then-wife gave me an ultimatum. Move with her or she was leaving with the kids.
At which point I felt the breaking of the covenant.
The rug had been pulled.
I was 30 at the time. And I knew the marriage was over and that she had chosen her mother over me.
This is a situation that caused me to turn internally and the only person I had to turn to and lean on was the King.
When you have no one, as I did, you still have the King.
And when you are alone, He will build things into you, and a depth of intimacy that can survive even death.
‘Cuz, you know, “love is as strong a death.”
Now, in order for love to be made as strong as death, it must endure against the spirit of death. You are meant to be tested in your kettle against certain things in the spirit.
Kind of like Isaiah 54:17, if you want no weapon formed against you to prosper, then you have to be willing to sing in your barrenness and embrace the first 16 verses and the process of Isaiah 54.
Cause and effect.
If you sow against testing and refinement, you will be stronger against the fight.
Ask me how I am so effective against some things.
It’s because I have been in the fight for years.
If you want the walk someone else has, you also are asking for the grace to endure what that other person has endured.
Friend, your responsibility is to dig deep wells with the King and lean HARD on him.
I am proof in the Kingdom that this can be done, and it will knit your hearts more deeply and more intimately with his and it will pour into you a well and a storehouse of resources that others will find life-giving after you pass through the season of hell.
Lean, lean, lean….
Do not lean on your own understanding….
In all your ways KNOW Him (that same word for “know” in Proverbs 3:6, is the same word for Adam “knew” his wife Eve).
There is an intimacy that only comes when you have suffered deep emotional loss.
And that will bless your heart and spirit with a spring of life you never had.
and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.
2 Tim 2:2 GNT and ESV
Budgeting…
We hate it.
It’s discilpline.
It’s no fun.
It is refraining and removing the fun and freedom that we want.
Granted, there are many who like this sort of thing.
I was speaking to those who dislike this discipline.
As a father, I was listening to an exposition on this text this morning, and the L-rd had specifically said something to me during the sermon, while the pastor was explaining the Greek word used for “entrust”.
επιτίθημι seems to refer to this dynamic of despositing. Hearing that word made me think of a safe, a bank safe. Paul told Timothy to treat the teachings Paul was describing as something to “place beside” or to “place with” others who were trustworthy.
And I heard the phrase “emotional desposits”
And I saw the things that we do and we build up, different mindsets and different sets of decisions that, when consistently made, built up or piled up a large pile of something that creates momentum and makes gtravel easier.
And then I heard Him imply with His eye…
“For better or worse”
An addict has built up a pile of deposits that he has accrued emotionally in an area. Porn, alcohol, drugs, you name it.
A farmer provides to his soil seed that came from a previous deposit. Plants, Monsanto and their blood crops aside, yield seed that will reproduce themselves after their own kind and will in turn each seed produce multiplied dozens of other like precious seed that will each produce plants.
A husband will add deposits emotional or spiritual or physical or pinancial or sexual into a bank account.
We can deposit many different types of things with others.
Are we depositing the sorts of things from which we will eventually want to reap and harvest?
Intentional and emotional and relational and spiritual deposits, gang.
“These things entrust…”
Be not deceived. G-d is not mocked. Whatsoever a man sows, that also shall he reap.”
Galatians 6:7
It is easier to withdraw from a positive deposit that we have piled up over the long-term, than to try to create something positive at the last minute to stem the tide of a negative deposit that pours over us like a flood, that we have accrued over time.
And the hand of the people of Israel pressed harder and harder against Jabin the king of Canaan, until they destroyed Jabin the king of Canaan
Judges 4:24 (ESV)
Thoughts Here
Gang, I am doing a read-through of scripture, and this text really hit home for the Exhorter, especially given it deals with an aspect of breaking the Canaanite Curse, one of the Seven Curses against design.
Time after time, I, and others, have encountered those who believe the only thing necessary to break a curse is to utter a renunciation, or have a court case, or __________ (fill in the blank with tour chosen thing to utter). And frequently, Exhorters who are built for the long haul of endurance are hunting for the magic spell or incantation or eight key. THE SOLUTION TO ALL MY ILLS.
And while renunciations are excellent, they are not the whole picture.
There must be, resident within the Exhorter, a commitment to grow and increase through consistent righteous actions of sowing and reaping in order to break a stronghold through overcoming.
Exhorters MUST, non-optionally, and non-negotiably, build a reservoir of endurance and strength.
They have to develop life-strong, sinewy muscle (Muscular System of the body is Exhorter) in order to win at many situations.
Press HARDER AND HARDER. Over and over and over. Keep pounding. Hammer to nail. Pull and push and develop. There is a reason that well-built people are referred to as chiseled and cut and ripped. Such adjectives speak of a PROCESS that happens layer by layer.
Such an appearance is pleasing to the eye.
And such an appearance will be the result of building out groups of musculature. In the gym. In the kitchen. In the community. In the secret place. In all of the places.
Gang, especially Exhorters, it’s time to get cut and peel back some things that you have tolerated in previous seasons.
When we ask questions of others, and we have the opportunity to engage in something we desire, we have then been given two things. Resources, if you will.
Rights plus responsibilities.
We do not celebrate Christmas, and this may or may not create friction with others, because there are expectations, some twisted, that frequently attend the celebration of that day.
Expectations of stuff. Expectations of purchasing on borrowed money. Expectations of rolling with a yearly pressure that may be tied to celebrating the birth of the King, or not.
That said, we as a family usually go and watch a movie. This is something that has its roots in my first marriage but makes a lot of sense. And frequently, those movies are times where the L-rd sits with me in the movie theater and talks to me about what is playing.
And I frequently see principles in said film.
This year we were delayed in seeing the film, and we finally got to see our chosen movie yesterday.
And as a huge Marvel fan, we saw Spider-Man: No Way Home.
And in this film, Peter has dealt with the reality that his secret identity has now become revealed to all. And in frustration, he visits a friend, Steven Strange, in order to ask him to make reality such that people forget who he is. During Strange’s incantation, Peter begins asking him to make exceptions, and provisos, and the balance of the movie is then given to the mess that comes from Peter wanting reality his way.
He wants the rights without the responsibilities and he continually messes things up, which then ultimately leads to a near-destruction of reality. On the way, his Aunt May dies. And other villains from previous realities come to mess with the natural order of things.
And the only way he can fix the mess is by accepting reality the way it is. And enabling Strange to cast the incantation that causes everyone including, his loved ones, to forget who he is
Gang, we have been given a reality and a set of causes that mesh together with a set of effects.
And that reality, when we don’t opt out of the whole of it, can be beautiful, though difficult.
But it is far worse to want some of reality and ignore the rest. That twists reality into something that it wasn’t made to be.
When we do that selective appropriation of reality, we avoid the problems G-d intended us to wrestle with.
And we avoid the following two passages.
“Count it all joy when you face trials of many kinds.”
“You meant it for harm, but G-d meant it for good.”
G-d, in bringing us to growth, leads us through trials and hands us problems to solve.
And He may or may not force the issue.
The issue is, when we ask Him for a chunk of reality that includes hla major blessings, are we willing to cultivate the skills necessary to scramble over and around and by that set of rocks in order to possess all He has for us in terms of blessing.
We may not fully appreciate the blessing until we have been given the curse to wrestle with.
Now, be careful when you read what I write. By “curse” I don’t mean G-d literally curses us. By “curse” I mean “problem to solve”.
Now, why did I use the word “curse”?
Two reasons. One, because the poetic nature of the way “curse” pairs with blessing.
Two, because too frequently, WE CURSE the difficult or inconvenient problem G-d gives us to solve, because He treats us as sons.
Slaves do not get problems to solve. Sons, rather, are they who get the problems to solve.
So, take heart, love. Because if you are getting problems when you pray, it is likely because G-d is trusting you as a son.
Be at peace, and if you need to solve a nettlesome problem, please feel free to reach out. I and others, as fellow sons, can help you to solve that problem.
G-d wants to bless you, but in order to do it, He has to calibrate you in order to equip you to solve problems.
Why are we deciding what someone is based on a small set of decisions that are held under a million power magnifying glass?
Where is the Mercy Season Fragrance and tenderness in all of this?
The desire to make news is so devouring that you have to litigate a gymnast’s actions and ask the question of whether or not heroism is present??
And, some ignore the socialist actions of a governing board that refuses to celebrate excellence, but rather attacks excellence?
Or worse yet, we focus of secondary issues, such as whether or not she was good for her decision, and ignore the attacks on her dignity.
This proves the entire fourth estate (a term used for legacy news media) does not have anything better to do with their time except lead us to a place of fostered discord.
And I don’t want their evaluation of her decision.
Rather, I want them and us to celebrate the honed skill of an athlete who is a cut above the rest.
Mediocre journalism has become what the masses thinks is fresh manna, and they don’t realize they are devouring maggoty, stinking bread.
FOX, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC….the whole lot of them are peopled by predators with an agenda that is unredeemed.
And many of our current modalities in the culture are governed by modalities that deny redemption and kill nuance and refuse to make a way for robust discussion.
Picking apart a person that you should be protecting and honoring as the weaker vessel (the way Christ protected and protects us as His Bride) is the summation of what should be in our mouths.
Managing our words, or better yet, STEWARDING our words and communication when it does not matter to us will determine whether or not others hear our heart when it finally does matter. There is a wealth of sound present in the earth, and a landfill of noise given off by the fourth estate
And we will reap what we sow.
The problem here, is how are we enabling sound and clear communication to emanate from us in such a way that it gives life rather than takes it away.
Are we supposed to never speak anything that is negative or indicates our anger? G-d forbid!
But if we are frustrated, let’s really weigh our words and measure them with frugal economy so that they do not spill over into dishonor of others.
Slaves obey…..and they have zero creative will or desire or tools….and they have access only to what their master gives them…..
Sons create…..
I have a few questions for you. And I have hammered and pounded and beaten this drum forever.
Why the impotent focus on what Bezos and Gates do with their money?
Shouldn’t the focus be on unpacking your own stuff?
Is our job to handle other people’s stuff and see to it other people pay “their fair share”, when fairness is not in the Bible anywhere?
Is our job not to unpack the massive amount of treasures G-d has given us?
Or is it to wonder why someone else had any fulfilling OUR vision and OUR plan for their lives?
Your problem is not Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates or Warren Buffett.
Your problem (or problems) are issues that you personally deal with….
Your problem is between your ears…
Your refusal to see what G-d has given you….
Whether or not we realize it, these issues we have been dealing with for YEARS….they already have a slew of answers to them.
I will again mention two things.
We froth at Amazon, Disney, or other company C, and we miss the issues in government, or we froth at government and miss the evil companies.
But it seems we never put the two together.
And deal with the cohesive whole.
Our excuse? We like either the red or the blue solution. One of two Republicrat solutions.
And we ignore the reality that “what you pay taxes on, you own.”
Meaning, we have paid massive amounts of money into services and companies that have done evil things, and I rarely hear believers attempting to leverage the financial investments in these companies to ask the King to steer these companies in a direction that better aligns with His will.
Further question.
Can we leverage our investment to intercede for that alignment of those companies without coaching G-d as to what his purpose and direction for these companies is?
And we rarely ask Father to shine His light whereever He damn well wants to shine it.
And we rarely down a corporate womb of agreement long enough to ask Father to steer companies or governments because we’d rather talk about the injustice as if a yutz of a businessman can or has gassed Jews.
Or we Yell about the penis-shaped ship long enough to say, “he could end world hunger with those billions.
Forgetting world hunger IS….
Because of mindsets…..
The problem of world hunger and creating the foolish solution of confiscating wealth to end it won’t end it.
You will end world hunger when you end personal hunger.
And you end personal hunger when you stop saying “the answers to my problems belong to someone else”.
And when you stop trying to force people to care for the poor or hungry.
That damn spirit of jealousy that has caused fascists to loot and pillage and burn whole cities is a real problem.
And jailing or interning or concentrating or exterminating a race because you think another race is superior.
Calling for reparations when you fail to heal your own wounds is precisely what gets us to ripping all kinds of things apart.
Failing to understand your Southern brethren because you think you can talk down to him or her and they are backwards…
And using the fire of the world to confront what is ultimately a spiritual problem is how you ensure fractured relationships will continue.
The problem is not billionaires or millionaires.
The problem is misfocussed attention on the gifts and resources of others and a failure to unpack, steward, or use your own.
I just recently pulled out a major cork to some large-scale problem I have been dealing with for 3.5 decades.
And you know what?
I am going to keep on pursuing solutions to problems that have not yet been answered.
Gang, this peanuts of the Billionaires is going to get us nowhere.
The problem is the spirit that wants to keep us blind to our own resources (spirit of Jealousy)
The problem is the spirit that says we have no resources (the spirit of slavery)
The problem is the spirit that says other people are responsible for fixing our own problems (the welfare spirit)
You are not a slave, unless you stop creating and start pointing the finger and expecting that your solution is what Jeff or Bill have.
And world Hunter proceeds from a mindset that I cannot do anything to change my station.
And when Scripture shouts:
HIS DIVINE POWER HAS GIVEN US EVERYTHING THAT IS NECESSARY FOR LIFE
And yet we continue to act as if some people were given the goods and others simply were not….
We can quit making excuses that the solution is someone else’s responsibility….
That is a damn carnal Teacher with selective responsibility or a half-blind, non-principle-weaving and severely-wounded Prophet speaking.
And I simply will not make excuses for the juxtaposition of anyone’s radically-gifted-for-life life and “my problems are solved with their crap”.
This is not how any of this works.
And you won’t work if you think your problems are supposed to be owned by someone else.
When you remove something that has metastisized at an alarming rate, what instrument do you use? Answer: a scalpel. Or a sword. That depends on the context.
Likewise, when you are in Denial about a result and the truth, and the stronghold is allowed to gather strength, that stronghold rooted in denying or hiding from reality creates an oppression. This oppression, left unchecked, will result in the Fourth Head of Leviathan, which we will discuss in the post on that head.
In order to survive and then thrive, you MUST tear down that stronghold, or fall under its weight. In order to tear down that stronghold effectively, you must deal with the root of Denial.
Denial. We heard it when Bob Jones said Bill Clinton had a mantle of humility. We heard about it when people suggested on one side that the morality of the President has little to do with whether or not he or she can govern. “We are not electing a pastor but a President.” We got to the point with Clinton when he said “he didn’t mean it as adultery”. We suspend judgment when it is our people, but heap it when it is the other party or group.
And meanwhile, Joe Biden is grasping for legitimacy because we allowed the President’s office to get that raucously defiled. This creation of the Office of the President-Elect, complete with Presidential Blue backdrop is a Denial-laced grab for legitimacy, because he has not been sworn in.
And many of us appear not to give a damn nor bother to pray for the toll this passed-around nonsense is taking on the marriages and families of those in positions of influence and public service.
So, Donald Trump can be the wrecking ball all you want until the cows come home.
Bill Clinton can be humble all Bob Jones claims.
Bush 43 can be the one who wants to “restore dignity to the Oval Office” while he commits us to an open-ended battle campaign with zero end in sight.
Clinton can give us surpluses until we are blue in the face…
Both Republicans and Democrats can spend us into oblivion with impugnity…
And we can pass around lists that say Republican are for limited government…
Even though Trump and Bush 43 asked for stimulus packages totaling in the billions of dollars….
However, it will not mean a thing as long as we are single-sided in our attacks and corrections and rebukes.
We still have not come out of our Denial yet, church. Neither have our government officials. And I am not convinced they want to.
The problem, indeed, is that SHIELD is a nothing more than a front for HYDRA. Those of you who have never seen the MCU movie “Captain America: Winter Solider” may not know what I mean by this. So, here are the pertinent movie clips.
And we are conserving and liberating nothing, except for the cancer that is present. Our responsibility is not to let one party or group play us off one another. In ANY arena, political or otherwise.
Spiritually speaking, this Denial and “my-partial-perspective-is-the-whole-picture” mindset is what allows things to grow without our knowledge or consent: In government, in the private sector, in the church and in the academy (looking at you, Liberty University sex scandal).
The Mesmerizing Spirit and this partial-as-whole perspective create a defilement of our times, our seasons, and our capacity to accurately discern the rhythm of times, seasons, and our moving forward in a horizontal manner with the constellation of our relationships in the surround.
When you are vested in the success of a political party come hell or high water, regardless of the actual truth, you have crossed the line into Denial.
When you are vested in the protection of a church’s reputation regardless of who was harmed by the abuse (Mars Hill, Hillsong, the Southern Baptist Convention’s mishandling of Beth Moore who called them out on their sex abuse culture), then your attitude is part of the problem.
When Denial strikes, prophets go hazy with their sight, planes fall from the sky because of imprecise engineering, and whole movements in the church go batty because they lose their focus. I am looking at the German Lutheran church for starters, where Martin Luther, the Exhorter, wanted a number of reforms, but moved to embrace anti-semitism and wasted the latter portion of his life combatting and slandering the Jewish people.
This problem of Denial and non-reality can affect anybody regardless of their gift, but it is particuarly and disproportionately damaging to the Exhorter.
Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, FDR, Ben Franklin, Walt Disney, the Assemblies of G-d, the Apostle Paul, Moses, Solomon, the state of California, Hollywood. All have had seasons where they were massively wide of the mark while being effective in other areas, and for some of them, that distraction and non-reality cost them their birthright.
And yes, when you are a President that says “I alone can do this,” then there might be an issue embodied in that mindset.
Or you are a king who, for the sake of political peace, you marry many foreign women…..
Or you are a daughter of a pagan king and are sold as a commodity to cement your father’s political relations (Jezebel), and you swear you are never going to let another person control your destiny or aspirations….
Or if you are a skilled animator who pressures everyone around you to the point where you think that because you are Walt Disney, no one of your staff will unionize….
This diorama of reality is not about one specific set of pot shots against one person. It is about helping to illustrate the worst of what happens when we embrace non-reality.
Defining Reality
Reality is the latest manifestation of the Fourth Principle. before that, it was referred to as the Principle of Sowing and Reaping, and, before that, the Principle of Pain and Suffering.
By reality, I mean embracing WHAT IS as the L-rd sees it. He sees more fully than we do. So, right off the bat, we are talking about recognizing that we see only part of the picture, or, as one Exhorter put it:
…we know in part, and we prophesy in part
Paul to the believers in Corinth.
Gang, reality means embracing the L-rd’s agenda and applying our part for what it is, into the whole, and refusing to see our portion as the whole situation. Broadly speaking, we regularly see less than the L-rd, for some reason….
So, our responsibility is to ever look to the L-rd for direction and input as we progress into our journey.
We seek His agenda and what of His agenda He has placed within us.
Some Implications of Reality
Our responsibility in hunting for His agenda (Reality) is to refuse the popular phrases or excuses of the Charismatic Movement such as:
” I do not have the time to. research this/seek for that/therefore give me the finished product, because I came expecting….”
“I do not have time to process these raw materials. G-d will send me somoeone who will provide the finished product.”
“I do not have time to do this work or that assignment or that thing over there or this thing over here.”
It is one thing for us to ask for help when we really need it, but to engage in every situation by waltzing in with a bang and a flourish and expecting others to give to you finished products from their resources with zero understanding of the cost to them, or the sequence of Giving and Receiving is something entirely different.
There is an entitlement mindset pervasive in the body of Christ that loves to claim divine intervention for Every. Single. Situation where our poor planning or lack of resources is a factor.
Uttering Praise the L-rd and G-d Came Through when He actually came through is not a problem.
However, when we poorly plan and poorly execute and someone comes in and bails us out and we refuse to thank them for fixing our problem in our blindness, and we refuse to make course corrections or adjustments so we do not have the same problem in the future, then we have a larger root problem, and are not far from walking in non-reality.
We simply have to walk this cause-and-effect thing we call Reality more cleanly. If we are chronically late, for example, then we need to figure out why we are late and fix the problem.
We must intentionally sow good seed in order to reap a good crop.
Now, I am not beating up people who have a wound or some trauma or some junk where G-d is working in a long-term process with them to bring them to a better place. Each of us has some issues and stuff and none of us has arrived at the place of sheer perfection. If you are actively attempting to work at bettering your situation, that is one thing.
But it is entirely a different thing when sloth is part of the equation, and you are allowing life happen to you. The spirit of passivity does not belong to the highly effective son or daugher in the Kingdom; they happen to situations.
You must, in walking in Reality, know the difference between pawning your situations off on others, asking for help if you are stuck, and working at the areas you know something about and have means to fix.
It is critically important for each of us to have a goal in mind and, pending our relentless consultation with the L-rd about those plans, move toward the goal that should result in us possessing our birthright.
And in engaging Reality, we must all learn how to….
Embrace the Right Level and Kind of Pain
Indiscriminate pain avoidance is not the domain of those who wish for Reality. Rather, our responsibility is embracing the right kind and level of pain.
Your Pain….Productive Or Not…You Decide…
You have a score of choices with respect to what you do with your pain. And there are two types of pain….productive or unproductive.
Grossly put, unproductive pain is pain that comes into your life situation from which you fail to derive any lesson of any sort. You do not connect with the L-rd in this pain, and as a result, the adversity brings little to know growth.
Productive pain, on the other hand, is pain from which the L-rd is able to instruct you.
Most pain starts out as unproductive. It is the lesson that makes the difference in whether or not the pain moves from the Unproductive category to the Productive category.
For example, years ago, my father abandoned me and my parents divorced. For a long time I could only feel the sting and the heartache of my father’s absence, and this was compounded by the fact that he died a few years back.
What helped transform this pain from unproductive to productive was me helping others who had lost fathers to abandonment or alcohol or death, and blessing them. Taking care of my sons and my daughter.
Sometimes, walking in the blessings that come from walking in reality means embracing others who need when you are in a place of lack and stepping into places to bless and encourage in areas where you have received little to no human encouragement.
We have a perfect Father, and we lack no father, even if our eathly fathers abandoned us. Given we have a perfect and loving Father, what do we lack in terms of tools, affection, and depth of capacity to love and father others?
Nothing.
Reality dictates that we lack nothing with which to father. Not wisdom or resources. Not heart or spirit. Not emotions. Not understanding, knowledge, or wisdom. And certainly not a sense of justice or the capacity for a heart oozing with compassion. Because our G-d could related to our frailties, we also can relate to the weakness of others, and the lack in others.
Because He received from Our Father, we also can receive and then give to others who lack.
Provided we are wiling to move beyond slavery and into the embrace of our Father and give that embrace to others.
We love, because he first loved us. We have freely received SO MUCH, and so we are able to give even in areas where we have lacked.
This is reality that comes from the Father of Lights who has given us his son. How much will He not also give us all things.
Translation: G-d gave us everything He had in the embodiment of His Son. What’s a little bit of stuff? Especially when we are sent to be life-giving to others.
AN INTRODUCTION AND SOME CUSTOMARY PROVOKING STATEMENTS
Because New York passed an abortion law or some such thing, people all of a sudden have started to talk about and exegete the news.
It has been raised as an argument against those who might be pro-life that G-d cannot be pro-life, since, in the Bible, and specifically, in the Torah, he killed babies.
I rarely discuss current events at the same time they are happening. But today I will make an exception. Check that. Two exceptions.
#elliotabrams
It is uncomfortable to talk about how unrighteous our government’s actions are in the area of abortion and talking about how righteous a pro-life stance is, while turning the blind eye to the warhawking anti-life nature of conducting police state actions overseas, that are the purview of Republicans and Democrats alike.
Back to what I was talking about, seriously. Sometimes we want to excuse our government’s stupidity by an appeal to one issue, when there are a breadth of issues at play. And such exegesis gets sloppy.
Some days, our exegesis, which can turn to support one group or party over another, is only painted with broad strokes that Scripture does not use.
And when it comes to Scripture, sometimes our exegesis boils down to making sure that the G-d in the right hand side of the Bible apologizes for the actions of the G-d in the left hand side of the Bible.
But here is how I would processionally explain the actions of the G-d on the left hand side of the book, in seven elements.
Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. Hebrews 13:8
PREFACING THE SEVEN ELEMENTS: IS HE REALLY AS MEAN AS SOME SAY?
Consider also the fact that the “kinder, gentler” guy on the right hand side of the book, at the end of the right hand side, plagued the whole earth and wiped out a million here and there, in case we think the guy on the right hand side has more reformed ways.
Translation: parsing the Old Testament G-d and the New Testament G-d out from each other as distinct causes the whole book to fall apart greatly. Truly, they are one and the same. Revelation teaches us that. And His Judgment is His mercy.
BACKGROUND TEXTS FOR RECONCILING THE TWO PARTS
G-d, on the other hand, as Scripture RELENTLESSLY teaches throughout both the Tanakh and the New Testament, gives space for people to repent and reform before He executes against them.
Cue cluster of texts that show G-d’s mercy and granting people space and breathing room to repent before He judges.
Jonah 3-4, where G-d relents/repents after the capital of the flaying Assyrians repents.
Revelation 2:21, where G-d gave Jezebel space to repent
Genesis 15:16, where G-d gave the Amorites space to repent, that He didn’t have to, and would have caused something to work out between Israel and the Amorites had they repented.
Genesis 18:17-19, where G-d debated what he would share with Abraham, knowing Abraham’s righteousness, knowing Abraham’s heart to cry out for mercy, and knowing that Abraham was able to affect G-d’s heart because Abraham was the friend of G-d in only the way Givers can be.
Deuteronomy 2:9 and Judges 11:17, where G-d gave Moab their land, and commanded Israel not to harrass them, even before Moab fought against Israel (Joshua 24:9). This could have led to Moab’s national repentance and a reconciliation and commerce between Moab and Israel. And even when the national reconciliation did not take place, G-d STILL played out the drama that should have been between Moab and Israel in the story of Ruth and Boaz.
Genesis 46:4, where G-d SENT Israel down to Egypt, and G-d DWELT WITH Israel IN Egypt, and during which season, Israel had centuries to get to know her G-d, and the Amorites had space to repent and prepare the land for the ISRAELITES, which could have happened instead of their destruction.
Genesis 47:6, where Pharaoh gave favor to Israel in the land of Egypt and with the pagan ruler of Egypt.
Isaiah 19:24-25, where the L-rd will ultimately bring about redemption of the Egyptian nation, and the Egyptian nation will occupy the first place. SECONDLY, <GASP>, pagan, flaying, barbaric Assyria. And third, Israel.
Exodus 4:22-23, where G-d first reveals to a pagan nation His name of “Father”. He then commands, before the first drop of water turns to blood and before the first frog touches the land and dies, Egypt to LET HIS SON GO. And then the judgments start and increase.
And yes, one can argue G-d kept Pharaoh from repenting, because of Exodus 4:21 and 7:3, but to merely argue that is to see only part of the whole narrative. Psalm 115:16, “the highest heavens belong to the L-rd, but the earth he has given to the sons of men.” G-d has given people free will to choose what they will or will not do. He does not always get what He wants.
From the point above, through the entire sequence of issues, the L-rd showed the Egyptians what they had done in infant genocide towards the men of Israel (Exodus 1:22, note the waters turning to blood in 7:17-21 revealed the death that was in the water and the blood that was on the Egyptian hands). The Tenth Plague was the progressive outflow of the response of the Egyptian injustice of Israelite genocide. Again, there are causes and effects. And when you sow the cause, you will reap the effects.
Let me point out also the counsel of G-d in Exodus 9:19; He told the Egyptian people to gather their flocks and herds to keep them from the hail. Some listened, and some did not. There were Egyptians who had livestock that kept them in from the hail and their livestock was spared. This opened the door for some of them to turn. G-d uses every circumstance to bring people to Him, including His judgments.
Recall also Exodus 12:49, which could plausibly imply that, during the plagues, there were some Egyptians in the nation that chose to follow the G-d of Israel, and chose to align themselves with Israel, and celebrated the Passover. Even if there were none that did actually align with Israel, He still made provision for that.
The book of Joshua is completely devoted to the destruction of whole nations while the Israelites possessed the Promised Land.
Element 1: G-d’s decisions, even those decisions that result in human death, are ALWAYS executed in the context of His mercy and His justice, which are the twin facets of His love. What will drive His children to seek Him?
Element 2: G-d’s purposes are aimed at a long-game strategy. He weighs all decisions with an eye toward redemption and how they will impact eternity and His house.
Element 3: G-d aims to eradicate sin, rebellion, iniquity, and abomination from the earth.
Element 4: G-d’s yearning desire is to walk among us, be our G-d, and for us to be His people. Whatever keeps that community from happening He may remove from us.
Element 5: G-d looks for the fruit on the tree. He looks for fresh water or salt, hot water or cold, humility or assertion, upness or downness, filiality or bridality. He looks for consistency that He can utilize. He looks for and brings organized sequence.
Element 6: Sin twists and perverts the good, and that twisting is revealed in the fruit of the tree that is planted. G-d despises things that twist and mar. Element 7: Everything G-d is, does, or permits to happen is ALWAYS with an eye toward straightening out the twistedness.
Look, it is not like G-d on a bipolar whim massacred millions of innocent babies in an unprovoked rage.
He gave all of these nations, including Mizraim, CENTURIES to repent. And when a culture of death and murder is embraced, somewhere down the line, death is going to be result, and the empire that embraces death is going to self-devour.
He exposed the Egyptian culture for the death-bringing culture it had become. Blood was already in the waters before the first plague. He just forced the nation to see the blood that was in the water. He untwisted the reality of the waters. And in so doing, He allowed all of those baby boys’ blood to testify (Hebrews 12:24).
The Golden Calf is an example of a culture self-devouring. The Levites massacred 3,000 of their own families and so were ordained through G-d’s warring against the defiled spirit of idolatry.
National sin has national consequences. Longstanding sin has consequences. G-d even showed longsuffering toward the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities on the plain, and Lot interceded for Zoar, and as a result, G-d spared that city.
And one of the names of G-d (Exodus 34:5-6) is The L-rd Who Is Longsuffering.
G-d is not Hitler, G-d is not Pol Pot, G-d is not Stalin, and G-d is not Mao. And it is not really the church’s job to justify the behavior of G-d to others. G-d can work in, around, and through our objections and the obstacles. But we have to recognize that the principles of Scripture do work. Sexual sin has sexual consequences, murderous sin has murderous consequences. Abortive sin has abortive consequences. Actions do have reactions. Sum of the Forces, Newtonian approximations, and all that jazz.
And Jezebel’s genocide resulted in her blood being shed.
And Naboth’s Vineyard landed on Ahab’s head.
The Principles work, without prejudice, and without caring what you think about how nice G-d or anyone else is.
And ultimately, G-d can work every situation to His glory.
But for us, now is the time to wake up, acknowledge reality in the stead of hiding from it, and bless New York, as we should have, instead of cursing it.
G-d was there first, and this decision on New York’s part is not helped by cursing New York. Rather, gang, let’s not carry on with eighty-five reams of conversation, and instead work with what we know about the Giver and Exhorter design of the state and Manhattan, respectively.
Bless the Giver and the Exhorter dynamic of that state. Just some thoughts here, gang.
Since I first connected with the P/C movement in college, I have struggled with a number of issues. Things like elitism, condescension, pretenses of intimacy, control, manipulation, covering, the fivefold ministry, and many of these I have written about.
But, a pattern has arisen that I could not verbalize until just a few minutes ago.
And I finally put my finger on what it is….
What it is that drives so many of my generation from the usual corporate expressions of worship….
What it is that keeps us who want and yearn for relationships with groups of other believers….
What it is that keeps us from moving into depth one with another….
What keeps us from fulfilling any sense of duty to one another (Greek αλλαλους)…
And, maddeningly, what keeps us from becoming a body….
This quality has kept us from behaving cohesively…
It is a sense of entitled secrecy.
Presentation Vs. Vulnerable Reality
We have failed at humility, transparency, honesty, and straight-shooting, in favor of slicked-up presentation, and appearances. And my generation is sick of those presentations that do not find root in bare reality.
Because of a presentation that is nothing more than a distraction from what is really happening behind the scenes, I despise the phrase “brother” and do not usually reciprocate in kind.
That bald-faced fakery is why I despise being called Dave by anyone other than those who respect me.
Secrecy, and the hidden hand. Guile, shrewdness, and all kinds of glad-handing, verbal barfing account for my sickness with most of what passes for “fellowship” (gag!).
It is as if we are more interested in coming off or appearing to be real and tender and affectionate with each other than we are in actually BEING real and tender and affectionate with each other.
A Possible Reason Why
Perhaps part of the reason we do not engage in reality is that we have been so wounded and damaged (cue Plumb’s cut called “Cut” from Chaotic Resolve) that we are fearful of exposing ourselves again. We get castigated repeatedly for not belonging to the church, and for picking expressions of the church that are not part of established and recognized congregations, and yet, those traditional routes for corporate expression are precisely the routes that brought us to a place of shipwreck.
And we are sick of hearing expressions that tout the fivefold as the right expression for church leadership that have not apologized for the toxic abuse of the extant forms of the fivefold.
Back to the entitled secrecy.
Jim Bakker, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Todd Bentley, and The Passion “Translation”
Jimmy Swaggart helped initiate Jim Bakker’s downfall.
Jerry Falwell, evidently offered Bakker one thing in exchange for his help and then did another.
Swaggart, the second time he was caught in infidelity, said “The Lord told me it’s flat none of your business.”
Todd Bentley never came clean with what happened to his first wife, and why he was justified biblically in divorcing her.
And finally, when straightly asked to identify and name the members of his translation team, Brian Simmons refused to. He talks about a translation team, by calling himself a “lead translator” and then fails to identify the group he is leading. By comparison, the translation teams for the NIV, the NLT, the NKJV, the ESV, the NRSV, the NASB, and even the KJV are all known.
I don’t care how you slice it, that sequence of events where we evade those for whom we are responsible is a twofold sin. First, it is secrecy of things that should be brought to the light, and secondly, it is either arrogance or fear of rejection that will create a natural gulf between leader and followers.
It’s as if, in each of these situations, there is either a an elitism or a massive wound that the leader is guarding, that keeps Charismatics or Pentecostal leaders from putting any “skin in the game” when it comes to humility or vulnerability or following through with Paul’s injunction to “be subject one to another out of reverence for Christ.” Where is the subjection that is the leader’s portion to those he is supposed to be serving?
Does anyone wonder why we are so riled up when Todd Bentley’s name is mentioned? It has diddly squat to do with a demonic spirit of vengeance and zip to do with our opposing his being restored to ministry. Instead, it has EVERYTHING to do with his refusal to repent and expose this crap, and be truly and biblically restored to his G-d and his family.
This right here is my guff with the Passion “Translation”. The refusal of a man to be vulnerable and authentic with those he is leading and placing the manuscript of the New Testament in alignment with the Greek originals.
Greek Is Only The Language of The Mind and Philosophy
The marketing rhetoric of the Passion lands as if Greek is a language of the mind and is devoid of emotion and passion. Let me say this. The nation of Greece has the Redemptive Gift of Prophet. When was the last time you knew of a Prophet by Redemptive Gift that was devoid of emotion and and zeal and heart. Are Prophets not the volcanoes of the body of Christ?
To sum up, I have witnessed a pattern in Charismatic and Pentecostal circles where, when leaders do put something forth for us to grasp, it costs them very little; it is a plastic extension, but not part of them. They extend very little of their own flesh and blood to us, and as a result, we never get to know them as they really are and there is therefore little intimacy, while we parrot “brother” and “we need to connect” and other triteisms. But the end result is, instead of the real unity and vulnerability to which they exhort us all, a farce and a show.
Gunning For Real κοινονια and στοργε
κοινονια is the Greek word for “community”.
στοργε is the Greek word that is described by maternal affection for a child.
You cannot make much of your accomplishments when you won’t also accept a complimentary amount of the priority of humility and submission to those whom you serve. If there is no risk, there will be no reward. If there is plastic risk, then there will be a plastic participation reward. If there is the risk of gold, silver, and precious gems, then the reward will be that valuable.
They are practicing terminal non-reality and expecting a massive harvest of community.
Be not deceived. G-d is not mocked. Whatever a man sows, that also shall he reap.
If you plant corn, you reap corn. If you plant plastic, don’t expect cotton and life.
Expecting to reap much without embracing pain, vulnerability, humility, and submission to those whom you lead, the end result will usually be tragedy.
