Shotgun Thought Pattern Update 3

It DID start to suck in the future (sort of).  I got laid off (temporarily I hear) so for a little while now I have been out of work.  And not just, "better find a job" out of work, but actually just stuck at home waiting to go back to my job.  I went out for some jobs that are better than mine, but otherwise because we are able to make it on unemployment, It's been wiser to wait for my good job to come back. 

This is weird.  I have no money, but I'm not really being worthless.  It's a humbling time in my life.  Not only because I have nothing to boast about in myself, but also because it is clear that God has done this for a reason.  We have more peace and joy on a day to day basis then we should.  The time we've spent with the family is more meaningful than it has been.  Unexplainable joy.  There is substance to our lives in this period of weakness that doesn't fit.  It sounds like something right out of an epistle.  We are very thankful. 

And the most uncanny part of it is how we found out we were going to have a child the very day after I got laid off.  This was not planned, nor were we very careless.  It was obviously... (maybe not obvious to everyone, but the kind of thing where my inner man knows and laughs) ...a message.  God is our livelihood.  He gives the job, He takes away.  He opens the womb, He closes it.

I've also been given the opportunity to watch my Nephew Aaron as a kind of man nanny, and that has been a blessing.  It's very fun to hang out with him, and between all the messes and fits it feels like great practice.  I get to spend the days contributing which is good for my soul, and I get to be blessed in the process.  

We've signed up for some government help, which feels weird.  I certainly don't care to rely on it, but I do appreciate how the government has methods of helping people out.  My political view isn't important here.  What has been meaningful is the new world I've encountered.  Being humbled to the point of needing to rely on government assistance (which once was anathema to you) is a certain way to tear down your own exalted image of yourself.  I feel more compassion for the lowly, my people, who need help.  I don't think that the current system is the best way to help, but again, that's beside the point.  I know this is from God as well.  Whatever I may have been proud of has been laid down.  I'm no Job, and I'm not complaining, but I'm certain that this season has been a tremendous blessing to my spirit.  I won't forget the lessons I've learned. 

Warning: This golden glorious video has the F word in it a lot.

Ok, so seriously, This song just about epitomizes me as a person.  It is about faithfulness and it is charming and great and strong and manly.  I don't always see eye to eye with Big D and the Kids Table, but with this song I am well pleased. 

Of Course it's called "Not F*cking Around" so I shouldn't be posting it publicly for fear that someone will eat meat sacrificed to idols or something. 

This is a fair warning, this song is coarse and profane and Charming and downright moral.  A bit like me.  Don't start dropping F-bombs if you feel it is sinful.  And don't do it around people who might be encouraged to do it, all the while thinking it is sinful.  Deal?  Ok. 

My Emotions Today

Today I got off work an hour early and began driving home in my 87 Bronco II while listening to ska.  I hung my arm out of the window and breathed in my surroundings, thought appreciatively about the Airmen who live where I get to work, and I reveled a bit in my job, not so much the working part, but the part where it was over for the day. 





I learned from Ecclesiastes that seeking wealth is foolish.  I also learned from proverbs that sitting on your butt is foolish.  So I primarily work for works sake insuring that I will be able to enjoy rest in good conscience.  Secondary is paying the bills.  If you do work, that typically gets taken care of. 

On the way home I felt like Jesus must have felt on the mount of transfiguration.  Except I wasn't gleaming white and talking with Moses and Elijah, I was just getting off work on a Friday afternoon.

On the way home NOFX's Leaving Jesusland came on and that hurt my spirits.  I typically dislike the people who are caricatures of Christianity and don't live it like we are told to, but just wear the Jersey on game day.  I know that songs like this are about that guy.  Doesn't really matter much though, because I know I am going to be thought of as that guy, and in a lot of ways me and that guy are the same.  I don't abandon that guy.  Even if that guy is messing it up for everyone, peeing in everyone's pool, I still care about that guy.  In fact, my primary hope as an elder is to work with that guy.  Then I start wishing I could just talk to Fat Mike about my beliefs and see if he still thought I was worth attacking.  He probably would.  My heart sincerely breaks for junk like that.  And not just because I like NOFX.  I mean, I was listening to Streetlight Manifesto radio on Pandora, and they would have a lot to say about the subject.  They don't strike me as a-holes though.  They are my favorite ska band.

Anyway, at home I recalled the possibly prophetic words of Lamech:   Now he called his name Noah, saying, “This one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed.” Gen 5:29

Now, I know that Noah is famous for the ark and the flood.  And maybe Lamech didn't know what he is talking about.  Maybe the ground was worse before, and after Noah everything has been a bit easier because of some earth change or something.  .  .  .  Honestly, I am at least partially inclined to believe that this is a prophecy about Noah making Krunk juice.  I know, calm down, that's hard to swallow.  And maybe this isn't worth saying out loud, but derned if that theory isn't at least a bit compelling.  Relax, we all still maintain that drunkenness is a sin (Eph 5:18)

Wait, look at this:



That is the worst and best depiction of drunk Noah being covered by two of his sons, I have ever seen.  From the french in the 14th century I think. 

Moving on, so because I wrote my main paper on Bible booze, I feel certain that drink is not a sin if you do not do it to excess.  Drunkenness is like gluttony: Prov 23:20-21 "Do not be with heavy drinkers of wine, Or with gluttonous eaters of meat; For the heavy drinker and the glutton will come to poverty, And drowsiness will clothe one with rags."

Therefore I am perfectly capable in my fire refined conscience to appreciate good things from the Lord's hand, like a fine 1554, by New Belgium Brewing right out of Fort Collins, Colorado.

"Bless the Lord, O my soul!...
...He causes the grass to grow for the cattle,
And vegetation for the labor of man,
So that he may bring forth food from the earth,
And wine which makes man’s heart glad,
So that he may make his face glisten with oil,
And food which sustains man’s heart." Psalm 104:1a, 14-15

So, to sum up, this is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.  It may start to suck in the future, but I am not in the future.  I am in today.  Now I think I am going to play video games.  I just worked a full day, why should anyone object?  Shabbat Shalom here in a little while! 

Shotgun Thought Pattern Update 2

I don't write much here often.  I usually have moments of lucidity while at work or something, and my thoughts seem important enough to write down later, but...  then you sit down and... meh. 

I read an article about Ireland abandoning religion, and in the comments were all manner of scorn and mockery for the believers.  It burdened me, like I've said before, but afterwards I listened to proverbs while I worked.  In the comments the people (I'm guessing dumb teenagers and college kids)  were arguing about their own intellects and posting IQ's and all manner of downright foolish ass-hat-ery.  While listening to proverbs I heard so many words about that exact type of fool.  They were, down to the last bit, as foolish as the worst fool in proverbs.  Right down to being puffed up in their foolishness.  It's not their facts that are foolish, it's their behavior.  Their facts are just firebrands they shoot recklessly from their mouths.  It was a strange encouragement that the Bible had these people so pinned down:  people who would deem themselves the pinnacle of evolution, and so sophisticated, thousands of years after.  I admit it is a primitive book, but an apple is primitive compared to a hot pocket. 

I live in a camper, which is something I've always wanted to do.  I work as an apprentice electrician which makes me lots of money, but feels like a means to an end.  I am terrified of heights and all these rich Americans around here love vaulted ceilings.  I'd love to master it, and get licensed and do it for a living while paid ministry is not an option.  It just seems like a hard task is before me.  The present orders are "go, apply yourself with all your might, see what happens."  I thoroughly love being able to listen to the Bible on audio while I work.  That is how most of my thoughts and meditations occur these days. 

One of my possibly lucid thoughts was about the laws of holiness in the Law of Moses.  I heard Doug Wilson tell a bunch of loudmouth fools (seriously, proverbs talks about them all in detail)  that those laws which are moral remain and holiness laws are nailed to the cross.  (says "book of ordinances"  I think, and that is in Colossians I think).  Now, I don't know about that exactly.  Could be, but my thought was this:

If Christ's death brought salvation to the Foreigners (Gentiles) and tore down the dividing curtain, and made the riff raff and rabble on the streets holy (This stuff is all over the New Testament, seriously, The Gospels, Acts, the Epistles, everywhere) then does it follow that a law which keeps the ancient Israelites holy from other nations (Example:  Leviticus 19:27 prohibits a practice other nations did, Jeremiah 9:26) would be obsolete, inasmuch as now the other nations are made holy?  "What God has made holy do not call common" He says to Peter.  Of course the moral commands remain:  you shall not burn your children to other gods.  And marking your head for the dead is still a no no if you should have nothing to do with the dead.  But how about mixing fabric in a coat, or mixing seed in a field?  If the law was to separate Israel from other nations, then it would not remain if Christ tore the veil between Israel and the nations. 

Anyway,  I don't have command over the scripture enough to follow through and check this kind of thought.  At present it seems conceivable that the only laws which changed were those which Christ's action on the cross directly influenced.  Sacrifices and Holiness codes.  In any case, as a gentile I don't have to fret too much.  It must be tough for Messianic Jews though.

Tattoo idea

Here is my idea for a tattoo on my back.  It is called the Fractio Panis, it's a love feast or the eucherist.

First I need either muscly arms, or less midsection fat.  To get a tattoo, I must be proportional.  That is my tattoo rule.

Doubts

There is a famous line by a man in the Gospels. 

“I do believe; help my unbelief!” Mark 9:24

It made me think of something I do in my own life.

I like to look through the internet, and I like to see how my Christian facebook friends are interacting with their nonbelieving friends.  At this point in my life, I have never found an argument of any type that has had an effect on my faith.  I could answer anything I find, any argument going on between friends, and every attack on my faith.  I'm not sure I could convince anyone to adopt my views, but my views are solid enough that they can't take them down.  So, I read these things, and even though they have no convincing power over someone who knows the deal (wink), they have a very strange spiritual power.  The most effective attacks seem to be the ones which are nothing but juvenile mocking.  When they are not intellectually effective, they are spiritually effective.  I read all these, and I get really troubled and beat up, and downcast.  Silly things.  Things which are obviously trash.  "The words of the reckless pierce like swords..." Proverbs 12:18  "...a perverse tongue crushes the spirit." Proverbs 15:4

This masochistic habit leads me to two thoughts: 

One is that I knew when I signed up that the unbelieving world would hate me:

 "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.  If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you." (Jesus) John 15:19
 "Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you." 1 John 3:13

and that the world thinks my faith is foolishness:

"...but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles." 1 Corinthians 1:23

We have examples to follow who experienced the worst of it:

"When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world—right up to this moment."  1 Corinthians 4:12

Two is that though I don't abandon reason, my faith is not really resting on intellectual arguments.

When I experience that type of harsh juvenile attack and it has a real effect on me, I wonder how other Christians deal with it.  It seems these days, a lot of them abandon the faith.

                      I know that it is possible to find an answer to any intellectual attack.
                      No one gives up their faith on the basis of  clear evidence, only by tactics of persuasion

It is the spiritual attacks.  It is the mockery and shame.  People give up the faith because they can't stand to be ridiculed and scorned and hated.  They want to be loved by the people of the world.  But that is why it is so important to be dead to the world.   

"You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God." James 4:4

So when trouble comes, and I am weak in the face of tongues like stabbing swords, which crush the spirit, how should I proceed when doubt and fear shows up?

One thing I do, which I find in that famous line “I do believe; help my unbelief!” is I talk to God about it.  I tell Him, I tell the Spirit about my doubts.  My faith is not riding on intellectual grounds, because it rests on a real relationship through the Holy Spirit. There is substance here, and when you see the wretched hated homeless ragged overworked Apostle, with light in his eyes and fire on his tongue, you know there is something supernatural going on there.  The faith works like a treasure found in a field, where you sell all you have, everything you value (even the opinions of your friends and your good reputation) to acquire it.  This treasure is all we'll have left.  And it's worth it. 

So I wonder how many apostates brought their waning faith before God?  I know it sounds logically silly, but when you see them, you can't argue with results. 

There is a promise that I love and treasure, that might go unheeded, because it sounds like a platitude for a refrigerator magnet.  “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." (Jesus) Luke 11:9

I've always said that this verse would be the guiding beacon of all my future preaching.  I think that holds true still.  I've bet everything on promises like these.  I've given up the whole world to be scorned and abused for promises like this, and I know I've got more hate and scorn to go yet.  I've not been disappointed.  I'm not left empty handed.

When we have been stripped of everything but our faith in Jesus Christ, we will finally get it.  If we would rather maintain appearances with the world, and so abandon this faith which makes us look foolish, we are doomed.  This is a fair warning. 

Hell

Oh Hell! 

In the history of Israel, God commands the people when it comes time for Joshua to invade:
Wipe out these seven nations, or they will lead you astray into their corruption! 

Hell if they didn't do it.  Hell if they weren't led right into that corruption time and time again. 

It's my opinion that God is scary.  When it's revealed to someone how HOLY He is, they are usually terrified and deeply introspective.  Shame and fear bubbles up.  No one stands their ground at His rebuke.  The fear of the Lord is not the same as saluting your Dad.  From the get, we don't have a relationship like that with Him anyway.  I'd have no reservations describing it is straight up terror.  He is a Holy, Righteous, Severe God.  All we are is squirming worms of shame trying to hide the fact that we are masturbating under our covers at night.

      So the terrifying God who holds all life in his hands for his good pleasure commands Israel to wipe out seven nations He deems too corrupt to continue.  While death is the ultimate evil and absurdity to us, it is really just the end of every man throughout history, and God holds every man in his hand, declaring when it's time to go.  But why wipe out these nations?  Even though it would be in God's hands to decide their length of days, why the judgment, why Israel? 

In the Law of Moses, one of the phrases that pops up a few times among death penalties is "remove the evil from among you."  There is a type of evil that Jesus describes as leaven.  It grows and infects.  It's not much of a coincidence that there is so much about leprosy and mold in the Law, they are in the same category as these sins which require death or exclusion.  Eventually we will see the Lord describe his people Isreal as a cultivated branch to produce fine grapes.  Apply that metaphor to a nation.  How horrid it must be for a plant to utterly lose branches and leaves, snipped off arbitrarily it seems.  And it is horrible.  When people are condemned to death by the Law, there is sometimes a warning "don't have mercy on them."  Of course we want to! 

But the horror may have a purpose;  In Deuteronomy 13:11 after a command to stone a transgressor we read "And all Israel shall hear and fear and never again do any such wickedness as this among you." It's really sort of pragmatic. 

So I think Israel might have been commanded to do it, to fear.

For a long time the corruption of these nations was overlooked, and the people were given opportunity to change their ways for hundreds of years.  God mentions their corruption to Abraham, long before Joshua, but tells Abraham that their corruption has not become fully ripe yet. He waits for them to repent of their wickedness!

While it is wise enough to fear God for his Justice, more shockingly strong is his severe sense of compassion and his patience! Read the story of king Ahab's repentance!  Read of Jonah's indignation! 

The corruption of these people culminated in the ritualistic sacrifice of Children (not to mention all the other abominations Israel liked to imitate).  The thought of burning children alive is horrendous, to us and to God.  While you cannot blame the children for their parents (a thing God has commanded should not be done) it is something else when the children grow up to be worse sons of hell than their parents.  That over the course of a few generations these nations actually got WORSE. 

But the history is what it is, and the nations survived. 

In the monarchical history of Israel, these nations can get pretty chummy with the chosen people.  King after king after foolish king will even adopt the very same rituals which were supposed to bring about the destruction of those nations.  One of the kings burns his own son!  And God does indeed send someone with the same punishment in hand!  God raises Babylon to decimate Israel!  Just like Israel was to decimate the 7 nations!

What absolutely blows the mind is the story of when Jesus fed the gentile crowds in the gospels.  When he fed the jewish crowds there were 12 baskets left.  Just like the number of tribes.  When he fed the Gentile crowds, there are seven baskets left.  These are the descendents of the seven nations.  That scandal of Gentile inclusion is one of the biggest topics in the NT.

Talk about mercy, I can just hear Jonah's indignation!

In any case, the place known as Topheth is the spot where the child sacrifices were done, and it was in the valley of Ben-Hinnom, later known as Gehenna or (Oh hell!) HELL.  You see, Ge (gay) is greek for land, henna is hinnom put through greek.  Topheth is the word for fire pit, only the vowels were changed by the Masoretes into the vowels for the word shame.  This was a practice to worship the pagan god Molech, a practice the Israelites adopted from the corrupting influence of one of the nations. Here is the first picture and understanding of that fiery hell (gehenna) Jesus will mention time and time again! 


Isaiah 30:33 
"Topheth has long been prepared; it has been made ready for the king. Its fire pit has been made deep and wide, with an abundance of fire and wood; the breath of the LORD, like a stream of burning sulfur, sets it ablaze."

Jeremiah 7:31-32
"They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind.  So beware, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when people will no longer call it Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter, for they will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room.

You want to talk about a fire pit full of the dead? 

Here is what blew my mind recently:  In Jeremiah 31 we see a prediction of the times to come, it it's quoted in the NT.

"This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
   after that time,” declares the LORD. I will put my law in their minds
   and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
   and they will be my people."

We are talking about a future event.  What follows is this:

"'The days are coming,' declares the LORD, 'when this city will be rebuilt for me from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate.  The measuring line will stretch from there straight to the hill of Gareb and then turn to Goah.  The whole valley where dead bodies and ashes are thrown, and all the terraces out to the Kidron Valley on the east as far as the corner of the Horse Gate, will be holy to the LORD. The city will never again be uprooted or demolished.'”
If this isn't just a prediction of the return from exile, (the later destruction of Jerusalem in a.d. 70 makes me think it can't be) Then we may be looking at a New Jerusalem type of thing.  The food for thought is this: Is Gehenna renewed in the final restoration? 

But there are so many more things to say, and so much more scripture to know!  I wouldn't bet a shekel of dirt on my rantings and ravings!  I've got a lot to learn!

Shotgun Thought Pattern Update 1

I'm revisiting the Old Testament because I read in Hebrews that we ought to know the "elementary principles of the oracles of God" and I read in Romans that the "Oracles of God" refers to the prophets of Israel.  It only recently clicked that a ton of the Bible is about a solid little couple-hundred-year chunk of the history of Israel (and Judah).  These prophets know each other. 

Now, I've been a Christian since I was born, (upon you, O Lord I was cast since birth) but sometimes this stuff I've heard all my life just suddenly hits me in the mouth like a stick at an unjust trial, and the words of the prophets and the words of the Lord echo in my mind "ears to hear, never hearing." 

It is like I have to sneeze, so I rear back and huff and huff, my nose tickles with expectancy, and then I just sit that way for 5 years.  I am so used to needing to sneeze, that I don't even remember what it feels like to be free of the sneeze, whether before or after.  Then WHAAAchoo, all this stored up phlegm gets knocked loose.  "OH YEAH!" I exclaim, "That's what it feels like!" 

Anyway, I am having a lot of fun learning about King Asa and his foot disease, which he didn't seek the Lord about.  Good guy though.  I'm enjoying Psalms 10 and 34 tonight.  Me and the wife are going to study Isaiah together.  Once I feel like I have swept back through the old books, and I have some elementary principles down, I am going to come at the gospels, acts, and epistles.  Hopefully with the same mindset those Jewish Bible nerds had when they wrote the things. (Inspired by the same Spirit who inspired the Hebrew Bible).