Of Children and Angels 9

It was an all-nighter.

They processed the videos and still images of the vans they had managed to capture that night. The prize was the footage Angie shot over the hedge. The images offered a clear visual of the MP driving the van and someone standing next to the vehicle. The building was an ancient horse barn with multiple outer doors. It was quite extensive. There was a small human sized door in the middle, and it was next to this that the van stood idling as the MP got back into it and drove off. The other person walked back into this personnel door and closed it behind himself.

They worked feverishly but with precision. Toward dawn they were nearly finished, having posted the camera files and a written summary. It bothered Preston they didn’t catch any images of what was in the vans. Still, all three vans in one night making a trip to the hidden horse barn and back out was obviously not part of their military routine. If it was, the K-Mar would know.

It occurred to Preston this might interest his friend in the K-Mar. First, he needed to confer with his boss. Waiting until dawn, he took the initiative to make a voice call to Gary. To his surprise, the phone was answered immediately.

“Great stuff!” Gary sounded wide awake.

Preston decided not to ask why, but got right to the point. “We don’t have direct evidence of the cargo. Would it be against policy to contact someone in the K-Mar with our evidence? If we are on target here, that horse barn is full of young guests who would much rather be enjoying the children’s park right next door.”

“Yes, do that. Tell them you’d like to watch from a distance and see if you can get footage of that, too. I can verify your press credentials if necessary.”

“I’m going to text him right now, so stand by and I’ll let you know.” Preston tapped the disconnect and did what he said.

Interested in catching some child traffickers? I think I’ve found a nest.

While it was quite early, and he only waited an hour or so, it seemed to take forever. Preston’s cellphone rang with a voice call.

The sergeant said with just a trace of humor, “I rather expected you were up to something. Please explain.”

Preston summarized some of what he knew, pretending to be an investigative reporter.

The sergeant responded, “We knew it was around here, but never could catch any movements because we didn’t expect such a carrier. I’ll pick you up in a quarter hour.”

Preston didn’t get a chance to explain that he wouldn’t leave Angie out of it. When the K-Mar van showed up, it took only a little arguing to force the issue. He promised Angie would do only what he told her to, and insisted on keeping her close for her own safety. The sergeant yielded that point and they squeezed into the back seat with a couple of other officers.

On the way, the sergeant spoke into the police radio once or twice, but it was abbreviated jargon Preston couldn’t follow. They rolled to a stop, then turned onto the bike path just short of their intended target. Everyone dismounted and the sergeant barked a few commands. They had Preston walk them through the woods in the general direction of the place. The three officers spread out a bit as each tested his radio quietly against the vehicle radio where the sergeant remained. It was only a couple hundred meters into the woods. The thick thorny hedge went all the way around. A bit of poking showed there was an old horse fence inside it. The officer got some scratches on the arm for his trouble.

It was quite some ways around the perimeter of this thing. Preston raised his camera overhead a few times to catch images of what was inside the hedge. It was just a standard horse barn with stall openings on both sides. There was a large square barn on one end, but no other buildings. The officer with Preston and Angie said something in his handset neither of them understood. A couple of brief responses came back, then the sergeant’s voice last of all. In the distance, the van’s engine started again and could be heard approaching on the road. In the daylight, they had seen there was a swinging gate set into the hedge on the side facing the road. The driveway zigzagged a bit so that the trees and underbrush hid even the gate from direct view from the road.

The van pulled up to the gate and the horn sounded quite loud in the morning stillness. Preston had moved around to the front, estimating the same location as the night before. He held his camera up just high enough to aim over the hedge, then had Angie stand behind him to view the display panel as best she could. Someone eventually came out to the gate, but apparently refused to open it. Preston thought he heard the Dutch word for warrant — huiszoekingsbevel — in the discussion. The sergeant shrugged, stepped back to his vehicle and chatted on the radio a bit.

This time Preston understood the gist of the conversation audible over the handset of the officer nearest him. In essence, someone on the other end had gotten a warrant already. It required the presence of some local official to execute the search, so the sergeant simply waited with his officers scattered around the perimeter for about another fifteen minutes. Then Preston could hear the approach of more than one vehicle. It turned out there were two vans loaded with K-Mar and the official. With the official standing at his side, the sergeant shouted through the gate at the building, then produced a pair bolt cutters and cut the chain. He swung the gate open.

It was almost anti-climactic. Preston re-positioned himself with Angie to record the whole thing. The vans rolled into the parking area in front, knocked on the door. No response. Four officers pulled a heavy metal ram from the back of their vehicle. There was one more shout from the sergeant through the door, then he stepped back.

It took only a few whacks and door gave. Everyone drew their weapons and entered the building. While inside, a bus pulled up on the road out front and blocked the drive. It was escorted by a Rijkspolitie van. These blocked the road and kept back the gathering crowd of onlookers from the campground and passing cyclists and hikers.

The K-Mar escorted out four men and two women, cuffed and placed inside various vans. Next came a line of kids of both sexes and varying ages, seemingly starting around eight years, followed by the local official. It was no real excitement for Angie and Preston, just the tapering end to a long tale. Or rather, it was one of the few good endings to an ongoing horror.

Of Children and Angels 5

They didn’t yet know where the breaking house was, and finding it wouldn’t be simple.

Asking questions would likely cause the mission to abort and utterly fail to identify the carriers. They needed to catch the traffic bringing the kids into the area. Some part of them wasn’t too eager to know right away. It would have been too painful to think about what was going on inside and too tempting to act rashly and to no good purpose. First, they needed to survey the situation in terms of traffic flow.

They had already seen the main highway running east of there across Germany all the way to Düsseldorf. It would have been less than hour’s drive in light traffic. This highway ran along the north side of the old RAF Bruggen, now Javelin Barracks, where the old Dutch guard had told Preston was some portion of the MPs and civilian administrators that had been at Schinnen. From dim memories, Preston recalled there were small NATO installations all over that part of Germany, over a dozen within a short distance either side of that corridor.

Military traffic must be still exceedingly common in that area. He would be surprised if a significant portion of the personnel at Javelin didn’t live right here on this side of the border.

They got their gear set up and made themselves comfortable. The initial ride out from Heerlen was only about thirty kilometers on rather flat terrain, though with a significant load. Preston always carried the lion’s share, but Angie insisted on doing her part. Once the bikes were unloaded, they removed all but the main rear racks. They would need to go shopping at a minimum, and put light saddle bags on each bike. It was time to get a first feel for this ancient city.

But the ancient city had seen a lot of new construction. Preston noticed the standard online mapping services weren’t always up to date. As they headed west from the manor, they discovered the new north-south highway had cut off several ancient paths running east and west. They agreed this was different from what they had seen in most of Europe, where new construction accommodated existing routes, even old walking and hiking paths. Here, they were simply cut in two.

On the other hand, once they went around north to a major route that did cross the new highway, they found a brand new and very large shopping center. Even with the longer routing, this was much closer than running all the way into the ancient city center where the other stores were.

Still, they had wanted to do a bit of investigative sightseeing, especially some of the barge havens. They started on the northern edge of what they took to be Roermond’s sphere of influence, taking pictures rather frequently.

Some of the havens were clearly industrial and they found a few places where houseboats moored. Yet it seemed the majority were crowded with private pleasure boats; easily half were various kinds of sailing craft. After taking the highway partway across the Maas simply to see it all from elevated position, they turned and headed back down into the old part of city just south of there. Along a very old canal, they stopped for lunch at one of the sidewalk cafes.

The pedestrian traffic was quite heavy, plus dozens of bicycles, a great many parked alongside buildings. Almost all of the bikes were the standard commuter models; their mountain bikes stood out. They decided to chain them to a heavy steel barrier protecting one of the few trees that stood in one of the rare parking areas, taking a small table nearby.

After finishing their meals, they decided to vacate their table for some other customers and picked their way across the busy street to the railing along the old canal. Seeing a stairway leading down close to the water, they descended to the ancient stone dock seldom used these days. At the bottom of the steps they passed a man sitting on the last step, smoking a pipe. Were it not for the fine aromatic smell, they might not have paid him any attention. He was very dark-skinned with Asian features; Preston guessed he was Sri Lanken.

They stepped away to the middle of the dock and were chatting about what they could see. It was readily apparent there wouldn’t have been too many options for moving a bunch of kids through any of the normal havens and they wondered how it would been done. They began lining up camera angles.

This was the time of year one might overhear any number of different languages spoken among tourists on the streets. Apparently the pipe-smoker overheard their conversation and understood it. He approached, and Preston noticed the pipe aroma barely hid a strong body odor. This was not uncommon in Europe in the first place, and frankly more so among those from Asian countries. Preston thought the man might actually be living on the streets, because he wore more clothing than even most Asians might for a northern climate, since it was nearly the heat of summer. So while a part of him dreaded the possibility of enduring panhandling, the man addressed their conversation itself.

“You know, up the Roer from the Maas are several places where a skiff could easily be pulled up to a paved boat ramp, right next to major streets. If the freight can be moved easily enough, it would be nothing to smuggle just about anything into these parts, especially under the cover of darkness.” His accent was surprisingly faint, but carried a hint of the Central Asian sound Preston expected.

Angie was too surprised to speak, simply pulling her red locks away from her face where the wind had blown them. Preston decided to humor the man. “You make it sound like you’ve seen it done a few times,” he suggested with a grin.

“Done it,” the man said proudly. “But not recently, and I never trafficked in humans. The damned Euro ruined the smuggling business for me.”

Preston countered, “I’m a little surprised you would be so open about it.”

The man grinned. “Police here don’t use American informants, especially real professional photographers like yourselves. You might be private investigators or reporters, but not police.” It was obvious the man was quite observant and had seen a lot.

Preston decided to play along. “Okay, so we were curious about reports of human trafficking in the area. Want to say anything about it?”

“They ain’t coming off the river these days. Business has been pretty slow these days because Nijmegen has been pretty busy checking everything, not just for children. When cops start looking for something, they’ll be glad to arrest you for just about anything else they can find on general principle of not coming away empty-handed.” The old man’s pipe burned out and he began cleaning it with some small tool he took from a pocket. “That’s about the last of good cheap tobacco I was getting.”

Preston had seen the prices of the highly taxed tobacco in the Netherlands. Most of it was better quality than Americans usually got, but it wasn’t subsidized like coffee. Dutch coffee was the best in the world, and had always been less expensive than the American stuff. Starbucks offered expensive mud compared to what Preston had sampled here in almost every ordinary cafe or snack bar.

Preston had a sudden idea. “In your experience, what would be the best way to transport something so the police would ignore it?”

“Get some other cops to move it for you. They don’t mess with each other.” The old man grinned, then turned slowly and walked away.

Biblical Law on Abortion

The Spirit of the Lord has moved on me and I must now deliver.

I have wrangled over this with friends for a few days, making sure I had considered it from different angles. Perhaps you could consider that as the oral and written arguments before the court. That is, because I claim God has called me as prophet and elder, it is my duty to eventually render a judicial declaration. The limits to my authority (“this court”) is your conscience. If the Lord does not move you to hear my words, then those words are meaningless. If you and I do not share together the awareness of a covenant, I am just some random guy with some loud opinions. This is a critical point, an essential and unavoidable prerequisite for what follows.

Basic legal context: The Covenant of Noah is binding on all humanity, to include all human governments. All human activity is judged under that Law. The primary record of that Law in Genesis 8 & 9 leaves us with very few particulars. Rather, in typical Hebrew literary fashion, a brief statement represents a much larger common understanding. Much is presumed of the reader’s knowledge. We get some of the particulars in places like Acts 15. The Talmud presents what it calls the Seven Noachide Laws; we take that with a grain of salt because the Talmud is wholly suspect. For now, I find the list in the Talmud mostly plausible. See this study for details.

The Law of Moses comes to us as a particular implementation of Noah with several extra elements not at all applicable to the rest of humanity. What remains is the burden of reading Moses to gain some insight into how Noah works. Moses is not binding on anyone who doesn’t embrace it specifically, and the Cross made it in essence wholly voluntary. In Christ, it serves as a guide and we are all supposed to study it and abstract our own best understanding of how it applies. This is the meaning behind the passage about “rightly dividing the Word” — that passage applied specifically to the Old Testament as “the Word” of Scripture extant at the time. While you might want to confer with people who have studied it in depth, as I have, you are under no obligation to take their word for it. It is presumed you would study it in light of Jesus’ teaching along with the Apostles. The New Testament clarifies and corrects Moses. Still, you are obliged to read it all for yourself and pray for the Spirit’s enlightenment.

In that sense, hear now the Word of the Lord from this prophet and elder.

The current debate over abortion, particularly in America, is a false dichotomy. It is two lies pitted against each other. That there is some mixture of truth on both sides simply means we have to expend more verbiage explaining the truth.

Biblical Law says this: From the moment of coitus and conception, until the moment of weaning — typically marked by a ritual celebration somewhere around ages 3 to 5 — until that moment, the life of the child is entirely under the authority of the mother. She holds the principle authority from God for prospering or ending that life. In God’s Word, she is accountable first and foremost to God and His revealed Laws. Ending that child’s life must meet the justice requirements of Noah. That doesn’t give her much wiggle room, so we rightly expect killing that child is pretty hard to justify before God.

On this earth, the Bible says her accountability is first to the father of that child. Daddy also has authority to kill that baby, but he might have to fight the mama. She can resist as much as she is able. In God’s justice, daddy could theoretically execute mama for killing his baby. Normally he would take this matter before the one and only court with that authority to decide: the family elder(s). Yes, this whole thing assumes she is living under a covenant family household. Depending on how things are structured in her society, the matter of the baby’s murder can be appealed up to something akin to tribal-national level. But “national” has a meaning in the Bible not accepted by most modern people. A proper example would be taking the matter before the King of Israel as the final earthly court of appeal. I note that would have been wholly unlikely because the matter usually stops with the clan elder. That’s because the clan elder has the authority to execute the woman for murdering her baby, and King would hardly get involved. He would almost surely refuse to take case.

Where does that leave us now? The modern secular state has virtually zero authority under Noah. No, it’s not that simple, but I need to start shaking us loose from the abomination of modern political activism. Christians are playing a very dangerous game trying to use any modern civil government as leverage for much of anything. The New Testament pointedly directs Christians to settle everything they can in their own covenant courts among the church elders. (Pastors are not in on this; it’s a matter for governing elders.) Granted, civil governments tend to stick their noses in where they are not wanted, but we are supposed to avoid encouraging that imposition. The point should be made again: You cannot understand God’s justice outside the proper social structure, and the attendant governing structure, of a tribal society. Now, in Christ, the business of using blood kinship as the basis for your tribal society is unlikely, but ideal. Instead, the entire thing rests on the covenant tribe of kinship in His blood. That is, the local church body. And that local church body is entirely invalid unless it’s fundamental structure is not pretty much the tribal structure of the ancient Hebrew people. Modern corporate structures are invalid — period. Your church is your “clan.” You follow tribal customs on authority and so forth.

In a certain sense, no one has any business poking into your daily affairs unless they are related by blood or covenant. Under Noah, and by implication this applies to all Christians, no secular authority has any business poking their nose into a woman’s abortion. For the most part, she is answerable on this earth only to her family, which includes the daddy and his family, since there is the presumption she has joined his family by marriage covenant.

Christian, your yelling and screaming, trying to make your secular government outlaw abortion is itself an abomination to God. Your yelling and screaming trying to make the mother feel guilty for what an awful thing she did to that poor little baby is missing the point. If your sign says, “Your abortion kills me, too” then you are on the right track. Unfortunately, our cultural context will almost guarantee she’ll miss the point. That’s because Western secular government claims ownership of all human life, and that is simply evil. The basis for your claim against her crime is not some imaginary civil rights of the child (purely Western mythology) or some insult to the secular society at large. Your only claim against her is that baby’s murder punches a hole in your moral covering as someone who lives in geographical proximity. Otherwise, the Bible says it’s none of your business, because the Bible says she owns that child completely until weaning. She is virtually unanswerable to you; she owes you no explanation. If you have a complaint, you would take it to her clan elder. God forbids you harassing her except in the carefully structured setting of a shared covenant to which she has already agreed. If you are her friend, then use that leverage. Accosting her on the street is not simply rude; it’s immoral before God. Without that covenant link, it’s none of your business as a matter of human interaction.

Granted, our US Constitution is some horrific perversion of a covenant in a certain sense. Yes, God holds us accountable to it on a certain level. That is almost entirely outside the context for this discussion.

The way God says you should stop abortion is to dramatically change your society, to demand people live under the Covenant of Noah and grab back from civil government some 99% of its current enforcement authority. Stopping abortion means radically changing how it is people meet and have sex by instituting social controls that make it pretty hard. Better yet, you should seek God’s face and pray this government be destroyed, because we all know it will not surrender under any circumstances. That’s because the people running it are almost entirely — virtually every single individual — psychopaths already eternally damned from before the foundation of the earth.

He Needs To; She Better

One of the major flaws of Western Civilization is the false dichotomy of manhood versus womanhood. Western Civ as we now know it is essentially Aristotle with a fat layer of Germanic mythology. That’s what the Enlightenment was all about, marrying the two and striving to wipe away the Hebrew God by making no place for biblical culture.

The tribal Germanic male is not a nice man, and quite far from God’s ideal of manhood. There is some overlap, of course, but most Western Christians read this false manhood back into Scripture and get the wrong picture of what God intended. To be a real man in the Western traditions is not at all in accordance with God’s Justice, which means Creation itself will fight him. The Western version of reality and morality is all wrong. He’s either a wimp or a complete jerk.

So it’s no surprise Western women rise up against this false image. Against his “she better please me” is her instinctive “he needs to learn” whatever it is she demands of him. Because the baseline is utterly false, so is her reaction. We call it feminism.

Hebrew tradition clings to what God says we are made of in our fallen state. A real Hebraic man would guard that truth against lies. It’s not simply a matter of his own best interest, but an imperative from God. To live in this world requires embracing God’s revelation and doing things His way. The Law Covenants exemplify what His ways are for us after the Fall. It’s as good as it gets, and it brings God glory when we live by it.

So let’s say a modern man takes the Red Pill; he embraces the truth and wakes up. He’s a Hebraic man; he takes the initiative to walk in the truth. It’s his job. He acts according to God’s revelation because he can’t do any better. If the whole world clings to deception, he drives ahead in truth. In so doing, any number of women will be drawn to him, even when they insists it’s all wrong. A woman’s mind may be confused by feminist heresies, but her nature is not deceived. It knows the real deal and will drag her conscious mind kicking and screaming to his side. She won’t stay, but she can’t stay away, either. Maybe, in God’s mercy, she gets the Red Pill, too.

Either way, a real man of God will celebrate what a women is and does. A woman living in the blessings of Abraham will celebrate her man being and doing what men do. They aren’t confused about the reality of things. Within the fallen world and our burned-in imperfections, there is still a thread of moral truth with the power to call Creation to cooperate. They are on the same team, and not enemies fighting over something false in the first place. Indeed, they encourage and work with each other in maximizing their respective potential as fallen men and women who cling to God’s truth.

Modern Molech Worship

What’s the difference between sacrificing your children to Molech and abortion? Not much.

Unwanted pregnancy these days arise from the same basic profligate sin as characterized the Canaanites in ancient times. They often had sex in the name of some heathen god characterized by a religion of fear and other basic emotional impulses. Not that much difference from the irresponsible sexual behavior of a broad sector of modern society.

In the Bible, eating one’s own children was only a hair’s breadth better than tossing them into the arms of the oven god. Giving them to an evil secular government is somewhat better because even government propagandists and conditioning can fail. But aborting them for any reason at all is still murder in God’s eyes.

What to do about it?

Call it what it is. Prophesy in the fashion God has called you. Otherwise, the ownership of the child is truly that of the mother. If she decides to murder her baby, it’s her sin. Abortion as a medical procedure exists because women have demanded it. They wanted to institute a theology and ritual (procedure) that made them feel better about it — same as tossing one already born to the oven god, Molech. In biblical law, we rather expect women to lead the way in such things. Adam failed in the Garden because he was too damned lazy to restrain Eve. Eve was not really expected to know what was good or bad on the level demanded of Adam. It was his job. Had he been consistent as a good spiritual shepherd, she would have been more resolute herself.

We do not have the leverage to make abortion illegal. We have refused to create the proper moral atmosphere. The authority God appoints to stop abortion is the woman’s own family — either blood kin or covenant family. Civil laws about such things are a failure before you start because there should never have been civil laws involved in the first place. When you create a society founded on the assumption there can be no God, it tends to cause problems with getting people to follow God’s revealed Laws. Twisting God’s Laws by building on Western intellectual and cultural assumptions does as much violence to God’s Laws as abortion does to an unborn child. America aborted holiness long before medical abortion became an issue.

All the activism and harassment in the world is unlikely to reduce the incidence of abortion much. Sure, maybe you can manipulate a woman’s feelings and save that one baby. That’s not much of an accomplishment. She still worships at the shrine of the gods that brought her to that decision. But if you feel called to do that, go ahead. I don’t support you, but I don’t bug you about it unless you ask. I’ll face you down until one of us dies and you will still be wrong.

I know what God says and what He demands of me. You aren’t Him.

It’s Complicated

One more time: I am wholly non-partisan about American politics. No existing party, pressure group or agenda represents me. God spoke with finality on the Cross: No human political process can ever claim to work His will. Damn them all because this world is damned and human political processes belong to this fallen world.

Once or twice someone asked to be my friend on Facebook only to spew partisan propaganda for one side or another. It was intellectual dishonesty; they had no honest motive, just wanted to play sniper. Stupid people. I don’t do liberal or conservative. I don’t mind addressing specific issues, but I always spin them according to my best understanding of God’s Laws. I may tolerate a few posts that I don’t agree with, but I won’t hit that “Like” unless I actually find it consistent with God’s Justice. I’m willing to explain it all day long, but I don’t do debate. Debate assumes there is no God; it assumes there is something called “objective truth,” which is a notion arising from an epistemology that excludes divine revelation. So I won’t allow anyone to clutter my Facebook page with partisan crap.

It’s the same as the reason for having a blog: I’m here to prophesy of what I see from my encounter with God. If Facebook can’t serve as a pulpit, nothing else it can do for me matters. I don’t mind friendly chatter, but to be on-topic always means discussing God’s revelation. Nothing else matters. Let’s compare notes, but changing hearts and minds is above both our pay grades. I’ll even accept jeering so long as you stay on topic.

So if people want to discuss this economic meltdown, I’m not engaging partisan motto splattering. If you suggest I am obliged to support the current regime, may God judge you for your evil heart. If you refuse to notice “we the people” have had no real say in things for the past 100 years, then don’t expect me to listen to your rant. It really goes back before that, but I can at least nail down the establishment of the Federal Reserve as a coup d’etat. As long as you ignore historical fact, your noise means nothing. At a very minimum, the loss of control over currency was the end of our republic. Everything since that time has been pure charade.

That was a coup of a government already far from what God intended, but I don’t expect very many people to even comprehend. In the words of a far more famous blogger, “I don’t expect you to agree with me; I don’t even expect you to understand.” Even that famous blogger refuses to engage the most fundamental question of epistemology, so we are on different planets. If you can’t discuss things with me from the Ancient Hebrew intellectual assumptions, I can’t avoid being just a little condescending. That’s when I remember I’m a shepherd doing what little I can to guide the sheeple to safe pasture. That’s when I follow the model laid out in Psalm 23 and work with my God as His undershepherd, helping the people who follow His voice. I don’t pretend to understand it all.

Yes, it’s more complicated than any of us knows.

Humble Silence

We stand silent before the wonder of God’s glory.

In God’s Presence, silence is mandated because we have no answer but to praise Him. But we are unworthy, so it requires His permit for even that. Among humanity, our mandate is to tell what we have experienced in God’s Presence. Urging another to seek His Presence is treading on the knife edge of Truth. We are unworthy to judge another; all we really know is what we have seen at His hand. We echo His judgment on sins but we do not judge another. That is, until we have been granted that divine permit.

The permit comes only within a covenant. Without that free consent to covenant, there is no leverage to address. There are a thousand kinds of covenant; most among humans are implied, not stated. Standard social faux pas is assuming too much, because it seems everyone has their own idea of where to draw the lines without bothering to discuss it. Arrogance shows its ugly face in assuming yours are the only boundaries others should be allowed to hold. We do have broad customs of civility in the West, but they are more honored in breach than in observance. That is something also written into Western culture. Still, we have these boundaries and in the Presence of God, it requires a strong reason for crossing them. Our duty is learning to listen to the Spirit, not imagining we can develop some perfection of rule-making that fits all situations. Our duty is to learn God’s system, which includes a wide range of flexibility, always leaving that other person a free exit from any covenant, presumed or formal.

What remains is our duty to guard the boundaries mandated by our calling from God. We examine the Laws of God to seek an understanding of those boundaries we must draw, and a humble readiness of a silent spirit standing before God in the certainty we will get it wrong. We are always prepared to make adjustments. Still, some things in God’s Laws are so painfully obvious, we are all obliged to give notice when some human authority transgresses God’s boundaries. Each of us finds our own way to give that notice, but we are in a certain sense all prophets of His Justice. We are required to know, and required to react, when men violate God’s Laws.

One of the fundamentals of Divine Justice is that this entire realm of existence is broken. We are often taken with the joy of discovering our powers of reasoning, and it’s too easy to trust them against God’s revelation. That’s what the Fall was all about, placing human reason on the throne of decision instead of humbling resting in God’s imperatives. But our fallen nature thrills to the godlike power, so we build vast kingdoms, both real and virtual, from our reasoning. We are utterly certain we can come up with a system that always works and brings about a justice that reduces mistakes to near zero. This is a vast and hideous lie, the very heart of the Fall.

We stand before God knowing our hands cannot bring His Justice. Yet we are commanded to reach for that justice, to love it so much we’ll sacrifice our resources and lives for it. We accept in advance that the results will not be stellar. The very first Law Covenant that we know about is Noah, and it stands on the foundation of justice derived from the eldership exercising that mandate against the inertia of the flesh. It’s work; no fun at all. We can’t pawn it off to someone else. We must rule our own households with however much iron is necessary to restrain the sinful impulses we all suffer. It’s not that elders are so pure, but somebody has to do it or God will destroy us all. Under no circumstances is the elder permitted to farm out this duty of enforcement. It is the elder’s divine imperative to assay the impossible.

Modern civil government with civil police forces is an abomination to God. Whatever flaws there may be in the family household justice system, it can only get worse by doing something else. Sadly, this is where we are right now. We are obliged to apply His Justice in situ. The Western assumptions about human rights and democratic justice are all very wrong, but better than nothing. The mandate from the Throne of Heaven does not stop at pointing out the fundamental failures of having a badly broken system in the first place, but we must also point out every detail of the failure.

A primary example is the current drift toward removing the right of silence. This is happening all over the West. While it does exemplify a fundamental weakness of Western Civilization, because it relies on men and their infinite variability against some imaginary “Rule of Law,” we have to point out why this example is evil in its own right.

The police are demanding others do their work for them. They demand the privilege of standing in the place of God, commanding everyone to always reveal the deepest thoughts of their souls. This arises from the whole range of demonic reasoning that anyone can create an anchor point of divine perfection in this broken realm. It goes to the very root of the Fall itself, the idea man can take the place of God for any purpose in Creation. This evil human system of justice demands the power to bare soul of a human for examination, demanding we all submit to something so utterly invasive and so completely from the pits of Hell, you have to wonder how any human can desire it, much less demand it. This is the same evil that gives rise to torture. It is damned humanity demanding the power of God to see all things and judge it by some mythical standard.

God’s Justice recognizes human government is no more inherently good and noble than any single individual. Human government has a mandate, but that mandate is highly limited. It will inevitably get things wrong, and some will die unjustly. That’s how it is. To even things up a bit, God has also restricted the power of human government by keeping it small and close. A rebellious household member can leave. If they stay around and make trouble, that’s when you bring out the sword. Meanwhile, a refugee has no protection, and pays the price of having to make their case for protection by some other household. They seek a covenant. Anyone not seeking a better home is automatically a threat, a target for zealous guards, which is the argument made by Cain against God’s Justice over killing Abel. But providing no place to run is a direct slap at God. In the words of a famous American comedian, “Give him a sporting chance!” In terms of absolute justice, God alone knows. Trust Him to deliver those wrongly accused and to crush those who flee genuine justice.

Limitations on civil police investigation is fundamental to justice. All police agencies across the West have been demanding ever more invasive powers, denying they could possibly do wrong by it. The system at the same time is with all speed removing the mechanism for accountability. Nothing happens to any policeman who gets it wrong. Meanwhile, the damage done in this rapacious rummaging through the lives of the innocent is flatly denied.

If you cannot see the necessity of calling for restraint in this headlong rush to brutality and heedless criminal oppression, you are helping Satan.

Addenda: In response to an offline comment — The fundamental failure here arises from Western epistemology. The West labors under a mythology of objective truth, including the notion that law enforcement is all about achieving some objective standard. That’s a lie from Satan. The fundamental purpose in the Covenant of Noah, and all the rest of Scripture regarding human behavior, is social stability. Some failure is expected. The eyes of human justice must be turned to stability and peace within the context, not some imaginary standard that applies to all people in all contexts at all time. That was never possible, and the current pretense is actually damned nonsense because we can all see it does not apply equally to certain elites. Most painfully obvious is how it does not apply to policemen and other agents of government authority. Even by Western standards this whole thing is a damned lie, Satan’s version of reality. We should demand an acceptable failure rate of police investigation, and the imaginary threshold is currently asinine.

In Defiance of God’s Laws

Fundamental issue: Social stability — God’s Laws demand it and are aimed at producing it. This is the thing on which we focus as we attempt to understand how to do justice and bring Him glory.

The primary means to producing this social stability is hidden in plain sight. Yes, it requires you read between the lines; that’s how Hebrew writing works. In Genesis 6-9 we find the Noah narrative. The climax is the Rainbow Covenant — AKA Law of Noah. Notice what is described as the situation prior to the Flood. First, there is the mixing between the two primary tribes or nations of humanity. That is, we have those who worship God and live a pastoral primitive life. Then we have those who ignore God and follow the inclinations of their human desires and imaginations. The latter built cities, developed technology, etc. The former had no business messing with the latter. One of the symptoms was the rise of domineering warlords, oppressive rulers — bad government and social instability.

Part of the problem was the family elders were refusing to restrain their families. That goes back the Adam, too lazy to keep Eve away from things she didn’t understand properly. In the Covenant of Noah, God instructed mankind to raise up strong elders to lead their families. We are supposed to be a little clannish and not mix too freely with folks who are too different. All the more so if your clan takes seriously the revelation of God and the others don’t. Demonstrate the difference of obeying God’s Laws and claiming the blessings. The uniqueness of holiness was dissolving in free mixing, forgetting God’s ways.

The proper model of government has always been that of the shepherd. This was the tribal elder, not necessarily the oldest grandfather, but the most able and wise of those available. If he was really wise, he would just about have to be forced into the job, because good moral people don’t like to rule the lives of others. People eager to rule are always bad at it; that was the point of describing oppressive “great men” in the narrative, people who were looking out for their own comfort and fame. So true government is a burden on those ruling. Critical was the element of family, living in an extended family household. The elder was your government, the one who used his influence to keep peace within and with the neighbors. Nobody outside the family had any business poking into the details of your daily existence; no laws were permitted to usurp the authority of the elder.

Yes, there are a hundred problems going this route. Not everyone who rises to the eldership is all that nice. Still, the model is based on the best possible life for fallen humanity. Nothing man has devised has been better; instead, it has always turned out uniformly worse. That has never hindered men of power from destroying the clan and tribal unity of folks for the purpose of exploiting them. Today we live in a world where it is virtually illegal to live under biblical laws.

Any society, any civilization, any philosophy that defies this model is wrong. End of discussion. It also happens to be fundamental to the entirety of our Western Civilization. We have to moderate between what we know God requires and whatever it takes to remain relatively unmolested under whatever human government we live. Sure, do what God says, but do so knowing what the consequences will be. We aren’t here to demand and force human government to obey God’s Laws. We are here as living proof His Laws are wise, and our mission is to live them as much as we can. This is what worship and prayer are for, helping us discern where God wants each of us to draw the line, to lay the path between the conflicting demands. What can I do to glorify His name in this particular context?

The West in general, and America in particular, lives in a fundamental defiance of Noah’s Laws. Fundamental to our mission here is pointing that out. Use whatever talents, abilities and gifts you have from God. Seek your calling with an eye to this one basic fact: The only reason we are still on this earth is to make Him look good. The main way we do that is living in the Land of Repentance, always seeking to turn from sin. Turning from sin is doing your best to discern how God’s Laws protect you from being suckered at every turn.

You can study the Laws of God here and here. Yes, that’s a tall order, a lot to bite off and chew. Don’t follow me; follow the drawing of the Spirit. If this calls to you, find your own path in it. Whatever you do, don’t keep on living in defiance of God’s Laws.

Malachi 2

From the very beginning of the Covenant, there at the foot of Mount Sinai, the priests and Levites understood their position. At the very least, their meal ticket was in sincere and strict adherence to holiness and respect for God’s glory. We struggle in our day to grasp the Ancient Hebrew mind of sincere commitment and personal devotion to God as a Person. They were equivalent to the royal bodyguard for Jehovah; the more literal Temple Guards were drawn from the Tribe of Levi. This was a high privilege, all the more so in God’s personal covenant with the priests beginning with Phinehas (Numbers 25:12-13). Their divine appointment included the mission of teaching to Law to the rest of the nation (Deuteronomy 33:8-11).

Malachi warns that all their privileges would be taken away if they continued this creep toward what eventually became the Sadducees, a cynical and worldly elite who abused the people for their personal benefit. Their blessings would become curses. While some of the text here is in dispute, the thrust is obvious. They had turned their offices upside down and God threatens dire punishment for it. So He raises once again the image of the faithful man of Levi who, in every dispute, took God’s side. This current crop late in the Restoration had not simply abandoned their duties, but took advantage of the situation to actively lead the people astray.

From at least as far back as Noah, God’s fundamental requirement for mankind was social stability. The Law Covenants explained how to obtain that. Those covenants all assumed a tribal cohesion, considering disloyalty to kin one of the highest crimes possible. All the more so with Israel, because God had adopted the entire nation as His own children. They were so blasé about this, it was incomprehensible. The Covenant of Moses was not a matter of mere DNA, but of commitment to the Laws of God. Anyone from any race of men on this earth could become a full member of the Nation of Israel upon following the procedures and giving evidence of a sincere personal commitment to the Covenant. The people had been following the cynical attitude of the Levites by marrying foreign women still in their pagan commitments. This profaned the entire nation. It was the same careless flouting and flaunting grotesque sin that caused Phinehas to take action to stop the plague during the Exodus. It’s the sort of sin that drags demon hordes inside the very camp of Jehovah’s people.

If that weren’t bad enough, the leading men were divorcing their first wives, trading them in for these sexy young pagan brides. While this seems heartless enough from our Western viewpoint, we miss something more important. This is more than simply abusing the old wife, but a slap in God’s face. Once again, it brings in demonic presence that afflicts the entire community. This hardly promotes social stability. God treats divorce as a form of senseless violence. For this reason, He was rejecting their prayers and emotional displays at His altar.

Again we have an assertion from God that the people question. They don’t understand how it is possible they have wearied God with their profligate violence to His name. Their complaint suggests they see heathen sinners and reprobate Jews alike receiving shalom from the hand of God. They have blinded themselves to the real difference, refusing to see the long term results of violating the Covenant. They are silly enough to dare asking: “Where is God’s justice?”

No Common Cause

I’m haunted by Jeremiah 16.

The Lord tells Jeremiah that, in essence, he must not make common cause with the people of Judah. He’s not to join in their celebrations or other observances. Don’t get married; don’t have kids; don’t get involved in their social rhythms at all. Jeremiah notes it is impossible for him to simply feel nothing about the people, but realizes such feelings can easily become deceptive.

This haunts me because I feel myself in a similar situation. I’m not worthy to empty Jeremiah’s chamber pot, but I understand how he feels. The only applicable covenant to the US is Noah. That’s specific enough because we have failed the whole thing. We haven’t managed to keep any part of it.

For my nation, there is no Exile and Return because we don’t have a mission to produce the Messiah. Worse, we would have murdered Him a million times over if we could. Even more heartbreaking is the horrific responsibility of American Christians in making things worse. They have embraced the lies of the Pharisees and don’t even know it. They are just as closed to the truth as the Pharisees were, in a tight loop that excludes the truth before discussion starts.

Yes, I’m referring to embracing Hellenism or Western epistemology. You can’t be Western anything and understand the Bible. You won’t catch me claiming I’m the only one who does understand it, but I know for certain you can’t bring a Western epistemology to an Ancient Hebrew mystical book and expect to get it. This alone alienates my from most American Christians, and even more so from the general run of the population.

Sure, a strong empathy for individuals still holds me. I care about people, but I care about them getting right with God. How do I explain that God gave me some sort of internal switch? There are times I simply turn off the emotions about things, even when I see horrific suffering. I have to, or I’ll go insane. I’ve already seen a lot of suffering and it’s just getting started. That’s because I know beyond all doubt Americans as a whole have rejected God’s Laws in every way possible. We have demanded God destroy us by poking Him the eye repeatedly.

So I don’t make common cause with Americans as Americans. I want no part of what Americans have done to earn God’s wrath. Only those who repent truly and embrace His Laws as taught by Christ can share the divine citizenship that calls me. I’m just passing through this land as an alien. I’m calling anyone able to hear, “Come out from among them.”

Lord, “You are the One I can run to for safety.”