Ezekiel 28 and the US

Hear the burden of the Lord.

America is doomed. You knew that, of course. Maybe you’d be surprised by how many, and who, are convinced that it can be turned around. Even among the most cynical, it can still be a shock when you discover what’s going on behind the scenes. I get tired of being associated with the kooks who take off with a small piece of truth and blow it out of proportion, so I tend to avoid mentioning the real conspiracies behind the wild theories.

Instead, I stick with my mission from God. A major element in that mission is making sure Americans know why God is pouring out His wrath on us. Another major element is offering pastoral care to the victims of this wrath. Pastoral care includes explaining how to repent from the things earning us all that wrath.

There are two elements of wrath at work here. The first is what we would view as automated processes, as it were, in Creation itself. That is, by rejecting just about every part of Noah’s Covenant, everything we do is bound to fail eventually. There is a sense in which God actively keeps Creation running according to the moral code defined in Noah and elsewhere. But in terms of how it functions in our lives individually and as a nation, it helps to realize that we get hurt the same way every other human in history gets hurt: We don’t live according to the revealed moral fabric of Creation. Our human wiring is a major element in this moral fabric business, and when you defy what is known to work, you end up with tremendous people problems.

Thus, a great deal of what I teach here is simply a matter of recognizing the basic moral principles. Of course, my biggest struggle is explaining that our intellectual assumptions about morality are all completely wrong because it’s Western, not Ancient Near Eastern as the Bible is.

That particularly failure leads to the second, more egregious violations against God’s revealed expectations: unspeakable arrogance. This falls into the collection of things God says He takes personally. On these issues, He will act with more direct attention, providing a unique punishment that fits our peculiar brand of arrogance.

Granted, we are one of the most generous nations in history. The problem is all our generosity is captured by psychopaths. That is, we give to a cause, but refuse to notice when those collecting our giving are criminals. For example, there was a time when the Red Cross did a good job of handling our generosity. They did fine work in the German labor camps during WW2. We’ve allowed some folks to cover up their honest reporting about that work, but the Red Cross was generally honest. Ironically, we now tend to believe the Red Cross after they have become lying scumbags who blow most of their donations on internal operations and lavish living. Ask them what happened to the donations for 9/11. I realize that whole mess was politicized and is such a huge pile of lies and deception it boggles the mind, but the Red Cross had a simple mandate based on a fairly simple promise. They kept most of the money.

Yet I can assure you the Red Cross is still the least dishonest of just about all the other intermediaries for our great national generosity. Your tax dollars in the form of foreign aid, emergency and routine, have bought so much corruption around the world, there isn’t room to discuss it here. It’s equally evil here at home. If this very day we handed our entire government over to the combined leadership of the drug cartels, we’d get a better deal and the tax burden would go down precipitously. That’s not hyperbole, either.

Most individuals in the rest of the world generally like individual Americans they meet, in large part because we carry that generosity everywhere. But it’s wrapped in an insufferable arrogance that makes them glad to see us go. It’s not enough that we have rejected everything God revealed as necessary to claim the best possible in this life, but we forcibly demand others do the same. I’m not saying we aren’t ready to accept someone’s different viewpoint about things; we reject their right to say anything in the first place. We already know it’s not in accordance with the noise echoing in our heads, so we dismiss them as evil and stupid before we even hear what they think. It’s bad enough we do that to each other, but as a whole nation we are the most intrusive and forceful nannies the world has ever spawned. We make the British colonists of previous centuries look tame, simply because the British Empire at least understood what they were oppressing.

Yes, bland generalizations, but accurate enough in terms of how it earns us God’s wrath. The UK managed to surrender most of their empire with decency and good grace in the long run. We are losing ours with all the rancor of jackals who’ve had a stinking carcase stolen from them. Granted, the UK government is truly awful, mindlessly stupid with their own, but they seem to recognize the limits of their power over the rest of the world. Our government can’t imagine anyone in the world not lining up, enthusiastically anticipating rape by our little godlings in uniform.

We are in for some special attention from God on this matter. When we are humbled by the tool of His choosing, it will come as a shock to everyone. Worst of all, I seriously doubt there might be more than a precious few who learn anything from it.

Ezekiel 28 could easily be about the US.

Edit: Perhaps I should state the obvious here. The one thing America could do to restrain the worst of God’s wrath right now is bring the troops and CIA home and stop meddling in other peoples’ business. If I have to go back and explain how the entire history of our foreign policy and war-making has always been a mass of lies, you aren’t going to understand much of anything else I write. If we don’t stop it now and pull it all back within our own borders, there is no hope for America. National humiliation is just around the corner for us. Enjoy.

Tactical Individuality

You must stand alone but you are never alone.

Having a foot in both realms offers some incredibly difficult opportunities for explaining how to live. Jesus used parables for this very reason; unfortunately our culture is utterly without talent in this area. I end up writing stuff most people never comprehend because I’m pretty much forced to mix metaphor and clinical description. I want you to get it. I want you to not need my help, nor anyone else’s in this world, even as you make maximum use of it when it’s available.

Consider for a moment the fundamental fact of our fallen nature. Thanks to Adam and Eve, we are born spiritually dead in a badly broken plane of existence. We are utterly incapable of piercing the barrier of isolation. We are born utterly alone. It takes time, but in the natural course of human development we realize the universe is not an extension of our feelings and whims, that we have to negotiate between what we want and what can be. In many ways, individuation is the ultimate goal and ultimate shock to our human sense of being. You see, the existentialists are partly correct — if this world is all there is, you are truly and utterly alone. The only reference point is what you can get away with, and then you die.

But we were created for communion in the Spirit Realm. The ancient Hebrew culture held a place for that understanding, but even within that frame of reference, it was too easy to deny it. In Western society, it might as well not exist in the first place, because the entire frame of reference denies it. Yet God ignores all that and still breathes life into some of us. Nothing anywhere, nothing available on this level of existence, could ever explain how and why He chooses one and not another, but it’s painfully obvious when you visit even the most spiritual churches. Some people there seem to accept the moral code, but never evince that subtle difference of someone who remains sensitive to the Spirit in some way. On top of that, God’s Word indicates some folks in history were born for damnation, as it were.

While in this body, the best we can hope for is vague awareness of truth. The human intellect cannot possibly understand Ultimate Truth because, as we’ve been warned in Scripture, Truth is a Person, not an “it.” That Person stands outside our plane of existence. Touching Him in any way requires He invade on our behalf. While some portion of us comes to life, the connection between that spirit faculty and our minds is always fuzzy. We have records of people who managed to find a path of action that seems to have been spectacularly empowered by the Spirit Realm, but even that, we are warned, is partly calling and not for all of us. It comes back down to something shared on a level we can’t describe, but in the meantime our fleshly existence stands alone before God.

It would be easy to get lost at this point in the Western mythology of “no fear”. Balderdash. People without fear are more than just spiritually dead; they are psychopaths. What you and I seek is to keep fear from ruling us. It never goes away, but we don’t have to let it vote. The same goes for all the other human emotions. Yes, we assume we’ll fail at some point given the vagaries of things, but the aspiration still stands.

Let’s pretend for a moment your mission in life includes advising people actively fighting the evils of this world. You aren’t silly enough to do this yourself, because your otherworldly calling is to regard human politics as background noise, scenery, mere context like physical death itself. But while you live, your mission seems to be guiding them with your spiritual wisdom. There is precedent for that in the Bible, where a spiritual giant was advising someone without any spiritual clue. Tactics we understand better than even we might expect, when we stop and consider the implications of human fallen nature.

Never assume either side is right in God’s eyes. You can sometimes help steer moral choices for the sake of morality itself, but don’t count on too much. Instead, realize that you are just a cog in the vast universe and your sole concern is making Jesus look good in how you carry out your earthly tasks. You aren’t really concerned about what you can accomplish, just a consistent moral orientation in the midst of a lot of things you cannot possibly steer. You’ll never own the results, only your response to a world of random idiocy. It’s just a game and you can afford to leave it unfinished. Find peace with that, because it does tend to be infectious and helps others.

We recognize that among the spiritually dead, there are psychopaths and there are servants of psychopaths. You may never really know which is which, but you’ll have to estimate provisionally until things offer a better indication. In terms of sheer tactics, you want to kill the psychopaths who lead, but that’s seldom easy. There is a reason they have servants who aren’t like them. They manipulate them for their own purposes, and need not fear genuine competition. But the people they use are often the weakest, even as they tend to be the most ruthless. The primary tactic is to cripple or disable their actions.

The most powerful enemy always relies on someone else. Disable that one critical supporter and their plans fall apart. Examine their organization and see how they operate, whom they trust the most, etc. The best surgeon has only two hands; cripple that third hand and no one gets well. The best engineer relies on the savvy technician to execute; hinder the technician and structures don’t stand. The strongest rulers always rely on at least one other person to keep things organized; stymie that organizer and their plans fall apart. These things don’t necessarily win the war, but they change the odds.

On what one thing do they most rely? What matters most in their plans? Take it or break it. If it’s human, find the weak spot and exploit it. Cloud their clarity of purpose and commitment. They serve for all sorts of complex reasons, but you can always complicate things further. Get them to turn on each other. The greatest threat to them is what they don’t expect. If you can read their expectations, always do something else. This is how the coming political oppression can be reduced.

The best armor is the one that shields your weak spots. You prevent your side from exposing vulnerabilities, either by cover or concealment. Never play by the other side’s rules, on the ground of their choice, for the goals they seek.

For you: Don’t care. Never invest great amounts of emotional energy in any thing, because that becomes your own vulnerability. No worldly loss should matter enough that you can’t just turn and say, “That’s gone. What can we do now?” As long as you realize your only real concern is outside this realm of existence, you cannot be turned aside from your best course. In the flesh you’ll often stand alone. Your nearest and dearest will fail you; you’ll fail yourself. Don’t care; don’t be surprised when it happens.

Your ultimate concern in this life is the glory of Jesus Christ. Your exit will come soon enough.

Virtual Missionaries 1

Technology is our friend and the Internet is a marvelous place to spread the gospel. God is keeping an eye on the whole thing.

Every year, for as long as I can remember, someone really intelligent has predicted robots would put people out of work. Whether it would result in good or bad changes isn’t important, because it ain’t happening. The resources for that sort of development don’t exist. Instead, the resources have always been invested in the godlike weapons systems.

In one episode of the Star Trek original series, we were permitted to see an accidental encounter with a mirror universe. There, the doppelganger Captain Kirk possesses a device — the Tantalus Field — that can make anyone anywhere disappear with total impunity. This is the dream of any tyrant. While there will always be some research toward making life better, the serious money goes into anything that brings us closer to a real Tantalus Field. Perhaps you remember the old space based weapons research called Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), often ridiculed as “Star Wars.”

Trained assassins are still too expensive and too human; even the best snipers can make mistakes. Helicopters with very long range cameras and integrated guns brought us closer — still very expensive with a human crew. The recent advent of drones with missiles brings us much closer to impersonal warfare at a far cheaper price. Still, the precision is lacking. It also requires a human hand, but that may not be for long. Very soon you can buy a rifle scope that obviates the training and skill of real snipers. The scope calculates for the weapon, round and powder charge, wind, temperature, etc., and grants anyone with reasonably still hands deadly accuracy out to 1200 meters. Oh, and once the trigger is pulled, the weapon doesn’t fire until the reticle lines up with the ideal trajectory. Mounting them on an even smaller and cheaper drone would be a snap.

We are closer now than ever. At the same time, there is a lot of semi-secret research into robotics as the means to enhance human combatants (robotic exoskeletons) and even to replace them. Thus, the Clone Wars are not so far-fetched, but hardly so easily defeated as depicted in the movies. The real thing won’t be so comical. While energy weapons and defense fields are still a ways off, battle competence with still deadly projectile weapons would be easy to produce in robots. The current difficulty is mobility and range still carry huge energy requirements. Give it time; the investments in mobile power systems research are massive.

Meanwhile, improvements in armored vehicles are progressing rapidly. Nothing is perfect; they don’t want you talking about how, for example, MRAP trucks can still be rather easily rolled onto their sides and those run-flat tires still burn if you set them alight. Those are some obscenely expensive trucks. The all-too-advanced technology of manned fighter and bomber aircraft warns us of the limits. The two best hopes in US military industries are both plagued with major difficulties and astronomical prices that tend to make drones look really attractive.

The one place where government remains weakest is networking technology. For every highly publicized foreign attack on US computers, there was at least two of three attacks by the US first on theirs. Meanwhile, there are more Bradley Mannings than anyone wants to admit. While it’s possible things like Wikileaks is all a big propaganda ploy, seriously damaging releases of government and corporate secrets is likely proof our national Cyber Warfare defenses are pitiful. It’s been that way for a long time, with no serious improvements in sight. The vast ocean of bureaucratic incompetents guarantee the majority of the government networks will always be vulnerable. Large government bureaucracies tend to draw the least professional, bottom-of-the-barrel employees who will tolerate the hideous dehumanizing working atmosphere. The average teenager knows more about computer security than the average government employee.

When you read the crazy ideas Congressmen and other officials dream up to control the Internet, you realize just how bad it is. Most of what they demand is simply not possible, even in a mirror universe.

We face a genuine growing threat to life and limb from all governments, our own in particular. The increasing restrictions on our human behavior have already raised many challenges to daily life itself, not to mention walking in genuine Christian faith.

Brothers and sisters, let me encourage you to consider what it really takes to remain free to serve the Lord. I’ve tried often to show people the future is the Network Civilization, the place where you and I can carry the gospel message as virtual missionaries. We can’t use the methods of Apostle Paul and his associates, but if we become as comfortable with the virtual world as he was the Roman Empire, we stand a good chance of getting the message even farther across humanity. Don’t get the idea God will only bless door knockers and street preachers. Those things may have their place, but God also blesses idiots like me who struggle to focus on how things work in the virtual world of the Internet.

If you sense a call to examine this, realize the need to learn more than the average computer user. You need to be well above the level of the average bureaucrat, as computer savvy as you can possibly be. Right now, it’s wide open to exploitation. This is our time.

Trilemma Again

There is a real human behind all this blather.

So, here we go again. You should recognize the drill. Major figures have been going through the scripted drama of making Iran look threatening. Over the past few months, lots of stories planted, loaded with opinions and false intel. Now we have a bunch of lesser authority figures running around to small forums of self-appointed intelligentsia trying to see if this crap has taken root. Essentially the question is: “Have we reached a sufficient density of deception that we can get away with illegally bombing Iran?”

I’m not going to recount here all the reasons why this is wrong. If you don’t get that already, you are reading the wrong blog. I don’t love Iran nor her ruling regime. I am not pro-Islam, but I do understand it better than the average American. I also know God’s Laws regarding such things. The question is not whether Iran is good or bad, but that God is in charge of deciding her fate, not the US government. Wade through all the crap and you realize this is nothing more than a long-standing plan to bully, and if necessary, take over Iran again because the current Iranian government is inconvenient for the plutocrats. The real problem is that the plutocrats who run the US government policy are evil. It so happens the idea of attacking Iran is particularly evil.

So much I’ve said already, for such a long time I can’t even find the record of when I first understood it — maybe sometime back in 2009. It was the first real impact of genuine spiritual perception, in the sense I knew it had nothing to do with what I thought intellectually. It took a few days, but I realized it was a prophecy. And it recalls the question, the trilemma — prophet, liar or lunatic?

So far as I can tell, there’s nothing dishonest about any of this. I honestly believe this is a word from God and I’m doing what I can to honestly report it. That leaves lunatic versus prophet. If the US and Israel manage to stomp Iran without any significant losses, then I’m a lunatic.

You see, I do not find inside myself any exits. This stuff holds me and I can’t ignore it. I can make jokes about hearing voices in my head, but that’s oversimplifying the whole thing. If this prophetic word fails, I’m forced to recognize I should shut up and stick to something safe, something where I don’t have to worry about misleading people. I can’t allow whatever is driving me to hurt other people. If what I call a prophecy fails, it destroys everything in the sense of credibility. So while I can’t simply stop believing what calls me deep inside, I do have a responsibility to contain the damage to myself.

On the other hand, I’ve been pretty careful to announce that my vision does not need a wholly literal fulfillment. That’s part of the background upon which I build, that mysticism stuff. Lots of Hebrew prophecies in the Bible didn’t come literally true, but within the intellectual assumptions of the Hebrew people, all of them came true. Nearly as I can tell, the vision I received indicates a disaster for the US arising from any attack on Iran, but it’s my human logic alone that assumes anyone who joins us will be hurt, too. The disaster I foresee strikes me as one involving major loss of military lives and equipment. I note again for the record: I have no idea how this will turn out for Iran. That’s not part of the vision. Nor would I suggest I have any idea how — by what means — this thing will come about. There may be perfectly logical explanations in the minds of observers and analysts. None of that matters. The prophetic word is a warning to the US: Don’t do this; God won’t allow it.

It occurs to me if things happen more or less as I predict, I could end up in trouble of some sort. Stupid as our government people are, they could somehow surmise I knew something, was collaborating with our enemies or something. That’s if they notice me at all. Either way, should this all pan out as I suggest, I suppose it will change things for me. Right now, the only reason people read this blog is because it either entertains them or they have a real interest because some of it seems to jive with their experience. To make such a bold prophetic declaration can be put aside if/until it faces the acid test of reality. It could be they’ll back off again and not try it yet. Still, I rather think they mean to do it this time around.

If the prophecy fails, I have to stop what I’m doing; there will be sweeping changes in this blog, to say the least. If it passes, I’m guessing I’ll be a little busier.

Morality Bits: Open Doors

What most people simply cannot understand is how the power of demons among humans is tied directly to God’s Moral Laws.

PTSD is opening the wrong door. The reason so very many veterans come home completely messed up can be analyzed to death from a lot of different angles. No one seems interested in seeing how the Laws of God apply. In broad terms, the high incidence of PTSD is the open door demons have into troops’ souls because the wars are inherently immoral. The underlying question is not one of national interest as measured by all the normal Western human reasoning. The question is adhering to moral goodness as God measures it and how He revealed it. States come and go; that’s in God’s hands. We dare not resist Him, because this is how demons are permitted to flood the lives of those involved. Most American believers are flat out wrong on what God’s Laws require, so all their prayers for the troops’ safety are being largely ignored. It’s not merely the physical threats, but their souls are wide open to invasion from all sorts of demonic activity. They are freaking out because the demons have a moral permit to occupy their lives.

If your cause is just, kids with slingshots can win your battles, because God is on your side. Everything you think you know with your worldly wisdom is merely chasing shadows. The shining light of moral truth is what you need to see.

Government secrecy is closing the wrong door. It’s almost impossible to separate between government officials and the corporate plutocrats they serve. We already know the FDA, for example, is a revolving door of employment where the pharmaceutical management and FDA regulators are all the same folks, as well as the big chemical companies who want to control the food supply. Even our sacrosanct medical system is under corporate control. The very heart of medical knowledge is at risk because the medical technicians are hiding drug trials information from doctors. Too many doctors are going along with this, so it opens doors to demonic influence in the patients, as well.

The wider picture is unjustified secrecy. Deeds of evil hidden in darkness are all to visible to God. When you deny His justice, He must enforce it Himself. He would much rather set loose angels to bring blessings, but our secrecy and lies demand demons and curses. Repent; open the doors of honesty and let the light of truth shine on your actions. You are supposed to be perfect as people measure things, but morally mature as God measures them. Little demons are set loose on the victims; bigger and more powerful demons are set loose on those who cause the problems.

Recovery of Rez 7

At first it was heaven. She literally hunted him down and all but raped him. Her aggressive behavior was totally outside his experience, yet typically what haunted the testosterone fueled dreams of young men. He didn’t understand what drove her interest in him. On the one hand, he was too lost, too completely cast adrift from everything he knew. She seemed totally inflamed, both angry and fascinated, by his instinctive lack of response to the crazy things she said and did. On the other hand, his implant kept him from ever appearing clumsy, which would have betrayed his confusion. His body knew what to do, even if his mind was still floating in the cosmos far away from any solid ground.

But it was entirely because he was totally unsophisticated socially that it left her entirely in control. He had the word “dominatrix” in his vocabulary, but not anywhere in his experience. Rez was not simply under the spell of a beguiling young lady, but was wholly owned as her slave, without having any idea such a thing was possible.

He didn’t jump at her every word, of course; it was far more subtle than that. Feminists only claim they want that, but despise it when they get it. His physical finesse continually surprised her. Anything he tried to do for the first time seemed to work out just fine, because he could do whatever he could see others doing — dancing, sports, and everything in general. She wasn’t the only one impressed. But in some distant future day he would come to realize his intrinsic slowness to jump at her whims, as he would for his own whims, must have struck her as something resembling a strength he didn’t actually possess. She seemed to believe she didn’t own him, when she actually did, but she was not the sort to be patient. Her instinct to dominate was provoked with unquenchable fury.

Within a week, the head games began.

It was at about the same time his training exposed him to a wide array of devices. There was a need for his skill because every war seemed to wipe away some portion of technological memory, and each corporation was trying to understand things they had captured or found in the wreckage. He had a phenomenal ability to turn the camera to angles no robot could have imagined, seeing the image on the electronic display with a clarity few others saw until the image was saved and transmitted for analysis. Rez was consistently able to capture the essence of a device in the fewest images of anyone working on the same projects. He literally became famous among his fellow students at the academy.

His training was accelerated. It kept taking him away from the facility, and his girlfriend fought tooth and nail. Rez never really understood, except that it had something to do with her incredibly possessive nature, as if she feared he might find some other girl when he was away from her. No amount of assurance from him would soothe her on this point of tension.

Soul Seeds: Kingdom to Come

One of the most interesting debates among Protestant theologians today is whether the term “Kingdom of God” or “Kingdom of Heaven” applies to something we live with now, something coming later at Christ’s return, or something including both. Sometimes it’s just a matter of emphasis. We know in one sense, Jesus said clearly, what we live today can be called the “Kingdom of God” (Luke 9:27). Yet it’s equally clear that phrase was also used to describe His Second Coming (2 Timothy 4:1). The Parable of the Minas (Luke 19:11-27) can be seen as either one. “Now as they heard these things, He spoke another parable, because He was near Jerusalem, and because they thought the Kingdom of God would appear immediately” (v. 11).

For many Jews, the term “Kingdom of God” meant a literal return of the Davidic Throne, a resurrection of the old Kingdom of Israel in her glory days. Obviously, this meant for them breaking Rome’s power in some way, or at least a radical change in the way things stood during Jesus’ lifetime. In spite of all Jesus said to clarify the prophecies, this notion remained the gut instinct of His disciples. In the final days of Jesus’ life on this earth, as the dramatic conflict approached, and the group was traveling to Jerusalem, Jesus tried yet again to correct this.

A mina is an old Hebrew word for a coin roughly equal to three month’s pay for the average laborer, 100 denarii in Roman money. Those who were in business or property owners, or had special artistic skills would naturally make quite a bit more than a denarius per day. A nobleman would surely have considerable wealth, and could easily afford to loan that much to individuals. Keep in mind this is not the same story told in the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30). However, like many lessons Jesus taught, there was nonetheless a similar theme. In this case, it had a similar purpose: to clarify what was going to happen.

The specific problem Jesus had here was an almost frantic expectation: What they believed would be the “Kingdom of God” was about to arise just any day now. As His close followers, they were anticipating a wonderful future serving Jesus the Messiah. Some of what they were expecting can be found in a collection of predictions produced during the Years of Silence, when no Scripture was written, between Malachi in about 400 BC, and the earliest of the New Testament books (Paul’s letters) beginning around AD 50. During that space of time there arose wild predictions (Messianic Expectations) which had some bearing on the Temptations in the Wilderness Jesus endured at the hands of Satan (Luke 4:1-13). In each offer Satan made, Jesus was tempted to be the Messiah everyone was expecting, rather than the Messiah God had actually sent Him to be.

Readers may recall Herod the Great died while Jesus was an infant (Matthew 2:16-23). We also note Herod’s son, Archelaus, inherited the throne, but not all his father’s domain. What we are not told in the biblical accounts is how Archelaus had no easy time getting that crown. First, it was for the Rome to decide who ruled its subject kingdoms. Herod had left the throne in his will to Achelaus, and the imperial government was aware of that. His brother, Antipas, was contesting that will, based on a claim of support from the Jewish community leadership. The issue for Caesar to judge in his court was to verify the will, then to verify if indeed the resistance to Archelaus was significant. It was imperial policy not to set a king over people who simply could not tolerate him, unless there was a compelling reason.

Since the Herodian family was from Edom, circumcised and married into the surviving ruling family of Judah, it took an awful lot of political maneuvering and constantly placating the Jewish nobility to keep Herod on the throne in the first place. Recall, he designed and built a new Temple for his Jewish subjects. The resistance to Archelaus was troubling and he had to appear personally in Rome to settle the issue. Right behind him came a delegation of Jewish nobles who claimed to represent the will of the Jewish nation in opposing him in favor of Antipas. The latter had made some big promises to a faction of Jewish leadership. However, Archelaus won his case, and returned to rule as his father’s heir. That he was no nicer than his father, and had taken the throne in a foul mood, prompted Jesus’ parents to move to Nazareth, in Galilee, outside the particular parcel of jurisdiction Archelaus had inherited from his father’s kingdom, upon returning from Egypt. Keep in mind, Herod tried to have Jesus killed as a possible usurper, actually a legitimate royal descendant of Israel.

But the story of political intrigue between Herod’s sons was fairly well known by the time of Jesus’ ministry. Thus, He took it as the background for this parable. When this would-be king departed, he distributed some of his assets for more than just safekeeping. He was a hard man, and expected some profit from these loans. He specifically told his servants to do business, to invest his money in something which would bring a return.

How the man in this parable settled affairs on his return was a blend of Herodian harshness and Kingdom holiness. Those entrusted with the money were called to account. In this, we see the King of Kings will expect us to branch out in faith. We are required to take what He has given us and use it for His business: changing hearts. The disciples were to remake themselves into His image, by using His power and knowledge. Though they may have had little enough at the time, it was certain if they walked in the light they had, more would come. Some would go far with that mission, because the changes in themselves would be the means to bringing others into the Kingdom. Some would not do quite so well, but that would be no direct cause for God’s displeasure.

He who takes God’s investment into his heart and simply hangs onto it has accomplished nothing. If we see our lives as the marketplace, the merchandise to be bought with His Word and loving power, we can get a sense of what Jesus is saying here. When we first come to Him, we have agreed to His ownership and Lordship. We spend the rest of our earthly lives executing His claims on all our whole selves. The areas of our existence which are not occupied in His business have to be seized on His authority, bit by bit, until it all serves His Kingdom. We take sides with this new conquering ruler, as his agents against our old ways. The process itself is infectious, and draws others to consider a similar deal with God.

To fail in activating His ownership, to fail in giving Him hands-on control over the affairs of our daily living, is to fail miserably His command to accomplish something with His grace in us. What He can trust us with later will be based on how fully we turn things over to Him early on. His property is occupied by a lot of demonic squatters. If we make no effort to evict Satan’s minions, Jesus’ sacrifice is wasted. However, we note in the parable this servant who failed is simply stripped of his future opportunities, and the riches of life that could have been his go to someone more faithful. The failed servant is not turned out, but simply not allowed to advance to a place of responsibility. Such are restricted to lesser responsibilities, kept back from hurting the Kingdom business, and from hurting the faith of others.

Those who actively oppose His Lordship are another story. They will be destroyed. The Herodians had no qualms with dispatching their enemies. There are stories of a bloodbath upon this one’s return from Rome. The final end of those who reject Christ will be far worse.

The point Jesus makes with all this? His active rule would be delayed. Did He mean the 3 days He spent in the grave, plus the 40 days or so after His resurrection, followed by His ascension? And then can we say He began to rule as the Holy Spirit, who descended at Pentecost? Or did He mean the long period of grace from His ascension until the Day of Return, sometime longer than these 2000 years so far? Or is it both, in one sense or another?

That doesn’t really matter here. What Jesus was saying was to forget about those dreams of ruling in the Courts of the Messiah, the Second David, at least in the short term of their dreams. He knew the events subsequent to His crucifixion and resurrection would clarify things, anyway. Once they passed through the dark night of His trial, the agony of His death, the dejection of His burial, and the unspeakable joy of His resurrection, all their silly notions would be forgotten. If they could just make it through that final week of Passover, things would move too quickly for them to react foolishly. It was necessary to restrain them from trying to fight Roman soldiers, expecting miracles to make it possible for them to win.

The battlefield was about to change completely.

Intuitions of Wars

What follows is not prophecy; it’s simply intuition.

We’ve known for a few weeks the US is now totally unhappy with the rebels in Syria. It appears they’ve been losing pretty badly, so we had some Stinger missiles sort of disappear from one place and somehow wind up in the hands of the Syrian rebels. But it won’t do them much good because the rebels are hopelessly incompetent. So a lot of folks were half expecting some time ago the US and some allies would start enforcing some kind of no-fly zone over Syria. This would be prelude to an invasion, and I can’t guess the specifics, and I have no idea when it might start.

My intuition says Assad’s government will fall. I sense that will make Syria rather like Iraq and Lebanon. My intuition also suggests this will somehow be the final straw, that something about this will break the bank for us, so to speak. Whether or not it prevents any further idiocy is doubtful, so I suggest it will set us up for a disaster when we start something somewhere else.

I’m hoping I’m wrong, of course. These are not nice thoughts. Still, I’m praying for the hapless citizens of Syria. I’ve already been praying for Americans, but I have already declared us all too deserving of bad news. By the way, I don’t think the US will simply blow up. Might break up into smaller entities, but I rather doubt that any time soon. My intuition suggests we’ll go into a long decline worse than what happened for the UK at her worst. I doubt there will be any major military attack here, not even by outside terrorists. We will, of course, suffer false flag attacks from government sponsored terrorists, but that’s hardly news. Meanwhile, the political spectacles will continue in the media here, and it will all mean just about nothing.

Enjoy your week.

Activist Folly

People on the ground see the warfare, figurative and literal, and honestly believe their actions made all the difference in the results. They are wrong.

Take a step back and see things with clear moral vision. There may be something to gain from activism and even the actions of freedom fighter, but it won’t be much, and is seldom what they celebrate. Often these succeed only in exposing more painfully to the sheeple what was painfully obvious to wiser minds all along: Every evil empire falls because of internal weakness. The evil nature is what kills it, and all the other hullabaloo is just theater.

Here in the US, we are seeing one of the most effective array of tools and policies for keeping the evil empire in place. I reiterate what I’ve often said before, here in this space, that the US was born in lies and mythology about the true intent of the founders. While a few were altogether clear minded about their nefarious intent (Madison, to name one), many were self-deluded zealots. The Founding Fathers claimed to be striving for human liberty and blessings, but what drove them was the clink of silver and gold. The noble sacrifice of life for some cause is simply one more face on the Western mythology of ideals which somehow fall far short of God’s divine revelation. Jesus didn’t die for a good cause; He died for the sins of all humanity. The heroes of the American Revolution didn’t die for any sins but their own. A great many died simply because that’s how things go in this world.

Sacrifice which can be logically explained to a Westerner isn’t worth much. Sacrifice to which God calls us remains incomprehensible to Western minds.

As with all human empires, this American Empire has followed the natural life cycle and is nearing the end. While it will be the same ugly death and destruction we typically see with such things in the records of human history, you will note this fall won’t be the result of political activism nor any freedom fighters killing off the core leadership. The result would be the same with our without such measures, and the timing will hardly shift a few minutes either way. Political and armed rebellion is mostly noise, bloodshed and destruction, but the life of the Beast is determined in Heaven, and nothing man can do will rewrite the divine script.

With this in mind, I recommend you take a look at Tony Cartalucci’s latest glimpse at reality. The short video to which he links points out how our imperial intervention in Syria is already collapsing. The officials in Washington have concocted a cover story to hide the desperation of dealing with fractious combatants who would gleefully destroy everything our ruling class claims they value. Worse, these untamed and profligate “freedom fighters” poking at the Syrian government would as easily destroy the things our ruling class actually does value, too. Meanwhile, the biggest problem is the FSA is itself so utterly corrupt and broken, it cannot do anything useful in the first place. The Syrian government is struggling, but most of the people on the ground in Syria affected by all this are certainly no friends of the FSA. All the money the US throws at this thing can’t purchase victory for the FSA, even when you factor in all the inefficiency as simply higher costs. It’s coming apart. While there will always remain armed combatants ready to press ahead with their jihad, none of this will have any effect on the government of Syria as a whole. Any real change in Syrian politics will remain tied entirely to other causes.

In exposing the failure of this store-bought revolution in Syria, we see an equal exposure of the inherent failure of who bought it. It’s not necessarily the end of the US government, in that sense, but it’s surely a clear indicator of why it will end eventually, and probably sooner than folks expect. Desperate measures to preserve or to defeat will not make much difference, so I am glad to see the Patriot Underground has backed off the pointless bloodshed they were planning here. Were they still active, it would only produce more confusion about everything, and increase the human misery of an already inhumane process.

I remain a watcher on the sidelines, in human terms. I’ve read the words and seen the vision of the Patriot Underground; that vision can never be real. I’m intimately familiar with the horrors of bureaucratic planning for increasing police state measures as the whole thing comes apart, having at one time participated in the work of that planning. The most useful thing any thoughtful soul an do is stay uninvolved. There is no black and white in any of these conflicts, because they all are so deeply stained with evil, it’s just a matter of what paint job you prefer. I don’t wave any pennants or cheer on any actor in this drama. Entertaining it is, but nothing more. I’m keeping my hands on the mission handles.

For those who walk in the revelation of God, none of this is our fight.

Ready and Not

Being a Christian Mystic is hardly a matter of absolute truth, nor simply saying, “I have encountered God, and I am forever changed.” Those are true, but miss the point. What matters here is I am in contact with God right now. Yes, there is a lot behind me, changes more than I could catalog in writing anywhere. More importantly, those things are out the way, and I have a much more open communion with the Spirit and His Realm.

As I checked Facebook and waded through my early reading links this morning, at least a half-dozen articles and blog posts passed through my mind. With all the other ideas to which those are connected, I might have at any time two dozen different things I could write about. Most of them I’ve written at least once already, and the rest have been written even better by someone else. That there are so many simply reflects the differences in those who provoke the thoughts. They differ only in the cognitive path I’d have to take to get from where someone else is to where I have to go. There was a time I might not have an answer to some rhetorical assault or riposte, but it’s been a really long time since I ran into that. Hardly would I claim to know it all; I claim what I cannot answer is really not my problem. More importantly, no matter where you start the conversation, I end up at the same place. In that sense, it all runs together.

This is not some intellectual idyll. It’s more an existential peace, because it includes an awareness of things no one can verbalize in any way. My existence has been expanded beyond the horizons of any human awareness, such that dying in this realm is no threat. I’m quite ready to try the alternative to life on this plane. But I know I don’t have divine permission for that yet. I’m still here, and if my health continues on this high level of fitness, there’s a potential of being here for quite some time to come. There’s nothing of the claim, “I’ve arrived!” I’m just getting started good on this path.

To arrive in any sense would require dying.

You may have read somewhere some former State Department official has been predicting Israel will be starting WW3 in the next 48 hours from the time I write this. Perhaps they will try; I’m sure they’ve been hoping to do it for quite some time. In one sense, I’m getting tired of the suspense. Could we hurry up and get this stupidity over with? This bogus tension is wearing thin, and I’m in need of some fresh entertainment. How about some mass slaughter of innocent lives all at once?

I hope your sarcasm detector is working. About the only good I can see is perhaps I’ll finally find out whether my prophetic gift is worth anything at all. I’ll be able to see if the Lord really intends to wipe out the US troops attacking Iran, in any sense which matches the prophetic word I received a couple of years ago. Whether it be Iranians or US-Israelis, I’m not eager for blood and suffering. I’m also not eager for what such a thing would bring here at home, because it almost surely means you, too, dear reader, will suffer in some way.

I’m ready, but I’m not ready.