This is us

"Know that the Lord is not giving you this land because you are righteous, for you are a stubborn people". Deuteronomy 9:6.

Consider this...

"Out of all the vaccines I have taken in my life: Tetanus, small pox, polio etc., never before have I seen so much confusion over a vaccine that says I have to wear a mask, and socially distance even when fully vaccinated. Apparently I could still contract or spread the virus even when fully vaccinated. Never had to have a double shot, never been bribed by establishments to take the vaccine in order to win a car, cash, or other prizes. I never had to worry about cardiac issues and/or blood clots and sadly more, I didn’t have to worry about death. I was never judged if I didn’t take it. I was never discriminated against for travel or other regular services. The vaccines I have listed above never told me I was a bad person for not taking it, or taking it for that matter. I have never seen a vaccine that threatened the relationship between a family member or a close friend. Never seen it used for political gain and never seen it used to persuade children in favour of free ice cream or teenagers going into a night club. I have never seen a worry about a mix and matching and yet told it’s OK to do it one day and not the next and on and off again. "I have never seen a vaccine threaten someone’s livelihood, job, school, etc. I have never seen a vaccine that allows a twelve year old’s consent to supersede his/her parent’s consent. So after all I have said, can someone tell me how on God’s green earth I am a racist or conspiracy theorist. Non educated, non researched because I am not willing to take this vaccine. And the clinical trials will not be over for at least two years from now. Finally, after all the vaccines (shots) I listed above, I have never seen a vaccine like this one that discriminates, divides, and judges a society such as this one. So much information is censored, deleted and removed from the internet. So many doctors, scientists, are censored and forbidden to speak out or ask legitimate questions when what is being allowed or not allowed does not make sense. This sure is one powerful vaccine. IT does all of these things that I have mentioned and yet? It doesn’t do what all the other vaccines that I have mentioned earlier were designed to do. That is to fight off “COVID”, a virus with a natural recovery rate of 99% thanks to our miraculous immune system!"           N. Lawrence. (On You Tube).

So, here's my opening question - does this kind of questioning seem reasonable to you? Haven't you asked yourself similar questions in these past 18 months about all manner of events?

As one writer in the telegraph noted today: "Frankly, the government must share the blame for encouraging this silly anxiety neurosis. If you close the schools, empty the hospitals of the elderly and say we must stay home or die, it’s no wonder people start getting crazy. Whitehall officials were gobsmacked at how much compliance there was to the stay-at-home order, with Brits much more ready to do as we were told than folk elsewhere. Clearly, the government overplayed its hand by a country mile, and is now paying the price" (Robert Taylor).

So, there it is in a couple of paragraphs - our present world unpacked and shown to be wanting in the extreme in respect to what should really matter, and yet, and here's where it hurts the most - the church remains either silent or complicit in it all!

Not that there aren't a handful of voices of resistance (I'm grateful to all of you), but these are working almost entirely outside of the 'official' voices of authority.

Why should that be? Why is it that, in spite of numerous and continual "ripples" (perhaps that should read holes) appearing in the narrative of the consensus, that Christianity has almost entirely resounded with the message that we shouldn't seek to rock the boat, disturb common opinion or even ask even slightly probing questions about any of this? Why has the church effectively become deaf and dumb to the deeper needs of our present society and, worse yet, seen fit to effectively marginalise and, quite often, expel those who are shocked at such a impoverished response?

Compliance with what can only be defined as 'the world' at this point is disturbing enough, but you have to ask yourself, how often does this particular lesson have to be writ large before the church gets it?

We are now into a second year of ministers and church dignitaries telling us that everything is good, that there isn't really anything to be that concerned about, and that we will - at some point - get to a place where society is as it should be. Well, what that clearly means now is that everyone (whatever their age) will be "vaccinated" continually (boosters are certainly on the way), continue taking numerous other measures for long periods for the year, and maintain an on-line digital approval to gain access to, well, everything that matters. The Papacy got on board with all of this today stating that Roman Catholics must have been jabbed to engage in clerical activity, and how 'good' Catholics must do so to acquire what is right and good for society. Universities and Colleges are actively producing demarcation systems so those non vaccinated can be identified (and excluded) visually. Pfizer are preparing to gain authorisation for the jabbing of the next batch (5-11 year olds) in America, and are already prepping the case for children as young as two.

Those who won't conform are being marginalised, excluded and continually identified as 'refuseniks' or worse - as if the concerns and issues they had raised about all of this are without any merit, purely because they are muted from the mainstream as irrelevant.

It's time we took the Lord's words above to the children of Israel very seriously.

Their best was, quite simply, not going to take them anywhere.

The reason they were delivered, cared for, forgiven, made victorious, and gained an inheritance, had nothing to do with their virtues! The reason God shows such aid is purely because they were, by nature, without help - incapable of making it in any meaningful sense of the term. Worse than that, their inherent stubbornness would have excluded them entirely from being valuable, were it not for the fact that the Lord had chosen to make them so.

Where does that leave us?

In exactly the same position: "you were dead in trespasses and sins, following the prince of the power of this world, and the course of those who walk in disobedience"(Ephesians 2). Redemption changes that through another's righteousness (Romans 3:21) but for us, life now is a constant dying to self to live in what has been provided (see Romans 6 & 7).

Given that's the case, why would we expect the world to be right when it comes to how Christians should behave in respect to their worship, church-going, doing good, or in what is required to be moral in respects to the world around them? Why would we think that this is possible in respect to this present moment any more than it has been in the past, when these very powers and agencies have been the means whereby God's people have suffered, been killed, and continually excluded from life in general?

I keep hoping that others will wake up to the tissue of lies we have been asked to believe about so much - that they would see the poison that is being injected into the very marrow of what we are being told should now define us - but what is evidenced in the majority of cases is sheer negligence.

The days have been trying, to say the least, but all the evidence shows they are about to become much harder.

Come, says the preachers and the Prophets, let us return to the Lord!

Severance

"Just as then the one born of the flesh persecuted the one born of promise and the Spirit, so it is now". Galatians 4:29.

The year is 250 AD, and many Christian leaders are in hiding for their lives because of their service, stirring the empire against the faith. Rather than their stance being viewed as good, however, those who are suffering in prison, seeing themselves as genuinely vexed because of this, deride such leaders as weak by their choosing to keep themselves from public view.

When the persecution eases, a church leader (bishop) named Cyprian from the African city of Carthage - one of those who had fled - seeks to address the issue of 'the lapsed' in a document bearing this title, stating that apostasy is beyond the remit of men to forgive, but later (AD 251), other African bishops assembled to review how they can quell the troubles caused by these events.

They resolve that penitents should not be treated severely, and seek to have this accepted as sound church policy, and after some disconcerting events involving a replacement bishop named Novitan, it was finally agreed that such sins could be remitted by those in authority.

The trouble did not end there. The Novitanists then sought to re-join the main body of the Christian community, but Cyprian argued that as they had not been baptised in what the authorities deemed 'church', they were schismatic, and could not be recognised. The tangle quickly escalated when the new bishop of Rome named Stephen stated that so long as they had received trinitarian baptism, they were already part of the Christian community and there was no need for their penance and re-baptism. This developed from a theology which emphasised that the sacraments did not belong to the church, but were Christs, and therefore their efficacy is dependent upon Christ at work in them and not the faithfulness of the one giving them.

When Cyprian refused to accept such leniency, a major rift opened between the two seats of authority, and it would take most of the next five decades before any resolve would prove possible.

The adversity Christianity faces is not only an external matter, but as is shown above, it is often the case that factors which originate outside the church penetrate within to bring points of disagreement and conflict.

In the case of Cyprian, he believed that his position of authority was not to be questioned, and therefore when he became inflexible in respect to those who wished to find a way to bring reconciliation between the various parties, he brought a major division in both the teaching and practice of the church of his day.

The issue at the centre of this conflict was what manner of 'godliness' or 'purity' makes us truly Christian? Is it something shown in our virtue and faithfulness to what we understand to be 'the faith', or is it, in truth, something outside of ourselves, given only in the riches of God's great mercy towards us?

Cyprian believed these 'marks' had to been identifiable to those ruling and leading a 'church' that was deemed Apostolic - those wanting to part of such a community had to be known to him and those who lead with him, but this in effect meant that other believers - those who had suffered greatly during this conflict - were left outside of that community, purely often times because they had experienced more trial than those who had managed to remain concealed from the authorities. Why should such be deemed properly excluded if they shared the same faith?

There are several parallels between these events and today.

A significant minority of Christians now find themselves outside of the main body of the church at this time, purely because of the state-imposed policies in respect to the pandemic regulations, especially regarding the use of medically injected substances that are clearly ethically dubious at best. These believers are seeking to remain faithful to their witness and consciences, and have a great deal of trouble resolving how the mainstream denominations can continue 'business as usual' in respect to their gatherings when they find themselves not only without regular fellowship, but often facing termination of employment, purely because 'official' church statements are used against them to argue that theirs is not a Christian position (!).

The Carthagian incident shows us that resolving such divisive issues cannot come about easily or without genuine desire to examine truth in order to bring righteous reconciliation between those who have been divided by impositions from outside of the faith.

Let us be clear. Christians here in the UK are now facing expulsion from churches and employment purely because they cannot allow the state, or the church's enforcement of state policy, to break their convictions in respect to the precedence that must be given to the requirements of the truth - the 'severity of Cyprian' is raining upon them just as surely as in what happened centuries ago.

Sadly, there is presently no church council or authority that recognises this - no ecclesiastical arbiter who is stating that such austere action is clearly wrong if the church is to be the instrument whereby grace and truth are delivered to the world.

This is a very tragic state of affairs, and at present, it appears this misery will only intensify in the days ahead.

Even with instruments of appeasement, it took the ancient church some five decades to find resolve.

How long will it take our generation when, at present, the issue isn't even being acknowledged by those who deem themselves to be authoritative? How can believers ever become one when these issues are, in effect, viewed as irrelevant or even irreconcilable?

 

U N I O N

Tune in, engage, rejoice... Truth in Worship.

Who are you listening to?

"Wisdom has set out her stall, raising her voice in the market, crying out in the noisy streets, so those coming in through the gates can hear  - 'how long will you keep on being so stupid and demeaning because of your agitation by what is sound? I have called, and you refuse to listen - strove with you, yet you would have none of my needed reproof'". Proverbs 3:20-25.

I saw an interesting snippet from an interview today. In it, Dr Jordan Peterson outlines how one of the most dangerous occurrences of the present isn't merely what we're being told is of concern, but how 'the science' has become a tool of politics in a manner that leaves all of us seriously disenfranchised from truth in a fashion that can undermine and untether vital aspects of worth within our culture. 

This manner of erosion is witnessed everywhere - Christians in ministry are 'accommodating' social requirements, to 'uphold' policies deemed expedient at the expense of the well-being and future of the very household of faith, and the consequences are rippling out to the wider society, so, for example, Christians seeking to obtain or remain in employment are already finding their convictions in such roles being undercut by the 'pragmatism' expressed in 'official' statements and practice by those 'toeing' a party line.

This is evil of the most pernicious kind. The church "says" it is passive on a particular issue, not wanting to be 'political', but in reality, it has already chosen a side in its presumed "inactivity" (which is anything but), and the consequence is clear - people are placed beneath a burden that only exists because those who view themselves as being 'correct' have imposed it.

Such stupidity and arrogance, guised as piety, deems itself to be "distanced" from doing any such harm, but when genuine candour and righteousness shows up, folly becomes a bile and a canker that refuses perpetually what is genuinely sound.

When the church acts soberly and rightly, seeking to convey grace and truth, we evidence the life of God amongst people. When 'church' detaches itself from such a role, something very different unfolds. Men begin to rely on a delusional form of religion, divorced from the impeding realities around them, believing they have an 'authority' to advocate such monstrosities. 

That is how we get to the position of the Gospel Coalition this month, which in a recent article argues that the church (all who attend services) should be vaccinated, period, and any believer who isn't simply shouldn't be amongst them, hence what is required to come to a place where the gospel is central is an 'extra' level of sanctity and classification as 'clean' prior to crossing the threshold. This is 'judaising' (see Galatians) in a modern garb - it conforms Christianity to the role of 'burning incense' to the state because there are now swathes of good data to now show that this is an extreme response to what, amongst most of us, is a minor infection.

This week's irreverend podcast gave a staggering example from prior times of how the church - in a far more deadly plague - was highly active amongst the people to bring aid and care to those in the city of Milan.

Jesus told the 'godly' of His generation how those who they deemed criminal from prior times would rise up and judge them, because such had received the manner of revelation that His day were, in effect, now deemed by Him to be rejecting (Matthew 12:41).

The results of taking such a direction are horrific. Such leadership, notes Jude, acts upon instinct rather than true reason seasoned by God, hence fear becomes our motivation rather than the Lord's perfect love. The consequence among such is the murder of their brethren (the way of Cain), an employing of a presumed service to God for personal security or gain (the error of Balaam), and assuming all of this is just and right (the gainsaying of Korah). This is vomit upon the Lord's bounty, presumption of the very worst kind, murdering the faith and denying the concerns of those who seek to speak up for better things.

Such liars gorge themselves whilst leaving others to starve of fellowship, bringing a message that keeps, in effect, the church in a role of crushing underfoot those who are, due to such actions, outside - deemed as irrelevant and made powerless by the mainstream.

These actions are, in truth, fruitless, because they leave the elite as severed from all that God has deemed to be good - which even includes, in this present context, the place of death. The stain of this moment is the utter shame that is being stored up as Christianity becomes, in effect, the lackie of the state. The awful tragedy here is that, ultimately, this will backfire - there is no love in our godless institutions for Christianity - and those currently toeing this line will suddenly find themselves ejected and interred - hence the normalising of lockdowns - to be 'processed' by the state they have so revered.

The 'powers' of our day are about to face the brightness of a far greater, eternal imposition upon our world - an execution of perfect justice. We should never marry our union to what is vital to such 'wandering stars, reserved forever to darkness'. Our calling must be higher, deeper, richer than such folly.

It is therefore essential that we sever ourselves now from such godless corruption, to affirm what is genuinely righteous in the midst of this evil day.

V i t a l

 If you watch one video this week on the current issues that we as Christians need to be taking very seriously, then make sure it's this one. If only the church were making its untied stand here - things would be very different right now. Christians must take this message to heart if we want to see the church continue to be in any way effective in our present culture.

Forever out of reach?

 "One person esteems one day as far better than another, while another esteems all days alike.The one who observes a day, does so to honour God. Each should be convinced in their own mind of what is good... Why, then, do you pass judgement on another, or despise? Each will be called to give an account of what he is before God". Romans 14:5, 6, 10, 12.

"Freedom truly begins when one person decides to put aside the pretence that everyone else is buying, even at the price of rejection. If you are a 'professional' leader, you are usually the one who needs to start...

When we become moralists, we entirely miss what the good news of imputed righteousness is really all about, because 'being good' then becomes 'real christianity' - in other words, we buy into religion's sole purpose, not God's... that's why many don't come to church - it's a place for 'good' people, who do what's expected of them, hence it becomes the place for those who are 'nice'. 

The other snare here is that church is then often exposed to be the complete opposite - 'external' morality covers a place of heinous evil, intentionally hidden from view. Instead of being viewed well, then, the faith is viewed as a realm of hypocrisy and malignant evil.

Neither of these is healthy. Christianity should be defined as a place of forthright freedom and truth, especially in respect to our lives together as sinners saved entirely by God's astounding grace".

Steve Brown - A Scandalous Freedom (slightly paraphrased).

Another Sunday, so services, or it's mid-week, so house study group, or the end of another month, so church meeting - and the list goes on. "Church" usually equates to the continuation and/or multiplication of such activities because, it is supposed, that these 'huddles' achieve a couple of goals - they help us to be defined, socially, as believers and they allow us to encourage some measure of "goodness" amongst those who do so. The process, then, is presumed to engender a common piety amongst participants - to 'stir up' their fervour in respect to their particular duties or prescribed (church defined) callings of service to other like-minded associates.

The writer of Hebrews sees 'church' a little differently.

Addressing those 'scattered' for their faith, he seeks to show how the continual necessity to come to a place of perpetual sacrifice for sin has been abolished forever (by the 'once and for all sacrifice of the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ), so therefore, Christians now assemble to revel in the astonishing perfection of this deliverance. Their aim is to encourage one another's faith in this truth - to enliven a testimony (by word and deed) to the absolute surety of God's work in the world. Such people are defined by the writer as those who overcame the emptiness of a life excluded from such reality to blaze a trial in respect to the excellence of faith (Hebrews 11 & 12). This is the manner of faith employed by God Himself in the very act of creation (- calling those things that were not as though they were), evidenced in the life of the faithful by word and testimony amidst hardship in what causes them to 'look up' (outside of themselves) to the very certainty and surety of that which endures. This is the true well of aid and refreshment in our continual times of need.

It is, then, to this manner of assembly that God's children are called and told not to forsake, for, as the writer has shown, it is entirely possible to arrange all manner of 'religious' gatherings upon grounds which, not only nullify such a benefit, but actually encourage those called to better things to wallow in a miss-placed devotion to menial pursuits and thereby miss the genuine riches of their calling.

As this writer soberly reminds us, an entire generation, made free from slavery by God's direct action, perished because their 'congregation' proved riddled with all manner of religiousness and apostasy that never allowed them to detach from Egypt - so bad was this weight that not even Moses entered Canaan due to disobedience.

Faith that counts refuses to be so clustered with those who appear conferenced. Actual faith takes us further than our immediate demands and needs to truly engage with what is unfolding around us - to soberly and earnestly meet these matters well with a delivery 'salted' by grace and truth amidst the disquiet.

This should gives us pause. If the very requirements once decreed from heaven to facilitate holiness have now gone (Hebrews 9:11), the Incarnation showing them to be mere shadows of the true substance of Gods work, what are we to say of 'rulings' imposed by mere men which have directly sought to impede the true purpose of our assembly, which is to join with that which is eternal? What is to be said, never mind done, in respect to "provisions", for example, that, outwardly at least, are said to be about 'safeguarding health' which tread underfoot the very irrevocable principles of God in respect to our sharing of the gift of life - placing something unchanging beneath the consequences of such "requirements"?

Faith cannot operate in such emptied spaces of unbelief - such conformity murders what grace provides (Jude), so we must leave such evil and stand faithful and free.

If church is merely about our 'good', our comfortable, introverted and exclusive clustering to our cleek, then we have abandoned the vision of God, and the redemptive purposes of God for something far less than even fallen life provides. We have, in effect, become a party that has forsaken the value of the faith.

The Noise of Thunder

 "Just how dangerous is he?"

"Compared to what - Bubonic Plague?"

"When He opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the living creature say 'come', and I looked and beheld a pale horse, and its riders name was death, and Hades followed behind him. And he was given dominion over a quarter of the earth, to kill with sword, famine and pestilence".  Revelation 6:7&8.

Crime that's hard to 'take it's measure... it's just all out war".

I've been searching for a while now for a fitting analogy of our current global predicament, and woke this morning to realise it's the Cohen Brothers movie, 'No Country for Old Men' (as quoted above).

The film begins with a dark character named Anton Chirgurn killing a man for no apparent reason and being arrested for it. Chirgurn is death incarnate, and quickly murders one of the police officers to facilitate his return to the outside world.

At the same moment, a local named Llewelyn Moss is out hunting in the outback and comes across the carnage of a drug exchange gone badly wrong where he finds a bag of two million dollars. He takes the money, but is being tracked by men connected to the exchange who see what he's done and want the money back. Moss eludes them, but the cartel hires Chirgurn to track him down and retrieve the money.

In the meantime, local Sheriff Ed Bell begins to try to track down the murderer, only to find himself chasing a growing number of dead people as Chigurn hunts down Moss. The sheer brutality of Chigurn's actions shocks the Sheriff into a state of genuine awe (shock and disgust) - he has never encountered such cold, detached killing.

Finally the Sheriff finds Moss dead, killed by Chigurn, who also turns his attention to ending those in the cartel who have sought to double-cross him, and to killing Moss' wife, who, clearly sees the immorality in his arbitrary executions.

The movie ends with two telling scenes - Chigurn facing the opening of his own demise, due to what can only be described as an 'act of God', and Sheriff Bell, visiting his cousin (a retired police officer) and then, now retired, talking with his wife about a dream, recalling older times, and his father, "going on ahead" to make a place for them.

The Sheriff's conversation with his cousin, Ellis, is particularly revealing. Two lawmen, discussing a moment when Eliis had been shot and disabled by another man, reveals just how powerless they are before such evil. The conclusion Ellis draws is that what haunts Bell is nothing new - this "country" is hard on people, and none of us can stop what's coming.

How does this impact upon us?

The story revolves around the awful cruelty that men do. The 'incident' in the desert is akin to the gain of function research that almost certainly lead to a lab-leak in Wuhan in 2019, causing the current Pandemic. Moss' "discovery" of the money is akin to the 'prize' that big Pharma "vaccines" that have become, supposedly, imperative to making life right, but in truth only attracting further death in their wake. The hunter's inability to give up the money, even though it will cost him his life echoes the global policy now becoming implemented in relation to the 'vaccines'  - nothing can be considered reasonable beside the obsession to have and employ this one thing, so any alternatives are dismissed (in the movie a cartel operative named Carson Wells seeks to give Moss this manner of opportunity before Chigurn finds him, but Moss rejects it). The Sheriff (as an officer of the law) represents the ineptitude of various institutions that have entirely underestimated what they are dealing with... only as we now follow the trail of carnage does the truth soberly unveil the genuine horror of what has overcome the world they thought that they knew.

In his conversation with Ellis, Sheriff Bell speaks of how he hoped that as he grew older, God would come into his life. The Sheriff understands that everything around him that is supposed to work is failing. His story is a rude awakening that the world is far more depraved, and therefore evil, than he could have imagined. His final unveiling of his dream suggests the one door of hope - God's intervention - has begun. Our hope is to 'hear' such a voice through Jesus Christ, to not trust in the means of the world, laying as they do in the purview of sin and death and manipulated by 'powers' that relent to such menace, but to live in accordance with His ways and His care.

"Loving" (trusting) what has been deemed evil cannot save us.

The Pale Rider is at work, so we must turn to God alone.