Something leaped off the page at me this morning. In the context of the final steps in the full restoration of Israel (at least a remnant of it), to full faith in their own Messiah, Y’Shuah, Christ Jesus, Isaiah writes, in chapter 49:

22 Thus says the Lord GOD: “Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations, and raise my signal to the peoples; and they shall bring your sons in their bosom, and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders. 23 Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you, and lick the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am the LORD; those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.” 24 Can the prey be taken from the mighty, or the captives of a tyrant be rescued? 25 For thus says the LORD: “Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken, and the prey of the tyrant be rescued, for I will contend with those who contend with you, and I will save your children. 26 I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh, and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with wine. Then all flesh shall know that I am the LORD your Savior, and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

We may interpret this prophecy in a number of non-exclusive (i.e., different but compatible) ways.

First, there is the literal-historical. Scripture (as well as extra-scriptural historians, such as Josephus) write of various sieges of Jerusalem wherein the inhabitants were reduced to killing and eating their own children. This is ‘flesh’ in the familial, hereditary sense. E.g., my daughters are my ‘flesh’. Scripture also makes clear that that which is done to God’s people, even though it is under the sovereign control of God, for their (our) discipline and refinement, is brought back onto the heads of the perpetrators, often in larger proportion.

Second, there is the symbolic-spiritual, wherein people get so caught up in themselves and their own fleshly desires that they ‘eat’ (take-in, gain nourishment from, live on) fleshly things. They are ‘carnal’ — of the flesh. (We don’t have space to delve into this any more deeply, but there is a hint, in this line of reasoning, of the strangeness of the Roman Catholic insistence on literal transubstantiation, i.e., cannibalistic, dead-Jesus, flesh-in-the-mouth. Going back to the Isaiah text, we must keep in mind that the Romans were later some of the Jews most direct ‘oppressors’ and that the Roman Empire was never really overthrown, just fragmented, outwardly transformed and sent into hibernation.)

Those who ‘eat’ their own fleshly desires are spiritually filled up with themselves. As such, they fail to ‘eat’ the spiritual manna which Jesus provides, the daily ‘bread of life’ which is made freely available, amply nourishing those who follow Christ. They fail to come into bread-breaking (regular, life-on-life, intimate/ordinary fellowship with His body, the church universal) and so are left ‘eating’ only that which is sensual and therefore passing away, i.e., that which is of the flesh.

Third, (and this relates to both previous points) there is a grand-present/future application to Jacob and the land of Israel and to their opponents. Those nations which rage against God, His Anointed, and the people through whom His Chris, Jesus came to be born, i.e., the Jews will, to an increasing degree (and this need not be thought of as a process of instantaneous transformation) “eat their own flesh”.

What does this mean? Several things, I believe.

Those who oppose Israel (and thus God, and Christ Jesus, and His return to reign in power, with Jewish eyes opened) will be fixated on ‘eating’ the things of the flesh. They (we) will look like Babylon. In their natural, human (i.e., non-Biblical, antichrist) worldview they will see no reason to recognize Israel or treat her differently, because they have no faith and give no practical deference to the God of Creation and His Sovereign spelled-out-in-advance plan and promise.

One can start anywhere with this argument and end up at the same place.

It’s essentially saying the same thing Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3: that which is born of flesh is flesh. By extension, therefore, flesh eats flesh. It is carnal — the very opposite of what Jesus says when the disciples urge him to ‘eat’ in John 4 and he replies that he has food they don’t know about and that that food is to do the will of His Father. Those who are carnal — i.e., those who have not experienced radical regeneration, in Christ, with His Holy Spirit — cannot see any reason to ‘eat’ the things of the Spirit, the bread of life, instead.

It’s another way of expressing the thought that the love of many will grow cold in the end times and that people will be lovers of money, self, sensual pleasures (of the flesh), etc. They will have an appetite for the things of the flesh and none for the things of God. They will also ‘drink’ their own blood — an act which I will not treat in detail because it is probably meant to be parallel to all of the arguments we’re making here about flesh — i.e., both literal and symbolic, not only in Satanic ritual (relatively rare, though not unknown) as well as consuming their own life-force, focusing in on themselves without any external source of nutrition or renewal. It is not irrelevant to reflect on the fact that ticks, mosquitoes and leeches are all blood-drinkers. When we think of a person or company or government which does this we sometimes call them a ‘leech’ — a parasite — one drawing sustenance from another without permission.

One thinks also of Daniel and his compatriots, whose first (and life-riskingly brave) act of public faith on being brought into Babylon was to refuse the king’s meat and wine and insist on a tee-totalling, vegetarian diet. I have nothing against vegetarianism, or tee-totalling. For the Christian, these are matters of preference, even as gluttony and drunkenness are condemned. In light of the revelation to Peter in Acts 10, it would be taking the text much to far to view it as prescriptive in a dietary sense; it’s main thrust is symbolic: look to God alone and eschew what is carnal. (On this basis, one could critique the RCC practice of foregoing meat on Fridays or the literal trans-substantiation of blood, but for today we’ll hold back from going down that particular bunny-trail.)

Some of you are probably ahead of me on this one…

The Isaiah text may also mean that, as nations grow in boldness in their final rebellion against God and all which He has set in place, including the first re-gathering (not in faith yet) of the nation of Israel, they will begin to experience more and more episodes of literal cannibalism, in their midst. E.g., that which occurred last weekend in Florida, where ‘drunkenness’ (‘high’ on the drug ‘bath salts’) was involved, or Maryland, or Montreal, where the self-confessed perpetrator seems ‘drunk’ his own perverted sexual exploits — and those of a form with a tie-in to male blood-essence, the same problem which led to the AIDS epidemic. That’s as far as I’m going to go on that one today. And let’s not forget the ‘drunkenness’ of this nation on a prosperous and ‘free’ lifestyle in which killing babies is justified out of all manner of appeals to the ‘urgent’ interests of the adults involved.

The point: the position of the reigning U.S. government vis a vis Israel, and vis a vis the body of Christ and its full and true practice of Biblical Christianity makes it possible that we are seeing the fulfillment of Isaiah 49:26. (I know a lot less about Canadian or UK politics, however it has been my strong impression that they are at least as hostile to Biblical Christianity — probably more — and not exactly stalwart, God-fearing friends of modern Israel.) It’s hard to separate cause and effect.

This constellation of conclusions line up with other more familiar texts such as the rest of Psalm 2 or Zechariah 12, among others. I suspect other heinous acts of literal cannibalism will be discovered as this news ‘meme’ leads editors to assign more reporters to search out and cover such stories. Both the literal-spiritual cannibalism and the oppression of God’s people are symptoms — the natural and expected out-workings of those who ‘rage’ at God. They are synergistic with one another.

One aspect we haven’t even touched on, of course, is the meteoric rise in popularity of vampire movies and books, especially among the young and impressionable. Do these lead to literal cannibalism? Probably not. Or not often. I take them more as a symptom of an age in which the God of the Bible, already relegated to the back seat in the West these last few hundred years or so has now been tied up and gagged in the trunk if not kicked out and left to bounce down the street.

Mankind was made by our Creator, with a natural spiritual hunger and thirst. Both of them need to be fed. If they’re not fed on the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ, the Word of God, washed down with the overflowing clear spring of the water of His Holy Spirit, then they will be fed with carnality and violence (flesh and blood).

Is it any accident then, that in the wake of these awful news stories, ‘Madonna’ the queen of Babylonian carnality herself (see various analyses of her Satanically-inspired Superbowl show) kicked off a new show in Israel (Tel Aviv) just last night (Thursday, May 31st) in which,

“she showcased grim dance routines depicting violence and bloody gunmen… trussed up and hoisted into the air by four male dancers, [she was] lowered onto a platform as though into a volcano – a virgin sacrifice. For ‘Gang Bang,’ Madonna wrestled with armed intruders whom she then dispatched with a pistol – their ‘blood’ spattering across an enormous video backdrop. In a routine for ‘Revolver,’ she wielded a Kalashnikov rifle…”

Make no mistake, brethren and sistren, as well as spectators and scoffers: The only blood which will save us from the bloody mess of this world and its raging schemes is the blood of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Will you accept Him?

GALATIANS 1:3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age…

For reasons that will become apparent in a moment, I just came across a semi-obscure Seattle* band calling itself God’s Favorite Beefcake (according to Wikipedia: “a term denoting the use of nude or semi-nude male bodies”). *(Many have termed Seattle the ‘least-churched city in America’, though others still vie for that title.)

GFB’s catalog includes titles such as ‘Burn’, ‘House on Fire’, ‘One-Eyed Jesus’ (a blasphemous re-application of a slang term for the male anatomy) and ‘Luv Canal’. Can you detect a theme yet? Other tunes include ‘Human Skin Boots’ (the Nazis made lampshades out of human skin; Satan symbolically ‘bruised the heel’ of Christ, skin-for-skin; see Job 2:4; God clothed Adam and Eve in animal skins, etc.), and ‘The Horror’ (see Jeremiah 49:16, as well as Kurtz’ dying words, in ‘Apocalypse Now’, an adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ — all the same idea).

Other Satanically-inspired tunes include ‘The Witch in the Woods‘ and ‘Daughter ov God’ (a gender-bending twist of the Son of God), not to mention the explicitly Bible-referencing title, ‘We Shall Not Be Moved’. Here’s that context:

PSALM 10:3 …the wicked boast of the desires of their heart, those greedy for gain curse and renounce the Lord. 4 In the pride of their countenance the wicked say, “God will not seek it out”; all their thoughts are, “There is no God.” 5 Their ways prosper at all times; your judgments are on high, out of their sight; as for their foes, they scoff at them. 6 They think in their heart, “We shall not be moved; throughout all generations we shall not meet adversity.” 7 Their mouths are filled with cursing and deceit and oppression; under their tongues are mischief and iniquity. 8 They sit in ambush in the villages; in hiding places they murder the innocent. Their eyes stealthily watch for the helpless; 9 they lurk in secret like a lion in its covert; they lurk that they may seize the poor; they seize the poor and drag them off in their net. 10 They stoop, they crouch, and the helpless fall by their might. 11 They think in their heart, “God has forgotten, he has hidden his face, he will never see it.”

Here are the lyrics to another tune of theirs, entitled ‘Pig Skin Hat’, a term which carries other rankly sexual and dark, spiritually intricate allusions (e.g., on the milder side, football as salvation) which, in the interest of space (and taste) I’ll leave as an exercise for the reader, even as I advise that it’s best to move on. (Colors, misspellings and characters are from the original):

Satan was a good guy, but he was misunderstood
He tried to be a god but’cha knew he never could
Cause Jehovah was the ringmaster or so the bible says
But think of all the lunatics who wrote it

“God breathed” my ass!! It will never last.
Cause people aren’t as stupid as they seem
Most of em are mindless
But some of us can think
…
…….CRASH=!!
When I go to hell, etcetc

Seattle Times, Wednesday, May 30th, 2012:

A gunman killed five people in Seattle on Wednesday — four at a cafe and another in a carjacking — before he shot himself as officers closed in after a citywide manhunt… At the cafe, Joe “Vito” Albanese, 52, was killed along with best friend and bandmate, Drew Keriakedes, 45. Both men performed with the band God’s Favorite Beefcake.

Wednesday’s shootings only raised tensions in a city that already has been reeling from a spate of gun violence. Seattle now has had 21 homicides this year — the same number as in all of 2011.

[The gunman] was described as a sometimes-troubled regular at[the] cafe… “You could just tell he was a ball of negative energy,” said cafe owner Kurt Geissel. [The gunman] could be a troublemaker, he said, but the cafe wanted to be tolerant, and continued to allow the troubled man to enter… [he] had been kicked out two or three times in recent weeks for “snapping” at people… 

Sad. Very sad. Sin is real. Hell is real. God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. And yet… He is not mocked. One cannot dance with the darkness and expect light. (See Psalm 115:8 and 135:18 regarding idols: “Those who make them become like them, so do all who trust in them!”)

Idols are not just about wooden and metal icons in a religious context.

Ideas can be idols as well.

An entire society cannot elevate ‘tolerance’ to the status of religious ultimate, obscuring the reality of, and the stark distinctions between good and evil, life and death, sin and salvation, and expect not to reap the deadly results. One cannot trust in ‘tolerance’ over Christ and be surprised when evil itself is ‘tolerated’ to the point of taking over.

Yet sin is sin. Both the victims and the perpetrator in this story share in this with the rest of us, even the most outwardly ‘pious’ among us. Here’s how a local reviewer described a recent show by GFB:

GFB had a dash of old timey punk, and wackiness… The lead singer [was] quite the character with fading hair, a straggly beard, nose ring and a really expressive face. He was bat-sh** crazy at times, hard for me to understand but I didn’t need to understand the words… his intent was obvious… The accordion player was talented and hilarious, really playing a part, very expressive and animated. I saw him later so drunk he could barely talk… One of their fans was buying them drinks, it looked liked 3 fingers of whiskey for each band member on a regular basis. By the end of the set most were ‘faced…[the lead singer] put a fork up his nose? Yes, right after he pounded the 16 penny nail in the same said nose. Then of course he swallowed a sword, how else would you end such a crazy set?

We mustn’t imagine that we are without a streak of sin and rebellion (often referred-to by it’s kinder, gentler name, ‘independence’) or that ours, however ‘mild’ by comparison, in our own eyes, is less offensive to a perfect and Holy God… that, left unpaid for (by Christ alone), it will not separate us from Him just as far and just as eternally, in hell. (It sometimes amazes me how perfectly smart folks, who can reason their way through much more complex things, and who want absolutely nothing to do with God ‘down here’ get all fuzzy-headed when it comes to this. In a vague way, they want, even expect to go to ‘heaven’. What do they think heaven is? Who do they think runs the place?)

Another lesson in this — and I’m speaking especially to anyone in the prime of life who thinks him- or her-self too busy to get serious about Christ — is that we cannot assume that we can ‘take that course’ later. The fellows from this band who were shot dead while sipping their lattes were in the early years of middle age. Then, ‘ka-pow’. There may not be a later for some of us. And even if there is, turning to God later in life may not be possible if we’ve gotten into the habit of rebuffing God’s offer of salvation through His Son, Jesus. Doing so can inexorably lead to our hearts becoming calloused… our eyes dimmed and ears dulled.

I describe this relatively obscure story in part because the same themes are reflected in the headline-grabbing one at the other ‘corner’ of the country — the naked, grisly-violent, male-on-male cannibal episode down in Florida over Memorial Day weekend.

(Ever wonder why a demonically possessed person — and make no mistake, if he wasn’t then the term is devoid of meaning — would eat the face of another, starting with the eyes, and not, say, the calf or bicep? It’s a serious question. I would conjecture that, because Satan hates God so much, any of his minions desire to damage the aspects of a man, or a woman, which make us most unique among created beings, i.e., those things most reminiscent of Him in whose image we are all made. Unable to bite and disfigure the face of God directly, Satan’s minions go after the next best thing.)

Reviewing the comment threads on those stories, it was startling to see how many were eager to clarify that the drug in question was probably not ‘real’ LSD (about which some waxed lyrical, indicating that it was helpful and good) but a ‘bad’ knock-off called ‘bath salts’ — a term that seems mild, even soothing, in comparison to the bad old term PCP, which is what was most likely involved.

As if the chemicals themselves were at fault.

As if other chemicals could bring salvation from sin and death.

Something else that was glossed over in that story was its proximity to something called ‘Urban Beach Week’, (a.k.a., ‘Black Beach Week’, the link to which I refuse to post and advise men especially to avoid seeking out.) It’s described as “a hip-hop festival held in Miami’s South Beach over the Memorial Day weekend since 2001… known as ‘the most dangerous weekend in South Beach’ by the majority of locals.”

One website promoting the event notes:

No Urban Beach is not Canceled and Can Never Be Canceled. You can’t stop Tax Paying American from Traveling where the hell they want for their vacation!!! Don’t listen to the Rumors!!! What you can find at the event: Hot Women, Hot Cars, Hot Bike[s], Extreme Night life, A-list celebrity [sic], Hot college coed[s]. This is a must attend event for any one. [sic]

Where the hell, indeed… still open to receive unrepentant sinners… still trying to drown out the still, small voice of God and the fact of His sure and still-open sacrificial offer to cancel the sin debt of any who would listen and turn.

The larger point? One cannot open up a city to sin in just a few dimensions (e.g., sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll) and think it will stop neatly there. All the others (murder, adultery, theft, etc.) will come along for the ride. It’s a package deal. Same thing applies to an individual… or a nation. Is it too late to pray for ours to turn? The hour is very late, yet what is impossible with man is possible with God…

UPDATE: CBS report with video: “gunman… mentally ill”. Well, yeah. But, just like the drug explanations in the Miami crime, and trite grain-of-truth, grain-of-falsehood excuse of “too many guns”, the real question remains un-asked: What lies behind those things? What causes people to use drugs and guns in an inappropriate manner? What causes people to think that either one can truly save them from evil? Nobody asks the deeper questions.

In the Bible, the mentally ill are instantly and miraculously cured by Jesus, and it’s called casting out demons. In the Bible, the sword-swinging Peter is roundly rebuked. The only thing truly surprising here: that so many people are so surprised. The world is fallen. The only reason this doesn’t break out on every street corner every day due to the grace of God.

The wages of sin really are death. What part of that is so hard to understand? Without Jesus, we’re all headed for death (both physical and spiritual) because we’re all sinners. The Bible never says when or how said death will occur. It just gives the warning. We’d do well to heed it. There is no excuse for being surprised.

PSALM 116:4 The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish. 4 Then I called on the name of the LORD: “O LORD, I pray, deliver my soul!“

LEVITICUS 24:10 Now an Israelite woman’s son, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the people of Israel. And the Israelite woman’s son and a man of Israel fought in the camp, 11 and the Israelite woman’s son blasphemed the Name, and cursed. Then they brought him to Moses. His mother’s name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan. 12 And they put him in custody, till the will of the LORD should be clear to them. 13 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 14 “Bring out of the camp the one who cursed, and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him. 15 And speak to the people of Israel, saying, Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin. 16 Whoever blasphemes the name of the LORD shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him. The sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death.

MARK 9:39 …no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me.

MATTHEW 12:31 …every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32 And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

MARK 3:28 “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”

1st JOHN 5:16 If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life–to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that. 17 All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.

LUKE 12:8 “And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, 9 but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God. 10 And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. 11 And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, 12 for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”

JOHN 14:23 “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me. 25 “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

MATTHEW 10:28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

REVELATION 16:9 They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed [ASV: 'blasphemed'] the name of God who had power over these plagues. They [still] did not repent and give him glory.

REVELATION 2:11, 20:6,14 & 21:8 — He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.’ …Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years… Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire… But as for the cowardly(!!), the faithless(!), the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.

Those who place their full hope and trust in the nail-scarred hands of Christ Jesus, are given the Holy Spirit to teach, guide and convict of sin. His indwelling is our protection in a dark world controlled by Satan who would enjoy nothing more than for us to die twice, the second being the ‘death’ of one’s soul, in hell — a process which begins here, on earth, with a hardening of heart via repeated turning away from God’s offer of grace at the cross.

If we reject (blaspheme) the Holy Spirit and His work, substituting our own ideas and will, and rejecting conviction (something which I suspect can occur in any number of ways, both explicit and implicit) we are left with no source from which to avoid what this sin-infected world will naturally do to us, both body and soul, without Christ. It is as if we have unplugged from the source of power, leaving ourselves to stumble in the dark. At a certain point, as Revelation 16 illustrates, we cannot find (and do not even want to find) the plug and the socket to connect back in.

PSALM 95:7…Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, 9 when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. 10 For forty years I loathed that generation… (see also Hebrews 3 & 4).

ACTS 16:9-10 — During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

As I get more involved with an amazing local church plant — the answer to years of prayer and Elijah-like selfish/pouty/defeatist imagining that a lot of churches are faking it, and that I might be the only guy left who’d been led, the more he reads it, to realize that the Bible must be taken with the utmost, life-changing seriousness (and joy), as the Word of God, or else completely rejected as trash (there being no intellectually honest middle position that does not involve making oneself into one’s own ‘god’, picking and choosing and denying Jesus’ repeated and emphatic claims for its authenticity) — I am learning just how hard rocky-impenetrable the ground is for the gospel around here, in New England, and yet… how God already, long ago, began to crack the rock and drip water into those cracks and plant seeds, setting the stage for ‘unlikely’ revival (the only real kind — i.e, that for which He and He alone can take credit and get glory). I’m also learning that, with enough coffee, I can write crazily run-on sentences.  

Some illustrative statistics…

At another church which our pastor planted, down in Texas, a few years ago, their team put out 500 ‘door hanger’ flyers at local residences, announcing their first service. Of those, fully 200 people showed up that first Sunday: a 40% rate of response-with-feet. When he and the planting team put out 15,000 door hangers here (near Boston) three years ago, a whopping 3 people came to the first service. Three. That’s a 0.02% response rate. One in 5,000.

On a purely statistical basis, that’s a difference of 2,000X in terms of responsiveness to the basic, no-frills, historical, given-once-to-the-saints Biblical-gospel message.

(If one were to argue that some of those populations, in either place, were already being fed by gospel-preaching churches, it would only serve to make the argument stronger.)

Hard soil indeed. (Hating and dismissing Texans for their sins — and they have plenty — doesn’t get one off the hook for one’s own, btw. Ours are plenteous too. Everyone is in the same boat. Speck. Eye. Log. You get the idea.)

At a more ‘macro’ level, the numbers are a little bit more encouraging. A little.

Multiple mission-oriented groups, across different Christian denominations (e.g., this, this and this) agree on the definition of an “un-reached people group” (i.e., one in need of a missionary approach) as being one, “among which there is no indigenous community of believing Christians with adequate numbers and resources to evangelize this people group.” The specific criterion used is, “less than 2% Evangelical Christian“.

The percentage of people in Middlesex County (where I live, immediately west of Boston) who report regular attendance at a local Evangelical church service has risen from 1.06% in 1980 to 2.75% in 2010. That’s encouraging… but still very low. And it’s only attendance. No survey can adequately measure the Biblical tests of faith. The more anecdotal stats about the door hangers would suggest that the gain of just 1.69% in thirty years has been hard-won, soul by soul. Furthermore, the gap between mere ‘adherence’ and true faith suggests that we’re still well below the 2% threshold. (Despite Woody Allen’s quote, merely “showing up” is not “90% of success” in this context. The heart motivating said action matters greatly. One can neither work one’s way into faith any more than one can be compelled into it the human will of another, e.g., one’s family, friends or the larger society. Thomas Jefferson and some of the founding fathers of this country provide ample evidence of that, it would seem.)

Fair enough, but what is meant by ‘Evangelical Christian’? And (1) isn’t that a little arrogant? (2) Why aren’t other denominations adequate to the task? And (3) why is the task important anyway?

The answer to the last three questions won’t make any sense (in fact, it may make you angry) if you’re not already ‘born again’, i.e., truly placing your trust — i.e., all that you are and will ever be — in the hands of the God of the Universe, through His Son, Jesus Christ who took the punishment of God’s wrath which you and I all deserve for grievous and unrepentant rebellion against His perfect Self and the exclusive and immutable order of things which he set down for mankind to follow. I’m neither evaluating you nor making that up. If you’re wise, you will test it — and yourself. Because the consequences of not doing so are dire indeed.

Still, the questions are worth answering…

(1) The exclusivity of Christ will seem arrogant because by definition all of those who don’t trust Him (a.k.a. ‘unvelievers’) are prone to projecting their own arrogance and hatred onto their Creator without realizing or caring that they are doing so — an ironically recursive act of profound arrogance and hatred all by itself when you think about it!

(2) If one reads the Scriptures carefully, in the light of the Holy Spirit, or even episodically (but with the assumption that they are true), and one takes the time to observe, with honesty, in light of them, how our culture and individual behavior and the efficacy (Spirit power) of most churches is largely absent, not to mention how one’s own internal cast of mind and heart (the driver of all of that) is wholly at odds with (i.e., in rebellion against) them… and if one reads God’s laws and the Bible’s history — seeing how myriad peoples before us have run afoul of them and (as a result) been dissolved and destroyed — it will become patently obvious that most entities posing as churches these days would either not be recognized as such by our Lord, or would be so sickening to Him that he would spit (vomit) them out of his mouth after calling a few remnant individuals out of them. See the church of Laodicea in Revelation 3 or the church at Thyatira in Revelation 2 as just two examples. Paul’s letters, e.g., to the Corinthians, provide ample additional backing for the same idea.

(3) The task is important because hell is really, really, really bad (really; most of us have had a tiny little ‘taste’ of its 24/7 mental, emotional and physical anguish at some blessedly limited point in our lives) and God is really, really, really good (ALL of us have had much much more a taste, every single day we draw breath, no matter how miserable our lives may seem). Like it or not there is no compromise, middle-ground position, only acceptance or rejection of the solution the Creator provided: the cross, including carrying our own and following (obeying) He Who led the way (Jesus). The Creator of the entire universe (and you) does not accept truce conditions from His own creatures (us) who, by definition, have spurned him, disqualifying ourselves from any standing, relationship or communication with Him whatsoever except by said free gift which His Son provided for us via his self-sacrifice, in our place.

OK, thanks for the digression Art, but… What’s an Evangelical Christian?

This seems to be the consensus definition, and I wouldn’t be putting it in this post if it weren’t entirely Biblical (e.g., read John, 1st John and Romans, for starters):

An Evangelical Christian is a person who believes that Jesus Christ is the sole source of salvation through faith in Him, has personal faith and conversion with regeneration by the Holy Spirit, recognizes the inspired word of God as the only basis for faith and Christian living, and is committed to Biblical preaching and evangelism that brings others to faith in Jesus Christ.

Now, to be fair, a society does not jump from ‘un-reached’ to ‘reached’ (or slide the other way) overnight. There are steps. In similar fashion, the conversion experience of every (or even most) individual is not necessarily like that of Paul on the Damascus road, or the Ethiopian eunuch, or Lydia, or the Philippian jailer or many others both named and un-named in the book of Acts, to say nothing of the thousands on Pentecost or “added… daily” shortly after that. It should be the experience, but a lot of us (myself foremost, I’m afraid) are prone to dilly-dallying in the waiting room as it were, not sure for months or years if we’re ready to commit, only to regret and grieve our foolish delay later-on, wondering “what on earth was I thinking”? (Precisely: I was thinking “on earth”.)

By this scale, the church in this part of New England would fall somewhere between “formative/nominal” and (barely) “established”, based on how they deal with the broad, sweeping category they call “professing Christians”. The scale seems designed to deal with the so-called 10-40 ‘window’, in which the gospel is making inroads quietly but very powerfully: “the rectangular area of North Africa, the Middle East and Asia between 10 degrees north and 40 degrees north latitude… often called ‘The Resistant Belt’ [which] includes the majority of the world’s Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists. An estimated 4.54 billion individuals reside… in the 10/40 Window.”

I’m not sure what this term, ‘professing Christians’ really means. And if it means anything, I’m not sure it deals as well with a culture which was once far more Christian than it is now as it does with one on an up-swing — i.e., one which is and has been sliding away from the gospel, albeit gradually, taking for granted spiritual heritage and norms carefully built up generations ago but now nearly gone. E.g., see ‘Whitewashed Tombs, Growing Cold’.

If the stakes weren’t as high as they are, it would be easier to wave one’s hand and imagine that they’re OK… that it’s enough to say one is a Christian and take at face value that all churches which call themselves Christian are OK too. Yet by definition this group lacks one or more of the following (taken from the definition above):

• Does NOT believe that Jesus Christ is the sole source of salvation through faith in Him.
• Does NOT have personal faith (e.g., they may be relying on heritage or tradition instead)
• Has NOT had a conversion with regeneration by the Holy Spirit, (note the ‘MUST’ in John 3)
• Does NOT recognize the inspired word of God as the only basis for faith and Christian living.
• Is NOT committed to Biblical preaching and evangelism that brings others to faith in Jesus Christ.

Is “professing” Christianity enough? One only needs read the words of Jesus himself to realize that this cannot possibly be the case:

MATTHEW 7:21-23 — “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

His words need no elaboration. In fact, they are borne out by experience.
Here’s an account I wrote of an encounter I had three years ago:

…an older woman whom I know from the neighborhood and from my old (very liberal) church. I ran into her yesterday afternoon while walking the dog in the woods. …she is a nice lady, a regular church attendee, and has done many good things. She’s even a political conservative.

Our conversation revolved around where my faith has taken me since I left that church and how excited I am about it. I then recalled a fairly large original oil painting of Christ that hangs in her house and felt moved to tell her how genuinely impressed I had been by it. (She and her husband had hosted several large gatherings at their home back when I attended that other church.) I half-expected her to then say something about how she had come to acquire it, or perhaps how its physical place of prominence in her home related to the Lord’s prominence in her heart and her life.

I was taken aback by where she went instead.

“Oh that,” she protested. “I think I’m just a cultural Christian.”

She proceeded to tell me with great animation and hand-waving, but more than a hint of wild-eyed, not-entirely-sure-of-herself defensiveness that, in her view, all faiths are part of some unknowable, larger truth which she is assembling for herself based on some unidentified source of authority and wisdom, tossing out what seems improper and keeping the stuff that feels right to her.

Literally, the face of Christ. Her reaction: “Oh, that…”

Hard soil. Very hard. Yet not without cracks and fragile seedlings.

After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

MARK 10:29-30
Jesus said,
“Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left
house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands,
for my sake and for the gospel,
who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time,
houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands,
with persecutions,
and in the age to come eternal life.”

Being part of the body of Christ, the true church, entails being intimate with the Living God and living for Him. By definition, it entails not being at odds with Him, and thus with oneself, since believers are indwelt by His Holy Spirit. See Matthew 12:25, Mark 3:25, and Luke 12:52 about divided ‘houses’ or, more graphically, Judges 19:29.

This should be obvious when we think about our own physical bodies, how they are meant to function, and how we are meant to care for them.

Those at odds with their own body are either suffering from a psychological illness (e.g., expressing itself in OCD, self-harm, anorexia, delusions, suicidal tendencies, etc.) or a physical malady (e.g., cancer, AIDS or some other autoimmune disorder — i.e., those characterized by the body attacking itself or allowing itself to be attacked by foreign, microbial forces or rogue cells).

All of these self-oppositional states are highly tenuous — leading to death if not corrected… and life if they are.

So too with the body of Christ, the church.

To make another analogy, one cannot claim to be happily and fruitfully married to someone while simultaneously sleeping with the hit-man who is working to trick, tie up, brutalize, rob and kill their spouse (or, even more perversely, with one who has already done so).

In other words, being part of the body of Christ entails not having an intimate relationship with those forces which are opposed to Him, namely the world system, run by Satan. (Whether one knows it or not, we are all being co-opted in a spiritual war. As much as we have become accustomed to it, in our entertainment-driven culture, there is no special, above-it-all third position of detached, neutral observer. There is no supra-spiritual position of rationality as if one were merely watching and commenting on the real action on television or in the news headlines.)

It may sound odd to put it this way, but because of our sinful nature, we are all born in relationship with Satan, the ultimate rebel. And he utterly despises God. He seldom reveals the true depths of his animosity, since to do so would undermine his main purpose of leading worshipers of YHWH to worship him via imitation, distraction and dilution, setting us at odds with ourselves like one of the deadly physical or psychological maladies listed above.

Jesus advises those who would wish to follow him that they will be called to walk away from their attachments to Satan’s world system and those allied to him through their sin-nature attachments to it in much the same way that a doctor might tell a patient they will be separated from their illness. In doing so, Jesus signals that the entire world, including his disciples at the time, still had such attachments… and that we do too. (The fact that he tells his “indignant” (i.e., still clueless and unbelieving) disciples in Matthew 26:11 that “YOU always have the poor with you,” then corrects this, in the church, in Acts 4 — “There was not a needy person among THEM” — should give us a clue as to how impossible it is for any of us to walk away from our sin under our own power, without the Holy Spirit.)

It is implied (or may at least be inferred, from experience) that while Jesus’ call is absolute in spiritual terms, it transpires in differing ways and on differing timetables for different individuals in the physical sense. I.e., it should not be inferred that Jesus is out to break up marriages, leave orphaned children, abandon and dishonor parents and leave individuals without the support and reassurance siblings can often provide. In fact, precisely the opposite. Jesus is proposing a new world order in which all of those relations are set right, in and through his body. This transpires both in the physical sense, of his suffering and dying, in our place, on the cross, as the unique man-God, and in the spiritual sense of the church, where these inter-human relations are re-cast in the light of His grace.

MARK 10:29-30 (abbreviated and annotated):
“No one who has left [the 'stuff' of the world] for [Jesus] and for the gospel… will not receive a hundredfold [of the same 'stuff', but cleansed of sin] now in this time… with persecutions.”

In the Mark passage, Jesus is describing the true church — the body of Christ. In it, one gets new brothers and sisters, new parents (spiritual mentors) and the free use of lands and belongings on a scale far greater than one could amass on one’s own under the world system. Yet all of this takes place in the context of the church of being the body of Christ in the world (but not of it) and therefore by definition being sharply at odds with and hated by the world. I.e., “with persecutions“. Let me be more concrete for a moment, just to illustrate.

A young man from Taiwan, only converted to Christ this past February (praise God!!!), has been visiting Boston this month before he starts medical school back home later this summer. I have gotten to know him a bit because he has been attending our church while he is here. None of his family are believers. There is no formal ‘program’ behind his presence with us — just folks in the body of Christ who have made introductions and helped him out in various ways while he’s so far from home. (What price, in dollars, could one put on that?) Later this week I’m picking him up and taking him to see some historical sites. Why? Because he’s my brother in Christ.

I lost my blood brother but, on the one-year anniversary of his death, God gave me specific, direct assurance that He would “give back [to me] more than [I had] lost”. He has already kept that promise, at least a hundred-fold.

I was blessed with a direct reminder (probably because I was such a morose knucklehead and needed it badly). Yet the same promise is universal (for believers) and wholly scriptural. Most of you can tell similar stories.

What persecutions are we going to suffer for a pleasant afternoon of Christian fellowship? I don’t know yet. I do know however, that the world system looks askance at that kind of sacrifice of time for a stranger, making us feel somehow out-of-synch if we are not resolutely going about the business of amassing as much wealth as possible to purchase a worldly illusion of security and fellowship. There is a kind of psychological persecution — a subtle distancing and estrangement — which can be just as troubling as the physical kind if we let it get to us.

A passage in Acts succinctly illustrates what Jesus was talking about:

ACTS 4:27-35 – “…for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”

And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.

I.e., many MANY blessings and ‘real’ relationships but… “with persecutions” (Mark 10:30)

Why does the Western church, e.g., the American one, lack the kind of boldness, grace and power which the church universal had at its inception and still has, in pockets, mostly overseas? Because it lacks conviction. It lacks the gut-level certainty required to act in a certain way, despite opposition, without hesitation. It lacks the Holy Spirit. (I’m speaking in broad terms, and not without personal conviction for my lack of conviction. Obviously some churches do still have much more of the Spirit than most, and thus these manifestations of power as well.)

To put it more bluntly, the church is (i.e., we are) are too often content to sleep with the enemy, hedging our bets, holding out for some kind of truce or compromise. What spouse would put up with that?

Honey, I’d like to introduce you to my lover-on-the-side. He works for the mob. I took out a contract on you and he’s the guy who’s going to carry it out. Why don’t you two work something out so I can go on consorting with  both of you, OK?

In addition to making no sense on its face (i.e., identifying it as confusion — and thus of the enemy), we can ask: Who would put up with that? Well… a God with extreme depths of grace, rooted and grounded in love… a long-suffering God who would wish none to perish. Yet still… His long-suffering is not forever-suffering.

Such a self-oppositional spiritual state, in the church, or in an individual, is highly tenuous. Like its physical analogues (see above), it invariably leads to death if not corrected…

…and Life if it is.

MARK 10:30 –
“…with persecutions,
and in the age to come eternal life.”

Then he [Jesus] poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. (John 13:5)

Reading and discussing this extremely familiar scene last night, in a small group I’ve been part of for several years, something so stunningly obvious but amazing jumped out at me for the first time. It seemed worth sharing. File it in categories such as: “How Great is Our God?” (primary category; that should be enough), “Reasons Why It’s Patently Absurd to Imagine That Scripture is Errant or Uninspired” or “Seriously Cool Threads of Symbolic Meaning in Scripture With Profound Implications if We Bother to Take the Time to Let Their Implications Really Sink In”.

Question #1: What needs to happen in order for someone to have their feet washed?

Answer: They have to take their shoes off. (It’s probably technically possible, with sandals, to have one’s feet washed, at least a little, without taking them off, e.g., if one merely dipped one’s sandal-clad feet in water. The detail about wiping makes clear that the disciples must have removed their shoes.)

Question #2: Where else in scripture do we see people taking their shoes off?

Answer, Part A: Holy Ground

And the angel of YHWH appeared to him [Moses] in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” When YHWH saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. (Exodus 3:2-6) (See also: Acts 7:33)

When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” 14 And he said, “No; but I am the commander of the army of YHWH. Now I have come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, “What does my lord say to his servant?” And the commander of YHWH’s army said to Joshua, “Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so. (Joshua 5:13-15)

To any Jewish person even passingly familiar with their own scriptures (for both of these stories are iconic, even today), Jesus is symbolically signaling that he is God. The disciples (except Judas) pretty much already knew it by this point, but there are layers and levels to knowing it deep in one’s gut, in awe and reverence and holy fear and deep love. One can only imagine how this scene, considered later, must have deepened the disciples understanding and conviction of what they had been privileged to be part of, and Who they were privileged to serve.

It must have helped to fill the disciples with the kind of certainty and power which enabled Moses and Joshua to do what they did once the Holy Spirit opened their eyes. As a Spirit-inspired Solomon writes, in Ecclesiastes 1:9, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.” What God did with Moses and Joshua, he did, via Jesus, with his disciples. They were literally standing in the presence of God, on holy ground, being made holy by what would take place just hours later as Jesus had his own sandals forcibly removed (we must infer), enabling Roman nails to be driven through his feet instead of ours.

It’s probably significant, in this context, that the shoes did NOT come off the feet of the rebellious, complaining, faith-less generation of Israelites who wandered for forty years in the desert because they did not accept God’s promise, and Joshua and Caleb’s assessment of the Promised Land: “…your sandals have not worn off your feet.” (Deuteronomy 29:5c). We tend to think of the lack of wear as a blessing, and it is, but it also serves as a symbol and counter-type to the disciples. As one individual in our group put it (paraphrase): Letting someone wash your feet is really difficult because it requires you to totally open yourself up. Which is really the point, with God.

Answer, Part B, Redemptive Transaction:

Now this was the custom in former times in Israel concerning redeeming and exchanging: to confirm a transaction, the one drew off his sandal and gave it to the other, and this was the manner of attesting in Israel. So when the redeemer said to Boaz, “Buy it for yourself,” he drew off his sandal. Then Boaz said to the elders and all the people, “You are witnesses this day that I have bought from the hand of Naomi all that belonged to Elimelech and all that belonged to Chilion and to Mahlon. Also Ruth the Moabite, the widow of Mahlon, I have bought to be my wife, to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance, that the name of the dead may not be cut off from among his brothers and from the gate of his native place. You are witnesses this day.” (Ruth 4:7-10)

Ruth, of course, became the great-grandmother of King David, a type for as well as a direct ancestor of Jesus. This redemptive transaction (in which Boaz buys back the Gentile widow Ruth from some dude who wanted her land, but not her) is a foreshadowing of Christ’s role in redeeming us his bride, the New Jerusalem from the world. As such, the foot-washing scene in John 13 can be viewed as part of the redemptive transaction of the cross. In fact, it occurs at the same point in the narrative, as the action signifying the huge change that’s just about to take place.

Answer, Part C, Anointing:

YHWH kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up. YHWH makes poor and makes rich; he brings low and he exalts.He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are YHWH’s, and on them he has set the world. He will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness, for not by might shall a man prevail. The adversaries of the LORD shall be broken to pieces; against them he will thunder in heaven. YHWH will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king and exalt the power of his anointed. (1st Samuel 2:6-10)

I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from YHWH, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. (Psalm 121:1-4)

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” (Isaiah 52:7; see also, Nahum 1:15 and Romans 10:15)

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. (Ephesians 6:10-15)

Note that Paul doesn’t say “put on shoes” but rather put on readiness AS shoes, specifying its source: the gospel of peace. It’s a metaphor. Our readiness should stem from what Jesus the man-God did for us, in humbling himself, in flesh, and dying on a cross in our place to atone for our sin. The foot-washing is integral to that humbling and thus to our gratitude and readiness. We have all we need. Our feet, mired in the physical and spiritual dust from which we were taken and to which we will return, after the curse, are clean by virtue of Jesus’ feet being pierced.

Answer, Part D, Judgment:

…at that time the LORD spoke by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, “Go, and loose the sackcloth from your waist and take off your sandals from your feet,” and he did so, walking naked and barefoot. Then YHWH said, “As my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot for three years as a sign and a portent against Egypt and Cush, so shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptian captives and the Cushite exiles, both the young and the old, naked and barefoot, with buttocks uncovered, the nakedness of Egypt. Then they shall be dismayed and ashamed because of Cush their hope and of Egypt their boast. (Isaiah 20:2-5)

And whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it and stay there until you depart. As you enter the house, greet it. And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town. (Matthew 10:11-15; also related in Luke 9:1-6 and Mark 6:7-12)

There is great symbolism in Jesus hanging naked and barefoot on a cross after three years of ministry just as Isaiah walked three years naked and barefoot to declare God’s judgment on Egypt (the land of death-worship, even today). As Jesus tells his disciples at the conclusion of the foot-washing:

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. (John 13:20)

And, as he adds, in John 16:11, only minutes later: “the ruler of this world is judged”.

In this one extended scene then, Jesus in washing the feet of his disciples, is pointing to the anointing, redeeming and protecting work which would take place when his own feet were pierced and washed in blood just hours later. He is plainly signalling also that He is God, i.e., that his own holiness gives him the ability to consummate this cosmic transaction. And at the same time he is signalling, as his shoes are removed, that the ruler of the world is judged… that Sodom and Gomorrah had it easy by comparison.

Wow. Just wow. If that doesn’t make you shiver and rejoice, I don’t know what will.

Our God is amazing, eh? Praise His Name, Emmanuel!!

(Related: “Two-Thirds Burned at Midnight,” in which 10,000 pairs of shoes taken by Nazis from Jewish prisoners prior to their slaughter were burned-up in an accidental fire at the Majdanek concentration camp in August, 2010.)

The upcoming U.S. presidential election presents a deeply troublesome, perhaps impossible choice for committed Christ-followers, as I noted in this post last week, referencing another by Andrew Strom. When I say ‘committed’, I do not mean anything new, but rather something forgotten. According to scripture, there have only ever been two categories with regards to God: followers and rebels, Holy Spirit-born and flesh/other-spirit ‘born,’ and thus condemned. But for Christ’s saving work on the cross, we all fall into the second category, every one.

The idea of third-way, ‘nominal’ Christianity, wherein one can take on the name of the Lord of all Creation and Savior of all Mankind in a casual fashion (e.g., pray a prayer, get splashed as an infant, etc.), without conscious, radical, life-altering regeneration, is a gross lie, albeit one into which the slide has been so gradual that most take it for granted. In addition to being a direct violation of the third commandment (Exodus 20:7 — “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.”), it contravenes one of Jesus’ most direct, central teachings:

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit… If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? (John 3:5-6,12)

If Jesus could not explain it in earthly terms, than neither can I, yet that does not undermine its legitimacy. It just is; His teaching stands. Those with eyes to see and ears to hear will understand, and that is enough.

Christ followers should be both willing and able to admit evidence, and to make decisions on a spiritual basis rather than on merely temporal, pragmatic-earthly (of-the-flesh) grounds and (here’s the hard part), step out in faith, giving those Spirit-led, Biblical discernments ultimate priority.

We should find the upcoming election troubling, but also freeing in that it forces a simple, Biblical realization that I’ve endeavored to explore in other posts: we are not of this world. We have no dog in this fight and it’s a snare to act like we do. This isn’t our country. It never has been. (No country is, outside of the New Jerusalem, the bride of Christ.) Our true, eternal citizenship lies elsewhere. The Son of Man and thus the Christ follower has “no place to lay his head”.

————

One might call this the ‘M&M’ election, with the first ‘M’ standing for Mormon and the second for either Muslim (a premise I don’t entirely buy — sympathy being a poor substitute for doctrinal devotion) or more likely, Maitreya — a slippery, all-things-to-all-people ‘New Age’ spirit that’s both more obscure and more pervasive. (For those not familiar with this much-anticipated dark entity, see this July, 2009 post, “It’s Him” in which it was discovered that the president may have been abundantly aware of his spiritual end-times-prophetic role as likely antichrist for quite some time.)

I have endeavored, since the last election, to separate these two realms of thinking about the men seeking to lead this nation — the spiritual and the earthly. When, for example, Obama’s birth certificate became a fringe, non-starter issue in political terms, many who had been worked-up about it promptly dropped it as un-pragmatic, leading to its further marginalization. (It is a truism that unpopular truth is often marginalized in a self-reinforcing cycle.)

Yet the larger issue was, and remains spiritual: that of a foundational lie.

Whether one can make political hay of a fact or not, the conundrum still exists: either an individual is dissembling or he is not. (One thinks of Nixon, for example, and the long, important quest to discover what he knew and when he knew it.) More currently, this president’s claims about his background, and his legitimacy to run for and hold office, are either true… or they are not. What he knew and when he knew it is just as important now as it was for Nixon forty years ago.

The lack of a good earthly-pragmatic alternative does not allow us to evade the core spiritual issue. To say that all politicians are liars and throw up our hands in disgust also evades the core issue: who is really ruling our life? Who is Lord? To whose commands do we truly act as servants? In whom do we invest energy, enthusiasm, loyalty and authority? Who can we call Father? This was what Jesus was getting at when he confronted the Jewish leaders:

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. (John 8:44)

The spiritual sense of the president has come up on several other occasions also, e.g., last December, when he made up a faux-Hannukah celebration to suit his own purposes, having virtually nothing to do with the real thing. Or when he blasphemed quite directly at the 2009 White House Correspondent’s dinner. The most recent Correspondent’s dinner is at least as problematic, albeit more subtly — a subject we’ll have to leave for another post (H/T: CE).

The main purpose of this post was to highlight yet another piece of evidence about this president which contains a strong spiritual component and set of spiritual clues for those with eyes to see: the ‘Forward’ video — named after Obama’s new campaign slogan. The slogan’s long association with Socialist and Communist movements, not to mention the Hitler youth(!!), should give us pause enough… but there’s even more to it.

As with the word ‘Hope’ (campaign 2008) and the ‘Progressive’ movement in general, ‘Forward’ begs an object. Forward… to what? Hope… in whom? Progressing… towards what? I would submit that any proposition which deliberately leaves out the end-point is inherently deceptive. Think about it. Find your own applications. They are myriad. (E.g., prostitutes do not, to my knowledge, offer disclaimers about divorce or STDs; casinos do not offer statistics on average loss per customer or gambling addiction; liquor companies do not talk openly about the social and physical ills resulting form alcoholism, etc. You get the idea.)

Biblically, one thinks of the first several chapters of Proverbs, where the “strange/foreign woman” and other classes of sinners and dark spirits entice fools into sin and death that looks/sounds pretty to those with unregenerate eyes. Utilizing two common translations (NLT and GNT) here’s how Solomon begins his advice, in chapter one:

10 My child, if sinners entice you, turn your back on them! 11 They may say, “Come and join us. Let’s hide and kill someone! Let’s ambush the innocent! [Who is truly innocent? Only Christ and, by his blood atonement, those in Christ, i.e., Christians.] 12 Let’s swallow them alive as the grave swallows its victims. Though they are in the prime of life, they will go down into the pit of death.13 We’ll find all kinds of riches and fill our houses with loot! 14 Come and join us, and we’ll all share what we steal.” 15 My child, don’t go with people like that. Stay away from them. 16 They can’t wait to do something bad. They’re always ready to kill.

Now note how the video ends: “Join us,” it says. Forward. 2012.

You’ve been warned.

From a post by ‘Davo’ over at Andrew Strom’s blog, entitled, ‘Obama or a Mormon?’

With all the religious political bluster… what has actually been accomplished…? If God is with us why can´t we win these battles? If this is God and His leading, why has there been no fruit? Why all the failure? …it [the marriage of religion and politics] hasn’t made anything better but has likely made it worse. It has prejudiced many, many people against the gospel. Christianity has been reduced in many people’s minds as to fighting for religious control of this world as opposed to fighting for the eternal souls of those who are lost and dying in this world. You end up fighting the ones you are supposedly trying to reach.

Or as I’ve put it, in e-mails to various friends:

If you had to make a binary (one-or-the-other) choice between leading someone to become an enthusiastic supporter of [fill-in-the-blank political party or agenda or candidate] OR to saving faith in Jesus Christ and whatever He wanted to do with that person, on His timetable, which would you choose? Which are you most enthusiastic about right now, in this political season? Which have you been choosing by your actions, attitudes and interactions in the past? Which gets you most ‘jazzed’? Think about it. Pray on it.

Hard as it is to accept, all but one answer constitutes a form of idolatry. As such, we need to seek and accept conviction. I have met very few (and I’m definitely not one of those few) who are not in desperate need of it.

Are you willing to grant that, even in what seems a very difficult choice for professing Christians that God has a perfect, and perfectly good, Sovereign purpose (and the ability to accomplish it) through whatever leadership ends up in place? Whatever leadership. Think carefully before you answer. We cannot come up with such trusting ‘blank check’ faith on our own. Trying to do so, without the Holy Spirit of Christ, has become a place shipwreck of faith for many as they fail to contemplate how utterly evil some leaders and chapters in history can be, the cost they may pay personally through those times, and how utterly Jesus conquered evil, sin and death on the cross.

As a result of the Holocaust for example, many Jews (understandably, if sadly) were not willing to grant that God had a grand-historical purpose in such a horrible tragedy, however inscrutable and elusive it may be. (I have my own theories, but this is not the time or place to share them.) By ruthless intellectual necessity, they had to conclude that He is not really God at all, but an illusion — not Sovereign over Hitler or anyone else.

Their inability to trust God over an evil man then resulted (paradoxically but quite predictably) in elevating that man and his ways to the position of being one of the ultimate ‘gods’ of this world (which their commanding officer, Satan, is for now… but not forever). A man who should be forgotten had to become a rallying point because many could not envision a God who would ‘allow’ such things. (Better question: why does he allow any of us to go on living another minute, since ALL have sinned and fallen short of his standards?) Such limited faith caused many (and not merely Jews) to fall into the pit of atheism and despair — a pit far far worse than the physical horrors, even unto death, which war and genocide entail (see Matthew 10:28 & Luke 12:4).

As one Rabbi Richard Rubenstein put it:

“Jewish history has written the final chapter in the terrible story of the God of History… the pathetic hope of coming to grips with Auschwitz through the framework of traditional Judaism will never be realized… We learned in the crisis [Holocaust] we were totally and nakedly alone, that we could expect neither support nor succor from God. … Therefore, the world will forever remain a place of pain, suffering, alienation, and ultimate defeat.” (Rabbi Richard Rubenstein)

I can scarcely wrap my head around that one… how one can believe such a thing and get out of bed in the morning, much less go through the empty routines and accumulated cultural rituals one believes to be meaningless.

I am by no means arguing for equivalency among different political parties, issues, agendas or candidates (the “red team vs. the blue team” as the late William F. Buckley, Jr. used to put it sarcastically, in reference to Communism vs. Capitalism). Nor am I arguing for for any kind of monkish disengagement from the reality or brushing aside of the great horrors and lessons of the Holocaust. (Exactly the opposite!)

Instead, I am suggesting that submission to Truth — Jesus (for He is “THE Way and THE Truth and THE Life”) is the only route to the triumph of all that we ought to be longing for, the end of sin and death. The rest of it — the stuff we oughtn’t really to be longing for, but which would be nice (e.g., here-and-now prosperity) should have no place in our aspirations anyway, political or otherwise.

On Strom’s blog, ‘Davo’ continues:

The simplicity and purity of devotion to Jesus Christ which consists of following Him and keeping His word which He tells us over and over is the way and practice of true faith. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, He didn’t come into the world to fix the world and set public policy. It´s actually a form of worldliness.

It´s a deception and a delusion and completely unwarranted by Scripture. Imagine that, religious leaders deceiving their followers and leading them astray. There´s a biblical theme for you. It is a false agenda that thwarts the true gospel and it´s purpose. It uses carnal weapons to fight a futile battle against spiritual enemies.

Amen. If Ephesians 6:10-20 doesn’t immediately pop into your mind, go read it now.

At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.” …the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath. (Matthew 12:1-2,8)

The Pharisees are dictating what is ‘lawful’ to the very Son of Man, God incarnate, the second person of the Trinity, the only One in Whom we can find our ultimate Sabbath rest. He is lord of the Sabbath. He is the Sabbath.

Moses assembled all the congregation of the people of Israel and said to them, “These are the things that YHWH has commanded you to do. Six days work shall be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to YHWH. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death. You shall kindle no fire in all your dwelling places on the Sabbath day.“ (Exodus 35:1-3)

As with virtually all scripture, each element of these texts conveys plain, literal meaning as well as highly symbolic spiritual meaning. The pen-and-ink written Law points to the ultimate Law, Jesus Christ (in flesh, made of the ‘words’ of the amino acids of DNA). His Holy Spirit gives us a re-birth beyond this failing DNA-flesh, causing our spirit to grow up and away from the earth from which we were formed, towards His light, bearing fruit.

In the former dispensation, the action of following the written Law was meant to point to the fulfilled and full-filling (in-dwelling) Law, Jesus Christ. He gives us a a heart to want to follow Him in joyful (not crushing) obedience.

As ancient Jews sat in their chilly, fire-less (or fading-fire) houses each Friday to Saturday sundown, attempting the impossible task of abiding by the Sh’ma — Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love YHWH your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” — they might have considered not just the facts of their physical situation, but what the command means in a larger sense. E.g., What is the spiritual sense of “kindle no fire”? What is meant spiritually by “dwelling places”? By “the Sabbath day”? For the sake of simplicity and time, I’m going to look at just one of them, leaving the others as an exercise for the reader.

Kindle No Fire

…the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue IS a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. (James 3:5-6)

Can you draw out Leviathan…? Out of his mouth go flaming torches; sparks of fire leap forth. Out of his nostrils comes forth smoke, as from a boiling pot and burning rushes. [Ever 'snorted' at something you didn't like?] His breath kindles coals, and a flame comes forth from his mouth… On earth there is not his like, a creature without fear. He sees everything that is high; he is king over all the sons of pride. (Job 41:1a, 19-21, 33-34)

One of the spiritual allusions in the “kindle no fire” statement, in Exodus 35, involves not giving quarter to Satan. One thinks, for example, of Jesus’ rebuke to Peter, “get behind me, Satan!” after his blithe and seemingly humane statement that Jesus’ need not go to the cross and die. Peter’s statement is really just another variant on the serpent’s long-running theme, “Did God really say…?” E.g., Did Jesus really have to go the extreme of the cross? Well… yes.

It is precisely that cross which drew Satan out into the ultimate conflict which he lost decisively, is losing, and will lose for good. We are told to “kindle no fire” (in the spiritual sense) because doing so is the exclusive job of He Who Is Himself holy fire. We are told to do this on the Sabbath day, in our dwelling. If we are in Christ, we dwell with Him, and His Holy Spirit dwells in us. Christ Himself is our Sabbath rest. As such, disciples are to kindle no fire ourselves. We are to allow His and his alone to burn in us.

By contrast, it is Satan’s aim to kindle many fires, through many tongues, all subtly (or overtly) divisive, in opposition to the singular fire which lit the burning bush but did not consume it… the fire Whom Moses turned to see and hear.

I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! … Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. (Luke 12:49, 51)

What does Jesus mean by division? The same thing Paul means in 1st Corinthians 1:23-24 when he writes:

…but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

The cross is a crossroads… point of decision… point of division. It cannot be otherwise.

Note the forward-allusion to the Matthew 12 scene and the Pharisees hubristic challenge to Jesus’ knowledge of the Law in a strange passage in the book of Judges, where Samson, a ‘type’ for Jesus uses foxes to set a grain-field on fire (grain being symbolic of the harvest of souls).

So Samson went and caught 300 foxes and took torches. And he turned them tail to tail and put a torch between each pair of tails. And when he had set fire to the torches, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines and set fire to the stacked grain and the standing grain, as well as the olive orchards. (Judges 15:4-5)

Note that he (Samson, the Christ ‘type’) is doing the kindling (recall Luke 12:49). Note too that the torches are placed near the foxes’ back-sides where they can’t see them. They literally cannot “see the light”. They would only feel an unpleasant, panic-inducing burning. Instead of standing ‘face-to-face’, as Moses did with God, the foxes stand tail to tail. By definition they are all opposed to one another — the very definition of hell.

At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” And he said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons… O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is forsaken. (Luke 13:31-35)

Jesus is alluding to Herod (an Edomite — descendant of Esau) as just such a ‘fox’ as in the Judges passage or in the passage (touched-on last week) where foxes are depicted as being at-home under the earth. He is describing Herod being a fire-setter in a spiritual sense… of being set on fire by hell. A very literal fire would be kindled in the Pharisees’ forsaken house a prophetically pregnant 38 years later, in 70AD.

But watch this. I’d never noticed this before. Jesus also compares himself to a hen.

Question: What do foxes do to hens?

Exactly. They kill them.

The cross. Inescapable. We all have to decide. Will we take up ours and follow?

————

Of passing curiosity in the current day: Is it any accident that two of the hottest word-spewing products out of Apple Amazon are the Kindle and the Kindle Fire?

5 When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, 6 “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.” 7 And he said to him, “I will come and heal him.” 8 But the centurion replied, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my servant,’Do this,’ and he does it.” 10 When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. 11 I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, 12 while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 13 And to the centurion Jesus said, “Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.” And the servant was healed at that very moment.
…
19 And a scribe came up and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” 20 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” 21 Another of the disciples said to him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 22 And Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.” (Matthew 8:5-13, 19-22)

This may sound academic, at first. I urge you to stick with it. There’s a point and, for those with eyes to see, a reward from looking at this extremely familiar verse afresh, as his contemporary Jewish audience would have.

G2776, κεφαλή, pron: ke-fä-lā’ — “The head, both of men and often of animals. Since the loss of the head destroys life, this word is used in the phrases relating to capital and extreme punishment. Metaphorically: anything supreme, chief, prominent (e.g., of persons, master lord: of a husband in relation to his wife, of Christ: the Lord of the husband and of the Church, of things: the corner stone.)”

Here are the first three instances in which this word is used in Genesis, in the Septuagint (a.k.a., the ‘LXX’, the Greek transcription of the Hebrew scriptures, done in the 3rd century BC, i.e., before Christ):

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. (Genesis 3:15, YHWH cursing the serpent)

And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. (Genesis 8:5)

Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” (Genesis 11:4)

The typological pattern so far: ‘Heads’ and ‘tops’ are Satan’s attempt, via man, to make himself equal to God… to climb (or get man to climb) up towards heaven as we are told Satan tried to do in Isaiah 14.

In the case of the receding flood, the mountains are not only literal, but also symbolic of earthly bastions of power. In other words (and I recognize this may be controversial to some) the flood cleansed the effects of sin, but did not destroy Satan’s stronghold: the sin nature in man — a fact amply demonstrated by the speed which with the world slides back again towards depravity. If it had, Satan would have been banished and the cross would have been unnecessary.

Things on earth are shadows and types — parables, if you like — of larger heavenly realities, e.g., see Hebrews 8:2-5 — “the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man… [are] a copy and shadow of the heavenly things.” and 9:23-24 — “it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified… Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself…” Plenty of other parabolic uses by Christ himself (e..g, ‘living water’, in John 4) show that this concept extends beyond the temple.

Throughout scripture, it is made clear that, God being Sovereign, only one ‘mountain’ will be allowed to prevail, that being Zion, the mount of the Lord. All others will be rendered low, just as all the nations of the earth will conspire to fight against God in the end. Another example: Thinking topographically and symbolically at the same time, “the valley of the shadow of death” exists only so long as there are non-Zion mountains. Similarly, in Ezekiel 37, the dry, dead bones are in a valley, not on a hillside or mountaintop.

Here’s where it gets interesting… the next three instances of the Greek word for ‘head’ or ‘top’, all in Genesis 28 (often referred to as the ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ or ‘Jacob’s Pillow’ scene):

10 Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran. 11 And he came to a certain place and stayed there that night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. 12 And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! 13 And behold, the LORD stood above it and said, “I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. 14 Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. 15 Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” 16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.” 17 And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” 18 So early in the morning Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. 19 He called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of the city was Luz at the first. 20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, 21 so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the LORD shall be my God, 22 and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house. And of all that you give me I will give a full tenth to you.”

‘Bethel’ means ‘house of God’. (Beth = ‘house’; El = God). It’s the same town where Jesus would later be born. The passage is so filled with symbolism that we could be here all day. The place of Jacob’s rest (like Abraham’s bosom) becomes a ‘pillar’. E.g., see Revelation 3:12 –

The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple [house] of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name.

How does one ‘conquer’? By the cross. By Christ’s finished work of atonement. And by nothing else. The stone is anointed with oil (crushed olives = ‘Gethsemane’, the fruit of which produces the anointing of the Holy Spirit). And don’t overlook the stone itself — the earthly base or (crucifixion-bruised) ‘foot’ of the God-initiated ladder connecting heaven with fallen earth. It stands in sharp contrast to the man-initiated Tower of Babel. (Knowing this, I am no longer able to listen without cringing, to a song I once loved — Led Zeppelin’s signature tune in which a woman (Semiramis, the queen of Babylon?) ‘buys’ a ‘Stairway to Heaven’. (‘A’ not ‘the’ — many routes, in that view.) Stones (plural, as distinct from THE Rock, which is Christ) are products of earth, shaped by man’s tools (e.g., the carved image of Michaelangelo’s ‘David’). Similarly, though Abraham’s seed will be as numerous as the sand on the seashore, any house build on said sand, Jesus tells us, will be washed away when trouble comes.

And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. (Matthew 3:9)

“Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” 39 And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” 40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” (Luke 19:38-40)

Here’s where it gets interesting. Recall our starter text, from Matthew 8, Jesus’ words:

10 Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith… 20 Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head… 21 Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.

Taken together, Jesus is saying that, at that time, in Israel (the name which YHWH gave Jacob subsequent to his ‘pillow/ladder’ experience at Bethel(hem)) he could not find faith. He had no place of rest among his own people… no place to put the base of his ladder, his singular stairway from heaven. (Not one of many that ‘she’ ‘buys’ ‘to’ it.)

Instead, a ladder would be erected by men in order to remove his murdered corpse from a Roman cross. His soft landing place — Jacob’s Pillow, as it were — was gone. The God-receptive mind and heart which Jacob exhibited when he, the individual man, was alone in the wilderness before marrying and having a family, much less birthing a nation had collectively turned against their very Maker and Messiah.

Recall that Jesus used the term ‘fox’ to refer to Herod, whose family of Edomites (Esau-ites, Jacob’s brother) had tried to kill him once already and would succeed (but not really) the second time. They have holes just like the men and women in rebellion who flee from the face of God in Revelation 16. He’s saying (in code): those who oppose God are inclined to burrow into the earth, seeking darkness, escaping the light.

‘Birds of the air’ is a term used, throughout scripture to refer to evil spirits. (The poop stains on my back bulkhead, below our bird feeder are ample evidence of how this looks spiritually). When they inhabit the mustard plant (a type of a particular kind of church, probably the RCC), they are not benign, but infectious, seeking and finding refuge there. Go check that one out for yourself, recognizing that modern biology tells us that birds are related to dinosaurs (‘Behemoth’ and ‘Leviathan’ — a clear ‘type’ for Satan in Job 41: “… he is king over all the sons of pride”.)

What Jesus is saying is plain enough on its face. We mustn’t overlook the direct, earth-literal meaning. Thousands of devotionals and sermons have been done on those applications, and they are not wrong. But as noted above, things on earth serve as pointers — shadows, parables, symbols and types — of heavenly realities.  In deeply symbolic code (obscure to us but not to a first-century Jewish scribe, like his second inquisitor), he is saying something like the following:

Israel (Jacob), as I AM made and shaped and knew him is spiritually dead. The sand on the seashore will be washed away in the storm that is coming (70AD being but a down-payment on the Holocaust and the final judgment which all, Jew and Gentile alike, will face before a God Whose Self and thus Whose standards are perfect and holy and unchanging). No stone will be left on another. Only those standing on the Rock, Christ, will be saved.

“Follow me”, he says. Leave the dead. Do not believe Satan, who lied to Eve by saying (we might imagine with great arrogance and scoffing): “you will not surely die,” when he knew perfectly well that her’s and Adam’s spiritual death would be irrevocable aside from the single, salvific, Sovereign act of grace and atonement which bruised Christ’s heel and crushed the serpent’s head.

“Follow me,” he says… while you still can.

Today, if you hear his voice, follow Him, allowing him to give rest to your soul, even as His Holy Spirit in-dwells you as a temple on earth, bringing the wisdom of God from heaven by Jacob’s Ladder (that is, Christ). Be transformed by the renewing of your mind, allowing Jesus, the head of everything, to rule in your heart and be your head, enabling you to see as he sees, hear as he hears and do as he would have you do.