My Take on the Complicated World Scene That Includes Ukraine, Russia, and Israel (part three)
Proxy Wars and Existential Threat
Two words I hear on a regular bases are “proxy war.” Ukraine fighting a proxy war. Israel fighting a proxy war with Iran. Maybe Russia is a proxy of China now too. Proxy war actually now has a dictionary definition: “a war instigated by a major power which does not itself become involved.”
Another phrase I’ve heard that relates to “proxy war” is “existential threat.” That also has a definition now: “an event that could cause human extinction or permanently and drastically curtail humanity’s existence or potential.” Is there any country an existential threat to the United States? Russia would not be an existential threat, as I see it, unless a country drove its leader to total desperation. Or, if another country could compel Russia to ally with China and maybe Iran into a more cohesive and powerful threat to the United States.
Who would want to escalate conflict between Ukraine and Russia toward a dangerous end? In a famous moment of the debate between Obama and Romney for the 2012 presidential election, Obama mocked Romney for his high estimation of Russia. He disparaged Romney for exaggerating a Russian threat, saying:
The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.
Later in 2014, Obama then said:
Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors, not out of strength but out of weakness. . . . Russian actions are a problem. They don’t pose the number one security threat to the United States. I remain much more concerned about the prospect of a nuclear weapon going off in Manhattan.
Russia, Ukraine, and the United States
Obama stood by as Russia annexed Crimea, invaded Eastern Ukraine, and intervened in Syria. Why? Obama considered the machinations of Putin as a mere regional concern. Russia was of little threat threat to United States security. What changed? Two things and from two different perspectives.
Trump and Clinton
One, Trump won in 2016 against Hillary Clinton. Immediately upon that outcome, the Clinton campaign began a predetermined or preplanned Russian collusion hoax with cooperation from the outgoing Obama administration. They had already taken preemptive action on this strategy. With that commitment to Russia as the reason for Trump’s victory, Russia and Putin took on greater importance as an international power and villain. Suddenly Russia had the power to choose the United States president. I guess 1980 called and Obama and Clinton got their foreign policy back.
When Michael Flynn communicated with his Russian counterparts, it wasn’t the typical beginnings of diplomatic relations of a new administration. No, it was instead a secret conspiracy with Russia, negotiating its reward for handing Trump the election. One proof you heard at that time was that Trump in a speech asked Russia to find Hillary’s 30,000 emails that she deleted. According to the conspiracy theory, Trump was signaling Russia to fulfill their pact with one another. You can’t make this stuff up.
Democrat Party and Media Puppets
The Democrat Party and its media puppets had to keep this charade going. They took it to an incredible extent by impeaching Trump for a phone call, asking Ukrainian president Zelenskyy to look into Biden corruption at Burisma. The Democrat apparatus conformed every event into a particular narrative that required Russian criminality.
Russia remains China’s chief crude oil supplier. The false Russia narrative pushes Russia and China into a dangerous alliance along with Iran. Democrats talk like this occurred distinct from their narrative puppets.
A coalition of neocon establishment Republicans, invested in the defense industry, with establishment, elite Democrats accentuates the sham narrative. It protects the status quo for top corporations, banks, and investors, who prefer the reliability of conventional partnerships and woke culture.
Ukraine and NATO
Two, the Russians see the trajectory of next door neighbors joining the NATO alliance, threatening Russian security and national sovereignty. Russia says the West pledged no NATO expansion into the former Soviet bloc countries. The Ukraine especially has long historic ties with Russia and its joining NATO crosses a red line, comparable to the Monroe Doctrine of the Western Hemisphere and the United States. Soviets crossed a red line when they put missiles in Cuba.
Putin opposes influence of so-called Western democracy in neighboring countries, endangering Russian culture. This is like the concern of the British with Brexit. The left, as you might know, call it democracy. It isn’t democracy. They impose leftist “values.” If you don’t accept, you’re cancelled. Mitt Romney doesn’t care about that.
Supporters of funding a U.S. proxy war in Ukraine call the Ukraine a democracy. The present administration won’t stop an invasion at the southern border. Instead, it wants to stop the invasion on the Ukrainian border. Many traditional Russians do not trust the West. 70 to 80 percent of Russians support the war. Not Putin. Russians. Surely there is a woke faction there that opposes it, but they support it for the reasons I’m expressing here.
John Mearsheimer
International relations scholar, John Mearsheimer, has gone viral with articles and speeches blaming the War in Ukraine on the United States. His arguments are very persuasive and give massive evidence to back his assertions.
Trump would have kept good relations with Putin. The left and neocons would have mocked Trump, calling him a pro Putin puppet, to fit that narrative. He would have kept NATO expansion from Russia’s neighbors. When I say this wouldn’t happen under Trump, this is the explanation. Putin could believe Trump, because he saw Trump in action. If Trump had won, Russia would not have invaded, mainly because Trump had ejected a 1980 cold war policy with NATO.
More to Come
My Take on the Complicated World Scene That Includes Ukraine, Russia, and Israel (part two)
Israel-Palestinian Conflict
From a biblical viewpoint, the Israel-Palestinian conflict started when Abraham sinned with Hagar, who bore Ishmael. Ishmael fathers the Arab people and Isaac the Jewish. Complicating this further, 93% of Arabs are Muslim of some kind. Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook in “Kill a Jew – Go to Heaven: The Perception of the Jew in Palestinian Society,” published in Jewish Political Studies Review 17:3-4 (Fall 2005), write:
The Palestinian religious, academic, and political elites teach an ideology of virulent hatred of Jews. The killing of Jews is presented both as a religious obligation and as necessary self-defense for all humankind.
This assessment of the Jews among Arabs or Muslims goes back centuries before the Zionist movement ever began.
No Jews live in Gaza. Two sides dispute Jewish settlement in the West Bank. There are 144 Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Neither a majority of Palestinians or Jews back a two state solution with the addition of the creation of a separate Palestinian state. Half of Jews desire complete expelling of Palestinians from Israel — that doesn’t include Gaza or the West Bank. 75% of Palestinians want the annihilation of Israel. A large majority of all Palestinians support Hamas.
Having traveled to Israel and in the Jewish and Palestinian territories, it’s very tense there. It cannot work like it is. The Jews need a place of their own. A two state solution will never succeed for obvious reasons. Very good arguments say that Israel should have all the land and the Palestinians find someplace else to live with Arab people. Jews should have their own, safe country.
Israel and the Land
Americans would never tolerate what the Jews do in Israel. A certain psychology for the Jews not only allows them to concede to their conditions, but also causes many Jews to advocate for the Palestinians. Many Jews lay a lot of blame on their own people for their problems. I do feel for Israel because of the deep hatred from so many across the world for the Jews.
God still has a plan for Israel. Even if Israel does not own the whole Holy Land, they continue possessing a right to it, based upon scripture. God gave Israel the land, which is why it is called, “the Promised Land.” This supports Israel’s statehood, its formal establishment, and perpetuation. Palestine never had statehood. It didn’t announce it’s own statehood until 1988. The Palestinian territories are not recognized by the US, France, or the UK as a state. At least four Palestinian organizations are designated as terrorist on the United States list, including Hamas.
My assessment of Israel is not some carte blanch acceptance of the policies of Israel. I still pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States with its rampant ungodliness. Support for Israel acknowledges God and the truth of scripture.
Two Wars
Because of world politics, the war in Israel associates with the one in Ukraine. Some of the same characters appear in different roles in both conflicts. I attribute both wars to the Biden administration in the United States. Neither would have occurred with Trump as president of the United States. Many would agree with that, less that would say it in public, but I also want to explain why I think it’s true.
More to Come
My Take on the Complicated World Scene That Includes Ukraine, Russia, and Israel
Division Over Israel
What’s going on in foreign policy in the world is one of the most interesting variations of division that I’ve seen in my lifetime. Positions divide normal allies and unify former enemies. It’s a challenge even in theological circles with diverse interpretations of biblical prophecy. The event of October 7, 2023 with the brutal attack by Hamas on Israel also ratchets up emotions, making it more difficult to discuss.
When someone becomes settled, what I like to call “concrete,” in his position, he might take disagreement personally. Maybe very personally. It’s tough to talk issues when emotions run so high. Maybe you’ve seen various podcasts with arguments between an Israeli and a Palestinian. Heated doesn’t represent how hot the temperature gets. I’ve noticed very often, between school yard taunts and name calls, the same repeated accusations from both sides.
Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, and the Democrat Party
Perhaps you heard about the skirmish now between Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens. The co-founder of Daily Wire called his employee an “absolute disgrace,” caught on video in a private meeting and went viral. She then sits down to comment to Tucker Carlson in an explosive interview. Shapiro has done very angry high energy rants about the expressed position of Carlson. I couldn’t possibly list every prominent ongoing debate, there are so many.
One can witness the variated division between the remaining Republican presidential candidates. A divide also exists among Democrats between university-type leftists, Pro-Palestinian, and traditional Democrat Pro-Israel stances, especially represented by Senator Chuck Schumer and others.
The Animosity Toward Israel
Hatred of Israel across the world validates biblical prophecy. Despite propaganda-like support from Hollywood and in the mainstream media for the Jews and against genocidal treatment, hatred reaches a recent high everywhere. Based on its mere size, Israel would not deserve or receive this animosity, yet it does. Why and how? Two reasons.
One, Satan opposes Israel still. He wants to throw a wrench into the ongoing plan of God in the world. He has strong influence on the easily manipulated lost nations and their leaders. Two, God still fulfills prophecy with chastisement of Israel. Israel does not have a statute of limitations on God’s reprimands. I wish for open eyes for Israel, although I don’t expect it. Yet, God still isn’t done with Israel; hence the continued discipline.
As an example of division, many reading this nod “no” in strong opposition to what I write here. Many both amillennialists and postmillennialists see God done with Israel, replaced by the church. When I say “church,” I mean their version of God’s kingdom on earth, made up of Christendom. They see Israel as an unbelieving, rebellious people, who deserves no special favor against the Arabs in Palestine.
Candace Owens, who professes Christianity, married a Roman Catholic. Maybe she leans that way now. She can find support from Reformed evangelicals with a similar view of the world. You look at the history of Roman Catholicism and even the European Protestant state churches, and you see historical anti-semitism. Tucker Carlson grew up Episcopalian and he seems right now to return to some version of Christian nationalism, as seen in his interviews of foreign Christian nationalists. I see Vladimir Putin himself a kind of Christian nationalist, more interested in the survival of his nation and culture.
Jewish Anger toward Hamas and Palestine
What I’m writing in this post would require book or dissertation level analysis. I’m not going to write that, even though it’s an interest.
I understand Shapiro’s anger. Hamas killed 1,500 Israelites and took 240 hostages. The United States is 33 times the population of Israel and had 3,000 killed on 9-11. That means this is at least fifteen times worse, and it’s almost immeasurable with the way Hamas did it.
Remove the religious and ethnic component, and even as an international incident, if Israel acts like any other nation, it would react more harsh than it even is acting. When I hear Shapiro defend Israel’s reaction, I agree with him. I’ve heard both sides of the argument in all their iterations and I support Israel’s argument. The United States should just let Israel do its thing and not get in the way. I would advocate for U.S. backing and support if international escalation occurred from prominent Israeli enemies like Iran.
Varied Points of View, Yet Still Supporting Israel
Support without Foreign Aid
On the other hand, I like the idea of not sending money to Israel. I’m in the proto-Republican anti-intervention, quasi-isolationist camp. This is more in the realm of a fresh realization of the Monroe doctrine. The United States solidifies its own security and borders, solves its own very serious problems first. It follows the Pauline view of bearing your own burdens before you bear those of others.
As a companion to everything else, I like firming up freedom of speech. Some of this relates to a reaction to January 6 compared to Antifa and BLM riots and the denial of a rigged 2020 election and the denial of 2016 election seen in the Russian Hoax and Hunter Biden laptop. I understand the concerns over any even questioning of Israel policy as anti-semitic. White people in the United States, Israel supporters, have felt left out of the concern over racism from American Jews in comparison with silence over Antifa and BLM. Apparent first amendment supporters should allow free expression of these inconsistencies without pulling an anti-semitism card.
Democrat support of Israel comes with obvious strings attached. American money brings American supervision or control. When America attacked Iraq after 911, relatively little criticism came for collateral damage, death of innocent civilians. This is the cost of war for American retaliation. Hamas uses children as human shields and Israel must pause its offensive, perhaps leaving Hamas intact. The United States should consider not sending monetary support and just allowing Israel free reign on its own security. American Democrat politics affect Israeli security, bouncing Israel around like a political volleyball.
Hatred from Jews for their Own Supporters
It is tough to bridge historical support of Israel with the typical woke politics among Jews in the United States and Israel. Almost 50% of Jews in Israel self-identify as secular. They support same sex marriage and other forms of moral perversion, not operating according to objective truth. 62 percent of the 7.6 million Jews in the United States are secular. 79% voted Democrat in the 2018 midterm elections.
Pew Research did a study on American Jews in 2020 and 81 percent of Orthodox Jews supported Trump. On the other hand, the same study said 73% of all Jews opposed Trump. This describes the difference between a secular and religious Jew in the United States. Recently, secular Jew Barbara Streisand complained that she would not live in the United States if Donald Trump became president again. She would move to England — you know, the place where 300,000 pro-Hamas protestors recently gathered on the streets of London against Israel.
Shapiro himself sometimes plays, I believe, to the secular Jew. Perhaps a form of self-preservation innate from hundreds of years of persecution explains. As a professing Orthodox Jew, attaching himself to the Old Testament in a prominent way, he uses profane language and tells dirty jokes in public. Then when an Owens or Tucker, whom I would see as supporters of Israel, albeit in a lesser way, he reacts in a ballistic manner. When questioned on Trump in a secular crowd, he throws Trump under the bus in a harsher way than he would George Soros or Bill Maher.
Support of Israel and Milquetoast Response
Part of the Abrahamic Covenant, which is still intact, is that God promised He would bless people that bless Israel. Among other reasons, that explains a strong support of Israel in the United States, including welcoming those 7.6 million Jews in the United States. A majority of those Jews have been sharply antagonistic with their chief supporters, many expressing intense hatred for them. This communicates the peculiar situation this issue provides. You can greatly dislike the Jewish worldview while really loving and bestowing support for Jews and Israel.
No group provides as sharp and hateful rhetoric toward Christians in the United States like Jews do. Israel’s protection in the Middle East greatly depends on this group of people mainly hated by Jews in the United States. In a personal way, I’ve received no greater disrespect than I have from Jews and on many different occasions. I’ve never treated a Jew in a bad way, always in a loving way. A small percentage of the Jews I’ve known return that favor. Of course, they might explain that they don’t like the reason why we love them so much.
Many forms of contradiction occur over the issue of Israel and Palestine. A Jew easily can confuse a Catholic from a Protestant from an Evangelical. Even on this blog, in the comment section some attack Israel for Christian reasons while we defend Israel for Christian reasons. They both can’t be right, yet they both exist.
More to Come
What Is the “Mind Virus” Of Which Elon Musk Alludes?
Elon Musk and the Mind Virus
Civilizational Threat
Not until very recently did I hear the terminology, “mind virus,” and it came from Elon Musk (the wealthiest man in the world) in various podcast interviews. In a few of those by various individuals, he talks about the “mind virus” as a civilizational threat. When asked why he bought Twitter (now X), even though it was an apparently very bad investment, he explains that he did it to ward away again, “civilizational threat.” He saw a particular mind virus, which took the world in a trajectory that he assessed would result in the destruction of humanity. His purchase of X would push that back for a time, Musk surmised.
Elon Musk could be right, depending on what the real “mind virus” is. The terminology hearkens to a biblical truth that gets at the crux of the real problem in the world. The actual mind virus is not, however, we know, the same one of which he speaks, based on scripture. Yet, mind virus as a concept, I would agree, depending on its definition, is the greatest civilizational threat.
Richard Dawkins and “Viruses of the Mind”
It seems that the words “mind virus” originated with Richard Dawkins with a 1991 article, entitled, “Viruses of the Mind,” originally delivered as a lecture. Others that then used the terminology equated a similar concept. Dawkins saw religious faith as the chief mind virus, but really faith itself, people with which he calls “faith sufferers.” His point, albeit very false, was that faith bypassed evidence, so it mainly blocked or impeded evidence.
In most recent times, maybe the most common usage of “mind virus” refers to the technical terminology, “woke mind virus.” Googling those three exact words brought me 123,000 hits. This seems to be where we’ve settled in the realm of “mind virus.’ “Woke mind virus.” References to “mind virus” now mean “woke mind virus.”
Meaning of Woke Mind Virus
Musk’s Definition
At the top of a google search is an article at Rolling Stone, titled, “Elon Musk and Bill Maher Fear the ‘Woke Mind Virus’.” When asked, Musk defined this virus as “anything anti-meritocratic and that results In the suppression of free speech.” He said the main cause of it is “the amount of indoctrination that’s happening in schools and universities.” One man, I think, accurately described the woke mind virus with the following quote by G. K. Chesterton:
We shall soon be in a world in which a man may be howled down for saying that two and two make four, in which furious party cries will be raised against anybody who says that cows have horns, in which people will persecute the heresy of calling a triangle a three-sided figure, and hang a man for maddening mob with the news that grass is green.
Some of that to which Musk refers is what I also believe is the mind virus, including in his assessment of Netflix. Commenting on the hemorrhaging of Netflix subscriptions, Musk said Netflix was “unwatchable” because of its “woke mind virus.”
The Real Woke Mind Virus
“Woke” became contemporary terminology to describe a state of totally subjective enlightenment, untethered to objective reality. Someone woke is awake to something probably invisible to almost everyone. An apparent woke person can see someone is a racist like a Geiger counter picking up radioactivity. No evidence of racism is necessary. His inner Geiger counter detects racism; therefore, it must be there. A woke practitioner also sees more than two sexes and even fluidity in gender identity, where someone can label himself a woman, when he is a man, even depending on the day of the week.
A Reprobate Mind
What Musk called the “woke mind virus” is what Romans 1:28 calls “a reprobate mind,” that does not “like to retain God in [its] knowledge.” Concerning the same, 2 Timothy 3:8 says, “these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.” It’s what 2 Thessalonians 2:11 calls a “strong delusion.” In modern vernacular, someone infected with the woke mind virus is delusional. 2 Corinthians 3:14 and 4:4 say these people’s minds are blinded, so that they cannot see the light of God’s truth.
Musk himself rejects the light of the gospel. He considers the earth billions of years old and that man emerged from naturalistic evolutionary processes. Musk also contends that an extinction event for earth is inevitable. He says, “An extinction event is inevitable and we’re increasingly doing ourselves in.”
Public schools keep teaching lies of the most fundamental and foundational nature. These lies are the root that poison every fruit on the entire tree. They are what Paul calls, “imaginations that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God” (2 Corinthians 10:5). These ways that seem right unto man, Solomon says are the ways of death (Proverbs 14:12).
Prevenient Grace
How do Musk and other’s like him, themselves deluded, correctly identify the woke mind virus? In a default manner, God gives every human “the law written in their hearts” (Romans 2:15). The same verse says, “the conscience also bearing witness.” In the previous chapter, the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 1:19: “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.” C. H. Spurgeon said in a sermon entitled, Prevenient Grace, preached:
PREVENIENT GRACE, or the grace which comes before regeneration and conversion. I think we sometimes overlook it. We do not attach enough importance to the grace of God in its dealings with men before He actually brings them to Himself. Paul says that God had designs of love towards him even before he had called him out of the dead world into spiritual life.
That grace doesn’t end in salvation for everyone, as seen in Romans 1:18. Even though they know God through many general means, men still suppress the truth in their unrighteousness. As a result, they become “vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened” (Romans 1:21). This is another description of the “woke mind virus.”
The virus also creeps into churches. Churches accommodate the world system. They subjugate themselves to conventional wisdom, what James 3:15 calls “wisdom [that] descendeth not from above, earthly, sensual, devilish.” These are what the Apostle Paul calls in 1 Corinthians 2:13, “the words which man’s wisdom teacheth.” He also calls it “the carnal mind [that] is enmity against God” (Romans 8:7).
The True Woke Mind Virus
Musk doesn’t know or understand the true woke mind virus. Yes, the god of this world deludes most men, including Musk, and God turns them over to a reprobate mind. They are bewitched like the Galatians, “that they should not obey the truth” (Galatians 3:1).
The only escape from the woke mind virus is what Paul calls ‘the law of the mind’ (Romans 7:23). This is akin to replacing the “heart of stone” with a “heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 11:19, 36:26). With this change of nature, man can and will think characteristically how God wants him to think. This is the only true and real cure for the woke mind virus. God can and will deliver through the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul writes (Romans 7:25):
I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God.
The Colossal Emphasis Put on Mercy in the Bible
Mercy in Scripture
The English word “mercy” is pivotal in all the English Bible. I say English Bible, because it’s tough to accommodate the main Hebrew word translated “mercy” with just “mercy.” It is the Hebrew word, chesed. Maybe you’ve even heard someone say that word in a sermon or class. Maybe you know Hebrew.
Forms of the English word mercy, which include mercies and merciful, occur 361 times in the King James Version. The Old Testament usages are not always chesed, but they are mainly chesed, and the Hebrew Old Testament uses that word 261 times. The first time chesed appears in the Old Testament (Genesis 19:19), the King James Version translates it “mercy.” The next time in Genesis 20:13, the KJV translates it “kindness.”
I say “colossal emphasis put on mercy in the Bible” because forms of the word “grace” are found 204 times. “Goodness” is found 50 times. Yes, “love” is a lot — 310 uses of the noun form in the English. The adding of the related words to love, including the verb forms, sees “love” in a greater place in the Bible.
Undeserved
Very often when I’ve read about chesed, defining it as “lovingkindness,” and yet it’s main historic English translation is “mercy.” At the root of this attribute of God and transient attribute, because God allows and even requires mercy from man, is the undeservedness of the recipients. Mercy is the flip side of justice. The recipients of God’s mercy deserve justice but receive mercy. In this is the withholding of punishment deserved.
I want to focus on the first usage in the New Testament in the Sermon on the Mount by Jesus in Matthew 5:7: “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.” There are six Greek words in that verse, two of which are related: eleemon and eleeo. The first is an adjective, “merciful,” and the second is a verb, “they shall obtain mercy.”
Salvation Evidence
The beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount provide first entrance requirements (5:3-6) and then expected outcomes (5:7-12). The expected outcomes give the audience the evidence of salvation. The first evidence or outcome revealed by Jesus: mercy. Based on the order, it is the fundamental attribute that indicates salvation in a person.
You can see mercy as the expected outcome of the righteous in the Old Testament.
Hosea 6:6, “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.”
Micah 6:8, “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”
God could just immediately destroy anyone based on what they’ve done. He doesn’t because mercy characterizes Him. This is not His nature. When He saves someone, mercy becomes their nature.
Mercy at the Bottom of Goodness
In recent days, I wrote the following:
Habakkuk 1:13 says about God, “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil.” He can’t even behold evil. Yet, God withholds from men the punishment for sin, and that’s even before salvation. No one would make it to his salvation without the mercy of God. Then after God saves a person, he does not live sinless perfection.
You reader do not live sinless perfection. Yet God doesn’t kill you immediately for that. Mercy should motivate surrender to Jesus Christ. Then once someone receives Jesus Christ, God’s mercy is far, far more than enough to sustain constant living for God, faithfulness to Him and His Word, and continuous love for Him. Think mercy. Mercy, mercy, mercy.
Every goodness every person experiences finds mercy at the bottom of it. No one deserves it, but deserves just the opposite.
The Mother’s Womb
A common word translated mercy in the Old Testament, rachamim, has at its root, the word “womb.” When you do a search on the root of the word, “womb” comes up again and again. Womb? Yes. In the womb, the connection forms between child and mother. Consider Jeremiah 31:20 when you think of “womb” and “mercy”:
Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the LORD.
God made man in His image. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have a connection to men. The goodness men receive evinces the connection God has.
Mothers as a strong instinct do not want the destruction of their children, even when they sin against her. Notice then this in Jesus in Matthew 23:37:
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
Despite Israel’s treatment of God, this was God’s sentiment toward Israel. Mercy offers vivification for every human spirit against the bad all around the world. It’s there to embrace and enjoy. If you haven’t received Jesus Christ, let mercy provide the impetus to come to Him.
The Experience of Divine Hiddenness
Is God Hidden?
Is God hidden? Yes and No. God doesn’t hide Himself. In people’s experience, He remains hidden. That doesn’t mean He is in fact hidden. They experience Divine hiddenness.
In scripture, people experience Divine hiddenness. Job said to God (13:24):
Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and holdest me for thine enemy?
The Psalmist says in Psalm 10:1:
Why standest thou afar off, O LORD? why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble?
Unbelievers claim the hiddeness of God in Isaiah 45:15:
Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour.
God Himself says that people say He hides Himself. They are Egyptians, Ethiopeans, and Sabeans (Isaiah 45:14). This isn’t new at all.
Argument for Atheists
Divine hiddenness is a hot new argument for atheists. It shows up in the most recent material of philosophical atheism:
However, “divine hiddenness” refers to something else in recent philosophical literature, especially since the publication of J.L. Schellenberg’s landmark book, Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason (1993). In this context, it refers to alleged facts about the absence of belief in God’s existence, on the basis of which one might think there is no God.
For example, Schellenberg argues that, since there are nonbelievers who are capable of a personal relationship with God and who do not resist it, there is no perfectly loving God, while Stephen Maitzen argues that naturalism better explains the “demographics” of nonbelief than theism and Jason Marsh argues that naturalism better explains “natural nonbelief” than theism. Understood in this way, divine hiddenness constitutes putative evidence for atheism.
Some people do not recognize the existence of God and they use as their basis the reason that God hides Himself from them. Others acknowledge God exists, but He does not appear to them in their estimation enough for them to believe. They live like He doesn’t exist.
The Crown Performance
People require God to give them, what I call, the “crown performance.” They expect God to come to them like a traveling minstrel. They hold Him hostage. If He will not provide the necessary experience they require, they will not believe in Him. What I’m describing is unbelief. Unbelief requires more and then more revelation from God.
As an argument, Divine hiddenness contrasts with the sovereignty of God. Men become sovereign. If God does not accede to however unbelievers expect Him to appear, they can ghost Him. God must obey their chosen methodology, because they are ultimately in charge. It exalts their intellect, which is too lofty to accept God’s kind of evidence. He’ll just have to do better, if they will acquiesce to Him.
Those who embrace the hiddenness of God set the terms for God’s revelation. He must accede to their expectations. If not, they justify their unbelief with hiddenness.
Sincerely Seeking?
Many of those who use Divine hiddenness as their reasoning for unbelief proclaim their own sincerity. They really want God. These unbelievers truly seek for Him, based on their own testimonies. If He would give them but a glimpse, a brief flash of light from Him, they would believe.
God says, I’m not going to hide. I’m revealing myself to everyone (Rom 1:19-21). It’s not that people can’t know God. They refuse the means by which He reveals Himself. Rather than receive His revelation of Himself in the manner He gives it, they want something else.
Unbelief makes excuses for not believing. To the unwillingness to receive what God shows of Himself, Jesus says in Matthew 12:39:
An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it.
Then He says it in Matthew 16:4:
A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it.
The gospels record this teaching of Jesus again in other places (Mark 8:12, Luke 11:29). A sign points to the reality of God’s existence.
God Wants Relationship, Not Mere Acknowledgement
On Divine hiddenness, I wrote earlier this year:
People may not use this exact language, but in essence they very often ask a question concerning God, “Why is God so hidden?” God could have made more evident His existence and the truth of Christianity. He could make his existence as plain as anything. First though, scripture doesn’t read like God tries to persuade belief in His existence. No, God manifests Himself toward free reception of a saving, love relationship with Himself.
God knows the evidence sufficient for people with open minds and hearts. If you seek Him while He may be found, He will be found (Isaiah 55:6-7). But that means you want Him. This is your first act of worship of God, an offering of your soul to Him. This is more than mere acknowledgment of His existence, like the demons (James 2:19).
Faith in God’s love and knowledge acquiesces to the superiority of His ways. He displays His goodness and mercy in the way He reveals Himself. First, God uses it to bring the most people to Himself and, second, He leaves suitable ambiguity against hardening hearts toward Him. God does not force lost men to believe. He gives ample time and opportunity to encounter the dramatic, true story of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and His glorious resurrection and ascension. The foolishness of God is wiser than men, His weakness stronger than them.
A big difference exists between God hiding Himself and His revealing Himself in an unsuitable way to an unbeliever. Just because someone says he’s sincere in his seeking doesn’t mean he is. God judges that sincerity by His Word and that professing seeker falls short.
Eschatology and Political Activism from the Right and the Left
Living in the Last Days
If you travel in evangelical circles, you might hear language especially today that says, “We’re living in the last days.” Those words, “last days,” occur eight times in the King James Version. These are two prominent usages:
2 Timothy 3:1, “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.”
2 Peter 3:3, :”Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts.”
“Last days” in the Bible is not very specific. When the Apostle Peter uses the words in his sermon on the Day of Pentecost, he refers them to a partial fulfillment now over 2,000 years ago:
Acts 2:17, “And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.”
The phrase, “living in the last days,” did not start appearing in written material until the middle of the nineteenth century, when men would write something like the following:
There are features of the last days of the last times, and they are characteristic of these days and these times; we are therefore, living in the last days of the last times, and, consequently, expect the speedy appearance of the coming of the Son of Man.
This was from an article, “Elements of Prophetical Interpretation,” by J. W. Brooks in a book, The Literalist, published in 1841. As popularly used, most refer these “last days” to a seemingly very short time before the rapture from the earth of the saints.
A Vision of the Reign of God on Earth
Many, many and from various factions oppose the literal approach to biblical prophecy and that everyone presently abides in the last days as such. They reject the concept that the world will degenerate until the return of Christ. If that be the case, political activism is of little point. On the other hand, if persistent human effort might bring the reign of God on earth, then reasons exist for lobbying, campaigning, protesting — violent or non-violent, community organizing, and political action.
Early Roman Catholicism by envisioning the church as New Testament Israel also saw the church as the kingdom of God on earth. Instead of circumcision as the entrance requirement to the kingdom, water baptism became that, a New Testament circumcision. A false form of millennialism, this position says the church is already God’s kingdom with a view toward its ultimate perfection on earth. Roman Catholic theologian Augustine in AD413 wrote in his City of God:
The Church is already now the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of heaven. Accordingly, even now His saints reign with Him. . . . It is then of this kingdom militant, in which conflict with the enemy is still maintained, and war carried on with warring lusts, or government laid upon them as they yield, until we come to that most peaceful kingdom in which we shall reign without an enemy.
Spiritualizing Old Testament Israel and finding in its Old Testament prophecies a fulfillment in the New Testament church subscribes to advocation of positions of power for realizing God’s kingdom on earth. According to this eschatological position, the church inherits Old Testament mandates for domination over the earth.
Postmillennial Liberation and Dominion Theologies
Mirroring Viewpoints
The left and the right both compete for power with the divine charge of liberation on the left and dominion on the right. These two mirroring viewpoints easily find support for the replacement of Israel. This might also adapt into justifiable eradication with an underlying disposition of antisemitism. Both acquire their ordination from a form of postmillennialism and a hermeneutic of spiritualization and allegorization, the latter the rationalization for Roman Catholicism.
The left and the right become strange bedfellows with relationship to Israel under the same umbrella of eschatology. Palestinian Liberation Theology buttresses a decolonization theme and advocates Palestinian freedom “from the river to the sea.” Thomas Ice writes then concerning postmillennial reconstructionism:
The danger lies in their misunderstanding of God’s plan concerning the future of the nation Israel. Reconstructionists advocate the replacement of Old Testament Israel with the church, often called the “New Israel.” They believe that Israel does not have a future different from any other nation.
Corrupted Views of Israel
Ice continues:
While Reconstructionists do believe that individual Jews will be converted to Christ in mass in the future, almost none of them believe that national Israel has a future and thus the Church has completely taken over the promises of national Israel. In contrast to the eventual faithfulness and empowerment by the Holy Spirit of the Church, Reconstructionist David Chilton said that “ethnic Israel was excommunicated for its apostasy and will never again be God’s Kingdom.”
John MacArthur also tied together these two theological ideologies, saying:
There is another kind of theology that’s existing today, it’s called Liberation Theology. It is a form of theology that says that the church is to take dominion over the institutions of the world. That’s another form of dominion theology or kingdom theology. And what it basically says is that the church’s mandate is to take over the institutions of the world. That’s the liberation theology side. And what dominion theology says is that we are to take over the powers of darkness.
Dovetailing of Leftist and Rightist Values
Harvey Cox writes in an article in The Atlantic:
By far the most striking discovery I made . . . was the remarkable similarity between the rhetoric . . . of liberation theology. Both (postmillennial dominion theology and liberation theology) focus on continuing the ministry and work of Jesus. Both place the concept of the Kingdom of God, albeit interpreted quite differently, at the center of their respective theologies.
Leftist and rightist values dovetail around eschatological belief. Neither provide a true and real solution for the present or for the future. Instead of depending on a plain reading of the text of scripture, they spiritualize it and read into it a false vision of the future. This then reflects on a relationship with Israel.
Judaizers followed the Apostle Paul into his churches after his first missionary journey and attempted to turn the churches of Galatia into a form of New Testament Israel. They removed required distinctions between the church and Israel to make the church into Israel. This confused the real solution for man’s problems found only in Jesus Christ. It corrupted the church. A kind of Judaizing continues perverting the church through its insidious false eschatological vision for the world. In so doing, it also assaults Israel and annuls the promises God will still fulfill for this chosen nation.
The Purposeful Contortion and Confusion of End Time Truth (Part Two)
No explanation of origins succeeds at explaining how everything got here, including how people got here, except for the biblical one. And the biblical one makes sense, because it fits everything that we see. Evidence also confirms the Bible.
An explosion turning into terrific, complicated design, either physical or biological, just can’t be true. We have no basis for believing that, and people really don’t. They opt for the explanation, but not because it is true. It is convenient for personal autonomy. It’s a method for blocking God out of the psyche.
Naturalistic End Time Belief
On the other end, people invent an ending too. It says, everything will burn out and turn into free floating space junk. The universe will go silent. Despite Star Trek, Star Wars, and any other fictional alien story, no life will exist.
How it ends is some kind of global warming, global freezing, collision of an asteroid, called an “impact event,” a world wide nuclear holocaust, or the spread of a incurable deadly disease that kills everyone (pandemic). The latter probably doesn’t work, because it probably just kills people. Animals of many different varieties survive, running around and doing what animals would do without people here. Perhaps they wait for the inevitable evolution into something closer to people.
The avoidance of end time catastrophe in this naturalistic sense means people doing a better job of not destroying the planet. They do that apparently by adapting. This means the soon end of carbon emissions.
Apocalypse
People call the planet ending catastrophe, “apocalypse.” Those who know the Bible might find this ironic, because that’s the Greek word for the Book of Revelation. Revelation doesn’t provide such an ending as what men call an apocalypse. People don’t even know what the apocalypse of Revelation is.
Apocalypse is Jesus coming back to earth with unveiled glory. He came the first time as Savior and He appears the second time as Judge. People are basically correct in that apocalypse is end time destruction, but it is an angry God judging the world because of sin.
The world’s population doesn’t promote talk about sin. People don’t want to hear about sin. They hate that. People want to hear good news, but not what the Bible says is “good news,” the gospel. Good news to the people of the world would be living however they want without destruction. They despise any warning of destruction that comes because of sin. People revel in the idea that destruction might come because of carbon emissions. No problem there.
Preachers and theologians cooperate with the naturalistic end time viewpoint, the cataclysmic ending of the planet, by confusing and contorting what the Bible says about the end. Their views show very little urgency. The true view of the end is urgent. Many Bible preachers today mock any kind of urgency as kooky, elevating instead their spiritualized, allegorical, and subjective positions. Why not opt for a naturalistic view, if the people who are supposed to know the Bible aren’t themselves clear about how everything ends?
Eschatological Boldness
Christians today are very often afraid to make a statement about naturalistic end time views. They are so unsure about how the world will end that they most often stop telling the world what the Bible says. Professing believers are not really that offended about the naturalistic explanations like climate change. They don’t think Christians should speak in dogmatic fashion about what the Bible says.
Even professing Christians consider biblical end time teaching to be questionable. They diminish it to something on the level of art on the other side of the campus from the engineering department. It can’t be viewed like science. Someone cannot trust the Bible that much, especially for prophecy. As a result, Christians themselves and then especially the world is not prepared for how the world will really end.
The shame felt over eschatological beliefs debilitates Christians. They won’t talk about those beliefs in public. Instead, they leave conversations about the end for very private enclaves of the few like minded. This is not the will of God. God expects boldness on talk of the future. The Bible portrays a clear picture of what to expect for the future.
Christians should unequivocally reject the naturalistic end times explanations. They are repugnant and an offense to God. Naturalistic eschatology capitulates to the world system. What the Bible says about the end is not a mere theological position. It is the truth. Everyone around needs to hear what will really occur in the future. They need a thorough debunking of the modern false views of how the world will end.
Scriptural Authority
People want to live like they want. A major contributing factor eliminates future judgment of God. Satan and his minions attack the teaching of the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Confusion over the second coming, when Jesus comes and judges the world, takes away a major motivation for salvation and personal purity. If people don’t think Jesus is coming, they can or might live however they want. They don’t consider the consequences of their sin.
Christians with boldness must stand on the teaching of creation and of the end of the earth. They must embrace what scripture teaches. Satan told Eve in the Garden of Eden, “Thou shalt not surely die.” The capitulation to the world on the end times offers a similar lie to the people of the world. They miss the blessing (Revelation 1:3) of an important warning of their dire future without Jesus Christ.
The Purposeful Contortion and Confusion of End Time Truth
A primary way Satan keeps people deluded about life and the world is by his contortion and confusion of either origin or end time truth. God reveals with pristine clarity the beginning and ending of everything. Both of these revelations are vital for faith and practice. Satan wants people deceived on how they got here and what will happen to them in the future.
Naturalism breeds more lust. I like to say, it means we got here by accident. No one’s your boss, so you’re your own boss. That sounds great to most people, doing what they want to do. Since they just happened, no design, they aren’t accountable to anyone or anything. They live like they want, which, based on the nature of man, means following lust.
Origins
Even if someone contemplates a possibility of God, that isn’t strong enough to replace the dominion of lust in a life. All the truths about God transmit from Him as origination of everything. Other truths about God diminish when He didn’t create us. The elimination of God creating man for HIs glory greatly decreases the power and importance of everything else scripture says.
The perversion of beginnings relates most to its compatibility with the theory of evolution. Modernists of the nineteenth century began rethinking the meaning of Genesis to fit with Darwinism. An allegorical interpretation of the first three chapters of the Bible allows to read evolution and an old earth into Genesis.
With people unsure about the beginning, it’s no wonder they doubt the ending. Even theologians turn eschatology into a non-essential now. They relegate prophecy to ambiguity. Many churches have removed most of their eschatology from their doctrinal statements. You don’t need a position to fit into a church. It’s too uncertain to require for even professing Christians.
Endings
On a recent prophecy post I wrote here, an anonymous commenter (whom I did not publish) called crazy (he used “nutjobs”) churches that talk about or preach prophecy. Opinions and speculation abounds on end time events.
The doctrines of Christ, salvation, man, and angels dovetail with prophecy. When Jesus arrived in the first century, very few were ready or awaited His coming, because they had detached from prophetic reality. The promises of God become of no effect as people falsify what He says will happen in the future. This then deadens their anticipation and smothers their hope.
History functions in a chiliastic manner. You could call it “going full circle.” Paradise lost and paradise regained. The destruction of the first necessitates the destruction of the last. This renders meaningless everything in between. Why believe anything if you can’t know how it starts and how it ends?
Many theologians and church leaders have capitulated to the attack on the origin and the ending. This relegates most everything to what people call, living in the present or living in the moment. I understand that concept in a positive way to a certain degree. Living in the moment requires mindfulness and focus on the task at hand and perhaps gratefulness for what you’re experiencing in the present. However, God wants futuristic living for the saints, an outlook of expectation.
A Forward Look
Scripture requires a forward look. Paul in Philippians said, “reaching forth unto those things which are before” (3:13) and “we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (3:20). Jesus said, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33). If we can’t know our beginning or ending, we lose the basis for living like scripture says. An ultimate motivation for Paul was “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:10).
‘Putting on the helmet of salvation’ (Ephesians 6:17) relates closely to last days events. Salvation is complete in the future. If people can’t be sure about most of the details, what can and do they mean? How would we be sure that these uncertain things could be true? This is where it stands in most ways today in eschatology.
Spiritualizing
The fastest growing view of the future is to spiritualize or allegorize the future. People allegorize almost all of the prophetic passages and they take on numerous different possible meanings. This has become not just possible but the preferred take in many places.
Now men spiritualize and allegorize the first few chapters of the Bible and the last book of the Bible. People can make it mean what they want. It’s no wonder people won’t take God’s Word seriously and churches are apathetic. If people can’t really know the beginning and the ending, why care about everything in between?
The Knotty Subject of Free Will: Do We Have It Or Is It an Illusion? (Part Two)
Free Will
When you read “free will,” you read two words, one of which is “will.” “Will” is simple. A mind is capable of choosing, like ordering a flavor of ice cream or reaching into the candy bowl for Snickers or Reeses.
There are layers here. The will is the capability of the mind choosing, but a motive directs the will in its choice. Many different factors may or can combine to bring someone to volition. Scripture deals with them in several various instances.
The word “free” has to do with opportunity or power. Someone can and has the opportunity to do what he wants. The question arises, does anyone truly have the power and opportunity? Is anyone really free in his will?
In part one, I see in scripture that the free will of man exists by the very use of the terminology “free will” in scripture. What though goes into free will?
Concerns in the Subject of Free Will
From my vantage point, I see six main types of concerns in the subject of free will. One, God created man, wants love from man, and man needs free will to love God. Hence, God created man with free will.
Two, free will explains suffering. God allowed men a choice to sin and the consequential curse that brings suffering to men. Suffering isn’t God’s fault. It’s ours. This does not mean that God cannot allow suffering or deliver from suffering, but it rose from man’s sin.
Three, apparently if man has free will, then he becomes the deciding factor of salvation and God doesn’t then get the glory. This assumes a salvation decision makes man’s salvation by works. Scripture doesn’t read that way, but it’s a kind of logical argument for determinists.
Four, if man doesn’t have free will, then God determined sin and becomes the author of sin. God is not the author of sin according to James 1:13. His hatred of sin would also assume He’s not the author of sin. God created beings with the potential to sin, but He didn’t create sin.
Five, the Bible does not at all read deterministic. God is sovereign, but His sovereignty doesn’t contradict man’s free will. The two do not contradict. God does not cede His authority by allowing men to decide.
The Debilitation of the Sin Nature
Six, free will given to man by God is debilitated by the corruption of his sin nature, even as seen in 2 Peter 2:19:
While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.
This bondage is so complete that Jesus says in John 15:5:
I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
Without Jesus, man can do nothing. This is also seen in 1 Corinthians 2:14:
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
The Illusion of Free Will
Men are so darkened in their minds that they operate in bondage. This speaks of the illusion of free will. In Romans 8:8, Paul writes that man in the flesh “cannot please God.” That doesn’t sound free, does it? He cannot. In the previous verse, “The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” The carnal mind cannot subject to the law of God. That also does not sound free.
I hear today especially young people about their loss of free will. They even consider this “loss” as a kind of deviance. On the other hand, they consider the choice of sin to be free. Sin isn’t freedom. Jesus said in John 8:34: “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.”
Sin is not freedom. It is bondage. What I’m writing here is why the subject of free will is a knotty problem. Their freedom is illusory.
Freedom comes from God. The way out comes from God. The grace of God allows free will. God created man with free will, but sin brought bondage. God’s grace brings freedom.
Satan deceives everyone and especially young people today, that they are free because they can choose evil. That “choice” is an illusion. The exhilaration of their choosing evil is part of the deception and bondage. They find themselves in great peril in these chains of darkness. And they don’t view their new Satanic religion as deviant. It’s the same sociological pathology held by the opponents of Noah while he prepared the ark.
The Inclination of the Grace of God
On the subject of free will, confronting the knottiness, Jonathan Edwards distinguished between natural ability and moral ability. Sin does not stop a man from making choices. He makes them. Because man can and does make choices, he has responsibility before God.
Even though he chooses, moral depravity chains a man to sinfulness. Everything he does is ruined in some way, so that he makes no good choices even when he makes good choices. That sounds contradictory, but he cannot please God and that makes everything bad. Even when he’s trying to please God, his remaining rebellion and rejection of truth ruins those too. That is the moral inability of Edwards.
Edwards contrasts with ancient theologian and heretic, Pelagius. Pelagius saw inability as injustice, because God commanded man to obey. If man couldn’t, then God was unjust. God isn’t unjust, so man must be still good to a certain extent. Pelagius depended on flawed logic like determinists also do.
God can hold man responsible for choices, because he has the ability to choose. The freedom of choice, however, is an illusion to all except those who encounter the inclination of the grace of God. God’s grace exerts its power in the means God chooses for the reality of free will. The lost have free will in their natural ability and potential for moral ability, ability only experienced by true believers through the grace of God. They are free indeed (John 8:36).
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