The Great Awokening: New York Times Calls for the Repeal of the Seventh Commandment to Save the Sixth (Prevent More Church Shooters)
“The conservative Baptist church attended by the accused Atlanta gunman expelled him from its congregation Sunday morning, saying he is no longer considered a “regenerate believer in Jesus Christ.” Washington Post
“The statement on Friday said the church had begun the process of “church discipline” to remove Mr. Long from its membership.” NY Times
“I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators” (1 Cor. 5:9).
“Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person”(1 Cor. 5:13).
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When I leave my humble little farm these days, I always wrap my phone in tinfoil because the Government has put a price on my head so that “everyone that findeth me shall slay me” (Gen. 4:14). At this point, I’m with Paul:
“They have beaten us openly uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison; and now do they thrust us out privily? nay verily; but let them come themselves and fetch us out” (Acts 16:37).
The warrant feels like a gun to my head. At the moment I am merely deflecting it to see where God is leading all this (because it makes as much sense as the trial of Job to him and his friends). The law represents the collective violence of the State, and a warrant aimed at you might as well be the Government’s nuclear arsenal. Jesus merely restates what men have always known: a gun in your hand is (ultimately) as much a danger to you as it is to others. Once a torpedo misses its intended mark, it will destroy whatever lies in its path. That warrant is now a torpedo, and it could find its mark anywhere. Once you get your hands on the smallest thread of the law, you can unravel it to the very top. And the further up it goes the more dangerous it becomes. Why? Because the more it rises the more it impacts the snakepit of political intrigue. There, no one is safe. Roman law was a great blessing for Paul. In the Roman Senate it was a political snakepit. Pilate was recalled to exile and suicide. No one was safe there. It would have been in Governor Festus’ interest to turn Paul over to the Pharisees in order to gain political points with his enemies in Jerusalem. But he knew that he was not alone at Caesarea. His enemies in Rome had their spies everywhere, waiting for him to make a mistake. His was a political appointment, a plum to enrich himself. To get it, he had to step on many powerful heads (Look how Governor Cuomo's Democratic enemies are now attacking from all sides--they smell blood). The minute he returned to Rome he would be accused of anything his enemies could make stick, and if found guilty, would suffer severe consequences. People wondered why innocent witnesses called to bear testimony at the Mueller hearings would not do so without lawyers costing half a million dollars. Why? Because up here it’s all snakepit. Innocence no longer has meaning up here. One wrong word will land you in jail. This is the arena where the Treasury lies, and you’re up here because “you cannot dig, and to beg you’re ashamed,” and once here, no one in your family will ever have to work again. People have killed for less. Friendship up here is a luxury. Indeed, if your neighbor twists in the wind, you pull up alongside and stick a knife in him. One less competitor. Which means that, as this warrant rises, it becomes a radioactive football. Like Miriam in the bushes, I’m just waiting to see where it goes--and Pharaoh’s daughter just happened to be there--and would not be surprised to see it go to the top. People think this will blow up the county, and it could even be worse. A Roman would tell you that once you stir the law you may end up touching Caesar himself. Which is why the gun people say, don’t pick up a gun unless you’re ready to kill with it. But now the torpedo is out there trying to find a target, and once it’s out of the hatch it will not rest until it finds a target. Pick any point in the entire US legal system--it could land there.
When I write these days, I find myself in an eerily similar situation. For 25 year I have now commented on articles in the New York Times and Washington Post. It used to be the case that the censors would stop your post for certain language, say, the biblical word for what is now called “gender work.” But now the Wokemeisters have upped the ante and their sharp knives are cutting between the lines. For instance, if you see hypocrisy rise to the heavens in a Times article, and you merely use the old phrase, “the king has no clothes” (hinting at hypocrisy) as your comment, all of Manhattan will erupt in one loud hiss. Your contrary attitude is hate speech and they will hiss you out of the room for being a hater. When I take what’s written here and post it on Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, I invariably see flags pop up warning me that I’m pushing my luck--and that, as anyone can see, even as I’m biting my tongue, pulling my punches, and often withholding my fire, altogether. When I push the send button at the New York Times I say, this could get me banned for 4 months again. At which point I can still take my oxgoad and rain blows upon them from here ("I have hewed them by the prophets"). But if Biden succeeds in criminalizing hate words, then many words in the Bible will no longer pass muster, because companies which you pay to host your site will now be exposed to lawsuits. The temptation then is to use the weakest possible term for what you describe. Which wouldn’t be much help, because, if the New York Times censures you for the phrase “the King has no clothes,” it is censoring your thoughts. So you might as well call a spade a spade now, and bend the rage needle against the peg at the very end and get it over with. I have found that the best way to deal with any problem is to make it as life threatening as quickly as possible (in other words blow trifles up to 1000 percent) and grab it by the horns immediately. “Is it not a little one,” says Lot. If you look at it from the moon it looks as big as Sodom. Lot thought some cities were big with God. Abraham ground his prayer in the difference between “the righteous and the wicked,” and here Lot tries to leverage size. Why would he think it would make any differences to an angel whether it was big or small? Lot’s frame of reference was obviously much smaller than Abraham’s whose range of vision extended 2000 years to Christ. Yet as the song says, “God leads his dear children along.” “Ok, then,” the angel said, “you changed my mind” (Gen. 19:21)--"the effectual prayer of a righteous man". “Little” (or less) was definitely more that day, for Zoar missed destruction by minutes (and Lot didn't even pray for Zoar--so even here, the salt had not lost its savor). He ended up fleeing the city he saved. People like Lot because he’s so human without being outwardly wicked. Every Christian who's ever lived sees themselves superior to him, and fit to put him on the couch to tell him all his shortcomings and the source of it all--it all began when “he pitched his tent,” got worse while “he lingered,” and the point of desperation when he argues with the angel over “little sins,” etc. He fared better when he rested from his labors, for Peter remembers him among the saints, “for which cause Christ is not ashamed to call them brethren” (Heb. 2:11).
To be continued
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What mud out there. Nonstop rain and cold wind. The ground is so soft up here that after a month of rain it almost disappears as sheep hoofs cut it day by day. Even on the side of hills the water just stays there. And the air is so saturated with water, you begin to long for the day when "the earth stood out of the water" (2 Pet. 3:5), because the firmament seems to have disappeared. I used to wonder if the reason there is no "good" on the first Monday was because the second day was such an uneventual day. No more. After months of rain here, even iron seems to seep water, and you long for a clear blue firmament with nothing but dry air in it. My flock is sheltered from the wind, and they have their hay feeder inside, but they're having to forgo their daily ration of corn because that area is simply too muddy. But they have their fill of choice hay, and are content. When Bander (of Beauty and Bands) can't wait to get back inside to his couch, you know conditions are dire outside. But I have enough dry firewood to keep my noble house pleasantly warm. But listening to the fierce prairie winds outside, and in the middle of nowhere, you tell yourself, "no room for mistakes here." As you get older things get easier, and the only way to stay alert is to impose bigger challenges. The mud outside is so bad, I have to reach down to yank my boots free. After a day like that this place feels like a resort. As you know, billionaires in Europe pay large sums to rent shepherd huts.