Rules taught by hypocrites? If we want life that is really life we need to focus instead on:
1. Good training
2. Putting into practice good training
3. Living in a system which allows freedom to put into practice good training instead of overloading us with hypocritical rules
Why are we ever heading towards widespread war?
Reasons:
Since the nineties the collective West - USA plus Europe plus Israel - have been falling far short of their predecessors in various ways. Israel with the Oslo Accords. USA and Europe with NATO eastward expansion. It has all been leading to greater and greater violence against innocent people for whom God cares. The eagle is now over the house as a result. Poor choices of leaders, chosen with no seeking of God’s will. Allowing agendas based on hatred and vengeance to take priority. Neocons. Warmongers. God sees when the scales tip towards more innocents dying violent deaths and God sends that eagle of war overhead as a sign.
Jesus is physically alive. He has even shown me this personally. He has a physical human body. In between dying and rising from the dead, he still existed, otherwise there would be nothing for God to bring back to physical life. Yes, he has immortality. “I was dead and behold I am alive forever” he says. He is the resurrection. He is the life. And at one point, for a few days, he was truly dead in the same sense others are dead, his spirit left his body and was taken into the place of the dead. The body of Jesus was inanimate at that time, like any other human dead body. For a few days it was in a tomb. It would have decayed if God had left it there. His spirit continued until God raised the body making it a resurrection body (we do not yet know fully what it is except that it can be touched and can eat food) and God let that spirit of Jesus return to his body, and the resurrection was revealed to disciples. He continues like this till today, and so forever. He is truly marvellous, but not just for his own benefit but for those who believe in him too, who are part of him united with him in baptism into his name, his death, his resurrection. The resurrection is for us. While we believe in him and hold fast to his teachings. Jesus is alive from the dead. Resurrection. He was dead and now he lives. He is alive forever. We might want to make it more complicated than this, but that would detract from what we need. We need resurrection. He is that resurrection. This is the eternal life truth we need for living forever.
Israel has sinned, says the LORD. Breaking the promise by expanding NATO is a path of sin and not just balloons overhead but mushroom clouds might be on that path.
There are legal terms ‘ultra vires’ and ‘intra vires’ which are about the authority needed to conduct some kind of action within an organisation and ‘ultra vires’ relates to conducting actions without the necessary authority, while ‘intra vires’ is conduction actions with proper authority. The work of creating Nature and of maintaining Creation, Nature, throughout time is work requiring authority from the ultimate pinnacle of authority - the one true God. Angels participating in this work cannot act in ultra vires. They must act intra vires. They must do it according to the ordinances of God and there is a heavenly, divine ‘oath’ which exists to ensure this is done and the Son of Man, the word, his name is part of this oath. God authorises all creation work and maintenance of order in creation on an ongoing basis. Angels carry out tasks involved in this but all of the authority comes from the Most High God, the One True God, Yahweh, the Father. It all involves the authority of the name of the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, the Lord, God’s Son, firstborn over all creation.
It was always true that there would be a Christ. Everything about this Christ and the sufferings this Christ would endure had a spiritual existence inspiring prophets since most ancient times. Then the actual Christ was manifested - as a human. Taking human form. This is Jesus. He is what humans need for resurrection and life, eternal life. The sufferings had to be human sufferings. The sinlessness has to be human sinlessness in human vulnerable weakness and mortality. We need this. The death is what we need as sacrifice and only human death could meet this need of dealing with our sin. Just the concept of a Christ with a spiritual encapsulation of that concept is not sufficient. He had to actually take human form, become a human, suffer and die a human shedding human blood to be what we need, the propitiation we need and sacrifice for sin we need. He has to be a human mediator, with direct, intimate Son to Father, Father to Son interaction and knowledge and communication in a righteous relationship forever, to be the mediator we need. He has to be resurrected as a human from the dead to be the resurrection and life that we need to give us human resurrection and life, forever. He has to be human Son of Man judge to be judge over us all that we need to have the best possible outcome for us in the judgement day and the time leading up that day, who knows weakness of human condition and mortality so he can sympathise and judge us appropriately, justly and rightly before God. To fulfil all the righteous requirements of God, so we can rest assured in him forever.
We cannot go back in time and undo the sin of the USA (with allies) in the nineties of expanding NATO eastwards despite assurances it had earlier made to the Kremlin, to Gorbachev. Israel has sinned, said God. The huge white eyed dark eagle is a sign God gives of this sin and its consequences. We see surveillance and a looming war of escalating magnitude. Yet sin is mainly both a forsaking of trustworthiness, honour, on one hand and the commands of God and covenant of God on the other, when it is the sin of covenanted people. Love God. Do so wholeheartedly. Put God’s commands and teachings at the forefront again in teaching the next generation. Maybe they will be a more faithful generation than ours. Maybe God will relent from sending the calamity He has targeted on us all. His Son was sent to bear our sin when he died for us. Jesus now lives again to forever intercede for us. Maybe it is not too late.
“So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”
— Jesus Christ, The Apocalypse
Lukewarm food is not very palatable, is it. Those churches around the world which are hot or cold, true to God’s commands in Christ or still lacking knowledge of them, their nations prosper, and the lack of knowledge can be remedied with good teaching, while those sitting on the fence, aware of the teachings but not committing to them, prevaricating, their nations flounder and are at the point of failure, ejection from God’s plan.