Understanding the prophets and saints

As I've blogged before, I have been very concerned that modern people do not really understand the characteristics or motivations of genuine, truly genuine, prophets and saints. You know what I mean? Many think of prophets and saints as being like "super heroes," with "super powers." That is totally wrong. First of all, the prophets and saints do not have "super powers." All that is done, even the miracles performed by Jesus Christ himself, is the power of God and God alone acting through the Savior, as through the prophets and also the saints.

But many modern people, especially those who fall into error, heresy and occult practices, think of prophets and saints as magicians, seers, "gifted," and of heroic tendency. By heroic I mean the type of secular, fantasy, science fiction type of "heroic," rather than the heroism that yes, indeed, many did exhibit.

So I found a wonderful verse from Jeremia when I first opened the Bible tonight (determined to do at least one useful blog as it has been several days since I've last posted). Jeremia was a prophet, called to God's service at a very young age (a role model, my young readers, reference what I wrote before, that while the average lifespan of most people was not beyond forty years old, at thirty one is able to be considered an "elder," and thus Jeremia is known to have been younger than thirty!) He was born around 650 BC in a priestly family, and he supported the pious King Josia who was trying to reform the Israelites and bring them back to a closer, purer relationship with God. Thus Jeremia had to battle against many false prophets and idolaters who were corrupting the people, destroying the truth of the faith, and also drawing God's growing wrath upon themselves. He lived on in the ruins of Jerusalem after Israel was destroyed by the Babylonians, until he was exiled by those who still clung to the very errors that had alienated God from Israel in the first place, and he probably died as a result of foul play during exile.

This passage gives you insight into what a real prophet or saint feels about a people who have gone astray, violently, profanely astray, from the purity and truth of their relationship with God.

Jeremia 8:18-23
My grief is incurable, my heart within me is faint. Listen! the cry of the daughter of my people, far and wide in the land! Is the Lord no longer in Sion, is her King no longer in her midst? [Why do they provoke me with their idols, with their foreign nonentities?] "The harvest has passed, the summer is at an end, and yet we are not safe!" I am broken by the ruin of the daughter of my people. I am disconsolate; horror has seized me. Is there no balm in Galaad, no physician there? Why grows not new flesh over the wound of the daughter of my people? Oh, that my head were a spring of water, my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night over the slain of the daughter of my people!

Before I comment and explain more about what he is so movingly feeling and saying, let me remind you of one thing, and tell many of you who have not studied this book of the Bible something else. The first thing to remind you is that as an Old Testament prophet, Jeremia had direct conversation with God himself. True prophets are saddened and alarmed by what they learn from God, not puffed up with their own self importance and "calling" or "mission." That is because when one sees through God's eyes, and hears from God's own lips to one's own ears, one realizes how very terribly wrong much of what humans have done has become. One is alarmed and freaked out, not writing books about "what heaven is 'really'" like or bragging about how one is a "seer" who "channels" the "universe" or whatever. When one hears directly from God it's not because it is report card time and God is handing out A+ on people's term papers. It is because things have really gotten out of hand and the people are in danger of their mortality, their health, their well being, their lives, and their very souls and salvation. So Jeremia is sad and in grief because he knows exactly the terrible continual self inflicted fix that the nation AND the individual people are in, and how God's wrath and judgment is inevitable.

The second thing that I want to point out to those who don't know this about the Book of Jeremia is that the famous statement by God about the sanctity of the preborn human being, the fetus, the embryo, is stated herein:

Jeremia 1:5
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you.

As I have explained before in my blogging and in conversations with people, God states here (and alludes to it elsewhere in the scriptures) that God himself creates the soul of each person before the embryo starts to form in the womb. In other words, God knows each soul, creating it individually and sending it at the moment of conception and implantation in the womb, as it grows its first cells but is not yet formed (the shape of the person to be.) So, yes, that "blob" is a person with a soul. Now, because this scripture is from the statement by God when he first calls Jeremia to serve him as prophet, God goes a step further and tells Jeremia that at that time God dedicated Jeremia's new born soul (dedicates him to serving God) AND appointed him specifically to this great task of being a prophet to the nations. Notice the "to the nations." This means not only that Jeremia dealt with several kingdoms during his time alive, but that God is foretelling to Jeremia that his words of prophecy will live on to "the nations."

So this explains to you the anguish that Jeremia feels as a prophet on behalf of his people, in Jeremia 8-18-23. He compares the people who are ruining themselves and their relationship to God with the image of a daughter crying. At this point Jeremia has already gone through much effort to fight the corruption and the rampant idolatry and worship of pagan gods, and is definitely suffering. No matter how much Jeremia warns the people with the most dire and most stern prophecies of the evil and woe to come, the people defy him, and the King, and others who may have been trying to reform and purify the Israelites.

The first and foremost characteristic of genuine, true prophets is agony and panic over disobedient people, because they know full well the measure of God's disappointment with their faithlessness (and how much it grieves the Holy Spirit of God) AND the wrath to come. Genuine prophets feel grief as a broken heartedness, far worse than being jilted by a lover or betrayal by a family member. This is why he says that his "grief is incurable" and his heart is "faint." It is difficult to describe seeing individuals and an entire nation be not only bent on their own self destruction, but individually hell bent.

Because he has been at work for a long time already at trying to convert the people back to God, he views his prophetic assignment as being like a year with four seasons, and the spring and summer have already passed. "The harvest has passed, the summer is at an end, and yet we are not safe!" By this he means that people have waited too long, have waited too much time, and have not repented, reformed and converted back to God, and the harvest, both good and bad, has passed (normally a time of joy as good things are collected).

Again, Jeremia shows what genuine horror and anguish is within a true prophet of God who sees most clearly through God's eyes and God's voice how far everyone has strayed and the terrible price they will bring upon their own heads. He says "I am broken by the ruin," "I am disconsolate" and "Horror has seized me." True prophets are flabbergasted when people ignore God's very own interventions and warnings.

He then asks, rhetorically, why traditional ways of medicine and healing do not work. He does not mean this literally; he means that nothing that should work to turn the people from their evil deeds seems to work. He alludes to a city, Galaad, that is famous for it's healing balm, asking if they have run out of balm. He asks if there are no doctors to be found. He asks why a wound does not heal the way it normally does on a body, when new flesh grows in the place of the wound and the scar. So he is using three analogies of healing a bodily wound, describing a place where there is no salve (what they used for pills at the time), no doctors, and wounds will not heal, to describe how nothing that the righteous, such as himself, do to warn and convert the people to repentance and change works as it should. Jeremia of course knows the reason: the people have gone too far and have become too arrogant and hard hearted. But he describes with wonderful clarity the topsy turvey situation where God's own direct word to his own people is ignored repeatedly, and their behavior only worsens.

Jeremia then uses the vivid and so sad image where he wishes that his entire head were turned into a stream of water so that he could do nothing but shed tears and weep over the people.

THAT, my friends, is the sign of the inner thoughts and feelings of a genuine, true prophet of God, and of saints that are also of similar assignment.

By the way, notice that God interjects a thought to Jeremia while Jeremia is writing or dictating these words! When Jeremia asks, again, rhetorically, because he knows the answer, if God, as God and King, has left the people, God asks him, rhetorically at the same time, "Why do they provoke me with their idols, with their foreign nonentities?" You are reading here a snapshot, an x-ray, an electrocardiogram of what it is like to be in the head and heart of a true, grieving prophet AND then also witnessing how God interjects conversation and thoughts right in the midst of the prophet's own thoughts!

How can anyone think that they, despite what the Bible states, which is that there are no further prophets being sent by God, and that there is one life, one soul, per person, that they "might" be some reincarnated "foreign entity," "saint," "prophet," etc. when the entire focus of such a person is antagonistic to the instincts, thoughts and feelings of true prophets, which is to frantically herd people back CLOSER to the true God, before disaster befalls them? I am astonished at how antagonistic modern deluded people who think they are "messengers" or "gifted" are to God, thinking that they are super heroes on their own mission. Yeah, for Satan maybe, LOL, since that's the results of false prophets.

My friends, the information and the truth is repeatedly found, no matter what the question or the situation, in the Bible. People did not write things such as Jeremia did to "push a religion," or to be "an expert," since those concepts simply did not exist at the time. Jeremia was dutifully recording all that God told him and all that he tried to do in his assignment as prophet, at the time when the hammer was about to fall on Israel, in punishment, resulting in its destruction and taking of the people in captivity to Babylon. What a time to be a prophet! But see, that is the whole point of being a prophet. A prophet, a true Old Testament prophet, is the last life line, the last chance to repent and convert and return to God. It's not some "gifting" of ESP or whatever so that people can be false prophets who march others away from God and toward their own cults and mistaken beliefs.

I really recommend that you read the Book of Jeremia with this insight because it will give you an entire freshness in your understanding of both God, his patience and his mercy, and how it will run out as judgment becomes the only option, AND what it is actually "like" to be a genuine Old Testament prophet.

In closing, be sure to note Jeremia 9:22-25. Read the whole Book but if you only have time in the near term, read those three passages. In them God states first of all where true glory is found, and how people who find that true glory will receive his mercy and do please him very much. He then warns that he will soon demand a complete accounting. Now, remember, rather than have "rolls of church membership" as we have today, when God alludes to the entire body of the faithful, he calls them the circumcised (even though, of course, women are not circumcised), but it is the visible sign of following the Law and identifying the body of the "church," so to speak, of the time. God warns then that both Israel and the pagan nations are alike because they are "uncircumcised in heart."

This needs to be studied by those who wonder how they can 'believe' yet still find themselves in a lot of trouble when they die and are judged by God. The Israelites were circumcised, but God warns against those who outwardly seem faithful but are "uncircumcised in heart" Jeremia 9:25.

I hope that you have found this helpful, encouraging if you are genuinely seeking to draw closer to the true God, and disquieting if you have taken too much upon your own self in regard to determining what is "enough" or is "right" "quantities" of faith, belief or works. Don't be circumcised in the body, even calling upon the name of Jesus, yet be uncircumcised in the heart, and thus calling upon Jesus with hypocrisy and deliberate falseness.

Young people.... as always I hope this helps to guide to you understanding what is printed there in black and white, but is so misunderstood in these times.

Case study: Local police, support and issues

Four stories in the news today that are useful case studies. Let me be the first to say it's not easy being the police. I come from a family that used to be huge law enforcement supporters. My father was deputized as a deputy sheriff when he returned from World War II and he carried a service revolver.

One of the biggest challenges for local law enforcement is that they must be prepared in an instant to respond in the entire gamut of possibilities: from being a good and compassionate neighbor who helps someone out, all the way to finding oneself in combat in a terrorist crime situation.

I am concerned, as I've observed the police for over fifty years now, that many of them have difficulty being open to the entire range of responses, from easy going compassion to having to be "Rambo" on the spot. I'm not going to assign blame because there are a number of reasons, some valid, that many have lost their perspective. I'm also going to point out that many are outstanding at maintaining that entire range of perspective, but sadly, I have encountered too few of them. I do read about them and applaud them when they do appear in the news.

But it is something that the police must be sensitive to in order to maintain public safety and support, support from people like me. I hope that I have readers of my blog who are in law enforcement and who will add this to their training or at least a point of discussion back at the station house over a cup of coffee.

Case study one:
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/18380375/detail.html

A woman who has her bleeding dying dog in her car is pulled over by a policeman and delayed for five minutes because in her haste to get to the vet she passed in a no pass zone, and the dog died. Read the details at the link. Now there are two sides, the people who think the policeman should have let her go right away as soon as he knew the situation, and those who defend the policeman.

Whenever there are two opposing views, by definition the problem is "too late" to solve. Here is what I suggest. Police need to be reminded of the good neighbor part of their function. In Yiddish we call that being a mensch, a good guy who does a good deed. He should have not only let her go, but he should have, if duty allowed, escorted her at least part of the way to ensure that a distraught woman at 2:30 am with her dying dog gets to the vet. For crying out loud, how difficult is that to understand? That would have been the correct decision. But because that decision did not occur to him because, as I said, many police no longer understand that role in the community, I do not think he should be punished. I do think it is a chance for all the police to think about how easy it would have been to be a mensch instead.

My dad, the deputy sheriff, worked as a night watchman at a chemical plant. If he was on night shift he would often drive me to elementary school in our family car. One morning the car broke down. A local cop drove me to school in his cop car (yes, I sat in front, ha... and boy are those seats hard). That is what it used to be like; cops were mensch. Try to rediscover that. For inspiration watch the old movies where a common humor device was a scene with a woman in labor being driven by frantic husband, being pulled over by a cop for speeding, and then the cop races them to the hospital.

Case study two:
http://www.livingstondaily.com/article/20081230/NEWS01/812300315

This young and promising cop was shot and killed as he tried to be a mensch, a mensch in the wrong situation. He pulled over a teen who was driving at night without a license. Instead of taking him to the station and calling in the parents, he takes the kid to his residence in a local apartment in order to hand him over to his parents. In the apartment the kid gets a gun and shoots the cop stone cold dead.

Police see it all and I guess they take risks that the rest of us think, what? It used to be that if a teenager did wrong, especially in a risky part of town, the cop took him to jail and part of being a "mensch" was that the parents had to come get the kid and everyone was embarrassed into learning a lesson. I wonder why this officer did not take the kid to jail, and thus paid with his life. The case study is to understand that letting someone off the hook in a dangerous situation is sometimes not being a mensch. Cops have posted that they do this routinely, taking the kid home to work it out with the parents. You aren't social workers. You don't know what you are walking into. For everyone's safety, go back to how it used to be, that a wayfaring teenager got an embarrassment and a scare by being taken to the station where his or her parents are then phoned to come in.

Case study three:
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/18380850/detail.html

Today a gunman, apparently an employee, open fire while ranting about religion at a ski resort, killing the manager and escaping in his car. However, a policeman was on patrol nearby, spotted the car, pursued it and when the perpetrator opened fire, the cop shot back, and killed the suspect in a gun battle. The cop is a SWAT member and had his rifle.

All I want to do is say, "Good job officer!" Two things happened correctly here. One is that even in sleepy burgs bad stuff happens and this cop was on patrol close to the scene. Patrol is SO important. So kudos to the police on patrol and those who schedule them. The second is the importance of gun practice. Doubly fortunate this is a SWAT guy, but cops, remember that you should practice, practice, practice. Who knows how many lives this officer saved with his precision shooting in a shoot out situation? We could have had another California on our hands if this guy had gotten away and fired along the road or once he was in populated areas again. I know some cops drag their feet at going to their gun practice. Do it!!!

Case study four:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28422200/

A former Utah state trooper is suspected of being the gunman in the random killing of two people on highways in Texas. He died of a self inflicted gun wound. He is also suspected of robbing two people prior to the killings. He had to resign as a trooper due to addiction to pain medication. He became addicted after suffering a traffic injury while on duty which caused deep pain and led to his addiction. He was a faithful Mormon, family man and suicidal. He had moved with his family to Texas after having to resign the force to take a computer salesman job, and could not earn enough due to the economy.

This is one of the most tragic things that I have read in a year that has been chock full of tragedy and horror. Why is there not a private or public program that could have treated him, comprehensively, in a way to keep his dignity, after he had to resign? The United States has a very bad history toward military and law enforcement regarding comprehensively and compassionately treating pain, trauma and addiction, and allowing them to continue to earn a comparable living while obtaining treatment! Now three families all with young children have suffered a crushing loss of their fathers, right before Christmas. One of the victims was a truck driver about to fly home to be with his family.

Local communities have a responsibility to take care of the service people who fall, in more ways than one, in the midst of serving them. Was there no one wealthy enough in Utah to get this guy the help he needed, in return for how he kept them safe for so many years? Someone send him to genuine rehab in his community, and give him a job that was still of the dignity of service that he had to surrender?

We make our law enforcement super heroes and then super dogs, and it seems like everyone has forgotten the middle humanitarian ground of local community support.

I hope that you have found these case studies helpful and that ultimately somehow the powers that be make some policy changes, and those in the community also have a conversion of heart about how the police should behave at their highest standards and also in turn be treated with the highest respect, caring and concern that they would merit. I say this as someone who has not been treated well by local police in my own hometown just several years ago, but that does not stop me from trying to be of good guidance.

Desecration of Holy Books and Objects

This has been a hot topic for a number of years, though actually, as a sign of the falling society, it has not been as hot a topic as it should have been. Now some of you will jump to the conclusion by that statement that I think desecration should be illegal and a prosecutable offense. That's actually not true, although I fully support a nation that is a theocracy to view desecration of their holy books and objects as a crime. However, they are most severely reminded by God not to bear false witness against a neighbor claiming there is desecration when there is not, as a way to persecute a minority religion. You know that happens in India and Pakistan. To lie that someone has desecrated a holy book IS actually desecrating that holy book, by the false accuser, by using the word of God/Allah to persecute an innocent soul.

Here is my opinion. While I do not think that desecration should be a crime (except in a nation that is openly a theocracy and conducts itself accordingly) is it obvious that those who desecrate should be treated harshly by society. The fact that this does not even occur to anyone shows how far society has deviated from the good and fulfilling world that God had intended. The development of human kind, despite propaganda about "rights" and "open mindedness" has actually been distorted, mutilated, and deviated. Society in general should revere holy books and objects. Society in general should recognize that children imitate parents and other adult "trend setters." The desecration of holy books and objects is actually a form of parental interference. The performance of it as public theater is meant to warp the faith of children, let's not lie and pretend not to understand that. Any time desecration takes place in public, whether it is called art or protest, the intention is to warp and coarsen the sensibilities and faith of the youthful audience. Any healthy society should swiftly and totally shun and punish desecraters through, let's put it this way, the powers of the market forces. Everyone seems to understand capitalism, with supply and demand, and also the need for parental rights in the raising of children. A desecrator should receive the full social wrath of the community. This should be played out in every forum that is legal. A desecrator should lose support of friends, relatives, neighbors, and acquaintances. A desecrator should receive a black mark against their character that factors into their future jobs, housing, investments and any other forum where it is legal to consider character. Further, instead of viewing this as being "edgy" and "newsworthy," media should actually either ignore the reporting or if they report, finally find some righteous indignation and condemn and shun the desecrator. And this should apply even if you do not share the faith of the holy book or object being desecrated, because by now society should be intelligent enough to see the harm that an attitude of unquestioned desecration fosters.

This is why Islam is, correctly, so hard against desecrators... they are intelligent and evolved enough to understand that desecration occurs not for "art" or "protest," but to undermine the faith of children and youngsters. While the society of Christian and secular nations no longer seem to care about this (another sign of their coming downfall) people who really consider themselves intellectuals and social critics ought to understand that there is an underlying agenda of evil and chaos, eternally found in humans who are flawed, that feeds on desecration. If Christian society had developed the way that Jesus Christ intended, there would be no desecration except by the bona fide insane, because there would have been a collective understanding of the harm of a desecrating mind set in society and a thorough shunning of anyone who explored it as "art" or "protest" would have evolved that conceit and spiritual inflation right out of the society.