Worship

 What is the point of worshipping God? We show reverence and admiration for Jesus. He said that the day would come when we would worship in spirit and in truth. Singing praise is one dimension - when we declare His attributes aloud. The written words of the songs are complemented in our freestyle worship. We speak or sing of His nature and character and His works in unscripted declarations as the Holy Spirit gives them to us.

Jesus’ works are manifest in so many ways that they seem inexhaustible. He created the heavens and the earth, and all that is in them. The beauty and intricacy of nature are beyond awe-inspiring. His hand in history is recorded both in the Bible and man’s written history. But equally important, His work in our individual lives shapes us into what He is calling us to become. Through teachings of the church, through fellowship and discipleship, and through chastening, the events of life, Jesus forms us into His image.

We have glimpses of Jesus’ nature and character, although obviously not the transcendent dimensions. He is perfectly holy - meaning that He is undividedly devoted to moral purity, doing what is right, and separated from evil and sin, even from sins of omission. By His very nature, He loves, and shows love to all who will receive Him. He loves those who reject Him too, but cannot show His love in any way other than trying to win them to Himself, and He will allow sin to reap its harvest in their lives in hope they will turn to Him.  He will not participate in evil. We have difficulty understanding how to choose or reconcile bad things happening to good people and God seemingly allowing it, but that is where His transcendence is paramount.

Jesus’ love desires and works for the best long-term interests and outcome of others. It manifests as being patient and kind. not envying, not boasting, not being proud. It does not dishonor others, is not self-seeking, is not easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs, does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth, always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Because of all these (above) Jesus is worthy of our worship. His glory is revealed. He has high renown and honor won by both His works and His magnificence. C. S. Lewis wrote an essay called the weight of glory, based on 2 Corinthians 4:17, that our current lives are should be focused on the unseen, eternal promises of God, and the weight we sense when He is present with us.

The point of worshipping God is not just that He is worthy to be publicly acknowledged for His nature and character, His works, and His goodness to us. It is to join together in public agreement, in detail, about His essential attributes, and to focus our own minds and hearts on these things. His holiness can be imparted to us, His love can flow through us to others. If we sense His in singing about Him in reverence and awe, we are closer to that eternal outcome, of becoming like Him.

We can sing and we can testify, but beyond that, we should devote our lives totally to Him. He gives us stewardship over His resources that He has given us: our time, our abilities, the money we have, our families, our energy. Worship also includes doing what He asks us to, as faithful stewards. Some He calls to travel to foreign lands as missionaries and evangelists. Some He asks to work building His kingdom locally. He asks all to be generous with their finances, while being faithful stewards. Generosity does not mean enabling others’ sinful or irresponsible behaviors, but helping those truly in need. Worshipful actions by us encourage others to similarly worship Jesus through their lives.

Book Review: The Return of the Gods by Jonathan Cahn

Complementing The Unseen Realm, which discusses the Biblical passages relating to the fallen elohim, the Return of the Gods addresses how these enemies of God are actively working to destroy Christianity in the modern world. The book focuses on how three specific ancient pagan gods - the dark trinity of Baal, Moloch, and Ishtar - are re-introducing their religion in the post-Christian western world. The longest discussion is on how the sexual deviancy of the modern world in all its forms - unrestricted sex, abortion on demand, homosexuality, transvestite apparel, gender redefinition and transition, the destruction of innate identity - is all traceable back to pagan worship of Ishtar (under many names) thousands of years ago.  It seems odd that spirit beings (fallen elohim) would engage in the sexual debauchery described in ancient writings about Ishtar. Perhaps part of their fall from grace is sexual perversion, or perhaps it is a metaphor for the fervency with which they want humans to worship them, and certainly a tool to destroy Christianity in the modern world.

The fallen elohim are true to their character and have only one new tool (modern electronic media), but seem to be sticklers for dates and events. For example, the riot at the Stonewall Inn in New York City from June 28-July 2, 1969 started on the anniversary of the ancient celebration of Ishtar and Tammuz.  (Tammuz was one of Ishtar’s lovers, that she mourned when he died. ) Later, three Supreme Court decisions, in 2003, 2013, and 2015, related to homosexuality were decided on June 26 of each year. 

I often wondered why Aaron made the golden calf when Moses tarried in God’s presence, and then centuries later Jeroboam made two golden calves at the north and south end of the northern kingdom of Israel. The answer is here - this is one of Baal’s manifestations, one that he seduces religious people to worship when they rebel against YHWH. And … the charging bull was installed on Wall Street in 1989 (approximately twenty years after the Stonewall Inn riot). Does the emphasis of our culture on material success, epitomized by bull markets, constitute idolatry of worshipping Baal? And…  what is the significance of a display of artifacts related to the ancient gate of Ishtar in Babylon at NYU at the beginning of the COVID crisis (November 2019-May 2020)? 

The pattern of the introduction of anti-life values is directly correlated with the pagan religious practices into a post-Christian United States. The fallen elohim, whose history is recounted in the Bible and explained in Heiser’s book mentioned above, are attempting to lead as many as possible away from Truth. The weapons of our warfare are identified in Ephesians 6. Prominent among them are the belt of truth and the gospel of peace. Evangelization and teaching are the only hope for winning this spiritual battle. It is not so much that these fallen pagan wanna-be gods are fearsome or powerful (although they do have some power), but that they deceive people and our culture into self-destruction. 

Our future depends on peeling back the devil’s facade with Truth incarnate. Declaring the truth to our nation and culture must be buttressed with fasting and prayer to focus our hearts on the ultimate Victor, engage Him in our specific battles, and bring the power of the Holy Spirit directly into the lives of those who need to be saved from evil incarnate. Jesus promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against His church, based on the confession of Him, the keys to heaven’s kingdom and binding of the powers in heaven.

Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:16-19)

Make America Healthy Again?

Since Robert F Kennedy, Jr., plans to get America to eat healthier foods, it seems like there are two steps in this, neither of which has, to my knowledge, been even outlined.

The first step is to identify what constitutes healthy food. 

• It is easy to generalize and say that refined sugar, fat, preservatives, and artificial flavor enhances, (snd other additives) are unhealthy, but how much? Is there a structured rating scale supported by medical research and having consensus by the relevant dietary and medical staff of how much of what is bad and how much is acceptable? 
• There are many variables in this because of the variety of medical conditions triggered - obesity is the obvious target, but there are cancer, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, liver disease to name a few - and the contributors to these are variegated as to both content and quantity. The public is drowning in warnings issued, both in media and on the packaging of the food items themselves. 
• So the first challenge is to develop a straightforward but simple framework so that the general public can understand what items are unhealthy, both in a general sense, and for specific medical conditions. 
• For the latter, it seems that diabetics and people with allergies of various types know what they need to avoid, unless some processed food item slips in an additive buried in the ingredients list that is not noticed. 
• But for the former, perhaps there should be a simple scale from -100 to +100 with -100 being extremely unhealthy in general (totally junk food that has no nutrition value and actively degrades health), and +100 being extremely healthy. (Fresh fruits and vegetables for example.) I know there are some diet plans that do this (assigning scores to foods) but there would need to be a consensus so that the general public and the food producing and processing sectors would have a common scale that is based on medical science.
• And there would probably need to be an ongoing open forum about the scores assigned to additives like potassium sorbate and the thousands of other preservatives and flavor enhancers. And also about how the scores of processed foods and fast food would be determined from the combination of the many ingredients.

The second step is how to get people to choose the healthier options once they are clear. 

• It is easy to propose something like banning unhealthy foods, but complex in practice unless we go to a quasi-totalitarian state. Prohibition didn’t work all that well a hundred years ago.
• The clarification of the health value or risk would likely incentivize many to choose better options, but not all. (Some people still smoke despite its undisputed health consequences.)  
• An incentive option might be to tax food with negative health consequences, in proportion to the score assigned, and maybe even subsidize the healthiest foods. The fast food industry would doubtless complain if it is forced to subsidize fresh produce, but it might also help poorer people choose apples and carrots and oatmeal over double cheeseburgers and French fries, if they were less expensive.   

For a Biblical context, instructions regarding food have four specific phases. However, health implications vs. religious implications (i.e. honoring God and His creation) aren’t always clear. 

• Initially, God told Adam that He gave him plants and tree fruit for food.  (Genesis 1:29-30).
• After the flood, God gave Noah everything that moves as food, with the caveat that he was not to eat meat with blood in it (presumably meaning raw meat). (Genesis 9:3-4)   The timing isn’t spelled out, but in Genesis 6:3 God reduced human lifespan to 120 years. Prior to that, the patriarchs had lifespans on the order of 900 years. Could there be a causal connection?
• When Moses received the law in the wilderness, very detailed rules for kosher food were spelled out.  (Leviticus 10:8-15; 11:1-47;  Deuteronomy 14:3-21). Although health implications are not identified in the Biblical text, the book None of These Diseases by McMillen and Stern describes some of them. Daniel 1:12-15 suggests that diet is healthy. (N.b., FDA under RFK, Jr.)
• Jesus declared all foods clean. (Mark 7:19) However, the context of the passage indicates that  Jesus specifically was referring to internal defilement, addressing heart issues like  sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly, and stating that physical uncleanness is insignificant compared to these. (Mark 7: 1-23)

It is also worth noting that the concept of processed foods did not exist in Biblical times. The only preservative was salt, and flavor enhancers were limited to naturally occurring spices. Hence it does not speak to things like  potassium bromate, butylated hydroxytoluene, red dye #3, monosodium glutamate, or high fructose corn syrup. 

Of course, poor health isn’t just due to junk food. The stress of modern life certainly contributes, as do excessive alcohol consumption and drug use.  The war on drugs has been going on for over fifty years, and its successes seem outweighed by its lack of success: drug cartels control large swaths of Latin America; roughly one in eight  people over age twelve use illegal narcotics at least monthly. More than six percent of the adult population have an alcohol abuse disorder. Roughly three out of four adults report stress-related physical or mental health symptoms. Stress can result from many issues such as living in poverty, dysfunctional domestic relationships,  job-related pressures, peer pressure, “social” media… the list goes on. 

Dealing with all this goes more to culture than government actions. Historically, small towns and their way of life reduced some of the stressors, but modern electronic media have erased their former isolation. The government can do little to change culture. It can perhaps find a new strategy for the drug war, raise taxes on alcohol, set standards for social media content. Government cannot impose the Biblical standards for a healthy, functioning society and culture, until the return of Jesus to earth to rule as the rightful king, nor can it provide the reassurances Jesus discussed in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:25-34). Only Jesus can exercise perfect justice for all, with faithfulness and righteousness being the accepted standard for social behavior. The Lord Himself will bless all people, and the rebel will be a small minority recognized as a sinner who will reap what he sows by rejecting Christ. 

In the meantime, it will be fascinating to see how the Trump administration, and RFK, Jr. in particular, approach the much more modest challenge.