Confusion the Great

(MIC. 7: 4) The best of them is like a thorn; their godly are like a thorn bush. Woe to your watchmen; your appointed punishment is on the way. The time of their confusion is now.

Oh man! Here we go. Politics and current events on As Bereans Did. Brace yourself. Run away while you can!

I usually avoid these things here, but every once in a while I find it too compelling to pass up. I did it once back in 2009 with my article "Cultism Abounds". I was reading that again recently and I still agree with it. If anything, it's even more applicable now. As Yoda said, "Now, matters are worse."

Today, I have something for everyone to dislike. I'm pretty good at that. Nobody loves a moderate. I feel the need to talk about a big problem I see in the world. I want to relate it to every sphere I can think of, because it applies to every sphere I can think of. My inspiration is the recent murder of a high-profile conservative in the U.S. and the ongoing battling that has come out of it. (Today's post isn't directly about this. The spectacle is what got me on the soap box.)
More specifically, I am referring to Confusion.

I pray about it almost daily, I've said it many times in other places, and it has been said here before - the main issue in the world today is confusion. I don't care if it's Left or Right, secular or religious, Armstrong or Mainstream, political or scientific or financial or or medical or otherwise, the prevailing condition infecting the world today is confusion. A blinding, debilitating confusion.

And what is another word for confusion? Babylon.

In the Bible and in the Ancient Near East, chaos was personified in the form of terrifying beasts, one of which was Leviathan. Chaos, like these multi-headed, slithering beasts, manifests itself in many ways. I want to highlight two ways: lack of standards and lack of self-awareness.

What do you expect to happen when you throw truth out the window, with some even denying it exists? Strict materialists deny we even have a mind in the traditional sense. Free will is an illusion, generated by colocation of atoms working by order of physics. Were we not warned, and by none other than Nietzsche of all people? "But xHWA!", one will plead, "You mean that 'God is dead' guy??" Yes! The "God is dead" guy. Have you ever actually read what he wrote and tried to understand it? Here read it: Nietzsche, Parable of the Madman.
But you won't, I suppose. Did you? Did you understand it? Did you not see how Nietzsche is desperately trying to find meaning and purpose and something of value in the void?

"What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder?"

Nietzsche didn't believe in God, but even he could see that without the idea of God, of something bigger than us, there is no anchor to stay us and no star by which to guide the ship. It drove him mad, you know.

Everyone doing everything that crosses their mind. All truth is subjective. All ethics situational. All morality relative. Do you know what happens when morality is relative? Tyranny! Yes. Without an objective standard of morality, and the only thing we have are our own opinions, there are two ways to enforce a standard - convincing people to agree with you, and forcing them to agree with you. Rational argumentation might work with some but not all, and should the movement grow it tends to degenerate into force. This is the tyranny of relativism - without objective moral truth, whoever has the most power to enforce their will upon others gets to define what is right and wrong. Instead of one God, we have eight billion gods, and growing. Try being a collectivist and then going against the collective? Why won't you? See my previous statement.

That is what we see today. Mob rule. Power. Tyranny. Chaos. Confusion.

In my observation, people are behaving like they have no standards. Oh, people talk a lot about standards, like justice and freedom and democracy and safety and equality and rights, but for the most part they don't genuinely mean any of it. People who cry loudest LOVE the things they cry about. They love it! They love injustice and tyranny and hate and fascism and danger and inequality and rights denied ... but only when it comes from their side. When others do these things - greatest evil ever seen in the history of evil!! But when their side does it - wunderbar!!
If you love it when it comes from your side and hate it when it comes from the other side, that has a definition: hypocrisy. "Do what I say, not what I do." Have you considered actually hating these things, no matter who does them?

I have written (to a resounding thud) many times about this. I've said if Armstrongists want to set a standard, then they need to stick to it.
Want to claim, "We only regard what's in the Bible"? Fine and well. Then put away all claims about Nimrod's influence, lost centuries, church eras, Constantine, Nicea, Rome's Challenge, the modern Jewish calendar, Hislop's nonsense, 19-year time cycles, British-Israelism, etc etc etc. None of those things are actually in the Bible. For anyone out there saying, "But the Bible does talk about some of these things," but not to anywhere near the degree they've been taken. Nimrod is in the Bible, but Nimrod starting Catholicism and then Alexander the Great taking it from the Babylonians and handing it to the Greeks is not in the Bible. It's not even in the history books. Yet, that has never stopped a single Hislop fan from repeating his non-Biblical claims as God's own truth.

Want to claim "we need to keep the Ten Commandments"? Fine and well. Then keep the one about Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor (EXO. 20: 16; 23: 1). Stop promoting lies that have long since been proven lies. Stop quoting only the parts of a story that you prefer while leaving out the rest. Stop purposefully misrepresenting the beliefs of others. Stop falsely accusing your fellow Christians. Stop accusing faithful Christians of being pagan based on false information.
Those are just two examples of many!

And so it is in so many other arenas these days.

I was asked what I think about the entertainer Jimmy Kimmel being indefinitely removed from his television show. I responded, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. If there is a standard, then have a standard. He should be treated the same as others should be. (This seemed to please some people.) Then I continued, if people should be cancelled then cancel him, but cancel everyone by the same measure. But if we complain when people we like are canceled, then he should not be. It shouldn't be one way for one group (Roseanne Barr and Dave Chappell) and another way for another group (Jimmy Kimmel and The View). Make the choice. (This seemed to displease those same people.)
If Donald Trump should order the FCC to revoke broadcast licenses for bias, then good and well. Revoke the license for Fox, too. Else, don't revoke at all. Find some other means to fix the issue. An equitable and fair means. Bias needs to be addressed when it gets out of hand, but don't address bias with another bias. Or worse, claim to be addressing bias but by halves. (Hypocrisy.)

And what is the other side always waiting for (regardless of whom 'the other side' is)? Vengeance. "You just wait until we are back in power!" See? Loves the things they say they hate. I jokingly describe it as, "I hate people who hate!" See the irony there? If you hate people who hate, then you are a person that hates.
Cue the excuses and self-justifications.

People are beyond my comprehension. I can't believe we survive as a species. There has to be a God or we'd have died out long ago. Problem is, I am a people.

This is why I try very hard never to pray for justice. All I am doing is praying for my own condemnation. I deserve justice. I do! And that means I deserve to be condemned by a righteous God. Because I have sinned and I have earned it. No, I pray for mercy, forgiveness, and for the Lord to remember His covenant with His people. One of the hardest things I have ever done in my entire life was to pray this for my enemies. A person close to me did me very, very wrong. Affected every facet of my life, including this blog, and will continue to do so for the rest of my life here. Though inside I screamed and cried and plotted for revenge, and I am still angry, I had to deny myself and give vengeance to the Lord. I set a standard as one of living by faith and now I had to live by it, or else by getting my way I would condemn myself. Jesus never said following Him would be easy.

Along with no standards comes no self-awareness.
People seem utterly incapable of understanding what they are doing anymore. They are blind to their double-standards. I might poke fun with commentary like, "I hate people who hate!", but is that not so? And are people not repaying hate with more hate? And are they not patting themselves on the back for how good they are? Do they not excuse themselves when someone points this out?

I read that U.S. Senator Jerry Nadler just complained that demonizing people puts people in danger. His real point was that since people demonize him that he is in danger. Typical politician. Self-serving to the last. What is he really saying? "I can't defend my positions logically, so I hope painting your position as dangerous and myself as a victim will get me out of the need to be held accountable." That is what he's really saying. It's called DARVO. But is a Senator who barely goes out of doors without a security detail close by really in much danger?
Demonizing people does put people in danger. It's true! Always has and always will. So, don't do it.

Are you inwardly complaining that I haven't also blamed "the other side" as well? Don't go to that "so's your old man" bit. I blame everyone! I started out this post as much. I don't see the point in going over every example in some attempt to be fair. People don't want fair, they want self-justification. So, the example of Nadler will suffice for today. Thinking of reasons "the other side" is unfair serves my point - because it's probably right, they probably did.
Personally, I don't accept "they did it too!" as any kind of excuse. I don't accept it from my kids or myself, and the teachers I had didn't accept it from me when I did it.

No standards. No self-awareness. No accountability at all. No truth. No roots. No foundational, guiding philosophy. No mercy. Mob rule. Tyranny. Chaos. Confusion. That is Babylon the Great today. And we're all soaking in it.

That's why I still believe in end-times. Not because of nuclear proliferation or European Unions or lost tribes or time cycles or eras or any of that doomsday cultery. Because of Babylon. Because of Confusion. Because of Chaos, symbolized by beasts. Even the church is carried away by it. Spirits generally war in the realm of ideas and principles. If Satan has been released and is overcoming the faithful (REV. 20: 7-8), then this might just be it. (Yes, I fully realize Armstrongists will reject my reference to Rev. 20 right there. But that is for another post.)
Satan is overcoming. By and large, what good has Christianity been lately? Some good, sure! Here and there. The light yet shines. But I mean in general. Too caught up in money and politics and scandal and infighting and ancient rivalries and winning a proselyte only to make them twice the child of Hell as themselves. (God forgive me for using such strong language against my fellow Christians.)

It's this modern world, I say. It's Babylon.

(REV. 18: 4-6) 4 Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, so you will not take part in her sins and so you will not receive her plagues, 5 because her sins have piled up all the way to heaven and God has remembered her crimes. 6 Repay her the same way she repaid others; pay her back double corresponding to her deeds. In the cup she mixed, mix double the amount for her..."

Nietzsche was right. And so was Paul (II TIM. 3: 1-5).

Want to come out of her? Realize you're in her. Take accountability for your own part in all this. Have a standard and stick to it. Apply the same standards to yourself and "us" as you do "them". But first, learn the lesson of Nietzsche and put God back at the center - and accept the Gospel. It's the best way I can think of to start. "Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to My voice.", (John 18: 37b). Become a disciple and mirror the Teacher. No point in morality if it's just more of the same self-righteous situational ethics that we forget when it's convenient and which gets us nowhere.

(ISA. 27: 1) At that time the Lord will punish with his destructive, great, and powerful sword Leviathan the fast-moving serpent, Leviathan the squirming serpent; he will kill the sea monster.

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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