The iconoclastic definition is not creating an image of what we worship, and God encouraged that profusely through Moses that night at the Jordan River opposite Suph (I don’t know where that place was, exactly, but that’s OK). This passage is found in pages 105-106 of the NKJV Bible I have for this four-translation project, pages 135-136 of the NASB Bible (Old Testament), pages 212-214 of my VOICE copy, and pages 216-218 of my Amplified Bible (Classic Edition) copy.
Of course, the Muslims claim they’re iconoclastic, but they have a crescent moon image everywhere they are, and that strange religion came out of a “Christian” heresy, apparently, in 622 A.D. or earlier. I pray repentance and hope for many of them in the Arab nations, the U.S., and Europe 🇪🇺 and the Arab nations used to have a lot of faithful followers of Jesus long, long ago, but the Islamic stuff colonised all these places and most of God’s Church was destroyed. Since then, there hasn’t been any momentum in these places to rid them of the Islamic stronghold the devil had established. It really sucks, since that’s what happened to Iraq when ISIS terrorised Mosul, a city that used to have a lot of faithful Christian disciples but was later bereaved of godliness 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔 and they did that by killing and driving away all the Christians there… that’s just one example of this insanity. And Al-Qaeda kicked THEM out because of their obscene behaviour! (Al-Qaeda had been a deadly terrorist organisation that Osama Bin Laden had probably started.) But I don’t believe in killing them… if we did that to anyone, even if they were causing harm, intentionally or otherwise, we’d be no better than they are, and God may not be forgiving. Indeed, Paul used to kill Christians left and right (Acts 8:3), and he took his campaign to Damascus to obliterate every last one of the Lord’s disciples, but then he met Him, became blind for three days, and became Christian (Acts 9:1-18). I guess Paul didn’t know Jesus was truth 😅🤷🏼♂️ such is the case for most of the Muslims, ISIS-based or otherwise. And ISIS had been disbanded in 2017, too, but sadly, we’re dealing with Islamified Christianity, now 😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮 this mixing of an alien idea with the Holy One is ridiculous, and Jesus will defeat these heretics, for they think violence is the only way to progress God’s kingdom! Shouldn’t they let Him judge His enemies in His own time? But sadly, they don’t believe God is able to keep anyone safe… so they become His enemies, too. Besides, many criminals had been abused as children and have made poor life choices due to their brains being scrambled by their families like how we can scramble some eggs 🥚 for breakfast every morning. I almost never get them, though, for when I was homeless a second time ten or so years ago, they served them every morning for months when I was at a homeless shelter each time I couldn’t find a place to go, and since then, I’ve lost my liking for them, I guess 🤷🏼♂️ I know how to scramble some eggs now, but it took me years to remember how to do that, even after I moved to Gilbert. I’m still not that much of a cook, and I don’t expect my food to taste good for others. But I pray repentance for someone who wants what I have and tries to kill me for it, for God loves that human, too. I’d rather live in a nation where neither violence nor unforgiveness is common, though…
A key verse is Deuteronomy 4:24, where God is spoken of as an all-consuming fire (see 9:3 and Hebrews 12:29), and the truth about Him being jealous for His people is loosely mentioned in Joshua 24:19 and 1 Corinthians 10:22. I sometimes wonder if this is mentioned in any church, though. Again, the fact that He didn’t command idol worship is too often ignored in all the communities here, and indeed, Israel was supposed to be the world’s greatest nation, but Canaan had a very strong influence on Egypt, and idol worship more or less resumed even during the Exodus. Eventually, it overtook the Israelites, and one king even brought idols into the Temple Solomon had built! The monarchy wasn’t what God wanted anyway, but offence created that, too. After all this, and Israel was split in two, both nations were conquered by neighbouring empires, and that caused them all to think very long and hard about the whole thing. Only then were they cured of these idol infestations. But it’s not as though God rejects idol worshipers if they haven’t heard the Gospel yet (and there are a lot of them), so I pray we can preach the good news of Jesus I mentioned in the previous post (and in many others in this site), just as Paul had said in Romans 10:15: “How will anyone preach if they hadn’t been sent there?” (That’s in my own words, I guess.)
The final three verses of this passage (41-43) are about three cities of refuge Moses had established for the tribes living east of the Jordan, inspiring nations like the U.S. to create sanctuary cities for the refugees fleeing violence. I love that they’ve done this in many parts of the world so far, but man, rehabilitating a refugee is very hard work, for their spirits are broken due to their homeland being crushed to pieces by godless men loading it over their people… and the U.S. was once partly interested, at least, in doing the right thing, but now, there’s almost no potential for change even with the most receptive audience here. Still, it’s worth it to be the hands and feet of Jesus to the least of mankind, and He will reward or punish us according to what we’ve done for them, whether we’ve accepted Him or rejected Him, respectively. I played a sermon from Hillsong U.K. last night concerning the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (spoiler alert: Lazarus was a common name in Jesus’ time). But before I go, I want to clear a misconception: I don’t believe death should be the way out of a tight situation or any fix for things, and I believe life on this earth is a blessing if we can make it count for God’s kingdom, in case someone twists my words in the last post I wrote and wants to drag me to another mental hospital 😬😬😬😬😬😬😬 yet this world cannot satisfy us, and Jesus is coming back in the future to reign on it and eventually replace it. Literally. I don’t understand why someone would make accusatory humour, though; it shouldn’t be encouraged. Indeed, it isn’t right… but I’ll see you in the next section of Deuteronomy (4:44-30:20)! Pray I don’t develop a closed heart to Jesus, though 😅😅
In Christ,
Ron Outland
Ron And His Stories 