Judges

Then David returned to bless his household. And Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David, and said, How glorious was the king of Israel to day, who uncovered himself to day in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself! (2Samuel 6:20)

Between the one who judges another person and the person who judges the one who judges, who is judgier (my word)?

Or do you not realise that telling someone not to judge is actually judging them?

But I want us to look at something that has been happening in our political landscape recently though I wrote a little about it not so long ago.

People have been pouring scorn on people because they are not afraid of proclaiming what they believe. People have been speaking very harshly against ministers because in their understanding they have been compromised.

I do not know whether you realise that faith is first a personal choice. It therefore results in a personal relationship with a deity.

It goes without say then that the determinant of faith is the deity the faith is directed to. And that deity is the one who proves or disproves that faith.

And it is the same with the deity’s servants.

Am I not therefore going overboard when I make myself the judge of a relationship outside of me? Who am I to determine the validity or otherwise of that relationship?

Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand. (Romans 14:4)

We could very easily attract judgment from that deity when we become pedestrian with his worshippers or servants.

Let me narrow this down.

What does the Bible say about those who believe Christ? What does it say about those who serve Him?

I do not think you realise that you can make God qualify the unqualified when you put His name on the line.

What do I mean?

Then said the LORD unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it. (Jeremiah 1:12)

God defends His word whoever it is that speaks it.

That is why there are conmen running churches. That is why there are people running churches as their personal fiefdoms or businesses.

God will be where His word is proclaimed. And He will make that word bear fruit.

Making yourself a judge of the quality of vessel is in effect judging the treasure it contains, meaning that you are judging the owner of that treasure.

I am writing this as a minister and it pains me immensely when I see a believer or minister who does not walk according to God’s revelation through His word.

I therefore feel in a very small way the pain God feels when that happens.

But the reality is that God validates His word irrespective of the one speaking it.

You also realise that there is a reward for the carrier of that word just like it says you do not muzzle an ox when it is treading corn.

But God will also judge that messenger who does not walk according to the word he is releasing. And it is only God who can do that.

When you laugh at someone praying because you believe he doesn’t qualify to have his prayers answered, when you pour scorn on someone because he shed tears when he was praying, when you shout that you also pray and they were not doing something special when they were praying, you are actually directing your anger and frustrations to the wrong place because they were not praying to you.

When you dismiss all pastors and bishops because one or all of them supported what you oppose, you are actually dismissing the God whose name they minister through.

Let me be didactic for a moment.

Remember the temple?

Was it God’s house? Of course not.

It was simply a house built in His name and for His glory. We can call it a monument to point people to God.

But it was not like any other house for that simple reason.

That is why praying towards it brought results, not because of the house but because of the One it was called after as we see in 2 Chronicles 6 and 7.

Focusing on the house and forgetting its purpose is the reason God destroyed it as He had earlier done with Shiloh, another place where His name had been identified with.

Michal was judged for making herself the judge of David’s worship.

Are you any different?

The long and short of what I am saying is this; when you make yourself the judge of someone else’s practice of faith, you are opening yourself up to the fightback of the deity the person professes.

And God will surely judge you.

Allow God to judge His own without your feeble interference. 

The Joneses

I promised to continue with my discourse on goats.

Sadly, my solar system has been having issues even as the sun had decided to completely hide itself behind the clouds.

Add that to the fact that my children all flocked back from distant schools and the animals required more attention even as I continued learning from God as I took care of them.

But now I have some time to share a few points.

Goats are never content with their lot. And I have done a lot of observation to come up with that.

A goat will not settle in a pasture, however good.

A goat will bite a leaf here and then run to bite another there. Then run back to bite where they left and repeat the same ad infinitum.

Take them to a lush bush and they will be scattering everywhere, biting here before rushing to take another bite somewhere else.

Let me give an analogy to help us understand.

Imagine a buffet?

A goat will not take a plate to serve food on it.

It will pick the smallest tea spoon and go round the whole place sampling from all saucepans (sufurias) again and again.

They will even dash back to the start point or anywhere else midway when they see another goat seemingly enjoying their bite

Let me get us to human nature to help us identify our goatish nature in one thing.

Why do people exchange sex partners?

I believe (and doctors will concur with me) that the physical aspect of sex is the same whoever one has sex with since the sex organs were created the same way basically.

The sensation and pleasure of sex is therefore not the primary reason for sexual promiscuity. Nor is the ‘satisfaction’ one gets from sex.

I saw strange things that were hard to comprehend when I was working.

How does someone coming from his wife rush to look for a prostitute immediately they leave home?

Why does a man sneak back home to have sex with the house girl when his wife is at work, and vice versa, when they probably had sex with their partner the previous night?

That is simply the goat nature manifesting.

A goat does not enjoy eating at the point it is picking food. They swallow and swallow.

They enjoy that food three days later as they are chewing the cud. By then it will have fermented (I read that from biological experts)

They must sample to eat. They in fact eat by sampling. That is why they never get full. Show a goat something new and they will jump from their siesta however full they may appear to be. You will always see them feeding on the borders however lush the centre is.

You tether a goat and the end of the rope will be trampled bare yet it was tethered with the best pasture closest to the centre.

To a goat risk is motivation as they operate by the borderline theology.

Another thing I have noticed is that goats fear being alone. They feed looking around for the others.

The first goat we bought made so much noise we hardly slept. Then we brought others and the noise ceased.

Even when herding them, you will find that they do not scatter very far since they must be within sight of each other. A few bites and they look around to see where the others are. No wonder goats do not normally get lost.

But apart from need for company is another reason for the same.

A goat believes that the other goat has or is in a better pasture. No wonder they will be all over the place looking to snatch from each other.

This of course means that peer pressure is a huge item in a goat’s life. That is why my title is thus.

A goat cries for personal space yet will never settle without other goats.

Look at human nature.

Why do people buy all-terrain vehicles when living and working in well paved city roads?

Why does someone with only one child (or even none) and rarely having visitors buy or build a ten or more-bedroom mansion?

Why would someone who rarely walks have a wardrobe full of shoes that they may never wear?

Why would someone without any children continue building his wealth portfolio by grabbing from the vulnerable?

To most they are symbols of success – goatish nature.

We seek to compete and compare with each other. Or we are fighting to appear better than the other person.

Peer pressure thrives with goats.

We cry personal space yet are unable to handle it if it is not congregated with others.

We love the feel of achievement only when we can share with others and show them how much better we are than them or prove them wrong in their assessment of our achievement.

Why do we love huge churches yet we know that fellowship and ministry is minimal?

Why do we support pastors and churches with budgets in their millions yet we will run to that pastor of a small church when we need actual ministry?

We want to be associated with success and believe numbers and budgets are the yardstick for the same – goatish behaviour.

We love numbers and swim with numbers. We love good locations even when we cannot afford them.

That is why many people living in the slums bordering leafy suburbs like to say they live on those estates. And I saw that even in church when they were filling forms for this or the other.

A goat fears being alone.

That is why the prayer closet is a no for many believers since they then must face God on His terms.

That is why people shout in prayer as if God is deaf.

That is why people must be in a prayer centre or meeting to effectively pray.

There is nothing wrong with prayer meetings or prayer centres. But if that is the only place you can effectively pray, chances are that you are a goat.

If people must know you are praying, or even see you praying, it is also likely that you are a goat.

Or what did Christ say in Matthew 6?

Another thing I need to mention is that there is a whole spectrum of goatishness in goats.

Some goats are in behaviour close to sheep.

They are not overly scared of the shepherd. They do not scatter all over when released to pasture, they eat without jumping all over the pasture. They do not overly concern themselves with other goats once they get to the pasture. Etc.

Incidentally, they become the focal point for the other goats; more like automatic leaders. You see, the other goats equate their ‘rest’ with great pasture and so will hang around.

Confirms why a friend advised me to buy a sheep to make the goats eat better.

What am I driving at?

There are non-believers who behave like believers and can easily be mistaken for being sheep.

But their hearts are still goatish since their nature has not been transformed by the Gospel.

That is why the Gospel presentation is so important.

There are enough instances of even pastors getting saved when the Gospel is clearly explained. Yet they had all the time thought they were sheep because they behaved like sheep, even doing everything sheep did.

The clearer the Gospel is presented, the easier is it to separate sheep looking goats from actual sheep.

But I need to make another application

Why is it that single people prefer having sex with married people? Why do girls prefer older married men for a husband? What is so intriguing or special with having sex with a minister of the Gospel?

Goats respect sheep. They know that the settled nature of sheep is the security they need to eat well.

Left to itself, it is possible for a goat to sleep hungry since it will never settle anywhere.

That is why a youth will waste their youth and later join the church to get a sheep spouse. They will not trust their goat partners when they want to settle down in marriage.

In summary let me say this.

Peer pressure is the preserve of goats. Sheep are content with wherever the shepherd takes them and will settle down with the pasture they are led to without looking over their shoulders to see whether other sheep have a better pasture.

Rest is the preserve of sheep. Contentment defines a sheep under a shepherd.

A goat looks at and seeks to have what their neighbour has.

A sheep prays for daily bread. A goat prays for a better life, especially in comparison with someone else.

Motivation is the fare for goats since they must be pointed to a ‘higher’ purpose. Plain Biblical instruction is the fare for sheep since all they need to know is how to connect with the Shepherd’s voice.

Goats must be shown why it is important for them to give. Sheep give because they have a relationship with the Shepherd.

In the next post, I intend to lead us to the application of these truths to our pastoral mandate.

And why so? I know someone is wondering.

The church is composed of goats and transformed goats.

Do you realise that the same crowd that screamed, ‘crucify Him’ was the same one that was earlier seeking to make Him king by force?

Do you realise that Judas was with Jesus since the start of His public ministry?

Remember Jesus teaching about wheat and tares?

It is therefore important for the minister to be effective whether it is sheep or goats he is entrusted with, especially because goats always want to be close to sheep. And of course because his ministry should serve as a gateway for goats to be transformed into sheep. 

Jesus is not on the Ballot. But the devil is

Jesus is the King of kings and is therefore not looking for positions.

He does not need any expansion to His kingdom since His kingdom encompasses all others since He is the One who created them.

But the devil has been fighting for positions since time immemorial.

That is what caused him to be driven from God’s presence in the first place.

Let me give an example of what I mean.

In the early sixties the USA decided that any faith qualifies in the choice of a leader.

Ten years later a they legalised Molech worship (abortion)

How many innocent children have perished due to that? Multiplied millions.

But not only that. The country has released billions to the whole world to advocate and fund the same.

Regimes have been overthrown that have resisted that agenda

Whoever called America the great Satan was not way off the radar.

Then very recently they made a similar statement that any faith is better than no faith when they elected a Kenyan.

In a few short years, they legalised homosexuality.

But it went beyond that. They started aggressively pushing the same agenda.

Remember him being rebuffed by several African presidents when he tried to push that abomination down our throats.

It is now a crime to call an abomination what God calls it. Gay pride has become more important than speaking truth to sinners since one can be hauled to court for doing so.

Remember many businesses closed and pastors were defrocked because they were deemed as against that agenda. Imagine being fined for refusing to do business and promote agendas that are opposed to what you believe! And you wonder why they insist on being served by people opposed to their abomination. Why not give business to their own people?

You see, freedom of religion and conscience is only valid if it doesn’t paint the devil’s agenda the way God paints it

Satan is on the ballot through the people he has sponsored

And you will be voting for him if you vote for those people. And God will hold you accountable for that vote.

How do I know the devil’s agenda?

Let me look at just one aspect.

The liberal agenda is satanic. So is the feminist.

The first institution the devil targets is the family. And he will do it primarily through hitting at marriage. Forget about church for the moment because the church is comprised of families.

Abortion does not close churches. Abortion promotes sexual liberality and experimentation since the consequences are legally taken care of.

But since sex is also spiritual, the spiritual aspects of the same have no antidote. There are no condoms, contraceptive pills and ARVs for the spiritual aspects of sex.

Those spiritual wounds are carried into the marriage institution but are not visible in the physical. And they are more real and devastating than the visible ones.

How do I know the devil’s candidate?

How do they look at family? What is their family like? How do they look at roles in marriage and family?

As an example, the advisor to a presidential candidate was pouring scorn on another candidate because he had advised his daughter to submit to her husband during her wedding.

If that is not demonic, I want you to show me what is.

A candidate who is proud of divorce and single parenting is a red light because they will later advocate for other abnormal family set ups.

Divorce happens. Single parenthood happens. Just like fractures and malaria happens.

Do we celebrate malaria? Do we celebrate broken bones? Do we celebrate miscarriages?

We should be looking for solutions because we know they are abnormalities, illnesses even.

A single mother needs healing. A divorcee needs healing. Celebrating them is more destructive than ignoring them. It is akin to celebrating someone who has broken a bone by giving him a medal because he is the first in the community or has broken the most bones.

The whole obsession with women leaders being chosen just because they are women is bait from the other side. They are being raised only for the purposes of getting votes. And the rigors of all that campaigning will break a number of families because her role as the ‘fireplace’ of the family will be missing. Expect a few more broken marriages and children after the elections.

All the noise about corruption is a smoke screen to cover up real issues. We have known all of them from all the sides for a long time and none can claim they are clean. So, ignore that noise.

I will repeat.

Jesus is not on the ballot. But the devil is.

Choose prayerfully and wisely.

And even if you realise your own father or brother is being fronted by the other side, reject them since your vote is your voice. And God will hold you accountable for that vote. Otherwise, how do you pray for them to see the light of the Gospel if you are endorsing their continual walking in darkness?

I need to also say that the world is leaning towards the anti-Christ. But we need to be on God’s side even more.

Daniel’s friends did not fight against Nebuchadnezzar. But they did not bow to his idol.

Daniel did not start a protest against his colleagues. But he did not join them when they were prostrating to the king.

Being subject to our leaders does not absolve us from our personal responsibility.

Like I said when I was campaigning against the current constitution, it will pass anyway, but my concerns and vote will indicate my spiritual responsibility.

Sadly, the people who trashed the church during that period are behaving as if they now love the church because they know it is a huge constituency. The media that blocked the church from voicing her concerns is now behaving as if they are the ones speaking for the same church.

Do not believe them.

Check their stand on family, sexuality, marriage. That is where the crunch is

I hope I have communicated