Wherefore He says, Awake you that sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light [understanding].

Wherefore He says, Awake you that sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light [understanding].

The above is Ephesians 5:14 and is Paul describing sleep and death as a result of darkness, which we know is ignorance. We are called from it because the works of darkness are those that abuse and victimize others in the name of satisfying some lust. This ignorance, induced or chosen, is the ways of destruction and creates an endless cycle of injustice inflicted by the hand of those momentarily in power or maneuvering to gain it.

Ephesians 5
7 Be not you therefore partakers with them.
8 For you were sometimes darkness, but now are you light [now you understand] in the LORD: walk as children of light:
9 (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)
10 Proving what is acceptable unto the LORD.
11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
12 For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.
13 But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever does make manifest is light.
14 Wherefore he says, Awake you that sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.
15 See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,
16 Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
17 Wherefore be you not unwise, but understanding what the will of the LORD is.
18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;
19 Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the LORD;
20 Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our LORD Jesus Christ;
21 Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.

This last verse is speaking of not victimizing one another when you are the one in the position giving you the opportunity. Paul goes on to speak marriage as the example, the husband as the head of the house, not abusing his strength and power, but rather using it to protect and strengthen the house (family) he cherishes. This is the natural order that produces a firm foundation upon which houses stand, or without it fall. Paul goes on to speak of this order as Christ at the head of the church, not to dominate or control His house, but to provide the strength and leadership needed to be healthy and happy (at peace and secure).

Ephesians 5
28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loves his wife loves himself.
29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the LORD the church:
30 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
31 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. [This is speaking in a pattern of now, when we are called out to join the true church, which is joined with Christ.]
32 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
33 Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself [man is to love the church, as Christ has loved us]; and the wife see that she reverences her husband [and the church is to revere Christ].

Paul goes on in the following chapter to further speak about this order, telling those in leadership positions, parents, and employers, not abuse their power, per what he has said above about cherishing and nourishing those in our household. Likewise, he speaks to those in position under these heads, telling them they should accept their subordinate positions, to show respect and give honor, until their time comes and they are elevated in order, by their understanding. (1 Corinthians 13:11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.)

Paul then describes our mission, our war against those who abuse their power, destroying the peace of men and societies, and how to defend against them, and ultimately defeat them.

Ephesians 6
1 Children, obey your parents in the LORD: for this is right.
2 Honor your father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise;
3 That it may be well with you, and you may live long on the earth.
4 And, you fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the LORD.
5 Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ;
6 Not with eye-service, as men-pleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart;
7 With good will doing service, as to the LORD, and not to men:
8 Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man does, the same shall he receive of the LORD, whether he be bond or free.
9 And, you masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him.
10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the LORD, and in the power of his might.
11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil [wiles which are to sow darkness, and discord by disorder – those unjustly governing from their seats of power, and those agitating into rebellion to gain these seats of injustice for themselves, with no intention of reducing the burden].
12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness [ignorance] of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;
15 And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:
18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;
19 And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel,
20 For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.

These last verses speak of my specific mission, sent as the head, to bring clarity, the LORD raising the lowly and foolish to confound this world’s wise and powerful. This what has been prophesied from the foundation of the earth, a plan to save the world from its destroyers, with light making war against the darkness. Church, it’s time to awaken.


1 Corinthians 15
20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept.
21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
23 But every man in his own order: Christ the first-fruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.
24 Then comes the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.
25 For he must reign, till he has put all enemies under his feet.
26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
27 For he has put all things under his feet. But when he says all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him.
28 And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.

Isaiah 29
1 Woe to Ariel [the place where strength was once found in order, in the unified house under David], to Ariel, the city where David dwelt! add you year to year; let them kill sacrifices.
2 Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be heaviness and sorrow: and it shall be unto me as Ariel [it shall again become the LORD’s strength].
3 And I will camp against you round about, and will lay siege against you with a mount, and I will raise forts against you.
4 And you shall be brought down, and shall speak out of the ground, and your speech shall be low out of the dust [your words, ideas and ways, shall be seen as what has reduced the earth again to ruin], and your voice shall be, as of one that has a familiar spirit [the familiar spirit of rebellion against God and societal death], out of the ground [the earth], and your speech shall whisper out of the dust [the voices of bad advice that have replaced God’s wisdom – see Isaiah 8:19].
5 Moreover the multitude of your strangers [with their foreign ideas that have destroyed their nations] shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the terrible ones shall be as chaff that passes away: yea, it shall be at an instant suddenly [petha’ pith’owm].
6 You shall be visited of the LORD of hosts with thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire.
7 And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all that fight against her and her munition, and that distress her, shall be as a dream of a night vision.
8 It shall even be as when a hungry man dreams, and, behold, he eats; but he awakes, and his soul is empty: or as when a thirsty man dreams, and, behold, he drinks; but he awakes, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul has appetite: so shall the multitude of all the nations be [deceived by the untrue thoughts of their own minds], that fight against mount Zion [the LORD’s reign – the first position in God’s intended order].
9 Stay yourselves, and wonder; cry you out, and cry: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.
10 For the LORD has poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers has he covered. [and, even though He is telling and showing it to them, they remain ignorant of it, because they continue with their own works, the untrue thoughts of their own minds]
11 And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray you: and he says, I cannot; for it is sealed:
12 And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray you: and he says, I am not learned.
13 Wherefore the LORD said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart [their reasoning minds] far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:
14 Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid. [As it is this day!]
15 Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the LORD, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who sees us? and who knows us?
16 Surely your turning of things upside down [the order you have reversed, placing the ignorant in the seats of the wise, and calling God’s wisdom foolish] shall be esteemed as the potter’s clay: for shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not? or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding?
17 Is it not yet a very little while, and Lebanon [purity on high] shall be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest [the place of the upright]?
18 And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness [ignorance].
19 The meek also shall increase their joy in the LORD, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
20 For the terrible one is brought to naught, and the scorner is consumed, and all that watch for iniquity are cut off:
21 That make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for him that reproves in the gate, and turn aside the just for a thing of naught.
22 Therefore thus says the LORD, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob, Jacob shall not now be ashamed, neither shall his face now wax pale.
23 But when he sees his children, the work of mine hands, in the midst of him, they shall sanctify my name, and sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall fear the God of Israel.
24 They also that erred in spirit shall come to understanding, and they that murmured shall learn doctrine.

1 Corinthians 1
19 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
20 Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
22 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:
23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
24 But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
26 For you see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:
27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, has God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are:
29 That no flesh should glory in his presence.
30 But of him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:
31 That, according as it is written, He that glories, let him glory in the LORD.

1 Corinthians 2
1 And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.
2 For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
3 And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.
4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
6 Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to naught:
7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:
8 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the LORD of glory.
9 But as it is written, Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him.
10 But God has revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God.
11 For what man knows the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knows no man, but the Spirit of God.
12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
14 But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
15 But he that is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
16 For who has known the mind of the LORD, that he may instruct him? but we have the mind of Christ.

Friends, Paul above in the last verse is quoting Isaiah 40:14, which is a chapter that tells of how the LORD’s presence is revealed, in human flesh among us. The chapter begins with telling of the warfare ended, as God bestows this second blessing upon His people, in response to the sin that had produces the first death. The second blessing is this life into which He has now resurrected us. The path that is made straight is into new life; our flesh now understood as the only thing that passes away. The chapter ends telling us of this new life when the LORD renews our strength and we rise up on wings of eagles.


1 Thessalonians 4
13 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
15 For this we say unto you by the word of the LORD, that we which are alive and remain [the elect remnant] unto the coming of the LORD shall not prevent [appear before] them which are asleep.
16 For the LORD himself shall descend from heaven with a shout [these commands – the call to join into one body with, under, Christ, in this order], with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump [calling to assemble – as in Exodus 19:13, calling us up the mountain into the cloud to hear His voice – as Peter speaks of in 2 Peter 1:17 & 18] of God: and [hearing the voice] the dead in Christ shall rise first:
17 Then [first into the fight, the last out – after we have awakened the sleepers] we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together [into one body] with them in the clouds, to meet the LORD in the air: and so shall we ever be with the LORD.
18 Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

Isaiah 40
1 Comfort you, comfort you my people, says your God.
2 Speak you comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she has received of the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.
3 The voice of him that cries in the wilderness, Prepare you the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:
5 And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD has spoken it.
6 The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:
7 The grass withers, the flower fades: because the spirit of the LORD blows upon it: surely the people is grass.
8 The grass withers, the flower fades: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.
9 O Zion, that bring good tidings, get you up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that brings good tidings, lift up your voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!
10 Behold, the LORD God will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him.
11 He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.
12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?
13 Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his counselor has taught him?
14 With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding?
15 Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing.
16 And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering.
17 All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.
18 To whom then will you liken God? or what likeness will you compare unto him?
19 The workman melts a graven image, and the goldsmith spreads it over with gold, and casts silver chains.
20 He that is so impoverished that he has no oblation chooses a tree that will not rot; he seeks unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image, that shall not be moved. [These men make idols and call them God, when they are nothing like Him.]
21 Have you not known? have you not heard? has it not been told you from the beginning? have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22 It is he that sits upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in:
23 That brings the princes to nothing; he makes the judges of the earth as vanity.
24 Yea, they shall not be planted; yea, they shall not be sown: yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth: and he shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble.
25 To whom then will you liken me, or shall I be equal? says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who has created these things, that brings out their host by number: he calls them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one fails.
27 Why say you, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God?
28 Have you not known? have you not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.
29 He gives power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increases strength.
30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:
31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

Psalm 49
1 Hear this, all you people; give ear, all you inhabitants of the world:
2 Both low and high, rich and poor, together.
3 My mouth shall speak of wisdom; and the meditation of my heart shall be of understanding.
4 I will incline mine ear to a parable: I will open my dark saying upon the harp.
5 Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil, when the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about?
6 They that trust in their wealth, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches;
7 None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him:
8 (For the redemption of their soul is precious, and it ceases for ever:)
9 That he should still live for ever, and not see corruption.
10 For he sees that wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person perish, and leave their wealth to others.
11 Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever, and their dwelling places to all generations; they call their lands after their own names.
12 Nevertheless man being in honor abides not: he is like the beasts that perish.
13 This their way is their folly: yet their posterity approves their sayings. Selah.
14 Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling.
15 But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave: for he shall receive me. Selah.
16 Be not you afraid when one is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased;
17 For when he dies he shall carry nothing away: his glory shall not descend after him.
18 Though while he lived he blessed his soul: and men will praise you, when you do well to yourself.
19 He shall go to the generation of his fathers; they shall never see light.
20 Man that is in honor, and understands not, is like the beasts that perish.

Psalms 20
1 The LORD hear you in the day of trouble; the name of the God of Jacob defend you;
2 Send you help from the sanctuary, and strengthen you out of Zion;
3 Remember all your offerings, and accept your burnt sacrifice; Selah.
4 Grant you according to your own heart, and fulfill all your counsel.
5 We will rejoice in your salvation, and in the name of our God we will set up our banners: the LORD fulfill all your petitions.
6 Now know I that the LORD saves his anointed; he will hear him from his holy heaven with the saving strength of his right hand.
7 Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God.
8 They are brought down and fallen: but we are risen, and stand upright.
9 Save, LORD: let the king hear us when we call.

Jesus Christ is Jehovah, God the Father, in the flesh of the son, manifesting His plan to save the world.

Jesus Christ is Jehovah, God the Father, in the flesh of the son, manifesting His plan to save the world.

The above is what the LORD tells us in many places and ways, none plainer than in John 14. He begins the chapter by telling of this time where He will, and now has, prepared us to receive Him and our own true selves. We are the many mansions He speaks of, the flesh house wherein He and we have, and now do again, live.

Forgive me, again, as I for a moment digress: last night I saw just a few minutes of one of the mega churches thieving pastor’s sermons. He was telling those who ignorantly follow him, ignorant by following his teaching half-truths mixed with the idol his ilk have created, to remind God of His promises. The insinuation is that God, by law, must give you what He has promised. The half-truth, in this case, ignores that our relationship with God is reciprocal, a covenant, meaning the two sides agreed to honor certain covenants, and if one doesn’t they are in breach. Such breach triggers other covenanted actions, usually first, the grace period of remedy: time for the party in breach to come back into covenant. If the breach isn’t corrected, there is typically some means, set forth in the agreement, to permanently end the relationship and separate the parties.

In the case of God’s covenant, almost all His people are in breach. I am the remedy, more accurately, Jehovah in me is, sent (come) to correct and bring those who will back into covenant. The half-truth these types of imposter preachers tell leaves out what God’s people have promised, which, of course, these same preachers never preach. (Daniel 11:32 And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.)

There are two ways into glory, the first is to fulfill the law, keeping every rule of the covenant, 100% without any breach. The other way is to listen and follow the LORD’s voice as He directs our way, keeping us on course, which is also a little taught clause in the same covenant: the Spirit clause.

This last aspect, the easy way, is what John and Peter speak of in 1 John 4:6 and 2 Peter 1:18 & 19, hearing His voice and knowing Him. In John 14 the LORD speaks of when He will not be seen, which comes as a result of not loving and keeping His words: His commandments (directions). He tells us it is because, after He leaves, the prince of the world will come, which we know refers us to what Paul speaks of when he (in Ephesians 2:2) uses this description of the gods of this world (the false teachers, wolves and their idols). In 1 Corinthians 4, he tells us these are those still using the word of God deceitfully, blinding minds, and by it, all people have been led astray into blindness. Paul says we have been awakened from the blindness of this sleep, quickened into life by receiving the glorious gospel, preached by Jesus Christ manifested in him, reconciling those who received his words as the LORD’s presence, as it is. This is the same word I now preach, the same LORD (One God) in me manifesting His presence to save those who believe. This is what the LORD describes in John 14, Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 3 & 4, the entrance Peter speaks of in 2 Peter 1, and hearing we hear as John describes in 1 John 4.

John 14
1 Let not your heart be troubled: you believe in God, believe also in me.
2 In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there you may be also.
4 And whither I go you know, and the way you know.
5 Thomas said unto him, LORD, we know not whither you go; and how can we know the way?
6 Jesus said unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes unto the Father, but by me.
7 If you had known me, you should have known my Father also: and from henceforth you know him, and have seen him.
8 Philip said unto him, LORD, show us the Father, and it suffices us [If seeing the Father is what perfects us – which it does].
9 Jesus said unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet have you not known me, Philip? he that has seen me has seen the Father; and how says you then, Show us the Father?
10 Believe you not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwells in me, he doeth the works.
11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.
12 Truly, truly, I say unto you, He that believes on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.
13 And whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
14 If you shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.
15 If you love me, keep my commandments.
16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it sees him not, neither knows him: but you know him; for he dwells with you, and shall be in you.
18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
19 Yet a little while, and the world sees me no more; but you see me: because I live, you shall live also.
20 At that day you shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
21 He that has my commandments, and keeps [protects and preserves them in their original form] them, he it is that loves me: and he that loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
22 Judas said unto him, not Iscariot, LORD, how is it that you will manifest yourself unto us, and not unto the world?
23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
24 He that loves me not keeps [protects and preserves them in their original form] not my sayings: and the word which you hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.
25 These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you.
26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
28 You have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If you loved me, you would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.
29 And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, you might believe.
30 Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world comes, and has nothing in me.
31 But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence.

2 Corinthians 3
1 Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you?
2 You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men:
3 Forasmuch as you are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.
4 And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward:
5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;
6 Who also has made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter kills, but the spirit giveth life.
7 But if the ministration of death, written and engraved in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:
8 How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?
9 For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more does the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.
10 For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excels.
11 For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remains is glorious.
12 Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:
13 And not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:
14 But their minds were blinded: for until this day remains the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ.
15 But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.
16 Nevertheless when it shall turn to the LORD, the vail shall be taken away.
17 Now the LORD is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the LORD is, there is liberty.
18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the LORD, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the LORD.

2 Corinthians 4
1 Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not;
2 But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.
3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
4 In whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
5 For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the LORD; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.
6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
8 We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;
9 Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;
10 Always bearing about in the body the dying of the LORD Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
11 For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.
12 So then death works in us, but life in you.
13 We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak;
14 Knowing that he which raised up the LORD Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.
15 For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God.
16 For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.
17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;
18 While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

2 Peter 1
1 Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ:
2 Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our LORD,
3 According as his divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that has called us to glory and virtue:
4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our LORD Jesus Christ.
9 But he that lacks these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
10 Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if you do these things, you shall never fall:
11 For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ.
12 Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though you know them, and be established in the present truth.
13 Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance;
14 Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our LORD Jesus Christ has showed me.
15 Moreover I will endeavor that you may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.
16 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our LORD Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
17 For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
18 And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.
19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto you do well that you take heed, as unto a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:
20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

2 Peter 2
1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily [from their own imaginations] shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the LORD that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.
3 And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingers not, and their damnation slumbers not.
4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
5 And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;
6 And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;
7 And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:
8 (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)
9 The LORD knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:
10 But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.
11 Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the LORD.
12 But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;
13 And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you;
14 Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:
15 Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;
16 But was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with man’s voice forbad the madness of the prophet.
17 These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.
18 For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.
19 While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.
20 For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the LORD and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
21 For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.
22 But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.

2 Peter 3
1 This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance:
2 That you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the LORD and Savior:
3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the LORD as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
9 The LORD is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
10 But the day of the LORD will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness.
14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing that you look for such things, be diligent that you may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.
15 And account that the longsuffering of our LORD is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him has written unto you;
16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
17 You therefore, beloved, seeing you know these things before, beware lest you also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness.
18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.

1 John 4
1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
2 Hereby know you the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
3 And every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof you have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.
4 You are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.
5 They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world hears them.
6 We are of God: he that knows God hears us; he that is not of God hears not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.
7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loves is born of God, and knows God.
8 He that loves not knows not God; for God is love.
9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
12 No man has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwells in us, and his love is perfected in us.
13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.
14 And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
15 Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwells in him, and he in God.
16 And we have known and believed the love that God has to us. God is love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him.
17 Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.
18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear: because fear has torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love.
19 We love him, because he first loved us.
20 If a man say, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar: for he that loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?
21 And this commandment have we from him, That he who loves God love his brother also.

1 John 5
1 Whosoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loves him that begat loves him also that is begotten of him.
2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.
3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.
4 For whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world: and this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.
5 Who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
6 This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that bears witness, because the Spirit is truth.
7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.
9 If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he has testified of his Son.
10 He that believes on the Son of God has the witness in himself: he that believes not God has made him a liar; because he believes not the record that God gave of his Son.
11 And this is the record, that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
12 He that has the Son has life; and he that has not the Son of God has not life.
13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God.
14 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he hears us:
15 And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.
16 If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.
17 All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death.
18 We know that whosoever is born of God sins not; but he that is begotten of God keeps himself, and that wicked one touches him not.
19 And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in wickedness.
20 And we know that the Son of God is come, and has given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.
21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.

Psalms 114
1 When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange language;
2 Judah was his sanctuary, and Israel his dominion.
3 The sea saw it, and fled: Jordan was driven back.
4 The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs.
5 What ailed you, O sea, that you fled? thou Jordan, that you were driven back?
6 You mountains, that you skipped like rams; and you little hills, like lambs [high place of the earth]?
7 Tremble, earth, at the presence of the LORD, at the presence of the God of Jacob;
8 Which turned the rock into a standing water, the flint into a fountain of waters. [His presence manifested as His words, His commandments once engraved in stone, now become the living word freely flowing life into those who receive Him.]

Psalms 120
1 In my distress I cried unto the LORD, and he heard me.
2 Deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips, and from a deceitful tongue.
3 What shall be given unto you? or what shall be done unto you, you false tongue?
4 Sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper.
5 Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech [among those who are as poison the LORD has drawn out], that I dwell in the tents of Kedar [darkened by their ignorance]!
6 My soul has long dwelt with him that hates peace.
7 I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war.

I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light [understanding].

I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light [understanding].

As we have often discussed, the title, Jeremiah 4:23, is one of the three places the Hebrews words tohuw and bohuw appear together. Here and in Genesis 1:2 they are rendered “without form, and void;” while in Isaiah 34:11 they are “confusion” and “emptiness.” The word bohuw only appears these three times, each describing the total desolation of the material world, which is a result of the confusion that preceded it: the inability to understand and rationally respond to reality.

The word tohuw appears twenty times; after Genesis 1:2 next used in Deuteronomy 32:10 where it is translated “waste.” There it is speaking of where God found His people, and in context, we see He is speaking of Adam, not Jacob.

Deuteronomy 32
1 Give ear, O you heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
2 My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass:
3 Because I will publish the name of the LORD: ascribe you greatness unto our God.
4 He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.
5 They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation.
6 Do you thus requite the LORD, O foolish people and unwise? is not he your father that has bought you? has he not made you, and established you?
7 Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask your father, and he will show you; your elders, and they will tell you.
8 When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.
9 For the LORD’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
10 He found him in a desert land, and in the waste [tohuw – in his confusion] howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.
11 As an eagle stirs up her nest, flutters over her young, spreads abroad her wings, taketh them, bears them on her wings:
12 So the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.
13 He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock;
14 Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and you did drink the pure blood of the grape.
15 But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: you are waxen fat, you are grown thick, you are covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.
16 They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger.
17 They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.
18 Of the Rock that begat you you are unmindful, and have forgotten God that formed you.
19 And when the LORD saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters.
20 And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation [a generation that has twisted and perverted truth], children in whom is no faith.
21 They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.
22 For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.
23 I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them.
24 They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.
25 The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs.
26 I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men:
27 Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the LORD has not done all this.
28 For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them.
29 O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!
30 How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had shut them up?
31 For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.
32 For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter:
33 Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.
34 Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures?
35 To me belongs vengeance and recompense; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.
36 For the LORD shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he sees that their power is gone, and there is none shut up, or left.
37 And he shall say, Where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted,
38 Which did eat the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offerings? let them rise up and help you, and be your protection.
39 See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.
40 For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live for ever.
41 If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me.
42 I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy.
43 Rejoice, O you nations, with his people: for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people.
44 And Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he, and Hoshea [Joshua] the son of Nun.
45 And Moses made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel:
46 And he said unto them, Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day, which you shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law.
47 For it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life: and through this thing you shall prolong your days in the land, whither you go over Jordan to possess it.

Friends, every pulpit, every preacher in our time, are teaching and speaking their own words, partial truth mixed with the corruption they’ve been taught. There is never any rebuke or correction among their groups, and they make sure it is so by blocking out and forbidding any who dare point out their ignorance: the shadow of death they’ve cast over all the world. (2 Corinthians 10:12 For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.)

The LORD, my Father Jehovah, started today’s conversation in Job 4, where just such (inbred) confusion is the focus: correcting partial understanding that is so puffed up with pride that it’s unwilling and unable to judge itself. As we know from previous discussions, Job’s suffering is what exposes the partial understanding of his three friends. The final correction begins through Elihu, his name’s meaning telling us Jehovah God is speaking through him, speaking His truth about what has just occurred. Job then finally understands the whirlwind he had just been through is God talking to him, and to his friends, to correct them back on course, away from the ideas misleading them.

As the Book of Job begins, we are told the sons of God came into the presence of the LORD, and Satan was among them. As we saw in the prior post, Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 11:13 thru 15 that Satan and his angels transform themselves into messengers of understanding (angels of light). He warns us these are the false apostles, deceitful workers, among us, whose end is according to their works, meaning, their works destroy, and they will work until they destroy themselves.

We saw, later in 2 Corinthians 12, Paul there describe these messengers of Satan as thorns in his flesh. We saw this last aspect referencing us to Numbers 33:55, which tells of the foreign ideas, when allowed to remain among us, become as thorns in our sides. Paul is referring to this as what is allowed by God: opposition to the revelation given him, so God’s grace and strength would also be manifested in his weakness [the revelation seen as God’s power, not ours]. This is the same concept in Job, drawing out the poison, the darkness into the light, so it can be removed from among the body of Christ.

In Job 1 everything around Job, all produced from his faithfulness to God, was destroyed. In Job 2 Job’s body is destroyed, but not his life. In Job 3 we are told of Job cursing his day, which is actually a description of what occurred, the total desolation of the earth after the understanding of God’s people is removed by listened to Satan among them. What we see is darkness and confusion, following a time of silence (Job2:13), which we saw described in the prior post, in the similitude of Luke’s writing in Acts 20. There we saw it as Paul teaching, and a young man falling, from silence into death, who Paul them laid his hands on and raised from the sleep – after saying his life is still with him – as was Job’s. Luke continues by recording Paul’s following warning of how this would come, after his departure, when the wolves would come in, as false apostles among them.

Job 3
1 After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.
2 And Job spoke, and said,
3 Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.
4 Let that day be darkness [ignorance]; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light [understanding] shine upon it.
5 Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.
6 As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months.
7 Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.
8 Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning.
9 Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day:
10 Because it shut not up the doors of my mother’s womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.
11 Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?
12 Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck?
13 For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest,
14 With kings and counselors of the earth, which build desolate places for themselves;
15 Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver:
16 Or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light.
17 There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest.
18 There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.
19 The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master.
20 Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul;
21 Which long for death, but it comes not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures;
22 Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?
23 Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God has hedged in [answered in Job 38:9]?
24 For my sighing comes before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.
25 For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.
26 I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.

In the following chapter (Job 4) we see the plan unfold as Eliphaz speaks (His name meaning gold is his god – as opposed to Elihu, whose God is Jehovah), initially telling of his (Eliphaz’s) own partial understanding of what God has revealed. It is when a deep sleep has fallen upon man, when the LORD reveals His plan by His vision, and man cannot discern what he is seeing. This is as we have often read, from Isaiah 28, when the LORD, as here and now, is teaching, morning by morning, precept by precept, line upon line, and men don’t hear Him. We know, because we have seen and heard the LORD, it is because the narrow (the vexing) covering of the bed man is sleeping in, and the only trouble (vexation) is to understand the report (by removing the cover, by this revelation, this apocalypse – taking away the cover – of darkness).

Job 4
12 Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine ear received a little thereof.
13 In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men,
14 Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake.
15 Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up:
16 It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice, saying,
17 Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?
18 Behold, he put no trust in his servants; and his angels he charged with folly:
19 How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth?
20 They are destroyed from morning to evening: they perish for ever without any regarding it.
21 Doth not their excellency which is in them go away? they die, even without wisdom.

These men’s mistake, Ehiphaz and those in Isaiah, is as we are told, in Isaiah 28:15, they are saying. Their own words tell us they are in agreement with hell and death (joined with Satan among them); saying when the scourge passed through (the correction by God) it will not come to them, because they’re protected by their lies, and hidden in their own false teaching. This is telling of the only words these men preach, that the correction is meant for everyone except God’s people. This is their ignorance, making gold their god, meaning they refuse because no one will pay them for correction, only for a hiding place, in the silence and darkness of their false teaching.

1 Thessalonians 5
1 But of the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I write unto you.
2 For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the LORD so comes as a thief in the night [when these men’s darkness has blinded all to His presence].
3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety [when they say everything is fine here in the darkness]; then sudden destruction comes upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
4 But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
5 You are all the children of light [of understanding], and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
6 Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
7 For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.

Job 33 [the LORD speaking through Elihu]
14 For God speaks once, yea twice, yet man perceives it not.
15 In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men, in slumbering upon the bed;
16 Then he opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction,
17 That he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man.
18 He keeps back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword.
19 He is chastened also with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain:
20 So that his life abhors bread, and his soul dainty meat.
21 His flesh is consumed away, that it cannot be seen; and his bones that were not seen stick out.
22 Yea, his soul draws near unto the grave, and his life to the destroyers.
23 If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to show unto man his uprightness:
24 Then he is gracious unto him, and says, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom.
25 His flesh shall be fresher than a child’s: he shall return to the days of his youth:
26 He shall pray unto God, and he will be favorable unto him: and he shall see his face with joy: for he will render unto man his righteousness.
27 He looks upon men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not;
28 He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light.
29 Lo, all these things works God oftentimes with man,
30 To bring back his soul from the pit, to be enlightened with the light of the living.
31 Mark well, O Job, hearken unto me: hold your peace, and I will speak.
32 If you have anything to say, answer me: speak, for I desire to justify you.
33 If not, hearken unto me: hold your peace, and I shall teach you wisdom.

In Job’s first response to Eliphaz, in Job 6, he speaks of what he does know, and in his discourse is hidden (frozen) the deeper understanding.

Job 6
13 Is not my help in me? and is wisdom driven quite from me?
14 To him that is afflicted pity should be shewed from his friend; but he forsakes the fear of the Almighty. [They that observes lying vanities forsakes their own mercy. Jonah 2:8]
15 My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook [flowing error to God’s people], and as the stream of brooks they pass away;
16 Which are blackish [ignorant] by reason of the ice [which freezes the understanding the word of God], and wherein the snow is hid [when his word is sent from heaven, still frozen by this ignorance]:
17 What time they wax warm, they vanish [these men’s ideas are washed away when the word is understood – as ice melts with the warmth]: when it is hot, they are consumed out of their place.
18 The [these men’s] paths of their way are turned aside; they go to nothing [tohuw], and perish.
19 The troops of Tema looked [the ways and ideas of the wise of this world – referring us to Isaiah 21:14, and what the watchmen saw], the companies of Sheba [the church become Babylon] waited for them.
20 They were confounded because they had hoped; they came thither, and were ashamed [because their darkness is ending and their words are seen as their own creations].
21 For now you are nothing; you see my casting down, and are afraid.
22 Did I say, Bring unto me? or, Give a reward for me of your substance?
23 Or, Deliver me from the enemy’s hand? or, Redeem me from the hand of the mighty?
24 Teach me, and I will hold my tongue: and cause me to understand wherein I have erred.
25 How forcible are right words! but what does your arguing reprove?
26 Do you imagine to reprove words, and the speeches of one that is desperate, which are as wind?
27 Yea, you overwhelm the fatherless, and you dig a pit for your friend.
28 Now therefore be content, look upon me; for it is evident unto you if I lie.
29 Return, I pray you, let it not be iniquity; yea, return again, my righteousness is in it.
30 Is there iniquity in my tongue? cannot my taste discern perverse things?

Do these men hear the LORD’s reproof? Will they be corrected? or choose to perish with their works?

Isaiah 21
1 The burden of the desert of the sea [the dry places, all people, where God’s word isn’t heard]. As whirlwinds [the same whirlwind In Job 38 below] in the south pass through; so it comes from the desert [the lack of God’s word producing the whirlwind], from a terrible land.
2 A grievous vision is declared unto me; the treacherous dealer deals treacherously, and the spoiler spoils. Go up, O Elam [rise up what is hidden in God word]: besiege, O Media [besiege these men mingle among them]; all the sighing thereof have I made to cease.
3 Therefore are my loins filled with pain: pangs have taken hold upon me, as the pangs of a woman that travails: I was bowed down at the hearing of it; I was dismayed at the seeing of it.
4 My heart panted, fearfulness affrighted me: the night of my pleasure has he turned into fear unto me.
5 Prepare the table [that has now become a trap], watch in the watchtower, eat, drink: arise, you princes, and anoint the shield.
6 For thus has the LORD said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he sees.
7 And he saw a chariot with a couple of horsemen, a chariot of asses, and a chariot of camels; and he hearkened diligently with much heed:
8 And he cried, A lion: My LORD, I stand continually upon the watchtower in the daytime, and I am set in my ward whole nights:
9 And, behold, here comes a chariot of men, with a couple of horsemen. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he has broken unto the ground.
10 O my threshing, and the corn of my floor: that which I have heard of the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, have I declared unto you.
11 The burden of Dumah [where God’s word has been silenced]. He calls to me out of Seir [out of the place of devils], Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?
12 The watchman said [as I now tell you], The morning comes [understanding that bring the new day], and also the night: if you will enquire, enquire you: return, come [and I will freely give you understanding].
13 The burden upon Arabia [in agreement with, and trapped by, the error you have mingled with the truth]. In the forest in Arabia shall you lodge, O you travelling companies of Dedanim [you that have been brought low by this mingling].
14 The inhabitants of the land of Tema [the wise of this world] brought water to him that was thirsty, they prevented with their bread him that fled [stopped God’s people from coming out from among their ideas and ways].
15 For they fled from the swords, from the drawn sword, and from the bent bow, and from the grievousness of war.
16 For thus has the LORD said unto me, Within a year, according to the years of an hireling, and all the glory of Kedar [of the darkness] shall fail:
17 And the residue of the number of archers, the mighty men of the children of Kedar [darkness], shall be diminished: for the LORD God of Israel has spoken it.

Job 38
1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,
2 Who is this that darkens [gives ignorant] counsel by words without knowledge?
3 Gird up now your loins like a man; for I will demand of you, and answer you me.
4 Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if you have understanding.
5 Who has laid the measures thereof, if you know? or who has stretched the line upon it?
6 Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;
7 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
8 Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb?
9 When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling-band for it,
10 And brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors,
11 And said, Hitherto shall you come, but no further: and here shall your proud waves be stayed?
12 Have you commanded the morning since your days; and caused the dayspring to know his place;
13 That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it?
14 It is turned as clay to the seal; and they stand as a garment.
15 And from the wicked their light is withheld, and the high arm shall be broken.
16 Have you entered into the springs of the sea? or have you walked in the search of the depth?
17 Have the gates of death been opened unto you? or have you seen the doors of the shadow of death?
18 Have you perceived the breadth of the earth? declare if you know it all.
19 Where is the way where light dwells? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof,
20 That you should take it to the bound thereof, and that you should know the paths to the house thereof?
21 Know you it, because you were then born? or because the number of your days is great?
22 Have you entered into the treasures of the snow? or have you seen the treasures of the hail,
23 Which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war?
24 By what way is the light parted, which scatters the east wind upon the earth?
25 Who has divided a watercourse for the overflowing of waters, or a way for the lightning of thunder;
26 To cause it to rain on the earth, where no man is; on the wilderness, wherein there is no man;
27 To satisfy the desolate and waste ground; and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth?
28 Has the rain a father? or who has begotten the drops of dew?
29 Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who has gendered it?
30 The waters are hid as with a stone, and the face of the deep is frozen.
31 Can you bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?
32 Can you bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or can you guide Arcturus with his sons?
33 Know you the ordinances of heaven? can you set the dominion thereof in the earth?
34 Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover you?
35 Can you send lightnings [understanding], that they may go and say unto you, Here we are?
36 Who has put wisdom in the inward parts? or who has given understanding to the heart?
37 Who can number the clouds in wisdom? or who can stay the bottles of heaven,
38 When the dust grows into hardness, and the clods cleave fast together?
39 Will you hunt the prey for the lion? or fill the appetite of the young lions,
40 When they couch in their dens, and abide in the covert to lie in wait?
41 Who provides for the raven [those covered in darkness] his food? when his young ones cry unto God, they wander for lack of meat [they wander without this deeper understanding – which has been hidden in ignorance caused by the men’s ways and ideas].

Psalms 40
1 I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.
2 He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.
3 And he has put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD.
4 Blessed is that man that makes the LORD his trust, and respects not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.
5 Many, O LORD my God, are your wonderful works which you have done, and your thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto you: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.
6 Sacrifice and offering you did not desire; mine ears have you opened: burnt offering and sin offering have you not required.
7 Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me,
8 I delight to do your will, O my God: yea, your law is within my heart.
9 I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips, O LORD, you know.
10 I have not hid your righteousness within my heart; I have declared your faithfulness and your salvation: I have not concealed your lovingkindness and your truth from the great congregation.
11 Withhold not you your tender mercies from me, O LORD: let your lovingkindness and your truth continually preserve me.
12 For innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head: therefore my heart fails me.
13 Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me: O LORD, make haste to help me.
14 Let them be ashamed and confounded together that seek after my soul to destroy it; let them be driven backward and put to shame that wish me evil.
15 Let them be desolate for a reward of their shame that say unto me, Aha, aha.
16 Let all those that seek you rejoice and be glad in you: let such as love your salvation say continually, The LORD be magnified.
17 But I am poor and needy; yet the LORD thinks upon me: you are my help and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God.

Of these things put them in remembrance, the same commit you to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.

Of these things put them in remembrance, the same commit you to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.

The above are words Paul writes to Timothy, appearing in 2 Timothy 2:14 & 2, where he is speaking of when all Asia (the seven churches of Revelation) would turn from his teaching to follow the wolves who would come in after him. Paul is speaking of the time John describes Revelation 17:11, when the eighth church appears, the church that is part of the beast, marked by the same ignorant confusion defined as Babylon. It is Paul reminding him of when this state of darkness would cover all the world, in the latter days: this generation. This is the understanding (foresight) he calls Timothy and others from Ephesus, to him in Miletus, to hear, which is recorded by Luke in Acts 20. (The place Paul calls them to, Miletus, in Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, is said to mean “pure white fine wool,” which is obviously the covering {righteousness – pure doctrine} of the Lamb. What is imparted there is what is written in Acts 20, of which Paul then, in his own writing, reminds Timothy.)

Friends, the depth of understanding, conscious or unconscious (in the body or out), written but yet unspoken, permeates the word of God, waiting there frozen, to be spoken now in/for the resurrection of the body of Christ. These are weapons given to the soldiers God calls to war against the wolves, the messengers of Satan who have not spared the flock.

In Acts 20 Luke tells of one who was in the third loft, who fell and was dead, who Paul lays his hands on raising him again to life. This is describing what Paul writes, in 2 Corinthians 12, of the deeper understanding given him, unspeakable things, when he was caught up into the third heaven. He goes on, in Acts 20, to describe the fall away from this understand and how it would occur. In 2 Timothy, speaking to the seed of David in whom Christ would rise, Paul knowing his name, reminds: raising from his unconscious mind to his conscious, that through Christ in him first, God would raise His body, from the fall into life. This is now only hidden from those who choose to remain sleeping/dead.

2 Corinthians 4
1 Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not;
2 But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.
3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
4 In whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
5 For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the LORD; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.
6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
8 We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;
9 Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;
10 Always bearing about in the body the dying of the LORD Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
11 For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.

So, before all the mentioned scriptures, I ask again, “How long will you sleep, O sluggard? when will you arise out of your sleep?” And I say, “11 And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed [now seeing what we before only knew by faith]. 12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us, therefore, cast off the works of darkness [ignorance], and let us put on the armor of light [the understanding that protects us from ignorance and confusion].”

Acts 20
7 And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.
8 And there were many lights in the upper chamber, where they were gathered together.
9 And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus [well faited – by Paul’s hand – see 2 Timothy 1:6], being fallen into a deep sleep: and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft [tristegos – third cover of silence {silence of truth}], and was taken up dead.
10 And Paul went down, and fell on him, and embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him.
11 When he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed.
12 And they brought the young man alive, and were not a little comforted.
13 And we went before to ship, and sailed unto Assos [approaching – the appointed time], there intending to take in Paul: for so had he appointed, minding himself to go afoot.
14 And when he met with us at Assos, we took him in, and came to Mitylene [and the body of Christ was mutilated].
15 And we sailed thence, and came the next [first] day over against Chios [the word of God was frozen]; and the next [second] day we arrived at Samos [dry place – where the word of God isn’t heard], and tarried at Trogyllium [and we found where the word had been cached – hidden]; and the next [third] day we came to Miletus [and by the word of God we were made pure white, as fine wool].
16 For Paul had determined to sail by Ephesus [where we are permitted to speak the words that had been until now unspoken], because he would not spend the time in Asia: for he hasted, if it were possible for him, to be at Jerusalem the day of Pentecost.
17 And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church.
18 And when they were come to him, he said unto them, You know, from the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all seasons,
19 Serving the LORD with all humility of mind, and with many tears, and temptations, which befell me by the lying in wait of the Jews:
20 And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have showed you, and have taught you publicly, and from house to house,
21 Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our LORD Jesus Christ.
22 And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there:
23 Save that the Holy Ghost witnesses in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me.
24 But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the LORD Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.
25 And now, behold, I know that you all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more.
26 Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men.
27 For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.
28 Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost has made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he has purchased with his own blood.
29 For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.
30 Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.
31 Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.
32 And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.
33 I have coveted no man’s silver, or gold, or apparel.
34 Yea, you yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me.
35 I have showed you all things, how that so laboring you ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the LORD Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.
36 And when he had thus spoken, he kneeled down, and prayed with them all.
37 And they all wept sore, and fell on Paul’s neck, and kissed him,
38 Sorrowing most of all for the words which he spoke, that they should see his face no more. And they accompanied him unto the ship.

The wolves among the people, which Paul warns of above, are those he speaks of in 2 Corinthians 11, saying, “13 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. 14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of [false] light. 15 Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.”

Paul then, in 2 Corinthians 12, after telling of the revelation given to him, tells of these same men as messengers of Satan, who are as thorns in his side. We know from previous studies this description is referring to what is written Number 33:55, where the LORD says that when we Passover Jordan: are delivered, from the rivers carrying us to death, into living waters and life, we should cast out the corrupt ways from among us. He says, “those which you let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes [and you will not see – understand], and thorns in your sides, and shall vex [see Isaiah 28:19 – unable to understand the report – vex is tsarar, the too “narrow” cover of those sleeping – see Isaiah 28:20] you in the land wherein you dwell.”

These are the men now in every pulpit, teaching and preaching their own words, claiming they are speaking God’s word. They are a confederacy of rebels, whose false light opposes the LORD and deny this is His appearing and kingdom. Again, I say, come out from among them.

Isaiah 8
11 For the LORD spoke thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying,
12 Say you not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear you their fear, nor be afraid.
13 Sanctify the LORD of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.
14 And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
15 And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.
16 Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples.
17 And I will wait upon the LORD, that hides his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.
18 Behold, I and the children whom the LORD has given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, which dwells in mount Zion.
19 And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? [Should they be looking] for the living to the dead?
20 [Or]To the law and to the testimony[?]: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light [understanding] in them.

Micah 2
10 Arise you, and depart [come out from among them]; for this is not your rest: because it is polluted, it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction.
11 If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto you of wine and of strong drink; he shall even be the prophet of this people.
12 I will surely assemble, O Jacob [those who still wrestle with God, ignorant that it is Him], all of you; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah [as One flock], as the flock in the midst of their fold: they shall make great noise by reason of the multitude of men.
13 The breaker is come up before them: they have broken up, and have passed through the gate, and are gone out by it: and their king shall pass before them, and the LORD on the head of them.

Micah 3
1 And I said, Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and you princes of the house of Israel; Is it not for you to know judgment?
2 Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones;
3 Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron.
4 Then shall they cry unto the LORD, but he will not hear them: he will even hide his face from them at that time, as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings.
5 Thus says the LORD concerning the prophets that make my people err, that bite with their teeth, and cry, Peace; and he that put not into their mouths, they even prepare war against him.
6 Therefore night shall be unto you, that you shall not have a vision; and it shall be dark unto you, that you shall not divine; and the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them.
7 Then shall the seers be ashamed, and the diviners confounded: yea, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer of God.
8 But truly I am full of power by the spirit of the LORD, and of judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin.
9 Hear this, I pray you, you heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment, and pervert all equity.
10 They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.
11 The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among us? none evil can come upon us.
12 Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest.

Micah 4
1 But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it.

2 Corinthians 12
1 It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory. I will come to visions and revelations of the LORD.
2 I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knows;) such an one caught up to the third heaven.
3 And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knows;)
4 How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.
5 Of such an one will I glory: yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities.
6 For though I would desire to glory, I shall not be a fool; for I will say the truth: but now I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he sees me to be, or that he hears of me.
7 And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.
8 For this thing I besought the LORD thrice, that it might depart from me.
9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for you: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.
11 I am become a fool in glorying; you have compelled me: for I ought to have been commended of you: for in nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing.
12 Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds.
13 For what is it wherein you were inferior to other churches, except it be that I myself was not burdensome to you? forgive me this wrong.
14 Behold, the third time [in this third heaven – the third time the word of God was silenced and then rightly divided again, as light coming into darkness this third day] I am ready to come to you; and I will not be burdensome to you: for I seek not yours but you: for the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children.

2 Timothy is written to Timothy about the last days, Paul knowing this time, knowing we would read it understanding he is speaking to us, and respond appropriately.

2 Timothy 1
1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus,
2 To Timothy, my dearly beloved son: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our LORD.
3 I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of you in my prayers night and day;
4 Greatly desiring to see you, being mindful of your tears, that I may be filled with joy;
5 When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois [in agreement with God], and your mother Eunice [who was victorious in her generation]; and I am persuaded that in you also.
6 Wherefore I put you in remembrance that you stir up the gift of God, which is in you by the putting on of my hands.
7 For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
8 Be not you therefore ashamed of the testimony of our LORD, nor of me his prisoner: but be you partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God;
9 Who has saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,
10 But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death, and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel:
11 Whereunto I am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.
12 For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
13 Hold fast the form of sound words, which you have heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.
14 That good thing which was committed unto you keep by the Holy Ghost which dwells in us.
15 This you know, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus [who ran away from God] and Hermogenes [speaking against the new birth].
16 The LORD give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus [profiting the gospel]; for he oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain:
17 But, when he was in Rome, he sought me out very diligently, and found me.
18 The LORD grant unto him that he may find mercy of the LORD in that day: and in how many things he ministered unto me at Ephesus, you know very well.

2 Timothy 2
1 You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
2 And the things that you have heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit you to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.
3 You therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
4 No man that wars entangles himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who has chosen him to be a soldier.
5 And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully.
6 The husbandman that labors must be first partaker of the fruits.
7 Consider what I say; and the LORD give you understanding in all things.
8 Remember that Jesus Christ of [from] the seed of David [through the seed of the woman, and why Timothy’s mother is mentioned in chapter 1] was raised from the dead according to my gospel:
9 Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound.
10 Therefore I endure all things for the elect’s sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.
11 It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him:
12 If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us:
13 If we believe not, yet he abides faithful: he cannot deny himself.
14 Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the LORD that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers.
15 Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
16 But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.
17 And their word will eat as does a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus [forbidding joining with the LORD in one body] and Philetus [hiding behind false love];
18 Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some.
19 Nevertheless the foundation of God stands sure, having this seal, The LORD knows them that are his. And, let every one that names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.
20 But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honor, and some to dishonor.
21 If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.
22 Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the LORD out of a pure heart.
23 But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes [meant to cause endless argument, never really seeking the truth but rather to keep it hidden in darkness].
24 And the servant of the LORD must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient,
25 In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;
26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.

2 Timothy 3
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
4 Traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,
7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
8 Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.
9 But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was. [Their enchantments are eaten up by this present truth.]
10 But you have fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience,
11 Persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the LORD delivered me.
12 Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
14 But continue you in the things which you have learned and have been assured of, knowing of whom you have learned them;
15 And that from a child you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
17 That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

2 Timothy 4
1 I charge you therefore before God, and the LORD Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;
2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine.
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
5 But watch you in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of your ministry.
6 For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.
7 I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:
8 Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the LORD, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.

Psalms 47
1 O clap your hands, all you people; shout unto God with the voice of triumph.
2 For the LORD most high is terrible; he is a great King over all the earth.
3 He shall subdue the people under us, and the nations under our feet.
4 He shall choose our inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob whom he loved. Selah.
5 God is gone up with a shout, the LORD with the sound of a trumpet.
6 Sing praises to God, sing praises: sing praises unto our King, sing praises.
7 For God is the King of all the earth: sing you praises with understanding.
8 God reigns over the heathen: God sits upon the throne of his holiness.
9 The princes of the people are gathered together, even the people of the God of Abraham: for the shields of the earth belong unto God: he is greatly exalted.

If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin.

If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin.

Per the previous post, the above is the LORD speaking of opening the eyes of those who’ve received the love He has shined on them, and in this same offering, He willingly exposed Himself to the hate of those who’ve rejected His love. The above verse is John 15:22, from a chapter where earlier He says those who follow His example: showing the same love by removing the cloak of the wicked, freely giving understanding to ignorant, raising them out of darkness; will be hated as He is hated, for His name’s sake.

John 15
1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
2 Every branch in me that bears not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that bears fruit, he purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
3 Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can you, except you abide in me.
5 I am the vine, you are the branches: He that abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing.
6 If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you.
8 Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; so shall you be my disciples.
9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you: continue you in my love.
10 If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.
11 These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
12 This is my commandment, That you love one another, as I have loved you.
13 Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
14 You are my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you.
15 Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his LORD does: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.
16 You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.
17 These things I command you, that you love one another.
18 If the world hate you, you know that it hated me before it hated you.
19 If you were of the world, the world would love his own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his LORD. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.
21 But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me.
22 If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin.
23 He that hates me hates my Father also.
24 If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.
25 But this comes to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.
26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceeds from the Father, he shall testify of me:
27 And you also shall bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.

In John 15:15 above the LORD describes how His friends have become what He has just before likened to branches attached to the vine: He flowing life into them as a vine flows life into its branches. In this verse, He plainly tells them the life He has given them is in the words the Father gave Him to freely given. He has before this commanded them to do the same, show the same love, and this is what makes them His friends. He contrasts this to those who hate him without a cause, only because He has shown them this love, which has removed the cloak of darkness covering their sin: their corrupt teaching and ignorant ideas. In saying this He quotes words that appear in Psalms 35:19 and 69:4, wherein is precisely described what these haters are doing.

Psalms 35
1 Plead my cause, O LORD, with them that strive with me: fight against them that fight against me.
2 Take hold of shield and buckler, and stand up for mine help.
3 Draw out also the spear, and stop the way against them that persecute me: say unto my soul, I am your salvation.
4 Let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul: let them be turned back and brought to confusion that devise my hurt.
5 Let them be as chaff before the wind: and let the angel of the LORD chase them.
6 Let their way be dark and slippery: and let the angel of the LORD persecute them.
7 For without cause have they hid for me their net in a pit, which without cause they have digged for my soul.
8 Let destruction come upon him at unawares; and let his net that he has hid catch himself: into that very destruction let him fall.
9 And my soul shall be joyful in the LORD: it shall rejoice in his salvation.
10 All my bones shall say, LORD, who is like unto you, which delivers the poor from him that is too strong for him, yea, the poor and the needy from him that spoils him?
11 False witnesses did rise up; they laid to my charge things that I knew not.
12 They rewarded me evil for good to the spoiling of my soul.
13 But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth: I humbled my soul with fasting; and my prayer returned into mine own bosom.
14 I behaved myself as though he had been my friend or brother [showing love even to those who reject it]: I bowed down heavily, as one that mourns for his mother.
15 But in mine adversity they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together: yea, the abject gathered themselves together against me, and I knew it not; they did tear me, and ceased not:
16 With hypocritical mockers in feasts, they gnashed upon me with their teeth.
17 LORD, how long will you look on? rescue my soul from their destructions, my darling from the lions.
18 I will give you thanks in the great congregation: I will praise you among much people.
19 Let not them that are mine enemies wrongfully rejoice over me: neither let them wink with the eye that [with closed eyes and open mouths] hate me without a cause.
20 For they speak not peace: but they devise deceitful matters against them that are quiet in the land.
21 Yea, they opened their mouth wide against me, and said, Aha, aha, our eye has seen it.
22 This you have seen, O LORD: keep not silence: O LORD, be not far from me.
23 Stir up yourself, and awake [in your people, to open their eyes to what is uncovered] to my judgment, even unto my cause, my God and my LORD.
24 Judge me, O LORD my God, according to your righteousness; and let them not rejoice over me.
25 Let them not say in their hearts, Ah, so would we have it: let them not say, We have swallowed him up.
26 Let them be ashamed and brought to confusion together that rejoice at mine hurt: let them be clothed with shame and dishonor that magnify themselves against me.
27 Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favor my righteous cause: yea, let them say continually, Let the LORD be magnified, which has pleasure in the prosperity of his servant.
28 And my tongue shall speak of your righteousness and of your praise all the day long.

Psalms 69 [As Jonah I cried out of the hell, and You heard me.]
1 Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul.
2 I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.
3 I am weary of my crying: my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.
4 They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty: then I restored that which I took not away.
5 O God, you know my foolishness [which I suffer for the sake of your name]; and my sins [of my youth, which the enemies will not forgive] are not hid from you.
6 Let not them that wait on you, O LORD God of hosts, be ashamed for my sake: let not those that seek you be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel.
7 Because for your sake I have borne reproach; shame has covered my face.
8 I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother’s children.
9 For the zeal of your house has eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached you are fallen upon me.
10 When I wept, and chastened my soul with fasting, that was to my reproach.
11 I made sackcloth also my garment; and I became a proverb to them.
12 They that sit in the gate speak against me; and I was the song of the drunkards.
13 But as for me, my prayer is unto you, O LORD, in an acceptable time: O God, in the multitude of your mercy hear me, in the truth of your salvation.
14 Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink: let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters.
15 Let not the water-flood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me.
16 Hear me, O LORD; for your lovingkindness is good: turn unto me according to the multitude of your tender mercies.
17 And hide not your face from your servant; for I am in trouble: hear me speedily.
18 Draw nigh unto my soul, and redeem it: deliver me because of mine enemies.
19 You have known my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonor: mine adversaries are all before you.
20 Reproach has broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.
21 They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
22 Let their table become a snare before them: and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap.
23 Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not; and make their loins continually to shake.
24 Pour out your indignation upon them, and let your wrathful anger take hold of them.
25 Let their habitation be desolate; and let none dwell in their tents.
26 For they persecute him whom you have smitten; and they talk to the grief of those whom you have wounded.
27 Add iniquity unto their iniquity: and let them not come into your righteousness.
28 Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.
29 But I am poor and sorrowful: let your salvation, O God, set me up on high.
30 I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving.
31 This also shall please the LORD better than an ox or bullock that has horns and hoofs.
32 The humble shall see this, and be glad: and your heart shall live that seek God.
33 For the LORD hears the poor, and despises not his prisoners.
34 Let the heaven and earth praise him, the seas, and every thing that moves therein.
35 For God will save Zion, and will build the cities of Judah: that they may dwell there, and have it in possession.
36 The seed also of his servants shall inherit it: and they that love his name shall dwell therein.

This rejection of the light occurring is the fulfillment of what is meant when later Psalms 69:22 says, “that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap.” The Psalms also tells us what covers His face, which is the reproach of the haters, thereby giving us a fuller understanding of the title verse, and of the meaning of Hebrews 13, saying, “13 Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp [come out from among the corrupt city], bearing his reproach. 14 For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come [“wherein dwells righteousness” – 2 Peter 3:13]. 15 By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. 16 But to do good and to communicate [freely give this word, the love of God as it has been given us – bearing the reproach, the hate, that will come] forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.”

Hebrews 13
1 Let brotherly love continue.
2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels [the messengers of God] unawares.
3 Remember them that are in bonds [yoked with the LORD in His work of loving, as He first loved], as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.
4 Marriage [joining with the LORD in One body] is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers [those who make merchandise of His people] and adulterers [those who have left God for the idol they have put in His place] God will judge.
5 Let your conversation [giving His word, which He has freely given] be without covetousness; and be content with such things as you have: for he has said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you.
6 So that we may boldly say, The LORD is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.
7 Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.
8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
9 Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.
10 We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle.
11 For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp.
12 Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.
13 Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.
14 For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.
15 By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.
16 But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
17 Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.
18 Pray for us: for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly.
19 But I beseech you the rather to do this, that I may be restored to you the sooner.
20 Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our LORD Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,
21 Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well- pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
22 And I beseech you, brethren, suffer the word of exhortation: for I have written a letter unto you in few words.
23 Know you that our brother Timothy is set at liberty; with whom, if he come shortly, I will see you.
24 Salute all them that have the rule over you, and all the saints. They of Italy salute you.
25 Grace be with you all. Amen.

The Hebrews word “hate,” appearing in the Psalms above, is sane’, which is specifically used because of its also meaning enemy. In it, we understand the difference between the friends and enemies of the LORD, both so in their choice to either love or hate in the ways described above.

Here is the Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary definition, which includes its translated forms: Strong’s #8130: sane’ (pronounced saw-nay’) a primitive root; to hate (personally):–enemy, foe, (be) hate(-ful, -r), odious, X utterly.

It is said to be a primitive root, but appears to be a shortened derivative of the word shaneh, meaning sleep, and itself from the word yashen, meaning to be slack or languid. Languid means to lack vigor or energy, showing little spirit or animation. It is describing the sluggard, as discussed in the prior post, from Proverbs 6 where the question is asked, “How long will you sleep, O sluggard? when will you arise out of your sleep?” It is only the sleeping whose eyes are closed to the LORD’s presence.

The word sane appears in Psalms 50:17 where it perfectly described the hate of those who to sleep in the darkness. As the LORD says in John 15:23 above, “He that hates me hates my Father also.” This is telling us, those who hate the LORD, make themselves His enemy without any cause, and in doing make themselves the Father’s enemy, for no reason.

Psalms 50
1 The mighty God, even the LORD, has spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof.
2 Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has shined.
3 Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him.
4 He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people.
5 Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.
6 And the heavens shall declare his righteousness: for God is judge himself. Selah.
7 Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against you: I am God, even your God.
8 I will not reprove you for your sacrifices or your burnt offerings, to have been continually before me.
9 I will take no bullock out of your house, nor he goats out of your folds.
10 For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.
11 I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine.
12 If I were hungry, I would not tell you: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof.
13 Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?
14 Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay your vows unto the Most High:
15 And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.
16 But unto the wicked God says, What have you to do to declare my statutes, or that you should take my covenant in your mouth?
17 Seeing you hate instruction [making yourselves the enemy of the teacher and the source of the correction], and cast my words behind you.
18 When you saw a thief, then you consented with him, and have been partaker with adulterers.
19 You gives your mouth to evil, and your tongue frames deceit.
20 You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother’s son.
21 These things have you done, and I kept silence; you thought that I was altogether such an one as yourself: but I will reprove you, and set them in order before your eyes.
22 Now consider this, you that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.
23 Whoso offers praise glorifies me: and to him that orders his conversation aright will I show the salvation of God.

Today the LORD sends a warning of the coming sudden destruction of those who’ve perverted judgment by calling evil good and good evil.

Today the LORD sends a warning of the coming sudden destruction of those who’ve perverted judgment by calling evil good and good evil.

He began this warning in Proverbs 6:15, where the warned are described (in terms that can only signify the false prophets and false teachers among God’s people, and the fake news media, along with their fellow conspirators and liars in the deep state.) The word “suddenly” used there is petha’, a Hebrew word meaning to open the eye. As we know, the purpose of these posts is the LORD through them is awakening the sleeping, and also opening all eyes to His presence manifested for the salvation His people.

“Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are His: And He changes the times and the seasons: He removes kings, and sets up kings: He gives wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding: He reveals the deep and secret things: He knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him.” Daniel (the Judgment of God) 2:20 thru 22

In Proverbs 6 the sudden destruction comes with opening eyes; an idea that begins in verse 9 where the LORD asks the sluggard how long he will sleep. The word sluggard denotes the opposite meaning of those quickened into life: the sluggard sleeping, as if dead, showing no signs of life, no speech, sight, or actions. In the Daniel passage, he has just awakened, after receiving his vision from the LORD, understanding coming to him in his sleep, opening his eyes to declare what he has seen (his right judgment restored as he sees as God sees, and confesses it is the LORD revealing it).

So, I ask you, sluggard, when will you awaken? When will you declare you have seen the light?

Proverbs 6
4 Give not sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids.
5 Deliver yourself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.
6 Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:
7 Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler,
8 Provides her meat in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest.
9 How long will you sleep, O sluggard? when will you arise out of your sleep?
10 Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep:
11 So shall [has] your poverty come as one that travels, and your want as an armed man [as a robber who meets you on the way].
12 A naughty person, a wicked man, walks with a froward mouth [A mouth twisting and perverting truth].
13 He winks with his eyes, he speaks with his feet, he teaches with his fingers;
14 Frowardness [deception] is in his heart, he devises mischief continually; he sows discord.
15 Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly [pith’owm]; suddenly [petha’] shall he be broken without remedy.
16 These six things does the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:
17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
18 An heart that devises wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,
19 A false witness that speaks lies, and he that sows discord among brethren [separated His body from Him].
20 My son, keep your father’s [God’s knowledge] commandment, and forsake not the law [ancient wisdom] of your mother:
21 Bind them continually upon your heart, and tie them about your neck.
22 When you go, it shall lead you; when you sleep, it shall keep you; and when you awake, it shall talk with you.
23 For the commandment is a lamp [the fire in you]; and the law is light [understanding]; and reproofs of instruction [God’s correction through these] are the way of life:
24 To keep you from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman. [the wisdom of the world – that entices to leave the ancient wisdom]
25 Lust not after her beauty in your heart; neither let her take you with her eyelids.
26 For by means of a whorish woman [whose price is your soul] a man is brought to a piece of bread [as Esau, selling your birthright]: and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life.
27 Can a man take fire in his bosom [from the church now, without God, on fire], and his clothes not be burned [see Jude 23]?
28 Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned?
29 So he that goes in to his neighbor’s wife; whosoever touches her shall not be innocent.
30 Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry;
31 But if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold; he shall give all the substance of his house. [But the wicked who have gone into God’s house, and taken His people captive, will never release them from their lies, until they are taken out of the way. “They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.”]
32 But whoso commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding: he that does it destroys his own soul.
33 A wound and dishonor shall he get; and his reproach shall not be wiped away.
34 For jealousy is the rage of a man: therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance.
35 He will not regard any ransom; neither will he rest content, though you give many gifts. [More so, God, in the day of vengeance for the controversy of Zion, will not acquit those who observe lying vanities and hold his people captive in darkness.]

The word petha’ only appears seven times, another of those is in Habakkuk 2:7 telling of the same eye-opening occurring when these wicked deceivers are exposed.

Habakkuk 2
3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry [mahahh – doesn’t come when you think it should], wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry [‘achar – will not be delayed forever – see 2 Peter 3:9 thru 16].
4 Behold, his soul which is lifted up [swelled with pride] is not upright [directed by the LORD] in him: but the just shall live by his [own] faith.
5 Yea also, because he transgresses by wine [see verse 15 below], he is a proud man, neither keeps at home, who enlarges his desire as hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathers unto him all nations, and heaps unto him all people:
6 Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, Woe to him that increases that which is not his! how long [see Isaiah 47:7]? and to him that lades himself with thick clay! [Burdened with promises that cannot be delivered – as we’ve seen in Isaiah 46. The word “lades” is kabad, referring us to Isaiah 47:6 – where it tells us who is spoken of, those who use manipulation, promises they cannot deliver.]
7 Shall they not rise up suddenly [petha’] that shall bite you, and awake that shall vex you, and you shall be for booties unto them [see Isaiah 47:10 For you have trusted in your wickedness: you have said, None sees me. Your wisdom and your knowledge, it has perverted you; and you have said in your heart, I am, and none else beside me. 11 Therefore shall evil come upon you; you shall not know from whence it rises: and mischief shall fall upon you; you shall not be able to put it off: and desolation shall come upon you suddenly {pith’owm}, which you shall not know. 12 Stand now with your enchantments, and with the multitude of your sorceries, wherein you have labored from your youth; if so be you shall be able to profit, if so be you may prevail.]?
8 Because you have spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the people shall spoil you; because of men’s blood, and for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein.
9 Woe to him that covets an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil!
10 You have consulted shame to your house by cutting off many people, and have sinned against your soul.
11 For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it. [What you have built witnesses against you, saying]
12 Woe to him that builds a town with blood, and establishes a city by iniquity!
13 Behold, is it not of the LORD of hosts that the people shall labor in the very fire [your ideas have caused], and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity [worthless things]?
14 For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.
15 Woe unto him that gives his neighbor drink, that put your bottle to him [your ideas and advice to manipulate], and make him drunken also [to change his mind and make him unable to think], that you may look on their nakedness [to cause him to do what shames him]!
16 You are filled with shame for glory [this is your shame appearing, which identifies you]: drink you also, and let your foreskin be uncovered [the flesh driven mind that shows your shame as your glory]: the cup of the LORD’s right hand [the ideas coming from His writing – see Habakkuk 3: 4 And his brightness was as the light {understanding}; he had horns {rays of light – the horns of the altar, where the sacrifice is bound, in Psalms 118:27 – it is also the horn of the foolish and wicked, which, in Psalms 75:4 & 5, he is warned not to lift up} coming out of his hand {these words of understanding}: and there was the hiding of his power.] shall be turned unto you, and shameful spewing shall be on your glory.
17 For the violence of Lebanon [for the violence you have done to purity in High places] shall cover you, and the spoil of beasts, which made them afraid, because of men’s blood, and for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein [referring to what is said above in verses 12 & 13].
18 What profits the graven image [the ideas, as idols, you have forced people to worship in God’s place] that the maker thereof has graven it; the molten image, and a teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusts therein, to make dumb idols [who cannot deliver what you have promised – in fact, they produce the opposite and witness against you]?
19 Woe unto him that says to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, Arise, it shall teach! [referring to verse 11 above, the ideas upon which you {vain man} have built your house] Behold, it is laid over with gold and silver [material beauty], and there is no breath [Spirit – life] at all in the midst of it.
20 But the LORD is in his holy temple [the house – the people – He has built upon the firm foundation of His ideas – wherein is peace and civilization]: let all the earth keep silence before him.

The same words, petha’ and pith’owm, appear together in Isaiah 29:5 and 30:13, rendered “suddenly” and “at an instant.”

This sudden destruction is what Peter is describing in 2 Peter 2 where he first tells of the damnation that comes upon the false teacher among us; it no longer lingering (tarrying not), and slumbers not. These men are those Peter tells us have brought in damnable heresies, even denying the LORD, and because of which the way of this truth is evil spoken of. These are the same group he describes in the following chapter as wrestling with this word and all the scripture, to their own destruction.

2 Peter 2
1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily [inventions from their own imaginations] shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the LORD that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.
3 And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingers [tarries] not, and their damnation slumbers not.


2 Peter 3
10 But the day of the LORD will come as a thief in the night [while all are asleep]; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements [stoicheion – these men’s corrupt ideas] shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements [these men’s ideas] shall melt with fervent heat?
13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness.
14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing that you look for such things, be diligent that you may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.
15 And account that the longsuffering of our LORD is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him has written unto you;
16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest [wrestle], as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
17 You therefore, beloved, seeing you know these things before, beware lest you also, being led away with the error of the wicked [who, thinking themselves wise, are ignorant of their own ignorance, even when they are shown their erros], fall from your own steadfastness.
18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.

These men being ignorant of their own ignorance is what is described in Isaiah 28. There we are told the LORD comes to these men, teaching them, precept upon precept, line upon line, telling them these are ideas of rest, and the event is the refreshing (restoration) of God’s people. As we have often seen, verse 19 says the only vexation is to understand the report, meaning the only thing they fear is what they will see (their own ignorance) when their eyes are open. This awakening to their own shortcoming is what the following verse describes as a bed too short and a covering too narrow.

Chapter 28 gives us the context of these men’s self-destruction, which is just as Peter describes it above. Paul tells Timothy those led by these men, are ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth (they, therefore, speak evil of that which they are ignorant). Peter above concludes by telling us these men continue to wrestle with God’s word, because they are unwilling to awaken to their own ignorance of it and do so until their own destruction.

2 Timothy 3
6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,
7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
8 Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.
9 But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was [Exodus 7: 11 Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments. 12 For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods {as light swallows us darkness}.]

Isaiah 28
5 In that day shall the LORD of hosts be for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty, unto the residue of his people,
6 And for a spirit of judgment to him that sits in judgment, and for strength to them that turn the battle to the gate.
7 But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment.
8 For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean.
9 Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.
10 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:
11 For with stammering lips and another tongue [the truth they cannot understand, because it is foreign to those only know lies] will he speak to this people.
12 To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith you may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.
13 But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.
14 Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, you scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.
15 Because you have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:
16 Therefore thus says the LORD God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believes shall not make haste.
17 Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.
18 And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then you shall be trodden down by it.
19 From the time that it goes forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report.
20 For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it: and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it.
21 For the LORD shall rise up as in mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act.
22 Now therefore be you not mockers, lest your bands be made strong: for I have heard from the LORD God of hosts a consumption, even determined upon the whole earth.
23 Give you ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech.
24 Does the plowman plow all day to sow? does he open and break the clods of his ground?
25 When he has made plain the face thereof, does he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rie in their place?
26 For his God does instruct him to discretion, and does teach him.
27 For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod.
28 Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen.
29 This also comes forth from the LORD of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.

Isaiah 29
1 Woe to Ariel [the ancient habitation of old loins – where dwelt knowledge and wisdom], to Ariel [strength in God – that has now become the habitation of those drunk on/by their own ignorance], the city where David dwelt! add you year to year; let them kill sacrifices.
2 Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be heaviness and sorrow: and it shall be unto me as Ariel [strength].
3 And I will camp against you round about, and will lay siege against you with a mount, and I will raise forts against you.
4 And you shall be brought down, and shall speak out of the ground, and your speech shall be low out of the dust, and your voice shall be, as of one that has a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and your speech shall whisper out of the dust [speaking to the men who teach their own corrupting ideas].
5 Moreover the multitude of your strangers shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the terrible ones shall be as chaff that passes away: yea, it shall be at an instant suddenly [pith’owm petha’].
6 You shall be visited of the LORD of hosts with thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire.
7 And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all that fight against her and her munition, and that distress her, shall be as a dream of a night vision.
8 It shall even be as when an hungry man dreams, and, behold, he eats; but he awakes, and his soul is empty: or as when a thirsty man dreams, and, behold, he drinks; but he awakes, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul has appetite: so shall the multitude of all the nations be, that fight against mount Zion [God’s rule].
9 Stay yourselves, and wonder; cry you out, and cry: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.
10 For the LORD has poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers has he covered.
11 And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray you: and he says, I cannot; for it is sealed:
12 And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray you: and he says, I am not learned.
13 Wherefore the LORD said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:
14 Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.
15 Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the LORD, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who sees us? and who knows us?
16 Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter’s clay: for shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not? or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding?
17 Is it not yet a very little while, and Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest?
18 And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness.
19 The meek also shall increase their joy in the LORD, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
20 For the terrible one is brought to naught, and the scorner is consumed, and all that watch for iniquity are cut off:
21 That make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for him that reproves in the gate, and turn aside the just for a thing of naught.
22 Therefore thus says the LORD, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob, Jacob shall not now be ashamed, neither shall his face now wax pale.
23 But when he sees his children, the work of mine hands, in the midst of him, they shall sanctify my name, and sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall fear the God of Israel.
24 They also that erred in spirit shall come to understanding, and they that murmured shall learn doctrine.

Isaiah 30
1 Woe to the rebellious children, says the LORD, that take counsel, but not of me; and that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin:
2 That walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth; to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt!
3 Therefore shall the strength of Pharaoh be your shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt your confusion.
4 For his princes were at Zoan, and his ambassadors came to Hanes.
5 They were all ashamed of a people that could not profit them, nor be an help nor profit, but a shame, and also a reproach.
6 The burden of the beasts of the south [the burden of Teman – when the wise became fools in their own conceit – where there is now no strength]: into the land of trouble and anguish, from whence come the young and old lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they will carry their riches upon the shoulders of young asses, and their treasures upon the bunches of camels, to a people that shall not profit them.
7 For the Egyptians shall help in vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I cried concerning this, Their strength is to sit still [sluggards].
8 Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever:
9 That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the LORD: [as it is this day – and the liars encouraged the thieves, and the thieves the liars, and they all agree that everything is fine as it is].
10 Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits:
11 Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.
12 Wherefore thus says the Holy One of Israel, Because you despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon:
13 Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking comes suddenly at an instant [petha’ pith’owm].
14 And he shall break it as the breaking of the potters’ vessel that is broken in pieces; he shall not spare: so that there shall not be found in the bursting of it a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal out of the pit.
15 For thus says the LORD God, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall you be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and you would not.
16 But you said, No; for we will flee upon horses; therefore shall you flee: and, We will ride upon the swift; therefore shall they that pursue you be swift.
17 One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one; at the rebuke of five shall you flee: till you be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on an hill.
18 And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the LORD is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him.
19 For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem: you shall weep no more: he will be very gracious unto you at the voice of your cry; when he shall hear it, he will answer you.
20 And though the LORD give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not your teachers be removed into a corner any more, but your eyes shall see your teachers:
21 And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, This is the way, walk you in it, when you turn to the right hand, and when you turn to the left.
22 You shall defile also the covering of your graven images of silver, and the ornament of your molten images of gold: you shall cast them away as a menstruous cloth; you shall say unto it, Get you hence.
23 Then shall he give the rain of your seed, that you shall sow the ground withal; and bread of the increase of the earth, and it shall be fat and plenteous: in that day shall your cattle feed in large pastures.
24 The oxen likewise and the young asses that ear the ground shall eat clean provender, which has been winnowed with the shovel and with the fan.
25 And there shall be upon every high mountain, and upon every high hill, rivers and streams of waters in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.
26 Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD binds up the breach of his people, and heals the stroke of their wound.
27 Behold, the name of the LORD comes from far, burning with his anger, and the burden thereof is heavy: his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire:
28 And his breath, as an overflowing stream, shall reach to the midst of the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of vanity: and there shall be a bridle in the jaws of the people, causing them to err.
29 You shall have a song, as in the night when a holy solemnity is kept; and gladness of heart, as when one goes with a pipe to come into the mountain of the LORD, to the mighty One of Israel.
30 And the LORD shall cause his glorious voice to be heard, and shall show the lighting down of his arm, with the indignation of his anger, and with the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering, and tempest, and hailstones.
31 For through the voice of the LORD shall the Assyrian [those who’ve degenerated by degrees, steps, descending into apostasy – ideologies of false religion and communism] be beaten down, which smote with a rod.
32 And in every place where the grounded staff shall pass, which the LORD shall lay upon him, it shall be with tabrets and harps: and in battles of shaking will he fight with it.
33 For Tophet [the place of fire] is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared; he has made it deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the LORD, like a stream of brimstone, does kindle it.

Psalms 19
1 The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament show his handy-work [this work of His hand].
2 Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night shows knowledge.
3 There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.
4 Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them has he set a tabernacle for the sun,
5 Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoices as a strong man to run a race.
6 His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.
7 The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.
8 The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes.
9 The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.
10 More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
11 Moreover by them is your servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward.
12 Who [without the LORD showing Him] can understand his [own] errors? cleanse you me from secret faults. [Which the wicked remain ignorant of only because they reject what He has shown them.]
13 Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression [falling, degeneration by degrees, into corrupt ideas].
14 Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.

The stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it.

The stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it.

As discussed in the prior post, the above tells of the house and city build upon the foundation of men’s ideas and ways, which contradict and oppose God’s superior wisdom and knowledge. The ways of these men remove understanding by destroying truthful discourse: altering and reversing reality with twisted definitions of the obvious, and producing confusion and chaos. This state of mental turmoil: ever seeking meaning in a world that, with intention, suppresses and rejects it; turns all material achievement and power over them, into what, first Shakespeare, then Calvin Coolidge, and now I, define as a barren scepter, and a fruitless crown. The meaning is that without understanding our place in the fuller creation (past, present, and future), without accepting the reality of the metaphysical (everything other than the present moment in space and time), and then working to bring the soul (conscience) into harmony with this spiritual reality, there can be no peace in the mind or society.

This reality must itself be based in the truth that not all ideas and ways of achieving it are equal, nor is achieving a final desired state of harmony: peace in mind and security in body (life, liberty, and property), accidental or arbitrary. This end comes by learning the correct ideas that produce it; also the effect under and without this knowledge, which lead the rational into making the only intellectually sound choice, joining the community in a reciprocal acceptance and commitment to live by them. This is what produces peace in minds, meaning in life, and sustainable civilization in societies.

Of course, we know not everyone will make the correct choice, and there will be those whose impatience will lead them into attempting to circumvent the system. These are those who reject these natural laws; the lawless who instead choose manipulation, by force or deception, to achieve material gain, thinking it is the objective. In fact, the material achievement is a temporal prop, a temporary distraction from the turmoil in the mind, and becomes meaningless (without value – bohuw) when confusion flowers into it inevitable chaos. This is the world man creates.

The world God creates comes when He sees we (man) have reached the state where heaven and earth have been invaded and overrun by ideas that will lead, and now have finally led, to total desolation. This is when He appears with understanding, the unseen to combat the invaders, the greater metaphysical combating and defeating what is seen – and the darkness has no defense against His light.

Genesis
2 And the earth became [hayah] without form [tohuw], and void [bohuw]; and darkness [ignorance of God’s ideas and ways] was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light [understanding]: and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Friends, as we saw in the prior post, as is the meaning of the title verse, Habakkuk 2:11 – what has been built upon this foundation of confusion [tohuw] becomes the loudest witness against these men’s ideas and ways.

Here again is the quote referenced above, from the often-quoted speech by Calvin Coolidge, from July 5, 1926, as he declared the ideas in the Declaration as final, meaning unable to be improved upon.

“We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration [our ideas]. Our Declaration [our better ideas] created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren scepter in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshiped.”

Habakkuk 2 speaks of the house, built on corrupt ideas, that only recognizes the material, the seen, things, and now shows open hostility to the ideas of the unseen. Chapter 3 describes the LORD coming: the light appearing, as rays (of His power) from the writing of His hand, to revive His work, restoring His ideas and ways of peace, which is both His wrath and His mercy.

Habakkuk 2
1 I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved.
2 And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run [be quickened into understanding – away from ignorance] that reads it.
3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry [mahahh – doesn’t come when you think it should], wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry [‘achar – will not be delayed forever – see 2 Peter 3:9 thru 16].
4 Behold, his soul which is lifted up [swelled with pride] is not upright [directed by the LORD] in him: but the just shall live by his [own] faith.
5 Yea also, because he transgresses by wine [see verse 15 below], he is a proud man, neither keeps at home, who enlarges his desire as hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathers unto him all nations, and heaps unto him all people:
6 Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, Woe to him that increases that which is not his! how long [see Isaiah 47:7 below]? and to him that lades himself with thick clay! [Burdened with promises that cannot be delivered – as we’ve seen in Isaiah 46. The word “lades” is kabad, referring us to Isaiah 47:6 – see below, where it tells us who is spoken of, those who use manipulation, promises they cannot deliver.]
7 Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite you, and awake that shall vex you, and you shall be for booties unto them [see Isaiah 47:11]?
8 Because you have spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the people shall spoil you; because of men’s blood, and for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein.
9 Woe to him that covets an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil!
10 You have consulted shame to your house by cutting off many people, and have sinned against your soul.
11 For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it. [What you have built witnesses against you, saying]
12 Woe to him that builds a town with blood, and establishes a city by iniquity!
13 Behold, is it not of the LORD of hosts that the people shall labor in the very fire [your ideas have caused], and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity [worthless things]?
14 For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.
15 Woe unto him that gives his neighbor drink, that put your bottle to him [your ideas and advice to manipulate], and make him drunken also [to change his and make him unable to think], that you may look on their nakedness [to cause him to do what shames him]!
16 You are filled with shame for glory [this is your shame appearing, which identifies you]: drink you also, and let your foreskin be uncovered [the flesh driven mind that shows your shame as your glory]: the cup of the LORD’s right hand [the ideas coming from His writing – see Habakkuk 3:4 below] shall be turned unto you, and shameful spewing shall be on your glory.
17 For the violence of Lebanon [for the violence you have done to purity in High places] shall cover you, and the spoil of beasts, which made them afraid, because of men’s blood, and for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein [referring to what is said above in verses 12 & 13].
18 What profits the graven image [the ideas, as idols, you have forced people to worship in God’s place] that the maker thereof has graven it; the molten image, and a teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusts therein, to make dumb idols [who cannot deliver what you have promised – in fact, they produce the opposite and witness against you]?
19 Woe unto him that says to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, Arise, it shall teach! [referring to verse 11 above, the ideas upon which you {vain man} have built your house] Behold, it is laid over with gold and silver [material beauty], and there is no breath [Spirit – life] at all in the midst of it.
20 But the LORD is in his holy temple [the house – the people – He has built upon the firm foundation of His ideas – wherein is peace and civilization]: let all the earth keep silence before him.

Habakkuk 3
1 A prayer of Habakkuk [the hand of God that has grasped you] the prophet [giving God’s word] upon Shigionoth [to those who have strayed away from Him: His ideas and ways].
2 O LORD, I have heard your speech, and was afraid: O LORD, revive your work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy.
3 God came from Teman [the place where wisdom resides], and the Holy One from mount Paran [pa’ar – clearly seen by explanation and understanding]. Selah. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise.
4 And his brightness was as the light [understanding]; he had horns [ray of light – the horns of the altar, where the sacrifice is bound, in Psalms 118:27 – it is also the horn of the foolish and wicked, which, in Psalms 75:4 & 5, he is warned not to lift up] coming out of his hand [these words of understing]: and there was the hiding of his power.
5 Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet.
6 He stood, and measured the earth [as in Genesis 1:2, Isaiah 34:11, and Jeremiah 4:23, and found it to have become without form, void, confused, and empty] he beheld, and drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow: his ways are everlasting.
7 I saw the tents of Cushan [darkness – ignorance] in affliction: and the curtains of the land of Midian [the place agitated by their own ignorance and in endless strife] did tremble.
8 Was the LORD displeased against the rivers [the means of delivering ideas and ways to all the people]? was your anger against the rivers? was your wrath against the sea [against the people who received these corrupt ideas and ways], that you did ride upon your horses and your chariots of salvation? [as is His Identifying Character, He has come for their Salvation, with wrath and mercy to deliver them from those among them destroying by their corrupt ideas.]
9 Your bow was made quite naked, according to the oaths of the tribes, [as He promised His people He would come in this later time, as he promised Abraham, saying in Genesis 22:17 & 18, “That in blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply your seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and your seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because you have obeyed my voice,] even your word. Selah. You did cleave the earth with rivers [your word flowing to them].
10 The mountains [the high places now ruling over the earth] saw you, and they trembled: the overflowing of the water passed by: the deep [see Genesis 1:2 above] uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high.
11 The sun and moon [government of church and state] stood still in their habitation: at the light [understanding] of your arrows they went, and at the shining of your glittering spear.
12 You did march through the land in indignation, you did thresh the heathen in anger.
13 You went forth for the salvation of your people, even for salvation with your anointed; you wounded the head out of the house of the wicked, by discovering the foundation unto the neck [everything above the neck is corrupt]. Selah.
14 You did strike through with his staves the head of his villages: they came out as a whirlwind to scatter me: their rejoicing was as to devour the poor secretly.
15 You did walk through the sea with your horses, through the heap of great waters.
16 When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice: rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble: when he comes up unto the people, he will invade them with his troops.
17 Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls:
18 Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
19 The LORD God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instruments [striking each note in its intended order].

Isaiah 47 then tells us why these last verses describe a state where none (except the elect remnant) are ready for the LORD at His appearing. – because, those who lead them are the corrupt heads, kings, in church and state.

Isaiah 47
1 Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon [you who have been born and brought up in confusion], sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans [who have learned at the hand of those whose words are meant for manipulation – to keep you in confusion]: for you shall no more be called tender and delicate.
2 Take the millstones, and grind meal: uncover your locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers.
3 Your nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, your shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and I will not meet you as a man.
4 As for our redeemer, the LORD of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel.
5 Sit you silent, and get you into darkness [realize your ignorance of the LORD – which testifies against you], O daughter of the Chaldeans: for you shall no more be called, The lady of kingdoms.
6 I was wroth with my people, I have polluted mine inheritance, and given them into your hand: you did show them no mercy; upon the ancient [keepers of the oracles] have you very heavily laid [kabad – the burden of] your yoke [covering the ancient ideas from sight, as if in thick clay].
7 And you said, I shall be a lady for ever [“And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon The Great, The Mother Of Harlots And Abominations Of The Earth.” Revelation 17:5]: so that you did not lay these things to your heart, neither did remember the latter end of it [when the ancient things would be revealed].
8 Therefore hear now this, you that are given to pleasures, that dwells carelessly, that says in your heart, I am, and none else beside me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children:
9 But these two things shall come to you in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood: they shall come upon you in their perfection for the multitude of your sorceries [words of manipulation], and for the great abundance of your enchantments [the minds you have controlled with you spells – words].
10 For you have trusted in your wickedness: you have said, None sees me. Your wisdom and your knowledge, it has perverted you; and you have said in your heart, I am, and none else beside me.
11 Therefore shall evil come upon you; you shall not know from whence it rises: and mischief shall fall upon you; you shall not be able to put it off: and desolation shall come upon you suddenly, which you shall not know.
12 Stand now with your enchantments, and with the multitude of your sorceries, wherein you have labored from your youth; if so be you shall be able to profit, if so be you may prevail.
13 You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, [all your experts who say they know what is to come] stand up, and save you from these things that shall come upon you.
14 Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before it.
15 Thus shall they be unto you with whom you have labored, even your merchants, from your youth: they shall wander every one to his quarter; none shall save you.

Revelation 17
1 And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto you the judgment of the great whore [those who have strayed from God] that sit upon many waters:
2 With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication [the ruler of the world with whom the whore has joined herself], and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk [unable to think] with the wine [with the ideas they have learned] of her fornication.
3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman [the churches] sit upon a scarlet colored beast [Babylon – the confusion that rules over the world], full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads [the churches] and ten horns [civil governments].
4 And the woman [all God’s people] was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls [material beauty], having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations [the foreign ideas she brought in and set in God’s place] and filthiness of her fornication:
5 And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon The Great, The Mother Of Harlots And Abominations Of The Earth.
6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus [who she killed because they exposed her apostasy]: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.
7 And the angel said unto me, Wherefore did you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman [God’s unfaithful people], and of the beast [confusion] that carries her, which has the seven heads [the churches] and ten horns [civil governments].
8 The beast [confusion] that you saw was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit [the never ending fall of man, falling away from God], and go into perdition [that now will perish]: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast [confusion by man’s ideas] that was, and is not [was ended by the light], and yet is [but now again has returned and drawn men into the same old darkness].
9 And here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains [the seven churches], on which the woman sits [where all the unfaithful, who have left God for idols, sit].
10 And there are seven kings [those who lead them]: five are fallen, and one is [Philadelphia that then was], and the other is not yet come [Laodicea who then was yet to come]; and when he comes, he must continue a short space.
11 And the beast [confusion – Babylon] that was, and is not, even he is the eighth [the final church that now rules – Babylon], and is of the seven, and goes into perdition [will perish].
12 And the ten horns which you saw are ten kings [governments and those who lead them], which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast [by accepting the ideas of confusion that lead men into their control].
13 These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast [confusion – Babylon].
14 These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is LORD of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful. [the elect remnant – I and the children God has given me]
15 And he said unto me, The waters which you saw, where the whore [the unfaithful] sit, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues [mingled among all the world].
16 And the ten horns [civil governments] which you saw upon the beast [ruled by confusion – Babylon], these shall hate the whore [all God’s unfaithful people who have left him for others], and shall make her desolate and naked [shall corrupt her and expose her shame], and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire [the church is on fire now].
17 For God has put in their hearts to fulfill his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast [to the confusion that rules the world], until the words of God shall be fulfilled.
18 And the woman which you saw is that great city [Babylon – church and state as a house divided against itself, while united in the same confusion – and therefore neither will stand], which reigns over the kings [all the leaders] of the earth.

Revelation 18
1 And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened [was given understanding] with his glory.
2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.
3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues.
5 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.
6 Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she has filled fill to her double.
7 How much she has glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she says in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow [see Isaiah 47:5].
8 Therefore shall her plagues come in one day [see Isaiah 47:9 above], death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the LORD God who judges her.
9 And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is your judgment come.
11 And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more:
12 The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble,
13 And cinnamon, and odors, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.
14 And the fruits that your soul lusted after are departed from you, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from you, and you shall find them no more at all.
15 The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing,
16 And saying, Alas, alas that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls!
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to naught. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
18 And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city!
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.
20 Rejoice over her, you heaven, and you holy apostles and prophets; for God has avenged you on her.
21 And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.
22 And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in you; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in you; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in you;
23 And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in you; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in you: for your merchants were the great men of the earth; for by your sorceries were all nations deceived.
24 And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.

Revelation 19
1 And after these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia; Salvation, and glory, and honor, and power, unto the LORD our God:
2 For true and righteous are his judgments: for he has judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and has avenged the blood of his servants at her hand.
3 And again they said, Alleluia And her smoke rose up for ever and ever.
4 And the four and twenty elders and the four beasts fell down and worshipped God that sat on the throne, saying, Amen; Alleluia.
5 And a voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise our God, all you his servants, and you that fear him, both small and great.
6 And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thundering [the sound that accompanied the lightning, the voice of understanding], saying, Alleluia: for the LORD God omnipotent reigns [is elevated above all the kings of the earth].
7 Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife has made herself ready [those who have come out of Babylon into the light – out of darkness into understanding].
8 And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white [purified]: for the fine linen is the righteousness [the correctness of the LORD’s teaching] of saints.
9 And he said unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he said unto me, These are the true sayings of God.
10 And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See you do it not: I am your fellow-servant, and of your brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he does judge and make war.
12 His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written [the Word of God], that no man knew, but he himself.
13 And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.
14 And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.
15 And out of his mouth goes a sharp sword [to rightly divide the word of God], that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
16 And he has on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King Of Kings, And LORD Of Lords.
17 And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God;
18 That you may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.
19 And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army.
20 And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast [confusion], and them that worshipped his image [his ideas]. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.
21 And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.

The idea of separation, from those whose ways and ideas disturb the peace of the law-abiding and civilized, is a foundation principle in church and state justice. This is what God calls us to in Revelation 18:4 above – the necessity of which is now self-evident, self-verifying truth demonstrated in our experience. The men who teach the ideas and ways that reject order and law are the same who then tell us we shouldn’t separate ourselves from their errors. The misled and ignorant can be corrected and reunited. Those who know and continue to teach the ideas that destroy peace, or who refuse to accept the fact of their own ignorance and be corrected, are those who choose to perish in the fires their own ways have caused.

The good news is there is no rapture. The LORD has always been here, is here now, and will always be here for any who will receive Him. There are none left behind to fend for themselves. The first step is to Him and away from the destroyers and the disorderly.

Hebrews 13
…for he has said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you.
6 So that we may boldly say, The LORD is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.
7 Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.
8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
9 Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace [God’s gift of communicating His understanding]; not with meats [material things], which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.
10 We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle [their corrupt houses].
11 For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp.
12 Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify [separated into purity] the people with his own blood [sacrifice], suffered without the gate [separated from the corrupt ideas].
13 Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach [that comes with not accepting the corruption].
14 For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.
15 By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.
16 But to do good and to communicate [the pure word] forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.

Psalms 29
1 Give unto the LORD, O you mighty, give unto the LORD glory and strength.
2 Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name; worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.
3 The voice of the LORD is upon the waters: the God of glory thunders: the LORD is upon many waters.
4 The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is full of majesty.
5 The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars; yea, the LORD breaks the cedars of Lebanon.
6 He makes them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion [those covered in purity and white] like a young unicorn [rhino -under one horn – one power].
7 The voice of the LORD divides the flames of fire.
8 The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness; the LORD shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.
9 The voice of the LORD makes the hinds to calve [his flock to bring the new birth], and discovers the forests [those who stand upright]: and in his temple does every one speak of his glory.
10 The LORD sits upon the flood [these waters gushing forth]; yea, the LORD sits King for ever.
11 The LORD will give strength unto his people; the LORD will bless his people with peace.

It is the day of the LORD’s vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion.

It is the day of the LORD’s vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion.

As we have seen in the past, the “controversy of Zion” is speaking of the debate over whose ideas should rule over the world. The title declaration appears in Isaiah 34:8, the chapter where we know is found one of the three occurrences of the Hebrew phrase, tohuw bohuw. These words are used to describe the condition the earth has become, just before the Holy Spirit moves and light comes into darkness.

As we know, these two words are rendered “without form, and void” in Genesis 1:2 and Jeremiah 4:23, which are explained when they are translated “confusion” and “emptiness” in Isaiah 34:11. This alternate translation comes as we are told of the LORD measuring (assessing) the earth as men have built it, on foundational ideas that can only produce confusion and chaos, and the stones build upon these ideas are emptiness, meaning they have no value.

This condition, without form and void, in Genesis 1, is the cause of the darkness upon face of the deep, which we know refers to ignorance of the underlying problem: the ideas given value by those in control of the world (the cultural icons in church and state). The LORD says, in Jeremiah 4:22 the cause is that His people have become foolish by no longer knowing Him, meaning His ideas and ways, and as a result, there is no understanding. He goes on to say they have become wise to do evil and to do good they have no knowledge (the darkness). This latter state is the product, death come from listening to the bad advice of those mingled among us, as serpents slithering into the garden (the sanctuary, where God separated us from evil ideas, into His ways and ideas, thereby creating a state of protection).

In Isaiah 34, just before the LORD gives His assessment of the world built upon corrupt ideas, He gives the cause as the streams, meaning the words and ideas flowing to the people. He says they are now seen as the pitch, meaning liquid darkness; and the dust thereof (from where man is created and where the serpent remains forever) into brimstone. We are then told these are turned into burning pitch: the fires of hell, which are never quenched – meaning the ideas causing the fires are forever seen as the cause. Then comes the LORD’s assessment of the condition of the earth, now understood as caused by these ideas.

The LORD continues in Isaiah (34), next describing what He has just undertaken through these posts: calling the nobles, those who’ve led the world into this condition, out of ignorance by and into His better ideas, pulling (harpazo – what has been twisted into the rapture by the false teachers among us as serpents) them from the fires into His kingdom. He says none of the noble are found to have come, and all the princes (the gods of the world, by whose ignorance and bad advice this glorious gospel has been hidden from the world) are seen as nothing.


The Hebrew word rendered “nothing” in Isaiah 34:12 is ‘aphec, which next appears in Isaiah 41:29 where it tells of the advice of the counselors, whose works are seen as nothing: molten images (ever changing ideas) that are wind and confusion (tohuw).

Ephesians 4
13 Till we all come in the unity (selah) of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ:
14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:
16 From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplies, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, makes increase of the body unto the edifying [educating] of itself in love.
17 This I say therefore, and testify in the LORD, that you henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:
19 Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
20 But you have not so learned Christ;
21 If so be that you have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:
22 That you put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
24 And that you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

The above passage is Paul speaking of the new creation, into this world that is described in the before mention chapters as the time when no man was found on the earth. We know this tells of when all lacked the Spirit: when all flesh has been led into death by following the corrupt ideas that now rule the culture.

Genesis 2:5 says, “there was not a man to till the ground.” Isaiah 41:28 says, “For I beheld, and there was no man; even among them, and there was no counsellor, that, when I asked of them, could answer a word.” Jeremiah 4:25 says, “I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled.” In Isaiah 34:12 the “man” is “nobles,” of who the LORD, through Isaiah, says, “They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be there, and all her princes shall be nothing [‘aphec].”

Friends, we know the corrupt advice, the teaching of the culture, is that God’s truth should be silenced, which they accomplished first by ridicule, later by demonization, and now by outright censorship. The lie they told was that there is such a thing as a culture wherein no ideas dominate or rule. We allowed them to first silence us, and then, now, their ideas rule over us and the world – which has produced the only actual void: confusion, the world unable to understand, or solve, any of its problems, because they endlessly offer the same failed ideas as the solution. Their ideas destroy truthful discourse, substitute lies and opinion, placing a higher value on altered and redefined reality: molten images that can never be grasped, because they are constantly changed to suit the lie or opinion of the moment.

Our ideas, God’s ideas are superior and should rule the world, being at the forefront of the thinking of those who lead and teach. It is either God’s ideas rule or man’s will rush into the void. I am not talking about the corrupt denominations or political parties that have led us here, and are now inescapable entrenched in corrupt ideas and ways. I am here, sent by God to lead and teach His words and ways; and if any teach or lead by anything else, it is because there is no light (understanding) in them.

In this light, and realizing the controversy has ended, hear the word of the LORD:

Isaiah 41
1 Keep silence before me, O islands [dry places that have rejected the word of the LORD]; and let the people renew their strength: let them come near; then let them speak: let us come near together to judgment.
2 Who raised up the righteous man from the east, called him to his foot, gave the nations before him, and made him rule over kings? he gave them as the dust to his sword, and as driven stubble to his bow.
3 He pursued them, and passed safely; even by the way that he had not gone with his feet.
4 Who has wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am he.
5 The isles saw it, and feared; the ends of the earth were afraid, drew near, and came.
6 They helped every one his neighbor; and every one said to his brother, Be of good courage.
7 So the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that smoothed with the hammer him that smote the anvil, saying, It is ready for the soldering: and he fastened it with nails, that it should not be moved. [Those who’ve seen this work of God – responding with their own inventions, lies in which the trust, delusions they think will stand against this work of God – again, they are delusional – what they have created witnesses against their claims to the throne. See Habakkuk 2:11]
8 But you, Israel, are my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend.
9 You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called you from the chief men thereof, and said unto you, You are my servant; I have chosen you, and not cast you away.
10 Fear you not; for I am with you: be not dismayed; for I am your God: I will strengthen you; yea, I will help you; yea, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness.
11 Behold, all they that were incensed against you shall be ashamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing; and they that strive with you shall perish.
12 You shall seek them, and shall not find them, even them that contended with you: they that war against you shall be as nothing, and as a thing of naught.
13 For I the LORD your God will hold your right hand, saying unto you, Fear not; I will help you.
14 Fear not, you worm Jacob, and you men of Israel; I will help you, says the LORD, and your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.
15 Behold, I will make you a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: you shall thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shall make the hills as chaff.
16 You shall fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and you shall rejoice in the LORD, and shall glory in the Holy One of Israel.
17 When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the LORD will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
18 I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.
19 I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together:
20 That they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the LORD has done this, and the Holy One of Israel has created it.
21 Produce your cause, saith the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons, says the King of Jacob.
22 Let them bring them forth, and shew us what shall happen: let them show the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things for to come.
23 Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together.
24 Behold, you are of nothing, and your work of naught: an abomination is he that chooses you.
25 I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come: from the rising of the sun shall he call upon my name: and he shall come upon princes as upon mortar, and as the potter treads clay.
26 Who has declared from the beginning, that we may know? and beforetime, that we may say, He is righteous? yea, there is none that shows, yea, there is none that declares, yea, there is none that hears your words.
27 The first shall say to Zion, Behold, behold them: and I will give to Jerusalem one that brings good tidings.
28 For I beheld, and there was no man; even among them, and there was no counsellor, that, when I asked of them, could answer a word.
29 Behold, they are all vanity; their works are nothing [‘aphec]: their molten images are wind and confusion [tohuw].

The ultimate root of the “controversy” is questioning (the “chiding” of Exodus 17:7) the LORD’s presence in the one He is speaking His ideas through, by which He shows His authority in them, the anointing that crowns His king. This is what Paul tells Timothy (tells me) in 1 Timothy 6:15, the chapter in its entirety describing these ideas and this moment.

1 Timothy 6
1 Let as many servants as are under the yoke [see the prior post – yoked with the LORD in His work] count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.
2 And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort.
3 If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our LORD Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness;
4 He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strife of words, whereof comes envy, strife, railings, evil surmising [innuendo and insinuation],
5 Perverse disputing of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness [TV preachers and communists]: from such withdraw yourself.
6 But godliness with contentment is great gain.
7 For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
8 And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.
9 But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.
10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
11 But you, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.
12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto you are also called, and have professed a good profession before many witnesses.
13 I give you charge in the sight of God, who quickens all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession;
14 That you keep this commandment without spot, unrebukable, until the appearing of our LORD Jesus Christ [until Christ in you is seen as Jehovah’s Salvation personified – which will crown you]:
15 Which in his times he shall show, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and LORD of lords;
16 Who only has immortality, dwelling in the light [understand that can only come from the anointing] which no man can approach unto; whom no man has seen, nor can see: to whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen.
17 Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy;
18 That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate [this word – manifesting Christ to the world by becoming willingly yoked together with Him];
19 Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
20 O Timothy, keep that which is committed to your trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:
21 Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with you. Amen.

Isaiah 34
1 Come near, you nations, to hear; and hearken, you people: let the earth hear, and all that is therein; the world, and all things that come forth of it.
2 For the indignation of the LORD is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies: he has utterly destroyed them, he has delivered them to the slaughter.
3 Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcasses, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood.
4 And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falls off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree.
5 For my sword shall be bathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea [this is Esau and Edom], and upon the people of my curse, to judgment.
6 The sword of the LORD is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, and with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams: for the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah [their stronghold – which is their people], and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea [Esau and Edom].
7 And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.
8 For it is the day of the LORD’s vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion.
9 And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch.
10 It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever.
11 But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it: and he shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion [tohuw], and the stones of emptiness [bohuw].
12 They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be there, and all her princes shall be nothing [‘aphec].
13 And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls.
14 The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; the screech owl also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest.
15 There shall the great owl make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and gather under her shadow: there shall the vultures also be gathered, every one with her mate.
16 Seek you out of the book of the LORD, and read: no one of these shall fail, none shall want her mate: for my mouth it has commanded, and his spirit it has gathered them.
17 And he [Esau] has cast the lot for them, and his [the LORD’s] hand has divided it unto them by line [described it in His rightly divided word]: they shall possess it for ever, from generation to generation shall they dwell therein [the hell they have created, in which they have ensnared {noosed} themselves].

When Isaiah 34:17 tell of the “lot” cast against God’s people, it is speaking of the lies and insinuations invented by those described as Esau – those among us who have sold their birthright. The Hebrew word translated “lot” is gowral, which is referring us to Esther 9:24 where it is rendered the same.

Esther 9
23 And the Jews undertook to do as they had begun, and as Mordecai [a lowly man] had written unto them;
24 Because Haman [a famous and highly thought of man] the son of Hammedatha [strife and endless argument], the Agagite [causing the unbearable burden], the enemy of all the Jews, had devised against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast Pur, that is, the lot [gowral], to consume them, and to destroy them;
25 But when Esther [star] came before the king, he commanded by letters that his wicked device, which he devised against the Jews, should return upon his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows.
26 Wherefore they called these days Purim [this year it was the day winter ended – accompanied by many spectacular lunar events] after the name of Pur. Therefore for all the words of this letter, and of that which they had seen concerning this matter, and which had come unto them,
27 The Jews ordained, and took upon them, and upon their seed, and upon all such as joined themselves unto them, so as it should not fail, that they would keep these two days according to their writing, and according to their appointed time every year;
28 And that these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation, every family, every province, and every city; and that these days of Purim should not fail from among the Jews, nor the memorial of them perish from their seed.

Friends, the dead have no idea they are already dead, hanging themselves by their own inventions, the gallows they built to destroy the little guy: the people of this nation who are God’s people.

Psalms 121
1 I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence comes my help.
2 My help comes from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.
3 He will not suffer your foot to be moved: he that keeps you will not slumber.
4 Behold, he that keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The LORD is your keeper: the LORD is your shade upon your right hand.
6 The sun shall not smite you by day, nor the moon by night.
7 The LORD shall preserve you from all evil: he shall preserve your soul.
8 The LORD shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

Psalms 75
1 Unto you, O God, do we give thanks, unto you do we give thanks: for that your name is near your wondrous works declare.
2 When I shall receive the congregation I will judge uprightly.
3 The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved: I bear up the pillars of it. Selah.
4 I said unto the fools, Deal not foolishly: and to the wicked, Lift not up the horn:
5 Lift not up your horn on high: speak not with a stiff neck.
6 For promotion comes neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south.
7 But God is the judge: he puts down one, and sets up another.
8 For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup, and the wine is red; it is full of mixture; and he pours out of the same: but the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them.
9 But I will declare for ever; I will sing praises to the God of Jacob.
10 All the horns of the wicked also will I cut off; but the horns of the righteous shall be exalted.

Psalm 14
1 The fool has said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that does good.
2 The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God.
3 They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that does good, no, not one.
4 Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD.
5 There were they in great fear: for God is in the generation of the righteous.
6 You have shamed the counsel of the poor, because the LORD is his refuge.
7 Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! when the LORD brings back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad.

I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

The above is Romans 12:1, which comes after we are told of the deep thoughts of the LORD, long hidden, now revealed through what the prior chapter says is by a deliverer come out of Zion, to take away the sin that has caused these ideas/ways to vanish. When the title above tells of this revelation, come by the mercy of God, we understand it is speaking of the sure mercies of David. It describes the one sent to rule in Zion, raised to the throne by the Spirit of Christ in him uncovering the ancient things, which are what removes the sin. As we have seen, it is order restored to God’s house, His family, His children returning to Him, reconciled by minds drawn/led into agreement with His better ideas, those uncovered ending the darkness of following the ignorance of men’s leading.

Romans 11
25 For I would not, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.
26 And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:
27 For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.
28 As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the father’s sakes.
29 For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.
30 For as you in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief:
31 Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.
32 For God has concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.
33 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
34 For who has known the mind of the LORD? or who has been his counsellor?
35 Or who has first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?
36 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

Romans 12
1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
2 And be not conformed to this world: but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
3 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God has dealt to every man the measure of faith.
4 For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office:
5 So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.

What is the “fullness of the Gentiles” (Romans 11:25), speaking of the time that triggers Israel’s (all the family of God who claim His name) wakening, and in the light of Paul just prior saying only an elect remnant remains (Romans 11:5), who themselves only recently awakened from unbelief (Romans 11:30)?

It is referring to now, when the Gentiles believers who are called by God’s name have come to full desolation, just as had occurred in the desolation triggering the coming of the LORD Jesus Christ. It is telling of the world as we’ve seen it in patterns in previous posts, the natural man as Edom, without the Spirit of God, rejecting correction and thereby selling his birthright as the firstborn; and the second Adam, who is the LORD from heaven, who has quickened us to life from among these dead. (see 1 Corinthians 15)

The fullness initiates what is written of Amos 9:11 & 12, which tells of the sure mercies of David: when the LORD as promised raises up one to sit on David’s throne, repairing and reuniting his house: the house under the just one, as planned by God, who will possess the remnant of Edom, and all the heathen.

When Amos is repeated in Acts 15:11 & 12 “the remnant of Edom” are called “the residue of [adam] men” and the heathen are called Gentiles who are called by God’s name. Restoring the order of the house of David, the rightful king of God’s choosing, raising him to throne of Zion, is what recreate the world, reestablishing righteousness from the ashes of what men’s rule and ways have produced.

The desolation of the world has come as in the past, when God’s word, His teaching ideas, the only way into peace and sustainable civilization, are no longer heard. The silence is the famine: the drought by lack of rain: waters from heaven: God’s word understood and accepted, received, as His, which are the water and sunlight that produce life on earth. It is in this context we understand Amos, and the LORD’s telling of the restoration now underway.

The trouble with those who now rule the world, except for the elect remnant, is they think everything is fine the way it is, and God should realize what they have accomplished, and agree with their ideas. They would rather rule in hell, than change their minds and in doing bring the kingdom of God, on earth as it is in heaven.

Amos 8
1 Thus has the LORD God shewed unto me: and behold a basket of summer fruit.
2 And he said, Amos, what see you? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said the LORD unto me, The end is come upon my people of Israel; I will not again pass by them any more.
3 And the songs of the temple shall be howling in that day, says the LORD God: there shall be many dead bodies in every place; they shall cast them forth with silence.
4 Hear this, O you that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail,
5 Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit? [They are saying, when will this interruption be done so they can return to their same old unjust ways.]
6 That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?
7 The LORD has sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works.
8 Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwells therein? and it shall rise up wholly as a flood; and it shall be cast out and drowned, as by the flood of Egypt.
9 And it shall come to pass in that day, says the LORD God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day:
10 And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day.
11 Behold, the days come, says the LORD God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD:
12 And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it.
13 In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst.
14 They that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, Your god [the idols you have put in God’s place – by which you judge], O Dan [judgment], lives; and, The manner of Beersheba lives [the oaths you make men take to become part of you corruption]; even they shall fall, and never rise up again.

Amos 9
1 I saw the LORD standing upon the altar: and he said, Smite the lintel of the door, that the posts may shake: and cut them in the head, all of them; and I will slay the last of them with the sword: he that flees of them shall not flee away, and he that escapes of them shall not be delivered.
2 Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down:
3 And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence; and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them:
4 And though they go into captivity before their enemies, thence will I command the sword, and it shall slay them: and I will set mine eyes upon them for evil, and not for good.
5 And the LORD God of hosts is he that touches the land, and it shall melt, and all that dwell therein shall mourn: and it shall rise up wholly like a flood; and shall be drowned, as by the flood of Egypt.
6 It is he that builds his stories in the heaven, and has founded his troop in the earth; he that calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name.
7 Are you not as children of the Ethiopians [covered in darkness] unto me, O children of Israel? says the LORD. Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt [from the land of their captivity – many times]? and the Philistines [the foreigners’ ideas that have invaded] from Caphtor [to rule over you], and the Syrians [those who exalted themselves above God] from Kir [as a wall that keeps God out]?
8 Behold, the eyes of the LORD God are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the LORD.
9 For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.
10 All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say, The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us.
11 In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old:
12 That they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen, which are called by my name, says the LORD that does this.
13 Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper [those bringing in the fruit of the corrupt tree, which shall be plowed under] , and the treader of grapes [of God’s wrath – this word] him that sows [the corrupt] seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt [from the heat of the fires their corrupt ideas have caused – as in 2 Peter 3].
14 And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them.
15 And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, says the LORD your God.

The modern church is on fire – fully corrupted, while thinking they will harvest the world into their ways – the same inbreeding ways that have produced the retardation and desolation of the world. This is what was occurring in Acts 15 as Amos 9:11 & 12 is quoted.

In recent posts, we have discussed the kings and the degeneration of the order that began with Solomon’s bringing in foreign ways. We know this initial degeneration quickly resulted in the breach, the separation of Israel from Judah in the next generation. It came under Rehoboam, who when asked to relieve the people’s burden, placed on them by Solomon his father, he instead greatly increased it. This caused the breach, which began by a false king and false priests rising and setting up idols in God’s place. Many generations later, after many kings and priests, the burden and the injustice continued and metastasized into the total desolation of Israel and Judah.

The name Amos means burden, his writing describing the effect of what his name describes: the result of the burden that is never reduced. Amos is from the nine times used Hebrew word ‘amac, which is the word used in 1 Kings 12:11 and 2 Chronicles 10:11 in telling the story of when Rehoboam did not relieve what Solomon “did lade” and “put” upon God’s people at large.

1 Kings 12
3 That they sent and called him. And Jeroboam and all the congregation of Israel came, and spoke unto Rehoboam, saying,
4 Your father made our yoke grievous: now therefore make you the grievous service of your father, and his heavy yoke which he put upon us, lighter, and we will serve you.
5 And he said unto them, Depart yet for three days, then come again to me. And the people departed.
6 And king Rehoboam consulted with the old men, that stood before Solomon his father while he yet lived, and said, How do you advise that I may answer this people?
7 And they spoke unto him, saying, If you will be a servant unto this people this day, and will serve them, and answer them, and speak good words to them, then they will be your servants for ever.
8 But he forsook the counsel of the old men, which they had given him, and consulted with the young men that were grown up with him, and which stood before him:
9 And he said unto them, What counsel give you that we may answer this people, who have spoken to me, saying, Make the yoke which your father did put upon us lighter?
10 And the young men that were grown up with him spoke unto him, saying, Thus shall you speak unto this people that spoke unto you, saying, Your father made our yoke heavy, but make you it lighter unto us; thus shall you say unto them, My little finger shall be thicker than my father’s loins.
11 And now whereas my father did lade [‘amac – burden] you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke: my father has chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.
12 So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day, as the king had appointed, saying, Come to me again the third day.
13 And the king answered the people roughly, and forsook the old men’s counsel that they gave him;
14 And spoke to them after the counsel of the young men, saying, My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke: my father also chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.

In Acts 15 we are told of the same burden and its origin in the church, lading those who follow Christ with burdens heavier than those they have escaped (See 2 Peter 2:18 thru 22). As we have seen in previous studies, Solomon’s and those following him, bringing in foreign ways and what it would lead to, are what the LORD is describing as He tells of the swept house (Matthew 12:44), and later of the same end condition of those proselytized into the resulting corruption (Matthew 23:15). The swept house is telling of the nation, the house of the kings, built by David, and the house of God built by Solomon, both affected and corrupted by the burdens brought into them. The end state of these governments is worse than the state before them.

Matthew 12
31 Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.
32 And whosoever speaks a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaks against the Holy Ghost [the Spirit that comes to make us Holy, by leading us into all truth], it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come [because you have rejected holiness and truth].
33 Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.
34 O generation of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
35 A good man out of the good treasure of the heart brings forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things.
36 But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.
37 For by your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned.
38 Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from you.
39 But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonah:
40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
41 The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and, behold, a greater than Jonah is here [and again I say, REPENT!].
42 The queen of the south [the men of Teman – the wisdom and power of God in them – see Habakkuk 3:3] shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here [greater because the one coming, and is now hear, will build {sweep clean} the house and will not bring in foreign ways to corrupt it].
43 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walks through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none.
44 Then he says, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he finds it empty, swept, and garnished.
45 Then goes he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation [as it now is – in total desolation].
46 While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him.
47 Then one said unto him, Behold, your mother and your brethren stand without, desiring to speak with you.
48 But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?
49 And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren!
50 For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.

Matthew 23
9 And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.
10 Neither be you called masters: for one is your Master [teacher], even Christ.
11 But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.
12 And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.
13 But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for you neither go in yourselves, neither suffer you them that are entering to go in.
14 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore you shall receive the greater damnation.
15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, you make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
16 Woe unto you, you blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor!
17 You fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold?
18 And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty.
19 You fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift?
20 Whoso therefore shall swear by the altar, swears by it, and by all things thereon.
21 And whoso shall swear by the temple, swears by it, and by him that dwells therein.
22 And he that shall swear by heaven, swears by the throne of God, and by him that sits thereon.
23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought you to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
24 You blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.
25 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.
26 You blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.
27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.
28 Even so you also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
29 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,
30 And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.
31 Wherefore you be witnesses unto yourselves, that you are the children of them which killed the prophets.
32 Fill you up then the measure of your fathers.
33 You serpents, you generation of vipers, how can you escape the damnation of hell?
34 Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them you shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall you scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:
35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom you slew between the temple and the altar.
36 Truly I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.
37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you that kill the prophets, and stones them which are sent unto you, how often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathered her chickens under her wings, and you would not!
38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.
39 For I say unto you, You shall not see me henceforth, till you shall say, Blessed is he that comes in the name of the LORD.

These men’s creations, their own ideas, are the burdens they, even now, continue to put upon all men; the old keeping them as the status quo, and the young, ignorantly and endlessly wanting, increasing them. The LORD, in Matthew 11, tells us of these ideas He has revealed to us, and speaking of what is revealed is the light burden of those who received them.

Matthew 11
11 Truly I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there has not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
12 And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.
13 For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.
14 And if you will receive it, this is Elijah, which was for to come.
15 He that has ears to hear, let him hear.
16 But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows,
17 And saying, We have piped unto you, and you have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and you have not lamented.
18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He has a devil.
19 The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.
20 Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not:
21 Woe unto you, Chorazin! woe unto you, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
22 But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you.
23 And you, Capernaum, which are exalted unto heaven, shall be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in you, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.
24 But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for you.
25 At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank you, O Father, LORD of heaven and earth, because you have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them unto babes.
26 Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in your sight.
27 All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knows the Son, but the Father; neither knows any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.
28 Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest unto your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

The burdens these men have created have now become the idols they worship. They now think they will proselytize others into worshipping the same corruption. The idols are spoken of in Isaiah 46 as Bel and Nebo, who are the burdens placed upon men, a burden they themselves carry, which has instead carried them, and all who follow, into captivity (again, see 2 Peter 2:18 thru 22).

The LORD then tells of the burden He carries and has carried, the light burden He asks all to take upon them, joining (yoked) with him, as their “reasonable service.” The burden is His people, carrying them into life and now the world into the new birth.

Isaiah 46
1 Bel bows down, Nebo stoops, their idols were upon the beasts, and upon the cattle: your carriages were heavy laden [‘amac]; they are a burden to the weary beast.
2 They stoop, they bow down together; they could not deliver the burden, but themselves are gone into captivity.
3 Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, which are borne [‘amac] by me from the belly, which are carried from the womb: [The LORD’s burden is to carry us from the belly of the earth into life – as in Jonah 2, the LORD hears us from the belly of hell, and in mercy carries us into life – as the LORD describes in Matthew 12:40, speaking of His body and when we would return to life on earth.]
4 And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.
5 To whom will you liken me, and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be like?
6 They [the false preachers, false teachers, and false prophets, who lead My people] lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh silver in the balance, and hire a goldsmith; and he makes it a god: they fall down, yea, they worship.
7 They bear him upon the shoulder, they carry him, and set him in his place, and he stands; from his place shall he not remove [they cannot change]: yea, one shall cry unto him, yet can he not answer, nor save him out of his trouble [because they are dead idols].
8 Remember this, and shew yourselves men: bring it again to mind, O you transgressors.
9 Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me,
10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:
11 Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executes my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.
12 Hearken unto me, you stouthearted, that are far from righteousness:
13 I bring near my righteousness; it shall not be far off, and my salvation shall not tarry: and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel my glory.

Psalms 21
1 The king shall joy in your strength, O LORD; and in your salvation how greatly shall he rejoice!
2 You have given him his heart’s desire, and have not withheld the request of his lips. Selah.
3 For you prevent [go before] him with the blessings of goodness: you set a crown of pure gold on his head.
4 He asked life of you, and you gave it him, even length of days for ever and ever.
5 His glory is great in your salvation: honor and majesty have you laid upon him.
6 For you have made him most blessed for ever: you have made him exceeding glad with your countenance.
7 For the king trusts in the LORD, and through the mercy of the most High he shall not be moved.
8 Your hand shall find out all your enemies: your right hand shall find out those that hate you.
9 You shall make them as a fiery oven in the time of your anger: the LORD shall swallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them.
10 Their fruit shall you destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the children of men.
11 For they intended evil against you: they imagined a mischievous device, which they are not able to perform.
12 Therefore shall you make them turn their back, when you shall make ready your arrows upon your strings against the face of them.
13 Be you exalted, LORD, in your own strength: so will we sing and praise your power.

And saviors shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the LORD’s.

And saviors shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the LORD’s.

In previous posts, we have been led to understand the LORD’s plan is to accomplish the above, first in, then through His people. The verse is from Obadiah, verse 21 of what is a one chapter book; the name meaning the work of Jehovah (‘abad Yah). As we understand, the name Jeremiah speaks of the LORD rising, and in His rising raises us, to be His hand by which He further works His plan of salvation. This is the work and mission of the One body of Jesus Christ.

The Hebrew words beginning and ending the title verse are those compounded into producing the name Jesus, which we know means Jehovah’s Salvation. The word rendered “come up” is the Hebrew word ‘alah, meaning to ascend, as in rising up into becoming mount Zion, and the kingdom shall become (hayah) the LORD’s. The description is speaking of our resurrection, Jehovah rising in our human flesh, and raising us, the body of Christ, into becoming His kingdom.

This is the mouth Zion spoken of in Hebrews 12:22, where we are plainly told we are this city, and it is our destination reached, the presence of the living God in our flesh. As we have seen many times, Hebrews 11 tells of the faith of all those who have, by their faith, seen this city far off and worked through their lives, even until death, to reach what they understood they would not reach in the bodies they then inhabited. Hebrews 11:35 tells us some gave their lives in faith, knowing there is an even better resurrection to be obtained by those whose sacrifice demonstrated great faith in what they had heard and believed. This is the witness that comes only through self-sacrifice, by faith in what was not seen until now, when their witness is joined with ours. Chapter 11 ends telling us God has planned and provided for some better thing (resurrection) for us, that the witnesses, their witness, without us would not be made perfect. Hebrews 12:1 then speaks of reaching the perfection, the same earlier described in Hebrews 6:1, which now compasses us about as we run the course set before us.

1 Timothy 6 tells of the sacrifice required of the LORD’s servants, those who are soldiers, willing slaves of One master. It also speaks of those who pervert these ideas into the endless agitation of all who follow their ways. Men of perverse minds, whose love of money is at the root of all their evil. They are those who refuse the orderly arrangement, whose works witness against them as our teaching shines God’s light on their evil deeds. These are those who, as Esau, sold their birthright for morsels of meat, who hate and abuse their brothers as they mingle among them.

1 Timothy 6
1 Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.
2 And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort.
3 If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our LORD Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness;
4 He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strife of words, whereof comes envy, strife, railings, evil surmising,
5 Perverse disputing of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw yourself. [Those here among us, the domestic enemies of the faithful nation.]
6 But godliness with contentment is great gain.
7 For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
8 And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.
9 But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.
10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows [the enemies mingled into our faith and nation].
11 But you, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.
12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto you are also called, and have professed a good profession before many witnesses. [Selah. Think about this and understand it in the context of what we have learned.]
13 I give you charge in the sight of God, who quickens [bring to life from the dead] all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession;
14 That you keep this commandment without spot [without the corrupt ideas of the degenerate time], unrebukable, until the appearing of our LORD Jesus Christ [until He is seen in us, His word witnessing to His presence]:
15 Which in his times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and LORD of lords;
16 Who only has immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man has seen, nor can see: to whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen.
17 Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God [manifested in our flesh bodies], who gives us richly all things to enjoy;
18 That they do good [do the LORD’s work], that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate [His word and ideas];
19 Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
20 O Timothy, keep that which is committed to your trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:
21 Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with you. Amen.

Revelation 6 speaks of the riders (the four horsemen), the Rechabites discussed in the prior post, who come and remove understanding, light, and life from the earth. Then comes, is heard, the witness of those slain for the word of God.

Revelation 6
9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O LORD, holy and true, do you not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.
12 And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; [The institutions of church and state become without understanding, their minds darkened by following their own corrupt and confused ideas.]
13 And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth [God’s people at large falling away from Him – their fixed positions in heaven], even as a fig tree [God’s people] casts her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. [This is the wind of false doctrine that separates us from the One body – see Ephesians 4:8 thru 16, this reversed in Christ rising in us and uniting us again.]
14 And the heaven [understanding removed as the word is no longer rightly divided] departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
15 And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the [clefts in] rocks of the mountains;
16 And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:
17 For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

Friends, this is the vision, understanding prophesy, now come, as spoken of by Daniels in Daniel 9:24, which Obadiah and all the prophets saw far off.

Daniel 9
17 Now therefore, O our God, hear the prayer of your servant, and his supplications, and cause your face [presence] to shine [understanding] upon your sanctuary that is desolate, for the LORD’s sake.
18 O my God, incline your ear, and hear; open your eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is called by your name: for we do not present our supplications before you for our righteousness, but for your great mercies.
19 O LORD, hear; O LORD, forgive; O LORD, hearken and do; defer not, for your own sake, O my God: for your city and your people are called by your name.
20 And whiles I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the LORD my God for the holy mountain of my God;
21 Yea, whiles I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel [meaning man of God, and warrior of God – as in 1 Timothy 6:11 & 12 above – the one who brings understanding], whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation.
22 And he informed me, and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give you skill and understanding.
23 At the beginning of your supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come to shew you; for you are greatly beloved: therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision.
24 Seventy weeks are determined upon your people and upon your holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy [as occurs in Revelation 7 – as the elect remnant are sealed, given understanding – and then lead the masses out of great tribulation: confusion and darkness], and to anoint the Most Holy.

Revelation 19:17 answers the question asked in verse 17 of Revelation 6 above. It is the same Lamb standing in the sun, in the light of understanding as it shines through the east gate lighting on His people in His kingdom. He is the Word of God they have been slain for: witnessing to His coming with understanding (light), the sword, the Spirit of prophesy, that proceeds from His mouth through them.

Revelation 19
1 And after these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia; Salvation, and glory, and honor, and power, unto the LORD our God:
2 For true and righteous are his judgments: for he has judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and has avenged the blood of his servants at her hand.
3 And again they said, Alleluia And her smoke rose up for ever and ever.
4 And the four and twenty elders and the four beasts fell down and worshipped God that sat on the throne, saying, Amen; Alleluia.
5 And a voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise our God, all you his servants, and you that fear him, both small and great.
6 And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the LORD God omnipotent reigns.
7 Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife has made herself ready.
8 And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.
9 And he said unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he said unto me, These are the true sayings of God.
10 And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See you do it not: I am your fellow-servant [I am your fellow soldier and slave], and of your brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he does judge and make war.
12 His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.
13 And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.
14 And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.
15 And out of his mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
16 And he has on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King Of Kings, And LORD Of Lords.
17 And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God;
18 That you may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them [the Rechabites], and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.
19 And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army.
20 And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark [confusion and ignorance without God Spirit in them] of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.
21 And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.

These men as beasts, speaking without the Spirit of God, are those spoken of as Esau (Edom), the natural Adam that never puts on the Spirit that rises to immortality.

Habakkuk 2
18 What profits the graven image that the maker thereof has graven it; the molten image, and a teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusts therein, to make dumb idols?
19 Woe unto him that says to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, Arise, it shall teach! Behold, it is laid over with gold and silver, and there is no breath [life] at all in the midst of it.
20 But the LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.

Esau is the one Hebrews 12 contrasts with all the faithful spoken of in Hebrews 11: who with us are corrected into becoming sons. This is the perfection that has endured through the correction, by faith seeing the unseen and now experiencing what is by it created.

Obadiah
1 The vision of Obadiah. Thus says the LORD God concerning Edom; We have heard a rumor from the LORD, and an ambassador is sent among the heathen, Arise you, and let us rise up against her in battle.
2 Behold, I have made you small among the heathen: you are greatly despised.
3 The pride of your heart has deceived you, you that dwells in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high; that says in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground?
4 Though you exalt yourself as the eagle, and though you set your nest among the stars, thence will I bring you down, says the LORD.
5 If thieves came to you, if robbers by night, (how are you cut off!) would they not have stolen till they had enough? if the grape- gatherers came to you, would they not leave some grapes?
6 How are the things of Esau searched out! how are his hidden things sought up!
7 All the men of your confederacy have brought you even to the border: the men that were at peace with you have deceived you, and prevailed against you; they that eat your bread have laid a wound under you: there is none understanding in him.
8 Shall I not in that day, says the LORD, even destroy the wise men out of Edom, and understanding out of the mount of Esau?
9 And your mighty men, O Teman [the south – the wise men who once sat at God’s right hand – His power in the wisdom given them – now the wise of the world, as Esau, selling their birthright by refusing God’s correction], shall be dismayed, to the end that every one of the mount of Esau may be cut off by slaughter.
10 For your violence against your brother Jacob shame shall cover you, and you shall be cut off for ever.
11 In the day that you stood on the other side, in the day that the strangers carried away captive his forces, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem, even you were as one of them.
12 But you should not have looked on the day of your brother in the day that he became a stranger; neither should you have rejoiced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction; neither should you have spoken proudly in the day of distress.
13 You should not have entered into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity; yea, you should not have looked on their affliction in the day of their calamity, nor have laid hands on their substance in the day of their calamity;
14 Neither should you have stood in the crossway, to cut off those of his that did escape; neither should you have delivered up those of his that did remain in the day of distress.
15 For the day of the LORD is near upon all the heathen: as you have done, it shall be done unto you: your reward shall return upon your own head.
16 For as you have drunk upon my holy mountain, so shall all the heathen drink continually, yea, they shall drink, and they shall swallow down, and they shall be as though they had not been.
17 But upon mount Zion shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness; and the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.
18 And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble, and they shall kindle in them, and devour them; and there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau; for the LORD has spoken it.
19 And they of the south shall possess the mount of Esau; and they of the plain the Philistines: and they shall possess the fields of Ephraim, and the fields of Samaria: and Benjamin shall possess Gilead.
20 And the captivity of this host of the children of Israel shall possess that of the Canaanites [those zealously for ignorance], even unto Zarephath [until the refining in the latter rain]; and the captivity of Jerusalem, which is in Sepharad [the separation into purity], shall possess the cities of the south [negeb – the land that has been without rain – referring to Teman].
21 And saviors shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the LORD’s.

Hebrews 10
23 Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)
24 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:
25 Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as you see the day approaching.
26 For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins,
27 But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.
28 He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses:
29 Of how much sorer punishment, suppose you, shall he be thought worthy, who has trodden under foot the Son of God, and has counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and has done despite unto the Spirit of grace?
30 For we know him that has said, Vengeance belongs unto me, I will recompense, says the LORD. And again, The LORD shall judge his people.
31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
32 But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great fight of afflictions;
33 Partly, whilst you were made a gazing-stock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, whilst you became companions of them that were so used.
34 For you had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that you have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.
35 Cast not away therefore your confidence, which has great recompense of reward.
36 For you have need of patience, that, after you have done the will of God, you might receive the promise.
37 For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.
38 Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.
39 But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.

Hebrews 11
1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
2 For by it the elders obtained a good report.
3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
4 By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaks.
5 By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.
6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
7 By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.
8 By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
9 By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:
10 For he looked for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
11 Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.
12 Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable.
13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
14 For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.
15 And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.
16 But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he has prepared for them a city.
17 By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son,
18 Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall your seed be called:
19 Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.
20 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.
21 By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff.
22 By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones.
23 By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment.
24 By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter;
25 Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season;
26 Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.
27 By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.
28 Through faith he kept the Passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them.
29 By faith they passed through the Red sea as by dry land: which the Egyptians assaying to do were drowned.
30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days.
31 By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace.
32 And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets:
33 Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions.
34 Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.
35 Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection:
36 And others had trial of cruel mocking and scourging, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment:
37 They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented;
38 (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
39 And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise:
40 God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.

Hebrews 12
1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your minds.
4 You have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.
5 And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks unto you as unto children, My son, despise not you the chastening of the LORD, nor faint when you are rebuked of him:
6 For whom the LORD loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives.
7 If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chastens not?
8 But if you be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are you bastards, and not sons.
9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?
10 For they truly for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.
11 Now no chastening for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
12 Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;
13 And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.
14 Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the LORD:
15 Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;
16 Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.
17 For you know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.
18 For you are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest,
19 And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more:
20 (For they could not endure that which was commanded, And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart:
21 And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:)
22 But you are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God [God in the flesh], the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,
23 To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
24 And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that of Abel.
25 See that you refuse not him that speaks. For if they escaped not who refused him that spoke on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaks from heaven:
26 Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he has promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.
27 And this word, Yet once more, signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
28 Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:
29 For our God is a consuming fire.

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