Apocalypse, Uncovering the Arm of the LORD, not the same old ignorance

Today a look at induced ignorance from the perspective of eschatological (end time events) teaching, and its resulting product of a sleeping ineffective church. As with all such teaching it relies on a destruction of language through means of making certain thoughts and the associated speech first socially unacceptable and then illegal.

The tactic when fully affecting the group can also be used on people and is called demonization; the result created in this way is also called popular prejudice. Here is the Cambridge online dictionary definition of demonize: “To try to make someone or a group of people seem completely evil.” Their definition of prejudice is: “An unfair and unreasonable opinion or feeling formed without enough thought or knowledge.”

What we see in our society in general isn’t it attempting to remove prejudice, but rather redirecting it against enemies regardless of reality or objective standards, while hiding behind the spurious mask of tolerance and acceptance.

In our time the mass media defines who or what are acceptable and once it destroyed all ability to think beyond what it popularized (taught) it then proceeded at ever increasing speed to destroy all objective standards for judging. Anyone opposing these re-definitions is demonized, all judgment is left in the hands of these demigods, and they as popular (pop) culture icons lead the mind deadened hordes against their foes: the rational and reality itself.

This brings us back to eschatology and it teaching the church to look for mythical creatures and events, and in doing blind her by ignorance from seeing the beast in our midst, or should I say – we being in the belly of the great beast in the sea.

This last statement is referring to Jonah and being in the belly of the great sea beast and realizing that the storm was God calling him back to his inescapable mission. The idea of the belly of the whale is of vacillation and timidity. It is when the storm we are in the midst of produces an inescapable realization it is centered on us (church), but we find ourselves vacillating between what we know we must do and actually doing it. In this place there is much anxiousness as we are taken deeper and deeper into the waters, the reality becoming ever increasingly undeniable, and still we refuse the obligation our duty demands.

The Hebrew word translated fish in Jonah is dag, said to be from dagah, meaning to move rapidly, as does a fishes tail (as a door swinging on its hinges from side to side never going anywhere). Here is the definition of vacillate: “To be unable to decide something and especially to continue to change opinions.” Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary actually says the meaning of dag is uncertain and gives as a second possible origin the word da’ag, meaning to be anxious.

Here is what Jonah says of his experience in the belly of the sea beast:

Jonah 2
1 Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish’s belly,
2 And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of Sheol [the place where the dead reside] cried I, and you heard my voice.
3 For you have cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all your billows and your waves passed over me.
4 Then I said, I am cast out of your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.
5 The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head.
6 I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet have you brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God.
7 When my soul fainted within me I remembered the LORD: and my prayer came in unto you, into your holy temple.
8 They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.
9 But I will sacrifice unto you with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD.
10 And the LORD spoke unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.

Again, Habakkuk 3 asks the question, “Was the LORD displeased against the rivers? was your anger against the rivers? was your wrath against the sea, that you didst ride upon your horses and your chariots of salvation?”

Verse 13 answers the question. “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. Selah.”

Habakkuk begins with telling of the society having degraded, and identifies it as being at the hand of the Chaldeans. Again, these are the Magians (Magi – Hebrew Kasday), meaning they are astrologers. The word translated as witch-craft is kashaph, meaning to whisper seemingly innocent words to enchant (magic). The idea of the astrologers doing this was their knowing the movements of the stars. They were therefor familiar with how they moved (people being the stars). It is telling of those who by their words manipulate the ignorant and always to do the will of the one seemingly innocently whispering in their ear (deceit-filled counsel).

Here is Habakkuk 1 in this context:
Habakkuk 1
5 Behold you among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvelously: for I will work a work in your days which you will not believe, though it be told you.
6 For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwelling-places that are not theirs.
7 They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves.
8 Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves: and their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from far; they shall fly as the eagle that hastes to eat.
9 They shall come all for violence: their faces shall sup up as the east wind, and they shall gather the captivity as the sand.
10 And they shall scoff at the kings, and the princes shall be a scorn unto them: they shall deride every strong hold; for they shall heap dust, and take it.
11 Then shall his mind change, and he shall pass over, and offend, imputing this his power unto his god.
12 Are you not from everlasting, O LORD my God, mine Holy One? we shall not die. O LORD, you have ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, you have established them for correction.
13 You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: wherefore look you upon them that deal treacherously, and hold your tongue when the wicked devour the man that is more righteous than he?
14 And make men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them?
15 They take up all of them with the angle, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their drag: therefore they rejoice and are glad.
16 Therefore they sacrifice unto their net, and burn incense unto their drag; because by them their portion is fat, and their meat plenteous.
17 Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare continually to slay the nations?

Habakkuk 2 and 3 are the LORD’s answer. Chapter 2 speaks to those who are building the town by blood, telling of their ways draining life, and it goes on to tell of iniquity, here meaning unjust and full of error. Verse 14 follows by telling of the response being the earth filled with the knowledge of the LORD. The next verse is another “woe,” to those giving this corrupted drink to cause a drunken state – putting the mind into a stupor and more so a state of carelessness. They do so to be able to take advantage of those they have made drunk.

Habakkuk 2 (Woe to these false prophets!)
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.
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, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity?
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 puts your bottle to him, and make him drunken also, that you may look on their nakedness!
16 You are filled with shame for glory: drink you also, and let your foreskin be uncovered: the cup of the LORD’s right hand shall be turned unto you, and shameful spewing shall be on your glory.

Habakkuk 3 then tells of the LORD making this very plain as He is delivering us from these men and their establishments’ deceptive control.

Habakkuk 3
4 And his brightness was as the light; he had horns coming out of his hand: 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: 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 in affliction: and the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble.
8 Was the LORD displeased against the rivers? was your anger against the rivers? was your wrath against the sea, that you didst ride upon your horses and your chariots of salvation?
9 Your bow was made quite naked, according to the oaths of the tribes, even your word. Selah. You didst cleave the earth with rivers.
10 The mountains saw you, and they trembled: the overflowing of the water passed by: the deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high.
11 The sun and moon stood still in their habitation: at the light of your arrows they went, and at the shining of your glittering spear.
12 You didst march through the land in indignation, you didst 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. Selah.
14 You didst 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 didst 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 cometh up unto the people, he will invade them with his troops.

There is another “oath” to the tribes that tells of this time of right judgment. It is in Deuteronomy 33. Beginning with Joseph, the one separated from his brothers, we are told of the blessings of heaven, the dew as the waters covering the earth, and the deep understanding that is crouching ready to pounce upon the prey. We are then told of the precious fruit that the Sun brings forth, and those brought forth by the moon, both then seen in context as we know them as God’s intended form of church and civil governments shining and reflecting His light on earth. It calls these the chief thing of the ancient mountains, and the precious thing of the lasting hills, again telling of the high place that rise from the earth, as in governments, as they were intended in ancient days and meant to be long lasting (now embodied in Christianity and U.S. Constitution).

We go forward and we see Zebulun (inhabitants) at his going out, and of this people abounding as they suck as if milk from the sea, and the things hidden in the sand [the shore as if our having been vomited there from the belly of death].

We then see the troop increased (Gad) as the LORD musters His hosts, followed by Dan (judgment) as a young lion leaping from Bashan (the fruitfulness). This is Joseph, as the crouching lion, now leaping as Judgment (Dan)

Deuteronomy 33 (beginning where the separation ends)
13 And of Joseph he said, Blessed of the LORD be his land, for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that couches beneath,
14 And for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon,
15 And for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills,
16 And for the precious things of the earth and fullness thereof, and for the good will of him that dwelt in the bush: let the blessing come upon the head of Joseph, and upon the top of the head of him that was separated from his brethren.
17 His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh.
18 And of Zebulun he said, Rejoice, Zebulun, in your going out; and, Issachar, in your tents.
19 They shall call the people unto the mountain; there they shall offer sacrifices of righteousness: for they shall suck of the abundance of the seas, and of treasures hid in the sand.
20 And of Gad he said, Blessed be he that enlarges Gad: he dwells as a lion, and tear the arm with the crown of the head.
21 And he provided the first part for himself, because there, in a portion of the lawgiver, was he seated; and he came with the heads of the people, he executed the justice of the LORD, and his judgments with Israel.
22 And of Dan he said, Dan is a lion’s whelp: he shall leap from Bashan.

The words “tear the arm with the crown (top) of the head” spoken to the troop (Gad) leads us to or see these references to lions all pointing to the one separated and returning. The word “tear” is he Hebrew word taraph, meaning to pull off or tear off. It is the word used in this context when describing the lion separated, and telling of the strength being lost as this occurred.

Remember, Babylon is confusion and chained there by means of their mind darkening craft. Here in Ezekiel 19 we see captivity therein, as we see our present day and the fires now burning.

I am Strength, not my own but as a root grown from a dry ground fed only by the waters of Shilaoh.

Ezekiel 19 (taraph is “catch” in verse 3 & 6)
1 Moreover take you up a lamentation for the princes of Israel,
2 And say, What is your mother? A lioness: she lay down among lions, she nourished her whelps among young lions.
3 And she brought up one of her whelps: it became a young lion, and it learned to catch the prey; it devoured men.
4 The nations also heard of him; he was taken in their pit, and they brought him with chains unto the land of Egypt.
5 Now when she saw that she had waited, and her hope was lost, then she took another of her whelps, and made him a young lion.
6 And he went up and down among the lions, he became a young lion, and learned to catch the prey, and devoured men.
7 And he knew their desolate palaces, and he laid waste their cities; and the land was desolate, and the fullness thereof, by the noise of his roaring.
8 Then the nations set against him on every side from the provinces, and spread their net over him: he was taken in their pit.
9 And they put him in ward in chains, and brought him to the king of Babylon: they brought him into holds, that his voice should no more be heard upon the mountains of Israel.
10 Your mother is like a vine in your blood, planted by the waters: she was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters.
11 And she had strong rods for the scepters of them that bare rule, and her stature was exalted among the thick branches, and she appeared in her height with the multitude of her branches.
12 But she was plucked up in fury, she was cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up her fruit: her strong rods were broken and withered; the fire consumed them.
13 And now she is planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty ground.
14 And fire is gone out of a rod of her branches, which has devoured her fruit, so that she has no strong rod to be a scepter to rule. This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.

When Deuteronomy tells of tearing away the arm and the crown of the head, it actually telling of removing the cover that hides God’s truth. Ezekiel 13 tells of those that sew pillows to arm holes, and kerchiefs upon the head of every stature. These are telling of sewing coverings over the arm of the LORD to hide the fact that the work is His arm and hand. It further tells of them covering His head so people can’t see it is Him doing His mighty work. The tearing away is in removing these covers. (This is also what Habakkuk 3 is saying that the LORD’s power is hidden in His hand, and the power is as rays of the Sun coming from it.) Ezekiel 13 is spoken to those saying the LORD said when He didn’t say anything to them. It tells of their doing so hiding the work of the LORD under a cover of untruth.

Ezekiel 13
1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel that prophesy, and say you unto them that prophesy out of their own hearts, Hear you the word of the LORD;
3 Thus says the LORD God; Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing!
4 O Israel, your prophets are like the foxes in the deserts.
5 You have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the LORD.
6 They have seen vanity and lying divination, saying, The LORD said: and the LORD has not sent them: and they have made others to hope that they would confirm the word.
7 Have you not seen a vain vision, and have you not spoken a lying divination, whereas you say, The LORD said it; albeit I have not spoken?
8 Therefore thus says the LORD God; Because you have spoken vanity, and seen lies, therefore, behold, I am against you, says the LORD God.
9 And mine hand shall be upon the prophets that see vanity, and that divine lies: they shall not be in the assembly of my people, neither shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel, neither shall they enter into the land of Israel; and you shall know that I am the LORD God.
10 Because, even because they have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace; and one built up a wall, and, lo, others daubed it with mortar of foolishness:
11 Say unto them which daub it with mortar of foolishness, that it shall fall: there shall be an overflowing shower; and you, O great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall rend it.
12 Lo, when the wall is fallen, shall it not be said unto you, Where is the daubing wherewith you have daubed it?
13 Therefore thus says the LORD God; I will even rend it with a stormy wind in my fury; and there shall be an overflowing shower in mine anger, and great hailstones in my fury to consume it.
14 So will I break down the wall that you have daubed with mortar of foolishness, and bring it down to the ground, so that the foundation thereof shall be discovered, and it shall fall, and you shall be consumed in the midst thereof: and you shall know that I am the LORD.
15 Thus will I accomplish my wrath upon the wall, and upon them that have daubed with mortar of foolishness, and will say unto you, The wall is no more, neither they that daubed it;
16 To wit, the prophets of Israel which prophesy concerning Jerusalem, and which see visions of peace for her, and there is no peace, Says the LORD God.
17 Likewise, you son of man, set your face against the daughters of your people, which prophesy out of their own heart; and prophesy you against them,
18 And say, Thus says the LORD God; Woe to the women that sew pillows to all armholes, and make kerchiefs upon the head of every stature to hunt souls! Will you hunt the souls of my people, and will you save the souls alive that come unto you?
19 And will you pollute me among my people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, to slay the souls that should not die, and to save the souls alive that should not live, by your lying to my people that hear your lies?
20 Wherefore thus says the LORD God; Behold, I am against your pillows, wherewith you there hunt the souls to make them fly, and I will tear them from your arms, and will let the souls go, even the souls that you hunt to make them fly.
21 Your kerchiefs also will I tear, and deliver my people out of your hand, and they shall be no more in your hand to be hunted; and you shall know that I am the LORD.
22 Because with lies you have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life:
23 Therefore you shall see no more vanity, nor divine divinations: for I will deliver my people out of your hand: and you shall know that I am the LORD.