Author: wordofgod

Today a reminder of the importance of reestablishing the preeminence of our foundational ideas, and recognizing that lacking them no civilization can long last.

Most people believe our form of government is what has made us exceptional, when in fact it is secondary to the ideas it was instituted to protect and promulgate. This is where the error lies when people claim our Declaration of Independence has no lasting authority as governing law. In fact the Declaration, as it’s name says, declares the ideas, these self evident truths of human interaction, we chose as our foundation, and the refusal to govern us in accord with these idea is what was presented as justification for our Independence. When we later instituted and codified our form of Government, at its core was protecting and continuing these ideas of civilization. And for those who don’t know, that is what governments are instituted for, to institutionalize ideas of civilization, and produce what our Constitution calls, “The General Welfare.”

If you read along here you know we often discuss these ideas beginning with the Declaration’s defining them as the state we are “entitled” to live in, “under the law of nature and nature’s God.” We know the laws of nature are those that are self-evident to all people of good will and sound conscience, and also found coinciding with God’s law. They include the basic ideas of property rights; protecting it from government and man, the right to earn, exchange, accumulate, gain deed over it by mutually agreed terms. It is also the idea of protection all person’s, life, liberty, property, and their pursuit of happiness (free from over regulation). These ideas are among others of like metaphysical and eternal value, and are the self-evident truths at our foundation.

Accepting and understanding them as such are what allows liberty to thrive, as people govern themselves by this comprehension as their well formed conscience. It is also what allows for and demands limited government.

The evidence to the contrary is found in our society, where we have discarded these ideas and their propagation. We as a nation incrementally lost our conscience, and abandoned the fundamental laws enabling us to live in peace with our neighbors. As this results in a systemic failure of all order, we are first astonished by the inevitable, next the same people having orchestrated the removal and abandonment of the ideas of self-restraint and self-governing, demand with never ending repetition laws and regulation to bring back into control the beast they have themselves released. And again, the blatant falsity is that once someone has been made lawless and thereby un-governed in/by conscience, external laws can be made to force them into becoming law abiding.

In this we see what the founder understood and undertook. They first and long-sufferingly attempted to enlighten their oppressors, as they themselves had been enlightened. Then, after a long train of abuses, determined as natural law and God’s law had taught them, their only remaining remedy was to separate themselves from those refusing to live under the rules of civilization. This is the course we must also chart, separating our ideas again from those of the willingly and incorrigibly lawless.

This is where we now stand as a nation. We must not forget these same ideas are what produced our prosperity and elevated us above all the nations of the world. If we think the opposite, our prosperity has created our ideas, or it has brought about some new “better” ideas, we begin with a premise that will prove itself once again the formula for quick decline as they are just as quickly forgotten. This nation has lasted because these ideas, even now in their most debased form, have sustained us. This is the providence of God. We must elevate and teach them, and allow them to again reign over us, over our national thinking, and in doing we will be prosperous and in peace for millennia to come – as one nation in this state under the law of nature and nature’s God.

Psalms 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.

“Under a system of popular government there will always be those who will seek for political preferment by clamoring for reform. While there is very little of this which is not sincere, there is a large portion that is not well informed. In my opinion very little of just criticism can attach to the theories and principles of our institutions. There is far more danger of harm than there is hope of good in any radical changes. We do need a better understanding and comprehension of them and a better knowledge of the foundations of government in general. Our forefathers came to certain conclusions and decided upon certain courses of action which have been a great blessing to the world. Before we can understand their conclusions we must go back and review the course which they followed. We must think the thoughts which they thought. Their intellectual life centered around the meetinghouse. They were intent upon religious worship. While there were always among them men of deep learning, and later those who had comparatively large possessions, the mind of the people was not so much engrossed in how much they knew, or how much they had, as in how they were going to live. While scantily provided with other literature, there was a wide acquaintance with the Scriptures. Over a period as great as that which measures the existence of our independence they were subject to this discipline not only in their religious life and educational training, but also in their political thought. They were a people who came under the influence of a great spiritual development and acquired a great moral power.

No other theory is adequate to explain or comprehend the Declaration of Independence. It is the product of the spiritual insight of the people. We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration 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.” President Calvin Coolidge, July 5, 1926

Psalms 119
166 LORD, I have hoped for your salvation, and done your commandments.
167 My soul has kept your testimonies; and I love them exceedingly.
168 I have kept your precepts and your testimonies: for all my ways are before you.
169 Let my cry come near before you, O LORD: give me understanding according to your word.
170 Let my supplication come before you: deliver me according to your word.
171 My lips shall utter praise, when you have taught me your statutes.
172 My tongue shall speak of your word: for all your commandments are righteousness.
173 Let your hand help me; for I have chosen your precepts.
174 I have longed for your salvation, O LORD; and your law is my delight.
175 Let my soul live, and it shall praise you; and let your judgments help me.
176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant; for I do not forget your commandments.

Deuteronomy 4
24 For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.
25 When you shall beget children, and children’s children, and you shall have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and shall do evil in the sight of the LORD your God, to provoke him to anger:
26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that you shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto you go over Jordan to possess it; you shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed.
27 And the LORD shall scatter you among the nations, and you shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the LORD shall lead you.
28 And there you shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
29 But if from thence you shall seek the LORD your God, you shall find him, if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.
30 When you are in tribulation, and all these things are come upon you, even in the latter days, if you turn to the LORD your God, and shall be obedient unto his voice;
31 (For the LORD your God is a merciful God;) he will not forsake you, neither destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which he swore unto them.
32 For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side of heaven unto the other, whether there has been any such thing as this great thing is, or has been heard like it?
33 Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and live?
34 Or has God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
35 Unto you it was showed, that you might know that the LORD he is God; there is none else beside him.
36 Out of heaven he made you to hear his voice, that he might instruct you: and upon earth he showed you his great fire; and you heard his words out of the midst of the fire.
37 And because he loved your fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, and brought you out in his sight with his mighty power out of Egypt;
38 To drive out nations from before you greater and mightier than you are, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is this day.
39 Know therefore this day, and consider it in your heart, that the LORD he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else.
40 You shall keep therefore his statutes, and his commandments, which I command you this day, that it may go well with you, and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days upon the earth, which the LORD your God gives you, for ever.

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: [by] the dumb [voiceless] donkey speaking with man’s voice forbid the madness of the [false] 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.

Continuing: Willing to witness to all we have seen of the LORD, having recieved His gift, whom shall we witness to? This is the dilemma. All will say we must go to unbelievers, meaning the Godless. The mission field is the “believing” church; and it isn’t that she doesn’t really know what she believes, it’s that most of what she knows isn’t the truth. They must be enlightened and in process unified. This is and has always been my mission; then we together as one offer the pure gift to the world.

Thus says the LORD: 17 For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? 18 And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? 19 Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.

The LORD started my day in Hosea. The above passage is the end of 1 Peter 4. Here is what Hosea says about the condition of those who say they are the believing church, here spoken to as Ephraim. The first step in the solution is properly identifying the problem, even if those who are the origin of the problem disagree.

Hosea 13
1 When Ephraim spoke trembling [spoke with great carefulness the pure word/counsel of the LORD], he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal [relied on the advice and ways of men’s creation, the gods of the world], he died.
2 And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, and idols [Baal] according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen: they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves [show love and faithfulness for the ways of the idol].
3 Therefore they shall be as the morning cloud and as the early dew that passes away, as the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind out of the floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney [quickly disappearing into nothing].
4 Yet I am the LORD your God from the land of Egypt, and you shall know no god but me: for there is no savior beside me.
5 I did know you in the wilderness, in the land of great drought [where the LORD’s advice wasn’t heard].
6 According to their pasture, so were they filled [they became what they were fed]; they were filled, and their heart [their own reasoning] was exalted; therefore have they forgotten me.
7 Therefore I will be [I have been] unto them as a lion: as a leopard by the way will I observe them:
8 I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the caul of their heart [their reasoning], and there will I devour them like a lion: the wild beast shall tear them.
9 O Israel, you have destroyed yourself; but in me is your help.
10 I will be your king: where is any other that may save you in all your cities? and your judges of whom you said, Give me a king and princes?
11 I gave you a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath.
12 The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is hid.
13 The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him: he is an unwise son; for he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children [birth the child already – all is ready].
14 I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be your plagues; O grave, I will be your destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes [I am not going to reconsider and halt this course].
15 Though he be fruitful among his brethren, an east wind shall come, the wind of the LORD shall come up from the wilderness, and his spring shall become dry, and his fountain shall be dried up [the waters as the bad advice flowing from the corrupted leaders]: he shall spoil the treasure of all pleasant vessels.
16 Samaria [those mixed with their own creations – idols and defilements as the ways of strangers] shall become desolate; for she has rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up [those they are bringing up in their corrupted ways].

Hosea 14
1 O Israel, return unto the LORD your God; for you have fallen by your iniquity.
2 Take with you words, and turn to the LORD: say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously: so will we render the calves of our lips.
3 Asshur [the dictatorial king now taken away, and continuing his ways rejected] shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses: neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, You are our gods: for in you [LORD] the fatherless finds mercy.
4 I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him.
5 I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon [the high place seen as magnificent, as the snow on the mountains of Lebanon].
6 His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon.
7 They that dwell under his shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine: the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon.
8 Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I have heard him, and observed him: I am like a green fir tree. From me is your fruit found.
9 Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? prudent, and he shall know them? for the ways of the LORD are right, and the just shall walk in them: but the transgressors shall fall therein.

Psalms 74 has the title of, Maschil of Asaph, meaning the instructions for gathering. This is seen in contrast in the Psalm speaking of the desolation of the sanctuary, and specifically of the congregation and the synagogue (gathering place of the congregation).

Psalm 74
1 O God, why have you cast us off for ever? why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?
2 Remember your congregation, which you have purchased of old; the rod of your inheritance, which you have redeemed; this mount Zion, wherein you have dwelt.
3 Lift up your feet unto the perpetual desolations; even all that the enemy has done wickedly in the sanctuary.
4 Your enemies roar in the midst of your congregations; they set up their ensigns for signs.
5 A man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees.
6 But now they break down the carved work thereof at once with axes and hammers.
7 They have cast fire into your sanctuary, they have defiled by casting down the dwelling place of your name to the ground.
8 They said in their hearts, Let us destroy them together: they have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land.
9 We see not our signs: there is no more any prophet: neither is there among us any that knows how long.
10 O God, how long shall the adversary reproach? shall the enemy blaspheme your name for ever?
11 Why withdraw you your hand, even your right hand? pluck it out of your bosom.
12 For God is my King of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth.
13 You did divide the sea by your strength: you brake the heads of the dragons in the waters [death in their counsel, as a crocodile hidden in their waters].
14 You brake the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gave him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
15 You did cleave the fountain and the flood: you dried up mighty rivers.
16 The day is yours, the night also is yours: you have prepared the light and the sun.
17 You have set all the borders of the earth: you have made summer and winter.
18 Remember this, that the enemy has reproached, O LORD, and that the foolish people have blasphemed your name.
19 O deliver not the soul of your turtledove unto the multitude of the wicked: forget not the congregation of your poor for ever.
20 Have respect unto the covenant: for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.
21 O let not the oppressed return ashamed: let the poor and needy praise your name.
22 Arise, O God, plead your own cause: remember how the foolish man reproaches you daily.
23 Forget not the voice of your enemies: the tumult of those that rise up against you increases continually.

This Psalm also has a sub-scription, To the Chief Musician, Al-taschith (in some case wrongly assigned as the title of Psalms 75). The Hebrew words are natsach ‘al shachath, literally translating to, Glittering from afar – not – in ruin or decay. The meaning is the Magnificent morning star, not found in the ruins and decay man has produced. One of the Greek equivalent words to natsach (chief musician – literally, glittering from afar) is the word episkopeo we looked at in the previous post. It appears in Hebrews 12:15 translated as “Looking diligently,” and as we discussed, literally meaning to look inside from the outside. This is what the Psalms is telling us it is, a diligent examination of the disease inside the sanctuary, from outside.

This takes us to continue our conversation in Hebrews 13 where we are told to go outside the camp and the gate, to where the LORD is, and in doing bear with Him His yoke and the accompanying reproach that joins us with/in Him.

Hebrews 13
1 Let brotherly love [Philadelphia] continue.
2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
3 Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.
4 Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge [again as in the previous post, think of the ending verses of Proverbs 6].
5 Let your conversation 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 [reasoning] be established with grace [God’s gift of giving us understanding]; 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 [as witnesses to His goodness and grace, as we have experienced it] 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 [well formed perception – pure heart], in all things willing to live honestly.
19 But I beseech you the rather to do this [do what is written in the prior verse], 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 [then seen in us] 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 [sent for this mission]; 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.

1 Peter 5
1 The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed:
2 Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;
3 Neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being examples to the flock.
4 And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, you shall receive a crown of glory that fades not away.
5 Likewise, you younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resist the proud, and gives grace [understanding] to the humble.
6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:
7 Casting all your care upon him; for he cares for you.
8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour:
9 Whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.
10 But the God of all grace, who has called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that you have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you.
11 To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
12 By Silvanus, a faithful brother unto you, as I suppose, I have written briefly, exhorting, and testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein you stand.
13 The church that is at Babylon [also under confusion], elected together with you, salutes you; and so doth Marcus my son.
14 Greet you one another with a kiss of charity. Peace be with you all that are in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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 [without proof] concerning the faith.
9 But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was.
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.

Revelation 3
6 He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says unto the churches.
7 And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things says he that is holy, he that is true, he that has the key of David, he that opens, and no man shuts; and shuts, and no man opens;
8 I know your works: behold, I have set before you an open door, and no man can shut it: for you have a little strength, and have kept my word, and have not denied my name.
9 Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are God’s people, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before your feet, and to know that I have loved you.
10 Because you have kept the word of my patience, I also will keep you from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.
11 Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which you have, that no man take your crown.
12 Him that overcomes will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.
13 He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says unto the churches.

Continuing: Seeing all we have seen what shall we do? We become witnesses to the blood of the martyrs. In doing we join ourselves to them as martyrs, testifying to the LORD’s message of salvation and peace to men of good will (conscience).

For those who read along here, studying at the feet of the LORD with me, you should by demonstration and examination understand the immense depth of these aforementioned statements. You know in our fulfilling them the LORD is manifesting His Spirit in our flesh, and through the process validating and confirming evidently to have become so in us with/as signs and wonders following.

We are not talking about the phony baloney, hyped up, superficial masks of theater we see in the modern mega churches, with their promises by newly created false doctrines, their faked signs and wonders, and stolen glory. We are talking about speaking what we have witnessed in the LORD’s revealing Himself in the mysteries of the wisdom of God; not as the world speaks with men’s wisdom, self-elevating, self-preserving, with formulas to tickle the ears of the ignorant.

Here again, as many times before, are the beginning points as we become as little children having come to the light of the LORD.

Matthew 5
1 And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:
2 And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,
3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
13 You are the salt of the earth: but if the salt has lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
14 You are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it gives light unto all that are in the house.
16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.
18 For truly I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
21 You have heard that it was said of them of old time, You shall not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:
22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca [without cause vilifying him], shall be in danger of the council [being diligently scrutinized (ekzeteo) at the gathering of the elect and saints in the Judgment]: but whosoever shall say, You fool [moros – categorizing them as mentally unable and therefor unworthy of hearing the mysteries revealed], shall be in danger of hell [Gehenna – the trash bump – making themself worthless and in danger of being cast away with the trash] fire.

Verse 8 above tells us, “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” This may be among the greatest of the promises mentioned above in that it gives us insight into a mystery of its own. We know from our studies the heart is spoken of as the place in the mind where resides the foundational ideas upon which all our decisions are based. A pure heart insinuates the LORD’s character having so completely overwritten ours that in both our conscious and unconscious action/reactions we shine as He would have us: we evidently exhibit having the same mind that is in Christ. The Greek word translated “pure” is katharos, meaning clean, clear, or pure. In this we (again) see the idea of our flesh becoming as if transparent and what is inside is seen (Christ in us).

The same word is used many times to tell of the heart and what produces this state of clarity, and does so even when this meaning isn’t seemingly what is being spoken of.

It is the word translated “pure” in Hebrews 10:22 to tell of our drawing near to God by faith, having our bodies washed with “pure” water. (See Revelation 22 pasted below.)

Hebrews 10
12 But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;
13 From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.
14 For by one offering he has perfected for ever them that are sanctified.
15 Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before,
16 This is the covenant that I will make with them after those [these] days, says the LORD, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;
17 And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.
18 Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.
19 Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,
20 By a new and living way, which he has consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;
21 And having an high priest over the house of God;
22 Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.
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 [what else can be said that hasn’t been said],
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.

The place the rulers stumble is at the flesh, unwilling to see what is behind the veil, and unable because they reject the washing, thinking themselves already clean.

This brings us to another of the uses of the word katharos; this time translated “clean” three times in John 13:10 & 11. There it tells of the LORD (as now) washing the feet of His disciples. As we have studied in the past this represents washing away all the filth we (the believing church/elect and saints) have picked up in our long journey over the time of the falling away from the LORD. We also see there Peter refusing to allow it thinking himself clean, and the LORD telling him that ALL must receive this cleaning and those who refuse it can have no part with/in Him.

John 13
6 Then comes he to Simon Peter: and Peter said unto him, LORD, do you wash my feet?
7 Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do you know not now; but you shall know hereafter.
8 Peter said unto him, You shall never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash you not, you have no part with me.
9 Simon Peter said unto him, LORD, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.
10 Jesus said to him, He that is washed needs not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and you are clean, but not all.
11 For he knew who should betray him; therefore said he, You are not all clean.
12 So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know you what I have done to you?
13 You call me Master and LORD: and you say well; for so I am.
14 If I then, your LORD and Master, have washed your feet; you also ought to wash one another’s feet.
15 For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you.
16 Truly, Truly, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his LORD; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him.
17 If you know these things, happy are you if you do them.
18 I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the scripture may be fulfilled, He that eats bread with me has lifted up his heel against me.
19 Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, you may believe that I am he.
20 Truly, Truly, I say unto you, He that receives whomsoever I send receives me; and he that receives me receives him that sent me.

Before going on we must make a brief departure to the place where the LORD began our discussion today, as a warning to all who reject His word (as if they have taken His wife, and of those who have willfully left Him to gain the world).

Proverbs 6
1 My son, if you be surety for your friend, if you have stricken your hand with a stranger,
2 You are snared with the words of your mouth, you are taken with the words of your mouth.
3 Do this now, my son, and deliver yourself, when you are come into the hand of your friend; go, humble yourself, and make sure your friend.
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 your poverty come as one that travels, and your want as an armed man.
12 A naughty person, a wicked man, walks with a froward mouth [corrupted words speaking error].
13 He winks with his eyes, he speaks with his feet, he teaches with his fingers;
14 Frowardness [corruption/error] is in his heart, he devises mischief continually; he sows discord.
15 Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly; suddenly 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 A 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.
20 My son, keep your father’s commandment, and forsake not the law 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; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life:
24 To keep you from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman.
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 a man is brought to a piece of bread: and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life.
27 Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?
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 steals to satisfy his soul when he is hungry;
31 But if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold; he shall give all te substance of his house.
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.

Returning to our diligent examination of Matthew 5:8 and now to the Greek word optanomai, translated “see.” The word as it appears in the original text is a more classical form (opseneo) that also appears in Hebrews 12:14 explaining who will “see” the LORD. The word is said to have also had the meaning of seeing by abstract thought, as in it also meaning “provision,” and a “wage” later paid for work performed, specifically a soldier’s pay. This idea of provision, and wages are clearly seen in verses 4 thru 11 of Proverbs 6 above.

Hebrews 12
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 demanded 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:)

The word above in verse 15 translated “Looking diligently” is written in the original text as episkotountes. It is said to be from epi + skopos, epi, meaning over, and skopos, meaning a penetrating examination (scope); in other words, from the outside looking to the inside. The deeper meaning telling of what is penetrated is found in the word skotos (written as skoto) later used in verse 18 to describe the “darkness.” In this meaning we see the writer telling us it is through a diligent search, seeing through the darkness; also described as what defiles, and as what causes Esau’s separation. We know this is written in Hebrews 12 in the context of our only being the children of God if we are affected by his correction. It is also what the LORD is speaking of in Matthew 5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

Now, if they persecute and revile you out of bitterness for correcting them, you have faithfully shouldered the yoke you are together joined with/in Christ.

Matthew 5
10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
13 You are the salt of the earth: but if the salt has lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
14 You are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it gives light unto all that are in the house.
16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

Of the many other (twenty-eight total) uses of the word katharos we will close with an examination of its use in Revelation 22:1. There it is a “pure” river of water, clear as crystal, proceeding out from the throne of God, and of the Lamb (the ones sacrificing themselves to bring the world this word). We are told it is as “clear as crystal,” from the Greek words lampros krustallos. Lampros, meaning radiant and magnificent; from the word lampas (lamps), it is used later in verse 16 to tell of the “bright” and morning star, and earlier in Revelation 19:8 to tell of the clean (katheros) and “white” linen of the wife who has made herself ready. Krustallos is only used one other time, Revelation 4:6 to describe the sea of glass that is before the throne of God, where the seven lamps (lampas) are burning.

Revelation 22
1 And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.
2 In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
3 And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him:
4 And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads.
5 And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the LORD God gives them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.
6 And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true: and the LORD God of the holy prophets sent his angel to show unto his servants the things which must shortly be done.
7 Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keeps the sayings of the prophecy of this book.
8 And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which showed me these things.
9 Then said he unto me, See you do it not: for I am your fellow-servant, and of your brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God.
10 And he said unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand.
11 He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.
12 And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.
13 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
14 Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.
15 For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loves and makes a lie.
16 I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.
17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that hears say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
18 For I testify unto every man that hears the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
20 He which testifies these things says, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, LORD Jesus.
21 The grace of our LORD Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

Continuing with our discussion of Paul’s conversion and today a deeper investigation of his words describing its result on him. This description continues as an example for all awakened believers to follow into shouldering the yoke of their positions in Christ as His body in the world.

We have often discussed the many aspects of the resurrection found in 1 Corinthians 15, and its possibly most enigmatic description of the two bodies: the natural first as the one subject to death, then the spiritual as uncorrupted and immortal.

1 Corinthians 15
42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:
43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:
44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
46 Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
47 The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the LORD from heaven.

In recent posts we have discussed the LORD’s words in Luke 11:50 & 51 telling of the diligent examination that will be required of this (our) generation, and this regarding the blood of all the martyrs, “From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias which perished between the altar and the temple.”

The reason for Abel’s murder is described in 1 John 3:12 saying of Cain, “who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.”

This is what the LORD is referring to when He is speaking to the Pharisees, who would eventually kill him for the same reason, and do so in the pattern of all those throughout history who have martyred the righteous.

1 John 3
7 Little children, let no man deceive you: he that does righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.
8 He that commits sin is of the devil; for the devil sins from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.
9 Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remains in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.
10 In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever does not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loves not his brother.
11 For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
12 Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.
13 Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.
14 We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loves not his brother abides in death.
15 Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer: and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
16 Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
17 But whoso has this world’s good, and see his brother have need, and shuts up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwells the love of God in him?
18 My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.

Endure with me for a moment longer as we look closer at Abel, the name being from the Hebrew word habel, meaning transitory or unsatisfactory, from the word habal, meaning vain in action, word, or expectation.

To understand what is being imparted here we must go to Hebrews 12 and its mention of Abel, and see the meaning and verses from the perspective of 1 John 3:16. The transitory element is explained to us through Hebrews 12 telling of correction coming as the LORD spoke it, laying down His life to save even those who were attempting to kill him, and this as what was comparatively lacking in Abel’s blood being shed.

Hebrews 12
22 But you are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, 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.

Genesis 4:10 tells of Abel’s blood crying to the LORD from out of the ground. We later read in verses 25 & 26 of Seth (meaning appointed or substituted) replacing Abel in the LORD’s blood line, and Seth having a son named Enos. Enos means mortal, and we are told, then it was begun to call upon the LORD. In the following chapter we read in verse 3 of Adam having begot Seth in his own image and likeness. These aspects in total tell of the fallen nature being generationally perpetuating (causing mortality), and as we are told in 1 Corinthians 15:47, ending with the LORD and the resurrection. We are told prior in verse 45 of the first Adam becoming a living soul [later mortal], and the last Adam (the LORD) made a quickening (life giving) Spirit.

Genesis 4
25 And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, has appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.
26 And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.

Genesis 5
1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;
2 Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.
3 And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth…

1 Corinthians 15
42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:
43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:
44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
46 Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
47 The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the LORD from heaven.

This brings us again to Hebrews 12 and the Greek word used to tell the one who “spoke” on the earth. It is the word chrematizo, meaning to utter an oracle; from the word chrema, meaning something needed or useful. It is telling of those warning and correcting on the earth and doing so at the direction of the LORD (as His presence manifested to educate the wayward). The passage tells of those refusing what is spoken doing so to their own harm, unable to escape the self-inflicted consequences by killing the messenger and/or ignoring the message.

This is what we are told Spiritual nature knowingly faces, and doing so motivated by only pure hearted Christian love.

1 John 3
16 Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
17 But whoso has this world’s good, and see his brother have need, and shuts up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwells the love of God in him?
18 My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.

If we look again at Paul’s curious words earlier in 1 Corinthians 15 we read of him saying “I am what I am.” He is using this Devine language telling of his become what the LORD would have him become, in His image and likeness. The surrounding perspective illuminates the grace that created this in Paul, and he says this grace was not bestowed upon him in vain (as Abel), but he labored more abundantly than all. He then says it wasn’t him but the grace in him that labored. In the following verse he speaks of this being the preaching of those who comprehend. They become enlightened through the gift, understanding loosed to them by God’s Holy Spirit.

The Greek word translated grace here in 1 Corinthians 15:10 is charis, meaning the Divine influence upon the heart [the cognitive center of the mind], and its reflecting [God] in the life. The gift of the Holy Spirit is understanding.

1 Corinthians 15
9 For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
10 But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.
11 Therefore whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so you believed.
12 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?
13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:
14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.
15 Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.
16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:
17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; you are yet in your sins.
18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.
19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits 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.

Paul uses a word derived from charis in 1 Corinthians 2:12 telling of exactly what grace is. He uses charizomai, meaning to grant favor, figuratively meaning, gratuitously, in kindness, pardon or rescue. It is rendered “freely given” to tell of these things given to us by God through His Holy Spirit.

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 receive 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.

Isaiah 25
1 O LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you, I will praise your name; for you have done wonderful things; your counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.
2 For you have made of a city an heap; of a defensed city a ruin: a palace of strangers to be no city; it shall never be built.
3 Therefore shall the strong people glorify you, the city of the terrible nations shall fear you.
4 For you have been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.
5 You shall bring down the noise of strangers, as the heat in a dry place; even the heat with the shadow of a cloud: the branch of the terrible ones shall be brought low.
6 And in this mountain shall the LORD of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.
7 And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations.
8 He will swallow up death in victory; and the LORD God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD has spoken it.
9 And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the LORD; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
10 For in this mountain shall the hand of the LORD rest, and Moab shall be trodden down under him, even as straw is trodden down for the dunghill.
11 And he shall spread forth his hands in the midst of them, as he that swims spreads forth his hands to swim: and he shall bring down their pride together with the spoils of their hands.
12 And the fortress of the high fort of your walls shall he bring down, lay low, and bring to the ground, even to the dust.

Psalm 84
1 How amiable are your tabernacles, O LORD of hosts!
2 My soul longs, yea, even faints for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh cries out for the living God.
3 Yea, the sparrow has found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even your altars, O LORD of hosts, my King, and my God.
4 Blessed are they that dwell in your house: they will be still [calmed] praising you. Selah.
5 Blessed is the man whose strength is in you; in whose heart are the ways of them.
6 Who passing through the valley of Baca [weeping] make it a well; the rain also fills the pools.
7 They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appears before God.
8 O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer: give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah.
9 Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of your anointed.
10 For a day in your courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.
11 For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withheld from them that walk uprightly.
12 O LORD of hosts, blessed is the man that trusts in you.

 

Continuing: In the previous post we discussed those killing others sent by God to correct their straying and bring them back to Him. As we saw in ending the post, the vials poured out, written of in the latter chapters of Revelation, vindicate the message of these martyrs, as blood poured out in witness to their truth. We saw the response of these men being plagued and scourged by the LORD’s correction, rather than accept the correction they vilify this work of His Holy Spirit and refuse to repent while continuing their blasphemy.

This brings up one of many major departures from truth found in the interpretations of the false prophets in our time. The book of Revelation has the theme of departure and correction; the destruction resulting from a continued fall into the bottomless pit of confusion (Babylon) and the LORD correcting and reconciling those who will receive it. Revelation 15 thru 19 speak of the testimony that accomplishes this correction, ends the confusion, and this process produces the final reconciliation of man to God.

Revelation 15 begins by telling of the seven last plagues, and in them is found the wrath of God. The Greek word rendered here “plagues” is plege, meaning a stroke, or a wound; from the word plesso, meaning to pound flat; both words from the root plasso, meaning to mold, shape or fabricate, and translated – form.

In this one word we are faced with the first choice in understanding; how would the LORD have us understand this? Should we define it by its worst, or by His correct best?

Luke 11:42 But woe unto you, Pharisees! for you tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God: these ought you to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

The word plasso is only used twice in the word of God and both times it is used to tell of God forming man in creating him. We know [because we listen and understand] this creation process is ongoing and not complete until we have been fully formed in the image and likeness of God.

The first use of plasso is in Romans 9:20 speaking to those questioning and disputing the LORD’s methods of shaping what He has and is creating. It tells of those He hardens and those He chooses to have mercy upon. This is what we also see in Revelation when we are told of those who make the choice not to repent, and continually harden themselves in their confusion and its resulting blasphemy. They refuse to accept what is written in Romans 9 telling of all being guilty: they think themselves righteous, because they compare themselves to other men, when they should be listening to the LORD and comparing themselves to his standard.

Romans 9
18 Therefore has he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardens.
19 You will say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who has resisted his will?
20 Nay but, O man, who are you that replies against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why have you made me thus?
21 Has not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?
22 What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
23 And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
24 Even us, whom he has called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?

Revelation 15 tells of those who have gotten the victory over the beast that still exists (that was, is not, and yet is). We saw is the previous post this beast is the corrupted and disfigured governments of church and state, and the victorious are the elect remnant who have overcome its defiled ideas and its works of confusion (the mark in their head and their hand). We see these elect standing on the sea claimed as smooth as glass by their receiving the clarity of thought offered to all by the LORD. The mingled fire tells of the fires still burning in the world caused by the confused and corrupted reasoning those in control choose to retain.

These elect sing the songs of Moses and the song of the Lamb, and pronounce their agreement with the LORD God Almighty as His judgments are manifested. In the following verses we see the testimony revealed as what is in the vials then given to the angels by the Holy Spirit, seen here as one of the four beasts we are told of in Revelation 4:6. There in context we are first told of the sea of glass being before the throne of God. In the final verse of Revelation 15 we see the purpose being to chase (smoke) the vermin out of God’s house as it is filled by smoke from the glory (presence) of God.

Revelation 15
1 And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God.
2 And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.
3 And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are your works, LORD God Almighty; just and true are your ways, you King of saints.
4 Who shall not fear you, O LORD, and glorify your name? for you only are holy: for all nations shall come and worship before you; for your judgments are made manifest.
5 And after that I looked, and, behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened:
6 And the seven angels came out of the temple, having the seven plagues, clothed in pure and white linen, and having their breasts girded with golden girdles.
7 And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who lives for ever and ever.
8 And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.

Revelation 16 then tells of the plagues poured out of these vials, and (again) we are told in verse 6 this is the wrath of God being poured out validating and vindicating the testimony of the martyrs, poured upon those who have killed them for their testimony. As we discussed in the previous post, these are those the LORD speaks to and of in Matthew 23 when he says the blood of all those killed by the corrupted religious leaders for faithfully delivering God’s correction, will “be required” of this generation. We saw the word here translated “be required” is the Greek word ekzeteo, meaning diligently investigate, and thereby we understand the vials as being truth poured out that exposes these misleaders, their false doctrines, and their violence and blasphemy in covering and protecting their errors/sins. We see it in Revelation 16 as their waters (words) turned to death; in this we see the contrast of the life offered by the LORD’s correction, and it rejected and vilified by what is now seen as unclean spirits coming from their mouths.

Revelation 16
1 And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.
2 And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image.
3 And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.
4 And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood.
5 And I heard the angel of the waters say, You are righteous, O LORD, which are, and was, and shall be, because you have judged thus.
6 For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.
7 And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, LORD God Almighty, true and righteous are your judgments.
8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.
9 And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which has power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.
10 And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain,
11 And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.
12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.
13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.
14 For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.
15 Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watches, and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.
16 And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.
17 And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.
18 And there were voices, and thunders, and lightning; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.
19 And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.
20 And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.
21 And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.

This is what I know: I know many hear this message and are coming out from among the confusion. I just as surely know the message is being rejected and vilified, and this is occurring to its most extreme at the highest ranks of the most established orders of church and national governments. Those accepting correction have become as if they never strayed from the Father. Those rejecting it will by choice go the axiomatic way of Pharaoh and Esau.

The following is where the LORD directed me in starting this discussion. It is to Acts 22 where Paul describes his former state while he was protecting what the LORD said was ended. He tells of his persecuting the true church, at that time seemingly merely a disjointed band of zealots following a thought to be dead leader. It tells of his seeing the light, and of being forgiven. I offer this as the example of what the LORD will do with those allowing themselves to be reformed, and of His mercy which endures forever.

Acts 22
3 I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as you all are this day.
4 And I persecuted this way unto the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women.
5 As also the high priest doth bear me witness, and all the estate of the elders: from whom also I received letters unto the brethren, and went to Damascus, to bring them which were there bound unto Jerusalem, for to be punished.
6 And it came to pass, that, as I made my journey, and was come nigh unto Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me.
7 And I fell unto the ground, and heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why persecute you me?
8 And I answered, Who are you, LORD? And he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you persecute.
9 And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spoke to me.
10 And I said, What shall I do, LORD? And the LORD said unto me, Arise, and go into Damascus; and there it shall be told you of all things which are appointed for you to do.
11 And when I could not see for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of them that were with me, I came into Damascus.
12 And one Ananias, a devout man according to the law, having a good report of all the Jews which dwelt there,
13 Came unto me, and stood, and said unto me, Brother Saul, receive your sight. And the same hour I looked up upon him.
14 And he said, The God of our fathers has chosen you, that you should know his will, and see that Just One, and should hear the voice of his mouth.
15 For you shall be his witness unto all men of what you have seen and heard.
16 And now why tarry you? arise, and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the LORD.

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.

Hebrews 12
1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses [martus – martyrs], let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth 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 speak 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 corrects, and scourges [mastigoo, from mastix, also translated as plague] every son whom he receives.
7 If you endure correcting, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father corrects not?
8 But if you be without correction, whereof all are partakers, then are you illegitimate, 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 verily for a few days correct us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.
11 Now no correction 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 demanded 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, 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.

Today an exposition about the consummation of the age, and the apocalypse (uncovering) of the truth of the Judgment of God. These will be a compilation of all we’ve learned (heard and understood) while also being a conspicuous demonstration of things foreign, beyond our understanding, come into clear view. The ideas are those borne along by the Holy Spirit, delivered to us and their meaning loosed in the LORD’s time.

We will begin with the Greek word ekzeteo, literally meaning to search out. It is the word translated “diligently seek” in our recent discussion of it as a necessary trait in understanding the LORD, and to prove to ourselves He is God. This is written in Hebrews 11:6 to tell of finding understanding as the reward of our faith, “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.”

This statement is actually telling of the conclusion (consummation) of our faith, which is finding the LORD after seeking him with a pure heart (a conscience purified). This take us to another of the seven uses of the word ekzeteo, in Romans 3:11 translated as “seeking after” God. It is there used to tell of all the world in sin and there being none that seek after God, and therefore logically none finding Him. We are told the reason for none seeking Him is they don’t understand, and the reason they don’t understand is given just after.

Romans 3
9 What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;
10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
11 There is none that understands, there is none that seeks after God.
12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that does good, no, not one.
13 Their throat is an open sepulcher; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:
14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
15 Their feet are swift to shed blood:
16 Destruction and misery are in their ways:
17 And the way of peace have they not known:
18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.

If we read on we understand the only way this is overcome is through faith, and faith is defined as believing in the Jesus Christ, and this forbearance (not imposing punishment) of God is in effect until we come to believe He is God. “To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”

Romans 3
19 Now we know that what things so-ever the law says, it says to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and ALL THE WORLD may become guilty before God.
20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
21 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:
23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
25 Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood [sacrifice to bring this message], to declare his righteousness [truth and equity] for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

We understand the full meaning again by Paul quoting from Isaiah 59: 7 & 8 to tell of why there is no understanding, and why there are none who diligently seek God, and therefore why none find Him.

Isaiah 59
7 Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.
8 The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goes therein shall not know peace.
9 Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness.
10 We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noon day as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men.
11 We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves: we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us.
12 For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us: for our transgressions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them;
13 In transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.
14 And judgment is turned away backward, and justice stands afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.
15 Yea, truth fails; and he that departs from evil makes himself a prey: and the LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment.
16 And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him.
17 For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak.
18 According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies; to the islands he will repay recompense.

This last part of the Isaiah 59 passage above is also specified in more detail in another of Paul’s quotes specifically speaking of those not understanding. The quote appears in Romans 3:11 and is from Psalms 14:2. Therein we read of those not understanding what they are being told, why they aren’t understanding it, and of their not seeking their God. In these above passages we understand they are stumbling at the stumbling stone (the flesh), and as we read they fail to call upon the LORD, and to understand God is in the generation of the righteous – those whose names are written in the book of life from the foundation of the world.

Psalms 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.

We then look at two other times the word ekzeteo is used, Luke 11:50 & 51 and it telling of the end of the age (the generational circle/circuit). In these two verse it is translated “shall be required” and “will be required” of this generation.

Luke 11
42 But woe unto you, Pharisees! for you tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God: these ought you to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
43 Woe unto you, Pharisees! for you love the uppermost seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets.
44 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them.
45 Then answered one of the lawyers, and said unto him, Master, thus saying you reproach us also.
46 And he said, Woe unto you also, you lawyers! for you lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and you yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.
47 Woe unto you! for you build the sepulchers of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.
48 Truly you bear witness that you allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and you build their sepulchers.
49 Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute:
50 That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation;
51 From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias which perished between the altar and the temple: truly I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.
52 Woe unto you, lawyers! for you have taken away the key of knowledge: you entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in you hindered.
53 And as he said these things unto them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things:
54 Laying wait for him, and seeking to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him.

These scribes and Pharisees are the modern writers and religious rulers; they and the lawyers are the modern makers of laws who have corrupted the age by their lust for controlling every aspect of religion and nation. They are the death that lurks in the ground under the feet of all who now walk the earth in the way they’ve prescribed.

This is where the next example of ekzeteo comes into light as it is used in Acts 15:17 as we are told of our now need to exclude the ordinances that contradict our liberty: their only meant as the swaddling bands for a people still in child stage. In previous posts we looked at Job 38:9 as it told of the cloud and the thick darkness, as swaddling-bands for humanity (the sea) as it was being born, to restrict until fully prepared; and of 1 Corinthians 13:11 saying, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I “understood” as a child, I thought [reasoned] as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

Acts 15
5 But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying, That it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses.
6 And the apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter.
7 And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, you know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe.
8 And God, which knows the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us;
9 And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.
10 Now therefore why tempt you God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?
11 But we believe that through the grace of the LORD Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.
12 Then all the multitude kept silence, and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul, declaring what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them.
13 And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me:
14 Simeon has declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name.
15 And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written,
16 After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up:
17 That the residue of men might seek after the LORD, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, says the LORD, who does all these things.
18 Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world.

We see the common reference to removing the restriction of the old (former state) allowing the new to pour forth, when we read further in Amos 9, where verse 16 above is quoted from. There we read of the plowman overtaking the reaper, of the treader of grapes him that sows seed, and the high places of the earth shall pour out new wine. The word translated as “drop” telling of the mountains pouring new wine, is the Hebrew word nataph, meaning to drip down, and therefore is figuratively also translated as prophesy.

Amos 9
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, and the treader of grapes him that sows seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt.
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.

At this point we must go back to look at Luke 11:50 and what we are told there by the LORD of all blood of the prophets shed, and it being required of this generation. The LORD is saying that all the blood poured out by the prophets since the foundation of the world, the messages they brought and were therefore killed for, shall be diligently looked into by this generation. This meaning and understanding are found when we diligently examine the word here translated “be required” being ekzeteo, meaning to diligently seek, and the word translated “shed” is the Greek word ekcheo, meaning to pour out.

Ekcheo is the word the LORD uses in Matthew 9:17 speaking of the need to put new wine in new bottles, and if not the new wine will burst the old vessels and the wine “runs out.” This is also the word the LORD uses in Matthew 26:28 to tell of the cup of new testament, which is his blood “shed” (poured out) for many for the remission of sins. It is also used multiple times in Act 2 to tell of the speaking with understanding what had been previously incomprehensible (tongues), and this being the “pouring out” in the latter days told of by Joel. In Acts 2:28 we are told this is the Holy Spirit baptism [poured out] for the remission of sins. It is the Holy Spirit giving the understanding to what the LORD had said earlier in the upper room. This is the gift of the Holy Spirit, understanding.

Joel 2 speaks of many things telling us of this time, and only fully understood by those reading along here and receiving (hearing and understanding) what the LORD’s Holy Spirit has poured out upon us. There we read of the great army arrayed against us, and before them the land was as Eden, and after them total desolation. We read of the this desolate wilderness also as the sun, moon and stars not giving any light, meaning the church and national government, and the people of God no longer possessing or shining the LORD’s enlightening counsel on the earth. The LORD then tells us to rend our hearts, and not our garments, meaning we need to abandon our corrupted reasoning and return to His eternal wisdom.

Joel 2:17 says to the priests and ministers, “weep between the porch and the altar.” This is what the LORD is referring to in Luke 11:51 when He speaks of where the prophets had been killed, between the house (Solomon’s – porch as part) and the altar. This is what we are told in Joel 1:8 & 9 of the cup being cut off as the vine is wasted, and new wine being dried up. The lamenting of the priest and the minsters is said to be as a virgin lamenting for the husband of her youth. The meaning is the new wine is the word of the LORD coming from the prophets, no longer coming because the leaders and the people have killed them off, because their prophesying is the LORD speaking against their corrupted ways. They are therefor as a vine cut off from their roots, as if a strange people in their own land not knowing or understanding the tongue of their nativity. Their wilderness is confusion – and I beheld the earth and because of this it had become without form (confused), and void of understanding.

Joel 1
5 Awake, you drunkards, and weep; and howl, all you drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.
6 For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the cheek teeth of a great lion.
7 He has laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree: he has made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white.
8 Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.
9 The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests, the LORD’s ministers, mourn.
10 The field is wasted, the land mourns; for the corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languishes.
11 Be you ashamed, O you husbandmen; howl, O you vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished.
12 The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languishes; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all the trees of the field, are withered: because joy is withered away from the sons of men.
13 Gird yourselves, and lament, you priests: howl, you ministers of the altar: come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God: for the meat offering and the drink offering is withheld from the house of your God.
14 Sanctify you a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the LORD your God, and cry unto the LORD,
15 Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.
16 Is not the meat cut off before our eyes, yea, joy and gladness from the house of our God?

Joel 2
1 Blow you the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the LORD comes, for it is nigh at hand;
2 A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there has not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations.
3 A fire devours before them; and behind them a flame burns: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
4 The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run.
5 Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devours the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array.
6 Before their face the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blackness.
7 They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war; and they shall march every one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks:
8 Neither shall one thrust another; they shall walk every one in his path: and when they fall upon the sword, they shall not be wounded.
9 They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall, they shall climb up upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief.
10 The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining:
11 And the LORD shall utter his voice before his army: for his camp is very great: for he is strong that executes his word: for the day of the LORD is great and very terrible; and who can abide it?
12 Therefore also now, says the LORD, turn you even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning:
13 And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repent him of the evil.
14 Who knows if he will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him; even a meat offering and a drink offering unto the LORD your God?
15 Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly:
16 Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet.
17 Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare your people, O LORD, and give not your heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God?
18 Then will the LORD be jealous for his land, and pity his people.
19 Yea, the LORD will answer and say unto his people, Behold, I will send you corn, and wine, and oil, and you shall be satisfied therewith: and I will no more make you a reproach among the heathen:
20 But I will remove far off from you the northern army, and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he has done great things.
21 Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice: for the LORD will do great things.
22 Be not afraid, you beasts of the field: for the pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the tree bears her fruit, the fig tree and the vine do yield their strength.
23 Be glad then, you children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God: for he has given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month.
24 And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.
25 And I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.
26 And you shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, that has dealt wondrously with you: and my people shall never be ashamed.
27 And you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the LORD your God, and none else: and my people shall never be ashamed.
28 And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:
29 And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.
30 And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD come.
32 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD has said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call.

I would suggest reading Revelation 15 thru 19 and understand the vials “poured out” in chapter 16 are poured out against those who, as verse 6 says, have killed the saints and prophets, and this is the LORD giving them blood to drink in repayment. We read on that these are those who refuse to repent for their vilification (blasphemy) of God and His work. In the following chapter we read of the woman, as Babylon, who is as a women drunken with the blood of these same martyrs. We are told of the beast with seven heads that carries her: these are the same seven churches of chapters 2 & 3, and the ten horns are the civil governments.

We are told of this beast coming up out of the bottomless pit: logically meaning the pit where there is a never ending fall (falling away), no bottom to its degeneration. We are also told of this beast that was, and is not, and yet is. This is telling of them becoming what they were meant to be, then falling from this state, and now existing in a degenerate form.

I know very few will read to this point, and among them that do and don’t there will be those who will attack this understanding with the same delusional confusion that proves it correct. The educated elites in church and state, those in control of the confusion, will of course defend their error and their attacks by once again attempting the kill the truth, and will in doing validate the LORD’s message and work. These also demonstrate the reasons why the new wine must be in new vessels. Why would anyone look to the dead for life and the living?

Revelation 18
1 And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened 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.
8 Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, 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.

Continuing: speaking the unknown mysteries of God are both the LORD eventually in His time making them known as His presence is comprehended through diligent search in faith and patience, and while it is manifesting, testing and demonstrating (making full proof) the character of the speaker and the hearer.

1 Corinthians 13
1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profits me nothing.
4 Charity suffers long, and is kind; charity envies not; charity vaunts not itself, is not puffed up,
5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeks not her own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil;
6 Rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;
7 Bears all things, believeth all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Charity never fails: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
13 And now abides faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

Verses 4 thru 7 above tell of all character qualities governing and perfecting the actions mentioned before. Examining them we understand charity is in doing these things, without self-centered conflict, and freely dispersing them to the truly needy. Lacking this charity is also seen as possessing these childish attitudes, and those becoming perfected do so putting them off as they become by the process fully-grown. These negatives are therefore seen as those held onto by the godless and the willfully ignorant, and as what disrupts peace and civilization among those adhering to them by understanding, and virtually impossible for those who don’t (adhere).

Here again we should look deeper at the Greek word agape, translated “charity.” The word is said to mean affection and benevolence; in this we see the superficial meaning of giving of what one possesses, even of one’s self. In its deeper unstated origin we see this definition even more clearly specified. It appears to be compounded from the words age, meaning to lead, and the word haplous, meaning folded together, as becoming single, and figuratively meaning clear. This is what we see Paul alluding to as he ends 1 Corinthians 13 above. It also speaks of the idea of reciprocal security being what produces rest, peace as if one (E Pluribus Unum).

Paul then follows by telling of this giving of one’s self being in prophesying, meaning to disperse to others what God has made known (our better ideas understood). It is first made know to a person, and seems as if an unknown tongue to others hearing him speak it. When the Holy Spirit looses it, as we have studied being defined in ending 2 Peter 1, to holy men of God, they being defined by parameters mention above, we then prophesy, meaning make known the mysteries of God in the pure form he has delivered them (the understanding/ideas) to us.

1 Corinthians 14
1 Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that you may prophesy.
2 For he that speaks in an unknown tongue speaks not unto men, but unto God: for no man understands him; howbeit in the spirit he speaks mysteries.
3 But he that prophesies speaks unto men to edification [educate], and exhortation, and comfort.
4 He that speaks in an unknown tongue edifies himself [tells what he himself has learned]; but he that prophesies edifies the church [is able to coherently explain what he has been taught, because God gives him the words they will be able to hear/understand].
5 I would that you all spoke with tongues but rather that you prophesied: for greater is he that prophesies than he that speaks with tongues, except he interpret, that the church may receive edifying.
6 Now, brethren, if I come unto you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you, except I shall speak to you either by revelation, or by knowledge, or by prophesying, or by doctrine?
7 And even things without life giving sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped?
8 For if the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?
9 So likewise you, except you utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for you shall speak into the air.
10 There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification.
11 Therefore if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaks a barbarian, and he that speaks shall be a barbarian unto me.
12 Even so you, forasmuch as you are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that you may excel to the edifying of the church.
13 Wherefore let him that speaks in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret.
14 For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful.
15 What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.
16 Else when you shall bless with the spirit, how shall he that occupies the room of the unlearned say Amen at your giving of thanks, seeing he understands not what you say?
17 For you truly give thanks well, but the other is not edified.
18 I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than you all:
19 Yet in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.
20 Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be you children, but in understanding be men [see 1 Corinthians 13:11 above: the child putting away childish things and becoming a man].
21 In the law it is written, With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that will they not hear me, says the LORD [this again, as in our recent study refers to Isaiah 28:11 & 12].
22 Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not: but prophesying serves not for them that believe not, but for them which believe.
23 If therefore the whole church be come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that you are mad?
24 But if all prophesy, and there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all:
25 And thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth.
26 How is it then, brethren? when you come together, every one of you has a psalm, has a doctrine, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying.
27 If any man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by two, or at the most by three, and that by course; and let one interpret.
28 But if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence in the church; and let him speak to himself, and to God.
29 Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge.
30 If any thing be revealed to another that sits by, let the first hold his peace.
31 For you may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted.
32 And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.
33 For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.
34 Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also says the law.
35 And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.
36 What? came the word of God out from you? or came it unto you only?
37 If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the LORD.
38 But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant.
39 Wherefore, brethren, covet to prophesy, and forbid not to speak with tongues.
40 Let all things be done decently and in order.

The Greek word for woman is gune; the word written in the original text of verse 34 above is gunaikes, meaning feminine, and is translated wife. The context of this is telling of those who the word hadn’t been delivered to, and verse 34 thru 36 are directly referring to Genesis 3 where Eve listed to the corrupted teaching of someone other than her husband. As we read, it is telling of those who, as Adam did, hear directly from God; and of those who, as Eve, haven’t heard from God, instead listening to those who also haven’t, and in doing are led astray.

This again is what Peter in 2 Peter 2 follows his definition with, telling of the false teachers that will be among us, who shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the LORD (the true Husband) that brought them. (And now we have churches so filled with the effeminized led astray after these other men who have crept in, and none of them having heard anything from the LORD, even thought they say often and full of ignorance, “Thus says the LORD.”)

Here is 2 Peter 2 again, and part of 2 Timothy 4 to read in this context.

2 Peter 1
1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily [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 [despise being governed by Godly order]. 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 deceiving 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 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.

This takes us to 1 Corinthians 15 wherein we read of the same two men, the before and the after, and of the resurrection to life: the same rest and refreshing mentioned in Isaiah 28. The man before doesn’t hear it until he realizes he is as a child and must listen and learn. When he does learn he puts away childish things and becomes a man as God intended him, in the image and likeness of his God.

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 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 believeth 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.

1 Corinthians 15
33 Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.
34 Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame.
35 But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?
36 You fool, that which you sow is not quickened, except it die:
37 And that which you sow, you sow not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain:
38 But God gives it a body as it has pleased him, and to every seed his own body.
39 All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds.
40 There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.
41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differs from another star in glory.
42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:
43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:
44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
46 Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
47 The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the LORD from heaven.
48 As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.
49 And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.
51 Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
55 O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?
56 The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
57 But thanks be to God, which gives us the victory through our LORD Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be you steadfast, immoveable, always abounding in the work of the LORD, forasmuch as you know that your labor is not in vain in the LORD.

I am in awe of the depth of the wisdom and knowledge the LORD has chosen to deliver to us in/by His revelation. Thank you Father! I am equally amazed, while also grieved, that the vast majority remains totally unaware of it. In this I understand the proverbial dog returning to its own vomit, and swine to wallowing in self-agitated mire.

Today’s message is both a response to those who have seen as I have seen, rejoicing and thankful to the LORD for showing us His Glory/glorious light, and a reminder of our responsibility.

Matthew 11
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.

2 Corinthians 1
1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, unto the church of God which is at Corinth [from the Hebrew word kor, meaning to measure], with all the saints which are in all Achaia:
2 Grace be to you and peace from God our Father, and from the LORD Jesus Christ.
3 Blessed be God, even the Father of our LORD Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;
4 Who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
5 For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds by Christ.
6 And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.
7 And our hope of you is steadfast, knowing, that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so shall you be also of the consolation.
8 For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life:
9 But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raises the dead:
10 Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us;
11 You also helping together by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons thanks may be given by many on our behalf.
12 For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward.
13 For we write none other things unto you, that what you read or acknowledge; and I trust you shall acknowledge even to the end;
14 As also you have acknowledged us in part, that we are your rejoicing, even as you also are ours in the day of the LORD Jesus.
15 And in this confidence I was minded to come unto you before, that you might have a second benefit;
16 And to pass by you into Macedonia, and to come again out of Macedonia unto you, and of you to be brought on my way toward Judaea.
17 When I therefore was thus minded, did I use lightness? or the things that I purpose, do I purpose according to the flesh, that with me there should be yea yea, and nay nay?
18 But as God is true, our word toward you was not yea and nay [neither naive, terse, ashamed nor prideful answers].
19 For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timothy, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea [all things made possible – to understand].
20 For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.
21 Now he which established us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, is God;
22 Who has also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.
23 Moreover I call God for a record upon my soul, that to spare you I came not as yet unto Corinth.
24 Not for that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy: for by faith you stand.

2 Corinthians 2
1 But I determined this with myself, that I would not come again to you in heaviness.
2 For if I make you sorry, who is he then that makes me glad, but the same which is made sorry by me?
3 And I wrote this same unto you, lest, when I came, I should have sorrow from them of whom I ought to rejoice; having confidence in you all, that my joy is the joy of you all.
4 For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears; not that you should be grieved, but that you might know the love which I have more abundantly unto you.
5 But if any have caused grief, he has not grieved me, but in part: that I may not overcharge you all.
6 Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which was inflicted of many.
7 So that contrariwise you ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.
8 Wherefore I beseech you that you would confirm your love toward him.
9 For to this end also did I write, that I might know the proof of you, whether you be obedient in all things.
10 To whom you forgive any thing, I forgive also: for if I forgave any thing, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it in the person of Christ;
11 Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.
12 Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ’s gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the LORD,
13 I had no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus my brother: but taking my leave of them, I went from thence into Macedonia.
14 Now thanks be unto God, which always causes us to triumph in Christ, and makes manifest the savor of his knowledge by us in every place.
15 For we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish:
16 To the one we are the savor of death unto death; and to the other the savor of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?
17 For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ.

I would encourage you to read on at least to 2 Corinthians 6 were we read of our responsibility, if we have in truth as verse 2 says, heard the LORD say He has heard us. And if we have truly heard Him we must not any longer be partakers in the vain ways of those who have rejected His good news. They stumble at the stumbling stone and have chosen to continue on in darkness.

Romans 9
32 Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone;
33 As it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offence: and whosoever believes on him shall not be ashamed.

2 Corinthians 6
1 We then, as workers together with Him, beseech you also that you receive not the grace of God in vain.
2 (For he says, I have heard you in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succored you: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)
3 Giving no offence in any thing, that the ministry be not blamed:
4 But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses,
5 In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watching, in fasting;
6 By pureness, by knowledge, by long suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned,
7 By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left,
8 By honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true;
9 As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed;
10 As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.
11 O you Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged.
12 You are not straitened in us, but you are straitened in your own bowels.
13 Now for a recompense in the same, (I speak as unto my children,) be you also enlarged.
14 Be you not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion has light with darkness?
15 And what concord has Christ with Belial? or what part has he that believeth with an infidel?
16 And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? for you are the temple of the living God; as God has said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be you separate, says the LORD, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.
18 And will be a Father unto you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the LORD Almighty.

When verse 2 above parenthetically tells of those they LORD says He has heard agreeing with Him, that this is the time of the salvation (rest and refreshing), it is a quote from Isaiah 49:8. The chapter begins by speaking to the isles, meaning the dry lands where the living waters have yet to take effect. This is quickly followed by calling them to harken, and in hearing rise up to become part with those the LORD is calling to His mission. And I will give you as a light to the unbelieving: we are those they will hear, and know it is the acceptable time of salvation.

Isaiah 8
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? ([or should they continue to look] for the living to [among] the dead?)
20 To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.
21 And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward.
22 And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness.

Isaiah 49
1 Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, you people, from far; The LORD has called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother has he made mention of my name.
2 And he has made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand has he hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in his quiver has he hid me;
3 And said unto me, You are my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.
4 Then I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for naught, and in vain: yet surely my judgment is with the LORD, and my work with my God.
5 And now, says the LORD that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the LORD, and my God shall be my strength.
6 And he said, It is a light thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give you for a light to the Gentiles, that you may be my salvation unto the end of the earth.
7 Thus says the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel, and his Holy One, to him whom man despises, to him whom the nation abhors, to a servant of rulers, Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship, because of the LORD that is faithful, and the Holy One of Israel, and he shall choose you.
8 Thus says the LORD, In an acceptable time have I heard you, and in a day of salvation have I helped you: and I will preserve you, and give you for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages;
9 That you may say to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Show yourselves. They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high places.
10 They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for he that has mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them.
11 And I will make all my mountains a way, and my highways shall be exalted.
12 Behold, these shall come from far: and, lo, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim.
13 Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the LORD has comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted.
14 But Zion said, The LORD has forsaken me, and my LORD has forgotten me.
15 Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget you.
16 Behold, I have graven you upon the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.
17 Your children shall make haste; your destroyers and they that made you waste shall go forth of you.
18 Lift up your eyes round about, and behold: all these gather themselves together, and come to you. As I live, says the LORD, you shall surely clothe you with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on you, as a bride does.
19 For your waste and your desolate places, and the land of your destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed you up shall be far away.
20 The children which you shall have, after you have lost the other, shall say again in your ears, The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may dwell.
21 Then shall you say in your heart, Who has begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro? and who has brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been?
22 Thus says the LORD God, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard [the sign of Isaiah 8:18 above, who speak according to this word] to the people: and they shall bring your sons in their arms, and your daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders.
23 And kings shall be your nursing fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers: they shall bow down to you with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of your feet; and you shall know that I am the LORD: for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me.
24 Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered?
25 But thus says the LORD, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered: for I will contend with him that contends with you, and I will save your children.
26 And I will feed them that oppress you with their own flesh; and they shall be drunken with their own blood, as with sweet wine: and all flesh shall know that I the LORD am your Savior and your Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob.

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, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar (those sowing darkness and sorrow)!
6 My soul has long dwelt with him that hates peace.
7 I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war.

Continuing: after reading the previous post at some point their should have been an epiphany wherein many other recently discussed ideas were seen in association with it. The discussion was about tongues actually being unknown doctrinal explanations, when never heard before are seemingly foreign language. As we saw yesterday these strange ideas are loosed to our understanding by the Holy Spirit as He, as if igniting a fires in our mind, enlightens us to the meaning as we have never seen it before. We saw this from Isaiah 28 where the LORD tells us of His teaching, through men of His choosing, that will be precept upon precept, line upon line, that it would cause us to fall backward (to where we had fallen from), as we are snared and caught by it. There we read of the LORD telling us this is His leading us into rest, and our refreshing, but we refused to hear. The reason He explains is the rulers (those crowned with pride, priests, and prophets) over God’s people, and over humanity, led and leading all astray by their errors, specifically their lack of knowledge and their false teaching (corrupted by their own inventions). The LORD says there in verse 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.”

In a prior post titled, “The Wise Will See and Understand,” we discussed the LORD’s words telling us of things kept silent since the foundation of the world, and of His making them known. In the post prior to it titled, “Immortality, Rising Up On Wings As Eagles,” and others before it we examined things manifested as part of process of the unseen becoming seen. We saw this as the means by which the LORD causes His presence and glory to be seen by those who diligently seek Him.

I suggest reading the full posts if you haven’t.

In context of all above we need to read the following again, and believe the Father is in me, and I in Him, and We are in you, and you in Us (one mind). You hear the language I speak because you are of the Father, and His Holy Spirit has ignited His light in our mind. He has led us into all truth.

John 15
1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
2 Every branch in me that bears not fruit he takes 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 knows 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 cometh 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 proceed from the Father, he shall testify of me:
27 And you also shall bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.

John 16
1 These things have I spoken unto you, that you should not be offended.
2 They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever kill you will think that he does God service.
3 And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me.
4 But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come, you may remember that I told you of them. And these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you.
5 But now I go my way to him that sent me; and none of you ask me, Where go you?
6 But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow have filled your heart.
7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.
8 And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
9 Of sin, because they believe not on me;
10 Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and you see me no more;
11 Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.
12 I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now.
13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come.
14 He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you.
15 All things that the Father have are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you.
16 A little while, and you shall not see me: and again, a little while, and you shall see me, because I go to the Father.
17 Then said some of his disciples among themselves, What is this that he said unto us, A little while, and you shall not see me: and again, a little while, and you shall see me: and, Because I go to the Father?
18 They said therefore, What is this that he said, A little while? we cannot tell what he said.
19 Now Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask him, and said unto them, Do you enquire among yourselves of that I said, A little while, and you shall not see me: and again, a little while, and you shall see me?
20 Truly, truly, I say unto you, That you shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and you shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.
21 A woman when she is in travail have sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembers no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.
22 And you now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man takes from you.
23 And in that day you shall ask me nothing. Truly, truly, I say unto you, Whatsoever you shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.
24 Hitherto have you asked nothing in my name: ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full.
25 These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of the Father.
26 At that day you shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you:
27 For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God.
28 I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.
29 His disciples said unto him, Lo, now speak you plainly, and speak no proverb.
30 Now are we sure that you know all things, and need not that any man should ask you: by this we believe that you came forth from God.
31 Jesus answered them, Do you now believe?
32 Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that you shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.
33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me you might have peace. In the world you shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

John 17
1 These words spoke Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify your Son, that your Son also may glorify you:
2 As you have given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him.
3 And this is life eternal, that they might know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
4 I have glorified you on the earth: I have finished the work which you gave me to do.
5 And now, O Father, glorify you me with your own self with the glory which I had with you before the world was.
6 I have manifested your name unto the men which you gave me out of the world: yours they were, and you gave them me; and they have kept your word.
7 Now they have known that all things whatsoever you have given me are of you.
8 For I have given unto them the words which you gave me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from you, and they have believed that you didst send me.
9 I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which you have given me; for they are yours.
10 And all mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I am glorified in them.
11 And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to you. Holy Father, keep through your own name those whom you have given me, that they may be one, as we are.
12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name: those that you gave me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.
13 And now come I to you; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
14 I have given them your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
15 I pray not that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil.
16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
17 Sanctify them through your truth: your word is truth.
18 As you have sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.
19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
21 That they all may be one; as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that you have sent me.
22 And the glory which you gave me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
23 I in them, and you in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that you have sent me, and have loved them, as you have loved me.
24 Father, I will that they also, whom you have given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which you have given me: for you loved me before the foundation of the world.
25 O righteous Father, the world have not known you: but I have known you, and these have known that you have sent me.
26 And I have declared unto them your name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.

John 15:22 – 25 tells of the reason why the current rulers in church (preachers, teachers, and all other false prophets) and nation/state hate both the Father and we that have His light. “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 cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.”

“They hated me without a cause,” is a quote from Psalms 35:19. The Psalm tells of those who choose the status quo, knowing it is corrupted and therefore ineffective in its intended mission, preferring it over the uncorrupted truth, the rest and refreshing of Isaiah 28:12, because they would rather have darkness if it means they keep their seats and control. This is their choice and they have their wish – they will continue to rule over their own torment for as long as they choose to hate what will bring rest and refresing.

Daniel 12
1 And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which stands for the children of your people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time your people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.
2 And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
3 And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.

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 have 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: I bowed down heavily, as one that mourns for his mother.
15 But in mine adversity they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together: yea, the abjects 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 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 have seen it.
22 This you have seen, O LORD: keep not silence: O LORD, be not far from me.
23 Stir up thyself, and awake 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 have pleasure in the prosperity of his servant.
28 And my tongue shall speak of your righteousness and of your praise all the day long.

Changing the subject as the LORD directs it; today a discussion of the subject of “tongues.” I surmise this is more for me than anyone else as I have become reluctant to discuss the topic due to it seemingly producing an almost demonic opposition come from otherwise rational people (my not wanting to provoke them into opposing themselves). I will start out with the point already made apparent to me: tongues are in fact the opposite of the unintelligible babbling the ignorant have reduced it to. It is in fact doctrine, unknown to those hearing it and therefore not understood. In this context we understand the uses of the term in the Word of God, and we understand the necessary repetition and exposition until the Holy Spirit is ignited in the hearer and the word is then clearly understood – and those then understanding cannot prevent themselves from willingly becoming part of the church of the firstborn.

This above description is what we read of first happening in Acts 2 where every man heard and understood. The so-called “tongue” being understood is the key and most relevant aspect. This is the context that makes what seem to be contradictory statements in 1 Corinthians 14 understandable, and this aspect itself is exemplified in this exposition. This is why we are first told of tongues being for the unbelieving, not the believing. The believing (should) already understand, and the unbelieving of logical course don’t comprehend what is being said.

As always, we find the full understand of the intended context and boundaries of what is said in 1 Corinthians 14 when in verse 21 Paul quotes from Isaiah 28:11. The quote is telling of the LORD saying He will speak to us in these other tongues. It is defined in Isaiah by the verses before and after telling of the LORD teaching us by laying out a systematic discourse to this end of our understanding. He, the LORD, is the one that tells us it will seem to us as some new doctrine, while in fact a precept upon precept, line upon line, that they might be snared, fall backward and be caught (taken). In Isaiah 28:12 the LORD tells of this lack of comprehending as a refusal to hear what is being taught, as His telling us, “This is the rest wherein you may cause the weary to rest, and this is the refreshing,” and our rejecting it. These verses are specifically directed at those ruling and teaching God’s people into this state of ignorance. (God is not the author of confusion, and never has anyone ever interpreted or understood one word of the babbling that now ignorantly passes for “tongues.” And if we would understand this one thing we might understand all things.)

The “precepts” and the “lines” spoken of are the element that are being taught as what should replace the foundational elements (principles – stoicheion) we have discussed many times. These are those causing the fires that now burn in the world, and the same principles melting away as they have failed (again, and ever time) before our eyes. In Isaiah 28:15 we read of this being as those who have ruled us and taught us having made a covenant with death (the dead can’t hear or understand anything); it then define their ways as making lies their refuge, and under falsehood hid themselves.

In the next verse we read of the LORD laying the new foundation, and they that believe on him shall not be ashamed or flee away. This is followed by the LORD telling of this being His judgment, and seen by His right and equitable measurement; and by this He will sweep away the lies, and overflow their hiding places.

The chapter begins by addressing the “crown of pride,” the “drunkard of Ephraim.” These are the same rulers and teachers, so proud they think they know everything, and drunken (by the same sleep and death) in the night just as we are told of in 1 Thessalonian 5, not knowing the season or the time of their judgment. We know Ephraim is used to tell of the latter generation of the household of God in our time. In verse 2 we read of the same “mighty one” we are told of in verse 16 as the “foundation stone,” and in verse 2 we see he is the same who sweeps away lies and uncovers the hidden. We are told of these rulers and teachers as fading flowers, as the drunkard of Ephraim is trodden under foot. This lead up to the LORD telling He will be our crown of glory, and the prophets and priests that have caused the people to err into drunkenness will be replace with those the LORD teaches knowledge. The only thing needed will be to understand what the tongue is speaking, “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.”

Isaiah 28
1 Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower, which are on the head of the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine!
2 Behold, the LORD has a mighty and strong one, which as a tempest of hail and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand.
3 The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet:
4 And the glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley, shall be a fading flower, and as the hasty fruit before the summer; which when he that looks upon it sees, while it is yet in his hand he eats it up.
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 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 h*ll 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 believeth 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 h*ll 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 cometh forth from the LORD of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.

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 cometh as a thief in the night.
3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh 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, 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.
8 But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.
9 For God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our LORD Jesus Christ,
10 Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.
11 Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also you do.
12 And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labor among you, and are over you in the LORD, and admonish you;
13 And to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake. And be at peace among yourselves.
14 Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men.
15 See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men.
16 Rejoice evermore.
17 Pray without ceasing.
18 In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
19 Quench not the Spirit.
20 Despise not prophesying.
21 Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
22 Abstain from all appearance of evil.
23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our LORD Jesus Christ.
24 Faithful is he that calls you, who also will do it.
25 Brethren, pray for us.
26 Greet all the brethren with a holy kiss.
27 I charge you by the LORD that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren.
28 The grace of our LORD Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.

It is worth noting that before Paul gives His Mars’ Hill discourse, the philosophers (the keepers of knowledge), call him a babbler (Acts 17:18), because he seems to be setting forth some unknown God, because he preached Jesus and the resurrection. The unique word used by Luke (the physician writer of Acts) and translated “babbler” is the one time used Greek spermologos, literally meaning seed, as in the first principles, and lego, meaning as systematic discourse – laying out a seemingly unknown doctrine. This is what Paul then goes on to demonstrate in his discourse.

Acts 17
21 (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.)
22 Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, You men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are too superstitious.
23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To The Unknown God. Whom therefore you ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
24 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is LORD of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
25 Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
26 And has made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
27 That they should seek the LORD, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.
30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commands all men every where to repent:
31 Because he has appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he has ordained; whereof he has given assurance unto all men, in that he has raised him from the dead.
32 And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear you again of this matter.

The words for drunkenness used in 1 Thessalonians 5 are best understood by looking the word translated “sober,” used as their opposite. It is the Greek word nepho, meaning to abstain, and also to be vigilant and watchful. This is contrasted against those who are methusko, intoxicated, and therefore not vigilant or watchful (for errors nor the coming of the LORD in judgment). Therefore we understand this thinking everything is fine, and in this pride filled ignorance the Day of Judgment comes upon them as a thief invading their darkness and drunkenness. This tells of the true drunkenness, as opposed to those watching and understanding the systematic discourse they see and hear, and these others not understanding hear as if an unknown language and therefore reject it. But to as many as receive it gave He power to become the children of God.

Acts 2
12 And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What means this?
13 Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine.
14 But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, You men of Judaea, and all you that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words:
15 For these are not drunken, as you suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day.
16 But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel;
17 And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:
18 And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy:
19 And I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke:
20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and notable day of the LORD come:
21 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be saved.
22 You men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as you yourselves also know:
23 Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:
24 Whom God has raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be held of it.
25 For David speaks concerning him, I foresaw the LORD always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved:
26 Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope:
27 Because you will not leave my soul in h*ll, neither will you suffer your Holy One to see corruption.
28 You have made known to me the ways of life; you shall make me full of joy with your countenance.
29 Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day.
30 Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne;
31 He seeing this before spoke of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in h*ll, neither his flesh did see corruption.
32 This Jesus has God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.
33 Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he has shed forth this, which you now see and hear.
34 For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he said himself, The LORD said unto my LORD, Sit you on my right hand,
35 Until I make your foes your footstool.
36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God has made the same Jesus, whom you have crucified, both LORD and Christ.
37 Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?
38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
39 For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the LORD our God shall call.
40 And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.