Author: wordofgod

The LORD has brought forth our righteousness: come, and let us declare in Zion the work of the LORD our God.

Friends, the word above rendered “declare” is the Hebrew word caphar, meaning “to score with a mark as a tally or record, i.e. (by implication) to inscribe, and also to enumerate; intensively, to recount, i.e. celebrate.” It’s the same word rendered “told” in Habakkuk 1:5, which is later quoted by Paul and recorded by Luke in Acts 13:41. As we’ve seen, in this latter use, Paul adds the word “man” in telling of the one he has just described, who is sent to declare what the people are marvelously wondering at and warned not to miss.

Friends, the LORD has made and sent me for this moment. He molded me by His hand into a resolutely vigilant man, acquainted with affliction and sorrow, toughened in the trials and tribulations of life. He did it as planned, for His people, so we endure the attacks, the reviling and mocking of friend and foe, that come in response to saying the words He would speak, write, through us.

Now, once again, I offer myself to the same, for the mission. This is my lot in life, the baptism, the cup accepted. The title tells us we all have to do the same, not preaching ourselves or our goodness. But rather that Christ is risen, in Spirit and truth, in us preaching the salvation to the world. This is the truth, One God, Christ in us, come to save the world through those who confess He is risen. I confess He is alive in me, and will rise in any receiving His word as the word of God. Those acknowledging His glory, confessing he has done a marvelous work “in our eyes,” can boldly say we are “in the presence of the LORD Jesus Christ at His coming.”

As we know, this last quote is from 1 Thessalonians 2, coming just after Paul recounted the same understanding to those who’ve received his word as the word of God, as it is. He then tells of the resistance of those not yet aware of this reality, which he later, in 1 Thessalonians 4, speaks of as the sleeping who the LORD will come to awaken. He tells of when they hear the voice of the LORD, the awakening shout of the archangel, when we will all together be “caught up” to him in heaven.

As we’ve seen, heaven is the firmament, the LORD’s exposition, through us, separating the word of God from the words of men. The word of God is His understanding, the treasure of heaven held above in the cloud, where the elements of understanding are reassembled and sent to earth as the latter rain.

This is the hand of the LORD, reaching down through those He sends in His name, “pulling” us from the fires. As we know, the word “pulling” is referring to Jude 1:23, where it’s translated from the same word, harpazo, rendered “caught up” in 1 Thessalonians 4:17. As we’ve seen, Jude speaks of the event as changing out of the garments “spotted” by the flesh. As we understand, “spotted” refers to hazards below the surface. The change (chaliyphah and allasso) is speaking of the reversal of the reversal of perceptions of good and evil.

We’ve also seen this change, the conclusion in our resurrection, described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:54 as “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.”

Friends, it is for this cause we are sent, and Christ in us, in the sons of man, must be lifted up. As we know, these the heavenly things that are only understood when we accept (believe) the words the LORD is speaking, declares, here on earth. In the title verse, Jeremiah 51:10, this declaration is spoken of, and in verse 12 we are told it is the “standard” lifted upon the wall of Babylon. As we know, the wall tells of what is protecting Babylon, which is its hold over information, keeping out anything not in agreement with its confusion.

The “standard” is the Hebrew word nec, which is the word rendered “pole,” in Number 21:8 & 9, upon which the brazen serpent is lifted up. As we know, The LORD, in John 3:14 & 15, says, “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”

In Number 21, as in 1 Thessalonians 2, these men are like serpents whose words were causing people to perish. The son of man is lifted as the brazen serpent to counteract their confusion, reversing the darkness by His fiery light, and any who look to him aren’t destroyed. As we know, the LORD says, in John 3:19, the only condemnation is by choice, the decision (krisis) to reject the light and remain in the darkness that is destroying.

John 3
10 Jesus answered and said unto him, Are you a master [teacher] of Israel, and know not these things?
11 Truly, truly, I say unto you, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and you receive not our witness.
12 If I have told you earthly things, and you believe not, how shall you believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?
13 And no man has ascended up to heaven [rises in understanding – see verse 27 & 31 below], but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.
14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
15 That whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
18 He that believes on him is not condemned: but he that believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19 And this is the condemnation [krisis], that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
20 For every one that does evil hates the light, neither comes to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
21 But he that does truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
22 After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judaea; and there he tarried with them, and baptized.
23 And John also was baptizing in Aenon [‘ayin – the eye, seeing, turned to a fountain, of understanding] near to Salim [near to peace – that comes from understanding], because there was much water there: and they came, and were baptized [immersed in the deep that is below the surface of God’s word].
24 For John was not yet cast into prison.
25 Then there arose a question between some of John’s disciples and the Jews about purifying. [The purifying John later writes of in 1 John 3:1 thru 3, saying “Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knows us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure.]
26 And they came unto John, and said unto him, Rabbi, he that was with you beyond Jordan, to whom you barest witness, behold, the same baptizes, and all men come to him.
27 John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.
28 You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him.
29 He that has the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled.
30 He must increase, but I must decrease.
31 He that comes from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaks of the earth: he that comes from heaven is above all.
32 And what he has seen and heard, that he testifies; and no man receives his testimony.
33 He that has received his testimony has set to his seal that God is true.
34 For he whom God has sent speaks the words of God: for God gives not the Spirit by measure unto him.
35 The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into his hand.
36 He that believes on the Son has everlasting life: and he that believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him.

Hebrews 12
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 [from the place of full understanding]:
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 [see Haggai 2:6 & 7].
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.

Haggai 2
3 Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do you see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing?
4 Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel [those born again, by coming out of confusion, out of Babylon], says the LORD; and be strong, O Joshua [Jesus – Jehovah’s salvation personified in us], son of Josedech [born from Jehovah’s righteousness], the high priest; and be strong, all you people of the land, says the LORD, and work: for I am with you, says the LORD of hosts:
5 According to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, so my spirit remains among you: fear you not.
6 For thus says the LORD of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land;
7 And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, says the LORD of hosts.
8 The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the LORD of hosts.
9 The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, says the LORD of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, says the LORD of hosts.

1 Thessalonians 2
1 For yourselves, brethren, know our entrance in unto you, that it was not in vain:
2 But even after that we had suffered before, and were shamefully entreated, as you know, at Philippi, we were bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God with much contention.
3 For our exhortation was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile:
4 But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which tries our hearts.
5 For neither at any time used we flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak of covetousness; God is witness:
6 Nor of men sought we glory, neither of you, nor yet of others, when we might have been burdensome, as the apostles of Christ.
7 But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherishes her children:
8 So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because you were dear unto us.
9 For you remember, brethren, our labor and travail: for laboring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God.
10 You are witnesses, and God also, how holily and justly and un-blamably we behaved ourselves among you that believe:
11 As you know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father does his children,
12 That you would walk worthy of God, who has called you unto his kingdom and glory.
13 For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when you received the word of God which you heard of us, you received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually works also in you that believe.
14 For you, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for you also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews:
15 Who both killed the LORD Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men:
16 Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins always: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.
17 But we, brethren, being taken from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, endeavored the more abundantly to see your face with great desire.
18 Wherefore we would have come unto you, even I Paul, once and again; but Satan hindered us.
19 For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even you in the presence of our LORD Jesus Christ at his coming?

1 Thessalonians 4
13 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
15 For this we say unto you by the word of the LORD, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the LORD shall not prevent them which are asleep.
16 For the LORD himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up [harpazo – pulling us from the fire to Himself] together with them in the clouds, to meet the LORD in the air [aer – away from blinding smoke of the prince of the power of the air, to His clear, pure, air where we see Him clearly]: and so shall we ever be with the LORD.
18 Wherefore comfort [Paraclete – by His Spirit in us, leading into all truth] one another with these words.

The Greek word above, in 1 Thessalonians 2:1, telling of this “entrance” is eisodos, (eis hodos), actually meaning the mode or means of entering, as in the road taking us to the point.

It is first used in Acts 13:24 to tell of John preaching the baptism of repentance, before the LORD’s “coming.” In this light, we see it as speaking of the baptism of repentance being the road taking us to the LORD’s presence, which is our goal.

Acts 13
24 When John had first preached before his coming [eisodos] the baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.
25 And as John fulfilled his course, he said, Whom think you that I am? I am not he. But, behold, there comes one after me, whose shoes of his feet I am not worthy to loose.
26 Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and whosoever among you fears God, to you is the word of this salvation sent.
27 For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him.
28 And though they found no cause of death in him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be slain.
29 And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulcher.
30 But God raised him from the dead:
31 And he was seen many days of them which came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses unto the people.
32 And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers,
33 God has fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he has raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, You are my Son, this day have I begotten you.

Eisodos is used in Hebrews 10:19 to tell of our “entering” the Holy of Holies, into the presence of God.

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 days, saith 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 [eisodos] 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 a 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.

Numbers 21
7 Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against you; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.
8 And the LORD said unto Moses, Make you a fiery [see Luke 12:49 below] serpent, and set it upon a pole [nec – a banner/standard the people will see and know the way]: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looks upon it, shall live.
9 And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole [nec], and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.
10 And the children of Israel set forward, and pitched in Oboth [water-skins – as familiar spirts – where the words of the known dead are heard calling man toward death].
11 And they journeyed from Oboth [they left the words of death], and pitched at Ijeabarim [where all who passed by could see the ruin caused by the corrupt and ignorant words, the venom of serpents], in the wilderness which is before Moab [as these men’s word are seen as the gates of hell, and passing through them we enter the light, understanding the moment and the new day], toward the sun-rising.
12 From thence they removed, and pitched in the valley of Zared [the place of exuberant growth – the advance of God’s people into his next unlimited state/age].
13 From thence they removed, and pitched on the other side of Arnon [brawling river – the place of the final battle when the waters overcome and finish the enemies], which is in the wilderness that comes out of the coasts of the Amorites [those speaking and exalting their word above this word of God]: for Arnon is the border of Moab [these are the gates of hell we must pass through], between Moab and the Amorites.
14 Wherefore it is said in the book of the wars of the LORD, What he did in the Red sea [cuwphah – when we reach the expected end], and in the brooks of Arnon [when these men’s words and God’s word clash and these men are destroyed],
15 And at the stream of the brooks that goes down to the dwelling of Ar [the place of this fountain of the LORD’s word, which breaks down the gate holding God’s people in hell], and lies upon the border of Moab.
16 And from thence they went to Beer [and the people went to the well, the fountain of God here springing up]: that is the well whereof the LORD spoke unto Moses, Gather the people together, and I will give them water [this word of God, which I have reserved to myself, for the salvation of God’s people].
17 Then Israel sang this song, Spring up [be lifted up, O Word of God], O well; sing you unto it:
18 The princes digged the well, the nobles of the people digged it, by the direction of the lawgiver, with their staves.

Luke 12
49 I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?
50 But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!
51 Suppose you that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division:
52 For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three.
53 The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
54 And he said also to the people, When you see a cloud rise out of the west, straightway you say, There comes a shower; and so it is.
55 And when you see the south wind blow, you say, There will be heat; and it comes to pass.
56 You hypocrites, you can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that you do not discern this time?
57 Yea, and why even of yourselves judge you not what is right?

Jeremiah 1
4 Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
5 Before I formed you in the belly I knew you; and before you came forth out of the womb I sanctified you, and I ordained you a prophet unto the nations.
6 Then said I, Ah, LORD God! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child.
7 But the LORD said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for you shall go to all that I shall send you, and whatsoever I command you you shall speak.
8 Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with you to deliver you, saith the LORD.
9 Then the LORD put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.
10 See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant.
11 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what seest you? And I said, I see a rod of an almond tree.
12 Then said the LORD unto me, You have well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it.
13 And the word of the LORD came unto me the second time, saying, What see you? And I said, I see a seething pot; and the face thereof is toward the north.
14 Then the LORD said unto me, Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land.
15 For, lo, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, says the LORD; and they shall come, and they shall set every one his throne at the entering of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all the walls thereof round about, and against all the cities of Judah.
16 And I will utter my judgments against them touching all their wickedness, who have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, and worshipped the works of their own hands.
17 You therefore gird up your loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command you: be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound you before them.
18 For, behold, I have made you this day a defensed city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against the people of the land.
19 And they shall fight against you; but they shall not prevail against you; for I am with you, says the LORD, to deliver you.

Jeremiah 51
9 We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake her, and let us go every one into his own country: for her judgment reaches unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies.
10 The LORD has brought forth our righteousness: come, and let us declare [caphar] in Zion the work of the LORD our God.
11 Make bright the arrows; gather the shields: the LORD has raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes: for his device is against Babylon, to destroy it; because it is the vengeance of the LORD, the vengeance of his temple.
12 Set up the standard [nec – the pole upon which Moses raised the brazen serpent, as the son of man must be lifted] upon the walls of Babylon, make the watch strong, set up the watchmen, prepare [kuwn – perfect] the ambushes: for the LORD has both devised and done that which he spoke against the inhabitants of Babylon.
13 O you that dwells upon many waters, abundant in treasures, your end is come, and the measure of your covetousness.
14 The LORD of hosts has sworn by himself, saying, Surely I will fill you with men, as with caterpillars; and they shall lift up a shout against you.
15 He has made the earth by his power, he has established [kuwn – perfected] the world by his wisdom, and has stretched out the heaven by his understanding.
16 When he utters his voice, there is a multitude of waters in the heavens; and he causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth: he makes lightning with rain, and brings forth the wind out of his treasures. [These are speaking of when the LORD, as now, sends His word from heaven, and His Spirit moves upon them producing understanding. The following verse tells of the words of men as foundationless confusion in which there is no life-giving power.]
17 Every man is brutish by his knowledge; every founder is confounded by the graven image: for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.
18 They are vanity [worthless], the work of errors: in the time of their visitation they shall perish.
19 The portion of Jacob is not like them; for he is the former of all things: and Israel is the rod of his inheritance: the LORD of hosts is his name.
20 You are my battle axe and weapons of war: for with you will I break in pieces the nations, and with you will I destroy kingdoms;
21 And with you will I break in pieces the horse and his rider; and with you will I break in pieces the chariot and his rider;
22 With you also will I break in pieces man and woman; and with you will I break in pieces old and young; and with you will I break in pieces the young man and the maid;
23 I will also break in pieces with you the shepherd and his flock; and with you will I break in pieces the husbandman and his yoke of oxen; and with you will I break in pieces captains and rulers.
24 And I will render unto Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea [the confusion and those who use their worthless words to intentionally produce it] all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, says the LORD.
25 Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, says the LORD, which destroy all the earth: and I will stretch out mine hand upon you, and roll you down from the rocks, and will make you a burnt mountain.
26 And they shall not take of you a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but you shall be desolate forever, says the LORD.
27 Set you up a standard [nec – raise up the brazen serpent, the son of man] in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations, prepare the nations against her, call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat [to reverse the curse], Minni [to this rightly divided word of God], and Ashchenaz [that shall be as fire scatter upon the land] appoint a captain against her; cause the horses to come up as the rough caterpillars.

Habakkuk 1
5 Behold you among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvelously: for I will work a work in your days which you will not believe, though it be told [capgar] you [though a man, as the mouth of God, declares it to you].
6 For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwelling-places that are not theirs.
7 They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves [their corrupt conscience that alters and reverses good and evil].
8 Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves: and their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from far; they shall fly as the eagle that hastes to eat.
9 They shall come all for violence: their faces shall sup up as the east wind, and they shall gather the captivity as the sand.
10 And they shall scoff at the kings, and the princes shall be a scorn unto them: they shall deride every strong hold; for they shall heap dust, and take it.
11 Then shall his mind change, and he shall pass over, and offend, imputing this his power unto his god.
12 Are you not from everlasting, O LORD my God, mine Holy One? we shall not die. O LORD, you have ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, you have established them for correction.

Acts 13
32 And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers,
33 God has fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he has raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, You are my Son, this day have I begotten you.
34 And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David.
35 Wherefore he says also in another psalm, You shall not suffer your Holy One to see corruption.
36 For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption:
37 But he, whom God raised again, saw no corruption.
38 Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man [the incorruptible God in him speaking] is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins:
39 And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.
40 Beware therefore, lest that come upon you, which is spoken of in the prophets;
41 Behold, you despisers, and wonder, and perish: for I work a work in your days, a work which you shall in no wise believe, though a man declares it unto you.

Psalms 34
1 I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
2 My soul shall make her boast in the LORD: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad.
3 O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together.
4 I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.
5 They looked unto him, and were lightened [nahar – and were given understand that brought them to Him]: and their faces were not ashamed [and they saw Him face to face, which is the expected end].
6 This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.
7 The angel of the LORD encamps round about them that fear him, and delivers them.
8 O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusts in him.
9 O fear the LORD, you his saints: for there is no want to them that fear him.
10 The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing.
11 Come, you children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the LORD.
12 What man is he that desires life, and loves many days, that he may see good?
13 Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking guile [deception].
14 Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.
15 The eyes of the LORD are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry.
16 The face of the LORD is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.
17 The righteous cry, and the LORD hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles.
18 The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saves such as be of a contrite spirit.
19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivers him out of them all.
20 He keeps all his bones: not one of them is broken.
21 Evil shall slay the wicked: and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate.
22 The LORD redeems the soul of his servants: and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate.

The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and He knows them that trust in Him.

The above is the LORD leading us to understand His goodness comes, in the time of trouble, to those who know His voice and put their trust in Him. The verse is Nahum 1:7. The word “good,” describing His advice, is the Hebrew word towb, which we’ve discussed in some detail in recent posts. It is contrasted against verse 11, which tells of the “evil” counsel of those speaking against the LORD, twisting His good word and falsely accusing Him, as did the serpent in the garden. As we know, the word “evil” is from ra’.

The point of our current discussion is the reversal of the meanings of good and evil that has occurred through following those intentionally misleading, confusing and destroying truthful discourse. The reversal of this reversal, the chaliyphah in Hebrew and allasso in Greek, is the ultimate focus of all prophecy and revelation. This end comes through the word of God, as His goodness, His good advice, is seen by those who trust Him, after He’s passed by and His presence is understood.

As we know, Nahum means comforter and refers to the one (the Paraclete) the LORD speaks of in John 14, who comes to lead us into all truth, which means reality is restored to its rightful place.

Nahum 1
1 The burden of Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite [the comforter, who is also God the ensnarer].
2 God is jealous, and the LORD revenges; the LORD revenges, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserves wrath for his enemies.
3 The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the LORD has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
4 He rebukes the sea, and makes it dry, and dries up all the rivers: Bashan languishes, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languishes.
5 The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein.
6 Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? his fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him.
7 The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knows them that trust in him.
8 But with an overrunning flood he will make an utter end [kalah] of the place thereof, and darkness [their own ignorance] shall pursue his enemies.
9 What do you imagine against the LORD? he will make an utter end [kalah]: affliction shall not rise up the second time.
10 For while they be folded together as thorns, and while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry.
11 There is one come out of you, that imagines evil [ra’] against the LORD, a wicked counsellor [ya’ats].
12 Thus says the LORD; Though they be quiet [shalam – though they think their power is secure], and likewise many, yet thus shall they be cut down, when he shall pass through. Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more.
13 For now will I break his yoke from off you, and will burst your bonds in sunder.
14 And the LORD has given a commandment concerning you, that no more of your name be sown: out of the house of your gods will I cut off [karath] the graven image and the molten image: I will make your grave; for you are vile.
15 Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that brings good tidings, that publishes peace! O Judah, keep your solemn feasts, perform your vows [neder]: for the wicked shall no more pass through you; he is utterly cut off [karath].

The wicked counselor spoken of in verse 11 is referenced earlier in verse 9; the word “imagine” in both from the Hebrew word chashab, meaning “to plait or interpenetrate, i.e. (literally) to weave or (gen.) to fabricate; figuratively, to plot or contrive (usually in a malicious sense); hence (from the mental effort) to think, regard, value, compute.” The word is referring us to its uses in Ezekiel 11:2 and Hosea 7:15 & 8:12.

Ezekiel 11
2 Then said he unto me, Son of man, these are the men that devise [chashab – imagine] mischief [ra’ – evil], and give [ya’ats – counsel] wicked [ra’ – evil] counsel in this city:
3 Which say, It is not near; let us build houses: this city is the caldron, and we be the flesh.
4 Therefore prophesy against them, prophesy, O son of man.
5 And the Spirit of the LORD fell upon me, and said unto me, Speak; Thus says the LORD; Thus have you said, O house of Israel: for I know the things that come into your mind, every one of them.
6 You have multiplied your slain in this city, and you have filled the streets thereof with the slain.
7 Therefore thus says the LORD God; Your slain whom you have laid in the midst of it, they are the flesh, and this city is the caldron: but I will bring you forth out of the midst of it.
8 You have feared the sword; and I will bring a sword upon you, says the LORD God.
9 And I will bring you out of the midst thereof, and deliver you into the hands of strangers, and will execute judgments among you.
10 You shall fall by the sword; I will judge you in the border of Israel; and you shall know that I am the LORD.
11 This city shall not be your caldron, neither shall you be the flesh in the midst thereof; but I will judge you in the border of Israel:
12 And you shall know that I am the LORD: for you have not walked in my statutes, neither executed my judgments, but have done after the manners of the heathen that are round about you.
13 And it came to pass, when I prophesied, that Pelatiah [who Jehovah has delivered] the son of Benaiah [who Jehovah has raised up] died. Then fell I down upon my face, and cried with a loud voice, and said, Ah LORD God! will you make a full end of the remnant of Israel?
14 Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
15 Son of man, your brethren, even your brethren, the men of your kindred, and all the house of Israel wholly, are they unto whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, Get you far from the LORD: unto us is this land given in possession.
16 Therefore say, Thus says the LORD God; Although I have cast them far off among the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come.
17 Therefore say, Thus says the LORD God; I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.
18 And they shall come thither, and they shall take away all the detestable things thereof and all the abominations thereof from thence.
19 And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:
20 That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.
21 But as for them whose heart walks after the heart of their detestable things and their abominations, I will recompense their way upon their own heads, says the LORD God.
22 Then did the cherubims lift up their wings, and the wheels beside them [then the pattern in the LORD’s word was seen and understood]; and the glory of the God of Israel was over them above.
23 And the glory of the LORD went up from the midst of the city, and stood upon the mountain which is on the east side of the city [where the morning light is first seen rising].
24 Afterwards the spirit took me up, and brought me in a vision by the Spirit of God into Chaldea [where the word of God has been silenced by those who used the evil words to confuse, manipulate, and control], to them of the captivity. So the vision that I had seen went up from me.
25 Then I spoke unto them of the captivity all the things that the LORD had showed me [in the patterns].

Hosea 7
1 When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria: for they commit falsehood; and the thief comes in, and the troop of robbers spoileth without.
2 And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness: now their own doings have beset them about; they are before my face.
3 They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies.
4 They are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker, who ceases from raising after he has kneaded the dough, until it be leavened.
5 In the day of our king the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine; he stretched out his hand with scorners.
6 For they have made ready their heart like an oven, whiles they lie in wait: their baker sleeps [yashen] all the night; in the morning it burns as a flaming fire.
7 They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their judges; all their kings are fallen: there is none among them that call unto me.
8 Ephraim, he has mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned.
9 Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knows it not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knows not.
10 And the pride of Israel testifies to his face: and they do not return to the LORD their God, nor seek him for all this.
11 Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart: they call to Egypt [to oppressors], they go to Assyria [to communists].
12 When they shall go, I will spread my net upon them; I will bring them down as the fowls of the heaven; I will chastise them, as their congregation has heard.
13 Woe unto them! for they have fled from me: destruction unto them! because they have transgressed against me: though I have redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against me.
14 And they have not cried unto me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds: they assemble themselves for corn and wine, and they rebel against me.
15 Though I have bound and strengthened their arms, yet do they imagine [chashab] mischief [ra’ – evil] against me.
16 They return, but not to the Most High: they are like a deceitful bow: their princes shall fall by the sword for the rage of their tongue: this shall be their derision in the land of Egypt.

Hosea 8
1 Set the trumpet to your mouth. He shall come as an eagle against the house of the LORD, because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my law.
2 Israel shall cry unto me, My God, we know you.
3 Israel has cast off the thing that is good: the enemy shall pursue him.
4 They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes, and I knew it not: of their silver and their gold have they made them idols, that they may be cut off.
5 Your calf, O Samaria, has cast you off; mine anger is kindled against them: how long will it be ere they attain to innocence?
6 For from Israel was it also: the workman made it; therefore it is not God: but the calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces.
7 For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it has no stalk; the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.
8 Israel is swallowed up: now shall they be among the Gentiles as a vessel wherein is no pleasure.
9 For they are gone up to Assyria [the communists], a wild ass alone by himself: Ephraim has hired lovers.
10 Yea, though they have hired among the nations, now will I gather them, and they shall sorrow a little for the burden of the king of princes.
11 Because Ephraim has made many altars to sin, altars shall be unto him to sin.
12 I have written to him the great things of my law, but they were counted [chashab – but they imagined strange thing] as a strange thing [zuwr – the strange fire of Numbers 3:4].
13 They sacrifice flesh for the sacrifices of mine offerings, and eat it; but the LORD accepts them not; now will he remember their iniquity, and visit their sins: they shall return to Egypt.
14 For Israel has forgotten his Maker, and builds temples; and Judah has multiplied fenced cities: but I will send a fire upon his cities, and it shall devour the palaces thereof.

Nahum 2
1 He that dashes in pieces is come up before your face: keep the munition, watch the way, make your loins strong, fortify your power mightily.
2 For the LORD has turned away the excellency of Jacob, as the excellency of Israel: for the emptiers have emptied them out, and marred their vine branches.
3 The shield of his mighty men is made red, the valiant men are in scarlet: the chariots shall be with flaming torches in the day of his preparation [kuwn], and the fir trees shall be terribly shaken [ra’al].
4 The chariots shall rage in the streets, they shall jostle one against another in the broad ways: they shall seem like torches, they shall run like the lightning [be quickened by understanding].
5 He shall recount his worthies: they shall stumble in their walk; they shall make haste to the wall thereof, and the defense shall be prepared [kuwn].
6 The gates of the rivers shall be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved.
7 And Huzzab shall be led away captive, she shall be brought up, and her maids shall lead her as with the voice of doves, tabering upon their breasts.
8 But Nineveh is of old like a pool of water: yet they shall flee away. Stand, stand, shall they cry; but none shall look back.
9 Take you the spoil of silver, take the spoil of gold: for there is none end of the store and glory out of all the pleasant furniture.
10 She is empty, and void, and waste: and the heart melts, and the knees smite together, and much pain is in all loins, and the faces of them all gather blackness.
11 Where is the dwelling of the lions, and the feeding-place of the young lions, where the lion, even the old lion, walked, and the lion’s whelp, and none made them afraid?
12 The lion did tear in pieces enough for his whelps, and strangled for his lionesses, and filled his holes with prey, and his dens with ravin [with what they’ve torn in pieces].
13 Behold, I am against you, says the LORD of hosts, and I will burn her chariots in the smoke, and the sword shall devour your young lions: and I will cut off [karath] your prey from the earth, and the voice of your messengers shall no more be heard.

Nahum 3
1 Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departs not;
2 The noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the prancing horses, and of the jumping chariots.
3 The horseman lifts up both the bright sword and the glittering spear: and there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcasses; and there is none end of their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses:
4 Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the well-favored harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that sells nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts.
5 Behold, I am against you, says the LORD of hosts; and I will discover your skirts upon your face, and I will show the nations your nakedness, and the kingdoms your shame.
6 And I will cast abominable filth upon you, and make you vile, and will set you as a gazing-stock.
7 And it shall come to pass, that all they that look upon you shall flee from you, and say, Nineveh is laid waste: who will bemoan her? whence shall I seek comforters for you?
8 Are you better than populous No, that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters round about it, whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was from the sea?
9 Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and it was infinite; Put and Lubim were your helpers.
10 Yet was she carried away, she went into captivity: her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets: and they cast lots for her honorable men, and all her great men were bound in chains.
11 You also shall be drunken: you shall be hid, you also shall seek strength because of the enemy.
12 All your strong holds shall be like fig trees with the first-ripe figs: if they be shaken, they shall even fall into the mouth of the eater.
13 Behold, your people in the midst of you are women: the gates of your land shall be set wide open unto your enemies: the fire shall devour your bars.
14 Draw you waters for the siege, fortify your strong holds: go into clay, and tread the mortar, make strong the brick-kiln [the furnace].
15 There shall the fire devour you; the sword shall cut you off, it shall eat you up like the cankerworm: make yourself many as the cankerworm, make yourself many as the locusts.
16 You have multiplied your merchants above the stars of heaven: the cankerworm spoils, and flees away.
17 Your crowned are as the locusts, and your captains as the great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the cold day, but when the sun arises they flee away, and their place is not known where they are.
18 Your shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria [communists]: your nobles shall dwell in the dust: your people is scattered upon the mountains, and no man gathers them.
19 There is no healing of your bruise; your wound is grievous: all that hear the bruit of you shall clap the hands over you: for upon whom has not your wickedness passed continually?

Habakkuk 2
1 I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved.
2 And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run [escape these corrupt houses] that reads it.
3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.
4 Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his [own] faith [apart from vain faith, the worthless trust in the corrupt houses].
5 Yea also, because he transgresses by wine [drunken with his power to deceive], he is a proud man, neither keeps at home, who enlarges his desire as hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathers unto him all nations, and heaps unto him all people:
6 Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, Woe to him that increases that which is not his! how long? and to him that lades himself with thick clay [hides his extortion]!
7 Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite you, and awake that shall vex you, and you shall be for booties unto them?
8 Because you have spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the people shall spoil you; because of men’s blood, and for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein.
9 Woe to him that covets an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil!
10 You have consulted shame to your house by cutting off many people, and have sinned against your soul.
11 For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it.
12 Woe to him that builds a town with blood, and establishes [kuwn – prepares] a city by iniquity!
13 Behold, is it not of the LORD of hosts that the people shall labor in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity?
14 For the earth shall be [is] filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.
15 Woe unto him that gives his neighbor drink, that puts your bottle to him, and makes him drunken also, that you may look on their nakedness!
16 You are filled with shame for glory: drink you also, and let your evil heart be uncovered: the cup of the LORD’s right hand shall be turned unto you, and shameful spewing shall be on your glory.
17 For the violence of Lebanon shall cover you, and the spoil of beasts, which made them afraid, because of men’s blood, and for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein.
18 What profits the graven image that the maker thereof has graven it; the molten image, and a teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusts therein, to make dumb idols?
19 Woe unto him that says to the wood [the timber, that is dead wood that cannot shoot forth new life], Awake; to the dumb stone [with which he builds his house, which cannot speak], Arise, it shall teach! Behold, it is laid over with gold and silver, and there is no breath [life] at all in the midst of it.
20 But the LORD is in his holy temple [in His people]: let all the earth keep silence before him.

Hebrews 12
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.

John 14
6 Jesus said unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes unto the Father, but by me.
7 If you had known me, you should have known my Father also: and from [apo – this aspect, seeing and hearing the Father in the son, is what perfects, completes, us] henceforth you know him, and have seen him.
8 Philip said unto him, LORD, show us the Father, and it suffice [completes] us.
9 Jesus said unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet have you not known me, Philip? he that has seen me has seen the Father; and how say you then, Show us the Father?
10 Believe you not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak [laleo] unto you I speak [laleo] not of [apo – this completion isn’t from] myself: but the Father that dwells [meno] in me, he does the works.
11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.
12 Truly, truly, I say unto you, He that believes on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.
13 And whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
14 If you shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.
15 If you love me, keep my commandments.
16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide [meno – endure] with you forever;
17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it sees him not, neither knows him: but you know him; for he dwells [meno] with you, and shall be in you.
18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
19 Yet a little while, and the world sees me no more; but you see me: because I live, you shall live also.
20 At that day you shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
21 He that has my commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves me: and he that loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
22 Judas said unto him, not Iscariot, LORD, how is it that you will manifest yourself unto us, and not unto the world?
23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man loves me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
24 He that loves me not keeps not my sayings: and the word which you hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.
25 These things have I spoken [laleo] unto you, being yet present [meno] with you.
26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

Daniel 7
9 I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery [nuwr] flame, and his wheels [galgal] as burning fire [nuwr].
10 A fiery [nuwr] stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened.
11 I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spoke: I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame.
12 As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away: yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time.
13 I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days [who possesses the unadulterated ideas and ways], and they brought him near before him.
14 And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.

Song of Solomon 1
12 While the king sits at his table, my spikenard [nerd] sends forth the smell thereof.
13 A bundle of myrrh [more] is my well-beloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts [see Isaiah 28:9, one of two times the Hebrew word attiyq, the equivalent of “Ancient” in Daniel 7:13 above, appears – it’s rendered “drawn” from the breast, speaking of who the LORD will teach knowledge].
14 My beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of Engedi [the fountain at the {gadah} border of {end – cutting off by – at the other bank} this stream/river of God].

Isaiah 28
1 Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim [the leaders who have by ignorance misled God’s people in this latter day], 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 [tsphiyrah – a crowning as the mourning, the sun rise of the new day, to those who understand the report] 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 [yarah] knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine [shmuw’ah – the report, teaching, rumor]? them that are weaned from the milk, and [have] drawn from [attiyq] the breasts [of the Ancient of days].

Psalms 81
11 But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me.
12 So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust: and they walked in their own counsels.
13 Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways!
14 I should soon have subdued their enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries.
15 The haters of the LORD should have submitted themselves unto him: but their time should have endured forever.
16 He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied you.

Ezekiel 7
5 Thus says the LORD GOD; An evil, an only evil, behold, is come.
6 An end [qets] is come, the end [qets] is come: it watches [quwts – awakens] for you; behold, it is come.
7 The morning [tsphiyrah – the crown, the crowning of the LORD’s chosen, the man of God, as was David] is come unto you, O you that dwells in the land: the time is come, the day of trouble is near, and not the sounding again of the mountains.
8 Now will I shortly pour out my fury upon you, and accomplish mine anger upon you: and I will judge you according to your ways, and will recompense you for all your abominations.
9 And mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: I will recompense you according to your ways and your abominations that are in the midst of you; and you shall know that I am the LORD that smites.
10 Behold the day, behold, it is come: the morning [tsphiyrah – the crowning] is gone forth; the rod has blossomed, pride has budded.

Isaiah 9
14 Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day.
15 The ancient and honorable, he is the head; and the prophet that teaches [yarah] lies, he is the tail.
16 For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed.

Isaiah 52
1 Awake, awake; put on your strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into you the uncircumcised and the unclean.
2 Shake yourself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose yourself from the bands of your neck, O captive daughter of Zion.

Psalms 88
1 O LORD God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before you:
2 Let my prayer come before you: incline your ear unto my cry;
3 For my soul is full of troubles: and my life draws nigh unto the grave.
4 I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that has no strength:
5 Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom you remembers no more: and they are cut off from your hand.
6 You have laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.
7 Your wrath lies hard upon me, and you have afflicted me with all your waves. Selah.
8 You have put away mine acquaintance far from me; you have made me an abomination unto them: I am shut up, and I cannot come forth.
9 Mine eye mourns by reason of affliction: LORD, I have called daily upon you, I have stretched out my hands unto you.
10 Will you show wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise you? Selah.
11 Shall your lovingkindness be declared in the grave? or your faithfulness in destruction [‘abaddown]?
12 Shall your wonders be known in the dark? and your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?
13 But unto you have I cried, O LORD; and in the morning shall my prayer prevent you.
14 LORD, why cast you off my soul? why hides you your face from me?
15 I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up: while I suffer your terrors I am distracted.
16 Your fierce wrath goes over me; your terrors have cut me off.
17 They came round about me daily like water; they compassed me about together.
18 Lover and friend have you put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness.

Love not sleep, lest you come to poverty; open your eyes, and you shall be satisfied with bread.

The word above rendered “sleep” is the Hebrew word sheheh, from the yashen, meaning “to be slack or languid, i.e. (by implication) sleep (figuratively, to die); also to grow old, stale or inveterate.” It’s speaking of the state of mind that occurs without the sight and hearing given only by the LORD, opening our eyes by the bread He feeds those who come to Him as little children. The passage continues by saying those who awaken, while still sleeping, say, “it is naught,” but later boast of what they know. In the context of the previous posts, the valuables are the treasure of heaven the LORD gives us from His storehouse where he’s kept them pure.

The verse is Proverbs 20:13, verse 12 saying, “The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the LORD has made even both of them.” The word “made” here is ‘asah, which we’ve recently seen as the word first appearing in Genesis 1:7 as we’re told of when God made the firmament, which He called heaven. There is’t what rightly divided the waters above, the word of God, from the waters below, the corrupt words of men. The word (firmament) means an expanse, an exposition from God’s mouth, which separates His good advice from the evil inventions and misleading of men.

Deuteronomy 8
3 And he humbled you, and suffered you to hunger, and fed you with manna, which you knew not, neither did your fathers know; that he might make you know that man does not live by bread only, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD does man live.

Deuteronomy 28
12 The LORD shall open unto you his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto your land in his season, and to bless all the work of your hand: and you shall lend unto many nations, and you shall not borrow.
13 And the LORD shall make you the head, and not the tail; and you shall be above only, and you shall not be beneath; if that you hearken unto the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day, to observe and to do them:
14 And you shall not go aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right hand, or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.

Proverbs 20
6 Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness: but a faithful man [who will declare God’s goodness] who can find?
7 The just man walks in his integrity: his children are blessed after him.
8 A king that sits in the throne of judgment scatters away all evil with his eyes.
9 Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?
10 Divers weights, and divers measures [injustices that come from corrupt {impure} ideas that blur the mind], both of them are alike abomination to the LORD.
11 Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.
12 The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the LORD has made [‘asah] even both of them.
13 Love not sleep [sheheh], lest you come to poverty; open [paqach] your eyes, and you shall be satisfied with bread.
14 It is naught, it is naught, says the buyer: but when he is gone his way, then he boasts.
15 There is gold, and a multitude of rubies: but the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel.
16 Take his garment that is surety for a stranger: and take a pledge of him for a strange woman.
17 Bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.
18 Every purpose is established by counsel: and with good advice make war.
19 He that goes about as a talebearer reveals secrets: therefore meddle not with him that flatters with his lips.
20 Whoso curses his father or his mother [his teachers], his lamp [understanding] shall be put out in obscure darkness [blind ignorance].
21 An inheritance may be gotten hastily at the beginning; but the end thereof shall not be blessed.
22 Say not you, I will recompense evil; but wait on the LORD, and he shall save you.
23 Divers weights are an abomination unto the LORD; and a false balance is not good.
24 Man’s goings are of the LORD; how can a man then understand his own way?
25 It is a snare to the man who devours that which is holy, and after vows to make enquiry [man is trapped and continually destroyed by those who after their ideas and ways have destroyed, say they will investigate and correct the problem {usually with more of the same ways and ideas that have caused the destruction}].
26 A wise king scatters the wicked, and brings the wheel over them.

Here is what Job, in Job 14:12. says of this sleep (sheheh), when we awaken (quwts), opens our eyes (paqach) and, by His bread (the word of His mouth), He brings us from the grave (Sheol – hell, the belly of the earth).

Job 14
1 Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble.
2 He comes forth like a flower, and is cut down: he flees also as a shadow, and continues not.
3 And do you [when my change comes and He raises me to life again and shows me my immortality] open your eyes [paqach] upon such an one, and bring me into judgment with you?
4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.
5 Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with you, you have appointed his bounds that he cannot pass;
6 Turn from him, that he may rest, till he shall accomplish, as a hireling, his day.
7 For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.
8 Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground;
9 Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant.
10 But man dies, and wastes away: yea, man gives up the ghost, and where is he?
11 As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decays and dries up:
12 So man lies down, and rises not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake [quwts], nor be raised out of their sleep [sheheh]. [These verses are speaking of when the word of God is fully corrupted, understanding failed, and the shadow of death covers the earth.]
13 O that you would hide me in the grave [Sheol, in hell, in the belly of the earth], that you would keep me secret, until your wrath be past, that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me!
14 If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time [tsaba’] will I wait, till my change come.
15 You shall call, and I will answer you: you will have a desire to the work of your hands.

The word rendered “appointed time” is the Hebrew word tsaba’, meaning “a mass of persons (or figuratively, things), especially reg. organized for war (an army); by implication, a campaign, literally or figuratively (specifically, hardship, worship).” It’s the word most often rendered “hosts” in describing the LORD as the commander of His armies, who leads them into “war” with His good advice.

Job only uses the word tsaba’ two other times, in Job 7:1, also rendered “appointed time,” and in 10:17 translated “war.”

Job 7
1 Is there not an appointed time [tsaba’] to man upon earth? are not his days also like the days of a hireling?
2 As a servant earnestly desires the shadow, and as an hireling looks for the reward of his work:
3 So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me.
4 When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone? and I am full of tossing to and fro unto the dawning of the day.
5 My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken, and become loathsome.
6 My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope.
7 O remember that my life is wind: mine eye shall no more see good [towb].
8 The eye of him that has seen me shall see me no more: your eyes are upon me, and I am not.
9 As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away: so he that goes down to the grave [Sheol – hell] shall come up no more.
10 He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more.
11 Therefore I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
12 Am I a sea, or a whale, that you set a watch over me?
13 When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaints;
14 Then you scare me with dreams, and terrify me through visions:
15 So that my soul chooses strangling, and death rather than my life.
16 I loathe it; I would not live always: let me alone; for my days are vanity.
17 What is man, that you should magnify him? and that you should set your heart upon him?
18 And that you should visit him every morning, and try him every moment?

Job 10
17 You renew your witnesses against me, and increase your indignation upon me; changes and war [tsaba’] are against me.
18 Wherefore then have you brought me forth out of the womb? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me!
19 I should have been as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.
20 Are not my days few? cease then, and let me alone, that I may take comfort a little,
21 Before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death;
22 A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness.

Job 11
1 Then answered Zophar the Naamathite [names meaning he has departed from agreement {with God – into darkness}], and said,
2 Should not the multitude of words be answered? and should a man full of talk be justified?
3 Should your lies make men hold their peace [in this is the point of Job’s suffering – to draw out the false accuser and the true liar, to shut their mouths and stop their evil misleading words]? and when you mock, shall no man make you ashamed?
4 For you have said, My doctrine is pure, and I am clean in your eyes.
5 But oh that God would speak [they will not hear when he does, because they are the children of corruption, in who the word of God has failed from agreement], and open his lips against you;
6 And that he would show you the secrets of wisdom, that they are double to that which is! Know therefore that God exacts of you less than your iniquity deserves.
7 Can you by searching find out God? can you find out the Almighty unto perfection?
8 It is as high as heaven [the rightly divided word, where the wicked cannot go]; what can you do? deeper than hell [Sheol –the hell that is the open mouths of liars and false accusers]; what can you know?

The words “change” in Job 14:14, and “changes” in Job 10:17, are from the Hebrew word chaliyphah, meaning “alternation.” It is telling of when the definitions of good and evil are returned to their meanings that agree with God’s. This coincides with our awakening, opening our eyes, understanding this bread, manna, is the word from God’s mouth sent to raise us from death and hell into life.

The word (chaliyphah) is used twelve times, eight of those in telling of a change of garment, as a different one than the one worn. This meaning is the origin of Jude 1:23 speaking of hating the garments spotted by the flesh. It says this concerning “pulling” us from the fire, which (the word “pulling”) we know is the Greek word harpazo. It’s the word the false prophets have twisted into their idol, their false doctrine, of the LORD arriving and taking His people off the planet. Wake up!

As we know, the word “spotted” is the one time used Greek word spilos, said to mean “of uncertain derivation; a stain or blemish, i.e. (figuratively) defect, disgrace.” It is virtually the same word as spilas, also a one-time used word that appears in Jude 1:12 rendered “spots,” meaning “of uncertain derivation; a ledge or reef of rock in the sea.” The earlier use is describing those the LORD comes against. In context, it refers to these men’s evil errors, below the surface, into which the raging sea and wind dive the ship (church), destroying it.

Jude 1
5 I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you once knew this, how that the LORD, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.
6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
8 Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.
9 Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The LORD rebuke you.
10 But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.
11 Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core [Korah].
12 These are spots [spilas – as rocks below the surface waiting to destroy the church – as was Korah] in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withers, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;
13 Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.
14 And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the LORD comes with ten thousands of his saints,
15 To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.
16 These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaks great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage.
17 But, beloved, remember you the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our LORD Jesus Christ;
18 How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.
19 These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.
20 But you, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,
21 Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our LORD Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
22 And of some have compassion, making a difference:
23 And others save with fear, pulling [harpazo – the “caught up” of 1 Thessalonians 4:17 – which is twisted into a rapture by those who will perish by following such false doctrines to their own end – they should fear, and not despise the LORD’s dominion] them out of the fire [of hell – which are the evil word of men, which they call good – the corrupt fruit of corrupt trees]; hating even the garment spotted [spilos] by the flesh.
24 Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,
25 To the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

A similar word, spiloo, appears three times in telling of these same men.

James 3
3 My brethren, be not many masters [teachers], knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.
2 For in many things we offend all [remember Habakkuk 1:11]. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.
3 Behold, we put bits in the horses’ mouths, that they may obey us; and we turn about their whole body.
4 Behold also the ships, which though they be so great, and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor lists [wills it to go].
5 Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasts great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindles!
6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defiles [spiloo] the whole body [the tongue turns the church toward what is below the surface waiting to destroy it], and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.
7 For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and has been tamed of mankind:
8 But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.

2 Peter 2
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 [spiloo] 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: a 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 ass speaking with man’s voice forbad 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 forever.
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 [from just and righteous government, in church and state], 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 [the corrupt ideas spewed from their mouths]; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire [the mud they intentionally stir and agitate].

Ephesians 5
14 Wherefore he says, Awake you that sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light [the bread of understanding].
15 See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,
16 Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
17 Wherefore be you not unwise, but understanding what the will of the LORD is.
18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;
19 Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the LORD;
20 Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our LORD Jesus Christ;
21 Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the LORD.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of the body.
24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot [spiloo], or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loves his wife loves himself.
29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the LORD the church:
30 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
31 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
32 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

The words rendered “submit” and “subject” above are from the Greek word hupotasso, meaning “from 5259 [hupo – under] and 5021 [tasso – to arrange in an orderly form]; to subordinate; reflexively, to obey.” Below are several uses of this word showing the order.

Romans 10
1 Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.
2 For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.
3 For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted [hupotasso] themselves unto the righteousness of God [they must submit to God’s correction rather going about to prove they are good and right].
4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes [see 1 Corinthians 15:56 & 57 below].
5 For Moses describes the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which does those things shall live by them.
6 But the righteousness which is of faith speaks on this wise, Say not in your heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:)
7 Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)
8 But what says it? The word is nigh you, even in your mouth, and in your heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;
9 That if you shall confess with your mouth the LORD Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.
10 For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
11 For the scripture says, Whosoever believes on him shall not be ashamed.
12 For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same LORD over all is rich unto all that call upon him.
13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the LORD shall be saved.
14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
15 And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!
16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, LORD, who has believed our report?
17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
18 But I say, Have they not heard? Yes truly, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.
19 But I say, Did not Israel know? First Moses says, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you.
20 But Isaiah is very bold, and says, I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me.
21 But to Israel he says, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.

Deuteronomy 30
10 If you shall hearken unto the voice of the LORD your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law, and if you turn unto the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul.
11 For this commandment which I command you this day, it is not hidden from you, neither is it far off.
12 It is not in heaven, that you should say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it?
13 Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it?
14 But the word is very nigh unto you, in your mouth, and in your heart, that you may do it.
15 See, I have set before you this day life and good [towb], and death and evil [ra’];
16 In that I command you this day to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that you may live and multiply: and the LORD your God shall bless you in the land whither you go to possess it.

1 Corinthians 15
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 first-fruits of them that slept.
21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
23 But every man in his own order: Christ the first-fruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.
24 Then comes the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.
25 For he must reign, till he has put all enemies under his feet.
26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
27 For he has put [hupotasso] all things under his feet. But when he says all things are put under [hupotasso] him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under [huypotasso] him.
28 And when all things shall be subdued [hupotasso] unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject [hupotasso] unto him that put all things under [hupotasso] him, that God may be all in all.
29 Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?
30 And why stand we in jeopardy every hour?
31 I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our LORD, I die daily.
32 If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantages it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die.
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 [bringing the seed to life from its sleep].
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 does corruption inherit incorruption.
51 Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed [at the reversal of the reversal – as putting on a new garment we weren’t before wearing],
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.

The word “change” in verse 51 & 52 above is the six times used Greek word allasso, meaning to make different.

Romans 1
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God has shewed it unto them.
20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
23 And changed [allasso] the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.
24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves:
25 Who changed [metallasso] the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

This is telling us these evil men changed God’s incorruptible truth into a corrupt lie, reversing good and evil.

Hebrews 1
8 But unto the Son he says, Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom.
9 You have loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows.
10 And, You, LORD, in the beginning have laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of your hands:
11 They shall perish; but you remain; and they all shall wax old as does a garment;
12 And as a vesture shall you fold them up, and they shall be changed [allasso]: but you are the same, and your years shall not fail.

Psalms 55
19 God shall hear, and afflict them, (even he that abides of old.) Selah. Because they have no changes [chaliyphah], therefore they fear not God.
20 He has put forth his hands against such as be at peace with him: he has broken his covenant.
21 The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart: his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords.
22 Cast your burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain you: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.
23 But you, O God, shall bring them down into the pit of destruction: bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days; but I will trust in you.

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 doeth 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 doeth 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 [yshuw’ah] of Israel were come out of Zion! when the LORD bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad.

Then shall his mind change, and he shall pass over, and offend, imputing this his power unto his god.

Today the LORD begins with the original sin, which we’ve come to understand is following advice other than directly from the mouth of God, in which only is life. Men’s advice, leading, teaching, always attempts to have the world follow them into the speaker’s elevation and enrichment. The resulting misleading (from following the ideas men devise) leads to the death the LORD warned of, in the similitude of the garden. In it, the original misleader’s bad advice started the straying away from God’s word into the endless fall in the bottomless pit we now find ourselves.

In this pit, in the belly of the earth, all the world finds itself in a state of deadening ignorance, none knowing good or evil, while almost all have their own (woke) definitions of them. Modern psychology describes this state as sociopathy, while grossly reluctant to say its aways from good and into evil. As in the previous post, we saw Psychology Today say those it afflicts suffer from “a profound lack of conscience—a flaw in the moral compass that typically steers people away from breaking common rules and toward treating others decently.” In this quote, even the Christ averse reader has to hear the second of the two Greatest Commandments.

Matthew 22
36 Master [Teacher], which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

As we see, the first great commandment is to “love” the LORD our God, with all our heart, soul, and mind. The heart here is telling of the foundational ideas (conscience) upon which are based all decisions.

Conscience is taught by a teacher, formed by ideas followed. The affliction of sociopathy differs from psychopathy in that it (sociopathy) is said to be formed by the environment. On the other hand, psychopathy is an automatic rejection of good, evil build into one’s genetic code. It’s the person’s natural state, chemically chained to their evil behavior.

From the post of 16 January 2021, “The blind see and hear nothing but their own echoes from history, and are chained to the darkness they’ve always, insanely, chosen.”

Proverbs 2
1 My son, if you will receive my words [this good advice from the mouth of God, sent to those who love Him, put no other gods before Him, and KEEP His word], and hide my commandments with you;
2 So that you incline your ear unto wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding;
3 Yea, if you cry after knowledge, and lift up your voice for understanding;
4 If you seek her as silver, and search [chaphas] for her as for hid treasures;
5 Then shall you understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God.
6 For the LORD gives wisdom: out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.
7 He lays up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly.
8 He keeps the paths of judgment, and preserves the way of his saints.
9 Then shall you understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path.
10 When wisdom enters into your heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto your soul;
11 Discretion shall preserve you, understanding shall keep you:
12 To deliver you from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaks froward things [of twisted and perverted truth];
13 Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness [ignorance];
14 Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked;
15 Whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths:
16 To deliver you from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flatters with her words;
17 Which forsakes the guide of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God.
18 For her house inclines unto death, and her paths unto the dead.
19 None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life.
20 That you may walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous.
21 For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it.
22 But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it.

Jude 1
5 I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you once knew this, how that the LORD, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.
6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
8 Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.
9 Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The LORD rebuke you.
10 But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.
11 Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core [Korah].
12 These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit
withers, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;
13 Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.
14 And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the LORD comes with ten thousands of his saints,
15 To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.
16 These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaks great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage.
17 But, beloved, remember you the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our LORD Jesus Christ;
18 How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.
19 These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.
20 But you, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,
21 Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our LORD Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
22 And of some have compassion, making a difference:
23 And others save with fear, pulling [harpazo – the “caught up” of 1 Thessalonians 4:17 – which is twisted into a rapture by those who will perish by following such false doctrines to their own end – they should fear, and not despise the LORD’s dominion] them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.
24 Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,
25 To the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

Deuteronomy 8
1 All the commandments which I command you this day shall you observe to do, that you may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD swore unto your fathers.
2 And you shall remember all the way which the LORD your God led you these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, and to prove you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments, or no.
3 And he humbled you, and suffered you to hunger, and fed you with manna, which you knew not, neither did your fathers know; that he might make you know that man does not live by bread only, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD does man live.
4 Your raiment waxed not old upon you, neither did your foot swell, these forty years.
5 You shall also consider in your heart, that, as a man chastens his son, so the LORD your God chastens you.
6 Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him.

The mouth of God is speaking of His word coming from (through) the man He choses to manifest His presence, in His good advice.

Hebrews 13
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 [meno] city, but we seek one to come.
15 By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.
16 But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
17 Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.
18 Pray for us: for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly.
19 But I beseech you the rather to do this, that I may be restored to you the sooner.
20 Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our LORD Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,
21 Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
22 And I beseech you, brethren, suffer the word of exhortation: for I have written a letter unto you in few words.
23 Know you that our brother Timothy is set at liberty; with whom, if he come shortly, I will see you.
24 Salute all them that have the rule over you, and all the saints. They of Italy salute you.
25 Grace be with you all. Amen.

The word “liberty,” above in verse 23, is said to be apolou, a compound word literally translating, away (apo) loose (luo). But, in the original text, it is written as apolelumenon, which appears to be from the words apo (in the sense of completion), laleo (to utter – speak or preach), meno (to stay – the enduring things of God). These three words and their appearing in John 14 give us their enduring meaning.

John 14
10 Believe you not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak [laleo] unto you I speak [laleo] not of [apo – this completion isn’t from] myself: but the Father that dwells [meno] in me, he does the works. [Hebrews 13 tells us, in God’s language: Timothy is apo laleo meno]
11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.
12 Truly, truly, I say unto you, He that believes on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.
13 And whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
14 If you shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.
15 If you love me, keep my commandments.
16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter [Paraclete], that he may abide [meno – endure] with you forever;
17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it sees him not, neither knows him: but you know him; for he dwells [meno] with you, and shall be in you.
18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
19 Yet a little while, and the world sees me no more; but you see me: because I live, you shall live also.
20 At that day you shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
21 He that has my commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves me: and he that loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
22 Judas [Judah – here as the elect remnant to who the LORD manifests His presence] said unto him, not Iscariot [not the betrayer], LORD, how is it that you will manifest yourself unto us, and not unto the world?
23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
24 He that loves me not keeps not my sayings: and the word which you hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.

The LORD, in Romans 9:17 quoting Exodus 9:16, speaking through Paul, describes this moment when He will show His power upon the oppressors He has hardened against us.

Exodus 9
13 Thus says the LORD God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me.
14 For I will at this time send all my plagues upon your heart, and upon your servants, and upon your people; that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth.
15 For now I will stretch out my hand, that I may smite you and your people with pestilence; and you shall be cut off from the earth.
16 And in very deed for this cause have I raised you up, for to show in you my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth.
17 As yet exalt you yourself against my people, that you will not let them go?

This brings us again to ideas of good and evil. In yesterday’s definition of sociopathy, we saw it stating, “This disconnect [the flawed moral compass], however, may be hidden by a charming demeanor.” It is telling of the outward appearance as what blinds men to the inner evil. It’s judged acceptable to the culture (the environment that forms the corrupt conscience): a tree not judged by its corrupt fruit but by its appearance to the corrupt culture, judged good by thinking as it thinks.

From the post of 26 January 2021, “Friends, few enter through this narrow gate, and the rest of the world will now descend into the deepest parts of the hell they have chosen. Come to Goshen.”

Exodus 9
24 So there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail, very grievous, such as there was none like it in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation.

25 And the hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail smote every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the field.

26 Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, was there no hail.

The title verse, Habakkuk 1:11, is speaking of the oppressors as Chaldeans, the pattern of those who use their words to manipulate and control the ignorant masses. It is speaking of the those who now hold the world in their evil grip, whose fruit is now apparent. The passage begins with the warning to the ignorant, who think they are wise because they follow the leading of the corrupt culture that accepts them because they have to it submitted. (They have no idea they should be following those speaking God’s word and doing His will. They should know them because they haven’t misled the world into hell, and because of the truth they speak, the world in church and state, is offended.)

Habakkuk 1
5 Behold you among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvelously: for I will work a work in your days which you will not believe, though it be told you [though a man, as the mouth of God, declares it to you].
6 For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwelling-places that are not theirs.
7 They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves [their corrupt conscience that alters and reverses good and evil].
8 Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves: and their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from far; they shall fly as the eagle that hastes to eat.
9 They shall come all for violence: their faces shall sup up as the east wind, and they shall gather the captivity as the sand.
10 And they shall scoff at the kings, and the princes shall be a scorn unto them: they shall deride every strong hold; for they shall heap dust, and take it.
11 Then shall his mind change, and he shall pass over, and offend, imputing this his power unto his god.
12 Are you not from everlasting, O LORD my God, mine Holy One? we shall not die. O LORD, you have ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, you have established them for correction.

As we’ve seen in previous posts, the marvelous wonder spoken of above is “in our eyes,” opening them to see good and evil, by seeing the presence of the LORD, manifested by the words of His mouth. As we know, verse 5 above is quoted by Luke in Acts 13:41, as the LORD spoke through Paul describing this time and this manifestation.

1 Samuel 16
4 And Samuel [who heard God’s mouth speaking] did that which the LORD spoke, and came to Bethlehem [this place {family and house} of manna – the bread of heaven, by which only does man live]. And the elders of the town trembled at his coming, and said, Come you peaceably?
5 And he said, Peaceably: I am come to sacrifice unto the LORD: sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice. And he sanctified Jesse and his sons, and called them to the sacrifice.
6 And it came to pass, when they were come, that he looked on Eliab, and said, Surely the LORD’s anointed is before him.
7 But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD sees not as man sees; for man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.
8 Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, Neither has the LORD chosen this.
9 Then Jesse made Shammah to pass by. And he said, Neither has the LORD chosen this.
10 Again, Jesse made seven of his sons to pass before Samuel. And Samuel said unto Jesse, The LORD has not chosen these.
11 And Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all your children? And he said, There remains yet the youngest, and, behold, he keeps the sheep. And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him: for we will not sit down till he come hither.
12 And he sent, and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to. And the LORD said, Arise, anoint him: for this is he.
13 Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of the LORD came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel rose up, and went to Ramah [was raise up].

Acts 13
23 Of this man’s seed has God according to his promise raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus:
24 When John had first preached before his coming the baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.
25 And as John fulfilled his course, he said, Whom think you that I am? I am not he. But, behold, there comes one after me, whose shoes of his feet I am not worthy to loose.
26 Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and whosoever among you feareth God, to you is the word of this salvation sent.
27 For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him.
28 And though they found no cause of death in him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be slain.
29 And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre.
30 But God raised him from the dead:
31 And he was seen many days of them which came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses unto the people.
32 And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers,
33 God has fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he has raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, You are my Son, this day have I begotten you.
34 And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David.
35 Wherefore he saith also in another psalm, You shall not suffer your Holy One to see corruption.
36 For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption:
37 But he, whom God raised again, saw no corruption.
38 Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man [the incorruptible God in him speaking] is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins:
39 And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.
40 Beware therefore, lest that come upon you, which is spoken of in the prophets;
41 Behold, you despisers, and wonder, and perish: for I work a work in your days, a work which you shall in no wise believe, though a man declares it unto you.

When Habakkuk 1:11 speaks of the Chaldeans’ “change” of mind, it is speaking of altering the definitions of good and evil. The word used is the Hebrew word chalaph, meaning “to slide by, i.e. (by implication) to hasten away, pass on, spring up, pierce or change.” It’s referring us to the one time it appears in Leviticus, in Leviticus 27:10, saying “He shall not alter [chalaph] it, nor change it, a good [towb] for a bad [ra’ – evil], or a bad [ra’ – evil] for a good [towb]: and if he shall at all change beast for beast, then it and the exchange thereof shall be holy [this is saying, if the definition is altered, what they call evil shall remain good in the eyes of God, in reality, and in truth {and what they call good shall remain evil, as it is}].”

The words, ra’ and towb, are the words used in the serpent’s bad advice, when he subtly adds to what God says and calls Him a liar. It should also be noted the woman (Eve, the mother of all living – the church prone to subtle deception) saw what was pleasing to the eye, the outward appearance of the tree.

Genesis 3
1 Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, has God said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, You shall not surely die [falsely accusing the good advice she heard directly from the mouth of God]:
5 For God does know that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good [towb] and evil [ra’].
6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise [as the world is wise, eyes opened {woke} only to be misled into the redefinition of reality], she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

Luke 18
10 Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.
11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank you, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
12 I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.
13 And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.
14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
15 And they brought unto him also infants, that he would touch them: but when his disciples saw it, they rebuked them.
16 But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.
17 Truly I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.
18 And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
19 And Jesus said unto him, Why call you me good? none is good, save one, that is, God.
20 You know the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and your mother.
21 And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up.
22 Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lack you one thing: sell all that you have, and distribute unto the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.
23 And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich.
24 And when Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful, he said, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!
25 For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
26 And they that heard it said, Who then can be saved?
27 And he said, The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.
28 Then Peter said, Lo, we have left all, and followed you.
29 And he said unto them, Truly I say unto you, There is no man that has left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God’s sake,
30 Who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting.

The one thing the rich man lacked was following the LORD. He knew and followed everything he thought he needed to, but the LORD told to abandon it all and follow Him. This is the only way to enter God’s kingdom, which He says all must, abandoning all they think they know, sit at His feet as little children, learning the true treasures of heaven. This is the word of God from His mouth, the Father speaking His good advice, which is the only good.

Revelation 19
11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he does judge and make war.
12 His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.
13 And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.
14 And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.
15 And out of his mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
16 And he has on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King Of Kings, And LORD Of Lords.
17 And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God;
18 That you may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.
19 And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army.
20 And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.
21 And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.

Deuteronomy 28
12 The LORD shall open unto you his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto your land in his season, and to bless all the work of your hand: and you shall lend unto many nations, and you shall not borrow.
13 And the LORD shall make you the head, and not the tail; and you shall be above only, and you shall not be beneath; if that you hearken unto the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day, to observe and to do them:
14 And you shall not go aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right hand, or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.

Matthew 13
44 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man has found, he hides, and for joy thereof goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field.

2 Corinthians 11
1 Would to God you could bear with me a little in my folly: and indeed bear with me.
2 For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
4 For if he that comes preaches another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if you receive another spirit, which you have not received, or another gospel, which you have not accepted, you might well bear with him.
5 For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chief apostles.
6 But though I be rude in speech, yet not in knowledge; but we have been thoroughly made manifest among you in all things.
7 Have I committed an offence in abasing myself that you might be exalted, because I have preached to you the gospel of God freely?
8 I robbed other churches, taking wages of them, to do you service.
9 And when I was present with you, and wanted, I was chargeable to no man: for that which was lacking to me the brethren which came from Macedonia supplied: and in all things I have kept myself from being burdensome unto you, and so will I keep myself.
10 As the truth of Christ is in me, no man shall stop me of this boasting in the regions of Achaia.
11 Wherefore? because I love you not? God knows.
12 But what I do, that I will do, that I may cut off occasion from them which desire occasion; that wherein they glory, they may be found even as we [men through who Satan is doing evil, as God is through us doing good] .
13 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.
14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
15 Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.
16 I say again, let no man think me a fool; if otherwise, yet as a fool receive me, that I may boast myself a little.

Psalms 53
1 The fool has said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that does good [towb].
2 God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God.
3 Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that does good [towb], no, not one.
4 Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread: they have not called upon God.
5 There were they in great fear, where no fear was: for God has scattered the bones of him that encamps against you: you have put them to shame, because God has despised them.
6 Oh that the salvation [yshuw’ah] of Israel were come out of Zion! When God brings back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad.

The Postmortem (the end of winning)

If anything, the Trump Presidency was marked by a three-year winning streak in which the Nation and the American people prospered and flourished as they never have. It was possibly the greatest economic boom in the history of human existence. All this occurred as the President was under constant attack from those whose ways and ideas had to be defeated to make it possible.

The winning, defeating the lies (the foundation of every policy and practice of the enemies who were systematically destroying us) was accomplished by talking over their lies. Donald Trump succeeded in defining the enemy. They were (are) known liars telling known lies, to redefine the reality of their failures and crimes, and false accusers accusing the innocent of the evil they (the liars and false accusers – gaslighters) embody.

While he was accomplishing this thrashing of the deceivers, he never let them sway him from his mission: Make America Great Again. The Democrat Communists and their propagandists in the fake news and antisocial media were on the run, the economy was booming, and the President and we were on our way to a second four years of winning.

Then came the day it all changed. It came, as warned, by underestimating the magnitude of the evil which had just exposed itself. It came in the form of another lie. It was scripted and acted out in China and transformed into a crisis by false models based on China’s lies and the opportunists who seized on the moment (never letting a good crisis go to waste – Obama’s fingerprints). We forgot we had just seen the same method employed and exposed, politically motivated modeling: in global warming disproved by decades of evidence that contradicted their predictions, as did the Presidential election’s polling models fail in theirs. We had just seen BIG LIES (Russian collusion and impeachment among them) created from whole cloth, carried on for years by our government and the fake news media who knew they were lies but kept telling them (never giving up on the fraud).

The President’s demise came the moment He decided to accept the lie rather than expose it.

The entire coronavirus episode is a fabrication. The virus has killed very few, no more than any other common coronavirus strain. The cases and death numbers are fabrications (deaths assigned as needed to fit the lie and tests designed to show false positives). Those who perpetrated the HOAX and continue it are sociopaths, meaning they don’t care that they’ve destroyed hundreds of millions of lives and livelihoods. These same insane people (sociopaths and haters) did it all for political power. They are the destroyers of the world, here to ensure we (the people) lose. Without any grasp on reality, thinking their delusional rants can produce what their policies can never, they will continue until all but a very few are equal in misery at the bottom, in the hell they’ve created.

From Psychology Today:
Sociopathy refers to a pattern of antisocial behaviors and attitudes, including manipulation, deceit, aggression, and a lack of empathy for others. Sociopaths may or may not break the law, but by exploiting and manipulating others, they violate the trust that the human enterprise runs on.

The defining characteristic of the sociopath is a profound lack of conscience—a flaw in the moral compass that typically steers people away from breaking common rules and toward treating others decently. This disconnect, however, may be hidden by a charming demeanor.

From the truth, God’s good advice that tells us never to underestimate the magnitude of the evil arrayed against us. Their weapons are lies, false accusations, and the fear they create to manipulate and control the fearful and ignorant. The LORD says, don’t accept their lies or the fear they cultivate (we hear it in their every report).

John 8
32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Isaiah 8
…O Immanuel.
9 Associate yourselves, O you people, and you shall be broken in pieces; and give ear, all you of far countries: gird yourselves, and you shall be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and you shall be broken in pieces.
10 Take counsel together, and it shall come to naught; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us.
11 For the LORD spoke thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying,
12 Say you not, A confederacy [of the irrational and deluded, those who wear the mark, the mask, showing they follow and kneel to the advice of ignorance {Does this offend you?}], to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear you their fear, nor be afraid.
13 Sanctify the LORD of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.
14 And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
15 And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.
16 Bind up the testimony [this word of God, which is His seal], seal the law among my disciples.
17 And I will wait upon the LORD, that hides his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.
18 Behold, I and the children whom the LORD has given me are for signs [the standard lifted to show the way] 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 [are the voice of the known dead], and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter [broad-casting their spells to mislead]: should not a people seek unto their God? [should they be looking] for the living to the dead [the familiar spirit – known liars telling known lies]?
20 [They should be looking] To the law and to the [this] testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light [understanding] in them.
21 And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry [because they refuse this manna]: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and [in the resulting ignorance] look upward [and see darkness].
22 And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness [ignorance], dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness [into ever greater delusion, as they have].

John 8
43 Why do you not understand my speech? even because you cannot hear my word.
44 You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
45 And because I tell you the truth, you believe me not.
46 Which of you convinces me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do you not believe me?
47 He that is of God hears God’s words: you therefore hear them not, because you are not of God.
48 Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, Say we not well that you are a Samaritan, and have a devil?
49 Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honor my Father, and you do dishonor me.
50 And I seek not mine own glory: there is one that seeks and judges.
51 Truly, truly, I say unto you, If a man keeps my saying, he shall never see death.
52 Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that you have a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and you say, If a man keeps my saying, he shall never taste of death.
53 Are you greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom make you yourself?
54 Jesus answered, If I honor myself, my honor is nothing: it is my Father that honors me; of whom you say, that he is your God:
55 Yet you have not known him; but I know him: and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him, and keep his saying.

Psalms 44
1 We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what work thou didst in their days, in the times of old.
2 How thou didst drive out the heathen with thy hand, and planted them; how thou didst afflict the people, and cast them out.
3 For they got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them: but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou had a favor unto them.
4 Thou art my King, O God: command deliverances for Jacob.
5 Through thee will we push down our enemies: through thy name will we tread them under that rise up against us.
6 For I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me.
7 But thou hast saved us from our enemies, and hast put them to shame that hated us.
8 In God we boast all the day long, and praise thy name for ever. Selah.
9 But thou hast cast off, and put us to shame; and go not forth with our armies.
10 Thou make us to turn back from the enemy: and they which hate us spoil for themselves.
11 Thou hast given us like sheep appointed for meat; and hast scattered us among the heathen.
12 Thou sell thy people for naught, and dost not increase thy wealth by their price.
13 Thou make us a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and a derision to them that are round about us.
14 Thou make us a byword among the heathen, a shaking of the head among the people.
15 My confusion is continually before me, and the shame of my face hath covered me,
16 For the voice of him that reproaches and blasphemes; by reason of the enemy and avenger.
17 All this is come upon us; yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant.
18 Our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from thy way;
19 Though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death.
20 If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god;
21 Shall not God search this out? for he knows the secrets of the heart.
22 Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
23 Awake, why sleep thou, O Lord? arise, cast us not off forever.
24 Wherefore hide thou thy face, and forget our affliction and our oppression?
25 For our soul is bowed down to the dust: our belly cleaves unto the earth.
26 Arise for our help, and redeem us for thy mercies’ sake.

The LORD has mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof: and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof, as a drunken man staggers in his vomit.

The above, Isaiah 19:14, is the LORD likening His now fallen people to Egypt, the oppressors now mixed among us, and with the communists (Assyrians) become the existential enemies of God’s elect remnant.

Isaiah 19
1 The burden of Egypt. Behold, the LORD rides upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt: and the idols of Egypt shall be moved [nuwa’] at his presence [paniym – when they realize it’s Him], and the heart of Egypt shall melt [macac] in the midst of it.
2 And I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians [Jeroboam against Rehoboam]: and they shall fight every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbor; city against city, and kingdom against kingdom [Israel against Judah].
3 And the spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst thereof; and I will destroy the counsel thereof [these words are referring to when the Rehoboam didn’t take the counsel of Solomon’s counselors, instead listening to the advice the younger men and increased the burden, increasing the oppression, of Israel, and causing the breach between Judah and Israel]: and they shall seek to the idols, and to the charmers, and to them that have familiar spirits, and to the wizards [the caves and devils set up by Jeroboam in God’s place and called God – 2 Chronicles 11:15].
4 And the Egyptians will I give over into the hand of a cruel LORD [Rehoboam]; and a fierce king shall rule over them, says the LORD, the LORD of hosts.
5 And the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river [the good ideas and advice flowing to the people at large] shall be wasted and dried up.
6 And they shall turn the rivers far away; and the brooks of defense shall be emptied and dried up: the reeds and flags shall wither.
7 The paper reeds by the brooks, by the mouth of the brooks, and everything sown by the brooks, shall wither, be driven away, and be no more.
8 The fishers also shall mourn, and all they that cast angle into the brooks shall lament, and they that spread nets upon [paniym – upon the face of] the waters [the words from the LORD’s mouth] shall languish.
9 Moreover they that work in fine flax, and they that weave networks [the fake news and anti-social media], shall be confounded.
10 And they shall be broken in the purposes thereof, all that make sluices and ponds for fish [men they catch in their traps of deception].
11 Surely the princes of Zoan [those who’ve departed from the LORD’s sound advice] are fools, the counsel of the wise counsellors of Pharaoh [the cruel LORD mentioned in verse 4 above] is become brutish: how say you unto Pharaoh, I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings?
12 Where are they? where are your wise men? and let them tell you now, and let them know what the LORD of hosts has purposed upon Egypt.
13 The princes of Zoan are become fools, the princes of Noph are deceived; they have also seduced Egypt, even they that are the stay of the tribes thereof.
14 The LORD has mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof: and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof, as a drunken man staggers in his vomit.
15 Neither shall there be any work for Egypt, which the head or tail, branch or rush, may do. [Isaiah 9: 15 & 16 The ancient and honorable he is the head; and the prophet that teaches lies, he is the tail. For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed.]
16 In that day shall Egypt be like unto women: and it shall be afraid and fear because [paniym – in the presence] of the shaking of the hand of the LORD of hosts, which he shakes over it.
17 And the land of Judah shall be a terror unto Egypt, every one that makes mention thereof shall be afraid in himself, because [paniym – in the presence] of the counsel of the LORD of hosts [the armies of heaven], which he has determined against it.
18 In that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan, and swear to the LORD of hosts; one shall be called, The city of destruction.
19 In that day shall there be an altar to the LORD in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the LORD.
20 And it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto the LORD of hosts in the land of Egypt: for they shall cry unto the LORD because of [paniym – His presence opposing] the oppressors, and he shall send them a savior, and a great one, and he shall deliver them.
21 And the LORD shall be known to Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know the LORD in that day, and shall do sacrifice and oblation; yea, they shall vow a vow unto the LORD, and perform it.
22 And the LORD shall smite Egypt: he shall smite and heal it: and they shall return even to the LORD, and he shall be entreated of them, and shall heal them.
23 In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians.
24 In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land:
25 Whom the LORD of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance.

In Isaiah 19:4, the word rendered “cruel” is the Hebrew word qasheh, meaning severe. It’s the word used in 2 Chronicles 10:4, rendered “grievous,” describing the servitude (taxation) of Israel, which the people asked Rehoboam to reduce. It’s then used in verse 13, rendered “roughly,” describing the king’s answer. These events are also described in 1 Kings 12:4 and 13, using the same word and translations.

2 Chronicles 10
1 And Rehoboam [the people enlarged] went to Shechem [the burden – of oppression]: for to Shechem were all Israel come to make him king.
2 And it came to pass, when Jeroboam [the people will contend] the son of Nebat [aspect – different view], who was in Egypt [also oppressed], whither he fled from the presence of Solomon the king, heard it, that Jeroboam returned out of Egypt.
3 And they sent and called him. So Jeroboam and all Israel came and spoke to Rehoboam, saying,
4 Your father made our yoke grievous: now therefore ease you somewhat the grievous [qasheh] servitude of your father, and his heavy yoke that he put upon us, and we will serve you.
5 And he said unto them, Come again unto me after three days. And the people departed.
6 And king Rehoboam took counsel with the old men that had stood before Solomon his father while he yet lived, saying, What counsel give you me to return answer to this people?
7 And they spoke unto him, saying, If you be kind to this people, and please them, and speak good words to them, they will be your servants for ever.
8 But he forsook the counsel which the old men gave him, and took counsel with the young men that were brought up with him, that stood before him.
9 And he said unto them, What advice give you that we may return answer to this people, which have spoken to me, saying, Ease somewhat the yoke that your father did put upon us?
10 And the young men that were brought up with him spoke unto him, saying, Thus shall you answer the people that spoke unto you, saying, Your father made our yoke heavy, but make you it somewhat lighter for us; thus shall you say unto them, My little finger shall be thicker than my father’s loins.
11 For whereas my father put a heavy yoke upon you, I will put more to your yoke: my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.
12 So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, as the king bade, saying, Come again to me on the third day.
13 And the king answered them roughly [qasheh]; and king Rehoboam forsook the counsel of the old men,
14 And answered them after the advice of the young men, saying, My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add thereto: my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions [see revelation 9:3 & 10].
15 So the king hearkened not unto the people: for the cause was of God, that the LORD might perform his word, which he spoke by the hand of Ahijah [worshipper of Jehovah] the Shilonite [who was at rest – at peace] to Jeroboam the son of Nebat.
16 And when all Israel saw that the king would not hearken unto them, the people answered the king, saying, What portion have we in David [Judah]? and we have none inheritance in the son of Jesse: every man to your tents, O Israel: and now, David, see to your own house. So all Israel went to their tents.
17 But as for the children of Israel that dwelt in the cities of Judah, Rehoboam reigned over them.
18 Then king Rehoboam sent Hadoram [the ancient and honorable] that was over the tribute [the taxation]; and the children of Israel stoned him with stones, that he died. But king Rehoboam made speed to get him up to his chariot, to flee to Jerusalem.
19 And Israel rebelled against the house of David [Judah] unto this day.

The word Isaiah uses, in the title, Isaiah 19:14, to tell of those that “err,” is the Hebrew word ta’ah, meaning “to vacillate, i.e. reel or stray (literally or figuratively); also causative of both.” It says it’s a perverse spirit that also causes them to stagger like drunken men in their vomit. The same word is, in verse 13, rendered “seduced” and in verse 14 also rendered “stagger.” The word “drunken” is from shikkowr, and “vomit’ is from the four-times used word ‘qe.

These three words appear together, in Isaiah 28, describing the drunkard of Ephraim, which we know speaks of God’s people in these latter days. We are there told, all tables are filled with vomit, as priests and prophets stagger, err in vision, and are out of the way (not on the highway). As we know, this is the chapter telling of the crowning of the deliverer spoken of in Isaiah 19:19 & 20 above.

Isaiah 28
1 Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards [shikkowr] 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 [see verse 21 below], shall cast down to the earth with the hand.
3 The crown of pride, the drunkards [shikkowr] 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 [tsphiyrah – a crown] 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 [ta’ah]; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way [ta’ah] through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment.
8 For all tables are full of vomit [‘qe] and filthiness, so that there is no place clean.
9 Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine [shmuw’ah – the report, teaching, the rumor of Ezekiel 7:26]? 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 believes shall not make haste.
17 Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.
18 And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then you shall be trodden down by it.
19 From the time that it goes forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report [shmuw’ah – the sound doctrine, teaching, the rumor].
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 [2 Samuel 5:20 – as water from His throne, breaking forth upon His enemies], he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon [Joshua 10:10 & 11 – His word reserved {frozen} in heaven, sent as great hailstones upon the wicked], 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 [kalah – a full end, as in Daniel 9:27], 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 [paniym – His presence] 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 [mishpat – good judgment], and does teach him.
27 For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod.
28 Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen.
29 This also comes forth from the LORD of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.

Ezekiel 7
1 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Also, you son of man, thus says the LORD GOD unto the land of Israel; An end, the end is come upon the four corners of the land.
3 Now is the end come upon you, and I will send mine anger upon you, and will judge you according to your ways, and will recompense upon you all your abominations.
4 And mine eye shall not spare you, neither will I have pity: but I will recompense your ways upon you, and your abominations shall be in the midst of you: and you shall know that I am the LORD.
5 Thus says the LORD GOD; An evil, an only evil, behold, is come.
6 An end [qets] is come, the end [qets] is come: it watches [quwts – awakens] for you; behold, it is come.
7 The morning [tsphiyrah – the crown, the crowning of the LORD’s chosen, the man of God, as was David, reuniting Judah and Israel under one king] is come unto you, O you that dwells in the land: the time is come, the day of trouble is near, and not the sounding again of the mountains.
8 Now will I shortly pour out my fury upon you, and accomplish mine anger upon you: and I will judge you according to your ways, and will recompense you for all your abominations.
9 And mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: I will recompense you according to your ways and your abominations that are in the midst of you; and you shall know that I am the LORD that smites.
10 Behold the day, behold, it is come: the morning [tsphiyrah – the crowning] is gone forth; the rod has blossomed, pride has budded.
11 Violence is risen up into a rod of wickedness: none of them shall remain, nor of their multitude, nor of any of theirs: neither shall there be wailing for them.
12 The time is come, the day draw near: let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn: for wrath is upon all the multitude thereof.
13 For the seller shall not return to that which is sold, although they were yet alive: for the vision is touching the whole multitude thereof, which shall not return; neither shall any strengthen himself in the iniquity of his life.
14 They have blown the trumpet, even to make all ready; but none goes to the battle: for my wrath is upon all the multitude thereof.

The word vomit (‘qe) tells of what men consume and then spew, the words of these men, deceivers who use their misleading (erroneous ideas) to oppress those they have power over. The other two times it’s used are in Jeremiah 48:26, telling of when the horn (power) of Moab is cut off, and in Proverbs 26:11, telling of the dog (those who endlessly bark at night) returned to his vomit. As we know, Peter, in 2 Peter 2:22, quotes this latter use in telling of those knowing the way of righteousness, who return to spewing their same old corrupt word, to take men into bondage.

2 Peter 2
17 These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved forever.
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 [this same 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 [apoleia] 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 [stoicheion – the corrupt foundational ideas and ways of men – of which the should be ashamed and then loathe] 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 [stoicheion] 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 wrestle, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction [apoleia – perdition].

Proverbs 26
1 As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so honor is not seemly for a fool.
2 As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come.
3 A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the fool’s back.
4 Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like unto him.
5 Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.
6 He that sends a message by the hand of a fool cuts off the feet, and drinks damage.
7 The legs of the lame are not equal: so is a parable in the mouth of fools.
8 As he that binds a stone in a sling, so is he that gives honor to a fool.
9 As a thorn goes up into the hand of a drunkard, so is a parable in the mouths of fools.
10 The great God that formed all things both rewards the fool, and rewards transgressors.
11 As a dog returns to his vomit [‘qe], so a fool returns to his folly.
12 See you a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him.
13 The slothful man says, There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets.
14 As the door turns upon his hinges, so does the slothful upon his bed.
15 The slothful hides his hand in his bosom; it grieves him to bring it again to his mouth.
16 The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason.
17 He that passes by, and meddles with strife belonging not to him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears.
18 As a mad man who castes firebrands, arrows, and death,
19 So is the man that deceives his neighbor, and says, Am not I in sport?
20 Where no wood is, there the fire goes out: so where there is no talebearer, the strife ceases.
21 As coals are to burning coals, and wood to fire; so is a contentious man to kindle strife.
22 The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly.
23 Burning lips and a wicked heart are like a potsherd covered with silver dross.
24 He that hates dissembles with his lips, and lays up deceit within him;
25 When he speaks fair, believe him not: for there are seven abominations in his heart.
26 Whose hatred is covered by deceit, his wickedness shall be shewed before the whole congregation.
27 Whoso digs a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolls a stone, it will return upon him.
28 A lying tongue hates those that are afflicted by it; and a flattering mouth works ruin.

We know who the real haters are.

Jeremiah 47
6 O you sword of the LORD, how long will it be ere you be quiet? put up yourself into your scabbard, rest, and be still.
7 How can it be quiet, seeing the LORD has given it a charge against Ashkelon [the place of the trial, in the judgment fires], and against the sea shore [the end of man’s pride in his ideas, his creations]? there has he appointed it.

Jeremiah 48
25 The horn [the power] of Moab [of the gates of hell] is cut off, and his arm is broken, says the LORD.
26 Make you him drunken: for he magnified himself against the LORD: Moab [those who’ve created and maintain the gates of hell] also shall wallow in his vomit [‘qe], and he also shall be in derision.
27 For was not Israel a derision unto you? was he found among thieves? for since you spoke of him, you skipped for joy.
28 O you that dwell in Moab, leave the cities, and dwell in the rock, and be like the dove that makes her nest in the sides of the hole’s mouth.
29 We have heard the pride of Moab [the gates of hell], (he is exceeding proud) his loftiness, and his arrogance, and his pride, and the haughtiness of his heart.
30 I know his wrath, says the LORD; but it shall not be so; his lies shall not so effect it.

John 8
43 Why do you not understand my speech? even because you cannot hear my word.
44 You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
45 And because I tell you the truth, you believe me not.
46 Which of you convinces me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do you not believe me?
47 He that is of God hears God’s words: you therefore hear them not, because you are not of God.
48 Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, Say we not well that you are a Samaritan, and have a devil?
49 Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honor my Father, and you do dishonor me.
50 And I seek not mine own glory: there is one that seeks and judges.
51 Truly, truly, I say unto you, If a man keeps my saying, he shall never see death.
52 Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that you have a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and you say, If a man keeps my saying, he shall never taste of death.
53 Are you greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom make you yourself?
54 Jesus answered, If I honor myself, my honor is nothing: it is my Father that honors me; of whom you say, that he is your God:
55 Yet you have not known him; but I know him: and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him, and keep his saying.

John 14
20 For the Father loves the Son, and shows him all things that himself does: and he will show him greater works than these, that you may marvel.
21 For as the Father raises up the dead, and quickens them; even so the Son quickens whom he will.
22 For the Father judges no man, but has committed all judgment unto the Son:
23 That all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He that honor not the Son honors not the Father which has sent him.
24 Truly, truly, I say unto you, He that hears my word, and believes on him that sent me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
25 Truly, truly, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.
26 For as the Father has life in himself; so has he given to the Son to have life in himself;
27 And has given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man.
28 Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice,
29 And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.
30 I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which has sent me.
31 If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.
32 There is another that bears witness of me; and I know that the witness which he witnesses of me is true.
33 You sent unto John, and he bare witness unto the truth.
34 But I receive not testimony from man: but these things I say, that you might be saved.
35 He was a burning and a shining light: and you were willing for a season to rejoice in his light.
36 But I have greater witness than that of John: for the works which the Father has given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father has sent me.
37 And the Father himself, which has sent me, has borne witness of me. You have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape.
38 And you have not his word abiding in you: for whom he has sent, him you believe not.
39 Search the scriptures; for in them you think you have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
40 And you will not come to me, that you might have life.
41 I receive not honor from men.
42 But I know you, that you have not the love of God in you.
43 I am come in my Father’s name, and you receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him you will receive.
44 How can you believe, which receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor that comes from God only?
45 Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuses you, even Moses, in whom you trust.
46 For had you believed Moses, you would have believed me; for he wrote of me.
47 But if you believe not his writings, how shall you believe my words

Psalms 87
1 His foundation is in the holy mountains.
2 The LORD loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.
3 Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God. Selah.
4 I will make mention of Rahab [the extent of the captivity] and Babylon [and the confusion therein] to them that know me: behold Philistia [the invading army among us], and Tyre [the false rock, in which men put their trust], with Ethiopia [which is covered in darkness, in ignorance]; this man was born there.
5 And of Zion it shall be said, This and that man was born in her: and the Highest Himself shall establish [kuwn – erect, prepare {by writing to}] her.
6 The LORD shall count [mark them as His], when he writes up the people, that this man was born there. Selah.
7 As well the singers as the players on instruments [of salvation] shall be there: all my springs are in you [the LORD’s waters of life].

And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity.

Above, the LORD Jesus is speaking to the many false prophets of our time, who have come in His name, as false-christs: many antichrists preaching their own way, making their ideas the idols worshipped, and destroying those who follow them.

These are the same wicked men who preach against the LORD’s truth, even denying Him as He has come with it to correct those their fires are destroying. They ask, where is the LORD? while hoping and praying He hasn’t seen or heard their evil.

These churches and their preachers are the obstacles we must avoid, that narrow the way into the LORD’s kingdom. Now, go tell your preacher you heard the LORD, of them, say, “He never knew you.” They have, as corrupt trees produced corrupt fruit, led God’s people back into Egypt. They now fight against Him as He has come to lead them out and back to Heavenly New Jerusalem. If they speak not according to this word, it’s because there’s no understanding (light) or life (breath) in them.

The title verse, Matthew 7:23, is referring to what the LORD says in Jeremiah 24, specifically saying in verse 5, He will “acknowledge” the good figs. He goes on to say He will consume the evil figs by the sword, famine, and pestilence. The sword is this word that comes to save those hearing and heeding His warning. The famine is upon those who reject the word of God, by which only does man live (this manna they don’t know is the word of God’s mouth). The pestilence is what comes in place of God’s word: the words and ideas of men that bring disease where there should be peace and health. (The ignorant, those in darkness, have no idea these are references to God’s word and what He therein says. They are so blind they can’t see the world they’ve produced or the spiral deeper into their chosen hell. And His hand is stretched out still.)

Jude 1
10 But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.
11 Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core [Korah].
12 These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit
withers, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;
13 Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.
14 And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the LORD comes with ten thousands of his saints,
15 To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.
16 These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaks great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage.
17 But, beloved, remember you the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our LORD Jesus Christ;
18 How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.
19 These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.
20 But you, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,
21 Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our LORD Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
22 And of some have compassion, making a difference:
23 And others save with fear, pulling [harpazo – the “caught up” of 1 Thessalonians 4:17 – which is twisted into a rapture by those who will perish by following such false doctrines to their own end – they should fear, and not despise the LORD’s dominion] them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.
24 Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,
25 To the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

Deuteronomy 8
1 All the commandments which I command you this day shall you observe to do, that you may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD swore unto your fathers.
2 And you shall remember all the way which the LORD your God led you these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, and to prove you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments, or no.
3 And he humbled you, and suffered you to hunger, and fed you with manna, which you knew not, neither did your fathers know; that he might make you know that man does not live by bread only, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD does man live.
4 Your raiment waxed not old upon you, neither did your foot swell, these forty years.
5 You shall also consider in your heart, that, as a man chastens his son, so the LORD your God chastens you.
6 Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him.

Friends, the state of decline in the world, as we’ve seen, is due to God’s people, more precisely, the leaders who have raised themselves among them and led into desolation, hearing His word but not doing. What if the LORD told you to say something, would you say it or censor Him? The proof is they have heard, are offended, and refusing Him for a great while, do so once again.

What part of what He is saying have His people followed? They walk around in mass, almost in total, wearing the mark of their confusion on their face, waiting for events of which they are the proof. The evidence proves they are blind, led there by blind leaders, misleaders who will never awaken them by admitting they are Babylon, the authors of confusion resulting in mass delusion.

Isaiah 8
…O Immanuel.
9 Associate yourselves, O you people, and you shall be broken in pieces; and give ear, all you of far countries: gird yourselves, and you shall be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and you shall be broken in pieces.
10 Take counsel together, and it shall come to naught; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us.
11 For the LORD spoke thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying,
12 Say you not, A confederacy [of the irrational and deluded, those who wear the mark, the mask, showing they follow and kneel to the advice of ignorance {Does this offend you?}], to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear you their fear, nor be afraid.
13 Sanctify the LORD of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.
14 And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
15 And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.
16 Bind up the testimony [this word of God, which is His seal], seal the law among my disciples.
17 And I will wait upon the LORD, that hides his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.
18 Behold, I and the children whom the LORD has given me are for signs [the standard lifted to show the way] 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 [are the voice of the known dead], and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter [broad-casting their spells to mislead]: should not a people seek unto their God? [should they be looking] for the living to the dead [the familiar spirit – known liars telling known lies]?
20 [They should be looking] To the law and to the [this] testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light [understanding] in them.
21 And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry [because they refuse this manna]: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and [in the resulting ignorance] look upward [and see darkness].
22 And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness [ignorance], dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness [into ever greater delusion, as they have].

Isaiah 9
2 The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them has the light shined.
3 You have multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy: they joy before you according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.
4 For you have broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian.
5 For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire.
6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.
8 The LORD sent a word into Jacob, and it has lighted upon Israel [the good figs].

What follows the above verses is the LORD speaking of the misleaders of His people at large, who’ve led them into destruction. They say they (the misleaders He calls briers and thorns, the growth of neglect) will rebuild upon their same flawed and confused foundation, which will, as they have, inevitably destroy again. These men are the worthless (bohuw) stones and cedars, with ideas and ways that are foreign to God’s, whose advice exalts itself above His truth.

Isaiah 9
10 The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars.
11 Therefore the LORD shall set up the adversaries of Rezin [strong] against him [the misleaders of God’s people who are rejecting Him and are offended at His word], and join his enemies together;
12 The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind [the communists and foreign invaders]; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth [as they are]. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
13 For the people turn not unto him that smites them, neither do they seek the LORD of hosts.
14 Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day.
15 The ancient and honorable, he is the head; and the prophet that teaches lies, he is the tail.
16 For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed.
17 Therefore the LORD shall have no joy in their young men, neither shall have mercy on their fatherless and widows: for every one is a hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaks folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
18 For wickedness burns as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke.

2 Peter 1
16 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables [to this entrance into the kingdom, which the LORD here teaches], 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 [thundering from heaven] 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 [phosphoros] 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 [secretly, from their own imaginations, create lies] shall bring in damnable [apoleia – that cause them and those who follow their ways to perish] heresies, even denying the LORD that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction [apoleia – perditions].
2 And many shall follow their pernicious [aploeia – the ways that lead to their own destruction] ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of [as it is this day].
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 [apoleia – perishing, perdition] slumbers not.

Friends, few enter through this narrow gate, and the rest of the world will now descend into the deepest parts of the hell they have chosen. Come to Goshen.

Exodus 9
24 So there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail, very grievous, such as there was none like it in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation.

25 And the hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail smote every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the field.

26 Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, was there no hail.

The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon says the name Goshen means “drawing near,” which, in context, is speaking of the only protection is for those the LORD has separated and drawn near to Himself. Goshen appears to be from the one time used Hebrew word gasham, meaning rain, appearing in Jeremiah 14:22, as the LORD speaks of the false prophets and those following their misleading.

Jeremiah 14
13 Then said I, Ah, LORD God! behold, the prophets say unto them, You shall not see the sword, neither shall you have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place.
14 Then the LORD said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spoke unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of naught, and the deceit of their heart.
15 Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the prophets that prophesy in my name, and I sent them not, yet they say, Sword and famine shall not be in this land; By sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed.
16 And the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and they shall have none to bury them, them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters: for I will pour their wickedness upon them.
17 Therefore you shall say this word unto them; Let mine eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease: for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous blow.
18 If I go forth into the field, then behold the slain with the sword! and if I enter into the city, then behold them that are sick with famine! yea, both the prophet and the priest go about into a land that they know not.
19 Have you utterly rejected Judah? has your soul loathed Zion? why have you smitten us, and there is no healing for us? we looked for peace, and there is no good; and for the time of healing, and behold trouble!
20 We acknowledge, O LORD, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our fathers: for we have sinned against you.
21 Do not abhor us, for your name’s sake, do not disgrace the throne of your glory: remember, break not your covenant with us.
22 Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain [gasham]? or can the heavens give showers? are not you he, O LORD our God? therefore we will wait upon you: for you have made all these things.

Amos 8
1 Thus has the LORD God showed unto me: and behold a basket of summer fruit.
2 And he said, Amos, what see you? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said the LORD unto me, The end is come upon my people of Israel; I will not again pass by them any more.
3 And the songs of the temple shall be howling in that day, says the LORD God: there shall be many dead bodies in every place; they shall cast them forth with silence.
4 Hear this, O you that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail [shabath],
5 Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the Sabbath [they are asking; when will the LORD’s good advice end, so they can get back to their bad advice, and by the misleading rob those without power], that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?
6 That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?
7 The LORD has sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works.
8 Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwell therein? and it shall rise up wholly as a flood; and it shall be cast out and drowned, as by the flood of Egypt.
9 And it shall come to pass in that day, says the LORD God, that I will cause the sun [the understanding of the church] to go down at noon, and I will darken [allow ignorance and confusion to cover] the earth in the clear day:
10 And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son [they will long for the one the wicked have destroyed with their lies and false accusations], and the end thereof as a bitter day.
11 Behold, the days come, says the LORD God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD:
12 And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it [because they are looking where He isn’t; they are looking for Him in the place where they have set calves in His place].
13 In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst.
14 They that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, Your god, O Dan, lives; and, The manner of Beersheba lives; even they shall fall, and never rise up again.

The names above, meaning judgment (Dan) and the well of seven oaths (Beersheba), are places where calves were set in God’s place. These are referring to the resulting unjust judgment, and the drought (thirst) described earlier in the chapter.

The “fair virgin and the young men,” mentioned in verse 13, are speaking of Rachel (Genesis 29:17) and her children Joseph and Benjamin (representing Israel {Ephraim} and Judah). Their fainting of thirst speaks of their loss of energy: their inability and unwillingness to work; “faint” from the five times used Hebrew word ‘alaph, meaning, “to veil or cover; figuratively, to be languid.”

In this word (‘alaph), the LORD is leading us to its appearing in Isaiah 51:20, there rendered “fainted.”

Isaiah 51
4 Hearken unto me, my people; and give ear unto me, O my nation: for a law shall proceed from me, and I will make my judgment to rest for a light of the people.
5 My righteousness is near; my salvation is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the people; the isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust.
6 Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner: but my salvation shall be forever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished.
7 Hearken unto me, you that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear you not the reproach of men, neither be you afraid of their reviling.
8 For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool: but my righteousness shall be forever, and my salvation from generation to generation.
9 Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Are you not it that has cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?
10 Are you not it which has dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; that has made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?
11 Therefore the redeemed of the LORD shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.
12 I, even I, am he that comforts you [leads us into all truth]: who are you, that you should be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass;
13 And forget the LORD your maker, that has stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and have feared continually every day because of [paniym – my presence manifested unknown, when came] the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? and where is the fury of the oppressor?
14 The captive exile hastened that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail.
15 But I am the LORD your God, that divided the sea, whose waves roared: The LORD of hosts is his name.
16 And I have put my words in your mouth, and I have covered you in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, You are my people.
17 Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which have drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury; you have drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out.
18 There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she has brought forth; neither is there any that taketh her by the hand of all the sons that she has brought up.
19 These two things are come unto you; who shall be sorry for you? desolation, and destruction, and the famine, and the sword: by whom shall I comfort you?
20 Your sons have fainted [‘alaph], they lie at the head of all the streets, as a wild bull in a net: they are full of the fury of the LORD, the rebuke of your God.
21 Therefore hear now this, you afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine:
22 Thus says your LORD the LORD, and your God that pleads the cause of his people, Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury; you shall no more drink it again:
23 But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict you; which have said to your soul, Bow down, that we may go over: and you have laid your body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over.

Matthew 7
13 Enter you in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leads [that following corrupt men leads] to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow [narrowed by the obstacles of misleaders and false prophets] is the way, which leads [this God-breathed word that leads] unto life, and few there be that find it.
15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves [devouring the flock].
16 You shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles [the fruit of neglect that results in ignorant and self-serving false teaching]?
17 Even so every good tree brings forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit.
18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
19 Every tree that brings not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
20 Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them.
21 Not every one that says unto me, LORD, LORD, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father which is in heaven.
22 Many will say to me in that day, LORD, LORD, have we not prophesied in your name? and in your name have cast out devils? and in your name done many wonderful works?
23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity.
24 Therefore whosoever hears these sayings of mine, and does them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
26 And every one that hears these sayings of mine, and does them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
28 And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine:
29 For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

Jeremiah 24
1 The LORD showed me, and, behold, two baskets of figs were set before the temple of the LORD, after that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon [the lies of false prophets, abominations which caused the desolation of God’s people, and resulted in the confusion and mass delusion that now rules over the world] had carried away captive Jeconiah [the seed Jehovah will establish] the son of Jehoiakim [who Jehovah will raise up, out of confusion] king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, with the carpenters and smiths, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon [to confusion and mass delusion].
2 One basket had very good figs, even like the figs that are first ripe: and the other basket had very naughty figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad.
3 Then said the LORD unto me, What see you, Jeremiah? And I said, Figs; the good figs, very good; and the evil, very evil, that cannot be eaten, they are so evil.
4 Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
5 Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel; Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good.
6 For I will set mine eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them again to this land: and I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up.
7 And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.
8 And as the evil figs, which cannot be eaten, they are so evil; surely thus saith the LORD, So will I give Zedekiah [the blind sitting in David’s seat, who should be Jehovah’s righteousness – purveyors of His sound doctrine and truth, but instead are following the advice of men, into hell] the king of Judah, and his princes, and the residue of Jerusalem, that remain in this land, and them that dwell in the land of Egypt:
9 And I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for their hurt, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places whither I shall drive them.
10 And I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, among them, till they be consumed from off the land that I gave unto them and to their fathers.

The word “acknowledge,” in verse 5 above, is the Hebrew word nakar, meaning “to scrutinize, i.e. look intently at; hence (with recognition implied), to acknowledge, be acquainted with, care for, respect, revere, or (with suspicion implied), to disregard, ignore, be strange toward, reject, resign, dissimulate (as if ignorant or disowning).” It is speaking of those the LORD knows and those He says he never knew. It (nakar) only appears one other time in Jeremiah, earlier in Jeremiah 19:4, where it’s rendered “estranged” as the LORD speaks of the evil figs.

Jeremiah 19
1 Thus says the LORD, Go and get a potter’s earthen bottle, and take of the ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests;
2 And go forth unto the valley of the son of Hinnom [this is Gehenna, the burning trash heap outside of Jerusalem: the hell were the fire always burned, where the children were before offered into the fires of the idols they worshiped], which is by the entry of the east gate [this is the gate the LORD enters, from hell and into Heavenly New Jerusalem, where the few follow Him in through the narrow gate], and proclaim there the words that I shall tell you,
3 And say, Hear you the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem; Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, the which whosoever hears, his ears shall tingle.
4 Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it unto other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents;
5 They have built also the high places of Baal [the idols of this world], to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spoke it, neither came it into my mind:
6 Therefore, behold, the days come, says the LORD, that this place shall no more be called Tophet [the place where the fire always burned], nor The valley of the son of Hinnom [the sons of hell], but The valley of slaughter.
7 And I will make void the counsel [of those misleading and deceiving God’s people] Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hands of them that seek their lives: and their carcasses will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth.
8 And I will make this city desolate, and a hissing; every one that passes thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues thereof.
9 And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness [because they cannot enter the gate, into Heavenly New Jerusalem, these men have made narrow by their blinding misleading], wherewith their enemies [mixed among them], and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them.
10 Then shall you break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with you,
11 And shall say unto them, Thus says the LORD of hosts [of the armies of heaven]; Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter’s vessel, that cannot be made whole again: and they shall bury them in Tophet [in their own fires that never go out], till there be no place to bury.
12 Thus will I do unto this place, says the LORD, and to the inhabitants thereof, and even make this city as Tophet:
13 And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah [Matthew 7:26 & 27 above tell of the why these houses fall], shall be defiled as the place of Tophet, because of all the houses upon whose roofs they have burned incense unto all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink offerings unto other gods.
14 Then came Jeremiah from Tophet [then Jehovah rose up from the fires of hell, and with His rising raised those who follow Him into the Heavenly New Jerusalem, built upon the ashes and ruin of the old], whither the LORD had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in the court of the LORD’s house; and said to all the people,
15 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring upon this city and upon all her towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have hardened their necks, that they might not hear my words.

When the LORD says, in verse 3 above, the ears of those who hear this pronouncement (His judgment and sentence) shall “tingle,” He is referring to where they’re described. The Hebrew word, tsalal, meaning “to tinkle, i.e. rattle together (as the ears in reddening with shame, or the teeth in chattering with fear),” only appears three other times.

1 Samuel 3
11 And the LORD said to Samuel, Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that hears it shall tingle [tsalal].
12 In that day I will perform against Eli [risen up in God’s place – exalting themselves above Him] all things which I have spoken concerning his house: when I begin, I will also make an end.
13 For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knows; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not.
14 And therefore I have sworn unto the house of Eli, that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering forever.

(1 Peter 4
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.

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.)

2 Kings 21
10 And the LORD spoke by his servants the prophets, saying,
11 Because Manasseh [the leaders who have forgotten God] king of Judah has done these abominations, and has done wickedly above all that the Amorites [who exalted themselves above God] did, which were before him, and has made Judah also to sin with his idols:
12 Therefore thus says the LORD God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever hear of it, both his ears shall tingle [tsalal].
13 And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria [my assessment is they are worshiping idols they call by God’s name, which are in fact their own creations], and the plummet of the house of Ahab [the assessment is they are as Ahab, the son of Omri]: and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipes a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down.
14 And I will forsake the remnant of mine inheritance, and deliver them into the hand of their enemies; and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies [as it is this day];
15 Because they have done that which was evil [as evil figs, from an evil tree] in my sight, and have provoked me to anger, since the day their fathers came forth out of Egypt, even unto this day.
16 Moreover Manasseh [those who’ve forgotten God and follow their idols, men’s misleading, into hell] shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; beside his sin wherewith he made Judah to sin, in doing that which was evil in the sight of the LORD.

Habakkuk 3
10 The mountains saw you, and they trembled: the overflowing of the water passed by: the deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high.
11 The sun and moon [church and state governments – misleaders] stood still in their habitation: at the light [understanding] of your arrows they went, and at the shining of your glittering spear.
12 You did march through the land in indignation, you did thresh the heathen in anger.
13 You went forth for the salvation of your people, even for salvation with your anointed; you wounded the head out of the house of the wicked, by discovering [‘arah – uncovering] the foundation unto the neck. Selah.
14 You did strike through with his staves the head [misleaders] of his villages: they came out as a whirlwind to scatter me: their rejoicing was as to devour the poor secretly.
15 You did walk through the sea with your horses, through the heap of great waters.
16 When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered [tsalal] at the voice: rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble: when he comes up unto the people, he will invade them with his troops.
17 Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: [total desolation]
18 Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
19 The LORD God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instruments.

Psalms 122
1 I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD.
2 Our feet shall stand within your gates, O Jerusalem.
3 Jerusalem is built as a city that is compact together:
4 Whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the LORD.
5 For there are set thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David.
6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love you.
7 Peace be within your walls, and prosperity within your palaces.
8 For my brethren and companions’ sakes, I will now say, Peace be within you.
9 Because of the house of the LORD our God I will seek your good.

And all flesh shall see that I the LORD have kindled a fire in My Elect remnant: it shall not be quenched. Then said I, Ah LORD God! they say of me, Does he not speak parables?

The above is Ezekiel 20:48 & 49, adding the words “My Elect remnant,” who in the preceding verse are described in the metaphor, “the forest of the south.” This insertion removes the original rendering’s ambiguity, and the parable’s meaning is brought to light (understanding).

Ezekiel 20
42 And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall bring you into the land of Israel, into the country for the which I lifted up mine hand to give it to your fathers.
43 And there shall you remember your ways, and all your doings, wherein you have been defiled; and you shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that you have committed.
44 And you shall know that I am the LORD when I have wrought with you for my name’s sake, not according to your wicked ways, nor according to your corrupt doings, O you house of Israel, says the LORD God.
45 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
46 Son of man, set your face toward the south, and drop your word toward the south, and prophesy against the forest of the south field;
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the LORD God; Behold, I will kindle a fire in you, and it shall devour every green tree in you, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.
48 And all flesh shall see that I the LORD have kindled it: it shall not be quenched.
49 Then said I, Ah LORD God! they say of me, Does he not speak parables?

The problem with the above elucidation is skipping the first step and expecting the second to occur. The second is a result of complying with the first. Why is that so hard to understand, and its simple course not followed? The word in verse 44 translated “wrought” is ‘asah, meaning “to do or make,” and speaks of when the “flaming flame” is “kindled” by the LORD’s work.

The first use of the word (‘asah) is in Genesis 1:7, there describing when God “made” the firmament, which He then called heaven. As we know, “firmament,” is the Hebrew word raqiya, meaning “an expanse, i.e. the firmament or (apparently) visible arch of the sky.” It speaks of an exposition, from the mouth of God, which rightly divides His word from the corrupt waters below, which are the words of men.

The next times it (‘asah) appears are in Genesis 1:11 & 12, there rendered “yielding,” speaking the trees producing fruit, again giving color to Ezekiel’s describing God’s people as trees (becoming upright by what He wrought). From the upright bearing fruit, ‘asah is then used, in Genesis 1:16, again rendered “made,” telling of God instituting just government through church and state. They are described as the sun and the moon, who shine (church as the sun) His given understanding and reflect (civil government as the moon) His just rule on earth, as He intended.

As we know, Peter, in 2 Peter 3, speaks of this creation of the world coming after the LORD overflowed and ended the last age. He says this same word of God, from His mouth, is reserved (held the cloud as the separated elements of understanding) unto fire, the same fire Ezekiel speaks of above, in parable form as given.

2 Peter 3
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 [this same 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 [apoleia] 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 [stoicheion – the corrupt foundational ideas and ways of men – of which the should be ashamed and then loathe] 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 [stoicheion] 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 wrestle, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction [apoleia – perdition].

The word Ezekiel uses, rendered “kindled” in Ezekiel 20:48 above, is ba’ar, meaning, “to kindle, i.e. consume (by fire or by eating); also (as denominative from 1198) to be(-come) brutish.” It’s first used in Exodus 3:2 & 3, as Moses encounters God, who appears as a “burning” bush. It’s describing the One who appears as an all-consuming fire that burns up the status quo of corrupt thinking, while Himself never burning out. It is speaking of the image and likeness of God, who “kindles” us into the same “flaming flame,” by which He ends and begins ages.

Exodus 3
2 And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned [ba’ar] with fire, and the bush was not consumed.
3 And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt [ba’ar].
4 And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.
5 And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off your shoes from off your feet, for the place whereon you stand is holy ground.
6 Moreover he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.

The burning bush is the One David describes in 2 Samuel 22:9 (and Psalms 18:8), where he says it’s by the words from God’s mouth the fires are “kindled.” He then, in 2 Samuel 23:2, says these are the words God is through him speaking.

Psalms 18
1 I will love you, O LORD, my strength.
2 The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.
3 I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies.
4 The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.
5 The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me.
6 In my distress I called upon the LORD [see Jonah 2:2, David here does as Jonah, as does the son of David, the son of man, when He comes from the belly of the earth: from the belly of hell], and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears.
7 Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth.
8 There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled [ba’ar] by it.
9 He bowed the heavens also, and came down: and darkness was under his feet.
10 And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind.
11 He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.
12 At the brightness [nogahh – brilliance] that was before him his thick clouds passed, hail stones and coals of fire.
13 The LORD also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice; hail stones and coals of fire.
14 Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; and he shot out lightnings, and discomfited them.
15 Then the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered at your rebuke, O LORD, at the blast of the breath of your nostrils.
16 He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters.
17 He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them which hated me: for they were too strong for me.
18 They prevented me in the day of my calamity: but the LORD was my stay.
19 He brought me forth also into a large place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me.
20 The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands has he recompensed me.
21 For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God.
22 For all his judgments were before me, and I did not put away his statutes from me.
23 I was also upright before him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity.
24 Therefore has the LORD recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his eyesight.
25 With the merciful you will show yourself merciful; with an upright man you will show yourself upright;
26 With the pure you will show yourself pure; and with the froward you will show yourself froward.
27 For you will save the afflicted people; but will bring down high looks.
28 For you will light my candle: the LORD my God will enlighten my darkness.
29 For by you I have run through a troop; and by my God have I leaped over a wall.
30 As for God, his way is perfect: the word of the LORD is tried: he is a buckler to all those that trust in him.
31 For who is God save the LORD? or who is a rock save our God?
32 It is God that girds me with strength, and makes my way perfect.
33 He makes my feet like hinds’ feet, and sets me upon my high places.
34 He teaches my hands to war, so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms.
35 You have also given me the shield of your salvation: and your right hand has held me up, and your gentleness has made me great.
36 You have enlarged my steps under me, that my feet did not slip.
37 I have pursued mine enemies, and overtaken them: neither did I turn again till they were consumed.
38 I have wounded them that they were not able to rise: they are fallen under my feet.
39 For you have girded me with strength unto the battle: you have subdued under me those that rose up against me.
40 You have also given me the necks of mine enemies; that I might destroy them that hate me.
41 They cried, but there was none to save them: even unto the LORD, but he answered them not.
42 Then did I beat them small as the dust before the wind: I did cast them out as the dirt in the streets.
43 You have delivered me from the strivings of the people; and you have made me the head of the heathen: a people whom I have not known shall serve me.
44 As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey me: the strangers shall submit themselves unto me.
45 The strangers shall fade away, and be afraid out of their close places.
46 The LORD lives; and blessed be my rock; and let the God of my salvation be exalted.
47 It is God that avenges me, and subdues the people under me.
48 He delivers me from mine enemies: yea, you lifts me up above those that rise up against me: you have delivered me from the violent man.
49 Therefore will I give thanks unto you, O LORD, among the heathen, and sing praises unto your name.
50 Great deliverance [yshuw’ah] gives he to his king; and shows mercy to his anointed, to David, and to his seed for evermore.

2 Samuel 23
1 Now these be the last words of David. David the son of Jesse said, and the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel, said,
2 The Spirit of the LORD spoke by me, and his word was in my tongue [the word that kindle the fire, as he says in Psalms 18:8 above {and in 2 Samuel 22:9}].
3 The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spoke to me, He that rules over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.
4 And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun rises, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining [nogahh – brilliance] after rain.
5 Although my house be not so with God; yet he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire, although he make it not to grow.
6 But the sons of Belial [Satan – those following the advice of death] shall be all of them as thorns thrust away, because they cannot be taken with hands:
7 But the man that shall touch them must be fenced with iron and the staff of a spear; and they shall be utterly burned with fire in the same place.

Isaiah 62
1 For Zion’s sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness [nogahh – brilliance], and the salvation [yshuw’ah] thereof as a lamp that burns [ba’ar].
2 And the Gentiles shall see your righteousness, and all kings your glory: and you shall be called by a new name, which the mouth of the LORD shall name.
3 You shall also be a crown of glory in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
4 You shall no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall your land any more be termed Desolate: but you shall be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah: for the LORD delights in you, and your land shall be married.
5 For as a young man marries a virgin, so shall your sons marry you: and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.
6 I have set watchmen upon your walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: you that make mention of the LORD, keep not silence,
7 And give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.
8 The LORD has sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength, Surely I will no more give your corn to be meat for your enemies; and the sons of the stranger shall not drink your wine, for the which you have labored:
9 But they that have gathered it shall eat it, and praise the LORD; and they that have brought it together shall drink it in the courts of my holiness.
10 Go through, go through the gates; prepare you the way of the people; cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones; lift up a standard for the people.
11 Behold, the LORD has proclaimed unto the end of the world, Say you to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your salvation comes; behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him.
12 And they shall call them, The holy people, The redeemed of the LORD: and you shall be called, Sought out, A city not forsaken.

The words, in Ezekiel 20:47, rendered “flaming flame” are lehabah shalhebeth. The first, also rendered lahebeth, is used nineteen times; the second (shalhebeth) only appears three times. The first is referring us to its final use, in Obadiah 1:18, where it described Joseph as the flame that devours the house (beth) of Esau (the enemies mixed among us, whose words hold us in the belly of hell, the belly of the earth).

Obadiah
15 For the day of the LORD is near upon all the heathen: as you have done, it shall be done unto you: your reward shall return upon your own head.
16 For as you have drunk upon my holy mountain, so shall all the heathen drink continually, yea, they shall drink, and they shall swallow down, and they shall be as though they had not been.
17 But upon mount Zion shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness; and the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.
18 And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame [lahebeth], and the house of Esau for stubble, and they shall kindle in them, and devour them; and there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau; for the LORD has spoken it.
19 And they of the south shall possess the mount of Esau; and they of the plain the Philistines: and they shall possess the fields of Ephraim, and the fields of Samaria: and Benjamin shall possess Gilead.
20 And the captivity of this host of the children of Israel shall possess that of the Canaanites [those who’ve been zealous against us], even unto Zarephath [unto their refining, purifying]; and the captivity of Jerusalem, which is in Sepharad [when they are separated to the LORD], shall possess the cities of the south.
21 And saviors shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the LORD’s.

The word lahebeth appears to be from the words lahab, meaning, “to gleam; a flash; figuratively, a sharply polished blade or point of a weapon,” and beth, meaning house or family. It’s telling of Joseph (Israel at large) as the weapon in the hand of the elect remnant (Judah), against the worthless house, Esau, the enemies mixed among us.

Isaiah 66
15 For, behold, the LORD will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames [lahab] of fire.
16 For by fire and by his sword will the LORD plead with all flesh: and the slain of the LORD shall be many.
17 They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens behind one tree in the midst, eating swine’s flesh, and the abomination [the shameful things put in God’s place, which should be loathed and abandoned], and the mouse, shall be consumed together, says the LORD.
18 For I know their works and their thoughts: it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory.
19 And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal, and Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles.
20 And they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the LORD out of all nations upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the LORD, as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the LORD.
21 And I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, says the LORD.
22 For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, says the LORD, so shall your seed and your name remain.
23 And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, says the LORD.
24 And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.

Job 15
20 The wicked man travails with pain all his days, and the number of years is hidden to the oppressor.
21 A dreadful sound is in his ears: in prosperity the destroyer shall come upon him.
22 He believes not that he shall return out of darkness, and he is waited for of the sword.
23 He wanders abroad for bread, saying, Where is it? he knows that the day of darkness is ready at his hand.
24 Trouble and anguish shall make him afraid; they shall prevail against him, as a king ready to the battle.
25 For he stretches out his hand against God, and strengthens himself against the Almighty.
26 He runs upon him, even on his neck, upon the thick bosses of his bucklers:
27 Because he covers his face with his fatness, and makes collops of fat on his flanks.
28 And he dwells in desolate cities, and in houses which no man inhabits, which are ready to become heaps.
29 He shall not be rich, neither shall his substance continue, neither shall he prolong the perfection thereof upon the earth.
30 He shall not depart out of darkness; the flame [shalhebeth] shall dry up his branches, and by the breath of his mouth shall he go away.
31 Let not him that is deceived trust in vanity: for vanity shall be his recompense.
32 It shall be accomplished before his time, and his branch shall not be green.
33 He shall shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as the olive.
34 For the congregation of hypocrites shall be desolate, and fire shall consume the tabernacles of bribery.
35 They conceive mischief, and bring forth vanity, and their belly prepares deceit.

Ezekiel, later in Ezekiel 24, speaks of the flame, the same (Jude 1:23) fire men should fear, and understanding why they should. These are fires from where the LORD, through us, pulls any taking His hand: those, if they remain, perishing in what are the everlasting fires of hell.

Ezekiel 24
2 Son of man, write you the name of the day, even of this same day: the king of Babylon [mass confusion now turned mass delusion by world-wide deception] set himself against Jerusalem [against those who only want to live in peace, without threat from the wicked now in control of unjust governments and institutions] this same day.
3 And utter a parable unto the rebellious house, and say unto them, Thus says the LORD God; Set on a pot, set it on, and also pour water into it:
4 Gather the pieces thereof into it, even every good piece, the thigh, and the shoulder; fill it with the choice bones.
5 Take the choice of the flock, and burn also the bones under it, and make it boil well, and let them seethe the bones of it therein.
6 Wherefore thus says the LORD God; Woe to the bloody city, to the pot whose scum is therein, and whose scum is not gone out of it! bring it out piece by piece; let no lot fall upon it.
7 For her blood is in the midst of her; she set it upon the top of a rock; she poured it not upon the ground, to cover it with dust;
8 That it might cause fury to come up to take vengeance; I have set her blood upon the top of a rock, that it should not be covered.
9 Therefore thus says the LORD God; Woe to the bloody city! I will even make the pile for fire great.
10 Heap on wood, kindle the fire, consume the flesh, and spice it well, and let the bones be burned.
11 Then set it empty upon the coals thereof, that the brass of it may be hot, and may burn, and that the filthiness of it may be molten in it, that the scum of it may be consumed.
12 She has wearied herself with lies, and her great scum went not forth out of her: her scum shall be in the fire.
13 In your filthiness is lewdness: because I have purged you, and you wast not purged, you shall not be purged from your filthiness any more, till I have caused my fury to rest upon you.
14 I the LORD have spoken it: it shall come to pass, and I will do it; I will not go back, neither will I spare, neither will I repent; according to your ways, and according to your doings, shall they judge you, says the LORD God.
15 Also the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
16 Son of man, behold, I take away from you the desire of your eyes with a stroke: yet neither shall you mourn nor weep, neither shall your tears run down.
17 Forbear to cry, make no mourning for the dead, bind the tire of your head upon you, and put on your shoes upon your feet, and cover not your lips, and eat not the bread of men.
18 So I spoke unto the people in the morning: and at even my wife died; and I did in the morning as I was commanded.
19 And the people said unto me, Will you not tell us what these things are to us, that you do so?
20 Then I answered them, The word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
21 Speak unto the house of Israel, Thus says the LORD God; Behold, I will profane my sanctuary, the excellency of your strength, the desire of your eyes, and that which your soul pities; and your sons and your daughters whom you have left shall fall by the sword.
22 And you shall do as I have done: you shall not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men.

Jude 1
3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only
LORD God, and our LORD Jesus Christ.
5 I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you once knew this, how that the LORD, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.
6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
8 Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.
9 Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The LORD rebuke you.
10 But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.
11 Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core [Korah].
12 These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit
withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;
13 Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.
14 And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the LORD comes with ten thousands of his saints,
15 To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.
16 These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaks great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage.
17 But, beloved, remember you the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our LORD Jesus Christ;
18 How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.
19 These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.
20 But you, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,
21 Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our LORD Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
22 And of some have compassion, making a difference:
23 And others save with fear, pulling [harpazo – the “caught up” of 1 Thessalonians 4:17 – which is twisted into a rapture by those who will perish by following such false doctrines to their own end – they should fear, and not despise the LORD’s dominion] them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.
24 Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,
25 To the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

Deuteronomy 8
1 All the commandments which I command you this day shall you observe to do, that you may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers.
2 And you shall remember all the way which the LORD your God led you these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, and to prove you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments, or no.
3 And he humbled you, and suffered you to hunger, and fed you with manna, which you knew not, neither did your fathers know; that he might make you know that man does not live by bread only, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD does man live.
4 Your raiment waxed not old upon you, neither did your foot swell, these forty years.
5 You shall also consider in your heart, that, as a man chastens his son, so the LORD your God chastens you.
6 Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him.

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

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

Hear this, O you that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail, Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?

The LORD begins today speaking of our national government, the former as the “new moon” now replaced by the latter, who’ve waited for this moment, to falsify justice again and rob the poor by deceit. These (the latter) are those who “swallow up” the needy, and make the poor of the land fail.

The word “fail” is the Hebrew word shabath, meaning, “to repose, i.e. desist from exertion; used in many implied relations (causative, figurative or specific).” It’s the root of Sabbath, and in this use we understand the dynamic and the chapter’s context. It is speaking of those who are stopping God’s people from working, so they can falsify judgment by deception, to make the ephah small (to diminish the return) while making the cost (the shekel) greater.

In the context of Government, it speaks of a coming period of extreme inflation and currency devaluation. This (Democrat Communist) administration’s economic policy is ignorance, based on false foundations that have always failed when exercised. There can be no other outcome: reality will not surrender to their false definitions and reversed truth. Realizing this, they’ll focus on making the rich and powerful more prosperous and stronger while reducing all others to equality in misery at the bottom (in their dystopian hell).

Amos 8
1 Thus has the LORD God showed unto me: and behold a basket of summer fruit.
2 And he said, Amos, what see you? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said the LORD unto me, The end is come upon my people of Israel; I will not again pass by them any more.
3 And the songs of the temple shall be howling in that day, says the LORD God: there shall be many dead bodies in every place; they shall cast them forth with silence.
4 Hear this, O you that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail [shabath],
5 Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the Sabbath [they are asking; when will the LORD’s good advice end, so they can get back to their bad advice, and by the misleading rob those without power], that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?
6 That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?
7 The LORD has sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works.
8 Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwell therein? and it shall rise up wholly as a flood; and it shall be cast out and drowned, as by the flood of Egypt.
9 And it shall come to pass in that day, says the LORD God, that I will cause the sun [the understanding of the church] to go down at noon, and I will darken [allow ignorance and confusion to cover] the earth in the clear day:
10 And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son [they will long for the one the wicked have destroyed with their lies and false accusations], and the end thereof as a bitter day.
11 Behold, the days come, says the LORD God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD:
12 And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it [because they are looking where He isn’t; they are looking for Him in the place where they have set calves in His place].
13 In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst.
14 They that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, Your god, O Dan, lives; and, The manner of Beersheba lives; even they shall fall, and never rise up again.

The names above, meaning judgment (Dan) and the well of seven oaths (Beersheba), are places where calves were set in God’s place. These are referring to the resulting unjust judgment and drought (thirst) described earlier in the chapter.

The “fair virgin and the young men,” mentioned in verse 13, are speaking of Rachel (Genesis 29:17) and her children Joseph and Benjamin (representing Israel {Ephraim} and Judah). Their fainting of thirst speaks of their loss of energy: their inability and unwillingness to work; “faint” from the five times used Hebrew word ‘alaph, meaning, “to veil or cover; figuratively, to be languid.”

In this word (‘alaph), the LORD is leading us to its appearing in Isaiah 51:20, there rendered “fainted.”

Isaiah 51
4 Hearken unto me, my people; and give ear unto me, O my nation: for a law shall proceed from me, and I will make my judgment to rest for a light of the people.
5 My righteousness is near; my salvation is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the people; the isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust.
6 Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner: but my salvation shall be forever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished.
7 Hearken unto me, you that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear you not the reproach of men, neither be you afraid of their reviling.
8 For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool: but my righteousness shall be forever, and my salvation from generation to generation.
9 Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Are you not it that has cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?
10 Are you not it which has dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; that has made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?
11 Therefore the redeemed of the LORD shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.
12 I, even I, am he that comforts you [leads us into all truth]: who are you, that you should be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass;
13 And forget the LORD your maker, that has stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and have feared continually every day because of [paniym – my presence manifested unknown, when came] the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? and where is the fury of the oppressor?
14 The captive exile hastened that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail.
15 But I am the LORD your God, that divided the sea, whose waves roared: The LORD of hosts is his name.
16 And I have put my words in your mouth, and I have covered you in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, You are my people.
17 Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which have drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury; you have drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out.
18 There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she has brought forth; neither is there any that taketh her by the hand of all the sons that she has brought up.
19 These two things are come unto you; who shall be sorry for you? desolation, and destruction, and the famine, and the sword: by whom shall I comfort you?
20 Your sons have fainted [‘alaph], they lie at the head of all the streets, as a wild bull in a net: they are full of the fury of the LORD, the rebuke of your God.
21 Therefore hear now this, you afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine:
22 Thus says your LORD the LORD, and your God that pleads the cause of his people, Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury; you shall no more drink it again:
23 But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict you; which have said to your soul, Bow down, that we may go over: and you have laid your body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over.

Isaiah 52
1 Awake, awake; put on your strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into you the uncircumcised and the unclean.
2 Shake yourself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose yourself from the bands of your neck, O captive daughter of Zion.
3 For thus says the LORD, You have sold yourselves for naught; and you shall be redeemed without money.
4 For thus says the LORD God, My people went down aforetime into Egypt to sojourn there; and the Assyrian oppressed them without cause.
5 Now therefore, what have I here, says the LORD, that my people is taken away for naught? they that rule over them make them to howl, says the LORD; and my name continually every day is blasphemed.
6 Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that does speak: behold, it is I.
7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that brings good tidings, that publishes peace; that brings good tidings of good, that publishes salvation; that says unto Zion, Your God reigns!
8 Your watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the LORD shall bring again Zion.
9 Break forth into joy, sing together, you waste places of Jerusalem: for the LORD has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem.
10 The LORD has made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.
11 Depart you, depart you, go you out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go you out of the midst of her; be you clean, that bear the vessels of the LORD.
12 For you shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight: for the LORD will go before [paniym] you; and the God of Israel will be your reward.
13 Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high.
14 As many were astonished at you; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men:
15 So shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider.

Isaiah 53
1 Who has believed our report [shmuw’ah – this doctrine, the rumor that it’s the LORD’s presence]? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?
2 For he shall grow up before [paniym] him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he has no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces [paniym] from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before [paniym] her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.
8 He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.
9 And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief: when you shall make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he has poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

The word in the title rendered “swallow up,” is the fourteen times used Hebrew word sha’aph, meaning, “to inhale eagerly; figuratively, to cover; by implication, to be angry; also to hasten.” It (sha’aph) is used one time by Ezekiel, in Ezekiel 36:3, there rendered “swallowed you up.”

Ezekiel 36
1 Also, you son of man, prophesy unto the mountains of Israel, and say, You mountains of Israel, hear the word of the LORD:
2 Thus says the LORD God; Because the enemy has said against you, Aha, even the ancient high places are ours in possession:
3 Therefore prophesy and say, Thus says the LORD God; Because they have made you desolate, and swallowed you up [sha’aph] on every side, that you might be a possession unto the residue of the heathen, and you are taken up in the lips of talkers, and are an infamy of the people:
4 Therefore, you mountains of Israel, hear the word of the LORD God; Thus says the LORD God to the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys, to the desolate wastes, and to the cities that are forsaken, which became a prey and derision to the residue of the heathen that are round about;
5 Therefore thus says the LORD God; Surely in the fire of my jealousy have I spoken against the residue of the heathen, and against all Idumea [Esau, the enemies mixed among us], which have appointed my land into their possession with the joy of all their heart, with despiteful minds, to cast it out for a prey.
6 Prophesy therefore concerning the land of Israel, and say unto the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys, Thus says the LORD God; Behold, I have spoken in my jealousy and in my fury, because you have borne the shame of the heathen:
7 Therefore thus says the LORD God; I have lifted up mine hand, Surely the heathen that are about you, they shall bear their shame.
8 But you, O mountains of Israel, you shall shoot forth your branches, and yield your fruit to my people of Israel; for they are at hand to come.
9 For, behold, I am for you, and I will turn unto you, and you shall be tilled and sown:
10 And I will multiply men upon you, all the house of Israel, even all of it: and the cities shall be inhabited, and the wastes shall be built:
11 And I will multiply upon you man and beast; and they shall increase and bring fruit: and I will settle you after your old estates, and will do better unto you than at your beginnings: and you shall know that I am the LORD.
12 Yea, I will cause men to walk upon you, even my people Israel; and they shall possess you, and you shall be their inheritance, and you shall no more henceforth bereave them of men.
13 Thus says the LORD God; Because they say unto you, You land devours [‘akal – eats – swallows] up men, and have bereaved your nations:
14 Therefore you shall devour [‘akal – swallow] men no more, neither bereave your nations any more, says the LORD God.
15 Neither will I cause men to hear in you the shame of the heathen any more, neither shall you bear the reproach of the people any more, neither shall you cause your nations to fall any more, says the LORD God.
16 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
17 Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their own way and by their doings: their way was before me as the uncleanness of a removed woman.
18 Wherefore I poured my fury upon them for the blood that they had shed upon the land, and for their idols wherewith they had polluted it:
19 And I scattered them among the heathen, and they were dispersed through the countries: according to their way and according to their doings I judged them.
20 And when they entered unto the heathen, whither they went, they profaned my holy name, when they said to them, These are the people of the LORD, and are gone forth out of his land.
21 But I had pity for mine holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the heathen, whither they went.
22 Therefore say unto the house of Israel, thus says the LORD God; I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name’s sake, which you have profaned among the heathen, whither you went.
23 And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which you have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, says the LORD God, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes.
24 For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land.
25 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.
26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my judgments, and do them.
28 And you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.
29 I will also save you from all your uncleanness: and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you.
30 And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that you shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen.
31 Then shall you remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations.
32 Not for your sakes do I this, says the LORD God, be it known unto you: be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel.
33 Thus says the LORD God; In the day that I shall have cleansed you from all your iniquities I will also cause you to dwell in the cities, and the wastes shall be built.
34 And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by.
35 And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited.
36 Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I the LORD build the ruined places, and plant that that was desolate: I the LORD have spoken it, and I will do it.
37 Thus says the LORD God; I will yet for this be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them; I will increase them with men like a flock.
38 As the holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts; so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of men: and they shall know that I am the LORD.

Job 36
2 Suffer me a little, and I will show you that I have yet to speak on God’s behalf.
3 I will fetch my knowledge from afar, and will ascribe righteousness to my Maker.
4 For truly my words shall not be false: he that is perfect in knowledge is with you.
5 Behold, God is mighty, and despises not any: he is mighty in strength and wisdom.
6 He preserves not the life of the wicked: but gives right to the poor.
7 He withdraws not his eyes from the righteous: but with kings are they on the throne; yea, he does establish them for ever, and they are exalted.
8 And if they be bound in fetters, and be held in cords of affliction;
9 Then he shows them their work, and their transgressions that they have exceeded.
10 He opens also their ear to discipline, and commands that they return from iniquity.
11 If they obey and serve him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures.
12 But if they obey not, they shall perish by the sword, and they shall die without knowledge.
13 But the hypocrites in heart heap up wrath: they cry not when he binds them.
14 They die in youth, and their life is among the unclean.
15 He delivers the poor in his affliction, and opens their ears in oppression.
16 Even so would he have removed you out of the strait into a broad place, where there is no straitness; and that which should be set on your table should be full of fatness.
17 But you have fulfilled the judgment of the wicked: judgment and justice take hold on you.
18 Because there is wrath, beware lest he take you away with his stroke: then a great ransom cannot deliver you.
19 Will he esteem your riches? no, not gold, nor all the forces of strength.
20 Desire [sha’aph] not the night [don’t be swallowed up by ignorance and confusion], when people are cut off in their place.
21 Take heed, regard not iniquity: for this have you chosen rather than affliction.
22 Behold, God exalts by his power: who teaches like him?
23 Who has enjoined him his way? or who can say, You have wrought iniquity?
24 Remember that you magnify his work, which men behold.
25 Every man may see it; man may behold it afar off.
26 Behold, God is great, and we know him not, neither can the number of his years be searched out.
27 For he makes small the drops of water: they pour down rain according to the vapor [the elements that were separated and held in the cloud] thereof:
28 Which the clouds do drop and distil upon man abundantly.
29 Also can any understand the spreading of the clouds, or the noise [the thunder of His voice giving understanding] of his tabernacle?
30 Behold, he spreads his light [understanding] upon it, and covers the bottom of the sea [and covers humanity in it – in understanding].
31 For by them judges he the people; he gives meat in abundance.
32 With clouds he covers the light; and commands it not to shine by the cloud that comes betwixt.
33 The noise [voice] thereof shows concerning it, the cattle [the flocks of men, as in Ezekiel 36:38 above] also concerning the vapor [concerning the elements – the uncorrupted foundational ideas].

Ezekiel 37
1 The hand of the LORD was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones,
2 And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open [paniym – before the LORD’s presence] valley; and, lo, they were very dry.
3 And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O LORD God, you know.
4 Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O you dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.
5 Thus says the LORD God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live:
6 And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the LORD.
7 So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise [qowl – the voice of God], and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone.
8 And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them.
9 Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus says the LORD God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.
10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.
11 Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.
12 Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus says the LORD God; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.
13 And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves,
14 And shall put my spirit in you, and you shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall you know that I the LORD have spoken it, and performed it, says the LORD.
15 The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,
16 Moreover, you son of man, take you one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim and for all the house of Israel his companions:
17 And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in your hand.
18 And when the children of your people shall speak unto you, saying, Will you not show us what you meanest by these?
19 Say unto them, Thus says the LORD God; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand.
20 And the sticks whereon you write shall be in your hand before their eyes.
21 And say unto them, Thus says the LORD God; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land:
22 And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all.
23 Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwelling-places, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God.
24 And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them.
25 And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children’s children for ever: and my servant David shall be their prince for ever.
26 Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore.
27 My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
28 And the heathen shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.

Remember, paniym, when rendered “before,” is speaking of before the LORD’s presence and work are known to be Him and His, and, when rendered “face,” speaks of when it is, or should be, known to be Him.

Amos 9
1 I saw the LORD standing upon the altar: and he said, Smite the lintel of the door, that the posts may shake: and cut them in the head, all of them; and I will slay the last of them with the sword: he that flees of them shall not flee away, and he that escapes of them shall not be delivered.
2 Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down:
3 And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence; and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them:
4 And though they go into captivity before [paniym] their enemies, thence will I command the sword, and it shall slay them: and I will set mine eyes upon them for evil, and not for good.
5 And the LORD God of hosts is he that touches the land, and it shall melt, and all that dwell therein shall mourn: and it shall rise up wholly like a flood; and shall be drowned, as by the flood of Egypt.
6 It is he that builds his stories in the heaven, and has founded his troop in the earth; he that calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out upon the face [paniym] of the earth: The LORD is his name.
7 Are you not as children of the Ethiopians [covered in darkness] unto me, O children of Israel? says the LORD. Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt? and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?
8 Behold, the eyes of the LORD God are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face [paniym] of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, says the LORD.
9 For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.
10 All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say, The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us.
11 In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old:
12 That they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen, which are called by my name, says the LORD that does this.
13 Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, 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.

Psalms 56
1 Be merciful unto me, O God: for man would swallow me up [sha’aph]; he fighting daily oppress me.
2 Mine enemies would daily swallow me up [sha’aph]: for they be many that fight against me, O you Most High.
3 What time I am afraid, I will trust in you.
4 In God I will praise his word, in God I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do unto me.
5 Every day they wrest my words: all their thoughts are against me for evil.
6 They gather themselves together, they hide themselves, they mark my steps, when they wait for my soul.
7 Shall they escape by iniquity? in your anger cast down the people, O God.
8 You tell my wanderings: put you my tears into your bottle: are they not in your book?
9 When I cry unto you, then shall mine enemies turn back: this I know; for God is for me.
10 In God will I praise his word: in the LORD will I praise his word.
11 In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do unto me.
12 Your vows are upon me, O God: I will render praises unto you.
13 For you have delivered my soul from death: will not you deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before [paniym] God in the light [understanding] of the living?

Psalms 57
1 Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusts in you: yea, in the shadow of your wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be over-past.
2 I will cry unto God most high; unto God that performs all things for me.
3 He shall send from heaven, and save me from the reproach of him that would swallow me up [sha’aph]. Selah. God shall send forth his mercy and his truth.
4 My soul is among lions: and I lie even among them that are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.
5 Be you exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be above all the earth.
6 They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down: they have digged a pit before [paniym] me, into the midst whereof they are fallen themselves. Selah.
7 My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise.
8 Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early.
9 I will praise you, O LORD, among the people: I will sing unto you among the nations.
10 For your mercy is great unto the heavens, and your truth unto the clouds.
11 Be you exalted, O God, above the heavens: let your glory be above all the earth.

And I said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, The work is great and large, and we are separated upon the wall, one far from another. In what place therefore you hear the sound of the trumpet, resort you thither unto us: our God shall fight for us.

We must admit that conservatism (the foundations of the law of nature and nature’s God) has come under significant attack, and if not in full retreat, it is at best in a wholly defensive posture. As defined here, conservatism is a product of proven truths that become self-evident in the experience (the experiment or trial) of life, each time repeating their validity.

The only thing that can and does attack them (these proven maxims) is the lie, the redefinition (alteration – blurring) of reality, in the process or outcome.

I contend that the only time conservatism fails is when it’s abandoned and not defended. I also posit this has occurred, the city overrun, its gates and wall burned and in ruin.

The city is Jerusalem, whose name comes from two Hebrew words that define it as civilized: in peace through willing acceptance and vigilant dissemination of the foundations that create it. These principles are the wall that secures her and receiving them with understanding, her gates that must be guarded.

Here again, are the words from the Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary:

Jerusalem: #3389: Yruwshalaim (pronounced yer-oo-shaw-lah’-im); rarely Yruwshalayim {yer-oo- shaw-lah’-yim}; a dual (in allusion to its two main hills (the true pointing, at least of the former reading, seems to be that of 3390)); probably from (the passive participle of) 3384 and 7999; founded peaceful; Jerushalaim or Jerushalem, the capital city of Palestine.

Jeru from: #3384: yarah (pronounced yaw-raw’); or (2 Chr. 26:15) yara’; {yaw-raw’}; a primitive root; properly, to flow as water (i.e. to rain); transitively, to lay or throw (especially an arrow, i.e. to shoot); figuratively, to point out (as if by aiming the finger), to teach.

Salem from: #7999: shalam (pronounced shaw-lam’); a primitive root; to be safe (in mind, body or estate); figuratively, to be (causatively, make) completed; by implication, to be friendly; by extension, to reciprocate (in various applications).

These principles are the foundation of these United States of America, from The Declaration of Independence proclaiming them to the world, to the Constitution and Bill of Rights in which they are codified and protected. They are the ideas we “Conserve,” because without them and without a just government to secure them, there can be no justice, peace, or civilization. (Abandoning them for any other form of government is oppression, sanctioned victimization of the powerless.)

Understanding the attack, the lie, the denial of reality, must be the focus of our defense. It’s to this point we must gather as one united force combating its always focused violent aggression.

Every attach begins with a lie, the only (increasingly emboldened) weapon of the wicked, which they use to accuse all who refuse to accept their false premise. The evil’s strategy is to undermine unity, separate allies through fear of their accusation. Remember, everyone knows these are known liars telling known lies. Still, the lie is accepted out of fear of the resulting assault: the violence of false accusations, which the fearful hope to avoid but never do.

(Pet peeve – people that should be allies, who always seem to find a way to give a condescending backhand to those the liars accuse, so that they can prove their open-mindedness through complicit dissembling. This tactic is an unnecessary surrender, which only undermines and weakens the overall defense. Again, it’s a lack of unity, a lack of fidelity, and betrays a character void of honor.)

In the title verses, Nehemiah 4:19 & 20, Nehemiah tells of the unified and focused defense. Earlier, he speaks of the enemies attempting to join in the work, to undermine and stop it, but were found out.

Nehemiah 4
8 And conspired all of them together to come and to fight against Jerusalem, and to hinder it.
9 Nevertheless we made our prayer unto our God, and set a watch against them day and night, because of them.
10 And Judah said, The strength of the bearers of burdens is decayed, and there is much rubbish; so that we are not able to build the wall.
11 And our adversaries said, They shall not know, neither see, till we come in the midst among them, and slay them, and cause the work to cease.
12 And it came to pass, that when the Jews which dwelt by them came, they said unto us ten times, From all places whence you shall return unto us they will be upon you.
13 Therefore set I in the lower places behind the wall, and on the higher places, I even set the people after their families with their swords, their spears, and their bows.
14 And I looked, and rose up, and said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, Be not you afraid of them: remember the LORD, which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your houses.
15 And it came to pass, when our enemies heard that it was known unto us, and God had brought their counsel to naught, that we returned all of us to the wall, every one unto his work.
16 And it came to pass from that time forth, that the half of my servants wrought in the work, and the other half of them held both the spears, the shields, and the bows, and the habergeons; and the rulers were behind all the house of Judah.
17 They which built on the wall, and they that bare burdens, with those that laded, every one with one of his hands wrought in the work, and with the other hand held a weapon.
18 For the builders, every one had his sword girded by his side, and so built. And he that sounded the trumpet was by me.
19 And I said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, The work is great and large, and we are separated upon the wall, one far from another.
20 In what place therefore you hear the sound of the trumpet, resort you thither unto us: our God shall fight for us.
21 So we labored in the work: and half of them held the spears from the rising of the morning till the stars appeared.
22 Likewise at the same time said I unto the people, Let every one with his servant lodge within Jerusalem, that in the night they may be a guard to us, and labor on the day.
23 So neither I, nor my brethren, nor my servants, nor the men of the guard which followed me, none of us put off our clothes, saving that every one put them off for washing.

Friends, if we are to save our Republic, recover the now barren scepter left in the hands of demagogues turned tyrants, we must rebuild the city, starting with her wall and gates.

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 [yshuw’ah].
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 [paniym] the wind: and let the angel of the LORD chase them.
6 Let their way be dark and slippery: and let the angel of the LORD persecute them.
7 For without cause have they hid for me their net in a pit, which without cause they have digged for my soul.
8 Let destruction come upon him at unawares; and let his net that he has hid catch himself: into that very destruction let him fall.
9 And my soul shall be joyful in the LORD: it shall rejoice in his salvation [yshuw’ah].
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 has seen it.
22 This you have seen, O LORD: keep not silence: O LORD, be not far from me.
23 Stir up yourself, and awake to my judgment, even unto my cause, my God and my LORD.
24 Judge me, O LORD my God, according to your righteousness; and let them not rejoice over me.
25 Let them not say in their hearts, Ah, so would we have it: let them not say, We have swallowed him up.
26 Let them be ashamed and brought to confusion together that rejoice at mine hurt: let them be clothed with shame and dishonor that magnify themselves against me.
27 Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favor my righteous cause: yea, let them say continually, Let the LORD be magnified, which has pleasure in the prosperity of his servant.
28 And my tongue shall speak of your righteousness and of your praise all the day long.

The word in verse 15 above, rendered “abjects,” is the one time used Hebrew word nekeh, meaning, “from 5221 [nakah]; a smiter, i.e. (figuratively) traducer.” This is the Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition of traduce: “1: to expose to shame or blame by means of falsehood and misrepresentation; 2: VIOLATE, BETRAY – traduce a principle of law.”

It must be made known that every word of these enemies (communists, Democrats, globalist elites, political betrayers, their fake news media, and their anti-social media), every accusation, is a tactical lie, meant to marginalize, undermine, manipulate, to control and victimize. They are known liars (FAKE NEWS AND FALSE ACCUSERS) telling known lies. Stop listening to them! Anyone who does listen to these abjects, is either a fellow liar (who also knows the lie is a lie) receiving the next lie they should all broadcast. They know they’re lies, we know, everyone knows: they’re snares, and traps with which they fish for men, to consume the ignorant and deceived.

How many years of lies does it take before everyone stops listening? Stop giving credibility to the lies?

America is not under attack from Trump supporters! It is under attack from the Establishment (deep state) and their Communist allies, foreign and domestic enemies! Their weapons are deception and fraud, lies and false accusation, absolute denials of known reality, insanity, and delusions that only exist in their deluded minds!

These are the enemies, who bear this mark of deceit, the mark the LORD put upon Cain. The word nakah is first used, in Genesis 4:15, in telling of the mark of Cain, the ‘owth, which we are told is so no man would “kill him.” This ‘owth is later, in Genesis 9:12, 13, & 17, rendered “token” in telling of the bow the LORD put in the cloud, meaning He divided the light and from it showed the many colors in the bow.

The intentional meaning is described as the LORD says; by this means, He will give understanding through the light and rain. As we know, this speaks of the elements of understanding separated, leaving the earth and held (reserved) in the cloud. From there, they are reassemble and sent again, as the latter rain in these ends of ages. And after the rain, when the light has come, what is in it (the token) is seen.

The “token” signifies that God wouldn’t destroy the ignorant but would correct, and the effects of their ignorance wouldn’t destroy any who received His correction. Cain’s mark is that he refuses correction, and chooses to perish, by his choice to go headlong into self-destruction.

In the days of Noah, the “token” came after the final seven days in the ark (as in the seven days of unleavened bread – removing the corruption), when the dove didn’t return, and Noah (all with him) returned to the earth.

Genesis 9
8 And God spoke unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying,
9 And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you;
10 And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.
11 And I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.
12 And God said, This is the token [‘owth] of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:
13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token [‘owth] of a covenant between me and the earth.
14 And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:
15 And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.
17 And God said unto Noah, This is the token [‘owth] of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.
18 And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan [the character of Cain continued through Ham – his name meaning great agitation, into destruction – the Hebrew Lexicon says it mean he is burnt by the sun {the returning light – melting away in the heat of its fires}].

This ‘owth is later, in Numbers 16:38, rendered “sign” when speaking of the sons of Korah (Levites – as Leviathan, flowing corrupt rivers into the sea, words into God’s people at large) offered unacceptable fire from their censers. The earth opened her mouth and swallowed these men, “and there came out a fire from the LORD, and consumed” the men who offered corruption.

Numbers 16
10 And he has brought you near to him, and all your brethren the sons of Levi with you: and seek you the priesthood also?
11 For which cause both you and all your company are gathered together against the LORD: and what is Aaron, that you murmur against him?
12 And Moses sent to call Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab: which said, We will not come up:
13 Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land that flows with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, except you make yourself altogether a prince over us?
14 Moreover you have not brought us into a land that flows with milk and honey, or given us inheritance of fields and vineyards: will you put out the eyes of these men? we will not come up.
15 And Moses was very wroth, and said unto the LORD, Respect not you their offering: I have not taken one ass from them, neither have I hurt one of them.
16 And Moses said unto Korah, Be you and all your company before [paniym] the LORD, you, and they, and Aaron, to morrow:
17 And take every man his censer, and put incense in them, and bring you before [paniym] the LORD every man his censer, two hundred and fifty censers; you also, and Aaron, each of you his censer.
18 And they took every man his censer, and put fire in them, and laid incense thereon, and stood in the door of the tabernacle of the congregation [mow’ed – at the time appointed] with Moses and Aaron.
19 And Korah gathered all the congregation against them unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation [mow’ed – at the time appointed]: and the glory of the LORD appeared unto all the congregation.
20 And the LORD spoke unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying,
21 Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment.
22 And they fell upon their faces [paniym – realizing it was the presence of God], and said, O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and will you be wroth with all the congregation?
23 And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying,
24 Speak unto the congregation, saying, Get you up from about the tabernacle of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.
25 And Moses rose up and went unto Dathan and Abiram; and the elders of Israel followed him.
26 And he spoke unto the congregation, saying, Depart, I pray you, from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest you be consumed in all their sins.
27 So they gat up from the tabernacle of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, on every side: and Dathan and Abiram came out, and stood in the door of their tents, and their wives, and their sons, and their little children.
28 And Moses said, Hereby you shall know that the LORD has sent me to do all these works; for I have not done them of mine own mind.
29 If these men die the common death of all men, or if they be visited after the visitation of all men; then the LORD has not sent me.
30 But if the LORD make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, with all that appertain unto them, and they go down quick into the pit; then you shall understand that these men have provoked the LORD.
31 And it came to pass, as he had made an end of speaking all these words, that the ground clave asunder that was under them:
32 And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods.
33 They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation.
34 And all Israel that were round about them fled at the cry of them: for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also.
35 And there came out a fire from the LORD, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense.
36 And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying,
37 Speak unto Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest, that he take up the censers out of the burning, and scatter you the fire yonder; for they are hallowed.
38 The censers of these sinners against their own souls, let them make them broad plates for a covering of the altar: for they offered them before [paniym] the LORD, therefore they are hallowed: and they shall be a sign [‘owth] unto the children of Israel.
39 And Eleazar the priest took the brazen censers, wherewith they that were burnt had offered; and they were made broad plates for a covering of the altar:
40 To be a memorial unto the children of Israel, that no stranger, which is not of the seed of Aaron, come near to offer incense before [paniym] the LORD; that he be not as Korah, and as his company: as the LORD said to him by the hand of Moses.
41 But on the morrow all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, saying, You have killed the people of the LORD.
42 And it came to pass, when the congregation was gathered against Moses and against Aaron, that they looked toward the tabernacle of the congregation [mow’ed – at the time appointed]: and, behold, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the LORD appeared.
43 And Moses and Aaron came before [paniym] the tabernacle of the congregation [mow’ed – at the time appointed].
44 And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying,
45 Get you up from among this congregation, that I may consume them as in a moment. And they fell upon their faces [paniym – realizing it was the LORD’s presence].
46 And Moses said unto Aaron, Take a censer, and put fire therein from off the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly unto the congregation, and make an atonement for them: for there is wrath gone out from [paniym] the LORD; the plague is begun.
47 And Aaron took as Moses commanded, and ran into the midst of the congregation; and, behold, the plague was begun among the people: and he put on incense, and made an atonement for the people.
48 And he stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stayed.

Jude, in Jude 1:11, speaks of Cain, in a pattern of those who, “despise dominion and speak evil of dignities,” who perish in the “gainsaying” of Korah. These are later described, quoting Enoch, saying they are speaking against the LORD. As we know, Jude, in verse 23, says we should pull (harpazo) people from these fires, telling them they should fear the LORD because they are with those speaking against Him.

Jude 1
3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only LORD God, and our LORD Jesus Christ.
5 I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you once knew this, how that the LORD, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.
6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
8 Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.
9 Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The LORD rebuke you.
10 But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.
11 Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core [korah].
12 These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;
13 Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.
14 And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the LORD comes with ten thousands of his saints,
15 To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.
16 These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage.
17 But, beloved, remember you the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our LORD Jesus Christ;
18 How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.
19 These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.
20 But you, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,
21 Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our LORD Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
22 And of some have compassion, making a difference:
23 And others save with fear, pulling [harpazo – the “caught up” of 1 Thessalonians 4:17 – which is twisted into a rapture by those who will perish by following such false doctrines to their own end – they should fear, and not despise the LORD’s dominion] them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.
24 Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,
25 To the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

The word “gainsaying,” in verse 11 above, is the Greek antilogia, which only appears four times, meaning, “from a derivative of 483 [antilego]; dispute, disobedience.”

The word (antilogia – the words of antichrists, spoken against Him) is rendered “contradiction” in Hebrews 12:3. There it tells of the course now set before us.

Hebrews 12
1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 For consider him that endured such contradiction [antilogia] of sinners against himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your minds.
4 You have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.
5 And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks unto you as unto children, My son, despise not you the chastening of the LORD, nor faint when you are rebuked of him:
6 For whom the LORD loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives.
7 If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chastens not?

22 But you [by this correction, by removing the leaven of corruption] are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living [zao] God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels [who have seen God and are sent to preach His word],
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.

The word antilego, used eleven times, meaning to dispute or refuse, is used, in Luke 2:34, in telling of this word as a sign that shall be “spoken against,” which shall reveal the thoughts of many hearts (the foundational ideas – elements). As we know, these ideas are the elements, the stoicheion, Peter speaks of in 2 Peter 3, which melt away. He goes on to tell of those who perish by wrestling with this word of God, as they do with all scripture, to their own destruction (apoleia – perdition, the sons of).

2 Peter 3
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 [apoleia] 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 [stoicheion – the corrupt foundational ideas and ways of men] 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 [stoicheion] 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 wrestle, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction [apoleia – perdition].
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 forever. Amen.

Luke 2
34 And Simeon [who has heard and followed the word of God] blessed them, and said unto Mary [the rebel now returned] his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against [antilego];
35 (Yea, a sword shall pierce through your own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.

Paul uses the word antilego in Romans 10:21 as he quotes Isaiah 65:2, both speaking of the LORD continually stretching out His hand to (pull from the fire) a “disobedient and gainsaying [antilego] people.”

Romans 10
13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the LORD shall be saved.
14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
15 And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!
16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, LORD, who has believed our report?
17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
18 But I say, Have they not heard? Yes truly, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.
19 But I say, Did not Israel know? First Moses says, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you.
20 But Isaiah is very bold, and says, I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me.
21 But to Israel he says, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying [antilego] people.

In Isaiah 65:2 the final verse above is rendered, “I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walks in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts;” verse 3 then saying, “A people that provokes me to anger continually to my face.”

The word face is paniym, and as we’ve seen in recent posts, this is speaking of what should be by now the KNOWN presence of the LORD.

Friends, the religious, the incorrigibly rebellious, will never change. They’re waiting on the lie to become true, with is a logical impossibility. They are going to “church” themselves right into the destruction in the fires they’ve created, wrestling with it to their own destruction (apoleia).

Psalms 62
1 Truly my soul wait upon God: from him comes my salvation [yshuw’ah].
2 He only is my rock and my salvation [yshuw’ah]; he is my defense; I shall not be greatly moved.
3 How long will you imagine mischief against a man? you shall be slain all of you: as a bowing wall shall you be, and as a tottering fence.
4 They only consult to cast him down from his excellency: they delight in lies: they bless with their mouth, but they curse inwardly. Selah.
5 My soul, wait you only upon God; for my expectation is from him.
6 He only is my rock and my salvation [yshuw’ah]: he is my defense; I shall not be moved.
7 In God is my salvation and my glory: the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God.
8 Trust in him at all times; you people, pour out your heart before [paniym] him: God is a refuge for us. Selah.
9 Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie: to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity.
10 Trust not in oppression, and become not vain in robbery: if riches increase, set not your heart upon them.
11 God has spoken once; twice have I heard this; that power belongs unto God.
12 Also unto you, O LORD, belongs mercy: for you render to every man according to his work.