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The bands of the wicked have robbed me: but I have not forgotten your law. At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto you because of your righteous judgments.

The above, Psalms 119:61 & 62, speaks of what opposes and exalts itself against the LORD’s Righteous Judgment, which comes as He rises, in us for this purpose, in and from the darkness the same wicked men have caused. The word “robbed” is from the Hebrew word ‘uwd, meaning to repeat, here as in the wicked witnessing against the LORD with the same arguments, which to those who have received the LORD’s words, have been shown to be lies. We have many times seen these are the damnable heresies, creations brought in privily, from the imaginations of wicked men, who Peter, in 2 Peter 2:1, says are false teachers among God’s people, because of whom the way of truth is evil spoken of (2 Peter 2:2).

In Psalms119 above we see it is in this darkness, in the midst of the night, that we rise by remembering the LORD and by keeping His word, which He tells us in John 14:23 is how He will manifest Himself to us and not to the world.

John 14
15 If you love me, keep my commandments.
16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it sees him not, neither knows him: but you know him; for he dwells with you, and shall be in you.
18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
19 Yet a little while, and the world sees me no more; but you see me: because I live, you shall live also.
20 At that day you shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
21 He that has my commandments, and keeps 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 – representing the rulers of God’s people] said unto him, not Iscariot, LORD, how is it that you will manifest yourself unto us, and not unto the world?
23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
24 He that loves me not keeps not my sayings: and the word which you hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.
25 These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you.
26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world gives, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
28 You have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If you loved me, you would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.
29 And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, you might believe.
30 Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world comes, and has nothing in me.

Psalms 119
33 Teach me, O LORD, the way of your statutes; and I shall keep it unto the end.
34 Give me understanding, and I shall keep your law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart.
35 Make me to go in the path of your commandments; for therein do I delight.
36 Incline my heart unto your testimonies, and not to covetousness.
37 Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken you me in your way.
38 Stablish your word unto your servant, who is devoted to your fear.
39 Turn away my reproach which I fear: for your judgments are good.
40 Behold, I have longed after your precepts: quicken me in your righteousness.
41 Let your mercies come also unto me, O LORD, even your salvation, according to your word.
42 So shall I have wherewith to answer him that reproaches me: for I trust in your word.
43 And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth; for I have hoped in your judgments.
44 So shall I keep your law continually for ever and ever.
45 And I will walk at liberty: for I seek your precepts.
46 I will speak of your testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed.
47 And I will delight myself in your commandments, which I have loved.
48 My hands also will I lift up unto your commandments, which I have loved; and I will meditate in your statutes.
49 Remember the word unto your servant, upon which you have caused me to hope.
50 This is my comfort in my affliction: for your word has quickened me.
51 The proud have had me greatly in derision: yet have I not declined from your law.
52 I remembered your judgments of old, O LORD; and have comforted myself.
53 Horror has taken hold upon me because of the wicked that forsake your law.
54 Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.
55 I have remembered your name, O LORD, in the night, and have kept your law.
56 This I had, because I kept your precepts.
57 You are my portion, O LORD: I have said that I would keep your words.
58 I entreated your favor with my whole heart: be merciful unto me according to your word.
59 I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto your testimonies.
60 I made haste, and delayed not to keep your commandments.
61 The bands of the wicked have robbed [‘uwd] me: but I have not forgotten your law.
62 At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto you because of your righteous judgments.
63 I am a companion of all them that fear you, and of them that keep your precepts.
64 The earth, O LORD, is full of your mercy: teach me your statutes.

Friends, we know this is the LORD telling of overcoming the wicked, those who’ve been disobedient to His commands and have come up (exalted themselves) with their own doctrine, and now use them to argue against this manifestation of His person and presence. We know these opposing forces are principalities and powers, the spiritually wicked in high places, who we war against because they refuse to release those they hold captive, keeping them down, from rising from the graves they call churches, from joining with the LORD at His appearing and kingdom.

This is our ministry, to open the eyes and ears of those held in darkness, to rescue them from the power that now works in children of disobedience and blinds them to this glorious gospel of Christ, the LORD alive in us, Who seeks to rise in them as well.

2 Corinthians 3
12 Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:
13 And not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:
14 But their minds were blinded: for until this day remains [the inability to see and hear, understand, the LORD alive in us, as He was in Moses, speaking as His actual voice] the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ.
15 But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.
16 Nevertheless when it shall turn to the LORD [when they realize, when they receive, the word as His word], the vail shall be taken away.
17 Now the LORD is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the LORD is, there is liberty.
18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the LORD, are changed into the same image [Christ in us and them] from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the LORD.

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

Ephesians 2
1 And you has he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
2 Wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince [see John 14:30 above – the one who keeps God’s people from seeing and hearing Him when He manifests Himself] of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience:
3 Among whom also we all had our conversation [the habits and word these men teach – their own creations] in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
5 Even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together with Christ, (by grace you are saved;)
6 And has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
8 For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them.
11 Wherefore remember, that you being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;
12 That at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:
13 But now in Christ Jesus you who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
14 For he is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of partition between us;
15 Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;
16 And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:
17 And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.
18 For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.
19 Now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God;
20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;
21 In whom all the building fitly framed together grows unto a holy temple in the LORD:
22 In whom you also are built together for a habitation of God through the Spirit.

Friends, our mission, to bring these things to be remembered by God’s people, to those who once knew them but have now fallen asleep.

Proverbs 6
9 How long will you sleep, O sluggard? when will you arise out of your sleep?
10 Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep:
11 So shall your poverty come as one that travels, and your want as an armed man.
12 A naughty person, a wicked man, walks with a froward mouth [a mouth twisting truth].
13 He winks with his eyes, he speaks with his feet, he teaches with his fingers;
14 Frowardness is in his heart, he devises mischief continually; he sows discord.
15 Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly; suddenly shall he be broken without remedy.
16 These six things does the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:
17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
18 A heart that devises wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,
19 A false witness that speaks lies, and he that sows discord among brethren.
20 My son, keep your father’s commandment, and forsake not the law of your mother:
21 Bind them continually upon your heart, and tie them about your neck.
22 When you go, it shall lead you; when you sleep, it shall keep you; and when you awake, it shall talk with you.
23 For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life:
24 To keep you from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman.
25 Lust not after her beauty in your heart; neither let her take you with her eyelids.
26 For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread: and the adultress [the unfaithful, the church now fully leavened by the corruption these men worked in, until the whole lump was corrupt] will hunt for the precious life.
27 Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?
28 Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned?
29 So he that goes in to his neighbor’s wife; whosoever touches her shall not be innocent.

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

The word rendered “inspiration,” in verse 16 above, is theopneustos, only appearing here, and should more accurately represent a stand (stoa – stao) of God’s (Theos) Spirit (Pneuma). It is describing the mind of God manifested as the LORD takes up, reiterates, His position – which takes us back to the Hebrew word ‘uwd.

Here is the Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary definition: #5749: `uwd (pronounced ood) a primitive root; to duplicate or repeat; by implication, to protest, testify (as by reiteration); intensively, to encompass, restore (as a sort of reduplication):–admonish, charge, earnestly, lift up, protest, call (take) to record, relieve, rob, solemnly, stand upright, testify, give warning, (bear, call to, give, take to) witness.

In this definition, we see the deeper meaning in the men who the translators of Psalms 119 described as wicked robbers. The word ‘uwd is used forty-five time, and described the words of men who oppose God as He speaks to them by His Spirit in men; the word also used to describe the testimony of the LORD that comes in this way. (Remember the number forty-five is the number of years between the spies returning the unfaithful report of seeing the Anakim as giants, and the taking of Hebron [association – how the mind sees] the city where these so-called giants resided. Joshua 14:10)

Nehemiah 9 uses the word ‘uwd four times, verse 26, 29, 30, & 34, and describes why our land and God’s people have degenerated into such a fallen, weak, and sick state. (They have been here for so long they believe and teach this hell, which these men’s ideas and leadership have caused, is normal.)

Nehemiah 9
…Stand up and bless the LORD your God for ever and ever: and blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise.
6 You, even you, are LORD alone; you have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and you preserves them all; and the host of heaven worship you.
7 You are the LORD the God, who did choose Abram, and brought him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and gave him the name of Abraham;
8 And found his heart faithful before you, and made a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Jebusites, and the Girgashites, to give it, I say, to his seed, and have performed your words; for you are righteous:
9 And did see the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heard their cry by the Red sea;
10 And shewed signs and wonders upon Pharaoh, and on all his servants, and on all the people of his land: for you knew that they dealt proudly against them. So did you get you a name, as it is this day.
11 And you did divide the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on the dry land; and their persecutors you threw into the deeps, as a stone into the mighty waters.
12 Moreover you led them in the day by a cloudy pillar; and in the night by a pillar of fire, to give them light in the way wherein they should go.
13 You came down also upon mount Sinai, and spoke with them from heaven, and gave them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments:
14 And made known unto them your holy Sabbath, and commanded them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses your servant:
15 And gave them bread [this word of God, which they knew not what it was] from heaven for their hunger, and brought forth water for them out of the rock [the Rock which was Christ in Moses speaking] for their thirst, and promised them that they should go in to possess the land which you had sworn to give them.
16 But they and our fathers dealt proudly, and hardened their necks, and hearkened not to your commandments,
17 And refused to obey, neither were mindful of your wonders that you did among them; but hardened their necks, and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage: but you are a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and forsook them not.
18 Yea, when they had made them a molten calf, and said, This is your God that brought you up out of Egypt, and had wrought great provocations;
19 Yet you in your manifold mercies forsook them not in the wilderness: the pillar of the cloud departed not from them by day, to lead them in the way; neither the pillar of fire by night, to shew them light, and the way wherein they should go.
20 You gave also your good spirit to instruct them, and withheld not your manna [which they knew not that it was the word of God, by which man lives] from their mouth, and gave them water for their thirst.
21 Yea, forty years did you sustain them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing; their clothes waxed not old, and their feet swelled not.
22 Moreover you gave them kingdoms and nations, and did divide them into corners: so they possessed the land of Sihon, and the land of the king of Heshbon, and the land of Og king of Bashan.
23 Their children also multiplied you as the stars of heaven, and brought them into the land, concerning which you had promised to their fathers, that they should go in to possess it.
24 So the children went in and possessed the land, and you subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gave them into their hands, with their kings, and the people of the land, that they might do with them as they would.
25 And they took strong cities, and a fat land, and possessed houses full of all goods, wells digged, vineyards, and olive-yards, and fruit trees in abundance: so they did eat, and were filled, and became fat, and delighted themselves in your great goodness.
26 Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against you, and cast your law behind their backs, and slew your prophets which testified [‘uwd] against them to turn them to you, and they wrought great provocations.
27 Therefore you delivered them into the hand of their enemies, who vexed them: and in the time of their trouble, when they cried unto you, you heard them from heaven; and according to your manifold mercies you gave them saviors, who saved them out of the hand of their enemies.
28 But after they had rest, they did evil again before you: therefore left you them in the land of their enemies, so that they had the dominion over them: yet when they returned, and cried unto you, you heard them from heaven; and many times did you deliver them according to your mercies;
29 And testified [‘uwd] against them, that you might bring them again unto your law: yet they dealt proudly, and hearkened not unto your commandments, but sinned against your judgments, (which if a man do, he shall live in them;) and withdrew the shoulder, and hardened their neck, and would not hear.
30 Yet many years did you forbear them, and testified [‘uwd] against them by your spirit in your prophets: yet would they not give ear: therefore gave you them into the hand of the people of the lands.
31 Nevertheless for your great mercies’ sake you did not utterly consume them, nor forsake them; for you are a gracious and merciful God.
32 Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the terrible God, who keeps covenant and mercy, let not all the trouble seem little before you, that has come upon us, on our kings, on our princes, and on our priests, and on our prophets, and on our fathers, and on all your people, since the time of the kings of Assyria [the communists] unto this day.
33 Howbeit you are just in all that is brought upon us; for you have done right, but we have done wickedly:
34 Neither have our kings, our princes, our priests, nor our fathers, kept your law, nor hearkened unto your commandments and your testimonies, wherewith you did testify [‘uwd] against them.
35 For they have not served you in their kingdom, and in your great goodness that you gave them, and in the large and fat land which you gave before them, neither turned they from their wicked works.

Friends, the condition of this nation, which was once under God, is caused by it now being under the control of all those who oppose God and exalt themselves above Him. I am speaking of those in whom now works the spirit of disobedience, many calling on the name of the LORD while they are the enemies of His character and reject His reproofs.

Malachi 3
1 Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the LORD, whom you seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom you delight in: behold, he shall come, says the LORD of hosts.
2 But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appears [ra’ah – the same word rendered “discern” in verse 18 below]? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap:
3 And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.
4 Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the LORD, as in the days of old, and as in former years.
5 And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, says the LORD of hosts.
6 For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed.
7 Even from the days of your fathers you are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, says the LORD of hosts. But you said, Wherein shall we return?
8 Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed me. But you say, Wherein have we robbed you? In tithes and offerings.
9 You are cursed with a curse: for you have robbed me, even this whole nation.
10 Bring you all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
11 And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, says the LORD of hosts.
12 And all nations shall call you blessed: for you shall be a delightsome land, says the LORD of hosts.
13 Your words have been stout against me, says the LORD. Yet you say, What have we spoken so much against you?
14 You have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the LORD of hosts?
15 And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered.
16 Then they that feared the LORD spoke often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name.
17 And they shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spares his own son that serves him.
18 Then shall you return, and discern [ra’ah – then shall appear the defference] between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serves God and him that serves him not.

Malachi 4
1 For, behold, the day comes, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that comes shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
2 But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and you shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.
3 And you shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, says the LORD of hosts.
4 Remember you the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb [where the waters flowed from the Rock, Christ washing away the ideas/ways of our captivity] for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.
5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD:
6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do your will, O my God: yea, your law is within my heart.

The above is Psalms 40:7 & 8 and tells of the offering the LORD desires, to find our purpose in His words and realize His intention is to produce understanding, the power that effectually works in us, to in His name overcome the world.

The author continues by describing the effect, saying, “9 I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips, O LORD, you know. 10 I have not hid your righteousness within my heart; I have declared your faithfulness and your salvation: I have not concealed your loving-kindness and your truth from the great congregation.”

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

Friends, what we see above is a declaration of the righteousness of God, a product of understanding that abandons self-righteousness and sacrifices self as the necessary price of conveying the message as received. It is in this context Paul penned Roman 10, wherein he quotes the above-mentioned verses of Psalms 40.

Here following is Romans 10, preceded by Romans 9 telling of this understanding now only lighting on God’s elect remnant, because the vast majority of God’s people lack an understanding that produces the faith to believe and publicly confess what has been seen and heard. We then see Romans 10 ends with quoting Isaiah 65:2 which describes the LORD stretching forth His hand to His people who remain in disobedience and unbelief, and Romans 11 describing our part in God solution, which results in their salvation and deliverance. It is all dependent upon our faith, and the courage to publicly declare it. “You see then how that by works a man is justified [dikaioo – shown/rendered righteous], and not by faith only.” (James 2:24)

Romans 9
22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
23 And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
24 Even us, whom he has called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
25 As he says also in Hosea, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.
26 And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, You are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God.
27 Isaiah also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved:
28 For he will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the LORD make upon the earth.
29 And as Isaiah said before, Except the LORD of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodom, and been made like unto Gomorrah.
30 What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith.
31 But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness.
32 Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling-stone;
33 As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumbling-stone and rock of offence: and whosoever believes on him shall not be ashamed.

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 themselves unto the righteousness of God.
4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes.
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 verily, 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.

Romans 11
1 I say then, Has God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
2 God has not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot you not what the scripture says of Elijah? how he makes intercession to God against Israel saying,
3 LORD, they have killed your prophets, and digged down your altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.
4 But what says the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal.
5 Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.
6 And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.
7 What then? Israel has not obtained that which he seeks for; but the election has obtained it, and the rest were blinded.
8 (According as it is written, God has given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day.
9 And David says, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumbling-block, and a recompense unto them:
10 Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back always.
11 I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.
12 Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fullness?
13 For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:
14 If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them.
15 For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?
16 For if the first-fruit [the elect remnant] be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches.
17 And if some of the branches be broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partake of the root and fatness of the olive tree;
18 Boast not against the branches. But if you boast, you bear not the root, but the root you.
19 You will say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in.
20 Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear:
21 For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not you.
22 Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in his goodness: otherwise you also shall be cut off.
23 And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again.
24 For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
25 For I would not, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.
26 And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:
27 For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.
28 As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the father’s sakes.
29 For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.
30 For as you in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief:
31 Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.
32 For God has concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.
33 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
34 For who has known the mind of the LORD? or who has been his counsellor?
35 Or who has first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?
36 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

All the following is from the post of 5 September 2018:

Friends, these false teachers have been teaching and learning corruption for so long they have no idea what they don’t know, because it can’t be learned by their means. These are things that are only leaned in the liberty of the Spirit, by those who the LORD sends to lead them into all truth. This is the Spirit in me/us, sent for this purpose. These men and their teaching, the blinded who have refused to turn to the LORD, can lead no place except into darkness. They keep God’s people from rising to meet Him, and will hold them down (katecho) until they are taken out of the way. We have not been warned of these things in vain.

Isaiah 64 [what the LORD has prepared]
1 Oh that you would rend the heavens, that you would come down, that the mountains might flow down at your presence,
2 As when the melting fire burns, the fire causes the waters to boil, to make your name known to your adversaries, that the nations may tremble at your presence!
3 When you did terrible things which we looked not for [Selah – think about it], you came down, the mountains flowed down at your presence.
4 For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither has the eye seen, O God, beside you, what he has prepared for him that waits for him.
5 You meet him that rejoices and works righteousness, those that remember you in your ways: behold, you are wroth; for we have sinned: in those is continuance, and we shall be saved.
6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
7 And there is none that calls upon your name, that stirs up himself to take hold of you: for you have hid your face from us, and have consumed us, because of our iniquities.
8 But now, O LORD, you are our father; we are the clay, and you our potter; and we all are the work of your hand.
9 Be not wroth very sore, O LORD, neither remember iniquity for ever: behold, see, we beseech you, we are all your people.
10 Your holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.
11 Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised you, is burned up with fire: and all our pleasant things are laid waste.
12 Will you refrain yourself for these things, O LORD? will you hold your peace, and afflict us very sore?

The Hebrew word ‘owlam, meaning to conceal, as the point of vanishing, as in the time something is out of the mind (past or future), is from the word ‘alam, meaning to veil from sight. ‘owlam is the word rendered “since the beginning of the world” in verse 4 above, and then as “in those is continuance” in verse 5. It is telling of the time of the fall, when man decided to listen to the advice of the deceiver, instead of seeking God’s counsel, and because of it made himself unable to see and hear Him. These same men sitting in the seats of God, replacing Him, are those who must be taken out of the way, so God’s people can again see and hear Him. Like it or not, I am His voice, the one He has chosen and sent in His name.

It is in this context Isaiah 65 begins.

Isaiah 65
1 I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name.
2 I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people [those who say they are God’s people], which walk in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts;
3 A people that provoke me to anger continually to my face; that sacrifice in gardens, and burn incense upon altars of brick [ways that are the creations of men];
4 Which remain among the graves [tombs], and lodge in the monuments [the place where the dead are buried – the churches], which eat swine’s flesh [unclean things], and broth of abominable things is in their vessels;
5 Which say, “Stand by yourself, come not near to me; for I am holier than you.” These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burns all the day.
6 Behold, it is written before me: I will not keep silence, but will recompense, even recompense into their bosom,
7 Your iniquities, and the iniquities of your fathers together, says the LORD, which have burned incense upon the mountains, and blasphemed me upon the hills: therefore will I measure their former work into their bosom.
8 Thus says the LORD, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one says, Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it: so will I do for my servants’ sakes, that I may not destroy them all.
9 And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains: and mine elect shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there.
10 And Sharon [what is plainly seen – referring to Isaiah 33:9 and 35:2] shall be a fold of flocks, and the valley of Achor [the place that had been troubled] a place for the herds to lie down in, for my people that have sought me.
11 But you are they that forsake the LORD, that forget my holy mountain, that prepare a table for that troop [the enemies of God], and that furnish the drink offering unto that number.
12 Therefore will I number you to the sword, and you shall all bow down to the slaughter: because when I called, you did not answer; when I spoke, you did not hear; but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose that wherein I delighted not [because you are the wicked and unreasonable men who stand in the way of God’s word being heard, and in the way of His glory being seen].
13 Therefore thus says the LORD God, Behold, my servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry: behold, my servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty: behold, my servants shall rejoice, but you shall be ashamed:
14 Behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but you shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall howl for vexation of spirit.
15 And you shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen: for the LORD God shall slay you, and call his servants by another name:
16 That he who blesses himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth; and he that swears in the earth shall swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles are forgotten, and because they are hid from mine eyes.
17 For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.
18 But be you glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy.
19 And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying.
20 There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that has not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed.
21 And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them.
22 They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
23 They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the LORD, and their offspring with them.
24 And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.
25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, says the LORD.

The mention of Sharon in verse 10 above is referring us to Isaiah 33:9 and the land that was made a wilderness, into which the LORD rises. Sharon is next spoken of in Isaiah 35:2, a chapter describing when the wilderness blossoms as a rose, when the eyes of the blind are opened, and the ears of the deaf are unstopped (when understanding returns).

Isaiah 33
5 The LORD is exalted; for he dwells on high: he has filled Zion with judgment and righteousness.
6 And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of your times, and strength of salvation: the fear of the LORD is his treasure.
7 Behold, their valiant ones shall cry without: the ambassadors of peace shall weep bitterly.
8 The highways lie waste, the wayfaring man ceases: he has broken the covenant, he has despised the cities, he regards no man.
9 The earth mourns and languishes: Lebanon is ashamed and hewn down: Sharon is like a wilderness; and Bashan and Carmel shake off their fruits.
10 Now will I rise, says the LORD; now will I be exalted; now will I lift up myself.
11 You shall conceive chaff, you shall bring forth stubble: your breath, as fire, shall devour you.
12 And the people shall be as the burnings of lime: as thorns cut up shall they be burned in the fire.
13 Hear, you that are far off, what I have done; and, you that are near, acknowledge my might.
14 The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness has surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?
15 He that walks righteously, and speaks uprightly; he that despises the gain of oppressions, that shakes his hands from holding of bribes, that stops his ears from hearing of blood, and shuts his eyes from seeing evil;
16 He shall dwell on high: his place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks: bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure.
17 Your eyes shall see the king in his beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off.

Isaiah 35
1 The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.
2 It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the LORD, and the excellency of our God.
3 Strengthen you the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees.
4 Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense; he will come and save you.
5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.
6 Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.
7 And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.
8 And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.
9 No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there:
10 And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

In the same sense of preparation, which restores sight and hearing, 1 Corinthians 2:16 quotes from Isaiah 40:14, a chapter which tells of the baptism in the wilderness. It tells of the voice heard there, which prepares the way, and ends in the glory of the LORD revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

The voice is the same voice spoken of in Hebrews 4:7 above [*Added: “Again, he limits a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”], which is heard in the day the LORD limits, to which He warns us not to harden our hearts (become unreasonable – unable to hear or see God reasoning with us). As we know from previous discussions, the Greek word there rendered “limits” is horizo, as the horizon from where the light rises to day.

Horizo is the word translated “declared” in Romans 1:4 [*Added: “And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:”], where we are told of this horizon as when the LORD declared to be the son of God with power. This is the same power, the dunamis, which is spoken of in 2 Corinthians 4:7 above [*Added: ” But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.] as the treasure in earthen vessels, the power that is seen as God’s and not ours. In Romans 1:4 it is the power that is “according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.”

The mystery is this power is understanding meaning, which only comes by learning the language – by loving and keeping the LORD’s word.

Dunimus is the word rendered meaning in 1 Corinthians 14:11.

1 Corinthians 14
6 Now, brethren, if I come unto you speaking with tongues [words you do not understand], what shall I profit you, except I shall speak to you either by revelation, or by knowledge, or by prophesying, or by doctrine?
7 And even things without life giving sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped [how shall you know the tune unless the notes are in a distinguishable order]?
8 For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?
9 So likewise you, except you utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for you shall speak into the air [the words mean nothing if they aren’t understood – seen or heard, understood or comprehended].
10 There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification [giving a specific message].
11 Therefore if I know not the meaning [dunimus – power] of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaks a barbarian [we make ourselves as if foreigners by not understanding], and he that speaks shall be a barbarian unto me.
12 Even so you, forasmuch as you are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that you may excel to the edifying [educate to understanding] of the church.
13 Wherefore let him that speaks in an unknown tongue [in words not understood] pray that he may interpret.
14 For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful.
15 What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.
16 Else when you shall bless with the spirit, how shall he that occupies the room of the unlearned say Amen at your giving of thanks, seeing he understands not what you say?
17 For you truly give thanks well, but the other is not edified [is not educated unless you give him understanding – which the LORD has given you].

This context continues into 1 Corinthians 15, where it speaks of understanding meaning as the power of the resurrection. It is speaking of the corruption that has come upon all understanding and rules over the world (confusion Babylon), and the resurrection that comes as understand, which is putting on the uncorrupted. It is the power (understanding) that raised Christ from the dead, as the sun coming over the horizon and the new day dawning.

1 Corinthians 15
20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept.
21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
23 But every man in his own order: Christ the first-fruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.
24 Then comes the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power [dunimus – earthly understanding – the creations of men].
25 For he must reign, till he has put all enemies under his feet.
26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
27 For he has put all things under his feet. But when he says all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him.
28 And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.
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 to morrow 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 [raised to life], 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 [dunimus – understanding meaning]:
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 [a Spirit leading us into all truth and bringing us to life again].
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 shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
55 O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?
56 The sting of death is sin; and the strength [dunimus – understanding] of sin is the law.
57 But thanks be to God, which gives us the victory through our LORD Jesus Christ [by His Greater power taking away the error by understanding].
58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be you steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the LORD, forasmuch as you know that your labor is not in vain in the LORD.

Psalms 95

Mine hand also has laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand has spanned the heavens: when I call unto them, they stand up together.

The above is Isaiah 48:13 and is speaking of the elect remnant the LORD has prepared to become the foundation of the earth in His new creation. Here is what the LORD says from the whirlwind, as He asks Job (his wavering and wilting people, who as a fading flower are seeking to justify themselves instead of showing a full understanding of the knowledge of God) where he was when this occurred.

Job 38
1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,
2 Who is this that darkens counsel [darkens understanding] by words without knowledge?
3 Gird up now your loins like a man; for I will demand of you, and answer you me.
4 Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if you have understanding.
5 Who has laid the measures thereof, if you know? or who has stretched the line upon it?
6 Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;
7 When the morning stars [the elect remnant] sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
8 Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb?
9 When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling-band for it,
10 And brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors,
11 And said, Hitherto shall you come, but no further: and here shall your proud waves be stayed?
12 Have you commanded the morning since your days; and caused the dayspring to know his place;
13 That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it?
14 It is turned as clay to the seal; and they stand as a garment.
15 And from the wicked their light is withheld, and the high arm shall be broken.

Proverbs 8:29 mentions this foundation as the chapter described it as laid by the LORD’s counsel: giving knowledge, understanding, and wisdom in using them.

Proverbs 8
1 Does not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice?
2 She stands in the top of high places, by the way in the places of the paths.
3 She cries at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors.
4 Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of man.
5 O you simple, understand wisdom: and, you fools, be you of an understanding heart.
6 Hear; for I will speak of excellent things; and the opening of my lips shall be right things.
7 For my mouth shall speak truth; and wickedness is an abomination to my lips.
8 All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing forward or perverse [no twisted truth] in them.
9 They are all plain to him that understands, and right to them that find knowledge.
10 Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold.
11 For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it.
12 I wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions.
13 The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogance, and the evil way, and the froward mouth [the mouth twisting truth, to deceive and manipulate], do I hate.
14 Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: I am understanding [I am the light in the stars]; I have strength.
15 By me kings reign, and princes decree justice.
16 By me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth.
17 I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me.
18 Riches and honor are with me; yea, durable riches and righteousness.
19 My fruit is better than gold, yea, than fine gold; and my revenue than choice silver.
20 I lead in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of judgment:
21 That I may cause those that love me to inherit substance; and I will fill their treasures.
22 The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.
23 I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.
24 When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water.
25 Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth:
26 While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world.
27 When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth:
28 When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep:
29 When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth:
30 Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him;
31 Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men.
32 Now therefore hearken unto me, O you children: for blessed are they that keep my ways.
33 Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not.
34 Blessed is the man that hears me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors.
35 For whoso finds me finds life, and shall obtain favor of the LORD.
36 But he that sins against me wrongs his own soul: all they that hate me love death.

As we have seen in previous posts, those laying this new foundation are called Cyrus, who we have seen as refined in the furnace of affliction, and who is the topic of Isaiah 48, from where comes the title; and Zerubbabel. We have seen Zerubbabel is born by coming out of confusion and is the one in Haggai 2 shaking heaven and earth, which ends telling of him bearing the LORD’s signature, showing the LORD has chosen him.

We also know from prior discussions, Zechariah 4 tells of Zerubbabel as the one who brings forth the headstone, and is said to have not only laid the foundation of the house but shall also finish it.

Zechariah 4
5 Then the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me, Know you not what these be? And I said, No, my LORD.
6 Then he answered and spoke unto me, saying, This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the LORD of hosts.
7 Who are you, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it.
8 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
9 The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also finish it; and you shall know that the LORD of hosts has sent me unto you.
10 For who has despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven; they are the eyes of the LORD, which run to and fro through the whole earth.
11 Then answered I, and said unto him, What are these two olive trees upon the right side of the candlestick and upon the left side thereof?
12 And I answered again, and said unto him, What be these two olive branches which through the two golden pipes empty the golden oil out of themselves?
13 And he answered me and said, Know you not what these be? And I said, No, my LORD.
14 Then said he, These are the two anointed ones, that stand by the LORD of the whole earth.

Friends, if you understating the time and season, if you understand you are God’s elect remnant, the morning stars who stand and shout for joy after hearing His call, you also understand you are the foundation upon which the house will be built. You are those the LORD has sealed with this same signature, which shows He has chosen you for this purpose.

1 Peter 2
1 Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speaking,
2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that you may grow thereby:
3 If so be you have tasted that the LORD is gracious.
4 To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious,
5 You also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
6 Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believes on him shall not be confounded [will not bear the mark of confusion].
7 Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner,
8 And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.
9 But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that you should shew forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light;
10 Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.

Revelation 14
1 And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father’s name written [his signature] in their foreheads.
2 And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps:
3 And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.
4 These are they which were not defiled with women [the unfaithful churches]; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes. These were redeemed from among men, being the first-fruits unto God and to the Lamb.
5 And in their mouth was found no guile [no deceptive words]: for they are without fault before the throne of God.
6 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,
7 Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.
8 And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon [confusion] is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication [unfaithfulness].
9 And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark [confusion] in his forehead, or in his hand [in his works],
10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
11 And the smoke of their torment ascends up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receives the mark of his name [which is confusion].
12 Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.
13 And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the LORD from henceforth: Yea, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them.
14 And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.
15 And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in your sickle, and reap: for the time is come for you to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.
16 And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.
17 And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle.
18 And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in your sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe.
19 And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.
20 And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.

Revelation 7
9 After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindred, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;
10 And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sit upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.
11 And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God,
12 Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.
13 And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?
14 And I said unto him, Sir, you know. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
15 Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sits on the throne shall dwell among them.
16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.
17 For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes {see Isaiah 25:8 and 1 Corinthians 15:54].

Friends, it is in this context I say, follow me, in the name of the LORD Jesus Christ in me, as I now say to His scattered sheep:

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

Psalms 82
1 God stands in the congregation of the mighty; he judges among the gods.
2 How long will you judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? Selah.
3 Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.
4 Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked.
5 They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness: [these men are] all the foundations of the earth [which] are out of course [have gone astray].
6 I have said, You are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.
7 But you shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.
8 Arise, O God, judge the earth: for you shall inherit all nations.

Psalms 104
1 Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, you are very great; you are clothed with honour and majesty.
2 Who covers yourself with light as with a garment: who stretches out the heavens like a curtain:
3 Who lays the beams of his chambers in the waters: who makes the clouds his chariot: who walks upon the wings of the wind:
4 Who makes his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire:
5 Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever.
6 You covered it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains.
7 At your rebuke they fled; at the voice of your thunder they hasted away.
8 They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which you have founded for them.
9 You have set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth.
10 He sends the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills.
11 They give drink to every beast of the field: the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
12 By them shall the fowls of the heaven have their habitation, which sing among the branches.
13 He waters the hills from his chambers: the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your works.
14 He causes the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth;
15 And wine that makes glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengthens man’s heart.
16 The trees of the LORD are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, which he has planted;
17 Where the birds make their nests: as for the stork, the fir trees are her house.
18 The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats; and the rocks for the conies.
19 He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knows his going down.
20 You make darkness, and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth.
21 The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God.
22 The sun arises, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens.
23 Man [whom He has awakened by the light] goes forth unto his work and to his labor until the evening.
24 O LORD, how manifold are your works! in wisdom have you made them all: the earth is full of your riches.
25 So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.
26 There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom you have made to play therein.
27 These wait [in darkness] all upon you; that you may give them their meat in due season.
28 That you give them they gather: you open your hand, they are filled with good.
29 You hide your face, they are troubled: you take away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.
30 You send forth your spirit, they are created: and you renew the face of the earth.
31 The glory of the LORD shall endure for ever: the LORD shall rejoice in his works.
32 He looks on the earth, and it trembles: he touches the hills, and they smoke.
33 I will sing unto the LORD as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.
34 My meditation of him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the LORD.
35 Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless you the LORD, O my soul. Praise you the LORD.

Hebrews 12
22 But you are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,
23 To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
24 And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that of Abel.
25 See that you refuse not him that speaks. For if they escaped not who refused him that spoke on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaks from heaven:
26 Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he has promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.
27 And this word, Yet once more, signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
28 Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:
29 For our [ever present] God is a consuming fire.

Hebrews 1
1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
2 Has in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high:
4 Being made so much better than the angels, as he has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.
5 For unto which of the angels said he at any time, You are my Son, this day have I begotten you? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?
6 And again, when he brings in the first-begotten into the world, he says, And let all the angels of God worship him.
7 And of the angels he says, Who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.
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: but you are the same, and your years shall not fail.
13 But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool?
14 Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?

Hebrews 2
1 Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.
2 For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward;
3 How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the LORD, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him;
4 God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?
5 For unto the angels has he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak.
6 But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that you are mindful of him? or the son of man that you visit him?
7 You made him a little lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor, and did set him over the works of your hands:
8 You have put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him.
9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.
10 For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
11 For both he that sanctifies and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren,
12 Saying, I will declare your name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto you.
13 And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, Behold I and the children which God has given me.
14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
15 And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
16 For truly he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.
17 Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.
18 For in that he himself has suffered being tempted [assayed], he is able to succor [rescue] them that are tempted [assayed – tried in the fires].

(To God’s Elect Remnant) Behold, I have refined you, but not with silver; I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction.

(**WARNING** This message is only intended for the elect remnant, those who have received this word of God.)

As we saw in the opening image of the prior post, the above verse is Isaiah 48:10, and as we saw in the post, the word “furnace,” from the Hebrew word kuwr, is the origin of the name Cyrus (Isaiah 45). We saw this name referring to this leader who is born in the refining (purified thinking) that occurs in it, and more accurately after, as what brings us out of it into a clean and holy state.

The first of the nine times kuwr appears it is in Deuteronomy 4:20 as the LORD, through Moses, describes Egypt as the pattern of the furnace. This is the lesson for today, as it has always been: understanding when neglecting our relationship with God, forgetting him, and as now, progressively degenerating into worshipping the institutions He established to protect and preserve His ideas of just and equal treatment. These institutions, church, state, education, and the media as an informative extension of these, all now themselves become fully corrupted by their own imagined ideas, and instead of flowing life and truth into the world, they now promulgate corruption and confusion, as rivers of blood (muddies by what they have stirred into it) in which death secretly lurks below its surface.

This is the lesson to be learned, according to the plan, and out of this confusion and its fires, the LORD comes to pluck out those He has refined in them. Today I again show you the LORD’s plan, to this same end.

In the verse following in Deuteronomy 4, Moses tells of His not being able to enter the Promised Land. We know from previous discussions, this is because of the second time water came from the Rock, when the LORD told him to speak to the Rock and he instead again struck it. The meaning to this is revealed as Moses continues and in verse 24 describing the LORD as a consuming fire. This description is what is referred to in Hebrews 12:29, which first quotes from Haggai 2 as it tells of the voice now shaking heaven and earth. We saw this voice is speaking of Zerubbabel, from Haggai 2, and Cyrus, from Isaiah 45, and thereby we know the plan intended to be revealed in the references.

In the prior post, we also saw all of these as they are associated with Zechariah 14 & 9, and Malachi 3, where the elect remnant, those who’ve received the word of God as His word, are spoken of as jewels the LORD prepares in the refiners furnace, and who become the crown upon this land. We saw the words spoken are what shakes the wicked from the earth, which is the signature of God, as we saw in the LORD’s words from the whirlwind as they appear in Job 38:13. We saw Job 38:14 describes this as the LORD’s seal (Daniel 12:4 & 9), meaning what has been closed by it and is then, in the culmination (the consummation), allowed to be opened by those for whom it is intended. In this way, the message remains in the form as it was given, as planned, until received.

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

As we have seen in previous discussions, Moses striking the Rock the second time, when the LORD said to speak to it before the eyes of the people, as in removing the veil and telling them it is the LORD, the living God as Christ in Him speaking, is referring to what is written in Hebrews 6:6 and 10:26 thru 29. Both of these are referring to striking Christ (the LORD in us), again, after the water has once flowed from the Rock, and has given understanding and knowledge.

Hebrews 6
1 Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God,
2 Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.
3 And this will we do, if God permit.
4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,
5 And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,
6 If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

Hebrews 10
19 Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest [into the presence of God] 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 [which was torn open at the cross – which is what Moses refused when the time came for this revelation, as does the modern church refuse: the suffering that must come, the affliction, the reproach of the LORD that falls upon us, when we confess He is Alive in us and speaking to the world, shaking heaven and earth];
21 And having an high priest over the house of God;
22 Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed [refined] with pure water.
23 Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)
24 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:
25 Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together [see Matthew 12:30 below], as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as you see the day approaching.
26 For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins,
27 But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.
28 He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses:
29 Of how much sorer punishment, suppose you, shall he be thought worthy, who has trodden under foot the Son of God, and has counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing [see Mathew 12:31 & 32 below], and has done despite unto the Spirit of grace?
30 For we know him that has said, Vengeance belongs unto me, I will recompense, says the LORD. And again, The LORD shall judge his people.
31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

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

Friends, the word “assayed” mentioned in Deuteronomy 4:34 above, is the Hebrews word nacah, which is the word rendered “tempt” in Exodus 17:2 and “tempted” in verse 7. We know this is where we are told of when the water flowed from the Rock, as the people tried (tempted) the LORD, to prove He was among them, or not. This is not the LORD tying us but rather our tying Him, to see if he is really there. The deeper meaning is found in what is called the LORD’s temptation, as the devil tempted Him to try God, to prove He was there. The LORD’s answers (Matthew 4:4 thru 10) shows He does this Himself, just as He has told us in His plan, as He validates those who have understood and confess Him and His presence, which is the point of this exchange with Satan in those who oppose and resist the plan and purpose of Salvation and Deliverance, by His Righteous Judgment. The LORD appears for those who do believe He is there, not as a sign to unbelievers.

Matthew 4
4 But he answered and said, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”
5 Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple,
6 And said unto him, If you be the Son of God, cast yourself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning you: and in their hands they shall bear you up, lest at any time you dash your foot against a stone.
7 Jesus said unto him, “It is written again, You shall not tempt the LORD your God.”
8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and shewed him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
9 And said unto him, All these things will I give you, if you will fall down and worship me.
10 Then said Jesus unto him, “Get you hence, Satan: for it is written, You shall worship the LORD your God, and him only shall you serve.”

The first quote is Deuteronomy 8:3, the second Deuteronomy 6:16 referring to Exodus 17:1 thru 7, and the last from Deuteronomy 6:3 & 4, all speaking of the presence of the LORD. We know, lacking faith, not believing the LORD is always present and well able to deliver when He says its time, is what keeps unbelievers from entering the Promised Land. It is only once they have comprehended Him that He leads them there, as the forerunner leading them in.

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 [nacah] 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.

Deuteronomy 6
1 Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the LORD your God commanded to teach you, that you might do them in the land whither you go to possess it:
2 That you might fear the LORD your God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, you, and your son, and your son’s son, all the days of your life; and that your days may be prolonged.
3 Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with you, and that you may increase mightily, as the LORD God of your fathers has promised you, in the land that flows with milk and honey.
4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
5 And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.
6 And these words, which I command you this day, shall be in your heart:
7 And you shall teach them diligently unto your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.
8 And you shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.
9 And you shall write them upon the posts of your house, and on your gates.
10 And it shall be, when the LORD your God shall have brought you into the land which he swore unto your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you great and goodly cities, which you built not,
11 And houses full of all good things, which you filled not, and wells digged, which you digged not, vineyards and olive trees, which you planted not; when you shall have eaten and be full;
12 Then beware lest you forget the LORD, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.
13 You shall fear the LORD your God, and serve him, and shall swear by his name.
14 You shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you;
15 (For the LORD your God is a jealous God among you) lest the anger of the LORD your God be kindled against you, and destroy you from off the face of the earth.
16 You shall not tempt [nacah] the LORD your God, as you tempted [nacah] him in Massah.

1 Corinthians 10
1 Moreover, brethren, I would not that you should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;
2 And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea;
3 And did all eat the same spiritual meat;
4 And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.
5 But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
6 Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.
7 Neither be you idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.
8 Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.
9 Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents.
10 Neither murmur you, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.
11 Now all these things happened unto them for examples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.

Isaiah 48
1 Hear you this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name of the LORD, and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth, nor in righteousness.
2 For they call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves upon the God of Israel; The LORD of hosts is his name.
3 I have declared the former things from the beginning; and they went forth out of my mouth, and I shewed them; I did them suddenly, and they came to pass.
4 Because I knew that you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew, and your brow brass;
5 I have even from the beginning declared it to you; before it came to pass I shewed it you: lest you should say, Mine idol has done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, has commanded them.
6 You have heard, see all this; and will not you declare it? I have showed you new things from this time, even hidden things, and you did not know them.
7 They are created now, and not from the beginning; even before the day when you heard them not; lest you should say, Behold, I knew them.
8 Yea, you heard not; yea, you knew not; yea, from that time that your ear was not opened: for I knew that you would deal very treacherously, and were called a transgressor from the womb.
9 For my name’s sake will I defer mine anger, and for my praise will I refrain for you, that I cut you not off.
10 Behold, I have refined you, but not with silver; I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction.
11 For mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it: for how should my name be polluted? and I will not give my glory unto another.
12 Hearken unto me, O Jacob and Israel, my called; I am he; I am the first, I also am the last.
13 Mine hand also has laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand has spanned the heavens: when I call unto them, they stand up together.
14 All you, assemble yourselves, and hear; which among them has declared these things? The LORD has loved him: he will do his pleasure on Babylon, and his arm shall be on the Chaldeans.
15 I, even I, have spoken; yea, I have called him: I have brought him, and he shall make his way prosperous.
16 Come you near unto me, hear you this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I: and now the LORD God, and his Spirit, has sent me.
17 Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I am the LORD your God which teaches you to profit, which leads you by the way that you should go.
18 O that you had hearkened to my commandments! then had your peace been as a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea:
19 Your seed also had been as the sand, and the offspring of your bowels like the gravel thereof; his name should not have been cut off nor destroyed from before me.
20 Go you forth of Babylon, flee you from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing declare you, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth; say you, The LORD has redeemed his servant Jacob.
21 And they thirsted not when he led them through the deserts: he caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them: he clave the rock also, and the waters gushed out.
22 There is no peace, says the LORD, unto the wicked.

Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.

The above is Zechariah 14:3 and the “then” it is speaking of is described in the first two verses, which tell of the division and desolation of Jerusalem. As we saw in the previous post, it is at the end of this desolation, when preaching has had its effect on the few who received it (the elect remnant), that the LORD accelerates and amplifies His glory and makes His presence undeniably obvious. Zechariah 14 goes onto describe the same such Advent, which we’ve many times discussed as when those who’ve caused the desolation are consumed by their own words and ways.

The LORD began this discussion, in 1 Corinthians 11, revealing the above is speaking of the division among God’s people, and how and why they come. “18 For first of all, when you come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it. 19 For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.”

Friends, this is speaking of the LORD appearing in His Righteous Judgment, revealing those in whom is His light, as His apparent presence, by which He elevates them by showing they are those He has approved to end the argument by right judgment (rightly dividing the word of truth).

(If you haven’t read along you’re not going to see the fullness of this message – therefore it only lacks in what you lack by neglecting the word of God, which this is.)

The word “approved” in 1 Corinthians 11:19 above is the seven times used Greek word dokimos, a word literally meaning what remains after being assayed. It is speaking of the result of a full examination, and the thereby refined thinking. It is the word used in 2 Timothy 2:15, also rendered approved, describing showing one’s self as such by study, and by purging self from “profane and vain babblings” and those teaching them. Paul also urges Timothy to avoid “foolish and unlearned questions” because they are meant to produce and continue endless arguments. These are the ways of the dividers of men, dividers of the body of Christ, who have brought in damnable heresies, even denying the LORD when He appears to end the division.

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

2 Peter 1
16 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our LORD Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
17 For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
18 And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.
19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto you do well that you take heed, as unto a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:
20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

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

This approval process also manifests itself in the approval of men, when we wait for the LORD’s judgment, which is education that removes all errors. This appears as Zechariah 14 tells us, when these men’s tongues consume away, meaning their words, which have set the fire of hell, are seen as worthless and divisive (or vain and profane babblings).

1 Corinthians 4
1 Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.
2 Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.
3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self.
4 For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judges me is the LORD.
5 Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the LORD come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.

The above is speaking of the approval, understood as what Peter tells of hearing as the Father’s voice from heaven, with which men of sound minds must agree. (see Romans 14:18 and 2 Corinthians 10:18 below)

Romans 14 begins by speaking of receiving those who are weak in the faith, and because of their weakness, they are judging one and other. The passage goes on to say that those who are strong in the faith should bear with the weak, who are the unlearned, long-suffering until they are educated into acknowledging the truth (see 2 Timothy 2:25 & 26 above).

Romans 14
10 But why do you judge your brother? or why do you set at naught your brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
11 For it is written, As I live, says the LORD, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.
12 So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.
13 Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling-block or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way.
14 I know, and am persuaded by the LORD Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteems any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean.
15 But if your brother be grieved with your meat, now walk you not charitably. Destroy not him with your meat, for whom Christ died.
16 Let not then your good be evil spoken of:
17 For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
18 For he that in these things serves Christ is acceptable to God, and approved [dokimos] of men.
19 Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify [educate] another.

In the above, we understand the strong as those who have studied to show themselves approved, able to rightly divide the word of truth, and the weak those judging while a beam (an imbalance) is clouding their vision. “2 For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again. 3 And why beholdest you the mote that is in your brother’s eye, but consider not the beam that is in your own eye? 4 Or how will you say to your brother, Let me pull out the mote out of your eye; and, behold, a beam is in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of your own eye; and then shall you see clearly to cast out the mote out of your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7)

2 Corinthians 10
1 Now I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, who in presence am base among you, but being absent am bold toward you:
2 But I beseech you, that I may not be bold when I am present with that confidence, wherewith I think to be bold against some, which think of us as if we walked according to the flesh.
3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:
4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)
5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
6 And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.
7 Do you look on things after the outward appearance? if any man trust to himself that he is Christ’s, let him of himself think this again, that, as he is Christ’s, even so are we Christ’s.
8 For though I should boast somewhat more of our authority, which the LORD has given us for edification, and not for your destruction, I should not be ashamed:
9 That I may not seem as if I would terrify you by letters.
10 For his letters, say they, are weighty and powerful; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.
11 Let such an one think this, that, such as we are in word by letters when we are absent, such will we be also in deed when we are present.
12 For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.
13 But we will not boast of things without our measure, but according to the measure of the rule which God has distributed to us, a measure to reach even unto you.
14 For we stretch not ourselves beyond our measure, as though we reached not unto you: for we are come as far as to you also in preaching the gospel of Christ:
15 Not boasting of things without our measure, that is, of other men’s labors; but having hope, when your faith is increased, that we shall be enlarged by you according to our rule abundantly,
16 To preach the gospel in the regions beyond you, and not to boast in another man’s line of things made ready to our hand.
17 But he that glories, let him glory in the LORD.
18 For not he that commends himself is approved [dokimos], but whom the LORD commends.

These last verses are actually a reiteration of verses above, which speak of Christ in us as He who has prepared what will show us as approved. The word rendered “commends” is the word suniemi, meaning to be set together, here as joined with the LORD. In the prior post, we saw the last verse of Haggai saying this of Zerubbabel, the LORD saying He would put His signature upon him, to show He has chosen Him. We also saw this comes as the seal of the LORD shaking the wicked from the earth (Job 38:13 & 14), which we also saw from Hebrews 12 comes by His spoken word.

The pattern of Zerubbabel, the one who is born by coming out of confusion, who represents the LORD’s Righteous Judgment returned to civil government, is also represented in the one Isaiah calls Cyrus. Cyrus is described in Isaiah 45, which Paul also quotes in Romans 14:11 above. The name Cyrus is from Hebrew words telling of being measured in the furnace – or tried in the fires, as in dokimos, what remains after assayal.

Malachi 3
1 Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the LORD, whom you seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom you delight in: behold, he shall come, says the LORD of hosts.
2 But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appears? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap:
3 And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.

This is the context of James’ use of dokimos, in James 1:12, saying, “Blessed is the man that endures temptation: for when he is tried [dokimos], he shall receive the crown of life, which the LORD has promised to them that love him.”

This is the same crown Paul speaks of in 1 Thessalonians 2:19 & 20, which is those who have received the word he has preached and taught, as it is in spirit and truth, the word of God. “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? For you are our glory and joy.”

Friends, you who’ve believed this word I preach and teach is the word of God, you are my crown, and my joy. “And the LORD their God shall save them in that day as the flock of his people: for they shall be as the stones of a crown, lifted up as an ensign upon his land.” (Zechariah 9:16) “17 And they shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spares his own son that serves him. 18 Then shall you return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serves God and him that serves him not.” (Malachi 3)

Isaiah 45
1 Thus says the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut;
2 I will go before you, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron:
3 And I will give you the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that you may know that I, the LORD, which call you by your name, am the God of Israel.
4 For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called you by your name: I have surnamed you, though you have not known me.
5 I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded you, though you have not known me:
6 That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.
7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
8 Drop down, you heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it.
9 Woe unto him that strives with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioned it, What make you? or your work, He has no hands?
10 Woe unto him that says unto his father, What beget you? or to the woman, What have you brought forth?
11 Thus says the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command you me.
12 I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded.
13 I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways: he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, says the LORD of hosts.
14 Thus says the LORD, The labor of Egypt, and merchandise of Ethiopia and of the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto you, and they shall be yours: they shall come after you; in chains they shall come over, and they shall fall down unto you, they shall make supplication unto you, saying, Surely God is in you; and there is none else, there is no God.
15 Truly you are a God that hides yourself, O God of Israel, the Savior.
16 They shall be ashamed, and also confounded, all of them: they shall go to confusion together that are makers of idols.
17 But Israel shall be saved in the LORD with an everlasting salvation: you shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end.
18 For thus says the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he has established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.
19 I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek you me in vain: I the LORD speak righteousness, I declare things that are right.
20 Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, you that are escaped of the nations: they have no knowledge that set up the wood of their graven image, and pray unto a god that cannot save.
21 Tell you, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who has declared this from ancient time? who has told it from that time? have not I the LORD? and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Savior; there is none beside me.
22 Look unto me, and be you saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.
23 I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.
24 Surely, shall one say, in the LORD have I righteousness and strength: even to him shall men come; and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed.
25 In the LORD shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory.

Zechariah 14
1 Behold, the day of the LORD comes, and your spoil shall be divided in the midst of you.
2 For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
3 Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.
4 And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.
5 And you shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, you shall flee, like as you fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with you.
6 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark:
7 But it shall be one day which shall be known to the LORD, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.
8 And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.
9 And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one.
10 All the land shall be turned as a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem: and it shall be lifted up, and inhabited in her place, from Benjamin’s gate unto the place of the first gate, unto the corner gate, and from the tower of Hananeel unto the king’s winepresses.
11 And men shall dwell in it, and there shall be no more utter destruction; but Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited.
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.
14 And Judah also shall fight at Jerusalem; and the wealth of all the heathen round about shall be gathered together, gold, and silver, and apparel, in great abundance.
15 And so shall be the plague of the horse, of the mule, of the camel, and of the donkey, and of all the beasts that shall be in these tents, as this plague.
16 And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.
17 And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain.
18 And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, that have no rain; there shall be the plague, wherewith the LORD will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.
19 This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.
20 In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, Holiness Unto The LORD; and the pots in the LORD’s house shall be like the bowls before the altar.
21 Yea, every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holiness unto the LORD of hosts: and all they that sacrifice shall come and take of them, and seethe therein: and in that day there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the LORD of hosts.

Psalms 83
1 Keep not you silence, O God: hold not your peace, and be not still, O God.
2 For, lo, your enemies make a tumult: and they that hate you have lifted up the head.
3 They have taken crafty counsel against your people, and consulted against your hidden ones.
4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
5 For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against you:
6 The tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites; of Moab, and the Hagarenes;
7 Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre;
8 Assur also is joined with them: they have helped the children of Lot. Selah.
9 Do unto them as unto the Midianites; as to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the brook of Kison:
10 Which perished at Endor: they became as dung for the earth.
11 Make their nobles like Oreb, and like Zeeb: yea, all their princes as Zebah, and as Zalmunna:
12 Who said, Let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession.
13 O my God, make them like a wheel [as in these times past]; as the stubble before the wind.
14 As the fire burns a wood, and as the flame sets the mountains on fire;
15 So persecute them with your tempest, and make them afraid with your storm.
16 Fill their faces with shame; that they may seek your name, O LORD.
17 Let them be confounded and troubled for ever; yea, let them be put to shame, and perish:
18 That men may know that you, whose name alone is Jehovah, are the most high over all the earth.

And he [Isaiah] said, “Hear you now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also?”

The word “weary,” appearing twice above in Isaiah 7:13, is the Hebrew word la’ah, meaning to tire to the point of disgust. It is speaking of when the LORD has, over a long period, corrected those leading and teaching His people, with no effect, and therefore starts over with a new creation outside these corrupt orders. It is speaking of the extent of man’s preaching, even when through the very elect remnant, therefore the LORD more fully manifest Himself, openly showing his presence in the world among us. Isaiah 7:14 then describes His presence and glory personified as one born from a virgin: speaking of the elect remnant who haven’t been defile by the corrupt ideas of these unfaithful orders leading in church and state. “14 Therefore the LORD himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. 15 Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good. 16 For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that you abhor shall be forsaken of both her kings [in church and state, sun and moon].”

Prior to the above verses, the LORD tells Ahaz to ask for a sign, “either in the depth, or in the height above.” Ahaz refuses, therefore the LORD responds with what is described in the above verses. These are telling of the LORD more fully manifesting His presence in Isaiah, his name (Ysha’Yah) meaning the Salvation of Jehovah, as one raised from among the elect remnant (the virgin) who have remained faithful and uncorrupted by the culture and time.

Friends, this is the veil covering the eyes of God’s people until this day, that the LORD has manifested Himself as Christ in man, and these men throughout history recorded it from this perspective. This is the context of what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3 (as we saw in the previous post) when he speaks of the veil that was over Moses’ face, which wouldn’t be removed until each individual turns to the LORD, meaning seeing Him in the one the LORD comes to them in and through, and realizing it is Him, His actual presence and words, hearing and recognizing His voice, the veil is removes and the same glory seen is then the glory reproduced in the receiver. This is Advent.

2 Corinthians 3
11 For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remains is glorious [what remains is Christ – The LORD’s salvation manifested in and through those He anoints with His spirit and truth].
12 Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:
13 And not as Moses, which put a veil over his face [we remove the veil and tell you it is Christ, One God, in us, “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” Hebrews 13:8], that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:
14 But their minds were blinded: for until this day remains the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ.
15 But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.
16 Nevertheless when it shall turn to the LORD, the vail shall be taken away.
17 Now the LORD is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the LORD is, there is liberty [“Know you that our brother Timothy is set at liberty” Hebrews 13:23].
18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the LORD, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the LORD.

2 Corinthians 4
1 Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not;
2 But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.
3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
4 In whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
5 For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the LORD; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.
6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.

These are the sign the LORD told Ahaz to ask for, and even though he refused, it didn’t “weary my God,” who then proceeded to send the sign anyway, the same sign He would have sent if Ahaz had asked.

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

The name Ahaz is from the Hebrew word ‘achaz, meaning to seize, and is the word rendered “take hold of” in Job 38:13 as the LORD speaks of when He has taken hold of the ends of earth, to shake it so the wicked will be shaken out of it.

Job 38
1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,
2 Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?
3 Gird up now your loins like a man; for I will demand of you, and answer you me.
4 Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if you have understanding.
5 Who has laid the measures thereof, if you know? or who has stretched the line upon it?
6 Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;
7 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
8 Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb?
9 When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddlingband for it,
10 And brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors,
11 And said, Hitherto shall you come, but no further: and here shall your proud waves be stayed?
12 Have you commanded the morning since your days; and caused the dayspring to know his place;
13 That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it?
14 It is turned as clay to the seal; and they stand as a garment.
15 And from the wicked their light [understanding] is withheld, and the high arm shall be broken.
16 Have you entered into the springs of the sea? or have you walked in the search of the depth?
17 Have the gates of death been opened unto you? or have you seen the doors of the shadow of death?
18 Have you perceived the breadth of the earth? declare if you know it all.
19 Where is the way where light dwells? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof,
20 That you should take it to the bound thereof, and that you should know the paths to the house thereof?
21 Know you it, because you were then born? or because the number of your days is great?
22 Have you entered into the treasures of the snow? or have you seen the treasures of the hail,
23 Which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war?
24 By what way is the light parted, which scatters the east wind upon the earth?
25 Who has divided a watercourse for the overflowing of waters, or a way for the lightning of thunder;
26 To cause it to rain on the earth, where no man is; on the wilderness, wherein there is no man;
27 To satisfy the desolate and waste ground; and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth?
28 Has the rain a father? or who has begotten the drops of dew?
29 Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who has gendered it?
30 The waters are hid as with a stone, and the face of the deep is frozen.
31 Can you bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?
32 Can you bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or can you guide Arcturus with his sons?
33 Know you the ordinances of heaven? can you set the dominion thereof in the earth?
34 Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover you?
35 Can you send lightning, that they may go and say unto you, Here we are?
36 Who has put wisdom in the inward parts? or who has given understanding to the heart?
37 Who can number the clouds in wisdom? or who can stay the bottles of heaven,
38 When the dust grows into hardness, and the clods cleave fast together?
39 Will you hunt the prey for the lion? or fill the appetite of the young lions,
40 When they couch in their dens, and abide in the covert to lie in wait?
41 Who provides for the raven [those covered in darkness] his food? when his young ones cry unto God, they wander for lack of meat [they wander because the empty words and corrupt ideas of men can never satisfy, because there is no life in their words].

The “seal” the LORD speaks of in Job 38:14 above is the Hebrew word chowtham, meaning a signature rings, as in a seal that can only be opened by the intended receiver. Above it is speaking of the when the LORD takes hold of the end of the earth, to shake the wicked from it, as only being understood by those the LORD intends to receive – because they have received Him. We see the LORD goes on to say this light is withheld from wicked, to break their high arm, their pride in their own works, which itself is what blinds them and from them keeps the LORD’s presence veiled.

Here is the Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary definition of the primitive root word chatham, from where comes chowtham: #2856: chatham (pronounced khaw-tham’) a primitive root; to close up; especially to seal:–make an end, mark, seal (up), stop.

Friends, chatham is the word used twice in Daniel 9:24 where it tells of the time “to make an end” of sins, and to “seal up” the vision and the prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. It is then used in Daniel 12:4 & 9, both as Daniel is told to “seal up” the book until the time of the end. This is the vision and the prophecy received from the LORD at His coming and opening the book that has been sealed to all other.

Friends, again I tell you, Daniel 9 speaks of the years now ending in total desolation, which were caused by men’s abominations, corrupted and defiled ideas. They are those these men brought into the holy place and with them replaced God. Their prayer should be the same as Daniels prayer, but instead, they proclaim their own righteousness and trust in their same old corrupted ideas. Upon us, God’s elect, has the light lighted; the seal is broken by receiving His understanding, and by Him we have been given the vision and the prophecy.

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 for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.
8 The LORD sent a word into Jacob, and it has lighted upon Israel.

Daniel 9
1 In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans;
2 In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.
3 And I set my face unto the LORD God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes:
4 And I prayed unto the LORD my God, and made my confession, and said, O LORD, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments;
5 We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from your precepts and from your judgments:
6 Neither have we hearkened unto your servants the prophets, which spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.
7 O LORD, righteousness belongs unto you, but unto us confusion of faces, as at this day; to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and unto all Israel, that are near, and that are far off, through all the countries whither you have driven them, because of their trespass that they have trespassed against you.
8 O LORD, to us belongs confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you.
9 To the LORD our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against him;
10 Neither have we obeyed the voice of the LORD our God, to walk in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets.
11 Yea, all Israel have transgressed your law, even by departing, that they might not obey your voice; therefore the curse is poured upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses the servant of God, because we have sinned against him.
12 And he has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us, and against our judges that judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil: for under the whole heaven has not been done as has been done upon Jerusalem.
13 As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us: yet made we not our prayer before the LORD our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and understand your truth.
14 Therefore has the LORD watched upon the evil, and brought it upon us: for the LORD our God is righteous in all his works which he does: for we obeyed not his voice.
15 And now, O LORD our God, that have brought your people forth out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have gotten you renown, as at this day; we have sinned, we have done wickedly.
16 O LORD, according to all your righteousness, I beseech you, let your anger and your fury be turned away from your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain: because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people are become a reproach to all that are about us.
17 Now therefore, O our God, hear the prayer of your servant, and his supplications, and cause your face to shine upon your sanctuary that is desolate, for the LORD’s sake.
18 O my God, incline your ear, and hear; open your eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is called by your name: for we do not present our supplications before you for our righteousnesses, but for your great mercies.
19 O LORD, hear; O LORD, forgive; O LORD, hearken and do; defer not, for your own sake, O my God: for your city and your people are called by your name.
20 And whiles I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the LORD my God for the holy mountain of my God;
21 Yea, whiles I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation.
22 And he informed me, and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give you skill and understanding.
23 At the beginning of your supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come to shew you; for you are greatly beloved: therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision.
24 Seventy weeks are determined upon your people and upon your holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end [chatham] of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal [chatham] up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.
25 Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

The last of the fourteen times the word chowtham (God’s signature) appears is in the last verse of Haggai. There the LORD speaks of Zerubbabel as the one He makes His “signet,” to show He has chosen him. Zerubbabel, his name meaning he is born by coming out of the confusion that is ruling over the world, is the same as the one speaking in Hebrews 12, a book we know is a letter of introduction, introducing and validating the bishopric of Timothy.

These are the words of the LORD spoken to those who have become the Children of God by receiving His corrective salvation and deliverance, who have now come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, which is heavenly Jerusalem. This is the voice, this word now shaking heaven and earth, as we are also told of in Haggai 2.

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

Hebrews 13
1 Let brotherly love [philadelphia] continue.
2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
3 Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.
4 Marriage [joining with Christ as one body] is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers [those who buy and sell the souls of men] and adulterers [the unfaithful] God will judge.
5 Let your conversation be without covetousness [not trying to extort money in exchange for preaching]; and be content with such things as you have: for he has said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you.
6 So that we may boldly say, The LORD is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.
7 Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.
8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
9 Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.

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 [God’s righteousness returned to civil government], says the LORD; and be strong, O Joshua [God’s righteousness returned to church government], son of Josedech, 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.
10 In the four and twentieth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet, saying,
11 Thus says the LORD of hosts; Ask now the priests concerning the law, saying,
12 If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy? And the priests answered and said, No.
13 Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean.
14 Then answered Haggai, and said, So is this people, and so is this nation before me, says the LORD; and so is every work of their hands; and that which they offer there is unclean.
15 And now, I pray you, consider from this day and upward, from before a stone was laid upon a stone in the temple of the LORD:
16 Since those days were, when one came to an heap of twenty measures, there were but ten: when one came to the press-fat for to draw out fifty vessels out of the press, there were but twenty.
17 I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail in all the labors of your hands; yet you turned not to me, says the LORD.
18 Consider now from this day and upward, from the four and twentieth day of the ninth month, even from the day that the foundation of the LORD’s temple was laid, consider it.
19 Is the seed yet in the barn? yea, as yet the vine, and the fig tree, and the pomegranate, and the olive tree, has not brought forth: from this day will I bless you.
20 And again the word of the LORD came unto Haggai in the four and twentieth day of the month, saying,
21 Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I will shake the heavens and the earth;
22 And I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen; and I will overthrow the chariots, and those that ride in them; and the horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother.
23 In that day, says the LORD of hosts, will I take you, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel, says the LORD, and will make you as a signet [chowtham]: for I have chosen you, says the LORD of hosts.

And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

The word above rendered “dragon” is from the Greek word drakon, said to probably be from the Greek word derkomai, meaning to see or look, in the sense of becoming fascinated. The word (drakon) only appears in book of Revelation (thirteen times), all as John reveals to us that the dragon is the serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan (from the Hebrew word satan, telling us he is opposing and resisting the word and work of the LORD God Almighty). Drakon appears to more likely be derived from the Hebrew word dakar, meaning to walk, an origin by which we understand the dragon as a serpent rising up and walking like a man (and men are fascinated by it).

We are told in Revelation 13 that a beast (Babylon – confusion) rises up from among the people (the sea), which has seven heads (ruling over all the church: God’s people) and ten horns (all civil governments of the world), and the dragon gave him his power (to ill advise and mislead into hell). Just before this he is described as like a leopard (camouflage to lurk and sneak up on prey), and having feet like a bear (to trample down, tear apart, and destroy), and a mouth like a lion (a mouth devouring the prey – by words).

Friends, earlier in Revelation 12 we are told this is the same dragon who led a third of God’s people in their fall from heaven, meaning from their fixed positions, steadfast by their understanding, into no longer depending on and trusting God’s sound advice, and thereby into confusion. These are the firsts, the leaders who joined in an open rebellion against God and opposing His truth; instead, they relied on, and teach others to rely on, their false doctrines and follow them into hell.

Later, in Revelation 16, John describes the coming of understanding, as first the waters of the river Euphrates are dried up, which represent the means through which have flowed the waters of confusion (bad advice, and death lurking below the surface unseen) to all the world, that by this the way of the kings of the east might be prepared – understood. We know these kings are the Magi, the Chaldeans: wise men who degenerated into using their words to manipulate and control people, and now, by this means, rule over all the world. John then tells us of the unfolding picture (uncovering – revealing) as these men are first seen as serpents (the dragons), then as the beast (confusion – Babylon), and are those who, ultimately, are clearly understood as false prophets.

Revelation 16
12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.
13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth [as words opposing God and leading the rebellion against Him] of the dragon, and out of the mouth [as words of confusion] of the beast, and out of the mouth [telling of what never will never come] of the false prophet.
14 For they are the spirits of devils [FOR THEY ARE SPIRITS in men, in kings – misleaders leading into hell], working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.
15 Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.
16 And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon [the mount of this rendezvous – appointed time and place of God’s Righteous Judgment on the earth].

When we remove the words, the misleading bad advice, that has clouded the minds of all God’s people, leading a third to actively oppose and resist God, and then put the others into a state of sleep and death, we then in spirit and truth clearly see, understand, this is the culmination of the fall that started in the garden, by listening to those then only seen as a serpent.

John tell us these are spirits of devils, demons drawing and leading men into hell, the result of the words coming from their mouths, now becoming seen as defiling spirits (degenerate minds denying reality/truth and creating confusion), seen as frog are seen when the waters of the muddied rivers are stopped/dried up.

Friends, it is the nature of man to not understand the magnitude of the moment they are living in and through, which in most cases hasn’t and can’t be comprehended until the fullness appears later in the effect. I tell you now we are living through these days. Now is when evil has taken full control of all the world’s information, denying absolute realities, even the distinction that men are men and women are women, and denying human conception creates a human. The only ways these demons confuse the world is by hate-filled demonization and ridicule, creating prejudice against all who refuse to agree and join. They silence truth and disregard any reality that contradicts their delusions and their effect of the society at large. They have become so blinded by the darkness, into which their own progressive extremism has led them, that within it they feel their evil and hate have won. In this self-confirming echo chamber, they now openly and pridefully flaunt their primitive (tribal) hatred and their ignorant ideas, feeling none will dare stand against their power to destroy men’s lives. It is the culmination, the end, when death is so swelled with pride, as the swelling of Jordan, and people act as if there is nothing wrong or abnormal about killing and consuming their infant children.

LORD, I pray that You open the eyes of Your people, so they will understand.

2 Kings 6
17 And Elisha [Salvation of God] prayed, and said, LORD, I pray you, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.
18 And when they came down to him, Elisha prayed unto the LORD, and said, Smite this people, I pray you, with blindness. And he smote them with blindness according to the word of Elisha.
19 And Elisha said unto them, This is not the way, neither is this the city: follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom you seek. But he led them to Samaria [the place where the people had set up idols in God’s place, among those whose eyes need to be opened].
20 And it came to pass, when they were come into Samaria, that Elisha said, LORD, open the eyes of these men, that they may see. And the LORD opened their eyes, and they saw; and, behold, they were in the midst of Samaria.
21 And the king of Israel said unto Elisha, when he saw them, “My father, shall I smite them? shall I smite them?”
22 And he [Elisha – Salvation of God] answered, You shall not smite them: would you smite those whom you have taken captive with your sword and with your bow? set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink, and go to their master.
23 And he prepared great provision for them: and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went to their master. So the bands of Syria [those who have exalted themselves above God] came no more into the land of Israel.
24 And it came to pass after this, that Benhadad [son of the false gods, idols/ideas, that ruled over them] king of Syria gathered all his host, and went up, and besieged Samaria.
25 And there was a great famine in Samaria: and, behold, they besieged it, until an donkey’s head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove’s dung for five pieces of silver. [Because they had turned completely to idols, there was a famine for hearing the true word of God, by which man lives.]
26 And as the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall, there cried a woman unto him, saying, Help, my LORD, O king.
27 And he said, If the LORD do not help you, whence shall I help you? out of the barn-floor, or out of the winepress?
28 And the king said unto her, What ails you? And she answered, [she didn’t want food, rather she wanted help to find and eat another women’s child, because they had already eaten hers] This woman [who is a pattern of an abortionist] said unto me, Give your son, that we may eat him to day, and we will eat my son to morrow.
29 So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give your son, that we may eat him: and she has hid her son.
30 And it came to pass, when the king heard the words of the woman, that he rent his clothes; and he passed by upon the wall, and the people looked, and, behold, he had sackcloth within upon his flesh.
31 Then he said, God do so and more also to me, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat [the son of Him whose Righteous Judgment has come upon us] shall stand on him this day.
32 But Elisha sat in his house, and the elders sat with him; and the king sent a man from before him: but ere the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, See you how this son of a murderer has sent to take away mine head? look, when the messenger comes, shut the door, and hold him fast at the door: is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him?
33 And while he yet talked with them, behold, the messenger came down unto him: and he said, Behold, this evil is of the LORD; what should I wait for the LORD any longer?

2 Kings 7
1 Then Elisha said, Hear you the word of the LORD; Thus says the LORD, To morrow about this time shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria.
2 Then a lord on whose hand [the false prophets in whose advice they trusted] the king leaned answered the man of God, and said, Behold, if the LORD would make windows in heaven, might this thing be? And he said, Behold, you shall see it with your eyes, but shall not eat thereof.
3 And there were four leprous men at the entering in of the gate: and they said one to another, Why sit we here until we die?
4 If we say, We will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there: and if we sit still here, we die also. Now therefore come, and let us fall unto the host of the Syrians: if they save us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die.
5 And they rose up in the twilight, to go unto the camp of the Syrians: and when they were come to the uttermost part of the camp of Syria, behold, there was no man there.
6 For the LORD had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host: and they said one to another, Lo, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us. [They heard the same army God showed in 2 Kings 6:17, but had no idea who or what it was.]
7 Wherefore they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their tents, and their horses, and their donkeys, even the camp as it was, and fled for their life.
8 And when these lepers came to the uttermost part of the camp, they went into one tent, and did eat and drink, and carried thence silver, and gold, and raiment, and went and hid it; and came again, and entered into another tent, and carried thence also, and went and hid it. [see 2 Corinthians 3 & 4 below – only hid from those whose mind have been blinded by the gods of the world, the defiled spirits now at working in the children of disobedience. We who see, see the unseen/what is hidden.]
9 Then they said one to another, We do not well: this day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace: if we tarry till the morning light, some mischief will come upon us: now therefore come, that we may go and tell the king’s household.
10 So they came and called unto the porter of the city: and they told them, saying, We came to the camp of the Syrians, and, behold, there was no man there, neither voice of man, but horses tied, and donkeys tied, and the tents as they were.
11 And he called the porters; and they told it to the king’s house within.
12 And the king arose in the night, and said unto his servants, I will now shew you what the Syrians have done to us. They know that we be hungry; therefore are they gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the field, saying, When they come out of the city, we shall catch them alive, and get into the city.
13 And one of his servants answered and said, Let some take, I pray you, five of the horses that remain, which are left in the city, (behold, they are as all the multitude of Israel that are left in it: behold, I say, they are even as all the multitude of the Israelites that are consumed:) and let us send and see.
14 They took therefore two chariot horses; and the king sent after the host of the Syrians, saying, Go and see.
15 And they went after them unto Jordan: and, lo, all the way was full of garments and vessels, which the Syrians had cast away in their haste. And the messengers returned, and told the king.
16 And the people went out, and spoiled the tents of the Syrians. So a measure of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the LORD.
17 And the king appointed the lord [the false prophets] on whose hand he leaned to have the charge of the gate: and the people trampled upon him in the gate, and he died, as the man of God had said, who spoke when the king came down to him.
18 And it came to pass as the man of God had spoken to the king, saying, Two measures of barley for a shekel, and a measure of fine flour for a shekel, shall be to morrow about this time in the gate of Samaria:
19 And that LORD answered the man of God, and said, Now, behold, if the LORD should make windows in heaven, might such a thing be? And he said, Behold, you shall see it with your eyes, but shall not eat thereof.
20 And so it fell out unto him: for the people trampled upon him in the gate, and he died.

2 Corinthians 3
9 For if the ministration of condemnation be glory [showed God’s presence], much more does the ministration of righteousness exceeds in glory.
10 For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excels.
11 For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which [NOW, after condemnation has been done away with] remains is glorious. [John 3: 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 [the choice], 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 {understanding}, neither comes to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 21 But he that does truth comes to the light [to understanding], that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.]
12 Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:
13 And not as Moses, which put a veil over his face [so the glory of God, His presence in him, couldn’t be seen], that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:
14 But their minds were blinded: for until this day remains the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ.
15 But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.
16 Nevertheless when it shall turn to the LORD [when the understanding comes, that God is in man, as Christ, in this way reconciling the world to Himself by preaching this word of truth and teaching that leads into understanding – the light], the vail shall be taken away.
17 Now the LORD is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the LORD is, there is liberty.
18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the LORD, are changed into the same image [Christ formed in us] from [His presence seen and heard] glory to [receiving it and the same] glory [is formed in us], even as by the Spirit of the LORD.

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

Psalms 72
1 Give the king your judgments, O God, and your righteousness unto the king’s son.
2 He shall judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with judgment.
3 The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness.
4 He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor.
5 They shall fear you as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations.
6 He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth.
7 In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endures.
8 He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.
9 They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust.
10 The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.
11 Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him.
12 For he shall deliver the needy when he cries; the poor also, and him that has no helper.
13 He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy.
14 He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in his sight.
15 And he shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba: prayer also shall be made for him continually; and daily shall he be praised.
16 There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth.
17 His name shall endure for ever: his name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed.
18 Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel, who only does wondrous things.
19 And blessed be his glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen.
20 The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.

Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knows that he hath but a short time.

We long ago discussed the above verse (Revelation 12:12) as defining our time and warning of the evil that has now come into full fruit. Possibly the greatest and most recent example of this evil is the New York law which allows killing human babies up until the second before fully birthed. This is the definition of evil: a reflection of a culture whose minds have lost all good judgment, all sense of right and wrong, and become without a collective sound mind (conscience).

Not one of the fake news media outlets, not one of the pop-culture icons, none of the Democrat communists or establishment politicians, have come out to condemn the evil. They instead attack and demonize the innocent, while calling good evil. These are the #1 threat to the United States as formed; domestic enemies of our unique Judeo-Christian culture founded on a well-formed (thoroughly taught) conscience, the self-control it produces, and the extreme liberty these allow.

Those of us with sound minds and a healthy ordered conscience, always thought, as the developing human babies became better understood as functioning humans, scientific reasoning would expose the primitive and unenlightened thinking that has allowed the slaughter of the unborn by the millions. We figured, eventually even the ignorant would acknowledge that at conception a human being is created (it can be no other species) and therefore entitled to all the protection under our Constitution, as is every other person. We know the limit of a person’s liberty and choice is when it infringes on another person’s life, liberty, or property.

The argument made against this is the same as it has always been when human nature, unbridled by a healthy and well-ordered conscience, desires to justify the victimization of other humans. It was the solution in 1930’s Germany, the solution when justifying enslaving others here and around the world, and as in the atrocities committed by communists during the last century. That solution is to redefine human life as something other than human, and thereby justify doing with it whatever you will.

In many previous posts, we have discussed this thinking as known as Scientific Materialism. It reduces humans to matter just like any other matter, meant to be formed and used as one would use any other mass of atoms. Those who “understand” this are the “so-called” enlightened and thereby without conscience or remorse able to act as needed, and who in reality have murdered, enslaved, or aborted hundreds of millions, all to serve their lusts or as a matter of convenience.

Friends, we know this time is defined in Jeremiah as the “swelling of Jordan,” meaning the dead have swelled with pride believing their evil (their ideas as death itself) has won the day. We know this phrase only appears three times, first in Jeremiah 12:5, and then in Jeremiah 49:19 describing the end of Esau and in Jeremiah 50:44 the end of Babylon.

We know Esau is speaking of those who could have inherited the promise but instead sold their birthright; and Babylon tells of the confusion, the lack of mental acuity, that rule over all the world. The confusion comes by the Chaldeans; the name describing those who use their words, to first deaden minds into ignorance, and then to manipulate and control the dead into doing their will.

Jeremiah 12 tells of the LORD drawing these men out and into a fully exposed state where the evil is seen in its pure form – as it is now. He speaks of those, such as Nancy Pelosi, who have God in thier mouth (words) but His ways and truth are far from them. These are those who feel nothing when they kill and victimise others after they have dehumanised and vilified them. These are the nations, such as Esau and Babylon, who will be plucked up and destroyed.

Jeremiah 12 (KJV)
1 Righteous art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee: yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments: Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?
2 Thou hast planted them, yea, they have taken root: they grow, yea, they bring forth fruit: thou art near in their mouth, and far from their reins.
3 But thou, O Lord, knowest me: thou hast seen me, and tried mine heart toward thee: pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and prepare them for the day of slaughter.
4 How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of every field wither, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein? the beasts are consumed, and the birds; because they said, He shall not see our last end.
5 If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? and if in the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?
6 For even thy brethren, and the house of thy father, even they have dealt treacherously with thee; yea, they have called a multitude after thee: believe them not, though they speak fair words unto thee.
7 I have forsaken mine house, I have left mine heritage; I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies.
8 Mine heritage is unto me as a lion in the forest; it crieth out against me: therefore have I hated it.
9 Mine heritage is unto me as a speckled bird, the birds round about are against her; come ye, assemble all the beasts of the field, come to devour.
10 Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness.
11 They have made it desolate, and being desolate it mourneth unto me; the whole land is made desolate, because no man layeth it to heart.
12 The spoilers are come upon all high places through the wilderness: for the sword of the Lord shall devour from the one end of the land even to the other end of the land: no flesh shall have peace.
13 They have sown wheat, but shall reap thorns: they have put themselves to pain, but shall not profit: and they shall be ashamed of your revenues because of the fierce anger of the Lord.
14 Thus saith the Lord against all mine evil neighbours, that touch the inheritance which I have caused my people Israel to inherit; Behold, I will pluck them out of their land, and pluck out the house of Judah from among them.
15 And it shall come to pass, after that I have plucked them out I will return, and have compassion on them, and will bring them again, every man to his heritage, and every man to his land.
16 And it shall come to pass, if they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, The Lord liveth; as they taught my people to swear by Baal; then shall they be built in the midst of my people.
17 But if they will not obey, I will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation, saith the Lord.

Again, as many times in the past, here is the definition of materialist scientism (Scientific Materialism – which is, when gone political, Communism) from an often quoted 2008 article in The American Thinker, by Linda Kimball. Here, again, is the full article, because each day it becomes more relevant, its warned against evil now come, as if the devil, in great wrath, knowing his time is short.

The American Thinker
February 23, 2008
The Materialist Faith of Communism, Socialism, and Liberalism
By Linda Kimball

For over eighty-five years, America has been incrementally conquered by the same madness-inducing demon of hatred and violence that earlier took over Russia, China, Germany, and Italy. Rabbi Aryeh Spiro concurs,

“There is a madness in today’s liberal thinking. It insists on policies that tie our hands to defend ourselves while given free reign to the jihadists intent on killing us. It is dangerous because it is becoming the law, and thinking of the land in the western world. (Liberal Madness is Deadly (1/24/08)

This demon is embodied in “enlightened” Liberals and the West’s transnational “elite,” both of which are deeply infected by materialistic Communism (Cultural Marxism) and the delusion that the true enemy of America is always on the Right. Having rejected God and the religious heritage of our civilization, they embrace instead a new order of beliefs of which Communism and Socialism are logical expressions. A new world order is what they seek, but in order that it can emerge, the existing culture must be completely destroyed.

And what is Communism? Using the former Soviet Union as an example, Frank Meyers describes it as, “The state form taken by a materialist faith determined to rule the world.” Communism or scientific materialism is “the final synthesis of all heretical tendencies that have pervaded Western civilization for many centuries.” It is materialist scientism, of which,

“Communism is the culminating hubris of the Promethean man who reaches out for the world and means to remake creation. It is scientism gone political.” (The Conservative Intellectual Movement, pp. 251-252)

We are All Materialists Now

“An age of science is necessarily an age of materialism,” declared Hugh Elliot early last century, “Ours is a scientific age, and it may be said with truth that we are all materialists now.” (Darwin Day in America, John G. West, xiv)

Materialist faith, or scientific materialism, has virtually displaced America’s founding Judeo-Christian worldview with the result that materialism is now the operative assumption for much of our government, culture, politics, and law. Materialist operatives now control every public institution in the United States. According to the inner logic of materialist faith, “we the people” are nothing but socially-constructed atomized robots which can presumably be deconstructed and melted into an atomized mass. Toward both this goal and to raise up an army of street thugs who will destroy our culture, materialist change-agents use our education system to subvert and convert the minds of our youth. Should they succeed in thoroughly corrupting them and in turning their hearts to hate, this generation of children may become the next Khmer Rouge, who at Pol Pot’s order murdered nearly two-million people, including their own families.

What is Materialism?

As Robert Jastrow (b. 1925), recipient of NASA’s Medal for Exceptional Studies explains, there are only two possible explanations for the origin of life: evolution and creation.

“…science has no…answer to the question of the origin of life on earth. Perhaps (life) is a miracle. Scientists are reluctant to accept that view, but their choices are limited: either life was created…by the will of a being outside…scientific understanding, or it evolved…spontaneously through chemical reactions…in nonliving matter…The first theory…is a statement of faith in the power of a Supreme Being not subject to the laws of science. The second theory is also an act of faith (which assumes) that the scientific view…is correct, without having concrete evidence to support that belief.” (Until the Sun Dies, Jastrow, 1977, pp. 62-63)

America is founded on the Judeo-Christian creation model. Materialist faith rises or falls on the assumptions of metaphysical materialism and evolution.

Materialism belongs to the family of Naturalism, which refers to the view that nature (or matter) is the Ultimate Substance of which the universe and all life are made, thus “all is one.” C. S. Lewis describes naturalism as a box with its top sealed tightly closed in order to keep out God and the supernatural realm. The ancient Ionians, Babylonians, Egyptians, and Aztecs were, for example, naturalists. In this view there is but one realm (the material or natural) as opposed to Judeo-Christianity’s creation model with its two interacting realms: natural and supernatural.

There are two basic kinds of Naturalism: materialism (i.e., Communism) and pantheism (i.e., Nazism and New Age Spiritual Communism). The two kinds differ chiefly about whether the First Cause or Absolute Substance is nonliving, non-intelligence bearing matter or an unknowing, unknowable, amoral mind. However, both kinds are united by their rejection of the transcendent, personal God and the supernatural realm and by their acceptance of some form of evolution, which serves as an impersonal, mechanical process of development.

Birth of Scientific Materialism: A Brief Historical Overview

As will be shown by the following overview, scientific materialism is not founded on empirical science, as has been its deceptive claim, but rather on metaphysics.

In the main, modern materialism originated in the metaphysics of the ancient Ionians and Stoics during the sixth century BC. However, it was the Atomists (Leucippus/Democritus, 460-357 BC; Epicurus, 342-270 BC; and Lucretius, 96-55 BC) who methodically developed materialism.

Forged in a furnace of narcissism, envy, and contempt, Atomism was from its inception an antihuman abomination which in later years, would attract those who enjoy the control and domination of others. Atomism set all things in ceaseless, purposeless motion by reducing everything—including man, his soul, and even his thoughts—to mindless atoms perpetually colliding with each other in a void. Man was reduced to a soulless, mindless machine that could only ‘see’ a tree because the tree emitted atoms which entered machine-man’s eyes and implanted themselves onto his brain. This view has changed very little:

“We are descended from robots, and composed of robots…” –Daniel C. Dennett, Kinds of Minds

Plato and Aristotle were the most forceful and compelling critics of Atomism. In Book X of Laws, Plato indicts the Atomists for reversing the natural order, which they did by placing dead matter before Nous (mind/soul), and for the reductionism that sets everything in motion and reduces man to a machine. Plato foresees only misery, social disintegration and ultimately, “the ruin of both states and families” should Atomism become the accepted view.

Though Christianity reared a mighty barrier against Atomism, it would be resurrected— along with the hylozoism of the Ionians and Stoics—during the Renaissance by among others, pantheist Giordano Bruno and the heretic Paracelsus, an alchemist described by C.S. Lewis as a magician in his book, The Abolition of Man.

Hylozoism (Greek hyle=nature; zoe-life) is the doctrine according to which all of nature’s bodies (i.e., sun, earth, moon, trees, man) possess life, mind, soul, and even divinity. By infusing Atomism with Ionian hylozoism, what might be called materialzoism was invented by Bruno, Paracelsus, and others. In short, dead matter was not just brought to life but deified.

The Franco-Germanic Enlightenment

With “God dead” and the source of man’s humanity (mind/soul) expropriated by materialists and conferred upon “dead matter,” a rush to discover the key that unlocks the mystery to life and mind was ignited which in later years unleashed unspeakable evil. For in believing that without a doubt, they now possessed the gnosis (secret knowledge) to not only design a utopia but create a New Man with a reprogrammed mind and conscience, Nazi and Soviet scientists performed sadistic experiments on living human beings. It was of these later scientific materialists that C.S. Lewis wrote his book, “The Abolition of Man.” Even now, wrote Lewis, the process to “abolish Man goes on apace among Communists and Democrats (and) Fascists.” The methods, said Lewis, may at first differ in brutality. But “enlightened” materialists from scientists to philosophers to academe and to political leaders mean, in the long run, “Just the same as the Nazis…” The West and America are to be destroyed and “mankind to be cut out in some fresh shape at the will” of scientific materialists who Lewis calls the Conditioners and Innovators. These people, noted Lewis, are no longer men, for they have stepped out into the void.

Among the horde of Prometheans who set out to discover the animating-power of machine-man was Giovanni Aldini, who performed macabre experiments on decapitated oxes, horses, lambs, and — once he had overcome his repugnance, on humans. For his experiments, he procured the freshest specimens possible by placing himself “under the scaffold, near the axe of justice…” Believing that some type of electricity was the source of machine-mans animation, Aldini applied electricity to various parts of decapitated human heads. This produced “the most horrid grimaces (but the) action of the eyelids was exceedingly striking.” Aldini rationalized his repugnant experiments by saying that only the “unenlightened part of mankind (will be) apt to entertain a prejudice…” (Darwin Day in America, p. 15)

Yet more power-crazed Prometheans emerged. Julien de la Mettrie (1709-51), Paul Henri Thiery, and Baron D’Holbach (1723-89) all agreed that the mind is the property of dead matter and man nothing but a machine. La Mettrie speculated that machine-mans rational life is entirely determined by physical causes that run the gamut from raw meat, to climate, blood circulation, and gender. Genetic inheritance, posits la Mettrie, causes machine-man to commit crime. This view casts parents into the role of “first cause” and would later manifest itself in the belief that State ‘experts,’ or Hillary’s “village” experts should have control of children. (ibid, pp. 16-18)

Pierre Simon Laplace (1749-1827) viewed scientific materialism as not only the pursuit of God-like omniscience but of the Holy Grail itself—power to create a New Man. If an intelligence could grasp “at a given instant…all the forces by which nature is animated” proclaimed Laplace, it could devise a mathematical formula that would predict everything that would ever happen, and “nothing would be uncertain, and the future, like the past, would be open to its eyes.” Scientists should reduce everything in the universe to mechanical laws that could be expressed in terms of mathematics, advised Laplace, for the promise of such knowledge was incredible power…even over life and mind itself. (ibid, p. 20)

Herbert Spencer, Fechner, Lotze, Wundt, and pantheist Ernst Haeckel, inventer of the scientism dictum—ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny—all agreed that life and mind are properties of dead matter. Haeckel moreover imagined ether to be the primitive life-making substance which, as was the case with the primitive fire of the Stoics, changed one part of itself into inert mass while the other part became the active principle, spirit. Today, many scientists routinely resort to Haeckel’s postulate without ever inquiring into its pantheist implications.

Haeckel would later write, “Pantheism teaches that God and the world are one…pantheism is…an advanced conception of nature (and) a polite form of atheism.” The truth of pantheism, confessed Haeckel, “lies in its destruction of the dualist antithesis of God…” The godless world system being constructed, said Haeckel, “substantially agrees with the monism or pantheism of the modern scientist.” (Monism, Ernst Haeckel, www.pantheist.net/)

During the century to follow, Charles Darwin (1809-82) would help spread materialism to the masses. As Stephen Jay Gould argues, “Darwin applied a consistent philosophy of materialism to his interpretation of nature, “and “the ground of all existence; mind, spirit, and God (are reduced to) neural complexity.” (ibid, p. 41)

According to Darwin, natural selection and the laws of heredity acting on matter produced mind, morality, and civilization. By describing how deified natural mechanisms caused the complexity of life to emerge from deified matter, Darwin helped transform materialism from a fantastically bizarre tale told by power-mad Prometheans on the fringe of society to a hallowed scientism principle enshrined and worshipped by modern scientism and ‘enlightened’ Westerners.

It was during this time that Social Darwinism, Progressivism, Socialism, Communism (Cultural Marxism, New Left), Nazism, and Secular Humanism were developed out of metaphysical materialism. Classical Liberalism on the other hand, was subverted and corrupted by the materialist faith into what is now known as modern Liberalism. Of these, Communism (Marx and Engel’s dialectical materialism), is considered to be the most highly developed philosophy of materialism. It rests on three fundamental metaphysical presuppositions:

1. Deified Matter: The Ultimate Substance which, though non-living, non-intelligent, and non-conscious, nevertheless somehow possesses the emergent properties of life, mind, consciousness, and soul.
2. Evolution: Since Marxist dialectic requires a theory with clashes (thesis and antithesis) and leaps (synthesis), Marxists have all but abandoned Darwinism and instead have embraced punctuated equilibrium. “Many people confound dialectic with the theory of evolution,” noted G. Plekhanov. “Dialectic is, in fact, a theory of evolution. But it differs profoundly from the vulgar (Darwinian) theory of evolution.” (Fundamental Problems of Marxism, 1929, p. 145)
3. Spontaneous Generation: An offshoot of specifically Darwinian thought accepted unreservedly by Marxists as their dialectic requires a strictly materialist explanation for the origin of life from dead matter. In the words of M.A. Leonov: “Marxist philosophical materialism remains beyond all doubt that at some time or other in the remote past, life must have arisen from non-living matter.” (Outline of Dialectical Materialism, 1948, p. 494)
In a modified version of the Stoic conception of the earth as a living organism possessed of its own soul, neo-pantheist dialectical materialism declares that earth is “one entire organism…its organs the various races and nations of men.” Not only is the earth alive and evolving upward on evolution’s magical escalator, but so too are history and society, for they also are living entities in a continuous state of motion. And man? In a modified conception of Atomism’s extremely dehumanizing view of man, dialectical materialism states that man is nothing but “a colonial aggregation of cells,” and to “consider him an individual would be an error.” Man—the aggregate of cells— is nothing but an extension of society, history, and earth. (Russian Textbook on Psychopolitics, Chapter II: The Constitution of Man as a Political Organism)

Death of America?

Modern materialist states began by rejecting God and denying objective standards of right and wrong. They threw out sanctity of life and demonically reduced man to matter in motion. The end case, in every instance, was to place absolute power over “atomized masses” into the hands of psychopaths and autocratic states to be wielded without restraint or mercy.

Of all religions, the materialist faith has been by far the bloodiest. In his book, Death by Government, R.J. Rummel comprehensively details the roughly 170 million people murdered by materialist governments during the 20th century. From 1917 to its collapse in 1991, the Soviet Union liquidated about 62 million. During Mao Tse-tung’s reign, 35,236,000 were murdered. Hitler’s Nazi’s killed 21 million. Even at its mildest, as is thus far the case here in America, there is a steady level of confiscation, corruption, fraud, and stifling of freedoms and free speech. For the first time ever, Americans are afraid of saying certain words. Parents fear disciplining their own children. More ominously, materialists in control of America (i.e., ACLU, activist judges) have rejected God and thrown out both sanctity of life and objective standards. “We the people” have been reduced to atomized beings. Totalitarianism and genocide loom just over our horizon.

As early as 1926, President Calvin Coolidge was aware of and deeply concerned by the insidious spread scientific materialism in America. As he knew, Americans are free only because of the Judeo-Christian foundation laid by the country’s founders. In a speech he delivered in Philadelphia, July 5, 1926 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Coolidge tried to call American’s back to their Judeo-Christian heritage. He told Americans that the Declaration’s principles of liberty arise from man’s God-given inalienable rights. And these are found, said Coolidge, “in the texts, the sermons, and the writings of the early colonial clergy…” The clergy preached equality “because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.” Sanctity of life, the right to self-defense, and all the rest of our individual liberties were justified “by the text that we are all created in the divine image, all partakers of the divine spirit.” God’s children therefore, have no “superiors;” there are no modern-day “divine rights kings” who possess “any right to rule…over them.” Americans are free to choose their own leaders.

The Declaration, continued Coolidge, is “a great spiritual document.” Its principles are not material but spiritual. “Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man—these are not elements we can see and touch. They are ideals (whose) source and roots (are) in religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world.”

President Coolidge cautioned Americans that, “unless the faith of the Americans in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We can not continue to enjoy the result if we abandon the cause.”

Coolidge ended his speech with a stark warning, “We must not sink into a pagan materialism…” (Back Fired, William Federer, pp. 269-271)

Yet, believing they are “enlightened” and “scientific,” maddened Liberals and Transnational “elites” are leading America over the Gadarene Cliff.

And you shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that you be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

Continuing: in the prior post we discussed those forbidding (from the Greek word koluo) the free course of this true Gospel, and saw it documented in 1 Thessalonians 2 as well as in several other of the many places it appears. We have seen that keeping the word of God from not just being heard but from being expanded into understanding, is what kept God’s people from rising from their sleep and death, which is what Paul is explaining in both letters to the Thessalonians.

In the mentioned passage (in 1 Thessalonians 2) Paul describes the opposition encountered by those in whom the LORD was already present and working, to further educate and purify them and those who would eventually hear them, and by it be enlightened. Paul earlier defined this as occurring by receiving the words heard as the words of God, and it, Him, now the power that worked in them, and Who would eventually break through as the glory of God seen working through them. (Hearing the report, and believing it is the glory.)

Preventing the glory from being seen is the objective of those forbidding the word to be spoken to those who don’t know God, who without this light (receiving the understanding) are unable to recognize Him (hear His voice) when they see the glory. Those forbidding the word from having free course, so it isn’t seen as the word of God, are the wicked spoken of in 2 Thessalonians 2. It says they are “withholding” and “letting,” both from the word katecho, meaning to hold down. Katecho describes what those sitting in God’s place are doing: by opposing Him and His truth. Paul says they are those who will hold God’s people down until taken out of the way. He says to these believers, in 2 Thessalonians 3, to pray the gospel would have free course and be seen as God’s glory, and that we would be delivered from unreasonable (atopos – unwilling to be reasoned with) and wicked men.

These men are those resisting the LORD’s presence and truth, as we are told of them in 2 Thessalonians 2, saying, “whose coming is after the working of Satan [resisting God] with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” Paul is describing these men resisting the LORD at His coming, as we saw in the prior post described in 1 Thessalonians 4 and 2 Thessalonians 2.

These are the patterns we see in the event we are now encountering.

In the prior post, we discussed Paul’s first encounter with the LORD, when the understanding (as light) caused him to realize his blindness. We saw this understanding described by Paul in Acts 22 as light that all those with him saw, while only he heard it as the voice of the LORD. He described still not understanding it was the glory (actual presence) of God, due to then still remaining in the blindness of his old understanding (as in the blindness defined in 2 Corinthian s 4:3 and surrounding context).

Acts 22
6 And it came to pass, that, as I made my journey, and was come nigh unto Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me.
7 And I fell unto the ground, and heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why persecute you me?
8 And I answered, Who are you, LORD? And he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you persecute.
9 And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spoke to me.
10 And I said, What shall I do, LORD? And the LORD said unto me, Arise, and go into Damascus; and there it shall be told you of all things which are appointed for you to do.
11 And when I could not see for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of them that were with me, I came into Damascus.
12 And one Ananias [Hananiah – God has favoured], a devout man according to the law, having a good report of all the Jews which dwelt there,
13 Came unto me, and stood, and said unto me, Brother Saul, receive your sight. And the same hour I looked up upon him.
14 And he said, The God of our fathers has chosen you, that you should know his will, and see that Just One, and should hear the voice of his mouth.
15 For you shall be his witness unto all men of what you have seen and heard.

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

Friends, I now, by the power of the LORD Jesus in me as Christ, reveal to you a great mystery. These men resisting this Gospel are the sleeping I have been sent to raise up, in the pattern of Saul, so they can become like Paul, a vessel of honor, prepared and used for the LORD’s work.

These are the wars and rumors of wars the LORD speaks of in the title verse (Matthew 24:6), which He later says are the beginning of sorrows. We saw in the prior post, Paul was on his way to Damascus when He first received understanding. Then, after realizing his blindness, he continued on to his destination where he received his sight. There he came to understand it was Christ in him, and Damascus was just the beginning of his suffering, (sacrificing) in the name of the LORD and for the sake of those who by it would receive life.

2 Corinthians 4
15 For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to [all men seeing and understanding it is] the glory of God.
16 For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.
17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;
18 While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

In the previous post, we again saw the meaning of Damascus (silence and sorrows) in the words from which it is derived. It alludes to the wars to overcome silence, to overcome those who resist (satan) the word of God, and the suffering of both those who teach and those from whom this teaching is withheld.

This is my war, my charge, to fight this good fight of faith, “In meekness [not using the power of God to destroy men’s lives, but to pull them from the fires] instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.” (2 Timothy 2:25 & 26)

The reality is, even when this word of God is given free course, there will be many who will reject it, mostly among those who define themselves as the “true believers.” These are those Jude describes as twice dead, not knowing the LORD previously and now refusing to recognise Him.

Jude
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.
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 for ever.
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.

In the record of Paul’s final assignment before his martyrdom, both in Rome, a onetime used Greek word appears, akolutos, as the last word of Acts, rendered, “no man forbidding him.”

Acts 28
20 For this cause therefore have I called for you, to see you, and to speak with you: because that for the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain.
21 And they said unto him, We neither received letters out of Judaea concerning you, neither any of the brethren that came shewed or spoke any harm of you.
22 But we desire to hear of you what you think: for as concerning this sect, we know that every where it is spoken against.
23 And when they had appointed him a day, there came many to him into his lodging; to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening.
24 And some believed the things which were spoken, and some believed not.
25 And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed, after that Paul had spoken one word [this one passage], “Well spoke the Holy Ghost by Isaiah the prophet unto our fathers,
26 Saying, ‘Go unto this people, and say, Hearing you shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing you shall see, and not perceive:
27 For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.’
28 Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it.”
29 And when he had said these words, the Jews departed, and had great reasoning among themselves.
30 And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him,
31 Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the LORD Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him [akolutos].

The above is the pattern the LORD describes in Matthew 24, which Paul understood, as a wheel within a wheel, which we see as a pattern within the pattern we now recognise as ours. We understand from previous conversations, these are the four wheels Ezekiel understood, and by this same sight, we are as he was, given a vision of God (see Ezekiel 7:26 below).

In the title (Matthew 24:6) the word rendered “rumor” is the Greek word akoe, as shortened form of the word akolutos. Akoe is the word translated “Hearing” in Acts 28:26 above as Paul quotes Isaiah 6:9 & 10. We know Isaiah concludes this by telling us of the total desolation that comes (has now come), by what the LORD describes in Matthew 24:15 as the “abomination” that is set in place of God. We understand these abominations are the ideas of men, their creations, with which they replaced God’s truth and have misled His people into total desolation.

The LORD tells us this is the abomination spoken of by Daniel, which is mentioned in Daniel 9:27, 11:31, and 12:11. In all these appearances the same Hebrew word, shiqquwts, is used.

Here is the Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary Definition of shiqquwts: #8251: shiqquwts (pronounced shik-koots’) or shiqquts {shik-koots’}; from 8262 [: shaqats – pollute]; disgusting, i.e. filthy; especially idolatrous or (concretely) an idol:– abominable filth (idol, -ation), detestable (thing).

These false teachers, who have created idols, damnable heresies, if it were possible, would deceive even the very elect into looking everywhere for antichrists, except where he is, in their pulpits leading them to hell.

These men are those described in Hebrews 12 as refusing to be healed, instead, as Esau, choose to keep their abominations and thereby have sold their birthright. These are those who choose, instead of mount Zion, to come to the mountain that burns with consuming fire, because they refuse the word spoken to them and demanded it be silenced.

Hebrews 10
11 Now no chastening for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
12 Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;
13 And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.
14 Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the LORD:
15 Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;
16 Lest there be any fornicator [having interaction with idols], or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.
17 For you know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.
18 For you are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest,
19 And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more:
20 (For they could not endure that which was commanded, And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart:
21 And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:)
22 But you are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,
23 To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
24 And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that of Abel.
25 See that you refuse not him that speaks. For if they escaped not who refused him that spoke on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaks from heaven:
26 Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he has promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.
27 And this word, Yet once more, signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
28 Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:
29 For our God is a consuming fire.

The “root of bitterness” spoken of in verse 15 above, (coming when men fail the grace sent to them: these words, and by it become defiled) is mentioned to refer us to Deuteronomy 29:18. There in verse 17 the word shiqquwts appears for the first time, its only time in Deuteronomy, and describes idols as the “abominations” (that when fully worked in defile the whole lump). The passage also describes the “covenant” Daniel tells us is broken by the same one who set up the abomination and removes the daily sacrifice. (The sacrifice is the necessary suffering Paul understood before receiving his sight – standing through the suffering is essential to delivering truth, which now almost all have abandoned.)

Deuteronomy 29
9 Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do.
10 You stand this day all of you before the LORD your God; your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel,
11 Your little ones, your wives, and your stranger that is in your camp, from the hewer of your wood unto the drawer of your water:
12 That you should enter into covenant with the LORD your God, and into his oath, which the LORD your God makes with you this day:
13 That he may establish you to day for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto you a God, as he has said unto you, and as he has sworn unto your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
14 Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath;
15 But with him that stands here with us this day before the LORD our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day [including us]:
16 (For you know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt; and how we came through the nations which you passed by;
17 And you have seen their abominations [shiqquwts], and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them:)
18 Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turns away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that bears gall and wormwood [bitterness];
19 And it come to pass, when he hears the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst: [Remember the passage from 1 Thessalonians 5, which we looked at in the prior post, verse 3, “when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction comes,” and verse 7, “For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.” These are speaking of knowing “the times and the seasons” we are in.]
20 The LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven.

Friends, the men of the world, the “experts” and “wise men” of this corrupt age, are hell bent and leading headlong into it. These are those the LORD speaks of in Isaiah 28, where he also defines the “rumor,” the Hebrew word shmuw`ah, which as akoe, means a report, as in an announcement. It isn’t a rumor; it’s a declaration that isn’t believed and therefore isn’t passed on, to become public knowledge, as it should be. It is the voice of the archangel, and the trumpet of God, the call to the battle that men are blind to while being ignorant of their own ignorance. This is the same call that only Paul heard, even though all saw the same thing.

Shmuw’ah is the word rendered “doctrine” in Isaiah 28:9 and “report” in verse 19; the first asking who shall the LORD teach “doctrine,” the second telling of the only vexation being to understand the “report.” We know from prior studies, the “report” is the same “report” Isaiah, in Isaiah 53:1, asks who has believed, and to whom thereby is the arm (work) of the LORD revealed?

Isaiah 28
7 But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment.
8 For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean.
9 Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine [shmuw’ah]? 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 [words that are not understood even though plainly declared] 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 [discipline] 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].
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.

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 [the idols that hold your head – the ideas, creations of men that control you], 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 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 [what had been a rumor will be known as fact].

Isaiah 53
1 Who has believed our report [shmuw’ah]? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?
2 For he shall grow up before 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 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 her shearers is dumb, so he opens 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.

Ezekiel, in Ezekiel 7:26, used the word shmuw’ah twice, rendered “rumor” as we are told why what is plainly announced isn’t reported as it should be. It says it is because, “Mischief shall come upon mischief, and rumour shall be upon rumour; then shall they seek a vision of the prophet; but the law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the ancients.” The Hebrew word hovah, meaning ruin or desolation, only used here and one other time, is the word translated “mischief.”

Ezekiel 7
16 But they that escape of them shall escape, and shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, every one for his iniquity.
17 All hands shall be feeble, and all knees shall be weak as water.
18 They shall also gird themselves with sackcloth, and horror shall cover them; and shame shall be upon all faces, and baldness upon all their heads.
19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumbling-block of their iniquity.
20 As for the beauty of his ornament, he set it in majesty: but they made the images of their abominations and of their detestable things therein: therefore have I set it far from them.
21 And I will give it into the hands of the strangers for a prey, and to the wicked of the earth for a spoil; and they shall pollute it.
22 My face will I turn also from them, and they shall pollute my secret place: for the robbers shall enter into it, and defile it.
23 Make a chain: for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence.
24 Wherefore I will bring the worst of the heathen [as it now is], and they shall possess their houses: I will also make the pomp of the strong to cease; and their holy places shall be defiled.
25 Destruction comes; and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none.
26 Mischief shall come upon mischief, and rumor [shmuw’ah] shall be upon rumor [shmuw’ah]; then shall they seek a vision of the prophet; but the law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the ancients.
27 The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with desolation, and the hands of the people of the land shall be troubled: I will do unto them after their way, and according to their deserts will I judge them; and they shall know that I am the LORD.

I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war.

If the price of peace is the silence, then let us war, fighting the good fight of faith, not releasing our hold on life eternal.

1 Thessalonians 5
1 But of the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I write unto you.
2 For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the LORD so comes as a thief in the night.
3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction comes upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
4 But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
5 You are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
6 Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
7 For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.
8 But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.
9 For God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our LORD Jesus Christ,
10 Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.
11 Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also you do.
12 And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the LORD, and admonish you;
13 And to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake. And be at peace among yourselves.
14 Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men.
15 See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men.
16 Rejoice evermore.
17 Pray without ceasing.
18 In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
19 Quench not the Spirit.
20 Despise not prophesyings.
21 Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
22 Abstain from all appearance of evil.
23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our LORD Jesus Christ.
24 Faithful is he that calls you, who also will do it.
25 Brethren, pray for us.
26 Greet all the brethren with an holy kiss.
27 I charge you by the LORD that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren.
28 The grace of our LORD Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.

Paul, in 1 Timothy 4, tells of these latter times, when men have departed from the faith and are giving heed to doctrines (obeying the teaching) of devils. He says what is translated in verse 3 as they are “Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God has created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.”

First, the Greek word gameo is rendered marry, which appears to be derived from the Hebrew word gam, meaning to gather, as an assemblage, as in the Hebrew word gama, meaning to absorb, as ink is absorbed into and becomes part of paper. These words also appear to be closely associated with the Hebrew name Gamaliel, which is rendered the same in Greek. We are told in Acts 5:34 that Gamaliel is a doctor of the law (expert in the word of God as they understood it). He is the one that recommended against forbidding the apostles to speak. We know from the passage his recommendation led their release while they were still forbidden to teach; a command they chose to ignore. (If the cost of peace is silence, then I choose war.)

Acts 5
26 Then went the captain with the officers, and brought them without violence: for they feared the people, lest they should have been stoned.
27 And when they had brought them, they set them before the council: and the high priest asked them,
28 Saying, Did not we straitly [strictly] command you that you should not teach in this name? and, behold, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.
29 Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.
30 The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you slew and hanged on a tree.
31 Him has God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.
32 And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God has given to them that obey him.
33 When they heard that, they were cut to the heart, and took counsel to slay them.
34 Then stood there up one in the council, a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, had in reputation among all the people, and commanded to put the apostles forth a little space;
35 And said unto them, You men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what you intend to do as touching these men.
36 For before these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be somebody; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves: who was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered, and brought to naught.
37 After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the taxing, and drew away much people after him: he also perished; and all, even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed.
38 And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to naught:
39 But if it be of God, you cannot overthrow it; lest haply you be found even to fight against God.
40 And to him they agreed: and when they had called the apostles, and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.
41 And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.
42 And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.

This is the same Gamaliel, later in Acts 22:3, Paul says taught him what he understood of the law. He continues into telling of when the LORD appeared to him and he realized he was (actually had long been) blind to the deeper meaning of the law, which is only released by the light (understanding) of Christ, turning to the LORD who struck him down. When this happened Paul was on his way to Damascus, a name we know is from words meaning to silent (damah – dumb – unable to speak) and associated with other words (dama’, dema’, and dim’ah) referring to being in tears and drunken, again, conditions that make speech difficult. The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon says Damascus means “silent is the sackcloth weaver,” which also speaks of silence in works of sorrow: sackcloth as symbolising mourning and tears of sadness.

Acts 22
1 Men, brethren, and fathers, hear you my defense which I make now unto you.
2 (And when they heard that he spoke in the Hebrew tongue to them, they kept the more silence: and he said,)
3 I am truly a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as you all are this day.
4 And I persecuted this way unto the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women.
5 As also the high priest does bear me witness, and all the estate of the elders: from whom also I received letters unto the brethren, and went to Damascus, to bring them which were there bound unto Jerusalem, for to be punished.
6 And it came to pass, that, as I made my journey, and was come nigh unto Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me.
7 And I fell unto the ground, and heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why persecutest you me?
8 And I answered, Who are you, LORD? And he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you persecute.
9 And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spoke to me.
10 And I said, What shall I do, LORD? And the LORD said unto me, Arise, and go into Damascus; and there it shall be told you of all things which are appointed for you to do.
11 And when I could not see for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of them that were with me, I came into Damascus.
12 And one Ananias, a devout man according to the law, having a good report of all the Jews which dwelt there,
13 Came unto me, and stood, and said unto me, Brother Saul, receive your sight. And the same hour I looked up upon him.
14 And he said, The God of our fathers has chosen you, that you should know his will, and see that Just One, and should hear the voice of his mouth.
15 For you shall be his witness unto all men of what you have seen and heard.
16 And now why tarry you? arise, and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the LORD.
17 And it came to pass, that, when I was come again to Jerusalem, even while I prayed in the temple, I was in a trance;
18 And saw him saying unto me, Make haste, and get you quickly out of Jerusalem: for they will not receive your testimony concerning me.
19 And I said, LORD, they know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed on you:
20 And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by, and consenting unto his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him.
21 And he said unto me, Depart: for I will send you far hence unto the Gentiles.

Friends, you understand these things are written for us to see them as they overlay and match the same patterns in our time, as Ezekiel saw the wheel (the circle of events recorded) within a wheel (repeating in the circle of events occurring).

The word rendered “forbidding” in 1 Timothy 4:3 is the Greek word koluo, meaning not just to forbid, but additionally, under threat of punishment or as punishment.

The context of the word’s use by Paul in 1 Timothy 4:3 is understood when He uses it in 1 Thessalonians 2:16. There it speaks of those who had received the word of God as it is: the actual word of God, who were thereby in the presence of the LORD at His coming, who themselves were being forbidden to speak the same word of God to the Gentiles, their fellow countrymen. We know, later in 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul tells these believers, so they won’t be ignorant or lose losing hope for the sleeping and the dead, the LORD will come and they will hear Him, and those who receive His word will rise from where they are being held down (katecho) to meet (join – gather to) Him at His coming.

1 Thessalonians 2
10 You are witnesses, and God also, how holily and justly and unblameably 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 [koluo] 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, endeavoured 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?
20 For you are our glory and joy.

1 Thessalonians 4
7 For God has not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.
8 He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who has also given unto us his holy Spirit.
9 But as touching brotherly love you need not that I write unto you: for you yourselves are taught of God to love one another.
10 And indeed you do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia: but we beseech you, brethren, that you increase more and more;
11 And that you study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you;
12 That you may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that you may have lack of nothing.
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 – pulled from the fires caused by these men’s false teaching and doctrines of devils – see Jude 23] together with them in the clouds, to meet the LORD in the air: and so shall we ever be with the LORD.
18 Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

Jude
11 Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain [“who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous”], and ran greedily after the error of Balaam [agreed to curse God’s people] for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core [Korah, who led the priests, the famous, and men of renown against Moses and Aaron, and questioned the authority God had given them].
12 These are spots [what causes the fires and spotted the garments mentioned in verse 23 below] 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 for ever.
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 speaking 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 [making them aware of their fallen condition, and that because their pride and trusting in the words of man and perpetuating their myths, they stand precariously close to missing what they have hoped for], pulling them out of [harpazo] 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.

Friends, these Gentiles, those who don’t know God, who don’t yet know Him enough to call themselves His people Israel, are the little ones, those who are as little children needing to be taught by the LORD Himself.

The word koluo is used by the LORD many times in telling of not forbidding the little children to come to Him, as do (forbid) the great preachers and teacher of our time, the famous, and men of great reputation. I say let them come, out from the houses and words of rebellion against God (see Numbers 16).

Luke 18 [Understand these ideas as all relating to each other, raising questions and giving answers.]
1 And he spoke a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;
2 Saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man:
3 And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary.
4 And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man;
5 Yet because this widow troubles me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.
6 And the LORD said, Hear what the unjust judge says.
7 And shall not God [who is Righteous, in the day of His Righteous Judgment] avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?
8 I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man comes, shall he find faith [to believe He has come] on the earth?
9 And he spoke this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves [their own ideas – their prosperity] that they were righteous, and despised others:
10 Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.
11 The Pharisee [trusting in his own works, and therefore not needing to recognize a savour has been sent to Him] 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 exalts himself shall be abased; and he that humbles himself shall be exalted. [Remember, you will not fool God with vain words and actions that contradict them – God sees the truth – if you claim you are humble while you hate, lie, and destroy those who you falsely accuse, claiming you are righteous and they are sinners, you prove yourselves as liars – do you hear me you who hate Trump and any who refuse to join you in your hate against him? Do you hear me communists, Pope and other devils in the church in sheep’s clothing?]
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 [koluo] 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 [willing to come without pretense or guile, in good faith seeking to learn] shall in no wise enter therein.
18 And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master [Teacher], 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 understood what he lacked by the commandments not mentioned, the 1st and the 10th: you shall have other gods before God, and you shall not covet what is your neighbor’s], he said unto him, Yet lack you one thing: sell all that you have, and distribute unto the poor [speaking of ideas and what is relied upon to produce prosperity], 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.
31 Then he took unto him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished.
32 For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on:
33 And they shall scourge him, and put him to death: and the third day he shall rise again.
34 And they understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken.
35 And it came to pass, that as he was come nigh unto Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the way side begging:
36 And hearing the multitude pass by, he asked what it meant.
37 And they told him, that Jesus of Nazareth passes by.
38 And he cried, saying, Jesus, you son of David, have mercy on me.
39 And they which went before rebuked him, that he should hold his peace: but he cried so much the more, You son of David, have mercy on me.
40 And Jesus stood, and commanded him to be brought unto him: and when he was come near, he asked him,
41 Saying, What will you that I shall do unto you? And he said, LORD, that I may receive my sight.
42 And Jesus said unto him, Receive your sight: your faith has saved you.
43 And immediately he received his sight, and followed him, glorifying God: and all the people, when they saw it, gave praise unto God.

1 Timothy 4
1 Now the Spirit speaks expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;
3 Forbidding [koluo] to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God has created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
4 For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving:
5 For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.
6 If you put the brethren in remembrance of these things, you shall be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto you have attained.
7 But refuse profane and old wives’ fables, and exercise yourself rather unto godliness.
8 For bodily exercise profits little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.
9 This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation.
10 For therefore we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, specially of those that believe.
11 These things command and teach.
12 Let no man despise your youth; but be you an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.
13 Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.
14 Neglect not the gift that is in you, which was given you by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.
15 Meditate upon these things; give yourself wholly to them; that your profiting may appear to all.
16 Take heed unto yourself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this you shall both save yourself, and them that hear you.

Psalms 30
1 I will extol you, O LORD; for you have lifted me up, and have not made my foes to rejoice over me.
2 O LORD my God, I cried unto you, and you have healed me.
3 O LORD, you have brought up my soul from the grave: you have kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.
4 Sing unto the LORD, O you saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.
5 For his anger endures but a moment; in his favor is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.
6 And in my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved.
7 LORD, by your favor you have made my mountain to stand strong: you did hide your face, and I was troubled.
8 I cried to you, O LORD; and unto the LORD I made supplication.
9 What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise you? shall it declare your truth?
10 Hear, O LORD, and have mercy upon me: LORD, be you my helper.
11 You have turned for me my mourning into dancing: you have put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness;
12 To the end that my glory may sing praise to you, and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks unto you for ever.