Mythology Buster

THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS WITHIN YOU
THE WORD OF HIS POWER

The Cosmos, or the sum and total of the universe, as we know it, is energy. And the laws of physics dictate that energy is not lost. Nor does it magically appear out of nothingness. Einstein’s now famous equation, E=mc2 , states that energy and matter (light and matter) are equivalent. Matter comes from, or is made from light. In the equation, c2, or the speed of light squared, is a CONSTANT. It tells us how much matter equates with how much light. In the cosmos about you, light and matter transpose back and forth from one to the other. If I begin with a mass of fissionable uranium 235, say 100 pounds, and compress the mass sufficiently to evoke a chain reaction, it results in the nucleus of nearly all of the uranium atoms flying apart. The fragments move away at a speed not far less than that of light. They depart so fast, the electrons are left behind. As the fragments begin to collide with matter around them, they slow down and it heats up, until an equilibrium is reached. This is not unlike a billiard “break”. Where the very fast moving cue ball strikes the first ball in the rack. What you see, until all the motion stops, is the result of the energy imparted to the cue ball, working itself through the system. But in this example, no mass, or matter, is converted to light. In the fission of 100 pounds of uranium however, if you were to gather up all of the fragments, now slowed to ambient temperature, and resupplied with electrons, you would have a mixed bag of elements that would weigh, or have a mass, of about 95 pounds. How do you account for the missing 5 pounds? Has it ceased to exist? No. It was converted to light. That light is now speeding away in all directions at 186,000 miles per second. Should you track it all down, convert it back to matter, and add it to your bag of fragments, you would have your 100 pounds of matter.

In modern science, the theory called the “BIG BANG” is largely accepted as an accounting of the events constituting the “birth” , or formation of the cosmos. At the instant this took place, the theory states, there appeared, or perhaps always was, a “singularity”. And all the sum of the energy (and later the mass, or matter) of the cosmos was present and accounted for in a space so small, as to measure far less than the size of the nucleus of a single proton, the nucleus of an hydrogen atom. Think about this for a moment. EVERYTHING known to you to materially exist in the known cosmos, from where you sit, to the farthest reaches of observable space, once resided in a space so small, you could not find it. Consider the raw power demonstrated in the “cue ball” that did this. YOU, in your present body, occupy a space that could almost be called a universe, as compared to the infintesimally small “space” of singularity that all came from. As an example of the size to which this singularity has expanded, and is still expanding, consider the following.

Not long ago, scientists decided to focus the Hubble telescope for a period of time, on a relatively “empty” (so they thought) region of space. The objective was to take a picture of the farthest reaches of space known, to “see” what the edge was, or what lay beyond. When the data was collected and processed, an image emerged. There could be seen in the image, specs of light, fading away until they were so impossibly distant, they could not register. The scientists were flabbergasted. Every spec of light in the picture, is not a star. Every spec in the picture is a GALAXY. All of what you are seeing, is innumerable galaxies, like our Milky Way, so distant as to fade into seemingly nothing. ALL of that was once in a space so small, that if it were in you, you could not find it.

Deep Space Image

These things which science accepts and teaches, are amazingly parallel to an account written thousands of years ago, by a man for whom an instrument of metal, such as an ax head, was the height of technology. Only his account is more accurate. For this man, Moses, identifies the source of the singularity, and therefore preserves the conservation of energy in his account.

As you read this that I have written, words are taking shape and forming in your mind. What is formed came from me, and is being considered in you. Thus, the power of a word. Speech occupies no space in the cosmos, nor does it add to, or take away from it. But it does affect it. The spoken word pushes air around, resulting in what happens in the ear. But the “words” occupy no space in a room. A word is a singularity. It can only be measured by it’s effect in a system. So, the origin of the singularity of the cosmos, a mystery to science, is identified by Moses, because he believed what he was shown.

“GOD SAID…..AND THERE WAS…”

And as a further point of consideration, for those with experience reading scripture, and at least a high school level of knowledge of physics, you may find that if you read the separation of dark from light in the book of Genesis as the separation of matter from energy, you will find the truth of Einstein’s equation, not in mathematical form, but written in words that only lack a constant.

“Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.” (Psalm 139)

Now, if one cares to read psalm 139, you will find it’s subject to be the resurrected Lord, and a people formed with Him, died with Him, and raised with Him. It is no coincidence that light and matter are equated in this one place in scripture.

Reading dark being separated from light, as matter taken out of energy (light) is perfectly acceptable and legitimate, and in fact will open vistas in scripture, not open without this line of reasoning. This does not affect, or change seeing it as “night and day”, it is simply another facet of God’s creation, there to declare His glory, available to be read and searched out. Some examples to consider as one thing taken, or separated out from another:

Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. (John 8:42)

There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 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.(1 Corinthians 15)

This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.(1John 1:5)

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.(James 1:17)

For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: (Ephesians 5:8)

These are but a few examples,

     Now, as a thing to consider, recalling that a word can be seen as a singularity, and that if the Lord’s WORD abides in you, then there abides in you, the kingdom of heaven, just as Jesus said. It may, so long as you abide in flesh, exist in you as a singularity, but the very cosmos teaches you, that everything there is , was once compacted in a space so small, as to be practically impossible to find. This is both a scientific fact, and a Spiritual truth. In fact science has successfully read a message written into the creation, but has failed to find the hand of the creator in it:

 “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools…” (Rom 1)

   Now, the entire point of this writing is not to ridicule science, but to declare that there is no wisdom in anything, science or otherwise, if it is not coupled with faith, Faith is what Christ reveals ALWAYS trumps science, because Christ can and does not lie, and Christ sees already, all of the unseen mysteries that science has yet to stumble upon and work into it’s thinking.

If you can believe the account of science regarding a singularity and the “big bang”, then do not think it a strange thing, when Jesus tells you that the kingdom of heaven is in you (if so be His word is in you), and that all of this will be unveiled and revealed in “big bang” fashion, as the scriptures have declared. The clouds of heaven are not water vapor. They are a people, who have been in collecting, added by faith, hidden with Christ in God, from the resurrection to this present time. In due time, all shall be revealed, unveiled together. When he appears, then shall we also appear with Him in glory. This saying is written in the book of Jude, the preclude to the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, and it tells you, from the world’s perspective, where the Lord’s appearing will “come” from:

“And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, 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.”

                         THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS WITHIN YOU

A good friend of mine wrote an inspired piece in which he draws his own conclusions about “religion” , after addressing the shortcomings of your basic dictionary definition of religion. This that he wrote, is not an afternoon’s musing, but born out of a lifetime experience. I want to share it as something which is the fruit of a sincere man who loves Jesus and has been battered a bit by religion, as I suppose most, if not all have, but in Job-like fashion, retains his “integrity”…or does not fault God with any past trials and difficulties, but correctly identifies the shortcomings and dead end nature of the things to which so many people subscribe themselves………………….

Religion – definition of by XXXX Miller

Religion; The dictionary defines the term “religion” as the following;

RELIGION, n. relij’on. [A “system” established (by man) (or God) in which to worship God. Morality (code of ethics) is closely tied to the definition as his “will” and this “will” (so to speak) is defined by the religion’s philosophy.

The above definition defines and encompasses all religion. World wide. As a Christian, the scripture teaches that Christ, as Messiah, is the only avenue for which mankind may find propitiation (appeasement, or satisfaction) for sin. Total salvation & total freedom. He is the gate on the heavenly path. There is no other gate but through Christ. Consequently, the above dictionary definition is suspect as ‘all inclusive’ in that it places all world religions in this category of which, have no merit. Their existence, and elaboration about them, is therefore a mute point. Consequently, throughout the balance of this Theseus, denominational Christianity will conclude the subject matter.

Finding the above definition of religion inconclusive, I researched further finding little satisfaction for my efforts. So, I have concluded to write my own definition of ‘religion’ based on personal experience and my knowledge of scripture. Keep in mind; the term “religion” (as a system) to me incorporates everything I consider wrong with Christianity, and shall be used derogatorily through out the balance of this Theseus. In my search, I did run across a quote by St Augustine saying, “Most of us know perfectly well what religion is – until someone asks us to define it.” In as much as I don’t subscribe to the practices of Augustine’s religion, I thought his definition was honest. But not accurate. I believe a definition is possible. In fact, his statement defined him to the fact that he doesn’t know the definition either. I/e he ignorantly practiced religion. James, The brother of Jesus, described religion in the bible as the following; James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” Although this definition is an example of how Christians should conduct themselves, it is not really a definition of what religion ‘is’. But rather it is an example of how the Holy Spirit should change ones heart (motives) and ones actions as one practices pure and faultless religion. Now here is my contention within the realm of “Religious Christianity”. “Is said denomination in question, biblically or philosophically motivated”? I will concede and admit that most of “Christian” denominations probably originated in “good faith” mixed with “a little truth” and sincerity. But I will also refute the fact that they are STILL based on truth and sincerity. Even the most iconic religious denominations have strayed from truth and have developed their own version of Gods word thru their hierarchy, choosing to approach the word as one would approach a smorgasbord. I have gone to some of these churches and have observed this to be true. The debate over abortion & homosexuality is evidence in itself that they have strayed from scripture and purity of heart. There shouldn’t be a debate… The scripture is clear.

(People management.) In contrast to true Christianity, Here would be MY definition of ‘religion’; [Religion defined by the common person] A practice (or methodology) done by individuals, or as a group of individuals, to relieve themselves from guilt and to ‘earn’ forgiveness, respect, and acceptance of their God. [Religion defined by leadership / priests] Whether sincere or not, A method of controlling a group or individuals as a means to an end. Controlling society from lawlessness and the attempt to maintain a civilized society. Controlling the masses by means of guilt and providing a “temporary antidote” for guilt or sin via practices done for the church I/e penance or monetary giftings. How is this achieved? By continually preaching a ‘list of sins’ entrapping the hearer to an item on that list forcing them to ‘again’ partake of the antidote thus adhering the partaker deeper and deeper within the ‘religion’. Past Pagan religions could demand a human sacrifice, self-mutilation, or self-denial as part of that antidote. Modern religions would most likely demand monetary, physical disciplines, or self-denial as a means of compensation to receive said ‘antidote’. Make no mistake, all religion old or new has something in common. It requires “more” of its followers  “than they are already doing” to achieve the “temporary antidote” prescribed by said religion. This prescription also captivates the individual by means of limited atonement or no atonement at all apart from said religion, thus perpetuating the religion, for the sake of the religion, BY DESIGN. Disallowing individuals the freedom to investigate other religions (denominations) for fear of eternal damnation and the withdrawal of “said antidote” by the former religious leadership. Thus resulting in the pied piper effect. Most “Christian” Denominational Religion discourages the studying the bible apart from its “specified authors” enabling it to establish parameters on the minds of its followers for the purpose of unity, control, and again self perpetuation / preservation.

So the conclusion of the matter is, ‘religion’ today is no different then it was in Jesus time. It doesn’t ‘set you free’ but rather does the opposite. It binds you to itself for the purpose of promoting ‘it self’ with its ‘own’ interests in mind and not your interest as a person who just wants to have your heavy load lifted…

Example: Matt 23:4 They (The teachers of the law and the Pharisees) tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. (Read all of Mathew 23 for more examples.)

Many sincere religious people believe (have been told their whole life) that his / her own religion is the “true religion” and the way in which he / she practices it (zealousness) defines whether he / she really believe in it. If we believe in a religion simply to control conduct in a society, then we should be pitied above all men. The Apostle Paul makes such a statement.

1 Cor 15:12-19 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

Why did he say this? I think he said it to establish a difference between Christianity and all of the other religions of the day and of the future. What was the difference? The fact that Jesus was raised from the dead unto eternal life. Many pagan religions believe in eternal life to some degree, but none have demonstrated its possibility. Until Christ. Christ did so when the tomb was found empty. Therefore separating the religions of “presumed hope” and the religion of truth with an ability to pay off (so to speak).

REAL Christianity could be described as ”thinking out side of the box” of religion.

Good news!

If Jesus came to bring us good news, it must have to be really really good news. Is being saved and still living under the law good news? Is striving to be better and never attaining that status good news? Is graveling at the alter and repeating the same “sorry lord”, I won’t do it again” and knowing that I will, good news? Trying to be more like Jesus and yet in my heart, I know I won’t ever get any better. To me, this is where I had to make a choice. Is what I am doing really the gospel, and am I supposed to live the rest of my life feeling all this guilt? Am I forever a defeated looser? In my heart of hearts, I was happier before I got “saved”.  Lord, shall I say, “why didn’t you leave me alone till just before I died and then save me?”  I was happy in the beginning, but now that they (the church) have taught me that I need to be perfect, I am miserable. I hate my life now! Just let me die now! Lord. I can’t stand it any longer!

I have said and thought all of that! Why? Because I take my walk with God seriously! If we are right in our theological religious perspective in our worship to God, we go to heaven. If we have believed a lie in this theological methodology, we go to hell. So why am I writhing this? Because I was deceived and believed a lie for years. The same lie that most “Christians” believe. The Lord gave me light years ago on this subject, but I trusted rather in my “spiritual leaders” then what the Spirit was teaching me and abandoned this perspective to “follow the pastor, as he follows Christ” (so I was taught to do), and was led into the miry clay of religion a second time. A LAW righteousness. Law has no ability to forgive, rather it condemns. If you run a stop sign, does the ‘sign’ itself undo the fact that you ran it? So, can obeying the yield sign (penance) undo the stop sign violation? Can any act of penance undo another act of disobedience? No it can’t. Because law is the schoolmaster, not the judge. Only the judge or the judge’s boss (governor) or the governor’s boss (president) can pardon a lawbreaker.

Buildings are nothing but corporate headquarters for big businesses preaching ‘lists’, offering antidotes with expiration dates…

Futility only to be equaled by politics…

Only Christ and the REAL gospel bring an end to this religious madness… To be forgiven past, present, and future… To be seated with Christ and have our names permanently written in ‘the book of life’ is real Christianity… to enter Gods ‘rest’ is what I call good news… somehow the ‘treadmill of religion’ just doesn’t appeal to me…

Jhn 15:15   “Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you”.

In Luke’s inspired writings, the Gospel of Luke and Acts, there is a pivotal individual. This individual is the one to whom Luke wrote in both cases. This individual’s name has meaning that is not confined to he alone, but to all to whom the Lord reveals Himself and in whom the Lord, by His Spirit, teaches. This individual is Theophilus, and his name means “Friend Of God”. The account to Theophilus known as the Gospel of Luke, sets forth in order, for Theophilus, an account of all the Jesus BEGAN to do and teach up to the moment He was received up into the heavens. The account to Theophilus in the book of Acts, is an accounting of the Resurrected Lord, by His Spirit, resuming unto a conclusion in His people, those things He began as the Word made flesh. Though we can know Him no more in terms of flesh and blood, and though we see Him no more in flesh and blood, we are not left orphaned. Know Him we must. The continuation of His doing and teaching, is by His Spirit. Reading the opening sayings of  Acts reveals this transition, by the coming of the Spirit of Christ, into the ongoing of revelation of Himself, in them He calls friends:

“The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen: To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God: And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.”

Jesus did not depart from His own for very long, but according to the saying of the prophet Malachi,  “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts”. This was fulfilled, “not many days hence” , exactly as Jesus told the disciples. It was not fulfilled in an upper room. It was fulfilled upon the arrival of the full day of Pentecost , and was the fulfillment of the ritualistic enactment which the Jews, in their religion, had acted out by ordinance, once each calender year.

  “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God. And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this?”

These events, involving so many individuals, on a day in which the Lord defined His temple as the people in whom the Spirit came and comes, had to require a great deal more space than any upper room could ever provide.

On this day, the Holy Spirit, the Promise of the Father came. He came to His temple. Now, does this temple refer to the stock and stone edifice, the “house” which David desired to build, but was told of the impossibility of it, and Solomon built anyway? This work of Solomon now surrounded by an outer court of massive proportions (approx. 1.5 million square feet), built by Herod , the offspring of Esau, and Roman Senate appointed king of Judeah? For concerning the buildings, when they were pointed out to Him, Jesus had said not one stone would be left upon another which would not be thrown down, yet to Christ and His people it is said:
  “…Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.”

And again:

   “…And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.”  ( Christ is the foundation of the apostles and prophets, and the foundation in you upon which all are built)

So, the dead is cast down, the living is raised and built upon. The fulfillment of the day of Pentecost is not a calender day. It is an eternal day, a “day”, a “time”, a “manner” , the coming of which “ye think not”…the carnal mind does not accept or entertain it. In His revelation to John on Patmos, Jesus declared Himself to be raised eternally. He WAS, He IS, He IS TO COME…the ALMIGHTY. He abides eternal. On the final legitimate calender day of Pentecost, the Lord came to His temple, and in them added to Him since the resurrection , He came. In them being “caught up” , apprehended in Spirit this moment, He is coming (present tense and active), and in those who hereafter will receive the Holy Spirit, from this moment, until the Lord concludes all that He began to do and teach, He is to come. The calender day is finished. The eternal day is at hand, ready to be entered into. And so long as the door is opened, it suffers violence (energetic assault) and the energetic take it with force (power to become). If you desire the kingdom of God, it is yours for the taking. When the Lord shall complete this great work, in which it is written, we are His workmanship, when the last to be added are added, all shall be revealed. But make no mistake, the Lord is in His temple now. And living stones being added, stone by stone, implies an on going work, which shall surely be completed. If God is “invisible” , what is it then, if His house is also invisible at this present time? Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

When Jesus stood and overlooked the city whose end had come, to Jerusalem below, He said, “Your house is left unto you desolate”. The sun, moon , and eleven stars of Joseph’s dreams darkened, became ordinary flesh, and fell. The lamp of the earthy temple , now no more visited by the Lord, went out. And now we read of the lighting of the lamp anew, in a new house, an eternal house, the Father’s resurrected house of many houses, a place for each, Jesus in His departing prepared for you, and in His Spirit, has come again to receive you, as he said, “To Myself”.

Christianity so called ( I say so called, because many adopt a name that they live, but are dead) , Christianity today, in it’s various franchises and distinctions, has been largely reduced to the same sad and fallen state of the Hebrews today. They bob and bow in front of a stone wall, built by an Idumean, a seed of Esau ( Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated), with eyes transfixed on a vacant city, waiting for Messiah to come ( who will never again come as Messiah, for Messiah is in the earth now, if you comprehend what His Body is), looking for a temple to be built, all the while ignorant of the temple, the Spiritual House, which is raised and will never be pulled down. This is a condition rife and begging for great deception. As Paul wrote, many are weak, many sickly, and many sleep among them, because they fail to discern the Lord’s body (and often substitute it in their minds, with a cracker and a thimble of grape juice).

But the ongoing Revelation among them He calls “friends” is real, is present, and essential. It is not theoretical, theological, and it is by no means a hospice like environment where the often dead congregate to await burial. And happily, this blessed state of life and walk in the Spirit of Christ, is available and attainable to all who believe, seek, and ask. And should any believe, seek and ask, do not be surprised if the things to follow by revelation of Christ in you, bear little if any resemblance to the things you have been commonly given to believe by the builders:

“Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?”    [Matthew 21:42 KJV]

“And have ye not read this scripture; The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner:”    [Mark 12:10 KJV]

“And he beheld them, and said, What is this then that is written, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner?”   [Luke 20:17 KJV]
  
The opening of the eyes of the man born blind resulted in his being cast out of the synagogue. It seems that there is a never ending contention between these “experts” who would have you see all through their eyes, and the the Spirit of Truth who prefers that you see through your own. As it is written, “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light” (Mat 6:22) and again, “Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch” (Mat 15:14).

I truly believe the man, in time, would have left the place on his own. The “casting out” by the Pharisees was an act, as was and is everything they do, for show…for “to be seen of men”. It was the cowardly act of self appointed “somewhats”, threatened by the reasoning of God in the mind of an individual. For upon being put out, the Lord, who had opened the eyes of the man born blind, found him, as you may read in John 9, and then began the condition described and told by the prophet Isaiah, “And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them” (Isa 42:16).

We were all born blind. It need not be a permanent condition. Jesus came not to offer His elbow to the blind, but to restore sight to the blind.

PRETENDERS TO THE THRONE – THEY CLERGIED MY VESTURE

THE ACCOUNT OF PSALM 22

The account of the murder of the Son of God is told before in Psalm 22. Included in the account is the time of the interlopers, a period filled with usurpers, called “bulls of Bashan”. The text includes:

“…For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture”.

These power grabbers will bear rule by their means , until a people are assembled in Christ, and revealed together with Him as testified in the conclusion of Psalm 22:

   “For the kingdom is the LORD’S: and he is the governor among the nations. All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship: all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him: and none can keep alive his own soul. A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation. They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this.”

   The foretold seed, the generation to come, is like none before, and is not a generation of flesh and blood, but rather, a spiritual seed and house begotten to God , in Christ, in His resurrection. The first words of the first gospel declare this seed and generation:

“The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham….” (MAT 1:1)

In the first chapter of the first gospel, is an accounting, a naming from father to son, beginning not in the sin of Adam, but in the faith of Abraham. This accounting counts the generations, fourteen from Abraham to David. Fourteen from David to the captivity at Babylon. Fourteen from the Captivity at Babylon until Christ. Forty-two generations until Christ. Counting the names from Abraham until David yields fourteen. Counting from David to the captivity yields fourteen. Counting from the captivity until the man Jesus Christ yields thirteen. This is not an error or a typo. It is an accounting of the generation of Jesus Christ, to be concluded in the seed foretold, a seed which shall serve Him, and shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation. The fourteenth and final generation is and will be, all begotten to God in Christ , in His resurrection, from the time of the resurrection, to this moment, and until such a time as the last to be added to the Lord in this manner, are added. When the matter is summed up, all shall be revealed together with Him.

   These things are prophetically reflected in the account of Aaron’s resurrected rod. It is a dealing with them who were not content with the Lord’s chosen and appointed leadership, and who sought to displace Moses and Aaron from their appointed place, and fill the void with (surprise) themselves. For I am sure that , in their own eyes, there were none better suited to lead the people. In answer to this, the staffs of the twelve patriarchs were presented before the Lord, and one was chosen. Aaron’s staff budded, blossomed, leafed, and bore a generation, a single seed crop and generation, raised together with the rod, and seated together with it in the ark of testimonies. To every seed reserved in this heavenly place, it is appointed to rule together with the resurrected rod. But in that they are yet seed, their rule is in a time and manner to come. They abide dead, raised and seated together with the rod, their lives hid, encrypted together with this body of resurrection, against a time to come, in which they will be revealed in glory (I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live). Until such a time, the interloping, power grabbing pretenders to the throne, and their system of mysterious iniquity that “lets”(hinders) will let (hinder) until they are taken out of the way. (2 Th 2)

The account of the crucifixion in Psalm 22 is declared in the gospels by eye witnesses.

                                                           Matthew 27
“And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots.”

                                                                Luke 23
“Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.”

                                                                 John 19
“They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be: that the scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots. These things therefore the soldiers did.”

  As an interesting interjection, I will point out, that nowhere in the King James version of the scriptures, is the word “vestment” used in association with the Lord. Only the word “vesture”. The word “vestment” is only associated with Baal and Baal worshipers. A quick internet search of the word “vestment” is interesting. The distinction between the two words in the KJV is divinely ordained. We are told to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Not vestments of Baal.

The very phrase, “lots” used in each of the above accounts of the gospels, is :

κλῆρος (klā’-ros) The word Cleric comes directly from this word.

At the foot of the cross, men cast lots, or “clergied” the Lord’s vesture. It was prophetic of the time of the interlopers, a period in which men, perceiving that the Lord has been killed , and by all appearances departed: have presumed to divide up among themselves: to “clergy” to themselves, the perceived power vacuum left in the wake of the Lord’s departure. This they do, not regarding the fact that the Lord came suddenly again to His temple, in the power of His resurrection, by the coming of the Spirit of truth, the Promise of the Father. And these usurpers now stand in contradiction, and opposition, to the Spirit of God resident in every member of the body of Christ, which is defined by the indwelling of the Spirit (For if any have not the Spirit of Christ, he has no part of Christ, as it is written) . And they will so stand, always resisting the Holy Ghost, until they be taken out of the way.

   Ephesians 4, and the relationship between the prophets Elijah and Elisha, also declare these things. Jesus said that , “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father”, and, “ … I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you”.

Elijah, the prophet and man of God , was told upon mount Horeb, that he must anoint Hazael to be king over Syria, he must anoint Jehu to be king over Israel, and he must anoint Elisha, the son of Shaphat, to be prophet in his room. Elijah found Elisha plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, Elisha himself with the twelfth and final yoke. Elijah cast his mantle over Elisha, who took a yoke of oxen, slew them, and offered them a burnt offering upon the broken instruments of their yoking for fuel.

   Elisha took leave of his fathers house, and Jacob’s (signified by the twelve yoke of oxen), and followed Elijah. There came the time that Elijah was to be taken up , caught up to God by a whirlwind, and in that time, Elijah journeyed from Gilgal with Elisha. Elijah tested Elisha, offering him to stay at Gilgal, seeing that the Lord was going to take Elijah away. Said Elisha, “ As the LORD liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee”. And so, they journeyed to Bethel. At Bethel, the sons of the prophets knew that Elijah was going to depart, and told him so. Again , Elijah encouraged Elisha to tarry there, as the Lord would send Elijah to Jericho. Again, Elisha would have none of it. Again, at Jericho, the sons of the prophets repeated the same refrain, and again Elijah offered Elisha to tarry with them. Again, Elisha would have none of it. Finally, fifty of the sons of the prophets of Jericho, that accursed city thrown down in Joshua, and raised again in Ahab, fifty of these stood afar off as Elisha accompanied across the River Jordan on dry ground (signifying a crossing over without death):

“And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee. And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me. And he said, Thou hast asked a hard thing: nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be so. And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it, and he cried, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. And he saw him no more: and he took hold of his own clothes, and rent them in two pieces. He took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and went back, and stood by the bank of Jordan;….”

   It is important to note, that Elijah was not dead, and that Elisha knew that, unlike the sons of the prophets who stood afar off, and so did not witness Elijah in “resurrection”, and so, sought for a non existent dead body. It is also important to comprehend, that the Spirit and Office (Mantle) of Elijah is the Spirit of God, and that Elijah did not die and surrender anything to Elisha, but rather, in the figure of resurrection, raised Elisha into the office which he, in resurrection, did not relinquish. And as a veil was rent, so Elisha’s garments. Elijah was not dead and his office and mantle were not transferred…they were shared.

   So Elisha walked in the Spirit and Power of the ascended Elijah, without Elijah having forfeiting them. Only among them who perceive a man dead and absent, is there any notion that the man’s garments and vesture may be divided up among themselves, and that they may act and function in a presumed power vacuum left in the man’s departing. This crucial error in thinking is prevalent in the leadership of the churches to this day. If Christ is dead, then His office may be assumed, and His possessions may be passed out among the living. If He is not dead, all He is may be freely shared as He sees fit, but He remains forever the firstborn among many brethren, firstborn and heir of all things, concerning which His brethren may be joint heirs, but not sole heirs. And He remains preeminent in all things. His supremacy may be shared…but never transferred.

   So, it is written in the beginning of the book of Acts, that the former writing of Luke (Luke 1:3) was of all Jesus BEGAN to do and teach, and that by His own Spirit, expediently come in His own people, would He finish them in us (these things and greater shall ye do because I go to My Father….). Anything, absolutely anything functioning in the world, under the premise that it is acting in God’s stead, is a lie. If Christ in you is the hope of glory, what then, is that thing in the world? Christ is not in you in effigy, theory or proxy, but in Spirit and Truth. It is very notable that in Elijah, Ahab was judged, and in Elisha, Jezebel was judged. This too, prophetic of Christ, and His resurrected generation which serves Him. Jezebel is active in the churches to this day, as you may read in Revelation.

Ephesians 4 tells you that when Jesus ascended on high, He gave gifts to men. It tells us that there is one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above ALL , in ALL, and through you ALL. And concerning gifting, to EVERY ONE OF US is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. And Christ, The Apostle and High Priest of our profession, The Prophet who was to come, and is come, The Great Evangelist, whose word and sound is gone out, the Chief Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, The One in whom THE TEACHER, the Spirit of Truth and Promise of the Father , come in us as He said, is raised, glorified, seated at the right hand of God , henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His foot stool. We , who see Him in resurrection, by faith, are died with him (our own garment rent as was Elisha’s) , we are raised with Him ( not separate from Him) and seated together with Him, in His Father’s throne, in heavenly places, not presumptuously play acting in His absence, for He is neither dead, nor absent. For the measure of every gift is not as a trinket deposited down, but is actually, you, raised into Him. Consider the wording carefully:

   “Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus”. (Eph 2)

   “Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ…”

   Christ is not subdivided and distributed as trinkets from above. YOU ARE RAISED INTO HIM.  It is not so among the rebellious, where men presume to be the gifted elite, to the exclusion of the subservient laity. This condition may be viewed in detail in reading Revelation 2 and 3, where there are assemblies laboring under many pretending voices and systems, struggling to hear such things as the Spirit says, and in their midst stands Elisha-like, testifying of the things in Christ, one in whom are none of these contrary attributes, but the very definition of a perfect, or complete man in Christ, one “like unto the Son of man”, one who fit’s the description of the Lord’s body; “one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above ALL , in ALL, and through you ALL”. One who is a seer and partaker of what he sees…the resurrected Lord Christ. This distinction where two are gifted, but one a rebellious house, can be also seen by reading the Psalm from which Paul quotes in Ephesians 4, but in Ephesians 4 makes no direct reference to the rebellious directly (though subtly in verse 14): “That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive…”.

                                                                 Psalm 68
“ Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the LORD God might dwell among them…”

                         “THAT THE LORD GOD MIGHT DWELL AMONG THEM”

    If you are being taught that the Lord dwells in the midst of His people, administering Himself via an elite cultus of priest and clergy craft, and not “one God and Father of all, who is above ALL , in ALL, and through you ALL”, you are being lied to. These are the Bulls of Bashan, the interlopers, who’s rebellious usurping will have an end. Christ’s vesture, His Mantle and Office are not subdivided and parsed out. They are entered into , in a measure, by each, with the hope and promise of the fullness that each measure can produce. Read Psalm 2 and find yourself. Either you are among the raging nations, the vain thinking people, the self-appointing ruling class, or by faith, seated in the heavens.

THE ORCHARD IS IN THE ALMOND (NUMBERS 17:8) (The rod of authority not raised alone)

  “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.”   (Romans 8)

  “And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.”  (1 Cor 15)

  “And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.”  (Gen 2)

    It is one thing to reject the very existence of a process, but to reject the existence of a process one has been through, is not reason. Without debate or dispute, every one among us began as a conception, as the union of two bits of genetic information. At the moment of conception, not a one of us had any awareness of it. Not one of us were aware of our surroundings. Not one of us knew that we had parents, and that we were destined to grow into them, in all things, according to the pattern and nature of the substance delivered and combined, into a single celled entity called a zygote, and that zygote was no longer two things…not a sperm and an egg, but a zygote.

   One viable cell with a set of instructions and an environment conducive to carrying them out. Jesus said to them who labor and are heavy laden, “Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light”. The word “yoke” is from the Greek “Zygotos”, which means “yoked”. By the Spirit, we are bound to Christ, yoked together by the Teacher, the Spirit of God. The heavy burden and labor associated with religious bondage is washed away and replaced with an easy, very bearable Teacher, who teaches from within, like no other. Just as a Zygote is one cell, and no longer two gamete cells (a sperm and an egg), so it is written, he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. (1 Cor 6)

  Once these things came into being, a clock started to tick. Everything progressed and developed toward one end, one moment of trauma and tribulation, when all ties with the mother had to be broken. The womb could no longer contain what had grown in it. What had formed to that point had to leave. Lungs filled with water , had to learn to breath air. And straight was the gate, narrow the way, through which the frightened entity had to pass…a way and a gate narrower than it’s own body, even narrower that it’s own skull.

  In the book of Colossians, chapter three, to be begotten to God in Christ, is to be risen with Him, as the formerly uncombined gamete cells, once becoming a zygote, are “risen”. For they were delivered from a short lived and precarious time in which, if the two had not found one another and become one, no possibility of a future existed for either. They were raised together, seated together, translated together, from certain and imminent expiration, to  a glorious hope of attaining the fullness of their new found potential as one, a potential according to the pattern written in them, faithfully received from the contributing parents. Many things in the scriptures bear these things out for you, how that you are not merely waiting to die and go somewhere, but rather, you are being changed from withing, being translated out of that which passes away, into that which abides eternal. Consider how that Jesus said that He and the Father will make their abode with that individual who loves him and keeps, retains, ensconced within their very being, his living words. Consider that it says to everyone that receives him, and believes upon his name, he gives power to become sons of God. Jesus once was told by a disciple, that they did not know where he was going, much less the way to where he was going. The same could be said of the zygote, and also the answer Jesus gave. “The way you know”. Who can explain to a zygote, what it is about to experience? Yet, comprehend it or not, the “way” is already in it’s possession, and is set in motion.

  Now, all of these things, every one of us has already experienced. And we have experienced them, whether we acknowledge it or not. If you are reading this, a miracle beyond description has already occurred, in that a microscopic spec of  nondescript organic blueprint, constructed in a body, from substances “raised” out of the very decaying dust of the earth, in the form of foods, is now thinking and pondering things in the next great process ahead. And the possibility of a future in it, exists in you, because you believe Christ, and so have a common future, as surely as the gamete cells did, when they were “yoked” and became a zygote. He is the resurrection. Without Him, there is no future. So, bear in mind, that faith in Him HAS raised you , and you now dwell in a unique place. Therefore, consider the many true sayings of the scripture, that speak of the present reality, not putting all things off to the future:

 Col 2:13  And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, HATH he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;…

Col 1:13   Who HATH delivered us from the power of darkness, and HATH translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:…

 Eph 5:8   For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:

1Jo 3:2    Beloved, NOW are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see  him as he is.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

   Now, the subject of all this, is to perhaps provoke a little thinking about the Lord’s coming. As a bridge from the previous natural examples of fantastic processes we have all undeniably been through, call to mind, that from gamete, to zygote, to embryo, to fetus, to infant, to toddler, to child, to young person, to adult, to parent…all are a process. The gametes did not die and go to adult. They grew into an adult in all aspects.

  Jesus is the Master. He is the author of faith, and the finisher of it. And every one of us lives by every word that proceeds out of His mouth. Seemingly simple sayings, heard with the “ear”, or hearing of faith, sunken down deep, and finding depth of root in the heart, have the power to change you forever. I do not refer to behavior modification. For those who seek such things, a place conformable to your flesh, is on every street corner, open for business every Sunday morning. “Christian” book stores are open for business every day of the week. I refer to absolute, complete, total change, where water is transformed into the new wine of the kingdom, not where the old wine skin undergoes a little makeover, also described in the scripture, as having a form of godliness, but void of the power of it. I refer to that which, according to the truth of the scriptures, is conceived in righteousness and true holiness:

“This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But ye have not so learned Christ; If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” (Ephesians 4)

  The NEW MAN is created. And needs not but to grow into the likeness of who he is, penned by the hand of Him who created him, after His own likeness. The new man needs no behavior modification, but he does have needs. He needs to be nourished, and he needs to know how to keep himself  from the corruption; political, social and religious,  that is in the world. The old man, no matter how well behaved, can not inherit the kingdom of God. There are many religious environs to choose from. Legions of mentors and well indoctrinated teachers, pastors, elders, priests, &etc., stand ready to take you under their wings. They can advise you about every remote aspect of your old man and nature. But there is one thing that not one among them can do. They can not enter into your innermost being, make their abode with you, sup with you and reveal Christ in you. All they can do, in truth, is distract you from this necessity. Christ in you is your hope of glory. Your ONLY hope of glory. And them that have found Him, abide with Him, and have been changed with Him, will He also bring with Him, and reveal together with Him, at His appearing. The coming of the Lord, his unveiling and revealing, is not a solitary event:

 
                                                                         PSALM 149
   “Praise ye the LORD. Sing unto the LORD a new song, and his praise in the congregation of saints. Let Israel rejoice in him that made him: let the children of Zion be joyful in their King. Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp. For the LORD taketh pleasure in his people: he will beautify the meek with salvation. Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their beds. Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a twoedged sword in their hand; To execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people; To bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; To execute upon them the judgment written: this honour have all his saints. Praise ye the LORD.”

                                                                        DEUTERONOMY 33
     “And this is the blessing, wherewith Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel before his death. And he said, The LORD came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints: from his right hand went a fiery law for them. Yea, he loved the people; all his saints are in thy hand: and they sat down at thy feet; every one shall receive of thy words.”

                                                                        JUDE
    “And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, 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.”

    A “saint” is a sanctuary. The word “Saint” and “sanctified” are essentially the same, and mean “set apart”. When God spoke to Moses concerning the building of  a tabernacle, He said:

    “Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering: of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart ye shall take my offering. And this is the offering which ye shall take of them; gold, and silver, and brass, And blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats’ hair, And rams’ skins dyed red, and badgers’ skins, and shittim wood, Oil for the light, spices for anointing oil, and for sweet incense, Onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod, and in the breastplate. And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them.”

  What is a saint? where is a saint? who shall be revealed with the Lord at His appearing? Find the habitation of God by the Spirit, and you have your answer. On what day and in what hour will all this be revealed? No man knows the day or the hour, which determination the Father has in His own power. It is not a day ticked off ahead of time on a calender. It is a decision ready to be made. But I do know that all the expectation of the creation itself, awaits the manifestation, the “taking the covering off” of the sons of God. And I do know there  will be observers, spectators to this, and there will be participants with the Lord in this. A saint will be a participant.  The whole family , both in heaven and in earth, which is in Christ Jesus, will be unveiled together. One will not precede, or “pre-vent” the other, but the body written in every seed will be revealed:

                                                                       1 CORINTHIANS 15
   “And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 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.”

  So, if ye then be risen with Christ…if you are quickened with Him, and have passed from death to life, then abide in Him,  learn of Him, and grow in Him. The age that followed the flood of Noah’s day, depended completely upon the integrity of the ark that Noah and his sons built. Opening windows, walking around on the deck, during the forty days and nights of the trial by water would have been as disastrous as had Jesus , during His forty days and nights of trial, given in to the siren’s song of the temple, and civil power…the temptation to follow in the footsteps of Lot, rather than in the faith of Abraham. So, the ages to come, depend upon the integrity of Christ, and them that are in and with Him. He came to lead many sons unto glory, and He and these children the Father has given Him, are all the expectation of the creation.

   The lesson of Colossians 3…”STAY IN THE ARK”. Just as in Genesis 2, things were formed before they were in the earth, so in Christ:

                      
                                                                              Psa 139:16
    “Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.”

                                                                             COLOSSIANS 3
           “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.”

                                        The word “hid” is “kryptos” …”ENCRYPTED”
                       If you are encrypted with Him in God, you will be revealed with Him

                             
          THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS WITHIN YOU…THE ORCHARD IS IN THE ALMOND

   The book of Revelation is an expounding of the wealth of things which are portrayed in the tabernacle which Moses was told to build in strict accordance with what he was shown in the heavens. Bits of ink arranged in a certain way on paper form a letter or a punctuation. Letters form words. Words and punctuations form sentences, and so forth. This marvelous mechanism we call language, translated to text, can be read by the literate, and so, the thinking of the author can be conveyed, or our thinking stimulated. Whole images of people, places and things can be “brought to life” in the mind’s eye. The exacting construction of the tabernacle in the wilderness, it’s associated priestly functions, it’s brief time of placement in the midst of a camp of tribes arranged in a precise order about it, and even it’s removal from the camp to a far off location away from the camp…all these things are to be read and understood, just as is the text on a page. Imagine the chaos and confusion hat wood hollow if tea setters on the rage began to move hand free range themshelfs every dime u looked at them. In nature, the same thing would happen in living organisms, where the DNA was constantly altered, with a little added here…a little removed there. Carried to any extreme, the organism would become a mutation. In the book of Revelation we see depicted , two beasts, or creatures. One is alive and vital, having in it, all the fullness of God, a many membered body of individuals, but each holding to the head, each in fellowship with the Lord by the Spirit, a city descending from the heavens, speaking as the voice of many waters, that place which is the very embodiment of that of which the apostle writes:

   “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism ;One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.”  (EPH 4)

   The other is dead, rising out of the sea of humanity, “sensual having not the Spirit”, a multi headed mockery of the heavenly, divided into the silent masses, and the elite ruling class locked in a struggle with itself for mastery, many heads and voices, each trying to outshout the other, a dead city in a dead sea. The revelation of Jesus Christ in you, can not BUT result in the revelation of  the other, or the “anti” Christ that is without. The saying of the apostle, “For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you” speaks of this. They which are approved, are approved of God, not the gathering. Understanding that is illuminating. The concluding chapter of the book of Revelation contain a warning:

  “And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still. And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.”

Pictured is quite like what you read of in the book of Revelation. A multi-headed , genetically altered mutation , and a tomato that was not the product of an altered genetic message. One looks like a perfect man. One looks like the church world.

   The sayings of the prophesy, or heavenly message, of the book, the object and subject of them, is Christ. Christ in you, the hidden manna unveiled in the overcomer, the true bread of heaven abiding eternal in the heavens, both in Christ and in them risen and seated together with Him in the heavenlies. Not a bread crumb on a platter, but the living word abiding in the core and seat of your being. This is not a vision afar off, not something only to come, but a real and present reality, so declared by the words, “without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie”. For in the ages to come, there will be none of those things. All of these things are revealed in the “language” of the tabernacle. From the perspective of the outer court, the holy place is “higher”. From the perspective of the holy place, the holy of holies is “higher”. From the perspective of the holy of holies, the holy place is described as “common” and as “without”. From the perspective of the holy place, the outer court is “common” and “without”. Know ye not that ye are the temple? When Jesus says , “I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches”, He is referring to the candlesticks, the assemblies of Revelation 2 &3, and you may easily go back and read that the “dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie”, are in the assemblies. They are the contrarians to all that the Spirit is testifying in the midst, appealing to whosoever has an ear to hear. In fact, the “candlestick” or lampstand of the tabernacle was placed in the South of the holy place and oriented toward the South camp of Reuben. This camp consisted of Gad, Reuben and Simeon. Their very names put together, define the function of the lamp stand. “Assembled to see and hear”. But the one they are to see and hear has no seat among them. You may read and see this easily. His seat is not among them, though another is.

  The book of Jude is the outer court to the book of Revelation. It is the place John, having been given a measuring device, was told not to measure. It does not figure in anything of the Lord’s building. It is also the place of the “common salvation”, where it is absolutely and immutably true, that all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. There is nothing “common” about salvation, but this in the language of the tabernacle, tells you that salvation is attainable by faith, in even the basest of places.  It is the message and gift of God to the world, the everlasting gospel of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. What the world does with it, is not measured…at this present time. My message to the world is not the things of Christ revealed in me. That message is for my brethren. My message for the world is “REPENT AND BELIEVE JESUS”. What it does with the message is out of my hands. And in that the book of Jude (praise) is the scriptural “gate” of the Revelation of Jesus Christ (I will enter his gates with thanksgiving IN MY HEART, I will enter his courts with praise) , the book of Revelation is thereby extended into the volume of the book of the scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation, and in that the scriptures are they which testify of Christ, all of them, then the warning regarding the message of the book in it’s last chapter, embraces the whole book, beginning with the the first word of the first chapter of Genesis. For in truth, there is no “new and old” testament. There is a new and old covenant, testified by the whole of the scriptures. Peter shows you this, when he says that Paul writes things hard to be understood, which many unlearned and unstable wrest to their own destruction, as they do THE OTHER SCRIPTURES. And the warning of men , well intentioned or otherwise, tampering with the message, is not only applicable to the goings-on in the assemblies , but in the perversion going on in the outer court , where the preaching of what Paul called “Another Jesus, another spirit, another gospel” is taking place. A false representation to the world , by self proclaimed representatives of deadly untruths, poisoning the waters and administering the opiate of a false message. Wormwood is the distillate of the religious elite, the product of their vain imaginings.

   And so, in the book of Jude , we read of these false ministers, who make themselves part of something in the eyes of the unlearned and unstable, but God is no respecter of persons. You may read of them in Jude, and study for yourself. They are as present as the contrarians of Rev. 2 and 3 are in the assemblies. In fact, they often are one and the same:

Jud 1:4
For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jud 1:6
And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.

Jud 1:10
But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute (void of the Spirit) beasts , in those things they corrupt themselves. 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. These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

Jud 1:16
These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage. But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.

     “WANDERING STARS” fairly well sums it up. For a wandering star is not a star at all. It is a pretender, masquerading as a star. The “wandering star” of Jude, is the word “planetes”:

πλανήτης (planētēs) From πλάνος (G4108):
wandering, roving
   misleading, leading into error
       a vagabond, “tramp”, impostor
           corrupter, deceiver

   Planets , as we well know, are not stars. But once they were thought to be stars. They were named “planetes aster”, or wandering stars, because they seemed to be special stars that did not remain fixed in the heavenly panorama, as did “ordinary” stars, but had the powerful attribute of mobility, seasonally appearing and disappearing, and moving about in the night sky. All the wandering stars assumed names of “gods” and entire systems of worship were born out of ignorance about them. The bottom line is, they are not stars, not light giving bodies at all. They only reflect light, and they exist in juxtaposition between the true, unaltering and everlasting gospel written in the heavens, and the earth bound observer of the night sky. The earth bound, night dwelling observer, in order to comprehend the eternal message must learn to identify and discount the usurpers, the wandering scoundrels, who’s self appointed mantle of importance, is truly empty nakedness.

  It is Christ in you, who is the revealer of the false, the dissolver of doubts, the way the truth and the life, and the Holy of Holies. And not only is it beneficial to hear Him for yourself, but it is essential. Jesus once answered a question posited by a disciple, “Lord, how will you reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?”  Jesus answered:

    “If a person [really] loves Me, he will keep My word [obey My teaching]; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home (abode, special dwelling place) with him.”       (John 14)

  All of the contrary voices , warned about in Rev. 22, are “without” this abode. The Kingdom of Heaven is not “here or there”, in this “place” or that “ministry”. The Kingdom of heaven is within you, as surely as the orchard is in the apple.

    The message from the scriptures is clear. Drink waters from your own well, your own “cistern”, or drink from the communal pool. Jesus stood on the last day of a great feast and said, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)”

Paul wrote and clearly defined two forms of hearers, those at Berea and those at Thessalonica:

“And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews.These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so”.

The spiritual importance of this comparison is revealed in the meanings of the names “Berea” and “Thessalonica”.

   “BEREA” means a “Well-watered” garden, or, a garden sustained by it’s own internal well. In such a garden, the water is always at hand. It is not a village watering hole that you must periodically visit , draw from, and transport the water home. The cleanliness and purity of the communal well is  not an issue in the well-watered garden. Examining the comparative saying of Paul also gives insight into the scriptures as they that testify of the one in whom you have eternal life, and not as the source of that life itself.  The word which the Noble Berean hears with all readiness of hearing, is the well within. It is the testimonies of the Spirit of Christ in him. The Spirit of Christ, IS Christ. And the scriptures, inspired of Christ, searched daily, will bear out and verify everything the well is revealing in you. The scriptures agree to everything the Lord speaks…they do not replace Him in speaking. And inasmuch as they are they which testify of Him, without Him in me, they have little in me, if anything, to testify of. Consider the two disciples leaving Jerusalem for Emmaus. All of their expectation concerning Messiah were dashed when He was crucified. They were dashed because they were wrong. They were wrong because they were the collective teachings of the teachers and masters of the Jew’s religion, manifest in the thinking of the two disciples. They were WORMWOOD.

  So, with these two, beginning at Moses and expounding in all the law and the prophets, Jesus showed how he had to suffer, and enter into glory. He had to, for our sakes. It says “Then opened He their understanding to understand scripture…”. He did, and does this, by His Spirit. And the unasked question is, before Christ did this in them, what was the effect of  scriptures, carnally interpreted for them up to that day? It was confusion and disappointment. But now they are spiritually opened IN them, by the Spirit. We can know Him no more after the flesh. The Spirit of Christ,  IS Christ. If I do not come to know Him in Spirit, I do not know Him.

  THESSALONICA means “Victory of Falsity”. Not victory over falsity, but victory OF falsity. Or put in another way, it is to be overcome by a false way or thing. Thessalonica is a compound word, where “nica” , or “Nike” means utterly vanquish. It is the same word used in other compound words. NICO-laitan, NICO-demus. (Clergy-laity)(Ruler-people). The “Nicene” creed that alleges we are to sit in silent agreement and obedience to a handful of church “fathers” (so called), and to parrot with WORMWOOD numbed minds, their idea of the Godhead, reduced to a paragraph on a parchment, and administered and enforced by their Spirit-resisting antichrist system, this creed was postulated in a town with it’s name derived from “nike”. I do not have “fathers”, and I could not care less about their vanquisher’s creed. I have one Father, and that in heaven. When you hear a “minister” quoting Augustine, Jerome, and others, calling them “church fathers” and saying it is the fulfillment of Acts 15, you are being lied to. It is the fulfillment of Acts 20:29,30 & 31. It is the very thing Paul was shown in the Spirit, and warned with tears about, everywhere he went, for three years.

The notion that the Lord’s people are subdivided into clergy and laity, into leaders and followers, is an abomination. All begin at some point with a conception in the Spirit of Christ, and all grow in all things, into Him. Some may be farther down the road in the process, and so bear “marking” or put to good use by observing, but all are on the same path, and all are joint heirs with Christ, in all the fullness of God. As the Lord, the spiritual rock which followed Israel, and from which they all drank, admonished them, “Drink waters everyone from his own cistern”, and “ If you will hear my voice…”, So now, as then, the admonition is the same…for He is the same. The gift of the Father, the Holy Spirit of Promise, is given to all that believe on Christ, and that ask Him.

Jesus once met a Samarian woman at a well. She was there with vessels to draw, and with as many misconceptions about God and about the well, as had the two disciples leaving Jerusalem for Emmaus. Jesus encountered the woman at a town called Sychar. The name means “drunken”, a derivative of the Hebrew word שֵׁכָר

“shā·kär’ “, meaning  “a strong drink, intoxicating drink, or a fermented and intoxicating liquor”. It was at this place located near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave his son Joseph, that Jesus taught this woman the He, Jesus, is Jacob’s well, and not the hole in the ground she had a dependency with. The encounter is in John 4, where Jesus spoke to her of water she knew nothing about. Living water that springs up in you, not that comes from a communal watering hole. Water that lives in you, Spirit and Truth, and is not limited to the elders or the church hierarchy, the “mountain” where the “fathers” had taught her to worship. It is notable that when Jesus had finished speaking with her, she left the hole in the ground, and her former drawing vessel with it. God is Spirit, and Jesus taught her that true worshipers, worship God, not in the mountain and system of men, but in Spirit…in God. Without the Spirit, they know not what they worship ( as said Jesus to her).

The topic of this writing is to show how that the Lord desires, and has always desired that individuals, each individual, hear His voice, and know Him. Israel, departing Egypt, was  told to hear the Lord’s voice. We know that the angel that followed them, the rock from which they all drank, the spiritual meat they ate (signified by manna) was CHRIST, the true bread of heaven. The Lord dealt with them, each of them, by His Spirit. But the people refused and rebelled. They chose a system of mediators and laws. They desired, and received, a king and leader of flesh, like all the other nations. They desired, and were given a temple of stock and stone like all the nations around them had. They received all their asking, but with a warning. They were told that when, not if, but when they would corrupt themselves in all the things they had wanted, when they would forsake the Spirit, the fountain of living waters, and hew out their own system, a broken cistern which can contain no water (for the Most High dwells not in any house, system, discipline or order and structure of things devised by man), when they will have accomplished to do all these things and reject the Lord from being King and Counselor, over and in each of them, the Lord would administer a peculiar and bitter drink called WORMWOOD. And the delivery system for this noxious and intoxicating mixture, would be the unfettered and vain imaginings of their own chosen leadership. If one cares to read the chapters in which WORMWOOD are mentioned, it becomes clear that it, WORMWOOD, can not be disassociated from the product of the vain imaginings of a leadership void of the Spirit of God. All of the sources of WORMWOOD in Israel after the flesh, false teachers, pastors, priests and prophets, false systems of worship, kings and leaders of flesh, etc., EVERY ONE of these things is mirrored and present in the churches today, and may be read in detail in chapters 2 and 3 of the book of Revelation. For the seven churches at Asia is not geography. It is a signification, a spiritual picture of manners of assembly, of people unto the name of the lord, where He is present (as He said He would be) to give glory to the Father, and to testify and admonish any who has an ear to hear, to overcome, and “come up here”, to rise above all this and live and walk in the Spirit. It is the seven ewe lambs and the well of the seven fold oath between Abraham and Abimelech, it is the Pleiades, the Seven Sisters, the chambers of the South (of the lamp stand in the tabernacle)of which Job spoke. It is a picture of the Lord fulfilling to Abraham, that portion of His promise to Abraham, to offer the Promise of the Father (the Spirit) to the gentiles, it is the Lord keeping his covenant with Noah, and with every living thing to come out of the Ark with Noah, to include Japheth, of whom came the “isles of the gentiles”. Assembling two or three, in His name, is wonderful. For it affords opportunity to the individual,to hear what the Spirit is saying in groups and assemblies, to the individual. Some hear. Many don’t. But the way to be delivered from the WORMWOOD mixed drink of the assemblies, is the hear Him, and to clear your mind of the delivery system of the WORMWOOD, the hierarchical system in them, resisting and contending with the Spirit.
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These are the verses of scripture in which the word “WORMWOOD” appears.

[Deu 29:18 KJV] “Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth 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 beareth gall and WORMWOOD;”

[Pro 5:4 KJV] “But her end is bitter as WORMWOOD, sharp as a twoedged sword.”

[Jer 9:15 KJV] “Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with WORMWOOD, and give them water of gall to drink.”

[Jer 23:15 KJV] “Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets; Behold, I will feed them with WORMWOOD, and make them drink the water of gall: for from the prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the land.”

[Lam 3:15 KJV] “He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with WORMWOOD.”

[Lam 3:19 KJV] “Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the WORMWOOD and the gall.”

[Amo 5:7 KJV] “Ye who turn judgment to WORMWOOD, and leave off righteousness in the earth,”

[Rev 8:11 KJV] “And the name of the star is called WORMWOOD: and the third part of the waters became WORMWOOD; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.”

In each case in the Hebrew, the word is לַעֲנָה  (la`anah) , “Bitterness”
The herb so named is from it’s being noxious and poisonous.

In Revelation 8, the word is ἀψίνθιον (apsinthion) , a name given to a fallen star.
From the Greek we have the English word “Absynthe”, the alcoholic drink made with the herb Artemisia absinthium, or Wormwood.

Absinthe, the drink, has it’s concentrations of the psychotropic compound, thujone, regulated and limited by law. The WORMWOOD the Lord allows to arise in the hearts of Spirit-void leadership, as hatched up in their vain imaginings, comes with no guarantee of such limits.

A study of the drink, Absinthe, is worthwhile, because it is the physical equivalent of what is spiritually named in the book of Revelation, both the fallen star, and the waters he mingles with. It is impossible to pollute the Spirit of God. Pollution occurs in the mind of the individual. Hearing what the Spirit says, offers deliverance from the mixed voices of the assemblies.

Absynthe contains the psycotropic compound, Thujone, in minute quantities. It comes from the wormwood plant, a bitter herb, and it’s affects are mind numbing. It is associated with enhancing the senses and stimulating the imagination. It can not be over emphasized, that the WORMWOOD of spiritual application, is derived from the religious imagination.

THE RIVER CHEBAR

In leading the children of Jacob out of bondage, we read that the Spiritual Rock which followed them, and which they all drank of, was Christ (1 Cor 10) :

 “Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; And did all eat the same spiritual meat; And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.”

The name “Christ” is synonymous with the anointing, not yet tabernacling among them in flesh, but following them nonetheless. From the book of Genesis we read of the river of God, which went out from the Eden to water the garden. This river became four heads, four flows. One river, as there is one Spirit, yet four distinct Characteristics:

  And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.

PISON means “Increase”

GIHON means “bursting forth”

HIDDEKEL means “rapid”

EUPHRATES means “fruitfulness”

The River is:   “INCREASE BURSTING FORTH RAPID FRUITFULNESS”

CHEBAR means “far off”,  “lengthy , long time or space”.

There are natural rivers bearing these names, and they are important learning tools. But the true River of God, is the Holy Spirit, who’s flow may be mapped from Genesis to the last chapter of Revelation. In it’s final description, the River of God no longer has the portion described as Fruitfulness, as in “be fruitful and multiply”. The Euphrates will dry, the final tally added to Christ will be numbered, and the door to the garden closed, thereby preparing the way for the Kings of the East…the Kings of the Garden.

Jeremiah, the prophet, speaking by the River, the Holy Spirit, testifies:

“For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” (Jer. 2:13)

Two things did the people ask for, two evils, and two things they were given, in rapid succession. A king , and kings, like the nations around them. And a house built by them, according to their specifications, to be called the “house of God”.

1.  In desiring a king, the Lord told Samuel that they had not rejected Samuel, but were rejecting the Lord from being king over them. So they got their kings, although not without being warned of what the end of it would be. And again, in time to come, would they again reject their King now tabernacling among them in flesh, proclaiming to have no king but Caesar, and as Stephen, filled with the Holy Ghost would testify, they would continue, as always, to resist the Holy Ghost, the spiritual rock that had followed them.

2.  In desiring to build a “house” for the Lord, David was told that it was an impossibility. There is no house any man can build for the Lord. But Solomon persisted and built a temple, which before Solomon’s reign ended , was filled with every idolatrous and contemptible thing conceivable, mingled by man, with the terminology and items that were transferred from the tabernacle Moses built. To this sad estate, Jeremiah speaks (as does Christ, saying “remember your first love…):

   “Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the LORD; I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.Israel was holiness unto the LORD, and the firstfruits of his increase: all that devour him shall offend; evil shall come upon them, saith the LORD.Hear ye the word of the LORD, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel:Thus saith the LORD, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?Neither said they, Where is the LORD that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt?And I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof; but when ye entered, ye defiled my land, and made mine heritage an abomination.The priests said not, Where is the LORD? and they that handle the law knew me not: the pastors also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit.Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith the LORD, and with your children’s children will I plead.For pass over the isles of Chittim, and see; and send unto Kedar, and consider diligently, and see if there be such a thing.Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit.Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the LORD.For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”

So, in the course of time, after the nation is divided, the lines of earthly kings ends, the city of Jerusalem broken down, and the temple sacked, the people were carried off captive to Babylon, and certain of the captivity were by a river, a natural river. But the river of this writing is the spiritual river Chebar, a spiritual river of vanity, with nothing but endless ritualistic repetition, and no apparent way out. For such is the house of two evils, void of the Spirit Rock, void of the King. And as a point of consideration, you may see this spiritual Chebar, and the captives still by it, being spoken to by the one revealed to Ezekiel as the only way out of it. Read Luke 4:16-21.

In the fifth year of king Jehoiachin’s captivity, Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi (contempt) , was with the captives by the river Chebar, when the heavens were opened to him and he saw visions of God. Ezekiel heard the voice of one speaking, was caused to stand upon his feet, when the spirit entered into him, and he heard him that spoke with him.

Chebar means “far off”. In Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldean Lexicon of the old testament, we have the meaning conveyed as a “length of space…a continuance of time…”. The word is used in no place, other than eight verses in the book of Ezekiel, and the matching Hebrew word, kebar, is also used only in eight verses, all in the book of Ecclesiastes. Reading the verses side by side, one can see the vanity of all Solomon had come to and had built, and the way out of the vanity of it, in another King, and another House, revealed to Ezekiel. This spiritual Chebar, this lifeless river of bondage would become the bitter drink of the broken cistern and house that Solomon had built. And it truly is “Chabar”…an unbroken length of space and continuance of time, and of vain repetitious religious reenactments, the emptiness and pointlessness of which Solomon would lament in the book of Ecclesiastes. “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity”. The “Chebar” of Solomon puts the things of God so far off, as to seem inaccessible, and vain to reach for.

What Ezekiel saw and was shown, he was told to show to the house of Israel. Ezekiel was told that they were hard hearted and impudent. He was told that they were to be told what he had been given to tell, whether they would hear it or not. And he was further warned not to be like them, but to listen to what he heard and was shown. Because what Ezekiel was shown was the way out, the only way out, of that bitter and endless Chebar.

Ezekiel was show the resurrected, glorified Son of man, the true House and temple of God, the Cistern of Perfect Soundness, in whom dwells all the fountain of Living Waters, and indeed, in whom dwells all the fullness of God. But before this, he was shown the abominable minds and inner workings of the elders and leaders of the people, and the abominable things going on in their temple, not so much the temple of stone, as the temple of their minds, and the chambers of their imagination:

(Eze 8:12) “Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the earth.”

After Ezekiel’s revelation of the degree to which the leadership of his people had sunk, Ezekiel is shown a man, a man with a measuring reed and a line of flax in his hand. A measuring reed based upon the span, in which the span is the measure from the tip of the thumb, to the tip of the index finger, in a stretched out hand. This hand is the hand that “meted out” , or that measures heavens with a single span. Who can build a house for such a one, when the heaven , and the heaven of heavens are not sufficient to contain him? What man , or collective of men, can build a house for the one who measures them collectively as the smallest spec of dust, small dust of the scale that need not be wiped from it, because it is so insignificant, that it has no measurable effect on anything?

This man, a man who would have no outward form or comeliness, that when we see him, we would desire him.

This man whom you could walk around and look up and down in a matter of a few seconds. This man in whom dwelt all the fullness of the godhead bodily, so complete, that he thought it not robbery to be equal with God.

This man who stood next to Solomon’s broken cistern and cried, “Destroy THIS temple and I will raise it in three days”. And who again cried to the thirst wracked multitudes, gathered at that vain and empty cistern on the Chebar, “If any man thirst, let him come to me, and out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”.

This man ( Eze 40) who is the temple, and who measures the temple by himself, this house of many houses, where each chamber measures the same as the house. A house which from the outside going inward, measures larger and larger, until the inner chamber winds about upward. This man of resurrection who is signified by the house Ezekiel was shown. He being raised, comes again to you, and receives you to himself again, by the gift and promise of the Father, the Spirit of Truth.THIS man and temple of resurrection, Ezekiel was instructed to show the house of Israel, that they may know to be ashamed of what they do (EZE 43:10).

This man, whose obedience unto death upon a cross, broke down every wall of partition in humanity, reduced every individual to the basic human element, void and purged of all old leaven of human faction and distinction, and so provided for Himself, one component , of the twain that are necessary to make a new man in himself. For the new man is not composed of a hybridized Jew and Gentile. The new man is composed of the Gift of the Father, the Spirit of Christ, and the individual who receives Him, having been purged of every old leaven, and having laid down willingly, all ties to them.

Paul, the apostle, warned of a thing. He warned of it everywhere he went for three years. He warned of it tearfully. He called it “another Jesus, another spirit, another gospel”. And though there is no other, the church world today has swallowed it, hook , line and sinker. For once again, His people have committed the same two evils of old. And again, His people sit captive by the river Chebar, waiting. always waiting. Learning, ever learning, but never coming to any knowledge of the Truth.

The book of Revelation shows two beasts, or two “creatures”. One is alive and vital, having the Spirit. One rises out of the sea of humanity, and is sensual, devilish, having not the spirit. One is the house and habitation of God by the Living Spirit , one is the broken cistern that can not contain Living Waters, perched with her captives by the vain Chebar.

Christ in you is the hope of glory. Do not change your glory for that which does not profit. If any have not the Spirit of Christ, he has none of Christ. The spiritual rock is Christ, now, as before. A “spirit filled pastor”, and a “spirit filled” church sound well and good, but only a Spirit filled YOU, will avail you anything.

The Chebar begins with Solomon, and ends ONLY in hearing the one who’s wisdom is greater. If any have an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says in the assemblies. He is the one Ezekiel heard by the Chebar, and John heard on Patmos. There is no other way out of vanity:

Luke 11:31:

The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation, and condemn them: for she came from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.

One may choose the builders. Or one may receive the Stone they reject, the Spiritual Rock from whom we all drink.

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Strong’s Number H3528*** matches the Hebrew כְּבָר (kĕbar),

which occurs 9 times in 8 verses in the Hebrew concordance of the KJV:

[Ecc 1:10 KJV] “Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already*** of old time, which was before us.”

[Ecc 2:12 KJV] “And I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, and folly: for what can the man do that cometh after the king? even that which hath been already*** done.”

[Ecc 2:16 KJV] “For there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever; seeing that which now*** is in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how dieth the wise man? as the fool.”

[Ecc 3:15 KJV] “That which hath been is now***; and that which is to be hath already*** been; and God requireth that which is past.”

[Ecc 4:2 KJV] “Wherefore I praised the dead which are already*** dead more than the living which are yet alive.”

[Ecc 6:10 KJV] “That which hath been is named already***, and it is known that it is man: neither may he contend with him that is mightier than he.”

[Ecc 9:6 KJV] “Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now*** perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.”

[Ecc 9:7 KJV] “Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works.”

CHEBAR H3529***

1.Chebar = “far-off”

A. a Babylonian river near which many Israelite exiles settled; maybe the ‘Habor’ or the ‘Royal Canal’ of Nebuchadnezzar

[Eze 1:1 KJV] “Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.”

[Eze 1:3 KJV] “The word of the LORD came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and the hand of the LORD was there upon him.”

[Eze 3:15 KJV] “Then I came to them of the captivity at Telabib, that dwelt by the river of Chebar, and I sat where they sat, and remained there astonished among them seven days.”

[Eze 3:23 KJV] “Then I arose, and went forth into the plain: and, behold, the glory of the LORD stood there, as the glory which I saw by the river of Chebar: and I fell on my face.”

[Eze 10:15 KJV] “And the cherubims were lifted up. This is the living creature that I saw by the river of Chebar.”

[Eze 10:20 KJV] “This is the living creature that I saw under the God of Israel by the river of Chebar; and I knew that they were the cherubims.”

[Eze 10:22 KJV] “And the likeness of their faces was the same faces which I saw by the river of Chebar, their appearances and themselves: they went every one straight forward.”

[Eze 43:3 KJV] “And it was according to the appearance of the vision which I saw, even according to the vision that I saw when I came to destroy the city: and the visions were like the vision that I saw by the river Chebar; and I fell upon my face.”

    Grace and Apostleship

  Saul of Tarsus, of the stock and tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews, A pharisee, A zealot and persecutor of the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ, converted on the road to Damascus, is called. In his own words, ” But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood: neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus”.

  Conventional wisdom would seem to recommend that a man, schooled by the premier governors and tutors of one religion, in making conversion to another, might seek out, the seeming pillars of his new found faith. And this might seem reasonable, were it not for one small detail. Saul was not a religious convert. He was a man called out of religion by the living and resurrected son of God, who is no religion. He was called out of death, and that which he called “dung and loss”, into life and gain. And the manner of his calling absolutely destroys one of the fallacious tenants and underpinnings of the thing which Paul would later, by the Holy Ghost, warn everywhere he would speak and preach for a space of three years, speaking and warning with tears. He called the thing, “another Jesus, another spirit, another gospel”. And the false tenant upon which it is built is called the doctrine of apostolic succession. When you sit on a Sunday morning and hear someone encourage a multitude to mindlessly repeat the “Nicene Creed”, and the part in which they say “we believe in one holy apostolic church….”, They are asking you to believe in a mind numbed fashion, that what you are participating in is something that took root in a region of the Middle East over two thousand years ago, and has spread through time like a mushroom and it’s unseen tentacles , as a recently uncovered natural phenomenon testifies ( http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=strange-but-true-largest-organism-is-fungus ). As the entire organism recently discovered in Eastern Oregon came from a single deposited spore, so the Conqueror’s Creed would have you believe that today’s “church” can be traced through a succession of apostles, in baton passing fashion, all the way back to Peter and Christ. The foundation upon which the Lord’s church is built is not Peter. It is the revelation from the Father, in the individual, of who Christ is.  Read Paul’s words again:

“But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood: neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus”.

  As flesh and blood could not reveal Christ to Peter, but the Father in heaven only, neither could flesh and blood reveal Christ to Paul, but only the Father. And neither can flesh and blood reveal Him to you. Paul received nothing by way of revelation of Christ from “them that were apostles before him”, no, not one scrap. So, from whence have we grace and apostleship? As Paul demonstrated on the road to Damascus, grace and apostleship, along with every other thing we have of God, we each have from the resurrected and eternal abiding Son of the Living God. When years after his conversion, Paul went to Jerusalem to converse with them at Jerusalem, Paul is careful, with an oath, to tell you that not one iota of what they said added anything to him.

  That which we preach among the ethnos…them that are without…is that which God reveals in the called, from within. Our testimony is that which is God given, not man given.

  When God spoke to Moses, He commanded Moses, that Moses speak to Israel, that they give an offering, of that which every man gives willingly, and of this willing offering, they should build a sanctuary, “…that I may dwell among them”. Consider two points. Firstly, everything they all had came from God. Secondly, they were not shaken down, and called robbers of God, in order to employ guilt and fear as a collection device. This was to be done WILLINGLY. It is the WILLING among whom the Lord sought a dwelling, not the coerced. The first item which Moses was instructed to make, was an ark of wood. And it was in that ark that Moses was told, “you will place the testimony I GIVE YOU”.  A quick bit of etymology…”ARK” is a chest, and it’s root is from a word that means to “pluck” or to “gather”, as one would pluck grapes and gather them into a basket. Remember…all were to be built from that which was WILLINGLY gathered, of which an abiding place of God might be made among the people.

  I would like to mention another place, or rather places, where the Lord actively seeks that He might dwell among a people. It too involves the testimony in the individual, that God gives:

 Psa 68:18      “Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the LORD God might dwell among them”.

 Eph 4:4          “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is  above all, and through all, and in you all. But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men”.

  Paul, in writing Ephesians 4 , is expounding from Psalm 68, and teaching how that Christ, in resurrection , is the way into the Holiest. He is the Testimony of God in you. He is the Father’s house and abode, He and the children the Father has given Him. None of these things come to you via a long, circuitous historical route of  “apostles”  holding hands through the corridor of history going back 2000+ years in human history. In a place, Jesus commended them who test them who say they are
apostles, and prove them to be liars.  Paul, in his day, and among his people, had to admonish them, to comprehend that THEY were the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in His temple. This is understandable, because they grew up in a time and nation, in which “temple” meant a building Solomon built with taxes and forced labor, and not understanding what Jesus meant, standing next to Solomon’s edifice, and saying “Destroy this temple and I will build it in three days”. What Jesus was saying, had nothing whatever to do with the stock and stone building, but of a Spiritual house built in His resurrection. A house of many houses. A son paving the way for many sons. And the building of what Jesus spoke, involved the free employment of everything He, Christ, received of God in resurrection, of the fullness of the Eternal Godhead, and in His resurrection, gave to each and every of us.

  Today, sadly, many professing Christ, need to be admonished again, “Know ye not that ye are the temple….?”

 The foundation of the holy apostles and prophets, is not the holy apostles and prophets. The resurrected Lord Jesus Christ is the foundation, the foundation that is already laid, and which no man lays. Apostleship does not lay the foundation, it reveals it to be the Chief Corner Stone, laid in you, by the revelation of the Father, and it is this Chief Corner Stone, upon which all are built.

  Read again in Ephesians 4:

“There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;  One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.”

One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in in whom among them in His body? IN ALL.
And to which select few are given a measure? TO EVERY ONE OF US.

Consider the resurrected branch of Aaron’s Almond staff. In it’s resurrection, it bore a crop, an entire generation of Almonds. In each and every Almond was written the complete likeness of the tree the rod of Aaron came from, in a genetic measure. In each and every Almond, the power to become everything written in it, in resurrection. And so, by the faith of Him in you, is the power to become sons, a gift in you, by which the Lord has placed in you, the ability to fulfill His desire, that He might dwell among a people. This is fulfilled, not in a people coerced, fleeced and shaken down. It is fulfilled in a people who are willing. The economy of the Kingdom is not gold and silver and a tithe of your goods in this life. The economy of the Kingdom is the eternal endowment received for you, and given you, in His resurrection. The gifts and callings of God are without repentance. No one can take them from you, and no one can employ them for you.

The churches will receive a lesson in economy.

Exd 25:2   Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering: of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart ye shall take my offering.

Exd 25:8   And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them.

Psa 68:18    Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the LORD God might dwell among them.

Exd 25:10   And they shall make an ark of shittim wood: two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof.

ARK is “a chest” from אָרָה  “‘arah ” :  to pluck, gather  (Qal) to pluck (grapes)

Exd 25:16    And thou shalt put into the ark the testimony which I shall give thee.

     (Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon , testimony is: 1.A PRECEPT (OF GOD) 2. LAW 3. REVELATION )

YOUR testimony is what God reveals in you.