God’s Fatherhood seen in the Book of Enoch

God’s Fatherhood seen in the Book of Enoch:

Book of Enoch ch 90:32-33

32. And those sheep were all white, and their wool was abundant and clean. 33. And all that had been destroyed and dispersed, and all the beasts of the field, and all the birds of the heaven, assembled in that house, and the Lord of the sheep rejoiced with great joy because they were all good and had returned to His house.

Book of Enoch ch 105

1. In those days the Lord bade (them) to summon and testify to the children of earth concerning their wisdom: Show (it) unto them; for ye are their guides, and a recompense over the whole earth. 2. For I and My son will be united with them for ever in the paths of uprightness in their lives; and ye shall have peace: rejoice, ye children of uprightness. Amen.

At the start of the Book of Enoch we have descriptions of God’s ways, God’s will being accomplished in Nature but not in humans. Humans are rebuked for lack of constancy in obeying God. Then there is much help and nurture given throughout history to humans as God sends servants and eventually His Son, the Son of Man, the Elect One, to bring a change in the righteous humans so not all is lost and so that God still has a remnant. Then at the end, after judgement, the persistent, Fatherly efforts of God finally pay off and succeed and God has around Him both His Son and His many children who have at last learned to live in love and to stay close to the Father in fellowship with the Son. We can have a taste of this fellowship now when we learn to all look after each other and build up constantly what can eventually become this household for God.

Message from God

I’m asked what message God was giving me at the time He showed me Himself, His Son the Lord and revelation that the Book of Enoch is a work of the same Holy Spirit who speaks today. Well God did give me a clear message. After revealing by the Holy Spirit that the trees grow and planets orbit by the power of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ the follow-up message God gave me was clear: “Israel has sinned” is what He said. But He also said the same back in ancient Joshua’s time so it is not new that God confronts sin this way with these words. The gist of the message: Just look at how Israel has brought upon itself a spying eagle or vulture flying overhead watching the ground below with a big white eye. It is sin which has brought this about. And it is not just Israel the nation but the wider context of spiritual Israel, house of God scattered among the nations, the circumcision by the Spirit. “Israel has sinned!” Where is the love for God? The Book of Enoch starts with a similar message. The trees grow and then lose autumn leaves each year by obedience to the Lord’s authority but humans are an embarrassment and affront to angels because we are not constant like Nature, nor obedient to God’s commands through Jesus but we sin and as humans we keep sinning. Jesus’ message as Son of Man sent to save us: Stop sinning. Believe He is the same today as yesterday and will be so forever, then follow the teachings He gives by holding to them and adhering to them and He will set us free.

Gifts

When you believe Christ died for you there are things God gives you miraculously: To save you and to build His Temple.

In my case one of several such gifts was to see God in a vision and to meet with His Son, the Lord and then to hear things from heaven among believers.

The way the Holy Spirit does it is very clever/wise and absolutely persuasive, giving certainty.

The way Jesus shows Himself is very, very spiritually powerful, showing that He truly is Lord. In so doing it shows the Father confesses Jesus as His Son. It also showed me Jesus is just the same today as in the gospel records. Doing and teaching by example the same things as long ago. 

Out of all this came recognition of the Book of Enoch as true, holy scripture. 

Plus it all verified to me that the gospels of Jesus’ apostles are faithful, true testimonies to be relied on and adhered to, John’s gospel accounts of Jesus’ more lengthy discourses in particular.

But the Book of Enoch so matching what the Holy Spirit said in me, that was a complete surprise and delight, leading me to tell others persistently over the following years about the Book of Enoch and the glory of Jesus it proclaims.

So Jesus clearly wants this book of scripture known and wants us to come to Him for life because it testifies concerning Him. 

The Holy Spirit and the Book of Enoch

 The manifestations of the Holy Spirit have two major characteristics: He causes the uttering of mysteries and the knowledge and wisdom He imparts is that of Jesus, the Lord Jesus Christ. In both of these key ways in His work you find truths also found in the Book of Enoch. So it helps to know the Book of Enoch or to read it having experienced the Holy Spirit. The mysteries of God are found so prevalently in the Book of Enoch because Enoch had this same Holy Spirit as gives utterances of mysteries today, so there is major overlap between what is in the book and what the Holy Spirit says. The Lord Jesus had deep knowledge of the Book of Enoch so when the Holy Spirit takes what is known by Jesus and makes it known to believers you find plenty of overlap with the truths in the Book of Enoch. Shunning the Book of Enoch is foolish because those who do this are shunning the Holy Spirit too.

First horseman of the Apocalypse

 Looking at the Rev 6 four horseman prophecy it is alarming that although economic crisis and massive global >20% lethal pandemic are coming, what comes first is widespread global violence (first horseman). I bet that is almost imminent, or maybe within the next few years.

Metamorphosis

 During the chrysalis stage of a caterpillar or other such creature, so I read, the structures of the pupae or caterpillar or larvae break down to a mush. It would be difficult to think of such a mush as being a living creature. It has no organs, just substances. So the new form that grows is like a resurrection. Yet by faith we can believe that the butterfly IS the caterpillar. Something persisted from caterpillar to butterfly. The caterpillar is not a new individual but a new form of the individual that used to be a caterpillar. Surely there is a soul. This teaches us a lot about Theology. 

The same Jesus

 “Jesus Christ yesterday and today is the same and to the ages” https://biblehub.com/text/hebrews/13-8.htm This is what the closest disciples and apostles believed just decades after Jesus Christ was born. How can you believe that except you believe there is preexistence? Did they believe it because they watched Jesus growing up and noticed He never changed? No. Obviously not. It is there in the nature of Jesus which they saw over just a few years following Him and especially after the resurrection when He was still the same Jesus. They matched what they saw with what He said about Himself. “I am”. They knew it meant He is existent over time in a mysterious yet real way and more so than other people. This gave them faith it would continue “into the ages” ahead. That is the essential belief Jesus spoke of in John 8. That is part of Jesus being the Christ, the Son of Man.

Pranksters

 Translate “φαρμάκοις” from Greek to English: you get “medicine”, but also “pranksters”. In Revelation 21:8 it is translated “sorcerers”.

Build or be blind

Enoch’s prophetic dream of the history through all time of God’s people. It all hinges on whether they are devoted to God’s house or forsake it, and the result of having spiritual discernment of God’s will or blindness to it.

If believers build each other in love as each one does the task God gives us, we will have discernment of God’s will and our eyes will remain open. If we forsake it all we will become blind and suffer the consequences. 

From the Book of Enoch (R H Charles translation) chapters 89 and 90:

89:28. But the sheep escaped from that water and went forth into a wilderness, where there was no water and no grass; and they began to open their eyes and to see; and I saw the Lord of the sheep pasturing them and giving them water and grass, and that sheep going and leading them. 

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89:41. And sometimes their eyes were opened, and sometimes blinded, till another sheep arose and led them and brought them all back, and their eyes were opened.

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89:50. And that house became great and broad, and it was built for those sheep: (and) a tower lofty and great was built on the house for the Lord of the sheep, and that house was low, but the tower was elevated and lofty, and the Lord of the sheep stood on that tower and they offered a full table before Him. 51. And again I saw those sheep that they again erred and went many ways, and forsook that their house, and the Lord of the sheep called some from amongst the sheep and sent them to the sheep, but the sheep began to slay them. 53. And many other sheep He sent to those sheep to testify unto them and lament over them. 54. And after that I saw that when they forsook the house of the Lord and His tower they fell away entirely, and their eyes were blinded; and I saw the Lord of the sheep how He wrought much slaughter amongst them in their herds until those sheep invited that slaughter and betrayed His place. 55. And He gave them over into the hands of the lions and tigers, and wolves and hyenas, and into the hand of the foxes, and to all the wild beasts, and those wild beasts began to tear in pieces those sheep. 56. And I saw that He forsook that their house and their tower and gave them all into the hand of the lions, to tear and devour them, into the hand of all the wild beasts. 57. And I began to cry aloud with all my power, and to appeal to the Lord of the sheep, and to represent to Him in regard to the sheep that they were devoured by all the wild beasts. 58. But He remained unmoved, ...

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72. And forthwith I saw how the shepherds pastured for twelve hours, and behold three of those sheep turned back and came and entered and began to build up all that had fallen down of that house; but the wild boars tried to hinder them, but they were not able. 73. And they began again to build as before, and they reared up that tower, and it was named the high tower; and they began again to place a table before the tower, but all the bread on it was polluted and not pure. 74. And as touching all this the eyes of those sheep were blinded so that they saw not, and (the eyes of) their shepherds likewise;

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90:6. But behold lambs were borne by those white sheep, and they began to open their eyes and to see, and to cry to the sheep. 7. Yea, they cried to them, but they did not hearken to what they said to them, but were exceedingly deaf, and their eyes were very exceedingly blinded.

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90: 20. And I saw till a throne was erected in the pleasant land, and the Lord of the sheep sat Himself thereon, and the other took the sealed books and opened those books before the Lord of the sheep.

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90:26. And I saw at that time how a like abyss was opened in the midst of the earth, full of fire, and they brought those blinded sheep, and they were all judged and found guilty and cast into this fiery abyss, and they burned; now this abyss was to the right of that house. 27. And I saw those sheep burning †and their bones burning†.

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90: 28. And I stood up to see till they folded up that old house; and carried off all the pillars, and all the beams and ornaments of the house were at the same time folded up with it, and they carried it off and laid it in a place in the south of the land. 29. And I saw till the Lord of the sheep brought a new house greater and loftier than that first, and set it up in the place of the first which had beer folded up: all its pillars were new, and its ornaments were new and larger than those of the first, the old one which He had taken away, and all the sheep were within it. And I saw all the sheep which had been left, and all the beasts on the earth, and all the birds of the heaven, falling down and doing homage to those sheep and making petition to and obeying them in every thing. 

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90:35. And the eyes of them all were opened, and they saw the good, and there was not one among them that did not see. 36. And I saw that that house was large and broad and very full.

Curious

I guess just like an atheist, I’m curious. Curious about myself, whether I believe. Curious about what kind of faith is necessary. Curious about God or whatever is meant by God. I was raised to preach but at one point realised I probably didn’t really believe. I had a crisis when in a foreign country whose language I could barely speak. So I sought faith, real faith. I had a personal pursuit of it. Eventually I started praying hard. Then things started happening. I had a vision and was told to build the temple. I asked for confirmation and got it indubitably. I assumed preaching was how to build the temple which is the church. But I did not have real knowledge of God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit so how could I preach? I asked God over and over to show me Himself and the Son and Holy Spirit. The gospels had taught me that only those who obey Christ get blessed like that so I tried to obey every command of Christ in the gospels which I could understand well enough to obey. Then when I thought to the best of my knowledge I was doing that I asked earnestly to see God. Then one night He came to me and stood there in a dream so real. What He told me is what happened the next day so I knew it was no mere fantasy dream, it was a vision of God. Then weeks later Jesus met me three times. Then the Holy Spirit. It was what the Holy Spirit said that turned my life around and gave me a message. I’ve been following through on that same message for twenty years. I found the message in the Book of Enoch first time I came across the book perhaps a few months after all this. I saw the Book of Enoch in a Christian bookshop and opened it and there were the words, pretty much just as the Holy Spirit said them. I started writing about my subsequent research into the book, starting a ‘Geocities’ website about it not long after the internet became accessible. Later I started writing in a Google blog instead. I keep that blog going plus several Facebook groups about it. A fair few followers. It has led me to a purer form of Christianity. Similar to what is found in Ethiopia. Miaphysitism.

Not all the Jews rejected the Book of Enoch

 Beta Israel are Jews. They accept the Book of Enoch. Israel recognises them as ancient Jews. And Ethiopic Christians accepted it long before many countries had a Christianity. But I understand this is obscure for Westerners and Eastern Europeans. Even Bulgarian Orthodox Christians have ancient links to Myaphisite Ethiopic Christianity which accepted it. But modern Chalcedonian ‘normal’ denominations and orthodoxies get all the kudos. Most people’s knowledge of Christianity is limited to such denominations. They lost the Book of Enoch around 400 AD at a time when the Chalcedon Council made their orthodox opinions the law. The Holy Spirit glory seems to have departed from the leadership by that time too. Not so with the Ethiopic and Coptic Christians. There seems to be a link. Now the Holy Spirit is returning even to the West, since the revivals. And the Book of Enoch is coming to the fore. And the Christology is changing again.

More about Jesus

Thinking you are a god is OK if that is what you are, if the lives of others is very much in your hands, as with some politicians, officials, doctors, judges and generals, even humbler soldiers or secret agents. Gods with a small g. The Lord Jesus being a Lord over many followers and judge even over unbelievers and atheists admitted that His godlike status in that respect is similar to that of many other humans. See John 10. The Jews did not like a person to allow themselves to be seen as a god. They called it blasphemy. But Jesus showed that a human leader with judging powers can be called a god and a son of God, like the angels who are sons of God (as in Job 1 and Genesis 6), so this applies to Jesus too. It is not blasphemy. Likewise a resurrected human made immortal is a god, a son of God, as Jesus is now. And the Lord of David who David called “my lord” is called “my Son” by God. So Jesus was not blaspheming. And Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever and can say “before Abraham was born I am” so is a kind of human god. So not blasphemy. Yet the Jews could not believe it is true and were angered that in saying it He seemed to be blaspheming. So they tried to stone Him. Pontius Pilate recognised their attempts to have Jesus executed as jealousy. Their hatred of God spilled over into hatred of His Son, Jesus. When they killed Him, God used it to purify sin, and raised Jesus from the dead. So now Jesus is a human but an immortal god, a son of God by the resurrection, the firstborn Son of God by virgin birth, the firstborn Son of God by being first ever before any angel and before all creating which God did, through Jesus. Thrice son of God yet human sent by God to humans, the Son of Man.

Christ is one person, not two

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miaphysitism

I believe the truth the Book of Enoch teaches, neglected in Christianity since the Council of Chalcedon, is that Christ Jesus is one person, a divine person (although not the Father, the one true God) and yet a human being. The Son of Man. 

Very importantly the Book of Enoch does not say there is a Triune God, nor does it say the Son of God is two persons in hypostatic union, so it shows up the errors of Council of Chalcedon. The Son of Man about whom it prophesies and who the Book of Enoch says lived with the Lord of Spirits, His Father, even in Enoch’s time of going into Heaven, five thousand years ago, before Abraham was born, is believed by churches who preserved the Book of Enoch to be one person, not two, who is both divine and human.

The preservation of the Book of Enoch

 Holy Spirit gifts never, I heard, died out among the Coptic Church, of which the Ethiopic Church is a part. The Ethiopic Church kept the Book of Enoch in its Bible. Among the Roman Church the Holy Spirit gifts did perhaps cease, according to Crysostom and Augustine, sometime around the third century. That is the time they turned against the Book of Enoch. I suspect lacking the Holy Spirit they stopped being sure about the Book of Enoch but where the Holy Spirit was continuously manifest, the Ethiopic believers still believed the Book of Enoch because the Holy Spirit backed it up. Now churches are finding the Holy Spirit gifts given them again. As a result some, myself included, are beginning again to believe in the Book of Enoch as true prophetic scripture. For me it happened because the same things are written in the book as are said in gifts by the Holy Spirit, glorifying the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

The Paradox

 Why would atheists have invented theism? It makes no sense. What does make better sense is the alternative, that theism is revealed by gods.

The problem for many with the Book of Enoch

 The problem for many with the Book of Enoch is that like Jesus said of it, if you are ignorant of it, or of God’s power, you can find yourself in error. And many religious groups are ignorant of it. But the errors are manifested as Jesus brings the book to light.

Immoral to make society depend on atheism

 If society were based on paradox it would be unstable and eventually fail whenever it’s logical founding became important. Religion is not as paradoxical as atheism. It depends on a logical tenet that it is revealed by gods. Atheism depends on a logical tenet that it is invented by humans but has a paradoxical corollary that the inventors were atheists and were therefore lying in their invention and therefore atheism tends towards lies and inventions of religion. Thus to make society depend on atheism is immoral whichever way you look at it.

Which came first? Religion or Atheism?

 If you think religion was invented by humans then you have a paradox that it must have been invented by atheists. If you think religion is real then there is no paradox of how it started: God or gods revealed it.

Jesus full of grace and truth

 There is an underlying meaning to the word grace coming from the Hebrew of the OT verses concerning grace, also there in English meanings of the word. Meanings of words are not a recommended study because they are never as certain as faith from God. But this sense of grace is compelling because it is certainly found in Jesus. It is grace seen in behaviour of graceful creatures such as gazelles or young maidens. It is that elusive deftness of movement, excellence of liveliness in how the body movements almost effortlessly flow and the joy it is to see it. Jesus could and still can do things in a way that extends sheer joy and hope to those who see it, full of a promise of all that life can be and all that He makes life to be if we receive that grace. Jesus is full of grace and truth. Expressing to all around the abundance of life that is in Him given Him to forever have in Himself by God. 

The Holy Spirit

 On one hand the Holy Spirit, as an influencer on the inner being, creates a holier state within, making it clean, making the inner mind disciplined according to heavenly principles such as honesty and humility. It keeps this state maintained. This gives joy in the resulting salvation from destructive thinking and behaviour. On the other hand this same Holy Spirit can at times (perhaps rare occasions, as in Samuel’s time when it says the word of God was rare) manifest openly in various ways which build up the household of God, believers together, and create new believers, creating faith. All of this is given by God in the name of Jesus Christ the Lord.

As we think, so we are

 As we think in our minds, so are we. We might claim to be interested in facts and led by facts, yet our inner thoughts, even barely conscious ones we hardly notice ourselves thinking, guide our beliefs and influence us more than we admit to ourselves. We need a lot of discipline to stop ourselves believing things are fact which are only suppositions or inadvertent conclusions. We become the sum of all such thoughts. Having a safety system of objective truth to counter all of this is crucial to survival. We need to be careful what is leading our inner minds. Call it ‘spirit’ maybe. Something in addition to random or inadvertent thought processes is essential. Hopefully a truthful spirit. Now you know where this is leading. The Middle East Messiah offered this two thousand years ago and that offer is backed up by resurrection. Gotta take notice really. You owe it to yourself.

Prophesyings

Random inner voices are not what true prophesying is about. Rather the truth in Jesus comes first. Honesty is a crucial part of that. Christ died for you. But only in order that you become honest and kind and put aside lies (that Christ’s heavenly home abhors) and speak truthfully and write online truthfully and put aside angrily hating and such things too. The Holy Spirit teaches this in power. Then you might find God does speak to you and through you as you walk in Jesus’ truth so God can become your Father. God shows Himself and Jesus shows Himself to those who lovingly obey their commands. Then you can have real faith based on God’s loving power. God is love. No lie comes from the truth of God. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth. Learn according to this and then you can learn to filter out random thoughts and focus on truth and then in the midst of a heart stayed on truth you can discern the still, quiet, authoritative voice of the Lord if He does meet you in that way. Do not prophesy lies. Do not say God speaks to you if He doesn’t. Learn the ways of God and serve Him. Obey His commands in honesty and truth. If He tasks you then with spiritual gifts all well and good so the body of Christ, the Temple, is built up. But in love. The goal is love.

LORD JESUS’ BRIDE

 It is a great mystery and wonder how because of the greatness of Jesus and His Father’s plan and power, a huge multitude can all collectively comprise the bride of Jesus. Like a knitted garment woven from many small strands of wool all joined together. Each has a portion of the overall grace of Jesus. Each builds others around them into this one entity. All supported and supporting each other. All infused with spirit and exuding spirit, the Holy Spirit, side by side with Jesus the chief master of fountains of spirit, by the Holy Spirit without limit. All in fellowship with Jesus which only God can grant, in sufferings overflowing from Jesus’ sufferings. All hopeful of resurrection, like Jesus’ resurrection. It is an intense spirit mystery. 

Resurrections

The most striking feature I have come across about Jesus Christ is resurrection. In Larnaca in Cyprus I came across what to many living there must seem normal religious life in the form of their landmark church building the building of the Church of Saint Lazarus where there is housed the remains of the tomb believed to have belonged to Lazarus, a bishop of ancient Cyprus who is believed to be the man who was raised from the dead by Jesus. Just before this Lazarus left Judea to flee to Cyprus there was another resurrection too, that of Jesus Himself. The story is recorded that Lazarus fled persecution death threats in Judea and arrived in Cyprus where he lived another few decades and became a bishop. So the tomb, even though the body was reportedly moved to Marseille centuries later, is a second tomb of Lazarus whose first tomb is mentioned in scripture. He was twice buried after Jesus raised him from the dead but still kept him mortal. When Jesus Himself died and rose it was an end to Jesus’ mortality beginning His immorality. Not so Lazarus, not that first resurrection he underwent but another awaits him. So this remarkable evidence, traditionally established by the Orthodox Church, left to us as reminders of Jesus, shows us Jesus the resurrection and the resurrector. The hope of the nations. Thanks be to God.

I AM

Scripture was not written in English. But we read English translations. In the Semitic and Greek of the writers of scripture the essence of holy words, be it those of God or of the Son of God, saying “I am” have subtly different meanings to the English translations. Lost in translation, it is a serious problem. In the Book of Isaiah God is on record having spoken through Isaiah the prophet to tell us “I am” in words of Semitic language which have subtlety of meaning conveying extreme longevity, more lifetime longevity than any other. In the Book of Revelation both Jesus, God’s Son and also the Father, God Almighty, are on record having spoken through the prophet and apostle John, to tell us “I am” in words of Ancient Greek language which have that same meaning of great longevity. Translated into English there is loss of certainty of such meaning. In English I can say “Hey, don’t push in! I am next in this queue!” and it lacks any longevity of being next in the queue since if that fellow succeeds in pushing in front of me I will not be next at all. I can use that same “I am” to say “I am the boss in this office” but my retirement might be next week. I can say “I am your father” and it will be true long after I said it. In rare situations my “I am” might convey greatly long lasting “I am”, such as in answer to a question “Who is the longest reigning champion of the famous book club darts team?” Well that isn’t true, but it could be. I might in some fantasy universe be able to proudly reply “I am!”. Yet the words, if the language is English, only convey longevity in particular contexts. In scriptures the announcement of God and also of Christ His Son saying “I am” is sometimes meant to be unambiguous in its proclamation of unequaled longevity. In Isaiah 41:4,

 “Who has performed and done this,

    calling the generations from the beginning?

I, the Lord, the first,

    and with the last; I am he.” 

In Revelation, the “I am” is also several times accompanied by that same phrase “the first and the last”. In the Gospel of John chapter 8, Jesus says it in answer to ridicule by Jewish religious sectarians who expressed incredulity that Jesus could be any older than fifty when Jesus implied to having seen Abraham who lived thousands of years earlier. Jesus said “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I am”. It had such weight, implying again unsurpassed longevity of Jesus in some mysterious sense, that they picked up stones to try to stone Him, though He simply walked away.

When indoctrination doesn’t work

 Indoctrination does not seem to work on adolescents. They reach the age where they are self-aware and need to know for themselves. They then need to find their knowledge by learning, not by trusting in the knowledge of their parents and indoctrinators. It is a scary time for them because they are aware they might never find the knowledge they need but there is no alternative except to either remain ignorant or find the true facts or be conned into believing lies. Just think how many adolescents are in that situation. Into this situation comes someone they need more than anyone. Someone who is the same yesterday and today and forever. Unless they can believe in this Jesus they will never learn the truth and they will die in their sins. Many would read something like this and agree with it, all of it except the Jesus bit. So people are stuck: stuck but along with billions of others too. So society ends up riddled with alcoholics, druggies, drug cartels, big pharma cartels, liars and haters.