O Immanuel

O Immanuel. When Israel got to that point in its history where God brought a son into Israel’s population, by begetting this son, the only son God the Father begat (by the Holy Sprit giving the mother the holy conception of Jesus), it is no surprise that this warrants a name being given in truth ‘God with us’, Immanuel. Only a twister of truth would say it means Jesus is the one true God, but, since the name Immanuel uses ‘EL’ for God it can denote a looser meaning ‘god’ which can be applied to a human. So it could mean ‘a god is with us’. This is accurate because by being begotten of God, Jesus is conferred with a divinity uncommon to other humans, meaning it is accurate to call Jesus a god. ‘El’ on its own (as in the name Immanuel) means a god or a person of very high standing. So in this sense we can understand the name Immanuel to mean “a god is among us”, or “we have a hero, a deliverer among us”. In the case of Jesus, this hero is sent by the One True God and is the only-begotten of the One True God, so the other sense of meaning of the name Immanuel is also true “the One True God is with us”, but this is not necessarily the primary intended meaning of the name. Nevertheless the name conveys the joy of having someone of great standing, sent by God Himself, to champion God’s people’s cause and deliver from trouble and from enemies and from sins. “With Christ in the vessel we can smile at the storm.”

Official Bible? Sola Scriptura?

Those English Church leaders who made a doctrine that the Bible would be limited to a fixed set of books also made a doctrine that church doctrines could not be derived from books outside of their list of Bible books. On which of the 66 books in their Bible did they base those doctrines? Effectively those self-inconsistent doctrines compelled their members, their followers today to ignore the Book of Enoch when it comes to their church doctrines. Yet they cannot point to any scriptures on which to base their doctrines about this. Of course, they probably never expected back in the 1600s that the Book of Enoch would one day be translated into English. It is surely time to say that if you make doctrines like this you ought to admit that by making them you are breaking them. The 66 books never mention limiting scriptures to a fixed set, nor do they suggest making rules about limiting doctrines to a fixed set of scripture books. So the rule makers broke their own rules. Let’s now be grown up and draw a veil over these incongruities and allow doctrines to be based on holy scripture books such as the Book of Enoch alongside other scriptures. Let sanity prevail and hypocrisy fade away.

“Do not let anyone deceive you.” 

Which verse in the 66 books says there are only 66 books or that the scriptures should be limited to a fixed number? Which verse says you should only make doctrines for churches from a fixed number of scriptures? If no verse says it, why make it a doctrine? It is hypocritical to not practice what you preach. If you preach a doctrine that only 66 books should be used for doctrine, why do you not practice what you preach and limit your doctrines accordingly. Unless your conviction is not enough to affect your own doctrines. If you are not convinced you yourself should limit your doctrines to 66 books, why preach it to others? That is hypocrisy and lies. 

There is an older more comprehensive Bible used by the ancient Ethiopian Orthodox church which has many more books in it. The Ethiopian Jews, called Beta Israel, also use the greater set of scriptures. The Book of Enoch is included. This closely matches the scriptures from Jesus’ day which are known from the Dead Sea Scrolls and from some of the teachings of Jesus which show He regarded the Book of Enoch as scripture. I believe Jesus Himself still imparts this truth through the Holy Spirit and led me to know and teach these things: Not mere teachings of man. Normally I would keep quiet about anything merely my idea, long term after an initial voicing of it perhaps, because I would be so wary of being proven wrong. With this, though, the heavenly source makes me bolder and more outspoken and persistent. 

Holy Help

 Now that Jesus is with the Father, we need the Holy Spirit. That makes it a bit too weird for many because that means there is a ghost which exists. Many assume ghosts do not exist, so this is a problem for them to overcome. Those who get past the ghost issue, might think ghosts, if they exist, are scary and possibly bad. So there is the need to overcome this and understand that a ghost can be holy. So there is a ghost which is holy which we need to interact with us to help us. Jesus left us like this. But some are gifted to turn these ghostly interactions into human interactions by having prophetic gifts and other gifts where the spirit acts within us and we then take that and pass it human-to-human to others. We are not left as orphans but we still have hurdles of understanding to overcome in the process of receiving the holy help we need. 

Escaping the mud

 Living without the commands taught by Jesus and His apostles and the Holy Spirit is like living in mud; it makes people very dirty. Nobody should want to go back to that. Knowing the Lord Jesus Christ sets free those who adhere to Jesus’ commands and sayings. Truth learned from Jesus sets the true disciples of Jesus free. It is not meant to be temporary. Permanent adherence is the only way God intends for these who are becoming the children of God. To lose this salvation requires the disciple to start to shun the very sayings which saved them: To turn their backs on those commands and sayings of Jesus. How evil are the false teachers who try to persuade Jesus’ followers to do this or try to cloud the followers’ thinking to give the illusion that sophisticated philosophical doctrines are better than the true, verified, teachings of Jesus which God confirmed by miracles and by raising Jesus from the dead. 

Pseudepigrapha?

 A century ago, before the discovery of Dead Sea Scrolls, scholars were calling the Book of Enoch ‘pseudepigraphal’. Fake. There is historic, sectarian reason for that. But if the Book of Enoch was indeed ‘pseudepigraphal’ then its content is invalidated too. Sayings of Jesus relying on it would be invalidated. This would tend to invalidate all that Jesus taught, bringing Jesus’ judgment into question. The epistle of Jude would be invalidated too because it states categorically that a quotation from Enoch chapter 1 is the prophetic word of Enoch himself, the seventh from Adam, i.e. the historical Enoch. That would invalidate those who included Jude in the Bible. That would in turn invalidate their inclusion of other books in the Bible. 

Risky use of mRNA?

 At university I studied biochemistry. Essentially I was rubbish at it. Yet now I have matured and so has availability of information. I studied recombinant DNA and RNA and genetic engineering as my third year project, exploiting natural processes which happen constantly in the wild to shuttle fragments of DNA genes and even RNA around between viruses, host cells and natural agents similar to viruses called plasmids. I had a project to use all this to map parts of a plasmid genome. Fun. Genetic engineering because in the process we also created a new genome sequence in a yeast cell. A chimera of the yeast and some plasmid genetic material. I apply this to thinking about these latest vaccines. People are half-correct in pointing out that vaccine mRNA cannot integrate with our chromosomes. Directly, no. But indirectly is not inconceivable. A cancer-causing type of virus quite common in Nature is a retrovirus. These can naturally insert their DNA into host chromosomes. That then can be copied so the host cell inadvertently multiplies the virus and the virus then leaves the cell but sometimes it leaves some DNA behind in the chromosomes. It is called DNA integration. Well you might think this cannot also happen with RNA because it does not get into a chromosome because the chromosome is DNA. Correct that the chromosome is DNA. Incorrect that the RNA of the virus cannot infect the DNA. It can inject DNA sequences into host DNA using what is called reverse transcription. Virologists producing these new mRNA vaccines surely know all too well about this because an enzyme ‘reverse transcriptase’ is used for genetic engineering and sequencing. I think we used it in my university project thirty years ago. It is found that accidentally viruses other than retroviruses can also infect DNA. Plasmids can include both RNA and DNA plasmids and can also transfer genetic information between organisms in much like a simplified version of the retrovirus mechanisms. So it is very natural for RNA and DNA to spread between viruses, plasmids and host cells of various species. It is erroneous to think any manmade genetic material will not spread in all these many ways between different natural agents and species. It is one thing to tolerate Genetically Modified crops hoping the DNA won’t get into the food chain and animal chromosomes but knowing it probably will, albeit indirectly and slowly. It is surely a yet greater order of magnitude of risk to literally inject modified genetic material, DNA or RNA into humans or animals and hope it won’t cause such side-effects. To my mind it is a step towards foolish craziness.

Gospel Truth

 The Father alone is the One True God. We who believe in Jesus should lovingly acknowledge that God is one person, the Father. His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ came into this world a human, born a human and conceived a human, living a very normal human life, not thought to be anything special except his parents knew He had been sacredly conceived uniquely by the Holy Spirit, the only-begotten of God. Being only-begotten of God, Jesus was the only person God knew and planned as begotten Son from before Creating anything. This meant something hugely mysterious. The most high being in all time and space only ever had in mind begetting one single son and spoke of this before creating anything. This meant mysteriously the spirit of Jesus existing before the earliest things existed. If we believe this about Jesus, the future is filled with the existence of Jesus too. He isn’t just a person who lived in Roman times but is a person who simply IS. The extreme existence in time of Jesus is a phenomenon that simply is, always is. So we can trust He ever will live to help us stay right with God. This is the kind of faith which can save us if we combine it with adherence to His teachings. He died but then rose again, so death did not terminate His living existence and neither will it terminate ours if we hold to His words. Reaching out in our hearts to Jesus, believing that He truly is, that He is the same now as when He came and the same as He will always be, alive having died and risen, we can resolve to keep His teachings and live that way forever as He lives forever. This is salvation. ‘Jesus’, His name, means ‘Salvation’. He died for you. 

One

 God is one. One person. Believers should lovingly acknowledge the Father alone as God, like our Lord Jesus does.

Feasts of Torah

 Zeal for Jewish feasts sometimes surges on social media and even in Christian churches. Often it happens during Jewish feasts of Torah. For a non-Hebrew to legally keep a Torah feast such as Passover requires their whole family, all males, to be circumcised (Exodus 12:48). The epistle of the apostle Paul to the Galatians tells us that first century Hebrew apostles in Jerusalem did not compel Greek believers to be circumcised (Galatians 2). It would have effectively enslaved those believers if they had required circumcision and it would have made Christ of no value to them. The believers would therefore have ‘fallen from grace’. This therefore meant that those believers could not legally keep Torah feasts. Clearly it was not so important in the judgment of these apostles of Christ for Greek or non-Hebrew believers to keep the Torah feasts. What mattered more was freedom by the cross of their Lord, Jesus Christ.

God with us

 God is always with those who truly believe in His only-begotten Son and hold to His only-begotten Son’s teachings.

Christianity’s ‘Trinity’ is a derivative product, not the original gospel message.

 Christianity’s ‘Trinity’ is a derivative product, not the original gospel message.

Supreme Truth

 Trinitarian philosophies are flawed. The Father alone is the One True God. Yet they do at least preserve the truth of the preexistence of Christ. Christ did come into this world a human, born a human and conceived a human, living a very normal human life, not thought to be anything special except his parents knew He had been sacredly conceived uniquely by the Holy Spirit, the only-begotten of God. Being only-begotten of God, Jesus was the only person God knew and planned as begotten Son from before Creating anything. This meant something hugely mysterious. The most high being in all time and space only ever had in mind begetting one single son and spoke of this before creating anything. This meant mysteriously the spirit of Jesus existing before the earliest things existed. If we believe this about Jesus, the future is filled with the existence of Jesus too. He isn’t just a person who lived in Roman times but is a person who simply IS. The extreme existence in time of Jesus is a phenomenon that simply is, always is. So we can trust He ever will live to help us stay right with God. This is the kind of faith which can save us if we combine it with adherence to His teachings. He died but then rose again, so death did not terminate His living existence and neither will it terminate ours if we hold to His words. 

Debt

 Debt: two saving steps are 1) not getting further into debt 2) paying off existing debt. Trying to do 2) can greatly hinder 1). Similarly with debt of moral shortfall. Sin. Jesus solved 2) by dying as the sacrificial lamb to pay the debt to God for us. This frees us up for step 1). He also is alive to ever help with step 1). God raised Jesus from the dead to do this. God has been so thorough in providing what believers need when we follow Jesus by keeping His sayings and commands. 

Poetic folly in hymns

 Hymn writers indulge in poetic statements about Jesus which are stretching the truth for poetic effect. That is not wise. While dying on the cross, the universe was being run in the Lord Jesus Christ’s name and His name effected natural processes. Not the same thing as saying Jesus ran it. Jesus is divine in the sense His conception was by the Holy Spirit and holy but He is a human and was fully mortal until God, the One True God, raised Him from the dead, immortal. It is unwise to make misleading, distorted statements, even if they sound poetic. Unfortunately even great hymn writers have indulged in it.

Jesus’ true following

 The true followers of Jesus are those who prefer to hold to Jesus’ words rather than human ideas. We happily and confidently proclaim that being uniquely begotten of God by holy conception from the Holy Spirit in the human mother’s womb did NOT make Jesus the One True God. Jesus Himself confesses that only the Father is the One True God. The Father proclaims it. Yet it very much made Jesus the Son of God, with a special quality of divinity unique to Jesus above all other humans born of women. Divinity (being begotten from God Himself) is not denied by Jesus. Jesus denies that He is the One True God. God the Father and Jesus both proclaim that only the Father is the One True God. I am happy to follow God and His Son. If people hate following God, or His Son, that is their loss. If they prefer human ideas, that is their loss and their disobedience to the gospel which commands we adhere to Christ rather than human thinking. 

Watch out where your friendships lie

 When Jesus spoke to His disciples about the World, He meant Israel too. How much of Christendom too? Friendship with the World is enmity towards God. 

Ichabod

 Let’s be careful what happened to ancient Israel does not happen to the modern churches too. An ancient Israel priest’s wife named their son  ‘Ichabod’ meaning ‘the glory has departed’. This happened because the ark of the covenant had been lost to the enemies of ancient Israel. Earlier in ancient Israel’s history a hero of Israel, Samson fell victim to his pagan wife allowing her countrymen to cut his sacred hair as he slept which caused God to leave him. But Samson did not know God had left him and the power of God had departed from him. So he was captured and blinded by the enemies. Eventually the God of Israel handed ancient Israel over completely to pagan enemies Assyria then endless enemies after enemies. Only a remnant survived plus a further remnant of the house of Judah. Were it not for the remnant, the entire people would have become extinct. Later in Early Church history the glory departed yet again. The fellowship with God was lost to the extent that a famous Christian writer Chrysostom around 350AD wrote on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, "This whole place is very obscure; but the obscurity is produced by our ignorance of the facts referred to and by their cessation, being such as then used to occur but now no longer take place. And why do they not happen now? Why look now, the cause too of the obscurity hath produced us again another question: namely, why did they then happen, and now do so no more?".  Augustine around 400 AD wrote of the situation in a similar way, though noting there was still a glimmer of the past glory of the Holy Spirit workings in churches, yet it was rare. John the Apostle had written a warning centuries earlier: “Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.” (2 John 1:9) The fact is, Jesus had taught important truths about God about which God had sent Him to testify and the churches had replaced these with philosophies of their own making. Jesus had taught that only the Father is the One True God, and apostles of Jesus echoed this teaching. Yet centuries later the philosophically inclined Christian influencers such as Origen and Tertullian, followed by bishops under Constantine, had replaced this with a concept of a Trinity in which three persons, the Father and Son and Spirit were only together to be regarded as God, not simply the Father alone. Christian clarity of true teaching began to unravel. It continues today in most churches. Now God the Father is making clear again that He alone is the One True God and that Jesus His Son is the lord and master of believers such as myself and is very much the one begotten Son conceived by the Holy Spirit as the gospels testify yet Jesus is not to be proclaimed as God, the One True God, but rather as Lord, Lord over all, with the Father as both His Father and His God. Maybe if we turn back to Jesus’ testimony and move away from philosophical alternatives, like eventually God returned to Samson after his hair grew back, the glory of God will return to believers.  

Trinity?

Consider that God, the Father, is alone the One True God. Now consider whether God would be with you if you insist only the Trinity is God.

“Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.” 2 John 1:9

Pagan teachings in the Christian churches

 The holy conception of Jesus from the Holy Spirit is well attested by the gospels by three or more witnesses. But as to the Trinity, who do we get that from? Not from God. Not from Jesus. So not from the Holy Spirit. That idea of God being not one but three. It comes from philosophers 1600 years ago. Pagan roots. And the Holy Spirit stopped speaking to them and blessing churches that taught it. They fell into a trap. They ran ahead of Christ’s teachings. They lost connection with Christ and with God. Like Samson when his hair was cut. He knew not that the Lord had left him. Then the pagans caught and blinded him. By not continuing in Christ’s doctrines the churches lost fellowship with Christ. Now God is giving us a second chance. A chance to return to Christ’s teachings. Christ taught that only the Father is the One True God. 

As in the days of Noah

I was raised on the Bible, reading it from an early age. It stands out in my memory that as a child I was fascinated with the verse in Genesis 6 about the Nephilim and why nobody ever mentioned it in church. I remember fascination too with the verse in the Epistle of Jude quoting Enoch and wondered why nobody mentioned this in church either. Another thing that perplexed me was why nobody worked miracles in church or even entertained the possibility of casting out a demon, rarely even acknowledging the existence of demons. Only when I found the Book of Enoch when I was in my thirties did I realise all this was connected. Then I realised the lack of miracles went back to a time when the churches rejected the Book of Enoch around 1700 years ago. Now the miracles have started again, Holy Spirit gifts too. Now the Book of Enoch is getting acceptance too. God is blessing us. The days are drawing near spoken of in Enoch 1:1, as in the days of Noah.

The Son of Man spoken of in the Book of Enoch

 Knowing that the Book of Enoch was well-known and very popular scripture in Jesus’ time, we do well to consider how very likely it is that Jesus calling Himself the Son of Man was identifying Himself as the Son of Man spoken of in the Book of Enoch.

The Book of Enoch

 The Book of Enoch helps us understand Jesus and that there was, in the times of Jesus’ healing and working wonders, the Father-Son team. NOT really a Trinity-God since only the Father (says Jesus and says the Father) is the One True God. The Book of Enoch confirms that only the Father is God, the Lord of Spirits. There is, rather, this God/Son-of-God power team. Still operating today - over all things. But always that team existed: way-back-when, through to now-today, and forever.  God always knew and said He would have a begotten Son and surely this emanated the Spirit of Christ into existence before God even created all things. The Book of Enoch shows us so clearly this Son of Man, there in existence when Enoch went into Heaven, taken up to this Son of Man 3000 BC. The name of this Son of Man is interwoven into an Oath by which all things are angelically governed. The team created all things. And now the Son is flesh and bone. The first raised-from-the-dead man to live forever as man, for Mankind. Crucified for the sins of Mankind, for me, for you. Living forever as Great High Priest, for me, for you, for a household of God over which He ever lives as Master: over those who believe and hold to His teachings.

The Father/Son team

There was, in the times of Jesus’ healing and working wonders, the Father-Son team. NOT really a Trinity-God since only the Father (says Jesus and says the Father) is the One True God. The God/Son-of-God power team. Still operating today - over all things. But always that team existed: way-back-when, through to now-today, and forever.  God always knew and said He would have a begotten Son and surely this emanated the Spirit of Christ into existence before God even created all things. So the team created all things. But now the Son is flesh and bone. The first raised-from-the-dead man to live forever as man, for Mankind. Crucified for the sins of Mankind, for me, for you. Living forever as Great High Priest, for me, for you, for a household of God over which He ever lives as Master: over those who believe and hold to His teachings.

Only-begotten

 “If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.” 

    - Jesus Christ.

This saying of Jesus only makes sense because Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, the one and only holy conception by the Holy Spirit, hence in the utterly unique relationship to God His Father. If this Son with this standing with God the highest of all beings, supremely beloved of God, if this Son makes you free, who is there to deny you that freedom. 

The Son of God, the Son of Man

 The holy conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit means Jesus has fulness of divinity in bodily form.  The Son of God. Before this He was. What He is, He was from before Abraham was born. I believe this is the Spirit of Christ existing through time, timelessly. Yet only the Father is the One True God, the father of Jesus and the God of Jesus. Jesus is flesh. That is paramount. The Spirit of Jesus existing before Jesus came in the flesh, always had that truth about Him. The Son of Man.

Intercessor

 “The words of the blessing of Enoch, wherewith he blessed the elect and righteous, who will be living in the day of tribulation, *when all the wicked and godless are to be removed*.”

— Book of Enoch 1:1

Thankfully, The Son of Man mercifully presides over such events and holds off the finality to allow some of us time to repent and show what fruit we can bear. This Son of Man, Jesus Christ intercedes, knowing our human condition first hand. Yet the day will still come when angels bear away the wicked for the fire.

Like Marrying up

 Hypergamy: the practice of marrying up, marrying a person of higher status. In Christ we have a parallel of marrying up. We are greatly elevated to heavenly status, by receiving spiritual unity with our Master, our Saviour.

The symbolism of the cross sign

 In the ancient Middle East, someone who went around healing people and casting out demons was called a Mash-Mash which was written as two crosses. Likewise it meant a wonder-worker and a priest. So the cross has been associated with medicine, healing and exorcism from long before Christ came. Then when Christ came He did so much healing and working miracles and casting out demons, more than anyone before. The sacrifice given to make way for a divine revelation was written as a single cross sign, Mash. It also meant a debt payment or tax and also purity or purification. In Hebrew the word for Christ is Mashiach. So when Jesus died as a sacrifice for sin it is so significant that God brought it about that He died on a cross, the symbol of His ministry and purpose. Like a store selling cures uses the very ancient cross sign still, so Christ was appointed the cure for Mankind, the purification for sin, making way for the Holy Spirit to be given to reveal truth to Jesus’ disciples, then and now.

Religious Attitudes to the Book of Enoch

 Different sects (Jewish sects, Christian groups such as Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, others such as Gnostics, Islamic sects such as Sunni, Shia, then others too such as Bahai) have different attitudes to the Book of Enoch. Personally I think it makes no sense to try to change them. I personally find that, with following Jesus, He puts me into His own ‘sect’ or ‘group’. That is the answer. Join Jesus and His own group. Not to say these others don’t include people who belong to Jesus. But following Jesus eventually puts some of us at odds with the sect of our roots. And then we join Jesus. Freely. 

Coming Wrath

There was a time when Enoch had visions of a great flood of wrath from God tearing up the planet and killing virtually everyone except just a few. Enoch’s book never says it actually happened centuries after Enoch wrote and spoke about it. It only foretells it in horrifying detail. That Flood was a huge part of Noah’s life and Noah was a great grandson of Enoch (Enoch’s son was Noah’s grandfather) but although Noah wrote a small part of the collection of books we call the Book of Enoch, started by Noah’s great grandfather, edited with additional sections by Noah’s grandfather, even with a small section about Noah’s father, the actual event of the flood actually happening is not mentioned at all in these texts. The later writings of descendants of Noah do mention it, perhaps in texts started even in Noah’s lifetime (such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, a giant descending from Noah but with reportedly an angelic father). This is entirely consistent with the narrative in the Book of Enoch that it was all a collection of texts collected mainly by Enoch’s son Methuselah who died before the Flood happened. The implications are severe. It leads to a conclusion that the texts are truly from that time, having been completed before the Flood and surviving it, perhaps by Noah keeping a copy on the ark. No known extant artefact texts of it date from that period yet its existence in later antiquity and the detailed and accurate historic record of events centuries leading up to the Flood point to its authenticity. The genuine spirit of its prophecies was attested in Early Christianity, even by Jesus and brother Jude. So it provides a terrible warning that apocalyptic events we start to see around the world in our times and our children’s times are consistent with the wrath of the same God foretold in Enoch’s time and fulfilled awfully in Noah’s time. God is not joking or teasing or mocking us when He warns of things to come which will cause hearts to fail. He means it. The Book of Enoch, now made more certain, tells of ways to be kept from God’s wrath, turning from violent ways, seeking to live according to the Holy Spirit of God instead of mere pleasure and lusts, and seeking the help of the Son of Man who is God’s Son. We do well to pay attention to it in these times and look ahead to the dawning of a better day when the darkness has passed.

Sorcerers Today

In the late fifteen hundreds and early sixteen hundreds as Protestantism was beginning there were sorcerers in Europe. No, not wizards with spikey hats or witches riding on broomsticks. Not like Disney’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice. These guys were often diviners and practitioners of what was called Rosicrucianism. (Example:Paracelsus). It arose as Protestantism arose and was mingled with Protestantism. The Anglicans played a part in making it mainstream to the extent it became what we now call Modern Science and Modern Medicine. This is the West’s version of what was long known as sorcery, even in the times of the Early Church when sorcerers such as Simon Magus influenced the development of disputed doctrines and heresies. The Book of Revelation warns in chapters 21 and 22 that sorcerers will be thrown into the lake of fire at the Final Judgement. Is your career path taking you into being labelled by God as a sorcerer? Perhaps it is time to rethink your career choice, if you still have time. Jesus has power to free you from that path if you believe in Him and hold to His teachings. Heed His warnings. 

Why Satan?

 The world needs Satan: a powerful person to rule atheists and keep them in order by their fear of death. Believers are ruled by God.

Enduring legacy

 Jesus’ greatest, most enduring lesson to Mankind: The resurrection: Still to come.

Woven into all Nature

 I received by the Holy Spirit twenty five years ago “Consider the trees. They put forth buds and leaves. They do so by the authority of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” The lord knows a wealth of knowledge largely unknown to us about how God has through time woven into Nature His Son and the word which became flesh we know as Jesus. God always had in mind His Son in all time as primary forefront of His thinking and planning and created work. So much so that this Son is manifested in the ancient past as spirit of what we know today.

A missed opportunity?

 Opportunities are soon gone if you ignore them. Ignored opportunities slip away unnoticed. Seeking God is a NOW thing. You will miss the opportunity. You are probably in denial about your standing with God and with Christ and therefore will miss the opportunity to make it better. Don’t be. Make a change. What do I mean about seeking God? What is seeking God and seeking Christ really about? Making Christ more the centre of your priorities, your plans. Not letting God and Christ feel crowded out by things more important to you. Instead of merely finding some time for God and for Christ, actually plan your plans around God and His Christ with them central. Prioritise around them. Make their interests the highest interests. Then prioritise other things second. Plan first to include God. Plan to include Christ. Then plan other things second. This is best done in your youth when less things crowd in and before marriage because a partner has a right to central place in things too.

Last time. Next time. This time.

 Last time He came weak, roughing it, obedient and faithful. Next time He is coming with full regalia and all power in heaven and earth. Already He dips His robes in blood of the wrath of God. Coming in the clouds. Seen by men. Lord over all.

In all time

In all time, whenever you look in history or future, everything Jesus was and is, is. See what comes of being the only-begotten, the holy conception by the Holy Spirit. Always being foremost in the mind of God and the primary consideration in all His words and reasonings, through all time, transcending it all. And manifest to a few in ages past. 

With God is the Word

 John 1:1 doesn’t say ‘the Word was God’, although that is how it gets translated. The original says ‘the Word was with God and God was the Word’. The divinity of God was that word which was with God. Everything God was, the Word was. Now, that Word has become flesh and instead of saying everything the God was, the Word was, we can say God is with Jesus and now Jesus is with God. The flesh and bone body of Jesus leads to a change of emphasis. Yes, Jesus is still that Word, the Word of God, but Jesus says to His followers, ‘this God who is my Father, He is your Father too. My God and your God. My Father and your Father.’ And this human Jesus, forever alive from the dead having provided purification for sin by His sacrificial death on the cross, now mediates for us humans with God. 

God’s Only-begotten Son

The gospel writers clearly knew something we don’t: Jesus was the unique result of holy conception from the Holy Spirit, not just a miraculous enabling of a woman to conceive with her husband but actually the Holy Spirit bringing about a truly holy conception without any man involved.  

Gospel of Luke

https://biblehub.com/luke/1-34.htm 

https://biblehub.com/luke/1-35.htm 

https://biblehub.com/luke/3-23.htm 

Gospel of Matthew

https://biblehub.com/matthew/1-16.htm 

https://biblehub.com/matthew/1-18.htm 

https://biblehub.com/matthew/1-20.htm 

https://biblehub.com/matthew/1-23.htm 

Gospel of John

https://biblehub.com/john/1-18.htm 

https://biblehub.com/john/3-16.htm

https://biblehub.com/john/3-18.htm

Also Hebrews

https://biblehub.com/hebrews/12-23.htm

That is three gospels each mentioning virgin holy conception of Jesus three or more times. Three witnesses. 

Once you believe this account in the gospels you realise whose blood was shed on that cross. 

It also highlights what God said from heaven about Jesus several times and why He said it. To God, the Father, Jesus truly is His beloved only-begotten son. His true delight. 

Fatherhood to a zygote

 A biological father might not know the scientific term but they have the knowledge, to a greater or lesser extent, at some point during their life, that they were father to a zygote: a single fertilised cell which would grow towards becoming a child, their offspring. This profoundly characterises what it is to be a father. Yet more profound is that the Almighty One True God has this knowledge of having produced a zygote in the body of the virgin mother and this would become a baby, a child, a young man and go on to fill the universe with lordship authority, the Lord Jesus Christ. This God truly is the Father. It is profoundly there in the prophecies which foretold the coming of Jesus, the Christ, the only begotten Son of God.

Is pharmaceutical sorcery even avoidable today?

I try to avoid pharmaceutical sorcery or even mild drugs like caffeine. Six years ago I got a job where commuting took ages so I had to rely on coffee to ‘get me going’ in the early start mornings. So then the constant coffee and crunched up train journeys, usually sat in the corridor of a packed train, got me some kind of nasty stomach problem after years of it. Plus being overweight. So I went to a doctor. Of course doctors do nothing without including a medicine prescription. So I get the only way out medicine can provide. I turned it down and binned the prescription when I read the side effect warning. If I hadn’t then side effects have to be treated with yet more drugs. I took doctor advice by trying to quit caffeine. I tried. I failed. The stomach problems got worse. Lung trouble too. Apparently they go together. Lucky for me the pandemic came along. But that comes with pressure for taking pharmaceuticals right, left and centre. If you rely on them you can still get ill. But now you risk getting vaccinated, lowering your guard and getting others ill. It goes on. One thing leads to another. All pharmaceutical. Now here I am in an innocuous position of having to do honest enough work. If dishonesty or immorality were involved there might be a need to persuade girls to have abortions or morning-after pills, take hard drugs to suppress guilty fears, go into hospital with injuries requiring strong pain-killers and anaesthetics when victims retaliate or things turn nasty, tattoos, maybe even plastic surgery and more hard drugs. Crime tends to involve harder medicine. Things have to be covered up. Bad things happen to those who do bad things and pharmaceuticals offer well-tried mitigation. If instead of modern medicine you try shamanistic alternatives you get sacrifices and chanting and mind-altering drug-induced trances all thrown in. Even the modern approach throws animals and even humans under the bus with animal and clinical trials. Sacrifices to unknown gods.

Good conscience in a day of grace

 Some think that living under protection of the sacrificed blood of Jesus and the grace of God is reason to ignore conscience and let it get seared. God still has wrath to spare if people turn grace into a licence for immorality. Careful lest people turn you away from your conscience. Even religious people and even religious government people might try to turn you away from conscientiously reforming while under Christ’s protection. Use grace as offering you reprieve in which to live MORE conscientiously, not LESS conscientiously. Christ offers merciful protection and by dying as holy sacrifice Christ turned aside the wrath of God and gives us breathing room, interceding when God is angry with us for our sins. Do not take it for granted. Christ says in that mercy ‘See you are not being condemned because I have interceded and mediated. Go and sin no more. Leave your life of sin.’ This grace period is there to allow us to reform. Our consciences should be telling us to use it to reform, not waste it on going against conscience. Our consciences should tell us to use this freedom time to learn right from wrong using God’s good counsel, not ignoring God. If your conscience is not seared making it numb. Some have got so fed up with the rebukes of their conscience hindering their preferred way of living. They have seared it numb by constantly ignoring it and suppressing it. Do not risk closeness of influence by them. Stay clear. Stay conscientious. Christ is coming soon. Encourage others to do the same. 

Inner spirit

What is the inner spirit? It is that part of us which soars at the news Jesus is alive from the dead. Give it free rein. Hope springs eternal. So they say. But in this case it is true. If God had not raised Jesus from the dead, begotten Son of God, conceived of the Holy Spirit and given birth of Mary, why would we have any eternal prospects with God? By raising Jesus from the dead, Jesus whose eternal spirit can reach out to us at any time that the Father wills and that Jesus is minded to do, this gives such spiritual hope transcending earthly mood or state of being. Latch into this. Jesus does not vary. Same now as ever. Same forever. Alive now from the dead. Able to impart that life. Able to do miracles. Able to teach. Able to give the Holy Spirit truths and revelations to teach. Able to raise the dead with mortal life or even immortal life. Able to intercede. Able to correct and rebuke and put us straight by words of spirit and life. What God has done in raising Jesus causes new birth of spirit, holy from God in Heaven. Not to be missed.

Hadith

 A hadith of Islam says: 'What will be your condition when the son of Mary will come down to you and your Imam will be from amongst you?’ Another speaks of ‘... the day of judgment when Jesus, the son of Mary, will descend’.

This son of Mary will be supreme for all eternity beside the Creator. Do you really think He only started when He came? Do you think He only started when Mary gave Him birth?

“I am”

 For all eternity Jesus will be supreme, with the Father. Do you really think that only started when He came?

The massive gotcha

 Revelation says the dead will be brought back to life for their judgement after Christ has ruled a thousand years. Their judgement depends on their behaviour. That is a massive gotcha. It means their behaviour before death defines them. Defines us. Do not die like that. Do not die while still behaving damnably (damnably in Jesus’ eyes and God’s eyes). Believe Jesus is the same today as Jesus was in the old days and then hold to Jesus’ teachings. If not, you will die in your sins.

Drugs

 Drug pushing can be legal, illegal, more moral, less moral, a whole spectrum from pharmacist to pharmaceutical scientist to drug baron to drug dealer to shaman to witch doctor and everything in between. It can be anything through casual to part time to full time or lifetime career. It is such a common occupation that it seems many will have someone in their close family or friendship circle involved in it. But watch out what the Son of Man will do about it all eventually, hand in hand with God His Father. Read Revelation. When it mentions in English translations ‘sorcerer’ that word is translating a Greek word from which we get words like pharmacist and pharmaceuticals and even farmers (drugs start off as crops). 

Daniel 9:26

 Daniel 9:26 foretold the Jewish nation and temple and city being destroyed in the time of Titus/Vespasian and the period following that up until WW2. This consequentially followed the crucifixion of the Christ. But if the Jews bore this consequence over 1880 years (69 AD to 1948/49 AD) then indeed, what does that mean for those who persecute Christ’s true followers who believe He is now as He was then and hold to His teachings? God avenges the persecuted brothers/sisters of Christ in a similar way to how He avenged Christ.

Millennium

 The Book of Enoch says there are seventy reigns of angelic shepherds placed over Israel starting around the time of the Assyrian conquest of Samaria and Israel. The scripture book prophesied events happening at intervals during the sequence of these reigns. These are matched easily to historic events leading to the plausible deduction that each reign is forty years long. This means the seventieth is likely just starting now. It means the entire length is 2800 years. Forty times seventy. The Book of Enoch also foretells how long after the time of the start of Adam’s life the judgement day comes. It also predicts other events which are now known from history. The deduction can then be made that the period ends with judgement day around 3060 AD, 7000 years from the start of Adam’s lifetime. So putting these two predictions together you get the end of the seventy shepherds’ reigns being around 2060 AD and the judgement day being around 3060 AD. They are a thousand years apart. It says that a judgment of the angelic shepherds will follow the end of their seventy periods of rule. Judgment of righteous followers of God happens just after this. So a big judgment gets followed by a thousand years then another even bigger, final judgement. It tells what kinds of things happen. They match other scriptures such as Isaiah, gospels and Revelation about this millennium.

Who is the Quran blessing and who is it condemning?

 Who is the Quran blessing and who is it condemning?

How does it open?

By saying that many won’t believe. That many will say they believe the words preached but won’t actually believe. Then it says the people who believe in the creator and worship Him and do good will be blessed. 

- so far all good.

Then it says:

“Who break the covenant of Allah after contracting it and sever that which Allah has ordered to be joined and cause corruption on earth. It is those who are the losers.”

Well we know that covenants of God were made with Noah promising no further global Flood and allowing eating of meat and commanding no bloodshed of humans, even by beasts, without recompense. Now breaking this is about being violent and ungrateful. Then the covenant was made with Israelites keeping the commands of God - receiving blessing and protection from God but having to love God and His words and teach God’s words to their children and loving others. Again breaking this would be hatred, ignoring God’s words of scripture and being violent towards others. Then the covenant is made with the Messiah’s disciples who believe He is forever and hold to His teachings and love God and Him. Again the ignoring of the NT scriptures breaks this covenant as does hatred of Jesus and His followers. The Quran seems to affirm all this. So a so-called Muslim who ignores scriptures of OT and NT and hates disciples of Jesus and hates Jews and kills willfully and perverts justice against killers is breaking the covenant of the creator in one way or another.

It then goes on to keep condemning these who break the covenant. So it is these who are condemned by the Quran, even if they call themselves Muslims or believers.