Health and life by spirit

 Jesus gives health and life by spirit and God gives you health and life because Jesus died for you and prays for you and you believe.

It is all about spirit

 All the theology has problems because spirit is poorly understood and philosophy and science cannot handle it. Jesus works so much by spirit. God is spirit always and His work by His word is done as spirit. Spirit and time and space have a mysterious relationship. Spirit and matter and energy have a mysterious relationship little known to our sciences. Jesus is all about anointing of spirit. The Holy Spirit is so fully given to Jesus that it makes a growing impact on the universe and the kingdom of God. ‘Christ’, we call Jesus. Anointed with the Holy Spirit so fully that it essentially defines Him. It all comes from the Father through all time and filling all space mysteriously. 

Against the Father Son form as ‘God’

People cannot have a philosophy of God as a ‘Father Son form’ (a combination which is ‘God’) and have Jesus’ words too. “If only I testified about myself my testimony would not be valid. Another testifies. The Father testifies.” Paraphrased, but Jesus did say this. If there is a Father Son form of God then it would make that saying of Jesus a perjury. Then there is the teaching of Jesus (and of Paul) that the Father alone is the Only True God and Jesus is the Christ sent by Him. (Interesting that in John 17:3 Jesus gives Himself a name title ‘Jesus Christ’ - the name we use of Him ‘Jesus Christ’ is apparently one He used of Himself in the third person.) It is the Father who Jesus says is the Only True God and it is the Father who Jesus identifies as His necessary second witness. If you hold to Jesus’ teaching you have to let go of that ‘Father Son God’ philosophy. People in following Jesus are going to have to drop their erroneous philosophies about God in order to hold to Jesus’ words to stay in fellowship with Jesus. Inevitable. People would ask/retort, What philosophy should we have then? Well forget philosophies for a bit until you know the truth. Just believe Jesus is. Hold to Jesus’ teachings. Be set free by truth. Then you might be content without a half-baked philosophy.

Jesus’ heritage

 Jesus acknowledged being a Jew when non-Jews impressed it on Him, but He did not really identify as a Jew. He was from another place, another world, another kingdom. The kingdom of Heaven. The Father is His origin. That is paramount to Him in His teachings.

Stick with what Jesus taught

 Trinity is not a teaching of Jesus. Rushing into it, you rush away from Jesus’ fellowship and God’s. Stick with what Jesus taught.

Christ’s Teachings Paramount

 “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 1:19

This is a striking verse. John could have taught that his own teachings were paramount, having himself been sent by Christ. Yet he taught that still it is Christ’s teachings which need to be followed for a person to have fellowship with God and with Christ. If we want to have Christ and the Father in our lives, we must follow Christ’s teachings now, and always. There is no second phase. It is Christ at the start and forever to the end. Yet if you do follow the teachings of Christ constantly through your life you can be assured, if you believe that Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever, and hold to His teachings, you are promised to have Him with you in life, and the Father too. 

God’s side of the story - as told by Christ

 God disowns liars and haters. He says liars and haters are not His children, they are Satan’s. God only has permanent children. Temporary repentance is just a mark of slavery because slaves are only in the household temporarily. God is looking for true children who permanently cease from sin. Minor relapses are disciplined just as a son or daughter is chastened. That is what Christ came to bring about. True children for God. Children who do not sin. That is the point of Christ coming. That is His ongoing work, having died for sins and risen to live forever. Christ wants it. God wants it. We need it. We need it lest we die in our sins and incur the wrath of God and the lake of fire.  

Scriptures and Bibles

 Scriptures, holy scriptures but not found in the Bible: 

* Tobit - one major early church council made it mandatory to read it in the churches 

* Enoch - Jesus referred to it as scripture, NT quotes it

* Jubilees - along with Enoch, it was widely read and regarded as scripture in the time of Jesus

Remember that at one time books such as Revelation and the epistles of John were not in the Bible and were even banned. Some other genuine Christian cultures have Bibles with many extra books. Could Western Christians actually be in error because their Bibles are too limited so they never get to read important truths?

Nature’s underpinning

A mysterious gospel teaching found in the Book of Enoch is how the name of the Son of Man was intertwined thousands of years ago by angels into the fabric of what holds Nature together, into the very basis of Nature which is called the Oath. An Oath honoured among the angels who govern Nature. Today the authority of the Son of Man’s ‘Name’, the authority of His teachings, His way of living, His noble reputation, underlies all of the natural world. In the Book of Enoch, it explains that this came about because the angels governing Nature needed to shore up, to underpin, to strengthen the way Nature is governed, for which God had made ‘the Oath’ (all most mysterious), and this strengthening was needed because there was a danger of it all being undermined by the evils resulting from angels falling and teaching worthless teachings to humans. Today we do witness Nature and the order of our planet being undermined by the knowledge of Mankind, the technologies and sciences of industrialisation and human advancement. Species are wiped out, ecological balances are disturbed. The angels needing to address this initially had to give extra power to their basis of government of Nature. They used the good teachings and reputation, the Name, of the Son of Man. Fallen angels undermined the governance work of faithful angels whose work it is to keep balance and order in the Natural World. Jesus’ reputational authority alone could bring the balance back. His teachings have the necessary authority and reputation to bring order and stability. If we were in charge of maintaining global order and Nature’s order we would need to be sure what logic to be using. For that the angels of heaven use the logic found in Jesus raised from the dead by God to assure them (and us if we believe it) that this is the primary Name to use and represents the very best reliability which God has available. I get situations in my work where bad practices are best overcome using teachings of Jesus. So I can appreciate how it would be this way, from ancient times, in heaven. This Son of Man, whose good teachings and reputation the angels use to redress the undermining of the governing of Nature which was caused by the fallen angels, this Son of Man is the one who God sent into our world for us, bringing Mankind that name, those teachings of great reliability and reputation, that name given formerly among angels. Yet this Son of Man was slain by men. Nevertheless He was resurrected from death by God to continue saving and to preside over the judgment of us all. He is coming in the clouds of heaven and all will see Him soon.

God with us

 Book of Enoch “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.” (105:2) A unity which Jesus said amounts to taking up abode with such people does not necessitate physical location (just like I can work with my colleagues remotely but still feel I am with them, together), Rev 21:3 “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.’” However, ultimately there will be an onsite location unity, Rev 22:3-4 “The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.” For some there is already some of this “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.” 1John 1:3, as Christ promised John 14:23 “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

The feast of the Messiah

For a memory of Jesus’ sacrificial propitiating death on the cross, there is a memorial to this taught by Jesus Himself for those who keep His teachings, believing that He is. The memorial is like the Jewish Passover, extending it, but now the blood is no longer that of a Passover sacrificed lamb but the blood of Jesus Himself and wine to symbolise it and remember is drunk, not painted on door posts like the original Israelite Passover in Egypt. There is the link back to the first time. In the Passover, the lamb eaten is a link back to the lambs of the first time whose meat was eaten and their blood painted on door posts to turn aside the wrath of angels of death. In the memorial to Jesus, there is a link back to the first time. The link is the wine drunk which resembles and commorates and symbolises the blood of Jesus when He gave His body to die on the cross. He died to shed His own blood and offer His own body. There is a second link which is the bread eaten symbolising the body broken on that cross. So these symbols extend to the partakers that body and blood of Jesus the Christ, a propitiation for all. Now the whole big important crux of it all is this. The body is eaten as bread and taken into the body of each disciple of Jesus who partakes, believing that Jesus truly is, now as back then, and forever, alive again having died that death, and alive forever to help deal with sin and come close to the Father, God, holding to Jesus’ teachings with Jesus’ anointing of the Holy Spirit dwelling within. The blood is taken in too, as wine drunk in thanksgiving. And therefore the disciple is, in accordance with Jesus’ own word, the word of God His Father, part of this. Part of Jesus Christ. In Christ. A new creature with new hopeful eternal prospects given by God when God raised Jesus from the dead. What great salvation. Thanks be to God. What a great eternal living Temple to the glory of God, for the glory of the Name of God the Father. 

The Law and the Commands

 The Mosaic Law is for a society bound by that law and includes many things of social, not just individual, implication, for that special society. For example, working on Saturday is made illegal for that whole society, not just a matter of conscience and personal devotion. Straying as a society or village or town from that law becomes a capital offence punishable legally by death. God has commands for all people, not just for that special social group. God has commands for another social group too. These could be called law too, but constitute a separate system, the Kingdom of God.  There are commands of God which do not only apply to Jews. We can seek them out and apply them to ourselves. The Good Samaritan principle is one. The greatest command is love. Love God. Love those looking out for you and those needing you to look out for them. The command for the putting off of vice is essential in this Kingdom of God. It is essentially a putting off of lying and hating and a putting on of truthful speech and love. That is where to start and that is a great goal to aim for too. Immorality is to be put aside too. This is the way of truth we find in Christ Jesus.

WHY DO SOME CHRISTIANS TEACH THAT ALCOHOL AND GAMBLING ARE SINFUL?

 WHY DO SOME CHRISTIANS TEACH THAT ALCOHOL AND GAMBLING ARE SINFUL?

I don’t think we should let such Christians put us off from following Christ’s teachings. There is a historic tendency to teach that alcohol drinking and gambling are sinful, unethical. It goes back thousands of years. Maybe it was a way to discourage excesses and vice. Nowadays a drug den is something society abhors, not so much a bingo hall or public house (if you have those in your country). Jesus Christ’s teachings were to Jews familiar with the Laws given by God to Moses and it was the duty of every Jew to stick by such laws. Christ endorsed such adherence and regarded disobedience to these laws as a sin, unethical for a Jew. Today we have less clear guidance. Society has underlying alignment of laws with the Jewish Laws but much is left to discretion of politicians. Yet to keep a clear conscience is a good way to avoid slavery to politically corrupted lawmaking which lines the pockets of the rich and oppresses the poor. Gambling might be easily corrupted and serve the interests of such rich oppressors and alcohol might make us prone to such enslavement too but they do not flout any laws of God. There are commands of God which do not only apply to Jews. We can seek them out and apply them to ourselves. The Good Samaritan principle is one. The greatest command is love. Love God. Love those looking out for you and those needing you to look out for them. If putting off vice is essential for a Christian then let it be a putting off of lying and hating and a putting on of truthful speech and love. That is where to start and that is a great goal to aim for too. Immorality is to be put aside too. This is the way of truth we find in Christ Jesus. Don’t be put off by other traditions.

RESURRECTION COMING SOON

 AS GOD PREPARES BELIEVERS FOR THE MASSIVE RESURRECTION IN CHRIST LET US BE SURE TO BE LOVINGLY KEEPING THE COMMANDS OF GOD AND TEACHING THEM TO OUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN

Your descendants

 A thousand years from now Satan will be globally recruiting the masses. Will your descendants be recruited or will your traditions handed down be saving them? Teach your children Christ.

The timeless spirit of the Christ

 Maybe everyone today has heard of inspiration. Inspired songs. Inspired inventions. Inspired geniuses, inspired scriptures. There is a very special kind of inspiration throughout history since most ancient times: the heavenly inspirer who is the Christ, the spirit of the Christ. In Hebrew scriptures and other holy scriptures there are several notable passages where this inspirer is evident. In Isaiah’s prophecies, Daniel’s prophecies, Enoch’s prophecies and of course, when this Christ had come in the flesh, in the Gospels and other scriptures we call the New Testament. These all are the inspiration of one person, the person named in more recent history ‘Jesus’, ‘Yeshua’, ‘Isa’ but throughout history evidently manifest by the Spirit of Christ working in events, prophets and other writers of scriptural psalms and chronicles. The Book of Enoch has some of the most striking of all such passages in the section in the middle which we call the Parables, or the Similitudes. Here the formulation of the person of the Son of Man is revealed. The same person is mentioned a lot in the New Testament scriptures. Jesus spoke about this persona, this most important being, in the third person, to better put across the concept of the existence of the Son of Man and the implications of this for all humanity. 

The One True God - the Father

 I would say to both Oneness and Trinitarian advocates that the Father alone is the One True God and that Jesus is His Son and is a human being. Given that both Jesus and Paul are recorded by scriptures as stating unequivocally that the Father is the One True God, it is odd how both Trinitarians and Oneness advocates cannot recognise this. Indeed, having grown up in a house with parents from both sides, I feel a silly voice within me, instilled by years of learning their views, when in genuine faith I acknowledge to the Father that He alone is the One True God and that the mediation by the man, the Lord Jesus, allows me to come to this One True God, the Father, that silly voice tells me erroneously ‘Jesus won’t like you saying that, it isn’t fair on Jesus’ as if it is leaving Jesus out of being God, as if He wants a share of that special glory. It is a spiritual influence which blinds people, in the past myself included, in the present trying to still blind me, to the simple truth that the Father alone is the One True God. No Jesus is NOT offended when we confess this truth. He came to proclaim it and bring humans to this realisation and peace. Shut out that imposter voice. Listen to the true Holy Spirit instead. 

Modern Living

 It is important that we live in the light. As we go about our activities, it is important that the memories of inspirational teachings and sayings which guide us are dependable and good, such that they can be called ‘light’. Various sources of light from the past surely include the Book of Enoch. It contains important information about how modern life originated in the time of the most ancient dawn of civilisation. Look at almost any aspect of the culture, tools, advertising, politics and teachings which strive to guide us and we are likely to find the origins of it, the germ of it, described in the Book of Enoch. Even apostles of Jesus Christ and very likely Jesus Christ Himself, leaned on the sayings of the Book of Enoch, which the Dead Sea Scrolls indicate was extremely popular as scripture in the time of the gospels. So the gospels reflect this influence. The gospels reflect the sayings we find in the Book of Enoch and elaborate on them and augment them. So we get a multiplication of the light source to shed light on our activities today. We find that many aspects of culture around us, on which we might have been raised and educated, have murky origins. The origins of much of our modern life were not at all endorsed by God but condemned as harmful to the wellbeing and good progress of civilisation. Yet somehow those influences have risen to great prominence today. As the saying of Jesus says, “What is highly prized among men is detestable in the sight of God”.  Armed with the Book of Enoch and the Gospels absorbed by attentive reading into our hearts we have light that can guide us away from such things and leave us more open to what is more healthy for our lives. It also shows up the strong influences of society. Much of the modern world dogma depends on ancient practices which were warned against by these teachings of the light. Various unhealthy sectarian practices have merged over centuries, some over the millennia, to produce what politicians, school teachers, parents, guardians, influencers, fashionistas, scientists and religious leaders tell us are essential for our lives today. One day these things will be brought down like humbled mountains and despised but more worthy light exalted like the valley which is raised up. Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed. Until then we have these prophetic books as a light in the darkness. This light we should let come to mind in what we do to spur us on or hold us back or steer us aside to keep us from harm and from unethical pursuits. But do not expect much help from society. More likely we will lead society and rule, teaching the next generation, with God’s favour, which we can put above the favour of Society. 

Experiencing Jesus, risen from the dead

 How righteously pleasing Lord Jesus is, providing the pleasing turning aside of wrath that is needed for our sakes to turn aside the Father’s wrath and win the Father’s favour. Jesus is all of that. Experiencing this Jesus is awesome. Life-changing. Life-giving. Peace-giving. Seeing that He is coming in the clouds to judge us all, and to raise the dead. 

Modern Governments

 Governments give themselves more power to “cause these little ones to sin”. We know what Jesus said about those who “cause these little ones to sin”. It were better for him to have a millstone put around his neck and thrown into the sea.

God is Not a Trinity

 God the Father came to me in a dream at, I think, the end of 1994, then did me a tremendous favour in 1995 in showing me Jesus, sending Jesus to me albeit very briefly, and then God graciously did even more by allowing me to experience the Holy Spirit so markedly in a church service not long afterwards. All after I spent time repeatedly asking God, who I thought was a ‘Trinity’, to show Himself, Father and Son and Holy Spirit. In fact God the Father said in the dream “I am God”. NOT “I am God together with my Son and the Holy Spirit”. That struck me. Just the Father telling me “I am God” and going on to tell me more and show His loving, saving kindness towards someone I knew. I remained Trinitarian though for years afterwards, not putting it together with scripture. Only much later did it dawn on me the significance of it regarding the Father, that He alone is the only true God and that Jesus is His Son sent by Him. Someone challenged me about the scriptural descriptions of the Son of God NOT calling Him ‘God the Son’ and the penny finally dropped. So all this was God showing me knowledge by experience. It took years to turn that tacit experiential knowledge into something I could explain to others with use of scripture too. All for the purpose of building the Temple. “Build the Temple” is the command the Holy Spirit told me that started all this off earlier in the 1990s. But the details I have omitted to keep it shorter and because the details would be lost on people without knowing the background. 

Christ’s Spirit

 Jesus Christ’s spirit is able to pervade time and knows what happened in the past and influenced things in the past and influences the future. That does not mean He is not a human. It does not make Him God. The One True God is only what the Father is. Christ’s spirit authors life and stretches across time and works wonders even today, yesterday and forever but Christ is still man, the Son of Man, but Lord with it. 

The Book of Enoch and the Pyramid Texts

The historic place of the Book of Enoch, when it is considered that Enoch wrote much the Book of Enoch before the time of Noah, is centuries before the Pyramid Texts were written inside the oldest pyramids of Egypt. This is an important sequence of events because the theological progress is very logical and enlightening. First we have Enoch telling the world that there are four places where people go very soon after death, and which of the four mainly depends on the behaviour or experiences of the person during their lifetime. Then time passes, there is a Flood, after Noah and Methuselah added more to the Book of Enoch, then some more centuries pass with Noah teaching the growing population descending from a few Flood survivors in Noah’s family, and then the pyramids are built which contain texts written on internal walls. These texts, among various ceremonial sayings and depictions concerning death, provide advice to the deceased ones buried in the pyramids, on how to approach the events that happen after death. The logical sequence makes sense. If there are these several places where spirits of newly deceased people go, then it follows logically that some kind of court-like hearing would be conducted with the deceased as a kind of defendant to determine their appropriate destination. Part of the purpose of these Pyramid Texts seems to have been to give lawyer-like advice, counsel, about this process and to provide some appropriate words to use to help towards the best outcome. So the historical sequence of the development of human thinking fits with the Book of Enoch coming before these Pyramid Texts, to first establish the facts of the afterlife, then the Pyramid Texts would be building on this knowledge, potentially handed on to post-Flood families by Noah and his disciples, based on the teachings of Enoch we find in the Book of Enoch. We too can learn from Enoch and realise that on death there must be some kind of adjudication to determine our destination after death. 

For permanent deliverance from sin

 For permanent deliverance from sin: 1. Believe Jesus Christ exists. 2. Adhere to His teachings.

Humbly Confess

 The Pharisees not only refused to enter the kingdom of God but hindered others from entering. Their proud refusal to humbly confess their sins before John the Baptist meant they were not ready for Jesus Christ and they undermined Him. If we confess our sins and our need for the deliverance from sin that Jesus bought with His blood, we have each other’s fellowship and we have fellowship with those who ultimately find fellowship, companionship with Almighty God and His Son. I need this deliverance, I do indeed. God knows it. There, that is all the Pharisees needed to say an we can so easily go their way too. It is tough to admit we are the sinners needing deliverance from sin’s chains. Yes, that deliverance as costly to Jesus and the cost overflows into our lives when we join with Him in fellowship for truth. Speaking truth is costly, especially admission that we are not as worthy as people think and we should not be exalting ourselves. The power of God flows in when ego and lying pride are thrown out. It hurts but that power heals and soothes the pain. Oh for grace to be truthful and not proudly boastful. 

My Theology lesson from God

 Once upon a time I was wrong in thinking that being ‘God’ is a shared thing, shared between Father and Son and Holy Spirit. The truth is that Jesus and the Father each truthfully point out that it is just the Father who is God, while Jesus is Son of God, in other words, Jesus is Son of God the Father. This is what I now believe, and I hope the old error evaporates from my mind more and more with time.

The way of truth

 When you seek God and He lets you find Him, you may find God teaches you and gives you teachers. The teachings of God do not follow denominational doctrines but truth. Then you might find you have to go a different path, living and speaking according to truth. It happened to me. It can be lonely but in time God can give you companions in the truth. 

If you love scriptures

 If you love the scriptures, why not take your doctrines from them, instead of from church fathers? As I grew through attending church preaching it sometimes seemed to me even the best preachers got so far with scripture, building up faith, then at the last hurdle abandoning scripture in favour of church fathers doctrines such as Augustine’s. I made a great effort to read the scriptures more intently and find out why the preachers so often abandoned scripture and hung onto church father doctrines at the crucial bits. So much better to learn from the greatest teachers who wrote scriptures, even if some scriptures are mistranslated to fit with later church father doctrines. There is enough accurate scripture to enable us to be led to the Lord Jesus Christ and find the truth in Him. 

Sad but True

 If you cannot take this from me, take it from the Apostle Paul: For Paul there is one God, the Father. For Paul there is one Lord, Jesus Christ. Preaching a different Jesus incurs Paul’s curse. Even if popes, reformers or church fathers did it. Even if angels did it. Take it from Paul. 

The Pearl

 The Pearl of Great Price - having companionship with God and His Son - this is the chief benefit of the Kingdom of God

John 14:22-23 

‘Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?” Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.’

Enoch 105

“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. 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.”

1 John 1:3

“We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.”

The benefit of having fellowship with the Father and the Son or with those who have such fellowship, through confession of sin and genuine, sincere faith and love, this benefit is counteracted by hypocrisy of those who feign true authority - those who sit in seats of authority but do not live by it.

So many will maybe say that confession of their sin is important as a virtue but shy away from doing it, hyping up their ethical standing and wellbeing, afraid of admitting shortcomings to those who have fellowship with God and with His Son. They thus undermine and obscure this way. Those Pharisees failure in this regard kept them from confessing their sins before John the Baptist and receiving baptism. They continued this refusal then with Jesus too. This meant their stance detracted from the validity of the way preached by John the Baptist and Jesus and their disciples. So even now there are many through the centuries till today whose refuse to enter and confess and believe hinders others by detracting from the vital importance of this path into such holy fellowship. 

The Lord’s Name

 The Lord’s name is how we characterise Him or how He characterises Himself, and sums it up in a word or phrase. It is not merely the letters, spelling or pronunciation used for that name. It is His reputation.

Climate Responsibility

 Climate Responsibility is now on us. While we are still in lockdown, we should be looking for new jobs closer to home or with remote working, or our employers should be planning changes to working practices for once lockdown ends, or risk losing us. Just forcing workers to continue as before is unethical madness. This is the opportunity now, pandemic or not. Missing it will incur the responsibility for failures to meet climate targets.

Obscured Teachings of Jesus

 The vain zeal to find Trinitarian dogma in the teachings of Jesus obscures how people receive the words of Jesus. The meaning gets twisted in people’s minds caused by historical Trinitarian orthodoxy.  We need to try to put it aside and focus on what Jesus is actually saying. He is the same yesterday and today and will be so forever. Trinitarianism does not change the true nature of Jesus, yet it sometimes obscures it. 

Location

 “The dew of Hermon falling on Mount Zion.” The Book of Enoch points to the meaning of this scripture: That God lives deep within a mountain like Hermon but makes that dwelling fall like dew on Mount Zion too. Though God’s physical location is high within a lofty mountain distant from the walks of life of humans, it is also true that God dwells within the love that a group of humans have as brothers and sisters together. The dwelling extends beyond that lofty mountain place right down to the ordinary habitations of those who live in love.

Being Slain in the Spirit, the Pentecostal Experience and the Second Blessing

King David had the Holy Spirit (hence the Psalms) but so did King Saul. The latter was even, in modern terminology, ‘slain in the Spirit’ - forced to lie prostrate for hours by the Holy Spirit to keep him from killing David https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Samuel%2019&version=NIV after the Holy Spirit put him into a trance of compulsive prophesying, as had previously happened to guards Saul sent to kill David. But hopefully we receive the Holy Spirit in better circumstances when the gospel opens our hearts, cleansing us from compulsive mortal sins. Of course the spirit that made King Saul so jealous of David that he tried to kill him, that was not the Holy Spirit but was given Saul as punishment for poorly serving God. So the Holy Spirit came upon him but was not the only spirit to do so. It is all more complex than the revival preachers like it to be. Nevertheless the way it should be for those being saved and kept pure in heart like David is to have the constant home made in the heart by the Holy Spirit. So we need to stay at one with God’s will and at one with Christ by the word of Christ being nurtured in our hearts unto obedience so we are always given the Holy Spirit visitations and His influence is always there within us controlling our lives. For the first disciples of Christ it was all complicated somewhat by the Holy Spirit only being given to Jesus at first. They had to wait till that glorious Pentecost to receive the full benefits of the completion of Christ’s mission and His return to heaven. They were not without the benefits completely though because they initially had Christ’s words which were spirit too. They could dwell on those words and those words could work within them achieving the remoulding of their minds and ways by the Spirit that was within Christ without measure. So too when waiting for the Holy Spirit, who for many (not all, as Acts relates regarding the centurion’s family) is given by laying on hands, not always within reach, a believer can still have the benefits of letting Christ’s words, sayings, dwell within them richly.

An Example of True Prophecy Today

 I went to a church where God was giving true prophecies. There was a leader telling everyone to prophesy. I was troubled by that. I prayed before the next church service and I asked God, since I was new to the church and was advised not to speak until they knew me a bit, for God Himself to give a message to warn people there that not everyone has to prophesy. Some do good service by just listening. Some are not supposed to speak in church (women). So I went to the service. We were split into two groups with around twenty in each group. In the group I was in one by one three or four spoke up speaking about Mary sitting at Jesus’ feet and just listening. One of the prophets who spoke was new to me. He so clearly said what I previously had asked God to say that I asked someone who this fellow was. They told me he was a prophet who rarely came to the church so God must have sent him just to say that. The following service I spoke saying how in the previous service it was if God Himself had been the visiting speaker. The leader said he thought he knew what I meant. Later afterwards I was going there hoping to speak a prophecy. As I meditated before going the word of God came to me, “Israel has sinned” and “this sign will be given you, the eagle will be flying overhead” and a vision of the eagle was given me showing it with a big white eye. I told someone in the church and later overheard him telling it to others saying “It is like those Old Testament prophecies”. I turned on the TV news at home and it showed spy planes from the US (this was the mid to late 1990s) and that night the first ever police helicopter in our area was flying all night overhead with a searchlight on. I read in the news paper that the helicopter was flying over that church trying to stop someone on the roof of houses nearby throwing roof tiles down on people below. The news on TV later reported that the new helicopters were called Operation Vulture. The next few years saw the beginnings of cameras being put up in streets and mass surveillance. All this according to that few words of prophecy “Israel has sinned”.  God gives prophets and apostles still today. They should shout the words from rooftops. We must love God with all our Voice.

The Unnamed Sect

 We live in a society dominated by an unnamed sect similar to the Sadducees of Jesus’ time. It dominates everything.

The Context of the Flood

 The Book of Enoch gives us a context for the Flood: That great event known in cultures throughout the world, happening in early human history. The event was a future event when the ancient writer wrote about it as a prophecy. Yet the book points to a few historic sites, not mentioning them by name but giving pointers of people we can find in other ancient texts of that time before the Flood, copied by later scribes a few hundred years after it took place. These people are leads towards places of Sippur and Sharrapak in the Near East in the Tigris and Euphrates region of what is now Iraq. The book points to a time of turmoil ravaged by semi-supernatural giants made to fight each other to the death by gods or angels under the rule of the highest god, the Lord of Spirits, the Father of the Son of Man. Never did any editors edit the Book of Enoch to note that the Flood ever took place, it all happens as a foretold future event. This contrasts with other books of the time such as the Sumerian King Lists which bring the reader up to date with later characters who ruled the region after the Flood but also includes textual history of the kings before that Flood which we can align with the people mentioned in the Book of Enoch. The cities ruled by these kings were Sippur and Sharrapak. Archaeology fits consistently with all this in that it reveals a flood layer deposit from 2900 to 2500 BC in Sharrapak (Tell Fara). Later dynasties used these same places and others nearby as capitals from time to time, long after the Flood but before the time of patriarchs such as Abraham.

Jesus and the Book of Enoch

 Jesus was a great proponent of the Book of Enoch, not recorded as having mentioned it by name yet clearly recorded in several gospels as having endorsed its teachings as vital truth to know, teachings found in no other scripture. Church councils, on the other hand, historically tend to have people in them who are administrators like the Sadducees. They tend to like to restrict people’s reading to books that are less likely to challenge the administrator career path. Safe books. Nothing too prophetic. Nothing that reflects too much that God is higher than administrations. Thank God for Jesus still being alive to challenge these kinds of leaders. Alive forever and Lord even over the bosses of religion, the clergy. The Holy Spirit does not come with authority of clergy but with far greater authority and truthfulness, that of Jesus Christ. The same anointing as that with which God anointed Jesus and it is given to us who believe in Jesus.

Power of God

Already a foretaste of Jesus’ judgements is happening in the earth, presided over by Jesus, the Son of Man, being seen by some in the clouds of heaven, even as it draws near to the time of His rule. These judgements are beginning with the house of God. Most churches have had a year of closure. There is far more to come. The mass surveillance is a sign of what the LORD says, “Israel has sinned”. Look in Deuteronomy at the commandment to love the LORD your God with all your heart and soul and strength and mind. Jesus called it the first and greatest commandment. It is in a section where it tells the children of the covenant of God to write out and put where they can see it the words of God. The Lord Jesus includes “all your strength” in the way He relates that commandment. You have a voice on social media, we all do. Use all that voice as part of your overall strength in love for God. Tell the true words of Jesus there. Put what Jesus actually says up in or around your house. Jesus’ words are with the Spirit of prophecy, they are given by God the Father who sent Him. If you are not sure something is truly the words given by God, then by all means, do not put it up. Stick to what you truly believe and put up in your house or on social media what you believe is surely from God. But that belief will grow, if it is a belief which God is giving you and you are becoming a child of God through it.

If you are believing that Jesus is the Son of God you have Jesus embodying the word, and Jesus IS the word. The word of Jesus is spirit.  Not letter. Spirit. Look to Jesus. He architected our life. He lived our life. He mastered our life. He died and rose. He lives our eternal life. He is perfected in our life. He perfects our life. If you believe He is God’s Son you need to let His word remain in you, adhering to it, so Jesus will remain in you and you in Him. We in Him. Let Jesus’ authority be our only authority as we build this Temple of God by Jesus. We need to look very closely at what Jesus said. And He still says it now. He does not drop what He said back then. He confirms and persists it in perfected power and authority. Let the churches be one united church in this authority. God bring it about. Amen.

Jesus told the Sadducees they were in error because they did not know the scriptures OR THE POWER OF GOD. Know the power of God by the message that CHRIST DIED FOR YOU sinking in and becoming your hope.

We are all in this together. Let us correct and encourage each other accordingly. Perfecting what Christ has started, with Christ’s eternal help.

We don’t have to get it all sorted out on our own. That old way of doing it alone is dead. Christ crucified it in His own body. We are together as His body. We can help each other know, love, live, building each other up, not tearing each other down. To live in understanding of Christ and His teachings. The anointing from God teaches us and leads us into all truth, that we bear much fruit.

Warning concerning angels

 The Book of Enoch warns us against us serving angels. Look at angels in the Book of Enoch. There are those which teach magic arts. There are those which, among them Satan, berate and falsely accuse the righteous and will try to attack them at any opportunity. There are those given by God great power in worldly affairs to punish and preside in judgment over the righteous, causing persecutions. There are some who are better than all this. Some protect the righteous. Some serve only God. So if you allow angels to influence you unwittingly you might find yourself doing service to them many a time when they want to use you, but which ones and for what purpose? It could be good but it could be for great harm to others. Persecutors of many could be serving an angel. Victimisers of the godly believers could be doing the service of a satanic angel. So serve God alone. If God sends an angel to help you and serve you in doing God’s will all well and good but do not give yourself over to the angel in service. Serve God and do God’s will, lest you fall into the clutches of the wrong kind of angel as many tragically have done through history, ending up on the wrong side of history.

Enoch’s Calendar(s)

 The Book of Enoch has two calendars, one solar, one lunar, and a way to keep them synchronised. I think the Egyptians used this, or a very similar approach around 2000 BC. This is pragmatic because sometimes one calendar is easier and sometimes the other calendar is easier. The sun angle and where it sets and where it rises are needed for the solar calendar but what if the weather is cloudy for a couple of months? Finding the midpoint between extremes of its setting and rising positions is difficult if you do not have much time to devote to it. But it gives you the year length clearly if you can use it. On the other hand the moon phases are easy to keep track of and predictable so you can work them out even if the moon is hidden. But the moon months do not precisely fit into a year. So having the Book of Enoch allows you to use both calendar methods - sun and moon because it tells how to fit lunar months into a solar year. It is slightly inaccurate though and all history has seen the accuracy gradually improved. The intercalary days were simplified in the Book of Enoch. Sophistication and priesthood and astronomy knowledge later in history allowed better intercalary insertions. Today even a second can be added now and then, not just a whole day, because we have computers and atomic clocks. Then there was no such technology but God did not advocate such magic technology and so a simpler version which did not need it was provided in Enoch’s teachings. It worked for a thousand or more years. Egyptians and then later Greeks  all knew the solar year was really 365,25 days approximately but technology limitations and human pragmatism prevented them using that knowledge. Only the Romans eventually used it, led by Julius Caesar and Greeks, then Gregory perfected it in the 1500s. 365.242199 days is supposed now to be the tropical solar year length. The Gregory calendar allowed for something close to it. I think the accuracy of Enoch’s calendar fits it well into pre-Egyptian history because later in history the year length was measured more accurately.

Event or Command

Is your wish an event or a command? Even a prayer can be an event. Make it like a command by believing it will happen without doubt. Telling a sick person “Get well soon” is either an event or a command. If you do not actually intend that your wish will result in their recovery your kind word to them is an event. Simply you said it. End of. If you intend it to happen by some miracle of faith, it is a command. You said it to bring a result. Not just a smile on their face but a recovery of health. Likewise your prayer. Do you intend your prayer to be answered? If not then the prayer happened and that is the end of it. That prayer was an event. If you pray without doubting at all that it will be answered then it is more like a command. It results in something. This is when the prayer or the kind words have no doubt attached, only belief in God. These are more than events. These are commands that have an effect, a result. Something happens. “Have faith in God” said Jesus Christ. Excel in Jesus Christ.

The Contrast

Two thousand years ago we see Jesus Christ there in history. All kinds of evidence points to this. The Book of Enoch highlights the significance of this. It contrasts this with others who came into history leaving turmoil more than three thousand years previously, the fallen angels who came to women bringing magic arts and metallurgy and with it promiscuity and violence. The difference with Jesus is: God sent Him.

That is the problem faced by God. Does He let a person grow in influence without stepping in to stop it? Fallen angel wisdom had to be curtailed. So we got the Flood disaster and other divine interventions. If allowed to grow and grow and fill the world and fill all history on into eternity that would be dire so God stepped in. Even now God interrupts that spread of earthly wisdom, science and technology. A big intervention is coming soon too. On the other hand there must be an alternative which is more positive and hopeful: A person of promise who once perfected can be allowed to fill all future earth for eternity without limit. That is what Christ is. A person with full approval to grow forever in influence with no need for God to ever intervene - ever. Lord, ever growing and Christ, ever approved. Anointed with full approval. 

Even a most famous alchemist admitted chemistry came from fallen angels

In 300 AD a Roman Greco-Egyptian alchemist named Zosimos of Panopolis wrote:

“The ancient and divine writings say that the angels became enamoured of women; and, descending, taught them all the works of nature. From them, therefore, is the first tradition, chema, concerning these arts; for they called this book chema and hence the science of chemistry takes its name.” 

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

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bQF6Wz-u4yYC&pg=PA299&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

He seems to imply the Book of Enoch is the ancient divine writing from which we learn of this fallen angel origin of chemistry.

Jacob and his stripey posts

 Sympathetic magic? How about Jacob putting steaks in ground with stripes to attract likelihood of his uncle’s sheep and goats producing speckled lambs and kids? Genesis 30:25-36. Magic? I think most likely it was standard practice in most ancient times and known to well-educated Jacob. Look at Stonehenge origins. Posts arranged in a circle possibly to attract mating ancient cows and bulls. Seems they knew posts attract mating livestock. But was sympathetic magic a part of it, the stripey posts attracting livestock with markings. Maybe just normal wisdom of the ancients.

Deceptive medical mqgic

 One of the UK’s medical public-funded salespeople, Mike Hancock MP, told UK Parliament today “I want to update the House on some new information that we have on this. As of 3 June our data show that of the 12,383 cases of the Delta variant, 464 went on to present at emergency care and 126 people were admitted to hospital. Of these 126 people, 83 were unvaccinated, 28 had received one dose and just three had received both doses of the vaccine.” 

So 31 out of 128 emergency covid admissions had been vaccinated. Mmm. Magic. Deceptive as magic. Medicine as magic.

Push forward with spirit

 When Jesus was facing death and was in a garden with His disciples and praying but His disciples in tiredness at this sad time could only sleep, Jesus said “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”. Years later the apostle Paul who was sent by Jesus wrote that we should live not by that weak flesh but live by that spirit which is willing to watch and pray. We should let that spirit press on, despite the flesh being weak: Then we shall live. Jesus pressed on that way. He kept on doing the will of God, despite that way ahead being darkened by a bloody cross and a temporary death. The way ahead for Jesus was extreme suffering of the flesh and death of the body but beyond it was joyful resurrection and glory in the fullness of God’s kindness and graciousness extended out to us all in the resurrected Son. We should press on. We should find the way ahead which the spirit within wills for us when it is sanctified by God’s grace and we should not be swayed from it by the weak flesh but press on towards it by the willingness of the spirit. The end of this is life, life for us and life extended from us to others, though death might be temporarily darkening our path.

Jesus, the smile of God

 When someone smiles, they show an expression of their kindness so we can see their disposition is warm towards us. They reveal their inner attitude towards us. Well, God is revealing by Jesus that His kindness goes on forever and His attitude towards us is a reaching out attitude of graciousness. I’m not saying God actually smiles, but this expression of His seems much like a smile to me. It brings joy to the soul, joy which begs to be expressed in praise, song, clapping. Expressing it gives God a place to inhabit. Somewhere for the Holy Spirit to enter in visitation.

Magical Thinking

 The Book of Enoch tells of ancient fallen angels teaching what might today be called magic or folk medicine or root work or whatever a particular culture calls such things. The angels who taught such things were severely punished by the Lord of Spirits (God) for doing so. Look how far these teachings have mingled into societies, passed down from ancient times to today. Magic is not just about practices but about the thinking behind those practices. An angel, fallen, condemned by God, taught the cutting of roots. Look how magic today uses roots cut to human form to emulate a person and try to cause effects to happen based on the likeness similarity between root and person. Perhaps this is what was taught by the angel. Hermeticism is a word for magic which was in use five hundred years ago in Europe. It included Alchemy. It also included what seems to have been incorporated today into modern medicine and pharmaceutic industrial thinking and practices. The modern counterpart of the magic thinking of sixteenth century Europe and Britain might be mingled with modern medicine. Scientists claim it is all about fact-based and evidence-based studies but the thinking that goes into the devising of the studies seems to carry forward to our times the thinking of magic centuries ago which seems to be the same kind of thinking found in magic today, such as is found in many cultures around the world. How often a medical technology uses likeness as a strategy. A vaccine is like the bacteria or virus being fought. An animal is used to study a drug based on a likeness of a feature of the animal to a corresponding feature of a human. Commonalities are sought out. Assumptions are made that equalities of effects correspond to equalities of features. Science uses facts discovered but it also requires that scientists adopt certain ways of thinking and these ways trace historically back to ways of magical thinking still very much present in various cultures. We might do well to ask: How far does God’s condemnation of magic, and the fallen angels who have introduced it, extend into our modern medical health technologies and ways of thinking? The Lord Jesus’ famous lesson of the Good Samaritan shows how a kind and responsible person acted to help and injured man using techniques devoid of medical thinking and drugs. No drugs, just pouring onto the wounds of wine and oil and wrapping with simple dressings before kindly and wisely taking the victim of crime, not to a place of medicine and magical thinking and drugs but to a place of common hospitality and daily care. Eternal life thinking must replace magical thinking, if we are to follow Lord Jesus the Christ, being freed from sins that lead to deadly punishment by God and punishment beyond death.

Orthodoxy and the Consensus of Errors

 Lots of silly things got said even by disciples. Like John never dying. Like Jesus and the Resurrection being new deities. Like all the many gnostic doctrines. Plus the later Trinitarian philosophical ideas. And the thirty nine articles and 66 book canon. Disciples aren’t immune from error, even mainstream dogma errors. Just by an error going mainstream it doesn’t cease to be an error. Orthodoxy is not a way to avoid error. The errors just get baked in to the orthodoxy. People think they are wise tempting God, forcing God’s hand, like in divination, or human sacrifice, by trying to gain consensus as an orthodoxy thinking that God would never allow error to get set in stone so would intervene to make only truth get agreed: Foolish because God steps back like a father with a toddler, and watches the mistake being made, but loves us all the same, errors and all.

Confession

 When we believe in Christ to wash us from sin, we end up washing each other on His behalf: Washing away sins with rebukes, correction, discipline, teachings, miraculous signs, Holy Spirit gifts and intercessory prayers. The fellowship one disciple may have with Jesus Christ can be shared by those whose receptiveness to this disciple’s testimony leads them to openness of heart to truth from God. Such openness, if maintained, will lead to confession of their inner real state before God and the Holy Spirit turns around their thinking, adjusts their attitude and inner behaviour. Thus you find the receptiveness to the gospel truth, in the light of the cross, can open up a person so they confess truth about themselves openly to others. Forgiveness and fellowship and ongoing washing from sin are the result. Also intercession and tendency to rebuke and correct each other within that bond of fellowship in this cleansing way of Christ. This is why Christ came and was announced by John the Baptist who made way for this to happen as part of faith in Christ. This is the way, the truth, the life, as found in Jesus Christ the Lord and Master, the true Rabbi sent from God, the Lamb of God whose crucifixion and intercession and life and pathway takes away sins. 

England

 Historic sins of England: England and its followers. Heaven’s purest wisdom must replace the errors with truth. Intercede. God forgive the historic opposition.

Washing feet

 We believe in Christ to wash us, and end up washing each other on His behalf. Washing away sins with rebukes, correction and prayers.

Anglican Bible

 It was the Anglicans who removed the Apocrypha from the Bible. The English Civil War produced the 66-book Bible. The Puritans and the Westminster Confession. The Thirty Nine Articles. So a 66-book canon Bible was first published in 1666. I suppose nobody counted the significant numbers.

Resurrection

 What all the fuss is about with Jesus? Resurrection. It pervaded His ministry. It pervades Him still. Now it pervades us too.

Laws of Nature

It makes sense that there were laws of physics and nature before the universe began, right from the very start of all things. Nothing known to Science seems to suggest the laws of interactions and space and time have ever changed. So it makes sense that these were ever coming forth from God, when you think there is an originator. This means they are part of what philosophers and theologians called The Word. Which means the coming of Jesus was an incarnation of this Word: Now the first perfected, immortal, resurrected human being, again made glorious in spirit as of old before this all began.

Is God a human invention?

The idea that God is invented, if true, logically means everyone is an atheist since an unreal, invented god is no god at all. If you believe in no god at all then you are an atheist. If everyone is an atheist, where is atheism? There is no need to call it atheism since it includes everyone and something that includes everyone needs no name. So by using the word atheism, atheists prove that there is a god who is real. Not invented. 

Layered or Real

 For most of us Christianity is a layering of Christian principles on top of our bad behaviour and bad character. The grace of God overcomes this. The work of God in Christ goes deep within us by the message of the cross of Christ and by the Holy Spirit. It converts the innermost person of us. It teaches us a holy, heavenly form of right and wrong and makes us determined to only do the right: determined so much that we change our behaviour in response to it. We put off the wrong, the bad, and start to only do the right. We continue this way with Christ interceding for us and we influence each other and pray for each other to do the same. We so become inwardly the children of God. 

Believing in Jesus

I suppose what made me, as a young child, probably not even yet in school, believe Jesus and trust in Him, when read the things He said, was the way He championed our eternal needs by what He said. It was the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus, and I remember feeling deep trust in Jesus for telling what I need for escaping Hades torment. He was able to tell it clearly and He did not fail to tell us the tough truth because we need it so much. I never stopped trusting Him from then on. Over the years He lived up to that trust, meeting my eternal needs in many ways, proving He is alive and perfected in glorious power. The Father saw Jesus perfect enough to be our sacrifice and clearly has truly raised Him from the dead, since Jesus has made Himself known to me so clearly, once I had eventually learned to obey His teachings. It proved to me too that the teachings in the gospels must be true because Jesus so faithfully honours the promises in them.

The shed blood

 Having God as your leader you really don’t want to get on the wrong side of Him but because the blood of His perfected Son was shed, God was willing to make an unending undertaking with believing disciples to treat them forever as sons. To fulfil this undertaking, to provide these disciples of Jesus with an unending perfected High Priest, God raised Jesus from the dead.

“Does God throw dice?”

The Evolution theory covers changes in genetic make-up and covers adaptation of organisms to challenges in the organism’s environment. It covers some sort of dependency on chance. It doesn’t seem to cover the dependency on spiritual influences over chance. It doesn’t seem to cover the organism’s dependency on these influences for its adaptations. Religion fills this gap. It shows a cosmic scale influencer influencing the chance events. Does God throw dice? No but when the die is thrown, God influences, even determines, the outcome. The Spirit of God conveys this truth, demonstrating it to an adherent who believes. God shows how in our innermost being we have spirit and the key to this spirit is in the hands of God’s Son who lives forever, having died as the sacrifice for the High Priestly ministry of entering the innermost place in us and in Heaven and interceding, bringing the innermost places together. The result is our spiritual relationship with God the Father, the Creator, the one who determines outcomes. The Spirit of God tells a believing adherent that it is by the power of the name of this Son, the Lord Jesus the Christ, that Nature carries on in accordance with the will of God. We should do so too.

Did Jesus write a gospel?

The doctrine of how Jesus worked is the Jewish rabbi method of working. You can see it in other peoples too, such as the guru in India. The rabbi, teacher, guru, teaches by taking on disciples who follow them around watching their actions and not just hearing their words, their sayings, but seeing how the rabbi behaves in accordance with those sayings. The note takers are the disciples, not the rabbi. The disciples write what they witness the rabbi say and do. The rabbi teaches by action, works, not just words. The words are often directed at the disciples, applying to them, not theoretical, but words requiring actions or changes of behaviour. This way of rabbinical teaching required disciples with time to devote to close contact as much as possible. The ones who had this contact become primary witnesses and authorities on the way of the rabbi as well as practitioners of that way, behaving accordingly (vitally important). It makes sense that they be the ones to write the accounts. Like a student taking notes and eventually becoming a teacher too. The gospel continued this way for decades, person to person, combining words with witnessed actions,  before the emphasis turned towards written accounts and the reading of them to churches. The disciples themselves were Jesus’ document.

The Team

 Jesus did not write a gospel. He came to make others of faith who do things like He did things. He could have written a gospel but creating apostles and disciples with faith to do it was His purpose and still is His purpose. “Where is your faith?” He asked. Yes He could calm a storm telling the storm to be quiet by faith to save the day but He rebuked the disciples for not doing it themselves. He is the same today (and forever). Jesus could today do all the work of God by faith, as He sits at God’s right hand, but then the pictures in God’s album or up on God’s wall would all be of Jesus. He wants us to do things by our faith. Then our picture goes in the photo album commemorating what we do and the pictures of God’s wall are of us together with His Son Jesus. Jesus came to die and in so doing to bring forth many seeds, many disciples doing even greater things than He did. He now lives, alive from the dead, and still does what He did, and in greater glory, but He delegates acts of faith to us, to do as He did, to do as He does. He wants a team to expand His work as He the master works with us.

The new worship and temple

 In the old days a community might have to offer an innocent human son as human sacrifice in order to come with clear conscience to worship. A lamb was offered later in substitute for the human but it was not adequate. God eventually provided the lamb Himself in an absolutely adequate way, His own innocent beloved Son, the Lamb of God as John the Baptist proclaimed concerning Jesus. This is our sacrifice in coming in worship to God. He makes the coming in worship acceptable enough such that God provided the Holy Spirit for building up the worshippers and leading the worship. That was what happened at Pentecost in Jerusalem the year Jesus died and rose and ascended back to God. It happens in many churches still today. The resurrection gives us hope but does not negate the holy blood that was shed, innocent Jesus’ own blood. This is proved by the Holy Spirit manifestations to believers in their services. Now believers can assemble for worship of God without bringing human or lamb sacrifice because the sacrifice of Jesus the holy Lamb of God has been made. This opens up the possibility of assembling where God comes to meet with us too in fellowship not possible before. God makes His place among us. This is the new temple of God of which Jesus is the archetype.

Come into my heart Lord Jesus

 Because of Jesus’ blood shed, offering as sacrifice His own body in crucifixion, Jesus has authority to enter into my innermost being, my spirit, my holy of holies. That is the sense in which I find Jesus to be both Lord and Christ. 

Science and Religion

 Religion and Science have historically intertwined and coexisted. Theistic alchemists developed modern versions of Sciences such as chemistry and physics and astronomy. The Bible book of Exodus tells how Science and Religion once clashed, with Pharaoh’s priests using their magic science to try to imitate the plagues of God presented by Moses. The Ancient Egyptians had sciences such as medicine (sorcery of drugs and incantations) and astrology (precursor to astronomy). They could construct right angles for their buildings and had Mathematics to help. The Babylonians used star charts and complex mathematics. Often it was priests who knew these things and combined them with oracles. Mosaic Law was an astonishing innovation compared to law codes of the surrounding nations and it banned the magic knowledge of hidden things which the surrounding nations were mixing with their Science. Surely it is no coincidence that the widespread distribution of Mosaic Law in the 1500s and 1600s in England, Ireland, Wales and Europe preceded a crackdown on such forbidden magic knowledge of hidden spiritual things and that this was followed soon after by the development of modern Science out of the arts of medicine, alchemy and astrology.

Life in Himself

 The life Jesus has is His own to offer to others as illustrated in raising Lazarus, His own friend, from the dead. In this sense Jesus is like the Father, as the Father made Him to be. So the life that lights the world is from Jesus who receives it from the Father. Jesus, in other words, is not merely a conduit of the Father but is living life which belongs to Jesus Himself, as the Father gives to Him. The life Jesus lives in this way is a light to us, if our eyes are opened to it. Jesus is. That is real. It applies whatever time we are in. We have this light ever before us. Unless the devil blinds our eyes.

Authority

Atheism has no self-referential coherence if it states that unsubstantiated belief is to be shunned but offers no evidence to back up this statement. It is like saying “please ignore me”. If I ignore you, I will ignore your request to ignore me. If you say, please ignore me if I offer no logical proof or evidence, the same applies.

Christian religion on the other hand says, “please ignore Christ’s authority if it does not come from God, but if it does come from God then God’s kingdom is right at your doorstep and should not on any account be ignored”.

Ultimately Christianity says Christ’s authority is that by which planets move and plants put out buds and leaves. Not to be ignored. It commands constant adherence forever.

The Old Testament

 The Old Testament. Jesus says we should certainly take notice of the Old Testament for eternal life but it is not enough. We should follow Him, and that requires a trimming down of wealth in favour of the poor, and entering into a kingdom where we are all brothers, led by one Lord, Jesus Himself. 

Escape

 Are you all missing out on the righteousness of God, trapped in a downward spiralling dystopian world of your own making? Follow Jesus, know and understand the teachings of Jesus and apply them in your life, believing that Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever. Escape the downward spiral.

Less than ten thousand years in the making

 Viewing human civilisation as less than ten thousand years old fits so well with archaeology of major civilised administrative centres like Eridu, Uruk, Ur and Susa. The pyramids and famous architectural achievements of human civilisation all date to less than ten thousand years ago. Nothing major of indisputable human homo sapiens making date from older periods. Even the exceptions are so hard to pinpoint with certainty that they prove the rule. It is consistent with documented contemporary historical records that the human at the beginning of this whole timespan had no earthly parents but originated with the gods.

Science and religion

 Scientific observations are an outcome of human nature. A spider’s view of its surroundings is determined by its hairs and many eyes and needs. A fly has a different view, observing with those peculiar eyes. An ant has a two dimensional view. Each creature’s view is peculiar to its natural facilities. Bees have a view extended by social knowledge sharing. Humans have a greatly extended view extended by scientific and scholarly knowledge sharing and intellectual observational abilities. Now this is all natural, although in the case of science its history has included supernatural aspects such as sorcery, alchemy, astrology, divination, shamanic oracles. Yet religion adds more to the supernatural observations. Dreams and visions. Miracles. Spiritual insights. These have crept into science because scientists were historically religious and shamanic. If atheists want a Science devoid of supernatural observations they must start again, which is impossible.

Science has the tools but not the important answers

 Science has tricks it can use to test those who observe theistic realities but it seldom uses them. Nobody has asked to test me with truth serum, lie detector, hypnosis, even though for nearly thirty years I have been giving bold and clear testimony to things that I observed in the nineties of religious nature - existence of God, character of God, that Jesus is alive and human and the same in His ways and teachings as He was two thousand years ago, and the Holy Spirit still being manifested in tongues of angels and interpretation, and the word of God being the same today as in prophecies thousands of years ago. Instead people of scientific persuasion simply level at me their suppositions of hallucinations or madness. How scientific they are (not).

John 8

John 8

Face it. We all could be in danger of ending up murdering or perjuring without a Christ to keep those of us from it who believe and follow Him. I take Jesus’ word for it that if you do those things you are a slave to them. Whereas Jesus sets free from that slavery. Sorry to say I needed that setting free. This life is a reality you are stuck with. Unfortunately for me it started quickly down a wrong path. I tend to think I’m not the only one. He set me free from compulsive lying and exaggerating, out of youthful desires to be thought of highly. Now I hope His way is leading me to even greater freedom. You only need to start lying, hating, cheating a few years from now, if you haven’t already, and they will stick. Dying like that is not easy to avoid. Perhaps impossible to avoid except Jesus’ way. Road rage. Jealousy over a partner. Culpability in actions of associates. These things aren’t always avoidable. Having forever a helper in the highest echelons of power to intercede with the Top guy. That is what it takes to have hope.

Watch a few movies. Read some court cases. We never have total control of ourselves. Look at lockdown. Not being able to visit a dying parent. Getting cut off from loved ones. Things are out of our control. Just note scenarios as they become apparent. What if... It really is not difficult. An alluring prostitute when you are depressed coercing you into association with organised crime gangs. A clever con man or a kidnapper forcing you to kill to save a relative. A riot happening around you or brewing war. All scenarios where violence and the backlash against violence of hatred seem inevitable. Illness can exacerbate it. Horror movies like Stephen King’s portray all this quite well. Intercession is what we need to get to the end of this life intact. Many seem to get there but their truth just hasn’t yet got out.  You might think you haven’t got a weakness, vulnerability: you just haven’t come across it yet. But your enemy might have come across it first. For me it only takes the students in the flat upstairs to play music till 4am and I’m seething with hatred outside my control.

Remember too, Jesus’ plan carries on forever. This kind of insurance plan is eternal by necessity. God does not have temporary sons.

The sacrifice

 The sacrifice of Christ created the covenant in which I enjoy fellowship with God and fellowship with Jesus and His followers. A covenant which saves me. So I am grateful for it and together we followers celebrate and commemorate it in communion of bread for His body broken and wine for His blood poured out. He died for you too.

New mutation of COVID19 virus

 With this new mutation found in India and now in UK too, how long till the authorities and the airport businesses find ways to limit further travel between UK and India? Must economic and profit considerations always come above public safety and sensible governing?

Finding Jesus

 When people speak of ‘finding Jesus’ there is a ring of reality to it. We might distrust an incarcerated convicted repeat offender telling an early release board that they found Jesus and will reform, yet the fact they say it in those circumstances shows there is weight given to this phenomenon of Jesus.

Belief

 Belief is a matter of degree. Most belief is nothing to do with religion. Like belief a vaccine is actually what the injection is that they are putting into your arm (although belief in science is not my forte). I tend to believe weather forecasts too much and get in trouble for it. Insurers might believe last year was a lot worse for hurricanes than this year will be. Gamblers might believe a certain tipster is always right. A lover might believe everything you say about your love for them being unfailing. Atheists might believe that unbelief is the sanest way to handle life. Be careful what you believe but do not despise good faith. 

Guns

 GUNS: Think about it. If a man has a gun and an unarmed man tries to wrestle it from him, the man with the gun would likely shoot the unarmed man. So you suddenly get an armed man shooting an unarmed man. Sad to have to die with something like that on your conscience, unless of course you find Jesus or something. 

How does the Son of Man help the righteous to remain always righteous?

 How does the Son of Man help the righteous to remain always righteous? It is all about first believing that the Son of Man exists in all historic timeframes, including ours now and forever, and then holding to His teachings, so He frees us from sins, enabling a saintly life which is ongoing and eternal.

A denial stance

An acquaintance of mine thinks Jesus doesn’t exist. So until he changes his mind, he must think he is on his own. His only hope is that Jesus convinces him to change his mind - or someone else convinces him. That might be possible, even with his denial stance: Like a Damascus Road experience. I had a word with Jesus for him. We’ll see if he gets convinced that Jesus exists; that he’s not on his own; that there is hope for him forever. I am reminded that Jesus died for him. Maybe Jesus will convince him that He exists. Even the apostle of Christ who started Christianity in India initially thought Jesus was dead, until Jesus changed Thomas’ mind. This chap is a lot further behind than Thomas but hey, that just makes it more fun when he finds out Jesus is. There are a lot of churchgoers who are in the same position as him. In my case He showed me convincingly He exists. Plus that the gospels got it right. Then over the following years I got to piece it together that He was crucified and rose to live forever. I was rather slow on the uptake getting my head around things. It is a personal growth thing.

The power of Science

 What would divide us if there were no religion? Science. If you regard Science as not a religion. Science can do most of what a religion can do. It can persuade people that black holes exist, even though people have no accessible way to verify that. It can order people to wear masks and wash hands. It can run countries and overrule rulers. It can amaze the world with wonders. With its vaccines it can divide countries and regions.

Will you repel it?

If I tell you that Jesus warns that many of you will die a liar or a murderer, perhaps not judged as such by other liars and murderers, but still, die as one and have it on your record. That Jesus wants you to not die like that and wants you to believe He exists in all times, including yours now and future, to help you avert it. That these problems along with similar ones like ending up an adulterer with that on your name, or other such tarnishings of your name on your death bed, are the purpose of Jesus having come, to provide a way out. It is religious so will you repel it? It is vital to learn the actual teachings of Jesus and hold to those. Jesus taught that the real God is the Father and that Jesus is the Son. Don’t let Roman theological philosophy confuse you. Reading John’s gospel might help. Over time, holding to the teachings of Jesus, Jesus gives knowledge of what He and the Father are like and first hand experience of the Holy Spirit. No need to worry about the Roman Hellenistic theology philosophy. Getting to know God is possible. I’ve had a share of it so I could tell others. God is the one who is just pure spirit, rather austere, very understanding and kind, in mind-bogglingly great authority, even over Jesus. Then Jesus is human Son who is the overcomer. That is why we call Jesus, Lord. His overcoming of temptations and worldly powers and even death gives Him Lord status, given by God whose power raised Jesus. He overcomes and He wants disciples who overcome like He did. He is the same now as when those first disciples met Him after His resurrection. Then the believers have the Holy Spirit among them, in them, producing wondrous signs and teaching with a continuation of Jesus’ teachings. Scripture assures we are on the right track and gets us on to that right track in the first place. Useful to have the testimony of pioneers who went that way before and whose veracity was proven over time. Think of the villagers who heard the Samaritan woman testify that Jesus had told her everything she had done. They went and got direct experience of Jesus then said to her “We believed because of what you said about Him but now we have heard in for ourselves and believe.” 

To overcome

 Jesus, the Lord, the Christ, has overcome temptations, powers of empire and even death and He wants disciples to overcome as He overcame.

Genesis

 Genesis says Abraham (Abram) was a citizen of Ur. It says he travelled to Harran. His name style is born out by texts extant from Ebla’s ancient library. It calls the seventh from Adam, Enoch. That matches the extant name, shortened from Enmenduranki, seventh patriarchal king of Sumer, grandfather of the man who survived the Flood. It describes the Flood in a series of steps exactly matching the series of stages described in the Epic of Gilgamesh for which there are near extant copies. It describes the first patriarch as a man with no human parents, then a succession of nine or ten generation patriarchs down to the one who survived the Flood. This matches the extant Sumerian King Lists.

“Let all God’s angels worship Him”

“The sons of God must work together with the Son of Man to achieve the will of God in Creation” (and subsequently).

Called to stop sinning

 “Stop sinning” says Jesus. Treat it as a calling. You probably can’t stop but you are called to stop and Jesus can help. 

Let’s be fair

These days people are so often characterised by their sins and failures, which is so unfair. Saintly ancients in the Bible are not characterised by one-off sins. Not all are. Some such us Judas are. But there are others such as King David. He is hardly characterised by his affair with Bathsheba, except in the song by Len Cohen of course. Normally we remember King David living a holy life, though a violent one. Always true to God and obedient to God. Society could do with recalibrating how it allows celebrity culture and jealousy to drive the characterisation of people by the scandals they get into, somehow forgetting the deeds which made them celebrities. Then all of us should relearn how to be fair and how to resist those social abuses in our summing up of our associates and colleagues, family members and friends, as well as enemies too. God might then be more happy to listen to our prayers.

What, Jesus a Unitarian?!

I’m pretty sure Jesus is a unitarian of sorts: He said it so often that the Father is both His God and the disciples’ God , and that even He, the Son, must worship God and serve Him only.  I say He seems to be unitarian ‘of sorts’ because Jesus knew with certainty that in spirit He existed before Abraham was born. Because His existence is real at any time in history, He assuredly said of Himself “I am”.  The truth of His statement “I am” is true in any historical concept, which is the significance of His use of that tense. He is now. He is yesterday. Last century. A thousand years ago, He is. Five thousand years ago. Next year. A thousand years from now. Aeons from now. He is. The Spirit of Christ interacted directly with the ancient prophets and even people such as Enoch and Abraham in the most ancient Sumerian times. And with disciples such as the Apostle Paul after Jesus rose from the dead and with disciples still today and years from now.

Normal Sabbath

NORMAL SABBATH

Seventh day of week - for twenty four hours

No strenuous work or strenuous physical activity

No business

No use of money other than charitable giving

No causing others to have to work

No fasting - enjoy nice food

Light activities are alright

Social interaction is alright

Doing good with low level effort, such as entertaining is alright

Giving to the poor is alright

No accident the cross

No accident that Jesus died on a cross. First the prophets for centuries had foretold a coming, suffering One anointed by God, chosen by God, given by God to relieve the guilt of Mankind towards God and help those who seek to get right and live right. Secondly, the preaching of John the Baptist echoed this message and pointed at Jesus as this One, and that God sent Jesus, the Christ, as a Lamb to be sacrificed. Third the miracles done by Jesus speak volumes and provide God’s witness statement about His Son, this Christ. Fourth, this very emblem of a cross is the ancient cuneiform symbol + which meant a sacrifice for settling a debt, sometimes to make way for both atonement and an oracle. Fifthly, the resurrection shows the sacrifice provided by Jesus’ crucifixion is accepted by God and makes Jesus exalted as Lord in the eyes of all. The Lord, in that Jesus overcame all, Rome’s imperial power, Israel’s power, sin’s power, even overcoming death itself, by God’s power. Now ever living and there to lead those who believe it. In all this, God made way for the provision of the Holy Spirit to all who believe and seek to get right and do right by God.

@Unitarians

 @Unitarians, to those Unitarians who doubt the preexistence of the Spirit of Christ: 

“Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself.” So it says in Hebrews 3:3. The writer is identifying Jesus clearly as builder and Moses as part of the house Jesus built. How could the Spirit of Christ build that house, including Moses in that building, if He did not exist in Moses’ time and exist even before the original stone of that house, Abraham, too?

Verifiable Evidence?

 What if there were verifiable evidence of the existence of God? I suppose it would be about more than mere verifiable evidence. Multiple agreeing witness statements are verification of evidence. What it needs is evidence of a miraculous kind that God doesn’t only exist but is good enough to know who believes and who doesn’t. Evidence of a miraculous kind that God is loving enough to hear the prayer of such a believer and to reach out with an answer. Evidence of a miraculous kind of the power of God over the fabric of space-time, able to control the outcome of random events of all kinds. Evidence of God being top God, not subject to the control of any other being which might be evil and override God. Evidence that Jesus is the Son of this God and is Lord and is like this God in kindness and power and wisdom yet human enough to be a mediator of this God mediating between God and us. Evidence of the veracity of the testimonies given by apostles and prophets about this God and this Son and the reliability of God’s promises and Jesus’ promises. Evidence of the Holy Spirit having been given to believers even today. All this. Please. Existence is tip of the iceberg. But God gives it all.

This life?

Does God tell us about this life? Sure, but the interventions of God in this life are understood in terms of what happens in the next. God is judge right at the top of the totality of justice. Should God let wrongdoing be allowed to happen? God could intervene. He does so proportionately. That can mean wrongdoing continues for a time. You still have to understand this, if seeing it God’s way, in light of what happens after death. See Jesus’ testimony and the Book of Enoch for reference. The Book of Enoch tells how God lets evil happen in many circumstances, but in His sovereign will may intervene if a limit of tolerability is reached and prayers of anguish reach God’s throne. Those suffering can be compensated in the appropriate place for it after death. There is of course an implicit requirement that the victims do not themselves become the wrongdoers, otherwise they would have the same end as those who did wrong to them. Jesus has in more recent history confirmed this teaching of Enoch by first the testimonies given by Jesus about the importance of knowing Enoch’s teachings regarding angels, adding more clarity about the resurrection making humans like angels, but also Jesus spoke a similar teaching in the story of ‘the rich man and Lazarus’. The poor beggar Lazarus suffered neglect and indifference from a rich neighbour but after both died, Lazarus went to a place for comfort of his soul after death, while the rich man was tormented after death. Lazarus had suffered long in poverty and pain but had not himself become a doer of wrong like the selfish, neglectful rich man. So Jesus confirmed Enoch’s teachings we find in the Book of Enoch.

Should God intervene?

 The Book of Enoch answers an important question: Should we expect God to stop wrongs being done to the innocent? We might think God should always intervene when wrongdoing is about to happen. Or would that be oppressive? You might be kept in chains from birth. So might I. We could be prevented from doing wrong which in our cases could mean being pretty much prevented from doing anything. In extremes the Book of Enoch tells us that God does do that, such as with Azazel and other fallen angels, kept bound in chains for thousands of years because they had a record of abusing their powers as angels back around 3500 BC. God uses proportionate measures in dealing with things. This intervention involved sending angels to capture the angels who were abusing the trust they were given. An angel had led others into taking human girls as wives, against God’s purposes for angels. The fallen Azazel, the leader of the fall of angels, was bound under rocks. An immortal was buried alive, it seems, and has been kept like that for thousands of years. Should God resort to this all the time? With humans it would be different. Humans die. Wait a few decades and a human serious offender will be gone from the land of the living. Then they are kept in one of four different places depending how they lived and whether they already received justice. Heaven has only to wait. Yet the innocent suffer. So God lets things happen in some circumstances, but in His sovereign will may intervene if a limit of tolerability is reached and prayers of anguish reach God’s throne. Those suffering can be compensated in the appropriate place for it after death. There is of course an implicit requirement that the victims do not themselves become the wrongdoers, otherwise they would have the same end as those who did wrong to them. 

Jesus has in more recent history confirmed this teaching of Enoch by first the testimonies given by Jesus about the importance of knowing Enoch’s teachings regarding angels, adding more clarity about the resurrection making humans like angels, but also Jesus spoke a similar teaching in the story of ‘the rich man and Lazarus’. The poor beggar Lazarus suffered neglect and indifference from a rich neighbour but after both died, Lazarus went to a place for comfort of his soul after death, while the rich man was tormented after death. Lazarus had suffered long in poverty and pain but had not himself become a doer of wrong like the selfish, neglectful rich man. So Jesus confirmed Enoch’s teachings we find in the Book of Enoch.

Science and religion

 Scientists have a purpose of trying to pick out what can be known and understood without any knowledge of anything supernatural. Priests and prophets have a purpose of trying to discern what the supernatural God wants known without resorting to shamanism. 

Scary

 God, the wisest, most powerful judge is scary, even though also very loving. He has therefore provided mankind with the ideal,  human mediator, Jesus.

Fear God

God is called the terror of Isaac. Also called “Hide yourself!”. Also a consuming fire. The real God is more frightening than any mafia godfather. Even though God is good, don’t make the mistake of thinking He isn’t all those other things too. Someone who can keep punishing even long after the body is killed by His punishments. God is love. Love casts out fear. Yet God’s love is not to be taken for granted or despised as if it were weakness. Exhausting His patience is difficult but possible. Think of the most powerful emperor monarch then take it up several notches. Yet fear God and preserve that proper respect and you will have His angelic protection. That is why God has provided a mediator. The man, Jesus, the Christ. Crucified, resurrected, now alive forever.