The lost tribes of Israel

The Lost tribes of Israel: Around 745 BC Tiglath-Pileser III came to the throne of the Assyrian Empire. His predecessors had not made great attempts to expand the empire but Tiglath-Pileser III was different. Conquests marked his reign. For a hundred years the Assyrian empire had been growing, but had been held back, around 850 BC, by an alliance of nations which had created a combined army to repulse the Assyrians. There was at this time a kingdom of northern tribes of the Israelite people, under a king named Ahab. For the coming century from 850 to 750 BC this kingdom, called the Kingdom of Israel, was prosperous but was swinging like a pendulum between the biblical God and a Canaanite god they called Ba'al. Ahab had a sequence of short-reigned successors during this time. In biblical terms this was a time of prophecies of warnings against the unfaithfulness of these northern tribes towards their founding God who had led them out of Egypt. Assyria had been gaining strength as an empire, since the 850 BC alliance against Assyria had failed to completely stop it. Tiglath-Pileser III had enough power to overthrow the Kingdom of Israel, which he did around 740 BC. This was a time heralded in many prophecies, and the Book of Enoch records a prophecy from more than two thousand years earlier, which told how there would be angels put in power over these Israelites, (the Israelites are called the sheep in the prophecy), as shepherds, who would punish the unfaithfulness by allowing a sequence of conquests and oppressions lasting over what appears to mean 2800 years or 70 successive angelic shepherd terms of office (apparently 40 years long, considering the other prophesied events). The tribes of the north, in the Kingdom of Israel, were conquered by the Assyrians and the tribes were dispersed deliberately through the Assyrian empire which later spanned most of the Middle East. Some of these people remained in the countryside but those from the conquered cities were taken away and never returned in their lifetimes. Their descendants merged with other peoples, although some groups might have survived as intact groups of Israelites (for example some think that the Bene Israel people long established in India might be such a group, many of whom have who have now moved away from India and settled mainly in Israel, plus some in the UK and some in Canada). The judgment from the 2800 years of shepherd rule from heaven is nearing completion. We seem to be in the last term of the seventy terms of office, with what might be the last angel in charge out of the seventy. The last twelve such angels, the Book of Enoch foretold, will permit so many excess deaths during their terms that these excess deaths will outnumber any of the previous terms. The last few centuries have seen many persecutions and genocides but this next few decades will be no exception. Then the time will be over. The Lord will return in wrath and will judge the sheep and destroy those who are still spiritually blind. The blindness, the prophecy tells us, is due to their original historical forsaking of the temple, back in the ninth and tenth centuries BC, and the lack of faithfulness to God since that time. A champion will have arisen before the Lord returns, who though opposed by the oppressing nations, will stand firm and be helped by the returning Lord from heaven. In the last times of the oppression before the Lord returns, the prophecy says that what the prophecy calls the eagle will instruct the oppressing people. The prophecy designated these oppressive nations as predators and as birds of prey. None of the predators and birds of prey will defeat the champion, called the 'billy goat' in the prophecy. A sword, it foretells, will be given to the 'billy goat'. Then the Lord will come. In Early Church teachings such as the Revelation and the Epistle of Barnabas, this marks the beginning of a seventh millennium of civilised human history when the Christ will rule, like a sabbath millennium. So it seems the merging of the prophecies all points to this millennium starting at Christ's return and that it would be 2800 years after the time of punishment began with the Assyrian conquests around 740 BC, so this means around 2055 to 2065 as a rough estimate. No precise time can be given, as Christ Jesus himself taught: nobody, not even the Son, nor the angels of heaven, knows the exact time, only God the Father.

The real secret of life

 What is the real secret of life? It is understanding with truly practical understanding that Jesus Christ who came two thousand years ago is trustworthy and his teachings are a guiding light, especially in a life of practical obedience to the light those teachings give. Gain this understanding and everything else will start to fall into place and true power will follow. Nothing in this world can overcome that power. Jesus is Master and the Father is Highest God. They give power no worldly force can overcome and wisdom to accompany it. Love, a sound mind and power.

What is at hand

 There is something which comes into our lives from time to time and has been going on like this for the past two thousand years. People need to respect it because it has our life and death in its reach. The fables around Christmas reflect it. Be good, say the fables to children, because Santa is coming. Well the message is correct though the context is contrived. Repent because the kingdom of God is at hand. Indeed. We have it at the door from time to time when the hidden saints who shine like cities built on hilltops are close to us and are under orders from God to oversee our actions and judge us for misdeeds. We are not like the pagans before the birth of Christ, or even the |Jews before he came. They could hide in anonymity or go unpunished if they had the necessary resources and connections. Now there is no hiding. The Holy Spirit is sent out to believers and witnesses to the world about all misdeeds. We cannot afford to be drug-pushers, prostitutes, thieves, liars, murderers, idolaters, vile, immorally disposed, adulterers, or the like without the possibility the kingdom of God will reach us with divine vengeance and justice. It catches up to us, if not in this life then in the next. But ideally we need to be on the inside with this kingdom. That is a most precious place to be, worth losing everything to gain it. The only door to it is through Jesus Christ's teachings and presence and intercessions to the Father. Mediating between believers and the Father, he brings people to God who believe. 

Feet of the statue

 Feet of the statue. Nebuchadnezzar’s prophetic dream recorded in Daniel 2 is a curiosity that has intrigued people down the ages. It portrayed as a huge statue, the central thread of empires, including Nebuchadnezzar’s neo-Babylonian Empire, down the ages. The head of gold is Babylon. The iron legs are interesting because for the time of the Book of Daniel it was a future empire. It is usually assumed to be the Roman Empire. Then the dream foretold feet of the statue made of iron mixed with clay. We might be seeing today how Rome-like iron fascism can be mixed in with the ordinary masses when we look at Ukraine where fascist groups of iron hard fighting men mix in with less steely fighters. Now the future foretold by the dream might be a spreading out into Europe and beyond pf this mix of ordinary people with fascist fighters. Yet the dream goes on to a final countdown in which a stone from a mountain runs and hits the feet and down comes the statue. The rock that hits it is in the Daniel 2 dream interpretation explained to be a kingdom of God which will go on forever.

The folly of the world order

 What can we say about this new world order? Is it fair for all, or just fair for the West? Is it bringing lawfulness or is it lawlessly ignoring fair justice for all the poorer nations and the less imperialistic nations? Is the ever-looming nuclear threat a threat against or a threat because of it? I would like to know. Back in the 1990s this was just beginning as US President George H W Bush aimed to impose the USA concept of rule of law upon the whole of the world through the vehicles of US invasions and the United Nations organisation.  Eyes in the sky started to appear in the skies around the world. US spy planes appeared first. Then police forces started to impose helicopter services to watch and monitor the public. Then as the late 1990s came along the Internet was born and after a while we started to have the spying eyes right there in our living rooms and bedrooms, unbeknown to us, watching what we watched. Meanwhile the imposition at a military level grew ever bolder and the weapons of mass destruction pretext was used by George H W Bush's son later US President George W Bush as justification for finishing the war of his father by re-invading Iraq and the Gulf Wars continued. Now I am no historian or politician but I know that God is concerned about the sinfulness behind the eyes in the sky and the threats of war on the ground and the lives we live under this kind of surveillance governance. What is the main sin in all of this? It seems to be the focus on law without fairness and without true justice for the poorer nations. Only the wealthiest benefit from this world order and especially the wealthy West. The many smaller nations of the West are disproportionately represented compared to the fewer, larger nations of the East and South. We need to seek a better form of justice where all are equal beneficiaries and countries with non-Western heritage are not forced to adopt Western customs and languages along with Western imperialism. Otherwise those eyes in the skies will be flying over turmoil escalating down below and mushroom clouds might be the way this planet is destroyed rather than climate change. God will be avenged of the destructions we are causing whether by our Science or our folly.

Another UK PM

 So Rishi Sunak now UK PM. He classically exemplified Lord Jesus' teaching that the children of the world are more shrewd than the people of the light (Luke 16) when he used the worldly wealth in his care to budget the furloughing of millions during lockdown, gaining many, many friends from it like no other. However, did the UK even have that money? He will now find out. So will we. He wants us to believe he will not burden future generations with paying for that shrewd ;'gift' but will ensure it is paid off soon. If we don't have the money, we don't have it, no matter how much you print to extract funds from those with cash. They only have so much cash, and many of those with cash are banks who could go bust over it.

Lamenting for the West

 Better things are happening outside of the West. God's attention may well have shifted to the East. The eagle instructs the hawks but the billy goat rises for the lambs and the raven tries to turn the world against the billy goat and fails and the Lord of the sheep comes to help the billy goat in full view of all the world. So it ends. (An analysis based on the Book of Enoch and the current events.)

Commands of God

 God puts the spirit into people which writes His commands on their hearts. And He provides a sacrifice for the failures they already made. That works better than dumping a bible in their laps and saying "do all this". The "do all this" approach did not work. Nobody did it. Those who tried merely ended up as sanctimonious haters.

A son of God and the Son of God

 If you have the ear of God, if God hears your prayers, and you ask Him to let you meet a son of His, you might find He brings a righteous believer your way. If you ask Him to let you meet His Son, the Son of God, if He agrees He will let you meet Jesus when Jesus comes your way.

Times of looming catastrophe

 How different are we today to the time before the Great Flood of ancient legends when people lived oblivious to the coming threat and living licentiously without reverence? (Genesis chapter 6.) If you include the knowledge preserved for us in the Book of Enoch alongside Genesis you have a richer resource to answer it. What stands out in my mind from the years of study of Enoch and Genesis and Sumerian texts from after the Flood? Sorcery was a key factor. Powerful individuals invoked powerful responses from angels. They were able to summon angelic changes in the nature of metals, using this to create alloys we are unable to produce today even with all our Science and Metallurgy. Such sorcerers competed with each other (a major translated text from 2200 BC tells of one such contest) and did amazing things in the sight of people such as parting a lake (reflected in biblical counterparts which tell us that God competed with such sorcerers too and won hands down, as Exodus records in relation to Moses and Pharaoh a thousand years later). The sorcerers ran things rather like the Druids ran them in the leadup to the Roman conquest of Britain. The sorcerers terrorised and terrified people and many of these sorcerers were descended from angels, adding to their mystique and power. It was a reign of terror everywhere in the Fertile Crescent and in Sumer (biblical Canaan and Shinar as Genesis records the place names). Kings were not all bad at the time. There were some religious ones who taught strongly and influentially against violence and promoted merciful giving and avoidance of magic arts. Yet mostly people went with the magic and the pagan practices of using cosmetics to entice men into fornication, developing weapons with the help of magic (we would call it Science today, mainly the difference being the open use of angelic invocations at that time), drugs use, and the like. These are all things practiced today. If anything, the apparent elimination of some more overt aspects of sorcery such as invocation of angels makes us think we can just carry on as in times of Genesis but with church sanction. The feeling of impunity this adds to the culture makes us more rampant in our use of the same technologies but with a downplaying of the supernatural side of things, yet still people swear and curse and seek inner inspiration irrespective of its source, mixing this with the pursuit of the Science. Have a look at the use of fear today in how Science rolls out its answers to the world. Times are not much different. Perhaps globalisation makes it even more sinister.

The coming darkness

 As darkness spreads across the world, there are many who rely on circumcision of the body for their religious standing and these people need to tread carefully right now. There are dark forces who pressure them to join in the eradication of those the dark forces hate. If the circumcised hate like the haters then those haters might spare them, but God won't. God sees the hatred and calls it sin. God sees the failure to deal with this hatred and He calls that sin too. Those circumcised in the flesh are caught in the middle, between God and the devil. Between love and hate. If they choose to hate, the haters might let them survive a hateful purge the haters are starting. If the circumcised fight like the Allies fought this hatred in WW2, to stop the purge, and as a result they get purged they are not condemned. Now there are also those who by faith have resisted circumcision and rely on Christ and his grace, and these are better off. Grace saves them. Having grace, they can escape the evil that is coming. But many who seem to live by grace are giving in and letting the haters walk all over them. If they hate along with the haters, they will have to be handed over to Satan who is father of haters. The father of haters will deal with their complicity in the hate. As accessories to genocide it will be the end of them. But their spirits will be saved by grace. They are better off with grace than with circumcision.

The garden and the jungle

 There are 'gardeners' who are not just wanting to tidy their 'jungle' with regime change in Russia. They probably want to remove the 'weeds'. They may well have been so affected by the wave of what is driving Ukraine ferocity, an attempt to revive past evil, that they want a surge of it that can pick up where Ukraine left off in the fifties and the rest of Eastern Europe and Germany stopped short in the forties. They probably think first the 'garden' then the whole 'jungle' needs 'weeding'. This is quite likely their 'solution'. Big mistake of USSR to free the gulag prisoners. Some 'weeds' stay alive by helping against other 'weeds' but for how long? The gardeners claimed before they only rooted out 'weeds' which stood in the way of rooting out Soviets.

@Unitarians

 @Unitarians: True no Trinity. The Father is God. False no Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit is very real and is a distinct person who comes to us. God the Father only very rarely comes to visit believers. Usually this is in dreams or the like. The Holy Spirit often visits real believers. Stop teaching false doctrines about the Holy Spirit. You are on thin ice.

A cross that raises me

 "Even though it be a cross that raiseth me"

"I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings - becoming like him in his death and so somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead"

A cross is what it takes to attain the resurrection. You, I, in fellowship with Christ, would be elevated to attaining resurrection were we to first attain to a cross. The resurrection of Jesus Christ first and foremost held up this truth. Jesus had endured a cross and now he is resurrected and this same way is set before us too. To be resurrected there is first a cross and we endure a cross in order to find that resurrection follows it, if we endure it because we walk in fellowship with Christ by keeping his teachings and living by them, in the way the Holy Spirit teaches and leads. The resurrection of Jesus Christ thus held up the cross as a holy route to resurrection.

End from the beginning - cause and effect

 The way heavenly things happen is mysterious but not altogether secret. The balances of natural things and events can be maintained from outside of the material universe. The divine ability includes the ability to nudge natural events to push them into a planned outcome. Some events we would think ought to be random: Shuffling a deck of cards; tossing a dice; genetic chromosomes being distributed during sexual reproduction; words picked by a speech writer; movement of molecules in a gas; diffraction of light; all kinds of events we think tend to be random and uncontrolled. God can determine what happens in these events and does so. "Does God throw dice?" Perhaps not but determining the outcome of a throwing of dice is certainly God's kind of thing. So chain long sequences of such events together and you get plenty of room for achieving a planned outcome on a larger scale. God is God who sees the end from the beginning and much of what God sees is under His power to influence and to cause very long term outcomes over thousands, millions of years. God has huge timescales in His scope. We cannot really imagine this. Even Christ does not have access to all the knowledge of long-term event sequences that God the Father has access to. Christ's spirit somehow stretches across centuries and even millennia yet the Father is greater and the Father alone sees the end from the beginning and reveals some of this to His Son. 

The Book of Enoch - Again

 Going to church all my life until the age of forty, then recently being cut off (probably deserved it) by lockdown and then by conscience, it seems inevitable that you get to encounter this phenomenon, this being, this spirit which is called by Christians the Holy Spirit, a spirit which brings Christ's blessings to people in churches, to believers in Christ. I had to beg though. Some churches were getting lots of blessed encounters with this Spirit. They were never the churches I went to. I went to the dull, sit-in-a-pew-every-week-and-count-yourself-blessed kind of churches. Yet these churches in some cases had redeeming things in their favour such as some great preachers, and I got to at least know a bit about what I was missing, even though these churches didn't seem to object to us missing it. All I could do was plead with God to give me this Holy Spirit, and plead, and plead and search my soul, and plead and plead. For years. Until I pleaded most earnestly in the early 1990s. Something must have stirred me up around then. Anyway, it all started happening. It culminated in miraculous spiritual experiences in which this Holy Spirit spoke in my heart and the words were clearly from heaven and from Jesus and from the Father's side. But it was particularly awe-inspiring that the words were words I later found in a book I never knew existed, but which I later found was a very strong influence on Jesus Christ and was endorsed by him, as the gospels show. Clearly this Holy Spirit had been at work in producing this book. The Book of Enoch. I never expected to find a new scripture book, which is probably the very oldest scripture book, predating the Bible originally, given the provenance ascribed to it by Jesus and the epistle of Jude in the Bible. It got forgotten by the time the Anglican Protestants printed their Bible so it was not available for translation, although not long after that it did get translated into English and found its way last century into some Bible bookshops. That is where I found it, in a corner, as it were, on a shelf. I read it and saw those very words, near as anything, that the Holy Spirit had spoken to me in a Pentecostal service in the nineties.

Why believe in God and religion?

 Why believe in God and religion? When I type my password into a computer it never gets documented (even if it stored, persisted, it would be a hash of it which is stored, not the password), so nobody can prove what it is. But I still know what it is and know it works. To me, the fact my computer starts, is proof that what I remember it is, IS what it is. Nobody but myself has that proof because only I know what it is. What I am trying to say is, it is tacit knowledge. I know what I know. I might let someone see me type my password, and see that the computer accepts it, and similarly I might let someone see me pray and see the miracle happen. I know it happens. One or two others know too. I know the miracles happen. I document them. I let a couple of others see, in the will of God. It shows me conclusively Jesus tells the truth about God. I learned it from Bible teachers with faith. Others can read those scriptures too. If any other religion documents miracles people see in their lives it helps my faith too sometimes. Bible-believers have no monopoly on faith and God. There were believers long before Abraham was born. Jesus spans that time too in a mysterious way of spirit. The Holy Spirit was teaching the same things then as he teaches today. 

Prospects

 The Christ who died for you is truly committed to dealing with your sins, my sins, as is the Father, the God who sent him. Exciting prospects.

What a mess

 O Christianity in the UK  in 2022. What a mess. All compromised by the devil into hating Russia to please Ukraine. Yet the hated Russians are many of them brothers and sisters of Christ, who is being hated. Are there any who have not been compromised, that need to be plucked from the fire? Satan takes the hindmost but who is there who can be saved? What a mess. Jesus is the Lord who saves. If he is willing he can clean up this mess.

Satan has sifted them as wheat. But as Jesus said to Peter before Peter denied Jesus "When you have turned back, strengthen your brothers". When the real believers in the UK turn back, God permitting they do so, maybe they will strengthen the Russian church. That might be redemption.

Backup your life

 Don't worry about a thing. If you feel a sense that God is making you into His kingdom you need to consider 'backup'. You have no cause the worry, as the Bob Marley song goes, and as Jesus taught, but there is the need to backup your life. Like backing up files to the online 'cloud' there are spiritual clouds where we can backup our lives, our worldly achievements and wealth, for later when we really need it. Backup that life of yours. Protect it from tomorrow's misfortunes. Don't worry, but everything won't all be alright. God will care for you and so the worst is not too bad, but the worst will come eventually and all you have now will be gone when you die or when calamity comes. It is like an insurance policy. You pay into it and others get the benefit of being able to make claims, and eventually you too might claim. Those claims they make are paid out of your premiums. Backing up our lives is like that. We give out while we have enough to do so. Others benefit when they are in dire need. Eventually we too might be in need and their generosity and plenty might be there for us too. While we are not in need we give to help those who are. God keeps a tally, a cosmic ledger - karma if you like to call it that. The good we do to others comes back to meet us when we need it most - even after we have died and lost everything. It is kept in heaven - backed up in the spiritual cloud - for us. That is how we can back up our lives. Treasure in heaven will make us more spiritual too as we change our focus from worldly wealth to heavenly imperishable wealth and we get cleaner in our minds as we think more of how to help the poor and we start to actually send our wealth their way. But we must do it secretly so we do not seek honour from others as we give. Such honour is a benefit that invalidates our heavenly claim - our karma - our treasure in heaven. Giving secretly takes a bit of doing but is not entirely impossible. It is a matter of not publicising our giving at all, unlike those who do not know this secret process, who do not have this kingdom of God. God gave this teaching to Jesus to pass on to us, if we follow him. 

Nature and human nature - two natural worlds

 Notice how there are two different Natures, two different natural worlds. There is the Nature that is humans, There is the Nature that is everything else. The humans have a broken Nature, that does not do what God requires. The rest of Nature does obey God day after day. It is quite noticeable how, if look at things in a kind of spiritual way, you can be inspired by looking at how Nature works and how marvellous it all is, until you look at the humans' world of Nature, the way humans behave and the kind of inspiration you get from humans usually - full of fear of criticism, fear of not conforming even when conforming is daft, fear to show your true self which leads to foolishly putting on appearances of being better than you are, and fear to do what is right in case it gets disapproval - all this fear and how it distorts behaviour and warps us and how this affects us in our social environment. Folly of humans affects all we do. Look at how Nature beyond the human world, in the natural world is so much more worthy than us. Even the angels invisible around us must pour scorn on our disappointing world of humanity and wonder when finally humans will learn to live more honourably. Shame on us. Consider the birds, as Jesus and Bob Marley told us, and how their message to us is not to worry. Consider the trees how they drop their leaves at the right time of year and still manage to produce leaves again just months later (unless their are coniferous of course). Consider how orderly the planets are in their orbits around the Sun and consider the stars keeping their paths as the Earth rotates so faithfully, all constantly keeping its natural order. One day God will put things right, but how many of us will He have to discard in doing so, throwing out our souls like salt that has lost its saltiness? Jesus save us while we are still saveable.

Satanism

 As Putin condemns the West's open support for what he calls Satanism, I think his a analysis is sadly correct.  I too feel very sad at the extent to which I see people in UK embracing constantly what amounts, on a close analysis, to be a kind of Satanism. Even Christian churches seem to have a death wish culture where if something stinks of immoral hellishness, they openly show support for it, in a kind of defiance against the traditional knowledge of right and wrong. It is the British support for the underdog gone mad, taken to a vile extreme. They admit to going astray like this and that they are determined to keep on going that way. Sad, sad, sad. Bad, bad, bad. Like King Saul hating the rising star David, love-hate hatred, claiming to be a friend while openly trying to have him killed. A mad spirit has taken hold of the UK, so perhaps this is happening throughout the whole of the West, as Putin implies. 

On it's way to Egypt

 The West's church is on its way to Egypt (figuratively) and will not turn around. It has embraced Ukraine together with Ukraine's sins and it will not turn around. Being handed over to Satan as a result, this is no deterrent. It is what it is. Sharing in these sins is too much to overlook. Sad, sad, sad. Woe, woe, woe. Maybe some have not become haters and have not colluded in their hearts. They are like Lot in Sodom.

They did not repent of their murders

 As I look today at what is happening and going to happen over the coming hours in Lyman in Ukraine, as Ukrainian troops move into the city where civilians had no time to flee. Look at what they will do, perhaps doing right now, to civilians who were previously under Russian control. Think what King Saul did to those who helped David, if you know that part of the Bible. West leaders and West Christians support all this openly, even announcing support in church services: Those who have a dog which maims and kills people and who do nothing to stop it or put it down, they are liable for what that dog keeps doing. Support Ukraine? you cannot be in fellowship with Christ and with his disciples and keep being in charge of this dog without stopping its atrocities. "They did not repent of their murders" says the book of Revelation. This is Christians supporting such things. They are all unwelcome in the true churches of Christ, or should be unwelcome and shunned. Cancel culture is often silly but this is deadly serious. Even those at the top should be handed over to Satan, if they profess to be brothers in Christ but support these atrocities. 

Happy rebirth day Russia

 Sadly the West had sinned so bad that God had to build up Russia and the church there in a move away from Rome and the hegemony of the West. God will always ensure He has His temple, the body of people we call the church. The Russia miracle is putting forth buds and leaves and it is all by the power of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Israel has sinned, says the LORD. Jesus will cover the church with the shadow of his wings and it will find rest in him. We can stop pushing for hegemony and West supremacy because Jesus has the keys to the kingdom and will build his church according to the will of God. Oh that the West would repent and turn back to God. But God will do things around the West and He will have His church, His temple. God injects the newly risen Russia with His love and grace in the name of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ and the spirit God gives to Russia will prevail. But I still hope the time is not over for the West to return to this grace and there can be a united church. Of course there are those who have not embraced Satan and have not followed hatred and have not persecuted the believers. We can all be united in the same spirit to the glory of God. Happy rebirth day Russia.

(October 1st 2022)