A warning for all, whatever our religion or lack of religion

 I remember my days listening to long sermons in church and always worrying how to tell people around me about the risks of the hereafter that be impressed on me in church and in my religious reading. My earliest religious memory is of hearing that Jesus taught about when we die we could go to a place of suffering or to a place of comfort, depending on our fortunes or misfortunes in this life and what we did or didn't do to help the unfortunate. This gave me a deep trust in Jesus that he more than anyone told the truth according to what people need for not just this life but the next and the judgement day after that and eternity. Now looking back it strikes me that Jesus did see my concern for what to tell others and God heard my prayers about it. The answer in the teachings of Jesus recorded in scriptures tells how the warnings are all there in scriptures, but Jesus knows that most today are oblivious to the fact that there are scriptures he had in mind that people today do not even know exist, even if they are raised religiously and have had religions, sects or denominations instructing them. There is the Holy Spirit who today imparts what Jesus knows and makes it known to believers. By this spirit I came to know that there is a genuine book of scripture little known outside African Ethiopic churches and Beta Israel groups: It is the Book of Enoch. Without knowledge of this book, I'll try putting this carefully (many would argue with it), it is not well-known what really awaits us after death. We should all take warning from the Book of Enoch, no matter our religious leanings and traditions. We all have to face the same choices in this life and results in the hereafter when it comes to looking our for others and avoiding violent ways, while understanding whether we are fortunate in only this life with misfortune stored up for the next.

Something New

 The cross ended and perfected a life of true obedience but the Father started something new, which had been from the beginning, the resurrected spirit. Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Ditch them

 The wisdom of Jesus Christ: "Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.” 

Leaders today are leading us into a pit. Ditch them. Leave them. Pray.

God is light

 Children of Satan want the narrative twisted in Satan's favour but when the narrative is established in truth, God is glorified. God is light.

Trouble looming

 The troubles arising again in Kosovo take me back to the word I received in the nineties just before the NATO countries UK and US invaded Yugoslavia, fighting Serbs and creating Kosovo and other Balkan breakaways. Israel has sinned, says God. And the eagle overhead with the white eye is the sign of this word. Albanians were being driven out by Serbs and NATO’s USA and UK suspected it might be genocide and intervened. UN decided it was a driving out but not a genocide but the intervention continued despite protests from Serbs and Russia. God allows hawkish surveillance to continue because sins are committed by those God regards as covenanted to Himself. It is a sign of this covenant but also a sign of the covenant being neglected by those covenanted to God. God has believers in many countries, not only State of Israel, USA and UK, but many in Serbia and Russia too. The West should remember this. Love is commanded between all people of this covenant as part of this covenant Christ brought about by his body and blood. Love one another as Christ loved us. Love God who sent Christ for us and raised him from the dead. In all our communications and words, love God and love ome another. When the eagle is overhead, war looms and even nuclear war. 

Realisation

 Realisation is tremendously important in spiritual life, as Jesus often taught. We realise things personally. No committee of church leaders, no council, can realise something. We realise each one individually as we progress through life and progress in discipleship with Jesus. Jesus tells how his crucifixion would lead to realisation that he is the Messiah, the Son of Man sent in the flesh from heaven. The centurion at the foot of the cross realised this. "Surely this was the Son of God" is the gist of what he said (translation disputed). We can individually reach a point when we realise two things: firstly that Jesus is this premier person sent by God and is the very Son of God, acknowledged fully as such by the Father when raised from the dead; and secondly that the Father and Jesus are utterly united in all they do. These are the goal realisations of the gospel of John: "That you may believe that Jesus is the Christ and that, believing, you may have life in his name". The crucifixion lifting up Jesus like the snake on the pole lifted up by Moses, is mysteriously the crucial thing to bring about this realisation.

Sanctioning the sanctioners

 So the facts seem to check out which have immense implications and repercussions: sanctions placed by ‘United Kingdom’ on video blogger Graham Philips. I admit I love his pure video blog reporting, devoid of Russophobia. Now I have to say, it is my only right response, now it checks out, reported in Press and there in  the UK Gov sanctions list (https://docs.fcdo.gov.uk/docs/UK-Sanctions-List.html), that I have to hand over to Satan, spiritually speaking, all of those complicit in this and perpetrating it, at whatever level, because the UK claims to be a Christian kingdom, by its heritage but also by the profession of its royals. So this is a Church matter. Sanctions are without trial. Confiscating without trial is grievous. Grieving like this is hateful. Only citing Russophobic justifications is grievously unjust and un-Christian (Russia is predominantly a Christian nation these days). So we who believe must do as Apostle Paul commanded in 1 Corinthians 5 and hand these governing people over to Satan in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. Justice is done this way. The Church must maintain righteous balance this way, the way of Christ in whose name we all believe. Sadly it will not end well for many in the UK power echelons. . . Satan is a hard task master but they have put themselves into subjection to him and will not end well. Sanctioning the sanctioners spiritually by Christ’s power is not to be done lightly but seems to be the most just and honest way to proceed. 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/26/british-pro-kremlin-video-blogger-graham-phillips-added-to-uk-government-russia-sanctions-list

Salt of the earth or salt without saltiness?

 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot."

-- Jesus Christ 

The leaders of the West, its sovereign heads of state, heads of churches, leaders of governments, aristocrats, nobles, parliamentarians, top civil servants, public sector leaders, all used to be salty - having a certain quality of leadership which tended to preserve the West and through them the whole world, from corruption and regression and strife. Those days appear to have gone. The so-called Free World is not characterised as free any more. Cancel culture has meant that sanctions are placed on people arbitrarily at whim, even for not agreeing with errors made by these leaders. This is not good. This is the end of the saltiness of the salt. The salt only gets thrown out when it loses its salt qualities. A shake-up might help, the figs falling like late figs in autumn when the tree is shaken, but it seems to have gone too far for that to make enough difference. To warrant rule by consent there must be a fit for purpose rulership. When rule is no longer by consent then divine forces must determine whether the continuation of this rule is warranted. Divine forces are open to prayer from the believers. The prayers are gathered before the heavenly Throne and their overall savour noted before judgments are cast upon the earth. Let heaven decide, but my own prayers are that something is done to remove the saltless salt, and quickly.

The UK's next PM

 What would it mean for the UK to have a Hindu PM? 'Principle' but what principles? The UK's principles were chosen by our ancestors more than a thousand years ago and we should not forsake them but should establish them and seek to teach them to all subjects of this kingdom: Truth. Kindness. Forgiveness. Equality. Serving God. Right and wrong. Moderation. Sobriety. Modesty. Faithfulness. Persuasion. Hope. Love to each other and to God. The ethics, teachings, principles of Christ. The only hope of eternal life.

Isaiah 6

 Jesus’ statement “He who has seen me has seen the Father” explains the response of Isaiah recorded in Isaiah chapter 6 when he saw Jesus’ glory and spoke of him. He exclaimed that he had seen Almighty God YHWH, even though he had explained that he had seen his Lord (who is Jesus). Jesus is the agency and model of the Father because he is the Son, in whom alone is eternal life from the Father. 

Impersonal Trinity or Personal God

The theological Trinity does not exist in the sense that the Catholic leaders in Nicea agreed on a Trinity. If such a trinity really existed there would be nobody able to give the necessary second independent testimony about who Jesus is. The Father and Son are only one in the way that many believers can be one. They are not one being. They are multiple united beings whose individual testimonies are therefore multiple and verify each other. To have belief in a Trinity is to have a dry impersonal God who is conceptual: Not a single being the adherents can call “My Lord and my God”, but merely an intellectual agreement to endorse an idea. Jesus was sent by God the Father to die to enable his true disciples to believe that the Father is their God and their Father who raised Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. This Father becomes for them their very personal God. This is true spiritual rebirth.

No more the dry and impersonal God

 Is the God in your religion dry and impersonal? For Israelites since the ancient timers it might have seemed that way. Their God had forsaken them because they first had forsaken Him centuries earlier as a people. They went dark-side then all went dark. No God to defend them from the Assyrian 'military operation' in ancient Samaria, once Elijah and Elishah had been and gone. Elijah might have pleaded for them but God was done listening. No personal god for them now. Until the Messiah came along and spoke to a woman beside a well in Samaria centuries later, 2000 years before today. This Messiah told her that a time of change would soon come and had come when worship would be restored among them towards God in spirit and in truth. No more pretending God was their God, God would really be their God, their personal God to answer their prayers for salvation and personal Lord to obey. How did it happen? Jesus died on a cross as a sacrifice for all that sin and God the Father raised him from the dead. Suddenly God was back. God was with them. God was theirs. Like Thomas when he saw Jesus alive from the dead, belief in God could return as a personal hope and a personal lord. My Lord and My God. This is how it can now be for all who believe: For all who follow Jesus' teachings, believing that Jesus is this Messiah. God becomes your God and your Father because Jesus died for you, and remember this is for a disciple who believes Jesus is the Christ, sent by God for salvation, and holds to Jesus' teachings. It is only if you hold to Jesus' teachings. God becoming your God and your Father is for you a rebirth. You gain a true father you did not have as father before your discipleship. Jesus died for all but it is the disciples of Jesus who benefit by God becoming personally their God and their Father. 

More about eternal life

 How is it that Jesus alone can offer truly eternal life? No other religious teacher can offer this. No leader on earth can offer it. The only god who can truly offer it to us is the God who is the Father of Jesus Christ. This is the king God above all gods, as the ancient origins of Israel and the Jews shows. Yet no other god in any religion can offer eternal life. Only God the Father offers it through Jesus Christ His Son. Why? Why only these? Because it takes the highest form of righteousness embodied in a human who actually has this perfectly right way of living. That is one factor. It takes this person having the highest God, righteous and true, as actual Father who preserves the life of this Son forever so this Son and the Father together can maintain this eternal life which they alone can both have and impart to others. The way they impart it is firstly by persuading followers that Jesus is this one Christ and Lord, and secondly by teaching these followers the teachings which lead to this eternal life if the followers hold firmly to these teachings. Only the Father and Son can offer these teachings with a firm, eternal guarantee of effectiveness, if they are followed. What is more, the Son lived obediently to please the Father perfectly and in that perfected life on Earth Jesus died on a cross as sacrifice to take away the curse of ethical failings of these followers to free them for the life that is eternal, and most importantly Jesus promised to raise these followers, if they become worthy, from the dead in a great day of this first resurrection to eternal, immortal life, aa the Father has first raised Jesus from the dead to live forever. The teachings become all the more effective because a spirit from the Father, the Holy Spirit, is abroad among believers even today to elaborate on the teachings and apply them powerfully and bring more of what the Father gives to Jesus to further aid believing, true followers. The Father works in the believers to further this eternal life developing in the spirit of the believer even though the body keeps ageing and perishing towards death. Jesus proclaimed that he came to accomplish this, as Jesus ministered to the Jews and the Gospel of John records it. Holding to these Gospel of John teachings of Jesus while being persuaded by this gospel that Jesus is this Christ is one way to become a follower and embrace the prospects of this eternal life. Jesus teaches through other apostles and ministers too. It can all be a means of taking in this persuasion and these teachings, holding to them and letting them influence you as you convey the morality it teaches to the wider community of other followers, the ‘church’. Do not, if you value instruction, miss this kind of instruction which alone offers such a magnificent outcome: Life eternal. This is the only way to receive this incomparable benefit, this pearl of immense value and price. It is costly but so worth the cost. 

Eternal life

 Lots of gods are sought after and prayed to and believed in - especially when we consider Hinduism and the like - and yet in all of these there is only one God and His Son in whom is found eternal life. The name, the way, the teachings, the ethics and the reputation and all that the Son of this Most High, King-over-all-gods stands for and represents and lives out forever in action, this is the only name by which there can be eternal life.

A true prophecy

 “Israel has sinned”, a modern times (30 years old) prophecy from God recalling Joshua 7. The sign given was accurate and precise. What does it mean? The Israel-linked allies should not rush into wars because God will not be blessing it. Wars by the West since 1995 have been marred by failure and loss of Western lives. The sign was an eagle of watchful surveillance overhead, trouble down below, nuclear threat eventually too. Look how sanctions backfire too. Weapons donated probably end up destroyed or black-marketed. In Joshua 7 the sin of the Israelites resulted in deadly, costly, humiliating military failures. Historically the sin of the Israelites of the northern Israelite tribes later known simply as ‘Israel’ (distinct from Judah or Judea) led to invasion by Assyria and a series of tragedies spanning 2800 years till today. God let it happen, not intervening. So for God to recall this by saying “Israel has sinned” is a dire warning. It means God is giving up supporting the people who thought God was on their side, because sin is blocking the diplomatic channels to and from God. So common sense dictates the curtailing of risky military operations until the wound is healed. Woke culture and moral decline make a resolution unlikely for the West. Shock and horror if we have to learn about benign morality from those despised by Western right wing leaders. The West is flying on one engine. Beware. Choose leaders known to God, allied to God and maybe they will have foresight and heal the wound and close the gap. Pray humbly. Not a time for boastful propaganda. Not when nuclear war looms. Consider this a true prophecy. 

What might bring an end to civilisation?

 What might bring down civilisation? The computer. How can that be? Well computers deal with data. What is data, as distinct from, say, prose or literature? Data is compressed prose.

Think, for example, of a small UK charity publishing the usual record of its Annual General Meeting. It first includes the minutes of the meeting, followed by a table of its annual accounts summary, which can be seen as tabulated data. This data could instead have been written as prose "In the first month of the year, January, we spent £200 on office stationery. In the second month ..." but that would be tedious to write and tedious to read. The table format circumvents the tedium.

The tabulation of data historically preceded prose in Sumerian times around 3500 BC in Uruk where accounts of donations to the temple were recorded with symbols impressed into stone or clay tablets in a table format, and understood by convention. Only around 3000 did prose sentence construction appear to us in the archaeological record of Tel Fara and surrounding towns around 2800 BC, the Fara Period, at which point poetry as well as prose started to be written with symbols on clay and stone tablets. (Examples: Instruction of Sharappak, and the Temple Hymn of Kesh.) So historically the tabulated data idea is very ancient and very well understood and underpins civilisation through all of history in many parts of the world. It allows the recording of financial accounts, for example, and documentation of individual payments. Yet prose is an alternative which is almost as ancient and allows expression of ideas and recording of human sentences, such as the minutes of a meeting. The two have coexisted side-by-side throughout human civilization in most 'advanced' cultures. Arguably the existence of these two forms of writing has brought about civilisation by allowing the persistence of knowledge between generations.

A plausible corollary of this is that civilisation might collapse if both data and prose formats evolve into something which cannot be persisted between generations. This is where computers come in. They have the potential to cause the loss of the ability to read data. They use binary exclusively to store that data. If the world loses the ability to make and use electricity and fossil fuels it would lose the ability to handle all that binary data. A nuclear war could accelerate all this. 

As nuclear war peril looms, maybe we should print data and knowledge considered essential to future generations of civilisation, such as calendars and basic maths, onto sheets of plastic, perhaps by stencil holes rather than perishable ink, and do so worldwide now in case of nuclear war. Making use of the persistent nature of plastic. Before the world loses the ability to read binary and loses the ability to pass down knowledge to the next generation and civilisation collapses.

Choice of leaders

 To know what a potential leader is like, what they are really like, not just what they say about themselves, look at whether they have led their followers into a pit, like the blind do when they lead the blind. If they are like that and you follow them anyway, well, that is on you. 

The mind of Christ

 Having Jesus Christ's thoughts on our minds, having his way of thinking as a guide to how we can think, it is underrated. Believing in Jesus Christ and holding to his teachings allows those teachings to form the way we too can think as we gain insight into how he thinks. The Holy Spirit is a real influence too, behind the scenes in dreams and visions and out in the open too in inspired words, and we gain yet more insight into the thinking of Jesus Christ. This is all underrated. We constantly get challenged in life from commentators, comedians, shining lights, teachers on how easily we slip into folly and fallacy in our thinking. They remind us how easily we buy in to the illusions of schemes, new world order ideas, ideologies, Big Pharma, Big Tech, exiled billionaires, even criminal organisations. Yet we underestimate the power of knowing the mind and thinking of Jesus Christ to keep us from these follies. Get to know who Jesus is and what Jesus teaches. It could be your salvation and with your own salvation it could save others too as you influence us. Those in power have great responsibility to learn all this, as we too have in deciding whether to vote for them. So many pitfalls are ahead of us. Will we walk right into them and lead others into them along with us? Christ's thinking is crucial to seeing clearly ahead and avoiding the traps, and maybe leading others away from such a demise.

UK Leadership July 2022

 The blind UK leaders have led the blind into a pit, like Jesus Christ warned. We now need help from the God who sent Jesus as the World needs to avoid nuclear war. Another leader of the UK leading people into a trench by being blind is too great a risk. Let those who now their God pray that before new Conservative candidates are considered, God will bring it to light whether these are blind hypocrites who do not practice what they preach. Nuclear war is a very dangerous prospect if the leading is by the blind again.  Can we even trust the Conservatives to select a sighted leader though? Not much we can do right now if they don't. All we can do is pray and stay diligently vigilant. This should be a concern for everyone, not just the UK. Look how the leaders of Ukraine were led into prolonging war and shunning peace. Look how the bear was poked.

July 7th 2022

July 7th 2022: So Boris to resign as leader of party. Whose mandate will we want the next leader to have? Zellensky’s? God’s? The country’s? The Queen’s? Prince Charles’? Van der Leyen’s? Time for UK to pray.  Time to involve God. The recess is near. If anything happens during recess, what mandate will anyone have? (None for WW III, I hope.) God have mercy. People: Time to love God with all our hearts, all our minds, all our voices. 

High office and power - a lesson in politics

 British politics on July 5th 2022 sad but it did help me understand by contrast the permanent lordship of Jesus Christ. Boris the PM just sacked influential, important partner of the PM for Brexit, Gove. I asked myself: What if HM the Queen reinstated Gove? It would not happen of course, but what if the Queen made Gove a replacement PM? This would make Gove very strong indeed in standing as PM. The sacking would only add gravity to it. Now I move my thoughts to how Jesus got not sacked but literally crucified by the powers of Rome and the Jewish high priest office in Jerusalem, first century AD. Yet God raising Jesus from the dead reinstated Jesus to such a strong standing, as more than PM, as Lord and Christ. The promotion of a man to office of PM by a monarch is impermanent because the monarch is impermanent, mortal. God is eternal. So Lordship given Jesus by God raising Jesus His Son from the dead after crucifixion cruelly curtailed his life, this is permanent, eternal, supremely glorious. Thank you Mr Johnson for helping me understand how power works in high office. 

The Western Course of Action in 2022

 "Judge not, so that you would not be judged, for with whatever measure of judgment you use, this will be measured to you" --Jesus  Christ. He likewise warned of the blind leading the blind, and all falling together into a pit. Blindness of leaders, Jesus warned, is seen in how they do not practice what they preach.

The world is evidently not listening. It is important to distance ourselves from violence and wars of conquest and aggression but at the same time we must avoid judging others unnecessarily. The Western nations are eager to send a message to Russia that they will not be party to military aggression (woefully inconsistent in this, when you look at simultaneous Western attacks on other countries). I hope the traditionally warlike countries will learn to wind down their eagerness to engage in conflict, and heed Jesus' words that those who live by the sword shall die by the sword. "Put away your sword", Jesus told Peter, even though it had been Jesus who had previously told Peter to get a sword to defend against the governmental guards arresting Jesus. Violence is one key way to lose favour with God and to set foot on a path of regret and woe. Yet in an effort to distance from what is perceived as a potentially aggressive, heavily armed nuclear country, the Western powers are forgetting the words of Jesus and are eagerly engaging in inconsistent, hypocritical, lying judgement of Russia and its leader, and are finding that Jesus' warning is true that when you hurl judgment at others, that same kind of judgement gets hurled back at you, not by those you are judging but by the justice of God. The mistaken belief that no gods or supernatural beings exist is leading the blind Western countries into a delusion that invisible forces of justice do not exist - that actions can be taken without divinely driven consequences. This could be the demise of much of the Western world as sanctions backfire and yet the sanctions continue. It takes humility to abandon a foolish course of action - and humility is in short supply among the foolish. We need the wise words of God we find in Jesus. We need a sighted leader.

Pondering

 Pondering: What did the British, Americans and Israelis (atrociously) do in Ukraine in the nineties and since then to foster the resurgence of pre-war ideologies to counter their competition in the region? Did they open Pandora’s Box and precipitate a nuclear WW III?

Book of Isaiah chapter 6

The biblical prophet Isaiah received many prophecies from the Father but it was only when Isaiah saw his Lord, who is Jesus, that Isaiah exclaimed that he was undone because of having seen the YHWH (who is the Father) - Isaiah chapter 6. Seeing Jesus we see the Father because the bond is so great between Father and Son and the Father sends the Son and the Son is so much in the likeness of the Father. It is important to realise that Isaiah, Jesus, apostles who saw Jesus and were sent by Jesus, all these testify to what we have seen. It is not merely hearsay, testifying to what others have seen, but tacit experiential knowledge, first hand. "We speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony." Jesus said it, Isaiah said it ("Lord: Who has believed or testimony and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed"). I echo it too.

Did they know Who they were dealing with?

 It might amaze the Christians and Jews today to find the Bible book of Exodus is a record of events to prove that other gods beside the Most High, Supreme God, do exist but that God is greater and can overrule them. If Christians and Jews knew this well they might rethink calling God the only real god in existence. This might surprise people today. The well known ten plagues of Egypt recorded in Exodus have an interesting and hugely significant detail recorded about them: Many of them were copied by Egypt’s magicians of the time who were able to make rods of wood turn into snakes on demand. If you have seen the movie Prince of Egypt you might recall the striking scene with the song “You’re playing with the big boys now” in which the magicians and their gods of Egypt stand-off with Moses and his God. The outcome reverberates through the religious history of the Israelites and later the Jews and Christians and even Muslims too. 

What are we seeing in Ukraine in the first half of 2022?

 Is the West and Russia together perpetrating some kind of vicarious mass human sacrifice with Neo-N***s in Ukraine? The daily deaths are in the hundreds and with no chance of a game change. Nobody outside of the USSR  was really punished for what the original N***s did in the early 1940s first throughout Eastern Europe then in the West. Is this an attempt to balance the scales? Should the punishment not be against those who failed to carry out justice in the 1950s? Almost all of that generation died out in the 1980s and 1990s and the N***s in the following decade, all now gone. Is this a visitation of vengeance on their children and grandchildren who seek to perpetuate the N*** ways? Can this appease the wrath? Can it avert the nuclear apocalypse? Love God and preserve His teachings and teach the next generation this too rather than the anti-religious, anti-Russian hateful ways of N**ism. Maybe simply following through with proper justice in humility will avert divine vengeance more than callously throwing the offspring to the frontline ad infinitum. It is our traditional governments and institutions and ruling elite and lords and judges who carry the blame for failure to punish Holocaust perpetrators: In the West where it happened (given justice was carried out on the other side of the Iron Curtain) but then many of the Jews among these left for new-formed Israel in the 1950s. These, instead of self-conviction, are making scapegoats of Neo-N***s. Yes the Neo-N***s are a tinderbox and a ticking time-bomb, but it is failure to follow-through with proper justice which is behind their resurgence. The whole system must change so it does not happen again. Human sacrifice is what this looks like more than justice. But maybe God is in it. God’s will be done.

Evolution and information about the future

 The information of a living parent organism that is needed to make a child organism, for that child to be able to produce further children, this information must include the information needed to pass that information on again to future generations in such a way that they can use it. This means the parent needs to possess and pass on information about the future. A parent living thing must include knowledge of the future for their offspring to survive and carry on passing on information for future generations to survive and live and thrive. This must have been so at any point in the history of life. It therefore must have been so even at the beginning and even before organisms existed. We simply tend to regard a parent with information about the future as godlike. So an organism which does not have information in it about the future would not be able to procreate offspring able to themselves procreate further offspring with information needed to produce successful, surviving offspring. This is all the more important if life is evolving because the future would need to have offspring with more information than the parents and a way to store that information and pass it on successfully in the future and therefore need information about the future. This goes back to the start of life. If parents do not have this information and yet evolution is happening as the fossil record suggests, there must in every case be another parent besides the information-deficient organic parents, a parent able to add the extra information needed with each successive generation. This invisible parent must know the future and be able to include information about the future or information needed to deal with the future when a new generation forms. We simply call this parent an invisible god, a creator spirit, visible to science only by its indirect contributions to what the fossil record and studies of life shows. Known yet ignored.

Prayer for Donetsk June 2022

 How long can Anglicans in England support a country which openly and unrepentantly bombs civilians in Donetsk? How long can Anglicans call themselves righteous in Christ and yet the worldly head of the Church of England openly supports the country which does these things? Is this Christian in any way? Is this what people do who claim to have eternal life in Christ? Judge them by their fruits. Isn’t that what Jesus said? If Jesus sent me, it is not to whitewash and justify such behaviour. It is to point to true eternal life in Him which does not support murder and murderers. Be ye separate and touch no unclean thing. Surrender up the devoted things for destruction. Put the wicked out from you. Let all those who call on the name of the Lord Jesus, every one of you, lowly or high in status, whatever status you have from God, forsake evil. This is what it means to be a true church for the glory of the name of God the Most High. In Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.

Worshipping God

The natural thinking we have might oppose us praising the Most High and oppose thoughts of what wonders He does, but the Spirit awakening our spirit bypasses all that natural thinking and brings out in us thoughts of what the Most High does in people everywhere that is praiseworthy and we praise Him by spirit and truth, irrespective of opposing thoughts. I even find this can happen in my sleep which helps to bypass the naturally opposing thoughts and allow praise to the Most High by spirit and truth. All this is what the Most High seeks. Trying to use opposing, natural thinking to praise and worship God is not what God seeks. It should not be what we seek. If a person truly serves God: If they truly are a servant of God, they will receive the Holy Spirit and have their spirit awakened to make them see visions and dream dreams which lead them to worship in spirit and truth.

Unity of faith

 I currently choose to worship online in a church I found on my smart TV. Very nice. Very convenient. Communion is blessed by God, I find, in this form of worship. But how do I contribute? All I can do is receive. So how about returning to normal church worship in a building of worship? Nothing in the gospel about having to have a building of worship - the place is the spirit and the building is the circle of believers joined by faith and the Holy Spirit in the ministry coming from the resurrected Christ. So it is a practicality, not an essential. Yet, it is frustrated anyway. If I go to a building for worship I have to choose one which fits a set of criteria. Why? Historical division. There are three or four basic ontologies about God and you have to pick the one you most accept. Why? Historical division. Christ is not divided but believers are. Trinitarians. Unitarians. Oneness. Binitarians. Take your pick. This is so ugly and unworthy of Christ Jesus who did not bring many versions of faith. He brought the faith which Abraham had. The faith produced among the first believers who followed Christ became in them a faith produced by God the Father through Jesus Christ God's Son. Was Abraham a Trinitarian? Oneness? Unitarian? Binitarian? Abraham worshipped the one God who Abraham knew would some day send a Christ to save the believers and Abraham rejoiced to see that day. So we too should humbly seek to be sure we have that same faith within us and to know that this Christ has come and is called Jesus. Then we will find the teachings of Jesus to be our salvation as the Christ sets us free as we hold to these teachings. Let us scrap our ontologies and return to the faith God first produced in the believing followers of Jesus Christ and let us all worship in unity. That way we have fellowship with the Father and with His Son.

Are you OK?

 Are you OK? Am I OK? Define OK. What if history is repeating itself? Horrible history. We should know our horrible history so we know what happens if it gets repeated. What if police forces far and wide are being influenced to be ready to do something horrible? If this is happening the most assuredly we are NOT OK. Know about the forties. 

The gravity of the blindness of Western leaders

 When the blind lead the blind, they both fall into a pit, as Jesus Christ famously put it. And the gravity of the blind leaders' wrongdoing would be lessened were they merely blind, but their claim to be able to see means that gravity remains.

What is a mercenary? The answer given to this question might be a matter of life and death for those who fight in the wars of foreign countries. To try to circumvent this, there are groups such as the French Foreign Legion which tries to give non-mercenary status to its foreign fighters. Ukraine did something similar in a hurry this year. It set up its own International Legion of Territorial Defence of Ukraine. In an announcement of this, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba gave the game away by mentioning that some of the home countries of members of this legion forbid their citizens from fighting for other countries. [1] Even the UK has such a law, although it is rarely applied. It does not take much common sense to work out that if a country forbids its citizens from fighting in wars against countries against which the UK is not at war, then the reason for this is to do with the common understanding that such fighting is considered mercenary fighting, and is therefore not given Geneva Convention protection. The UK in recent years seems to have sought to play down the distinction between a mercenary and someone fighting in such an international legion. Unfortunately this muddying of the water may have helped to persuade British fighters to embark on actions leading to their deaths. Ref 1[1]: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/ukraine-says-20000-volunteers-from-52-countries-sign-up-to-fight

Pentecost 2022

 On the Day of Pentecost, 2022, I would reflect on what it means to real Christianity. Many merely imagine what the Holy Spirit visitation on the famous original New Testament Day of Pentecost was like and what a similar visitation might be like today. Yet it is not every believer in Christ who needs to use imagination: Many have memories and ongoing experiences of what happens when the Holy Spirit helps believers and their church circles. For me the first experience I was fully persuaded was this kind of visitation happened as a private, prayerful vision like a movie in my mind after I had pleaded with God for the Holy Spirit - like a waking dream and yet with subtitles - a visual depiction of  builder's bucket of sand tipped out in front of me and the words going across this vision "BUILD THE TEMPLE". I asked for threefold confirmation and this was given soon afterwards. Second experience was in a church service months later when a preacher took the microphone and spoke angelic words but in my ears I heard them inspiring English words inside my head telling of the power of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ within Nature. The speaker then gave those same English words at the microphone, confirming what I had received by way of interpretation of the angelic tongue. Years later in private ("What is whispered in your ear proclaim from the rooftops" said Jesus) a voice told me to look at a chapter in the Bible "Daniel 3" in answer to a question about angels which I had been pondering. The invisible speaker not only knew my thoughts and the mind of God about the answer to my question but also knew the version of the Bible I would use to look up that chapter - where the answer was a note in the margin in a Bible version edition I had never read before. Yet now on Pentecost Sunday 2022 the simple experience I received was more ordinary but no less helpful. A terribly painful condition hasn't been healed though I have prayed about it for months. I went to a service online on my TV and just felt confident that advice about this would be given me from the Holy Spirit. Sure enough, as soon as I tuned in, one leader interrupted the other to say "You must always persevere in your prayer and not give up". It helped so much that I almost turned off the TV and left it at that. I kept watching and further articles and interviews said the same thing, that healing sometimes requires that we pray for months, and that Jesus taught this. I remembered the lesson in which Jesus had taught it. The Holy Spirit, said Jesus, will remind of all that Jesus said. We can read it in the gospels and then forget it after years, but the Holy Spirit brings it back when we need it. The ministry of Jesus continues with the Holy Spirit bringing us not only things Jesus said long ago but what Jesus receives from the Father in out times today. Pentecost can even become quite normal. But is always the ministry of the Wonderful Counsellor.

A week later an interesting dream taught me why we are sometimes keep praying before receiving an answer. The dream was like a parable of Jesus. Perhaps it was a parable of resurrected Jesus given by the Holy Spirit, coming as instruction ultimately from the Father. In the dream I was newly employed as a personal servant to the patriarchal father of a very rich and powerful family. Many others were employed as servants too and had some pretty tough jobs to do, as you would expect in such a situation. I was just starting. This father came to me and requested in procure a nice-looking box of a certain size. It seemed an easier task than other servants had to do. I got a bit distracted procuring this box, mainly when a child in the family was demanding something. As I was helping get what the child wanted a party was starting in this huge family mansion and guests were arriving and the father arrived too. Another servant told me I had better put on a suit. I still hadn't got the box. I had no idea why getting this box was important. Time had gone by and the father came up to me with some items which he dumped in my hands and walked away hurriedly. I realised it was a gift for me. I suddenly understood that the box had been for these items so he could present them to me nicely. Now, because I had failed to procure the box and take it to him at the party he had unhappily been forced to give me the gift without a wrapping gift-box. He was not happy but he had given it to me anyway. As I woke from the dream I suddenly understood that the command to pray persistently for what we ask from God is like this gift box. God wants us to do the task of creating the gift box into which He will place the answer to our prayer.

Achan’s sin

 The fall of Ukraine’s elite “SS”. The Azov. 

But who funded this Azov version of Ukraine’s SS? A Jewish oligarch. This makes Joshua chapter seven in the Bible make sense as with God’s words “Israel has sinned”.

Here is Joshua 7

"But the Israelites were unfaithful in regard to the devoted things  ; Achan son of Karmi, the son of Zimri, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of them. So the Lord’s anger burned against Israel.

Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth Aven to the east of Bethel, and told them, “Go up and spy out the region.” So the men went up and spied out Ai.

When they returned to Joshua, they said, “Not all the army will have to go up against Ai. Send two or three thousand men to take it and do not weary the whole army, for only a few people live there.” So about three thousand went up; but they were routed by the men of Ai, who killed about thirty-six of them. They chased the Israelites from the city gate as far as the stone quarries and struck them down on the slopes. At this the hearts of the people melted in fear and became like water.

Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell facedown to the ground before the ark of the Lord, remaining there till evening. The elders of Israel did the same, and sprinkled dust on their heads. And Joshua said, “Alas, Sovereign Lord, why did you ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan! Pardon your servant, Lord. What can I say, now that Israel has been routed by its enemies? The Canaanites and the other people of the country will hear about this and they will surround us and wipe out our name from the earth. What then will you do for your own great name?”

The Lord said to Joshua, “Stand up! What are you doing down on your face? *Israel has sinned*; they have violated my covenant, which I commanded them to keep. They have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen, they have lied, they have put them with their own possessions. That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies; they turn their backs and run because they have been made liable to destruction. I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to destruction.

“Go, consecrate the people. Tell them, ‘Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow; for this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: There are devoted things among you, Israel. You cannot stand against your enemies until you remove them.

“ ‘In the morning, present yourselves tribe by tribe. The tribe the Lord chooses shall come forward clan by clan; the clan the Lord chooses shall come forward family by family; and the family the Lord chooses shall come forward man by man. Whoever is caught with the devoted things shall be destroyed by fire, along with all that belongs to him. He has violated the covenant of the Lord and has done an outrageous thing in Israel!’ ”

Early the next morning Joshua had Israel come forward by tribes, and Judah was chosen. The clans of Judah came forward, and the Zerahites were chosen. He had the clan of the Zerahites come forward by families, and Zimri was chosen. Joshua had his family come forward man by man, and Achan son of Karmi, the son of Zimri, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, was chosen.

Then Joshua said to Achan, “My son, give glory to the Lord, the God of Israel, and honor him. Tell me what you have done; do not hide it from me.”

Achan replied, “It is true! I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel. This is what I have done: When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia,  two hundred shekels of silver and a bar of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath.”

So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran to the tent, and there it was, hidden in his tent, with the silver underneath. They took the things from the tent, brought them to Joshua and all the Israelites and spread them out before the Lord.

Then Joshua, together with all Israel, took Achan son of Zerah, the silver, the robe, the gold bar, his sons and daughters, his cattle, donkeys and sheep, his tent and all that he had, to the Valley of Achor. Joshua said, “Why have you brought this trouble on us? The Lord will bring trouble on you today.”

Then all Israel stoned him, and after they had stoned the rest, they burned them. Over Achan they heaped up a large pile of rocks, which remains to this day. Then the Lord turned from his fierce anger. Therefore that place has been called the Valley of Achor f ever since."

So there we have it, Joshua chapter 7. "Israel has sinned" Breaking the covenant. Covenant-bearing individuals all implicated by one or a few individuals who did not abolish "the devoted things" (people and things devoted by God's covenant for necessary destruction to eradicate extreme evil in the worldly population). Let it be God who judges Achan.

Original faith

 To get the benefit of the gospel of Christ, the good news, we must combine it with faith - not meaning some catechism or creed or theology or denominational statement of faith - we must combine the good news teachings of Jesus with the faith which the first apostles had who received this good news.

Missing the target and good and bad news

The target is obedience to God. The bad news is, so many miss the target. The good news brought by Jesus is the resurrection Jesus brings from God by which many will live forever. The bad news is so many are unworthy of it. The good news is that Jesus helps those who believe in Him and hold to His teachings to become worthy by grace and truth. He will raise up these true disciples so that they live forever.

A grim message

 It is a time in the year when we get poignant reminders of what our forebears did to defeat hatred and racist genocide just over seventy years ago. Yet genocidal racist hatred is now perpetrated by our leaders if we live in certain countries. Those fighters against it and the subsequent trials of the perpetrators of hatred in the twentieth century missed going far enough and a remnant was left, like the Bible reminds us happened in Joshua’s time. Now attempts to complete the sacred duty are underway but thwarted by the spreading of the hatred, and now the putting off of the evil day could bring in a reign of terror and ominous mushroom clouds later. God is concerned about it as much as in Joshua’s time. Fear God and not men. Love God and love the children of God in the body of Christ even in countries the leaders tell us to hate. Give glory to God by confessing things were delayed and not completed when they should have been.

Leaders of lawlessness

 Paying more for my heating? Wow I just got my bill. Wow. But it helps us get real about climate damage. Paying more for food. Likely to get worse and hunger is manifest in real life around us. But it is a first world problem new to us. We might have to learn to feed people we see in daily life and not just give charitably to other countries. A dose of reality. But what I cannot abide is that the authorities are attacking my soul and spiritual wellbeing again. First it was demands on how I treat my own body. Now it is demands that I treat the body of Christ in Russia with hatred. These leaders of lawlessness are becoming like the leaders of the people who forbade Jews in the time of Christ from confessing Christ, shortly before they had Christ crucified by the Romans. 

The devoted things

Can the West avoid its foretold nuclear destruction? If only the final remnants of the devoted things had been destroyed during or after the War. They were left to resprout today. If only the Soviets had stamped out the remnants of WW II we might not be facing WW III. The Nuremberg trials failed to go all the way, but maybe that is not just Israel’s fault and not only the West’s fault. 

“Are we there yet?”

 The prophecy writing of the Apostle Paul says the apocalyptic end of this age and the apocalyptic resurrection cannot come until the ‘rebellion’ occurs and the ‘man of lawlessness’ is revealed. But I get a feeling the rebellion is occurring right now. Rebellion against authority and authoritarianism and rule of law. Even leaders are turning rebellious like this. One will lead them all into rebellion against authority and into lawlessness. Is he here yet? Is he revealed yet? I have a feeling he is, or soon will be.

Incomplete obedience is disobedience

 Victory was won against Nazi forces in WW II. Largely this came by Soviet / Russian sacrificial military action in addition to the sacrifices of other allies. But the West allies have fallen from the height of moral victory. Now the West faces escalating troubles because of this moral degradation. Christian decline is central this. Christians are ceasing from the counsels of God. It has been happening for decades. Repenting from this is crucial lest escalations reach nuclear proportions. No joke. God has warned us. It is like the sin of Israel in Joshua’s time, the failure to destroy to the fullest possible extent the people and things God commanded be destroyed. A remnant of Naziism has been allowed to persist.  

The One True God

Father is the topmost only one true God we know because the only begotten Son of this Father, this Son’s name is the power of lordship over all creation. So the Father is greater than this Son over creation and is thus known and believed to be the One True God.  For the Father, God, to make His one begotten son the lord over all creation, all Nature on earth and in the universe, and make all creation function in His Son’s name (as miracles and the Holy Spirit tell us is true), this Father has to be the One True God. So by this Spirit and by this truth we will worship worthily.

Temple zeal

 “Zeal for Your house will consume me.” Jesus was zealous for the temple of God His Father. First Jesus sought to drive out pigs and goats from the earthly temple. Then Jesus was so zealous for that other temple of God, which is the actual physical body of Jesus, that it required death of that body before it could be made immortal by the will of Jesus and of God. Now this zeal is applied by Jesus and by those who are true disciples of Jesus to drive out sinners from the fellowship of the circle of the gatherings of believers, sinners like me and maybe you, but then by me and maybe you too driving sin from our human bodies, driving sinful behaviours and untruthful ideas away so our bodies become ready to be temples of God in which Jesus is not ashamed to dwell by spirit. Continuing this way with faith and with our hearts retaining Jesus’ words and fellowship, is the zeal for the temple which leads us to eternal life with Jesus. So we all fulfil the scripture. 

Economic woes

 This Ukraine war is a nice cover to blame for economic woes, deflecting from the more likely cause of governments around the world having spent all they have trying to fight the pandemic. In the end it was defeated by a natural remedy from God, a variant that outpaced the plague while granting so many a natural immunity without severe symptoms. Mankind loves to try human effort to avoid praying to God and trusting Him. Sorcery (pharma) and lies are order of the day and this will not stop till Jesus comes. Woe. Woe. Woe.

With the clouds

 He comes with the clouds of heaven, presiding over God’s judgments upon this earth. We see Jesus. 

Firstborn among many brethren

“Who not of blood  nor of the will of flesh nor of will of man but of God were born” John 1:13

If what you are in your existence and persuasions and behaviour is produced actually by the Father Himself, you are one of these brethren. Jesus was first to be produced by God in existence and persuasion and behaviour, perfectly, and subsequently by resurrection too.  Full of grace and truth like none before.

There were of course believers before the time of the disciples and apostles of Jesus, people such as Enoch, Noah, Moses, David, and the prophets and saints, but like at the wedding in Capernaum, when water turned to wine, it was the best wine which was kept until this time. Jesus’ disciples displayed the fruits of grace and truth in a better way than ever before, and Jesus was firstborn of these children of God. 

The way to live forever

 For centuries the hope of the “way” to live forever was a set of writings. Nobody could live up to it. Now God has provided a person who actually raises the dead. This person is the way provided by God. Jesus Christ. Suddenly it becomes a whole lot more viable to live forever. 

Fun theory of light

 What is up with Science? Human limited thinking. Take the classical wave-particle theories of light. Why only look at diffraction in two ways? Scientists cannot see more than two competing characterisations of light when it comes to observed diffraction: particle and wave. Other characterisations are possible with better, broader thinking, such as attributing consciousness and will to light. The model of diffraction then becomes analogous to conscious sentience faced with a binary choice. Analogy: In a survey, being asked whether you trust your leaders, yes or no. Forced to answer, some would realise the truth is not binary, yet they must answer truthfully in a binary fashion. Some would say yes, others no. So back to light, some light might go one way in a diffraction situation and some the other way, but this could be by conscious use of will. Science ignores this. Again by either blindness or perhaps by conscious will. That is the problem with science and scientific thinking. It only considers solutions convenient to the agendas of the scientists. Humans try to cancel God and revealed truth by ignoring certain solutions to scientific problems and accepting others.

Not about hatred

 The pandemic taught us all that globalisation weakens us and makes us vulnerable to such plagues because joined up nations linked by airports governed by economy of market forces provides a bridge for plagues to spread fast and wide. So now we need more national self-sufficiency, where trade can be conducted but does not get to override national interests. This is a setback for globalisation but essential for survival. Let us not make it all about hatred of foreign nations, though, lest war replace pandemic. 

The better way

 As UK local elections approach at start of May 2022, we need leaders who know better than hatred, who know the honour of the name of the One True God. Western powers are resorting of late to mere hatred to motivate their people and guide their march towards confrontation. They seem to be oblivious to the better way, a way of honouring God’s name and the name of His Son. God’s honour will be restored by sovereign acts by God Himself as He raises up those who will clear down the weeds to make a path for God’s glory to be made known. 

Habakkuk

Habakkuk’s Complaint

How long, O LORD, must I call for help?

But you do not listen!

“Violence is everywhere!” I cry,

but you do not come to save. 

Must I forever see these evil deeds?

Why must I watch all this misery?

Wherever I look,

I see destruction and violence.

I am surrounded by people

who love to argue and fight.

The law has become paralyzed,

and there is no justice in the courts.

The wicked far outnumber the righteous,

so that justice has become perverted.

The LORD replied,

“Look around at the nations;

look and be amazed!

For I am doing something in your own day,

something you wouldn’t believe

even if someone told you about it.

I am raising up the Babylonians,

a cruel and violent people.

They will march across the world

and conquer other lands.

They are notorious for their cruelty

and do whatever they like.

Their horses are swifter than cheetahs

and fiercer than wolves at dusk.

Their charioteers charge from far away.

Like eagles, they swoop down to devour their prey.

Prophecy of Habakkuk

UK local elections May 2022

 UK local elections soon. I hope we will not appoint WW III warmongers or strengthen warmongering parties. God help us keep them out and bring in those He knows.

Presences

 They are called “presences”. When they are there, they are there, seen or unseen. In the immediate vicinity of the Father, there are seven, four of whom are closest to the Father and His throne. Then there is the risen Lord too. 

A way out

 So the West is choosing its future path, with its supporting of groups which use torture and arbitrary killings and detentions, (the kind of groups fought against in WW II). The West should remember that God often provides a counter force, raised up to provide God’s answering of the prayers of those hurt by the tortures and killings and detentions. Extremist violence and complicit support of it angers God and incurs wrath. WW III looms. The sinfulness is manifest by the eagle of war overhead, the generals discussing war, the troubles growing, eventually the mushroom clouds rising. Too much violence and too much support of violence and God puts countermeasures in place which might seem to be even worse than what they counter. Jesus taught a way out. “Put away your sword, for those who live by the sword shall die by the sword.”

Solidarity

 “Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.” Hebrews 13:3. 

Tortured believing prisoners might be ill-treated for reasons besides their faith, perhaps for loyalties or nationality or race, yet still we should identify with their suffering. God hears our prayers for them prayed in genuine sincerity and earnestness. Such sincere earnestness comes from spending time identifying with them as though we were there with them such that we feel a bond, a sense that what is happening to them is happening to us. Fervent prayer like this makes a difference because it reaches Heaven and the heart of God. Believers are one in solidarity and spirit.

Foundational trust

Not a time to trust any superpowers right now. Their power is as a foundation of sand when a storm is coming and the house needs to withstand rising water levels and torrential rain. Now is time to trust God and trust the Christ, Jesus, sent by God. Their teachings are the most solid foundation for our lives.  Some foundational teachings of Jesus Christ:

Give to those who ask of you - without letting anyone know you are doing it.

Have faith that God will make happen what you command with undoubting faith to happen.

Be watchful for opportunities to pray and for causes to pray about for the overall cause of Jesus Christ.

Forgive those who do you wrong, especially forgiving them as you ask God for forgiveness of your wrongs.

Do not worry about how you will get by, just like the birds do not worry how they will get by. Trust God to care. 

Build back better with your focus on those who believe in and obey Lord Jesus the Christ. 

Turn from lying and hating, idolatry and fornication. Let the teachings of Jesus cleanse your life from all such things and the Holy Spirit work within you to cleanse you and make you pure.

Continue in all this and let the words of Jesus remain within you. Then Jesus will raise you to life at the resurrection and give you life forever, as promised for those who believe in who Jesus truly is. 

The way of God

 Knowing what the Bible says is not the same as knowing and obeying the Father. Jesus helps us know God and obey what God says.

Springtime

 It is spring. The buds are appearing, opening, blooming as flowers on trees. The authority of the Lord Jesus Christ’s name is in full swing. We look forward to resurrection of the ones who hold to Lord Jesus’ teachings. 

Put down your umbrella!

 “Put down your umbrella” said Jesus to me. Jesus is the umbrella we need: the teachings of Jesus are what we need above us as protection from the wrath of God the Father. Storms are coming. Make sure you have Jesus as  your soul’s umbrella. Accept the teachings of Jesus as the commands of lord and master. Aa the hymn says, “Hide me, O my saviour hide, till the storm of life is past”.

Power and influence

 Trinitarian doctrines are a way for chief priests to retain power and influence. Many of us forsake these people and trust Jesus Himself. 

Hidden power

 Though hidden, Jesus is raised to power. Being hidden is no weakness for Jesus. 

Three resurrections

 First God raised Lazarus - for His own Son, Jesus. Then God raised Jesus - for Jesus’ disciples. So next, God is clearly going to raise the many disciples - through Jesus His Son.

Freedom

 The lie is to think that Jesus is not lord and master. Having Jesus as master to release you from your sinful ways, this is freedom.

Not alone

 “I and the children You have given me” God did not send Jesus to be isolated. God gives others from among us to Jesus. Jesus has some of us as His own. He is our Master and the Lord of us.

What it means that Jesus is the Son of God

 What it means that Jesus is the Son of God? The Father, God, produced the Son, producing the Son’s existence personally, bringing about the Son’s natural human body, giving the Son grace to be ever stronger and stronger is spirit and to live righteously, giving the Son the commands to lead to eternal life, works to do, words to teach,  and chastening during mortal life such that Jesus was perfected in righteousness, then directing towards obedient death and raising from death and personally making the Son both Lord and Christ, now eternally alive from the dead. All the personal workings of God the Father to produce all that Jesus the Son is. Making Jesus in spirit a man who reaches through time to the distant past and eternal future, the same yesterday and today, and so forever. The Father produced all this in Jesus His only-begotten Son. Much of this is produced by God to some extent in other children of God too, yet all epitomised in the firstborn Son, putting His glory in Jesus and the other children bearing Jesus’ own glory, all the work of the One True God, the Father. The faith all this produces by persuading others to believe, this faith is produced by God who is Father of this faith and the hope and love it all produces is the work of God through Jesus, by the Spirit. It all brings about rebirth by sprit. 

Rebirth. Faith and hope and love

 Yesterday I was asked by noble, local street preachers, was I born again. Today it is clear. The truth I knew long ago is that there is a mighty lord, a master, invisible to our eyes but perceptible by spirit, as this lord sees fit to reveal this to those who are positive in accepting this. What comes clear too is that this lord is Jesus - Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth. Let every human tremble at this. What is clearest of all to the reason is that this lord, this Jesus, is alive from the dead. So this is hope. God the Father made this hope possible by raising Jesus from the dead. So this faith, this hope, is real and made by God Himself, and this is the rebirth that counts, hopefully leading to sincere love towards all who have this hope within.

Crisis of heritage

 We are in a crisis. But the real crisis is not gas and inflation, sanctions and combat operations. It is the crisis of respect or disrespect for the commands of God among supposedly Christian roots nations. Britain. USA. Russia and in the middle, Ukraine. War clouds loom. Mushroom clouds are foretold. Do we keep disrespecting God?  Where is the Christian heritage the strongest?

The new way

When I was a child I grew up in a world of traditions loosely based on eroded forms of Christianity filtered by Western history, passed down from generation to generation, mostly orally, with loss of accuracy with each successive hand over. So it was a mixture of concepts I received. The teachings given me included a denial of credibility of information about spirits. Materialism replaced such information. Risk aversion perhaps motivated such denial. Children were taught to not believe that ghosts exist. Spirits of natural elements such as living things, elements of wind and rain, any attribution of spiritual existence to anything natural, attributing real veracity to supernatural things, all was denied. The maturity of growing education and help of scriptures gradually persuaded me these denials were foolish. The denials would lead to atheism. Science supposedly justified such denials. The idea given by traditional Western post-Christian supposedly enlightened society was (is) that it is evil to believe there is any reality in traditional teachings about spirits and rituals of magic. Only medicine in its Western form was to be accepted. Yet mature understanding makes me realise that God enshrines in the gospel and the way of Christ some important applications of traditions about spirits. The wrongdoing is not in accepting the reality and wisdom of things pertaining to spirits. The wrongdoing is in refusing to put aside lesser spirit worship and refusing to be devoted to worship of the Most High God. The wrongdoing is in failing to be a servant of Christ. We need not reject truthful information about how witches use rituals and drugs to draw spirits into inanimate objects or their own bodies. We instead accept the ritual of eating the bread of communion of Christ’s body and drinking the blood of the covenant to identify with Christ and receive Him into our human bodies having been baptised into His name. We have the presence of Christ joining with us in this identification with Him and know by persuasion that He is alive from the dead having died a sacrificial death on a symbolic cross. The traditional ways of spirit persist, yet we are given over to receiving the living human Christ alive from the dead and the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit of the Most High God, rather than serving elemental spirits and angelic gods. The other spirits do exist, we know this, yet we are freed from slavery to them as lordship of Jesus Christ supersedes any lesser mastery over us. God Himself, the Father of Jesus, in sovereignty over us frees us to serve only the Father who is God.  This is eternal life.

The lord’s day

 When Jesus said, “the Son of Man is lord of the sabbath” it was clearly the seventh day (which we call Saturday) that He meant. The true lord’s day is clearly the day of which Jesus is lord, hence the seventh day sabbath is the lord’s day. 

Love peace

 So much focus towards aggression, violence and war, even thoughts of total war, as a means of rebirth and of fixing economic woes, but the message from heaven is to move the focus away from involvement in violence and seek to be stablished in peace, turning swords into ploughshares as the ultimate mark of maturity, with violence and warfare being as temporary a measure as possible. The sheep receive heavenly protection from the wolves and eagles, as a billy-goat is given to the sheep to stave off the wolves and eagles, until the great shepherd comes. King David was not permitted to build God’s temple because he shed too much blood. Solomon his son was a more peaceloving king full of wisdom and he could build the temple in peace.

Woe

 Where are the true believers who do not hate other believers? True believers repent of any hatred of a believer. They do not try to justify their hatred. We in the West live in a sea of hatred and haters, lies and liars. Woe.

Trust and worship

 Distinguish between the wind and rain elements and the Father God who commands them when we ask Him to bring about our prayers. Praying to God with faith or commanding Nature with faith without doubt is a way to know when we are bowing to God rather than bowing to the elemental forces around us in the Nature which are subject to God’s authority. We are commanded, in Christ, to refrain from bowing to elemental forces of Nature and natural elements. We instead must bow our attitude and target our service and servitude towards God the Father. So we can focus our trust in God as we pray and our service can follow the answers to prayer from God. 

Trust

 The Father, God, is to be trusted. You, or anyone who trusts God, can command Nature and, through God the Father, your command will be obeyed if you believe without doubting. This Father is fully righteous in His teachings of love for those around us, especially believers, and in saving the day for such folk wisely and powerfully. Trust God. Jesus has this faith too and uses it miraculously. Trust also Jesus. Jesus Christ, the living Lord, having emerged triumphant, the one begotten Son of God, is the firstborn from the dead. His powerful name drives Nature. Trust Jesus. 

Having emerged triumphant

 Jesus Christ, the living Lord, having emerged triumphant, the one begotten Son of God, is the firstborn from the dead.

That eagle circling overhead

 “They have made kings for themselves, but not by me: they have ruled, but they did not make it known to me: of their silver and their gold they have made images to themselves, that they might be destroyed.” Hosea 8:4 

When will we say enough, giving power to people who only lead us into war or try to incite war in their belligerence?  When will we let God Almighty, Father of Lord Jesus Christ guide us in our appointment of our rulers? That eagle of war just keeps on circling over our heads. 

The dead who suffer and the living who suffer

 We see times of tribulation starting but we should remember that there are billions of the dead in torment in their spirit state in Hades too, now and continuing like that for the next thousand years. The living have tribulation but so do many of the dead. For us, now is the time we are alive, and in this time it is best for us to notice and help those who are suffering because they are poor, because we can actually do something to alleviate their suffering, lest we too end up in tribulation after death, as bad as tribulation many will suffer while still alive.

The wars

Do not be discouraged at the wars. The Father must deal with the way we fall short of the heavenly standards. It is grim but it must happen because we are too slow to repent of monstrous things we do. The natural way is not like this. Nature does not grieve God like us humans do. We especially grieve God, those who under the covenant with God, those whose wrong-doing is all the more grievous to God and to Lord Jesus because it violates God’s holy covenant. The trees and planets keep to their obedient order of natural, God-ordained behaviour because the name of the Lord Jesus Christ keeps that order powerfully maintained. So awful that we are under this cloud of war because humans fail to even live up to Nature’s faithfulness, certainly failing to live up to Lord Jesus the Christ’s faithfulness. Jesus wants us under His protection so that we can rest from our warring and self-protection. Have faith in Him. Let His wings shelter you. Those of you who trust God, trust Jesus too. The Father is God and Jesus rests in the Father’s protection. Rest in Jesus’ protection and cease from sinning lest your end be grim.

Pharma

 If only pharma workers would repent. Mostly they won’t, says the Spirit of prophecy in Revelation, but if they don’t they will end up grimly, says Jesus and the Father. (Revelation 21 and 22.)

Not long now

 Before God judges the world He first requires that His angels identify and mark the truly religious so they are not harmed when the trees and grass are destroyed. Then the true Apocalypse begins.

Know the forces

 Besides the ongoing influences of both God and Satan all around us, there are two forces important to know are there: there are those rulers who exercise their power under Jesus, the lord alive and right next to God Himself, and then there are those rulers under influence of the seventieth angelic shepherd who for forty years will destroy the righteous in persecutions. Know the difference.

Mushroom clouds

 For many in the world a mushroom cloud is something we see in action movies. Growing up I had to regard it as the ultimate threat, the ultimate doom, as I lived through the seventies and eighties under the shadow of the Cold War. When I met God in the nineties He turned it into a prophetic likelihood of the outcome of sin. It became for me a symbol of the ultimate destination of the way children, supposedly of God, the spiritual Israel of God, miss the true path, missing the way of love and follow a path of sin and ensuing judgment. Israel has sinned, I was told in a vision from God. The result is looming war and the eagle of war, dark with its white watching eye, flying overhead, while generals thrash out their analyses and war plans down below, until the horizon is finally haunted by the rise of the mushroom cloud and the sight of military jets fly towards us away from that cloud. This was in the nineties on a day that subsequently saw the news announce the start of spy plane trips from the US to the Balkans before war broke out a little later and since then mass surveillance has become the norm. Today the mushroom cloud threat looms larger. Why? Because still the path we follow despite our heritage as children of God, as Israel, is a path of sin. Many were revived into proclaiming in social media the commands and teachings of God in love for God, yet the words fell on deaf ears, were read by blind minds. Teachings of God are still banned in schools. Governments still lead us down hypocritical blind alleys. God gave us all a lamb of perfection in a sacrifice of His Son but do we love God back? Not enough, it seems. That eagle is still overhead, watching.

How Christian is a tree?

 How Christian is a tree? Answer: very Christian, and that is how it grows and buds and produces leaves.

When I was young I learned in Biology classes about the biochemical cycles of plants and their photosynthesis. It compelled me towards a university degree in Biochemistry, in which I was bitterly disappointed. The true instruction we might seek comes not from the wise of this world who know not God and who keep not God in their knowledge. God selects, elects, some of us to be instructed in His creation by the Holy Spirit. Such a privilege. The Holy Spirit gives instruction through spiritual gifts such as messages given in angelic language and supernaturally interpreted - gifts known in scripture as the charismata. It is by such gifts that I was once instructed about the trees, and planets and the creations such as these, that the tree buds do their growing and the planets do their moving through the power of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. To my mind it is as though Natural things are really deep down in their workings effectively Christian. The name of Jesus is the true facts that Jesus is a faithful witness of the fatherhood of God and that Jesus is firstborn of the children in the family God fathers as His own. The Lord Jesus bears witness having risen from the dead, alive forever. This and Jesus’ teachings and ways and miraculous works are all part and parcel of His name, what He stands for and is known for. This underpins the very fabric of Nature and keeps the planet going round. To have such instruction is a great privilege and is a sign of election. Living up to this can make it sure. Hold to Jesus’ teachings, believing who He is. That is the way that leads to all truth. The truth sets free from sin’s dominion. This leads to eternal life, eternal life which is in Jesus the Son of God. The ancient prophet Enoch foretold these things and wrote about the angelic oath underpinning Nature and the weaving of the name of the Son of Man into this oath. Only together with us is Enoch now made perfect. Enoch is with us in our fellowship as we hear these instructive counsels from the Holy Spirit in our churches or read them and receive them in the persuasion of faith. 

Dabela the billy goat

 The Enoch prophecy of the dabela or billy goat is a little known prophecy of our times or near future times. The Book of Enoch was preserved mainly and most completely in the sacred ancient Ethiopian language Ge’ez, similar to Hebrew but written in Amharic-like script. This made it hard for Westerners to translate it two hundred years ago and the Ge’ez word for billy-goat, or he-goat was left untranslated as dabela. The prophecy foretold future events using analogy of animals for key people, where sheep are the righteous, other domestic animals are innocent in comparison to fierce aggressors known for unbridled oppressive violence which are depicted as preying animals such as lions and eagles. So a he-goat is a strong defensively aggressive but relatively innocent ruler. The prophecy of end times shows sheep being widely persecuted and living under threat and frequent attacks from eagles and other birds of prey attacking from above but there arises a protecting champion for them who rebuts the attackers and cannot be defeated even when all the world seems to try to destroy him. A sword is given to help the fending off of attackers and to defend the sheep against oppressors. Eventually heaven comes to his aid. This is all part of events leading up to a time of heavenly judgment and the rise of righteousness and judgment of angelic dark forces which are behind the persecutions. This has strong consistency with events today. 

Inscriptions

 In March/April 2018, in an archaeological review in the Biblical Archaeology Review journal, a team published the finding of a seal in a archaeological dig in Jerusalem bearing the name of Isaiah from the eighth century BC. It bears the Hebrew text transliterated “leyesha‘yah[u]” which means ‘belonging to Isaiah’. In the book of Isaiah in scripture the prophet foretold (chapter 8) that he and his children were signs of salvation coming in the future from God. The names of the children of Isaiah had prophetic meanings as signs and therefore it implies that Isaiah foretold his own name being a sign too. His name indeed means ‘Yah saves’, yesha‘yah[u], but more that, the one foretold by Isaiah is a Christ and possibly a son of either a maiden or a virgin, but the fact that Jesus bore the name Yesha is significant here. Roll forward a thousand years to a sarcophagus in Cyprus, in Larnaca. The Byzantine emperor Leo VI found this sarcophagus and tomb in 890 AD with the inscription “Lazarus, four days dead, friend of Christ”. It had been lost during the centuries of Arab occupation of Cyprus but Leo had the remains contained in it moved to Constantinople but a church building, the Church of Saint Lazarus was built to house the sarcophagus which can be seen today. Two inscriptions. They intersect on the person Jesus Christ and the raising of Lazarus from the dead and the promise this held, first of Jesus rising from the dead a little time afterwards, and then of a resurrection in the future of all who are worthy of it. Salvation is the meaning of Jesus’ name. Yet another thousand or so years later to the present day and Jesus reveals himself to believers and even to me by spiritually interacting with us in ways that imprint upon us awareness that he is alive still and just the same as the Jesus we read about in gospels such as that of the apostle John. This is like a further inscription but one of faith imprinted in the human heart. It tells of the veracity of accounts such as John’s which carry the records of words and teachings and commands of Jesus by adherence to which we can show love of Jesus and get to meet him ourselves. That is the salvation way foretold by Isaiah that saves the people of God from their sins. 

Serving the Lord

 Power is not a bad thing per se. We are each obliged to obey lords over us. Even without such lords, we are still obliged to obey and serve our hidden lord, who is Jesus Christ. We might find we have clarity in how duties are allotted to us. Personally I found myself in my twenties working in local government in ‘public service’. Public service is a wordly, diplomatic euphemism because really to service duty of public servants, at any level, is collectively and maybe individually to the ultimate lord. Those in public service make profit from receiving taxes and providing services and seeking efficiencies in how this is carried out. We might improve the profitability and productivity of our work, whether in private sector work or public service, by maturing our methods and improving them continually. Then we have something to provide for needs of fellow humans. This is a service not only to society but to the lord, if we seek to serve this lord in doing all this. Virtue improves this. Faith inspires it and fuels and motivates it. Difficulties improve character which further improve our work and work ethic, if we endure those difficulties graciously. Knowhow can be fostered with self-study, organised training, reading, research and experimentation. Human kindness and consideration based on a godly way of life can help greatly to keep us productive. Personally my productivity was hugely increased by gaining direct spiritual experience of God through following Christ’s teachings. I suddenly went from local government office work to developing technology and laws for public procurement around the world. I am sure this was the grace of God. Love is the topmost piece of the pyramid of productivity, doing the best we can for colleagues, public and even mankind in general. The lord receives this service. He rewards it by assigning us spiritual duties, heavenly domain work. Putting life and soul into our service, wholeheartedly, leads to a fulfilling life and career and good standing and hope. 

When a new Empire arises

 Zion is more than an ideal or a symbol. We have in the world today a glory of empire days of first Rome with its dominus status and its Renaissance, which gave way, in a shifting of power to other parts of Europe, with multiple empires rising with the Holy Roman Empire, and then successive empires continuing in its wake. Coronations in these empires have all been glorious. Even in the wake of waning empires, vestiges of that past glory remains. Globalisation distributes that glory around the world and magnifies its skill. technology and spirited positivity. Yet this is nothing like the new coming empire which will arise after the dark empires have had their day. Today we have the darkness of night which will last a while longer and our children might see the worst of it. That continuing darkness will have glory in its evoking of past empires and its reviving of their futility and vanity, with great fanfare and flourish. Yet there is coming a Zion. A new kind of Israel, not based on any worldly state but on a promise, will gain the status of having a great coronation. The true Israel will come out from the Babylon of past empires and their heirs. This new Israel, which already exists invisibly, will have as its king the anointed one appointed to be son of God on Earth, the true Christ. The coronation glory will outshine anything before. Yet the rising empire of this new king, the lord we know to be Jesus Christ, will not be meek and mild but powerful to the overthrowing of dark powers and setting aside of blind guides. Terrible in might, glorious in wisdom, truth and love. Darkness will perish and shadows vanish. A true way of holiness will be established to truly last. This will be a Zion. It will be the rule of all under subjection to God Himself brought about by the rule of the only begotten of God. Come Lord Jesus. 

Heavenly places

 Magma chambers. Crystal caves. Giant geodes. Inner places within the world’s mountains and volcanoes. Crystal-lined walls. Smooth walls. Jagged walls. Lava flows. Rivers of fire. Rivers of water. Darkness. Underground light. Great heat. Coolness. All these aspects of the innermost structures of Nature as it occurs deep beneath the hidden roots pf mountains and the Earth’s unseen crust. We find all this in ancient scripture endorsed by Jesus Christ as essential reading. The Book of Enoch evokes all of these geological phenomena when describing places of heavenly and earthly spirits, God, the Son of Man, angels and human ghosts. Wonder where heaven is? Wonder where God is? Wonder where the dead go as ghosts? The answers might surprise you. 

The Future

 You notice how troubles are happening in rapid succession. It behoves the things of the last days to happen quickly and not to linger. It is like tearing off a wound dressing. Short sharp shock so there is no time for dread. These days are a build up. The deaths by pestilence. The conquering tyrant. The trees burning. The volcanoes erupting. The weather changing. There are going to be more trees burning till it brings on a reduction in sunlight around the world and crop failures as smoke from burning trees and grass fills the atmosphere worldwide. The pestilences will be frequent. The conquests intensive. The inflation and financial depression miserable. The rise of the Middle East and Eastern Europe and Balkans will be shocking. Even Israel will fall into its clutches. The preaching from Israel will not just shock Israel with revelations of truth but will torment the global public. The bad treatment of the preachers will bring wrathful earthquakes from so deep in the planet that globally widespread destructions will result. A dystopia will follow and there will be terrible consequences of going much too far with human ‘progress’. The end game scenarios we all watched in futuristic movies will be all too real. The rising empires will be tyrannical like none before them and more will die from tyranny and dystopian laws than ever in history. Then the one man who can rule rightly will come, Jesus Christ sent again by God. Only Jesus Christ can worthily be authoritarian without being dishonest or hypocritical. Come Lord Jesus.  

Truthfulness

In times of lies, make truth your native tongue.

The spirit powers are rather beyond our understanding and imagination, and science does not help us here because scientific materialism tells us they do not exist. They exist. Some spirit powers are good, in particular the being we call The Father, The Almighty, God. Some spirit powers are not good, in particular a power being we call Satan. God is truthful. Satan is notorious for lies, the father of lies and liars. In a time such as this. Let’s be honest here, it could be said of any time. In times of lies, we could take the worst path and just keep in with lying and with liars. The end of that path is highly undesirable, unless you love the fire. There is another path. It might take an act of God to start you upon it. It takes conviction and that comes best from lessons given by God’s power that comes from Heaven. It is the conviction of lies being unworthy and deprecated, and of pride being deprecated too, when it leads us to lie. Heaven-ordained discipline can persuade us of this, powerfully imparted by conviction by the spirit of God. The truth of the news that Christ Jesus died for you on the cross is a powerful message that came make way for this powerful discipline. Lies bad. Lies unworthy of Heavenly endorsement. Truthful honesty good. Truthful candour and humility receives endorsement of heaven-sent power and wellbeing. This is the way that leads to life. Few there are who find it. Be humble. Admit your need. Allow your standing before God to be real in sober self-judgment and self-awareness. Then hear it that Christ died for you and is raised by God from the dead to improve your prospects. Then let the power from heaven persuade you to stop lying and practice only telling the truth, to make truth your native language by a change of your inner behaviour-driving mentality and intentions. Train yourself to consciously tell only the truth despite your proud urges to gain admiration by deception. In the grace of God it can become your nature. It can become your language. Lying can become a foreign language. 

Restoration

 There are various kinds of people shouting out vehemence against Russia right now. Clearly some voices rise above others. God is above the vehemence, though and we should not confuse ourselves into thinking God takes sides along partisan lines. God’s love comes alongside even those we tend to readily condemn. God looks at the accused the way Jesus looked at the woman caught in adultery when Jesus said “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone”. It is horrific to have the crowd baying for your blood but Jesus did not side with that crowd but sided with restoration of the one accused. Then come the words, “If you adhere to my words you are truly my disciple”. It is not the one who shouts Lord, Lord who is the true disciple but the one who gives Jesus’ words central place in their thinking who is set free by being a true follower of Jesus Christ. “Go and sin no more.”

Leave Request

 A leave request: Brexit might be more complete by leaving NATO too. It might even save the world from WW III. “Come out and be separate.”

Spiritual things

 To understand death, disease, guilt, life, wellbeing, wrongdoing, debt on a cosmic ledger, and creditability on a cosmic ledger, you must accept the existence of immaterial things invisible to science such as soul, cosmic ledger or rights and wrongs extending beyond our lifespan, persistence soul and spirit and consciousness long after death, sacrifice for sins and its efficacy, divinities keeping records of right and wrongful actions and knowing which is which, resurrection possibilities, final judgement and judgments and karma in this life and afterlife, all things hidden from a mind trapped in scientism and scientific materialism.

Spirits

The scriptures were written for an audience who knew what spirits are. They knew about three kinds of spirits. More ancient scriptures show this. They knew about 1) ghosts = spirits of humans, 2) gods = spirits of non-human and non-animal beings (like ghosts which have never had a human existence or animal existence), and 3) partial human, partial god spirits. Cuneiform symbols capture this knowledge. There is a symbol for ghost, a symbol for deity, and a symbol combining the two. Scientific materialists have forbidden this belief in the last century or so. Obviously not everyone believes scientific materialists. A subset of non-human spirits is elemental spirits. Elements of nature have spirits. This is behind a lot of pagan ritual but also forms part of godly life, as seen is weird passages of scripture and mysterious doctrines such as some of the more mysterious things sometimes commanded by God. A concept or quality can have an essence which has a spirit. 

Ezekiel and Kievan Rus'

Israel lobbying is to some extent driven by scripture understanding, prone to misunderstanding. It has huge influence on US and UK foreign policy. Iraq war. Intentions against Iran. Lybia invasion. Palestinians. And now attitude towards Russia. Key to some of this is clearly a prophecy in the scripture book of Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39. One influential conservative evangelical book I read as a teen in the 1980s told me to interpret Ezekiel 38 and 39 as a future invasion against Israel by countries it lists. In that list is Persia. Clearly, the book says, this is Iran. The writer became famous in Israel. Lance Lambert. In the UK many conservative evangelicals read the book and were inspired to lobby based on its interpretation of Ezekiel. Lobbyists seem to want the countries listed to be preemptively attacked by US and UK. Look at how this has influenced wars. The list includes Iraq, Libya, Syria, Iran, Egypt, and all because interpretations of Ezekiel’s prophecy point to these as modern equivalents of names given during Ancient Greece times. Also in that prophecy is mention of ‘prince of Ros, Meshech, and Tubal’ (Ezekiel 38:1-3, 39:1). The ‘understanding’ in the conservative evangelical view of this is that it points at Russia. Ros (Rosh) being Russia, Tubal being Tublinsk, Meshech being Moscow. Could it really be that influence on wars and attitudes driving Western countries towards wars, led by US and UK, influenced by lobbying, has been based on how this list of Ezekiel future enemies of Israel is interpreted? It seems so. Now Russia gets singled out. Nobody wonders if the interpretation is wrong. Yet nobody involved is asking what history tells us about possible meanings of ‘Prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal’. Rus was possibly (etymology is not an exact science) an ancient Greek term for a people of Eastern Europe and for a taxation system associated with them. The term over the centuries was used for a region based, not on Russia, but on Ukraine, Kiev in particular. It was for centuries called Kievan Rus. The people known as the Rus might have included descendants of Eastern European Scythians, Tartars Cossacks, but also, perhaps most of all, the Vikings who used that region for trade. They had very fierce warriors in Byzantine times. Belarus and Russia have Rus in their names today but the historical leader of the Rus region was Kiev, Ukraine. Could the focus today on Rus as apocalyptic Armageddon future enemy of Israel be behind the current Western Russophobia? Could this all be because of a misunderstanding of Ezekiel 38/39? How awful if WW III starts from a misunderstanding of a prophecy.

The New Testament

Can we igmore a loved one’s last will and testament? What about the Lord’s? The will and testament of Jesus Christ from before the awful crucifixion? It was a crucifixion endured for us. Can we ignore the will left behind to us, for us to keep, as recorded in the gospel of John? Love one another while Jesus is gone. He will not be gone forever. Risen from the dead just days after dying, now with the Father, yet that last will and testament is enshrined as holy writ, we call the New Testament of the Bible after it. If a believer is in charge of a country at war with a country seeking a treaty with us, are we to forget the testament of Jesus Christ and hate that believer? God’s fellowship is promised to us in the will, if we keep its terms. Should we forfeit that fellowship and that of God’s beloved Son? No. God forbid.   

Secret of God

 As Jesus said, those who love God are those who keep the teachings of God taught by Jesus, and to these people God shows himself, and Jesus shows himself. 

Topmost authority

 There are spirits, despite what materialists say. There is a mighty spirit who is God over spirits and ultimate Creator. This is the Father. There is another spirit who is a human who is the begotten son, the only begotten son, of this Father. This human spirit is Lord in nature, having topmost authority in Nature under this one God the Father. This lordship can be experienced directly in how this lord, this master over the believers, can interact with us in utmost authority even over our innermost being. This Lord has the fullest backing and love and favour of the Father. Nature bows to this authority, the authority of this Lord’s name, standing, ways, teachings and reputation. This Lord is Jesus Christ, whom evil men crucified but God raised from the dead to live forever. Believe in God and believe also in Jesus. To know the truth about Jesus, follow Jesus’ teachings. They will set you free. 

Russophobia

 Russophobia is no good for anyone, especially no good for russophobes. Hatred clouds the mind and blurs the vision. It sucks people into wars in which their children suffer. It enslaves the haters. It blocks dialog and undermines diplomacy. The haters lose God’s favour and risk His protection.

The living and loving God and His Son

 Contrary to the opinions of some, God (the top one) does do a lot today and does it often: Mingling with believing disciples in fellowship with us, saving the day in small or big ways, answering prayers, making things turn out well for us, directing us to love one another. Likewise God’s Son. They (God and Jesus) thus fulfil Jesus’ last testament before dying for us. We love them by following their teachings, and they in turn live in fellowship with us by answering our prayers and showing us themselves. This is the New Testament today and forever. Ever real.