Bread of adversity, water of affliction: Isaiah 30:20-28

 "20 And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers:

21 And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left" (Isaiah 30:20-21).

People willing to be instructed in the application of truths of faith to evils of heart will experience unpleasant trials, bread of adversity being the spirit of burning or the trial by fire or the furnace; and water of affliction being the spirit of judgment or the trial by water or the flood. We may also see the bread of adversity as the purification of gold or the cleaning of the platter on the inside and the out; and we may see the water of affliction as the purification of silver or the cleaning of the cup inside and out. All of these designations have been precisely aligned.

"When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning" (Isaiah 4:4). 

This verse, the source of the above reference to spirit of burning and spirit of judgment, has also been precisely aligned, the spirit of burning with the purification of the heart from filth, which filth is sin against God and the neighbor; and the spirit of judgment with the purification of the mind from blood, which blood is violence to the uncut stone of divine truth. 

"20 And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers" (Isaiah 30:20). 

Although you will find temptation as to your heart, bread of adversity, unpleasant; and although you will find temptation as to your mind, water of affliction, unpleasant, yet will you will be instructed very solidly and lastingly amid that unpleasantness "if you be willing and obedient" (Isaiah 1:19).

It will not be a vague instruction in the slightest, but you will understand what is actually going on in spiritual life and the Word. Your eyes, your spiritual understanding, will be opened. Just as the young man's eyes was opened in response to the prayer of Elisha will your eyes be opened, if you be willing and obedient, not to some frail human being but to strength itself, our Everlasting Father.

"17 And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha" (2 Kings 6:17).

And the Lord opened the eyes of the willing and obedient who eat of the fat of the land, practicing the love of God and the neighbor, and they saw: and behold, the love of God and the neighbor was full of spiritual understandings and doctrines concerning the theory and practice of that love.

"21 And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left" (Isaiah 30:21).

And thy willing obedience to the truths of faith which come from Jesus Christ and into the occiput -- as it did when Mary in the garden and John on Patmos isle turned around at the voice of the Lord -- thence gets engraved on fleshy tablets of the heart.  And you will thus align with the Lord at the right hand, which involves becoming a person genuinely loving of God and the neighbor; and you will thus align with the Lord at the left hand, which involves becoming genuinely more understanding of loving God and the neighbor, worshipping in spirit and in truth.

"22 Ye shall defile also the covering of thy graven images of silver, and the ornament of thy molten images of gold: thou shalt cast them away as a menstruous cloth; thou shalt say unto it, Get thee hence" (Isaiah 30:22).

You shall come to regard the endarkening and shadows blighting your understanding with horror and rebuke the enemies in the gate with your quiver full of sons, truths from the Lord seized upon as the Lord Himself quoted verses in the wilderness in the bitterness of the moment of trial.

You shall come to regard the evil and love of self and the world blighting your heart with horror and rebuke the enemies in the gate with indignant love, choosing the good in the furnace of your heart. 

You shall rebuke sin and error and love of self and the world in yourself, regarding them as mere abomination and madness.

"23 Then shall he give the rain of thy seed, that thou shalt sow the ground withal; and bread of the increase of the earth, and it shall be fat and plenteous: in that day shall thy cattle feed in large pastures" (Isaiah 30:23).

Then shall He, noticing the nice clean cup, pour the rain of His truth in the vacuum left by departing falsity in the understanding. Then shall He orchestrate the application of these truths to your heart so as to foster love of God and the neighbor in abundance. And in that state of heart and mind of Sabbath peace the good desires of the heart, implanted there by the Lord in the nice clean platter, will be nourished by broad ("large" in some translations) and broadening understanding.

"24 The oxen likewise and the young asses that ear the ground shall eat clean provender, which hath been winnowed with the shovel and with the fan" (Isaiah 30:24).

Even as the Lord will bless the spiritual interior of the regenerated believer with the implantation of good and truth in abundance; so will the Lord also bless the spiritual exterior in natural life of the everyday mind and heart, pouring fertilizer on our outermost feelings and thoughts; which are known as ultimates, the "Last" or "Omega" part in the Lord's dictum "the First and the Last" (Isaiah 44:6; Revelation 22:13). 

"25 And there shall be upon every high mountain, and upon every high hill, rivers and streams of waters in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall" (Isaiah 30:25).

When the high mountain of your heart has been humbled, when the towers of love of self and the hills of ideation supportive of the love of self have fallen, then will the love of God flow unhindered into your heart; then will the enlightenment of God flow unhindered into your mind. 

For there is a state of great slaughter of sin and error so as to admit the influx and inplantation of good and truth from the Lord. For once the Canaanites which are evils in the will and the Perizzites which are shadows in the understanding have been driven out, then the good desires from Jehovah and the true thoughts of God will flow in in abundance. 

"26 Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound" (Isaiah 30:26).

And the moon shall be bright with spiritual enlightenment imbued with love; and the sun of holy compassion will marry that moon of enlightenment as the purified heart marries the purified mind, which establishes the Heavenly marriage in the hearts and minds of regenerating individuals and New Churches. And the state of separation of charity and faith which is a state of breach was thus repaired by the Lord through the conjunction of the same in its place.

"27 Behold, the name of the Lord cometh from far, burning with his anger, and the burden thereof is heavy: his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire" (Isaiah 30:27).

Behold, the quality of the Lord is contrary to the quality of the Old Church strange woman Whore of Babylon; which contrariness proceeds not from the will of the Lord but from the choice by those who were formerly sincere believers imbued with love and light of their contraries sin and darkness. And the love of God perishes in the angry, evil hearts of the strange woman's congregation. And their tongues, which preach mere falsehoods, are the self-inflicted perishing of divine truth in their mouths.

"And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth" (Zechariah 14:12).

For the evils of the strange women, the towers of Babel which are any and all systems of religious domination from the love of self and the world, shall damn their hearts; and the falsehoods of the Whores of Babylon will consume their spiritual understandings both internally in the mind and in their external preaching also.

"28 And his breath, as an overflowing stream, shall reach to the midst of the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of vanity: and there shall be a bridle in the jaws of the people, causing them to err" Isaiah 30:28).

The reference to overflowing "to the midst of the neck" indicates that the sin of error of those who claim to be the righteous and enlightened Church of the Lord but are only another Old Church, another strange woman, another whore, will be so severely sinful and false as to preclude conjunction with Jesus Christ; which is the abomination of desolation, the utter death of love of God and the neighbor and the ideation thereof in the Kingdom.

And I looked, and there was no man. There was no righteous man in the congregation of the Whore, but rather there were satyrs. There was none understanding in them, and they were utterly endarkened; and in the place of the doves of dawn there hooted the owls of the night. 

" 7 But it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light" (Zechariah 14:7).

But it shall come to pass, that when one Church turns into the inversion of the Church, a mere anti-Church and Whore of Babylon and strange woman; that another Church will be at its dawn and its birth, just as the disciples worshipped God in the dawn of Christianity amid the night of the Church of Sinai where Jehovah God was worshipped only outwardly, their interiors being full of all uncleanness (evil) and dead men's bones (falsity). 

"12 The watchman said, The morning cometh, and also the night: if ye will enquire, enquire ye: return, come" (Isaiah 21:12).

This is the drowning of the Nephilim and the survival of Noah's household on the ark. This is the drowning of Pharaoh's army and the crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites on dry ground. This is the death by extreme heat of love of self and the world of the Babylonian guards who thrust Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into the fiery furnace. This is the death of the Jewish Church and the birth of the Christian Church, the death of the Christian Church and the birth of the New Jerusalem. 

"If ye will enquire, enquire ye: return, come!"

Amen.