He Came as a Thief in the Night

One has off and on mentioned that the horse represents the understanding, and especially the spiritual understanding and that of the Word, so today we will take a closer look at that noble animal and the paraphernalia attached to it, being of course the chariot and the horseman. In brief, the horse represents understanding, the chariot doctrine, and the horseman intelligence; hence the numerous references to these three things. We are even to eat them, along with various captains and men of war, in the supper of the great God! This of course means making spiritual understanding, intelligence, and doctrine a part of our theory and practice and thus of our spiritual bodies. In Hosea the Word promises, "I will make Ephraim to ride" (10:11) -- that is, will teach Ephraim how to ride a horse -- which has been thus stated on account of what we have already covered, Ephraim as the intellectual faculty in the believer and the Church as a whole; vs Manasseh as the will faculty of the ...

The Church quintessentially involves the liberation of oneself and others from spiritual slavery and darkness with the application of the truths of faith to evils and excuses to commit them. But the worm of self-love ever gnaws at the vitals of anything remotely good, and that includes the Church, so that self-love and excuses for that love grow like mildew, mold, or other rot on or in the body of the Church. It is this process over time which has been dramatized in the siege of Jerusalem and the carrying away into captivity of its inhabitants to Babylon.  Broadly speaking, Babylon involves all inversion of religion which proceeds from the love of self and the world and aims at the domination of people with the writings and credit of the Church. Obviously, it helps along the domination of other people greatly if you manage to enslave and dumb them down, so this sort of spiritual totalitarianism inevitably involves both enslavement and endarkening. The End Times industry tends to in...

Yesterday we covered Babylon and Chaldea, which represent an inversion of the Church such that, as a Whore, it cares not about liberation but about enslavement; and not about enlightenment but about dumbing down. Today we will cover another sort of inversion of the Church, the reluctance of the Church to evangelize to those outside the Church. For one Church will differ from another in its willingness to share spiritual truth with the outsiders who are tossed about like dead leaves in a tornado for lack of just such words from the Father's mouth.  The book of Jonah especially highlights this reluctance of the Jewish pretend-Church to evangelize to the Gentiles, those outside its ranks. That the Lord did in fact want the Jewish Church to evangalize to the Gentiles may be seen quite clearly:  "Declare his glory among the heathen, his wonders among all people" (Psalms 96:3). Jonah, who represents the Jewish Church, receives the command from the Lord to warn Nineveh to turn f...

As stated, one wanted to explain sons and daughters differently this year; with reference to verses hinging on the numbers two and three. But in order to explain two and three, one had first to explain 'name'. So we will now jump into the verse one had in mind in order properly to substantiate these matters: "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matthew 18:20). The literal sense of this verse can be seen clearly enough. It does not matter if people meet in a large group or a small group, in a cathedral or by a river, in a forest or in a living room; because what matters to God is people hearing and doing the Word while facilitating the hearing and doing of the Word for others. God does not really care about fancy buildings: humans do. God does not really care about fancy rituals: humans do. If two people share bread and wine on a wooden pier or in a factory cafeteria, what matters is not the location but whether or...

In Leviticus we read: "46 This is the law of the beasts, and of the fowl, and of every living creature that moveth in the waters, and of every creature that creepeth upon the earth: 47 To make a difference between the unclean and the clean, and between the beast that may be eaten and the beast that may not be eaten" (Leviticus 11:46-47).  As the Church teaches, contemporary believers do need to obey the 10 commandments, both within themselves and in terms of their outward behavior and utterance; but do not need to care what clothing materials they wear or what animals or birds they eat. Still less do they need to burn cows to ashes or sacrifice doves.  Nonetheless, the Lord said: "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled" (Matthew 5:18). The correct way to construe this statement involves the spiritual meaning of the ceremonial and sacrificial laws which the Jews were told to observe. For instance, w...