He Came as a Thief in the Night

Right, so one of the most important elements of our doctrines involves teaching people to pick up and tease meaning from relationships between Biblical images. We show you how they reverse, and how they associate in pairs. This is just a brief recap, so see the text "Image and image pair polarity in the Bible: a detailed guide". Now, the following verse is not contained in that text but follows the same pattern. There are, as we know, both positive and negative pairs of Biblical images, and the most famous of course would be bread and wine (good and truth) vs bread of iniquity and wine of violence (sin and error). So this verse to follow demonstrates the latter, sin and error:  Jeremiah 43:2 - King James Version <2> Then spake Azariah the son of Hoshaiah, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the proud men, saying unto Jeremiah, Thou speakest falsely: the Lord our God hath not sent thee to say, Go not into Egypt to sojourn there: As you can see, there is an association...

  Acts 17:29-30 - King James Version <29> Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. <30> And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: Romans 2:14-15 - King James Version <14> For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: <15> Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another; ) God provided that His commandments would be disseminated across the world in vessels appropriate to the cultures of the people concerned. These people were led to understand through various vessels that they were not to commit adultery, steal, murder, bear false witness, covet, or fail to support their par...

Someone afflicted with suicidal ideation once related that they didn't even want to kill themselves; effectively they had a nagging woman (or man, for that matter!) in their head haranguing them about something they personally didn't care too much about: self-harm. It is as though they were a mirror and a werewolf approached it, then went away. They recognised instinctively that the werewolf was not intrinsic to their mirror but alien to it, like another person who meant them harm. They experienced in effect a flood, a "rain", some swollen Jordan or fiery trial along the way. "A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike" (Proverbs 27:15).  "Then all the men of Judah and Benjamin gathered themselves together unto Jerusalem within three days. It was the ninth month, on the twentieth day of the month; and all the people sat in the street of the house of God, trembling because of this matter, and for the great rain" (Ezra...

The Bible contains numerous symbols, such as "oil", "bread", "wine", "milk", "salt", and so forth; like pieces on a chessboard, these images follow certain consistent and perceptible rules which occur in meaningful, dependable patterns. In general albeit with certain exceptions, a given image from the Bible will have a positive and a negative pole, a heads and a tails. One will demonstrate this pattern using the image "leaven": Matthew 13:33 - King James Version <33> Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened. Matthew 16:6 - King James Version <6> Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. In the first verse, we see positive or heads "leaven"; whereas in the second verse we see negative or tails "leaven". A second, depend...

  1 John 4:18 - King James Version <18> There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. Matthew 24:6 - King James Version <6> And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. This commandment not to fear is one of the more extraordinary features of Christianity. We are not to be troubled about the morrow, as we read in the Sermon on the Mount. Again and again it is reiterated. And look what it says: "perfect love casteth out fear". That means if you get afraid and worried that is an indicator of your personally not possessing that perfect love, be it even so that you are improving in it. How it works: Jesus does not necessarily answer questions we have about the terrible troubles of this world, its wars and tumults and pestilences. But the presence of His Spirit bypasses that middle man of d...

  "The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats, followed by analysis Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand.  The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out  When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi  Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man,  A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,  Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it  Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.  The darkness drops again; but now I know  That twenty centuries of stony sleep  Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,  And what rough beast, its hour come...

In <<Apocalypse Revealed>> we read, "they who are in evil are angry, and they who are in falsity are in wrath" (AR635). Here we see the customary association between good and truth or, as in this case, evil and falsity. As everyday life confirms, people do not simply get angry all by itself; rather, their anger exists alongside some target or other, someone or something upon which their anger so to speak condenses and with which their anger has a kind of marriage. We see a similar association when fantasy accompanies lust, and we may say in both cases that our anger or lust gets wallpapered over by the objects of our anger or lust. In this regard, consider the following verses. 1 Peter 5:8 - King James Version <8> Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Galatians 5:15 - King James Version <15> But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of an...