He Came as a Thief in the Night

  Doctrine of the Moment There is an optimum time in your life to begin to believe. God does not inspire living belief in someone before that optimum time in order to protect them from serious spiritual consequences. "(1) A man may be admitted into the wisdom of spiritual things, and also into a love for them, and yet not be reformed. (2) If he afterwards recedes from them, and passes over into the opposite, he profanes holy things. (3) There are many kinds of profanation, but this is the worst kind of all. (4) Therefore the Lord admits man interiorly into the truths of wisdom and at the same time into the goods of love only so far as he can be kept in them until the end of his life" (Divine Providence 221). The key word here is "interiorly". People who grew up in the Church but merely mouthed religious expressions and went through religion motions do not commit the dire sin of profanation if they cease to do these things. Many people go through religious motions as...

In the Word you will often encounter the pattern A : b :: B : a, which is also known in the Far East as the Yin Yang. This pattern serves as a coatrack to hang up spiritual ideas, and it can be discerned in the following pairs without being limited just to these: Cain and Abel, Zara and Pharez, Manasseh and Ephraim, and Esau and Jacob. The symbolic character Cain, the first murderer, offered a bloodless sacrifice of fruits; whereas Abel, the first victim, offered a bloody sacrifice of livestock. Without going into particular detail here, Cain represents those who merely want to believe in things of the Church intellectually without practicing them in their actual lives. So such a person would for instance memorise "He that hateth his brother is a murderer" while making no effort actually not to hate; because such people believe that Faith-alone-saves, which is a lie called separation of faith and works or the bride and bridegroom sounding no longer. If we see this relationshi...

The drink offerings and cakes of Jeremiah ch. 44 are the inversions of understanding and righteousness, what the NT refers to on the positive side as "the wine of His new testament"; which is itself a veiled reference to the marriage or association between bread and wine, eating and drinking, behaviour and understanding be it good or evil internally or externally. If someone is proud and has an associated poor understanding like the "proud men" who said to Jeremiah, who spoke truly, "Thou speakest falsely" they therefore, being interpreted, made cakes to worship her and poured drink offerings to her. The Queen of Heaven herself is a figure that signifies the sum of all spiritual errors, for stars signify the knowledges of righteousness and understanding; lest this crucial matter seem at all obscure, these knowledges are what divide and multiply when fructified by the presence of God's love and wisdom in a conjunction relationship within the believer wh...

  Isaiah 1:21 - King James Version (KJV) <21> How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers. This is the basic coatrack on which all of the prophecies are hung like so many hats in their appropriate places. This is the Full and Empty of the Lord's Churches, which rise and fall in a predictable cycle akin to the course of daylight or the change in seasons. Hence does the Word frequently refer to the rise and degeneration of the charity in the Church using imagery of day to night and spring to winter. As to this charity or love "upon which the law and prophets hang" (Matthew 22:40), charity is doing good because it is good to do so, and telling the truth because it is true, while doing the work of one's calling sincerely, faithfully and well in a spirit of service towards God and the neighbour. But when people no longer have charity, what they do instead is called  "murder", "theft...

Believers undergo two types of interior trial without which they cannot regenerate, the trial by fire (which involves love and hate) and the trial by water (which involves truth and falsehood). Here are two verses indicating the existence of these trials side by side: "Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place" (Psalms 66:12). "And ofttimes it hath cast him into the fire, and into the waters, to destroy him: but if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us" (Mark 9:22). If you do not pass these trials by fire and water, then you do not overcome; if you do not overcome, then you do not go to Heaven. If you pass the trials by fire, then you have the seal of God in your hand; but if you do not pass the trials by fire, then you have the mark of the beast in your hand. If you pass the trials by water, then you have the seal of God in your forehead; but if you do...

With practice, people can weed the garden of their hearts with God so that there are fewer and fewer sexual fantasies 'married' to naked desire. Once people learn to experience sexual desire without automatically drowning in sexual fantasy, there can be an enormous drop in this sort of unconstructive thought. 1 Thessalonians 4:4 - King James Version (KJV) <4> That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; Sins are each like trees, and once we have learned to shun the trunk of those trees then God will certainly bring the branches to our attention. Once we have learned to overcome these, then He will bring the twigs to our attention. Everything is done in proper order and in a way appropriate to the particular person. Someone who has stopped murdering may yet need to learn how to gentle their tongues. Someone who has learned how to gentle their tongues may yet need to learn how to stop hating/murdering in their hearts. Someone who...

A particularly useful but neglected corner of Paul is the 3rd chapter of Ephesians, in which Paul gives careful instructions to the loving on how to interpret prophecy: Ephesians 3:16-19. Paul could not be more explicit: "that they may comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ"; explicit about what? About the supposed architectural dimensions of the temples described in Ezekiel and Revelation. Those who reject living water, as Jeremiah tells, carve them out cisterns which can hold no water. Those who reject living water make much of rebuilding a physical temple, but this is a cistern that can hold no water. It does no good to someone whose needs involve learning how to become humbler and more sincere, helpfuller and less seeking for a reward; but a temple made out of LOVE that is the Church does do good to someone with these pressing needs.  So, one noted that Ephesians ch. 3 is especially instruction...