He Came as a Thief in the Night

Matthew 6:19-20 - King James Version (KJV) <19> Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: <20> But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: As we see, a flying creature and a red substance* have here been mentioned, moth and rust.  "Be it known that all the flying things mentioned in the Word signify things of the intellect, and consequently truths, and in the opposite sense falsities (n. 40, 745, 776, 778, 866, 988, 3219, 5149); but flying things of the lowest sort, which are insects, signify truths and in the opposite sense falsities, which are more ignoble and obscure in proportion as they belong to the sensuous, for these things are in total obscurity and darkness, being next the body, and consequently near to earthly things, where heavenly things terminate, and are immersed in thick darknes...

 Psalm 47:7 - King James Version (KJV) <7> For God is the King of all the earth: sing ye praises with understanding. There are many religious people who do not place much stock in understanding the truths of faith; but they did not learn this attitude problem from God. Speaking of God, 'God' is a predicate of truth, as is 'king'; and the 'earth' is the Church. As for 'praise', this signifies worship. So we are to worship our Lord as divine truth within the Church from the standpoint of understanding and practice.  Often one emphasizes here that neither I nor God nor the Church want you to be a servile wretch who assumes that something is true simply because someone has said it. Rather, your Father, your Mother, and any true servant of God want you to worship knowingly, and not apart from knowledge.  Philippians 1:9 - King James Version (KJV) <9> And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; And...

"Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works" (Ecclesiastes 9:7). One will touch on a number of subjects today, more of a variety platter, since this is Friday. This particular extract has been brought to your attention because it essentially restates the Sabbath day rest of marriage conjunction with which we closed yesterday*. *[All right, one has already mentioned that the angels do not marry and are not given in marriage because this is a human institution involving property, kids, and other things which simply do not apply in Heaven; lest this seem sophistry, consider the scenario that the Sadducees laid out for Him! For they evidently cared about the woman as PROPERTY of one or another of the men, the episode as a whole having been partly inspired by the apocryphal book of Tobit. So it is indeed true in this sense. But there is another and more special sense which everyone should understand. If you overcome i...

 We have seen how the fear of the Lord is "the beginning of knowledge". To this we add "the fear of the Lord is to hate evil: pride and arrogancy and the evil way" (Proverbs 8:13). The beginning of knowledge being love of good and fear of not aligning with divine order as to good and thereby not properly serving or even hurting the neighbor; so do we read in Hosea also: "Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days" (Hosea 3:5).  One draws your attention particularly to the "fear the Lord and his goodness" bit; which brings into sharp relief why the Church today teaches the doctrine of love as the fear of the Lord.  As should be evident, no fear of goodness could possibly involve mere terror or fear of punishment. This is the fear of wicked people, who are those whom only the fear of punishment restrains. The fear of those who fear the...

Earlier I referred to those who have historically taken advantage of the wretched by encouraging them en masse in opium addiction and then profiting enormously from their suffering and destruction as 'hell bound'. I did not say that they ended up in Hell but that they were "bound" (aimed) there. This is an important difference, and one which cannot be emphasized enough: to take advantage of the wretched in such a despicable way leads to Hell, just as unrepentant adultery and murderousness and even a generalized hatefulness leads there! But we have not been told if the likes of David Sassoon are currently imprisoned in Hell forever with people who lived similarly noxious and predatory lives.  Where are you now, David Sassoon? Where did you go? After your urgent appointment with the Chinese Empire and its most vulnerable, where did you go? While I suspect that where he went knocked the turban off, the point we need to remember here is that we do not decide whether someo...

 Taking of Jerusalem by the Crusaders by Emile Signol So, what's wrong with this picture? Well! It's certainly not the technique. The technique is stunning: look at the masterfully blended visual fields and the wealth of realistic detail. But what else do we see? The thing that sort of jumps out at you is the smoking buildings in the background and the dead bodies everywhere. Wow! Is this a Holy War or what! But actually, there is nothing holy about it, and a true Holy War has nothing to do with painting the town red at all, let alone doing so literally. This is more what a Holy War looks like, but more collective in its scope:  Proverbs 16:32 - King James Version (KJV) <32> He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. Let me just share a few extracts from a several decades later account of the Jerusalem massacre:  "No mercy was shown to anyone, and the whole place was flooded with the blood of the vi...

  John 16:7 - King James Version (KJV) <7> Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. You put that alongside this: "That the veil of the temple was rent in twain when the Lord suffered the cross (Matt. 27:51; Mark 15:38; Luke 23:45) signified His glorification; for when the Lord was in the world, He made His Human Divine truth; but when He departed out of the world, He made His Human Divine good, from which the Divine truth now proceeds" (Arcana Coelestia 9670). Mark 15:38 - King James Version (KJV) <38> And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. Luke 23:45 - King James Version (KJV) <45> And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst. And you put this alongside that:  Luke 23:44-45 - King James Version (KJV) <44> And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a ...