That's not for us to know, who is saved and who isn't. We're simply to proclaim the Law of Christ, and the Gospel. It'd be a better world with Christ's law, than without it, and for those who have broken it, need Christ's blood shed as their sacrifice. But, Bishop might be right, because Ezekiel says that the other nations will cling to Israel at the last days, and be saved through them. It's a mystery. But Christ is the only way, and all other ways are thieves and liars. So the nations may come to believe, through us and our example. Or perhaps the Levitical Laws concerning slavery apply, that they'll be bondservants in the kingdom, instead of freemen. So long as they don't resist the gospel. As that's blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Jesus does say--less known--those who are not against us, are for us.
Category: Ministry
Tell Me Your Views on Love and God, I’ll Know Everything I Need to Know About You.
Analysis of Psalm 145
145 I will extol thee, my God, O king; and I will bless thy name for ever and ever.
So, the Psalmist—and those who read the psalm—will extol the LORD and bless His name forever.
2 Every day will I bless thee; and I will praise thy name for ever and ever.
The righteous, every day they should bless the LORD, and praise Him, through hardship and prosperity. Every day, they should put Him in remembrance.
3 Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable.’
So, we cannot search the LORD’s greatness. He is far above our understanding. Even the angels in heaven do not understand His power, but the Mighty Cherubim—the Beast and Dragon—who rebelled against the LORD, they will know the full extent of God’s power at the end, and will succumb to wrath. As will the nations who rebelled against the LORD.
4 One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts.
So, a generation shall put the LORD’s mercies in remembrance, and tell it to the next generation. Right now is like that. We see how far depraved the world is, and those of us who can remember the LORD’s goodness to the world, remind people of the better days. Which certainly don’t exist anymore. But the LORD will restore them.
5 I will speak of the glorious honour of thy majesty, and of thy wondrous works.
So, the saints will speak of the LORD’s honor, and His wondrous works.
6 And men shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts: and I will declare thy greatness.
And men shall speak of the LORD’s terrible acts. His judgments against the ungodly, and His utter destruction against the nations who do not wish to obey His law. As they create suffering by dishonoring it, so the LORD will destroy them utterly and finally, without fail.
7 They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness, and shall sing of thy righteousness.
And the righteous, who were victims of the LORD’s enemies, shall rejoice, and speak of the goodness of the LORD, in giving them victory over His enemies, and theirs.
8 The Lord is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy.
The LORD deals with the wicked slowly, slowly drawing them closer and closer to their destruction, being ever merciful toward them, and giving them every chance to repent. Until they finally fall, and He breaks them into pieces by their own crimes and actions, and the righteous take notice, and speak of the LORD’s mercies afterward, that the LORD delivers them from affliction, and has given His enemies their just reward for being evil, and it makes the LORD’s enemies go silent.
9 The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.
The LORD doesn’t wish to destroy the wicked, and is merciful with them, giving them every chance to repent, and turn from their wickedness, by bringing to mind the deep destruction of their crimes, and showing them the evil of their ways. He brings them into remembrance and uses the world to rebuke the ungodly, until they repent, or are destroyed.
10 All thy works shall praise thee, O Lord; and thy saints shall bless thee.
The LORD’s works shall praise Him. Everything the LORD works, shall praise Him. The wicked shall see their error, and know the deep suffering they’ve caused, and the righteous shall see the reward for being righteous, which is everlasting life in the Kingdom.
11 They shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom, and talk of thy power;
In the kingdom of heaven, they shall talk of the LORD’s glory, and His power, and His utter destruction of the ungodly for the sorrows they’ve caused, and He shall be praised.
12 To make known to the sons of men his mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of his kingdom.
So, we’re to make known the LORD’s dealings with falsehoods, and His judgments against the sinners, by destroying them utterly, and giving the Righteous reward in the Kingdom of Heaven.
13 Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endureth throughout all generations.
Heaven is an everlasting Kingdom, and Hell an everlasting reproach. The LORD will be magnified, that He destroyed the enemies of His people, Who hated them without cause, and did unspeakable evil to them, and He shall be above reproach, that the whole world shall know why they made their beds in hell, and why the LORD raised His saints above them.
14 The Lord upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up all those that be bowed down.
If you fall in your sin, or are made to stumble by the wicked, the LORD will uphold you, and keep you on the way. And when you’ve renounced your evil, which causes shame and suffering, HE shall lift you up, since you were bowed down under the oppression of God’s enemies, and their falsehoods.
15 The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season.
Everyone, even the wicked, wait upon the LORD for their meat. Anything you receive, whether in this life or the next, comes from the LORD. That which is obtained unlawfully, shall break your teeth, like gravel in your mouth, and that which you’ve worked for, and acquired righteously, shall be a diadem. The righteousness you worked shall be for a blessing, and a remembrance for your soul, and the wickedness wrought by your enemies, to put you to shame,---though they caused you to lose your earthly reward even,---shall be put to everlasting shame for the evils they have wrongfully committed against you.
16 Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing.
The wicked are satisfied, and the righteous. But the righteous to everlasting life, and the wicked to everlasting torment.
17 The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works.
The LORD gives to His enemies a little in this life, so they cannot say He was cruel to them, and the wicked He shall lay in the dust, and destroy. The righteous, though they may have mourned in this life, will be raised up on the Last Day and made triumphant over God’s enemies.
18 The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth.
So, if you’re being burdened by the sin of your culture, and being oppressed by unlawful deeds, the LORD will see you, and cause you to be protected and sheltered, even against the deep wickedness, and you shall be made to stand, and be whole. If you call upon Him in truth, all mysteries shall be revealed, and you will be revealed anything the LORD needs to reveal, in order to make you a home in His kingdom, should you call upon Him faithfully and in Truth.
19 He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him: he also will hear their cry, and will save them.
So, the wicked’s desires He fulfills for a short time, that they may be filled, and He just when He destroys them, and the righteous shall be satisfied with everlasting bread, fortune and love. The wicked shall be in everlasting torment, that they had recourse to repent, but failed to do so, and walked after the error of Cain, and tried to cause their brother to stumble in the way.
20 The Lord preserveth all them that love him: but all the wicked will he destroy.
The LORD preserves the righteous, Whom He loves. He gives them protection, and satisfies them with the finest grains, and the finest oils, and the finest wines. He doesn’t forsake them, that though they may sin and are not perfect, He rebukes them, and purges their iniquity in the flames of trial, and they come out like Gold, and He finally fulfills their desires like a waterbrook, and cleaves the rock and makes living waters flow from it. The wicked he will destroy through their own lusts even, and their own fatness and prosperity.
21 My mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord: and let all flesh bless his holy name for ever and ever.
And so for the LORD’s goodness, we shall rejoice in Him, in Zion, and shall be married to Her in righteousness, and peace and mercy, and shall be called “Faithful and Elect” and made an eternal heritage in the Kingdom, from which we cannot be moved.
The Garden of Eden
It is a historical parable--like when Suetonius tells his stories, or Plutarch--of man coming into judgment and knowing right from wrong. The serpent is Satan, the deceiver, tempting Adam and Eve in their innocence--before they know how to tell right from wrong--and causing them to commit sin, where the sin is coming into the knowledge of sin. The Nakedness is Adam and Eve without the knowledge of sin, so they don't know it's shameful yet, until they eat from the fruit, and then they know why sin is sin. That's ultimately the core of why God has to judge the world, too, is that we corrupted it through our knowledge, and why Christ says "Judge not lest you be judged." Because judgment is the first sin humans acquired, from eating the fruit.
On the Death Penalty in the Law
This is a very nuanced topic.
So, “Not on yote nor tiddle shall pass from the law until all is accomplished.” It says that in Matthew. So, we have to understand what Jesus did. Right? Jesus went to the Cross, and died for our sins. What’s He saving us from? What sins? Why does He have to save us? Those are the questions you should be asking.
So, the Law carries with it a death penalty. Like you just quoted. For being gay, for disobeying your parents, for breaking the Sabbath, for committing adultery. And those laws are still in effect. Yes. But there’s two everlasting Covenants. An Old Covenant—the Law you’re talking about—and the New Covenant—in Christ Jesus’ blood.
So, there’s two everlasting laws. The Old Covenant, which kills the soul because no man, save Jesus, could ever walk in it without being condemned to death. Then there’s the New Covenant, which is by the Grace of Mercy, that we follow the Spirit of the Law, and not the Letter. As the Spirit saves, but the Letter kills.
Now… why is this? Because the Law of Moses, didn’t produce the effects of righteousness. In fact, just the opposite, you had people who obeyed it ritualistically, while ignoring the general context of what the law was trying to accomplish—which was to save a soul and cause righteousness.
So… Christ saved us from that Law. He took it into His flesh, and died, and went to hell, and suffered our penalty. And then He raised from the dead. Also, He became our Sacrifice—that’s why we take Communion—and Baptism became our New Circumcision.
So, whatever sin you’ve done, it’s nailed into Christ Jesus. Meaning, we have mercy in Christ—not so we can sin, and break the Sabbath (Not have Rest in Christ Jesus) or Murder, or Blaspheme or be disobedient to our parents, but to have mercy until Christ rains righteousness down upon us, and gives us Mercy and Peace.
Philemon
Philemon actually is anti slavery. Jewish Law forbids returning an escaped slave to their owner, so Paul in effect restores Onesimus to freedom, and demonstrates Jewish Law is no more binding, but rather the Spirit of Grace, by returning him as a freed man and not as a slave. It demonstrates how Grace is not by the letter, but through the Spirit. And then Paul restores all his owed debts, demonstrating how Christ saves us even more. Onesimus actually becomes a pretty significant person in the early church, too.
On The Universe
The Greeks just thought it was infinite and always existed.
No, the great sages of the past all saw God's handiwork in Geometry. Some people don't understand even basic things, so that makes faith all the more important. I see the design in the universe when I study number and Euclid. Even Chemistry works through number and the four operations.
That's fundamentally what Newton expected to find, that if a God existed the laws of physics ought to be comprehensible. And he saw in Geometry a consistent language and if he found it in the very laws of the Universe it would have to be designed.
I don't think, either, it's right to say that the laws of physics just sprouted into being by chance. What they show, when you study them, is intricately complex webs of logic that all work perfectly together, which the only conclusion to have from that is a designer. And then language also shows that.
Some people don't comprehend addition or subtraction. Some people claim it's all made up by Western Whites. Some people claim there is no goodness. Some people claim there is nothing truly beautiful. All of those are false statements, but evade the intellect of our best minds. Due to stubbornness and politics, but it is the right conclusion that all of that objectively exists, and so does God. Which Christ is the only truly good God out of millions, so it must be Him.
Sermon 2
My, not Paul's teachings on marriage.
Listen, my brethren, to Paul, for marriage brings worldly sorrows. But, good worldly sorrows, for one then has company in this strange world, and recourse to expire worldly lusts. And a spiritual sister or brother, whom flesh binds with flesh, and a child springs forth into this world, sown between the fruits of two lovers.
If you cannot afford or fathom how to take care of your children, do not have sex. But, if your wife or husband have desire, satisfy it fully. And have the children, for God shall abundantly provide for a household sown in love. Sown in discord, it shall have curses, but in love, and peace, and no enmity or strife, there shall be fruitful fields and gardens, and springs, and wells, and rivers, and much fleshly lusts expired through the satisfaction of your mate.
Do not marry one of the same sex. Do not change your gender from your sex. For if you do that, you will surely die in the lake of fire. Until you divorce this strange spouse, and expire the lust completely, whether by castration, then so be it. Or by neutering, then so be it. Whether by plucking out your eyes, or ears, then so be it. My heart aches, that questions like these were not common for so many years, and yet now everyone is forced to ask them. Or, if you have no lust, you may remain whole, and not a Eunuch, but abide in peace.
If unmarried, the LORD shall bring you dreams if you need them. Wash, do not enter into battle, and your soul shall be purged of fleshly lusts. It is better not to have dreams, however. Also, do not be filthy Dreamers, looking for lusty ways to gratify your desires.
As for birth control, use whatever you wish, but maximize the pleasure. But, do not kill the seed, or the egg, or the fetus. That is my teaching, not Paul's.
Also, love your spouse as much as you can. Indulge in love, and feel love for one another. Drink deep of each other's cisterns and wells, in the love enjoined in the two through the fleshly covenant of marriage. Love her, deep love, and true love. Make heavenly peace the union you share with your spouse, and friendship felt most sincere. For if it is not this, you cannot be divorced.
Do not get divorced. Not for any reason, other than adultery. Any other reason, causes infidelity, and is wickedness.
Do not fantasize about anyone beside your spouse. And if you do not have a spouse, do not fantasize, but let your dreams purge worldly lusts. Do feel a bit guilty for dreams, however, as they are not good. But, do not feel like you have sinned, either. Only that you are unclean. But if you do have a spouse, fantasize about her often, for she is your soulmate, and she is whom God gave you as your portion in this life.
Have one spouse unto death, and if need be another in widowhood. And if your spouse has touched the flesh of adultery, you are made free.
Sermon 1
Brethren, Greetings in Philadelphia. I come to acknowledge that a great mischief has been wrought in the land. Men are being led astray to dismember themselves, and turn themselves into women. And women the same, fashion loins for themselves through strange science. There are women who exert their own rule over men. And men who see women as a lesser creature, and not with the soul of man. There is greed, concupiscence, and a fire about to be put out by Sin and its idolatry.
I say, these are evil times we live in, but it was asked, "How do we save Christianity?" For the heathen think we are about to perish, as they plot to take our liberty away, and kings strip the title of "Church" from their domains. We shall not perish, but be gathered to all the worlds, my brethren, and brought back to Zion. We save a man's soul through the law, and our sobriety. We walk in peace, and love, and charity toward our fellow man, and give right answers. So even the Heathen , when they are rebuked to their face, they know that it is because we love them, and not because we wish to harm them.
Hell exists, my brethren, and it is a comfort to me. For I see all the suffering caused by the heathen, and I weep at the disasters they reap, always causing distress to themselves and others, by stripping away that which is natural to man, and replacing it with something base and unkind. For they say "Consent" as if it were a word which granted them license to do all manner of evil. Can you consent to the destruction of your own soul? Surely you can, and it will reap the same vengeance as it did in this life, and there will be no pleasure in it in hell, when it is through.
As for heaven, Zion is Peace, and we obtain her through the arts of Kindness, Charity, Love, and Good Fruit. She is beautiful, so desire her like a comely maid. I do not know what heaven shall be, but take all the good you see in this life, and put your hopes there, for Satan will not allow you to have a good life, if he were able. If you have a good life, rejoice, but tremble for many are taken off the path of righteousness by worldly lucre.
The prophets are among us, and speaking, and the tabloids are running stories of insane conspiracies. Maybe they are true. Maybe they are not. In my own estimation, it is sin that is causing everything, and not the agency of man working destruction, but rather sinners with no knowledge of the good, trying to construct a "Better World" where their vision has nothing like love, charity or kindness, but rather has lust, greed and self-assertion. And this is the world they are creating, and the world rejoices in this new creation. And it shall, Christians, therefore seek to obtain Mercy as a Prize, for she is beautiful among all others, and she is one. Seek after Mercy, and Peace and Wisdom, and bind them to your bosom, and lie down with them in matrimony. Marry them to your soul, and you shall have all the worldly fruits for repentance and righteousness. And not the fruits of vanity and greed.
Brethren, Suicide is a grievous sin, and the heathen being so frustrated by our words, take their own lives, to spite us. For this cause, Brethren, keep preaching the truth, and you shall retain Mercy, and they hell. For the fires are quenched in them, of good fruit and spirits, and they have wedded to themselves Sin in Holy Matrimony. A marriage of sin and flesh, conjoined to the corruption of the State and corruption of the Soul. Therefore, preach repentance to them in kindness, so if they do die by our words, they were at least warmly entreated, and not harshly criticized. Preach to them in love, and not bitterness, envy or slander.
Also, keep back the storms of Antichrist, by watching the clouds moving in on the horizon. Know the times. Keep Peace in your hearts, and Wisdom, and Mercy, and Love, and Justice, and know the times we live in, are not good times. For, being so cursed upon the earth for a little while, the curse itself will save you, having not received your earthly reward--or perhaps you have lost it--you shall attain a better hope for the world to come, and all your sin purged from you, you shall be married in the land of Zion. And eat the Supper Feast with our LORD of the Fruit of Life, the Milk and Honey of Zion, and the Living Waters. It shall taste better than any earthly morsel, and greater still, shall be our cities and gold and mansions.
Brethren, keep at bay all sinful thoughts, all sinful lusts... and know I write a sermon not Scripture... for I write many sermons, and many words to you. Do not depart from the Sixty Six books of the Bible, but seek where it is written, and seek witnesses for yourselves among the Heathen, that confirm God's Word. Seek for wisdom, and refined by fire, you shall be tested as Gold come out of the furnace, and made a Holy Portion for the LORD. Don't commit suicide, but rather run the race, and many shall follow after you, and shall be tried in the same furnace as you, my loves. And perhaps, a holy sacrifice shall be left, of even worldly prosperity, and we shall be saved from the testing to come.
The Theodicy
Jesus’ entire ministry addresses the Theodicy, Alex. Literally, it’s just a way of saying, “There’s absurd suffering in this world, so believe in me, and you’ll go to a perfect one.”
Consider the theme of the Resurrection? How can man–who is incredibly fallible–live for eternity without suffering, without the perfect mind and body of Christ? How can there be peace without the Spirit? Obviously, the world is cruel, evil, destructive… God knows that, so He prepared a better one. The world was always that way, too, due to the fall. It wasn’t supposed to be a perfect world, and the days where we were supposed to make our lives here, ended when Babylon Sacked Jerusalem.
Like the real thing to think about, is how Sin causes suffering. And by elevating it to the top of the Pantheon–by making Sin the milieu–you’re causing even more suffering, not less. The Law is meant to help ease suffering, by giving a perfect statute, which will inevitably cause peace and tranquility, even in the face of natural disaster or misfortune. Because people will share one another’s burdens. But, with the Every Man for Himself routine, and the libertine mores regarding sexuality, we can’t find the things that cause human happiness, as all those avenues are blocked, and replaced with something dirty that cannot fulfill the true desires of mankind.