©Matt Hebert
"The Bond that Holds"
Bond:
(verb) to join or be joined securely to something else, typically by means of an adhesive substance, heat, or pressure.
(noun) an agreement with legal force, in particular.
(chemistry) any of several forces, especially the ionic bond, covalent bond and metallic bond, by which atoms or ions are bound in a molecule or crystal.
Day in and day out, minute by minute, hour after hour, week after week, year by year, I stare at a light, a very bright light at that, as I join two separate metallic objects that are bonded or united into being "one" object by welding them together. I'm a metal fabricator. I join two things into becoming one object. Bonding things either by words, metals or wood shares a very similar process of connecting things to make them hold or to stick together. For nearly 30 years now, I see things under my welding hood that elude many who are in a relationship with another (being paired with someone), marriage counselors included…not that I know more than a marriage counselor, I just "see" things in a different light of what must go into the preparing stages of making two things that are bonded together to last. There's a principle that's involved in the pairing of making two objects into one, and that's being that one of the substrates must be somewhat similar in either molecular composition or genetic composition. You can't breed a cat with a dog, you can't weld glass to metal and you can't get lemons from an apple tree. A truth cannot be composed of lies; a liar cannot be trusted in a covenant. A man cannot produce another human by being joined to another man. Life only comes when two come together and connect by a piece of the puzzle missing from making the two into one.
When joining two metals together, even though the components are new, they still have to be etched or cleaned to remove oxides and other impurities that find their way into the weld pool contaminating the weld if not removed. When two people first start out dating, they should come clean about anything they would have hidden in their past that could affect the other…things like un-repented criminal acts or even carrying a venereal disease just to name a couple. The more truth put into the beginning truly builds a foundation to weather the storms when they come…and they will come. Every relationship will be tested to see what the foundation is made up of, even the foundation of the image that Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream. The above piece required the joining of two stainless metals, yet different grades, one being 17-4 while the other was a 316 grade plate. Different metal grades require different welding procedures to ensure that the bond will last, especially when put under stress and this piece was a shaft for a mud motor, so it will be torqued quite a bit, the torque creating the stress.
Sometimes the welding might be in joining something that was broken, something that used to be one piece but is now two. The same care goes into the cleaning process to prep them for a good bond, but the repairing doesn't make it as good as new; scars remain and will often remind someone of what caused the break in the first place. The above picture is a lower unit on an outboard motor that some guy broke while running through a bayou and hit something like a stump or a log, breaking the anti-ventilation plate. If not repaired, the outboard is useless. He lost the piece which required a new piece to be made which is a different base metal from the harder casting of the lower unit. So not only does this change the bonding procedure somewhat, but it also changes the selection of filler rods to match the two different grades of metal. A groove has to be put where the rods will penetrate into the core of each piece before the two become one, filling the groove of what was missing, with the smaller piece getting both hotter when being welded and cooling faster after being welded…it's what thermal equilibrium does, and what causes cracks is when one part cools at a faster rate than the other that it is now combined with. The larger part absorbs more of the heat than the smaller one, and if you were to compare this line of thought to a spiritual application you could see what grace truly is…sins are absorbed by one who is the base…takes the heat of sins away from the part or one that's joined to Him. All that's missing is a sacrifice for absorbing this heat, and from one who is able to perform this sacrifice when the One absorbing the heat of sins has become the Sacrifice. Someone needs to perform this act of cleansing.
The introduction image is one of the most difficult things I've ever had to weld. The hub or the center of that flywheel was done by machining both parts first, inserted the hub into the wheel by pressing, then began the process of welding; to make those two separate components into being "one" wheel. The hub was a bronze alloy while the wheel itself was cast steel meaning that the metal was heated until it was liquefied then poured into a mold, with cast steel being extremely hard. What happens when you try to weld two dissimilar metals is that one must be heated at a higher rate than the other to get the atoms to liquefy, and with the different densities of the atoms will result in a different cool rate between the two metals along the HAZ (heat affected zone), and when one metal cools at a quicker rate than the other, cracks occur. The owner of the excavator that brought this wheel to our shop couldn't find parts for it anymore, and the hub was worn. So basically he had no choice but to fix this one, and if we couldn't fix it then his machine would be rendered useless without being able to get another part for it. It would be preheated, welded…both sides, and then post heated. This process usually works but I kept seeing hairline cracks in parts of the weld. I would redo the process of preheating, welding and post heating only to find it kept cracking in certain areas in the weld, not along the sides of the weld in the HAZ. I would lower the amps and try again, with each pass having better results. Finally, I would add a filler metal that contained a little bit of chromium and nickel that would help with the weld to somewhat stretch while the two base metals cooled at different rates. It would take nearly two and a half hours to complete this weld, then be put in an oven for a slow cool down. Welding two similar metals to each other is fairly easy, but sometimes it's necessary to weld two dissimilar metals…for various reasons.
The rules of bonding apply in a marriage also. If the rules of bonding are not followed, cracks occur…divorces occur, and unfortunately, sometimes it's necessary. What made Adam and Eve physically "one" was that when they were joined to each other by the part of Eve that was missing, the part of the man that connects him to her as if in piecing a puzzle together, before physical life could come forth as offspring. Sometimes cracks in marriages happen, sometimes it is a must. YAH would give Israel a certificate of divorce (Isaiah 50:1; Jeremiah 3:8). This was a lawful wedding. Hebrews were not to marry into other cultures, yet Moses married a non-Israelite. He married Zipporah, the Midianite and the daughter of a priest of Midian, pretty much considered a forbidden marriage. Ruth was a Moabite, yet was redeemed by Boaz. Sometimes it's necessary to join dissimilar metals. The Christ knows what it'll take to make a marriage last and He knows who He'll marry; there will be no adversaries in this union. He sees our significant others, and will prune out the branches that produce no fruit. In knowing this, this is the most difficult thing that I'll ever write. No matter what I see day in a day out in making two things into one, if one piece refuses to take a weld, it's discarded. I see this at times, and know this all the time, that sometimes, things can't be either joined or repaired, and I write this with a broken heart knowing that today is the second High Sabbath of the 7 days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which represent the wedding feast of Bride to Groom, as its also seen in the 7 weeks between the Wave Sheaf and Pentecost, with the counting of these days being in anticipation of the 7 days that a man waits for his wife to complete her menstrual cycle.
In Nebuchadnezzar's vision, he would see an image of a man, composed of gold, silver, bronze, iron and a mixture of clay and iron for the feet, with the feet being the giveaway as to why it cannot remain standing, the reason why the stone that builders had rejected strikes this standing man at his feet (Daniel 2:34), where the spiritual reality is joined to its shadow. These various metals listed are arrayed top down- gold, silver, bronze and iron- from softest to hardest. These metals can be joined together through a couple of welding techniques, but this metallic man standing is an interesting build. Anything in this material world is bound by the laws of physics, no exception, and for this image to be seen composed of dissimilar metals arrayed in the configuration that it is, while it stands, shows just how clever the Adversary truly is in constructing this image not only in what's seen in the metals, but in how they're arrayed in their metallic composition. Let's start with the head, and how it joins to the rest of its body. Gold and silver are both elements (pure) that cannot be broken down by chemical means and they can be fused or joined together, but as precious as they are, they cannot be used to redeem lives from this world into another, only blood can:
knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. (1 Peter 18:19)
But what's fascinating here is the sequence in which the metals are listed…they cannot be joined in a different sequence. Gold and silver have similar atomic radii which allows the metals to melt, a process we call wetting (above their melting points, metals are liquids), and flow into each other while a filler metal is used to do the bonding of the different metal types as long as there is not a difference in 15% in the size of the radii of the atoms of the two metals being joined. Now getting into this next section of this standing man that Nebuchadnezzar saw is the lower core of the body, made up of bronze. Bronze isn't an element like gold and silver are, it's an alloy meaning that it's a combination of two other elements that are bonded by the alpha solution of tin and copper. Bronze can be composed of other elements or alloys, and what this does is add strength to this type of metal, so it can stand on legs, and it does in Daniels interpretation of the dream, but not only that, the bronze as an alloy allows for it to be joined to silver (above it) and to the iron (below it). The farther away from the head you go, the harder the metal gets, until you get to the feet. Because of the difference in the size of the atoms in the iron and silver, this body couldn't be welded or bonded together without its mid-section "Death" being composed of bronze, metaphorically and spiritually speaking that is. There is no "iron" or "gold" in heaven since they are composed of matter, but this is how a human mind can understand heavenly things while dwelling inside of this material creation, and as the physical precedes the spiritual, with the physical being the shadow of the spiritual, (Rom 1:20; 1 Cor. 15:46), then if the physical is bound by laws of physics, the spiritual is bound by the laws of God…in other words, the metallic image must abide by the rules to allow his demonstration to play itself out, and succeed, if he wants a standing in the Kingdom…and in seeing how the metallic man is constructed from the head down, Satan followed the guidelines until he got to the feet. There is no fusing of iron to clay, not even glue can hold these different components together. Clay can be molded and fired to be made into bricks, but if this image begins to walk and move (have life) the feet crumble and what it supports comes crashing down. He cannot bridge the gulf between the physical and the spiritual; the image is struck at its feet where shadow (physical) meets reality (spiritual). There is an Ark being formed that will gap the dimensional barriers from physical to spiritual, to where there will be a wedding that will be bound for all eternity.
If Satan was to stand before the Most High as "one" man, we'd find that this section of the "one" man, the bronze section, is the "little horn" referenced in Daniel 8:9, with Homer writing much more about this subject here:
"The half-scale model of the humanoid image Nebuchadnezzar saw will have a gold head [the little horn], and a silver [bright iron] torso, and until the prince of Greece prevails over the prince of Persia, the humanoid image itself looks like its half-scale model, for the bronze belly and irons legs are not seen. Their appearance--and the absence of the erect penis--dates Nebuchadnezzar's vision to "'the latter days'"(Dan 2:28) and specifically to the emergence to power of the kings of the North and South after the first horn of the king of Greece has been suddenly broken (because he is first, the firstborn of the Adversary), or to after Daniel 11:5 and to near but before verse 31." From <http://www.aboutprophecy.com/About_Prophecy_Afterword.html>
This little horn is the mighty "Death" himself, this bronze section. Another interesting fact about bronze which is a combination of over 80% copper, 12% tin and sometimes a different mixture of aluminum, manganese, nickel or zinc. Copper by itself as an element is soft, but when tin is added turning it into the alloy bronze, it becomes tuff and durable…able to support much more weight, which is why the thighs are made of bronze. But with copper being a main element forming this metal, it brings certain characteristics to this metal that is of extreme importance. One of the most important properties of copper is its ability to fight bacteria. Many copper alloys have been found to kill over 99% of bacteria in just a couple of hours of contact. Think about this: rolling stones collect no moss. Running water doesn't collect bacteria like dead water (non-moving) does. A rolling stone can be compared to a "living stone" what the Son of Man…spiritual ark… is constructed of, while a non-moving stone collects moss…bacteria, is a "dead" stone. Constructing the Son of Man or spiritual ark is to create a vessel which will take those with a second breath into a living world; it's the only way out. This crafty little devil truly wants his kingdom to be with no end to construct this standing man in the manner in which he did so that when the spiritual ark leaves, and he's cast down to earth (Rev. 12:7-9) or into time more specifically, and with time being used as a device to measure the decay rate of mass particles, thinking that he can somehow continue down in the shadowland "Hades" and have this composition of copper and tin to fight off the bacteria which sets on the non-moving, non-living…the "dead". As you go higher on this metallic man, you'll get to the head of gold. The higher in altitude you go the less dense the oxygen molecules, which results in a lower oxidation rate…it, the metal, lasts longer. Gold is immune to rust. According to the corrosion doctors website:
Gold is the most non-reactive of all metals and is benign in all natural and industrial environments. Gold never reacts with oxygen (one of the most active elements), which means it will not rust or tarnish." http://corrosion-doctors.org/MatSelect/corrgold.htm
He was actually constructing this substrate to last in the physical world, and we see this also in the constructing of the tower at Babel in the physical portion. The way out of this world in becoming a living stone was rejected by man in rejecting the Most High and His Beloved who constructed the Son of Man, the bridge which gaps the gulf between the physical and the spiritual. Oxygen, it would seem, is designed to ensure that things composed of mater will oxidize, corrode or decompose…to make things of matter reach their end. What causes food to spoil is bacteria, which is controlled both by temperature and the amount of oxygen it's exposed to. Stored food lasts longer with oxygen absorbers; they control the amount of oxygen which allows the rate to which food will decay, in hopes of absorbing it like Christ absorbs sins.
"As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." (1 Peter 2:4-5)
Living stones to offer spiritual sacrifices to God "through" Jesus Christ with Christ being the Temple made with no hands (John 2:19), and this will take us to the Elect who perform the act of sacrifices in this Spiritual Temple which currently has a lifeless body, who are not a part of the body of Christ which is currently non-spiritually living, or "dead", to which Jesus references "let the dead bury their dead". Christ doesn't marry the temple, He's the "Head" of this spiritual temple known as the Son of Man. A man doesn't marry his own body, but marries his wife, his bride. The Elect are already one with Christ; the Elect stand with the Groom, not the bride even though she'll come from Him. Eve doesn't marry a house. Christ Jesus couldn't have served as a priest in Solomon's temple; He was not a Levite, a son or descendant of Aaron. There's a new order of priests which serve in this new temple composed of living stones, constructed with 12 pillars and 12 gates and if you do the math you'll come up with an interesting combination of numbers.
Homer would say that the Elect are the spiritual descendants of Daniel, who couldn't serve in the physical temple since he was an eunuch, yet this new temple is spiritual, and there are no males nor females in heaven. They already have indwelling eternal life because the ransom has already been paid for them, which is currently not the case for the 144,oo0 who follow Christ into the Endurance. They are already one with Christ through the indwelling of Christ…already have life, and they do not become one with Christ through the wedding for they are already one with Him. They are part of the Head, not the body, which gives to them the function similar to that of brothers. When a woman is in labor, her head (brain/mind) can want the baby to come out all she wants, and she can scream with her mouth as much as she wants "please come out" but it, the baby, will not come out until the body knows when the time is ready. The body controls the contractions, not the head. The body controls your reactions to hot metal when touched way before your head can "think" to remove it. So there's a difference between the body and the head, between the Elect and the Christian church which currently is a dead body since it has not the indwelling of Christ. Christ and the Elect form the spiritual "Head" of the of Spiritual Temple, the body awaiting its breath, just as my inner man dwells inside of my physical body, with my physical body awaiting another body…a new body. Construction of the spiritual temple is done in a manner by which the physical temple was constructed however spiritually constructed, and despite what the Masons believe, the sacrifices are done by the Elect, not human hands. The Elect are not even seen today to be able to send a missile to take them out; they are invisible, not composed of matter.
"Behold, I am about to build a house for the name of the Lord my God and dedicate it to him for the burning of incense of sweet spices before him, and for the regular arrangement of the showbread, and for burnt offerings morning and evening, on the Sabbaths and the new moons and the appointed feasts of the Lord our God, as ordained forever for Israel. The house that I am to build will be great, for our God is greater than all gods. But who is able to build him a house, since heaven, even highest heaven, cannot contain him? Who am I to build a house for him, except as a place to make offerings before him? So now send me a man skilled to work in gold, silver, bronze, and iron, and in purple, crimson, and blue fabrics, trained also in engraving, to be with the skilled workers who are with me in Judah and Jerusalem, whom David my father provided. (2 Chronicles 2:47 emphasis added)
From Homer in regards to the Elect:
The Elect are the processed oil and wine when Sin emerges as a prince following the breaking of the first and great horn/king of the King of Greece (Dan 8:8) because he is "first," an uncovered firstborn at the Second Passover liberation of Israel. However, in the preceding 1260 days--the time of the prophesying of the two witnesses--a few natural Israelites [144,000] will come to Christ through being convicted that He is the Messiah. They will come via their belief that He is the chosen one even though the Adversary will remain the prince of this world as Babylon falls; will remain the prince of this world until the doubled day 1260. The 144,000 that follow Christ Jesus wherever He leads in the Endurance will be involuntarily filled-with and empowered by the spirit of God when dominion over the single kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man on the doubled day 1260, the Affliction forming the time-linked shadow and copy of the Endurance.
The Elect are, from their spiritual birth, "one" with Christ Jesus because they have indwelling spiritual or eternal life through the spirit of God in the spirit of Christ having entered into the spirit of the person … the Elect are a special people in that the Father has drawn them from this world (John 6:44) and delivered them to Christ Jesus as the Father gave to Jesus the first disciples.
The Elect--the predestined--are only a portion of the harvest of firstfruits, with the remainder of humankind (those persons who are not and will never be firstfruits) to appear before the Son in the great White Throne Judgment.
The Elect are seen in the Wave Sheaf Offering, with Christ being the reality of the first "waved" sheaf of barley [the firstfruits]. But Christ Jesus is one seed, one stem at most, not a handful of stems, with this handful representing a small sheaf of many stems, all waved before God without the grain being beaten into fine flour--all covered by the garment of Christ Jesus, by His righteousness.
What America's founders didn't understand was what Paul didn't understand: all authority in this world has been consigned to the Adversary through all of humanity being humanly born consigned to disobedience (Rom 11:32) as sons of disobedience (Eph 2:2-3). The Most High God and His Firstborn Son, the glorified Christ Jesus, rule over no people in this world; for the Elect, the only human persons drawn from this world through being foreknown by the Father and predestined to be glorified, are in this world but not of this world. They have been withdrawn from this world through the indwelling of Christ Jesus; so their citizenship is not of this world.
The Elect, unlike the Body of Christ, consist of disciples who do not come under judgment but who have passed from death to life while still dwelling in mortal bodies; for in all cases, the disciple is not the fleshly body but the inner self of the person, with this inner self being neither male nor female but being as angels are when this inner self receives indwelling heavenly life. Before receiving indwelling life, the inner self of a human person, formed from the elements of this earth to be a servant, is spiritually death; hence, Matthew's Jesus said, Permit the dead to bury the dead of themselves (Matt 8:22)
Today, disciples truly born of spirit are not the temple of God, the spiritual Body of Christ, but constitute the seven named churches that appear as seven horns on the head of the slain Lamb of God (Rev 5:6). And this is an understanding that Philadelphia didn't have a decade ago. Therefore, in reexamining the spiritual mysteries of God, we see the greater Christian Church having a living heart inside a spiritually dead body, this living heart being the Elect, functioning as already processed oil and wine, with the Elect being rejected by this world as the man Jesus was rejected.
Has the Bridegroom been taken away from the Elect, who are foreknown and predestined by God, called, justified, and glorified by Christ--and if glorified, the Elect are permanently with the Bridegroom for they are "one" with the Bridegroom long before the Marriage Supper … the Elect are NOT the Body of Christ or of the Body of Christ. Rather, the Elect are one with Christ as horns on the head of the slain Lamb are one with the Head of this slain Lamb. From <http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-07-14R.html>
The second trope used to conceal John's vision is how things "appear" in Revelation is how these things will function in the plan of God. Appearances are functions; thus, the glorified Christ Jesus who functions as the slain Passover Lamb of God appears as a slain lamb. The seven spirits to the seven churches function as eyes for Christ Jesus; so they appear as eyes. The seven churches do not form the Body of Christ but function in this world as Christ Jesus, the Head of the Son of Man, functions so they appear as seven horns on the head of the slain lamb--the glorified Christ will marry His Bride in a Wedding Supper following His return as the Messiah, with His Bride being His spiritual Body as the Woman functions as the Body of her Husband, bringing forth for her Husband offspring, his Seed. But the Elect are already one with the glorified Christ through the indwelling of Christ. The Elect do not become one with Christ at the Wedding Supper. The Elect were glorified [received an indwelling second breath of life] when Christ Jesus dies for them while they were still sinners (Rom 5:8). It is the Elect whom the Father draws from this world and gives to Christ to bring to life and to nurture until they reach their majority. From <http://homerkizer.org/fifth_principle.html>
The narrative balance between Paul writing, “For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified” (Rom 8:29–30) and Matthew’s Jesus saying, “‘For many are called, but few are chosen’” (Matt 22:14) pivots on when the many or the few are called, with this pivot being the Second Passover. Before the Second Passover, few are called—very few. Only enough to get a work done. And then barely enough to support the work of delivering the endtime good news that all who endure to the end shall be saved. And of these few, all will be foreknown by the Father. That is correct, the few who have been called and who participate in the delivery of the endtime good news that all who endure to the end shall be saved come under the linguistic identifier of the Elect.
And returning to a concept introduced earlier. The Elect in participating in the delivery of the endtime gospel form islands of “light” as if they were candles or oil lamps—they inwardly generate “light” from the indwelling of Christ, not simply reflect “light” as the moon does. These spots of “light” suggest humanity’s turn towards the light, the only determiner that will reliably denote the midnight hour of the long spiritual night that began at Calvary. From <http://homerkizer.net/09-06-16E.html>
Sacrifices have to be performed in this spiritual Temple by those who have "life"; it cannot be performed by those who currently do not have life which make up the body. Something interesting comes to mind in the two covenants made at Sinai, when Israel broke its part of the covenant by making for itself an idol in the calf composed of gold by being casted. God would make covenant with Moses AND Israel, with Israel breaking their end of the covenant just less than 40 days later. Moses remained faithful and God promised to him to make a nation of him, Moses.
This will conclude part one in this series.
For further readings in sources for this Conversation, please see the following links:
http://homerkizer.org/05-15-16C.html
http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/06-07-14R.html
http://homerkizer.net/09-06-16E.html
http://thephiladelphiachurch.org/whoisrael2.html