Water & Fire 2006:

 

Initially partially e-published as the Sukkot 2006 Seminar Series for the Port Austin Bible Center—

 

Living Metaphors

“J” is to “P” as Stone is to Spirit

_______________

 Chapter Seven

Epilogue

 

The testimony of Scripture is that David was a man after God’s own heart. Apparently David was given otherwise concealed knowledge that was lost when the nation entered a period of extended lawlessness; for in David’s poetry (and because of his use of poetic form), Yah appears as the icon for the deity [the linguistic object] that is also represented by the icon YHWH. David places the icon Yah in the natural or “this world” first presentation position of the thought couplet that is completed when he uses YHWH in the spiritual or heavenly second presentation of the same idea (cf. Ps 146:1; 148:1; 149:1). In doing so, David discloses that he knows God in this world through the icon Yah, an extremely important disclosure in Christological debates; for it will be Yah who enters His creation as David’s son. And David’s juxtaposition of YHWH and Adoni in Psalm 110:1 discloses that David was aware that the Messiah would be first a man, and strongly suggests that David knew that Yah would come as a man. In other words, David, as a man after God’s own heart, understood most or all of what Jesus came to reveal to His disciples. David had privileged knowledge.

But when David’s son Solomon married an Egyptian princess, sin was introduced into the monarchy: Israelite men were not to marry foreign wives. Plus, Egypt remained the geographical representation of sin as Judea represented God’s rest (Ps 95:10-11). So when this sin that Solomon introduced revealed its sinfulness—when the sin of Solomon was fully manifest in all of its ugliness through Solomon building altars to foreign gods for his aging wives—God stripped away the knowledge Israel had of Him.

God did it: God hid Himself from Israel long before Israel went into captivity. Neither the northern house of Israel nor the southern house of Judah worshipped YHWH in spirit and in truth. As Israel’s glory in this world would never again be what it was under David, Israel’s knowledge of God would never again be what David had. Note this well: the post Babylonia period saw Israel as a vassal nation to Persian and Greek kings, with Israel’s knowledge of God reflected in the size of the kingdom. Israel controlled how much land? The Temple Mount, Jerusalem, how much more? The post Babylonia period was a spiritual disaster period that resulted in Israel’s leaders constructing a hedge of works around the Law of Moses so that the Law would not kill again—and it is to this period that rabbinical Judaism looks to resolve spiritual questions.

Israel’s visible representation in this world throughout this post Babylonia period closely reflected Israel’s invisible representation before God: how Israel appeared as a nation became the mirror through which the nation could see how it appeared to God. So when Rome burned Jerusalem (ca 70 CE), natural Israel no longer appeared before God—and would not again appear before God until it became time to gather the sheep from which the endtime Passover lamb, offered as the acceptable sacrifice for the lawlessness of the third part of humanity,  would be selected from the physically and spiritually circumcised nation.

As the man Jesus of Nazareth was selected and offered as a Lamb without blemish, endtime Israel will become a nation without blemish when empowered by the Holy Spirit. And this endtime nation of mixed Israelites, foreshadowed by the nation gathered at Moab (Deu 29:1-15), will be received by God as the acceptable sacrifice made by Israel’s high priest, the glorified Christ. This means, however, that except for the 144,000 named of the twelve tribes, all of the physically circumcised nation will die; and except for the remnant that keep the commandments and have the spirit of prophecy, all of the spiritually circumcised nation will die, with death being physical and/or spiritual.

A moment of silence, a prayer for the dead, a prayer for additional harvesters—there has been a failure of faith within Israel, a failure that has caused the physically circumcised nation to build nuclear weapons and to have the resolve to use them; a failure within the spiritually circumcised nation that has caused this nation to abandon Moses, who wrote of Jesus, and now to even abandon Paul, who called himself a Hebrew of Hebrews yet who did not teach the traditions of the learned rabbis of his day. So how shall we use this moment of silence? The rabbi who today argues that 1st-Century Pharisees were very good readers of Scripture must understand why the temple was destroyed and has never since been rebuilt: the promise of entering into God’s rest doesn’t remain an open door, but closes due to unbelief. And when closed, it never again opens to those upon whom it closed. It is this concept, this realization that has been underappreciated throughout Israel’s history. So shall we use this moment of silence to pray that the door that is closing on the Sabbatarian churches of God doesn’t fully latch shut, but remains ajar, open far enough that a few more disciples escape unbelief before the darkness of death again fully settles over the Body of Christ? The last Elijah’s second restoration effort began with the Great Awakening and continued through to the ministry of the Radio Church of God, yes it did! But this attempt ended when additional revelation was rejected in 1962. The Body remains dead, and is left dead until the last Elijah initiates His successful third attempt that will see life return to the Body at the second Passover liberation of Israel. But a few disciples who “breathed” on their own during this second attempt still cling to the life they received from receipt of the Holy Spirit. Should this moment of silence be extended through prayer that they renew their mostly lost faith? Let’s get personal: should this moment of silence be extended through prayer for Gavin Rumney that he has his faith renewed?  Who else still clings to life when those around them have died? Christ spoke of going after the one when the ninety nine were still in peril. Can those that still live do less, especially when those that live received faith directly from God?

The writer of Hebrews said, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. … By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible” (11:1, 3).

If what is seen is not made from what was previously seen but from the invisible, then these words (this document or manuscript, what you, the auditor, see and read) is not made from what you have seen, but from what is invisible to you—but from what I have seen. Yes, from what I have seen; from what Ernie Flodean [Ernie’s last name is here phonetically spelled, for the spelling of his name has been lost] saw on a late October day in 1975, when a red fir (Douglas fir) snag a metre in diameter and thirty-five or more metres in height fell across the top of me, bounced up four or five metres and fell across the top of me a second time, then was “hurled” (no better word describes what happened) two hundred or more metres away, out across a canyon and down over the hill. When I stood up, my wrists were sprained but I was otherwise unhurt. All Ernie could say was, “You have someone looking out for you.” He was correct: I did. I had felt, not inwardly but externally, the presence of another. And I saw the physical evidence of another when the tree was thrown across the canyon. So did Ernie see this physical evidence of supernatural protection, of an invisible hand catching the snag, stopping it, then hurling it as I would hurl sidearm a push-broom handle, giving to the tree proportionally the same distance and the same arc as I would give to the broom handle. Yes, Ernie saw what I saw, but it produced fear in him whereas it produced faith in me, faith that was a gift from God.

But it wasn’t just once that I saw the evidence of a co-existing dimension: in a tide rip at Lava Point, Akutan Island; crossways in heavy seas off Kodiak, with gear snagged on the bottom; the occasions have not been frequent, but they have been numerous while fishing a small boat in the Bering Sea, and at other times when I had managed to get myself into tight spots in rural Oregon and along the Alaskan coast. So my faith isn’t the product of  an active imagination, but of the “unseen” intervening in this world where phenomena can be photographed and analyzed, examined and measured. It truly is a gift that has come so a particular job can be accomplished, that of rereading prophecy.

Except for Ernie, no one outside of immediate family saw these phenomena that might possibly be physically explained by the person who refuses to believe in any God. The evidence that they occurred is in the production of this text and others, not within the texts themselves where meaning must be assigned to words, but in the existence of these texts. For if nothing occurred, the writing of these texts is an exercise of futility by an otherwise reasonably intelligent and sane person. For what I have written is not what will produce personal disciples, or income through sales or donations. Rather, what I have written is argumentative and should actually offend those individuals who today believe that they are “saved.” What I have written, though, is the manifestation of the faith given through many small interactions with a supra dimension in which living entities exist.

Sounds crazy? It should to the person who has not been born of Spirit.

The competent researcher will remove him or herself from the experiment, but it is not an experiment that’s being conducted; it is a demonstration, with humankind being the laboratory animals under observation—with humankind consigned to disobedience so that the fruit of lawlessness becomes obvious for all to see. God, however, will do nothing without first revealing what will happen to His servants. This means, simply, that before the Body of Christ is resurrected, He will, through His servants, announce the Body’s resurrection from death on a second Passover liberation of Israel. He will cause this resurrection to be announced for the lives of human firstborns will again be given as ransom for Israel’s release from indwelling sin and death.

When the nation of Israel left Egypt, the nation repeatedly tested God’s patience. The tenth time, though, was the last time (Num chap 14). Except for Joshua and Caleb, no man numbered in the census entered God’s rest; for they did not enter into God’s rest while the promise stood. Instead, they desired to return to sin.

Consider the logic of Israel’s desire to return to Egypt: the kingdom had lost its army in the Sea of Reeds after being devastated by the plagues. Literally, Egypt had been destroyed by God. So if Israel had returned to Egypt, it would not have returned as slaves or as a people in physical bondage, but as a conquering people easily able to assert its independence and to oppress its former oppressors. Thus, what gets overlooked when reading about Israel’s whining to go back to Egypt isn’t that Israel desired to return to slavery in exchange for a full belly, but that undefeated nations in which there were giants lie before them while behind them was the defeated land of the Nile, a land they could easily conquer; for Israel was previously as many in number as were the Egyptians (Exod 5:5), and this was before the firstborns of Egypt and its army had perished.

The spies brought an accurate report about the Promised Land. It was a good land, but a land in which dwelt strong nations and giants. But the spies, each a selected leading man of the tribes, did not accurately relay to the people what God could or would do. Except for vocal Caleb and silent Joshua, they slandered God, thereby causing the people to decide to stone Moses and Aaron, Joshua and Caleb (Num 14:10), the visible representatives of God.

Consider the scene: Moses is as god to Aaron, who is Moses’ spokesman, with the blood brothers being one in function as YHWH is one. Joshua is Moses’ assistant and is as a son to Moses in a manner analogous to the man Jesus being the beloved son of the Father. Caleb has about him a different spirit than has the rest of Israel, including the Levites. So Israel’s picking up stones to slay Moses and Aaron, Joshua and Caleb foreshadows Israel’s rejection of, and rebellion against YHWH [Theos & Theon], and against the glorified Son and those disciples who will become the Bride. Moses and Aaron are two who function as one as Elohim consists of two functioning as one. Joshua and Caleb are two who function as one as the Son and His Bride, who will comprise the Son of Man, Head and Body. Together, the two pairings foreshadow Christ Jesus being the alpha and omega, the first and the last, the cornerstone and the capstone. And Caleb was not a natural born Israelite, but the son of Jephunneh; so Caleb was probably of Esau, the rejected son of promise.

The writer of Hebrews establishes the correspondence that the Promise Land representing God’s rest [from Ps 95:10-11] also represents the weekly Sabbath (Heb 3:16-4:11), that as the nation that rebelled in the wilderness (Num chap 14) could not enter into God’s rest when the promise closed due to unbelief, Israelites also will not be able to enter into Sabbath observance when the promise closes due to unbelief. The epistle to the Hebrews was written primarily to natural Israelites, but is profitable as doctrine for all Israelites—and the promise of entering into God’s rest that was immediately before natural Israelites in the mid-1st Century was accepting Christ Jesus as the Adoni who would become a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek (cf. Ps 110:1, 4; Heb chaps 5-10). However, the promise of entering into God’s rest that was placed before spiritually circumcised Israelites was keeping the weekly Sabbath. As a natural Israelite, who by habit and conviction kept the weekly Sabbath, must accept Christ Jesus, professing with his mouth that Jesus was Lord and believing in his heart that the Father raised Jesus from the dead (Rom 10:6-9), the spiritually circumcised Israelite who has been drawn from the world by the Father must mentally journey from the land of his or her nativity to Judea where the disciple will mentally live as a Judean, keeping the weekly Sabbath and desiring to be holy as God is holy. And as the promise of entering into God’s rest closed to the nation that rebelled in the wilderness, and as the promise of entering into God’s rest closed to the natural nation of Israel when it rejected Jesus, the promise of entering into God’s rest closed to the spiritually circumcised nation when this latter holy nation rejected living ‘“by every word that comes from the mouth of God’” (Matt 4:4), choosing instead to live by human dictates rather than God’s—choosing to worship God on the 8th-day rather than the 7th; choosing to take the sacraments daily or weekly or quarterly rather than on the 14th of Abib, the night that Jesus was betrayed; choosing to commemorate Jesus’ resurrection on Easter rather than as the Wave Sheaf Offering. Thus, the promise of entering into God’s rest closed, thereby barring, especially, the Post-Nicene Church from entering into God’s rest until a time spiritually equivalent to the forty years natural Israel wandered in the wilderness had passed. The Body of Christ was as dead as was the nation that was numbered in the census of the second year.

 Because King Solomon apparently feared the ire of his aging foreign wives more than he feared God, Solomon’s heart and ways were not perfect before God—and Solomon’s reign foreshadows the thousand years of the Millennium, with Satan being loosed for a short while at the end of these years used by God to disclose the concealed lawlessness that will lie hidden in Israel’s bosom as Solomon’s idolatry was revealed when he was old (1 Kings 11:4-8), idolatry first apparent by him marrying foreign women, desiring what was not lawful for an Israelite to have. Solomon made his political and fleshly needs of more importance than obedience to God. And in doing so, Solomon caused the door of spiritual understanding that David had opened to close.

As God tore the kingdom from Solomon, God tore most of Israel’s spiritual understanding from the nation, leaving a little for David’s sake. Thus, the prophets became necessary mediators between God and Israel, revealing to the nation the will of God, revealing to Israel what the judges had previously revealed.

Note the above: the prophets were called by God after Solomon’s reign because Israel no longer had but one-tribe’s worth of spiritual understanding. And spiritual Israel today has need for teachers who are called by God as the prophets of God were; for spiritual Israel has less than “one-tribe’s worth of spiritual understanding.” These teachers will do the work of restoration through God’s gift of faith to them. In the quiet recesses of their minds, they will hear the soft voice of Jesus—and they will be treated by the spiritually circumcised nation as the prophets of old were treated by the physically circumcised nation; hence, the two witnesses’ need for fiery breaths once the Body again lives. (Since the Body is now dead, the Body lacks the strength to kill the teachers sent by God, the strength that ancient Israel had to kill the prophets sent by God.)

During the course of the Millennium Israel will lose much of what the last Elijah restores at the end of this age because the political and fleshly needs of those who, for a thousand years, will rule under Christ will seem of more importance than ruthlessly obeying God, showing no mercy on any manifestation of lawlessness. Faith will fail. It won’t seem astonishing that a tree does no harm when it falls on a person.

Will Christ find faith when He returns, a real question? Or will He find faith tokenism of the sort that requires a physical explanation for why the “P” account reflects Judaic post-Babylonia thought? How about one more poem, one where the sentiments are genuine? Do you suppose you can read it?

 

MARCH 1995

 

Calls & cards weren’t enough

After years alone. You wanted more—

Romance would do for now, you said.

Ocean moonlight, soft sand & hands held,

Lighted candles, drips forming puddles—

You weren’t desperate, you said, no,

Not desperate. But you wanted a

      husband, respectability; you wanted in

      after looking through stained windows—

      parents & hymnal, bowed heads, amens…

      perhaps your shared crescent of wilderness,

      yesterday’s whaleboned manacles, has

 

      become today’s center where juggling

      injury against job, you delete nothing,

      running errands, cleaning, sifting

      those stained glass shards, separating

      hope & faith, love & mercy from the

dust & splinters of mortar & beams—

at 46, life refuses to pass

you by, Love.

 

What do you read? A single woman wanting loved, perhaps now marriage, someone outside the community of Believers, working as hard today as her female ancestors worked? Do you see all of that? What about more? How about, “CAROLYN happy birthday”? If you don’t see both the sentiment and the message, then you must ask yourself, Why would this poem be included in this manuscript?

Why is the “P” creation account written in poetic discourse that cannot be well translated into any other language? Would the birthday greetings in the above poem [MARCH 1995] be present if the poem were translated into another language? They would not be, would they? Nor would Jesus being the alpha and omega be present in the “P” creation account in another language—unless the auditor knows from other “clues” that He should be found in the discourse in these positions.

Go back to an acrostic poem of David’s like Psalm 112. Read it again, not forgetting for a moment that Jesus is the alpha & omega, the first and the last. What Theos began, He will finish when the slain of the Lord are many. And He will not compromise with evil, which is nothing more than determining for oneself whether the person will keep the laws of God. But in the sentiments between the first and the last letter of the alphabet are dictates to Israel about how to live physically and spiritually. Thus, the artifice delivers not one message, not two, but four messages that are inseparable.

You make the determination of what is evil—and thereby become evil—when you do not, by faith, keep the precepts of the law as if law-keeping were instinct.

The false prophets and priests of Christendom focus on that which is physical rather than on what is spiritual. This focus on what is passing away ultimately becomes the only reliable test of whether a teacher of Israel is of God, or is of Satan. If a minister in the Church teaches disciples to break the Sabbath commandment because physically assembling together is more important than when disciples come together, the minister is not of God. If a prophecy pundit teaches the Church that the endtime beast is a physical nation or union of nations such as a united Europe or the United Nations, the pundit is false. If the pundit teaches the Church that the physical nations of the United States or Britain or the modern nation of Israel is endtime Israel, the pundit is false. If the pundit teaches that the mark of the beast is an imbedded computer chip or a Social Security card or an internal passport, the pundit is false. If the pundit inserts Rome, the Roman Empire, the Roman Church, or the Roman See anywhere in Scripture, the pundit is false. Who is left? Only the few through whom the endtime Elijah works to restore all things.

Of the many who have been called, only a few will be chosen (Matt 22:14). Most will washout. Salvation is a very narrow path blocked by the mystery of lawlessness, and the Elect overcome lawlessness by faith, which is not of themselves but is the gift of God.

* * *

©2007 Homer Kizer.  All rights reserved.

"Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."

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