{On a quote from a sermon.}

“the closer we live to God, the smaller everything else becomes”

With anything truly great, its greatness is from the greatness of God; and God created all things, so the closer you are to God, the greater everything becomes. Things that are “else”, other than of God (sin), whatever is great in them also becomes greater, but false greatness disappears.

For example, a Christian can appreciate the skill and dexterity of a thief, and glorifies God, the Creator of all things. The sin of theft, which the thief thinks is so glorious, is seen for the vile nothingness that it is when one turns to God.

#SabbathPosts 2023/10/07

{Edited from a conversation about “wine” in Scripture.}

A main part of the confusion here comes from translators to English, which, instead of using the foreign word for the foreign item (like is done today with “kvass”, “ramen”, and other foreign things), they used a word in English for something familiar to them: “wine”. This was an error in judgement which has destroyed countless lives through the confusion they caused. The problem is that, especially today, the word “wine” all but exclusively refers to an alcoholic state of the drink. The drink referred to in Scripture, which is “yayin”, is in truth fermented drinks in general.

Yayin wasn’t even always grapes: “yayin of the juice of my pomegranate” Song of Solomon 8. And we know from history and from Scripture that it was certainly not always the alcoholic state of the fermentation. One would have to argue that it was normal biblically to give alcohol to little children: “the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city. They say to their mothers, Where is grain and yayin?” Lam 2

The command is given: “Look not thou upon the yayin” when? “when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright” when it is seductive, alluring, alcoholic. Then you are not only to not drink it at all, but not to even look at it: do not let it tempt you. Why? “Thine eyes shall behold women strangers, and thine heart shall utter perverse things” Pr 23.

However little one drinks, one has decided to give up that much of their self-control. Some people sometimes still have enough control to stop drinking; many do not. Whether one does or does not have enough control left to stop, is it sinful to deliberately impair one’s judgement, sinful to tempt one’s self to sin.

“It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink yayin, nor for princes strong drink: lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted” Pr 31.
Not, “you should not drink so much that you forget the law”, but, “you should not drink at all, lest you forget the law”. Every Christian must be ready to judge justly: “Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?” 1Cor 6.

(The word “shekher”, translated as “strong drink”, refers to intoxication, and is often paired with “yayin” to clarify when it is speaking of intoxicating, alcoholic yayin.)

“Give strong drink unto him that has no hope”, this is why God’s law sanctions it for unbelievers, but for a believer to drink alcohol is to cast aside faith in God: “that ye sorrow not, as others which have no hope” 1Thes 4. Do we not have hope? Are we not Christians? “whatsoever is not of faith is sin” Ro 14.

If we obey the command of God and act like Christians, then we may say like righteous Hannah: “I have drunk neither yayin nor strong drink … Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial” 1Sa 1.

#SabbathPosts 2023/09/30

{My thoughts on a shallow list of things attributed to being a “deep thinker”.}

“You might be a deep thinker if…”

-“you are highly intelligent”
Not typically. Math, memory, and puzzle-solving skills have little correlation with deep thought. The crucial factor of deep thought is integrity.

-“Deep thinkers always leave space for doubt.”
False. There are things we cannot be unsure of, and things we should not be unsure of, just as there are things we cannot be sure of.

-“you love the fact that reading gives you the opportunity to escape the boring reality.”
This is shallow (as least as described). A deep thinker can have interest in, gain insight from, and learn from whatever surroundings in which he finds himself, he understands that they do not constitute all of reality, and he loves reading because it expands these surroundings.

-“You keep your mind open”
It depends on what is meant. Often what people mean by this is the idea that “anything could be true”, similar to doubting everything, which is false.
Something one could say instead is that a deep thinker has the integrity not to defend an idea by hiding it from scrutiny or discussion. This does not mean that he has any obligation to listen to or respond to every challenge that may be brought.

-“Deep thinkers often feel like they don’t belong anywhere and don’t fit in with other human beings.”
It is true: “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” – Am 3
However: “When a man’s ways please Yahweh, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.” – Pr 16
I have been able to “fit in” even with Baptists and Catholics, though fundamentally divergent from their thinking.

-“hate small talk”
This is a preference, not a sign of deep thought. A deep thinker often recognises the profound roots and implications of small talk.

-“You feel repulsed by popular culture”
The current mainstream English-speaking culture has twisted values, but it is shallow to apply this right judgement as a fundamental concept. A deep thinker is free from cultural prejudice, free from the complete acceptance or rejection of only the system he is immediately surrounded with, and is an appreciative and reasonable judge of all cultures in all times and places.

-“You often find yourself disconnected from reality and lost in thought”
To be deep in thought is not to be lost, much less to be disconnected from reality. It is merely to be disconnected from one’s immediate surroundings (it is shallow to think of one’s immediate surroundings as constituting reality).

-“don’t care about other people’s opinions”
Deep thinkers take responsibility for their own conclusions, and so value others’ opinions more than those who blindly follow others’ opinions without considering or judging their value at all. It seems to shallow people that deep thinkers don’t care, because shallow people make agreement and disagreement primarily about themselves and their own feelings; they put themselves before truth.

#SabbathPosts 2023/09/16

Some people stress that we must believe the Devil is real and is our dangerous enemy; they say that in order to fight well we must recognise the enemy.

And sometimes they think to stress this point by saying that evil people are not our enemy – this is the opposite of recognising the enemy: Christ said to evil men, “ye are of your father the Devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do” Jn 8. Evil men are absolutely our enemy, doing the lusts of the Devil on the earth.

If we do not recognise this enemy, then we do not recognise our enemy the Devil, or any enemy.

“Beware of men” Mt 10

Some might object that we shouldn’t see some group of people as our enemy, but this of course does not come from Scripture. Rather, we must group people by morality, and this must trump any other grouping. Grouping by morality must trump grouping by skin colour, for example: if a person is good, we must be friends, regardless of skin colour: if a person is evil, he must be our enemy, regardless of skin colour.

#SabbathPosts 2023/09/09

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” – Asian Proverb

I have a temptation to be less likely to do something the longer it has been since it should have been done. This is probably true of most who deal with putting things off: like with an addiction, like with alcohol: you may be able to resist it for years, but a small drink makes it far more likely to take another drink, and a larger drink, and so on, even though with each drink it becomes that much more important not to take another drink.

So with putting something off which should not be – it is easiest to resist the temptation, and do it immediately, right when it becomes necessary to do. But once it is put off a little, it is harder to do it, though it becomes more important to do it.

The difference from alcohol is that alcohol is relatively simple: you never do it: “look not upon” it, as Solomon says. However, whenever you do anything, you are putting off doing, or never doing, everything else you could be doing. You can only do one thing at a time, so only one thing gets done right away, and the rest is put off for some amount of time.
And it also isn’t as simple as “do the most important things until they are done” either: there is an infinite number of things that are more important than eating, but you still need to eat, neither is it wrong to take the time to have a really good meal. There are various reasons, more specific than bare importance, that determine which things are done first or given more time.

One thing is certain – whatever you do must be done deliberately, with self-control and prudence (which once again always rules out alcohol, of course).

#SabbathPosts 2023/09/02

Don’t use will-power (unless you want to exercise it, like “the quiet game”) – when you want to actually do something, side-step will-power, work around it: call it “tricking yourself” or “distracting yourself”, but avoid engaging the resistance; once the decision has been made, act without thinking, at least without thinking “whether”: think about how, the very next step in doing it; once you’ve made the decision, let it happen to you, rather than trying to make the decision over and over, or trying to make it with “more force”.

Once you begin doing, have the decision already fully made, and leave it decided: once the decision is fully made, leave it decided, and begin doing it.

“The way of the slothful is as a hedge of thorns” – instead of forcing through the hedge, don’t go the way of the slothful: take another route, use the stile, use the gate. You don’t overcome temptation by entering temptation, by mightily subjecting yourself to strong temptation, but by fleeing it: “Lead us not into temptation”.
“Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away.” Pr 4

#SabbathPosts 2023/08/19

Quora: “Do you read the Old Testament?”
Yes, however I prefer not to call it the “Old Testament” but rather the “Hebrew Scriptures”.

I’ve attached a rough schematic – one can argue that 2Co 3 refers to the books of Moses as the “old testament”, however what the Old Testament is is just that: a testament, not a section of Scripture (and certainly not the Hebrew Scriptures taken as a section). Confusion on this has led to some of the worst heresies that exist.

Consider this warning:

“even as our beloved brother Paul according to the wisdom given unto him wrote to you, as one that in all his Epistles speaketh of these things: among the which, some things are hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable, wrest, as they do also other Scriptures unto their own destruction.” 2Pe 3

What learning and stability is the Apostle Peter referring to? Mathematics? General Science? No, he is clearly referring to understanding of the preceding Scriptures: the Hebrew Scriptures. Thus we are warned to have our foundation firmly seated in the Hebrew Scriptures before dealing presumptuously with Paul’s writings: there is a reason God gave us Moses and the Prophets first.

In brief, rejecting the Hebrew Scriptures to more easily twist the Greek Scriptures is like murdering the husband to more easily rape his wife.

#SabbathPosts 2023/08/12

Throughout history Satan has moved to mask Christianity, the faith of Abraham; he has sought to give it a different face even more than he has sought to bring it under persecution and oppression. Thus the Roman Catholics brought in even the most obviously pagan things, such as worshipping statues, yet Roman Catholicism and its offshoots are the face of Christianity in many people’s minds. Thus we have Christ depicted as a European. This was seen from the very beginning: archaeology finding pictures of the Messiah as an Ethiopian among Ethiopians, as an Asian among Asians, as a Roman among Romans (a Roman Caesar at that). Every group is either rejecting the Messiah, or altering him to claim he is the same as them: few submit to who he is.

At the very least in the English-speaking culture and those cultures influenced by it, there are two wicked groups constantly at war, which could be called the “upper-classists” and the “lower-classists”.
The upper-classists are those who have altered our Messiah and the faith of Abraham into their image: the dainty, the prosaic, the sterile, the genteel, the prim, the passive, the elegant, the vegetarian, the puerile and effeminate.
The lower-classists reject upper-classism, and make exactly the same error as the upper-classists: treating the faith of Abraham as one and the same as upper-classism. Each group is happy to point to the other to prove the point they agree on: that Christianity equals upper-class “elegance”.
Satan loves to keep these groups at war, and loves it when someone rejects Christianity thinking they reject the foolishness of upper-classism, as he loves it when someone embraces upper-classism thinking that he embraces Christianity.

This extends into many areas of life, one of which is art. The upper-classist dislikes things that are strange or grim: it isn’t “proper” or “elegant”. Because they believe “Christianity = upper-classism”, therefore they conclude whatever upper-classism dislikes must be intrinsically unchristian and wrong. To this the lower-classists agree, exulting in everything that upper-classists dislike, thinking that by doing so they are attacking Christianity – because, again, they make the same error as upper-classists, the idea that “Christianity = upper-classism”. So the upper-classist forever condemns, and even falls into superstitious fear of what is not to their upper-classist taste; the lower-classist mocks and revels, and Satan laughs at the rat-race he has crafted.

The truth is that this whole strife is man-made and Satanically inspired. The answer is to step out of it, leave the lie which both sides hold, and to open one’s eyes to the truth: the faith of Abraham has nothing to do with upper-classism, which is not of heaven but of men.

As the blossom need not declare “I am of Yahweh” to glorify him, neither does the thorn. As the blossom glorifies Yahweh by being a blossom, the thorn glorifies Yahweh by being a thorn.

The specific passion and purpose of my life is the application of this in the arts, specifically in the Strange: the grim, the surreal, the gritty. Every night your mind creates the Strange and the surreal in dreams: I believe it is essential to the human spirit, in the image of Yahweh. Forever let the Strange live to the glory of Yahweh, its Maker.

TL;DR: some hate spiders, God likes them, I agree with God.

#SabbathPosts 2023/08/05

{From a conversation on:

“Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.” Mt 15}

The Pharisees held many plants which needed to be rooted up, but Christ said they sat in Moses’ seat, which was certainly planted by the Father – and Paul, who gave up the heresies, remained a Pharisee, thus half or more of the Greek Scriptures were written by a Pharisee: another plant certainly planted by the Father.

In fact, Christ’s words were: “all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.” Mt 23 (Obviously not referring to the traditions of the elders which they taught, but whatever they said from the seat of Moses.)

So one could say from this that the main fault of the Pharisees was in not following the Phariseeism that they taught, but following other traditions instead of Pharisaical keeping of God’s Law, which they above all people should have followed.

#SabbathPosts 2023/07/29

“Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law” Acts 21

It is stunning to me when again and again I see people who claim to honour and study Scripture, yet swallow hook-line-and-sinker the atheist fairytale that Christianity is a new religion which replaced Judaism.

“Judaism” as it is understood today is a thing of today. Christianity received its name after Christ’s incarnation, but it is the same religion practiced by Noah – which in Scripture is simply referred to as “righteousness”, and fearing God.

Being a Jew, in the sense of being circumcised, never was nor can be a religion (or a bloodline, I might add): it is a covenant. It was never replaced, those who entered it and who do enter it are (obviously) bound by their word to keep that covenant. The only change is that now none should enter into this covenant (for various reasons). Obviously new people come into it by it being passed on: if you do not circumcise your child, you have broken the covenant. But no one should now take circumcision onto himself.

“Is any man called being circumcised? let him not become uncircumcised. Is any called in uncircumcision? let him not be circumcised.” 1Cor 7

There was never a moral requirement to become circumcised: it was commanded to Abraham and his household as a sign of God’s covenant to specifically bless Abraham; any others who entered into that covenant did so completely voluntarily.

It was a heresy taught later, in the Pharisees day, that unless you were circumcised you were not one of the righteous and could not enter heaven. It is astonishing how many today teach that this heresy was only a heresy after Christ, despite having the Scriptures in front of them, which say not a word of how Christ changed it to not be so, but only of how it never was and never can be so: if someone doesn’t understand how such a heresy can never be true, it is hard to say they understand salvation at all.

Christ saves the righteous, the innocent (such as little children, the prime example he gave), not the circumcised, or the baptised.

“So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.” Gal 3

“Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek Yahweh:
look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.
Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you” Is 51

#SabbathPosts 2023/07/22