Kingdom Come

“John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace,

1. from him which is, and which was, and which is to come – YHVH / I AM / The Singular Life Source
2. and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne;
3. And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness of YHVH, and the first begotten of the dead the ultimate proof of YHVH’s power

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

 I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ…was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day / day of the Lord” (Revelation 1)

This is not Sunday vs Saturday for Jewish worship.

The Day of the LORD is when YHVH / Creator and his sanctified ones – finally!- seize control back from the Adversary and his followers. His war banner reads “Vengeance is mine, I will repay!”

“Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.” (Isaiah 13:6)

“the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.” (Isaiah 13:9)

“the righteous judgment of God…will render to every man according to his deeds…In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my [Paul’s] gospel…For there is no respect of persons with God.

• • 1. eternal life and immortality…glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good…To them who
       • seek for glory – praised for benefiting others
       • and honour – respected and emulated by others 
       • by patient continuance in well doing – rather than exploiting others
    2. But…tribulation and anguish, indignation and wrath.. upon every soul of man that doeth evil, unto them that
       • are contentious – fighting to take away the rights of others
       • and do not obey the truth – of  righteousness being to self-sacrificially as a son of God to love others who don’t deserve it
       • but obey unrighteousness – harm and destroy God’s creation which he entrusted to humans, most of all, the people who come under our sphere of influence of care

1. For as many as have sinned without law / God’s written word shall also perish without law: For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)
2. and as many as have sinned in the law / conscious of God’s written word shall be judged by the law; For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.” (Romans 2)

This leaves out sooooo many Christians, especially Protestants, evangelicals and fundamentalists who have prayed the Sinner’s Prayer and are captivated by

“For by grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works…” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

That’s the problem with memorizing snippets of scripture in Sunday School. Keep reading the next verse.

“For we are…created in Christ Jesus / YHVH’s Ordained Savior unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10)

It’s all about walking the walk, not just talking the talk. Actions speak louder than words, as anyone who has attended a court hearing can attest. The person being judged can protest his innocence all he wants, but his actions provide the evidence required to make a determination as to his destiny – imprisonment or freedom.

This is not AT ALL limited to the biblical system. Hesiod described Zeus / Satan as the “lord of justice”.The Sumerian high priest wore Tablets of Destiny on his chest, the equivalent of the Hebrew Breastplate of Righteousness, the standards by which a person is judged.

We known from the Bible that the process of obtaining God’s decision was essentially a “throw of the dice”, called the Urim and Thumim. We can think of this as 0-1 computer code., through which the decision of the hyper dimensional divinity was conveyed to his four dimensional mediator and thence to the masses. Yes or no? Right or wrong? In terms of criminal justice, this is more like Guilty or Innocent?

Since these divination devices are so unfamiliar to our culture, I dug down into the linguistics to better understand them.

I discovered that Urim 224 ’ū·rîm אוּרִים֙ is the plural (im) for ur / אוּרִ, the same as the city Ur אוּר of the Chaldees.

The exact same word also translates as “the fire(s)” in a sacred context in Isaiah’s prophecies of judgment.

• “so will the LORD of hosts defend Jerusalem…
  • Turn ye unto him [the LORD} from whom the children of Israel have deeply revolted….
• Then shall the Assyrian fall...saith the LORD,
  •  WHOSE fire is in Zion, and HIS furnace in Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 31)

A little background is important. In the lineage-obsessed royalty of Mesopotamia, “the” Assyrian is not the current ruler per se, but  the current incarnation of his ancestor / god Assur who legitimizes, empowers and continues to rule through each successive ruler. The biblical reference to Assur informs us that this is one of the first long-lived fathers / gods of the nations, originally confederate with Nimrod in building Babel. The Assyrians’ first cousin Arphaxad’s descendants, called the Chaldeans, congregated in Babylon and are considered to be the live continuation of all the indigenous, i.e. “first people” of Mesopotamia.

Ur / Eridu is considered to be “the oldest city in Sumer according to the king lists, and its patron god was Enki (Ea / Lucifer)…one of the most important of the prehistoric urban centres in southern Babylonia. Founded…probably in the 5th millennium BC [pre-flood], it fully illustrated the sequence of the preliterate Ubaid civilization.”

The logical reason for YHVH using “Ur” to mean “fire in a furnace” in Zion / Jerusalem is that he is contrasting it with the Ur / fire in a furnace” of the Chaldees.

This only makes sense if Ur of the Chaldees was world famous for its fiery furnace. And surely Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar cannot be assumed to have been the first to make use of “a burning fiery furnace” to eliminate religious heretics. In support of this consideration is the fact that the older Hebrew word for fire – / ur / אוּרִ – is obviously the precursor root word in the later Aramaic word for fiery – nur / נוּר.

The prime support for this consideration is Jasher’s account of Abram being judged by Nimrod’s court for the same transgression of “having despised our gods, he must therefore be burned to death, for this is the law in this matter.”

This law continued throughout history.

The more I examine the historical documents of Roman Catholicism, the more convinced I am that the Protestant Reformation was a good idea. Believe it or not, the belief that heretics should be burned to death is the historic and infallible declaration of Catholicism. In the papal bull Exsurge Domine by Pope Leo X condemning the errors of Martin Luther, Leo declared that it is an error to be opposed to the burning of heretics.

This bull has never been rescinded, despite the Pope’s ecumenical visit to Sweden in October 2016 declaring that Catholics and Lutherans are ‘no longer defining themselves in opposition to each other,’ because Pope Leo X “reserved for himself the possibility.”

That’s unsettling as regards the uncertainty principle for the future.

Continuing to examine the evidence for judgment by Urim / fires:

“Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the Lord of hosts;

• I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God. 
• And who, as I, shall call, and shall declare it, and set it in order for me, since I appointed the ancient people? and the things that are coming, and shall come, let them shew unto them. 
• Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? ye are even my witnesses.
• Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any. 
• They that make a graven image are all of them vanity; and their delectable things shall not profit; and they are their own witnesses;
• they see not, nor know; that they may be ashamed…He heweth him down…the trees of the forest…
• Then shall it be for a man to burn…and saith, Aha…I have seen the [sacred] fire!

Don’t miss the major foreshadowing and and double meaning here!

And none considereth in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say,

• I have burned part of it in the fire;
• yea, also I have baked bread upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh, and eaten it:
• and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination? shall I fall down to the stock of a tree?

a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand? Remember these:

• I am the LORD that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself;
• That frustrateth the tokens of the liars, and maketh diviners mad…

Then Isaiah, speaking on behalf of mankind:

• “He is near that justifieth me;
  • who will contend with me?
• let us stand together:
  • who is mine adversary? let him come near to me. 
• Behold, the LORD God will help me;
  • who is he that shall condemn me?…

1. Who is among you that feareth the LORD, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that [yet] walketh in darkness [confusion], and hath no light [clarity]? let him trust in the name [attribute of life-giver] of the LORD, and stay upon his God. 
2. [In contrast!] Behold, all ye that kindle a fire [false light] that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of YOUR fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow.” (Isaiah 50)

The definition of um / אוּר as “fire that is sacred” is confirmed not only by its context when rarely used, but by the exclusivity of its use in this context in one of the classically concretized prophecies by Ezekiel. Can’t understand abstract concepts like saved vs doomed? Here’s a concrete example, what else can be said? No excuse for you now.

“And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife, take thee a barber’s razor, and cause it to pass upon thine head and upon thy beard: then take thee balances to weigh, and divide the hair.”

Pause here to understand that YHVH has just ordered his prophet to disregard, yet again, one of the Mosaic laws, in order to virulently arrest the attention of his audience for one last-ditch attempt to save them from doom. At the same time that Ezekiel was preaching to the captives in Babylon, Jeremiah was back in Jerusalem also spreading the same message. 

“say unto them, This is a nation that obeyeth not the voice of the LORD their God, nor receiveth correction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth. Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away…for the LORD hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath. For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, saith the LORD: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to pollute it.” (Jeremiah 7:28-30)

The Torah prohibits “rounding the corners” of the head. (Leviticus 19:27)

This means that it is prohibited to shave your sideburns (pe’ot) up to the top of the ear and make your hairline equal on all sides of the head…Traditionally, this commandment is interpreted as not even cutting any hair above the cheekbone, leaving short sideburns.

A Nazirite is supposed to grow his hair long and it is forbidden for him to cut his hair at all, whether the hairs of his head or his beard (See Numbers 6:5).

Back to Ezekiel in Babylon:

“Thou shalt burn with [sacred] fire a third part in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled: and thou shalt take a third part, and smite about it with a knife: and a third part thou shalt scatter in the wind; and I will draw out a sword after them. 

Thou shalt also take thereof a few in number, and bind them in thy skirts. Then take of them again, and cast them into the midst of the [common] fire, and burn them in the [common] fire;

Why?

for thereof…she hath changed my judgments into wickedness more than the nations…Therefore thus saith the LORD God…Behold, I will execute judgment.” (Ezekiel 5:1-8)

These references provide unmistakeable proof that when the Urim / fires element on the High Priest’s breastplate of judgment was activated in some way – perhaps by motion or sound or flashing light – that YHVH had pronounced judgment on the guilty.

This is acted out at the last judgment as well.

“Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:” (Matthew 25:40-41)

On to the Thummim which we can only hope is a positive response equivalent to “Found Not Guilty.”

Once again we recognize the plural ending, so we look for the meaning of the the root word תֻּמ which is translated completeness, integrity, perfect, upright.and blameless, guiltless.

“Judge me, O LORD; for I have walked in mine integrity: I have trusted also in the LORD; therefore I shall not slide. Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my reins and my heart.

• I have walked in thy truth.
  • I have not sat [made a place for mysef] with vain persons, neither will I go in with dissemblers.
• I have hated the congregation of evil doers; and will not sit with the wicked.
  • I have loved the habitation of thy house, and the place where thine honour dwelleth.
• Gather not my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloody men:
• I will walk in mine integrity: redeem me, and be merciful unto me. (Psalm 26)

With this background, does Paul’s statement become crystal clear?

“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:” (Colossians 2:8-10)

The two options of Ummim and Thummim are laid out clearly.

• “He that walketh uprightly walketh surely:
  • but he that perverteth his ways shall be known [found out, revealed despite a cover of right living]
• The way of the LORD is strength to the upright:
  • but destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity.” (Proverbs 10:9,29)

But by far my favorite definition is “finished”.

“And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it unto the priests the sons of Levi, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and unto all the elders of Israel. And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles, When all Israel is come to appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Gather the people together, men and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the LORD your God, and observe to do all the words of this law...Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished.” (Deuteronomy 32)

When YHVH’s Savior completed the work his father had given him, he uttered the same phrase referencing Moses’ work. I am certain that he used the Hebrew language to get his point across to the scripturally literate Jews, just as he did when he called out to his Father “Why?!” 

And they got it.

Yeshua’s work had no meaning without Moses’ work. We believe on YHVH’s Savior because Moses wrote down an indisputable and scientifically validated account of YHVH’s work in creation, choice of mankind as his family and heirs to this universe, and redemption by the Seed of the Woman, the last Adam, a human whose faith in YHVH’s promise of resurrection was steadfast even through horrific torture and death. His resurrection proves the ultimate test of faith is achievable. Our righteousness, integrity, completeness is achieved through believing Moses’ account of YHVH as Creator and Resurrector through his Redeemer, the human we call Christ Jesus.

“For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward.” (II John 1:7-8)

And what about those who never heard of Jesus Christ? Logic dictates that if salvation by Jesus Christ stands on Moses’ account of YHVH as Creator, Sustainer, and Promiser of resurrection by means unknown for 4,000 years before his redeemer showed up in a backwater province in the Middle East, that  anyone who is trusting in YHVH Creator by whatever language his attributes are named is judged to have integrity, uprightness, completion as much as the saints named in the Old Testament.

I am much more concerned about the Christians who think that salvation is a gift and Moses’ law can now be tossed aside. Will they be judged to have “walked [moved among society, behaved themselves] in integrity, uprightness”?

Or will they be judged to have joined forces with antichrist?