August 7, 2008
End Notes
Jeremiah’s
Poetics in Lamentations 1
In
chapter two of A Fresh Look at Typology,
I describe the hand to heart, darkness to light movement of ancient Hebraic
thought-couplets, which has the first presentation of an idea forming the
shadow or type of the second presentation of the same idea, with the first
presentation pertaining to the things of this world and the second presentation
pertaining to the things of God. This movement from physical to spiritual was
employed by King David in his Psalms and is central to understanding the
mythical key of David which has David
identifying Yah as the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the “natural” or physical
representative of the conjoined deity, YHWH.
The outside/inside, dark/light movement in some
poems in Hebraic Scripture—because readers and translators are not
expecting to find dual referents—is more difficult to discern than this
movement is in other works, with Jeremiah’s Lamentations being long
neglected by most Sabbatarian Christians … Lamentations is too easily
skipped, for most Christians believe they know what the subject is:
Babylon’s capture of Jerusalem and the exile of the city’s
inhabitants because of their transgressions against God. For most disciples,
Lamentations pertains to Christianity only as justification for why Jesus had
to come to save Israel,
now a nation circumcised of heart. For most Christians, once the disciple reads
Lamentations even if that reading was thirty years ago Jeremiah’s laments
need not be read again. And this is reason enough to take another look at
Lamentations.
Jeremiah writes after David by 400+ years, with as
much difference in language usage and presentation of poetic discourse
occurring as between Shakespeare’s poetry, written near the end of the 16th-Century,
and the works of currently living poets at the beginning of the 21st-Century.
Therefore, rather than wrestle with the original text in this brief examination
of Lamentations 1, I will use the English
Standard Version of Holy Writ and will identify each thought-couplet within
a verse with an “a,” “b,” “c.” And we shall
begin, looking at three verses at a time:
Lamentation 1:1
1a) How lonely sits the city
that was full of people!
1b) How like a widow has she become,
she who was great among the nations!
1c) She who was a princess
among the provinces
has become a slave.
2a) She weeps bitterly in the night,
with tears on her cheeks;
2b) among all her lovers
she has none to comfort her;
2c) all her friends have dealt treacherously with
her;
they have become her enemies.
3a) Judah
has gone into exile because of affliction
and hard servitude;
3b) she dwells now among the nations,
but finds no resting place;
3c) her pursuers have all overtaken her
in the midst of her distress.
The Geneva Bible, infamous for its commentary,
translates and says of verse one:
1:1 How doth a the city sit desolate, [that was] full of people! [how] is she become as a widow! she
[that was] great among the nations, b [and] princess among the provinces,
[how] is she become a slave!
(a) The prophet wonders at the great judgment of God, seeing Jerusalem, which was so
strong and so full of people, to be now destroyed and desolate.
(b) Who had chief rule over many provinces and
countries.
It is no wonder that King James I of England
disliked the Geneva Bible enough to order a new translation of Holy Writ: the Geneva
Bible lacks grace and the commentary is not helpful, but its commentary is
probably, though from the 16th-Century, as good as most presently
available. And that is the problem. Hebraic poetics have escaped structural
analysis, have escaped deconstruction, and have mostly escaped being closely
read.
The Apostle Paul wrote that the visible things of
this world reveal and precede the invisible things of God in the same way that
the first presentation of a thought in a Hebrew poetic-couplet is of greater
distance from the “self” than is the second presentation of the
same thought—the first presentation is about death or darkness and the
second presentation is of life or light; the first presentation pertains to the
community in which the self is subjugated to the majority and the second
presentation pertains to the self; the first presentation pertains to the flesh
of a person and the second presentation pertains to the thoughts or desires of
the person. Movement is from outer to inner, or
expressed in New Testament theology, from circumcision of the flesh by hands
according to the law to circumcision of the heart by spirit according to the
person’s faith, with what is outward forming the chiral
image of what is inward.
The Apostle also writes, “One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar.
Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem. But the Jerusalem above is free,
and she is our mother” (Gal 4:24–26). Two cities identified as
Jerusalem, one with geographical coordinates, one with theological
coordinates—and that which has geographical coordinates is of this world
and has been subjugated to bondage and decay, which are of this world that is
passing away (1 John 2:17).
The relationship that Paul establishes between
earthly Jerusalem and heavenly Jerusalem is that of slavery [i.e., bondage
to sin and death] versus freedom [i.e., life or salvation], earthly Jerusalem
forming the left hand mirror image of heavenly Jerusalem, the city on
God’s right hand. The concept of left and right hands has spiritual
significance, for within Near and Middle East cultures the left hand was used
to take care of bodily functions whereas the right hand was reserved for more
noble uses; thus when a left hand was amputated, all who meet the person knows
that the person has to take care of his or her bodily functions with the right
hand and thereby defile that hand. It is the left hand that pertains to the
things of this world, and it is the left hand that is “naturally”
defiled. The right hand is, thus, extended in fellowship with God.
Nothing has substantively changed in two millennia:
earthly Jerusalem, in the modern state of Israel, the left-handed non-symmetrical mirror
image of the City of God, still represents death
as heavenly Jerusalem
represents salvation. Those disciples who are alarmed by worldly events
involving earthly Jerusalem can be likened to natural Israel, the children of
slavery, whereas those disciples whose focus is heavenly Jerusalem are not
alarmed by wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines, and pestilence (Matt
24:6–7). Their focus is making disciples for Christ Jesus [i.e., doing
business with their knowledge of God] as they preach repentance in making
straight the way to the Lord as John the Baptist was a voice of one crying out in the wilderness (John 1:23).
Disciples alarmed by worldly events involving
earthly Jerusalem
are many: they subscribe to the Jerusalem
Post, and they hang on every rumor of war. They worry that President George
W. Bush might become a Catholic and that the Pope will unite Europe around a
German-Franco alliance before establishing himself in Jerusalem. They worry that Iran will
develop nuclear weapons. They worry about gasoline prices and presidential
politics, abortion, school prayer, the commercialization of Christmas, the
godlessness of society. They are alarmed by just about everything that happens
in this world, and they will not believe Jesus
who said not to be alarmed by the things of this world or by the things that
happen in this world for these things are but the beginning of the hard birth
pains that follow not precede the liberation of Israel, the hour of
trial that will come upon the whole world, the hour that will cause the whole
world to hate “Christians,” the hour that will see all firstborns
not covered by the blood of Christ die as the firstborns of Egypt died when
Israel was liberated from physical bondage to a physical king. It will be this
hour of trial and the liberation of spiritually circumcised Israel from sin and
death that will cause ancient Israel’s exodus from Egypt to no longer be
remembered (Jer 16:14–15; 23:7–8).
When Israel is liberated from sin and death, this
holy nation will be liberated from earthly Jerusalem being the focus of its
thoughts, so great will be its persecution for the very things—its
lawlessness—that left earthly Jerusalem sitting lonely on a hill.
Jeremiah’s poetry is a lament, so the
outside-to-inside movement within a thought-couplet is from outer darkness to
inner darkness, with this darkness describing both the left hand enantimer—the non-symmetrical mirror image that is
earthly Jerusalem—of the right hand city
of God, heavenly Jerusalem. Two referents, both Jerusalem, one earthly,
one heavenly, both described with the lament.
Again, earthly Jerusalem
represents slavery and death, the absence of God whose glory the prophet
Ezekiel saw leave the temple in Jerusalem
(chap 10). It is the Jerusalem
above that to the Apostle Paul represents freedom and life. But
Jeremiah’s lament would seem to describe a heavenly City of God that has
become like the earthly city … earthly Jerusalem under King David was not
a city that visibly represented slavery; however, David sinned, and his son
Solomon sinned by his many foreign wives, and the kings of Judah, with very few
exceptions, persisted in sinning, thereby presenting themselves to the devil as
his offspring. So how is it that if earthly Jerusalem
is a city representing slavery to sin that it can serve as the shadow of the
heavenly City of God,
unless this heavenly city is also emptied of inhabitants because of the
lawlessness of the Church? And this is the truth that Sabbatarian Christians
intuitively know but have been unwilling to admit for the past 400+ years.
The only Christian denomination that actively
teaches that the Church died and had to be restored to life is a mirage
hovering over western deserts, promising the waters of eternal life but being
nothing more than shimmering air above the lake of fire.
Those Christians who are alarmed by the things that
happen in earthly Jerusalem
are without light: they are spiritually as human infants of thirty months of
age or less, who are too young to comprehend dual representation where one
“thing” represents another thing, a function of brain development
that is embarrassingly simple for children of thirty-six months of age. …
Human maturation forms the shadow and type of spiritual maturation, with that
point when a “Christian” makes a journey of faith of sufficient
distance to cleanse the heart so that it can be circumcised equating to a
Hebrew male infant of eight days of age being physically circumcised. For the
“Christian” who has grown to physical maturity in a
Sunday-observing fellowship, the journey of faith necessary to cleanse the
heart will be into Sabbath observance and keeping the commandments of God by
faith. Thus, when the disciple who grew to physical maturity in, say, a
Southern Baptist household mentally leaves the landscape of his or her birth
and mentally crosses the Jordan River to enter into God’s presence on the
Sabbath, this person has made a journey of sufficient distance to cleanse the
heart so that it can be circumcised. But when this person enters into Sabbath
observance, this person is spiritually as an eight day old human infant. This
person needs spiritual milk—sola
scriptura—and is not ready to chew or digest solid food, and this
person is far from being mentally mature enough to comprehend dual
representation. Yet as a two year old human infant does not comprehend how
young the infant is, many Sabbatarian Christian disciples have sallied forth as
true novices to teach those who have even less knowledge of the principles of
God. These disciples as playing spiritual dress-up,
and while their play is amusing to adults, it is the reason why Paul writes
that the person who serves the Church should not be a novice [a recent convert]
(1 Tim 3:6).
The Church of God in both the 19th and
20th Centuries suffered from charismatic personalities who were
novices teaching the oracles of God to converts who were without knowledge, and
a phenomenon observed when considering the ministries of these charismatic
novices is that they made little spiritual growth after they began teaching,
for apparently their initial focus on physical events kept them focused on the
things of this world throughout their ministries.
With the above as background, it is time to read Jeremiah’s laments. The
initial presentation of a personified Jerusalem
is, “How lonely sits the city,” with the narrative distance far
enough away that inhabitants are not discernible. The city is by itself,
without God or other cities. Because of the personification contained within
the act of /sitting/ the city is as a
person, a woman, alone in the world, with this image forming the left hand enantimer of heavenly Jerusalem not being alone, but with
God, as the Bride of Christ (Rev 21:2, 9–14). Before proceeding, pause
for a moment: if earthly Jerusalem sits alone,
can heavenly Jerusalem
also sit alone, without inhabitant when all of Christendom dwells in sin? It
certainly could, couldn’t it? And if heavenly Jerusalem sits alone, then a restoration of
the Church is an absolute, sure to happen before the Church becomes the Bride
of Christ. This means that as life was restored to earthly Jerusalem
when a remnant left Babylon to rebuild the house
of God, a remnant of Christians will leave spiritual Babylon
to rebuild the City of God.
Although some disciples will immediately object,
saying that the above is reading too much into the line, the disciples should
remember that Lamentations is poetry, and the focus of poetry is never
what the words mimetically represent, but the words themselves, the artifice produced
by the words, and the delivery of the words. Therefore, earthly Jerusalem is
what Jeremiah’s words mimetically represent, but because the focus is the
poem, the lament, it will here be asserted that heavenly Jerusalem is the
actual focus, and heavenly Jerusalem is without inhabitants, meaning that when
the lament is crafted and before the new heavens and earth come after the
thousand year reign of the Messiah, the city of God sits lonely.
Jeremiah’s lament has dual referents, with
the first referent appearing in the initial presentation of a thought and with
the second referent appearing in the second presentation of the thought, with
the second referent and presentation partly or fully being represented in the
initial presentation … this is a convoluted way of saying that the
primary focus of Jeremiah’s lament is not earthly Jerusalem, what the
lament’s words mimetically represent, but the heavenly City of God.
The second presentation of the thought that “Jerusalem is without
observable inhabitants” addresses these inhabitants: “that was full
of people!” The negation of residents imbedded in a lonely city comes by looking for inhabitants that were there and
not finding them. So the poetic movement is from a lonely personified city to
an up-close look for those residents of the city that were there.
In the second thought-couplet, “How like a
widow has she become, / she who was great among the nations,” the first
presentation of the personified city has the city being a widow who was not
before a widow. The city has lost her husband and her children: God has left
her, and her children, the peoples forming the nation of Israel, are
gone. She has no one. But in the second presentation of the city having no one
is the memory that at one time the city was great through having as her Husband
the Lord, and having as her children the nation of Israel.
Can heavenly Jerusalem
lose her Husband and children? Yes, she can. When the Church returned to
lawlessness, the Church became as physically circumcised Israel was in
both the days of the judges and in Jeremiah’s day. Everything Jeremiah
writes about earthly Jerusalem has as its counterpart what happened to the
Church from late in the 1st-Century CE through the 4th-Century,
with God delivering the Church into the hand of the spiritual king of Babylon
(Isa 14:4) at the Council of Nicea (ca 325 CE) when the secular Roman Emperor
Constantine determined what sound doctrine would be for Christendom … the
Council of Nicea is the spiritual equivalent of Nebuchadnezzar sacking
Jerusalem and taking all that remained of Israel in the Promised Land captive
(ca 586 BCE), so earthly Jerusalem in the 6th-Century BCE forms the
left hand enantimer of the city of God in the 4th-Century
CE.
The spiritual presentation of Jerusalem
as a widow references what Jerusalem
was and what she should be, great among
the nations.
In the first or natural presentation of the first
two couplets, Jerusalem
is lonely, and she is a widow. In the spiritual presentation of the first two
couplets, she is without people and she was great among the nations [but no
longer is]. So what can now be postulated with more certainty is that the first
presentation reflects the state of earthly Jerusalem,
and the second or spiritual presentation prophetically describes the heavenly
city of God
between the 4th-Century CE and some point in the future. If this
postulate is true, then the remainder of the verses will fit this pattern,
realizing of course that because the lament is a poem, the lament is more
complicated than simply the first line of each couplet pertains to earthly Jerusalem and the second line to the City of God. A future emptying of
the City of God
when Satan is released from the bottomless pit for a short while (three and a
half years) is also under discussion.
In 1:1c, Jeremiah writes, “She who was a
princess among the provinces,” and this fits the personified earthly Jerusalem, while the
second presentation has, “[she] has become a slave,” being
certainly true of the Christian Church through the period between 325 CE and
1525 CE, for the Church was the vehicle that the prince of this world used to
rule over human beings in much of the world. The Christian Church, Latin and
Greek, was the bond-servant of the Adversary that he employed to prevent
rebellion against him.
Because for convenience sake we are working with an
English translation rather than the Hebrew text, when moving to verse 2, the
delivery speed of the lament perceivably increases:
2a) She weeps bitterly in the night,
with tears on her cheeks;
2b) among all her lovers
she has none to comfort her;
2c) all her friends have dealt treacherously with
her;
they have become her enemies.
The natural presentation of the thought couplets
reads, (a) “She weeps bitterly in the night, (b) among
all her lovers, (c) all her friends have dealt treacherously with
her,” while the presentation that pertains to the Church reads, “(a)
with tears on her cheeks, (b) she has none to comfort her, (c)
they have become her enemies” … does the spiritual presentation fit
the Church during the years after 325 CE? Arian Christians sacked Rome as Christians fought against Christians, shedding
Christian blood in North Africa and Italy,
then later in Byzantium, Austria, Germany,
Transylvania, and the Low Countries. There was
certainly no one to comfort the Church. Every ideology was its enemy, including
its own. So without having to use a literary shoehorn, what Jeremiah writes so
far forms an apt description of the Church following 325 CE.
The thought-couplets of verse 3 are:
3a) Judah
has gone into exile because of affliction
and hard servitude;
3b) she dwells now among the nations,
but finds no resting place;
3c) her pursuers have all overtaken her
in the midst of her distress.
The natural presentation pertaining to earthly
Jerusalem will be, “(a) Judah has gone into exile because of
affliction, (b) she dwells now among the nations, (c) her
pursuers have all overtaken her,” which forms an appropriate description
of Judah in Babylonian captivity. The spiritual presentation that should
pertain to the Church is, “(a) [She has gone into] hard
servitude, (b) but finds no resting place (c) in the
midst of her distress,” which describes the work done by the Christian
Church for the prince of this world for centuries.
Jesus said His kingdom was not of this world, nor
from this world (John 18:36). When addressing the Herodians, He said,
“‘Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,
and to God the things that are God’s’” (Matt 22:21). The
kingdom of this world belongs to Caesar as the representative for the prince of
this world.
Although the Apostle Paul said, “For there is
no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.
Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed”
(Rom 13:1–2), and “[the ruler] is God’s servant for your
good” (v. 4), God consigned all
of humankind to disobedience (Rom 11:32). He delivered humankind into
Satan’s hand because of the rebellion of the first Adam, and by
delivering humankind into the hand of Satan for the destruction of the flesh as
Paul commanded the saints at Corinth to deliver the one with his father’s
wife to Satan (1 Cor 5:5) the authorities that God
instituted are agents of the Adversary for the destruction of the flesh when
sin is manifested by actions of the flesh.
The prophet Daniel records what the watchers told
Nebuchadnezzar: “‘The sentence is by decree of the watchers, the
decision by the word of the holy ones, to the end that the living may know that
the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom it will and sets
over it the lowliest [basest] of men’” (4:17) … God has given
the kingdom of men to the Adversary, the present prince of this world, and has
set over it the scum of humanity, which isn’t how most Christians think
of presidents, prime ministers, and kings even when it is apparent this is the
case as in a semen-stained blue dress.
Verses 4 through 6 read,
4a) The
roads to Zion
mourn,
for none come to the festival;
4b) all
her gates are desolate;
her priests groan;
4c) her
virgins have been afflicted,
and she herself suffers bitterly.
5a) Her
foes have become the head;
her enemies prosper,
5b)
because the Lord has afflicted her
for the multitude of her transgressions;
5c) her children have gone away,
captives before the foe.
6a) From the daughter of Zion
all her majesty has departed.
6b) Her princes have
become like deer
that find no pasture;
6c) they fled without strength
before the pursuer.
The presentation pertaining to earthly Jerusalem will read, “(4a) The roads to Zion
mourn (b) all her gates are desolate (c) her virgins have
been afflicted. (5a) Her foes have become
the head (b) because the Lord has afflicted her (c) her
children have gone away, (6a) from the daughter of Zion. (b) Her princes have become
like deer, (c) they fled without strength.”
The presentation that should pertain to heavenly
Jerusalem (i.e., the Church) will read, “(4a) [F]or none come
to the festival (b) her priests groan (c) and she herself
suffers bitterly; (5a) her enemies prosper (b) for the
multitude of her transgressions, (c) captives before the foe; (6a)
all her majesty has departed (b) that find no pasture (c)
before the pursuer.”
Certainly because the Church has not kept the
feasts of the Lord since the 1st-Century CE, her priests groan and
she suffers—because the Church took sin upon herself, she
“died” through separation from God. She had the appearance of being
alive, but she was only alive in this world where earthly Jerusalem resides. Certainly her enemies prosper
because of her transgressions, and certainly all of her majesty before God has
departed because of the Church’s transgressions of the commandments, but finding no pasture before the pursuer
doesn’t easily fit unless the Church has become like a beast of the
field, a sacrificial lamb or goat (as opposed to a wild animal that knows no
master) … if natural Jerusalem’s princes have become like deer, not
ruled by anyone other than the king of Babylon unto whose hand God delivered
even the beasts of the field (Jer 28:14; Dan 2:38), then their non-symmetrical
mirror image would also be a beast, but a beast ruled by the Lord as sheep of
His flock. Therefore, no pasture found
for these sheep can be read there being no place within the Christian
Church for the Lord’s sheep, that His sheep are pursued “(7a) in
the days of her affliction and wandering (b) that were hers from days of old
(c) and there was none to help her, (d) they mocked at her downfall.”
Verses 7 through 9 read,
7a) Jerusalem remembers
in the days of her affliction and wandering
7b) all the precious things
that were hers from days of old.
7c) When
her people fell into the hand of the foe,
and there was none to help her,
7d) her
foes gloated over her;
they mocked at her downfall.
8a) Jerusalem sinned grievously;
therefore she became filthy;
8b) all
who honored her despise her,
for they have seen her nakedness;
8c) she
herself groans
and turns her face away.
9a) Her
uncleanness was in her skirts;
she took no thought of her future;
9b) therefore
her fall is terrible;
she has no comforter.
9c) “O
Lord, behold my affliction,
for the enemy has triumphed!”
Having
two referents for each thought-couplet is not a task that is poetically
difficult to sustain, but this is not what a non-poet would expect to find. The
presentations referring to earthly Jerusalem
will read as follows: “(7a) Jerusalem remembers (b) all the precious
things. (c) When her
people fell into the hand of the foe (d) her foes gloated over her. (8a)
Jerusalem
sinned grievously; (b) all who honored her despise her; (c)
she herself groans. (9a) Her uncleanness
was in her skirts; (b) therefore her fall is terrible. (c)
“O Lord, behold my affliction.”
The presentation referring
to the city of God will read: “(7a) In the days of her
affliction and wandering (b) that were hers from days of old (c)
there was none to help her; (d) they mocked at her downfall. (8a)
Therefore she became filthy (b) for they have seen her nakedness; (c)
[She] turns her face away; (9a) she took no thought of her future; (b)
she has no comforter (c) for the enemy has triumphed!”
Considering that the
translators had no idea that thought-couplets could have dual
referents—earthly Jerusalem
as well as the City of God—the translation reads reasonable well.
To confirm what has been
postulated, the physical presentation of verses 10 through 22 [the end of the
lament] will be read as prose, followed by the spiritual presentation in prose.
The verses will then be presented as they appear in the English Standard
Version at the end of this commentary.
Earthly Jerusalem: “(10a) The
enemy has stretched out his hands. (b) [Jerusalem] has seen the nations, (c)
those whom you forbade. (11a) All her people groan; (b) they
trade their treasures for food. (c) ‘Look, O Lord, and see.’
(12a) ‘Is it nothing to you, all you
who pass by?’ (b) Is there any sorrow like my sorrow, (c)
which the Lord inflicted—(13a)
from on high he
sent fire; (b) he spread a net for my feet; (c) he has
left me stunned. (14a) My
transgressions were bound into a yoke; (b) they were set upon my
neck. (c) The Lord gave me into [my enemies’] hands. (15a) The Lord rejected [me]; (b) he summoned an assembly
against me; (c) the Lord has trodden [me] as in a winepress. (16a) For these things I weep (b) for
a comforter is far from me; (c) my children are desolate.’ (17a) Zion
stretches out her hands: (b) the Lord has commanded against Jacob; (c)
Jerusalem has become [defiled]. (18a)
‘The Lord is in the right. (b) Hear all you peoples, (c)
my young women and my young men.’ (19a) I called
to my lovers, (b) my priests and elders (c) while they
sought food: (20a) ‘Look, O Lord, for I am in
distress, (b) my heart is wrung within me; (c) in the
street the sword bereaves. (21a) They heardmy groaning;(b) all my
enemies have heard of my trouble. (c) You have brought the day you
announced. (22a) Let all their evildoing come before you (b) as
you have dealt with me (c) for my groans are many.’”
It is not unexpected that
half of a poetic text can be rendered into readable prose, especially when
working from a translation: Jerusalem’s enemies have stretched out their
hands and have taken Jerusalem, a reality of war expressed in figurative language
that personifies both Jerusalem and her enemies, and an expression that allows
the city to speak as if the city were a woman. Considering that the Apostle
Paul identifies disciples as the temple of God, and considering that Jesus
identified His body as the temple, and considering that John the Revelator
identifies glorified disciples as New Jerusalem, the temple grown large,
Jeremiah’s personification of earthly Jerusalem establishes a base from
which the temple and New Jerusalem can logically be glorified human beings
… what those disciples who focus their attention on earthly Jerusalem
miss is the movement from the tabernacle in the wilderness being sewn badger
skins and from spun yarn [notice the play on the words considering that the Logos spoke everything into
existence] to the temple being constructed of lifeless stone and timber to
being composed of flesh and blood then to being glorified bodies within the
single house of God. Once Jesus cleansed the temple, the earthly temple of God ceased to be the stone edifice that
Herod had built but became instead the flesh and blood body of Christ.
Disciples now, as the Body of Christ, are the earthly temple of God.
So those uninformed or poorly taught disciples who look for another physical
temple to be built in the modern State of Israel have wandering eyes and look
amiss: they seek what is of no importance spiritually, and they are alarmed by events
that have even less importance. But by causing infant sons of God to be alarmed
by the events that happen in this world—events that are
observable—many false teachers have built for themselves substantial
houses in this world that will be consumed by fire when Christ returns, with
these “houses” consisting of the “many” disciples who will
follow the false teacher into the lake of fire when judgments are revealed. For
example, the beast of Revelation 13 is not the Roman Church for John’s
presents Christ’s revelation in a mostly chronological order, with the
events in chapter 9 preceding the events in chapter 11 and with the events in
chapter 11 preceding the events in chapter 13: the kingdom of this world is not
given to the Son of Man many times but once, and that one time is described in
Daniel chapter 7, verses 9 through 14, and in Revelation chapter 11,
verses 15 through 18. The 1260 days ministry of the two witnesses will
immediately precede the giving of the kingdom of this world into the hand of
the Son of Man and will be the same period that is the time, times, and
half a time when the saints are delivered into the hand of the man of perdition
who comes by the workings of Satan. Hence, the taking of the fourth beast, with
this beast being dealt a mortal would and its body being given over to be
burned, and with dominion taken from the first three beasts but with their
lives spared for a season and a time (Dan 7:11–12) occurs immediately
prior to when the first beast of Revelation 13 emerges from the sea. Those four
beasts of Daniel chapter 7 exist simultaneously; they are all present when the
fourth beast is dealt a mortal wound. They are the four horns that appear on
the head of the spiritual king of Greece when its first king or great horn is
broken, and they are like [but are not] the four metals of the
humanoid image that King Nebuchadnezzar saw, which had the four metals being
simultaneously present (Dan 2:35) when the split Mount of Olives (Zech
14:3–4), a stone cut without human hands, crushes the feet of this
humanoid image. Satan’s reign over humanity ends abruptly, and it ends
when Babylon
falls and Satan is cast into time (Rev 12:7–10). So the wound dealt the
fourth beast is not the imprisonment of Pius VI in 1798 and the taking of all
the Papal States by Italian nationalists in
1870. It is the defeat of “Death,” the fourth horseman (Rev
6:7–8), when the two witnesses are publicly resurrected, for a thing is
established on the testimony of two or three witnesses and so far the only
witness to testify that death has been defeated is Christ Jesus. And the
healing of this mortal wound did not begin in 1929 with the juridical
delimitation of the Vatican State as Seventh Day Adventist apologists teach,
but is the return of death as seen in Revelation 13:10, when additional
“Christians” will be slain for wars will not end until Christ
returns forty-two months after Satan has been cast from heaven and the world
baptized in spirit, thereby causing every person alive to be born of spirit and
to be born filled with or empowered by the Holy Spirit.
So there is no doubt: every teacher of Israel, physically or
spiritually circumcised, who causes his or her disciples to focus on events
that happen in this world is false! There are no exceptions.
A great many sincere individuals have mistaught
Israel.
Most taught not for the ugliness of personal gain, but out of an inner desire
to serve God. Nevertheless, because biblical prophecies were sealed and secret
until the time of the end they could not understand these prophesies unless
they first went back to the foundation the Apostle Paul laid, for it was upon
that foundation the endtime house of God would be built—and that
foundation teaches that being born of spirit is a real birth, with the new
creature, new self that has been born of spirit being an infant son of God
domiciled in a tent of flesh. This new creature is of heaven, and is the
disciple of Christ that will be glorified or given a spiritual body when
judgments are revealed. This new creature is not of this world. Christ’s
kingdom is not of this world. So this new creature’s citizenship is not
of this world; this new creature’s focus and attention should not be upon
the things of this world but on the things of God. For this new creature has
been born into a tent of flesh in this world to grow, something that cannot
happen in the timeless realm of heaven where all that was must coexist with all
that will be in an unchanging present. The type of physical growth seen in a
human being from birth is adulthood forms the shadow and type of the spiritual
growth that must occur in a son of God, and that can only occur within time
where one moment passes into the next moment thereby allowing change to occur.
Returning now to the
second of the two referents present, the City
of God: “(9c) for the enemy has triumphed (10a) over
all her precious things; (b) [they] enter her sanctuary (c)
to enter your congregation (11a) as they search for bread (b)
to revive their strength. (c) ‘I am despised. (12a)
Look and see (b) what was brought upon me (c) on the day
of his fierce anger: (13a) into my bones he made it descend; (b)
he turned me back, (c) faint all the day long; (14a) by his hand they were fastened together; (b) he caused
my strength to fail (c) [leaving me to] those whom I cannot
withstand (15a) [with] all my mighty men in my midst (b)
to crush my young men, (c) the virgin daughter of Judah. (16a) My
eyes flow with tears, (b) [no] one [is here] to revive my spirit (c)
for the enemy has prevailed.’ (17a) There
is none to comfort her (b) that his neighbors should be his foes. (c)
‘A filthy thing among them, (18a) I have
rebelled against his word, (b) and see my suffering: (c)
[all] have gone into captivity. (19a) [Those in whom I trusted] deceived me
(b) [and have] perished in the city (c) [seeking] to
revive their strength. (20a) My stomach churns (b) because I have
been very rebellious; (c) in the house it is like death. (21a) There
is no one to comfort me; (b) [my enemies] are glad that you have done
it. (c) Now let them be as I am (22a) and deal
with them (b) because of all my transgressions; (c) my
heart is faint.”
What
has been demonstrated? That with a little tweaking the redundancy of Hebrew
poetry can be read as a second text? Does this second text really describe the
Church? What are the precious things of the Church, certainly not physical
things? Are not these precious things knowledge of God, knowledge of the new
creature born of spirit, the new creature that is not male or female, Jew or Greek?
Did not the Adversary triumph over the Church when belief that humans are physically
born with immortal souls entered the theology of Christendom? Did not the
Adversary feed upon disciples when sinning (i.e., transgression of the
commandments of God) became the official teaching of the Church? Were not the
mighty men and women of God crushed by unbelief that became disobedience when they
ceased keeping the Sabbaths of God and attempted to enter into God’s
presence on another day? Should not Christ have wept as He did when observing
earthly Jerusalem when the Church became a
filthy thing because of rebellion against God—and if Christ wept, should
not heavenly Jerusalem
weep because of the damage done by the Adversary? And would it not be a
righteous prayer for heavenly Jerusalem
to ask that those who have caused the saints to transgress the commandments
receive the fruit they have earned for their rebellion against God?
Some
will argue that a text can be made to say anything, and that is almost true for
every text will support more than one reading but not every reading. So using a
text to “prove” a point is never proof in itself. Therefore, the
sheep who hear Christ’s voice can dwell with sheep who do not in the same
fold for a while, but not forever. Eventually, the gate opens and the sheep who
hear Christ’s voice follow Him out of the pen and into heaven. Those
sheep who do not hear His voice will continue to mill about in the pen that is
this earth, their thoughts on those things that are passing away. They are
alarmed by those things that happen in this world, and they say silly things
about a red heifer and about the Pope, who is just one of many false teachers
of Israel.
And they don’t know to look over their shoulder at the storm brewing on
the western desert horizon, a whirlwind that will sweep Sabbatarian Christians
looking at Vatican
into the dustbin of history.
It
is ironic that the Roman Church has so effectively caused American Sabbatarians
to look eastward that these disciples will be completely blindsided by an
American man of perdition who comes by the workings of Satan—it is into
his hand that the saints of the Most High will be given worldwide, for he will
leverage food into discipleship and he already has control over much of the
world’s food supply. He will be like Joseph who served the Pharaoh, the
earthly shadow of the spiritual prince of this world.
Sabbatarians
read the Genesis account of Joseph in Egypt
as an account of a “good guy”; ancient Israel thought of Saul as a good
king as he set about to expand the borders of the nation. Yet it was through Israel going down to Egypt
seventy in number that Israel
willingly entered into servitude to Pharaoh, for Joseph even as the number two
man in Egypt
was always the slave of Pharaoh. And King Saul came to the throne as the result
of Israel’s
rebellion against God.
The
man of perdition (Matt 24:15), the non-symmetrical mirror image of Satan when
he is cast into time, will be like Joseph in Egypt,
a savior of Israel
because of the food reserves that he controls. He will be like King Saul.
Christendom will embrace him, and in doing so Christians will rebel against
God. The great falling away didn’t happen in the 1st-Century
CE or in the 4th-Century or in the 20th-Century. It will
happen in the 21st-Century when the vast majority of Christians
follow this latter Joseph, pledging alliance to this latter King Saul, a human
being whose power comes from Satan himself. So Jeremiah’s lament
certainly pertains to the Church, an assembly that does not know its left hand
from its right and as a result focuses its attention on its left hand, the
things of this world.
The
remainder of Lamentations chapter 1 is here presented as a comparison to the
prose renderings:
10a) The
enemy has stretched out his hands
over all her precious things;
10b) for
she has seen the nations
enter her sanctuary,
10c) those whom you forbade
to enter your congregation.
11a) All
her people groan
as they search for bread;
11b) they
trade their treasures for food
to revive their strength.
11c) “Look,
O Lord, and see,
for I am despised.”
12a) “Is
it nothing to you, all you who pass by?
Look and see
12b) if
there is any sorrow like my sorrow,
which was brought upon me,
12c) which the Lord inflicted
on the day of his fierce anger.
13a) “From
on high he sent fire;
into my bones he made it descend;
13b) he
spread a net for my feet;
he turned me back;
13c) he
has left me stunned,
faint all the day long.
14a) “My
transgressions were bound into a yoke;
by his hand they were fastened together;
14b) they
were set upon my neck;
he caused my strength to fail;
14c) the
Lord gave me into the hands
of those whom I cannot withstand.
15a) “The
Lord rejected
all my mighty men in my midst;
15b) he
summoned an assembly against me
to crush my young men;
15c) the
Lord has trodden as in a winepress
the virgin daughter of Judah.
16a) “For
these things I weep;
my eyes flow with tears;
16b) for
a comforter is far from me,
one to revive my spirit;
16c) my
children are desolate,
for the enemy has prevailed.”
17a) Zion stretches out her hands,
but there is none to comfort her;
17b) the
Lord has commanded against Jacob
that his neighbors should be his foes;
17c) Jerusalem has become
a filthy thing among them.
18a) “The
Lord is in the right,
for I have rebelled against his word;
18b) but
hear, all you peoples,
and see my suffering;
18c) my
young women and my young men
have gone into captivity.
19a) “I
called to my lovers,
but they deceived me;
19b) my
priests and elders
perished in the city,
19c) while
they sought food
to revive their strength.
20a) “Look,
O Lord, for I am in distress;
my stomach churns;
20b) my
heart is wrung within me,
because I have been very rebellious.
20c) In
the street the sword bereaves;
in the house it is like death.
21a) “They
heardmy groaning,
yet there is no one to comfort me.
21b) All
my enemies have heard of my trouble;
they are glad that you have done it.
21c) You
have brought the day you announced;
now let them be as I am.
22a) “Let
all their evildoing come before you,
and deal with them
22b) as
you have dealt with me
because of all my transgressions;
22c) for
my groans are many,
and my heart is faint.”
* * *
"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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