So, “from where did wisdom and miracles come to Jesus?” The only logical answer, based on all the Scriptures, as well as all the physical and spiritual realities observed and comprehended throughout Page 994
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our lives, is that His wisdom and His power to do supernatural works came from and still comes from His loving, just, wise and powerful Holy Spirit of God in Him, a Spirit which is so mighty that it bears the authority to command or supersede His physical laws of nature. But neither His wisdom nor His power to work supernatural miracles depends upon or relates to His natural body of flesh, which He created for Himself in the beginning and then seeded into the womb of Mary. His power did not derive from the natural flesh of His family members, not even His right to the throne of Israel, since He Himself gave Himself that throne. And our God Jesus still bears the right to choose every king and authority we are to choose for ourselves as well, making us obligated to choose the wise ones to whom He grants His power. The wisdom to justly and effectively apply God’s spiritual laws and ways, and the ability to override the laws of nature to accomplish spiritually just and loving works, are entirely spiritual, not physical in any way. No spiritual matters depend on any biological lineage, nor on the occupation of the flesh, nor upon whether one’s biological mother and sisters were virgins or married to common men. So absolutely nothing in the reasoning of those pastors, nor in the logic of their trusted secular humanists, was true, logical, rational, objective, loving or biblical.
Yet look at how Jesus did not even bother to respond to those deceivers and their deceived dupes. He did not quote Scriptures to them and explain how they were in error. Neither did He offer them any other kinds of facts or truths to counter their false implications. Jesus refused to reason with them and did not even attempt to argue against their foolish and demonic delusions. Rather, Jesus simply left them to wallow in the black and diseased mud of those lies and delusions, knowing it was not the appointed time for the elect spirits among them to awaken and repent into the truth, and that not one of the non-elect among them would ever grasp for any kind of truth. Thus, for the time being, Jesus condemned the elect in that church to the greatest punishment of God, by handing them over to lies.
Remember, God’s first and foremost punishment of an unrepentant sinner usually involves handing that one over to Satan, to be deluded by demonic spirits and that devil’s own non-elect children, in a way that inevitably ends with the destruction of flesh, if elect spirits do not repent into truth before dying in the flesh. And, clearly, Jesus did forsake most of those elect in that little church. Because they loved their little man-made delusions and lies, where each strove against the other to grab the scraps cast down by elites in Satan’s world order, Jesus left them trapped within their demonic little cage, terrorized into practising physical rituals in the hopes of gaining a morsel of a fake god’s scant mercy. Of course, Jesus would cleanse the spirits of literally all those elect later, either while they lived on earth or on the judgment day, after the deaths of their flesh. But, since those elect did not love the truth enough to endure a few criticisms from their church and other institutions of Satan’s world order, because they instead chose to sacrifice their good relationship with their Messiah and God—with Jesus who was their well-known Neighbour and a Friend whose life-giving Spirit was God Himself—they were abandoned to the devil. Since it takes much time for elect spirits to grow the fruits of truth and wisdom through their inherent attraction to God’s Spirit, most of those spirits in that town would die in an infantile state and trapped in darkness. Jesus preached about love and justice, about growing this kind of just love in our spirits, where all is rooted upon genuine spiritual and physical truths. Yet they rejected this. So no threats or punishments, no whips of physical pain nor signs of fire from heaven, could cause them to love this truth more than their lies. They had to grow into love for the truth and for Him, by experiencing how the empty promises of the devil’s lies lead to their own destruction and death. So time was the only argument He offered against their lies.
Yet Jesus did leave these elect with one clue about God’s healing: “A prophet is not without honour, if not in the fatherland and in his home” (Mat. 13:57b, from: Οὐκ ἔστιν προφήτης ἄτιμος εἰ μὴ ἐν τῇ
πατρίδι καὶ ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ αὐτοῦ, SBLGNT). Here Jesus was saying that all the elect, from all the lands Page 995
of the world and throughout all earthly time, would eventually awaken and honour Him, even though those elect in His earthly father’s town did not respect Him then, in that region He called home for almost thirty years. Because those who utter realities and truths originating from God come to the people in ordinary bodies of temporary flesh, and humble themselves before God, the people refuse to believe their words. People only believe the lies of those exalted by Satan in his unjust and foolish world order. Demons teach them to bow before those who dress in garments that steal more time and resources from God and His people than that which is required to feed a needy family for an entire year or longer. Humanistic hierarchies train the people to trust only those who strike their faces hard enough to break their teeth and bones, enough to force them to believe their lying words and obey their destructive and self-indulgent wills. Thus, the people did not respect their gentle God Jesus, nor His effective truths. Likewise, they also hated all the prophets who had been called and sent by God.
Our God Jesus told us that we always tend to reject the humble and unimpressive men whom He sends us, for our salvation, to rescue us from Satan’s blinding lies and destroying sins. And this truth has been verified throughout history. It also reminds us of the time when Samuel came to anoint a new king to govern the secular affairs of Israel. Samuel prophesied that the people must elect or accept this man whom God chose for them, that they must help him and not reject his calls for their assistance. For God had chosen a new king to replace their old king, because that previous king no longer served the people, but only himself. Now God told Samuel that this new king was to come from Jesse’s sons. So Samuel went to Jesse’s family. But no one in that family even considered that the youngest son, David, could possibly be worthy of such an honour. For, to them, David seemed so worthless, in terms of getting the “important jobs” done, that they sent him out to shepherd sheep, since that was a job which even the most inept and lazy fool could do reasonably well, even an idiot who sat around writing poetry and playing a harp all day. Still, David excelled in this task. For David did not blow a horn or run for help when a dangerous animal, like a lion or a bear, attacked the sheep, since the time waisted to get help usually cost the life of at least one sheep. Rather, David slung stones at the lion or bear, using his slingshot with deadly accuracy, to chase away or kill the predator. So, although he seemed useless in terms of gaining wealth for the family, David actually possessed a deeply loving spirit that meditated upon God’s Word and bravely faced all opposition.
Thus, God chose David instead of that family’s seven older and more esteemed brothers. Regarding each of the other seven brothers, God commanded Samuel: “Don’t look on his face, or on the height of his stature; because I have rejected him: for I see not as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but Yahweh looks at the heart” (I Sam. 16:7, WEB). David became a beloved king and a prophet chosen by God Himself, as well as the ancestor of Jesus’ body of flesh. God chose David to be the secular authority in Israel because of his elect spirit willingly served God and the people, not due to any criteria related to his flesh. So Jesus statement here (Mat. 13:57b) would have reminded these Jewish people about the many sermons they heard from rabbis about what God said to Samuel when God chose David to be the new king, instead of his “more capable” brothers, then made David the biological ancestor of the Messiah’s flesh. Many Jewish rabbis back then, and to this very day, have taught about how David—who was not only Israel’s greatest king, but also one of their greatest prophets—was without honour in in his own home, because his family judged him solely according to physical, superficial criteria. Then, even in our day, many rabbis also teach about how God judges rightly, solely by the spirit in the heart. Nevertheless, after hearing those sermons about David all their lives, the people in Jesus’ home town and His family judged Him by matters of the flesh alone.
That church in Nazareth judged Jesus in the same foolish, carnal way that God forbade Samuel and all the rest of His people to judge. And when they did so, they also falsely judged against God’s Page 996
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words which God’s true prophets spoke through God’s command. When the people made these false judgments, they almost always used this same false reasoning: “Your body and mind of flesh are just like my body and my mind of flesh. You do not have more of Satan’s invention of money and the devil has not made You physically powerful through psychopathic lies and violence. Therefore, Your flesh is not greater than my flesh and You cannot possibly know anything more than me.” All who have ever rejected God’s words spoken through God’s true prophets have considered those words to be the inventions of mortal men, and useless, solely because those words did not benefit Satan’s world order. All believed that those words from God were not actually words which God caused those men to utter for the same reason, because those words did not benefit or flatter their flesh. The most materialistic people did not even think it was possible for God to speak through the mouths of men, although most of those same churchy souls were willing to believe that God even caused the mouth of a donkey to utter what He commanded it to say, in the human language of the person God chose to address (Num. 22:28-30). Now, although churchy Platonic humanists also do not believe God’s Word for the same reasons, those theistic humanists in their fake “Christian” churches still claim that God is omnipotent, and that God could even prophesy through the mouth of a donkey. So they should logically believe that God is able to speak through a human being’s flesh, whenever He desires. Therefore, since they should realize that God can speak through anyone, they logically cannot dismiss everyone who claims to utter truths from God in one’s own language of one’s flesh.
Rationally, even humanists must admit that it is entirely possible for a human being to utter concepts that God commanded a person to proclaim. All who claim that God is omnipotent, all Jews and Christians, even the humanistic fakes, are therefore obligated to determine whether or not any claim to be a prophet is true. And the only rational way to judge whether or not the words of person are indeed paraphrased concepts originating from the omniscient God—who cannot lie nor change His views about any principles He has ever taught to anyone in history—can only be done by comparing the words of the one claiming to be a prophet with the harmonious and consistent concepts they have already received from God, and by ensuring that all the words of that potential prophet are perfectly true. So, if any of a prophet’s concepts contradict any of God’s intended meanings in His Scriptures, or any of those words prove to be false in any physical or spiritual way, then we know that prophet is either a liar or insane. Only if the prophet’s concepts which are completely true and fully harmonize with God’s intended meanings of His words in the Bible might be prophecies. And, even then, we still cannot be absolutely certain that the person is a true prophet sent by God, or that all of that one’s concepts have originated directly from God, or that God had commanded that person to reveal those concepts to the specific audience being addressed. That person might merely be a very cunning liar who learned the Scriptures well from good teachers. Or, if a man is a true prophet, he will speak, at times, through the thoughts of his own mind, and not by God’s express command. Also, a true prophet might speak in front of a large audience, but God only wants one person in the entire crowd to hear what He commanded that prophet to utter. There are many things to consider when we judge those who claim to be prophets sent to utter the words of God, and regarding the words themselves.
But one thing is certain, only through rationally examined proofs, through cross-examined evidence that is responsibly vetted through inductive logic, can we ever correctly conclude that one might be a true prophet who has been sent God to utter His words to His people. But even one error in anything that one claims to be a prophecy from God will prove that person to be a false prophet and not to be trusted. We need indisputable proof that all of a prophet’s words adhere to God’s intended meanings of His Scriptures, and that the words also accurately reflect God’s created realities occurring in the past, present and future, before we are able to judge that prophet and that one’s prophecies. But we Page 997
cannot use any physical criteria to judge one who claims to be prophet, nor to judge the words of that person. A true prophet is most often poor and marginalized, but not always. A true prophet can be either a stranger or familiar family member, either a little child or a very old great-grandparent, either a man or a woman. We must never judge prophets by outward appearances, never by how rich, eloquent, well-dressed, capable, handsome or carnally appealing they might be. All who claim to be prophets must be strictly judged by whether or not their concepts perfectly align with spiritual and physical truths revealed by God in His Word and through His creations. If anyone dares to directly or indirectly utter untrue concepts in the name of God, then those words are not a prophecy from God.
If the elect trapped in humanistic churches would merely do this much, if they would test the words of prophets and esteemed teachers to see if they actually originate from God, they would make much progress toward the freedom of Christ’s New Covenant salvation. But, no, just like the elect in that synagogue of Nazareth long ago, most elect remain focused on outward appearances, on the things of the flesh, and solely rely upon the irrational reasoning of their minds of flesh. The elect are totally brainwashed into thinking there must be physical causes for all physical effects, and remain blind to the one spiritual cause of all physical and spiritual effects. So, with their irrational rejection of all spiritual realities, even all the moral and spiritual truths required for justice and love, they inevitably labour to negate all spiritual truths, to build up Satan’s world order and tear down God’s just and loving kingdom. So now let them know that spirits alone are able to work true justice and real love.
It is sad to see so many elect remain irrational and self-destructive, lacking the true reasoning and logic that is potentially available to the minds of their spirits, if they would be willing to allow their spirits to simply hear and trust the counsel which God’s Holy Spirit offers to them daily. For God’s will exerts the only actual power which maintains the consistency, balance, harmony and intricate relationships between all truths in both the material and spiritual space-time continua. And all of this truth is essential for effective reasoning, through both inductive and deductive logic, into right and beneficial conclusions and judgments. In fact, the consistency, balance and harmony in the thoughts of both our minds of flesh and the minds of our spirits also depends on God as well. All that is essential for our reasoning, for inductive and deductive logic, depend on consistent, harmonious and interwoven premises and facts, all of which God created and maintains in real time. Actually, if any material thinking entity, like a human mind and body of flesh, could somehow exist apart from God’s personal acts of His will, and was not actively maintained by Him, if God created some kind of being to exist apart from His spiritual power and intelligence, without His will keeping it sane and extant, that entity would instantly become completely irrational, inconsistent, unbalanced and self-conflicting, and could not possibly remain alive for even an instant through its own will and power.
God rational mind and power is causing literally everything physical, even every subatomic particle, to exist. And no other spirit, not even the mightiest of angels, possesses enough rational intelligence or power to create and maintain anything good and useful, nor anything that is able to overcome the good and useful things created by God. A non-material Spirit of immeasurable intelligence created literally all the consistency and harmony of the material universe, as well as all life within it. And, since God created literally all material existence, even in a way where He plans to eliminate all His material creations, then God is, by definition, a non-material Entity, existing outside of all material space, time and energy. And, if God is non-material, yet exists, even with a mind that can create an intricately balanced and continuously harmonious material universe, with laws of nature functioning in harmonious supportive roles and relationships with one another, where its forces cannot disrupt nor destroy the delicately balanced existence of this material creation until its appointed time, then this creating and maintaining God must be a living Spirit with inconceivable intelligence and power.
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But, if God is a Spirit who caused all that exists to exist, and now maintains it all in real time, and all His material creation exists in real future and past times that are actually one moment or one “now,”
then all of that material existence has an entirely spiritual foundation. All temporary physical things are ultimately spiritual. Then, since all eternal spiritual creations are spiritual, all reality is spiritual.
And, if all is spiritual, then rational souls must conclude that the only real purpose for life on earth must be for eternal and spiritual goals, not for material goals. Since all material goals are temporary, and can only be rational and justified if they further our ultimate spiritual goals, we must pay far less attention to material goals than we do to our moral and spiritual goals. Yes, since our material works are ultimately for spiritual results, they are important. But we need to prioritize our good moral and spiritual goals in our lives, all that fulfills God’s spiritual laws and ways of just love, which our own elect spirits were created to acquire during our lives on earth. And that love is built on truths. So too has God Himself prioritized the spiritual above the physical. Since all in this temporary physical creation consists of God’s spiritual power temporarily transformed into material energy, the only reason that God, a Spirit, made the physical is to serve His eternal and entirely spiritual purposes.
Yet churches train their elect captives to think like this: “You must only trust in psychopaths who are strong enough to do the ruthless deeds which serve the pride and pleasures of the flesh. Especially believe psychopathic strangers, since they claim their minds of flesh are superior to your minds. So, since you have no proof those darkly cloaked are lying, then, logically, they must be telling the truth.
Thus, if anyone testifies against one of these psychopaths, then that testimony is false, no matter how much evidence that witness provides. And that witness is evil, worthy of death, or at least a painful beating. You must reason that the testimony is a lie, since a lack of evidence has already proved conclusively that that stranger is indeed superior and speaks the truth, no matter how contradictory, exploitative and unjust his words might be. On the other hand, that psychopathic stranger whom you must worship as your god, also wants you to know that most other strangers are evil. All who do not worship that psychopath together with you, especially if they say or do anything that inconveniences the flesh of your psychopathic god, or even if they cause your flesh to feel a little uncomfortable in any way, must be savagely murdered without a trial, or at least painfully beaten. For your god has proved through a lack of proof that those other strangers must appease your flesh or die. Therefore, beyond a shadow of a doubt, this lack of proof proves that all outsiders are indeed inferior and evil.
In all matters, you must prove to be rational and right by proving all things through a lack of proof.
So never accept any evidence from others. And, if they have no evidence, their lack of proof proves they are wrong and we are right. With all our greatness and god-give authority we assure you that these simple instructions are reliable and rational principles, suitable for literally all matters of life and faith. And, since you have no proof that we are wrong, you can trust us with all your hearts, minds and souls. Only liars try to prove us wrong. And we know they are liars because they do not agree with us, even though we have been proven to be right by the infallible evidence of our lack of evidence. All the righteous folks like you are duty-bound to reject evidence from others. So anyone who does not agree that we alone are honest servants of our god, which we more than adequately and logically proved by our own confident affirmations, is an evil liar whom you should murder.”
We have seen secular deceivers reason in this way with most churches throughout history. It is the trademarked kind of fake reasoning used by atheistic secular humanists, and is also the standard method used by their affiliated false humanistic churches to “prove” their religious doctrines. The secular humanists use it to prove their religious doctrines like the “Big Bang,” evolution, altered histories, biased “studies,” feminism, abortion, capitalism, fascism, communism, trickle-down economics and other lies that help their elite steal from the masses, or to justify their wars which Page 999
make the rich richer. Yet this kind of deception has also been adopted by all the theistic humanists, especially all the fake “Christian” churches, just as it had been by that little synagogue in Nazareth.
This kind of materialistic false reasoning is everywhere. And, in time, it develops countless layers of complexity. It starts by tricking dupes into accepting just one or two irrational precepts “proved”
through a lack of evidence. Then they continuously glue more precepts onto the first, all “proved”
through fiction and a lack of evidence. Just as that church in Nazareth believed that the lack of carnal eloquence, nobility and power in Jesus’ biological family conclusively “proved” that Jesus Himself was ordinary, even an enemy deceiver, churches today superstitiously believe equally ignorant and irrational teachings in our day as well. Because of such lies, they do not search the Scriptures to find the real meaning of God’s teachings about Himself and life. For they are deceived into thinking that the lies they are taught already reveal the true meaning of the Scriptures, and that testing those lies is evil and reveals a lack of saving faith, even though God’s Word commands them to test all the words of men. Just as that Nazareth church confidently judged that Jesus’ words were meaningless and His miracles were fake, based on an irrational “proof” of not having compared them with Scriptures and not having personally seen miracles, so too do churches today judge that His words mean nothing and miracles do not exist—although some fake churches are so brainwashed that they believe only in the lies and fake miracles staged by their psychopathic human gods, while denying real truths and real miracles from the real God. Then those lies grow worse each day. They start out being slightly upset about the truth and politely shunning those who speak the truth. But they end up shouting down all truth and brutally murdering honest folk. I once attended a church that still possessed a spark of life. But, through false reasoning, they went from ignorance to outright evil. I tried to tell them that their conclusions, all based on the trust of a “great” preacher god and a lack of evidence, would lead them astray. Yet their flesh wanted those lies to be true and would not listen. Now they have become such a hypocritical cult that secular authorities needed to arrest one of their deluded pastors, since his wilful negligence was literally endangering and killing his people. Yet their human gods still preach that irrational reasoning from a lack of evidence, and many still follow those liars.
So Jesus was right. Of course, God’s faithful teaching elder or prophet, sent to teach or proclaim genuine truths received from God, will not lack honour (i.e., a good opinion) from God. But he certainly will not be respected by the majority of God’s elect children, and shall be outright hated by the non-elect. Since most elect spirits are asleep, their spirits have been taken captive by Satan, by that devil’s favourite children, and by their own minds of flesh. So they judge in very superficial and often in superstitious ways. Thus, most elect will judge in favour of and help Satan’s children, but bear a carnal bias against God’s true servants. Now it is true that God’s faithful teaching elders and prophets are all infantile and weak, like all the rest of their elect brothers and sisters. So they should not and do not want to be respected in the same way humanists “respect” their elite, and definitely must not be worshipped as human gods. However, here Jesus was talking about valuing all other elect siblings as the family we know and love, as those whom we will work and live with for all eternity, including the very-flawed-and-humbled elect teaching elders and prophets He sends to us.
Since the spirits of most elect remain suppressed and asleep, this allows them to be manipulated by lies. Only awakened elect spirits respect God’s words, realizing that those concepts ring true, and can use that light to expose deceptions. Unfortunately, the flesh of awakened elect will also resist those truths as much as the flesh of the sleeping elect. So the awakened elect must face both internal and external opposition to God’s truth. Yet God is with His awakened elect. His Holy Spirit overcomes the flesh and causes their spirits to embrace truth, then builds up love upon that truth. Thus, the man whom God calls to be a true teaching elder, especially a teaching elder with the real gift of prophecy, Page 1000
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will become like a brother and a most valuable friend to all his elect siblings, and will work hard for their spiritual and physical welfare. At the same time, no true teaching elder, especially not one with the gift of prophecy, will expect anyone to esteem him more highly than any other elect soul within God’s priesthood of the church. For every true teaching elder knows his own greater weaknesses and sins, is more aware of his failures than most of his siblings realize their own inadequacies. Therefore, if someone claims to be a teaching elder, and especially if that elder also claims to have received the gift of prophecy, then that one is either a deluded soul ordained by men or a deliberately fake elder.
Yet all who claim to be teaching elders in churches today demand that they should be called by some kind of title like “elder,” “pastor,” “reverend,” “father,” “bishop,” “cardinal,” “pope,” “rabbi” and so on, even though Jesus expressly forbid such things. For all are humanists who want to be esteemed as human gods, although they lie and say they only desire respect for their “office” and occupation.
But all are called, taught, trained and sent by human sinners, never by God. All are either deluded into thinking they are serving God or else use religion as a means to gain power and wealth. But all true teaching elders, whose spirits are actually called, taught, and sent by God Himself, simply are what they are, and have been destined to their calling from birth. The true men who serve the real God in this ministry become what they are due to experiences beyond their control, and are made into this kind of brother by God. And true teaching elders learn most of their most valuable truths the hard way, through devastating failures. So they are a humiliated and humbled breed of men, who love other elect failures deeply, because they have been in the low places with them. True teaching elders never want titles of respect, since they realize that all the truth and love existing in their lives came from the loving grace and power of the ever-present Creator, and none came to them through the will or works of their own spirits or flesh. Every true teaching elder, especially those freely given the gift of prophecy, questions his own name, his own human identity, with awe in his heart, because he has no idea how he became what he is. Therefore, when he sees his dear brothers and sisters who have names, who know who they are, he respects them more than he respects himself, and becomes the servant of all, with joy. Because of this, he only allows others to address him by his first name, or by some nickname granted to remind his flesh of its low status. For he is indeed the worst of sinners.
If Jesus transforms a man into His assistant teacher, into a true teaching elder, then the Spirit of God will also wake up elect spirits all around him, and those siblings in his Father’s family will recognize that this man is bringing them the real truth which originates from God. And God will give all this truth and help to them freely through His true servants, by His grace to undeserving sinners who are no worse and no better than that elder. God will require no oaths of loyalty, no rituals to be practised, no reciting of man-made creeds, no obligation to attend a church, no requirements to obey rules that were invented by men, nor anything else. Rather, God Himself will continuously remind the elect spirit receiving His truth about that truth. The Holy Spirit of our God Jesus will eternally write that freely granted truth upon those elect hearts, according to His New Covenant promise of salvation.
In his home, and among his friends and neighbours who are most familiar with him, a true teaching elder, especially one who is also a prophet, will not be respected much at all, never in the ways that humanists demand respect. For a true elder will forbid such things, since he knows how he learned the truths he knows, that is, by eating forbidden fruit offered by snakes. And a true elder’s most close and familiar loved ones will very often refuse to believe the true elder’s words which have originated from their Creator and God, at least at the time those words are spoken. But every true elder wants all his loved ones to be honest, and also wants their very spirits to be convinced by God, not by his cunning, eloquence or coercion. Since every true elder knows that he is the worst of sinners, he greatly fears and flees from power, knowing that, if God does not become the sole leading Head of Page 1001
every elect soul, and they follow his own human leadership, he would inevitably destroy love, truth and life among his followers. In many instances, his loved ones will even reject him completely, and no longer count him to be their brother or friend, or possibly turn against him as though he was their enemy. For many learn to judge by outward appearances and walk according to their minds of flesh.
In fleshy pride, they begin to think, “Who does this man think he is? He tells us what we do not want to hear, then claims that his words are true and from God. But he is just like us, except we are proud of our devout lives, and he has no pride his life. He declares that all are sinful and unjust, including himself. But his body and mind of flesh are like our truly holy and just bodies and minds of flesh. So he is a liar, and must be sent by the devil. He is an enemy of us and our god.” Such things make the hearts of true teaching elders sad, especially when their beloved siblings begin to follow a liar who promises to be their god. Yet a true elder shakes off that rejection like dust, and keeps on labouring.
If a spirit’s god is self, or some esteemed spiritual guide who tickles their ears with flattering lies about themselves, then the real God, our Saviour Jesus Christ, cannot work the loving miracles of salvation in that one. For, if He did, that idolater would glorify the human god, not Him. That one’s spirit would not turn to God with love and thanksgiving. Instead, that one would love and worship one’s false god even more, giving all thanks and glory to that human god and to oneself, or to the fake church one attends. But God cannot promote the lies of idolatry, which produces only the evil fruits of psychopathic exploitation, oppression and murder. Therefore, Matthew wrote that Jesus held back the healing and saving power of God while visiting His home town of Nazareth—from all those deeply familiar souls who judged by outward appearances alone and always walked according to their minds of flesh, until their suppressed spirits became incapable of placing trust in the words of God uttered from Jesus’ mouth. “And He did not do many miracles their, due to their lack of faith”
(Mat. 13:58, from: καὶ οὐκ ἐποίησεν ἐκεῖ δυνάμεις πολλὰς διὰ τὴν ἀπιστίαν αὐτῶν, SBLGNT).
Yes, all the elect in Nazareth will be completed and perfected for their salvation on the last day, but only long after their flesh on earth has perished. Many would need to sleep in the spiritual “skies”
until that day, since their spirits never learned to love upon a foundation of truth while they lived on earth. Only a few remained awake after death, able to walk with Abraham, with the prophets and with the apostles upon the good lands at heaven’s gate. Only a remnant would be allowed to spend much time in those bright lands, learning to serve Yahweh Jesus better, so they could then help Jesus teach the elect who were still sleeping in the skies, after the angels gathered them for their lessons on the judgment day. So most of the elect in Nazareth at that time forfeited much, more than they could ever hope to gain during their lives on earth, because of their focus on their lives in the flesh. And it was their rabbis, who taught them to rely on physical rituals instead of allowing their spirits to learn directly from their Messiah’s Holy Spirit, who caused them to take this great loss. Nevertheless, even that loss will be turned to gain at their teaching times during the judgment day. For all they lost in their carnal lives will stir up a more fervent desire in their spirits, for the truth and love of their God.
Now most churches today are familiar with the name of Jesus. But those churches teach the elect to walk only according to thoughts from their irrational minds of flesh, so all will judge solely by outward appearances. Therefore, most of the elect today reject Jesus and His words in the same way that the elect from the false churches of Nazareth did back then. That is, the elect in our day also place no trust or confidence in Jesus and in His words of truth, but treat Him like a common sinner, while they perceive themselves as good people worthy of God’s kingdom of heaven. And most elect also think they will enter heaven directly, after the death of their earthly bodies, without any need for further teaching and training to complete the love, knowledge and wisdom of their spirits, to perfect them on that last day. For their minds of flesh were always taught to believe that their suppressed, Page 1002
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lethargic, sleeping, infantile spirits are actually free, labouring energetically for God, awake and mature, ready to be seating at God’s own table in heaven, then served by bowing angels because of all their good physical deeds and their utterly blind loyalty to human gods and hierarchical religious institutions belonging to Satan’s world order. Yet they wonder why Jesus withholds His healing and helping power from them, while they worship their human gods and serve only the devil’s unjust world order. So most plan to ask Jesus, when they get to heaven, why He did not hear their prayers.
The reason that God does not answer most prayers of the elect in our day is because they do not have spirits which are awake enough to hear His counsel. Therefore, they seldom pray for anything He calls their spirits to pray for. And, since they pray like pagan idolaters, like humanists, they ask for things that are contrary to their Father’s will. So the Creator’s holy and loving nature will not allow Him to grant their prayers. Consequently, the elect today must first pray for our God Jesus to awaken their spirits, to give their spirits eyes to see and ears to hear. Then the Holy Spirit of Jesus will teach the truth to the minds of their spirits and train their spirits to wisely manage their lives according to that truth. In time, after more frequently walking according to what God has taught and trained their spirits to pursue, they will also lose trust in the wills of their flesh and will not even fully trust the wills of their own spirits, but defer all to the wise and loving will and judgments of God instead. So they will pray rightly, according to all they see in the light of God. Then God will answer them, and even tear down world powers for the sakes of His elect, although that too was actually predestined.
Jesus cannot grant the humanistic, worldly elect any miraculous healings, nor cast out deceiving, deluding, destructive and depressing demonic spirits out of their souls and church bodies. Jesus cannot grant the gift of prophecy to anyone who wars against Him and His truths. First things must come first. And the elect spirits first need to be granted the ability to hear His commands, which reveal His concepts and His just, loving ways, the truths that originate directly from Him for the spiritual and physical benefit of the Father’s beloved children. Jesus cannot even speak to the totally materialistic flesh which suppresses elect spirits. As long as the elect remain loyal to Satan’s world order, Jesus cannot teach and train their spirits for salvation, cannot gather them into the freedom of responsibly fulfilling His loving, just Law. His will and works are only done by awakened spirits.
Clearly, if Jesus did any miracles through His omnipotent power, the elect today would merely keep on worshipping themselves and the human gods in their fake churches, even more than they did before. So, if today’s elect actually do see a supernatural power working in their churches, it is most often the deceiving, blinding and enslaving power of Satan doing it. Since demons love to see the elect worshipping themselves and the human gods that their hellish master sends to their fake churches, God often grants those demons the power to work misleading signs and wonders. Because most of the elect and their churches do not love the real truths of God, and no longer recognize that God Himself speaks and works through Jesus, Jesus will not even send them any true teaching elders to guide them towards Himself. Rather, Jesus abandons them to their worshipped human gods and to all the demons who empower their delusions. For, if Jesus did send some real elders to those elect, even elders with the gift of prophecy, those elect would reject them and even kill some. For the elect in our day only want elders who stand on raised pulpits and esteem themselves above their brothers and sisters. They are all humanists who want human gods who try to control and exploit them, in a pagan Roman way. Churches conduct their services and activities in a way that a true teaching elder would be forced to become the head of their church. But no true teaching elder can do this, because Jesus alone is the one and only Head of every man in every true church. Therefore, since all true teaching elders refuse to become so evil that they try to usurp the Headship of God, they all refuse to teach in humanistic churches, and humanistic churches refuse to let them teach. Thus, all the elect in Page 1003
those humanistic institutions of human worshippers, in those fake idolatrous churches, remain totally trapped and enslaved. However, Jesus will soon come to destroy those churches, to free all His elect.
Mat. 14:1-12,
Secular Humanism
“At that time, Herod the tetrarch heard the report concerning Jesus, and said to his servants,
‘This is John the Baptizer. He is risen from the dead. That is why these powers work in him.’
For Herod had laid hold of John, and bound him, and put him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife. For John said to him, ‘It is not lawful for you to have her.’
When he would have put him to death, he feared the multitude, because they counted him as a prophet. But when Herod’s birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced among them and pleased Herod. Whereupon he promised with an oath to give her whatever she should ask. She, being prompted by her mother, said, ‘Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptizer.’ The king was grieved, but for the sake of his oaths, and of those who sat at the table with him, he commanded it to be given, and he sent and beheaded John in the prison.
His head was brought on a platter, and given to the young lady: and she brought it to her mother. His disciples came, and took the body, and buried it; and they went and told Jesus”
(Mat. 14:1-12, WEB, cf., Mark 6:14-29; Luke 9:7-9).
“Herod the tetrarch” was a son of Herod the Great, otherwise known as Herod Antipas, who ruled from about 4 BC to AD 39. The word “tetrarch” means “ruler of a quarter,” and he was given this title after Caesar Augustus ratified his father’s will and he inherited about a quarter of his father’s kingdom. Antipas held authority over two non-contiguous areas: a region near Galilee (west of the Sea of Galilee and Jordan River) and Perea (east of the Dead Sea and Jordan river). For a couple of decades, he was married to the daughter of the king of Nabatea (a wealthy kingdom controlling some important trade routes and consisting of Bedouin tribes in north-west Arabia near the Red Sea). But that marriage had ended because, while visiting Philip, his half-brother, Antipas had an affair with Herodias, Philip’s wife. So Antipas ditched his first wife to marry Herodias. So devout Jews, like John the Baptizer, considered this divorce of his first wife to be an illegal abandonment, which was a form of adultery according to God’s Law, especially in the way the Law was interpreted by rabbis associated with a Jewish scholar named Shammai. So, to devout Jews like John, casting off his former wife and having an affair with his brother’s wife were two separate acts of adultery. Then the divorce of his first wife also resulted in a war with the king of Nabatea, which Antipas lost, and which also resulted in a futile loss of both military and civilian lives. So John would count his double adultery to be criminal negligence as well, resulting in the needless deaths of innocent lives.
John also openly condemned the marriage of Antipas to Herodias for two other reasons: (1) It was incest, since Herodias was actually the niece of Herod Antipas, the daughter of his other half brother named Aristobulus. So this made his marriage to Herodias a sin in his eyes. (2) Herodias was not legitimately divorced from her living husband, according to God’s Law, since Philip released her solely because Antipas wanted her, not because she committed adultery, for which both Antipas and Herodias could have been stoned to death. So, since Philip divorced her under coercion and without addressing the act of adultery in a legitimate court of law, devout Jews judged that Herodias was still lawfully married to Philip, and the marriage of Antipas to her was invalid, meaning that Antipas was committing adultery with Herodias while she was dwelling in his home. Now, since John was highly respected as a divinely appointed teaching elder by the Jews, Antipas feared that John’s criticisms of his criminal actions may stir up another rebellion against him. Thus, he felt compelled to arrest John.
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Now Matthew did not simply say Herod Antipas beheaded John the Baptizer, like Luke did (Luke 9:7-9). Rather, Matthew took the time to carefully explain, to his Jewish audience, the details about all Herod’s intentions and motives regarding John. For devout Jews judged according to motives and intentions. Now all the Jews were very familiar with the intrigues of Antipas. So some may ask why Matthew took the time to explain all this? Well, first, Matthew wanted to illustrate how unforgiven guilt builds upon its unrepented evil motives and wicked intentions into even greater sins. He wanted to show how Herod murdered John through his unrepentant evil motive of attempting to stop John from uttering the truth, and how his wicked intentions involved his own self-esteeming pride. Also, Matthew wanted to point out that Herod’s carnal pride was a reaction to a situation caused by his incestuous lust for the daughter of his wife. For not only was his wife his niece, but his wife’s daughter, Salome, was the daughter of his half brother, Philip. Therefore, his lust for Salome was doubly incestuous because: (1) she was his step daughter, (2) she was the daughter of his niece, and (3) Salome was his “twice” niece, a daughter of his own brother. All this sounds disgusting, but the Greco-Roman nobility was indeed extremely vile. For noblemen deluded themselves into thinking they were above and beyond the comprehension of commoners, and so superior to the masses that neither laws nor customs applied to them. In other words, they were psychopaths. So they sought only wives who were born to nobility, since they believed that noble-born women were the only kind who could ever “understand” their god-like greatness. Yes, they also routinely exploited and raped lowly commoners and slaves for sexual gratification, which both those noblemen and their wives considered to be no more of a sin than butchering a chicken to gratify hunger. But each noble Roman wanted a noble woman for a wife. To them, all other women were mere things, without a name they would bother to remember. Yet, since so few women were of noble birth and suitable for wives or mistresses, according to their deluded, arrogant, humanistic class systems, that they often resorted to unions with close relatives. So their unbridled lust and obscene self-indulgence caused much incest.
Naturally, Herod never repented from these sins in any way. So he was never forgiven and his guilt haunted him. Furthermore, Matthew knew that many rulers were persecuting Christians of God’s true New Covenant church while he wrote his Gospel. So he wanted to demonstrate the attributes, motives and intentions of those persecutors, by exposing the heart of Herod Antipas, so His people would see why they were being persecuted. For most of their persecutors were like Herod, and were destroying God’s faithful elect servants through the same motives and intentions that Herod had when he murdered John. Most secular and religious thugs who persecuted the true church shared similar thoughts and ways. Of course, Herod was unique in a some ways. Yet he was an archetypal Roman secular humanist nobleman, a worshipper of self and other humans. Herod also possessed an awakened non-elect spirit, which unquestioningly obeyed Satan, his father. Herod was a typical, vain Roman psychopath, a perfect example of secular and religious humanistic persecutors of Christians.
Naturally, Herod Antipas hated God and God’s Word, in much the same way that Hitler and Trump have despised God and God’s Word in modern times—and for the same reasons, since ancient Rome practised virtually the same religion of humanism that we do today, and today’s world order is still the Roman Empire. Yet Herod also carefully watched other religious movements, monitoring all they said or did, especially that which might personally affect him. And, like Hitler and Trump do today, Herod realized that religion was an effective tool for manipulating dupes. So Herod also threw bones to religious groups, to both Jews and pagans. Like his father, he constructed buildings for those he wanted to please, since those edifices to his own glory would stand for decades, and constantly remind his beneficiaries of the favours he performed for them and, of course, the great debt of blind loyalty they owed him. So he built up the place of prayer for the Jews, then catered to many of their Page 1005
other material desires. Thus, he purchased the favour and compliance of many materialistic Jews.
Still, he could only buy a small amount of conditional affection. So, as a God-hater whom the true Jews distrusted and constantly suspected of ulterior motives, Antipas closely watched and quickly responded to any religious judgments against him made by spirits who believed God’s Word. And now that Antipas had executed John, whom he personally feared as “a just and holy man” (Mark 6:20), Herod became anxious regarding those believers. For he knew that John was loved by those devout souls. So he was afraid that the more biblical Jews would not only continue to criticize him for his incestuous adultery, but also for John’s murder, then violently riot or attempt assassination.
In this passage (Mat. 14:1-12), Matthew began by revealing Herod’s paranoid, superstitious thoughts after he murdered John. Now, in the same way today’s dictators hire spies who monitor and report events in their lands, Herod also had his own spies who did this for him. So Herod’s spies told him that some of Jesus’ disciples were hearing confessions and counselling the devout before sending them to the mikveh (before they immersed in the living waters of the Jordan River in a symbolic death to end their old lives of sin, followed by a resurrection from the water into clean new lives through their spirits’ repentance). Since Jesus, through His disciples, was doing virtually the same thing John the baptizer did, and in the same location, the guilt-ridden and superstitious mind of Herod Antipas thought that the Jewish God had resurrected John. And this meant that Jesus might also start condemning him for his many sins of adultery, incest and the murdering of innocent John.
Furthermore, the teachings of Jesus were much like John’s. So Jesus would surely condemn him again. Thus, Antipas wanted Jesus brought to him (Luke 9:9), so he could “examine” Jesus, that is, so he could torture Jesus until Jesus stopped condemning him, so Jesus would utter whatever true or false words Antipas wanted Him to “confess.” And, as a humanistic Roman despot, Antipas felt that it was his right to do such things, to make God obediently bow below his raised and esteemed throne. For that deluded humanist dreamed that, since Caesar appointed him as the ruler, he literally owned all the people and all the land, including our God Jesus. And, like every Roman owner, Herod also believed that, if any of his property displeased him, he had the right to torture and kill that thing without a just trial. In other words, when the little arrogant heart of Antipas began to think these paranoid thoughts about Jesus, it meant that he wanted to do to Jesus exactly what he did to John.
Fortunately, there was a catch this time. For the superstitious Herod likely thought that, if beheading John did not get rid of him the first time, it may not do so this time either. And, if he murdered John again, God may grow angry and destroy his ignorant, adulterous, self-indulgent, murderous little life.
So Herod Antipas did nothing but watch Jesus become popular, as Jesus performed the same baptism of repentance that John did, but through His disciples. Then Jesus was also working multitudes of supernatural miracles as well. And these supernatural events fascinated Herod, since the Roman elite were bored with the limitless self-indulgence of their flesh, and longed to see something different, because their five senses could no longer find anything sensual enough to gratify them. And the only thing which reached beyond the boundaries of their natural senses was the “supernatural.” Because their flesh was glutted with pleasures, they wanted magic and mystery. Whether it was good magic, like Jesus’ miracles, or evil, like pagan signs and wonders, they did not care, as long as it entertained their loveless, selfish hearts and minds. Still, as much as Jesus’ miracles intrigued him, Herod was still a demonic psychopath. And psychopaths are always thoroughly deluded and paranoid, for they have no mind of their own. The minds of their spirits are completely controlled by their father, Satan.
Now, in our day, some scholars doubt that Herod Antipas would believe that John was resurrected from the dead. For he would have been well-educated. And, since he was a fornicator, liar and murderer, this proves to those scholars that the exploitative, self-indulgent mind of Antipas was Page 1006
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“detached” and “objective,” that he was a “realist” with a rational mind firmly grounded in reality, unlike all the “religious nuts” who are not willing to fornicate in entirely exploitative ways, who are not willing to lie or murder for their own profit. Because those scholars want to be lawless, free to exploit and sin whenever they want, they believe that religious souls are irrational. Yet we all see how all the psychopathic spirits think only what the devil tells them to think, like robots. So all their deluded thoughts are irrational. And their thoughts are destructive, leading to their own physical and eternal destruction. Thus, when Antipas saw the similarities between John and Jesus, Satan filled his heart with paranoid, superstitious and delusional thoughts, turning his irrational fears against Jesus.
Remember, Satan loves to destroy his own children too, since this makes that devil feel like a god who owns them. And it was very easy for the devil to convince the enslaved mind of Antipas to believe any lie. Now also remember that all God’s works bear the same flavour as all Jesus’ works, because Jesus is God Himself. So, when God worked through John, John’s works for God resembled the works of Jesus. And this similarity made Herod think that Jesus was John, whom God had raised from the dead. Then, when Jesus performed miracles, Antipas reasoned that, when God resurrected John, God also gave him even more power and supernatural abilities (Mark 6:14). Since Antipas was a son of Satan, merely a mindless puppet of his spirit’s hellish father, and worshipped himself in the same way his father did, he was also incapable of rationally reasoning through his suspicions. Thus, he was unable to conclude that not all events in this world revolved solely around him and his own lusts. So this is why the educated mind of Antipas began to think, “This is John the Baptizer. He has been raised from the dead, and the miracles are working in him” (Mat. 14:2, ALT). And Antipas was not alone. Many humanistic dupes worshipped him and also concluded the same thing. But some of these humanists knew that Jesus existed before John died. So these irrational souls thought Jesus was Elijah, or some other past prophet whom God raised from the dead (Mark 6:15; Luke 9:8). Just as educated Trump-followers believe insane and obviously false conspiracy theories, which even many school children would laugh at, Herod and his worshippers also believed totally ludicrous delusions.
The hellish father of Antipas put this irrational, superstitious fear about Jesus into his heart. The devil made Antipas believe that God resurrected John as an act of revenge against him, as if God was obsessed with that tiny tyrant and raised the dead just to trouble him. And, even as Antipas was casting John into a prison cell, he would not allow Herodias to kill John, “for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and kept him safe. When he heard him, he did many things, and he heard him gladly” (Mark 6:20, WEB). So that deluded psychopath did superstitiously fear God, in the same way that all demons do. Thus, Antipas feared John too, because the Spirit of God was in and all around John, in a way that psychopath’s spirit could plainly see. This is something which very few people understand about psychopaths. They think psychopathy is a just a biological condition, and one step below sociopathy. But, although psychopathy will definitely affect a brain of flesh, it is actually nothing like sociopathy. For sociopathy is entirely a condition of the brain of flesh, where the parts of the brain which handle social behaviours become dysfunctional by some kind of physical or emotional cause. But the spirits of sociopaths remain unaffected, and can actually love. So sociopaths can have either elect or the non-elect spirits. Yet psychopathy is totally spiritual. It is caused by Satan waking, teaching and training a non-elect human spirit. Every true psychopath is the devil’s child who walks according to his spirit, which was made in Satan’s image.
Therefore, just as the real Creator God terrifies Satan and his demons, so too does God dwelling in human hearts also terrify psychopaths. Then, just as Satan wanted to get rid of God’s Spirit in Jesus by murdering Jesus’ flesh, which would cause Jesus’ Spirit to leave Satan’s domain on earth, so too will psychopaths want to murder the flesh of those in whom God dwells. Although all psychopaths Page 1007
greatly fear God, they use their power over the flesh to rid themselves of the elect, whose flesh contains God’s Spirit. And God has granted demons this power for an appointed time, until the day Jesus returns to destroy the world order that He gave to Satan. So God in the hearts and souls of His sanctified children terrifies psychopathic spirits, and psychopaths often listen to the advice of God’s awakened elect children, knowing that they speak truth, which demons and psychopaths can use to their advantage. Since truth is a rare and very valuable commodity, useful to psychopaths for all kinds of selfish purposes, they actually do want to hear it, at times. Only the non-elect with dull and sleeping spirits harm or kill the awakened elect without fear, and without first attempting to gain some useful truths from them. Nevertheless, there is nothing rational about psychopathic spirits.
Psychopaths never really possess any truly rational fears, and never gain the kind of wisdom which reasons through the causes of their fears. Psychopaths have spirits that are entirely enslaved and deluded by the devil and his demons. Thus, they do not think like rational souls, and often will not fear very real and actual physical or spiritual dangers. But, at the same time, they are all superstitious and plagued with paranoia about things that even the ordinary non-elect, as well as all the awakened elect, recognize as mere delusions, as not being genuine threats, and as being completely harmless.
And Herod’s hellish father filled him with irrational fears, worked through guilt, so that devil could more easily deceive, delude and manipulate the puppet soul of Herod, to torment the mind of his child’s spirit and the mind of his child’s flesh. For there is nothing that tortures minds more than a farce of guilt, since his non-elect children are utterly incapable of repenting from their sins into the truth, and know they will be cast into hell for the pain and death they caused. So Satan filled Herod’s mind with fears of God’s wrath against his wicked deeds. Although Herod never felt contrition over his sins before this, the devil now filled him with superstitious terror and deep regrets about his sins, but the kind of regret which is entirely selfish, the kind which fears consequences for one’s own sins.
Satan and his demons only work a depressing regret in a heart. And, if this does not result in defeat and a paralyzed soul, then it leads to hate and a greater zeal for revenge as well as other evils. But the Holy Spirit of God works godly sorrow in a spirit, through true compassion for the victims of one’s sins. And this results in more zealous prayers for His counsel and power, for His guidance and help to bear effective fruits of true repentance. Demons delude souls into pitying oneself alone, in an entirely selfish dread of punishment, with a fake guilt that denies one’s own failures and culpability, in a way that hardens one’s heart against God and the truth, which rages against justice and anything or anyone else that might be loving or honest. For all the devil’s spirit children esteem themselves above God, as well as above most other human beings in their hellish father’s hierarchical world order. And all those no-elect inwardly fear God’s vengeance. Thus, Satan often tells their spirits a warped and carnally distorted version of their awaiting punishments from the just, loving God, to make God seem unjust towards them, so their hate will grow against God. For every word of the devil is either a lie or a partial truth with many implications and distractions to lead them away from right, rational conclusions. But the real Creator God reveals only realities and verities to His elect children, and is constantly washing away lies and delusions from their hearts and souls. So, now that the lying spiritual father had made Antipas terrified of God’s avenging wrath for murdering John, his tears of selfish regret flowed like a river, through a deep and heartfelt sympathy for himself, with angry and self-justifying grief spewing curses at God, thinking God would be demonically unjust to punish him for his wise, sacrificial works of selfish ambition, transformed into murder through lust.
Using a standard simple method of deception, the devil would have reminded Antipas about how his sins against John began to unfold, with an emphasis on how unjust God was to raise John from the dead, just to get revenge on poor little Antipas. Satan would cause Antipas to focus on how God was Page 1008
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obsessed with harming him, just because Antipas was so great, even a god whom the entire world revolved around. Then that devil would point out that the only real reason he had put John in prison was through his “love” for his kingdom and the people in it, to save them from religious zeal and from dying in another futile rebellion against his “divine” right to rule over them. And nothing could be more righteous than his highly conditional “love” for Herodias, the “hot babe” he possessed as one of his most valued trophies, a property he proudly bragged about more than any of his other livestock. Then Satan would have reminded Antipas of how that wicked John offended his noble wife so much that she no could no longer focus on pleasing him, how John distracted her from her wifely duties through a bunch of useless biblical and legal criticisms. How dare John, a non-Roman peasant, say such things about an obviously superior human god like himself and his stolen property!
Antipas considered himself to be the lawmaker and god of his kingdom and, therefore, was not to be subject to any laws himself. So, when that inferior nobody told him, “It is not lawful for you to have Herodias,” Antipas reasoned that it was just to murder John. And, in fact, he was compassionate to John, since he gave John a quick death reserved for Roman citizens, and beheaded him, instead of torturing him to death, which was the death that all such inferiors deserved. In the puppet mind of Antipas, forced to think according to the strings pulled by demons, he was a good man. And he was so great that even God must obey his laws! Only the most inferior rabble were allowed to obey God’s laws, since it was for their own good. But their only reason for living was to serve the whims of human gods like himself. And that mindless human livestock needed to be ruled through violent terrorism, so they would rightly and diligently serve the vain pleasures of their benevolent owner.
Antipas pondered his unbounded graciousness, how he allowed inferiors, like John, to live. Then his thinking turned into a blind rage. For it incensed him that lowly worms, like John, would reward his great compassion and magnificence with criticisms and condemnation, with insults against him and his superior livestock, like his wife. Clearly, he and his noble properties, especially his most valuable possessions like Herodias, could ever be subject to laws, and certainly not to the laws of a lesser god than himself, such as the God of Israel. Antipas considered himself to be sinless and perfect, since absolutely nothing could be “unlawful” for a god like himself, nor for anyone he chose to exempt from all his laws. And, since Herod imprisoned the impudent peasant John through his noble act of defending the high honour and pride of his great self, and his noble livestock like Herodias, it would indeed be totally unjust for the Creator God to take “revenge” against him, by resurrecting John and causing him criticize him and his wife all over again. For his great, conditional “love” proved him to be sinless, far more loving, just and compassionate than that God who punished good gods like him.
Having known psychopaths all my life, I can safely say that Satan most likely convinced that despot, Herod Antipas, that the God of Israel was unjust. For Antipas, in his own mind, thought that he had clearly proved himself to be exceedingly just and patient with John. After all, in his arrogant rage against that peasant John, he felt a strong urge to cause John extreme pain and death. He sorely wanted to murder John in his self-righteous wrath. Still, Antipas held back his impulses, with a Stoic tempering, then sought a rational and right course of action. Rather than gratify the lowly appetite of his self-indulgent flesh, as he normally did, Herod chose to act with political expediency. “Willing to destroy him, he was afraid of the multitude, because they were holding [John to be] a prophet” (Mat.
14:5). Herod reasoned that, if he murdered John, it might cause a Jewish rebellion and prove more troublesome than the pleasure of murdering him would be worth. So Antipas, in his own mind, felt that he was “compassionate” and very wise to leave John chained in a primitive prison cell to endure hunger, thirst, loneliness, sleepless nights on cold a stone floor and violence from both the guards and other inmates. Since Antipas felt that he was doing a good deed by imprisoning John, he Page 1009
wondered why a just God would trouble him by raising John from the dead? Besides, he also believed John’s death was not his fault. Antipas thought he was duped into killing John, and that he remained completely innocent of that crime, that he was just a “good man” falsely accused by God.
The only reason Herod Antipas executed John was due to a simple and unexpected turn of events.
You see, it all started on his birthday. At the time, Herod was innocently enjoying himself with his fellow human gods at a completely lawful party, where they all ate food prepared by beaten slaves, drank the best wine paid for by funds stolen from the starving masses, and sexually assaulted the much younger and very hot-looking exploited slave and servant girls, whom he had hand-picked for these kinds of friendly and warm celebratory occasions. So he was doing absolutely nothing wrong.
But then Salome began to dance in the sexiest way imaginable. And John’s death was all her fault.
By transferring his own guilt to Salome, Antipas did not think he was unjust. For, as a perfect god, all bad things must be the faults of lesser beings. And he had a good excuse too, since he had made himself drunk at the time. Herod felt that no just and rational person could ever expect him to accept any of the blame, because how could it be his fault that he was drunk? And how could he be blamed for fixating on Salome’s young and subtle body as she writhed in such a provocative way before his own eyes? Just because she was his step daughter, grand niece and the daughter of his brother, it did not mean he should not lust after her body, did it? After all, what was he supposed to do, tell her to go back to her room, or turn his lusting eyes away from her? That would be ridiculously unnatural for a human god like himself, since the entire world was created solely for his own selfish lusts and pleasures alone. Therefore, it was all Salome’s fault that he, while drunk, was so overwhelmed with lust that he offered Salome up to half his kingdom (Mark 6:23), even with an oath that all the other self-absorbed human gods heard him proclaim. For he had to have her body. And he also had to pay a very large price for that self-serving and greedy noble girl to serve his lusts as his mistress, since the quality of royal livestock like her was extremely high and far more costly than peasant livestock.
But, in the mind of Antipas, making Salome his mistress would be worth every cent. And such an offer was not unusual for men like him, since other human gods like him had been purchasing their feminine human livestock for thousands of years before he was born, and would do so for thousands of years after he died, just like the wanna-be god Trump did in our day. Since this kind of expensive prostitution was so commonplace, how could it be wrong? For even murder and oppression became acceptable practises for human gods like him, and such things surely were not wrong either. Because gods like him made such things commonplace, they were all legal, even righteous and necessary to keep balance and order in the kingdoms of these gods. And dupes also justified these whims of a human god like him, never holding him accountable. For all of them believed he had a divine right to do whatever he pleased. Still, as a noble god, he had to keep his promises. For his carnal pride was at stake, and he had to prove that he was a more noble god than the other gods, and this was the only semi-righteous attribute expected from human gods like him. If he did not keep his word, the other human gods would shame him. It would not be until much later in history that human gods would also be able to cast out this requirement too, by making it commonplace to be their promises, and making it a legal precedent which their dupes would justify as much as all their other criminal sins.
As the birthday boy and highest ranking member of that local hierarchy, Herod Antipas was granted the first opportunity to purchase Salome for himself. So Herod grabbed dibs on her, to possess her as his mistress, and hastily responded to her offer by offering her anything she may desire, up to half his kingdom. Thus, all the other lusting, selfish, greedy, arrogant, psychopathic gods at his birthday party would surely hold him to his word, and would grant him no chance to back out. And Antipas would never gave them the least chance to purchase her for themselves. Now, since he “stole” her Page 1010
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from them, he had to pay up. So they all eagerly waited to hear what Salome might demand for her valuable services. Yet that wicked vixen did not simply set her own price. Instead, she went to her mother, to Herod’s illegitimate wife, for advice about obtaining a suitable price for the sale of her body (Mark 6:24). But her mother, who was also a vengeful psychopath, held onto a grudge against John and inwardly sought for some way to kill him (Mark 6:19). Thus, she definitely would demand a high price for allowing her husband to exploit her daughter’s flesh. Now, since Salome’s mother etched John’s name on her black heart’s list of souls requiring revenge, she calculated a cost that she somehow thought would free her from all inconvenient moral truths. Thus, she counselled Salome to ask Herod: “Give me the head of John the Baptist, being displayed here upon a platter” (Mat. 14:8).
Now she had trapped her drunken and easily exploited husband into committing what he would call a political misdemeanour, and used the body of her own daughter to gain an advantage over the lout.
In his mind, Antipas felt like the victim here, and he did not even consider that the peasant John may have suffered any kind of loss by being murdered. For, in the eyes of Herod, and all the other vain human gods attending that party, John was property, and Antipas was free to whatever he wanted with his own property. For God’s laws about human life meant absolutely nothing to them. After all, peasants like John lived only to used, abused and butchered according to the pleasure of human gods like Antipas. To Greeks and Romans, nothing mattered more than the pleasures of a human god’s self-indulgent flesh, especially his carnal pride and his ability to engage in political or financial exploitation for the “good” of his kingdom, and a human god was the kingdom. So now Salome forced Antipas to do the hard labour of snapping his fingers to call a puppet guard and command him to chop off John’s head, then bringing it to Salome, served on a platter. This would inconvenience him greatly, and even during his own birthday party, when he should be getting his own way and not suffer any disruptions in his self-indulgence. This surely was a high price to pay for a mistress, since he now needed to spend a few minutes of his valuable time to murder John, then likely a few more hours ordering his lackeys to torture and murder hundreds of worthless peasants in order to prevent them from rebelling. Salome and her mommy had even made him pay this high price on his birthday, on the very day their every waking thought should have been focused on giving him pleasures! Yet, if he refused their request, all these ruthless human gods around him would have something to use against him. They could spoil his reputation, declaring that he did not keep his word. Then that bad reputation would not only hurt his sensitive feelings, and could also affect his business and political affairs. So Antipas was trapped. Still, the flesh of his adopted daughter, Salome, would be worth it.
So you can see why Antipas felt such deep sorrow and regret when he had to brutally behead John.
All of it was pity for his own self-absorbed self. But do not even begin to imagine that he felt any grief or sorrow over John, or that he felt any guilt for murdering a completely innocent and honest servant of God. After many decades of experiencing the thoughts and ways of the very rich and powerful, as well as their children, I can testify that they often appear to be very nice and friendly, since they are always concerned about their public image. Yet we must realize that the only way they can possibly rise to the top of any Roman-like hierarchical system in Satan’s world order, then remain standing on that pinnacle, is by becoming psychopaths like Antipas, Herodias and Salome. If any highly exalted human god in such a system dares to make even one little concession to justice and God-like love, the devil will immediately destroy that one. So literally all of the “highest” and
“greatest” in Satan’s world order are psychopaths who willingly and entirely open their hearts and minds to demonic lies, who all live in tiny little bubble of dark delusions. Every thought in the minds of their flesh, as well as in the minds of their spirits, is slavishly devoted to the will of Satan. There Page 1011
is absolutely nothing real or true left anywhere in their hearts or souls, only huge heaps of twisted, contorted and dark vanities hastily cast into their empty voids, only garbage lying wherever it falls.
Yet do not think that we must recklessly destroy these pathetic, wretched murderers. Nor should any of us believe that it is possible to reason with them. For none will see the light and become just souls who love and serve their people. For none possess the gift of love, logic or wisdom from God, nor have any means to gain such things from God. God only grants His attributes to His elect. Then love and wisdom from God cannot be, by definition, either reckless or unjust. Therefore, His awakened elect must nullify the works of Satan by lovingly, justly, patiently and wisely labouring beside Jesus, in a way that also strives to build up His just, loving kingdom on earth, so that His light of physical and spiritual truth will be able to shine without hindrance in every corner of His earthly kingdom.
The kingdom of our God Jesus grants everyone all the true and just freedoms that he created for our own good, the kinds of freedoms which take responsibility for the welfare of every brother or sister in humanity, even the non-elect. So, to build up His radiant kingdom, Jesus calls all His elect to work at fulfilling their destinies, which always involves willingly making personal sacrifices through love, for the good of each one’s own eternal spirit and for the good of all God’s creations. For remember, our God Jesus Himself sacrificed His own sinless flesh through His love for us, to provide for our eternal spiritual lives. Thus, He also calls us, who have all sinned, to partake in His sufferings. As He teaches and trains our spirits to sacrificially love others, He enables our works of undoing the devil’s works, so we can then build up His kingdom on earth, and causes His good, just, loving will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. The only effective and just way to tear down the works of the devil, so we can build up God’s free kingdom, is to labour beside Jesus and under His command. And He only ever requires a bare minimum of physical force or warfare, only what is absolutely necessary.
For He does not allow us to do anything for revenge, nor to gain exploitative power or wealth. Yet nothing gets done rightly or effectively without the power of Jesus. Jesus alone can destroy Satan’s works, from the inside out, by breaking the fragile unity of the devil’s children. And to build up His kingdom, His primary goal is to place the non-elect under enough control to prevent them from causing harm or death. Other than that, we are grant even the non-elect as much freedom as possible.
We cannot possibly expect the non-elect, nor even the untaught elect, to fulfill God’s Law through human education nor through the terrorism of deadly threats. For the salvation of the Creator God is by His Holy Spirit personally causing us to fulfill His Law, through His teaching and training of each individual elect spirit. Our God Jesus alone is able to fulfill God’s Law in us and through us. So we must not dare to even attempt to establish a theocracy, and falsely call it God’s kingdom. Yes, there will be a true world-wide theocracy one day, after Jesus returns to this earth. But not even a little local theocracy is possible now on earth, unless Jesus becomes the sole Head of every man within it.
Until Jesus Himself returns and rules the earth as the compassionate King over all His personally appointed authorities of every kind everywhere, a true, just, loving theocracy in impossible. The very most that any group of awakened elect souls can do is walk according to their elect spirits, diligently learn from Jesus each day, grow one in the mind and teachings of Jesus, labour together and help one another in God’s true, just, loving works on earth, and become the priesthood of Israel serving their eternal High Priest. But a dictatorship, ruled by corruptible human gods, can never be compatible with the free kingdom of God. The only possible form of government in any parts of God’s true earthly kingdom, before Jesus returns, is a biblical democracy, based upon God’s Law, where the people chose their authoritative servants from those God has chosen for them, from those in whom God manifests His kind of love, justice, equity and wisdom. In the Bible, God commanded that the secular government must consist of His own mature and well-taught people, whom He raised up to Page 1012
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judge His people. These rule over the land, but only to provide freedoms for all His creations, even the non-elect unbelievers, by enforcing only a minimum of His natural laws. Then God Himself had carefully separated His inner priesthood of the church, the Levites, from that secular government. He created a separation between His church and the state. For the role of His church was to serve Him alone, by teaching and training all His people, including all secular governing officials, about Him and His ways. Churches assist their High King only Head, God Himself, who came to us in the body of the Messiah, Jesus. His true church works to ensure compassionate and equitable freedoms for all, including the non-elect and the untaught elect. Then, if the church faithfully performs its duty, there will be some who become qualified to be elected as authoritative servants of the people, and the majority of people in that democracy will always elect the most loving, godly, humble, mature, wise, sacrificial elect servants of God into the offices of secular government. For His church will unite the awakened elect to vote for such, and cause some of the very factious non-elect to vote for them too.
God’s true kingdom never allows governing through terrorism, by threatening unjust penalties which greatly exceed the weight of crimes. And God’s true kingdom never disputes a government’s laws that work for the good of all His creations. God only permits His kingdom to make and enforce just, consistent laws designed for the good of all life within it. And this means that, like God, all of His legitimate judges will only punish the unrepentant, and only issue a maximum penalty for those unrepentant sinners who acted upon the worst of all motives and intentions, but will give lesser sentences to those with lesser motives and intentions, then forgive the truly repentant completely. Yet even those maximum penalties must never exceed the weight of the crimes. And let all governments in all lands know that they themselves are being judged. If any state or kingdom rules unjustly, God will instantly withdraw His supporting power. Then God will punish that state or kingdom, together with all its unfaithful false churches, by casting all those who do not love the truth into delusions that will cause their own destruction, unless they repent. And this is especially true for states or kingdoms in our day, because the truths of God are widely known throughout the world. The real God demands justice, where judging elders teach sinners why they must repent into the truth, by explaining how the law benefits them and all others, so those elders might not need to penalize some for their sins.
This also means that a nation’s prisons must be compassionate places, not punishing and destroying places. Prisons should be where spiritual truths are being taught by loving and wise elders, who do not look down upon sinners like themselves, yet are wary of the non-elect who cannot repent into the truth, especially the psychopaths. Prisons should be run by teaching and judging elders who have the power to guide the elect into repentance and new lives, but also have the power to prevent inmates from physically or spiritually harming one another. They must be run by mature elect souls who are able to effectively guide foolish elect inmates regarding all matters of life and faith. Then, when such men work beside inmates, they can also determine when some inmates are ready to reenter society, and help them establish an abundant life which fulfills God’s personal destiny. As for the unrepentant non-elect, the teaching and judging elders can also determine how long to keep them separated from their victims, and protect the innocent. But they will not be cruel to even the psychopaths. For God has shown us that inflicting pain in vengeance only makes them more lawless and violent. And we also know they cannot repent. So God wants us to merely threaten to remove their right to remain free, and only grant them freedom if they take responsibility for that freedom, if they stop harming others, although we must allow their less harmful sins. The only ones we will ever need to execute, to protect the innocent, are psychopaths who cannot stop severely harming and killing, who are even a danger to other inmates and guards. All these ways are evident in God’s Word and in His creation.
Both His words and deeds reveal that these are the just and loving ways He desires for His kingdom.
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When Matthew gave us this detailed account of John’s murder by the hands of Herod, Herodias and Salome, he wanted us to realize how the persecutors of God’s kingdom thought, acted and reacted.
Of course, Matthew did not want us to spend too much time delving into their dark minds, since that kind of activity would only draw us into their demonic delusions. But Matthew did want us to fully realize how shallow, carnal, corrupt, criminal, petty, vengeful, arrogant and destructively foolish all the most esteemed rulers in Satan’s world order actually are. Since Jesus’ Holy Spirit guided the spirit of Matthew to write this, it is God Himself who wanted us to know all this about the thoughts and ways of esteemed rulers in Satan’s kingdom of the world order—so we would not be fooled by those wretches, so we would not become victims of their dark delusions. More importantly, Jesus certainly does not want us to become their dupes who help them build Satan’s kingdom on earth. It is, therefore, important to comprehend exactly what these Scriptures were implying, lest some of the elect may begin to ignorantly serve the devil through a blind and demonic worship of a human god, like Herod, Hitler or Trump. Since the devil is not much of a creator, and he loves ruthless power to make him feel like a god, he is not creative in his choices of “leaders” for top positions in his world order. All are much the same as him, and closely resemble Herod, Herodias and Salome, the three self-indulgent psychopaths in this story about John’s murder. So now let us learn this lesson, build up God’s kingdom on earth, undo the works of the devil, keep psychopaths out of our governments, and provide the people with freedom of speech, in a way which demands that all deceivers must take full responsibility for their lies, and where those who speak the real truth will not be threatened or killed.
After John was executed, his severed head was given to Salome. She took that head to her mother, Herodias (Mark 6:28). Those women would have smiled knowingly to each other, exceedingly proud of how their cunning plot had succeeded, thus proving how “wise” they had been, like human gods.
In addition, Herodias would have felt greatly relieved, knowing that John’s threat to her hard-earned god-like status had been effectively eliminated, silenced forever. But, after staring at the head for a few self-congratulating moments, they would have called a slave to take away that “messy thing.”
So the once beautiful head that spoke so much truth, that prepared countless elect spirits for the advent of their saving Messiah, would have been carted off to the prison and tossed next to his body, upon his precious blood. So, when John’s disciples came to feed John the next day, expecting to hear words of comforting counsel uttered through his suffering flesh, a guard would have told them that John was executed for the entertainment of the guests at Herod’s birthday orgy, which took place in the darkness of the previous evening. After a few moments of shock, His disciples stirred themselves into action, so they might honour their spiritual father by properly cleaning, wrapping and burying his body in a tomb (Mat. 14:12; Mark 6:29). Then John’s disciples reasoned that they must now go to the Messiah, whom John proclaimed, to the One to whom John sent all the repentant elect to hear and follow. And they told Jesus about John’s execution, expecting Him to call them as His disciples.
Mat. 14:13-21,
Little Big Deeds
“Now when Jesus heard this, He withdrew from there in a boat, to a deserted place apart.
When the multitudes heard it, they followed Him on foot from the cities. Jesus went out, and He saw a great multitude. He had compassion on them, and healed their sick.
“When evening had come, His disciples came to Him, saying, ‘This place is deserted, and the hour is already late. Send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages, and buy themselves food.’ But Jesus said to them, ‘They don’t need to go away. You give them something to eat.’ They told Him, ‘We only have here five loaves and two fish.’
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“He said, ‘Bring them here to Me.’ He commanded the multitudes to sit down on the grass; and He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed, broke and gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave to the multitudes. They all ate, and were filled. They took up twelve baskets full of that which remained left over from the broken pieces. Those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children”
(Mat. 14:13-21, WEB, cf., Mark 6:31-44; Luke 9:11-17; John 6:1-13).
So Jesus departed after hearing that His faithful friend and spiritual brother, John, was murdered by an illegitimate authority in Israel. Jesus wanted to be left alone, so His body of flesh could mourn John, since John would no longer be with Him on earth. Yet, above all, Jesus grieved over John’s death because it was yet another instance of the great injustice of Satan’s world order. That kingdom of sinners was causing incalculable suffering to His earthly creations, to His beloved elect who were lost and alone, without a shepherd, and being devoured by wolves. At the same time, our God Jesus also knew that John did not truly die, that John’s loving and awakened elect spirit would not even be sent to sleep after departing from his flesh. At that moment, John was alive, walking in a new body upon the vast lands at the gates of heaven, joyfully preparing to become a teaching assistant of Jesus when the last day arrived, to help Jesus complete and perfect the other elect for life in their homes of heaven. Still, it was not long before the masses found Him. And Jesus was not angry nor upset, but lovingly served them, providing for all their needs, just as He has always done throughout all time.
When Jesus used an insignificant and totally inadequate quantity of material resources to feed these thousands of souls, every little detail of this event was symbolic, and taught profound soteriological, ecclesiastical and even eschatological concepts, harmonized from throughout both the Old and New Covenant Scriptures. This miracle announced good news, proclaimed salvation to His church of Israel and all the earth’s elect, at a critical moment in His ministry. It was a revelation of their future, explaining how they should live until He returned to rule the earth through His loving justice. There is much to unpack here, many hidden aspects that the uninformed cannot comprehend without help.
Jesus fed these five thousand shortly after John the Baptizer’s disciples told Him that John had been beheaded. Of course, our God Jesus knew and felt John’s death before He was told about it. But now Jesus’ disciples had also learned about John’s murder, and would be afraid of what Antipas might do to them. So now it was time to part from the public, a time to grieve, to encourage and comfort them.
Now Matthew states that this feeding of the five thousand occurred immediately after John had been murdered. But Mark and Luke seemed to think John’s beheading occurred during the time Jesus sent out the twelve, to teach and proclaim the Gospel of repentance. However, since both Mark and Luke became Jesus’ apostles after His death and resurrection, and neither had been among the twelve, they assumed this order of events from what they heard, as interpreters of third-hand information. Mark and Luke were not eye witnesses of this event. Yet Matthew was one of the twelve. But so was John the apostle. Yet Matthew’s account of the feeding of the five thousand seemed to have occurred much earlier than John’s account of this same event. Still, the Gospel of John, who was also an eye witness, was written when he was very old, and focused on teaching Christology not chronology. So John simply said that Jesus fed the five thousand after some conflicts with the church leaders began.
Therefore, Matthew’s Gospel would provide the most precise chronologically of events. We know, from all four Gospels, that John the Baptizer was arrested and held in prison about the time that Jesus sent out the twelve. For Matthew also told us that John the Baptizer was already in prison when he sent his disciples to speak with Jesus, and that they spoke to Jesus just after Jesus had sent out the twelve (Mat. 11:1-3). So it is obvious that John the apostle simply compressed the two events Page 1015
in his Gospel. The Gospel of John simply recorded all of Jesus’ words about John the Baptizer in only one section, because the exact chronology of the two events (when John the baptizer was put in prison and when he was later executed by Herod Antipas) was not important to his teaching about the deity of Jesus. Then, when Mark and Luke did the same. While speaking about John the Baptizer, John the apostle, or some other eye witness, likely told Mark and Luke why Herod beheaded him, but did not make the time of his beheading clear. So, because the time of John’s execution was not specified, Mark and Luke assumed that John the Baptizer was executed immediately after being arrested. This would seem normal to them, because rulers usually did this in those days. Back then, the prisons were crude temporary holding cells for the accused, not long-term punishment facilities, because rulers immediately judged the inmates, then summarily punished or executed them, within a few days. Since it was rare to hold an inmate in prison for weeks or months, it was natural for Mark and Luke to make this assumption. But Matthew and John the apostle knew what actually happened.
So the seeming error about the chronology of events in the Gospels of Mark and Luke was not a substantive error, nothing that affected the doctrines they heard and had been teaching about Jesus and His ways. Still, a correct chronology of events can help us understand the motivations behind Jesus actions, and the implications of what He did. So a correct chronology is still important to us.
And Matthew is the most reliable source for that chronology of events. Yet, although Matthew’s timeline is the most accurate, the other Gospels provide insights which Matthew did not bother to mention. For instance, Mark gave us a better account of Herod’s motives and intentions when he murdered John the Baptist, and Mark likely obtained this information directly from eye-witnesses.
Likewise, here (Mat. 14:13-21), the best way to understand Jesus’ motivation for withdrawing to a secluded place, after John’s death, and taking His twelve apostles with Him, can be understood best by examining all four Gospels. And there were several reasons. First, Jesus wanted Him and His twelve teaching assistants to rest, apart from the persecuting rabbis and their blinded mobs for a time. For Jesus knew His enemies would not bother to pursue Him into a deserted place, since they were all busy preaching against Jesus, and now about John’s life and death. All those rabbis needed stay in their towns at a time like this, to rile up their dupes, to work their own political agendas regarding John’s murder. They simply had to guard their carved-out stolen spiritual territories, lest another thief, who lied just like they did themselves, might use this tragedy to further his own agenda, and enter their flocks to steal their own stolen sheep. We can hypothesize this because all four Gospels testify that Jesus had miraculously fed the five thousand after defending the truth against many bitter Jewish religious leaders who wanted to kill Him, and also just after Herod Antipas had beheaded John the Baptizer. Both of these troublesome trials reveal the religious and political atmosphere of that region at that time. And John’s beheading would have emboldened the persecutors of Jesus, but enraged the supporters of John the Baptizer and Jesus, greatly increasing tensions between the two groups. Then this could have led to bloodshed, if Jesus did not disappear for awhile. Thus, one reason Jesus left the cities and towns was to calm the zealots who sided with John and Him, to stop them from angrily approaching Him, demanding that He lead them into a rebellion against Herod and Rome. Jesus knew futile deaths would occur if He did not separate the two sides immediately. So He made Himself, and those closely associated with Him, somewhat inaccessible to those who wanted to start a war against Rome and the fake churches, using weapons of this world. If Jesus, John’s proclaimed Messiah and King, withdrew to an undisclosed location, it would be impossible for the zealots to rally the troops under His banner and force Him into battle.
Likewise, Jesus does the same in our day. Whenever the current events arouse rage in the hearts of the elect, against the vile and wicked actions of the non-elect, the Holy Spirit of Jesus withdraws Page 1016
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from those advocating violence, who let their minds of flesh destructively govern their lives. For Jesus will not grant them any kind of “victory” through unjust bloodshed. All Christ’s victories use His kind of real truth, broadcast and acknowledged by both the people and their authorities. Then, if the evil shed innocent blood to suppress that truth, God curses them, and also raises up authorities whose spirits remain loving, still faithful to Him, as well as to His truth and His ways. And, if fake so-called “Christians” try to rally support for an armed rebellion against evildoers, the elect who go with them will fall into confusion, anxiety and fear, since Jesus will no longer help them. So, instead of going directly into physical battle, true Christians first pray and seek the counsel of Jesus. And, after Jesus speaks to their spirits, their wrath is tempered. Then Jesus feeds their hungry souls with the real truth, until they are full of wiser insights. Then they can strike the evil enemy with far more effective blows, and pierce the heart of darkness with Christ’s light, which can never be overcome.
Mark also gave another reason for Jesus withdrawing His disciples into the wilderness: “For there were the many ongoing arrivals and departures, and none of them ever had an opportunity to eat”
(Mark 6:31b, from: ἦσαν γὰρ οἱ ἐρχόμενοι καὶ οἱ ὑπάγοντες πολλοί, καὶ οὐδὲ φαγεῖν εὐκαίρουν, SBLGNT). But did Jesus take the twelve into the countryside for a picnic, solely to eat? Well, it is true that Jesus and the apostles were inundated with requests from people who were continuously coming and going. But travelling to a deserted place in a small boat (Mark 6:32), for a moment of rest and a little food, was not a feasible way to escape the crowds. For such a boat travelled slowly, and almost always within sight of the shore, making it very easy for the crowds to follow. Then they rowed and sailed only as far as Bethsaida (Luke 9:10), which is only about six kilometres (4 miles) from Capernaum by boat, but likely about ten kilometres (6 miles) by using a winding land route.
Consequently, Jesus was not trying very hard to escape the crowds. Besides, many in those crowds would have guessed where Jesus and the disciples were headed, since Bethsaida was the home of some of His disciples. Thus, Jesus would have expected that a good number of people would come to Him that day, and that many would already be waiting on the shore for Him, by the time the boat turned toward the beach (Mat. 14:33). So it seems highly unlikely that Mark was telling us that the reason they withdrew into the wilderness was to have a private picnic. Rather, the time which Jesus wanted to have with His disciples would have been the time they spent on the boat together. What Mark really meant was that Jesus wanted the disciples to go off by themselves, to take some time to eat and rest on the boat. Then they arrived and Jesus then taught the crowds from a small hillside, leaving the twelve to go off by themselves, so they could further rest and recoup from their labours.
Mark used the conjunction γάρ in verse 31b. So he seemed to be giving a reason for something. But exactly how did not having time to eat justify a trip out into the countryside? Well, first Mark tells us that John the Baptizer had been beheaded (Mark 6:29). Then Mark specifically mentioned the twelve core assistant teachers, and how Jesus had previously sent them out on a mission to teach, heal and cast out demons. Mark said that these “sent-out ones were being gathered together before Jesus, and reported everything to Him, as much as they did and as much as they taught [about life and faith]”
(Mark 6:30, from: συνάγονται οἱ ἀπόστολοι πρὸς τὸν Ἰησοῦν, καὶ ἀπήγγειλαν αὐτῷ πάντα ὅσα
ἐποίησαν καὶ ὅσα ἐδίδαξαν, SBLGNT). After this, Jesus responded to those twelve by saying, “You yourselves come privately into a deserted place and fully rest for a short time” (Mark 6:31a, from: Δεῦτε ὑμεῖς αὐτοὶ κατʼ ἰδίαν εἰς ἔρημον τόπον καὶ ἀναπαύσασθε ὀλίγον, SBLGNT). Thus, Mark was only referring to the twelve apostles when he said, “For there were the many ongoing arrivals and departures, and none of them ever had an opportunity to eat.” Thus, Jesus intended to go where He could teach the crowds while, at the same time, His disciples could wander off into the fields, find someplace to lie down, then eat and rest apart from the crowds. It was not Jesus who wanted time to Page 1017
eat and rest in that place, but His stressed-out twelve apostles. For they spent days going from town to town, teaching the Gospel and healing souls. On top of this, they now heard that John the Baptizer had been executed, which would make them even more stressed. For the twelve would have realized that John’s murder would stir up more persecution, more rebellions against persecutions, and cause many of their people to demand that Jesus, their Messiah, the true King of Israel, must immediately take “responsibility” as their Protector, by raising an army to slaughter all their Roman oppressors, as well as all the “traitorous” Jews who willingly served those Romans. So it is true that one of the reasons Jesus withdrew into the wilderness was to give the twelve apostles a chance to eat and rest, apart from the crowds. But Jesus Himself ate and rested only while He was in the boat, and only wanted more time for the twelve to eat and rest in that deserted place. And Jesus takes care of His faithful servants in the same way today, thinking more of their welfare than He does of His own.
Then there was another obvious reason for withdrawing, the one Matthew alluded to: “So, after hearing [that John was beheaded], Jesus withdrew from there in a boat to a solitary place for His own purpose” (Mat. 14:13, from: Ἀκούσας δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἀνεχώρησεν ἐκεῖθεν ἐν πλοίῳ εἰς ἔρημον
τόπον κατʼ ἰδίαν, SBLGNT). In context, the phrase, κατʼ ἰδίαν, does not simply indicate “apart” or
“according to privacy.” For it is clear that Jesus let the crowds follow their boat all the way to that solitary place. Thus, Matthew used the preposition κατά with an accusative object as a “marker of intention or goal, for the purpose of, for, to” (BDAG3). And the singular accusative feminine object, ἰδίαν, also suggests something gramatically feminine “of one’s own,” such as a “predetermined purpose” (i.e., the most common Greek word meaning “purpose” is the feminine noun πρόθεσις).
So Jesus, after hearing about John the Baptizer’s death, got up the next morning and not only took the twelve, but also led the crowds on a journey to a deserted place, located about three or four hours northeast of Capernaum. And Jesus did this “for the reason of His own predetermined purpose.” And clearly that purpose was to indicate His disapproval of any kind of rebellion. For Jesus intentionally headed away from the Roman city of Tiberias, the Roman city which Herod Antipas had built on the shores of Galilee, where the troops of Antipas would be stationed, and where Antipas himself might be located. Jesus did this in full view of the crowds watching Him from the shores of Capernaum. By
“fleeing” in the opposite direction that they wanted Him go, Jesus was emphatically demonstrating to the zealots that He did not want anything to do with any kind revenge against Antipas and the Romans. Any zealots who planned to stir up the followers of John, who had now gone to Jesus, or any of His own followers who firmly believed John’s message about their Messiah, would see Jesus’
northward journey as a clear, unequivocable statement of His refusal to be involved in rebellion. For a king planning to attack an enemy would go the biggest cities to gather troops, then lead them to the enemy. A king planning to attack an enemy would not head into the wilderness in the other direction.
As the people followed Jesus and His disciples on this retreat in the opposite direction of Herod Antipas in Tiberias, they soon would have all realized that Jesus was not in the mood for any kind of rebellion. Yet they still followed Him, since a tragedy of this proportion—the death of the prophet whom God clearly sent to prepare them for the arrival of their long-awaited Messiah—was too much to comprehend or bear, not without the counsel of the very Messiah whom John testified about. They wanted to know how God could let such a terrible, cruel, unjust murder occur. Yet, now that Herod beheaded John for his thoroughly disgusting and evil reasons, Jesus was their only remaining hope, the only light still shining for God’s true church of Israel. Only Jesus demonstrated genuine love for them, and always told the truth about God and His ways. For most other rabbis were cunningly political, self-serving and selfishly ambitious, striving to manipulate them through flesh-appealing interpretations of God’s Law, forever attempting to destroy any who exposed their wicked motives.
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So all previous doubts about Jesus, which those fake rabbis stirred up through their venomous plots against Him, were cast aside. The battle between good and evil was getting hotter. Now was the time to choose either the lying murderers or this honest Saviour. And these chose the saving love of Jesus.
So this little journey served a third purpose. It filtered out disciples with divided hearts. Of course, none of the non-elect, except the spies sent from Jesus’ enemies, took the time or made the effort to follow Jesus out into the countryside. Most would not walk across the street to hear a preacher talk about loving others. Then many elect still trusted in only what their minds of flesh perceived, and silenced the minds of their spirits. So these remained loyal to false rabbis, since the eyes of their spirits were obscured by black veils of suspicion, the kind their fake rabbis wove from dark threads of lies against Jesus. And this kind often desired war and rebellion. So these would have resented the sight of Christ’s boat heading away from Herod’s city of Tiberias, in retreat. All these kinds of carnal elect would remain in Capernaum, resenting Jesus. Only the awakening elect whose hearts were in the process of being cleansed, whose spirits were gaining an ability to see the light of God, would have run along the shoreline for miles in the hot sun, just for a chance to hear Jesus teach about God and abundant life. The vast majority of the five thousand fed that day would be God’s true church.
But their haste was also why Jesus had to feed them that evening. When He and His disciples left that morning, He knew His preaching to the people that day would not be like His usual gatherings.
Normally they were like Sabbath meetings in a synagogue. He would go out to preach at set times so the people could come out to query Him and hear His answers. But each would come at whatever time they were able, and His teaching times were not scheduled to a precise minute, or even to an exact hour. Likewise, the people could leave whenever they liked. For they had work to do, and families to care for. This morning, however, the town spotted Jesus and His disciples climb into a boat and head north, without telling them where He was going. Since they all knew that John the Baptizer had just been murdered, all the elect with spirits granted the freedom to love Him and His messenger John, were desperate for answers and counsel. So all went where He was going, even though Jesus headed away from Herod’s Galilean domain in Tiberias, nor even south to Jerusalem, to preach there. Therefore, these needy awakened elect had to rush to grab their garments, then hastily make their way along the shoreline paths, following the boat that held Jesus and the twelve.
After a hours of strenuous hiking over rough terrain, the people finally saw the boat head to the beach where they were standing, likely on the west side of the mouth of the Jordan river, where it flowed into the lake of Galilee. Then got out of the boat to greet them while the disciples headed off into the countryside. Jesus stood below a grassy hillside, which served as a natural amphitheatre, and the people sat on the hill. Then He began to preach, answering all their questions wisely, counselling and healing their anxious souls until evening. When the sun fell low, all needed to make that long trip home, although most had eaten nothing all day. And, after all their activity without food, it would be a taxing journey, especially for the elderly, the women and the children. The weaker ones might grow faint along the difficult trail, requiring support from the stronger ones. And they would need to make this arduous trek in the night, stumbling over stones, all the way back to Capernaum, Chorazin, Magdala and all the other places they came from. For not all were from Capernaum. Many would have travelled from other towns to Capernaum during the previous night, to hear what Jesus would say and see what He would do after John was beheaded. People from many towns would have been in the crowd that day. Thus, it would take some of these families two days to walk home. Then there also would have been some from nearby towns too, like Chorazin, a few minutes away on a nearby hillside, who came when they saw the crowds and Jesus. But all would be hungry by sunset.
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When Jesus first saw the anxious crowds gathered on the shore, waiting for Him, “He was moved with compassion over them and healed their infirmed” (Mat. 14:14, from: ἐσπλαγχνίσθη ἐπʼ αὐτοῖς
καὶ ἐθεράπευσεν τοὺς ἀρρώστους αὐτῶν, SBLGNT). And by the end of the day He was still “moved with compassion” because of their hunger and weaknesses. During the day, all God’s children with any kind of inability found health and wholeness in Jesus. Then Jesus preached, knowing they came to hear His counsel, and sacrificed so much to feed on His words, and even forfeited their necessary income for that day’s labour, although few could afford to do so. For, long ago, Jesus promised their ancestors: “If you will diligently listen to Yahweh your God’s voice, and will do that which is right in His eyes, and will pay attention to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you, which I have put on the Egyptians; for I am Yahweh who heals you” (Ex.
15:26, WEB). So Jesus, Yahweh in a body of flesh, made good on His promise. As He answered all their questions and taught His Law to their spirits, He healed and fed their bodies through His love.
Of course, Jesus always wanted to heal the infirmities of His little brothers and sisters, for He hated to see them suffer. Yet He focused much more upon teaching them spiritual truths, since literally all their problems were ultimately caused by foolishness and sin, by their lack of wisdom in handling the realities they faced daily. For they had no good teachers, and their spirits were not taught to hear God. Only if their spirits knew the truth, could they effectively overcome the trials of each day. So, with His wisdom, their inner joy would not be so easily vanquished by externals. Not even the deaths of their loved ones, including John the Baptizer, would knock them down, if their spirits truly knew, with all certainty, that no spirit can actually die. So Jesus’ Spirit was filled with overflowing mercy and deep concern for them, but primarily “because they were as sheep not having a shepherd.
And He began to teach them many things [about life and faith]” (Mark 6:34, from: ὅτι ἦσαν ὡς
πρόβατα μὴ ἔχοντα ποιμένα, καὶ ἤρξατο διδάσκειν αὐτοὺς πολλά, SBLGNT). After all, if their heavenly Father opened the ears of their elect spirits, these children would “diligently listen,” “do what was right in His eyes,” “pay attention” to His wise counsel, and “keep” His authoritative precepts, as much as they could comprehend, and as many truths as their spirits could receive. All this made Him able to fulfill His promise to heal them after He taught them. But Jesus had been teaching and healing them all day, from early that morning. And very few brought any food with them. Of course the twelve brought food for their own rest while Jesus preached. However, by the end of that day, they had eaten most of it, especially the meat, and had only a few loaves left over.
When the hour grew late, Jesus disciples returned from their rest and approached Him. Realizing how the people rushed to follow Jesus, without taking time to make preparations for the long hike home after many hours of listening to Jesus’ teachings, the disciples politely told Jesus: “The place is wilderness and the hour already past. Dismiss the crowds so they fully depart into the towns. They should buy themselves food” (Mat. 14:15, from: Ἔρημός ἐστιν ὁ τόπος καὶ ἡ ὥρα ἤδη παρῆλθεν·
ἀπόλυσον τοὺς ὄχλους, ἵνα ἀπελθόντες εἰς τὰς κώμας ἀγοράσωσιν ἑαυτοῖς βρώματα, SBLGNT).
But, for one thing, Jesus knew that most of these people could not afford to spend what little money they had (if they had any at all) on expensive “take-out food.” Most lived hand to mouth, and had already lost their wages for that day. Even on normal days, they could barely afford to buy enough grain to grind into flour and bake their own bread in their own ovens for themselves, much less a fish to cook on their own fires. So how could they buy prepared meals at a stall in a marketplace? And what stalls would be open this late? Or, even if any were open, would they be able and willing to prepare enough food for this entire crowd? It would take the owner of a booth all night to take their orders and prepare their food, that is, if the cook had enough food in stock to feed them all. And Jesus could not make a large take-out order, asking some chef to cart a couple tons of food back to Page 1020
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this remote location in the countryside. So Jesus chose a better solution. He would feed these hungry souls in the same way He fed a hundred of Elisha’s disciples during a famine long ago (II Kings 4:42-44). This is what His disciples should have asked Him to do at this time. For they knew He was their Messiah, Yahweh incarnate. So they should have figured out what needed to be done for these beloved, impoverished crowds, to alleviate their hunger. Elisha figured out that He must ask God for help. Thus, Jesus’ disciples also should have realized that, if He multiplied a small quantity of food for Elisha, He could do the same to feed this crowd. And there was no other feasible option, no way to feed five thousand hungry men, as well as their wives and children. So Jesus stated, “They have no need to depart,” then commanded: “You [disciples] give them [food] to eat” (Mat. 14:16, ALT).
Like all God’s spiritual laws, this command was impossible to obey, that is, without God’s help. Yet it was also a command that He expected them to fulfill, with His help. But they simply stood there, dumbfounded. Some also probably laughed at such an absurd suggestion. So Jesus looked at Philip and tested his metal (John 6:6), to strengthen his faith. As Jesus observed Philip’s gaping mouth, and the disciple’s worried brow wrinkle in dismay, He asked a rhetorical question: “From where should we purchase bread, so these might eat [until they are full]?” (John 6:5, ALT, Note: the aorist subjunctive, φάγωσιν, indicates a completed act of eating, or eating “until full” ). The obvious answer was, “No such place exists, and we do not have enough money to buy that much food, if such a place did exist.” Philip must have been one of the disciples who needed to learn that men do not live solely by the wages they earn to buy bread, since Jesus specifically chose to ask him this rhetorical question. But almost all the elect of that time, and today, need to know this. Whether or not one will admit it, all beings on earth remain alive solely through the effective words of God, all God utters into existence and all the wise counsel He grants. Nothing but His commands can create a spirit and cause it to live, then chase death and the devil away from one’s flesh. God’s will and words alone cause all existence, shapes every circumstance, and grows every morsel that feeds the flesh. So, since we live by God’s will alone, we need to follow both His physical laws of nature and His spiritual laws, or we will perish.
Yes, God may allow us to become poor and go hungry at times, but only to humble our spirits, so He can teach truth to our spirits, so we will stop placing idolatrous faith in ourselves and that demon Mammon (Deut. 8:3). But Philip was too shocked to think clearly, with the mind of his spirit. So his feeble mind of flesh roughly calculated the approximate cost of feeding such a crowd and blurted out: “Two hundred days’ wages are not sufficient to get loaves of bread for them, so that each one might receive just a little!” (John 6:7, from: Διακοσίων δηναρίων ἄρτοι οὐκ ἀρκοῦσιν αὐτοῖς ἵνα
ἕκαστος βραχύ τι λάβῃ, SBLGNT, Note: a denarius was a silver coin, a day’s wage for most workers). Of course, Philip said exactly Jesus wanted him to realize, that money and men cannot do all things.
Obviously, Jesus’ family of twelve disciples did not possess that much money and, even if they did, they could not afford to spend it all on one meal. Also, Philip’s estimate was actually wrong, by a huge margin. For all the eye-witnesses of this event agreed that there were about five thousand men in that crowd, as well as an unspecified number of women and children. Both Matthew (14:21) and John (6:10) probably estimated that number by counting a hundred groups of fifty men (i.e., Jews traditionally grouped men in tens, fifties, hundreds or thousands, see Ex. 18:21,25 and Deut. 1:15, and here they likely formed into groups of fifty men each). Also, the witness or witnesses who testified about this event to Mark and Luke estimated the same number (see Mark 6:44; Luke 9:14). Therefore, it likely would have cost more than two thousand days’ wages to pay some local vendors to cook and transport enough prepared food to fill the hungry stomachs of everyone in a crowd of that size. Now, since it would be cruel and dangerous to send the crowd away hungry, even criminally negligent, our just and loving God Jesus was not willing to do so. Still, the small family of Jesus’ twelve disciples simply could not Page 1021
afford to buy enough prepared food for them all, and it would also be impossible to find that much food to purchase even if they had enough money. Thus, Philip and the other disciples were forced to conclude that money cannot solve all problems, nor is it ever the best solution to any problem. It is only God’s wise counsel and power that can truly rescue us from impossible situations of dire need.
Now I suppose, at this time, I should also rebut some lies spread by anti-Christ “Christians.” For there are some “Name-It-And-Claim-It” warlocks and witches who have set up fake churches and claim that Jesus and His disciples became obscenely wealthy, presumably by defrauding food and rent money from needy families, in the same way those false preachers do in our day. And these thieves claim that Jesus could actually afford to feed the whole crowd, if they wanted to. But looking at the Gospels and other New Testament writings, literally all the evidence points to the fact that Jesus and all His disciples lived their whole lives in borderline poverty, just like the vast majority of Jews did in those days. And Jesus clearly, obviously held the same view about wealth that most other devout Jews did. That is, Jesus believed that money was an invention of the devil, not a creation of God. So Jesus hated the psychopathic oppression and control which the wealthy exerted over their siblings in the family of humankind through the application of their money. Furthermore, if Jesus did not believe all of these biblical doctrines about the exploitative practises of the wealthy, and wanted to be wealthy Himself, then He could have laid His hands on a big rock and turned it into pure gold, even without insanely chanting the gibberish which those fake preachers call a heavenly language or
“tongues.” So those demonic pagan practitioners of witchcraft, like Trump’s preachers, are wrong.
Instead, Jesus asked His disciples how much food they already had with them at the time. Jesus was going to use whatever resources the heavenly Father made available. Now it seems that the disciples already ate their food, while resting in the fields. Then Andrew, Peter’s younger brother, noticed a boy standing nearby, looked into the boy’s basket, and blurted out: “Here is a little boy who has five barley loaves and two fish!” (John 6:9a, ALT). Of course, Andrew simply mentioned this in response to the question Jesus asked, although his mind of flesh immediately realized that this small amount of food would not even fill five hungry men, much less five thousand men, as well as all the wives and children who came with them. So he grew embarrassed about making this foolish observation and, to recover his dignity from his remark, Andrew tried to look rational and mumbled, “But what are these for so many?” (John 6:9b, ALT). Nevertheless, Jesus was not deterred by an appearance of God providing too little, and enthusiastically embraced this discovery of those insufficient resources.
So Jesus sprang into action. First, He likely asked the little boy if he was willing to share his food with everyone. Since the boy must have had a good heart—and he was too young to realize how ridiculous his tiny contribution actually was, in terms of providing for the physical needs of that massive crowd—he was pleased when this highly respected Teacher asked for his help. So he gladly gave it all to Jesus. For this boy truly believed that his five loaves and two fish would actually help the masses of hungry people all around him. This boy was not discouraged by the thought that his little gift could not possibly make any difference towards alleviating this day’s hunger and suffering experienced by the masses. Rather, he freely and joyfully contributed the little he was able to give.
Next, Jesus told His disciples make pathways between the crowds, by asking everyone to be seated in “synagogues” of fifty men on the grassy hill, together with all the women and children in their families. As soon as they did this, Jesus opened His mouth in thanksgiving to the Father of all those elect. After blessing the food, He broke the flat loaves in halves, making them ready for eating. Now each disciple would have had a basket with him, the kind used to keep food or extra clothing dry on their fishing boats. Also, they had likely washed those baskets in the lake by this time, after they had finished eating their food. So Jesus filled each disciple’s basket with pieces of the bread and cooked Page 1022
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fish. But remember, all twelve baskets were filled from the boy’s one basket of food. Therefore, this was the first multiplication of that boy’s five loaves and two small fish done by the power of Jesus.
Then each of the twelve disciples carried his basket to the people, one group at a time. And each probably would have dumped his basket on a cloth (likely a borrowed clean shawl) set out before each group, so the elders could then equitably distribute the food to the people in their “synagogue.”
We are not told, but this would have been the second multiplication of the food. For, after the twelve disciples dumped their twelve baskets of food on the cloth for one group, and started walking away, their baskets seemed to miraculously fill again. For we are told that after feeding the multitude, each still had a full basket. Once His disciples made their rounds to the one hundred groups, we are told that all the people had more than enough to eat. And, assuming the baskets were quite large, each would hold enough to feed about eight to ten people. So twelve baskets might feed up to 120 people, which would actually be about the number of people in each “synagogue” of fifty men, since some men brought their wives and children with them. Thus, these groups of fifty men (Luke 9:14), or double groups of fifty men (i.e., 100, Mark 6:40), were about right for the method Jesus had planned to feed the people, by sending those twelve baskets of food to each “synagogue” of up to fifty men.
Now think of the difference between the adult disciples and the small boy who offered the bundle of food he was carrying (which his mother had likely packed for her whole family, but asked him to carry, possibly because she was tending to a baby). These adults looked at those five loaves and two fish—at the “seed” of providence which their heavenly Father sent through that small boy—then logically and coldly declared, “But what are these for so many?” These twelve did not stop to let their spirits hear what God’s Spirit was declaring about this help He sent through that boy, nor did they think about what God could do with that insignificant help. For everyone has seen how God has greatly multiplied small deeds and tiny resources into massive helps for His people. Yet, instead, the twelve thought with their minds of irrational flesh, and believed they were wise in doing so. Andrew even seemed embarrassed about discovering this small gift from God, via God’s young servant. At first, Andrew was enthusiastic, and his elect spirit joyfully announced his discovery to Jesus. Then he promptly shut down the joy of his spirit, so his mind of flesh could appear more “normal” and acceptable to the others who thought only with their vain, self-serving and irrational minds of flesh.
Fortunately, Jesus was with the twelve, and He took up the task of thanksgiving for the Father’s gift, and for the miracle He knew the Father called Him to work for those thousand of hungry souls on that day long ago. However, today we have mega churches who turn away one single mother asking for help and food, and declaring that they do not have enough resources to feed her and her children.
But those are clearly false churches, and they are not Jesus’ disciples, because they serve the demon Mammon, because they obey that demon when he says they cannot afford give her money. They do not help because they stubbornly think only with their minds of flesh, like all the faithful citizens of Satan’s world order. This is why they will not stop, open the ears of their spirits to their heavenly Father’s counsel, then let Him guide the minds of their spirits in all their decisions, so they can become truly rational and expel the greedy, nullify the works of the devil, and build up the just, equitable, balanced, effective and loving kingdom of God based on existing realities and verities.
We need to cast out the fake “realists” who make decisions according to the counsel of the demon Mammon, because they are deluded fools who destroy all they touch. The real earthly reality, that God created, is always labouring to multiply itself, forever expanding and providing enough for all.
And this real reality is not a slave to money, nor to deluded superstition. It neither seeks to save money nor spends money to solve its problems. Rather, God’s created reality simply works with whatever resources God grants, and builds effective solutions which eliminate the dire troubles of Page 1023
the day. God can even use twelve impoverished and faulty men, along with five loaves and two small fish gifted by a good-hearted child, to feed thousands of hungry men, women and children.
Now suppose a little child in a church overhears an anxious single mother talking to the elders about her family’s need for shelter, food and other necessities. But the elders tell her that their budget is too tight to do any charitable works and, besides, they are a church, not a charity. Yet this child has heard the teachings of Jesus, and believes them. So he knows that a true church, and every true disciple of Jesus in a church, must give to every needy soul who asks, as much as one is able to give. That little child realizes that every true church is indeed a charity. Thus, the little child gets up and offers the desperate mother all the money he has, although it only amounts to about a dollar. Now, if the elders of that church had even a spark of love for God remaining in their hearts, the insignificant gift of that little child would shame them into repentance, and they would then call elderly women to help that single mother and provide all that she needs. Unfortunately, nothing seems to incite godly sorrow leading to the true repentance of the spirits of most church elders. Yet, when the twelve disciples of Jesus saw the little boy’s gift of five loaves and two fish on that day long ago, and all that their God Jesus did with it, it surely led theme into repentance. Those twelve cast out the negative irrational thoughts from their minds of flesh, then let the realistic and rational thinking in the minds of their spirits rule their lives (at least for a little while). For they had also seen how a large tree grows from a small seed, how everything in God’s created reality illustrated the miracle they saw that day. So they let their elect spirits hear and follow the counsel of God’s Holy Spirit. God granted their spirits power and authority over their minds of flesh. The reasoning of God poured into the minds of their human spirits, opened their eyes to see and their ears to hear, silenced the irrational objections from their minds of flesh, rebuked all the lies of their flesh, and left their flesh humbled and submissive.
The twelve apostles had spent that day resting, after all their labours as apostles sent on a mission by Jesus, and after witnessing the cunning, ruthless and wicked opposition of Evangelicals (Pharisees).
Yet, during that mission, they remembered that it was Jesus alone who granted them the truth of the Gospel they freely proclaimed and shared in simple ways with their people, who were all wretched sinners like themselves. And it was always Christ’s own power which flowed through their hands to heal their suffering brothers and sisters during those exhausting days. Then Jesus had preached to the massive crowd this day, specifically to give them time to rest—although Jesus had worked harder than any of them, seven days per week, even during the entire time they had been out on their mission. Jesus also suffered far more painful attacks from the enemy than any of them, while He was labouring for the benefit of His people. Yet our God Jesus was not interested in receiving any kind of sympathy for Himself. Jesus only sought only one reward. Above all, Jesus wanted His disciples to learn how to walk according to their spirits, in the counsel of His Holy Spirit. And Jesus did not want them to walk according to their minds of flesh, since their flesh could not hear the counsel of His Spirit. So an aspect of their walk was to become as a little child (Mat. 18:4). For all elect spirits are mere infants. And minds of flesh in infant bodies have not yet learned to suppress their spirits and seldom usurp their spirits’ authority in their souls. Rather, infantile minds of flesh instantly respond to the greater and more rational minds of their elect spirits, and to every whisper of God to their spirits. Their undeveloped minds of flesh have not yet learned to rule their lives in lusts, greed and carnal pride, nor to appease the souls who faithfully serve the evil prince of the dark world order.
So we can safely conclude that the little boy (παιδάριον) with the five loaves and two fish had an elect spirit. For Jesus chose and predestined his role in this miracle. And, without hesitating, his heavenly Father’s Spirit caused his human spirit to become curious about those twelve men gathered around Jesus. So the boy approached them, while still holding the basket of food that his mother had Page 1024
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likely asked him to carry. Then he found a place to stand by Andrew, one of the twelve. And the Spirit of our heavenly Father caused the eyes of Andrew’s infantile elect spirit to see the food carried by the boy. At first Andrew responded with delight within his spirit, since God’s Spirit made his spirit rejoice. From the spirit in his heart, Andrew blurted out, “Here is a little boy who has five barley loaves and two fish!” Unfortunately, as an adult trained to govern his life only through his mind of flesh, with deep respect for the carnal conventions of Satan’s world order, Andrew corrected his embarrassing blunder of heeding God’s counsel. Andrew acknowledged the devil’s “more rational” counsel granted to his mind of flesh and declared: “But, of course, it is much wiser to trust Satan, who likes to let people suffer unjustly. That hellish prince of this world order warns us to never acknowledge the words from our Father to our spirits, nor look like fools before other blind citizens of his cruel kingdom. We are to disdain non-financial or insufficient gifts, which God can easily multiply through His creating power. To be socially acceptable, we must worship money as our saviour. So, in carnal pride I bow to the devil’s will and point out that this gift is insufficient for the needs of these thousands, and I will not be tempted to believe that our God Jesus, our Immanuel, bears all authority over that devil’s authority, nor believe that Jesus can greatly multiply this small offering to serve His loving kingdom.” Satan’s world order trained Andrew’s flesh to think like this.
The devil would have been proud of Andrew’s “second thought” from his mind of flesh. But Jesus came to proclaim the reality that God alone remains the King, Owner and only final authority ruling over all that exists, even Satan and all in his kingdom of sinners. So Jesus ignored Andrew’s mind of flesh, but acknowledged Andrew’s first enthusiastic response from the mind of his spirit. Then Jesus patiently demonstrated God’s power and love for His elect children, by multiplying the boy’s little gift, making it a thousand times more effective than the mind of flesh could possibly comprehend.
And, to this day, Jesus repeats this miracle, daily. I cannot count how many times I have been awed by the how His Spirit has multiplied some insignificant little sacrifice or gift joyfully offered by a willing elect spirit. Jesus frequently causes our little deeds from the heart to feed thousands or even millions of souls, often saving multitudes from suffering in needless ways. Yet, every time we do the little good deeds that our elect spirits call us to perform, the devil tells our flesh to doubt their worth, and dampens our spirit’s enthusiasm, or even causes us to disdain those loving works, or to fear a negative response from Satan’s world order as we dared to do them. But we need to let our spirits heed the wise counsel of Jesus’ Holy Spirit, who will teach us how to labour rightly in His name.
The miracle of feeding more than five thousand souls through a seemingly insignificant good deed of a little boy, was an important lesson for the apostles to learn, especially during that time of increasing opposition from false churches. It made them realize that we have weak and fragile flesh managed by infantile spirits. We are not great, wise, strong, independent creatures, not human gods, not what pagan Roman humanists like to believe they are. Deceptions of humanism try to make us think we are gods, yet no one even has enough power or wisdom to care for oneself. In reality, it is our Creator God who provides all things for all, then requires each human to rely on all the other for one’s survival. And a fictitious human “greatness” will never overcome the forces of darkness. Only the greatness of our God, Jesus, can overcome evil and loss. Our heavenly Father did not call us to become “great leaders,” so we might be glorified and worshipped by other pathetic humans. Rather, the Father calls His elect children to be willing disciples, to let Jesus teach the minds of their spirits, to train their whole beings to heed the whispering of His Holy Spirit, as little children do. His New Covenant salvation is His loving power to write His Law upon our hearts and minds, to teach and train our spirits to effectively accomplish His will on earth, through Him, even as His will is done in heaven. Saving faith trusts in Him, not in ourselves, nor in any other gods, especially not in human Page 1025
wanna-be gods. His miracle that day portrayed His salvation process, which causes us to do the little deeds which fulfill the Law He puts in us. Then it illustrated how He multiplies those little deeds.
For our infantile elect spirits are not lords and teachers. We are all failing sinners, yet with an inner hope for a salvation that grants us far more than anything our minds of flesh could possibly imagine.
In pathetic wretchedness on earth, our spirits are growing into blessed vessels fit for heaven’s glory.
Matthew wrote about this feeding of the five thousand in a way designed for His Jewish readers to meditate upon every detail of it. Matthew knew that many would comprehend the significance of each detail. Those well-taught Jews would see how God’s Law was fulfilled by that boy’s little gift, and how Jesus’ works and words that day had fulfilled the sign of Israel’s exodus in the wilderness, as well as many other biblical prophecies. But John, another one of the twelve there that day, wrote his Gospel for Gentile converts and Hellenized Jews in the diaspora. So John chose to more fully explain what Jesus implied when He blessed of those five loaves, as well as the meaning of some other elements involved in that miraculous event. And John did this by recounting the conversations Jesus had with the crowds of followers after He returned to Capernaum on the following day, as well as His words uttered to His persecutors from the false churches, who were there as well. John began with what Jesus said to those who wanted to make Him their King, after seeing Him miraculously feed them. For that response from Jesus revealed who He really was and why He had come to Israel.
John wrote that Jesus said this to those people: “Most certainly I tell you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves, and were filled. Don’t work for the food which perishes, but for the food which remains to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For God the Father has sealed Him” (John 6:26-27, WEB). Our Owner and God uttered an authoritative prohibition and now expects our spirits to heed it. That firm and authoritative prohibition of God was this: “Do not work for the perishing bread” (from: ἐργάζεσθε μὴ τὴν βρῶσιν τὴν ἀπολλυμένην, SBLGNT). The Creator of all spiritual and physical reality told us not labour for bread, or for any other thing that is material, since all material things perish, including the devil’s invention of money.
Since God prohibits us from toiling to receive bread, which symbolized all the basic necessities of the flesh, then He definitely also forbids us from working to receive financial rewards, the money that the devil invented, which Satan’s world order uses to restrict access to necessary things of the flesh, so that his psychopathic children can coerce others to serve them. Yes, we can sometimes use money to interface with the world order, to get what we need for our works. However, in reality, God supplies all our needs, through His creations and through the works of each unique individual in the corporate body of His people, as each labours for the good of all through love, according to His will.
Then Jesus also gave our elect spirits another authoritative teaching or command as well: “Work ...
instead for the enduring bread unto eternal life” (from: ἐργάζεσθε ... ἀλλὰ τὴν βρῶσιν τὴν μένουσαν
εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον, SBLGNT). This is the same command that Jesus gave us earlier: “Seek first God’s Kingdom, and His righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well” (Mat. 6:33, WEB). That is, Jesus was telling us that, if we say and do only what the counsel of His Holy Spirit tells our awakened and carefully heeding spirits to say and do, He will provide for all our spiritual needs, as well as for all that our flesh needs, until the appointed time for the death of our flesh. As long as He allows us to live, our priority is to labour for things of the spirit, that is, in right and moral ways for freedom, justice, equity and welfare of all His creations, for all that His Spirit teaches our spirits to love. For, if we lose sight of these spiritual values, which the laws of His earthly kingdom upholds, then our personal lives and our entire communities will fall apart, then reap the wages of sin, which is death. Now, if we have employers, they usually pay money for honest, zealous labours done through care and love, done to build up whatever is good for God’s kingdom on earth. And, if Page 1026
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our employers want us to perform unethical tasks, or do not pay us anything, many of us now bear the right to abandon those wicked employers. For we must not labour for money, which builds up Satan’s unjust and exploitative kingdom, and our elect spirits also know that “no one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can’t serve both God and Mammon” (Mat. 6:24, WEB). But, in Christ, an employer can live modestly, then equitably share all the honest profits with his fellow workers, since all labour with that employer to provide whatever ethical goods or services the business offers. Then the employees can also live modest lives, where each receives all that one needs and works for the benefit of all. For employers and employees are the same. All are wretched sinners learning to be fit for heaven, where each is being trained to take responsibility for the welfare of all God’s creations.
We need to realize that every stalk of wheat grows or dies solely by the will of God, and on the land that God alone owns. Since all our food was designed and created by Him, and every kind of food grows solely by His will to maintain the spirit of life in it, we cannot ignore God. And human beings cannot oppose God’s will. Humans do not even have enough strength to keep themselves alive for one second of earthly time, and each one can only remain alive for the time He appointed for each one. Therefore, all individuals, all businesses and all governments bear a responsibility to do God’s will. And God’s will is to justly and equitably provide for all His earthly creations. Thus, all bear a social responsibility towards all other humans on earth, as well as a responsibility to tend the garden of the earth and “name” all living entities (i.e., take responsibility for all life on earth). Clearly, God ordained literally all our works on earth to be for the education of our elect spirits. God designed life on earth to teach us about His eternal principles of just love, to train our hearts to wisely apply truth.
Therefore, we cannot truly own anything, not in a way where we become the god of a thing. That is, we will never be able to do whatever we want with anything, since all is owned solely by God, and the most anyone can ever be is a steward of God’s property. Thus, everything we own actually belongs to the government God establishes over us, and that government belongs to God. So every governments must be a faithful steward of God’s property and must be expelled if it is not. Then this also means that we must not work for anything other than for our Owner’s just, equitable, loving purposes. If anyone thinks otherwise, that just a vain delusion, a lie that citizens of the world order believe only because Satan forces them believe it, after God handed those lovers of lies over to be enslaved and deluded by that devil, for the destruction of their flesh. But, if our elect spirits become willing disciples of Jesus, and trust in His just, wise and loving words and training, then the “Son of Man will give” us abundant and eternal life. Even on the day He calls us to lay down our flesh, and we can no longer fulfill His Law on earth, our deaths will build up His kingdom on earth, while we also nullify the works of the devil and his brood. The more we see His natural, equitable, just, loving kingdom grow, the more our spiritual and biological children may find peace and joy in life on earth.
God Himself “sealed” Jesus as the Messiah. That is, the omnipotent Creator irrevocably willed that Jesus is the only Authority capable of completing the saving works which fulfill His New Covenant promises for us, that Jesus will be our only eternal Teacher and Judge. And, since Jesus is eager and willing to teach and train every elect spirit for one’s own salvation, we have no excuse to disobey His command, when He told us to labour throughout our lives for nothing but “the enduring bread unto eternal life.” Our lives are for only one purpose, to enjoy love, to do the moral/spiritual works of God, to nullify Satan’s works and to build up all the just, equitable freedoms of God’s kingdom.
Yet, because of many false teachers, most elect think the works of God only include “religious”
words, actions, symbols and rituals done by their flesh alone. Most do not yet realize that fulfilling God’s spiritual laws of justice can only be done through the spirit’s love. The only true works of God Page 1027
must be done through right motives and intentions of one’s spirit. To this day, most still think all
“works for God” must be empty and vain physical actions, such as forcing their flesh to mindlessly repeat form prayers for hours, superstitiously quoting Scriptures as talismans or as trite responses to complex problems, using God’s Law to gleefully and ruthlessly terrorize falsely judged sinners, proudly enacting theatrical rituals in public to glorify their own great piety, being esteemed for endlessly bickering about traditions invented by the minds of carnal men, and other vile deeds that God soundly condemns. Therefore, these puzzled elect souls usually ask our God Jesus, “What must we do, that we may work the works of God?” (John 6:28, WEB). And Jesus explains: “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent” (John 6:29, WEB). If we simply let our elect spirits listen to the words that Jesus’ Holy Spirit is always uttering to our hearts, and trust in His power which designed and created all existence, so that we will say or do whatever He calls our spirits to say or do, through confidence in His ability to accomplish His purposes through our little works, we will partake in the effective and mighty works of God. If we seek first His will and power, if we make our decisions based on His wise counsel, if we have no other gods before Him, Jesus will indeed tear down the works of Satan so He can build up His righteous kingdom on earth through us.
Then, after Jesus granted this wise counsel to His elect on that day long ago, some seemed to ignore Him. For some turned the conversation back to the subject of how He miraculously fed the flesh of the multitudes in the “wilderness,” and did only the “work” of finding out how they too could be fed with that kind of physical food. For they did not want the spiritual food of God, which also provides for all our physical needs as well. After all, God’s spiritual food provides for the flesh with loving and moral equity and justice. But they wanted to feel like “religious” superiors in fake hierarchical systems created for Satan’s world order. Of course, since Jesus had returned to Capernaum, most of those who were striving to gain physical bread were the ones who had remained there, and did not follow Jesus into the wilderness on the previous day. But it is clear that they only wanted to work for the kind of bread that filled their stomachs, not for the good bread of heaven which fed their spirits.
Furthermore, when Jesus, on the previous day, retreated in the opposite direction of Herod Antipas, He made it abundantly clear that He was not willing to be the kind of King who would lead them into a violent rebellion against that pagan ruler and his wicked Roman oppressors, even though those fiends murdered their beloved Jewish prophet, John the Baptizer. And now they wanted our Messiah and God Jesus to be their obedient King, to do what they wanted for themselves, to use God’s power and authority for their own physical and financial benefit. They wanted a domesticated pet God and King. Yet our God is wild, like His creations. So, when men delude themselves by trying to tame nature, and nature always overcomes their manicured, perfectly shaped gardens and houses with its wild plants they call “weeds,” as well as with wild creatures, droughts, floods, winds and other uncontrollable disasters, our wild God also overcomes human spiritual delusions in the same way.
So, when our God Jesus would not become their domesticated pet King, He offended those religious members of Satan’s world order. Then they rejected Him as their Messiah, because they could not control this wild King. And all humanists love to be gods who delude themselves into thinking they are the masters of their own destinies and all that affects their lives, even God. Thus, they bitterly asked Jesus what right He had to act as though He were their prophesied Messiah, who was to be their God in a body of flesh and the conquering King of the world. They said: “What then do you do for a sign, that we may see, and believe you? What work do you do? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness. As it is written, ‘He gave them bread out of heaven to eat’” (John 6:30-31, WEB). Well, at least they saw that, as God fed manna to them in the wilderness during their exodus from Egypt, this manna from heaven was a sign of what their promised Messiah would do. And they did rightly Page 1028
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associate that manna from God with what Jesus did when He fed the five thousand with five loaves of bread in the wilderness. However, these carnal and humanistic souls focused solely upon benefits for their flesh, that is, upon the physical bread in both instances. All they focused upon were the immediate symptoms of their Roman oppression, on the hunger and suffering it caused. But they did not consider why God allowed those Roman’s to oppress them, nor why God allowed the first three formative kingdoms of Rome (Babylon, Persia and Greece) to oppress them. They ignored the root causes, the very real spiritual reasons for their hunger and suffering. Yes God could feed their flesh.
But, clearly, they still ignored the spiritual message proclaimed through the manna and five loaves.
So Jesus reminded them that the manna which fed them during their exodus was not from man, nor earned by the works of men. And, above all, God provided that manna in the same way He provides all in nature, that is, equitably and through grace alone, where each takes as much as one needs even if one has not “earned” it. The Father of those hard-hearted sinners freely granted manna to them from the entirely spiritual realm of His third heaven. And it was through the forgiving love and grace of His Spirit. It may have fed their flesh, but God gave it to His priesthood of Israel for spiritual purposes alone, to teach them the basic spiritual and moral principles of love, equity and justice, which they were to proclaim and administer throughout the earth. “For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world” (John 6:33, WEB). God’s good bread is nothing like the bread of Rome and their demonic rulers like Mammon. A creation of God, even His physical bread, must never be used to bribe or coerce one’s siblings into serving the vain will of a pretend god, to stroke the ego of one who deludes himself into believing he is elite and superior, that he is worthy of being worshipped by equals trapped in artificial hierarchies constructed on lies.
The lives of all men and all living creatures are their eternal spirits, not their very temporary physical bodies which exist in one moment of “now” within the real time of the spiritual realm. And all God’s gifts for this earthly life, all that comes from the Creator’s home above, are ultimately spiritual, even though some of these spiritual gifts are physical. For all earthly creations are mere tools for teaching our spirits. The physical manna was a sign of the Creator God’s food for our spirits, which He freely provided for all His priesthood of Israel through His loving grace alone. But these people in Israel still did not understand. For all they wanted was more free physical bread, the kind that their flesh could chew on, swallow, digest and excrete. Thus, Jesus plainly told them what that manna from heaven spiritually represented, when their Father gave them that bread during their exodus into freedom. As our Creator God, as the appointed Head Teacher of all the elect on earth, as their true eternal High Priest, Jesus said: “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me will not be hungry, and he who believes in Me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35, WEB). Our God Jesus is the bread of life, food for both the spirit and the flesh, and it is the spirit that keeps the flesh alive. That ancient manna represented Jesus. He alone could keep their spirits alive in the dark wilderness of Satan’s world order. His love, power, teaching and training, with the ready counsel of His Spirit, would keep their spirits loving, wise, alive and well. Then their flesh would survive too, as God and their siblings did all that was necessary for the flesh. But, if their spirits ignored and thus hated the God who gives all bread, their delusions would cause them to hate and destroy one another, and their flesh would die.
Our God Jesus alone was the food and drink their spirits desperately needed. If their spirits trusted in Him and His words, life would thrive. If their frightened and infantile spirits ignored or opposed Him, if they suppressed their spirits and lived only according to the “religious” superstitions worked by their minds of flesh, if they practised “religion” solely to provide for needs of the flesh, Jesus could do little for them, since helping deliberate sinners would be in opposition to Himself. If all they wanted was life for the flesh alone, their flesh would die, because their inner life would soon Page 1029
become dark, starving and miserable, “drunk” on the vexing delusions taught by the destructive devil and his brood in their unjust and deadly world order. If they sought to save only their flesh, they would soon lose their flesh, as well as everything else worth living for that can be found on earth.
Jesus came to fulfill the saving promise of the Messiah’s New Covenant with Israel: “All your children [of Israel, all in God’s earthly priesthood] shall be taught of Yahweh; and great shall be the peace of your children. In righteousness you shall be established: you shall be far from oppression, for you shall not be afraid; and from terror, for it shall not come near you.” (Is. 54:13-14, WEB). Therefore, Jesus then declared: “Most certainly, I tell you, he who believes in Me has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, that anyone may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down out of heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. Yes, the bread which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh” (John 6:47-51, WEB). Do we truly believe this? Do we understand that the flesh of Jesus died to pay for the sins of our flesh, so that our infantile spirits could feast on His words of spiritual truth and grow, so our spirits might live and not die the second death in hell?
Both the manna of Israel’s exodus and the five loaves that Jesus blessed by lifting them up towards our heavenly Father, then fed to the five thousand, represented our God Jesus Himself. Both breads were also symbols of God’s spiritual laws and teachings, since Jesus is Yahweh, and Yahweh is a Spirit. Jesus granted His true church of Israel, all Jews and Gentiles with awakened elect spirits, the right and the ability to “eat” His good “bread,” to nourish the atonement of their spirits’ relationship with Yahweh. These elect would receive Yahweh’s complete forgiveness for all their lifetimes of sin in their bodies of flesh, even the sins they might commit in the future, at the end of their lives. For Yahweh Himself would also nourish their spirits’ repentance from all those sins, and paid the just penalty for those sins, by sacrificing His own body of flesh. In the death of Yahweh’s flesh, all their sins would die, then burn with their flesh at the world’s end. By cleansing their hearts and teaching their spirits to repent into the truth, Yahweh would also free Himself from His former obligation to condemn them for their sins. Thus, since they were freed from their sins, their utterly holy God could then dwell with their spirits in their hearts forever, to train them as His royal family fit for heaven.
Next, Jesus gave us yet another burst of pure light, taught through His miracle of feeding the throngs of hungry souls, a truth that is just as critical to understand today as it was for those impoverished souls back then. Jesus illustrated a law or principle which all should always practise, because God has always practised it, since the beginning of creation. But, before we look at that, notice how Jesus walked up the hill to greet His returning disciples on the day He fed the five thousand, to raise their spirits. After this, He took the five loaves, lifted them to the third heaven for a blessing from their Father, so He could distribute that earthly food like the manna from above. This prayer sanctified those twelve common sinners and that bread. But His was not a superstitious, man-made or “magic”
holiness. His was true and real holiness, one which caused those men and that bread to manifest eternally existing realities from the spiritual realm, from the holy home of the Creator, their Father.
That day Jesus made those twelve disciples and those five loaves set apart for God’s purposes alone.
After sanctifying the twelve and the food, and after the crowd had eaten, Jesus taught this important principle to His twelve assistant teachers: “Gather together the left-over pieces, so that not any might entirely perish” (John 6:12, from: Συναγάγετε τὰ περισσεύσαντα κλάσματα, ἵνα μή τι ἀπόληται, SBLGNT). So the disciple John, one of the twelve apostles there that day, testified: “Therefore, they gathered together what remained from those having eaten, with the effect of all being satisfied. And they filled twelve baskets with pieces originating from the five barley loaves” (John 6:13, from: συνήγαγον οὖν, καὶ ἐγέμισαν δώδεκα κοφίνους κλασμάτων ἐκ τῶν πέντε ἄρτων τῶν κριθίνων ἃ
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ἐπερίσσευσαν τοῖς βεβρωκόσιν, SBLGNT). So, for one thing, each ate as much as he or she needed, and their was an equitable distribution of the food, in the same way God equitably distributed the manna in the days of Moses. Also, notice how Jesus did not want any of the food to be wasted. So Jesus asked His twelve well-taught disciples to gather up that bread. In the same way His “laws” of His natural creation allow nothing to be wasted, so do His written laws of the Bible. His command to waste nothing revealed that Jesus bore the attributes of our Creator God. For He created the earth in a way where it always effectively consumes and recycles all the “waste” of all living entities. Every substance from every plant or animal body is food for other life. However, this means that, if Jesus merely left those fragments of bread and fish on the grassy hillside, then nature would soon clean it all up. Leaving organic bread and fish on the ground certainly would not cause any problems for His animal or human creations. Within a few hours, mice and birds would eat most of that food. Then the few remaining crumbs would be consumed by worms and bacteria. Thus, when Jesus told the twelve to gather up the excess food, He also illustrating His priorities for His natural processes. That is, He made the welfare of human beings a higher priority than the welfare of animals, worms and bacteria.
Yes, the mice and birds would gather the leftovers first, if Jesus had left that bread on the ground.
Therefore, God ordained a higher value for lives of mice and birds than for lives of the worms and bacteria, since He only allows those to consume what mice and birds leave behind (including what the mice and birds excrete). Then plants consume waste from worms and bacteria, since worms and bacteria transform nutrients found in bread and animal excrement into substances plants can use, and plant roots are not able to even absorb nutrients from the bread or excrement until the worms and bacteria digest it first. Thus, when Jesus told human beings to gather that leftover food, it meant He had set human life above the lives of mice and birds. And His written Law also says, human life is most precious to Him, although He highly values all life, and demands our respect for all the eternal spirits He symbolically represents with the blood or fluid that gives life to every cell in all physical bodies. So, if God or man must choose which physical entity must go hungry or die, those decisions must be made according to the priority God teaches in nature and in His Word. Yet there will be no more hunger or death after the spirits of all living creations leave their earthly bodies and go to dwell in their permanent home above. All plants and animals that have ever lived on earth will dwell forever in the third heaven, together with God and His elect human heirs who will serve them all.
God’s Law commands us to tend all plant life on earth, and also take responsibility for all wild and domestic creatures. So leaving some organic, whole-grain bread and pieces of fish on the grass may fulfill these two commands of our God Jesus. And that food would not harm any plants and animals, only actually help them. But various commands of God bear a higher priority over others at different times and in different situations, depending on circumstances, intentions, motives and so on. So, for instance, now that all life on earth is threatened, because we have destroyed too much of what plants and animals need, these two commands about caring for plants and animals are higher priorities. Yet, even so, there are times when other considerations are more critical in God’s eyes, regarding justice worked through love. And, when our God Jesus commanded human beings to gather up those pieces, instead of leaving that food for the animals and plants, He was clearly saying that alleviating human hunger bears a higher priority than alleviating the hunger of animals and plants. Thus, He was also telling us that human beings are His most precious living entities on the earth, that human lives are more highly valued by Him than all other forms of life. God ordained the deaths of all flesh, but He will take some spirits home at different appointed times. And we must strive to hear God’s will in this matter, not try to impose our own foolish wills upon God. For, if we allow our spirits to hear God’s counsel, then we will not only save human lives, but also the lives of animals and plants too.
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Still, why did Jesus not allow some of the people from the crowd to take the left-over food with them, to eat during their long, journeys home that night? Why did Jesus command the twelve, His most well-taught disciples, to gather up those excess pieces of bread and fish? And why did Jesus multiply the loaves and fish enough to fill the stomachs of crowd, then leave twelve baskets of leftover pieces, one basket for each of those twelve apostles? Why did He not multiply that food enough to give everyone in the crowd extra food to take with them on their long journey home?
First remember how Jesus taught us to pray for our daily bread only. For Jesus wanted our spirits to commune with our Father every day, not just when we had a great need. Jesus wants us to develop a close and trusting relationship with our spirits’ Father, not just use God like some kind of sugar daddy. So causing the crowd to remain in constant prayer on the way home, and throughout their lives, would have been one reason why Jesus did not make extra food for them to take home. But Jesus made extra food for the twelve, who remained with Him, with their God, all day every day.
And, as mentioned above, when Jesus commanded His twelve assistant teachers to gather up those leftover pieces of bread, He was also teaching them to respect His ancient law written in His material creations, which is, “Waste not, want not.” For this was also a guiding principle found in the Law He granted to Israel through Moses. If God grants a soul stewardship over anything, that steward must not waste that thing, since wasting it may eventually cause oneself or others to suffer in “want” of that thing. Someday, someone or something may need that wasted thing to provide for critical needs or for survival. All God grants must be used wisely, to work the most good for all, while causing the least harm to all, including the least amount of environmental damage. So here Jesus illustrated this kind of responsible stewardship, regarding God’s creations granted to them. However, when He commanded the twelve to gather up the excess food, lest any perish and go to waste, He could have prevented the waste of that bread by giving it to the crowds, or by creating only enough to feed them with none left over, or by letting nature clean up the excess, as He designed it to do. So Jesus must have been teaching and implying much more than just the basic principle of “Waste not, want not.”
Yes, Jesus was teaching the principle of responsible stewardship too, since this is an important aspect of His Law, and Jesus came to fulfill His Law in us and through us. However, by commanding the twelve to gather up the leftovers, Jesus was actually conserving more that those physical pieces of food. For He was also commanding the preservation of the holiness of that food which He and the heavenly Father blessed and multiplied. He was giving that sanctified food only to the twelve chosen disciples He set apart for His purposes, in the same way God’s Law specified sanctified foods to be given to the Aaronic priests. The twelve were sanctified by His works inside their hearts, so they might do His works on earth in the love and power of His name. And this is the role of the teaching and judging elders in God’s true church of Israel. Rationally, this would be the main reason for Jesus specifically commanding the sanctified twelve to gather up that blessed bread, “so that not any might fully perish.” Every morsel sanctified by God must be used for God’s works, for His purposes alone.
By specifically asking only those twelve disciples to gather up those pieces of bread, and ensuring that each disciple’s personal basket would be filled with those pieces of bread, Jesus kept all of that blessed food for those twelve sanctified men alone. In doing so, Jesus abundantly provided for the physical needs of those twelve disciples as well. Yet, above all, by giving all the remaining food He had blessed to these twelve, Jesus provided a sign of His imperishable and holy love, which set them apart for His calling and purposes. And remember, this bread was originally a “humble” kind, likely a barley bread, which was perceived as inferior to bread made with wheat flour. Then the fish from the nearby lake was considered a lesser meat, inferior to the meat of goats, sheep and cattle. So Jesus was not granting any self-indulgent luxury to His twelve assistant teachers. Still, Jesus gave each Page 1032
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enough basic food, enough bread and salted fish, to feed each for about a week, that is, for a Sabbath of days. And, although this was “cheap” and lowly food granted to those twelve common sinners, all that food and all those twelve men were indeed more sanctified than the finest meal on the table of the Roman Emperor and all those dining with him. Those twelve and that food were abundantly blessed and set apart for God’s purposes. And both the bread and those men were made holy by their Holy God, through His will (all except Judas Iscariot, who was set apart for the purpose of betraying Jesus when the appointed time arrived). None had sanctified themselves, and no priest in a robe had ever sanctified that food or those men either. For true holiness does not ever depend on men, nor on any physical or spiritual qualities of whatever God truly sanctifies. All holiness is from God, and a person or thing only can become holy solely through God’s decision to use that person or thing for His own loving, just and pure purposes. Unless God Himself personally sanctifies, nothing is holy.
So the feeding the five thousand indicates that our God Jesus gives preferential treatment to the elect sinners whom He calls into His service and sanctifies. But, clearly, this preferential treatment will not involve granting His preferred ones any of the things that the devil’s world order gives to its most highly preferred servants of darkness. Jesus certainly did not award the twelve disciples any wealth, political power, titles, accolades or other self-esteeming nonsense. For we know that, up to the day those eleven faithful apostles died, Jesus and His true church simply called them their brothers, and addressed them by their given names, just as they did with all their other brothers in the true church, who were all elect sinners. Under God, all elect men and women are equal, all bearing the same right to receive respectful love and justice. Of course, this equality in Christ is not the same as humanistic equality, since humanism strives for an equal right to commit sins as wanna-be human gods. But, at no time, did Jesus ever reward the twelve with wealth and status symbols that gave them the right to sin. Jesus gave them nothing like unique clerical garments or expensive clothing, jewellery, mansions and luxurious chariots, nor anything else that might exalt them over other souls.
When our Jesus chose these twelve men, we must also remember how He sanctified them. Jesus made them holy through His teaching and training, not by magic words recited in a mysterious and pretentious pagan-like ceremony. And His gift of holiness was all that He deemed necessary for their salvation and their lives on earth, all they required to do the true works of God, even miracles done in God’s name and through God’s power. His love and His power would stand with them because He personally sanctified them through the teaching and training of their spirits. Furthermore, this rare, spiritual, eternal gift of being able to truly serve the Creator God was given through His grace alone, and was not merited nor earned, although it is the greatest of all God’s gifts. Then the gift of that leftover food was a symbol of this spiritual, eternal gift too, although food soon dries, rots and perishes, but God’s gift of the ability to truly and personally serve Him is forever, and will be owned by us throughout eternity in heaven. For each basket of blessed food fed the hunger of their spirits’