for a genuine purpose and meaning in life, for an abundant life of loving and being loved. The food was an affirmation of their priesthood, announcing their eternal calling and salvation. That bread, lifted to heaven by the hands of our God Jesus, indicated that He would nourish their spirits with their Father’s true manna, both on earth and forever in heaven. God gave manna to those who died during the forty years in the wilderness. But Jesus gave these twelve bread for eternal, abundant life.
When Jesus commanded the twelve to gather bread from the hillside that day, He purposefully did so in a way that likened the pieces of barley bread to the manna gathered by Israel in the wilderness during the Old Covenant days that began through Moses. Yet Jesus did not let His beloved elect in the crowd of His followers gather that blessed bread, together with the twelve. Jesus only allowed the twelve, in the same way that He did not allow any other people on earth to eat the ancient manna.
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Only the descendants of Abraham and the Gentiles whom He gathered into His priesthood of Israel could eat it. Only those whom God personally walked beside in a pillar of fire and smoke, and in His tabernacle, those whom He was delivering from Egypt’s oppressive kingdom in Satan’s world order, could eat that manna. God gave His bread of heaven only to His priests of His Old Covenant church.
But Jesus had only twelve men with awakened, chosen and sanctified spirits serving as priests in His New Covenant branch of Israel when He was feeding the five thousand. So He allowed only them to gather the heavenly bread from the fields. Yes, He would soon awaken, call and choose many more elect spirits. Within a year or two, He would begin to gather countless other elect Jews and Gentiles into a New Covenant relationship with the Father. Then they too would be able to eat the bread from heaven, together with the twelve. But, at that time, when He was feeding the five thousand, He had not yet won the right for all the elect of this world to eat that bread. For Jesus had not yet sacrificed His flesh on the cross, and had not yet risen from the dead so He would be able to personally teach and train all their spirits for their salvation. Of course, Jesus had not yet purchased the forgiveness of sins for the twelve either. But that was inevitable for eleven of those twelve, since He was personally teaching and training them in a way that fulfilled His salvation promise of His New Covenant, that is, in a way which would cause the elect spirits of the eleven to repent into the truth. Consequently, when Jesus told the twelve to gather the bread from the hillside, He was implying a second “exodus”
for His church of Israel, out from the bondage of Satan’s world order. And this second exodus would be the real one, which the Old Covenant exodus of Israel and its manna symbolically represented.
These twelve Jewish apostles would have recognized the parallel between the Old Covenant exodus and the Messiah’s New Covenant exodus when they gathered the miraculous bread from the hillside, the bread which Jesus had lifted up to heaven for its blessing, then brought down to feed His people.
For they heard about Israel’s exodus countless times throughout their lives, because God told them to remember it and celebrate it every year during the Passover season. Each year’s Passover Seder, and its lengthy teachings about the exodus in the Jewish Haggadah, always portrayed Israel’s ancient exodus as a time to remember because it related to the coming Messiah and His New Covenant salvation. So, not only did the twelve apostles recognize the Messianic implications of the that bread gathered on the fields in the wilderness, but almost everyone in the Jewish crowd did as well. As the apostles gathered that miraculous bread on the fields, all felt that it fulfilled the sign of God’s manna in the days of Moses, during their exodus from Egypt. Thus, John told us: “After seeing the sign that
[Jesus] did, they were saying, ‘This is truly thee Prophet, thee One coming into the world.’ Thus, having known they were about to come and seize Him so they might make [Him their] King, Jesus withdrew Himself again, into the hill [country] alone” (John 6:14-15, ALT). All the devout Jews knew that the manna in the wilderness was a prophetic sign of their coming Messiah, their Saviour.
In those days, most Jews believed that thee Prophet, the one Moses prophesied about (Deut. 18:18), would either be thee Messiah or a Messianic figure. And most rabbis did not associate thee Prophet with Elijah, who was to come only to announce the arrival of the Messianic King. But rabbis were highly divided regarding the Messianic prophecies, and argued about whether there would be one, two or even three Messianic figures. Of course, all agreed that the Messiah would be a mighty King, a descendant of David’s flesh, a human man called Immanuel (“God with us”), who would conquer the entire earth. But they could not agree whether this King was also thee prophet who spoke God’s dictated words, whom Moses prophesied about, as well as the “suffering servant” who served as a high priest who would make an effective sin sacrifice for God’s people, then bless and heal them.
So the rabbis of that day taught that the Messiah’s salvation could occur in one of three ways: (a) all through one Man, the Messianic King, who will also be a Prophet and a Priest; or (b) through two Page 1034
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men, the King who will be accompanied by a priest who will also be a prophet; or (c) through two men, where the King would be a Prophet like David was, but accompanied by a priest; or (d) through three men, the King accompanied by thee prophet as well as by another man who will be a high priest. So the Jewish crowd here (in John 6:14), said that they thought Jesus was thee Prophet. But, did they think Jesus was merely a Messianic figure, thee prophet but not the King, and not the real Messiah? Or did they think Jesus was the King who was also thee Prophet, possibly also the Priest?
Well, the people thought Jesus was thee Prophet because they saw Him feed them in the wilderness, miraculously, in much the same way God miraculously fed them manna in the days of Moses, who was the one that prophesied about thee Prophet. And we must realize that it was a king’s job to feed his people. Then we were also told that these people wanted to make Jesus their King when they said this. Thus, we can definitely assume that the most popular eschatological doctrine believed by most Jews in that region of Israel at that time was either “a” or “c” above. And, since those Jews definitely did not see their current high priest, appointed by Rome, as a Messianic figure partnered with Jesus, nor even the previous high priest as Isaiah’s “suffering servant,” it seems that most Jews in Galilee at that time believed that the Messiah’s New Covenant salvation would come through one Man, who would be a Prophet, Priest and King, all at the same time. And these people also said they believed that thee Prophet would be “thee One coming into the world.” This can only refer to God “coming into the world,” or “into the world order,” in a human body, as Immanuel, as “God with us.” This cannot refer to an ordinary man, because God creates all men in the world, and no mortal man can be involved with an ongoing process of “coming into the world” (i.e., see the present participle in, ὁ
ἐρχόμενος εἰς τὸν κόσμον, John 6:14). Every person’s body of flesh and spirit are already in the world at the moment of one’s physical conception and the creation of one’s spirit. Then a mortal will remains in the world until the day one dies. Thus, this crowd of these particular Jews believed that the Messiah’s salvation of Israel would be through one Man, a Man whose life-giving spirit was actually the Spirit of God (instead of a human spirit), a Man whose Spirit would come into the world from heaven above. This Messiah, this Immanuel or God-man, would serve them as all three Messianic figures simultaneously, as thee Prophet, their High Priest and their King. Therefore, we can conclude that the Messianic doctrines taught by rabbis in those days were very different from the Messianic doctrines taught by most rabbis in our day, since almost none of the rabbis today teach what those Jewish crowds believed back them. And today’s rabbis changed their teachings solely because they wanted to oppose the most common beliefs of the past, since they all pointed to Jesus.
So the Old Covenant manna from heaven—granted by God’s grace alone, to temporarily preserve the physical lives of Israel as they wandered their entire earthly lifetimes through a bleak and hostile wilderness—was merely a material sign of the spiritual bread of life that we receive from God for His New Covenant salvation. That manna was most often seen by the Jews as a sign of the Messiah’s teachings from heaven, as thee Prophet whom Moses told them to heed. Our spirits were to be taught and trained for our eternal lives in heaven by the Messiah. He was to make us ready to meet our God and enter our heavenly promised land as we were passing through life on this often bleak and hostile earth. Then the broken barley loaves, lying on the fields of Galilee on the day our King fed the five thousand also represented Jesus’ saving words and works from heaven. But this bread was broken in the same way His body would be sacrificially broken to ratify their salvation, as Isaiah prophesied (52:13 to 53:12). The Jews saw the pieces of loaves on the hillside that day as a second sign, of the future spiritual and eternal deliverance for the about-to-be sanctified elect of God’s church of Israel.
But Jesus’ sign of God’s manna of providence for His church was different, not like the manna in the Old Covenant times. When Jesus gave this sign of God’s providence in New Covenant times, He Page 1035
provided five of the poor-man’s barley loaves for five thousand men. God had His people discover one loaf per thousand elect males in His priesthood of the church assembled in the wilderness. In other words, God provided one lowly kind of loaf of bread for each of the maximum number of men that a teaching and judging elder could preside over at the time God sent out His Old Covenant church from Mount Sinai towards the promised land (Deut. 1:8,15). Thus, it seemed to the apostles, and to many Jews there that day, that each lowly and common loaf represented an elder chosen to serve a thousand men. That is, if any person in Israel was judged or taught wrongly by an elder of ten men, that one could appeal to an elder of fifty. If one was still not satisfied, then one could appeal to an elder of a hundred, then an elder of a thousand and lastly appeal to God, who judged the people by speaking through a prophet, who was Moses. But all these teaching and judging elders were very common men, like those barley loaves. And Jesus broke each loaf as a blessing for the people. For Jesus was bringing the New Covenant to His church. He was bringing each and every man into a personal relationship with their heavenly Father, who would be the Teacher and Judge of each one.
Many awakened elect Jews knew the Scriptures very well and had pondered its meanings all their lives. These were overjoyed when they this new sign of the lowly bread that Jesus broke and gave to them that day. For Jesus’ actions were filled with wondrous inferences, all directly related to the Messianic prophecies and the promised New Covenant. The miraculous feeding by our God Jesus that day was a sign that each man would no longer be taught and judged by sinners like himself. In the coming New Covenant times of the Messiah, each man’s spirit would be taught, and therefore judged, directly by the Spirit of God Himself (Jer. 31:33-34). The sight and thoughts of each elect man’s spirit would now radiate heavenward, arching over all on earth. And each elect woman’s spirit would glow into the lives of everyone around her. Thus, God Himself would become the Head or Elder of every individual man, when His true New Covenant branch of Israel was embodied by the Messiah’s sacrifice as the Suffering Servant who took away their sins. This is why those elect souls were so excited about Jesus feeding the five thousand. Then Jesus gave a similar sign again, when He used seven loaves to feed four thousand (Mat. 15:32-38), which implied that He will provide the perfect amount (i.e., seven represents perfection and completion) for all gatherings of His church of the New Covenant, for all Israel scattered upon the four corners of the earth. But that was affirming a prophecy about the distant future, when He would return to the earth. So feeding of the five thousand was a much greater miracle in the eyes of the awakened elect, since it announced that God was now initiating His New Covenant relationship with Israel right then, in the lives they were living that day.
So the bread Jesus gave to the five thousand emulated the old material sign of the manna God gave to Israel during their Old Covenant exodus, reminding them of the previous sign. The barley bread pointed back to the manna God gave Israel in about 1450 BC. But, in Passover and synagogue teachings which those Jewish elect had received all their lives, that ancient manna pointed to God’s promised New Covenant salvation, which God was now fulfilling through their Messiah, Jesus. To them, those barley loaves were a message from God, and Jesus was telling them that He was about to start granting His Holy Spirit to Israel, that the Spirit of God Himself would soon be each elect man’s personal Teacher and Judge. Then the twelve baskets gathered by His twelve disciples, whom our God Jesus personally taught and trained, was the beginning of the building up God’s branch of His New Covenant church in Israel. God’s New Covenant promise was to personally write His Law upon the hearts and minds of everyone in His church of Israel. That is, He Himself would personally teach and train their spirits to fulfill all His loving and just ways. Now He was beginning to do this.
Yet Jesus gave each of the twelve a full basket of symbolic manna, enough bread for more than a week. And Jesus commanded those twelve to gather that blessed bread in the evening, at the time Page 1036
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when a new day began, that is, by the Jewish and biblical reckoning of days. But, during the Old Covenant exodus, His covenanted church was only allowed to gather in the mornings, during the last half of a Jewish day. And each was commanded to take only enough manna to feed themselves for that day (except on Friday, when they could also gather enough for the following Sabbath day as well). Then, if someone took more than he or she needed for that day, the manna would rot during the night and produce a terrible stench (Ex. 16:16-28), like the stench of unforgiving bitterness. And the reason that Old Covenant Israel had to gather their bread early in the morning was because all the bread in the fields would melt and vanish later in the day (Ex. 16:21). Now, since a biblical or Jewish day starts at sunset—since the first half endures darkness but it ends within light—we can see what Jesus was alluding to when He gave the New Covenant manna to those crowds and to the twelve that evening, just before sunset when a new day would begin. And this too revealed symbolic meaning.
When God bound Israel into His Old Covenant, He had awakened His priesthood upon the earth from a long sleep in the night, from centuries of lacking food from heaven. He had written His ways in all His spiritual and physical creations, but there was very little food of His words for their spirits, only scant words from the often unfaithful solitary priests He had sent to the earth. God formed His priesthood of Israel through Abraham more than four hundred years before the time of this exodus from Egypt. But, when He sent Moses and His Law to that priesthood, He brought mankind into daylight, by revealing His spiritual attributes and ways in that Law. Yet that nourishing food for their spirits was limited and fleeting, melting away whenever His full, just and loving truth shone. So His Law was only sufficient to handle each day’s pressing needs of the flesh, but not all an elect spirit’s eternal nutritional requirements. Then, at the end of the day, after the period of time stretching from the days of Abraham to the days of Jesus, God Himself came in a body of flesh to fulfill that Law in the lives of His elect, and through them for the sake of the entire earth, by personally teaching them a whole and harmonious understanding of His Law, by training them to apply all of their much greater understanding of His Law, in wise ways which fully gratified each individual’s spirit with justice worked through love. Thus, a new day began with the New Covenant which Jesus was now giving to His New Covenant branch of Israel. It too would begin in darkness, but end in an even brighter day.
By giving His disciples the symbolic manna in the evening, that is, at the end of that day, Jesus was saying that Israel’s era of receiving His light through His prophets, through Abraham and those He sent until the days of Malachi, and the Old Covenant time which began with their exodus in the days of Moses, when the light of this day’s sunset was still in its morning hours, was coming to an end.
Soon the last day would begin, a new day, a new era, where His New Covenant salvation would be granted to God’s chosen priests. God’s truly loving justice, personally taught to elect spirits by His own Spirit, would begin to be known on earth. At first, the world would remain dark, with only an occasional glimpse of the moon reflecting the Son, and a few stars. But the Messiah’s kingdom would grow. Mixing this with another biblical metaphor that Daniel prophesied (Dan. 3:34-35,44-45), God’s kingdom was to start out looking like a small and indestructible rock. But this was to increase in size and density until it became a radiant mountain-sized diamond, filling all the earth with God’s light from heaven. After the days of Jesus’ ministry on earth, the stone of God’s New Covenant church, cut by God Himself, would be sent out into the world, just as God sent His Old Covenant church out from Mount Sinai to serve the world. Then each elect soul in His New Covenant priesthood of true Israel could receive more than enough bread of truth to fulfill His Law, since Jesus symbolized this by giving each apostle more than a week’s supply of bread at one time.
After the sun set that evening, a new biblical Jewish day would have begun. Not long after that day, Jesus would die on a cross and His flesh would rise up into eternal life again, so He could become Page 1037
the Teacher of every individual man in His New Covenant church. The start of a new era for God’s true church of Israel, the New Covenant days, would begin in darkness and sleep. There were a few hours of twilight, during the days of the apostolic church. Yet a long night soon began, allowing the devil’s religion of Rome to spread throughout the earth. That humanistic religion, consisting of teachings from Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome, was granted a head start on the very small true New Covenant church, and the true κυριακόι of Jesus seemed to barely survive. So the devil’s final kingdom of Rome consumed the world with dark delusions. Yet God’s little rock of light was also growing. Then a dawn of protests against humanistic lies and delusions began to brighten up the landscape. Eventually, a renewed dissemination of truth will culminate in the great revival of His true church, and signal the beginning of the end times. This will occur shortly after Jesus opens the sixth seal. Following this, the devil’s evil messiah himself, called “the beast,” shall destroy the deceiving false churches, grounded upon Rome’s humanism. For, by the end of the seventh seal’s era, Satan will no longer have enough power to deceive the elect. So his fake churches will not be of any use to him and he will kill them. Finally, Israel’s King, Priest and Prophet shall return in a body of flesh, and His unhindered light will shine on earth for more than a thousand years. At the end of that era of daylight, even another new day will begin. All physical existence shall be dissolved, both the earth and the entire material universe. At that time, the angels will gather all the elect living on earth and all the deceased elect throughout heaven. All will be sent to Jesus for their final day of teaching and training, just after the non-elect are cast aside. So that last judgment day will begin in a little darkness, as the non-elect are thrown into hell and the carnal elect are purged of all delusions and lies through Christ’s teachings. But, once all the elect repent into the truth, all will descend from the gates of judgment into their homes located on heaven’s mainland, in their city of New Jerusalem, where there is no night nor darkness. There Jesus will grant each one a bright personal dwelling and destiny, a life of joy and complete fulfillment, the life that Jesus prepared for each in the beginning.
Now I know that some will think I am reading in too much meaning from between the lines, that I am making far too many assumptions regarding the symbolism of Jesus feeding the five thousand.
But we need to realize that Jesus was speaking to Jewish people who thought in figurative terms, because God had revealed His Law and the teaching of the prophets in figurative terms, and because literally all moral and spiritual truths simply need to be presented to minds of flesh, and presented by minds of flesh, entirely in figurative terms. No moral or spiritual concepts can ever be described in concrete terms. So, when we look at the words and actions of Jesus, we must consider this context of Him addressing a first-century Jewish audience. Then we must also realize that not all the motives of all those who angrily dismiss this symbolism are pure. Many of them claim to be more “rational”
and think they are “realists.” Yet they are judging by the irrational thoughts in their minds of flesh, or according to other deceiving biases, and interfering with the pure logic and reasoning of their spirits.
For clear and definite clues were left in all four Gospels, regarding this symbolism, forcing unbiased and rational minds to come to these conclusions. The fact that many Jews suddenly tried to make Jesus their King after feeding the five thousand, but not after John was beheaded, nor at any other time, is a good example. Also, because all the Scriptures are indeed harmonious, and all the Gospel accounts of this miracle allude to Scriptures about Israel’s exodus, comparing the bread Jesus fed to the crowds to the manna they ate during that exodus, is another example. Thus, every rational soul examining the feeding of the five thousand should come to conclusions which resemble my own.
And it is not difficult to come to these conclusions. Even a child who is aware of one’s own spirit, and the Spirit of God, can easily come to similar conclusions. As a small child, when I first heard this account of Jesus feeding the five thousand, and how the crowd wanted to make Jesus their King Page 1038
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after He fed them, I instantly realized that most pastors did not seem to truly understood what Jesus did that day. At that time, I could not fully comprehend all the symbolism, but I knew enough to realize that those pastors were being careless or biased in their interpretations. Even as a mere child I knew the difference between the spiritual and physical, and recognized that they did not comprehend the spiritual significance of what Jesus did that day. Of course, from times before I can remember, I witnessed both the physical and spiritual harm caused by things like people trying to use magic and religious rituals to achieve selfish goals, through impure motives and intentions. I saw how souls lost sight of God’s sovereignty over their lives and the world. So I knew that it was wrong for those people to try and force Jesus to be their King, and that He was already their King, but they did not really want Him to be the kind of King they truly needed. Although my extended family never said much against such things, and often even seemed proud of the lying counsel of prominent people, or even paid for such services, I was exposed to enough spiritual and moral truth to reject such things.
A child is often able to see how people try to escape inner and outer responsibilities by accessing a loveless, vain, self-serving knowledge and power which opposes God. Only when that child becomes a physical adult, with an even more infantile and immature spirit than he or she had as a child, does one become incapable of seeing such things. Because, even as a four-year-old child, I saw those carnal motives and intentions in the hearts of my own extended family, I recognized the same attitude in the crowd that wanted to make Jesus their King, but only so He would lead them into violent rebellion. And those rebels also interpreted the miracle of Jesus as a magic act, as a power that might physically assist them in their own carnal ambitions and greed. So, to me, even as a little boy, that seemed repulsive. By my early grade-school years, while obtaining a thoroughly secular and humanistic education and living in an equally secular household, I could see the loving compassion and wisdom of Jesus, and knew that His works that day were symbolic, although I did not yet know who this Jesus actually was, nor how to interpret those symbols. Then, over the years, especially after I was about forty years old, I began to truly see who the real Jesus was, and how to interpret His symbols. The point is, Jesus is amazing. His every word and deed can be analyzed to incredible depths without encountering flaws and contradictions, revealing only wisdom that always leads to a powerfully rational and harmonious understanding of both spiritual and physical realities.
Now look again at how the crowds tried to force Jesus to serve as their warrior King, hoping He would physically conquer Herod and Rome. Yet they did not seem to notice that Jesus was already conquering their real enemy, the lies and delusions of the world order. And Jesus had already begun a piercing advance against the heart and blood of Rome, against its humanistic religion, against the concepts enabling men like Herod to murder God’s servants like John the Baptizer. So Jesus simply walked away from those rebels (John 6:15). For they needed eyes to see and time to repent. And Jesus walks away from carnal churches in our day too, when they demand His help to commit their violent, exploitative, racist, polluting and carnally gratifying deeds. The prosperity doctrines in each fake church come from Rome, and all those pretenders crave human kings who empower them as elite oppressors, able enforce vindictive laws against all who dare oppose their self-serving ways.
But churches belonging to the devil’s world order have long-since given up trying to make the real Jesus their King. Now they invent their own Jesus and choose their rulers from those whom God has not chosen for them, because they do not want free and responsible democracies as God commanded (Deut. 17:15). Rather, they threaten, beat and even kill honest, just and loving souls, all the servants whom God sends to build up His kingdom on earth. Then they raise up any ruler who will help them trample the poor, just as Sodom, Gomorrah and Israel did before God destroyed them. For the fake churches prefer dictatorships where they stand at the top of the hierarchy—although all God’s true Page 1039
elect, even from the days of Adam, always strove to form egalitarian democracies, where no slavery nor oppression existed. Fake churches erode and destroy existing biblical democracies by cheating, by stealing the votes and rights of their brothers and sisters. They want siblings of a different skin colour or culture or religion or language to serve them as slaves. Then, to keep the light of truth from burning away their lies, they put on blinders. And to keep genuine evidence from entering into their self-serving ears, they scream against it. So they will wallow in their dark, wilful ignorance forever.
Since false churches prefer the lies of men to the truths of God, all they say and do harms and kills through unbridled hatred. Thus, God calls all their deeds murder, or at least wilful negligence, which is a form of murder with criminal intent. Yet they refuse to repent, and continue to esteem only their own wretched selves, while electing lying, murdering, raping non-elect souls as their “kings,” calling them “anointed servants” of God. They bow before their rulers in their churches and governments, as before gods. Then they also worship a very minor god, whom they falsely “Jesus,” a god invented in their own minds. But they do not even heed that demonic idol as much as they carefully follow and obey their human gods. So the real Jesus will have absolutely nothing to do with those idolaters. He treats them like abominations, no matter how much they insist that they are “Christians.” Therefore, let all the elect pray that our God Jesus, who created all realities and truths, will wake their spirits, open their blind eyes and heal their deaf ears, so He may personally teach and train their spirits until they repent. Then the elect will abandon those fake churches and allow them to destroy themselves, in the same way Jesus does. For we know God has handed them over to delusions, and He will cause every little evil deed they do to be multiplied, until each becomes a huge evil deed, until the heap up their own damnation and destroy themselves. But, in God’s true church and kingdom, Jesus will also multiply our little good deeds too, until each becomes a huge good deed, a spiritual treasure for us.
And now also remember, the carnally minded crowd that wanted Jesus to lead them in a bloodthirsty war of murderous vengeance included many elect. For the non-elect elite from fake churches manipulated and duped many elect souls, causing them to join in their raging against God and God’s ways. Then the non-elect elite planned to use those elect as canon-fodder, and throw them in the front lines where the most casualties would occur. Yet those elect were not duped because they were stupid, only because their spirits were asleep, blind and deaf. Therefore, as the duped elect see the real Jesus walk away and ignore those fake churches, let them realized that something is very wrong with the deluded liars they are serving. Let them pray for the real Jesus to awaken their elect spirits.
Jesus will never “rally the troops” to fight political battles, and lead one faction of Satan’s world order against another equally wicked and deluded faction. Jesus will not employ carefully crafted lying rhetoric to stir fake churches into a raging fury against men like Herod. Thus, rebels who think only with their minds of flesh will always be the first to leave the real Jesus, and angrily murmur about our Messiah being “weak” and “cowardly,” simply because He will not murder, plunder and destroy, together with them. Since Jesus is actually so strong and brave that He chose to die for His people—instead of war with evil against the evil to produce the collateral loss of countless innocent elect souls—both the religious and the secular terrorists hate Him. They only love demons, because demons stroke their carnal egos and approve of their murdering. Satan and his demons enjoy the sight of their children murdering one another, striving to become the “greatest” of all human gods.
The elect must no longer let themselves be led by deluded bitter “Christian” terrorists, who always abandon the real Jesus. Now they must join those who remain with Jesus. For many elect actually listened to Jesus, and truly understood what He taught about their Father and His ways. These were among those who ran along the shores to meet Jesus on a hill in the wilderness. These stayed there throughout the day, to feast on every word He uttered, although the daylight hours were ending and Page 1040
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they would need to walk home in dangerous darkness. These were among those to whom Jesus gave the new manna from heaven, in the guise of lowly barley bread and fish. Yet not all who sat on the hill that day remained true to Jesus, although almost all there were the true elect. So Jesus did not walk with them back to His home in Capernaum. But neither did He go with His twelve assistant teachers in the boat. When the darkness introduced a new Jewish day, Jesus put the twelve apostles in their boat and told them to row back to Capernaum. Then, Jesus ascended a hill, waiting for the appointed time. Meanwhile, His true church of the twelve, huddled in that boat, surely felt the wrath of storms from the world order, until Jesus returned. And Jesus was walking on the waters, in the same way He will float down from the sky during the end times. Once Jesus calmed their fears and the storm, He entered that ship of earthly life, to be with them, and they had arrived (John 6:16-20).
Mat. 14:22-36,
Jesus Omnipotent
“Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat, and to go ahead of Him to the other side, while He sent the multitudes away. After He had sent the multitudes away, He went up into the mountain by Himself to pray. When evening had come, He was there alone. But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, distressed by the waves, for the wind was contrary. In the fourth watch of the night, Jesus came to them, walking on the sea. When the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, ‘It’s a ghost!’ and they cried out for fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying ‘Cheer up! It is I! "Don’t be afraid.’
“Peter answered Him and said, ‘Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the waters.’ He said, ‘Come!’ Peter stepped down from the boat, and walked on the waters to come to Jesus. But when he saw that the wind was strong, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, ‘Lord, save me!’ Immediately Jesus stretched out His hand, took hold of him, and said to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’ When they got up into the boat, the wind ceased. Those who were in the boat came and worshipped Him, saying,
‘You are truly the Son of God!’
“When they had crossed over, they came to the land of Gennesaret. When the people of that place recognized Him, they sent into all that surrounding region, and brought to Him all who were sick, and they begged Him that they might just touch the fringe of His garment. As many as touched it were made whole” (Mat. 14:22-36, WEB, cf., Mark 6:45-56; John 6:14-24).
There are some details of this event which seem to contradict one another, but only because most think that all the accounts are about the same event. And they are. But we must realize that writers in the first century compressed accounts, used different names for the same places and so on. So they might write about one event, then immediately move on to write about another event, although that other event may have occurred later. Or they might use the name of city instead of a region, or the name of a region instead of a city. Or an event might begin in one place and the main aspects might occur in another. So, when we look at the Gospel accounts of Jesus walking on the water after feeding the five thousand, we must not assume that all the details occurred in the simplistic way we imagined they occurred according to the descriptions in each Gospel, then declare that we have found contradictions between each account in each one. Rather, we need to piece together the details into one harmonious and contiguous series of details. So now let me exegete these Scriptures, while keeping this in mind, as well as other possibilities which explain what some call “contradictions.”
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The fourth watch of the night was three hours long, from about three o’clock until dawn at six o’clock. And, actually, all the events of this night were a continuation of the sign Jesus gave Israel at the end of the previous day, when He fed more than five thousand souls in the “wilderness,” then commanded His twelve assistant teachers to gather up the left-over bread from the field, as symbolic
“manna” from heaven. There, Jesus indicated that the New Covenant era, along with a new branch of the church of Israel, had begun. And this new era was represented by this new day, which began at sunset and in darkness. So, when Jesus later went to the twelve, walking on the water, He provided yet another prophetic message, telling them how He would end the darkness and storms that began immediately after He established His New Covenant church of Israel. The twelve represented His entire New Covenant branch of Israel. And the events of that night symbolized the first part of the existence of His New Covenant priesthood on earth, its two millenniums of struggles in darkness.
Some will dispute this interpretation. But a reading of this event from three Gospels confirms that Jesus used the incident of His disciples dangerous journey through the night’s raging waters as a prophetic illustration of events leading up to His second advent, when He would calm the troubled waters by His command, so that more than a millennium of daylight could begin on earth. For all the biblical prophecies about the last days, from both the Old and New Covenant Scriptures, warn that Israel’s New Covenant days will begin with dark, troubled times. From the day the Messiah initiates His New Covenant with Israel, until He returns to destroy Satan and his dark world order, the night was prophesied to grow increasingly difficult and dangerous, to prove the worth of His loving justice built on verities. The night, representing the first half of the New Covenant “day,” would grow more evil and threatening until the Messiah returned to His true church of Israel, much like Jesus returned to the twelve on that boat long ago, to His beloved gathered in the sinking “church” of the little boat.
The three hours of the fourth watch that night prophesied about the eras of the last three seals Jesus would open, as recorded in His Revelation to John. That is, it was a sign of: (a) the fifth seal, when many elect would be killed by the world order in Satan’s attempt to snuff out God’s love and light on earth, but which would only cause the elect to pray more fervently; (b) the sixth seal, when the earth would experience earthquakes and meteors striking the ground, followed by the great revival; and (c) the seventh seal, when God will complete the judgment the world order with the plagues of the seven trumpets, ending this with seven bowls of His wrath and the bodily return of Jesus to rule the earth.
Jesus had sent out the twelve alone, and went up on a mountain to pray, to get away from the crowds who had already begun to demand that He should serve them as a carnal King, and lead them into rebellion against Herod and Rome. And this withdrawal to the mountain top seemed to represent how He would soon ascend into heaven for a time. Then the disciples in the boat, without Jesus, had rowed in wind and darkness for a long time, until the storm grew so bad that they feared for their lives. So this period of time seemed to represent the eras of the first four seals in the Revelation.
These first four seals would be opened and remain open, growing worse and worse, until those four tribulations of the elect culminated in the events of the fifth seal’s era, with a deadly attack upon His church. By the end of the fifth seal’s era, the wind and waves of the devil’s dark world order would cause the faithful believers in Jesus to continuously fear for their lives. Then Jesus would finally appear to His disciples, which seemed to represent the brief era of the sixth seal and a true revival.
The events of the sixth seal will effectively and immediately collapse the devil’s economy, and all that Satan uses to control his captive citizens in his oppressive world order. Then the subsequent revival of the true New Covenant church will be like the twelve in the boat worshipping Jesus. At that time, some believers, as Peter did, will call out to Jesus, and even walk on the water to Him. The church will begin to be strong again, and lose some fear. Even miracles will be worked by them after Page 1042
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the revival. Although they might falter, because their faith shall still be relatively weak, Jesus will save them, and lift them back into the safety of His church. Then Jesus entered the boat, which seems to represent Jesus bodily returning to the church during the brief events of the seventh seal’s era. That is when He shall “calm” the wind and waves. That is, this is when He will destroy Satan’s world order and cast all raging demonic spirits from the earth. Immediately, the church will find itself on the other side, as the disciple did within the last hour of the fourth watch that night. Once they land on the shore, it will be morning, and Jesus will heal all. The landing at dawn, on the Jewish day which began at the previous sunset, signalled the beginning of His millennial rule on the earth.
Now let me delve deeper into these details of the stormy night after Jesus fed the five thousand. But a few details need to be cleared up first. For Matthew and Mark said that Jesus and the twelve landed the boat in Gennesaret. Then some translations of Mark tell us that Jesus, when He sent the twelve out in the boat, told them to go to Bethsaida. Yet John said the disciples headed for and landed at Capernaum. Actually, with a correct interpretation, there is no contradiction in any of these accounts.
Matthew and Mark were simply saying that the twelve disciples landed somewhere in the valley of Gennesaret, which covers the entire northwestern shore of the lake of Galilee, including the shores near Capernaum. Actually, the Sea of Galilee fills the lowest parts of the Gennesaret valley, and is sometimes called Lake Gennesaret. So their boat landed on the shores of the Gennesaret valley and somewhere very near to Capernaum, since we know that the people of Capernaum saw them coming and ran to meet them. As for the quote from Mark, which some translate as Jesus telling the twelve to head to Bethsaida, we need to realize that this is a faulty translation. For they were actually very near to Bethsaida when they entered the boat and departed, and could not get any closer to Bethsaida by travelling on a boat. So Mark wrote that Jesus was actually telling the twelve: “Go before [Me] to the other side [which is] facing toward [us here at] Bethsaida” (Mark 6:45, from: προάγειν εἰς τὸ
πέραν πρὸς Βηθσαϊδάν, SBLGNT). In context, the preposition πρός with the accusative meant
“facing toward Bethsaida.”Here Mark was indicating that Jesus told the disciples to cross over from their current location at Bethsaida to the other side of the Gennesaret valley, that is, to Capernaum.
Now John wrote that Jesus sent the twelve out alone on the boat, without Him, because He knew the crowds wanted to force Him to be their King (John 6:15), since they had already been indicating this in the wilderness immediately after He fed the five thousand. On the day after Jesus had already returned to Capernaum, He engaged in conversations regarding the crowd’s desire to make Him the King, which John recorded (6:26-66). And that was also when the disciples who desired a carnal kind of king to lead them in a bloodthirsty rebellion against Rome stopped following Him. For Jesus had to thwart their vain and godless attempt to establish a theocracy, with Him as King, because neither His church of Israel, nor any of the other elect on earth, were ready to receive their just and loving God as their Lawgiver and Judge, as the one and only Head of every individual elect man on the face of the earth. At that time, most elect were still hard-wired to pursue only the vengeful and psychopathic kind of fake justice that was taught and esteemed by Satan’s world order. It would be more than two millenniums before God’s just, equitable and loving concepts would be commonly taught, enough to enter the conscious minds of His elect. In those days, almost none of the elders and judges sought to restore damages done by sins and turn sinners towards right thinking by teaching and guiding them into life-changing repentance. Few elect back then would let restoration take precedence over punishment. Almost none truly forgave the truly repentant or applied punishments sparingly. For none but the lawless and unrepentant ruled their churches and governments, and used punishment to terrorize the people into submission, so they would serve the whims of elite superiors.
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To this day, we find very little of God’s redeeming and restoring kind of justice in our lands, and we still see how the bullying rich and powerful try to terrorize the masses into submission. Even now most churches still belong to Satan’s world order, and help the hierarchies of the devil force their unjust wills upon those whom they falsely deem to be their “inferiors.” Thus, many still willingly help the devil’s children trample the poor, driving innocent souls toward unjust and painful deaths.
Churches have greedily swallowed the delusions of malicious deceivers for selfish gain, and have consistently refused to trust the wise counsel or just judgments of Jesus, their loving God and King.
Therefore, Jesus had to climb a mountain and separate Himself when they tried to make Him into the King of an unjust and self-serving theocracy. Then He also had to protect His faithful few from the haranguing crowd who arrogantly deemed themselves to be devout and godly, although they allowed every suggestion of the devil to stir up the ugly and base instincts of their flesh, causing them to very stupidly react against their self-afflicted suffering in the most criminal and unjust violence possible.
They let Satan and his servants fill their minds with fear, anxieties, selfish ambitions, greed and fake self-esteem, until they were no longer able to think a single clear and wise thought, even if their lives depended on it. And their lives did depend on it! For these religious dupes, with irrational and filthy lies hammered into the lower parts of their brains of flesh, loved delusions about themselves and other souls. For it produced adrenaline in their blood and stimulated their lusts. This poisoned diet nourished their ever-increasing racism against Gentiles. It strengthened their arms for unjust acts of vigilante violence, which stubbornly refused to provide victims with fair hearings and just trials, as God commands. They impudently swept truth off the table, so they could indulge in banquets of self-gratifying wilful ignorance. In the state they were in, these elect could never be educated, but only grew more suspicious of the truth and sound reasoning each day. Because they did not love the truth, God handed them over to deeper delusions daily. And their toxic diet drove them insane, caused all kinds of deeply paranoid infighting, even a complete destruction of their own lives, both internal and external ruin and death. Truly God is still handing many elect over to the devil for the destruction of their flesh, to demonic powers which thoroughly delude their self-exalting souls, since they do not love God’s truths in His just Law. Because they seek to save themselves alone, and spare no loving thoughts for their brothers and sisters in the family of mankind, God has sentenced them all to death.
Until the revival, many elect will die by the hands of citizens in Satan’s world order, because they do not nullify that devil’s works, but slavishly build up that evil kingdom instead of God’s kingdom. In rebellion after rebellion, carnal king-makers murder thousands of non-combatants and surrendered soldiers. Then they slaughter themselves, as they fight among themselves, murdering one another.
But Jesus, together with many truly faithful servants of God, know that those kinds of duped elect will end up destroying themselves, and see their demise long before those carnal souls realize it themselves. For those who know and trust God’s Word have seen this kind of stupidity many times, both in their own lives and throughout all history. All have witnessed how God hands over all of the unloving and dishonest souls to demonic delusions. And the awakened elect still see false churches zealously support the worst servants of Satan to this day. Many still follow countless lying preachers, as well as psychopathic secular murderers like Hitler and Trump. Most still bow before demons all day every day. Therefore, just as Jesus does in our day, He also sent His faithful twelve out alone on that day long ago, to separate and sanctify His beloved from the monsters of fake religion, from those who desire a false “Jesus,” a fake god who will help them gain profit and power through the destruction of the innocent, to esteem their rotting carcasses of flesh. “Jesus immediately compelled the disciples to board onto the boat and go ahead of Him onto the other side” (Mat. 14:22, from: εὐθέως ἠνάγκασεν τοὺς μαθητὰς ἐμβῆναι εἰς πλοῖον καὶ προάγειν αὐτὸν εἰς τὸ πέραν, SBLGNT).
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Then, to prevent the crowds from following after His fragile and beleaguered disciples, Jesus stayed behind and presented Himself before the masses, including the deluded King-makers who remained, who duped the others through their resolve to have Jesus lead them against Herod and the Romans.
Yet Jesus did not stay with that crowd. He was no longer willing to teach them. Rather, He dismissed them and told them to go home, so some might reevaluate their thoughts and lives. For their attitudes were corrupted after they saw Him feed their thousands with five loaves and two small fish. So now Jesus “ascended onto the mountain by Himself and prayed.” Yet He first set apart His true disciples, on that boat, before He ascended the mountain, just as the sun was setting, just as a new Jewish day began. Thus, given this context in which the deluded King-makers pursued Him into the beginning of the new day, into New Covenant times, Jesus’ ascension upon that mountain was a clear symbol of His resistance to any kind of theocracy. To prevent a false church from seeking Him for carnal and evil reasons, Jesus illustrated how He would soon physically part from His true New Covenant church for a time. Yet He would also keep a few of His faithful κυριακόι apart from the false church while He dwelt in heaven, until He had fully prepared His true Israel to receive Him as their King.
Now, the disciples’ boat would have tried to remain within sight of the shore as they battled that windy and dangerous weather. So, if they had cut across the lake in a straight line, in a more direct route, it would have been only about six kilometres (4 miles) to Capernaum. But, since they likely hugged the shore, their route would have been much longer, over twice that distance. And, if the wind was against them, they would have travelled very slowly. So they could have been rowing eight or ten hours by the time Jesus left the mountain. And the Gospels confirm this, since they say that Jesus went to meet them in the fourth watch of the night. Jesus likely began to walk toward them at about four o’clock in the morning. Thus, by the time Jesus caught up with them, about eleven hours had passed, assuming Jesus walked about three to four kilometres per hour (or 2 to 2.5 mph) over the water. But, since the wind and waves were against the disciples on the boat, and they would need to zigzag to keep the bow into the waves, they made very little progress. John said they had rowed about 25 to 30 stadia (4.8 to 5.8 kilometres, or 2.9 to 3.4 miles, see John 6:19) during those eleven hours. So, on average, while zigzagging through the waves, they were advancing toward their destination at a less than a half a kilometre per hour (or less than a third of a mile per hour). And they must have been exhausted after staying up all night and rowing in those dangerous conditions.
When Jesus neared the boat, everyone on board saw Him. So we know this was a wind storm on a cloudless night with the moon shining, or that it was already twilight. Jesus was not walking to them during a rain storm. Also, Jesus must have calmed and levelled the water below His feet as He walked to them, and would not be balancing on the high waves which often plagued that lake. Then, with the impaired mental state of the twelve, at about five in morning, following a very stressful and sleepless night, their first thought was that the shadowy figure of Jesus walking on the water was a ghost (φάντασμα, or spirit of a dead person, see Mat. 14:26 & Mark 6:49). Thus, they were terrified.
But Jesus was simply doing what Job, Abraham’s contemporary, told them that God can do, that God
“treads on the waves of the sea” (Job 9:8, WEB). And all the Jews of that day believed that none but God could walk on water, or hover above it (Gen. 1:2), and that only God could allow anyone else to do such a thing. So, by walking to them on the water, Jesus was proving to these believers, yet again, that He is Immanuel, God in a body of human flesh. Now Mark said Jesus kept on walking past them (Mark 6:48). But Jesus did not do this to let them to struggle with the wind and waves until they reached Capernaum. Rather, in a storm, a small boat had to hit the waves at a slight angle and zigzag through the waves or the boat would be swamped with waves flowing over the gunnels. Thus, Jesus would have walked just a little ways past the moving boat to position Himself on one side, so He Page 1045
could enter the boat as it drew nearer to Him. And Jesus obviously approached their boat deliberately since He could have taken a more direct route to Capernaum if wanted to walk all the way there. So Jesus was coming to the disciples and did want them to see Him walking on the water, in the same way Job said God could walk on the waves of the sea. And He also knew they would be very afraid.
Thus, first of all, Jesus clearly wanted His disciples to recognize Him, and even called out to them so they would be certain that it was Him walking on the waters, so they would believe that He was the true Messiah, their God. But also consider how it says that the wind was against them. Therefore, another reason that Jesus would have wanted to walk a little farther past them was so He would be upwind, in front of the boat, so that His voice could be carried by the wind to them inside the boat. It would be natural and rational for Jesus to walk a little past them, past the bow of their vessel, so they could hear Him much better when He chose to speak, and let the wind carry His voice. And He knew the disciples were too afraid to carefully look at Him, that they would not immediately recognize Him in this unusual context. So He stopped and commanded: “Have courage. It is I. Do not be afraid” (Mat. 14:27, from: Θαρσεῖτε, ἐγώ εἰμι· μὴ φοβεῖσθε, SBLGNT, cf., Mark 6:50, John 6:20).
Here God commanded His will to be done (and this was not His preceptive will, like His laws). So what He commanded occurred. The disciples immediately became courageous and no longer feared.
Keep in mind that this happened just before dawn and likely near the shore close to Capernaum. So, if Jesus meant the dawn to be a symbol of His second advent and the beginning of the millennium of His rule on earth, the hour that Jesus approached the boat of His New Covenant church would relate to the end of the fifth seal’s era prophesied in the Book of the Revelation. Therefore, that hour would relate to this current era in history. For all signs indicate that the church and the world today exists within the fifth seal’s era, and that the fifth era began more than a hundred years ago, possibly almost two hundred years ago. Since the time of each sequential spiritual era of each seal was to be shorter than the previous one, much like birth pangs increase in frequency (Mat. 24:8), this means that the beginning of the brief era of the sixth seal (which likely will last only about twenty years) is almost upon us. And it is certain that the elect who truly believe Jesus’ words through saving faith are now getting very exhausted and fearful in the devil’s wild winds of false doctrines and threatening waves of deadly persecutions. The believing elect are even now in a situation like those disciples were in that night long ago. And we are growing extremely vexed, to the point of almost fainting, because we see so many churches “tossed back and forth and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error” (Eph. 4:14, WEB). Thus, very soon, Jesus may reveal Himself to His faithful and very fragile, weak, fearful, anxious disciples and revive His true church, make them courageous through His will and command, so they might see that He is their God. And now it is time to prepare for the works we must do during the sixth seal’s revival.
After Jesus calmed their fears and made them courageous, Matthew, an eye witness of this event, gave us an account of Peter’s rash actions at this time, before Jesus entered the boat and calmed the wind. Now Peter was the eldest and chiefest of the twelve assistant teachers whom Jesus first called and sent out as apostles on a mission. And Peter was likely cherished by Jesus because of his great enthusiasm arising from his faith, as well as due to his humility, his willingness to hear criticism and self-humiliating truths, along with his eagerness to repent whenever he was wrong. Yet Peter was impulsive too. So, as soon as his fears subsided, he boldly asked Jesus, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You upon the water” (Mat. 14:28, from: Κύριε, εἰ σὺ εἶ, κέλευσόν με ἐλθεῖν πρὸς σὲ
ἐπὶ τὰ ὕδατα, SBLGNT). Now it is obvious that Peter knew He could not walk on water. Only God could do that! But Peter also knew that God could make anything happen if He willed it to occur. So, if his God Jesus would command him to walk on the heaving waves of the lake, then he could do it, Page 1046
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certainly not by his own will or faith, but by Jesus’ will and power. And, for a professional fisherman like Peter, that would be one a wonderful experience. But it meant more to Peter than just a mere thrill. For such a thing would be an experience he could always look back upon, to convince his flesh that absolutely nothing should be feared on earth, because his God, Jesus, ruled over all he feared.
Through love and mild chagrin, with a sprinkling of humour, Jesus gave Peter this opportunity and commanded him, “Come!” Eager and rejoicing, with his eyes fixed on Jesus, Peter then stepped out of the boat and began to walk on the churning waves below his feet, likely feeling them conveniently flattening and smoothing below his every step, like foot-shaped stones in a garden. As Peter did this, Jesus would have been about ten metres or yards off the bow, and the winds still blew angry waves on the deep waters all around him. So, as Peter neared Jesus, and felt himself rise up on the crests of the waves, which were almost as high as his waste, then plummet down again into their blackened valleys of ominous darkness below his feet, while strong winds tugged at his hair and garments like frenzied demons, his mind of flesh panicked and silenced his spirit’s faith in the comforting words which Jesus had spoken to his soul. Peter’s spirit was not yet strong enough to command his flesh to trust in Jesus. And his flesh claimed that what he was actually experiencing was not real, although his irrational flesh, at the same time, admitted that this walking on water was real enough to drown him to death. Thus, as his spirit began to lose control over the thoughts and decisions of his soul, he began to sink into the waters. And, when Jesus saw that Peter was allowing his flesh to rule over his choices in life, He let Peter begin to sink. For Jesus came to serve the spirits of the Father’s elect, not their flesh, although He is also willing to serve the needs of their flesh for the sakes of their spirits.
Since Peter’s spirit did not yet exert enough managerial control over his flesh, his mind of flesh often wrestled down his mind of his spirit in the chamber of his soul. By now, Peter’s flesh would never again be capable of ruling his life entirely, because his God, Jesus, had been writing His Law upon the heart of Peter, granting him evermore strength to follow the inner conscience that the Holy Spirit crafted within his spirit’s mind. Jesus had quickened Peter’s elect spirit, making it impossible for his flesh to completely suppress his awakened spirit. Therefore, Peter’s spirit uttered a desperate prayer as he began to sink into the stormy waters, and he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Of course, seeing what was happening in Peter’s soul, Jesus drew near enough to reach out His hand and raise Peter above the waters by strengthening his faith. And Jesus’ power could raise a man or a mountain up to the water’s surface, whenever He willed to do so. Jesus did not even need to touch Peter to raise him up, but put out His hand solely to help Peter trust in Him and His power. Jesus’ touch would calm Peter’s terrified and anxious flesh, while building saving confidence in his spirit, so his spirit might once more gain control over his flesh within his soul. Not only did that firm grasp upon Peter’s flesh help his spirit regain faith, but so did the the humbling question that Jesus asked Peter’s spirit:
“Underconfident one, for what did you change your mind?” (Mat. 14:31, from: Ὀλιγόπιστε, εἰς τί
ἐδίστασας;, SBLGNT). For that question made Peter realize that his spirit was infantile, requiring much more education and growth. But there was time for that, in this life and on the judgment day.
Then Jesus walked Peter back to the boat and boarded the vessel with him. At that moment, the wind stopped blowing and the waves settled into calm waters. “So the ones in the boat worshipped Him, saying, ‘Truly You are the Son of God!’” (Mat. 14:33, from: οἱ δὲ ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ προσεκύνησαν αὐτῷ
λέγοντες· Ἀληθῶς θεοῦ υἱὸς εἶ, SBLGNT). And—in the context of Jesus walking on the water just as Job and Moses said God could (Job 9:8; Gen. 1:2), as well as the way Jesus calmed the mighty wind and waves though God alone dictates the weather through His absolute sovereignty—we here discover the ecclesiastical definition of the term, “Son of God,” as it applies to Jesus. It means that Jesus is the full representation of all God’s attributes set before the physical eyes of men. It means Page 1047
“the Spirit of God Himself became the life-giving Spirit in a human body.” God’s uncreated Spirit, not a created human spirit, dwelt in the blood of Jesus’ flesh, to keep His human body alive on earth.
So all twelve in that boat—even the non-elect soul of Judas Iscariot, chosen to perform the act of betraying Jesus so that Jesus’ body could take away the sins of the world—worshipped Jesus as their God, after seeing all He did. But, aside from Judas Iscariot, something else happened when Jesus entered the boat and calmed the wind. Mark most likely learned about this through an eye-witness, who reported: “And they were being pulled very far out of their usual mode of thinking, beyond measure in themselves. For they had not rationally put together their thoughts about the loaves of bread. Rather, the heart [in each] of them was hardened [i.e., until then]” (Mark 6:51b-52, from: καὶ
λίαν ἐκ περισσοῦ ἐν ἑαυτοῖς ἐξίσταντο, οὐ γὰρ συνῆκαν ἐπὶ τοῖς ἄρτοις, ἀλλʼ ἦν αὐτῶν ἡ καρδία
πεπωρωμένη, SBLGNT). An eye-witness, one of the twelve, told Mark that, as soon as Jesus entered the boat and calmed the wind, the twelve began to comprehend something they did not know before this time. After realizing that Jesus is truly Immanuel, their God, the twelve saw a link between the events of that dangerous night and the sign Jesus granted the day before, when He miraculously fed the five thousand and asked them to gather up the left-over bread on the field, in the same way the Old Covenant Israel gathered God’s gift of manna in the wilderness during their exodus into their promised land. Previously, the twelve had not fully understood those signs, since God hardened or distracted the spirits in their hearts, to keep them from understanding the meaning until this moment.
Then they had an epiphany. After Jesus granted them this irrefutable evidence that He was indeed the omnipotent Yahweh dwelling in a human body of flesh, and after Jesus entered the boat of their New Covenant church, they now saw how all the events of the previous evening and during this night symbolized what would occur in the New Covenant church. All those events were a prophecy about the future of their New Covenant church, which their Messiah and God was forming through all twelve of them, including Judas Iscariot’s betrayal. The contrast between Christ’s omnipotence, set overtly against the weakness of the religious zealots who were trying to “force” our God Jesus to serve them as a despot oppressing their oppressors, was manifestly revealed to their dull little minds.
Now it became clear to the twelve that Jesus did not come to establish a theocratic and despotic kingdom, like all the other kingdoms of Satan’s world order. In fact, all the kingdoms in that devil’s world order were never what they seemed to be. For all unjust kings somehow thought they were in control, while they were all actually puppets manipulated by Satan’s trinkets and empty promises, and also led into delusions by other slaves of Satan. So all the unjust laws and ways of their many kingdoms were actually one united religious kingdom, ruled by the autocratic devil, which all those weak, little, blind kings and their duped minions worshipped. But the twelve, after seeing Jesus manifest Himself as their omnipotent God, now comprehended how Jesus had come to establish a spiritual kingdom on earth that would grow and eventually become the final kingdom of all history, where Jesus, their just God, would rule all souls on earth from inside their hearts, causing their flesh to also serve His loving justice. So, from the moment Jesus commanded them to internally feed the five thousand, until Jesus walked on water to their boat, the events revealed what Moses, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Joel and all the other prophets wrote about the New Covenant relationship between God and Israel, as His church journeyed through the perilous last days. All was a prophetic illustration of how Jesus is working the process of building His loving, just kingdom upon the earth.
The twelve did not yet fully grasp the need for Christ’s death, resurrection and ascension, nor realize how long Jesus would remain physically absent from their New Covenant church of Israel, in terms of earthly time. However, now they did see that, shortly after Jesus began to feed their spirits with the nourishing heavenly manna of God’s truth, He would set His true church apart from the world Page 1048
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order and its religious lies, especially from Satan’s ultimate destructive religion of humanism. Yet His true church would make slow and difficult progress upon the waters of the masses populating the earth. For Satan’s dark world order would remain on earth, tossing the weak and watery masses back and forth in waves created by the winds from that demonic spirit’s breath, churning up enormous drowning waves of false doctrines. But, just before Jesus returned, He draw near His church and grant them a more full comprehension of His truths. That is, He would revive the hope and strength of His true New Covenant church, by providing them with the knowledge of all He taught mankind through His creation and His Word. Then, after He entered the boat and returned to His church, they would be safe. For, as soon as Jesus calmed the wind and waves, they saw that they were very near the shore, and “the boat soon came upon the land unto which they had been going” (John 6:21, ALT). This seemed to have symbolized Jesus’ glorious return to Israel as their King. Therefore, here Jesus implied that the revival of His New Covenant church—when He reveals the truth to His church in the same way He gave the twelve their epiphany after returning to them, after He came to serve as the only Head of every individual man—will not occur until just before His physical return to Israel.
When Jesus and His disciples stepped onto the land, the sun had just begun to rise. So the second half of the Jewish day—which began at sunset the evening before, when Jesus sent His disciples off into the night alone—was an important symbol of His second advent, representing the time of His rule over all the earth during the millennium. It illustrated what Jesus would do when He physically returned to Israel as the King of the entire world. And both Matthew and Mark record the events of that day in a very similar way: “Then, having entirely crossed over, they went upon the land into Gennesaret. And the men from the place recognized Him. They sent out from them [some] into the whole of that region. Then [these] led to Him all kinds of [people] having infirmities. And they were imploring Him, that they might only touch the border of His garment. Then as many as touched [it]
were healed” (Mat. 14:34-36, from: Καὶ διαπεράσαντες ἦλθον ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν εἰς Γεννησαρέτ. καὶ
ἐπιγνόντες αὐτὸν οἱ ἄνδρες τοῦ τόπου ἐκείνου ἀπέστειλαν εἰς ὅλην τὴν περίχωρον ἐκείνην, καὶ
προσήνεγκαν αὐτῷ πάντας τοὺς κακῶς ἔχοντας, καὶ παρεκάλουν αὐτὸν ἵνα μόνον ἅψωνται τοῦ
κρασπέδου τοῦ ἱματίου αὐτοῦ· καὶ ὅσοι ἥψαντο διεσώθησαν, SBLGNT, cf. Mark 6:53-56).
Thus suggests that Jesus will be recognized when He physically returns to Jerusalem. And, just as there were no conflicts with false churches or other enemies that day, only many complete healings with much faith among those who came to Him, it will be the same when Jesus returns to rule the earth. And notice how most of the people believed that, if they could merely touch the border of His garment, He would heal whatever kind of problem they had. For a king represents his kingdom. And Jesus was the King of Israel, which will be the central administrating state in His kingdom on earth.
So touching the border of His garment could be seen as a sign that, when Jesus returns, nations will be healed if they even touch the borders of the land where His wise counsel resides, even by simply voicing a blessed praise of Jesus or by contributing in any small way to His just, loving rule on earth.
The following twelve daylight hours symbolized how everyone will recognize Jesus when descends to the earth again, and how He will then heal and restore health to all who remain alive after He has judged the world. Jesus will restore all that was damaged and harmed when He begins to rule for the millennium, serving as a truly providential King. This serving, healing, loving King is presented in direct contrast to the many dictators of humanistic empires who, through the power of Satan, have attempted to conquer the entire world. All those psychopathic kings sought only to gratify their own selfish whims, and used the terror of torture and murder to force all into a state of total compliance.
Yet, when Jesus rules the world as their King, the only ones who shall truly fear Him will be unjust, unrepentant and unloving souls, those with spirits born of the devil. But none of these will be alive Page 1049
when He first returns, since He will remove them all from the earth on the day He returns. For He sees into all hearts and judges all spirits rightly. So, on that day, He will only take life from all the wicked and destructive souls who are totally incapable of repenting into the truth, who cannot love.
After Jesus rules for about a thousand years, He will He release Satan from prison and allow the demon to sow human offspring on the earth once more. Then that generation of Satan’s non-elect offspring will attack Jesus and Israel in the rebellion of Gog and Magog. But the power of Jesus will instantly and utterly destroy them, as soon as they are gathered within the boundaries of Israel. And Jesus will do all this so that His church of Israel on earth will be purified from the last remnants of cultural and secular elements originating from the devil’s four kingdoms. The final defeat of Satan and his children will expose and burn away the last luring lies of Satanic religion of humanism. Any semblance of humanistic ambition and self-worship, any trace of the devil’s teachings granted to the king of Babylon (see Dan. 4:28-32), all that came from this ultimate religion of opposition to God, will be exposed in the hearts of those rebels. Once Gog and Magog enter the sanctified lands of God’s church, all the earth shall witness the malice, destruction and death resulting from seemingly innocuous doctrines of humanism. Their deluding disguise will be torn off and their hatred of God shall be completely manifested to all angels and all the elect children of God. Then God’s complete annihilation of those loveless, ruthless hordes shall occur, and it will be entirely justified in all eyes.
After that rebellion burns away the last lies of humanistic religion, life on earth will continue for an indefinite period of time. But Jesus has appointed a day when He will lift all life on earth up to His spiritual realm. He will grant all spirits new bodies made of a spiritual substance as all rise from the earth. But the remnant of earthly human survivors will be sent to the gates of heaven, while He places all the other surviving earthly beings in their respective heavenly homes. Then our Father will remove all His power that maintains the material universe. So the earth and stars will “burn” away into nothing. Then the judgment day will begin for literally all humans. Our Lord will command His angels to wake all the carnal elect and non-elect souls still slumbering without rest in heaven’s skies, and gather all at those gates of heaven. This will be the last day that His New Covenant church shall exist outside of their homes in heaven. Then that judgment day, which will be like a thousand years or more of earthly time, will begin by casting all the non-elect into hell and sealing them inside.
After this, the teaching and training of the elect will begin, and will not end until every last elect soul is completed to absolute perfection. Then these will descend into New Jerusalem, the capital city of God’s eternal homeland, where His throne sits and the real homes of the elect are waiting for them.
The symbol of freely and equitably providing as much food as was desired by each one of more than five thousand souls, as well as a series of prophetic events which occurred during the next night and day after feeding the crowds, also illustrate another concept. That one Jewish day reveals how Jesus, our God, perceives history. And, since He sees history in this particular way, we will also need to learn to view history in the same way, based on the created realities of God. We will need to rewrite books in a more honest manner, and turn our focus away from lies which esteem only the materially wealthy and powerful wanna-be human gods. For, in God’s created reality, psychopathic human gods are worthless dupes. Yet those are the only kinds of people that humanistic history books want to write about. Humanists glorify the futile wars of vain and greedy men, who delude the masses and send them to murder one another, all for nothing, just so they can falsely claim ownership of the Creator’s property on earth it draw new lines upon it, even though their Owner commanded them to share everything equitably with all life on earth. And humanists revel in the delusional words of vile, empty souls who inspire that kind of vanity and death, even calling that folly the light of the world.
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But true, honest and wise historians must now focus on how God has always been striving to deliver the common folk from the lies of vain men, from the reprobates who have persecuted and crushed the humble, honest, just and loving souls sent by God. We need to know how common and enslaved souls were able to survive in those evil kingdoms of Satan’s world order. We must see how God has sent peacemakers to His true elect throughout history, and how they infiltrated every nation on earth.
It is critical for us to understand how our Creator disseminated His truths to His elect held captive in the camps of His enemies, how He enabled them to undo the works of the devil and lift up the hearts of the oppressed. A real history book should carefully explain what God did to save just and loving souls, how He provided them with ways to survive those cruel ambitious deeds of aggressive avarice worked by Satan’s greedy kingdoms within all the humanly defined borders of the world. As for the kings, authorities, worshippers of the demon Mammon and the chief liars in Satan’s religions, they matter little, or nothing at all. All we need to know about those incidental servants of the devil and their deeds is that those puppets, who should remain nameless, since all were dupes manipulated by worthless and nameless demons, did indeed make many vain attempts to hinder or destroy God’s works and God’s cherished children who are named. For the names of everyone whom Satan called
“great” will soon be forgotten forever. By the final judgment day, those vain fools will be numbers in earth’s history, and all their former power, wealth, titles and delusions will be burned when they are cast into hell. Only true stories about loving, just and honest souls (those whom humanists did not name, whom they deceived, hounded, oppressed, enslaved and murdered) are of true historical value.
Mat. 15:1-9,
Unjust Church Traditions
“Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem, saying, ‘Why do your disciples disobey the tradition of the elders? For they don’t wash their hands when they eat bread.’ He answered them, ‘Why do you also disobey the commandment of God because of your
tradition? For God commanded, “Honor your father and your mother,” and, “He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him be put to death.” But you say, “Whoever may tell his father or his mother, ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have gotten from me is a gift devoted to God,’ he shall not honor his father or mother.”
“‘You have made the commandment of God void because of your tradition. You hypocrites!
Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, “These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips; but their heart is far from Me. And in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrine rules made by men”’” (Mat. 15:1-9, WEB, cf., Mark 7:1-16).
So here we see Evangelicals (Pharisees) and their scholars question Jesus and His disciples about the physical traditions of hand washing, since they were important to those heads of the local churches.
After all, those self-important men invented those rules for a purpose, to ensure that they had enough followers to provide a good income for themselves. Those inventions caused dupes to turn their focus entirely upon those esteemed religious leaders alone. For the people were forced to come to those fakes and ask about the “right” way to wash their hands, since God Himself did not tell them how to wash in His Word. Then these “profound” teachers of wisdom had their people observe their petty public disputes regarding the insignificant details of this useless expression of fake piety, such as to how big the water bowl should be, or where the towel must be placed, and so on. Then the people had to judge which pastor or scholar appealed to the emotions of their flesh, and pledge loyalty to him, place all their faith in that wanna-be human god, instead of in the real God. But our Page 1051
real God Jesus did not want to play their little humanistic game. Instead, our God Jesus chose to expose the stupid uselessness of their entire humanistic system, revealing how those esteemed pastors and scholars were actually nullifying God’s justice, equity and love commanded by His laws.
These conversations with the Pharisaic scholars would have occurred on the day after Jesus returned to Capernaum, from the place where He fed the five thousand (see John 6:22 ff). But these words were recorded only by Matthew and Mark. Now, as mentioned, Matthew wrote for a mostly Jewish audience while Mark wrote for a mostly Gentile audience. So Mark explained the Jewish traditions which Jesus and the Evangelicals (i.e., Pharisees) were discussing at this time, while Matthew did not see any need to do so. And, by the way, these “traditions of the elders” (τὴν παράδοσιν τῶν
πρεσβυτέρων) were supposed to be doctrinal teachings about God, His Laws, His expectations, the ways He wanted His people to practise the ceremonies, rituals and symbolic signs commanded in His Law, and generally the way in which He wanted them to conduct their lives. These “traditions”
were not to be mere optional behaviours that families practised to bring members together on special occasions, or to more closely identify with one another, although they also greatly enhanced family unity and cooperation as well. Rather, the “traditions” were to maintain a just and pure kind of love in the spirits of God’s people, and their rituals were designed to remind His people about His ways and His attributes, commanded so His people would meditate on such things. However, these Evangelicals invented thousands of new and unbiblical “traditions,” then judged the faith and worth of others based on how those other practised their man-made rules. And those carnal, self-important men created many new “traditions” that directly opposed the just, loving teachings of God Himself.
Evangelical elders forcefully upheld a church system which placed them at the top of a pagan-like hierarchy, which allowed them to personally control the lives of lower classes in their religious hierarchy. In other words, they made themselves into the chief gods of the people. So they expected others to “obey” and scrupulously follow their man-made traditions, while those people ignored God Himself, and the true, just, loving intentions of God’s Law. The common people were expected to reject the real God as their only Lord and King, so those wanna-be human gods could become their sole law-makers and interpreters of God’s words. But those highly esteemed elders interpreted God’s authoritative counsel strictly according to their own self-serving wills and desires, in the way that God’s Law deemed to be a crime worse than murder. Thus, those Evangelical elders of those Old Covenant churches were exactly like the priests and pastors of so-called “New Covenant” churches in our day. Nothing much changed in two millenniums. Pretenders still do not allow the spirits of the people to be taught and trained by God Himself. Instead, they hound the people until those souls silence their own spirits in their souls, so their irrational minds of flesh can fully subjugate their lives to the foolish and self-serving whims of earthly masters, to human gods ruling over their churches.
So, when the teaching elders or scholars among the Evangelicals (Pharisees) saw that Jesus’ disciples deemed their subjugating rules and precepts to be superfluous and irrelevant, they were furious. For any kind of disobedience or deviation from their petty rules, which they designed to keep their dupes submissive and blind, threatened to unravel their entire self-serving system. Above all, the fact that the spirits of those men were being taught and trained directly by God Himself, for their eternal salvation, terrified the dark hearts of these sons of a lesser god. For it meant that God had taken up His rightful role as the Lord of their lives. And these Evangelical elders wanted to be the only lords of all religious men and women. Since they, as human gods, worked so hard to create and maintain their exploitative system, they would fight with all their might to guard that system from any kind of interference by God. But Jesus, our God among us, was not going to let those deceivers corrupt His loving and saving works in the hearts of His beloved disciples, nor let them usurp His sovereign rule Page 1052
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over their spirits. So, when those vain men came to beat His beloved disciples into a mindless and slavish compliance, and demanded that those disciples bow before them as before their gods, Jesus struck those elders down with His exposing light of truth, revealing their carefully hidden enmity against God to everyone. Jesus clearly illustrated how their self-serving “traditions” opposed God.
The “tradition” which the disciples neglected was the ceremonial washing of hands. Now, like all Jews, the disciples would have washed the dirt and grime off their hands before eating, to make their hands physically clean. But physical cleanliness was not what these Evangelicals were talking about when they confronted Jesus with their snide accusation: “For what reason do your disciples part from the traditions of the elders? For they are not washing their hands when they are eating bread!”
(Mat. 15:2, from: Διὰ τί οἱ μαθηταί σου παραβαίνουσιν τὴν παράδοσιν τῶν πρεσβυτέρων; οὐ γὰρ
νίπτονται τὰς χεῖρας αὐτῶν ὅταν ἄρτον ἐσθίωσιν, SBLGNT). As Mark explains (7:2-4), those elders were talking about the Talmudic ritual of washing hands before eating and drinking, which is a brief ceremony that is still practised by Orthodox Jews to this day. Since a rabbi was expected to ensure that the worship and lives of the people would be pleasing to God, they were expected to lovingly engage in teaching and judging the words and actions of their equal brothers and sisters in their family of humankind. And now these fake elders were accusing their God Jesus of neglecting to guide His disciples into a sanctified life that would be set apart solely for God’s purposes. However, those elders should have been looking in a mirror and condemning themselves, not Jesus. For these rabbis led their disciples away from God, into a lives lived according to their mind of flesh alone, since they taught that one’s only concern should be outward appearances of religion, that the people must only please the whims of their human gods. Meanwhile, Jesus taught His disciples to live a just and loving life for God, in a way that would actually be pleasing to their holy Father’s loving heart.
To understand how foolish this tradition of washing hands actually is, we need to understand exactly what it entails. First of all, the rabbis thought this ritual was so important that it was mentioned as many as 345 times in the Talmud, according to one internet source ( learningreligions.com). And, incidentally, the Talmud is the book of Jewish traditions or laws which Jews consult regarding all matters of life and faith. To Orthodox Jews, the Talmud has almost become a total replacement for the Bible itself. It was compiled from numerous teachings and sayings of Jewish scholars over a period of many centuries. And their minds of flesh began to invent their most authoritative legal opinions during Israel’s captivity in Babylon, that is, the precepts found in the Mishnah part of the Talmud, the teachings which resemble legal precedents set by a supreme court. So rabbis compiled almost all of their man-made traditions by the time Jesus began His ministry, although they seemed to be merely memorized oral teachings at the time of Jesus’ first advent, so they would not be taken as seriously as God’s written Law and Word. Those teaching were not actually written down until the second century. Still, all those traditions invented by men clearly emphasized the importance of this unbiblical ritual of washing hands. Some rabbis were so concerned about washing hands that they considered the neglecting of this man-made ritual to be a sin equal to adultery, and many thought that refusing to ceremonially wash the hands was offensive enough to condemn the unwashed one as an apostate, as a rebel against God, as one who should be expelled from Israel. To them, it was as serious as the death-penalty crimes of the Roman Catholic church, such as making the sign of the cross with three fingers instead of two fingers, or baptizing by immersion instead of by effusion.
In other words, those rabbis were insane, unloving and obsessed with their own god-like status.
These were men who had been handed over to Satan for the deluding of their minds. And the real reason they were demanding that everyone must ceremonially wash their hands was to condition the minds of flesh in their people, to focus their souls upon deeds of the flesh done superstitiously and Page 1053
irrationally through fears in their minds of flesh. These man-made rituals were designed to produce an unthinking submissive response to their authority, to get their dupes to automatically and blindly obey their teachings and commands, no matter how foolish or petty their dictates might be. Since the beginning of time, subjugating lords, like the kings of pagan lands, practised this demonic method of
“training” subordinates through terrorism, by threatening horrible punishments “from God” if the people did not do exactly what they commanded. For all these preferred children of Satan wanted to be gods, and wanted their dupes to unconsciously respond to their senseless and useless commands, by making them fear consequences for failing to blindly obey their dictates, no matter how stupid or evil their words might be. And this terrorism and “brainwashing” is still widely practised by cult leaders, dictators and common bullies to this day. Thus, the point made by these Evangelicals, about ceremonially washing hands, actually had absolutely nothing to do with the people learning to please the real God. When those rabbis told the people that not ritually wash their hands before eating was extremely offensive to God, it was merely a ploy to get the superstitious to fear. Then they used that fear to get those people to heed all their other commands. It was all about human authority, not God.
Of course, those rabbis claimed that their rule of ceremonially washing the hands originated from the Scriptures. But, as their “proof text,” most would likely quote something like Exodus 30:17-21, where God commanded the Aaronic priests to ceremonially dip their hands and feet in a brass basin of water before entering the holy place in the temple, or before approaching His alter outside the temple entrance. But, clearly, this symbolic ceremony was not meant for those who not entering the temple nor approaching the alter. And, since God gave this command solely to the Aaronic priests, to the only ones allowed to enter the temple or approach the alter in that way, it symbolized how God would cleanse the works and the walk of His New Covenant church, and certainly was not for anyone who was not member of that Aaronic priesthood. Nor did it have anything to do with those Aaronic priests eating or drinking at any kind of meal. Also, these particular Evangelicals were commanding a ritual washing which involved pouring water over the hands before meals. But God’s commanded ritual in Exodus was a baptism of the priests’ hands and feet, a dipping of their hands and feet in a brass basin, not pouring water on them. So, obviously, this dipping symbolized God’s cleansing through the elimination and restoration of their hands and feet (i.e., the figurative “death”
of the common or sinful deeds done by their hands, as well as the “death” of the common or sinful situations their feet walked them into, followed by the resurrection of good works of their hands out of that watery grave, and the resurrection of a good walk of life after entering God’s holy presence).
There is absolutely nothing in God’s Law which requires anything even remotely resembling or implying the ritual of hand-washing that those Evangelicals so vehemently demanded from their people. For those rabbis commanded each person to: (1) physically wash the grime off one’s hands before eating; (2) seat oneself at the table with a pitcher of water, bowl and towel available; (3) pick up the pitcher of water with the left hand or least dominant hand, place the right hand or dominant hand over a bowl, then pour water over that dominant hand, wetting it up to wrist, possibly repeating this wetting of the dominant hand one or two more times, depending on the household custom; (4) transfer the pitcher to the other hand and wet one’s less dominant hand over the bowl, possibly two or three times; (5) mutter the following prayer while wiping the hands with a towel: “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us with Your commandments, and commanded us concerning the washing of the hands,” although this prayer was a lie, since God has never, at any time in history, commanded this ritual washing of the hands; and (6) try to remain silent until someone completes the blessing for the meal itself. Manipulators invented this nonsense, and made it outwardly appear to be an act of godly devotion, although it was designed to turn the focus Page 1054
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of the people toward things of the flesh, and to turn them away from spiritual truths. Thus, Jesus did away with it. For Jesus did not want His disciples’ spirits to be subjugated through physical rituals created by wanna-be human gods. Rather, Jesus taught His disciples to think clearly and honestly, with the minds of their spirits, to know God’s intended meaning of His true, loving and just words.
Now Jesus would have accepted a biblical ritual, such as an unclean person rinsing one’s hands with water before touching anyone else (Lev. 15:10). For this symbolic ritual reminded His people to be careful about spreading unclean or profane thoughts, to ensure that carnal thoughts in their minds of flesh must first be washed away by God and by the minds of their spirits, out of their hearts. Or Jesus would have accepted the washing of hands by the elders in a community where a murder occurred (Deut. 21:6-9), so those elders might symbolically indicate that they had responsibly taught and guided the people to the best of their ability, in order to prevent and deal with such crimes, and that they and their people were therefore innocent of the blood that the murderer shed. Normally, Jesus would even allow His disciples to practise this man-made hand-washing ritual before a meal too, if His disciples simply did it because they did not want to needlessly offend ordinary Jewish brothers and sisters. Nevertheless, Jesus nullified all subjugating man-made rules, rituals and superstitions.
And Jesus did not do this by commands alone, but by thoroughly educating His disciples, and by fully exposing those unbiblical traditions as meaningless nonsense designed to manipulate them.
All the disciples of Christ were aware that those elders used these kinds of man-made rituals to stir up false guilt their people, to frighten and falsely persuade them to submit to their human gods. All were cunningly crafted to train the outer consciences in minds of flesh, and to prevent their people from heeding their inner consciences that their Creator God’s Spirit was developing in the minds of their elect spirits. But, on this occasion, Jesus was facing Bible scholars from the Pharisaic sect in a public place, where not all the people were His disciples. Evangelical elders demanded compliance to their foolish, carnal rules in front of everyone. Thus, if Jesus allowed Himself and His disciples to obey those false elders, it would assist those wanna-be gods in their sins of subjugating the people and usurping the authority of God. Therefore, Jesus was forced to openly oppose them and their lies.
While opposing those Evangelical Bible scholars, Jesus quoted a passage from God’s Word which almost perfectly described their hearts, and the hearts of most pastors in most churches today. Jesus told those fake spiritual guides: “Hypocrites! Isaiah usefully prophesied about you, saying, ‘This people honours Me with the lips, but the heart of each of them keeps [itself] far away from Me. So they are worshipping Me in vain, continuously teaching the authoritative demands [of human beings as] doctrines [regarding life and faith]’” (Mat. 15:7-9, from: ὑποκριταί, καλῶς ἐπροφήτευσεν περὶ
ὑμῶν Ἠσαΐας λέγων· Ὁ λαὸς οὗτος τοῖς χείλεσίν με τιμᾷ, ἡ δὲ καρδία αὐτῶν πόρρω ἀπέχει ἀπ’
ἐμοῦ· μάτην δὲ σέβονταί με, διδάσκοντες διδασκαλίας ἐντάλματα ἀνθρώπων, SBLGNT). Now, in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus paraphrased this quote from the Septuagint’s version of Isaiah after He exposed the way in which these false elders abused God’s Word for personal gain. But Mark said Jesus quoted Isaiah’s prophecy before He exposed the sins of those Evangelicals (Mark 7:6-7). At the time, Jesus likely quoted Isaiah after exposing their hypocrisy, to drive home His point that there always were deceivers trying to take captive His elect siblings of Israel, and always will be, until the day He comes to accept His throne over all the earth. Then Jesus, when He returns, shall destroy them all. But Mark wanted to begin Jesus’ rebuke with this quote, to illustrate how God Himself, who is in Jesus, condemned those Evangelicals. Jesus and the Father together condemned them, with one mind. For those Evangelicals committed third-order sins of misusing and abusing God’s name, since they tricked souls into thinking that their petty rules, invented in their own cunning minds of flesh, were commands of God. Thus, those elders falsely used God’s name to make the people think Page 1055
their rules were authoritative precepts of God. And they committed these sins, which God deems to be worse than sins of murder and adultery, merely to acquire personal power and for financial gain.
Such sins were not only committed by fake pastors, but by many other Churchians as well. For many of the lesser wanna-be human gods liked to lord it over the “less devout.” Many would eagerly seek the opportunity to falsely condemn those who outwardly appeared to be less “devout,” and these more esteemed church members enjoyed looking down upon all who refused to obey the man-made
“churchy” rules of their fake pastors, even all who did not worship those human gods in the same way they did. Many falsely professing members of the priesthood of Israel lacked any desire to truly worship the real God, that is, from their spirits and in truth. For these wanted nothing to do with the spiritual realities existing in and all around themselves, nor would these falsely devout even accept proven physical facts which opposed their delusional beliefs. All they valued were self-esteeming lies that let them believe they were superior to other brothers and sisters in God’s world, even when those whom they deemed to be “inferior” were more loving and just than they were, and therefore more pleasing to God than they could ever become. Therefore, when Jesus quoted this passage from Isaiah, He would have reminded all those fake members of the church of Israel on that day about the rest of Isaiah’s prophecy against those kinds of hypocrites. For all Jews were very familiar with Isaiah’s prophecies in those days. And this is why both Matthew and Mark wrote it down, so all the
“churchy” hypocrites in all history might also look up that prophecy and be warned about the wrath they too will incur from God, if they do not repent from their wicked ways. For Isaiah prophesied:
“Yet they would not hear. Therefore Yahweh’s word will be to them precept on precept, precept on precept; line on line, line on line; here a little, there a little; that they may go, fall backward, be broken, be snared, and be taken.... The Lord said, ‘Because this people draws near with their mouth and with their lips to honor Me, but they have removed their heart far from Me, and their fear of Me is a commandment of men which has been taught; therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men will perish, and the understanding of their prudent men will be hidden. Woe to those who deeply hide their counsel from Yahweh, and whose works are in the dark, and who say, “Who sees us?” and “Who knows us?” You turn
things upside down! Should the Potter be thought to be like clay; that the thing made should say about Him who made it, “He didn’t make me”; or the thing formed say of Him who formed it, “He has no understanding?”’” (Is. 28:12c-13 & 29:13-16, WEB).
The church during the time of Jesus’ ministry on earth proved to be just like the hypocritical church existing in Isaiah’s day, and both were just like today’s churches, especially the Evangelical dupes who believe Trump’s lies and conspiracy theories, or like the churches who fell for Hitler’s demonic lies earlier in this century. From the beginning, Satan has been raising up “nice” fake churches that are friendly to dupes alone, but oppress and murder non-dupes. These love to sing religious songs with sincere emotions welling up from within their deluded minds of flesh, and practise the fervent worship of an invented god whom they call by the name of “Jesus.” Yet their spirits carefully and fearfully avoid the real Yahweh God in Jesus, and studiously disregard any kinds of genuine truth, especially if it originates from God’s Spirit. Instead, they prefer self-serving religious commands and teachings invented by men, since their human gods let them remain completely unjust, selfish and unloving, yet also stir up a strong fleshy feeling of religious superiority and self-esteem. Because of this, the real God hands them over to dark delusions, just as He did with the fake churches in Isaiah’s day and throughout the past millenniums. And, because all they have are delusions and lies, the
“wisdom of their wise men” always and invariably perishes, after it causes the terrible effects of Page 1056
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great injustice, horrifying human suffering and murder. For all their intelligent and educated ones are merely cunning crooks spending all their waking hours trying to cheat, rob and enslave God’s elect.
Then, although God always grants His gift of true knowledge and wisdom to at least a few of His elect in every generations, that “understanding” of those “prudent men” remains “hidden” from all those hypocrites. They become “illiterate,” unable to comprehend His written words (Is. 29:11-12).
For God does not allow those who love the lie to recognize the truth, nor trust it when they hear it.
Rather, God gradually hardens their hearts, so they cannot find nor accept the truth. As they practise hiding their own lies from honest souls, whom they viciously slander to make themselves feel falsely superior, yet cannot trust their own lying companions either, they learn to trust no one at all. Soon their perception of all people becomes distorted and dark, and their only trusted god is oneself. And they have even convinced their irrational minds that they have successfully hidden all their malicious motives and evil intentions from God Himself, as they “lead” the other dupes in their fake churches.
Yet God actually does very clearly perceive the thoughts of their stupid little loveless spirits, and so do many of God’s awakened elect. Those religious hypocrites have deluded themselves into thinking they can deceive and manipulate God according to their own self-serving wills, because they think they are great gods with a “free will,” and that the Creator God is a lesser god with a “slavish will.”
Those puppets of the lesser demons somehow dream that they are self-made saints, who have fully shaped and reformed themselves into the “great” religious “leaders” they are now, and that their vain and loveless hearts contain good spirits, which they themselves created in the beginning. Now, since their hard works of lying, deceiving, cheating, stealing and murdering made themselves into such grand and superior “servants of God,” they set about confidently teaching and commanding all the inferiors in the church to do their own carnal wills on earth as they think God does in heaven above.
In other words, those fake pastors and self-serving elders of false churches act like they are potters and God is their clay. For they become so deluded that actually believe they created and own the earth, as well as all upon it. Thus, if anyone else claims stewardship or even ownership of anything they covet upon the earth, then they think that one is a liar who must be punished or destroyed. Or, if anyone claims that God said something which they do not agree with, then that one must be a liar and also needs to be destroyed. After all, those human gods know, with all certainty, that they alone are able to shape God’s thoughts in their mighty hands, like soft clay in the hands of a crafty little potter. None but the human gods who own the kingdoms of those fake churches bear the right to command God to think whatever they want God to think, and to determine what is deemed right or wrong. Only they can create, change, nullify and interpret the laws of the universe and their own little religious kingdoms, not anyone else, not even the Creator God, since they have now declared themselves to be the creator gods. Only these “great” men can control their own destinies, as well as the destinies of all other lives. To them, the original Creator God has no understanding, and that God created them to be His god and ruler. Yes, they may utter words like: “God is our sovereign Lord and Lawmaker, the creator of all that is within us and all that affects us!” Yet, in their hearts, they know that they have now become the sovereign lords of God, and manipulate God’s will as they please, since they have shaped themselves into gods greater than God through their free wills. And all these wanna-be human gods become so deluded, insane and stupid that they do not realize how God laughs at them, together with the elect to whom He grants eyes to see physical and spiritual realities.
The Evangelical scholars who attacked Jesus back then, as well as their well-trained dupes, truly were genuine hypocrites. Yet most of the public saw them as friendly, dedicated and hardworking servants of God. Their ability to fool all of the people some of the time was magnificent, just as good as the skills of mega-church pastors in our day. And, of course, like the fake pastors of our day, they Page 1057
could also fool some of the people all of the time. But they could not fool all of the people all of the time, and could never get our God Jesus to bless them. No matter how effective and professional they became at lying, God ignored their prayers and assigned them to destruction, often even to the second death in hell. Nor could they fool the elect with awakened spirits, since Jesus healed them of their spiritual blindness and the honest words of Christ’s Holy Spirit exposed that hypocrisy to them.
Jesus also gave us an example of the hypocrisy of those fake pastors. And, of course, it involved the devil’s invention of money, again. Jesus mentioned how those fake churches made up a bunch of laws regarding Corban, which was the money or property that one dedicated to God through the meaningless words of an oath. These man-made traditions were loosely based on Lev. 23:9-28, but did not acknowledge God’s intended purposes in their interpretations of those Scriptures. And a man could declare his assets to be Corban in a way where they would only be handed over to the church at some indeterminate future date, perhaps after his death, in the same way dupes today use a will to leave their property to fake churches in our day. Yet a man also could nullify this oath at a later date, just as people can revise their wills today. But, back then, a man could only take back the assets designated as Corban by making a sacrifice and through a ceremony (Lev. 5:4-6). Therefore, just as some use their wills to manipulate their children into caring for them, and threaten to disinherit a child who does not please them, many Jews also used the system of Corban to “hide” their assets from their children, parents or other relatives who might otherwise benefit from them. While the owner of the assets lived, he could say that he was unable to help those family members, since all his assets were tied up, all dedicated as Corban. So none of his assets could be used to help them, and also would go to the church as soon as he died, unless he made a sacrifice and performed the required ceremony. But he could threaten to keep all his assets tied up as Corban unless his family members did exactly what he commanded them to do. And, naturally, this kind of coercion was mostly used by loveless, wicked, selfish kinds of people. However, the fake churches loved this system of Corban, since it brought much income into their churches and their own personal wallets.
Now God’s Law clearly taught Israel to honour their parents (Ex. 20:12; Deut. 5:16). And those fifth-order laws included a duty to care for one’s parents in their need, during their old age. Jesus also pointed out that one of those fifth-order laws state: “He who speaks evil of [or shows contempt for] a father or mother, let him be put to death” (Ex. 21:17; Lev. 20:9). Of course, judges could only put someone to death for extremely malicious motives and intentions against parents, for the kinds of parental abuse that try to make their lives hellish through slander, gas-lighting and other forms of evil. But we can clearly see that those fifth-order laws indicate how God put a very high priority on our duty to care for our parents. For God listed His fifth-order laws, about “honouring” parents and other family members above His sixth-order laws pertaining to various forms of murder. So taking responsibility for the welfare of one’s own family was a higher priority for God than keeping oneself from murdering others. For every governing or organizational body in existence is based on a family model. Good states and nations are based on loving, just and highly functional family structures, while ruthless, unjust and despotic governments are based on very dysfunctional family structures.
We need to realize that those who take responsibility for family members in a just, equitable and truly loving way are also the kinds of people who benefit all their siblings in mankind throughout their lives, and will not likely ever become the kinds of people who murder. So this is why God made His family laws a higher priority than His laws against murder. Yet those false churches did not support and encourage loving family people. Rather, they supported and encouraged the kinds of people who are leaches on society, the kinds who become murderers. For those churches allowed a man to set aside his money and possessions as Corban whenever he wanted to “hide” his assets from Page 1058
Mat. 15:1-9, Unjust Church Traditions
his family members, or from anyone else with a legal right to access his wealth (such as the needy, to whom God granted the right to borrow those assets, see Deut. 15:7-11). If a man thought it might cost him too much time and money to care for his parents, other family members or the needy, then he could tie up all his assets in Corban, yet continue to use those assets for his own self-indulgence.
Since churches upheld this kind of injustice—and were more concerned about the possibility of gaining assets for themselves than they were about the welfare of parents, other family members and the needy—they proved that they rejected the priorities set by God in His Law. In fact, that warped kind of loophole those churches had provided for the wealthy—to help ruthless rich men transform the lives of parents and other family members into virtual hells—proved that those churches totally rejected and hated God Himself. For, if they entirely rejected and hated God’s intended purposes and priorities in His laws, and all of God’s laws reveal His attributes, then those haters of God’s intended reasons and intentions for His laws must also hates God Himself. And, to this day, we still see the churches intentionally create substantial loopholes in the fabric of God’s Law, and often do so solely for financial gain, to get more of Satan’s invention of money. Almost all churches deliberately and effectively nullify God’s intentions for loving, equitable justice through His Law, causing untold numbers of needy souls to suffer or die, just to make their wallets a little bit thicker and heavier.
Jesus soundly rebuked those Evangelical pastors with these words: “According to what do you people also turn aside from the authoritative precepts of God? According to your traditions? For God said, ‘Honour the father and the mother,’ and, ‘The one continuously showing contempt for a father or mother must be brought to an end in death.’ Yet you say, ‘Whoever might tell the father or the mother, “Whatever you might have profited from me [is] a gift [dedicated to God],” he definitely
must not honour his father.’ Thus, you people have nullified the Word of God because of your tradition” (Mat. 15:3-6, from: Διὰ τί καὶ ὑμεῖς παραβαίνετε τὴν ἐντολὴν τοῦ θεοῦ διὰ τὴν παράδοσιν
ὑμῶν; ὁ γὰρ θεὸς εἶπεν· Τίμα τὸν πατέρα καὶ τὴν μητέρα, καί· Ὁ κακολογῶν πατέρα ἢ μητέρα
θανάτῳ τελευτάτω· ὑμεῖς δὲ λέγετε· Ὃς ἂν εἴπῃ τῷ πατρὶ ἢ τῇ μητρί· Δῶρον ὃ ἐὰν ἐξ ἐμοῦ
ὠφεληθῇς, οὐ μὴ τιμήσει τὸν πατέρα αὐτοῦ· καὶ ἠκυρώσατε τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ διὰ τὴν παράδοσιν
ὑμῶν, SBLGNT). In verse 6a, the future tense with two negatives indicates that these Evangelical scholars emphatically commanded the people, especially wealthy men, to dedicate as much money and property as possible to God. They urgently demanded this corban for obvious financial reasons, and made it a much higher priority than ‘honouring’ parents. So these Evangelicals taught that giving to the church was a higher priority than providing for parents, other family members and the needy.
However, God established His church of Israel through His solitary priest named Abraham for one reason alone, so this priestly family would serve the entire world in His name. And God’s Law began with commands for individuals, not for the body as a whole, nor for the “leadership” of that body, since God was to be their only King, a King who personally commands each individual spirits. Thus, serving God begins in one’s own personal life, by wisely serving one’s own family and all whom God gathers into the sphere of one’s own life. Thus, those Evangelicals reversed God’s priorities.
Those Evangelicals assumed that matters relating to God are far more important than matters relating to family members and others whom one personally knows. But the only way we can prioritize God above all others is through choices we make regarding whom we are going to serve in His name. We must choose to serve God in His just and loving ways rather than Satan and his minions in their unjust and exploitative ways. Yet truly and rightly serving God can only be done by serving His creations according to His will, and His will is that we serve mankind above all His other creations, especially those whom God places in the spheres of our personal lives. This is why God’s Law did not every say that providing gifts and offerings for His temple was a higher priority than caring for Page 1059
one’s family and honouring one’s parents. In fact, God commanded the opposite. For He told the inner Levitical priesthood to live modestly, without an earthly inheritance. And God commanded this for a reason, so His inner priesthood could dedicate their entire lives to serving the spiritually and physically needy in His land. Levites were to use all the excess food and income from their common lands, as well as all excess from tithes, gifts and offerings, to provide for widows, orphans, destitute immigrant “strangers,” and other needy souls, and to do all through their spirits’ just, equitable, loving compassion. No gifts for God could ever be used for self-indulgence or pride. Thus, we must logically conclude that, since God’s highest priority, regarding material gifts to His church, was the welfare of needy souls in Israel and destitute Gentile strangers, then His highest priority for each individual priest was to provide for one’s own family members and for other needy souls that each one’s personal life might affect in some way. Our saving personal relationships with God produce personal and individual effects and results, as each member of Israel learns to wisely apply God’s Laws, which is why almost all God’s Laws addressed individuals, not His church as a whole body.
Remember, God never lacks anything, never needs anything from man. Therefore, whatever we will ever give to God will have only one purpose, to teach and train individual elect spirits to express God’s just love for His creations. Therefore, it is a sin to use our gifts to God for any other purpose.
If churches refuse to help the needy creations of God when they have the ability to do so, and use church funds for self-indulgent and vain purposes that serve fake priests and pastors, they commit sins of the first, second and third orders: (1) God hated carnal thinking and commanded His loving elect children: “You shall have no other gods before Me!” In other words, God commanded that our spirits make decisions about life and faith according to the counsel of His Holy Spirit, through His kind of just love. And we shall not make any choices based on the teachings or commands of human or demonic gods. (2) Our heavenly Father also warned us not to bow before, esteem or serve false gods. For literally all human and demonic gods lead into errors and destruction. So we must never idolize or esteem any wanna-be gods, never grant them positions of power and influence over our lives. (3) All the human gods of fake churches also teach false doctrines and give false prophecies in God’s name. Thus, they take the name of God in vain, and cause all who believe their lies to abuse and misuse God’s holy, just, loving name as well. All commit sins in God’s name, by following those false teachings and false prophecies, instead of the real truth. Their pretense of piety, as they falsely claim to worship God, together with their religious rhetoric and deeds that outwardly appear to be expressions of devotion but imply that man is the god of God, have slandered God’s good name over all the earth, and make the demons laugh with joy. But God knows they actually worship religious leaders and themselves. Also, God will have the last laugh. For His children will soon truly worship their God, from their spirits, with love built upon a foundation of pure biblical and physical truths.
This is why Jesus quoted that passage from Isaiah (29:13) to those Evangelicals. And, if we look at what Isaiah prophesied to the fake churches of Israel, we see how God accused His church of Israel of sins which broke the first three archetypal Ten Commandments. When God gave those reprobates in Israel that prophecy through Isaiah, He also spoke about a future time, when He would heal their wicked lives and hearts, a prophecy about the very last days, when Jesus would return. But, until then, God said that Israel would consist of a people who “draws near [Me] with their mouth and with their lips to honour Me.” They were pretenders. In reality, these deluded souls actually believed they were their own gods and their own creators. For they acted as though the real Creator of the heavens and the earth was their clay, which they could cut and shape into whatever kind of god they wanted Him to be. They were always creating new fake gods in their own image, idols who would command only the kinds of unjust and exploitative laws that they commanded their obedient gods to command.
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Of course, these idolaters in the church of Isaiah’s time and Christ’s time were exactly like idolaters in today’s churches. That is, whenever an individual or church invented a new idol to worship, that fake god was invoked, in a pagan way, by the name of the real Creator God. Thus, Israel broke all the first three orders of God’s Law: (1) They made all choices in life according to the counsel of human gods and their own man-made idols. (2) They worshipped themselves, their human gods and their man-made idols, bowing to all and serving all, but ignored the real God. (3) They committed all their sins in God’s name. All their false teachings and fake prophecies originated from their churches and from the human heads of their churches. Thus, they were presenting all those words in God’s name, falsely, and caused the surrounding nations to believe that their lies came from God. Thus, they were misusing and abusing God’s name, nefariously applying His name in vain, in ways that slandered His name both within Israel as well as everywhere else in the known world. The false churches of Israel offended against the first three orders of God’s Law, just like most churches do in our day. They committed sins that God considers to be worse than murder, since all who commit these three sins always end up murdering the innocent and committing all the other kinds of sin too.
Yes, those fake churches of the past, just like the false churches in our day, broke all the other seven orders of God’s Law too. For fake churches never lead anyone into the spiritual Sabbath rest of God, to fulfill His fourth-order laws. None are able to comprehend His eternal Sabbath, since none of their spirits trust their heavenly Father, nor believe in the completion of His creations. So how can any rest in the hope that their eternal destinies are already fully prepared and now waiting for them in heaven? Then, as Jesus pointed out, false churches continuously break the loving fifth-order laws by nullifying God’s command to care for needy biological and community family members. Churches often steal the money, time and resources of their own members in ways that steal from all the other siblings in humankind who are outside their churches too. So the thefts of those fake churches are actually breaking both the fifth-order laws of God and also the eighth-order laws at the same time.
Then fake churches break God’s sixth-order laws, since deliberately cause countless souls to suffer and die through many unjust doctrines and judgments, as well as by using lies and propaganda to enrage their members against the innocent. They seldom judge according to God’s will, by weighing intentions and motives against the actions of those whom they condemn. So those churches murder too many innocent lives to even categorize or count. Also, their seventh-order sins of perverted and oppressive sexual teachings frequently amount to forms of murder as well. Through various kinds of sexual exploitation and sin, they cause their people to destroy their own hearts in addition to lives of others, especially women, in ways that God will call murder on that last day. And most loveless souls in the fake churches know nothing about marriage covenants, which God wants their spirits to make with their spouses, since they prefer oaths of the flesh. Thus, many of their church marriages are actually unholy types of cruel adultery practised on a daily basis, even as those churches condemn some true marriages, where the spirits of spouses have actually made genuine marriage covenants.
As they do all this, the greedy and fake elders in those churches defraud their own people. Some priests and pastors will even steal entire lives, by causing their own siblings to serve them as virtual slaves. And, since those stolen people and things belong to God alone, they steal from God too. Yet those unfaithful stewards also refuse to give what they owe their Owner, who commands them to use all He has given them for the benefit of His creations. Thus, they steal even more from God. Then they commit so many the ninth-order sins that the only way anyone can tell if they are lying is if they open their mouths. At the same time, those fake churches claim to be the sole bearers of truth upon the earth and the only ones who know the path to salvation. But the most that any of these deceivers can ever manage is to utter a partial truth, which they use to manipulate souls into making wrong Page 1061
conclusions and to commit sins. Lastly, all fake churches are professional opponents of God’s tenth-order laws. For they continuously teach their disciples how to advance their selfish ambitions to gain more members and more tithes and more power. Then each of those disciples practise this art of pure covetousness all their lives. Each one’s focus upon climbing the ladder up to the top of their church and secular hierarchies, how to get ahead in the financial and political kingdoms of Satan’s world order, is so strong that they cannot sleep at nights, and it often drives them into nervous breakdowns.
Since the days of Moses, fake Jewish and Christian churches have dedicated most of their labours to perfecting the art of pretending to be servants of God, so they can steal elect souls away from the heavenly Father. For the priests and pastors of those fake churches want to be human gods and long to usurp God’s headship over His true priesthood of Israel and God’s kingship over the world, in the same way Satan does. Since that devil is the father of almost all the elite in the steep hierarchies of those false churches, those pretenders have all become liars and murderers like their father, and covetousness for worldly power and Satan’s invention of money have become the guiding principles of their greedy little lives. In fact, in the demonic world order, none can more skilfully employ covetousness to lure dupes into sin, yet make that covetousness look like a noble calling of God, than the heads of the false churches. Very few despots that steal secular power from God can ever match the depraved ability of church despots to inspire their dupes into committing murderous sins.
Truly, today’s Roman Catholics, Evangelicals and other fake sects claiming to be the church of Israel are all as bad as those Evangelicals (Pharisees) whom Jesus soundly condemned back then, in the first century, and most are far worse. Fake churches in the last century have somehow managed to look outwardly better than those hypocritical and murdering churches of the past. Yet the religious liars today have actually become worse and have caused more unjust deaths than ever before. It is amazing to see how fake churches today spit in God’s face and break all ten orders of His Law, even as they outwardly claim that they are disciples of Jesus or that they are fulfilling God’s Law. Jesus came as our Teacher and Trainer, as the one and only Head of God’s promised New Covenant, so we might all learn to truly fulfill God’s Law in us and through us. This was to be the salvation of Israel and all the elect upon the earth. Yet, even as the minds of flesh in some of those fakes emotionally cry out, “Jesus saved us by writing God’s Law on our hearts and in our minds,” they routinely break all ten categories of God’s Law as a matter of their religious practise and worship. Then most of the elect fall for their ruse, as though they are illiterate spiritual prostitutes who cannot think a single true and logical thought with the minds of their spirits. So let the elect pray to be awakened by God.
All I can say is, “wow.” I am a very weak and foolish servant of God. Yet even I cannot help but drop my jaw in amazement when I see what the fake churches are saying and doing today, how they even love the little images of the coming beast, and blindly support the mini-Antichrists like Hitler and Trump. Still, I remember that Jesus warned us about this. Jesus said the last days would be like this, that fake churches would attack true believers, condemning them in courts and sending them to their deaths. In other words, Jesus prophesied that, throughout history, until the end times, the false churches would be handed over to Satan for the deluding of their souls. And we now see nothing but deluded souls in the false churches. This is how we know that the era of the sixth seal, and its revival, will soon come to initiate the end times. Then the generation born at that time will not pass away before Jesus returns to rule and restore the earth. The end and His new beginning are near.
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Mat. 15:10-20, Inner Defilement
Mat. 15:10-20,
Inner Defilement
“He summoned the multitude, and said to them, ‘Hear, and understand. That which enters into the mouth doesn’t defile the man; but that which proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man.’ Then the disciples came, and said to Him, ‘Do you know that the Pharisees were offended, when they heard this saying?’ But He answered, ‘Every plant which My heavenly Father didn’t plant will be uprooted. Leave them alone. They are blind guides of the blind. If the blind guide the blind, both will fall into a pit.’
“Peter answered him, ‘Explain the parable to us.’ So Jesus said, ‘Do you also still not understand? Don’t you understand that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the belly, and then out of the body? But the things which proceed out of the mouth come out of the heart, and they defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual sins, thefts, false testimony, and blasphemies. These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands doesn’t defile the man’” (Mat. 15:10-20, WEB).
Here Jesus publicly proclaimed that the Evangelical (i.e., Jewish Pharisaic/Orthodox) tradition of ceremonially washing hands before eating was not a commandment of God. For Jesus did not ask His disciples to wash their hands before praying and eating. Yet Jesus would have told them to do so if God’s Law commanded that kind of washing. For Jesus never nullified any of God’s ceremonial laws, but rather reclaimed their purposes. That is, Jesus told us to apply all those ceremonial laws as reminders of God’s attributes, deeds and teachings. But, if we believed those truths in the minds of our spirits, then we did not require those reminders, although we could still practise those ceremonial laws as expressions of our faith in the truths that they taught, and also as reminders to others who are with us when we practise them. So, to Jesus, an outward show of religion mattered nothing, only an inward practise of God’s loving, just ways was important. Fulfilling God’s Law always involved the acknowledgement of truth by one’s spirit, and the wisdom to rightly apply those those truths. So, yes, Jesus would have had His disciples wash their hands if God’s Law did indeed command such a thing, for the sakes of His less-knowledgeable disciples. Yet Jesus refused to demand the washing of their hands before praying and eating, because God’s Law actually did not command such a thing.
When Jesus “summoned the multitude,” He was calling them to hear what He commanded, and to make a choice between His teachings and the Evangelical teachings. Jesus commanded everyone to
“hear and understand” His teaching about God’s Law, the doctrine that no word or deed performed by or upon any elect flesh could ever adversely or positively affect the close relationship which one’s spirit received with one’s heavenly Father. Only the words and actions initiated by one’s spirit, even if they were not outwardly expressed by one’s flesh—but also including any worldly or sinful words and deeds which one’s spirit allowed one’s flesh to express—could hinder God’s relationship with an elect spirit. And the context of Jesus commanding His elect to “hear and understand” this truth was that He had just finished rebuking the hypocrisy of Evangelicals forcefully demanding that all must obey their burdensome and unbiblical rules and precepts, which were designed to turn everyone’s focus solely toward things of the flesh. Evangelicals wanted to physically look and sound religious, by the actions of their flesh. But Jesus wanted the elect to know their heavenly Father better, so their spirits could learn the truths created by their Father, then wisely fulfill His just and loving intentions.
Jesus called out to the elect, even to those at the back of the crowd, and commanded: “Heed and develop a complete comprehension [of this]: The thing making the person common or worldly [is]
not that which is entering into the mouth, but rather that which is journeying out of the mouth. This Page 1063
makes the person common or worldly” (Mat. 15:10b-11, from: Ἀκούετε καὶ συνίετε· οὐ τὸ
εἰσερχόμενον εἰς τὸ στόμα κοινοῖ τὸν ἄνθρωπον, ἀλλὰ τὸ ἐκπορευόμενον ἐκ τοῦ στόματος τοῦτο
κοινοῖ τὸν ἄνθρωπον, SBLGNT). In context, “that which is entering the mouth” refers to the food eaten with hands that were not ceremonially washed according to the unbiblical invented traditions of the Evangelicals. But, of course, it also figuratively referred to anything physical, to any word, deed or thing that touches or proceeds from a body of flesh. So here Jesus was telling us that the commands or precepts invented by the Evangelical church were nothing, that their man-made traditions cannot sanctify food or people, cannot set apart anyone or anything for God’s purposes.
Mark paraphrased this teaching from Jesus in way which expounded its meaning for His Gentile audience, since they were not as familiar with the way Jewish teachers spoke figuratively: “Let all heed and develop a complete comprehension [of this]: There is nothing outside of a person which, journeying into him, is able to make him common or worldly. Rather, things journeying out of the person are things making the person common or worldly” (Mark 7:14b-15, from: Ἀκούσατέ μου
πάντες καὶ σύνετε. οὐδέν ἐστιν ἔξωθεν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου εἰσπορευόμενον εἰς αὐτὸν ὃ δύναται κοινῶσαι
αὐτόν· ἀλλὰ τὰ ἐκ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐκπορευόμενά ἐστιν τὰ κοινοῦντα τὸν ἄνθρωπον, SBLGNT). So Mark makes it perfectly clear here that, when Jesus spoke about “that which is entering the mouth,”
He was figuratively referring to any and every kind of external food, drink, sight, sound or feeling, anything that can enter a person through the five senses. Nothing we consume with our mouths, read or see with our eyes, hear from false teachers, or feel with our skin or emotions, can possibly make God’s elect children common or worldly. It is what a person’s spirit allows or causes one’s body of flesh to say or do that makes one common or worldly, and can even make one become outright evil.
Mark clarified the meaning of Jesus’ words even more by recording a private conversation that Jesus later had with His disciples, when they retreated from the crowds into the house. For Mark wanted to make this teaching thoroughly explicit for his Gentile readers, lest any false teachers deceive them, lest some might trick them into serving them and their petty traditions. In that conversation, Jesus said: “Are you [disciples] therefore also without the ability to comprehend? You are not considering that any kind of external thing journeying into the person is not able to make him common or worldly because it is not journeying into the heart of him, but into the stomach, [which is] cleansing all the foods, and departs into the toilet. So [God] was reasoning that a thing journeying out of the person, this makes the person common or worldly. For the internal evil considerations journey out of the heart of the person [i.e., out of the spirit in the chamber of the heart]: sexually immoral thoughts, thefts, murders, adulteries, avaricious impulses, depraved desires; distraction, a selfish disregard for norms and rules, a malicious perception [of life], slander, arrogance, foolishness. All these evil things journey out, from within, and make the person common or worldly” (Mark 7:18-23, from: Οὕτως
καὶ ὑμεῖς ἀσύνετοί ἐστε; οὐ νοεῖτε ὅτι πᾶν τὸ ἔξωθεν εἰσπορευόμενον εἰς τὸν ἄνθρωπον οὐ δύναται
αὐτὸν κοινῶσαι, ὅτι οὐκ εἰσπορεύεται αὐτοῦ εἰς τὴν καρδίαν ἀλλʼ εἰς τὴν κοιλίαν, καὶ εἰς τὸν
ἀφεδρῶνα ἐκπορεύεται;— καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα. ἔλεγεν δὲ ὅτι Τὸ ἐκ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου
ἐκπορευόμενον ἐκεῖνο κοινοῖ τὸν ἄνθρωπον· ἔσωθεν γὰρ ἐκ τῆς καρδίας τῶν ἀνθρώπων οἱ
διαλογισμοὶ οἱ κακοὶ ἐκπορεύονται, πορνεῖαι, κλοπαί, φόνοι, μοιχεῖαι, πλεονεξίαι, πονηρίαι, δόλος, ἀσέλγεια, ὀφθαλμὸς πονηρός, βλασφημία, ὑπερηφανία, ἀφροσύνη· πάντα ταῦτα τὰ πονηρὰ ἔσωθεν
ἐκπορεύεται καὶ κοινοῖ τὸν ἄνθρωπον, SBLGNT). This is basically the same teaching that Matthew also recorded in his Gospel (Mat. 15:15-20). But, in Matthew, we also discover that Peter was the disciple who initiated this discussion. Yet Mark clarifies Jesus’ words a little more for his Gentile readers. For Mark did not want Gentiles to be tricked into following the unbiblical traditions of the Page 1064
Mat. 15:10-20, Inner Defilement
Evangelical Jews. And Jesus clearly wanted everyone to know that such traditions cannot sanctify anyone, are totally ineffective for the purpose of setting aside one’s life to serve God as His priest.
Some Evangelicals followed the rituals commanded in God’s Law, since Yahweh designed them to remind His people about His attributes and ways, to remind them that they were His priesthood and separated unto Him, that they were set apart for His purposes, that is, to teach His truths and do His works on earth. Some Evangelicals actually wanted God’s church of Israel to remember that God did not create them from the faith of Abraham to be just another tribe that pursued only common and worldly purposes, like most other tribes on earth. Israel was not to live like the others. For the one Creator of all existence Himself had awakened these elect, His true church of Israel, to serve Him as priests to the entire world, to represent Him before all nations and individuals, and to intercede for all nations and individuals before His face. God created this priesthood so they would, through a New Covenant relationships established by the Messiah, serve as God’s body upon the earth, to speak His words and do His loving, just works on earth. But many in Israel forgot this mission which God gave to Abraham’s spiritual offspring. Evangelicals began to think they could make themselves holy through the words and deeds of their flesh alone. And, because of this focus on things of the flesh, they also saw themselves as being somehow superior to all of God’s Gentile elect children.
Most traditions of these carnally oriented Evangelicals were futile efforts to separate and sanctify themselves through the words and deeds of their flesh. Yet literally all laws are matters of the spirit.
And all God’s laws definitely had to be applied by a loving and just spirit. Thus, all their traditions, which they designed through the minds and wills of their minds of flesh to produce outwardly seen appearances of piety, proved to be merely unjust, loveless and destructive sins. For those man-made and fleshy traditions divided Israel into sects where each worshipped one particular human god or a certain conspiracy of human gods, instead of worshipping the one real God together. Then the lies of those human gods caused God’s church to disregard or even hate one another, and especially their Gentile siblings, whom God had called them to serve. Those fleshy man-made traditions nullified the intentions of God’s just and loving laws and even transformed Israel into a priesthood serving Satan.
Every true priest of God must serve God’s creations in His name, especially God’s other Jewish and Gentile elect children. Yet most churches have remained stubbornly ignorant of the biblical fact that absolutely nothing can become holy through the will, words or deeds of the flesh. Neither the wills of sinful human beings nor the wills of the sinless heavenly angels can ever even begin to sanctify or set apart anyone or anything for God’s purposes. No being, apart from God Himself, can make any person or thing holy. By definition, literally all God’s purposes directly originate through His own will alone. Therefore, only an explicit command of God, only the explicit will of God, can set any person or thing apart for His own purposes to make that person or thing holy. And that person or thing can only remain holy as long as God allows that entity to remain set apart for His purposes.
So hand washing cannot sanctify a person or the food one eats. And, no matter how expensive and fancy a priest’s rob might be, that common sinner, who is exactly like all other sinners, or worse, cannot use any of the rituals actually commanded in God’s Law, and certainly not any magic words or ceremonies invented by human minds of flesh, to make anyone or anything holy. The churches who think they can make people or things holy through their own human wills do not actually even grasp the concept that God is a Spirit, even the life-giving Spirit in the body of Jesus. And, since God is a Spirit, then all God’s purposes must be ultimately spiritual, and God must have created literally all physical things to be temporary training tools and facilities for the spirits of His elect children. So it is only when elect spirits of God’s true priesthood do God’s will, only when their spirits actually express God’s will through the words and deeds of their flesh, only when their spirits express His Page 1065
kind of love and His guiding truths, only when their awakened elect spirits truly fulfill His spiritual intentions and purposes, that we know God has sanctified them. But words and deeds mindlessly practised through wills of flesh cannot ever fulfill God’s intentions and purposes for their spirits.
Most Evangelicals of that day strayed very far from God, and totally disregarded God’s intended meaning and purposes revealed in His written words, which He compassionately granted to Israel through the spirits of His faithful prophets. Their elders usurped God’s rule over the priesthood of Israel, and replaced God’s spiritual Law with fleshy traditions crafted for their own self-serving purposes. And they ignored or even attacked God’s honest, wise and loving Holy Spirit dwelling in the body of their Messiah. So Jesus commanded His elect to choose between Him and those human gods, between His just, wise and loving spiritual truths and their man-made traditions, which served only the pride, income and worldly power of their flesh. Throughout history, the Holy Spirit of Jesus has always been telling His elect to make this choice. But many Evangelicals back then, as well as false churches throughout history, have chosen to believe traditions of carnal human gods instead of the wise, just and loving truths of the real God. So today we must also choose. Will we destroy ourselves by following the religious “leaders” whom our Creator has handed over to delusions, or will we repent into the truths taught by our God Jesus through His Holy Spirit? Will we “heed and develop a complete comprehension” of the fact that nothing of the flesh can save us, and that our elect spirits must go directly to the utterly holy Spirit of God for the saving teachings that He freely offers us through His grace alone, or will we disregard Jesus’ command, and reject Jesus Himself?
The disciples of Jesus had been taught from birth to highly respect the teaching elders in the church of Israel. Yet they could not always recognize the true teaching elders whom God Himself sent to His true church. Before Jesus came to them, very few of those disciples could rightly judge which man was a true elder sent by God and which was a fake elders sent by Satan to corrupt, distract, fracture and weaken God’s priesthood. And, yes, God commanded them to hear and judge all the teachings of all who claimed to be sent by God. And God commanded every individual member of His priesthood of Israel to denounce all false teachings and prophecies from all of the fake religious leaders. Then God told them the only reason He allowed liars to utter deceptions in the presence of His priesthood. God allowed this to strengthen their resolve, so their elect spirits would learn to love Him and His truth more. For those lies “tested” their elect spirits, like fire “tests” or strengthens metal (e.g., Deut. 13:3). Yet Jesus’ disciples still somehow respected fake Evangelical pastors and their false churches. So they were troubled when Jesus firmly denounced the teachings of those fake elders, and anxiously pointed out to Him: “You realize that the Evangelicals were offended [by being accused of wrong-doing or sin] after hearing [Your] word of reasoning” (Mat. 15:12, from: Οἶδας ὅτι
οἱ Φαρισαῖοι ἀκούσαντες τὸν λόγον ἐσκανδαλίσθησαν, SBLGNT). For the Evangelicals did indeed realize that Jesus was calling the people to make their choice between His truths and their worthless teachings. They knew Jesus was clearly indicating that their traditions were actually false doctrines.
Thus, Jesus responded to that lingering concern nagging His disciples, to their fear of disrespecting fake elders. For those fears came from the superstitions and customs which their misled parents and rabbis had etched upon their minds of flesh, from misconceptions written since early childhood upon their outer consciences. Jesus corrected and comforted them by declaring: “Every plant which My heavenly Father did not plant will be uprooted” (Mat. 15:13, ALT). Every elder whom God did not send to His elect children, and every doctrine that has not taught God’s own intended meaning of the truths He wrote in His Scriptures and in His creations, eventually will be plucked out of the hearts and minds of His elect, roots and all. Either while His elect are living in flesh on earth, or when they are being judged and taught at heaven’s gate on the last day, God will yank every fibre of those lies Page 1066
Mat. 15:10-20, Inner Defilement
out from the spirits of His beloved children. And our Father God always begins this painful, tedious work during our childhood, then continues to remove every trace of lies and liars from our elect hearts throughout our lives. Some elect silence their spirits, and choose to live only according to the thoughts in their minds of flesh. So this work of God may not make much progress while they live in bodies of flesh. Yet God surely will complete this work in all. He will eventually and perfectly purify literally all His elect. All lies and liars will be thoroughly exposed to all the minds of all elect spirits.
Mat. 15:21-28,
Serving Gentiles
“Jesus went out from there, and withdrew into the region of Tyre and Sidon. Behold, a Canaanite woman came out from those borders, and cried, saying, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, You son of David! My daughter is severely possessed by a demon!’ But He answered her not a word. His disciples came and begged Him, saying, ‘Send her away; for she cries after us.’
But He answered, ‘I wasn’t sent to anyone but the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ But she came and worshiped Him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ But He answered, ‘It is not appropriate to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.’ But she said, ‘Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.’ Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, great is your faith! Be it done to you even as you desire.’ And her daughter was healed from that hour” (Mat. 15:21-28, WEB).
Likely due to the increasing threats and attacks from Jewish Evangelicals (Pharisees), Jesus then withdrew into the Gentile region of Tyre and Sidon, which is located in Lebanon today. And Mark said that Jesus wanted to hide while He was there, although the people found Him (see Mark 7:24).
The people of that region were Canaanites, descendants of Phoenicians, and one Gentile mother there began to desperately hound Jesus and His disciples, begging for the healing of her daughter, since her child was “vexed by demons in a disabling way” (κακῶς δαιμονίζεται). And this mother would not give up her quest to have her beloved child healed. In fact, she became so annoying to the disciples that they approached Jesus and begged Him, “Dismiss her, because she is shouting behind us.” Yet Jesus had no intention of sending her away, because He recognized that the kind of love in her spirit proved that she was an elect child of the Father. And, if He wanted to send her away, He would have done so as soon as she approached. But Jesus saw that woman’s love in her elect spirit and, instead, let her follow Him and His disciples, although she continued to loudly cry out for the healing of her child. Of course, Jesus knew her incessant pleading would eventually drive His male Jewish disciples absolutely crazy. But it seems they needed a lesson in loving Gentiles and women.
Jesus knew His disciples were growing increasingly fearful and anxious regarding the bitter and potentially dangerous animosity that the Evangelicals openly expressed against Jesus. And many of His disciples worried about the stinging rebukes of Jesus which exposed the hypocrisy and false teachings of those Evangelicals, without concern about their power and influence, in ways that had now forced them to flee into the Gentile lands. Now more and more hypocrites and false teachers were making a concerted effort to destroy Jesus and His disciples. Yet most of His disciples had been Evangelical (Pharisaic/Orthodox) Jews at one time, and still held residual Evangelical beliefs and customs which affected their views and beliefs, including some biases against Gentiles and women.
So, it was because of their Evangelical perceptions of Gentiles and women that Jesus remained silent as that Gentile mother pleaded for the healing of her daughter. Then, when Jesus finally did speak, it was not until His disciples had asked Him to send that Gentile woman away. Therefore, Jesus was Page 1067
responding to the insensitive plea of His disciples when He spoke, and was not actually addressing the woman. And, from the context, we can logically conclude that Jesus asked them a question, and was not making a statement. Loud enough for all His disciples to hear, Jesus asked: “Was I not sent
[to anyone else] except unto the destroyed and now devastated sheep from the house of Israel?”
(Mat. 15:24, from: Οὐκ ἀπεστάλην εἰ μὴ εἰς τὰ πρόβατα τὰ ἀπολωλότα οἴκου Ἰσραήλ, SBLGNT).
However, that mother also heard Jesus say this and approached Him, prostrating herself before Him, pleading, “Lord help me!” This would have disturbed the disciples greatly. But Jesus allowed her to do this, to prick their inner consciences with her loving efforts to save her daughter. Watching His disciples, Jesus spoke again. And, once more, Jesus would have been asking His disciples another question: “It is not good to take the bread of the children and to cast [it] to the dogs, [is it]?” (Mat.
15:26, from: Οὐκ ἔστιν καλὸν λαβεῖν τὸν ἄρτον τῶν τέκνων καὶ βαλεῖν τοῖς κυναρίοις, SBLGNT, Note: Pharisees likened Gentiles to dogs, as do some Orthodox Jews to this day). The context clearly suggests that Jesus was querying His disciples, although He did this directly in front of the pleading Gentile mother. Jesus was pointing out how Jewish Evangelical traditions prohibited all Jews from engaging in friendly relationships with Gentiles, and also how they also forbade Jewish men from speaking to lowly women who were not their wives or daughters, especially to female Gentiles who were complete strangers. Then we should also remember that His disciples probably were a little angry with Jesus, after He had denounced and condemned Evangelical traditions in front of everyone, just a day or two before this. For those very conversations with the Evangelicals had now forced them to flee into these Gentile territories. Nevertheless, Jesus had clearly planned to go to the Gentiles at this time, and was obviously using this experience of witnessing the love of this elect Gentile mother, to expose the biased doctrines that His disciples learned from Evangelical pastors.