OBEDIENCE AND SUBMISSION [four]

Israel learnt obedience from the holy mouth of God.

(…continues from part three…)

4)            Exodus 19:5 “Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine:” is the divine charge to Israel. No nation boasts of this ‘peculiarity of treasure’. The Hebrew for ‘peculiarity of treasure’ is cgullah (seg-ool-law’) meaning: ‘wealth (as closely shut up).’ The nation of Israel up till now and till the second coming of Jesus Christ, remains untouchable. Israel produced the Saviour of the world. Israel of Shem was the first to propagate the soteriology. It is suicidal to reject God’s instruction. Jehovah is not just another object of veneration; HE owns the entire heaven and the earth. He alone is the Almighty.

                Exodus 23:21 “Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him.” Is this One to beware of not the Second Member of the Godhead? His (God’s) name is in Him because this is none other than EMMANUEL – God is with us a.k.a. Jesus Christ. When Moses struck the rock instead of speaking to it, Paul made us to understand that Jesus – in His pre-incarnation manifestation – stood on that rock. The name JESUS, the Hebraic Yehoshua means ‘Jehovah is Saviour’, authenticating God’s prophetic name in Him. The chicanery of Islam teaches that Exodus 23:21 is in prophetic reference to Muhammad. For his irreverent act, Moses did not set his leadership foot on the Promised Land. Disobedience is evil. 

Samuel reproves King Saul for performing burnt offering sacrifice [1Samuel 13:11-14]

                1Samuel 15:19 “Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the LORD, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the LORD?” King Saul brought into the land of Israel those things he was told to annihilate. He spared the life of an evil king ‘Agag (ag-ag’) whose name means: ‘1. flame.’ This Amalekitish king, like other ones, constitutes disturbing consuming fire of destruction to the children of Israel spiritually. Greed and ill-affection towards the very well-fed rams and the handsome visage of Agag blinded Saul’s loyalty to God. King Saul lost his rulership of God’s own people.

                Proverbs 15:32 “He that refuseth instruction despiseth his own soul: but he that heareth reproof getteth understanding.” Man may be a free moral agent, but the hard truth that calls for digestion is the fact that God still gave the first couple some dos and do nots; to prove that God must be put into serious consideration. They were free to eat from all the surrounding trees save the one called the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They would not live to complete a thousandth year or another one thousand years of existence if they should come into disobedience. Death was God’s promise for disobedience. ‘Refuseth’ is the Hebraic para` (paw-rah’) and means ‘1. to loosen. 2. (by implication) to expose, dismiss. 3. (figuratively) to absolve, begin.’

The Bible – God’s protocol

                This word, para` , teaches that the ‘refusal’ of God’s word is indicative of giving oneself too much freedom; in fact, it gives a picture of one leering at the Creator. Definition two says that a disobedient person, having got himself exposed to Satanism, finds it sporty dismissing the LORD’s instruction. The receipt of Lucifer’s didacticism, based on Satanism, gives a person every stance of excuse, thereby absolving one of disobedient act; and lo and behold, he has begun a new life of belligerence against the will of God. The next word, ‘instruction,’ is muwcar (moo-sawr’) it means ‘1. (properly) chastisement. 2. (figuratively) reproof, warning or instruction. 3. (also) restraint.’ That God has always warned His intelligent creation cannot be debunked. The disobedient soul, ergo, is on a suicidal mission, because ‘despiseth’ is ma’ac (maw-as’) in Hebrew and it means ‘1. to spurn. 2. (intransitively) to disappear.

“Father Abraham….for I am tormented in this flame…” [Luke 16:24]

                 The lives of those who would dare refuse to get born again, which the Holy Spirit is doing everything possible, through Christianity in the propagation of eternal life in Jesus, will find themselves disappearing before the presence of the thrice holy God; hell is the eternal abode. It may sound like a Hollywood script, but it is not. It is the gospel truth. ‘Getteth’ is qanah (kaw-naw’): ‘1. to erect, i.e. create. 2. (by extension) to procure.’ 3. (especially) to purchase. 4. (causatively) to sell. 5. (by implication) to own.’ What is ‘understanding’ of this verse? It is leb (laɓe): 1. the heart. 2. (figuratively, very widely) the feelings, the will, and even the intellect. 3. (likewise) the center of anything.’ To the obedient people of God, the reality of their being bestows on them a representative capacity of God’s righteous perpendicularity. They stand erect in spiritual adoration of the Most High. They have allowed a creation of divine affinity in their lives. The heart of an obedient person freely wills to do God’s bidding, love Him and seek none but the LORD God.

Say this prayer, meaning it with all your heart:

“Dear heavenly Father, I come to You now in the name of Jesus Christ. I believe in my heart that Jesus is the Son of God. I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sin. I believe that You raised Him from the dead. I confess with my mouth that Jesus is Lord and I receive Him now as my Lord and my Saviour. I give God all the glory. Amen!” 

(…to be continued…)

get part three here

read part five, click.

Conspiratorial Satanism (2)

(…continued from part one)

2)            How could mere disappointment from mere mortals shatter the faith in the Jehovah of an Israelite like King Saul? He simply saw an overwhelming army and Satan just played the tape of a demoralizing deluge. The phenomenal understanding that when you are outnumbered is synonymous to defeat vitiated the faith known of an Israelite in his heart. Delay, as far as the good God is concerned, is not denial. Selah!

Saul was programmed to forget this truth, ergo, the number of days gone by made him believe so erroneously that Samuel would not show up. From 1Samuel 13:11, Mô‛êd, mô‛êd or mô‛âdâh (mo-ade’) is the Hebrew word for ‘appointed’ which means: ‘appointed place, time or season.’ Natural phenomenon cannot be the deciding factor of man’s faith in the LORD, his God. The Bible made it crystal clear that the manna continued to fall all their wilderness days. Saul forgot that the same Jehovah was still in existence to protect him from dire situations. His enemy saw to that.

‘Gather together’ is âsaph (aw-saf’): ‘to gather for any purpose; hence to receive, take away, that is, remove (destroy, leave behind, put up, restore, etc.).’ This overt apprehension he displayed. They were coming for him! He was all alone! This fear he mistakenly reeled out. This trepidation received an overflow of fueling from a hidden superstitious belief that some imagined enemy is hidden somewhere, so, I need to fortify myself.

The meaning of the place Mikmâs or Michmash (mik-maws’) is ‘hidden’ and it comes from the root kâmas (kaw-mas’) ‘to store away, that is, (figuratively) in the memory.’ ‘Appointment’ is the Hebrew mow`ed (mo-ade’) (or moled {mo-ade’} or (feminine) moweadah (2 Chronicles 8) ‘1. (properly) an appointment, i.e. a fixed time or season 2. (specifically) a festival 3. (conventionally) a year 4. (by implication) an assembly (as convened for a definite purpose) 5. (technically) the congregation 6. (by extension) the place of meeting 7. (also) a signal (as appointed beforehand).’ This ‘appointment’ was initiated by Jehovah. It is not everyone God has an appointment with. Only faith in Him enables us to keep this divine appointment. Satan has always made sure to drain us of faith that allows our walk with Jesus.

Satan most definitely scared Saul with the root meaning of Gilgal of 1Samuel 13:12; its definition has to do with ‘a wheel, whirl wheel, rolling or rolling stones.’ He was made to see his army coming against a whirl wheel and an avalanche of rolling stones. The fear gripped him! He must do something and drastically too. This satanically engendered fear just would not leave King Saul alone.

The word ‘forced’ ‘aphaq (aw-fak’) means ‘to contain or restrain (oneself); (reflexively) to abstain; feel compelled.’ This is Saul’s excuse: “I waited for you and when the timing elapsed I forced myself to do this thing, bedeviled with the uncomfortable, prevailing phenomenal circumstance.” The Enemy made sure that Saul forgot Deuteronomy 5:32, “Ye shall observe to do therefore as the LORD your God hath commanded you: ye shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.” God, he forgot, is the Keeper of appointments.

Anytime you find yourself walking diametrically against God’s will, what you are actually doing is an arrogant act: pride goes ere fall. The meaning of the Hebrew word for ‘offered,’ `alah, (aw-law’) is: ‘to ascend, intransitively (be high) or actively (mount).’ The king gave his ears to an enemy, an arrogant enemy who did lose out with God and was condemned to be and forever remain an outcast. It was so apropos that Lucifer would mount Saul on a high horse that will spell ‘egotism.’

Eve festered superstitious proclivity is ingrained in man’s consciousness, ready for satanic motivation, bringing out the worst of this human proneness. Saul, the king, did fall for it. He has taught me a lesson, so why should I fail like he did. Praise the LORD!  (Concluded)

Click here to read part 1

Conspiratorial Satanism (1)

Little do we know the conspiratory set up that the enemy has surreptitiously framed, placed somewhere inside the cogitative seat of our being; waiting patiently, with so much of an uncanny imperturbability, to be swallowed up in the entrapment.

Something did take place in the Book of 1Samuel 13:11-12. It reads, “And Samuel said, What hast thou done? And Saul said, Because I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that thou camest not within the days appointed, and that the Philistines gathered themselves together at Michmash; 12) Therefore said I, The Philistines will come down now upon me to Gilgal, and I have not made supplication unto the LORD: I forced myself therefore, and offered a burnt offering.”

Do note that King Saul did not say, “Therefore said the LORD….” It was, therefore, his own concoction, from his mental seat of human cogitation. It does not, in anyway, have any theological backing of scripture because the eighth verse of the tenth chapter points, rigidly, an accusing finger at Saul, which reads: “And thou shalt go down before me to Gilgal; and, behold, I will come down unto thee, to offer burnt offerings, and to sacrifice sacrifices of peace offerings: seven days shalt thou tarry, till I come to thee, and shew thee what thou shalt do” [1Samuel 10:8]. When you try to think for God, from your own thinking faculty, beware lest you be found acting a demonically direction and a rendition of the lines of the script (cut from Satanism and pasted in your mind) whose executive producer is Lucifer himself.

Saul experienced three things. 1. Because I saw that the people were scattered from me 2. and that thou camest not within the days appointed  3. that the Philistines gathered themselves together at Michmash. And he did three things: i. Saul thought about the problem he was facing. ii. He decided to apply a rash decision having been drenched in a faith-deficient thought. iii. He offered a burnt offering: meant only for a priestly office. Six things, added together. Six being the number of man, he fell in the fall of Adamic incaution.

His experience failed to ignite the spirit of faith expected from an Israelite. The king of God’s own Israel chose the entertainment of fear to solve his predicament. We are the architect of our own falseheartedness. The words of scripture are meant to engender the spirit of faith, serving as the galvanisation of our resolve to wait on the LORD. All Satan has to do is just show the carnality of our eyes a frightening negativity. The first thing Lucifer projected into the unsuspecting being of Saul was: “The Philistines will come down now upon me to Gilgal,” and the very second the evil one is certain of your capitulation, he takes you on the ride to self-destructive conclusive steps.

Having failed to embrace faith it was very easy for the enemy to make him dwell on the faithless driven words of: “and I have not made supplication unto the LORD:” which took Saul to the very reason for this Satanic machination of Saul’s derailment. “I forced myself therefore, and offered a burnt offering.” I understand, from the tenth chapter, verse 8 of this Book that Samuel, the priest and the prophet of Israel, was to offer the sacrifice and not king Saul. To attempt a gadarene rush in a man’s dealing with God is tantamount to an indictment of God’s uncomfortable snail speed pace. Saul’s precipitousness had engendered a second failure to prove his monarchal worthiness before the appraisive eyes of Jehovah.

The experience plus the deed equals six. Six is the scriptural number of man: fallen, Adamic man. The fall got its engenderment from the woman of the Eden’s supposititious superstition verbalism of,“…..neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die” [Genesis 3:3]. Let us go back to 1Samuel 13:11-12 to look at some words. The word ‘scattered’ is nâphats (naw-fats’) in Hebrew, meaning: ‘to break, dash, beat in pieces.’

How could mere disappointment from mere mortals shatter the faith in the Jehovah of an Israelite like King Saul? He simply saw an overwhelming army and Satan just played the tape of a demoralizing deluge.  (…to be continued…)

Click here to read part 2

OF TRIALS AND TROUBLES (3rd part)

 

Moses, Miriam and Aaron

Negative pride is an unclean spirit. Aaron (means: lofty; mountain of strength) and his prophetess sister, Miriam (means: rebellion; bitterness) were garbed in the spirit of pride in their trials against their young sibling, Moses. They tasted shame from God who had made Moses their leader. Achan, (meaning: he that troubleth) why did you have to purloin that which your hands must be kept away from? Knowest thou not that thou troubleth thy own soul when thou stealeth? When you are walking with God be extra careful. The children of Israel walked side by side the LORD their God from Egypt through the wilderness and misbehaved several times by their thoughts, utterances and acts. About one million of about 2.4 million that left Egypt died in the wilderness, not seeing the Promised Land. As a Christian you are walking with God, be careful, therefore, for Satan, your adversary, is very jealous of your positional state.

It started with the spirit of presumptuousness in the trial of King Saul in his answer to the bleating of the domestic animals; and the failure opened the atrocious door of hatred against an anointed David. Saul failed in the trials woefully. When it came to the lust of the eyes and of the flesh and the heart David did not take his eyes off beautiful Bathsheba. The muscle between his legs i.e. his flesh forced its way into the woman, another man’s wife. David’s brutish heart was tried, it failed, asking for the murder of Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba, whose military patriotism to Israel should put King David to shame, to whom he owed an unreserved apology plus a very huge compensation. But David had in reserve something in his heart. He knew how to approach God in sincerity of the humbleness of heart. The contriteness of his apologetic heart was always from the genuineness of heart and never theatrical. This is why God Himself made the eureka testimony of Psalm 89:20, “I have found David my servant; with my holy oil have I anointed him”. Be like David and be a winner.

Satan knows our weak points and he works assiduously to achieve his nefarious goals even against our determined will. Solomon, the wisest of all men, failed. “For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father. v5) For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. v6) And Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD, and went not fully after the LORD, as did David his father. v7) Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. v8) And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods. v9) And the LORD was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the LORD God of Israel, which had appeared unto him twice”, [1Kings 11:4-9]. Solomon did the unthinkable. Let everyone manage his trials lest he gets into trouble.

Elijah was tired got the troubles he faced; would you?

“…I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away”, Elijah whined in 1Kings 19:14. God’s answer in 1Kings 19:18, “Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him”, puts it clear that the prophet had not managed his troubles well enough. Daniel was not a Babylonian. He came to Babylon as a voiceless slave. His high office of a Prime Minister was a rarest privilege, prestigious and which placed him in high regard. When the trials of his faith came to badger him at every front, the Bible says, “Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime [Daniel 6:10]. Like his three contemporaries, who defied the threatening furnace of Nebuchadnezer, Daniel would rather offend a superbly world powered monarch but spiritually irascible than to break God’s law.

For every action we take, no matter how exalting of the Lord it is and of very pleasing to Him, as far as it is offensive to an authorized political power, there are consequences. We should be ready for the upshot of our decision, no matter how righteous the resolve is. I do not know which one is fiercer: the terrible furnace or the hungry, extremely brutish pride. (…to be continued…)

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Read the 4th part here