Saturday, September 28, 2013

Matthew 24:9

Good morning this fine Saturday morn. May the Lord bless us with enough this day. "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."


I had a brief conversation with one of my fb friends yesterday about our powers over the Devil. I am contented that we have none, and there is nothing that we can do to either control him or put fear into him. He is in revolt against God Almighty Himself, and if he is not afraid of God what can any of us do to put fear into him? 

This is what Jesus said to us in Matthew 24:9, "Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake." Our faith in Jesus will not save us from persecution, rather it will cause it.



Tuesday, September 24, 2013

The two women created by God: Eve and Lilith

"Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."] Genesis 1

And then in Genesis 2:
And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.  And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

So which is it, did God make them both at the same time, male and female?  Or did he make Adam and then had pity on him being alone?  Some believe that there is a third answer and that God did it both ways at two different times.  Meaning that there were two women who were created by God, the first one created alongside and with Adam in one act of creation as described in Genesis 1.  That woman and Adam had a falling out and left Adam along in Eden going out into the world by herself, and that is when God felt sorry that Adam was along and made his another woman from his rib.

According to midrashic literature, Adam's first wife was not Eve but a woman named Lilith, “At the same time Jehovah created Adam, he created a woman, Lilith, who like Adam was taken from the earth. She was given to Adam as his wife. But there was a dispute between them about a matter that when it came before the judges had to be discussed behind closed doors. She spoke the unspeakable name of Jehovah and vanished.”

It seems that the big different between Adam and Lilith was how to fuck, they both wanted to be on top.  “Adam, as a way of asserting his authority over Lilith, insisted that she lie beneath him during sexual intercourse (23 A-B). Lilith, however, considering herself to be Adam's equal, refused, and after pronouncing the Ineffable Name (i.e. the magic name of God) flew off into the air.” 

Adam pissed off both because he had no one to fuck and that she would not bow to his will ask God to intervene, so God sent three angels, named Senoy, Sansenoy, and Semangelof, who found her in the Red Sea.  They threaten Lilith that one hundred of her sons would die every day, she refused to return to Adam, musta been a whole lot of fucking going on before she got pissed off enough to leave.  Well she refused to go back to him making some sort of deal with the angles, and God made Adam a new woman from his own rib so he could be the dominant one and have sex missionary style.

“Lilith also personified licentiousness and lust. In the Christian Middle Ages she, or her female offspring, the lilim, became identified with succubae (the female counterparts of incubi) who would copulate with men in their sleep, causing them to have nocturnal emissions or "wet dreams."”  Through the literature of the Kabbalah, Lilith became fixed in Jewish demonology where her primary role is that of strangler of children and a seducer of men. The Kabbalah further enhanced her demonic character by making her the partner of Samael (i.e. Satan) and queen of the realm of the forces of evil.”

Through her couplings with the devil (or with Adam, as his succubus), Lilith gave birth to one hundred demonic children a day (the one hundred children threatened with death by the three angels). In this way, Lilith was held responsible for populating the world with evil. If you ask how Lilith herself, the first wife of Adam, became evil, the answer lies in her insubordination to her husband Adam. It is her independence from Adam, her position beyond the control of a male, that makes her "evil."

“Lilith is referred to only once in the Old Testament. In the Darby translation of Isaiah 34:14 the original Hebrew word is rendered as "lilith"; according to Isaiah, when God's vengeance has turned the land into a wilderness, "there shall the beasts of the desert meet with the jackals, and the wild goat shall cry to his fellow; the lilith also shall settle there, and find for herself a place of rest." The same word is translated elsewhere, however, as "screech owl, "night creatures," "night monsters," and "night hag." 

Now I do not know the truth of any of this, but it does explain the two different stories regarding the creation of Adam and Eve in Genesis 1 & 2.

Everything is quotation comes from Christopher L.C.E. Witcomb writings, and a like to his page is in the first comment below.



The Cure for Bereavement




To say, “Time heals all wounds” Is trite
      When the heart is in its anguish,
                   But there is no
          Cure for the bereavement
                       But time.

               The Death lies quiet,

               But the living greave
                  The dissolution
           Of what could have been.
                   Why, oh why
           They ask again and again.

             A question with no answer,

                    The loss remains.
                   And, unexplained,
                     Life will go on.
                 Hard though it may be
                    For the bereaved.

                       Until time

                 Has came and gone.
                Time to, if not heal,
                   At least adjust
                 To a life without,
        And time to find a new meaning.

                     Not to forget,

              For that is not in the cards,
               But to remember the joy
                  Without it being
             Drowned by the sadness
                   Of the passing.

             A quietus will be found,

            Not today, not tomorrow,
               But a time will come
                 And bring with it
               The strength needed
    To pick up the pieces and move on.



© Rexx

Friday, September 20, 2013

Pride vr Hubris

Today I want to talk about pride.  Not the pride of your hometown or your child’s success, but the pride that precedes the fall or as Proverbs 16:18 puts it, “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”  How does this pride differ from be pride of what you have been able to achieve in life, or of a job well done?

The pride that comes before the fall means that you have becomes over confident and stops thinking sensibly or critically because of what you think you know or the abilities you have.  This is the source of the adage, “A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing”.

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again.
Alexander Pope (1688 - 1744)


When success goes to one's head and which is a sure indication of the fact that that person is bound to suffer or face disappointment because of the wrong decisions that he or she might make.  

How does this adage and the Proverb ties together and become profitable for us as instructions?  Well remember what Reagan said, “Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so.”  When you go to criticize another’s views make sure that you understand the subject you are spouting off about.  To be so completely convinced that you have the correct view when in fact all you have is a small understanding is a manifestation of the pride that precedes the fall. 

This pride can sneak into our minds in any number of ways, on how best to train a horse to how best to interpret the scriptures.  While this pride can bring us to embarrassment at its mildest form of rebuke to death and destruction at its harshest, it does not rise to hubris unless you refuse to learn from the instruction that holding this type of pride provides.    

“And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.”  Hebrews 12:5-6

Now as far as interpreting scriptures I take the Baptist approach that no one stand between man and god.  No preacher, no elder, or deacon, but through faith, interacting with others, through listening, conversations, reading and reflection. One should also engage not only those who share their worldview but others who are quite different from you. You will find that sometimes your conversations will help another person, but more often I have found that by talking with others I have come to a better understanding of the scriptures.

I will not tell another person this is the way you should understand the Bible, I will tell how I understand it.  I believe that God is a God of revelation, if He does not reveal Himself to you you cannot find Him.  

“And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac;   (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)  It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.  As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.   What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.  For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.  So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.  For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.  Romans” 9: 10-17