Category: Prayer

FOREWORD TO ISAIAH 11.

EXPLAINING THE BOOK OF ISAIAH
Analytical Notes hereunder are on the eleventh chapter of Isaiah, which covers epochs totalling several thousand years
Isaiah 11:1
‘rod out of the stem of Jesse…Branch shall grow out of his roots’: God’s unbreakable Messianic promise to Jesse’s son King David would be the root in Judah’s dry ground that would grow from its stem and would bear the Branch. Jesus would be born from the descendants of Jesse’s son David in the tribe of Judah 700 years later.

Isaiah 11:4-10.
Isaiah predicts the final post apocalyptic millennial reign of Christ from Jerusalem’s Mt. Olivet. (Cp. Zechariah 14)
Isaiah 11:7. The ‘lion shall eat straw’ in the millennium of peace after the Second Coming shows the return of the lion and other carnivores to be subject unto the human race and void of aggression. It seems they may become herbivores.

Isaiah 11:10.
Christ Jesus came from that root in the dry ground of Judah’s wicked apostasy. He was born of the lineage from the ‘root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign to Jew and Gentile. God’s unbreakable Messianic promise to Jesse’s son King David would be the root in Judah’s dry ground that would grow the stem that would bear the Branch: Jesus would be born from the descendants of Jesse’s son David in the tribe of Judah 700 years later. Cp. 5:24; 11:1; 27:6; 37:31; & 53:2.

Isaiah 11:12.
The first return was led by Ezra and Nehemiah when Cyrus destroyed Babylonia’s power and released the captive Jews. The second return of the Diaspora was during the benevolent reign of the Greek Empire’s Alexander the Great. The third return began in the early 19th C through to 1944. This began with a trickle and slowly grew to a stream after December 1917 when General Allenby conquered Jerusalem and captured it from Turkey (Islam). From 1917 to 1944 under a British UN Protectorate’s benevolence the British Parliament and Armed Forces aided Palestine’s redevelopment. Albeit, in 1945 the new Labour Government of Westminster turned hostile to resettling Jewish war refugees and the idea of Israeli independence.
The fourth return was after Israel’s war of Independence. Thus from 1948 onward the fourth and largest return of the Diaspora occurred via the agency of the USA which became its saviour. Concomitant with migration back to the Promise Land was also the movement of Jewish refugees from anti-Semitic countries to North America. In New York State, over five million live there freely today.
Isaiah and the other prophets predicted that the fifth and final return of the Diaspora will ensue after Christ Himself returns to Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives, from which he ascended (Zechariah 14).
Isaiah glimpses all five returns of God’s people to the Promised Land in amazing detail, and subsequent history affirms the very fulfilment of those prophecies about the return of God’s people, the Jews to the land of Palestine.
During the reign of Alexander the Great he appointed 72 scholars to recover the lost Hebrew Old Testament and translate it into Koine Greek Septuagint (LXX) for the Jewish people.

Isaiah 11:13.
Ephraim is another name for the northern ten rebel tribes, also called Israel, in contrast with the southern kingdom of Judah after Solomon’s death. There was often civil war between the two kingdoms headed at first by Rehoboam and Jeroboam.
Isaiah 11:14-16. Figurative language describing future Israeli victories over attacks from surrounding hostile nations, so far fulfilled in 1948, 1967, & 1973. The subordination of Israel’s enemies, particularly hostile Muslim Arabs was clearly predicted by Isaiah and accurately fulfilled after 12/ 1917 & since 1948 to the present hour.

Isaiah 11
Prophecy of Immanuel the son of David and the Diaspora return.
1 And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:
2 And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord;
3 And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears:

Diaspora’s return: via Persians; Greeks; 20thC; & 2nd Advent.
4 But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth: with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.
5 And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.
6 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
7 And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den.
9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.

Isaiah predicts the future birth of Christ.
10 And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.

Prophesied return of Diaspora to modern Israel.
11 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.
12 And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.
13 The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim.

A separate glimpse of modern Israel’s military feats.
14 But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the west; they shall spoil them of the east together: they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab; and the children of Ammon shall obey them.
15 And the Lord shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea; and with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over dryshod.
16 And there shall be an highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.

* * *
Foreword, Heading, & Sub Headings by John David.
*King James Version Bible is Public Domain (ex biblegateway.com).

FOREWORD TO ISAIAH 11.

FOREWORD TO ISAIAH 10

It is evident from Jeremiah’s prophecies in this chapter that the fierce monster from the North: Assyria will be the tool of God’s wrath against Egypt, Syria, Samaria, and Galilee. God’s tool of affliction, but present ally of Judah, would later turn against Jerusalem as punishment for its impenitent idolatry.
Assyria had just come to the aid of Judah to protect Jerusalem and Judah’s borders against the confederated forces of Syria’s King Rezin and Samaria’s King Pekah.

Assyria’s presence was in response to the Ahaz’s distrust of Jehovah, (vs.12) and her military might would first vanquish Egypt, Syria, Samaria, and Galilee before marching on its one-time ally Judah.

However, the Chaldeans from Mesopotamia’s Babylonia (vss.13-16) would sack Nineveh and the Assyrian empire would be hamstrung and crippled. The doom of Nineveh was predicted by the prophet Nahum some 150 years after Jonah brought it to repentance.
Chapter ten’s two difficult passages (Jeremiah 10:17-19; & 10:28-34) were written to confuse Isaiah’s enemies, including those in the royal court. They should not deter the reader comprehending the unique accuracy, manifest in the annals of ancient history. Then too, the glorious prophesied promises of the return of the captives from Babylon, and the gathering of the Diaspora, first under the Greek Alexander the Great, and then in the modern era their 19th and 20th century global migration to Palestine.

1. The power of Babylon that will break the kingdom of Assyria: vs. 23-27;
2. The return of the scattered Diaspora back to Palestine
a. Under Cyrus the Persian within two decades of Nebuchadnezzar’s decease;
b. Under Alexander the Great, the empire that superseded the Chaldean empire of Babylon;
c. In the modern era Jewry would:
i. return to the Land in the early 19th C (1817-1917);
ii. increasingly flow into Palestine after UK General Allenby retook Jerusalem from Islamic Turk control (1917-1944);
iii. migrate in even greater numbers after Israel’s 1948 Independence by sea and air from Eastern and Western Europe;
iv. in the largest Jewish air migration of Jews in history, return to Israel by a U.S. air armada which had gathered exiles, outcasts and endangered Jewish refugees from anti-Semitic territories of the globe.

BRIEF HISTORICAL SUMMATION.
1. ABRAHAM. Call of Abram from Ur of the Chaldees.
2. JACOB. (Israel) The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (renames the latter grandson into ‘Israel’) preserves Abram’s seed by sending Jacob’s son Joseph to Egypt.
3. THE EXODUS. 430 years later the Exodus of the Hebrews occurs.
4. JOSHUA ENTERS PALESTINE. 40 years later Israel’s people enter Palestine.
5. POST SOLOMON PERIOD Israel splits into two kingdoms. 1380 years after Joshua crossed Jordan Israel and its two kingdoms end in captivity.
6. THE PERSIANS TAKE BABYLON. After Cyrus the Persian frees the captives a remnant return to Palestine under Ezra & Nehemiah to rebuild.
7. GREEK EMPIRE supersedes Persia. Alexander the Great preserved the almost destroyed Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures by translating them into the Koine Greek Septuagint (LXX). Thus the kind Persian and Greek empires superseded Babylonia, but preceded the antagonistic Roman Empire.

7 a. ROMAN EMPIRE. For 450 years it persecuted the Jews so intensely that it became a burnt earth policy. The burning of the world renowned Alexandria Manuscript Library by Julius Caesar was an example. Under Roman Palestine 15,000 were commonly crucified each year.

8. ROMAN EMPEROR CONSTANTINE. Early in the 4thC AD the new emperor Constantine arranged with Rome an Edict of Toleration towards the Jews and Christians. But the new Church of Rome was no friend to the Jew or the regenerated believer in Christ born again of His Spirit.
9. THE DARK AGES: 300-800 AD. The dark ages that followed the sacking of Rome by Goths and Huns showed little more tolerance to the Jews than to the Romans.

10. THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE: 800-1800. Thus in 800 AD Pope Leo ordained Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor for the new Franco-German Holy Roman Empire. It lasted a thousand years, until 1800, though it was weakened by the Reformation of 1517.

This Germanic reign of Roman religious power from Europe discriminated against Jews throughout its vast global empire. Jewish historians attest to the continued, but devastating disenfranchisement, quarantine, ghettos, and mass deportation of the whole Jewish populace from cities and their region or country.

11. DIASPORA RETURN STARTS. (1817 to 1917) At the end of a thousand year blot on the annals of history a few Jews of Europe began to migrate from Europe to Palestine, despite its Muslim rulers. This was concurrent with USA’s ‘Golden Age of Evangelism’. From 1817 to 1917 the first trickle had steadily increased to a stream. God sparked a flame among the scattered Jews that grew into a bright light 150 years later, with the creation of the State of Israel. This fulfilled the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the minor prophets of the Old Testament.

12. UK ARMY CAPTURE JERUSALEM. 1917-1944. British General Allenby freed Jerusalem from the Islamic rule of the Turks in December 1917 and in the ensuing twenty seven years the stream broadened to a steady flow of returning Jews to Palestine.

13. BRITISH BETRAYAL. (1945-1948) Despite the new British (Labour) Government’s betrayal of post war Jewry from sudden new anti-Semitic hostility in Westminster the Jews of Palestine turned to fight for their Land, not only with Arab Muslim saboteurs, but also with British hostile troops. Their onetime ally and saviour became an enemy. But to fulfil God’s prophetic predictions the Jews survived hostilities and achieved national independence against all odds.

In spite of Britain abstaining in New York and an intransigent Washington, President Truman worked behind the scenes to outsmart the U.S. State Department and the United Kingdom by working directly with Jerusalem and the United Nations. By God’s grace Truman worked a modern miracle and Palestine became the prophesied State of Israel.

In May 1948 the UN voted to accept the new State of Israel into its fraternity as a valid, fully fledged, sovereign Nation State.

DIFFICULT PASSAGES IN ISAIAH 10.
These are purposely interwoven by the prophet to confuse his godless enemies within the palace and the priesthood. The indirect vagueness is typical of the prophet’s writings early in the book.
1. Isaiah 10:17-19 in which the simile of trees is likened to the coming Assyrian conquering princes.
2. Isaiah 10:28-34 filled with a poetic topographical complexity.
3. Isaiah 10:20-22 describes the godly remnant inclosing the Diaspora return from Babylon etc. as described above.
.

* Foreword, Footnotes, Chapter Heading and Sub Headings by John David.

Isaiah 10. King James Version of the Bible (Public Domain).
Isaiah predicts Jerusalem’s destruction & survival of a holy remnant.
1 Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed;
2 To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless!
3 And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory?
4 Without me they shall bow down under the prisoners, and they shall fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
5 O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation.
6 I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
7 Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few.
8 For he saith, Are not my princes altogether kings?
9 Is not Calno as Carchemish? is not Hamath as Arpad? is not Samaria as Damascus?
10 As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols, and whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem and of Samaria;
11 Shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols?
12 Wherefore it shall come to pass, that when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks.
13 For he saith, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom; for I am prudent: and I have removed the bounds of the people, and have robbed their treasures, and I have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man:
14 And my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people: and as one gathereth eggs that are left, have I gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped.
15 Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no wood.
16 Therefore shall the Lord, the Lord of hosts, send among his fat ones leanness; and under his glory he shall kindle a burning like the burning of a fire.
17 And the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame: and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day;
18 And shall consume the glory of his forest, and of his fruitful field, both soul and body: and they shall be as when a standard-bearer fainteth.
19 And the rest of the trees of his forest shall be few, that a child may write them.
20 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no more again stay upon him that smote them; but shall stay upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.
21 The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God.
22 For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return: the consumption decreed shall overflow with righteousness.
23 For the Lord God of hosts shall make a consumption, even determined, in the midst of all the land.
24 Therefore thus saith the Lord God of hosts, O my people that dwellest in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrian: he shall smite thee with a rod, and shall lift up his staff against thee, after the manner of Egypt.
25 For yet a very little while, and the indignation shall cease, and mine anger in their destruction.
26 And the Lord of hosts shall stir up a scourge for him according to the slaughter of Midian at the rock of Oreb: and as his rod was upon the sea, so shall he lift it up after the manner of Egypt.
27 And it shall come to pass in that day, that his burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from off thy neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing.
28 He is come to Aiath, he is passed to Migron; at Michmash he hath laid up his carriages:
29 They are gone over the passage: they have taken up their lodging at Geba; Ramah is afraid; Gibeah of Saul is fled.
30 Lift up thy voice, O daughter of Gallim: cause it to be heard unto Laish, O poor Anathoth.
31 Madmenah is removed; the inhabitants of Gebim gather themselves to flee.
32 As yet shall he remain at Nob that day: he shall shake his hand against the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.
33 Behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, shall lop the bough with terror: and the high ones of stature shall be hewn down, and the haughty shall be humbled.
34 And he shall cut down the thickets of the forest with iron, and Lebanon shall fall by a mighty one.

FOOTNOTES.
Isaiah 10:5. Assyria is the ‘rod of God’s anger and indignation’ against all twelve apostate tribes, (ten in the North & two in the South) including Levi, the 13th tribe, not given a territory, but dispersed among the cities. Only a remnant of Jewry, called the tenth, will turn to God in repentance and faith after the Babylonian captivity. They will abandon idolatry; return to temple worship and restore Sabbath observance.

FOREWORD TO ISAIAH 10

FOREWORD TO ISAIAH 8.

UNDERSTANDING THE COMPLEX BOOK OF ISAIAH by John David
FOREWORD TO ISAIAH 8.
To confuse his enemies, Isaiah sends a message in code to the faithful godly remnant of Judah and their descendants. Using indirectness; transposition of pronouns; in additioned metonyms to disguise and protect that which he writes in his book, even this Book of Isaiah in holy writ.

The reader needs first to understand that Isaiah’s wife was the nameless prophetess who bore his two sons: Shearjashub and Mahershalalhashbaz, the latter being a portentous sign. But this sign was nowhere near as significant as the sign of a virgin birth of a Saviour: Immanuel. This was fulfilled over 700 years later at the birth of Christ Jesus, the son of David, and the Son of God. The Gospels describe it in St. Matthew and St. Luke. Isaiah’s second born son would signify the disappearance of Pekah in Samaria (Israeli rebel tribes)and Rezin in Syria. The power of their kingdoms would never recover and Tiglath-Pileser would abduct and deport captives from Samaria, Syria and the Trans-Jordan Jews, but he would be unsuccessful in routing Jerusalem at that time as Isaiah predicted. Before the toddler Mahershalalhashbaz would begin to talk Assyria would sack the Syrian capital Damascus and vanquish Samaria. (Isa. 8:4)

Isaiah places both signs together, and almost merges the two together. However, second sign would come to pass in the immediate future, but the first more than 700 years later. The Assyrian empire would be superseded by the Chaldean one of Babylonia. In 612 BC the Assyrian capital of Nineveh was sacked by Babylon. Later at the end of Judah’s kingdom the Jerusalem captives would be taken by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon (50 miles south of modern Baghdad) leaving a ruined city, to a small Jewish remnant and the prophet Jeremiah: Isaiah’s successor.

REVIEW:
Samaria allied with Syria besieged Jerusalem only to be turned away by a miracle. Both kingdoms would be overpowered by Assyria shortly afterwards. Ahaz had called for help from Assyrian might to help resist Pekah and Rezin. But God intervened through the prayers of Isaiah and outside help was not needed. The city was filled with fear and many wanted a confederacy to survive the multiple attacks from different neighbouring nations. Isaiah had exhorted them to trust in God rather than a military alliance.

Foreword, footnotes, headings and subheadings are by John David.

ISAIAH 8.
King James Version of the Bible. Public Domain ex biblegateway.com

ISAIAH CALMS BESIEGED JERUSALEM.
1 Moreover the Lord said unto me, Take the a great roll, and write in it with a man’s pen concerning Mahershalalhashbaz.
2 And I took unto me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah.
3 And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son. Then said the Lord to me, Call his name Mahershalalhashbaz.
4 For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria.

ISAIAH URGES AHAZ TO TRUST GOD NOT ASSYRIAN ARMIES.
5 The Lord spake also unto me again, saying,
6 Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah’s son;
7 Now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria, and all his glory: and he shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his banks:

ISAIAH WARNS ASSYRIAN AFFILIATION WILL DESTROY THEM.
8 And he shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow and go over, he shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel.
9 Associate yourselves, O ye people, and ye shall be broken in pieces; and give ear, all ye of far countries: gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces.
10 Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us.
11 For the Lord spake thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying,
12 Say ye not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid.
13 Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.
14 And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
15 And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.
16 Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples.
17 And I will wait upon the Lord, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.
18 Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion.

ISAIAH WARNS JERUSALEM: IDOLS WILL NOT HELP
19 And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead?
20 To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.
21 And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward.
22 And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness.

FOOTNOTES.
Isaiah 8: 6.
“the waters of Shiloah’ allude to the pool of Siloam (John 8:7) a reservoir within Jerusalem’s wall. Shiloah may have been a pun on Shiloh a once godly centre of the priests and prophets in the early days of settlement in Palestine which the faithful remnant always supported even in apostate times. Rezin was the Syrian king whom with king Pekah (Remaliah’s son) was crushed by the Assyrian who in a later campaign besieged and invaded Jerusalem. This attack up the river bed and under the city wall is described in Isaiah 8:8-9.

Isaiah 8: 8.
The prophet ends his brief description of the coming Assyrian attack upon Jerusalem, addressing his words to God, whom he calls the Saviour: “thy land, O Immanuel”. I.e. God is my witness.

Isaiah 8:18.
One sign was Isaiah’s firstborn child, who marked the moment of Assyria’s sacking of Damascus. The second born was a time marker for the capture of Israel (Ephraim) in the north. The prophet was instructed to record both on his manuscript journal for posterity. But a far greater sign was that of the prophecy of Immanuel’s birth coinciding therewith. Judah would also be imminently waylaid by Assyria. (Isaiah 8:8)

Isaiah 8:21.
The prophet describes the absolute fear of Judah’s citizenry as it awaits Tiglath-Pileser’s attack, having already destroyed Damascus and captured Samaria.

FOREWORD TO ISAIAH 8.

PAUL’S WARNING TO ALL PREACHERS.

SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES.
PAUL’S WARNING TO ALL PREACHERS. 2 Corinthians 2:17

This is a warning for the preacher to beware of pragmatically using the Bible as a mere tool for his own doctrinal agenda by introducing philosophy, psychology and the flippant devices of the world. Included by implication is the exhortation against tickling listeners’ ears attempting to make a cong

regation beholden to him by unctuous flattery. Personality preachers play the man with needless commendation to make a congregant a hero and in the process make the person in the pew beholden.

Likewise, a minister’s cunning self-aggrandizement to elevate himself to be something special is to be abhorred. Paul hints at the need for honest exposition rather than topical populist ranting over controversies.

This almost rules out extemporary ranting by the sensationalist preacher. Arousing the senses of the audience to excitement is a sensuous, device to simulate the arousing awakening of the Holy Spirit that has only accompanied the spirit of prayer down through history.
John Caleb

PAUL’S WARNING TO ALL PREACHERS.

THE FORGOTTEN SPIRIT OF PRAYER

THE SPIRIT-OF-PRAYER FORGOTTEN 150 YRS AGO
Prayer is the greatest asset of any church. Until it is allowed, with the return of assembled free-prayer opportunities in our buildings, this is unlikely to occur. I am not talking about stilted, limited list sentence prayer cells allotted minimum time at the end of a needless 4th sermon/Bible Study for the week.

I am not talking about Rubin Torrey’s model of controlling the pews widely adopted by Protestant Bible-believing clergy which ousted the old full congregational prayer meeting dedicated to intercession for the lost.

Though pastors claim to be focused on agenda, timetable, and security risks, the truth is that these are mere excuses to prevent intercession by the saints. The pastor must be elevated to the status of guru and holy man of prayer, hence the arrival of the super-pastor and his personality cult of admirers (especially one gender) whose ears are regularly tickled as the pastor ingratiates himself to make his loyalists dependent upon his flattery.

The replacement of prayer by its substitute: unctuous utterances of the super-hero are to stop outspoken individualism among the pews and to reign in freedom of speech.

The cost over the last 150 years has been to quench any possibility of awakening the lost or illuminating the awakened. (Luke 24) Easy free religion has thrived in this climate in which conversion is now synonymous with affirmation, acknowledgment of lisping lips.

In the meantime we ‘beat the air’ with sound and fury accomplishing little more than the farmer watering barren ground, as hardened as the pathway in the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13). This is great opportunity for the enemy to sow his seed during the night. That same false gospel thrives on false hope which abounds galore among the goats filling the pews of the average church.

The volume of our preaching is often so loud that even God cannot hear it, let alone the goats and sheep of the flock.

THE FORGOTTEN SPIRIT OF PRAYER

DECLINE OF NORTH ATLANTIC CHRISTIANS ( 2)

DECLINE OF NORTH ATLANTIC CHRISTIANS (Part 2)
The paucity of Western Bible believing assemblies is their ignorance of the needed spirit of prayer.
1. Lost in the 19th C to automatic easy religionists of New England Theology.
2. Lost to American automatic easy conversion: i.e. come and get it, it’s free, and one does not need to seek it before hand with all the heart.
a. Its costless, cross-less and unconditional eternal life.
b. All you have to do is believe the printed verses shown and salvation can be had without any awareness of it.
3. WHY LOST? Commonly believed by clergy: freewill religion of the mind ideology is all that matters. Affirmation, lip profession, and some blessed water: presto! Acknowledgement is enough.
a. If men have the ability to access eternal life by their own will and mental knowledge of the printed ink there is no need for awakening grace. So why renew the abandoned church prayer meetings of the brethren to pray for same.
b. If repentance is merely a change of mind men do not need to be granted the gift of repentance, so why pray for awakening through grace.
c. If universal measure of grace and faith enables anyone, anywhere, anyhow to access God through his own faith then preaching is alone the need. Just print and speak the KNOWLEDGE of the printed ink it is enough.
d. If the preacher’s assurance through counsel is all that is required then mass conversions can happen without the awakening grace.

The weekly intercessory input of the brethren lost.
Without the free opportunity to publicly assemble and intercede for the lost the spirit of prayer is both quenched and resisted. No amount of preaching and/or evangelism can compensate. While it is unchallengeable that (1 Cor.1:21) God has chosen the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe,” that truth cannot stand alone without its nexus, the spirit of prayer described by Paul.

For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man sees, why doth he yet hope for?
But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.

1 Corinthians.1.24-25
Preaching without the Spirit of Prayer is mere ideology.
1. It can inspire the orator and the admiring loyalists but it cannot inspire hope that saves and regenerates the hearer.
2. Preaching without its nexus is like a cloud without water; a smoking flax smoke, but no fire;

Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groaning which cannot be uttered. And he that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

(Romans 8:26-27)

INDOCTRINATION IS PROXY REGENERATION
1. With all bibliolatry of the 19th C, one or two verses are pragmatically selected to use them as an arbiter to interpret the rest of the Bible. For example Romans 10:9 has become a magical fetish for quick, easy, unconditional salvation. It is twisted away from context and the overall total teachings of Paul in the rest of his epistle.

2. The method of bibliolatry is excessive reverence for a select phrase, verse, or passage to interpret all other related Scripture and pragmatically dispose of any counter balance. This rationale created over 2,000 new Christian denominations in the 19th C. Literalist and fundamental bibliolatry gave unprecedented rise to divisions within Christendom. Those divisions were based upon purist separatism and the worst form of sectarianism that continues to polarize and fracture the community of the saints.

3. The tragic irony was the further splits from the newly formed denomination leading in the end to many saints opting out of church attendance altogether as the disease of judgmental censoriousness consumed them.

4. Modern evangelists are wrongly compared to Finney, Edwards, Wesley and Whitefield, and there is no similarity whatsoever between them and their counterparts the American evangelists of the late 19th, 20th, and 21st Century. The striking differences are:-

a. They do not have the spirit of prayer,
b. They instead manufacture a spirit of excitement
c. Excitement relies on certain musical tempo and lilt to stir the feelings;
d. Excitement grows on musical instruments for atmosphere
e. Excitement is dependent on vocal entertainment (called spiritual?);
f. Excitement relies on tension reducing humour to release emotions
g. Excitement thrives with a stage produced persuasive psychology
h. Excitement comes from skilfully manipulating mood and emotion
i. Excitement is to titillate expectancy with a note of urgency
j. The tools of excitement vary according to the needs of a congregation,
i. Traditional, contemporary, or modern audience
ii. Minors, teens, youth, adulthood, elderly;
k. All psychological methods to excite are poor substitutes for the spirit of prayer, which alone brings genuine awakening of the soul when the Gospel is preached; which alone is conducive to Holy Ghost illumination and regeneration of disciples. I.e. those who have not the indwelling Spirit, but only God’s presence temporarily with them while the Father patiently draws them to the Saviour; to conviction; and to repentance. Only then will they receive the gift of faith (not to be confused with their own fickle freewill faith).

DECLINE OF NORTH ATLANTIC CHRISTIANS ( 2)

PRAYER OF CONFESSION BY WESTERN SAINTS

CONFESSION & ADMISSION BY CAUCASIAN SAINTS
Dear Heavenly Father, As we read thy word in Romans 11 and Genesis 9:27 we look at the apostate state of Japheth’s children in Christendom of the West, and we, like you O Lord, are grieved. Surely the time draws nigh when the descendants of Japheth will be broken off and the children of Shem will be grafted back into their olive tree.

Thy promise through Noah of enlargement to the Caucasian children of Japheth of Europe was combined with the nexus of us dwelling in the tents of Shem.

We acknowledge O Lord the enlargement of European nations since the dawn of the Reformation that began to end the Roman stranglehold of darkness. You have been merciful in keeping your promise enlarging advances in education, science, industry, medicine, wealth and capital gain beyond imagination. But we (Japheth) have forgotten both Israel (Shem) and faith by grace and its prior need of awakening shared by the Reformation and created our own witty inventions of religious substitutes of sacrament, affirmation, and philosophical optimism, spurning our plight under original sin’s blight.

We have become a wilful, violent people whose eyes are haughty with lofty eyelids and stiff necks. We have clung to the Tree of Knowledge instead of the Tree of Life and are blind to our wicked ways, while we hypocritically assert superiority over both Shem and Ham. Our only puritanical streak remaining is our puritanical hypocrisy. Our confrontational judgmental ways provokes the very violence we want to avoid. Surely the “days of Noah,and their violent imaginations are with us once again, even the vile wickedness of Sodom, and Gomorrah which you once destroyed.

Now O Lord we confess that we have for the most part turned our back on the tent of Shem in arrogance and political folly. Furthermore, we have scorned the faith of the Reformers and invented our own freewill faith rejecting the necessity of the spirit of prayer and prevenient grace that awakens the lost to hear the good news. Though Israel has known your ‘breach of promise’ and we Gentiles were grafted in to the Vine, the time draws nigh when you will break off our branches and restore Israel to yourself.

PRAYER OF CONFESSION BY WESTERN SAINTS

Truth About 21st C Christianity.(4)

Truth About 21st C Christianity.(4)
1. Religious speculation became rife after the death of the soul. The endless babble of Babel’s builders demonstrated its futility.
2. Likewise today’s babble of extemporary preachers infatuated with their own unctuous unction is often void of biblical content and full of humanistic sectarian psychology laced with doctrinaire philosophy.
3. Despite their reliance upon natural human faith, man’s faith is weak, double-minded, and is incapable of accessing God. The Twelve often exasperated Jesus with their lack of faith. Only when they were converted at the resurrection was distrust replaced by the faith of Christ as they received His Spirit. (Luke 24; John 20.)
4. In the case of the first twelve disciples prevenient grace was given by Christ at Jesus’ awakening call to follow him.
5. Prevenient grace moved the twelve men to seek his company and presence wherever he went as they heard & learned of the Father (John 6)
6. It took 40 months before their eyes were opened at conversion Luke 24, John 20
7. Illuminating-faith and repentance was given to those at Emmaus & Jerusalem Luke 24
8. The eleven disciples and one hundred and nine other converts from Christ’s forty days’ appearances, prayed for ten days, after the ascension, awaiting the Sprit’s outpouring Acts 1.
9. The book of Acts reveals that the interceding High Priest sending the spirit of prayer to gathered saints will move the Father to awaken the lost.
10. Do-it-yourself evangelism of the 21st C has completely forgotten this with its easy-automatic religion.
11. Evangelism without the spirit of prayer is empty and often the verbose self-effort of easy-religion planting false hope as the enemy sows his tares (false converts).

Bible References:
Prevenient grace is present in the awakened soul prior to conversion. It is temporary and temporal in substance until the follower has heard of the Father; learned of Him; and discovered the failure of self effort before receiving the gifts of repentance and saving-faith.
1. Luke 24:31, 32, 45.
And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight.
32 And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?
45 Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,
2. Acts 16:14 And a certain woman named Lydia… heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.
3. John 1:16 And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.
4. Romans 1:17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith:
5. Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that ‘not of yourselves: it is the gift’ of God:
God’s Gift of Repentance is Selective not Universal
6. 2 Corinthians 7:10 For ‘godly’ sorrow worketh repentance … but the sorrow of the world worketh death.
Godly sorrow is given by God. Man’s own sorrow is not enough.
7. Acts 5:31 Him hath God exalted…for to ‘give’ repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.
8. Acts 11:18 …(they)glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles ‘granted’ repentance unto life.
9. Acts 3:16 …the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.
10. Romans 12:3 … God hath dealt to every man (“that is among you”) the measure of faith.
11. Galatians 2:20 …I live by the faith of the Son of God,
12. Ephesians 3:12 …by the faith of him.
13. Philippians 3:9 …through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
14. Colossians 2:12 …through the faith of the operation of God

Truth About 21st C Christianity.(4)

EVANGELISTS HAVE GOT IT ALL WRONG.

EVANGELISTS HAVE GOT IT ALL WRONG.
1. They think results depend upon their verbosity
2. They think mastery of the method wins souls
3. They think their own prayers most crucial
4. They think private lay prayers are secondary
5. They think filling a meeting house is success
6. They think the invitee’s own faith is the key catalyst
7. They think responders’ lips make heaven’s doors open
8. They think responders’ physical foot and hand motion is eternal life
9. They think their meetings in His house are the most important
10. They and their pastors have locked out free prayer from His House
11. “My house shall be called the house of prayer! You’ve made it a den of thieves.”
12. You have stolen away any space, place or room for gathered saints to pray.
13. You are bereft of the spirit of prayer which alone ushers in new babes in Christ.
14. With froth and bubble, toil and trouble you’ve relied on your own superiority
15. In your self-centred sowing of seed you have allowed the enemy to sow his own.
16. You want the fire, but you keep hot coals apart to prevent it starting.
17. In your mechanized evangelism and stilted control of the laity you’ve created sterility and still births. You have robbed His House of the spirit of prayer the very agent of new birth and regeneration.

Joel 1:17. “The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered.”

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EVANGELISTS HAVE GOT IT ALL WRONG.

1.

FAITHLESS CHURCH OF THE LAST DAYS

WESTERN CHURCH REJECTS FAITH BY GRACE?
Of the world’s 2,800 denominations (Barratt 1970) there are five main segments in the Christendom’s churches:

1. The sacramental church Christians, captives of tradition;
2. The liberal church Christians serving critical intellectualism;
3. The moral-majority church Christians addicted to a moralizing agenda
4. The conservative church Christians often evangelical and Conservative
5. The separatist fringe-dwelling church Christians claiming sectarian uniqueness

The universal faith of the religious Christian is often misplaced. Freewill faith belongs to humanist voluntarism, espoused by Origen at first, then more radically by Pelagius, his successor.

After 3rd C Origen self-will faith was echoed by Constantine’s 4th C Church of Rome; the Renaissance; the 18th C Enlightenment and finally by 19th C New England Theology evangelicals. The 18th C positivist philosophy which viewed man as basically good, betrayed the New Testament truth of his evil heart, darkened conscience, deceitful motives and wayward will, which is captive to original sin.

Since 1846 the USA evangelicals have rejected the Reformation’s righteousness of faith: a faith given by grace to the wholehearted seeker. Instead they claimed man is able by innate self-faith to access God’s grace under the sound of the Gospel preacher. The preceding saints’ intercessory prayer gatherings that would empower such preaching were overlooked and the evangelist became the chief catalyst. This new concept was built on the false premise that a measure of grace and faith is universally resident in man from the image of God he bears. Thus his assumed ability to understand, and seek the Lord becomes active in the presence of preaching. Yet, hinged alone on the vehicle of preaching the new genre of fundamental evangels unwittingly compromised the New Testament. The prophets and the apostles said that no one naturally understands the preaching of the Word, nor wants to seek Christ . (1 Corinthians 1:21; Romans 3:11; 1 Corinthians 2:13-14.)

Automated, mechanical evangelism soon abandoned the old-time weekly intercessors’ meeting and in its humanistic flurry of extemporary bombast it persuaded men to be converts of the church, but not of Christ.
Ditching original sin and replacing it with an unsullied image of God within man can never do more than sow tares in the harvest field of the world that once received the good seed of the Sower.

The Bible doctrine of faith through grace was inverted so that human self-willed faith became the key to conversion and the phenomenal growth of church empires in the USA. This easy-religion of stage produced sensationalism wowed the American populace as it tried to simulate a third Great Awakening. But it has constantly lacked the spirit of prayer, so essential to any awakening of the lost and the arresting power of the Spirit so paramount before conversion.

Oratorical persuasion of itself is a poor substitute. This new genre featured Billy Sunday, who won converts by a handshake at the end of his tent meetings. Also the likes of 19th C Dwight L Moody and Reuben A Torrey, mechanized automated conversion of the masses and devised modern methods of prayer to GET WHAT WAS DESIRED FROM GOD. The most famous fetish (still in vogue today) was to repeat the rote ‘Sinner’s Prayer’ for immediate salvation based on Romans 10:9 and 10:13 twisted from their context.

FAITHLESS CHURCH OF THE LAST DAYS