Bonus Study Two: Part Two

Part Two

Now I must turn my attention to the ‘unprofitable servant’; the mediocre servant who only does what he is supposed to do but does not take it any further than that. I want to note, in this next reference: Luke 12:46, that the unprofitable servant is mentioned in contrast to another type of person: the unbeliever. I want to note that the unprofitable servant, while cast in with the unbeliever, is nevertheless referred to as a servant.

“The Lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for Him, (the servant is not waiting and watching) and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.”

That ‘portion’ may be a reference to ‘hell’. Someday there may be enough of these studies to fill a book. If I should get published, and be read, I hope that the reader, as he or she follows this particular part where I look into the ‘hypocrite’, will constantly drape this tapestry on the framework of the church as well as the individual. The hypocrite is a member of the current religious structure. That was, in Jesus’ day, the Scribes and Pharisees and experts in the letter of the law. They were the upper echelons; they dressed and acted accordingly. In our day and age, we must look at the contemporary Christian church; we must look for similarities to those that Jesus cut down. I turn first to the nature of the hypocrite.

Read Matthew 16:2 and 3, “He answered and said unto them, when it is evening, ye say, it will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, it will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowring. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?”

Note that Jesus called them hypocrites, rather than ignorant. They could have, in fact, discerned the signs of the times – had they ever bothered to investigate. Scripture tells us that if we seek, we will find. This passage shows that the hypocrite has a set way of doing; a limit to his knowing. In Jesus day there were men who looked into the Holy word and saw Jesus. The hypocrite had access to those same scrolls but they closed their eyes to anything which they had not ‘set’ for themselves. This puts me in mind of those that jailed Leonardo De Vinci. Narrow-mindedness can help a man stay focused but closed-mindedness simply puts one out of the loop. In the modern contemporary Christian church, there are many book-smart scholars. They wear their suits and jewelry; they jet with the scholarly crowd; they proudly display their credentials in ornate frames on the walls of their offices. Their speeches are long-winded and are usually structured to support ‘things as they are’: such as tithing, winning souls, and preaching deliverance from sin.

Of course, that is pretty much a closed circuit; the preaching of deliverance garners souls, which keep the church buildings full and the tithes flowing. They have treated faith like a hermit crab treats old seashells on the ocean floor, for the hermit crab will encase itself until it is forced to seek a larger shell.

But Jesus said, in Matthew 15:7 through 9, “Ye hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophecy of you, saying, this people draweth nigh unto Me with their mouth, and honoureth Me with their lips; but their heart is far from Me. But in vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”

I see this occur in the contemporary Christian church every time they observe Easter, lading upon the souls of children the fertility symbols of Ishtar. I think the nature of the hypocrite is self-exaltation; they fit rather snugly in the shell of anything that spotlights their involvement in an event that lifts them up above others.

Matthew 7:5, “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.”

Even in acts of benevolence, lifting oneself up only exposes one’s error. Hypocrites really got our Lord worked up. He never had a good word for them. He told His followers not to be like them. And, too, there is one thing in the equation of being a hypocrite which the hypocrite has not ‘set’ for himself, that is the reward of a hypocrite.

In Matthew 6:2, 5, and 16, Jesus describes the hypocrite for the edification of His followers.

1. They ‘sound a trumpet’ before them (a lot of fanfare) both in their congregational meetings and out in the streets.

2. They seek praises from other men.

3. They pray in a fashion that is intended for the hearing of other men.

4. They put on airs so that others will notice them.

Jesus said that is all they will get out of it. What is the difference in making broad their phylacteries;

enlarging the borders of their garments; (Matt. 23:5) and wearing a fancy suit, Florshiems, and a

Rolex? Honestly, I can’t see a difference.

Jesus did not try to hide His dislike of hypocrites. He was not one to pull His punches. In Jesus’ day, it seemed never to be the little man, but always the Scribe and Pharisee (I should also note: never the Sadducee). Today’s equivalent might be the Doctor of Divinities or any other such pompous title. The Scribes and Pharisees were always the ones trying to catch Jesus in some slip or omission. They must have thought of themselves as word specialists. We have our share of those, too. They drop this or that word; they harp on imagined subtleties; they publish book after book. They pick things to pieces to better build their own constructs.

Matthew 22:18, “But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, why tempt ye Me, ye hypocrites?”

In Matthew 23:13 through 29, and in Luke 11:44 and 13:15, Jesus floored the reigning champ with these blows: “Woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites!”

1. They close the kingdom of Heaven to men. They won’t go in themselves, and those who desire to enter, they block.

2. They eat up widow’s houses, & make long prayers (a pretense for which they shall receive the greater damnation).

3. They search the world to make converts, and when they do, those souls are the more likely to be damned.

4. They tithe of their best, but for show only; in their customs, they omit the more important matters of law, judgment, mercy, and faith.

5. They place much effort into projecting a good image, but that is only a cover for their crimes against others, self-abuses, murders, and unclean things.

6. They build monuments, lay wreaths, and hang garlands for the prophets, and righteous slain, but they prove themselves aligned to the ones who killed the prophets and all else who belong to God.

7. They hide their own pollution so that others are unknowingly tainted.

8. They know what good is; they do it for themselves, but they use the law against others to maintain power and control.

So then, I return to the main theme of this study: ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’. There shall be a particular group of people who shall ‘weep & gnash their teeth’ – so says Jesus. Just on face value, we may surmise that the reference is toward very intense suffering. These lamentable souls are those who are placed in ‘hell’. Now, there are many uses of the word ‘hell’. I want to point out some of the common inferences.

1. Hell is a place, state, or condition where the “whole body” may be cast. (Matthew 5:29 and 30)

2. Hell is a place, state, or condition where “both soul and body” may be cast for their destruction. (Matthew 10:28)

3. Hell is a place, state, or condition that is on a lower level than our current place, state, or condition. (Matthew 11:23)

4. Hell is a place, state, or condition where there is a form of consumption. (Matthew 5:22 and 18:9)

5. Hell is a place, state, or condition that is reserved for the most despicable. (Matthew 23:33)

6. Hell is a place, state, or condition that comes after death. (Luke 12:5 and Revelation 6:8)

7. Hell is a place, state, or condition that Christ controls. (Revelation 1:18)

8. Hell is a place, state, or condition where the individual remains conscious. (Luke 16:23)

9. Hell is a place, state, or condition that already exists; where the fallen angels are bound in “chains of darkness”; a keep for those “reserved unto judgement”. (II Peter 2:4)

Hell has been, and still is, used to refer to the grave: a place where dead bodies may be found. It is a place of corruption and decay.

1. Dead bodies are returned from the “sea” and “death and hell”. (Revelation 20:13)

2. Dead bodies arise from “graves” where they were held in a reserved state. (Matthew 27:52)

3. Dead bodies are able to hear Christ calling to them from their “graves”. (John 5:28)

4. Dead bodies are sealed into caves. (John 11:17, 38, 44, and John 12:17)

5. Dead bodies are withheld from the grave as a punishment in the course of revenge. (Revelation 11:9)

Hell, or the grave has been seen as the delineation, or gate, between the corruptible and incorruption, between the mortal and immortality, which can be clearly understood in the reading of I Corinthians 15:54 and 55. Hell is seen, in Acts 2:27, as a force that may even corrupt the soul, and in Matthew 16:18, as a force that is in opposition to Christ’s church, but it is a force that, ultimately, will itself be cast into the final destruction that is the lake of fire, Revelation 20:14.

In Mark 9:43 through 48, our Lord speaks of hell, using a set phrase three times within His discourse. The words are graphic and, while they may be symbolic to a point, I can’t help but read them literally.

There is a singular expression: “the fire”, and there is a plural expression: “their worm”. In speaking

of graves and dead bodies in relation to the expanse of eternity, such ongoing states can be downright

scary. However, I wish to recall that the grave is a temporary keep (II Peter 2:4) between death and

judgment. The lake of fire: now, that’s eternal.

We must not jump to the conclusion that just because normal worms do die, this statement from our Lord is symbolic. A spiritual worm may actually not die for all we know – and we know so very little about the spiritual realm. But, in a sense, ‘worm’ is symbolic of corruption or decay, in general. Having already determined that consciousness is retained in the grave, the perpetual gnawing of that worm is a horribly unthinkable thought. As for the fire of hell or the fire of the grave, consider this: fire is a consumption. I read once in an encyclopedia that ‘rotting’ or decay, (since heat is a by-product) is considered to be a very slow form of combustion.

Bible scholars have the following things to say about hell and the grave. Hell is derived from the Saxon word: ‘helan’, which meant ‘to cover’ and so was used for ‘the covered’ or ‘the invisible place’. The word: ‘sheol’ occurs in the Old Testament 65 times, and basically means ‘insatiable’ and is rendered as ‘grave’ 31 times. It is rendered in the Authorized Version 31 times as ‘hell’ or the ‘place of disembodied spirits’.

The citizens of sheol, according to Proverbs 21:16, are “the congregation of the dead”. Various scriptures have sheol both as the abode of the wicked, and of the good. Sheol is described variously in scripture as “deep”, “dark”, having “bars”, and in a position where the dead must “go down”. In the New Testament, the Greek word: ‘hades’ means much the same thing. It is a prison with gates, bars, and locks. The word: ‘gehenna’ designates ‘the place of the lost’. The Greek contraction of the Hinnom, Gehenna was not used except to denote the future place of punishment. All the associations are Jewish. Hinnom was a deep, narrow ravine separating Mount Zion from the ‘Hill of evil counsel’. It took its name from the son of Hinnom, an ancient hero.

In Joshua 15:8, it was the place where idolatrous Jews burned their children alive to Moloch and Baal. A particular part of the valley was called ‘Tophet’, or ‘fire-stove’, where the children were burned. After the exile, to show their abhorrence of the locality, Jews made that valley the receptacle for the offal of the city, which was kept constantly burning. There are two basic associations (ideas) about that valley: (1) the suffering of the victims sacrificed there, and (2) filth and corruption: which in turn engendered the popular symbolism of ‘the abode of the wicked hereafter’. These facts were culled from a Bible dictionary.

Now, there is an erroneous Catholic belief, on a par with ‘purgatory’ and ‘limbo’, that hell is divided between the good and bad. They believe that the parable about Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom places both Lazarus and Abraham in a sort of West Wing of hell. They cite scripture in defense of their stand. Let me just show what that scripture says. That scripture is Matthew 16:19 through 26. The short of it is this: the rich man died and was buried; in contrast to the fate of the rich man, Lazarus died and was transported by Heavenly beings into the bosom of Abraham. The rich man called out to Abraham, who was “afar off”; whereupon, Abraham answered that between him and the rich man was a “great gulf fixed”. That could have been equally rendered as between ‘us’ and ‘you’ (two separate entities), or, between us and you in torments (two separate states), or, between us, and you in hell (two separate places). The word: ‘gulf’, if taken something like the gulf that divides Texas from Florida, could conceivably be considered, at least in a sense, as a great gulf fixed. And yet, one must consider that if it is the gulf itself that separates, then of necessity, there must be absolutely no access by following the coast.

The Bible presents the reader with ‘either-or’ situations: light and dark, good and evil, Heaven and hell. We may be looking at a singular position (the grave) with two separate and distinct forms of consciousness, one wide awake, one sleeping (Matthew 27:52). Awakening someone who would rather be asleep gives rise to ire, for example, when Saul had the spirit of Samuel raised from the earth, Samuel responded something like: ‘why troublest thou me, to bring me up?’. That is not to say the reward of the righteous, or the position of Heaven, per se, is to be found in the earth. And yet, there is the paradox of Christ’s location after His crucifixion. Christ, for the sins of man, was slated to die on the cross, descend into the realm of Satan for three days and wrestle from the enemy the keys to death and hell. Like Jonah in the big fish, Jesus was supposed to be held in the bowels of the earth for three days.

On the cross, Christ calls out: “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken Me” as if God had turned His back on His son as if Christ already felt the searing torments of hell as it insatiably licked at His feet. When Christ said to the repentant thief that he would join Christ, that very day, in ‘paradise’, could He have possibly meant that paradise had anything to do with torment? I think not. But then, Christ is the beginning and the end; He is both before and after; in our beginning, and also in the promise of our forever. He once said that where He ‘Is’, there is His servant also.

I believe that our Lord has never been bound by linear time but may be anywhere and everywhere all at once. Therefore, the thief’s translation to paradise may well have been to that glorious future we have yet to taste. In none of our Lord’s discourses about hell did He ever mention it as a paradise but, rather, as a terrible place. It is a place where dues are collected, where stripes are dispensed. The servant, not the outsider, is judged according to preset standards.

Read Luke 12:47 and 48, “And that servant, which knew his Lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to His will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes.”

Here’s the kicker: the preset standard, “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.”

God has given much to His servant the church; He has given considerably less to the unbeliever. Be very clear on that one point: it is the servant that has the most to lose; it is the servant who will weep and gnash his teeth.

Hell is associated with darkness; fallen angels are bound in chains of darkness but Christ named hell not merely darkness – He called it “outer darkness”. Christ experienced outer darkness, Himself when He was forsaken of God the Father for three days. Here, Christ is speaking of the worst kind of hell: separation from God. I began this study with five scripture references to ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’, or in other words, writhing in abject torment. Of whom, then, does our Lord speak? Is it the outsider, the atheist or believer in other gods? Is it the hypocrite within the body of the church, the ones who deliberately do wrong, or is it the servant, the one who thinks he or she is on the straight and narrow, but really is not?

It is the latter, the unprofitable servant, the one who did what he was supposed to do – but failed to take his or her spiritual connection seriously enough to ask, seek, or knock. They preached salvation to the saved and they thought that was all they had to do; they never took anything new out of the treasure chest of God’s word. Like the Jews who thought that obedience to the law was an end in itself and, thus, rejected change, so the modern contemporary church has viewed itself through rose-colored glasses and, thus, rejected growth.

Those with the most to lose and those who will cry the loudest are the self-deceived, both Jewish and

Christian. The Christian will awake some morning and discover that he was not ‘raptured’; he will

cry to the Lord, “we healed and prophesied in your name,” and Christ will answer, “I know not

whence you are.”

To the Jew Christ says, “When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and He shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are: then shall ye begin to say, we have eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught in our streets. But He shall say, I tell you, I know not whence ye are; depart from Me, all ye workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the Kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out.” (Luke 13:25 - 28)

Again, to the Jew Christ says, “And I say unto you, that many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the Kingdom of Heaven. But the children of the Kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 8:11 – 12)

To the contemporary Christian, as well as to the church, Christ says, in Matthew 22:12 through 14, 25:30 and 24:50 and 51, “And He saith unto him, friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then said the King to the servants, bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. The Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for Him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

In regard to this message to the modern church, Christ told his disciples in John 15:15, “Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.”

What exactly is the failure on the part of the unprofitable servant? It is a failure of friendship with God. Having been let in on the closest thoughts and intents of the Highest and having been brought into such confidence, the profitable friend is without excuse and condemns himself with evidence of unprofitability.

Bonus Study Two: Part One

Bonus Study Two:

Part One

This is a study about “Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth”. It began with all of five scripture references. Jesus is the only source of the expression ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’. It goes without saying, therefore, that these are all New Testament verses: Mat. 8:11-12, 22:12-14, 24:50-51, 25:30, and Luke 13:25-28. There are no Old Testament parallels. But, this New Testament time, in which Our Lord spoke these words, was a transitional time in which the Christian church was breaking away, and becoming distinct, from the Jewish synagogue. The people to which Jesus directed these words were both Jewish, and future Christians. I had to ask myself who, exactly, was the intended target for this communication of doom.

When I began a more thorough scrutiny of the wording, I had to begin including more reference sources. I had to include such terms as ‘servant’, ‘hypocrite’, ‘hell’, and ‘friend’. I ended up with eight typed pages of resource notes. Historically, we tend to think of the children of Israel as God’s servant; (and here, we might consider the Jewish religious belief structure (the synagogue) as a type of face for the national body) however, contemporary Christianity likes to place the church in the role of the servant of God.

Understanding the uses of the word ‘servant’ is key to this study. So then, whether a synagogue (as

a body of one type of believers) or a church (as a body of another type of believers), we must determine if a body of believers constitutes a ‘servant’, and we must determine what exactly is the nature of a servant. I have many telling scriptures to work from.

Let us begin with the most generalized meaning of the word, as found in the book of Revelation, the third verse in chapter 22: “His servants shall serve Him.”

That is a simple statement which leaves no room for deviation - God’s servant will serve God. The concepts of allegiance and servitude go hand in hand. When given a choice, or when a choice is thrust upon one, the natural mechanics of allegiance will spin into life to settle any nagging doubt about actual position. In America, we have a pledge of allegiance; I learned it as a child; most of us know it by heart. Americans who pledge their allegiance to America, but serve the will of foreign interests, are usually tried as spies and traitors.

Scripture has two things to say about such divided allegiance. We find just how easy one may switch sides in John 8:34, “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.”

It happens just that fast and it is most often the regularity of our deeds that place us on the one side or the other. We end up, if not with positive and negative feelings, at least with positive and negative inclinations.

Luke 16:13 says this, “No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.”

I should mention, here, that the word ‘despise’ is not used as an active emotion but, rather, as the consequence of a choice – as when Esau chose a bowl of meal over his birthright: and therefore it is said that he despised his birthright.

In any body of believers, there is a division, at least in common knowledge, between good and bad, right and wrong, light and dark, up and down, true follower and hypocrite. The ‘servant’, then, must take sides between those who truly serve, and those who do not ‘truly’ serve. I have notes on the attributes both of ‘servants’ and ‘hypocrites’. I want to begin with the attributes of a servant.

I began with a preconception of what a servant was – it was that of a slave; beaten, abused, in want

of basic necessities. That preconception evaporated when I read how important people came to Jesus

desperately begging for the life and health of a servant. It was as if the servant held the place of a relative or dear friend. It seems, then, that a servant can hold a high rank, a place of favor – a servant can be a confidant. There is trust involved, respect and even love. Also, servants were paid; they had possessions all their own.

Luke 15:17 has the prodigal son making this statement, “How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!”

As for trust, Matthew 25:14 shows us this, “For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods.”

So, a servant can be a trusted confidant. What else can a servant be? A servant is positioned, if not authorized, to deal with matters gone awry.

In Matthew 13:28, we find the servant represented as such, “He said unto them, an enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?”

Having managed workers, I know from experience that a man will settle in a routine. Oft times, when something had gone wrong and I asked that it be ameliorated, I was told to my face, ‘It’s not my mess, I didn’t make it. Why do I have to clean it up?’ The servants in the parable said nothing like that, their first response was allegiance to their master, no matter what the job.

In Mark 13:34 we see servants given authority, “For the son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch.”

So, a servant can be authorized to achieve a certain end. Firstly, on my part, I would have to be able to trust the man I sent to do the job. Secondly, I would not want to send the wrong man out, but rather the man most qualified to do the work. I would not send a cook to do a soldier’s job. Servants may also be authorized to use force.

Luke 14:23, “And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.”

Yes, ‘compel’ may also mean very strong persuasion, but masters use servants to enforce their will, and sometimes that means force.

Read John 18:36, “Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if My kingdom were of this world, then would My servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is My kingdom not from hence.”

I actually want to study three types of servant; the nation of Israel, the modern contemporary Christian church, and the individual who might be a constituent member of either body. Of Israel, these things are written down in the New Testament.

Luke 1:54 and 69, “He hath holpen His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy; and hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David.”

The Christian church, in this study, has associations to Old Testament Prophets in regard to the concept of what a servant is. So far, I have touched on ‘the closest, most trusted, and most capable’ in the rendering of this definition.

The book of Revelation says about the ‘church’ in 7:3, “Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.”

This verse is commonly held to refer to the martyrs and saints of the latter-day Christian Church. Before I move on to the church’s connection to saints, martyrs, and prophets, I wish to give a verse that should make certain all is not well simply because you call yourself a church. You can call yourself a church, and be all the wrong things.

Revelation 2:20 says, “Because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce My servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.”

Now, a church, if it is a servant of God, is so because it is made up of individuals whose allegiance is to the Most High. Servants come in all degrees, from the best right down to the hypocrite. There is the profitable servant and there is the unprofitable servant. Let’s take a standard by which to judge.

Revelation 15:3 says, “And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.”

Moses is the archetype saint, a servant of high caliber.

Revelation 19:2 states, “For true and righteous are His judgments: For He hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of His servants at her hand.”

That pretty much describes a martyr. So, servants, too, are authorized to die.

Revelation 6:11 says, “And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.”

Zero in on the word ‘fellowservant’, I will come back to it shortly. Add to the current definition: a high caliber of commitment. We do not, at all, have to guess who the servants are; the Bible names them for us.

Revelation 19:5 says, “A voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise our God, all ye His servants, and ye that fear Him, both small and great.”

Again, Revelation 11:18 says it this way, “The nations were angry, and Thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that Thou shouldest give reward unto Thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear Thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.”

And once again, Revelation 10:7 says to us, “But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to His servants the prophets.”

This study, while mentioning prophets, is still engaged in latter-day topics as brought forth in the book of Revelation. A prophet is not simply mentioned in passing but is mentioned as having a real connection to the modern church.

Acts 2:18 says this, “And on My servants and on My handmaidens I will pour out in those days of My spirit; and they shall prophesy.”

Now we begin to see a connection between the Christian and the prophet. Christians are ‘ambassadors’ for Christ; prophets of old were also ambassadors.

Witness Luke 20:10 through 12, “And at the season he sent a servant to the husbandmen, that they should give him of the fruit of the vineyard: but the husbandmen beat him, and sent him away empty. And again he sent another servant: and they beat him also, and entreated him shamefully, and sent him away empty. And again he sent a third: and they wounded him also, and cast him out.”

It is easy enough for anyone to see that Christ’s parable is about the prophets of God. They came as ambassadors, or in other words, they came ‘in the name of’ their master, or in his ‘stead’.

In that regard, read Luke 19:13, “He called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, occupy till I come.”

That puts me in mind of an embassy; its occupants are there instead of, or in the name of their government. The one true church is Christ’s embassy on earth and we are Christ’s ambassadors, like as were the prophets to God. We have been told to occupy till He returns.

As already mentioned, there is the profitable (or ‘good’) servant, and there is the unprofitable servant. The thing to see in this is that they both serve, they are all members of the body of service, or so they say. Let’s read of the profitable servant, and here, let’s see it as a church.

Luke 19:17, “And he said unto him, well, thou good servant: because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities.”

Of course, the key word in this is ‘faithful’, but that is only one word in a key phrase (faithful in a very little). Why is “a very little” used? It is all too easy to border on mediocrity, which itself borders on unprofitability.

Read Luke 17:9 and 10. “Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not. So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, we are unprofitable servants, we have done that which was our duty to do.”

Remember Moses, the servant of God? There are, unmistakably, ‘levels of service’. Moses went above and beyond the call of duty: he took it up as his own. He took it personally. So where does the profitable servant stand?

John 12:26 tells us, “If any man serve Me, let him follow Me; and where I Am, there shall also My servant be: if any man serve Me, him will My Father honor.”

The profitable servant has a place; his level of faithful commitment has brought him up nearer the master, but he must always remember that he is only the messenger.

John 13:16 and 17 advise us, “The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.”

Is there an upper limit of service beyond which we may not go? Yes. One can only be so faithful and loyal as a servant. Remember the important people that begged Jesus for the life and health of their servants? They begged for friendship’ sake.

John 15:15 opens our eyes to that, “Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you.”

Now, do you recall the word fellowservant? Here is where the study returns to that word. This study has explored the servant as a martyr, as a saint, even as a prophet. Now I want to bring in a strange twist to the concept of the servant – that of the servant being an angel. I read Revelation 1:1 and the thought came to me, what if the verse mentions angels, not as apart from, but as a link in the ‘chain-of-command’ (speaking-of-servants-wise).

The verse is this, “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto Him, to shew unto His servants things which must shortly come to pass; and He sent and signified it by His angel unto His servant John.”

On the surface, angels seem to be outside the servant issue. But, angels were servants, after all the first seven mentioned in this book each had authority over a church. This verse breaks down to me in this manner: Christ served God by passing on the revelation that God gave, the angel served Christ by passing the revelation from Christ to John, and John, in turn, was a servant by the same standard. I am not saying John was a servant to the angel but, rather, that John was a fellowservant with the angels.

Revelation 18:21 through 24 added to Revelation 19:1 through 10 is a long section of scripture that speaks of servants, and our connection to angels in that regard. I’ll break it down as follows: John heard a “Mighty Angel” speak (naming servants in verse 24: ‘prophets’, ‘saints’, and ‘all that were slain upon the earth’). Next, he heard many voices praising God, then the voices of the twenty-four elders. After that, a voice came out of the throne, followed by an even greater multitude of voices praising God. Finally, the “mighty angel” spoke again, telling John to write something, whereupon, John recorded that he fell down and worshiped the “mighty angel” The angel told him not to do that, and he explained it to John this way: he said, “I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” Was the mighty angel one of John’s old acquaintances? Was it Stephen in an exalted state of service?

I said that I wanted to study Israel as a servant but the study was short: God remembered Israel, not because of service but because of God’s mercy. I said that I wanted to study the modern church as a servant but I have left the last part for last. When the study swings back toward the original topic, ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’, then I will bring in the last part, the unprofitable servant, the hypocrite.

For now, attention should be turned to the individual, and God’s spin on the issue. Just as the body is made up of organs, which in turn are composed of cells; so is the body of Christ constituted of churches, which in turn are comprised of individual believers. The body of Christ is an organic structure, a living thing based on the building blocks of individual believers.

Similar to a grouping of cells that are the same, or serve the same purpose, so the alignment, or

allegiance, of the individual believers, constitutes an organ in the body of Christ: a church. I have

normally seen the seven churches mentioned in the book of Revelation as a sort of historical

treatment of the body’s growth through the ages, as stages in the life of the church. I see that these

seven churches may also be viewed as seven organs within the one body. However that is, the

starting point in all of this is the individual; we want to understand the individual as a servant.

Luke 2:25 through 29 profiles an individual servant. “And, behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same was just and devout, waiting (watching) for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him. And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. And he came by the Spirit into the temple: and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for Him after the custom of the law, then took he Him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said, Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word.”

This is a clearly etched image of a servant, someone who did not go into the temple for mere duty, or custom; but was compelled by his truer nature: he wanted to go to the temple, to be nearer God, or in other words: “he came by the Spirit”. Also, by the reading of the verses above, we can see that Simeon was a man that waited for God; he watched; he kept his attentions trained.

Let me add to that the corroboration of Luke 12:37, “Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when He cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that He shall gird Himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them.”

This study is presently looking at what God sees as important in a servant. I hope that anyone who might read this study will note that Christ speaks of Himself coming forth to serve the servants. A little further down in that same scripture the tenet of the above-cited verse can be found repeated: “Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord when He cometh shall find so doing.” That speaks not only of watching and waiting but persevering in service. Jesus is the Most High, yet He comes forth and serves.

The Master/servant concept should not confuse if one understands that spiritual concepts are sometimes the reverse of worldly concepts.

The next verse, Matthew 24:45 and 46, may blur the lines a bit between individual and group; it may even be prophetic of either individual or church in the last day but it mirrors the last two scriptures. “Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his Lord hath made ruler over His household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord when He cometh shall find so doing.”

I want to digress just a bit and look at something before I forget. The meat in due season is worthy of notice. Jesus said to Peter, “Lovest thou me?” – “Feed My sheep.” approximately three times. In that, I see the church. But there is to be a season that goes beyond the ‘milk’ to the ‘meat’. In that, I see doctrinal upgrades somewhere by someone. I don’t see mainstream contemporary Christianity ever getting past there cherished customs – all of which revolve around the milk of the Word. It will be some rogue upsetting the church’s apple cart, much as Jesus did with the religious petrification of His day.

The spiritual concept is, in many cases, opposite the worldly concept. Jesus tells us numerous times, Mark 10:44, Mark 9:35, Matthew 23:11, and Matthew 20:27, the same message, “Whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all”; “If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all”; “But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant”; and “Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant.”

Bonus Study One: Fire

Fire

Fire is the last element of the four, though not a finality for the born again: it is merely step two of the process. The water baptism prepared the way for rebirth; the spiritual (air) rebirth prepared the way for what will come next. Fire is many things, on a symbolic level, and was a major feature of the rites performed in God’s Temple. Man first knew fire as a destructive force, and to have control of it made one feel special and empowered. Soon, fire was known for its victory over the everlasting hills. Man could use fire against the indomitable stone, and refine it into pliable metal. A natural mystery on a par with wind, fire soon enough found its way into religious ceremony. Fire was often used to describe God.

Hebrews 12:29, “For our God is a consuming fire.”

Deuteronomy 4:24, “For the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.”

Exodus 24:17, “And the sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel.”

Exodus 19:18, “And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.”

Revelation 4:5, “And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.”

Moreover, God was known by the actions of fire, as we see in such verses as Revelation 20:9, “And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.”

Leviticus 10:2, “And there went out fire from the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the Lord.”

Numbers 11:1, “And when the people complained, it displeased the Lord: and the Lord heard it; and His anger was kindled; and the fire of the Lord burnt among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the camp.”

Numbers 16:35, “And there came out a fire from the Lord, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense.”

The fact that fire was employed to destroy those who were guilty before God, may afford us some added measure of clarification as to the utter iniquity of the destruction of the innocent by fire.

Leviticus 18:21, “And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the Lord.” Just a note: ‘profane’ simply meant to make common, or to mingle.

God was seen daily in the creation of Israel the people. The Lord labored daily on their behalf.

Exodus 40:38, “For the cloud of the Lord was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys.”

Numbers 9:15 and 16, “And on the day that the tabernacle was reared up the cloud covered the tabernacle, namely, the tent of the testimony: and at even there was upon the tabernacle as it were the appearance of fire, until the morning. So it was alway: the cloud covered it by day, and the appearance of fire by night.”

Exodus 13:21 and 22, “And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night: He took not away the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people.”

Exodus 14:24, “And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians.”

Fire was also used in descriptions of Christ Jesus. Both He and the Father, using singular as well as multiple manifestations, were painted in fiery hues. I should point out, here, that when I say

manifestation, I mean the word used in scripture: angel.

Psalms 104:4, “Who maketh His angels spirits; (this is the element of air, of wind, and should be seen as representative of the breath of life which God breathes into His creations and makes living beings) His ministers a flaming fire.”

Ezekiel 8:2, “Then I beheld, and lo a likeness as the appearance of fire: from the appearance of His loins even downward, fire; and from His loins even upward, as the appearance of brightness, as the colour of amber.”

Daniel 10:6, “His body also was like the Beryl, and His face as the appearance of lightning, and His eyes as lamps of fire, and His arms and His feet like in colour to polished brass, and the voice of His words like the voice of a multitude.”

The reference to ‘lamps of fire’ put me in mind of a previously cited verse that explained seven lamps of fire before the throne of God as the seven Spirits of God. As to the reference of the angel’s voice being like a multitude, could that possibly mean the church? One may recall that each of the seven churches mentioned in the book of Revelation had its own angel (a manifestation or spiritual counterpart of Christ), and Christ’s arguments were more with the angels than with the individuals in the congregation.

Revelation 2:18, “And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write; these things saith the Son of God, Who hath His eyes like unto a flame of fire, and His feet are like fine brass.”

It would seem by this, then, that angels were also created in the image of their creator.

Revelation 1:14, “His head and His hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and His eyes were as a flame of fire.”

2 Thessalonians 1:7 and 8, “And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Our basic association with fire is the destruction of, and end of, all things, which we find revealed in the final book of the Bible. However, before we move on to that, let us go back to the youth of mankind, to a time not so far removed from creation.

Acts 7:30, “And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Sina an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush.”

And, don’t think that is simply some New Testament times interpretation of earlier scriptures. The earlier scriptures said the same thing.

Exodus 3:2, “And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.”

Fire is closely related to the Holy presence of God. Perhaps because fire is so knit with the Holiness of God, we find in that link a possible reason for the next verse.

Exodus 35:3, “Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the Sabbath day.”

Another possible reason may be the association that fire has with recreation. Early man did not miss the connection between fire and God; indeed, many were the response from God that took the form of fire.

1 Chronicles 21:26, “And David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called upon the Lord; and He answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt offering.”

2 Chronicles 7:1, “Now when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the Lord filled the house.”

There is a real connection between God and Jesus and angels being all fiery and doing fiery things of note, and the ceremonies that adopted burning as a constituent facet.

Judges 6:21, “Then the angel of the Lord put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and there rose up fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. Then the angel of the Lord departed out of his sight.”

Leviticus 9:24, “And there came a fire out from before the Lord, and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and the fat: which when all the people saw, they shouted, and fell on their faces.”

So here it is: God is a consuming fire, and offerings on the altar are consumed by fire. Christ has eyes like fire, and angels are not only fiery but dole out fires by the occasion. In the first recorded offering, the one that God accepted from Abel, no fire is mentioned directly, but “fat” is mentioned. It all came down to a ceremony in which flesh and fat are burned by fire. When God, therefore, accepts a burnt offering, is it the physical material offered to a spirit that counts, or is it the application of fire, indicating complete submission to God, that most pleases a 'consuming fire?'

Exodus 29:18, “And thou shalt burn the whole ram upon the altar: it is a burnt offering unto the Lord: it is a sweet savour, an offering made by fire unto the Lord.”

Leviticus 1:9, “ . . . and the priest shall burn all on the altar, to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord.”

Washing with water was a part of the sacrifice (symbolic, I think, of baptism), and the Passover lamb (the preimage of Christ’s sacrifice for the world (I.E., the shed blood)) was roasted with fire, whereas the other ceremonial meats were boiled.

2 Chronicles 35:13, “And they roasted the passover with fire according to the ordinance: but the other holy offerings sod they in pots, and in caldrons, and in pans, and divided them speedily among all the people.”

There is also a philosophical aspect to fire evident in some verses of scripture. Man’s control over fire is tentative; at any moment it may rage out of control and consume man along with his hard-won increase. It is this aspect of something so quickly out of control, of something that can become so widespread in the blink of an eye that lends itself to the following philosophical conclusions.

James 3:5 through 6 and Matthew 5:22 conclude, “Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell. But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgement: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.”

In regard to the verses from the book of James, many people are already in that ‘fire of hell’.

Jude 1:22 and 23 says this, “And of some have compassion, making a difference: and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.”

That might be reworded: ‘save them with a swift kick’. Christians are too often thought of as sweet-natured and ineffectual, as fundamentally non-confrontational – the average song-singing, Bible-thumping, church-building-attending, onward-going Christian soldier. This passage from the book of Jude, however, introduces us to the Christian Marine: a front line, difference-making, sinner-thumping Christian – someone who actually does something. The passage from Jude paints a vivid image of the Christian grabbing his sizzling brother or sister, perhaps by the collar, and yanking them brutally from the flames of self-induced consumption. The vivid image no less indicates how far removed from sexual iniquity the Christian is; and too, it shows us an acceptable hatred. These Christian Marines are no sexually timid, sterile bunch; but they have settled on the standards given by God.

If we jump back, for a moment, to James and re-read the latter verse, one is forced to admit that ‘the tongue among our members’ carries an underlying and secondary indication of sexual impropriety, in that the ‘course of nature’ is set on fire; in that the whole ‘body’ is defiled. Yes! The author may well be speaking only of the body of the church. But then again, he may be speaking of a body that usually wears a ‘garment’. It is not just our words that may quickly burn out of our control; it is not just our desires that may go from a simple flame to a raging inferno; it is also our habitual physical actions that get whipped into a blazing wall of self-consumption.

Man is a bold and impetuous vessel whose sail is filled by his own desire, and his course is set by the rudder of violent self-will. Man embraces much that he should not.

Proverbs 6:27 asks the question, “Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?”

This question requires no answer; all that we say and do will manifest in the end; the consequences of what we place in our hearts is all-encompassing. From the good treasure of a good man’s heart comes preservation; from the dark treasure of a bad man’s heart comes destruction. Finally, let it be said that a fire will burn until the fuel is completely spent – if there is more to be devoured, the fire will swallow it up.

Proverbs 30:15 and 16, “The horseleach hath two daughters, crying, give, give. There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things say not, it is enough: the grave; the barren womb; the earth that is not filled with water; and the fire that saith not, it is enough.”

Christ said that He came to send fire on the earth: we must realize, all of us, what the end is about. By now, we are just getting used to the symbols of air and storm. Christ was the bridge between the ‘washing of water’ and ‘the renewal of the spirit’. We have examined the fiery aspects of angels and Christ and God but we are far from crispy. Is it the same watery and windy spirit that brings down the house in a blaze of rectification?

Look at Nahum 1:3, “The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: The Lord hath His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet.”

Is there a connection, then, between the storm (air, water) and fire?

2 Samuel 22:8 through10, “Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations of heaven moved and shook, because He was wroth. There went up a smoke out of His nostrils, and fire out of His mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also, and came down; and darkness was under His feet.”

Here is pictured a fire-breathing God having His way in the whirlwind and standing in the dark stormy clouds.

Psalms 50:3 and 2 Kings 2:11, “Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about Him. And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.”

First, note that if God is not silent, the reference is to His spoken word. Second, note that the chariot and horses of fire came between Elijah and Elisha, knocking them apart. For some reason, when I read of being parted asunder, I am put in mind of the word of God; the ‘twoedged sword’, that parts, or divides, asunder. Third, note that Elijah went to heaven, not in the chariot ( symbolic of destruction ), but in the whirlwind ( symbolic of being born again ). The connection to see in this is the ‘Word of God’.

It is quite possible that the fire that Christ is determined to send upon the earth is the word of God – a raging fire that sweeps through the people, unquenched and unquenchable.

Jeremiah 23:29, “Is not My Word like as a fire? saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?”

God’s spoken word has a direct association to fire; this is clearly seen in the next verse. Psalms 29:7, “The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire.”

Let me put forth that this is a solid reference to the Holy Ghost, as seen in Acts 2:3, “And there appeared unto them cloven (divided) tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.”

As blood over the lintel was God’s mark in the Exodus, could the cloven tongues be a latter-day mark of God? In regard to God’s word being like as a fire, perhaps it cycles elementally. Perhaps it runs the gamut from earth to water to air to fire. The next three verses contrast the word of God between water and fire.

2 Peter 3:5 through 7, “For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgement and perdition of ungodly men.”

Well, I began this paragraph by asking if there was a connection between the storm and the fire. It is easy to see that man connects tribulation to both fire and water.

Psalms 66:12, “Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water . . .”

In Egypt, God mixed normal meteorological events with something not so normal.

Exodus 9:23 and 24, “And Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven: and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along upon the ground; and the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt. So there was hail, and fire mingled with hail, very grievous, such as there was none like it in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation.”

Compare that to this next verse.

Genesis 19:24, “Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.”

In the end, the fire comes from the sky: there is no terrestrial source.

2 Peter 3:12, “Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?”

We see something familiar in the next two verses: it reminds us of Egypt when so many souls were departing for the promised land.

Revelation 8:7 and 8, “The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up. And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood.”

Meteorologically speaking, I can see a clearly plausible scenario here. A giant planet-killing comet

strikes the earth, accompanied by the flaming debris that arrived with it. Perhaps the world tries a

solution right out of the movies: sending a nuclear missile to destroy it. They succeed only in

breaking the rock into pieces – does that sound a little like a previously cited verse? Read back and

find where God is a hammer breaking the ‘rock’ into pieces. Hail comes from a very tall cloud where

levels of cold are stacked. I can see the smaller burning pieces knocking hail loose. Perhaps a cloud

looms so high it creates a floating sheet of ice. Perhaps the smaller pieces of the planet killer are of

a composition that when they enter the frozen upper atmosphere, there explode like kernels of

popping corn: that might be a way to disseminate material for turning rain into a red liquid. Finally,

perhaps, the burning mountain may be ejected material from a massive solar eruption.

The previously cited verses from the book of Revelation may also be viewed somewhat less than literally. A ‘mountain’ has already been viewed symbolically as a government; and that it burns with fire may be an association to the righteousness of God: it may speak of the government of Christ. Since the sea is symbolic of the masses, and if being turned into blood here carries a bad connotation, then I must conclude that there is some pretty gruesome mass carnage at the end. But, what if being turned into blood carries a good connotation - say, a mixing of earth and water, or an indication of those who are washed clean. It seems plausible, at least to me, that the majority are taken out of the

equation, and those left are, through the birth pangs of tribulation, ‘brought forth’. This speaks to the

prevalent notion that the believers will be ‘taken’, or removed, before the tribulation.

Zechariah 13:8 & 9, “And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the Lord, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; (taken) but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire, (tribulation) and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on My Name, and I will hear them: I will say, it is My people: and they shall say, the Lord is my God.”

Such a verse trains the eye of the truth seeker on the ‘WHY’ issue.

Jude 1:5 through 8 says, “I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, He hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.”

Now, since God is a Spirit, and therefore concerned with spiritual matters, what gets the more under God’s spiritual skin? Is it the flesh, physical movements of a particular type, any sort of bodily function or exercise? I think what the preceding verse speaks of since physical action follows after spiritual being, is the ‘spirit of turning away’. When Israel turned to other nations for help against enemies, God’s prophets wrote of it in terms of prostitution. Likewise, the actions of witchcraft carry with them the inherent spiritual nature of rebellion. We are explicitly told that any individual that is unfaithful in the least is also unfaithful in larger matters. Therefore, fornication and going after strange flesh has a spiritual counterpart: rebellion; prostitution; turning away; unfaithfulness. Also, we are aware that the end result is separation of what God wants for Himself from that intended for another course.

There is about the preceding verse another point which demands attention. It is the expression

“vengeance of eternal fire”. It is commonly held that the latter day, or the end of the world, is a day

wherein the sinner and all wicked souls suffer the vengeance and wrath of God. An expression such

as the one I am now highlighting, on the surface appears to be about the element which God uses to

exact His vengeance, and that’s true enough, but I get a very strong impression that there is a deeper

level to be understood. I get the sense that ‘eternal fire’ may actually be an application of God’s Holy

Name so that saying “vengeance of eternal fire” is equal to saying “vengeance of God”.

For the greater part of my adult life, I have believed that everything that exists, exists inside of God.

Therefore, it might be plausible to consider hell, or the lake of fire, which will soon come into the

study, as the belly of God. Just so you’ll understand where I’m coming from. The contemporary, or the orthodox, Christian believes that the Christians will be ‘raptured’ away from tribulation. However, I tend to take God at His word. It is said so often in scripture that we must be tried, that we must pass through the fire – why isn’t that preached in the church, rather than the rapture? It is a fiery end that we must look forward to. The fire fulfills God’s purpose and plan. I, as an unorthodox Christian, find it hard to dismiss what the Bible says again and again.

Revelation 3:18, “I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.”

It is a call to acceptance. Contemporary Christians already fully accept the part about the white raiment; they sort of accept the part about eyesalve, but they let lie the part about gold (their own souls) being tried by fire. If one accepts that we must dress in the righteousness of Christ, and if one accepts that we must see with spiritual eyes (through the Word of God), then why won’t that same individual see that we (the gold that God seeks) must be refined by fire (tribulation)? To believe only the parts that we like makes for a lopsided faith: a faith that is no faith at all. One rotten apple can ruin the whole barrel, and yes, we are known by the fruit we bear.

Matthew 7:21 through 23 should absolutely scare the contemporary Christian. “Not every one that saith unto Me, (Jesus) Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in Heaven. Many will say to Me (Jesus) in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy (Jesus’) name? And in Thy (Jesus’) name have cast out devils? And in Thy (Jesus’) name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.”

It is an obvious contrast between ‘the works of Christians’ and ‘the will of God’: the two are not always the same. Obvious, also, is that these verses speak not of the atheist or the Buddhist; nor of the adherents of any faith other than Christianity. These verses speak of a group of people who are crying out because they are not saved as they supposed they were. There was a fundamental flaw in their thinking, and in their faith, that adversely affected everything they did in the name of Jesus. To continue forward, let us read more about being tried.

1 Corinthians 3:13 and 15, “Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire (the word of God and/or tribulation); and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.”

1 Peter 1:7, “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.”

Scripture states that men and women of true faith must also go through the fire of tribulation. That

fire will try their faith ( refine it like gold ) so that the dross is removed, and that which is left is pure.

When Christ appears at the end, these refined souls shall be found to the praise, honor, and glory of

God. But, what of the others that go through the tribulation? They shall be seen to respond to

tribulation in an opposite manner.

Revelation 16:8 and 9, “And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the Name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.”

Here, tribulation can be seen as a process of winnowing; a dividing of the good from the bad by way of their different responses to the same tribulation. Some will repent and give glory to God, others will not repent to give glory to God. And all this is the will of God. Souls will be sorted. The ‘fruitful’ tree will be set apart to yield more fruit, the barren tree (only wood) will become the fuel that drives the engine of re-creation. On a spiritual level, God is dividing the other from the One; in our physical realm, events ride upon the currents of the spiritual tide. To see that, one has to look past the individual screams of torment to the spasmodic writhing of the masses. The devil and his followers are going down: on earth, whole sections of the world’s billions will be aligned along the same downward slope.

God, as a fire, will burn completely.

Deuteronomy 32:22, “For a fire is kindled in Mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.”

The deepest grave is no protection from the fire of God’s anger; being long dead just makes one less able to run. Of the tribulation of the living, the fire shall be seen to spring up in the people themselves: in actions that mount up as a fire racing over forested hills. The near approach of the fire dries the next tree in line, preparing it for the actual burning. We know from news about massive forest fires, that the counter-measures of the firefighters are tragically ineffective. The next verse speaks nationally (for I believe America to be the flower on the stem of Joseph).

Amos 5:6, “Seek the Lord, and ye shall live; lest He break out like a fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Bethel (the church).”

Isaiah 9:19, “Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother.”

Isaiah 9:5, “For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire.”

Matthew 13:40, “As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.”

Luke 3:9, “And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.”

Matthew 7:19, “Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.”

Matthew 13:41 and 42, “The Son of man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His Kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity (refer back to Matthew 7:21 through 23); and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”

John 15:6, “If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.”

Certain, also, among the elect will have that fire inside them. All around, nations burn and smolder; the fabric of human interrelation is ripped; society is divided between the God-oriented people and the beast-oriented people. The fire burns wherever there is fuel. When I say that the fire is also in certain

people, I am not speaking metaphysically.

Revelation 11:5, “And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed.”

Isaiah 66:24, “And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against Me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.”

Is there any doubt about the will of God in this context?

Habakkuk 2:13, “Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts that the people shall labour in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity?”

There is in progress a total makeover. God, as His own surgeon, is cutting away the cancer of darkness, with all its sin and iniquity. Everything that is not light shall be fuel for the furnace. Now, what is a furnace? It has been my belief that the Word of God has come down to modern man in the exact form that God wants us to understand His will by. So, let the truth seeker ask not how man used to perceive a furnace to be, but what we know it as today. My association, like many others, is courtesy of the industrial revolution. To me, a furnace is part of a mechanism or engine. Fuel goes in; it chugs, it churns; something is produced.

Since we may understand the invisible by way of the corporeal, we compare apples to oranges; we make analogies. Not only may we compare an industrial furnace to some aspect of the overall functional being of God, but we may also make the analogy between the organic stomach, the furnace of the body, and the ‘eternal fire’, ‘furnace’, the ‘lake of fire’.

Revelation 20:14 and 15, “And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire (or might that be the content thereof?). This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”

Revelation 9:15 through 18, “And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men. And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them. And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone. By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.”

It is at this point that I wish to return thoughts to the four elements. We are studying fire, but it must be noted that at this junction of the study, fire is seen to introduce its connection back to the element of earth by way of ‘brimstone’ – a solid natural element. I have noticed a circuit through the four elements in sets of two: earth and water; water and air; air and fire; fire and earth. I have noticed that between the four elements are three halfway, or connecting, elements: blood between earth and water; the rainbow/cloud between water and air; cloud/smoke between air and fire; and brimstone between fire and earth. That totals seven, just another of many sevens associated with the end.

We come to verses that specifically mention fire and brimstone. We come to verses that present a ‘lake of fire’ – which offers to us the image of a cauldron where something is cooked up; a stew of lost souls, but also flesh (where their worm dieth not). It is an image also of a melting pot in that the elements shall melt with fervent heat. To me, by way of simple comparison, it is also the image of a stomach. All of these images are images of furnaces – a furnace uses fuel; combines; refines; extracts; produces an end product. With these thoughts in mind, one studies the following verses.

Revelation 20:10, “And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”

I Notice two curious associations to this verse: one is the expression “for ever and ever” as it is played against the preceding expression “day and night” which, in pointing to the end of all things, solidly indicates the cyclic continuation of serial time by way of time’s most notable landmarks. I ask then, does the expression “for ever and ever” mean ‘over and over again’? That is exactly the sense of it that I am given. Lastly, just look at the word ‘cast’. I do not mean to imply that it means, here, anything other than ‘to throw’, yet, this lake of fire is the second death (think of the word ‘die’). Now, ‘cast’ also can mean ‘to mold’ - something that is done in a furnace where the elements are melted. Something that is ‘die-cast’ can be re-melted and re-cast over and over again, or forever and ever.

Revelation 19:20, “And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshiped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.”

Understand that brimstone is a naturally occurring element. More can be found about brimstone in an earlier study on the topic of ‘Hell’. Not only are the devil and the beast and the false prophet thrown into the lake of fire, but also the people that worshiped the image and the people that received the mark – and that woman. The woman is a city; a commercial dynasty that is the instrument by which the ‘mark’ is imparted. The woman’s influence is in every nation on the earth.

Revelation 17:16 through 18 and 18:8, “And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil His will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled. And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.”

Revelation 14:9 through 11, “And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, if any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.”

There is much to consider in the verse just cited. Firstly, we see that all the ‘torment’ is conducted in the “presence of” Jesus and the holy angels. What I want to ask is this: are they watching something, or are they tending something. Reading the verses under scrutiny, I was struck by the bold similarity between the smoke ascending up from torment, and smoke that ascended up from the sacrifices burned in the temple (which were a sweet savor). The priests performed those burnt offerings over and over again (forever and ever).

The Lamb, or the ultimate priest, may well be similarly tending the flames rather than simply watching the flames. This verse contains an expression that may be vital to man’s understanding of the mark of the beast. I’ve heard many treat the mark as a number; I’ve heard others treat it as a solid object such as a computer chip. I’ve considered what these other people have had to say, but when I read, in this verse, the expression “mark of his name”, I am left with another impression. “Name” must be factored in.

While I am dealing with the issue of the mark, it may be well to broaden the scope, for just a moment, to include the issue of signs. Just as both God and the beast have marks for their own, so too, they have signs that shall be evinced in the sight of men. I just want to take a moment to show the difference between God’s end-time signs, and the end time signs of the beast and false prophet.

Revelation 13:11 through 13, “And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them that dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men.”

Bringing down fire from the sky is all he does. On the other hand, God delivers something substantially greater, in the ‘signs and wonders’ department.

Joel 2:30, “And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.”

The fire of the final day points where? It is less work to simply imagine that by the time fire is reached, the earth and water and air are elements of the past. I am, in fact, studying a thing that is cyclical rather than linear. All the elements are interwoven. Each, in due process, returns to its place of prominence. The linear view would require that the final day be a day of destruction; the cyclical view of the final day suspects that destruction is but a part of the work of re-creation. In that context, there is no problem in understanding that formerly prominent elements now take on a supportive role. I see, for example, that the earth and the water are brought into the context of the final destruction – which by the content of the next verse is shown to be other than final (in a linear sense).

Isaiah 26:19, “Thy dead men shall live, together with My (Christ’s) dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust: for thy dew (the call of Christ) is as the dew of herbs (early morning, or, completely covering), and the earth shall cast out her dead.”

Water is transitional. The connection to earth is blood. The spilling of blood is associated both with the redemption of man through Christ’s sacrifice of blood and with the wrath of God evident in the spilled blood of man. The reference of blood to water is in the washing away of earth (baptism) and the transition toward air.

The symbolic act of pouring water on the earth (the act of non-accomplishment in the area of cleansing) is evident in Psalms 79:3, “Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem; and there was none to bury them.”

Symbolically, if blood is seen as the mixture of earth and water, then water must be seen as such a removal of earth as to produce purity. The symbolism of the separation of the earthly vessel from the purer, transcended self is shown in the sacrifice of our Lord on the cross.

John 19:34, “But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced His side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.”

There is symbolism to the truth that the introduction of a small quantity of something can drastically, and dramatically alter the whole. We have read of the yeast mixed into three measures of dough; we know that the flu virus is fought off by the introduction of the flu virus; we know also that venom is altered by venom, and that antibodies and cures are accomplished by the infusion of blood from another person. With that in mind, it is good to re-read the word that said ‘take, drink, this is My blood.’ One thing that the redemptive blood of Christ has in common with the blood mentioned in association to the wrath of God is that both are couched in the symbolic application of ‘wine’.

Blood and water; wine and water - both are symbolic. Whereas the wine of God’s wrath (the spilled

blood of man) is poured out without mixture, Christ’s spilled blood is a special wine poured out with

mixture, as the spiced wine of the Passover is indicative of the preparation for burial.

John 19:39 and 40, “And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight. Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury.”

References abound to the connection between water and blood (by which Jesus came), and the spirit. Following are verses which point to water and wine; the blood of the grape and the winepress. Not only are redemption and destruction indicated, but they are spiritually applied to issues of birth and death.

John 2:7 through 9, “Jesus saith unto them, fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. And He saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it. When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom.”

Revelation 14:14 through 20, “And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe. And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped. And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe. And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.”

In the time when fire is the major actor, earth, water, and air have supporting roles. I find it interesting that the angel on the cloud, the one with the sharp sickle, is described as “like unto the son of man”. The likeness is a being of light, and the following description shows a connection between fire, air, and water.

Revelation 10:1, “And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a white cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire.”

While the sunny face speaks of a being who exists in a higher ‘image’ of God, clouds and rainbows are associated with water and air. Fire, on the other hand, (feet being associated to earth) takes the form of ‘pillars’: pretty solid wording, indicative of something foundational, like mountains; like the very framework of our corporeal world. It is our own familiar planet that is expected to be melted with fervent heat and it is the foundations of the mountains that we expect God to set on fire.

It has been rehashed over the centuries that the world will be destroyed by fire. Destruction is covered, but creation has received little treatment, except that everything was created by the ‘Word of God’. Christ is the Word of God; He created the world – or did he re-create it? In the Biblical account of creation and the creation of Adam and Eve, God tells the man and woman to ‘be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth’. Doesn’t replenish mean a return to previous numbers? If we had before us a description of the returning, destroying Christ, could we see a connection to the creating Christ?

Revelation 19:12 and 13, “His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns; (could that be a crown for each time through the cycle?) and He had a name written, that no man knew, but He Himself. And He was clothed in a vesture dipped in blood: and His name is called the Word of God.”

I see the connection. He is the first and last; He is described in fire with an association to blood (earth and water); He has a secret name, but we call His name creation. And about that secret name: no man knows it but Christ Himself: (recall that Christ ascended into heaven bodily, as a man.) Re-creation is still the focus: is the earth, therefore, completely obliterated, or merely re-worked? Almost everyone will know the answer to my next question. What occurs when a fervent heat touches sand? Of course, the answer is ‘glass’.

Revelation 15:2 speaks of a re-made earth, where fire might touch any one of the great deserts on this planet, turning it into a sea of glass; and of the saved emerging into the aftermath, “And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.”

Remember that all who are saved have the mark of God. Could God’s mark be a harp? I see indications of re-creation. I see a connection to the four elements. Each element may well have its own spirit, or angel, just as the churches have angels. Much of what we are able to surmise may be mere shadows: tenuous physical evidence of what transpires between the four elemental angels on the spiritual plain. For those of us, here, some will be the inheritors of a reworked earth, while all the rest will be fuel for the spiritual engine that powers the work of cyclic re-creation. There may even be a sad middle area of individuals who have lost hands and eyes to the everlasting fire of that furnace. Read Matthew 18:8 or Mark 9:43.

This is just conjecture on my part, but it may be that when God first made the physical world, it was intended for the angelic beings but their interaction with the world, as we know it, was limited. They could bear this plain for a while but could never derive the full benefit. It may well be that in the creation of man, God was aiming for a physical angel, a type of angel that could dwell on this plain permanently. It may well be that certain jealous or resentful angels caused the death of the glory of Adam and Eve, setting the foundations of the earth off course.

Psalms 82:5 through 7, “They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are out of course. I have said, ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.”

We are like the waterpots Jesus filled with water. We are earthen vessels for god-like souls. Will the water of cleansing turn into the wine of redemption, or will it mix with the earth, becoming the blood of the vine of the earth? There seem to be four elements, or aspects, to existence: earth is where we are: half of what we should be; water is the transition, through our faith, to a place where something new can be added; air is the spiritual nature of our being, which when added, makes us what God had intended: physical angels, brothers and sisters of Christ, being like Him; and fire is at the heart of it all, the core of the earth, the center of the sun: the driving power and spirit of re-creation: the Word of God.

Fire might be said to be the primary, from which, like rays beaming down from the sun, air and water find their place, holding the earth between them: an image of the pyramid. Destruction will have its time and place, but after that, re-creation, and man will walk upon the coals.

Job 5:6 and 7, “Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground; yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.”