Good morning bus riders!
Welcome to the tenth Sunday after Pentecost, also known in Year C as Proper fifteen.
The readings today may seem a little disjointed; but they all slide nicely into a category that points to saying, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”
There is a grand plan of Yahweh’s, which deals with each of our souls. This plan relates to the release from Yahweh at birth – our breath of life in a newborn – and the return of that soul at death – our soul’s release from its body of flesh.
It is a simple plan, really; and, every word of Scripture (in one way or another, when divinely inspired while seriously contemplating it while reading) repeats this plan.
Over and over and over again.
Still, the message goes in one ear and falls out the other, misunderstood.
Why?
<Look for questioning faces.>
Because we scrap Yahweh’s plan and make up new plans … plans of our own.
The problem with that is our brains are too small to make plans that work out in the end … soul wise. We are but little mousy brains trying to figure out spiritual things.
All the lessons today deal with this failure aspect of human plans.
In the reading from Isaiah, this is the voice of Yahweh speaking through the pen of His prophet. Yahweh spoke through Isaiah in song, in the same way He spoke through David in all his psalms.
Yahweh begins by stating his simple plan: He prepared souls to return to Him, which was stated metaphorically as “a vineyard on a very fertile hill that was fruitful.”
When Yahweh said He place a “tower” in the midst of the vineyard, this is metaphor for David, who was a soul in a boy’s body – the innocence of youth yet undefiled – who Yahweh poured out His Spirit upon, preparing David to be the King of Israel.
Being the king of a nation was not what Yahweh Anointed David’s soul to become. He Anointed David – made him become a Christ, or a Messiah – so his soul would be like a “tower” in the midst of other souls – the fruit of the vine that needed to be likewise Anointed by Yahweh, due to David’s presence among them.
The truth of the name “Israel” is it means those “Who Retain the el of Yahweh.”
The ”el” of Yahweh is His Son’s soul – Adam, also called Jesus (Yah Saves).
That is the simple plan. A soul born into a body of flesh needs a High Priest in their midst, who will lead them – teach them – how to fall in love with Yahweh, marry their souls to His Spirit – become an Anointed Christ-Messiah – which means becoming oneself a “tower in the midst of a fruitful vineyard.”
The fruit that keeps on producing is the soul of Adam-Jesus being the blood of eternal life blood that flows through all the vines in the vineyard, so each plump, succulent grape is the rebirth of Yahweh’s Son in the flesh.
The plan works perfectly, as long as all vines and all grapes are indeed the resurrection of the soul of Yahweh’s Son, because that resurrection within an ordinary vine and grape becomes the vineyard stake that holds all vines and grapes upright, away from the ground. Without that inner cross to bear the weight of Yahweh’s fruit, the vines fall onto the ground and the grape become wild.
This is not Yahweh’s error, it is the error of the world that influences the weight of responsibility – teach your children to be exactly like you, so righteousness begets righteousness – becomes too much for some. They lean over and fall down. They begin to produce wild grapes; and, not long after, the whole vineyard is wasting away on the ground, unable to lift itself up and return to being good, fruitful produce.
The lesson sung by Yahweh, through His prophet Isaiah, says the “tower” in their midst collapsed. David fell and so did all the vines that surrounded him. All became wild grapes, not good fruit.
Yahweh has no plan to rebuild a new vineyard. All the choice vines he prepared in the nursery back in Egypt had become ruined. Yahweh’s plan is to send messengers (like Isaiah) to remind all the fallen – to search for the lost sheep that were from his sheepfold – “It is now up to you to repent and be raised by the stake that is the soul of Yahweh’s Son resurrected within your soul.”
All the rest will become like a desolate wasteland, without any spiritual rain replenishing their souls.
Can you hear that message of a simple plan being ruined by humans preferring to be lazy?
<Look for nodding heads.>
That caused Yahweh to send His prophets as messengers, singing the same song in different verses, with Isaiah one version of the same warning … over and over and over again.
In the accompanying Psalm 80, we need to know that which is written into verse one, but not part of the song sung aloud in churches. That is this psalm being identified as one of the eleven “psalms of Asaph.”
Last Sunday, the accompanying Psalm 50 (to the Old Testament selection from Isaiah 1) was also a psalm of Asaph. Today, both accompanying psalms (80 and 82) are psalms of Asaph.
None of the songs sung aloud in churches announce this. Not announced, no one explains what “Asaph” means. Mostly, they are ignorant to that meaning.
The Hebrew word “asaph” means “gatherer.” The announcement that David wrote eleven psalms of the gatherer means those eleven are like the “tower in the midst of the vineyard.” Yahweh was “gathering” those souls under David to hear a lesson that needed to be heard. If not “gathered” together as one – all alike in Spiritual Anointment – then the vineyard would collapse and turn to waste.
Psalm 80 then accompanies the warning of Isaiah’s song, as a reminder: Remember when true Israelites used to sing these words and heed the message?
Now, the singing of Psalm 80 today includes verses one and two, which act as the theme for the whole song. While verses eight to eighteen place focus on the vineyard theme of Isaiah, verse one makes the “tower in the midst of the vineyard” be parallel to being a “shepherd of a flock.”
When David sang of Joseph, one needs to see how the one who ran the ‘choice vine’ nursery back in Egypt was none other than that soul, whose name means “Increaser.”
While Jacob was the first to be given the name “Israel,” his soul was then possessed by the “el” of Yahweh’s Son; but that divine presence did not transfer well to ten of Jacob’s children. Joseph was one who was a descendant of Abram, Isaac, and daddy Jacob-Israel, becoming also an “Israel.”
Joseph had risen to be a “tower” among the Egyptians. When Joseph’s brothers came begging for entrance, due to famine, they realized their sins by coming into the presence of a great “tower in their midst,” much greater than the favored son they hated when they tried to kill him, then sold him into slavery.
Joseph became the influence that not only led the children of Jacob – his blood descendants through twelve sons – become a people who were married to Yahweh Spiritually and were each souls joined with the soul of Yahweh’s Son. The Egyptians, while Joseph lived and stood upright and righteous among them too, they also accepted his God as supreme, greater than all their gods.
Joseph then “Increased” the number of souls totally committed to Yahweh – a name not yet known – so after his death and the crumbling of Egyptian support for the God of Joseph led to persecution of the children of Jacob – Israelites – those choice vines reached their maturity in the nursery, in need of planting in a new homeland.
In verse two, David said the children of Israel were “the faces of Ephraim,” which is a name meaning “Doubly Fruitful.” They were two souls in each body of flesh, with the most fruitful soul being that of Adam-Jesus.
The names that David then followed with – Benjamin and Manasseh – mean “Son Of The Right Hand” and “Forgetting.” Those two names define the “Doubly Fruitful,” such that the soul of Adam-Jesus is the “Right Hand Son,” merged with the host soul that became “Forgetting” of self-desires.
That sets a theme of self-sacrifice for a higher cause. The good fruit becomes all souls who totally submit to service to Yahweh, as His wife-souls.
That theme means salvation can only come through this submission, becoming each a reproduction of the Son Of The Right Hand, Forgetting all the sins of one’s past. That is what makes “choice vines and good fruit.”
When we jump down to verse eight, Yahweh inspired David to sing, “a vine out of Egypt you have cast out people and planted them.”
Verses nine, ten and eleven then sing, “of the creation of a nation of people who were all led by “towers in their midst,” who were the judges that were sent by Yahweh to raise the stakes that had fallen over and were leaning to the ground.
Verses twelve and thirteen then sings of the failures that would come after David collapsed. Just like when Joseph died and the Egyptians became the meaning behind the name – “Married To Tragedy” – the lesson David taught them (when he took Jerusalem and defeated the Jebusites) was “You are each responsible for your own souls. You cannot think one tower in your midst will save your souls. The tower is simply to teach you this lesson. It is up to each of your souls to marry Yahweh, become His Christ and allow your purified womb-soul to be joined with the soul of His Son.”
David taught them, “When I fall, it is up to you to upright yourselves … with God’s help.”
The rest of the selected verses confirm what Yahweh would later say through Isaiah: One vineyard and one tower is it. When that gets overrun by wild boars and all the hedges have been trampled down, there will be no new vineyard coming from heaven to reconstruct what is natural for human flesh to destroy.
Can you see the message coming of a simple plan that has come into a fallen state – one that each of us is in today – where it is up to each individual to save his or her own soul?
<Look for shocked faces and nodding heads.>
When David sang in verse fifteen, “your right hand and the branch you made strong of yourself,” that says restoration will be one branch at a time, each filled with the right hand – the Son of Yahweh.
When David sang in verse seventeen, “let your hand be upon the man of your right hand, upon the son of Adam,” that names the “Son of the Right Hand” as Adam.
When David sang in verse eighteen, “upon your name we will call,” one can only know the “name” of Yahweh through divine union with His Spirit. In holy matrimony does a soul take on His “name,” calling Him by that.
When David sang in verse nineteen, “Yahweh elohim of hosts restore us, cause to shine your face and we shall be saved,” this names the Son of Adam as “Yahweh elohim.” To receive that possessing soul-Spirit, we must be baptized via divine Anointment, forgiven of past sins. To wear the “face” of Jesus means his name “shines” the truth behind that name – Yahweh Saves.
Again, it is a simple plan stated over and over and over again. Same song, different verses.
The next song comes from Jeremiah 23, where Yahweh is again speaking through one of His messengers, saying “The vineyard is a wasteland. Listen to my prophet and be saved.”
This speaks of the false shepherds who will have misled the flock, leading them away from salvation, towards ruin. To get the sheep to listen, they lie; but they say Yahweh appeared to them in a dream, telling them lies to spread.
Yahweh had Jeremiah let them know that He was well aware of their plan to keep the ruined vineyard in a wasted state, pretending to be prophets like Jeremiah. They met secretly and plotted the lies they told; but Yahweh reminded them that He knows ALL.
Yahweh told them it would be better for their souls’ Judgment if they simply said, “I have a dream coming from my Big Brain, which I think is a good idea. Even though it breaks ever law set by Moses, I think it is a good plan to follow.”
By saying, “Yahweh gave me this dream to lead you by,” they were compounding the responsibility of their sins.
In terms of what Jesus would say later, “It would be better to cut out your brains [maybe just a frontal lobotomy] and walk around brainless, than to keep a Big Brain that will send your soul to eternal damnation.”
By calling one’s Big Bran Yahweh, one is telling a most fatal lie. It says, “I am Yahweh.” Only a soul married to Yahweh, reborn as His Son’s soul can make such a claim and not be lying. To falsely claim that name is to condemn one’s soul to eternal damnation.
Not a good decision to make. Don’t do it!
Thus, Yahweh said through Jeremiah, “Is not my word like a fire? Is it also not like a hammer that breaks the rock?” The true Word ignites the fire to self-sacrifice and submit fully to Yahweh. Lies become the words one’s soul burns in. The hammer of Yahweh’s Word is like the etchings of the Law in stone, written by the His finger for all to read eternally. Lies are like stones chiseled and then thrown down, broken to pieces – in the future prophecy of Moses breaking the tablets because the people were idolaters and sinners.
We live in that future and the hammer of Yahweh hangs ready to strike at any time; and, the liars are still leading the flock astray.
The accompanying Psalm 82 is another psalm of the gatherer. It is a call to learn a lesson sent by Yahweh through the “tower in the midst of the vineyard.”
Verse one here clearly states this is a call to gathering, even though the translation sung aloud does not see it.
Verse one sings, “elohim takes his stand in the congregation of el , in the midst of elohim he judges .”
Here, the use of “elohim” (as always) means the “Yahweh elohim” that is the Son of Yahweh – Adam-Jesus. It is the “upright” stake within each soul-body that joins all such souls together “in the congregation” that is Yahweh’s vineyard of choice vines that bear good fruit. The possessing soul of Jesus leading the sheep to a path of righteousness will be how each soul is judged.
Verse two recognizes that the righteous will be countered by “the wicked,” who likewise will be “judged.” Each will be judged equally, based on what “elohim” one has become possessed by.
This says one will be judged as a good fruit or a wild grape.
The lesson of this gathering psalm tells what Yahweh expects good fruit to do.
The problem is the lost are seeking guidance. They not only receive good shepherds to tell them the truth – like David, Isaiah and Jeremiah – but they also have to wade through all the liars that say, “I had a dream from Yahweh,” purposefully misleading the lost sheep towards the wolves.
The way you know a true prophet or Saint is in your midst is they all say the same thing – the simple plan of Yahweh – save your soul through divine marriage to Yahweh, becoming reborn as His Son.
Every other path leads to ruin and waste.
This issue becomes the point of focus in Paul letter written in Hebrew. That focus is on “Faith.”
Faith is a lot like belief. In Greek, both words in English comes from the same word “pistis.” While that might make it seem that faith and belief are the same, they are not.
The word “Faith” means personal experience, so one absolutely knows the truth, so there is absolutely no question about it. The word “belief” means one has a lot of confidence that something one has been told is true, because one knows the one telling something said to be true. The element of knowledge is then based on knowing and trusting something external to oneself; and, unfortunately, if the one saying he or she holds the truth is found to be lying, then all beliefs are crumbled.
The result of collapsed beliefs is ruin and waste sets in.
People who have had beliefs in God have then rejected God because of some failure in what they believed. Someone told them prayer could save a special one from death. Then that special one died after earnest prayer unanswered. Beliefs based on trust in an external source of truth dissolve away.
Faith, on the other hand, knows the truth from an inner voice that comes from Yahweh, through the Son’s soul being one with one’s own soul. One know all souls trapped in bodies of flesh are born of death and death of the flesh is to be expected. Prayers are then for the soul departed from its flesh.
Faith leads special people to find Yahweh, marry Him, become His Son reborn, and prayers ask Yahweh to give strength to those souls whose bodies are bound to die.
Faith is never shaken, because once a soul has submitted to serve Yahweh as His wife-soul and give virgin birth to His Son, from the purification of divine Baptism, that personal experience lasts forever. The tests of faith are all passed.
It is the personal experience that gives one’s soul the strength of endurance. One is able to face all kinds of persecutions, designed to tear down the stake that keeps one’s soul upright in the vineyard of Yahweh; but when Jesus is that inner stauros, then there is no trial, test, or punishment that can remove that uprightness one knows personally.
As I once heard a priest tell his congregation, “When Christians were dying in the Roman colosseum, ripped apart by lions, it was not beliefs that kept them from running in fear and screaming, “I recant my beliefs!” It was faith that allowed them the strength to be mauled to death, knowing their souls would soon be free for eternity.”
Can you see the difference between faith and belief?
<Look for nodding heads.>
Good. Now ask yourselves silently, “Am I trusting in something someone told me to believe? Or, am I knowing Jesus leads my life as my inner Lord soul, who makes me Doubly Fruitful?”
This then leads us to the Gospel lesson in Luke. It is a lesson that is difficult for many to get their hands around and hold firmly.
The context is important to better grasp who Jesus is talking to at first, because near the end we read he turned back to the crowd. Here, Jesus had just told the crowd the parable of the Rich Fool, which was the Gospel lesson last Sunday.
After that, Peter asked Jesus to explain that parable to the disciples. That is who Jesus was primarily talking to at first, although the crowd could still be listening in.
When we then hear Jesus speak of “fire” and “baptism,” it is easy to think of opposite elements: fire and water. However, the two, as written by Luke, are speaking of the same thing.
The capitalized word “Fire” means a Spiritual “Desire” to serve Yahweh as His servant. Jesus was sent to ignite that in souls seeking salvation.
To find that inner “Fire,” that leads to the “baptism” of the Spirit, which is the divine marriage of a soul to Yahweh.
Remember, this is the same simple plan told over and over and over again.
Jesus had been sent to be the High Priest who would officiate this divine union, while he was in a body of flesh of his own. Thus, he was preparing his disciples as bridesmaids, whose lamps were always kept with an inner “Fire,” until that time for “baptism” came.
The greatest confusion then comes when Jesus began saying, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”
What does “peace” have to do with “division,” you should ask.
Well, that Greek word translated as “peace” is the same Greek word we have discussed before, where “peace” is an ambiguous word that is hard to understand, even though it seems so easy to understand.
The proper usage of the Greek word “eiréné” is “wholeness.” Rather than think Jesus said, “Peace man, like cool daddy-o, love and stuff,” the word says a soul is not whole without the soul of Jesus added to one’s soul – two souls in one body of flesh. Divine possession is “wholeness.”
For two to come into one, then “division” is necessary. In vineyard terms, this is when a gardener splices a new shoot to an old vine, to better the fruit.
With that understood, the next confusing thing comes from Jesus saying, “there will be indeed away from of this at present five within one house divided , three unto to two , kai two unto to three .”
What?!?!
Where does five come from, and why are only two plus three the divisions of this five?
The Greek word for “five” is “pente,” which is the number highlighted in “Pentecost.” The number “five” is like the gathering of the omer of unripe fruit (“pente”) that then needs to mature (times ten), until Pentecost deems the unripe is fit to be served.
This makes “pente” be the “present” state of the disciples, who were still not yet ready to be deemed Saints in his name.
The number “three” is then the Trinity – where Father, Son, and Spirit are all in one soul.
The number “two” is then the number of souls in one body of flesh.
This is the simple plan restated, over and over and over again; but the problem is those pesky wild grapevines. There are “elohim” that are likewise fallen, like when Cain laid down on the ground and he heard the whispers of the serpent, telling him to kill Abel. The same demon “elohim’ like to destroy Yahweh’s vineyard and lie to the vines, telling the Yahweh told them to tell you it is okay to take a break and sin for a while.
The challenge Jesus faced was standing behind the bridesmaid-disciples – as the crowd who had beliefs, but no faith.
We are then confused by Jesus talking about “father against son, mother against daughter, and mother-in-law against daughter-in-law” (and vice verse), but there are no aunts and uncles or sisters and brothers. This is because Jesus stated the specifics of souls in bodies of flesh, not the physical relationships seeming to be stated.
All are called to be souls that return to the Father, through the Son. All souls trapped in bodies of flesh as feminine, thus daughters called to marry Yahweh, then becoming mothers to His Son. The “in-law” relationship says a soul reborn as Jesus will then minister to other souls in bodies of flesh to do the same, as extensions of Jesus in new bodies.
All of what Jesus said was relative to souls being totally in a committed relationship with Yahweh.
Because he said that in response to Peter asking him to clarify what he meant about the Rich Fool, who said he had belief in Yahweh and Mosaic Law, but needed to spend more time compounding his worldly profits before going to the altar to marry Yahweh … well his soul found no inner “Fire,” not truth of “baptism” by the Spirit of marriage, and no Son resurrected in his soul, to save it for eternity.
When he thought “now is the time, after eating, drinking and being merry,” Yahweh said, “Too late! Now you die and go to Judgment, with none of your worldly possessions worth a penny to save your soul.”
The rich fool lacked spiritual maturity. He was thinking he was still a child, with no responsibilities to anyone but his own selfish self.
His soul had not been divided and the divine possessing his soul as a valuable asset.
Thus, Jesus turned to the crowd and began telling them they “Think” way too much. They put way too much belief in their Big Brains, as they see a cloud and correctly predict rain; or, the feel a hot wind and they correctly predict hot weather.
There is deeper meaning to what that truly says, but because the bus is due any minute, I recommend you read that on my commentary posted on my website. However, for as much as a Big Brain will “Think” it knows, it knows nothing of spiritual value.
Unless it is married to Yahweh, having received His Anointment of Spirit as a Christ, and been the would where the soul of Yahweh’s Son has resurrected.
In other words, the same song, different verse, which is told over and over and over again in Scripture.
You cannot “Think” your way to salvation. The name “Jesus” means “Yahweh Saves.” To become whole again and return to the source of one’s soul, one’s soul must be possessed by Jesus and walk in his name.
With that I see the bus pulling up. So, I will end now.
I wish all of you a good day today and a good coming week. Please ponder these things I have said and see for yourselves the truth contained in Scripture.
I look forward to meeting with you again next Sunday.
Amen