August 28th.

These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.

Paul understood what the OT scriptures were a copy of, what they represented and pointed at. But that was a secret knowledge that had to be revealed to him. The voice of the Lord who spoke to him on the way to Damascus, then all his life after that along with the very condition that he existed in, assured him that he and those who were being transformed into sons were a fulfillment of those OT writings he knew so well about the chosen people of God, the Israelites who represent God's secret and hidden family of sons whom He has been pulling out of the humans race, putting His mark upon them and sealing them up so that they are remembered by Him.

Although before that knowledge was revealed to him, he only knew the OT words from the human perspective, even though he was an "expert" in the law, with all of his credentials given to him by the humans. Before the revelation he assumed he knew, he thought he knew, and all the humans around him reinforced the same thing as they gave him the affirmations that he knew what the scriptures pointed to.

The people of Israel are oppressed, and the people of Judah as well.
All their captors hold them fast, refusing to let them go.

The family of God is waiting to be revealed, but it has to patiently endure and wait, just like the Father had to wait for the Son to be revealed. It's almost as though this is our destiny, to figure out how to wait, and patiently endure while continuing to be faithful to something other than our selves. That is the animal encapsulation, serving its self, so the opposite must be true for the sons of the Father who wants more from them than just being like all the others, which is a difficult thing because is goes against everything that naturally lives in us to be, live and strive for. The animal gets what it needs by doing and getting by its own means. The sons have to wait for the Father to give them what they need to endure and wait for the family to be revealed.

Yet their Redeemer is strong; the LORD Almighty is his name.
He will vigorously defend their cause so that he may bring rest to their land,
but unrest to those who live in Babylon.

The promises of God through the scriptures were many for Israel, and the experts all assumed that God was giving these promises about Israel proper, about the earthly nation of humans inhabiting the land promised to Abraham the copy of the patient and faithful father, most of whom hated God and His promises because they couldn't patiently wait and faithfully endure.

God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert.

Before Paul was born from above, he assumed he knew because that is the way of the humans. Although they can know human things, they cannot know anything true about the hidden, secret God unless the invisible spirit of God shows them what's true in the parts of them that go beneath natural thinking and figuring. If they think they know (those who claim to know the way to God because a group of humans who don't know all agree that they actually do), it is just an assumption that is formed and built on sand, and has no foundation. The sand that slips through the fingers or shifts on the ground is just like everything in the natural creation—one moment the life seems so certain, then the next it's gone and another takes its place. Then that which seemed so sure before is just gone back into the ground.

So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!

When Paul wrote this letter he knew—because the living word had been speaking to him for a long time and he had been being transformed for a long time also—what is more important than anything. That is because the assumptions that the humans are naturally bound to because they just don't know any better (they aren't being transformed), had been to a large degree already thoroughly rooted out of Paul. He had been living with the word for 15 or so years already, which was the intention of the Father that each day the transformation was being more thoroughly accomplished in him, which can be deduced in this letter many times over in his character and attitude versus those he was trying to persuade to stay on  the path that leads to the Father, instead of back to the animal and all its ways. That is the purpose for the sons for each other, not just to make the other ones feel good and allow them to keep hiding but to make them better by trying to point them to the Father and away from themselves. Yet for all of Paul's dedication to his brothers, there were some who claimed that Paul was just being self-righteous, mostly because they didn't want to face their fear but instead wanted to remain slaves to their animal urges to appease the fear and indulge the cravings. It was the same story as Aaron and Miriam trying to assume themselves to be Moses because of something inside them, when Moses was who he was because God made him. That's just the animal who doesn't want to see because it would rather serve itself.

No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

Paul didn't speak randomly, as though he just pulled what he said out of the air. Paul spoke from the experience of his own understanding of walking on the path. What he had been exposed to he thoroughly believed that the other sons would also have to go through if they were to be transformed from animal to son, as was true about him—the transformation was taking place in Paul's body as witnessed by his words that reveal a devotion that was genuine and pure, not from selfish means. We can feel that from the fellowship we have with Paul's words which transcends the normal mental process, as we share the momentum he had gained living by and with the same spiritual intention which guided him. We have that fellowship because the same living word that spoke to Paul also speaks to us, which can guide us if we choose it over our selves. If we choose our selves though, then that is what will guide us back into our selves. We can only go one way or another.

Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry.

Where do we suppose that word would be guiding us? We would guess it would be away from what is evil, that which corrupts us, and toward what is good, what gives us life. Then we have to establish what is evil and what's good. Even from our short time understanding this process of being transformed, we know from our own experience—not from theory, or conceptual teachings of other men—that the animal nature exists and is alive within us. We've already been shown very clearly that it binds us up and keeps us serving it (evil), and that without the active force of God (good), we are doomed to always serve it.

What we know about this process of transformation is that we are inhabited by the animal (cursed serpent to which the humans were bound) nature, that it is the sinful nature Paul writes about. Not a sinful nature that only inhabits the bad people and stays away from the good ones, but that which inhabits them all and therefore defines them as unclean animals who cannot ever come close to God. We also know that H secretly chooses some to come away from being led by that nature, so they can become clean because they allow themselves to be led by the nature that defines them as sons who aren't led by the animal, but by the word that lives in them to teach them to choose (accept) the way of the Father and choose against (reject) that which wants to instinctually lead them away from the Father to make them do its will.

The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God.

We understand a lot of theoretically reasonable things about our condition, because the living word has given us this understanding, and for no other reason than to create a foundation upon which a new nature can be built up inside us to replace the old way of being led by the instincts of the natural animal. But, as Paul warns the Corinthians, no matter how much we may think we know, we still don't know anything, because it's only the tiniest tip of the iceberg that we may have understanding about. What we do know, though, is that the very animal nature that we think we know so much about will deceive us into a trap we set for ourselves, thinking we know more than we can know.

So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!

This is not a teaching of men, but from the power of the spirit that teaches us about the animal's ability to completely control and beguile us. We know from what the word has told us about our own understanding of what lives in us, and what we observe lives in the other humans, and what the words of the prophets tell us, that what we know is true. The things of God make sense, and have been getting clearer as we have gone along. It is not something we ever heard anyone saying before, or observed in any of our experiences before just a few years ago. We know that this is the real deal.

The heart of the animal is deceitfully tricked all the time; whenever it thinks it knows enough to take a breath and stand firm, we are beguiled. There is no standing firm on our own, because there is nothing good in us. The fact that we can never stand firm is a good thing, not bad, because we have to keep coming away from that deception, which is around every corner.

So now that we know that the animal nature is evil, and keeps us from knowing the Father, because it keeps us unclean, the next logical step is that we will begin to be led away from the purely theoretical understanding so that the actuality of the transformation will happen in us—so we don't merely remain in the theoretical realm, knowing about it but not knowing it. If we know about the animal nature, and yet also know that it fully inhabits us, then we can assume it will always try to use what we know against us, because we know that is the very definition of its purpose.

That will be what should be obvious, that we will assume to have something we don't, or be something we aren't, just because we may know something about it, even only in theory. We can be certain that that is one of its main purposes, because of what we know about the humans—they assume to have something they don't have, and to know what they don't know, and are kept in the dark by the very assurances they hold onto as proof to themselves so they remain in that endless loop of deception built on deception. It never stops, according to the way God wants it to be for those who are not chosen to break out of the many cycles/circles the creation is kept in, according to God's purpose for the way He has designed the present creation to be how we know it is.

How does the transformation actually happen in the sons? We know that the animal nature is the opposite (evil as defined by God) of God's nature (good as defined by Jesus), and we know that the humans are totally and completely under the membrane of its presence—so much so that they could never even admit to its by-products or tendencies in them, let alone its presence in them as their very nature which completely engulfs them (they all think, because of the nature that compels them to think it, that they are inherently good, never the least bit evil or opposed to God).

We already know that if we expose ourselves to certain things that the word has already told us are wrong and bad for us, we suffer particular consequences for allowing ourselves to be led away and enticed by whatever is trying to entice us. Those things get more and more clearer as we go along—do such and such, then this undesirable consequence happens, and we accept it as the discipline of the Father toward His sons, and it makes sense that it would be such, which is reinforced in the writing of Paul in Hebrews 12.

A good place to start then would seem to be to actively choose to not be exposed to that nature, if we can do anything to help it. So where does the animal nature clearly exist, where is it most firmly rooted? We can see how much it exists even in our heart to the point that we can actually admit it's even there, and see the undesirable effects of it being alive in our heart. We can see how the humans are so utterly infected by that same animal nature—opposed to God—that they are 100% ruled by it, so much so that they can't even be aware of it.

They by nature will do everything they can, without even thinking, to continue reinforcing it in themselves and those who are around them. They can't even help it; that's just what they're driven to do, by the instincts that are built into them. Those who we will be most susceptible to are the ones that we consider good (according to the humans), not the ones who are evil (according to the humans). Those who are nicest to us, who give us what makes us feel complete and good within our animal selves, are the ones who will most easily infect us with the way of man; because we trust them, and consider them good, on our side, looking out for our good. And they do look out for our good, but not according to God, but man, because they don't know the way of God or to God.

In a way they're completely innocent, but because of their very condition they can only be guilty, and lead us not to God, but away from God. They're actively involved in a certain pursuit, but they're not even aware that they're doing it, so they'll never confirm anything about it because they don't have any idea. And because it's so against our sensibilities (formed by the animal nature in us for all those years, so firmly established within us as our character), we will assume that it can be passive, that we can mix the two things (the way and purpose of the animal with the way and purpose of God) and it won't hurt us, because we consider these certain humans good—they do what we like, what makes us feel okay in our animal state (they don't shoot at us with guns, strangle us or hit us in the face—things the evil humans might do to us).

However, just because they're innocent and don't know what they're doing, doesn't mean they can't only do us harm by constantly reinforcing the way of the animal in us, that which can only lead us away from, not toward, the Father. Can we find any instances in the scriptures where God's people are exhorted toward coming away from what pollutes, and not mixing with those influences? Is there anything about being separated, sanctified, holy for the Lord's use? Anything about living as a stranger in the world because we are citizens of another?

Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees, and that of Herod, which is hypocrisy.

There's a fine line between phariseeism/legalism, declaring things as unclean for our own good and purpose; and remaining true to what the word is telling us to do, protecting what is the Lord's, staying on the path that leads to becoming clean, that which can be brought near to the Father, to be of any use and enjoyment at all to Him.

My people have been lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray
and caused them to roam on the mountains.
They wandered over mountain and hill and forgot their own resting place.

If there is one message to understand throughout the continuity of the words preserved for us to read, it is this idea of God's people being separated from everything that pollutes, so that they can be for His purpose and enjoyment. How much more for those who are truly God's people, for those at whom so much of what is written only points? One difficult component of this will be identifying and actually accepting what the things are that do contaminate us. This is another example of how it's not easy to follow the Lord, that we cannot hold on to our life and also have the life of God in us—we cannot mix what's been declared evil with what's been declared good.

I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.

But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.