November 20th.

The LORD will roar from Zion and thunder from Jerusalem; the earth and the sky will tremble. But the LORD will be a refuge for his people,   a stronghold for the people of Israel.

Then you will know that I, the LORD your God, dwell in Zion, my holy hill. Jerusalem will be holy; never again will foreigners invade her.

In that day the mountains will drip new wine, and the hills will flow with milk; all the ravines of Judah will run with water. A fountain will flow out of the LORD's house and will water the valley of acacias.

Judah will be inhabited forever and Jerusalem through all generations.
Their bloodguilt, which I have not pardoned, I will pardon. The LORD dwells in Zion!

Everything about Israel, to whom many OT promises are made—God's people, those who were chosen to be His possession and inheritance—is about His family of sons, the silently secret gathering of which is His will and purpose from the beginning. The sons of God are the reason the firstborn Son was created, for their sake so they could be saved from their otherwise permanent condition of being bound forever to the ground they would rot into and forever remain one with. For the Father's sake is even more precise because that's His will, what He wants from the humans and the reason He has had to deal with them for so long—so that out from their midst He could pull His own family of sons who don't look and act like wild, fearful animals who run and hide, but sons who know and love Him, who can walk up to Him and be near Him because they're like Him.

He wants a house and a family, to be surrounded by the love of all those humans whom He has first chosen, and who also have chosen Him back, over the right to have and hold onto their own lives, selves, and purpose, who have seen past the transparency of the natural existence, and responded by rejecting the lie because they love the truth of the reality of the existence of their true Father more than the lie of their own immortality and the desire to be king over their own destiny. They are the ones who are willing to conform to another reality than that which they have created for themselves, one in which they are part of something bigger than themselves, that family the Father has been secretly gathering up since the beginning, filled with sons who were once wild animals, but who have been transformed by their willingness to conform to the Father's requirements that they don't hang on to their lives and be and do whatever craving comes up in them via the instinct that rules them, but are willing to deny it for the good of that better, bigger thing they have been chosen to be a part of.

Sin is just being an animal by following the instincts that are naturally inhabiting one's body—living for the urges that well up either momentarily to satisfy some craving, or the longer living and ever-present need to survive in the many ways that instinct manifests itself. Most simply it is allowing the old nature, of the wild animal, to lead and guide us by recognizing it, by letting it lead us one way when we know that the teacher has told us to go another. The details aren't as important as is learning to say no to that which is living in us to make us want to go after it by being alluring and promising to satisfy us, even when we know that the satisfaction it offers isn't beneficial or at all lasting. As soon as one thing is satisfied it goes away, only to come back with more alluring invitations either about the same thing or something else.

Then all the people went away to eat and drink, to send portions of food and to celebrate with great joy, because they now understood the words that had been made known to them.

Is it so hard to believe that the truth went away, that the people didn't even know what the law was until God appointed the time for it to be re-established amongst His people? His inheritance went into captivity into the darkness of Babylon, where they were totally immersed in the ways of the world, and the ways of God vanished from the earth. Mystery Babylon also swallowed up what was true on the earth, and it has been in this darkness in the same way as before, where the truth is just gone and all that exists about God are lies made up by men. It does explain why, no matter where you go or who it is that is claiming to know the authentic way to God, it seems fake and lacking once you get past whatever veneer they've polished up their gold plated turds with (acting skills, solemn seriosity, tear jerker songs, flowing robes or stained glass windows).

May the Lord direct your hearts into God's love and Christ's perseverance.

Another one of the whore's lies that creeps in to our minds is the conception of God as some all-loving, democratic being who just wants as many people as possible to be "in the kingdom," or "in heaven." The picture of Him just waiting for more people to "accept the truth" comes right from the whore's influence on this culture (as though they are the gatekeepers of truth). Many people put stock in the lie it created—that there is some "heaven" waiting for them (christadelphians call it "the kingdom"), and if they're able to fulfill some external obligations to this impersonal, made up god (made up by men shortly after Paul went to sleep), then they'll "go to heaven," or "be in the kingdom."

Unfortunately, it's a hard thing to separate ourselves from because that philosophy has also shaped our thinking. God isn't all-inclusive but He chooses certain people, and doesn't choose others. It's easier to think that God loves everyone, and wants everyone to be saved because that seems "fair," and we've learned that God must be fair. However, the humans are only actually "fair" to themselves, and not at all fair to the other animals they are able to rule over, and just because they have the power to not be fair. The humans aren't fair at all. The most self-satisfied democrat who fights for the rights of other humans doesn't have a problem going out and buying meat that came from a place where fairness doesn't exist for the animals like them in more ways than not, even down to pumping hearts and mouths that eat. The humans are haughty about their relationship with all the other animals, and most of them even amongst each other (the farm animal is just an example for those who claim to be fair to other humans).

They usually have no problem choosing themselves over the other humans i.e., they're hardly ever "fair" with each other. Yet they *always* want to make the gods they create for themselves fair and inclusive, and they always want to say that God must be fair or He wouldn't be God, that being partial would be an imperfection for God to have. But that would be contrary to the teaching throughout the OT & NT, and it also paints God's love as kind of cheap and easy. That is perfectly reflected in the attitudes of people who claim to love God with their mouth, but in their heart they love their lives more, and show that they consider God's love not very valuable. That is the dilemma of the humans being led/ruled by the animal nature; they are slaves to it so that they cannot ever please God.

Something even more pleasing to the Father than being good, than staying out of trouble and not indulging in the cravings that well up inside to tempt and sway; is to not hide and pretend we didn't do something wrong but realize the power of that by which we've been hornswoggled to listen it it and obey it, to satisfy a craving that welled up in us like it was our master and in doing so, having to forget about our teacher and the Father who wants us to listen to His voice instead. The shame and realization of our own deceitfulness should break our willful heart and our hiding, lying nature that wants to pretend we are still inherently so good, and wants to hide from the Father and not be found out.

You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

God chooses based on man's choice, set by either the example of Adam or Jesus—whether he wants the truth, or will settle for the lie. The first and second sons—one chose one way and the other chose the other way. One listened to the voice of the animal and did what he wanted to do—trusting and loving the lie. The other listened to the voice of his Father and did what He told him to do, even if he didn't want to do it, even if the animal's offering was so alluring and inviting. The animal may have even almost convinced him that its way was better, as it convinced the humans, because it was authentic, not just staged like a cheap novelty (why the delusion of him being a god nullifies everything that's real and good). It was a real choice he had to make, not staged by a god for whom it wouldn't have been a choice at all, nor very difficult. It is the crux of what can save the sons, because it's precisely what the sons must become in order to be pleasing to the Father—broken and despised, even to themselves (not hanging on to their pitiful little existences as though they were so valuable, when they're actually worth nothing more than the life of a roasting chicken already in the pan.

This condition is the result of the animal consciousness, the impermeable blanket that is the nature of man. Nobody's at fault, that's just human thinking that always needs to justify itself or God by being excused from fault to feel that it is right and good. The very unfair and hypocritical wild animal nature is what everyone's is born into as humans. Even if a man wants to get to God he can't, because of that membrane of the animal consciousness. The reason I keep bringing it up is not to say some people are bad and others are good, or prove any other point except that everyone's born into it and they don't even know it. It is the curse put on Adam, the sinful nature that Paul talks about; why Jesus called the humans in general "wicked and evil"—just because they were not like God, who is good.

Without the work of the Christ, all the sons whom God ever loved would have remained dead. God loves Jesus not just because he worked for Him and accomplished the means of salvation for the sons. Not that the work of the Lord isn't important in any way, but God could have accomplished the work Himself, or He could have set another criteria, or He could have had the angels do the work, because they're good at accomplishing His work. In other words is wasn't just work that needed to be done, or some token offering that needed to be given, so the son god came down out of heaven where he already lived with the father god, just to die on the cross according to prophesy (to prove to everyone that the father god was right all the time—in your face unbelievers), and then go back to heaven so all the good people who adhere to that conception of the how the story goes can all go to heaven too and get eternal survival for themselves.

What we knew a while ago is that God regards the man who chooses Him in the same way men regard great treasure, riches and wealth. It seems kind of simple, but it is a most profound truth about God and His ultimate purpose—to have a family of sons who all chose Him over their own way, their own lives, their own purposes—the animal and everything it continually has to offer.

The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.

What He wants is an entire family of courageous and appreciative Adams who say to the snake, "No I don't want the lie, I want what my Father is offering me," instead of, "Yes, I love the lie and I want that for my self." Each of those who are called are given the choice—however subtle and however it plays out in their own particular lives. When we think about what pleases God, we should think about these words of Jesus. He had the actual, real and compelling choice to either take his life or give it up, and he knew the truth about why God loved Abraham. He was actually willing to kill the most blessed thing he ever had for God's sake, because God had asked him to. He may have tried to rationalize about why he shouldn't do it, but he did it—in his heart he was doing it, and it would have been done if not for the angel that stopped him. What does the text say directly after:

Now I know that you love God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.

Those who choose God, God chooses them. Most, though, will choose their own way because it's in them to love the lie that their existence is so incredibly significant. The sons know that it is not, because it's natural, ruled by the serpent. However, their exposure to the humans and the cynical culture they've created which encourages everyone to be so partial to their own selves and dilemma of survival, and the hell with everyone else while they pretend to be "fair," can only hurt them. The very way that the humans naturally are can only reinforce in the sons what they need to be moving away from, which is why the command was issued by God to the representative copy of the real sons, to come away from what contaminates and be clean.

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."

"Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty."

Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.

Everything that is a part of it merely exists for a little while and then becomes nothing. It's not as though God isn't fair, because He knows the hearts of men, even the thoughts behind the motivations. Who are we to define fair for God, anyway—or who's to say that everyone doesn't get the chance to choose Him? We know that sometime after Paul left, God sent the delusion. We also know that that fact explains so much confusion, which has confounded men always. Why are there so many differing beliefs, yet each of the groups seems so utterly convinced by their own particular beliefs, and yet each group claims exclusivity. You cannot explain this phenomenon except by the creation and existence of this delusion, sent by God.

Paul warns about a time, just beyond the first century, when God would send a "powerful delusion" onto man, because people love to believe the lie instead of the truth—just like Adam did. So because they love the lie, they get the lie, which makes them believe in their hearts that the lie they hold onto is actually truth. Very much like Adam's situation—because he chose to trust the animal, its nature was "put on" to him, he was bound to it and became one with it. All the humans are made one with the animal by that condition, contrasted with Jesus, who was made One with the Father. That is the difference, why all the humans are evil, because they're actually animals instead of sons.

"Many are invited, but few are chosen."

Those who are called are called to choose God or themselves. It is the choice all the sons get to make—to either trust God or the animal. God knows who chooses Him in the deepest, secret places of their hearts. Jesus is called the light, because the choice he made is what we are all judged by. The light of the life of Jesus is what shines into the dark places of every man's heart, and thereby judges the man.

In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

The choice he made, to believe God over the animal, is what can save the sons; that is the true work he did, and why God loves him. He had the power to take his life (believe the animal) or to lay it down (believe God). That is loving God—not merely saying, "I love God," but actually choosing, in our heart, our selves over God. We're not judged by men, but by God, according to the standard of the life of His only Son, who did choose Him. The thing that often escapes us is that the choice Jesus had to make was real, actual, and compelling. God loves him because in spite of all that he could have had, he chose God over the lie.