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Spiritual Famine or Spiritual Desertification
A famine touches the fairest apples among women, and the strongest branch of young men – “fair virgins and young men” – and with them, all other men, they do “faint for thirst” (Amos 8:9-13)! A spiritual famine is just as it is written, and men are incapacitated from a saving relationship with God even while, behold, they relentlessly search for the words of God, and, alas, they cannot be found! It is a famine of God’s Presence, God’s preachers, and God’s holy word!
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No Rain = Famine
The presence of God and His holy word, is, none other, but the “rain” (Isa. 5:6), “the former rain”, and “the latter rain” (Joel 2:23), showering salvific life to all of creation that is in desperate need of it. If rain-laden clouds overshadow your land, then look up, for it is about to be fulfilled as God said, “I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: And on My servants and on My handmaidens I will pour out in those days of My Spirit; and they shall prophesy” (Acts 2:17-18)! This is the spiritual “rain” (Heb. 6:7) of salvation, and by interpretation, it is said that it makes men “enlightened,” tasting “the heavenly gift,” being “made partakers of the Holy Ghost,” tasting “the good word of God,” and “the powers of the world to come” (Heb. 6:4-5). Do you see the connection, the parallels, how the prophetic language of light and darkness is just as the language of rain and famine? Therefore, devils are the desertification of a country and nation! They are, perfectly named, “serpents and scorpions” (Lk. 10:19)! They are the inhabitants of waste places and cursed regions, slithering about, living among cursed men who have become a part of the howling desert of sin. Rightly named, these cursed men are the “thorns and thistles” (Heb. 6:6) among which the devils do hide, finding rest, shade, safety, and camouflage. Woe to these men, that devils do find comfort to draw near and commune with them! How horrid it is when God forsakes men! They are covered with dragons, serpents, scorpions, and devils!
On the contrary, what is it for God to save and receive men? Even so, it is written, “When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the LORD will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water” (Isa. 41:17-18). Amen! And again, “He that believeth on Me, as the scripture hath said, out of His belly shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38)! Are you beginning to understand the prophetic language and meaning in these scriptures, and the following?
On the contrary, what is it for God to save and receive men? Even so, it is written, “When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the LORD will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water” (Isa. 41:17-18). Amen! And again, “He that believeth on Me, as the scripture hath said, out of His belly shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38)! Are you beginning to understand the prophetic language and meaning in these scriptures, and the following?
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“Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes” (Isa. 35:6-7).
“Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. The beast of the field shall honour Me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen” (Isa. 43:19-20). “For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring” (Isa. 44:3). “That thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Shew yourselves. They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high places. They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for He that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall He guide them” (Isa. 49:9-10). |
This is salvation! Praise God! Well-watered lands and sprouting prosperity of life, shaded resting places beside green pastures that are circled about by still waters, and, lo, all inhabitants are satisfied! Much opposed to those hungering and thirsting men of perdition, these men drink deeply of “A River,” Whose “streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the Tabernacles of the most High” (Ps. 46:4)! But lost men, the castaways, are men that have become the devil’s apartment – his dwelling place. They make for him a habitable hole. They are an inviting place of refuge for the heaven-hated, fallen angels. These humans are comfortable scenery for hell’s worthies. These scaled beasts of the dust do nestle inside of men, like a den in the desert for poisonous and drooling dragons.
Lost men do thirst in the desert of this world, and they may wander for something to quench and satisfy…they may think they are seeking God, but listen, it is not so! “None seeketh after God” (Rom. 3), and what they seek after is not God. Such men are given over to the insatiable appetite of sin which resides in the flesh and blood, and through the flesh resides the rule of demonic powers. “Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied” (Prov. 27:20), thus were Saul, Esau, and many others, filled with an insatiable hatred for righteousness and its followers. Saul and Esau had a violent hunger for the blood of the righteous (David and Jacob), and lo, apart from the hand of God, it was insatiable. So do men thirst after God, yea, rightly, but a deception is when men search after God but cannot find Him! A deception is the absence of God like water from the desert wastelands, and trapped therein are the fainting wanderers who search for god, but the god they thirst for and seek after is not the one true God. Like Saul and Esau, these lost and Godless men will “put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, and that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service” (John 16:2). When these brothers of Cain do find their “god,” it is not the true God! It is the devil, and they are his ministers! “Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works” (2 Cor. 11:14-15).
They are men and women who take the name of the true God on their lips, but they follow a false god – a god that is created in their own mind, who lives and moves, but lo, it is a masked devil in disguise. By lying words from false prophets, heresies, and the “doctrines of devils,” they do relish in a vain show of religion. “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” (1 Tim. 4:1). Their mouth “devoureth iniquity” (Prov. 19:28), but they are in denial, bethinking themselves continually that they really hunger and thirst for God. “God knows my heart,” they say; “God knows my heart.” Therefore, in a desert wilderness that is without water, they seek after “god” and are filled with him! They are feasting and fat, and know it not, that, behold, they are in a cursed time and generation under a God-ordained famine. “Deceiving and being deceived” (2 Tim. 3:13), they are the “liberty” preachers who need to be freed (2 Pet. 2:19)! They are a famine-stricken man dwelling in a desert wasteland, proclaiming to hell’s rats and lizards, “I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing” (Rev. 3:17)! They sit at the banquet table of “the lord,” and eat! They digest deceptions while dying of starvation. Therefore did King Jesus say to them – “knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked” (Rev. 3:17)!? “Woe unto you that are full! For ye shall hunger” (Luke 6:25)! They take their fill, verily, as roots of bitterness drink up poisonous waters; as dead men in dead waters, stinking, they hate living water preaching. Every man to his thorny cactus, they go, drinking “iniquity like water” (Job 15:16).
They are “lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God” (2 Tim. 3:4). They are “despisers of those that are good” (2 Tim. 3:3). They hunger and thirst, and they seek after god, then they are filled to fatness, and with what? Their “god is their belly, whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things” (Php. 3:19). They are lovers of their vile bodies (Php. 3:21), their god is the deceiver, “The Father of Lies,” the Old Serpent of Eden. God’s word of truth has “no place” in them (John 8:37). They cannot “understand” God’s speech or “hear” God’s word (John 8:43), because, “he that is of God heareth God’s words,” they are not of God therefore they “hear them not” (John 8:47). They are in a spiritual famine, and, lo, they do eat like kings! How can it be? In a habitation of no food they “eat of their dainties” (Ps. 141:4). In a desert that is absent of God, in a howling wilderness that is absent of rain, they are seated for a delectable banquet of the devil’s “deceitful meat” (Prov. 23:3). “Be not desirous of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat” (Prov. 23:3). The wicked, in a spiritual famine of God’s living meats and drinks, eat and drink, are merry, and “waxed fat” (Deut. 32:15), reigning as kings on the earth (1 Cor. 4:8). They are the rich that wear soft clothing. They are rebels and rejecters of the rough raiment of the righteous (Matt. 11:8). Instead of feasting on truth, they devour lies. They are laughing and full, and woe to them (Lk. 6:25)! Christ says, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44). Are you thirsty? Are you filled? Are you fainting? Are you seeking? Are you laughing? Are you weeping? Are you running? Are you willing? Bend your clay vessel over and bow down before the God of all Might – the Sovereign – before He puts you into “the hamster wheel” of your deception from whence you will never escape (Masao Gonthier). Bow down forward, lest He decidedly say, looking upon the multitudes, including you, “let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back alway” (Rom. 11:10).
Lost men do thirst in the desert of this world, and they may wander for something to quench and satisfy…they may think they are seeking God, but listen, it is not so! “None seeketh after God” (Rom. 3), and what they seek after is not God. Such men are given over to the insatiable appetite of sin which resides in the flesh and blood, and through the flesh resides the rule of demonic powers. “Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied” (Prov. 27:20), thus were Saul, Esau, and many others, filled with an insatiable hatred for righteousness and its followers. Saul and Esau had a violent hunger for the blood of the righteous (David and Jacob), and lo, apart from the hand of God, it was insatiable. So do men thirst after God, yea, rightly, but a deception is when men search after God but cannot find Him! A deception is the absence of God like water from the desert wastelands, and trapped therein are the fainting wanderers who search for god, but the god they thirst for and seek after is not the one true God. Like Saul and Esau, these lost and Godless men will “put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, and that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service” (John 16:2). When these brothers of Cain do find their “god,” it is not the true God! It is the devil, and they are his ministers! “Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works” (2 Cor. 11:14-15).
They are men and women who take the name of the true God on their lips, but they follow a false god – a god that is created in their own mind, who lives and moves, but lo, it is a masked devil in disguise. By lying words from false prophets, heresies, and the “doctrines of devils,” they do relish in a vain show of religion. “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” (1 Tim. 4:1). Their mouth “devoureth iniquity” (Prov. 19:28), but they are in denial, bethinking themselves continually that they really hunger and thirst for God. “God knows my heart,” they say; “God knows my heart.” Therefore, in a desert wilderness that is without water, they seek after “god” and are filled with him! They are feasting and fat, and know it not, that, behold, they are in a cursed time and generation under a God-ordained famine. “Deceiving and being deceived” (2 Tim. 3:13), they are the “liberty” preachers who need to be freed (2 Pet. 2:19)! They are a famine-stricken man dwelling in a desert wasteland, proclaiming to hell’s rats and lizards, “I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing” (Rev. 3:17)! They sit at the banquet table of “the lord,” and eat! They digest deceptions while dying of starvation. Therefore did King Jesus say to them – “knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked” (Rev. 3:17)!? “Woe unto you that are full! For ye shall hunger” (Luke 6:25)! They take their fill, verily, as roots of bitterness drink up poisonous waters; as dead men in dead waters, stinking, they hate living water preaching. Every man to his thorny cactus, they go, drinking “iniquity like water” (Job 15:16).
They are “lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God” (2 Tim. 3:4). They are “despisers of those that are good” (2 Tim. 3:3). They hunger and thirst, and they seek after god, then they are filled to fatness, and with what? Their “god is their belly, whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things” (Php. 3:19). They are lovers of their vile bodies (Php. 3:21), their god is the deceiver, “The Father of Lies,” the Old Serpent of Eden. God’s word of truth has “no place” in them (John 8:37). They cannot “understand” God’s speech or “hear” God’s word (John 8:43), because, “he that is of God heareth God’s words,” they are not of God therefore they “hear them not” (John 8:47). They are in a spiritual famine, and, lo, they do eat like kings! How can it be? In a habitation of no food they “eat of their dainties” (Ps. 141:4). In a desert that is absent of God, in a howling wilderness that is absent of rain, they are seated for a delectable banquet of the devil’s “deceitful meat” (Prov. 23:3). “Be not desirous of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat” (Prov. 23:3). The wicked, in a spiritual famine of God’s living meats and drinks, eat and drink, are merry, and “waxed fat” (Deut. 32:15), reigning as kings on the earth (1 Cor. 4:8). They are the rich that wear soft clothing. They are rebels and rejecters of the rough raiment of the righteous (Matt. 11:8). Instead of feasting on truth, they devour lies. They are laughing and full, and woe to them (Lk. 6:25)! Christ says, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44). Are you thirsty? Are you filled? Are you fainting? Are you seeking? Are you laughing? Are you weeping? Are you running? Are you willing? Bend your clay vessel over and bow down before the God of all Might – the Sovereign – before He puts you into “the hamster wheel” of your deception from whence you will never escape (Masao Gonthier). Bow down forward, lest He decidedly say, looking upon the multitudes, including you, “let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back alway” (Rom. 11:10).
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“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled” (Matt. 5:6) --> but it is not so with those under the reprobating deception of God – “In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst” (Amos 9:13).
“Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh” (Lk. 6:21), and, “they that sow in tears shall reap in joy” (Ps. 126:5) --> but it is not so with those under the reprobating deception of God – “when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears” (Heb. 12:17, Gen. 27:36), for, “Esau have I hated” (Rom. 9:13). In a race, “one receiveth the prize,” therefore “so run that ye may obtain” (1 Cor. 9:24), and, “let us run with patience the race that is set before us” (Heb. 12:1) --> but no speed, temperance, or striving can avail for those who are under the reprobating deception of God – “So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy” (Rom. 9:16). |
~ EXAMINE YOURSELF ~
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The Promises
The Bible The Temple The Sacrifices, Incense, Solemn Assemblies, Feast Days, Holy Days, Offerings, Fasting, and Prayers … When the Lord pronounces prophetic damnation, they cannot hear it They have boldness to venture upon the miraculous provision of God like as the true prophets did, but they are false prophets. They truly believe they have not sinned. The sincerity of their deception can be heard in their prayers Therefore, they assure themselves that wrath will not come, and rather salvation, but they don’t even detect that spiritual wrath in the form of God-sent deceptions are already in full swing, therefore they do agree with the false prophets of their day. Spiritual messages & visions are communicated to the people which declare to them the person and attributes of God, therefore, they are a people of high spiritual activity. When God offers mercy to them, if ever they are conscious of it, they cannot lay hold upon it because they believe there is no hope. Deception and reprobation cannot be any more clearly stated than when God does treat a people as these passages of scripture describe. The people seek to enquire of, in a feigned way, presuming the privilege of God’s friendship, and… |
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They “abhor judgment and pervert all equity”, and they are utterly taken in covetousness, and the love of money, “yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among us? None evil can come upon us” (Micah 3:9, 11).
“Why then is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding? they hold fast deceit, they refuse to return. I hearkened and heard, but they spake not aright: no man repented him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? every one turned to his course, as the horse rusheth into the battle. Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but My people know not the judgment of the LORD. How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us? Lo, certainly in vain made he it; the pen of the scribes is in vain. The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken: lo, they have rejected the word of the LORD; and what wisdom is in them?” (Jer. 8:5-9) “Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these. For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour; If ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt: Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever and ever. Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not; And come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?” (Jer. 7:3-10) “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. When ye come to appear before Me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread My courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto Me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts My soul hateth: they are a trouble unto Me; I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide Mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood” (Isa 1:11-15). “And it shall come to pass, when thou shalt shew this people all these words, and they shall say unto thee, Wherefore hath the LORD pronounced all this great evil against us? or what is our iniquity? or what is our sin that we have committed against the LORD our God?” (Jer. 16:10) “Enquire, I pray thee, of the LORD for us; for Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon maketh war against us; if so be that the LORD will deal with us according to all His wondrous works, that he may go up from us” (Jer. 21:2). “Yet thou sayest, Because I am innocent, surely His anger shall turn from me. Behold, I will plead with thee, because thou sayest, I have not sinned” (Jer. 2:35). “Israel shall cry unto Me, My God, we know Thee” (Hos. 8:2) “They have belied the LORD, and said, It is not He; neither shall evil come upon us; neither shall we see sword nor famine” (Jer. 5:12). “Behold, they say unto Me, Where is the word of the LORD? let it come now” (Jer. 17:15). “Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! behold, the prophets say unto them, Ye shall not see the sword, neither shall ye have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place” (Jer. 14:13). “I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in My name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies? yea, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart; Which think to cause My people to forget My name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbour, as their fathers have forgotten My name for Baal” (Jer. 23:25-27). “There is no hope: But we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart” (Jer. 18:12). “Behold, I am against them that prophesy false dreams, saith the LORD, and do tell them, and cause My people to err by their lies, and by their lightness; yet I sent them not, nor commanded them: therefore they shall not profit this people at all, saith the LORD. And when this people, or the prophet, or a priest, shall ask thee, saying, What is the burden of the LORD? thou shalt then say unto them, What burden? I will even forsake you, saith the LORD… Therefore, behold, I, even I, will utterly forget you, and I will forsake you, and the city that I gave you and your fathers, and cast you out of My presence” (Jer. 23:32-33, 39). |