The following Scripture passages are offered to aid beginning fellowships. The readings and commentary for this week are more in line with what has become usual; for the following will most likely be familiar observations. The concept behind this Sabbath’s selection is human domestication.
Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of March 10, 2012
The person conducting the Sabbath service should open services with two or three hymns, or psalms, followed by an opening prayer acknowledging that two or three (or more) are gathered together in Christ Jesus’ name, and inviting the Lord to be with them.
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So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. (Phil 2:1–16 emphasis added)
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1.
Reverent fear of God differs from fear of man or beasts … the Apostle John wrote, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love” (1 John 4:18 emphasis added).
Whoever fears has not been made perfect in love—the one who has the most to fear is the old serpent, Satan the devil; for he awaits his punishment even as he reigns over the world as its present prince.
If a person approaches a dog and fears that dog, the dog senses the fear of the person and becomes usually aggressive towards the person. The dog either or both senses and scents the person’s fear; for what makes a person uncomfortable alters the person’s body scent. Even the simple act of carrying a firearm changes the person’s scent. As a result, professional wildlife photographers almost never carry firearms even when in bear country.
Carrying a firearm in bear country changes the dynamics of the person’s interactions with bears: the scent of fear is not on the person, and bears will usually avoid the person. Therefore, when carrying a firearm and encountering a bear, the situation could have been avoided by the bear so the bear is usually aggressive with shots often having to be fired.
Why in a Sabbath reading introduce the subject of carrying a firearm in bear country: because a person broadcasts a scent of fear when the person is fearful, with this scent of fear producing fear in dogs, in wildfire that in turn causes increased adrenaline production in the dog, in the wildlife that results in more aggressive behavior than otherwise. When the person has no fear, the person broadcasts no scent of fear, and animals respond with less aggression toward the person. Hence the person is less likely to get bitten by a strange dog, said through the experience of being a dogcatcher for a number of years. The person will not have bear encounters that the bear can avoid, also said from experience.
The Apostle Paul wrote,
And you [the holy in Ephesus] were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (Eph 2:1–7 emphasis added.)
No person has as much to fear from an aggressive dog or grizzly as the Adversary has to fear from God, his Creator and the one who has condemned him to death from fire coming out from his belly and utterly consuming him (see Ezek 28:18–19) … if a person’s fear can be sensed or scented by a dog or a grizzly—and it can—with increased adrenaline levels in the dog producing more aggressive behavior as modern research has shown, then all living creatures who are under the Adversary’s dominion as the present prince of this world should be responding to the Adversary’s fear of what will await him.
As the present prince of the power of the air, the Adversary should be broadcasting his fear of God to all the world, with the scent of his fear causing all living creatures to have increased adrenaline levels that result in more aggressive behavior, and with these increased adrenaline levels freezing both physical and mental development of living creatures in the living creature’s infantile state, the basis for why wild species breed true to type, unlike dogs that have all descended from gray wolves or so mitochondrial DNA (mDNA) reveals.
If a dachshund is a gray wolf with genetically lowered levels of adrenaline—genetically lowered through selective breeding for less aggression—then the characteristic physical appearance of wolves is the appearance of canine species’ infancy …
The aggression of wolves, literal and figurative, is immature, selfish behavior — is the behavior of a human infant when too helpless to take what he or she wants so bawls instead when hungry or uncomfortable.
If a dachshund is a gray wolf, sharing 99.8% of the wolf’s DNA, and if a dachshund [dogs in general] has made a species adaptation that causes it to read human faces in a manner similar to how a person reads another person’s face, an activity that the dachshund doesn’t employ when encountering another dog, then in the domestication of dogs and in dogs’ relationship with human beings is a shadow and copy of humankind’s relationship with God, in whose image humankind was created. For a dachshund is no more a gray wolf than a saint, a holy one, is a wild man such as the cryptid Sasquatch, about whom many Native peoples in Northwest America have tales, including the Gwich’in peoples who use the name Dinjii Zhuu for themselves, the name translating as Small People as opposed to the “large people” who are the wild men. Figuratively, the name Dinjii Zhuu refers to “Indians,” not just the Gwich’in.
Emergence of a body of scientific research that runs counter to traditional Christendom’s understanding of man’s creation shouldn’t be rejected out of hand although its timelines are suspect because of the assumptions upon which they are based, that of light mass particle decay, ignoring heavy mass particle decay which would have the creation as young as light mass decay has it old. Nor should the conclusions of this body of research be accepted with blind and dumb faith. Rather, the findings of this research should be examined within the context of belief of God, which does not preclude the existence of big people for Goliath was no small man, nor was King Og. Nor does belief of God preclude the existence of wild men covered with hair; for Esau was born a red man covered with hair. So certainly the genes of Esau and of every reader will be as similar if not more similar than the genes of a dachshund and a gray wolf. The genes of the Nephilim (from Num 13:33) and of the reader will be as similar as the genes of a dachshund and a gray wolf. And a Nephilim born covered with hair would be a Sasquatch.
Because of their long association with human persons, brown bear on Kodiak Island avoid human contact whereas brown bears on the major islands of Southeast Alaska tend not to avoid contact.
Tlingit peoples avoided contact with brown bears; for brown bears were believed to be near of kin. This was not the case on Kodiak Island. Thus, recent historical behavior of men to bears have produced geographical alterations in bear behavior, in how brown bears relate to people, with the McNeil River falls of lower Cook Inlet’s Kamishak Bay being a prime example, and with bears being astute enough to avoid contact with a species that would kill them if or whenever they could. The brown bears of Southeast Alaska had no need to fear the Tlingit peoples who chose not to kill them. And though the bears of Southeast Alaska are more aggressive than the bears at McNeil River falls, the presence of many bears fishing at the same location would not occur without the bears themselves having suppressed their aggression: the wildlife photographers at McNeil River consciously choose not to harm the bears fishing at the falls.
The Gwich’in people would kill the wild people whenever they could as their stories reveal; thus, it is reasonable to suspect that the wild ones, probably more endangered than gray wolves were in the Lower Forty-Eight a half-century ago, would seek to avoid contact with the Small People—ancient Israel didn’t permit the Nephilim to live. And if the cannibals of Athabascan lore, and of Comanche lore were the wild ones, the big people, then it is reasonable for the Dinjii Zhuu to kill them whenever they could. Therefore, if the cannibals of Native American lore were the wild ones, then their aggression would have sealed their fate in a similar way as wolf predation on livestock sealed the fate of gray wolves in the Lower Forty-Eight until environmentalists reversed a national trend of killing wolves on sight.
It will be argued that the carnality of cats, of foxes, of human infants isn’t natural as human researchers have assumed, but comes from the Adversary being the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is at work in all son of disobedience (Eph 2:2–3); for the carnality of nature will evaporate when the kingdom of this world is taken from its present prince and given to the Son of Man halfway through the seven endtime years of tribulation. Then, the breath of the God of the living will be poured out on all flesh (Joel 2:28) and the natures of living creatures will be changed.
The prophet Isaiah records,
There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples--of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious. In that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that remains of his people, from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the coastlands of the sea. (Isa 11:1–11 emphasis added & poetic breaks removed)
The present aggressive and predatory natures of wolves, leopards, lions, serpents will cease to be when the kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man and the Adversary is cast to earth—and if the aggressive natures of wolves ends when the reign of the Adversary ends, then this aggressive and predatory nature comes from the Adversary, either directly or indirectly.
A half century of research on silver foxes in Siberia suggests that what makes a fox a fox comes from genetic adrenaline levels. The higher the adrenaline levels, the more aggressive are the foxes and the more true to breed are the offspring of the foxes. This research shows that if the fox is selectively bred for less aggression alone—no other trait—the fox has lower adrenaline levels and becomes more dog-like within a few generations, even to seeing physical traits beginning to mutate into the physically diverse characteristic of dogs, which again genetically come only from gray wolves. So the question that saints must address: does predatory behavior come as a natural response to this world being ruled by the Adversary, a response based upon increased adrenaline from greater levels of fear being sensed, or is predatory behavior a part (an aspect) of the Adversary’s nature that he transmits in the course of ruling over the single kingdom of this world?
The question has significance; for if the aggression of men, the aggressive natures of wolves comes as a natural response to Satan’s fear of his fate, then dogs are representations of humanity in the Millennium, when Christ Jesus sets His hand to domesticating human beings, transforming present days humanity into sons of God. If the aggression of men comes directly from the Adversary as what he broadcasts (as opposed to him broadcasting his fear that causes increased adrenaline levels in living creatures), then the pacifist natures of men will come directly from Christ Jesus when He pours out His spirit on all of humanity. The pacifist natures of wolves will also come from Christ Jesus, meaning that wolves will not physiologically change as they did in becoming dachshunds; thus the wolf can revert to being a wolf whenever Christ Jesus ceases to broadcast His nature … a dachshund cannot revert to being a wolf. Although packs of domesticated village dogs have gone on killing sprees in rural communities, these dogs are not wolves. They have not returned to being wolves. Jack London’s Call of the Wild doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny.
Fifty years ago, before there were as many kennels breeding high quality sled dogs in Alaska, dog breeders in looking for stronger and tougher sled dogs would back-breed wolf into their sled dogs, and the consensus was that above one-eighth wolf (12.5%), the dog wouldn’t work at pulling a sled. The dog was no longer a dog, but was a wild beast. So while domesticated dogs running loose at night will team up in packs to kill livestock, they return in the morning to their feed dishes and want fed. They are akin to inner city gangs that would not be able to survive as wild men in the cold rainforests of the Northwest Coast—and would not want to provide for themselves in a neolithic culture.
Regardless of whether the aggressive and predatory nature of wolves comes as a natural response to the Adversary’s fear of what will befall him, or comes directly from the Adversary, the wolf will dissipate into thin air when the kingdom is given to the Son of Man, with the expression <Son of Man> being a selective rendering so <son of Adam> and therefore applicable to every human person, with Christ Jesus being the First of the firstborn human sons of God.
If there is an elevated fear factor in living under the rule of the Adversary, with this fear producing elevated adrenaline levels that result in increased aggression, then much of the present behavior of humanity can be explained in terms that have a pseudo-scientific base; for the presence or absence of the Adversary cannot be scientifically confirmed or rejected. Finding a home address for Bigfoot would be easier than finding a home address for the Adversary, who is more camera shy than is Bigfoot … I jest, for the Adversary cannot be photographed for he doesn’t block the light rays of the sun, but the light of God.
However, said without qualification or explanation, being in the presence of the Adversary will cause elevated levels of adrenaline to run in a human person, especially when the person realizes what is then occurring; so it is reasonable to assume that the aggressive and predatory behavior of wolves and of men comes from long term exposure to the broadcast of the Adversary as the prince of the power of the air, that the great predators have genetically frozen-in-place infantile behavior that will be figuratively thawed when the kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man. For it is infantile behavior that has a wolf or a nation-state taking what it wants through aggression against another living entity or nation-state. It is infantile behavior that causes harm to occur in this world. And what Paul was admonishing disciples to do was grow up, put childish behavior and childish things behind them.
To have the mind of Christ in a person is to have an adult mind in the son of man, with this adult mind causing the person to do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, to be humble, to look out for others’ interests as well as one’s own interests [the opposite of the socialist nanny state], to do all things without grumbling or—and here is the big one—without questioning so that the person might be blameless and innocent as a child … a human child is innocent even if subject to carnality and selfishness. A Christian is to work out his or her own salvation without grumbling or questioning, a tall order when there are more wolves within greater Christendom than there are in Alaska, and when there is no open season on those wolves who devour the flocks of God. At least in Alaska, there is a season on wolves where they over populate an area.
How is a Christian to work out his or her own salvation without questioning what it is that the Christian hears preached from the pulpit?
If a Christian knows what is preached from the pulpit is error, the Christian should immediately leave that congregation and NEVER return … in staying in a congregation, regardless of the reason, where error is preached from the pulpit, that error will infect the Christian and will eventually kill the Christian spiritually. Now error preached won’t kill a Christian who has been truly born of God because the person cannot stay long in a congregation where error is preached from the pulpit—the spirit of Christ that is in the person numbered among the Elect cannot long abide the spirit of the Adversary that is preached from the pulpit. And because it isn’t the Elect’s congregation, the truly born of God disciple should not try to correct the error preached; should not stay and try to teach what is true to whomever will listen; but should flee as fast as he or she can from the cloud of falseness that blankets the congregation.
In the trite truism of birds of a feather flock together is seen why the Christian truly born of God should not stay in a congregation where error is preached from the pulpit; for members of the congregation are of the same feather as the one who preaches error or they would not still be in the congregation. If they were truly born of God, they couldn’t stay long; for again the spirit within them is not compatible with the spirit that inspires the preaching of error.
The son of God who tries to save an errant congregation or individuals in an errant congregation will, inevitably, do harm to themselves through learning and practicing the ways of this world, ways that will have to be unlearned when Christ Jesus disciplines the son of God as a parent disciplines a human child so that the child’s carnal ways seem “civilized.”
This is a subject about which much isn’t known for the Nephilim and Esau’s hairiness seem unrelated to salvation. A wild man stealing fish from a smokehouse of a Yukon River fish camp wouldn’t seem to have importance to a Christian, or a wild man along the Yukon mimicking the youthful serenading of Native teenage boys flirting with a girl are merely anecdotal stories, but they support a relationship between the Dinjii Zhuu, the Small People, and the Big People that is analogous to the relationship between dogs and wolves, with the domestication of the Dinjii Zhuu producing the human physiological variations that are akin to the species variation seen in dogs—and with mental characteristics being selected during the seven endtime years of tribulation.
Human beings are accustomed to believing that they are masters of their own fates, but was this true for the Russian peoples who perished in the Gulag, or the Jews who perished in the Holocaust, or the Cambodians who didn’t escape the killing fields? Is the Syrian big man, Bashar al-Assad, not devouring the small people of Syria … as the Gwich’in found wild ones dwelling in holes in the ground and pilled brush over these holes and set the brush on fire, killing the wild ones, the small people of Syria are doing what they can to bring down the big man devouring them.
But such things are not the affairs of the holy ones, who are to walk in this world as Christ Jesus walked:
If then you have been raised with Christ [raised from death], seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Col 3:1–17 emphasis added)
As the holy ones of God, we have been selected by the Father through being foreknown and predestined. In Siberia, silver fox kits were selected shortly after birth for their lack of aggression: these kits were permitted to breed, producing over fifty generations foxes that behave as dogs and show species variations as dogs show.
The foreknown and predestined Christian forms the foundational stock for human sons of God in the Millennium, where even wolves will dwell with lambs as Maremma Sheepdogs today dwell with lambs … in the case of wolves, the prophecy of Isaiah already has a type of its fulfillment in Livestock Guardian Dogs (LGDs) that go back in history to ancient Roman literature and the writers Columella, Varro, and Palladius. Perhaps in dogs can be found the history of the domestication of men, a history that extends forward a thousand years.
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The person conducting the Sabbath service should close services with two hymns, or psalms, followed by a prayer asking God’s dismissal.
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"Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."