sorry, figured out length was the issue...

Filling the key

The more we fill the menorah, the better we can understand what it is explaining to us of what’s all going on in each arm. I’m going to do the important ones. First up, from Matthew, the gospel giving us knowledge. Very definitive, he is.

(Mark is the gospel getting us through the wilderness, hurry, hurry, start following the counsel that saves you. The key word people see in mark? Immediately. This is where the children spent the least amount of time, only 40 years.

Luke, the human, described as the servant, gaining the wisdom and understanding to care for our fellows. That’s part of attach, Jesus’ greatest commandment, to Love the Lord and one’s neighbor. The first two grounds have to do with oneself and the Lord, the third with others, attachments.

John, all on his own, the real deal. The spiritual one. I have a weakness for him, what can i say? Lots! He has the most valuable stuff of them all.)

The 7 blessings.

Matthew 5:3-9

Blessed are the poor in spirit,

  for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens.

Blessed are those mourning,

  for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,

  for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those hungering and thirsting for righteousness,

  for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful,

  for they will receive mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart,

  for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers,

  for they will be called sons of God.

And here is an opportunity to show the importance of reading carefully.

some people see eight, others nine beatitudes (in verses 10 & 11), but look again.

The first seven blessings refer to the own attributes/actions of the people mentioned. The next blessings refer to other people's actions applied to the people mentioned. The blessings are separate, in two distinct forms, and we're looking at the form applied to the own attributes/actions of the people mentioned. The spiritual world is inside oneself, not outside.

Now we map in the standard (down here) way, from 'outside' to 'inside', look at the diagram.

Again, for the sake of clarity -

Being aware of being poor in spirit causes one to search for the spiritual wealth of the knowledge of God, and this prepares entrance to the Kingdom. (this is the start. Out of egypt I called My Son. When you acknowledge the existence of God He is calling you. Or, when He calls you, you acknowledge His existence, but be careful, for many are called, but few are chosen…)

This brings knowledge of one's sinful state, and that tends to make one mournful of one's lot, but comfort will be given to encourage to continue, because…

To meekly accept the counsel the Word offers prepares one to inherit the earth.

(alternative translation - Blessed are those who exercise strength under control - in some ways even clearer) What earth? Eretz israel, the next ground, the inheritance promised to abraham’s offspring. And all the nations, yes, but that’s revelation territory.

And that leads one to righteousness, and the hunger and thirst for that will see one filled, giving the strength to continue.

Wisdom contains/is the ability to judge, and the best/real judgment to come to is mercy, show it and it will be shown to you (forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, oof - have to show the Lord’s prayer too, later).

From this comes understanding, allowing for the heart to become pure, with a most amazing reward, for God's face has always been veiled so that we impure creatures do not be destroyed on seeing It.

And then the ability to make peace is enabled (wait till you see what peace we’re talking about), and these are who God calls His children. The Spirit of the Lord dwells fully indeed.

The 7 churches

This is crucial to understanding the spiritual message of the Word.

The message of Jesus to the 7 churches in Revelation chapters 2 and 3, from a spiritual point of view, has nothing to do with all the theories that abound in the physical world. It is a message to each of the seven spirits of the Lord (or the angels of the churches being referred to) which comprise our spiritual being.

Now i admit i am not sure if each angel addressed is one of the seven-fold aspects of our spiritual being itself or an actual (minor?) angel assigned to help us. But as an angel is a messenger, and a separate being, i suspect the latter.

But, as an angel is a spiritual being, so now is(are) our newly-born 7-fold spirit being. Hhm.

I’m not going to commit myself to try to convince you if i’m not sure, i said i wouldn’t.

(Note - believe it or not, i’m keeping it simple here for clarity, actually there are seven lampstands, and i’m only describing one, each arm is in turn a lampstand all by itself. But there’s a real danger of confusion, it’s all difficult enough already - i’ll expand on this after the seven proofs of luke below).

These short messages to the churches pack an immense amount of information into very few words, once you get into the spiritual aspect of the Bible you will find yourself returning to them constantly.

I am going to summarize part of the content, extracting only two points out of each, what the message says must be done (what to do?), and what the message promises to the one who overcomes. Do feel free to open up to rev ch 2.

As usual, we map from outside to inside.

Ephesus

Repent from abandoning your first love (the search for knowledge of God)

And you will eat from the tree of Life.

Smyrna

Do not fear tribulation

And you will not be harmed by the second death.

Pergamum

Repent from bad teachings (of Balaam and the Nicolaitans)

And you will be given of the hidden manna (knowledge, always a form of bread) and the white stone.

Thyatira

(Here one must read very carefully again, there is a distinction between those who hold to Jezebel's teaching and commit immorality with her, and those who don't. The people being addressed are not the ones told to repent, why this is important i will explain later)

Do not hold to Jezebel's teaching

And you will be given authority and the morning star.

Sardis

Repent (by waking up) from  the sleep of death

And you will be given white garments and your name in the book of life.

Philadelphia

Do not let go of what you have (keeping His word and not denying His name)

And you will be made a pillar of the Temple and be named of God.

Laodicea

Repent from being lukewarm

And you will sit with Jesus on the Throne. 

Refer to the diagram.

I will be returning to more about the rest of the content of the messages later, but for now, - 

Each of the seven-fold spirit of which we comprise (or each respective angel allocated) is being told -

In Ephesus the spirit of knowledge of God is rebuked for not paying attention anymore, but told that the fruit of life eternal awaits once the knowledge is acquired sufficiently to flame up  (What is sufficient? God knows, we don't).

In Smyrna the spirit of Fear of the Lord is told to fear nothing but the Lord Himself, that is what makes that flame bright, and the promise is connected to that for Ephesus, the second death will not do harm.

In Pergamum the spirit of Counsel of the Lord is rebuked for paying attention to the wrong counsel, but told that the hidden manna (the spiritual food of wisdom, the next ground) and the white stone await. (the significance? Each time for each pair in that ground we’re talking about progressing from that ground to the next. In the next ground israel the land gets allocated to each family of each tribe, and they used white stones to demarcate the boundaries...)

In Thyatira the spirit of Strength of the Lord is told not to hold to the teachings of immorality and idolatry of Jezebel,  the strength that those teachings give leads to sickness and death, and then no other burden will be cast, and the authority that the kingdom of israel will have over the nations gets granted, as well as the dawn arriving at last. This refers to the Biblical day, which consists firstly of the night one spends in the first two grounds, and then of the day of the next two. When revelation describes the new world, jerusalem has the Light residing in it, and israel is bathed continuously by the light. Day indeed. Again, the promise to Thyatira is connected to that of Pergamum.

In Sardis the spirit of the Wisdom of the Lord is rebuked for having fallen asleep (dying) and not having completed the works required for wisdom, not having eaten of that hidden manna, but remembering what is taught and applying it will clothe one in white at last and ensure one's name enters the Book of Life. This ensures no second death at all.

There’s a difference between no second death at all and not being harmed by the second death… Oh, and there are four Books in all…go look, if you’re interested.

In Philadelphia the spirit of the Understanding of the  Lord is told not to let go of keeping Jesus' Word and to not deny His name, and the one doing so will be made a pillar in the Temple, and will receive God's name, the new Jerusalem's name, and Jesus' new name.  Again connected to Sardis. Do remember, we're always talking about successfully progressing to the next ground.

In Laodicea you’d think you’ve got it made, but the spirit of the Lord is scathingly rebuked for thinking just that and it looks like one has been sent back to the beginning. Yet here we see that as many as Jesus might love (separating goats and sheep!) receive His rebuke and discipline.

This the only moment when Jesus intervenes in the process of overcoming, in the verse before  - 

Rev 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and dine with him, and he with Me -

and the reward is at last given to the bride, to sit with Him on His throne.

(yes, she not he, this interchangeability of gender throughout the Word in my opinion was designed so that the spiritual, while in your face, is not seen till you work at it - 

Jer 31:22 again)

This is the final, heavy hurdle. How can you buy what you need from Him? 

How can i be so disrespectful to the angels? Because either they are slacking off and not being satisfactory servants, or (they and) our 7 parts of our spiritual being are! And i speak for myself, slacker that i am. Excuse me, i’m tired, but i’ll leave this in, if only to communicate that this is a labor to me, i am giving it as much effort as i can, i so want this wonderful knowledge to be imparted. And so i give a glimpse into the making of, as it were. Back after a break.

The 7 Proofs

Now let's map the 7 proofs Jesus mentioned in reply to John the baptist's query if He was the 'coming ONE'.

Luke 7:22-23

And answering, He said to them, "Having gone, relate to John what you have seen and heard: Blind receive sight, lame walk, lepers are cleansed and deaf hear, dead are raised, poor are gospelized. And blessed is whoever shall not be offended in Me."

(that gospelized comes from the berean literal translation, i just love the word)

Again, we map in the standard way, from 'outside' to 'inside'.

Refer to the diagram

the clarification:

Until we have knowledge of God, we do not 'see' Him, we are blind, as it were.

When we do not fear only the Lord, we are prone to all the fears the world can conceive, they 'paralyze' us, we are lame.

Listening to the wrong counsel (sometimes quite literally) makes us sick, lepers.

And, being 'deaf' to the words of good counsel, we can hardly hear what strengthens us.

And here is why I mapped the 7 churches before the 7 proofs, when wisdom is not being applied to the extent of being considered dead, one needs raising.

To understand why we can be poor in the spirit of understanding, remember that before the gospels there was only the Old Testament, which stopped before the 4th ground, and we’re here at the limit of the 3rd ground, the 6th arm. And so the good news of the gospels in full understanding is given unto them. (i talked about things morphing, we had poor in the blessings, and now it’s here in the 6th arm, focus on the order of things, that’s the key. Ephesus is also 1st church, but down the list in paul)

And now we edge towards a mystery, for to be offended in Jesus occurs in John 6:56

The one eating My flesh and drinking My blood abides in Me, and I in him.

and John 6:61

But Jesus, knowing in Himself that His disciples are grumbling about this, said to them, "Does this offend you?"

Believe it or not, unless you have already stepped into the 4th ground, you’re still offended (in some way) in Him. if you weren’t, you would have entered already.

And you would know you’re in the 4th ground, for you would have made peace at last, and you would be truly unshakeable as a rock. This making peace is eye-opening, once i’ve gotten to being able to explain it.

This is the start of the mapping process that can be applied to occurrences of 7 in the Word, each mapping offers more insight into each specific arm of the menorah.

Now, a note about the fact that there are seven lampstands.

The whole time i’ve been describing the process in a linear fashion, but if each arm is itself also a lampstand all by itself, this gives firstly an impression of the complexity of every individual thing needing a full process itself to come to being, and secondly, it intimates that for instance one can lack listening sufficiently to the counsel, yet already have acquired lots of wisdom, something like that. What i like about it is it does go a long way to showing us how it is that each of us is a unique individual, mathematically, all possible occurrences of all variations of the state of 22 buds (on one menorah) on 7 menorahs comfortably encompasses all humans ever born easily.

Three buds on each arm, to make each arm. Let me explain a bit like this. Bud one - initial euphoria, bud two - descent into hard-necked stubborn rebellion, bud three - belated rebuilding after the castigation of exile.

And here’s a thought.

Right at the very end, of the very last gospel, 153 fishies are caught by the disciples. Well done, disciples. Then Jesus invites the disciples to come eat by His fire (laodicea, anyone?) on the beach, where He has ONE (read interlinear) fish cooking. The very last fish, which makes 154. Let that be 22 x 7. 

A last quick one, there are also seven trees.

Isaiah 41:19

I will plant cedars in the wilderness,

acacias, myrtles, and olive trees.

I will set cypresses in the desert,

elms and boxwood together.

This shows a few things.

Firstly, you probably know them as different trees. If there is one thing that basically EVERY translation of the Bible does differently, it’s the naming of these 7 trees. So long as you stay within that translation, mostly not too much harm done, but secondly, in some translations, while usually ensuring a word in one place is translated exactly the same in another, that’s not always the case with trees, translators just seem to think there’s nothing important about them. But once you’ve mapped them to the menorah, you can read information in which tree is mentioned where. For instance, acacia, in the 2nd arm of the fear of the Lord, is what the ark of the tabernacle was made of. In fact, most of the tabernacle.

And as befits the 7th tree, in the 4th ground, the boxwood is only mentioned once again in all the Bible, and it has a root word which means to go straight on, therefore not turning to the right or to the left. Ezekiel’s chariot wheels?

The menorah IS also a tree, the blind person healed by Jesus who first saw people walking like trees saw TOO good, and was looking with spiritual eyes opened.

Then Jesus made his eyes see normally. i’ve heard this used as an argument that Jesus did make a mistake, i think He did it deliberately, as one of those very subtle clues scattered here and there in the Word which are intended to get us searching things out. Always ponder incongruity.

Now that the concept has been shown, i am going to end this article.

Some sinking in time is required.

There is so much still to be explained, i intend to, in yet another article.

If you’re still here, i want to give you a medal for perseverance. And i hope it implies you feel affliction, and are a searcher. It’s you i’m singing to.

As in places this has been a cut and paste situation, let me leave some snippets of here and there for anybody who still has room in his/her brain. no coherency, i will return and properly expound on them and things which i have promised in this article and have not yet gotten round to. And the continuation of my theme.

I just still have to produce it, in the meantime, i welcome questions, they teach me.

The menorah realization came about because of a question i was asked.

Oh, almost forgot, please please please do go take a look at ezekiel’s temple. Diagrams of it, just google it, and take a long hard look at the entrances of the gates. (the best one is simply in the wikipedia article of ezekiel’s temple, drawn by a dutch architect), got something surprising to say about that temple later.

Thank you for your attention, may our Father bless you again in growth, however you look at what i’ve said. And i’ve asked Him again to.

snippets

(I’m talking about occurrences of the four grounds here.)

Job's three friends, and lastly the fourth young one, refer to them, (that's a really nice one to chew on), the (four) different situations Joseph found himself in from when his brothers threw him in the pit refer to them, the song of Solomon refers to them 

(each reference separated by the verse

O daughters of Jerusalem, I adjure you by the gazelles and does of the field: Do not arouse or awaken love until the time is right.- this one’s also not easy, for now observe how peace is mentioned right at the end.),

 in fact almost every reference does, except for the four horsemen of the apocalypse. (the four horsemen are actually the first four occurrences of a seven-fold situation.)

Revelation 4:7 shows us, in correct order, that what symbolizes each ground.

And the first living creature was like a lion, and the second living creature like a calf, and the third living creature having the face as of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle flying.

The symbolism is deliberate,  in our spiritual state we start out no more than a wild beast, for knowledge by itself will achieve nothing to tame us.

One extra note, there are always two sides to the coin. I’m now talking about the roaring lion devouring everything in its path, i could also talk about the wonderful Lion of Judah…

then, we become a domesticated beast once we apply the counsel the knowledge gives, but remain beasts. An ox being goaded through the wilderness,

at last, after gaining wisdom through the application of the counsel we start being human, looking out for each other.

Only in the fourth ground are we freed from the flesh and can we rise to fly above its influence.

To get back to the scoffer, wicked and fool in Proverbs, which mostly covers only the first three grounds, scoffing at knowledge of God, wickedly knowing but refusing to follow the counsel, foolish to know and follow God but be led astray by the temptress. 

These first two grounds of animal existence in the dark are also the areas where the adversary has power over people, he only has influence over the third ground and no ability to do anything at all regarding the fourth ground, set apart and holy unto God. The adversary resides in the first ground but his throne is in the second ground of Pergamum.

Now while the first three grounds are populated by all types of heathen peoples, thoughts and actions not aligned in any way to God, one has to get out (of the first two grounds), or destroy totally the occupants of the third ground on entering it (yup, that’s why all the snot en trane (that’s afrikaans) all the death and destruction and genocide etc is in the physical history of the Word. you’re destroying ‘bad’ areas inside yourself, and in acting out the spiritual reality through their history, one gets an idea of why the chosen race has a special place, what a burden was placed on them.), jerusalem itself, prophetically (spiritually) speaking, is described as a desolate wasteland until one enters it.

I am going to be bold again, the Kingdom of God is larger than many think.

The idea that our immortal  destination is determined by what we decide/do in this temporary life alone, and that then the die is cast, does not take into consideration one important fact.

We will ALL be raised again on the last day (the one last day of the at that moment still temporal life of each and every one of us), and will see God in full glory. All doubts are not relevant anymore, it's in your face, as it were, not possible to disclaim or deny. and that is why

Isaiah 45:23 -

By Myself I have sworn, truth has gone out from My mouth, a word that will not be revoked: Every knee will bow before Me, every tongue will swear allegiance. -

God is truly merciful.

What does get determined is which ground of the Kingdom one has attained.

And so the eternal fire may be emptier than many think too, thank God. Who is not going to bow? Knowing what the consequences will be? They will indeed be cast into the lake.

And now you see why i say the statement egypt My people, assyria the work of My hands, and israel My inheritance is so positive.

Even at the end an opportunity to be part of the Kingdom is there.

Think, the new world describes jerusalem, israel AND the nations, who are not continually in the light, but are in degrees of darkness, so while they do enter the Kingdom, It has a hierarchy of placement, where there is joy for some and regret for some at not having paid attention while they could’ve.

But, there is still the talk of one’s worm burning, that will be explained.

the gender roles when looking at the menorah show a distinction between the left male side and the right female side.

(again an aside - for clarity, i'm writing in English, and so have used our habit of working from left to right, Hebrew works from right to left, so all the time we have been looking at a mirror image, it is of import when the Word speaks of the right hand and left hand etc, do remember that).

Apart from the stem, that refers to the last hurdle, note that only the male side gets told to repent (remember what i said about thyatira), i will get stuck into that next time, when i go into the story of adam and eve, and that dastardy serpent…

Lastly - here’s a thought exercise.

We are told Jesus was fully tempted while here, just like us. But we only know of the adversary’s attempt to do so after He fasted 40 days in the wilderness, when he tempted Him three times.

Each temptation was in fact a sort of summary of all of what tempts us to turn aside from the Way in each of the first three grounds. (adversary cannot enter fourth ground)

So, which temptation refers to which ground?  This is also in order, of course, but which direction?