070525

 
Still so tired
Still struggling with weeping rage undercurrent
Still so distracted & spread thin as a result

Hope with relationship with mom
Less impatient, more friendly towards her


Building SO MUCH on Youversion & Papal prayers

Big focus on TRUST today, in synchronistic relevance to last night's spiritual reading

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⭐‼️Suffering is a "bitter, yet necessary physic" to "purge out the disease of sin"... "prize it highly, as a favour and vouchsafement of God"

God correcteth= Reproves, rebukes, convinces by=
1. His Word, which is always & universally profitable for correction of men's minds and manners, for it IS Truth, "living and effective" to accomplish God's standing purpose of sanctification;
2. by His messengers: both the prophets and saints of old and the ministers and holy persons of today, who– since they love the Lord and are docile to His Truth– are ALL sent, even if unknowingly, and by mere example if not by word– as reprovers of the people, and to rebuke them sharply, to "wake them up" and "call them out" of the world's slothful sleep, that they may instead become morally sound in their principles, and sober in their conversation, and even to join them in their blessed vocation;
3. by His Holy Spirit, Who alone makes the correction of the word and ministers effectual, and Who alone works in men's hearts TO reprove and convince of sin, righteousness, and judgment– for a worldly and grace-resistant heart cannot understand or comprehend or care about the Gospel of Christ, His Truth and its obligations, and so cannot be persuaded of it by any external influence;
Sometimes these corrections are done by afflictive providences, by blows as well as words, which are the rod of correction God makes use of with His children; for this is not the correction of a judge– God is not reproving, condemning, and chastising us as malefactors and criminals! No, He acts as a Father in correcting us as His children, in love, in right judgment, and in needful measure for faults committed. The goal is for us to AVOID judgment and sentence, on the last Day!
God's afflictive corrections are FOR SIN— to bring us His people to a full acknowledgment of the fact that we HAVE sinned, which we may deny or justify away if not published; to furthermore give us a visceral sense of it AS sin and AS harmful, via the consequential pain of chastisement; and to bring us to feel humiliation and repentance for it, when our consciences may have been too numbed to do so without penalty.
‼️‼️‼️God also afflicts His children for remissness in duty, private or public; and when they set too high a value on the creature, and creature enjoyments– when we trust in them, and glory in them, to the neglect of the best and true things of God alone.
⭐⭐‼️‼️‼️Such persons who are corrected by God in this manner are happy; for these corrections are fruits and evidences of the love of God to them, and of their relation to God AS children– for He would not so admonish a stranger, who would give no credence or care to such discipline, and may even rebel outright in offended protest against it, having no loyalty or love for God's family, and no desire to conform their self-directed ways to any paternal authority. God does not force or waste his corrective afflictions on souls that would not or will not benefit and grow in virtue from them...
⭐Since the ones God corrects are His children, God graciously continues to grant them His Presence in them, by the Holy Spirit (Who enables us to receive our necessary correction with holy docility; He is the SOLE proof of our status in God's Family; to not have Him is to not have love, and therefore to not know Christ, and so to be unable to know OR obey God at ALL). As His dear children, even in their chastisements He sympathizes with them, supplies and supports them under their trials, and even delivers them out of the same. God, as their Father, makes every hardship work for their good, both spiritual and eternal, because by these sufferings He prevents and purges sin; tests, tries, and brightens their graces; makes them more fully partakers of His holiness; weans them from this world, and fits them for His Kingdom.

"This is worthy of all notice and regard, as a matter of moment and importance; to be met with admiration, it being a wonderful thing..."

"It is a paradox to natural men especially, and contrary to all their notions and things, to think that an afflicted man should be a happy man, especially since the natural man generally reckons "good" men to be unhappy men, because of their afflictions, reproaches, and persecutions. But this principle (of the joy of the afflicted) stated so often in Scripture stands regardless, as a note of asseveration in the face of worldly disdain, affirming in application the truth and certainty of the written assertion. It is confirmed by countless after-testimonies, and by the blessed experience of all the saints... it is true of every good man whom God afflicts in a Fatherly way."

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5585, 5586, 5587, 5588, 5589 = BRANCHES, DIVISION, PRIDE, PUNISHMENT FOR IDOLATRY???


5586 "saaph" = "TO DIVIDE UP" = "DISBRANCH" A TREE!!

It appears a single time in the canon, Isaiah 10:33. “Behold, the Lord, the LORD of Hosts, will lop off the branches with terrifying power; the tall trees will be cut down, the lofty will be brought low.” This forms the climax of the prophet’s oracle against Assyria. The empire is portrayed as an instrument in God’s hand to discipline Israel, yet its arrogant boasting (in this very process, appropriating all the power & glory to itself, utterly disdainful to God) incurs divine wrath. Verse 33 introduces the moment when the Lord Himself steps in to halt Assyria’s advance. The single, forceful verb paints God as a mighty lumberjack who decisively fells proud timber... The “tall trees” typify human self-exaltation. God’s act of "saaph" humbles mortal pride & exposes the impotence of all earthly might before His sovereignty.
‼️A national arrogance requires equally national repentance, lest it merit a widespread spiritual pruning.

⭐Immediately following this event in Isaiah, however, a "tender shoot" springs from Jesse’s stump, linking the removal of prideful branches to the emergence of Messianic hope. God clears the forest of overgrowth to make room for righteous growth, however small it begins– He prepares proper space for the preservation and eventual propagation of His chosen Remnant.
⭐No empire, ideology, or individual rises beyond God’s reach. The same Lord who felled Assyria will rectify every wrong in His perfect timing, both globally and in our personal lives. We can have an unshakable confidence in God’s Justice, and hope in the Shoot of Jesse that mercifully blooms in its wake.

⭐⭐‼️‼️The title "Lord of Hosts" pairs with "saaph" to stress God's military and cosmic Authority. The One who commands angelic armies also swings the axe.
⭐‼️‼️"saaph" depicts a clean, irrevocable cut, underscoring that divine judgment is final– it is neither partial nor tentative.

⭐‼️ Romans 11:17-22—the Gentile branches can be “cut off” if they persist in unbelief. Paul echoes Isaiah’s picture to warn against arrogance, especially spiritually... Believers are called to vigilantly examine our hearts for pride and daily submit ourselves humbly before the divine Vinedresser, lest hardness of heart invite sharp chastening.
⭐⭐‼️ John 15:2—“Every branch that bears no fruit, He cuts off.” The gardener metaphor continues the theme of decisive pruning for the sake of holiness. God's Judgment, however painful, always clears the way for salvation– the Cross is the Perfect Pattern that we and all things follow, which requires death before resurrection.

"Saaph" encapsulates the Lord’s swift, irresistible judgment against pride, providing a powerful image that reverberates through prophetic and New Testament writings. It assures the faithful under political duress of God’s sovereign control over all human history, and in this very fact, it also exhorts all people to humble themselves under His mighty hand, lest they end up on the "wrong side" of that history, and ultimately at the final judgment, where every proud soul will be cut down.

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5585 "saiph" carries two complementary pictures: (1) a split or cleft in rock, and (2) a branch or off-shoot of a tree. Both ideas arise from an underlying notion of division or bifurcation.
Scripture employs the term to portray either a place of refuge carved out of solid stone, or a slender limb extending from a trunk-- two very different scenes that together communicate safety, separation, fruitfulness, and when abused, judgment.
(CLEFT ROCK VS DIVIDED BRANCH)

Samson’s flight to “the cave/cleft/ravine in the rock of Etam” after striking the Philistines shows the cleft as a God-provided shelter for the Lord’s servant during a season of conflict... a (stone) "saiph" can become a temporary stronghold protecting God’s chosen instrument until His purposes advance. The cave is neither self-originated nor permanent; it is a providential hiding place that preserves life and mission.
Isaiah, however, twice employs the rocky "saiph" to describe humanity’s futile attempts to escape divine judgment. In the day the LORD shakes the earth, people will “flee into the crevices of the rocks and the clefts of the cliffs” ...and idolaters “slaughter [their] children in the ravines, under the clefts of the rocks”. What once served (faithful) Samson as a refuge becomes, for the rebellious, a theatre of terror or sin. The same topography (a cleft stone or crevice in the rock) that shelters the faithful simultaneously exposes the futility of hiding from God’s holiness when hearts remain unrepentant.
⭐‼️‼️‼️Isaiah’s idolaters who retreat to "saiph"s are possibly specifically appropriating these refuges of the faithful in hopes that they can "take advantage" of the same assumedly "automatic" protection; this is a "talismanic" mindset; it merits "external works without internal faith". But their escape plan's dreadful failure shows that geology cannot out-shield theology; only repentance avails. This applies to modern superstitions that certain physical locations such as churches and temples can "save a person" from disaster by virtue of the structure alone. God may indeed spare the holy structure, but you cannot run anywhere on earth from the fate of your soul! This also applies metaphorically— even going to attend church every day will avail you nothing if your heart is still attached to wickedness. The same goes for taking refuge in robotically repeated prayers and Scripture verses, which are indeed "clefts" drawing one into the Rock of God... but to enter that space without true piety, or in the presumption that they will act almost as "charms" against an unrepentant attitude, will only end in terrible disaster.

Modern ministry must therefore call sinners away from all self-made coverts toward the once-for-all refuge in Christ... physical or institutional strongholds (buildings, resources, reputation) become meaningless if hearts persist in idolatry.

‼️In the agricultural sense, Isaiah 17:6 depicts a judgment leaving only “four or five (olives) on the most fruitful branches” after harvest. The picture is of sparse gleanings on the "saiph"— an emblem of a small, yet preserved, remnant.
"When that time comes, the glorious nation of Israel will be brought down; its prosperous people will be skin and bones...
The whole land will look like a grainfield after the harvesters have gathered the grain and picked the fields clean. It will be desolate... Only a few of its people will be left, like stray olives left on a tree after it is beaten with a stick– Only two or three olives remain in the highest branches, maybe four or five olives scattered here and there on the most fruitful limbs ("saiph"). Then at last the people will look to their Creator and turn their eyes to the Holy One of Israel. They will not look to the idolatrous altars they made with their hands... In that day shall their strong cities be as a forsaken bough, and an uppermost branch, which they left because of the children of Israel: and there shall be desolation."
‼️"As a few berries are left in the topmost branch of the olive, or the vine, so shall a few cities or people be left in the general desolation... this was a very fit example, to awaken the Israelites to a serious belief of this threatening, because God had inflicted the same judgment upon the Canaanites, and that for the same sins of which they were guilty."
‼️‼️Why? Because you have turned from the God who can save you. You have forgotten the Rock who can hide you. Therefore you plant delightful plants of pleasure And set them with exotic vine shoots of a strange god. The very day you begin cultivating them, you do what you can to make them grow; the very morning you begin planting, you do what you can to make them sprout and blossom. Yet the only heaps you reap will be those of your ruin; it will amount to nothing; your hoped-for harvest will disappear, in the day of grief and disease and incurable pain... The nations roar on like the roaring of many waters, But God will rebuke them and they will flee far away. In the evening Israel waits in terror, but by dawn its enemies are dead. This is the just reward of those who plunder us, a fitting end for those who destroy us."
⭐‼️"The people had, by sins, made themselves ripe for ruin; and their glory was as quickly cut down and taken away by the enemy... Mercy is reserved in the midst of judgment, for a remnant. But very few shall be marked to be saved. Only here and there one was left behind. But they shall be a remnant made holy. The few that are saved were awakened to return to God. They shall acknowledge his hand in all events; they shall give him the glory due to his name... We have reason to account those afflictions happy, which part between us and our sins."
⭐IT STILL ENDS IN HOPE??? GOD WILL DESTROY THOSE WHO DESTROY ISRAEL = THE FAITHFUL REMNANT??
‼️NOTICE THE IDOLATRY=VINE (BRANCH!) IMAGERY, AND GOD=ROCK OF REFUGE!

‼️ By contrast, Isaiah 27:10 foresees a desolate city where calves (callback to Exodus idolatry?)  “strip its branches bare,” a graphic image of total abandonment. ("devil seeking someone to DEVOUR")
FULL CONTEXT =
"Has the LORD struck Israel as he struck her enemies? Has he punished her as he punished them? NO, but He HAS exiled Israel to call her to account. She was exiled from her land... The LORD did this to purge Israel’s wickedness, to take away all her sin. As a result, all the pagan altars will be crushed to dust. No Asherah pole or pagan shrine will be left standing. SO NOW, the fortified city stands isolated & desolate, a settlement abandoned and forsaken like the desert wilderness; calves graze there, and there they lie down and strip bare its branches ("saiph") to consume them... When its boughs are dry & withered, they will be broken off; The women will come and set them on fire, for Israel is a foolish and stupid nation, without understanding or discernment, because its people have turned away from God. Therefore, their Creator will not be gracious to them; He will not show them His compassion, pity, or mercy. YET the time will come when the LORD will gather them together like handpicked grain... In that day the LORD will thresh [out His grain] from the flowing stream of the River [Euphrates] to the Brook of Egypt, and you will be gathered up one by one, O sons of Israel... then many who were dying in exile in Assyria and Egypt will return to Jerusalem to worship the LORD on His holy mountain...
⭐In that day when Israel is redeemed, there shall be singing to her, to the vineyard of pure wine. I, the LORD, keep it and watch over it. I water it continually. I guard it day and night so that no one will harm it. Wrath is not in me; I am no longer angry. But if I should find briars and thorns growing in my vineyard, I would go to war against them. I would completely trample them down in battle and I would burn it all to the ground."
⭐‼️BOTH ISAIAH PASSAGES HAVE A CYCLE OF DESTRUCTION/EXILE DUE TO IDOLATRY ("DIVISION") AND GRACIOUS REDEMPTION/RETURN UPON REPENTANCE ("REUNION")!!!
THE "BRANCHES" BOTH SPEAK OF ISRAEL AS STRIPPED, BEATEN, CONSUMED, DESOLATE– BEREFT OF FRUIT AND THEREFORE LAID TO WASTE– UNTIL GOD HIMSELF MAKES IT A FLOURISHING VINEYARD AGAIN!

‼️‼️‼️The reason assigned for the doom is ignorance, as so often in Scripture - guilty ignorance. As the "beginning of wisdom 'is not prudence, policy, science, or philosophy, but the "fear of God," so irreverence and contempt of Divine laws, leading to sensuality and vice, are identical with ignorance and folly. "Such ignorance does not excuse men or lessen the guilt of their wickedness; for they who sin are conscious of their sinfulness, though they are blinded by their lust. Wickedness and ignorance are therefore closely connected, but the connection is of such a nature that ignorance proceeds from the sinful disposition of the mind" (Calvin). Oh "to be wise and to understand" (Deuteronomy 32:29)! How dark and dreadful the ignorance which seems to shut out the favor and compassion of the all-compassionate God!

⭐‼️"The glory of Jacob wastes, the fat of his flesh grows thin. Necessary and constant in thought is the connection between the flourishing of a land and the blessing of God, the withdrawal of his blessing and the withering of its fruits, the failure of the supply of food.... Israel is ripe for judgment, as the field of corn for the reaper... only an ear or two will be seen scattered here and there. That vale may be viewed as symbolic of the great world, and that reaping as prophetic of the day of judgment... "Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe" (Revelation 14.). Few will escape the judgment, and yet a few there will be. At the olive-beating, when it seems (at a superficial glance) that the tree is quite stripped, there nevertheless remain "two or three berries high up at the top; four, five on each of its branches." This word, "The remnant shall return," is the standing word of promise and of hope for Israel. It contains the "law of Israel's history"...
⭐⭐⭐Israel stands as the type of human life. All is not lost while conscience remains, while our will may still exert its energy against evil, and in the reformation of the habits. But there must be this reformation, which begins with a looking up to God.
The state of the soul depends on the direction of its gaze. We look where we love, and our looking may produce love. 

⭐⭐‼️The great prophets of Israel, training men's minds to look up to the great spiritual Source of man and of nature, have taught us lessons that can never become obsolete... In the days of repentance men will look up to their Creator. It is when we turn our eyes from our Maker and fix them exclusively on the creature that we forget our dependence. "It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves;" this is the thought which expresses the foundation of all reverence, the duty of all worship and obedience. As all idolatry means loss of self-respect, so regard to the great and glorious Creator reflects itself in veneration for the nature he has given us, the image of his own. And he is the Holy One of Israel.

⭐⭐‼️In every family, every congregation, every state, there must be an existing ideal of righteousness, of truth, of purity. Such ideals are the shadows of the personality of the holy God. If these pass away from the faith and religious imagination of a people, they fall into sensuality and materialism. The first step, then, towards a better life, is to look away from self, and from the evil associations which have grown into one's habits, or into which one has grown, and to look instead to God as the Supreme and the Holy. Looking up to God will mean looking away from all idols. ...True religion alone can drive out superstition. Science has not and cannot do it. Men must either be superstitious or religious; for the imaginative faculty demands, and will have, nourishment.

⭐‼️When headstrong and rebellious men defy the power and despise the Word of God, they find that they are contending with One whose correction is not confined to one or two blows. God pursues such men with his holy and righteous punishment, until the briars are consumed, until the city is desolate, until the haughty heart is humbled to the very dust. BUT NOTE The opening which he still offers them. "Or let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me," etc. The most rebellious may yet return unto him... taking hold of his Divine magnanimity, which IS the strength of the Divine character... He turns the neglected wilderness into a cultivated vineyard. God is willing to be reconciled, even to his enemies; if ever these yield themselves, they may find mercy.

⭐⭐‼️he moderates his corrections of the righteous. He does not visit them with the severity he shows toward those who are defiant of his will; there is measure, limitation, in the day when the "east wind" of his chastisement is made to blow. God restrains his hand when it is his own children whom he is correcting. And note The parental purpose of his chastisement. It is that iniquity may be purged, that the dark consequences and the evil stain of sin may be "taken away," that the degrading idolatries of the heart as well as of the life may be demolished; it is that those whom he loves may be cleansed from their impurities and may be his children indeed, not only enjoying his favor and dwelling beneath his roof, but bearing his likeness and fulfilling his will.
...His feelings are those of pure love, and his wrath is reserved for those who would injure the sacred enclosure. Were such thorns and thistles before him, he would set them on fire.

⭐⭐⭐‼️‼️The punishment of the people has not been so severe as that of their enemies. There was and ever is "measure" in the afflictions of God; they do not exceed the bounds of justice nor the limits of man's enduring power. "He never smites with both hands;" he sifts, but does not destroy. He was wroth, but not without love; has banished, but not put an end to, his people. And now, as ever, he would "reason together" with them, and proclaim the terms upon which he will mercifully accept their repentance as an atonement for guilt. They must destroy the emblems of idolatry, and put an utter end to it; and thus, purged from its filth, be prepared for salvation.
Punishment will cease when sin ceases, but not before. And when the sin is honestly put away, it may ever be said to the sinner, "Do as the heavens have done, forget your evil; with them, forgive yourself."



⭐‼️Together the texts teach that IN His just judgments (both for idolatry= spiritual adultery!!) the Lord BOTH spares and strips; He can leave a few olives on a lofty branch for His covenant people, or He can lay waste unfruitful boughs when iniquity persists... Sparse olives on upper branches picture the faithful remnant preserved through judgment. The imagery calls the church to persevere, trusting the Lord to keep a (COVENANT!) People for Himself even when national or cultural vines seem stripped... Where church attendance or cultural influence wanes, the picture of a few olives on high branches reminds believers that even a small, Spirit-preserved community is precious to God and integral to His future purposes.

⭐⭐ A cleft in the rock simultaneously hides (refuge) and reveals... The motif anticipates believers being hidden “with Christ in God”... The rock-cleft motif reaches fulfillment in Jesus Christ, the smitten Rock who becomes the ultimate refuge.
⭐⭐Simultaneously, Christ is the true Branch who bears enduring fruit. Thus, "saiph", whether as cleft or branch, finds its deepest meaning in Him: the Rock where the sinner hides from judgment, and the true and fruitful Vine into which the believer is grafted.

⭐‼️"SAIPH" OCCURS 6 TIMES= 4 TIMES IN JUDGMENT ORACLES AGAINST IDOLATRY!!!
1= rock where idolaters try to hide from wrath of God
2= rock where idolaters hid to sacrifice children, inviting wrath
3= branches beaten and only a few olives left; judgment desolation
4= branches stripped bare by calves eating them; judgment desolation
⭐‼️‼️Samson’s cleft in the rock was where he hid after slaughtering the Philistines... BECAUSE HIS PHILISTINE (GENTILE) WIFE WAS GIVEN TO ANOTHER MAN. And in vengeance, AS JUDGE OF ISRAEL, DURING HARVEST TIME, he BURNED DOWN THEIR VINEYARDS AND OLIVE GROVES!!!
⭐‼️‼️"He means that so grievous an injury as he had received in having his wife taken from him and given to a Philistine will justify any requitals on his part."
⭐⭐‼️‼️"by this time his passion of anger subsided, and he "remembered" his wife, and thought proper to return to her, and attempt a reconciliation with her; and for that purpose took a kid with him to eat a meal with her in her own apartment... His anger had now passed away, and his love for his wife had returned. He was little prepared to find her married again to his friend."
HUGE "GOD VS IDOLS" SYMBOLISM HERE TOO!!!


"And they — The idolatrous Israelites; shall go into the holes of the rocks, &c. — The usual places of retreat in cases of danger;"
"cliff-caves are the natural refuge of oppressed peoples... These clefts of the rock were the natural fortresses and hiding places of the land."
⭐⭐"These caves... are often supplied with water by natural springs, and one man may defend them against a multitude."

"Rock clefts...dark vaults and hollow places which were either by nature or art made in rocks, and which were convenient for and frequently appointed to idolatrous uses."
(MISUSE OF SHELTER!!)

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5589 "c'appah" in Ezekiel depicts the large, spreading boughs of a stately tree: of limbs that fork outward to form a protective canopy. By extension, it evokes ideas of abundance, prominence, and a sphere of influence wide enough to give refuge to creatures that dwell or lodge within its shade... it is used prophetically as a vivid picture of imperial power... no other tree could rival the luxuriant spread of those same boughs. The image underscores both the magnificence of worldly power and its creaturely dependence on the life that God alone sustains. The luxuriant branches stand only because “the waters made it grow” (Ezekiel 31:4). However glorious the boughs, their source is outside themselves. Ezekiel reminds rulers and peoples alike that political greatness is derivative, not ultimate.
Birds and beasts finding safety under the branches illustrate how God intends authority to provide covering, not oppression. When the cedar is later felled (Ezekiel 31:12-13), the very creatures that once flourished in its shelter scatter—an implicit warning that failure in stewardship invites judgment.
Ezekiel situates the tree “in the garden of God,” linking imperial pomp with Edenic imagery. The lush boughs call to mind humanity’s original vocation to cultivate and guard creation, a task forfeited in Adam yet ultimately realized in Christ, “the shoot from the stump of Jesse”.
The metaphor anticipates a future tree whose branches never wither: the tree of life that brings “healing of the nations” (Revelation 22:2). The contrast between Assyria’s desiccated boughs and the eternal tree invites hope that God will plant an everlasting kingdom where shelter is never lost.

• Daniel 4:12 records a similar picture of Nebuchadnezzar’s dominion as a great tree providing food and lodging.
• Jesus compares the kingdom of God to a mustard seed that becomes a tree “so that the birds of the air can nest in its branches” (Mark 4:32), transforming the motif into a promise of inclusive grace.
While these passages employ different vocabulary, the shared imagery links Ezekiel’s warning to the broader biblical storyline of human kingdoms contrasted with God’s kingdom.

Assyrian monarchs used arboreal symbolism on palace reliefs, presenting themselves as cosmic trees sustaining subject peoples. Ezekiel appropriates that language, only to invert it: the lofty empire, like Egypt whom he addresses, will fall once God withdraws the waters that nourished its boughs. Contemporary hearers in exile would have recognized both the grandeur and fragility of such royal claims.

Authority must function as a protective canopy rather than a platform for self-exaltation.
• Humility: No ministry, church, or nation is self-sustaining; all fruitfulness depends on the continual flow of God’s provision.
• Hope: Even when earthly “boughs” collapse, God is preparing an unshakable kingdom whose branches never break.
Those who recognize the Source of life-giving growth will flourish; those who forget Him will find their branches dried and scattered.


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