#think I may name this one after that one Bible verse

[hurdy-girly]

[knight-a3]

Heavenbound AU

Hazbin Masterpost

Lilith, Mother of Demons

Notes under cut, including some Bible info!

Between dolls, snakes, apples, circuses, ducks, etc, there were just too many motifs/thematic elements to shove onto just Lucifer. So, I streamlined and distributed. Lucifer is goat themed, Lilith is snake themed. Charlie is a mix of the two. I also use this to partly to imply that "the Devil" is not solely Lucifer. But humans mistake various different demons as one character. Lucifer is just the one who gets blamed for everything. That's part of why he's a goat; he's a scapegoat.

Snakes- there is a trending theme of Lilith being associated with snakes, and sometimes being the serpent who tempts Eve. I wanted to give her snake hair, but making all of it snakes would be too many and a hassle to draw. So I went with seven to represent the 7 deadly sins. They're all named, just like how Charlie has Hugh.

Pride= Vani (vanity)

Wrath= Irene (Ire)

Gluttony= Tony (gluttony)

Greed= Ava (avarice)

Lust= Libby (libido)

Envy= Desi (desire)

Sloth= Lazlo (lazy)

Owls- lilith has sometimes been translated as owl or as night bird. In some Mesopotamian myths, lilith demons fly. Some tablets depict a lilith with talons, horns, and/or wings.

Vampires - This is a design element that I didn't realize was a historically viable association to make until after I made the design. But I figured it would be good to mention anyway. Lilith has been equated with some vampiric elements over the centuries. It comes from a thematic overlap between succubi and early depictions of vampires. So while I may not have had vampires in mind, I think some of the elements naturally bled through(no pun intended).

Dolls- I took this one from canon Lucifer and gave it to Lilith instead. I figured she was created and used like a doll, so it could fit decently enough.

Full demon form: I designed her to be similar to a lamia from Greek mythology. Lamia is the latin equivalent to lilith, and lamia happen to be associated with snakes. I didn't know that until after I designed her normal form, so it's a neat coincidence. Lamia is both a single character and a type of snake-woman creature. Waist up is woman, waist down is snake. Similar to the nagas of hindu lore. More about Lamia in a bit.

--Heavenbound Backstory--

My ideas for her backstory can be found through HERE.

--is Lilith really Biblical? Kind of, but not really--

So, fun fact. Lilith isn't really in the Bible. The word lilith is mentioned once in Isaiah 34:14 in some translations. But translation is a tricky process and subject to the interpretation of the translator. It's an inevitable issue. It's part of why there are so many different versions of the Bible.

The single mention of lilith isn't even used as a name. Lilit/lilitu/other spelling variations are a type of Mesopotamian she-demon. Basically succubi, but then the concept merged with the child-killer Lamatshu. Liliths are often associated with seduction, wet dreams, reproductive problems, and child death. Using the term lilith had a cultural context that we don't really have now. It's like how people today will blame mysterious phenomenon on aliens.

Other Bible translations will use "night creatures", "screech owls", "Lamia" or other similar phrases instead. The context of the verse can change drastically based on what phrasing is used. Most versions(including the most popular ones like the KJV) steer away from "lilith".

--The Other Woman--

Bible: The idea of a woman before Eve is based on rabbinic myths used to explain a perceived discrepancy in the biblical creation story. In one account, it sounds as if man and woman were created together. In another, it sounds as if woman was created after. These myths also accuse Eve of a lot of misconduct, so it seems like a pretty misogynistic take anyway(and I don't use that phrasing lightly). These myths didn't name the woman, as far as I'm aware.

Lilith as the first wife: The oldest known depiction of Lilith as Adam's first wife is from a medieval Jewish story, the "Alphabet of Ben Sira." The author is unknown, and it's widely considered satirical. Lilith is ultimately portrayed as the evil one.

In some depictions of her, she forces herself on Adam and has his demon children. Or she is infertile and steals and/or kills babies. Or she causes miscarriages and fertility issues.

Samael's wife: In some other depictions, she and Samael are born as one. Sometimes as a hermaphrodite, sometimes in the same manner as Adam and Eve. And yet other depictions, she is the first wife of Samael. Sometimes God castrates Samael to prevent them from having demonic children, so Lilith goes to copulate with unaware sleeping men. Other times Lilith is rendered infertile. Sometimes she's the wife of Asmodeus.

Lamia: In the Latin Vulgate, lilith is translated as lamia. There are elements of early ideas for vampirism. Then Lilith is equated with the Greek character Lamia, who also has conflicting origin stories. Lamia has a human upper half and and snake lower half. In some sources, she is a daughter of Hecate. In another, she is cursed by Hecate to have stillborn children. In another, Hera killed all of Lamia's children, and Lamia's grief turned her into a monster that would steal and devour children. In some instances she was also cursed to never close her eyes/sleep, but Zeus gifted her the ability to remove her eyes instead.

Islam: Arabic folklore depicts a character similar to Lilith. She was rejected by Adam, so she mated with Iblis(the demon king) instead. She gave birth to thousands of demons.

Feminism: Lilith, overall, was depicted as an evil character until the feminist movement in the 70s. That's when she was depicted by Judith Plaskow as a strong willed woman who refused to submit to Adam(I guess they just ignored the history of rape and child murder, great job picking an inspirational feminist icon y'all). It's this feminist interpretation that Hellaverse seems to have based Lilith off of.

I wanted to balance aspects of these while also still favoring the portrayal of Lilith as not-evil. Unless canon decides to make her evil, then I may revisit the idea.

(Feb 19, 2025- fixed typos and rephrased some lined for clarity) (Feb 20, 2025- added the names of the snakes) (Feb 27, 2025- added a full demon form design and notes about it, reworded some lines)

[maze-of-my-design]

i am going to be so normal about this song rn and what it (could've) meant to Marjorie herself, s2ep5 spoilers (and spoilers to Rhonda's death) below the cut

Okay i am going to try a shot at breaking down the lyrics within the context of the show, so bear with me and do correct me if i got something wrong (like the lyrics, for example, since there aren't any official ones as of writing this i'll be transcribing them by ear) and keep in mind, this is all my speculation, dont take this as bible. (and take a shot every time i say "maybe" lmao)

The first verse or so of the song is (intentionally, by meta standards) written in such a way that it is plausible for Rhonda to think it was a mockery of her, and I won't be talking about this with mockery in mind, obviously. But it could actually give us insight on who Marjorie could've been as a person in highschool!

" Foolish Girl, talk of town, how could you let your guard down? Fell into the fire, looks like everyone's talking. "

" Foolish Girl, believing lies, how could you be so blinded by [the?] promise of a liar? No one's picking up the pieces "

Marjorie, as per the next lyrics, was a naive sort of person. She trusted Rhonda as her friend, perhaps managing to get past Rhonda's abrasiveness back then, and remained loyal to her til the end, and even beyond that.

That fateful day that Rhonda went to the guidance counselor, Rhonda may have told her that she'll be back, promising that she'd be okay, even if the counselor was... a weird guy. That she and Marjorie would stay together (in whichever way you wanna perceive that lol) no matter what. And Marjorie believed her - why wouldn't she? - to her own detriment. And now she is left alone. She had no other people to trust, at least to the same extent as Rhonda, and she's left alone to pick up the pieces (perhaps, of her broken heart) with naught but whispers and rumors of her beloved friend drowning her ears.

Maybe there's some initial resentment towards Rhonda, by the given name of "a liar". Anger is one of the stages of grief, after all.

" Ooh, you were to blame. "

" Ooh, it's[/that's] what you'll say "

Pretty self explanatory (so much so that i dont have to dance around with possibilities) Marjorie, at one point or another, blamed herself for what happened, more on that in a bit.

" Foolish Girl, so naive, watched it all so carelessly. You left your heart wide open, now you're lost in the shadows. "

Marjorie believed she should've been more cautious with her love, more protective of her friend, or maybe that she should've never become so close with Rhonda in the first place. Because now, she's:

" All alone, in this cold world, it's me who was the Foolish Girl. You slipped right through my fingers, so I miss you to pieces. "

She held Rhonda so close to her. She loved her, platonically or otherwise. And she misses her with all of her broken heart. She felt alone without her, felt it was her fault. Marjorie felt she was a complete Fool for letting her friend down like this.

" Time slipped away. You didn't know your place. You didn't know the place you held in my heart. "

Life went on without Rhonda, reckless as it was. Marjorie grew old, and Rhonda stayed in Highschool. Rhonda died without ever knowing how much she meant to Marjorie. How beloved she was in the eyes of her friend.

Marjorie wrote songs with Rhonda for hours on end in the music room, it was The Thing they shared with one another. Marjorie ended up becoming a musician (a semi famous one? Im unsure) but, by the looks of her releasing this song, she would've wanted most to share the space with Rhonda. This was her obituary for Rhonda. The last piece of music she got to write that had her friend's influence in mind.

She didn't tell her how much she loved her, it was too late for that now; all she can do now is apologise. Apologise in the one way she knew how to. If she could've said something to Rhonda before she was murdered, she would've said "im sorry. I was foolish to not care enough. You were the world to me. I'll always miss you"

[in tears] I am okay i promise

[birdsareblooming]

im so tired of having to defend myself on both sides

like. ok. i'm queer right. bi, demigender, aro, etc. also you know a girl, demi or not. all the time i have to defend myself from american christians who via mistranslations and misinterpretations spread by horrible leaders for generations have been led into a cult-like hierarchy that tells them to hate me when hate for us isn't in their book or supposed to be in their ways.

i'm also "christian". i hesitate to use the full term because of how bad american christianity has gotten. but i believe in the same god nontheless. every day i feel i have to defend myself from queer people as well

like. i so get it. as i have just established american and european christianity has gotten so fucked up and literally off-script that i'm shocked we haven't gotten another 95 thesis and a completely new branch. it's awful horrible and people who believe in such ideas should not be in power. to the point where calling myself a christian feels wrong. at least in america.

i need ya'll to have some nuance.

firstly the understanding that those who hate queer people, non-white people in any form, women, whatever else. isn't even in the text they follow. people have misused it since it was written. preaching just the verse saying wives should care for their husbands and not the one right after saying husbands should love their wives. taking out verses referring to god's "womb." about adam might not even being a man, as in, more likely nonbinary, the verse about david getting an errection when hugging johnathan. changing verses about cleanliness into women and men not wearing the same cloths. changing verses about cultural codes and allowing a world where people have to resort to prositution into verses condemning homosexuality. [X]

like. you know the matrix. was written as a trans metaphor. then a bunch of alpha sigma grindset rich white boys took it and appropriated it, misinterpreted it, used it to boost themselves and hurt women. it's like that. those people don't make the matrix a bad movie, they just don't know it's a trans metaphor. and trans people who enjoy the matrix are like. normal and cool.

as you can see i am passionate about this. i have all this stuff memorized not only to defend my queerness but my christianity as im doing now.

there are queer christians. there are certainly poc christians as right now, south america and south africa have the highest christian populations, to the point where they're sending missionaries to america.

again i'm asking for some nuance. when i see posts basically saying "the christian god is dumb" or "satan was right actually" and blantent misinformation about what the bible says. like those kind of posts hurt my heart. my god made me queer and loves me for it, i believe in a kind god, most good christians do. i feel like other religions don't get this treatment and it's just to spiritually piss off your catholic parents.

speaking of, in doing so you seem to forget about other abrahamic religions.

i once saw a post criticizing something directly from the old testament, out of context of course. saying god was cruel and the belives were flawed and all this due to one verse. people tend to forget, or not know, that the "old testament" is the tenoch. slightly different book order, same writings.

christians, muslims, jewish people, worship the same god. different names for god, some god, same base. if you make jokes about christianty willy-nilly, you're going to accidentally hit someone else. and even if you don't, you may hurt someone still.

it doesn't hurt because i think it's "sacrilegious" or i think you're going to hell. it hurts because my community doesn't care. my community doesn't see the nuance in people and decided a specific religion is the enemy. a specific group of people is the enemy. ive been marked as the enemy

it's casual jokes to you, to me it's making fun of my god

listen, by all means make fun of the assholes. i make fun of them every day. millionaires who use privet jets than preach and love to overlook the many verses condemning the rich and saying rich people don't go to heaven. people saying that as a woman of god you shouldn't enjoy sex. weirdos online and irl that seem to think patorizing random people will get them to church. dumb white people. it's great. fuckn. mormons and jehovah's witness leaders who are straight up running a cult based on a thread of the original intention. and it's funny because they're the assholes.

but don't attack the base religion itself. understand that the religion isn't inherently harmful, certain branches, beliefs, misinterpretations, and leaders certainly are. but please be kind to the people who are normal

before you make a post saying you're gonna. i dont know 'kill the uncaring god' that you're hurting people like me, any abrahamic religion, anyone who believes in a god possibly. also that's basically my parent, it's like you're insulting my awesome mom to my face bc my older sibling sucks. like thats just mean to her for no reason.

i'm just. tired. im stuck in the middle and i hate that i have to make this post because like. this is my home and my people and im tired of seeing this shit from my peers and family. just. have nuance. care about people. don't just say shit about a religion if you don't know its true.

im tired.

[saras-devotionals]

Quiet Time 9/18

What am I feeling today?

I will admit I’m still feeling a bit anxious. I have my first pediatric exam today and I haven’t prepared that much. It’s been a minute since I’ve taken an actual exam and I struggle a bit with this area. But I’ve prayed about it and I’m feeling a bit better. I just know I have to study and pray and trust that God will see me through because He has never let me down before!

Bible Plan: Prayers for Contentment

These verses remind us that true contentment does not come from our circumstances or our material possessions, but rather from our relationship with Jesus Christ. No matter what we may be facing in life - whether we have plenty or are in need - we can find true contentment and strength in Christ.

So if you're struggling with feeling content in your current situation, turn to Jesus. Trust in Him and His promise to give you strength and peace, no matter what life throws your way. Lean on Him and find contentment in His love and grace.

Dear Heavenly Father,

I come before you today seeking your wisdom and guidance on how to find contentment in my life. I know that I have often struggled with wanting more and feeling discontent with the stage in which my life is at and my relationship status. I can look too far into the future and think things will be better then instead of staying peaceful in the present and knowing everything is playing out the way that it is meant to.

Help me to trust in your provision and to always be grateful for what I have been given.

I pray that, like Paul, I would learn to be content in all circumstances, as stated in Philippians 4:11-13. "For I have learned to be content, whatever the circumstances may be. I know now how to live when things are difficult and I know how to live when things are prosperous. In general and in particular I have learned the secret of eating well or going hungry, of facing either plenty or poverty. I am ready for anything through the strength of the One who lives within me."

I also pray that you would help me to be content leading a quiet and peaceful life, attending to my own business and work with my hands, as 1 Thessalonians 4:11 advises. Help me to find joy and fulfillment in the simple, everyday tasks that you have called me to do.

Help me to see the eternal purpose and significance of simple day to day tasks.

Lord, I thank you for your grace and provision in my life. I pray that you would continue to teach me how to find contentment in you, rather than in the things of this world.

In your precious name I pray, Amen.

Luke 3:14 NIV

“Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?” He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.””

The context of the scripture is John the Baptist talking to the crowds. There were people who wanted to be baptized but John refused to do so because they were struggling with certain things. In this instance he’s talking to soldier and one of the things he states here applies to us during this day and age. He says, be content with your pay! We should not be greedy, the Bible tells us so, instead let us find peace in what we do receive. That is not to say that you can’t pursue a degree or job that would allow you to make more money, instead it’s saying for us to be content in all circumstances of what we make and not to make money an idol, something we seek after more than seeking God and His kingdom.

Philippians 4:11-13 NIV

“I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”

I already briefly touched on this. But here it’s Paul speaking and he is saying how he has learned to be content in all his circumstances. There are times when he has been in need (think of the time he spent in prison) and times when he has had plenty (think of when he was persecuting) - Paul is saying here that regardless of what his life looks like, he is content through it all and the reason he is able to be content is because of the strength he gets from Jesus!

[lyvanille]

talking about persecution of Christians - N0.2 Faith

Greetings my Christians friends, I would like to tell you something about the persecution of Christians.

According to Google, around 365 million people are currently being persecuted and discriminated against to a great extent because of their faith in our one true God.

I would like to make it very clear that we should pray for all the people who do not have the privilege of living in peace, without fear and persecution. Because they are our brothers and sisters. Our bond lies in our faith and that is why we should remember the people who do not have it so easy.

Now to my little story: I am part of a small group of friends with three other girls and we sat together the other day and talked about this topic with a few other friends. (It's worth mentioning that a few people in this conversation are also Christian).

They said to me that they would just say that they don't believe in God, they would change their religion if they got into a situation where they were threatened to be killed if they didn't convert to another religion.

In this conversation, however, I came to a different opinion. I didn't dare to say it out loud, and I regret that. But if I were in such a situation, I wouldn't renounce my faith. And neither do many other people on this earth. I know I might not be able to speak for myself, thank God I've never been in a situation where I was persecuted and discriminated against because of my faith, but in my current situation I couldn't imagine simply renouncing my faith.

Because wouldn't that be a kind of betrayal? I don't judge anyone who has been in such a situation and abandoned their faith because they were afraid and wanted to live. And who knows, maybe I would act the same way in this situation. But from my position, I would rather die in my faith than live for another faith.

John 15:18 "If the world hates you, know that it hated me before it hated you" and "Therefore I am of good cheer in weakness, in trials, in distresses, in persecutions, and in anguish for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then am I strong" in 2 Corinthians 12:10 also fit in with this theme and I think that these Bible verses also show us once again that even if we live in fear and feel weak, we are not weak at all. Because God lives in us, he loves us, he is with us and he makes us strong.

I may not have the right to write about this topic or think about what it would be like if I were in such a situation. But this conversation with my friends has been on my mind and I've been thinking about it and I‘m just a teenager but I'd like to know what other people think about it.

I'm sorry if this post is inappropriate. I mean no offence.

Nevertheless, I would like to pray for all the people who really have it so hard, who are really discriminated against and who are really persecuted and killed.

Father in heaven, I ask you to look after all the people who need your help, who are treated badly and have to die because of their faith. Father keep and protect them and bring all your love into their lives, all your hope and give them trust in you. Many evil things happen in this world but we know that this is not your will. Human is bad and human does things that are not right. I am firmly convinced that if all people lived according to your word, our world would be more peaceful. And so I ask you Father, speak your word to the unbelievers, the sinners, those who do wrong to other people and bring your love into our world. Our Father in heaven be with the people who cry out your name, who need your help, who weep and with those who quietly deal with their problems and fears.

Our Father in heaven, thank you that you have heard my prayer and will do your work.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation or fear or persecution or hunger or nakedness or danger or sword? ~ Romans 8:35

[wolint]

YOU ALREADY HAVE IT

Exodus 4:2 TLB "What do you have there in your hand?" the Lord asked him. And he replied, "A shepherd's rod."

Many people have experienced situations where they’re looking for something they already have or wanting to do something they don’t think they can, even though the skill or talent is already within them. Throughout the Bible, questions were asked to help people understand their standing with the Lord, delve deeper into the Word, and allow God’s hand to move freely in their circumstances. It would be great if we could say the first-ever question asked in the Bible came from God, but unfortunately, it didn’t. The first question in the Bible came from Satan in Genesis 3:1. The second question came from God in verse 9. “What is in your hand?” God’s question to Moses was meant to shift Moses’ focus from his perceived inadequacy to God’s choice and approval of him. God didn’t ask the question to gain information from Moses, but to draw Moses’ attention to what was already in him and the resources he already had. Where Moses saw a staff, probably his shepherd’s crook, God saw more—a powerful tool He could use for His glory, an instrument of authority and office. Like Moses, many of us wonder what we can do and how to do it, but the Lord is telling us, as He did Moses and others after him, that we already have what we are looking for. We find Elisha asking the widow a similar question in 2 Kings 4:2: “What do you have in the house?” Just like Moses, the widow saw only a small amount of oil, but Elisha saw a marketable and wealth-generating product. She already had what she needed to do what needed to be done. Because of the multipurpose use of oil, she could not only pay off her debt but also have enough for her family to live on. What do you have in your hands? What services has the Lord put in your hands? Whatever you’re looking for is already in your hand. What has God allowed you to go through, see, hear, and do that may be used as a rod for His glory? God uses whatever is already in your hands—your experiences, your pain, disappointments, and resources—as a tool for His kingdom mandate. Christians are often unfruitful because they believe they are not qualified to do what God calls them to do! I can identify with that; we always look for something that will help us feel capable of doing the job God calls us to and may not realize we already have it. Good stewardship is expected from us regarding everything God has given us. We cannot have a sense of entitlement over any skills, talents, and resources we have without a sense of responsibility. Everything we have is for service, and according to 1 Peter 4:10, all believers have received at least one spiritual gift from God, which must be used faithfully for God’s glory as stewards of God’s grace. What was in Samson’s hand? He was given super strength by God, and he gained many victories with the jawbone of a donkey in Judges 15:15. Hannah held a small child in her hand, but when she gave him to God, he became a great prophet. So, what do you have in your hand? What has God put in your hand? Do you wonder how God might use you? God equips people in various ways and diverse measures for His glory. Your responses could be, “I’m good with my hands,” “I can help get things done,” “I like to cook,” “I am good in administration,” or more. Allow God to use whatever He’s put in your hands, no matter how small, and He will use it supernaturally for His glory. PRAYER: Dear Lord, thank you for filling my hands, help me by your spirit to discover what is in my hand and use it wisely in Jesus’ name, amen. Follow the FRESH MANNA CHANNEL on Telegram: https://t.me/freshmdevo Follow the FRESH MANNA CHANNEL on WhatsApp: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Va8y5tqAjPXP6kZdoX1j EMAIL: TEEWOMENOFLIGHT@OUTLOOK.COM WOULD YOU CONSIDER PARTNERING WITH US TO REACH MORE PEOPLE? PLEASE CONSIDER SUPPORTING US TO UPGRADE OUR RECORDING EQUIPMENT TO ENHANCE THE QUALITY OF OUR EPISODES. ANY CONTRIBUTION, NO MATTER HOW SMALL, WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED. THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT AND GENEROSITY. SHALOM

[alllostinmythoughts]

My Story

How it all started

I was not born in to the religion but i do consider myself a born in. It’s all I’ve known. My mother was baptized when I was five or six and soon after married my step-father. I do not remember any birthdays, Christmas’, or any other holidays before that point in my life.

My step-father was a fourth generation born in and the religion was everything to his family. We were to carry that legacy on in whatever way possible. Whether by volunteering our time in service or our money in helping others in the congregation. We were to make sure we did nothing to “bring reproach on Jehovah’s name”. It was serious business. Our life revolved around the religion. Not only in our spiritual life but our work and personal life.

My mother was no slouch either. She may have “come from the world” but she was a serious and studious student of the bible. She was a good JW wife and mother. Took care of house and home. Served the congregation as best she could despite her ailments. Our house consistently had brothers and sisters in and out for dinners, barbecues and other get togethers.

I became an un-baptized publisher somewhere between 10 and 12. Not because I felt a calling or anything but because I knew it was expected of me and I already went on service every week with my mother so really it didn’t change anything. I just now had to report those hours I preached.

Doubt

I started to doubt as a preteen. Evolution was one sticking point. I had a very science oriented mind as a child, still do. I just didn’t understand how science could say we evolved but Witnesses say we didn’t. I questioned my mother and she tried to explain it to me and then did what every witness parent does. Pointed me to the “creation book” or Life-How Did It Get Here? By Evolution or by Creation? I read it cover to cover but I still couldn’t shake the idea that hundreds of well educated people came to the conclusion that we came to be through an evolutionary process. But eventually, I knew there was no fighting it, so I just let it go.

Then came doubts about the bible itself. There is so much in the bible that makes me question the organization’s narrative of a loving God verses what God does in the bible. If a person was to do what God did in the bible, I would say that that person was a sociopathic war criminal who should be tried for their crimes against humanity. If you’re someone who believes in the Christian God and believes that the things written in the bible are literal, I’m sorry but this is just my opinion.

Eventually, the expectation of baptism came. At that point, the reasons for me being hesitant wasn’t that I didn’t believe, because I really didn’t know what I believed. I know I wanted to believe, but that was because I knew that if I expressed that anything other than belief, it would alienate me from my family.

Since I wasn’t baptized and underaged, I knew I wouldn’t be kicked out. But it would definitely strain the relationship I had with my mother and sisters. Looking back now, I realized that I would have been in for lecture after lecture from my step-dad. It wouldn’t have been the loving (guilting) approach of trying to bring someone back into the fold I would be reproached for making what he thought was bad and idiotic decision.

I knew there really was only one decision I could make. So, I set the date when there would be an assembly, so I would have to be baptized in front a huge crowd, and I started the questions to be done with two elders. I was baptized in my mid teens.

I look back on that day and I feel numb. I think I felt relief at the time because it was done. The anxiety of knowing that people would constantly be looking at me with the expectation of my baptism would stop. I know now that I didn’t do it for the right reason. I didn’t believe. I just did it, because I knew there was no other choice.

My Step Father

And I continued being miserable. I struggled with my belief and it was not helped by my family life. Like I said, serving Jehovah was supposed to be everything in my family, and that included everything little thing in someones life. How one kept there home, how someone conducted themselves in front of someone else, how someone’s attitude towards work was. And to my step-father there was only one correct way of doing things, and if you didn’t do things that way then as a person, something was wrong with you fundamentally. My father’s way of thinking was based on what the Watchtower taught but to an extreme that I didn’t see in many other family in the organization.

So if the family wasn’t perfect in everything we did, that was not acceptable to my father and we were berated and shamed for it. Sometimes, it felt like nothing my mother did could ever be enough. She strove to keep the house clean to his standards but sometimes she was too tired or there was too much on her plate and he would berate and belittle her. It felt like us kids were never allowed to be kids, we were expected to just get it. You make a mistake once and that was it. Sometimes even a mistake wasn’t allowed. It felt like we were just supposed to know how to do things without explanation.

We would be subject to lectures that would last hours. He would bring up my mothers life before being baptized to shame her. He would imply that she somehow passed on some of her “undesirable” traits on to us kids and that’s why we acted in a way that he didn’t approve of. He would criticize everything little thing we did. Honestly, looking back, some of the things he would criticize us for, was kinda ridiculous. Things that were really not important. In the end, you were left feeling worthless. Trying you’re best would never be enough because if you try your best and you fail, then to him, that means you weren’t trying your best.

Turning Point

After a particular grueling and emotionally exhausting fight, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I went to my mother and told I couldn’t do it anymore. I told her I didn’t believe anymore and that I was agnostic. I told her I would move in with my biological father. Although I was still underaged, I still felt the need to move because I knew the tension would be too much for me. She told me alright but she also reminded me that I wouldn’t be able to talk to my siblings or her anymore. That I wouldn’t be able to see my youngest sister, who was a baby at the time, grow up. That broke my heart, but I said I knew and she said we would talk with everyone later.

That lasted about the day. The reality of my decision caught up to me and I couldn’t take the thought that I could never speak to my family again. Before we could talk to the family I went to her and told her the reason I said all those things was because I couldn't live in a house where in our religion we’re taught one thing but at home we are expected to live an extreme way that one can never attain and that I wanted to stay and I would continue going to meetings.

This reason was partially true. What I was experiencing was what broke the camels back but I was also still questioned my beliefs, I just didn’t want her to know that. And so I started to push everything away, or at least I tried to. They were there, I just ignored them. I overcompensated what I could do to counter the fact that I knew I had doubt and didn’t do more to be involved in the organization. I made sure to keep up to date with everything. I did research for meetings and I probably knew about more events in the bible than my sisters who regularly went out on service and gave bible studies.

Sometimes I look back and wonder if taking everything back and staying was a good idea. I sometimes regret it. I feel I might have saved a lot of heartache.

Leaving

2021. Coming up two years into the COVID-19 pandemic. My sister got married on the 21st of November. On the 28th of November my mother wakes me up. It seems that my parents were waiting for my sister to be married to tell the rest of us, so as not to ruin my sister’s wedding.

I was having one of my bad health days and just couldn’t muster up the energy to get up for meeting. I initially thought she was coming to see if I would be getting up for meeting. She tells me that’s alright, she and daddy just need to tell the family something and after that I can go back to sleep. My hackles immediately rise. Family discussions are usually a toss up on how they can go. I would have never even guess what was about to be discussed.

I walk downstairs with my blanket wrapped around me and sit on the couch. I notice that my mother’s laptop is dialed in to Zoom but not connected to the TV as it usually is, so our family can view the Zoom meeting on a bigger screen. We wait for the everyone to settle in. When everyone is settled my mother moves the laptop to the next room and closes the door because although everybody is usually muted she says she’s any thing can accidentally happen and our conversation could be broadcasted. I get more and more confused by what is happening.

My father and mother look a little nervous. I can’t remember if my mother or father was the one to speak first but they just came out with it immediately. Told us that they would not be going to meetings anymore. I couldn’t believe it. They told us about several things that led them to making that decision.

They told us what they found out about the organization’s hypocrisy with their dealings with the ‘world’. They were a NGO in the UN in the 90’s. If you’re a witness you know that the UN is regarded as the wild beast in Revelation in the bible and that as a witness you are to stay politically neutral and not be a part of any governmental organization. So them being apart of it is kind of a big deal, even if it was only for a decade. They told us of the white-washing of the organizations history. The failed predictions. The double standards expected of different countries.

I remember at one point they turn to my youngest brother and apologize to him and tell him that he was right. You see, a couple of years ago, my brother made it known that he did not believe in the organization and that he was an atheist. That definitely put a strain on the family.

I do not remember who brings it up, but somebody mentions the child sexual abuse in the organization. I have always told myself that that was a line that could not be crossed. That if I found out that the organization was implicit in the cover up of child abuse, that that was it. I could never be in an organization like that.

So that was that. They told us that they wouldn’t stop us from still attending if so desired. They offered to send us all the stuff they found out about if we wanted. They knew that my youngest brother wouldn’t anymore for obvious reasons. My youngest sister was only 8 so, she was just glad to not have to have to wake up early and still for meetings anymore. My oldest youngest brother was past the age that people expected to get baptized, because he always wanted to be 100 percent sure of something before he committed for something and I guess he couldn’t get committed because he wasn’t convinced.

And as for me, I think my mum already had an inkling of where my mind was at, based on previous conversations we have had and provided that time I had told her I couldn’t be a witness anymore. Even if that was years ago. I didn’t give a definitive answer but based on what I said in the conversation, the could infer that I wasn’t going anymore as well.

I let it stew for about two or three days. I guess I just had to let myself come to terms with this big thing that would change everything. I found that I was probably the calmest I had ever been in my entire life. I felt no anxiety. I realized I felt light like a weight had been lifted. I asked mum for all the stuff she found. It didn’t change anything, just gave me concrete proof of what I already suspected.

Aftermath

Unfortunately, we did not leave unscathed. We decided to fade. For those not in the know. Fading is when someone decided not to announce that they will no longer be a Jehovah’s Witness anymore. They will stop going to meetings, without saying anything. This way the elders technically cannot disfellowship (ex-communicate) you. So technically family and friends brave enough can still talk to you without the elders telling them anything.

My parents decided they would tell my sisters, not everything but just that they found stuff out and that they could not in good conscience be apart of the organization. That did not go over well for one of the three sisters and later a second one.

The youngest sister of us four oldest basically told us she had to shun us. She was on my parents insurance and requested to be removed even though she is incredibly sick right now and needs it. She sold the car my parents gave as a wedding present. She only calls to update my mum on her health condition. Because the youngest is not baptized, she still talks to her. She tried to keep in contact with the oldest brother but he would try to ask questions about the organization that’s he could not answer and he got frustrated, so they don’t talk anymore.

The third oldest at first seemed like she wasn’t going to shun us. It seemed just strained at first, which was expected but then she just disappeared. She quit working at my parents business and would not tell my mother where she would be working now. When mum would try and text her, she would only give one word answers and so communication petered out.

The oldest after me still talks to us. She works for my parents and regularly calls my mother. My youngest sister goes over to her apartment almost every Friday. Though the relationship has recently become strained because she is in between my sisters and us. Trying to be neutral but that obviously can’t last forever when my sisters ask her not to talk about them.

Now

Now it’s been 1 year, 4 months, and 14 days since that day. (Yes I did look up exactly how long it’s been.) I have missed two memorials, and have not attended one meeting, assembly, or convention since then. I have gotten therapy. (Shout out to my amazing therapist) Birthdays have been celebrated. We celebrated Christmas last year for the first time. My sister got to dress up for Halloween.

I am trying to move forward. Trying to find myself in the rest of the world. This blog is supposed to be a first step. Hopefully I get there.

[rockshortage]

For val: 5, 6, 8, 11, 13, 15

5. Speech! Speech! Speech! Speech! Will they give one, and what about?

I think she needs to be more fleshed out before I can name a specific thing, but:

Whoever asked her to give a speech will be regretting it very soon, because there is one topic she is always prepared to ramble on about. It is some sort of insane and passionate opinion she holds about something. Perhaps how it should be illegal to recycle the parts of a defeated battle robot into a new robot, those parts are now tainted with defeat, and they have no right to enter the battlegrounds again because the defeat will rub off on the new robot and make it suck more and she has the detailed tournament history charts to prove it!!

6. Who will they take advice from, no matter what it is? Who won’t they take advice from, no matter what it is?

She will always listen to what her lil bro Gabriel has to say – although that doesn't necessarily mean she’ll follow the advice.

Definitely not taking any advice from RedEye, she cannot take a single thing that guy says seriously.

8. Do complex puzzles intrigue or frustrate them?

They frustrate her more often than not. The only time she likes figuring things out is when she’s messing with robots, but even then she needs to step away pretty soon after hitting a snag with something. Why won’t this thing just work the way she wants it to? 😠 She has a bunch of unfinished projects because of it.

11. They’ve won the lottery. Spend, or save?

Maybe she’ll put a little bit to the side for emergencies but most of it will be spent in no time. First, the happy occasion demands a big ol’ party with no expenses spared. Then you need to take care of a bunch of things for yourself and your friends. Maybe some strangers too while you’re at it, fuck it. And while you do that you nourish yourself on expensive foods and drinks you’ve always wanted to try and hey – remember all that work you have to do that you don’t want to do? You can afford to employ an assistant now to do all that crap. Because of this, you will have more time to plan elaborate pranks on Redeye, which may require bribing a person or two (*cough* Gage *cough*).

13. Name one thing their parents taught them.

Maybe this is a bit clichée for a Lone Wanderer but I need to start somewhere ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That bible verse James teaches her early on in life, that was so important to the mother she never got to know, really becomes important to her too. There’s the core message of generosity in there, and it often guided her through her quests in the capital wasteland, even if it was to her detriment sometimes. She’s still generous these days, even as part of a raider gang, but perhaps a little smarter about it. Not as naïve as she used to be.

15. What would they consider a waste of time – other than school or work?

Hmmm, none of the options I came up with really grabbed me, but I think this one is the least boring of the bunch:

That whole courtship song and dance when someone is interested in being in a relationship is needlessly complicated and a drag to Val. What happened to just walking up to a person and asking them straight up if they’re interested? The whole romancing and flirting stuff comes after establishing a first baseline of what each person is looking for. Much easier that way.

[timeoverload]

Today was a pretty easy day for me. I had 29 cases but it wasn't as stressful because they weren't moving too fast. Nothing bad happened except I still haven't found that muscle hook. Hopefully it turns up tomorrow. I was happy that I got to eat breakfast and lunch and it wasn't terrible.

I did get very angry with the morning team lead earlier. He started telling me how he feels about trans people and I do not agree with his opinions. I told him I didn't want to have a debate about it but he wouldn't stop so I sort of blew up on him. He was telling me that he thinks trans people are mentally ill and he refuses to treat them with respect because he doesn't believe in that. He's always preaching about God and going to church every Sunday but obviously it hasn't taught him how to be a compassionate person. I remember a verse from the bible that says, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." I think he needs to read the book again. I believe if God exists then they created trans people and Jesus loves everyone. They have always existed and it's not a trend. He tried to argue that they are just "seeking attention" but I don't believe that's the case. I think all humans can be attention seeking and that's just the way we are. He needs to stop hating people just because he doesn't understand them. He said that we will have to agree to disagree and I was so mad that I had to leave the room. I also don't think that was an appropriate conversation to be having at work period. I don't want to be forced to be around a transphobic asshole. I barely said a word to him the rest of the day. He says so many horrible things and thinks it's funny. I don't think he realizes how mean he is. He was talking about one of the surgical techs and couldn't remember her name so he referred to her as "the ugly bridge troll". He makes so many disrespectful comments about women. He told me he would leave his fiancée if she didn't shave her legs and I think that's shallow as fuck. He believes a man should make all of the decisions in a relationship and I don't agree with him. He is just so rude and has the biggest ego. He's always pissed about something. I know I have been complaining about him a lot but I am forced to spend hours of my life working with him by myself. I hate coming in to work in the morning now. I think maybe karma is starting to catch up with him because he has been having a lot of bad things happen to him. He has been having a health issue and may need to go on leave. I don't want anything bad to happen to him just because I don't like him but it would be nice to not be around him for a while. He said he is going to come back to work the next day after his procedure because he "lives to work". He's crazy and irresponsible. He also spends at least half of his day talking instead of working anyway. I already know his doctor isn't going to let him do that. He thinks it's fine for him to come in to work anyway and is expecting everyone else to wait on him and bring him stuff to do while he sits. I'm not doing that and that's a bad idea for so many reasons. I really need to stop talking about him but I have been bottling it up and he has been driving me bonkers. I am going to try to stay away from him as much as possible. I'm sorry for going on a rant.

Anyway, there was an add-on at 4:15 and that didn't get done until 4:45. I didn't leave on time because it took me a while to get everything cleaned up but it's ok. I'm so glad I'm home and that it's almost the weekend. I am feeling strange right now. I think I might be getting sick but I can't tell. I have a sore throat but it's not that bad so maybe I will feel better in the morning. I am very tired and achy though. I'm sorry I haven't been on here as much. It's hard to use my phone at work and when I get home I am so sleepy. I am probably going to order a new phone on Friday. I have fallen asleep several times lately with the light on and my keyboard in my lap. I think I need to go eat something really quick and get ready for bed. I need to relax because I have 32 cases tomorrow and it might be a rough day but I hope it isn't. I don't like Thursdays very much but I will try my best to make it a good day.

I hope everyone else has a wonderful day tomorrow!!! Thank you for listening to me vent because that means a lot to me. Talking about stuff usually helps me feel better. I love you all!!! :) 💖💖💖

[addictedtostorytelling]

hi aj! i'm still on that csi rewatch (just venturing into season 7 now... so good) and i was thinking about how csi was different with naming their characters. i.e. sara instead of traditional sarah, nick and warrick having (nick)names that rhyme, super dave and hodges having the same first name, hank the paramedic + hank the dog. do you think this is all on purpose or it's just stuff that happened? i actually like those details because it's stuff we rarely see on tv and we know it happens in real life. thanks 🤍 have a great week!

hi, rewatch anon!

good to hear from you again!

re: your question:

unfortunately, the only bit of trivia i have ever encountered regarding character naming decisions on csi is that anthony zuiker originally intended to call gil grissom "gil sheinbaum," but billy petersen dissuaded him from doing so. zuiker then selected the replacement surname "grissom" as a tribute to real life nasa astronaut gus grissom, one of billy's heroes.

—which is to say i don't know why csi so often breaks the "one-steve limit" rule most other tv shows tend to as a matter of course adhere to.

the sara instead of sarah thing i can understand, as "sara without an h" was at least a somewhat popular spelling variant for american gen x babies born in the 70s and 80s, but having nick and rick, dave and dave, and hank and hank—to say nothing of gilbert and albert, dr. jane gilbert and dr. gilbert grissom and the gilbert institute for the deaf, lou vartann and lou gedda, sam vega and sam braun and sam the dog, and all of the recycled oddly-specific surnames of perps and victims (e.g., the name "kessler" crops up a lot, and not just for people related to lady heather)—is a somewhat more eyebrow-raising choice, i admit.

while of course in real life, one will often find people who share names or whose names happen to rhyme with each other or otherwise sound alike in most sufficiently large groups—case in point: i currently have three students with the same name in one of my classes, and they all choose to sit next to each other every day; two of them even have last names that begin with the same letter—in fiction, that kind of "doubling up" is usually avoided for the sake of clarity (i.e., so both the characters within the universe of the show and the audience outside of it don't have to constantly keep asking, "okay, but which one do you mean—the asshole boyfriend or the dog?").

whether the csi writing staff actively chose to forgo that particular storytelling convention for the sake of veritas or just stumbled into the name reuse thing more accidentally—as, after all, theirs was a "rotating writing room" which saw dozens of scriptwriters come and go over the years, not all of them equally well-versed in the "show bible"—i can't really say, though i somewhat suspect the latter option.

after all, the nick/rick thing would be easy enough not to notice at the time when those characters were first being named. "nicholas" and "warrick" aren't similar to each other either graphically or phonetically, and even "nick" and "warrick" have different syllable counts despite the end-sounds being the same when spoken aloud, so the "nick" and "rick" thing might just have slid by them, particularly before they were at a point when they really knew the characters or had an idea that "rick" might be a nickname warrick would occasionally go by.

hell, "rick" might not have even been a nickname the writers came up with themselves—it very easily could have been an on-set ad-lib (perhaps a paul guilfoyle innovation, as brass is the first character to refer to warrick that way back in s1).

so that one, i can very much see being unintentional—something that just wasn't really on the writers' radars during the character creation phase.

as for the issue of two daves, i do know that shows will sometimes supply minor characters with the same given names as their actors in order to keep things simple on set (particularly when the minor character in question may or may not ever end up becoming a recurring one), which is very much the case with "david phillips" and "david berman."

why the csi writers would take that tack with super dave but then name a second character david/dave later on—particularly when that actor's name is wallace and he goes by "wally"—i can't say for sure, but i have a sneaking suspicion that timing played a role, as three seasons elapse between the introduction of the first character and the introduction of the second (i.e., super dave first appears in episode 01x05 "friends & lovers;" hodges first appears in episode 03x11 “recipe for murder").

especially since super dave does not appear in episode 03x11 "recipe for murder," methinks the episode's writers, ann donahue and anthony zuiker—who is notorious for not knowing a damn thing about his own show—just forgot that super dave phillips was already in existence when they originated david hodges.

the fact that hodges is most usually referred to by his surname may have also contributed to the doubling, as they may not have been thinking about him as "dave" when they first set the concept of him down on paper.

as a side note: i cannot imagine how confusing it must have been on set filming episodes written by david rambo in which david berman playing david phillips appears alongside robert david hall—whom i believe also often goes by "david"—playing albert robbins and then david hodges played by wallace langham is also there. all i can say is it's a good thing hodges seldom makes trips to the morgue.

i'm disposed to believe something similar may have happened in the case of hank peddigrew and hank the dog, though on an even larger scale.

bad boyfriend hank gets written out of the show mid-s3 and is never seen or heard from again.

goodest boy hank doesn't get his official name on the show until episode 08x06 "who & what" when sara is the first character to say it.

between s3 and s8, the vast majority of the csi writing staff had turned over.

that so, i tend to suspect "that one shithead sara used to date all those years ago" wasn't really on anyone's minds when they were deciding what to name her dog—particularly since richard catalani, the writer who penned the episode, hadn't even begun working on the show until s4.

—though, of course, all of the above is just conjecture on my part, which i have no way to actually substantiate, and i could very well be wrong.

as for why no one consulted the show bible regarding this stuff—i mean, maybe they did and just decided the repetitions weren't that big a deal?

however, again, i tend to suppose that most of the time, they just didn't care to.

some writers are more fastidious about maintaining continuity and internal narrative coherence than others are, and, honestly, the csi writing staff (and especially zuiker) were never, even in their heyday, particularly careful in that regard; they typically cared more about case details than character biographies.

in any case, like you say, regardless of why it happened, the fact that there are so many characters on csi who share names does lend it a touch of realism that not all primetime tv dramas have.

fwiw, per the us social security administration, "david" was the second most popular name for american boys of the 60s (when hodges likely was born) and the fourth most popular name for american boys of the 70s (when super dave likely was born), so the statistical likelihood of there being two davids working in the same lab in the early 2000s would have been very high.

anyway, sorry i can't give you a more definitive answer! thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

and enjoy your rewatch!

[clubheavenofhelen]

🕊️ Short introduction

So I've got a feeling that it would be nice having my own space here. For my own thoughts. I'm gonna post here photos taken by myself as well as the ones I've found somewhere on the Internet. Maybe some recommendations like songs I'm listening to a lot at any given moment, books, movies. Anything that's gonna come to my mind.

🕊️ List of topics:

• 100 days of productivity challenge

🕊️ Some facts about me

• My name's Helena.

• I'm Polish.

• I've got 4 siblings. I'm the oldest one (yeah, I think it's a big part of person's identity).

• I speak polish, english, french.

• I'm a proud catholic, so Bible verses may be present, too (been to a catholic school also). Mary Magdalene is my patron saint of confirmation.

• I am studying Romance philology, but I don't see myself working in this field. I don't think I will continue my studies after obtaining my bachelor's degree.

• I'm an artist. I'm so grateful for being blessed with a natural talent for drawing, painting and everything that comes with that. I'm a creative person. I love art of all kinds. I was also learning to play guitar for some time thanks to my love for music. I'm writing (ever since I was a little child, I dreamed of writing my own book).

• I would like to become a graphic designer. I'm currently working on it.

• I'm also working hard on my mindset. Learning to be positive. Good vibes only. Unfortunately, I am very anxious and emotional person, so there's a lot to work on.

• I keep pushing myself to work out regularly.

• I've been listening to a lot of podcasts for some time now. Usually the ones focusing on self-care, motivation and the others girly things, you know. It keeps me going.

• I drink a lot of tea, water, love flowers, pretty pictures, essential oils, Eurovision, decadent poetry, fashion, history, long road trips. Travelling (especially airplanes!!!). Planning my own wedding. I would dream of living in Florence, if it weren't so crowded...

• I am interested in natural medicine.

• Currently learning how to cook and getting rid of my social media addiction.

Fav things:

• Music: Lana Del Rey, Taylor Swift, Nessa Barrett, Aurora, Sanah, Palaye Royale, My Chemical Romance

• Books: The Poppy War, The Secret History, A Little Life, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games

• Movies: Howl's Moving Castle, My Neighbor Totoro, My Own Private Idaho, Hacksaw Ridge, Call Me by Your Name, Coraline, Mulan, Memoirs of a Geisha

• Series: American Horror Story

• Games: I enjoy playing Anno, Kingdom Come, League of Legends (LUX SUP + TFT top). The Sims is nice too one time a year.

Hope you're all having a good day!

xx

Helena

[wuxiaphoenix]

On Writing: Sincere and Honest Faith

As a reader, I have to say that too many “inspired” books strike me as less along the lines of the spirit moving through a character,

and more along the lines of the technical meaning of inspire - heavy breathing. As in loud declarations of Bible verses, ecstatic or despairing prayer, and so many sweeping swells of It Was Meant To Be that you could capsize an aircraft carrier.

I suspect this tendency comes from writers putting in how they think faith should work than how it actually works in their life, or the lives of those they know. And I think it does a great disservice to readers, and to faith. Any faith. All faiths.

If you’re trying to portray a character who truly believes in their faith, instead of the fanatical True Believer cardboard cutout, the “light in the eyes shines through the hole in the back of the head”, then you need to research what people actually believe. Crack open a Bible; also, make sure you know which Bible. (There have been different translations at different times, and the King James Version has small but important differences from the one currently used by the Catholic Church today.) Read the Tanakh, Confucius’ Analects, the Koran. Find out what church and temple doctrine says, what it doesn’t say, and what various factions of the same or related faiths start punching each other over.

(The history of Buddhist monasteries making war on each other and on secular governments in Japan is long and bloody, to name just one example. There are many, many others.)

Above all try to wrap your mind around what a realistic, sincere believer will do - and won’t do. Like praying out loud. Many sincere Christians may never pray out loud; and doubly never in public. After all, one of the points made in the New Testament is that you are not supposed to make a show of piety. Pray, fast, deny yourself that which may lead you to sin - then go and wash your face and live your normal life. You follow your faith for your soul’s sake. To make a show of it makes it all about you, not about faith.

Too many of these “inspired” books can’t seem to imagine readers appreciate subtlety. Or actions speaking louder than words. But they do. They always do.

If you want to write a sincere believer, don’t shove your character’s faith in your readers’ faces. Be subtle. Be gracious. Instead, show how your character lives their beliefs. What they do, because it is right. What they refuse to do, because it is wrong. What they wrestle with and are tormented by; because it’s human nature to want things you maybe shouldn’t have, ever, and to want horrible, bloody revenge on anyone who threatens what you love.

Don’t preach faith. Show it. We need all of it we can get.

[mrlnsfrt]

6 Exploring the Biblical Sabbath

Discovering the Biblical Truth about the Sabbath

This post is a rough transcription done by AI. I will later come back and clean it up.  

Welcome back to another episode of our Prophecies of Hope series. Thank you so much for joining me in this journey, and as a reminder, the Bible is our primary source of information, so I hope you have your Bible and you can follow along. We want to make sure that the things we're learning are from the Bible and not, you know, there was this guy that I saw online and he was.

Saying, sure, I'm saying things, but when you share the information that you learn, I want you to say, I was studying the Bible and I learned It's not so much about what I'm saying, it's about what this book is saying, and my goal here is to just guide you in this journey and in this study of the Bible. My name is Marlon Seifert.

I have introduced myself in previous videos, and we're gonna just jump into this. Today's. Uh, this episode, I should say is entitled, created for Something Better, exploring the Biblical Sabbath. So, we're gonna look into this topic in the Bible and see what it has to say. Maybe you already have some opinions on it.

Let's see what your thoughts are compared with what I'm going to share from the Bible. I love to know your thoughts. Once again. Um, I, I keep repeating this, but leave me some comments in the video. Let's interact. Lemme know if you agree, if you disagree, questions that you might have. I want this to be helpful to you and if you do find it helpful also give us a thumbs up.

Give us a like, and subscribe to our channel so you can see more content like this that will be coming in the future. We're going to start this time in the Book of Revelation. This is a prophecy seminar after all, and we have not done a whole lot with Revelation yet, even though we keep dipping our toes in Revelation.

And I think as, as we are progressing and and becoming more acquainted with the Bible, with what it teaches, we're preparing ourselves to dive into Revelation. It's the last book of the Bible. It assumes you have read everything that came before it. When we jump into Revelation too soon, my experience is we tend to get a little bit lost.

And very confused. So we are going into Revelation. We're starting on Revelation, but we're always going back and checking with the rest of the Bible to see if our interpretation of the book of Revelation fits with everything else God has been saying throughout the entire Bible. And it's a. It's a tall order, right?

It's a, it's a lot to try to accomplish. I believe we can do it, but we do not want to do this on our own. I invite you to join me in prayer as we begin. Father in heaven, Lord, spiritual things are spiritually discerned. We need your help. Please guide us as we study the topic of the Sabbath as we look at prophecy, as we look at the Bible.

Lord, we want to be faithful to you. We want you to teach us the things that you want us to learn, and we want to learn them from the Bible, so as you read them, inspire us. May Your Holy Spirit guide us in this study. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you so much for joining us. Let's turn to Revelation chapter 14.

This is where we have what's often referred to as the three angels message. There are three angels described in Revelation chapter 14, and we're gonna talk about the first angel this time. And the reason why these three angels are important, it's because when you read through Revelation 14, starting with verse six, we have the first Angel's message.

But as soon as they're done with these three messages, what we have next in Gen Genesis, in Revelation chapter 14 is the second coming of Jesus. So it is my understanding that Revelation 14 and, and the messages of these three angels, and some argue that it's one message given in three parts by three angels.

I don't disagree with that. Either way, you, you slice it up. This is the last message to go to the world before the second coming. So it does seem to me that it's important for us to familiarize ourselves with the message. Of these three angels. So this time in this video, in this episode, we're looking at the first Angel's message and not the whole thing.

We're gonna revisit this, but for now, let's read from Revelation chapter 14, starting with verse six. Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people. So we're gonna pause there real quick.

The gospel here is referred to as everlasting, and I, and I love this description of the gospel. My understanding of what this means includes this is not a new gospel. It's not a, a new plan that God came up with. Like, oh, by the way, let's, let's just save people by grace from now on. No, I believe this was the plan all along.

Everything else that God revealed through the sacrificial system was pointing people to Jesus. And Paul talks about this as well, that the sacrifices that the blood of animals was not enough to cleanse our sins, but it was a sign that people had faith that the Messiah was coming one day. So I would argue throughout the Bible, throughout the, the history of humanity here on this.

Planet throughout their, the history of of life Ever sin. Ever since sin came into this world, we have been saved. Humans have been saved by grace through faith. In Jesus Christ. And the sacrificial system of the Old Testament was simply an illustration. It, it, it was how they demonstrated their faith that Jesus was coming.

And now we have communion. We have other things that point back to the fact that Jesus came, we no longer offer sacrifices. We're all saved through the same means. It's through Jesus alone and, and by grace alone and, and through faith. So. That to say the everlasting gospel is the only gospel has not changed is the gospel that these angels are preaching.

Also, the word angel in Greek, it really means messenger. I. So the word angel means messenger, and I, and I say this because sometimes we think we associate the word angel with a being. I believe the word angel is associated with a function. I don't wanna go too deep into this, but you can look this up or we can leave comments, we can talk about it some more later.

At times in the Old Testament, an angel shows up and then later it turns out to be the Lord himself. Also here in Revelation chapter 14 sometimes. Well, also it's, it's, it's prophecy, right? It, it's more symbolic than some of the other books of the Bible. I believe that these angels, even though there is a supernatural aspect to it, I think a lot of it also has to do with the work of the church.

In the last days, we are God's messengers. Me. You listening to this video, those of us who were seeking God, learning about God, God then calls us to be his messengers, to take the everlasting gospel to others. I say this because I don't want you to read about this and be like, ha, I'm, I'm gonna sit around and wait for an angel to come fly in the midst of heaven, to proclaim this gospel to the whole world.

When I believe the proper interpretation of this text is God is calling me to be his messenger. His. Angel, right, to go out and share the everlasting gospel with the world. So we have in the Bible, cherubim and seraphim, these are angelic beings. They often serve or behave as God's messengers. These are beings that the Bible describes as having wings, and they look like they're on fire and right there, bright, um, not necessarily flaming.

But anyway, uh, and I don't want us to confuse, you know. Seraphim with Angel. I believe the seraphim function as angel sometimes. Sometimes God himself functions as an angel. Sometimes prophets functions function as an angel and we can function as an angel, as a messenger. And, and I think that this is a proper thing to keep in mind as we go through this.

Of course, many times when it refers to an angel, it is one of these cherubim or seraphim, they are these beings with the wings, with the brightness that they show up and people think they're gonna die. So. Anyway, I, I hope that that was clear. I hope I did not just confuse you with this. I just don't want you to read this prophecy, this message about the three angels and sit back waiting for somebody else to do it, but rather we.

Partner with God, we partner with the angels, the seraphim and the cherubim, and you know, and all of us going out there to accomplish this mission of preaching the gospel to the whole world. It has to reach everyone before Jesus comes back and we get to be personally engaged with this work of God. Verse seven.

Let's see here. Verse seven saying, with a loud voice, fear God, and this idea of fear. Here we, we can see it in Genesis 2212, Psalm 1 11 10, Ezekiel 12, 13. It's it, it has to do with, it's not fear of when you're scared of something that's evil and bad. This is fear in the sense you have respect for something that is powerful and awesome and amazing.

Fear God and give glory to him for the hour of his judgment has come worship him. Who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, in the springs of water. So this first angel's message, it ties in several things. The everlasting gospel that has to go to everyone in the world. It ties in also the idea of fearing God, giving him worship, honor, glory.

Um, and of course, you know, worship, I, I mentioned that already. So fearing God, giving him glory, and in the context of judgment, the hour of his judgment has come and worship him. Who made heaven, the earth, the sea in the springs of water. Judgment is often seen as a negative thing. It's not so in the Bible.

We'll talk more about this on the video coming up, but this is the context of the gospel, right? The good news is salvation in Jesus. The good news makes more sense. It's even better news in light of judgment, right? The judgment is the thing that we cannot do, we cannot do. We cannot face on our own. We need to be covered by Jesus's righteousness.

That's why he had to come. That's why he had to die. That's why we need him as our savior. We cannot face judgment on our own. So in light of judgment, the good news, the everlasting Gospel is recognized for what it is. Good. News. So what do we do with this message? This, there is a gospel message. The everlasting gospel fear God give glory to him.

The hour of his judgment has come worship him, who made heaven and earth the sea in the springs of water. The more you study revelation, the more you study prophecy in general, you're gonna see that worship is a big part of it. Worship is a big part of our lives. We go through life and worship is something.

That shapes the way that we live. So worshiping God is a major part of our relationship with God, and the Bible highlights this, especially in Revelation chapter 14, verse seven. The last part, worship him. Who made the heaven, the earth, the sea in the springs of water. Now we live in a modern. Well, I am in, in the western world, right?

It's, it's more secular. It's more scientific. We don't really believe in lots of gods out there. But when this was written into also many parts of the world, still to this day, there is a belief in different gods for different things. There's the God of the rain, there's the God of the crops. There's the God of war, and there's the God of protection.

There's God of fertility, and there's gods of all kinds of things. The Bible points out that we should worship the God who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and the springs of water. That's how we identify. Who should we be worshiping the creator God. And this is important because there are Christians, there are people who claim to believe in God, believe in Jesus, who have accepted, they say Jesus as their Lord and Savior, but they deny the creation accounts.

They think it's kind of embarrassing to believe in creation, right? They, they believe in evolution or some form of evolution, uh, where God, you know, maybe got started things off the Big Bang and then he kind of left things to evolve on their own, to die to struggle. Then to eventually evolve, and then the weak ones die.

The strong ones survive. And then, you know, and that was the rule for a long time until we get to humans and then God says, okay, now let's work together. I just don't see that in the biblical text. And when we look at revelation, if we take out creation, then how do we find out who to worship? If we're supposed to worship the creator God and there is no creator God, we're in trouble.

So I feel like if we're going to study. Prophecy and we are studying prophecy, and if we're going to take this message and apply it to our lives, we also have to accept the biblical creation account because if you take that out, then the book of Revelation falls apart. These are the bookends, right? We have the Bible, 66 books, all of these pages, and then we have the first book and the last book.

And you can't have one without the other. You take out Genesis, revelation falls apart if you have Genesis, but you don't look at Revelation. You don't see the ultimate fulfillment and culmination of all of these things that that Genesis deals with. Genesis begins with a perfect world. Then there's trouble.

And in Revelation we see that prob that trouble solved and the new creation takes place. So to understand everything in the middle, it's important to understand both Genesis and Revelation. So I. With that in mind, let's look at Psalm. We're gonna go right to the middle of the Bible, not Genesis, not Revelation, but let's pause in Psalms for a little bit, which is a book that has a lot to do with worship, a lot of, uh, worship songs and poetry.

Let's look at Psalm 33 versus eight and nine. It says, let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. For he spoke and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast. Now, this is important because this ties in revelation that we just read. Uh, fear God and honor him, you know, for the hour of his judgment has come worship him.

Who made the heavens, the seed, the earth? Uh. The springs of water, and this also ties in with, with the creation account. Psalm 33 is saying, by the word of the Lord, the heavens were made. So he recognizes God as creator and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. And he gathers the, I'm sorry, I. I went back further.

Uh, let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the word stand in awe of him for his spoke, and it was done. He commanded and then stood fast. The fear, the awe, the respect, the recognition that God is God worthy of our worship. It's connected to his power as creator to his actions as creator.

We worship God, not only because he saved us and redeemed us through his son Jesus Christ, but also because he created us in the first place. God as creator is integral to the biblical understanding of who he is, his character, his power, what he is like, and also our understanding of what He's doing and will do in the future as we look at prophecy.

So now that we have looked at this, let's go back and review Genesis chapter one. And this may be familiar to many of you, but there might be some that this, you're new to the Bible and you're just discovering these things. Welcome to the journey. It's a lifelong journey, but it's always fun to learn and to review and to not only learn new things.

But to be reminded of things that we should just never forget. Genesis chapter one, verse one says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The Bible begins establishing God as the creator. The Book of Revelation, the three angels message just before the second coming of Jesus is making the same proclamation that God is the creator and he is worthy to be worshiped.

And. The only one that should be worshiped. We also had another video in this series that covered that there's an enemy of God who wants to be worshiped in God's place, and he will do anything he can to distract us from worshiping God, to confuse us, and to get us to stop worshiping God. And here's the secret I'm gonna tell you.

Don't tell anybody, actually you can share with other people. Here's the secret. We cannot help but worship. And if we don't worship God, we're just gonna worship something else. And you've seen this, we have that tendency. We want to spend money and invest our time into certain things, and it can easily take the place of God.

For some people, it's their favorite sports team, right? The houses that created the cars, decorat created. They know the names of all the players. They know all the stats. They buy the season takers. They'd never miss a game. They're always there watching. Uh, to me it sounds a lot like worship. Right. What does God require of us?

Time, attention, uh, effort and, and even I think when the Bible talks about the donations, a cheerful giver. It's not like, oh, I have to give, but rather than like, I'm happy to do this, right? Like the fend for their team will buy the merchandise, they'll get the shirts. They're proud to wear it, they're happy to do it.

They're not saying like, why do I have to pay for this? Why do I have to, so I'm not talking about money necessarily. I'm just saying the way that we. Spend. It says something about our hearts. It says something about our values. It says something about worship. So we're gonna worship, worship something, and Satan will try to get us to not worship God, knowing very much that we'll worship something else, whether it's ourselves, education, jobs, spouse relationships, sports, money, power, drugs, whatever.

Right? Pleasure. We're gonna worship something. Not worshiping is not an option. God just says, direct your worship towards me. I am the only one that is worthy of it, and I would agree. And also the thing that we worship shapes our lives, our values, the way that we behave. When we worship God, when we behold God, we are transformed by that and the best way possible.

But also as we worship other things in our focus, our attention, our time, our money, our efforts are directed towards those things. They will also shape our minds, our characters, the way that we go about life. So let's, let's continue this. Let's explore this a little bit further. Genesis chapter one, verse 26.

We did this in one of the other videos, but it's always good to review and the Lord God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness. Let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over all the earth and over. Every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. Then God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over every living thing that moves on the earth.

And God said, see, I have given you every herb that yields seed, which is on the face of the earth. Every tree whose fruit yields seed to you, it shall be for food. God gave them everything that they needed, the food, the place, the housing right, everything is taken care of. We are created in God's image. And God gives us all the trees, all the plants, all the, you know, the seed bearing fruit.

We, we have more than enough to enjoy and to live a perfectly happy life. This is the God of the Bible he created, and it was very good. Not okay. Not, it needed to evolve a little bit. Not, it's like, it's this soup that's kind of alive and it's going to eventually evolve and, and get better after, you know, much death and suffering and struggle to survive.

That's not the god of the Bible. There is no death in this perfect world. That's part of the reason why God is placing right, the, the fruit of the trees and every tree bearing, um, fruit bearing tree and, and, um. Anyway, all the tree whose fruit yields seed to you, it shall be for food. Genesis 1 29. There is no death.

It's a perfect world. There is no evolution. There is no survival of the fittest. There is no death of the weak. It's just a perfect world. This is what God created for us. This is the God of the Bible, the powerful God who deserves our worship. Now chapter two, starting with verse one says, thus the heavens and earth were, and all the hosts of them were finished, which means created.

It was done. It did not need to evolve. It did not need more work. It was done, it was perfect. Verse two, and on the seventh day, so six days, God was created, doing everything. Everything is done now. It's the seventh day. God ended his work, which he had done, and God rested on the seventh day from all the work which he had done.

Now, let me ask you this. God tired. No, God does not get tired. The Bible tells us that. Um, and I could, I didn't think of adding that to this, but if you want those references, let me know in a question and I'll look those up. Or you can just Google it. Does God get tired? And there's several bible verses that says, no.

So anyway, God is not tired. Why is it resting? We're gonna get to that. So in it, God rested. In the seventh day from all his work which he had done, verse three, then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it or made it holy because in it, he rested from all his work, which God had created and made God rested from all the work that he had made.

He finished, he was done. All the work that needed to be done was accomplished. And he rested. What did he do when he rested? I believe that God took that seventh day, the first full day where creation is completely done, and he took it to enjoy what he had created to enjoy us, to enjoy this world, to enjoy the animals.

To enjoy this relationship that we see when we read throughout the Bible. God longing for a relationship with us. The Bible is not a story of us trying to reach God, trying to, you know, somehow get his attention or, or be better so that he would bless us. No. The Bible is a story of God seeking us, coming after us, chasing after us, and loving on us, and providing for us, and inviting us into a loving relationship with him.

That's the gist of the Bible, and I believe this Sabbath day of rest, the seventh day of the week is God, getting to do what he wants to do. Always spend some time with us. He finished working and the first full day of the world being perfect, God says, I'm gonna rest. I'm gonna take a break. I'm gonna hang out with humanity, with Adam and Eve, with the earth, with the animals.

And that's my view on it. And maybe the children of Israel begin to forget this as they were in Egypt, as they were made slaves for over 400 years. And then when Moses comes and brings them out of Egypt. Oh, God sends Moses. God does all the powers and the wonders and the children of Israel coming out of Egypt.

There comes a time when God gives them the 10 Commandments. We have a a whole video on God's law. If you missed it, you can go back and look in the playlist. It's on there on our YouTube channel. Or if you listen to this as a podcast, it's also available there. Um, the, the 10 Commandments was, were given to the children of Israel after they came out of Egypt, after God had delivered them not before.

And God didn't say, okay, start keeping these laws and then I'll come back and deliver. You know, he deliver them first and then said, here are some guidelines for you to live your life. And here's an interesting thing. The children of Israel had been slaves. For years and years and years for generations, they don't know what it's like to rest.

They don't know what it's like to have that autonomy, right? They've been slaves for so long. That's all that they know. Good thing is not like that for us, right? Good thing we don't live lives, our lives as slaves constantly working. I don't know. I don't know if I wanna go down this rabbit trail maybe just for a little bit and I'll come right back to this study.

Could it be that we live our lives in debt? I. We, we buy things that we can't really afford, and then we are paying a lot more than it's worth because we're paying interest and all these things, right? You just, you're caught in this rat race and it's that, that different from slavery. We feel like we can't dress, we can't stop.

We need more, and we're just always hungry for more. One thing more, which keeps us work, which keeps us working so we don't have time for the most important things in life. I wonder if perhaps we have more in common with Israel in Egypt than we would like to admit. Slaves to sin, slaves to appetite, slaves to consciousness, right?

We see things. We want the things, so we, we get ourselves in debt trying to get the things and, and it's just this cycle and we never stop. There's always something else to do, and we feel like our value is connected to our doing. Right. When somebody asks us, we tell 'em what we do for a living because that's where my value comes from.

And if I stop doing, do I have any value? I wonder if the children of Israel were struggling with this as well. Their identity connected to their work and how hard they work. I don't know what it's like in in your country here in the us. Whenever you ask people how are they doing, which is a common greeting here, we say, Hey, how are you?

People say, busy. Tired, busy, tired. I hear that all the time, and I don't doubt it. It's a hundred percent true. The question is, why are we all so busy and also tired? And yes, life is busy and things go wrong and and, and there's challenges, but could it be that we also don't allow ourselves and opportunity to rest?

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's jump into Exodus chapter 20, starting with verse eight. Verse eight says, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Interesting. Remember the other commandments I. Don't start with. Remember, a lot of them begin with, you shall not, not all of them, but many of them.

But this one begins with, remember, this is the fourth commandment. This is verse eight of Exodus chapter 20. It says, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. So now let me ask you this. It's a simple question. You can answer this. If God is saying, remember, is he establishing something new? No. He's asking you to remember to not forget something that existed from creation from a long time ago.

Right? He's saying, remember, he's not saying, Hey, here's a new idea. Okay? Moses, you and the children of Israel and all the Jews from this point forward, here's what I want you to do. We talked about this when we talked about the 10 Commandments or God's law. This is not something new. This is something that has always existed.

It's just formally being written down right now in tablets of stone with the finger of God, which separates this from anything else that we have in the Bible. The 10 Commandments are the only thing written by the finger of God in stone. With that in mind, God is saying, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

Keep the Sabbath holy. Remember it. That's the command. Wow. What do you mean? Well, there is more description. Don't worry. Verse nine, six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord Your God in it, you shall do no work. So maybe this is just for the Jews, right?

Maybe this is just for the Israelites, but let's continue with the commandment. It says You nor your son. Nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, okay? What if my servants are from a different country? Can I get 'em to work on the side? If they're not Jews, right, then they're not Jewish.

If they're not Israelites, could, could I get just like an Egyptian servant or somebody from a different country, you know, they're looking for work, I hire them and then they can work on the Sabbath because they don't have the same religion that I do. No, if they work for you, if they're under your sphere of influence, they get the Sabbath rest as well.

Oh, are you sure? Well, let's keep reading. I'm pretty sure this is what it means because it says, nor your cattle, the animals get to rest. Creation is invited to rest on the Sabbath. Not just people, not just people who belong to a specific faith or. Uh, culture or ethnicity? No. Everybody. Even the cattle.

Even the animals, nor your stranger who is within your gates. If somebody comes from Ethiopia to visit there in Israel, they get the Sabbath off as well. According to this, you know, bring it back to, to that time, people from the surrounding nations, if they're visiting, they also get the Sabbath rest. If there's a stranger in my house and, and he wants to go and do work and mow my lawn or whatever, like, no, no, no, you, you get to rest today.

But I don't have the same faith. I'm not from the same people. I don't, it's okay. Uh, you are invited to rest with us and enjoy this blessing from God. It's for the stranger. It's for the servants, it's for the animal. Anybody within your gates, anyone within your sphere of influence, they get the Sabbath rest.

This is what God is telling Moses. This is what God is telling the children of Israel. This is what God has wrote in stone. This is what God is telling us. From creation. There was a special blessing on that day. God made it holy. He's the only one that gets to do that. And then he invites us to keep it holy.

Right? Don't profane it. Don't desecrate it. Keep it holy. And he's saying how you do that and everybody else, your pets, your animals, your workers, your employees, everybody that works for you, everybody within your sphere of influence, they get the Sabbath rest as well. For what reason, verse 11. For in six days, the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day.

Therefore, the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hollowed it or made it holy. There's a special blessing on this day. There's a holiness about this day. God is the one who did it. And what we do is we keep it holy along with God's plan for it from the beginning. In this commandment, God ties the holiness of the Sabbath back to creation, not to Moses, not to the Jewish people, not to this, uh, faith, but to.

All of humanity to all of creation. Everyone is invited to rest on the Sabbath regardless of your faith. Seems pretty clear to me. I. But why do, why do we struggle so much with rest? Why is it that me as an Adventist, or I could say we who are seven day Adventists, we get accused of being legalistic when we are resting?

We are accused of believing in salvation by works when we're refusing to do works. I wonder what causes people to, to consider that? Maybe you can leave me a comment below. How does me resting count as me working for my salvation? The way that I think about it is I have so much faith in God's grace and his power and his ability to provide for me that I don't have to be constantly working.

I can trust in him and in his ability and find rest in him, and stop for 24 hours when the sun goes down. On Friday night to when the sun goes down on Saturday night. From that time, from sunset to sunset is the Sabbath day made. Holy by God, blessed by God. And then I join him in his invitation for me to rest, and in his desire to spend some time with me on the day that he set aside the day that he chose because he is God and I am not.

So how hard do you have to work to earn your arrest? Sometimes we have that feeling right. I haven't, I haven't finished everything. I haven't done all the things I need to do. Oh, no, no. God invites you to rest. I. You can either work and better use your time during the week. Maybe you should take some things off of your plate and do less.

I don't know what your personal situation is. I don't know what you're going through and struggling with. I'm not sure how that applies to your life. What I know is God calls me to rest on the Sabbath day, and if I'm a follower of God and if I trust in him, and if I worship him as creator, and if I, anyway, there's all these other things tied to it.

Then I, I want to do his will. We're gonna continue to explore this as we go on. If you're worried about how much you have to work before you earn your rest, let me ask you this. How much work did Adam and Eve do before they earned their Sabbath rest? They were created on the sixth day of creation. On the seventh day, God invites them to rest.

I imagine Adam and you saying, but we're not tired. We're just getting started. And God says, yeah, let's hang out. Who hires you for a job and then gives you vacation right away? Right? This doesn't make sense unless God did not create us to be busy working all the time, but to enjoy the life that he gives us.

Yes, work is important right there in the commandment and in creation story. God worked for six days, right? He created for six days. It's good for us to create. It's good for us to work, but our identity is not found in the work. Our identity is found in God, and God invites us to rest. It's okay for us to rest.

It builds our faith. It reminds us of the God that we worship. We're not working for our salvation. We are resting in our salvation and in our identity in Jesus Christ. Here's the thing that I think we struggle with. When work becomes an idol, rest feels like sin. Think about that. When my work becomes my idol resting feels like sin, feels like I'm turning away from my lowercase G God.

Uh oh. No, but what's gonna happen to me? This is what saves me. This is what provides for me. This is right. We, we ha we raise up our work, our job, what we do to get money to the place of God. It's so interesting. Let's think about this. Think about this with me. So we, we refuse to rest because of work, right?

I need money. I, I need all these things. I, I need to do all this work. Otherwise, who's gonna take care of me? I have to provide for myself and my boss will provide for me. So we raise it to the level of God because we want to work when God told us to rest. Because after all, this has to provide for me. So, okay, you're, you're working really hard or.

Whether it's your education, maybe you're a student, so you're studying and the Sabbath hours come in. But I have a project, but I have a final, so I have to study in the Sabbath hours. Okay? Right. So you do, you, you, you do what you think is best. Let's say in the process you get sick, horribly sick, and you can't go to school anymore.

Are you gonna pass your class? I don't think your professor will pass you. Right. But maybe all the things that you study will heal you and all your good grades will restore your health. I, I, I don't think it works that way, even though I believe that people who study medicine or I. You know, pharmaceuticals or whatever, and you're able to bring healing, praise the Lord, please continue to do your work as God uses you to bring healing.

Um, what if you're just making a lot of money? You set up your own company, your business is growing, so you feel like you can't stop because there's money to be made, and then you get sick, right? Your, your health is struggling. Can the money solve the problem? Sometimes, not all the time. What about when your marriage starts falling apart?

Your, your relationship with your children is not great, and all of these things start to fall apart, right? We're sacrificing our health. We're sacrificing our children, we're sacrificing our marriage, we're sacrificing our emotional wellbeing in the alter of work, money, education, you name it. So we sacrifice all these things.

So these false gods, can those gods save you? I don't know what it's like for you. For me, when I'm sick, I turn to God. I turn to doctors, I turn to medicine. I do what I can, but ultimately I'm praying through the whole thing. I want God to bring healing 'cause I know God is able to, he's able to save these other gods or not.

I don't wanna sacrifice. My health, my family, my mental health, my emotional health, my relationships with my children, and those around me in the altar of work or education or money or what have you. Something to think about, are we able to pause and rest? Can we trust that God knows what's best for us and he knows what we need?

Can we join? Can we trust God enough to join in this blessing that he wants to give us? God is our provider. The 10 Commandments begins with the Lord. God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. I am the God that sets you free.

I am the God who provides for you. Will you listen to me and rest or do you not trust me enough? Do we not trust God enough to rest when he calls us to rest? Because we have become so used to thinking about ourselves and, and we are the ones who have to provide, and we have to do everything that we feel like we, oh, I'm not sure if God can provide, if I stop in faithfulness to him.

I'm not talking about laziness. I'm talking about faithfulness to God when he says rest is important. And I want you to rest with me. I want you to spend time with me. I want us to connect. I want you to connect with your family. I want you to take care of your health. Do we listen to God or do we say, no, Lord, you don't understand how busy I am.

No, Lord, you don't understand I have bills. No, Lord, you don't understand. But my job, no, Lord, you don't understand. But this project, this professor is really hard. Really, God doesn't understand. Or is it us or is it me? Maybe I don't understand. What's most important in God's plan for my life? Something to think about.

I think there's a story that illustrates this, and it's before the 10 Commandments are given. Exodus chapter 16. Let's look at Exodus chapter 16. And we're gonna do verses four and five. Exodus 16 says, the Lord said to Moses, behold, I will reign bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.

And it shall be on the sixth day that they shall prepare what they bring in and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily. I. If you're familiar with the children of Israel going through the desert when they're going to the promised land, there was no food and God provided them manna, which is this bread from heaven.

I would encourage you to read the whole chapter of Exodus 16. For the sake of time, we won't. We're gonna jump down to verse 15. It says, so when the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, what is it for? They did not know what it was, and that's the name. Manna is, what is it? And Moses said to them, this is the bread which the Lord God has given you to eat.

This is the thing, verse 16, which the Lord has commanded. Now listen to the command. God is giving them bread. He didn't give him a command first. First, he provides for them, just like he brought 'em out of Egypt in the chapter 16. They haven't even gotten the 10 Commandments yet. That's coming in chapter 20, before the 10 Commandments, before the laws are given formally written in stone.

Here's what God is commanding. Um, where did I stop? Verse 16. This is the thing which the Lord has commanded. Let every man, man, woman, people, gather it according to each one's need. One omer for each person according to the number of persons. Let every man take for those who are in his tent. Take enough for your household.

One, Omer. This was a measurement at the time. How? How much it is. It doesn't really matter for us for the. For this study, the idea is each person take enough for each day. This reminds me of when Jesus teaches the prayer to his disciples, the model prayer. He says, give us this day our daily bread. This is what the manna was enough.

For each day, take enough for that day, and as according to the number of people that are in your tent, right in your household, then the children of Israel, verse 17, did so and gathered some more, some less. So they measured it by Omers and he who gathered much had nothing left over, and he who gathered little, had no lack as long as it got enough for each person, that was exactly what they needed.

Every man had gathered according to each one's need. I. And Moses said, let no one leave any till morning. So you eat it for the day, don't store it for the next day. Right? You, you don't fill up your pantry with extra manna just in case you get for that day. You're not gonna lack. And also don't get more than you need to save up for the next day.

Not withstanding, they did not heed Moses verse 20, but some of them left part of it until morning. And Moses was angry with them, so they gathered it every morning and every man according to his need. And when the sun became hot, it melted. Oh, sorry, I skipped something in verse 20. Not withstanding, they did not hit Moses, but some of them left parts of it until morning and it bred worms and stank and Moses was angry with them.

I skipped that one line. So if you keep it overnight. It begins to stink. Worms come out like it's, it's terrible. It's very like, you can't hide it, right? Like you, you were keeping man, and what's that awful smell? So when the sun would come up, it'd become hot, it melted, it disappeared from the ground. Then the next day you would get more.

And so it was on the sixth day that they gathered twice as much bread to ERs for each person and that all the rulers. All the congregation came and told Moses, then he said to them, this is what the Lord has said. Tomorrow is a Sabbath. Rest, a Holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you will bake today. Boil what you will boil today and lay up for yourselves.

All that remains to be kept until morning. So now it's the opposite. Now you keep it until the next morning. Prepare it all today. And apparently there is something special. We call it bread. We don't really have a word to translate it to. Bread is also used in the Bible as as food sustenance. So they're calling it bread from heaven or sustenance from heaven, food from heaven.

And they could boil it, bake it, you know. I'm sure if it was nowadays, we would deep fry it or something, but you know, there's different ways they could do with it. Do all of that on Friday. So they laid it up till morning as Moses commended and it did not stink, nor were there any worms in it. Then Moses said, eat that today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord.

Today you will find, not find it in the field, six days, verse 26. You shall gather it, but not. But on the seventh day the Sabbath, there will be none. This was before the 10 Commandments, and God is already teaching the people six days you gather food, six day, you do the work for the Sabbath. On the Sabbath.

Seventh day you rest. He's teaching these people who are brought outta slavery, the meaning of rest. So he is commanding them to rest as he provides for all of their needs. Now, verse 27 says, now it happened that some people went out on the seventh day together, but they found none. They went to gather the manna, but there was none.

And the Lord said to Moses, verse 28, how long do you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? Now listen, this is before the 10 Commandments. The 10 Commandments written, the tablets of stone have not happened yet. Moses going up to the mountain. God speaking to the people through the mountain, as the mountain was shaking, this has not happened yet.

Yet God refers to getting the manna working, the six days resting on the Sabbath as my commandments and my laws. God says, I'm doing my part in providing for you. Why don't you do your part in obeying me? God is providing says, why aren't you resting? I'm taking care of you. You don't trust me. You don't obey me.

Do you think that life will be better when you go against my will? Something for us to think about. Do you think that about the other commandments? I. Or that life will be better if you just commit a little bit more murder or if you just steal a little bit more, or if you commit a little bit adult of adultery, right?

If you just do a little bit of these things, life will be better. No, it makes life worth worse every single time. When you steal, it makes life worse for you and for others. When you commit murder, it makes life worse. When you commit adultery, it makes life worse. When you lie, it makes life worse. So the laws of God are there to protect us.

And that includes the Sabbath rest, the special day that God blessed from creation, part of his original plan before the fall, and now he's reminding Israel as he provides for them bread in the desert, food in the desert. And we wonder if we can rest on the Sabbath and we question whether God will provide for us.

I don't think this is a matter of legalism. I believe this is a matter of faith. I think we don't trust God enough when we don't feel safe resting on the Sabbath. Maybe we question his grace. Maybe we question his power. Maybe we question his ability to provide. Maybe we question his love. We're so afraid and God's saying rest.

Why won't you listen to me? Why won't you obey my laws and my commandments? This reminds us or not reminds us. This reminds me, and I'll share this with you of, let's go back to Revelation. So we looked at Genesis, we looked at Exodus, we looked at some Psalms that talk about worship and singing praises to God, and God is creator.

And now we're looking at keeping God's law as a part of God's will for us. Revelation chapter 14. Which is where we have the the Three Angels message. Let's look at verse 12. Revelation chapter 14, verse 12 says, here is the patient of the Saints. Do we want to be a part of that group? Right? In the last days, the saints, those were faithful to God.

Here is the patience of the saints. Here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, the two of them together. Both the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. There are people who think that these two are mutually exclusive. Either there is those who keep the commandments of God and they don't have faith in Jesus, and there's those who keep, who have faith in Jesus and they disregard the commandments of God.

The Book of Revelation says, Nope, it's both. The same God that gave us Jesus is the God that gave us the 10 Commandments. If God is all knowing, all wise, powerful, if God is love, then the 10 Commandments are a reflection of his character, of his love, of His kindness, and he knows what's best for us. So he tells us.

What to do. So for example, if you get a brand new car, do you want to know the type of gas to put in it? How often to change the oil, how often you should rotate the tires, how much area you should put in the tires, right? You wanna take care of your investments, you want to fold the instructions. Same thing if you buy a new anything, God is saying.

For your life. Here's 10 guidelines. The best way to take care of your life, to take care of yourself. And we say, nah, no, no, no. I, I don't want that. That's for the Jews. That's for the Old Testament. God's saying, no, no, no, this is for all of humanity. Everybody benefits from this regardless of their faith.

Revelation 14 says, in the last days, the saints, those were faithful to God, God's children, they're identified as those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. Most of us will agree on not committing murder, not committing adultery. We should be honest, but for some reason we don't think it's important or necessary.

It's a minor thing when it comes to the Sabbath rest. It's right there in stone with all the others. We wouldn't say that worshiping other gods is okay, but why don't we wanna worship God the way that he wants to be worshiped? Something to think about. Revelation chapter 12, so we're going back a little bit.

Verse 17. Revelation 1217. It's talking about this battle between the dragon and the woman. This a little bit foreshadows, or it relates to when we're reading Genesis chapter three, verse 15, when God talks about the enmity, right, their enemies between the serpent and the woman, the serpents, offspring, and the woman's offspring.

We see this played out also in Revelation. The serpent now being referred to as the dragon. But we know that, uh, verse nine of Revelation 12 says, the great dragon was cast out that serpent of old called the devil and Satan. So same being so verse 17 of Genesis of Genesis of Revelation 12, it says the following and the dragon was enraged with the woman.

And he went to make war with the rest of her offspring. Remember, Jesus was part of the seed of the woman. He had the victory. That's why the dragon was cast out of heaven. I. But now there's the rest of the offspring of the woman that's us, the followers of Jesus. The part of that remnant that has been remained faithful to God throughout scriptures from Adam, down to Jesus, down to the early church, all the way down to the last days, the seeds, the offspring of the woman.

And who are they according to Revelation seven, uh, 1217, they're those who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus once again, commandments of God, testimony of Jesus, the two. Together. This is what the Bible presents to us. The Bible in its entirety, the word of God, God's plan for our lives.

It involves the 10 commandments. It involves the commandments of God. God would not commend us to do something that is harmful to us. But there's also the faith, the testimony of Jesus. He died for our sins. We are not perfect. Jesus is perfect. We receive his perfection as a gift, as we stand before God in the day of judgment, someday in the future.

But it's both that we need The testimony of Jesus and the 10 commandments, one does not cancel out the other. Here is the patience of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God in the faith of Jesus. Revelation 1412 in John chapter 14, and I think we'll close with this, John, the gospel of John chapter 14.

John 14, by the way, this is where Jesus says I am the way, the truth, uh, I'm sorry. This is where Jesus says, let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe in me. Also, I. In my father's house or many mentions if it were not so, I would've told you. I go to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself.

That where I am there you may be. Also, Jesus says, I'm coming back. I'm going preparing a place. I'm coming back As we continue on this chapter, and we make it down to verse 15, John 1415. Jesus says, if you love me. Keep my commandments. Ultimately, it's about love. God invites us to rest. God invites us to live our best life possible, and that's gonna be a life in line with his commandments, which means keeping his commandments not as a means of saving ourselves, but as a way of showing our love for God.

So the question now, it's up to you. What will you do? Do you choose to rest? Do you choose to follow God? Do you want to experience the life that he has for you? The choice is yours. I encourage you to choose rest, to choose God, to try out his law and see that it is good. There are blessings waiting for you as you make these choices.

I hope that you'll choose to rest on the Sabbath. I hope that you'll choose to make the 10 Commandments a part of your life, not as a means of salvation, but as a way of experiencing the God, the life that God has in mind for you. There are blessings in store. Trust me. I'd love to know your thoughts on this.

If this was helpful, give this video a thumbs up. Subscribe to our channel so you don't miss future presentations. We have one more coming up. It's called Full by A Myth from Saturday to Sunday. How come so many people worship on Sunday? We're gonna talk about that a little bit, but that's not as important as what we talked about today.

In this video about the importance of the Sabbath. Lemme know if you have any questions. We can talk about those maybe in a future video. Until next time, may God bless you.

[nijjhar]

University Professors are like the Jerusalem Priests well versed in the ... University Professors are like the Jerusalem Priests well versed in the letters but no holy spirit called common sense. https://youtu.be/1y3ujizX4Hc Islam of Allah is of the heart for the Sufi “Pneumatics” and not of the Books written by men. Allah is “NOOR” and you cannot apply Shariah on NOOR that sets you FREE. Shariah is of the Satan Al-Djmar Al-Aksa in which you are BOUND by Sharia Laws. Information on Islam of the Book Scriptures = Adulterated Milk for the once-born Disciples of the Mullahs. Real Kallaam of Allah, you get it from Allah through His Grace ONLY. No Book, Bible, Quran, Ad-Granth, etc. can give you His Word but only from Him. Spiritually blind people read Books and quote them whilst spiritually alive think "Logically" to Brew "Logo", which is His Word, the Very Face of Allah. There are two gods; one is called the Potter who creates all the visible creation and is called demiurge because without the "soul", the pot of human or non human is dead. This demiurge is called Yahweh, sired by Him, the Lord of Nature, Khudah, he himself is in the creation feeding and looking after his creation, Brahma, called Ghumiaar, the Potter in Punjabi, etc. and the invisible Supernatural Father of our "souls" called Allah, Real Father, Pakka Peo from "Ilah", the illusionary Kacha Peo called Brahma is worshipped by Brahmins, Elohim, the Embodiment of all the demiurge gods as Al-ilah = Allah and ParBrahm, Superior of Brahma, etc. In short, our Supernatural Father Allah has Supernatural Powers over the visible creation of Yahweh, Brahma, Khudah, etc. and His Sons, the Christs who proclaim His Word or are the Spokesmen of our Supernatural Father possess those Powers of our Supernatural Powers of Allah. Royal Shah Shams Tabrizi brought the Sun down to cook a piece of flesh for his companion. In order to be the Son of Allah, you need to bury as a "seed" is buried and turned into a Plant that bears FRUIT pleasing to our Father or destroy it by burning the to ashes as the Jewish people kill a Scapegoat heifer and sprinkle those ashes to enter the Holiest of Holy that used to have a Curtain around it. I can tell much more if you are interested. In Preaching the Gospel Truth logically, you do not need to read any book to impose your views - Luke 16v16; Law and Prophets were till John, the Baptist and after that in Allah, you do not go by any book but reason logically to Brew Logo, His Word called the "Oral Torah", the Taproot of the Tree of Life, That is why the illiterate shepherds and Farmers much appreciated the Birth of Jesus whilst the Book people at the Jerusalem University his greatest enemies as today at the Universities are when they cannot answer the basic question such as "Why was Jesus given the name Yahshua? or    In whose names, did John, the Baptist baptise the Jewish men of age and Jesus in the water? Why did he not baptise a woman, Gentile or a Samaritan? Jesus had two Folds; which are those? What do you think of the Samaritan woman who engaged Jesus in a deep discussion? Why was the Good News of the birth of Jesus given to the illiterate Shepherds and Farmers and not to the University of Theology Professors in Jerusalem? My email is nijjhar@gmail.com and I know the answers. Most people do not know why Jesus was given the name Yahshua or why to call Allah “Allah”. I have experienced this most at the Oxford University Seminars. Their Professors of theology are super donkeys carrying the corrupted holy books, the adulterated "Milk". The Samaritan woman at well of John 4 was a Saint and yu call her a Prostitute! I know the names of her 5 Husbands but none of your University Professors are interested as the Priests in the Temple were not interested in Christ Jesus. Thus, the University Professors are "Super Blind" producing super blind hireling Dog-Collared licenced Priests in the Churches. On 14 May this year, Donald Trump would announce Greater Israel that would include Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Then, people would start killing the Jews making them to run for Israel to be bundled up for the Atomic War on 14/05/2030 - Matt 13v24-30 is fulfilled. Our Father God blesses everyone. Amen. The Circumcision of the flesh was floated so much by the Temple Priests that it has become OBSOLETE. https://youtu.be/oOqHQc3kjA8 The Promised Land belongs to the Faithful sons of Abraham and not to fake "Saltless" Jews outwardly. https://youtu.be/5vpu-FYuBuM Return under Moses and Yahweh whilst under Christ Jesus just the opposite “Tares” – Matt 13v24-30. https://youtu.be/cKvnXH538WE www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/JAntisem.htm END TIME GOSPEL TRUTH – FREE LECTURES AND SEMINARS. www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/GistEndGospel.htm Other:- www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/Nobility.htm http://www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/tenlights.htm http://www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/JattIslam.htm Proofs of the Virgin Birth of Jesus: - www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/bojes.htm Matt 21v33-46:- As the Jews killed the Prophets and then  https://youtu.be/aOH6r380ECo

[mint-moon25]

Amazing Monster Device: AMD ROG Flow Z13 (2025) 💻 | Aesthetic Unboxing 

DEAR - KOREAN - GIRLS,

MY - TOTAL - CAPITAL ONE, N.A. 

T - $967.05

ULTRA - MOBILE

SWITCHING - FR - 10 GB

NOW - PAID - $19.51

YOUR - PAYMENT - DATE

DOESN’T - CHANGE

FR - AUTO - RENEW - $3

BECOMES - AUTO - RENEW - $5

WITH - GOOD - ENOUGH - 4 - US

ULTRA - UNLIMITED

5G - 4G LTE

SAMSUNG - GALAXY - A 13 - 5 G

BEST - 2 YEARS - BUDGET - TEL

SMARTPHONE - ANDROID

REFURBISHED - AMAZON PRIME

THE - BEST - EVER

MAGNIFICENT

BUYING - DIFFERENT - KINDS

OF - SAMSUNG - GALAXY

SOUTH - KOREA

FOLDABLE

LARGER ...

DEPENDS - ON - COSTS

PRINTING - SHIRTS

TAX - FREE - HONG KONG  ISLAND

OVER - $10 MILLION - EVERY 3 MO

EVERY - 3 MONTHS

ORGANIC - COTTON

BEST - POLYESTER

AFFORDABLE - WOOL

4 SEASON

SELLING - PRINTED - 2 - ME

$1.00 - TAXES - INCLUDED

FREE - DESIGNING - 4 ME

MY - WEBSITE - FREE

MY - MOBILE - APP - FREE

OVERNIGHT - FREE

WORLD - USA

FREE - SHIPPING

I’M - SELLING - WITH - TAX

$5.00 - EACH - SHIRT

FREE - CUSTOMIZATION

NOT AVAILABLE - PRINTFUL

WIX - $43 - BUSINESS PLAN

FREE - MERCHANT - ACCOUNT

NO - MORE - FEES

AMEX - 3.7% - AND - $0.30

PER - ORDER

I - SHOULD - MAKE

$10 MILLION - EVERY - 3 MONTHS

GUARANTEED - NEXT - DYA

HAVEN’T - RECEIVED ?

FULL - REFUND - LESS THAN 3 MIN

ONCE - ITEM - RECEIVED - KEEP IT

RETURNS ?

ANY - REASON - KEEP - THE - ITEM

FULL - REFUND - LESS - THAN 3 MIN

JESUS - IS - LORD

SHIRTS - SWEATSHIRTS - HOODS

BIBLE - VERSES - ALSO - MANY - 2

CAN’T - WAIT

ULTRA - MOBILE

SELLER - AT - AMAZON 

BY - MINT MOBILE - RYAN REYNOLDS

RECOVERY FEE - $1.00 - BOTH PLANS

MONTH - SINGLE - $49

AUTO - RENEW - $5

MY - DUES - LESS - NOW

10 MARCH - PAID - IN - ADVANCE

PAID - $45.66

BOTH CREDITED - AT - CAPITAL ONE APP

TRANSFERRED - $1.00 - FOR - SAVINGS 2

PAID - CREDITING - LATER - ON

CAPITAL ONE - CREDIT CARD - MC

MY - LOWEST

PAID - $25.50

MY - CARD - UPDATED - AVAILABLE

$25.00 - JESUS - IS - LORD

TOTAL - $875.38

TOO - LATE - 4 - CHONG’s - CHINESE

RESTAURANT - HEADED - SOON - TO

SAZON - CATRACHO

$10 - $20

HONDURAS - FOOD

EXCITED

GETTING - MY - TOTALS

SHOULD - HAVE - MADE - A - COPY

MADE - A - MISTAKE - WITH

UPS - STORE - MAILBOX - APPLICATION

REPEATING - THERE ...

VERY - SIMPLE

APPLICATION - 4 - BUSINESS - OR - ME

PERSONAL - WHY - LONG ...

ALSO - IF - YOU - HAVE - YOUR - COUSIN

PICKING - IT - UP - THEIR - INFO

ID - AND - ALL ...

WHY - LONG - APPLICATION

SIGNING - THERE

AGENT - OF - UPS - OR - NOTARY PUBLIC

SO - REAL - FAST - APPLICATION

HAD - 2 - MAKE - MISTAKE

SOLUTION

READ - MANY - THINGS - FIRST ?

SO - USING - RESTROOM - FIRST

THEN - ADDING - SUBTRACTING

ROSS - $29.99 - NEED - ANOTHER

DUFFLE - BAG - A - BLK - SEGUNO

REAL - WONDERFUL - PEOPLE

I - SHOULD - RECEIVE - AS 

AGE 55 - AND - OLDER

ON - TUESDAYS - MY - SSI

DISABILITY

SURVIVORS - OVER - $12,700 

ONE - ARM 

ONE - LEG

ONE - FOOT

VETERANS - SAME ...

WE - SHOULD - RECEIVE - OUR

MONEY - FR - US TREASURY

AS - AGE 55 AND OLDER

ON - TUESDAYS

REGISTER - YOUR 

ROSS - DRESS - FOR - LESS

GET - SSI - TUESDAYS SAME

WEEK ...

THEY’RE - SO - RUDE

AS - AMERICAN - AGE 249

MY - SUGGESTION - LATER

PRES - TRUMP

AMERICA - FROM - ITALIAN

EXPLORER - AMERIGO VESPUCCIO

INSTEAD - OF - AMERICA - AGAIN - 2

MAYBE - BECAUSE - HE - DID - IT ...

REPUBLICAN - PARTY

SHORTER - NAMES ?

INSTEAD - OF - LONG

GULF - OF - AMERICA

HOW - ABOUT - TRIUMPH GULF

SHORTER - BETTER

FR - AMERIGO VESPUCCIO ?

SOMETHING - 4 - REPUBLICANS

SO - RESTROOM - NEXT

BUYING - MY - AMAZON - PRIME

BIG - AMOUNT ... DECIDING ...

WIX - $43

FLODESK - EMAIL - MARKETING

LANDING - PAGES - $38

KITTLE - $30

THE - UPS - STORE

3 MONTHS

DEPOSIT - LOWEST

$35.00

TOTAL - $175.48

THEY - THINK - THAT’s - COOL

PUBLIX - STORAGE - $97.28

DOWNTOWN - MIAMI

THE - UPS STORE

CALLING - 26 MAY - $138

COINS - FORGIVEN

EVERY - 3 MONTHS

BUT - AMAZON - PRIME

MORE - AND - MORE

HEAVY - PRODUCTS

MOUSE - HAIR - BLEACH

HAZARDOUS - MATERIAL

CREATIVE - FABRICA

UNLIMITED - 01 MAY - $47.00

SO - CALCULATING - AFTER

PURCHASING - PRIME - YES

HUB LOCKER

LUAN 

ROSS DRESS 4 LESS

N MIAMI AVE

MY - LAUNDRY - NEEDS

$4.70

$4.45

DRYER - $2.90 - $3.90

NO - MORE - COINS

FR - CREDIT CARD - DEBIT

24 HRS

SO - DOING - A FEW THINGS

AFTER - EATING

HEADED - 2 - STORAGE

LEAVE - THINGS

GETTING - MY - NATURALIZATION

CERTIFICATE

DOING - PAPER - AGAIN ...

PAYING - $175.48

INSTEAD - OF - EATING - EATING

UNITED STATES

LIKE - LEECH - BLOOD - REMOVED

WHEN - BITTEN - AS - BUG BECOMES

LARGER - LONGER

LIGHT - IT - UP

USB - CANDLE - LIGHTER

COMES - OFF - AFTER TOO

BIBLE - GOD - WILL - RESTORE - 2 US

YEARS - LOST - 2 - US - BECAUSE OF

CONSUMING - LOCUSTS

CRAWLING - LOCUSTS

JESUS - IS - LORD

DEAR - KOREAN - GIRLS,

DID - YOU - LOVE - MY - NEW

SONGWRITING - SKILLS WAS

CRYING - FR - SONGS - FR

UNTIL - MIDNIGHT

STAR FM - MANILA

102.7 FM

EVEN - GAVE - PRAYER

SAFETY - FOR - EVERYONE

BEST - AMERICAN - LOVE

SONGS

TONI BRAXTON 

JESUS IS LORD