Illumination Sermon: Sunday November 27, 2016

In Psalm 18:28
     "For You will make luminous (and gloroius) my lamp.
       YHVeH My GOD will cause my darkness to glitter
               and shine in illumination."  

Is every man in need of having the inner lamp of his being -- lit up?  And if YHVeH  makes His Light to shine within man, how can this come about in such a way that the pilot (as it were) was never extinguished? 

There is something more than the Lamp of the eyes.  There is something more than a Lamp of the heart or mind.  It has to do with an immortal soul.  Jesus / Yeshua teaches that we are not to take away from the Torah / the Instruction / the Law, nor to teach men to do so.  But Torah / the Law / the Instruction of the first 5 books of the Bible which also requires that we believe and affirm Adam and Eve and the Creation of the world, that Instruction along with the 613 Laws of Moses and the Instruction of all that happened in the Exodus and more, all that was as a school-master, says Rav Saul (whom we of the Gentiles call the Apostle Paul), and this school-master is to teach us of Messhiach / of Christ and of GOD's Kingdom.  We are called into the gentleness of the instruction, direction, and teaching of YHVeH (whom is revealed as the LORD Jesus Christ, the Son of GOD), teaching of both HIM and of His Kingdom. 

Once the inner being and the eyes are lit up, though the rest of the world lay in darkness, and gropes about as though blind, the righteous is able to move about freely as if they have an inner night vision.  And if a blind man is explained this, he understands not the experience.

We can also see through the illumination of Scripture that in the coming Kingdom we who are to enter into Second Life shall behold and be part of that experience in which light takes on the appearance as though a fabric, and shines everywhere 7 times brighter than the brightest noon-day sun (Isaiah 30:26).  How can we, who have not seen (or have not now the capacity to endure) such light, truly comprehend this?  So it is with the one who has been lit up by GOD within, and the one who has not been lighted from within.

The one not lighted asks, "How can one project a flashlight upon the mind?  Will he perform surgery, and shine upon the brain or the heart?"  Even so, the spiritual aspect of the man comprehends it not.  But in asking, such a one is half-way up the sidewalk to the DOOR, who is Christ, who is the only accepted path that GOD the Father allows for fallen man to come to Himself.  They must enter by proper means spiritually and by trusting faith, and only by and through receiving and accepting HIS gift to us, His only Son who is of the same literal spirit substance and Oneness as GOD the Father.  

 GOD is Spirit.  GOD lights up the spiritual aspects of a man...the spirit and soul.  For they who worship Him, must do so in spirit and in truth.  And what is the best aspect of that in Scripture to us?  The Shekinah...the very presence of YHVeH  that must come and...as the Torah / the Instruction (which must include all 5 of the first books of the Bible, NOT just the 613 commandments for Israel related to Moses) says...dwell within - Devarim / Deuteronomy 33:12 (as well as among - Shemos / Exodus 25:8, 29:45) or between the shoulders of his beloved or righteous ones (as it were). 

It is only in the Messhiach YHVeH / the LORD Christ whose shadow Israel has lived among the nations (Lamentations 4:20) both when He was pre-incarnate and now post-incarnate and glorified (resurrected from the dead and ascended into Heaven and is coming again) that the answer lies.  Only Jesus / Yeshua meets the criteria, and joins us perfectly into fulfillment in the Tanakh / the Old Testament again and again and again (ad infinitum). 


Those who insist only the 613 Laws of Moses are "Torah" to be obeyed and believed, then I would ask them what of the over 200 commands of Torah that are made "inactive" because there is NO TEMPLE at present, what happens to those Laws?  If they cannot be adhered to or obeyed, by what right do they "poof" say they are no longer obligated to obey those laws or that the nation of Israel cannot demand a tent and Temple instruments and sacrifice to assure atonement?  They also enter into a state of regard to these Mosaic Laws as do the Christians they hypocritically scoff at while coming to the SAME conclusions regarding these 202 or so Temple Laws of Moses in the Torah.  

These are made dormant...and put to sleep, as it were.  They don't die.

If they can be put to sleep...how is it accomplished?  Do we destroy a Temple at Moriah every time we can't take the full weight of sacrifices anymore?  No.

Those Laws that are now dormant, are nailed to the Cross above us, hanging and quivering in the body of Jesus Christ.   His body has long been taken down, and since resurrected, and ascended into Heaven...but like the Angel of the LORD seen some height above David, at the place of sacrifice...by faith and throughout all eternity...the sacrifice upon the Cross by Yeshua / Jesus  remains suspended in Time, throughout all Time, past-present-future throughout all eternity.

If Laws can be made dormant, they can be found as finding fulfillment in their Sabbath rest.  If there can be a Sabbath rest from some Laws, then all Laws can find a fulfillment in the Sabbath.  If the Sabbath can find fulfillment in its Creator, then we can reduce all Law to two points of order and disorder:  day and night.  Day becomes - "Thou shalt love the LORD thy GOD..."   Night becomes - "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself..."

These appear to be the two Laws of Heaven, the two laws which  are both for the angels and for man, and are united in one person, the GOD-man Jesus Christ -- who became both our Day and Night, in order that we might become the Children of the Light (only) in GOD Almighty.  

And as it is Jesus' place to sit at the Right Hand of the POWER / at the Right Hand of GOD the father, so it is for us who are in Christ to be called to be reflections of Christ and His glory, and this in no way excludes Israel from also be called to believe into Messiah and reflect His likeness and glory to the Gentiles /the nations.

In the Hebrew, the translation into English of the name "Benjamin" is.... "Son of My Right Hand".   If the righteous ones become as Benjamin, as Devarim / Deuteronomy  33:12 says, YHVeH  will indwell them, between the shoulders, and make His abode with them there.  In effect, it is as if GOD is promising not only a special presence and relationship with His People, but that He will be their wings -- as if angel's wings from between their shoulders -- in life.  They shall by His help and His will and when He wants those wings to flutter or flap, be able to abide in safety or flee in safety from all earthly ills in life.  This ought to be both a lesson to us and to Israel.   The Flag of Israel is white... for purity and origin in the LORD. The Flag of Israel has a horizontal upper blue stripe and a horizontal lower blue stripe...meaning the waters and the waters of Genesis' Creation account, divided to the upper and the lower.  It was from this time that Israel finds it's right of Existence...from the foundation of the world. Between the upper and lower waters, stands the star of David.  It is a multi-geometric form. The macro-cosmic mono concept is that of a Dodecagon, of having 12 sides: representing the 12 tribes of Israel.        The hexagon within the Dodecagon is given to sides that are precisely 1/2 the length of the exterior sides. Unlike the rest of Creation, those sides of the inner hexagon are neither chiral nor achiral.  Being a perfect number (6 = 1,2,3), the inner hexagon is perfectly balanced and finds its origin in G-D's plan and design.         Altogether, the totality of sides = 18, or Prime (17) + 1. This is the microcosmic division.  In the 18 sides joined, we see a formula of the spaces of 6 small triangles gathered together around an invisible base (the hexagon).   These 7 spaces represent the 7 Spirits of GOD, as it were, and the mystery of complex unity in the Yachid / one and singularly one  concept of Jewish understanding how that ehad, one united, can also be as if yachid. The macrocosmic dual-concept of the Star of David (and how I draw it) is an upward triangle overlapped by a downward triangle.  This, too, is based on a perfect number of 6. In effect, the flag of Israel is 3 objects:  waters (representing the Heavens and the Spiritual), waters (representing the Earthly manifestation and both literal waters and the people), and the Star (the sign of the House of Messhiach, the returning King, who is YHVeH). Hence, GOD has testified His Trinity indirectly even in the very flag of modern day Israel -- and offers those with eyes to see and ears to hear a mystery of mathematical science for those who wish to be frontiersmen and women exploring new and yet unpopulated territories of knowledge if they would only just have the willingness to obtain both the key of Yeshua / Jesus (GOD the Son)  and have a willing-trusting Faith.

John 6:37
  All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him [or her] that cometh to ME I will in no wise cast out.

Genesis Points Us To Two Comings And Names The Messiah. A Bible Study Sermon of sorts.

Did you know that Genesis 3:15 and 49:17-18 testify of Two Comings, and names Messiah as Yeshua / Jesus

And Yeshua is not just named here in Genesis 49:18, but in 29 other Old Testament verses as well.  See: 

http://brianroysinput.blogspot.com/2012/08/30-yeshua-jesus-verses-in-old-testament.html

What most Jews in their bias miss and even most Christians because of their institutional conspiracies to water down and divert faith into humanism via making it merely a social gospel or a make me feel good series of mere literature (a conspiracy to destroy and belittle faith with unbelief), we see that even in the very first book of the Bible that there is a prophetical message in two parts that tells us that the Messianic ruler who is to come, is to come twice ... and for those that familiarize themselves with the text, the Hebrew, and biblical prophecy will indeed see that this is so even in the very first book of the Torah.

Genesis 3:15

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman,
and {enmity} between thy seed and her seed;
He shall bruise / crushingly pound thy head,
and thou shalt bruise / hiss at his heel. 

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi), a revered Medieval Sage of the Jews who wrote commentaries studied by as many as millions to this day, in regard to this verse explains the text as: "you will bite him on his heel, and even from there, you will kill him." 

According to Rashi, there is a hissing at the heel clearly implies the killing of Messiah.

The hissing and bruising at the heel, though it kills, indicates a temporary killing of the Messiah...because the crushing of the head indicates a victory by the Messiah AFTER that He had been slain, and brought to life again.

On the second go around with the Snake as the adversary (or ha Satan), we fast forward to Genesis 49:17-18, 

17 Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.

18 I have waited for thy Yeshua / thy Jesus / thy Salvation, 
O Lord.

to the conquering Messiah who is now raised.  How do we know this?  Because Genesis 3:15 speaks of the SAME PERSON seed (singular) and not of another.

 In Genesis 49:17, we see that again, the serpent waits in ambush...but strikes as an anti-Messiah / anti-Christ through the seed of Dan, but is unable to touch the rider (as Rashi also concurs).  The Messiah who come conquering is named Yeshua / Salvation / Jesus in the next verse, verse 18.  

The two prophecies (Genesis 3:15 and 49:17-18) testify of
the many hundreds of years’ difference,

even as the rabbis state, 

"…if Israel is unworthy, Messhiach will come lowly, riding on an ass (Zechariah 9:9). 

 If Israel is worthy, Messhiach will come as a mighty conqueror."     

        Even the rabbis must use more than one scripture to explain this.  Hence, two comings.  They even label these as if two different Messiahs, Messhiach ben Joseph the suffering servant who dies, and Messhiach ben David the son of David who lives forever.  They hold both that there should be one and only one Messiah, yet allow for two different Messiahs while refuting their insistence of ONE and only One Messiah, or that Jesus / Yeshua the virgin born son of David who suffered and rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven from Mount Olivet before hundreds of witnesses could make unified their contradictions as revealed in one person and one continual ministry.

In Hosea 6:2 w/Psalm 90:4, 

Hosea 6:2  (KJV)

2 After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.  

Psalm 90:4 (KJV)

4 For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

it appears that it may be 2000 years between the death/resurrection and the second coming, hinting of a Messianic age of 1000 years, at the end of 3 days or 3,000 years...which is the final resurrection of humanity (inferring a last judgment).

So if Christ is bound literally by 2,000 years, and since He was killed and resurrected in A.D. 30, 2023-2024 can biblically (not just theoretically) allow for the start the 7 year Tribulation period, and the countdown to the de facto Second Coming of Yeshua. That is, if our calendars are correct.  But it could come sooner if GOD decides to go from the day of His birth into the world, ca. October of 5 B.C., instead. 

 In Romans chapter 2, Paul writes to the Corinthian evangelists (and others) in Rome, saying:

28  For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: 

 29  But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

This appears idea follows upon the notion of a right “faith” into GOD, and the rejection of idolatry; such as verse 12:

12 For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law.

In the Babylonian Talmud’s Megilla 19a, Rabbi Yohanan concurs with this, in that a “Jew” or “Yehudi” is defined as one who rejects idolatry.

  

If this is so, then as we read through the entirety of the Old Testament with such a “critical eye”, we have to conclude that passages like 2 Chronicles 15:13-17; Ezra 7:26; should at least create pause for the genealogical line of Abraham through Jacob.

2 Chronicles 15:13-17  (KJV)

13 That whosoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.

14 And they sware unto the Lord with a loud voice, and with shouting, and with trumpets, and with cornets.

15 And all Judah rejoiced at the oath: for they had sworn with all their heart, and sought him with their whole desire; and he was found of them: and the Lord gave them rest round about.

16 And also concerning Maachah the mother of Asa the king, he removed her from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove: and Asa cut down her idol, and stamped it, and burnt it at the brook Kidron.

17 But the high places were not taken away out of Israel: nevertheless the heart of Asa was perfect all his days.

Ezra 7:26 (KJV)

26 And whosoever will not do the law of thy God, and the law of the king, let judgment be executed speedily upon him, whether it be unto death, or to banishment, or to confiscation of goods, or to imprisonment.

True, they are stilled called “GOD’s people” while in idolatry in passages like Hosea 4:6; 

  "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children."

but notice the emphasis of a lack of knowledge that exists in that verse, referring back to an idolatry given over to Baal in Hosea 2:8,13 

8 For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal.

13 And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat me, saith the Lord.

as a form of dual worshiping…led by the priests…the very teachers of the Torah who have cast it aside themselves in practice.  

So we come around again and ask…who is a Jew, a “Yehudi”,  a  “praise” (Genesis 49:8) of GOD?  Is it one who is outwardly circumcised and of a certain genealogy only, or is there a Heavenly version far greater than the first?  

The idea is that if the law is our school master to bring us to Christ: that even as the Law of Moses deals with the earthly aspects of our existence; so the law of Grace in Christ Jesus deals with the Heavenly aspects of our existence “once Faith has come”.

In the Christian Era, there were two debates about appearance of the Messiah.  One was given in the Babylonian Talmud’s Sanhedrin 99a as the Pharisees argued over the length of the Messiah’s reign…whether it was 40 years or 70 years.  

In that debate, neither Rabbi Eliezer nor Rabbi Eleazar son of Azariah offered the suggestion that any form of “world peace” would be accomplished in the days of the Messiah.  Instead, it appears that a notion of the Land of Israel would have rest for 40 or 70 years in the days of Messiah’s rule upon the earth.  When one dared suggest that the reign of messiah might last as long as three generations based on what we know as Psalm 72:5, be that 120 or 210 years according to interpretation of “a generation”, Hillel cut them off, saying 

“There shall be no Messiah for Israel, because they have already enjoyed him in the days of Hezekiah.”

                (Sanhedrin 99a, Babylonian Talmud)

To which Rabbi  Joseph said:

May God forgive him. Now, when did Hezekiah flourish? During the first Temple. Yet Zechariah, prophesying in the days of the second [Temple], proclaimed, Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion, shout, O daughter of Jerusalem, behold, thy king cometh unto thee! he is just, and having salvation, lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass."

This concept of NO  ”world peace” in the days of the Messiah, is alien to the Jewish concept of modern times.   

There used to be two major opinions which modern Orthodox Jews now insist should only be their view, but even they don't know what the hell they are talking about when it comes to Messiah, let alone the revered and great Hillel. 

Again, in the earliest years of the first century A.D. we have two major factions at odds over this issue of Messiah:  

 1) those muted by Hillel who looked back at a failed Messiah with Hezekiah, one who had allegedly come, perished, and nobody knew who the hell this anonymous Messiah was (which is preposterous, utterly ridiculous fancy); 

and 

2)  the faction who did NOT concur with Hillel, who looked around at their present day and to the future  because of the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9, made following the return from the plucking-up-and-removal exile sometime after 516 B.C.   That is, at least 70 years after Jerusalem was destroyed in 587/586 B.C, and part of an entirely new (or second) Temple period.   

Hillel was a descendant from David, according to Genesis Rabbah 98:8. So why wasn't Hillel THE Messiah in his own generation, instead of Jesus? After all, didn't he get credit for restoring the Torah that Israel forgot in Sukkah 20a?

Hillel (for all his knowledge) didn't cling to the Shekinah: "If one clings to the Shekinah, the Holy Spirit rests on him",  according to Sifra D.,  Shoftim, Pischa 30. 

 The Holy Spirit specifically rested upon Jesus,

Matthew 3:16 (cf. Luke 3:22, Mark 1:10)
And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of GOD descending like a dove, and lighting upon him:

as witnessed by the First century prophet John the Baptist, and apparently rejected Hillel because Hillel rejected prophecy, and from believing GOD’s Spirit. 

And in effect, Jesus returned the true Torah to Israel...by means of correct interpretation upon Moses WRITTEN LAW, and instructed that much (though not all) Oral Torah was but "the traditions of men", instead of labeling it as that tradition received from Moses or GOD.

Sotah 48b:
“On one occasion were sitting in the upper chamber of Gurya's house in Jericho; a Bat Kol was granted to them from heaven which announced, 'There is in your midst one man who is deserving that the Shechinah should alight upon him, but his generation is unworthy of it'. They all looked at Hillel the elder; and when he died, they lamented....”

They themselves in Sotah 48b testify that they were an unworthy and unrighteous generation, as were those generations that followed until 70 A.D. (listed in Shabbat 15a of the Babylonian Talmud).

The unrighteousness was kept in motion through scribes, as the NT testifies. They advised rulers, and their assembly sat in the gates of the judges, and governors, expounding as what was righteousness or a correct judgment...in effect, dictating what was "lawful" upon a Judge (of all people!) and others. (cf. -Bickerman, Elias "From Ezra to the last of the Maccabees" NY: Schocken, 1949, p.67; Niditch, Susan "Oral Word and Written Word" Louisville, KY: John Knox, 1996, p.53).

Does an unrighteousness of a generation dictate to GOD when HE can or cannot send His Messhiach? NO.

There is a  Talmudic tradition (Eruvin 43b; Maharatz Chajas ad loc; Rashash, Sanhedrin 13b) which states that Elijah the Prophet will present himself before a duly-ordained Sanhedrin...those who are samuchim...and there he -- Elijah -- is to announce the identity of Messiah.   And when the Sanhedrin went to John the Baptist themselves, as all Israel skipped High Holy Days at the Temple in Jerusalem in order to be baptized by John in the flooded and overflowing running waters of the Jordan River that year of 26 B.C., and came in the spirit of Elijah the Prophet, what then when John at one point near the end of the baptizing said "Behold the Lamb of GOD, which takes away the sin of the world!"  (John 1:29)   

What did the Jews who made edited down entries in the second century that became the Oral Traditions of the Talmud and those of the generations who followed them have to say about that?  They never refuted Christianity in any historical rabbinical citation or any kind of historical citation of the First Century A.D.  They refused to address Jesus, and they refused to even mention John the Baptist, though at any time for more than 500 years from the times they walked upon the earth they could have refuted existence as myths, or as what was or wasn't said were incorrect quotations and statements, or  what was done happened this way and was entirely different that way, or what have you.  Instead, except for snide remarks that in hostility affirmed Jesus indeed performed miracles and a hostile remark that He was virgin born in the genealogical records and near to kingship (inferring next in line as a true Davidic successor), any record correction Jewish counter-history to the Gospel historical records for the first 5 centuries from circa 30 A.D. does not even exist.  Pharisaic and others of unbelieving Judaism stand in mute shame to the facts and truth of the New Testament being pure, correct, wholly historically accurate.  

  In fact, even Josephus notes that all Israel counted John the Baptist a true prophet sent from GOD, but alas, because he affirmed Jesus / Yeshua,  from the formation of the Oral Torah and various Talmud Commentaries beginning in the mid-second Century and over the next several, the rabbis of that faction involved despised even the mention of John the Baptist, and tried to act as if he could be erased or cut out of Israel's historical memory because he affirmed Jesus / Yeshua.  

But when did the Gentiles take up Yeshua to the hatred of the faction that sought elimination and suppression of all others who were Jews to believe as a different denomination than they?   Jesus / Yeshua  from the first was almost exclusively to the Jews and Jewish converts, which Christian Jewish evangelists won into Judaism prior to the Jewish Civil War of  circa 67-70 A.D. ff.   Jesus was  adopted mostly by the nations / the Gentiles separately  only after the failed Civil War that destroyed the Temple in 70 A.D., and then almost completely when their faction after failed foreign terrorist uprisings among the Gentiles in 115-116 A.D. went kaput.   In the city of Rome, it was not until the early 120s A.D. before Christianity ceased to be Jewish, and the Jewish identity was purged from its traditions while under intense persecutions in Rome itself. In and around Israel, Christianity favored the Gentiles only after the faction of Pharisaic beliefs promoted a false prophet in their Rabbi Akiva and his fake Messiah known to us as Bar Kosiba, who rightly died as a fake in the  failed second Jewish revolt in ca. 132-135 A.D., a false prophet rabbi and a false prophet messiah, both known to be liars, who Pharisaic Jews still cling to to this day as if these liars who led Israel as a nation to destruction for over 1700 years were holy liars and holy fakes?

So my question to you today is this?  In spite of evidence to affirm or disaffirm your belief in someone or something to be true, do you cast what you know to be true aside to believe into what you know and / or what you have carefully searched out (and by that extensive and careful means proven)   to be  a lie, come what may, at the risk of any and all the consequences of deceiving yourself and others into believing a lie rather than the true reality of the way things or people really are?  

GOD exists.  There is a hell.  There is a falling through the earth of lost souls upon death as they await damnation and the Judgement day, isolated, alone, hearing but not seeing the souls of the other multitudes of the nether-world equally isolated and suspended around them.  There is weeping without a body for tears, and a wailing of torments, and gnashing of spiritual teeth uttering violent words and sounds.  From the Beginning, GOD gave mankind a knowledge of Christianity, of that which is effectively in our day to be rightly looked upon as Restored Judaism, the True Illumination Knowledge and Religion of Mankind that all children of Adam, all children of Noah can know.  

John 1:1-38  (KJV)

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2 The same was in the beginning with God.

3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.

8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.

9 That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

10 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

15 John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me.

16 And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.

17 For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

18 No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

19 And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou?

20 And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ.

21 And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No.

22 Then said they unto him, Who art thou? that we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself?

23 He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias.

24 And they which were sent were of the Pharisees.

25 And they asked him, and said unto him, Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet?

26 John answered them, saying, I baptize with water: but there standeth one among you, whom ye know not;

27 He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose.

28 These things were done in Bethabara beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing.

29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

30 This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was before me.

31 And I knew him not: but that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water.

32 And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.

33 And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.

34 And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God.

35 Again the next day after John stood, and two of his disciples;

36 And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God!

37 And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.


38 Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? 

That is the LORD's question to you this Day.  So I ask it again, if you should come to a knowledge of the Truth and find the LORD..."What seek ye?"