Knowledge of God

[The Word]

In the past 2 1/2 years I've been receiving the knowledge of God. I came to share his knowledge with anyone willing to listen. This has nothing to do with a man's opinion or self interpretations of the scriptures. This is direct knowledge of God that I get while I write and speak for him.

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: I'm listening..... :winkgrin:

[thinktank]

No, I'm spartacus....... :winkgrin:   :happy3: classic movie


Sorry, please continue, I'm all ears.

[shawn]

Yes, we would like to hear what you have to say.

[onlytruth]

all ears :icon_king:

[Molly]

Taken from:
Cosmology and World Order in the Old Testament: The Divine Council as Cosmic Political Symbol
By Patrick D. Miller

1. The machinery for the divine governance of the sociopolitical structures of society centers in Yahweh's rule over and through the divine council.

The rule of the cosmos is in the hands of Yahweh, but the context in which that rule takes place is the activity of the council where Yahweh's decrees directing the human community and the divine world are set forth and through whom they are communicated or enacted. This is seen in earlier literature and in later texts. The narratives of the Pentateuch and the Deuteronomistic History show this direction particularly in the figure of the 'messenger (mal'āk) of Yahweh' or figures who function in that fashion.
The story of the announcement of a child to Abraham and Sarah and the subsequent destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah revolves around messengers of the Lord who bring the divine decrees. The way in which the conceptuality of the divine council creates an interaction of the one and the many is seen in the manner in which the story speaks first of three men who come to visit Abraham and then in v. 9 shifts from the plural into the singular and eventually in v. 13 identifies Yahweh as the singular one who speaks to Sarah. After the birth announcement to Sarah, the narrative resumes speaking of 'the men' (vv. 16 and 22), and then after they have reached Sodom, they are referred to as 'the two messengers' (19:1) at the beginning and simply 'the men' in the rest of the narrative.
The account of the visit to Abraham and Sarah fits with a series of narratives in which a messenger or messengers of Yahweh come to announce the birth of a child (Gen. 16 [21] and Judg. 13) or to announce the Lord's imminent salvation or judgment (e.g. Gen. 19; 21; 31:11), decrees of the Lord for the direction of the human community. The linking of the two stories is important in that it shows that the function of the messengers from the Lord is not tied to any one kind of action. In a single narrative sequence, the divine messengers announce the birth of a child to Abraham and Sarah and then go on to carry out the investigation and destruction of Sodom. Their enterprise must be tied to the divine word that 'I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry which has come to me' (Gen. 18:21)—the Lord's inquiry through the messengers from the assembly—and the clear statement of the messengers that 'the Lord has sent us to destroy it'. One of the primary functions of the members of the heavenly assembly is to be the messengers sent from the assembly not only to communicate the divine decree, but in some cases to be the agents of the Lord's purpose. That their words and activity are one with that of Yahweh is everywhere clear, a fact that was always true of messengers in the ancient Near East.
While it is not possible to look at all of the texts that reflect the involvement of the divine council in the machinery of the divine government, there are two or three places in the Deuteronomistic History that reflect the role of the messengers in a somewhat different fashion. These have to do with the activity of the assembly in directing and participating in the Lord's saving and judging purposes as carried out through Israel's warfare.
One of these texts is Josh. 5:13–15, where again 'a man' appears, this time to the leader of the Israelite army. That this figure is a member of the divine assembly is immediately indicated by his identification of himself as 'the commander of the army of Yahweh' and his command to Joshua to take off his shoes because he is on holy ground, that is, before the Lord's representative. No message is given, although it is frequently conjectured that such a message has been lost from the text in the traditioning or textual process. It is uncertain, however, whether any message was necessary in this case. The general of Yahweh's heavenly armies had come to the general of Yahweh's earthly armies to indicate that the holy war against Canaan had begun and that the armies of heaven were joined with those of earth in the enterprise (cf. Josh. 10:10–12). It is clear, in any event, that the first battle in that war takes place in the very next verses of the text.
In the Song of Deborah, Judg. 5:23, the mal'āk yahweh, the messenger of the Lord, calls for a curse against Meroz because it did not come out to the help of the Lord in battle. The conception of the warfare of Israel as a synergism involving the armies of heaven and earth and under the direction of the Lord through the Lord's messengers and representatives is underscored by this text as well as by those occasions in the narrative texts where there is reference to the march of Yahweh and the divine army (2 Sam. 5:22–29; 2 Kgs 6:15–19; 7:6). One can add to this other poetic texts that convey the same understanding:
The Lord came from Sinai,
dawned from Seir upon us;
he shone forth from Mount Paran.
With him were myriads of holy ones;
at his right a host of his own (Deut. 33:2–3).
Or:
The chariots of God were two myriads,
A thousand the warriors/archers of the Lord,
when he came from Sinai with the holy ones.
(Ps. 68:18)
The picture of the cosmic elements aiding Yahweh in battle (Judg. 5:20; Josh. 10:10–12; Hab. 3) is consistent with this depiction of the wars of Israel as a facet of Yahweh's cosmic strategy.
One further text should be added to this particular complex, and that is the appointment of Gideon as commander of the armies of Israel in Judges 6. That decision is also communicated by the Lord through 'the messenger of the Lord', who is interchangeable with Yahweh in the text (compare 6:11–13 and 20–24 with 6:14–18 and 25).
Perhaps the most familiar and obvious manifestation of the machinery and processes of divine government through the divine assembly is seen in the figure of the prophet whose identity and functional context is set in the divine assembly. Enough discussion of this conceptual setting for prophecy has come forth over the last two or three decades that it is not necessary to lay that out in detail. It is sufficient in this context simply to call to mind three texts that explicitly place the prophet in the divine assembly or as one who has access to the council of Yahweh and indeed suggest that the identity and authenticity of a prophet is directly tied to his or her credentials as one who has stood in the council of the Lord.
In Amos 3:7 the prophet says: 'Surely the Lord God does nothing without revealing his council/counsel (sôd) to his servants the prophets.' The use of the word sôd is particularly significant in this context because it clearly has in mind the council of Yahweh as the place where the divine decrees are set forth to be carried by the Lord's messengers and prophets to the appropriate parties. But the term also means counsel or plan, that is, it incorporates the notion of the Lord's purpose that is determined and set forth in the divine council and then carried out by it. The English word-play is appropriate and perhaps the only way to convey correctly the force that is conveyed by the text as it speaks of divine governance as both plan and process, direction and procedural structures. The purpose and intention in the divine government is clearly that of the Lord, but that does not happen apart from the structures created for the government of the cosmos: Surely the Lord does not do anything unless he has revealed it to his servants the prophets.
Perhaps the most explicit statement about the divine council as the identifying and authenticating framework in which Israelite prophecy is to be set is Jer. 23:18–23, which is an indictment of the false prophets of Jeremiah's time:
For who [among them] has stood in the council (sôd) of the Lord
to perceive and hear his word,
or who has paid attention to his word and listened?
Behold the storm of the Lord!
Wrath has gone forth,
a whirling storm;
it will whirl down upon the heads of the wicked.
The anger of the Lord will not turn back
until he has carried out and established
the decisions of his heart/mind.
In the latter days you will understand it clearly.
I did not send the prophets,
yet they ran anyway;
I did not speak to them,
yet they prophesied anyway.
If they had stood in my council (sôd),
then they would have announced my words to my people,
and they would have turned them back from their evil way,
and from the evil of their doings.
The authority of the prophet and the distinction between true and false prophetic words is directly tied to the prophet's access to the divine council. For that is where the decrees of God about nature and history are set forth and the procedures for their implementation are worked out (see on Gen. 1:26–28 below as well as the texts from 1 Kgs 22 and Isa. 6). In this text, therefore, the prophet is seen as having identity, vocation, and authentication as a member of the divine council, which is the context in which the divine plans (mezimmôt libbô) are declared and carried out.
The story of Micaiah ben Imlah before the kings of Israel and Judah in 1 Kings 22 is a vivid portrayal of the prophet's vision of the divine council, which is the reason that he alone out of all the prophets has the true word of the Lord. Micaiah's report of the vision in 1 Kgs 22:19–23 is worth setting forth in full for the way in which it shows the dynamic of the divine assembly as the setting for prophecy and its place in the cosmic governance:
Then Micaiah said, 'Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left; and the Lord said, "Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?" And one said one thing, and one said another. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, saying, "I will entice him". And the Lord said to him, "By what means?" And he said, "I will go forth and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets". And he said, "You are to entice him, and you will succeed; go forth and do so". Now therefore behold, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; the Lord has spoken evil concerning you.'
Here now, in distinction from the Amos and Jeremiah texts, is a vivid depiction of the heavenly assembly in session, working out the Lord's plan and revealing it to the Lord's true prophet. The decree is clearly that of the Lord. It is Yahweh's word that initiates the conversation in the council. But conversation and discussion do go on about how to implement the Lord's plan. Yahweh poses the question or plan but asks the council who will carry it out. There follows discussion and then a spirit (rûaḥ) volunteer, a member of the assembly. Yahweh then asks how the spirit will carry out the plan. When the spirit indicates a strategy, then Yahweh tells the spirit to go and do it and announces that the strategy will be successful.
Herein is a very complex interaction of Yahweh's control and the involvement of the council in developing the plan that the Lord commands. Yahweh's direction and decree is the intent that comes to realization; the spirit is the agency of Yahweh's purpose; the prophet is the messenger of the divine word, and the council is the place where all this is worked out.
In Isaiah's call vision in Isa. 6:1–13, the call of the prophet takes place in the midst of the assembly gathered about the throne of the king Yahweh. Conversation goes on again in the assembly, but it is confined to the expression of praise to Yahweh until the Lord addresses the assembly and asks for a messenger to carry out its decree. Isaiah's response not only creates a vocation for the prophet but sets under way the decree of the Lord in the council. The vision of the Lord of Hosts and the sense of the Lord's holiness in contrast to the people's sinfulness becomes definitive for Isaiah's message.
An echo of this conversation occurs in the prologue to Isaiah 40–55 in vv. 1–11. There the Lord addresses the assembly and decrees the end of Israel's punishment and a message of comfort to be delivered ('Speak tenderly to Jerusalem'). Once more conversation ensues in the assembly as a voice proclaims or calls to the assembly or a member of it (cf. Isa. 6:3). In v. 6 this voice is directed either to the prophet, as commonly assumed, or to Jerusalem, to proclaim the word of the Lord to the exiled people.
While other texts could be marshaled to undergird the general picture given here, the data presented are sufficient to establish the claim that the divine council is a fundamental symbol for the Old Testament understanding of how the government of human society by the divine world is carried out. The birth of children to bring blessing into the human community and carry on the line of God's chosen ones, the word and process of judgment, the declaration of Yahweh's wars and the carrying out of them, the choice of Yahweh's leaders, the announcement of deliverance and comfort, the varied prophetic declaration of the effecting word of God in history—all of these are declared in the council of Yahweh.

[Nathan]

Usually one doesn't "need" to self-proclaim one's position in Christ, it raises flags of caution, but do share, let the message of your words speak for itself.

[thinktank]

But isn't claiming Christ withinus part of our identity? If we don't proclaim where we are from we would come in our own strength.

I think Moses spoke to Pharhoa and said where he was from

Paul spoke about his revelations on the road to Damascus.

Although I can see your concern. The problem is that many people make claims in his name.

[Nathan]

Perhaps i was being overly cautious . . .

[lomarah]

I'm listening too.