Bible Studies

THE BEGINNING OF PROPHECY, A Prologue to the Second Coming Part 3

by Walter Boswell
06/29/18
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                              THE BEGINNING OF PROPHECY (Part 3 of 4)

                                                (in excerpted form)

Chapter 9

What is Man, or the Son of Man, that is not deemed spurious?

Even so, he is pursuing a task whose sworn purpose must inevitably fail –

                for that he has not escaped contradiction.

Watch, then, this child still dwelling in ignorance,

the youth no longer pretending to call greatness good:

                realizing the fault in himself …

                like the missing part in all men,

until each has received truth manifested.

                “Whenever the Ancient Israelites sinned or needed guidance thousands of years ago, Moses would act as an intermediary and make supplication for them. In the prophet age they had the power and wisdom of judges like Samson and Samuel. Fortunately we have Jesus our Savior, the true Son of God, sitting at the right of the Father to hear our prayers and to bestow his spiritual gifts. We know the Scriptures say he would send us another comforter (still to come), but how could anyone best that perfect sacrifice? What need we of another intercessor or another consecrator from God?”

                What if I were to tell you, and it is no repetition to say, ‘No man comes to the Father except through me; could you accept that?’ A fortressed city was once established using a series of protective walls, with each having to be overcome in order to reach its palace heart. The size and number of a city’s walls are a measure of the strength and determination of its surrounding enemies. So it is that the size and number of a person’s intercessors are a measure of the greatness of his sinfulness. If Man were naturally pure and culturally good, he would have need of none. While it is true that Christ forever bridged the gap between a just God and sinful man, there are still boundaries of struggle and evil deterrence to cross.

                As for divination, ask yourself whether and by how much discomfort can you bear another Paraclete. You have He who searches, a Brother who saves; and a Father who longs to bring you home.

                Trust in God inscribes your currency,

                                yet other dreams are painted there.

You have gone away from me, and made you idols of metal and fiberglass.

                                                                O Zion,

                                your beauty is slain upon its high places;

                                how are the mighty fallen!

The men of valor fail in heart; the strong are eaten for honey

                in a land where only the condemned should be exiled.

I am the Lord thy God;

I have created the world against its own design.

While earthen walls collapse and sink down into bottomless sands,

                I build cities in the air!

“Tis too late for God to join the living.”

Perchance, what would he do now?

Add one more philosophy to the plethora of others?

What would he do, heal the tuberculin and cure the psychopath?

Our medicine men have these well in hand.

What would he do now –

perform for us many miracles even of our technical magicians?

What would he do, spread love and peace, speak of harmony and goodwill?

Behold, we are but a stone’s throw away from complete world unity.

                So now (mockingly) the prodigal returns:

an hour ahead of the sheriff, a week before the gallows.

Kneel, all, as you would before your father Mentor.

Greet and kiss Mercy-Blessings, your mother.

                But from this hour and from this cup

                                I will not adjourn or disappoint.

Even now, he who was once your adopted brother,

comes armed and conveyed by legions,

seeking to haul you back in the shackles of the law.

                                How easily children grow used to clothes,

                and relate no longer to nakedness!

How quickly the aged have forgot honest work, and a want filled in God!

                Remember the old days, O Israel,

when goodness was counted by the number of your people?

                                In your wealth there is no discipline;

                                in your poverty there is no relenting.

How often have you incensed me, and I have instructed you,

‘Take substance into your gut; keep my commandments!’

Chapter 10

You misunderstand.

Time was the Lord came asking.

Time was he came dressed in camel’s hair preaching confession

                                                                and preliminary repentance.

Time was he allowed himself to be nailed to a cross.

This time he has not come pleading, nor genuflecting,

                nor surrendering himself to Gentile soldiers,

but to reign, and to tame the storms of his dominion.

                Religion exists at the benevolence of government?

Today, the Lord of the universe declares,

                ‘if I withdraw my hand,

                you shall not stand.

                If I cease to think vitality,

                your cells of cohesion would break asunder.’

I will turn my flock against the shepherds

and the herd shall overrun its drivers.

Again you misunderstand.

The Lord has not come as a beggar.

Yesterday I came riding into your capital on a white colt,

                                                the foal of an ass,

unfurling a humble heart and an urgent tongue.

It is now already late afternoon.

What I requested politely from you yesterday, by tomorrow

                I shall order by force, commanding both angel and chariot.

The people which withholds my tithes,

                from that people I will withhold my blessings.

The government which deprives a worship,

                from that government I will deprive a leadership:

                a death of persons, a dearth of riches.

                                                Beginning in a fortnight,

and continuing for as long as the Lord ordains,

                the numbers shall not change,

until such a time as you learn your number.

From Sabbath to Sabbath, there shall be no deviation,

that you may know I am the Lord,

and these are my people which are called by name:

                                Spirits first, citizens second.

                I know what the inner waters are,

how they nourish, and from whence they run.

Shaken are the scholars,

                afeared of a new revelation;

                trembling are the pillars:

which shriek, “What right has he to annihilate a mystery?

                                All wrong! All wrong!”

All wrong seems it now to serve in faith,

                                with a spirit succumbed,

pulling in like a whirlpool at the point of penetration

                every pressured hope of sealed acquaintance.

                                                                This leak

in the inward pool

                no remarkable patch can repair.

The test of existence abides in me, becoming a dayspring –

or marking the degrees of consistent unChrist-like evaporation.

                Know me not,

who was born of the Arctic,

cradled upon an iceberg?

I was befriended by a whale;

the polar bear was my adversary,

when at the edges of crimson ice,

                the walrus’ tusks were taken.

                                Now my soul is melting:

Adrift below latitude, in waters warmed by highlight.

My horizon wind-swells with fear and adventure –

large floating frames and distant isles;

                landfalls await.

But what is that to snow-blind eyes

                who have never beheld the earth?

Chapter 11

“Can you tell me when Jesus’ second coming will be?”

Perhaps; do you have a watch or some other timepiece?

“Yes.”

Which way does it track time, forward or backward?

“Forward, of course.”

Then I cannot tell you.

I shudder to think what you have called me here today to do.

                In whose name shall I bracket together new worth

                                to reconstitute a model humanity?

Should I plead with the Lord of Hosts

to design a new engine of superior moral stamina and certitude?

Would you have me adjust the factory machinery to bring forth

for each of you an incorruptible body

with greater character, courage, and conscience?

Have you in mind that I should order parts from overseas

                                to build you a new heart?

                It is beyond reckoning anymore

                                to ever make you ‘human’.

You are a dying sort, an infectious evil,

a generation of the walking dead –

                Zombies asking only to be laid to rest.

Is this what Genesis meant:

                ‘God made man in his own image?’

You do well to hate me; because I live, millions will die.

                                All the prophecy of the ages

                are a signal unto death.

Each night I must sleep crucified

and let pass the remainder of my soul

to be commended unto heaven.

I must give point to pinions

in the spread of flight,

and wrestle with jostling claws

anxious to catch more conscious prey:

long-sought and unfettered

outside my dreams of vain wanderings.

                                And the Lord of Love bids,

                ‘You go home for the holidays,

but do you ever come home for the holy days?’

                                                My dreams clock no moments.

                                                                Hours fail.

What will you give me?

                ‘I tell you’, says the Lord,

‘give out every day your gifts,

                and I will bless you on your birthday.’

                Like an overburdened ass,

I can bear no more truth.

Balaam, why do you whip me –

                the Angel of Death is before thee!

Either let your vision shine, or pray,

                                                let us die in darkness.

It seemeth to me there is as it were a plague in this house.

                                While the Master reclines,

                                                His bed is holy.

He molds pottery, and bakes the clay.

He casts a die for the oven.

He clears the yard of stubble, and sanctifies it.

He builds a house to place his name therein.

                                                                Afterward,

the ark is transported; and it is no more sacred.

All who construct on location are brought low,

                or who add thereto accursed.

The Lord will tear down the walls of the temple,

crush the stones between his teeth,

and feed the fragments to his hatchlings on the nest.

                Come ye to Jerusalem;

come ready for the singing,

to dance with a decoration of flowers and joy.

It was found before it was ever lost: what once

                you paid to send; pay extra to resend –

                                                expressly delivered.

What awaits now, my corded child, but stained hands,

                a blue face, and a cold soaking,

by those praying to see him still-born,

                still borne as a carcass inside my brain.

Chapter 12

                Whenever they take their ease,

                                they acquire disease,

securing a human likeness only when weeping.

A demand is made from heaven for undercutting and radiation!

It is a hurt avoided to say,

                I will do well by others in my idle moments,

                to set aside fortune for an unemployed spell.

For one strict day it shall be more than you can perform

to claim, ‘my own body is nourished, my family is fed’ …

                while in heaven be found your larder.

By whose honor shall the word be spoken, that

according to a promise, an oath, an handshake, and the pact is binding?

                The people coddle a maxim:

                ‘Why work, why worry? Long after we pass away,

and are dead, and our memory forgotten,

there will remain the same old world, and still work to be done!’

                That is what frightens me, Lord: that I shall leave the earth

in the manners and defection prior to my coming.

I am no better than my ancestors,

                for I have not fully addressed the message of Christ.

                                As his servant is turned fine away, unheeded,

at last to recall a search meant for lost sheep, not wolves.

                It is also to the minister that I must minister,

                                and set the pastor out to pasture,

for they have hounded the forsaken and persecuted the all-but slain.

                And ye are your own illusionists; for

what marvel shall turn the head of he who already claims to face me?

                It is not I that you must follow …

no one is obliged to follow sin inside the gates of Hell.

                                This time I rise again,

and there shall be no guard and no Sanhedrin,

                no Roman and no Jew,

no fond-believer and none that little believes

                                                to dispute my presence.

When otherwise I tell you this:

                Be SILENT, be AFRAID; pray,

pray that the Lord Jesus Christ does not come tonight;

insofar that all of you (not some) are guilty,

and being of whatever color, sect, sex, or stripe,

deserving of the judgement for racism and bigotry.

                As Prince of Peace, you hung his heart upon a tree;

soon he returns the favor

                                as slayer of your souls.

Then in remorse, they pled,

“Can you not like Moses of old belay the wrath of God

                and help us cross safely into the Promised Land?”

Still the prophet returned,

                can a camera of its own accord

refuse to take the picture that it was programmed to capture?

Inasmuch as I live, I am convicted by the sins that engulf me,

and [making his own version of signing the cross]

beholden to the Hand that molded me,

given he may one day allow me to lie down in benign judgement.

                Look now upon your final witness.

Who are the witnesses against you? The Sun and the Moon.

So in the stress of future period,

                the sun shall be darkened,

                and the pale-red moon shall not shed his light:

a triumph of darkness; a strange day,

the likes of which never seen before, nor ever again;

nevertheless, it is the last cold spell.

                Moreover, possess the right faith.

For an eternity it seems, they bade a Christ in coming,

                                                                a Christ in coming;

until Messiah could not actually arrive,

and the salving picture faded away in them.

Prepare for his return;

prepare a dwelling place in your heart,

as I have prepared the whole earth a dwelling place.