Library

You know, Rush Limbaugh died recently. They showed pics of his 50 million dollar house. The library was humongous. Thousands of books. It made me think, this is why you want to focus on a handful of books and really get to know them. Because our time is so short. A small bookshelf. Books like the Bible, the Work [i.e. Fourth Way, Ouspensky ... not for everybody], Homeric epics, history that is archetypal and universal. Just a few that you come to in time and know they are foundational to building understanding and wisdom *in your soul.* Not just surface knowledge. This is what Luther advised too. It's obvious though. Any secondary books should be books that help you understand the main books.

I've been thinking of the language of archetypes. That is language to know. Ryken is bold to state that the complete book of archtypes is his Dictionary of Biblical Imagery. Which mines the Bible for it's archetypes. Biblical history too. Seeing what Assyria and Babylon mean in modern times. All times. Things like that. Tower of Babel. Arm of the Lord. Order. All of it. Garden, wilderness. Seeing how archetypes usually are sets of good and bad. 

Apply ourselves there.

Biblical History - Kendell Easley

I love this book Biblical History by Kendell Easley. Actually the Holman Illustrated Guide to Biblical History.

Each little section you could write on a 3x5 card. It's all archetypal. Isis or Muslims in general are Assyrians by any other name. Marxists are Babylonians. Evil is evil. Different masks, same evil. 

You can see the still young race of Adam populating Africa, Asia, Europe. The hybrid races, like Neanderthal, being the hybrid bloodlines of fallen angels and humans. 

This is real world history. It's that deep world history you crave for when you're searching for books. Each little section I could write out a deeper vision because you have the archetypes to go off of. Each woman a princess or queen. You think of early Celtic lines. Royal lines close to Adam. Mythology. Assyria and Babylon stand for the archetypes of evil and fierce destruction and deception and hatred. Egypt of general dark idol worship. Darkness of understanding. Persia for radiance of the Satanic show. Etc. Greece and Rome playing a different, table-setting role. Closer to good. Those are the six ancient empires the Bible speaks of. 

It's deep history. Archetypal. The author is a real believer. He believes in a worldwide flood, for instance. He doesn't believe in evolution. Etc. 

Highly recommended.

Real Things

Wisdom and joy and physical health.

True wisdom is not what you get from books or from practical experience, but true wisdom is knowing the plan of God and knowing your state within that plan.

Joy is not happiness or pleasure. Happiness and pleasure are contingent on temporal, fleeting things. Joy comes from being in the presence of God. Joy is a perpetual fountain.

Physical health is a quiet, ongoing goal to enable us to function at our best relative to God's providence in our lives.

True wisdom, joy, and physical health can all develop and increase. Each is full of meaning and practical common-sense.

Worldly survival, human contact, and pro-creation are obviously real too. Though true wisdom and joy will become part of your glorified body.

Start to see the deep outline

There have been three angelic rebellions against God. 1. Satan in the Garden. 2. The Watcher angels in Genesis 6 when they left their first estate and mated with human women creating hybrid giants. 3. The highest angels called the Glorious Ones who were appointed over the nations after the Tower of Babel scattering who decided they wanted to be worshipped like Jehovah who created them.

We can see Satan was involved in leading the second and third rebellions.

Now see how all these high angelic rebels use God's law to control humanity in negative ways. THAT is our connection to these fallen angelic beings. God's law. God's law twisted, distorted, turned upside-down. They accuse, coerce, shame, and control my using God's law. They do it themselves and through humans they put in control.

Now see how Jesus fulfilled the law and defeated all these principalities and powers and then taught Christians how to do battle with their still lingering influence over humanity. Basically be awake and love your enemy. Conscious labor, intentional suffering.

Important to remember

One thing we as Christians are subtly made to be dissuaded from doing is emulating Jesus. We get subtly mocked for the very notion. Yet this is what the Bible teaches. 

It is a powerful point of reference in real time, real life to have Jesus in our mind as the model to emulate. 

A good book to get a good dose of impressions of Jesus is Christ's Glorious Achievements by Charles Spurgeon.

Based

I just figure there's the Kingdom of Satan and the Kingdom of God with no neutral ground, and I'm, by God's grace, all in with the Kingdom of God.

Satan and his fallen angels and demons have many masks, play many roles, but it's all the Kingdom of Satan. 

So my life and central focus is as a Christian. 

Work (Fourth Way, Ouspensky) plays into it as does all biblical doctrine and practice, but the Bible is the ultimate tribunal for truth and what the Kingdom of God is and how it manifests.