Introduction
A series of writings from Paradise point of view. Quite interesting and touching. You cannot afford to miss an update, so subscribe at the end of this page. This is the third section of chapter one. Chapter two is following soon.
In this third section of chapter one, the writer surveys closely the manner, behavior and occupation of the inhabitants of the strange mountains. There was no more spirit in him after seeing and experiencing the activities and manner of life upon that mountain. There you are! Along highway 7 with the writer. Yes, Hear Ye Him!
And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea. Isaiah 11:5-9
Along Highway 7
Well, having recomposed myself a little, I started up the highway, pleased with everything I saw, for all things were pleasant and only pleasant.
I thought, “If I am but daydreaming, then let me dream on, for this is the sweetest atmosphere that ever kissed my heart! I am reliably told that the chief apostle visited the third heaven, well, I wonder whether this is the fourth!”
I surveyed the eyes of my hosts and hostesses, as they passed over one another, as they greeted, as they hugged and as they surveyed one another in the face. There was nothing else displayed by the radiance of their little eyes, but love, pure love, divine love, pure and holy.
My! It was beyond words. The several looks in their eyes was nothing less than overcoming and overpowering love. A love that has never trickled into any human heart in the country I had fled from.
Then I remembered Jim Reeves, and it was as though I heard him sing:
I have lived a life of sin, in this world I’m living in, I have done forbidden things I shouldn’t do; I asked a beggar along the way, if he could tell me where to stay, Where I could find real happiness and love that’s true.
Across the bridge, there’s no more sorrow, Across the bridge, there’s no more pain; The sun will shine, across the river, And you’ll never be unhappy again.
Follow the footsteps of the King, till you hear the voices ringing,
They’d be singing of the glory of the land;
The river Jordan will be near, the sound of trumpet you will hear,
And you’ll behold the most precious place ever known to man.
"Hear Ye Him"to just now!
I attended some of their worship services, while still walking along highway 7, a worship in which I was nothing but an uncircumcised Philistine among the circumcised Hebrews. In every worship I attended, I stationed myself on the periphery. I was so ashamed of myself to mix freely with these saints. I blushed constantly. My face wore a smile of a fool, for so I was among these holy beings.
After I had calmed from the effects of the paradox, I deliberately made some effort to discover the impact of their greetings to one another, for I had witnessed it, as they greeted one another, that there was something unearthly about it. Something that seemed to leave behind a lasting effect to the pair, something unknown to me, the only stranger in Jerusalem.
Yes, a desperate effort it was from my side; for so far, I had not greeted any of them by hand, being so ashamed of it, how it appeared in comparison with theirs. Too rough to let any see it, leave alone touch it! So, all along I had folded them right into my overcoat, and for heaven’s sake I wouldn’t want to expose such crude roughness.
I thought, “My voice has already done enough harm, why add an insult?” I cautioned myself over and again never to pluck my hand out of my bosom, for it was certainly a right hand of falsehood. So, I had all along been answering their greetings without stretching my hand out. It wouldn’t have come back without having caused injury.
“My voice is doing already enough harm, why extend the injury! No, never, I will not pull it out of my bosom. Hide it I will, forever too.” I cautioned my hand, strictly monitoring it, allowing no misbehaviour whatsoever as I strolled along the thronged highway 7.
But finally, I made a desperate effort to break my vow to discover the magic that charmed these great beings! Great indeed they were, though I appeared a giant among them, but a fool too! A fool of the first rate! So beastly! No one told me so. My own heart spoke it to herself a thousand times each moment!
“I am a fool, only a fool, for only a fool can do what I have been doing to my fellow human beings, and only fools can do what I have seen them do to each other in the country where I hail from, a country that I am ready to burry my face in my palms for shame if I were to mention its name among these refined people. And for the first time I see the picture of my people clearly with no mistake, and no guesswork: all are fools, fools and only fools! Worse than any beast I know!
“Only fools can treat each other the way they do. Only fools can mock each other the way they do. Only fools can lie to one another the way they do. Only fools can hurt and harm each other the way they do. Only fools can hate each other the way they do. Only fools can count it fun to cheat their fellow creatures the way they do. Only fools can boast and brag the way I have seen it every day in that shadowed country. Now I see it plainly why. It is a country perfectly covered with a black fog, as if blanketed for the winter snowy night. Yes, from that foggy sort gushes malice, envy, murder, deceit, mischief, lust, covetousness, corruptions of every kind, and all which such mire can vomit, vomit right into the heart of men! What a mazy episode by the king of devils!”
So, as these feelings raced through my heart, I still fought hard against my first resolution, to break my vow and pull my calloused palm out of my bosom (for, sincerely speaking, I had never seen my palm so calloused!) to answer at least one tender greeting. A greeting that now I had all to believe that it impacted something so rich into the hearts of the pair.
So bad that I would make so evil a partner in that fare. But what else could I do, for it was obvious I couldn’t make one of my hairs white, or add a span to my already gigantic form, gigantic at least in comparison to my hosts at present, for they were a tinny people, yet quite refined in every sense.
I found a secluded place somewhere, under some shades where I kept resorting to in prayer, alone. It was a few steps from the highway. I attended a few of their worship services held in some auditoriums along that highway. I returned to that place after every service.
Hear Ye Him!
No wonder God had said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. These must be those people then!” I thought. “What are the rest of us then, who stubbornly call ourselves men? Beasts, very beasts are we! Very brutes, thrice told! Our very manners shout back into our faces a thousand times in a moment. Our mouths, our hands, our feet, our palms, our throats, and our very tongues will protest against us, prosecute and indict us in court, retaliating over and again that harmful and only harmful are we, in all our manners!
“Our mouths are open sepulchres, our tongues as the sting of asps; our throat like open graves issuing every corrupt mess; our saliva, the very poison of dragons. What of our words? What are they but crude weapons, which we never hastate to plunge into the hearts of one another, as the Roman gladiators did in their ugly contest for nothing!”
For indeed what does one gain after abusing or cursing another? What is the gain of backbiting? Whoever gained anything in slandering his neighbour? What is the profit of malice, blasphemy and such like evil trades so often practised among men? What of lies, cheats, falsehood used every day in the foggy country of the so-called humanity? Shame on them all! So ill-mannered in every sense!
Then I thought, “Now I see their true nativity. They are not a people, no, please, by no means! They are all but brutes! Most are dogs, the very dog family! Others are cats, the very mischievous ones, very funny, with funny voices during their season. Just devils on earth! Others are good enough to be pigs, wallowing all nightlong during their various ugly employments! Others are serpents, very serpents! Especially those with special collars upon their strange shirts – so subtle of heart! Eating and drinking in the name of the gods, incurring no labour at all!
I had thought all along that the serpent that beguiled Eve was a snake, at least a reptile. My! How cheated I was! Cheated by self. Just duped, twice told. What? As though out of sleep, now I saw reality, all shot out into the light that the original serpent, in appearance and look, was like a man in every sense, so much so that he appeared more a man than man himself! Being cursed is what stripped the limbs from him so as to crawl upon his belly, but originally, he was an upright being capable of reason and speech, for he argued with Eve and finally beguiled her. No wonder, John the Baptist called the religious leaders of his day vipers, and Jesus referred to the Pharisees and scribes as serpents.
So, the veil had rent from before me, and I saw the serpents of my day… religious serpents, so cunning!
My long, strange journey had brought me to the abode of truth! The true light now beamed my corrupted heart brightly. Oh, I had discovered a most top secret! And because of that the wicked one had me marked… he warned his forces, that they had to mark me closely.
Finally, I was among a people who were truly man! The rest, back there, were only a mockery of it! Oh, what a mockery! What a scandal! The so-called people, pausing as the brightest of all that race, are mere brutes!
So, with these thoughts racing through my mind, I had forgotten that I had stood up to make a desperate move to pull my hand out of my bosom and stretch towards one of those sweethearts passing closer enough, to answer their greeting at least physically. Absentmindedly, I had stood in that one position another three short hours, contemplating upon the great contrast between my nativity and the present estate – what a great scandal exists among the people of my former estate!
Stop there, thou religious man, without Christ in your heart, you’re too black for life! You cannot be admitted among those people. That country will spew you out. The very gates won’t open for you. You are an outcast from the gates of life. So, stop! Turn around! Repent! Accept Jesus as your saviour, of course the only one.
My! My! My! When I compared the mouth of those little people with those of my comrades back in the land of darkness, how they spoke to one another, what but ours are snouts! Snouts! Snouts! Snouts! Thrice told, is the true likeness of my people’s mouths. Mouths? What a lie! Snouts ever snorting around! The very idea!
What? A mouth? What a joke! So ugly and wicked are they that they are open sepulchres! A snout…? Leave alone that of the true pig, that is alright, for he is no pretender, at least not a hypocrite. My people are very pigs in disguise! Very serpents camouflaged! Very wolves in sheep’s clothing! Very dogs trying to sound like lambs! Very serpents in human skin and stature! How duped was I till then! I had thought all along that I leaved among a people; at least among men and women; but my journey had woken me up into reality. What a reality of realities! Facts, facts, facts, only facts spreading before my eyes! That finally I had arrived where people dwelt, having strayed from where only beasts, ravenous beasts, ugly to their teeth, stays!
With all these facts passing before me as mighty currents, as a mighty river that conquers all en route, I was overwhelmed and completely floored! I had known nothing, completely nothing, till then! I had not known one ounce of truth, not an iota of it until then. I had not known true facts, facts about life, till then.
Imagine how I felt. Imagine the wonder in my heart… beyond the seven wonders of the ancient world by far! Imagine how I felt on that first day among the true people. Not dogs, cats nor serpents disguised to be human beings! But truly men in God’s image, both male and female. My! I had unknowingly fled from ravenous beasts, beasts ready to tear anything into pieces, and unknowingly still I entered among a real people, people of all peoples! Believe it or not, but the truth must prevail.
The five hours that I stood beside highway 7, at my resort, midway to highway 8, it seemed as if I had been in that position just but for a half a minute! In there, time fleets away without the slightest notice; you won’t tell how long ago you entered among these people, the only happy people… time passes on so swiftly right into eternity! You wouldn’t be able to notice it. Time simply slips away… ceases to exist. What makes all like so? The perfection of all things all around!
Finally, my hand was out of my bosom. Then I stretched my hand – but not without shame and fear – towards one among the throng that was passing closest to me as our eyes met. With shyness clearly betraying my face, I maintained my hand, determined still to touch his tender palm. I tried hard to push out a greeting through my throat, the phraseology that I had heard from them and tried hard to memories, but it could only chock me. And as my hand touched his soft, tender palm, something like liquid electricity flowed through my hand into my bosom, melting everything within my heart, so much so that joy and love mingled together giving way to happiness and gladness resulting in such a merry experience truly impossible to express! Everything that tried to leave my heart only chocked me with great mouthfuls of love untold. All that escaped my mouth sounded like a hen in her season! Khere… ke-ke- keheree…! oh, what is that!
What was that! Please, tell me! No word could have formed on my tongue. No syllable could have escaped out of my lips. Just the sound of one who is cheerfully chocked, chocked with love so rich, so pure, so divine, beyond tongue. How could such a colloquial tongue as mine, used to uttering nothing but a jargon language of every falsehood, ever frame the meaning of that pure love, all pure and divine! You talk about a honeymoon; you are quite deceived with such synonyms! No word coined by my former country tongues about love comes a million miles closer! None of them are synonyms! Antonyms are they all! Opposite! Opposite! Opposite in contrast with the truth revealed in that hill over yonder. See where my finger is pointing? That hill yonder where I have been the last one thousand years but yesterday! Uh!
There I was, just a hen in her season! Love filling all, engulfing all, melting all, transforming all, translating all and transporting all. And there and then, without any knowledge of any kind, I was ushered into highway 8! Oh, the marvel of the king’s highway with the queen besides him! Hu… hu… hu-u-u! Oh, dear me! Was it me or someone else in me, within my skin, taking my place! Hu… hu… hu-u-u! That eighth lane of lanes intersecting there, with everything plus everything in everything that divine love bestows! Mhh! Uh-u-u! Perfection of all perfection! Blissful in every sense and touch.
Stop! You don’t know anything that I am describing. Your imaginations are too colloquial to paint anything closer!
I was transformed and translated at the same time into the kingdom of light. I was chopped to size, reduced to size, losing all the gigantic endeavour that I had labored with all along – so great a burden, a load of sin full. All such burdens rolled off my shoulders; all the thick clay vanished from me. I became as light as light! Any distance, far or near was only a moment from me, only a thought from me. Could move at the speed of light, for so light had I become. And the wonder of all, I became as tinny as the people I had strayed into. I was now one of them. No doubt about it!
My mental capabilities were transformed a thousand and one times, making me to comprehend all things at once – the breadth, the length, the height and the depth. A marvel of all marvels!
What was I seeing before me! His majesty the king, the very king of kings, immortal, eternal, in all his glory, majesty and grandeur! And the very queen seated beside him in her bridal garments. His eyes like the light of the morning, serene and clear. His face like the clear noon day, without a cloud, seven times told! The soft flowing light, when it strikes your heart, tastes like wafers made with honey from the rock! Folded and enfolded in love I was, lost, completely lost, in the wonderland! And forward I was, drawn right into the palace of the king, and straight into his bosom! Wa-a-a! Please, don’t expect me to describe it! I was totally lost, mind, soul, and spirit, just all in all, gone!
“Will I ever come to myself again? Will I ever find myself again? It’s just impossible! The impossibility of all impossibilities!” I mused in my heart, for no syllable of whatever meaning could escape through my lips; I was dumbfounded, dumbfounded, and dumbfounded, eight times so! The very ambient currents spoke nothing but pure love which when compared to the so-called love from my native land, the latter seems like the sewage untreated, ten thousand times so!
Then I understood what made the difference between the inhabitants of the two countries – the heavenly and the earthy. Men of the earth are earthy, so crude! The people of heaven are heavenly – so refined! The one had the truth of things, and the other, where I hailed from, had the lie of them! So clear! Clear! And clear! Clear as the light of day! Where I came from, all things are crudely unrefined full of vile impurities of carnal knowledge! And no wonder I appeared a giant when I arrived there. A giant wrapped with a heap of falsehood. False dreams, false visions, false desires, false knowledge, false wisdom, false possessions, false riches, a false body, a false mind, a false heart, false friends, false joy, false peace, false love, false notions, false religions, false gods, false pastors being wolves in sheep’s clothing, false preachers forging out lies to amass money and riches; all things, the product of men, are fake, fake! fake! fake! Everything fake! All a forgery of distracted minds!
So fat all over I had been, all wrapped in pure falsehood! Just burdens plus burdens upon burdens! What a burdensome beast of burdens I was; so burdened with myself and yet burdening everything all over! I needed a deliverer to get me out of Egypt; the Passover lamb I found, and he led my way out. Wonderful!
There I was! with the true light broken through to see everything for what it was. The true meaning of everything clearly revealed. No more lies, cheats and falsehood to beguile my soul. I had come to the land where light and truth dwells. I was now among a people, not beasts disguised as people. Among true riches, not dust disguised as riches; among true friends, was I, not wolves in sheep’s clothing. What a transformation!
But one thing struck me most as I bathed in the light of the bosom of my Father: what a thunderbolt! Just like one awakened from a very deep sleep, what was it? I came to myself. I returned to myself. I found myself. I discovered myself; as Nebuchadnezzar twice so, I woke up to myself. I now knew myself. I came back to myself. I looked up and down upon myself. Yes, there I was! myself again. I had found myself! I now knew who I was. I now realized what my name was. I now saw myself exactly the way I should be! Hallelujah! May all the bells of heaven ring. I was myself again! What? A wonder!
Oh, what a surprise! And how sweet! So, I had been lost? Uh! Kidnapped, frog marched, bungled into some mazy affair called flesh and blood, and driven to nowhere! Down into the land of the unknown, I had sunk, losing my memory, the memory of who I was, my mind gone, heart and spirit too; I was finally wrapped in the shame of rotten flesh by my kidnappers… the shame of all fake things, so smelly! Just like Joseph in the dungeon in Egypt, there I had arrived, and had thus languished in prison many years…
I looked at myself again, myself whom I had found – just like a three-year-old child looking at itself in a big mirror for the first time and sees himself standing in front of self! There I was, the very self, everything about me, was of myself! I laughed, and laughed and laughed… laughed, laughed, laughed, laughed, and laughed – and I am still laughing…
And while along my pilgrim way, I attended several services and heard several sermons that I will relate to you. Each sermon magically spurred me forward. I never stayed in one place no matter how charming the company was, I had decided never to turn back.
The sermons and the preachers were heavenly sent, to keep transforming and translating the pilgrim along the way, so that by the time they arrive at the gate of Paradise, they would have been suited along the way to be accepted within. No sermon left me the same.
The sermons can be classified into three categories. The first sermons that I listened upon the first thousand hills or so, were of the water testimony, even the shout of the king, and the same were heraldic sermons preparing my soul to meet the king. The second class of sermons I started hearing when I entered the mountain pathway. They were the testimony of the blood of the lamb slain from the foundation of the world, even the voice of the archangel. Thirdly, the final sermons that I heard were preached as it were by the trump of the Lord, even the Holy Spirit trumpet. By these I was ushered through the gates, and went along Highway 7. By these same final sermons, I was ushered into Highway 8, ready to meet the King of kings.
I will now relate a few of the sermons that were preached to me along the way, a few from the water testimony, even the record from Genesis, and from the blood testimony from the Old Testament stand point, and finally, a few from the record of the Spirit as witnessed in the New Testament. So, by the time I arrived at the gate of Paradise, I had traversed through Genesis, the Old Testament and the New Testament. May you share with me a glimpse of it.
So, Hear Ye Him now!
Echoes From Paradise 