Blessed Night, Loves 😊

I Pray All Is Well With Everyone… And Your Hearts And Minds Are Full Of Love, Joy, And Compassion… For All Your Brothers And Sisters… In Spirit! And Brothers And Sisters In Spirit We Are – The Spirit Of The Living God – All Around The World; Yet In The Hearts And Minds Of Much Of Mankind – And By Our Actions At Times… We Seemingly Have No Sincere Love – Not A Drop – For One Another! Dark Energy Deception… And Influence! But Let Us Stress Not The Fear That The Sinister Force Tries To Impose Upon Us… And Be Not Distracted By The Wars, Lies, And Corruption. But Instead, Let Us Strengthen Our Connection With Our “Mighty I AM Presence” – And Fear Not The Darkness; But KNOW – That The Power Of The Sacred Fire That We Carry Within Our Hearts… Is Enough To Consume It All Forever; When We Are Willing – In This Nation And All Around The World – To Stand Up And Remain Standing… In Our God-Given Power! Amen…  

Give Thanks And Praises For Love And Life…   

And Y’all Be Love…  

… While the devil is bound, the saints reign with Christ during the same thousand years, understood in the same way, that is, of the time of His first coming. For, leaving out of account that kingdom concerning which He shall say in the end, “Come, you blessed of my Father, take possession of the kingdom prepared for you”, the Church could not now be called His kingdom or the kingdom of heaven, unless His saints were even now reigning with Him, though in another and far different way.

For to His saints He says, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.” Certainly, it is in this present time that the scribe well instructed in the kingdom of God, and of whom we have already spoken, brings forth from his treasure things new and old. And from the Church those reapers shall gather out the tares which He suffered to grow with the wheat till the harvest, as He explains in the words, “The harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels; as therefore the tares are gathered together and burned with fire, so shall it be in the end of the world. The Son of man shall send His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all offenses.”

Can He mean out of that kingdom in which are no offenses? Then it must be out of His present kingdom, the Church, that they are gathered. So He says, “He that breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he that does, and teaches thus, shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” He speaks of both as being in the kingdom of heaven, both the man who does not perform the commandments which He teaches; for “to break” means not to keep, not to perform; and the man who does and teaches as He did; but the one He calls least, the other great.

And He immediately adds, “For I say unto you, that except your righteousness exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees”, that is, the righteousness of those who break what they teach; for of the scribes and Pharisees He elsewhere says, “For they say and do not”. Unless therefore, your righteousness exceed theirs, that is, so that you do not break but rather do what you teach, “you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

We must understand in one sense the kingdom of heaven in which exist together both he who breaks what he teaches and he who does it, the one being least, the other great; and in another sense, the kingdom of heaven into which only he who does what he teaches shall enter. Consequently, where both classes exist, it is the Church as it now is, but where only the one shall exist, it is the Church as it is destined to be when no wicked person shall be in her.

Therefore the Church even now is the Kingdom of Christ, and the Kingdom of Heaven. Accordingly, even now His saints reign with Him, though otherwise than as they shall reign hereafter; and yet, though the tares grow in the Church along with the wheat, they do not reign with Him. For they reign with Him who do what the apostle says, “If you be risen with Christ, mind the things which are above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God. Seek those things which are above, not the things which are on the earth.” Of such persons he also says that their conversation is in heaven.

In fine, they reign with Him who are so in His kingdom that they themselves are His kingdom. But in what sense are those the kingdom of Christ who, to say no more, though they are in it until all offenses are gathered out of it at the end of the world, yet seek their own things in it and not the things that are Christ’s.

…. As to the words following, “And if any have not worshipped the beast nor his image, nor have received his inscription on their forehead, or on their hand”, we must take them of both the living and the dead. And what this beast is, though it requires a more careful investigation, yet it is not inconsistent with the true faith to understand it of the ungodly city itself, and the community of unbelievers set in opposition to the faithful people and the city of God. “His image” seems to me to mean his simulation, to wit, in those men who profess to believe, but live as unbelievers. For they pretend to be what they are not, and are called Christians, not from a true likeness but from a deceitful image. For to this beast belong not only the avowed enemies of the name of Christ and His most glorious city, but also the tares which are to be gathered out of His kingdom, the Church, in the end of the world.

And who are they who do not worship the beast and his image, if not those who do what the apostle says, “Be not yoked with unbelievers?” For such do not worship, i.e., do not consent, are not subjected; neither do they receive the inscription, the brand of crime, on their forehead by their profession, on their hand by their practice. They then, who are free from these pollutions, whether they still live in this mortal flesh, or are dead, reign with Christ even now, through this whole interval, which is indicated by the thousand years, in a fashion suited to this time.

“The rest of them”, he says, “did not live.” For now, is the hour when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live; and the rest of them shall not live. The words added, “until the thousand years are finished”, mean that they did not live in the time in which they ought to have lived by passing from death to life.

And therefore, when the day of the bodily resurrection arrives, they shall come out of their graves, not to life, but to judgment, namely, to damnation, which is called the second death. For whosoever has not lived until the thousand years be finished, i.e., during this whole time in which the first resurrection is going on, whosoever has not heard the voice of the Son of God, and passed from death to life, that man shall certainly in the second resurrection, the resurrection of the flesh, pass with his flesh into the second death.

For he goes on to say, “This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection”, or who experiences it. Now, he experiences it who not only revives from the death of sin, but continues in this renewed life. “In these, the second death hath no power.” Therefore it has power in the rest of whom he said above, “The rest of them did not live until the thousand years were finished”, for in this whole intervening time called a thousand years, however lustily they lived in the body, they were not quickened to life out of that death in which their wickedness held them, so that by this revived life they should become partakers of the first resurrection, and so the second death should have no power over them.

There are some who suppose that resurrection can be predicated only of the body, and therefore they contend that this first resurrection (of the Apocalypse) is a bodily resurrection. For, say they, “to rise again”, can only be said of things that fall. Now, bodies fall in death; there cannot, therefore, be a resurrection of souls, but of bodies. But what do they say to the apostle who speaks of a resurrection of souls? For certainly it was in the inner and not the outer man that those had risen again to whom he says, “If you have risen with Christ, mind the things that are above.”

The same sense he elsewhere conveyed in other words, saying, “That as Christ has risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life.” So too, “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.”

As to what they say about nothing being able to rise again but what falls, whence they conclude that resurrection pertains to bodies only, and not to souls, because bodies fall, why do they make nothing of the words, “You that fear the Lord, wait for His mercy; and go not aside lest you fall”; and, “To his own Master he stands or falls”; and, “He that thinks he stands, let him take heed, lest he fall.” For I fancy this fall that we are to take heed against is a fall of the soul, not of the body. If then, rising again belongs to things that fall, and souls fall, it must be owned that souls also rise again.

To the words, “In them the second death hath no power”, are added the words, “but they shall be priests of God and Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years”; and this refers not to the bishops alone and presbyters, who are now specially called priests in the Church; but as we call all believers Christians on account of the mystical chrism, so we call all priests because they are members of the one Priest. Of them the Apostle Peter says, “A holy people, a royal priesthood.” Certainly he implied, though in a passing and incidental way, that Christ is God, saying priests of God and Christ, that is, of the Father and the Son, though it was in His servant-form and as Son of man that Christ was made a Priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek. But this, we have already explained, more than once.”

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. II: St. Augustin’s City of God and Christian Doctrine, Book XX, Chapters IX and X