Is America on the brink of collapse like Rome?

Thomas Sowell

¡Hablando del Rey de Roma, 

por la puerta asoma!

Speaking of the King of Rome, through the door he appears!

The meaning “treacherous person” is attested by 1580s (it was used of Satan in early 15c., and serpent and adder are older in this sense) Compare Old Church Slavonic gadu “reptile,” gadinu “foul, hateful.” The snake’s reputation was not helped by the Genesis story, but the notion is older. The phrase snake in the grass “underhand, plotting, deceitful person” translates Virgil’s Latet anguis in herba [Ecl. III:93].

www.etymonline.com

Saying 7

23 When you sit to dine with a ruler,🤴
    note well what is before you,🚫
² and put a knife to your throat
    if you are given to gluttony.🔪
³ Do not crave his delicacies,
    for that food is deceptive.☣

Saying 8

⁴ Do not wear yourself out to get rich;
    do not trust your own cleverness.
⁵ Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone,
    for they will surely sprout wings
    and fly off to the sky like an eagle.💸

Proverbs 23:1-5
New International Version

The Fall of Man

3 Now the serpent was more crafty (subtle, skilled in deceit) than any living creature of the field which the Lord God had made. And the serpent (Satan) said to the woman, “Can it really be that God has said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” (cf., Jeremiah 17:9-11)

Genesis 3:1
Amplified Bible

core (n.)

early 14c., “heart or inmost part of anything” (especially an apple, pear, etc.), of uncertain origin, probably from Old French cor, coeur “core of fruit, heart of lettuce,” literally “heart,” from Latin cor “heart,” from PIE root *kerd- “heart.”

LIKE DUST IN THE WIND SCATTERED TO THE FOUR CHERUBIM OF THE FOUR DIRECTIONS:

⁹ “The heart is deceitful above all things
And it is extremely sick;
Who can understand it fully and know its secret motives?
¹⁰ 
“I, the Lord, search and examine the mind,
I test the heart,
To give to each man according to his ways,
According to the results of his deeds.
¹¹ 
“Like the partridge that hatches eggs which she has not laid,
So is he who makes a fortune in ways that are unjust.
It will be lost to him before his days are over,
And in the end he will be [nothing but] a fool.” (cf., Genesis 3:1)

Jeremiah 17:9-11
Amplified Bible

8 “‘·You keep saying [L How can you say…?], “We are wise,
    ·because we have the teachings of the Lord [L and the teachings/laws/instructions of the Lord are with us].”
But actually, ·those who explain the Scriptures
    have written lies with their pens [L the false pens of the scribes have made it a lie].

Jeremiah 8:8
Expanded Bible

13 Then Cain said to the Lord, “This punishment is more than I can ·stand [bear]! 14 Today you have forced me ·to stop working [L from] the ground, and now I ·must hide from you [or will be hidden from your face]. I ·must wander around [L will be a fugitive and wanderer/homeless wanderer] on the earth, and ANYONE ¿who? ·MEETS [finds] me can kill me.”

15 The Lord said to Cain, “No! If ANYONE kills you, I will ·punish [avenge] ¿THAT PERSON? seven times more.” Then the Lord put a mark [C the nature of the mark is uncertain] on Cain warning ANYONE ¿WHO? ·MET [finds] him not to kill him. (cf., Jeremiah 8:8)

Cain’s Family

16 So Cain went away from the Lord and lived in the land of Nod [C resembles a Hebrew word meaning “wanderer”], east of Eden. 17 He ·had ¿SEXUAL RELATIONS? with [L knew; 4:1] ¿HIS WIFE?, and ¿SHE? ·became pregnant [conceived] and gave birth to Enoch. At that time ·Cain [L he] was building a city, which he named after his son Enoch. (cf., Jeremiah 8:8)

Genesis 4:13-17
Expanded Bible

¹⁴ So the Lord God said to the serpent:

“Because you have done this,
You are cursed more than all cattle,
And more than every beast of the field;
On your belly you shall go,
And you shall eat dust
All the days of your life.

Genesis 3:14
Expanded Bible

“They were stronger than Turk and Saracen, but not than Hunger and Disease. Leaders did not know then, as our little Friend at Berlin came to know, that ‘an Army, like a serpent, goes upon its belly.’”

Quote Investigator®

Therefore the Lord cuts off head and tail [the highest and the lowest] from Israel, (cf., Genesis 3:14-15)
Both [the high] palm branch and [the low] bulrush in one day. (cf., Genesis 3:14-15)

Isaiah 9:14
Amplified Bible

“And I will put enmity (open hostility)
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed (offspring) and her Seed; (cf., Cain & Abel)
He shall [fatally] bruise your head,
And you shall [only] bruise His heel.” (cf., Isaiah 9:14)

Genesis 3:15
Expanded Bible

¹⁵ 
The elderly and honorable man, he is the head; (cf., Genesis 3:15)
And the prophet who teaches lies, he is the tail.
¹⁶ 
For those who lead this people are causing them to go astray;
And those who are led [astray] by them are swallowed up. (cf., Genesis 3:15; Jonah in the Belly of the Beast)

Isaiah 9:15-16
Amplified Bible

“A fish rots from the head down”

~Author unknown

23 But if your eye is unsound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the very light in you [your conscience] is darkened, how dense is that darkness!

24 No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will stand by and be devoted to the one and despise and be against the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (deceitful riches, money, possessions, or whatever is trusted in).

25 Therefore I tell you, stop being perpetually uneasy (anxious and worried) about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink; or about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life greater [in quality] than food, and the body [far above and more excellent] than clothing?

Matthew 6:23-25
Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

If you were busy living, you wouldn’t be obsessed with dying.

Siddhartha Gautama

parable (n.)

“saying or story in which something is expressed in terms of something else; allegorical or metaphorical narrative, usually having a MORAL FOR INSTRUCTION,” late 13c., parabol, modern form from early 14c.

amoral (adj.)

“ethically indifferent,” 1882, a hybrid formed from Greek-derived a- “not” + moral, which is from Latin.

1. Said of a person: Devoid of moral sense.

2. Said of a human work, especially artistic: That of purpose dispenses with the moral end.

Why did Jesus speak to the multitudes in parables?

By The FISHER of MENSIS

With many similar parables Jesus spoke God’s ·message [word] to the multitudes—as much as they were able to ·understand it [hear]. Indeed, He would not say anything to them without using a parable. But when he was alone with his own ·disciples [disciplined students], he explained everything. ~ Mark 4:33–34
(cf., The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares: Matthew 13:24-30; God favored Jacob over Esau ·UNCONDITIONALLY [Prior to moment of conception] — “not because of works but because of Him who calls” ~Romans 9:11).

The disciples, bewildered by Jesus’ parables and wanting him to speak more directly, came closer and asked Jesus, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” (Matthew 13:10).

This is why He spoke to them in parables:

“Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.” ~ Matthew 13:13

“Milk for babes and meat for strong men”

~Hermes Trismegistus

In other words, imbeciles are always impervious to facts (e.g., there are only two biological sexes).

“Cretans are always liars, evil ·animals [beasts], and lazy ·people who do nothing but eat”

Titus 1:12

Jesus was revealing that they were indifferent legalists who did not understand the kingdom of God (cf., Matthew 12:10; Hebrews 5:11-14; Leviticus 5:17; Jeremiah 8:8).

Romans 2:13-16

English Standard Version

13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. 14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them 16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by ·Christ [the Way; the Truth; and the Life Eternal].

Jesus told his disciples that—in an incredibly important sense—the world is divided into two groups: those who hear and understand the parables, and those who hear but do not understand
(cf., The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares: Matthew 13:24-30; God favored Jacob over Esau ·UNCONDITIONALLY [Prior to moment of conception] — “not because of works but because of Him who calls” ~Romans 9:11).
The Gospel of Mark highlights this division when Jesus told the disciples: “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but to those who are outside everything is in parables” (Mark 4:11).

The disciples must have been shocked by Jesus’ response, and if we are honest, we will feel that same shocking power today. Parables reveal and conceal simultaneously. They divide their listeners into two worlds. In one world, a parable reveals the secret of the kingdom of God. But in the second world a parable is still just a parable, nothing more.

We now see more clearly what is at stake in the parables and why Jesus used them practically every time he taught. It turns out that our response to the parables reveals everything important about us, with eternal consequences. Each of the parables is a shocking revelation of the kingdom of heaven, so if we hear the parables and all we hear is a bunch of “stories,” something is profoundly wrong with us.

FisherOfMensis.blog