Refrain: Changing perspective

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Published: Monday, 05 June 2023 02:18
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“Refrain: Changing perspective”

By Peps; Sunday; 4th June, 2023

“Our life’s perspective changes by the time we refrain ourselves in doing God’s work,” – Peps; June 1, 2023

 

 

 

Shaking

While in a remote tribe in the mountains of Thailand sometime on June, 2019, I asked the Lord these words, “Why did you allow me to be born in the Philippines when I should have been born and raised up in China where my forefathers hailed from?” The Lord replied in an unusual manner, that seemingly quite irrelevant and out-of-the-question, ““Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.  27  And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain, “ (Hebrews 12:26-27). And that verses is being addressed to the, “The General Assembly” and that refers to the “Congress, the law-making body of the land.”

 

 

 

Refrain

During bedtime at around 4:00 AM, this Thursday; June 1, 2023, the word “refrain” came into the picture. At around 11:00 in the morning of the same day, my quiet time reads, “When Elijah heard this, he was afraid. So he ran away to save his life. He took his servant with him, and they went to Beersheba in Judah. Then Elijah left his servant in Beersheba.” So Elijah “ran away,” refraining himself to complete the task that God has given him.

 

 

 

That very day, I read the Bible that in 1 Kings 19:3/ ERV, "When Elijah heard this...". But the word, “heard” is different from the King James Version (KJV) that says, “When Elijah saw this.. “ And from there I began to wander the difference of hearing and seeing. Is what we hear is exactly the same what we see? Or is it what we see is what we can hear? Why ERV reads, “heard” and KJV reads, “saw”?

HEARD vs SAW
Are there are some things that we are not supposed to hear? Like when e are listening or hearing some negativities that can bring us down?  Like hearing some “bad report” or anything that can restraint us what we supposed to do as our priorities.

“Heard “ in ERV is being defined as “saw” in KJV. Defined Heard (ERV). And the word, “saw” in Hebrew "ra'ah" (raw-aw) means “to see, to perceive, have a vision, discern, distinguish, spy, view, consider.” The word, “consider” is a strong word. It is in fact a “legal word” that is being often used to congressional bills or in the court which means “an appeal,” “to review,” or “to take another consideration.”

 

So is it hearing and seeing is one and the same?

Hearing vs. Seeing
According to Romain Brette (2012), Neuroscience Research Director at Vision Institute, "Hearing vs Seeing) says, “A vision is the perception of a persistent surfaces. Hearing is essentially the perception of mechanical events on volumes. Fact is vision is mediated by a retina and hearing by a cochlea. Sound is mediated by acoustical waves. Vision is mediated by light waves yet hearing does not feel like vision. Why is that? “



Faith is to hear
But before seeing facts or evidences you must first hear then establish faith or belief to what you have heard from God. Faith is mediated by hearing from God. Romans 10:17, “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” So hearing God’s Word constitutes belief –system. You can only believe to what you have heard from the Word of God.

Only when you heard from God that one’s faith is being established. If faith became a product from what you have heard from God, that we you heard constitutes fact, evidence or reality. This is the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews have said that reads, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” (Hebrews 11:1). From this Scripture, can hearing constitute seeing things in the future?

Moreover, Hebrews 11:6 says, “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. “

 

Can you see the picture below? We’re buying this vacant lot for P2.6-Million which is just beside our church for a reason.  Yes! You have heard it right, can we see that later to happen? Quite impossible but we need to pay the owner by June 17 and we are raising that amount. Will that change your perspective?

 

Refrain

Refrain is to stop something you want to do. Webster define refrain as “to curb, restrain, avoid.”


1 Kings 19:3/ ERV, "When Elijah heard this, he was so afraid, so he ran away to save his life.“

 

 

When Elijah heard something  from the messengers of Jezebel, immediately he ran away. That is when Elijah refrained, avoided, refused to hear from God and listened instead to Jezebel’s threatening words. But earlier, Elijah heard from the Lord and he obeyed just like in 1 Kings 17:2 / ERV, "The Lord said to Elijah, leave this place and go to the east. Hide near Kerith." Elijah obeyed the Lord. In 1 Kings 17:5 it says: "So Elijah DID what the Lord told him to  do." You see Elijah obeying every time God tells him to do something. Again in 1 Kings 18:1-2, ERV, that is 3-Years later, God said to Elijah, "Go and meet with King Ahab and I will make it rain. So Elijah WENT to meet with Ahab." Nothing in there that God told him to ran away nor for  Elijah to refrain God’s special assignment for him.

 

 

Refrain is to repeat. The word “refrain” itself comes from the French “refraindre”. This old French term just means “to repeat”, and that's exactly what a refrain does! A refrain is a repeating line or verse used throughout a song, often with an accompanying melody particular to that line/verse

Refrain as a verb means “to hold oneself back “ or refrain as a noun means a regularly repeated phrase or verse of a poem or song

 

 

 

Another’s Voice

Hearing God’s voice truly matters. But hearing another’s voice more than God’s voice must be very disturbing and fatal. In. 1 Kings 19:3/’ ERV says, “When Elijah heard this, he was afraid. So he ran away to save his life … ”

 

So Elijah “heard” or “saw” not from God but from Jezebel. And hearing Jezebel’s voice who once bravely fought 450 Baal prophets immediately changed his perspective and ended up being cowed with fear and ran away (refrained) away from God’s precious’ authoritative voice. Why did he refrain himself? Why the voice of Jezebel changed Elijah’s life perspective? Who is Jezebel?

 

In 1 Kings 19:10, 14, twice, he made a refrain, meaning he repeated this two times as if Elijah was out of his mind probably because of uncontrollable fear for his life, the very words, “And I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away” even by the mere fact that Obadiah is a minor prophet and Obadiah hid 100 prophets in two separate caves.  

 

That could be the reason I heard the word “refrain” at 4:00 AM, June 1. 2023.

 

What was once an obedient man of God, Elijah turned 360 degrees, running away from God’s call. In 1 Kings 18:1/ ERV, "The Lord said to Elijah, Go and meet Ahab and I will make it rain."
And Elijah did what was commanded to him. But now Elijah is falling apart when he heard the words of Jezebel. He ran and ran and ran until he rested under the broom tree in Mt. Sinai.

 

 

So Elijah is withdrawing, running away, refraining from God’s call, changing his life’s perspective.  And you see a different Elijah this time.

 

 

 

 

 

Jezebel
Jezebel in Hebrew “iyzebel” means “Baal exalts” or “the husband of Baal” or “unchaste.” According to Oxford Dictionary, the word “unchaste” relates to or engaging in sexual activityy, especially of an illicit or extramarital nature. Unchaste also means lasciviousness or transgression.  

 

Why would a man of God like Elijah would listened and paid attention to the words of a transgressor like Jezebel translated as Baal’s wife? And who is Baal? Did Elijah listen to the Devil?

 

 

Baal

“In the Bible, the name Baal is applied to two different men, one town and one idol; Baal the male god of Canaan and the Phoenicians; counterpart of the female Asherah (Judges 2:13; 1 Kings 18:19). In the New Testament the name Baal is mentioned only once. Apostle Paul mentions Baal  in his letter to the Romans, as he reviews the story of Elijah (Romans 11:4).

 

Technically, Elijah commanded 850 prophets of Baal in Mt. Carmel in 1 Kings 18:19.

 

Baal-related names includes (ba'al): Ashbel, Baalah… , Baal-zebub, Baal-zephon, Baladan, Bamoth-baal, Bealiah, Bealoth, Beelzebub, Bel,  Gur-baal, Hannibal, Jerubbaal, Kiriath-baal, Merib-baal to name a few.

 

When Elijah “heard” Jezebel, technically, the prophet “listened and saw” Beelzebub because Queen Jezebel means the “the wife of Baal or Beelzebub.”

 

In Matthew 10:25, Jesus Christ mentioned Beelzebub which is Aramaic word, “Beelzeboul” meaning, “the lord of the house, a name of Satan, the prince of evil spirits” according to Thayer Bible Dictionary. James Strong Bible Dictionary define “Beelzebul” as the “dung-god, name of Satan.”

 

Little did he know that Elijah when he heard the very words of Jezebel, what he heard and saw are the very words of Satan that eventually shifted his course and got derailed from the Lord’s perfect will. Do you think, God would desire for His prophet Elijah to run away trembling in fear like a frenzy paranoid and schizophrenic?

 

 

Eve’s changing perspective

At first, Eve hears only from God. Genesis  2:17/ KJV, “  but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” 

 

But when she heard the serpent’s words and refrained herself in believing God, her perspective in life changed. For whatever Eve have heard from the serpent and obeyed, what followed next are different realities, harsh realities like pain, sorrow, sicknesses, curses, death to name a few. Here are the conversations of the serpent and Eve that determines her destiny by hearing from someone else’s voice and not from God.

 

 

  • Snake: Gen. 3:1 , “Woman, did God really tell you that you must not eat from any tree in the garden?”
  • Eve: Gen. 3:2,  “No, we can eat fruit from the trees in the garden. 3 But there is one tree we must not eat from. God told us, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden. You must not even touch that tree, or you will die.’”
  • Snake: 3:4-5, “You will not die. 5 God knows that if you eat the fruit from that tree you will learn about good and evil, and then you will be like God!”
  • Eve’s change of perspective: Genesis 3:6, “The womancould see that the tree was beautiful” and the woman was completely oblivious of imminent danger that awaits the whole humanity. What Eve have had heard from the serpent  comes the reality of eternal death. Like what Elijah have heard from Jezebel and he finally believed in thus gave birth to the reality of fear and panic; turmoil and suicide. We become what we truly believe in just by mere hearing.

 

 

 

Going back

Going back to what I have heard from the Lord in Thailand on 1989, the word, “shaking.”

 

The Lord told me to resign from secular work from many occasions. So I tendered my resignation on November 1, 1989 while my flight back to the Philippines was scheduled on November 15, 1989. On the day of my date of departure at first hour in the morning, the Lord said, “By the time you reach your office, open the newspapers and you’ll see what I told that the once more I will not only shake the heavens but also the earth! ” I did! Right after I reported to Singapore Air Line Ticket Office, I took the newspaper and got shock to what I saw from front page that reads, “Berlin Wall collapsed!” Then the voice of the Lord said, “When I shakes the heavenly powers of communism, you will feel it on the natural realm.” When God said something and you have heard Him saying it, what will comes next is the manifestation of what you have heard to the natural realm. That is what hearing and seeing is all about.  

 

 

 

Hearing and Seeing

Here, we will discuss another “hearing and seeing” in another perspective which is in psychological point of view, different from Neuroscience from the perspective of Romain Brette (2012)

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From David Ludden, in Ph D, Psychology Today (2015) “Hearing With Our Eyes, Seeing With Our Ears ,” it says:

 

“We don't experience our senses individually. Rather, our brain meshes (buhol buhol) with our vision and hearing to create our conscious experience of the world. What you see can influence what you hear, and likewise hearing can affect vision. Although speech is perceived through the ears, what we see can change what we hear.”

 

What Dr. Ludden says is “Hearing meshes with vision” thus creating reality in the physical realm. What you say (according to what you believe in), it comes for real. While secular world says, “To see is to believe,” Ludden’s perspective is “What you hear (believes in), you will see.” It is like what Paul says, “We walk by faith (hearing the Word of God), and not by sight (alone).” When you hear the acoustic waves of the Word of God, it producesmechanical events of physical perceptions created by light waves creating a reality which is a concept also of Romain Brette (2012), a neuroscience director. Let us take this example:

 

“And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters,” – Genesis 1:2

 

Imagine the earth as empty, void, dark and deep. There was no shape or surface, a complete nothing, no reality. No reality means it does not exist; no real situation, no real event or occurrence or situations (Webster).

 

Then the Voice of God came as an acoustics (to produce mechanical events) and it says “Let there be Light!” in Genesis 1:3, “And there was light,” a reality. Your vision or eyes can see the light. Take note that all creations of God started when God called Light. Out from the light emanates all forms of life. And Jesus is the Light (John 8:12). And that is Hearing Is Seeing! Paul says, “faith cometh by hearing and hearing the Word of God.” And in Hebrews 11:3, says, “The worlds were framed (visualized) by the word of God (spoken and heard),” That is “hearing and seeing” the world that was once void and empty.