#the lord god of hosts

[scripture-pictures]

[rabbits-of-negative-euphoria]

genuinely I think one of the most pressing calls for Christians (namely Protestant Christians) today is to stop underestimating the power of beauty

visual beauty, beauty in word, beauty in sound, beauty in story

we have ceded beauty for the past 70 years to the atheistic world and people of all beliefs are realizing that world has failed to carry that standard. people are realizing their daily lives are starved of beauty--especially natural beauty--so they are turning to the entities which recognize its power. entities like paganism, witchcraft, ancestor worship, the New Age. if they are drawn to Christianity (not necessarily believing it), they are more likely to attend a Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox mass.

humans need beauty because humans need God, and beauty belongs to God. which means the church should be the standard-bearer of beauty in this world.

if a church can afford it, they should prioritize building a beautiful church, even if that means it will be smaller or less trendy.

if a church has skilled musicians in their midst, they should prioritize using those musicians in worship, even if it means the style of the music changes.

the church should always prioritize hymns and spiritual songs which exemplify goodness, truth, and beauty in their composition and lyrics, even if it means newcomers don't understand every line yet.

all these forms of beauty should reflect the beauty of the story of the Gospel.

[solannecontinuum]

MCS ARC III - THE SECOND D. ANOMALY.

"I believe in Wayne's innocence. He didn't ask to be put through the things he had to face. So what if his karmic standing is super negative? He can help us! And we need to help him." "You are understood by me, my fellow outcast."

THE LORD's conquest of THE ORDER continues to grow, with his new goal now finding a way to summon an entity known as THE HOST in order to complete his conquest. While hope feels bleak for those fighting against THE LORD's fearsome army and power, a light appears at the end of the tunnel .... in the form of a second D. Anomaly: WAYNE HYLICS. However, is he truly the one who can stop Starscream? Besides his laxed and aloof appearance, Wayne possesses a rather concerning negative karmic standing representing a dark history, and perhaps such isolation from other heavenly bodies may only increase Starscream's interest in Wayne himself.

[val-of-the-north]

OKAY IMPORTANT UPDATE SO Crow convinced me that the more appropriate Type Of A Guy group is Allant, Gwyn, Aldia, Aldrich, Micolash and Shabriri, and it was actually Laurence who I unofficial 7th member because his portrayal and being pair item with Micolash is very speculative even if reasonable. As we in Russia say, пока запишем карандашом. I'd now ask you to write something funny and cringey for new super cool updated cast thanks to that CHICKEN, but this will just come across as me barely concealing my simping -_-" So I'll just ask for YOU to rate The Guys. You need to speak your opinions more, it is always good shit

Noooooo now I have to ramble about characters I hate that, fuck you. I hate rating people lol. But fineeeee:

Number 6 - Micolash lmaoripbozo

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Ok ok, that's not actually true... I think my actual number 6 for the time being might be Shabriri. That doesn't mean I hate the guy, but he is simply a fucking dick. Like, so far he's the only one with not a droplet of cohesive motivation, and ending the suffering of everyone seems like a front for his true desire of seeing chaos consume reality. I like myself a seemingly pure evil baddie, but if I have to rate him with all the other dudes, he sorta pales in comparison. Maybe the DLC will expand on his philosophy and what he did before he had the Nomads entombed and decided to set the world ablaze with chaos. He IS very fun though, I will give him that lmao.

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At number 5 I'd probably put Allant, though he might be subject to change whenever I get to play Demon's Souls. As was stated a bunch, he is a more depressed Shabriri, which makes him more genuine. His desire to end the suffering of mankind is true, unlike the previous prick, even if his methods of attaining that are fucked beyond compare. And that's the problem with him lol.

He only increased the world's suffering exponentially, because that's arguably what benefits the soul-hungry demons in the long run. He failed the one thing he wanted to do and probably doesn't even see it because he is too blinded by his own suffering and hatred of life. He is the reason his kingdom is run by corrupt officials, that his son gives up on life, and that most of his people have become food for unfeeling abominations. He is a weak leader. There's nothing wrong with being weak, but you are not supposed to drag the world down with you the way he decided to do...

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Number 4 was hard to place since I am still not sure what I am rating them for... so far it seems to be the complexity of their motivations/actions and the way they went about them. I guess this spot could go to Micolash in this case. Most of his motivations (if they even are his, and not just those of the School of Mensis as a whole) are context-heavy, which isn't really good in terms of building a compelling case as to why he should be above someone like Allant... still, the amount of cut content centered around him points to him having had a much richer role than what meets the eye, which I believe boost the likelihood that his character is well-defined even in the full game.

(To be honest, even if we know very little of that version of him, I suspect I would have liked him more like that lmao.)

His pursuit of knowledge probably had a concrete goal before it spiraled into what we see in-game. Despite its horrible fuckups, the Healing Church did start out genuinely seeking ways to better humanity, but it distanced from it the more it continued. The Choir, where he and most of Mensis probably originates, already sought to abandon their human roots, and the school he was part of likely did so even more. But they wouldn't seek guidance from the Great Ones, they'd become on par with them.

And to rise above humanity they did unspeakable things... some of them didn't even make any sense. Why stitch together those horrible corpse beasts? Why switch the heads of two animals? Why cram all those human remains into one casket? Not to mention all the people that were kidnapped: half of them were strapped to chairs and the other half turned to stone and merged into the walls. Everything just to try and proceed with a deranged ritual that was only made possible by desecrating an infant and its mother.

And when you finally meet him he is just rambling to himself, all alone and surrounded only by corpse puppets, Edgar and the occasional attendant. He has been stuck between those halls for long enough that his body has been mummified, and doesn't seem to have made any significant progress. He has likely lost his mind, rendering whatever it was that he was seeking worthless. But hey, at least he was closer than anyone to finding out about Kos from outside the Hunter's Nightmare, so I guess we can give him that.

Also his cut dialogue is pretty emotional, and makes me wonder just how different he was before he lost his mind... I ultimately think I have a soft spot for him ahahah

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Number 3 is Gwyn, but it was really close with Aldrich on this one, lol. I decided his goals were assuredly less complex/noble, even though his means weren't as grotesque. To be honest, I think he's a pretty maligned character, for good reasons mind you. He effectively screwed over everyone in an attempt to keep the status quo intact, and before that, he took several preventive measures that just made life miserable for people in the long run. All of this paints a rather unflattering picture of Gwyn, and I do not deny this. What I argue against is the reason why he did what he did... to me, Gwyn was genuinely afraid.

Kaathe says Gwyn "trembled at the Dark", he was surely afraid of what darkness and an age of men entailed, especially for his people and family. What he did feels less like something a power-hungry lord who seeks to keep his power intact would do and more like one desperate attempt to delay a force much greater than you. His was a sacrifice in the end, and while his legacy is and will inevitably be cinders in an empty world, what prompted him to do what he did was something understandable, and very human of him ironically enough...

As an aside, I'm actually not super convinced that Gwyn fits neatly into this group of guys either. Honestly, Dark Souls 1 might lack a character that embodies this vibe. Instead, it has several with only bits and pieces of it. I find it more fitting to group him with the likes of Marika and Laurence rather than these other dudes.

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Number 2 is Aldrich as you could have probably guessed. He is an awful awful man, but his course of action is probably the most anyone had been doing before the Unkindled woke up to make DS3 happen lol. The world had reached a point of stagnation when nothing new was happening. The dark threatens the light, but then the flame is kindled again, rinse and repeat again and again and again... he was doing SOMETHING different and prompting change, even if it was in a way that could be considered disgusting, unpleasant and evil. The once beautiful Deep had been turned into a seedbed of filth because of the stagnant nature of reality and this seemingly endless cycle, and he alone saw salvation through a different kind of age. The start of a brand new, different thing.

The path was arduous, the means deranged, but he DID want something more than chaos for chaos' sake, unlike Shabriri. He wanted to change things, but not passively like Allant. He did not lose track of his goal the more he accomplished like Micolash did, and he did not wish to uphold the status quo but rather challenge it, unlike Gwyn. But I really, REALLY understand why everyone sees him and recoils in horror or thinks there's nothing more complex behind his actions than a simple hunger for power and flesh.

But you know Miyazaki, he likes to write characters who do some really awful things but still portrays them as courageous and heroic in their madness and skewed ways. I get the same vibe from Aldrich, but that doesn't mean he wasn't intentionally portrayed the way he was to inspire discomfort or hatred in most players ahahah. Both things can be true at the same time, and they are!

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Lol number 1's Aldia. He's got everything Aldrich has except for his abhorrent mannerisms and vices. He is someone wholly dedicated to the pursuit of answers, and from what I can tell most of his test subjects were people who accepted his invitations to the keep, which was mostly other madmen with a similar desire to break the boundaries of reality. Of course, it wouldn't be a Soulsborne game without a good dose of war crimes, so he did do things to the giants who ended up as prisoners of war during the two conflicts his brother took part in, but he wasn't making chimeras out of them or wasting them in useless experiments at the very least. Heck, he pretty much turned one into a superior being who seems to be all chill.

All horrors he committed in his mansion were for a singular goal: breaking the curse and finding a way out of a played-out cycle, even by the time of DS2. And while the depths of this obsession show some pretty horrible results, he isn't at all the same as Aldrich, who relished in the suffering of his victims. One can find his experiments horrid, but the man himself not so much. He was simply devoted. So devoted in fact that he destroyed himself to the point he was left with nothing but an endlessly-smouldering body. And despite achieving a form that's arguably outside of the cycle, he still saw it as a failure, because it wasn't what he wanted for humanity.

I've heard him get called a fence-sitter because he promotes inaction, but to arrive at such a conclusion you have to ignore everything that led him to his current state, AND his words to the Bearer of the Curse. If anything, this dude probably did everything one could do in the hopes of changing things, I think he is allowed to feel disillusioned at the end of it all without being described as a fence-sitter. In what way is he one anyhow? Both potential ages suck. Any witless fool can just waltz in and burn themselves or let the flame die. Someone like him would literally have zero reasons to care about either outcome because all his work was meant to lead to something beyond it... but he failed and awaited someone else who would challenge the order of the world and succeed where he couldn't.

At the end of the day, I'm not saying he didn't do anything wrong lol, he still did some pretty weird shit... but I don't think it's insane to say that he is more respectable than basically everyone else on this list by virtue of actually being pretty selflessly motivated and for never losing the plot of why he was doing all those things in the first place.

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I still don't know if I did good lmao, but yeah, this is what I think. If you noticed I get more verbose the deeper we go, that was intentional. It's not as if I don't have anything to say about Shabriri (you should know), it's just for the purposes of this "rating". Ultimately they are all prime characters.

[wiirocku]

Psalm 89:8 (NKJV) - O LORD God of hosts, Who is mighty like You, O LORD? Your faithfulness also surrounds You.

[justana0kguy]

2024 FEBRUARY 02 Presentation of the Lord Friday

"Yes, He is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who will endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears?"

~ Malachi 3:1b-2a

[dramoor]

"I saw a Child And He gave me the key That opens the Heart Of Him- Who – Is; Whom I can please If I repeat the Child’s way: Grow small, Quite small.

Then I will be so very big That I will reach My Father’s hand And understand What it means to be Absorbed And hidden In the Lord of Hosts, A host myself Annihilated Unto death to self; A piece of bread To be eaten up With zeal and love For Him The Child."

~Excerpt from a poem by Catherine De Hueck Doherty

(Image via catholictradition.org)

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

No Other God

Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God. — Isaiah 44:6 | King James Version (KJV) The King James Version Bible is in the public domain. Cross References: Deuteronomy 4:35; Psalm 86:10; Isaiah 41:4; Revelation 1:8; Revelation 1:17; Revelation 2:8; Revelation 22:13

Listen to full chapter (audio KJV Bible)

Isaiah 44:6 Commentaries

[spotforme]

the recordings, the accounts, whatever you call them, are scary enough on their own but then he just has to go and say something like 'i asked the others to look into it and they uncovered these few details. anyways, end recording' and they always make my skin crawl.

like that recording at the end of lost johns' cave? fuck me

i hate the endings because they have the details and i fucking hate the details they make things so real and too scary like i don't want to hear that yes she did smoke red malboro i don't want to hear that the murder veapons weren't anywhere on the scene i don't want to hear that someone had drawn on the skin like no please no this is seriously too scary for me

[granonine]

A Theophony

Joshua 5: 13-15. And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a Man over against him with His sword drawn in His hand: and Joshua went unto Him, and said unto Him, Art Thou for us, or for our adversaries? And He said, Nay; but as Captain of the host of the LORD am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did��

[lordgodjehovahsway]

2 Kings 21: Manasseh Became The New King Of Israel

1 Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem fifty-five years. His mother’s name was Hephzibah. 

2 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, following the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites. 

3 He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he also erected altars to Baal and made an Asherah pole, as Ahab king of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the starry hosts and worshiped them. 

4 He built altars in the temple of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, “In Jerusalem I will put my Name.” 

5 In the two courts of the temple of the Lord, he built altars to all the starry hosts. 

6 He sacrificed his own son in the fire, practiced divination, sought omens, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the eyes of the Lord, arousing his anger.

7 He took the carved Asherah pole he had made and put it in the temple, of which the Lord had said to David and to his son Solomon, “In this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my Name forever. 

8 I will not again make the feet of the Israelites wander from the land I gave their ancestors, if only they will be careful to do everything I commanded them and will keep the whole Law that my servant Moses gave them.” 

9 But the people did not listen. Manasseh led them astray, so that they did more evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites.

10 The Lord said through his servants the prophets: 

11 “Manasseh king of Judah has committed these detestable sins. He has done more evil than the Amorites who preceded him and has led Judah into sin with his idols. 

12 Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. 

13 I will stretch out over Jerusalem the measuring line used against Samaria and the plumb line used against the house of Ahab. I will wipe out Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. 

14 I will forsake the remnant of my inheritance and give them into the hands of enemies. They will be looted and plundered by all their enemies; 

15 they have done evil in my eyes and have aroused my anger from the day their ancestors came out of Egypt until this day.”

16 Moreover, Manasseh also shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end—besides the sin that he had caused Judah to commit, so that they did evil in the eyes of the Lord.

17 As for the other events of Manasseh’s reign, and all he did, including the sin he committed, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah? 

18 Manasseh rested with his ancestors and was buried in his palace garden, the garden of Uzza. And Amon his son succeeded him as king.

Amon King of Judah

19 Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem two years. His mother’s name was Meshullemeth daughter of Haruz; she was from Jotbah. 

20 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as his father Manasseh had done.

 21 He followed completely the ways of his father, worshiping the idols his father had worshiped, and bowing down to them. 

22 He forsook the Lord, the God of his ancestors, and did not walk in obedience to him.

23 Amon’s officials conspired against him and assassinated the king in his palace. 

24 Then the people of the land killed all who had plotted against King Amon, and they made Josiah his son king in his place.

25 As for the other events of Amon’s reign, and what he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah? 

26 He was buried in his tomb in the garden of Uzza. And Josiah his son succeeded him as king.

[judahmaccabees]

What you did to the least of these, you did to Me

JEHOVAH

[solannecontinuum]

30 MAY 2023.

A day where the most unexpected happened .... The 4th Host fragment was discovered. And the 4th Husband.

Made this as my cover illustration for ILLUSTRATION DIARY VOLUME III. It's been almost a year since I began working on it, and it's FINALLY DONE!!!

Inspired by the works of KOH KAWARAJIMA-SAMA.

[scripture-pictures]

[kdmiller55]

God Showed Up

41 And the Philistine moved forward and came near to David, with his shield-bearer in front of him. 42 And when the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was but a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance. 43 And the Philistine said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. 44 The Philistine said to David, “Come to me,…

[justana0kguy]

2023 OCTOBER 08 Sunday

"The vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house [...] and the men [and women] are his cherished plant."

~ Isaiah 5:87a