The Controversy Over Zion

Ronald Weinland

October 20, 2019

Feast of Tabernacles Sermon – 2019

From the outset here I’m going to give the title of this sermon. It is The Controversy over Zion. Of course you have it written all out, what the sermon titles are, but for the sake of anyone who might watch these later on, The Controversy Over Zion.

Talked about this in times past, and to me it has special meaning because of what God is doing, and the more we go into the periods of time we’re in right now, the farther we go it seems like the more that this means more and more, in that respect, as to what God is doing and what God is accomplishing.

Because everything is about God. God is first, and the more that we grasp that, the more that we see that, the more that we are appreciative of that, the more that we’re thankful of that the more our minds can change, the more our minds can be molded and fashioned by God, the more we are prone then to humble ourselves before God and truly be in awe of God. Because that’s a great problem with mankind, that mankind isn’t in awe of God, and when we come into God’s Church, it doesn’t mean that we’re in awe of God. You grow in that. You grow stronger in that through time. The longer you’re in God’s Church, the more you grow spiritually, the more in awe you become of the Great God of this universe.

It’s just something that continues to grow because the more in awe you become of God the more thankful, the more grateful you become. It’s just something that strengthens you more and more and lifts you up more and more, in that respect, in a relationship to your God. Awesome!

So over the past several years this expression and what it’s all about has taken on greater meaning and importance as we have been drawing near the second great phase, if you will, the big phase of God’s process here of Zion’s existence. Obviously, it began with His own Son. That was the first great phase in the sense of Zion, the first to be born into Elohim. Now we’re getting ready for the next one, 144,000. Something we know, but to imagine that, we really can’t imagine. We really can’t grasp it. 144,000 from over 6,000 years of mankind. What an incredible thing, God bringing His government. Whether anyone likes it or not doesn’t matter.

The world has resisted God, loathed God, loathed God’s ways. In reality that’s what their response has been to the message that God has given to them and so they create another one using God’s name, a different message that is more palatable for them, that gives greater leeway for various things that they want, that they desire. You think, you know, mankind is so sick. But that was the design from the beginning, to create them in physical human bodies, “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” is what rules them. It rules human beings.

People aren’t in control of themselves. They really aren’t. They’re ruled by selfishness. They’re ruled by “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” and then we come into God’s Church and that’s our battle and it takes time to grow spiritually. It takes time to really begin seeing what that is all about.

We think we know, but as time goes on you’re going to learn a lot more. The longer you’re in God’s Church the more you begin to see and understand what that is all about, and it carries a far greater impact as time goes along. The more you’re in God’s Church, the longer you’re in God’s Church, if we’re yielding to God’s spirit, the uglier our carnality is. But we see the reason why God made us this way and it’s beautiful, it’s awesome, this process and this plan. Those who don’t choose it and those who don’t want it, they don’t have to be given that life, a power, a life that’s so much greater than the angelic realm. That’s in part of the sermon here today.

So what is Zion? God’s Church has come to understand that it’s not about any physical location, obviously, not about anything physical at all, but that which is spiritual. When God speaks of Zion it has great meaning, it has great purpose. It means a lot to God. And candidly, we really haven’t been given the exact meaning of what the word is. They call it a mountain in Jerusalem, whatever, Mount Zion, but they don’t understand why God has chosen that. There are so many other names that we understand some of the meaning of what they are, but this one here, it’s unique, it’s special in that regard, as to what God is building, what God is constructing.

Let’s turn over to Psalm 76:1. It says, God is (or can be) known in Judah. This word “Judah…” Again, words have meaning and there are reasons why certain names and so forth have been chosen through time, inspired to be given through prophets and whatever, David. They have great meaning that God uses. This is one, Judah, a word for “praise or thanks.”

So what is it? God is or is known in Judah, known in praise in thanks? Well, it can be a lot of things involved with some of this in what it’s talking about, but when you think about God, when you understand God, just like I was talking about a moment ago, the more you really come to know God the more you grasp how great He is, the more in awe you are of Him, the more you will tend to glorify Him, praise Him and be thankful.

So in that respect, here God indeed is known in Judah in praise and thanks because this is a process. Why are you thankful? Because you’re starting to know and see things about God that you couldn’t know before. The more you see and the more you know the more you’re able to praise or thank God indeed, the deeper it becomes inside of you, the more genuine it becomes. It’s not fake. It’s not fake like people sing praise, you know, praise to God and these songs that people sing, and they get all excited about what they’re singing. I feel sorry for them, but it’s all fake. It’s all false. It’s all a wrong spirit. It’s not from God.

They don’t grasp where it’s coming from. There are people who actually feel things. Just like Pentecostals sometimes, they actually feel things. They don’t know what they’re messing around with. There are reasons why large groups go into churches and have large churches and come together in praise and worship and do the things they do. There is a spirit involved there and we need to understand that.

His name is great in Israel. Unique. His name is great in Israel, the Israel of God, and on a physical plane at different times when God intervened for them He was great in the nation, when someone was coming after them or whatever and going to destroy them or they were in battle and they would look to God. Obviously, when God intervened for them they rejoiced. We all would as physical carnal human beings. God intervened for us. They were thankful to get from one side of the Red Sea to the other, but it didn’t take long, did it, and that just wore off real quick like.

His name is great in Israel, in the Church because of what we learn and what we come to understand. Again, “Israel” a compound word; some sources translate this as "God strives." Obviously, we understand that this is a compound word with "el," in it meaning God, “Israel,” “isra” “el,” if you will, the “el” in the end is, and so the meaning of God here, the word meaning God.  The other means "to persist or to persevere,” to strive. You have to strive to persevere, to persist.

Again here, it’s about God. God perseveres; God strives to accomplish His purpose and His plan. It’s a beautiful word in that respect when you look at Israel – “God strives,” “God persists,” “God perseveres.” Thank God He does, otherwise, we wouldn’t be here, we wouldn’t have purpose and direction like we do.

Verses 2—In Salem… It’s a word for “peace,” as in “Jerusalem.” Obviously, we understand that, as we talked about the other day and the word Jerusalem meaning even more so of that, having more in the sense of talking about “founded by” or “the foundation of God.” God gives peace. His way is the only thing that produces peace. He is the foundation for peace. It comes from Him.

In Salem also is His tabernacle and His dwelling place in Zion. So all prophetic of what it’s talking about here, what God’s great desire is, like we began in talking about, or what I began in the Feast talking about and talking about God’s great desire. It’s hard for us to grasp what God experiences, in that respect. We understand what we go through in life, but to understand what He’s been doing from the beginning of time, to come to a deeper appreciation of why He did everything that He did, established everything as He has, and to think about that for so, so long. You talk about persevering, you talk about keeping at it because you have a purpose and you have a plan and you work for it and you have a third of the angelic realm who turn against you and Satan who seeks to destroy it all? But all according to a plan because that was God’s purpose, too.

God knew what free moral agent beings would do. He knew what they were going to do in time. All for a purpose. They were created first for that purpose – so that in time, ever how long that would be, there would come a time when there would be a rebellion. Because the only thing they knew was God and what God had told them. They didn’t know anything else. Then in time, well, we know the story and we’ll come to it in a little bit here, but His dwelling place in Zion and He perseveres to achieve it. So billions of years? We don’t know. But He’s kept at it. You know, we think about seventy years. To me it was a long time until you get to the end. Then you realize that wasn’t so long. Where did it go?

Verse 3 - There he broke the arrows of the bow, the shield, and the sword in the battle. Selah. Meditate on that; think about that, what God is saying.

It’s about what God is going to establish. Anything else that interferes with it God will take care of it. There is a controversy for Zion, over Zion, and God’s going to accomplish what He said He’s going to accomplish. Yet there has been a great deal of resistance. God’s government, God has continually been resisted. It’s a government that’s always been resisted by human beings.

Even in God’s Church we have to understand that we still resist God. Our nature resists God. That’s why we have to bring into check and repent of those things and ask God to forgive us of those things, of attitudes and so forth that creep up. Because they can destroy you. They can destroy you. They can lead you right out of God’s Church.

I was thinking about it this morning. I thought about it every day of the Feast. I think what a horrible thing that every year I get up and I have to say, “Next year there will be some who hear this sermon who won’t be with us anymore by their own choice.”

“Twas not a foe who did deride, for that I could endure.” It’s easier if someone hates you and they don’t choose you because you’re not going to have a relationship with them and you don’t know as much about them.

“No hater thus who rose in pride, else would I hide secure. But though it was, my friend and guide, we did as equals meet.” I think about people coming together in the Feast of Tabernacles, and that’s the greatest time that we meet as God’s people.

I can’t help think of what it was like when I first came into the Church and we were in Big Sandy, in Texas, and I don’t know, ten, twelve thousand people there in that tabernacle building. We call it the tabernacle building where people could come together and tabernacle, in that respect, and hear sermons, and it was huge…huge building, huge construction there, in that respect, as far as the seating and so forth and the work that went involved in putting out all those chairs, because they had to be taken up every year and then put back out again, everything cleaned.

They had what we called Piney Woods. So a lot of people stayed in hotels in different areas, but a lot of us stayed right there in what we called Piney Woods. Right below the tabernacle going down a hill there were some thirty streets, thirty-three I think there were, something like that, streets going back and forth. There were large pines all through the thing and cleared out so that you could have a camper, a tent and whatever, and people cooked their own means on Coleman stoves, if you know what that is. Whatever you have over here, I don’t know, where you pump the thing up and you get this gas inside there and you light the thing and you do your own food that way.

It’s not like we have here where you have speed ovens, induction stoves, running water and all those things. So, anyway, the most inspiring scene of all to me was seeing, there was one huge road that came down from that tabernacle building down the hill, and then on the side all these streets, but down the middle a huge area, it’d probably be about as wide as one half of the room, going all the way up toward the tabernacle, and when people started coming out to go to services, children being pushed, and being pulled in wagons, and seeing families come together, and the air was just buzzing. Awesome experience! Incredible to experience something like that.

Then to think what happens in time, so many leave that you walked to God’s house side by side and counsel blended sweet. That’s what I think of. I think of things like that. When you get to know people and you want the best for them, you want to see them come through, you want to see them succeed. Some you have in your home. Some you were in their home. Some you spend much, much time with. Then they make a choice and it’s just like taking a knife and ramming it into your heart, in the front and in the back. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts in a way that my heart problems in a physical sense is one thing, nothing to be compared to the pain and the hurt that goes with someone who makes such a choice to leave this way of life. That hurts.

I had to turn around and look toward the window when I was singing the song because I’ve had so many people, hundreds, been in their homes and in our home, who aren’t with us, who have turned against God. So why? It’s because we don’t see ourselves. We don’t believe enough. We don’t grasp enough. We’re not convicted. Something happens. Something happens along the way.

A part of my message today in the midst of all this and talking about what God is doing – you’re not through this yet, and I see things in people. I see things in attitudes. They concern me whenever I see those things. No one is immune. No one. Not one person is immune from what can happen if a person continues to allow themselves in any fashion or form get into a wrong spirit, get into wrong thinking, whatever it might be, and resist God. Because some are and some will, and some won’t be here next year. If we have a Feast next year some around the world in different areas won’t be with us anymore. It’s always, always, always been that way. We walk to God’s house side by side and then these things happen.

Sadly, most of the time anymore, I know who they are and it comes about because you can’t hide certain things spiritually. You can’t. I see people who are letting down, able to come here and enjoy, and able to come to the Cincinnati and enjoy, able to come together in the Gold Coast and enjoy, and able to come together in Niagara Falls area and enjoy company and one another, but there are things in people’s lives that unless they get addressed you won’t come through this. Repentance must be at the forefront. I’m saying that in the only way I know how, with all of my being deep down inside.

There are people, if they don’t get certain things turned around quickly… You don’t have much time. If it’s this next year? I really, honestly don’t know. The way things are going in the world? When it’s God’s time, when finally the sealing is complete, it’s going to begin. You don’t have to wonder when it starts. You’re not going to have to wonder at all. You’re going to know. There are going to be things happen in the United States that are going to make it very clear. Everyone will know.

If you thought 9/11 was big, that was nothing. Nothing, absolutely nothing. That’s so meager and small compared to what’s going to happen across a nation. The world is going to shake. The world is going to be in fear because they know what’s coming next. They know it’s not over with. How does a country that great respond to something like that? Unless they can be completely crippled, totally, one hundred percent, they are going to strike back, and in some cases with everything they have.

Europe knows that and they have to make choices as to what they’re going to do. “Are we going to wait until that happens to where they get back on their feet to fix the things that they need to work on right now?” Because when you have some EMP’s go off, you know what? It’s going to be crippling for a while. But once those things can be repaired to a certain level, whatever that level is, look out!

So would you rather have a war that’s coming your way to take place there or here? It’s a hard decision for some, but they’re going to do it. What may start out small is not going to be small when it’s all said and done because they’re going to be taken out totally. I fully believe with all my being a third of it will be destroyed, a third of the population. That’s over 100,000,000 people. That’s just the beginning. That’s the kind of world we live in right now. These things don’t take that long to happen because people have to make those kinds of decisions rather rapidly. If you don’t want someone to get back on their feet and to strike back, whatever that period of time you think in your mind that it might be possible, when are you going to do it? Quickly.

And then what happens? The whole world erupts in a war, nuclear war, and then God has to intervene. So thank God that portion of it doesn’t have to go on for a long period of time. So it can be quick.

So don’t think that this is long time just because I’ve talked about there is a marker that has 1335 days in it from Trumpets up to Pentecost in 2023. Don’t think that, “Oh, I can rest now and I can relax a little bit.” Because it can happen at any time. If God has a purpose, whatever that is, it’ll all have meaning, and later on we’ll understand why that count is important. We understand it to this, only to this point in time, only to 2019. That’s all we’ve seen. That’s all we know because we’ve come through it. But the rest of it, we don’t know yet.

So do you have work to do? Some of you have more work than others. Some of you are so close to the edge that you’re about to go over. If you’re not going to be at next year’s Feast then you’re about to go over. God is trying people and working with people and working with situations, and the closer we get—and God knows when that time is, what He’s working toward—and if that’s the case that means He’s going to deal with some things to finish the cleansing.

So all those on the edge, God will not deal with that which is lukewarm. God will not deal with that that continues in a stubborn way of resistance to Him and disobedience to Him. God is not going to allow anyone to continue playing games, whatever those games are. You will not get by with them. So if it be within this year or whenever it is, it’s coming.

Please, please, please, get it, that if God Almighty can keep thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands from coming across the river Jordan (which I got today), coming across the river Jordan, if He can prevent that and every person die that He intended to die because they’re not going to be blessed and be able to enter into a promised land, please understand God can work with a handful of people to make certain that those who are associated with PKG who are not yielding to God and God’s spirit, that they don’t come into the promised land, in the sense of a new era of time. Finally, the King of kings, that which people have looked forward to for so long.

So I know individuals who are playing games. It’s spiritual, and it isn’t my job to go and tap you on the shoulder and say, “It’s you.” It isn’t my job to say, “I see a spirit and I know a spirit that isn’t right.” It isn’t my job. My job is here. If we have ears to hear we will hear and we will fear. I don’t care who you are I love all that I’ve known, that I’ve walked to God’s house with side by side, loved them, love all the Body, but you can’t make people choose what is right. You can’t make people make right choices. You can’t make people not continue to resist God. You can’t make people continue to give into their own lusts, whatever those might be.

So since I can’t give a second sermon on the Last Great Day, this is the one.

“His speech more smooth than butter was, yet in his heart was war.” See, that’s one I really have difficulty with…I do and I don’t, please understand. We can have friendship and we can have above that, fellowship, but sometimes it’s only friendship. Sometimes there are things that exist within that that aren’t genuine, that aren’t real, and the love isn’t there and yet the speech and the words that are spoken might seem to be in unity and harmony, but the heart isn’t. The heart isn’t.

I’ve gone through this so much and God gives blessings of His spirit to see certain things and perceive certain things, and so I’ll say it’s here. I know it’s in the States. I know it’s in Canada. I know it’s in Australia. All those places there are ears that really need to listen closely and get their act together and repent and cry out to God, “Show me what I don’t see. Show me what I’m blind to. Help me to hear You. Help me to fight what I know I really need to fight.”

Play games? “Yet in his heart was war.” Meaning unrest, battle going on, opposite of peace that God wants to give to us. Opposite for what He’s persevered for, He’s been striving for, for billions of years. Now of all times we’re almost here, and here we are at this time when God wants to bring 144,000 along, but others to come on into a new age, to experience those things in a new age. That’s going to be awesome! Of all time in human history, to be at this point? To walk across the line and go into a new era of time where Christ is reigning? Where Christ is on the earth? Where you can see him? Where you can see others of the 144,000 because they manifest themselves in human form in their human life? To come and have communication and talk with people, visit with people at the Feast of Tabernacles? How incredible is that? And then to rob ourselves from that?

“More soft than oil his words appear…” They might appear to be in the same agreement of mind and spirit, “Yet sharp as drawn swords were they. But Lord, though will, in judgment sit, and bring them down to woe.” I hate to see anyone come down to that because that means that God deals with it.

The third woe? God’s dealing with it. It’s a judgment of God upon the earth. It’s a judgment upon mankind in a very powerful way, that those who don’t want what He’s offering them, that’s their choice. But it hurts. No one wants to see people make those choices.

“In the deep and darksome pit, in ruin lay them low.” Choices. You can’t make anyone choose this way of life. But there comes a point in time where God says no more. “I love you but you haven’t loved Me.” So we have to deal with it in the same way. I love them… I think of some who have left and I think so easy to get along with, enjoyable to talk to, but just haven’t chosen this way and resist it.

“Death shall them cease, and to the tomb, alive they shall go down. For wickedness is in their home, among them abound their sins.” It’s always because of sin. It’s in their home in how they live and how they’re dwelling. If it’s in a home then that really creates problems because then it hurts others in the family and sometimes others in the family have to make a stand.

One of the hardest things sometimes to do is to stand firm for God and God’s people and God’s way of life and say no to someone else who’s close to you physically! To not do that is a shame and it’s disgusting in its highest form. If God isn’t first then what is? And who is more important than God Almighty? To interfere in relationships within the Body, within the Church? Should never, never, never happen because God is first. That had better be a choice every one of us has already made, because if it isn’t this is what’s happening. I promise you, this is what’s happening inside of you. You’re tearing your life apart and you’re falling away from God Almighty. You’re going through the motions of friendship, not fellowship.

This is fellowship. This, this Body, the Body in Cincinnati, the Body in Australia, the Body in Canada and those who are meeting in different areas by themselves or with groups of people, that’s your fellowship. They take precedent. They take precedent. Because you know why? God is in everyone who’s begotten of God’s holy spirit. That’s where God is and your reaction and response to them determines who you are and how you think. And if they aren’t more important than everyone else, you’ve got some problems.

Now, that’s a toughie sometime. That’s a toughie sometimes. But it tests who you are and whether God is first in your life. God doesn’t owe us anything. So do we really love His truth? Do we really love His ways? It’s not meant to be easy. What God is offering us is so incredibly great. To become Elohim in time? To become a part of the God Family, that can’t be taken lightly. That can’t be taken lightly. That’s why we have to come to a deeper appreciation and understanding of what God’s revealing to us right now at this time. That as the sand of the sea, billions, after everything has come to pass, after people have been given a second life, billions are still going to reject God Almighty.

That just almost seems impossible for the human mind to grasp. But I believe it with all my being. I see it easily because of what I’ve experienced, what I’ve seen in human life and in the Church of God and what can happen.

“Death shall they seize, and to the tomb alive they shall go down, for wickedness is in their home, among them abound their sins. But as for me I’ll call on God…” That’s my choice. That’s my choice, and if others don’t come along, and if the rest of the Body doesn’t come along and others don’t come along and have that same desire that’s their choice. I hurt because of it, but I can’t make the choice for them. You can’t make anyone do something that they don’t want to do. We either love God, love His truths, love His laws or not, and that’s a personal thing. That’s a personal thing. It’s something you have to determine and decide. If others in your family don’t want it that’s really going to hurt, but you can’t change that.

You’ve got to be able to say this, “But as for me, this hurts, but I’ll call on God because this is my life.” In time all the hurt and all the tears will be wiped away and we’ll be one great family in the God Family. What a beautiful thing to understand.

“But as for me, I’ll call on God, the Lord will safety give.” It comes from God. Our life is in God’s hands. I love God. I love Christ. I love His way of life. I’m striving to love His people more and more. That’s the way we have to be. That means God has to be first in your thinking no matter what hurt, no matter what suffering, no matter what sacrifice comes along. Is that your heart? Because that’s what it comes down to.

“He’ll hear me when I cry aloud, at morning, noon, and night.” Beautiful. It’s confidence. Because God knows I put Him first He’ll hear me morning, noon, and night. Not everyone is doing that. What can I say? What can I give more? I can’t.

So again, there has been this controversy over Zion and not everybody wants it – and that’s what this is about. Because, you see, God’s going to do this and we can be a part and love it and embrace it or not. If it’s not then there’s not going to be any controversy when it’s all said and done. God is going to do this. God is creating Elohim. Elohim is going to exist, powerfully so, and everything else that has been against it, that has debated it, that has fought against it, whatever it is, they’re just going to go by the wayside because that’s the only way it can be into age lasting life.

Isaiah 66:1—Here is what the Eternal has to say… Again, we know these verses, but boy, oh, boy, I’ll tell you what, they’re moving, their meaningful, they’re powerful, and just like going through Leviticus 23 every year and the holy days and mentioning things that are there that God wants us to remember, He wants us to think about them. He wants us to remember what booths are all about, the Feast of Booths, the Feast of Tabernacles, and why they were told to construct this thing with some branches on it and a seat where you can sit and put some fruit there, and so forth, and then stop and think, how did you get here? How are you so blessed to be able to be here and that you have all this history of your life.

You know, I was thinking last night telling God if all I had was the seventy years and I die I have been so blessed in this physical life. If that is all there was I feel fulfilled. I feel exceedingly blessed to have the experiences I’ve had. But thank God there is so much more, so much more beyond this. Do we see that? That means that we are seeing more and grasping more the physical life that God has given us. And then in His Church? What kind of a value or price can you put on that?

Here is what the Eternal has to say, The heavens are My throne, the earth is My footstool, and where is the house you shall build for Me? So we know these verses but they’re beautiful in what they teach and what they show. And where is the place of My rest? It reveals God’s great desire of something we need to strive to see. He’s wanting to share this with us. He’s wanting to share this with us. This wasn’t shared through time with all the Churches to the degree and the level it is now.

God is so excited that we’re at this point. We can’t imagine. You cannot imagine! You can strive to, and we should be able to see it a little bit – to wait so long and now almost there, to be at that point of the first of the firstfruits…to shut the mouths of all those who have fought against Him through time including Satan and the demonic world – 144,000. “This is what I have created! This is what I have done. Look and behold, they are God, the God Family.” So it puts that controversy to a screeching halt, because Satan has fought against it for so, so long. And here we get to share in it?

For My hand has made all these things, and all those things have been, says the Eternal. But to this one will I look, unto the humble and contrite of spirit, who tremble at My word. Do we all? I fear giving in to human carnal nature. I fear not fighting that because I want what He’s offering. You’ve got to want it with all of your being to where He is first. He’s first above everything and everyone.

Hebrews 12. I’m just going to read these quickly. You can jot it down. Hebrews 12:22 – But you have come unto Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. And to an innumerable company of angels. So that’s thrown out here as well, this huge company of angels. But to grasp what Zion is – greater, more glorious, more awesome – what God is constructing, and to realize that here at this stage in Hebrews when it was written and even now we’re in the Church, we have the impregnation of God’s spirit, we’re, as Mr. Armstrong so eloquently spoke on these things, talking about the picture that he was able to paint, it’s like being in the womb of a mother and we’re there but we’re not yet born but we’re begotten and we’re waiting for that birth. It’s a beautiful thing to understand the excitement that God has, of that birth that’s getting ready to take place after striving and working with mankind. That patience for 6,000 years! But He knows the process. He knows why it has to be that way. He looks forward to the time that finally He can give them that life.

1 Peter 2:6—Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner stone, elect and precious. Whoever believes on him shall not be confounded. Not like the Protestant world, you know, “Have you accepted Jesus?” I’d just love to be asked that one. I’d say, “You mean Joshua?” No, I’m sorry. They don’t understand, but we’re so blessed to know that now. I mean, I feel so free of all that. It’s like, finally this cleared the slate. We’re not a part of any of it, thank God. He’s totally removed us now. So we understand it’s Joshua.

It starts with a beginning, Passover. Thankful, grateful he’s our Passover, that every time I sin and do stupid things and I can go before God and say, “Father, help.” When you do those things you’ve got to be genuine and honest before God. You want to conquer and overcome and be honest to God and honest to God about what you are living. Because He knows it anyway, but He wants you to be honest with yourself so that you can begin to work with it and you cry out for forgiveness. What a beautiful thing.

Revelation 14:1 it says, Then I saw and looked at a Lamb who stood on Mount Zion. It begins with Christ, the King of kings, our High Priest, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand having his Father’s name written in their foreheads. The mind. The mind that’s been transformed. That’s what it’s about. It’s about this mind that has been changed and now given spirit at one with God forever.

So again, this is all about what God is creating in His family, in Elohim, and it’s known by many names and descriptions throughout the Bible. They’re all beautiful. Jerusalem, Zion, Mount Zion, Holy Jerusalem, Israel, on and on it goes, the Temple of God. It’s good to be reminded of how incredible our calling is.

Ephesians 2:18—For through him, speaking of Joshua, we both have access by one spirit unto the Father. To be in unity and agreement with God and it’s about an order that comes from God. It’s about government. It’s about yielding ourselves to and sacrificing and grasping the importance of this unity and oneness with God.

I want to mention something that happened in another area, that it came up, I guess, while people were eating. But it’s current so it demonstrates something that is important to understand. It was about some who had been together, I guess, and I don’t know who they were and I don’t even want to know and I don’t care, but it was about eating bone marrow in food.

A long time ago questions were asked about that and I said no. Okay? No, we’re not going to do that. So God says don’t eat blood. Now, whether I’m right or wrong is one hundred percent not even a matter of an issue. But because I’ve said it as an apostle to God’s Church, just as much as the matters of make-up going back and forth in the Church with Mr. Armstrong before he died – because he did, “It’s okay.” “No, it’s not.” “Yes, it is.” Okay, what is it? It’s government. It’s government! And we support it as soon as he says it – “Yes, sir!” because it’s yes to God, “because I understand the importance of government and having unity and government and order so that we all do the same thing.”

See, when I make a choice and a decision I have to rely on God and I ask God for help. Then I have to make the choice and I have to rest with that. There is no one to tell me, but I have to make those choices in prayer before God. So on certain principles that are there I’ve said no. So we don’t do it in God’s Church. We have to grasp here what’s important in all this is a matter of government and that we’re all in unity because that’s what God wants. He wants a spirit and a mind that desires to be in harmony and unity with the order that He’s placed within His Church. That’s how we’re judged. Okay?

So I think it’s a good demonstration of that because different things can come up. It’s a small thing, isn’t it? I mean, how often have you been confronted with that? You know, I don’t know that I’ve been confronted with that. Maybe twenty years ago, fifteen years ago, twelve years ago? Maybe one of the first times I came to Europe, I don’t know, because you tend, I think, in some of the foods over here, they tend to scrape the marrow out of the bone or whatever. I don’t even know how it’s done. It just sounds bad to me because God says don’t eat the blood. That’s what makes your blood. That’s the strongest form of blood in your body. It’s the strongest form you can have, marrow is. That’s where they call this stuff when they take it out of your hip and then they want to inject it back. Well, anyway, the point being the reason they get it from there is because that’s the strongest that you can get, the most condensed.

Anyway, doesn’t matter if in the Millennium, Christ says, “No, it’s okay,” then it’s okay. But in God’s Church right now it’s absolutely not okay. It’s government. Somebody had to make the choice. God gave that to me as a responsibility. I accept it. Not a problem. Now, then we all have to decide do we accept it and support it. So that’s the important thing, is to understand government – unity and oneness with God regardless of anything else, okay?

So I think it’s a good demonstration of that to show that even in the smallest of things. So questions come up, then maybe what about throwing a bone in, you know, like a chicken leg in the soup and whatever because it’s going to have marrow in the middle of it? That’s fine. Cook it like that just don’t cut into the thing and scrape it all out so you can have a stronger concentration of it in your food or your bone marrow pâté. I don’t know what they do with it. Something off of a cow and a big bone and you have it cut down the middle, I don’t know, and start scraping the stuff out. Oh, novel idea. Let’s use this as kind of a delicacy and charge more for it and kind of get this as a going thing. I’m sorry, I’m being a little facetious, but sometimes things are done for crazy reasons.

Harmony. Unity. Decisions. Choices. So I think that fits in here in talking about some of this.

So again here, I want to read this, Ephesians 2:18—For through him (Joshua) we both have access by one spirit unto the Father. One spirit. That means so much because it’s about agreement and unity and harmony and a desire for God’s spirit and being in unity and harmony.

Now, therefore, you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God. He just continues to elevate and helps us to see what we’ve been called to. To be a part of the household of God and the world isn’t? To have a process that’s begun in us that’s unique, that’s important to God as a part of accomplishing this process of what He’s doing, and the more we yield to it then we’re a part. We’re a part of God succeeding. We’re a part as we yield ourselves to God being victorious and succeeding in this controversy over Zion. That’s what I want. As far as my choice and decision He’s succeeded. I want it. I desire it. I want to be in that Family. I want to be a part of Mount Zion, to be in Elohim. I’m going to fight for it whatever that takes, sacrifice whatever is required, whatever is needed. That needs to be our mind and our spirit.

And are/are being built up on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Somebody had to make choices and decisions along the way. Were they all correct? Absolutely not because we’re frail, weak human beings. But for the sake of unity and because they’re striving to use the present truth they have at any moment in time, because they all did, and to make judgments according to that, which they all did because their heart and mind was one of being in unity with God. Why would they make some other kind of decision?

Except someone who came along who wasn’t an apostle, who began to have his own motivations and desires for leading something back to whatever he wanted to have in the Church because he listened to his son and some others who were close to him and in time got pulled away more and more. Which, actually, means he just kind of went in the direction he was always in anyway. It’s his mind, one that came from Satan. God makes it clear where that mind came from and what he yielded to. That’s why he’s called the son of perdition, the man of sin.

There’s no apology for that. It is what it is. He did what he did in a vicious, ugly, mean, disgusting, hideous way and hurt thousands and thousands, and probably is responsible, in what he did, in helping to lead some to decisions and choices that means that they will never have eternal life but have committed the unpardonable sin because he helped them in that process, to move in that direction.

The human mind is a delicate thing. That’s why God calls it murder. Hatred is murder. Not loving a brother the way God says we should love them is murder as far as God’s concerned. It’s the spilling of blood because we’re talking about something worse than physical murder. We’re talking about something that’s spiritual.

Because this life, this controversy over Zion is precious to God. He’s persevered it for so long. He’s been striving for so long to bring this about and we’re blessed to be a part of it. But not everyone will be here next year.

…in whom all the building is fitly framed together and is growing in a holy temple in the Lord. I was just thinking, why do we play such games with God? Well, sometimes because we become blind. We can’t see anymore.

You know, the Apostasy, before it happened the Church was asleep. I was asleep. That was a hard thing to acknowledge. Like, “I was kind of slumbering off, but asleep?” Well, you know, it’s the same thing. Slumbering, sleeping? But I just had a hard time with it because it just seemed this is so bad. And it was! But we all did it. Incredible!

Sometimes when you’re in that state you just can’t see, and the longer you’ve done it the harder it is to see. So when you hear things from here, from me, sometimes even some of those things can be a big agitation. It’s like, “He’s talking about me!” Well, how do you know? Well, because you know what you’re doing. That’s when you want to cry out to God and ask God for help, “Help me to see, help me to hear what’s being said because I desire, I want what You’re offering.”

…in whom you also are being built together for a habitation of God through the spirit. What an incredible thing to understand God’s great desire. He desires to dwell in us. He doesn’t want us to resist Him. He wants to give us of His holy spirit and to have a fellowship that is so far beyond friendship you can’t compare them. That is a bond, a fellowship of the power of God’s holy spirit in us, dwelling in us and we in Him that goes beyond the ability to express in words.

So the expression, "The controversy over Zion"? Again, it’s about what God is constructing, it’s about what God is creating, and it’s about His ability to do so. There is no controversy in it when it’s all said and done, but from the perspective of others, whether it be Satan and a demonic world and carnal human beings, because people really don’t like God’s way, and even when we come in the Church there are people who just really don’t like everything about God’s way. Wow!

Isaiah 34:1—All you nations, draw near to hear; listen, you people, and let the earth hear; in all that is in it, the world, and all the things that come forth from it. For the indignation of the Eternal is against all nations. It’s what’s coming, a time of judgment on a plane and a level the world has never known. There are two great periods of judgment in scripture spoken of over and over and over again – the end of 6,000 years and God unleashes and allows incredible destruction on the earth, powerful judgment. There was, obviously, one before when God did what He did in the time of Noah, but as far as what’s written in the prophets and all the things later on after that it’s about two periods of time. We’re coming to that point when God is going to allow and speed up a process, mercifully so, so it doesn’t drag on, so it doesn’t kill billions more and near the edge of destroying all. He intervenes at a specific moment in time that will have the greatest impact on the minds of human beings in order to help initiate a change to where they will start to listen and begin to yield as far as the larger groups of people.

Then the next one is that one about the sand of the sea when Satan is let loose for a short time to clean up everything, to bring it all together to manifest what’s against God, to gather together in God’s great plan to be destroyed. God’s judgment.

For the indignation of the Eternal is against all nations, or has come upon all nations, is what it’s about. So it’s about that judgment coming. …and His fury against all their armies. Especially what’s coming. Because they’re destroying the earth in horrifying ways. You throw that stuff into the atmosphere, into the skies, into the heavens, I don’t see another way, but God’s going to have to super naturally clean it up for us to even exist even after that’s happened.

He has utterly destroyed them and He has given them over to slaughter. So God allows that. That’s what human beings want, that’s what human beings get, just help speed up the process and then control it, and then at this point stop it.

Verse 6—The sword of the Eternal is drenched in blood, it is covered with fatness as the blood of lambs and goats, and the fat of kidneys of rams. I don’t know if you’ve ever been around animals when they are butchered and things that take place, and you have a really sharp knife and what it’s like when that fat begins to collect on the knife and it just kind of drags and it doesn’t have the same as what when you first took the first cut. It’s what it’s talking about. It’s like there is so much and it’s building up on the knife making it harder, making it more difficult to do what is being done. It gets very descriptive about some of these things.

The Eternal offers up a sacrifice, means “as to slaughter an animal,” in Bozrah, a fortified city. Nothing can stand against God. When it comes time, nothing is going to stand against God. There is no controversy in this. There is no controversy in what God can accomplish and what God can do. No one can stand against Him. No one can prevent Him. We just have to make choices whether we want to be a part of it or not and whether we’re willing to fight for it.

…and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea. It’s a word that has to do with “red,“ ”earthy.” It’s a word with “Adam” coming out of the earth where it was taken from, created from. It’s almost an expression here showing a term for mankind, literally. So it’s using the same term about Adam and using a location, a name, a city, a region, if you will, and basically using it in this respect. “And a great slaughter of mankind.” That’s really what it’s all about.

Verse 7—And the wild oxen shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; so again, it’s in reference to what is sacrificed or slaughtered and brought down, the mighty and the strong, that God’s going to do. So it’s showing that God is the one bringing them down. He’s going to humble mankind in a way and a scale that’s never been done. That’s why we have to understand and hate haughtiness and pride and any kind of resistance to God.

…and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust saturated with fatness. This expression is about simply making their fatness into the dust. God has the power. Who are we to question God? Who are we to, anyone, to think they can resist God? Who is it that thinks they can get by with sin and somehow have fellowship? You might have some friendship but you’re not having fellowship. You’re not experiencing what can bind you together closer in unity and oneness. What a horrible thing if it’s just friendship, because friendships, certain things can happen and they can go by the wayside.

Fellowship? That’s more precious. God’s in it. God’s in both, and if it’s a matter of fellowship then that ability to stay there is going to be better and more fully enhanced and you’re going to know it inside more fully. This is something beyond friendship that we have and if you see that and know that then what a beautiful thing here if we hold on to that and desire that and want that.

Verse 8—For it is the day of the Eternal’s vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy… So it’s the time. Whether it be a full year, whatever it is, the day, a year, whatever that period is that God gives there are those two periods of time of great vengeance upon those who don’t choose Him. Can’t make them. You can’t make them want it. He loves them all. He loves them far more than what we ever have, everyone that’s given an opportunity, all of His creation. But if there are those who just don’t want it then you can’t make someone want it. You can’t give it to someone you love. They’ve got to desire it and fight for it themselves.

For in the day of the Eternal’s vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy, or the dispute, or the strife of Zion. So again here, over and over again here, some of those things discussed by God and given to us.

I’m going to speed forward a little bit and jump up to Isaiah 14. I don’t know how you can go through some things at a Feast without addressing some of this because these were some of the greatest of lessons that are recorded for us to this point in time. Then add to that the Apostasy and we can see it even more clearly, that spirit, that mind.

So again, this word “controversy” is a word that has a meaning that carries with it the meaning of “strife” or “debate.” It’s that mind of the individual so long ago who was called Lucifer to do what he did. The longer this has gone on in time that we’ve been given to see and understand some of these things we grow in our ability to grasp this more deeply, as time goes along as well.

You talk about strife and debate and where it comes from, you know, people who don’t agree or don’t want certain things. And no, there isn’t, with God, there is no strife or debate. There might be with us in our thinking in certain things in life, but not with God. So He’s letting us know, “You better not have strife or debate in your mind in your thinking in how you deal with things because I’m not going to allow it. Who are you? Who are you to stand before your Creator God and determine something and decide something when I have given this to you?” Awesome, to understand that.

Isaiah 14:12—How have you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! He was given such incredible responsibility before God. Sometimes great responsibility, you have to be careful. I think of all the evangelists that have been in God’s Church in headquarters in Pasadena and what happened to them. My wife and I thought of maybe three or so, four who may have come through all that. A lot of them! That’s where this being wants to strike the hardest. Sometimes these are the hardest of things to deal with in one’s mind.

How have you fallen, O Lucifer, son of the morning! To be the light bringer, to be the one who is given an incredible responsibility amongst the angelic realm, to do some of the things he was going to do, that God had given him? He was really raised up high – the highest next to God at that time. Higher than the other archangels in the sense of what he was given. God makes that very clear. “You were the height of perfection in everything I created.” He was given the greatest of responsibility and opportunity.

How have you been cut down to the ground – cut down, your power taken from you. Do you know why these things have happened? He doesn’t. He doesn’t care. But we are to learn from this. …you who have weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars, above the angels. That’s what this is about. …of God. I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High. Incredible!

Now, at whatever point it was he came to a point where he became so deceived in his own thinking that he thought he could have something that he really couldn’t have. One day God will show all this to us totally, the hardest thing for him to have ever addressed, not human nature, but selfish nature, because that’s what he had. He had selfish inward nature, the way of get, that he wanted for himself, which is the exact opposite of God’s spirit and God’s mind, and whatever point in time he learned that God had a plan of something greater than the angelic realm, to become God? Elohim? The God Family? That was more than he could bear. It was more than he could bear, that’s quite obvious.

He’s hated mankind because of God’s plan for him. “That, that weakness, physical, selfish?” He saw as soon as it was created. In him there was a controversy. “They’re going to become greater than us? Why should they have that? Look at what we have done. Look at how long we have done this! Billions of years? How do you measure that? All the things we’ve been a part of in Your creation and You’re going to give it to something like that?! Why not us? Why not give us more power? Why not give me more power?” That’s what he did, a mind and how it thought.

“I will be like the Most High.” Now, we don’t think that way, but we do things, we can do things. That’s idolatry. That’s why God teaches us little things, the smallest things in life, like I even mentioned about marrow. It doesn’t matter how big or how small it might be, if we raise something up before God in importance, in the big things and in the little things—and we generally do it in smaller things in our life—that’s where we’re tried and tested. That’s where some of the greatest of battles come from.

God wants us to understand, “I want to know what’s in you.” Incredible! It’s not that hard to begin to see where some of these things came from, a being that began to disagree with what God was going to create as soon as they found out about it. Zion? Greater than the angelic realm? He wanted to be like God, there’s no doubt about it. “I will rise above…” Incredible.

Ezekiel 28:11—Moreover the word of the Eternal came unto me, saying, Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, a word that means “strength.” It’s very obvious when it goes on here it’s not talking about some physical king, though regions have meaning to it. But he’s showing this being of strength. He was known for the strength he had in the angelic realm, Lucifer was. …and say to him, Thus says the Eternal, You seal up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. He was the height of His spirit creation, if you will. Not spiritual, but spirit. That which is spiritual comes from God and they never had that. They benefitted from what God said, in that sense that came from them from Him that communicated to them, but they’ve never had access to God’s holy spirit. That’s an awesome thing to understand.

You have been in Eden, the garden of God. In the best that there is. “You’ve had the best of opportunities. I placed you in the pinnacle of all this. You’ve had these opportunities.” I think about us and it’s hard for us to grasp how much we’ve been given because we’ve been given more than any other human beings ever have, except one. That’s saying a lot! We have been given more in an age where there are many billions on this earth, and you think of all the billions who have ever lived and we’ve been given more than all of them? What could God say to us if we resist, if we don’t grab hold of what He’s offering us? Do you think there is greater judgment with that? Because there is. To whom more is given…  It’s just the way it is.

You have been in Eden, the garden, if you will, “the enclosure, the surrounding” of God. Every precious stone was your covering… So it mentions all these things that we relate to physically in life and see wealth. That’s what God is communicating, “You have been surrounded with all this wealth.” I think of us. 21 Truths – wealth, incredible wealth if it’d stopped there alone and our ability to see it as being wealth, as being great riches, more important than any physical thing I have or want or would want. Then since then to have so much more, things that others wrote about. John was the only one that wrote about most of those things and Paul wrote about some of it in Thessalonians.

Then we experience it and we see it come to pass? Who are we to live in this age, to have our minds open to so much, to experience things that are at the pinnacle, the height of what God is creating? Do we grasp that value and that wealth? Because if we really did we would all be here next year! If we all did with all of our being see the wealth that’s involved in this, because it means that it’s so much greater than anything that you have in your physical carnal life! What do you have that’s more important than God? What do you have that’s more important than the truth? What do you have that pulls you away from fellowship in God’s Church, that pulls you away from people in God’s Church?

We are powerfully blessed to have ability where we’re able to have it, to experience that, to have that, and yet it seems like that’s so hard to get through our minds sometimes because we begin to see people and we begin to see differences and we begin to see (if we’re not careful), see, that’s that carnal selfish nature that begins to come out, and we see faults. “They have…they have faults! They’re not like me and they don’t like the same things I like so I don’t really want to spend whatever…” Give me a break! Don’t see the value. Don’t see what God is creating. Don’t appreciate that fellowship.

See what we were starting to talk about at the beginning of the Feast? Do we see God or do we just start seeing human beings and have our little differences here and there and we’ll go to Sabbath services and we’ll make nice and put on a smiley face and kind of be happy to be together for a little while? “Wow, awesomely, richly blessed – don’t deserve it but have been given it. Thank you God in heaven, for I am exceedingly undeserving. But that’s beside the point. You are the one who has raised me up and given me everything that I have. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, and thank you for Your Body, the Body of Christ where we can grow,” because this is how we’re measured. This is the primary area we are measured. And if we don’t value it, appreciate it, and love it, we are missing the mark. At some point this year, next year, we won’t be around. This Body will be cleansed.

You seal up the sum, full of wisdom and beauty, all these things, all these riches… the workmanship of your tabrets, of your pipes, a term that’s like settings of a jeweler. In other words, the intricacy that went into your creation to making you, the perfection that’s in you. He’s showing here what “I” made, spirit, a spirit being, a marvel, in a spirit creation, the height of a being in that spirit creation. It was prepared in the day that you were created.

You were the anointed cherub who covers; and I had set you so. “I placed you there.” God places each one of us here. He gives us an opportunity above that opportunity – above and beyond that opportunity of being the archangel. We have opportunity to be in Elohim, God’s Family! There is no comparison. So how do you think God looks upon such things, and us spiritually, do we understand the measuring that takes place? We need to because this is what it is. Do we love where God has placed us, in a garden as He has spiritually?

I had set you so. Far more have left even though God set them so, called them, and in time left where they’d been set. See, those are the greatest lessons of life that people have to learn. It’s about God. It’s about government. It’s about His creation. It’s about loving what He does or not, understanding the resistance that we have. Because in God’s eyes there is no controversy. He knows what He’s accomplishing and doing and creating. But in the minds of those who resist can He do it? “I don’t think He can. Those things are going to become Elohim?” It’s just mind-boggling to him. And see, sometimes we get caught up in those things? Them? Him? Her? They’re weak. They have problems. They have faults. Well, join the club. We’re all in the same one. We’re all in the same blessed club, exceedingly blessed.

You were upon the holy mountain of God, in the very government of God. You have walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Right there with all the other angelic beings in government, in the height of that government. You were perfect in your ways from the day that you were created, until iniquity was found in you. See, that’s nothing like us though because we’ve always had iniquity, and that’s what we have to come to see. We’re just full of sin. We’re just a bag of sin and until you get rid of your selfishness you’re always going to have sin. You’re always going to do things, think things that aren’t right, and if we could really see it, it just happens every day. But you can’t see that. There are times when people can’t see that. “I sin every day? I think I do?” Yes, you do. You can’t live, you can’t function, you can’t be awake –you’re sinning. You’re going to have sin. Please come to see that. Ask God for help to see that, to see your selfish nature and the way you think.

See, because there are going to be times when everything isn’t perfect for you, when everything doesn’t work out well, and if you can start seeing that just in the smallest of ways you are blessed, because if you can see them in the small ways then you can really start seeing them in the big ways and the things that really need to be cleaned up the fastest and the most. Because at some point there’s just something you’re not totally comfortable with. Wherever it is you’re a little bit uncomfortable… “I’m not comfortable.”

Yeah, I think about the windows. I’m sorry; we’re not all comfortable all the time. Right now I am. And you want to know something? That’s the most important thing. If we’re going to be fed then this Body is going to get comfort as much as possible because it has everything to do with my ability to give. Seriously, when I get hot, when I get really hot, there are times when I get hot I just don’t function as well. Things don’t work as well. I’m not comfortable. That’s right. It’s true. I don’t think as well. It’s amazing I can think at all, but I thank God I can.

But we can’t all have everything so there is going to be discomfort with all kinds of things in life, whatever it might be. The temperature in the room – a simple thing. With what you eat or maybe can’t eat. Or how later you’re up or how hard it is to get up in the morning, and those attitudes that you start, as soon as you wake up, that you may have to start wrestling with, that everything isn’t going your way, whatever that might be. I’ll guarantee, there have been plenty of things happen at this Feast of Tabernacles where everything didn’t go your way. Are you a human being? Do you have life? There are going to be times when everything didn’t go your way.

We got rear ended yesterday. It wasn’t big. Well, it probably is in Edwin’s mind because it’s his car. I’m sorry! Anyway, the fellow that did it was really good and got out and apologized and gave all the information he did and he’s looking for a parking place and he just didn’t see us stopping there. Anyway, things happen. But you know what? At the moment it happened I was really uncomfortable – so much so something slipped out of my mouth. Oh…! And I did. I’m a human being. That’s one I don’t generally cross. But I did yesterday. Anyway, the point being is we’re all human and we have weaknesses and we do things and we have to continually fight.

Anyway, incredible story here about Lucifer, about Satan. By the multitude of your merchandise, your trafficking. So what was he trafficking, trading? Just little bits of displeasure, little bits of divisiveness. Sometimes some things can seem so innocent when they’re stated and they can be said to someone to plant something to see how they’re going to react to it, and because there is something you’re battling with and you’re not in agreement with and you’re wanting to see where they’re coming from and maybe plant a doubt in their mind about something done, said, whatever, about someone else. It’s like then if they respond in like manner about a certain situation or someone else or whatever, then you can start getting this conversation and you can start talking about them, you know, someone else in the Body and sharing this.

Anyway, trafficking in divisiveness, controversy, strife, division, debate. They’re all sick. This is what he did with the angelic realm. This is why a third of the angelic realm went with him. This is what he was trading. It wasn’t gold. It wasn’t silver. It wasn’t some spiritual bricks of some sort that were worth a lot. It was what comes out of the mind and what comes out of the mouth. It’s about power.

Well, we’re to learn from those kinds of lessons very powerfully so. We’ll just wrap it up. There is a lot about that being that can be learned, because you see, that’s why God made us this way, to learn about that being and what he did, to understand from the outset we’re not good. To see from the beginning we have selfishness. In our calling we have to come to see that. The quicker we see it, the more we see it, the better off we are because that’s why God made us physical and subject to “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” so that we could have a big dose of this in a carnal physical life over a short period of time (thank God).

I can’t even imagine those who lived for hundreds of years back in the beginning, because I would not want to live with what I know now for hundreds of years in this pile. I wouldn’t. It would be torment because of what I know. They didn’t know those things. So they were able to live longer lives.

But carnal, selfish – God wants us to see that. He wants us to see the choices that this being made, to see this is your spirit right now. This is your spirit as a human being. He is that spirit! We were made that way, to have selfishness, to not have God’s kind of love or to be neutral like the angelic realm was and they were just given truth and then in time made choices. We’re different. We just start out bad and we finish bad – with a big change. If we go through it it’s because of God’s spirit and the transformation of the mind, but there is still going to be some stuff inside of that mind that hasn’t been cleaned.

Because that’s not God’s intent. It’s to transform the mind, but because you’re still in that physical body you’re always going to have times that things just aren’t going your way! They just aren’t. That does something to the human mind. Selfish. Thank God He gives us victory and we can conquer and overcome to a level where He says, “Now I know you, and now you don’t have to keep being a prisoner inside that.” Great! Bring it on!

Psalm 51. Oh, Psalm 132. We’ll go to 51 in a minute. I’m going to take time to do this.

Psalm 132:11— The Eternal has sworn/promised in truth unto David; He will not turn from it; I will set upon your throne from the fruit of your body. So again here, about Joshua. Then there is that physical mixed in it as well. If your children will keep My covenant and My  testimony that I shall teach them their children shall also sit upon your throne forever more/ever more. So the point being is here for those who yield, to those who have opportunity there is a kingly line even physically here. But there is going to be the one. There is going to be the one that everything is going to become established upon when it comes to David.

For the Eternal has chosen Zion; He has desired it. It’s that great desire of God. God’s great desire – it’s all about Elohim. He has desired it for His habitation. It’s amazing once we come to know and understand those kinds of things, that this is God’s habitation, this is where God desires to dwell. It starts in us, in carnal, physical human beings. But this isn’t good enough, being in carnal human beings, because, you see, we can still rebel, we can still turn against God. Ministers by the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds can still get up and teach their own thing contrary to what they were taught by Mr. Armstrong. The only thing that can be accomplished is when it’s in Elohim, all of us a part of Elohim. Then…then it’s forever.

This is My rest for ever. Here will I dwell, for I have desired it. Awesome. Zion.

Now Psalm 51:1—Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your loving kindness, according to the multitude of your tender mercies blot out My transgressions. What a prayer to have regularly, continually in our life, to be thankful to God that He forgives us, to be thankful He’s given us the opportunity to have a Passover so that we can have a relationship with Him, a true one, a genuine relationship.

Wash me thoroughly from iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. I hope you have prayers like that from time to time that are stronger than at others, where you’re asking God to please help you to see those things that you aren’t able to see, to see the presumptuous sins of life, to see that which is getting in the way of Him being able to bless us more, and getting in the way of our being able to grow more and be transformed more.  Just to cry out to God. He’s merciful and He wants to give us that help!

Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions. That’s where it begins. We have to be honest to God. Sometimes before we can even do that we have to ask Him to show them to us, to show us our blind spots. Because if you’re sluggish and sleepy you’ve gotten to a point where you can’t even see it anymore. So ask God, “To help me see the things that I’m not seeing that are choking off Your spirit because I don’t want that.” None of us should want that. We should want what He has to offer us. That’s the only way some are going to be able to come through this.

For I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is always before me. Amen to that one. It’s always there. I can’t go through a day without having selfishness come out. Slap me silly but then I’m going to be slapped so silly I won’t be able to think right at all. Seriously! I’m a heap of selfishness and I know it. And I hate it. That’s what we have to do, we have to hate it when it comes out as it comes out. Because it comes out in the little things. The big things we’re able to see at times – and we still ignore those – but I’ll tell you what, if you can see them in every facet of your life as you’re going along and any moment that something comes along. I’ve gotten to the point where certain things I think, “There you are, selfishness! You’re not getting your way…la dee dah dee dah.” So if you see me walking around doing that you know what I’m doing. “Oh, you’re not getting your way anymore.”

I’m making fun of myself when I do that and I don’t do it quite like that fully, but yesterday I was a couple times. It’s like, “There you go, you’re not getting your way. You idiot!” So you ask for help, “I don’t want that.” But we have bucket loads of it; just we don’t see it so often.

For I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is always before me. Against You, and You only have I sinned. What a horrible thing. When we have certain things that pop back up in our life? I told that to God as well during the Feast here. “I have sinned against You and I don’t want that!” Because that’s what sin is anyway. It’s against God. That means more when you really feel that and you really realize this is so ugly, I don’t want to sin against God.

…You only have I sinned and done evil in your sight: that you may be found just when you speak, and blameless when you judge. That’s beautiful. God is glorious. God is righteous. When we judge we better make sure, strive to make sure it’s according to God’s will and be in agreement with God and everything else in life.

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, when begotten of God where were we? Brought forth in iniquity – just piles of sin. We had to start with the big ones, you know, the Sabbath, tithing, stealing from God, robbing from God, holidays to holy days and on and on it goes. We start the process so God brings us forth while we’re in iniquity. It’s a spiritual thing.

…and in sin my mother, the Church, conceived me. We were conceived, brought into God’s Church, the mother of us all. We’re in, spiritually in the womb waiting for birth.

Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, to be truthful to ourselves. One of the hardest things for people to be able to come to, to acknowledge what we are, to see what we are, to loathe what we are so that we’ll change, to acknowledge our grumpiness, our not being fulfilled or happy. You think, “What a crock! I’m not happy about something? I’m not comfortable? Well, boo hoo.” I mean, that’s the way we should be able to see our nature.

It’s disgusting, it really is, because we’re the only ones in control of that and yet we blame others. Whenever you strike out at someone else, whenever you feel something bad toward someone else, it’s not them, it’s you! It’s you! That’s hard for us to see that because someone else made us unhappy, “Someone else’s fault I don’t feel good. Someone else is keeping me from doing something I want to do. Who is that?” Anyway, that’s the way we are.

Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom. God blesses us in that, in growing.

Purge me with hyssop. This is a rough cleansing. Fine, bring it on. I remember first coming in the Church and the thing I couldn’t get out of my mind was, “Take the strands of my brain,” go in and get a bunch of strands, “pull it out and just take a knife and scrape that you know what off of it. I don’t want it – want to get away from it.”

Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. No matter what we go through. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. I want God to do it. I want God to show me where I’m wrong. I want God to help me to see. That means I want to be able to see so I can grow and so that I can be thoroughly cleansed. That’s what we cry out for.

Make me to hear joy and gladness. That’s what it’s about. Not grumpiness and unhappiness and being upset with someone else. That’s coming from selfishness. So when we’re filled with God’s mind and God’s spirit and God’s love then this is what we want – joy, to be able to rejoice at the Feast all the time. Not to have any moments. Not to have anything happen where there is anything that flares up between someone else in the Body in a fellowship where God dwells.

Make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones you have broken may rejoice. Whatever it takes, break me. Help me to see it. Help me to come out of it.

Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart. That’s what we want. …O God; and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence. These are the things that should reverberate through our mind and our being, that we don’t want to leave God’s Church, we don’t want to stray away from the truth, we don’t want to be in a wrong spirit. We want to have a fullness and a happiness and a joy in our lives, and especially with everyone in the Body of Christ, God’s people…God’s people.

…Your presence, and do not take Your holy spirit from me. What a horrifying thing. It’s happened to thousands upon thousands upon thousands. I truly believe I probably know into the thousands of people who have had that happen to them. Personally known them, been with them.

Restore to me the joy of Your salvation; and uphold me by Your generous spirit. God is so merciful to us.

Verse 18, Psalm 51, and you can read the rest on your own. It makes a good prayer. It’s a good thing to use for a prayer on occasion, to see our unity and oneness with God. Do good in your good pleasure to Zion. I want to be a part of that. God’s going to do it. It’s going to get accomplished, but I want to be a part of it and I want to see others be a part of it. And build the walls of Jerusalem. Then you shall be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, you know, when we are a part, when we’re in it, when we’re a part of that construction and we yield ourselves to it. Then God is going to be pleased with the sacrifices because then they’ll be real sacrifices we make, genuine things that are done for the right reasons, not out of selfishness, but genuinely giving to God, sacrificing for others or whatever it might be for the right purpose, sacrificing “my” way, see, sacrificing “my” comfort for someone else.

Then you shall be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then they shall offer bulls on your altar. What’s that mean? Well, we want to grow and grow to the point where in our spiritual lives we’re offering up everything and the greatest of things to God Almighty, all of us.