Ordinations & Baptism – Pt. 3

Ron Weinland

Jan. 16, 2010

Today is Part 3 of the sermon series entitled, Ordinations & Baptism; Ordinations and Baptism.  As a recap, last Sabbath we began by focusing on the purpose of the Church-wide fast that will be held at the first Sabbath of February; February 6. And again, just to make a quick note about that: it doesn’t have to be fully within the Sabbath.  You can do it within Friday and partially into the Sabbath; it’d be good to have part of your fast into the Sabbath, either into the first part of it, or the latter part of it, but if you’re not able to at that point in time, that’s fine.  Some people overseas and the like, it makes it a little more difficult for them, but that’s the primary time of the fast – February 6.  Sometimes, especially people who have been in the Church in times past before the apostasy took place; when we think of fast, a lot of times we think of Atonement and we think of a strict 24 hour period: so when I mention a particular date we think sundown to sundown... unless you’re specifically asked to do that.  This time we’re not being asked to do that; so just basically a 24 hour period like any fast that you would have yourself.  But again, that is coming up on February 6 and we referred to that last Sabbath.

I’d like to recap a little bit there because it is about the subject matter of the sermons we’ve been covering concerning the removing of the curse that’s been upon women since the time of sin that began with Adam and Eve.  And it isn’t just because of Adam and Eve. The point being is all human beings would have committed the sin.  Okay?  The same things would have happened if it wasn’t them, it wouldn’t have mattered who it was.  Human nature is human nature and that’s what Satan began to work with and that’s the whole point.  There is a particular church that tries to blame everything upon Adam and Eve, it started with them.  No, it’s not their fault; it’s everyone’s fault, we’re all guilty.  Just like the Church that was scattered, it was everyone’s fault; everyone had sin and we all shared the blame in the apostasy that took place, in that respect, in the sense of how we responded to God, falling asleep and so forth.  God warning us over and over again to be alert, to be on guard and we fulfilled Laodicea in the sense that we fell asleep and had to be spewed out of God’s mouth.

I want to go back to recap a little bit of this subject matter as we’re preparing for the fast because some do not yet quite understand what the removing of the curse involves.  We need to have balance in that and think about it; it is a maturing process we’re going through and we’re learning as God is revealing some of these things to us.  First, you must understand why any curse exists; it’s because of sin.  The removal of the curse concerning the mind of men toward women and even of how women think of themselves, and toward men as well is all a part of that process; and one of becoming one with God.  And God is offering that now, He’s allowing us to learn more so that we can become more at one with Him and I’ll read the post in a moment here, which a lot of you have already read, but a lot of people don’t have access to the internet and some of you may not have seen it yet so I am going to read it as well because there’s some comments I want to make about this process.

There is a process of revelation of truth and learning that we can receive from God about ourselves because that’s how we draw closer to God – we learn about ourselves.  It’s a process of repentance on our part in yielding to God, becoming more at one with God.  It’s very much about ourselves, each and every one of us.  And I don’t want anyone to think because they’ve been in the Church for a long time, or even any period of time before the apostasy, that this isn’t a part of your thinking, isn’t a part of your mind, because it is.  God is blessing us in being able to have more of that removed so we can learn more about ourselves and the nature of sin and to understand how much has really been placed in our minds concerning what began a long, long time ago; it hasn’t been removed.  It is an ongoing process of how God is going to remove it; and it’s through learning, it’s through understanding, it’s through conquering self and growing closer to God.  Sometimes we get this concept that it can be like the waving of a magic wand and all of a sudden everything is gone, or that somehow the nature of man or the nature of woman is all of a sudden changed by God.  It’s not about that.  God is not going to change the nature of man or woman in this – okay?  That’s not what this is about.  It’s not about changing a natural drive that people have, that human beings have.  That’s not what it’s about.  It’s about how we use what God has given to us, it’s about how we think as a result of what God gives us that counts, and so we’re growing in that and all a part of getting ready for a new age, of living life better in a better age; and it’s about change, it’s about repentance, it’s about understanding ourselves and our own minds and as we grow God is giving us more understanding of how we think.

As we learn, we repent of our sin and fight against our own human nature that causes even this curse, the results of sin.  So again, the removing of the curse is not about changing the physical make up of man or woman, nor of removing those natural attractions that exist in both.  It’s about healing of the mind.  Awesome!  A healing of the mind.  Over and over again I think of how there was a time within the Church – we didn’t understand the full message, the full meaning of those things that were contained in what God gave over and over again about healing in the Bible; and we tended to look at the beginning phase of something to do with that which is physical – physical healing.  And the Bible, especially in the Old Testament and the prophesies are not about physical healing of a physical body.  It’s about the mind.  The healing of the mind is the most awesome, most inspiring, most exciting thing that God is doing with human beings and a lot of what we’re talking about in the context right now, of those things that begin with Adam and Eve have to do with the healing in the mind, it truly does: how we think!

When you start thinking about this and praying about this more and more things will come into your mind that will help you to understand and see how much we’re influenced by the world, by society – let alone by a demonic world and Satan.  But just by advertising and the things that are out there – these things do affect the way you think.  Things that are on TV, things that are in movies – they affect your thinking, they truly do!  And it’s deeply imbedded in our minds – something that begins as young people and we grow into maturity in life and those things are even more deeply embedded within us then – they truly are.  It’s incredible what takes place!

And so God is blessing us with a healing process so that we can use what He’s given us in a right way, in a righteous manner.  Let’s go over to Jeremiah 17:5 – so that we can be reminded of what it means when the term ‘curse’ is used because there are a lot of different ideas and definitions of what that means, but let’s look at how it’s used in scripture so that we understand.  It’s the opposite of being blessed.  It’s like what God said in the beginning, ‘this day I set before you life and death – choose life.’  There are two ways; one of growing toward life that God offers and one that leads to death because of not following God’s way - speaking of final punishment.

Jeremiah 17:5 - Thus says the Eternal; Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm,  it means you’re trusting in self, your own strength, or the strength of others, or the ideas, or the wisdom of what we think is that of others...trusting in self, or trusting in mankind, man’s ways rather than in God’s.  That’s what he’s talking about here.  So it says, cursed is the person who does this, who makes mankind, or flesh his strength, trusts in self, whose heart departs from the Eternal.  And so if we trust in self we don’t trust in God.  If we trust in how we think about things, we’re not trusting in what God says.  God says to do things a certain way, but human beings from the very beginning have tried a different way, or have tried to force, or work a different way into what God gives as how to live life; and we’re always tweaking, adjusting it to fit us, fit what we want, fit our desires rather than just simply receiving what God has and obeying Him and striving to learn why He said things are to be a certain way.  So again, whose heart departs from the Eternal.  So, if we depart from God we are doing something else.  If we’re not trusting in Him, then we’re trusting in something else, either ourselves or someone else, or a combination of those things.

Verse 7 - Blessed is the man who trusts in the Eternal, it’s the opposite of being cursed.  Blessed is the individual who trusts in God, God’s ways, what God says.  If God says there’s a certain way of doing something and we do it, and we begin to learn from that, then we receive blessings because of that, because of laws that God has already put in motion, that God put in motion a long time ago that regulate everything about life – physical things all over this earth, and spiritual things too, because when we talk about relationships, we’re talking about something on a spiritual plane, not just a physical plane. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Eternal, put’s his trusts in God, and whose hope is in the Eternal. To hope upon those things that God has told us will be a part of life, will come in time if we continue to trust in Him, His way of doing things. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and he will not fear when heat comes, but its leaf will be green; and will not be anxious, in other words, filled with worry, in the year of drought, and he will not cease from yielding fruit.  So it’s talking about life, talking about how we will be if we trust in God, that God will continue to nurture us, and even in the difficult times, the hard times we will continue to be blessed, we will continue to be nurtured while others around us aren’t – and this goes far beyond that which is physical – it includes physical things but it has a lot more to do with that which is spiritual.

Verse 9 - The heart is deceitful above all things, the world doesn’t think that way.  The world doesn’t, people don’t believe that their heart is deceitful.  A human heart, the way we think, is incredibly deceitful toward self.  We can talk ourselves into anything.  Everybody has an opinion about everything in life.  Name a subject, anything; we have an opinion about it.  We do!  Does it agree with God, God’s way?  We’ll convince ourselves of anything, we will strive to justify ourselves in any kind of matter – even within the Church oftentimes we will still try to justify ourselves rather than just accepting the reality of sin, our own responsibility for what we have done and sometimes we will try to put ourselves in a better light; when it’s better, when sin is in front of us, just to acknowledge it, just to accept it – receive the correction, to receive what God has for us and go on.  But human nature doesn’t like to do that.

So it says, The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked:  Whew!!  Not only is it deceitful, God says, but it’s desperately wicked and we do not, as human beings, think of ourselves that way.   Now we see others out there in the world around us who we believe are wicked and live evil lives but, as a whole most people don’t think of themselves, the way they live toward others as being wicked, as being evil, as being bad, but it is.  The more you learn about God and God’s truths the more you see how the human mind and how human beings really are, because we don’t want God telling us what to do; human beings don’t – as a whole.  When we come into the Church, that’s different: we begin to learn differently: but as a whole, in society, in the way you were before you were called, as a whole, obviously the mindset is totally different.  Says, who can know it? And so God is making it really clear here that you can’t know your own mind!  People don’t understand their own thinking.  They don’t understand why they react, and don’t even think about that; don’t even think about tracing back into the mind trying to understand: where is this coming from?  Why did I respond this way?  If we respond in jealousy, or envy, or being upset with someone...we just generally go with the flow and stay upset, you know, whatever makes us feel good, whatever satisfies self.  We don’t try to go back into the mind and say, “Why?  Where is this coming from?  Why do I think that way?”  And yet when we come into the Church, you know what?  Trials will help you in that.  Every trial you will have in life, every difficulty – if you will trace back your response to that trial, your thinking and go back and think about where your thoughts are coming from you will learn a lot.  If you ask God for help – you really can’t do that without God’s help.  God has to give you His spirit; He has to give you His help.  He has to lead you in that because you really can’t come to a right conclusion, a right answer without help, but it’s an awesome thing, it truly is, if you will – every time – which we don’t do every time, but if you’ll take the time to trace back your steps:  “Where did this response of anger come from?  Why am I thinking this way?”  Only God can help you to understand that and there’s going to be a lot of healing take place in the world the more people are able to do this, the more this happens in life.  Because only in that is there real healing, when you understand how you think and why you think the way you do; when you’re able to begin dealing with it.  That’s why there are a lot of things out here in society in the world where people try to go and receive help from some of those things and because God’s not in it; because the answers aren’t there, they can’t fully come to understand.  But with God – God helps us to come to fully understand because it’s a matter of our nature.  It’s a matter of things to do with sin, it’s a matter of things to do with selfishness and so forth and other things that sometimes have affected us in life around us that we don’t realize the impact it’s really had on us.

We all carry scars.  Every person in here has scars in their life that need healing, that is a matter of the mind.  It’s a matter of how you think.  Things that have happened in life.  Sometimes our response of things we don’t even understand why or where they developed from or how they came into being or what moulded and fashioned our thoughts.  And God blesses us with a healing process and it takes time and it’s a beautiful thing.  And so that’s why it’s saying this here...who can know it?  In the world you can’t.  You can only go so far.  Even with some of the best of help of people that understand things of human relationships and the like, because there are things that happen as far as relationships and there are people who have studied into those things and they do understand there are certain responses that human beings give, but they don’t understand the whole story, they can’t put it all together because they don’t accept God as the authority.  Morals, truths that come from God of how to live...

Going on, I the Eternal, that’s what God says, search the heart, I try the reins, in other words, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.  And so God knows the mind.  He knows why we think the way we do and there’s nothing we get by with as far as the mind is concerned and we suffer because of that and we have hurt and pain and suffering in our minds and in our life because of how we think.  And so everything about the Church, everything about God’s way of life is a healing process, it’s about being healed.  And so is this subject we’re going into right now and it’s had a far greater impact upon people than most people can begin to comprehend – even within the environment of the Church – see?  If I’d have gotten up before the apostasy at any time in the 80’s and given a sermon like this, people would think I was stark raving mad, nuts for the things we’re talking about right here concerning women and concerning men and how we think – because most would have thought, “that’s not the way it is.  I don’t think that way.  I don’t have a problem thinking toward women, I don’t treat them in a wrong way – I... I... I... I... I...I” You know, justification because we couldn’t see it, because it wasn’t time yet.  Now God is giving that time and the reality is there’s a lot more baggage there than what we’ve known, there truly is, but God is blessing us to begin to address so we can get rid of it, so we can enter into a new age when Satan and demons aren’t any longer around and so that we can have greater truth and ability to see self in our own mind and begin to weed out these things in our life in relationships.  And what a beautiful thing because everything God’s leading us to is about family.  And that’s what Satan struck at at the very beginning – family.  And what an incredible thing he struck at the heart of the family, a husband and a wife.  How much worse could it be how he struck out?  A husband and a wife relationship – meaning that the children don’t have much of a chance if the husband and wife aren’t fully right toward each other.  In reality, in physical life, it’s a bit of an impossibility to be fully right, exactly right the way God preferred, desired, and wanted it to be, because of human nature.  But in the Church, we can learn and we can grow and we can grow immensely so, and it’s exciting that each generation... that’s why I marvel at what Mr. Armstrong said, “It’s going to take 3-4 generations,” because things are passed down, things are seen by example.  It’s going to take 3-4 generations to really get to where things are cleaned up immensely so – even without Satan and demons around – awesome to understand that.

So again, after focusing a little upon the fasting coming up in February, because this is what we’re fasting about... we’re fasting about relationships: men toward women, women toward men and even how each thinks of themselves because of that.  And so we’re going to focus upon some of those things even during that period of time.

And we then began focusing upon the context of the letter that Paul wrote to the Corinthians.  We started focusing upon some of the things written in I Corinthians 14 and I want to go back there because we didn’t finish it and continue on with some of the wording there of what’s being said; and why Paul is speaking in the way he is; it’s really incredibly profound when you understand it.

So let’s go back to I Corinthians 14 today and pick up there, verse 34-35; it says, Let your women keep silent in the churches: again, in the context as we talked about the formal Sabbath service, for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be obedience, as also states the law. And if they will learn anything, speaking of the books of the law – the first five books, and it’s mentioned right away...and if they will learn anything let them ask their husbands at home: for it’s a shame for a women to speak in the Church.  Men have taken this in a wrong way; even within the Church - have not fully understood what Paul was talking about and have used this; not in a right way, but a lack of understanding here of what’s being said and the purpose of what’s being said.  So, again, when we talk about, ‘let your women be silent in the Churches’ – again, last Sabbath I was very specific showing that this is talking about a specific context here.  Paul was addressing over and over again things here having to do with the Sabbath service.  He was talking about speaking in languages, different languages and how things should be done in an orderly manner in a church service, and it was totally different from the way we did it.  It was really interesting last Sabbath.  After the Sabbath, in the Spokane area, we all came together and we were visiting and sitting around in the living room and it was quite an experience because different questions were being asked and I was talking to them about various things... they would ask... but there was this desire to learn, a desire to understand and be refined in this subject matter even more so and it was really quite an incredible thing because as we were going through this what was taking place was – as people were learning, there is that word prophecy that different ones were involved in: it was inspired speaking!  We are able to do that in God’s Church in a very unique way.  That word that is used for prophet, inspired speaking, we are able to speak with inspiration from God.  Why?  Because we have God’s spirit in us!  And it stirs up...  aren’t you stirred up, excited when you’re able to have a conversation with someone discussing a sermon, discussing something, whatever it might be...and you’re on the same page.  And one person sees something in their life that this is applied to and they share it with someone else and... That’s why I love seeing how God works with people.

When different ones come along, I love hearing the stories of how God has worked with different ones, bringing them along, because they’re speaking to me with inspiration about their life, of what God did in their life, and I see it!  I see what God has done in their life.  Got a letter from someone I thought about reading here today, I picked it off the internet there, a young person, 21 year old woman down in Melbourne, Australia.  She’ll probably fall out of her chair right now, or whenever she listens to this because she’s committed to the Sabbath now, she’s committed to it this past Sabbath and going through her life story and seeing things that have happened to her and how God brought her to where she is.  Now, everybody has to make choices along the way, but she’s making the right choices and it’s exciting when you see that because you see God.  And that’s what we do when we speak to each other about certain things because you can’t go out here and talk... I can’t go up here to the front desk and start talking to some of these people about what I see, what I know.  I can’t start talking to them about anything to do with God’s way of life.  You know, they’d want to stop the conversation and get out of there as quick as they can.  They’d be very uncomfortable as a whole.  Or if I knew them really well, just like how you try to share it with some relatives or whatever... you just can’t do it.  There’s no inspiration there!  Why?  You might be inspired but they aren’t – see?  There’s nothing there, but with one another we’re blessed because of God’s spirit that dwells in us.  God lives in us and so the fellowship... that’s why I love I Corinthians. All the way through I Corinthians Paul is talking about things like this.  He uses the word... well, he doesn’t use the word, but the translation of the word is ‘communion’.  There is a unique communion, (fellowship) – I hate that word because of the way the world has used it but it’s the word for fellowship.  We have a unique fellowship in the Church of God!  ...and he addresses that.  We have a fellowship with one another because of our ability to converse and share God’s way of life, and so it’s inspiring as we’re able to talk to each other about something we’re just learning, something we’ve just received in a sermon, or something that’s happened in our life where that applies to our life – and we’re lifted up by it!  Every time my wife and I go to an area we’re lifted up by conversations we have with people, especially new people too...you see that first love, you see that excitement that’s stirred up there.  Now the key is keeping that on fire!   We’ve all been challenged in that in life – it comes.    And so, awesomely inspiring what we’re able to have with one another.

And so as we were sitting around up there at Spokane I stopped them and pointed it out; This is exactly what Paul was discussing – that they were speaking with inspiration, discussing things, asking questions, and this is the one we’re getting into right now about this word ‘ask’ where I stopped last week; ‘to ask,’ ‘to talk about’.  It’s not just a matter of asking a particular question.  So as you go on here it says, and they should ask their husbands at home, (verse 35) okay?  There’s a lot more said here.  It’s very inspiring, and this is a part of what we were experiencing then.  And so we do this often amongst ourselves.  We talk about and get things out in the open so we can learn from each other, we’re inspired by each other, by what we discuss; just by natural normal conversation.

In backing up here I want to make sure I go through this before we jump into that.  This word and how it’s used here... for it is not permitted unto them to speak – again in the context of the word ‘to prophecy’ with inspired speaking in the church service, but that isn’t true as soon as services are over, that’s not the case.  The way they had their Sabbath service and the way they did it was so much different than what we do today, especially in the beginning because they didn’t have, in all cases, a formal routine set up.  They didn’t have ministers set up all over the regions.  It took time.  So in the very beginning they did things a little bit differently, a little bit of Judaism and how things were done in the temple, and how that men discussed things within the temple environment.  Some of this carried over into the context of the Church in the beginning until things were organized through time through a ministry and so forth and that has grown through time.  So when we read some things like this it’s very difficult for us to grasp what was taking place when they had certain individuals, and primarily some of the leaders, but others in the congregation – men in this particular case were permitted, were allowed to speak up and to ask something, to converse back and forth – and it’s not just asking a question.  Sometimes it would be a matter of their being inspired by something they were hearing someone else say and they would add a little bit to it of how they could see of how that applied to something in their life, or whatever.  It was a sharing like we normally do sometimes after services.  And so Paul was making a distinction here that there is something unique in how God is working with the Church; it’s to be done in an orderly fashion, especially when you have people of other languages and that’s all he was addressing.  The Sabbath service should be done in an orderly fashion and this is how it was to be done at this time; but it’s hard for us to relate to something like that and so the Church people come along and read this and they don’t understand because they don’t understand how things were back then.

Going on...so it says, they’re commanded to be under obedience, in other words ‘to be subject’, as also states the law, absolutely there is an order of things.  It’s referring back to the book of Moses.  This is not a matter of the right or authority to abuse government in the home; it’s a matter about the Sabbath service only.

So let’s look at the word ‘shame’ again.  It’s a shame for a woman to speak in the Church... we went back and we talked about things having to do in I Corinthians 11 and talking about authority and I want to read this again and take the time to do this because if we can begin to understand some of this, we’ll grow in balance.  ...but I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, it’s government – this is just simply talking about a matter of government. But if you understand how Jesus Christ worked with the Church, if you understand how God works with each and every individual within the Church - but he is showing an order of government.  It’s as much as what we have in the Church – always have had!  When it comes to certain things there is a formality of government, of how certain things have to be administered and that’s why there are evangelists, that’s why there are senior elders and elders and associate elders now because there’s an order of how information travels in order to serve the Church, but that isn’t put there to be authoritarian and controlling.  See, that’s where people get off base, that’s where some people in the Church got off base, many in the ministry got off base and they became very controlling – see?  And they began to be lifted up by their jobs and their responsibilities and speaking down upon others thinking indeed that they were better than others and that is not the way God’s government is to be administered!  Not in the Church; not in the family.  So if we can learn how Jesus Christ administers government within the Church, we can learn much.

I have often referred back to a time when I believe with all my being – I don’t believe it, I mean I know it – okay?  It’s not a matter of something I think might have happened, it’s something that did happen, that’s absolute!  And that was how God worked with Mr. Tkach after he was placed in the position he was, inspired him to bring all the ministry into headquarters, right after what took place because this started in late ’86 and ’87, this process to bring all the ministry around the world into refreshing programs, because I think it was ’87 when we went in there – right?  That’s when I had to start addressing it in my life.  You know what the subject matter was?  ...from him?  The difference between sheriffing and shepherding.  God blessed him to help him to see something, to give a message to the ministry (whether he understood it or not is immaterial - fully) but the message was that the ministry in too many cases had been administering things within the Church – God’s government – in an authoritative, controlling manner, not in a giving shepherding manner...to nurture and to help people.  When you begin to be lifted up by the job, you begin to look down upon people and you begin to try to take control and it’s because of your mindset toward other people and how you think about them...that they’re not on the same level with you and you begin to treat people differently and you begin to administer things differently with them; just like government so often does.  The Republicans or the Democrats, don’t they think they know what’s better for everybody else?  Don’t they believe with all their being... you watch some of the programs on Fox – they know that the Republicans know better!  And CNN, they know the Democrats, and that’s basically how it is, a lot of it.  They know that they know the better way, and so they have their leanings but they really know that that’s what’s best for the people.

What comes from God must come from God and you must be convicted it comes from God and when it’s given from God it’s a nurturing thing, it’s a giving thing, it builds up, it feeds, it takes care of, it helps, it leads, it guides, it directs in a nurturing way.  Jesus Christ loved to the point of sacrificing Himself and that’s the kind of sacrifice, that’s the kind of love that it points to in Ephesians.  You know, that’s exactly what it says over here in Ephesians and the reason I’m referring back to what Mr. Tkach did and all the ministry coming in is because I had to learn a hard thing at that time because so much of my training, what I’d seen in ministers from area to area to area – those that I had worked under...every one of them that I’d worked under and around was authoritative and controlling.  I learned what should not be done to God’s people.  That’s what God was showing me.  People aren’t to be treated this way, people aren’t to be hurt this way, to be controlled this way.  I also learned something else at that time because I started telling the congregation that I was having to change; and I had one year that was hard.  When I went out there at that program I saw something in myself, that I had learned some things that were very wrong and I had administered some things in a way that wasn’t as good as what it should have been – see.  Even though I didn’t agree with all those things and some of the things of what I’d seen, I still saw something in my thinking and something in some of the administration of some things that could be done in a far better nurturing manner and I had to repent.  And for a year I was low, I was brought low, I felt bad because I couldn’t go back and repair any of the things in the past.  I couldn’t go back and change it.  All I could get up and do was tell the congregation a better way, “this is the way.”

And it’s kind of like...I don’t know how many of you go back that far, but it’s kind of like a period of time in the Church when in society there was a great emphasis on corporal punishment of children in families and homes.  In the 50’s it was very much like that; that was the focus, and we brought that in as a... you come into the Church, your mind doesn’t change just because of society of the world that’s still in your mind – and so yes, it’s God’s way of life but you must do it for the right reasons now in the Church.  I talked to parents who lived through that, who later on...the emphasis was put on, “Yes, there’s correction that must be given but it must be done in a loving manner and there must be love, there must be as much focus on love, and more focus on love because correction without love – what does it mean?"  But that had been missing and I don’t know if some of you new understand what I’m talking about because if you’re not that old to have lived back in the 50’s and know things back in the 60’s, or whatever things were like in society; but that’s the way society was and it was in the Church as well.  But I have talked to parents, because you see, by the time the focus began to be more on love, the damage had already been done in the children and they couldn’t go back and repair what they thought had been right, the right way of doing something because it was about the truth, but it was the same kind of punishment being used – except to the truth that they now understood of things forced upon them about the Church. Does it make sense?  It caused a lot of hurt and a lot of pain.  I counselled with a lot of parents over time who felt so bad and I told them over and over again, “You can’t change that.  You can change now and love them now and let them know the degree to which you love them; and even above and beyond that acknowledge your mistake – see?  Acknowledge where you were, where the Church was at that time and say, “I was a part of that and I didn’t understand – see?”"  It’s a hard thing sometimes for parents to acknowledge to a child, to their own children when they’ve done something wrong, but that’s the best thing you can ever do to help them to do things in a right way.

Let me go back to this in Ephesians where it talks about Jesus Christ. 5:1 – where it says, Be you followers of God, as dear children; And walk in agape, God’s love, that’s what this word is, as Christ also has loved us, and so it’s showing how He loved us. It’s a different kind of word for love, but He did that as far as walking in agape, God’s love, and has given Himself to us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour.  That’s the degree, that’s how far He went with His love.  And so love and loving others is a sacrificing thing.  And that seems like a hard concept sometimes for human beings to get into their mind.  Sometimes it seems like a hard concept for husbands to get into their minds that their love must be a sacrificing love.  Now parents often understand that their love toward their children is sacrificing.   You know, it’s giving and you have to be careful because we put them first in so many things in life and parents in the world; they even carry that too far.  A parent will drive an old clunker as long as their child can drive the new car to high school, you know, or whatever it might be, because the peer pressures that are out there and so forth and so... I’m going a little farther with that, but it’s showing here that parents do sacrifice; we can understand that – okay?  Husbands...to what degree will we go to sacrifice for our wives?  What will we do?  See?  And that’s a different mindset.

So just as with the ministry, and back in that period of time, I had to learn a great lesson.  And I learned to loathe... I learned to loathe with all my being anything to do with sheriffing, controlling, in God’s Church.  It took that for me to go through to learn to loathe it because I saw it; God helped me to see it so deeply.  That’s why I hate... well, not the only reason I hate pride, but I hate pride with a great passion – but we have to learn to hate the things that are evil before we can truly love with all of our being that which is good and live it.  And that is a part of a process.  But something I learned early on and suffered through...was to allow people in the Church to say, “Yeah, the ministry has been bad to us.”  See?  To take more of a whipping and more of a beating than really should have been there; by many in the congregation – see?  And that’s fine, but a message I tried to get across that people didn’t understand as a whole was that every one of you is just as guilty in your own life for the same sort of thing because we learned these things in the Church.  Yes, from the ministry, but we begin to practice them.  How many people in different areas saw these cliques, these organizations of different ones, special groups, and this layering within the Church.  The Church shouldn’t be that way!   We’re all one!  There shouldn’t be anyone that thinks they are better than anyone else and neither in a family – neither in a family.  But you see the problem is that within the family, that has still existed in a big way within  the Church through time – that there’s a certain way that men have felt toward women and haven’t understood that so much of it is still controlling thinking, not a sacrificing shepherding thinking, but a sheriffing kind of thinking.  And when people can really see that, great repentance can follow and great change can follow – see?  Because it still exists today.

Because I’m focusing on this I see it in powerful ways in the Church still and I... we can go back, my wife and I look back in the 80’s and 70’s... it’s such a gargantuan shift to be able to see back there and say, “Oh, it was so plentiful and we didn’t even see it to the degree it really was!”  God is blessing us – we are at the door of something that’s awesome to me – we truly are.  And if we can understand that, of a shepherding, giving, sacrificing, loving...the kind of love that God has for each and every one of us...when we can learn to live that toward one another it’s a beautiful, awesome thing, it truly is, but it has to be practiced and so we learn a little bit here and a little bit there – we learn to change certain things here and there and God’s blessing us with an incredible freedom as we go forward in a lot of these things and I’m excited about where we are in time and what we get to share in time because those things hold back, those things are part of the shackles as we read about last Sabbath in Isaiah 58 that talks about fasting; some of the shackles, or the heavy loads that have been on families...and we haven’t even understood why some of those things exist.  That’s why some haven’t understood why I cry out as hard as I do sometimes and as strong as I do toward men, because the responsibility starts there, just as God with us in the Church started with where?  The ministry.  We were at fault above and beyond everyone else, we were held to a far greater responsibility in what took place – that’s why the scriptures throughout the Old Testament talks about the shepherds and what they finally did. Read Ezekiel, the betrayals, the things that took place.  It’s a horrible thing; it’s not a pretty picture.

Anyway, a sacrificing kind of love.  If we can start to understand some of that; the more we start to, we can understand the greater freedom that there will be.  And don’t think that your mind has not been affected, infected because of this world.  And just because we’re in the Church doesn’t mean that’s all gone yet.  Oh, I tell you – absolutely it’s still there and God is blessing us; we are at a point in time where a lot more is going to be shed that’s wrong, that needs to be repented of.  And to me that’s a great blessing.  It hurts for a while as you start to see things in yourself that you maybe couldn’t see before – but that’s what repentance is about, that’s a beautiful thing.

And women, how you’ve been affected by those things too, because you’ve been affected too!  And YOUR minds are not balanced like they should be in matters either – see?  The things that you have allowed, the things you’ve done in your response to some of this.  It’s a curse upon men and women!  ...not just upon women, that’s being freed here.  I am excited about where we are and what God is beginning to remove, what He’s beginning to heal because it’s all about the job we have now, the commission we can see more clearly of a new age, and the blessing of a new world where families are right.  Not perfect!  But so much more perfect than they have ever been, so much better than what they’ve ever been.  It’s going to be an incredibly different world in society, truly is just from the structure of the family alone; and that’s where God is starting.  If you can get that picture of Elijah, the work, what he’s saying, it’s a fulfillment of what’s taking place, of why we’re addressing these things – it’s about all of us, it’s about a work, it’s about a commission, it’s about a preparation for a new age and it is a beautiful thing that I can’t even place in words.  It would just come with time and greater understanding that God gives you as you digest what we’re going through in this series, a little more at a time.

I can’t begin to tell you, even though God blesses us in the Church with great freedom, we make a quantum leap ahead of the world around us; we truly do in ways that are astronomical. But even in the midst of all that over the years, long before the apostasy, I cannot relate to you the number of stories, the amount of pain that existed in people’s families within the Church, through counselling, because of this one area alone – abuse of government.

And so in Corinthians it says...I Corinthians 11:3 - But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; yes, as far as an order of government – this is true.  But it’s understanding how government is administered and lived that becomes so important...how Jesus Christ works with us; and if husbands can come to understand that within a family in a better way... oh it’s night and day – truly is; for the family.  ...and the head of Christ is God.  Every man praying or prophesying with his head covered dishonours his head.   It’s talking... you know what? It’s talking about something as simple as hair: hair length.  That’s what’s incredible in this story when you begin to understand it; something as basic and as simple as hair.  Why is that so important to understand?  It’s far greater than what most of us comprehend – it truly is!  Because everything we do has to do with the way we think about ourselves and if you think that society doesn’t have an impact on your mind and how you think...if you can’t understand it in something as simple and basic as hair length...what about everything else?  Do you think that this repeats itself over and over and over again in so many different context’s and matters of life...because I’ll tell you, this past week I’ve been thinking on that a great deal; and the list is awesome!  It’s incredible!  And the more we begin focusing and thinking about this the more we’ll begin to understand, “My mind has been affected, infected, by things in this world that I haven’t even contemplated yet.”  And when you see that you can begin to make a change and be freed from it, you can be freed from it and others around you can be freed from it.  That’s where freedom comes from.  First of all, you have to think right and be right with God – see?

And some can think, “Well...” because of bad experiences in the past we want to shift some blame more toward the man, more toward the woman, more toward this person, or that person and you know that’s not what it’s about.  It’s about self.  Every change in life that God gives to His Church begins right here with self – pointing finger at yourself; because only you have the power and the ability to change how you think about everyone else and how you live toward everyone else, and that’s what God expects of you – see?  Just like in a marriage – does it take two?  Absolutely!  But you know what God requires of you?  ...man or woman?  To do it right before God yourself no matter what the other person does or doesn’t do.  You have a responsibility before God for how you live and how you think – see?  Awesome isn’t it!  It’s an awesome thing.  Have we known some of these things in times past?  ...these principles I’m talking about?  Absolutely!  But we’re blessed to be able to take them a lot farther now, we truly are, and the more we digest what God is giving to us now, the greater the change will be as we go forward.  And it is an exciting, inspiring change – it truly is.  I hope you are inspired and excited about where we’re going – see?  Because it takes time to get rid of the hurt, the pain, the scars; it doesn’t happen overnight.  It takes time, but we’re blessed to begin the process now and in an awesome way!

But every woman who prays or prophesies, so a woman prays and a woman has inspired speaking just as much as the man.  That’s the point Paul is making in all this! So we have to understand the context of how these things are done or when they’re done and so forth in this case of what Paul was talking about – see?  There’s no difference!  If God is in you, the inspiration that I’ve heard... I’ve had as inspiring conversation (if sometimes not more so) coming from some women than some men, and men than women – it depends on... we’re all different!  But one is not better than the other.  I hope you understand what I’m saying when it comes to inspired speaking, because of understanding, because of what God has given.  The more we’re able to yield ourselves to God, the more we have in our mind – men and women!  There’s no difference.  You think God dwells in women differently that He does in men?  ...and men differently than He does in women?  No!  We’re all begotten of God’s spirit.  The reason I’m pointing these things out is because it may be uncomfortable in some people, I don’t know – it’s not uncomfortable for me and it shouldn’t be uncomfortable for any one of you to address something that’s true, that brings about great fruit and great results.

Verse 5 - But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonours her head: her husband.  It’s talking about something even in nature that we should be able to see but sometimes the mind becomes so distorted even within the Church.  If there is a husband and wife and a wife were to cut her hair off, you know, way too short, God is saying “There’s something that should teach, even in something physical in nature that that doesn’t honour the family, she’s not honouring her husband.”   And the same thing is true about a man, you know, a man gets too long of hair...you know what it is?  ...the difference is? There are those things that God has created to be masculine and there are those things that God has created to be feminine and our minds are so screwed up in society and the world today that it’s hard to distinguish sometimes and to understand the beauty of both by themselves – not competing with each other, you know!  Why would any woman want to be man like?  And yet it’s all over in our society.  Why would any man want to be woman like?  And yet it’s all over our society, in our world!  Are our minds messed up in this world?  And I’m talking about something here that is really simple and basic and yet in the Church sometimes we have problems with this; something so simple as hair.  I think, “Why?”  Because our minds are screwed up!  ...and we don’t get it, and if it’s messed up in that way I can tell you that it’s messed up in so many other ways as well and the soundness and the balance.  So we must strive to ask God to help us to fulfill the role each of us has in life to its fullest, to its best beauty in the way that God created it to be.  And that’s what this is all about.

So it says it’s a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven.  In the world today you see that out there, women with really short hair.  I feel bad for them.  I think, that’s not feminine!  You’re repulsive!  Any woman that gets her hair real short to me as a man... it’s repulsive!  It’s against nature!  I think, what a shame you don’t realize what you’re doing to yourself, you don’t realize how you’re resisting... you don’t understand and people in the world don’t understand anyway, but something so simple and so basic where they could have a better life of even how they feel about themselves, but people’s minds become so perverted, you know?  For a man to have long hair and to think he looks good because of something he sees in society?  Something’s in his mind to make him think that if you have long flowing hair, you know, down the back of his neck and whatever, down to his shoulders or beyond... why do we get to that position in life where we think that... what is it that’s affecting our minds where we think that’s masculine?  This is simple and this is basic.  Can you carry that much farther into many things in society in your life?  ...of things that are feminine, of things that are masculine?

Do men today know how to be masculine in all their thinking?  To some it’s brutish; to some it’s authoritarian; to some it’s control – that’s not what a man is!  A man (especially in the Church) is one who is deeply comfortable with the truths of God and where he stands with God, in a masculine sense in how people are treated – fully male in thinking.  I don’t know if that makes sense; hopefully it makes sense to everybody.  Same thing with a woman and how you think, and comfortable with where you are.  A lot of people in life are not comfortable with themselves; they’re searching, their pining... Have you ever heard that expression, ‘searching for themselves’?  Back in the 60’s, I was searching for myself, you know, when I was a teen.  God found me.  Helped me to find, to start working on self, but you know those expressions that are out there – sometimes it carries all the way into life and people are still searching, they’re not comfortable.  What a beautiful thing when you get to a point in life where you are comfortable with who you are, with what you’re doing, how you’re doing it – because of God, because of a oneness and a completeness with God of the mind; and that’s what we should all strive for, men and women.  And there is a difference, and the difference is beautiful when it’s kept the way God made it to be.  But please understand this society, and this world has so messed up people’s minds and we bring it into the Church as well.

I love what it says about men because it doesn’t say to have long hair is just shameful, like it does for a woman – it says it’s even vile, you know, it’s even a stronger word that’s used; dishonourable in every way.

Verse 35, chapter 14 – if they will learn anything let them ask... in other words, to discuss and question in order to learn to understand.  It’s not just a matter of just asking a passive question.  It’s dialogue.  In how this word is used, there’s dialogue back and forth.  And sometimes that’s kind of hard in the context to pick it out in some of the ways it’s used in context in some places in the New Testament, but there is one basic word that just has to do with just asking something.  And some people ask questions sometimes – they don’t really care what your answer is, it’s just being polite or whatever... “Did you have a good day?  Did you have a good week?”  They may not hear your answer even.    We get into these habits sometimes in life that aren’t really all that good, but if we really have interest and desire we will learn from that and we will benefit from that toward one another in our relationships.

But this word goes beyond that when it says to ...ask at home; Paul is saying, you can’t ask in the Sabbath service environment.  That’s why I made a distinction here in the letter that was sent out.  That there is that which is feminine within a Church service that God has created and there is that which is masculine that God has made a distinction in that even nature itself should tell, but it can’t in so many cases – see?  We’ll come back to that.

So again here, unique word.  Let’s go over to Luke 3; notice how it’s used.  That’s why Paul jumps all over the men very quickly; and I know that men who have read this in times past, or anybody that’s read this in times past has not even begun to  grasp why Paul all of a sudden jumps from one thing into another at the end of chapter 14. It’s because they have never understood the context of what Paul has been saying and what he’s telling the Church.

Luke 3:1 - Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip... so it goes through the different ones who are reigning at that time...verse 2 - Annas and Caiaphas, it says, being high priests, it says, the word of God came unto John the son of Zachariah in the wilderness. So it’s talking about John the Baptist here, and it says, And he came into all the country around Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins; it’s importance in the context of things we’re talking about John the Baptist and what he did and what this repentance was and this baptism of repentance and so forth.  It says, for the remission of sins; As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, in other words this is about what John is starting here, a part of a process that’s being fulfilled here.  It says, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare you the way of the Lord, make His paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and every hill shall be brought low; and so it’s not talking about the physical world; it’s talking about Jesus Christ, it’s talking about the Kingdom of God, things that are going to be accomplished in time prophetically, and the crooked shall be made straight. That’s a part of what we’re doing today, a large part of what we’re addressing in this series sermon is that which is crooked in the world and hasn’t been fully straightened out even in the Church because we were not here yet to this point in time.  And now God is blessing us to make this far straighter.  “This is the way, walk you in it,” God is saying, to straighten things out in our life even more so with family.  And we are blessed to begin the process in the Church before Jesus Christ returns.  It’s a part of a great prophecy being fulfilled here; that’s being fulfilled in a greater way today, by far, because of where we are in time!  And it’s exciting and inspiring to understand these things.  I’m becoming immensely excited about what God is showing about the Elijah to come, because it’s about a work, it’s about a commission, and it’s a FAR greater thing than we’ve ever understood in times past.  Because we’re blessed to live it, it’s being accomplished in our time.  It’s all about preparing for, and getting ready for a new world, a new age, and God is blessing us to begin to live it now, ahead of time; to begin to teach it and proclaim it now, ahead of time – just as much as John the Baptist was proclaiming the things he did ahead of time.  Awesome, it really is.  It’s incredible when we understand it and put all this together; of what’s coming to pass here.  And the timing?  Everything working out the way it is... I hope you’re inspired by it because I find this immensely inspiring and exciting where we are and what God is doing.  Things are happening fast with the Church and what God is doing with us, truly is.  It’s an awesome thing to be experiencing and living through.

So it says here again...prepare you the way of the Lord, make His paths straight, we’re being blessed to do that because there are things that have still been crooked out there, haven’t been right.  I know!  I was blessed to be a pastor in that period of time before the apostasy.  I cannot tell you the number of counselling sessions and people lives and the hurt and the pain and the suffering that’s existed in families.  Different than the world?  Absolutely!  A quantum leap different from the world but not yet healed...a long way to go, and now we’re at a point where we’re taking a giant leap forward, a great step in that respect for a healing process that couldn’t be given back there in the 80’s because it wasn’t time yet and now we’re there.  Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall, it says, be made smooth; what a beautiful thing when you understand what that’s talking about and when you understand that as applied to family, and the basis of everything and God’s Kingdom is about family.  To understand, to see, to love, to desire God’s Family; that will be greater for children when they see a right example, a better example, a perfected example within the Church in a new age – see?   When they really come to see it and experience it in a greater way than they’ve ever experienced it.  And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

Verse 7 - Then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers,  makes it clear these are Pharisees in another area we’ll read later, but the ones he’s addressing even more so are the Pharisees.  And he said, O generation of vipers, he wasn’t real pleasant about what he had to say.  He called it what it was, it was his job and he told them what they were.  Sometimes people get upset by things like that but if it goes with the territory, if it goes with the job then it goes with the job.  In this case here with John the Baptist, he didn’t mince any words.  He said, You generation of vipers!  Talking to the religious leaders of the world at that time, to the Pharisees who were there, and others; and he said, who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of repentance, and we use that today, that’s the very beginning of baptism – bring forth fruit worth of repentance, in other words there must be things in your life that reflect that indeed you’re changing, that you want God’s way of life.  You know what some of the most basic fruit is?  There are two great fruits out here we look at... you know what it is?  ...that reflect whether or not a person is making the change in their life?  ...fruit worthy for, in other words, to bring forth that you can be baptized because you can’t be baptised until you at least begin those things.  The greatest of all; it’s the Sabbath and the Holy Days – weekly and annual Sabbaths.  If a person is not fully committed to them – that means they have rejected Sunday, or Friday, or Monday – they have rejected all the holidays of the world; and they have accepted God’s Holy Days and they are committed to keeping them.  And the next one?  Number 2?  Tithing.

Some people get upset by that because they say, “Oh, it’s all about money!”  Well, with God it reflects where your heart is... it reflects where your spirit is in obedience; because if a person can’t understand the most basic principle of robbing God, of stealing what God says is His, for His work, for what He’s doing, then what can we understand?  So yes!  Those are two great things that try us and test us because that affects everything about your life doesn’t it?  People who work seven days a week, if they have a job working seven days a week, or if they happen to have a job working on Saturdays – it’s a big change to start obeying the Sabbath.  See?  Because it affects your what?  Your wallet; its affects the amount of money you’re accustomed to living on the edge on.  That’s our society today, we live on the edge – credit cards, everything else out here, the house, the car payment...and so that’s the way we tend to live as human beings.  We live on the edge.  If anything happens with our job... the edge has come and that’s how we tend to live to the max of what we have and beyond – that’s what credit’s all about.  That’s why they want you to have more credit cards.  That’s our society isn’t it?  Incredible!  We live to the edge like that – things that have to be changed in time and so when we’re called into the Church it’s not an easy process for people is it?  Because you’re going to have less now and not only that, but you hear about tithe?  A tithe – it means 10% and it takes commitment, it reflects repentance.  Is there genuine commitment there that you’re really going to begin trusting in God, placing your trust in God and not in man anymore, not in yourself, not in whatever out here – you’re just going to obey God because He says to obey and you treasure more what He’s offering you than what you could have on your own in the world.  And I’ll tell you what... I have visited many, many people through time who could not make that step – the financial one in their life.  To either quit the Sabbath because of income, because of money, the change in the family, or because of tithing.  Far more have gone by the wayside who couldn’t make that change, whose minds had been opened up, who couldn’t take that next step.  Far more than what have ever come along.  Incredible.

And so it goes on to say here...he says, You generation of vipers, who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of repentance, he knew the Pharisees weren’t going to bring forward one thing.  They were there for one purpose, like some out there today are, finding fault.  It just eats them away, eats them up inside.  They don’t even understand they’re being eaten up inside – see?  And John was stirring up things.  He was shaking the religious world at that time.  Before Jesus Christ ever came along John was already shaking up the religious world and they were not happy!  They were concerned because a lot of people started going out to see John and respond to his message.  Awesome what took place!  It shook up the religious world at that time.  And so he told them, Bring forth fruit worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to be our father: isn’t that what they continually told Christ?  “Abraham’s our father.”  When you start talking about God and different things about God and so they start talking about their lineage, what they see as ‘religious’ and what they hold up here on a high plane.  And so this thing that goes all the way back to Abraham.  He says, “Don’t use that one, it doesn’t work here!”  He says, “There’s repentance and there are certain things you have to do and you need to bring forth fruit to indeed show that you are serious about repentance.”  And so they didn’t stick around that long.

He said don’t say that Abraham is our father, for I say to you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.  You know they believed that one.  You know the Pharisees said, “Oh yeah, I agree with that.”  And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: and every tree therefore which brings forth not good fruit is cut down, and cast into the fire.  They knew what that meant. They know exactly what he was saying and they weren’t happy with the message – see? And the people asked him, it’s that word, and the people asked him, not the Pharisees.  And we’ll read some scriptures later on that talk about some of the different kinds of people that asked because these are the ones that wanted answers, these are the ones that wanted to understand, these are the ones that wanted to have some dialogue back and forth of what it is and if they didn’t fully get it then they would ask more questions until they were able to have the understanding they were seeking.  It’s a dialogue; they’re involved in it – see?  They’re very much a part of it; their interest is high.  Their desire is high, and so the people asked him saying, What shall we do then?  What is the next step?  What is it I have to do?  Teach me! Show me!  It’s a part of a process here and so it’s not just a passive way of asking, it’s one that’s invested in every way because of a desire to know and understand.

Verse 11 - He answered and said unto them, He that has two coats, let him impart to him that has none; and he that has meat, let him do likewise.  John was talking about a way of thinking toward other people around you in the world. Then came also publicans to be baptized, and said unto him, Master...here we are, what shall we do? So it get’s specific here.  What shall we do? And he said unto them, Exact no more than that which is appointed you. Don’t take advantage, don’t go above like others do out here, just do exactly what’s been given and no more – what’s right and what’s fair and no more.  And the soldiers also likewise demanded of him, same word, ‘demanded’ – ‘asked’.  See, it’s not just a passive thing here – they want to know because they want to do something about this – they’re deeply involved just like we become when we get into conversations oftentimes and we’re discussing things back and forth.  We don’t use a word like that, but when we’re getting to talking to each other and it’s inspired, what’s being said, there’s this dialogue that goes on, and we learn from each other because it’s this excitement of learning.  It’s this excitement of what God is showing us, it’s excitement sometimes of how to apply it to our life.  That’s why even new people as they come along – that process of God working with you and you sharing that with others – that’s inspiring!  And it’s inspired, because you wouldn’t understand and see the things in your life that needed to be changed, and the things you’re addressing without God’s help!  It’s exciting, it’s inspiring and we share that and it stirs us up and sometimes we ask questions then.  I ask questions often of new people coming along like that; and ask what about this and what about that because I know what some of the battles are out there, you know?  And then they tell me their response and what they’ve had to do because I’m asking, because I want to learn from that – see?  I want to be inspired by that!  It’s not a selfish thing when God is working with someone is it?  It’s something we get to share!  That’s what God’s way... it’s a fellowship, it’s in the sharing of life and how God works in our life and it’s exciting.  I find it immensely exciting going out and visiting with people like this.  I’m very blessed.  My wife and I are incredibly blessed to be able to see so many different people and hear so many different stories.  I can’t keep them all straight – can’t even come close but I’m inspired, lifted up every time.  And I’ll tell you what, this has given us a great boost in the way we push forward and keep going forward like we have.  If it wasn’t for these things – whew...

So again here, they demanded saying, soldiers did, what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely;  because others did – see – so don’t you operate this same way, be different, and be content with your wages.  What’s given to you; things that were a part of their society.

Verse 15 - And as the people were in expectation, in other words waiting to see what would follow, and all men mused in their hearts of John, there was something happening that they couldn’t put their finger on.  You see, God was doing something here in an awesome way.  He’s beginning to work with people – not all people for the sake of being drawn and called – yet there were many who were called out of what John was doing.  God did call many out of what John was preaching and what he was teaching but there were many others who were not being called at that time but they still had this sense because of something that God just gives where it wasn’t a matter of being called at that time, it wasn’t for them to be called then, but it was a beginning for them to experience something that was unique in time with John and that’s what’s being discussed here.  And so they, mused in their hearts at John, whether he was the Christ, Who is he?  There is something unique about him, his words, there’s something that’s hitting, but they couldn’t put their finger on it and so they wondered – is he the Christ?  Is he the Messiah that’s supposed to come?  People hadn’t heard from someone for several hundred years when John came along.  God hadn’t sent anyone for a long time till John came along. Malachi was 430 years before this that’s recorded as one sent to Judah.  A long dry spell there.  That’s why the Pharisees were able to build up what they built up, and the Sadducees and different ones in their own form of religion there that was so off base.

John answered, (verse 16), saying unto them, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I comes, the latches of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: He shall baptize you with the holy spirit and with fire:  and there are some churches out there who think they want that baptism of fire.  You don’t want the baptism of fire because it’s a judgment; it has to do with what happens at the end when you don’t respond to God’s spirit and calling and drawing.  And what happens at the end?  There are those who are burned up as a part of a final punishment, eternal punishment for all eternity – not being eternally burned, just that’s the end of it – never to be resurrected again, no life again.  That’s the punishment, or eternal punishment that comes upon those who don’t choose God’s way of life.  And it says, Whose fan is in His hand, in other words, to fan the fire.  God’s going to do that, that’s what he’s talking about here – to judge, stir up the fire and those who don’t respond and don’t live right... it’s going to be stirred up and God’s going to take care of it and see that everything is burned up that doesn’t receive Him.  Human beings don’t like to think that God has that power or that right; that it isn’t fair... Whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor, and will gather the wheat into His garner; but the chaff He will burn with fire unquenchable.  Nothing can stop the fire in other words; God’s going to take care of it.  When it’s all said and done, all will be a part of God’s Family, or just not exist.  Amazing!  This is what John began to preach – powerful message about judgement, about God’s Kingdom, about a Messiah that was coming.  And it says, And many other things in his exhortation preached he unto the people.  And so they were there, eager to learn, eager to understand what was being said.

Notice Luke 17:20 –  how this word is used again here in this particular area; different ways it’s used here but it’s not a passive, casual type of asking, that’s the point I’m striving to make here, it’s one that’s deeply involved in the outcome of what is being said, to participate.  There’s a participation here.  In Luke 17:20 - And when He was demanded, again and not a casual form of asking something, but it’s more intense, it’s very much involved in the outcome.  And when He was demanded of the Pharisees, so the Pharisees here were asking in a demanding sort of way with a great desire.  It’s not always a word that means demand, but in this particular case here, that’s kind of how it came across, but it shows a different usage here in the sense of the involvement.  It says, when the Kingdom of God should come, and He answered them and said, The Kingdom of God does not come by observation:  doesn’t come by what you’re looking at or things you’re going to be looking at.  There are other things that are involved in God’s Kingdom coming.  So again, here is usage of the word showing how the Pharisees used it toward Christ and His response to them.

The point of all this is to show that there’s active involvement here and it’s more than a passive type of asking especially when you understand the context of the Church and this word used for prophesying and how we in the Church are inspired in our speaking because of understanding that God has given in the mind and because of His spirit that’s there.  God wants to bless our fellowship. That’s an exciting thing to understand.  That’s why it’s important that people, when you have the opportunities, you come early and you stay a little bit later.  It’s not quick to services and quick out.  And there are times you have to do that, I understand, but as a whole, when we have opportunity to be with God’s people, we take part in that, we enjoy that, especially if you have opportunity to be together Sabbath by Sabbath.  Some people can’t because of distance and so forth, I understand, but in area’s like Cincinnati and so forth – there are people that live right there and so they’re able to come together every Sabbath and indeed should (unless there’s something health wise or whatever).  We should be together where we have ability to be with God’s people; because there is something in the fellowship, not just in the listening of the Sabbath service, but also in the fellowship that is to take place and what we can learn from it; and sometimes maybe it isn’t always perfect, but there are things we will learn through the process if we’ll continue to do what God tells us to do.

Luke 2:45 - this is the occasion where it is around the Feast time when Jesus Christ was missing and His family had been looking for Him if you remember the story here, they thought He was with them – found out He wasn’t travelling with them when they were leaving the Feast site there; had to go find Him and so this is what it’s talking about in verse 45.  And it says, And when they found Him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking Him. Here’s Christ, a child in life still and they’re wondering where in the world He is.  We thought He was with a relative or whatever and... this has happened in times past.  There are people who have left the Feast and left different ones behind and had to go back and pick them up.  Happened to a minister once where he left his wife at a gas station on accident.  He was travelling at night there and went out to get gas, didn’t know the wife got out to use the bathroom because she had been sleeping in the back so he left her there and kept going down the highway and they didn’t have cell phones like we have now a days where you can just catch somebody.  Anyway... this is an example here.  Here they’re all involved, because everybody’s busy, you’re leaving the Feast and they thought Christ was with them. Just took it for granted He’s with somebody else but in this particular case here He was doing something else.

Verse 46 - And it came to pass, that after three days, can you imagine, bit of a panic; you think this was a mild thing?  ...that after three days, they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, the learned, those who were taught in the scriptures, both hearing them, and asking questions. It’s this word ‘ask’ okay? So He wasn’t just asking questions – there was involvement, there was interest, there was dialogue, there was deep involvement back and forth and it was discussion.  So this word is more involved in the form of discussion back and forth to learn, to grow and the word ‘ask’ is just a poor word but I don’t know any other word to use from the Greek language that’s used here.  But if you understand the context and the dialogue back and forth, and this is one of the best ways, best areas I think for reflecting this entire usage.  It says...and asking them questions.  So He was talking to the doctors; He wasn’t just throwing out a question and then sitting there.  He was responding by what He was seeing and by what He was learning and by what God was giving to Him.  It wasn’t that from the very beginning that everything was just in His brain; like a download.  He learned, He grew, the Son of God, and God gave Him continually, constantly when things were there in the scriptures it was there in the mind.  He knew.  It’s that revelation that God gives.  It’s an awesome thing.  It’s just as much as when you’re called and exposed to things about the Sabbath and all of a sudden you see it – you didn’t figure it out!  I’ve marvelled over the ages in the Church of God; people who’ve been lifted up when they have felt like it’s because of their intellect and they came to understand things about the Sabbath.  The only way they did is if God led them to that and helped them to see it in preparation for receiving more.  But there have been people who have been lifted up with pride and haughtiness at certain things because they think they came to understand them as though they did it.  And I think...duh, you didn’t see a thing! ...that amounted to anything, even if it’s the truth.  It doesn’t mean anything unless God’s in it.  Just like the word baptise; the Baptist church; they understand what it means – whoop tee doo.  They know it means to immerse and so their whole church is named after that.  And they don’t even know their own history.  They were known as the Seventh Day Baptist and some think that in history they actually split off from the Church of God at one time.  So they understood certain things but they lost more and more through time in the Sardis era.  Just like some of the groups that were scattered out here, given enough time they change names to something fully wrong.  Look at Worldwide Church of God, now calling themselves Grace Communion International – describes them fully, totally Protestant.

Verse 47 - And all that heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers.  I love this verse here because this really reflects the usage of the word more than anyplace else.  It captures it all; it captures the whole dialogue, especially in the environment of the Church when you’re talking about inspired speaking; because the world couldn’t understand it... so you have these things applied as the word is used in some cases here with others who didn’t have God’s spirit.  But we have God’s spirit and we have that inspiration that comes into our conversation as God is in us.  We’re able to talk about things on the same level, the same plane with inspiration toward one another.  It’s exciting!  You can’t share this with anybody else, but you can fellowship and share it with others in the Church.  And so that’s what it’s talking about here and it says...and He astonished them, but with us, we’re inspired by it – see?  Because we learn from each other, I learn from you, you learn from me – there are different ways even in fellowship that we are inspired by what God is doing.  We see it, just as that young person, 21 year old girl down in Australia, read her letter – I was inspired by it because I saw God in it.  She couldn’t say the things was saying at that point in time, after only one Sabbath observance with commitment, without God’s help, so I saw God in it and how God was drawing her and I was inspired by it – see?  That’s what we’re talking about here.

Today’s Sabbath environment is different than what it was for early Church back then where they had different ones who were inspired in their speaking; God was giving them understanding.  They would read a verse in the Old Testament.  They didn’t have a New Testament – okay?  So Paul is addressing people; if they had a verse to talk about; if they had scriptures; if they had scrolls, a scroll, or whatever, if they had the book of Isaiah there in a scroll or whatever they could open up and they could start talking about certain verses and discussing it; something maybe Paul had talked to them about and they would bring it back up and talk about it.  They were very limited; they didn’t have Bibles – they had scrolls and so if they were blessed to have a scroll (and I don’t know if they did or not), more than likely they did, they talk about meeting at the temple and so forth and some of the service they went through at different times in the beginning.  Sometimes they were in houses, but the service was different until they had ministers that were there permanently and Paul would come through and stay in a region for a little while and teach and here he was just writing them a letter – he wasn’t even with them – see?  Trying to help them to have understanding.

And so God said in a formal service, in essence, women aren’t to have that same discussion because of what I brought out in the letter, it’s not a feminine thing, it’s a masculine thing that God has given.  That’s why I’m up here giving a sermon.  God has by definition given it to be a masculine responsibility to appear, as much as my hair is short and not long, that there is even something very physical in that which God has made in many things we do.  If we understand, we let society influence us.  Not only do we let them, we’re eager to find out – “What is the latest fashion?  I want to be like them. I want to carry somebody’s name on my shoulder, on my back, or on my butt!”  You know?!  To say I feel better about myself if Calvin’s on my backside, or whatever else it is.  You think these things don’t exist in schools?  ...where people know what kind of blue jeans kids have or what kind of pants or whatever it is they have?  They know the makers or whatever...who makes it, whose name is on it.  WHO CARES whose name is on it!  I see people wearing sports... I don’t want to hit anybody in the Church here, but sometimes when I see people wearing somebody’s sports outfit, a number and a name on the back I think, “Get a life!" You lifting him up to where he’s great in your mind?  Watch the program – fine.  Get excited about the team and who wins or who doesn’t – fine.  But don’t carry it so far that in your mind you’re worshipping the guy, you know?  Have your own life!  Do something beyond him in your life!  I hope you understand what I’m saying.  Things like that blow my mind; why people raise up others like that – same thing with shirts.

I did buy a sweater the other day that has somebody’s name on it, but thankfully it doesn’t show up too much because I don’t like names on there!  I don’t want somebody’s name plastered on it. Do you understand how things like that affect how you think, what people will or will not wear?

There’s one thing in society right now that I loathe about women’s clothing.  It started in Australia, that’s where we started seeing it more – then we saw it in Europe and now we’re seeing it in the States – very low cut dresses to where the breasts are hanging out.  Why?  Why is that necessary? What are women saying? Do you think you have to compete in order to get the attention of a man?  And if you are – what kind of attention do you really want?  Do you really WANT that?  Do you?  Do you not VALUE yourself as a woman enough to say, “I’m going to be fully clothed and if somebody’s not drawn to me or attracted to me, that’s better!”  Because I don’t want that kind of a man!  ...That kind of a trashy man!”  Do you understand what I’m saying?  You think society isn’t affected that way?  For women to have dignity – what do you do to yourself sometimes in response to men?  It’s affected men and women and why would men think that that’s better, that they would rather hold someone on their arm when they go into a place, young people, and the more skin she is showing the better it makes them feel about themselves... you think that doesn’t exist?  “Oh look who I have on my arm.  Look at her!  No... Look at me!! ...cause she’s on my arm.”  See?  You think human nature isn’t that crass, that vile, that low, that despicable?  It is!  And those minds need cleaning up because they’re sick!  See?  Why would a woman want to wear a short, short, short, short, short, short, dress so that when she bends over you hope she has something on underneath!  Just calling a spade a spade, because that exists out there.  Where is her thinking about her own self?  Does she not esteem herself?  And sadly it’s society.  We let society rule the way we think about ourselves.  Women let what they think men think of them rule them... in a perverted way!  See?!  Men let society rule them about how they think they should be in relationship to women.  It’s a sad thing.  God’s not in that at all and so God’s called us to begin putting God into the picture.  Respect!  Respect toward one another.  How men look at women.  How men think about women when they look at them.  And if they’re not dressed right, that you learn to look away, as a habit, because you’re striving to be in control of your mind.  I’m not telling you anything that everybody shouldn’t know – okay?  And if any man is not honest with that, I feel sorry for you – see?  You think that affects then the way you think about others?  Absolutely!

And the same thing is true about music!  What you allow into your mind affects the way you think and what comes out of your mind.  Everything out here today is upside down and thank God we’re getting ready to change it all.  Things about clothing, things about music, things about life and advertising and everything else that’s out here – and it’s all about the family – because all those things hurt the family, they take away from the family.  If people are not able to be right about themselves and think right about themselves as they are before God, that they are right before God and they’re comfortable with that.  It’s taken me a long time to get to that point in time I guess, I understand that, and I know I have farther to go and one day my battle will be over (in about 2 ½ years. )  In that area as far as human nature and fighting against self.  But it does take time to fight, to grow, to conquer, to overcome to where you are very comfortable with who you are because you’re comfortable in that before God.  And that’s the goal, and that’s the desire, to become more at one with God in your thinking so that you can think right toward one another and treat each other in a proper way.  And that affects the family then, how we treat each other within the Body, how we treat each other in society, how we think about someone else.  If you think that doesn’t affect your mind across the board, then you don’t get it and you’re not being honest with yourself – see?

So anyway, when it was talking here about asking, very much so here it’s talking about going home, in this particular context, and the husband and wife discussing scripture just as the men would in the inspired service.  They are to go home and discuss it in the same manner; husband and wife.  It’s not asking the husband because he knows more!  It’s not asking the husband because he’s the guru of the family, you know?!  ...and the woman is something less!  Do you think that hasn’t existed in God’s Church?  Oh yes it has because of things like this that have been distorted and taken out of context.  And so we’re blessed to be able to do it right after services because the formal service is over with; men and women are able to share and talk about God’s way of life or the sermon or something else or something that happened in their life – or whatever it is we have conversation about that has to do with what we’re living, and be inspired by it.  No restrictions; it’s only in the formal Sabbath service – prayers, if we have sermonettes, or sermons, what we’re accustomed to.  The men do it because by definition God has made it masculine – see?

Have you ever seen a woman on TV preaching?  I don’t know if you feel the same way but my wife and I feel it’s not feminine, it’s brassy!  That’s why when I used to give sermons in times past, and I haven’t given one in a long time, about men and women/husbands and wives – relationships... I used to use an example of a brass bell, one you could just ring up here and then one that’s fully made out of crystal.  And you can ring the tar out of the brass one, beat it up a little bit, but with the other one you don’t, you treat it more delicately, you handle it differently and that’s a beautiful thing in creation – the difference in the two.  And I can tell you which one’s a lot nicer looking.   It’s the crystal one.  The one you have to handle a little more carefully.  Men and women.  You know there’s that which God has made within us – we’re a little rougher yeah.  Supposed to get rid of a lot of the roughness through time and through a lot of help from God.  But there are differences and that’s what God is showing, that He has created certain things to be different in that and so He has in the Sabbath service.  It’s not a matter of one is better than the other.  It’s a matter of order, just like government and the Church. There’s order in how God works through the Church and in a family there are ways things work whenever it’s necessary for government.

That’s why in the following verses Paul got all over the men.  I Love it! ...because God inspired him to write it, to correct the men immediately after he said to them, to the women, that they were to ask their husbands at home.  And husbands could take that in a wrong way, you know, in today’s society, but back then they knew exactly what Paul was saying – just as much as what was being inspired up there.  They’d go home and they’d talk about it, inspired amongst themselves because there’s no difference between a man and a woman – not one iota when it comes to God dwelling in them.  There just is in the Sabbath service because that’s the way God has ordained it, you know?

The word ‘learn’ - Matthew 9:13 – But go you and learn what that means, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.  This word ‘learn’, it means exactly what it says, it’s a matter of something that you learn through applying it or striving to go out and delve more deeply into it and this particular context here of talking about it out in the open, it’s in order to learn so you can grow from in understanding of it and we do that in the Church too.  We ask things back and forth when we’re talking about certain things of inspiration and we learn from each other in that.  I find that immensely inspiring.  I’ll just read a couple other verses here right quick like.

I Corinthians 14:30-31 – same chapter here where we read it earlier - If anything be revealed to another who sits by, let the first hold his peace. For you may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all be comforted.  So he’s saying here in this environment of the formal Sabbath service or whatever and they’re discussing and they have this order about it.  All can learn from this.  I don’t care if it’s two people or a group of people.  If we’re talking and discussing something and we’re all able to hear it we’re all able to benefit from it.  That’s why I love sometimes a group of people setting down at a meal; we can discuss things and we learn from each other.  You know, I want to learn what somebody else has to say about a matter that we’re discussing because we learn from that, we learn what God’s doing and how God’s working in our lives and so forth – that’s what this is talking about.

Galatians 3:2 – This only would I learn of you, did you receive the spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?  They are discussing it, it’s full of purpose of gaining from it, of growing in understanding, of learning from what you’re going through.  So it’s not just a matter of conversation we have with each other.  We can learn from each other, we can be inspired by each other and that’s what this is talking about.

I do want to go on here and hit this one more time.  I Corinthians 14:36 – just like we did last Sabbath, if we understand what God is telling about the formal church Sabbath service, then this one here, it’s beautifully written: I love it, I love it, I love it!  ...Because Paul is addressing men before they even have a chance to respond, because he wrote this in advance.  He says - What?! Does the word of God just come out from you? Again, do we understand a little bit clearer now what he was saying?  He’s telling the men – “Look, when you go home, you and your wife are to discuss these things openly, just as in the Sabbath service.”  In other words, “You’re not her teacher! That’s not what this is about!”  Sometimes men think they’re the teacher of the wife because the wife isn’t quite on the same level as the man.  What a sad thing that ever existed in any place in the Church, but it did – okay?   And so Paul is telling them: What?!  Does God only work through you?  Are you the teacher? He says, does it come unto you only?  In other words he’s asking men, “Shouldn’t she be asked as well?  And what comes from her and what you can learn from her!  You deaf between the ears, male ego...”  If any man think himself to be a prophet, says, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.  So he really nails it home here.  He says, “If you believe that God’s working through you, that you’re able to have inspired speaking and prophecy,” in that respect of how the words used, “and God is inspiring you, then do you acknowledge that everything I’m telling you right now is inspired by God to you?”    So it’s pretty powerful.  He’s really slamming them before they have a chance to respond in a wrong way.  He knows that attitude and spirit.  Why?  Because God knows the attitude and spirit of men.  He knows the way we think as human beings; He knows what has to be changed – see?  And we can respond to something like this, a person can, but sadly in the Church nobody’s ever understood this.  Nobody has ever understood these two verses.  NOBODY, NOBODY, NOBODY!  And so no change could be made, because they didn’t understand what was being said.

Verse 38 - But if any man be ignorant, Paul is saying if you choose to be ignorant, just let him be ignorant.  If you want to think that way and have that male ego thing about you and controlling thing about you and think you’re better ... well, just stay ignorant then because I can’t help you.  They’re pretty strong words aren’t they?  Isn’t that amazing how strong this is and what’s written here?

Verse 39 - Wherefore, brethren, desire earnestly to prophecy, to have inspired speaking  to one another.  That’s what he’s saying.  The more we learn from God, the more we can draw closer to God through prayer, through what we hear and so forth, the more inspiring life becomes and we can learn from each other and when we think we can’t, we’ve got problems.  ...and forbid not speaking in other languages.  Let all things be done, ALL things, be done decently and in order.  So everything he’s addressed here; he’s saying this is the order for how it should be done.

With that I think it’d be good just to read the posting here in closing.

WOMEN & “The CURSE”

January 15, 2010

The last posting on this site addressed God’s current revelation to the Church about His “Elijah to come” at this end-time. As was stated, that commission has been given to me to fulfill in its completeness and not as a “type,” which was partially fulfilled in John the Baptist and in Herbert W. Armstrong. God is now going to bring both roles of these previous “types” into a complete and final fulfillment that ushers in the second coming of His Son as the Messiah (the Christ-the ordained ruler) over all mankind.

This posting cannot cover all of the exciting revelation that God is giving concerning what His purpose is and what is meant by the expression of “restoring all things” in the commission of the end-time Elijah. It is about a “work” that God is doing in and through His human instruments, primarily through His Church.

We’re all a part of this just as God gave a commission to Mr. Armstrong to do.  He was at the forefront of that in administration and the things that were said, but it was the whole Church that was a part of that.  We were blessed to share in that.  Going on...

In order to receive a far greater understanding of the inspiration, plain truth, and excitement of what God is now revealing, I am encouraging every one of you (if you have not already done so) to listen to some of this new truth as it is covered far more thoroughly in the sermon on Dec. 26, 2009, entitled, “Restoring All Things,” and in the current sermon series entitled, “Ordinations & Baptisms.”

Finding Fault:

The numerous groups that have formed from the scattering that took place during the apostasy of the Worldwide Church of God in December, 1994, are busy responding to what God is currently revealing to the Church through me as His end-time Elijah. They are quick to find fault in order to belittle and ridicule what God is now revealing.

You know, it’s sad... we have been blessed to go so far with thing of what God has been giving to us that every time we take another step there’s this giant chasm; almost like Lazarus and the Rich Man when it talks about this chasm that’s between us, this giant gulf.  There’s an incredible giant gulf now but what’s sad is they’re so asleep they can’t even begin to understand some of the most basic things about a scattering, to acknowledge that we were even scattered, or that there was an apostasy.  You think – what a shame!  Let alone all the other things that God has been giving. Going on...

Some are much like the Pharisees who were always so quick and eager to find fault in anything Christ taught. They seethed at the notion that God would work or say such things through a man like Jesus.

Things haven’t changed...

Yet in actuality, they were finding fault with the very Son of God, their very Passover Lamb.

It is no different today. Much of the leadership and membership in such organizations are not able to contain themselves with glee over what they think they now see as far clearer proof that I could not be of God; yet I am (of God)!

The very thing they fight against and refuse to embrace is the very truth that could help them escape what is coming. Those who refuse to repent and listen to what God is telling them will not be blessed to see the “promised land”...

What a horrible thing...

...that has been prophesied to come for so long now. The millennium is almost here...

Just as much as the children of Israel, millions of people were not allowed to come into a promised land, a physical one – they all died in the wilderness.  Incredible!

The millennium is almost here and only a small percentage will be allowed to enter. Most will have to wait until a future time when they will be “spiritually awakened” after they are physically resurrected in the final hundred years of mankind.

As much as the Pharisees hated the thought of Christ being the Messiah, most of those from the Church that have been scattered loathe the thought that I could possibly be the “Elijah to come,” let alone be one of the two end-time prophets and witnesses of God. Yet it is true. It is just a reality that so many do not yet accept.

And this is good for me.  See, I have to write these things because I have to be deeply comfortable with what God has given me – and I am.  I wasn’t in the beginning.  Each time I have to do some of these I’m not comfortable, but I’m deeply comfortable now.  It’s part of the job.

Human pride is such a shameful thing. As with the Pharisees, who knew there were words of truth in what Jesus Christ was saying, but refused to listen because he was threatening their authority and their belief that they were the true custodians of the word of God, there are many scattered groups and their leaders who are of this same deceived attitude and spirit today.

A Curse On Women:

As talked about in recent sermons, which I referred to earlier, one of the first things to be revealed that God is now beginning to address to His Church is the need to restore a far better and more correct mindset toward the role of women in society, especially within the Church and the family.

This is awesome brethren, it really is, if we really can grasp what God is doing right now because... well, let me read on here...

From the beginning, Satan led the first two humans into sin in his effort to begin his work of seeking to destroy God’s plan for His Family—Elohim—and did so by striking out at the first human family.

Satan’s success in leading these two people to sin (due to the selfishness and pride of human nature) led to consequences. It resulted in that which all sin leads, the opposite of being blessed for obedience, but instead reaping curses for disobedience. Curses are the result of not being blessed and given favour by God. It is a matter of natural physical consequences that God has imposed upon nature when His sustaining power of preservation and favour is removed.

And I hope that you’ll all think about that one.  To understand that more deeply because there’s some more that God is actually giving right there, to understand a process that’s taken place through time.  God has the power to preserve, to sustain, and blessings come from His sustaining and doing these things with our lives and how we live.  But when we don’t live according to God’s ways He pulls back.  It’s like God’s spirit not living in and through us; if we sin we begin to cut ourselves off from the flow of God’s spirit and this is what happens here – God pulls back.  And He pulled back from blessing and sustaining food, agriculture, and various things; and He pulled back from various things of blessings upon women and upon men.  And we’re suffering as a result of sin then – see?  Because He pulled back – He pulled away.  Our desire is to become at one with God so that God is deeply involved in our lives and we’re deeply involved in what He’s doing and we’re able to be blessed then.  Going on...

Sin infects the mind and alters how a person thinks.

Whenever you sin you mess up your mind.  We truly do... every time we sin in life and repeat certain sin in our life – whenever it’s repeated we just add to it, the scar.

It distorts the capacity for sound and practical thinking as it leads to perverted and distorted reasoning that is further fuelled by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. When Adam and Eve sinned, the mind of man began to turn farther away from sound mindedness that can only come from God. Only God can reveal the way to right thinking and right relationships among people, and that is especially true in the context of this posting of how men think toward women. Even in reading this, many men will “think” that their thinking is right toward women, and yet it is not, and much must yet be changed!

In marriage, the right relationship between a husband and wife should be the most exciting and most rewarding relationship in life. However, this “got off on a wrong foot” from the very beginning.

Ever since man chose the way of sin (as all have, except Jesus Christ), men have not rightly respected women, not even their own wives (when married)...

Not the way God intended it to be.  Not even in the Church! We haven’t attained to that yet, or more fully as we need to.

...not even their own wives (when married), and have instead ruled “over” women in a wrong manner that is authoritarian, controlling and demeaning (looking down as being lesser).

It’s existed in the Church, brethren; I have seen it – all over the place, throughout the ministry in the Church let alone the Church.  A gigantic leap away from how the world is through changes we made in our lives, but there’s much farther to go – that is what God is showing.  Going on...

This is what constitutes a large part of the curse upon women that has existed from the beginning. Over the centuries, even within the Church, that curse has only partially been lifted to the degree that individuals have repented of mistreatment of others and have truly sought to “change” self and become more God-like in character and thinking (in harmony with the truths and laws of God). But women have still been suppressed by being morally mistreated, demeaned, and held to an inferior state by men.

And if any of you men cannot acknowledge and agree with that something’s wrong in your mind!  It’s true!  It is the truth - even within the Church.  Going on...

And most sad of all, this has been perpetuated by husbands because of male ego, lust and pride.

It is what it is and what we do then is accept it and repent – change.

God is now starting the greater process (which only partially started in the Church over the centuries) of restoring the dignity and honor that He intended women should have from the beginning. This is part of the “healing” process that is prophesied to fill the earth in the Millennium, as Satan and his demons are removed from the presence of mankind, and as Jesus Christ receives rule of all the earth. This healing process is now beginning to be restored in God’s Church as we accelerate toward that new age for all mankind. In this context, this is the greater fulfillment of the prophecy that states, “And those from among you shall build the old waste places and you shall raise up the foundations of many generations, and you shall be called, ‘The repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in’” (Is. 58:12).

It’s beautiful.

Of even greater inspiration is the literal translation from Hebrew that states, “And those from among you shall build from the destruction caused of old [ancient times] and you shall raise up the foundations of many generations, and you shall be called ‘The repairer of the break, the restorer [Heb. – “to set again,” “to re-establish”] of paths to dwell in.’”

Those who will be part of this work are blessed to help restore the God intended role and purpose of both man and woman in marriage and in society.

And both have to change.  It isn’t just the men, it’s in the women too – see?  Because both have affected each other very powerfully so.  And so the distortion is in the thinking of both.  When I’m preaching up here, please understand, this is not just to you men, it’s to you women as well.  Your thinking has to be changed as well in what you have in your mind and your response and how things have happened that aren’t right in a response to how; what men have done. There’s a balance and a soundness there with God. Going on...

When God’s government, love, and true purpose are more firmly re-established in the foundation of marriage, the structure of the family will become far stronger than ever experienced in the previous 6,000 years. The human family will be given a giant boost that more readily leads into the very Family of God—Elohim.

The liberation of all races and nationalities is rapidly approaching...

I don’t know how much you long for that.  I long for that – just that, and how much more the rest that God is giving us.

The liberation of all races and nationalities...

Because it doesn’t matter the colour of our skin, because people of the same race, just divided by a line, can loathe each other, do loathe each other, kill each other.  What a sick world we live in; how human beings treat human beings...

The liberation of all races and nationalities is rapidly approaching, and at the top of that list is the true liberation of women from the demeaning state in which they have been “ruled over.” This also produces a liberation for man that yields a more fulfilling and rewarding life, a greater unity and oneness with God, and the greater experience of what true masculinity was intended to be from the beginning.

Ordination of Women:

It is in the midst of this restoration that is coming from God, through His Church to this world, that God has now revealed that women can be ordained to ministerial service in His Church. As this latest sermon series (“Ordinations and Baptisms”) is giving the soundness and balance of how this will exist in His Church, there are distinctions of service that will be different between men and women. Such distinctions of service will not exist because of the lesser ability, insight, understanding, or stature of women. It is because of the differences God established that would constitute the qualities that are genuine and true in all that reflects a unique beauty in the femininity of women, just as there is service that is only intended for men that God has created which constitutes right qualities of true masculinity.

It’s not about one gender being better than the other, it’s about what God has set to be so in nature in life, you know, and if we yield to that then we’ll learn in our minds a soundness of mind that can only come by being at one with God.

True masculinity...

...and have richer lives...amazing.  All the scars so many of you have... well, you all have scars whether you understand it or not; every one of us here has scars in this subject matter alone, in our minds, in our lives, that need healing – men and women, young and old, it doesn’t matter.

True masculinity and true femininity can only be understood by how God defines each. Such truth and spiritual sound minded understanding can only come from God through the power of His spirit working in us.

God has revealed that the role of preaching in the environment of the formal Sabbath service is that of a masculine role, as God has defined it to be.

It’s just what God defined...

That is not a feminine role, and if women did speak in a formal Sabbath environment, it would make a woman appear to have characteristics of masculinity that are not edifying or natural (as God created it to be).

Just as much as hair length.  There are things that are not edifying and natural that God has just created (as He created it to be).  Going on...

God has revealed that women are to be ordained into ministerial service as elders. There is to be no distinction within the Church for the term “elder” (spiritual service) that would differentiate between a man or woman.

That’s why God is having us even address that, you know?  An elder is an elder – man or woman!  A prophet is a prophet – a man or a woman!

Even for the office of a prophet, the term is simply “prophet” without a distinction of gender.

Within the Church, a woman would not be ordained to an apostle...

And I hope you understand what I’m saying here...

Within the Church, a woman would not be ordained to an apostle, evangelist or pastor because of many of those duties that God has set aside as masculine in nature. A woman can be ordained to that of a prophet or elder (sr. elder, elder, or associate elder).

The understanding God is currently giving concerning the removal of a curse upon women (and men) from the beginning is to begin the fulfillment of the prophesied role (work) of the “Elijah to come.” That “work” is about final preparations God is making for the return of His Son, Jesus Christ.

And that’s why I am immensely excited and I hope the more you see this the more excited you become – about what we’re doing right now and what we’re heading into – what God is giving to us.  There hasn’t been a time like this, there truly hasn’t for the Church.  There has never been a time quite like this.  There has never been a period of time that God has thrust His people into like this one.  I hope you see that.  I hope you’re getting that vision, because it’s inspiring!  It’s all been saved for this time, reserved for this time.  That’s why it’s so unique and exciting.

As John the Baptist baptized thousands into a baptism of repentance in preparation for the first coming of Jesus Christ, God’s Church is now preparing for massive numbers of baptisms into the Body of Christ in preparation for the second coming of Jesus Christ.

It’s just a reality; it’s what’s going to take place.

Women will play as crucial a role in this as men will. Both men and women who are ordained may lay hands upon a person after baptism for the purpose of the impregnation of God’s spirit. Such a role is neither masculine nor feminine, but of God through the power of His spirit.

As Paul wrote in Galatians 3:27 & 28, “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

One is not superior to the other and yet look at these things of how people have treated each other through time – even to a degree within the Church, if we understand it.

The Family of God, including the begotten Family, is not a matter of gender. And so in ordination and the laying on of hands that God has chosen for His ministry to perform for the impregnation of His spirit for all who are baptized, this process in no manner reflects male or female in distinction, but the power of God to beget.

Beautiful!

~~~end

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