A Final Plea, With Judgment – Pt. 2

Ron Weinland

March 19, 2011

Today this will be Part 2 of the new sermon series entitled A Final Plea, With Judgment.  Kind of reminds me of the time (except this is more important obviously, by far, in the sense of the timing because timing is expedient right now), when two particular booklets were written called ‘Time is Running Out’ and ‘Time Has Run Out’ and at that particular time it was about the Church and things happening in the Church.  Right now we’re down to the very end of an end-time and it makes this sermon that much more important for people to be able to listen to it.

In last Sabbath’s sermon the question was asked: Can we reason together?  It’s a takeoff of what it says in Isaiah 2, and translated in different ways; and we’ll go back to that later here and talk about some of the other things that are said there.  But again, it’s a desire that God has with all of His people, with all of mankind.  We’re all His people.  And God has a desire, especially at specific times in life to do this; and that’s a part of what this sermon is all about as we’ll get into it more deeply today.

And so this was asked of different groups of people who will be listening to these sermons or to those who will be listening in the near future for the first time.  The context in the beginning of last Sabbath’s sermon concerned two basic questions.  The first regarded the consequences to be addressed IF I am not a prophet and so it was asked: “What will I do IF time reveals that I am not a prophet?”  And so I addressed those things truthfully, candidly, openly.  And then the reverse of this was asked of those who don’t believe I am a prophet or don’t know yet, kind of waiting around to see: “What will you do IF I am indeed a prophet and time begins to prove those things out more powerfully so by things that have been said?”

Those of you listening for the first time, or those of you who haven’t made up those decisions in your own mind... can you open-mindedly address such a possibility?”  Hence, “Can we reason together?” as God says.  “Will you, can you consider the possibility and truthfully respond to it?”

Again, I have sought to be truthful and open with you and I’m requesting the same of you.  It’s a very difficult thing for human beings to do that, it truly is, to be open, to be truthful to the core of their being, and this is a very important thing that has to be addressed in people’s lives.

Because I believe and know with all my being, with all my heart, with all that God has given to me that I am a prophet for this end-time.  And so this is a final plea, from me (in one respect), but more importantly I believe from God, from what I strongly, what I deeply believe is rapidly coming upon this world and quickly upon this country.  It’s a plea with judgment, as you must judge hopefully open-mindedly, addressing the possibility, the real possibility that I am a prophet.  For if indeed I am then your world is about to change quickly, horrifically!  And not simply a matter of requesting that you genuinely consider the possibilities, that you judge them, but in reality YOU will be judged mightily for how YOU now judge what you hear, because this is the truth IF I am a prophet.

Last Sabbath we focused upon some things written by Paul in Romans, and I know some of those things at times (especially for those who are new), to grasp and understand the context of some things Paul is address is difficult because he was addressing specific things at a specific time that were unique to them.  But the overall story of what follows; the overall direction of where Paul was moving was very powerful and really is a most basic thing that everybody has to consider in time; and that’s why we addressed it going to Isaiah first and then going into Romans and discussing some of those things: that we all have sin and every human being has need of repentance of sin.

If someone can’t acknowledge that in their life, if they don’t have enough belief that there is a God who created mankind and put mankind on this earth and that they are in judgment in their lives in the sense of sin and that there is sin they need to repent of and be forgiven of...if they don’t believe those things God has a plan to help them to come to see that He is God.  It may be the Great White Throne Judgment, or some of the things we’re getting ready to go through in this country and around the world in a very short order that’s already started in Japan in a very massive way, in one part of that country.  Incredible what’s taking place and what’s going to escalate more and more and more! We all have sin no matter who we are.  But the incredible blessing is, in God’s Church, which Paul makes clear in those scriptures as you continue on through the book is that we’re blessed to be forgiven.  And unless people come to address those things they can’t be forgiven; and so they have to judge.

This is where you begin to judge: Do you have sin in your life?  Do you need to be forgiven?  Or are you going to stubbornly continue on your course and do your own thing against the Great God of this universe?  Because if you do you’re going to suffer mightily for it!  Not in different countries in the world like Japan and China and Russia and Africa and South America, but in the United States, in Western Europe, in Australia and New Zealand; you’re going to be held accountable because it comes to you first!  That’s God’s plan and you’re the ones who have to come to repentance first.

The rest will come to repentance in God’s time, primarily at the very end, on the very last day when 144,000 people from a period of time, from the very beginning till now over 6,000 years, with whom God has worked moulding and fashioning, preparing to become a part of His Government in a building that He has been constructing for 6,000 years, will be resurrected on a specific day at a specific moment in time as Jesus Christ is returning to this earth.  And after that moment the Seven Last Plagues are poured out upon this earth and most of it’s about the area of Megiddo (Armageddon as people refer to it), when two great armies come together to clash with each other and all of a sudden they see something in the atmosphere they don’t understand.

And with all the sci-fi things out there, and all the things going on - and now the pope saying the possibility that there’s no conflict with there being alien life on other planets or in other parts of the universe, different galaxies or whatever - what are people going to tend to believe in some of these places?  Seen a lot of these sci-fi shows, something they don’t grasp and don’t comprehend when all of a sudden different plagues begin to be poured out upon this earth and they start receiving word back that cities have been destroyed, their capitals have been destroyed.  Because God Himself....  God says on that day He Himself does these things, destroys large masses of this earth and people.  And people think, “That’s not fair!  ...for God to destroy?!  That’s just not fair! They didn’t have a chance!”  Bull!  It’s just that man has human nature, the same human nature he’s had for 6,000 years and he always rejects God.  But God’s going to bring an end to that because it’s finally time.

What an awesome blessing it’s finally time we’re at the end of 6,000 years... if people just do a little consideration, if they just had a little bit of understanding about a seven day week.  And because man rejects the seventh day Sabbath, today, he rejects the plan of God and he can’t understand the plan of God!  That God put man here for a plan of 7,000 years and the first six He gave to man to live his own way, to do his own things, but the seventh day is God’s day!  What an awesome picture that God has given mankind!  That day for a thousand years – as He explains in scripture – and to understand Jesus Christ came right at 4,000 years of man on this earth and we’ve gone 2,000 more since then.  Can you do the math?  Can you come to understand just a little bit that we live in momentous times (people who listen out there)?  I’m not speaking to you [Church] as much, but I know you’re inspired by these things, by the plan of God in the same manner because of God’s spirit.  It’s an awesome thing for all of us who understand, who see those things!  6,000 years is about over.  Thank God we’re getting ready to go into the period of time that is God’s, God’s Government.

I am so looking forward to that.  No more hideous justice in this earth, injustice, if you will, is a better way of saying it, of government, of politics.  I loathe politics with all my being!  Thank God it’s about over with and God’s establishing His Government; and that’s what it’s all about.  But man is being judged in all this.  It’s a time of judgment; and right now this sermon context is a final plea concerning judgment because it’s with judgment.  Each person who hears, each person who tunes in at whatever time they do, whether it’s in the future or they are right now – the time has come to you to make a decision, to make a judgment of your own of whether you’re going to do what God is saying IF I AM A PROPHET.  And if I am a prophet, no matter what judgment you make, things are going to happen; just depends on what happens to you now and what happens to those in your area of influence in your life – family.  Incredible times that we live in!

We all have sin!  We all have need to be able to be forgiven of sin. And one of the greatest sins of all is the one I just mentioned: man rejects God’s Sabbath, He rejects God’s plan and God’s purpose and how God’s working with mankind...and so he’s blinded to that purpose and plan and he doesn’t grasp and understand it.  God is about to sharpen the hearing of people on this earth.  They will have to listen!  They can reject, but they’re going to have to consider and have to listen...when you’re talking about the nations that I mentioned earlier.  Not China, not Russia, not Japan, not some of those nations, because again, what happens to them is on the last day.

Let’s pick it up again, in Isaiah 1.  Last week we left off in Isaiah, but I want to go back there to do a quick review here.  Isaiah 1:18 - Come now and let us reason together, says the Eternal, This is from God Almighty, the Eternal One, that your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;  We have choices in that.  Everybody has a choice in there when that time comes to them; and God is saying, “Let us reason together...” because there’s more to this translation of what it means here ‘to reason together’, what God is asking, and He asks it of every human being.  In time everyone has to address this; and God says, though your sins are as scarlet/red, they shall be as white as snow; filled with blood, it’s a good description because hatred, people not getting along, people failing to love each other...God says it’s murder.  And we think we’re not murderers, but the spirit of God’s law – it is murder!  That’s why disagreement, unresolved disagreement and bitterness and anger is so bad, when people yell and holler at each other and have hatred in their heart toward each other – it’s just so wrong for people to do those things!  Because it’s murder, spiritually!  It’s a horrifying thing that human beings do.  And sometimes too often it happens in God’s Church.  That’s why those things have to be fought against and repented of so quickly when people do them.

And so God says, though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; forgiven IF....IF...people have to make a choice in this, IF THEY’LL REPENT!  ...though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.  And that’s why so many scriptures in the New Testament talk about being white, wearing white linen, clothed in white linen, being cleansed and wearing white robes and white gowns or whatever; all those scriptures throughout the Bible that talk about these things.  It’s what we wear, what we live that clothes us.  Whether we’ll be purified and cleansed before God, that’s what it’s about.

And so again, this verse is for those who are willing to consider the reality that there is One Almighty Eternal God who addresses us all and tells us that our sins can be forgiven, but in the midst of that then we have choices to make, and it’s one of repentance.  First the person has to be of a mind that’s willing to acknowledge God, and then to acknowledge that they individually have sin that needs to be forgiven.

So the word here translated as ‘reason together’ from Hebrew also carries with it the meaning of ‘deciding’; in other words, ‘to make a decision, to make a choice’.  So the reasoning God wants people to enter into is to consider themselves and to consider it in light of what God says, the Almighty Eternal God, what He says. Because now what God is saying is, “There is now a choice before you.  What decision are you going to make?  Can you reason about this?  Can you look at this open-mindedly and address it in your life?  Because one way or another judgment is coming and it’s better that you judge!”

Isn’t that what we’re told when we take the Passover?  ...before we take the Passover?  It’s exactly what we’re told over in I Corinthians – yes, awesomely, in the New Testament!  Isn’t that amazing?!

People want to keep Easter/Ishtar, that’s been kept for thousands of years going back in time, way before Jesus Christ was on this earth.  Rabbits that lay eggs and all the little things that they believe in that so mocks and ridicules God’s way of life and turns people away from it to other beliefs and other ideas.  Sickness!  Perversion!  And so the Passover was something observed by God’s Church through... and it’s always been observed by God’s Church, obviously, since it began; and always has been, always will be.

BUT there was a Passover being kept even by a great false church up to a point in time.  They kind of did like what Worldwide did; they finally came to a time where they said you can keep both, you can keep Passover and you can keep Easter, you can keep Christmas and you can observe those Feast days in the Fall and keep them as you like....  And if it all glorifies God you can go worship before God on any day.  You can do it on the Sabbath, you can do it on Sunday, you can do it on Friday, you can do it on Monday.  Bull!  You can worship God, you should worship God, you should pray to God, you should have a relationship with God seven days a week!  But on one day of the week God commands you to come before Him in worship to be taught by Him, and that’s the Sabbath, seventh day Sabbath.  People don’t like to reason that way...and if you can’t begin there you’re in big hot water, big trouble, big doo-doo spiritually in your life.  That’s where you are and you’re going to have address it whether you like it or not!  Be mad at me, I don’t care!  If it causes you to address something in your own life – get mad!  Get upset!  Go ahead and say, “Who are you to say that?!“  Can you take a challenge?

A lot of you just don’t have the guts that Mr. Armstrong had with his own wife when she told him about the Sabbath and he didn’t like the idea!  He went to a library and started studying, and did if for about six months, studying things about God open-mindedly.  Of course God was bringing him to that point, but see, all of you listening... you’ve been brought to that point.  If you’re listening you’ve been brought to that point.  God’s spirit is beginning to be poured out upon the earth to give people the opportunity to fulfill Isaiah 1:18.

The time has come to you that you have a choice to make, whether you’re going to accept and start thinking open-mindedly about what you hear, or whether you’re going to continue to hold onto what you are beginning to see and learn is wrong, is false, is not true.  All you have to go to is to an encyclopaedia and look up ‘Easter’ and you find out that its origins are not from the Church of God, it’s not from Jesus Christ.  It doesn’t come out of your Bible; it comes from the Catholic church basically!  And they’ve picked it up from paganism in the past.

The same thing with the ‘mass of Christ’.  You call it Christmas or Christ-mass.  Why ‘mass’?  Why is it called Christ-mass?  Because it tells you where it came from, the mass of Christ is something from the Catholic Church and its wrong!  It’s not in your Bible!  You can’t find the word there!  You’d think something so important to celebrate – surely it’s in the Bible!  NO, IT’S NOT! SO WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO CONTINUE TO HOLD ONTO AND LIE TO YOURSELF AND BELIEVE IN LIES?  And that’s the reasoning God wants you to come to: are you going to continue in what is false or change and follow what is true?

I’m worked up in talking about it to all of you and I know you’ve proven all these things to yourself, but you’re going to be telling other people the same thing!  Not the same way necessarily, because I have a job to do, but you’re going to be talking to them and reasoning with them.  Hopefully they’ll reason with you and if they don’t you go onto someone else who really wants to know and understand.  Where did the mass of Christ come from?  Duh!  They don’t put it together; Christ-mass!  Sad!  And the world holds onto it and stubbornly holds onto it and the vast majority of people are going to hold onto it until the day they die...and die they will!  Not my choice.  Not my fault!  It’s not my fault and my responsibility that masses of people are going to die – IT’S THEIR OWN because judgment has come to them.

Are you going to kneel before your God or are you going to be defiant?  And if you’re going to be defiant against God you know who’s going to win?  You’re not.  You’re puny! You are small!  We are all puny and small before God!  We have no concept of the magnitude of God’s love and God’s greatness, and we scorn it as human beings, we ridicule it as human beings, we truly do!  It is sick and perverted and distorted what human beings have done toward their God.  And you know what?  The time has just come where God isn’t going to allow that anymore.  He’s allowed it for 6,000 years for a purpose, to prove to mankind you CAN’T govern yourselves, you CAN’T give yourselves peace, you CAN’T go over to Afghanistan and bring them peace, you CAN’T do it in Iraq, you CAN’T do it in the Middle East,  you CAN’T do it anywhere!  Hypocrites, liars!  That’s what we are!

Politicians and political reasons were why nations didn’t step in to help save the Jews who were being slaughtered before and during World War II, being taken to camps and killed en masse and governments knew it!  One of the most astounding things I saw walking through the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem – newspapers (there were letters as well), from different governments who knew... who knew!  It’s like this Libya thing. They barely got some of this stuff passed!  Back then it just wasn’t...should I use the word ‘kosher’ for politicians and different governments to interfere with this guy they hoped would just go away; because that’s kind of what they hoped.  That’s what they hoped in Great Britain, “Hopefully he’s just going to go away after a while, this Hitler character!”  He didn’t go away!  ...and they didn’t want to address it.  Why?  Oh they knew what it would mean if they tried to address it.  They knew what would take place!  They knew it’d be a world war; they knew it!  And so they allowed millions of Jews to be slaughtered...after all, they’re Jews. That was their attitude.  Sick, sick, filthy, horrible politics in this world!

Uganda?  Different countries; hundreds of thousands of people can be slaughtered, and will the world step in to help save them, the slaughter that’s taking place?  And these things have been repeated around the world over and over and over again...and mankind is hideously, hideously hypocritical!  Liars! Traitors!  “...oh, but if they have oil we might intervene a little sooner...”  Isn’t that amazing?  See, parts of Africa didn’t have oil so we didn’t go down there...hmmm.  But in the Middle East?  Iraq?  We’ve got a vested interest we think, we feel.  Libya?  Hypocritical liars!  That’s what we’re like as human beings!

And God says, “Now it’s time to repent.”  IF I am a prophet.  Too bad; because it’s not happening the way people want it to happen, or they think the message is just a little too strong, a little too harsh; they won’t take note and won’t change.  When God talks to you, when it comes your time, you better shut up and listen!  You better examine yourself and look down into your being and ask, “Is this the end?  Is this the end-time?  Are the things I’ve heard about in Revelation....? Is it possible that Jesus Christ is returning to this earth?  Is it possible we’re not all going to ‘flitter up to heaven’ when we die, but that there’s a resurrection later on up the road?  Is it just possible that maybe I’ve been lied to all my life by the Catholic church?!” Let’s pick on some other organizations who came out of that church [Catholic], or adopted their beliefs.

Southern Baptist, Northern Baptist, Eastern and Western Baptists... all the Baptists!  I know you love me for saying that; but you have Western, Northern and Eastern Baptists as well.  Because you do, and you don’t all agree with each other.  Do you realize, you Baptists out there listening, that you don’t agree with your South American brethren, because they don’t keep Christmas and Easter down there but you do, a bunch of you do. So what’s the problem?!  Who’s right?  You’re going to get upset at the ones in South America and other parts of the world, over in the Philippines and different areas of the world who believe differently in some of your religions?  (I guess that’s the Seventh Day Adventists.  I’m sorry, I think I said Baptist.)  But anyway, Baptists, you have your differences too.  Some of you think that you can drink wine and some of you think you can’t; some of you can go to the bar and some of you can’t.  That’s a dilemma.  But you all believe in Christmas and Easter.

Church of Christ?  You believe in Christmas, you believe in Easter.  The ‘mass of Christ’ – where did you get it?  You got it from the Catholic church.  Go look it up in your encyclopaedia – don’t get mad at me.  It’s always easier to blame someone else, to get mad at someone else because you don’t like the way they’re telling you the story. You don’t have much time to wait!  This is a plea!  It’s one that’s stern!  And people fight it and resist it!  They’re about to hear this and a whole lot more, and a whole lot stronger as we go forward!  Sad, sick world!

And so the decision is coming to a lot of people.  But you know what?  I hurt inside because I know most of you aren’t going to listen.  Isn’t that amazing?  Just like ole’ Pharaoh.  Just like the series we just went through.  Instead of being made softer inside and coming to a point of humility and dropping to his knees and thanking God for His love and His mercy and that he had been given the opportunity to repent, and that their sins, that they’re red as red can be and flowing in blood can be forgiven and made white, and they can be cleansed.  Instead of being thankful for that they’re going to get upset, they’re going to become bitter and angry, more bitter and angrier inside.  They wouldn’t say toward God, they would say toward me because I’m saying these things.  “Oh God...? It can’t be God because God isn’t like that! God doesn’t mind what day of the week you worship Him!”  I’m here to tell you yes He does and you have a choice to make, you have a judgment to make, whether you’re going to obey God....

We all have sin that needs to be forgiven and people have to come to that point now or they die.  They die.  And so people get upset when I talk about praying for different things.  Praying!  Can you imagine, because it’s pretty hard to do, to have been Moses and to lift up that staff and to call upon a plague that’s going to destroy and kill young and old alike?  So was Moses a ‘bad guy’, a ‘bad man’ for doing this, or was he right and just before God?  And was Moses doing it or was God doing it?  Incredible how people think sometimes!

And so in Corinthians, just as it says here, that’s what is coming upon people at this time here in a massive way because God’s beginning to pour out His spirit more and more on this country. And very soon now it’s going to be poured out proportionally according to the things that come upon us in the sense of cataclysm and catastrophic events and so forth, whether they be Thunders or Trumpets, more of God’s spirit is being offered and poured out upon the earth if people will repent as they go through those things.  Because you see, the sad pathetic thing is people will not repent unless these things occur over and over and over and become greater over and over again.

But for everyone who dies (we don’t’ see things as God does), in a thousand years they get to have life again in a far better world than this one.  But people don’t understand the mercy, the love, the kindness, the patience, the mercy of God Almighty.  No, when judgment finally comes to their door it’s like God’s unfair that I should have to go through this.  “Why is God doing this to me?”  Amazing!  You did it to yourself!  Sin is the cause, the culprit.  You sin; you continue in sin. You want to continue in sin?  You’re doing it to yourself; God isn’t doing it to you!  You have judgment upon you!  You either obey God’s laws or reap the judgment and the consequences.

I Corinthians 11;  Passover!  It’s about Passover!  Paul is talking about the Passover long after Christ has died and he’s talking about something out of the Old Testament that they’re to observe.  And he talks about the Days of Unleavened Bread.  He talks about other things.  He talks about keeping the Feast.  People... “What is a Feast?”  It’s back in the Old Testament, back in Leviticus 23.  You’ll find what Feast’s are if you go back to Leviticus 23, because by the time you get to the New Testament they understood those things, it’s just the way it was.  Feasts are Feasts; Sabbaths are Sabbaths – whether they be weekly or annual; and Passover is Passover.

We come to 325 AD and all of a sudden you get this church that wants to change it.  They don’t like Passover, now they want to keep Easter, and so in 325 AD they decided to do away with Passover and to start celebrating Easter.

I Corinthians 11:28 - But let a man examine himself, when you are getting ready to take the Passover, before you have done it, over and over again it’s this thing of judgment.  And so we’re told in God’s Church that we’re to examine ourselves, put ourselves to the test; prove ourselves.  How are we measuring up?  How are we living God’s way of life?  Where are we letting down?  Where do we need to repent?  Where do we need to change?  What is it we need to address in our lives because judgment is upon us in the Church of God!  That’s what we’re told; ‘judgment now is upon the House of God’!  From the time you’re baptized you’re under judgment from that point on in a very powerful way in a way the world isn’t.  But everybody is brought to it eventually, to various kinds of judgment.

But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. So we’re taught in God’s Church you’re not to partake of the Passover unless you’re doing these things – not just once a year but to get into the practice, the way of life, day by day to examine yourselves before God, to address sins in your life that you know are in your life, things that you know are wrong, things that you know aren’t right in relationships, and repent of them and ask God to help you to live right before Him, because you do not want to take the Passover in an unworthy manner.... and so you need to examine this even more deeply, more honestly before God before you take the Passover, with a much stronger focus in your life.  To repent because you understand when you take that piece of bread and you take that little bit of wine what it represents and what it pictures...and you don’t want to be guilty before God when you do it.

And so it is in the world, we have choices to make and judgment has come to this earth.  It came one time a long time ago when a man... it’s not just a nice, pretty Old Testament story that has kind of some lessons you can learn from it.  It actually happened, unlike what so many Protestant churches teach.  It’s not just a nice little story that can teach some nice little lessons in the Bible.  No, Noah really lived and he really lived to 600 years old and beyond, past the flood and all the period of time there that he lived, the age he lived to.  Incredible life!  I can’t imagine having the kind of life he had, the period of time he lived.  We can’t comprehend things like that; for someone to live up in their 900’s... almost a thousand years – Methuselah.  Man becomes very evil within a hundred; very evil.  Some of you might not think so.  Even within God’s Church sometimes people have difficulty with this; human nature, ignoring God, rebelling against God, is a very evil thing.

And so one time, a long time ago, God judged the earth; man is not to live this long any longer.  The sins that were on the earth were so bad, society was so evil.  God determined to destroy everything except for one family.  For a hundred years they worked to build an ark. Huge ship!  Incredible!  And they were mocked and made fun of....  “If you wanted to have a vacation, get your stuff together, one of the great sites to see is this guy named Noah and what he’s building out here in the middle of nowhere.  He believes there’s going to be a flood!  ...and we’re going to go out there and we’re going to have our picnics, we’re going to have parties out here and we’re going to watch!”  I’m going to tell you that happened!  It was such an incredible thing to see.  Something that massive being built was incredible to see in itself.  People came from far and wide to see it because it was so incredible!  The stories went out; people heard about it!

All a part of God’s plan to show us, to help us to understand things about human nature – how evil it is.  To be sobered by that, that hopefully we’d respond to God in a positive way to realize the consequences of sin, so that mankind would respond to God and have some fear in there.  But as soon as you get through the flood you have three sons and three daughters in law who basically couldn’t stand God; and they witnessed the flood and they lived through it and they were saved through it...and they couldn’t stand God.  They didn’t want God’s way!  They didn’t choose God’s way.  You think, “How is that possible?”  Would you have done that?  You might think you wouldn’t have.  I’m telling you if you lived then you would have done exactly the same thing.  Who do you think you are?  If I’d been there, I would have done exactly the same thing!  If you think you’re different from that you don’t understand your own human nature and what you’re capable of.

I can tell you about several thousands of people who never thought they would ever leave God’s Church, who were given God’s holy spirit, impregnated with God’s holy spirit; who would have said and told you if they were asked that question they would say “I will never leave God’s Church in an apostasy!  I will never go back to Sunday!  I will never believe in Christmas and Easter again!  ...and there they are.  So who do we think we are?

It is a plea.  Sad, when God cries out He wants people to listen... He’s wanted them to listen for 6,000 years. And you know what?  He knows the answer to this.  I know the answer to this.  That the vast majority of people aren’t going to listen.  Wave after wave after wave of destruction....  What happened in Japan is puny! What happened in Japan is small compared to what this nation’s going to see this year as time goes on.  Got a year of things that are going to take place that are going to astound and dumbfound people – whenever God’s time is that they begin to see it – whether it be in two weeks or two months.  Can it be that close?  Absolutely!  ...or it can be farther.  God isn’t telling.  He isn’t showing us, but He says its coming.

Let’s go back and pick up some of the story flow here in Isaiah 1 again and start in here:  A plea to consider it.  A plea to look into your own life.  A plea to look at your own beliefs.  A plea to look into an encyclopaedia, to see where some of these things have come from.  Where did the worship on Sunday come from?  Where does it come from?

Isaiah 1:2 - Listen, in other words, a plea to listen from God; O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Eternal has spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me.  “They’ve turned against Me, turned away from Me.”  Over and over again through time He’s given them the truth.  Look at the Israelites!  Their whole history is one of being given the truth.  In time they turn away, they’ve turned away from God. They’ve turned away from the truth in time.  It happens.

The ox knows his owner and the donkey his master's crib: In other words ‘the feeding place from where one is fed’; and this is given as an appreciation, in other words, of knowing where the food comes from. Here animals can know where the food comes from and when, as a whole, if you’re on a regular schedule, it comes from and they’ll come running to you because they know how they’re being fed.  And God’s saying, “You don’t even know how you’re fed; you don’t even grasp where the food comes from...not the spiritual only,” obviously here, “but just even your own food.” You go out and work and you till the ground, or you go out now-a-days and you buy it and take it off the store shelves (and you kind of take that for granted too and look how fast that can disappear).

A lot of you listening out there, you are going to experience not being able to go to a grocery store and find one can of food in the not too distant future.  You are wise to plan ahead.  You are wise to save up and store some food right now.  And if anybody out there listening hasn’t done that you’d be expedient, wise, very wise to do the best you can to store some canned food.  It’s going to be more precious than any amount of money you’ve ever saved up in your IRA or in the stock market or in U.S. Treasuries, because those are just exactly what they are...some of it’s just in kind of like a limbo in the internet system.  That’s all it is, little ones and zeros somewhere; or paper at the best.  At least you could use that for toilet paper if you had the paper.  Some people don’t even have the paper; it’s out there in the internet.  So cans of food are going to be a whole lot more valuable than silver and gold.  Incredible!

...but Israel does not know, My people do not consider.   Won’t think about it, won’t consider it, won’t reason, think it through.

Ah, or this word here is ‘Alas’ translated in some places; an expression that is like ‘a passionate cry of grief, a heartfelt plea’.  That’s what it is; it’s a heartfelt plea for someone to listen, to hear, to consider. Ah, sinful nation, a people loaded down with iniquity, every nation you look at in the world is like this, a world filled with iniquity, nations filled with iniquity, filled with sin – that’s what God says!  Filled with sin; but people don’t think they’re that way.  They go to church on Sunday.  That’s what they think is saving them; because they do those things.  “We try to live ‘good’; good lives.”  And indeed you should strive to live good lives, but God expects more of you, that you obey Him because it’s not your ‘good’ that counts, its God’s.  And your ‘good’ should be measured by what God says is good, not by what you say is good.  It’s good as long as you can do the way you want to do it, as long as you can maybe go to church once a month (if you even do that) on Sunday, at least keep Easter and Christmas once a year...then that’s okay before God.  No, it isn’t.  It’s a sin!  It’s a sin to go to church on Sunday.  It’s defiance against the Great God of the universe that said you should do it on the seventh day of the week.

Don’t like what you hear?  I don’t care!  I’ve given you the message; it’s up to you to take it.  That’s what God says.  The messages are there; whether you receive it to yourself, whether you repent or not, that’s your choice, that’s your decision.  Hopefully you’ll repent.  Ah, sinful nation; the plea is to repent!  That’s what God leads them up to, though your sins be as red like crimson, they can be as white as wool, if you’ll repent.

...children who are corrupters: in other words, wrong lifestyles that lead others into sin.  You see some things in society like that?  People who are corruptors that lead others into sin?  Do we see a system out there that’s geared toward that, that it helps to lead others into sin?  It starts in school.  Things start in high schools, easily, and actually before that.  Things that try to pull at people to lead them away into wrong practices, wrong habits: drugs, marijuana.  “Oh, what’s a little marijuana?”  Well, I’ve known some people who’ve had a little too much marijuana.  People say it doesn’t hurt the mind and that scientific studies prove it doesn’t hurt the mind.  I can tell you some people I’ve known that hurt their mind, they just weren’t as sharp after a while, they weren’t the same people after a while. And for some people it leads them right into the harder stuff; and people say there’s no connection between the two.  It’s like I can take a drink if I want to and put it away and it’ll never have an effect on me.  Some of the biggest lies in the world that pull people in.

Sex!  The misuse of sex, premarital sex, “It’s all okay.  It’s okay.  How can you get to know someone if you don’t sleep with them for a while?” That’s how sick the world is!  It doesn’t understand you destroy your mind; you hurt your mind toward what is valuable and what is meaningful in life!  But people are taught that it’s okay; if it feels good it’s fine; if you don’t hurt somebody else....  And that’s a sick, perverted lie because you’re always hurting someone else!  Yet people don’t understand that, they experience it and they don’t understand how they’ve hurt their own minds to what God says can be joyful and happy and fulfilling if done His way!

But people fight and resist it; and you think people are pulled into it? You think music has anything to do with pulling people into a certain way of lifestyle?  The kinds of dances that are out there?  Do you think those have effects on people in how they think and the way they move and the way they sway?  Do you think that when Elvis Presley first got up and he started gyrating his hips...and people were shocked in society when they saw that on TV!  (GASP)  ...because they knew what it pictured.  They knew the message behind it.  They were willing to acknowledge there’s a message here.  But after a while it became, “Oh, this is okay.”  And now today, some of the things you see out there, they’re just filthy!  They’re just animalistic the way people are toward each other, but most people in society don’t think it’s that bad or animalistic.  “It’s okay to do those things.”  No, it isn’t that way!  Dancing - fine if you do it in a good manner, godly manner.  But I’ll tell you, I flip by some things on some of these stations sometimes when you’re going from one channel to another and some of the things you see out there and they make Elvis Presley look tame; but back in his day, it shocked!  Today it takes so much more to shock anyone!  You have to be just about nude, doing very crass things, to get someone to be shocked today.  Sadly too many wouldn’t be shocked, they would enjoy it!  That’s what happens; people enjoy it.  They want to be entertained that way.  They want to be entertained or even be a part of it.

Some people think, “Well, you’re crazy about music.”  I don’t care.  I used to live it.  I know what it was.  I know how it affected me and I know I had the battle of coming out of its influence back in my day.  And if God permits in time I want to give some sermons about some of those kinds of things that lead up from one thing to another that God has taught me and trained me in to help me understand things about sin in a far deeper way, because of having lived certain things and come out of them.

So God does plea with us, He truly does.  You know why?  Because He loves us; He loves His creation.  To you parents: what parent doesn’t love their child?  Sometimes they get to a point where they don’t; but as a whole in life when it all starts out, what parent doesn’t love their children?  Now if they don’t then they’ve got to address some things in their life.  And what parent, as a child grows older and begins to be influenced by this world, doesn’t ache and hurt inside at times when they see them making wrong decisions and wrong choices that they know is going to hurt them?  Why?  Because the parent wants them to be happy, to have a fulfilling life, a meaningful life.  How much more (if we could only grasp it), does God Almighty want for us?  He wants us to be happy and fulfilled; but only His laws give that happiness.  Living by them, obeying them - that’s what produces happiness and closeness in relationships.  Because there’s nothing more important than relationships!  But people don’t understand that till sometimes it’s too late and you’re standing over a coffin.

Ah, sinful nation, the people loaded down with iniquity/sins; a seed of evildoers, children who are corruptors, in other words, wrong lifestyles that lead others into sin, as with drugs, exploitation of loose and immoral sexual practices and so forth; they have forsaken the Eternal, yeah, not even any consideration of the way of God.  Even with distorted understanding about God, even in that which is not true; that even goes away, it’s not even there.  God doesn’t enter into people making choices as to whether they want to (makes motion of sucking on marijuana and exhales)... “Ah, feels so good...”  smoking on marijuana or whatever it might be and kind of lose a bit of their reality and get to where they can laugh; or some people they go the opposite direction, but that’s another story.

...forsaken the Eternal and have provoked the Holy One [unto anger]; unfortunately too many in the world when they try to translate various things, especially in the Protestant world, they see this great big difference between the Great Eternal God Almighty and His son Jesus Christ; because that Great God Almighty in the Old Testament, “He was pretty harsh.  He destroyed the world once!  He destroyed it with the flood!  Look what happened with the children of Israel in some of their things.  Look what happened to Egypt!  He’s pretty harsh; He’s pretty stern; He’s pretty hard on people!”  That’s how it’s painted a lot of times, and then this son comes along and He has love.

That’s why you hear all these churches talking about, “just love Jesus... if you just loooooove Jesus; just have Jeeesus in your heart your world will be better. Jeeeesssuuss!” It just makes you want to puke hearing it!  Really!  It just makes you want to puke when you hear it because it’s so insincere, it’s so false, it’s so corrupt, and it so distorts the true God of the universe, and so distorts the true Jesus Christ and who He really is.  The world is going to be kind of shocked when He comes back this next time because He’s not coming back as a Passover lamb who doesn’t fight back, who doesn’t answer and lets people do what they will to Him.  If they want to spit upon Him He let them spit upon Him.  If they want to accuse Him, He took it, as a lamb.  That’s what it means: so He could die as a Passover lamb!

This next time around it says He comes back as a lion!  Means He’s going to destroy those who won’t yield to His power and His glory!  And that’s what man deserves if they don’t want Jesus Christ ruling them.  If they don’t want God ruling them they have made a choice and they deserve death! What more do they deserve?  What is just on this earth?  Do they deserve to live on and continue to live whatever way they want to live?  Is it okay to go to church on Sunday and keep Christmas and Easter when it’s totally against God’s way of life?  Is that okay?  And somehow God is harsh if He destroys you and takes your life because you won’t obey Him?  This world is so sick and its judgment is so sick!  No, God is just: ‘Let God be true and every man a liar.’ as we read last Sabbath; because only God is true and His word is true.  We are the ones who are liars and lie to ourselves and lie to others and we want to paint a picture about what we’re like.

And so, they haven’t provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger; but they want to make God look like He’s angry and He’s ready to throw down bolts of lightning and He’s ready to see destruction.  That’s not what it’s saying here.  That’s not what this is in context about.  That isn’t the way God is!  GOD IS LOVE!  He wants to love.  He wants to be able to have a relationship with us; and if we want one with Him then we have a choice to make, to live life His way that brings peace and happiness, where peace can exist...and if we choose any other way then we have to answer for that.  Our choice!  Our judgment!  Our decision!  And that’s where the world is today.  That’s where, especially, the scattered nations of Israel are today, the United States, the tribe of Manasseh that migrated here through Europe in time.  One of the twelve tribes of Israel, and everybody who’s blessed to live here in this land that God gave.  At one time... you go back and read the ‘U.S. and B.C. in Prophecy’ that Mr. Armstrong wrote and you back and you see the power, the wealth...astounding!  And God gave it to us.  It’s not because we were great, that we came over in these ships and all of a sudden we became a great people because we’re so great and we started this nation and we had these laws and we established these... and we were the greatest nation the world has ever known!  Bull!  The greatest nation the world has ever known is coming, the true nation, the right nation, the Kingdom of God!  Everything else is a lie and in defiance of the Great God of the universe because it won’t allow God to rule them.

If a nation won’t allow God to rule they have made a decision, and made a choice.  Think nations like to hear that one?  Well, they’re going to really get upset over the next few months.  Sad.  It’s their own choices.

And so, they have forsaken the Eternal; they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto... the word is translated ‘provoked to anger’, but it means ‘to stir to condemnation’ or ‘to bring on or to execute judgment’. God doesn’t want to do that.  God has never wanted to do that; but there comes a time where if you continue to rebel and continue to disobey then you stir God to judgment, to executing, administering (if you will) judgment; because you can’t be allowed, you can’t continue on and not have repercussions.  The nation of Judah, God allowed them to be taken into captivity.  He allowed Israel, the northern tribes, to be taken into captivity by Assyria, who today are the German people.  And God says it’s going to be them again who is going to be the rod of His punishment upon this nation.  And so Germany rises again.  We’ve known this for so long.  God gave it to Mr. Armstrong in a very powerful way, to understand what’s going to happen to this nation.

First of all, there are Four Trumpets where this nation suffers mightily.  The Fifth Trumpet is the resurrection of what’s referred to in scripture as the Holy Roman Empire.  It rises one last seventh prophetic time and it’s basically, primarily run by, led by a particular people who when they go to war are fierce in what they do; and it’s Germany.  And this nation is going to become subservient to Germany very soon, again, in history.  God took them captive once before and He says He’s going to do it one more time.  This is that time.

And so when are people going to repent?  When that takes place?  When 10 nations in Europe finally combine and step in and take over militarily?  You think, “How can they do that?  They don’t have that kind of military!”  Oh, wait and see.  Wait and see God’s words come to pass.  And so people make fun of that and think, “Oh that can’t happen!  What kind of power do they have?”  Well, they’ve got a lot of power right in their own territory, right in a place called NATO.  We put it there.  Amazing!

And so the world and this nation has provoked the Eternal One to a time, especially now, of judgment/to execute judgment.  Says, they have gone away backward. Why should you be corrected/chastened; in other words, corrected or chastened any longer/anymore? That’s what it’s asking here.  Why keep chastening you and correcting you any longer? You will only continue to revolt more and more; happened over and over.  They get chastened...they go right back to it.  After a little while they go right back to whatever they want to do.

It’s like what happened this past week, shows you; this past week was a huge lesson if people could just listen, if they have eyes to see and ears to hear.  All of a sudden Japan gets smacked powerfully by an earthquake, a tsunami, and then problems with their nuclear power plants.  All of a sudden Japan is calling back money from U.S. Treasuries.   They’re cashing in, they’re bringing back, they’re liquidating in other words.  They need cash and so they’re bringing it home.  What was the second greatest economy in the world (which is now the third because China just passed them up recently); huge economy of the world, and so the stock market and the world panicked a little bit.  They should have panicked a whole lot more, but they panicked a little bit, and by the end of the week stocks are shooting right back up again, people are right back to going to ‘save themselves’.  “We’re going to do this!  News is better!  Look how much better it’s getting out there!”  Totally ignoring what took place in the sense of this problem, just in this one incident alone, and how this is going to have a devastating effect in the worldwide economy – but who’s willing to address it?  Who’s willing to just acknowledge and admit it...how horrifying, how horrible this one thing has been?  But they won’t because of pride and ego and lies and manipulation, manipulation upon manipulation of things out here.

I hope you’ve learned a great lesson of why these things have to happen over and over and over again; otherwise people will not listen.  And that’s why God is going to do it, have wave after wave of Thunders, and in time a continuation of Trumpets, over and over again; otherwise people would never listen.  And that’s what’s being asked here.  Why should you continue to be corrected?  Why? Why? Why?  What good does this all do because you just continue to revolt and you go back to your ways?  So God is, in essence, showing that there comes a time when everyone’s going to be brought to judgment and they have to make a choice and a decision as to what they’re going to do because they’re not going to be allowed this anymore.  It’s not going to be wave after wave....in other words, through time, you’re corrected and you go back to do your same old thing, and then you have to be corrected again later on in time.  No more!  Going to bring all the correction down to wave after wave after wave to bring you to repentance or to your end, because it’s time for a new Kingdom, it’s time for a Kingdom to be established on this earth, not man’s any longer.

...the whole head, in other words, the government, or anything that leads and influences people; the whole head, whatever it is that leads people, usually speaking prophetically of governments.  ...the whole head is sick, that’s the way it is in nation after nation right now.  The games that people are playing out here, the games that people are playing in nations in Europe, the games that people are playing in the Middle East.  I don’t care where you look!

...the whole heart is sick, God says.  Whole heart!  Of leadership, of peoples, of things that are going on; From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; Isn’t it amazing?  I hope some of you are picking up on some of that; that people make choices and decisions and they’re just... Where is the soundness anymore?  Not that there always has been, but it’s getting worse and worse and worse out here in the world.  ...but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores, in other words God says it’s just like infected wounds.  That’s what happens out here when choices and decisions are made.  One thing makes something else worse!  One thing is done and it hurts something somewhere else and it’s just like an endless cycle out here of what’s going on.

...they have not been closed, neither bound up, nor made better with ointment.  The lies!  Look at Katrina!  Look at the lies!  I marvel sometimes at human beings and the promises that are made.  Going to go in there and build a new city, make it clean, make it nice, fix it for you, help you out.  Go down there and ask how much has been fixed.  Look at the Gulf oil spill and the problems that are still going on as a result of that.  Money, corporations, politics; it’s all in the mix there; and people getting sick down there from some of the stuff they used to disperse the oil.  Deadly, sick cancers...and people ignore it, don’t want to address it.  So God says, they have not been closed, the wounds, neither been bound up, neither made better with ointment.

It continues on here by showing where all this will lead and how bad it will become, except that God has a plan.  Verse 7 - Your country is desolate, in other words, this is where it’s going; your cities are burned with fire...

...it goes on to state in verse 9 – Except, in other words, if it were not for the fact that; that’s what this means here, this word ‘except’ in the Hebrew; that the Eternal of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we would have become like Sodom, and we would have been like unto Gomorrah. Even for us it’s an awesome thing!  In God’s plan for the Church; if God did not have a plan, if God did not have a purpose in what He’s doing at this end-time, if God hadn’t left even, speaking of, not just what is remaining in a particular area, but even with the Church and what’s happened here.  But it’s also about what’s going to happen here; it’s dual, physical in the sense of the nation Israel, and also the spiritual Israel of God.  But it really has more to do, in reality, spiritually with the spiritual Israel of God and what God has left.  That’s you!  It’s the Church that continues on; because if it weren’t here what hope would the world have?  But they don’t understand that, sadly.  They’ll come to understand it one day; they’ll come to appreciate it.  One day they’re going to come to appreciate and talk about in a very powerful way a two day fast that so many of you were a part of.  You don’t understand the importance of that to the magnitude that it is – yet – but it is.

Hear the word of the Eternal, you rulers/you leaders of Sodom; that’s what God calls it; give ear unto the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah.  They wouldn’t listen – what happened to them?  They wouldn’t believe God – what happened to them? To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me?  And so now He gets into something here that has to do with the way society is, the way Israel is especially.  And He says, To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me? says the Eternal: today, sadly, and even in society too often people don’t even try.  But those who do try, those who do try in their own way....  And they’re deceived, I understand that.  Some people think it’s a matter of being mad at the people or upset at them.  I’m not.  God isn’t.  He wants people to repent, but He wants people to acknowledge and look at what they’ve done and what they’re doing so they’ll repent, so they can be blessed.  But what they believe, where it came from...evil!  Evil! And people don’t understand how evil it is before God.

And so God says, to what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices?  And so today it’s expected of certain people’s at certain times of the year that you give more on certain drives at certain times – like Christmas time.  If you get close to Christmas that’s a great time to have food drives to help people who are less fortunate.  Think, “Why don’t you hear that throughout the whole year in the same way?”  Oh, but around Christmas time it’s nice to do all this stuff to people...and then they go back to the way it was before.  What are those people eating the rest of the 364 days of the year?  Hypocrisy, hypocrisy, hypocrisy!

And so He says, What’s the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me?  So what are they?  ...the sacrifices of things that people give.  I’ll tell you where they give great big bucks – to build great big churches!  Travelling throughout Europe one of the things that sometimes is...when you look/think back in history and you think about some of these humungous, awesomely built, and beautiful architecture, but the money and the labour and the time, especially going back 300, 400, 500, 600, 700 years in some of these places and you see some of these mammoth places.  And you know where they’re at?  They’re at the city center, built by the Catholic church; great big buildings...great big lavish buildings.  Insides; great, big, lavish architecture.  People sacrificed a lot to build those things because they were told this is what you do; you build great big buildings.

And so now today you know what people think about when they think about ‘church’?  They think it’s a place you go.  They think it’s a building!  They think it’s a place you go week by week in order to worship God.  They don’t know that’s not what a Church is.  The Church isn’t the building!  That’s why when some people hear about the true Church of God they don’t like it so much that we just rent buildings, because we don’t build great big buildings like everybody else does.  Like, “Where’s your stability?”  Well, that’s the problem; it’s not in this world.  That’s why we don’t do it.

But because of that you’re looked upon as being different or strange or a cult, because you don’t have a building like everybody else, you don’t function like everybody else.  We don’t do a lot of things everybody else does, thank God.  Thank God that He’s brought us out of that captivity, because He has.  And so people will build one great big building to try to outdo somebody else that has a great big building.  And so God says... He asks these questions, “Is this what you think I want?”  That’s what He’s asking; “Is this what you think I want?!  Is this truly what you believe?”  To put it in a certain way... ‘wins you brownie points.’  “Is this what makes Me smile upon you and you receive some kind of favour and help from Me because of this, that I somehow enjoy these things?”  And so He says, whatever the sacrifices are, and you can look at a lot of different things that people give to, and that’s what God is talking about here.

...to what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me, says the Eternal. I am full of your burnt offerings of rams; and so He uses the Old Testament example here because of Israel and because of the time period this is written in regarding scripture, in their particular time and talking about what Judah did.  And they came to a point in time, especially the Jewish people as a whole, because Israel just left it all in time; they went to Sunday worship long before Jesus Christ ever came along.  You know why?  Because they worshipped the god called ‘Ba-al’; they started worshipping him, and of course that’s the worship of, in essence, the sun god.  And of course that’s on the day of the sun... which is amazing... we use that name today Sunday.  And you think these things are so simple, but people can’t put it together.  Where does it all come from?  Way before Christ was ever born the nation of Israel was worshipping on Sunday!  Incredible!  And they turned away from God’s Holy Days.

But the Jewish people of that time continued on. By the time Christ came along they still had the sacrificial system and some of the things that were going on at that particular time and they began to make religion out of the physical rituals.  It wasn’t what was being taught, of what it pictured of what it meant.  Just like the Passover lamb, it didn’t picture any more to them - it was more of the ritual!  Just like it is today when they go into the Seder and other things that they do and so forth that are so far away from what God said it should be, but they don’t understand that!  And so God is using this example here then to teach something.  You make something a ritual, you get into a certain form of religion here, of what you think is religious.  To Traditional Christianity it’s Easter, it’s Christmas, it’s Sunday worship, it’s whatever projects they get involved in, whatever occasional  so called ‘good works’ that people do and so forth at different times, or whatever it might be.  And that’s what God is pleading about here.  Says, “What does all this mean? What is it about?  Is that what I want from you?”

And so whether it be traditional Christianity or whether it be Judaism, it’s the same thing.  It’s what He’s addressing here.  So the analogy here is given of one concerning the sacrifices and so forth because whether they be sacrifices and offerings taken up every Sunday and people committing themselves to so much to build a building – whatever it might be, on and on it goes.  When people get up and beg....  God’s Church never begs for money.  God’s Church reminds people that they have a responsibility before God to obey God; because if we don’t do those things, if we don’t obey things of tithing, if we don’t obey giving to God on the Holy Days, then we’re disobeying laws and because of that then we can’t be blessed.  Yes, God’s Church teaches that; but God’s Church never gets up and begs for money.  “Can’t you do more?  Can’t you look down deep into your pocketbooks, into your wallet; isn’t there some more you could scrape together?  And if you don’t, and if I don’t raise $7M by a certain time, God’s going to kill me.”  Some of these different religions out here and what they say and how they come across to beg before people – makes a mockery of what is true and what is right before God.

So He says, What is the purpose/what is the end/ what are you trying to accomplish by the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me? Says the Eternal.  I am full of your burnt offerings of your rams, the fat of the fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or in lambs, or the goats.  Giving for the wrong reasons, for the wrong motivations; it’s like, “If I give something to God, if I do something to God I’m going to get something back.  I give something so I can get something back from God.”  That’s not what it’s all about!  God doesn’t work with us that way.

Verse 12 - When you come to appear before Me, in other words, in the way you do, IF you do – and the world today as a whole doesn’t even do it.  But if you do, even with what little you do understand; who has required this at your hand, to tread/parade in My courts? In other words, “Who are you listening to and why?  Why to them?” Don’t bring any more meaningless offerings to Me; and your incense is an abomination unto Me; and we understand what that means, what incense is about.  It’s about prayers.  That’s what God is saying.  “Your prayers... your petitions to Me... You go through the ritual of religion and you think something is owed to you because you’re doing it your way, not My way, not the way I have told you to?  And so you do it your way to get something out of it, to get something from Me?  Is this what it’s about? ...some kind of a bargaining thing back and forth so you can feel better about yourself?”  I know people who go to church just so they can feel better about themselves.  It’s a way of kind of satisfying the conscience in some way.  It’s not how it’s done spiritually.  That’s why people aren’t really fulfilled then.

He says, Don’t bring any more meaningless offerings to Me; and your incense is an abomination to me; your new moons, the way you count time for what  you observe, for what you do?  “I’ve told you how to count time.”  And so God’s Church, we count time so we know when the Sabbath is, so we know when the Holy Days are, so when we know when the Feast of Trumpets is.  So we strive to do things the way God says to because God says to do it that way.  Why would you do something different?  So God says, your new moons, your way of counting time, and your Sabbaths, in other words.  And so what are people’s Sabbaths? You ask people, “What do they think the Sabbath is?”  Sunday.  Some people call it that.  “Sunday’s our Sabbath.”  No, no, no, you don’t understand the meaning of the Sabbath!  That’s not what it’s about!  Sabbath doesn’t mean Sunday!  Matter of fact, most languages out here, the word Sabbath is the word for the seventh day!  But you don’t know that in English because we don’t use the same words.  We use Saturday so people lose track of time.  They don’t count properly – hmmm – I wonder, is this what God is talking about?

...your new moons and Sabbaths, your calling of assemblies, in other words, your invitations to meet and why you call religious meetings; Christmas and Easter and all the ones in between, and all your Bible studies, and everything you do.  He says, I cannot bear your sin filled assemblies. That’s what God calls them; ‘sin filled assemblies’.  People who profess to be religious who are committing adultery.  Happens all the time out there in the world, in churches.  People go to church on Sunday and before Sunday’s over that night they’re committing adultery.  Think it doesn’t happen?  Happens all the time week after week after week!   Fornication – sex before marriage – that’s what that means scripturally.  People don’t think anything of it, they can’t control themselves.

Your new moons, your appointed feasts My soul hates: they are a trouble unto Me and I am weary to bear them.  God has seen these things going on for 6,000 years.  Man won’t worship God the way God says to worship Him.  When you spread forth your hands, I’ll hide My eyes from you: that’s one thing that is going to have some power before long, because something that individuals have trusted in all their life, perhaps it is the Seventh Day Adventists, perhaps it is the Church of Christ, perhaps it is whomever... Southern Baptists; whatever religion people have out here, Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopalian, on and on it goes, the different religions that people have out here – they’re going to spread forth their hands because they’re going to be so filled with fear and they’re going to cry out to God to save them, to save their loved ones, to save their family.  And then they’re going to come to a point when they’re going to plead with God.  “Why?!  Why did you let her die?  Why did you let him die?”  And God’s not going to listen...by what they want, the way they want it.  And they have a choice.

You know when God will listen? ...though your sins are as scarlet they can be as white as snow. “When you repent for disobeying Me.  Do you want My intervention?  Do you want My help?  Do you want My favour? Obey Me!  Turn from your ways; reject that which is false!  You know what’s false!”

You know, it takes a unique heart to start reading through ‘2008 – God’s Final Witness’ and not be honest.  It takes a unique mindset of someone to start reading through that and fail to be honest before their God when they’re told about how people are lied to from birth; and themselves to have to come to address Christmas.  Where did it come from?  Are you going to continue to believe in a lie?  You know where it came from!  “Oh yes, but its okay because it’s nice to give presents.  Yes, we know Jesus Christ wasn’t born in December.”  Most ministers out here now are educated enough that some will actually even admit it, because people have actually asked them.  “Yeah, we know that He wasn’t born on the 25th of December, and probably in the Fall around September, but this is nice and it’s kind of fuzzy and it’s good to give gifts and to remember Him at that time.  Heh, heh, heh, heh...”  And God says it’s a sickness unto Him and He’s tired of bearing it.

So, do you want to repent or do you want to continue to believe in lies?  And that’s what people choose to do.  And then they come to a point when they’re in a bit of a dilemma (some of you listening to this at whatever time you listen to it); and then they come to a bit of a dilemma and it’s like, “things are happening... yeah, I know there’s truth in this because I know that Christmas didn’t come from the Bible.  I know that Easter didn’t come from the Bible.”  And so people have to make a choice; to believe a lie, to support a lie, to continue to sacrifice to a lie?  Ah, it takes a lot to continue to sacrifice to a lie, to continue to pay a minister who’s lying to you, to pay a church that’s lying to you, to pay a church that turned away from the truth of God in 325 AD in order to do away with the Passover and to institute Easter.  Because the reason they wanted to institute Easter and eventually get people believing in a Sunday morning sunrise service is so they could say with some sort of twisted logic, “See!  That’s the day we’re supposed to worship God because Jesus Christ was resurrected on Sunday!”  And He wasn’t.  He was resurrected on the Sabbath, at the very end of the Sabbath.  He was resurrected on the seventh day before the sun went down.

Hope all of you in God’s Church know that and understand that; because when they came to the tomb in the morning to bring the things to put around Him and give Him more of a proper burial, He’d already been risen, He was already resurrected!  That’s what the scriptures talk about.  But they want to make it all sound like it happened on Sunday morning, so some of these places they go out and they get out there as the sun starts to come up in the morning, to feel good about being able to observe a sunrise service.  And God says “I’m tired of bearing these things, these lies of yours!  You insist on worshipping Me this way; and you can read the verses that tell you to obey the Sabbath day, the seventh day.”  Because God makes it real clear in scripture it’s the seventh day of the week and it’s never changed. When Jesus Christ came along He didn’t change it.  He didn’t say, “Oh no, time has been lost and this isn’t really the seventh day.”  He knew when the seventh day was.  The seventh day was the same day the Jews were keeping then.  And since that time the Jews have been just as meticulous as knowing when the seventh day occurs.  That’s one thing they’ve been very, very good about.  And the Catholic church has been just as good about knowing when Sunday comes around!

So today do we know when the seventh day is?  Absolutely!

...your new moons and Sabbaths; your calling of assemblies.  I cannot bear your sin filled assemblies; but most people won’t acknowledge that until they come to a point in time where they’re fearful of their life being taken, or the life of their loved ones; when they have lost everything, when no prayers are being answered, when there are no answers to all their petitions and all their crying out to God to be delivered.  Instead, something worse happens right behind it and more die.  And God says, “Why?  Why do you have to do this?  Why do you have to die?  Why do you choose it?”  And so people get upset at God.  They get upset at me. They get upset at anybody who tells the truth.

God doesn’t want to see anybody die.  It’s not His desire to see people suffer.  Do you want to see people suffer?  I ask people to pray that things be increased ten-fold and more over and over again; that what happened in Japan continues to happen, that it get worse and worse and worse – because I understand something that God has given, of why these things have to happen. It’s the only way people will repent.  It’s the only way God’s Kingdom will come!  And the fault isn’t God’s; it’s theirs for not repenting!  If people en masse would just repent!  But they won’t.  Would to God it could be like Nineveh and a whole people repent, but people won’t.

...your new moons and your appointed feasts My soul hates.  They are a trouble unto Me and I am wearied to bear them.  When you spread forth your hands I’ll hide My eyes from you; yes, and when you make many prayers I’ll not hear because your hands are full of blood. Because you see, what’s important in life is how you live, God says, toward Me (in other words towards Him, God), and toward one another; because He tells you what love is by definition.  And by definition it’s obedience to His laws.

Wash yourselves, see, that’s the answer.  Wash yourselves, “Don’t get upset for someone telling you the truth.  Don’t get upset at Me for telling you that I am your God...” (God speaking to us as human beings.) “Don’t get upset at Me; don’t get mad at Me.  Who are you to get mad at your Creator, your Sustainer, your life-giver, the One who makes it possible for you to eat every day, for you to breathe every day?  Where is your response to that?  To live life ever how you choose and ever how you please?  Then so be it.”  Wash yourselves and make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings/of your ways from before My eyes; and cease to do evil; that’s the answer, that’s the choice that every person has when judgment comes their way; every human being.  That’s why we have something called, that we worship on a particular day every year once a year, at a particular moment in time – We observe what is called the Great White Throne Judgment; the Last Great Day that pictures the Great White Throne Judgment.  That’s what it pictures.  We worship God on that particular day that pictures that time, the Last Great Day; and it’s called the Great White Throne Judgment.

And it’s when all human beings who have ever lived...and nobody likes to acknowledge those verses.  Why can’t people just be true to themselves and go back there to Revelation where it says, ‘and this is the second death’.  How can you be dead twice?  Come on!  Can’t somebody just answer that one there?  Go to your minister, go to your priest...what does it mean, the second death?  Now logically for that to happen somebody has to be dead... see, if you can be dead twice then you must be alive twice.  To not have a second death means you must have had a first one and you lived once...so to have a second death....   And why can’t people be honest?  Revelation 20.  You want to lie to yourself?  You want to believe that somehow when you die everybody just goes off to heaven?  Nobody goes to heaven.  No human being has ever, ever, ever goes to heaven when they die.  God says, ‘dust you are and to dust you’ll return’.  Huh... I wonder, is God true?  ‘...let every man be a liar’.  See, I believe that.  ‘Dust you are and to dust you’ll return.’  He doesn’t say, ‘dust you are and in time in heaven you will be.’  You don’t have an immortal soul.  Lies, lies, lies, that people have been taught that they have an immortal soul.  Satan has done a number on human beings because if you have an immortal soul you don’t need God, surely you’ll live into eternity.  And so the way you do it is through your religion and going to heaven.

What a shock when billions are resurrected at a particular moment in time and all of a sudden they come back to life a second time; people who have lived, people who lived in the past 6,000 years who never knew the truth... and all of a sudden they come up alive in their all-together.  Because they don’t come up in suits and nice dresses on, they just come up the way they are in a new body.  And that’s a little humbling in itself... because you know when you’re that way.  And those standing before you let you know the story, “You died and you’ve been in the grave 1,343 years and God has resurrected you from the dead to live life again.”  Yeah, going to be a very humbling experience.  Sadly it takes that to awaken most people to the truth, to reality, because they don’t have the ability to do what this sermon’s all about, the ability to be honest with themselves; what if I am a prophet?  What if what I’m telling you is exactly the truth?  What if.... what if...    And what will you do?  Will you repent?  Will you turn to God?  Will you begin to obey God?  Because that’s the choice before you.  That’s what God is saying.

And I hope all of us in the Church come to understand in a deeper way Isaiah 1 and Isaiah 2 are about us in this time right now. More than any other time in human history, this is about right now. The message is for right now more than any other time in human history because this is the time that God is bringing people to a judgment, to make a choice, to make a decision, to reason together before God openly and honestly and truthfully with themselves before their God.  That hasn’t happened in past times.  God has not called the world!  He’s only called a few out of the world through the last 6,000 years, but now that’s starting to change.  Now God is beginning to offer that to the world and He’s going to begin pouring out His spirit more and more on this world, to offer people the ability to reason together.  Because you cannot address sin, you cannot address the truth until God gives you the ability...and God is beginning in a more powerful way to give that ability.  People cannot use the excuse any longer, “But no one ever told me.”  Because they’re going to hear as we go forward more and more and more.

So everyone’s going to be brought to this one way or another – judgment – now or later.

Verse 18 - Come now, God’s saying, ‘before Me’; and let us reason together, says the Eternal: though your sins are scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; they’ll be forgiven; though they be red like crimson, they shall be like wool.  If ...IF...IF you are willing, in other words, of a willing spirit and not refusing and resistant any longer.  So how many of you out there resist, that are listening?  Some of you hate my being to the soul of your being, and I feel sorry for you.  Some of you, many of you I know because you were once with us.  At one time you walked to God’s house and council blended sweet; but now you listen so you can find fault, so you can twist and distort, and so you can lie.  And I already know the choices you will make and I’m sorry that that’s the case. Perhaps one of you has the guts, the integrity... just a little bit of integrity, enough to look at yourself in a mirror and be honest with yourself of why you left or why you were put out of God’s Church.  Was it your adultery?  ...or someone else’s.  Was it your fault?  ...or someone else’s.  Was it your failure to obey God to tithe?  ...or someone else’s.  Because all these things some have done, and more.

So why are you mad at me for the choices you made to sin?  Am I the cause of that sin?  Am I the cause of your hurt and pain and suffering?  Perhaps, and I’m praying accordingly, God will call at least one of you to repentance as a witness, as an example, as a witness to what happened and why...and so that you can live a full and a rich and a wonderful and a beautiful life in a new age.  The rest of you are so eaten up inside that what I said back in Jerusalem has come to pass; you’re dead and dying inside and you had no idea what it was all about.  Some mock and make fun, want to say, “Hey, I’m still alive out here!”  Well, that’s coming to an end as well in time, but what is true and what is meant and what is there is that which is inside of you.  When you turn against God and you fight against God after a while you destroy yourself.  It’s like a cancer and you get eaten up inside to where you destroy yourself, your mind, your life, the pain and the suffering you put yourself through, the misery, the unhappiness.  It’s hard for me to grasp how people can be so miserable and unhappy to do such things, but they do.

And then for those who’ve been a part of Worldwide, I look forward to the Fifth Thunder.  Before long we’re going to have it in a sermon, to pray concerning the Fifth Thunder so that people who were once a part can begin to repent because of what happens around them.  It’ll shake them up and shake them to the core of their being in some cases to where they’ll repent.

And then all those who are new into the thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands – what an awesome and a beautiful thing that finally they can be brought to repentance because they come to a time of fearing what’s coming and what’s happening around them in a way that they have never dreamed of in life, never thought possible in life...but it happens.

IF you are willing and, notice the next...and obedient, you’ve got to be of a willing spirit, a right spirit and a right mind to receive God, to desire to be obedient to Him, to obey His laws, His Sabbaths.  He says, I’m weary of your Sabbaths, in essence, your holy days, your time.  He wants you to repent to obey His Sabbath, His Sabbaths, plural, because they’re weekly with every seventh day AND they’re annual; the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, Trumpets, Atonement, Feast of Tabernacles, the Last Great Day; those are God’s times, appointments, appointed times for us to obey.  Not Christmas, not Easter, not Halloween, not Valentine’s Day; not all of those things.

...then you shall eat the good of the land: God says.  What a beautiful thing! But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured with the sword:  Who’s to blame in a case like this?  God?  Someone who warned them?  ...or the person for ignoring God and for refusing to obey God?  The mouth of the Eternal has spoken this. So, just like in sermons – they’re not my words, they’re God’s.  They come from God.  The Bible...inspired by God!  Words that are there, the guidance and direction, the truth that comes from God.

So since it’s now time for God to execute judgment upon this earth all people will be brought to the fulfillment of these scriptures we’ve just read in Isaiah.  Now is the time of end-time judgment upon mankind and people are going to be brought to the point of having to make a choice; to make a choice, of having to decide...just like it says in verse 18, of judging for themselves whether they’re going to yield to God and obey God now, or whether they’re going to refuse, continue to rebel and resist God’s offer to be blessed.  You have to shake your head to think man can be so stubborn, to refuse to be blessed because they so hate something different from what they have believed all their life; to take away their tree, to take away their lights, to take away their giving of gifts to their little children... that that’s more important than obedience to God.

And this has been God’s message to mankind from the beginning but mankind has steadily refused.  And now people have to judge for themselves; and that’s what God is bringing, a time for judgment, a time for individuals to judge.  That’s why it’s a final plea, a plea from God that you judge your own life, that you be open and honest.  That’s why I asked in the beginning, “Can you?”  Because most people can’t.  Most people just can’t be open and honest about themselves, with themselves about such things.  It’s a battle!  It’s truly an incredible battle!

Let’s turn over to Deuteronomy 30.  We’ve been brought to a time when judgment is being executed on this earth.  It’s already started and we don’t have much time until it’s finished now.  It’s a basic message that God also gave to the Israelites just before they were brought into the physical Promised Land beyond Jordan.  Incredible!  And this is what God told them then and this is what He’s telling everyone now.  So again, this was given at a time they were getting ready to go into a physical Promised Land and now we’re getting ready to go into the greater fulfillment of what that all pictured; a time, a thousand years, God’s Government on this earth.

Deuteronomy 30:19 - I call heaven and earth to record this day before you, not ‘against you’.  It’s not ‘against’ anyone!  That’s added; it’s not in the Hebrew!  Incredible what translations people have out here and how people see God. He says, I call heaven and earth to record this day before you, that I have set before you life and death, It’s not going to be against you if you make the right choice!  It’s for you!  What an incredible blessing to be blessed by God Almighty because of obedience, to have life!  So He says, I’ve set before you life and death...boy, this is where we are; this is where this nation is.  It’s what God’s doing.  He’s not going to do it, as I said, to Germany, to Africa, to South America, to China, to Korea, to Russia.  That happens at the very end and He’ll work with them later.  They’re going to be brought to repentance and they’re going to be brought to knowledge that they have never come close to grasping any measure of through time.

But this part of the world is different; this part of the world has had a history that goes back into time; and God says, I’ve set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life so that both you and your seed may live. There are things that happen in people’s lives, can happen in people’s lives, that if an individual will repent with integrity and honesty before God and change their life... God loves to work in families and if a person will repent... How do you know that by your example someone might listen to you because of that bond and relationship that they have with you.  How do you know that when things are... especially as we’re getting into a period of time we’re getting into now...  How do you know when things are happening all around you and you can say, “This was foretold, this was stated, and these things have been happening and this is what’s going to happen next...”  That you won’t have an incredible impact upon someone, of their being willing to be softened in spirit to be of this willing mind we read about in Isaiah and choose to obey God.

I’ve already seen it.  I’ve seen this over and over again in people’s lives, in recent time here, people who haven’t been kindly affectionate to the truth; but because of certain relationships have looked into various things, and after a time wheels began to churn and people begin to make right choices and have come to baptism because of it.  It’s a beautiful thing!

A lot of you in this room are going to experience that in the near future in a way you can’t even begin to imagine; how God’s going to bless you in people around you.

I call heaven and earth to record this day before you, that I’ve set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; which do you want?  It doesn’t mean you’re not going to go through hard times and you’re not going to have some suffering going on around you; but your desire should be, if you can see and grasp and comprehend what God is doing, that His Kingdom is coming, that Jesus Christ is returning.  What an awesome thing!  That Jesus Christ is returning to this earth on May 27, 2012.  Don’t have long to wait!  To be a part of that?  To live into a new world?  To help rebuild the world?

And so that you might love the Eternal your God, that’s God’s desire.  You have a choice to make; whether you really want to love God the way He says He can be loved.  He can’t be loved by keeping Easter.  He can’t be loved by keeping Christmas.  He can’t be loved by going to church on Sunday.  He can’t be loved that way!  It’s against His spirit!  It’s against His way!  ...and it came from His adversary anyway.  It came from Satan; he is the author of it all!

And so that you might love the Eternal your God, to learn how to love God, to learn how to love one another the right way; and that you might obey His voice, and that you might hold fast to Him:  That’s God’s desire; so that you can be blessed.  So what is God’s desire?  To throw down harsh punishment on the world? ...to send a flood?  Contrary!  Totally opposite!  He wants to bless mankind but man won’t listen, hasn’t listened!  Man has to be brought down so low before he will.  Only a few of you, today, have been called out of the world in a merciful manner.  Thank God for it!  He’s worked with you and moulded and fashioned you over a period of time to bring you to today because He had a purpose in your life for you and you have great opportunity in front of you; some to be a part of 144,000 – you’re already sealed - others, to live into a new age to help build a new age, even if it’s just for a little while.  How much is that worth?  To have opportunity to be resurrected at the end of 1,000 years in a spirit body just like the 144,000.

...and to hold fast to Him: He is your life, and the length of your days: so that you might dwell in the land which the Eternal swore unto your fathers, to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob... to give it to them.  It’s both physical and a spiritual Promised Land, if you will.  Physical as well along with the spiritual because what we’re entering into now is the greater fulfillment of what took place back then in a very physical way only when they entered into a Promised Land.  What God is blessing us to enter into now is a greater fulfillment of what He promised to Abraham, Isaac, and to Jacob, a new age, the Kingdom of God that’s going to reign on this earth that includes the world and land, obviously, the whole world this time, not just an area of the world, but the whole world to be blessed... and spiritual, to be a part of the Church of God.

~~~end

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