A Final Plea, With Judgment – Pt. 3

Ron Weinland

March 26, 2011

This sermon today is Part 3 of the sermon series entitled A Final Plea, With Judgment.  As we’ve been focusing upon it, now is the time that God is administering judgment on this earth as He brings the self-rule of mankind to an end.  That process is beginning.  And at the same time He is going to bring to an end Satan’s rule over mankind.  We live in an awesome time, we really do, to understand that those things are taking place, that that’s where we live at this particular moment in time.

It needs to be mentioned that God began this execution of judgment after the Seventh Seal had been opened.  And how did He begin?  How did it all begin?  To me this is very inspiring; we’re going to talk about it more as we go forward here, but it began with the revelation of mercy that He desired to show mankind as He revealed the true meaning of ‘Time,  Times and Half a Time’ as well, as a part of this process.   And we’re going to be talking about that starting next Sabbath.

But in the midst of that God led His Church to a two day fast; that’s becoming more awesome and God is going to show how important that was even more and more as we go forward and as people look back and as people are told to look back, to be reminded of what God did at this particular time.  Again, with a desire that potentially more could be saved; more from the scattered church, and more in this world.  An awesome thing to understand, that for each day of fasting God gave one full year each (and there’s actually more); but two full years of mercy, of great mercy.  But as always, even as God has revealed things to His servants over and over again, people ignore what God says and people really have not noticed and people haven’t cared about God’s mercy. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been.  But God has used that at the end-time to show in a very powerful way, in time, when people are called, when people come to understand it, that God gave great mercy.

So really the only ones who understand that is the Church.  And the rest of the world doesn’t really care.  They don’t know where God’s Church is anyway so why should they listen?

Let’s go back to where we left off last Sabbath, back in Deuteronomy 30.  It’s important to understand that now, because of what was held back, or kept away, for two years is already proceeding forward; and people are now going to be brought to a point of making a choice.  Not in the entire world, because this isn’t being offered to Africa or to Asia or to many locations around the earth...and this is difficult sometimes for people... it’s not being offered to South America.  God has a plan of working with people through time, and especially at the end-time; but something that’s continued from the time of Abraham when God began to give certain promises of things He was going to fulfill, things He was going to accomplish.  We’re still a part of that plan that’s being unfolded, if you will, through time, and we live at a time when some of the greatest of the promises are about to be given; promises that God gave to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  They weren’t just about the nation of Israel being taken out of Egypt in time and going into a physical area called the ‘promised land’ where Israel and Judah (Judah is the only one that’s known as Israel today) is located; but to understand history and to understand the migration of peoples and where God is working.

To me it’s an awesomely inspiring thing to understand the different people’s whom God has called out of different backgrounds, out of Asia, out of Africa, out of South America, and different places that aren’t a part of the scattered nations of Israel, but they’re being called in Israel...in the United States, in some of the western nations of Western Europe; out of Australia, New Zealand, out of Canada and so forth.  Because God is not working with those other areas.  He has not established it so the Church would work with people in those areas.

God has established at the end-time, especially because of what was prophesied about what took place with a scattering of God’s people with an apostasy that took place in the Church...that God had a plan for taking care of people and for raising up the Church and it is within the nations of Israel.  That’s where people are being called; of all backgrounds, of all tongues, of nationalities and so forth through time, that God has done through time.  Now it’s located primarily in the scattered nations of Israel, where at one time the Church was worldwide and God gave it that name.

So again, now is the time when people are being brought to having to make a choice – not in those other nations – but primarily within the scattered nations of Israel.  That’s where it begins, that they are going to be brought to the point of making a choice, of having that opportunity (if they see it as an opportunity).  But that’s what God is going to require of them, of having to decide, of judging for themselves whether they are 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.  It’s as simple as that; it’s where we are in time.

We were in Deuteronomy 30 toward the end of the sermon last Sabbath and this has been God’s message to mankind from the beginning, from the beginning especially when He began to work with Israel, but as always, mankind has steadily refused whatever God has given.  But people now have to make a choice and judge for themselves at a time when judgment is going to be executed on earth.  Because, as a whole through time it obviously has had different points where God has executed judgment; when He took Israel captive, as an example, when He took Judah captive, as an example.  It specifically was about them with the times when they had to go into captivity; the northern nations of Israel taken into captivity because they began to turn away from God’s Sabbath.

They began to turn away from the Sabbath a long time before Jesus Christ ever came along! It wasn’t too long after God brought the Israelites out of Egypt... it wasn’t too long up the road when they were finally given a kingdom and kings.  And you don’t go too far into those kings, into that dynasty, when there was a split between the north and the south, between Israel and Judah.  God warned them over and over again but Israel turned to keeping the day of the sun - Baal worship; and Baal worship is always on Sunday.

It’s an amazing thing when you go back and God begins to call you and begins to give you understanding of where Sunday worship came from.  It still carries the name, it’s an awesome thing, Sunday, the day of the sun – because of its impact through time, that’s passed down from generation to generation to generation through time, hundreds and hundreds of years - and here we see a world of Traditional Christianity still doing it, worshipping on the day of the sun rather than on a day God commanded them to, told them they were to worship Him on the seventh day.  And that’s why Israel was taken captive, because they started worshipping at a different time than what was given to them in the beginning.  And they began to worship on ‘holidays’, if you will, rather than Holy Days.  They began keeping other times that God had never given to them.

We read that last Sabbath, that God hates ‘their sabbaths’, the ‘sabbath’s’ that people have chosen that are different from what He gave.

So it’s an awesome thing to understand our history, to understand where people have come from, to understand Israel today and what happened to them.  And so again, they were taken captive because of disobedience.

Judah, on the other hand, always kept the seventh day and they recognized the Holy Days, they recognized the time of Passover and so forth through history; but they began to pollute the seventh day. They began to do things on the seventh day that God told them they shouldn’t be doing – commerce and so forth.  And so God warned them and told them to cease, to repent, and they refused to so God executed judgment and they went into captivity for seventy years; and then they were brought back out, whereas Israel was never taken out of captivity again.

History is an awesome thing to know and to remember, to be moved by, and to understand why things are happening the way they are today, starting with Israel, not the rest of the world; not with China, not with Russia, not with nations in Africa, not with (as a whole) nations in the Middle East – save one.  And so this is where it begins, where people have to be brought to a point now, because this is a time of judgment on the whole earth this time, not just on Israel, but it does begin with Israel.

Deuteronomy 30 – a basic message that God gave to the Israelites just before they were brought into the physical Promised Land beyond Jordan.  This is what God told them then and this is what God is telling everyone now.  Verse 19 - I call heaven and earth to record this day [against you], as I mentioned last Sabbath – not ‘against you’.  It wasn’t a day that was against them.  Sometimes when people have translated from Hebrew, or from Greek, they don’t understand God’s plan, they don’t understand God, and they pick and choose things, they have this image of God, this understanding of God that God is this harsh God.  They don’t understand – no, He’s a God of love!  God is love!  And they have these twisted ideas about God.  And so sometimes because of that, and because of how they were raised...because a lot of these people who wrote these things came out of the Catholic church, were a part of the Catholic church or some of the Protestant churches that are out there, so they’ve translated in different languages and they have this false concept about God.

So it says: I call heaven and earth to record this day before you; not against them.  It was for them if they would do what God gave them!  It was all for them if they would do what God gave them!  ...that I have set before you life and death, a choice, blessing and cursing: That is astounding to think about this, to think about how people are and what people have done.  You think, “By all means – choose life!  By all means – choose blessings!”  But what man wants is life and blessings his way and so he makes God different; says, “It’s okay, God doesn’t care what day you worship on.  You can do it on Friday!”  A bunch of people do that.  “You can do it on Monday.”  A bunch of people do that.  Different religions in the world... “You can do it on Sunday...God doesn’t care!”  That’s about the only time they say that God’s merciful and God is love. “God understands, it’s okay.”

...therefore choose life, that’s what God’s desire is; choose life!  It’s simple!  ...so that both you and your seed may live:  What an awesome thing now to understand that there are people being told this, that in time they’re going to be brought to repentance (if they will receive it) because of what’s going to happen around them.  Because they’re going to be made scared to death!  Scared to death, fearful; to understand that there is power there that they have never grasped nor comprehended nor admitted in their life and they’re going to have to come to a point of addressing it one way or another. That’s what God’s saying, “You’re going to have a choice to make, it’s being brought to your door because this is the time of judgment, that it’s being executed, that it’s administered on the earth.”

And so He says, therefore choose life that both you and your seed may live.  And so people hear and they’re going to have the opportunity, that because of how they live their life, that if they will do the things that God says, that they can be blessed, that they can be helped, and that that influence is going to have a powerful influence then on their family.  If there is a means and a way, especially if it’s young, if their children... to have an opportunity and a blessing of being able to have their seed live on into the next 1,000 years!  Otherwise they don’t get that opportunity!  That’s what God says and that’s what God is offering in the scattered nations of Israel; that over the next few months in time here that people have to make a choice whether they want to live, whether they want to be blessed, and whether or not they want their family to be blessed and to live into a new age.  But they’ve got to do what God says...therefore choose life so that both you and your seed may live.  God’s words are true!  When God promises something God fulfills it IF we do our part, if we respond.

And so that you might love the Eternal your God... The world doesn’t today.  They don’t love the Sabbath, they don’t love the Holy Days and they don’t understand that until you begin to love what God has given you you don’t love God.  If you insist on doing something different and holding onto something different, if you insist on holding onto Christmas, to giving presents because, “...the children love it and I just can’t take that away from them!  I can’t take it away from the family!”  Then that’s your choice not to obey God!  ...because Christmas is a stench in God’s nostrils!  It ‘stinks to high heaven’, so to speak! It truly does!  It didn’t come from God.  People get so upset – bashing Christmas.  Yeah, I’d like to ‘bash it’!  You don’t know how much I’d like to bash it!  It’s from Satan, it’s not from God, and if people would just do a little research on their own...go to an encyclopaedia and look it up, do some research, do some research on the internet.  Find out where it came from!  It doesn’t come out of your Bible!  ...and God says to obey Him and His words – that means it has to come out of the Bible, what He says to do and how to do it!

Man is so defiant!  And because it has the name of Christ in it somehow it’s okay.  No, it isn’t!  It’s sick, truly sick!  As sick as Easter!  It’s sick!  People getting up in the morning and going to services at the time of the rising of the sun...the sun again!  Incredible!

...and so that you might love the Eternal your God; so if people want to love God, God tells them how.  He tells us how to love each other.  It’s so simple, so basic, and yet the Protestant world...they just squirm and they get upset and people get mad!  The Baptists get mad!  The Church of Christ gets mad!  They all get mad when you start telling them about some of these things.  They get mad!  They get defiant!  They want to uphold what they believe!  I’m just telling you what they believe (any of you who believe that garbage), because some of you listen in on occasion.  It’s going to get smashed!  In the next year you’re going to see these things be smashed over and over and over again until they’re fully destroyed; and you’re going to come to a point in time where you’re going to gag yourself because of what you have done in upholding Christmas and Easter and Sunday worship against the laws of God; because God’s given some basic laws.

And so when they hear you’re supposed to keep the 10 Commandments, they get mad!  “Those were done away with!  Who do you think you are telling us that we’re to obey the...  that was NAILED TO THE CROSS!”  Oh really?  Nailed to the cross?  And yet there are six commandments there for people of how they’re supposed to love each other.  The law’s about love, about how to love each other.  It’s so simple and so basic!

I’m saying these things and I understand as a whole that you in the Church understand these deeply; but Sabbath by Sabbath we have new people listening and as the Sabbaths go forward we’re going to have a lot more people listening, so I’m speaking to them.  They have choices to make and that they have to come to grips with these things, and to test themselves.  You’re getting mad?  You’re getting mad at me?  Get mad at God!  You want to get mad at someone, let’s see how long you last getting mad at God, because that’s exactly what you’re doing if you refuse to hear!  You’re getting mad at God because you don’t like what He has to say!  You’re not to commit adultery.  Get mad at God, don’t get mad at me.  It’s a beautiful law!  Don’t steal!  That’s a great law!  Hate to take my luggage out and put it in the car!  It’s got a lock on it and it’s got the trunk, but I’ve known of people that have still gotten it stolen.  The other day I thought I’d had my computer stolen.  No, I just did something stupid; I left it in the motel room when we left.  My life’s in there!  No...  Thankfully I got it back!

But amazing!  You worry about people stealing so you have deadbolts on your rooms.  Hotels?  You have two good, strong locks there with steel frames around most of the hotel rooms that people stay in because people break into hotel rooms!  What a nice thing when you don’t have to worry about locking your doors anymore like when I was growing up as a kid.  Nobody thought about locking doors!  You live in a farming community; if somebody came in and needed water or something, you’d want them to be able to, they’re not going to steal from you.  Incredible world we live in.  Sick, filthy, perverted world and yet people get mad!

And so some of them say, “Well, those laws are okay!”

“You mean they weren’t nailed to the cross?”

“No, those are good laws.”

So you can go through those six laws, the last six of the 10 Commandments and they’ll agree with you those are all good laws; that you shouldn’t curse, take God’s name in vain, those kinds of things.  They don’t understand what all of those mean, but on and on you go.  That you shouldn’t kill, you shouldn’t murder someone.  “Good laws.”  Then you start through the others.  It’s that 4th one – number four that they have the problem with.  When it gets right down to it that’s the one that was nailed to the cross, but they try to cover everything by saying, “The 10 commandments were nailed to the cross.”   That’s what these lying ministers do out there, they teach that; and people who like to believe a lie, they believe that (one of these days I’m going to slip, call it what it is), that filth, feces (nice biological word so that people can’t get too upset).

Lying ministers, all this feces that they teach; and people like to believe in feces rather than believe the word of God, truly!  And so they get mad, they get upset, especially at the people who say it; because they’d say they’re not getting mad at God, they’re getting mad at you, at me for teaching this kind of stuff, that the 10 Commandments aren’t nailed to the cross, because the Protestant world believes that.  They just kind of swoop it all away; but it’s the Sabbath they have problems with, the 4th Commandment, the seventh day that God says you’re to keep.

That’s why no one can come into God’s Church unless they’re obeying the Sabbath day.  You can’t be a member of God’s Church, you can’t even attend God’s church unless you’re obedient to the Sabbath day, unless you set it aside and you’re not working at that time.  If you’re still working at that time or you’re going to your games, your football, your baseball, because you just can’t give it up, you don’t belong in God’s Church, until you come to the point of repenting of that.  And so that’s the choice people have to make; if they’re going to repent and obey God it begins with the Sabbath day.  Another one close behind it obviously is tithing, but the Sabbath is the big one because God demands obedience to Him, and if people aren’t willing to do that they don’t love God, because that reflects whether you love God or not.

What measure do people use for loving someone?  What measure do people use for loving each other in this world?  Stealing? Killing? Adultery? Whatever?!  Cursing? Swearing?  What is it?  We know what love is on a physical plane within families, within the world, how people treat you; but man is ignorant, willingly so, about how to love God.  Why?  Why??  Incredible!

…therefore choose life, that both you and your seed may live: and so that you might love the Eternal your God, and that you might obey His voice... That’s what God says; to love Him is to obey His voice, His words!  So simple, so basic! …and that you might hold fast to Him: because He’s your life; that’s what God is saying!  “I have the power to bless you and give you life!  I’ve given you life anyway.  I feed you but you don’t acknowledge Me!”  Just like the scripture we read last Sabbath or the Sabbath before that, whenever it was. A donkey knows where his food comes from but God says, “My people don’t even know how they’re sustained.  They won’t acknowledge that it comes from Me!”  Incredible!

…and so that you might love the Eternal your God, and that you might obey His voice, and so that you might 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, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give it to them. This is both physical and spiritual; because you see, in time everyone can become a part of Israel – because it’s not about a physical people as far as God is concerned, it’s the name that He gave, Israel, that has to do with God and what God gives and a relationship with God, that everyone is going to have that name as a whole, to be a spiritual Israel, the people of God.

And so again, blessings given through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And so it begins with something very physical and people being taken out of Egypt and going into a physical Promised Land; but they didn’t stop there.  The greatest blessings are farther on, they’ve been taking place within the Church for the past 2,000 years, the fulfillment, the things about those blessings, being able to become a part of spiritual Israel, coming into the Church and eventually being born into the Family of God, into spiritual Israel, fully, completely.  And so those things are going on.

This nation is great; not because we are great, not because the people are great, not because anyone did anything great, it’s because God has a plan and He gave it to Israel again, later on in time.  He made Great Britain great.  I think of an ad someone sent me today which I’ve seen several times on TV already but I just jotted it down today.  It’s sad.  It’s prophetic in some respects and yet it’s given by people who don’t understand the truth.  It’s about a Chinese professor in a university and he’s teaching all the students there and speaking in Chinese, and so it gives the lines there of what he’s saying in English, it gives it written out in the screen.  But here he is saying to his students, “Why do great nations fail?  The Ancient Greeks, the Roman Empire, the British Empire, and the United States…”  And there’s this caption at the beginning, it’s the year 2030.  And so there he’s looking back in his class, teaching why great nations have failed.  “They all make the same mistakes; turning their backs on the principles that made them great.  America tried to spend and tax itself out of a great depression, enormous so called ‘stimulus spending’, massive changes to health care, government take-over of private industries and crushing debt.  Of course we owned most of their debt.” …and he laughs in a little bit of derision there, contempt, ridicule.  And then he goes on to say, speaking of the United States, “Now they work for us.”  And then all the students laugh.  And it’s presented by – the comment comes on now in English – it says, ‘You can change the future!’ and talking about joining up citizens against government waste.

Sadly, this time, Manasseh, which is this nation, one of the tribes of Israel that God gave to be the greatest nation the world has ever seen, that the world has ever known in time – God’s fulfilled His promise and now judgment’s here.  And Great Britain that was once great, Ephraim.  Awesome!  Mr. Armstrong when he wrote about the British Commonwealth, ‘The United States and British Commonwealth in Prophecy’, that book, incredible!  All the wealth that Great Britain, the British Empire, then the United States had at one time, and we don’t acknowledge that we have it because God gave it to us.  We don’t even know who we are!  Great Britain doesn’t even understand who the royal family is.  They don’t understand it’s from Judah; that the lineage of the king of Judah has gone on through time and God said that His Son is one day going to come back and take over that throne that would be existing when Jesus Christ returned.  Incredible!

So, some of you listening out there, you have some things to prove to yourself, whether you’re going to obey God, whether you’re going to believe what is true or not.  If you know who you are and where you came from – Isaac’s sons – amazing, words, ‘Saxon’s’.  Incredible!  British – Hebrew – covenant people, ‘brit’ and ‘ish’, man – covenant people.  Taken from Hebrew!  Their own name and they don’t even know who they are!  Incredible history that’s just out there screaming and people ignore it and they don’t want to listen to it.  They did finally get rid of the stone though.  Stone of Scone – Jacobs Pillar Stone, where it sat underneath the throne that kings and queens have been coroneted on for hundreds of years – they finally moved that back to Scotland, gave it back to them.  They want to get rid of that stone because too many people know about it now thanks to Mr. Armstrong.  Thanks to Mr. Armstrong too many people found out about it. Too many people are wanting to go by and learn more about it, especially from the Church, and wanted to talk about it to others around them.

Deuteronomy 31:1 – And Moses went and spoke all these words unto Israel.  And God is having me speak them to all who will hear – true.  It’s exactly what’s taking place, just a little bit different in time, to a different people now and a different time – same people.

Let’s return to Isaiah 1.  We need to read the context of what God wants the world to focus upon now, because this is for now.  This is His plea, an offer of judgment.  You see, judgment contains mercy; from God, mercy first.  Mercy!  Judgment should always contain mercy first.  Your judgment in dealing with people should always contain mercy first if people will receive it.  If they don’t receive it then you have to make other choices and decisions.

Isaiah 1:18 – Come now, in other words, God’s saying, Come now before Me, that’s what He’s saying here, and let us reason together says the Eternal: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, in other words, they can be forgiven!  ...though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool IF...that great big ‘if’ again, if you are willing – God’s offering mercy.  He’s offering forgiveness for sins and that’s why we started out this series – people still first have to come to admit they have sin before God that needs to be repented of!  ...if you are willing, in other words of a willing spirit and not refusing and not resisting.  ...if you are willing and obedient; over and over again God says you have a choice to make, to be obedient to your God!  Truly!  And every one of us did before we came into God’s Church – whether we’re going to be obedient to God or whether we’re going to pick and choose what we want to obey... part of His laws, but certain ones, because they’re hard, or they’re difficult, we won’t do!  BALONEY!  You obey all of God’s laws!

Even you in God’s Church – if you want to come through this and be at the end… BECAUSE THERE’S NO PROMISE THAT YOU’RE GOING TO IF YOU DON’T OBEY!  And some of you aren’t obeying!  Some of you aren’t obeying in God’s Church!  You think just because you’re present today and hearing today and tuned in today that God owes it to you?  He doesn’t!  So you need to repent of whatever sins are out there!  You’re approaching Passover, at a time when you’re to be at one with God, at a time when you’re to have the same mind with God in the sense of being at one with Him, obedient to Him, and whatever sins you’re holding onto, whatever it is you’re playing around with out there, whatever it is you need to repent of before God and ask God to have mercy upon you and forgive you!  Of all times to be so blessed!  There’s never been a time like this for God’s Church!  ...a little over a year left.  How deeply do you believe it?  How deeply do you believe it?  So a little bit of correction there for some of you who are playing games with God; you better quit playing games with God!  You owe total obedience to God!  That means you obey all of His laws!

What a sad thing that someone’s had opportunity to sit here Sabbath after Sabbath - I’m talking to everyone listening today – that somehow you won’t come through this?  Happens every year!  It’ll happen to some listening to me today, because of disobedience to God!  And God holds you far more accountable than He holds those whom He’s calling out of the world right now – because they don’t know anything – you have access to everything!  Every one of us is judged before God.  We understand that when we come into God’s Church; it says, ‘Judgment now is upon the house of God.’  When you come into God’s Church, judgment is on you...and we can repent, thank God, over and over, repent day by day, several times a day and God will forgive us.  Fight!  You’ve got to fight the fight!  You’ve got to fight against your human nature all the way to the end, or into the new age because it’s not the end.

And those of you who are listening, as you come along, as God brings you to a point of listening – what a blessing that you’ll even listen, because most of those around you won’t.  They’re going to hold onto their beliefs, they’re going to think this is just too far out...too far out that God would have a prophet in the end-time, that someone could be called a prophet, because their background of hearing about the word ‘prophet’... Satan’s done a good job. Certain ones that come out of Utah and they have their ‘prophets’ - no, they’re not prophets, they’re all false.  And different ones that come along, looney tunes as all get out, and people call them prophets.  So prophets really have a bad name, truly do.  Satan’s done a good number; he knows what God’s plan is at the end of the age, in part, what God’s going to do.  Incredible, the world we live in!

And so everyone will be brought to this.  Let’s read the rest of it.  ...if you are willing and obedient, then you shall eat the good of the land: so that is physical and spiritual, the good of what God offers.  I am so excited about where we are because as we proceed forward the greater the cataclysms (if you will), the horrible things that are around us, the more that God’s spirit is being poured out upon the earth; making it available to mankind.  Because those are the things that can bring people to humility, to where they can finally receive God’s spirit, if they’re willing to do so instead of resisting and fighting.  With humility, as God pours out His spirit, primarily upon the scattered nations of Israel first and foremost (still happens in some other countries, some other places in the world – it will happen, because some are going to be shocked and sobered and brought to reality in other nations – but primarily with Israel first and they’re going to have the opportunity to receive of God’s mercy and to begin to be obedient.  And so, a desire to eat the good of the land, a desire to live into a new age, an awesome age!

I can’t express in words how excited I am that one being alone and all his little cohorts are going to be put away for a thousand years!  All the sick, sick, Sick, SICK minds that have toyed with and played with and tortured mankind for 6,000 years are about to be put away!  The big one especially; the one who turned against God, the adversary, the one who’s fought against God, the one who hates God’s plan, the one who hates mankind and has had a great joy...and his joy’s about to end... so PERVERTED in mind that his joy is to see people not believe God and instead believe all the STUPID things that are out there, that he can get people into looking forward to a big fat man in a sleigh being pulled by reindeer and coming into the country giving presents to everyone who’s nice.  He enjoys mocking God, making fun of God and God’s plan, getting people to believe something so stupid and then calling it ‘Christian’, of Christ.  He enjoys those things.

Getting people to worship on Friday because they weren’t going to be a part of the promises given through the nations of Israel, but still given promises of wealth.  Oh yes!  And most of that hasn’t been found till the end; the oil.  Where’s most of the oil?  In that religion, in the Muslim world; primarily in the Middle East.  And isn’t it amazing...  I don’t know if some of you have read the article here, just because I was talking about it here a week or two ago, about the hypocrisy in this world that is so sickening and disgusting – why we’re going into Libya and why we haven’t helped other nations.  Like one article brought out, the Ivory Coast where I think a million people have had to flee because of what’s going on there in Africa.  But you know what?  Like the article brought out...they don’t have any great natural resources and they don’t have any oil reserves.  But now they’ve found in Libya huge, huge, HUGE oil reserves that have not been tapped yet – and a special connection there with the French who know about it.  Well, others have known about it too, but they’ve had a hand in wanting some of that down there.

And huge water reservoirs – WATER, underground in the earth!  Right now that’s just not a real nice place to be when you get very far from the shore because of the massive deserts. Saudi Arabia would love to have, evidentially, the kind of water reserves that they found in Libya now, if the article is true.  And knowing man it probably is because they’d like to have that oil for Europe. The article is bringing out how if they get that one country alone they have enough oil supply for Europe for decades.  We are so hypocritical and such liars!  Just going to go in there and keep the air safe, no-fly zone, and now they’ve got to step it up.  I wonder why?  Incredible!  We are such liars!

Governments lie; they lie to the people, send people to war to die for their lies!  I’m sick of it!  I’m sick of it!   I’m sicker now than I was back around 1966 when I wasn’t in the Church at that time and a very good friend of mine was killed in Vietnam, shot through the head.  I thought, “How unfair war is!”  But at that time I had a wrong attitude.  I wanted to kill as many in Vietnam as I could.  I wanted to join the Air Force.  I thought, “I’m not going to hold a machine gun, I want to be in a jet!  I’m going to kill as many as I can!  If you’re going to go to war, do it big, don’t fool around on the ground!  You’ve got more power!”  And then finally God called me, 1968 into 1969, started working with me, humbling me, changing my attitude of mind about mankind to where I learned to hate war and hate fighting, hate killing.

You’ve got to turn away from this world and the ways of this world and turn to God, be obedient to Him and His laws and learn how to love and to care for humanity, mankind, your fellow man.

It goes on to say, but if you refuse and rebel, then, it says, you shall be devoured with the sword: You are going to die!  What an incredible message!  And it adds a little more to it, but who cares in the world as a whole?  ...the mouth of the Eternal, Yahweh, the Eternal Almighty God, has spoken this!  Either God’s word is true or not.  I believe it’s true.

So everyone’s going to be brought to this one way or another, now or later, now at this time in this age in the time remaining before May 27, 2012.  And some in the scattered body... it’s going to be their biggest problem, biggest problem that someone could say they’re a prophet and to give the date.  In the scattered church, “No, no one could give the date.”  They don’t believe God anymore.  They don’t believe what it says when it says that God’s going to send a prophet before something happens to tell people...and even His church.

So incredible is human nature, mankind does not like to hear this from God; that they must choose to obey in order to have life and blessings.  That’s a choice.  God says, “You don’t want to obey?  Die.”  Is that fair?  Is that fair from a loving, almighty, merciful God?  That if you don’t want to obey, if you don’t want to have a world of peace, if you don’t want to live into a Millennial reign of Jesus Christ on this earth to rule over mankind – that you don’t want that, you don’t think that’s good?  Better than any nation on this earth has to offer you?  Better than any president or elected person into office has to offer you?  They can’t give you squat!  They can’t give you blessings on earth!  ...and yet, sure enough, if time were to go on it won’t be too long and there’d be a Republican back in; and he’s not going to give everything everybody wants, so they’re going to get a Democrat back in because he’ll give us what we want – just promise them everything!  How naive and stupid we are as people!  This has been going on for decade after decade after decade; and people hold onto it.  That’s what they want.  They don’t want God!  They want to hold onto what their nations has to offer!  “Give us the good times again!  Give us welfare... well, now, don’t do that, give us... well, yes, give us that too!  Give us everything when we’re not feeling good and it’s all paid for!  Just give us, give us, give us, give us...and tax the big guys, they’ve got the money.”  What is it...10% have the greatest wealth?  “Just tax them and let the rest of us live off of what they have – Gates and all those people.”  So sick!  I’ll tell you, we are sick!

And so people get mad at that.  They don’t like to hear those things.  They haven’t heard anything yet!  People are going to be brought face to face with their lies and their false beliefs, because no government is going to save them.  The United States is not going to save, the government is not going to save the people of this nation over the next several months; no more than Japan could prevent what happened over there and is still going on.  What could they do?  They’re going to be made powerless because there’s going to be powers there that are beyond their thinking and their imagination.

And so people don’t like to acknowledge or think.  They think we’re going to get through this.  “If you hold onto your stocks, if you hold onto your treasuries, when we get to the other side of this everything’s going to be okay.”  And they don’t understand there’s no other side to this, because you see, when God’s Kingdom comes there won’t be dollars around anymore, there won’t be yen, there won’t be any other kind of currencies that are any good.  People aren’t going to have their credit cards or banking institutions.  What you have now, guess what?  You don’t get to save it over!  We’re going to start anew in the world.  We’re going to start all over, afresh.  Incredible!

And so God brings everyone to a point of having to make a choice of life and blessings, cursings and death, one of the two.  You’re going to get one or the other.  And this nation, and Great Britain, and Canada, and Australia, New Zealand, and the nations of Western Europe, the western part of Europe – they have to make a choice.  So that’s exactly where God has brought mankind to this moment in time when each individual must begin to choose what he/she wishes to do; to continue to resist God, ignore God, not listen to any of these things...to live or die.  It’s just that simple.

Let’s go over to Exodus 4.  Incredible!  People get mad at the messenger, whether it be you, me, whoever believes these things, people get mad.

All of this is so closely related to the story of Moses – that’s why we’re going back to Exodus here; of his working with Pharaoh and Egypt, to those held captive, and for us, we understand, captive to sin and spiritual Egypt in this world.  Moses was given instruction by God to do the job that God had given him to do, to fulfill before Egypt and before Pharaoh, and before Israel.  They were all to learn from this.  The greatest of learning is what happened afterwards, written up in a book, passed down through time generation after generation after generation to benefit people, to help people who will listen to God, to understand the great power of God, the great might of God and to be humbled by that.

And so this job/commission, if you will, consisted not of nice pleasant things, but of calling upon plagues.  And you’re learning about some of this.  God gave this to Moses to do and God has given it to you to do in your prayers, in your petitions, in the smoke, the incense and the smoke going up before His throne.  Because you see, very much like what Moses did, we are brought to a point of mind of judgment and how God is doing what He’s doing and why God is doing it, to understand God’s mercy and God’s love, to understand God’s plan; that some are just a whole lot better off not going farther into evil and becoming more hardened in heart, which is harder to repent of, like Pharaoh did.  It’s far better to die, it truly is, and be resurrected in a thousand years in a beautiful world, in a world that even you who are part of God’s Church cannot comprehend in your being right now.  You believe it, but to comprehend the kind of world that’s going to exist after a thousand years of building and preparing for it?  To comprehend the kind of world that’s going to exist when a great resurrection takes place?  When there are going to be millions upon millions in the God Family who are going to be able to be there to help people, to work, to teach people, to be there, to be witness of through 7,000 years of time!  And to work with the people who will be resurrected who lived during the previous first 6,000 years of time.  What an awesome and a beautiful world it will be!

In so many cases it’s far better to die and to be resurrected in that world, truly!  God’s very merciful; but sometimes we hold onto human emotion, human feelings and we think about death...and do you think Pharaoh.... Moses knew some of those people in Egypt that were affected by the plagues.  He grew up, was friends with some of the highest of those in Egypt when he went back.  Not the ones who wanted his life and so forth; God said they were all dead, those who wanted to see him die.  But there were others he knew.  And when you know someone, when you know of people, when you know certain things about people, who wants anything bad to happen to them?  Incredible!

And so again, this job that God gave to Moses, calling upon plagues, calling upon catastrophic events, calling upon much death.  So the next time you pray, think about Moses, think about why he did what he did, why God had him do what He had him do.  All of it was a matter of God’s judgment being executed.  God is righteous, God is just, God is filled with love and mercy.  And everyone will have another time, another opportunity later on in a beautiful world, truly will.

And so this judgment wasn’t Moses’ judgment.  It was God’s and God used this in a very powerful way.  To what?  To magnify Moses in the sight of the Egyptians; to magnify Moses because it was a matter of magnifying God.  God said that this was going to magnify Him, but it’s through His instruments, it’s through the people, it’s through those who are there.  He did it through Moses.  He did it through the Israelites.  The Israelites were even magnified!  They were magnified in the eyes of the Egyptians because of this, because they came to believe. That’s why they gave them silver and gold and animals, anything that they desired in order to get them out of the country because they saw something different here.  They were moved by fear!

And so God told Moses that his brother Aaron...so we’re breaking into here, into a thought; that Aaron would speak for him.  So this is where we’re breaking in, and God went on to tell him about his job, his commission.

Exodus 4:17 - And you shall take this rod in your hand, using it when you are doing/performing signs. So what’s He telling him? Do we understand what that means?  Do we understand the significance of this and how it relates to now?  ...because it does.

Let’s look at what the word ‘rod’ is all about.  Let’s notice a few scriptures to understand the context of how it’s used.  Isaiah 14:5 is a place where this is used in context to understand a little bit more what God was telling Moses.

Isaiah 14:5 - The Eternal has broken the staff; Same word as ‘rod’ in Hebrew.  So, God has broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre; and this word is sometimes translated as ‘rod’ but they’re very closely related; and the sceptre of the rulers. And so, again this word ‘sceptre’ sometimes translated as ‘rod’; but as ‘rod’ or ‘sceptre’ it is used as a symbol of authority when it’s used this way, ‘sceptre’.  And ‘rod’ is very closely associated with it because it’s talking about the power.  There’s authority and there’s power in governments and so forth and things that take place.  So just to tell you up front, this is a part of what’s being discussed here.  This is what God is talking about here.  So here it’s saying that The Eternal has broken the sceptre of authority of the rulers, in this particular verse here.  And the word for ‘staff’ here as it says, as I mentioned is like the word ‘rod’ that Moses used to carry.  And again, it’s used in reference to power.  So it’s saying that The Eternal has broken the staff/the power and the authority/sceptre of the rulers.

Let’s go on and notice another one. Ezekiel 14:13 - Son of man, when the land sins against Me by trespassing grievously, then I will stretch out My hand upon it, and will break the staff/the power of the bread thereof/of prosperity/of abundance/of nourishment; that’s what God says, and will send famine upon it, and will cut off man and beast out of it: Over and over again when you run into this word, this is what its talking about, it has reference to power and what God will do.

Psalm 110 – great Psalm here; let’s notice this one.  Psalm 110:1 – The Eternal said unto my Lord, we’re very familiar with this because we understand it’s talking about God the Father and about Jesus Christ, a prophetic thing here.  And so this is David speaking, that really has given us help to understand and comprehend in a very powerful way that Yahweh is the one Almighty Eternal God and that His Son was not Yahweh, but was prophetic and had a beginning in time.  The Eternal said unto my Lord, speaking of Jesus Christ; the Eternal speaking to Christ, sit on My right hand until I make Your enemies Your footstool.  The Eternal shall send the rod of Your strength/the power of Your strength out of Zion for You to rule in the midst of Your enemies. This is a powerful prophecy here; but again, showing this word ‘rod/power/staff’.  It’s talking about power that God is giving to do something, to accomplish something, and this is toward His Son Jesus Christ!  ...to accomplish awesome things over the next 1,100 years.

Your people will be willing in the day of Your power; and this word here having to do with ‘army, strength, might and the exercising of it’.  ...in the day of Your power; first time He came He wasn’t given that.  He came as a Passover to die, meekly so, for mankind, something you would think that the Jewish people who observe year by year by year the killing of a lamb would comprehend something so awesome and so powerful of an analogy, of something to learn from.  That this is about someone who is to die for your sins, and they couldn’t put it together, they couldn’t accept it.  Incredible!  Your people will be willing in the day of Your power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning; You have the dew of Your youth.  The Eternal/Yahweh has sworn, and will not change. You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.  The Lord at Your right hand shall strike down kings in the day of His displeasure poured out, it’s not ‘anger’ here, when its displeasure poured out it’s about judgment, it’s about the execution of judgment as we’ve talked about.

It’s not about God getting angry!  Again, this concept that man has about God getting angry and He’s not in control?  GOD IS IN CONTROL AND GOD’S FILLED WITH LOVE AND MERCY FOR EVERYTHING HE DOES!  It’s not about losing control and being ‘angry’ at people; just going to wipe them out because He’s angry.  It’s about that they brought Him to a point where judgment must be executed and it can’t be tolerated/allowed any longer.  Incredible!

He shall judge; in the context here it’s about the execution of judgment.  He shall judge among the heathen/non believing; it’s exactly what’s taking place now – those who don’t believe, they’re going to be brought to a point wherever they’re either going to accept and believe what God is offering them, or they die.

He shall fill the places with the dead bodies; He shall smite/strike through, as the word means, the heads over many countries.  He shall drink of the brook along the way: in other words refresh Himself along the way when this is done, because of what’s coming, because of what it’s all about, for why it must take place, what it’s going to accomplish; because man is so filled with pride and haughtiness and resistance toward God that the world has to be brought to this point in order for God’s Kingdom and God’s Government and the one Church to be established on this earth.  Things have to happen in a massive way!  There’s no other way for God’s Kingdom to come about, for the Millennium to come about, save for these things to take place.  So, God speed that day!  ...and His mercy upon this world.

Because to continue for another thousand years like we are now – well, we couldn’t anyway because of technology.  It wouldn’t be too long and what we just read about with China here holding our debt, being our banker.  We think we’re our own bankers; we print it and we buy it – strange.  That one day China and Russia – even Russia, they’re flexing their muscles more.  They’re a kind of people that can look you in the eye and you can’t see that they’re your friend.  They’ll look you in the eye and act like a friend, but there’s coming a time (if time were to go on), that they’d go to war to put an end to the foolishness and the stupidity (as they see it), of what’s taking place in this nation, and they’d take control, and they do so with China obviously, we see those things taking place already.

And so God talks about refreshing along the way, and Christ, and the God Family.  We should be refreshed along the way as well.  That’s why I’ve said for so long, and God has inspired for so long for it to be said, to help us to understand that when the worst times of all human history come upon this earth we’re going to be focused, we’re going to be excited because of what’s coming!  Not because of the evil that man has done to man, not because of the horrifying things that we’re going to see that take place and the suffering – but what it produces on the other side of it, what comes out of it because people will finally repent and acknowledge that God is real and that God has a plan and a purpose for mankind.

And so it talks about, He shall drink of the brook along the way: so He will lift His head high.  So again, speaking of the one being established at this time, the Head of the Church obviously even more so, the one who is the Head of God’s Government on earth.  He’s coming back with great power, head high, as a roaring lion.

Let’s go back to Exodus 4 now and read some more of what God said to Moses.  We can learn much about where we are in time and what has been placed before the Church from this.  Sadly, the destruction - there was no other way that the Israelites were going to be let go -  in working with man and these things coming out of man, but for mankind to be brought to the point that they had to be brought to here in Egypt to let Israel go.

Exodus 4:17 – And you shall take this rod in your hand, you understand what God was giving to him?  Power and authority; but power to accomplish and to do something.  That’s what it signified, that’s what it pictured as power was given to Moses to perform and execute God’s judgment, using it when you are doing/performing signs.  And Moses left and returned to Jethro his father in law and said to him, I have come to ask you to let me go and return unto my family members who are in Egypt and to see whether they are still living.  And Jethro said to Moses, Go in peace.  And the Eternal had said, because it goes back and forth here in things being said, but this is what the Eternal had told Moses, had said unto Moses in Midian, Go, return unto Egypt for all the men who sought your life are dead.  And Moses took his wife and sons and set them upon a donkey, and he returned to the land of Egypt.  And Moses took the rod of God in his hand.  He received the job, the commission that was given to him, the power that God was going to give through him.

Verse 21 – And the Eternal said to Moses, When you have returned unto Egypt, see that you do all those wonders before Pharaoh which I have put in your hand; power to execute judgment, because it was time that judgment had to be executed upon Egypt, for the Israelites to be separated so they could become a great nation on the earth, so that other lessons and things could be learned through time and what God was going to do to show man’s nature, to show the power of God.  All the things that can be learned by going through these stories that we do, in God’s Church, as we learn year by year by year.

So again, something that God gave to Moses, which I put in your hand: but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. He told him way in advance that his heart (Pharaoh’s) was going to be hardened by the things he experienced coming through Moses, coming from God.

And you shall say unto Pharaoh, Thus says the Eternal, Israel is as My firstborn son, and I am telling you to let My son go so that he may serve Me: and if you refuse to let him go, behold I will slay your firstborn son.  Right up front He told him what was going to happen and what he was to tell Pharaoh.  And you would think that as time went along, each one of those plagues that came along and things got worse and worse and worse, that surely, surely at some point he would believe and fear the loss of his own son.  And that’s why at the very end Moses was upset like he was before Pharaoh, if you remember the story that we read just recently, because he had forced Moses hand to that point in time that the final thing had to take place, and he was upset that Pharaoh was so filled with pride that he didn’t fear the loss of his own son.  Moses didn’t want to see that happen and so he was truly upset with Pharaoh in a very powerful way; and that’s when Pharaoh got upset at him and told him to “Get out!  Next time you see my face you’re a dead man.”  And Moses told him, “You’ll not see my face again.”  Powerful things that took place.

God inspired Moses all along the way to know what to do, to know what to say, to know when to do things – all along the way!  And that’s where we are in time now.  That’s why sometimes people get upset (which we’ll talk about later on).  Just like the Fifth Thunder; I’ve tried to tell people, God gave it to me to write, but it was God’s will, it’s from God.  Amazing!  Human nature, human beings!  It’s about becoming at one more and more and more with God, in tune with God and the will of God and the purpose of God.  And that’s what we’re doing even through our prayers.  You’re coming more in tune with, in agreement with God and His judgment on this earth.  And if our prayers can’t be that way something is wrong with us, of something in our thinking where we’re not in unity and oneness in tune with God and excited as He is, and to understand, as He’s given us the opportunity to understand, why it must all come to pass in order to have the fruit of the Millennium and the Kingdom of God working on this earth.

So it puts all of us in the Church to the test too, to learn.  And we’re doing well with it.  You need to step up your prayers.  You need to step up the incense with greater unity and oneness and agreement with God, because that’s what it’s about.  The prayer that Jesus Christ gave, “Our Father who art in heaven...”  It’s a powerful prayer.  Every bit of it is about being at one with God, being at one with the will and the purpose of God in your life; and so we grow through prayer.  We grow through fasting where we dig even deeper into our lives, hence the fast we’re going to go into next week.  Powerful, especially for where we are: and some of those ashes from off the altar, thrown down on the earth, just been a little bit so far.  The biggest is about to be thrown down because of your prayers.  You’re a part of it.  God wants us to be a part of it because of what it does.

Because just as what happened in Egypt, God did those things through Moses to raise up Moses, to magnify Moses as it magnified God, that God works through human beings.  And it magnified the Israelites in the sight of the Egyptians as well.  And the things getting ready to take place, INCLUDING THE TWO-DAY FAST THAT WE HELD, ARE THINGS THAT ARE MAGNIFYING GOD’S SERVANTS AND GOD’S PEOPLE IN A VERY POWERFUL WAY, not just now, but into the future as well, things that are going to be spoken of very powerfully so.  We don’t grasp the magnitude of how we are so BLESSED to be living right now.  And as time goes on, you’re going to become more dumbfounded by it, you truly are!  ...more dumbfounded by what God has done in your life, in the lives of those within the Body that He’s called at this end-time; because it’s awesome and it’s powerful, truly is.

And so He tells him to let them go or He’s going to slay his firstborn son.  So we read about the plagues, the catastrophic events such as the hail that was so severe that it destroyed crops in the fields and the produce of trees as well as livestock and the people who were out in it, caught out in the open, who were warned.  So who would be right to condemn Moses in all this?  Who would be right?  You know, people wouldn’t even think about doing that.  Why not?  Well, they have to think it through.  Who would be right to condemn Moses in all this? It was Egypt and Pharaoh who were at fault for failing to repent and obey God.  They were told over and over again, but it was primarily upon Pharaoh’s shoulders obviously.  And finally great death struck all of Egypt; and God was just and righteous for executing judgment.  Incredible!  Very similar story for this end-time, for what we’re living through.

When people refuse to repent of what God places before them they can only blame themselves for refusing and rebelling against God.  When God chooses to execute judgment against them, then it’s upon their own heads. It is not the fault of, or any unrighteousness on the part of God’s prophets or God’s Church for lifting up their hands toward God in the time God has told them to do so, just as a staff, the rod was held up.  It’s very much about your prayers and the power God has given to you, to exercise, to perform; because you’re a part of it.  Moses was a part of it.  It was signified by what he did when he raised up the rod, the power; and God has given us power, and the power of that which goes up before God is our unity and oneness with God.

When we pray to God and you stretch out your arms... I hope you do on occasion, not during all of your prayer, but I hope there are times when your prayers are more earnest and you stretch forth your arms before the Great God and know that He’s given you great power as His people!  ...to be a part of something great at the end-time!  ...to be in unity and oneness and harmony with Him; and those prayers that ascend up before His throne, they’re like sweet incense to Him, the smell that God enjoys because He sees His people at one with Him, at unity with Him.  They understand that He is just and filled with love!  ...but that He must execute judgment on those who don’t want to be a part of it.  That’s love. Hard to do, but its love, if you understand God’s plan that’s being worked out; very powerful what God has given to us as a Church.

On occasion people talk about how they’re praying to hold up my hands to do the job, and the example is one used specifically, even in a recent letter, just as with Moses, lifted up the rod and they had to help him.  You remember the occasion?  They had to help him hold up the rod and the time involved there. And so, that’s what’s been given to us as a part with me, as a part we’ve all been given together.  That’s why we’ve talked about how this commission is for all of us, it’s for the Church for the end-time.  We’re all witness of what’s taking place at this end time, truly in a very powerful way in what God has given to us.

And so again, in this series ‘A Final Plea, With Judgment’ we’ve covered the context of Isaiah 1 where it addresses God’s desire that people would reason together when they’re finally brought to a point in time, the desire to make a choice, to open-mindedly make a decision so that they can be blessed.  What an incredible thing to understand what’s being given.  And as we have focused upon this we understand that this is what God will bring all people to answer for themselves in the scattered nations of Israel, that each person chooses and decides. Because it’s all upon each individual’s head what they choose and decide, whether their heart becomes hardened and they refuse to listen within the church that was scattered, whether they are so filled with pride and arrogance that they cannot conceive of who God has sent and what God has revealed since the scattering - that there is only one Almighty Eternal Living God who’s existed through time, that there aren’t two.  Some can’t repent because of that. Some can’t study into that and be able to see what they can easily see if they would do so humbly before God, in repentance before God.  If they could humbly come to a point in time where they acknowledge that it’s because of their sins that the church was scattered and spewed out of God’s mouth, that they could come to acknowledge “I sin and I was vomited out of God’s mouth, repulsive to God!  Out of the Body!  ...now blessed to repent and come back.”  Sad.  Not many are going to be able to do that.

That’s why the ministry in the scattered body just cannot do it.  Too much pride!  Too bad, because I’d love to see every one of them – every person I’ve ever known – that’s what I’d like to see, to see them blessed, to see their families blessed, to see them live into a new age.  Not to be a part of 144,000, but to be able to repent and live on into that age; to continue on and not have to wait a thousand years.  How much more would God love that?  How much more would God love that than I’m capable of, because I don’t have that kind of love.  I can only taste of it on occasion in my life.  I can only have it to a limited degree, agape, God’s love, as you can.  It comes from God.  It comes through the power of God’s spirit.  How much more God has that desire for this world?  ...but He knows, as I know, as He’s given us to know – He knows far greater than what we do the nature we have and the nature of the scattered nations of Israel, and that the vast majority are going to say, “No!  I don’t believe you!  I don’t want it!  There’s something else going on here. We’re going to get through this! We’re going to fight! Our military; nobody can destroy our military!” God can, very easily so.

Let’s go into Isaiah 2 now and continue on.  It’s all as a matter of a flow here of where it’s going and we focused upon chapter 1 of a desire that God has that people be of an open minded spirit, or an open-mindedness, to be able to receive, to think about, to consider these things, to think about what’s happening in the world right now and has been happening that’s going to become far, far worse.

Isaiah 2:1 – just continuing on in context - The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. And it shall come to pass in the last days: I made a comment about reading through chapter 1; that it’s about our time more than any other time in human history.  There are things that people can learn from and have gleaned from by reading things at different times, but it’s more fully focused and about this end-time right now.  And the things said through Isaiah 1 are more about this particular time than any other time in all of human history – and it all leads up to where it’s going, chapter 2 and talking about what’s going to come in the end-time, the last time.

...that the Mountain of the Eternals House shall be established in the top of the mountains, that God’s Kingdom, God’s Government –because mountains are always about government, power, nations.  And He’s saying that His Government is going to be established in the tops of all the governments of this earth, and they shall be exalted above the hills; the smaller governments, and all nations shall flow unto it. That’s God’s purpose and God’s plan.  He’s going to take control.

And many people shall go and say, or in other words, and then say...a process here that’s taking place because it’s about change, repentance.  It’s about those who are becoming a part of God’s Church; because see, this doesn’t happen overnight.  Those that come out of Israel, they have an opportunity to start repenting and start learning early on, earlier than China and Russia and South America and most of Africa.  They have to wait a little longer, all the rest of them, because primarily it happens to Israel first; and then it begins happening a little bit more in Europe, it even begins happening in Assyria, the German people.

There are some who are going to begin to be worked with – even in that part of the world, because of what’s taking place, because of them acting first, and because of what’s going to happen to them as they begin to be humbled through a process of time; not fully, not completely.  And some are going to come to repentance and they’re going to have opportunity.

But the last, that which remains to the end, which primarily is Asia, and we’re talking about Russia; they’re not dealt with until the very last day after Jesus Christ has already started His return.  And then God pours out such power on this earth to destroy those who are destroying this earth, that far more are destroyed in that one day – far, Far, FAR more are going to be destroyed in that one day; cities, people, millions upon millions, tens of millions.  See, China and Russia destroy a third of all the earth when they do what they do.  And when God corrects them there’s a lot of the world there that’s going to be corrected powerfully so. Others are going to be able to say, “Come up, join us.”  That’s what this is about!  “You’ve come through this!  It’s for a purpose that you’re blessed to live in this time!” And so this is what’s taking place here in Isaiah 2.

Many people will go and say, in other words they’ve gone up, they’ve already started the process and they’re going to go and they’re going to talk to others and say, Come along with us, join in, the time is now, and let us go up to the Mountain of the Eternal, to the House of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, they’ve already started tasting of it and they want to share it.  Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted to do?  Isn’t that what you’ve done from the time you come into God’s Church...and some of you made mistakes by doing so, alienated some in families and you learned through the process it’s not their time yet, that God had a special calling for you but not for them yet, to make a choice, a decision because He worked with you to bring you here now to be taught, to learn, for the purpose He has, for whatever that purpose is for the future, to give you opportunity.  And your desire was to share it!

I remember my desire.  I wanted to share it with everybody I could; then you come to the stark reality, they think you’re nuts.  They don’t just think it; in their minds they know you are!  There are hardly words to find to describe what they think you are.  You have really gone over the edge.

Finally a time on the earth when you can actually go to people and communicate with them and they have the ability to receive it and they’re going to receive it because of what’s happened and you’re going to be able to tell them these stories of why it all happened – and not even just talking about you but even those who come out of this nation and come out of Europe and people who come out of different parts of the world and they’re going to be able to share with others in other parts of the world, again, because there are going to be people anxious to get on with life, and to learn what’s happening.  They’re going to have heard. Can you imagine?  We can’t even begin to comprehend that something they thought was coming back to destroy the earth, what they saw in the atmosphere hasn’t really come back to destroy but it’s to bless the earth, it’s to stop man from destroying himself and it’s to bless the earth and that there are beings beyond their wildest dreams and imagination of life – far greater than alien life from other planets.  That they can appear before you.  If they’ve seen Star Trek they’re going to catch on to that one really quick and I can guarantee it’s a lot of different languages; but all of a sudden someone’s going to materialize right in front of you.  Jesus Christ did.  We can’t comprehend some of those things!  144,000 on this earth who are going to be able to appear before people; be in their midst and begin teaching them and talking to them about what’s taking place and why it’s taking place.  Because this is going to happen over and over again all over the earth!  Incredible what’s going to take place; and now people are ready to listen.  People want to listen.  And that’s what Isaiah’s talking about.

Come along, let’s go up to the Mountain of the Eternal, to the House of the God of Jacob and He’ll teach us of His ways and we’ll walk in His paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Eternal from Jerusalem. The whole world is going to come to understand that everything they’ve ever believed in religion is wrong, they’ve been taught wrong, their governments were wrong, they lied to them and now here’s the truth.

For He shall judge/execute judgment among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: because there’s still going to be some resistance at times, sad to say.  Some are still going to resist even in the midst of all this.  Human nature!  It’s hard to comprehend that some would still resist after everything that’s going to take place and after they see what they see coming to this earth, after they learn what they do about 144,000 beings on this earth along with Jesus Christ that are spirit beings that have the capacity to appear before people and disappear just as quickly, to be in some other part of this earth just like that...and they’re still going to resist God.

But as a whole, many people are going to be rebuked, that’s what’s happening at the end-time and this is what they’re going to be brought to; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, the United Nations can’t give peace and that statue out there that they’ve used – it’s this very picture here – that’s a mockery of what the United Nations is supposed to be able to do, bring peace to the earth.  No, God has to do it.  ...and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, God’s not going to allow people to war with each other anymore.  He’s not going to allow somebody to rise up, no matter where it is; somewhere in Asia, somewhere in Africa, somewhere in South America, wherever it is, Europe, He’s not going to allow someone to rise up and start an insurrection to destroy and kill people.  Instead, if anyone starts to do that their life is going to be short-lived.  That’s mercy.  And they’re going to learn more powerfully God means what He says.

Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. You know one of the biggest ways they’re not going to learn war anymore?  Because there aren’t going to be these great big advertisements on TV that show how glamorous it is to be in a fighter jet, or to travel the whole world...to see the world.  ‘Join the Navy, see the world!’  End up in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, wherever; fight and kill.  Learn how to kill.  Won’t learn war anymore!  Young people aren’t going to be taught how to kill anymore by their governments.  That’s what people teach!  Some from a very young age; some in Islam are taught from a very young age to hate and want to destroy and wipe a nation of Israel from off the earth.  They’re taught that as children!  ...and this is passed down, been passed down generation to generation to generation, to hate the Jews, because they believe that the Jews are the problem of all the world.  Amazing!  The sickness of mankind!

Our governments have been teaching war, teaching how to murder, teaching how to kill and take life.  If someone tells you this is just, go fight it, and then people come back and they have these things...didn’t happen so well after Vietnam, but now people come back and they’re made to be hero’s and they’re looked up to; and they died.  People in an airport will stop and watch as a casket’s taken off the airplane and they’ll let the military go out in advance because it’s esteemed, that this is reverence that should be shown to someone who, after all, has died for your country.  That’s sick!  It’s sad!  It’s sad that man is taught war!

There’s nothing glamorous in killing people.  There’s nothing glamorous in learning how to kill people!  And what about all the people that come back who can’t get back into society; they can’t function anymore in society because of what they’ve seen, because of what they’ve done, because of what it does to the mind... those scars that run so deep!  And then they’re forgotten!  They’re not given help as a whole; they really aren’t, because there’s nothing they can do for them!  There’s only so much drugs you can do to put in the mind to help you kind of walk around a little bit like a ‘zombie’.  But it doesn’t take away the scars and the scar tissue of all the things you’ve seen and witnessed in life.  It’s a sick world!  War is glamorized.

And then under that great big ole sick, perverted, disgusting Christmas tree the parents will put machine guns and little armies in little boxes so that children can learn how to war and fight with each other.  And if that isn’t enough they put it in the little games they can play on the TV; people learning how to kill each other, how to murder each other.  And then all the other sick things out there about murdering each other. And we wonder why our society is so bad, why we allow such things on the earth.  You are not appalled?  Are we not appalled at how sick society is, at how sick government is, at how sick this world is?  And if people want to hold onto that, it’s better they die.  It is better that their mind be put to sleep for a thousand years and resurrected in a world where it can be healed.  Because if they live on with that same attitude into the world of the next period of time here and that attitude stays there... it doesn’t mix, it’s a hindrance to God’s purpose and God’s Kingdom.

I hope by going through these things that you’re becoming more deeply convicted as time goes along of how sick this world truly is, that you want to see a change and that you’re holding up your arms before God about what must come now with greater power and intensity and what’s been held back for two years can’t be held back any longer and that you spiritually are deeply a part of it because you’re in unity and harmony with the end of this age and the establishment of a beautiful age to come, truly.

They shall not learn war anymore...

Verse 5 - O house of Jacob, come along, and let us walk in the light of the Eternal. You have forsaken/cast off/cast away your people the house of Jacob, because they are replenished from the east, in other words, full of the ways of the east.  Just like I’ve talked about; Christmas, Easter, where do they come from?  This is what it’s talking about, Sunday, the ways of the east; they’re full of the ways of the east, and are soothsayers, word means ‘observers of times’ – not God’s times!  HE said, “I’m TIRED of your times!”  Says, ”My Sabbaths and My Holy Days you’ve polluted!”  and are observers of times that are not from God, Christmas time when Christ wasn’t even born anywhere close to it; “But that’s okay because it’s a nice time for kids to be taught nice little stories.”  No, it isn’t!  It’s just as bad as teaching them to go to war!  It’s just as bad as teaching them to go to war, to learn a perverted way about God that is not true.  It’s best to learn the truth about God, indeed.

...like the Philistines, just like them, and they please themselves in the children of strangers. In other words, they ally or clasp hands with foreigners, both politically and religiously.  That’s the way it’s been through time.  We buy our lovers, God says. Ephraim and Manasseh, they buy their lovers because no one really loves them, so they buy them. And now we see on the TV a little bit of some people getting upset that we’re sending out so many billions of dollars to foreign aid to everybody.  We buy our lovers!  They don’t love us, so let’s buy them! Surely that will give us favour! What a joke!  They gladly take our money.  China gladly takes our money. They’ve got enough of it anyway, give them a little bit more; and there’s nobody that decides each year, there’s no decision in congress that’s made each year what portion should go to each country, who deserves it and so forth.  Its little things that have been decided through time, through different administrations, and so forth; but this bulk amount just continues to go out to the world.  You name the country out there – oh, we’re helping them!  We buy our lovers, just like a whore!  You see, that’s what God says.  I’m not saying that.  That’s what God says in scripture here in the Old Testament.  He says just like going to a prostitute’s home and paying for your lover, that’s what you do as a nation.  That’s what God says about Ephraim and Manasseh; we buy our lovers.

Who else is doing that in the world?  Well, China’s kind of starting to a little bit.  They learned some bad things from us.  ...being a little facetious there.  Sick, sick, sick, sick, sick, sick, society, sick government, sick world.

Their land also is full of gold and silver, neither is there any end of their treasuries; and if we don’t have enough we just make more.  …their land is also full of horses: Today we call it ‘horsepower’.  That’s what it’s talking about here, power to do things, accomplish things, and today, it says neither is there any end of their chariots: So we have the horses under the hood today in our chariots.  Used to be they’d pull them, now we’ve grown, society, technology, and now it’s under the hood and you don’t have all that stuff to clean up afterwards, instead you’re just polluting the whole world in the air.  That’s what God says, no end of their chariots.  Can you imagine some people being resurrected from times past and they see the technology. I think of freeways in Dallas, you go around this one corner on 635 I think it is, I’m not sure if I’ve got the right freeway, and then they built another freeway over the top of that and one in the middle of that one there and you just see all these cars and trucks and they’re just packed on these freeways going all over the place.  You think of somebody being resurrected, Moses - he saw some chariots trying to go through the Red Sea.  I can’t imagine some of them being resurrected and all of a sudden they’re seeing all these cars on these freeways – getting caught in traffic, 5-6 lanes of traffic and it’s not moving very fast.

Millions of cars out here!  Amazing!  God’s true, He tells it like it is, tells exactly what would happen.  Your land, full of chariots, and the bigger they are the worse it is.  So much commerce being transported across the country. These semi’s fill the highways anymore.  There’s no end of them sometimes!  I’m dumbfounded the changes I’ve seen over the past few years, how many more there are out there. And can you imagine the day when they stop?  …when you can’t transport the food any longer into the cities, when you can’t move vehicles through any longer?  What we see in Japan with the store shelves stripped clean…just a foretaste, bit of a foreboding of what’s right around the corner for this country.  It’s coming!  And how people will react in this country is a lot different than how they react in Japan, a lot different.  People aren’t going to do things orderly here and kindly toward each other here.  It’s going to get real nasty; mankind in this country is very nasty.

And so it goes on… Land is filled with silver and gold, no end of your treasuries.  Your land is full of horses, neither is there any end of your chariots. Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, whether it be physical or spiritual; their religion.  It’s how big their church is, it’s how many people.

I rode with a fellow here the other day in a vehicle.  He was giving me a ride, and he was going on about his family and so forth and he was talking for a while.  The crusher, killer of conversations, is when they ask what you do; so I told him, “I’m a minister.”  He says, “Oh, I’ve got to tell my wife this; I’m not sure what I said, what my conversations been like.  Have I been okay?”  Because some of his speech sometimes evidently isn’t real good.  He was talking about his family and he talked about this great big church that he’s a part of.  He said, “The main reason we’re there is because we can kind of get lost.  The church we used to belong to,” he said, “everybody knew each other’s business.  That’s too much.”  He said, “We’d rather get to a place where you can go and listen to the message,” (sure...) “and then leave and people not know too much about each other.”  And so he said he really likes this great big church.

And you think about what people build today, even when it comes to that which is religious.  A lot of people think the church is a building, they truly do.  They don’t understand that’s not God’s Church.  They don’t understand what God’s Church is.  It’s not buildings at all.  Incredible!

People worship what they do, what they build, what they build up, their corporations, whatever it is they’ve built up that they worship.  Wall Street that they worship, that they bow down to, that they believe is going to come through all this.  The things that people worship.  It’s amazing what man has built; and that’s what God is saying here.  They worship what they have built.  They worship their nation.  They worship their own nation and people go off to die for it and it’s noble in their eyes, it’s heroic in their eyes and it’s not.  It’s sad.  It’s sick.  It’s perverted.

...and that which their own fingers have made: And, it says the mean man, it’s just the word for ‘mankind’.  And mankind bows down, and the great man, this is really just the word for the male, humbles himself before what he has made: That’s what its saying.  That’s the way people are.  They humble themselves before what they have made; not before God!  That’s why all these things have to be taken away – all the things that mankind has built up; the dollar, the stock market, the corporations, the insurance companies, the banks, the institutions that man worships or is a part of and sustains.  That’s why those have to be destroyed up front.

...therefore, God says, do not forgive them.  If that’s what they want to hold onto, if that’s what they want to keep and they don’t want to receive what God says He’s offering them; a new age, Jesus Christ as King of kings.  It’s kind of hard for us to imagine that people want what they have, so much so that they’ll disbelieve and they’ll disregard what’s staring them in the face, that that can’t be true.  And they really don’t want that!  They don’t want the seventh day Sabbath.  They don’t want the Holy Days.  They really want to hold onto what they have, and God says don’t forgive them then.  Let them die.

Verse 10 - Enter into the rock, and hide yourself in the dust, for fear of the Eternal, for the glory of His majesty.  Because God’s going to be glorified through all this; God’s going to be lifted up and God’s people are going to be lifted up.  The truth is going to be upheld and lifted up.

The lofty looks of man shall be humbled,  I am so looking forward to that!  Arrogance, haughtiness, that air that comes out of people, God says it’s going to be humbled.  ...and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Eternal alone shall be exalted in that day.  God, His way, His truth, His people.  That’s what it’s talking about here, in that day.  What day?  The end-time!  Now!  That’s where we are now!  These are the things that are going to take place now; that God says is why this all has to happen.

For the day of the Eternal of hosts shall be upon every one who is proud and lofty, and that’s the whole world today at the end-time, at the end of the age.  That’s what the timing is here.  ...and upon everyone who is lifted up; and he shall be brought low: one way or another, because they have reasoned together with God, because they have understood, because they have entered into consideration of the things before them and they have decided to judge themselves...or not.  They’ll be brought low, that’s what God says; they’ll be brought low and humbled to receive God’s way of life or they’ll be brought low as a matter of death and life ending.

Verse 13 - And upon all the cedars of Lebanon, in other words, that which is seen as strong and protective, enduring in time, that’s how they’re majestic.  They’re held up and that’s why this is used in this analogy prophetically, for that which is....  Kind of interesting when you go back and look at words, and prophetically for that which is spiritually seen to cleanse and to make white, to purify and make righteous in religion and religious beliefs and institution; and upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan, especially a reference here to ‘those religious institutions whose strength is in the half tribe of Manasseh.’  Interesting.  When you go back and look at history and look at words and why God uses them, there’s a reason – because this is about the end-time.  And so He’s saying that those things that man upholds, looks up to, especially religiously, institutions, things that are seen as ‘great’.  Buildings! Churches!  Whatever it is that are seen as great, as this is where you can go to be cleansed, to be made white, to go and confess something and go right out and do it again because you get in this little booth and you go out and count beads and say little things over and over again; and by repetition (which God says don’t do, don’t have repetition in your prayers).  Incredible!

But the Oaks of Bashan, as well.  Incredible!  Something that was, again, had to do with the half tribe of Manasseh.  And God is using this as a prophetic thing.  There is that which is believed to be in Manasseh, two groups of people, two different kinds of thinking.  It’s been a part of the Church, this thinking about the possibility prophetically of the North and the South.  And if you look at what happened in the East and the West, the time Manasseh had to be divided.  There were two different types of thinking but they were one tribe; but there were two sides here, lineage and thinking that went with it.  And interesting here that this one is connected with religious beliefs.  And where, oh where, oh where do the greatest things of religion come from in one part of, half of Manasseh?  It’s in the South.  It’s across the Mason Dixon line.  As soon as you cross it things change, when you talk about religion and how people think – truly do.  Talk about the ‘Bible-belt’?  Interesting and true; and that’s what it’s talking about here...what’s going to come upon them, those institutions that have fought against God’s Church for so long.  In the beginning it’s the Catholic church that has fought against God’s Church through time, killed God’s people through time.  Over the years killed people who kept the Sabbath and the Passover.  When they change it to Easter in 325 AD, afterwards they had the authority to go out and kill anyone who kept Passover and the Sabbath...and they did.  God’s Church has been persecuted for a long time.

And then some of that has changed through time because of Protestant churches that have risen up, and I think of all the hate literature that’s been put out there against Mr. Armstrong, primarily coming from two church sources: the Church of Christ and the Baptists, because they hate the truth.  They hated Mr. Armstrong.  In essence they hated God.  They don’t think so.  Sad!  So that’s what it’s talking about here; in the South, God’s going to destroy them.

And upon the high mountains, and upon the hills that are lifted up, and upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall, in other words, upon everything or anything that resists God’s judgment.  And upon all the ships of Tarshish, which always has had to do with trade and commerce, the things that God is going to break and is already being broken.  ...and upon all pleasant pictures, in other words here in Hebrew, ‘all the desirable things that can be imagined’; their plans, their future, their design for the future.  It’s like this stock market, “Hang in there, it’s coming back, we’re going to get through this!”  And if somebody else out here says, “No, it’s going to be destroyed; it’s going to be ten times worse...but gold is the answer, where you can put some of this.”

Verse 17 – And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of man shall be made low: pride is an ugly, ugly thing.  You know what?  This is very much about the picture and the message for these days that are coming upon us, the Days of Unleavened Bread, because sin and leaven, being puffed up, God says that which is puffed up, the leaven is all about pride.  It’s all about pride.  Pride is what creates sin, causes sin, leads to sin.  And that’s what God wants us to get rid of.  What an awesome thing to understand the plan and a purpose for getting rid of sin in the world, as a whole, the ways of the world – gone!

And the Eternal alone shall be exalted in that day.  Again, over and over again, ‘in that day’.  This is that day – it’s arrived!

And He shall utterly destroy the idols.  And they shall go into the holes in the rocks, and the caves of the earth for fear of the Eternal.  Man is going to be made scared, afraid.  And for the glory of His majesty when He rises up to shake terribly the earth. Hebrew means here ‘to cause the earth to tremble’, is what it’s talking about; to cause mankind, finally, to tremble before His Creator. That’s what it’s about; causing mankind to be terrified before Him.  Because that’s the only way people will change.  And those who don’t...God says choose life or death, and the choice is in each person’s hand.

A final plea, with judgment – it’s an awesome thing to understand where God has brought us.  God’s desire to see people saved; God’s desire for people to be able to receive life and blessings.  Sadly, man just doesn’t choose that, does he?

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