Sacrifice – Pt. 2

Ron Weinland

April 23, 2011

Thought this would be a good place to address a question that was recently asked.  An individual had a question concerning these Days of Unleavened Bread and I thought this would be a good place to answer this since we have so many new people.  We have a lot of new people, and people from the past in Worldwide, and we have different feelings sometimes about different things that we’ve learned in the past and sometimes we have to unlearn some of those things to have a better balance, better judgment.  We’re ever growing in those things!  And in the last many years God has been blessing us by the power of His spirit to understand spiritual principles and why things are the way they are and not to do things so much sometimes from our viewpoint or from a slanted viewpoint or from a viewpoint of the past that was based on something very physical and trying to draw certain analogies or whatever that sometimes we did.  And God has been blessing us mightily in that growth, growing spiritually.

I want to mention this because there are ministers in the past who have taught some in the past, not very well in that respect, concerning spiritual principles and physical matters that involve the Days of Unleavened Bread.  One new member recently gave some of their leavened products in preparation for Unleavened Bread to a non-profit organization that helps people who are in need of clothing and food products.  And this giving of these leavened products to some non-profit group was recommended by a member who was a part of Worldwide in the past and has been around for many years; so they recommended that, that that would be fine to do.  But then there was another individual that this person heard of who gave some of their leavened products to a needy neighbour but was told that this was like ‘giving their sins to their neighbour’.  You can’t give your sins to anyone, okay?  And some of those analogies that were drawn in the past isn’t really correct.

There are things we live by, there are things we do, but we can’t put what we do upon others, and we understand if we have a lot of self-rising flour, as an example, or a lot of packaged goods, or things in the freezer, it’s fine to give it away.  Now, unlike the Jews, they give it to someone to keep and then they go back and get it back after the Days of Unleavened Bread.  That’s a lot of their custom.  So it’s like its okay to leave it with a neighbour and then bring it back into your house.  Not the case.  You are to get rid of it; you are to deleaven your homes.  It doesn’t say you can’t give it to someone else.  And they don’t understand; we’re being judged - they don’t have understanding that we have.

So sometimes it’s easy to draw analogies and do some of those things but we shouldn’t. This was an email that was sent to me the other day and I thought I’d answer it this way so that everyone in the Church can grow a little bit more in balance and think about judgments we make and strive to understand, “What is the principle here?  What is it that God is striving to teach us?”  And if we’re not really sure then go and ask a minister. Some of you that are elders, be careful, make sure that it’s either on the website or whatever, and if it’s not there and you’re not real sure, then ask someone farther along.  But don’t always rely on everything from the past, because there can be a danger in that; not everything was fully balanced when it comes to some of these matters.

So again here, just a principle that someone has asked that in such cases of getting rid of leavening should all this just go in the garbage or is it okay to give to the needy.? It’s fine to give it away.  There isn’t any difference.  You’re getting rid of it, you’re obeying God, you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing and we understand we can’t expect the world to live by what we do.  We can’t expect them to keep the Sabbath.  We can’t expect them to understand the Sabbath or Holy Days yet, and later on that’ll change.  Anyway, thought I’d address that here, that you are the one being judged, you are the one to be obedient to God and it isn’t wrong to give food to others regardless of how they use it.

For this Holy Day season of Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread we are covering a sermon series entitled Sacrifice with today being Part 2 of this particular series.  We began by looking at something that God’s Church has never really focused upon in the past, and that is on the sacrifices that God has made for all mankind and His creation from the beginning.  I’ll just be real candid with you, I feel very blessed to be able to share that, for God to reveal those things in a deeper way and to share that.  I feel very blessed to be able to talk about those things, I truly do, because to me it’s an awesome thing when we can learn more about God Almighty, become in greater awe of what God is doing, why He’s doing it and what He’s been doing for so long, of things so often that we just don’t grasp and comprehend – the awesomeness, the depth of God’s love.

And so again, His sacrifice has been far greater than the angelic realm has grasped and what God’s Church has grasped, but God is giving us some understanding of that now.  And I say ‘some’ because there’s so much more.  We have a difficult time fully grasping the power and the might and the depth of love that comes from God.  And until we begin to experience those things ourselves in God’s Church and have God’s spirit and God’s love grow in us, there are things about God we can’t understand.  But as we grow we’re able to appreciate and understand that more deeply because it’s a matter of His spirit; and understanding Him is a matter of His spirit in us, and His spirit reveals these things to us as we grow.  The reason He’s giving those things to us more, that added understanding, is so that we can grow more.  It’s about growth.  The more we learn about God, the more we understand some of these principles and things we’re talking about, it gives us the opportunity to be stirred to action, stirred more by the power of God’s spirit to implement various things in our life, be moved to understand things about God that are to be things in us.

Everything of God is to be in us, in time, and for that to happen we have to get rid of self more and more.  It’s a constant battle in this human life, getting rid of matters of self and learning what sacrifice really means when you’re in a human body, especially for us as carnal human beings.  And as I mentioned last Sabbath, it’s just the way of God, it’s His love, and there is no other way.  It’s just God!  And it’s difficult sometimes for us to grasp that.  Now with us as human beings, it’s a little bit of a  different matter because of our mind and our holding onto certain things that we don’t want to get rid of, that we don’t want to give up, that we don’t want to give for a greater purpose and greater cause or for someone else.

Last Sabbath we began by focussing just a little on the sacrifices that the one Eternal God has made from the beginning.  He desires that we learn more about the spirit of sacrifice.  There’s a spirit of sacrifice, a way of thinking, and it should be no other way, but we have to think about that as far as the context in which we have to see it as human beings, in carnal selfish human life.  And so again here, He wants us to learn more about this spirit of sacrifice because it’s focal to growing in a deeper understanding of His love, it truly is, and exercising that more in our life as we yield ourselves more to God’s spirit and His love, obviously, that of agape that is fully outgoing with no selfishness whatsoever.

Toward the end of last Sabbath’s sermon we began to focus on Jesus Christ who came to offer Himself as a sacrifice, as our Passover, as He was fully at one with the Father, totally of the same mind.  He just did it.  It was His mind, the Word of God made flesh.  He didn’t think of anything else in that respect, that was just His thinking, His mind, His desire burning inside of Him to fulfill and accomplish what God had given Him to do.  Certainly addressed it toward that last day, as we mentioned, but again, ‘nevertheless not My will but Yours be done.’ He said.  And in that phrase alone is a very powerful understanding that we can grow in to grasp and comprehend why He came to this earth and what we’re to glean and what we’re to learn from it as we go through this sermon.

Let’s go back and pick it up in John 10 here where we left off, backing up just a little bit, just reading those last few verses and then we’ll continue on.  Again, things about Jesus Christ that we need to focus upon during these Days of Unleavened Bread in this Passover season that God has given to us, things about Jesus Christ here where He was fully at one with His Father to fulfill a role that God had given Him.  And God has given every one of us a role, every one of us has a role to live that God has granted us, and our great desire should be to fulfill whatever God has given us and do it His way and not ours.  And that’s an awesome thing to grasp and to live.  And so again, things that were given to Jesus Christ from the beginning before anything else was ever created.

John 10:14 – breaking into the context here where He says - I am the good shepherd: and know My sheep, and am known of Mine.  It’s a beautiful thing, speaking of the Church, speaking of those with whom He began to work with before Pentecost, before they were given the impregnation of God’s spirit.  As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father: beautiful picture, all spiritual in nature, all spiritual in communication, all spiritual in mind, in ways that we cannot fully grasp because this did not happen to us.  We get to taste of it a little bit, but this was the mind of Christ all the time!  As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father and I lay down My life for the sheep. Willingly so.  He didn’t think of doing anything else!  And that doesn’t mean just as a Passover, that doesn’t mean just as something at the end!  That means as a way of life and what He lived day in and day out.  I lay down My life, ‘it isn’t My will, it’s God’s will to be done’. He didn’t even consider His will, truly.  We do, big time, too often we think about our ways and how we think God is, and so forth, and we have to unlearn things like that over and over and over again in our life.  That’s just the way we are as human beings; and we’re blessed to grow and become something different.  And so often it goes back to this, and I lay down My life for the sheep.  Do we lay down our life for each other within the Body? Do we lay our life down for others outside the Body?  Because we’re supposed to, it’s a sacrifice.  We’re supposed to be a living sacrifice day in and day out.

And He went on to say, verse 16 - And there are other sheep I have which are not of this fold: and them I must also bring, the work He’d be doing for the next 2,000 years with the Church.  ...and they shall hear My voice; So He was telling them, “They’re going to be able to hear Me. They’re going to be able to hear My voice.” ...and there shall be one fold, one fold, not 500+ splinter groups out here like there is... all the splinter groups that came out of Worldwide after the apostasy.  He says there’s one fold, one voice; and that fold will be in unity with that one voice.  They’ll hear that voice and they’ll respond to that voice; or if they won’t listen to it, if they won’t do that then they can’t be a part of that one fold.

...and one Shepherd. Not a lot of different Christ’s, not a lot of different things He’s teaching in God’s Church, not a lot of different things being taught to those who are scattered. Therefore does My Father love Me, because I lay down My life, now He’s taking this up to what’s going to happen at the very end.  ...because I lay down My life, but it’s also that which He did day by day by day until it was accomplished.  So it was just a way of life, I lay down My life, because it wasn’t about Him, it was about the Father; that’s what He’s saying.  It’s about His will being done and He was in unity with that.  Everything He spoke was in unity with the Father, the mind of God that was there in His being and He yielded to that, that was His life, that was the fullness, if you will.  And He made it clear that He didn’t speak His own ideas; He didn’t speak His own thoughts about... because He didn’t give room for those, because that’s wrong.

We as human beings, we have it all the time because we’ve been immersed in it and that’s what we’re coming out of, our thoughts, our ways, our mind, our thinking.  He was fully at one with His Father and the words that He spoke He said they’re not mine, they didn’t come out of Me, they didn’t come out of My reasoning or My thinking, they’re fully from the Father.  That takes great bold confidence to be able to state but He knew that with all of His being.

And so He says, I lay down My life that I might take it up again. So it had to do with understanding to the deepest part of His being and that which He wants us to grasp, that which God wants us to grasp – that it was a matter of absolute obedience all the time in life; the same thinking, the same mind, the same desire of life, about life.  And so He was very gladly willing to do those things all of His life.  Because of the physical body, though born of a Father who was God Almighty, still had a physical body and those things that affect us physically, hurt, pain, suffering; but things that were foreign to His mind that He just rejected that we give into so often because of our deep rooted nature.

And He says, I lay down My life that I might take it up again.  So he had a confidence and a boldness knowing what was going to happen at the end of this; because of living a righteous life He would have eternal life.  When His life was over He knew that He would have eternal life, it was His.  His!

No man takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. I have received this commandment of My Father. It’s a matter of God’s law, God’s way; He knew that.  Living a righteous, perfect life, He knew exactly where it would lead.  We don’t do that, we can’t do that, we’re just very, very thankful that we have a Passover who went through all this so we can be forgiven of our sins, so that we can go through a process of getting rid of the sin to become more at one with God.

So again, the definition of sacrifice, good to be reminded of this: ‘to forfeit or give up one thing for another thing considered to be of greater value.’  And we have to see then the greater value.  The more we can grasp that, the more we want that, the more we desire that which is from God, the more we will work at it, the more we will pray about it, the more we will focus upon it, the more we will fight against our own human nature.  Again, ‘the giving up of something valued or important for somebody or something else considered to be of more value or importance’.  And He considered everything coming from God the Father to be far more important than anything else in life.  And that’s our battle – we have to grow in that; it’s not automatic.  It’s just not automatic in your life and in your mind.

Let’s turn over to Luke 22 and go through some of these things concerning what Jesus Christ went through that led up to Him fulfilling being our Passover; to be reminded of some of these things in this season of the year, to be moved by these things, to be thankful, to be grateful.  Gratitude and thankfulness is a sacrifice for human beings.  Truly learning to become thankful in the way God gives us and tells us about thankfulness and gratitude is a matter of sacrifice on our part as far as our minds are concerned because that’s not just something automatic either.

Luke 22:7 - Then came the day/time, speaking of the season of/for unleavened bread, when the Passover must be killed. And He sent Peter and John, saying, Go and prepare us the Passover that we may eat. We read scriptures like this on a regular basis every Passover. And they said to Him, Where do You want us to prepare it? And He said to them, Behold, when you’ve entered in the city, a man shall meet you there bearing a pitcher of water; follow him into the house where he enters in. And you shall say to the good man of the house, The Master says to you, Where is the guest chamber where I shall eat the Passover with My disciples?  And so, at that point in time this was all about the lamb, preparing the lamb, having the fire, having everything ready to follow through and do what was given to the Israelites when they left Egypt on the 14th. On the night of the 14th, when the sun went down on the 13th and the 14th began there was a process here of killing the lamb, of preparing the lamb, of roasting the lamb on fire and how they were to do that.  And that’s what Jesus Christ was asking.  He was going to fulfil this; He was going to do it one more time and then give that which was greater that was to be done from that point forward, to change how Passover was to be observed from then on, because that which was done in the Old Testament, there was no point in it from that point forward.

And so Jesus Christ fulfilling the law and doing the law at that point in time because He hadn’t fulfilled the Passover yet – performed these things that we’re talking about now.  And (speaking of the individual they followed) he shall show you a large upper room that is furnished and it is there that you shall make it ready. And they went and found as He had said to them: and they made ready the Passover.  Then when the hour had come, He sat down with the twelve apostles. And so again, this process here of preparing the lamb and roasting it on fire and later then in the evening they sat down to eat. And He said to them, With deep desire, that which He’d looked forward to fulfilling, that which He knew that the Father had predetermined before anything was ever created.  He knew all that.  And this was in Him in a way we can’t even begin to grasp, that mind and that desire to be with the disciples now and to finally have a Passover meal with them knowing that this is the last Passover meal that anyone ever has to ever observe because now He is going to fulfill this in a far greater way for mankind; and He was excited to be able to fulfill this with His disciples, with those whom He’d come to know and love.  Awesome!  Doing something for a far, Far, FAR greater purpose!  Incredible what He fulfilled.

And so we can’t even begin to understand this deep desire that was on fire inside of Him.  With deep desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer:  And they had no idea what He was talking about, ‘before I suffer’; thoughts that to whatever degree they might have considered something He said, never understanding all the things He’d said before coming up to Passover.  They just couldn’t grasp it because they hadn’t received that ability yet, because it was spiritual in nature and God wouldn’t give that to them until later on.  Some things they would begin to grasp going up to Pentecost, but after Pentecost – WOW – that power and the spirit that gave them the ability to see so mightily all the things that Jesus Christ had said and done.

And so He said, I desire to eat this with you before I suffer.  He’s getting ready to fulfill something in God’s plan that He knew was the focal point of God’s plan of salvation.  You can’t grasp that.  I can’t grasp that!  We read it and we think we do, but we don’t!  That’s what’s awesome about something like this.  We can’t grasp that desire that was inside of Him!  We can’t grasp the intensity in His mind and in His being to fulfill this because He was the Word of God made flesh.  All that which was coming from God the Father even, that was flooding into His Son’s life, because that’s what it was; the power of God’s spirit that was flooding into His Son’s life at the same time, this connection, this mind and the power of God’s spirit that was working there to fill His mind with such great purpose and excitement to do it, because it wasn’t just about Jesus Christ, it was about the Father who had waited so long to come to this point in time, to bring His Son to this point in time, that which He had done in part way back in the time when He manifested Himself as Melchizedek.  Incredible!  And now all this planning, all this sacrificing for all this time in ways we can’t grasp, but we can strive to appreciate it, be thankful of it and latch onto what God gives us to hold onto because, again, that ability comes from God’s spirit too, not from ours.  It’s our yielding to it and our desire to meditate, to think about those things, to pray about those things, to thank God for such things, that He lets us taste of that.  And as we get closer to the end I’ve commented about these things, that God is giving us more and more of a taste.

That’s why in recent time here He’s given us more of His mind to understand His righteous judgment and why things must happen on this earth; because too often we still judge by our human emotion!  “Babies are going to die.”  Yes, they are!  People are going to die and it’s not a pretty sight and it’s not a pretty sight with God; but it must happen and it is righteous and it is needful. It is a sacrifice to have something far greater; and they have opportunity to experience that then in a great resurrection, the hundred years that we still don’t fully grasp.  We understand, we know certain things about it but we don’t grasp the magnitude of what that means for people, the joy, the fullness, the awesomeness of it, the mercy of God to grant it...the love of God to grant that.  We still don’t grasp that, but God is blessing us to grasp a little bit more as we go along here and to be more at one with Him.  We grow in that, of becoming more at one with God, and our minds begin to change and we begin to understand, “Yes God, it is righteous what you’re doing and yes, there is no other way for man to listen to You, to respond to You, but that they experience what they must experience in this ‘Time and a Half-A-Time’ in front of us.  Fully righteous!  Fully a matter of God’s mercy and fully a matter of God’s love.

But we get caught up in things, our own life, and we begin to think and to have questions, we begin to wonder, we want others to be in that age, we want others to be in that Millennial period, we want others to live through and have that opportunity; and what if, in some cases, it just doesn’t happen.  What if things don’t happen the way you want them to?  Do you understand that God knows what’s best for all life far better than what we do, far better than what you do, and you are at peace with that?  You’re not only at peace with that but you agree and you say, “Yes God, so be it, because I know Your love so surpasses mine!  Mine is selfish and Yours isn’t!”  What are we willing to give for something far greater?  We battle with things like that and because of that sometimes we’re not in full agreement with God, because we want something different that may not be given.

And so again, going through here and talking about this great desire then that Christ had before He was to suffer.  Verse 16 - For I say unto you, I will not eat of it anymore until it’s fulfilled in the Kingdom of God.  So after that they ate the Passover together, partook of the lamb and so forth, and then Jesus Christ began to institute new symbols.  Because that old Passover didn’t have to ever be kept again.  On the 10th day they didn’t have to take out a lamb.  God’s Church doesn’t do that because Jesus Christ fulfilled it.  Now the picture is upon the greater purpose of what God is doing with mankind, and that excitement that 2,000 years ago...and yet suffering too, sacrifice that was there...but knowing, having an excitement, but yet conflicted in part because He knew what He was going to go through – but He was fully at one.  He said, “Not My will but Yours be done.”  Those things are said more for us than they were for Him, about Him.

And so they ate the Passover together, they went up to the Mount of Olives after that was over; of course He instituted the bread, the wine, they had the foot-washing beforehand, He showed that, they sang a song, they went up to the Mount of Olives and He prayed and then He taught them.  He began to teach them many things on that particular night that we read much of on Passover night, that we’re also going to read in this sermon series, that I hope and pray that we can glean more out of than we’ve ever gleaned out of it before, that we just continue to grow.  We’ve read it so many times... I have read it so many times and yet God blesses us to glean a little bit more, to grow a little bit more in depth, understanding and gratitude and thankfulness for what He gives to us to see and to live by and to put together.

Many things were written in the book of John here, things that were taught that night of the need for Him to go through what He was getting ready to go through and He talked about how the Father dwelt in Him and how that He dwelt in the Father and He was getting ready to reveal to them what, to me, is the most exciting, most awesome things ever revealed to mankind and that is that they can dwell in us, that they can dwell in human life through the power of the spirit just as God the Father dwelt in Jesus Christ.  That was being given of understanding, but now this is going to happen in a Body, the Church, the Body of Christ in a massive way.

And then after this account, in the dark hours of the early morning on the 14th, then Judas and the soldiers came long and they came to take Jesus Christ at that point in time.  And we come down to John 18.  This is the scene we come to because now He’d spoken the words that are recorded there in John that we read every Passover.

John 18:1 - When Jesus had spoken these words, He went forth, and His disciples, over the brook Kidron where there was a garden in which He entered, and His disciples. And Judas also, who betrayed Him knew the place: because this is where, as it says here, for Jesus resorted often there with His disciples.  So he knew the place where He would go to, it was something that they did before. He’d go there and so Judas knew where to take them, where to betray Him, where to bring the soldiers.

Verse 3 - And Judas having received a band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, came there with lanterns and torches and weapons.

Then dropping on down we come to the point where Peter reacted with a sword.  He draws out his sword, whacks off the ear... let’s read this.

Verse 10 - Then Peter having a sword drew it and struck the high priest's servant and cut off his right ear.  Zealous!  Ready to go to arms here!  He said he wouldn’t deny Him...little did he know what was getting ready to happen.  He didn’t know how he was going to be tried and tested.  He didn’t realize the depth of what it means finally when you’re there and you see the one who you’ve been following beaten so badly that you don’t even recognize Him because of His entire upper body and His face, skin ripped off of Him because of the beating He took, that He wasn’t even able to be recognized.  And it’s a different situation when it finally arrives.  We think we’ll always know what we’ll do in every circumstance; in human nature we have a very strong protective mechanism within us and it sometimes is difficult to fight and he didn’t have what he needed in order to fight it.  He didn’t yet have the impregnation of God’s spirit in Him. He meant well, he intended to....

The servant's name was Malchus. Then Jesus said to Peter, Put away your sword into its sheath: the cup which My Father has given Me, shouldn’t I drink it?  “Don’t prevent this.”  It’s an awesome thing to leave your life in God’s hands; to live what is right, to strive to live what is right and just leave your life in God’s hands, trust in God.  God’s moulding and fashioning us.  He’s moulding!  You strive to live what is right.  You cry out to God, you seek to change, you seek to repent on a continuing basis, and then to be at peace knowing that whatever happens is for God’s purpose, whatever that is.  Whatever happens!  God knows what’s going on in your life.  He knows what goes on around you!  He’s moulding and fashioning you!  God has love for you, working with you in ways that you can’t comprehend.  We don’t grasp that kind of love.  We don’t grasp that mind!  We just do it a little bit, we just grasp it a little bit.  We think we know?  We don’t know!  We have much to grow in!  We always do.  It’s a lifetime!

Then He was taken before the Jews and then Pilate and this going back and forth business that went on, being questioned by both, and He was beaten beyond recognition and finally we come down to chapter 19.

John 19:7 – And the Jews answered him, speaking of Pilate in the conversation here, what was going on because he’d found, really, no fault in Christ and yet they said, We have a law, and by our law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God.  Well, He didn’t make Himself the Son of God; He was the Son of God.  God the Father made Him the Son of God!  ...but this just ate them alive!  People can get so nasty, so hateful, with a spirit of murder and sometimes leading up to the very point in time where they will murder to protect their religious piety and beliefs, arrogance.  And it doesn’t matter where you look.  Judaism?  This was Judaism at its rankest!  Pharisees, Sadducees, hasn’t changed through time, it’s only gotten worse; steeped more in things that are so far away from the word of God, and people don’t know that.  Traditional Christianity, the Catholic church – oh they’ve killed all kinds of people through time who didn’t agree with them...not a big thing!  They’ve killed a lot of people in God’s Church through time that God has allowed.  Incredible what’s taken place through time.

So it shouldn’t surprise us when people have such hatred and bitterness because of wanting to hold onto what they believe; that’s just the way of human nature.  It’s just the way of the human mind.  And so, We have a law... ‘We have a law’... and by our law He is to die, because He claims that He is the Son of God. He made himself the Son of God!  And When Pilate therefore heard them say that then he was more afraid; He didn’t take it the same way they did.  He wasn’t a Jew.  He had all kinds of superstitious ideas and stuff that’s in his mind.  That’s the kind of mind they... when Paul went to Athens they had all kinds of god’s and then just to make sure... just to make sure, they had the ‘unknown one’ too.  They had the plaque there, ‘The Unknown God’, just in case we missed one!  Superstitious as all get out! Incredible!

And so when Pilate heard this and thought that there might be a possibility in any fashion or form that someone could be a Son of God.... What is this?  Who is this?  He was afraid.  Superstitious as all get out!  Incredible! And he went again into the judgment hall and said unto Jesus, Where are you from? ‘Where are you from??’ But Jesus gave him no answer. Didn’t even respond. Then Pilate said to Him, Are you not going to speak to me? Don’t you know that I have the power to impale you on the stake/pole? ...and I have the power to release you?  It isn’t the word ‘cross’.  I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it!  What Traditional Christianity, what the Catholic church has taught mankind and all these crosses that people wear in such deep, deep ignorance!  If it’d been a guillotine, they’d wear that around their neck, sharpen it up once in a while, shine it up!  Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid – mankind!

Verse 11 - And Jesus answered, You could have no power at all against Me, except it was given to you from above: You talk about absolute oneness with God.  We only desire to attain to some of that.  I desire to have that kind of a mind!  I hope you do!  ...to know that God Almighty is in charge of your life and what happens to you and would not allow things to happen to you... if you’re one of His children and you’re yielding to Him and you’re repenting and you’re growing then God’s there moulding and fashioning your life through all kinds of life situations so you can learn and grow.

God moulds you; I don’t, someone else doesn’t, God Almighty does!  Sometimes that’s why it’s wise, and God has taught me, to back off, to back away and let God do HIS work.  And every one of us needs to learn that lesson – especially all in the ministry!  Don’t be too cocky in thinking you have the answers for everybody’s life; I don’t care who you are!  And brethren who’ve been around for a long time – be careful!  Don’t think you always know what’s best for somebody else’s life, because you don’t know what God is doing with their life, and sometimes it’s wise to back off!  If there’s sin then we can get involved...but if there’s not, be careful!  So God has taught me that in a big way – back off – because you can interfere with God, what God’s doing, truly.  We have to be careful, we truly do!  So we learn those things; let God do His work.

This is the mind I desire!  This is the mind you should desire, to have that knowledge, to know that God is there!  Nothing to fear, nothing to worry about – even if you lose your life God’s there.  He’s not going to allow it to happen to you unless He’s finished what He’s doing with you or He has a purpose for what He’s doing... He’ll always have a purpose with you.  He’s called you; He’s given you His spirit!  He has love for you that we can’t comprehend because we’re carnal and human and we strive to understand the mind of God, the love of God, but we’re so puny in that, we truly are!  So restricted in our ability to grasp!  Jesus Christ wasn’t.

He said, You have no power over Me except it’s given of My Father.  ‘My father gives you the power to lop off My head?! ... God gave it to you, you don’t have it.’  Because He was God’s!  I’m God’s!  You are God’s!  You’re being moulded and fashioned by the Almighty God of the universe.  Does He have the power to mould and fashion us? Oh yes!  We just have to yield our self to it and be thankful for it, be thankful to God.  For whatever part we have in life, wherever we are in life it is awesome... it is so awesome, because that’s where God has chosen to work with you, to call you, to deal with you in life in whatever stage of life you’re in, whatever calling He’s given, because there are many things that God is moulding and fashioning within people’s lives, many things that God is doing right now in preparing for the Millennial period here, people who have an opportunity to have a head-start.  I’m looking forward to seeing what some of that fulfillment is going to be because I don’t know what it fully is in people’s lives.

All the new people that have come along, I see their lives, I look at their lives and I just thank God to be able to experience that, I really do – can’t explain that to you – because I know that you have a head start for a reason, and you just yield yourself to the process and God’s going to get you to the other side of this because He has a purpose for you, a plan for you to fulfill things that you cannot begin to grasp.  You can’t begin to grasp the awesomeness, the beauty of God’s life in your life if you’d just continue to yield yourself to it – because you see, God knows what makes us full and complete.  He knows what’s best for every one of us.  He’s moulding something different... we’re not all alike; we’re not supposed to be alike.  We’re not supposed to be yellow pencils; we’re all different – thank God.  Thank God for the difference!  Thank God for the differences and that we’re not all alike and that we don’t all think the same. Because you see, the best thing of all that can happen to us is that we learn to think and be in unity with God’s mind.

He was more afraid then... So he asked Him those questions and He said, you have no power except what has been given to you:

Verse 11 – And Jesus answered, You could have no power at all against Me except it was given to you from above: therefore he who has delivered Me unto you has the greater sin. And from that moment Pilate sought to release him: but the Jews cried out, saying, If you let this man go, you’re not Caesar's friend:  So they saw something in Pilate they didn’t like. Pilate figured He’s had enough.  He’s been beaten and needs to be let go, there’s nothing He’s guilty of.  That’s the way Pilate looked at it.  “Just release Him.”  And then, oh, they tightened the screws... if you let Him go... you talk about politics, how nasty politics can be in people’s lives and it fills this world – politics.  People strive to get their way and they’ll find something because we all have weaknesses, we all have problems in the world – somebody to get at you.  Incredible!

And so they said, If you let this man go, you are not Caesar's friend:  Oooo, what are they using?  What do you mean?  For whoever makes himself a king speaks against Caesar....and if claims to be a king and you let Him go you’re not Caesar’s friend.  “How do you think Caesar’s going to feel when he hears that you let someone claiming to be a king go free?  Insurrection!”  Well, that replaced one fear with another fear if you understand human nature.  So here’s politics and “How am I going to work with this...?”  It’s really amazing how this worked out and what Pilate did.  Pilate was still in control so he really had no choice as far as this world is concerned and politics in this world is concerned.

Verse 13 - When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha. And it was the preparation of the Passover... so here we are through the night time portion, all this... Passover was eaten, He instituted the new symbols, taught them awesome things, gave them incredible spiritual knowledge, but they didn’t understand it yet, and then went before the judgment here back and forth, beaten and all the things that took place in getting around to the morning now on this particular day and this is the preparation day.

The Passover is referred to as a preparation day just like Friday is a preparation day.  Friday’s a preparation day for the Sabbath.  The 6th day is a preparation for the 7th day in scripture here; that’s what we talk about, the preparation day.  And this was the preparation day for an annual Sabbath. The Passover day is a preparation day for the first High Day and so there’s much work to be done especially this is the first Holy Day season of the year and so you go back in stories here in the Old Testament especially and you read of massive, massive amounts, thousands sometimes, of animals that were brought in to be butchered, to be cleaned, to be prepared, to be sacrificed.  So on that day they began killing animals later in the afternoon, the Jews did, and this is where they got all messed up in their minds about how to keep Passover.  They read these things in the Old Testament so you think, “Surely if they understand...” but they don’t.  You’d think they’d be able to separate those things.  And I know that some Rabbi’s definitely have, but that’s beside the point.

There are things that some people have understood; just like Jesus Christ dying on Wednesday instead of Friday, knowing that certain things happened on Wednesday, now they have certain evidence of some of that.  I don’t want to go into some of that stupidity of mankind.

And it was the preparation of the Passover, again, so this was speaking of the preparation day for the Passover sacrifices, the things that were to be killed.  That’s what Passover sacrifices are here.  Not the Passover that was sacrificed, that was God’s sacrifice on the 14th in the night, but now we’re talking about a time in the preparation day when the Jews are getting closer to a point where they are going to begin to be very, very busy preparing for that night and the feasting that’s going to take place on that night, on the First Day of Unleavened Bread.  And so it says here, it was the preparation of the Passover, and about the sixth hour: now, sometimes I’m amazed... we had someone here recently that has been disfellowshipped from the Church because they thought they saw something here of a contradiction between John and the others in the writings, because of the timeline, it’s like there’s a conflict here.  And there’s no conflict whatsoever!  You just have to understand what people are writing about and what they say.  There’s no conflict in God’s word, there’s no disagreement anywhere in God’s word; and then people come up with their own rationalizations, their own ideas about what things are and the timing of things and their minds get so messed up because they think they have the answers and they don’t, it’s just stupidity because of ignorance.

Just like Wednesday...  People call yesterday ‘good Friday’.  No excuse for such stupidity!  I’d be a little shocked if every pope doesn’t know a little bit better than that.  Now if they don’t then they’re just really dumb when it comes to the scriptures, I guess they just never really have read the scriptures in the New Testament; that has to be the answer.  That can be the only thing left there for the popes through history, if they don’t have any more sense, even on a physical plane, to be able to go in there and understand something about Friday to Sunday and know they’re not rationalizing and lying....because so often they have lied over and over again to protect their own little spot.  Thank God there’s only one more time left that they’re going to be able to call ‘good Friday’ and lie to the masses of people about Easter.  Their time is winding down fast and so is of that great being who has lied to them all and twisted and distorted human beings.

... and it was about the sixth hour: ...so what does that mean?  Sixth hour – what time was that?  Like our clock? 6 o’clock at night?  6 o’clock in the morning?  What is it?  It was 6 o’clock in the morning; around 6 am, that was the time.  So this here is a specific moment in time in talking about this being used of the Roman method of time on the Passover day on the 14th; that which was Wednesday of that year, the 14th and what was taking place on that particular day.  And so there are other times now...the reason I point this out is there are going to be other times later on that we’re going to look at and it’s not going to be the Roman method of time; and so people can look at that and say, “Well, it’s talking about something like the same account but there’s a different time here.  Why the conflict?  Why the disagreement?”

...and it was about the sixth hour, and he said to the Jews, Behold your King! Now, they were trying to get at him and say “You’re not Caesar’s friend.”  Oh did he have a comeback for them.  “If I’ve got to go through with this, then they’re going to have a king.  They’re going to put Him to death but they’re going to know...”  He knew exactly what he was doing.  He was doing it right back to them, to get back at them.  He said, Behold your King! He knew this would upset them.  He knew this would make them mad and irritated at him.  He wasn’t trying to make friends and influence people.  They just pulled a fast one with him, he just pulled a fast one back again.

But they cried out, Away with Him, away with Him, impale Him! That’s what it was about. And Pilate said to them, Shall I impale your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar. It’s amazing what took place here. The Jewish people, the leadership of the Jewish people to deny the Passover in such an awesome, massive, hideous way.  Incredible what took place!

Then he delivered Him to them to be impaled on a pole/stake. And they took Jesus, and led Him away. And bearing/carrying His stake/pole He went forth into a place called the place of the skull, which is called Golgotha in the Hebrew where they impaled Him on a pole, and two other with Him, one on each side, with Jesus in between.

Now let’s go over to the account of Mark 15:25 - And it was the third hour, third hour...and so again here, not 3 am as far as the Roman time is concerned; here it’s 9 am, the third hour in how time was being counted.  There are periods of time for the watches – that’s how time was counted in the Old Testament.  You go back there and there are 12 hours of the watch and 12 hours basically that they used in the counts of the day, in the hours of the day.  That’s why watches or night watch or to be on guard, when some of those words are used in the Bible, it’s referring to sentries or posts of a city protecting the city or guarding gates and so forth.  And this is what some of the stuff is talking about here when they were on a certain watch, the 3rd watch, or the 5th watch or whatever it might be.  And so this is a different counting of time that is used over and over again in scripture.  But here, again, going back to John, using something that the Roman’s were using at that time.  And so here, It was about the third hour, 9 am, and they impaled Him.

So at 6 am He was there, Pilate was talking to the leaders and so forth and going back and forth with Him; and it says He carried, for a distance anyway, not all the way, but for a time He had to pull that pole/stake for a while on His shoulder and the back, willing to carry it until He couldn’t carry it any longer, didn’t have the strength to because of what He’d experienced there.  And another individual then took it the rest of the way.  But in this particular case here then, and this is the time when they finally actually are doing it, putting the nail (just one nail) through the wrist area here, one nail with both the feet together.  It’s all it took, one huge spike into the pole.  And this is what was taking place at this time...and Jesus Christ going through all this and knowing exactly what He was going to go through before He ever did it, for greater purpose, for us, for the Church, for all mankind, for God’s purpose for God’s plan, for God’s Family.  Paled into insignificance in His mind what He had to go through and give in the scheme of things.

And the inscribing of His accusation was written, THE KING OF THE JEWS. It was written in three different languages there.  Some have even in times past, not in the Church, but others of the world, they try to show there’s conflict and things in the Bible that don’t agree with each other.  Well it was written in three different languages so the words aren’t always translated the same because of how they’re written and so forth, out of those three languages when you write into one language.  So yes, there’s a difference there in how it was stated in the sense of ‘The King of the Jews’ and how different languages work.  And so basically, here again, rubbing it in to the high priests, this is your King, He is the KING OF THE JEWS, so that’s what Pilate wanted up there.

And with Him they impaled on poles the two thieves; with the one at His right hand, and the other at His left. And the scripture was fulfilled which said, And He was numbered with the transgressors. How the world looked upon Him, numbered with the transgressors...and He didn’t have a sin in His life; never broke a law.  Amazing!

And they who passed by railed on Him, wagging their heads, and saying, Look! You who destroyed the temple, and built it in three days, mocking, making fun of.  That’s just the way of life with God’s people.  All of you, when you come into the Church you begin to experience just a small, really small, portion of what this is like, of what it’s like when people begin to mock and make fun of your ideas and try to tear you down and they ridicule you...and you don’t take it personal.  You understand this just goes with the territory; this is the way it is, it’s not a matter of something that’s personal. You understand they don’t understand what they’re doing and what they’re saying.

Save Yourself and come down from the pole/stake. Likewise also the chief priests mocking said among themselves with the scribes, He saved others; yet Himself He can’t save. “Ha Ha Ha, isn’t this funny. He can save others... all these stories about people He healed out here and He can’t even save Himself.”  Such arrogance, such disgust!

Verse 32 - Let Christ the King of Israel, this is their comment, Let Christ the King of Israel descend now from the pole, that we may see and believe. Because if you do this then we’ll believe.  And then if He did it then, they wouldn’t believe!  He was resurrected three days later and they didn’t believe.  They did everything they could to cover it up. Incredible! And they that were impaled with Him reviled Him. Even the two there with Him at that moment.

And when the sixth hour...so this is now twelve noon in this timing, in the sixth hour of the day,  twelve noon straight up, had come, there was darkness over the whole of the land until the ninth hour. In other words, 3 pm.  So here it is from 12 noon to 3 pm darkness began to cover all the land.

Sometimes we suffer in this human body and we think we suffer so much.  We suffer struggles, we suffer trials, we suffer hardships because of a choice we have made that we count that we recognize is of far greater value and importance.  We begin to keep the Sabbath day but we understand in our minds that this is right with God, and yet there is suffering that oftentimes goes with that, with jobs and so forth, and taking time off for the Feast of Tabernacles and sometimes if we’re not careful we begin to turn a little bit too inward with that and don’t understand what’s being accomplished and what’s being done; in many planes, in many levels oftentimes in life, for those around us, for those later on, their time whenever they’re called.

Because it’s not just about us and our time now and what we’re doing, it’s about others in time, even if it’s in the Great White Throne at their resurrection and the conviction and the mind that will be given to them at that time and their appreciation then of how you stood up and did what was right, and that’ll help them to conquer and overcome, it’ll help them to feel ashamed and realize what they did to you, and it’ll help them in their conversion process.  Sometimes we don’t understand time and how God works with us.  And sometimes if we’re not careful we can begin to turn inward and begin to feel sorry for ourselves and woe is me for what we’re going through.  People turn against us and people are mad at us, and people who we thought were friends aren’t friends anymore and they stab you in the back and they say evil things about you, family, friends, closest of family in life; brothers, sisters, mothers... it doesn’t matter what it is in life and people turn against us. It is what it is and you stand firm and you do what’s right before God because it’s right before God, because something greater is taking place in you. It’s a sacrifice, absolutely!  One we should willingly give and be at peace; but it’s easier said than done, it truly is.  We suffer!  Sacrifice is about suffering in this human body.

To sacrifice in the way that we’re to sacrifice means we’re going to suffer, and we choose to do so. Think about that definition; but it’s far greater than the definition even.  ‘To forfeit or to give up one thing for another thing considered to be of greater value.’  Over and over.  ‘...the giving up of something valued or important...’ something that we value – human nature values.  There’s a lot of things we value, but a willingness to give that up because we see something far greater and we embrace it?  Think about those who looked for a city who’s builder and maker was God.  I think of those scriptures like that in Hebrews; because of so much in your mind that nothing else can compare to it?

John 19:31 – so as we read in Mark there, it was the ninth hour, the sky was darkened from the sixth to the ninth hour, and then we come to this flow here - The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, the preparation for the First Day of Unleavened Bread, as soon as it was sundown that was going to begin there, that High Day.  So it’s a preparation day like Friday is a preparation day for the weekly Sabbath.  The Jews, because it was the preparation day, that the bodies should not remain upon the stake/pole on the Sabbath day, on the High Day.  It wasn’t a weekly Sabbath, it was an annual Sabbath on Thursday there; in other words, Wednesday at sunset and through Thursday there, that’s going to be their first High Day, First Day of Unleavened Bread.  ...they requested of Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. And so they wanted to have them die off fast so they could get them down and get them out of the way so those bodies aren’t up there on the Sabbath and so that all the work is done and now they can focus on the celebration of obeying God on the High Day and having a feast.  Incredible!

And so the soldiers came and they broke the legs of the first, and the other who was impaled on the pole with Him. So they broke their legs first so they couldn’t push themselves up any longer to breathe. Because when your legs are broken you can’t push yourself up anymore to breathe and you just suffocate.  But Christ was not to suffocate, as one evangelist one time said could be possible...that maybe He suffocated...he was missing the whole point about the Passover lamb!  No, His blood has to be spilled!  It’s about His blood!  DUH!!

Verse 33 - But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead they didn’t break His legs: for one of the soldiers had pierced His side with a spear and immediately there came out blood and water. So this had already happened!  Before they came around to break the legs another soldier had already rammed the spear in His side and He died from it. And he who saw it bare record and his record is true: It’s John.  ‘He who bare record and his record is true.’  He didn’t say, “I saw it and this is what happened.”  He states it as it is.  And he who saw it bare record and his record is true: and he knows that he said is true, amazing here, and that ‘joy’ might believe.  A little bit awkward of a translation in English but he was recognizing things that were done and accomplished and as he looks back in time and writes all these things and the things that took place and recognizing what it meant; because the scriptures were fulfilled, that He was pierced, that His blood had to spill to the earth.

For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, not a bone shall be broken. So that prophecy was fulfilled as well, ‘not a bone shall be broken’. And another scripture, They shall look upon Him whom they pierced. Incredible!

Let’s turn over to Hebrews 9.  You need to notice, again, how this is recorded over here.  So this is the story flow of our Passover, what He went through that was just His mind to fulfill what His Father had given to Him.  Whatever was there, whatever cup He was to drink, whatever cup we have to drink, knowing that God’s in charge; just live it.  But we carry so many things so often ourselves, and that’s just human nature, and we weigh ourselves down and we agonize and we worry and we become frustrated and we become sorrowful and we go through many things sometimes; and it’s difficult to have a confidence and the boldness because it comes from God.  We have to ask God for that kind of mind and that kind of help and to grow in that kind of a mind to leave it in His hands and just to yield ourselves to the process, to seek to obey, to seek to live this way of life, to seek to be at one with Him, to learn what we can from whatever we go through.  So often that’s what so many things we go through are about anyway; it’s about what we can learn from it.  What can I learn from this?  How can I grow in this?  If I make a mistake, then....   I back away and people make mistakes and I let them because that’s what God does to us.  He doesn’t try to intervene in everybody’s lives.  I don’t intervene in people’s lives in the Church, not even in the ministry, so often; it’s not my place!  Now there are times when I’m inspired to, I rely upon that, and that’s what we should rely upon, to make sure we can distinguish the two as far as life is concerned.  Again, this thing of letting God do what God is going to do and how we can learn from this process.

So again, a matter of yielding ourselves to God, having confidence that God’s in charge and we just back away and let God do His work in everybody’s lives.  It’s a beautiful thing, truly is, and having confidence in that.

Isn’t it beautiful how God works in our lives?  I love it!  I love the way God works with me – mercy, the patience... the patience...and the mercy...  That’s how God works with us and we learn from our mistakes.  He lets us make them; that’s how we learn.  If He intervened every time and had a great big voice....   This is how some in the Church used to think, “In the Millennium...” you remember the scriptures, “And you’re going to hear a voice behind you; don’t walk this way, this is the way, walk you in it.”  It’s like in the Millennium you don’t have to have too much of a mind because there’s always going to be somebody... when you’re going to sin somebody will tap you on the shoulder and say, “No, no, no, no, no...  don’t do that...that’s wrong, this is the way, walk you in it.”  You wouldn’t be able to make a mistake.  You don’t have to worry about making mistakes; you won’t learn a thing, but that doesn’t matter does it?  “Oh, glad you showed me that!”  Do you understand?

And so sometimes in each other’s lives, even with the Body, within the Church, we have to be careful in how we judge each other.  We have to be careful in how we think about each other, truly.  Let God do His work.  And you know what?  If somebody stumbles they can get up again.  If you make a mistake you can get up again.  If it’s sin, you know what?  If you repent, God will forgive you; and that’s how you learn.  It’s a beautiful thing.  See, God’s been doing that with me for over forty years and I’ve learned from that, finally, in a very big way. And there’s more value on that than what I can give any of you, that if we could all do that and learn more - and I have to grow in being able to do that more and more as well - how blessed we would be indeed.

Hebrews 9:1 – Now the first covenant had also ordinances of divine services, in other words, rituals and rites, ceremonies.  So here it’s going back and talking about the Levitical system and all the things that took place there, and an earthly sanctuary. So here is, whether it’d be a tent, or whether it’d be the building that was built later on in Jerusalem, that’s what it’s talking about here, in all these rituals that the Levites had to go through in this particular case.

For there was a tabernacle made; and the first, in other words the first area inside as you go into the tabernacle, it took up two thirds of the tabernacle and at the back of that two thirds was a great big curtain that was there.  And so in the front part, the two thirds, this is what it’s talking about, wherein was the candlestick, the table, and the showbread; which is called the sanctuary. In other words, the Holy Place.  So here is what’s called the Holy Place where the Levites went in everyday doing their work, day in and day out, morning and evening and even throughout the day on some things, but mostly morning and evening.

And after that, in other words, was the second veil of the tabernacle, so that last third of inside, when you go in there’s a curtain there – behind that is what it’s talking about - which is called the Holiest of all; or the Holiest of Holies, this last area. Which had the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant that was overlaid round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant;  And so these things behind that curtain.  And over it the cherubim’s of glory shadowing the mercy seat; of which we cannot now speak particularly. Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests always went into the first tabernacle, in other words, the first area called the Holy Place, accomplishing the service of God, the ceremonies and rituals and things that they were given.

But into the second, they didn’t go in there – they couldn’t go in there – there was only one who could go in there.  There was only one who was authorized to ever, in this respect, go in there to do a service.  It was the high priest; and he could only do it once a year and it was on the Day of Atonement.  He could only do this service once a year.  So there was only one service performed in there once a year by the high priest.  And so into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, that’s why atonement is such a beautiful picture – Leviticus 16, beautiful;  it goes along with this; and for the errors of the people: The holy spirit was thus signifying that the way into the Holiest of all, the Holiest of Holies was not yet made manifest, while the first tabernacle was still standing: Incredible!  It’s a beautiful story, beautiful picture here that God has given; that the high priest did this service year by year, and the holy spirit showing, revealing, teaching us that the way into the Holiest of Holies wasn’t yet made manifest to mankind.  Incredible!

Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered up both gifts and sacrifices, the rituals on a continuing basis and the Holy Days and all the sacrificial system that was involved, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience/guilt before God; in other words, be able to be forgiven is what the end story here is. Which stood only in meats and drinks, and different washings, and carnal ordinances imposed on them until the time of reformation. A lot of sacrifices, a lot of physical sacrifices that didn’t mean a lot, didn’t mean much at all when it’s all said and done.  It’s there for a teacher and primarily for those whom God calls and in the future those that God resurrects and they’ll come to understand those things one day, what they were all picturing.  But for the Israelites and what they were going through...didn’t produce what God intended, what God was foreshadowing that it would in time.

But Christ being come an High Priest of good things to come, by a greater and far more perfect tabernacle, temporary dwelling, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; He was in a temporary tabernacle until there was a permanent one, the Body of Christ, the Church of God – incredible! And once that came then also came the ability to enter into the Holies of Holies all the time, any time you want, any time you desire.  Beautiful picture!

Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, it’s talking about Him being the Passover, and that perfect tabernacle that came as a result of that, different things it’s referred to... having obtained eternal redemption for us.

For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh: it’s only a physical thing, to be a part of a physical community, How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered Himself/sacrifice Himself/gave Himself willingly as a sacrifice without spot/sin to God, never having done anything wrong in His life –perfect in all His ways, to obtain something truly perfect, perfected.  ...without spot to God, and where sacrificed His own life purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? To get rid of the sin, to change, to even help the changing of your very mind so that you are freed, the conscience, the guilt, it’s gone!  Jesus Christ did it for us; He died for us!  And so because of that we’re able to be forgiven of our sins and purified, and as far as a relationship with God purified in mind to where God will live in us, and serve the living God so we can have God even living and dwelling within us.  It’s an awesome story, an awesome picture here.

Again, Jesus Christ willingly sacrificed His life because He came to do God’s will and not His own.  Such incredible lessons to learn from this!  Not our will... ‘not My will but Yours’.  If we can just learn to not just say that, but say it and live it and pray about it. “Help me to do Your will!”  ‘Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Your name, Your Kingdom come, Your will be done...’  We understand what that means for us, that God’s will be done.  We’re asking for God’s help; that’s what that means!  We’re asking God, “Please help me that I don’t do my will!  Help me to yield to Your will!  Help me to do Your will!  Help me to reject mine! Help me to reject my thoughts and my ideas and my ways of doing things and help me to judge righteous judgment!”  After reading what we just did in Hebrews 9, some of the greatest and most concise lessons of all are given right here in this chapter.

Hebrews 10:1 - For the law having a shadow, in other words those physical rituals and so forth, the law that was given to the Levites of these ceremonies and everything they had to do.  For the law having a shadow of good things to come, awesome, incredible things, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered continually year by year make the comers thereunto perfect.  They didn’t do anything that was lasting.  They learned a little bit, but not even much there, to sacrifice something costs you.  It costs you.  There’s a price involved.  Something of a certain value for something greater.  And so they only had a little bit of physical things that they could learn from some of that and sometimes did it begrudgingly and so forth; and so God is very meticulous in telling them about what kinds of things they could sacrifice and what kind of things they couldn’t.  And you know if they brought along a bullock or whatever and something, it really cost them!  They learned if you’re going to do that, if you’re going to give that in sacrifice there’s a lot more... and so on a physical plane there’s certain things they learned from it, but not what we should learn, of what is the greater value.  It’s not about animals; it’s about how we live our lives.  It’s not the sacrifices God wanted at all.  You know it was something taught, it was something there as a physical routine of life to give them routine that they would go through to be able to have some kind of a focus on, and hopefully hold onto, a certain kind of morality as a people.  And they didn’t respond too well to that either, did they?  Depending on the leader they had and so forth at different times.

Verse 2 - For then they would not have ceased to be offered? Because that the worshippers once purged would have no more conscience of sins. In other words, the guilt; but it didn’t take any of that away. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance made, again, of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore when He, speaking of Jesus Christ, came into the world, He said... because it’s about Jesus Christ, it’s about what He would fulfill; Sacrifice and offerings is not what you wanted, it’s written in the Psalms that this would be Him, this would be from Him, this would be His mind, this would be everything that He understood and would fulfill in what He would accomplish.

Sacrifice and offerings is not what you wanted, but you have prepared for Me a Body: In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You had no pleasure.  It was all selfish, as a whole, as human beings; not producing anything in that respect, because it lacked God’s spirit.  Only God’s spirit can produce what’s good.  Only God’s spirit in something can have purpose and real meaning, that can have something that, again, produces fruit; but it requires God in it to produce fruit.

And so again here, this isn’t what it was all about.  He said, this isn’t what you wanted...sacrifice and offerings is not what You wanted, but you prepared for Me a Body: in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You had no pleasure.  Then I said, Behold I come to do Your will O God.  ‘Not My will, but Yours be done.’  That was His mind, His life, and it should be ours.  We should strive to have that kind of thinking.  It’s the outline of prayer, it’s one of the most focal things in the outline of prayer that we’re to focus upon when we pray; to examine ourselves to make sure that in the things that we do in life and how we work with people and talk to people in our families and with one another in the congregation, even in the world, of how we think and work with them.

Behold I come to do Your will O God, (as it is written in the volume of the book about Me). It’s written in Psalms 40.  Jesus Christ knew!  Everything that was written in the Old Testament, everything that was about Him – it was in His mind, He knew it.  He knew what He was fulfilling.

Verse 8 - Above when He said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin  is not what You wanted, neither did you have pleasure in that which was offered by the law; what the Levites were to do, day by day, and year by year; Then He said, Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God. He took away the first, He took away the sacrificial system, even the part about the Passover – which was not a part of the sacrificial system but it was something given to the Israelites that they were to do in taking a lamb, and even that was taken away, no longer needed to be done; new symbols were given - but as far as everything contained that the high priest did, Jesus Christ fulfilled.  He’s our High Priest.  There was no need for that physical routine again that pictured something that was going to happen in the future, in a future time.  He fulfilled everything!  And so this is what it’s talking about here.

He took away the first, that old process, that old process of going through the motions, of doing things that God was never pleased with; it isn’t what God was looking forward to.  It didn’t produce anything lasting in people’s lives, it just was a teacher if people could learn from it and benefit from it  ...that He may establish the second.  I’ll tell you, this is awesomely beautiful, it really is, the second... ‘to do Your will’.  That’s what He did and that’s what He made possible for us to learn how to do, to do His will through sacrifice.  You can’t do God’s will except through sacrifice, of understanding something that’s of greater value and your willingness to give up the rest for something far greater.  The willingness to suffer, sacrifice; you pay a price, but do you see what you receive from it that’s of far greater value?  Yes, one thing, but the value that’s placed on the other that makes what we give up less of a sacrifice.

The more we have the love of God and the mind of God the less we give up, if we understand, truly.  But for what we have to go through as human beings, it requires sacrifice, it requires suffering.  We go through those things, we truly do.  So it’s a matter of establishing the second, that’s what Jesus Christ did, the doing of God’s will.  He did it so that we could do it, otherwise we couldn’t do it.  We just go through the motions of something on a physical plane and never really profit, change, and grow; but here we can change and become something different.

By/through such will we are sanctified, By God’s will, by what was established, the doing of God’s will. We are sanctified.  What did Christ say about how we’re sanctified as well?  Through what? Truth.  But it’s not just having the knowledge.  If we just have the knowledge what good is it?  If we just know, what good is it?  It’s the living of it; and the living of it requires sacrifice, always!  But it’s always for something far, far greater, and that’s why the definition doesn’t really grasp or catch the greater value, because the value is so great!  But as we grow we begin to see that more and more and more.  And so what we’ve left behind... like Paul said, it isn’t worthy to be compared; but when we go through it it’s tough, it’s hard and sometimes we think nearly impossible!  So we cry out to God to do His will, for the help, the strength, the power to do His will, to keep focused on that which is so much greater and not become distracted and not turn inward and not become selfish.

Through which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. In other words, through His sacrifice we’re able to be sanctified to be able to do God’s will, to live the truth; not enough just to have it.

Verse 11 - And every high priest stands daily ministering and offering over and over the same sacrifices which can never take away sins: But this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever sat down on the right hand of God; From henceforth expecting until His enemies be made His footstool. Waiting until that time to be accomplished. For by one offering He has perfected forever...forever... them who are sanctified.  God begins to give us the truth in our minds, the Word in our minds, and we begin to make choices, because you see, it’s all about God’s will and it’s about God’s love.  It’s about Him and His mind and being at one with Him and the choices then that we make in order to come into unity with that.  And the battle and the process we go through of being sanctified; being sanctified is a process of being forgiven of sin.  Being sanctified is coming to a conviction that we don’t want it in us and we pray to God to help us get rid of it, not just to be forgiven of it.  It’s not just a matter of forgiven, but a matter of getting it out of our being.  The Days of Unleavened Bread, coming out of sin, becoming unleavened, that means ‘without sin’ and that’s a process we go through.  These Days of Unleavened Bread is a beautiful process being made possible by our Passover that we can come out of sin and our minds can become something different than what they are.

So again, He’s perfected forever them who are sanctified. Whereof the holy spirit also is a witness to us: for after that He had said before... See the process?  See where it leads?  See what it’s all about? See what sacrifice is all about? This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord, I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; Sanctification, the truth, the law, the way, the mind, the being of God is being blessed to be written in our being, in our minds in a spiritual plane by the power of His holy spirit, and we’re blessed to be able to grow in that and it becomes more and more a part of us.  And the more we get rid of self and go through that process of sacrificing things that are of lesser value, that aren’t a part of the big picture, we can grow in the ability to more easily discard them and to rejoice and be thankful for the greater things that are out front that God says are there for us, made possible for us and we latch onto those.  And so we go through that process and we become more the mind of Paul when he wrote that to the Romans.  ‘There’s nothing to be compared!’  What can we compare to what God has placed before us and has made possible through our Passover?  Incredible what God has given to us, the kind of love.

And so He says, in their minds I will write them... the ability to do God’s will.  That’s what this is all about, to be at one with Him, the doing of God’s will. That’s how the law is written in our minds, because we’ve come into greater unity.  We agree with God; this is right.  Just like in a big way the Church has grown – still has more to grow in this but we have grown in a big way compared to two years ago when we fasted twice in one month, once for two days and then a time we went through for God to work with, mould and fashion us, prepare the world as He is doing it in things we don’t see, bringing us up to a time with two more periods of fasting, to where now in a greater way God has shared with us more of an understanding of His love, His mercy and His righteous judgment, and the execution of that judgment that must take place on the earth; to where we are deeply, far more deeply at one with God in this and we understand it’s time.  It’s time; otherwise His Son wouldn’t return, otherwise that Kingdom would not be here, otherwise we would not be able to fulfill what God has granted and placed before.  But it will be fulfilled, and we’re blessed to be a part of it. But being a part of it isn’t what God desires, just being a part.  He wants us to be at one with Him, to see, to understand and to agree, to be at one with Him.  It’s a beautiful thing, it truly is.

I will put My laws into their hearts; what we have gone through in two years is a growth in that area, truly is.  We’ve come to see things about mercy and love and that sometimes the exercising of it requires sacrifice; that we wish it could be some other way, we wish it could happen some other way, but the reality is it can’t.  Wish that His Son didn’t have to die and be beaten like He was, but it has to happen because it can’t come in any other way; and on and on through time, wish, desired...whatever.  I don’t know how to put it.

There has to be an angelic realm and one who was given power above all the rest, and beauty beyond all the rest, and freedom on his own, to do things in government on his own, for whatever period of time it took; and then God continued revealing more about His plan until that being just couldn’t take it because he became filled with himself.  But God knowing all along it would have to come to that; but He loved Him.  He loved all those angelic beings who chose his side [Satan’s]; and they must all, speaking of Satan...I’ll say that one, come to an end, no longer to exist because of the choices he made.  And we don’t understand the things that God has done because of that which is of far greater meaning and value and purpose, into eternity. It’s hard for us to grasp, truly is.

And so it goes on to say here then...write them in their heart.

Verse 18 - Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. Having therefore, brethren, boldness, it’s a word that means ‘liberty’; something that’s been given to us, a freedom to do something.  The high priest could only go in once a year, to perform a service, and we have a liberty, a freedom, and we should have a measure of boldness in that as well, to enter into the Holiest of Holies by the blood of Christ. Not only are we able to do so, God wants us to.  He wants us to because this is how we grow.  And actually, through that process is how we become more at one with Him, by sharing things with Him, by communicating those things with God.  He knows what’s in our mind but we grow through the communicating on our part toward Him as He gives us then the ability to begin to see certain things, and in sermons we hear, and on and on it goes, this process we go through in life in order to have His way, His mind, His will, His laws written in our hearts and minds.  But it all comes with sacrifice all the way through.

...enter into the Holiest of Holies by the blood of Jesus, By a new and a living way, thank God for it, a new and a living way.  If we’re not careful sometimes we just kind of get used to it.  This is what we’ve been given and we have it for so long, or whatever it is, or maybe a short time, but we’ve been given so much and this becomes the norm for us – we have to be careful that we don’t do what the Church did in Laodicea.

By a new and a living way, it’s to be alive, alive with God’s spirit, alive in a relationship with God, which He has consecrated for us, through the veil, that veil that was rent in two.  When He died it’s amazing what took place in the temple itself.  ...through the veil, that is to say, His flesh. And having a high priest over the house of God; Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, I love that; a true heart.  God knows what’s in our heart but He wants the truth from us.  He wants the truth from us, that we be truthful with Him about ourselves, a willingness to acknowledge who we are, what we are, and sometimes that’s a hard process we go through.  And it’s through that that we’re able to, that we ask God to help us to see ourselves, to see our nature, to see things we need to get rid of; and it’s through Him revealing that to us that we can repent; and then we ask for help once we see it then, whenever it starts to pop up somewhere, we’re able to hit it more quickly and repent  more quickly – or whatever it takes until that change is more deeply fulfilled in us.

Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience... that means you’re repenting!  When you do that, that means you’re repenting, you’re using why He died; you’re using what He wants us to use, His sacrifice, the spilling of His blood.  ...and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for He is faithful who promised;)  Over and over again we have such great blessings in life because of God’s sacrifice, those that He’s given to us through time that we can’t even begin to comprehend, that He’s giving us just a little bit of a peek, and we still don’t see it very well; just a teeny, teeny smidgeon of a peek so we can begin to grow and appreciate and understand these things even more so.  And then His own Son who came along and willingly... willingly sacrificed His life day by day and then finally literally for that which was greater.  ‘To forfeit, to give up...’ incredible here, ‘one thing for another thing considered to be of greater value.’

Let’s go back here to Leviticus 23 right now and note again, as we are to focus at this time of year on these very things; and that’s what we’re doing as God is blessing us to build upon them, to grow in them, and to be reminded of them because we have many in different levels and different places of growth, from some who are just newly baptized, some who are being drawn to baptism, and on and on it goes to those who’ve been around for some time.  Always growing, always building, always reviewing, but always growing in that.  Leviticus 23; the instruction we read about for keeping this day.

Leviticus 23:5 - In the fourteenth day, speaking of Passover, of the first month at even, ‘bane ha erebyim’ in other words, ‘between the two evenings’.  Beautiful, beautiful what it pictures here through the entire day. I marvel that in the Church we didn’t understand that in its fullest ways until after the apostasy later on, then we began to understand, God blessed us to see in a greater way the beauty, the awesomeness of everything that Jesus Christ fulfilled; the beginning of sundown that night all the way through until He was placed in the tomb.  The whole day, to fulfill it! ...is the Eternal’s Passover. It starts focusing, it’s God’s Passover given to us, it’s God’s Passover given to mankind.  It’s not ours to give to God.

And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast, that word for ‘feast’, that is feasting before God; The Feast of Unleavened Bread unto the Eternal: seven days you must eat unleavened bread.  What a beautiful picture!  You know, ‘seven’ is a number that’s used by God – seven; it’s complete, shows that which is complete, if you will, in all of its ways, perfected maybe is a better word.  I know the number twelve that’s used and the completing of things.  Seven is more in having to do with that perfection as well here; but again, what a beautiful thing, a process that we go through as God changes us and He says throughout this period of time it’s like... for us it’s our lifetime, but He’s using seven days to accomplish something that gives a complete picture of something, it’s completed, the seven day cycle and 7,000 years given to mankind.  Over and over again, that which is a completeness of God’s plan and God’s purpose, and this which completes us if we yield ourselves to the process here.  And to eat unleavened bread; that means what?  It means obedience.  Unleavening... to eat unleavened bread is to eat of the Unleavened Bread of Life, of Jesus Christ, of the Word of God.  We eat of that and God has blessed us in the mind to partake of it, to eat of it, to grow in it.

And again, doing this requires sacrifice because eating of it means you live it, you seek to live it.  It’s about obedience, it’s about obeying God!  And as we grow in obedience to God there are things that we give up in this human flesh.  We give up our own ways.  We give up our job, maybe, or we give up certain things about our job, and maybe we take a beating in some of that, maybe less hours – whatever it is and we have to adjust things in our lives because of our finances and whatever else in order to do what is right before God.  Tithing requires sacrifice on our part.  We have to adjust things in our life, but we do so, as we grow, with gladness because we understand the greater value of what God is offering us because of obedience and getting rid of our will and way of doing things and not holding back from God and not giving begrudgingly to God – but joyfully.  All the things that are in scripture about our relationship with God.  It’s what it’s about; it’s about a relationship He wants to have with us, it’s from in here, from inside, because we want it, we desire it and because we begin to value it more and more.

And so everyone living by God’s laws requires sacrifice.  He says if you’re not willing to give up sister, brother, mother, father...that’s one of the basic things in Luke 14 that it goes through, something that’s so often talked about when people prepare for baptism, as people think about it.  If we’re not willing to give up...that means a sacrifice...for that which is greater, for that which is more important, because there’s coming a time when you really have them as your sister, mother, father, whatever it is, the relationship that will then be true, because they’re based on that which is true.  And so we long for that time and we may have to wait a long time for it, but it will come – IF those individuals in their time, which God knows what’s best for them, will respond to Him and repent and change and then we have a Family that’s far beyond anything physical...and He said, and your own life also. If we’re not willing to do those things God says you can’t be My disciples, you can’t be My students.  There is a price to be paid because we value something far greater.  But sometimes what’s hard for us is to put this into daily life...daily life.  It’s not just a one-time event before baptism; it’s something you have to learn to live and be thankful for and to understand what’s happening in your being and in your mind because you’re going through this, because of the changes that are taking place in you as you yield yourself to God.

Sometimes there’s a lot of pain because sometimes to give up something, to us as human beings sometimes, it’s just painful, until we get to the other side of it and then we realize....  With all my being I don’t care... everything I’ve ever gone through and will go through...indeed so deeply convicted I wouldn’t be who I am, I wouldn’t be where I am, I wouldn’t know what I know, I wouldn’t be able to see what I see, I wouldn’t have the relationship that I have with God, with His Son, with everyone in God’s Church if it weren’t for the hard things I’ve had to go through in life and still have to go through.  It is what it is!  And none of those things, like Paul said, are worthy to be compared.  They really aren’t!  Were they pleasant to go through?

I’ll tell you what, those who went through some of the treacheries and hardships in Worldwide, those were far greater than some of the physical things I had to go through in the early years and so forth that brought us up to that point in time, because now it’s like that song, ‘We walked to God’s house side by side...’  You know, it’s a different thing when you have a bond.  It’s one thing when you have a physical bond in life because it’s physical in family, physical families, but it’s another thing when you have developed something within God’s Church because that’s stronger, it’s far more powerful and far more meaningful.  And what we went through in some of those things and the hardships of that?  Unless you’ve gone through it you don’t know it.  Hard!  But it’s made us what we are today, by God’s mercy and by God’s grace.

Verse 7 - In the first day you shall have a holy convocation: and you shall do no servile work therein. The blessing, the opportunity of being here today, like on the weekly Sabbath.  But then we get to be here again Monday because it fulfills the Seventh Day here, of the annual Sabbath of the Days of Unleavened Bread.

But you shall offer an offering made by fire, an offering, a sacrifice made by fire.  It’s so beautiful in what it pictures.  That was something physical and we know what ‘fire’ means – ‘trial, test, hardship’.  It wasn’t meant to be easy because this mind cannot change when it’s easy.  There are things you have to examine and look at deeply in your life to change, to address, to see the need to address, to want to address it... unto the Eternal seven days: in other words ‘complete’.  It has to be complete.  It’s going to be made easier in the future but people still have to go through a process of seeing themselves, of learning about their nature, of seeing where they’re selfish.  That doesn’t go away just because it’s the Millennium!  It doesn’t go away, it’s still there and people are going to have to come to see how they think, to see themselves, to see things that are deep down inside, and to see basic things of human nature that are really ugly.

...in the seventh day is a holy convocation: you shall do no servile work.

I was going to read this because to me it’s so incredible here sometimes, and it impacts us all differently by it, but I mentioned this on Passover night because I knew where this sermon was going; and I think of some of the things we’ve gone through and things about God’s judgment, His righteous judgment and things about the execution of judgment at times in life.  I think I’ll read it in the Psalms rather than the hymnal but some of you know this song very well... ‘In Thy Loving Kindness, Lord’, what we sing on Passover night.

SONG for PASSOVER SERVICE: “In Thy Loving Kindness, Lord” (Ps. 51)

In Thy loving kindness Lord, be merciful to me;

In compassion great blot out, all iniquity.

Wash me thoroughly from sin, from all guilt cleanse Thou me;

For transgressions I confess; sins I ever see.

Amazing!  It’s always there.  As long as you’re in this human body there’s going to be sin because there’s selfishness.  There’s always going to be a measure of selfishness in your being that you’re going to come to grasp and understand; and in God’s time and as He works with you you’ll come to see various levels of that and various timings for those things and so forth.

‘Gainst Thee only have I sinned, done evil in Thy sight,

That Thou speaking may be just, and in judging right.

Righteous judgment that comes from God. We’ve learned more and more about that of recent time, but even there, God wants us to learn from that, how to judge rightly by Him, by His words, making sure that it’s of God.

My iniquities blot out, my sin hide from Thy view,

And in me a clean heart make, spirit right renew.

That should be deep down inside of us, a desire that always requires sacrifice.  It’s an awesome thing to understand.  To go through this process, to have a clean heart before God, for it to be made right requires sacrifice, giving up things and then coming to understand it’s not really giving up anything at all, but we see something inside of us, a nature that’s not very pretty.

From Thy gracious presence, Lord, O cast me not away,

And Thy holy spirit take not from me I pray.

That should be deep inside of us, never to be cut off from God’s spirit.  Jesus Christ died so that we can come before God and be forgiven of our sins; and yet I marvel that the whole Church came to a point that it had to be spewed out of God’s mouth and separated from God because it wasn’t acceptable by God.  Awesome lessons to be learned from that, lessons that are going to be taught throughout the Millennium; things that some of you who are new and have read about the stories may feel you grasp and comprehend, but you’re still learning in the early stages of what it means for your life.  We can read stories but if we think and we go back and we read again then we can learn more.  God’s going to teach you about that more and more and more.

And Thy holy spirit take not from me I pray.

Should be a prod to draw us, to move us to repentance of things in our life, to want to repent of the sin that’s in our life because we don’t want to get cut off from God’s spirit; something that should stir up a fire and a zeal inside of us, a desire to be close to God so that we don’t become lukewarm, because He won’t accept that because that’s nothing but selfishness on our part, laziness spiritually, not grasping what has been giving to us.

Joy which Thy salvations brings again to me restore;

That’s what you have to go through sometimes when you’re talking about sin and fighting against it; a joy for that which is greater, a joy for that which is so much greater!

With Thy spirit free do Thou keep me ever more.

That which God has given to us.  Just like when it talks about going in before the Holiest of Holies; it’s a beautiful picture.  To have liberty, the word is ‘boldness’ in the Old King James there but it means ‘liberty, freedom’.

Sacrifice dost Thou not want, else would I give it Thee,

Not that which is physical, not in a physical routine of giving animals.  That’d be the easy way and we wouldn’t profit from it at all in that respect, spiritually.

And with offering shalt Thou not delighted be.

For a broken spirit...

Not my way, not our way, not our way of seeing and doing things.  It’s God’s way and it’s so important to be in unity with that, isn’t it?  A broken spirit – about self and a desire to examine self and to make sure that we’re at one with God.  That’s why I love what God has given us at this end-time in the sense of just the website itself; for what we need, it’s there.  And we may have questions about other things and some of them we may receive answers to and some of them we may not, but all that we need to grow and so much more is there; to be able to examine our judgments, to make sure that they’re from God and to examine ourselves accordingly by those things.  God has blessed us immensely at the end of an age to have an ability to do that.  And so often then, sometimes, it just takes that process we have to go through.

For a broken spirit is to God a sacrifice,

Our carnal human nature, the willingness to give up self, to not want to hold onto something; a desire to be willing to give it up, whatever it is, for what God has offered – understand the greater value.  We’re ready to give up whatever it takes.  So be it!  Whatever we have to go through, whatever trial you have to go through on the job, in the family, whatever it is that can sometimes strike us so deeply in our lives, in relationships, whatever it is – but you know it requires change here to get there.  It requires something of change in our own mind.  We may desire and have a great desire that someone else change, or do it our way, but that’s not what it’s about.  It’s about our changing and being right with God in our judgments, in our thinking.  ‘For a broken spirit...’ – self.  That’s a big one!  It’s a beautiful thing to God.

To me one of the most beautiful things that inspire me is when I see a change that takes place in people’s lives when they’ve come to see something about sin, when they send in something to the Church as an example.  Those of you who have gone through things and you’ve sent letters in, or whatever, and you just open yourself up and you’re willing to have that mind, “I want this!  I desire this!  These are some of the steps that I have taken.  These are some of the things I have gone through.”  And you see that attitude, it’s a teachable spirit.  When we have a teachable spirit that’s what’s beautiful to God.  When we’re willing to listen to God and His way of doing something and not be so certain that we have it all – and that doesn’t just start at baptism, it goes all the way through our life, doesn’t it?

For a broken spirit is to God a sacrifice.

‘Not My will, but Yours be done.’  So this thing is sometimes seeking not to do our will, but again, that’s a spiritual thing that we have to come to grow in and see.

And a broken, contrite heart...

Isn’t that an awesome thing?  When you read back in Isaiah and different places about what God says there.  It says...

Thou wilt not despise.

On the contrary, that’s when God can work with us, that’s when God can give us more of His spirit, with that kind of a mind and with that kind of thinking.  I think it’s worthwhile just to spend the time and read that back in Isaiah.  Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful...it’s beautiful that God’s.... it’s beautiful to me whenever I see it in life, beautiful when someone makes a breakthrough and they see something and they realize, “I need to change this.”  Basically telling God, “Father, forgive me, I want to change this, I see this, I don’t like it.  I value something greater!”  Holding onto something all of our life.

Had an elder send me a letter here the other day that I thought was really good.  Talked about learning something, seeing something in himself, opening up himself and saying, “I realize things now...” and some things were pointed out, “that these are some things that I’ve done a long time ago ...on the job things that I’ve been doing that I didn’t realize...that it was my fault and not someone else’s. Starting to see some things here that I can address.”  To me, I love it!  The desire was there toward me to have patience and forgive but it’s not about me, it’s not about that; it’s about what we desire toward God.  And when we see certain things like that, that time, because we go through some suffering of something that isn’t pleasant to go through and all of a sudden we see something that we couldn’t see before because finally it comes on like a light and we say, “Man, I just... I never saw it!”  But then you come to the point where you say, “But I do want to get rid of it.”  And that’s a beautiful thing and that’s what God looks at, that kind of a sacrifice; that we come to a point in time where we’re not only willing but we want to get rid of that which is a hindrance to our being able to do something better.

And every one of us have things like that in our life that we come to see at different points in our life.  Every one of us!  Every one of us have things that we continue to grow in!  I have things that I’ll continue to see that I haven’t seen yet, things that I need to address – some I know of, others that I don’t know of – that God will, as He refines, because it’s like digging down deeper and deeper and deeper and getting the things... You’ve got to get rid of certain things before you can get down to some of the other things, to work with them, that are deeper inside of us where everything begins in the first place.  And that’s what it’s all about, change in spirit, change in heart.

But you know what my response was?  I was happy to see that; not because of the suffering an individual had to go through.  And this is just repeated over and over again by different elders out there that have contacted me about different things, things I’ve gone through with people’s lives, people in the Church, things that you go through at times in your life and you share those things and you talk about the pain of what you’ve gone through but the gratitude and thankfulness that’s there that you’ve gone through it because you see something greater now.  That’s what it’s all about and this is what God rejoices in – when we go through those moments in time – because then He can work with us more.  It’s like a graduation.  If we don’t keep resisting in a certain area we can finally breakthrough and we’re able to grow more and be in another level that God can work with us more in that refining process.  And that’s exciting to God!  It’s exciting to me as a minister!  It’s exciting for those in the ministry who work with people when they go through those things!

Isaiah 57: to me they’re beautiful scriptures, always have been.  Isaiah 57:15 - For thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, there is only One who has inhabited eternity – Almighty God.  We can’t comprehend that.  Everything else has had a beginning!  Everything else! ...whose name is Holy; He says I dwell in the high and the holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and a humble spirit, that’s how God works with us.  If we have that kind of a spirit then God can dwell in us and that’s where He chooses to dwell, that’s where He wants to dwell.  He has sacrificed so much for so long to get to a point in time where finally when Jesus Christ came along He could begin to dwell in more, in an organized fashion in a Body, in a Temple, in a spiritual Temple that He’s building and that He’s looking forward to bringing back here very soon now of something we can’t comprehend - the depth of that excitement.  At the Feast of Tabernacles this past year, God has given a whole lot more at times like that, to understand that excitement is what God shares with us at the Feast of Tabernacles!  That it’s almost here...and we get to share in that excitement that He has.  And yet it’s so puny on our part – but He gives us some of that excitement as well!  So much greater...in ways we can’t even begin to comprehend, something He sacrificed for so long because that’s just His way – love, mercy, patience.

...in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, the word means ‘to restore, to quicken, to make alive, to make whole’ – it’s about healing.  It’s about healing and growing and being made alive through the power of God’s spirit; to revive the heart of the contrite ones.  Beautiful!

Verse 18 - I have seen his ways, and will heal him: That’s what it’s all about, it’s a healing process we go through in this human life, but it’s not easy and it requires sacrifice.

~~~end

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