An Historic Feast

2nd Feast of Tabernacles Sermon – 2011

Ron Weinland

This Feast of Tabernacles has some of the greatest, if you will, historic significance ever.  Again, with all the Feasts this year, as we’ve been talking about it, this is the final observance of this Holy Day season before its greatest fulfillment comes to pass.  That’s an awesome thing to understand!

The Millennium that the Feast of Tabernacles has so powerfully foreshadowed will actually be established in only 7½ months from now; and that’s an awesome thing to understand.  That’s what we believe!  That’s what we live by and I understand the way of the world and some of the scattered groups out there and some of the things that sometimes come your way; but again, that’s what we believe and that’s what we live by indeed.

Year by year we’re reminded of the need and actually the command to rejoice before God.  In most sites, unlike this site here (I had to give this sermon in the morning), but in most sites everyone is listening to a pre-recorded sermon by Terry Wrozek.  He’s going to be giving it live today in the Florida area, but it’s pre-recorded for everywhere else.  In Australia Wayne is giving the first sermon over there and in the UK Johnny is giving the opening sermon over there.  It’s a greeting, a welcoming sermon, and so forth that Terry is going to be giving that we’re going to be listening to here in New Zealand this afternoon.  I do want to encourage everyone in all the other sites there, Australia primarily then, and in the UK, to at your convenience listen to Terry’s as well that’s on the site.  I wanted to be able to have the evangelists in those two areas to be able to give live sermons.  It’s always more of a treat if you do have someone there speaking live to you; but I know that not many areas have that opportunity.  But again, I do want to encourage you to listen to what Terry has to say.  It is a very inspiring sermon and some of the things fit right into and set the stage for this Feast of Tabernacles as well.

Year by year we are commanded of the need, and actually the command to rejoice, and that’s what the opening sermons are all about. God commands us to rejoice.  It isn’t a suggestion, it goes along with the keeping of the Feast and He tells us we’re to be in a specific kind of frame of mind, an attitude – that means an understanding of what He’s given to us, because rejoicing comes from thankfulness and gratitude.  And so again here, to rejoice at God’s Feast of Tabernacles, the blessing of being able to be here, but especially, incredibly so, this Feast of Tabernacles.  It has incredible historic significance, and so that rejoicing becomes all the more important when you focus on the very meaningful fulfillment of these days, obviously, and recognizing what’s going to happen in a few months from now and the fulfillment of those things and what’s being magnified by what God is doing now, between now and the next Feast of Tabernacles.

This sermon is entitled, An Historic Feast.  There are stories, there are examples, ‘types’ if you will, of things that God has established long ago and brought to pass, if you will, things that God gave through time in history that He has inspired events to take place, of things that would help us, that would strengthen  us to understand a process of things that God was working out in time and that would help us to more deeply appreciate and grasp what He has done and what He is doing, and is preparing to do even now.

So, from the beginning God mapped out His plan of working to accomplish His great purpose in the creation of mankind, for all mankind, for those who have known only a little about God and for those who have known more about God through time, and for those who have known nothing about God...and this last group make up, of course, the vast majority of mankind - because even those who have felt like they’ve known about God haven’t really known about God at all.

Let’s go back in Genesis and begin with Adam and Eve, because to understand where we are we have to understand where we came from.  I remember Mr. Armstrong continually going back to the beginning, going back to Genesis.  It is a beginning for mankind, it is a beginning place for us to begin to understand some things; because even though it’s so condensed in what is written there, there is so much that is given as an outline, as so much that God has given there in part, as I have referred to here just the other day, of how Mr. Armstrong would go back at times there toward the end talking about the two trees even and build upon that, and build upon that, and build upon that – sermon after sermon after sermon, more and more and more being given.  And so again, we’re always learning and always building.

Genesis 6 – talking about Adam and Eve who quickly disobeyed God.  It doesn’t take very long for a human being to disobey God because of the way we are, being made physical by purpose; God making us physical human and because of that, because we are filled with that which is self-protecting, inward, selfish, not outgoing at all as far as the way we think toward others. We have to learn those things and begin to strive to live by them because it’s not a natural process with us, or part of us.  What is natural is the selfishness, the inwardness.  And so it didn’t take very long for Adam and Eve to turn inward and to sin.  And so we begin here in Genesis 6 – and understanding that everybody that followed did the same thing.  It doesn’t take long to sin.

Genesis 6:5 – And God looked upon the wickedness, it didn’t take long after Adam and Eve had sinned, after it mentions what they did, after it mentions that first account, and then a period of time that went by; this is what we finally come to because everyone else followed the same course of life, it’s just the natural process of human beings to sin.  And it finally came down after a few generations, and God looked upon the wickedness/the evil of mankind and it was so great in the earth that every imagination – and that word in the Hebrew is a word that means to do with... has to do with ‘a forming, the fashioning, the framing of your very thoughts’.  In other words, that’s what it goes on to say, the imagination of the hearts.  So that which formulated thinking, thoughts, and ideas and so forth God says it was a matter of being evil continually.  That’s how people thought.  Everything that was being formed out of the mind was just filthy, garbage, sick, perverted, distorted ways – not the way God gave man to live and enjoy life and the fullness of life.  And because people lived so long it made it worse!  I marvel sometimes thinking about how evil this world is today – of course it’s with technology and how fast that is accelerating, because over a period of time if you go back....

I think of going back to when I was young and I remember Elvis Presley when he came along, just using an example of music, and he started singing and was on TV and he shook his hips - and people were appalled because they understood something!  They understood that what he was doing and the movement there was something that, as a whole in life, is something between a man and a woman that’s private!  And yet there’s nothing wrong with moving around and dancing and so forth, but when it gets to a point where it begins to do something that is suggestive it isn’t smart for human beings to do, when it begins to lure others, when it begins to move others in a wrong pattern of thinking – which it did!  It did back then!  And then the Beatles came along and people were freaked out by...it’s not even long hair today that they had, but you look back at that time and I remember at the beginning and the kind of music and some of the things being said in the music.  That was so mild!  But at that time it wasn’t.  See? At that time it wasn’t and as time went along the music continued on and it took more and more time but the kinds of things... I mention music because music reflects a great deal about the mind and how people think in society at a given time, at a given age.  It’s very reflective of a people in a particular timeframe, it truly is.

So because of technology available today that process has gone rampant in the minds of people and the thinking of people, the thinking of young people. I am so thankful we’re at the end because I think, “How sick would it be when so many of them go farther into life with the things that are in their minds already, in a young mind, because of the technology there, the things you can get off the computer.”  Not just talking about music.  I’m talking about everything in life!  There’s so much out there at their fingertips, continually.  You don’t even have to have a compute with you anymore; you can do it on your phone!  You can take the Internet with you wherever you go!

A sad thing... I think it was over in Australia the other day, a girl was listening to an iPod.... it’s just a little thing, listening... because they’re so easy to carry around. At one time they used to be great big contraptions; you’d see people carrying them on their shoulders – a boom box.  They walked around with a boom box on their shoulder with batteries, as long as the batteries lasted.  But now, today, it’s just a small thing and you can hardly tell anybody even has the things in their ears everything is so compact. The technology is incredible.  Anyway, she got hit by a train because she didn’t hear.  When she was crossing the tracks she didn’t hear a train coming because the music was turned up so high.  That’s the kind of world we live in.

You drive down a highway nowadays and people are...they can’t just talk to each other, they have to text each other.  I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get off on that tangent, but it’s a sick world out there. People don’t have a life.  I think, “What a horrible life that people feel freer to text each other than they do to talk to each other.”  People have a hard time communicating face to face and that’s not good.  That’s not good, because if you let people in a society who cannot socialize, who are not able to communicate to each other properly, when they get to that point in life evil has a way of being stirred up more!  I don’t know if you understand that.  Evil has a way of being stirred up worse because people become unbalanced in how they think and how they act in life.  And so I’m thankful that we’re at the end and that mankind is going to be able to be brought into a period of time now with technology, that we’re going to be taught how to use it and how not to use it, and people are going to be more, if you will, open minded to that.  Their ears are going to be willing to listen to that, finally.

And so it’s hard for us sometimes to grasp what God is saying here at this period of time because people used to live for hundreds of years!  Today, with technology, you don’t have to live hundreds of years for the minds of people to be on evil continually.  We’ve accelerated the process!  But back then it took a few hundred years to get to the point we are today because of technology, and so God cut back the lifespan of man, tremendously so.

Let’s go on and read it here: And it grieved/pained, ‘sorrowed’ is the Hebrew word here, it sorrowed God/it pained Him/it pained the Eternal/grieved the Eternal that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him in His heart.  That says so much!  He knew what mankind was going to do, don’t misunderstand.  So much of what is here is written for our sakes, for our learning, for our understanding; but again, it was a painful thing.  I think of the sermon last year... I believe it was during the Unleavened Bread period when we talked about how God has sacrificed far more than we can comprehend.  So if you want to look at sacrificing and so forth you go back in time and God brings us to the point of learning the importance of sacrificing, but we generally think about His Son, but God has sacrificed from the very beginning.  The moment He made the angelic realm He knew that there was sacrifice coming.  He was sacrificing peace that He had, of course, by Himself – but God wanted more, He wanted a Family.  Then He created an angelic realm, but He knew when He created it that in time (and we don’t know how much time) – a thousand years (?) – a million years (?) – a billion (?) – We have no concept of it.  We don’t know how long it took this one being to begin to turn against God.  I feel that God has inspired us to know what started it though - whenever it was that God told the angelic realm He’s going to create mankind and bring them into the God Family.

There’s an awesome thing that sometimes happens in human life even when someone is given something more, when someone is promoted above, or someone is given something more, a job promotion or something, and sometimes human nature has a horrible, horrible, horrible battle with those kinds of things.  This happened to this being also – jealousy, envy – “I deserve that.  Why can’t I have that?  Look at who I am.”  That’s the way we think as humans too.  We have to learn those lessons now because God isn’t going to allow it into His Family.

And so again, painful to God to see man come to this.  And the Eternal said, I will destroy man, or ‘wipe out’ is what the word means.  God has the power, has that plan where He’s going to bring people back in time, that’s what He determined.  In time, in the last hundred years, they would be given opportunity to learn what they’re not able to learn now.  So He determined at that point in time to remove man from the earth.  So, the Eternal said, I will destroy/wipe out man whom I have created, from the face of the earth, both man and animal and all moving life on the land, and the fowls of the air, for it grieves/sorrows Me that I have made them.  But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Eternal.

You know, grace is an amazing thing.  God has a plan... Noah wasn’t perfect.  No human being has ever been perfect with whom God has worked, far, far from it, but when God chooses to work with someone, to prepare them, to mould and fashion them, He does so.  And so He’s had a plan that in the first 4,000 years He would call a few, not a lot in number.  The vast majority would be called in the next 2,000 years, but even then it’s not a lot.  I was thinking today about our different Feast sites and how small we  still are, and I was thinking about how small Worldwide was – very small compared to the religions of the world – and I comprehend the human mind and how people have a difficult time understanding when they hear numbers and so forth, and when they hear how big the Church was in Worldwide they still call it a sect, a cult, whatever, because it was so small.  “How can you be of any significance, you’re so small!”  But God has a plan and it wasn’t intended to be big through time.

When you go back and you look at all this, and you look at the time of Noah, God had a purpose of wiping out humanity from the earth to teach great lessons to mankind that we can begin to learn lessons from, about how evil man can become.  If he lives longer he’s going to become deeply evil, in far greater ways than what he would be if he only lived 120 years or 70 years.  Because for a time man lived for about 120 years and then God cut it back finally to three score and ten.  That was His purpose, that’s all the longer man needed to learn what he has to learn in order to be resurrected later on and so he can make a comparison between what he’s seen that God has done for a thousand years, and what mankind did, and whatever a human being did in just a short period of time.  No comparison!  And then they’re going to be told, “Which way of life do you want?  You’ve been dead.  There is a God!”  Incredible process God has to save mankind making it easier and easier for people to say, “Yes.”  To be able to be saved.

And so this thing of grace and Noah being called; it’s because God intended that mankind continue on. God wasn’t going to wipe out all human beings. God didn’t come to a point in time where He was just going to wipe man out and say, “That’s the end of My plan.”  God didn’t come to that point in time after several hundred years there and decide, “I’m just going to get rid of all mankind out here, but this Noah, he’s a righteous man, he’s a good man, I think I’m going to let him live and keep mankind going.”  That isn’t how it came about!  It’s because God had a plan of bringing mankind up to that point in time.  Because He gave mankind a long period of life to live God knew what man was going to do!  I hope we understand that about God!  God is all mighty and before He creates anything He knows everything about it!  He knows exactly what it will do. He knows the circumstances.  He doesn’t control us in our thoughts and what we do in life, He’s made us free moral agents, but He knows the direction we will go by our nature, of what we will choose and what we will do through time.

And so again here, God knew what man would do with a lifespan of several hundred years – 700-800-900 years old, some people lived almost a thousand!  Incredible!  I think of the Millennium and I think, “Wow, there will be several generations through this and...” but, to think that people lived for almost that period of time is unfathomable, it’s incredible.  And so God had a plan to continue on.  He prepared Noah; He worked with Noah because He had called Noah, because He had that plan to have life continue on.

And so, that’s a process of grace. You are here today because of God’s grace, because He has a plan, whatever He’s planning for you, whatever it is – the Millennium, or whatever it is, part of 144,000 – it’s because God has a place and a plan for you and He has been working with you to bring you to that point in time, to give you that opportunity ahead of time.  Sometimes we don’t grasp how richly blessed we are!  Incredible how rich we are!  And so the reason I’m here as a minister out of hundreds and hundreds of ministers is because God had a plan of grace and a plan of continuation – not because of how well I did things!  Not because I was better than them!  Not at all!  But because He has a plan to continue on and He decides whom He’s going to do it through and whom He’s prepared to do it.

Mr. Armstrong was prepared ahead of time.  Mr. Armstrong felt that maybe there were seventy others that God was working with. I don’t believe that, but I understand why he did because of what we had in understanding and knowledge at that time.  But he felt and believed at that time that God maybe had been working with seventy others but decided He’d use him as it came down to the wire of starting the Philadelphian era.  No, God was moulding and preparing a man from early life to be called at a certain time in life; not because of how righteous or how good he was, but because God chose to mould and fashion him to prepare him for that job.  God does the moulding and fashioning in our lives; we ruin it.  We are the ones that fight against it, but He still works with it because He’s greater than we are.  You can thank God for that.  That doesn’t mean that you can’t go astray but if you yield yourself to that moulding and fashioning, and depending on the kinds of situations and jobs and so forth that God prepares some and works with different situations in different manners. But there’s also been a time in the Church where God has called many.  ‘Many have been called but few are chosen.’  So even out of that there is something different that God has done with large numbers of people and how they’ve responded to Him through time. We have much more to learn.  It’s exciting and inspiring of how God works!

And so again here, because of these things God said that He’s going to continue on with Noah and work with Him and continue the process of human beings living on the earth.  Then ten generations after the flood, while Noah was still alive, God began to work with Abram and Sarai, who became Sarah later on, and Abraham, as his name was changed later on.

Genesis 12:1 – Now the Eternal had said to Abram, Get yourself out of your country and from your kindred, in other words, away from your relatives, and from your father’s house into a land that I will show you. He does that to every one of you that’s called, in a spiritual way.  Every person that’s called, “Get yourself out of your country...” You have to change; you have to leave your comfortable environment of life.  You may still live where you are but you have to leave your previous lifestyle.  You have to put God first.  You have to make a determination.  Abraham/Abram put God first, and we have to put God first.  And that means a willingness to leave all relatives, every family member if need be, to follow God because God’s first.  Now, we don’t want to leave them but we know what will happen through time as a whole unless their minds are opened, unless they are brought along as well.  And so there’s that willingness to place God first regardless of how others receive us.

And so Abram did that.  He left.  And I will make of you/from you a great nation, and God blesses us to become part of a great people, a great Family.  God says here, a great nation, it’s the beginning of the promise of a nation, and I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing to all.  And so in time Abraham is going to be a blessing to all mankind, even to those who lived before him.  That’s God’s plan.  Not to those who just lived afterwards, but to those who lived before; to all.

And I will bless them who bless you, and will curse him who curses you; and that has great spiritual implication as well as time goes on.  And in/through you shall all families of the earth be blessed, because of what God was going to do, because of the promises.  And we understand because of the seed that would follow, a seed specifically referring to Jesus Christ, what this is all about.  It’s an incredible far reaching promise to all families of mankind, to those who lived before Abraham.

Genesis 22:15 – And the angel of the Eternal called unto Abraham out of heaven a second time, or the second time said, By Myself have I sworn, says the Eternal, for because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son: and so here is the case where Abraham is going to offer up Isaac and God sees the heart and knows what Abraham will do, but this thing recorded. Isn’t it amazing a religion believes it was the other son?  ...a willingness to believe it was Ishmael; that’s what they believe.  Incredible how things get twisted and distorted through time and the choice to believe one thing over the other.

Verse 17 – That in blessing I will bless you and in multiplying I will multiply your seed as the stars of the heaven, plural, and as the sand which is upon the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.  And so this is something that was to continue through time and be magnified through time until it’s finished.  And so it isn’t just about Ephraim and Manasseh and what would happen to them at the end-time, it’s about something that would happen through time, progressively becoming greater, and it’s going to continue on in time.  And your seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.

And in your seed, now this is speaking singular here; it’s about the Messiah, about the Christ; before it’s about the multitudes and so forth that would come through time; but here it’s a singular seed, the Messiah, the Christ.  And in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because you have obeyed My voice.  And so again here, it’s not just about physical Israel or Judah later, but to physical nations of people – to all people.

God has been guiding us in so many things He has more fully established in us the importance of how His plan is indeed a process of revelation, a process for fulfillment, it is a steady progression through time.  And so many of the prophecies and things about Abraham is not something that has just led us to this particular time in the 21st Century, as we call it, where we see Manasseh having received the great blessings that they have and of course Ephraim before that.  It’s a continuation.  It’s going on in the Millennium and into the Great White Throne until everything is complete; because not everything is physical.  There are those things that become spiritual in fulfillment as time continues on.  So it’s a progression that becomes stronger and mightier as we move forward in time, forward in completion and fulfillment.

So in time out of one of the lines of Abraham, specifically that which came through Abraham and Sarah, speaking of Israel, grew into a large multitude of people and after living in the land of Egypt for 430 years – God says exactly to the day – He had fulfilled a great blessing to them in bringing them out and freeing them.  So God took His plan forward to fulfill a great phase of His promise to Abraham, and this is it.

Exodus 3:1 – Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: Midian was a son of Abraham by Keturah his next wife after Sarah died.  She had several children.  Amazing!  Go back and read the story, as a whole, we don’t think about that: and where are all those people today?  Where are all those people?  Incredible!  But God wasn’t working through that line to accomplish certain specific promises; because Israel was established for a purpose and a reason that we’re going to come to later on and probably in the next sermon we talk about some of that as well.  Keturah means ‘incense – sweet smelling’; that was her name and she gave birth to several children, not just to one like Sarah or Hagar did.

So anyway, this is whom he took as a wife after Sarah died, this Keturah, and it says that this is where Moses went...and he led the flock to the back side of the desert and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.  And the angel of the Eternal appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of the bush and he looked and behold the bush burned with fire and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I’ll now turn aside, in other words to move from where he was, to draw closer to what he saw, that’s what it’s talking about here, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt, in other words, why it’s not being consumed by the fire.  And when the Eternal saw that he turned aside to see God called unto him out of the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses.  And he said, here I am.  And He said, do not draw near here but take off your shoes from off your feet, for the place where on you stand is holy ground, because God’s presence was there.  So it’s teaching the importance of right respect and thinking toward God and how we approach God and think toward God, even in our prayers and in life, that it be in our mind, that you’re coming into God’s presence and how awesome that should be to you and to not be taken lightly.

Moses was not to take this lightly and God requires physical things because we think physically.  We don’t think spiritually first, we grow in that through time. That comes after a long length of time where we really begin to think more and more spiritually.  We start as babes and begin to grow in those things, we begin that process, we begin those battles and it begins to be formed in us more and more and more through time, but it’s not the natural thing, it’s not what happens just automatically.  Automatically what happens to us is we think physical, and that’s why we talk about that in some of the sermons, how we perceive and take some things sometimes. We first of all generally take things physically.  In Worldwide there were things that we eventually found that we had taken physically because God hadn’t given it to us yet to see the spiritual part of it.  And that’s how we learn; we learn that those things have to be given by God.  They come from God.  And so Moses recognized coming before God’s presence.

Verse 6 – Moreover He said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.  And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God. This isn’t a normal every day occurrence.  It’s something that doesn’t happen in life.  And by the knowledge of certain things in times past we think of certain events that have happened through time that are recorded in the Bible and we’re moved by that, and that’s why I think of this age and especially the age of Mr. Armstrong being an age of faith in ways that wasn’t even in the New Testament. Do you realize that?  How awesome it is to live by faith?  ...through a process of revelation through time, that God has brought the Church to a point in time to be able to live by faith in a way only because of the progression and because of what God has continually revealed through time.

You go back and you look at the disciples; they had Jesus Christ. They saw, they were taught by Him.  The first apostles?  They were taught face to face.  They didn’t understand everything that was said until the Day of Pentecost, then all of a sudden they began to understand spiritually because of God’s spirit, and God gave them the ability to understand.  Then when Paul came along Jesus Christ personally dealt with him, speaking to him, making him blind – that does something to you, immediately!  And it did to him, immediately!  And then He took him out in the wilderness there and taught him for three years, three and a half, whatever it was, to Paul, and then Paul began his ministry.  All that background and all that education he had, able to be made an apostle that quickly because of the training he’d received as a Jew and what he was being prepared for because of his training and his background.

How God works with us… this is an age of faith.  I’ve thought about this in times past...what an awesome thing, when Mr. Armstrong came along he didn’t have a burning bush or something that spoke to him.  He wasn’t struck blind.  He had different things that happened to him in life, but again, how can you say this is God?  It was a matter of what God revealed to him, it was a matter of God communicating to his mind.  It wasn’t a matter of God speaking in some form or some fashion to him or having an angel come to him and talk to him as happened to some others, or God Himself appearing like He did to different ones in human form; like He did to Abraham and different ones.  Again here, what an awesome thing!  I hope you’re moved by that!  ...to recognize where you are in the progression of things in time, that you have been drawn by faith in an awesome way in the way that God works with you in life, in ways that people hadn’t in times past.

That’s why I think of one doctrine: healing.  My wife and I were talking about that recently.  Sometimes people wonder, “Well, where is God?”  I’ve seen some incredible things when it comes to healing and I think because of some things I’ve said about what’s going to happen when Jesus Christ returns, some have misunderstood some of that, and I believe I even talked about some of those things last year.  You know, when it comes to healing it isn’t that people aren’t going to be healed, people are going to be healed, but it isn’t something that’s owed, and it isn’t something that’s going to be just a massive wave of God’s hand, “Everyone’s healed!”  It doesn’t work that way!  It’s a personal relationship that you have with God and it’s a matter of your looking to God, calling upon the elders of the Church as a matter of faith asking God to heal you.

The point being is when I look back in the ministry and I see people being worked with, some of the greatest of healings were done at the beginning of their calling, of something that could stay with a person because that’s how you grow; sometimes it takes physical things along the way to help us in our growth, and then later on through time the answers at times became, “No.” Or it might take longer, or at times it might be just “No, you’re going to live with it, you’re going to suffer with this through time.”  And you learn from that.  It’s not fun, but it doesn’t mean your relationship is wrong with God, it doesn’t mean that something is wrong with you at all in any fashion or form.  It’s just some things you’re allowed to bear, sometimes for the sake of others, for their growth. Oftentimes I’ve seen that in God’s Church, that it benefits other people, that other people can actually learn from the process.  Sometimes family, sometimes close family in the Church, other people who know you and what you’re going through, and sometimes because of certain things that God is moulding and fashioning in each one of us that’s different.  We go through different trials.

That’s why sometimes.... what a mixture of things here.  We go before God as human beings and we want our troubles taken away, we don’t want to suffer!  And then sometimes when it’s not taken away we think, “Well, what’s wrong?”  That’s why I think about Paul.  If you had a reason to believe something was wrong and you were the apostle Paul and you’re shipwrecked like you are and you have all the woes and all the problems of things happening to you – beaten, stoned, dragged out of the city because they thought he was dead – if you had a reason to ask... “God, what am I doing wrong?  Maybe I shouldn’t have said this.  ...or maybe I shouldn’t have said that.  Maybe I shouldn’t have gone there. What did I do wrong?”  Paul would have a reason to do it, but he didn’t do it because he understood.  And sometimes we in the Church... it’s a growing process and I hope we understand we learn through the process.  Faith is a very powerful thing, it’s a mighty thing that God has used in a very powerful way in the Church and magnified as we’ve gone forward and how God worked through Mr. Armstrong and how He’s working now.  And that’s exciting.  Not by things you have to see, but by things you know, by the truth.  Something that worked with Mr. Armstrong from the very beginning – started with the Sabbath and then just grew over 50 plus years.  Incredible!

It’s what is in your mind no matter what happens to you in life, and your faithfulness to it.

So going back to the story; Moses is standing on holy ground because God’s presence is there and He says, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, and Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look upon the Eternal.  And the Eternal said, I have surely seen the affliction of My people, in other words those through whom He was going to fulfill a very specific promise for a very specific purpose that He made to Abraham.

I’ve seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters.  Do you think that God Almighty knew what would happen when all the family moved there?  Do you think that God knew how He was going to form His nation?  Do you think that God had a plan that He was going to have a Passover service for the children of Israel, to take them out of bondage nearly 430 years after they went there?  Do you think that God Almighty can formulate, can move things with such power?  Because He did.  These things didn’t just develop by coincidence through time and God decides, “Oh, Passover will work into what’s going to happen later on...”  No, God had it all planned out.  It is awesome when you think about God and the power of God to work with human beings; not just a few but with masses, to bring about things in the future - all a part of guiding, moulding, fashioning, preparing.

So He says, I have seen those who are in Egypt and I have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters/oppressors, because of their oppression, and so even this in what it means and what it’s symbolic of and what God used for the future...that’s why I started talking in the sermon of how God has given us things in the past to picture things in the future.  It wasn’t by coincidence that this took place, that they were in slavery, that they were oppressed.  God is showing something that happens on a spiritual plane with Egypt, the oppression that goes along with being in spiritual Egypt in life.  You know, people out in the world think they’re free.  People in different countries, they’re free, democracy is free!  No, it isn’t!  They’re in bondage and they don’t even grasp it!  They don’t comprehend human life and the selfishness of human life and what we’ve done to ourselves as human beings, and that our suffering is a result of that.  And God sees that anguish, but He knew we would have it because of our choices and because of what He’s allowed for His purpose.  And so He calls a few of us out of that and getting ready to call masses now out of that.

All this is being done and prepared to teach something greater in the future – this being very physical, very needful to learn what is greater.  And so He says, I’ve come to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them out of that land, which these words are all significant when you understand them on a spiritual plane.  ...and to bring them out of that land to a land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; and into the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Again, very physical but all this very spiritual in what God is bringing us into – the place of dwelling, the land.

Now therefore, behold the cry of the children of Israel has come unto Me and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress, the word meaning ‘to afflict, to crush, to oppress’ – that’s what it does, crushing, pressing, afflicting.  And sometimes in human life because of sin we don’t realize how much it crushes us, afflicts us, hurts us, hurts the mind, and it just becomes worse and worse and worse until God frees us from it.  And He’s the one who has to free us from it.

Verse 10 – Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring forth My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. Pharaoh here is likened unto Satan; Satan who does not want to let us go, Satan who holds onto everyone, Satan who fights against God continually. Egypt is symbolic of oppression, affliction, and captivity.

So it was here at this time in His plan that God determined to begin working with a physical nation and now they had grown to a size that He was going to begin doing what He told Abraham on a greater plane, on a physical plane, to make of them a great nation.  So again here, speaking of Israel, once He had taken them out of Egypt He was going to make of them now a nation of people to deal with other nations of people that had grown by that time into nations and kingdoms as time went along.  This event was not about the phase of the promise to Abraham in which He said all nations would be blessed through him.  This is not that fulfillment.  All nations wouldn’t be blessed through physical Israel.  All nations wouldn’t be blessed through a nation being formed at that time.  That isn’t what this was about.  All the rest of the nations weren’t being blessed because of that at that time.  Israel was being worked with in a very specific way, but what about the rest of these, the Perizzites, the Amorites?  It was a bad time for them because God was going to remove them all and give the land to Israel.  So Israel wasn’t a blessing to all of them because that’s not what it was about.

So again, this is only about a physical nation that carried as part of its identity God’s own name, and part of His purpose that was to be worked out through time. It is not a glamorous thing that transpired, of an obedient people, or a good example to mankind of a right relationship with God.  That’s an incredible thing to come to understand, it really is.  People have had a lot of prejudices.  There are people that got to a point where they despised Mr. Armstrong, but a part of his teaching too, having to do with ‘The United States and British Commonwealth in Prophecy’, the U.S. & BC in Prophecy.  There were people who began to feel that Mr. Armstrong was prejudice, that everything was about a physical people, of physical nations, and that anybody from other Gentile nations weren’t as good as, or they weren’t going to receive the same kind of blessings, or they weren’t going to be able to receive blessings in the same measure.  In other words, there’s this prejudice of a ‘special people’.  And if they just understood that wasn’t a part of the mind!  That wasn’t a part of God’s plan!  It was something being worked out at this time of our lives because of what has to happen in prophecy, it was a very big part of prophecy, it was a matter of realizing what was going to happen to Great Britain, that’s no longer great, London that’s run down in the inner city, the infrastructure - it’s horrible!

I heard someone talking about the United States here recently and they were talking about how ashamed and embarrassed they are to fly from someplace like Hong Kong, or Singapore, or some other places on the earth, and then fly into LAX, or JFK.  They’re horrible, wretched airports in comparison to these mighty modern things.  We’re no longer great!  Our infrastructure is falling apart!  It’s a sign of what’s taking place in the world and people don’t understand.  And then people get mad, “How can you say that?”  I’m not saying that, others say that; I’m just repeating what they said.  Americans in this particular case, people who travel and are embarrassed or ashamed of what’s happening in that country.  Incredible!

If you understand what God is doing, if you come to understand what God was doing with the Israelites...the Arab people’s wouldn’t have the kind of problem they did.  If they really understood, speaking of that part of Islam, because there’s that part of Islam that’s not a part of the descendants physically of Abraham, if you understand what I’m saying, when you get down into Indonesia, places like that and Northern Africa and places where there’s a lot of the Islamic belief.  We’re talking about descendants of Abraham.  And so when you look in those particular regions of the world, they wouldn’t have the qualms they do with what’s called Israel today, with Judah, if they really understood God.  And so this is actually going to be a part of their freedom.  When they come to understand the truth, the truth sets you free.  When you come to understand the truth of what God is doing it helps to free the mind, it helps you to deal with your prejudices and in your wrong thinking.  And it’s going to help people come to understand something they’ve never understood before.  It’s not that God had a special care and concern for one family over another, it’s a part of a plan so that people can learn from the plan, so that people can learn from history lessons that need to be learned so then they can repent and start living right.  It’s an awesome thing!

Truly, the more we learn about God the more incredible it becomes, His plan and His purpose.  And this is a large part of what’s getting ready to take place in the world.  People are going to begin to be freed because of knowledge.... of a sermon like this, of a subject matter like this!  As they go through some of the history and understand what happened from the time of Adam and Eve and finally to the time of Abraham, and then finally the migration of the people that finally became known as Israel, as they had to be taken out of the land of Egypt, out of captivity, and then what took place after that.

Let’s notice the timing of all this.  Exodus 19:1 – God’s taking them out at this point.  12 spies were sent out and they were gone for 40 days and came back with a report, and a false report at that – we just had a sermon here talking about some of those things.  This is a part of that time period we’re talking about here, that early part of it, before God’s ready to give them His way of life and they’re still coming out of Egypt and so here’s the period of time – notice, In the third month, after the children of Israel had gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day they came into the wilderness of Sinai.  The timing of the event it says was in the third month, this is in God’s calendar.  So what happened in the first month?  The 14th day?  Well we know, the Passover period.  It was the Passover when they put the blood on the door posts and then that daytime period they began to take from, receive from, whatever they basically asked of the Egyptians and the Egyptians gave it to them during the daylight portion of Passover, and then they were up that whole night because of the Passover lamb, eating and staying up all night, and then as soon as it was daylight they were able to leave because they couldn’t leave until daylight.  They went out and plundered the land, they prepared to leave Egypt, they started marching, as it was, and then they gathered together and on that night time, the Night To Be much Observed/Night to Be Much Remembered, on the first High Day of the Days of Unleavened Bread they started the process of actually leaving Egypt.  They came out, it says, by night.

That must of been incredible... they had so much adrenaline.  After 20 hours you can be quite tired, 24 hours, 30 hours and they just kept going.  They were marching, they were on the move and they were leaving Egypt.  And so here these events had been taking place.  But by the time they came down to the third month, within that period of time there’s another period of time we come to – Pentecost – this is what we’d come down to in that period of time.  And so this is what was taking place at Pentecost.  That’s why it’s such an awesome thing to think about the meaning of Pentecost, the beginning of some teaching of Pentecost is the understanding of the importance of receiving God’s law.  And then on Pentecost in 31 AD to know that you can’t keep God’s law without God’s spirit, you have to have God’s help.  And so this is what was happening, the first part of Pentecost here in a very powerful way being revealed.

So they were taken from captivity and delivered to this special moment, this Day of Pentecost at Mount Sinai, but they could not grasp, they did not grasp the deliverance of freedom that had been given to them, and this example right here was the greater deliverance to freedom and they couldn’t receive it.  They received the physical part, but they couldn’t receive the part they needed to truly be delivered from oppression, from Egypt.  They didn’t have the power, the ability to receive it.  It’s an awesome story, it really is.

So in Exodus 20, let’s notice what God did.  That happens to us; God starts with a calling, He begins to draw us out of spiritual Egypt.  So when you’re first being called, and those of you listening out there today who aren’t at any Feast site, but you’re listening, you’re in the process of determining what you’re going to do, whether you’re going to kind of sit there and listen for a while and see what happens and go on through time here, and you’re kind of out there listening... you’re going through this process here.  We all, as a whole, have gone through a part of a process like this, as a whole.  My wife didn’t because she started when she was six years old.  Her parents came into the Church so they went through this process but she just grew up in the church.  So we have some out there who have grown up in the church but not very many.

And so here’s a process where God begins to draw you out of spiritual Egypt and He begins to do what?  He shows you His law.  That’s what frees you, the truth.  And generally it starts with the Sabbath, and then you begin to learn about the Holy Days.  There are things about the Holy Days when I was called I didn’t know, because we had to write back and forth from headquarters and by the time you got a booklet a particular Holy Day had passed.  I remember that summer of 1969, of getting literature back and forth and I finally got a booklet on baptism.  I’d seen one on the Sabbath and the one about The U.S. and B.C. in Prophecy and I knew they were true.  Wrote to headquarters about baptism; they sent me this book ‘All about Water Baptism’.  I read through that and I wrote off and said, “I want to be baptized.”  And at some point later on there then I received the book on the Holy Days, and all of a sudden I realized there’s a Holy Day season coming up.  I didn’t know anything about second tithe at that point in time, I didn’t even know that they had ‘conventions’ there where they got together, like for the Feast of Tabernacles, and I had very little understanding of Holy Days at that point in time.  And by September there, just before the Holy Days, I was able to be baptized, but I look back at that time and I didn’t know very much about them yet.

Today you can download things and learn about them so quickly, you can find out about them.  Back then we had to wait for ‘snail mail’, things to get through the mail, back and forth, letters being answered, and they weren’t quick about it sometimes, you’d wait several weeks before you’d get a letter answered.  You think you’ve had to wait a long time sometimes getting something answered?

Here it is, it’s about being brought to the law, because that’s what frees you from Egypt, that’s the spiritual part of it that’s exciting and inspiring.  And yet the Israelites couldn’t receive it, and so God says He spoke all these words saying, I am the Eternal your God who has brought you out of the land, and the land of the ground is from a root that means ‘to be firm’ or ‘to be grounded’, like what you’re grounded in.  It goes beyond the ground, it goes beyond the physical dirt in the earth, it’s what you’re grounded in.  They were grounded in Egypt and they couldn’t leave it!  Isn’t that amazing?  They left it physically, but spiritually they didn’t have a chance, they couldn’t do it because that wasn’t part of God’s plan yet to give that to them.  Their purpose was something else.  Their purpose as a nation was something else at that time, and it wasn’t a spiritual one, it wasn’t the Church as it is today.

And so again, God desired, because of giving the law to them, showing to them what they could become grounded in, it just wasn’t that time yet for them to be.  They couldn’t receive that and God knew they couldn’t have it.  God knew they couldn’t do it!  God knew they couldn’t do it without His holy spirit, but they were given the choice.  See, human beings think they have the power... they’re so haughty, so proud – they think they can do it.  There are people in the Church who have thought they could keep God’s law on their own, truly.  Their actions have reflected that.  I’ve heard sermons about, “How long can you go before you sin?  A day?  Two days? A week?  A month?  How long can you go before you sin?”  Oh, about as soon as I get in traffic out there.  Just telling you that sin’s in the mind.  It doesn’t take too long before you sin because the reality is you can’t fully control your life and do it on your own, on your own ability, because you’re carnal, you’re physical, you’re coming out of captivity – you’re not out of it yet!  You’re still coming out of spiritual Egypt and until you’re out of it you’re not out of it all the way – it’s a lifelong process, the spiritual phase of it is.  The physical leaving of Egypt? They left after one day...well, it took a little longer because they had all those little plagues and everything else happening to them, those great inconveniences, and then finally that great big one where the firstborn died – and finally they were able to leave.

What an incredible story!  What an incredible process and plan in what God is doing in all of it, and this phase of it here – absolutely awesome!  I’m the Eternal your God who has brought you out of Egypt, out of the physical part, out of the house of bondage, the house, the habitation, dwelling of, but only physically. But see, when you come into the Church you begin to go through these commandments and this law of God and you begin to realize, “Ah, this is for me!  I’m being taken out of the place, if you will, being grounded in Egypt, being rooted in Egypt, and my habitation is changing.  My habitation is changing to one of God, dwelling in God and God dwelling in me.  That’s the habitation I desire, that’s the habitation I choose.”  Now you have a choice; an ability to make choices in your life that count on a spiritual plane.  Before that Israel didn’t.  They thought they could, they said they would; they believed they would, a lot of people believed they would.  Protestant world out here?  Judaism today, they believe they’re doing that, they believe it with what they can grasp and comprehend.  They believe they’re able to do it! They don’t have God’s holy spirit.  They think they can do it, they think they’re doing it God’s way, from what they’ve been taught by their rabbi, their pastor, their minister, their reverend, or whatever they want to call them, as they break God’s law in calling them those things, and they don’t understand that.

God desires to bring us out of the house of bondage, out of the dwelling place of bondage.  And so we go through this process where we’re coming out of this bondage.  You don’t get there overnight.  What an incredible thing to understand, that you still have captivity in your life, that you’re still coming out of it and you will be continually coming out of it until you are changed, then you’re fully out of it spiritually.  It is a lifelong process of coming out of bondage, of coming out of slavery.  It’s so deep in our minds.  God has to show us even how we think, what our motives are.  Work with people on a continuing basis out there about motives, about why they made certain choices, of where they come from.  And that’s how you learn about your mind.  God says that we don’t even know our own mind.  He says, “I know the heart.  I know the mind.”  In essence, “I’ll show it to you.”  Only God can show you what your real and true motives in life are, of what you’re real thinking is about, because it’s spiritual!  It’s a spirit in your mind of how you think, of what you’re grounded in, and God has to show you that to yourself, to where you get to a point where you loathe it, where you don’t like it, where you don’t want it and you see that other spirit that God has given you in the mind which Paul said, ‘in the inward man,’ and that’s what you rejoice in, and that’s what you want, and that’s what you choose, and that’s your fight.  Salvation is about entering into that fight and staying in that fight until it’s fully conquered.  The word ‘conquer’ means ‘to overcome’ in the New Testament – until you fully overcome, conquered it.

That’s why I tell people constantly, “Keep in the fight!  Don’t give up the fight, because when you quit fighting against your nature, when you quit fighting against the sins that pop up in your life, that’s when it has a stronger hold on you, and to break free, to break away from it is going to take something far more severe in your life! But God loves you and He’ll let you have that which is far more severe in your life to save you.”  But we fight!  We resist!  Incredible, the human mind.

You shall have no other gods before Me. I marvel at how that’s even translated.  You shall have no other elohim before Me.  Family, God Family – because most of the things that Satan’s represented are a family.  Most of the false god things are about families, the different things happening in these god families wherever they are through time, all these different families of these different gods, elohim.  And God said don’t have any others before Me.  Because as a whole there hasn’t been anything depicted as just a single God, unless it has to do with God as a whole.  Satan hates family; he’s going to have mankind believe in some other kind of a family, and that’s what he did.  And so that’s why the terminology was used, because they were filled with that in Egypt.  All the different kinds of gods and the families that were there in these god families and how they were intertwined and you can go back and read some of these things...don’t waste your time, bunch of garbage...but it’s all over throughout history, through time.

You shall have no other gods before Me. And you can go through more of the commandments here, but they’re all spiritual, they’re all on a spiritual plane.  To be able to understand them is not a physical thing.  I think of the first time when focusing in on this one time and talking about some of this; verse 7 – You shall not take the name of the Lord, or the Eternal your God, in vain, for the Eternal will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.  So again here, even in this when they think about this they think about taking God’s name in vain, they think about cursing, using the name of Jesus or even sometimes people have gone off – be able to show some of the other kinds of words that are shortened forms that mean the same thing, it’s a form of cursing and so forth like ‘Gee Whiz’, ‘Golly’.  They are spin-offs of using God’s name or the name of Jesus Christ, and still in a swearing kind of form and usd when you’re upset about something. And God says don’t use My name in those things, or any form of My name.  But I think of the first time that we started to zero in on this in a sermon and this is basically how people only thought of it.  But people, as a whole, even within the Church, didn’t think about what it means when you have God’s name, you are the Church of God, you are of the Body of Christ, and if you take God’s name in vain and you actually bear God’s name, because you do once you’re baptized, once you have the impregnation of God’s spirit living and dwelling within you, you have God in you.

That is our hope, that is our desire, that is what we live by, that is what we pray about, that God continue to dwell in us and continue to come into our life, to dwell in and through us and we in Him and that we not take His name in vain and cause that dwelling to stop... because that’s what sin does, and we sin, and we have to go before God and repent again and again in our lives.  There’s this battle that just continues on, but we understand the importance of being a right example.  We want to be a better example; something I have stressed upon the ministry in the Church – there are certain things that are stressed upon the ministry that is not stressed with the rest of the Church, even though we should all understand them, about how we present ourselves in public and how we present ourselves in things we do that... which should go for all of us as well, about certain things that we not do even if it gives the appearance of evil.  There are certain things I encourage the ministry to be careful of because you bear God’s name but you also now bear a job and a responsibility.

So even in there there is that standard that is magnified or preached or taught...and we still have battles, but it’s something we should all strive to live by, an understanding that we have, we bear God’s name.  And if you’re a member of God’s Church everything you do is scrutinized; it just gets a little more scrutinized when you’re ordained...by people, and even by people within the Church, but people outside especially.  But as soon as you come into God’s Church your life is being scrutinized by others around them, “How could you do this?  How could you do that?  How can you say that?  How can you...blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”  And how do you let them know, “Yeah, I’m not a saint.  I’m trying to be.  I’m striving to be.  I’m striving to live what’s right...” if you understand what the word ‘saint’ is; a member of the Body of Christ.  “I want to do what is right.”  But if you have an unconverted mate or unconverted children or unconverted parent or other unconverted relatives they see your life and they’ll judge you by what you do and how you do it.

And so we need to strive to do the best we can knowing that we’re going to make mistakes, but our desire should be to be a light.  That’s what Jesus Christ preached about, to be a light, to be an example, of what we do and how we do it – on the job.  One day you’re going to be dumbfounded by how many people are going to come along who know you.

So, sometimes in reading through some of these things we don’t recognize the spiritual part of it, like ‘Remembering the Sabbath day to keep it holy’.  It isn’t a matter of physical do’s and don’ts, what you physically do and what you physically don’t do.  Yes, you start with that.  Yes, you start with not working from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown.  Yes, you start with that process of realizing it’s to be a day that’s set apart from the rest.  You don’t go out and do your laundry on that day.  You don’t go out and paint the house that day.  You don’t go out and mow the lawn on that day.  Yes, you do make your bed.  Yes, you do take a shower.  Yes, you do clean up.  Yes, you do the normal things you should do day by day.  Yes, you can cook a meal...because in the beginning sometimes people think, because it’s so physical, they can’t cook a meal.  My wife and I knew somebody in the first Church area we were in after we were married, they liked their eggs over easy and so they cooked them Friday before sunset and take them out of the refrigerator Saturday morning.  I think, “What a horrible thing you have to have eggs over easy cold.  Give me a break!”  Because the scripture was misunderstood about not starting a fire, stoking a fire or whatever.  They didn’t understand that was for a job, at work, and things to working with metal or things to heat up something to be able to accomplish something on a greater plane in a work way.

And sometimes people are asked in the Church, “Well, you go out and eat on Saturday, don’t you? You Pharisee! You hypocrite!  You’re causing other people to work on that day, aren’t you?”  Think, “No, that’s the way of the world.”  It is the way of the world and as far as my part is concerned and my working is concerned that’s the system that’s in this world, I understand it’s going to be changed.  There is still going to be a lot of food prepared on the Sabbath for large groups of people and so forth but to have that as a matter of advantage today, it’s just like having servants.  Because Abraham, I can tell you right now, he didn’t go and prepare his own meal.  They had servants.  He was a very wealthy man!  Truly was!  God gave him great wealth if you remember going back in the story and all the things he had; but his servants did that.  Was it wrong for them to do that?  No! Today we have servants that can do it; it’s just that their systems are all messed up.  It isn’t wrong to eat on the Sabbath and pay for the meal on the Sabbath; but if you have a business that does that, that’s wrong.  And so that’s hard for people to judge because they don’t understand the spirit of it.  It’s not wrong to get in the shower and bathe on the Sabbath, because that’s a different process of life.  That is good to make your bed on the Sabbath like you do other days of the week.  God doesn’t want us living like a slob or smelling like one either because we think we shouldn’t bathe on that day or we shouldn’t comb our hair on that day, or whatever it might be.  No, we’re to do those things!  It has to do with work for occupation or work for catching up on things around the house: you don’t do it on the Sabbath.

And so we work through those things as we come into God’s Church.  How much can children do or not do?  What kind of games?  What should they...?  We go through this!  You go through this all your life in God’s Church!  I’m still going through it because I don’t have all the answers!  I don’t know!  There’s not this giant list of rules and we don’t want the Talmud and all these books being written about do’s and don’ts on the Sabbath, because it’s a spiritual thing.  And so we learn how to judge through time and we learn how to deal with some of these things through time.  I addressed something along those lines just recently that I see in a more balanced way than I did before.   Ever growing in these things!  It never ends as long as you’re in this human body, that you will learn, that the most important part about the Sabbath day we learn through time...it’s right now.  It’s when you’re being talked to by God, in the sense of what He inspires to give to us on the Sabbath day, or on a High Day.  It’s those messages, His Word...because it’s His Word that comes through Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is actually the one who gives it to us, who inspires us in those things, because it’s all been given to Him as the Head of the Body.  And so He inspires us as to what we’re to have at any moment in time for our growth, and then we’re able to be inspired by it and we come to learn in time that that’s the most important part of the Sabbath about it being kept holy.  Truly!  ...of keeping it holy.  Because it’s what we learn that we put into our lives that makes our life set apart and special throughout the week, not just during that period of time we’re being taught and trained by God.

Anyway, let’s continue on here: to understand this on a spiritual plane though, that God brought them out of Egypt, brought them to a point in time to learn something, to be taught something, that it’s actually through the law.  He brought them up to Mount Sinai to be given that which would really give them freedom to really be brought out of Egypt, out of bondage.  That’s what He told them at the beginning of giving the commandments there in Exodus 20.  But they couldn’t see this yet, they were still in bondage and they never grasped that.  We grasp that in the Church, but they never could grasp that, that this is what gives you freedom, the truth.  The truth sets you free.  It’s the mind!  It’s the mind that has to come out of captivity.  It’s the way you think, your thoughts, that the very reason that God brought Noah to a point in time to build an ark, because the thoughts of mankind, the thinking, the formulation of them was not grounded on that which is right.  It was fully on that which is Egypt.  It had nothing to do with God; nothing that was based there that had to do with because of God’s way of life and God’s mind.

Do you strive to have your actions and the things you do based on what comes from God?  ...that your plans, your thinking, your actions more and more are being based on ...because your thoughts are geared into, tied into the things that God gives?  That’s what we have to come to in our lives, that more and more... because God says, ‘My thoughts aren’t your thoughts; neither are your ways My ways.’ In the Church our ways had better become God’s ways, our thoughts had better become more and more God’s thoughts.  That’s why this word, ‘homologues,’ is so important, ‘of the same mind’.  That’s why God wants the same mind in us.  That’s why He wants us to grasp the importance of having the same mind!  Because the more you fight against your carnal human nature the more you come into agreement with God!  The more you acknowledge the wrong in your life and the wrong in the world the more you’re acknowledging that God is right and you want to be of the same thinking, you want to be in order with Him because you realize this is what’s right, this is what brings true rest, peace, Jerusalem to this earth.  It doesn’t happen just because you leave something physical.

Let’s turn over to Isaiah 19 - see the importance of Israel. That which will give Judah greater freedom is when they come to understand that unlike ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ (have any of you ever seen that movie, it’s a pretty old show).  I remember one scene in there with the bigger guy, Tevye, where they’re going through all these troubles in Russia; they’re going through all these woes and troubles from the government, the oppression of the people and everything around them and one day he has this conversation with God outside and he has his hand up to heaven and he says something to this effect, paraphrasing it, “Oh God, if just for one day we couldn’t be your own special people.”  In other words, because they’re God’s special people they’re having troubles and trials and hardships; and not understanding, no, it’s...  Anyway, but that’s kind of the Jewish thought.  “We’re special.  We’re a special people.”  Well, they were physically but they’ve been hideous spiritually!  They’ve lived wretched lives spiritually before God.  There are certain traits that should be recognized as good and positive, but not to rely on those traits.  You rely on God.

See, when the ten tribes went into captivity it’s because they moved away from the Sabbath and they began to keep the day of the sun.  That’s long before the Catholic Church ever talked about Sunday or wanting to keep it, because that’s where it came from.  It came from Baal worship long, long before, and so the other tribes... matter of fact, the reason they wanted to start changing the time is because the king was afraid they would go back down to Jerusalem on the High Days and Judah then would receive them back, and that they might decide we want to go back and be a part of Judah again, or Israel reunited again, and the king didn’t want that.  It refers to all the kings that ever followed the wrong ways as they who followed the ways of Jeroboam. All the rest of the kings that followed, in Israel, it says they followed the ways, the sins of that king, of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. Through time here that’s what they’re noted for.

Judah, they’re different, they have via that which is physical, they held onto the Sabbath day, they just polluted it.  They started working on the Sabbath, but they remembered that day!  And the Holy Days, they kept those, and the calendar, they kept those things because it had everything to do with their Holy Days and so forth.  And they have done that incredibly well.  Matter of fact, God gave the Jewish people, for the Hebrew language in the sense of scriptures, and they have a meticulous system of making sure that everything is...because they had to do it by hand...printing the Old Testament on scrolls, that they had a counting system, a numeric system of numbering every line, every marking that was made.  It’s a numeric system way of checking everything out and that’s why Jesus Christ used that example, ‘not one jot or one tittle will in any way pass from the law’.  He used something that they did physically to show something spiritually, ‘until all things are fulfilled.’  So Jesus Christ was showing something spiritual, where they were stuck in something physical, they were good at it!  But they began to rely upon that.  When you begin to rely upon your own ability to do things, that’s not good, because you’re not going to see God in the picture anymore.  That started happening at the end of Philadelphia into Laodicea – rich and increased with goods – and you start seeing yourself greater than what you are.

All peoples have good qualities and all people have bad qualities...man has good and bad in him.  But you can’t rely on your good because your good isn’t good enough, it isn’t God’s good, and it has to become converted.  So when the Jewish people come to understand that’s a great trait to have, as long as you understand that it’s given, there are things... it all comes from God and that you have certain abilities, all of our abilities come from God, then give God the glory and the thanks but don’t take it to yourself in haughtiness and pride!  And that’s the mistake human beings make.  And so when Israel and Judah come to understand that their whole history was one to show... You. Can’t. Keep. God’s. Law.  That’s not a pretty example!  They were not a nation established to show how well you can keep God’s law, and of the great relationship you can have with God.  It’s to show the haughtiness and pride of human beings, that you can know God in the sense of certain knowledge given to you, you can be taken out of Egypt by God and have all this history, and you can be given kings and you can be given victory in wars, and all the things that God gives you and yet you still do not have a right relationship with God.  On the contrary!  Through all of it you have a wrong relationship with God that needs to be repented of because it’s not a spiritual one at all; it’s only a physical limited one and that is not what God desires for human beings.  He desires that we have a spiritual one – of the same mind.

And so when Israel comes to understand, when Judah comes to understand, that their example has been a wretched one...when they come to understand that The Messiah talked to their leaders and they rejected Him, the one they looked forward to, and so they discredit Him as being the Messiah because of certain things, “Well, You can’t be Him because of... What?  What could we say He can’t be because of...?”  So they had to come up with some convoluted story. And Jesus Christ condemned them all at that time, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Zealots, all of them, He condemned them all.

And yet I think of God’s Church even in the 20th century, ministers, even evangelists who looked to Judaism, looked to rabbis as authorities of doctrine!  You think, “How dumb can you be?”  They’re not God’s people!  They were away from God 2,000 years ago and they weren’t called back to God to have a relationship with Him, they just became worse in the last 2,000 years!  If you look at the actual doctrines of what the Pharisees and Sadducees had at their time, they were messed up, but what they’ve added since that time?  What rabbis have added since that time that people believe are far more messed up!  They’ve become far worse!  And so when people come to understand you’re example was one to show that you can’t keep the law, that you don’t have a right relationship with God, even when God does all these things with you and for you... it’s not good is it; and so the jealousies that are there can start to go by the wayside when you begin to understand who you truly are, to understand that indeed it was Abraham and Isaac that was being offered up, not Ishmael, and you can start burying some of the false things you have been taught in the past – speaking of those of Islam – you have to come to grips with those things in time.  That’s what God’s going to bring you to come to grips with.

What a hard, tough, rude awakening peoples are going to have... Jews are going to have, scattered Israelites are going to have when they come to understand who they were, when Assyrians are going to come to learn who they are.  They have a great big museum in Berlin – awesome – where they’ve gone back and taken relics out of old Assyria, and they don’t even know it’s them.  They so admire their history and they don’t even know it’s them.  It’s their own history!  Incredible!  Huge museum in Berlin dedicated to relics out of old Assyria and they don’t know they’re worshipping themselves or that they so admire it because of that history.  And people are going to come to understand why we have such an affinity toward each other – New Zealand and Australia and the United States, Great Britain.  First of all it was as brothers of the one father, and then the other brothers that are on the western part there as well and the different countries there of Western Europe.  There’s an affinity that’s there, to a degree, and yet jealousies are there also to a degree, that exist, but far different than the rest of the world.  And then when people in other parts of the world begin to understand why they have a certain affinity toward each other, natural things that draw people close together...incredible!  But no one has lived God’s way of life.

So there’s tremendous freedom when people come to understand the truth in this, and that’s what God is showing, the importance of being delivered out of Egypt and the importance of being able to receive the truth.

Isaiah 19 - It’s a very prophetic thing on a spiritual plane.  Isaiah 19:1 - The burden, the ‘lifting’ as the word means in Hebrew, ‘as of a load or a weight’.  The lifting/the burden of Egypt. Behold, the Eternal rides/mounts/sits upon a swift/light cloud, and shall come into/upon Egypt: He’s going to come upon Egypt.  Now this isn’t physical.  This isn’t talking about what already happened when they came out of Egypt; it’s talking about something spiritual.  ...the idols of Egypt shall be moved, in other word, ‘caused to be shaken’, ‘made to quiver’ as the word is in Hebrew, at His presence, when is that going to be?  We’re there at the doorstep – that’s where we are!  Because it’s talking about spiritual Egypt.  It’s talking about what God is getting ready to do.  All the idols of Egypt – when you look out there in the world it doesn’t matter where you go, in Asiatic countries you see the different kinds of statues of things that people worship, India, different things that are worshipped.  You go down into Europe, you look at city centers – I loathe them because of these great big churches that are there that came from the Catholic church.  All the idols, the things people have, the things that people toiled and sweated over, sacrificed for, literally, in order to have some of these places.  You look at Islam.  You look at different things throughout the earth.

It says, and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at His presence, and the heart, the heart of Egypt shall melt, and the word means ‘to waste away, to dissolve, to vanish’.  That’s where we are in time, that’s what God is getting ready to do with Egypt, where the very heart of Egypt is getting ready to melt away.  People are going to come to loathe Egypt!  People are going to come to loathe all these false religions that they have believed in that have hurt them, that have kept them oppressed, that have caused problems and caused wars!  Incredible what’s taken place on the earth!

...and shall melt away in the midst of, in other words, of God’s presence, in the midst of it, speaking of God’s presence, in His presence.  And so again, when Jesus Christ returns and all these things, the destroying that’s going to be taking place on that one day, and then the truth that goes out into the world in a very powerful way as one truth, one religion begins to go out in the world and people begin to be able to see those things, indeed, the heart of Egypt begins to melt away.  It’s talking about what’s happening in each individual’s life as they come to see what they’ve been imprisoned to.

I’ve known of people when they come along, some of the comments that are made; I think of especially some of the Catholics that have been called into the Church, and sometimes they get so upset.  Because when you realize you’ve been lied to and that they were the ones responsible for the lies – 325 AD and what happened back then – it causes you to be a little perturbed, that you’ve been lied to!  And so indeed, the heart of Egypt melts away, you don’t want to hold onto Egypt anymore, you want to get rid of it, you want to get rid of what it pictures and what it is.  And so it will be with all the idols, all the religions.  And it’s not just that which is physical in the sense of religions in the world.  Idols have to do with what people look up to.  Wall Street!  False systems, central banks... Great Britain is printing up some more money now!  ‘Quantitative easing’ – the terms they use, the stuff that goes on out there.  It’s amazing that people swallow all that stuff!

I’m not a highly educated man in economics or banking or anything of that nature.  God has given us the ability to see the heart of some of these things and therefore we understand, and prophecy of some of these things and so we understand.  And so we hear news in a way that others don’t – that’s why they don’t see it, they’re blinded to what’s taking place.  But it’s incredible what’s going on out there!  And then the mainland of Europe that mocks at ‘quantitative easing’, printing more money, because they remember what happened when they printed a lot of deutschmarks, what happened when they just kept the presses running.  And so they laugh at the idea, they scorn the idea of what Geitner had to say.  At least that’s what Geitner wants them to do, “Print more Euro’s, that’s the answer, quantitative easing!”

...to where you hate the idols and what they do to you! Because they’re not going to save you, when you look to other things to save you, to help you out of your mess.  And that’s where man’s going to start scrambling now; that’s what pushes man into war.  See, I mentioned in the beginning of the sermon, we believe in the timing of what God has given to us, but I will tell you candidly... if it didn’t happen at that time, these things are coming to pass!  What do you believe?  How convicted are you?  Do you see Europe coming together?  I don’t care if it happens next month or the month after that; it’s going to take place!  Incredible!  If you see what’s happening in the world around you!

The reason I ask some of this is it fits in the Last Great Day sermon, and some of you are going to be tested and tried in ways you don’t grasp and comprehend yet.  See, this is not a cakewalk!  It’s a matter of your faith and what you believe and what your relationship is with God!  See?!

These idols are the very things being torn down right now; this is what’s pushing countries.  Germany is being pushed into a corner right now and the Germans do not react well when they are pushed into a corner.  You don’t push some things in the world into a corner.

I saw on the news yesterday, going through the news channel there, I think it was a ‘possum in a tree or something.  I’m not sure why the constable was out there, and this guy was going up on a ladder to try to help it out of the tree...  I’m pretty sure it was an opossum.  You think, “Why worry about it? There are thousands of them! So what if it can’t get down, it wasn’t a cat!”  It looked like a ‘possum to me.  Anyway, they said be careful when you get up there too close to it because you don’t want to get bitten by it, and all of a sudden he gets up the tree and all you see is this big guy up there shaking a branch trying to get him to move it away from there, to get out of the tree, and all of a sudden the thing leaps on the guy! You know, you back some things into a corner, no matter what their size is they’re going to react!

Some things have a nature to react in a way that isn’t good, and the Assyrian mentality is a unique mentality, just as the Jewish mentality is a unique mentality when it comes to the Old Testament and things that they believe to be true in a relationship with God, that they are ‘God’s special people’.  I’m not trying to make fun of that because they are and they were in a special way for a special purpose, but all that special purpose wasn’t all good.  I’m not trying to make fun of that, hope you understand.  It’s their reaction to it, haughtiness and pride.  Haughtiness and pride is to be mocked and made fun of and God is going to do that in His own way through His own time.

God says, ‘Those who mock Me, I’ll mock them when you’re derision comes, when your trouble comes and you can’t get out of it and you can’t save yourself.’

So again here, things are taking place in Europe, things are taking place around the world, alliances are being formed and you see them taking place.  I am amazed right now by the news, truly am!  I’m amazed by the stock market as it pushes back up again.  I’m not amazed, but I understand it.  And please understand, there’s a being out there who knows his timing, and there are some things he doesn’t want to happen.  Wouldn’t it be incredible if you have a being out there who is fighting to preserve what he has, to fight against God who says this is the end and He’s going to bring it to pass?  And so there are other demonic beings that are mentioned that are going to be given opportunity, in a perverted way (they see it as opportunity), more power to stir up certain things in certain parts of the world.  That’s what this prophecy is about.

Isaiah 19:1 - The burden of Egypt. Behold, the Eternal rides upon a swift cloud, and shall come upon Egypt: and the idols shall be moved, in other words, caused to be shaken in His presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt/be dissolved in the midst of, God’s presence in other words, in the midst of it. And I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians: the world turns on itself. It’s like the banking system that’s out there right now, especially in the US and the dollar, it’s imploding and not exploding... it’s going to turn on itself!  That’s what happens in life and that’s what God’s saying He is doing.  He is going to have Egypt turn on Egypt!  It has become so big, Egypt has, that confusion, the system, the whole process of man out there, that it’s at the point now where it’s turning to implode on itself, crush itself.  It can’t keep up under the load.  It can’t keep up under the oppression, the pressure, the process that’s there upon itself, and so God’s just letting it get bigger and bigger and bigger to where it gets to that point in time where it destroys itself.  That is what God is going to show mankind.  This is what happens.  “Given enough time, you’re going to destroy yourself!  You’re going to destroy each other!  You have the nuclear bomb, atomic warfare that can take place, nuclear warfare; and given enough time here you will push the button on each other!  Pushed into a corner you’re going to destroy each other unless I intervene and stop it.”  And that’s what God says.

And so everything that’s out there is imploding on itself.  It can’t survive.  The dollar can’t survive!  You can’t keep printing like that and it not turn on itself and destroy itself.  Anything they try now will not work...but someone wants it to work.  He wants to save his system.  Understand something unique that’s going on out there right now.  He wants it to survive.  He doesn’t want it to be destroyed.  He doesn’t want prophetic events to come to pass.  He doesn’t want his end to come to pass.

...the heart of Egypt shall melt...and I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians: in other words, literally as it’s saying, talking about here, the way of Egypt finally implodes upon itself and begins to consume itself by its own weight.

...and they shall fight every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbour; city against city, and kingdom against kingdom. That’s what God’s bringing the earth to, mankind.  Everybody’s going to blame everybody else!  Of all the haughtiness... haughtiness... I can’t find a word greater than that – pride, haughtiness to the extreme that a government has, an economic system that’s there, “We are AAA and we’ll always be AAA,” mentality, no matter what happens, to blame all of our troubles now, because we’ve had the printing presses running wild, but it’s Europe’s fault, it’s the Euro, it’s Europe, they’re the bad man in all this.  And you know what?  The stock market believes it!  Watch it; they believe it!  They believe that bull!  They believe it, and I can guarantee you if it wasn’t Europe we would be blaming Canada...  The U.S. always blames Canada.

And the spirit of Egypt shall fail, even its own spirit, what it has as its momentum; it loses its own momentum, it loses heart in what it is.  That’s what God brings it to.  That’s a good thing.  And the spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst of itself; in other words Egypt can no longer benefit or serve Egypt, the way of Egypt.  The way of sin and of Babylon will run out of solutions to its problems, answers to correct, or to give relief to its distorted ways.

...and I will destroy the counsel thereof: that’s what God is saying, because that’s the result, that’s how God is destroying the council of it.  That’s why decisions are being made that no matter what decision...but especially the ones they decide upon are the very ones that cause the greater problems and make it worse, because it is Egypt feeding Egypt until Egypt starts to learn the lesson, which means no more Egypt.  But God is the answer, when people finally begin to turn to God.  And what’s sad is most won’t, most will still try.  But that’s why they come to an end and have to be resurrected later on.

...and they shall seek to the idols, in other words, they’re own strength, their own governments to the bitter end, their own institutions, their own financial system.  That’s what they’re doing in a scurrying sort of way right now, in a maddening way right now.  ...and to the charmers, in other words the word has to do with ‘speaking softly or gently about matters’, and ‘gentle flowing’ is what it means here, very much like those who speak in terms of things not being bad.  It’s done in the news a lot.  Government leaders, when somebody speaks out like they do sometimes, that’s becoming more pronounced right now.  That’s kind of an unheard of thing, a no-no, when you have different ones, the head of the Bank of England and so forth saying some of the things they do and different ones that come along and make comments that are now starting to make a sound that is not pleasant to the stock market, not pleasant to others.  That’s kind of a no-no and they kind of get ostracized when those things happen, sometimes they lose their job, sometimes you don’t hear from some government officials because it’s just not politically correct to the system of Egypt.

I get so sick and tired of news in the U.S.  because it doesn’t matter what happens, you can have a day when a whole city is being destroyed and if there’s one piece of good news out there that one company all of a sudden had a 2% increase, “We’ve got a rebound!  It’s coming back!”  And they rely upon that and they talk about how great this company is and how it should be the model of all the other companies out there and we should be doing that because look at this, they have a comeback!

It’s a saddening and sick thing, it really is, but this is the prophecy that’s taking place right now: Egypt is turning on Egypt.  It’s consuming itself and it’s slowly being destroyed. Verse 4 - And the Egyptians will I give over into the hand of a cruel lord and a fierce king shall rule over them, says the Eternal/says the Lord Eternal of hosts.  Again here, talking about those things that are a natural result of things, because the more you sin, the more evil you do the greater power it gives to him over you, to Satan.

Let’s just jump ahead here a little bit: verse 14 - The Eternal has mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof: and this has caused Egypt to err in every work that it attempts to perform, just like a drunk who staggers in his vomit. Very picturesque, if you will here, of things God says.

Neither shall there be any work/productive work/real help/solutions/enterprise/undertaking for Egypt, which the head or tail, branch or rush, is able to do. In other words, nothing is going to work now!

Verse 17 – the first part - And the land of Judah shall be a terror unto Egypt, words have meaning, and when you come to understand as we go through these series of sermons we’re having here at the Feast, there are a lot of words we’re going to be focusing on that have meaning.  And candidly, in today’s terminology and what this is about, this is about the Church.  Truly is!  It’s where God is working, it’s where God’s praise is; the word ‘Judah’ means ‘praise’, so spiritually and what this is talking about – that’s the only thing that there is, that God gives praise toward His people, His Church, and that which will be spoken is when time becomes appropriate, and this is a part of the fulfilling of that, because of what’s being said.

And it says, it shall be a terror unto Egypt; some of those things have already started.  There’s a being out there that knows where he is in time. He knows what God says anyway.

And the land of Judah shall be a terror unto Egypt and everyone who makes mention thereof shall be afraid in himself, because of the counsel, in other words, the advisement or the purpose that’s revealed, of the Eternal of hosts, which He has determined, in other words, declared so, is what it means, against it.  And so as people begin to see, when things do get to a point that their answers are not there, that there are things they cannot resolve, then attitudes slowly begin to change for those who can be changed.

Backing up here a little bit: Isaiah 11:6 – again, this is a process of elimination, a progression of accomplishment, a fulfillment as it continues; The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. We’ve come to understand some things that God has given us to better understand a timing of certain events, and to understand when some of these things are going to be accomplished.  This here is picturing a part of that which happens toward the end, not during the Millennium. Because of the very purpose of the Great White Throne, the last hundred years, why that’s different than the Millennium.  In the Millennium people continue to live life, it’s just that they have one government and one religion on the earth, but the purpose is different during the Great White Throne.  The purpose during that period of time is an environment of peace that isn’t even there during the Millennium.  It begins in the Millennium but it’s magnified during the Great White Throne.  It’s a beautiful thing!  People are to have the ability to live, have the protection to live for, if it be a child, to be able to live up to the age of one hundred, and to go through the process of being tried.  Because everyone has to make choices and decisions.  Am going to add a little bit more to that the Last Great Day this year.

Verse 7 - And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. This will not happen during the Millennium; they’re still going to like to eat sheep and cows and humans if they can.  They’re not going to change, yet.

And the nursing child shall play in the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand in the cockatrice' den.  They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain; it’s a progression that God is leading us toward; and during the Millennium we take a great leap forward, and then a greater leap forward later on because of a greater purpose that God has in resurrecting people from the dead and working with them at that time...and even some who live during the Millennium who die, resurrected then.  Not everyone who lives during the Millennium is going to choose God.  People have to understand that, it’s a continuation, it’s just now with the God Family on earth, one government on earth, and one Church on the earth, one religion on the earth and not the confusion, so man has every opportunity in a far greater way to choose God’s way of life.

It doesn’t mean that someone can’t go out here and do something stupid; get drunk, drive down a freeway and be killed.  God doesn’t stop them at that time because that’s not His purpose.  And so they’ll have to be resurrected later on to continue, to learn, to learn that wasn’t a smart thing to do. Do you think that can happen during the Millennium?  Do you think that will happen during the Millennium?  ...that someone won’t misuse alcohol? ...that some teenager won’t misuse alcohol and do something stupid?  You think God’s purpose is just to keep everything like that from happening for every human being?  People still have to learn in life, the responsibility of human life.

Now, the Great White Throne is different because everybody at that time, you know what?  They’ve already had some previous life, as a whole – babies different in a sense, but they’ll have the advantage of being able to start out and be taught in a very powerful way at that time, and God will protect their life at that time even when they do something stupid.

They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of God/of the Eternal, as the waters cover the sea.  And in that day, this begins with the Millennium and goes into the Last Great Day, there shall be a root of Jesse which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek, in other words, all peoples.  When it uses this word it is referring to all the people except those that are seen at that time. The word Gentiles was used at a time differentiating someone different from the Jewish people at that time.  Israelites were already in captivity so it was even talking about them, some of them, unless they were known who they were, would be Gentiles to the Jews unless they knew they were some of the descendants.  So it’s just a term that’s used there, ‘all of the people’.  And so again, that promise to Abraham that’s going to be fulfilled, a progression through time.

Verse 11 – And it shall come to pass in that day that the Eternal shall set His hand again the second time...there’s a duality here in what will be accomplished in Christ’s purpose at both the beginning of the Millennium, because again here it’s bringing everyone back, bringing all people back, not just the Israelites and where Israelites are scattered in the world, but all mankind into the truth, into a way of life, and then in a greater way in the Great White Throne.  ...to recover the remnant, it’s referring here to the rest, the remaining of His people.  And that’s not just Israel!  Who are a remnant of God’s people remaining?  All mankind is, but God hasn’t been able to bless them yet, He hasn’t been able to work with them yet because it wasn’t time for the Millennium yet.  God’s desire is not just for a specific physical people, and I hope we all understand that in a very great way, but it’s for all people!  We’re all God’s children, and His great joy is where we are in time, because by the next Feast of Tabernacles it’s a different world.  We have the opportunity now for everyone on earth... that things will be equalized as far as their being able to understand they’re God’s children – all special before God, no one better than someone else!

Ephraim is not better than Manasseh, Manasseh’s not better than Ephraim, Reuben’s not better than Manasseh, Manasseh’s not better than Reuben, Reuben’s not better than Assyria and Assyria’s not better than Reuben.  On and on it goes!  People aren’t better than each other! We’re all God’s Family; we have that ability at that time.

And so it says, from Assyria, from Egypt... See, He spells it out...to those who are left, those who are still remaining at this point in time, all His people.  ...from Assyria, from Egypt, and it doesn’t only mean calling Israelites out of those areas, it’s referring to those places as well; there’s a duality that flows through here.  ...Cush, Elam, Shinar, from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.  And He shall set up an ensign, in other words, a standard which is set up, for all the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts, in other words, those thrust out, cast down; in essence, those oppressed, in bondage.  That’s what it’s talking about here, the outcasts.  It’s a word that has to do with being ‘cast down’, ‘oppressed’.  All mankind has been oppressed.  Those in bondage, those in captivity, the outcasts of Israel, those who were to prevail with God.

See, sometimes we look at something and we still are in that thing where we see something physical first.  Israel is about everyone because Israel is a name that God gave.  It’s not a physical people!  If you get stuck on something physical that’s a tough thing to break through sometimes.  I think of when I first started talking about the 144,000 and started talking about something that we had believed in the Church at one time, that all the 144,000 and the great multitude – we thought it was something different.  We thought the great multitude, at one time, was something that came out of Laodicea, 144,000 were all those who came out of Philadelphia.

But later on, what happened should have forced everyone in the scattered Church to say, “What happened?”  That’s why some think it has to happen in the future. I don’t know how they’re answering some of those things because there really isn’t a good answer for any of that in any other way except what God has given to us in the Church to understand: that the 144,000 is the great multitude and it’s made up of all... it has names, it’s not just made up of...  When it talks about 12,000 out of each tribe?  People have literally felt during Philadelphia that God was only calling Israelites.  That should have shown that there was a mistake already right there, if it says 12,000 out of each tribe – that should have told us right there something’s wrong, because there are many ‘Gentiles’ within the Church who aren’t physically descendants of Israel.  Does that make sense to you?  That that should have shown right then and there, but the eyes weren’t open yet to be able to see.  Because God is using those names to build upon something in the future.  Names have meaning!  But if you get stuck with the physical name you’ll never go forward or you’ll be in bondage.

So Israel is about everyone who comes out of bondage, who comes out of Egypt, who comes through this mess we’re getting ready to go through into a new age.  They all have the ability to become a part of Israel and a part of Judah, if you were.

...to gather the dispersed of the scattered of Judah. That’s even more specific if you understand the meaning of Judah and what happened to Judah.  It’s the Church!  It’s talking about a scattering that took place, and those who are going to come out of that at that particular time and be able to continue on, that can be brought through all this.

So again here, this is an incredibly historic Feast this year because of where we are in time, the last one of 6,000 years.  We talked about that for every Holy Day this year.  That’s an awesome thing!  But you can’t understand where we’re going unless you understand the history, unless you understand what’s happened from Adam and Eve all the way through time and how God has worked with different people through time, unless you can understand that the names of things given physically were just physical, and that what God is preparing for is everything that’s spiritual.  It has everything to do with coming out of Egypt and it is about coming out of spiritual Egypt, this world, for all mankind.

What an incredible time to be able to rejoice mightily as you heard in the opening sermon today, rejoicing before God, to recognize the time we live in and the time the world is at – coming out of spiritual Egypt.

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