The Truth About Israel

3rd Feast of Tabernacles Sermon - 2011

Ron Weinland

Today’s sermon is very closely related to a theme that started in yesterday’s sermon that’s going to run through so many of the sermons this year because it has to do with the timing of where we are in time.  We even heard it in the opening sermon given by Mr. Wrozek about things that he had mentioned several times if you picked up on that, about a world held captive and a world in bondage and those comments that were made throughout his sermon.  And at one point there we had discussed, talked about something I’d mentioned in a sermon some time back and I made a comment about captivity and he said that that’s what he was talking about, bondage and the world in bondage, and he said that was what was in his mind for the opening sermon, that I’d talked about some specific scriptures.

Anyway, sometimes when that happens you realize that maybe certain things are going in a certain direction there and you don’t want to use those and I encouraged him to go ahead and use it.  I said, because that’s the theme of the whole sermons for the Feast here – it’s about coming out of bondage, it’s about coming out of Egypt.  And God wants us to focus on those things because it’s difficult for us sometimes to grasp what God has gone through, what God has sacrificed, to even think in those terms that God has sacrificed.  And if you make those comments or think about something like that generally we just think about Jesus Christ, that He gave His Son, but it’s far deeper than that as we talked about last year.  It goes far, far deeper than that, starting from the very time of creation, as I mentioned yesterday, and knowing what He was going to create by giving free moral agency, that there would be those who would not choose peace, rest, as it’s spoken of.  And so He was willing to sacrifice that in the angelic realm as well and then for mankind, obviously, until it’s attained again, until we’re brought back to that point in time of what God is constructing and what God is building with those in His Family; with the angelic realm and within His own Family, the God Family.

And so again, it’s an awesome thing because He is excited, immensely so, about where we are in time, that it’s so soon now that His Son is actually going to be on the earth again.  What we pictured on the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16 when the high priest went into the last part, the Holiest of Holies, to perform his service which pictured Jesus Christ; and it talks about there, ‘until he had reconciled his house’ and so forth and all the things had been taken care of, then he returned again back into the other court, the other area of the tabernacle and leaving the tabernacle, and picturing the things of Jesus Christ, that He’s been away for 2,000 years nearly and doing a work in preparing the Church.  And those things are awesomely inspiring.  You think about that now and He’s about to return or come back to this earth again.  And we’re at that point in time and the excitement of the reality that man is finally freed from spiritual Egypt, or at least given to all mankind, only a few through time as a whole up until this modern age now where we have more who are going to live on into the Millennium, starting that process of being freed from Egypt.  But before that when there were only those out of 144,000 being worked with through time, being prepared for that, they were coming out of Egypt in their lifetimes, obviously, spiritually, but now to offer that to the entire world... it’s difficult for us to grasp.

Sometimes it’s just difficult to grasp something that isn’t here yet.  We believe it, we know it’s true! Just like in the book of Hebrews when it talks about those things in Hebrews and you go through and read about the different ones who lived by faith, and you think about their lives and what they went through, the excitement of it all finally. It talks about them looking forward ‘to a city who’s builder and maker is God’. They believed it but you can’t picture it in your mind, you can’t comprehend what that’s all about.  And through time God has given more and more and more, what it is all about, and the closer we get the more He’s given.  It’s just awesomely exciting!  It’s hard to drink it all in, candidly.  We believe it but the reality of it... I can’t comprehend a world with one government.  I can’t comprehend a world with one religion, with no other false religions around.  I know it’s going to be here, but to grasp what it’s going to mean for mankind is... we’ve never lived it; we’ve never experienced it yet.

Toward the end of September we observed the last Feast of Trumpets, and we’ve talked about this throughout this year here, the different Holy Days, the Feast of Pentecost and so forth.  We experienced the last Feast of Trumpets in this age of man’s self-rule on earth.  And in the last three observances of the Feast of Trumpets we have been living – awesome – we have been living the fulfillment of its meaning and just like as Trumpets of 2009 was the beginning of the final period known as ‘Time, Times, and a Half a Time’ we’ve been living through the different periods.  We’re in the 6th period of time now, we understand that, and we continue to move forward...continue to move forward like the story of those coming into the area of Jericho there, the Israelites, when God was bringing them out of the wilderness.

And so during this Feast of Tabernacles we are indeed observing the last one to be observed in this age of 6,000 years of man’s self-rule, and now we’re very close to entering into the time that the Feast of Tabernacles pictures – the Millennial period.  And that’s an awesome thing!  We really don’t grasp the fullness of that; that God wants us to strive to do that during this Feast.

So, our history, the history of this final phase of God’s Church is most unique and incredibly important, an incredibly important phase in God’s plan.

Let’s begin today by turning over to John 3.  For this end-time, candidly, our most meaningful history is contained in the latter part of the era of Philadelphia on into Laodicea. There aren’t as many of us compared to the whole now, but there are those of us who lived through those periods of time.  There are those who began to come into the beginning part of Laodicea but there were those who were living during the period of Philadelphia.  And then as a part of our history, we finally came up to a time of an apostasy that took place in God’s Church; something that we talked about a little bit last night.  It’s very difficult for new people... you receive things, you hear things, and you believe it, you know it’s true, but to understand... there are certain things unless you experience it you just can’t have the fullness of it, of what it’s like to go through something like that.

Perhaps on the Last Great Day I’ll give you a little bit of a glimpse - God will give you a little bit of a glimpse of what some of it was like –because you need to be sobered to the core of your being.  You need to look deep into your lives to seek what it is you truly believe with all of your being...truly...and be sobered by it. I think the sermon that’s coming up (it’s not all there yet), but the sermon that’s coming up is going to help you to do that.  Because sometimes it’s difficult for us to grasp what the Church went through and how it tries you to the core of your being, that there are things you have to look at deep inside your life.

And so again here, we have been living through some incredible things, and then finally the 1335 days and the count down on Trumpets beginning in 2008. So yesterday in the sermon that I gave we covered, indeed, how this is a most historic Feast and God has begun to share with us more fully the significance of delivering Israel out of Egypt.  And when we think about that...and that has to do with the title of the sermon today, The Truth About Israel.  Because there are things about Israel we need to grasp.  We really need to get rid of this concept of a physical nation. It played its part, an important role through history and through time, but the prophecies about Israel, the things that are getting ready to take place in the world, there are prophecies that we need to grasp, there are things that God wants us to focus upon to understand what this means.  And the more that people come to grasp and see this, in the world - and they will - it’s a part of helping to free them from bondage, from Egypt.

So toward the end of yesterday’s sermon we focused on the deeper meaning of Israel concerning this time that’s now upon us as God leads people out of spiritual Egypt, out of bondage into the Promised Land of the Millennial period, into a new nation – spiritual Israel.  That’s what He’s doing.  He’s leading the entire world into Israel, into spiritual Israel.  The children of Israel went into a place that they called ‘Israel’; the land became known as Israel, and God is doing the same thing again on a greater plane.  As He delivers people out of Egypt they’re being taken into Israel.  When you understand it’s spiritual in every way.

So again, the first Israel, the first nation, did not ‘prevail with God’ – that’s what Israel means, ‘to prevail with God’!  They didn’t do that, they didn’t prevail with God, they fought against God!  We come to understand when we come in the Church what our nature is like.  We fight against God, we resist God, and there’s a battle that goes on and we have to choose to enter into that battle.  They never entered into that battle because of what they were lacking, because of what wasn’t given to them that was to be given later on in time.  They didn’t live up to the name given to them, they brought shame to the name, they truly did.  Through time they brought shame to the name Israel; they did not prevail with God.

So as we discussed yesterday Israel and the whole world must be brought face to face with how their ways have all failed and that their ways only bring oppression, suffering, and eventually destruction.  This means that they will be brought to see that only with God can they truly triumph, succeed, become truly effective in living life fully, to gain the mastery of life, of how to live by prevailing with God.  Because that’s what you have to do.  We have to do that when we’re called into God’s Church.  We must prevail with God, we must fight, we must conquer, and it’s with His power living and dwelling within us. There is no other way.  That’s how you prevail, that’s how you conquer, that’s how you overcome, by becoming Israel spiritually with what God has intended by that name.

So again, today we’re going to start reading here in John 3.  There is a powerful theme that runs throughout this sermon that God wants us to see over the next year, this remaining time that’s in front of us and on into a new period of time.  It begins by the very first phrase we’re going to begin with here today; John 3:16 - For God so loved the world; not talking about a physical earth.  He loves all of His creation but it’s about what He put on it that counts.  We just sang the song...isn’t that incredible?  We just sang the song, ‘How Excellent is Thy Name’.  Psalm 8...you think about that:

How Excellent Is Thy Name!

Psalm 8

Dwight Armstrong

How excellent in all the earth, Lord our Lord is [Your name] Thy name!

Who hast Thy glory far advanced Above the starry frame.

From mouths of babes and infants, Lord, Strength by Thee is ordained,

So that Thy enemies [Your enemies] be crushed;

I don’t like the ‘thy’s’ and all those things but that’s the Old King James and that’s what we’ve sung; and soon that’s going to be changed because all the songs will be brought to modern times.

Your [Thy] vengeful foes restrained.

When I look up into the heavens Which Your [Thine] own fingers framed,

Just like looking at this earth, which God framed.  So when he said, ‘God so loved the world’ it’s not the earth by itself that has the importance.

Unto the moon and to the stars, Which were by You [Thee] ordained;

Then say I, what is man that You [Thou] Should be mindful of him?

Or what, the son of man, that You [Thou] So kind to him should be?

For You [Thou has] made Him a little less Than the angels above;

With glory and with dignity; With honor crowned his head.

Appointed Lord of all Thy works, All things under His feet;

All sheep and oxen, yes, and beasts That in the field do stray.

Beautiful song because it comes from a beautiful Psalm.  And so we marvel at the purpose of God in creating mankind.  And that was a great truth that God gave to Mr. Armstrong that the world doesn’t grasp.  The world desired to kill the Messiah, the Christ, because of this knowledge - to become God, to be of God, to become a part of the God Family.  People would rather be something kind of less than angels, a spirit eternal life type thing drifting around in a cloud.  Whatever!  All these weird ideas that people get, and it’s just hard to think about things like that, that people could be so narrow minded and choose to be so, but they think that’s what God is like; to look upon the face of God, that God just wants people to look upon some face.  What meaning?  What purpose?  What kind of a God would that be?  But people can’t think that far because they don’t have that help.

John 3:16 - For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. God’s purpose!  He loved His purpose for mankind, for why He put mankind on the earth, so much so that He gave His own Son, His only begotten Son.  The only one ever in time who was to be born of Him as a father.  He made Adam of the dust of the earth, but in a woman He formed and created life through a living being, through a woman, but He was the father.  Powerful!  Powerful in what that means in the mind that developed within a physical plane but a spiritual one as well that was given to that child for a great purpose, so that He could fulfill His role as High Priest, as Passover, as Messiah, as being after the order of Melchizedek, the one right beneath God Almighty for eternity.  There could only be one to fulfill that role.  Awesome to understand that!  Of the mind and agreement with God Almighty as He grew up – so much so that at the age of 12 years He was talking to those who were learned men, those who had studied the scriptures and confounded them by His understanding, by the response, by the things that He said.  And they didn’t grasp what was taking place.  12 years old!  Because He knew; it was in His mind.  Awesome to understand that!

And then He grew and finally entered into the ministry many years later.  Not much said in between there but He continued to mature and grow and be prepared to the time of His baptism; because He had to be baptized.  He still had to be impregnated on a spiritual plane with God’s spirit.  Awesome things!  Awesome things!

So, God’s purpose is for all people: ‘God so loved’, His purpose and His plan for all mankind, and that’s the good news. That’s the good news!  That’s why it’s so exciting when Paul began his ministry.  We’re going to read some scriptures later on here where Paul makes it very clear to the Jews, ‘You have disregarded what God gave to you and so it’s being offered to others.’  This message is going out to the rest of the world now – that’s what ‘Gentile’ meant.  It’s now going out to the rest of all people on the earth!  Little did he know, those who followed, Paul and the apostles at that time – they didn’t grasp the magnitude, they didn’t know it was going to be for 2,000 more years!

They truly believed something else!  They wanted Him to come back in their time.  Paul believed in the beginning that He was; later on God showed him, no, there are certain things that have to take place.  And they came to understand as some of them started to die, as some were killed – because they were killed, possibly save the one toward the end - put to death for what they believed, and time went on and they settled in, they began to... they didn’t know, but they continued to move forward just like all those in Hebrews when you read about the people of faith.  They continued to move forward being led by God, following God wherever God led them.  Incredible!  Awesome stories!

Let’s read it again: For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son: I hate the way the protestant world has so twisted and distorted and minimized the magnitude, the importance of this.  You see it on bumper stickers, you see it on advertisements, ‘God so loved the word he gave his only begotten son’.  They make it a mockery almost in how they use it, a feel good type thing.  They don’t grasp the importance of this whatsoever.  ...that whosoever believes on Him should not perish, and that’s the problem, they don’t believe Him!  They like a story about a little baby in a manger and all these things, with a big ole star that if it were real it’d have burned up the place, the rays coming down to show others how to get there.  Stupid ideas!

For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world; He didn’t send His Son into the world to judge the world; that isn’t why He came into the world.  It wasn’t the time for judgment, and so people misunderstand the thing about judgment, so much so that just like in the King James here they put it down as ‘condemning’.  It’s not about condemnation in the first place!  It’s not about a time for judgment, and people misunderstand judgment.  Judgment is when you begin to change.  Judgment is when you begin to yield yourself to God.  You’re being judged then as to yielding yourself to God’s spirit.  And certainly you’re judged if you reject God; but when you’re given that opportunity that’s when you enter into judgment.  That’s why it says, ’...judgment now is upon the house of God.’  When you come into God’s Church judgment now is upon you, it’s in your life, because you’re being judged now. The world isn’t being judged; they don’t know the truth!  They’re not out of Egypt yet!  We were brought out of Egypt spiritually, and so when God brings you out of spiritual Egypt then you can enter into that.

...but that the world through Him might be saved.  So, it’s not for the sake of judgment, to be judged, but for the sake of being saved.  Began with the Passover; that’s why He came into the world - something the Jews just wouldn’t accept.  They wouldn’t accept!  What an incredible thing that took place on the 14th day.  They didn’t keep Seder and all that garbage at the end of the 14th into the 15th at that time – they KNEW when Passover was!  They KEPT Passover day at that time in the proper timing.  They changed all that stuff later on as time went on.  They knew when it was then!  It wasn’t until later on some of the High Priests and others of the rabbis got together and they started changing things, just like the Catholic church did.  And you want to know the main reason why they did?  The same reason the Catholic church did what they did.

Why did the Catholic church change everything from Passover to Easter? ...giving credibility to Sunday?  Same reason the Jews wanted to move Passover away from the period of time, because then Christ couldn’t fulfill it and He wouldn’t have been the Passover – because it goes into the 15th; it’s on the 15th you have the big meal.  They’d moved it by a whole day. They go through this rigmarole of when the sun beings to go down on the 14th!  When I have read the things the rabbis have written it’s just like the Catholics did in their writing about the trinity – all this gobbledegook, loopidy loop taking you round in circles.  It sounds intellectual and for someone who doesn’t know history, someone who doesn’t know the truth, doesn’t know God’s Word, that’s what it does, it’s kind of in circles.  “This is too much for me; I’ll just let the rabbi’s do it. It’s too much for me, I’ll just let the priests do it, the pope knows.  So if he knows and if he tells us not to read the Bible we won’t read the Bible.  If he just wants us to focus on catechisms that’s what we’ll do, we’ll just think about catechisms and focus on catechisms and have catechism class,” But don’t bother opening your Bible, they say, because it’s a mystery, we’ll tell you what it means. Crazy!  Sorry about that but I can’t help myself.  It’s a sick world, what mankind has done, the intellectuals of this earth.

We had an intellectual in God’s Church.  I don’t know how many of you remember, because only those of you primarily that lived through Philadelphia, some of you have heard from sermons since that time, but I know you know.  You heard Mr. Armstrong talking about people who were intellectuals.  He talked about intellectualism and how dumb that was, the intellectualism of people who come up with ideas about evolution and different ideas in religion.  But a lot of people don’t know what he was battling was right within his midst, of an individual who sat in his classes, of an individual who became an evangelist, of an individual who began to teach wrong things to God’s Church about Passover.  Incredible!  And some still hold him in high esteem.  There’s an evangelist out there that every once in a while in his television program still mentions this individual as though it carries credibility, and he did more damage to God’s Church, more harm to God’s Church than any other evangelist I can think of, because he taught so many students at Ambassador College who became ministers and they believed that – you know what I’d like to say that offends some people – bull, and what comes out the rear end!  Seriously!  That’s what it’s like – smelly, stinky, garbage, filth on a spiritual plane to God’s people.  And then these ministers go out and teach that garbage!  It’s sick what took place!

I mention that because don’t ever allow yourself to become intellectual.  Understand how God works in His Church.  If that evangelist had understood how God works he would have held on to what God gave through Mr. Armstrong and he wouldn’t have deviated and began to teach his own thing in classes where he knew he could get by with it - because they weren’t being recorded, who’s going to know – and so he could bring on his little ideas and give them to people through time.  And that’s what happened in the ministry too, because sermons weren’t recorded as a whole (they began to be later on in time, some began to do that), but in those situations ministers who were out here in an area away from headquarters, they could begin to teach, they could begin to add their little things here and there.

First time I saw that in a blatant way was after I had graduated from Ambassador College and went back to this one area, and a minister was reading through ‘The Pastor General’s Report’ and he changed the wording.  He showed me, and he was so proud of what he did!  Because he was showing me how he wanted the people to respond to something because of a problem he was dealing with there and what he wanted them to hear, so he put it like it was Mr. Armstrong’s words. How sick is that?  ...to change a ‘Pastor General’s Report’?

Mr. Armstrong used to send out, on a regular basis once a month, what was called a ‘Pastor General’s Report’ to all the ministry and he would address the ministry about various things and about the Church and so forth.  And I don’t know how he did all he did!  I have trouble thinking about focusing on things – and people get upset sometimes about it, “Why aren’t you posting more on the website, on the ronaldweinland.com thing?”  I find that incredibly difficult.  He had a talent and ability, a gift for doing those things, and it boggles my mind he was able to do what he did, as much as he did.

Let’s go back here: He who believes on Him, believes Him, believes what He taught.  So many don’t just believe what He has to say.  ...is not condemned/is not judged: but he who does not believe is condemned/judged already, because he has not believed in the name, it’s not... of the only begotten Son of God. You have to believe who He is, yes, and indeed His titles, what He’s called, who He’s called, for the purpose of learning from it – but it’s His message over and over again.  That’s what people don’t like.  But what’s incredible to realize is now God is going to begin opening the door through the very process of being humbled – that’s how God works.  I was called through a process of how God worked with me to humble me, otherwise I wouldn’t have listened.  I went through several things in my life to knock me down, to humble me, so that when the time came I was ready to listen because I was low, I was knocked down low, my pride had been stepped on, I had a lot of hot air just blown right out of me.  And if that hadn’t have happened I would not have listened, because I know how I thought about people who were ‘religious’ before that.  I wouldn’t have given them the time of day; I ran from them as a whole and would argue with them, as a whole, about different things.   I listened and my mind was opened up, I was ready.  God knows how to prepare us and He knows how to prepare the people in the world that He’s going to bring on into the Millennial period and it’s going to be through hardship, it’s going to be through difficult things, to take away their idols.  That’s what He did to me; took away my idols.

And this is the condemnation, that light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light; it’s the nature of man, it’s the nature of spiritual Egypt; people love darkness rather than light.  It started from the very beginning - Adam and Eve; to think you can walk through the darkness of the forest and not be seen by God?  ...going to hide from God?  The human mind, being as physical as it is, isn’t able to think on a spiritual plane, not understanding, no, God knows where I am all the time; He knows every thought in my head!  He knows me inside and out!

...because their deeds were evil.  That’s the way it is.  Our deeds, our doing; it isn’t because we want to do God’s will, it isn’t because we want to obey God.  That’s what people fight against. You hit their idols, hit Christmas – whew, boy do you get some backlash!  “What’s wrong with the birth of Christ?  What’s wrong with observing Jesus’ birthday?  It’s not that day, that’s fine if it was in September, no big deal!  What’s wrong with observing it later on and giving gifts to everybody?  Isn’t that a nice, cozy, feel good type of thing to do?  It’s good for children.”

Verse 20 - For every one who does evil hates the light; people don’t want the light, they don’t want their lives illuminated, because you know what happens?  You’re going to have to change!  If you accept what God says, if you start to accept the light you’ve got to change, and people don’t want to change.  I remember a short time after my mind was opened, in a little town we lived in, that several of our relatives came down, they were there one night and we started talking about some of these things.  And I remember that time so vividly in my mind thinking about all the things I began to talk to them about, telling them about God’s plan, and there was interest, there was excitement for a while – for just while that talking was taking place – and sharing with them because you are excited.  As a whole, you all make the same mistake.  When you come in the Church you want others to be excited!  You’re excited about the Sabbath, you’re excited about who Israel is, the United States being Manasseh, Great Britain and the Commonwealth of Nations being Ephraim, and you get excited about that, you want to share that and you want to share with them the captivities and what took place.  It’s not just a nation over in the Middle East.  And they’re enthralled; they’ve never heard anything like that so there’s interest.  But after a while you start getting the cold shoulder.  You don’t understand why, necessarily.  I don’t know if I really understood it fully, what took place, until later on when you realize they can’t receive the same thing.  And you start hearing sermons that the human mind, the carnal mind resists God and you begin to...duh, you’re drawn, they’re not.  That’s how it works.  You can’t see unless God gives it to you.

And so, people don’t come to the light because their deeds are evil; they’re not God’s way.  Otherwise they’re going to have to change. For every one who does evil hates the light neither comes to the light, or else his deeds would be reproved. They’d have to change. But he who does/practices/lives, what that word means here, does/practices/lives truth comes to the light, so that his deeds might become manifest, a reality, as they are worked/accomplished, if you will, fulfilled in God. That’s how we grow, in God and God in us.  And we want what is true to live in our lives, to become a reality, and so we begin practicing, we begin to do something.

I’ve heard of people at different times saying that they’re not going to do certain things and then - going back in time in history, some people at Ambassador - that they didn’t want to do certain things because that would be hypocritical, because that’s not them.  DUH!  That’s the whole idea of it!  You start practicing what is right because it’s not you!  Get a life!  That’s what God called you to, to do something different until it becomes you!  And there are people who honestly believe that!  “I’m not going to be hypocritical.  I’m not going to do that because that wouldn’t be true to who I am.”  Well, God doesn’t want you to be true to who you are, He wants you to be true to Him.  He wants you to change and overcome and become something different, to let your mind be transformed!  And the way you do it is you start doing things differently!  You can’t understand different things unless you start doing it the right way!

It can have something to do with something as simple as hair, clothing, physical things that we do that God says to do it a certain way, to do it in moderation.  If you’ve always done it to the extreme and you’re so deeply embedded with the world and the fashions of the world and that’s what you see, you’re not going to be able to see something different until you practice something different.  And then when you start practicing the moderation you actually change your clothing, as an example... if a woman, as an example, has which is the style of the day – seems like it’s just getting lower and lower and lower... just let it all hang out – that’s not good and it’s not good to the human mind.  It’s not good to man and it’s not good to woman, and they don’t realize what they do to themselves in something as simple and basic as that!  Incredible!  But they’re never going to understand what’s right and what’s sound until they start practicing it, and then their minds can change.  Until that time their minds – they can’t really see it! It’s like, “What’s the big ta-doo?”  Well, you can’t understand it until you starting doing what’s right.

That’s the way it is with all of God’s law!  When you start practicing then you learn.  The more you keep the Sabbath the more you learn about its importance and what its function is and what its purpose is and the spiritual part of it, in every way!  And you grow in it.  The Holy Days, everything that God... you look through all the laws of God – the more you practice them the more it can become you, because of God’s spirit in you.

God is now preparing to create a powerful Israel –not a physical nation but a spiritual one – by leading His people.  Who are His people?  ‘God so loved the world...’  It’s all mankind!  It’s not the physical nation, that’s just a part of all of it.  ...by leading His people, the people He loves (and He loves all)... For God so loved the earth, the creation of mankind for the purpose to become Elohim.  Incredible!

And so God deeply desires that ALL come to see that He loves all mankind.  God looks forward to the time that the descendants of Abraham, all of them, come to understand some very basic things in life.  All of those who have had problems and difficulty with dealing with their past life of knowing where they came from... has been a stickler, has been a difficult things because of Hagar and knowing she wasn’t his wife, and there’s a stigma that goes with that.  And sometimes things happen in our lives where we have this stigma, this inferiority type complex, and the reality is we are inferior.  The way we overcome that is God in us and to change and to become what God wants us to be.  We’re not to be haughty and prideful and lifted up.  But because of those things sometimes people grasp a hold of other things to make them feel better – it has to be their own.  That’s a tough thing.

And so we battle with things in our minds, and cultures have; the friction between Reuben and the rest of Israel, hasn’t changed much from the time that he betrayed his brother Joseph, sold him.  He was primarily head over that, right?  And the jealousies that were there, the jealousies having to do with who has the birthright, who does it pass through and all the things that go on sometimes in families that sometimes is hard for us to grasp, it actually carries out generation to generation to generation and it did there until they became nations.  Incredible!  And so to bring people back to understand, “I love you all, but there was a plan to be worked out so that people could learn from it; so that humanity, mankind, could come to a point in time where they could conquer the oppression, the perversion, the bondage of the past and be made free.”  And that’s not an easy thing to go through.  That’s why it takes God’s help and God’s life in us.

Let’s turn over to Isaiah 42, because the world through time has never really understood God’s plan and has always, as a whole, fully misunderstood what God is doing.  And because of ignorance people have oppressed others or allowed themselves to be oppressed, allowed themselves to believe religious ideas that are not from God that they think are from God, because of oppression; ideas that people have because they think they have a relationship with God or because they haven’t thought they’ve had one and are jealous of others, and corresponding attitudes have been manifested toward others consisting of some or a combination of most of these things – bitterness, jealousy, inferiority, superiority, haughtiness, resentment, hatred, anger, etcetera, etcetera...  This incredible mixture in all of humanity, in the people that are out there.

And so again, God desires that at this Feast we focus upon the incredible story that has only been truly focused upon in part in the past but now is far more powerful in a far more powerful manner, if you will, as God’s plan is now progressing forward in a powerful way: the truth about Israel.

Isaiah 42:1 - Behold My servant, whom I uphold; My elect, in whom My soul delights; I have put, ‘filled him with’ is what the word means, My spirit upon Him: He shall bring forth judgment/justice; because you see, a lot of that has to do with judgment is so misunderstood, and it’s about justice, it’s about the things that are done God’s way, not the way man thinks upon things.  And it says, He shall bring forth justice, that’s what the word is here, not judgment, to the Gentiles. But people read things into it because they don’t understand God’s plan.  And so people who have translated Bibles have read and translated them in their thinking, in their thoughts, of what they perceive God to be like, in what they’ve been taught about religion.  He shall bring forth justice to the Gentiles; and it’s always used in both the Old and New Testament as a whole just having to do with the nations, of people of every nation, if you will, and generally used because it’s not specifically mentioning a specific nation like Israel or Judah and it’s referring to all nations.

He shall not shout, nor cause His voice to be lifted up in the street, literally means here, ‘no loud speeches in the streets’; A bruised reed He shall not break; it’s about the Messiah.  A bruised reed He shall not break; in other words He will not be harsh, harsh in judgment – something we have to learn in God’s Church, to not be harsh in judgment.  We can tend to be that way.  The ministry failed to learn that lesson toward the end and when they were being told and warned, “Don’t be harsh in judgment.”  Those who have been given responsibility or authority, don’t be harsh in judgment and judging in working with others.

And the smoking flax He shall not quench: basically meaning that He will not ignore the least of light in judgment, about how to judge.  That’s why there’s so much said about Him judging and in judgment; and He does it according to God’s will, and things that are talked about, judgment and mercy and faith, mercy especially, the weightier matters of the law.

He shall bring forth judgment unto truth. In other words, justice of what is true, what is the truth.  Because that’s what frees people, the truth, the truth about Israel, to understanding why they were a nation, why they were made a physical nation, to understand that it’s not about them, it’s about the spiritual one that’s coming that God is leading mankind to. Making sure that true justice is carried out, or as another way of expressing this, He will bring lasting justice to all.  That’s what’s coming to this earth, true justice.  This world isn’t very just.  Man’s ways are not very just.  People will judge things....

I don’t know whether the individual did it or not, very unlikely that they did by the things that are there, and whether they did or didn’t it brought out something that happened in Italy in an individual that was convicted of a murder, and come to find out later on the prosecutor of it, his attitude, his spirit came out more and more later on.  It really is sick how human beings will, in order not to lose face, will go to extremes.  And so he desired a greater punishment then later on because they would dare to try to bring this forth and try to have it re-tried again.  And so he was crying out for a harsher judgment, and you think, “Well if you’re right, wasn’t that enough if that’s what the law really says?”  What I’m talking about here has brought out an attitude, and people aren’t just, people don’t judge things.

The legal system – man can only work within the confines of something that’s physical, but there are attitudes and feelings, there are emotions that go with those things, there are deals that are made behind the scenes, and it has nothing to do with justice.  There are so many people, because they can’t hire a strongly connected lawyer.... and the reason they are popular is because they know how to work with the law!  It’s not about what is just, it’s how they can finagle or work with things in the law, how you can get certain things dismissed because something wasn’t done properly even though someone is, you know.... a camera caught them in the act of whatever horrible crime they committed, and because of something in the law it has to be, “Oh, you can’t use that; you can’t show that to the jury. You can’t use that because it was obtained improperly.”  Some of the stupidest things out there!  It’s not about justice in this world!

That’s why we need God’s system so badly, so mightily on this earth; and thank God it’s almost here.  I hope you cry out inside for those things because of the sickness of this world you see around you.

He shall not fail in other words, He shall not quit, nor be discouraged, He will not give up, till He has set, which means ‘to established’.  ...until He has established justice, again, it’s about justice in the earth: and the isles shall wait for His law.  This world cries out for justice, it truly does, it just doesn’t understand it.  But that’s the answer to it all, that’s the answer to its problems.  Just like the United Nations; you think, “What a joke!”  It’s not about justice, it’s not about what is best for people, truly, it’s all about politics and all the things that go with it.

Thus says God the Eternal, He who created the heavens, and stretched them out; He who spread forth the earth, and that which comes out of it; He who gives breath to the people on it, and spirit to them who walk thereon: In other words, God has given all the same – not His holy spirit, but the mind, the ability to think and reason, the awesome things we have, the creative ability that if man would learn to cooperate and work together rather than being competitive and cut-throat and greedy, the blessings that could be there, that will soon be here for people when they’re taught that right way.

I the Eternal have called upon you in righteousness, and will hold your hand, and will keep you, and give you for a covenant of the people, for a light of all nations; To open the blind eyes, because people are blind.  Sometimes we forget that we were blind and we couldn’t see what was true.  And what we saw was horribly distorted and disfigured.  ...to bring out the prisoners, those bound up, is what the word means, those who are bound. And the whole world is bound up.  We were bound up and we’re still coming out of it.  Just because we’re called and baptized doesn’t mean you’re out of it yet.  You’re still coming out of it...your mind is going through a process of being healed and it takes a lifetime for the mind to be healed and to become more attuned to, more at one with the mind of God, the Word of God.

...to bring out those bound from the prison, and those who sit in darkness, that’s just the way people are here, they’re groping around in the dark!  They don’t understand that, they’re filled with pride with what they live.  Thank God they’re going to be humbled so they can finally see what’s light, so they can see what’s true, the truth.  How much is that worth for the whole world?  ‘God so loved the world...’ that’s how much it’s worth, and so much more because God has sacrificed so much more through time.

...and those who sit in darkness out of the prison house, out of the habitation, the dwelling in as it is, the confinement.  They live in...   See, what we dwell in...? We’re blessed to dwell in something different.  They dwell in confinement.  Their habitation is confinement.  Their mind is in confinement.  Their thinking is in confinement, bound up.  Ours has been made free!  It’s an awesome thing to understand!  Made free by dwelling in God and God in us.

I am the Eternal: that is My name: and My glory will I not give to another, neither My praise to graven images.  God is going to be glorified through it all.  God is going to show His power and might and what He’s able to perform.  People are going to, in time, be in such awe!  Today, they obviously aren’t.  Not just because of what happens in a fearful way but because of what happens when they’re liberated, when they’re freed, as we do, as we grow in.  But now for the whole world, made available to them. And those who are finally resurrected later on at the end, what an incredible plan God has!

Behold, the former things have come to pass, in other words, the first of things has happened.  You look back in time and you see God working through time and how He began to work at first until the time of the flood and how He began to work at the first with Abraham and then with a nation there and a people and how that finally came to fruition on a physical plane and then finally His Son coming.  And all those things, it’s like looking back and seeing these things in the beginning having been fulfilled and we just continue to move forward.

Now I declare new things: that’s what God wants us to look forward to, the new things.  And so when these things were written back in Isaiah, before even the time of Christ, He’s declaring new things, things that are to come, good news, the gospel of things that are to come to this earth.  And as time goes on He just reveals more and more; and now we’re at the pinnacle of it, the pinnacle of 6,000 years of man on the earth and God’s plan being revealed and the excitement of that, of a new world that’s about to be here, a freedom that’s going to be given to people.

Sing unto the Eternal a new song, and His praise from the ends of the earth, I think of what it says about the 144,000, when all of a sudden they’re going to sing and they’re all going to know the same song, because it comes from God.  It comes from God to be sung to God.  It’s about His Family!  It’s not because God seeks to be, as the Protestant world looks at it, to just stare at His face and we’re to be mesmerized by a face for all eternity.  It’s not what it’s about.  It goes much, much deeper than that!  It’s about His Family, that they’re able to come into that point in time where they will be able to experience God in them in a way they have never experienced it.  I have experienced in my lifetime highlights of times of God in me that are stronger than others.  We oftentimes at the Feast of Tabernacles talk about how we’re able to experience God in us and God revealing things to us and God giving us that excitement and fullness, during this time more than any other time of the year because we have eight days of sermons, we have eight days of fellowship, and there’s no other time of the year you can compare to it.

And so what’s coming... I know, I believe with all my being, because we know it, and what’s going to be given to us as a song, it is one that glorifies God indeed, because it’s about God, but it’s going to be so fulfilling in those who experience it because they’re going to experience God in a plane, in a level they never have.  I can’t comprehend; I’ve never been there - what it’s like to be a spirit being, to be in the God Family.  I look forward to it, mightily so; the older I get the mightier.

...and now I declare new things and before they spring forth I will tell you about them. Before they spring forth I will tell you about them – and that’s exactly what God is doing right now.  Before they’re brought on the scene He’s telling you about it so you can be excited and moved and motivated and be excited about what God is doing on the earth, and 6,000 years of all this now finally going to be put behind.  I can’t begin to grasp that period of time that God has lived through with mankind, toiled with mankind, mourned with mankind.

Do you have children?  When they’ve had difficult times in their life you have a little bit, just a teeny, teeny, smidgeon of what it’s like to suffer because you hurt inside for their agony.  God has hurt for 6,000 years because of the pain and the suffering of mankind!  But because He has a plan for something greater to give to him He was willing to do it.  Sacrifice! ...so that we could come to this time finally, and what’s behind it, the hundred years after the thousand, that becomes even more exciting to God.  Finally, that they can receive what He has been looking forward to for so long but they couldn’t have it yet because there are things they have to learn.  Just like children, we all have to learn things in life.  We all have to go through some tough knocks, we have to go out and do things we were told not to do to learn, DUH, that was really stupid, that was really dumb.  We learn the hard way, that’s the way we are.  We don’t learn the easy way, it doesn’t come natural.  What comes natural is the hard way, because of our nature.

Sing unto the Eternal a new song, and His praise from the end of the earth ...and all who go down to the sea, and all that is therein; the isles, in other words along the shores, and the inhabitants thereof.

Let the wilderness and the cities thereof lift their voice, the villages of Kedar, which means ‘dark’, ‘darkness’ – it’s all over the world, the villages, the places of the living, the dwelling of darkness, the villages, that Kedar does inhabits.  What does it inhabit?  All mankind, except those that have been called out of the darkness.  Everything has meaning.  Words have meaning!  When God gives things they have meaning!  Israel has incredible meaning and we need to get this physical part out of our minds – truly – us first.

...let the inhabitants of the Rock sing: the Rock; who are the inhabitants of the Rock?  Who dwells in the Rock and the Rock in us?  ...let them shout from the top of the mountains. Let them give glory to the Eternal, and declare His praise in the islands, in other words the coasts, the edge of the country, the nation. The Eternal shall go forth as a mighty one, He shall stir up jealousy like a man of war: He shall cry, yes, roar; He shall prevail against His enemies. That’s where we are; that’s where we are in time.  God is getting ready to go to war!  It’s a great battle brewing.  I know there is a great spiritual battle going on right now and magnified many times over than what it has been – many times more than it was last year at this time.  Things are immensely stirred up out there, they truly are.  Powerful – powerful – powerful!  Things going on that we cannot comprehend yet, nor do we have to yet, fully; on a spiritual plane spiritual battles being waged.

Verse 14 – For such a long time now I have held My peace; I have been still, and refrained Myself: 6,000 years of man and perhaps millions of years with a third of the angelic realm.  He’s let things continue on, intervened at different times just as He has with mankind, but as a whole He’s held back because there’s a plan to be worked out that’s great and mighty, has great and awesome purpose to save, to help people be saved.  There is no better way!  There is no better plan!  There is nothing better that ever could have been done than exactly the way God is doing it to deliver the vast majority, to give them that opportunity to become a part of His Family. There is nothing more perfect!  This is perfect in all its ways.

I have been still and refrained Myself, but now will I cry like a woman in labour; Awesome!  The anguish, the emotion, of giving birth.  This has an incredible meaning because it even talks about what the Church goes through and what happens in the world and what the world feels like, what it’s going through.  It’s like giving birth, like being in labour!  And that’s what it builds up to...that’s what it builds up to.  Sometime there are different things that happen, the nausea that goes with it, the not feeling well until finally you come down right to the very end and finally everything happens all at once, very powerfully so.  And so God gives an analogy here of something that has great emotion to it, that mixed emotion of the anguish and pain.  What do you think?  You know, God does not enjoy seeing mankind suffer!  He’s watched man do things for 6,000 years, but now, finally, to bring it to the magnitude it’s going to be and then for Himself to do what He’s going to do on that final day in order to have birth, in order to have His Kingdom come, in order to have 144,000 and His own Son come to this earth to rule and to reign.  That’s what it’s all about, but it doesn’t come easy.

I will cry like a woman in labour. I will destroy and devour all together. I will make waste mountains and hills, I’m thankful for that because the mountains and hills are governments.  Every government, every nation is going to cease.  Every nation is going to be brought down one way or another.  There will not be any government on the earth that’s left.  That’s why on the last day God will destroy every headquarter government that there is – every one of them without exception - of those who are destroying the earth, that’s where He starts, right there.  So when they communicate back and forth on that day, at the beginning of that day, and those armies, and they communicate back and all of a sudden they don’t have anyone directing them, telling them anymore, they’re on their own because it’s been wiped out.  They see what they see in the atmosphere.  Incredible what will go through the human mind.

I will make waste mountains and hills, and I will dry up all the herbs; the green plants, the green grass.  It means a lot prophetically because it’s about that which sustains them, that gives them life, that they rely upon.  It uses a term for agriculture and so forth. We have people who work in agriculture, but we are not an agrarian society like times past.  Instead, today we use other terms like the ‘greenback’, and other colors, all funny feeling and plastic and so forth; but it’s appropriately so that the biggest one of all is that.

...and I will make the rivers islands, turn river valleys, in other words, into dry ground, and I will dry up the pools of water. Physical/spiritual – they all go together.  Physical – spiritual.

Verse 16 - And I will bring the blind by a way they have not known; They haven’t known where to go – no one has led them.  God is getting ready to lead them out of the blindness and into the light.  And they’ve never known this way; only a few through time have known this way.  I will lead them in paths/roads that they have not known: highways.  That’s why I love the example of the children of Israel coming out of Egypt and they come up to the Red Sea, and it says they didn’t go in the way of Shur, the highway of Shur.  There were two other, maybe three at that point in time, roads, ways that they could have gone, but they didn’t go that way, instead they were entrapped by the sea and by the two mountains on the side there, they couldn’t pass over those quickly enough to escape through time if they had enough time, and here Pharaoh’s armies are coming in from the one way. They’re trapped!  And God says He took them, basically the same thing, by a way they didn’t know because it didn’t exist – through the Red Sea.  He had to open it up.  And so God was making this way available, a new way that people have never had until God makes that way available.  God is the one who has to do it just like He did it with every one of us. You can’t be here unless God called you here!  You can’t know the truth unless God gives it to you!

I will lead them in paths they have not known, roads/highways is what the word is here...I will make darkness light before them; What a beautiful thing when that happens.  When all of a sudden you see the despicable, sick truth about Easter, when you finally see the truth about Christmas, when you finally see the truth about Seder, when you finally see the truth about sun-day! What an illumination when all of a sudden you see the truth about what you believed and that lights there and, “Man was I hoodwinked! Man, I understand the world and the turmoil in the world, the confusion of religions and everybody out here doing everything... I understand why there are hundreds and thousands of denominations and churches and beliefs; everything’s so confusing!”  And you learn the truth about the trinity, that there is no such thing!  No such thing as a ‘three musketeer God Family’, that that’s a joke.  That the truth is there’s one Almighty Eternal God with an awesome plan for saving mankind.

I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things to become straight. He straightens out all the things that are lies and leads us into the truth. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them. They shall be turned back, or turned or returned to, used in different ways, in other words, as by repentance.  That’s what it means in the Bible over and over again when it says, ‘they’ll be turned to Me’, or ‘return to Me’.  It’s about repentance!

...they shall be greatly ashamed who trusted in graven images; those who have those great church centers and city centers throughout Europe – they’re going to be ashamed of those places that they look up to still with a measure of pride even though they don’t darken the doors of it, as a whole.

...who say to the molten images, You are our gods. Incredible!  The ideas, the beliefs, the things that people look up to; it’s not just in religion.

Listen you deaf; and look, you blind, God’s given people the ability to hear and see, so that you may see.  So, God is bringing all nations to this point so that they can hear and see.  What an awesome thing!

Then it gets very specific concerning Israel, in the former things, the things that have happened from the first, as we read earlier.  Who is blind, but My servant? This is about Israel.  It’s what the context is... or deaf, as My messenger whom I have sent? As one translation so aptly says, ‘No one is so blind and deaf as His messenger, His chosen servant.’

Who is blind as perfect, interesting word here, ‘perfect’; it’s the word for ‘covenant people’- it’s a reference here for ‘covenant people’, not just the word here but that’s what it’s referring to here as a part of this. That’s what the word has to do with, what it’s referring to.

...and blind as the Eternal’s servant? It’s talking about people who became a nation, and knowing full well they couldn’t keep His law, but He led them right up to Mount Sinai and gave them the law.  And so He’s making it clear what Israel did, what Israel was like, that they were not spiritual.

You have seen so great things, but you haven’t observed a thing; they came through the Red Sea, they were in the wilderness exactly 40 years to the 40 days God said they would be.  Then they came in and they became a great nation and God conquered other nations before them.  They saw great things through time – their history is filled with things that God has done for them through time.  You have seen so great things, but you haven’t observed a thing; in other words the word means ‘to keep’, ’to guard’.  You haven’t kept, guarded, a thing that He gave that they should have kept.

You have heard so much, but haven’t listened to a thing.  So again, this is about a physical Israel, and recognized through the context by most who have translated these verses, but they haven’t understood it.

Verse 21 - The Eternal is well pleased, now it goes to say, ‘for His righteousness sake’ but that’s not what’s translated here, that’s not really what it’s saying.  The LORD is well pleased, the word means, ‘well please’ means ‘eager for, desires greatly’, the word is ‘justice’.

God the Eternal is eager for/desires greatly justice; That’s what He is leading mankind to, that which is just on the earth, that which He just said about His Son, in essence, about the Messiah, about His true servant.  Because it’s not about what Israel delivers, in the past, the old nation, it’s about what His Son delivers.  That’s what the first phases of the verses are about.  It’s talking about the Messiah; it’s talking about the Christ.

...therefore He will magnify the law and make it honourable. That’s what He did through Jesus Christ.  It goes back through His first, referring to the first here because it’s about what He’s going to bring.  So it’s referring back to those things.

But this people, His other servant, if you will, the one who bared the name of Israel; but this people robbed, the word means ‘plundered and spoiled’...and it goes on to say and spoiled it; So again, words that go together here about plundering, robbing, spoiling.  ...have spoiled it. What did they spoil?  The law!  ‘Therefore He will magnify the law’, they, on the other hand, have done the opposite, but this people have spoiled it; the ‘it’ is referring back to that law that God is going to make honourable through His Son. That’s why Jesus Christ, some of the first things He said, “I didn’t come to do away with the law and the prophets, I came to magnify.”

...and they all became ensnared in holes, interesting words when you look them up sometimes, ‘as to bore’; it’s like they dug their own hole!  ‘as to bore’...and they all became ensnared in holes, and they are hid/withdrawn, in other words, in/into prison houses, dwelling in bondage/restraint: that’s what it literally means in the Hebrew here, dwelling in.  That’s what happens, they’ve dug themselves holes instead of living by what God gave to them and became bound, in bondage, in restraint. They became prey and none delivered them; and for a spoil, in other words they made themselves a spoil to others, because when you disobey God you open yourself up to being conquered, and literally as a nation that’s what they did over and over again, they had to go into captivity...so much so they had to go into captivity.  ...and none said/uttered/cried out, to return, to turn back to God. They didn’t cry out in so many of those things they went through – not genuinely so!

Who among you will listen to this?  Who will give attention and hear concerning this time?  Now, in other words, to come.  Who gave Jacob to be plundered, and Israel to be spoiled? Didn’t the Eternal against whom they have sinned? You sin against God you cut yourself off from His favour, from His help.  And that’s their example over and over and over again.  Israel, as I said yesterday, we talked about yesterday, was not there for a good light and a good example.  On the contrary!

Because they would not walk in His ways, neither were they obedient to His laws.  Therefore He has poured upon him the fury of His wrath; a matter of judgment again here now this time, and the strength of battle: and it has set him on fire round about, yet he does not yet know it; and as it burns him, yet he does not lay it to heart.  I think about what’s taking place now.  It’s coming down.  It’s burning up.  It’s crashing in on itself.  It’s imploding on itself and God is allowing that.  Interesting, interesting...A part of the defeat of Satan is he’s allowed to get it so large and it can’t sustain itself anymore – and he is trying to save it.  Incredible!  Trying to save it, what he built up.  He doesn’t want what’s coming to the U.S.  Interesting.  Something that God is making very, very clear.

Let’s go back to Isaiah 19: going to read a couple of verses that we covered yesterday and then jump on down a little farther because we came into a specific area here farther into the context when it started talking about things that had to do with the Great White Throne and the period before that, the Millennial period.  But I want to take you back today to go into some of these first few verses again and then jump ahead to where I didn’t have time for yesterday.

The truth about Israel, since the moment that God began to deliver them and to work to make of them a nation, is not good.  Their example has never been good, and when people come to understand that it’s going to be a part of helping to make them free – is when people come to understand things about Christmas and Easter as we talked about earlier.  When you begin to see the things that were wrong it frees you.

Isaiah 19:1 - The burden, as we went through yesterday in that sermon ‘An Historic Feast’.  The burden, the lifting, as a load or a weight, of Egypt. It’s been a burden to mankind!  It’s about a spiritual thing! Behold, the Eternal rides upon a swift cloud, and shall come into/upon Egypt: and the idols of Egypt shall be moved, in other words, caused to be shaken till they’re destroyed, at His presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt: I love it!  It’s going to waste away, it’s going to dissolve, it’s going to be dissolved and it’s going to vanish, that’s what this word means in the Hebrew, to melt.  That’s what’s going to happen to it, in the midst of it. In other words, in the midst of God’s presence.

And I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians: that example of it becoming so great, the Babylonish system, the system of sin, the system that Satan has infiltrated everything in the world and made it its pinnacle today in the world, through what’s epitomized by the economic system of the world.  It’s going to implode upon itself.  Ripple after ripple after ripple – banks, central banks are in a heap of big trouble and they can’t get out of it.  The world has to have a horrible disaster.  Some have even talked about it, interestingly so.  Some understand history in Europe and they talk about war.  “War is the only answer.”  What an incredible thing that man comes to a point where he realizes there is no way out of this, it’s going to happen to everyone.  War.  Self-preservation.

Let’s jump on ahead to verse 17 - And the land of Judah, we talked about that yesterday; the ‘praised of God’.  If you understand the end-time those who are the praised of God are those whom God lives in, dwells in.  It’s talking about the Church on a spiritual plane.  ...shall be a terror unto Egypt, and every one who makes mention, in other words, that this is brought to their mind, to their remembrance, their ability to see, thereof shall be afraid in himself, because of the purpose, in other words, that’s revealed, the counsel/the advisement of the Eternal of hosts, In other words, what comes from God when people begin to hear certain things, to understand what might be in their minds because there is that doubt, but there is that fear as well because it’s going to be crammed down their throat, again and again and again, rapidly so.  As it says here...which He had determined/declared so against it.

Now verse 19 - notice - In that day shall there be an altar, in other words for that which must be sacrificed or offered up in fire, to/before the Eternal in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar, and that which is set up or erect, in other words, for God’s purpose, at the border/territory thereof to the Eternal.  We’re talking about time here.  We’re talking about the difference between Egypt and a new age.  The difference between the last 6,000 years and the Millennium.  We’re at the border of it, we’re right there, from going from one place into another; as much as the Israelites going out of Egypt into Sinai, and supposed to go into the Promised Land but because of their fault, failings, and so forth.

And so that’s the terminology that’s being used here in a prophetic thing; not of something that already took place in the past but of something that’s getting ready to take place in the future, and that future is happening to be now.

It says, And it shall be for a sign, because God’s going to allow – He talks about things that are going to take place in a very powerful way, things that are going to be unleashed in a very powerful way upon the earth, and describes things in a different ways.  In some ways as a matter of that which is going to be sacrificed, the things of Egypt are going to be offered up, they’re going to be sacrificed.  Not in the sense of something that’s good but that which is bad.

I think of the scriptures back here in Revelation. I’ll just read it to you quickly: Revelation 19:15 – when it talks about the return of Jesus Christ – and out of His mouth shall go a sharp sword, and with it He should smite the nations and He shall rule them with a rod of iron, and He treads the winepress...there’s the example of a winepress when you do so and you make....you know, they stomp on the grapes and whatever and out comes wine.  It’s a good thing.  This is not a good thing here.  ...treads the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God.  And so it talks about some of those things that are then going to take place on the earth and what God is going to do and what Jesus Christ is going to do on the day He returns.  And all these things put together as we go on and we’ll see here as we read the rest of the story.

Isaiah 19:20 - And it shall be for a sign, and for a witness unto the Eternal of hosts, a witness... we’re going to learn more about what that means, of what we’ve observing at the end of this age, the importance of it, the magnitude of it, and why a book was entitled, ‘2008 – God’s Final Witness’.  It brought us up to the time of that, of what’s taking place, and it ended a period of time of God working with the world and what’s going to come together in a short period of time that truly pictures the entire period of time, of what man has been like and what God has been like the whole time.  God has been merciful the whole time.  He says, ‘I’ve held back; I have allowed it to go on.’  He’s been very patient, very merciful.

And it shall be a sign and for a witness unto the Eternal of hosts in the land of Egypt: for they shall cry unto the Eternal because of the oppressors, and He shall send them a Saviour, and a great one/a mighty one, again, it’s about Jesus Christ, and He shall deliver them. Finally!  Finally it’s come to that point in time where He’s going to be sent back, where He’s going to come back and deliver mankind from Egypt, from the oppression...for those who cry out.  Because not all are going to cry out in truth at all for God, for God’s help, but God’s going to send deliverance, primarily for those who do cry out – that’s how it works.

And the Eternal shall be known to Egypt and the Egyptians shall know the Eternal in that day. What an incredible thing!  It’s not talking about the land of Egypt, physically, it’s talking about a world, that all of a sudden those who were in bondage, those who were in spiritual Egypt, all of a sudden they begin to come to know God.  They’re going to come face to face with God, if you understand, on that last day, even those who have no belief whatsoever in anything to do about God.  Those who are in bondage to Buddha, or whatever it might be, different ideas that exist out there that are so far out.

And the Eternal shall be known to Egypt and the Egyptians shall know the Eternal in that day and shall do sacrifice and oblation.  Yes, they shall vow a vow unto the Eternal and perform it.  You know, when people come to repentance, when people are brought to repentance and they reject, and they come to see more and more... there’s a process of time here that goes on into the Millennium.  It starts before that but it goes on into the Millennium.  As they continue to do these things, as they continue to repent, just like we do.  What do we do when we come to baptism?  “My life is yours, God. Thank you for deliverance.  Thank you for blessing me to see the things I see.  I see you now. I see the world now.”  And that’s what people come to, that’s what God is bringing them to, it’s a part of delivering from Egypt.

Verse 22 – and the Eternal shall strike Egypt and He shall strike and heal; Isn’t that amazing?  He’s going to strike it and then heal it!  That’s what He does to us, that’s what He did to me to get my attention.  There are things that had to happen in my life or I would never have listened...and then He began the healing process in me.  For those who respond, when we respond, it’s in repentance, it’s in a process that can begin a healing process, and that’s what God’s aim is.

...and they shall return, or turn to the Eternal and He shall be entreated to them and shall heal them. When you cry out to God because you see the light, because you see what is true, you no longer are in darkness, you no longer are blind, it leads to a healing process, and the world begins 1,000 years of healing.  Incredible!

...in that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, He does begin to talk about a duality here, of physical things that have spiritual meaning – a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrians shall come into Egypt and the Egyptian unto Assyria, and the Egyptian shall serve with the Assyrians.  In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land. Names have meaning.  God has purpose in what He designs and what He brings together.  And literally there are going to be things here that are going to happen on a physical plane, of peoples that don’t get along now, that don’t work well together now, that in time are going to be an awesome blessing to the earth when they work together. The Assyrian and those of descendants of Abraham in the Middle East through Ishmael, and others through the descendants of Abraham, because there are many others in that mixture as well that are still descendents of Abraham, they just don’t know it.

Verse 25 – Whom the Eternal of hosts shall bless saying, Blessed be Egypt; from the words that have to do with ‘besieged and fortified’.  What an incredible thing – besieged and fortified – that which God does, something that has to happen... He says, I will strike it and heal it.  Incredible, the peoples who are able to become literally spiritual Israel, but it’s a process of something that God is going to do.  And He’s showing here, He’s revealing in one verse what He’s doing for the earth, what He’s doing for all peoples, for all nations.  Egypt, My people – to make them His people, that’s what He’s saying, strike it and then heal it to make them His people.  And Assyria, it’s a word that means ‘a step’...a step, progressing forward, a beginning.  ...and Assyria the work of My hands, God is able to do that!  Incredible!  ...and Israel, because this is what it leads everyone to, ‘to prevail with God’ – Mine inheritance. That’s what God looks forward to.  It wasn’t about the physical nation; it’s about the spiritual one.

So, incredible to understand the families of this world that do not grasp they’re in bondage.  I think about so many, I think about different places – Africa, South and Central America, North America, the Middle East, Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand – and so many mixtures of races, religions, etcetera, etcetera...and God’s desire is for everyone, everyone to be healed, to come to understand that He loves them.

I’ve gone through a long process in my life of coming to understand God’s love.  In the healing process in my mind, because of things I went through in my life, and I was 19 when I was called, but by that time my mind was set.  And what I came out of and what was in my mind and my thinking to that point in time that God began to heal, it took me 25 years (I was ordained) to where I could say, “God, I love You.”  In spirit and in truth.  Never said it before that.  I couldn’t say it.  See?

So we go through incredible things sometimes and it’s hard to understand the mercy, the patience, the love of God to where we come to understand the depth of His love; and we go through a lot, we truly do.  And I mention that because sometimes people say, “You were a minister?  You were ordained and you never told God you loved Him?”  Before I’d say it it had to be true as true could be, and I had a healing process I had to go through before I could do that.

And since that time it’s grown and grown and grown and it’s taken me a long time, even in people and people’s lives, to where I could say, “I love you.”  To where I could say that to you, “I love you.”  Very fond feelings towards God’s people, especially those, even more so, who have shared more in the early days when we came here, as an example, to New Zealand, and to Australia, and those we’ve shared things with.  And sometimes you may not understand that or know that but the depth of that love is even magnified more because there is more of a bond and things we’ve gone together with.  And those who are brought into it, it just adds more and more to the Family, it becomes more and more exciting, and we begin to develop a bond and a friendship just like you do amongst  yourselves.

So we grow in those things to where we can say those things, genuinely so, to where it’s truly out of us.  We are so screwed up!  We are so messed up as human beings!  Our minds are such a... but to begin to have things that are a matter of spirit and truth – it’s such a beautiful thing before God.  To be true to things, to be true to what God has given to you, it’s an awesome thing, it truly is.  You don’t get there overnight; it’s a long process... long process.

If you’ve told God you love Him, that’s good.  If early on, right after the day of baptism you told God, “God, I love you.”  Wait 25 years, wait 10 years, you will have a love that makes that look like... well, anyway, you’ll see; it grows and grows and grows and becomes more intense and more exciting as time goes on.

And so people don’t know - it’s an awesome thing - they’re in bondage, they’re enslaved, and what a horrible, horrible thing.  They don’t understand they’re enslaved to ideologies, toward so many things out here.  I think of the financial system that people are enslaved to and they just don’t understand how their minds work.

So, this is a historic Feast of Tabernacles and God’s giving us more of an understanding of that and the excitement that He has for this and we’re able to share in this.  That’s what’s so exciting!  God blesses us to share.  That’s what it’s about.  Family is about sharing and He desires greatly to share more and more with us.

Let’s go back here to Isaiah 11.  There is so much in Isaiah that talks about the Millennium.  Let me get back here, just... if I step on one of the fellows toes out here, I don’t mean to, but you know, chapter 11 that we’re talking about here is obvious about it, we’re going to discuss here in a moment, but when you start it from the very beginning and some of the things it goes through and chapter 2 it gets right into it.

Isaiah 2:1 - The word of Isaiah the son of Amoz concerning Judah and Jerusalem. It shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Eternal’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, again, governments; God’s government is going to be established on the top of it all.  God is going to reign over all peoples of the earth, and the whole context...

Verse 4 -  ....they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: you know that statue in front of the United Nations that’s a farce and a joke, a disgusting thing because they don’t know the magnitude of what God is doing, they don’t grasp the beauty of what God is doing in this verse. So much of Isaiah is about this time obviously.

Isaiah 11:1 - And there shall come forth a rod/twig/branch/twig out of the stem, talking about the stalk or the trunk of Jesse; talking about a tree here and then that budding part that begins to come out here talking about the son of Boaz, the father of David, and a Branch, meaning ‘a shoot’ or ‘a sprout’ here, shall grow out of his roots: And the spirit of the Eternal shall rest upon Him, and the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear/awe of the Eternal; And shall make Him of quick understanding in the fear/awe of the Eternal: and He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes, again, about Jesus Christ over and over again throughout the Bible; things about what He was going to fulfill and what He was going to do and how He would serve God in a very powerful way being His own Son, being of His own Mind, being the Word of God made flesh, the Logos.  Again here, awesome things!

And it says, He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes, like man does with prejudice and minds that are messed up and can’t understand why they judge the way they do.  We learn that through a lifetime!  The more you grow the more you learn how you judge and you see the prejudices sometimes in your mind and you conquer them and overcome them.  That’s how your growth is in the Church, of why there are times you don’t get along with certain people and so forth – it’s because of prejudices in your mind, of things that are not healed in your mind, of wrong thinking in your mind that has to be healed.  If we think wrong about someone it’s because of something we’re holding onto that we haven’t yet conquered, that we haven’t yet seen in our mind!

...shall not judge after the sight of His eyes, neither reprove, in other words, ‘correct’ or decide something after the hearing of His ears: And that’s what we do sometimes; the first story you hear sometimes is what you make your judgment on, the first one to come to you and tell you a side of a story.  If there are two children and one comes and tells you a story first, this elaborate story, the tendency is, if you’re not careful, you’re going to believe that one first because they came to you first and you got this in your mind.  And we don’t realize how things can be programmed in our minds and swayed in our thinking.

...and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and shall smite the earth with the rod of His mouth, and it’s with the truth, that’s what cuts deep, the two-edged sword.  That’s what strikes mankind more than anything else.  ...and with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked. And though that’s going to happen, what He says is going to come to pass.  What He does on that last day as He’s coming back, Jesus Christ...and righteousness shall be the girdle of His loins, and faithfulness the girdle of His reins. And then we get to live that because it’s through Him, through His life in us, through His being our Passover and through that life that begins to dwell in us that we begin to experience the same things in our life.  We grow in the same things in our life.

Yesterday we went on to read some things about the Last Great Day and so forth, but let’s go on down to verse 11 - And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Eternal shall set His hand again the second time, and we talked about that duality here and what will be accomplished in Christ, purposed at both the beginning of the Millennium and then going on right in the Great White Throne because it’s why some of this is mixed together; to recover the remnant/the rest/the remaining of His people,  And so God has a plan for all mankind, that’s what it’s all about, of freeing everyone from Egypt, bringing them into Israel, into the Promised Land, to be able to prevail with God, to begin the process that we’ve been blessed to have in our life.

...which are left, in other words, left behind from Assyria, and from Egypt, from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And He shall set up an ensign/a standard which is set up for the nations, and shall, again, assemble the outcasts, those cast down, those oppressed, those in bondage, in essence, of Israel, and gather together the dispersed/the scattered/the shattered of Judah, even the Church and what’s happened with the Church literally, from the four corners of the earth. So, God’s purpose is for all mankind, especially those too that He began a process in, and they’re never forgotten in any fashion or form.

And so again, awesome, powerful what God gives to us that’s going to be accomplished in and through Jesus Christ.  Prophecies in Isaiah 19 that are over and over again about Jesus Christ.  Let’s go over to Luke 2, because God makes it very clear in all those prophecies that it’s a matter of His Son and what He’s doing through His Son that these things are coming to pass, just like we read in Isaiah 42 earlier where it said, ‘...behold My Servant whom I uphold, My elect...’

Luke 2:8 - And there were in the same country shepherds dwelling in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold the angel of the Lord came unto them, and the glory of the Lord was shining round about them; and they were deeply afraid. And the angel said to them, Do not fear: for behold, I bring you good news of/with great joy, which shall be to all people.  God wants us to have that picture – to get the thing out of our mind about physical peoples, about any specific nation.  It’s about God’s... we are in essence Ambassadors for a new nation, a new world.  That’s what we live.

...which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Messiah, the Lord, the Christ.  So began to be stated very early on – Luke 2 – things that some did not want to receive, did not want to believe.  We were talking a little bit about this last night; so here’s one of the earliest places that some of this was comment was made, and certainly there are beings who heard it, but to what depth they grasp it and stuff we’ll learn later on.

Verse 25 - And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation/the comfort of Israel: waiting for the comfort of Israel... and the holy spirit was upon him. And it was revealed to him by the holy spirit, so the point of this is that when, in times past if we’ve read these things or we think about these things we generally stop at thinking about Israel, or really even more specifically about Judah because that’s where He came.  And this goes far beyond that!  The consolation, the comfort of Israel is not about the physical nation; it’s the spiritual one.  That’s what it’s all about!  These prophecies that we just read in Isaiah 42, and 19, and 11, are about Jesus Christ and what He is doing, what God is doing through Him to fulfill these things concerning His spiritual Israel.

And it was revealed to him by the holy spirit that he should not see death until he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came by, in other words, by inspiration of the spirit into the temple: and when the parents...he was moved!  Sometimes we don’t know why we’re moved to do some of the things we do.  Had a little bit of that conversation last night too.  There are things that work out in time that you realize God inspired you to do something, God inspired you to think something, to act upon something, because God’s in your life.

... and he came by, and as the word is, by inspiration of the spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do with him according to the custom of the law, and it says, Then he took Him up in his arms and blessed God, and said, Lord, now let You Your servant depart in peace according to Your word: For my eyes have seen Your salvation, the comfort of Israel... that’s what it’s in context about.  ...my eyes have seen Your salvation which You have prepared before the face of all people; A light to enlighten all Gentiles, He was moved by God’s spirit in this.  You know, when God’s in something it’s fully of God.  It wasn’t because of his intellect, his ability, his studying of the Bible, the Old Testament or anything like that, it was because God chose him to do this, to perform this, that this would be recorded about him that there would be this testimony coming through a man, a physical human being, that most, obviously, are not going to believe, what’s said.

...for my eyes have seen Your salvation, nor understand this, ...a light to lighten the Gentiles, the nations, in other words, all people, and...it’s interesting how it’s recorded here, just knowing what it means, this word ‘and’ is used as a whole, it’s 535 times translated as ‘also’, and 132 times as ‘even’.  It’s not ‘and’.  It has greater meaning if you understand here.  ...a light to enlighten all nations, the glory of your people Israel, that’s what it’s about, even the glory, or the honour and praise, of your people Israel.  So it was about the comfort, to see the comfort of Israel, and here it’s talking about to lighten, to enlighten all nations even the glory of Israel, because that’s what they’re to become!  That’s what God is giving to mankind, that mankind can prevail with Him.  That’s why it’s so important to understand what the Israel of God is all about - not a physical nation!

Let’s turn over to Acts 13.  We’ll finish here in the story having to do with... I’ll read this one quickly, we have time for another one; two in Acts here.  Acts 13 first to get a bit of a background here:  Acts 13:46 - Then Paul and Barnabas had great boldness, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing you put it away from you, and, it says here, and thereby have judged yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, and so he’s telling them, the Jewish people here, in essence here as the story has gone on, but seeing you put it away from you and thereby judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting  life, then we now turn to the Gentiles. What I told you earlier!  So here is where Paul is talking about this.  “You have rejected this.  You have not held onto...”  And those prophecies we read where it says they have never held onto what God gave to them.  And so it says here, it’s now going to, in essence, what it was always intended to to fulfill God’s prophecies, to fulfill God’s purpose – it’s going to all nations.

For so has the Lord commanded, in other words, ordered it/given charge saying, I have set you to be a light of the Gentiles, in other words all other nations, that you should be for salvation to the ends/the last of the earth. In other words, all through time. And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad; What an awesome thing!  To think that you have to become a part of Judaism if you wanted to have this, if you believed, if there were things you could see to a limited way and there were things that you wanted... because there were those who proselyted, there were those who became, who wanted to become a part of, who wanted to have this relationship with God.  They rejected things they saw in a pagan world around them, on a physical plane as a whole, but there was this part that existed at that time.  And so when they heard this, and especially obviously those being drawn by God’s spirit, they were excited.  That’s where we’re at in time now.  There’s going to come a point in time here as people go through things and they begin to be drawn out of Egypt... just like you did!  And you may have a battle for a time – they’re not going to have as long a battle because things are going to happen more quickly in their life.

Sometimes... we still have people listening out there from back to 2008, 2007... I know there are still people out there because they continually come along and say, “I’ve been listening since 2008.”  Okay!  Took a little while, glad you’re here!  You’ve been wrestling with things, you’ve been wrestling with God, you know, and thankfully you’re starting to surrender and starting to keep the Sabbath or doing other things, whatever it is you needed to do in order to come on along – but welcome!  And we look forward to the rest of the world that’s going to go through this process...and that’s what this is all about, them coming through that process, and being glad, finally, for what they see, that the God they’ve heard about in whatever way is not a god of the Jewish people, not a god in Israel, it’s not a god of the Catholic church, it’s not a god of some Protestant church, whatever it might be, whether it be a Mormon, that God is a Mormon... or God is a Seventh Day Adventist, or  God is a Church of Christ, that that’s the real one there, or whatever.  All of a sudden they’re going to see what’s true and thank God, no matter where they are in the world, no matter what race, what background, what nation.  None of that matters!

So, when the Gentiles heard this they were glad and they glorified the word, the word they heard, the word of the LORD: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. What does that mean, ‘ordained’?  God had a purpose in calling them at that time.  They believed!  They were able to believe this with all their being in spirit and in truth.

Chapter 26; need to move through this, keep my stories short here.  So as Paul was taken from Jerusalem to Rome as a prisoner to present his case...you know a soldier was given charge to be with Paul as he was in a kind of ‘in home’ confinement.  There were actually more, but...

Acts 28:17 ...and he called the chief leaders and the Jews who then came to him...and this is that story.  This is where he called upon them now, did in that area, to come to him and this is what he said: And it came to pass that after three days Paul called the chief of the Jews together; and when they had come together, he said to them, Men and brethren, though I have committed nothing against the people, or custom of our fathers, yet I was delivered prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans. Who, when they had examined me, would have let me go, because there was no cause to have me put to death. And so this is what they wanted, just like with Christ, just like with others they’d killed, the Jews wanted Paul to be put to death.  So he said “I have done nothing against our fathers, had nothing against...” anyway, going on... But when the Jews spoke against it, I was constrained to appeal to Caesar; and not because I had anything, accusation, in other words, to bring against my nation; for this cause therefore have I called for you, to see you, and to speak with you: because that for the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain. He didn’t say for the hope of Judah, he said for the hope of Israel.  Because all these things, as God worked with His people, had prophetic meaning for the future, and it was beginning in a very powerful way through Paul.  He was the apostle to other nations of peoples besides the Jews.

Verse 21 - And they said to him, We have received neither letters out of Judaea concerning you, nor have any of the brethren that have come here shown or spoke any harm concerning you. “There are people who’ve come up from there, nobody’s mentioned you.  We haven’t heard of this thing!  No one sent us letters about you coming up here, that they want you put to death.”  It was kind of a mystery to them.

Verse 22 - But we desire to hear from you what you think: for as concerning this sect, in other words, this faction, this heresy, isn’t that amazing, certain words that some used to kind of put people down, and “We’ve heard about this sect.”  We know that every where it is spoken against. So that has already gone out and “So we want to hear about this, we want to hear it from you,” knowing some of his background.

And when they had appointed a day to see him there were many who came to his lodging to whom he expounded and testified the Kingdom of God, persuading, in other words, it was persuasive, confident speech is what the word is in the Greek here, them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning until evening. And some believed the things that were spoken, and some did not believe. And when they did not agree among themselves...can you imagine here?  All of a sudden he’s reading scriptures in the Old Testament, just some of the like we read here and the things that He lived through, the things that He did, the things that He suffered – they’re right there in the Old Testament!  And so it moved some, you know, obviously, and others because of their deep prejudices they couldn’t, they were not going to accept that one.

And when they did not agree among themselves they departed, after that Paul had spoken one word, Well did the holy spirit speak through Isaiah the prophet unto our fathers, this didn’t go over well -  Saying, Go to this people, and say, Hearing you shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing you shall see, and not perceive:  For the heart of this people has become dull and their ears are heavy of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, otherwise they would see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and should be converted and I should heal them. It’s the process of conversion, and that was the word they didn’t like.

Verse 28 - Be it known therefore unto you, Paul knew.  Paul knew there were those who didn’t like what he was saying and there were others who were enthralled by some of it, they had never heard such a thing before.  Just like when I mention some of our relatives who were together there and that night it was well received.  Later it was the cold shoulder thing.  Be it known therefore unto you that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, to other nations.  This does not go well to a people who think they own God, they are God’s special people and it’s for them. No, it’s for the whole world.  It’s for all of mankind.  What a narrow sighted huge piece of Egypt in their eye.  Thank God it’s going to be removed.  That the salvation of God is sent to the Gentiles, and they will hear it. Because that’s God’s purpose.  Not right then; some would begin to because that was Paul’s job, because some were going to be drawn into the Church – Gentiles – at the early stage there.

I marvel; although God is still working with certain things to do with Israel, just like Manasseh because of a promise that He gave, would become the single greatest nation the world has ever known – prophetically stated there, taking us right up to the end, speaking of the United States.  That that’s where God raised up Mr. Armstrong.  The wealth that He’d given to them He gave to the Church, because there was more wealth to be given there to give to the Church.  That’s where it started and was built upon.  God used that for a purpose, by design, to raise up the work in the Philadelphia era, and blessed the Church mightily to accomplish great things, to be able to have the finances, the ability, with the small group of people in reality, to have a magazine, 8 million a month going out all over the world, being printed in different places in the world, people cancelling and others added to it on a continuing basis. It went... and the greatest of any religious thing that ever took place...and puny in comparison and size.  The telecast, the broadcast?  Stations all over the world?  Awesome what God did!

But I marvel at the end of the age, because the Church was scattered and because of God going to use a small remnant to begin again after the apostasy took place, I truly marvel at all the people’s whom God has called – not in different nations, because people have to be taken care of, as a whole.  There are only a small handful of individuals that are literally in other places that can’t be helped except through fellowship through Skype or whatever, and some of them then, obviously, have access to that.  But as a whole people are brought into areas – even in the United States as a whole – people are being brought into, called into areas where they can come together for fellowship.  That’s how it started, in little pockets here and there.  Amazing!  And I think of all the nationalities of people, that God has called them in areas of the world in Israel – not even the nation of Israel because we’re not there.  The Church isn’t there!  The Church isn’t in Africa!  The Church isn’t in Central America or South America!  The Church isn’t in Asia!  ...but it’s in the scattered nations of Israel.  And God has brought people in because of migrations of people, of different nationalities of people...  I am in awe of the ones whom God has called at this end-time and how He’s doing it.  All by design and purpose and to nurture and to take care of those He calls.  It’s a beautiful thing!

And so this process started back then with Paul in a very powerful way, it’s continued on and now it’s getting ready to take the greatest leap forward of all time.  Awesomely, awesomely exciting!

Be it known therefore unto you that the salvation of God is sent unto all other nations, that’s what he told them.  And when he’d said these words the Jews departed and had great, it wasn’t ‘reasoning’, the word means ‘disputing’ among themselves.

So truly, as people come to see the truth about Israel, about what God is giving, they’ll finally begin to rejoice of what this Feast of Tabernacles has foreshadowed for so very long now, a nation that will be delivered from bondage, from affliction, from suffering and pain, to become indeed – I’m talking about all nations, but it’s in captivity right now, as a whole.  Only the Church has been given that freedom.  But now everyone to become a spiritual nation bearing a mighty name given long ago by God, Israel, those who can prevail, those who will prevail with God.  Beautiful!

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