The End of Tyranny – Pt. 2

Ron Weinland

December 31, 2011

Today is Part 2 of a sermon series entitled The End of Tyranny.  I wanted to do just a little bit of a review here, but last Sabbath it was stated that we are witnessing the death throes of tyranny.  We looked at the word ‘throe’;  a word not used very much today but carries with it the meaning that I found very interesting.  That first of all in the definition:

1. A severe pang or spasm of pain, as in childbirth.

1. throes: A condition of agonizing struggle or trouble: a country in the throes of economic collapse.[1]

I am still amazed at that, of what’s taking place.  I’ve been reading some things again.  It’s just on a regular basis, things that are happening in Europe and the games that people play with the economy.  Toward the end of this year everybody’s excited because...was it the Dow I believe up 5½ or something like that over the year and the desire is that people are going to have this belief – because it’s a belief – that things are going to get better so that they’ll spend more.  And if things are going to get better then we can afford to spend more and invest more, etcetera, etcetera.  The only trouble is there is some big trouble coming and it’s coming soon – and especially because of Europe and what’s happening there and the struggles they’re having over there as far as the union that they have together and the euro.

In the midst of this end-time struggle of a dying tyranny that Satan doesn’t want to give up, we and even those in the Church that was scattered...because it has to do with them as well.  They’re God’s people, it’s just that they haven’t been awakened yet out of a spiritual sleep and a spirit world knows who they are.  And so they are going through things as well and for some it’s going to mean an awakening a little bit later here, others have to wait a thousand years.  But the reason for all this is because tyranny doesn’t die easily, and that’s what we’re witnessing at this particular time.

And of course the word tyranny is a matter of:

Tyranny:  cruel and oppressive government or rule

- arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power

- despotic abuse of authority

And I couldn’t help as I was reviewing a little bit of this this morning to think about even that which we’re coming to understand between man and woman, husband and wife, and the misuse of authority that man has used in that particular relationship throughout the world through time, and yet God is blessing us in the Church to begin to understand the importance of family and how power (government, if you will) is to be exercised, and it’s very rarely that it ever has to be exercised when people desire to live by God’s laws...very rarely exercised.

The only purpose for government in that particular case...for God it’s a matter of His Family, it’s just the way things work.  It’s a flow, it’s a flow of God’s spirit, it’s the way God works through His Son into the Church and so forth.  It’s always been that way and we don’t concern ourselves about it – as I said last Sabbath: I understand deeply that Jesus Christ is the head of the Church, that God the Father is over all.  Those things we don’t think about, we don’t question, we accept it.  And through the Church, as a whole, we receive it that way as well as far as how God works through an apostle in through the ministry and so forth.  It’s always been that way; not that everyone always yields to that process.  And that’s where trouble comes in, because people don’t accept and receive a flow of how God has given for His Body to work.  That’s why we refer to the Body of Christ, is the Church of God; it is a body and it functions that way.

But again, it’s a matter of whether people yield to that process or not in life.  And certainly the world has not yielded itself, but rather yields itself to a process that’s been oppressive, unjust, severe, harsh, oppressive power that has to do with the word tyranny.

But because the battles around us have intensified as a spirit world is so stirred up – because it is – it’s stirred up because it doesn’t want to give up. It knows it’s coming to an end. 6,000 years it’s had power on the earth and finally God says it’s time for it to be closed down, to be stopped, to be ended, and they’re not giving up easily, they are stirred up.  And so who receives the primary brunt of that?  Just like it’s been for 6,000 years – God’s people.  It’s always been that way.  Satan even tried to conquer and overthrow God’s plan concerning His own Son, tried to kill children, tried to kill Christ.  Finally ended up being somewhat successful, he thought, in having Christ killed as a very young man.  But that was a part of God’s plan.  Satan has always been a part of God’s plan and he has only in recent time been learning that, in essence; kind of a pawn to enable God’s Family to be created, and he doesn’t like that but he made his choices a long time ago.

And so you are encouraged to keep your eyes on the goal that’s in front of you; but just like in a race, as I mentioned last Sabbath, the last part of the race is the hardest.  It’s where you have to focus even more because the body, as far as the mind, has a desire to quit and to walk the rest of the way, and you can’t walk, you’ve got to keep up the race until it’s finished.

Let’s go back to where we were last Sabbath in 2 Corinthians 4 and pick it up there again quickly and then continue on.  It says, as Paul wrote: 2 Corinthians 4:16 – For which cause we do not faint; and that word means ‘to grow weary’ or ‘to lose heart’.  When you’re going through battle sometimes it’s a human tendency, it’s human nature to lose heart, to grow weary, and I think of all people, we have no excuse to ever grow weary.  I think of those who lived for hundreds of years, going back to the time before the flood.  I’m so thankful that we don’t have to live that long in a human body, because of understanding God’s plan and what comes afterwards it’s far, far greater.  Life is difficult.  Life is not easy.  Physical life is difficult, especially in the kind of world we live in because things are not a matter of how God would have mankind to live, and people do oppress one another, governments oppress, businesses oppress...and on and on it goes, and people suffer under those things.

For which cause we do not faint, grow weary or lose heart, but although our outward man perish, as I mentioned last Sabbath, we don’t get younger, we get older, and we find in time our mind thinks we can still do the things we always did but you come to understand you can’t.  ...but though the outward man perish yet the inward is renewed day by day.  And so in God’s plan with the truth, with this way of life, we continue to grow.  That’s why I have great empathy toward those who were separated from God because of the apostasy that took place, that aren’t growing, they’re just stagnant and trying to hold onto something of the past, but in a very physical way as churches hold onto various kinds of beliefs.  It’s just that those who are scattered, as a whole, have the truth about God’s way of life, have the truth about the Sabbath and the Holy Days and the Passover and on and on it goes, but has lost much in the meaning.

And so, for those who have God’s spirit working in them however, we grow!  We never cease to grow!  We go through all kinds of experiences and some of those experiences are not pleasant, they’re difficult.  But it’s through the trials and through the hardships that we can actually grow the most, because it has to do with the mind and God bringing us to the point of being able to see things that must change, and a lot of that then has to do with repentance on our part; and we repent and we seek to change and we grow closer to God as a result of that process.  It’s an awesome thing!

So the inward is renewed, the mind, day by day.  For our light affliction which has been for a moment; now, we don’t think things are light afflictions when we’re going through them.  When you’re going through a difficult trial, whatever it is, poor health that might last for a long time as far as human life is concerned, financial difficulties and trials and battles, on and on it goes, problems in relationships, things that take place, they don’t seem light at the time you’re going through them but that’s what God calls them.  That’s what He inspired Paul to write; they’re light afflictions compared to what God has placed before us, they truly are.  They’re really small, meagre in the scheme of things.  That’s why if we really have the ability to look around and truly see things the way they are in other people’s lives and in the world, we would realize how much we really have, how blessed we truly are.

Saw a movie here that I’ve seen before. I was working on some other things but I had it on the TV at the time, and it was something I’d seen a long time ago and I can’t remember the exact name of it, but anyway, it has to do with when Russia was in Afghanistan and some of the covert operations that the United States had then in Afghanistan.  It might have been in the 80’s; I don’t remember even the timing of it right now, but whatever the timing was.  I thought, “What an incredible thing!”  Here this senator went there, toured some of the areas, and it showed the lives of people and how they live, it showed children...  I think of how it portrayed how this individual was so moved by what was happening there because of some of the kinds of land mines and things they would put out, a child would see something flashy which is sometimes a common thing that happens in some of those areas, and they’d reach down to pick it up, they don’t know exactly what it is so they reach down and it blows off arms or whatever....   And those things happen!  And I think of the oppression that’s happened in that nation for so long and the games governments play.

I read something today about Afghanistan, of all things!  In a short time we’ll be leaving.  You know who’s coming in next?  The Chinese!  The Chinese have signed contracts with Afghanistan to come in now and to train some of their people, their police forces and their military.  It’s just goes from one nation to another playing these games and taking advantage of people.  And I think of those people especially and how oppressed they are.  They’re some of the most oppressed people on earth...and we supposedly went over there to give them peace.  And I think of our pulling out of Iraq right now!  I get upset when I think about these things.

I was called into God’s Church in 1969... it was 1968 that I had a desire to go into the military.  I had a desire to go into Vietnam and I wanted to go in as a jet pilot because I wanted to kill as many as I could the most powerful way I could.  I thought, “If I’m going to go into the military I want to do it in a big way!  I don’t want to go in with a machine gun!  If I’m going to do something I want to be in a jet with massive bombs!”  And then finally God called me and corrected that thinking.  I had a good friend that I grew up with.  We only had a small town of a hundred – one of the largest graduating classes ever in that little town – 8 in high school - (they went back and tied with the 30’s, that’s how small we were) so you got to know people really well.  He was a good friend.  ...got shot through the head in Vietnam. And I think, “What a horrible thing war is, glamorizing war!”  I think of all the people who have gone to Iraq and died and what did we do?  What did we do?  What did we give them? How much better is their society?  What’s happening now that we’ve left?  It’s a vicious circle...a vicious circle...and all those young people from this nation alone that went over there believing in something very noble – and I admire that attitude and spirit – but all in vain.  Sick, sick, sick world we live in, how mankind thinks.  It’s not God’s world and those things are not of God.

In wars when people go to fight each other the same priest that blessed one nation bless another as they go into battle.  In WWII that happened.  Those in the Axis power and those in the Allied power, all blessed by the same church as they’re going into battle.  You think...What’s wrong with this picture?

I hope you have your fill of what you see in mankind not being able to govern himself because that’s what God is blessing us to see in His Church.  ...that the statue in front of the United Nations is a joke; of a man beating his swords into a ploughshare, that which is quoted out of the book of Isaiah that God says is one day going to happen.  But man can’t give it to man!  That’s one of the things I wrote about in the book; we cannot give peace to Iraq, we cannot give peace to Afghanistan, we cannot give peace to Vietnam, we cannot give peace to anyone!  We have trouble enough living it ourselves!

...for our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceedingly and eternal weight of glory; that which God is working in our lives, that which we go through, we suffer through, because that’s how we learn.  We learn through suffering; we learn what is unjust and then God shows us what is just and what is righteous from Him and we embrace that and we look forward to that, and of all time now, especially of all people, we’re almost there.  ...while we look not at the things which are seen but the things which are not seen: people make fun of, mock, and “You think in a short time Jesus Christ is going to return... ha ha ha.”  That’s a ‘ho-ho-ho’ for them.  We just went through that season of the year.  It’s going to happen.  ...while we do not look at the things which are seen but the things which are not seen; that which comes from God, that which He says will come to pass, that which He gives which is spiritual.  ...for the things which are seen are temporary; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

2 Thessalonians 3:10 - For even when we were with you - You remember in chapter 2 here it talks about the apostasy and what would happen in the Church, a great falling away before Jesus Christ would return, something that has never happened in God’s Church that would happen at the end-time, and the man of sin who would be established at that particular time that we have lived through, which many of us have witnessed in God’s Church.

And then it goes on in chapter 3; he says, For even when we were with you this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should they eat. A principle here of something they were dealing with there that there were some who (and this doesn’t quite give all of the picture here, but again...) – there were some who were more concerned about... well, let’s just read the rest.

Verse 11 - For we hear that there are some among you who walk disorderly/undisciplined, not working at all, but are busybodies. Their greater focus was to get involved in other people’s lives and to stir things up and to take it easy and be provided for.  God says that’s not the way it is and that’s not the way it is with His people; we are to produce.  He gives us six days of the week we can do that... some time for ourselves and whatever we need to get caught up on and so forth but also to be productive, to work!  One day He set aside as a day that we’re not to do any work in that respect, as far as those things for our self or our own focus in life or even by employment and so forth.  But the rest of the time we’re to be productive in life.

Verse 12 - Now any who are such, we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work and eat their own bread.  But you, brethren, do not be weary in doing well. So again, this is a little awkward in the translation here in what was given and there are some other more accurate translations out there but what’s frustrating sometimes is you find a verse that’s quoted by one source and then the next verse they go off track again – because they don’t understand God’s plan!  But because of history and the things that Paul was dealing with at that time there are some things they grasp, and because of the Greek language...but then they go off base.  So I’m going to read this going back to verse 6 to get some of the context so we can understand what Paul was really saying here.

He says, verse 6 – One further order, ‘a command’ is what it means in the Greek, ‘a charge’. And so God’s law tells us how to live and when God inspires things to be given to the Church they’re not suggestions, it comes from God.  It is a charge that God gives us, that He wants us to live a certain way and not to live other ways.  That’s what repentance is about, it’s repenting of doing something our way and striving to do it God’s way, to follow His direction, His charge if you will.  He says, one further order/charge we must give you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, in other words, this doesn’t come from us, it comes from God, it comes from Jesus Christ; don’t associate with a brother whose life is undisciplined/unruly, concerning God’s way of life, concerning the truth, and so this with other scriptures and what Paul is given about fellowship and those who are in right standing in the Body, in the Church, and those who are not.

Just like Paul addressed in 1st Corinthians the first time, of adultery that was taking place in the Church and the Church wasn’t doing anything about it and Paul corrected them and told them to put them out of the fellowship, that you’re not to have fellowship.  That’s not God’s way of life and if those things happen and people tolerate that life then it will spread in the Body.  Division, those kinds of things, they spread in the Body.  If we tolerate, if we allow things to happen within a Body where people begin to come along and teach things that are different then show them the door.  There are plenty of churches to choose from out there that you’ll probably find one that agrees with you, so sayonara, auf wiedersehen, do svidaniya, let me help you out, because it doesn’t need to be in God’s Church.  Matter of fact, God says it’s not to be in His Church.  He says don’t allow those things to exist because it hurts.  Paul gives the example there in Corinthians, ‘a little leaven leavens the whole lump’; that’s what we learn about sin.  Sin is likened to leaven, that’s why the Days of Unleavened Bread are so meaningful – God wants us to come out of sin, to become unleavened in our lives, to live righteously, to live right before Him, to come out of sin, to become unleavened.  That’s why for those seven days we eat unleavened bread, to remind us that God wants a physical reminder of something that we’re to do all of our life, to eat the unleavened bread of life – Jesus Christ – the Word of God, the truth.  Things have so much meaning in them in God’s plan.

...not going out and hiding and then gathering eggs at a certain time of the year for your kids. That doesn’t teach anything about God’s plan... or that rabbits lay eggs and on and on it goes.  Didn’t come from God, didn’t come out of the Bible – but unleavened bread comes out of the Bible, leavened bread comes out of the Bible.  And so He says to become unleavened.

He says don’t associate with brethren, in other words they’re not to be a part of fellowship.  They put themselves out of the fellowship by not obeying God.  ...and not after the traditions, in other words, that which is handed over as a charge, literally commanded, given, to God’s Church  ...and not after the traditions which you have received from us.  In other words, even another translation talks about, ‘who despises the teachings we gave them’.  If somebody doesn’t like this way of life then why be around it? Why be a part of it?  That’s what sometimes blows my mind when I recognize, know, that there are people out there listening to me today for no other reason than to find something wrong.  You think, “What a life?!”  But they can’t be a part of our fellowship.  Many of them were at one time a part of our fellowship, and then they were told they couldn’t be a part of that fellowship anymore, and then they turned evil and nasty and ugly and they call themselves Christian.  Think...is that the way God acts?  Is that the way Jesus Christ acts?  Incredible!  ‘Snakes in the grass’ as Christ called the Pharisees and the Sadducees, just like ‘snakes in the grass’; venomous, poisonous.

Verse 7 – You know well that we ourselves are your examples here: So Paul said, in essence here, “Look to us as your examples.  We’re striving to set a right example for how to live life.”  And it goes on to say, you know well that we ourselves are your examples here and that our lives among you were never undisciplined.  Now, Paul had a unique situation here because he travelled from area to area raising up the churches at that time, wasn’t able to stay in any one particular area too long, worked to ordain different ones in time because that doesn’t happen overnight either, as individuals grew, as they had opportunity to grow spiritually, and then the Church to become established.

And so through time here Paul was travelling all over the place.  He travelled throughout both sides, the Ionian Sea and talking about different places he went to in Greece and so forth; and again, a lifetime here of travelling from area to area to area, staying maybe six months in one place and going on, and two years in one area at one occasion, a few weeks in another location, just constantly on the move like that. But as he was doing this every area had different battles and different situations that they had to deal with because of the society that was there, and Paul had to address those things, and this was a part of what he was addressing in this particular case here in Thessalonica, which is northern Greece just above Athens.  So Paul was all over the map, so to speak, when it came to travel.

He said, you know that we are your examples... Very, very inspiring - we got to visit the area of Corinth which is just on the south side of Athens there, and very moved by the excavations they had done there in the little city, the little town of Corinth, and how that it overlooked an incredible plain that went out toward the sea (and just as a part of the story here), and part of the area of Corinth there’s an area above it - I don’t know, another thousand feet up or whatever - up the side of the steep slopes that was totally walled in so that the entire city could go up there if there was ever an invasion coming, because they could see it a long way away because of the plain that was there and because of their spot that they were located in.  Incredible history of things that took place, especially when you understand some of the wars in Greece.  But they took us to an area and showed us where, they believe, because of the excavations and because of some of the things they found, that Paul was actually working.  If you remember the occasion, he was working with fishing nets and they did the fishing nets there but it was quite a ways to the water because of safety and protection and nations that fought against each other.

Paul worked in those areas until a Church area could become established; different than what we have today where because of the work Mr. Armstrong did through Philadelphia and the Church that was established and then those who were able to come out of the apostasy, and then those of you who came along – you’re able to learn more quickly today.  Back then it wasn’t so!  They didn’t have sermons they could listen to unless Paul was around.  They didn’t have things they could read off the internet like you do today and just be bombarded with knowledge.  It took them a lot of time to have access to truth.  And so this is one of those things that Paul had to deal with, individuals in this particular case who were not productive, that wanted to live off of others, that didn’t want to live by everything that Paul was giving them and so forth.  So Paul strived to set an example here to them of being productive, and that’s what he’s talking about here.

And so he went on to say, You know well that we ourselves are your examples here and that our lives among you were never undisciplined. We did not eat anyone’s food, in other words, didn’t take advantage.  So whether it had to do with food... Today, society is different.  That was a totally different kind of society, but again here, trying to understand...he says here we did not eat anyone’s food, in other words, didn’t take advantage of anyone in any fashion or form, financially or otherwise, without paying or working for it. In fact, we toiled and laboured night and day to avoid being a burden to any of you - though they had the right to, as he brings up later on.  Why?  Because of tithing.  But in order to set an example to a people that God was working with, to get them established, they were new, and to help them become established in the Church they set an example to others, and especially to some of those who at that particular time were not productive and didn’t try to be but basically lived off of others.  That was a part of the problem there in Thessalonica.

It’s kind of a problem in northern Greece, if you know history. It’s kind of a problem between Germany right now and Greece.  Now, all of Greece is not the same.  Northern Greece and southern Greece, it’s just a reality there are different kinds of people there.  On one occasion I think Paul referred to them as a term that was used in society at that time of being ‘slow bellies’.  It wasn’t a complimentary term but it was a particular term there.  And that’s what makes the Germans so upset right now, so mad, is because German people are different than people in Greece and they don’t really get along too well.  They don’t try to appreciate each other’s differences either.  Northern Greece is known to be a little bit different, as I said, than southern Greece, and just like I said about Germany...Germany gets very upset because they go a little overboard probably in comparison with some people where they don’t know how to enjoy life.  There’s a joke in some parts of Europe that...a kind of a game that some people sort of play when they’re drinking, and one of the things that comes out is “Where do you go if you want to have fun?  Sweden! ...and the other one is, Where do you want to go if you don’t want to have fun?  Germany!”  Anyway, it’s something like that.  I’ve probably ruined it, but there’s more to the story than that, but basically it’s because the feeling in Europe is that Germans are, they don’t even tell jokes as a whole, they’re just known not being able to be good joke tellers.  Their idea is to get up at 5:00 in the morning and go to bed at 8:00 at night and work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work the whole time...and there’s nothing funny about that.

So the ability to enjoy life has only been learned in the last twenty years or so and the younger generation is learning how to do that.  Do you understand differences in people then, what I’m talking about here, that there are differences in people and how they think.  And the problem was in parts of Greece is that they tended to want to enjoy life too much without work, work, work, work.  There’s a balance in life and the reality is that all people are different and have to learn balance in life no matter what your background is.  Paul was dealing with a group of people who were not balanced in this at all.   They had to learn how to be productive and how to work because it wasn’t a part of their life through history, through time.  They hadn’t been taught in those things.  And so he was dealing with that as a problem, so he set this as an example.

We do not eat anyone’s food, in other words, didn’t take advantage without paying or working for it, in fact we toiled and laboured night and day to avoid being a burden to any of you, and to be that example, as he said, you know we have been.  This was not because we had no power, and the Greek word is ‘authority’ to do so, but because we wanted to set you an example. Something they needed to see.  See?  And so they went to a different extreme in order to help teach some principles that others needed to learn, that God wanted them to grasp and comprehend.

Verse 10 - It goes on to say -  When we were actually with you, we gave you this principle to work on; if a  person will not work nether shall they eat.  See?  It’s a good principle.  Now we hear that you have some among you living undisciplined/disorderly, in other words, unruly lives, because it wasn’t only in this area.  You know, one thing unique about God’s people is that our desire is to live right.  Our desire is to obey whatever God places before us.  It doesn’t mean we can do it perfectly by any means, because we have human nature and we fight self, but the desire is to learn, is to change, is to grow, and we strive to live a better life before God.  And if we learn something that we aren’t doing well or doing right we come to where we repent of that and start doing what is right.  And that’s a life long battle.  We get better at it as time goes along and the bigger things that have happened in the beginning of our calling, in time they’re not the big things anymore, we conquer some of the worst of battles and the hardest of things because there are giant changes we’re making in our life when God calls us.  This world doesn’t live by God’s way of life and so we make some gigantic changes in the beginning, in the first few years as to how we’re going to live the rest of our life.

So he says, we hear that there are some among you who live/are living disorderly and undisciplined lives, unruly lives, so it wasn’t just in this area alone because if someone in God’s Church doesn’t receive guidance in a certain matter there are going to be other matters, it’s going to become bigger and it’s going to become more of a problem, which reveals something, doesn’t it?  It reveals whether or not they’re yielding to God’s spirit, because someone with God’s spirit is going to fight carnality, fight to change, and fight to grow, and will have fruit of God’s spirit in their life of growth.

And so he says, there are some who are unruly, never doing any work, and busy only in other people’s affairs. That’s where they receive greater enjoyment, more concerned about how others should be doing something or not doing something and busy bodies and gossiping and finding out something so they can go tell someone else.  That was more exciting to them than work!  That’s the bottom line...than being productive.   And because of that they were stirring up problems as well because that’s not God’s way of life, to try to find fault with others.  What a spirit!  What a pitiful, sick, disgusting spirit!  I say that for some of those listening to me today who have such a spirit in them, whose only desire is to find fault.  I think, “What a sick mind!  I’d far rather go fishing!  Do something productive!  Do something to enjoy life!  Why worry yourself about others?”  Our lives are full enough with problems and difficulties without inserting ourselves into other people’s lives and trying to find fault and weaknesses and things that are wrong.

Verse 12 – Any who lives in such a way, we order, in other words command/charge and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, so this is what we read earlier, that with quietness they work, same expressions here.  In other words, don’t involve yourselves in other people’s problems, you’ve got enough of your own to deal with. You’ve got to focus on your own self and change and cry out to God for help and for mercy, and to work, be productive, and to eat their own bread. In other words, provide for themselves – don’t go munching off of others, don’t go taking from others, don’t allow those things to happen.  And sometimes even in God’s Church we have to address this, because of our background, because of things we don’t learn in a proper way.

I remember one time in the ministry (I’ll just tell you a little story), we had three primary pastors and a lot of elders in this city and I was a trainee at the time being trained, an associate pastor at that point, and we had a ministerial meeting one time.  Went out to eat at a particular place and to discuss things in the Church as we oftentimes do because people have to travel in from different parts of this particular city to be together, and when it came time to pay all but primarily one put in money.  Now, what was tough here is that this one had a reputation for that, even though it’s ministry, of not paying his way...  I’ll just tell you the whole story.  I was a little embarrassed by this situation because there was another individual there who was kind of...whether he was or wasn’t, he thought he was, over the whole area, and he treated people that way and the rest of the ministers that way.  And we’ve seen plenty of things in the past to learn how this is not the way it’s done in God’s Church – that’s been most of my training.

Anyway, just so it wouldn’t be more embarrassing I think a couple of us tossed in a little bit more money so the bill would be covered, and this pastor picked up that money and basically tossed it back at me and he said, no and told me not to do it. He then called this individual by his name and said, “You!  You need to pay your part!”  I think, “Well, that’s...”  I’d rather he’d taken care of that by himself and gone to his brother alone like you’re told to do instead of being in front of everybody else and making it such an embarrassing situation, but anyway they started digging through their money and digging through quarters for the wash and so forth that she had in her purse and it was just a totally embarrassing situation.  But you know what?  That should never have been in God’s Church!  ...that someone thought that they could go to something like that and expect others to pay for it.  That’s just not right!  And to have a reputation like that - you wouldn’t want a reputation like that and especially in the ministry you wouldn’t want a reputation like that, would you?  And what tended to be the case in some of those situations like that is if other brethren in the Church are out eating its kind of owed to the minister you should pay his way.  No, you shouldn’t!  What a horrible attitude on his part!

And that’s why we ran into some of the problems we did in the Church in time.  See?  And sometimes that happens in people’s lives. I could give a lot of examples – recent ones!  Because sometimes we just have to learn that there are certain ways of dealing with things and when people come together at a function... there are times when some don’t have the ability to afford it, and you know what I’ve seen in God’s Church?  Others who can let them know and tell them this is taken care of, we’re going to take care of this for you.  That’s a beautiful thing in God’s Church.  But there are some who have the ability and the means who sometimes just don’t think about it, and they don’t think about putting their fair share in.  Do you understand what I’m saying?  There are differences in people and personalities and there are certain things in God’s people that just shouldn’t be.  To take advantage of others is not a good thing.  Everyone should desire to uphold their part in the Body, truly, in the best way we can if we’re able to.

This was multiplied many times over in what Paul was dealing with.  Okay?  And so he says, Any whose lives, in such a way, we order and charge and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, in other words, with authority, that with quietness they work and eat their own, or provide for themselves, and you brethren, do not become weary in well doing.  So he’s telling those of you who are striving to live what is right and true, don’t ever become weary in it, keep fighting this fight, keep doing what you need to do, even in uncomfortable times like in something like what he’s addressing here, because those things are uncomfortable.  And so you keep doing, keep focusing on, striving to do well before God, obeying His way of life in everything you do.

So that was his encouragement; And if any person will not obey our word by this epistle, note/mark that person, and so Paul talks about this in different places, of individuals that are no longer to be a part of the fellowship if they’re not going to, indeed, be a part of the fellowship God’s way, and have no company/no fellowship with them that they may be ashamed. That’s a hard thing to do but God is very zealous for His Body, He truly is.  God is very zealous for His Church and He seeks to protect the Body, and if some leaven comes into it His charge is to get rid of the leaven.  Either the individuals repent...and if they won’t repent then they have to be separated from it for the sake of the Body, because a little leaven spreads.  Leaven in a loaf of bread - it spreads, that’s how it works, it spreads throughout the entire loaf, and God doesn’t want that in His Church.

I have witnessed this over and over and over again in God’s Church, especially if a minister is the cause of it and begins to teach things that are not right, how it spreads through entire congregations.  I’ve mentioned this in times past, where Washington, DC, and the whole region through Maryland and in through that northern part of Virginia, the entire Church left because it was so damaging.  Hawaii twice has been wiped out because it’s kind of remote and you get a minister in there that starts teaching something that’s not right.

You know the first being to do that?  Lucifer, who became Satan the adversary.  He had angelic beings away from the throne of God, in another area, literally this one here, the earth, and those beings were here and he began to spread things of dissent, disagreement with the plan of God, with God, and in time - hard to grasp and comprehend – a third of the angelic realm rebelled with him and became known as demons!  Incredible things that have happened in time, and we don’t know how long ago, God doesn’t let us know, but it was a long, long time ago when it first began to take place.

And so, anyway, within the Church God says if people don’t want to be a part and yield themselves to it it’s better they be separated from it, because a little leaven, a little divisiveness goes a long, long way and hurts a lot of people.  In time it spreads.  And so God wants us to understand those principles of something that happened a long time ago that He’s never going to allow into His Family.  It’ll never be in the God Family.

So he says, if they will not obey our word by this epistle, if they won’t live by other things that Paul said in the book, in what we’re reading here, in the book of 2 Thessalonians, because there’s more in the book here; if they won’t listen to those things given as a charge from Jesus Christ through God’s apostle, he said in essence, put them out, they can have no fellowship with the Church. Yet do not count them as an enemy, don’t be evil and ugly toward them in that respect, in the sense of if you see them somewhere you’re not to treat them as an enemy, as it says here, but admonish/warn them as a brother/sister. So that’s the attitude of mind, because what is the desire?  That they’re going to come to repent in time...repent.  Sadly sometime some of those make themselves, indeed, an enemy to God and an enemy to the Church and that’s too bad.  Most do not.  Most just go by the wayside and do their own thing in life which is very normal.  And the desire is that one day God will awaken them and they’ll come back into fellowship, and to embrace them.

And because of where we are in time even these scriptures here in 2 Thessalonians become more important to God’s Church because of protection and safety for God’s people, because at some point here things are going to turn really bad, we just don’t know exactly when here, but at some point they will.   Again, this admonishment throughout these verses that we’re reading here is to never become weary, don’t ever give up. No matter how difficult things might be, keep pushing forward.

Hebrews 12:1 - Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and sin which does so easily, and the word is ‘entangle’, that’s what it means, entangle or encircle us; that’s the way sin is. It’s a powerful thing.  It’s because of the human life that we live, ‘the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life’ that have a hold on us human beings.  And until God calls us we don’t even understand our own motives so often that stem from selfishness, and it takes God’s spirit to be able to see self and to begin to make changes in those things as we cry out to God for help to live different, to love one another, and not to treat one another out of a spirit of selfishness because we want our way, and if things go our way then there’s going to be greater peace and enjoyment of life.  It’s like governments of this world today- if you do it our way then you’re going to have greater peace and enjoyment of life because we know what’s best for you, because it is what is best for them, not you.

Wherefore seeing we are also compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses; it just got through here talking about those who have lived God’s way of life through time. It’s talking about all who have gone before, lived by faith.  It says they’re too numerous to mention here so it just mentions a bunch of names even at one point here, all these different people.

Let’s notice Hebrews 11.  It’s the context of what Paul is saying here.  Starts out in Hebrews 11:1 talking about what faith is: Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. And it goes through and explains then how people have lived through time.  Going back to the beginning, (verse 4) - By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, this is the first time in human life that something is reported where sin entered into a family.  It was the only family there and there were two brothers, Cain and Abel, and it’s the way man has been ever since – selfishness – except for Abel who wanted to live God’s life, who wanted to please God, who wanted to offer up to God an offering before Him the way God said it should be done.  Cain wasn’t of the same mind, and because God gave Abel favour, because of doing it the right way, Cain became jealous, so much so that he finally killed his own brother.  Amazing!  Incredible!  From the very get-go that something like that could happen – hatred that entered into the heart, jealousy, becoming jealous of someone else.  It’s a sick part of the human mind to ever become jealous of someone else.  You need to think about that, because everybody has it in different forms, in different levels, even in God’s Church.  And there are things that you have to work on and seek to conquer and overcome to be in unity with God because there’s no jealously in the Family of God.

You remember the mother of the two disciples that basically spoke to Christ, “Let them be on each side of you in the Kingdom in power and glory.”  And how did the other disciples react?  They weren’t happy with that.

I think of ordinations that take place in the Church.  You know, sad enough in God’s Church there are even battles there when things happen and people are ordained, not knowing how it comes about, how God works with various things. As I mentioned last Sabbath, there’s a different purpose for why He’s called every one of, a different timing of things that God fulfills in our lives.  But sometimes people have to battle with some of those things, thinking that they should have been placed in a certain place, that they deserved to be put in a certain spot.  And that’s always been in God’s Church.  And I’ll tell you what, it’s there today because it’s a part of the human mind.  It’s not a pretty part of the human mind but it is a part of the human mind, and every once in a while I hear of different stories that come back to me regarding what some individuals have said about how they can’t understand how some person’s been ordained, or whatever, and I think, “Go tell that to God!”

I remember one time a long time ago, I think it was Gerald Waterhouse, made a comment.  Someone had mentioned something and because of some things that were happening in the Church and they felt that it was bad and wrong - and there were some bad things happening - and he said, “Well, go tell that to God, it’s hard telling what He’s going to do when He finds out.”  And that’s the bottom line.  God’s in charge!  God will take care of His Body, truly will.

Anyway, good to point out here that jealousy is not a good thing, when people are jealous.  I’ve known of families where even a parent can be jealous of a child and their success.  You think, “Why would that ever happen in life?  Why would you be jealous of the success of your own child?”  I’ve dealt with that in God’s Church before.  To me that one there is really upside down.  I think, “Why would you be jealous? Doesn’t every parent desire that their child will excel what they can do and what they’ve been able to accomplish?  Isn’t that what you desire to train and teach them?  So that they can do far better than what you ever did in your life?  ...and you rejoice in that?”  Jealousy’s an ugly, evil thing, and it is in God’s Church especially.

And so I mention that because we have a lot of ordinations that take place and more that are going to take place and people have to see that...hopefully they can see God in the picture and understand.

So it goes on to talk here about different ones.  (Verse 7) - Noah, being forewarned of God of things not seen yet...  can you imagine building on something for a hundred years?  Not even close to a place where you could at least push it in the water?   It’s so big how are you going to push that thing into the water in the first place, the ark?  And this story here is so hard for people to even grasp, even in theology today in seminaries (we call them cemeteries), where people are taught supposedly about the Bible, that today that’s being taught by a lot of different churches in the world and so forth that this is kind of a story that people put in the Bible, there wasn’t really any great flood and it’s just kind of a story for children to learn from and have these kind of nice fuzzy feelings about Noah and his family and all these animals that came on the ark, and it didn’t really happen because it’s just too great to believe it could happen, all these animals, it just physically couldn’t have happened. So they discard it.  But it happened!  And for over a hundred years his family and himself worked on this structure.

I’ve been in the Church since 1969 and I’m glad it’s almost to a conclusion because it’s been a hard long struggle.  It is!  I can’t comprehend what it’d have been like to do something like this for a hundred years and being laughed at and mocked at the whole time, and yet they did and they never wavered.  Noah and his family never wavered!  I think of what we’re living through today, and we’re not wavering.  Everything about our lives is pushing forward to the second coming of Jesus Christ.  The world didn’t receive His first coming and yet He was there and did awesome things, and most of it being done in the last two weeks of His life that you read about in the Bible.  Most everything you read about in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the great things that were accomplished and the things that were said, the things that were taught – basically took place in the last 2½ to 3 weeks of His life.  That is awesome to understand!  And a lot of it because He had a certain ministry to fulfill for a certain amount of time to teach and work with the disciples. And at different times it made it very clear that they were out to kill Him very early on if they could get their hands on Him...but they weren’t able to.  Amazing how God works things out sometimes.

(Verse 8) - By faith Abraham... and so it goes on and on about all these people.  They look for a city, it says here in verse 10, speaking of Abraham and others, Isaac and Jacob, verse 10 - they looked for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. That’s why I marvel at the word ‘Jerusalem’, that it’s not about a physical city, it’s about what God is building, the peace that God is bringing to this earth, a rest that it talks about in Hebrews here as well, about a rest that God is going to give His people away from tyranny and oppression.  Because that’s what it’s about; being freed from tyranny and oppression.  We’re almost there.

Talks about Sarah and different ones here all the way through, over and over again.  And even Rahab the harlot in verse 31.  The power of God to forgive!  The power of God to change people’s lives!  It doesn’t matter what we’ve done in our lives, what our past is.  God calls us out of all kinds of things because mankind has done all kinds of things; and so He calls people out of that and calls individuals to be a part of something.  And here, even in the lineage of Jesus Christ...powerful!  Awesome!

Verse 32 - And what shall I say more? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and Barak, and Samson, and Jephthae; and David, and Samuel, and of the prophets:

And then Hebrews 12 – because it goes through and talks about all these people of faith.  We have this cloud of witnesses, God said, through time, 6,000 years of time.  And it’s because of that that we actually can have greater courage and encouragement, strength.  I was thinking about that this morning remembering what God told Joshua, ‘Be of good courage’, or very courageous, if you will, ‘Be strong and very courageous’.  And that’s what we have to be as we continue to go forward, even more so.

[Hebrews 12:1] - Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, it’s speaking of all those people through time who went before us, of things that they endured.  So sometimes if you think your affliction is great, go back and look at them.  I do that.  I can’t help but when I travel.  I do when a plane has been cancelled and you’ve got to wait in the airport another two hours; and before I start crying too much thinking about “Oh, it’s going to be that much longer before we get home, and whatever...”  and I think we have it so good.  Everyone who’s ever gone before us has had it so much harder, they truly have.  Paul? His travels?

Do you go back and look at some of the things that other people have gone through before you when you’re going through a trial and you’re feeling badly?  I just used that one example there because travel is not fun.  Just put it before you candidly...travel is not a fun thing if you do it all the time.  Now, once in a while if you go once or twice a year to someplace and travel it’s not so bad, even with the inconveniences of things, but when you do it all the time it’s a little different.  That’s why I mentioned last Sabbath that with everything else that’s going on, I feel worn out.  I know God gives strength and God gave strength to Mr. Armstrong into his 90’s and I know that God would do that if things were to be for a long period of time like his life was, but candidly, the way I feel though is I am worn out.  I am out of juice.  That’s what I feel a lot of times.  There are times I just...and yet I feel this last part of the race.  That’s why I mentioned last Sabbath the 3½ mile race that I gave as an example.  It’s that last half mile that’s the hardest.  It’s the last half mile...and even if you get past - that last quarter...but you get more encouragement there too if you’ve ever run a race.

Think about others and what they’ve gone through.  Look around the Church. There are people that are going through some pretty tough things - health situations at times. That’s where your heart should go out to and candidly make your problems and your battles become realistic that it really isn’t that great.  It’s not fun to go through but it really isn’t that bad.

So that’s what God is talking about here.  It’s oftentimes good to think about others and what they’re going through.  And if you can’t do it within the environment of the Church just look at the world and what they’re going through.  Look at the things that are out there.  Not in your shopping mall.  Not in your grocery store that’s filled with all kinds of food, look beyond that.  If you need to, get on the internet and look at what some other people in other parts of the world are living, because this country is blessed because of what God gave to Manasseh at the end-time.  We’re the richest, most powerful nation the world has ever known because of God’s promises and not because of how great we are.

Wherefore seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which does so easily entangle/encircle us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us; We need that more than ever in our lives, truly.  We only have a short distance to go now and this is where you’re going to be crying out more as we go forward here.  If you think that you’re having some difficult times now in the race, it’s pretty smooth.

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured being impaled on a pole, He didn’t die on a cross like it’s put so often in some of these...  I don’t even know how it says it here; does it say that?  How’s it say it here, because I didn’t even put it down in my notes that way because I’m so sick of it and how it’s put in the scriptures here...says ‘the cross’.  Anyway, sick, sick, sick world, saying that He died on a cross, and He didn’t even die on a cross!  I mean, it’s so disgusting to me.

So people have these crosses and here He is, His arms are out like this [straight out to the sides] with nails through His hands on the cross and it wasn’t done that way!  The reason they came around and broke His legs...that’s why I like to demonstrate this every time I go someplace, so that you can be repulsed by what man has been entangled in, a lie from the master of it all, from Satan.  Truly!  In order to uphold a religion and some religions there that have been so hurtful to this world, and so they have them out like this [arms spread to the sides straight outward] and you can still breathe.  If you’re hanging down like that you can still breathe. If you’re just hanging from your arms like that it’s not going to kill you right here.

But you put your hands up like this [arms straight over your head with wrists crossed over] and have a nail run through it – that’s why they wanted to break His legs [but didn’t] because it said a soldier earlier had come up and rammed a spear through His side and out came forth water and blood and He died.  And so they were surprised when they came up to Him, that He was already dead because they wanted to get them all in the graves and get them down off the poles before sunset because it was a Holy Day for the Jews, and the Jews weren’t going to have them up there.  And so these two crooks beside Him, thieves that were beside Him, they broke their legs because... you know why they did that?  Because those nails in the bottom by their feet, they couldn’t push themselves up to breathe anymore.  That’s how they stayed alive; because they literally were pushing themselves up from the bottom up.

When you’re like this [arms straight over your head with wrists crossed over] then you couldn’t do that anymore, you suffocate, because you’re just hanging from one nail through both hands.  They didn’t waste nails back then and they didn’t go through the trouble of building a cross, they just put a pole in the ground and they put them up like this [arms straight over your head with wrists crossed over] and ran the nail through it, and when they break your legs you suffocate because your head goes in like that...  you ought to put your hands up like that and just see.  Get on one of these gym things somewhere out there and just hang up there and see what it’s like just to put your hands straight up like that for a little while.  Well, if that’s the only way you have of keeping up for a long period of time it doesn’t take too long and you’ll actually suffocate, you’ll actually die when your body’s been stretched that long in that kind of a situation.  Anyway...sick world!  Religion that has taught that it’s something else.  And why?  Why do they pick that icon, that image, because it goes back in time to Tammuz who was several hundred years before Christ of religion that had a cross; this symbol of a pagan religion.

Tyranny, oppression, lies that have hurt mankind.  It’s because mankind doesn’t know the truth about God and can’t be blessed because they’ve been deceived.  Man can’t be blessed when he observes wrong periods of time.

…endured being impaled on a pole, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. The shame that went with being hung on a tree.  It was a shameful thing in society that you should have to die that way, but He was willing to do that.  You are willing to go through whatever you have to go through no matter what the rest around you might say or do; because it’s not a pleasant thing that people have to go through of things that are said, of the fun that gets poked at you for not working on the Sabbath by employees, employers, and different things that people have to sometimes go through.  It’s not a pleasant thing.

For consider Him who endured such contradiction, in other words, hostility, rebellion, disputing, being spoken against, opposition; that’s what it’s saying here, of sinners against Himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your minds. No one has ever gone through anything like what Jesus Christ had to go through.  Truly!  But sometimes it’s hard for us to put things in their proper perspective when we’re actually going through the suffering, but that’s what God wants us to do.

So, we must understand that what we’re living through now is a witness of all that mankind has suffered before us.  That’s what this 3½ years has been about, living through a witness of everything that mankind has suffered through for the last 6,000 years.  But now we’re in an age of technology – what an incredible thing – and we live in a time of age in technology that has promised mankind a ‘better life’ and it hasn’t given a better life at all.  Oh yeah, things are made easier, transportation is made easier, flight has been made easier, it’s easier when you can go flip a switch and you have electricity and you have heat and everything else, but along with that technology has come greater evil than the world has ever known.

I was reading this morning about a nuclear device that Russia is building.  You know what they call the thing?  Satan.  Satan!  It’s aptly named, properly named.  Incredible, the things that continue to go on.

And so again here, man is not able to govern himself and give himself peace and the things that God promises are about to come.  We are watching the death throes of tyranny indeed, because Satan and demons are not happy about what’s taking place and they’re stirred up.  And the reality is that they’re broadcasting and so forth – they do go at God’s people, they do intensify and you are no match for them, truly.  That’s why I read this so often back here in John, the book of 1st John.

That’s why it’s so important to stay close to God, to seek to be close to God as it says back here in 1 John 4:4 – You are of God, little children, it’s not an easy thing that God called people to over the last 6,000 years.  That’s why that example in Hebrews is so important, to go back and look at all the people who’ve gone before, all the suffering that’s been out there just because people wanted to live God’s way of life, and they died in hideous ways.  It mentions some of that in Hebrews.  I think of that example there of being sawn asunder. You know the box that magicians have and they have this example of a saw going through this container?  It came from real life but people didn’t live through it.  See?  And some of God’s people, it says, died that way.  And so people haven’t received God’s way of life well.  Look at the life of Christ and how the Sadducees and Pharisees felt about that.

It says, You are of God, little children and have overcome them, because greater is He who is in you, than he who is in the world. And that’s our hope!  And that’s our strength, God Almighty.

And so I think about this period of time, and I don’t know about you but I’m very inspired by it in the sense of understanding what God has given to us and understanding all that’s transpired in a short length of time.  I know it’s difficult for those of you who are new, to have that same kind of perspective, but this is what it is for God’s Church; and it goes back to the 50th Truth.  I want to start there today.  I want to go back and read some of what’s on the site there about the 50th Truth and wanted to mention here that that period of time that came up to the 1335 days spoken of by Daniel that started on Trumpets of 2008 (because that’s when it began, that’s when God blessed us in knowing very powerfully so when things would end, when Jesus Christ would literally return) and at that particular time God revealed an incredible Jubilee for mankind.

You know what a Jubilee is?  In the Old Testament, a Jubilee is something that came around every fifty years.  Every seven years God had a system set up of release from certain kind of debt and so forth and a process that took place there. But every fifty years was called a Jubilee Year, and anything as far as that which was in a family, property and so forth, had to go back to the original owner.  So whatever indebtedness and mistakes and foolishness that people might have made by not handling finances well and so forth, at that time God just wiped the slate clean.  Inheritances and so forth that were in families went back to families.  And because of that system of every seven years leading up to the fifty years, you know what happened as well in society?

Now, they didn’t live by it very well because that’s kind of against certain people’s thinking, a certain people especially who are very good, in reality, in certain business in life and are noted as such and sometimes persecuted because of that because it’s a talent and ability they have. But they didn’t like that seventh year...   you know why?  Because if you loan something to someone, say on year five, year seven it gets wiped out you’re going to be careful of who you loan to and how much you loan out, how much you enable someone to do something maybe that’s not healthy for them.  Anyway, it’s an awesome system that God has given, something we’re going to go back to in the future in the Millennium, a fifty year cycle of life and seven years...because 49 is the seventh seven, but the last one, that last fiftieth is total freedom, is total cleansing of a slate in finances and so forth.

So God’s system would have prevented the great depression.  God’s system would have prevented what we’ve been going through in a global meltdown.  But man doesn’t want God’s system.  The people who loan money don’t want God’s system because they can’t get as much.  They want to nail it to you so that when it’s said and done they’re going to actually end up with more.  So not only do they make money while you’re paying off and sometimes at exorbitant rates...and the worse your credit the more they actually charge.  That’s unbelievably legal.  Do you know that?  That credit cards and various kinds of  financial matters, if you want to go out and get something, that you actually have to pay a higher interest rate than individuals who don’t really need it as much, they get the lower interest rate.  What a sick world!  Unjust!  And so those who are struggling are taken the greatest advantage of.  It’s a sick world! That won’t happen in God’s way.

But anyway, every fiftieth year there is what’s called the Jubilee. We’re about to come up to the greatest Jubilee that mankind has ever been given, and some in God’s Church still don’t understand that.  When Jesus Christ returns it is a Jubilee, it is the ultimate Jubilee for mankind.  You have to be careful how you handle this because we’re not like the Israelites being taken out of Egypt where we’re to fully take everything, if you will, full advantage of everything because we know it.  But it’s not wrong to take advantage because of something that you know either.  As an example – (I’m going to dig myself in a deep hole here) but these are questions that come up from time to time.

If someone out here...let’s say you need a new bed and someone out here is offering a loan that you can sign up for and have that new bed brought into your house tomorrow, but you don’t have to pay for it for three years.  As long as you know that in three years your intention and your spirit is you can pay for it and you’re going to pay it off (if time were going on) then you would do so.  But the principle is it’s not wrong to go ahead and do that either as long as your spirit and your attitude is that if time were going on you would take care of that bill.  Do you understand what I’m saying?  It’s not to go out here and fleece the world and to take advantage of something that wouldn’t be ethically right, in other words.  Your intention is that, and you would have the ability of, if things continued on and you have your current job and so forth, that in three years you would pay for it.  In other words, it’s not a matter of going out here and maxing out credit cards to the point where you’d never be able to pay for it.  Do you understand a difference here in what I’m talking about?  In other words, your spirit and your mind and your attitude is that in time that you’re going to make those payments and you’re going to pay it off.  Okay?  Do you all understand what I’m saying?  Yes?  No?  Okay.

Some seem to think though that there are certain things you have to plan for and prepare for here as soon as Jesus Christ returns, about paying certain things off.  The reality is there will be no Wells Fargo. There will be no American Express or Bank of America.  There will be no MasterCard.  There will be no Visa.  None of these things are going to exist.  Do you understand why?  Corporations aren’t going to exist anymore.  The corporations that exist out here...the insurance companies that exist out here...the banks that exist...they’re not going to exist anymore as they currently function.  When an economic collapse takes place things are going to collapse, and to a point after a war takes place that’s going to happen here, God is not going to retain any of this.  And so the house you’re in is your house. The car you have, if it still runs, is your car.  I say if it still runs because with some things that can happen in the future they may not run.

My point being is that whatever you have in the bank and whatever you have on your charge card and whatever you’re saving, the dollar bills you have, the euros you have, the francs you have, whatever it is you have, they’re basically going to be meaningless in the future.  None of those nations are going to exist anymore.  God’s going to start all over.  Eventually some kind of a system will be established but in the beginning those corporations, those places, don’t exist.  I hope you understand that.  That’s where we are in time.

And so if you have a 30 year payment on your house you keep paying on it faithfully month by month.  The taxes you pay, you continue to do those faithfully as you would anything else.  The insurance you have, you continue to take care of things that you normally would. But you know something the rest of the world doesn’t - before long it’s all going to come to a screeching halt.  Okay?  And you will have no house payment come May or June or July of 2012, that’s a reality.

But anyway, I wanted to read here about the 50th Truth because it’s good to understand why a spirit world is so stirred up and what it is that they grasp and comprehend now that they haven’t always comprehended.  I wanted to mention here that to consider a spirit being and Satan and why they’re so stirred up, because we are in a period of time that’s called ‘Time, Time, and a Half a Time’ and yes, it’s because they know time is short, but the thing they hate the most is the truth.  The thing they hate the worst is God’s truth, and it starts with the 50th here because that announces the return of Jesus Christ and understanding that God gave to us on Trumpets of that particular year.  So I want to read part of this to you:

The 50th Truth

....

The Feast of Trumpets has long been understood to be plural (a blowing of trumpets) and not the blowing of a singular trumpet, all of which announce and work to lead closer to the fulfillment of Christ’s return as King of kings. God has reserved the Feast of Trumpets of 2008 to be the day that is the time for the official announcement to His people that the long awaited final countdown for Jesus Christ’s coming is now at hand.

When God finally revealed what was written in Daniel there about 1335...and sometimes we just receive that as knowledge and don’t think a lot about it, but this is a major thing that God gave, something that Daniel wanted to understand, something I can guarantee you every prophet, every minister, every member, as a whole, through time in God’s Church has wanted to know what that 1335 days was, when it would begin, what it meant.  And yet we experience it and sometimes when you’re experiencing it you don’t understand the magnitude of it – when hundreds and thousands of individuals before us who lived God’s way of life have not had the blessing of knowing, but you know it.  It’s an awesome thing.

Going on here in the article:

The Revelation of the Timing

There is great significance and meaning contained in the unique timing of the Feast of Trumpets in 2008. The first significant timing is contained in 2 Thessalonians 2 and is learned from end-time prophecy involving the physical leader over the Church on earth, who would betray Jesus Christ. The revelation of this man would reveal to the Church that the end-time had now come and that the First Seal of Revelation had been opened.

We’re talking about Mr. Tkach, Sr. and what he did.

This man who would betray God’s government would be known as “the man of sin” and "the son of perdition." As covered in the Church’s literature and in sermons, God revealed who this man was by a judgment of death that was contained in this revelation. That judgment was revealed through the number 40 (used as God’s judgment) times the seven-day week. It was exactly 280 days from the time of this man’s betrayal to the time he died.

It’s an awesome thing!  To the exact hour of the time of day that he did this and he died.

When Joe Tkach, Sr. gave a sermon denouncing the most basic laws of God, it was exactly 280 days later to the hour that he died. This timing was God’s revelation of who the son of perdition and this man of sin was.

Now, Mr. Harrell gave a sermon here recently, a split-sermon, and he talked about December 17th.  It’s an awesome thing that this year is exactly the same on the Roman calendar as it was in that particular year of the apostasy.  And there are things that sometimes happen that we look back upon and we learn...and we’ll have a sermon next week that will go into this even more so, that the timing of these things is even more profound.  I don’t want to go too far in this because it would get into next week’s sermon.

But it’s an awesome thing to understand that this year here, because of where we are in time, and you look back at what happened on December 17th when Mr. Tkach, Sr. gave that particular sermon, the very next weekend... I want to read this here to you because this is something that Johnny had referred to that I’d never heard this particular part, of what Joe, Jr. had to say about his own father and his father giving that sermon at that particular time.

I marvel how God is putting everything back in place.  You go back to that moment in time and here we are, December 17th, and what were we doing?  A ministerial meeting of the evangelists and senior elders in God’s Church for the very purpose of what we’re going to be doing and some changes we’re going to be making starting January 8th concerning baptizing and the other things we’re going to be doing in the Church.  I can’t give it to you but the organization of how God has prepared us for what’s coming is so awesome, because of what we’re living through and what I see taking place in the Church and in the ministry. And so we were planning all this on December 17th.  It’s the same time as when an individual came along and sought to destroy everything that God had given and yet since this particular moment in time going back to September of 2008 God has been putting things in place.

And at a time when I truly thought that would be the last truth what did God give?  Seven more.  If you understand those truths you understand why Satan is even more stirred up, because he hasn’t always known these things.  Do you understand the scriptures when God talks about how that the spirit world desires to know what God reveals in the Church?  Because they know this is how God communicates His will, and God hasn’t revealed everything all at once. He didn’t reveal everything to Abraham of what He was doing.  He didn’t reveal everything to Moses.  And Jesus Christ didn’t give everything to the Church; as a matter of fact Jesus Christ made it very clear that there were things He couldn’t yet give because the timing wasn’t right.  There were things He couldn’t give to the disciples at that time.  And so it’s been in the last 2,000 years as we’ve drawn closer and closer to this period of time.

So December 17th of 2011 was when God was putting the final preparation on of restoring everything, of getting to a point in time where everything’s going to be restored in a very powerful way – all of it preparing for the return of His Son, Jesus Christ.

So, anyway, that particular sermon was entitled by Joe Tkach, Jr. ‘New Covenant/Old Covenant’.  He tried to do away with everything that we’d ever taught in God’s Church; the Sabbath, the Holy Days...wanted to go back to traditional Christianity – something unheard of for any church to have such sweeping changes in doctrine.  Again, I think of that ‘type’ that we have and what sermon...

I mentioned Joe, Jr. gave a certain title to the sermon, or they referred to it as the ‘New Covenant/Old Covenant’ later on; it went out that way but Joe Jr. had something to say here a little bit later.  No, we know who gave the sermon...the sermon was given by Joe, Sr. on December 17th, but it was given a title ‘New Covenant/Old Covenant’, and his son referred to it later on as ‘The Christmas Eve Sermon’ because it was the following Sabbath (which was last Sabbath in timing) that in order to appease the world of traditional Christianity he wanted to give it a different title because Joe Jr.’s whole desire was to go back into traditional Christianity.  And that was his push from a very early period of time before his father even gave that sermon, so he referred to it as ‘The Christmas Eve Sermon’.

I think, “What an incredible thing!  That the very name given to it by his own son, and we have now gone through that on December 24th with this first sermon here about tyranny, that it’s the last time there will ever be a Christmas Eve again.  I don’t know about you but I am elated to know that this is the last Christmas that will ever be observed by mankind: the lies and the deceptions that have gone on with it and a day that symbolizes what Satan has done to mankind more than any other day.  That has been his day more than any other.  If you want to find any day in a period of 6,000 years that pictures him, it’s that day, Christmas, the mass of Christ.  Traditional Christianity doesn’t even know what it comes from and where it comes from in time.  And it’s a mockery; it mocks God and it mocks God’s plan.

But as I was mentioning here, on the 17th we went through a sermon called, ‘The Meaning of Elijah’ and had those meetings that we had and I think of the period of time of what we’re going through.  It’s truly an awesome thing!

But anyway, I just wanted to go through real quick like here the seven truths that God gave after that period of time that have only been given in the last not even 3½ years, just the last ‘Time, Time, and a Half a Time’, because I think everyone knows that next Sabbath marks the change – we finally enter into the last period of time, the last 140 days before Christ’s return.

So I wanted to spend a little bit of time here today going back through this one here:

51 (1) God has revealed the identity of the Elijah to come.

I want to go back through some of these scriptures because we’ve had some questions from individuals not fully understanding what I had to say on that sermon given on the 17th and I think it’d be good and expedient for us to go back and look at some of these verses here in Matthew 27 to begin with.  I want to go through this again because there have been some questions even from the ministry of things that I know that haven’t been fully understood yet and I hope that everyone will fully understand then what this is talking about here when it’s talking about there are three ‘types’ of the Elijah to come that have been fulfilled in time, and this was the third, Mr. Armstrong was the second, John the Baptist was the first.  But they’re not the actual fulfillment that’s given in Malachi and so forth.

What has been happening in times past has only been a ‘type’ of that fulfillment that Jesus Christ is going to fulfill.  I want to make this clear as we go through these verses again here.

Matthew 27:45 - Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over the land until the ninth hour. And so it means from 12:00.  So this is the terminology used there.  It’s talking about from 12:00 to 3:00 pm in the afternoon.  It says, there was darkness over the land. And about the ninth hour, which is 3:00 pm in the afternoon, Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? That is to say, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?  And so again here, in this language that is Aramaic...Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as a whole are written in Aramaic.  A lot of people think they’re written originally in Greek.  No, they’re not.  They were translated into Greek later on, they were originally written in Aramaic and so that’s why it’s saying here, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani which at this particular time what is written there is very much akin to Hebrew in essence, some of the things as far as the language was concerned.

He’s crying out saying these words, which mean in English here; My God, My God, Why have You forsaken Me?  And as I mentioned last Sabbath, those things are written not because Jesus Christ believed that He’d been forsaken by His Father, but they’re written for us so that we can learn a great lesson from this, that at that moment at time...  Oh, what a horrible feeling that God’s spirit is pulled away from you in the sense of His presence, and that feeling of emptiness, and it had to be there because God was revealing and showing at that moment in time that He will not be in the presence of sin.  Because the reality is that as Jesus Christ was dying He took upon Himself the sins of all mankind.  He never sinned at all in His life, but He took upon Himself all the sins of mankind and God removed His presence from His own Son.  That’s when Jesus Christ cried out like this, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? ...My God, My God, Why have You forsaken Me?  Because His Father will not be in the presence of sin, so it made it very clear here that for a moment in time the Father’s presence wasn’t there.  That’s written for us so we can understand what Jesus Christ went through at that moment in time, what He did at that moment in time.

And some of them that stood there, when they heard this said, This man calls for Eli-jah. Now, I hope everyone understands that He wasn’t calling for Elijah the prophet.  It’s a name!  It’s the meaning of the name and what they were saying: Eli, which has to do with God. When we read Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?  Eli is referring to God.  And so just like we understand the word ‘Elijah’, like I mentioned last Sabbath, the ‘j-a-h’ comes from Yah...Yahweh, the Eternal.  And Eli is the word ‘El’ for God.  God is the Eternal.  God is Yahweh.  God is the Eternal.  It’s just a name!  And so what they were saying was, not that Elijah the prophet’s going to come – they understood perfectly well what Jesus Christ was crying out for.  He was crying out to His God – Why have You forsaken Me? And so the others around Him said, “Let’s see if Eli-jah will come!”  They weren’t talking about the prophet, they were talking about God Almighty, the God Jah/Yah - Yahweh. It’s just a shortened form of the word Yahweh, and so they were saying, “Let’s see if Yahweh, the God Yahweh, the Eternal God...” the God that they worship, not that they believed in Him, “...let’s see if He’ll come and save Him.”  Talking about Roman soldiers, “Let’s see if this God’s going to... Let’s see if He shows up and....” anyway.

So it goes on to say, And right away one of them ran and took a sponge and filled it with vinegar and put it on a reed and gave Him to drink. And the rest said, Let’s wait now and let’s see whether Eli-jah will come to save Him.  Again, not the prophet – God Almighty.  And so the reason for going through these verses is to show the importance, the meaning of the name.  It’s about the name.  So when it talks about in Malachi, the Eli-jah to come, it’s the name and how He’s going to restore, how God Almighty is going to restore all things.  He does it through His Son.  It’s an awesome thing!  It’s a beautiful thing in scripture.

And that’s why we went to Acts 3 next.  It’s just a word that means ‘the Eternal is God’.  So there was a man that carried that name.  Just like ‘Joshua’ in the Bible; that’s the name that God gave His own Son, Yehushua, if you want to look at the Hebrew language.  It’s the same name.  Names have meaning.  And so an individual carried it in a time of Israel, just like the prophet Elijah carried a name for a time for something that God was going to do through Elijah with Israel; and yet God is showing that there’s a greater meaning of something that’s going to be accomplished through Eli-jah in the future, in the name, by God Almighty in the Elijah to come.

Acts 3:19 - Repent you therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the LORD; And He, speaking of the LORD, He/God Almighty shall send Jesus Christ, who before was preached unto you: Whom the heaven must receive, in other words for 2,000 years basically, must receive until the times of the restitution of all things, and so God has a plan to restore all things but not until His Son is able to come back to this earth, and that’s when the final great work is going to be done through His Son.  Everything else that is fulfilled, like John the Baptist is only a ‘type’, Mr. Armstrong only a ‘type’, but Jesus Christ is not a ‘type’.  He is the literal fulfillment of the scriptures in Malachi and that’s what these verses are about.  And it’s not about God Almighty coming – He comes through His Son, just like He comes into the Church, and something we need to grasp and comprehend as well,  is the 144,000 – it’s one of these truths a little bit later – God Almighty dwells in His Family permanently.  Something that we haven’t fully grasped in times past in the Church, that God never gave to us to understand, to comprehend, is that His plan and His purpose is to dwell in, just like He does in us now.

If we are repenting of sin, if we are seeking to be at one with Him, He dwells in us by the power of His spirit.  But when we sin what happens?  We get cut off or that spirit becomes weaker in us, but it can literally be cut off until what?  Until we repent.  And then He’ll dwell in us again, because God will not be around sin.  That’s why Jesus Christ cried out like He did, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?  ...Why have You forsaken Me?  Because He had to carry the sins of everyone.  God will not be around sin, but once you’re in His Family there is no sin ever again.  It’s a beautiful thing.

We finally come to a point in time where we will no longer have the pulls of the flesh, ‘the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life’ in us.  We’ll have come to a time that God gives us awesome power, not just to be in a spirit body, to have spirit eternal life from that point forward, but that He can always dwell in us because we’re of one mind with Him.  Everyone different like we are today but then in full agreement with God and the ability to follow through and do everything that’s right, because that’s what we’ve chosen to do all of our life in God’s Church.  That’s why we repent.  That’s why you repent day after day after day; that God is right.  And then He gives you the power to fulfil that life for eternity.

And so again here, God is the one that does it.  Eli-jah – El – God – The Eternal – Yahweh – He is the one who does all this.  He does it through His Son and He does it through His Family, through 144,000, during the Great White Throne.  That’s how things are going to be restored to this earth in a very organized fashion.  There will no longer be a system like we had in Worldwide where ministers were sent out in the world and brought back into headquarters and taught and re-educated in certain things or encouraged in certain things for the sake of unity, that they would go out and faithfully do it.  Because they didn’t go out and faithfully do it!  It shows the weakness of mankind even in the Church, that man can still sin and turn against God.  In the future it can’t happen because 144,000, Christ, are faithful and in charge, a perfect government, a perfect Church, a perfect Family.

And so that’s when a time, it talks about, ‘until the heavens must receive until the restitution of all things’.  So during 1,100 years everything is going to be fully restored that God intended for man to have until the job is finished; and it’s not finished until when?  Until the end of 1,100 years, then it’s finished, everything has been restored to the degree God wanted it.  Peace – Jerusalem – Mt. Zion.

So again, whom the heavens must receive until the time of the restitution of all things which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.  It’s been spoken of for 6,000 years and now almost here.

Going on in this same area here, verse 22 - For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A Prophet shall the LORD your GOD raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto Me; Him shall you hear in all things whatsoever He shall say unto you. Speaking of Jesus Christ.  He is ‘That Prophet’ that Moses pointed to.

And it shall come to pass, that every soul, who will not hear that Prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people. It’s a process that God has given.  So if people choose not to receive that – which some will do during the Millennium – that’s almost impossible to grasp!  During the Great White Throne there will be some who even with God’s presence on the earth in the form of Jesus Christ and the 144,000, they will still reject because they don’t want Gods way of life, they don’t want God’s law!

And it says, whoever will not receive that Prophet shall be destroyed from among the people. Yes, and all the prophets from Samuel and those who follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days. You are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in your Seed , speaking of Jesus Christ, shall all the kindred’s of the earth be blessed. Unto you first God, having raised up His Son Jesus, sent Him to bless you in turning away every one of you away from your sins/your iniquities.  So again here, a plan that God has of delivering mankind from tyranny.  From tyranny, because even during the thousand years man still has to conquer human nature and that self and that selfishness that’s a part of our being, until it’s finally fulfilled.

I hope there’s no more confusion about Elijah/Eli-jah – what it means, because I’ve had questions that I’ve encouraged people to go back and listen to the sermon again, because it’s all there to understand it’s not talking about God the Father except that He accomplishes what He does through His Son who fulfills the Malachi prophecy of the Elijah to come.  Everything else has only been a ‘type’, not the real thing.  Jesus Christ is the real thing.  I’m thankful that God’s restored that.  I don’t know about you but I’m thankful for that.

I want to mention some of these other truths as well and why Satan is stirred up, because He hates Jesus Christ.  He hates the individual; above everyone else in God’s Family and God’s plan he hates Jesus Christ more than anyone else.  I hope you understand that because He is the one that has been the greatest threat to him from the time that he first learned that there were going to be those who were greater than him.  That’s when he turned bitter and that’s when he turned jealous, because he was created the greatest, in that respect, as far as the angelic realm was concerned, of an angelic being – as far as an archangel was concerned.  There was Gabriel, and there was Michael, and there was Lucifer, and yet Lucifer was given far more in power and beauty, God makes that very clear.

And so when God revealed in time that there would be a Family, and that there would be One who would bring everyone into that Family He is the one that Satan has hated the most.  And that’s why we see through time the attacks, especially in the New Testament, things that are written there about Christ and how Satan, in essence, came at Him in different ways in different forms at different times and primarily through the so called ‘religious leaders’ of that time, the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

Other truths that he hates that God has reserved for the last ‘Time, Time, and a Half a Time’, because it’s when these were revealed.  They weren’t revealed beginning with Trumpets of 2008, they were revealed later on.

52 (2) God is restoring knowledge concerning the rightful place of women in the family.

Satan has had an incredible, ugly, sick, perverted hold on mankind since the Garden of Eden, because of what happened there.  And the structure and the deception of what he’s placed into the world since that time, candidly, women have been oppressed for 6,000 years in a way that was never meant to be, just because man is physically stronger.  And God never intended it be that way.  The mental things that people have done to one another in families is sometimes the most cruel of all that can ever happen.  And God wants us to get a belly full of that, to hate and to loathe the way people have treated each other in life.  And sadly that has been a great oppression, and Satan doesn’t want to let go of that; he’d rather see that kind of oppression in the world, people’s minds who are so distorted.

You look at it in Christianity – you know what he starts with?  ‘Original sin’ from the Catholic church and perverted people’s minds concerning a right healthy sexual relationship between man and woman.  That organization has done more to cause unhappiness in families because of that one thing alone, a healthy, right relationship between a man and a woman, than any other thing.  Where people have wrong feelings of guilt about things.  And then he worked in another religion to get people to believe that – again, it has to do with sex...sad to say Satan has used that as a very powerful tool to deceive mankind and to distort the minds of mankind concerning things that God created and made to be healthy and beautiful when done His way.  See?  But when not done His way they are the most ugly, the most hurtful, the most damaging, the most perverting to the human mind of anything that’s out there, it truly is.  It’s a very powerful thing.

And so for some minds it’s going to take a long time for them to come to understand that they weren’t made to look through eyes like this [burqa/burka], that this is all that they can see, and all that can be seen are the eyes.  For a man to believe that’s the best way his wife should be presented in public is a perversion and distortion and a sickness of the human mind.  For a woman to believe that this glorifies God and glorifies her husband is perverted and sick and distorted.  What a sick, sick world, and sometimes we don’t realize what people have done to one another and how Satan has so distorted the minds of human beings.

I can tell you so many stories of people in God’s Church with whom I have worked, because of things they have learned from religion, that have hurt their minds – abuses and perversions that they thought were from God.  I am so thankful we’re almost at the major Jubilee that God’s going to give to mankind, a time of a freedom from tyranny.  A lot of pain and hurt and suffering in this world, brethren, that sometimes just by watching TV or listening to music or going out and drinking or taking drugs doesn’t get rid of in the world – because a lot of people try to mask and cover up the hurt and the pain and the suffering that they’re going through.  And there’s a lot of it right here in this very room.

I can be in any congregation around the world right now, talking to people that God is freeing their minds and blessing them with being able to see and understand what’s beautiful about His way of life, and there’s a lot of deep pain and hurt and suffering in people’s minds and in their lives because of their past and because of things that have happened to them in life.  And I’ll tell you what – women have suffered more than men in that by far!

The next one:

53 (3) The ordination of women in the Church.

It’s a beautiful thing, and God’s showing the equality of man and woman, not the variance.

You know what I really hate in some of the old marriage ceremonies that are in the world, when people get married?  ‘And I pronounce you man and wife!’ And I think, “You fool!  You moron!  You sick, perverted mind!  You’re a man anyway, so what does this make you, what does this say in the marriage? To be husband and wife is one thing but to be ‘man and wife’ – Whew..!”  I hope you understand how sick that is, how perverted that is, and what it teaches. Okay?  Husband and wife is the right thing to say, but sadly the world doesn’t even understand the right relationship there, a beautiful relationship that God wants.  Because the most important thing to God is family, it truly is, but it’s the kind of family that He gives that’s done by His law and His way of life.

Satan doesn’t like these things.  Satan hates these things, truly does.  He really hates the next one:

54 (4) There is an end to Satan’s existence.

He’s coming to an end.  It’s going to be destroyed.  He’s not an eternal living being.  Even in God’s Church in times past people have thought that because he’s spirit he’s going to be eternally living.  No, he’s not.  He’s coming to an end.  He’s going to be destroyed in time.  Satan. Hasn’t. Always. Known. That.  Do you understand that?  Do you understand why a being could be so stirred up now more than ever before, than he ever has been in His life, to believe that this is what God is saying?  That he’s going to actually be destroyed, that he’s not going to be able to live on?

55 (5) Angels were created and composed of spirit essence and given life by God (spirit life), yet they do not have self-sustaining life inherent in themselves.

See, that goes along with #54 about Satan being destroyed, because he doesn’t have life inherent within himself.  Only one being does – God Almighty who eternally exists, something we can’t comprehend.  I don’t understand that but I believe it.  That’s why His Family will eternally exist in the future, because He will dwell in them.

56 (6) God created both good and evil

It’s an awesome truth that God gave us at the Feast when He gave it.  He created both good and evil...but to understand what that means... like it says here:

...but to understand “how” is to understand why God gave beings, both human and angelic, independent free choice...

In other words, God created the ability for such to come to be and that’s what happened - Satan started it.  He chose the evil, but God is the one who created him with that capacity to do so; same as with mankind, but all for a purpose, which again, we don’t have time to go through today.

Number 57, the last one that God gave:

57 (7) Through the power of the holy spirit, Almighty God will “dwell” IN His Family into everlasting life, and they will always dwell IN Him.

It’s a beautiful thing!  Again, all those things that this being hates and loathes.

This sermon that began last Sabbath was to share with you something that all of you are going through because you’re going through, in a lot of different areas out here, pressure, if you will, stress in ways that you have never gone through it in the same way in your times past.  Do you feel that?  Hopefully some of you who are younger and newer aren’t experiencing that in the same manner as perhaps some who are going through some of their final training and the final things they have to go through.  But again, I have never known a time in God’s Church where there has been this kind of pressure and stress and anxiety because of the world around us.  And there is a reason for it; because there is a real spirit world that the world doesn’t acknowledge, but it’s there and it broadcasts, and it broadcasts in emotions and the attitudes and spirit and it seeks to oppress and it seeks to hurt and it seeks to cause anxiety in those things that exist out there.

Again, I hope we understand that and understand the importance of a race and to keep  fighting until it  is finished, because we don’t have long to go.

~~~end

1. 'Throe'

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