Between the Two Evenings – Pt. 2

Ron Weinland

July 14, 2012

Thought I’d read a few news articles because sometimes some of you don’t get these, and some comments have been made about being able to receive these on a regular basis, so I thought I’d just make a few comments here just to show how things continue to press forward as they are.

This is a follow-up on the drought situation.

New York Times

Drought Worsens for Farmers and Ranchers[1]

July 13, 2012 | Jennifer Preston

...

More than 1,000 counties in 26 states across the country were named natural-disaster areas on Thursday in a statement from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It was the single largest designation in the program’s history and the worst drought since 1988, government officials said.

Well some are obviously comparing it with farther back than that, but it says....

Nearly 61 percent of the contiguous U.S. was listed in drought this week, up from 56 percent for the previous week....

So that’s what I’d announced last week, the 56, so it shows how much can happen in one week’s time like that.

The report found that nearly two-thirds of the states in the Midwest are facing drought conditions, up from 50 percent a week earlier...

So again, that’s just one week’s time from 50 percent in that part of the U.S. up to two-thirds this past week.  This just came out the other day; “US Declares Drought Stricken States Largest Natural Disaster Ever”.

Some of you have been keeping up on some of that, some of the things happening with crops, corn prices, and everything else and things are going to hit the grocery stores.  A lot of people don’t realize how much is made from corn, which isn’t really a good thing anyway, but I thought I’d mention some of this.  It still continues on until its God’s time, but it says here....

USA Today | Money

Fed officials warn of looming problems for economy[2]

July 12, 2012

Well, week after week you see those things, and it just continues to hang out there.  But this to me is an incredible story.

The Economic Collapse

The Biggest Financial Scandal in History?[3]

I don’t know how many of you heard about ‘Libor’ but I want to read part of this so that people understand what’s going on.  But I saw a thing on the news here the other way that talked about... I thought it was interesting how they put the little caption, but it was ‘Libor Pains’ – like labour pains, which is tongue in cheek, but that’s exactly what it is concerning this period of time and the world.

We always knew that the financial markets were rigged, but this is getting ridiculous.  It is now being alleged that 20 major banks have been systematically fixing global interest rates for years.  Barclays has already been fined hundreds of millions of dollars for manipulating Libor (the London Inter Bank Offered Rate).  But Barclays says that a whole bunch of other banks were doing this too.

So it’s like, if they’re doing it its okay if we do it too.

This is shaping up to be the biggest financial scandal in history, and criminal investigations have been launched on both sides of the Atlantic.  What those investigations are likely to uncover could shake the financial markets to their very core.

Which is an amazing thing, because it really isn’t, it just shows the problems with the system and what’s continuing to go on and they’re kind if shaking it off.  Until things really come to an end here it isn’t really going to bother people.  The stock market continues to go up, back and forth.  It asks here...What does this matter, makes a statement, a comment here.  It says...

Why Does Libor Matter?

If you have a mortgage, a car loan or a credit card, then there is a very good chance that Libor has affected your personal finances.  Libor has been a factor in the pricing of hundreds of trillions of dollars of loans, securities and assets.  The following is from a recent article by [name removed]....

“These traders influenced the pricing of the London Interbank Offered Rate or Libor, a benchmark that dictates the pricing of up to $800 trillion of securities (yes trillion)”

Anyway, I’m not going to go on, but I can’t even comprehend some of that, $800 trillion.  It goes on to say in another article here...

Daily Finance | AOL.com

The $800 Trillion Scandal: How Banks’ LIBOR Lies Affected You[4]

By Christopher Barker | 07/09/12

It just goes on and on, some of the kinds of things that go on in the world that you have to shake your head and realize this whole system has to come to an end and thank God we’re there!

Some things happening in the Middle East area, an article here this past week.  It says:

WND

FROM JOSEPH FARAH'S G2 BULLETIN

Lebanon fears Syrian violence spillover[5]

Army may not be able to keep northern border stable

By F. Michael Maloof  | July 10, 2012

BEIRUT, Lebanon – Lebanon is dispatching its army to its northern border with Syria – to halt the shelling into the northern edge of the country and to slow down a surging flow of arms and personnel in support of the Syrian rebels, according to a report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

But many observers say the effort targeting the area that includes the Sunni-dominated city of Tripoli, which has been the scene of increasing violence between Sunnis and Shi’a, is doomed to fail.

In addition to the Sunni majority, there also is a significant minority of Alawites, an offshoot of Shi’ism, to which the ruling family of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad belongs.

So anyway, just going through this, some of these places here, you think of different Shi’a, Sunni, different factions within the groups, and again, it’s just on and on, the same things taking place here. But that’s a tough part of the world.

Here’s one:

Haaretz

Russian warships en route to Syria[6]

WATCH: Russian destroyer Smetlivy departs Black Sea port for Syria.

By Reuters | Jul.11, 2012

You probably already heard some of those things on the news but it continues to get larger and larger.

Russia dispatched a destroyer-class warship to Syria on Tuesday, a source in the Russian Navy told Reuters, and another military source was quoted as saying four more Russian ships were en route to the violence-torn country.

There are also rumours going around that China has asked for access to pass through the Suez Canal and that they’re sending some ships into the region as well.  I think of the scriptures, when I think of something like that, I think about God talking about how He brings everyone together for the day of battle and talking about the particular part of the world it’s going to be in and it’s in the very region of Megiddo, all the countries that surround it...and that’s exactly what’s taking place.

I could go on and on...there are so many articles like this.  President Putin, things that he’s saying right now, talks about how ‘The West is on the Decline’.  Thought this one here was interesting, ‘Putin’s July 4th Message’ they’re calling it.

The Washington Beacon

PUTIN’S JULY 4TH MESSAGE[7]

By Bill Gertz – July 6, 2012

Two Russian strategic nuclear bombers entered the U.S. air defense zone near the Pacific coast on Wednesday and were met by U.S. interceptor jets, defense officials told the Free Beacon.

It was the second time Moscow dispatched nuclear-capable bombers into the 200-mile zone surrounding U.S. territory in the past two weeks.

He knows what’s going on; obviously he’s over everything that’s taking place there and he’s pushing the envelope here for a purpose.  It says:

In May, Russian Gen. Nikolai Makarov, the chief of the Russian General Staff, said during a Moscow conference that because missile defense systems are destabilizing, “A decision on pre-emptive use of the attack weapons available will be made when the situation worsens.” The comments highlighted Russian opposition to planned deployments of U.S. missile defense interceptors and sensors in Europe.

The U.S. defense official called the latest Bear H incident near the U.S. West Coast “Putin’s Fourth of July Bear greeting to Obama.”

“It’s becoming very obvious that Putin is testing Obama and his national security team,” McInerney told the Free Beacon. “These long-range aviation excursions are duplicating exercises I experienced during the height of the Cold War when I commanded the Alaska NORAD region.

So again, they’re starting to do the exact same things they used to do and they said it’s an exact duplication of what took place then.  Incredible, incredible!

Here’s another one:

WND | World

ISRAEL...WILL TURN INTO ASHES WITHIN SECONDS[8]

Mahdi fever fueling confidence behind reckless rhetoric, threats

Published: 07/04/2012

A senior Iranian cleric is warning Israel that if it attacks the Islamic state’s nuclear facilities, it will be burned to the ground.

In an event dubbed “Followers of Hidden Imam,” Ayatollah Seyed Ahmad Khatami, a member of the Assembly of Experts and the substitute Friday Prayer leader of Tehran, said, “Should Israel commit madness, it will turn into ashes within seconds,” according to Fars News Agency, the Revolutionary Guards’ media outlet.

A lot of their stuff is rhetoric, but it’s interesting to notice the mindset and why they’re doing some of these things.  And so it goes on to say...

...according to Fars News Agency, the Revolutionary Guards’ media outlet.

The attendants at Tuesday’s event, which was organized by the cultural center for the “Hidden Imam” in the city of Shiraz, discussed actions needed for the reappearance of the last Islamic messiah.

So what’s behind all this is they have their prophecies, their beliefs, and they think there are things they have to do in order to help this messiah come along, come on the scene.  And so they fully believe there are things they have to do in order to prepare for this, and so that’s what they’re preparing for.  It goes on to say....

“The followers of the Imam have one thing in common, and that is a love for martyrdom and complete submission to their leader,” Khatami said. “The heartbeat of the nuclear issue is in the hands of the supreme leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei), and the decision of what to do with America is only upon him.”

And so that brings me to the next article which is about Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.  This is where the article says....

WND | Faith

Iran leader: We must prep for 'end of times'[9]

'We shall make the Islamic civilization proud on the world stage'

July 11, 2012

Iran’s supreme leader, for the first time, is telling his nation that it must prepare for war and “the end of times” as it continues to develop nuclear weapons.

So this is the first time he’s spoken out on this; he’s left it to others to do this in the past...but it just shows you that things are getting closer and closer and closer.  It says....

State-owned media outlets, in a coordinated effort, all ran a similar story Friday highlighting Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s message on the coming of the last Islamic messiah.

Until now, the Iranian media would mostly quote clerics from seminaries on the issue of the last Islamic messiah to avoid the regime being labeled messianic. However, the wide publication of Khamenei’s statements on a need to prepare for the end of times as it confronts the West over its illicit nuclear program is alarming to Western leaders.

“The issue of Imam Mahdi is of utmost importance, and his reappearance has been clearly stated in our holy religion of Islam,” Khamenei said. We must study and remind ourselves of the end of times and Imam Mahdi’s era. … We must prepare the environment for the coming so that the great leader will come.”

Shiite theology holds that great wars must engulf the Earth, during which one-third of the world’s population will die in the fighting and another third from hunger, lawlessness and havoc. Israel is to be destroyed, and only then will the 12th imam, Mahdi, reappear and kill all the infidels, raising the flag of Islam in all corners of the world.

Crazy things out there, what people believe and what Satan has brought to the forefront, but anyway...

Today we’re going to continue with the sermon entitled Between the Two Evenings with this being Part 2.  As was mentioned at the beginning of last week’s sermon – I want to repeat this again;

“Anticipating May 27th was a most incredible experience for God’s Church to live.  May 27th has revealed what is inside of you.  It was, is, and will continue to be a spiritual mirror in your life.”

So these things continue on and there are things that will come your way at different times to try you, to test you, to see where you are, and these things are going to continue to the end, they truly are, or depending on each individuals relationship with God.  This is not a good ‘day’ in that respect, it’s a ‘day’ to be on-guard, it’s a ‘day’ to be alert spiritually, it’s a ‘day’ to do all the things we’ve been talking about in the sermons to make sure that we’re standing fast and we are indeed trying to hold onto everything that God has given to us with all of our being, seeking to draw closer to God.

It’s not a time to let up; it’s not a time to coast.  I know that before we came up to May 27th – God has made this very clear – that many of us were coasting, and we cannot do that at this time.  That’s the message that God is giving to us.  We have to be alert.  We have to be on-guard spiritually.  We cannot coast.  We cannot just wait by and let time pass us, because that’s the kind of – I don’t know how to classify this – that was kind of the mode that too many got into, just letting time go by, wanting time to go by, waiting for May 27th.  This year can’t be like that!  It’s not a matter of waiting on a date; it’s a matter of being on-guard every day of your life.  It’s a matter of developing a closer relationship with God.

Because too many, just being candid here, have gone backward - have not gone forward!  Because coasting doesn’t get it!  Coasting is what Laodicea did!  That’s exactly what got to Laodicea – rich and increased in goods – and begin to coast, and whenever someone begins to coast you don’t grow, you go backward.  There is no such thing as becoming stagnant in the sense of...   you become stagnant - but there is no such thing as leveling off.  There is no such thing as just leveling off.  There is no such thing as just being kind of between hot and cold, because that’s what lukewarm was for Laodicea; it was kind of leveling off.  And whenever there’s a leveling off and time just going by and we get involved in our everyday life and our everyday routine and life just kind of passes us by, that is a horribly dangerous spiritual state!  It’s one of being lukewarm, and God doesn’t accept lukewarm!  That’s the whole history of Laodicea.

And so we are to remember what happened to the Church during Laodicea and understand that that same spirit, that same attitude is something you have to guard against even now.  Any of the messages God gave to the seven Churches are important for God’s people all the time.  I’ve heard of many sermons during the time of Philadelphia from out of the other eras, of messages that God gave, because there are always things for us to watch, to be alert to.  But that message that was for Laodicea is still one that is pertinent to this day.  I’ve made comments in times past how that is going to be a powerful message throughout the Millennium, because that’s the height of it all, that gets to the point where it reveals how we think.  We can get to a point where we think we’re doing well because we’ve been given so much!

During Philadelphia God had given us so much; by the time Mr. Armstrong died and had written the book ‘Mystery of the Ages’ it was bringing together 50+ years of his experiences and those things that God had led the Church to and re-energized His Church, and Mr. Armstrong came back at a point in time there – after I’ve already mentioned part of the history here, after the late 70’s, after a heart attack and after some of the division, of things going on in the Church – he came back stronger than ever talking about ‘putting the Church back on the right track’ because he saw the spirit of Laodicea coming into the Church.  It was a natural sequence of events that God allowed to happen to teach us great lessons.

And so that attitude and spirit became the Church, that we had so much and yet there was so much more to be gained, to be gleaned, to be learned.  And people began to level off, the Church began to level off and become not hot and not cold; some became cold but there wasn’t really any getting hot anymore, it went by the wayside, and God said He wasn’t going to accept that and He spewed the Church out of His mouth.

So those are the dangers.  That will be the danger during the Millennium, because you think of a time that that needs to be a warning...is when Jesus Christ is on the earth, 144,000 on the earth, and people have ability to have conversations with, to discuss things with, to hear sermons from part of the 144,000 at different times - at the Feast of Tabernacles it’s going to be awesome around the world.  It’s not going to be a matter of having to record all those because you wouldn’t be able to keep up with everything, but it’s going to be a similar message anyway that God gives through His servants in a very powerful way during that period of time.

But I think of things that will happen on the Sabbath’s, thing that will happen during the Holy Days and so forth, Jesus Christ Himself teaching, and when you are born into that and you grow up in that and that becomes your norm it’s going to be very, very easy for people to have a spirit of Laodicea, and that becomes the norm, and people to take for granted what they have.  It’s just a natural sequence of events for physical human beings.

And so again here, I hope we’re hearing the message of what God’s giving to us at this period of time; Before He makes us stand there are things that we must examine in our lives.  And the primary one is that if, to whatever degree, we were leveling off up to May 27th, beginning to coast and just letting time pass us by and just...  that is the spirit, we want time to go by, but we have to be careful in the process.  We want to get to the end, we want to get to the time of Christ’s return, but there’s a great danger in that so often, which I, looking back, know existed now in a very powerful way...and that is not a good spirit.  It’s a dangerous thing to begin to coast.

And so God wants us to examine some of these things; so He’s given us things to look at to be able to do that.  That’s why this comment was made in the beginning of the sermon here, speaking of May 27th.

“It was, is, and will continue to be a spiritual mirror in your life.”

Because this is a ‘day’, ‘between the two evenings’ prophetically, that God is giving us to live, and it’s important that we live it properly in a very close relationship with God – not just passing time by but of drawing closer to God.  Changing!  That’s what it means!  It means we’re repenting and changing and growing and drawing closer to God!

It was also stated that:

“This year that we are in, this ‘day of the Lord’, will be the most meaningful period of time in your life and it will define your life.”

That’s awesome!  ...and it’s inspiring.  It’s awesome to understand what this means; that this day we’re in, this ‘day of the Lord’, is going to be the time more than any other period of time in your life in God’s Church that defines your life.

So in that sermon we focused fully on the overall theme of the book of Revelation which is everything that builds up to the ‘day of the Lord’.  That’s what the thrust of last weeks sermon was about, in that respect, talking about all the things that are in the book of Revelation and the entire theme, the entire focus from the very beginning in chapter 1 all the way to the end, into the end, has a little wrap up in the end, but it’s still about the ‘day of the Lord’ and what God brings to pass because of this ‘day’ that we’re in.

So again, we focused on the overall theme of the book of Revelation which has everything to do about the building up to the ‘day of the Lord’, and from the outset, again, Revelation begins by focusing on that theme.

We ended last Sabbath by looking at how the increase of the physical fulfillment of the 1st Trumpet has been intensifying over the past year.  So, read a little bit about that today.  It’s about literal, physical things that are transpiring more and more.

Between these two evenings of Pentecost, prophetically, we now have just a few days over ten months of time remaining before this ‘prophetic day’ ends.

As last Sabbath’s sermon was drawing to a close we focused on the faith chapter in Hebrews 11 and we looked at moments in time that define some of the lives of those mentioned in that chapter.  And perhaps you’ve gone back there and thought about it in that context.  There are things that happen... (not long periods of time sometimes)... as you go through that faith chapter it should strike you these were the moments that defined their lives...and those were the right examples.  There was one wrong example there as we talked about Cain and Abel.  We did briefly look at, in the very beginning there, two quick moments in time that defined the lives of two individuals from the very first, Cain and Abel.

There is another example here that we’re going to jump forward to today.  It’s a powerful one.  Hebrews 11, as we continue on in the series here today.  We’re going to go through more of the examples and maybe we’ll come back to it later, I really don’t know at this point, but we’re jumping ahead at this stage and you can go back through and think about some of these other events, other things that happened in people’s lives.

Hebrews 11:30 - By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about, in the Greek it means literally, ‘to encircled ‘against’’; means ‘against’, to encircle against something. ...seven days!  Now, God inspired us to equate our journey through the period of ‘Time, Times, and Half a Time’ to that of marching around Jericho.  It’s similar to what we did earlier on as we looked at Gideon and running down the hill together.  And then later God gave us this to focus upon because there are those things that are given to us, stories in the Old Testament, that there are things that God uses later on in a very powerful way that we’re able to experience in our lives and share on a spiritual plane.

But after the Israelites fulfilled their role of marching around Jericho for seven days, and then seven times on that last day, the walls came down. We are now in the time that pictures when God will bring down the walls of Jericho, in this particular ‘day’ that we’re in, when God will bring down Babylon prophetically ‘between the two evenings’ of Pentecost.  But there’s more to the story of Jericho from which we’re to learn lessons at this particular time and in this instance it is what led up to the children of Israel coming into the promised land.  It was 39 years late...39 years late.  And we look at our lives and we think we have a ‘day’ that is a year.  It’s nothing!  It’s nothing, especially when we understand the purpose and see what God is doing and why God is doing it.  But these things can test you and try you...but there are lessons here to learn in this particular story.

It was 39 years later than it was supposed to be, as far as Moses and the Israelites were concerned, yet God knew what was going to come to pass.  That is what is an awesome thing here!  The more you come to see God and understand the things that God has planned and prepared for mankind, these things had design to them.  Just like the end-time when an apostasy occurred for the Church.  God knows how human beings are going to respond to every kind of condition in life, to every kind of moulding and fashioning in life.  God knows us inside and out; He knows what we will do.  And there are those things He’s given through time to teach lessons so that we can learn from them...and they’re awesome lessons in this particular story here.

As far as the Israelites were concerned, as far as what God told them, they were going to the promised land.  And we’re going to go into this story because it’s an awesome story, it truly is, and it’s a great mirror into life, into our lives and a relationship with God.  It’s going to take some time here to build upon this story and i don’t know how far we’re going to get today but, again, we’re going to set the stage for the lessons as we go through it.  There are lessons all the way through it but we’re going to come to greater lessons toward the end on this, of this particular section that we’re going to focus upon by the time they came up to Jericho.

The lessons contained in this story of the Israelites parallel lessons that we’re to learn of our nearing the promised land.  And this period of time ‘between the two evenings’ begin with lessons...lessons that reflect what was said in the introduction concerning this ‘prophetic day’: “It was, is, and will continue to be a spiritual mirror in your life.”

Let’s turn all the way back to Exodus 3 and begin to pick up the story of what God began to tell them, because it’s an awesome story, it truly is.  And in the midst of this particular story here there are, to me, some exciting things that for the first time in my life I began to learn about the Exodus.  Incredible!  Things that I’ve wondered about at different times, of why didn’t the Israelites just march straight north into Israel, into the land of Israel up toward Jerusalem.  Why did they go up all the way around the other side and come across the river Jordon and cross over there in Jericho to come into Israel?  Never have heard these things explained and didn’t think about them enough, I guess I didn’t wonder enough. I think the bottom line is it just wasn’t God’s time.

So let’s go back to see how this story of the Israelites unfolded as God was leading them into the promised land, for this story is for us on a spiritual plane....where we are to examine ourselves and determine what will define our lives up to the actual deliverance that God gives us when we enter the Millennium.

Exodus 3:1 - Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flocks on the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. Now, this is the true area of Mount Sinai.  It wasn’t in Egypt.  You know, if you look on maps – and you might want to turn there.  If any of you have maps on the back of your Bible that should show the Exodus, it would be good to go back there.  Mine even has question marks by some of these areas and I understand why now, because they have the whole story so wrong, they truly do.  But if you see the area called the Sinai – I don’t know how many of you have that – but do you have the Gulf of Suez, you have the Mediterranean Sea at the top, if you have the same kind of map I do.  And then you have Egypt on the left side there, Ramses it talks about, shows the area of Goshen, and then the Gulf of Suez down below that on the left side...and then this huge area called Sinai kind of in the middle.  I don’t know if it’s on your map that way, but if you have an area called Sinai, and then farther to the right, if you have it, there’s an area called Midian, Edom, and Moab.   Edom and Moab is in the area of where present day, current day Jordan is, the nation of Jordan.

But if you look at this area here, what they have on my map, just below Canaan, called the area of Sinai, it’s still in Egypt.  It was at that time, it is at this time; it’s still Egypt.  And God, at the very beginning here, Moses was taken out of Egypt and he went to the area of Midian.  Midian is far to the right there; it’s to the right of the Red Sea.  If you have an area called the Red Sea there you’ll see Midian, if you have an old, old map.  Midian is to the right!  And so this is the story we come in on here that I was mentioning here a minute ago, of things that I’ve wondered about in times past, and it shows here then that Moses kept this flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flocks, it says, to the back side of the desert and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.

So, there are going to be some names here, just like Jethro has another name we’re going to look at a little bit later here, but Horeb as well, Sinai, the area of Mount Sinai, the Sinai Peninsula.

So again here, the Sinai Peninsula, Mount Sinai is not in the nation of Egypt, it’s in Midian, in the region of Midian which is to the east of the Red Sea.  So if you look on your map and you see it, it’s to the east of the Red Sea, east of the Gulf of Aqaba.

And then it goes on to verse 2 – and we’ll talk about this as we go along here.  It says, and the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of the bush and he looked and behold the bush burned with fire and the bush was not consumed.  So we’re all familiar with this story, what Moses saw.

Verse 7 - And Eternal said, I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, it’s similar to what God is saying to us at the end-time and what He’s saying to the world at the end-time and what He’s saying to His Church at the end-time.  “I have seen...”  It’s not that He hadn’t seen it, He knew what their affliction was for the past 400 plus years and the things they had gone through as they grew into a nation and became larger and larger.  But this is a type of terminology that means, “Now is the time to do something about it!  I have seen this!  This is where we are and I’m going to change it!”  That’s God’s message to Moses.  That’s what He’s saying when He’s says, I have seen the affliction of My people; and that’s what He’s telling the world now, that’s what He’s telling the Church now.  That’s where we are in time.  I have seen the affliction of My people, of the earth for the past 6,000 years, if you will; and He’s telling the world, “This is the time!”  This is His time to change everything, to bring the world out of bondage, to bring the world out of spiritual Egypt.

And the Eternal said, I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt; God has seen the affliction of mankind in Egypt for 6,000 years and now is the time to do something about it; that’s what it’s all about.  That’s the message.  ... and I have heard their cry by reason of their slave drivers/taskmasters, that’s what it means, ‘taskmasters’.  A taskmaster is a slave driver; that’s literally what it means.

...for I know their sorrows; I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of the land into a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.  And so again here, this was a physical promised land for the physical Israelites at that time.  Where we are now is so much greater than that, that’s what’s so awesome about these parallels of these stories that are here.  Because this story is something that parallels for the end-time, of what God is doing in taking people out of spiritual Egypt and delivering them from their taskmasters, from their slave drivers, from this system of this world.  Just like I read earlier, some of these things that go on that rule the world, that regulate the world, that run the world that are so sick and distorted and perverted.  The economic system of this world that is not God’s – it’s everything that is ungodly, it truly is!  To have a system like I read about a moment ago, ‘Libor’, $800 Trillion, things we can’t even begin to comprehend.  It’s such a large number -how was it one individual put it...  Let me see if I can find it right quick like because he kind of hit the nail on the head.  It’s how the news is addressing it, they give some lip service but they have no comprehension of how deep this goes and what it really means for the world and for people in the world.  It’s like just shrugging it off and it’ll go away.

Here’s this one article, it says: “Banking scandals have grown so common...”  It’s so common because that’s the system; it’s the corruption that’s in the system.  It’s bred into it; it’s the way of the world and it’s based on greed, it’s based on power to control that greed.  You know, when stocks go up and down there are people making money off it.  If it goes up they make money.  If it goes down there are people who are making money!  That’s the sickness and the perversion of it all!  Others out there aren’t!  There are other people out there who don’t and that lose over and over and over again.  They’re being pushed by their taskmaster, by the system because they don’t understand it, they’re not at the forefront of it.

And so it goes on to say, “Banking scandals have grown so common that perhaps folks have simply run out of outrage or maybe the numbers are just too huge to wrap our mortal heads around.”  That’s kind of what it’s like.  How do you deal with it?  How do you address it?  How do you control it?  You can’t control it, it’s out of control, because it’s what runs the world.  You can’t have twenty of the largest banks in the world go under.  You can’t go after them.  You can give a little slap on the wrist, a few hundred million in penalties.  Oh, big deal!  It doesn’t mean anything to them!  But it’s a show of, “We’re doing something about it...”  Such a sick, sick, sick world.  Thank God He’s bringing it to an end.

So, I thought I’d mention here as we’re at this point, this is a good place to introduce this, but as a follow up to the location of Mount Sinai I thought it would be good to notice a couple of other verses. Let’s notice Exodus 4:19... again, if you have your maps there you might want to look at it.  I want to drive this point home just a little bit more because I found this fascinating, truly did.  I always wondered, “Where would they have crossed?  Why would they cross in a certain area?”  I’m more convicted than ever where indeed they crossed.

Exodus 14:19 - And the Eternal said unto Moses in Midian, now again, Midian is to the right of the Gulf of Aqaba, or the upper part of the Red Sea, if you want to look at it; some maps show it there.  It’s the smaller portion of the Red Sea higher up, and so again, this area here...if you know where the Gulf of Aqaba is, at the very end of it there, today it’s the very southern tip of Israel, where Israel is, wedged between Saudi Arabia to the left and Jordan on the right...and right below that is Saudi Arabia.  And Midian was in the region of Saudi Arabia.  Just above that is Petra, Edom, Moab, that region there where the Jordanians are to this day, where the area of Petra is.  But just right below that, right almost just a little below the area of the Gulf of Aqaba there, or the southern tip of Israel is the area where you run into Saudi Arabia, and that was the Region of Midia.  The western part of Saudi Arabia was the area of Midian.

So again here, this area was located there.  He said here, Now go, return unto Egypt; So he was in Midian, he wasn’t in Egypt.  So if you’re up above that in that area that some maps call Sinai, that is not Sinai.  It is today because some people call it that, but it’s not where Mount Sinai was; it’s not located in that area of Egypt, which is Egypt today.  It’s a totally different part of the world; it was then, it is now.

He says, Go, return unto Egypt: for all the men are dead who sought after your life.

Another scripture here.  Again, this is just making it clear here that God was telling him you’re not in Egypt.  He was cast out; he had to leave Egypt and now he’s to go back into Egypt.  So to think that Midian is somehow up north there...even scholars of some of these things here they know that Midian isn’t in that region of Egypt, and God made it very clear...that’s why I mention this, because God made it very clear he was in the region of Midian, he wasn’t in Egypt.  God told him to go back into Egypt now.

Another scripture, Galatians 4:23. This is an awesome scripture here.  And so Paul is using this analogy here to show about being in bondage and not in being in bondage, being free born and being born into slavery and captivity, if you will; being free and not being free.  Galatians 4:23 - But he, speaking of Ishmael, who was of the bondwoman, speaking of Hagar, was born after the flesh; but he, Isaac, of a free woman, speaking of Sarah.  So Hagar was not free, she was a servant.  Sarah, it says here...that’s why they use the example of between the two, Ishmael and Isaac, it says, but he, referring to Isaac, of the free woman was by promise. So the promise wasn’t through Hagar, it was through Sarah.  It wasn’t through the one who was in servitude, if you will, as a servant, it was through his wife, Abraham’s wife Sarah.

It says, Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the Mount Sinai, so we all know that... the Israelites went up to Mount Sinai, God gave the law at Mount Sinai.  So it’s talking about that which is in the old covenant, and that which is in the new covenant, and it says, the one from Mount Sinai, now what was mentioning in Mount Sinai was God gave the law but He didn’t show how you can keep the law, how you are to be able to live this way of life which was given at another time on Pentecost on 31 AD when God poured out His spirit.  And so that’s what was missing under the old covenant.  The new covenant has God’s spirit in it, that we’re able to, through Jesus Christ, to be forgiven of sin so that we can have the holy spirit in our lives.

And so it goes on to say here, for these are the two covenants; the one, so it’s showing the comparison here between the two, between Sarah and Hagar, between Ishmael and Isaac.  He says, for these are the two covenants, for one from the Mount Sinai which genders/begets/bears bondage.  In other words, man can’t keep the law and there is no way of being forgiven of breaking that law.  Paul, over and over again, says “For we all have sinned.”  And how do you then keep God’s way?  Well, you have to be forgiven of the sin so you can receive of the spirit and grow in this way of life.

And so it says which genders/begs/bears bondage which is Hagar, so bondage.  ...for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; Saudi Arabia today; that’s the same region. So Midian is in Arabia, or Saudi Arabia today, if you will.  Paul is making it very clear here, God is making it very clear here, this area of Mount Sinai is not in Egypt to the north like a lot of maps have it, it’s to the right side of the Red Sea which should only make sense because they crossed the Red Sea to leave Egypt.  God took them out of Egypt.  And so they crossed the Red Sea into the region of Midian and again here, duh, duh, duh...  But, you know, to me an awesome thing here to think about some of this, because if you look on a map and you see why they went to the north, they continued to travel north eventually coming up to the area of Jericho and then going west into Israel, or the modern day Israel, the region of Israel, crossing Jericho toward the west.

Anyway, to me I found that fascinating, maybe you don’t, because we’ve never been taught these things in the Church, candidly, about some of these locations and where they are and why they travelled in the directions they did and why they were on the right side constantly of the Dead Sea, if you will, as they travelled to the north and why they were to the right of the Red Sea, which we should always know anyway.  But anyway, going on...  I just wanted to go through some of the scriptures to make it very clear here; Paul makes it clear that Mount Sinai is in Arabia, it is not in the north in Egypt at all.

Let’s continue on with the story here now, to jump forward past the plagues of Egypt, then the Passover, of course, and then the Israelites leaving Egypt.  So God from the very beginning as He began to talk to Moses, began to lead Moses, and telling him he was going to have to go back to Egypt.  He sets the stage and says, “Now is the time,” in essence, that He’s going to lead the people to the promised land, to a promised land that He’d promised to the forefathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And then we come to chapter 13 and this is the point after they’d kept the Passover and God’s taking them out of Egypt. Exodus 13:3 - And Moses said to the people, Remember this day, in which you came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage; again, these examples we look at during Passover season year after year after year, and which God even gave to us in a very powerful way looking at this theme through the Feast of Tabernacles this past year, of coming out of Egypt, of coming out of bondage, of what the Millennium is all about, what God is doing on the earth.

He says, for by strength of hand the Eternal brought you out from this place: and that’s where we are now; that’s where we are today.  By strength of hand – God is the one that has to deliver.  We can’t do it!  We follow God!  That’s what they did; they were to follow God wherever God led.  That was their task; that was their portion.  That’s our portion – we follow God as He leads us out of Egypt throughout our lives and especially now at the end-time, where we are.  And He says, for the Eternal brought you out from this place: there shall no leavened bread be eaten.  So again, that analogy we look at during the Days of Unleavened Bread that we’re to live by, that we’re not to... Unleavened bread is about sin.  Leavened bread is about everything opposite of what God says we should have in our life, leaven is.  Unleavened is about everything that’s obedient to God, not with sin.  Leavened bread, again, is about sin.

So He says; there shall no leavened bread be eaten.  So don’t eat... and the message to us over and over again, don’t eat.  Seek to stand, stand fast with God, live right with God.  Living this way of life and drawing closer to God means we’re repenting and we’re drawing closer to God, we’re making changes in our life.  What changes do you need to make in your life?  That’s what we need to ask ourselves; “What changes do I need to make in my life to be more in line in unity and oneness with God?”  That’s what He wants us to focus on, because we’re to stand first, and then God will make us to stand.

Verse 4 - This day you have come out in the month of Abib. And it shall be when the Eternal shall bring you into the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which He swore/He promised: So this is what he’s talking about.  He says, “This is the time now!”  That God gave His word, in other words, swore, declared by an oath, if you will, promised unto your fathers, to give it to you, a land flowing with milk and honey, and you shall keep this service in this month. And so the stage is set; they know where they’re going, they’ve been told where they’re going, they’re looking to a new land.  At least this is what they’re told they’re to look to, to a new land.  Too often they were looking back though...and that’s what we do sometimes in our lives.  Too often we look back and we think back.  We don’t think we do but if we let down and let up that’s exactly what our life pictures, indeed, is looking back.  It’s desiring something that’s back there that we want to go back to or hold on to and not let go, and God says “Leave it! Leave it! Leave it behind!  Don’t try to take it with you!”  The Israelites tried to take that life with them!  The story we go through is going to reflect that over and over again to the point of even going back to it.

And sadly there are people who have made those choices, that it defined their lives at this time in the final day, of going back.  And so we shake out heads sometimes at the Israelites, “How could they start murmuring and talking about going back to Egypt?  Man, they’re nuttier than a fruitcake to think something like that!”  I mean, that’s how we would think...and so should it be toward any individual after they’ve been given everything they have and God says, “This is the way to freedom.  This is the way to leave Egypt.  This is the way into the Promised Land...this is the way into the Millennium!  This is the way to continue to grow and become stronger in a relationship with God.”  And sometimes it’s not good enough for people and they let up and they leave – they go back.  They don’t think they’ve gone back but they go back.  If you don’t continue in this way, if you don’t continue to follow God out of Egypt in the way God is leading you can’t make choices at some other point, say, “Well, I want to take a different route to get up there.”  ...because you’ll die by the wayside.  You’ll be killed along the way.  That’s what would have happened to these people. If a certain group had broken off and gone off in some other direction they wouldn’t have survived.

So many lessons...so hard sometimes to learn.

He told them where they’re going.  Chapter 14...and so here Pharaoh is drawing near now...Exodus 14:10 – they’re leaving; they’re leaving Egypt, they’re heading to a new land, something that God promised by an oath to give to the forefathers, now it’s time to receive it, this is what they’re being told by Moses, “This is where you’re going.”  And when Pharaoh drew near, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them, and they were so very afraid: does that ever happen to people?  Absolutely!  Does it happen in our lives as we’re on the journey?  Absolutely!  Do we get to a time sometimes where the unknown is fearful because we don’t know what’s going to happen?  I have lived through so many of those in God’s Church!  Truly have!  Of things that have happened when I’ve encountered, or been around people who came to a point where it’s like, “What are we going to do now?  Mr. Armstrong’s dying...others are vying for power – what are we going to do now?  The Church is getting weaker.  Ambassador College isn’t what it used to be.”

I left.  I left after three years.  I was going to go four years but I’d already had other college so I left after three years, went ahead and graduated early...because it wasn’t what it was in the beginning and it was changing rapidly in the United States.  I came from the Church’s college in Great Britain and by the time I got over here the things that had crept into the College... I didn’t want to stay around it, it didn’t reflect what I had been accustomed to and what I had seen, that which was creeping into the Church, that which was creeping into people’s lives.  Amazing!  ...what was creeping into the ministry...  I probably shouldn’t tell the story here but...  I hate to take away from sometimes some of the stories here.

But I think of one time being in Big Sandy, been in Bricketwood, now I was in Big Sandy and that was 1974.  So they were trying to put the seniors into various areas of what they might be able to do at the different...  because, at Ambassador College they would send people out to different Feast sites all over the United States to help serve in different areas and whatever, and so we were kind of ‘Johnny come lately’ type of thing (the expression), so they tried to plug us into different areas and it’d already been set up, this one area. I was going to the Ozarks.  So they gave me some different jobs to do – one of them was to work with the youth group that already had a band set up so they could have a big dance on one of those great big paddlewheel boats, two deck type things, and so they had a band that was going to come on and I was going to be there to help take care of the entire thing for the payment... different people had to pay and all the things that are involved with that.

So anyway, that night, when it came time for the young people to come along they came on board and then I saw the band coming on and I thought, “Oh, this is not going to be good.”  ...because of the way they were dressed, the way they... I didn’t have anything to do with picking out the band.  The band that was supposed to come couldn’t come and they had in the contract someone else could be placed in their spot, and so this band started coming on and I knew we were going to have problems.  Anyway, they started playing some music and I went up and talked to them and told them this was a special time for this group of people, we’re a church organization, and I explained to them all the things about the young people that were there and that we didn’t like that kind of music, and so they started playing some more conservative music.  This is 1974 ; you think about today... anyway.

So anyway, I went away and that only lasted for about three songs, two or three songs, and all of a sudden here it goes again.  I thought, “Oh, this is not going to be...” we were already out on the lake, 3 songs, 4 songs, 5 songs out on the lake away from port and so I went up to them and I talked to them again and the guy takes the mike and he says, he tells them about me up there telling him and he says, “Now, he doesn’t want us to play this kind of music.  Now, do you like the music we’ve been playing?”  “Yeah!” “Yeah!” “Yeah!” “Yeah.” They’re hollering and saying, not all of them, but there are a bunch of them and there were others on there that didn’t like it, they were offended by the kind of stuff that was there being allowed at a Church sponsored dance.

To make a long story short – they weren’t going to change, and I told them if you don’t change we’re heading back.  They said, “Well, we’re not changing,” and I said, “Well, then you’re done.”  So I turned the boat around; went and talked to the captain, had him take it back to port, told people we’d give their money back and that this was over with, that we’re not going to have that kind of a dance.  So anyway, it was about 50-50, about 50 percent as they were leaving hated me, and the other 50 percent were happy with the decision.  It was about 50-50.  Well, what was amazing was – just to show you where we were in time; that’s the reason for telling the story – is several of these children that didn’t like what I did, their parents were ministers, and the next day it started going around what I had done and the ministers were not happy that I’d turned the boat around, these ministers of these children...and the children were that way because of their parents.  And it just reflected to me what the Church had gotten to by that point in time.

Nothing like that would have ever happened in Bricketwood.  Five years before that it would never have happened in the U.S. either; something like that would never have happened in God’s Church.  It only took that amount of time for things to begin changing.

And so these are the struggles that we’ve gone through in God’s Church at different times.  That’s why I mention this - 1974 was a struggle for some people.  It was like, “How could we change?  How could a Holy Day be changed?  How could we change after we’ve been keeping for – what – forty years!  ...in God’s Church, forty years plus,” or whatever (right at forty years I guess...), “Forty years we’ve been keeping Pentecost on a Monday!  How could that change?  How could this...”  Some people were saying, “How could this be God’s Church if Pentecost is going to be changed?!” There are incredible battles that sometimes go on, people forgetting how they’re led.  How were they led back then?  God through Jesus Christ through Mr. Armstrong.  That’s how God led the Church.

I learned some very powerful lesson back there in ’72 and in ’74 about God’s government and how God works...and we wait.  We wait!  We wait on God to show us!  It took a year!  Mr. Armstrong studied into it, had others study into it, he took all the information of the studies that were there, himself went over it – God was leading him in this manner, and for that period of time it was a trial upon the Church, a test, if you will, to see where everyone was.  There are ministers in congregations who left over that.  Entire congregations in the United States left over that matter. The vast majority continued to follow but not without murmuring and complaining.

I have lived through this; those of you who have been around God’s Church for a long time, you’ve lived through these things over and over and over again.  Where along the line does it ever come to a point in time if you’re given the truth that all of a sudden that’s going to change?  Where has God ever worked in that manner?  There’s only been one time in history where there’s been one that has gone away from the truth and gone farther and farther away from it.  But as far as truth being given to the Church, as far as those things that God has given on a continual basis, there’s only one way that God has ever worked.  How is it that we ever forget those things?  And yet people have forgotten them over and over and over again.

To me that’s hard.  To me that’s wearisome.  To me that’s painful... but I understand it.

And so these lessons that are there over and over and over again about how God works, about how God leads and our decision and our choices as to whether we’re going to continue to follow where God leads.  You’re to the point where you’re not quite out of Egypt, you’re down to the Red Sea now, and what are you going to do?  What are you going to do?

So again, verse 10 - And when Pharaoh drew near, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them; and they were so very afraid: and the children of Israel cried out unto the Eternal.  You know, you can pray to God and not be of a right spirit, and in some of this there were those who were not of a right spirit because it went too far.  It can go too far where individuals cry out and don’t understand – look to God.  God led you here.  Look at the powerful way God led them out...I mean, look at all the awesome things that happened, all the plagues, and it wasn’t very long into them and God even separated between Goshen where the Israelites were and the rest of Egypt and made a separation between the peoples to where the plagues weren’t happening in their area at all.  And then finally at the very end some of the things that happened, the firstborn dying and seeing all these awesome things take place and Moses talking about them, Aaron talking about them and this going out through all of Israel, what was taking place.  And finally they were being let go!  An awesome and incredible event!  Where Pharaoh then sent word, “Get out of here!  Leave!”  And they started to leave.

You think that kind of power that leads you out and leads you to where you are doesn’t have the power to deliver you the rest of the way?  And that’s what we have to look at sometimes in our lives: What has led you to this point in time, or any point in time?

We’re looking back a little bit in some of these things but don’t think they can’t still happen to you at different obstacles, different things come along to try you.

Verse 11 - Then they said unto Moses: See the attitude?  It wasn’t a matter of just crying out to God, it wasn’t a matter of just praying to God, it wasn’t a matter of being sincere and genuine and seeking deliverance, there was a different attitude and different spirit here.  Because there are no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? After everything they’ve gone through, to have that kind of an attitude and biting back at the very one God used to bring them to this point.  Going on.  Therefore, why have you dealt so with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt?  So again, they were physical and those whom God calls in the Church are spiritual, but sometimes react physically.  We have to be careful that we don’t react carnally and physically before God.

I think of when we came to various trials along the way, and I’ll just bring this up toward the end here, but I think of the 50th Truth.  That tried a lot of people.  That tried a lot of people and to this day I thank God that He was merciful to us and gave us the message before the Feast of Trumpets, because there wouldn’t have been a lot of the Church left.  That’s what God gave to us to know, gave to me to know; there wouldn’t be a lot of the Church left – couldn’t make it that far, couldn’t make it another three months.  And so God blessed us with hearing the message right then and there about the 50th Truth – that Jesus Christ was not going to return on a Trumpets, but that He would return on a Pentecost.  What an awesome thing!

And so there are those that look at, “Oh, you changed the time!  Why don’t you know this as a prophet?”  God gives what He does in His timing; it’s not up to me.  We follow God. Truth comes from God and it comes in God’s timing.  What an awesome thing to understand.

I think of the Last Great Day sermon, or the ‘Day of the Lord’, just waiting...just waiting one more ‘day’, what that could have meant for a few individuals.  And then panic that comes, much like the kind of panic when you come to these things and you don’t have answers and it’s just too much for you to believe.  “How can this be of God then?  How could God lead us down to the Red Sea?  How can this be of God, Moses?!  You brought us out here now to die?  Look at what we’ve given, look at what we’ve sacrificed!”  Amazing!  We have to look at our own life sometimes, truly.

Verse 12 – Isn’t this what we told you in Egypt saying, Leave us alone so that we may serve the Egyptians? For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians than we should die out here in the wilderness. It would have been better if we’d stayed in ‘Global’, ‘Living’, or ‘United’, than to have gone through all this.  The reason I say that is because sometimes people go back. Blows my mind!  How can you go back to something that God brings you out of?  How can you go back to a belief that the walls of the Temple haven’t fallen down, that you haven’t been vomited out of God’s mouth.  How can you go back to various things that God has delivered you out of?  How can you go back to believing that Jesus Christ has eternally existed?  But people do, and people have.  Incredible!

And the reason I mention these things is so that no one in the Body of Christ can think this cannot happen to them!  It still can if we don’t do what God gives us to do at this time, to stand fast and to stand firm and to examine our self in everything, because I know we still have some ripples out there and individuals who have pulled back, and you cannot afford to pull back, you have to make some choices and decisions in your life.  Some in the ministry have let down and pulled back and are not involving themselves in the Church like they should be.  You can’t pull back!  You can’t let down!  You can’t level off!  This is not a time to do that, and if you continue to do that you will have taken from you the very thing that God has given to you, you can’t hold onto it.  This is God’s ‘day’ and it’s a most serious ‘day’; it is a most meaningful ‘day’ in all of 6,000 years, because it’s the ‘day’ God has chosen to deliver His people!  But first it’s about the Church and our standing and our standing fast!

This is the time that defines your life!  ...not at the end of this ‘day’, but at the beginning of this ‘day’ that defines your life right now and to what you’re going to do, and whether or not you’re repenting and changing.  See?   I don’t know how much longer I have to cry out to you, truly!  What are you going to do with what you have now?  What are you going to hold onto?  This is your time!

I hate to see people pull back; I know it’s happening right now and I know why it’s happening right now and I know what’s happening in your mind that’s allowing these things to happen right now and how the thinking is taking place...and it isn’t good.  It isn’t good.

So, this sermon, in one respect, isn’t to the entire Body, and yet it is because it’s still a warning to all of us to examine ourselves, to receive it as though I’m talking to every individual, which I am, which God is – but sometimes the ones who need it the most are the ones who aren’t listening, and the ones it’s meant the least to are the ones who receive it the most and make the most growth in their lives.  Sadly it’s always been that way, but I guess that’s a good thing too, spiritually.

Verse 13 - And Moses said to the people, Do not fear, but stand still: Isn’t that what we’ve heard from the very beginning?  What do we stand still in?  Every truth that God has given us, and as we came down to the final ‘day’, the ‘prophetic day’, I have heard of different things being said out there amongst individuals and even amongst the ministry of trying to somehow justify or make excuse for things in ‘2008 – God’s Final Witness’.  You do not have to justify ANYTHING that’s written in that book!  You do not have to justify anything that’s written there or somehow put it in point, “Well, he’s just a man, he makes mistakes.”   Yes, I do as a human being, but what’s written there is going to come to pass, and if it came to pass in one hour who are we to say that it can’t?  But now we see how God’s bringing it to pass even more clearly.  But be careful what you say.  Be careful what you tell one another.  Be careful what you tell people.  You know, I still hear stories out there of people judging various matters, of things they think they know...and they don’t know.  And we have to be so careful.  We stand fast in what God has given us to this time, because these are the things that mould and fashion the way you think and your response to what you’ve been given.

And Moses said to the people, Do not fear, but stand still, For us it’s stand still, stand fast in every truth that God has given to you...and some things, if they need to be tweaked they will be tweaked, which I’ll refer to later on here, minor, but because of greater knowledge that God gives to us regarding that ‘day‘, we had to tweak some things, have to explain in some of our writing what it means now.  It’s a year, but it’s a ‘prophetic day’, that Jesus Christ did come on that day, prophetically, because this is the ‘day’ we’re in, but sometimes that’s not good enough for some people...and I’m sorry.  It comes from God.

...Do not fear, be still and see the salvation of the Eternal, which He will show to you today: this is powerful to us prophetically now more than ever before in our lives.  Today... ‘today’, this is God’s ‘prophetic day’.  Stand still and see the salvation of the Eternal which He will show you ‘today’. This is God’s time.  ...for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you shall see them again no more forever.  When we get through this day this will be true for us, it’ll be true for the world.  Egypt will be gone and it won’t rule this world any longer.  The kinds of governments that are in this world, they’re not going to exist any longer; that every kind of system out here is not God’s and it will change; God’s going to change it.  That’s where we are.

Verse 14 – For the Eternal shall fight for you; this is God’s fight and all we have to do is follow Him...but faithfully, standing fast and standing firm in what He’s given to us.  And that’s between each one of us and God.  So is this the time to pull back?  ...to coast?  ...to let up?  ...to let down?  The Eternal shall fight for you and you shall hold your peace....hold your peace.

Verse 30 - Thus the Eternal saved Israel that day out of the land of the Egyptians; and this is the ‘day’ that God is going to save all – spiritual Israel, everything that’s past that’s going to be a part of the 144,000, everything which is in the future, everything which is present, through this ‘day’.  Thus the Eternal saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore.  And Israel saw the great work which the Eternal did upon the Egyptians: and we’re going to witness those things.  What an incredible time to live in, to see!

You know, when I read these things - it may not strike you in the same way - but when I read these news articles and I read about Syria, Iran, Egypt, if you will, all the things all the way through that region there, I can’t help but think of exactly what God said; He brings them there for the day of battle.  He is bringing them there.  Nobody can change this. Nobody can keep the Russians out. Nobody can keep the Chinese out.  Nobody can keep the United States out.  Nobody can keep Europe out of that area of the world right now.  They’re all being called, just like you receive a spiritual calling, they have a calling, they’re being drawn to that part of the world.  God set this up a long, long time ago to be this way at the end-time.  And so we should be in awe and marvel at what God is doing because we see God bringing the armies to that part of the world.  They’re not going to all come there, but that’s where it’s centered and they’re all going to be represented there, and there will be a massive war that starts there, truly.  That’s where it’s going to come from, out of that part of the world.

It’s interesting to note and see some things right now, what Russia is doing.  They might let Syria go.  It’s like a game of chess. What are you going to be willing to give up to win the game?  That’s what they look at it like.  And they’re at a point right now where they might just as well give up Syria because they don’t want to put everything, all their eggs, in that basket.  They’re still going to play the game, they’re still going to keep playing the game...and it may be because of Syria, but it’s more over Iran.  It’s more there than any place else that’s setting the stage in where this showdown is going to take place and because of what happens in that part of the world. Truly!  And it’s because of their religious beliefs and their pushing the envelope and they’re going to push it when it comes time, they truly will...and they’re not a small nation like Syria.

So we watch things come to pass and see what God is doing. This is God’s time and God is bringing them together in that part of the world.  We’re watching things in a very powerful way come together in the world and it is awesome, it truly is!

And so Israel saw the great work which the Eternal did upon the Egyptians: and the people feared the Eternal, that’s what’s going to happen.  When this is all over with, it’s where mankind will be brought to, to fear the Eternal.  Jesus Christ isn’t coming back this time as a lamb; He’s coming back as a lion with tremendous power.  And I think of the way it explains it back in Revelation and some of the other prophecy in the Old Testament; it equates it to like stomping out grapes in a press, for it’s all ripe.  The great winepress of God, it’s referred to as, in that respect, talking about the winepress, but in this case its life being squeezed out and God bringing an end to that which opposes Him.

And God is not going to allow anyone in His Church to oppose Him.  I hope we understand that with all of our being, truly.  And that means He won’t allow anyone to pull back.  Jesus Christ died so that we can move forward.  Jesus Christ died so that we can have the power of God’s spirit live within us, truly...and we’re to move forward and we’re to stand fast in what God has given to us. ...and the people feared the Eternal, and believed the Eternal and His servant Moses.

Going on with the story... Exodus 16:1 - And they took their journey from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came into the wilderness of Sin, again, in Arabia, not on some maps like it shows in Egypt, because they crossed over the Red Sea into Midian, the region of Midian, into this area here called the Wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the Arabian side, on the fifteenth day of the second month after departing out of the land of Egypt. So again here, it gives some timelines, the 15th day of the second month – we know what happened on the first month, the 14th is Passover, they’re leaving Egypt, now they’re just into a period of a month here now after departing out of the land of Egypt, and the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness: didn’t take long.

And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the Eternal in the land of Egypt when we sat by the flesh pots, the cauldrons of meat, and when we ate bread to the full; for you brought us forth into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. We’ve come this far to die?  You think, now we can understand this physically.  We can see what they did physically.  We see this response physically, we shake our heads at it...but we have God’s spirit – we have God’s spirit and we do things like this if we’re not careful.  Too many have done this at this period of time. Too many did this during the 50th Truth. Too many people had this attitude spiritually during the 50th Truth.  And some might say, “Well, why do you keep bringing this up?  Why do you keep rubbing salt in the wound?”  It’s a reminder of what we’re capable of doing so that we never repeat it...and if we were guilty to make sure that we don’t repeat it again, to make sure we’ve truly repented, meaning changed, and that we’re not the same.

It’s like saying here to Moses at that particular time – they’re out here in the wilderness – it’s like saying we’re just wandering around out here lost and going nowhere.  We come up here to this ‘day’ and what are we going to do?  It’s like being lost – it didn’t happen – lost our sense of direction.  Why?  God still leads us!  If we came that far, if we came all the way up to the Red Sea isn’t God going to be faithful and continue to open the way for us and show us the way to go?  The vast majority – I’ve read a lot of letters where people said that’s exactly what they saw.  And the vast majority of the Church, that’s the attitude and the response...but it’s not everywhere throughout the Body and that’s my concern and that’s God’s concern, because God’s giving it to me to give...  I should say Jesus Christ is giving it from God.

Verse 4 - Then the Eternal said to Moses/told Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain amount every day: God’s so merciful!  He understands what we are.  Thankfully within the Church He blesses us with mercy and brings us to repentance, allows us to repent, teaches us repentance, and then it’s up to us then to repent indeed.  He says, but He’s going to do this, He’s going to... talks about this ‘heaven’, the ‘bread that comes out of heaven’ for the people and they’ll go out and gather a certain amount every day, that I may prove them/that I may try them, whether they will walk in My law, or not. There are a lot of things... the longer you’ve been in God’s Church, if going into the future a lot of you don’t have to go through this, but you’re going through it now because this is an awesome time of training, it’s in Satan’s world, it’s not God’s world yet.  We’re at that juncture.  But for all those who have been a part of Philadelphia, or of Laodicea and have experienced these things, they’ve been experiences over and over and over again in God’s Church, and God allows things – God does many things in many different ways – and the only choice we have in our life, in that respect, is whether we continue to follow.  That’s the choice.  It always has been...whether we follow the way God leads or whether we do something else.

And that’s why God gives certain things in certain timing – to prove us, to try us.  The 50th Truth!  He could have given that at any time!  He could have given that before the books were written, but He didn’t.  He could have given it to Mr. Armstrong, but he didn’t.  He could have given Mr. Armstrong understanding of the right day to worship on Pentecost at the very beginning, but He didn’t.  Why?  It’s in God’s power...and candidly, it’s only in God’s power and that of His Son.  When?  When He gives it to the Church.  It’s in God’s power when something is given, when He gives understanding, when He gives more truth, when He leads you a little farther and helps you to grow a little bit more.  It’s in God’s power and God’s might – it’s in no man’s hands, indeed, solely in God’s, and God does these things at different times.

I’ve mentioned, there are two great reasons why some of the things have happened the way they have.  One is because of Satan and a demonic world, and because of things that aren’t given to them because there’s great war that’s constantly been going on, especially from the time and during the time and from that time forward that Satan was cast down to the earth and the demons with him and they were not allowed to have this back and forth thing anymore.  It said there was no place found for them in heaven any longer...and there have been great wars ever since that time, in God’s Church, in the environment, more than normal and intensifying through time.  And that’s one of the primary things of why God does things in His timing, in His way.

Another one is to try us, to test us, to help us to grow, to see what we’re going to do and how we’re going to respond.  Because it’s by going through these things that we have an opportunity to examine ourselves in the deepest recesses of our being, because it’s about the mind.  That’s what God is saving through all this.  It’s the mind; it’s not the body.  It’s what’s in your mind, it’s the transforming of the mind that God’s concerned with, the changes that can take place on a spiritual place in the way you think and reason and whether that thinking is becoming more and more at one with God, like God’s.  He says, “My ways are not your ways.”  That means we have to change so our ways are His ways, to try to understand why things are being done that way.

I think of the ministry a long time ago and thinking about that with Mr. Armstrong.  His ways were not the ways of a lot of the ministry, but he had a place and a responsibility, and because of that an authority and a right to do things in a certain way that others were to yield themselves to that and sometimes they balked against it because they wouldn’t have done it that way – even in very physical things.  But none of that mattered. It’s like being on a team, on a basketball team or a football team, or whatever; you can’t go out and do your own thing.  If you think that a play ought to be done a different way or that you can do something a different way, you can’t do it that way because you’ve got to do it the way the coach says to do it or the quarterback, whatever call he gives.  You do something else and it’s just not going to work right, even though you feel like your way is a better way.  That’s the way we are as human beings – and it exists in God’s Church and we have to be so careful of that.  “Well, I wouldn’t do it that way...”  And we could say that about each one of us, that your ways aren’t somebody else’s ways, but if you have the freedom to do them then it’s perfectly fine as long as it’s legal and lawful, and that’s good, and we should respect that toward one another, to realize everybody’s a little different.  But it’s a different matter when it comes to how God works as far as law, government, or whatever, is concerned; but all the more so when it’s something that comes from God, that we come into unity with it.

So again, awesome things that God has done through time.  The 50th Truth was about the Church.  It was to try us, to test us, to help us to see things in our self that we wouldn’t have been able to see.  Because of that and because of the response in the mind, depending on what it was, a person is able to see what’s inside of them.  That’s why I mention this ‘day’, especially the beginning of this ‘day’ is a powerful spiritual mirror into your life, and the more you get a hold of it at the beginning - that’s why God’s giving the messages He is about standing firm and standing fast in His word, in His truth, in His way - and the more we get this at the beginning, as we talked about in God making us to stand, this is what determines our life.  This is the period of time, more so at the beginning than any other time during this ‘day’.  It’s now!  It’s now, and some have made choices to go in a different direction into different things.  I hope they can come to repentance, I truly do. And some who are taking it easy right now, who are coasting right now, I hope you see yourselves.  I hope you see yourselves!  I hope to God that you’re able to receive of God’s spirit and an ability to see yourselves right now because you can’t coast!  You can’t just let time pass you by right now and say you’re going to just wait, like you did the previous year!  This is not a time for that!  This is a time to be involved with God’s people as much as you can, whenever you can, ever how you can!  ...to keep close to each other!  ...to be positive in what you speak and say to one another and what you uphold to one another!

Now is the time!

So some things are given to try or test us to see what we’re made of, to define who we are, and if we yield to it on a spiritual plane there is incredible moulding that God can do in us and will do in us.  These things indeed test us and try us, to see whether we’re going to wait on God to teach us, to lead us.  Are we going to wait on God?  It’s just like being at the Red Sea, are you going to continue to look to God before you start murmuring and complaining like they did, and start finding fault with Moses or whatever, or with God?  Are we going to wait on God?  ...for Him to deliver us?  Because He will!  It’s a matter... How long will we wait?  How long will we wait?  How long could we have waited on May 27th?  Another day?  Another week?  ...a couple of weeks before God would finally have shown us why we were where we were, that we were in a ‘day’?  What if we just had a sermon about Pentecost on the 27th?  What if we just had a normal sermon like the year before about Pentecost, on Pentecost?  What if we hadn’t had the posting that God gave to us on that day?  What if we hadn’t had the sermon we had on that day?  Would we all be here today?  I’ll tell you by the authority, by the truth, by the inspiration of God Almighty we would not be here by any measure and means in the way we are today...and I hope you see and know and believe that, to understand that it’s true.

If God didn’t give it until today we would be small in numbers today, because it wasn’t only the 27th that happened, it was also what’s happened to me since that time period and people not even understanding some of those things...or trying to somehow in their minds deal with some of that.  What do you have to deal with?  I marvel at the human mind sometimes.  Is the truth still the truth?  Is God still God?  So we have to ask ourselves some of those things.

So do we understand how merciful God’s been to us?  Can we honestly look into a mirror right now and to know of a certainty and to think about the possibilities of where you might be today if it was only on today that God finally revealed today, July 14th, a month and a half later?  A month and a half later... that if God today gave that posting that was given on the 27th, or right in there, if God didn’t give until today that we were actually in the ‘day of the Lord’, until today.  Do you know?  Do you believe?  Do you understand the carnage spiritually out here would have been great?  Do you know that?  Do you think you would still be here today?  I’m going to tell you there are many – not a few – many of you who would not be here today!  Do you know that’s true?  Do you understand that in yourself?  Food for thought about how merciful God is to us.

He knows our frame.  He knows what we need when we need it, and when you’re at the Red Sea and Pharaoh’s about to take you under...do you know He intervenes at a good time to deliver you?  God worked at a good time to deliver us.  He started to do it in the morning of the 26th when he started to give to me things that I didn’t want to address and I didn’t want to face and I didn’t want to have to tell the Church, because I knew it was the only answer, God gave it to me to know the only answer to all this is we’re going into the ‘day of the Eternal’.  And if He hadn’t done it on that day so many of you who are new would not be here today.  And I hope you know that’s true.  I hope you understand that.

Some have already been through trials and problems and the apostasy, might have weathered well until today...not without struggle, but because of their growth and because of what they’ve experienced, and because of sometimes you can’t give experience to people and because of going through that.... I’m just going to let you know, a lot of what I’m giving here today was not to be given in the sermon, I had no idea where we were going, but I know this is inspired by God because this is His message to the Church. He loves us and He wants us to come through these things and He wants to make us stand, but He’s not going to do it until we are more at one in unity, and He’s giving us some time to do that, truly.  He’s very merciful to us, He truly is.  But I hope we can all be honest with ourselves.

And some who have been around for a long time, I’ve seen some of you pull back.  Some in the ministry, I see some of you pulling back, letting down and letting up...and that hurts.  It hurts!  Things we go through are not always easy but you go through them and you do them for one another – if nothing else, sometimes you grit your teeth and you hold on for the sake of your brother, for the sake of your sister, and sometimes you keep your mouth shut as to what is going through your mind at the time so you don’t sin and hurt your brother – because too much of that’s gone on too...where people have given their opinion, their ideas about certain things, and unless you, candidly, hear them from here how do you know it’s from God?  How can you know it’s from God?  Do you know it’s from God?  Do you know you can be speaking against God?

Going on...  As I mentioned, some things are given to try us, to see whether we’re going to wait on God to lead us.  Last Sabbath, again, I mentioned something a person had written about ‘their’ understanding of the ‘day of the Lord’ and how long it is.  And I may go back to that later on because I’m not sure you really grasp what I was saying.  I hope you all do.  The ‘day of the Lord’, depending on the context – the ‘day’ we’re in right now is a year long, but it ends in a period on the very end. The very last day is the final part of it because it’s the greatest part of ‘the day of the Lord’.  It’s that which builds up to an incredible crescendo, if you will, and the greater things and the more massive things that God intervenes and does on that last day when He... because He’s the one that brings an end to it all in the 7 Last Plagues that are poured out.  It is that day that has sometimes been spoken of as being 30 days or longer, that some can’t believe that God would do that in one day.  It is one day!  ...and it epitomizes in a very powerful way something that is spread out over a long period of time, but it culminates in a single day.

So it depends on the context of what’s being spoken of here – not a mystery – but we didn’t understand fully that the ‘day of the Lord’ was a year until we got into it.  And so some go back and read things and twist and distort in their own understanding, because it isn’t understanding.

Anyway, I want to read something here that as we go through this sermon I’m going to mention some of the other things that were unsettling to this person that finally led up to them and some of their family members leaving the Church; and I hope they’ll repent and come back.  And I want to be a little more blunt about it... it’s down under!  Okay?  So that people can know – because it affects you and it’s affected your lives, those of you who live in that part of the world.  But it affects the entirety of the Church to understand what can happen and what can happen to you, and what would have happened to you if God had chosen another time to reveal ‘the day of the Lord’.  But He didn’t because you were at the Red Sea and Pharaoh was right there.  And do you know who Pharaoh is?  Satan, spiritually for the Church.  Things are of Satan and the power that he has, and God allowed him to do that.

This person here – I want to read something here in part of this letter that was sent and I’m going to paraphrase some of this because of some of the things said because I don’t want to specifically mention certain things here.  But the person is pointing out something that was bothering another person in their family and said, “The main questions (this individual) had...” this family member had, “regarding the new timing on the FAQ – Topics - Christ’s Return – Timing...”  so there was a question that this individual had asked and it was regarding some of the topics.  Well, I’ve gone back, we’ve tried to rewrite – I think we’ve caught most of the things now – where it was a flat statement, May 27th was the day of Christ’s return.  We didn’t know it was the ‘day of the Lord’, so when God gave that it changes things, just like the 50th Truth, Trumpets to Pentecost, changes things.  You adjust accordingly, you rewrite some things if you have to to be truthful, because now we have a ‘new’, if you will, present truth.  God has let us grow a little more to understand a little bit more and so we have...

And the world mocks and makes fun.  Who cares!  This is God’s Church!  And something changes, if something is given to us, we follow that, we grow in greater truth than what we had before.  It’s always been that way.  Mr. Armstrong used to say that’s the hallmark of God’s Church, it’s one of the things that proves in a very POWERFUL WAY this is God’s Church, when you don’t understand something, when something is given in greater understanding, for everyone to change and move with that is a powerful thing!  It shows God’s spirit!  Like 2005, the Feast of Tabernacles!  When God gave that massive change in the Church, that Jesus Christ didn’t eternally exist – God did that!  God gave that!  And everyone was prepared for that at some phase, before or during the Feast that year.  But again, it’s something that God did, and things had to change, and some of the way we thought about some of those things then began to change.

But again, this is about the FAQ and so you have to adjust some of those things when you come to them and you grow in greater understanding than what you had before and it can affect things that are already written.  I can’t go back and re-write ‘2008 – God’s Final Witness’, to bring all those things up to date – Trumpets and things that have happened to us that affected our lives.  This, the ‘day of the Lord’.  But the things that are mentioned there are still going to come to pass, we should understand that.

So, here is the FAQ, some of the things had to be changed, so this individual had a question about what was written there and even what was written when it was corrected the first time, which wasn’t clear enough, that’s why I wrote it a second time.  But anyway, the question was asked, it was this individual stating, “That this is the FAQ-Topic – Christ’s Return – Timing – was where it was stated on May 27, 2012 (1336 days after the sealing of the 144,000)...”  So, sometimes we can get so messed up in some things.

May 27th, if you look at it, was the 1336th day.  The 1335th – I think we all understand that as a whole – it ended at sundown on the Sabbath, the beginning of Pentecost then.  That marked the timing of Christ’s return in the sense of what we were looking to at that point in time not understanding we were going into a ‘prophetic day’ now.  And so a part of this was explained but it wasn’t clear enough.

So anyway, May 27th, if everyone can understand (and you don’t have to understand all this, but I just want to show you some of the reasoning of things that take place sometimes)...  May 27th was always the 1336th day, but the beginning of it was what was important, and the beginning of it was the count, and Daniel led up to that moment in time, to Pentecost.

Going on, it says here, “...the last day of the 1335 days began the year long day.”  The problem this person says about their family member, that they had with this was that, “...for this to be correct the 144,000 had to be sealed the day after Trumpets 2008.”  I don’t know where people get off on some things and different things sometimes and where they go astray, but the timing never changed!  The timing of Trumpets 2008 never changed.  The count of 1335 didn’t change.  And because I put the number 1336 in there it caused some confusion I guess, I don’t know.  So that’s why I went back and re-wrote it, so there wouldn’t be any confusion.  But nothing’s ever changed about the 1335 days.  I hope we all understand that.  It led up to  Pentecost exactly as it was given to me, to the ‘prophetic day’...and we thought it was going to be a literal day of things happening with God and the return of Jesus Christ.

So again here, I will acknowledge, I will say that this could have been written better, because to throw another day in there can cause confusion, and so I wrote it again, for the sake of that individual, candidly, and for the sake of anyone else who might take the same thing from it and say now this is confusing because if you’re saying 1336 then everything has to move up a day and the 144,000 would have had to have been sealed after the Day of Trumpets.  I hope you understand what they’re saying, but sometimes what happens in people’s lives and what you have to be careful of is that it’s so easy to go off on tangents, and if you just wait... if you just wait, if you’re not impatient with God He’ll show you.  He’ll give you the answers.

You know, I had a marvelous letter, I should have brought it down here today, from an individual who’s been around for a long time and they were talking about (I’m going to have to paraphrase some of this), but this lady who’s been with the Church for a long, long time, was talking about how that she remembered a time Mr. Armstrong was talking about the two trees – and I don’t know how many of you remember those sermons?  Okay, some of you, you remember, those of you who go back to that point in time in the 80’s and Mr. Armstrong was talking about the two trees.  And anyway, this individual made a comment about some of this, how that this was a trial for them because they didn’t see what he was talking about and they understood it on a physical plane (and I may not be paraphrasing this well, I hope she has mercy on me).  But she was open and honest.  She said, this was my trial for three years!  She said, I prayed about it, that I not lose what God had given to me because I wasn’t seeing what was being said about the fruit and about the two trees, and could understand it to a certain plane and a certain level but some of the other things that Mr. Armstrong was saying about it on a spiritual plane, it just wasn’t there and this bothered her, so much so she cried out to God for three years, that God would give her understanding.  She waited three years so that she could receive something because she knew this was God’s Church, she was convicted of that and she didn’t want to lose what she had to this point in time, so she cried out to God for three years.  And the point of part of her letter was... everybody now, they only have to... we’re talking about one year.

If you don’t understand it are you willing to cry out to God for one year to try to understand?  If you know where God has brought you to at this point in time are you willing to cry out to God and wait until you do see it?  ...even if you don’t, wait for God because you know where you are?  ...because where else are you going to go...like we talked about at the Feast of Tabernacles, or the Last Great Day in that sermon?  Where do you go?  Where is God’s Church?

So anyway, I thought, what an awesome thing, a willingness to cry out for three years because I don’t want to lose what I have, because I want to see this, because I want to understand it...and then (snap, snap, snaps fingers) talked about how all of a sudden it was there.  All of a sudden it was just all there.  To me that was a beautiful thing, to fight for it!  How willing are we sometimes to fight for something?  Sometimes - and I understand there are a lot of people who are new that have never gone through these things before, but our history is out there, the things are out there, the lessons are there, but it’s up to us how we respond and how we think and whether we’re going to keep fighting for what God has given to us. Because we have to fight for it.  You have to fight for this way of life!

So, I want to just read part of this, how that this is written now.  I’m not going to read the whole thing, you can go back and read it later yourself if you want to, but some things we’ve had to address.  But this is at the very beginning.  It says:

FAQ  - Topics – Christ’s Return - Timing[10]

God previously revealed to His Church that the timing for the return of Jesus Christ would be Pentecost (May 27) of 2012.

You’ve got to put out there at the very beginning, this is a time-line, timing for Christ’s return, let’s tell everything right up front here, that’s what we believed.  You don’t write something different and tell what it is now, but you tell where we were and what God gave us to believe and why.

However it was not until that very day that God revealed to the Church that the “day” was prophetic—the “Day of the Lord” spoken of in the Book of Joel. This “prophetic day” is a year in length and continues from Pentecost of 2012 (May 27th) to Pentecost 2013.

Obviously, the world has never believed that Jesus Christ would return on that day, and neither has the Church that was scattered believed this. The fact that it did not happen on that day only solidifies their confidence that Ronald Weinland is not a prophet and that the Church of God – PKG is not God's Church. However, nothing could be farther from the truth.

When do we ever care or worry about what our relatives say or what the world says?  Are they going to understand this one?  Obviously not.

When it became apparent that the actual day of May 27th would not be the literal, physical day of Christ's coming, God quickly revealed that all His word given in prophecy was still true. Nothing had changed as far as prophetic events that must be fulfilled before Christ returns. The day of Pentecost (May 27, 2012) is the “day” of Christ's coming, just as God said it would be. But this “day” is prophetic.

Simple, if we’re willing to receive it.  For some, it’s not simple, is it...  Then farther into the article where this particular write up was that had to be written more clearly it says now...

.....

The actual date and revelation from God concerning the time of the "Sealing of the 144,000" on the Feast of Trumpets of 2008 is fully unique to only God's true Church. The full understanding of the completion of God's work over the past 6,000 years concerning His firstfruits (the 144,000) and their final number being sealed on Trumpets of 2008 and their resurrection on the “prophetic day” after the 1335 prophetic days of Daniel is a truth given to only God's true Church.

So again, still the same, it’s still after 1335, it’s just a ‘prophetic day’.  I’ll read a little more about what was said from this same person here, let me read a little bit more concerning what I just read here on the Church site now.  This individual says, “Ron changed the fourth paragraph from the bottom of the topic and it still doesn’t make sense.”  I can’t help that.  I really can’t write it more clearly.  This individual goes on to say that “...when (their family member) asked more questions and when an evangelist...” guess that gives that away, “...and Ron both couldn’t answer them (their family member) received a letter...” they call it a ‘hostile letter’, “stating that it was not his...” speaking of the evangelist’s “... or anyone in the ministry to answer questions.”  Now, I know that this is twisted and distorted from what was told.  You know, we have to be so... it amazes me sometimes how people respond to things, but it reveals an attitude and if the attitude isn’t right we’re not going to be able to receive what God has.

It goes on to say, “I was always under the impression that’s exactly what their job was.”  What this individual was telling them is that this is what is given to the Church, this is what it says, this is what it means, there’s nothing different here that can be stated; “I can’t tell you something different, explain it to you in a different way, this is what it is, what is on the site is what it is.”  And you know, whatever God gives, our ability to understand it, just like this woman said, “I waited three years...”  not everyone can always understand everything that’s there, and if you don’t ask for help.

“In the entire history of the Bible,” this individual goes on to say, “the only prophet ever to have a prophecy fail was Jonah.”  I must say his prophecy didn’t fail.  You know, sometimes it’s funny how we read the Bible, how we read scriptures and how we interpret things and what our definition of things were.  The people repented!  ...otherwise it would have come to pass.  I think of a king that God sent a prophet to and said, “Get your house in order, you’re going to die.  You’re going to die.” And it was like, “Now, you’re going to die.” I can’t remember if he gave an exact time period at that moment in time but anyway, he was told he was going to die.[11]   Well, the individual repented and he pleaded with God and God gave him fifteen more years...fifteen more years.  Well, does that mean the prophet was false because he came and said, “Get your house in order you’re going to die.”  Well... anyway...  It’s amazing how we interpret things sometimes, how we think as human beings sometimes and whether it’s from God, whether it’s from someplace else, whether it’s in our thinking that’s just jumbled up and the attitudes, the ideas we sometimes get that aren’t right with God.

So this individual says here, speaking of Jonah, “...it was the only time a prophecy failed, and it specifically says in Jonah that because the people changed their ways God spared them.  Man has not changed his ways this time, but Ron’s prophecies have failed.”  My prophecies... that’s what people, I guess in some cases, have to ask; Where do they come from? Where did the truth come from?

Anyway, I’m going to come back to some things later on about some of the truths that this individual addresses as well, but I hope you can see, and I hope it’s clear to you what the 1335 days is.  It’s such a simple thing.  We’ve just gone into a different ‘day’.  It’s not a physical day, it’s a year-long ‘prophetic day’.  To me that’s a simple thing, but...  and it is with God’s help, God’s spirit, it is a simple thing.  And if you don’t see it pray to God.  You don’t have to pray for three years.  That’s what this individual was commenting, you don’t have to wait for three years to get your answer.  And if you pray for a whole year so be it!  Isn’t that better to hang on and hold fast and then wait for the answer?

Let’s go on with the story here in Exodus 16.  Let’s go back to the story flow of where we were here. It’s this continual movement forward in what they’re doing.  They’re continually moving forward out of Egypt toward the promised land, but it gets very specific here about some of the timing and it’s good for us to think about some of this, of where they were, what they did.

Exodus 16:4 -  Then the Eternal said to Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people will go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them and whether they walk in My law, or not.

Verse 5 - And it shall come to pass, on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in; and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily. So you know, on the sixth day, Friday, the preparation day, it says they can get twice as much, only on that day, because the next day is the Sabbath, they’re not to go out and glean all this and work on the Sabbath so God would let this miraculously last through that period of time and not spoil as it did in other times.

Verse 6 - And Moses and Aaron said unto the children of Israel, At even, then you shall know that the Eternal has brought you out of the land of Egypt: You think, “How much more do you have to have to be shown that the Eternal brought you out of the land of Egypt?!”  But this is what they’re being told again. How many TRUTHS do we have to have to be shown that we’re being led out of the land of Egypt? How many truths does God’s Church have to have to know and to be convicted this is God’s Church?  You can’t leave it!  You can’t decide for yourself that, “Well, I didn’t like the way this turned out!  I don’t like this ‘day of the Lord’ thing!  I don’t like what happened to you and what the government says about you!  I don’t like the things I’ve been reading!  How can such a thing... How can you be a prophet?  And I think, “Well, what are you listening to?  What have you heard from me about it?  Do you know the truth?  Do you believe everything you read?  Do you believe everything that’s reported?”   I think of what happened when the Church was attacked by the State of California and what was in the news, and some made fun of Stan Radar who left an interview one time.  It’s because of how it was being portrayed, of what was being said.  You think God’s Church, God’s truth, God’s people, have ever been portrayed by the world in a right way?  How long does it take us to learn these things?  ...to understand these things?  Incredible!

And yet people are choosing to believe what they want to believe, what they’ve read...because I’ve heard some of this and I’ve heard some of it from the ministry.  I think, “What is wrong with you?  What is wrong with you?  Is that where you receive truth?  If you want to know the truth about something, if it’s really bothering you, where are you going to go?”  Anyway, “I don’t want to do that...” How does God look upon such things?  How does God want us to look upon such things?

So, how many truths does God have to give to convict someone that they’re being led by Him through His chosen servant?  Because that’s what this story is about right here.  How long?  What do we have to have?  I think of why God has given the number He has, specifically even the number that He has, to inspire us, to encourage us, to help us, to be moved by what He has done at this end-time, and over such a short period  of time how much that God has given to His Church.  What if we’d only had two truths since the starting of this Body, of that which began in 1998 on Pentecost?  What if we’d only had two truths?  ...anyway, I don’t want to think about it  ...because I know human nature, I know how we are, I know how I am!  I don’t know what I could have held onto!  I don’t know what I could have held onto for that length of time, since 1998, if God had only given us two truths!  If God hadn’t of given what He did to Gideon when he went down to the bottom of the hill and heard what he did in the camp, could Gideon have done what he did?  Gideon needed some help and encouragement.  We’re all human beings and we need help and encouragement in various things we do!

I’ll just be real candid with you, to last this long, to be here to this day, I don’t believe I would have been here...I truly believe that with all my being...and none of you would have been either.  God’s merciful, He truly is.  He gives us what we need when we need it.  “Be strong and of good courage.”  God does that.  You don’t work it up yourself.  I get a charge out of sometimes... and I appreciate the sentiment when people make comment, “Be strong and of good courage”, I understand that.  We say that to each other, “Be strong and of good courage,” but you know where it comes from?  It comes from God.  God’s the one who makes us strong and of good courage because it comes from Him.  You can’t work it up!  It’s like agape, you can’t work it up, it’s either there or not.  And being strong and of good courage comes from God.

Verse 7 - And in the morning, then you shall see the glory of the Eternal; for that He hears your murmurings against the Eternal... so, God hears your murmurings, He knows what you’re...  God hears everything we say.  He knows everything we think!  We don’t hide anything from God! ...and yet sometimes we live life, if we’re not careful, like Adam and Eve in the shadows of the trees and because they don’t... “...don’t want God to see us so let’s get in the shade here, in the shadows.”  He sees you; He doesn’t need that to see you!  How hard it is for us sometimes for us to sometimes learn!

And notice what else He says... and who are we, Moses speaking here of himself and Aaron, and who are we that you murmur against us?!  Now, I know what he’s saying, but sometimes we read things like this and we don’t know what he’s saying, because he’s letting them know “...your murmuring is not against us, it’s against God.”  You can look at physical human beings all you want and you can find faults and weaknesses and shortcomings and become familiar with them so much so that it begins to bother your thinking and your mind – and that’s the way we are as human beings.  It’s always been that way in God’s Church.  It’s always been that way; it was that way around Mr. Armstrong and the evangelists who were there...and sometimes the ministry and things that are passed down, that happen in people’s lives.

So he says, who are we?  He’s wanting them to understand who they are, but they didn’t get it, because he knew who he was, he knew how God was using him and how God was using Aaron.  But he wanted them to think about it, because he’s saying, “Your murmurings, they’re not against us,” in essence, “they’re against God.” That’s what he goes on to show, that’s why he said, “...and who are we, you think you’re going to be able to murmur against us and find fault with us and somehow not understand this is finding fault with God?! You might as well say it to God!”  You might as well tell God, “Well God, what you gave us didn’t come to pass, didn’t come true...”  But we don’t think that way, we think it’s just human beings, unless we’re convicted this is God’s work and God’s Church.

So he says, and who are we that you murmur against us? And Moses said, This shall be, when the Eternal shall give you flesh to eat, and in the morning bread to the full; for the Eternal hears your murmurings which you murmur against Him: and who are we? “It’s not against us, it’s against God.”  That’s what he’s saying here. Your murmurings are not against us, but against the Eternal. It’s something we need to see.

I think back of things that happened in the Church.  I think about a time when Mr. Armstrong – how can I put this – he was building the house that he wanted to dedicate to God, the auditorium in Pasadena, and he was always striving to use the maximum of what we had in the maximum way in the Church.  And sometimes there would be pleas because his desire, his intent, was so great of doing a work, of being able to be on more TV, more radio, more ‘Plain Truth’s’, more advertizing, whatever it takes to get this gospel into all the world, that he was so intent upon that that he poured everything into it and sometimes would cry out to the Church for help to support that even more so.  I remember a time then for the house for God that was being built that a plea went out for people to help out, kind of what the Israelites did when they gave of their jewellery, their rings, and whatever, to help build the tabernacle, that people would volunteer, and we need this help to build this facility that will glorify God...and it did!  And candidly, still does, what God did through Mr. Armstrong at that time, what he did and how he did it and what it pictured.

I think of individuals who went out and got some loans even, to send money in, so they could help.  And then I remember hearing some. I remember specifically one deacon one time talking to some others and he said, “You know, all this is happening because there aren’t the funds there in the same way, and he’s asking people to help support this because God’s trying to show him he shouldn’t build this thing.”  And I thought, “Hmm, God’s trying to show him he shouldn’t build this by not having enough money to do it with, huh?  ...that we shouldn’t be asked to help support, to get behind something, to do what the Israelites did?  ...to say, “This is our opportunity to be a part of, to share in helping to glorify God even more by our willingness to sacrifice even more?  Shouldn’t I be asked to help out in that or should it just be automatic that it just come in strictly through tithes and whatever normal offerings might be, or is it good and proper that we might be asked to give more offerings?”  I believe the latter.  And I think of different individuals like that and they went astray...people that made comments and tore down some of those things, they didn’t make it to the end.  Because who was Mr. Armstrong?  Well, he was God’s servant and they didn’t understand what they were finding fault with was with God.  Because you see, I hope you believe and see what I believe about that situation, is that God inspired Mr. Armstrong to do this for the sake of the Church.  It was about the Church.

Lessons, lessons, lessons that we can ever learn. But I hope we’re hearing more and more the message about being between the two evenings right now - that this is a dangerous time.  This is a time, at the very beginning of it, that is going to define who we are...and you haven’t been defined yet.  Some, I believe, have been, but not everyone has been.  There are still defining things going on in your life and you must, with all of your being, fight for what God has placed before you, to stand fast with what God has given to you, and only you know your mind and your thinking, of whether or not you’re in unity and oneness with everything God has given to this point in time in His Church – because that’s where we are.  And if you’re not, repentance needs to be there because we need to stand firm.  This is God’s Church and God has brought us to this point in time and we need to stand firm, mightily so, with what God has given to us and examine ourselves to make sure that unity and oneness so that God can make us to stand.

To me, it’s awesome, this story here as we go forward and the analogies of things about our journey and where we are and what happened to the Israelites and lesson after lesson after lesson, but especially the lessons that it eventually builds up here.

~~~end

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