To Know Why – Pt. 1

Wayne Matthews

November 16, 2013

Welcome to the Sabbath, brethren.

The title of today's sermon is To Know Why – Part 1.

One of the greatest blessings in life is to know and understand the purpose of life. Now, this is something that we actually in the Church do take for granted, because most people walk around in life reasonably directionless. They really don't understand the purpose of life, and because of the education system of this world, the majority of mankind believes they evolve, that they came from an ape or they came out of a slimy pit and evolved into what they are. Well we, brethren, know why we were born. Now, that is an incredible blessing! God has revealed to us, those called out of this world into a relationship with Him, the reason why we exist as humans on this earth. Now, that is an incredible understanding to have! So we live our life for a different reason. We understand why life was created, all life was created, because God has a plan.

To know why or to know the why of anything on a spiritual level is a great blessing from God. Because the only reason that we understand these matters that we're going to talk about today, on a spiritual level, is because God has revealed them to us. Now, mankind only understands anything in the way of knowledge, true knowledge, which has to come from God. Now, mankind has the capacity to choose and to think and to reason, and of course, that's from the natural carnal mind. That's what's come out of it, the theory (which it is 'the theory') of evolution, of evolving.

To know why or to understand on a spiritual level is something that we should not take for granted, and that is a potential that we have. As we are in God's Church over a longer period of time a lot of the truth that God has revealed to His Church and to us by the power of His holy spirit, we tend to just take for granted. We almost come to the point of assuming that everybody knows what we know, but of course there are many finite details within those truths that we simply still don't understand to the depth that we possibly can in the future.

The first point that we should never forget is where we heard and learned the truth. We heard and learned the truth of God while in the Church of God. Now, this is an area where we need to be on guard, because when we lift ourselves up in pride one of the things that happens is we tend to take things to ourselves, the knowledge that God has given us. Well, we tend to take it to ourselves. One of the things we forget, and when people leave God's Church and disfellowship themselves, one of the things that happens is they forget where they learned and heard the truth. Now, we understand that we were called by God out of this world into the Church of God, and it is in the Church of God that God reveals the truth to us. So it's in the Church while we are connected to the vine, while we have God's spirit, we learn the truth, we come to understand the truth, we see the truth, what God has revealed.

Now, one of the key points of continual growth is never to forget where truth comes from and the process that God uses about revealing truth. We understand that truth comes from God through Jesus Christ into the Church from an apostle, and that's where truth comes from. That's how it enters the Church. Now, when we forget that, when we forget where we heard the truth and how we hear the truth, we tend to take it to ourselves because we lift ourselves up believing that we have this knowledge and we give credit to ourselves. And that is a key point to spiritual growth – to always remember that we heard the truth and we have learned the truth by the power of God's holy spirit, and we have learned it and heard it while we are in – because we have to be in God and God in us to hear the truth and to learn the truth. Now, when I use the word there 'hear' the truth, people can hear words, what we're going to talk about today. If someone does not have God's spirit, God's holy spirit living and dwelling in them, they will hear words, but what we're looking at here is really to 'hear' on a spiritual level where the power of God's holy spirit convicts the mind about what we are hearing. And then to learn the truth, which is to come to see it, come to understand it on a spiritual level, well, that does require God's spirit as well because without God's holy spirit it's impossible to know these things.

So we have to be connected to the vine. As we know, we have to be connected to God by the power of God's holy spirit so that we can understand what is being said, but we learned all of this because we are in the Church of God, because we have God's spirit.

So that is the first main point of this coming to understand why we have this knowledge. And to know why we have this knowledge in itself, what we just covered then, is an amazing blessing from God. To know why we understand, why we see truth, to know why God places truth in the Church through an apostle, why, the understanding of the why of these matters is incredible in itself, and we should never take that for granted. Now, people in the world, people without God's spirit, cannot comprehend or understand what we just went through.

Point two. Point two is that we should never forget that it was God that revealed truth to us. We did not find this truth or any truth, any truth of God, by our own efforts or strength. And that is a danger where people can go off and start to believe that they found God. Well, no, nobody finds God. There has been nobody that has ever 'found God.' It is God that opens the mind. Now, this is incredible knowledge to have, the knowledge of a calling, because we live our lives just like all humans do, focusing on trying to acquire, trying to protect self, trying to build things around us, and then God in His loving mercy decides or may have already pre-decided well before even the calling, that He would call an individual and He calls that individual and He does it by the power of His holy spirit and He opens up the mind and the mind then begins to 'see' things differently than the natural carnal mind does. Now, this is an incredible understanding to have. To believe that you are called or to understand why we are called, that is amazing, amazing... because the world had no understanding.

Now, the world will look at both of those points and actually mock at them because if it's not handled correctly. By a natural carnal mind it looks like we're just lifting ourselves up, that we have this personal, individual relationship with God, and of course, for them, for the natural mind, what it sees is that we are lifting ourselves up. "Well, we have this special relationship with God," and of course they don't and they see it as us being basically insane, or the fact that we are just 'big-heads' thinking that we have this relationship with God and they don't; therefore, 'we are special.' "Can't you see, we're special and you're not?" Well, of course, we understand that that's not true. We understand, because God has revealed it to us, the purpose of our calling, why we were called, and that in actual fact when we understand why we are called it's a very humbling thing. It actually is a very humbling matter because we could be like everybody else, left to ourselves, but God in His mercy has called us for a purpose and that purpose, of course, is one day to enter Elohim.

So they are the two points that we understand why we were called. That is a great blessing. So we're going to read some of the truths that God has placed in the Church to see and to come to understand that we understand these things all for a purpose. To know why or the why of anything, any matter, any truth, to understand why it's been placed in the Church, why we have this knowledge, that is a great blessing.

So we're going to look at Truth 6 within the Church...Truth 6 in the Church, and I'm going to read this from the Church website:

6 (3) God's purpose for mankind.

Now, just that, that's the heading. Now to understand that, God's purpose for mankind, well, there are very few in the world that understand what God is doing, very few, and the few that would understand aspects of it are those that have had a relationship with God's Church at some time and they may have now branched off and gone off into scattered groups. Some of them have knowledge to a degree – it's not deep spiritual knowledge anymore because they're only losing truth. They're not gaining truth. They're only losing truth. 'God's purpose for mankind' – they'll have an outline that God's purpose for mankind is to change them to spirit, but the depth of entering Elohim and other things, a lot of that has been lost.

God is reproducing Himself and no other church knows or preaches this truth.

Now, when Mr. Armstrong was revealed this truth, that God revealed it to him, he wrote this saying that no other church, which was the churches of the world because Mr. Armstrong was the leader at that time, the apostle, of the Worldwide Church of God, that no other church knew or even preached the truth because truth came into God's Church.

We are to be born of God and become God—in the God Family: Elohim.

Now, this is an amazing truth if we understand it, because this can drive all our decision making, of why we exist, and what we're doing. So now we're all having to address different matters in our life as all humans have for their whole life. We've got decisions to make about a lot of things in life. And I remember once somebody said to me life was easy without having to make decisions, because the moment we don’t have to make any decisions, if life is just 'happening' to us and we don’t have to reconcile matters or work through matters or change in any way, life can be seen to be easy. Because when you have to make decisions then life becomes more difficult. Because when we analyze a decision, we sit down and go, "Well, if I do 'this,' 'this' is what could happen, or if I do 'that,' 'this' is what could happen," and we think we see the consequences of what will happen in the decision, but the reality is that we actually do not know what will happen this afternoon, we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, so all our plans can only be based on the knowledge we have of the present and the hope for the future. That's how we can make decisions because we actually don't know whether we're even going to be alive tomorrow. We just simply don't know when things are going to change in our life or within the world, therefore, all our planning is based on looking to the future with the understanding of Truth 6, because Truth 6 drives our life – and that purpose of life, this truth, Truth 6, to us means so much more because it underpins all our decision making. And that truth is 'God is reproducing Himself,' and that's the purpose of our calling. We understand why we were called. We have been called by God, He has revealed truth to us, we have been called to repentance, we have been baptized so all our past sins were forgiven and forgotten at that point in time. A true minister of God has layed hands on us so the power of God's holy spirit now can flow into us, can dwell in us, and now we can have the knowledge, the power of God in our thinking.

And what Mr. Armstrong wrote here, "...no other church knows or preaches this truth. We are to be born of God and to become God..." Now, that drives all our thinking. That drives all our decision making. Now, from this many other truths are developed, of course. Man doesn't understand that man is to become greater than the angelic realm. Isn't that incredible knowledge to have! The fact that we understand this! We understand because God has revealed truth to the Church. We understand the purpose of the angelic realm, that they were servants of God. We understand the thinking of the angelic realm in the sense that they did not have access to the power of God's holy spirit. They did not have the power to think like God. They do not have the same potential as mankind has. Isn't that amazing?!

Christ is the firstborn from the dead. So we understand this, that Christ's purpose, the very purpose of Christ as our Passover sacrifice, He was a gift from God, because that's how sin was to be covered. So all of these things are beautiful and wonderful knowledge to have. So with this very decision making process, we are now having to re-examine our lives. We now can stand back and look at this truth and this truth must drive all our decision making, the purpose of life. We're not here to acquire wealth. We are here because we want to be transformed. And we understand the purpose of life, and that is that God is reproducing Himself. We desire to think differently. We desire to enter Elohim at some point in time.

Now, we understand that society and the world, they have a process which is 'being born again,' and that truth, which I'm not going to go into a lot of detail today because it is on the website and there are sermons that cover this matter in great detail, but there are people that go around and I know that in various towns that I've lived in when I was much younger, that there were lots of problems in different communities. One group of people that were proselyting came through the town and managed to convert or to, (really don't convert them), but they virtually convinced them that they needed to be 'born again.' Next minute they're walking around saying that they are 'born again,' and society doesn't understand. They look at it and think, "Well, the person is born again because they've moved from one way of thinking to another way of thinking," and this new way of thinking is this reliance on Jesus Christ, the fact that they are 'born again.' Well of course Christ made it very clear that to be 'born again' was a spiritual change, that you had to be taken out from the physical to be spirit, and you're only born again when you enter Elohim. That's the only time that anyone can be born again. Well, they don't understand that. We understand that process so we are in the process looking forward to God reproducing Himself so that we can be born. We want to be born again. We want to be born, not in the flesh, born in the spirit.

7 (4) Who and what is God. God is a Family into which we may be born. God's spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are begotten children of God.

Now, this is amazing because it connects to Truth 6. Now we know who God is. God is actually a being, a Great Almighty God, and He's desiring to have a family. God is a Family into which we can be born. And that's what we were just talking about. God's spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are begotten children of God. So it requires God's spirit that actually witnesses or comes into evidence into our spirit, the spirit in man, that we are begotten children of God. So we have this potential now to be born into Elohim, because we've been begotten by God's spirit. We are now children because we have a begettal. Now that, of course, comes off the fact of the way that God has set up mankind in the sense of reproducing, that mankind can reproduce. Mankind can produce children. Children can be begotten from a family. The aspect of this that we have come to understand and that we know, that mankind doesn't understand in general, there are a few that may understand aspects of this truth, but the truth on a spiritual level is not understood, God is not a trinity. Now, if you look at it, there is one point so many billion, 1.3, 1.4 billion people believe that God is a trinity. Now, that is an amazing thing when you look at it, that all that religion believes God is a trinity, yet scripture clearly says that God is not a trinity.

So we know this. We know that God is not a trinity. Now, God has revealed to His Church that there is one true God, Yahweh Elohim, and to have that knowledge is great spiritual power, to have that knowledge; because that knowledge came from God. God revealed Himself to the Church in 2005 who He really was and His great power. All the things that God has done were finally given credit to Him for doing it, whereas in times past, if you look back at where the Church was and what understanding the Church had at that time, that the Church believed that Jesus Christ had pre-existed, and therefore, much of the credit and much of the glory was given to Jesus Christ, when that was not true. The glory should have not ever been given to Jesus Christ, but God over time revealed new truth to the Church and presented a truth that glorified and gave true glory and credit to Yahweh Elohim, the one and only true God...and it reveals God's great power. But Jesus Christ, we can understand, there was a glory in that, the fact that God the Father, Yahweh Elohim, provided Jesus Christ as a Passover sacrifice for mankind. That gives all the glory and the credit back to where it belongs, to God the Father, because it's God the Father that creates everything. It's God the Father that does the works.

We also understand that God is eternal...He is eternal. No one else has eternal life inherent in themselves. It is God that gives life. It's only God the Father that has eternal life and has had eternal life. Now, Jesus Christ has now entered into Elohim. He is Jesus Christ Elohim and now He has life in Himself by the power of God's spirit, God in Him that enables this. And we're going to get into this topic, about how mankind will dwell with God the Father forever in the sense of being connected to God the Father spiritually and the way that we will think in the future. God is eternal and has always been. We're not able to grasp this on a level where God has always existed. It's just not possible for the natural carnal mind. The human brain cannot comprehend that there is a being that was there always. He has always existed and there was nothing else. God then created a spirit realm and then He created spirit beings, then He creates a physical realm and then He creates physical beings. For us to fully comprehend it, it's not possible within our minds. Now, we can understand aspects of it and we can understand the concept of it, but to grasp it in the sense of a reality to us is very difficult. It's only by the power of God's spirit that we can actually believe these things that God has revealed to His Church.

Mr. Weinland had gone into a sermon in 2010 that covered the difference of the term we use, which is 'God's spirit' or 'God's holy spirit' and what the difference is between those. And I would suggest that people have that opportunity to go back and listen to that sermon in a lot more detail because there is so much in it for our benefit. But God's spirit, the power of God's spirit, which is the holy spirit, is not a being, because that's where the Catholics come back with this trinity and then all of the churches that left the Catholic church took that doctrine of a trinity with them and they believe that the holy spirit, this very power of God, is actually a being, and that's where they end up with a trinity, three separate beings in one.

Once a conversion takes place in a mind, this transformation into the thinking starts to take place, it takes place on a spiritual level within a human brain. Man can be changed from physical to spirit...man can be changed from physical to spirit. Now, this is something that we know, that we understand, yet society, mankind, doesn't know it, have no idea. They believe that when they die they either go to a 'heaven' or 'a hell.' Often in conversations people have said they believe that 'such and such' is 'up in heaven looking down on them,' and you'll see in football matches when somebody will kick a goal or whatever they do that is so-called 'heroic' or makes them a champion or makes them bigger in the eyes of others that they'll often stop and they'll gaze up into the sky. And of course that gesture, that human reasoned gesture that comes from the human brain, is virtually saying, "I thank You, God, for glorifying me!" That's what they're really saying! They say, "I thank God that You glorified me... that You allowed me to be this hero!" They're trying to transfer credit to God for allowing it. Well, of course, God's not involved in the football match and God isn't there just looking down, and they're looking up to other beings.

Often though people will pray to their parents 'up in heaven' and say, "Oh, I know they're looking down on me..." because God has not revealed the truth to mankind. Where we know the truth about that matter, that everybody since Adam and Eve that has died – other than Jesus Christ – is dead. They are dead and they have no consciousness. They're actually dead. They know nothing. They are awaiting a resurrection. We understand that there is a large percentage of the 144,000 that are dead, don't have any consciousness, know nothing, who God will resurrect at the return of Jesus Christ. And that is the vast majority of the 144,000. Everybody else that is dead is waiting a resurrection back to a physical life and they're not up in heaven running around in the clouds and doing whatever they're meant to do, and they're not looking down on other people, on their family and all that. They know nothing. And they're not caught in a purgatory or half-way between heaven and hell, and they're not in hell burning, being tortured by whatever man has thought up in the concept of hell.

We understand all of that to be lies...we understand that. We know the truth and that sets us free. The scripture talks about the truth setting us free. Well, it does, brethren, because we know, for example, our parents or loved ones that have died, we know that they know nothing and they're not being tortured.

There was some show the other day, and I can't even remember exactly what it was, but it was somebody that had... was quite a heavy drug user and various problems with a “free sex” sort of attitude, and they were virtually saying that they believed that this person was now up in heaven and heaven was now going to be a better place because this person had died and gone to heaven. And just human reasoning will say, "Well, hang on a minute. The person lived quite a perverted life really, and you believe that they're up in heaven and now heaven is going to be a better place because this person is up there taking those characteristics that they had on earth up into heaven with God? And heaven is going to be a better place because of it?" You just realize that the human mind can justify and get rid of all the past. Often in a funeral, when you see funerals, and someone will get up and say, "Oh, this person was the most loving person. They were wonderful..." The reality was that people have soon forgotten all the real problems that this person really had and what they were really like –selfish! At the time of the funeral and the reading of the eulogy, they were wonderful. They were the most wonderful husband. They were the most wonderful father because it's all done from human reasoning, human logic, and there is nothing to do with the standards that God has implemented and God says that should be lived by mankind...God's way. It's just the way man is in their mourning. They will say all these wonderful things that they were, but they clean forget that the person was actually very selfish and all the things that they did wrong.

8 (5) What is man?

Well, we understand what man is; he's temporary and physical. Isn't it amazing knowledge to have? Whereas other people think they've got an immortal soul.

Man does not have an immortal soul. Man is a temporary living, mortal being that returns to the elements of the earth at death and does not go to heaven or hell. Only God can give mankind immortality in His Family.

So we understand that we were made physical for a purpose...for a purpose, whereas mankind doesn't understand that. At death no one goes to heaven or into the manmade concept of hell. We understand it. So within that, brethren, it creates a freedom. It creates a freedom of thinking. Both my parents have died and I have a freedom of thinking because I understand that God will resurrect them back to a physical life in a hundred-year-period and they will be given the potential that I have, which is a calling, which is a conversion, to have access to God's power, the holy spirit, then they can begin to make right choices, whereas really in their life, they had very little chance to make right choices because God never called them to the truth.

Now, mankind cannot make right choices, generally, based on his nature. Now, some will choose to implement aspects of the 10 Commandments into their life, and for that there are blessings, because there are laws connected to physical obedience to the laws and God has implemented a process of laws, and connected to those laws are cause and effect or consequences, blessings and cursing's. To keep them on a physical level nations would be a lot better off. To keep them on a spiritual level we, brethren, of course are going to be better off on a spiritual level because they're spiritual in intent, their motive is spiritual.

Well, mankind has that potential, to come to understand that, and my parents will be given access to the knowledge. Now, it will be their choice about what they choose and how they live their life, and as with all humans that are resurrected during that hundred-year-period, they have choices to make. Will it be easier? Well, it's going to be a lot easier than what it was in their life with Satan and his demons around influencing and broadcasting into society and attitudes into the world. Will it be easy? Well, easier, but it's still going to be difficult. It'll be easier in the sense that because the environment has changed and only truth will be taught and lies will be stamped out and not be allowed to be taught, the transformation can happen quite quickly, but they still have a natural carnal mind that wants to go its own way and will challenge and question things. So, yes, it'll be much, much easier, but still, choices have to be made.

We understand that Christ has ascended to heaven and He is the only one that has ascended to heaven, and the reason was to fulfill a role as our High Priest. So He is the one that is there. God allowed it. God created Jesus Christ for a purpose, and that was to be our Passover. Now that Jesus Christ is in heaven during this period of time that He will return back to this earth for a purpose, to implement God's will and purpose. And God's will and purpose for mankind is to create a Family, which is going back to Truth 6, the purpose of why God has created mankind. We understand that. We understand what God is in the sense of who God is. We understand His great power, the Almighty God Yahweh Elohim, and what a marvelous plan! Isn't this incredible knowledge to have that the world doesn't have? And that's why we can walk in confidence. That's why we can be bold in the faith! Because we know these things! And no matter what is thrown at us, no matter how life becomes in the sense of being difficult for us on a physical level, or even on a spiritual level for that matter, no matter what temptation we face, we should fall back on to these truths. And that's why we have been continually encouraged to always stay close to the trunk of the tree, which is the truth of God.

So if we look at Truth 6 and dwell on it, meditate on it, and just come to understand how we learned this truth, that God has a purpose for all mankind, and therefore, there is no point looking out and judging and condemning others because they're going to have their opportunity in time, in God's time. So let's not look out and judge others or condemn them, or worry about others. We should worry about ourselves.

Who and what God is. We understand it. We understand that God is a family and that God is going to create a Family of spirit beings. Now, who understands that? Who knows that? Now what confidence and what boldness should that give us? It should give us great confidence and great boldness because it gives us purpose in life, direction in life, and we know what man is. We know man doesn't have an immortal soul. We know he's going to die. Now often, and it can sound calloused sometimes, but often you'll see, here in Australia we've had where 3-4 youths may steal a car and they race off and they're doing high speeds, 100km/hour, and the police start to chase them and their car goes faster and faster and they're all of a sudden doing 140-150km/hour, 100 mph, and the police then back off because they have instructions that they're not to pursue somebody that has stolen a car that's going too high a speed that is possibly or potentially causing damage or harm to others, or could cause an accident or kill somebody else, so the police back off. Then you find out that the car can't take the corner. It then runs into a telephone pole and kills three people. Then society raises up and says, "Well, the police should have not been chasing them," and everyone turns around and blames the police because they shouldn't have instigated the chase. Even though the police have backed off everybody comes up and says, "Oh, 'this and this' terrible..." But nobody looks at what the cause was. What was the cause of this happening? It was because somebody decided to steal a car. Others decided to get in the car. They knew full well what they were doing in their natural carnal mind, in their youth – often it is younger people – then two or three get killed and then everybody is upset about the two or three getting killed. Nobody is really upset at the fact that somebody stole a car and they were breaking the law and the police had to then turn up and try to pull the people out, the ambulance people have to come and deal with the dead bodies and all the tragedy of it all, and all the family misery that goes on because of those decisions.

Well, we understand, brethren, that those young people that got killed in that car at this particular time – and it sounds callous – that was actually a good outcome for them because now their minds cannot be polluted anymore in this sick and evil society. But do you believe that anybody would say that they would support such a statement? No different than where people die. If they die 'early' they're better off out of this. The reason is that because we see it on a spiritual level, because God has revealed that what He is doing, He is allowing man 6,000 years to be left to himself. We have been called out to see, and therefore, we have to suffer by seeing.

I know that there's been a lot of distress in people's lives within God's Church, and various situations come up and God allows these situations, and something that I've learned within myself that I couldn't fully understand to the degree – because you have to experience it – and that is the statement where it talks about 'Lot vexed his soul.' Now, I used to think that I understood that statement, 'Lot vexed his soul,' but the reality is I actually didn't understand it on a spiritual level at all because the only way that humans generally understand anything is to live it, is to feel it, and the only way that a person can 'vex their soul' within God's Church is that God must provide them His holy spirit to be able to 'see' on a spiritual level. Now, when we see on a spiritual level we then look out at society, we look out at families, we look out at all the nations and the suffering, we look at the wars, we look at the starvation, we see what's going on in Syria and many, many other countries. It's not just Syria. There are many countries that are in civil war or in wars. We look at families. We look at young people having young children and then separating and the child is just left to themselves without parents. We see all that. And once upon a time, we probably didn't care that much because we would just sit down and say, "Well, that was just part of life. That's part of society," but once we are called into God's Church, members of the Body of Christ, the Church of God, we see things differently. We totally see them differently. We see them on a spiritual level, and we vex our soul because it is distressing, brethren, to see suffering...to see the suffering, and why the suffering when a lot of it could be avoided by man making choices – even using the natural carnal mind – making choices to obey God's Commandments! Mankind would not have to suffer. But we now vex our soul because we see that without the return of Jesus Christ, without a calling, without God intervening into the world affairs, there is going to be suffering, and to watch the suffering is vexing the soul. It can be quite distressing because then we cry out and can cry out for the return of Jesus Christ. We ask God to intervene into this world because of the suffering for mankind – because without the return of Christ, without God intervening into man's life, because without a calling, mankind is going to just continue to suffer.

So 'vexing our soul' is watching it, watching people make decisions that you know have consequences that are going to cause harm to themselves and harm to others, and to watch people make decisions that are wrong, that are contrary to God's way of life, is difficult to watch. And part of it is because we can't have control over it. Often we want to insert ourselves into people's lives, to fix lives, or fix situations, which I am guilty of within my own family where we try to fix problems for them. They make these wrong choices and we know that it's a wrong choice and we sort of insert ourselves to try to fix it or to get a better outcome when the reality is often that we're powerless. We have to watch. We know what the consequence is going to be, we know the suffering, but we have to suffer with them by watching. We have to feel the effect by watching, and that is vexing the soul, that is being upset because we're upset on a spiritual level because we know the outcome and we know the only solution is God's holy spirit in their mind or God intervening and changing things. So we are vexed by this world. We're vexed by decisions of mankind. It is difficult.

So we know this! And to know why this is all happening, why all the suffering, is a great, great benefit to bring peace of mind. We know this is temporary. We know this is passing. We know this is going to be over soon, and therefore, there is a peace in it. It doesn't mean to say that we're not going to have an effect and that we're not going to suffer because the reality is we are going to suffer. If we are involved with other humans on any level there is going to be suffering, and there's suffering because we see things on a spiritual level. They see things on a physical level. They make choices all based on a physical level. We make decisions based on a spiritual level. So our decision making becomes easier because we stay focused on God's Truth. We stay focused on the fact that God has purpose for all mankind. We stay focused on the fact that we understand who Yahweh Elohim is and that God has revealed His plan to us. We stay focused on the Church because we know that God reveals Truth to the Church, in the Church, and the only way that we can continue to grow in Truth and the knowledge of the Truth and the understanding of the Truth and in wisdom is by being connected to the vine, being connected by the power of God's holy spirit to us, and we know we have to repent because we don't want the suppression or the cutting off of God's spirit in our life, because that's a tragedy.

Out of all the tragedies of mankind, the greatest tragedy that could happen to anybody is that God cuts off the flow of His holy spirit – because that will lead to death unless it changes, and the way it changes is that we repent. So we know these things, and therefore, we can be motivated. We can be positive. Our greatest danger is to start to look at the physical – and we are all guilty of it – because we forget these truths that God has revealed to us and we start to dwell on the physical things of life.

I'll just finish off on Truth 8 there...

8 (5) What is man? Man does not have an immortal soul. Man is a temporary living, mortal being that returns to the elements of the earth at death and does not go to heaven or hell.

What peace that brings us, brethren!

Only God can give mankind immortality in His Family.

We understand we were made physical for a purpose, to be transformed. At death no one goes to heaven or to the manmade concept of hell. What peace that brings! The fact that our loved ones and others that are currently dying today, being murdered, being butchered all around the world, they're just simply dead. There is a cessation of thinking and their resurrection is coming. And we understand that Christ has ascended to heaven for a purpose and we understand that purpose.

9 (6) The human spirit in man.

The human spirit in man! Now, this is incredible knowledge to have, and we often forget that we have this knowledge, that we understand how people think, and the reason we understand how people think is because God has revealed it to us by the power of His holy spirit. Now, we don't need a degree in psychology to understand how humans think. We just don't. We don't need to study for years and years and years to come up with this piece of paper that tells us that we understand how a human thinks, because mankind does not know how humans think. Mankind can only work out on a level the way of pattern of thinking, but they don't understand that every human is selfish! Every human is selfish! Every decision of a human without God's spirit is selfishly motivated. They can't even see the depth of the selfishness. They can't see the motivation. But when we're called into the Body of Christ, into the Church, God places His spirit with the human spirit (that capacity). We then begin to see ourselves. We see our own selfishness. Now, if we see our own selfishness, we know everyone else is the same, everyone else is thinking the same. They have that selfishness. We know what drives human thinking.

Truth 9 continuing...

The difference between the human mind and animal brain is that there is a human spirit within the human brain that gives the ability of free thought, creativity, and memory.

So that's the difference between the cow, the dog, the cat, than a human. We have pre-thought. We have creativity. So there is this ability to create. And memory, we have memory. We learn by the way of experience and it's in our memory, so that this can be changed. This memory process can be built so that we can build a pattern of living.

This human spirit must be united with the spirit of God for man to be able to come to know the true ways of God.

Now that is a wonderful truth to know! We know the ways of God. We know the truth because it is God's holy spirit dwelling in us that has given us that capacity. And that's why we don't take any credit to ourselves. At death the spirit in man returns to God. So all of those people that have died, they are dead, and God has, like a memory chip. It's a record. It's just simply stored, and God will place it back into a human life at a resurrection.

Now, understanding just these truths gives us great freedom and it gives us great capacity now to make all decisions based on this truth.

I'm going to turn to Romans 8:7-17. Now, we've covered some of these scriptures and the earlier scriptures before.  We'll pick it up in verse 7 because it's going to go back over... This area in Romans 8 covers a lot of the truths that we just went through because they are incredible knowledge to have, and this here outlines aspects of it and reveals much of it, that we can come to this greater understanding, that God has called us to know these things for the point of freedom, freedom from the bondage of our own thinking.

Romans 8:7 – Because the carnal/fleshly mind is enmity/hostile against God, and we've been through many of sermons about that. The problem with the natural mind is that it's driven by pride, that it does take credit to itself for anything it can to lift itself up, to continue to develop its image, to grow its image out to others in the sense of how people see them, how people view them. They want to be lifted up. And we ourselves try to have credibility.

One of the things we don't like is the way people think. Now, I’ve just been through various experiences with my own family where the main concern is the way people think about them, and I've said and made statements often that I actually don't care what people think. Now, that can be seen as being arrogant and all of that, but the reality is that I know where it comes from – it's God's spirit – and it does take time. It takes time in God's Church, so that when somebody criticizes you or whatever they do as a put down, it doesn't bother me overly because I actually am worried about what God thinks of me. My driving force in my spirit is that I am concerned and I try to focus on – and I don't always get it right – I try to focus on the way God thinks about me. How does God view this matter? And of course, we all fail and we all make mistakes, but the reality is what a human really thinks, whether they think I'm 'good' or 'bad' or whether they think I'm a good speaker or a bad speaker, whether they think I'm not tall enough or my color of my eyes is wrong, or whether they think I'm an idiot or not, actually doesn't bother me overly. My focus is not about what people think. My focus is about what God thinks and I strive to please God.

Here it is saying that the natural mind is actually against God, but it doesn't know it for it is not subject to, in other words, it's not under the rule of, the law of God, so man's mind is not under the rule. It can't be governed by God's law, whereas we can because of the power of God's spirit, nor indeed can be. So pride drives its intent by nature. It's the way we were born. It's the way we are. We resist God in our thinking by nature. We are selfish and inward by design.

Now, because of the power of God's spirit, because of God's Church and what God is doing in His Church, we understand this! So we don't need a piece of paper to tell us that we understand the human mind because here God has revealed to us what it is. We know that all human decision making no matter what it is – without God's spirit, if God's spirit is not in it – it is totally selfish. It's angling to get something out of it, and that's the way we were made. We know that because God's revealed it to us by being in God's Church.

Verse 8 – So then, those who are in the flesh, those that have this natural carnal mind, cannot please God. 'Cannot' means it's not possible. It's just not possible because it's a spiritual matter. Their motives are going to be wrong. No matter what is fronted up in the way of an image, the motive of the natural carnal mind is towards pleasing the self or protecting the image or creating an image around it. Often you will see, especially with men, you'll see that somebody that is powerful or successful will be surrounded by what is perceived by the natural mind and what society has established as a beautiful woman. And that is because of this image that the man is often trying to portray, "Look! Can't you see that I'm successful? And I'm successful because I can draw these women around me!" Because it's all driven by vanity. It's not necessarily driven by anything positive. It's just simply, "Well, look at me! Can't you see I am successful?!" And that is a lot of the motives.

We had down here, not long ago, a motorbike race, and it's called on Phillip Island, where around the world the motorbikes all come down, and the one thing that you see is all of these so called 'beautiful girls' dressed in skimpy clothing with flags, and every race a girl dressed in the particular skimpy clothing holding an umbrella over the driver. And you think, "Well, why is that necessary?" Well, that is all about this natural carnal mind at work and that's the driving force. It's all about selfishness. It's all about an image that is being portrayed.

Verse 9 – But you are not in the flesh but in the spirit, so we've been called and we are in a state of ongoing repentance. We are fighting against our selfishness and our pride as God reveals it to us, if, so it says here that we are not in the flesh but in the spirit if indeed the spirit of God dwells in you. So if we have God's spirit we are not going to be worried about these fleshly things. We're going to be worried about the spiritual. Now if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, so if God the Father hasn't poured out His holy spirit into our mind, into our thinking, and Jesus Christ is not dwelling, we're not living the mind of God, he is not His. We have no relationship with God. We have no relationship with Jesus Christ, and a relationship on a spiritual level cannot be achieved if we don't have God's spirit.

Now, to have God's spirit means we are in the Truth, we're connected to the vine, we're in the Truth, and we are in God's Church, because this is where God operates. The moment somebody leaves God's Church or leaves fellowship with God's Church they leave fellowship with God. They leave God's spirit, and God's spirit has been withdrawn from them and they don't have access to it anymore because God's spirit works through God's Church. Because God established a structure, and remember that, we've been through that previously and many sermons covering it, how God works. Now, this is a key to spiritual success within the Church because it all does go back to a government. We won't go into that in great depth today. But it does go back to this whole point of government, being governed by God's spirit and how God's spirit works in the Church, and there is great spiritual understanding to be had on that very topic. So here it is saying, well, if God's spirit doesn't dwell in us, we're not really part of the Church. If we don't have God's spirit we can't think spiritually, can we? We can't be in the Truth.

Verse 10 – And if Christ is in you, the body/physical thinking is dead because of sin… The body, this natural carnal mind is actually dead because of sin. We know that… but the spirit is life because of righteousness, because we have obedience. It's God's spirit that gives life. God's spirit is life. And that's our potential, to have life everlasting, but it requires God's spirit. So there are two ways of thinking here, the natural carnal mind, which is about sin, is dead. It's going to die because of the sin. It continually dies because of sin. It's under the death penalty. But if we have God's spirit, we have the spirit of life in us because of righteousness. Well, what is righteousness? Well, only God is righteous! It's God's spirit that empowers righteousness in us, and that's why we need God's holy spirit in our life.

But if the spirit of Him who raised Christ from the dead dwells in you, lives in you, is present and active, He who raised Christ from the dead, God the Father, Yahweh Elohim, will also give life to your mortal bodies… Isn't that amazing! How? …through/by His Spirit which dwells in you. Life can only be given to somebody that has God's spirit living and dwelling in them.

Brethren, how do we know that God is in us? How do we know that? Because when we look at this promise there, it's only by God's spirit living and dwelling in us that we have the potential of life, which is what we were talking about in those truths that we went through, that whole process. So it requires a calling and it requires God's spirit to be active and present in us, and if that is the case and the flow isn't cut off and we continue in the faith, in the Truth, in the Church, it says here that God the Father who raised up Jesus Christ from the dead, at a resurrection, will also give life as He gave to Christ. He will give life to our mortal bodies! In other words, we're going to have a spirit life to it. Now, it's talking about a physical resurrection. It's talking about a spiritual resurrection through/by His spirit, God's spirit, which dwells in us.

So how do we know we have God's spirit? Well, it's all about the way we think. We will have unity with God. And how is it revealed? Well, it's revealed in many ways, but we're going to look at a couple. Firstly, it'll be obedience to God's word. We will be keeping the 10 Commandments in their spirit and truth, in the spiritual intent of the law. We'll be doing that. And the other key way, which is outlined through the book of John in mainly, is about whether we will love others or not, whether or not we are sacrificing ourselves to the benefit of others, the way we think towards other members of the Body.

Now, when we have negative thoughts about others in the Body we need to be able to pull our thoughts up very quickly and realise where this thought process is heading because it is driven by pride. The moment we start to look out at others and think negatively about them, what that process really is, is about lifting the self up. So it's driven by pride and it is sin if we allow that to continue. We need to jump on that really quickly by referring back to these truths, which are...? About the purpose of man.

So why is anybody in the Church, no matter who it is? Why is anybody in the Church or associated to the Church? Well, if we go back and look at what God has said through the Truths we know, firstly, about the purpose of mankind, that God is reproducing Himself. Now, God is doing to do that and give that potential to those people that He has created, whether they're in the Church now or out of the Church now or associated to the Church or are our enemies and hate us and mock us and ridicule us and deride us, our own family. No matter who it is, God says that He has a purpose for mankind. So let's not fight against that purpose. Let's just realize when anyone is against us to stand back and realize that their time will come. Their time will come! God in His mercy, which is what we need to show to others, their time will come, and God will work with them and they have the potential – like us – to enter Elohim. Isn't that incredible what great potential we have?! Then we can look at it and say, "Well, they don't know God. They don't know that God is a Family. They don't know why they were born! They don't understand any of that." So why do we expect too much of them? And a lot of people don't understand, of course, what is man. They think they've got an immortal soul.

So let's not judge anybody! Let's just realize that God will work with people in the Church and out of the Church as He wants to and He will develop Elohim in them according to the way He wants to do it. We should always remember that everybody has that potential. And that's the way we need to view others. We need to view other people as potential sons of God, potential Elohim. And then when we do that it will change our focus.

Now, if people turn on us, our own families or friends and they turn on us, we need to stand back a little bit and realize they do not know what we know. They don't know the purpose of life! And God will work with them in time, and when they are called to repentance I know that deep down they're going to regret much of what they've said and what they've done towards somebody that God is working with now. So how we love others reveals whether or not we have God's spirit. It's a good sign of the way we think about others, whether we view them on a physical level or do we view them on a spiritual level as everybody is a potential son of God – everybody!

Verse 12 – Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the flesh… We don't owe the flesh anything because it's driven by sin, carnal thinking… to live according to the flesh. If we're living according to the flesh we're not fighting. So if we're living according to the natural carnal mind there is no fighting our selfish desires going on in our thinking. Selfish thinking is to live according to the flesh. So brethren, there is another thing for us to think about, to know. We know why we have to fight ourselves because we've just been through all the scriptures. We know why we must be fighting. Now the sure sign – and it's a complex area, really, it might sound simple but it is complex – because when we're not fighting we don't know we're not fighting. And I know that from experience because I was in God's Church and then I went to sleep and God spewed me out of His mouth, out of the Church. I didn't have a relationship with God, and therefore, I was cut off for a long period of time. And then when I was awakened back out of that sleep, and we use that term 'awakened,' which is 'drawn back into the Truth,' where God's spirit began to flow into my life again – I can actually know from experience that during that period of time that I was asleep I did not know that I was asleep. So someone who is asleep doesn't know they're asleep because they're asleep, and the fact that I didn't fight. Now, it's only because God has reactivated His spirit, the flow of God's spirit back to me that I now see clearly what the problem was – and the main problem was that when you are asleep you don't fight the self, because there is not that spiritual motivation. There is not that spiritual awareness. God's spirit is not there to fight the self. Now, we'll make physical adjustments, but there is no fighting of the motivations – none – zero! And therefore that's why it's complex, because if God's spirit is cut off and we get cut off from God's spirit we don't know we're not fighting. It's only with God's spirit we know we are fighting. And that's why it's complex.

So not fighting is actually living according to the flesh. So brethren, one of the signs that we have God's spirit is that we are fighting. We are concerned about our thoughts, our words, and our actions. We are concerned the way we operate in relationships with God and with relationships with others. That's our driving force, that's our concern, that's our focus! It's spiritual. It's not physical! It's not trying to acquire all these physical thing. It's trying to acquire the mind of God by God's holy spirit dwelling in us. That's our focus, that's our life, that's why we live our life. And that, yes, all these physical things are going to happen around us, but that doesn't matter because no matter what happens to us we just simply go back to God, rely on God. We don't become self-reliant. We rely on God and we don't live according to the flesh. Our decisions are not motivated by the flesh. They're motivated by the power of God's holy spirit living and dwelling in us.

Verse 13 – For if you live according to the flesh, if we don't fight our natural carnal mind, if we don't fight the temptations and we let our mind wander and think of all stupid things and evil things and sin, you will die… Brethren, we will die. If we live according to the flesh, this natural carnal mind, the only outcome is death. Why? Because the wages of sin is death ...but, and this is a wonderful 'but,' but if by the spirit, by the spirit of God, you put to death the deeds of the body… Now we're getting into this fighting and sacrificing our selfishness – that's what it's about. So IF by the spirit of God, God's holy spirit dwelling and living in us, we put to death, you put to death the deeds of the body – now the deeds are the works, the thinking of our minds and what we do, the deeds of the body – so we're now sacrificing the selfishness in us, we're disciplining the mind, we're fighting against those thoughts, we're now checking when we start to have wrong thoughts or wrong motives or wrong intents, God says, you will live. Isn't that a wonderful statement! "You will live!" We can have life, brethren. We can have a spirit life while dwelling in this human body because of the mind, but it's a spirit life in us living and dwelling in us, and we can have spirit life. We will live for life everlasting from the point that we are changed into Elohim – one of the truths that we saw. We believe that! We know that! Now these truths drive all our intent, drive all our motives!

The main point of all of this is that we must be fighting against our natural desires of sin, because our natural desires will lead to sin. These thoughts that we can have, if they're not corrected, will lead to sin.

Often when people first come into God's Church (and I know that this is the process that I actually went through), there was the believing that the temptation was sin – and that's not true. It's not true at all. What it is is that we have a natural carnal mind and when we are called God places His holy spirit in our minds to be with the spirit of man. So now we have the capacity by the power of God's holy spirit to think spiritually. Now, we will be tempted. Christ was tempted. Christ was tested. Well, we're going to be the same. Now, Christ didn't sin, so when Satan did actually test by placing those statements – we read that not long ago – placing those statements before Christ, well, that was not sin on Christ's behalf. The same thing is with temptation. We can have a thought enter into our minds. Well, that is not sin. That is testing. That is temptation. Then Christ reputed it and rejected it, so He didn't sin. Well, that's our example, brethren; we need to do the same.

So when those thoughts come into our minds, no matter what they are, about whatever subject it is, we now are being tested. We are now being tempted to sin, to go against God, to lift ourselves up against God. What we need to be doing is the moment we start to recognize them (because that's a gift in itself, the recognition of temptation is a gift), if we recognize the temptation, then it becomes a matter of a choice. Now here is the potential for sin – what choice will we make? If we choose to reject the temptation, reject what is being placed into our minds, we will not sin because by the power of God's spirit we recognize it and by the power of God's holy spirit we reject it. Now we've made a choice to live Godly. But if we don't, we recognize it, but there is a temporary pleasure in that thinking. We know that certain thinking, because it's connected to pride – when a thought comes into the mind and we begin to think a certain part and we recognize that it's not right, but there is a temporary pleasure in that thinking, of lifting ourselves up against God, or lifting ourselves up against another person, or lifting ourselves up in our vanity, building up our own pride because of the thought process. We don't cut it off. We don't discipline it, but we leave it linger. We let it go on and on and on because there is this pleasure in the mind, of satisfaction in the mind – we have sinned because we are now taking this pleasure, this carnal pleasure from it. And there is a pleasure in sin.

So temptation is not sin; temptation is the test, and it's the choice we make. What will it lead to? Well, it leads to death. But if by the power of God's spirit we were to put the death, we were to kill those thoughts, kill the temptation by rejecting it, and we reject the works that follow in the thinking and the actions, we will live. That's a promise of God! Because it's by God's great power that we can overcome our selfish thoughts and the thoughts that Satan is testing us with.

Verse 14 – For as many as are led by the spirit of God, these are the sons of God. Now, to know this, brethren, is great knowledge that God has placed in His Church and we understand this by the power of God's spirit. So isn't this amazing? That as many as are led by God's spirit (now we're led by God's spirit if we are connected to the vine, connected to the Church), we are in the truth. We are sons of God. We are begotten sons of God! Now, what boldness we should have in our decision making! What boldness we should have in our prayer life because it's God doing the works in us. We are begotten sons of God because we have God's spirit active and flowing in our life. Now, we should have boldness and confidence that God is for us. We are begotten sons of God. We don't take it to ourselves and look down on others. They all have the same potential and they will be given that opportunity to be begotten sons of God because they're going to be led by God's spirit. We don't know at what point God is going to allow that to happen in their life. We need to focus on ourselves, to say, "This is what I want! I want to be a begotten son of God! I want to enter Elohim! I want to make right decisions, being led by God's spirit!" And if we cry out to God, we are now desiring something that God is desiring. Isn't that amazing? Because God desires to give us His spirit. God desires us to transform our mind to be like Him. That's God's purpose! God's creating a Family. That's what we just went through. So now if we have that same desire, and the reason we have that same desire, is because God's given us the sight to see, the thinking to be able to think like Him. Now we are in unity with God, we are begotten sons of God, we desire God's spirit, we don't want the natural carnal mind. Now, to know this, to understand this is the purpose of life. How bold, how confident, how we can walk in assurance, how we can stand in the truth, and therefore, we can stand, brethren. We can stand no matter how long we have to stand because we're connected to the flow of God's spirit.

And I find these scriptures so encouraging because it gives us a focus in life, and we can get distracted in this life, and I'm sure there's things coming up ahead of us where we can be distracted, and normally those distractions are going to come from particular areas, and from life's experience they normally come through three main areas. The first area, the first area where we get distracted is money, because you have to have money. You have to have money to live. It's the way society is built. You have to have money. You've got to have income. Now, to earn an income and to be balanced in it, that's something we all have to learn. We have to learn balance in life, about how much money we really need to how much we don't need. And by that I'm saying, what's relevant in our life? To be positive and focused is the right thing to do, but it all should be done and motivated by the power of God's spirit, right choices, because God will be first in all our decision making about earning an income. But we should be out there earning an income and building a life. That is normal. That's what God requires of us. Hard work, that's what God requires of us.

The next one generally is family. That’s the stress and strain and problems of life where we could get distracted. So we can get distracted on the family level because family put a lot of pressure on us and it's all so physical. It's all so physical because it's about relationships, which are really spiritual in nature, but from their point of view it's all things. And families try to control families. People in families try to want things their way: "You should be doing it this way..." "You should be doing it that way..." So these massive pressures that come on a person come from family.

And the third one that comes is basically relationships with others. There can be massive problems because of the way people think.

Now we, brethren, should be able to handle all three matters because we have God's spirit, because we are begotten sons of God. We don't boast about that. We know there is no credit to ourselves in it. It's God that's doing all the work in us. He is the one that is providing His spirit in us that we can see spiritually, and He is the one that makes us begotten sons of God. We are His sons because through the power of His spirit, His holy spirit, He is achieving it.

So out of those three areas we can look to God to gain balance, to have our priorities. So the first priority is God is first in everything. That will drive all our decision making. Whatever choices we're going to make about these matters in life, earning an income, work, we have to have balance, and the reason we should have balance is we're going to put God first. So we are going to be Sabbath keepers. We are going to keep the Holy Days. We are not going to be working excessive hours where we're putting in 18-hour-days over 6 days of the week because there is no way that we're going to have the energy and the thought process and the right attitude towards God and God's people. We're going to be too tired, too exhausted, and our thinking will be just simply work-work-work, money-money-money. Balance! Gaining balance is a lifelong process.

Family – gaining balance. When we should help family, when we shouldn't help family. Because there are times within families because of people's decisions where we need to stand back and let the person pay the penalty, hence the vexing of the soul, because people make decisions and we have to stand back and watch. Painful as it is, because they make choices, there is a penalty to be paid, and of course, being parents the first thing a parent wants to do is not let the child pay the penalty. The parent steps in and wants to take the beating on behalf of the child so the child will not have to suffer. Well, that doesn't necessarily mean it's the right thing because there are times when a parent should intervene to help, there's a time when they have to stand back and let a penalty be paid. Because it's only through the penalty, the payment of the penalty, that somebody learns a lesson. It's that experiencing life, "Oh, that doesn't work." If the parent continually intervenes or even friends continually intervene to pay the penalty for the person's wrong choice, will the person ever change their decision making? Will they ever learn a lesson? Because somebody has paid the penalty for them their whole life and then they just keep doing the same thing. So it is difficult for parents, particularly, to stand back and watch their own flesh and blood suffer.

In that we have to be careful also because there is a degree of selfishness because why do we intervene into family and not into somebody else's life to help them pay the penalty? Well, because it's our family, because it's flesh and blood. So there is an aspect of pride that is built into that human thinking, where God doesn't think that way. God does not think in the relationship of diversity, in the fact of prejudice, that one is and one isn't. God loves all mankind and has a plan for all mankind, where we tend by nature to have a plan for our family. And others, well, they can do whatever they want, because that's human reasoning.

Verse 15 – For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, and that bondage is about our prejudices, those things that we actually have that hold us captive in our thinking. Now, we all have prejudices, even though we can't see them. We have bias, we have prejudice, we do look down on others. Now, whether it's race or culture or whether it's just simply behaviors or ways of doing things... Now, there is a lot of ways of doing things, they're not necessarily wrong, there is 4-5 different options, but we tend to choose one option as the best way and generally the only way to do it because it's my way of doing it, and that is actually a prejudice, and we tend to want to force that prejudice on others and that's where problems come within families or relationships. Because there can be five ways to do a particular role or a job or whatever it is, but we hold our integrity, like Job. We hold our integrity – that there is one way to do it and the one way to do it is my way! Now, the other ways are not necessarily wrong. There is no sin involved because when something is wrong, it's about sin. It's not about a preference or an opinion or a view. It has to do with sin. So something is wrong when sin's involved. Now, if there is no sin involved in the other way to do it, what does it matter? But of course, with our human natures it does matter because it's not the way we would do it. It's not the way we want it. We think the other person is being stupid doing it that way and we lift ourselves up thinking, "Well, they're crazy doing it that way," but there is no sin involved in the other way. It's just that this is the way we see it.

... but you received the spirit of adoption, because we have been adopted, because of the power of God's holy spirit living and dwelling in us, by which, because of this, we can cry out, “Abba, Father.” We can actually have a sincere, genuine, personal relationship with God because God's spirit empowers it – but there is a choice here, brethren. There is a choice because it goes back to that testing and tempting. We have choices. This is not a given. It's not just an automatic thing that you have God's spirit, and therefore, everything is wonderful. No, there is a choice. There is a choice and we have to choose. So we have to choose to be sincere. We have to choose to open ourselves up to God and reveal our inner thinking to God, to create that personal relationship so that when we are in times of distress or stress what actually takes place is that we can cry out to God in genuine heartfelt prayer, and that's what God is looking for. God does not want a hypocrite, you know, the actor. God does not want that. He wants a genuine, sincere person that really is led by God's spirit and chooses to have a relationship with God. Now, we only can have a spiritual relationship with God because God empowers it by the power of His holy spirit, but we do have a choice to whether or not we are going to cry out to God and when we're going to cry out to God, whether we're going to be self-reliant or Godly-reliant.

Now, one of the things that I have learned is that patience is a virtue. But more than that, patience is really a virtue. It's often easy said. Now, we've had a situation here where we've moved into a particular house and it has been very peaceful and quiet. Well, some time back a particular young man had a house across the road. It's about three houses back on one side. It's virtually almost directly behind us. Well, he started up his music and it was like a disco music, really loud with lights going, so much so that it's almost the house is vibrating and it's impossible. It's like having music in your own room. Well, now this is the difficulty, that with God's spirit we understand, we know. We know why we are to think a particular way. Now, I'm not to think ill will towards him. I can desire the music to stop and that he change his behavior, but I'm not to have ill will. I'm not to hate him or dislike him, but I can set out in a legal way to try to have it stopped.

So, of course the mind starts. So this goes on one night, and went on and off, and about 3:00 in the morning he started up again, went for another hour, and it was a Friday night, so it was very difficult to sleep. I resolved in my mind that I would have to do something about it, and I have learned from experience in times past that there are ways to handle matters wisely and ways not to handle matters - that you shouldn't do it. One of the things that we have learned is that it doesn't actually pay you to insert yourself by going around to the person's house knocking on the door and asking them to turn the music down. Now, the reason that doesn't often work – it may work for some, it never worked for me and my wife – is because you're dealing with a natural carnal mind of selfishness. The reason he's got the music up as loud as he has it is because who is he thinking of? He's only thinking of himself. Me turning up saying, "Listen, you're causing me distress..." Does he really care? Does he really care? Because what's the consequence – none. What am I going to do about it? Nothing. So I've learned that that doesn't necessarily work for me.  And don't get me wrong, it may work for some if that's what people are desiring and motivated to do, to knock on the door and ask them nicely to turn the music down. That's fine. That may be the first step. Well, my experience is that I've tried that many-a-time and it actually doesn't work. In actual fact, things got worse for me. I have learned that the only solution for me… I found it near impossible to think nice things about people that do that for hours and hours and hours, and all the things you would like to do to stop the music by taking it into your own hands, and of course that temporary pleasure and the pride and all the things you think you can do, which is all sin, because you should stop it. You should cry out to God to intervene. I've done that and sometimes God has intervened and the music has stopped virtually quickly, other times, it's gone on and on even though I have prayed about it. I say, "Well, it's God's will if it's going to stop."

It has come to the point where I've found that the only solution for me is that I have rang up the police and said, "Listen, this is the environment..." Well, both times that I have rung up the police and explained the situation, the first time I got the police station, I only got a voice mail, and it said, "Hello, there's no one here," and you know, "leave your message and what the problem is," and I never heard anything. So that didn't help much. The music went on. The next time I rang I explained the situation, got through to somebody, explained the situation, told them that I'd rung the night before and that the music had gone on and on. Well, it actually stopped within about half an hour, I think. It did stop.

And since then we've had an odd occasion where it might just start up for a couple of minutes and then go altogether but it actually hasn't happened to this point in time and we're not looking forward to the next experience. But I have learned that I can cry out to God to intervene but there are also times to take legal logical steps myself, and not just to rely to say, "God, take it all away," and think there is this great miracle and everything is going to be taken away, because God will allow that situation for me to learn a lesson. And the lesson that I have learned is that I cannot control my natural carnal mind. That's the lesson I've learned. I cannot control my natural carnal mind because it's impossible when it's under the stress, when it's under angst of things that it doesn't like, i.e., loud music where I can't sleep for 5-6 hours. I cannot control my thinking. I've tried it. I've cried out to God. I've tried to change different thinking, and even in the middle of prayer life where you're praying, all of a sudden, you're over there doing something you shouldn't be doing in your mind. It is difficult.

So these are the reasons that we can cry out to God. We can cry out to God because we have this personal relationship. We have this sincere, personal relationship to God where we can cry out, "Abba, Father!" It's heartfelt, you know. This is genuine: "God intervene please on my behalf in this matter, but Your will be done." Now, will the music stop or will it not? Hey, who knows! What is God's will in the matter? What is God trying to achieve? Well, we've learned before God is creating Elohim. He is interested in our spirit, in our motive. He is interested whether or not we will actually cry out to God in sincerity. Will we cry out to God, ask God for help? Will we? How long will we wait? Well, patience is a virtue and it's something that I need from God. I need more patience and the only way to gain patience is to face trials where patience is required because I've also learned that words are cheap. People can say, "I'm really patient." Well, we're really patient if things are going our way. The moment things are not going our way, are we patient? No, we are not. We are very impatient because we are not happy. We are not comfortable.

There is a TV ad here in Australia, I don’t know whether you've seen it other places in the world. There is an ad where a lady in an office environment forgets to place an ad in a particular magazine that's called 'The Yellow Pages,' and she realizes that she hasn't placed the ad, and therefore, she runs out of the office and she runs up the street, and her boss also realizes that the ad hasn't been placed in 'The Yellow Pages' on time. They've missed the deadline, and she opens the window and yells out, "Not happy, Jan!" We're all patient while things are going well, but when we're not happy, when we're not in an environment where we are comfortable, patience is a virtue and it's something that we learn by experience. So I'm expecting some loud music and other situations in my life going forward and I know the end result is how I handle them, what my spirit is towards the person that's causing the problem. How I handle it is the key, whether I will cry out to God in sincerity and truth and take logical non-sin actions.

Verse 16 – The spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, in other words, this is the evidence, that we are children of God...

Verse 17  ...and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may be glorified together, better, enter Elohim. So we are children. We are heirs because we have the power of God's holy spirit living and dwelling in us. It's flowing through us out to the benefit of others. We are then heirs, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ because Christ has already inherited, if indeed we suffer... Now, we are going to suffer, brethren. This life is about suffering and we're going to suffer because we're going to enter fights against our self. We are going to battle our natural carnal mind. We're going to fight, and we're going to suffer with Christ because Christ suffered in the flesh. He had the mind of God but He suffered in the flesh. He had to suffer tests and trials in the thinking just like we are and just like we're going to do the rest of our life. In all different situations we're going to suffer ...that, and what's it all about, that we may be glorified together. We are going to be glorified with Christ.

There is an area that I wanted just to quickly cover and it's in relation to the power of God's holy spirit. I remember some time ago that I had written an email to somebody that had been disfellowshipped and there was a bit of a communication going on and they had written me an email about something, and I had written back an email explaining to them that my role was not to explain scripture to people. That was the basic intent of what I'd said, that my role was not one of explaining scripture to people. Now, I got a return email of course about that and I was criticized for that statement because I had said that my role was not to explain scripture. Now, what it is, it's a difficult area because I was trying to level it out in the sense of on a spiritual level, but I cannot explain something on a spiritual level because it requires God's spirit in the mind of the other person to hear it, and I'm hoping you're with me here on understanding it. Because what it is is that if I have God's spirit and I then explain a scripture, in the sense that I read it out and what I believe God has inspired me to say in it, if the person on the other end, the hearer, does not have God's spirit I cannot explain a scripture to them because it requires God's spirit to hear it, and that was the intent of my answer. And of course, the person didn't understand what I was really saying, and therefore, I was criticized because they were saying that my role is one of explaining scripture, being someone that speaks in God's Church. Therefore, what's it all about? What's the purpose of me in the Church?

Well, what I was really getting at was the point that no matter who speaks, if Mr. Weinland speaks, if I speak, if Mr. Harrell speaks, if others speak, in the end it's the hearer has to have God's spirit to understand it, to know it on a spiritual level. And that's the point.

So I wanted to read 'Understanding Scripture' from the website, because it actually outlines clearly this very spiritual fact, and this is from the website:

FAQ: Understanding Scripture

Only God can give a person the ability to see the truth...

Now, we've been through some Truths here earlier on in the sermon. Now, whether we see them on a spiritual level or not is really whether God's spirit dwells in a person because if we don't have God's spirit we're not going to see on a spiritual level, the truth. So we have 57 Truths in the Church. Now, we see them to different degrees. We don't all see them the same, and there are many of the truths that we see in a limited way because they haven't been fully expanded yet, which is something that God will do by the power of His holy spirit in the future.

Only God can give a person the ability to see the truth and to correctly understand a scripture spiritually.

Now, that's the point. The point is that somebody can read out a scripture from the Bible and somebody who hears but does not have God's spirit, they will not see it in a spiritual level and they will not correctly understand the scripture on a spiritual level. They will have their human reasoning or their human ability to what they see or what they think is true.

The way God reveals truth to the mind is by the power of His holy spirit.

And that's what we've been through in the sermon today; it's all done by God. God is the one who reveals Truth. God is the one who places truth into our minds. God is the one who called us. God has revealed Himself from those truths that we have read today. God is the one who revealed that to us and He did it through a set way; He did it through Jesus Christ and He did it through an apostle, and He placed it into the Church then He called people into a relationship with Him by the power of His holy spirit so that they then could understand God's intent and purpose for mankind. Isn't that wonderful to know?

Going on in this 'Understanding Scriptures' from the website:

God's spirit is given when a person is called to repentance...

So the first sign is repentance. What is repentance? Repentance is change. The person begins to change the way they think, and because the way they think is changing, their behavior is changed, their deeds, their works change. They then realize they need to start keeping the Sabbath and other things associated to God – obedience to God is repentance.

...then being baptized...

They then get baptized. They then are immersed in water and their sins to that point are forgiven and forgotten and they come up as a new person, a new man, willing and desiring, be it man or woman, willing and desiring to walk in the truth, to walk in God's way, to be in God.

...and had the laying on of hands by a true minister of the Church of God.

Which is they are immersed in God's spirit. So the baptism is one of water, repentance, forgiveness of sin because sin is covered. They rise up a new person desiring to be now immersed, and the laying of hands by a true minister of God, someone who is a minister ordained in God's true Church, the Church of God – PKG; God then will place His spirit into the mind, which we have read before in the truth. Now they have the ability to think like God. Now this is the ability to understand scripture.  So then, when a scripture is read to them in a sermon, they have the ability to see the truth and to correctly understand the scripture on a spiritual level.

Now, when a scripture is read out not everybody in God's Church today hears or sees or understands the scripture to the same level, because we're all at different levels with God's spirit, and God works with us all differently. God has a purpose in revealing the truth to us and God has a purpose in revealing the depth of the understanding of a scripture for His outcome, for His purpose. Now, we should never look out at somebody and lift ourselves up. If we see something in a scripture that someone else doesn't see to the same depth or understanding, we should never ever-ever-ever lift ourselves up thinking we are better than that other person who is in God's Church, who has a relationship with God, because that is terrible, terrible pride, because we do not see scripture, we do not understand the truth, we do not understand scripture of and by ourselves. We do not have that capacity! And that's what this 'Understanding Scriptures' is explaining.

So to see a scripture, to understand a scripture, is all driven by God's great power working in our life and we take no credit to self. And the moment we do, where we believe we see something or understand it to a greater depth, pride has entered if we then lift ourselves up against others by looking out and saying, "They don't even see it! Oh look! They can't even see that basic scripture," what we think is basic. Well, what we're really doing is judging God. We're not judging the individual. We're judging God. We're condemning God because God is the only one who gives the power to see spiritually.

Continuing on with 'Understanding Scripture':

Therefore, without God's spirit a person cannot come to understand the truth.

Now, that is incredible to know, brethren! Without God's spirit a person cannot come to understand the truth. So if somebody leaves fellowship of God's Church, can they understand the truth? No, it's going to be lost! Because it's God's spirit that powers understanding. It's God's spirit that powers the depth of the spiritual understanding of the truth that God has placed into the Church.

And finishing off that statement...

Without God's spirit, one can only see scriptures in the light of their current false religious understanding and beliefs.

So, somebody that comes out from the world has the power, through the power of God's holy spirit once they've gone through that process that God requires of them, to understand scripture, to see the truth. Isn't that incredible that we know these things?

So that is the end there of Part 1 and we'll pick it up in Part 2 where we will continue with the sermon series that is 'To Know Why.' And it's really all about to know why God is revealing all this truth to us. And we have these Truths and we're going to continue to explore truths in more detail to understand why we know these things. Because God has revealed Himself and the truth to us for a purpose. It's not just for vanity, for knowledge. What's the good of knowledge?  It's for a spiritual outcome, and that spiritual outcome, we know, is about building a spiritual relationship with God – and what's the spiritual relationship with God all about? That we can be begotten sons now but we can be born into the Family of God...and we know this, and because we know these things all our decision making, all our efforts, all our focus is on achieving to please God.

So that's the end of Part 1 and we'll pick up the sermon series next time.

~~~end