The Virtue of Truth, Pt. 1

Ron Weinland

March 19, 2016

Good afternoon to everyone. Beautiful Sabbath out there. This time of year been blessed with some very good weather. Looking forward to the… Reminds you this is Passover season coming up on us and looking forward to going through that. So, Days of Unleavened Bread and all the meaning that's contained there.

I do have one announcement before we begin and it's concerning what happened this past week on the internet as far as, I guess, the website for signing up for the Feast. Anyway, I received this from Jeremy and I'm going to read it as he gave it and maybe make some comments. It says: "As many of you probably noticed this week, or last week, we were experiencing some technical difficulties with the server for the Feast registration." Evidently there is a large company that comes in and buys out some of these other companies. It's a large company that's really created some problems. Seems like every company it buys out it messes up badly and people leave from there and go to other companies and stuff. And we're probably going to have to do the same thing because we can't go through things like this on a regular basis. But anyway, it says…. Of course, the timing of this was… Anyway, quite unique.

"Unfortunately," it says, (he said), "it went down early in the week after the emails had been sent out. And when it came back online on Thursday we had lost all the registrations from the database." So, meaning that everyone that had signed up, all that was lost in the system. So, anyway, continuing on: "So that means everyone who already registered before Thursday will have to do it again. The good news is that this has nothing to do with your own hotel reservations and it's only for the Church to know who is attending and how many we expect at each site." In other words, when you register this is for our information so we are aware of everything that's taking place in each area. If we need anything different as far as housing or meeting room space or things of that nature it gives us a better feel of what's going on in each area.

So again, it didn't affect your reservations if you already made them. So again, "If you already registered, please go back…" I'm sorry. "If you already registered," yes, "please go back and do it again. If you log in and at the top of the page it says that you are already registered, then you're all set." So again, when you go to register again, make sure that everyone does this, go back and reregister. But if it comes on when you log in and it says you already registered, what he's telling you is it's taken care of, you don't have to worry about it. But if it doesn't, you've got to go through the procedure again.

Again, if you need to register…. "If not, you need to register again." I just said that. "In case you deleted your registration email or didn't receive it, we will be sending out invitations," I guess, "invitations to everyone again on Sunday." So they're going to send out the same emails again on Sunday that had already been sent out. "So please make sure you check your spam folder in case it gets put in there." This is happening to quite a few people. It's coming in on your spam. It doesn't recognize it so it throws it in there depending on the system that different ones are using. "If by the second half of the week you still haven't received your email and you already checked in your spam folder and it's not there, then please contact your senior elder so that we can make sure that we get an email sent to you." So, anyway, self-explanatory. Hopefully that makes sense. It's just a matter everything's going to go out again to everyone. You're going to receive a second email – same one again – and it'll have everything in there about signing up. And some maybe haven't received that at all, I don't know, but hopefully this works well this time. We shall see.

Technology. Works great when it works great.

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All who are part of God's Church understand that the world is exceedingly confused and in total ignorance of what is truth, most specifically God's truth concerning His plan and His purpose for His creation, and truth of how mankind should live toward God and toward one another.

We understand this mightily, obviously. But for us the question today is: How much do you value truth that God has placed before you and given to you? Although we may respond by saying we value it highly, the reality is there is great need that each of us, that we each seek to genuinely value more fully God's truth – far more than we actually do. Human nature plays a very powerful role in how it works to actually devalue, reduce, downplay, diminish, and underestimate the incredible great value of the truth God has placed before us.

I hope we understand that. I hope we see that. Because that's exactly how our human nature works. And so through time, even within the Church, even with God's spirit this is what we do, we tend to do. That's the pull that's there of a natural mind, human carnal mind – to devalue, to reduce, to downplay, to diminish, to underestimate, and sometimes just become familiar with. And because of doing that, when it's about God's truth, we do these things anyway.

This is simply the way, again, the natural carnal mind works even when it's been begotten of God's spirit and has been living through a process of transformation in our thinking that we've been living through, in our thought processes that God is working with. We still have that human nature. And we still have these very tendencies.

So today we're going to begin a sermon series entitled, The Virtue of Truth, Pt. 1. "The Virtue of Truth." There is a lot said in that and I hope we glean a great deal out of this sermon series because this is something that God desires that we look at this specific moment in time, that we, especially before we come to the Feast of Unleavened Bread and Passover season here that's coming quickly upon us, that we grasp more deeply what He's given to us, what He's placed before us, and how we think about it.

Let's begin this particular journey, if you will, calling it that, in an individual quest that each of us needs to exercise in what we're talking about here today in an admonishment and an encouragement to each of us to be seeking more genuinely to value God's truth, truth that He's placed before us let's begin here at the beginning. Let's begin at John 1.

We, again, it's a very easy thing to do. To say, "Oh, I agree." The 57 Truth's. It's awesome what God has given to us, the things that God has given to us in the posts in the last three years that add to those truths. It's not new truths, but it's added to the things that God has already given to us because that's what He does, He magnifies what He's given to us. And He continues to do so. We have been given so much. But again, human nature, we have to understand our human nature and how we tend to use and think toward those things that God gives to us.

John 1:1—In the beginning was the Word. I am amazed when I go back through and read some of this and thinking back of the sermons that were given during the Feast of Tabernacles back in 2005 and what God gave to us at that time. You see, because so often (and the longer you've been in God's Church the more this can take place), so often what happens is we receive certain things and at the moment, indeed (and that's the way it should be), we are in awe, we are excited by truth that God gives to us, by additional understanding that God gives to us to truth that He's already given to us. And He just continues to give us more and more and we build more and more upon what we have. But oftentimes after a time passes, a year, two years, three years, ten years, and that becomes the norm for us, the appreciation and the awe of that truth begins to diminish. It does. And we begin to take it, if we're not careful, a little for granted. So we need to see that. We need to grasp that. Because that's a very dangerous thing that happens with the human mind.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with, or as we understand the word to mean, unto God. It was God's. It was God's Word. That's an awesome word in itself, to understand what's being said there – this Logos that reveals the very thinking, the very mind, the very being of God Almighty. And this is what He's revealing here through John to the Church, to us, of things that I sometimes marvel at in realizing that different ages of the Church didn't even understand these things. In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God (unto God), and the Word was God. It reveals everything about who He is, just as it does with us. You know, how we speak, what comes out of our mouth, if you will, reveals the very things of our thinking and our mind. And so much more so with God. Everything. Everything that proceeds from God, everything that He communicates to us reveals who He is, reveals His thinking, reveals His mind, reveals His will, reveals His purpose. And on and on it goes.

The same was in the beginning unto God. How many ways can you say it? It was God. It was God's Word. It came from God. It was His.

All things were made by Him; and without Him there was not anything made that was made. We can read that now, but we have to remember before 2005, as a whole, for God's Church and going all the way back (for how long, we don't know) – When did the Church have this? When was it lost? When was it not understood what this was speaking of when it talks about this particular thing here, that everything that was made by God, "made by Him," if you will, "and without Him there was not anything made that was made." God did it all. But how long have we known that? How awesome is that understanding? How awesome is that truth that God has given to us? Do we ever get to a point where we cease to be in awe that we "see" this, that we grasp this? And to understand what happened to God's Church when it didn't know these things, but it was judged by what they knew at that time – the present truth – speaking of Worldwide. They didn't have to have this at that time. They were judged by what God had given to them to that point in time. But how awesome is it when finally we came to a point when God revealed to us that we were still in bondage as a Church? That we were still coming out of bondage of what had taken place and what had been placed into the Catholic Church and what crept into, then, Protestantism and into religion in the world. And then by the time then God's Church went through what it did up until the time Mr. Armstrong was called there was no understanding. Mr. Armstrong came to grasp, indeed, that the trinity was in error. But the belief that there were two beings? What an awesome thing that we understand and see so clearly now what God says in the Old Testament when He says, "Indeed there is Him," as God, "and there is no one else." No one else! Awesome to understand that!

The point being is we never should lose excitement about any truth and all truth that God gives to us. It should always be stirring and moving and motivating. And we have that great picture that we look forward to the time that others are going to begin to see it – especially those that were a part of us that are going to be awakened again and going to have the opportunity. This is going to be one of the first things they come to see. This is going to be one of the first things that they come to grasp. This is going to be one of the first things they come to acknowledge and admit and recognize they were in error of in order to receive something that God has for them. Awesome! That only He has eternal life inherent in Himself from the beginning to the end – which there is none. We don't understand that.

All things were made by Him; and without Him there was not anything made that was made. In Him was life. That's where it all comes from. It doesn't come from anywhere else. Anything that had life in it from that point in time, from the beginning, God had to give it because it's in Him. It's His to give, and His alone to give. And He can take it just as well as He can give it. And we came to understand that. What an awesome thing that we came to grasp that – that just because a being is made spirit in composition does not mean that God cannot take that life from them that He gave to them. Because they're not immortal in the sense of eternal life living and dwelling within them, originating out of them. Because it doesn't. It's given to them and God can take it away. Incredible! More truth! Awesome truth! So we can better grasp what's taking place in God's purpose and God's plan even within the angelic realm and what's going to take place later on.

Truth upon truth upon truth. It's always inspiring, always stirring, always motivating. And we look forward to the world to have it, for others to receive it.

In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. Awesome! It's "the light of men." It begins to reveal something here, other scriptures, other things we understand and grasp in it then of a purpose that God has for mankind. What an awesome thing! A light that God has planned and purposed that can be in mankind. A life that God has purposed that can be in mankind – His life! His light! He is the source. To eventually bring us into that oneness and unity with Him in Elohim, in His Family.

And the light shines in the darkness; and the darkness does not comprehend it. It's the way it is today. That which comes from God, that which God gives, the truth that's out there. I think of Mr. Armstrong all those years, over half a century preaching and teaching, publishing throughout the world, and people couldn't see it. It was going out in the darkness and the only ones who could receive it are the ones whom God gave the ability to receive it. Because man of and by himself can't see it. He has to have help. He has to have the help of God's holy spirit in their mind communicating to the spirit that's in them, to that spirit essence that's in the human mind. What an awesome thing to understand, the things we see that we should never take for granted, that we should always be moved and motivated by, that should stir our being with excitement about God's plan and what He's doing and how He's doing it.

In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in darkness; and the darkness does not comprehend it. There was a man sent from God. God is the one who sends those whom He chooses. Not because of how good they are, not because of what they are, but because He has a plan of how He's going to do it and He molds and fashions them and prepares them, just as He does with all of us. We are being prepared for things in the future we have no comprehension of! And once we get there we're going to look back and say, "Now I see what He was doing. I understand it more. It's clearer. Now it makes sense." But we don't get it right now. We go through the motions, we seek to go through a process of transition, we seek to yield to what God says that we need to do and repenting and fighting against and conquering self, our human nature and yielding to God. Incredible process we go through. But God is the one who sends.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the light. In a unique way. First of all about God Almighty. Because it was a message about God – the need to repent and to turn to God. That's what the message was from John! And he was also a witness of the one who was to come, of the Messiah, of the Christ. And so John was sent with a message. But first and foremost it's about the light and the source, that light that comes from God, the life that comes from God, to God Almighty, and the need to repent. That's why people got baptized. That's why they were baptized in water. It was a baptism "unto John," it talks about, but it wasn't to receive the holy spirit, but it was about a need to change, a desire to change.

The same, it says here, came to bear witness of the light. In other words, that which is of God that's to be given mankind …that all through him, or "it," speaking of the light, because that's what it's referring back to here, might believe. And so when it comes into one's life it gives the ability then to see things that otherwise cannot see. "The light shines in the darkness; the darkness doesn't comprehend it." But if we begin to comprehend it, if we begin to see it, that light, then we're given the ability to begin to act upon it. Belief. Before that people have no ability to believe what is true. They have no ability to believe what you believe. You didn't have ability to believe those things until God gave it to you, or unless God gave it to you. People who grew up in the Church have a little bit different pattern that they go through in life because they are worked with in a very unique way of being able to see certain things, but then there comes a time when they must act upon it for themselves as to whether or not they choose it for their life or not. And so there's a bit of a different process there that takes place as opposed to or different from someone who is called directly out of the world, out of full darkness.

And so again here, that all through him (or "it") might believe. It gives the ability then to believe. Without the light, without the ability to see the light, without the ability for it to come into the mind to where people can see things, they have no ability to repent. If you don't "see" the Sabbath and the Holy Days and the plan of God and the purpose of God and the things that God is revealing and the things that are being given to the world (or whatever) when it comes to truth, you don't have the ability to act upon it. Now, you can in a physical way if you hear about tithing and the law of tithing. People act upon that. The Sabbath, the seventh day, they realize now, "Yes, that's pretty plain in scripture." They can reason and work through some of those things and come to see that, "Yes, that was the seventh day and I see where Sunday came from." And they can make choices. Millions have. But they haven't been called of God. They haven't been given His spirit yet. So there are cases like that where people can act upon it in a physical way, but to "see" it, to really "see" it, to grasp it spiritually, God has to give that. And then to be able to act upon it and to add more and more truth to it? God has to give that.

He was not that Light, speaking of John, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light, which lights every person who comes into the world. And so in part it begins in a very basic way showing that for everyone who is given life that light is active, in the sense of what comes from God. But God gives the life. God is the one who has given us all life and He gives us His spirit essence in our being for a purpose. We're given human life so that we can one day be a part of His family, be begotten and then eventually born into His family. And so there's a process and it begins on a very physical plane, very physical plane as far as our bodies are concerned, but there is that within the mind that still is a spirit essence – not the holy spirit but a spirit essence with which God will communicate later when more is given, when indeed the light and the purpose for that light in our lives begins to shine giving us ability to see, to really believe, to understand God's purpose for us. So it's a process of time, whatever God's time is. For most human beings, it's going to be in the Great White Throne.

Verse 10—He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, or it, speaking of the Light and referring to God, was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world did not know Him. Isn't that an amazing thing? Don't really know God until God gives us the ability to know Him. Adam and Eve didn't really know God. Isn't that an awesome thing? In this context they didn't know God like we know God. They were never begotten of God's holy spirit. So just because someone communicates or has communication with God through whatever means that God communicates with them doesn't mean that they "see" God in the way that we "see" God. Because what we "see" is a matter of the mind, is a matter of truth, is a matter of knowledge and understanding that God gives us to see about Him, the Word, the mind, the being of God.

But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God. So the ability then to receive Him. Something that God has to give. It's a power. It comes from God. God is the source always, always, always. No one comes into God's Church on their own ability. No one figures it out on their own. I don't care how much they read and how much they go through they can't come to a point of being baptized, being impregnated with God's spirit on their own ability. It doesn't happen that way. Nobody can be lifted up in importance and think, "Well, I did this," or, "I saw that." There are things we saw but it's always in the context, and we can talk about those things – and a matter of fact we do. I remember talking to someone here (I don't remember who it was now), but I was talking about some things about when we were called and so forth, but in the context we realize we go through different things as God brings us along. It's always in that understanding it's God that gives us the ability to see and be drawn. And we have to act upon it. But there are certain stages in our life where we begin to see certain things, God gives us the ability to see them. But always understanding it comes from God – always, always, always. That is one of the major things the Church lost by the time of the Apostasy: God does the calling. You don't know anything; you don't see anything that is true unless God gives it to you and sustains you in it. Because you can't even keep it.

You can't even keep this. You can't keep the ability to see the truth without God's help, without God's spirit. That's why there's a constant need of God's spirit in our life, to fill our life. Otherwise, we'll lose what we have. Look at the thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people who lost what they had. They're asleep. You know when people fall asleep, you see someone asleep and their snoring; they don't know it. They might wake themselves up for a little bit and go back to sleep, might have a moment of reality hit them (I mean in the world). But when you're asleep you don't know it. You're out of it.

And so it is spiritually in the Church, in the Church that was scattered. They don't know it. They think they're awake. They think they "see." They think they understand. And they don't. They lost what they had. They don't grasp what's happened to them. They don't grasp there was an Apostasy. They can't "see" it – something that's so clear! I mean, how clear is that to you? How clear is it to us? And you think, "Let's see, two-thirds was gone very quickly. And that last third, it went into all kinds of directions. Could there have been an Apostasy?" Scratch my head. You know. "Could there have been an … Could that be true?" Can't even think that way! And if they do a little bit and they're presented with it, it's like, "Pshew. No! No. We're going to grow bigger until a point in time where we finally get up to well past 144,000 so that God, so that Christ can come." That's what they're looking for. A lot of organizations out there are looking for getting big enough. And at the rate they're growing, it's going to be at least a hundred, two hundred more years. I don't mean to be making fun of it, but that's reality. The growth is so slow. And is it really of God? And is God's spirit really there? We know the answer.

And so even in that people deceive themselves. What have you been given? How much do you value it, the virtue of truth? Look up that word. Look at all the words associated with it. "The virtue of truth." Different way of expressing it. It means a whole lot.

…to them gave He power to become sons of God. His plan and His purpose. That's what he's referring… That's what this whole thing is about here in John. It's about the way God is bringing it about. It's the way God is working with it. It's about the one who is going to be made the Word in flesh.

But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to those who believe on his name. And so it begins to have duality here, things that refer to God first, but also they're leading up to the revelation of His Son, things that have to do with His Son, the light, the life, the power, the means, the word and how man receives it. It's through Christ. That's God's plan. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to those who believe on His name. First of all, God. Then Christ. That's what it's about. Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. So again, it's God's will and it's God's will when someone is drawn. It's God's will when that time comes for them to receive the impregnation of His holy spirit. God is the one in charge. God is the one who leads. God is the one who draws – and sometimes drags. I like that word. Sometimes we don't go easily, we don't come easily, if you will, to God. We resist.

And the Word was made flesh. There is so much more here that we don't even begin to see yet that God is going to reveal to us. So much more. And the more you grow, the more you will "see." And the Word was made flesh – powerful, awesome. The life, the mind of Christ, the being of Jesus Christ – and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth. "Full of grace and truth." That's why I love where this book has gone. That's why I love the third book and what God is giving to us and what God is giving to the world. Because it's very much – it's very much about truth, it's very much about revealing and talking about things that are a matter of deception and lies and so forth, it's very much about what is true but it's very much about grace, mercy, favor, help, intervention, God's desire for mankind. Incredible grace and mercy that God wants to extend to mankind, has desired to give to mankind. But what has mankind's response always been? What was it like when Christ looked down upon them and that time he wept: "How many times, as a mother hen I would have drawn you in." He was expressing the very being, the mind of God Almighty over the centuries, prophetically, powerfully, saying, "How many times I would have taken you in and protected you," in essence (that's what he's saying), "but you would not." Amazing! Incredible, the human mind.

John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spoke, He who comes after me is preferred before me; for he was before me. And some people are stuck in those things in the past, "See! He was before him, and how could that be unless…" It's God's plan and purpose. It's the Word. But the Word was made flesh. That's when his existence began. But his purpose, his existence, his planned existence was planned first. It was before everything. It was before everything. Do we grasp the awesomeness of that? That before the angelic realm ever began that God purposed to have a son born flesh, physical? Awesome, the mind, the being, the power of God Almighty!

Verse 16—And of his fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by/through Jesus Christ. It's what God gives to us as we're drawn, as we're called. A lot of mercy. A lot of favor. A lot of intervention. A lot of help. Grace and truth, abundantly so, more and more and more and more as time goes on.

Let's go on to John 3. The virtue of truth. Thinking about the things of Christ as it just told us about, talking about this matter of grace and truth coming through Jesus Christ. How important it is? How much do we value it? Do we recognize what has taken place in order for us to have it?

John 3:12— If I have told you earthly things, speaking to Nicodemus here. It says, If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you of heavenly things? In other words, "How are you going to get it if you don't grasp," basically, "the physical things I'm telling you on a physical plane. How are you going to understand those that are spiritual? Those things that are spiritual?"

And no man has ascended up to heaven, but he who came down from heaven, even the Son of man who is in heaven. So again, when you know the truth, statements like this are very simple. But think about people who are confused when they read this statement, people who are still in bondage, people who still don't grasp and understand what you "see," what you know. What an incredible thing, "No man has ascended up to heaven." Simple statement. But what do people think? What have people thought for generations upon generations upon hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years? "Heaven's got a lot of people in it." No. "No man has ascended up to heaven, but he who came down from heaven." What an awesome truth to understand, God's purpose. "Even the Son of man who is in heaven." Yeah, he came down. He was the Word. The Word that was made flesh. That's where he came from. That's where his being came from – His Father, God Almighty. That life that was given in a physical life that came from heaven, that began in a physical life in a physical womb.

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up. Now, he's telling Nicodemus here things that Nicodemus, he can't begin to get. Just like we've talked about earlier – you can't see it unless God gives you the ability to see it. You might think you're religious, as Nicodemus did, but he didn't get it. He didn't understand it. A religious leader of his time and he didn't "see" it. He couldn't "see" it. He couldn't understand the most basic physical things that Christ would tell him, let alone – because of talking about God's plan and the truth of God's plan – let alone that which had spiritual meaning to it. And so he's showing something here that was going to happen to him very early on. He's going to have to be lifted up and people are going to have to look upon him in order to be saved. That's what he's saying.

Because it's talking about the serpent in the wilderness. I love this story, because I think of how long things have been passed down generation after generation after generation. Religious beliefs, false religious beliefs, some that started several thousand years ago, they haven't changed much today. There are certain aspects of some of the religious beliefs that are Traditional Christianity today that haven't changed much. They really haven't, and so many other things. And I think of that serpent in the wilderness. And so I will mention this because of different ones who come along at times who are newer and some who are new listening, to think about individual, to think about that when they were in the wilderness, when Moses led the children of Israel out into the wilderness and all these snakes, because of their sins, poisonous snakes that were killing… I think it was upwards, if my memory serves me correctly, 20-some thousand, 26,000 (something like that) people died as a result of this plague, if you will, that had taken place, snakes that were biting.

And anyway, God told Moses to make this serpent intertwined on a pole and to stick it in the ground. And that anyone that came and looked upon this serpent, once they were bitten, they would live. Well, when you see several people around you, when you know of hundreds, thousands around you who are dying because they're being bitten, it's not a tough thing to think, "I'll try it." How many times some of us try something when you're not feeling well, different remedies, different things? I'll try anything if it means I'll try to find some relief. Almost anything. Until something, you find something hopefully that gives you a little bit of relief. So something like that when you're talking about death, it doesn't take a whole lot.

And then to think how that was passed… 700 years! I marvel at this! 700 years later when a king had to make, act upon this to have that serpent (because it'd been carried around) have it destroyed. I think my story is correct here. 700 years? Have it destroyed because they were worshipping it. It became an object of worship – that to someone it had some mystical healing power. You think, "Duh!" But we can see that. But they didn't really see that. To them it had power and it became a mystical thing to them. And there are people who believed in it. So much so they made a lot look like it. Just because they destroyed the main object doesn't mean that people didn't quit worshiping that or quit looking upon that kind of symbolism. Just like some do today of some kind of a woman with a baby inside this bathtub turned upside down in the front yard, or something, you know, stuck in the dirt and half of it's there because it has… I don't know.  I don't understand.

Anyway, some of the things that people do and they think that somehow they're blessed. Different saints, different things that people have that they believe are going to help them. Different necklaces they think will help them – this little round thing of some saint that's supposedly on it that whatever you have maybe… anyway. This kind of thinking. And to see it going down the highway's today on the side of ambulances, you know, still there, hundreds and hundreds of years later.

That's why I marvel about prejudices, because they're passed down generation after generation after generation after generation of how people think. And oftentimes how people think about other people, whether it be of different areas of the world in the sense of people's in families or races or whatever it might be – just differences from them, and the prejudices that have been passed down where people loathe and hate each other. I think of Ireland and the hatreds that are deep there. But they're passed down to children and children grow up with those same feelings and it's just you can't stop it. It doesn't stop. It just goes on and on.

And I think of the main one that's been passed down, which I hope you all picked, thought about immediately. Men and women. Prejudice, prejudice, prejudice. A part of society. A part of thinking. A part of life that's been passed down generation after generation and it's so natural to the carnal human mind to think that way just because of a difference in how we're created – one stronger in the sense of physical strength, and one made more delicate. But man abuses that. Mankind abuses anything they perceive as weakness and that which they think gives them superiority. Awesome! Incredible how the human mind can think.

So anyway, again here, Nicodemus talking about this serpent – or I mean, Nicodemus being talked to by Christ about this serpent and revealing what was going to happen to him, that even as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, even so he has to be lifted up. Because this is the way they were saved physically in order not to die, being bitten by a snake. Now… and you know, the whole world's been bitten by a big ole snake if you want to… Don't want to go off on that.

But anyway, I think of that serpent, you know, the world that's been in bondage to a being. And until they are called into the Church, until they're freed from that, they have no ability to see and grasp. And they're in bondage to their religious beliefs, whatever those religious beliefs are. Look at any religion that's out there, any religion that's out there, and people are in bondage to those ideas, whether it be in India or China or wherever it is, different ideas that people have in the world. And within those countries, obviously, many different ideas.

Verse 15—That whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. So Nicodemus didn't understand what he was talking about here. He got the snake part, or the serpent on the pole part being lifted up in the wilderness, "But what's this son of man thing, having to be lifted up? What's that?" He didn't grasp about the fact that Jesus Christ was speaking of his own death, that he was the son of man, that he was the Christ, the Messiah. Nicodemus couldn't even begin to grasp that.

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. So, again, things that Traditional Christianity misuses, that they don't even understand, that they don't grasp, that they twist and distort with their own interpretation. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. Awesome! All this that is being told Nicodemus that he didn't understand, that Traditional Christianity to this day doesn't understand.

Verse 18—He who believes on him is not condemned: but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And so look at the deception that's out there and the simplicity, the over-simplification of something that's done in Traditional Christianity. "Just believe. Just believe. Just believe on Christ." Well, do you believe him? Do you believe what he said? Do you believe the things that he's been talking about, that he's been saying through scripture here? How to live your life, that he didn't come to do away with the law or the prophets, he came to fulfill them, to establish them by what he did. Do they believe what it says about the magnification of the law when he talked about things of the human mind, "That whosoever looks upon a woman to lust after her has committed adultery already in his heart?"

And murder, it's in the mind. If we don't have a right relationship with someone else, if we hate someone else. People don't generally… "I don't hate someone. I don't hate. I don't hate them! I don't like them, but I don't hate them." Well, you need to realize that if you don't like them, if you don't like being around them, if you can't stand them, if you talk about them behind their back, you hate them and you are a murderer before God. That's what God says. That's what He tells us in the Church. If you can't stand to be with anyone else in God's Church, you're a murderer! That's what God calls it!

And some people before the days of Unleavened Bread, before Passover need to check out their lives to make sure they don't have things against their brother and their sister in God's Church! Because some do! Some won't be in fellowship with them! Some won't go to people's own homes to be with them, to spend the time, to be with others! You think that exists in God's Church? I'm telling you it does! And that needs to be repented of! And God calls it murder. But we don't grasp that! We lost that somewhere – speaking of individuals who lose it. That's a spiritual thing. That's a spiritual state.

I don't like to get upset like that and talk about those things, but I'll tell you what, it's upsetting. It should be upsetting to us. To think that someone doesn't want to be in someone else's home, that someone would prefer to be at home by themselves than to be with someone else in God's Church. How could that ever be in God's Church? Who is it in God's Church that we won't be around, that we don't prefer to be around, that we don't prefer to be with, that we don't fully love? Who is it that we wouldn't invite into our own home? Who is it in God's Church that such a thought would enter our mind because of whatever feelings we have – prejudices, jealousies, resentment, unwillingness to forgive whatever it might be, or to forget something that's happened in the past? How can such things be in God's Church! I'm telling you they really can't be in God's Church! And so we play games with God if that's the case, because we really aren't in God's Church, but we're in the court acting like we're in God's Church! Okay?

I'm sorry to get that loud, that strong, but I'll tell you what, some people need to wake up or they're not going to be with us next year. They won't be here by the next Feast of Tabernacles. That's what God Almighty says. That's not me. That's the way it is. The temple has been cleaned up mightily but we're not through this yet. Just because we've gone through a period of time where we were able to focus upon that, we had opportunity to repent and to grow, and many have repented and grown because of the measuring of the temple, been more sobered, but we're not where we're going yet. We're not there at the end of the destination yet. Okay? We still have a ways to go, don't we? Ever how far it is! I don't care if it's not 2019! I don't care if it goes beyond that! I don't care if God's going to show us something else beyond that. Do I believe that? No. Neither did I before 2012. Okay? I was wrong. Whatever God's purpose is – God gives and God takes away. Blessed be God! And we have the choice to follow the truth that He reveals to us. We turn right or we turn left and we do whatever God gives to us because God blesses us so greatly, so mightily in our lives.

And so sometimes it's good for us to be shaken, to be shaken to the core of our being and to understand we need to examine ourselves deeply, especially before we enter into Passover. Because what a hideous thing. Because I have seen it year after year after year after year in God's Church, brethren who didn't get along. Since I've been in the Church, since 1969, I've seen it ever year, every year where some haven't fully gotten along. And I think about how? What does it mean? How are you thinking when you approach Passover? Do you think about what he went through? His blood spilled to the earth. Hanging there… hanging there until finally a soldier came along and rammed a spear up into his side and out came water and blood and he died. And how long was he hanging there? The agony? He knew what it was going to be because he knew who he was. He knew what was going to come upon him. He knew. Just as he told Nicodemus, just as a serpent had to be placed on a pole – placed on a pole – so does the son of man have to be raised up like that so that people can look upon him to be forgiven.

So how much do we? Are we thankful for the truth, grasp the understanding of what it means that Jesus Christ is our Passover? Because it all begins there. That's why I love the way God has set out His plan. He didn't put Passover halfway into the Holy Day period, or at the end of it. He put it at the beginning because you can't even start into His plan unless you receive the Passover. And so sometimes in our lives we still go back to something most basic having to do with whether or not we have bad feelings, wrong thinking in our mind toward another brother which God calls – calls it what it is. It isn't love. It isn't agape. It doesn't come from Him. It comes from the other being who is a murderer. And He calls the spirit of it what it is. And so that's why we have to see it for what it is and recognize it's just that serious. And murderers don't have God's spirit flowing through them. Murderers lose what God gives to them. See? So if we have any kind of bitterness, wrong feelings, resentment, harsh judgment towards others, we have to repent of it. We have to repent of it. No matter what anybody's done to us. No matter if they're just wrong in everything they've said and done to you.

Even in the world. Even in the world. Is there anyone you want to see "get theirs" when things begin to get bad? Is there anyone you want to see struck down, hurt, suffer? Shouldn't be. Know it will happen. Know God's judgment and how God works with a lot of different situations and how He's going to work with a lot of different people, but it shouldn't be in our heart, that we should desire that. We should rejoice if someone's given the opportunity to repent, to repent, to see the truth, to see the error of their ways, the foolish things they have done –maybe how they have even treated you because they didn't get it.

So again, this thing about believing Christ goes a lot deeper, doesn't it, than just believing he died and believing on his name? And we understand that, we "see" that, but how deeply do we understand that truth about his life and his death and his life? Do we believe the things that he said? See, because we think we do. We think we do. We think we believe God in those things. But to believe some of those things doesn't mean that we have chosen to live by them. And yet we must make choices then when we're given the ability to believe because we have the power of choice, of whether or not we're going to walk around in the court around the temple, or whether we're going to be active within the temple itself. Big difference between putting on a show and acting like we're a part and then having such an attitude and spirit that we can think in a wrong way toward another brother or sister in God's Church. God isn't going to allow that. He hasn't allowed it save for a small period of time, whatever that period might be. He might give time for people, for others to learn from such people – ten, twenty… Not anymore. We're down to the wire. We're down to the end.

That's why we had the Year of Dedication. Because most of that has been cleansed and He's been very gracious and very merciful to all of us. And now as we approach this Passover we're to examine ourselves more than we have ever examined ourselves in God's Church because of what is before us and because of what we must be before we come to that point in time that God use us, that God work through us. For what's ahead of us, we must be cleansed. We must be cleansed, indeed, powerfully so. That means we must repent where we're wrong. And some are deeply wrong in that particular aspect of their life. I'm not talking about other aspects. I'm just talking about one in particular.

Verse 19—And this is the condemnation, that light is come in the world, and men loved darkness rather than light. Some would rather hold on to their pride and be jealous or envious or resentful or want to hold on to something against others because they just don't want to let it go because for them somehow it gives some kind of a satisfaction, pervertedly so, that "I'm not going to try with them." Why? Why aren't you going to try to be a friend? Why aren't you going to try to be a true brother and sister? Why aren't you going to try to obey God and do what God says and learn to love everyone within the body? "And this is condemnation, that light has come into the world." How much more into our lives? How much more into our lives who have that light alive in us giving us the ability to see what we see, the truth that God has given us to grasp and to see. …and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. Now, that's our human nature. That's our human nature and that's a constant fight that we have to fight against – wrong thinking, wrong thoughts. And they're to be nipped in the bud and not prolonged. Things of jealousy, envy that we went through in the series here recently then, about things that God has manifested to us in the Church, they exist out there. They exist even between some ministers in the Church. Okay? They exist. I'm just telling you the way it is. That's a shame. And it exists in the body. They shouldn't exist.

How long will God be patient and merciful right now after all we have gone through? After all we have experienced? Now… NOW is the time, more than ever in your life, to examine yourself before you take of that wine and before you take of that bread. Truly. Because what happens after that in your life is going to be determined this year in a very powerful way when you take that bread and when you take that wine. And if you don't take it the way you've been trained and taught over all these years, you will not be with us. You will not be with us when Christ returns.

…because their deeds are evil. Who wants to hold on to evil? We just talked about that, didn't we? Evil. It's what God is working to get rid of in this world. Why should we allow any of that into our lives? And where it is, we need to fight to get rid of it, to see it for what it is. The inability to love another when we have been given the ability to know and see the truth, and not then to do it, is to reject full on what Jesus Christ and God the Father have told us we are to do. We are to love one another! That's the most important thing that God has given to us to do. Not to understand all the prophetic things and to believe them. Not to have great and mighty faith. Not to do all the things we read about in 1 Corinthians 13. But how we think toward one another, how we literally think toward one another and then treat them.

For everyone who does evil hates the light. Hates the light. Hates things that are made manifest, revealed by the light. So how do we react sometimes when we're told that this isn't right, or that isn't right, or maybe this should be done in a different way, or you should do this, or you shouldn't do that? Even in the smallest…. Even in the small, what we might consider the little things? You see, that's awesomely important to God. Because our reaction to the smallest of things reveals the spirit in the mind. Maybe what we wear or don't wear. Something as simple as that before God. That's why I marvel. That's why I marvel at what happened in the Church and Mr. Armstrong working back and forth trying to come to grasp an understanding, yet had to make decisions and choices of things that were bound on earth and bound in heaven because of what he chose to do, because it wasn't fully grasped yet, so he had to make certain decisions and God honored that. And God gave power to that because he made a decision, because then it came through His apostle to the Church and it was a matter then how did people receive it? Make-up or no make-up. You think, "Oh, that's a big thing, oooo, whether women wear make-up or not." That seems so puny doesn't it? It was a big thing for thousands of people in God's Church! It was a big thing! Something so physical, whether you should wear it or whether you shouldn't wear it.

So I know of, I believe I know of three different times that was changed. Was that about right? Three different times that was changed. Well, what is it? It's whatever God's apostle says it is. And some say, "How can that be? How can he say that and do that and we're supposed to do that then. He's must be… He's wrong? He can't make up his mind?" And they don't know. They don't understand what God gave to the Church and the power God gave to the Church to bind and to loose and to make decisions. Because that's the way it has to be. Someone has to make a decision. Unless God Almighty just comes right down here and let's Jesus Christ manifest himself and says, "Okay. This is what we're going to do. This is the way it's going to be. This is the way it's going to be in the Church from now on." You know what? He hasn't chosen to work that way. Hasn't chosen to work that way. Instead He's worked through people, human beings – weak, fallible human beings. But He puts teeth into it when it comes to government, when it comes to how we live, when it comes to what we do. Awesome!

And so I think of something so very basic like that that's physical and I think of things we do sometimes that are sometimes very physical but it's… Do we desire unity? Is our spirit one of oneness and desiring unity within the body and that we serve God in the way that God is revealing to us or shows us at any moment in time of how we're to do and how we're to live and so forth and we work toward that then because we desire to do things God's way? Anyway, the smallest of things sometimes, the smallest of things can reveal where we are spiritually. That's why it's so important this matter of cultivating and keeping everything in life that God places before us, because it has to do with how we think. And those can be the smallest of things. And really, if we grasp it, it really is. Because everything we look at, we tend to look at the big things and we're judged by the big things. And if I don't do that and if I do this and if I did do that then I got to repent. What about… What about how we are? How we really are? How we think in everything? Because if we can grasp those things in the smallest areas of our life, the smaller areas, what we consider to be the smaller areas, then that's really where we need to be, because then it will manifest itself in the big areas anyway. That'll be nothing for us. Incredible how we can think as human beings.

But he who does the truth comes to the light. What a beautiful thing, that we realize that we're human beings, that we have physical problems and we want to be right, and we want to be right before God and we want to do things right as we approach the Passover and we want to examine ourselves and we want to cry out to God, "Father, reveal to me any place, wherever there are things that I need to examine in my life, that I need to see that I am not doing right or not thinking right." And generally there will be things that happen to you after that. Be careful, He's going to show you. Probably happen within the hour, within the day. Something will happen and hopefully we'll have the eyes and the ability to see then and to remember that prayer. "Oh!" And then repent. Because that's what it's about. It's just about repenting and being convicted you're not, we're not going to do it again.

So we come to the light. What an awesome thing. We come before God's throne. We kneel before God. We spread out our arms and say, "Holy Father…" and we go and, whatever that prayer is that we're seeking. And we're seeking help because we know we need help. "I need help. I know I need help every day." You need to know that you need help every day to guard your mind, to guard your life, to be on guard, to be watchful. And even in that I slip, you slip, we all slip. Nobody's perfect. If we were I could choose to not have you see me right now – spirit. That's when you'll have arrived.

But he who does/lives/exercises the truth, the truth, whatever that truth is that God has given to us, comes to the light. Because we want to live the truth. We want to be truthful. We want to worship God in spirit (because that's what it takes- you can't do it on your own), and truth. That's why we cry out to God for His spirit, because you want to remain in the truth, you want to be in the truth, and you want to live what is true. That his deeds might be made manifest, that they are worked in/wrought in, worked in/worked through/by God. In other words, you can't do it on your own ability by your own power. You have to have God's help. It's a spiritual thing. It's not a physical thing. It's not a matter of how many minutes you put in for prayer or how much you study your Bible, or how many sermons you listen to during the week. It's a matter of God's spirit in you. It's a matter of God's spirit living in you and your ability then to deal with those things on a spiritual plane.

John 8. Let's go over to John 8. Over and over again the Bible, it speaks so much about the truth, the truth, the Word, the light, the life, the mind of God, that which comes from God into our lives and what we're to live by.

John 8:37—Says, I know that you are Abraham's seed; but you seek to kill me. So this conversation he's having with some of the religious leaders there and he knows their spirit. They not only just hated him, they wanted to get rid of him. Different society, different world. And today if we live in a different society and different world there'd be people who'd want to put us away for good – some of you. And me. I'd been long gone. I know that you are Abraham's seed; but you seek to kill me, because my word has no place in you. What he spoke. What he said. They hated it. I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and you do that which you have seen with your father. Now, they knew he wasn't speaking nicely toward them. See? They didn't know fully what he was saying, but they knew it wasn't good.

They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. This carnal thing that sometimes, especially with religious leaders of that time and sometimes that people do and what they revert back to and hold onto as being their authority, and therefore, why they're righteous, or whatever it might be. Anyway, they said, Abraham is our father. And Jesus said unto them, If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham. So that's what that means. Showed the spirit of it: "If you were really his children." It's not just a matter of physical lineage. And they got a bit of what he was saying there, okay? They didn't grasp fully spiritually what he was saying but they could grasp this was not a compliment, where he's coming from. "You would do the works of Abraham." And the insinuation there, obvious, you're not doing, you're not living like Abraham lived. You might think you're his children? It's more than just something physical in a physical lineage so don't be puffed up and proud, filled up with pride because of that. Because that's exactly what he was addressing. And they got some of that. But now you seek to kill me. He knew their spirit. That must have been a little unnerving that he knew what was inside them, what was inside their mind. And you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I have heard from God/heard of God. In other words, showing the source, "That which God has given me to see. That which God has told me." Abraham never did this. Abraham didn't do this to you, but I am.

Can you imagine how they took… carnal. And this is all for a great purpose, because the purpose was he die on Passover. And eventually they would get their way because there was a plan in motion here. It just made them worse and worse. It made this feeling inside them, and Satan used that, this hatred, this bitterness grow more and more and more until they accomplished and acted upon what was in their heart. There's a purpose behind it all.

Verse 41—You do the deeds of your father. And they said to him, We are not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God. So now all of a sudden Abraham was not the one they are going to rely upon or say that because they're Abraham's. Now they're going to go directly to God, see? "God, He's our authority. He's our Father." And Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, you would love me. Isn't that an awesome thing? "If God were your Father, you would love me." Now, you can't talk that way to people. Don't try it. Okay? Don't do it. There was a purpose for this. When there's a purpose…  But just to go out and ask for it? But anyway….

…for I proceeded forth and came from God; and neither came I of myself, but He sent me. Now, those are strong words if we understand how scriptures are written and things that they understood about the prophets, that they were sent. God speaks of sending His prophets over and over again. And so when he uses this kind of language it smacked them, smacked them good, because of what he's saying here. He says God sent him. Why don't you understand my speech? Is it because you cannot hear my word? Which is the Word of God. You are of your father the devil. Powerful! All for a purpose. All a matter of design of what God was doing. And Christ knew full well what was happening, what was taking place, what had to happen, and how to deal, to work with those individuals and what would eventually happen as a result of it. You are of your father the devil. It's the truth and people don't understand that, the god of this world. They don't understand what that means when Paul talks about, basically, in essence, that Satan is the god of this world. Because that's what they're in bondage to. They don't see the truth. They don't live, they don't know the truth. …and the lusts of the father you will do. It's true. All human beings. We have it as well. Just because we're begotten of God's spirit doesn't mean we're free from this. We're not fully free yet. We're free in one respect through the blessing and the process of a spiritual life that lives within us, of an impregnation of God's spirit that's growing within us through the ability to repent and to have God's spirit then work within us so that we can grow on a spiritual plane, but we still have this human nature we have to fight against. And that's why the scriptures speak of over and over again about overcoming or conquering. It's the same word in the Greek. It means "to conquer." It's a matter of conquering self. It's a matter, just like the old man that went down under the water at baptism. It's the one you want to keep your foot on, the head, to keep him under the water, to keep it, or him or her under the water, buried. You don't want it to come back up, the old self.

You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and did not abide/dwell in/live in/continue in, those words that are translated into English that come from that one Greek word and they all mean that, to continue in/to live in/to abide in/to dwell in the truth. He didn't stay in it. Didn't continue in it. Didn't live in it. Didn't dwell in it as he should have. He chose something else. He chose to become jealous. He chose to become envious. He chose to hate things about God's plan and God's purpose. Chose to hate God's creation and the purpose of God's creation and what God was creating, and the family that God was planning. Jealousy! Rage inside. That destroys people. That's why we have addressed what we addressed in previous messages here. These things cannot be in God's Church. These things cannot exist in God's Church.

And sometimes people think, "Well, I don't have any problems with that." Yes, you do. Yes, you do! Some people think they don't have any of those things ever enter into their mind, different kinds of wrong thinking about others in the body. No one is perfect. No one is perfect in that area! So if anyone thinks that they stand, what does God say? "Take heed lest you fall." If you think you stand and you don't have anything to battle and nothing is happening to you and your life is just going on peachy keen, hunkey dorey,  and there's nothing to repent of because everything's great, "I feel excellent in life and I never have wrong thoughts. I never have any wrong thinking ever, ever, ever, ever, ever in my mind." Be careful. Be careful. Because something else is going to snap up and grab you and slap you silly and you're not going to know what hit you because you don't see it, because it's spiritual. Something else. It's a spin-off, a spin-off of something else then will happen to you that you won't see coming because you're not on guard, because you don't think you need to be.

See, this is happening in God's Church too, okay? Just telling you. Absolutely. Not massively. Not on a high plateau or a high plain or in abundance, but a little bit is too much. At this point in our lives, in this part, in this phase of refining in our lives, it's too much. See? A little bit – a little leaven – doesn't take much, does it? Unabated, unchecked, not taken care of, not addressed a little leaven can leaven the whole lump. It can be so destructive. And that's why God is not allowing that. That's why it's not going to happen. That's why we have the opportunity then to address our own lives, to examine our own lives, to go before God and repent and ask for help, and ask to see the things we can't see, to see the things we can't see because no one is perfect! No one! So again, powerful truth here.

So he said, again here, You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of you father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and did not abide in the truth. So again, any of those wrong thoughts, wrong thinking, it's not abiding in the truth. It's not grasping the virtue of the truth that God has given to us. …because there was no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. Don't allow deception into your life. Don't allow yourself to become deceived about your own human nature. Acknowledge what it is. Recognize what it is, because if you don't, you're not crying out to God for His help to be on guard and to be spiritually alert. It’s only because you see that and know it's true that you cry out to God because you know you have to, "I need help! I want to be on guard spiritually. I want to ‘see’ the things that I'm blind to, that I can't see." And ask God for help. "Help me to see them, but be merciful."

John 14. Different things that speak of the truth, things that we need to grasp and comprehend so much so, especially as we approach the Days of Unleavened Bread coming up and the Passover period.

John 14:23—And Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words. Sounds simple, and we feel we do. But I've already mentioned very clearly here, going back to the very beginning of things he said when he showed the magnification of the physical law and showed the spiritual intent of it, about this matter of being a murderer and what that means to us spiritually in the most minute areas of our life. If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him, our dwelling with him. I love scriptures like this. Every place it talks about this dwelling and abiding in and what we have the opportunity to do and  God's entire purpose to do that for eternity or into age-lasting life, if you will. So, God's plan and purpose is to dwell within us once we're even spirit in composition – never to be separated from God in spirit. Because now when we sin we're separated from God – something we have to come to grasp and understand. We become weaker when sin is in our life until we're able to face it and cry out to God for forgiveness. And then He give us stimulus of His spirit, power of His spirit, and the excitement then again and the ability to see certain things. And there are things you experience that you can't explain in any other way except by personal experience and what happens in your personal life in a relationship with God when he's shown that kind of mercy and that kind of help. And then other things begin to happen and after a while…. It's a constant struggle. It's never gone. It's a constant battle. Always there. But we grow and grow and grow as we yield to the process.

So again, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode/our dwelling/our place of abiding/living with him. He who does not love me… I mean, how awesome to understand that God Almighty living within a small body of people, in and through a small body of people through the power of His holy spirit to help us to grow, to help us in preparing us for things ahead that we don't even begin to grasp or know or understand.

He who does not love me does not keep my word. That's why I mention some of the past things that have been stated here recently. Then, again, it's a matter of a relationship toward God. And the smallest thing toward another brethren in the Church is toward God, but sometimes we just can't "see" that as we need to. But it's literally toward God. It's not just toward the individual if we snub someone, if we give someone a cold shoulder, if we're not comfortable with going up and talking to someone else in God's Church, we don't want to be around them necessarily. Do you think that happens in God's Church ever? I'm just telling you it's still happening, where sometimes someone will give someone a cold shoulder or they won't even look in their direction or they'll…. And they might deceive themselves into thinking, "Well, I just didn't have time to get over there and talk to them. And oh, woe," you know. Bull. If you've got something in your heart against them that's the reason you didn't get the time to do it. Because if you really understood, you would make the time to do what you need to do in the first place, and that's to make things right. You have the power to love someone else in the body. And if you refuse to love someone the way God says to, that's hatred. That's what 1 John hits over and over and over again – our refusal to love the way God says that we're to love. That's how it's described and He calls it over there, too, what it is. A murderer. Murderer. Amazing. I didn't even have the verses here, but I should probably take time to go through some of those.

Because these are the things that need to be cleaned up before Passover in our lives. I mean, every bit of it. Every bit of the dirt and the swill and the wrong thinking that exists there, that is what it is. I don't care how teeny and small it might seem, if any bit of that in any fashion or form exists it needs to be gotten rid of. It needs to be repented of.

So again, Jesus said unto him (John 14:23), If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him. He who does not love me does not keep my word; and the word which you hear is not mine, but the Father's who sent me. So again, showing that it all comes from, originates from God Almighty through His Son to us. And we're blessed, so blessed to dwell in it.

Going on here, let's go on down to chapter 15 now. These are, awesomely so, these are the things we read oftentimes around Passover. We go through John 14-15-16. These are the things we read, that we go through and examine and talk about at that time. And by that time we had better address these things already in our life before we ever come to this point where on Passover night we actually reflect upon this. These things need to be addressed well before that, well before we put the bread in our mouth, well before we swallow that wine, because of what it means.

John 15:1 [16]—Christ says, I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that bears not fruit He takes away. What a horrible thing. I hate seeing that. I've seen it every year in God's Church – every year in God's Church, that which is taken away. Because, as I've mentioned before, as we understand, God's spirit demands growth. There is no straddling the fence. There is no leveling off ever in our life. We must always grow. We must have growth. Sometimes that's… That's why we should love God ever more so when we see ourselves and realize what we are and think of the patience God has had with "me." Can we all say that and marvel at the patience God has had with "me." I'm not talking about "you" thinking toward me, you/me. I mean… You understand what I'm saying. You saying, "me." Okay. Say, "Yeah, I know you need help." Anyway.

I am the true vine and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that bears not fruit He takes away, and every branch that bears fruit, He purges it. Beautiful verse here. And you think about that in all the examples of things that could be said about that on a spiritual plane that come from something so physical. Purges it, prunes it, cut's it away. That's what we're doing in our life. If we can see some of these things we're talking about today we cut it away. We want it cut off so that we're not cut off. That's what it is. We want to see certain things cut out of our lives so that we are not cut out of God's life, so that we're not cut off from the vine, if you will. Okay? That's what it's about.

I think of a grape vine we have out by our house there, and the other day… And we used to live in Erie, PA, and we would, you could drive west to get back east from Erie along the lake. It was right along the lake there and there was a valley there that comes up from the lake and gradually builds up into some, not really mountains but high hills. And all through there, there is a lot of moisture that comes in, the right kind of weather that comes off the lake and it's a great place for growing grapes. And a matter of fact there's a huge Welch's Grape Juice plant out there. And there was a certain time of year you could drive in some of those area, at certain times for the grapes, just before they harvested them, you didn't even have to roll down your windows, you felt like you were in a Welch's Grape jar. Welch's Grape Juice. I mean, that's how strong it was. Concord grapes. You just, you have to hit it just right, but those fields and all the smell coming off of those grapes just before they picked them to take them into that plant, that's what it smelled like. It's an awesome thing, an awesome experience seeing, being able to… You think, "This is incredible."

Anyway, why'd I go that way? Oh yeah. I think of the times you drive by there. Then at other times of the year and you'd see them cutting them back. You have to…. When you have grapevines it's amazing how much they strip away. And the main runners or areas that continue on, they keep down to a minimum, one or two coming off of a… but when it comes time to grow it'll produce what it needs to produce and it produces them better and bigger and everything. But it's amazing!

I think about that in different plants. Sometimes my wife, I think, panics when I start clipping away at certain plants. She's expressed this to me before. It's like when you go prune roses. You do that to roses. You can take them right down. I mean, you just leave a little bit at the bottom of the ground there, six inches, seven inches, whatever it might be, they'll grow back up. They'll do better. But sometimes cutting certain things back you think you're going to kill it. But sometimes what you're doing, you're giving it better life. It depends on the kind of plant it is. Sometimes you can kill them. Anyway. But a grapevine? What an awesome example here of something that God uses to teach us something about, and about pruning it because it has to be pruned to produce better fruit and more fruit. Because if you just let it go the fruit isn't the same. The fruit isn't as abundant. It isn't as good as what it should be. And it can actually get to the point where more life is going into the vine, through the vine to keep the leaves alive and nothing gets produced that's worthwhile saving. That's an awesome thing to understand.

And so it is in a similar sort of way in our spiritual lives. What a beautiful example here. And every branch that bears fruit He purges it. Now, if you're the plant, if you had some feelings, probably wouldn't feel too good. And we are a part of the plant and it doesn't feel too good when the clipping comes along and certain things that you have to come to face and acknowledge and look at and make a choice about because you're the one that has to make a choice of whether it gets cut out of your life, whether it's going to be cut off. The jealousies, the envyings, the wrong thinking, the wrong feelings, the wrong emotions, the unwillingness to forgive, the resentment, whatever it is sometimes that exists in the human mind, they have to be cut off. You have to surrender them. You have to give them up and recognize the ugliness of the pride that does that. It's an ugly thing – ugly, ugly, ugly. Hideous. Evil. It's evil. And so we have to come to see evil for what it is, as we just went through the sermon series. We have to come to see evil for what it is.

He purges it that it may bring forth more fruit. What an incredible thing. If we receive guidance, direction, correction – and we all have, we experience this, but sometimes the truth of it, the magnitude that it is, the beauty that exists there sometimes we don't hold onto in the way that we need to, but it's to realize, "I am carnal. I have carnal human nature and I have things in me that must be gotten rid of. Always! It will always be that way in my life." But we become more and more refined as time goes along. We grow in more and more character as we yield to God, if we're yielding to God. We get rid of, more and more, the things that need to be cut off and gotten rid of. And before God we become more beautiful, more usable. And God's desire is that we be able to serve Him – usable. To serve Him, to be able to be meat for the service, if you will, to be able to be ready for the service, of whatever that might be. And so often you don't know what that is. It might be about others around you that He's working with that you don't even know about, that He's going to draw in. Others who know you in a physical world. You don't know! And there will be that in a very big way if we yield ourselves to God, that God can use, mightily so. Because God is preparing and working with so much of the world right now in a way that wasn't being done before. After 2008, it wasn't being worked with in the same way. Well, 2008, going before that even. It's in Chapter 6. You'll read it.

But what an incredible thing to understand what's taking place now in the world. Because at that time it was judged, at that time there were things that were to happen, regardless. And now to understand that mercy and God's working with people's and so forth to bring them to be able to receive mercy. That's why when you see certain things happening in the world today, just like right now in things that are taking place as far as politics and debates and things that fill the news around the world that people see and scratch their heads over – United States. And we see this thing going on, and yet even that is for a purpose. There are individuals who are fulfilling a purpose to bring certain things to light, to be able to see certain things. And there is a resentment and a bitterness and an anger out there over things because of frustration and people are annoyed and they're tired. But they're never going to find it in this world in their government, whatever it is. They're never going to find their answer. But there is something taking place that is all a part of something that is happening that God is working with. And we need to understand that. These aren't things that are just happening by happenstance at this particular time that's unusual, that's different as far as politics in this country is concerned. It's bringing things to the forefront and stirring people up. And when God's time comes, if that process has already begun, there are things that can be worked with that have a greater potential to be able to be worked with. Because if it's never addressed and things go on as normal, then the shock comes and the ability to address some of those things is lessened. But God's working with a lot of people out there, giving a potential that when things begin to happen that people are going to have a greater potential to respond. Awesome!

All over the world! I'll tell you, sometimes I'm just a little dumbfounded, and yet I'm not. You see certain things in the news that are happening in Europe, and the way they're happening now that's so different, so different, so different than what it was pre-2008 and '09. So different. Incredible! The way people are thinking. The way nations are thinking. The activities they're getting involved in. Incredible. It's totally different. Now some of the same players are there, but you're going to come to see that it's different and for a different purpose.

Did I read John 14 yet? Verse 23? Yeah, "If you love me, keep my words." Okay. Did I? John 14? All that? 15. Thank you. I'm talking about the branches, the tree, the fruit. I didn't get my piece of paper down here far enough. Thank you.

I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that bears not fruit He takes away: and every branch that bears fruit, He purges it, that it bring forth more fruit. That's God's desire, that we become more productive, stronger in spirit. Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. It's how we're made clean. That's how we're cleansed. It's by God's word living and dwelling within us and our response to it then in a right way. Abide in me, and I in you. "Dwell in me and I in you." As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself. Again, we need God! We can't do it on our own ability. If you're trying to do things on your own ability you're missing the mark. If you're trying to obey certain things in your life, you're missing the mark. If you're trying to make certain changes in your life on your own ability, you're missing the mark. You have to cry out to God for the help to address those things. Cry out and cry out and cry out and fight and fight and fight on a spiritual plane.

As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine; no more can you, except you abide in me. So all the more reason if we understand what this means. We have to get rid of sin. We have to fight against sin. We have to ask God to forgive us of sin, because otherwise we are trying to do it on our own, because we're cut off. Because that's the difference between being in Elohim and being in a begotten body now. God's spirit can be cut out of our lives. God's spirit can be cut off for a time and we can go to sleep spiritually on a spiritual plane. Just like what's happened to multiple thousands of people, tens of thousands of people that are awaiting a time that God's going to jar them and wake them out of their spiritual sleep. God's desire is to dwell in us always – always, always, always. But with us it doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way. That's why we have to repent quickly when we sin and cry out to God and acknowledge and admit to God, "I am wrong. You are right. I hate, I loathe sin."

I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing. Again, we read these often, and especially on Passover night. So much said.

If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered. Spiritually, that's what happens. That's a horribly dangerous thing, horribly dangerous thing. If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered. Many are called and few are chosen. Doesn't mean we won't be given opportunity later on, but again… …and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. So, going to the ultimate there, that what can happen if people continue to refuse God, the dangers that can be involved with the human mind. Because some have done it, go so far, so far to a point of polluting the mind and not wanting to fight the fight and get into a mind and attitude that begins to not want God. Horribly dangerous. Horribly dangerous state.

John 15:9—As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you: continue/abide in/dwell in/live in my love. It's something you have to continue in. That's what abiding in God's love means. It's something you have to constantly desire to be in, in His love. Because our love sometimes is exceedingly selfish, can be exceedingly selfish. We can love ourselves to the point of not loving others. That's a perverted love, distorted love. That isn't how God's love works if it's living in and through us.

If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide/dwell in His love. So again, we're looking at the spirit of God's commandments. And just like in the matter of murder alone, that one alone, let alone others.

These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. God wants us to be full of joy, full of… That doesn't mean we're not going to have troubles and trials and hardships as we fight in this world because we see this world. But for what we have and for what we see and the joy of the truth that God has given to us, that we grasp and embrace that and get excited about what God's given to us, that's what gives us the momentum, the desire, the drive to continue fighting and going forward. It's because of that joy of God's way of life. We love it. We want it. We desire it for ourselves. We desire it for others. And it motivates us and it inspires us and it lifts us up even when we have struggles and battles in this world around us.

These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, That you love one another, as I have loved you. That means you have to sacrifice. That means you cannot be of a mindset to not love someone else. That means you cannot refuse to do, to love. Sacrifice means you are giving up, you're doing something, you're going above and beyond what your normal carnal human nature would do in order to love someone else. Sacrificing in order to love them. Sacrificing specifically, usually, first and foremost your own desire, what it is you want to do, what it is you might otherwise do.

Well, it's easier just to go on home. It's easier just to do this or do that or not to do this and, "I don't want to be there." Blah, blah, blah. "I don't want to go do that. I don't want to go talk to them today. I don't feel like talking to them today and am just going to stay over here and talk and hopefully after a while they'll be gone." And we don't think things like that, as a whole, outwardly. If we did maybe we could see how stupid that is. But as a whole, sometimes, that is how we act as human beings! Sadly, that's sometimes how we act! How sick! But that's the human mind.

And so again, this thing of whether or not we're going to do what we need to do, and how we do it. Awesome what God is telling us here. "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you: continue in my love. If you keep my commandments you'll abide in my love, even as I kept my Father's commandments and abide…These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." I'll get there again.

Oh yes, That you love one another (verse 12), That you love one another, as I have loved you. So, again here, fully without excuse if we don't love someone else, if we don't exercise love, if we withhold love towards someone else. Greater love has no man than this, than a man lay down his life for his friend. And who, then, is our friend?

What did Jesus Christ go on to say? Verse 14—You are my friends if you do whatsoever I command you. And who are our friends? Our closest, our brothers and sisters, our family first and foremost is the Body of Christ. It's the Church of God. That's what so much of Corinthians is about, so much that Paul goes into and explains – how we think toward the Body when we take of the bread and the wine. How we think toward the Body of Christ, His Church, why he died! See? His Church, God's people!

And so again, how we think toward them, it's so awesomely important to God, how we think toward one another. And so again, appropriate time to be thinking about and reflecting on some of these things as we think about the virtue of truth that God has given to us and the truth of these things that should be active and very much at work in our lives. Just the truth, this truth here alone of what we've been discussing, about what Jesus Christ revealed, about how to love others, that it's a sacrificing – means you have to give something up. It doesn't come natural, doesn't come easy. We're carnal human beings. We have selfishness. We have things we have to fight against. We have human nature and wrong thoughts and thinking and maybe feeling that someone thinks a certain thing about us or they said something in the past and so we just can't forget that and so we hold them in a certain place and won't go beyond that and won't treat them then in a way that reflects, "I love you. I care for you. I desire to be your friend." There shouldn't be anyone we wouldn't want to be a friend with in the Body of Christ. Truly. But it exists, that sometimes by actions those things are reflected.

John 16:12—All these things said on that night, that night, that last night before he was going to be taken and placed on a stake, on a pole. So again here, (verse 12, chapter 16), I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now. Awesome! There are things they couldn't yet receive. Well, especially then because of what he was saying then to them, because they had not received God's spirit dwelling within them yet. They were being drawn by it. There were things they were beginning to be given but they didn't grasp it and "see" it in the way they'd be able to see it later on, especially by the time you got to Pentecost. And yet that's so true even in life to this day in our lives, that there are things that we can't see yet that can't be given to us. But I marvel at what has been given to us, and we're going to continue as we go through this series. I didn't know it was already so late. Good place to begin to stop here.

But I marvel at all the truth that God has given to us. And yet there is so much more. It never ends. There is so much more that we don't know, that we can't receive yet. Incredible! We're not capable of receiving it yet. If we were told, it just goes over the top of our head. It's like Chapter 6 – had to write it three times because it went over the top of my head. I didn't grasp it all in the first writing. I didn't grasp certain things that God was beginning to reveal. I think of when we went through the thing on fellowship and talked, what was it 14 posts? Something like that. I think. All those things that God was giving, things I didn't know until we started going through some of those things, and all of a sudden, wham, wham, wham and all of it fitting together in a plan and a purpose that God had from the beginning and what it means. And even that we don't fully grasp. We really don't. There is so much there, brethren, there really is. It is awesome all that God has given to us and continues to give to us.

So, again, things to reflect upon, things to think about, the truths that God has given to us. And I'm just going to stop there today because this is a good place to. Again, I think… I wasn't planning. I wasn't planning it, but someone else was. God was. That we should go through some of these things now before Passover. It fits into the timing of what we need to see before we get to Passover, to more deeply, more… yeah, more deeply – how else can I say it? – appreciate, love the truths, the truth that God has given to us and placed before us. It is an awesome thing!

Table of Contents

Chapter 1