The Rightful Place of Women, Pt. 3

Ron Weinland

January 14, 2017

Today's sermon is Part 3 of our current series entitled, The Rightful Place of Women.

This is really becoming more and more exciting to me because I'm not going to get there this Sabbath, but I think in a couple of Sabbaths I plan on giving Part 4, and there are some things in scripture that are absolutely incredible. It's kind of like what happened with what God gave concerning 2005 and the matter of Melchizedek that I didn't really prepare and plan that particular sermon until the latter part of the Feast of that year, but I knew God was going to give it. The same thing with some scriptures here of things that Paul talks about in scripture. To me, I find it awesomely exciting. It's going to take a little while to be able to have those things built in our minds, to understand some things in scripture that are given, that Paul talks about, but to me it's exciting! Because when it's God's time to give something He gives it. When it's His time to make things clearer, He gives it. That's what's exciting. So I'm looking forward to giving that (although I am looking forward to giving this today as well). I'm looking forward more to going into those particular scriptures because there are things there that God is revealing at this particular time helping us to prepare to be able to, in that respect, understand things that we have never understood in God's Church.

So with that, in this series the focus has been on what God has been doing over the past seven years in leading His Church, the Body of Christ, into greater understanding and actual practice, actual living of what it means to restore the rightful place of women after 6,000 years of oppression and curses. There's really no better way to describe what's taken place in the last 6,000 years because it's really been sick. God never intended for man and woman, for family, for society to be the way that it's been. What's really sick to me, in many respects, is after certain things in certain areas of the world (including this country) has existed for as long as it has people accept things as the norm. That's just the way it is. Not only men accept it, but women accept it, and really accept oppression, if you will, and not even recognize it for what it is.

That one there is one that really boggles my mind, especially as we begin to see and understand things in a better way than we have in the past. There are certain things that have gone on in the world and society and families that people have allowed and tolerated, and in many respects, didn't have much of a choice, didn't have much of a say in some of that. So in an effort to keep a certain kind of peace people have co-existed and lived in life, in families and so forth, in a certain way, but it's not the right way and it's not a way that really brings real joy and happiness and richness in life, or richness and enjoyment the way God intended it to be in marriage because of how people think toward each other and toward themselves: men toward themselves and women toward themselves, let alone toward one another. The reality is it hasn't been good, and so people, in many cases, don't even realize or understand the curse that they're under. They don't really understand the kind of oppression in life that they're living under. They're not able to put together the pieces and understand why it's this way. It's just accepted this is our norm!

It's kind of like in today's world. We accept a lot of things as being the norm and being okay and they're not okay! They're not okay with God! Things of how the internet is used, the world has kind of accepted it. It's not okay. There are things in technology and how things are used and it kind of becomes the norm. "Well, that's just the way it is." Well, it's not supposed to be! It shouldn't be if people lived right. So we're ever learning and God's Church is ever learning and growing and indeed, profoundly so, preparing for a new age, a new age for mankind, one in which God rules this earth. To me that's awesome to understand, what God is doing and giving us opportunity in.

So last Sabbath we looked at one of the most powerful examples, if you will, in all of scriptures that makes it plain what God's will is concerning women serving in a spiritual temple. The office of a prophet is a spiritual position and God works through those individuals, communicates with them to others, to serve others. Maybe to serve others in a physical way as far as the world is concerned, as with Israel, but it is a spiritual relationship with God Almighty and it is recognized as one that is a direct connection to God, as we went through and looked at the example of Deborah. That example is a very profound and powerful one because it reveals God's will. Yet He didn't have a lot of examples like that in scripture for a purpose because there were certain things to remain hidden, remain the way they were, or were going to continue to be, until it was His time to begin changing this world, because you can't have what we're discussing without the Church existing all over the world. You can't have what we're talking about without God's spirit being able to dwell in human beings all over the world as people yield. Society cannot change, cannot grow, families cannot be the way they're supposed to be without God's holy spirit. So we're at that juncture. We're almost there. Those things can't exist in the world. So why reveal all those things? Why reveal certain things? Because it requires certain change and it wasn't to happen until 6,000 years (nearly now) has been fulfilled. So we're in this little transitional period, and it begins with the Church. I find that exciting and inspiring and you should too! That you have the opportunity in advance to begin learning and understanding what's getting ready to change in the entirety of this world. That's awesome! It truly is.

So it's an incredible example here of someone who served in a spiritual temple in direct service to God Almighty as His servant on a spiritual plane of service and that level of service by Deborah as a judge of Israel and of a prophet of God clearly reveals God's will. There's just no way of getting around it. It is what it is. It's very clear when you recognize it for what God has done. God's will is that both men and women can serve in His temple. Powerful! And not only that, but God is now revealing far more fully that He and His Son Jesus Christ are making it manifest (revealed) that they are changing how the government of God is to be seen and administered in families and in His Church. I'm looking forward to getting in some of the things in the New Testament in scriptures that talk about a relationship that's supposed to exist in families because it's profound. It truly is. Powerful.

So the example of Deborah that I was referring to is, in essence, the most powerful in scripture that clearly reveals God's will toward women serving in a His spiritual temple. Deborah serving as an active judge and a prophet in Israel shortly after Israel was brought into the promised land. We went through those last Sabbath. Yet there are still others that I feel that we need to take a look at right now just to realize that God had interspersed some others in scripture to drive the point home that need to be mentioned that also reflect God's will. These are not remembered well for what they did and how God used them, but they are there. These women need to be remembered for what their lives revealed.

The first to focus upon today is Huldah. How many of you have ever heard of her? How many of you know her? Well, we should. We really should.

So she really isn't important in our thinking like she should be, of those few women who served in such a role of prophet. I’m going to take time to go back and look at this example back in 2 Kings 22. Now, this is an incredible story in itself. Again, the example of the judges as they came out of Egypt, came over Jordan, began to take the land – not in the way God said fully, to conquer it in the way God said to do it— but they began to go into the land there and then finally God, very early on there, raised up Deborah as a judge and as a prophet before they became a nation, before they had a king. But now after a long, long time (there had been kings with Israel and Judah when they were combined and kings afterward) and we're coming on the scene here toward the latter part of the history of Judah and to the period of King Josiah. He was a great king in Judah. I think it's interesting to note that at the beginning before they became a great nation, and toward the end at their decline when they were about to end as a nation, what God did again through a woman who was a prophet, God making it very clear how He works with both men and women in His spiritual temple.

2 Kings 22:1—Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty one years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah of Boscath. And he did that which was right in the sight of the Eternal, and walked in all the way of David his father… So this is going a way, way back, but it all began, a descendent in Judah of King David. …and he turned not aside to the right hand or to the left. And it came to pass in the eighteenth year of king Josiah… So again here, very young man, twenty-six years old when he really began to come of an age where he was making decisions on his own, ruling and reigning, whereas before as a child being reared and the like there were certain things that he was able to do and being raised in a specific way, reared in a certain way, but now very much having control as king of Judah. Incredible.

So this came to pass in the eighteenth year of king Josiah that the king sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, the scribe, to the house of the Eternal, saying, Go up to Hilkiah the high priest. So he's sending him to the high priest who's over all the Levitical system there, the Levites. And he says, Go to Hilkiah the high priest that he may sum the money which is brought into the house of the Eternal, which the keepers of the door have gathered of the people. And let them deliver it into the hand of the doers of the work, that have the oversight of the house of the Eternal, and let them give it to the doers of the work which is in the house of the Eternal, to repair the breaches of the house. So what he's saying here is go, take this money now and disperse it, have workers go in, pay them, and repair, get things in order. Because things were in bad, bad shape at this point in time as far as the temple was concerned, as far as what had happened previous to this in Judah and the kings of Judah.

So it says, unto the carpenters, and the builders, and the masons, and buy timber and hewn stone to repair the house. However, there is no need for an accounting to be made of them of the money that was delivered into their hand because they deal faithfully. And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the Eternal. And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it. And Shaphan the scribe came to the king, and brought the king word again, and said, Your servants have gathered the money that was found in the house, and have delivered it into the hand of those that do the work, that have the oversight of the house of the Eternal.

And Shaphan the scribe showed the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest has delivered me a book. And Shaphan read it before the king. He wanted it read to him, things that God had given to His people, found in the temple, about God.

And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law that he rent his clothes. And the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam the son of Shaphan, and Achbor the son of Michaiah, and Shaphan the scribe, and Asahiah the servant of the king's, saying, Go and enquire of the Eternal for me, and for the people, and for all of Judah, concerning the words of this book that is found. Because he came to understand something right away, they had not been living the way God told them to live. Not only that, he saw something more. He saw something written in the book that he knew was going to come to pass save that the nation, save that the people, save that he himself humbled themselves before God and sought God's mercy.

And so again, concerning… so he said for the people, and for Judah, concerning the words of this book that is found. For great is the wrath of the Eternal that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not listened. So those who have gone before and their history up to his point in time, it wasn't good. It was really, really bad what they were doing. He knew what was going to come because it's written in the law, blessings and cursings. It's just what happens in life. You live a certain way of life and you can listen to God and God will listen to you and there are just blessings in life that people receive. If not then you're going to suffer and he knew that suffering was well on its way. He believed what God had to say. That's what it amounts to. Nothing would change it unless God intervened to change it. He simply believed what was written.

So it says, because of the wrath of the Eternal that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not listened to the words of this book, to do according unto all that is written concerning us. So Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam, and Achbor, and Shaphan, and Asahiah, went unto Huldah the prophet. A woman. It wasn't the high priest. The high priest served in a specific area of service in a very powerful way in Judah over the Levites, but he was not a prophet. So even here it shows that they recognized something, that they were to go to someone who spoke for God powerfully to them concerning God's will.

And so it says of this particular woman: Huldah, the wife of Shallum the son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe; (now she dwelt in the second quarter of Jerusalem), and they spoke with her. They knew she was there. Now, how they knew these things, what they understood? I don't know. But they understood something different about her and that she was a prophet of God. I believe, interestingly so, I believe it was at this period of time, too, that they didn't go to Jeremiah. I don't know where Jeremiah was, but they came to her.

And she said to them, This is what the Eternal God of Israel has to say, Tell the man who sent you to me… Interesting how she said this. She didn't say, "Go tell the king," at first. She said, "Tell the man who sent you to me," because it was the king. So this was from God. God's calling him what he is, "You're a man. I am the King." God Almighty is the King of Kings. God in this message here is making it very clear how He communicates. When there are things written like this it's for a purpose, it's for a reason. Now, later on he is referred to as a king. But right here he's not. It's to set things the way they need to be, the way they need to be spoken at that moment in time, that, "You have done right. And this is the man you're to go to. This is what you're to say to this man." That's what he is before God Almighty – only a man.

Thus says the Eternal, Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, and upon the inhabitants thereof, and all the words of the book which the king of Judah has read. God gave to her in her mind to know exactly what had already gone on. Did He send an angel? Doesn't say so. I believe it happened just exactly like most happens when God does something like this. He communicates it to the mind, to an individual with whom He's working on a spiritual plane. It's just what it is. There is no way of describing it. It's just there. She knew it and so this is what she's relaying. It was placed in her mind. This is from God. She knew it was from God. Incredible!

…and upon the inhabitants thereof…. and the word of the book… because they have forsaken Me (verse 17), and have burned incense unto other gods, that they might provoke Me to anger with all the works of their hands, therefore, My wrath shall be kindled against this place, and shall not be quenched. In other words, there is judgment that must come. There is judgment that must be administered for what they have done generation to generation, and now it's coming to a head very rapidly so. It's in the works.

It's like talking about what's going to come to pass at the end of this age. It’s been in the works for a long time. God just gave a certain amount of time before He executed the judgment or before He will follow through and execute the judgment and allow certain things to take place in this world that must take place because it's time. Judah was rapidly approaching the period of time, and making it very clear here, that yes, it's coming…its coming. It's going to happen. What was going to happen to Judah was not a pleasant thing because of their turning away from God in the manner that they did. Israel did and what happened to them? They became known as the lost ten tribes. Taken away. Lost their identity. Well, it's coming very close now to happening to Judah in a different manner for a certain period of time. So the story goes on.

So when something is not quenched it means it's going to be carried out. It has to be carried out. It's written in the book; it must come to pass. You've done it to yourselves. Generation to generation, look how far people have gone. When it goes through here and starts talking about what Josiah began to address within the country its pretty mind boggling how far Judah strayed away from God at different times. Israel did it from the very beginning. All the kings of Israel, as a whole, when you read about them it talks about, refers back to what started in the beginning with Jeroboam, because they all followed the ways of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. When you go through and read about some of those things, shows what they did. They went off course and they stayed off course. That's why they lost their identity. They went to keeping Sunday as the day of worship. They began to worship Baal and all the other things that went along with it.

So he's letting them know here what you read is true and it is coming to pass. But to the king of Judah who sent you to enquire of the Eternal, this is what you shall say to him, Thus says the Eternal God of Israel, As touching the words which you have heard; because your heart was tender, and you have humbled yourself before the Eternal when you heard what I spoke against this place and against the inhabitants thereof, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and have rent your clothes and have wept before Me; I also have heard you. Awesome! Beautiful! If you will listen, God will listen. Over and over and over again, the same thing God's going to give at the end of this age: If you will listen, God will listen.

So always something to be moved by, to be inspired by for everyone, for those in God's Church to understand something about the mercy of God, that if we will indeed come face to face, if we have strayed off course at any point in time in our life, if people stray, if people do something that is wrong, even though they may for a period of time, or maybe even a long period of time pay a penalty, suffer for what they have done, for what they have brought upon themselves, if they will come to a point where they will acknowledge what they have done, if they'll come to the point where they will turn in their heart and their mind and their attitude toward God Almighty and recognize a need and a desire for God's mercy in their life – so much so that they will turn to fasting and prayer and beseech God Almighty and repent before God Almighty, especially within the Church— God's very merciful, exceedingly merciful. Because that's what He desires, for us just to simply listen and listening is not just a matter of what goes in here, but it's a matter of what affects us in our thinking as to whether we're going to respond and begin making a change. Because Josiah started making a change very early on. He had already started various things here. That's why they found the book. There were certain things in him, and frankly, that God drew him to. But that's another story.

And so it makes it very clear here, I also have heard you, says the Eternal. Behold, therefore (verse 19) I will gather you unto your fathers, meaning you're going to die. You're going to be gathered unto your fathers, and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace, won't be in war, it'll be in peace. …and your eyes shall not see the evil which I will bring upon this place. It’s still coming, but it's not going to happen now at your time. You're going to have peace because of what you've done. And they brought this word unto the king.

Chapter 23:1—And the king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. And the king went up into the house of the Eternal, and all the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the people, both small and great: and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the Eternal.

And the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the Eternal, to walk after the Eternal, and to keep His Commandments and His testimonies and His statutes with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. You know, that's what it takes when a person repents. We have people out there every once in a while that have to come to a point where they strayed off course, and it's up to them to humble themselves and seek to change and understand that God does not tolerate and allow sin to go unchecked, does not allow us (especially in the Church) to live ever how we want to live, on the contrary. As long as we're willing to look at ourselves and seek to change and seek God's mercy we can, but it means that there needs to be, as well, that which is stirred up inside us that we have to pray about. That's why we pray. It's one thing to repent. It's one thing to humble yourself before God and to fast and to seek help because you want to change (that's why a person fasts; it's because you want to change, you want self to change), there's also that desire to be stirred up in spirit and desire to live God's way of life, to cry out, to ask for help to love Him with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your being. Because you have to ask for those kinds of things because it's not natural. It's not in us! You don't have that kind of ability. I don't have that kind of ability – to love God with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my being. On the contrary, you have to ask God for help to do that. You have to ask God for help to put Him first in your life and you have to be convicted and have a great desire to want to do that, to fight against the pulls of this world, to fight against whatever it is that you have to fight against.

So lesson after lesson after lesson when you go through stories like this, recognizing God's mercy but also recognizing that there are certain things to bring about complete change, of what a person must do. Because it still requires doing, working at it, desiring it with all of your being, and crying out to God for the help to accomplish it then because it's not in us to be able to have such abilities. It's just not in human beings. Why? Because of and by ourselves we're selfish and we can't love with God's kind of love without His help. But He'll help us.

And all the people stood to the covenant. It's like saying: "Amen." "I agree." "So be it." That's what they said and so they started making changes as a nation. They followed the leadership of Josiah and they began to make some changes. Josiah put some fear in it as well in the story as you go along.

And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the Eternal—notice this, what was in the temple–all the vessels that were made for Baal, in the temple of God that had accumulated over a long period of time and they were still there! He said, "Bring them out of the temple." …and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven. And he burned them outside of Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them to Beth-el. He was zealous about doing a job here, getting rid of sin, getting rid of evil. We can take that to heart, too, in our own lives. If we ever stray away from something and there's always that desire to get rid of the things that aren't in agreement and oneness and unity with God.

And he removed the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem. When it says here he removed them, I believe he went quite a bit farther in what he did. He didn't just tell them to go out here and start farming. They likely became some of the fertilizer for the land in ashes. …and in the places round about Jerusalem, them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven. The world hasn't changed much. Incredible. Things that still go on to this day. Just go read what it says in the paper today about the astrology. You know, if you're born in Capricorn, whatever they are, Cancer. You know, people say they don't put any weight in it, but boy, they sure use it a lot. Some people do put a lot of weight into it. There are leaders in the world, presidents, who have put weight on things like that.

Verse 6. But turn to God Almighty? Turn to the Great God of the universe? Verse 6—And he brought out the grove from the house of the Eternal unto Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it in brook Kidron, and stamped it in small powder, and cast the powder thereupon upon the graves of the children of the people.

Verse 19, jumping on down. You can read the rest, the whole story. It's an incredible story, what took place here. And all the houses also of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria. So now he's gone north. Israelites aren't there. "Cities of Samaria." …which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the Eternal to anger, Josiah took away, and did to them according to all the acts that he had done in Beth-el. And he slew, made it real clear here, killed all the priests of the high places that were upon the altars, and burned men's bones upon them, and returned to Jerusalem.

And the king commanded all the people, saying, Keep the Passover unto the Eternal your God. That's where it begins. Incredible! Always begins with Passover. When God brought us through what He did it all began with Passover, even in the remnant Church. That's what God wanted to make right and set right and establish very powerfully within the Church because without it you cannot go forward into the rest of the purpose of what God's working out. So it is here that Josiah started from the very beginning and told them that they were going to, Keep the Passover unto the Eternal your God as it's written in the book of this covenant.

Surely such a Passover was not held from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor the kings of Judah. You know what that means? There wasn't a Passover to this degree, to this level, not even in King David's day or Solomon's day. It's what its saying. So Josiah turned indeed to God in a very powerful way and was very moved by an attitude of spirit here, looking to a woman who was used as a prophet and told him what he needed to hear. And he acted upon it.

And so it says, goes on to say, But in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, wherein this Passover was held unto the Eternal in Jerusalem.

So again, incredible story here. I'm not going to go through anymore of it, but you can read the different things that he did and the size of that Passover and what was brought there. That's what made it so incredibly great because there was nothing spared in order to honor and worship God and to set Judah right again as far as worship and turning toward God. So again, incredible story here of something that worked through a particular king of Judah.

Let's turn over now to another one here. This is in Luke. There is another one in between, but here we come to this point in time, a point in time that Jesus Christ is born and coming into the world. And notice this story here of what took place. Luke 2:25. Interesting places where God has used to reveal some of these things, just scattered and smattered throughout, but in very important pivotal points as far as the history was concerned.

Verse 25—And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the holy spirit was upon him. And it was revealed unto him by the holy spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the LORD'S Christ. And so God let him know. Again, it's talking about the holy spirit that was given to him to see, to know, to communicate to him certain things that he just knew. It was in his mind. And he came by spirit into the temple. What does that mean? It means that God communicated to him to go to the temple. That's what it means. It was clear in his mind he had to go to the temple at a specific moment in time and this was it. That's what it's talking about. God was doing it for a great purpose.

And he came by the spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him after the custom of the law, then he took him up in his arms. So you don't just go into a place like that unless you're known, unless there are certain other things going on here and grab a child. He had function. He had responsibility and duties there; this just doesn't go into them. Then he took him up in his arms and blessed God, and said, LORD, now let Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word. In other words, he'd waited all this time and now he said, "You've let me see this. Now it's time to die." He knew that God had given him extra time for this moment to come. How did he know it? In the mind. If it's there, it's there. It's just as much as when the day you came to know that the Sabbath was of God, whether you heard it or read it, and whether you read it before, you didn't know it until God placed His spirit there and gave you the ability to understand things about the Holy Days and what it is, what it means. And you just know it and you get excited about certain things and you go try to share it with someone else and it's like there's nothing there. They're not excited. Matter of fact, they think you're kind of little loony, or whatever, "What's wrong with you? What's happened to you?" But if it's there it's there. And here it is, it's there. It's the same exact thing. It comes from God. When it's God's time to have something in your mind it will be there. There'll be an absolute knowing of it. There's no way you can explain it to anyone else, it's just there.

Verse 29—LORD, now let Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word, for my eyes have seen Your salvation. He knew this was the one that had been talked about, written in scripture about long, long ago, the Messiah. One that was going to come. One that was going to be born of David, of the line of David. Incredible! So he knew what he was seeing. Who told him? It's there. It's just there. …which You have prepared before the face of all people. He knew there was a plan. He knew there was something going to be accomplished for all mankind. …a light to enlighten the gentiles. Powerful. The disciples didn't even understand that, once they, when they were first converted. They didn't grasp some of the things that were going to go out to the gentiles. They had a bit of a problem with it for a little while. Paul came along; he was the apostle to the gentiles. They had problems with various things of circumcision and so forth and certain things of gentiles because they didn't grasp, they didn't "see" what God was doing. Here he's saying something quite profound very early on, at the very beginning of Christ's life. So again here, a light to enlighten the gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.

And Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken by him of him. They heard what he was saying and they didn't understand it all. They didn't grasp what he was saying. Now, he knew what he was saying. It was in his mind. It was just given to him, but they didn't grasp the magnitude of what was being said. They just marveled at the words because they knew they were important. And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, so he wasn't just someone off the streets. And said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against;  (yes, a sword shall pierce through your own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. Profound! Sermon in itself what was given through him.

Verse 36— And there was one, Anna, again, a prophet, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of great age, and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity; and she was a widow of about eighty-four years. So that means that whatever point she became married, she was married for seven years before he died. And she was a widow for another eighty-four years. So when did she get married? Doesn't say. 15? 16? 17? 18? 19? 20? I started pretty young because some married very young. 20? Then 27 and 84? She's well over a hundred. That's the point of it all, well over a hundred.

And she was a widow of eighty four years, who departed not from the temple, but served God with fasting and prayers night and day. Now, it doesn't mean she's fasting night and day all day long and all night long. It's just it was her way of life, to fast on a regular basis. And she continually prayed before God, indeed, day and night, and served in the temple. And she coming to that instant, and so meaning here right as Simeon was there, and came in at that same time period then when they were in there in the temple. So she came in then and gave thanks likewise unto the LORD, and spoke of him to all those who looked for the redemption of Jerusalem. It doesn't say all that she spoke, but it makes it very clear here she spoke things and said things that were very much along the same lines of what Simeon had said, recognizing him indeed as the Messiah, as the one that was born who had come there, and because it talks about in this context "the redemption of Jerusalem" and what people had looked for for so, so long, a Messiah that was going to come and the things that could be given to the Jews and to Jerusalem.

So it says, And when they had performed all… So not a lot said. Doesn't have to be a lot, but it says enough to make it very clear here she spoke with authority and she was known as a prophet who served in the temple. Incredible! So she not only served in a physical temple, she was serving in a spiritual one and recognized for that in scripture. It was given to those who wrote.

And when they had performed all the things according to the law of the LORD, they returned to Galilee, to their own city Nazareth. And the child grew, and grew strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him. I thought I'd just mention here, I wanted to include that verse as well because he wasn't impregnated yet with God's spirit because he had to have that too, but he grew in spirit, the mind, the Word of God that was growing. Christ was unique. Jesus Christ was unique as a human being. And the things that were in his mind and the things that God gave to him and understanding in his mind that he knew and understood, they were just things that were just there. Just like when he was twelve and went into the temple and spoke amongst the others and they marveled. It was there. Things that you and I still don't fully know or grasp the magnitude of what took place, because he's the only one who ever lived like that, who ever had such life, for purpose: the Word of God, the mind of God made flesh. But he still had to come to a point in time later on when he went to get baptized and then the holy spirit, the impregnation in his mind took place and that which began to grow, as it does with us as well, from that moment forward that made him unique, and God telling him, "This day have I begotten you." Powerful! So he was born physically. Incredible, the mind, the being, and growing in spirit and things of the mind that we don't grasp because we never lived that. Then what happened later on before he started his ministry. So I just wanted to throw that out, things that God will give to us more of later on.

So again, incredible stories here. Incredible! Really are! Awesome stories of things that are just in scripture that reveal God's will. Can't take it out. You can't argue about it. It's just there. It is what it is and now it's come the time that basically we're being told, or people are being told, "Deal with it! Recognize it's there. Understand the power and the authority of what's being said, of the very fact that it's there. God making it very clear His will, what His will has always been."

But we have to go back and understand why things happened in the manner that they did. So we're going to revisit some things back in Genesis. We need to go back once again and be reminded of what began 6,000 years ago that led mankind into the kind of unfairness and injustice, the oppression, the attitudes of superiority that stink. They're rotten. They really are! When you see pride and attitudes of superiority that people can exert over one another. It's existed in many areas of life.

I sometimes have a hard time watching news. That attitude sometimes is so powerful, it reeks so high of this attitude of superiority that people have, that they know what's best for everyone else. That's why we have such division now days more than ever before, especially with fast communication and everything else that's out there. It's incredible what we're watching. It's incredible what you're seeing take place in this world, that's crumbling right in front of your face, as governments are crumbling right in front of your face. That's what's taking place right now. They are, frankly, crumbling right in front of your face because human nature is coming out in the rawest forms and it's not hidden like it used to be. You know, in times past people didn't know what was going on. They didn't see it. Now a day it's all over the TV screens or in blogs or in tweets or in whatever it is. Human nature is out there in its rawest candor. It is what it is, attitudes. You see people who have had things said about them who have been spoken against and you see their response, because they're not forgiving and they're not going to forget and they come back vicious and ugly and hateful. Even people in the same parties. Hateful. Despising. You can see it!

Now, maybe, not just "maybe," but I know we see it in ways that others in the world don't even see it but we see it in a very powerful way because we know that kind of spirit. We know the kind of mind that's there, the kind of selfishness that exists in human beings, the kind of attitudes that exist because people can't forgive. You talk about power struggles? We don't grasp to the magnitude of what's actually taking place, of a breakdown within itself of a government that we're watching. It's taking place right in front of your very eyes. You are watching it, whether you grasp fully what it is or not. Understand, in that context, that's what's taking place as it feeds on itself and is destroying itself from within, from the core of what made it, or what can make it strong, or could have, or did at one time, is no longer there. It's being eaten away. It's like a cancer and it can't be stopped. It's just a matter of time and everything will fall into its place very fast when it's God's time.

And that's not just in this country. That's in every country around the world, of things that are taking place, between nations especially and groups of nations. We're able to stand back and watch some of these things come to pass. It is dumbfounding what we're watching out here. It truly is. Anyway, another sermon.

6,000 years ago all this began, as far as what we're talking about concerning the rightful place of women, that attitude of superiority that has existed. Because that's what it is. It is an attitude that knows. It doesn't just believe it, it knows its better. It knows it's in authority. It knows it! And you better not question it. That's the kind of mind that's there, that has happened over 6,000 years, that's been made manifest in the world. It doesn't mean that every individual has lived exactly that way to the worst of what we might be able to see manifested, but it's still there. People who think they don't have it even in the Church, it's still there. It's still there. I know it. There are times I see it. I know exactly what it is. In time you will too more so. But it's a matter of seeing self. It's a matter of seeing what's in this mind and why we are the way we are and what has made us and how we've come to this point in life and what it is that God is giving to us to transform the way we think so we can think differently and be in unity with His will, what it was from the very beginning, and that takes time to erase all the damage and all the evil and all the sickness that has been put there in life since we were little toddlers.

Because you know what? That's where it starts. Really, really small all the way up. And before one is ever a teenager it's there. It's already there. Then when they hit teen life it's like concrete; now, it solidifies and it just gets harder and harder and harder. That's why it takes God's spirit to change the way we are as human beings, to help us to see the way we are and the way we think and to see what has to be changed in our thinking.

So, incredible what has transpired, attitudes of superiority manifested by men toward women and all the evil that has followed such pride-filled arrogance. Because that's what it is. Adam was created first, and then Eve. Some people misuse that one. Some people misuse that one. Not just some! Anyway, anyone who is traditional in beliefs that might go back and believe these kinds of things that are written back here at this point in time, they don't grasp what took place. They don't understand. And indeed, most of them who believe that this took place, that this is where it all began, Adam and Eve, that's where life began, those who don't believe they crawled up out of a lagoon, infested water, and then all of a sudden began to walk, anyway, after millions and millions and millions and millions of years. Anyway, it just blows my mind. I'm sorry, but that is so stupid! It's just as stupid as stupid can be. You just have to hit your forehead and think, "How can anyone be so stupid who calls themself a scientist, or whatever it is?" La-tee-dah, you have a PhD in front of your name, or behind it, whatever it is, doesn't matter where it is, but you are about as dumb as dumb can be, really! Rather than acknowledging the Great God of the universe put you there.

I'm watching some things right now, that I hope in time get passed to the Church, but things about the Hubble Telescope and why they built it and all the things that have gone on with the history behind that and some of the things they've discovered that are out there. The more I see the more in awe I am of God, because God put it all out there. To grasp the Great God who put it all out there, we can't even begin to grasp it. But you know what? I think of the days of David, and for 5,800 years as a whole for mankind, whatever it is there, most of the time of mankind to look up in the heavens and to see stars, planets, whatever it is that are up there and have no grasp of what we see. The more you see the farther it goes, the more in awe one has to really be. Yet there are those who still hold to a great big bang. I don't even want to start there!

Anyway, I was watching last night on part of that; it was the comet. I can't even remember the name of it. It has two people's names that discovered this comet that slammed into, I believe it was Jupiter. But anyway, they were watching this comet for some time, these two people that have the name of this particular comet named after them. They saw it starting to break up over a period of time and so they turned the Hubble toward it because they realized it's getting closer and closer. They figured out the exact timing of when it's going to smash into Jupiter. Now, Jupiter is huge! Huge. Huge. Huge. Huge. Mostly gasses, gaseous surface, and in time you can't see the surface of it. It's just thick, thick. They don't even know how thick, but its gasses of different kinds that are there. Anyway, when this thing hit it broke into 21 pieces, I believe it was, several pieces the size of the earth in what they created, and what came up from the surface the size of the earth on the surface. Yet they're small little dots right in a line as they came down and wham, wham, wham, wham and came up through all those gasses, and the one that created this thing that's the size of the earth. Incredible, some of the things that have taken place and the power that exists out there.

They were talking about some of these things and the size of them for something to hit a particular area being one hundred million times Hiroshima. I can't grasp things like that, something only a kilometer in length in size striking another surface like that. But you start seeing beyond that and you start seeing everything that's out there and the massiveness of it, and all for a purpose. God's the one who put it there, things we can't begin to comprehend and understand.

So it's hard for some people to go back and start with a story about Adam and Eve. This is where it started. God did it. It's hard for people, but even those who do and those who do hold to that they're perverted in their thinking when it comes to man and woman because the man was created first. Woo! So you're better? They're better? Doesn't that reveal God's plan and purpose? No, it doesn't. You just don't understand yet. You just formed your own conclusions just like Adam and Eve did when they sinned. Incredible, the human mind.

So curses spoken of in scripture that started back there with Adam and Eve are simply the result of mankind not listening to God, of not obeying God in how life was to be lived and from that point forward, because Adam and Eve didn't and all mankind was the same way because we're all selfish. They didn't cause it; they just were the first two, and they reflect the way mankind is, men and women, and the selfishness that exists in our thinking as human beings. This is just a spinoff off what took place then starting at that point in time. So there were not blessings that followed. Instead, sorrow, suffering, because that's what happens when people are oppressed, when people are in bondage, when people are treated unjustly in life, when people are suppressed, oppressed, if you will. So indeed, exactly what God said would take place, if people could only understand it because they don't really grasp. They accept there are certain things that are to the norm and they sell themselves so cheaply in life, human beings do, and surrender as the cheapest things in life as well, as human beings, and not grasping that life, what we're getting ready to enter into in the Millennium is going to be so awesomely beautiful, rich, and full compared to what it's been over the last 6,000 years.

Because there's been so much produced as a matter of sorrow, unhappiness, stress, and suffering that God never intended for people to have, just because of this one thing alone in life in families, in society. Unhealthiness and disease that comes as a result of curses, poverty, corruption, violence, arguments, distrust, fighting’s, wars. It's the way of human beings and all the kind of evils that follow.

So let's turn over to Genesis 3 again, go through the story again. I think of Mr. Armstrong going back to the two trees so often. It's always where you need to build when you're building on something like this, because to really understand what took place, to really grasp it, here we are, how many decades later and still building upon what he gave, what God inspired him to give at that particular time. And we're still learning, still building upon it. I think about this statement I wrote here: The oppression of women has been one of the greatest of suffering created by mankind's disobedience to God's way of living. Incredible to understand that, to know that.

Genesis 3:6—And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, the one that God told her and told them not to partake of, something starts in the human mind. It’s just about human nature. If we can see our own human nature it's just simplifying human nature. Incredible, the way we are. We look at something, we decide something, and we decide for ourselves what's good for us and what isn't, what we want to do, what we condone, what we allow. It's not a matter of looking to God as authority or even considering God in the judgment of it. We get to a point so often in human life we just choose for ourselves and decide for ourselves what we want to do. If we decide that's what we want to do that's what people do, that's what they go after, choosing for themselves their own course in life. Sick world!

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food… What do you mean "good for food?" I think of people in the Church that do things and decide something is okay to do when God makes it very clear, no, it's not! Fornication? Adultery? How can you do that? How can you think that's okay? How can you deceive yourself into thinking that's okay to do? Blows my mind how anyone could somehow sidestep that and decide its okay to do, "It's okay for me." Anyway. Plus many other things. Plus many other things that happen in life. …and that it was pleasant to the eyes… Who decides if something is pleasant to the eyes? I think of styles that people come up with and it's pleasant to their eyes. I think, "You don't know you look like an absolute buffoon! Because you don't have a sound mind and so you look at something you're wearing or something that someone is wearing and you want to go buy it and you don't realize these things make you look like a buffoon! You look foolish! You don't look good." But people in their minds, they begin to think, "Oh, this looks good." Why? Where does it come from? So often it's because the mind is distorted in thinking. You know where it's distorted? Sex. Sexual things. The misuse of the body. The misuse of the body, that's where most of it is. I'll just tell you what, that's where it is. Most of it out here is about the misuse of the body. And people think that's okay, it's pleasant to the eyes. Well, how did you get there? Something starts up here, the thinking is wrong, and where are the boundaries?

People think its okay to just put hooks around a nose and plugs through your ears all the way up and down, and let's just tattoo the whole body from top to bottom and your head and your face and distort something that God made that's beautiful. Something's wrong in the mind to do that. But people, our society, is so far away from what is true and right that people think it looks good today.

Something that was abhorred just a few decades ago, in many places even outlawed, today is a rage! And if you're not a part of that, boy, something is wrong with you. Whew! Something is wrong with you. And if you think there's something wrong with it, something is really wrong with you! Now, if you don't choose it, that's one thing, but if you think there's something wrong with it, you know what? "Something's really wrong with you. Who do you think you are?" Anyway, sick world. It's just getting worse and worse and worse. Where do these things come from? Looks pleasant to the eyes? I see confusion, that's what I see. My mind sees confusion. People don't know who they are. They're looking for themselves. I don't want to go there. They want to have a different identity, to be something different, to stand out as being different. Okay, well, you're different all right.

Why do we have to do that as human beings? And we're not happy with what God has created? With who we are? With the lives we can have? The world is so sick, so far from God. If this were told out here to people they'd just think, "You're nuts. You're nuts, man. What you're teaching and preaching, you're really out there!" I say, turn it off. You don't have to listen. Amazing. And sadly, that's what the world has done to God. They just turn off God. They don't want God. They don't want to hear anything that has to do with morality. They don't want anyone to come along and say, "What you're doing isn't healthy, isn't good." "Your thinking isn't right." "Your thinking is distorted." "No, it's okay." You think, "You're okay." I don't know about you, but I'm sick of this world. I'm sick of what's happening in this world, the unhappiness, the misery, the suffering, the oppression everywhere you turn.

And with the use of technology today it's blown up into ways that boggle the mind. That's why it's so clear when God talks about as being in the days of Noah. We're there. We're surpassing some of that at a faster rate in society in the world, doing things that they could never dream of back then.

Simple human nature: When the woman saw that the tree was good for food. Look at what people see as good for food today. Don't have God come along and tell you that you can't eat squiggly or things that stink when you're in a restaurant. And you cook it and you bring it out and it just about makes you barf. I hate it when somebody brings out lobster. I don't even like eating in seafood places, as a whole. They bring out something like that, bring out the clams, bring out the crawfish. Some feedlots with pigs smell better than some of that stuff when they bring it out and it just ruins your appetite to eat. There they want to eat it. Pleasant, good for food, and pleasant to the eyes to see that little red thing in front of them. Just can't wait to get some kind of a thing you got to break the leg off and then start drawing the stuff out so you can eat it.

…and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and did also give to her husband with her and he did eat. And one wasn't better than the other. They both sinned. They both sinned, gave in to the common curse of mankind. Even within God's Church it happens too often in life where people make choices and decisions because of someone close to them. The vast majority of people within the Church when the Apostasy took place, the vast majority made wrong choices because they went with family rather than being convicted of what God had given to them through Mr. Armstrong. They weren't holding on to the truth because they were convicted at the truth. They went with what was popular with them in family. Didn't want to go through the hardship, the difficulty of addressing things in family. So in a lot of cases entire families went together, they stuck together and went with a particular group. Very rare, as a whole that some of them did break up between a few of the groups and so forth, but in large cases a lot of families stuck together in those things.

And the eyes of them both were opened. It's amazing what happens when sin enters the mind and how the mind is so damaged. This is such a delicate thing that God has given to human beings – so abused, so mistreated, so much to be healed. When God speaks of healing in the Bible, in scripture, there is much more there than we really grasp even within the Church. There is a healing that takes a lot of time. It doesn't happen in two weeks, three weeks, a year, two years, five years after baptism. It takes a long, long time for the mind to become healed, to where God can say, "Now I know you." Because there's a healing that has to take place first.

And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. I don't know about you, but I marvel at what it says here because this is the greatest area of human life that leads people away from God. It really is. It's one of the things that regulates human behavior more than anything else. Sex. Sex. Sex. Sex. Sex. It does. It's one of the greatest things that work upon the human mind because God created us in a certain way, but how we use what He's given to us, that's how we're judged. And it can be a battle. It can be a battle if you start messing around with, fooling around with doing things and thinking things in your mind that you shouldn't do.

We have far too many people who are pulled away by pornography that they can easily click on to in the privacy of their little computers. And I know there are a lot of you involved in that – men and women. Not women as much, but it still happens and it's there.

You want to be like Josiah? Because that's what we need in God's Church right now. Because I still have to deal with things like this within the Church and we're coming to a point in time, more and more, more is being required because God is giving us more and we don't have much time left. Either you want to be like Josiah and serve God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your being, or you don't. If you will choose something else above God, if you want to go out and do some of that which is so insane and it does so much to hurt the mind and to taint the mind of people toward one another. This is where it began! This is where the curse comes from! Anyone that involves themselves in that kind of thing, you cannot think right then toward the opposite sex. You're going to have battles in your mind then. You're not going to be healthy in your thinking, sound in your thinking! You're going to be screwed up! And you need God's help in healing so you can think right.

It’d be better if you took a hammer to your stinking computer. Have a little character! If you can't control it, if you've lost control, what does that say of your life? And you're in bondage? It says this for a reason. This is where most of the people in the Church have gone astray in times past. It's over someone else. It's what happens in the mind. That's one of the fastest ways to go, to leave God, to leave the truth. Many have stumbled in that through time. It's one of the major areas. I hope you understand it's one of the major areas of life where people have been cut off from God, where people lose it. Even in the time of Mr. Armstrong and some he had to deal with in the Church high up in the ministry because they thought they could do that and still be in God's Church, and even leave God's people and think God's people should follow them away from even Mr. Armstrong when it came down to it. Incredible!

And the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked. What do you mean? What happened in their mind? That's what sin does. It opens you up to your greatest of weakness as a human being. It opens you up to some of the greatest of weaknesses of your mind. …and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. What was in their mind? Two people. Two people ashamed, embarrassed to be seen by God. Is that what it was about? Is that all that was involved? Satan, a little bit more, a lot more? Anyway.

And they heard the voice of the Eternal God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Eternal God among the trees of the garden.

And due to what Satan had done God told him what would follow him. Genesis 3:14—And the Eternal God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, you are cursed above all living creatures, above everything. "Everything with the angelic realm, everything on earth, you are cursed above them all. More than any other." That's what happened to him. It just got worse and worse and worse for him because when he started and he rebelled against God he just got worse and worse and worse. He just gets worse and worse all the way along the line. You think, "How much worse can you get?" Well, he is. His ability to have any kind of sound reasoning is gone. But he's a very powerful and very deceitful being, and very cunning, but very sick in thinking. You are cursed above all living creatures, and above every living creature of the cultivated field. "Of the field," talking about everything that God has created for the angelic realm to live within and for mankind to live within. That's what it's discussing. That's what it's really focusing upon. And upon your belly you shall go. I think of times past how people try to figure out, now, what, he changed his form so he's kind of like a snake now or like a dragon? Is that what happened? No. It's talking about where God placed him, what God was doing to him. You're lower than anything else in all creation—it's basically what he's being told–because of what you have done, and this is your course because you chose it, and dust shall you eat all the days of your life. I love this one because of what it pictures, because of what it goes on to talk about and what he would have to do because the very reason he rebelled is because he hated what God was going to do in creating those who would be greater than him, those who would be a part of a God family. He couldn't take it. He couldn't take it. He became jealous and envious.

That's why we're tried in many things in our lives. I'm going to be candid with you. That's why I love what God has done within the ministry over the past many years because it tries people. It tries us in a faster, accelerated manner, opportunities for growth, to see how we're going to respond to certain things and if we're able to detect and see certain wrong thinking in our mind then we have to address those things. Because? Because it's led some people out. Some people have made choices because of that, choices to no longer be a part of the Church of God—PKG. They've made choices to leave because, well, in a very physical, carnal kind of way, I'm accused of basically just not knowing the individuals who are ordained. Like I'm the one who decides who is to be ordained and who isn't. I'll tell you what, and there is a sermon coming behind this at some point here very soon, still going to go through things and discuss things even within the ministry and within the Church because we all are a part of this in how it works in our minds and in our being and how we think toward various things. They really are incredible opportunities for growth, but sometimes people can be put to the test, and God allows that for a very great purpose and a very great reason. I'll save it for the sermon, but it's an awesome arena of life.

And that's why I love this far more than what I saw happening in Philadelphia and in through Laodicea and that period of time, because of what God has given us to experience and the opportunities we've had and why they're there and the purpose of it all. It's by great design of what God's doing in the Body in a way that has never, ever, ever, ever, ever been done in the Church. Never! Never! And we've had those opportunities and they're profound, they truly are.

So again, Satan did something. These examples back here that started in the beginning, there are awesome lessons. Good things to go back and look at from time to time and just think about: "Look what they did. Look! That's the way we are. That's our nature." These are our battles. These are the major things in life that human beings have to battle. These are toward the top of the list of things that have to be addressed in people's lives. They're right here at the beginning, and if we can grasp that about our nature, wow, we can make such progress and come to places of repentance and desire for growth in great ways, and God will help us and bless us.

So again, Satan is going to have to eat the dust because everything he's tried to do to thwart God's plan with mankind from this moment,hasn’t worked, and he didn't stop here. God was telling him from that point forward you're just going to keep eating dust – human beings, from dust of the earth – and you're just going to keep eating it over and over and over again. Everything you try to do is going to work against you. Everything that you try to throw at people is going to be the very thing I'm going to use to bring them into Elohim. And if that being has any part in any fashion or form to come at you, to strike at you and you look to God to bring you through, to fight the things that take place, Satan just has to eat more dirt. He sees something that's taking place in people's lives he doesn't grasp. He doesn't comprehend. He doesn't understand. He doesn't understand things about faith. He doesn't understand the transformation that's taking place in the mind. He doesn't grasp and comprehend how we grow on a spiritual plane. He can't grasp that. If he could really grasp it all he would work against that, but he can't grasp it.

And I will put enmity between you and the woman. "You went after the woman; this is what's going to take place." …and between your seed and her seed, speaking of the Christ. That's what it was talking about, the Messiah that would come. It, speaking of that seed, Christ, shall bruise, "crush and break" is what it's talking about here, your head. We didn't even understand that until recent times. God hadn't revealed that. You can't go and really grasp and comprehend that from things that were given to the disciples, the apostles through a period of time until the end-time here when God has made it very clear this being comes to an end. God has the power to bring everything in His creation to an end. He brought it into being and He can take it out of being. God is almighty.

But in the Church we haven't always believed that. We thought if something is made of spirit it can't be destroyed, it's eternal. Oh, no, it's not. There is only one Eternal Almighty Ever-Living God, and now His Son Jesus Christ, and once we become a part of Elohim then it is, from that point forward, age-lasting, everlasting. So a prophecy was given here that what in time Christ, the Christ was going to do. ...and you shall only bruise his heel. In essence that's what it's saying here. "You shall bruise his heel." In other words, you're going to cause some damage. It's going to be slight. It's just going to be the heel, but he's going to crush your head. God doesn't mince words when He speaks something, and He means what He says, "You're going to be destroyed."

Verse 16—And unto the woman He said, I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception. So isn't it normal, isn't it natural? I think of this one here and I think of how we are as human beings. I think of Nicodemus when he went to Christ and Jesus Christ basically told him about spiritual things and he said, "You can't get it because it's spiritual." I think of when he told the woman at the well, you know, about living water and she wanted it. She wanted it because she wouldn't have to come down every day to the well with those containers she had to carry water. "Give me this living water." She thought that was going to be great. We take things physical like that. It's just like what it said in chapter 6 of John then when it brought up the example of Jesus Christ saying, "You have to eat my flesh and drink my blood." It talked about how many from that day forward quit following him, quit listening to him because one of the most atrocious, hideous things to a Jew would be that you could, you would eat human flesh or drink human blood! That did it for them! They weren't going to follow any longer because we tend to think physically first.

And here it is on this one here. What do people normally think about when they think about this? It's when a woman gives birth and there's all that pain and suffering and the crying and the hollering and whatever it might be, and the throwing of things. No, I'm just kidding! I'm just glad we don't have to go through that, fella's. Anyway, I'm too old for any of that. Anyway, it's not a pleasant thing, and things like this are sometimes done by God because there are physical things there, because people can't go past that. God knows that. So let them think what they want. They're going to think that anyway. But it's something far, far beyond that. To grasp and comprehend what God is really saying, of what life is going to be like? There's going to be great suffering in life? You're going to experience things that were never meant to be this way. The joy, the happiness that you don't know that you could have had? You don't know because you've never had it. No one has ever had it, in that respect, to that degree, as a whole. People have had various measures of it, depending on having a relationship with God and the things they're able to see on a spiritual plane, but not in society, not in the world, not in the way God intends it to be as it's going to begin to be lived in the Millennium, and especially in the Great White Throne.

So He said, I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception. Your sorrow is going to be multiplied. Your sorrow is going to be multiplied. You're going to be oppressed. From this point forward things are going to happen in life in the way it was never meant to be and you're going to suffer because of it. "And in your conception." Why? Because that's how life comes into the world. It's only through the woman who gives birth. There's going to be sorrow in that. Not at the moment of the birth! That's not what it's talking about. It's talking about the things that happen because of human life and because of relationships and there are things that people have to go through in this world and experience to come to understand you're not blessed, you don't have what God intends for you to have. People aren't going to understand that until when? As a whole, the Great White Throne. As a whole, for the Millennium, for those who live into it. Then they'll understand these things in a deeper way.

For us in the Church sometimes some people experience various levels of it depending on how much they're blessed to be able to apply different things in their life. We all have different situations in our lives and even when everything is going for some it isn't lived like it should be lived. Sermons to follow. The closer we get the less punches God is pulling, in one respect. Things are going to be more out in the open. More in the open. Made clear. Made manifest. Sins are being made manifest in a profound way throughout the Church and have been for several years now. That's going to happen more and more and more the closer and closer we get because when we finally are at that point that it's time the Church is going to be quite unique, fully ready on a spiritual plane. Not to be changed at that moment in time, but to be ready for the coming of Jesus Christ to this earth and to be able to live on into a new time as examples of those who lived in the Church and went through what they did faithfully… faithfully so.

So God told them, told her, going to multiply your sorrow and your conception. You're going to suffer due to human nature, due to selfishness and people not living as God shows how they should live life. There's going to be suffering. There always is. Because of that, people aren't blessed as they otherwise could be. The blessings just aren't there in the way God intended life to be and so they instead reap the results of going their own way. That's called curses.

…in sorrow you shall bring forth children. It doesn't mean at that moment. You know, it's not talking about that because there is incredible excitement. Once the child is there, incredible excitement, joy, happiness that a child's been born, that there's one added to a family. A beautiful thing! So, "in sorrow you shall bring forth children," talking about what they're going to experience. It's giving something here that people really can't accept. Even in God's Church I think sometimes we have difficulty with this because we can accept things as a certain norm, but if we're truly honest and open about certain things we experience and see things and realize, no, they're not the way God intends. There is much happiness and fullness in life that could otherwise be here if we all embrace God, if we were all able to always embrace God and choose and have those choices before us and always want God's way of life in our life. There's a big difference there. We just don't have that as human beings, as a whole. It's not there.

Verse 22. So again here, it was from this point forward, of what God had given to them, the course of mankind became set for the next 6,000 years. The oppression of women, the things that followed, the way men thought about themselves, people were robbed. They robbed themselves. That's what sin does; it robs you of blessings. It robs you of thinking that could otherwise bring you a fullness and a happiness and enjoy and sometimes fellowship in relationship that could otherwise be there that can't be there if your thinking is screwed up, if you're doing wrong things. It affects your fellowship even within the Church because you can't think right, you can't see things right if you allow certain things into your being, into your mind. This is where we're to learn it, for the Church.

Verse 22—And the Eternal God said, Behold the man has become as one of us, or as Me, as I've mentioned in times past because it's referring to Elohim, God Almighty. There was only one, but because of the word that's why it's translated this way as "us." …to know, to perceive, in other words, to determine knowledge of good and evil, to decide for themselves. And now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also the tree of life and live forever… So again, we know the story, what would otherwise been, could have been there for mankind wasn't. And God knew that anyway. That's why everything is set. That's why everything was set for the next 4,000 years. God already purposed it and planned it. Jesus Christ would come, the ability to become a part of the Church, for the Church, and the Church would be small, and so forth, all the way up to the coming of Christ. All these things were all planned out long ago because God knew exactly what Adam and Eve were going to do, because He created that nature, the mind of human beings to be able to have that nature. They chose it but it's of their mind.

So I think of the best word that I can in the English language to describe what happened. Because since that time, 6,000 years ago, women have indeed been ruled over by men in a manner of total subjugation. That's really the way the world has been: total subjugation.

I'm going to read some definitions of "subjugation": "The action of bringing someone or something under domination or control." That's been the battle. That's been the struggle in life. And man was made strong, physical, in that respect, and has abused that power, that strength – physical, physical strength because of the way they were created. "The act, fact, or process of subjugating or bringing under control, enslavement." Incredible words used here! "To bring under control and governance as a subject." As a subject! Think women have been treated that way through time? As subjects, almost as it were, in thinking? Another part of the definition: "Conquer, to make submissive." Ah, it's been a battle. "To make submissive. To defeat and gain control." You talk about lording it over. You talk about sheriffing!

That's why when God began to reveal what was happening in the ministry that was wrong, that began to crop up in the ministry and had been there for a long time anyway, because it's a course of how the human mind misuses authority anyway, and that cropped up within the ministry of God's Church so that by the mid-eighties there God used an individual (who was going to turn against Him) to be one who was going to tell the Church and the ministry the truth. Used him in one powerful way. But ministers far, far, far too often were following the practice of sheriffing and not shepherding. That wasn't from the man of sin, that was from God Almighty who used him to put that message out there. Most paid very little attention, very little attention. Didn't preach about it. Didn't teach about it. Didn't make changes in their life as a result of it.

It was back then that I began to see in a profound way, wow, that's the way husbands and wives in marriages are in life. Is it a mindset of sheriffing and power, control, subjugation? Or is it different? Is it one of service? Is it one of giving? Is it one of sharing? Big difference! Big difference.

And so again, so often so many things to learn in life about ourselves, about our human nature that started 6,000 years ago and the biggest example of that all the way through life has been in families and just the difference between the sexes, between men and women. It's one thing that God is working to clean up and to clear up inhuman life. I don't know about you, I hope you're excited about it. I'm excited about it. I really am. I am excited about it because I see, because I know, you can begin to see then the way it's going to be, the potential that's out there for the world to be different than the way it is now. And that's exciting! So that people can have the kind of happiness and the kind of joys in life that they have robbed themselves of for 6,000 years, because those are the things that take happiness away. Those are blessings! Happiness, joy, a greater fullness in life, to receive more out of marriage, to receive more in family. We're just scratching the surface on some of this! But this is where it begins as God begins to change this world. It has to start here. That's why these things are happening now, of all time.

So again, a part of the definition: "To defeat and gain control of something or someone by the use of force." The very fact of the differences in how we were created yielded itself to this process. Society, the world, family, that's why it materialized. That's why it developed in the way that it did. God knew what would happen when people didn't live His way of life toward others, to love the way He said we should love, and instead, turn inward and become selfish. This is the natural, automatic result, response – to conquer and gain the obedience of a group of people, a person, a country, and so forth, whatever it is.

So it's not something that just happens in families. It's just something of a way of human nature and it's happened in big ways and little ways, but boy, does it permeate the earth and the way mankind is.

So again, what an awesome thing that God is revealing and giving to us. And with that we'll stop here today and continue with Part 4 in a couple of weeks.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1