An Extraordinary 4½ Years, Pt. 7

Ron Weinland

January 13, 2018

Today is the continuation of An Extraordinary 4½ Years, with this being Part 7. We'll pick this up in the last paragraph where we were the last time and it's a few paragraphs just before the section subtitled, "God Prepared Us." The beginning of it is, "At the beginning of the 1335 days."

At the beginning of the 1335 days, there was anticipation of great “physical” tribulation… beginning that would come upon the world.

Now, I'm going to come back to this in a little bit here because I'm going to go back and read an old article. Again, sometimes people who are new, they don't have this same sense of history, I guess, and even understanding in some parts as to how we thought at different times. Indeed, we have always lived by the present truth, but a lot of that was a long period of time through Philadelphia where any change that would come along was unique and not that often, especially during the time of 1969, the fall of 1969 and on, and the first change that I recall was 1972 and then 1974. So those things didn't happen that often. But that sense that people had back then had to do with a lot of material that Mr. Armstrong had already established firmly by the 1950's, I would say, from that point forward.

But for us we have had so many things that God has been giving to us at different times, different truths that have been established, that especially if we have been here at the time some of those have been given that becomes our norm. For those who come along at any point in time, like 2008, 2009, 2010, that present truth is what they have at that time, and most of it was there or at least the vast majority of it.

So to understand what it was like for people in the Church to constantly have this sense that we would have a great tribulation that would last for 3½ years; it was deeply, deeply embedded in our thinking. I'll come back to that in a moment. So it's hard for us to grasp the sense of what's being said here sometimes because so many of us didn't have that thinking and don't know how that affects your outlook on things in life. So again here:

At the beginning of the 1335 days, there was anticipation of great “physical” tribulation…

I would say that was true for most people regardless because of what was written, but it was written there because of our experience all through the majority of Philadelphia, all through Laodicea, and so forth. So continuing on:

... Thunders increased and the stage was fully set for the financial collapse of the United States and the world economy, but God’s time for that has not yet come. The Church had been wrong about the basic period of 3½ years being about physical destruction.

In other words, during that entire period of time. It's still in there, but it's not for a full 3½ years as was so deeply embedded in our thinking in times past.

That (destruction) will still come, but within a different time frame than what we have previously believed.

And now continuing on:

May 27, 2012, was not the date of Christ’s return and neither was May 19, 2013. Those dates are prophetically important and great events did occur within those periods of time, but they were not Christ’s literal return. That is obvious. So as we did after the Apostasy, we seek to judge what we have experienced by the present truth, and as we do, God will reveal more, just as He has done before, for He uses this process in a powerful way to more deeply convict us of truth He reveals when He chooses to do so.

And to me that's an exciting process, though it's not an easy one to always live through because it is a process that does try God's Church. It puts people to the test and we have gone through a lot of that. That's why this article is written in that period of time especially, of 4½ years of all that we experienced, which was so very, very much.

We know who we are — we are God’s Church, and the truths God has revealed testify to that truth.

I marvel even during this period of time here, looking at it and thinking about judgment—even as it's covered in this article here that we've discussed partially—judgment that God has established because of the way He does things in a perfect way, and beautiful way, really, at the end of an age. Because judgment has been established for the past 6,000 years about mankind, but just as a final witness there is a "type" of, or a kind of final judgment, that God establishes to testify of that entire period of time, of what mankind has always been like. So that's why this period of time is so important, because it is a time for establishing judgment. If we can keep that in our thinking that will help us to understand other things as well as we go along, and as we've even covered even.

So again here, "We know who we are — we are God’s Church, and the truths God has revealed testify to that truth." They are a witness just like in a court; it's a matter of judgment. God has given so much more at the end of an age here just before Christ's coming for a purpose. That's why so much of that was never given in times past. It wasn't given to the original disciples, apostles. It wasn't given to Paul. It wasn't given to John except John prophesied about some things, but didn't understand all those things that he wrote, just as Daniel didn't understand what he wrote. John didn't understand what he saw; he just wrote it. He had no idea what it was all about, and neither has the Church for so, so long.

Even in a lot of our thinking through Philadelphia and on into Laodicea, some of that has had to be tweaked through time. I think especially of the 144,000 and some of those things that we're going to touch on as we go along here that we didn't fully understand because God didn't intend that we did understand it, that we should understand it. It's in God's power – and I hope we really get this in a very powerful way – it's in God's power to reveal what He will at any moment in time because you can't understand things until God communicates it to the mind. Then and only then can one say, "Ah ha!" Just like Pentecost in 1974. We couldn't agree with that; we couldn't see that until God gave it. He held that back until a specific moment in time to try the Church, to test the Church, to put people to the test, to reveal things, just like the refining process of bringing dross to the surface. So that is a big thing that happened back in 1974 as far as God's Church.

So we go through these things over and over again, but I think of this period of time here that we've lived through. We've gone through so much more because of all the truth that God reserved, saved until or prior to Christ's coming. It has so much to do with that, preparing a people for Christ's coming.

… So yes, we too have had error. I have had error. But God is leading us into greater truth and spiritual maturity. God has not only allowed error to exist in His Church through time, but He has also designed and planned it so. Such a statement likely would baffle and bewilder most who are not in our fellowship…

Sometimes it's a little baffling to us. Those kinds of questions can be asked: God would withhold, or God would design something by not giving us all the truth? He knows what we're like and He knows if we're following Him faithfully, if we're seeking, if we're led by His holy spirit, He knows the conclusions we will come to by any present truth at any moment in time because He knows our spirit. So God has foreknown those things, obviously, so, so long ago and has planned and prepared for these things. That's why they were held back.

Let's go back to the 1930's when Mr. Armstrong and Loma kept the holy days for seven years on their own. Mr. Armstrong, with his thinking at that particular moment in time, wanted to be so absolutely sure of those holy days and what they meant before he began to teach them. They kept them for that period of time on their own. Then he began to teach those things, something that the Sardis era fully rejected, obviously. But Mr. Armstrong then began to teach that to others and others began to observe those holy days, and it wasn't a long period of time, and the understanding of every holy day wasn't perfect at that point in time when they started observing it, but they grew in that understanding in a deeper way. But the foundation of it and most of the basic part of it was deeply understood in the sense of what it pictured, from Passover, Days of Unleavened Bread, all the way to the Last Great Day.

Yet in the midst of all that understanding we should marvel that there was a date that we did not grasp – when Pentecost should be observed. God could have as easily given that. I hope we see that so deeply and are convicted of that so deeply, that God could have just as easily given that or corrected that at any moment in time.

So when Mr. Armstrong was observing that on a Monday, God could have corrected that at any time during that seven years that he and Loma kept it by themselves, let alone when he began to teach it. Because if we look at it, that God's going to correct everything that's wrong that we do as human beings at any moment in time, we don't understand. We don't grasp why God allows such things. God chose – didn't just choose, but planned – that a certain, that period of time would be withheld until He gave it. It was 1973 through '74 when God began to reveal it.

That's why this is so important to understand, what happened back then, because it was something that God would help us to grasp and comprehend later on the significance of that and why that's so important and to understand what we have gone through. That's how we learn. That's how God teaches us. He doesn't speak out of a fiery bush! He doesn't send His angels to His Church all the time to reveal truth! He doesn't work that way. Indeed, He revealed certain things to John to write in the book of Revelation, but He didn't give him understanding of those things. He didn't grasp the seven Church eras. He didn't know what that was all about, from Ephesus on up to Laodicea. He didn't understand all the things that were symbolically given there about what would happen with the Roman Empire and the different revivals of it. He didn't grasp any of that as a whole – even if a little smidgeon of it – because it wasn't for that time. So God revealed those things at different times. Most of it He began to give then in Philadelphia to Mr. Armstrong, and then began to build upon those things.

So the only time we can understand anything that is true, any portion of it, is when God communicates it to the mind. That's His time. You can't come to see it fully until He does until it's His time to give it to His Church. He has total power over that.

So such basic things that I wish we'd understood back in Philadelphia, but it wasn't to be understood then. It wasn't for that time.

So again, "He has also designed and planned it so," to withhold things knowing we would faithfully keep Pentecost; we'd just end up keeping it on the wrong day. Then when the right day was given, that would cause troubles in the sense of some people's minds, depending on where they were spiritually. Those who were spiritually on target, those who were led by God's spirit, following God faithfully so; it wouldn't be a big deal because when He communicated it to the mind it'd be like, "Man! Why didn't I see that? Oh, I know why I didn't see it before, but it's amazing! I don't know how we could have ever believed it was on a Monday." That's the thinking of people, the vast majority of people in the Church at that time, because God has to give it. That's the way it is with everything.

Such a statement likely would baffle and bewilder most who are not in our fellowship but the lesson of Pentecost 1974 should cause righteous reflection and honesty about God’s power to lead His own Church.

It isn't about any human being and their power to know or their intellect or anything else. It's solely about God Almighty having the power to lead and guide and direct His Church.

We will continue again with the “Personal” excerpts from Mr. Armstrong’s writing: “You may ask, do I, then, feel that we in this Work are full of errors [this is what he was referring to when he was going back through some of these things back in that "Personal"], misleading the people. Most emphatically no!”

It wasn't about misleading the people. It wasn't about God misleading the people. It was about trials and tests and the importance of the Church going through those things at different times and whether people were truly faithfully following God, because if we are, when God says turn left, we turn left. When He says turn right, we turn right and we think, "Beautiful! This is awesome!" That's how it works. It always has.

“Most emphatically no! We have not had to correct error many times. But each time we have corrected error, we have had one fewer error left. ”

I love that, you know, that much closer to God, that much closer to the truth. Of course in his thinking, in his mind he's not thinking like we do today. He's thinking about all the rest of traditional Christianity and how they think and the big gulf and the difference between us and them at that time because they don't correct things, as he goes on to talk about. But for us, we don't think that way. How do we think? We understand that in a very powerful way now because we've lived it so long. What we think now is different because it's unique to us. We think about the Church that was scattered and the gulf that is there between those who were scattered and those that God has brought together for a remnant and all that God has revealed to us since that time of the Apostasy. So again, he says here:

“We have not had to correct error many times. But each time we have corrected error we have had one fewer error left. If we knew of any error still remaining, now, we would change it! If and when we find one in the future, we will correct it! The one who follows that principle is the most free from error!”

This was indeed what was done later in 1974 with the revelation that Pentecost was to be observed on a Sunday and not a Monday.

So continuing on:

“So confessing such an error is one of the surest proofs to identify the people through whom the living Christ is working — and whom he is using!”

Now under that section "God Prepared Us."

God Prepared Us

Through all the experiences and revelation of truth God had given His remnant Church and the inspiration for two important books to be written, the small core of this remnant group had now been prepared by God to enter its final preparation for what was to follow. The years of 2007 and most of 2008 were the years for this final preparation through trying and testing, as well as giving rapid growth.

As I was reading this I just think, incredible, no idea another book was coming. At this point that this was written we just talked about two books.

We finally arrived at a date that we thought we fully understood concerning a “final countdown” to Christ’s return. It was the Feast of Trumpets of September 30, 2008. Indeed, the countdown of 1335 days did begin then, but we did not grasp where it was leading. Even though I wrote the book 2008 – God’s Final Witness, I did not grasp the magnitude or importance of that witness.

In the beginning, because of our belief about 3½ years of tribulation, there were “expectations” that were very much ingrained in our thinking that would be changed about what was to happen in the world and when.

So coming full circle now back to what I mentioned in the beginning – this was deeply engrained in our minds. It really was and because of that it caused some struggle, some difficulty. It started right after September, or even later then, if you will, even in December then when we recognized a 3½ period had begun, that there was this expectation because it had always been in God's Church, since I'd been in God's Church anyway, since 1969, and it goes way, way back farther than that, about 3½ years and what we referred to as "great tribulation." So the expectation was it's going to last for 3½ years. That's how we thought. That was deeply engrained in my mind.

How many of you were around back at that point in time? See? Okay. It was there very powerfully so, 3½ years of great tribulation.

I'm going to read now a section out of 1975 in Prophecy. I’m just going to read part of it in different areas here just to give a sense of that and some of the things that were believed prior to that, quite a ways prior to that because, obviously, the thinking at that particular point in time, or for some who considered this, it had to go back 3½ years before that, obviously, as a consideration of Christ's coming and of great tribulation that could come upon the world. So it wasn't like what we believed to the extent we did of 2012 by any measure, but it was a timeframe and a thinking at that particular point in time. One section here it says:

"You'll find this prophesied in Daniel 2 and 7 [so I'm just breaking into an area here just to get into the thought], and more specifically in the 17th chapter of Revelation—a UNITED STATES OF EUROPE…"

I still marvel that in 1950 (I was believe it was 1950) that Mr. Armstrong sent to Europe some of the people writing in the Plain Truth magazine to report about the Common Market in the beginning, of the establishment of the Common Market, because his focus was very much so on the fact that Europe had to rise again. There had to be a seventh revival, and it would be solidified by a common currency, by a military, and eventually by ten nations coming as a single unit, because of prophecy. This is what he's referring to, some of those things here, as he's writing this. So he was looking towards a United States of Europe:

"—a flash in-the-pan resurrection of the ancient ROMAN EMPIRE."

So again here, that great power that God spoke of in scripture that was going to have and would have a great impact upon the world toward the end-time – and still will have a very powerful impact on the world as to what happens.

"It will possess greater military might by far than the Rome of old, but it will also inherit fatal weaknesses. Prophecy symbolizes this admixture of never-equalled military might and unprecedented weakness with the apt phrase, ‘iron mixed with miry clay.’ The European nations will unite militarily – but they are suspicious and envious of each other – they hate one another."

Now, that was lost through time, candidly, after Mr. Armstrong wrote this and after emphasis was taken off this particular book, because that began to leave as far as preaching in the Church of God as to what this group would be like, that they would actually hate each other. It's very strong in what it has to say about that, even the fact that was fully missed in some of that is they will hate the great church as well and they'll be instrumental in its destruction, when it's all said and done, because it's lost its power over the different resurrections of the Roman Empire and the last one is going to be one that finally brings them to a point in time where they address it. Why they do so? That's going to come in time here as far as understanding is concerned, but it has a great deal to do with what they're going to come to see once they finally unite and it's too late to do anything about it. For one hour, it talks about, and as soon as that is over, a short period of time, they're going to regret what they started, but it's too late to reverse it and that church has a part in that so they will retaliate against that as well.

But anyway, again, it's being referred to here; Mr. Armstrong is talking about the fact that there is this miry clay and this that's also mixed with it, the power, the steel, the metal, and it just doesn't hold together well. It's not like times before at all. He goes on to say:

"This time the Germans are coming back from defeat faster and more effectively than they did after World War 1. The comeback they are making is phenomenal – faster than any other European nation – faster than we think!"

It is incredible what was taking place through time there, the rebuilding of cities. Some people when they saw the destruction that was done, by some of the pictures that they were seeing, thought it would never rise out of the rubble again, because they were so devastated, but that wasn't the case. They began to rebuild very powerfully so, and there are reasons why. He addresses some of that.

"While Americans bask lazily in the stultifying sunshine of prosperity…"

How much has that changed? It's the way we are, all this prosperity and now people are just – I don't even know how to describe it. They look at the stock market and different companies, how much they've soared, some well over 50% in a year's time. Incredible! And all the other things that continue; people talking about their 401K's and how great they feel now. They didn't feel that way back in 2008 and 2009, but they feel that way again and it just does something to the mind. It's like if you don't get on the bandwagon now you're going to miss out! That's what people honestly, genuinely think. If they don't get on this thing they're going to miss out. So there are those that hate the process that there's prosperity, in one regard, but they want to take advantage of it on the other. So he makes this comment about what we've always been like, but what we were like when he wrote this.

"While Americans bask lazily in the stultifying sunshine of prosperity our hearts set on push-buttons, shorter hours, less work, more leisure, vacations, and travel, I have seen the swarms of Germans walking briskly, brief-cases in hand, to their day's work between 5:30 and 6:30 in the mornings, down the streets of Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, and Essen. While our prime objective seems to be idleness, ease, and luxury, the German mind and heart and interest appears set on just one thing – hard, energetic WORK that will yet put ‘Deutschland Ueber Alles!’ – ‘Germany Over All!’"

Now, that's based on things of prophecy, that they would be the head, in essence, of influence over this ten nations and because of what God says about the Assyrian and what God is going to use them for when it comes to Ephraim and Manasseh at the end-time. So this isn't over with by a long shot and they're still going to do what's prophesied that they will do. To what degree, to how it's used, we have to wait and see because of some of the things that God is allowing now as well within the world.

But anyway, what an incredible thing here for this thinking that was there because of all these prophesies God had revealed about what would happen with 10 nations, that Assyria, that Germany would be over the top of it, over the head, as a head in that respect with its influence. It is very powerful and very influential in Europe and it has so much to do with the guiding and directing of what's coming and the machine that's there. They do have that mindset. They are known as hard workers.

That's why I think about one time we were in Greece and visiting some of the places of Corinth, Mar's Hill, and some of those other places where Paul was right there in Athens, but there was another location. I can't remember it now. But anyway, we went down to Corinth and visited some of those things. But anyway, we had an individual that was driving us and at that time there they were getting ready for the Olympics there in Athens and they were building a brand new train system all the way out from their airport all the way downtown where the stadiums had been built or were in the process of being built. Things weren't going well. It's like they're not going to get this done on time. So we made the comment, something to the effect that you should have gotten some Germans down here to help with this. He said, "We did. They are the engineers and architect of what's being built here, but we use Greek workers."

Now, he was being humorous, in one respect, but showing here that they don't think the same and that their ability or the way they think, as a whole, in that part of the world as they grow up is not the same as what it is in Germany, and he understood that. He was kind of throwing out a joke of his own about why they were experiencing what they were. They didn't work the same as the Germans did. So it's common in Europe that some have been upset in times past here because the Germans have been more industrious, if you will, and those in the south and different nations think differently, they respond differently to various things going on, and they're not known as being the same as the Germans. There's a balance in there. That's the point. There's a balance in there somewhere, but because of what they went through it is amazing what they've done, it really is. That's why they have the influence in Europe that they do and because of God's plan and purpose anyway of what He's allowed them to do and given them opportunity to do.

So he went on to say:

"Incidentally, I am writing these words on a German-made typewriter – because it is a better and sounder made machine than any American portable. The American way seems to be not how GOOD, but how cheaply and quickly can we slap things together, and how MUCH can we GET for it?"

That's very much the way we think. If we can't make it cheap enough, send it over to China and have it made cheaper and then sent back, and then we can make more bouquets of money in between here. So there's a mindset that's different and it's not about the highest quality. Going on:

"If American industrial strength beat the Germans twice, present German hard work and INDUSTRY is assuredly going to beat us – unless we WAKE UP to what's actually happening, which we won't."

And who suspects them in the first place? And candidly, what starts some of this rolling comes out of a different part of the world anyway.

Then we're going to drop on down to where he begins to discuss the coming of World War III.

"The very next words of Jesus' prophecy (Matt. 24:9, 21-22) are: ‘Then’—not five years or a generation later, but ‘THEN shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations; …and then shall be GREAT TRIBULATION such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days [of mass death and destruction] should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved alive. But for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.’"

That means more to me than ever before. For God's people that time has been shortened.

"Yes, by the supernatural intervention of GOD, before all human life is blasted from off the earth!"

And then there is a section under this title here, "3½ Years—and THEN."

3½ Years—and THEN

"This fanatical, unheard-of, Satan-inspired fiendish Tribulation and martyrdom will continue three and a half years. But then it shall be suddenly CUT SHORT – by the divine, supernatural INTERVENTION OF GOD!"

Then a little bit farther:

"During this hellish 3½ years, there will be no religious freedom. The entire western world will be under the resurrected Roman Empire – Church and State united – the religion and all schools under a Religious Hierarchy, enforced by the civil police. The entire eastern world will be under atheistic Communism. Neither the eastern or western world will permit any true Gospel preaching whatsoever."

So again here, God has allowed us to believe certain things at certain time. This was the present truth for a long, long time and it helped bring a soberness in thinking to people's minds and this looking toward this time and being sobered by that, that no parent wants their children to have to go through those things. It was a motivation, if you will, for weak, human nature sometimes to remain and fight to be close to God. It is selfishness in part. Well, we're selfish human beings, but yes, there are things that help to motivate us at times, and if they help to motivate us to draw closer to God in various parts of our life that's good. You know, whatever it takes in life to motivate us to seek God more fervently. We are physical and we think physical first. We are not spiritual by nature and so sometimes we have to go through various things to sober us, to stir us up. These things, in that respect, are healthy for a human being, for a human mind that has been impregnated with the spirit of God because we're not spiritual! We have to seek that. We have to want that! We have to cry out to God for that! We have to seek to grow in that and as time goes long there are various things that oftentimes happen in life whereby we begin to let down or we pull back a little bit or we get off course and begin to focus on something else for a time, and so there are various things that can jolt us back into reality. Anything that does that, it's good, whatever it takes.

This period of time that we're living in right now does that in unique ways compared to what it was back then because with all the truth that God gave He knew that in time that if this message wasn't constantly before people, of a sense of urgency, what would follow. Even when he was stirred up the most in all of his preaching, from the time he came back after his heart attack to the time he died in January of 1986, he was working fervently, zealously to put the Church back on the right track because it had already been letting down during that period of time when he wasn't in the forefront, and that did or allowed for incredible damage to take place. So what it leads to, what it led to even when he came back very powerful was Laodicea. That's what followed because as soon as he was gone it was full-blown in the Church of God. Incredible what takes place.

God knowing the human mind and what we would be like knew exactly what we would do, knew exactly when an Apostasy would come, how it would come, what it would take for the Church to experience the Apostasy. See, God could have prevented it, but it was never God's intent to prevent the Apostasy. He actually prophesied it would come to pass. He prophesied it through the apostle, Paul, 2 Thessalonians 2, that a man of sin, a son of perdition would have to rise before Christ would return, that they would be able to see that. That would be what the Church would see in order to know it had begun, the coming of Christ's return, a countdown, if you will, a timing that was taking place.

So it's incredible what we've experienced through time and we learn through it. We're able to grow through it. God's able to mold and fashion us in unique ways because of what we experience in His Church. Going on:

"This is the time following the famine of food, when there shall be a spiritual famine—a famine of hearing the true WORD OF GOD…"

Now, why did he say that? Because he saw a period of 3½ years of great tribulation, because that's all that was given to see, and that it would be for 3½ years. God didn't correct that for a purpose, and because of that and because of the power of Europe and because of their thinking, that there wouldn't be any freedom of religion for that period of time, there would come a famine of the word. It wouldn't be going out any more through the Plain Truth or through the “World Tomorrow” program, through television or radio and so forth. So the only conclusion that was able to be drawn at that time, this would have to be when the famine of the word would come. Not because of the Apostasy, which we didn't understand, but because of what was going to happen during that period of time in the world. So God allowed that for a period of time.

Then as we went through the Apostasy we learned, no, the famine of the word came right as soon as that started. It was beginning before that because of the man of sin, the son of perdition, and then after he did what he did then it was full-blown. Then even in the scattered Churches out here and what was taking place there was a famine of the word because people weren't esteeming Mr. Armstrong in the sense of what they had learned through him. All they could say, the best that I ever heard any minister say was that "Well, Mr. Armstrong was a very good teacher and I learned a lot through him." And him I wanted to slap silly, even back then, because I thought, you have got to be kidding! That's why I repeat this so often. "Everything you know came through that man! You wouldn't know diddly-squat if it weren't for what God revealed through him! A good teacher?! No, he was the only great teacher during Philadelphia that God used as His apostle!" Did they say he was God's apostle? They wouldn't even acknowledge after the Apostasy in the scattered Churches that he was God's apostle. He wasn't given that because only by that can one grasp and understand how God was working in His Church and how they understood the truth, and that all the truth they had was because of what God had given through him in the first place.

Now, to me that's a mind boggling thing to understand what people went through and what people went through in the scattered Church. We are never to forget how God draws us, how God opens our minds, or even awakens us to truth, and where it is because that reveals where He's working because it's what God and Jesus Christ do. It's not what we do.

Again here, he's speaking of a famine of food where there shall be a spiritual famine, of hearing of the true word of God. See, it was that 3½ years. That was the focus then because God hadn't corrected that yet. He allowed the Church to believe that for a period of time for a purpose. Some of that purpose was for us to go through what we did and for God to begin showing us, no, it doesn't have to be for a full 3½ year period, and if it was for a full 3½ year period who would survive on the earth? Because it begins in a horrifying way and it rapidly accelerates because that's just the way wars are, especially when you push a button and that kind of a war exists. And mankind wouldn't be able to survive what would happen because of the human nature of human beings for that period of time. We wouldn't be able to exist. So God cuts it short, but not in the way we thought in times past.

Going on in what it says here:

Millions who now HEAR the true Gospel on The WORLD TOMORROW program worldwide, but who treat it lightly or spurn it, will wish THEN that they had heeded!

Well, there's still truth in that in part. The truth that comes from God, there is going to come a time when there are going to be people who will listen. Because that's what will help to bring them to repentance and change, when they finally see. All the young people who grew upon God's church and left it – thousands, tens of thousands – there's a seed up here that God planted a long time ago and they know what was taught. They know about a coming world war. They know about ten nations. When they see certain things come together just by the knowledge that they have will help to shake them to the core of their being. To me that's a beautiful thing. That's a beautiful thing, to be shaken to a point where you are scared, to where everything you think you knew and you believed and you allowed yourself to go off and do, now you know there is a time of reckoning and a time to address what you knew back then.

That's the way it's going to be with a lot of people who were scattered. It'll give them opportunity. It'll be that way for a lot of other people in the world as well, to bring people to humility, because we're physical first and it takes that sometimes – not sometimes, but that's just the way it is to bring a world to repentance.

"And these hundreds of thousands shall learn that God's mercy, truly, is greater toward us than the heavens are high above the earth! For God will hear their repentant cries and place them under His divine protection from the indescribably terrible PLAGUES which are then yet to come!"

You can't protect yourself. You should always be wise in trying to do for yourself what you can to a point. That's why we have made comment in times past to have some things in reserve to protect yourself when certain things happen around you to carry you through a month, two months, three months, whatever it might be. Even water that some have quit doing because it's like, "Well, now we don't have to do that." Yes, you do. That's what God's Church has been teaching well before 2008, and we would be wise to make sure that we have certain things set aside to help us. We are supposed to do to a point what we can, and we've been shown what that point is. You can't do more than that. You're not expected to do more than that and because of certain things that have happened, that will happen, you really aren't supposed to anyway. But you are to be wise and to strive to do certain things that you can do and to realize there's going to come a time here when the semis are not going to be running up and down the highway anymore. There's going to come a time when there are going to be people out here scrambling for food and they're going to do some nasty things to get it. We can't comprehend that yet. We don't know what that's really going to be like.

When you live in a city and people are hungry, what do you think human beings are going to do? You can only do so much, and after you have done what you can do then only God Almighty can help you, and God Almighty desires that - to intervene for you, to work for you. That's why we're to be close to God. That's why we're to look to God and put God first in our life. Then when the time is there and it's needed God will intervene. God will intervene. He'll take care of us. He will protect us. He will protect your children if you're looking to God, if they are. If they're rebellious and they don't want God, God's not going to protect them. There's nothing you can do to save anyone except yourself. See?

Sometimes people get all caught up in trying to save someone else. You can only do so much and if people won't listen, including children, if they won't listen, there's not a thing on earth that you can do except waste your time and become unfocused on what God wants you to be focused upon. That's a sad thing that happens in God's Church and still happening. We need to be focused ourselves first and foremost spiritually on God and our relationship with God and as we do and as we do it as families and as those in families respond then God will help us and give us aid. God is all powerful.

I'm amazed at what's been happening in recent time. Not amazed, but in times past we haven't seen it as much where God has been intervening for people who have various health situations in their life. Yet God's been intervening more and more in people's lives and because of where we are in time as well. I think of certain cancers that have totally abated now. People that were praying for different ones here that, in that respect, they're in remission. That's a beautiful thing. It doesn't mean that there aren't going to be certain things that people struggle with to a point in time, but God allows certain things to happen in our lives, but God is there to take care of His people. He is the great healer so we still look to Him and we do what we can do on a physical plane to whatever degree we can and look to God for the help that He can give that no one else can. So it is in the future far more so.

So that's why we're to look to God for protection because we have no concept of what's coming. Thankfully, God's guarded our minds in part from some of that, that we really can't grasp it. But we need to think about it because it's getting closer and closer, and we need to realize it's going to be far worse (just like the Apostasy was) than what we grasped. Thankfully, it's going to be a short time, a short period of time. It doesn't have to be long to bring this world to its knees, thank God.

Anyway, continuing on:

"At this precise juncture—again for the ELECT'S sake—God will hold back the punishing winds of war and of plagues (Rev. 7: 1-3)."

Amazing! That's exactly what He's doing totally in conjunction with the sealing of His people; holding it back, working with, molding and fashioning, transforming certain ones to all be prepared perfectly in a time setting that is perfect in God's eyes for finally saying, "Okay. Now it's time." God has the power to do that. Awesome! Going on in what it says here:

"The actual physical punishment of this great and mighty DAY OF THE LORD will not fall until God has sealed, with His protection, those who have now suffered through the Great Tribulation…. and have now at last learned their lesson, and turned repentantly to GOD."

So again, some things of lacking of understanding on our part of what was to happen during Laodicea and what would happen in Philadelphia, that Philadelphia was actually going to come to an end and Laodicea would begin. They wouldn't both continue in time together as was previously believed.

I want to read Revelation 7:14 here, because this is where this expression comes from, because it's really not used throughout scripture, in that respect, to the degree many have thought it had been. But Revelation 7:14 says, And I said unto him, Sir, you know. And he said unto me, These are they who came out of great tribulation. This was the idea then of what it meant by an "innumerable multitude" of people that would come out of "great tribulation."

Let me turn over there right quick in scripture. I just have it written down here in my notes, but again here, things that we have learned, the things that God has helped us to recognize certain pieces of the puzzle. They weren't in place and we didn't see it because it starts in Revelation 7:1. It says, After these things I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, on the sea, or on any tree. Then I saw another angel ascending out of the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was granted to harm the earth and the sea, saying, Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. So this is about the sealing of the 144,000.

And it says then in verse 4—And I heard the number of those who were sealed: one hundred and forty four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel were sealed. We used to think that the 144,000 were literally made up of 12,000 of Ephraim, 12,000 Manasseh, 12,000 of Judah, 12,000 of Issachar, and all the rest of the way through. That's not what it's about. God showed us later on that, no, His temple is constructed this way and there are indeed twelve areas of major construction that are used and they will bear certain names of the children of Israel. Again here, sometimes things are translated because people didn't understand and don't grasp God's plan in the first place, and they use some very awkward language, and most of it, obviously here, in English and what was translated, but literally in what it means about these twelve tribes.

Then going on down here a little bit farther. In verse 9 it says, And after these things I looked, and, behold, a great multitude, which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne of the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palm branches in their hands. So again here, this great multitude, an innumerable multitude, in other words, a multitude you couldn't count, was always conceived or thought of as being different from the 144,000. It's like this is adding something different than what was said here in the first few verses and it's not. They're all the same people. Innumerable, most of all, 144,000, because we don't know. We didn't live for 6,000 years. God knows who they are. God can count them from that period of time, has counted them, has sealed them up to this point in time over 6,000 years, but no human being could, you know. That's all the point of all this; that this is of God and man has no power to see and grasp it, but God does.

But again, this was just something that God allowed us to believe for a period of time because it wasn't time to reveal it, that they're all the same people, the same people who are sealed by God Almighty, not a different number of people. Again here, just to bring up some of that history and some of the things that God has corrected through time. The only option we have in our lives is to always believe the present truth until God comes along and reveals something clearer. As Mr. Armstrong said, once we see something clearer, obviously error is corrected. God reveals truth and we hold on to the truth and we have one less error. We are that much closer to the truth of God, to the way of God, to the mind of God, but we go through a lot to get there and we're not there yet.

We won't be there throughout the Millennium. God isn't going to reveal everything throughout the Millennium even though Jesus Christ and the 144,000 are on earth. Do you think every question you might have you're going to be given an answer? Because you're not. You're not. We're going to learn so much but not everything is going to be answered until it's time. Like the Hundred Years, we're not going to fully grasp that until we get closer and closer to it. Then as we get closer to it, especially toward the end of the thousand years, God will start revealing more about what we're preparing for, about what we're getting ready to do and why certain things have to be done on the earth in the way, the manner that they are. On and on it goes. Incredible.

So going on in what was written there in some of this article here:

"Among these, now yielding their lives to God and to HIS WAYS will be the much-quoted but little–understood ‘144,000.’ There will be 12,000 from America - another 12,000 from British Commonwealth nations - 12,000 Jews -12,000 from each of the 12 tribes… except Dan - but Joseph is given a DOUBLE-portion."

That's Ephraim and Manasseh. So that's all we understood to that point in time and God didn't correct that.

"But also, with them, there shall be an INNUMERABLE MULTITUDE of all the nations, who shall in total surrender and cry out to God."

We understand that's not the case. It's 144,000 only who are sealed, who are able to have what it expresses there in the sense of their sins and the sense of what they're going to be wearing and so forth, all symbolic of them being a part of that which is resurrected when Jesus Christ comes. That's what it's all about. That's the context of all that's written there in Revelation 7.

Now we're going to return and repeat the sentence again where we left off to look at some of this literature of our past, but it was to give a sense of understanding there are things that we have seen, and this thing of 3½ years and great tribulation was deeply, deeply embedded in our minds, and so it was something that tried and tested, in one respect, because here December comes and nothing starts. January. February. March 2009. Why hasn't the "great tribulation" started? And it was not a matter of the fact that we didn't know the truth about 2012 yet, it's just the fact God helped us to adjust something in our thinking to come to understand it's not to last for 3½ years in the first place. He gave us a bit of a – I don't know how you say it – trial run to realize that, no, thank God it won't last for 3½ years because we wouldn't last. Mankind wouldn't last. Because if God allowed mankind to release all that was taking place, if it started 3½ years prior to Christ's coming, there wouldn't be anyone left alive on this earth because mankind, they would do what they're prone to do, push the buttons.

So God has shortened that period of time in the way that He has by what He allows to come together, and doesn't allow it until then because He has the power of doing that. He has the power to hold back what's going to happen, to hold back those things that are going to happen during the Trumpets until it's time for them to begin. Everything is perfectly timed by Almighty God. We are so puny as human beings and we think we're so great. God is in control of everything that He allows to exist in time, truly.

So going back here:

In the beginning, because of our belief about 3½ years of tribulation, there were “expectations” that were very much ingrained in our thinking that would be changed about what was to happen in the world and when.

As we moved farther and farther into that 3½ year period and it was evident that the 2nd Trumpet had not yet occurred…

Because we saw a partial thing, and I'm not going to go back and repeat the sermons, but of the 1st Trumpet, but it isn't what the 1st Trumpet is all about yet either in the sense of the power that's going to be unleashed because it does have to do with that which is financial in the world as well.

God began to reveal that the experience of this period of time was focused upon a “witness” and not about the end-time tribulation. That understanding has continued to grow even until now.

God had prepared us for the experience of this period of time. What was it all about? What was it that we had been prepared to experience?

We have used this period of 3½ years rather loosely to sometimes include the period of the 1335 days and the 1290 days. Much is simply a matter of semantics as long as we grasp the context, but the reality is that these days are fully tied together. The literal period of 3½ years, that started when the two witnesses began to fulfill a large part of their roll, was preceded by these two periods of time. These two important events would thrust the Church into a new and important era to God’s planning and purpose being fulfilled before all the Trumpets should be manifest and His Son’s return to establish God’s Kingdom to rule this world.

Then "Grasping the 4½ Years," continuing on:

Grasping the 4½ Years

It has been stressed that so often in life, even for those who are called into God’s Church, people tend to see their lives as routine and ordinary.

By knowledge we should grasp that a “calling” from God is far from ordinary and it should never be viewed as such.

That's why we should always consider our calling and think about what we have gone through and how God has worked through us to open our minds and when that happened and what we experienced in our lives because we're never to forget that process of a calling that God gave to us.

By knowledge we should grasp that a “calling” from God is far from ordinary and it should never be viewed as such. That would mean we do not grasp the awesomeness of such an event and that we are not nearly as thankful for the blessings poured out upon us as we should be.

Because if we can't see fully what God is doing we can't grasp how great it really is and that's why I've used the example of me going back and the early part of the Church, and I was called in '69, and it took six months before I realized that people weren't perfect, because it's a process sometimes you have to go through in your life, of things you experience. So there is much we have to learn as we grow, and we don't realize how incredible this calling is because we don't have the full vision yet. We don't have it. We don't have the full grasp of the magnitude of what it means to be so few in this world who have had our minds opened up to understand truth, let alone over a period of 6,000 years. We really can't grasp that, but we should strive to. God helps us to embrace it more and more, to grasp it more and more as we grow, but it's only through spiritual growth that we can even begin to grasp it more and more as we do make that growth. So going on:

We truly need to see our calling for what it is.

But far beyond just seeing the incredible calling that is given to us, we need to deeply grasp what we experienced over an extraordinary 4½ years that ended May the 19th of 2013. God has long worked to fulfill what He had planned and prepared for a very special purpose at this most unique time in the entire history of 6,000 years of mankind. We have been blessed to have been called to be its primary participants.

That's why this has been stressed over and over again in this series that we're going through because it's difficult for us to grasp how unique we are of all who have ever been called into God's Church. There's never been a time like this. We are awesomely blessed. All people who have ever been called to be worked with by God have been awesomely blessed, but especially in this particular time because of all that God has granted even more so as far as understanding and knowledge of things that He's preparing to do simply because of where we are in time and because He's about to send His Son to this earth. Going on:

What we have experienced as a Church all began in what God planned and purposed so long ago and then only revealed as a most basic outline of to Daniel [speaking of what God gave to him].

Now under the section of "1335 Days":

1335 Days

As it was earlier mentioned, God revealed to me on that Friday evening of February 1st of 2008, that the 1335 days of Daniel were about the sealing of the 144,000.

That was something new that was given to us, that that's what this phase is about; it's about the sealing of the 144,000, but then I took that and went farther with it because that's all I saw, which is awesome to understand what it means and it wasn't even until this Feast this year that God even revealed a little bit more about what this means about the sealing.

However, God did not reveal what would specifically happen within this span of time that pertained to the 144,000.

Once we had received our course correction about Christ returning on a Pentecost rather than a Trumpets, we then knew that the Feast of Trumpets of 2008 was the beginning of this 1335 days. A countdown had begun which then started on that day of September the 30th, 2008.

[Insert of November 2017 [because I refer to what was given at the Feast]: Since this past Feast of Tabernacles, God has revealed that the actual sealing of the 144,000 did not occur during that 1335 days, and that this prophetic period of time mentioned by Daniel “was only about the sealing of the 144,000.” At this past Feast, God has made clear that this prophetic period was about the “final stage” of time in which God would determine who would be among the final one’s “chosen” to become sealed among the 144,000.]

I'm going to keep going back and forth between what was purposed before and then up to 2008 and on and why God did some of the things that He did with the Church and how He worked with us. But to understand this, to me, is an awesome thing, that this is the final stage – and it's hard for us to think in those terms because for 6,000 years God has been molding and fashioning people. Throughout the Old Testament, we don't know how many, but we know it was far fewer than what was in the past 2,000 years. Far, far fewer, and so many of those are just simply named throughout scripture. They're the stories of individuals with whom God worked that you can read about. There is not a mystery that there are other people out there all over the place with whom God was working. There are individuals who have stories recorded about them and what they did and how they lived their lives, and so forth and there weren't that many. Then all of a sudden after Jesus Christ came and then the Church was established in 31 A.D. on Pentecost, then the Church began to mushroom and God had a purpose and a plan for what He was doing and molding and fashioning in the Temple. But all those others who had been called, so incredibly important in the structure of that Temple, because God Almighty Himself worked with molding and fashioning the mind, how they think, and the process then of those things that He's going to place in His temple and everything else then that's added to it and has been added to it in the past 2,000 years.

So to think in terms like this, that there's a period of time when finally this is finished, can you? Can we? I don't know how to put this in words. It's hard for us to grasp how awesome this is to God! To think that for 6,000 years He—until 2,000 years ago—and then He and Jesus Christ for the past 2,000 years have been working to establish a temple, been working to prepare 144,000 to be resurrected with Jesus Christ as he returns, when he returns, to think of how awesome that is to God because this is something God has been planning for so, so long. When you go back to where we don't even know about time, to where there was no time, there was no universe, God determined to create a family and the pinnacle of that family would be His own Son. He hadn't even started the creation yet. There was no spiritual realm. We can't understand such things. There was no spiritual creation in which beings existed. We can't understand that. I don't even try because we can't! To understand God? To understand Him existing for all time? I can't begin to grasp that. No human being can. So we live by faith. We live by faith, of things that God has revealed to us through time, of a creation, of things that He did. We choose that over evolution or a big bang, and we see the stupidity of such thinking, and we marvel at a Great God who has such power to create all that He did and sustain it all. We can't grasp that. The more we learn in science, the more we learn in the universe, the punier we become in our thinking, yet God has such a great purpose. It's all about His family.

So to think of all that time and all the time that it may have been trillions upon trillions of years of creating the universe because God used His angelic realm to create it. We don't understand that. We don't know that. That's why I gave that example one time (I don't remember it exactly) but if you could visit or see or just name one million stars out here per second, I think it was like eight trillion years it would take you to name them all that we know of today. We can't grasp that. What does that mean?

So how long has it been that God has been working for this period right now? To finally be at a stage where finally, finally the last few are being chosen who are going to be at the pinnacle of that structure of 144,000 with His Son to rule the earth with His government, to rule mankind for a thousand years, and then a hundred years to follow, to understand that kind of a feeling, we're so limited. We're so limited. The closest we come in life is if we have a child and we have that nine months, or ten months if they're a little slower, nine months and developing and the anticipation of it. How can you compare that to millions upon millions of years? Then all of a sudden you're there, almost ready to be born.

That's why I love the scriptures when He talks about what's happened through time here and what He's bringing to pass. I can't think of the exact wording now, but He states that what He brings to pass, there’s going to be labor basically after the fact. Yeah, talking about the pain and the labor and everything and something He's been doing all along and they're prepared and they're ready. But anyway, it's back in Isaiah, if I remember correctly here.

But anyway, to give birth, it talks about His Son being born, because that happens first, because it's all built upon Jesus Christ. Then later the pain comes because that's what it's in context. It's about, it's about Jesus Christ being born first and then later there is that pain, but it's about more of the family as well and what's coming in His Kingdom. But to me, it's beautiful in how God describes various things because the bottom line is He talks about how He still brings it to pass, regardless of how we think as human beings because we don't tend to think in those terms.

So anyway, it's hard for us to appreciate, to grasp fully things that God has gone through, anticipation that God has, and yet He shares some of that with us. He's sharing some of that with us in this sermon series, but we still don't grasp it. We can appreciate it in part. We can strive to appreciate it in part, thank God for it, but yet to have the kind of excitement that God has after 6,000 years of mankind, after millions upon millions, billions, possibly trillions of years with the angelic realm, to finally be at this point in time where the last few are going to be part of the 144,000. Then there's only a thousand years after that, finally, and then it speeds up faster because then far more are going to come into the family, and then that hundred years even far more beyond that are going to come into the family. So to grasp those things about God and His feelings towards them, we really can't. We can strive to appreciate it, but His excitement, His anticipation, is so far beyond words and human expression. It truly is.

The verses in Daniel that discuss this period were never meant to be interpreted by anyone by merely reading or studying them; the meaning was fully hidden and closed to understanding until God began to reveal it. Even when God began opening it to understanding, He did not reveal all of it. To reveal everything from the beginning would have been to nullify His purpose being worked out in the Church and in the spirit realm.

We tend to forget this. We don't tend to even think that way. We think of our own lives in the Church and what God's bringing to pass and a completion of 144,000, the fulfilling of 144,000, and we don't tend to think as much about a spirit realm, but God is dealing with the spirit realm as well, the angelic realm and what He is doing in His plan to bring all this together in timing to a specific moment in time, including the angelic realm, including the realm of Satan and the demons. So there are things being taken care of there that we don't think about or know, as a whole. Just by what we hear in sermons we maybe hear some of those things, but as a whole we don't know what's taking place there except God show us. So again here:

Even when God began opening it to understanding, He did not reveal all of it. To reveal everything from the beginning would have been to nullify His purpose being worked out in the Church and in the spirit realm.

God’s exact manner and timing of the revelation of these verses were strategies He used to fulfill His plan in accomplishing what needed to occur in His Church, which also worked to prepare for the year of recompense that was to follow.

Please understand in the context of this, what is Satan seeing? What is the demonic world seeing? What is the angelic realm seeing? They're seeing God bring to a conclusion the first great phase of His creation. It's about this matter of Zion. It's about God's creating power to do this because it hasn't happened yet. Only one is in the God Family, and he was the Son of God. But to take out from mankind, to transform their minds and to give them the ability then to be born into Elohim? This is another area that is so incredible, and God is doing this before all the angelic realm that is observing it. So after 6,000 years we're at that point in time.

What is Satan seeing and having done to him? This grovelling in the dirt like a snake. Dirt. We are dirt. We are made from the earth and Satan has been as like a snake having to lap it up and his nose rubbed in it more and more and more. That's part of God's judgment upon Satan, that he should witness and see what He brings to pass because Satan hated what God was going to bring to pass so much so that he rebelled against God, took a third of the angelic realm with him (they chose to follow him), and he rebelled. So that very thing that he hated is the very thing that God is using, that he's going to have to see all the way to his end and then to be separated from mankind for a thousand years plus, but at the beginning of that to finally see the first great phase of that come to pass, to see what God has done in His Church, because Satan has tried to thwart things. It's a demented mind. You think, "Why would you just keep doing something and you can't change anything?"

So there's an acceptance of that, but a continual desire to fight against God, to fight against His Church, to think that somehow you can win. God allows him to do this. He allows him to wreak havoc with mankind because of what He established from the beginning, that Satan should be on the earth for 6,000 years to do so. So God, in righteous judgment, allows it to continue in a way that sometimes it's hard for us to grasp. It is through this process that Elohim can be molded and fashioned in His creation, especially in the 144,000, but all afterward have to understand those same things. They will come to understand what happened in that 6,000 years. Well, they didn't have to live it, but those who lived it, that's why they have the kinds of blessings and awesomeness of a part in His family that is so unique and so powerful, so mighty as far as what God is offering, far above and beyond what we can grasp. So to have that offered to us? It's incredible what God is giving. It's hard for us to grasp the magnitude of that sometimes.

And so again, all that worked toward preparing for the year of recompense that was to follow.

As we go through this in Daniel and all that is covered beyond this, it is important to remember that not only is God preparing to usher in His Kingdom to reign on this earth, but He is also bringing to an end the reign of Satan…

That's not a small thing. So it's all a matter of timing, God's timing, and events that have to happen, events that take place in a very physical world, but also in a spiritual realm for all time in a very specific manner. So God's working with all those to fulfill His purpose.

… He is also bringing to an end the reign of Satan and the demonic realm in their kingdom. God is not only working to create Elohim and send His Son to be the Messiah of all mankind, but He is also righteously bringing an end to Satan’s rule within the spirit realm.

Living through end-time events is extraordinary as this is the time of the culmination of so many prophecies. These prophecies that God foretold about the end of man’s age of self-rule, the end of Satan’s rule, and the transition into a new age of God’s rule on earth reveal God’s very planning and design from the beginning to bring about Elohim.

That's what it's all about and we're living in it. It's incredible! Beyond words. Beyond understanding. We're given some, but we don't have it all by any measure.

When we begin to grasp the magnitude of that, and that we are the major participants in that transition, then it is indeed powerfully humbling, sobering, and just plain awesome!

And reading here in Daniel 12:11-12:

“After the daily sacrifice shall be [and it should be more correctly translated as ‘shall begin to be’]…

It's a matter of context. Again, there are some things that people can't translate properly. It's like the books or anything else that's ever been translated that has truth in it. If you were to give it to an outside source to translate it into a different language the same thing would happen; they'd miss things because they don't understand the intent of what's being said. They don't understand the spirit of it, and so they would translate it in a physical way, like word for word type of translation. You can't do that in any kind of translation. So anything that's been written in Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, whatever, and translated into another language, unless it's done by someone with God's spirit, they're never going to be able to translate it properly. God's allowed that for a long, long time to exist, and for a purpose because it's His purpose to reveal segments of it in His time. So just like Jesus Christ speaking in parables, it's the same thing. There have been things that have been kept clouded, if you will, so that people wouldn't see it as readily even on a physical plane, let alone on a spiritual one. So it's true in something like this. What was written in Daniel, to grasp what is being said there, can only be understood in greater part by understanding the prophecy. So even that, if it had been translated twenty years ago, it still couldn't be translated properly, even if somebody knew perfectly what was written in the Hebrew. So again here, it's a matter of God's purpose and what God reveals and what God gives through time as the matter of the context of His truth. So again:

“After the daily sacrifice shall be [should be more correctly translated as ‘shall begin to be’] taken away, and the abomination that is making desolate is finished (is completed)…

In other words, there's something here to be completed and that's what we're talking about. We're talking about the first great resurrection that God's getting ready to bring about at the return of Jesus Christ, 144,000 who will be resurrected out of 6,000 years of history. So He's talking about this completion. So here we are nearing it and that's what is written in Daniel here is all about. So it's talking about a process here. Does it end, this process of what's being discussed here, the daily sacrifice? No. But it is for a unique group of people. That's why it's so important to understand the 1335 days are about the 144,000, because this is a part what Daniel's focusing on because as long as human beings exist we need the daily sacrifice. It's about Jesus Christ. It's about being able to be forgiven of your sins through Christ and how we're able to live our lives then with God's spirit before God.

“After the daily sacrifice shall be [should be more correctly translated as ‘shall begin to be’] taken away, and the abomination that is making desolate is finished (is completed) there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. Blessed is he who waits, and comes to the thousand three hundred and thirty-fifth day” (Dan. 12:11-12).

So again, God revealing then, not knowing in any other way, that the 1335 days is about the sealing of the 144,000.

These verses as they are translated into English become even more obscure than they are in Hebrew, but remember that these were not to be understood in any language. God simply told Daniel to “go his way” and that these prophecies were going to be “closed” and “sealed” until the end. As I mentioned in the sermon given in February of 2008, “This is given by prophetic revelation and by no other means.”

Because there is no other way that we can come to understand certain things that God gives except He just give it in the mind. Then it's like we see it. It's like 2008 – why zero in on that date? Because God just gave it. It's about a final witness that was to start in 2008. It’s simple, like a simple phrase that's given. How do you build upon that? Well, that's the present truth, so what do you do with it? Going on:

“This is given by prophetic revelation and by no other means.” That was in reference to what God had just revealed about the 1335 days being about the sealing of the 144,000. Everything that comes from these verses must be by prophetic revelation, and God is doing so in the “progressive manner” that He has shown to us that He has been doing through the past 6,000 years. In February of 2008, I concluded more than I should have, as I did not realize that God had much more to reveal later about these verses.

Since that February of 2008 when God first began to first show that the 1335 days of Daniel was about the sealing of the 144,000, He has continued to progressively reveal more about the specifics of all this.

He didn't do it just all at once. We've gone through a lot just to get to this point in time right now. So what began to be revealed back then wasn't fully grasped until the Feast this year. That's a long time. Sometimes you go through a lot getting from point A to point B, but God's the one who reveals and you can't do it any faster. Going on:

It is really quite profound and exciting, as all this opened a way in which God would reveal more to us, which has everything to do with what we experienced over that 4½ years. These things could not begin to be more fully revealed until the time for the writing of this article, as Satan was not to know what God was going to fulfill.

That is an awesome thing to understand, that there are things that God gives through time. There were things even about Satan and even about his judgment he has learned about through time, and a lot of it here at the end-time. There are things Satan has understood about what God's specifically going to do, how He's going to do it, and yet there are general things that were given. He knows everything written in this book. He doesn't understand it, but they're written there. He doesn't have the mind to see it and grasp it because he doesn't have the holy spirit. He doesn't know God, in that respect. The angelic realm was not given the holy spirit. That's awesome to understand, and without the holy spirit there are things you cannot see nor grasp nor understand until God conveys it through His holy spirit, even in time as He reveals it. So to understand these things is awesome.

So it is with Satan, that there are things through time, through history, that God has revealed at different points about what He was doing and what He was saying that become a bad "Ah-ha" day for Satan, but they are "Ah-ha" days as he comes to have to address reality of what God is really doing with what He says. So it's been in the end-time here because God's given a lot, especially during this period of time here. So again:

These things could not begin to be more fully revealed until the time for the writing of this article, as Satan was not to know what God was going to fulfill. Neither could we know, so that this could accomplish a “work of faith” to refine, mature, and purify the Church.

So I'm going to repeat it again: What we went through during this period of time, even though we've gone through this in a sermon series, and are still going to go through it, you cannot fully grasp, to see it all clearly yet. It's coming and we have a lot more than what we had when going back to this period of time here when this was written several years ago. So God continues to build upon that, continues to help us see it more and more. We can read something and think, ah, we see it, and we don't. We don't grasp it all because it's something we have to build upon because it is on a spiritual plane. There is so much given in this particular article it candidly dumbfounds me about how God works, how He reveals things to us, how He is working in a spirit world, how He is working in this world and nations, how He's working in the Church, how He has been working in our lives and what we've gone through and why we've experienced things in the manner that we have, and it's perfect. God is all powerful and does things in a perfect way. He truly does, far beyond our ability to grasp and understand.

So it becomes a work of faith. We see, we experience, we believe, and we act upon what God has given us to believe, and we continue moving forward because of all that we've been given to see. That's why I continually mention the 57 Truths. That is your power. That is your strength because it's of the mind with God's spirit to grasp a fullness of things that He's giving because it's His mind. It's His word. It's the Word of God. The truth is the Word of God and it's things He reveals to us in understanding that is so profound. Going on:

The Feast of Trumpets 2008 was the day for the beginning of the final stage of God choosing those who were to become sealed…

Awesome! To finally be at the point of the firstfruits of those whom God has been working with, this is the last stage of it. Can you imagine? Because God's called everyone He's ever worked with and God is going to choose various ones and work with them – and we don't yet fully understand all this, of what this means. We may well not until it's all over with here. But how God's doing this, has He given it to several? Has He given it to a certain exact amount? I don't know. Has He given it to more and through that process there He will choose before they are sealed? I don't know. God hasn't revealed those things, but God's making it very clear that He's working with those who are going to have the opportunity to potentially become a part of the 144,000 and He will seal them when the time comes, those He's working with to do that in. I don't know all that and no one else can know all that. God knows and He hasn't chosen to give that yet.

The Feast of Trumpets 2008 was the day for the beginning of the final stage of God choosing those who were to become sealed within the complete and final count of all 144,000.

Not only that, but I thought I'd also mention but also those who would be rejected. There was a determination made in that period of time, 2012, especially through 2013, up through there, and even beginning as far back as 2008, of those who were going to be rejected. But finally, when we came down to that point in time and different ones who went through some of the things they did, God determined that there were going to be those who weren't going to be given such opportunity. That's a sobering thing to grasp and understand. Going on:

This final process of choosing those who were yet to become sealed to fulfill the complete count of 144,000 began on that Trumpets of 2008, but was not completed until Pentecost of 2012.

Why? Because the Church was going through testing and trying. God is going to bring various ones through a process to where some would be chosen, would be in the process of being able to be chosen, and others were rejected before that time was even finally completed there.

Obviously, almost all had already been sealed by that day of Trumpets 2008, while the few remaining to become sealed were chosen throughout the following 1335 days, including the very last day.

Again, just something revealed. There’s nothing to base it on, no scriptures, just revealed as a matter of fact. 2008 – God's Final Witness, that part in Daniel, the 1335 days was about the sealing, to understand it all, we didn't.

During that period of time and into the period of “final witness,” some would still be tried and tested to determine the final individuals who were yet to be chosen—[potentially] added—to be in this specific count of those who would reign with Christ.

I added "potentially" there in what I'm saying here verbally because there may be more who were chosen to be worked with. I don't know. That's in, totally in God's work and what He does.

Anyway, we're going to stop there today and pick up Part 8 next week.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1