An Extraordinary 4½ years, Pt. 8

Ron Weinland

January 20, 2018

This will be Part 8 of the series entitled An Extraordinary 4½ Years. Last week we ended at the end of the section with the subtitle "1335 Days" and we'll pick up those last two paragraphs and then continue on in the section that's subtitled "Daniel 12:11-12."

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.

As I mentioned last week, not only that, but this is also for those who would be rejected because from those things that happened in 2008 there were things from that period on, of what happened that summer and there were different individuals because of some of their reactions to what God was revealing in the Church, and for that reason alone, because of their response and their reaction, they were rejected from this, as well as finally becoming disfellowshipped from the Church, largely, obviously, because of their own choice. But those things have continued to happen through time, especially in the last 2,000 years within the Church: "Many are called and few are chosen." So those things are very sobering, and especially if we understand that in the end of an age that's healthy for us spiritually, to understand you have to fight for this way of life all the way to the end and you have to live and desire and want and love this way of life, to love the truths that God reveals to us, to embrace them, to be thankful for them.

When I think about those truths, just as I did this morning, I was thinking, "What an awesome thing! Because that reveals God. That reveals who God is," and I love those truths, and therefore, I love God. It's because of the truths that God gives to us that we love God because it reveals His mind. I hope we understand that. It reveals who He is. The truth, His way of life that He shares with us, that He helps us to see and understand, that's God. That's why I love the word, "the Word," "Logos," in scripture, because it has to do with an expression that Mr. Armstrong used to give, the definition of that is one that is the best that there really is. It's the revelatory thought of God. It's that power that God uses to reveal His being, His mind to us. His mind has to do with His way of life, His thinking.

That's the way it is with mankind as well. How we think is who we are. It's in your mind. It's your thinking that reveals who you are, your personality, the way you think, the way you live, the way you react to various things in life. That's all upstairs here in our thinking.

So continuing on here:

This final stage of choosing those who were yet to become sealed to fulfill the complete count of 144,000 began on that Trumpets of 2008…

Now, to me it's an amazing thing, and this has really happened in large part ever since the Apostasy, how God has been revealing truth to us. So many things we live through God reveals a little portion here and there, but then it's because of what we've experienced that He uses that to show us and to reveal to us why He's doing what He's doing, why He reveals to us what He does when He does, and He helps us to learn from the experience. He doesn't tell us right away what we're experiencing.

Just like the Apostasy, it wasn't known in the Church immediately what had happened. Nothing was known at all, in that respect, about a "man of sin," the "son of perdition" and all the things that were associated with that. All those things had not been revealed yet. So we had an experience of something in the Church that we didn't grasp and comprehend and the result of that was a third of the people, as a whole, quit observing anything. They just began to live their life without hope, without belief in God as they had in the past, because everything they had believed had been shattered in their thinking. Another third went back to what they were basically called out of, traditional Christianity, and another third just scattered all over the world in different groups and different ones coming together trying to hold on to some semblance of what they had believed in the past.

So it has been in recent time as well. I've learned a lot through this process how God works. He lets us experience things that we don't understand. He lets us go through things that we don't know: Why is this happening? Why are we living through this? Why did this happen to us? Why? Why? Why? And it's because of that experience that we're tested and tried. We're experiencing something we don't grasp, we don't understand, and then God begins to show us. If we hold fast, if we remain true, if we seek His continual guidance and direction to show us what is taking place, what is happening, He'll show us in His time. But first we have to be tried and tested, because that's how we grow. There is no other way to grow. We have to go through difficult things. We have to go through hardships.

Again here, "This final process of choosing those who were to become sealed to fulfill the complete count of 144,000 began on that Trumpets of 2008." So even here, again, the reason I said what I just did, is because we haven't understood all this that we've gone through. God has revealed segments at times. He revealed that something began at that time – actually, back to February, like I'd mentioned earlier – that Daniel 12 was about the sealing. Now, we didn't understand about what all that meant and because there's just a segment of what we were given it took time for God to put the whole picture together, all the way to this past Feast of Tabernacles when God revealed the final portion of what that was all about, of what we'd experienced. Going on here:

…but was not completed until Pentecost of 2012. Obviously, almost all had already been sealed by that day of Trumpets 2008…

In other words, if you look through time most had been sealed already. God's work is coming to a close. And as I mentioned last Sabbath, it's hard for us to grasp the excitement, the mind, what we call "feelings," of things we experience, but the excitement God has for where He is in time, that we're at the end of an age before His Son comes to this earth to fulfill all those things that God had revealed, has been revealing in a progressive manner in the past 6,000 years about a Messiah, about the Kingdom of God reigning on the earth. So it's been a long, long time and it goes back a lot farther than that. It goes back before the creation of the angelic realm, God's desire for a family, and then to have worked for 6,000 years for the firstfruits, the first portion of that family is incredible, and to know that God just worked with individuals, as a whole, sometimes two or more, but very few, as a whole, in the first 4,000 years. Then the Church began and God began to work with many more people, hundreds, and thousands even at times in the Body of Christ, in the Church of God.

To know then that finally we're at a segment of time where the last few were going to be chosen who would be those with whom He'd work to potentially become a part of the 144,000, because God hasn't told us all that yet. I don't know, we don't know, God hasn't revealed it if He has chosen those in that period of time that He already knows in every way that are going to be able to be molded and fashioned to be a part of it or whether there are others that have been worked with and chosen to continue on, and then out of that portion there there will come a sealing. I don't know. We don't know and we don't have to worry about that. God's in charge. Whatever is best for us, whatever is right in God's family, will be there because God's all powerful, all mighty, and He brings things to their absolute perfection.

So again, the fact that we have opportunity, at the minimal, which is so incredibly awesome, to live on into a new age in the Church of God, to have begun now and to continue on and to have opportunities then that we can't comprehend is astounding. Because the fact that God has worked with various ones here at the end of an age is awesome enough by itself, but to think of what we have gone through, because those who have had opportunity to live in this world in the Church of God and then on into a new age have incredible opportunities in front of them. If we could only grasp that. We can't grasp that to the depth of what's going to be the experience that we have later on for those who live in that.

So continuing on:

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. 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 [and I added to that "potentially" last week] —added—to be in this specific count of those who would reign with Christ.

Now, in this section, continuing on now:

Daniel 12:11-12

Those verses in Daniel 12 are indeed “obscure” until God gives His spirit to communicate its truth to the mind of those whom He will. Before more is given concerning what God is now continuing to reveal in what these mean, I think it is important to share with you my own excitement and thankfulness for what I am experiencing as I have been writing this article and even more so concerning these verses.

Now, to me it's incredible to think this was in 2013 this is being written! To go back that many years and to know all that we have come to see and understand, and a book that's been written that brings it even to greater depth of understanding far beyond what we had at this point, is to me incredible. So I'm sharing at this particular time of something that God is giving and it's always inspiring. Any time God continues to reveal truth, reveal more to us about why we are experiencing what we are, continues to reveal more understanding of truth to us, it's always inspiring and exciting. So it goes on to say here as I wrote:

I have not experienced this to the degree of this manner since I wrote 2008 – God’s Final Witness, when God revealed what was to be written as I was writing.

I've mentioned this many times and I think it's important that we understand this, again, just to make it clear there is a difference in how God works with us at different times. When the book The Prophesied End-Time was written I knew where it was going. I knew the various chapters that were to be there. I knew what I was to write about and had very large input in that because of what we'd already experienced. It was more about what we'd experienced as a Church and of the truths of God that He'd given to that point in time. But the next book, every time I thought I knew where it was going it didn't go that way. I was just being given what I was given as I was writing it. And to me, that was an awesome experience, an inspiring experience. This here was exactly the same way so that's why I made that comparison.

I have not experienced this to the degree of this manner since I wrote 2008 – God’s Final Witness, when God revealed what was to be written as I was writing.

The same is true now, and in the same manner as it was then, when I thought I knew what was going to be addressed next in writing, but God simply led me into what I did not know and had not known of what He wanted written.

That's an incredible thing. You think you know maybe where something is going and all of a sudden something else is given in the mind and you're able to continue writing it. To me that's an awesome thing that God gives, has given to different ones through time in scripture that's written. Continuing on:

There is no easy way to explain this, but it is exciting and inspiring when the mind is suddenly shown things of God that have not been known before.

The same is true with us. When we get to that point and we hear something it's like that "ah-ha" moment and it's like, "Why couldn't I see this before?" All of a sudden it's clear in the mind. The mind is opened up to something that we didn't grasp before. So there's a means by which God gives that to the Church, always has been, and will continue on in time.

The verse, “After the daily sacrifice shall be [or "shall begin to be," as it should be in understanding] taken away” is about the fulfillment of how the true sacrifice of our Passover works in our lives on a daily basis through repentance and the forgiveness of sins. “In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sin” (Col. 1:14). For those who came [or have come] to a moment in time that they were [or are] sealed [and/or even chosen to become sealed] as one of the 144,000 the work of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ had accomplished "its work" in them.

That's amazing to understand, that when someone comes to the point in time where they've actually been sealed then it is obvious that work which God has been doing. What is that work? To bring someone to a point of sealing. It is a process of repentance. It is a process of transformation. So as we yield to God we are being transformed, but most of that process involves repentance. We are constantly repenting day by day by day, of wrong things that we do, think, say, act upon, or whatever it might be, because we still do.

That's difficult sometimes for people to address. Sometimes I have talked to individuals about certain matters and I realize they still haven't come to a point of ownership of their own sins, of their own errors, of their own mistakes. That's where repentance comes in. We have to own our choices, the choices we make, and all of our choices are not correct choices!

Just as I mentioned here – I don't know if it was two weeks ago or whenever – about judgment, and our first judgment, that just because we're in the Church of God, just because we have God's spirit dwelling in us, does not mean that the first thought that comes into our mind when we're thinking about a matter or getting ready to judge a matter in the sense of whatever it might be (in someone else's life generally especially), especially others (because that's the way we are), that that first judgment, if we really understood it, is most often incorrect. Because our first reaction in life, as a whole, as human beings to something that happens, to where it might spur or create or cause a response from us in judgment comes from self, comes from our thinking, from the carnality of our human life. It truly does. "The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life," because that's how we are. That's just our thinking. Our first response is not spiritual, as a whole, as human beings. That's what we have to battle. We have to look to God. We have to conscientiously think about God's word, God's way, God's mind, God's thinking, God's laws when we think about matters having to do with human life, especially in matters of judgment or whatever it might be, and to realize and understand that "I need to be wary of what first comes out of this. Primarily out of this mouth." I have to be wary of that. I have to be careful of that. That's where my battle is. That's where your battle is. That's what we have to watch!

So those are the things that we have to repent of, to recognize or to fight against at least and to look for God for help and to thank Him when we're able to bring those things into check, bring those things into subjection, our thinking into subjection to God's way. That's spiritual. That's what spirituality is. It doesn't just naturally come out of us. What naturally comes out of us is self, and that's so hard, it seems like, for the carnal human mind—impregnated with God's spirit, yes—but for the carnal human mind to admit over and over day by day by day. When you get into the habit of that more and more, the more spiritual you'll become, the more spiritual your life will indeed be and the quicker you'll be able to address those kinds of things when they pop up and when they happen.

So again here, I'll just catch the whole sentence again: "For those who came to a moment in time that they were sealed as one of the 144,000 the work of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ had accomplished ‘its work’ in them," because to become sealed means you're guaranteed, in essence. As far as God is concerned you're in His Kingdom. There is no more calling. There is no more choosing. It's done. You're sealed, and the next thing, ever how long it is before you even die, you're going to be in His Family. It's done. So the work of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ "has accomplished ‘its work.’" That doesn't mean it stops. That doesn't mean you're not going to keep having things you have to repent of, because you do, after you're sealed as well. There are people who are sealed right now who are going to be a part of 144,000. It's just a reality of life. I think of the time when God told Abraham, "Now I know you." That's powerful! In essence, he was sealed. God knew what he would do under all circumstances, all situations in life, and He knew he was going to be in His family. There was no if, ands, or buts about it. It's just a reality. So it is with different ones as God brings them along to that point in time.

So the question, "How?"

How? As a person repents of sin and is able to be forgiven through the blood of the Passover sacrifice, then God and Christ will continue working in them to transform them. Once this complete transformation process had been completed and they could be sealed [and even chosen to become sealed for those few remaining], then the work that the daily sacrifice was doing had fulfilled its purpose in their life…

To me that's beautiful! The work, the work of Jesus Christ, the daily sacrifice, because that's what we had to have until a point of time of sealing, in essence, to the point of time of God saying, "You're in My Kingdom. Not changed yet, but you're in My Kingdom. You're in the family." It's absolutely guaranteed. Awesome! So the work of the Passover to bring us to that point in time is what's exceedingly important. That gives better understanding then if you grasp what's being said about Daniel 12 and its importance about the sealing and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ in it to bring us to that point in time.

…then the work that the daily sacrifice was doing had fulfilled its purpose in their life and the person was “set” in character and conviction – readied for the change to Elohim.

That's inspiring! That's awesome! That's exciting! That's what, to me, is so moving by all these things; it is that God is giving us more and more insight, has through time here, of how this process works. We haven't understood these. We didn't understand this in Philadelphia. We definitely didn't understand it during Laodicea, but as we get close to His family being here on earth, as we get closer to the coming of His Son Jesus Christ, God is sharing with us more and more understanding of these things, of how these things work. I don't know about you, but the more we learn about this the more exciting it is, the more inspiring it is. Going on:

The fact that it shall be taken away as a “saving” process in their life is absolute – it is done, for they are sealed [and for these final ones chosen to be sealed].

To at least have that potential, whatever that means that God hasn't fully revealed yet. Going on:

This does not mean that such a person will no longer sin, for they will, but their process for sealing is complete and they are at a stage of spiritual maturity that they will always repent and always be forgiven.

Awesome. They're set, the mind, the character.

This beginning phase in verse 11 is about the 144,000 who are sealed and those who were chosen to become sealed throughout the 1335 days. God is making it clear that this is first in importance, just as it is given first in these final verses of Daniel concerning the final events that must be fulfilled in the end-time so that all can then be “finished” – completed….

So the terminology in Daniel there is obscure for a purpose. So many things in the Bible are so that people can't understand it by what they read. Just like the parables, when Jesus Christ spoke in parables. Even today in traditional Christianity, they think they understand the parables and they don't get it because they don't know God. They don't know the plan of God. They don't know the purpose of God. They don't know the way God works in our lives. They don't know the truth of God so they don't understand those parables, yet they think they do. And yet, it's still hidden. Those things are still hidden to people. We only truly come to understand the parables and what Christ was saying after we come into the Church, and then they begin to fit into place, they begin to fit into the understanding of God's purpose and God's plan for life and how it's going to be accomplished. Going on:

This had to be fulfilled to complete God’s government that will reign under Christ during that time. The complete sealing and choosing of those to become sealed was fulfilled by Pentecost, May 27, 2012. This had completed a process revealing God’s greatest power of creation. This was in the creation of Elohim – the first great phase in that which is revealed in the firstfruits. It was a creation of 6,000 years in the making. This is truly awesome!

So even as I'm going through this I'll tell you what, even as I'm going through this right now, Daniel 12 to me is screaming out even louder and louder, seeing it clearer and clearer as we're going through some of these things and why God wrote this in the manner that He did, had it inspired, be given to Daniel in the way that He did, and how, in essence, every word has great significance if we understand God's purpose and what He's doing.

1290 Days

As it has been covered before concerning the counting recorded in these verses of Daniel, the 1335 days is followed by a second count of 1290 days, with both ending at the same time on May 27, 2012. This marked the opening of the final seal – the Seventh Seal of Revelation. It is apropos that this period is tied directly into the final 1260 days of witness by a prophetic period of “silence” in heaven. This is an interesting word in Greek as it has to do with an expression “to hiss” as in trying to quiet everyone to listen to something special that is about to be given.

It's amazing how some of these words sometimes in Hebrew, or whatever, you read something and you see it at one time and it's just, "What do you mean?" It doesn't make sense. Then when it's time and God gives it it's like, "Oh, well that makes sense." So it's for the purpose of quieting everyone down to listen to something that God is going to be giving. That's what it's about, trying to quiet a group of people down that they might listen.

God has revealed that these 1290 days were about Satan and the demonic world.

As we go through this section here I can't help but think about how God through time, primarily with mankind, has revealed or done things that reveal things to Satan and the demonic world, and to the angelic realm, frankly, that they never knew. They haven't known what God's been doing throughout the 6,000 years. When He created Adam and Eve they didn't know what this was all going to lead to. They didn't understand God's plan because He didn't tell them! He revealed it in time progressively in the same manner that we can go into this book and see things are progressively revealed. That's how they learn. The angelic realm that's remained faithful to God rejoices when they see something more come to fruition.

They didn't understand about Jesus Christ and what those scriptures of old meant and things that were said back there even in the beginning of Genesis, about one to be born, about what it meant, and things that had to do with Satan, expressions back there in Genesis at the very beginning of what God had said He was going to do to Satan in the sense of him licking the dust of the earth as a serpent and what that meant. They had no idea what that meant! He didn't look like a serpent! He was never made to look like a serpent! And yet people think this in the mind because we think physically, "Oh, he must have this serpent kind of look to him." Duh! Sorry, but we as human beings, we just can't help it until God reveals this anyway. But we come up with these things in our mind that have to do with something physical because that's all we can think like, if you will. That's the way we think.

But to understand something when God gives it is so much different. It's exciting. It's inspiring because it's the truth. So this here is exciting because God's been revealing a lot to the spirit realm. He's been revealing a lot in the past, well, since 2008, things about Satan, things about the demonic world, things that are going to happen to Satan that they have not understood even though they're written in plain language, in many respects, but they can’t know until God shows what those things mean. And how does He do that? That's why it talks about angels desiring to listen to what God gives to His people. They have a desire to hear because that's where it's made public. That's where it begins to come out. That's where it's first given. So when God gives something to different ones, especially in the Church in the last 2,000 years, that's when it's given. They learn from that and those who have been faithful to God, they rejoice. The others? Well, not so much. Going on:

God has revealed that these 1290 days were about Satan and the demonic world. Although it was not revealed to the angelic realm what this period was all about as it began, God gave them a “sense of knowing” that this period of silence was an incredibly important moment in time that would lead up to the final time of witness in the “1260-day count” that would follow 30 days later.

So again here, a lot of this in that respect at that time was more to do with the spirit realm and what was going to be given to them in understanding of a part of God's plan. Because, remember, it's not just about Elohim. So there are things being given at this moment in time that have to do with the angelic realm and for us as well. So when God's revealing things and what God is working out here, as I've been mentioning in previous sermons here in this entire series, in essence, is that God is revealing things to the Church. He's giving us greater understanding, but He's also revealing things in the spirit realm because there are things being worked with in a physical world, the entirety of the earth, nations of this earth right now and what's coming to pass, what's getting ready to come to pass, things happening between nations right now that are heating up on a continual basis, and things happening in a spirit realm and what God is going to do very shortly now. This is not a small thing, if we have the perspective of billions, trillions of years, which I can't comprehend, whatever it's been, and thinking of the spirit realm and that relationship that the spirit realm had, the angelic realm had with each other over all that period of time. It was a family on a spirit plane, angelic beings different from what Elohim will be, but still a family. And then to see and experience a rebellion that they did later on in time and those that chose to follow that rebellion? Incredible what took place! So God's working within a spirit realm as well. As He's bringing His plan to pass those things are continually being revealed to that spirit realm. For many as to what their judgment is, and to others to see God's plan magnified and come to a conclusion in the sense of God's family, or at least be getting closer to that period of time.

So this is an awesome thing here, this period of time and what God is revealing here because we didn't know it. We haven't known what this meant in the sense of who it's directed toward and neither did they, neither did Satan and the demons, and neither did the angelic realm.

God has revealed that these 1290 days were about Satan and the demonic world. Although it was not revealed to the angelic realm what this period was all about as it began, God gave them a “sense of knowing” that this period of silence was an incredibly important moment in time that would lead up to the final time of witness in the “1260-day count” that would follow 30 days later.

The time of final witness was about “testimony” [witness; witness being established] that would be established as a matter of God’s righteous judgment of the world.

God's established that throughout time, but this time is more important, in one respect, because it's the end of 6,000 years. So God is, if you will, re-establishing that, but establishing it in this age, at the end of an age, because He's been doing it through time. But this is different, in one respect, because it's right up next to the time of Jesus Christ's return, of establishing His Kingdom and of what is going to testify of man for 6,000 years, because it has never changed. So this time becomes a final witness, a final testimony, and now finally judgment, final judgment, if you will, though it's written in scripture, those things, of what they've been through time.

The time of final witness was about “testimony” that would be established as a matter of God’s righteous judgment of the world. This 3½ year period was about final testimony of what this world has been like for 6,000 years, as God and His ways have continually been rejected by mankind, and that the Church and those specifically sent by God into the world have always been hated, rejected, and persecuted. In a world of modern technology, that witness was powerfully and firmly established.

Once the final witness was established, the world received its final judgment that God will bring upon it when the physical manifestation of all seven trumpets will be revealed…

You know, this is important, because God judges, does things in judgment in a righteous manner. That's why these things are necessary, to establish that righteousness and to establish that just judgment, if you will, righteous judgement, if you will, that God is bringing upon this world. It's just that now we live at that time and it has to be established once again, finally.

Once the final witness was established, the world received its final judgment that God will bring upon it when the physical manifestation of all seven trumpets will be revealed (and then completed) in the final prophetic “Day of the Eternal” (which God has now revealed is a final period of 50 days which ends when Christ and the 144,000 are established in the Kingdom of God on earth).

So even then we didn't know what that period was. We knew it was coming. What did we believe before in 2012, 2008, 2010? One day. God was going to accomplish everything in one day because it was a judgment, a judgment to be executed without change, without mercy, without added time. It was just going to be swift and powerful and would do an incredible amount of destruction. In other words, I don't know if we comprehend it, so much destruction that it's at a level of what the world has done to itself before that. We're talking about a lot of destruction that God Almighty is going to bring upon this earth because of what mankind has done. It's going to be on specific peoples because it's about Him destroying those who are destroying the earth. And that's going to be a lot, obviously.

Anyway, so now we know the period of time and how God's going to use that in a different way because before there wasn't a matter of offering grace, offering mercy, offering time to people to change, to repent, and therefore, that God would not send certain plagues upon them, because we're talking about the final seven last plagues. But now if they would repent, if a whole nation like Russia or if Germany in that period of time were to repent, those plagues would not be unleashed on them as they otherwise would have been in 2012. Whether they will or whether they won't we don't know, but the potential is there, and that would be an awesome thing. But this is the period of pouring out those particular plagues. If by that time they will be sobered into reality and begin to repent God will have mercy on them. Awesome! Otherwise, as a whole they're going to experience incredible devastation. Going on:

However, before that physical manifestation of final judgment could begin, there was also another great judgment that had to be established as the result of God’s final witness through His two witnesses and the Church concerning Satan and the demonic realm. Not only must the rule of mankind be righteously brought to an end, but Satan’s rule must also be brought to an end before the Millennium can be established. During that final witness of 3½ years, God established His final testimony and the setting of His righteous judgment against Satan and the demons that will begin to be carried out at the return of Jesus Christ as King of kings.

Now, we've known what God's going to do in that period of time, that during the thousand years Satan and the demonic world will not have ability to function in a world anymore, in this earth with mankind, and will not be able to do what they've done over the past 6,000 years. There's going to be a separation made, ever how God does that, but they're not going to have that ability any longer. Incredible! But how far that goes and what follows this we haven't known.

God began with the revelation of the meaning of the 1335 days for the work of completing the final count of the 144,000…

Now, as I'm reading this I think 1290, 1335, time, times and a half a time, 1260 days, 1290 days, going on and on. All these days we have 1290 and 1260, and after a while it's like, "Yikes!" for some. Others like things like math and like numbers. I understand there's that difference within the Church and if you don't like numbers, that's fine, but please understand that God is very methodical and that all these have great meaning to them and the meaning is what's important. The timing, God always works out the timing, and works it out methodically so, exactly so. You read different things in history and what God has done at various times; it’s incredible – to the exact day, to the exact moment, to the exact time. All powerful, all mighty, things we can't comprehend. So if numbers bother you, don't worry about numbers. But the meaning of them and what they're about, that's important.

God began with the revelation of the meaning of the 1335 days for the work of completing the final count of the 144,000 who will be in God’s government that will be established at Christ’s return.

Again, I'm sorry but I just can't help be in awe of this, to marvel at this because of thinking about God's excitement, that here He's at the last portion now of His 144,000. That's far more than all the galaxies and everything else and all the places that He created within the universe! It’s far more important! This is what God has been working toward. So for that excitement to be there for God, that now that first phase of His family is almost there, it's beyond our comprehension about the excitement and the joy of God Almighty to have come to this point in time. We can't grasp that! We really can't. We can try to appreciate it, and indeed I hope we're learning to appreciate that more and more as we go through this series, but these things are exciting to God in ways that we really can't comprehend because He has worked so long to come to this point in time. That's why this choosing of the last group is so important to God and why there's been this emphasis put upon it, that it's His final choosing. That's exciting because this is it; this is it for that first phase of God's plan for 1,000 years. In other words, things that are going to happen for a thousand years, the millennial period, but that family was already established at the beginning of it and God worked for a long, long time with human beings, for 6,000 years to bring us to this point.

God began with the revelation of the meaning of the 1335 days for the work of completing the final count of the 144,000 who will be in God’s government that will be established at Christ’s return. The 1260 days was a time of witness to bring an end to man’s self-rule. But the 1290 days is about a count that results in Satan’s final judgment as his government is brought to an end at the same time that man’s self-rule is brought to an end and God’s government is established.

That's an awesome thing to understand, that God brings it all together at one moment in time; here it is.

At this point, I am going to return to that sermon of February 2, 2008. There is another statement that needs to be quoted here. It is about those verses in Daniel 12, but this time it is in reference to the 1290 days: “We have 45 days (from the beginning of the 1335 days) before the work of the abomination of desolation will be ended.”

Now, this means a lot because when you think about the abomination of desolation we think about what happened in the Church. That's incredible, but what God revealed later on that's happening in a spirit world, that's incredible. That's what this is about; seeks to destroy, the man of sin, the son of perdition and what he did, and yet there is that which happened in the spirit realm and what a being did.

It was clear that the 1290 days was about the abomination of desolation. As many of us in early 2008 had gone through the experience of the 1994 Apostasy, we knew that it [speaking of the abomination of desolation] was about the abomination that desolated the Church. Jesus had told us about the commission of Herbert W. Armstrong (which Mr. Armstrong knew was about himself and the Church) that was recorded in Matthew 24:14 of the gospel (good news) “going into all the world as a witness unto all nations.” After that was accomplished, then Christ explained that the end-time would come and that we would then see the abomination of desolation stand in the holy place (the Church).

Our understanding of truth to that moment in time (Feb. 2008 and even to now) was Truth #25: “The Abomination of Desolation is about what Joseph Tkach did in the Church.” There is more that now needs to be added to that understanding.

So this is under the heading of "The Abomination of Desolation." Again, just 2013.

The Abomination of Desolation

The Abomination of Desolation is indeed about what Joseph Tkach, Sr. did in the Church. An “abomination” in the Greek is that which is “detested and abhorred,” specifically concerning idolatry. Due to his giving that infamous sermon of December 17, 1994, Joseph Tkach did become the prophesied “man of sin” and “son of perdition” of 2 Thessalonians 2. In a detestable and most abhorrent act, he turned against God and Christ by seeking to destroy the most basic doctrines of God’s Church and sought to replace them with the false doctrines of “traditional Christianity.” On the day that sermon was given Jesus Christ opened the First Seal of Revelation.

To me I marvel at what God's revealed about these things and how we've learned through time what this was all about. Going on:

This began with Satan’s attempt to destroy God’s Church.

He's tried over and over and over again to thwart God's plan in any way he could, never understanding he can't.

Desolation did come upon God’s Church that had grown spiritually weak and lukewarm. But God’s Church was not destroyed, as a remnant was quickly brought to repentance and restored. God allowed this event of an apostasy to occur in His Church as part of His purpose to teach some of the greatest lessons yet concerning His purpose and means of creating Elohim.

I hope we don't get bored with some of this stuff, because this is awesome what God is revealing to us, what He gives to us, that He's revealing to us more of these kinds of things and that which is important to God must be important to us or we don't grasp what we've been given. We have to see ourselves; we need to see ourselves as a part of it. God's desire for Elohim is far beyond our comprehension in what He's offering us and if He's offering that to us we need to grasp that and be so thankful for it.

The actions of Joseph Tkach were an abomination before God and His Church, and those actions did bring horrible desolation upon the Church; but the one behind it all was the Adversary of God, the true Destroyer and Desolator, the teacher of abominations – Satan.

I marvel that that which happened in the spiritual realm God not only allowed but designed and purposed that at the end of an age before His Kingdom would come that this being would be the one who would lead the very same thing that happened in the spirit realm, but this time to people who were begotten of God's holy spirit, who were to become Elohim. That's awesome. That's truly awesome. To happen in the spirit realm is one thing, but to happen to individuals who are impregnated with the holy spirit of God? That's a whole another matter. Do we understand the difference there and the importance of that?

The angels were never given God's holy spirit. They'd never been impregnated with it. They've never had that access in their life save what God revealed to them, communicated to them. They don't have God's holy spirit dwelling in them. That's another life. That's a different life. That's Elohim. God uses that when He works with human beings to impregnate them with a portion of His being. His holy spirit, it's a very portion of God. The angelic beings are created spirit in composition, but not of the holy spirit. Now, that's a marvel to understand that, to understand that after 6,000 years and in the Church of God, in the very Body of Christ, those who had been impregnated with God's holy spirit, that this same being is once again going to be not only influential but the one who is able to have power within the Church to do what he did? The original one who has created all the abominations and done all the things he has through time is now going to be able to do within an individual—within an individual by great influence – not just great influence but great power—to cause him to become the "man of sin," the "son of perdition," by his choice.

So, incredible here what's being said.

Paul was inspired to write of this “man of sin”: “whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power, signs, and lying wonders” (2 Thes. 2:9).

How could this ever have happened in God's own Church by people begotten of God's holy spirit? But God not only allowed it to happen, He planned for it to happen. Some would say, "Well, that's just not fair." Oh, yes it is. We all have free choice. We didn't have to choose, you know. We choose what we do through time. He didn't make us do these things, but He knew what we'd do as human beings under certain conditions, especially following a period of Philadelphia when so much truth was restored in the Church, and a ministry and a Church began to be lifted up with pride and haughtiness and began to think that we have all that we need. And not only that, but to begin to lose it through time because it was becoming lukewarm and not grasping the significance of what had been given, but were lifted up with pride, nevertheless, and the pride didn't go away. The pride stayed there. Haughtiness and pride and forgetting how we are called and how we're worked with and forgetting who God worked through to give them the truth that they had, to where they came to a point in time where some might acknowledge, "Well, he was a great minister and he taught me a lot of good things." But to acknowledge he was God's apostle? They couldn't do it. People couldn't do it anymore in the same regard. Ministers couldn't.

So that's an awesome thing, what God did. To me, it's an awesomely beautiful thing. You might think, "Oh, how could that be beautiful?" Because it helps to create Elohim. It helps to create Elohim in the future. It helps to create Elohim throughout the Millennium and the Great White Throne in ways that otherwise could not because people are going to be able to look back and be told this story that's far more important than any other story, as a whole, that's ever happened in the world. What happened with the Apostasy is indeed one of the greatest stories if not the greatest of all time. It truly is. Incredible to understand that! It is the greatest of all time of what a human being can do who's impregnated with God's holy spirit; that you can still turn against God. You can still turn against God. You can let down. You can become lukewarm. God does not accept that which is lukewarm. That's one of the greatest lessons that man could ever be taught.

Think what people are going to live through in the Millennium. Got it made. Jesus Christ is there. People are going to be born into a world where Jesus Christ and 144,000 are present. They will see them. They will have opportunities of talking with them at times and that will become their norm. Do you know what they're going to be taught? Don't become lukewarm. Don't become lukewarm. Look at your history. Look at the history of the Church and what can happen. You need to be on guard against your own human nature. People in the Millennium are going to have to be taught that. They're going to have to be taught some of the same kinds of things you're taught – to be watchful of your own thoughts, your own judgments, because that doesn't change. We’re still human beings. We’re still ruled by carnal human nature.

It's one of the greatest lessons ever taught, ever given to mankind, of what you can do with God's holy spirit. We see the evidence in God's Church over and over and over again, people going their own way, coming up with their own ideas, giving into various pulls of the flesh, whatever it might be, giving in to different ideas that they come up with and misconstrue in their own minds, doing whatever, thinking they can get by with certain things. It’s still happening to this day in God's Church and it's not going to stop until we're almost to the end. Then at that point in time people are going to be so scared to the core of their being—which it could be a healthy thing—that they'll be more watchful of their own human nature. Sad we have to be that way and we have to go through things like that.

But, see, this is still going on. People are still being put out of God's Church. People are still being suspended from God's Church. It still goes on. It's wearisome. It's wearisome. I don't like having to go through that with people in those situations, but I know it's a part of a reality; it's a part of life, and if we could only get the message: Hold on to this way of life. Fight for this way of life. Cry out to God as you've never cried out because we're almost there and what a shame to come this far and to give into something else in the world or something else, whatever it is that we raise up in importance rather than God and commit spiritual idolatry because that's what happens. I wish it weren't so, and I hate to see it happen, but it continues on.

The actions of Joseph Tkach were an abomination before God and His Church, and those actions did bring horrible desolation upon the Church; but the one behind it all was the Adversary of God, the true Destroyer and Desolator, the teacher of abominations – Satan. Paul was inspired to write of this “man of sin”: “whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power, signs, and lying wonders” (2 Thes. 2:9).

I remember giving a sermon on that when God first gave understanding of that down in Georgia. We were down there and going through this here and talking about some of this and I thought, "How incredible, what we went through." We went through it without knowing this had been fulfilled, knowing what this even meant, that because of what had happened that there was tremendous power – spiritual, on a spirit plane – because Satan was allowed because of the human weakness, because of people being cut off from God because of what happened in the Apostasy, so much had already been cut off from God. God does not tolerate and work with that which is lukewarm. He won't dwell in that.

So what finally happened by the time of the Apostasy was more in a sense of a formality or that which was a finalization of something that had been ongoing for a long time, where finally all by that point in time (God made it clear) had been spewed out of His mouth. But it didn't happen all at one time, just at that moment in time; it had been taking place for several years! Different ones were being cut off from God right and left to where there wasn't much left in the Church of God that hadn't been cut off from the flow of God's spirit in their life. I hope that makes sense to you because when you become lukewarm you get cut off from God's spirit.

It just talks about in Laodicea, that this finally, this expression there of vomiting the Church out, was just a matter of a reality of something that had been going on for a long time anyway. It's just like when people finally do separate from the body or are put out, or whatever takes place, it doesn't happen overnight. It's been going on for weeks and months and years and it sometimes shocks people when they come to that point in time, "Really? I didn't know they were…" Shocking! Because we get into a phase of life where we can live a lie. We can go through the motions of going to Sabbath services and going to holy days and talking the talk like we're a part when we're outside, actually out there in the courtyard messing around, as I've talked about, and we're not accepted if we're out in the courtyard.

We're only accepted if we're in the temple, worshipping in the temple of God, you know, filled with the spirit of God, crying out for the spirit of God every day of our life. "I need Your holy spirit dwelling in me! Please continue to fill me with Your spirit!" Because without it, brethren, we're nothing! If you're separated from the Body of Christ without His spirit then we're nothing. What do we have? We just have human life like everyone else has, but we've been offered this life with His spirit so that we can see and grasp and understand.

Christ warned about an “Abomination of Desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet” that would “stand in the holy place” in the end-time. This is about Satan who was made to stand in the midst of God’s own Church once Joseph Tkach gave that sermon which quickly resulted in a third of the Church receiving and accepting that abhorrent sermon. Another third simply gave up on any kind of “religion” altogether.

It was an abomination that wreaked havoc and devastation upon God’s Church, but it is Satan who is the father of abominations and “his way” is desolation and destruction. Daniel’s prophecy of the 1290 days is about Satan…

So when do you think that Satan learned of this? When do you think the angelic realm learned of this? They learned the same time the Church of God learned this, and they didn't learn it before. They didn't know it before, but here it was given. So they're learning as they come down to their end. They're being brought to a matter of judgment and being told about that judgment and what's going to happen to them and the timing involved and that God's fulfilling timing right in the midst of them, right under their own nose and they haven't known it. Though they know there's coming consequence of things that took place, they haven't understood the details of all by any measure.

Daniel’s prophecy of the 1290 days is about Satan and how God righteously established the completion of Satan’s final judgment during the period of God’s final witness.

I'm just going to tell you right now we do not grasp the depth of the importance of that. We can read this and we can accept it for what it says, but to understand its importance and what God did at this period of time and to understand the significance of this period of time that's being addressed in this sermon series, of an extraordinary 4½ years, it really is still beyond us in appreciation and ability to grasp it. This period of time is so incredibly important to God's Church, and to God's people, and to God's plan. And in time we'll come to see it more and more, even as through this series we're coming to see some things more and more. So going on:

There is so much more that God will give to us concerning what He gave to be recorded in the final chapters of Daniel. These chapters are about the means and process whereby God will usher in a time of righteous rule upon the earth through His Son. At the same time, this is about God bringing an end to Satan’s rule. God is beginning to give us a “thumbnail overview” of what all this in Daniel entails, and He will then later reveal the complete picture as He fills in the details of the rest of the pieces.

I’ve often wondered in recent years (when considering end-time events recorded in Daniel) why God was not revealing more to us about things like the king of the south and the king of the north. There have been many interpretations of such things, as people have sought to fit in ideas about Europe, the Middle East, the United States, as well as Russia and China into possible scenarios. But these prophecies have a different purpose and meaning. Much of the context of Chapter 9 in Daniel is about God raising up the Messiah who will be given the reign of God’s new government once He brings Satan’s rule over the earth to an end. The dialogue through all this is about wars (spiritual) that build up to the final end of Satan’s rule and the establishment of the Kingdom of God to rule.

From the beginning of the Book of Daniel to the dream he interpreted for Nebuchadnezzar, this book works forward to the time of the end (the end of man’s self-rule under the overall reign of Satan) when the great transition of this earth’s government will occur: “Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floor; and the wind carried them away, and no place was found for them: and the stone that smote (struck hard) the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth” (Dan. 2:35).

“And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed, and the kingdom shall not be left to others, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever” (Dan. 2:44).

We tend to think of in terms, well, one kingdom came and it's already fallen, and another kingdom, but it's about all the ideas and the concepts and the ways of governing of man through time because man is man and he doesn't look to God; he looks to any other means possible and God's bringing it all to an end.

Satan’s Judgment Set

Satan’s rule “has been brought” to an end. As far as God’s judgment and its reality, it is over! We are now in a final transition from that rule being brought to an end to that of God’s government being established. All that remains is the humbling of mankind as the Trumpets of Revelation are fulfilled. All that is remaining is the “physical manifestation” of this transition in government on the earth.

When reading this I can't help but think of what the spirit world is still learning, what they're being told, and of a being, that if he comes to grasp what's being said here, comes to understand what's being told; he can't destroy God's Church. God's Church is set, as a whole. Those final ones that are being worked with, it's almost there, 144,000, as far as the sealing is concerned and everything that Satan has fought against, worked against. So what does he do at the end? Because it comes to a point where he can't affect the Church. There will still be certain things a spirit world likes to mess with and tries to lead people astray. That doesn't end. But as a whole, for the 144,000, that process is out of his control and he can't make changes in that.

At some point here he's going to turn to the world. He hasn't done that yet. His power that has been given to him, that he has been striving to attack God's Church over for a period of time, there comes a realization in time he can't do anything more about it. He can't touch it. He can try all he wants; he can't touch it. It’s awesome to understand that. So he turns on the world because he's going to destroy all that he can. We are so close to those things taking place.

All that remains is the humbling of mankind as the Trumpets of Revelation are fulfilled. All that is remaining is the “physical manifestation” of this transition in government on the earth.

That which is recorded in the final chapters of Daniel is incredible and has been hidden – closed and sealed – since Daniel recorded it.

These chapters contain some of the most awesome, astounding, and truly exciting revelation of prophecy yet. It hasn’t been long since God gave to us much clearer insight and understanding into the Seventy Weeks Prophecy about Christ in Daniel 9. The last verse, in the context of the transition of earth’s government, is truly revealing, but not in most translations. I’m going to quote that verse as given from the translation contained in the margin of a King James Version:

“He shall confirm the covenant with many for one week and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblations to cease, and upon the battlements (highest strongholds of war) shall be the idols of the Desolator with the (his) abominable armies, even until the consummation (completion, fulfillment, conclusion) and that determined shall be poured out upon the Desolator” (Dan. 9:27).

Awesome, what's being said here. It's about an end to Satan's rule. It's about what's getting ready to happen, in part, because it's not over with yet because at the end of the thousand years, at the end of a hundred years past that, then there are other things that take place.

Satan is the great Desolator who seeks only to lay waste what God has created.

I think of the example of Jesus Christ when he had the occasion to cast out the demons. I believe I have that right, that particular occasion. Do you remember the occasion when the demons, it was a legion of demons and they couldn't do anything else, so what did they do? They went into the swine, ran over a cliff, and killed them. Incredible things that take place sometimes and there’s just a desire to destroy, destroy life, destroy anything of God's. Even at the last minute here to do something like that, "We can't do this, so we'll go do something else." And that's, basically, in a similar sort of plane, except this is far greater of what's getting ready to take place as far as a period of time when Satan finally turns away from, more from the Church and toward the world and what he's going to do in the world. He’s a distorted being, unsound mind, unsound thinking.

That's what happens to people when they leave God. That's what happens to human beings. Any mind that leaves God has very distorted and unsound thinking. Their thinking isn't sound – not sound by any measure. No, they can do things in a very systematic process but their process is distorted, it's unsound. It's not going to produce the results that they want, that they seek, because it's unsound thinking, if that makes sense.

Satan is the great Desolator who seeks only to lay waste what God has created. His way is to put everything into a ruinous state of confusion and destruction. Part of the origin of the Hebrew word used to describe this final period of Satan’s judgment of his “ways” of an abomination of “desolation” comes from a meaning similar to “zero” [I love this]… a "zero" in count or “nothingness” in existence. This word in Hebrew is known for its contrast…

I mean, this is how it's known in Hebrew, by the contrast of these words and what they mean.

This word in Hebrew is known for its contrast to a word used to describe God’s creative power of “something,” meaning the creation of “something from nothing.” Yet Satan’s reference of “his ways,” and the only result of “his power,” is to bring “something to nothing.”

It's exact opposite. Incredible and beautiful in its own right for what it pictures.

During the period of witness of the 1260 days, God provided a final witness that established a final righteous judgment upon mankind. God knew what man would do with the technology and scientific advancements He would give them. [In other words, what God would give to mankind.] God knew what Ephraim and Manasseh would do with their inheritance of promise of the greatest portions of the earth’s wealth in the end of the age. God foretold about such events as these, but the time for final judgment to be righteously established was to be done toward the very end of 6,000 years for a specific period of 1260 days.

Again, everything is a matter of judgment. I'm not going to go into that period talking about how that period is actually always broken up into judgment. Every period of 1260 days also has within it a period of judgment. Every period of 1260 days has something in it that pertains to judgment, a 280 day period that reveals that judgment, of things we don't fully grasp, yet that God will one day reveal to us. We know some of it during these periods of seven cycles we've gone through, or in the process of the seventh now. But to me, it's exciting.

That period of time is even broken down into stages of judgment based on a measure of “merciful judgment” over 280 days, hence the past knowledge of time, times and half a time. It was in this final period of 1260 days that God gave His two witnesses (and the Church who lived it) to be instrumental in bringing out the true spirit, attitude, and responding actions that are witness against mankind and against Satan and his demonic realm.

I don't want to go on in the other portion here. I'm going to stop there today. So much to digest there anyway.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1