Made Ready for Our Passover, Pt. 1

Ron Weinland

March 17, 2018

We’ve just finished a series that focused upon God’s Kingdom and how it’s now closing in on this world, and this carries, obviously, a lot of meaning for us as we know that some few in the Church are being worked with to complete the sealing of 144,000. Then there are those of the larger portion of the Church who are being made ready for the time of Christ’s actual return when the Church will simply continue on into a new age.

In all of this we are being made ready more than ever for that Kingdom to reign on this earth. This season of the year has so much to do with that because we are closing in on the final events to become fulfilled in this end-time so that God’s Kingdom can finally become fully established.

I’ll tell you what, if you’re not moved by things you’re seeing in the news, if you don’t realize the intensity that’s going on now, of things that we never saw between 2008 and 2012, you ought to be sobered, if you are indeed keeping on top of some of those things, because every week it just gets hotter and hotter out there, truly, and the kind of rhetoric that’s actually taking place between a lot of nations, not just a few. So again, I’m not going to go through all those things like I did in the previous series, but it is incredible what’s taking place out there and things are moving quite fast.

So again, the messages given during this season of the year are more important than ever for God’s Church, and therefore, we are being made ready for our Passover (we ought to understand that more deeply than ever), and now entering that season of the year that should mean more to us than ever. So this new series now that we heard about in the prayer is entitled Made Ready for Our Passover with this being Part 1.

Individually and collectively we are about to take another Passover, those who are baptized in God’s Church. We need to be preparing for that night when we partake of the annual Passover service, and we need to more soberly and seriously understand how this very much foreshadows the short time remaining before us to be made ready for our Passover’s coming this time as the King of kings. So we will first focus on the importance of preparing ourselves for this Passover season and all that will be taught during this season. We need to focus upon that as we do from year to year, focus on the Passover, the partaking of the Passover. It’s the most sobering service, obviously, that we take every year and we need to be preparing ourselves for it; not just come and take it, not just sit there and take it, but prepare for it. There is preparation for partaking of the Passover, there truly is, and we’re going to go through some of those things in this particular series.

So again, we need to be preparing ourselves for this Passover season and all that will be taught during this season, and that which we need to work on in our own personal lives with a stronger focus than ever before as a matter of a keen focus and a zealousness that we need to exercise before taking it this year.

Let’s start in 1 Corinthians 10 today. We’re going to pick up here in the book of 1st Corinthians, 1st Corinthians 10. There is so much in 1st Corinthians actually about the Passover and about partaking of the days of Unleavened Bread and what it means, but here in Chapter 10 a particular focus of where the knowledge and understanding of that particular night all began, when God actually revealed it, the importance of Passover.

So in verse 1 it says, Moreover, brethren, I would not that you should be ignorant of how all our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea. So this is talking about when God intervened to take them out of Egypt after they had partaken of the Passover itself and those things that God began to reveal about something very physical to the Israelites but something that had deep, deep meaning that God was going to fulfill more fully in time. That’s what these verses are about.

So he says, I would not have you, or that you should be ignorant of how our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea and were all baptized… This just means “immersed.” It doesn’t mean baptized. You’ve got to get that word totally out of your mind, in that respect, because it’s not like a baptism. It is about an immersion and about them coming under something that was unique to them because of God working through Moses and what was going to be revealed to them through Moses. That’s how they were going to learn everything that God was going to give to them. He would not work with them directly in any fashion or form. He would not work with them as He does with the Church. Even though that still has government and order within it, God does work with each one of us individually, in that respect, on a spiritual plane. He calls us into the Church and we are baptized into a body, into the Church, but this here is talking about a beginning of something that God began to reveal. That’s what it’s about.

I’m amazed when we go through and read these verses when I think about what has been said about Jesus Christ, that this is a “proof” (supposedly) that he was working with them bringing them out of Egypt. He didn’t come along for a long time later. But still in the scattered body today, because they’re still holding on to a portion of the trinity, they still believe this. They don’t understand that, they don’t comprehend that. But how blessed are you that God has completely taken away the teaching of a trinity and helped you to understand in a deeper way that there is only one God Almighty, eternally living God Almighty, and there is no other? There is no other God Almighty who has eternally existed, who has eternal life inherent in himself. He alone can give life to others – He alone. But there are those because of those teachings of times past, because of the Catholic Church and because what the Catholic Church taught about a trinity and the Protestant world picked up on and added to it, they’ve taken verses like this then and misconstrued them to mean something different.

What an incredible thing when you understand what is actually being said. What an incredible thing when you understand that Jesus Christ was born of human flesh, never pre-existed, had no existence, was not a God-being who gave of himself as a God to become a human being. That’s just sick! It really is when you really come to understand it, and it takes away from what he did! It takes away from the importance of what God did in having a son born of human life who was raised up as he was, grew up as he did having the very mind of God in him. His Father was God! That’s awesome to understand! He was the Word of God made flesh. No one else has ever had that. No one else can ever have that. He was unique in that because God is building everything upon him.

That’s why the Passover is so important because it’s the beginning of God’s plan and the beginning of those things that Jesus Christ would first fulfill. That’s awesome! Everything else has robbed that. Satan has done a great job in clouding the minds of human beings to believe stupid, ignorant things, sick things that take away from the beauty of God’s purpose and God’s plan for Elohim. That needs gotten rid of, all the ignorance and foolishness and sickness that he’s done and inspired in human beings, because he is the one who is the author of it all. He is the one who is the author of the trinity. He is the author of Sunday worship, and on and on it goes, of Christmas and Easter. Boy, you tell that to the world of Christianity and you’ve got a war on your hands and they hate your guts for that. They have an instant hatred for you, because how can you say such a thing? Well, God is getting ready to say a whole lot more to mankind because mankind won’t listen to such things. So mankind has to be humbled so that they can begin to listen. Otherwise, they will never listen to such things because it’s like blaspheme to them. That’s what it’s like!

It’s like what the Jews had when they heard Jesus Christ say some of the things they did because by this time they were way off base and they weren’t teaching the things of God. So when Jesus Christ came along they truly believed what they said, “That’s blasphemous! You made yourself as God!” Incredible. They didn’t understand what he was saying. They couldn’t comprehend what he was saying and they made fun of him throughout his life. The more he taught, the more fun they made of what he was saying – twisted and distorted because they couldn’t understand anything on a spiritual plane. How blessed are you that your mind is being cleared up more and more, and that you’re able to see things more clearly, you’re able to see and understand God more clearly? That’s, to me, an awesome thing.

I’m about two series ahead right now, which I’ve never been in my life, I don’t think. So I have to back up to this one here today. I actually gave a different title when they asked me at first. I thought, “No, whoa, that’s the next series.” So I’m getting quite a ways out ahead, but this morning going through some things in one of the series, and I don’t care how often we go through some of the story about what Jesus Christ lived and what he did, it’s always inspiring. It’s always moving. That’s why God has us repeat things about the holy days year after year after year because we build upon what we have been given and it becomes stronger in our minds, and the thankfulness and appreciation of what we see; and with God’s spirit it truly stirs us up.

So again, Moreover, brethren, I would not have you that you should be ignorant of how our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea and were all immersed unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. So they followed Moses. They believed the things that were being revealed through Moses. They were moved enough to see that all that was happening in Egypt that Moses said was going to take place took place. They were moved by those things as a people, so much so that they were willing to give up everything. That wasn’t a small thing that they did! But when they saw the kind of devastation come upon Egypt, when they came to the point of actually partaking of the Passover and all the firstborn of Egypt died and no one, nothing of Israel died, and yet all the animals and the firstborn of Egypt plus all the children of Egypt died, and they were moved by those things so much so that they were willing to go to the Egyptians and ask of them things, provisions, and wealth. Because the Egyptians at this point, just as it says, they were at a point where it was, “Let them go or we’re all dead!” “Get them out of here or we’re all going to be dead!”  They saw a power working that they knew was greater than anything that was human. They didn’t understand it. Whatever they believed in, they were ready to see Israel go and they were ready to give wealth.

But the Israelites were lifted up by these things in the sense of having confidence and a boldness to leave Egypt until they got up there to the Red Sea, and then it was a different story because all of a sudden they see this cloud in the back and word come forward that the Egyptians in a massive army is coming after them, and now they thought they were all dead. “What have we done? They’re going to kill us. They’re going to destroy us, or many of us at least!” Then God put a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud and separated the two, day and night, and they couldn’t come any farther toward them. They finally then left through the Red Sea. God opened part of the waters. Awesome things that took place!

So more than ever they were immersed into something as they went through and they came out the other side, though they still were Israelites, human beings, had carnal human nature, as all of us do. They didn’t have God’s holy spirit and began to murmur almost immediately when they got through to the other side. It didn’t take very long. But, nevertheless, a process had begun because the sea closed up and destroyed Pharaoh and his army and they saw those things.

So it goes on here telling the story, and the story is about Jesus Christ who is our Passover. It is about the means whereby the Israelites were able to be freed and taken out of Egypt, because they observed that first Passover, the first of revelation about God’s plan having to do with something – to them on a very physical plane, but having great spiritual meaning that God would reveal later on to His Church, because all the way till that time people did not understand what had taken place. They didn’t understand the full meaning of what had been observed on a physical plane.

And they all did eat of the same spiritual meat… They weren’t spiritual. They didn’t have God’s spirit. That isn’t what it’s saying, but some interpret it that way. It’s amazing what can be read into something if you have a certain kind of belief. It isn’t saying that they were spiritual or that they had received the impregnation of God’s holy spirit and they could grasp spiritual things. Not at all! But they all ate of something. They partook of something that God was giving in an awesome way to some human beings that pictured something incredibly great that was going to be fulfilled later on. Passover.

…and they all did eat of the same spiritual meat, and they all did drink of the same spiritual drink. Were they inspired spiritually? Not at all. They partook of something referred to as “eating and drinking,” of something they didn’t grasp nor comprehend, but they did something on a physical plane. Notice, as it goes on here. It’s about an experience of something that they had that began a process of God using this to teach things in the future, of something that God was going to reveal in the future that indeed did have great spiritual meaning, though they didn’t understand any of it. Moses didn’t even understand what all this meant. He obeyed God. He did what God said. He told them to do what they needed to do on the night of Passover. He took them up to the Red Sea because he knew that God was going to deliver them out of Egypt, out of Pharaoh’s hand. He knew those things, but he did not understand the spiritual meaning of those things and he was being worked with by God Almighty in a very powerful way on a spiritual plane. But he didn’t grasp the meaning of all these things that were taking place.

He didn’t know that this pictured Jesus Christ who would follow in time. That’s what it’s talking about. …for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. It’s about a matter and a factor of time, God’s time, of what was being pictured here physically that they experienced, that they partook of on a physical plane when they put the blood on the doorposts and when they did what they did in order to be saved out of a physical Egypt. God then taught later on, began to teach the Church, this is about us, about His people being freed from a spiritual Egypt and from a spiritual type of Pharaoh. Incredible, and that it was about Jesus Christ, that he is the true Passover.

That wasn’t the true Passover. It foreshadowed something to come later on, that Jesus Christ himself, who followed them in time, would fulfill. So they partook of that. They experienced something on a physical plane. They didn’t understand it.

For hundreds of years no one understood what they had experienced until God began to reveal those things. A lot of it was revealed right here through Paul. The disciples didn’t understand it up until the time of Christ’s death. They still didn’t understand that he was the Passover until later on, until 31 AD, on Pentecost, and then they began to understand the things that Christ had taught them.

Sometimes it’s hard for us to grasp and understand the timing of things and when God reveals certain things in a progressive manner and how He did that and what people didn’t understand, or what they did understand at certain times. That’s why it’s so incredible to understand what we have, what we grasp at the end of 6,000 years. No one has ever lived what we have lived. No one has ever lived to know and understand as much as what God has given to us because it’s been progressive as a part of His plan, and especially since the Apostasy, because so much of it was leading up to that moment in time because that would begin something that would lead into, as a countdown, to the Messiah actually coming to this earth to fulfill what they thought he was doing the first time. They didn’t understand it was his Passover.

And so they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them. They didn’t understand what they were experiencing. They didn’t grasp it, but they still partook of it. That’s what it’s about – partaking of it – of something we indeed are able to drink in and eat of on a spiritual plane.

Verse 5—But with many of them God was not well pleased; for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Only a very few, maybe a handful, that God actually worked with that will be a part of 144,000, a very few. It wasn’t God’s purpose at that time to be calling people, to be working with Israelites to prepare them to be a part of the 144,000, not at all. They were just a physical nation. Yet out of that and out of the leadership of that God did work with and mold different ones.

Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. So we can look back at the Israelites and sometimes just marvel how carnal they were until we’ve been in the Church for twenty or thirty or forty years, then we realize we’re pretty carnal. It just runs in human nature. We are exceedingly selfish as human beings, and if we didn’t have what we have and we were back then we would have done exactly the same things. We would have started murmuring and complaining: “We’re out here in the desert and where is the water, and where is the food, and those flesh pots, all that soup?” and everything else, and the beef that we had that was given to us, and “We had such a good life.” They didn’t have a good life, but that’s what it becomes like sometimes when you start going through various trials.

How many have gone back who were a part of God’s Church? How many have gone back to what God called them out of? They’ve gone back to the swill and the ignorance, or gone back to whatever it might be, to decide for themselves, to go back to idolatry, if you will, hideous in every respect, of thinking that they can determine and decide how God is existing and what God is doing and to believe whatever they choose to believe and be no different from the Protestant world and what people do when they go from one church to another? How far the mind can stray away when it’s cut off from God’s holy spirit, which is still going to happen to some who are listening to me today!

I hate to have to say that, but this is not over. As close as we are, and I don’t care if it isn’t 2019, it’s coming in fast. I don’t know if we’re going to have a Feast this year. I hope we do! The way things are happening with Russia and China? The way things are happening between Pakistan and India? That’s just heating up every week where they’re talking about nuclear wars and starting to let people know how many nuclear weapons they have – or at least it’s been talked about in the news – and military being moved into China and into parts next to India because if they do attack, if they do have a war between Pakistan and India, China is going to be in it because they’re going to take back all they want! And India, nor Pakistan, is going to stand in their way. But for now Pakistan, they’re kind of on their side.

How many times can the two of them destroy themselves already with the number of nukes they have? It’s incredible! They can destroy each other several times over already with the nukes they have.

Then Putin the other day making a statement (I don’t know what day it was, whether it was last week or the week before), but he made a statement, basically, that if the world were to try to destroy Russia, if Russia were coming down to that he has no qualms about destroying the rest of the world. He says, “Because what’s the rest of the world without Russia?” I can understand that kind of carnal thinking, but it drives home the point of why God has to intervene, because that’s exactly what will happen as time goes on. There would be no stopping of a nuclear war once it starts. There is no ending of it because who’s going to give up what? Is he going to say, “Hey, okay, we’re halfway destroyed, let them destroy the rest,” or do you think they’re going to lob everything they can to try to have some survive? Incredible, how the human mind thinks.

We’re knocking on the door, brethren. We are there. A third world war is right in front of us. Every day, if you’re looking, there is a news article about World War III, a nuclear war. Every day there are news articles out there somewhere about a nuclear war. It wasn’t that way before 2012. Rarely would you find articles about World War III. It was more about the economy. It was more about what started in 2008 and 2009. Today it has changed.

If that doesn’t sober you to the core of your being and stir you up to realize how important this Passover is and what it means that we’re being made ready for our Passover more than ever before, I don’t know what could stir us to change, to begin obeying God, about giving of holy day offerings or of tithing faithfully! Not on half of what you’re making! Who are you lying to if you’re doing that? I know some are doing that. They’re not giving a full tithe, which means 10%, to God.

We don’t need the money! I’ll just tell you right now, we, as God’s Church, don’t need the money! God doesn’t need money, though He’s given us plenty to work with. We’ve already started the advertising. As soon as we get different books online, and we only have, I think, three or four more languages to put online. I’ll tell you what, all this is being paralleled with what’s going to happen in the world right down to the wire, and the advertising likewise. So we’ve already started putting money into it, testing various ads and so forth. As soon as they’re all out there we’re going to be advertising in every one of those languages. But when things begin, as I said a long, long time ago, it will spread by itself. It doesn’t need us. Yet God has given us the blessing to participate in this, to be a part of it, but it’s about a faithfulness to God that matters.

Because all that’s in the bank, we can do what we did before 2012, and we tried to get rid of it. We tried to keep getting rid of it. We went into the hundreds of thousands of dollars a month going into advertising before 2012, and hundreds of thousands of dollars just kept coming in every month, more than what normally would come in. People were sacrificing in a very big way because they believed this was happening. “We have nothing beyond that.” That’s how we lived as God’s Church. That meant a lot to me even though it didn’t happen. It revealed something of a faith of God’s people on a plane that is awesomely inspiring to me because we lived it. Now we’re living it, but we did live it as far as a matter of faith. To me God used that in a powerful way to mold and fashion us.

That 4½ years, you’re going to find in time, is so much more meaningful than what you can begin to grasp and comprehend. After Jesus Christ has returned you’ll come to understand it a lot more, what happened during that period of time and why because it can’t be given. It’s something that God gives by His holy spirit through time and understanding and growth and inspiration. That’s how it’s going to work.

I’m sorry, but what led me into this was just making the comment, again, about people who have left and knowing this is not over with yet. The cleansing is not complete because there are some people’s lives where God is still not first, and God has to be first. You will be tried and tested in the short time that’s remaining as to whether or not God is first.

You see, we’re not like others in times past. We’re the end. We’re the end of 6,000 years. We exist at a time when Jesus Christ is going to return. He didn’t return during the past 2,000 years. People were not being prepared for his return. 144,000 were being worked with and prepared as a part of God’s count and what He was doing in training and teaching and working with different ones that could be resurrected to be a part of that government when he returns. We are different! We are unique! This Body will be cleansed! I don’t care if there are a dozen left, this Body will be cleansed! I know there are going to be more, but I know there are going to be less than what we have now. I know that.

So, With many of them God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. In other words, after something that is not in unity and agreement with God. God should be first. Now, we have our own battles, we have our own carnal battles in life, we have our own weaknesses, and I’ve talked about our number one, our number two, and our number three at different times. Most of the others spin off of those, one way or another, but we have certain things that are unique to each and every one of us that we must be battling each and every day. The day you’re not battling is the day that you’re going to slip some in that particular area. Whatever it might be you might fall flat on your face on that day, but then you’re moved to understand how blessed we are to have a Passover, that we can go before God and say, “Father, forgive me of my sin. Help me to fight it and be at-one with You. Help me not to put any other god before You. Help me not to have any spiritual idolatry in my life” because, see, we’ve committed idolatry the moment we put something before God—every time we do that—which is sin, whatever that sin is in our life.

What is it you’re holding on to? What is it you don’t want to let go of, to where God isn’t first, that it’s interfering with God being first? What is it? Because either you’ll come to know and see those things and understand what it is or it will get the best of you before this is over.

My wife and I have talked about at different times how that some of the same things some were battling before 2012 are some of the very same things that are popping their ugly heads back up again, almost like déjà vu. Why is that, I wonder?

So people are going through some of the same kinds of things, similar in fashion as to what was happening before 2012, and how are we faring this time around? What has changed? What is changing? Because if they’re repeated exactly as they were before 2012, if it wasn’t lived well, this time it will be different.

Neither be idolaters; see, putting something before God. What is it? Because, see, there can’t be anything! There really can’t be anything that we’re not repenting of, that we’re not fighting against, that we can put before God, whatever that is, no matter how difficult it might be. What is the reasoning behind not giving a full tithe of whatever it is that someone has as money coming in as a salary? What is it that a person can reason around that “Well, I need a certain amount, and I can’t budget this without maybe just giving half of that.” What is that called? What’s a 5th called? Well, you might as well get a fifth. Might as well just drink it away in a fifth as to rob from God and not give to God what is His. I can’t comprehend that one, to rob from God. I am sorry; I really can’t grasp that one.

For any who are doing that, you’re just playing games. You’re not even in the courtyard. You’re so far out of the courtyard if you can’t repent in the next few weeks here, if you can’t repent really quickly here, before Passover, frankly, I don’t see you being able to live on through what’s coming. I really, really, really don’t. So you want to play games? God doesn’t play games. He’s not playing games with us right now. He really isn’t. We’re it. We’re it. This is it.

You see, it’s not like before when God could allow various things to happen within His Church and some then would die in that or just simply leave. It’s not that way right now because what goes on has to be of a certain standard, a certain way. That’s why we’re going through the measuring of the temple till the end, till this is over with.

Neither be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. Just going on like everything is hunky dory and you can do whatever you want to do and you can ignore what God says, you can ignore God’s laws, you can do whatever you feel like you want to allow yourself to do and you’re not fighting and changing and striving to fight against those things. …and they rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day. God wasn’t fooling around. He was teaching them something. “You want to do that? You want to live a certain way? My people don’t live like that. You want to live that? You want to engage in something like that, then this is what happens, death. You need to be stirred, and moved, and motivated to realize that if you don’t quit doing it you’re just going to keep dying. You’re going to die.” That’s why Moses and Aaron at different times went and asked God, begged of Him to stop a certain plague, intervene, whatever it might be, from what had come upon them, if you will, for the children of Israel.

So, neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day. Neither let us tempt (put to the test) Christ, as some of them also tested God. It’s like what can you get by with? How much can you get by with before you’re going to die? I mean, that’s what it’s like. It’s like Russian roulette type thing. Which bullet is going to get you? And how much can you sin? Because that’s what people do. That’s why people get out in the courtyard because God doesn’t immediately intervene when someone sins; He doesn’t stop us. He doesn’t say, “Whoa!” He didn’t tap you on the back, like some thought would happen in the Millennium, “Oh, don’t walk that way. This is the way, walk you in it.” That’s about as Protestant as you can get. It’s not going to be that way at all! God doesn’t force people, coerce people every time you’re about to sin and say, “Whoa! Don’t do that! I caught you!” 144,000 are going to be so busy going around tapping people on the shoulders, “Don’t do ‘this.’ Don’t do ‘that,’” because there are going to be a lot of sin out there still. That’s not our job! It’s not what we’re going to be doing.

So people are still putting God to the test. It’s like you can get by with certain things. Just like I’ve talked about tithing here. It still boggles my mind some of it still goes on out there. I just think, after everything I’ve said, after everything I’ve cried out about, but each one of us has to make our own decisions what we’re going to do and how we’re going to do it and whether we really believe what’s being said or not. God’s going to make a believer out of you. You know, you wake up in the Hundred Years and you think, weeping and gnashing of teeth, “Look what I gave up! Look at what I gave up,” when you come to understand those who lived on into a Millennial period and what God has blessed them to be able to receive and to have and to be able to be used in such a powerful way in His family? Now you’ve got to do it again.

To me, if you want to talk about something scary, that’s scary. “Please don’t let me live in a physical body again. Please, anything but that!” I’m serious! To think I’d have to live a hundred years? I’m not excited about that at all being where I am and knowing what I know. I hit seventy? That was plenty. It’s plenty, really was. I don’t want more in this physical body. I don’t want to have to deal with this physical life. I don’t want to have to deal with my human selfishness any longer. The more you grow and the more you see what we are the more you realize.

So as it says here, they tempted God, they tested God, and they were destroyed of serpents. You remember the pole and the serpent God put on the pole? And if you come look at that pole (you’ve been bitten by a poisonous serpent) you won’t die and thousands died before this. You don’t need a lot of motivation: “Oh, you’ve been bitten!” “Get me to the pole quick!” and you look upon that pole. All of a sudden after a time you begin to think this was amazing and you start worshipping a pole. Amazing and God’s not in the picture. That’s how physical and how carnal they were. Blows the mind! You see an ambulance run up the highway and every time I see something like that and see a pole with a serpent on it I think back at that time, “Look at what the Israelites did.”

Verse 10—Neither murmur as some of them also murmured… You know, complaining or not happy about something. Perhaps not happy about something I’ve said or something I did or that my wife did as a prophet. I would be scared to death to speak in negative terms toward any in God’s ministry. Have we learned what we need to learn? Because it’s not about us, it’s about God, that we’re willing to speak against God and murmur and complain about certain things that we have no business getting involved in? Incredible! It’s none of your business how certain things are done! You don’t understand the reasons why in the first place! Awesome! I’m amazed how oftentimes stories come around; I hear certain things about what people have said and what people are doing. It just blows my mind! It’s probably not good that I hear them because then it comes out during a sermon. But you know, God has a way of working with us so that these things do come out, so that we can think about ourselves and what we do and why we do them, and to realize, “I wish I’d have kept my mouth shut.”

“Neither murmur.” It’s about complaining. It’s about something we don’t agree with. We want something to be done a different way. Just like Passover this year. So I tell everyone we’re going to have one great big Passover this year in Cincinnati and the rest, you’re on your own. So people, some try to work it out to that they can still have it in a home somewhere and invite people from a long distance, because if we can’t have it at a hotel or whatever, or someplace where we meet together maybe we can work this out some other way. No, we listen to what God says. I think of the four-day Feast we had one time at a sponsored location, and that tried people. It’s like, “Well, what about those other four days? Where’s God in that? How can you obey and keep the Feast?” It was to learn a great lesson, but some didn’t learn it. I don’t know if some have learned it to this day, what that was all about, because there were some important lessons there that were given to God’s Church.

So we have to be careful what we think and what we say toward God, because everything in this Church is from God. It comes from God Almighty. The truth we have is from God Almighty. The sermons we receive are from God Almighty and His Son Jesus Christ. That’s how they come to us.

Now all these things happened to them for examples (as a pattern or an example) so we could learn something from it. They couldn’t, but we can. And they are written for our admonition, because we’re to see them on a spiritual plane, not just a physical one, and sometimes we need to be able to see even the physical part of it, let alone the spiritual. …upon whom the ends of the world (ends of the age) are come. That means more to us now than ever before. You think of Paul’s time when this was written, they weren’t there yet. Now, they thought they were. You know, it wasn’t until Paul was inspired to write what he did in 2nd Thessalonians 2 about the son of perdition, the man of sin, the Apostasy, the great falling away, if you will, that they came to understand that this had to take place first before Christ would return. Because before that people believed that he was still going to return in their time just as they believed he was coming as the Messiah the first time and that didn’t stop. They were still looking for his return later on. “When is it going to be?” And for 2,000 years people have wondered, “When is it going to be?” Because they haven’t known for 2,000 years, the timing. God began to give that to Mr. Armstrong. He didn’t give that to the early disciples at all. He didn’t give that to Paul. He didn’t give it to John! John didn’t understand that there was still 1,900 years to go. He didn’t understand any of that! God began to give it in the end-time to Mr. Armstrong. Incredible!

Therefore, let him who thinks he stand take heed lest he fall. There is a great lesson in that. There always has been in God’s Church. I think from the first time I ever heard that it’s been etched in up here that you can’t ever come to a point in time where you think things are going pretty good for you. That’s what happens to people in the courtyard; otherwise you wouldn’t be out in the courtyard. You realize, “I want to be in the temple! I don’t want to be out in the courtyard.” So if you think you stand, you think things are okay. And it’s like putting Christ to the test, how much can you do out here in the courtyard and not do what God says to do and somehow justify it, because that’s what we do as human beings, we justify what we’re doing because what we’re doing is right. It’s right.

What’s inside here is not pretty. What God has given to us of His spirit in here, that is. What’s been transformed to this point in time is what is beautiful, because it agrees with God. What doesn’t is as ugly… I was going to say “As ugly as sin.” But it is sin. It’s just ugly, you know. And that’s why selfishness is so ugly. And the more you can see selfishness?

That’s why sometimes we have to be careful even in God’s Church. Sometimes this even has been a battle for some in the ministry and I’ve had to teach and tell the ministry about certain things like this because the more responsibility God has given you in certain things the more God gives you the ability to see certain things in others for the purpose of serving and for the purpose of being alert and on guard for God’s Church. Sometimes that can be difficult and you have to be careful how you handle that which God gives to you, an ability to see human nature pop up and what’s happening and what is likely to follow because of certain things that might be said or done. So you have to be very careful how you deal with those things, and in God’s Church.

As we heard last week, as well; I was so pleased to hear Mr. Matthews refer to some of those things, that in the respect of thinking about people, you can’t control people’s lives. You can’t rule people’s lives. We’re not to become engaged so often in things in people’s lives. We’re to be an example and do the best we can as far as an example is concerned, but even in the ministry there are times you stand back, you step back and let things go their course. You don’t try to control. People try to do that with children and they try to control their lives, our children. God doesn’t work with us that way. He doesn’t. He doesn’t try to control our actions and our behavior. It’s one thing to give guidance and direction and correction in life, it’s another thing to try to control. And sadly in life we see a lot of people that as they mature and grow up and go into business and everything else, depending on their proclivities, there are people who simply just try to control other people’s actions in life. You can’t do that. You can’t live life like that. People have to make their own choices and decisions. God lets us make our own choices and decisions.

Now, there might be something when it’s going to cause harm, you have to intervene and stop it there at that point before that happens, but as a whole you don’t control. That’s why we’ve had a series and talked about certain things about different personalities. You have to be more careful of that in case you have a passive-aggressive personality or an aggressive personality. And on and on it goes.

So it goes on to say, “Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” We should always be of a humble spirit, a humble attitude before God. Again, that sermon last week was very much about some of that and the purpose of fasting and the need for those things in our life.

There hasn’t been any temptation taken you (happen) but such as is common to man. So generation to generation people still have the same kinds of problems in life, some of the same kinds of drama. Some of the same things just take place because why? Because we’re carnal, because we’re selfish and selfish human beings kind of act in a certain way. You can take it to the bank. But God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted (tested) above what you are able (capable). Now, some people they misread this too. You have to be careful what you read into this because I’ve known of ministers, I’ve known of others, who have read things into this that it’s not saying. It’s like, well, if you have a test or trial it’s not going to get so bad you’re going to get swallowed up in it. Bull! Bull, bull, bull, bull, bull, bull! So many have left the Church because they got caught up in various kinds of trials out here and given in to various kinds of sin. Did God stop and say, “Oh, don’t do that! You’ll leave. You’re going to be gone if you don’t stop doing that!” He doesn’t do that to us, not at all. That’s why there’s more to what’s being said here. It didn’t stop there. “Oh, so I’m not going to be tried in any more than what I’m capable of handling.” There’s a balance and soundness here.

He says, but with the temptation, with the testing, whatever you go through, will also make a way to escape. And candidly, that lands upon us and the decisions and choices we make. There is a way to escape. You know how God says to get away from idolatry, adultery, various things of that nature? He says flee it! Flee in a different direction. That means you’ve got to get your little pattering feet and get them moving away in a different direction. So whatever might be moving you in the direction of sin you’ve got to think about and fight and ask God for help to turn around the other way and run as fast as you can. What was it, Potipher’s wife and Joseph? “Come here, Joseph,” whatever she was wearing or not wearing. “Come here, Joseph. Let’s spend a little time together.” If you want to lose your head, yeah. Then she went ahead and accused him anyway because he was smart enough to get his little pitter pattery feet and run the opposite direction. He did something physical that was smart. There are just a lot of times we need to act smart and ask God for help if we are weak, but that’s where our strength is. It’s in God! There is a way to escape and God is the way! You cry out to God, “Father, forgive me. Help me to change. Help me to fight this. I don’t want this in my life,” and whatever it is, and you work to go the opposite direction. You ask for the conviction to hate the evil, the sin.

God can help you in those things, because obviously you wouldn’t be having the test if that weren’t the case there. You have the test because you have a weakness there, whatever it might be in life, whatever your weaknesses are, whatever is your number one, number two, because those are weaknesses. Whatever is your number one, number two, number three and most of it is just carnal human nature, “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” Lump it in there; it’s in there. Whatever it is we have to fight and we have to fight it.

So I think about the opening prayer today. It’s like Wayne said last week, “Who would go to services and you know, you want to be corrected. Who does that? You’re some weird people!” But we know that’s the process whereby we’re saved, because we’ve got to change. We’ve got to become different and we fight that. We fight it every day. We fight it every week, if we grasp that.

There hasn’t been any thing, in that sense, that’s happened but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tested above that you are able (capable), but with the temptation (the testing) will also make a way to escape, so that you may be able to endure, whatever it is you’re fighting, whatever it is you see in yourself, whatever it is you think can never be gone from your mind, your life. The reality is some of it may always be there to plague you and haunt you because you’re a human being, but you’ve got to choose to fight it. You’ve got to choose to repent before God. You’ve got to chose to cry out to God for help to resist, to fight, to change whatever it is. God gives, God will give the strength, the help.

But with the temptation will make a way to escape, so that you may be able to endure. Therefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry. Get those feet running in the opposite direction. Use what God has given that you know you must do. Cry out to God for the help to do it and to live it because He gives the strength. It’s like the truths I mentioned here sometime ago. Do you love all 57? Because that’s God! That’s the mind of God concerning Elohim and how we become Elohim, a part of His family. The more we see those things and agree with them and love them the more we’ll come into unity with them. Everyone who has ever left the Church has not loved all of God’s truths, have come to some point where they can justify not receiving some or many or most of those truths. Incredible!

Verse 15—I speak as to wise men (wise people); you judge what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion (the fellowship) of the blood of Christ? What a beautiful picture to understand. It takes us right up to Passover, takes us up to what it’s all about. Here is the beginning because of what he did as a physical human being, the Word of God made flesh, that mind, willing to do and go through what he did so that we can go before God and say, “Father, forgive me of my sins.” God is faithful to forgive us of those sins then, and that kind of confidence, that kind of boldness to go before God no matter what you’ve done in life? To feel remorseful? Yes. To feel as Paul said in another place, to have an attitude and a mind of vengeance against it, to fight against whatever it is you have to fight against and to ask God to help you to hate it so you can see something.

That’s why I mention something so simple and basic as smoking. You know the reason people keep doing it is because they like it, they love it. Sorry, but you think, you’re about to die, and they’ll even have a trachea and they’ll be smoking from it. You think, why don’t you just go out and step out in front of a bus? You love that so much, and it’s going to kill you.

When I had my appendix taken out in Australia I had a room of six different people. In the daytime they’d take the curtains and open them up and we’d all be able to talk to each other there. Every one of them in there had operations on their larynx area and in through the voice box area and so forth, all through their throat, of things taken out because every one of them had cancerous things that happened because of smoking. Anyway, sad what human beings will do – destroy our lives.

The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the fellowship of the blood of Christ? There is a fellowship, an experience of something with God, with Jesus Christ because of what Jesus Christ did and because of understanding of those things about what Passover means and our participation in that even as a matter of repentance and going before God and asking for forgiveness of sins. There is a unique fellowship, a relationship we develop toward Jesus Christ, toward God. How much more do you love God when you come to grasp and understand everything about your past that’s in the past? He doesn’t bring it back up like human beings do, you know. You forget something and someone else brings it back, “Yeah, but you said one time… I remember…” And you, “Oh, I can’t get rid of that one.” That’s the way we are as human beings. We do that to one another sometimes in God’s Church.

I think of some ordinations that have taken place. Some left because they hold things against people. “How could they be a minister? How could they be ‘this,’” or “How could they be ‘that?’ Like some say, “You don’t know, you don’t understand who they are. You don’t know them very well like I do!” I think, I don’t rely on that for ordinations. I rely on God Almighty. Ask anyone! Ask my wife! She’ll tell you. I rely on God Almighty to give me what I receive when I receive it because God molds and fashions His Church! It’s not my Church! It’s His Church. It belongs to God! I go by what I am led to see and to do for whatever the reason might be, good or bad. It may be good. It may be bad. That’s in God’s hands. It’s not my choice and decision. How we use whatever God gives us when we’re baptized it’s up to us whether we use that baptism and how we use it. I hope that makes sense.

Anyway, crying aloud. This is the time to cry aloud, brethren. We’re being made ready for our Passover in ways that I really hope we’re starting to see and grasp and comprehend, I truly do. Whatever that time is, it’s closing in.

So we’re to remember what the spilling of his blood means to us personally and that endears you more to your Passover. It endears you more to what he went through. It becomes more personal. There’s a relationship there that we’re able to have with Jesus Christ, a gratitude and thankfulness, and a gratitude and thankfulness then that goes to God as well because God is the one who gave that to us and made it possible. What an incredible plan that He has us focus on every year! We’re able to partake of that, have fellowship in and through the meaning of all this. So we learn to enter into his sufferings. We’re to enter into Christ’s sufferings. We learn what that means. We learn that to love others requires sacrifice. Philia isn’t enough. Philadelphia wasn’t enough! We had an incredible opportunity when we were a part of Philadelphia, to get to know many people in a unique kind of fellowship, but it wasn’t always spiritual, but it was unique, and it mixed in such a way that that which was spiritual enhanced it even more, and that which wasn’t was able to partake in it as well because it was like a fraternal organization. That’s what kind of brotherly love means. So some got so hung up that that is the best of love to have that they wanted to be known as Philadelphians, and if you are a Laodicean you are the lowliest of the earth. I’m glad to know that I was of the lowliest of the earth and realized I was spewed out of God’s mouth because I fell asleep, and God alone had to wake me up and had mercy on me, and did, and brought me here to this day. That’s the only reason I’m here, by what God did, by what Jesus Christ did. Others out there, people who have given and done things beyond what I ever did, they’re not able to partake of this in the same way because it’s God’s choosing and God’s purpose and what He molds and fashions and why He does what He does. We have the opportunity then to partake of it, to be a part of it. That’s an awesome thing to understand.

But Philadelphia is not enough. Philia love is not enough. We need agape. We need God’s love. We need God’s spirit living and dwelling in us to live this way of life and to have right kind of fellowship with others. God’s blessing us in that in a very powerful way.

So we’re able to partake of a unique fellowship with God the Father and with Jesus Christ. We learn to enter into Christ’s sufferings, what that means. Service, love, giving always requires sacrifice, because it’s something that you would choose to do something different and so you have to fight against your own carnal thinking and nature in order to do something else, in order to serve, to give, to love others. A sacrifice is required, whatever it is – your time, your money, whatever it is you might rather do. What would you rather do? And so we have a lot of things sometimes that we’d rather do in God’s Church than to love God’s people. We have other things that interfere with that, too bad.

So we are to learn what it means to enter into sacrifice willingly in order to love others. It’s not about self. It’s about others. It’s about others. That’s why we’re in God’s Church. It’s about others.

Philippians 3:8—Yes, without a doubt, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things. That’s quite a statement; quite a statement to be made. What is it that we hold up, that we want to hold on to that we shouldn’t? It doesn’t mean we can’t have certain things, it just means, is God first? Is God indeed first? Is there anything that we aren’t willing to give up for this way of life, whatever that might be? What is it that we insist that we have to hold on to to our own detriment, or are we willing to let it go and count it loss for this way of life? Is this way of life first, in other words? Because it has to be.

So he said, I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung. That’s a lot said there, a lot said. What is it we want to or feel that we have to have and must have no matter what? See, you come to a point in life that we realize, or we must, there’s nothing worth holding on to if it interferes with a relationship with God and Jesus Christ. There is nothing worth holding on to, not even human relationships. There’s a lot said there. Because, you see, in God’s plan if we fail to repent of certain things because of human relationships that pull us away from God then we’re not going to be there at the return of Jesus Christ or we’re not going to be in the count. We will be in the Hundred Years just like the other person or relationship perhaps that we are striving to hold on to because you can’t deliver anyone with life. You can’t choose what time they’re going to live in or when someone dies. That’s it. That’s the bottom line.

Now, we can pray to God and ask God to intervene and help us in various things in life and various peoples. There are a lot of different kind of people I hope and pray, but I know all that I would hope and pray and desire to be able to live on aren’t going to be able to even in the scattered body because everyone has to make their own choices as a whole. Physically, others who don’t know, people we know of, run into, that I would love to see called, but none of that would ever interfere to a degree or would it even begin to get to a point where it’d interfere in any fashion or form with the Church not being first, with God not being first. So in those situations of some who may or may not live into a new age, may maybe in the Hundred Years. God gives each one of us, He gives you the ability now to be in that period. That’s what He’s given everyone in His Church. Everyone who’s in attendance, everyone who comes, young and old alike they have that opportunity that God placed before them. “This is yours, a new age to live on into.” If you want it look to God, cry out for it. Seek it. Desire it with all of your being. Don’t let anything else interfere because what you try to hold on to you could very well end up just being able to have it in the Hundred Year, perhaps, and lost now. One way or the other, I hope you understand that.

...and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, because we’re not. We have no righteousness of our own. The only thing that is righteous is because of what God has placed in us and given to us of His life, of His mind that’s been transformed in us. That glory and honor belongs to God. ...and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ. That’s an awesome thing to understand, that because of what you believe, if you believe, as an example, all 57 Truths, you see them, you believe them with all your being, and though you have various sins in your life and you continue to repent, because that’s what God requires, and a hatred of those things that are in us, but we continue to fight. That’s a part of the fight is just continuing to repent because every time you repent you’re growing in character and acknowledging you’re wrong and God is right. Every time you do that you grow and to realize that God attributes that as righteousness, because we’re not righteous. We are selfish. Until we are changed we are not righteous. Then, when you’re changed out of this physical body, then you can be righteous. But right now? The only way that you’re acknowledged or accredited to being righteous is because of the faith you live by, and God accounts that to you as righteousness, because you believe it, because you believe Him. That’s an awesome thing to understand. It’s because of your belief, because of your conviction of your belief because we are not righteous; as long as we have selfish human nature in us it means we have sin. Surprise! Surprise!

…the righteousness which is of God by faith (through faith) that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings. You ever get tired of suffering and going through hardship? Now, most of it we just bring on ourselves anyway. We really do because of our human nature and how human beings are. But when you fight it, when you look to God for help and you enter into that battle and you recognize then what it means to enter into Christ’s sufferings, to fight against whatever it might in life and to fight in order to honor and serve God properly, in order to love others, because you have to fight against yourself to love others, it’s not just something that automatically happens. You’ve got to work at it. You’ve got to do things!

…and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death, talking about his sacrifice for all.

1 Peter 4. So this season of the year is very much about looking deeply at ourselves inside.

1 Peter 4:12—Beloved, don’t think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you. We learn that. You know, this time of year you hear different things that are going on. There’s a lot of pressure, a lot of things happening right now. Not everything goes hunky dory this time of year. There are things that just come your way that, but as soon as you recognize it, where it’s coming from, that’s the beginning of winning the battle. Because there is a being and beings out there who want to throw everything at you they can. They loathe this season of the year. They loathe this time of year. They don’t want you to have a relationship with God and with Jesus Christ. They’ll do anything to distract you to something else.

There are some things that have happened recently that I think about in preparing for sermons and different things that come along, and made the comment to my wife and she talked to me about some of those kinds of things. They’re just distractions. I’m not going to let them control me. I’m not going to. They’re distractions. This is my focus. The Church is my focus. We have to keep focused because other things can distract us to pull us away from what’s truly important.

So do you have things that are happening to you in this season of the year that are distracting you and perhaps taking your focus a little bit off to the right or to the left from what you need to have it on? If so, then you have to cry out to God for help to keep focused. This is a battle you’re in! This is some of the last of the battle you’re in. This is some of the greatest of the battle you’ll ever be in! It truly is. You think it was 2012? It wasn’t! Okay? It’s now! You came through that. You’re here! That’s way behind you! That’s child’s play, in that respect. What’s in front of you isn’t. What’s in front of you isn’t. Okay? You’re almost to the end.

So often it’s toward the end that people just give up in a race. It happens. “Oh, my leg hurts.” “I’m hungry.” “I’m thirsty.” “My stomach hurts.” Whatever it is. Your mind starts working against you and you have to fight it. Well, that’s where we are in time. Don’t let things distract you and take you off course because this is not over! Some who aren’t fighting well are going to become, well, they’re going to go by the wayside. It’s just that’s the way it is as much as I hate it. But the choice is yours, not mine. I have made my choice.

So, “Don’t think some strange thing has happened to you,” like when you’re approaching Passover. Don’t think anything strange is happening because it’s happening pretty much throughout the Church around the world. Things are happening to distract people and get people off a focus. The quicker you spot it and the quicker you see what it is the more you can get your mind back to where it needs to be and realize that distraction, it isn’t worth it. It isn’t worth it. Where is your value? What is worth it? Seeing this to the end, being loyal and faithful to God Almighty and to Jesus Christ.

....but rejoice, inasmuch as you are partakers, the Greek word means “to share in” what God has given us the opportunity to share in of the sufferings of Christ (Christ’s sufferings). What a blessing! Whatever it is we have to go through in order to be molded and fashioned, in order to learn more, in order to yield to the process of transformation that God gives, it’s not easy. It’s hard! You’ve got to fight. You’ve got to cry out to God. This wasn’t meant to be easy.

…that, when his glory shall be revealed... Getting close to that one; getting real close to that one. …you may be glad also with exceeding joy. We can’t even begin to comprehend what we’re going to get to experience, brethren. We can talk about it, but to live it? To live what we’re going to get to experience? You have no idea how that is going to affect you, how that’s going to move you and mold you and change you – far more than you’ve been changed to this point in time, to experience the most awesome thing after 6,000 years – actually, after millions and perhaps billions and billions of years – to come to this point in time and to experience that.

To see God’s government come to this earth, to experience God’s government coming to this earth and being established, seeing God having to intervene because if He didn’t mankind would destroy himself? And God has to stop it, and He tells us exactly at what point He’s going to do so. After a third of it’s gone, that’s exactly when God intervenes. I hope we got that out of the book and understand those things. It’s very clear. He’s going to allow one-third of everything to be destroyed on this earth before He intervenes and stops it. If it was one-fourth it’s not enough! One-third, God says. That will shake mankind. That will begin to humble mankind because it’s not over yet, because then when He stops it He begins to pour out His power on this earth, directly from Him, not what mankind has done to mankind to this point, but God intervenes and begins to pour out things upon this earth over a short period of time. He’s going to destroy those who are destroying the earth and won’t stop doing it. Those who won’t stop, God’s simply going to destroy them, and that could be another third or it could be a lot, lot more because God is taking control of this earth and God is bringing His government to this earth and mankind (and those who come through this), will be brought to a point of being humbled. Then God will usher in His Kingdom.

We’re going to find out what mankind is like at the end here. Our record hasn’t been too good through time. That’s the time we live in. But to see God take charge, to see God take control, to see attitudes in the world? Because today this world with everything that’s out there, all the technology we have, it’s the worst of mankind that’s surfaced because it makes it possible so quick and so fast and the greatest of ugliness is made available to all mankind in a way it never has before. They’re prisoner to more than they’ve ever been before! Prisoner! They go out to eat, four in a family at a table and they’re on their phones, oblivious to everything else. You see this constantly!

Driving through a parking lot in Florida you don’t normally think about something like this at Home Depot, and someone walked right in front of my vehicle on their phone. What? I’m supposed to watch for everybody texting while they’re walking too? Yeah, you have to, or otherwise you’re going to run over somebody. And then what? What’s going to happen to you? It’s your fault; it’s not theirs. I’m sorry, but we live in such a sick, sick, sick, sick, sick world. The evil that’s out there that people can get a hold of? Young minds? One comment someone made about when to give a cell phone to their child was, as soon as you want them to be able to watch pornography. That’s exactly the answer. At what age are you going to give a cell phone to your child, because that’s what they’re going to see. You think they don’t? Do you think it doesn’t happen at a very, very young age? 8, 9, 10, they’re a prisoner to it. We live in such a sick, demented world! We truly do!

So we get to witness some of the most awesome things of life when God begins to change this earth, humbles mankind. Finally there will be just one religion, getting rid of all the other stupidity on earth, of all the religions that cause confusion and hatred and bigotry and the differences between races. You think there’s just no end to how people hate each other in the world, and they grow up with that. God’s bringing us to one! What an awesome thing! One! One family! One mind! One thing to believe! When you start experiencing that and you see these things begin to change you have no idea the things that are going to change in you overnight because of what you’ve experienced in God’s Church leading up to that time and what follows. You are going to be unique in all the earth; you truly are, through time. You don’t recognize yet what God has blessed you to experience now and what’s coming and what’s beyond.

Read it again, verse 13—but rejoice, inasmuch as you are partakers, in other words, to share in Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, you may be glad with exceeding joy. We will be in ways that we can’t even begin to comprehend right now. We can think about it, but you haven’t experienced it yet and you don’t know the magnitude of that which you’re about to experience.

Verse 14—If you are reproached (disapproved or discredited) for the name of Christ... So he’s going on and teaching something else in the midst of all this, indeed. But what do we live? If you are reproached, when you experience these things, when you go through various things of Christ’s sufferings in this world because you stand up for God’s way of life and everybody knows that you keep the Sabbath You don’t have to broadcast it, you just do it. Jobs that I’ve had in times past before I went in the ministry, everybody knew I kept the Sabbath. They knew I wouldn’t come in for the yearly, annual time when everybody had to come in mandatory to take inventory. Anyway, it was mandatory for everyone to come in all the way through the corporation. I didn’t when it interfered with the Sabbath, because that’s when they did it. Everybody knew it. I didn’t know they knew it. Of course, if somebody is not there you learn, I guess, pretty quickly. “Why isn’t ‘so and so’ here? We’ve got to be here; where’s he at?” Anyway. But people, how they respond to that is different. Sometimes it’s kind of amazing. They respect it if you stick to your guns and do what is right. Amazing! So every facet of our lives, that’s what we have to do, take a stand. We don’t have to broadcast it. “I do ‘this.’” “I do ‘that.’” “I don’t do ‘this.’” “I don’t do ‘that.’” You just live it. If a question has to be asked and it has to be answered, so be it. But we just live it. That’s what people are to see. You live it.

So oftentimes when you do that this is what happens: If you are reproached, disapproved of or discredited by others, because sometimes people don’t respond that way and they don’t have respect to what you believe and they mock and make fun of, especially of what some of the things we’ve gone through and what we’ve had to experience and how others look upon that and then discredit you, and you stand firm and you keep doing what you’re doing? It says a lot. It says a lot. That’s what God looks at, what’s inside.

If you are reproached for the name of Christ, be happy; for the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. Sometimes we just can’t grasp what God has placed before us and what we have. …on their part he is evil spoken of… They don’t understand. The world doesn’t understand and so they mock or make fun of things they don’t comprehend. …but on your part he is glorified. We grow in that. We grow in in the mind in our thinking toward God and Jesus Christ.

So let’s return now to continue on here in 1st Corinthians 10, because we’ve been talking about this unique fellowship because of these things that we’re able to have with Jesus Christ and with God who has made this possible through him, through Christ when we talk about, “This cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion (fellowship) of the blood of Christ?” There are certain things we’re to go through in life and experience as well. We must go through various kinds of sufferings for the right reasons, for the right purpose, for God’s way of life.

1 Corinthians 10:16 again, and the last part here: The bread which we break, is it not the communion (fellowship) of the body of Christ? So not only do we, are we able to have a relationship with God and with Jesus Christ because of everything that’s pictured through the Passover in this unique relationship we have, we’re able to have it with God’s Church, with one another. That becomes far more important than what we can sometimes grasp because a lot of times people can think they have this relationship with God or with Jesus Christ, but they don’t see the rest of the Body, and it’s actually manifested, the true relationship we have with God the Father and Jesus Christ through the Body, by the Body. Awesome!

So it says here, Is it not this bread which we break, is it not the communion (fellowship) of the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread, and we are one body: for we are all partakers, or the word “take part in” or “share in” that one bread, which is Jesus Christ. So the more we’re in unity with Jesus Christ, with God the Father, with the Church that God has given us to live within, to dwell within, the temple, the more important the more meaningful this becomes.

Let’s turn back here to John 6, because these are the kinds of things (though we know some of these things), that we need to review and think about before we partake of the Passover each and every year. John 6:47; things that weren’t known until they were written here, things that hadn’t been understood by all the prophets, by all the people, by Moses, nor anyone else until God gave these things after the death of Jesus Christ.

John 6:47. Because these things weren’t understood until later on, mostly when they were finally written. Truly, truly, I say to you, He who believes on me has everlasting life. What an awesome thing that we have something dwelling in us and living in us: God, a portion of God, God’s spirit. He’s given us that that gives us the ability to see things that otherwise we can’t see. We just can’t see it. That’s why sometimes we think about different ones and choices they made and if we’re not careful we forget what we did. I had this conversation this morning even with someone, talking about how that we are here, those who were a part of Worldwide and went through the Apostasy, solely because God has awakened us. He woke us out of sleep, if you will, may be a better way of saying that. He brought us out of the sleep we were in. We were all asleep.

Others are still asleep out there. They haven’t been awakened yet. Their time is still coming. How blessed are we that God woke us up? That’s the only reason we’re here, not because we’re special, not because we did something special. We all fell asleep! We are all guilty of the sin that led into the Apostasy; we were all Laodicean, all lukewarm who lived through that period of time. To understand this then, “Truly, truly, I say to you, He who believes on me has everlasting life.” So that life that came back alive with spark and power again after God had awakened us. Everyone who comes in the Body that’s able to partake of that life is unique. That’s the only reason we know and see what we do.

Because you can lose it just like that, too. Boy, you make the wrong choices, wrong decisions, you let something else enter in, you let something else take you off course, you stop obeying in certain things or you find certain things to murmur about? Like I think of some who left back in 2012 and 2013 when God was cleansing the Church as well and things that took them off course that they just didn’t really believe and couldn’t believe because something else was going on wrong spiritually in their life long before that. A lot of that goes back to 2008 when God said Jesus Christ is not returning on the Feast of Trumpets but on Pentecost and time changed. “Well, how can you do that? How can you change something?” Well, now I can tell you a longer story, wrote a whole book about it if you want to read it.

Verse 48—I am the bread of life, the Word of God made flesh. Awesome! The bread of life; it’s spiritual! Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness, and they’re dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, from God. It’s of God to man through Jesus Christ. That’s how we’re able to have what we have, which starts with understanding the meaning of Passover and his blood spilling to the earth and the forgiveness of sin that we can have, but then a fellowship that we’re able to have as a result of repenting and a uniqueness because of an impregnation of God’s very spirit in our minds, that there is an eternal life that dwells inside of us. How precious is that? How awesome is that that God can give us a portion of His very being, something the angels never have had? They’ve never had the holy spirit dwelling in them. They were given truth, but they were never given the holy spirit. It’s awesome to understand those things. We have been given that.

So that which comes from God through Jesus Christ, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. There are a lot of people that are dead that are soon going to be resurrected. Awesome! They have eternal life. They haven’t received it yet, but they’re set, and when it comes God’s time He gives them a body and everlasting life from then on. Awesome and He’ll dwell in them forevermore.

I am the living bread which came down from heaven. Now, the disciples heard all this and they continued to follow him, but they didn’t grasp what these things were about. There were people who got offended because of what he’s saying right here. It talks about how they quit following him after this. They just quit following him because it was so foreign to the mind and it just seemed so wrong. “Drink blood? Eat flesh? Man, you’re kind of sick, man.”

“I am the living bread which came down from heaven,” because it’s from God. He’s the Word of God made flesh. ...if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. See, we can’t eat of it except through Jesus Christ. That’s the whole point. He makes it possible that we’re to partake of those things that are spiritual, those things that began to be revealed about Passover, coming out of Egypt, coming out of sin that they didn’t understand and then that which followed them in time, Jesus Christ, he was the meaning of it all. That was the spiritual meat and the spiritual drink that we’re able to drink in and eat of. They couldn’t, but we can and we do. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. That’s what it leads to. If we’re able to continue to eat and partake of what God gives us, like Sabbath to Sabbath, that’s when we eat most, holy day to holy day, that’s when we eat, feast. …he shall live forever. And the bread which I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.

I can’t help but when I’m reading something like this it’s like, “What’s he saying?” The disciples. Sometimes they got together and tried to discuss, “What’s he saying?” They would come up with something physical because they couldn’t understand it. It wasn’t their time yet. It wasn’t. God hadn’t poured out the holy spirit on them yet so they heard the words but they didn’t grasp it.

On down here to verse 54—Whoever eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, has eternal life, and see, that’s an incredible thing to grasp about Passover. This is when we do it on a physical basis to picture something spiritual that’s to be taking place all year long, a relationship, a fellowship that we’re able to have with God through Jesus Christ that’s so awesome. To eat of, to partake of spiritual things that God gives us, the spiritual food that God gives us. So he says “whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood,” so we have to take the Passover. This is what’s pictured in this, symbolically so, when we partake of it. It’s our commitment every year, our acknowledgement of the truth, of what we have in God’s plan that begins with Jesus Christ. And it says, and I will raise him up at the last day. So this is primarily speaking of all those who have died to this point in time.

For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. They didn’t understand what he was getting ready to go through. They didn’t understand he was their Passover that came to die for them, that he was going to suffer incredibly so. They didn’t understand he had to spill his blood to the earth, that he wasn’t coming now as a Messiah, he wasn’t coming to fulfill the role of Christ on the earth. Not yet, not for another 2,000 years, and the world had been in such darkness because of that.

Verse 56—He who eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, dwells in me. So now it’s not just a thing of Passover, but it’s something that must take place throughout the year, that we continue to partake of what we’re fed and what God gives to us. …and I in him. That’s why it’s so important to dwell in the temple. It’s a spiritual thing! Not to be out fooling around in the courtyard, not repenting of certain sins.

Just like I mentioned this thing of tithing because it’s a good example. Some of you that would abhor your mind to think that someone wouldn’t be paying a full tithe or maybe even tithing to God, robbing from God after all that God says about that. That should be so foreign to the mind! Yet that exists in God’s Church. Well, it doesn’t exist. Let me put that a different way. It doesn’t exist in His Church, but it exists in the environment of the church because still we have some who are out in the courtyard still to this day! Either they start coming in, repenting, and changing, or they’re going to be fully cut off. That’s where it is. That’s where we are. That’s what’s been happening. That’s what’s been happening very powerfully so since 2012, Pentecost on.

For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed: he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me and I in him. I still love it. Those are still some of my favorite scriptures in John 14, John 15 and 16, 17. Some of the most profound, beautiful scriptures that God’s ever revealed, that gave to me to understand, that he’s coming in the flesh. It’s something that continues to happen in our lives. He dwells in us and we’re to dwell in him. Choices we make, because if we sin and we don’t repent and we don’t change then we cease to dwell in him. That’s where the ceasing stops. That’s our choice. God is faithful to dwell in us. Jesus Christ is faithful to dwell in us. We’re the ones who can become unfaithful through sin and we get cut off and we don’t realize by monkeying around out in the courtyard we cut ourselves off from the flow of God’s spirit, we begin to quench the holy spirit, and we get weaker and weaker. After a while something is going to come along and one way or another we’re going to be gone because we don’t have the strength, we don’t have the ability, we just don’t “see” anymore and we lose it all.

He who eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, dwells in me, and I in him. As the living Father has sent me, and I live by the Father: so he who eats of me, even he shall live by me. Jesus Christ was explaining something here that’s really passed along to us now. That’s how we live. We live by that which we’re able to have through Jesus Christ of God and there is no other way.

Going back to 1st Corinthians again here, 1 Corinthians 10. Once again, I should have told you to keep your place there. Continuing on here in 1 Corinthians 10:18—Now look at Israel after the flesh; in other words, look at Israel as a physical nation. That’s what he’s saying here. Aren’t they who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar? And this word “partakers” here is interesting in the Greek. This is taken from the same word above that is “fellowship,” and literally means “a partner or an associate.” That’s what it means, this word “partakers,” a partner, an associate. We’re able to have this unique relationship. That’s why it talks about this relationship we’re able to have with Jesus Christ and with God and there is that uniqueness we have because of what we choose to live through and sacrifice in our lives.

Nothing is worth holding on to that interferes with being at-one with God. “Aren’t they who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?” There’s a relationship here just because of that, and this word then talking about this here “of the altar” just means “that which is sacrificed”; in other words, at the altar. So they’re able to partake of that. So the Israelites when they offered something there was that which they were able to partake of. That’s what the Feast of Tabernacles or the different feasts were about; when you talk about Passover and they started preparing things to be sacrificed at sundown on the 14th. When sundown on the 14th took place it was the holy day. It was the Feast. It was a time of feasting. So they started offering up various things and they had great feasting then during the days of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, if you will. They were partaking of those things. There were some things that were offered up fully to God; there were other things that they sacrificed that they were able to partake of. They were able to eat of it.

And that’s about this relationship. God’s using this to show you’re able to have a relationship, a uniqueness of God that you’re able to partake of this as well. It’s given in honor to God, glory to God, but you’re partaking of it too. You’re able to have a uniqueness here as well to benefit from, a benefit, if you will, by what you’re doing. That’s what it’s talking about here, this uniqueness of a fellowship that we have with God. It shows a relationship of what they’re partaking of along with God.

You know, when we sacrifice, when we’re doing certain things for the right reasons, there is a relationship with God that is unique, that that’s what God’s looking for. That’s what God desires. That’s what God can work with. That’s what God will continue to work with and bless and mold and fashion more and more, the more we can do those kinds of things. It’s about sacrificing.

Verse 19—What am I saying then? That an idol, and so he was dealing with various kinds of things, “an image or likeness” is anything or that which is offered to sacrifice to idols… Again here, some of this is kind of awkward because of what Paul was dealing with with the Corinthians. But again here, it’s a Greek compound word that sums up the phrase “offering that is sacrificed,” or “that which is offered in sacrifice” is anything? The word “idol” isn’t even there. So some of this stuff gets confusing sometimes when you’re working through some of these things and how mankind has translated things because they don’t understand what’s being said. They don’t understand God’s plan and so they take things out of context and put words in that aren’t even there.

Sometimes it’s fine to put a word in something when you’re translating something from one language to another because there may not be an exact word in a particular language. We find that all the time with some of the translations out here. So you try to find the way to communicate the same thought in a different language and it becomes kind of a task. But for God’s way of life to be translated you’ve got to understand the truth. Sometimes those things are just a matter of context. So it’s not just a simple matter of translating a word out of Greek or out of Hebrew into English, it might be a certain word that means something but that may not be the context at all of what’s being stated. I marvel at how God is showing us that more and more all the time.

So anyway, basically what he’s saying here is in the context, “No; the answer to this is no.” But he goes on in verse 20 explaining. He says, But what I am showing you is that what the gentiles sacrificed is that they do so to demons and not to God. So again, he’s dealing with something totally carnal, totally physical, but we’re to learn the spiritual side of this, and you should not want to have fellowship with demons, to be a partaker of, to associate.

Now, if we understand the spiritual part of this is anything to do with things that are of this world that are not of God; this world is not God’s world. It isn’t. The ways of government, whatever you want to look at. The ways of different things that take place in the world around us, so much of that comes from a spirit world, but it’s not from God. So much of it! Not just religion, so many ways of doing things out here.

You cannot drink both the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. So we can look at it in the terms of the way of the world or the way of God, and we must strive to live the way of God. We must strive to be in unity and oneness with God and if the way of the world is edging its way in through the drama, drama, drama, drama because we get caught up in the world and we get caught up in drama, and our lives get caught up in drama sometimes—they really do—that should be a big warning right there. If we have a lot of drama taking place in our life and our life thrives around drama something is happening that should not be happening and we need to back up from that and say, “Whoa! Wait a minute! Is this of God? What am I doing? What is my focus? Where am I going?” Because that’s what happens. It’s been that way for so, so long, mankind.

You cannot be partakers both of the Lord’s table and the table of demons. So we can’t pick and choose certain things that we want. We’ve got to choose this way and to do things God’s way as much as we can. Sometimes you have to cry out to God, “What is Your way in this? What is the right way to handle this, to deal with this, to see this, to do this?” Whatever that might mean.

We’re going to stop there, continue in Part 2 next week.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1