Made Ready For Our Passover, Pt. 3

Ron Weinland

April 6, 2018

A high day, the second one of this year, it’s exciting. It’s inspiring what God’s teaching us and giving to us to understand, and has for a long time concerning the meaning of this period of time. This is a little bit of a disadvantage to you because I’m doing Part 3 today of Made Ready For Our Passover and although this is the last day, I’ll be bringing things about the Passover into this and the Days of Unleavened Bread; but with me travelling like this it’s kind of hard to juggle sermons because we have to make it so everyone else can hear them at different times. So Wayne has one that’s pre-recorded for this season of the year that could be played at any time. Johnny gave one in Cincinnati on the first high day, and you’ll be hearing that tomorrow, so although it’s geared a lot more toward the meaning of these days, but so is this one.

So we’re going to have the final part of the series entitled Made Ready For Our Passover and this is Part 3.

In the other portions of this particular sermon we’ve been encouraged to go beyond, or look beyond our Passover and being made ready for the actual keeping of Passover that we had here last week, but to being made ready for our Passover’s coming, the King of kings. That’s an awesome thing to understand if indeed, which is our focus, which is my focus, which is the focus I’ve been given, is for 2019, an awesome year. To think where we would be or where we’re going to be a year from now, we really can’t fathom that because what has to happen well before that is really beyond our comprehension. To grasp and comprehend what’s going to take place on the earth whenever it does takes place, believing though that it is at that period of time, things have to begin at the latest at some point in late January or into February. Then by the time we get to the days of Unleavened Bread that’s, again, an incredible thing to comprehend what God’s going to do because He takes charge during this particular Feast season of the year. It’s during this Feast season of the year that things on the earth begin to change even more dramatically, if you will, because He intervenes directly, but that’s getting into my next series.

So we’ll back up a little bit here and think about some of those things again that this series has been about. You know, we’re blessed to understand the spiritual meaning of the events that occurred as Moses went before Pharaoh of Egypt and desired, sought, asked for the freedom of the Israelites to leave Egypt. Of course we know about all the plagues that were poured out upon Egypt and the things that actually were there in large part just to help the Israelites because God knew the process it would take before Pharaoh would humble himself to really let the Israelites go. So to understand what was happening with the Israelites is rather unique because here is this man, Moses. They didn’t know Moses. He’d been away for forty years. They weren’t familiar with him, in that respect. They hadn’t been around him before that except for some of the stories that had been told amongst a few of what had happened at one point in time when he killed a particular man and then fled Egypt.

So here is someone saying he’s from the Great God and that he is there to lead them out of Egypt. Of course, we know the example of the staff that he had that turned into the snake, the example of leprosy, and so forth, of things that God did that they were able to witness, but putting yourself in their shoes it was going to take a lot more than that. It was going to take a lot more than that to help the Israelites to understand indeed this is God; this is something far beyond anything that we have ever witnessed in our lives that’s taking place. So they had to be helped. They had to be worked with for a time in order to have a kind of boldness and a confidence to actually rise up and leave. They actually didn’t have that confidence until the very end, and then they were ready. They were ready when the Egyptians were ready to throw them out of the country. Before that it was back and forth, different ones, different ideas, different thinking, but it’s hard to put our self in their shoes, to understand the thinking they had because they had some horrible experiences there in Egypt as being slaves. Just to walk away, to leave, to know the mind, the people of Egypt and how they’d been treated, that was no small thing.

It reminds me of some spiritual examples as I’m talking here of things that we go through as God begins to work with us to help us develop a confidence, a boldness that indeed God Almighty has called us; He’s opened up our minds. I think of the very beginning of that process when we begin to see and understand things that we want to maybe share with friends, relatives, others, and they might have a little bit of interest in the beginning (most do not), but some who do quickly lose it because they come to a point in time where they realize if they really believe the Sabbath day is to be kept they’ve got to make some big changes. They’re not ready for that because they’re not being called. They don’t really see it like you do.

So God has to work with you to develop a confidence and a boldness so that you will leave Egypt, so that you will continue on your course to do what you need to do, so that you will obey Him and continue to move forward because you begin to see a gap in something, a vast chasm, if you will, of difference between those around you who can’t see what you see, and that which you are seeing. So that’s the way it was on a physical plane with the Israelites. They were beginning to see something as each plague came along, a bolder confidence of better assurance that something incredible is taking place here in Egypt, and they were especially helped mightily when God finally began to make a separation between things that were happening only with the Egyptians and not with the Israelites. So this period of time here, of things that were going on and God making it very clear He was working with them to bring them out of Egypt, it is an awesome thing to understand.

So it is with our lives as God works with us and draws us out of sin on our journey out of sin. For us it’s a lifelong process. We understand that. We’re not out of this until either we’re dead or until our change comes because it’s a lifelong process for us of coming out of sin.

So there’s a lot of meaning here of things that we understand.

Let’s turn over to Exodus 12 and read some of this story. We understand the symbolism of coming out of Egypt is akin to (spiritually for us), coming out of sin. We are exceedingly blessed to understand that spiritual meaning and the greater fulfillment of the symbolism contained in those things that God gave the Israelites to observe, that they observed before being delivered.

Again here, this being the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the last day it’s good for us to review some of this and some of those things that were revealed concerning the keeping of the Passover.

Exodus 12:1—And the Eternal spoke unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be to you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. So we begin to learn that the Roman calendar isn’t something that we go by in the sense of observing holy days and the plan of God. There is a calendar. We understand that this is that first month, and Passover was on the 14th day of that first month, the beginning. So God revealed those things back here to the Israelites about time and counting and the importance of this day.

People before this had no understanding, if you will, of a Passover. Noah didn’t know. Incredible to understand that. There are things he didn’t understand. He was never told about some of these kinds of things though he was given understanding of certain things, but not to the degree when God later progressively then finally at this time revealed these things in a greater way. Even then it’s only on a physical plane for a physical nation. So when you go back in time and look at various ones, like Abel, there were things he didn’t grasp and comprehend at all! He wasn’t told. And candidly, for all it boils down to whatever God gives to you, that is what you are judged by and primarily it is how you live toward others because all the understanding in the world about God’s plan and God’s purpose, all the understanding about things to come mean little if we don’t do the most important thing of all. That’s how we think toward others, how we live toward others. It’s about God’s love. It’s about giving. It’s about understanding those things, that to have a right family and right family relationships, to have Elohim means that God’s kind of love must exist. We see from the very beginning – Cain and Abel – and God teaching very clearly the evil of hatred and bitterness and jealousy from the very beginning and showing what it leads to and how God looks at it in the first place. Envy, jealousy, all those kinds of things that begin to well up in people is a spirit of murder. It is the spirit of taking life, not of loving and giving life. So there’s a vast difference between the mind of Abel and Cain, and God set that at the very beginning so we could learn from that.

So even here, to understand that Abraham didn’t know, Noah didn’t know, didn’t understand things about the holy days yet. They didn’t grasp the plan of God yet, not at all. So here God is starting to reveal more, not to the Israelites, to us, to those who He’s been calling, to whomever He called after that. He continued to give more. He began to give more to the prophets and they still didn’t understand all the plan of God by any measure until the time of Christ, and then God began to reveal powerfully a plan and a purpose that before that they had no idea. They still didn’t comprehend early on even as they were keeping the Passover that first night. They didn’t understand what was getting ready to take place, that Jesus Christ was our Passover.

Now, that’s awesome to go back and think about some of those things, because God is responsible for what He gives to mankind. He is in charge of what He gives to mankind, when He gives it and how He gives it. Then it’s up to us to receive it if we’ve been given that ability. So God progressively through time has revealed more and more of His plan. That’s why it’s so awesome what we have at the end of 6,000 years, because no one, no one before us has ever had more. We have far more! I hope we’re moved by that brethren, I truly do. I hope we’re moved by that kind of understanding, because sometimes we do not grasp how awesome this calling is that we have been given! To look back in time at all who have come before us, and they didn’t have the insight and the understanding that you have. They didn’t have the ability to comprehend. One of the most exciting to me is about women and how after 6,000 years of living life and how men and women have lived in life, for 6,000 years, and the oppression, frankly, of women that God’s plan was that it never be that way. Never! To me, it’s awesome to understand the freedom that God is giving to bring things back after 6,000 years to what they are supposed to be in marriage, in family, because if it isn’t there it isn’t where it’s supposed to be and people can never experience the fullness that God intended from the beginning. So 6,000 years man has robbed himself, mankind, of true blessings and fullness of life because of that one thing alone. And what about all the other truths then? It’s awesome, things that people have never understood, that the Church has never comprehended, that Paul didn’t understand when he wrote certain things in scripture, but for that time that’s what they had to live, that’s what they had to abide by because they didn’t have more. It wasn’t time yet for God to reveal those things that we have been blessed to see. So we have been so blessed to grasp and comprehend these things.

So here at the very beginning He’s revealing something that they’ve never understood, they were never given, “This is the beginning of months, and on the fourteenth day,” is an exceedingly special day. But let’s read the rest of this: Speak to all the congregation of Israel (verse 3), saying, In the tenth day of the month everyone shall take for themselves a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house. And if the household is too few for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take according to the number of those living there, so in other words ever how many it would take to normally eat a lamb, to be able to have that occasion of a special dinner. Try to estimate and guesstimate the number it’s going to take. So if there are only two in a household it’s a waste to have one lamb for two or three or four, so invite someone who is less, maybe one or two or three next to you, invite them in. This is what He’s telling them, not to have waste, but to plan it out well, to think about it, and to set this lamb aside.

...every one according to their eating, you know, children consume more than adults, so different things here you think about when you plan meals, you shall make the count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish. The beginning of revealing something here that they didn’t understand, but something that they were to abide by on a physical plane. ...a lamb without blemish, a lamb that’s exceedingly healthy because of what it represented, the Lamb of God on a physical plane. So it can’t have blemishes. ...a male of the first year: you shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats. So it could be of the goats, in other words, a kid or from the sheep. ...you shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.

I think what an awesome thing here! They had four days, you know, the tenth day they go out and they pick it out. This is a family thing; children are involved where there are children, and if you’ve ever been on a farm or ever raised animals you understand that you can get attached to animals. It doesn’t matter what kind they are. I remember growing up, they had names; we gave names. There were certain sheep that had names. I hated raising pigs, but we had pigs that had names. To me, they’re such a filthy animal. But anyway, it was great to find out later on they were unclean. That was not hard to understand. Cattle, our milk cows, they all had names. You’d call them, and to think here you have a lamb and for four days it’s going to be brought in closer, it’s going to be special. There’s that attachment even that children have. Here you have this attachment and you’re to kill it on the day of the fourteenth. Amazing!

So, the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. Here, I love this word, because it’s not the word for “when the sun sets,” it’s a word that includes two sunsets, “between the evenings,” a word that means “between the evenings.” It’s amazing what we understand, because the Church that’s scattered, the entirety of the Church that’s scattered, those of the world, Judaism, they don’t understand what this means. The Jews go into great depth and detail. The greatest of rabbi’s in time that are accounted to be the greatest of rabbi’s and have such great understanding of Hebrew, they try to come up with this period of time because of a scripture in Deuteronomy when the sun begins to go down. You think, dumb, dumb, dumb! You understand when you keep the weekly Sabbath; it’s when the sun is down. When the sun is down it’s the Sabbath, but they have trouble with Passover. So it’s like they can start their Passover around 1:00 because here it’s past 12:00 and now the sun is starting to go down, so that time between there and the time that it’s totally dark is between the evenings. Stupid! And yet they’re supposed to be this great brilliance of individuals who have such deep understanding of Hebrew. You think, this is so simple and so basic. God is explaining a period of time, a day, the fourteenth day that exists, that lasts from one evening until another evening. So it’s a period of time He’s very explicit, very detailed in these things.

God is very exact in what He does. That’s why I am so moved by timing of where we have been, of what we have gone through since the Apostasy, because God Almighty is so minute in how He does things in the meaning of times and the meaning of days and time periods because He does things so perfectly. He orchestrates and brings those things to pass, incredible power that we don’t even begin to comprehend.

So this word here, they’re to kill it between the evenings. So you say, “How do you kill a lamb between the evening?” Well, that’s why the Jews got all messed up, “Ah, well, anytime as it starts going down until sunset you can kill it.” No, that’s not what it’s talking about. It’s something that’s being revealed about our Passover that’s going to happen to him on this day that for them they were to symbolically go through a physical process of killing a lamb on the fourteenth when it began in the evening there after sunset, eating of the lamb and so forth. But the Lamb of God wasn’t going to die until the following daytime period around 3:00, as it were, in the afternoon. So an expression is used about the lamb that’s to die between the evenings. They’re not the same for the physical lamb that the Israelites partook of and ate or the lamb that eventually fulfills what Christ was going to fulfill. What Christ fulfilled had to take place very soon after the setting of the sun on the fourteenth, or I should say, the setting of the sun on the thirteenth, the beginning of the fourteenth, all the way to the end of the day of the fourteenth; Christ fulfilled things in that whole period of time, that whole 24-hour period of time.

So that’s what the greater meaning of this is, something that had to be fulfilled throughout that period of time in that day. You know what one of the first things is? He sat down with his disciples and they kept the last eating of a physical lamb. That was the last time a physical lamb was to be eaten. He said, “With great desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you.” Why? Because it’s the last one! Its meaning would have no more meaning as far as the Old Testament was concerned anymore. He was getting ready to establish a new one, a new covenant, and it was in him because he was fulfilling it. So he looked forward to this because his whole life was about, at that point in time, was to be fulfilled in what was to be accomplished in the Passover, by him dying, by his blood being spilled to the earth. Incredible! Again here, awesome meaning in the things that we see clear back here in Exodus.

Verse 7—And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and the upper door post of the house, wherein they shall eat it.  They shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. So a very physical thing but picturing a very spiritual event later on in time. They didn’t understand any of that. For hundreds of years no one knew what this was all about. But they kept it, a fourteenth Passover.

Verse 11—And thus shall you eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste: it is the Eternal’s Passover. It’s God’s! It’s God’s given to man. It’s His sacrifice given to us. It wasn’t a lamb that was sacrificed. People get messed up on that. They don’t understand. That lamb was not a sacrifice for the Israelites to offer up to God and then they partook of it; it was something that God fully gave to them to eat on that night. They were to partake of it, eat it fully, and what was left over in the morning they burned the remainder. Incredible!

So it’s the Eternal’s Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night; it was about His Son that He was giving for mankind. It was about his own, then, Jesus Christ’s own desire to be a sacrifice, to sacrifice his life for all of mankind. He says, I will strike down the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Eternal. So God said, “I will pass through the land of Egypt this night.” God said, “I will do this,” yet there are some verses later on where some feel like, think it’s a death angel or something that came through and they’re being spared. It wasn’t about that at all. It was God Almighty who said, “I will do this.” So people add things to scripture that aren’t there. Amazing what takes place sometimes. ...and will strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Eternal.

It reminds me very much of what God’s going to begin to do on this earth during this particular season of the year a year from now when He takes control because He’s the one that does what’s accomplished on the earth, when He finally takes control and begins to destroy those who are destroying the earth. It says He’s going to do that. That’s hundreds, a few hundred million people. That’s hard for us to comprehend. Perhaps a few billion, it depends on them. It depends on who will listen to God after all that they go through, after all that they see of a nuclear war.

You know, I’m amazed, back in 2008 and through to 2012 when we had our focus at that particular point in time, in the news very rarely would you see some talk about a possible war, nuclear war, World War III. It just wasn’t in the newspapers. I’ll tell you what; now days, if you are searching it’s out there on a continual basis. A little bit, maybe an obscure article here and there, but it’s out there whereas before it wasn’t. People are becoming more attuned to the reality that this world is in big trouble, that this world is on a collision course with time, things that happen through time. Generation after generation time comes along and some refer to it as a reset. It’s a reset, to reset nations, to reset the economies of the world, to reset “this,” to reset “that.” So it means the massive destruction of many peoples. They talk in those terms. Governments, some peoples on the earth, they talk in that way, how to be able to better handle things. Those things are well under way already and what people are thinking.

In God’s time it’ll come so fast – not only you, but especially the world – but even you, you’re going to be dumbfounded and you’re going to be shocked, and you’re going to be horrified. You truly are when this becomes a reality. It’s not to scare people, it’s to prepare us. It’s a reality that God wants us to be prepared to rely on Him, that He is the one who saves us; He is our God. Just as with the Egyptians and the Israelites, it was God. It was God that protected them. He passed over them. The plagues that happened, He separated them to where things didn’t happen to the Israelites that happened to the Egyptians, various plagues that took place. Incredible! God has great power! That’s why I make comment about God had great power. It’s a small thing that God did for Him to kill all those who went into the Sinai area and were out there for forty years, and those who did what they did in grumbling toward God, murmuring against God, and those of that generation He said would not go into the promised land up to a certain age, those who were up to the age of twenty (I believe it was). Those that were younger than that or born after that they were able to go into the promised land, but not one who was of twenty and above was allowed to go into the promised land—not even Moses—except if you want to look at Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the two of those are mentioned separately. But everyone else?

So for us in the Church and so forth and God cleansing the Church, I made comments like this over and over again, and I’ve cried out to different ones. If we’re not totally committed to this point in time? We’re to be making ready for our Passover. So we were doing that for taking of the yearly Passover, but to recognize what we’re getting ready for, recognizing what the Church is being prepared for? We need to take this so seriously in our lives and to be moved by it and to understand that this Church is going to be cleansed and that God has the power to bring people on into a new age or to prevent them from coming into a new age. That’s how serious it is, far more serious for a Church than it was for physical Israelites. So we need to see those things and be moved by those things and thank God for what we have and for the blessings that we have to hold on to what He’s giving us.

Anyway, going on here: And the blood shall be for you as a token upon the houses where you are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. Just like for us. When does God see the blood? When we repent. It’s when we’re repenting. When we’re repenting of sin there’s blood there. It’s the blood of Jesus Christ. That’s the only thing that can take away our sins and if we are living our life accordingly day by day we will be repenting of sin, we will want to continue to come out of sin and where we see it and the faults and the problems we have, we’re working on those to have a right mind, a right thinking toward others and a right talk and speech in our conversation toward others and about others.

So if we’re repenting then we’re blessed because we believe in that sacrifice. We believe; that’s why we pray and ask God to forgive us of our sins because we believe, we understand and know that if we don’t do it we’re going to become weaker spiritually, we’re not going to have the flow of God’s spirit into our lives like we want and need and desire. So we have to cry out to God and ask Him for that life to live in us because we believe, and because we believe that God blesses us and actually accounts that to us for righteousness, knowing full well we’re not. We know we’re not; that’s why we repent on a regular basis. We see our weaknesses and we ask God to forgive us of the wrong things in our life, whatever they might be, and we want to change. We don’t want to be that way. We want to think differently. And so I don’t care who you are, everyone has sin day by day by day. No one is perfect in God’s Church! No one. There’s different refining that’s taken place, there are different levels of where people are and what they’ve conquered and overcome, but there’s always in the mind, because we’re physical and carnal and human by nature, there’s always a spirit and a mind of self. That’s what we are.

As long as we’re in this flesh we have self and selfish things about us. Some things that, I’ll just put it this way, things that you still don’t see that are in you. God gives us a little bit at a time to see and then it’s up to us to say, “I hate that. I don’t want that. I need help to overcome that,” and you cry out to God for ability to change that. And then if you’re able to come to that point where you’re able to change that portion then it becomes more refined and you see still inside of you that spirit that you detest. You learn to loathe that kind of mind because it’s everything that works against God. It works in opposition to God’s way of life. Selfishness is not God, it’s not godly. It’s not of God. That’s why we have to live in this, to learn to hate it, to learn to hate the kind of nature that’s here because that’s the nature of Satan. That’s what his was; it was about selfishness. It was about self. So God lets us live as human beings, physical human beings, and we’re controlled, we’re ruled by “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” God gives us a choice then with His holy spirit to fight against that, to change that, and for this mind to begin to think differently, to become transformed. But you’re not there until your body has been changed. Then you’ll have that power and ability to remain as you are because you won’t be in this physical part anymore. Awesome!

Anyway, and I will pass over you and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I strike down the land of Egypt. So again, “to destroy” or “to strike down,” that’s what it’s talking about, destruction here upon the land of Egypt. So it is with us in our lives, a need, a desire to yield, a desire to want God’s way of life, as the Passover talked about, as we went through those scriptures already, a desire to judge ourselves so that we will not be judged. Because when God judges it’s going to be a lot stronger, but if we would judge ourselves we aren’t going to be condemned then because we’re yielding to that process. Beautiful! Beautiful scriptures.

So the message contained in Part 1 and 2 concerning the importance of how to prepare for taking the Passover is now continuing on, again, with the same message as we recognize the need to be made ready for our Passover’s soon coming, Jesus Christ as the King of kings. So I’m going to go through some time periods here. Some people don’t think this way. We’re all different. For me, I love numbers. I love some of these events and how God works. You don’t have to understand it all, but if you know it and recognize the meticulous way that God has worked with us, that’s what’s important.

So I want to mention a few of these things at this stage of this sermon because what we have been going through it so defies the things you might work with when it comes to statistics or when you’re working with mathematical probabilities, the probabilities of certain things happening.

So in this end-time countdown to Christ’s coming we understand that there is that which began on December 17, 1994, the Apostasy. To understand that something began at a specific moment in time is incredible. To understand what Mr. Tkach did in the Church of God is awesome. What Paul wrote about in 2 Thessalonians about the coming of Jesus Christ and of what had to take place in God’s own Church first is an incredible thing to understand, what some of us have actually experienced. Others of you have come in since that time to look back at that and to be dumbfounded what happened to a Church that was close to 96,000 baptized members. Feast of Tabernacles we had 10,000, 14,000, 15,000 and plus at different sites around the world. It’s hard for us, for some of you to grasp, but some of us experienced those things. We were in those groups of people.

And when the singing took place, to hear several thousand people singing out to God? It just moved you because you think, “God is hearing this right now,” and if different Feast sites are in the same time zone He’s hearing different ones, several thousand in one place and several thousand in another, all worshipping Him and glorifying Him and singing to Him at the same time. It’s very moving. I get chills right now just thinking about that. Yet look what’s happened through time, to understand that what we lived through, a most incredible thing.

But this to me is incredible to understand. Since that period of time we have lived through six prophetic end-time periods of 1260 days. We’re in the seventh. We’ve lived through six and we’re in the seventh right now. As I wrote down here, “That alone cries volumes.” When you begin to understand how God has used timing and numbers through time. That’s why this is so powerful right now in what we’re looking at and what we’re geared toward, to recognize that we have lived in a period, we’re living in a period of seven prophetic end-time periods. In the Church in times past, when we’d hear time, times, and a half a time, 1260 days, 3½ years, it was hard for us to make the adjustment back in 2008, candidly, to think about the fact that maybe tribulation wouldn’t have to be during that whole 3½ years, because we always had it embedded in our minds that for 3½ years this world is going to have to suffer, that great tribulation will exist for 3½ years. Little did we realize that a lot of that great tribulation was about the Church and was not about the world.

So yes, the world has to go through specific periods of time, but the Church has had to go through specific periods of time as well when you talk about great tribulation and things that we have experienced. God says that everyone, in essence, will go through tribulation. So that’s why, again, some of the things for those who were a part of Worldwide have a difficult time with this sometimes because when we hear some of these terms it’s easy to think about some of that which we were taught. God has had to slowly but surely show us no, this isn’t what that meant. This isn’t what that was about. The world doesn’t have to suffer for 3½ years. But 3½ years is important; time, times and a half a time, 1260 days is important in His plan. He just says things in different ways.

A lot of that is so that no one does understand. Christ spoke in parables so that people could not understand. The world today, they think they understand those parables. Churches today, the Catholic Church, well, not so much, but Protestant churches think they understand those parables. They don’t understand them because they don’t understand God’s plan first of all. They apply to God’s plan and how God works things out, how God calls people and so forth.

So again, we’re now living in the seventh of those periods and that indeed does cry out in a very powerful way. Seven? Seven and twelve are so powerful. God does things methodically so. I think of the period of time He talked about the Israelites until He brought them out to the very day 430 years later. He counted things down, made it very explicit that He did this to the very day 430 years later, what He accomplished and did. Now, what all that means? I candidly don’t know. Some ideas about some of it and what it’s talking about, but again, God hasn’t revealed all that, but He makes it very explicit He has done certain things at certain times in very specific ways. Nothing in God’s plan is by chance except for what He lets us live. He lets us live life by our choices, but even that is by overall design of what He’s doing as He calls different people out of this world at different ages as He’s done through time.

So again, I find it incredibly inspiring to see how all these work together as they do. So we’re going to consider some of those things right now, take a little bit of time here to pause because this has everything to do with the focus we’ve had throughout this period of time in what we’ve gone through.

So first of all, consider the time from the Apostasy up to Pentecost of 2012. We lived through five of those prophetic end-time periods plus an additional seventy days. Chance? Coincidence? Or does it have great meaning? I know. I believe with all my being this has incredible meaning. And just as God revealed to Paul that there had to be an apostasy, a great falling away first, then, and then and only then could they begin to think about the return of Jesus Christ. He said he’s not coming until this event takes place. Now we, many of us, some of us in this room, have lived through that period of time. We experienced that Apostasy. We know what it’s like to fall asleep spiritually, to be cut off from the flow of God’s spirit, and then to be jolted or awakened, if you will, but for me it was a matter of a jolt, being awakened out of that sluggishness and to begin to realize what we’d experienced. We didn’t know right away. So some of us who were called later on its hard for us to grasp a reality of history, even that which is so short, not so long back, if you will. It’s happened recently, in other words. It wasn’t a long time ago. It’s hard for us to put ourselves in the shoes of others who have lived through time and what they’ve experienced. So it is now even for a short period of time.

So again, seventy days. Seventy has always been used in scripture. People in the world talk about it because they understand this thing of seventy and the prophecies in Daniel, seventy, about the coming of a Messiah. They understand that in the world. They understand the importance of seventy. How much more do we understand the importance of seventy and having to do with the coming of the Messiah, the coming of Jesus Christ?

So again, that’s 5 x 1260 + 70. Again, something as simple as this is so powerful because of what it adds up to – 6, 370 days – which is a multiple of three exceedingly important numbers – 7 x 70 x 13. So not only is it five prophetic periods, in time prophetic periods of 1260 days plus seventy, it’s a multiple of 7 x 70 x 13, and that is dumbfounding. It truly is, especially because of what we’ve gone through. I’ve given a sermon series here recently about an incredible 4½ years, a period of time that we lived through, and to understand that that period of time was very much about that being and about that being’s power that he’s tried to exert upon God’s people from the beginning, from the beginning of time, and how that God brought us to a point where he could no longer exert that power and when, when he could no longer exert that power and have an impact upon God’s Church. That is awesome to understand. So he had a judgment passed upon him, something that he has learned about in sermons as well as God has revealed it to the Church, to understand what his judgments are and how they’ve been coming from God. Incredible to understand some of these things.

So from the Apostasy to Pentecost we have thirteen, this number thirteen here, which represents apostasy and rebellion. If you look it up look up the number in some of the different places where numbers have meaning and this is something that the world, that they use and understand. They don’t understand all the things. They have some things about certain numbers that aren’t there. But this one here, how many hotels do you see with the 13th floor? People are superstitious. They’re afraid to have a thirteenth floor because it’s equated with this idea that people have in their minds, this superstition that people have because there is something in that number. I understood a part of it, that it had to do with this being, but I was kind of dumbfounded when I found out it actually had to do with apostasy, that there are some that actually relate the number to apostasy. I thought, man, this is dumbfounding. I didn’t know that. Rebellion? Yes, because that’s what Satan is all about, his way against God, rebelling against God, continually fighting against God since he first did that, but again here, the number thirteen.

So here we have two things, five periods of 1260 days plus seventy gives the same number of days. Then that same number ends up being 7 x 70...  Seven. God’s number, just like the seven day week, seven holy days in the year. God does things by design and if this doesn’t move us we’re missing something, we really are! Because this is how God works. There are specific ways that God works with us. He’s the one who gave us the seven day week! He’s the one that said every seventh day we’re to worship Him. He’s the one that gave us seven annual holy days that picture His entire plan. He’s the one who has given 7,000 years for mankind to live. We learn from the seven day week, each one for a thousand years that God has given for mankind to live. These things move me and I hope they move every one of us because if they don’t something is wrong inside of us and we need to cry out to God, “Please, Father, help me to grasp Your greatness and Your power to create and to bring things about in such a minute way as you do.” That’s why these things are so important.

So again here, seven for completeness. Seventy representing Christ’s coming, and thirteen very much about God ending rebellion, God bringing an end to the apostasy, and what God has done in His church, in His remnant Church to that point in time to make us the strongest and giving us the most knowledge and understanding that the Church has ever had in time, and because of that God has been able to do things in a quicker way, in a faster way in our lives in those whom He has called than at any other time in the Church of God. That is a marvel!

I think of one individual that was talking to me about certain things that they had gone through in a short time. I think it was ten years. To me that’s short. When you get to this point in life you wonder where it went. But anyway, ten years, and I told them, I said, “There are people that lived during Philadelphia who didn’t go through that number of things in their whole lifetime before they died in God’s Church after thirty, forty, fifty years in God’s Church. You have gone through it in a short length of time. What you have learned took them much longer for God to reveal those things to them.” So you have been in a speeded up process that you don’t understand because you hadn’t lived before. I have lived that time. I have experienced those things with other people. I know what the Church went through and to see what God’s Church has gone through now I find it exciting and inspiring, how fast people have been able to grow because of what God has done that other times has taken thirty, forty, fifty years to mold within us! Awesome! It’s to the glory of God, to the power of God to create Elohim. He’s done this through time, whereas He’s given more and more and more to us, that process of being able to create Elohim.

That’s why so few have been called in 6,000 years. That’s why God has a plan for 144,000 at the beginning because during the Millennium that’s the greatest harvest, except for that which is coming behind it. But even at that point in time those who continue on of mankind, to compare that with the previous 6,000 years, there’s no comparison of the power of God to create Elohim in His Family because of everything else that’s happened in 6,000 years before. Then for those who are resurrected after the end of that period of time it’s going to be so much easier for them. They’re going to much more easily grab a hold of this way of life. Another sermon.

But that count there, those things to me are awesomely inspiring to review from time to time, to think about them and what they mean to us as His Church.

So both of these sets of numbers are staggering in itself as to all it represents, to all of its representation, and then after this what followed first? The Day of the Lord. We experienced something unique in the Church of God that God gave to us. Though I knew we were going through it, called it that, believed that’s what we were going through I didn’t understand what it was. I didn’t understand what kind of a day it was. I didn’t comprehend it at all until after we had gone through it. Then God began to give understanding later on what it was we experienced and why we experienced it.

Again, that period of time that we’ve talked about contained in that period from Pentecost of 2012 up to Pentecost of 2013, not a small thing for God’s Church. It was about what God has called a time concerning the matter over the controversy or the cause of Zion. I have learned more abut those verses. When we first started, I first started talking about them, when God first helped me to begin to focus on some of those scriptures a long time ago here going back to this period of time, I didn’t grasp it fully to its depth. I’ve come to love those terms “for the cause,” or “the controversy of Zion,” because it’s about Elohim. It’s about His Family. It’s about what He has sacrificed for and worked for for so long, so long before mankind was ever created. And this cause, or this controversy, who started it? Lucifer. Satan. He began to persuade others in the angelic realm that they could thwart this purpose and plan of God, keep God from being able to do what God wanted to do, and if a third of the angels will follow him then certainly they have power to do other things to thwart God’s plan. Satan’s mind has been trying to thwart God’s plan at every move along the way. So from the very beginning of his rebellion that’s been his mind, to thwart God’s plan. What has it been about?

Man hadn’t even been put on the earth yet when Satan rebelled, Lucifer rebelled, became known as Satan the adversary, one fighting against God. It’s about the controversy, the cause of Zion, God’s purpose for what He was doing. God’s still going to do it whether Satan and the demons, yeah, the ones, the angels that followed him, like it or not. It didn’t matter. God was still going to press forward and bring things to a point in time where He would remold and refashion this earth after Satan did what he did in destroying it to where there was no life on it any longer. He destroyed all the life that was here. That’s why we have the evidence of certain things on the earth in fossils and so forth. We know there was a time, thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions (perhaps) of years ago. They really don’t know. They think they do within a few million years.

So the cause or the controversy of Zion, and for 6,000 years that is what God has been working on. For 6,000 years God has been calling people, not very many in the first 4,000. God worked individually with people. I think of His working with Abraham. For so, so long no one else but Abraham. Just Abraham. No one else is recorded in scripture that God was working with at that time, just one man. He manifested Himself as Melchizedek and had a relationship in part with Abraham, something that Abraham saw, recognized as one to whom he should bring his tithes, because he understood the command. That much was given to him to comprehend. Incredible, just a few through time in the first 4,000 years.

Then finally the Church began and God began to work with hundreds and thousands of people at a time as He called them. Awesome! It was all of for the cause of Zion. All about the controversy, His ability to bring it to pass, His ability at the end to bring it down to an exact number of people, no more and no less – 12 x 12,000. Twelve. Perfection. The number for God of absolute perfection. That which He does perfectly. So He has that which is complete and that which is perfect in design, 12 x 12,000. Think those numbers have meaning? Awesome to understand the Great God and what He has the ability to bring together (because He is the Great God), for the cause of Elohim, for the cause of Zion.

So this phrase, that’s a very enduring phrase to me that has so much more meaning than it did four years ago, so much more.

So that year, again, going back and talking about that Year of the Lord, that Day of the Lord, if you will, that year also was the beginning of the time for the measuring of the temple of God. It was a beginning of a process, something that in the beginning when God began to help me understand what it was I thought it was just in that first 1260 day period, of what would take place. But it’s something that goes all the way to Christ’s coming, the measuring of the temple. Some of it has to do with cleansing the temple; the other of it has to do with our being measured to fit into the temple. I think of the physical temple, things that were built, the stones that were cut out. To think that something could be the perfection of what they did in bringing those stones that fit perfectly together, transporting them so far away, each piece fitting into a specific place. It’s awesome what they did on a physical scale back then. Some of the ability that people had back then, the craftsmanship. But if you understand, too, how they were blessed because there was a purpose behind it that even means more. But of some things that have been lost in time that they still don’t understand how some things have been done with certain things, things that mankind has done in times past that came out of that period of time, candidly, of knowledge and understanding that God gave the Israelites, Israelites that were used to construct the coliseum in Rome. Slaves, a hundred thousand who had certain ability and so forth, that God blessed them that they had. They just had it. Incredible!

So the measuring of the temple, that year was a powerful year, in that respect, in what it was doing and what was taking place on a spiritual plane in our lives. God has given me sermon after sermon after sermon to convey that message to the Church. I know we’re seeing it more and more but just as went through that sermon series about 4½ years, we still don’t get it all. We still don’t get it all because we don’t have the ability to yet. We’re seeing it in different stages and different times and depending on where we are in our own lives as to how we see and what we grasp, but there is still a ways to go. And candidly, some of that is not going to be seen more fully until after Jesus Christ comes and he reveals even more about what that 4½ years was all about. Because as God’s servant I’m here to tell you that’s one of the most powerful periods ever lived on earth for any of God’s people and what it means on a spiritual plane to His Church, for the cause and the controversy of Zion, and what it means about Satan and his judgment. Awesome! Because Satan cannot stop now, in any fashion or form, cannot thwart in any fashion or form what is in place.

That’s why all of you, if you love this way of life, if you love the truth that God has given to you, if you will but hold on to it with all of your being and cry out to God, you have it made. You have it made! But anyone who plays around in the courtyard? I think of all times! Yet some of that is still going on. Though I cry out about it some have been playing out there for so long it’s like nothing is there. They can’t hear me. They cannot hear me. When I get back I have to write a letter to someone, asking them, “Do you really believe that you are tithing faithfully to God? Have you been faithfully tithing to God? Because I know you’re not. You’ve been listening to me cry out to God’s Church for so long here. What do you think you’re doing? Who do you think you’re deceiving? You want to come into fellowship and be in our fellowship week after week and you love God’s people? What are you doing?”

You know, someone knows if they’re giving a full 10% of their adjusted income after the taxes are taken off. They know! This is not a mathematical nightmare. 10% is pretty simple. Ten pennies, one belongs to God. Nine, well, eight. Nine I keep. One for the Feast, the other eight ever how I want to use. Simple mathematics. I don’t have words for this. What more can I say? I don’t want to have to do that. I don’t enjoy telling people whom I love, “Why are you doing this?” It hurts. But I can’t live your life for you and you can’t lie to God. Think of all times, if you see what we see to not want this and to hold onto it with all of your being, to fight for it with all of your being, to sacrifice whatever it means in life. What’s the most important thing to us in life? This, this way of life, this fellowship that God has given to us. Whatever else stands in the way, if God reveals to us it’s standing in the way or against Him then it should just be automatic, “I don’t want that! I want to get rid of that,” whatever it is.

So ever since Pentecost of 2012 the Church has been going through a growing intensity for being made ready for that time when Jesus Christ comes as King of kings. We’ve been growing in that. Those who have been yielding to it, awesome growth, awesome strength – far more than what you sometimes realize that you have because you don’t know anything else. You just look at your day as being this is what it is. Sometimes we don’t grasp how far we’ve come. Sometimes we don’t grasp what we have because we see our nature. We see human nature. We see certain things. And candidly, the more we grow the more we see. That’s a good thing. That’s not a bad thing, because the more you see of human nature the more you want to be rid of it. Hey, that’s not a bad thing, that’s a good thing. That’s what we cry out to God for, to get rid of it because we don’t want it. Well, that’s a blessing. It’s those who don’t, or haven’t seen it in times past who’ve gone by the wayside, there’s where the sorrow is, there is where the shame is, but whatever it takes in our lives, to sometimes just have the whatever shaken out of us, so be it! I don’t care what I have to go through in life – different things we see, things that happen, whatever it takes to refine us and help us even grow more. That’s wonderful! But along the way you’re going to see more about your own nature, your own human nature, and that’s always a downer.

1 Thessalonians 3. Let’s turn over there. So indeed, this meaning of this season of the year means so much more to us, coming out of sin. Keep fighting. Keep in the race. Keep your eye on the next marker. Prayerfully the one we have in front of us is it.  Prayerfully, January, February of next year, because after that you don’t have to worry about markers. Once a nuclear bomb, nuclear weapon goes off you know it’s started. Wherever it happens in the world, it’s started. Wherever it takes place it’s started and what follows at some point, there are going to be so many that we can’t comprehend what’s going to happen.

And how one great nation can be brought down? I really can’t comprehend that. Physically I can’t, but God says it’s going to happen. I know certain things that are possible that nations have right now that they could do if the strategies were so-so, and if they plan on doing something big their strategies are going to be so-so. The Japanese thought they could bomb Pearl Harbor and cripple a fleet to where it would cripple the United States, but as they learned later on, the term that was used, they “awakened a giant.” And they did. It’s different this time. What’s out there that can cripple because of man’s reliance on technology and what can be done to thwart certain things overnight is really scary. So I understand that things can happen, and I know they will, and that’s what’s important.

But for us, when you see certain things, when you come to a point in time, and maybe even just before that, that which takes place that begins a crippling of Manasseh and Ephraim, because they go together, fast, when those things begin we’re going to be aware of it in God’s Church. We’re going to know that something has started. We’re going to know that the effects of the First Trumpet, they’re there, because the second, third, and fourth are right on its heels, happen, as it were, immediately, just like what happened in the first four seals. They’re just a spin off that can happen rapidly around the world. So it will be with the first four trumpets.

Here in 1 Thessalonians 3:9—For what thanks can we render to God again for you, for all the joy wherewith we joy for your sakes before our God; night and day praying exceedingly that we might see your face, and might perfect that which is lacking in your faith? So here Paul is talking to the Thessalonians, a desire to see them and a desire to be able to see them face to face, as it were, and to speak with them about certain things that they were going through. I think of technology today and what we have today and the ability to reach out and around the world in a way that they’re going to marvel at and they’re going to wonder why we didn’t do a lot more. We probably deserve the criticism. But anyway, to think what they had to do and the inability they had in their traveling and so forth, how hard it was, incredible. Even Paul when he was in prison for as long as he was and everything that came from him came out of Rome. He didn’t even have the ability to be face to face with them anymore. Everything was by letter, by epistle and so forth.

Verse 11—Now God himself and our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way unto you. And the Lord make you to increase and abound in agape (God’s love) because this is what’s important. Above everything else this is what it boils down to. This has to be there for everything else to have meaning. Otherwise everything else has no meaning. So this has to exist. This has to be our greatest desire and we come to comprehend even more deeply that our ability to express that is primarily in fellowship, not just in our prayers to God Almighty. That’s a process we go through and we experience, but it’s in the family. It’s in holy days. It’s in the Feast of Tabernacle, Sabbaths if we have the blessing of being able to do so. There are a lot of people who just don’t have the ability to be with others even on the Sabbath, in the sense of the kind of fellowship people are able to have face to face.

Verse 12—And the Lord make you to increase and abound in agape one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you. So there is that which is to grow in us, not only in how we treat one another, but in how we talk to those and rub shoulders with those, and come in contact with those in the world. How, better yet, what they experience when they come in contact with us, that it should always be that which reflects God’s Church in everything we say and everything that comes out of our mouth. They don’t understand that yet. One day they’ll remember certain things, but they need to know that you’re a different kind of person. They need to know that you’re communicating to them, talking to them, whatever it is, in a different way than others around them do.

That little stint I had for three years? That stood out like a sore thumb. I mean, it doesn’t take long when people know you don’t talk like they talk, you don’t say the kinds of words they say and you stand out. I knew there were certain ones and I had a respect from them because of that. They understood that. They respected that. I could tell. Others, it’s like they want no part with you because you’re not like them and there’s something wrong with you. But, anyway, we learn from that. Whether people receive it well or don’t receive it well is immaterial; it’s what we live toward them that counts. It’s what we live toward them that counts.

Now, I say this because I’ve known of people, I know of a story that I don’t want to get too close to because somebody will probably be too hurt by it even though I probably should tell it because maybe they haven’t been hurt by it yet. But I think of situations that sometimes can come up in life and we can lose our temper, we can get upset about something in the world and other people see it and they know about you. They know what you say, you keep the Sabbath or you do this or you won’t do this on certain days because you don’t believe in that like we do. So they look down upon you in that, and here then you raise your voice and you get angry and you make a scene in front of other people? I think, why would anybody in God’s Church do such a thing? How can you be in God’s Church and talk to somebody or say things in such a way to other people around you over something that really is rather nonsensical in the first place, quite unimportant in life if you really look at it? But human beings can get riled up about things very easily that they believe is theirs, and their right, and who are you to say something against me or someone I love? Who are you? So sometimes we can take that kind of posture. It shouldn’t be in God’s people, shouldn’t be amongst God’s people at all. But it happens.

I remember when I was at the Feast site here, Feast of Tabernacles, preaching about certain things at the Feast and then hearing that there were people in God’s Church during the Feast of Tabernacles period who were fighting with each other! In God’s church! Upset with each other, arguing with each other, mad at each other. In God’s Church, fighting with each other? I don’t think so. No, you were out of God’s Church when you were doing that. God was not in you at all, period, and if people deceive themselves in thinking they can do something like that and God’s dwelling in them, well, it’s not happening.

God doesn’t dwell in murder. That’s what He calls it. Cain and Abel? Jealousy, envy, anger, resentment, bitterness, offense, to take offense at something? There are still people in God’s Church that take offense in certain things that someone else does or says. After all that’s been preached, do we see ourselves, realize we have no right, no just cause to ever take offense at something that anyone else does? Whether they’re right or wrong, it doesn’t matter. It’s a spiritual thing to understand how we are to react and respond. Amazing!

So again, this is what’s important. It’s not all the understanding we have of seven cycles of 1260 days, of seventy and fifty and all that added to it. It’s not about that. It’s not about how well we see certain things or grasp those kinds of things. It’s about what we live. Every one that’s ever been called by God, it’s how they lived. That’s how they’ve been judged. Its how they think toward others and how they think toward God. And candidly, they think towards others the way they do because of how they think toward God. That’s what’s important.

...one toward another, and toward all, even as we do toward you; to the end, in other words, for the purpose that he may establish your hearts without fault in holiness before God. That’s a part of our becoming fully established in God and God’s way, it’s by what we live toward others, how we think toward others. ...even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all the saints. Now, Paul said that a long time ago, but this means even more today because we’re there. They weren’t there at that time when Christ was going to come, when he was going to return. We are and then if you understand the spiritual aspect of that too, it means so much more – him coming in us, living in us, dwelling in us.

With that let’s turn over to 1 John 2:15—Do not love the world, neither the things in the world, basic things that we’ve read at different times and thought about at different times. If anyone love the world, the love of the Father is not in them. So if there is that which we see that we are attracted to that we’re drawn to in the world that we know is wrong, that is not done right, that is not lived right, it’s not something we should want and desire in our life, to be of that kind of mind and that kind of mindset in our thinking. Now, there are a lot of things we see in the world, and you can’t help that, what they live and what they are, but what is up here then as a result is what’s important, whether we agree or disagree, whether we condone or not condone, whether we are swayed by it or not swayed by it if it’s wrong, those things are what’s important.

For all that is in the world, see, when it has to do with the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. That just describes a human being. That just describes what we’re like. It’s of the world. It’s what the world is. And it’s candidly, what we are without God’s spirit. It is what we are with God’s spirit except we have God’s spirit that can fight that, that can work on that, that can be in control of that, that can grow within us to fight against those things because this is describing what we are as human beings, selfish human beings. We’re drawn by these things, “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” Anything that rises up to where we make a choice or a judgment that’s in disagreement with God or with God’s Church that is raising something up in our own mind that’s idolatry, spiritually, as far as God’s concerned. So again, we do these things as physical human beings so often and don’t even realize it at times. So again, this is what we are, “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, the pride of life.” That’s why we sin. That’s why sin happens. Some mixture here happens because maybe we’re trying to protect self, maybe we’re trying to protect something else that we think is ours or whatever it might be, or we want to try to control some situation and it’s not going our way, “my way,” whatever.

God is really working with us, brethren, to try to refine us, striving to help us to see what we are and desiring indeed that we get that and say, “I don’t want that,” and to really cry out against it, to really be working on ourselves on a spiritual plane as we did as we were approaching Passover. Examine ourselves, prove your own selves whether you be in Christ and Christ in you. That’s something we need to do more and more and more as we’re becoming more fully refined in the little time that’s in front of us, because this is the most important time. This is the most important time of your life, what’s in front of you. There’s never been a time like this in anyone’s life. There’s never been a time where Jesus Chris was coming. But we live in that time. The only thing that comes close to that on a physical plane is when the children of Israel were at the Jordan River ready to cross from one side to the other. That’s the only thing that comes close to that and that really isn’t even close because what we’re living, what we’re going through is so much more important.

And the world is passing away, and the lusts thereof. You think about that. Just a little over 1,100 years left and it’ll be no more. There will be no more new life in human beings, no more new human life. Actually, 1,000 years and there will be no more new human life, only that which is resurrected back to life again for that hundred years. But we’re very close to that time where certain things about the world, the way of the world, the way of mankind, there won’t be a mankind. That’s hard for us to grasp. 1,100 years and there will not be a mankind anymore, only Elohim. Those who will be in Elohim will be in Elohim, all the rest won’t be. It’ll be gone, dust, forgotten.

...and the lust thereof. No more lust, no more human flesh. That’s where it comes from, selfish human flesh. Lust comes from that. ...but he who does the will of God abides forever. We look forward to that. Little children, it is the last time: and as you have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. This was written by John! Awesome! He was the last of the original ones to be alive. Paul was dead, he’d been killed. Different ones, the original disciples, apostles, they’d all been killed. John was the only one that’s known that probably lived on and died in old age. Here he was writing these things at the end of his life, from what we understand into his early nineties, whatever that time period was at this time. He’s writing about these things that God is giving to him to grasp and comprehend. He’s saying we have known this. God revealed it to Paul. That’s what he’s referring to, that antichrist shall come. That’s what he was talking about when he said “the man of sin,” “the son of perdition.” There’s someone that’s going to have to rise up within the Church who’s going to be the antichrist, but he says we know that we’re in the last times because there are many antichrists.

Now, he was expressing something that is hard to understand, has been hard to understand, that we’ve come to a deeper comprehension of through time, that there is and there has been one primary antichrist, an individual who stood up that had to do with the timing of Christ’s coming, the man of sin, the son of perdition. He was the only one spoken of in time to be like that, to fulfill that role.

But he’s referring to something here about a spirit that exists that can cause such a thing to come to pass in the first place because antichrist has to do with being against Christ, being against the truth that God reveals to His Church. He’s saying here within the Church there are people who are resisting God! There are people who are striving to change things that God has given! The Church has had that struggle through time. After this time, for the next 1900 years this has been going on in God’s Church, where people have stood up with different ideas.

I think of what Mr. Armstrong went through and the ideas that different ones had that tried to pull people in different directions, and people who just haven’t obeyed God and sometimes tried to get people to follow their course to justify them. I think of a group that left even within the ministry here in 2012 and 2013. It’s been there all along, antichrist. That’s the description that John is using here, someone fighting against the purpose of Christ’s death, fighting against the purpose of Christ in their life, fighting against Christ living in them. Sin does that. If people condone sin, choose to believe something different this is what happens.

So he says, Little children, it is the last time, and it was. The last 1900 years, he didn’t know how much time was left, but as far as 6,000 years, yeah, that’s the end. And for those being called, yeah, this is it. ....even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. We’re in the last times, something that was going to come up in the Church.

Now, he probably, knowing how we think as human beings, genuinely thought that he was going to see that. They did in the beginning until God gave to Paul what He did, that Christ wasn’t coming yet. Their mindset was even as Christ was with them for that forty days, a desire to know, “When are you going to be our Messiah? When are you going to be the Christ? When are you coming to do that?” And he told them certain things; he gave them the certain parables ahead of time. Even afterwards you can tell in their writing and so forth that’s what their focus was. All through the eras of God’s Church the focus has been Christ’s coming, the Messiah, the fulfillment of God’s promise, not knowing. People during Thyatira didn’t know there were 6,000 years for mankind. People didn’t know that until God gave it to Mr. Armstrong.

Verse 19—They went out from us... So he’s talking about, look, we have evidence there is something happening within the Church that reflects that there are antichrists, not the antichrist, but there are antichrists, there is a spirit that’s not good. John lived long enough to see this happen within the Church, that those who had come in, that there were things entering in that were not right and there were people leaving with different ideas. Even Paul talked about certain ones, and even ministers that had to be put out. But anyway, this is speaking of something John saw even in a greater way, that people were leaving. Well, how can someone leave the Church of God? Well, they weren’t a part of it. At some point God’s spirit quit dwelling within. At some point after baptism they became antichrist; they began working against the purpose of Christ’s very death, of why he spilled his blood to the earth, so we could be forgiven of sin.

They went out from us but they were not of us; for if they had been of us they would be in the temple! Those who are out in the courtyard are not of us! That’s what God is doing. That’s the message He’s been giving to me and it’s been stronger and stronger and stronger as we’ve gone along here. God has been crying out to His Church in ways in the last few months that I have never experienced. Now, I have experienced it at different times, but not on a continuing plane like this. I wasn’t planning this! A message, yes, but God is cleansing the Body of Christ, the Church of God, and those who want to grow and become stronger, He’s measuring that part of the temple as well, to fit us into various places where we’re going to fit, whether it be in the 144,000, which is not sealed fully yet, but there are those who have been chosen for that, called for that, I should say, but not sealed yet, and others who can live on into a new age who have opportunities you cannot comprehend! And by the time you go through what you will next year you will be so humbled that it won’t be a matter of it going to your head once you go into the Millennium. But if it were to happen, God will take care of that. God works with us to make sure that which exists is a matter of humility in our lives to serve Him. We can’t serve him without that.

They went out from us for they were not of us; for if they had been of us, as I’ve said, they wouldn’t be out in the courtyard, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that they might be made manifest. So it’s not fully manifest. Sometimes people in God’s Church don’t know until finally it’s said someone has been disfellowshipped. “Why, I didn’t know! Does that mean I can’t talk to them anymore? Does that mean I can’t Skype with them anymore?” It’s a dumb question! Yeah, that’s what it means! You can’t have any fellowship with them and you don’t need to know why they were put out. You don’t need to know the specifics of certain things. Just understand they’re not a part of us. That decision is never made lightly. They’re fighting against God! They are antichrist when they come to that point. God’s ministry wouldn’t take that kind of a step unless it was to that point.

...so they went out from us, for they were not of us; if they had been of us they would have continued with us. But they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. That’s what God has done ever since I’ve been in the Church, making it manifest. Sometimes not as quickly in some cases, that some weren’t a part of us, until something else happened, but eventually it’s easy to see, it’s easy for us to judge, “Oh, they’re not of us.” Here we were one Sabbath talking to that minister, talking to that servant of God, and he’s gone the next week. Talking to an evangelist, and he’s gone! Talking to an elder, a senior elder, and he’s gone! I didn’t know that. I thought they were all... I thought... I thought... I thought... Well, God made it manifest your thoughts were wrong, you just didn’t know. Sometimes you’re spared because you don’t need to know until God makes it manifest. This is a horrible part of the ministry. It’s a horrible part of my job. It’s the one I dislike the most. It’s the one I don’t want to address the most until God makes it clear, “You have to, now.” He makes it clear to me the timing of things in ways that I can’t communicate, just as much as anything else He’s ever given to me.

I think of that three years I was over there in prison, things that God gave to me to write on a computer that I didn’t know before. Incredible. Wham, wham wham. I didn’t know them, here they are being written. Inspiring. It inspires me and inspires me when God’s Church receives it and is moved by it.

So it is with different situations in people’s lives. That’s why I know there are people out here who are lying to God, who are antichrist. You know, if you’re not tithing are you for Christ? Are you for supporting the work of Christ, the work of God because that’s how God takes care of His work?

And I’ve said we don’t need the money. We’re going to start spending it like mad here in a little while because of where we are, where I believe we are and where I hope we are because I live by that and you do too. So this thing with advertising right now, the different languages, we only have two more to go up. At this point two more are very close to being put up. We’re already advertising in some of the other languages, most of the other languages. I think there is just one that’s about ready to go and we’re putting some money into some of those, testing the market in certain areas and seeing what the return is. I want to share some things, but I’m not going to yet, but we’re just, we’re not putting a lot into it yet, but we’re getting ready to. After Pentecost we’re going to start hitting it harder. After the Feast of Tabernacles we’re really going to hit it hard. What God has given us is going there. Awesome! To me the timing of those things is no small thing. The timing of the book, the timing of the translations, the timing of all this, it’s not in my hands. I’ve learned that a long time ago. So to me, to recognize how things are falling into place, as they’re falling into place, I am dumbfounded by it. I truly am.

“They went out from us. They were not all of us. It’s made manifest.” Verse 20—But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. I know there’s a lot I don’t know yet. It’s talking in the context here about what you know you know, all things that God has given to you at this point in time of the present truth, saying it in a more succinct way, in a more fulfilled way. You are able to know all things that you do because of this anointing, because of this blessing that you have in your life, literally the holy spirit dwelling in you. It’s awesome to understand God dwelling in us and what that means that John wrote so much about.

But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. I have not written unto you because you don’t know the truth. We know the truth! We know all the things that God has given us to this point in time. We know 57 Truths because God has given them to us. How are we able to know it? By the anointing, by the holy spirit that dwells within us. So, because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth. Who is a liar but he that denies that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah? This is saying a lot here because it’s talking along a spiritual plane. To make a long story short about what John is talking about it means because of what we live, if we don’t live the truth we are denying Jesus Christ’s life to live in us. He died so he could live in us! That’s the reason he spilled his blood to the earth, so he could live in us. That’s why I love John 14, because that’s where God reveals that the purpose of Christ’s death, the purpose of His blood spilling to the earth was so that he could dwell in us and if we deny his life to live within us what are we? And how do we do that then? By sin, by not repenting of sin we deny Jesus Christ. If we keep denying Jesus Christ we start going out the door of the temple and we get out in the courtyard and we start travelling farther out to where we’re not in the courtyard anymore. “Where did they go? I don’t even see them anymore. They’re not even in the courtyard.” Anyway, sorry.

Whosoever denies the Son, the same does not have the Father. Duh, spiritually, because if we have Jesus Christ we have God the Father. If we have God the Father we have Jesus Christ dwelling in us. That’s why I love John 14. Jesus Christ said, basically, “If you’ve seen me you’ve seen the Father. The things I do, I do it because of the Father.” Basically, “Do you believe the Father dwells in me and that what happens is because the Father dwells in me and I in Him?” Then he went on a few verses later and said, “And now you’re going to be given the holy spirit, and the day is coming when you will know that I live in you and the Father lives in you and you live in us.” Awesome! That’s why he died, so we could have that special relationship on a spiritual plane.

Verse 24—Let that therefore abide in you, which you have heard from the beginning. If that which you have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, continue in you, abide in you, live in you. Same words repeated at different times, different English words that are given that are the same Greek word and they all mean the same thing. ...you shall continue in, same word, remain in, abide in, live in, dwell in the Son, and in the Father. And this is the promise that He has promised us, even eternal life. So that’s what it’s all about. It’s about the cause of Zion, the controversy. We don’t want to make it a controversy and be against it; we want to be for it. We want to fight for it, for God’s truth, for God’s word to come to pass in our life.

These things have I written unto you concerning those who seduce you, meaning to lead astray or work to deceive you. But the anointing which you have received of him abides in you – that holy spirit, that life of God the Father and of Jesus Christ, the love because that’s where God’s agape comes from. It’s that love, that spirit. That’s what that spirit produces when it lives in us and the more fully it lives in us the more we have that mind toward others. ...and you have no need that anyone teach you, in other words, something different here. You know what you’ve been given and you’re able to see it and understand it. ...but as the same anointing teaches you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it has taught you, you shall abide in it, not in him, in it, in the truth. You live in the truth. So we live in certain truth, don’t we, that’s been given to us at the end of an age, more truth than anyone’s ever been given? That needs to be reflected in our lives in how we live toward each other and why we do the things we do and why we don’t do other things that we don’t do because we believe the truth.

And now, little children, abide, dwell in, live in him; that, when he shall appear... For others they have to be resurrected. For us some will be resurrected, others will be able to continue to live on. No one else has ever been given such an opportunity. No one can be. There’s only one time that event takes place. Abide in him; that, when he shall appear we may have confidence, and not be brought to shame before him, this word “at” really is the word “wherewith,” or “with” his coming.  If you know that he is righteous, you know that every one who does righteousness is born of him.

So again, I’m going to stop here, but being made ready for Jesus Christ has everything to do with how we live our lives. It’s as simple as that. It’s not about how much we know. It’s not about how much we might think we know. It’s not about even all the truths, in that respect, in all that God has given to us. It’s what we live and how we live toward each other. Jesus Christ died, and one of the things he said, one of the most awesome things he said, that he gave us a new commandment. I love that! Because there are many people in God’s Church who have never, ever really understood that at all. What is that new commandment? Hmmm. They think about the commandments and certain things that take place, but he said, “A new commandment I give to you; that you are to love one another,” but he didn’t stop there because that’s been the commandment all along. The new part was “as I have loved you.” He gave his life. He spilled his blood to the earth so that we could have life, his life and the Father’s life living in us. Awesome! Goes beyond words.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1