God’s Fulfilling Pentecost, Pt. 2

Ron Weinland

May 19, 2018

Today will be the continuation of the series entitled God Fulfilling Pentecost, with this being Part 2.

In Part 1 we went back to the beginning to look at how God has been fulfilling the meaning of Pentecost as He began to work first with Abel. It’s an incredible thing to go back and see some of these things, think about it in the context of the two wave loaves and of how there was that period of time for nearly 4,000 years that God worked individually with people and called different ones to mold and fashion them to prepare to become a part of His government in the Kingdom of God. To take that all the way back then to Abel and we looked at the words of Jesus Christ himself who spoke of that talking about how that they had killed those whom God had sent, prophets from Abel up to the time of Zacharias. Again here, speaking of those things the Jews had done for so very long in time there, and Israelites as well, but primarily the nation of Judah (and of others through time as well before Judah even existed).

But he just referred to their forefathers and all that had happened through time, all that had taken place and led up to the time of Christ. He did that in large part because he was about to give his life as well and to begin a process that would begin working with that which is represented by the second wave loaf. But, awesome to see this process and how God has worked so meticulously through time to mold and fashion His Kingdom, His government, and of the plan that goes into the future through the Millennium and the Great White Throne and all the things that God is planning and preparing and has been for so incredibly long – longer than we comprehend.

Again, read that scripture in Matthew 23:35, and I’ll read it again. He says, that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, whom you slew between the temple and the altar.

To me it’s amazing. Sometimes you go back and look at some of these things in history and how even in Judaism today they argue about what Zacharias this is, and who is it speaking of, some of the crazy things that people get involved in when they don’t just accept what is said in scripture. And, of course, they can’t accept the words of Jesus Christ anyway and that’s so much of the problem.

After this then we moved to the time that God began to reveal more about Himself and how He would work with the Israelites as He brought them to Mount Sinai. Again, meticulous timing. You know, God was very specific about the timing of how long the Israelites were in Egypt to the very period of time, to the very day that He took them out and began to work with them as a nation, and spoke of those things that He did in the first Passover that was ever observed, giving introduction to the first Passover and then bringing them up to Mount Sinai as He led them out of Egypt during that period of time that we observed in the Days of Unleavened Bread, brought them up to Mount Sinai on the day of Pentecost then and gave the 10 Commandments.

All these things are incredible, how God has progressively revealed His plan and purpose to mankind, then in the wilderness as He gave them understanding of the Holy Days in the first place and all of His laws beyond that which was given just in the 10 Commandments. So there is this process whereby God has been fulfilling Pentecost going all the way back to the very beginning. And that’s what we’re looking at in this particular series.

The next great period of time whereby God was continuing to fulfill Pentecost and its meaning in such an incredible way was when He brought the children of Israel up to the river Jordan, to the time He was going to bring them across into the promised land. We’re going to spend some time on this—after they’d been in the wilderness for forty years—we’re going to spend some time looking at this because God didn’t reveal everything all at once. That’s why I love this understanding of progressive revelation through time, because even here when God spoke to them in Leviticus 23 and gave them the law of the holy days and the specific holy days in order and talking about the Sabbaths they were to observe and keep, referring to the weekly Sabbath and then went into Passover, the Days of Unleavened Bread, and then Pentecost in Leviticus 23, those annual Sabbaths that mankind was to keep and to observe, God gave those, and He gave extra instruction there.

And if you don’t follow it you don’t know how to count Pentecost all the time. You might know how to count Pentecost part of the time, but these things here that we’re going to look at and spend some time at, again, that we haven’t done for nearly seven and eight years, ten years in one case that we spoke about some of these things, began to go through it, are the very things that so many in the past in the Church have gotten confused over and still don’t understand and still don’t grasp.

So, to me this is a marvel, because in the midst of this particular series we are also in the midst of a sermon series about thankfulness and gratitude and we really can’t grasp the magnitude of everything God has given to us as a people. To understand what Abel had? He had so very little compared to what Noah had. Noah had so very little compared to what God gave to Abraham. Ten generations later Noah was still alive and here three hundred and some years later he died and Abraham was around fifty; but he learned things from Noah, and God was working with Noah, molding and fashioning him, and told him to get up and go to a different land and God was going to begin to work with him to bring about a nation of people. Awesome!

He kept revealing more and more and more about His purpose, that He was going to work through a nation of people now and out of Abraham a nation of people. Not just one. When you talk about the children who descended from Abraham there are those that aren’t even looked at or known in large part. We focus a lot on Israel that came out of there, but there’s a lot in the world as well, twelve more sons who are a part of some of those things that are happening in the Middle East and part of the world there that descended from Abraham as well and all the confusion that exists in the world because of different religions that they have adopted, or ideas that they have adopted.

The world is so confused today, so upside down, and it’s just getting worse and worse and worse. How blessed are you to know and understand such simple things? Progressive revelation through time. Because by the time we come to Moses and what God gave to him and to the Israelites, they were given to understand a lot of things that were physical by nature, but they didn’t understand on a spiritual plane. Now, Moses understood and saw some things that weren’t necessarily, in that respect, recorded, but God worked with him, and how He communicates to the mind, there was much given. But to still understand it on a plane that was revealed in a greater way later on by Jesus Christ himself? It’s quite different because all these are steps along the way.

That’s why I say it’s so hard for us to grasp what we have at the end of 6,000 years and the appreciation and the gratitude of time to be able to see and understand so much about how God functions and how God works, what His plan is, what His purpose is. So many have never understood that plan and purpose. So much of it wasn’t given until God began to raise up some of the last eras of the Church, beginning with Philadelphia through one of His last apostles, Mr. Armstrong. Incredible.

Then all that understanding was given about a plan from Passover, Unleavened Bread, all the way to the Last Great Day and what God was doing. Peoples before didn’t understand those things and in that detail as to how God was working everything out. Those things were not taught by the apostles before, the original apostles and disciples of Christ.

Let’s turn over to Leviticus 23 again and pick some of this up in this process of this story of what God specifically told them, because this is important. You know, God gives things in a specific way. He’s very meticulous, very ordered, very precise, and very exacting. Leviticus 23:9. What is amazing is though these things are exact and precise mankind doesn’t want to listen to it. He doesn’t want to hear what God has said. He wants to believe something different and we’re going to talk about some of those things today in a pretty strong way, if we get to that point, about a great change that we’re going to make in the Church once again in cleaning certain things up in preparing for Christ’s coming. To me, one last great change to take place, to clean things up that have been needed to be cleaned up long before 325, but especially after that point on, 325 A.D.

Leviticus 23:9—And the Eternal spoke unto Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, When you have come into the land which I give to you... God made it possible to bring them out of Egypt. None of their firstborn died because they obeyed Him and put the blood on their doorposts and they stayed inside all night like they were told to. But all the Egyptians in their land and all the animals, the firstborn, died that night, and because Pharaoh’s own son died that night, his firstborn, he finally gave in for a little while and said, “Get out!” He sent messengers to Moses and said, “Get out! And take your people and take your animals and everything that you’ve asked for!” Then after he’d had a little bit of time to think about it and mull it over sent his entire army after them – all the chariots, all the horseman, all the army of Pharaoh. It wasn’t just chariots, it was his entire army that he gathered together to go after the Israelites to destroy them. Incredible!

God delivered them, separated them so that the Egyptians couldn’t get to them – pillar of fire. They couldn’t get to them! Then finally when that rose up they were able to chase after them.

But, incredible, God took them through a way that had never been known as a way because He had to open up the Red Sea to deliver them, a powerful Almighty God. Sometimes I go back, you read certain things and people try to figure out, “Well, how did all this happen and where did He do this and how did He do this,” and it’s like, “Well, where did these winds come from?” And they try to think about how God could have done this. You think, “It’s God!” “It’s God! Don’t you get it?” If He wants to dry up the ground quickly and have a wind go through there, great, but I’ll tell you what, He had to do a lot more because that’s been underwater for a long time and He had to do more than have just a little wind go through there for maybe an hour or two. I mean, what kind of a wind is going to dry out the entire ground underneath that quickly to where the wagons and everything are not going to get bogged down? He’s God! He can dry the ground! That’s a no-brainer. It’s like people have to think physically like what did He, how did He do it, use the wind? How did these things happen? Give me a break! If He created the earth, if He created the universe surely He can dry a little bit of ground quickly so the Israelites can pass! And surely He can hold up the water! There is no physical way to explain it, God did it!

How do you reason with such a mind that is so physical and so carnal? You can’t! Incredible, how human beings are.

...and you shall reap the harvest thereof. So, you know, you think here God is telling them, He’s giving them manna every day except one and telling them how to collect the manna. They had no harvest. They had no grains. They had nothing of that nature that they could eat, but God said there was to be a period of time when He’d bring them into a particular land. Then they would have a harvest! Now, what is incredible is that even in the timing of this is to when these days follow that we’re going to look at because they have to fall on a specific day of the week. Just as we went through this thing about the death of Jesus Christ, this is all planned out, meticulously so, because the Wave Sheaf had to be on Sunday so he had to die on a specific day – and it wasn’t Friday! We’ve gone through all that. He had to have three days and three nights that he was in the heart of the earth.

But people don’t want to hear that because it gets rid of their ideas about what he did, what they’ve been told primarily by a single church a long time ago that distorted and twisted things because they wanted to destroy the idea of Passover. They outlawed Passover to be observed in the Roman Empire. They then followed that up by outlawing the seventh day Sabbath to be observed in the Roman Empire. People could be put to death for it. So Easter was instituted. You know, you think about some of these things and some of the laws that were passed in the Roman Empire that gave the Catholic Church such great power.

Anyway, going on he says, When you have come into the land which I give to you... So God brought them out of Egypt, going to take them through the wilderness, now for forty years because of what they did (and it was all planned before anyway). God knows what human beings are like. He knows what they’re going to do under every kind of circumstance and environment. This was all planned out. It wasn’t something, “What am I going to do with them? Oh, I guess I’ll keep them out here for forty years. Okay, Moses, go down and tell them.”

So, He says, You shall reap the harvest thereof and you shall bring a sheaf of the first, the first of the harvest, the beginning of the harvest was all it was. So they cut this sheaf, they began the harvest, and they weren’t to partake of this harvest at all until the Wave Sheaf was waved.

Now, the reason I’m mentioning these things is because there are people in our past who have known the truth, who have gotten confused over these things because sadly they’ve gone to Judaism to learn what was true. It’s like, “The Jews surely understand what’s in the Old Testament; so therefore, they must be right about what’s stated in Hebrew, therefore...” You think, what did Christ say to the Jews when he came to them two thousand years ago, to the religious leaders? He said, “You hypocrites!” All the things that they had distorted, all the truth that God had given to them and the things that they were doing, they weren’t right then. You think two thousand years they’ve gotten better? They haven’t! They don’t understand. You get farther and farther and farther away from things that are true.

They changed the timing of Passover after Christ died. Before that they always kept it on the 14th, but it wasn’t too long they changed it to the 15th because they couldn’t have it be on the 14th and the history of Jesus Christ because then you might have to acknowledge he was the Passover. That’s why they did it. You have to change things if it doesn’t agree with what you want to do and what you want to believe. And if you want to reject the Christ, the Messiah, then you have to do something different. And they did. They changed the timing. It had to do with when the sun goes down, this thing of “between the evenings” that we’ve talked about. I don’t want to get off on that.

But you know so much! You have been given so much. Those of you, especially, who came in around 2008 and 2009, it’s hard to grasp sometimes how much you know, how much you’ve been given because you don’t know what it was like before. Not even in Philadelphia when we’d been given so much there that was way beyond what the apostles had been given. What God gave to Mr. Armstrong was well beyond that because we had now entered the end-time and the things that Mr. Armstrong taught about what was going to happen to the earth at the end-time, of what was going to happen in Europe, how that Europe was going to have a commonwealth of nations, or a union of nations in time – ten, as a matter of fact, when it’s all said and done. Now they have twenty, over twenty, and so it’s like, “Well, it can’t be them.” Oh, it’s not over with yet. They’re not all going to be a part of it when it happens.

But they mocked and made fun of Mr. Armstrong back in 1950 when he sent people over there with The Plain Truth to write about the first meetings they had of a common market that was going to come together and later turned into the European Union. He said they’re going to have a common currency. That didn’t happen until long after Mr. Armstrong was dead! Well, not real long, but it was fourteen years later. So that’s quite a long time. Finally they had the euro that came into effect. He said they’re going to have a common currency, the government, a common government, and a military. Just recently we have bolstered that mightily. The United States has bolstered that mightily to a point where Angela Merkle and others have basically stated, “We can’t rely on the United States anymore.” NATO, can it rely on the United States? Basically that’s what they’re saying, “We have to turn more inward and take care of things ourselves.”

Sometimes we don’t grasp what’s happening in history or day to day that’s a part of what God’s doing. Do you realize what happened with this thing with Iran is not a small thing? It’s a very big thing because it sent a message throughout Europe, even to one who considered himself a good friend (when France was here), but he didn’t listen. He said, “We’re pulling out.” Now, this is not a matter of what is right and wrong, it’s just a matter of a choice that was made. But it affected all of the European Union and because it affected the European Union they’re more on their own now and they understand that. “We’ve got to do what we’re going to do and we can’t rely upon them anymore.”

This is a big thing that just took place. It’s leading them to become the 10 nations. That’s the very thing that’s leading them to become the final 10 nations, to where one day ten of them are going to agree on a single thing. The others won’t, but they will, and then it’s too late to turn back the clock once they begin to do what’s prophesied to take place.

We live in incredible times. We truly do. Regardless of when it happens it’s closing in fast.

He told them, again, you’re going to reap a harvest and when you do you’re to bring this sheaf to the priests of the first of the cuttings and you’re not to eat anything of it until this sheaf has been waved. He’s very specific about what He told them. He didn’t leave anything nebulous at all. So the days in which these things happen are awesome because it tells how to count something that if you don’t know this you don’t really know how to count, on certain years especially. You might do it by accident, which is basically what’s happened in large part in the church through time but not through absolute knowledge.

Verse 11—and he shall wave the sheaf before the Eternal, to be accepted for you. Again, about Jesus Christ who is our Wave Sheaf offering. The very reason why Jesus Christ told Mary at the tomb when he appeared to her, “Don’t touch me right now, because I go to my Father and your Father.” Incredible! And just a little bit later down the road as she’s going back to the apostles, the disciples, to tell them again now she’s seen him and talked to him, “He’s been resurrected!” he stops and sees her again, talks to her again. This time he lets them touch him. He was received by God the Father as our Wave Sheaf, to be accepted for mankind as the Lamb of God, our Passover, our Wave Sheaf.

And you shall wave the sheaf before the the Eternal, to be accepted for you; on the morrow, or the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. So always, we understand that, on that Sunday, as we’ve gone through this before. And to understand too, that the Wave Sheaf is a vital part of Unleavened Bread because Jesus Christ was unleavened. This becomes more important as we go along here, but this story here solidifies this that the Wave Sheaf always, always, always has to be within the Days of Unleavened Bread. You think, “Well, what’s important about that?” A lot of people out here have no knowledge of that and do it outside if that and keep it at different times on certain years who were once a part of us.

Verse 12—And you shall offer that day when you wave the sheaf a male lamb... So God drives the point home again. It’s about Jesus Christ who had no sin, a male lamb was to be offered up that had no blemish, always symbolic, in this respect on a spiritual plane, of no sin. No blemish.

Verse 14—And you shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the selfsame day that you have brought an offering unto your God: it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.

And you shall count (verse 15) from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven Sabbaths shall be complete. Again, it’s driven home here as to when this was to always occur. It was always to be on a first day of the week after the Sabbath and they were to count then seven Sabbaths and then the following day was to be Pentecost. This is how He’s telling them to work up to the time of Pentecost.

I guess I skipped over it rather quickly here but a part of that story there about the “parched corn,” and so forth, “anything of the land that was harvested,” was not to be eaten until they actually had the Wave Sheaf and the offering that was offered up before God on that first day of the week during the Days of Unleavened Bread.

And you shall count unto you from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven Sabbaths shall be complete. Even unto the day after the seventh Sabbath; so always on the first day of the week is when it ends up. It has to be fifty days. That’s why in the New Testament it’s called “Pente-cost,” “count fifty,” because it had to be fifty days complete to be counted. ...and you shall number fifty days; and you shall offer a new meat offering unto the Eternal. And you shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals: they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven; they are the firstfruits unto the Eternal. Again, it’s an awesome story here. When we understand about the firstfruits, when we understand about the wave loaves, that it represents two periods of time, the first 4,000 years that led up to the time of Christ and then the last 2,000 that are the time for God’s Church on this earth. 6,000 years, two loaves, and out of that period of time is when God draws, calls, works with, molds and fashions the beginning of the Kingdom of God, the government of God, that which is going to be resurrected that’s spoken of in the book of Revelation that returns with Jesus Christ when he comes back to this earth. Awesome! Such clear verses, verses that the world doesn’t really quote and read very often, or read aloud very often, because it’s confusing to them, it doesn’t fit into the concept of dying and going somewhere. Then all of a sudden some, a certain number, come with Jesus Christ to the earth and what does all this mean?

Verse 20—And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits for the wave offering before the LORD, with the two lambs: Again here, things about Jesus Christ because he made possible those in the first 4,000 years because they believed God—that was accounted to them for righteousness— things about a Messiah, about one whom God would send, about a Kingdom, about a city whose builder and maker is God, and because of those things they were forgiven of their sins through a future time when Jesus Christ would become their Passover, through faith.

...they shall be holy unto the Eternal for the priests. And you shall proclaim on the selfsame day, that it may be a holy convocation unto you and you shall do no customary work therein; it shall be a statute forever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.

So we’ve gone from Unleavened Bread to Pentecost and God ties them together. That, to me, is such a beautiful picture because it’s about the Wave Sheaf and the wave loaves and tying them together. What a beautiful picture. And the meticulousness of that and the exactness of all that, of God giving instruction of how to do that, all symbolic of something that He is fulfilling, going to fulfill in time. He started with Abel. Abel is the first of human beings, mankind that was worked with by God to become a part of that 144,000, of that group that would come with Jesus Christ when he comes to reign on the earth. It’s a beautiful picture, part of the first wave loaf.

We’re going to go to a story here now that really reveals all this as you come into the story of the book of Joshua and they’re coming into the promised land. That’s where all this begins to unfold. We’re going to go through this. It’s an incredible story as it is by itself, but it reveals everything about how to do this because God left that open back there in Leviticus 23 because they wouldn’t know how to count this until that moment in time and because things were done on a specific time, at a specific time when they came into the promised land, people could always know how to count the fifty. Because, you see, some years the confusion becomes when, what Sabbath do you count from? That’s what confuses people. If you know it, you know why it’s a beautiful picture of what God left us. God is exact and He wants us to follow Him exactly so. Not to change things. Not to alter things, but to strive to be in unity and oneness with Him with whatever He reveals and gives to us, when it comes to what we read about last week, about that which God gave on a day of Pentecost, the 10 Commandments.

What a beautiful thing, God gave the 10 Commandments on the day of Pentecost at Mount Sinai. From the time He led them from Passover out of Egypt during the Days of Unleavened Bread, down to Sinai, to the side of that mountain, and then gave them a way of life of how they were to live, to show it’s all based on love. How do you love God? Well, it’s how you think and live toward God. You can’t just live any way you want to. You can’t just go off and do anything you want to. There is a way, if you want a right relationship with God, to do things His way. After all, He is your God! He is the one who made you. He is the one who gave you life. He is the one who sustains life. He is the one who has made everything for us and gives to us every good thing in life, every opportunity of those things that He’s placed before us on this earth. Beautiful!

We’re the ones who screw it up! We’re the ones who mess it up! We’re the ones who go to wars. We’re the ones who do the things we do, who allow drugs to come into this country, who know they’re coming in by truckloads and car loads, who sometimes even help it and assist it in coming in as we’ve done as a people. And you think, how sick can mankind be? Things that can be stopped if people want to stop it more than what they’re doing. Now it’s epidemic. What it’s doing to people’s lives? Because once people get hooked on certain things they can’t get off of it. You talk about slavery! You talk about being enslaved to something, that’s what that is! They can’t get away from it. They can’t escape it. They can’t leave it. They’re in bondage!

What a horrible thing. I can’t comprehend that. We look around; we see people and people’s lives, they’re hardly people anymore. Some families somewhere along the line have at least one or more people who are in bondage to some of those things. It’s not just a simple thing of breaking free from it. It destroys lives!

I hope and I know you are. I think of Lot when it says he vexed his righteous soul from day to day when he saw what people were living and how they were living. We see things in this world today and you just long for God’s Kingdom to come to give people a chance. What chance do some children have as they grow up in a world that is so torn up in families and the problems that exist there? The farther we’ve gone into some of these things the worse it becomes. These things are just passed down from generation to generation in the wealthiest, the most prosperous nation the world has ever known.

Look what we’ve done with what God gave to us. We didn’t earn it. We didn’t get it on our own. This nation didn’t begin by our power and our abilities and how great we are as a people. It’s because God Almighty promised it a long time ago, at the end-time He would bless Manasseh, one of the tribes of Israel, to become the greatest nation the world has ever known, to have control over the gates of the earth, military and so forth, incredible, and that Great Britain would be a great nation, Ephraim, and a commonwealth of nations. You look at Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, and so forth, and all the power that was given to them as a people when it was Great Britain (and no longer great), and what they did with what God gave to them. Then out of that came Manasseh and her blessings. God gave it.

Just like the technology we have today, man takes it to himself, “Look what we’ve done. Look what we’re building.” No, we didn’t. God just kept it from you for 5,800 years so you wouldn’t destroy yourself ahead of time. The haughtiness of man in not accepting who God is, that He put us on this earth and that we should listen to what He has to say. Like we have a choice. But that’s how man has lived because God did give mankind a choice. “This day I set before you life and death; choose life that you can prosper.” That’s what God told them. And what has man done? Chosen death. He wants to live his own way, have his own ideas, have his own ideas even about God.

Judah had its own ideas. When Jesus Christ came along they already had all their own ideas about different things, even about going to heaven and about being resurrected. The Sadducees and Pharisees didn’t get along because of these differences in doctrine, because they had already messed up the things that God had said. And how much worse is it today?

Joshua 1:1, everything is here, but God has to give it and God has to reveal it and God has to help people to understand it. Verse 1—After the death of Moses, the servant of the Eternal, it came to pass that the Eternal spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ servant, saying, Moses, My servant, is dead. What an incredible story. Forty years in Egypt, another forty away living in Midea in the area of Mount Sinai, as a matter of fact, in that region of the world, over in the area of what we call Saudi Arabia today, and then came back because a bush spoke to him.

“How do you know the things you know?” You tell that to somebody, “Well, a bush spoke to me,” and he went back and he led the children of Israel out of Egypt and was with them another forty years in the wilderness. Can’t imagine it, trying to govern and work with a people that was pretty hard-hearted, pretty tough to deal with. Now at the end of that forty years, 120 years of life, it was time for him to die and not go into the promised land and someone else was to take over and continue on, and God gave it to Joshua.

Now, therefore, arise and go over this Jordan. He brought them up to the Jordan River. Again, the time of year that He brought them there, a time when it’s flooding, a time of year that it was always flooding and overflowing the banks where you don’t just go and cross over that easily. The area that’s referred to as the West Bank today, that’s the region. It’s around the Jordan River. That’s where Jericho was, on the west of the Jordan, the West Bank, see, the land that God gave to Judah, to all of Israel, I should say.

So He went on to tell them, Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, as I said to Moses. From the wilderness of this lebanon even as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, to the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your territory. No man shall be able to stand before you; that means “to prevent you,” all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you, nor forsake you. Powerful words. Powerful words and the courage that God was giving to him, in that respect, to know that the Great God had given you charge to do this and He was getting ready to do this with the Israelites and that he would lead them now and Moses was dead.

Verse 6—Be strong and of good courage. Beautiful! He was with him and He was letting him know this. He’s going to show him and all the Israelites just how much He was with them because they did pick the manna for forty years but there was a whole generation of people, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands that had been born who had never experienced some of the things. They knew the stories and the things that had happened when they came out of, when they were delivered out of Egypt and came through the Red Sea, but they had never experienced any great miracles while they were out there to this degree in the wilderness. There were some things they experienced, but that’s another story.

Verse 6—Be strong and of good courage; for unto this people you shall divide the land for an inheritance which I swore unto their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous. You know, God tells us the same thing. We recognize that God has to strengthen us in the power of His holy spirit to understand such things, to understand He’s the one. It’s not something you can just go work up. It’s because there’s that understanding God’s in it, and if God is there and you see God that’s where your strength comes from. All the truth, all the ways that God has given, the ability to see and understand those things that others can’t comprehend and you realize there is only one way to see those things. You can’t give it to anyone. You can’t give things about God’s plan and the holy days to anyone. God has to work with the mind. People have to be receptive to that, and if God has a purpose in it then He’ll give that understanding. On and on it goes.

Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law. So a large part of being strong and very courageous is about having a relationship with God that comes through the ability to understand there is a law to be lived.

As I started to say earlier, talking about the first four commandments, they are about a relationship with God. How do you have a right relationship with God to where God will work with you and be a part with you in your life and give you favor in your life? Well, if you live by the first four commandments, all the way to keeping the seventh day Sabbath, as God makes it very plain. On and on it goes.

Then the last six are simply laws about how to live toward one another as human beings, mankind, humankind, how people should treat each other. They’re just principles of love, how to love each other. So if you want to have right relations with people, not wrong relations, you know, not stealing from somebody, because that’s just a wrong relationship. To steal from your neighbor, to take from someone else, whatever motivates people to steal and to rob and to take because they don’t want to work for it, they want to get it by some other means, and yet sometimes they’ll work as hard as they might at another job. If they just put that same energy on their job? But they don’t think that way. They put the work into stealing and robbing. Incredible, how human beings are. Not all. Not all choose to rob and steal.

But there are other laws, just like I mention many a time that are rampant in country western music, rampant. In the south, primarily, in the Bible belt, primarily, and it’s about adultery and it’s about people going out and committing fornication, and it’s about people who get divorced and remarry and marry other people and have affairs and country western music is full of it. Hollywood is full of it. Society, then, because those individuals are lifted up as being idols and looked upon and their music is sung, and people look up those things and they follow the same patterns in life because that’s the way society as a whole is. And sadly, sometimes they meet each other in their churches—what a sick world this is—and do the very thing that God says, “This is not a right relationship. You are not to commit adultery!”

Yet that’s just kind of a way of life today. Do people think about when they get married, “This is for life. This is the way that brings happiness and fullness of life when it’s lived properly.” This is the thing that God has given to mankind to be rewarding and exciting in life, but all the hurt and pain and suffering and betrayal, and all the things that happen when those thing don’t exist is horrible to live through. It’s a curse upon the mind because it breaks the law, God’s law.

God says, again here, how to have a right relationship with others. It’s by obedience to law and order, God’s law, not just man and because mankind agrees with it, that it’s not right to go out and murder somebody. That one there is not a hard one for people to pick up on. “It’s wrong to murder.” Well, I’m glad you know that one. But it’s not because of God. So there are laws about not taking life because why? “Well, I don’t want my life taken so please enforce that one!” And how much do we enforce the rest? Well, that kind of depends.

Anyway, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be a bit... Well, yeah, I do, I guess.

So the way to be strong and courageous, to have a right relationship with God comes through His law. You can have greater confidence, greater boldness in life because you know you have a right relationship with God. When you do sin you know you’ve been forgiven through our Passover and what an awesome thing.

He says here, again here, Be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses, My servant, commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand nor to the left. Don’t turn off course. Don’t say something different that conflicts with it. Don’t go some other path to justify why you don’t have to do certain things a certain way. Just do it! Live it! Walk in it! ...so that you may prosper. What an awesome thing. He just says one thing after another here that all fits in order. “That you may prosper.” Sometimes people wonder why they struggle in life, why they have such battles in life. A lot of them come from our wrong choices because we don’t choose the right path to walk in, we don’t choose to live and think in the way that God says we should strive to be. If we strive to do that then there is that which we’re able to prosper in in life.

...so you may prosper wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; but you shall meditate, think upon it. That’s why we go back and we look at things that should be in our mind, in many respects the 10 Commandments from time to time, because we need to be refreshed. We need to think about them, even what they mean on a spiritual plane, like we talked about last Sabbath and how they apply. Not to take God’s name in vain. We are the Church of God and we carry His name in our life because of that relationship we have.

So we’re to have a right example that we set. Not just amongst ourselves but with others around us in the world, that they see and that they know you’re a certain kind of person. You don’t talk like other people. You don’t curse and swear like others they know. You don’t use wrong kinds of words. You don’t tear people down on the job. If you do something that is wrong and hurt someone or say something the wrong way you go up and you say, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” You’re ready to correct it. You’re ready and people are like, “Okay...” They ‘re not used to that if you do something like that because people just don’t practice that. They don’t live that as a whole.

So if you treat people in the right way, in God’s way, forgive, patient, merciful, and when wrong you acknowledge it, you try to make it right, what an awesome way to live.

So He says, This book...shall not depart out of your mouth; but you shall meditate, think about it. Think about what God says. So from time to time, especially oftentimes in our prayers, because in our prayers, our prayers everyday should be sharpened in the sense of how you lived the previous period. How was that day? How did the past 24 hours go? What things do you need to repent of? Because that should be in the forefront because I want to make certain that God hears me. I know that sin cuts us off from God so I want to make sure that if there is something that I haven’t done right or isn’t right in thinking before God that it’s repented of because if it’s wrong. That hurts us spiritually.

We have to go before God and ask on a regular basis. If you see certain things of selfishness and human nature, if you’re looking, if you’re thinking about those things and how you’ve lived and how you’ve talked, anything that goes through this mind day by day, there are things you have to be asking for forgiveness of.

Do you see selfishness? We’re all selfish. That’s just human nature. It starts as a baby, “Waa,” you want your own way and we turn inward. That’s just God made us physical this way for a purpose, so we can learn that self and the way of selfishness doesn’t work. That was the way of Satan. He turned inward. He turned a third of the angelic realm in rebellion with him. They became demons. He became Satan, from Lucifer.

God made us physical this way so we could learn these lessons, so that when God comes along and draws us and works with us and begins to reveal a different way, a way of giving rather than a way of get – which is a way of selfishness – we begin to latch on to that and realize that’s beautiful, that’s the way it should be, that’s how I want to be treated and that’s how I should want to treat others, to be patient, to want to be merciful, to be forgiving. None of us does it perfectly, not a one of us! But we strive for it because it’s right before God, but we have to think about it.

Think thereon day and night. We should know when we’ve done something wrong. We should know! And if we’re not paying attention, if we’re not thinking about our actions and our speech and everything we talk about and so forth something is wring. ...that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it: for then, for then, if we do these things, you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall have good success, blessings, greater blessings in life. Life gets better and better the more we think upon and change and yield to God’s way of life. It just gets better and better.

Verse 9—Haven’t I commanded you be strong and of good courage? There’s a way to get there. There’s a way to do it and He just told what it is. Do not be afraid, neither dismayed, for the Eternal your God is with you wherever you go. What an awesome thing to know and we know that. We should know that. God is with us; our lives are in God’s hands. What better place could our life be? Whatever purpose, whatever plan He has, if we yield to that process in our life, what better place? Some of the hardships, some of the things we suffer through in human life, God is there and He uses those things to help us if we respond to Him and look to Him for deliverance and for help. Then there are things that are able to be molded and fashioned up here in our minds that we could learn no other way but what we go through and struggle through in human life when in God’s hands, when looking to God, when relying on God. Awesome! With that is incredible peace, incredible peace, even to the point of death, things that the world and people are afraid of. It’s nothing to be afraid of. Your life is in God’s hands. Awesome!

Be strong and of good courage. Do not be afraid, neither dismayed, for the Eternal your God is with you wherever you go. Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying, Pass through the multitude and command the people, saying, Prepare provisions for yourself, for within three days you shall pass over this Jordan to go in to possess the land which the Eternal your God has given you to possess. Now, that had to be exciting! Can you imagine? Some of them had known that entire period of time, and there were others who didn’t, but had the history of that forty years there. An incredible story, here they are finally after having been out of Egypt for forty years and now they’re up to an area that God says, “I’m taking you into a promised land. What I promised you all this time, the time has arrived!” All the people and what was being told them, there had to be a lot of emotions in that in ways we can’t begin to grasp and comprehend.

I want to read through some things that I wrote down before I continue on. I just want to make sure I’ve covered everything. I might have already mentioned it all.

So the actual fulfilment of the book of Joshua, from Passover to Pentecost, this incredible journey that leads into God’s promised land, His promised country; and for us we understand where we are, that that was on a physical plane, and to understand now we’re knocking of the door of that which all this pictured in the first place. It’s about that which is spiritual. Everything that God did with the Israelites, everything that they went through there are things to be learned from that God had a greater purpose for.

Just like the Wave Sheaf, we understand simple things like that. They waved it before God to be accepted. We understand that’s about Jesus Christ. It pictured something in the future – when he died and then was resurrected he became our Wave Sheaf. He was received by God for us, all these things that have incredible meaning, and now this one, to go into a promised land.

We understand that’s about that which is far greater than a physical land that they entered into; it’s about a spiritual one, about God’s Kingdom, about that which He has talked to mankind about for the last 6,000 years. Here we are at that point in time where they are going to be those who lived at various times in the past 6,000 years who are going to be resurrected to be a part of that Kingdom, a part of that government that comes with Jesus Christ. We’ll read those things later on in this series. Beautiful picture! We know it well, but we need to review it. It needs to be deeply in our minds because it is our focus and it is our lives. To think of all peoples we get to experience this in a very unique way. How exciting is that for us to know where we are, to know how close we are, that we get to experience it of all people in 6,000 years, let alone all the truth we know, all the plan of God that we grasp and comprehend, but to live at a moment like that?

So here they are gathering together before the Jordan River getting ready to go into a place they’ve never seen. They don’t know what’s on the other side and then here in this book God gives very precise, very meticulous counting here as we go through some of the story now about the specific days. But you have to know what’s being spoken of, and we’ll do that as we go along. To me this is exciting and I thoroughly enjoy God’s word, the excitement of it when you see things fit together in the way they do and you see the meticulous manner, the precise way in which God reveals things.

That’s why I think of the last chapter of the book. I think of all those periods of time, to have seven periods of 1260 days come out as they have, to have that period of time that led up to that first period where we had 70 days and understanding the meaning of numbers. We’re going to look, as we go through this too, the meaning of names. Everything that God gives has incredible meaning in it.

But anyway, to me it’s exciting as we see those things come together. It was exciting as we approached 2012 to see all those numbers fit together like they did. It wasn’t so exciting to have to go past it, but it was exciting to see how more was given then, of two more cycles of 1260 and how that became seven periods and what that means, and then 50 added inside of that. What an incredible thing – not by accident, all by design. I hope we don’t have to learn more, but if we do it’s going to be exciting and we’ll prosper from it, we’ll be blessed by it.

Let’s go on here in Joshua 1. [Verse 16] And they answered Joshua, saying... So we’re going to pick up the importance of the verses that follow here after Joshua had told the Israelites all that God had instructed him to say, and this is how the people responded then. This is where we’re jumping ahead to. It says, And they answered Joshua, saying, All that you commanded us we will do. Well, they were excited. Here they are after forty years; they’re getting ready to go in and, “Everything you’ve said we’re going to do.” Now, we know how that goes with the Israelites. Give them a bad day and it’s going to be a lot of murmuring and complaining and right back to where they were. ...and wherever you send us that is where we will go. Well, we understand that on a spiritual plane. As God leads us, we go; we follow. When He says turn left, we turn left. If He says turn right, we turn right, and we’ve become very accustomed to that, of understanding there’s a way that God leads and we just follow ever how God leads because we know the truth, we know His way, we know His word. There is a confidence and a boldness we have because we know there’s only one way we see it and know it in the first place. Awesome!

According as we have listened to Moses in all things, so will we listen to you. Well, this is what God is going to strengthen because they’re physical; they’re very carnal. They weren’t spiritual by any measure and so they needed some physical things to see, to realize, “Wow, God is working with Joshua as He worked with Moses.” So they said these things, but God knew they needed some help and He was getting ready to give them some help. So they said, All that you have said we will listen, and we’ll follow you as we followed Moses.

Verse 18—Whosoever it is who rebels against your commandment and will not listen to your words in all that you commanded, then he shall be put to death; so be strong and of good courage. You can’t help but laugh a little bit at sometimes the physical things, the carnal things that human beings say, but this was good and it was helpful to Joshua as well because this was not a small thing being placed on him.

So God made it clear to the Israelites that He was now going to work with Joshua and to bring them into this particular area. We understand the spiritual part of this as well for us, of what is pictured by Pentecost and where God is leading us. But God reveals the count here of how to do it.

I do want to focus in on something here in this particular part of the sermon that is important in understanding here about something that God gave to an individual about to lead into a promised land. We understand we’re being led into a particular promised land. I think of the name that as I was going through some of this, of the very man whom God chose, who was Joshua and that becomes important for us on a spiritual plane as to what God has given to us and what God is giving to us as well today.

But it means “the Eternal is salvation.” Beautiful expression. “The Eternal is salvation,” or “the Eternal’s salvation.” So this is how God was going to work with Israel on a physical plane to do something very much so again in that regard of that which pictures something on a spiritual plane. This is something I really didn’t think that would be addressed until Jesus Christ—which may be the last time I say it that way—would give when he return. Because his name is not “Jesus,” and it’s time we addressed it.

God said something in Matthew 1 that is very profound and very strong, and this is the last thing to be cleaned up in God’s Church in a very great way before Christ returns.

I think of all that began with the trinity and how God led us out of the trinity. He led Mr. Armstrong first to come to understand there is no trinity, that it was started by the Catholic Church in 325 A.D., or at least what became the Catholic Church and that process that began with a Roman government and a Roman ruler at that particular time because he’s the one who took charge and called the different religious leaders together. He was over the conference that took place in what’s called the Council of Nicaea. They instituted one of their beliefs that has gone all the way through traditional Christianity. It’s about a trinity.

Well, Mr. Armstrong was led to understand very quickly as God began to restore truth to the Church after so much had been lost after the period of Sardis, and so during that period of Philadelphia God revealed to him that the holy spirit was not a person. It was referred to as a “holy ghost” in the King James Version there and only through time did people begin to even change the expression to holy spirit, but what was already set in people’s minds was that it was a separate being in the God Family, as was Jesus Christ who had eternally existed. Then there was this Father who’s eternally existed and then there is this other being, the “holy ghost” that they later changed, different translation, to “holy spirit,” but they still referred to it as a being, yet they were all just one God. Then they said it’s something that you can’t understand. Basically, you have to accept it on faith because it’s a mystery.

So every Sunday there is a song that’s sung that repeats things about this trinity. Well, thank God that Mr. Armstrong came to understand no, the holy spirit is the power of God Almighty. It’s the power in which He communicates truth to His people. It’s the way He works with His people. It’s not just His spirit by which He is able to create and do the various things He does. This has to do with His mind; this has to do with that which is communicated to the human mind that God does. He didn’t have to speak through a bush. It’s what He can communicate directly to the mind. It’s not by that which is vocal that has to be there as with so many through time that He’s worked with. It’s to the mind as to how He leads and guides and directs us.

It’s like when you come to see and understand things for the first time, or through a process of time. You come to see the Sabbath and you hear about it and you just know it. You don’t even have to go and prove it. You don’t have to go to scriptures in the Bible; you just know it’s true because you know about what it says there about the seventh day and then things about the holy days. It’s just like, how do you explain something like that, that these things you just see and your mind is opened up to see a plan that goes from Passover through Unleavened Bread and Pentecost and Trumpets, Atonement, all the holy days that are there, Feast of Tabernacles, the Last Great Day, and they’re so clear.

You go out here and try to tell someone else about it, and if you even tried to go to verses, go to Leviticus 23, “Man, you must be a Jew or something,” because they can’t deal with that. Well, again, God communicates with us and it’s an awesome, awesome thing to experience. Then God blessed us to understand Jesus Christ is not a being that he existed for eternity. How could one being decide he’s going to be the Father and the other is going to be the Son and all this confusion that that creates? God blessed us to understand he didn’t have a beginning until he was born of Mary, a physical human being. But he was unique because he was the Word of God, the mind of God, the being of God in the mind, in the thinking, made flesh.

That Word grew up in a small boy that by the time he was 12 he could go and talk to the priests and others and dumbfound them by his knowledge and ability to quote scripture and his ability to talk about what they meant. They couldn’t understand, but they saw something unique in him. Twelve years old! Awesome! Then as he grew and as he matured, and then finally began his ministry at thirty years old and everything about God’s plan and God’s purpose, everything that had been written to that point in time was in his mind, in his being, and he made choices according to those things.

He knew who he was. He knew that he was born for a specific purpose, to be the Passover of all mankind. He told ahead of time, “Destroy this temple and in three days I’ll raise it up.” He knew what was going to happen to him when he died and he told them certain things about his death and they never did get it. They didn’t comprehend it. They believed that he was the Messiah, that he was the Christ – of course, all they understood was the word “Messiah” to that point in time—both meaning the same thing. They knew that he was the Messiah. They believed that. But they couldn’t see the rest. But he knew who he was. Awesome!

That mind in him in a way that none of us have ever experienced! We only experience a small portion of that as God communicates His truth to us. He was born with that mind that developed and grew in a physical human being and we have much more to learn about that in the future. Candidly, some of it we’ll never understand and grasp fully until we’re in the Kingdom of God. Awesome!

God gave him a specific name here – a name where Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were never written originally in the Greek language. It was written in Aramaic. I don’t know how many of us know that. The gospels were not written in the Greek language originally; they were written in Aramaic. Paul and other things later on, there were things written in the Greek language that began and then those things were changed later on as time went along, but it didn’t start out that way. Aramaic was the language they spoke. Aramaic was the language that the Messiah used. Man changed some things later on.

That’s why Matthew 1 becomes so important to understand. Verse 18—Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused, in other words being engaged to Joseph, before they came together she was found with child of the holy spirit. This was problematic for Joseph. She’s pregnant. They never came together. They were engaged. They didn’t do like society and people do in society today now where they have a sexual relationship long before marriage that God says you should not have. So people do what they want to do, maybe live together for many years before they decide they’re going to go ahead and “officially” get married or whatever, because people don’t believe in God and they don’t believe that God said certain things should be done in a certain way and so forth.

So, when his mother was espoused to Joseph, before they came together she was found with child of the holy spirit. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make a public example of her was of the mind to put her away privately. He didn’t want that shame and so forth, what would be considered at that time to be upon her or that somehow maybe that they had come together or that she’d been with someone else to be out there because what other answer is there? There’s never been anything like this happen, but God intervened and said, “Oh, yeah, this is different.”

But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, you son of David, do not fear to take to yourself Mary as your wife: for this which is conceived, begotten, in other words, in her is of the holy spirit. The power. Now, see, it’s not just the power of God, it’s the holy spirit, meaning it’s of God, it’s of the being and the mind, the Word of God. It is who God is, everything that is about God. So it came from God.

That’s why it’s awesome to understand the angelic realm has never had the holy spirit! They’ve had choices to make, but they’ve never had access. They don’t have that. Only a few human beings through time have been blessed to have received of the holy spirit into their life. Awesome! Jesus Christ was born of it, begotten of it. It’s awesome to understand that.

And she shall bring forth a son, and you shall call his name... and it was not Iēsous (Ἰησοῦς), or “Jesus.” That was given by someone else later on. The name, it’s in Aramaic, and was the same word in Hebrew basically. Aramaic was the language of the region and became a part then of the Hebrew language, what Hebrew was, in essence. They’re very closely related; some differences. ...for he shall save his people. You shall call his name Yeshua, Joshua.

So that’s what we’re going to do because everything about that other name is just like the trinity. It reflects everything that mankind has done to twist, to distort. It is everything that represents traditional Christianity. It is everything that the Catholic Church started. They started it and the Protestant Church just splintered off and did the same things just as they kept the trinity and Christmas and Easter and all the other things that were started by the Catholic Church, not in the Bible at all. It’s awesome to understand such things.

So was this name. It was supposed to be, in essence, (if I have this correct in how it’s stated), a transliteration, Iēsous (Ἰησοῦς) in the Greek, in Latin. Guess where those came from, the influence that was there in what was written. But it was supposed to have a sound supposedly that was like Joshua, but it was a very sloppy, if you want to call it transliteration, because that’s not how it developed. I’m going to have to say a lot about some of this, about what we’re doing, but let me go on before we get to that point.

Again here in verse 21—she shall bring forth a son and you shall call his name (it was in Aramaic) Joshua, for he shall save his people... Iēsous (Ἰησοῦς) is not a translation. They claim it’s a transliteration to sound like it. A translation means that the word contains the same meaning. So if you change a name into a different language it should have the same meaning. God said, in essence, this name has meaning, “the Eternal’s salvation,” or “the Eternal’s salvation,” or “the Eternal is salvation.” We understand that. That’s what Joshua’s name was. That’s why God gave it, to picture something that would happen later on on a spiritual plane as the very one whom God chose, who gave life to his own son and said his name was to be the one who would save, to be a savior for mankind. It has meaning. His name should carry meaning.

Not Iēsous (Ἰησοῦς), which means Easter and Christmas and a getting rid of the Sabbath to change it to Sunday. That’s Iēsous (Ἰησοῦς) or whom they call Jesus. That’s what it represents. That name represents everything about that which is not true, that the same Church who chose this, the very one who chose that name, the very one who promoted that name is the very one who has the doctrines that go with it. All those doctrines are contained in that name so there is great confusion in the world. We know, and I’ve never thought we would address this in this age, knowing that the name was different but somehow working with it in the mind thinking, well, people know what we’re referring to and we know who they’re referring to, but it’s not the same.

So we’re going to have a balance in this that the world doesn’t have because people go off half-cocked in some of this stuff in what they think and how they use it and start using a word. We’re not going to go around talking to people about Joshua or Yeshua or whatever because it sounds more righteous or anything of that nature; we’re going to use some wisdom about some of this. We’re not going to be like the Messianic Jews, okay? We have enough when it comes to doctrine to stand out being different.

But I am, in my prayers, starting to change this and every once in a while I’ve slipped even since I knew this, that this is what we’re to do because it’s so much there. It’s like when I was first called and I had this picture in my mind of this long-haired individual on a cross because as a kid growing up that’s what I saw. So when I would pray it took me time before that was cleansed in my mind, to where after a time I knew that was not true. I knew he didn’t have long hair and I knew he didn’t die on a cross. He died on a pole. That’s how they killed people back then. They put the two above them and the very reason we talked about why they came and broke the legs, so they would suffocate and die so they could be put in the grave quickly, gotten rid of when they did this on the time period they did, all the timing that was involved with the high day at that time of year. Awesome! But it takes time to get these things clear in the mind. This one here, it’s a toughie. I’ve already slipped today. But when I use it in sermons and I see that name it’s going to be Joshua. At least I’m going to try. I’m sure I’m going to slip.

But I’m begging of the Church and I’m asking the Church, don’t go out and make a spectacle of yourself in this just to be different, that somehow we’re more righteous than others and put down others when they talk about Jesus or something. When you know people don’t understand, they don’t know something, they can’t help that. They’re in bondage just like the people I talked about earlier who are on drugs. They get imprisoned in that stuff. They get hooked on that stuff and your heart has to go out to them.

Our hearts should go out to others who haven’t had the blessing of being able to have their minds opened up like you have. It’s for you to have and for you to know. For those who come into God’s Church they will learn it in time. It won’t take very long and they’ll understand it as a part of the truth that we have and a part of the cleansing in the temple that’s taking place. That when we read the name in the New Testament its Yeshua. We’re not even going to say that. It’s Joshua the Messiah, Joshua the Christ.

You see, because the word “Christ” they could have translated that differently, but they didn’t, because that is a translation. The word “Christ” does mean “the anointed,” just like “Messiah” means “the anointed one.” So does Christ mean the anointed. Why didn’t they do that with this name? Why didn’t they pick a name that says “God is salvation” or “the Eternal is salvation,” or something like that? Then it could be a translation and we could use it. But they didn’t do that.

And we’re not going to go off half-baked on this other part either, because when you do a little study... Please don’t bother yourself in doing some study into some of this because there are all kinds of crackpot groups out here who have different ideas. That’s just how you have to describe them. And we’re not going to be of those, unless God shows us later on that it means “Hail Zeus,” that that’s where it came from. Maybe it did and maybe it didn’t. I don’t know and I’m not going to try to be of that mindset. But there are those who claim that those letters come from that. We’re not going to do that. Because you can get into stuff about paganism and everything else and I’ve seen some goofy things done with people that get all hyped up about certain things of paganism.

No, just strive to stay with what is true. He’s Joshua. Don’t worry about where the other name came from, how it developed through time, why they chose it, why did they choose the trinity, all these other things. Because there’s a being behind all of that and he wants to take everything he can to smear God’s name, to smear God’s purpose, to twist and distort the plan of God, to mock and make fun of it, to get people to worship his ideas and so forth rather than what is true, because he likes to twist and distort everything that’s true about God. It’s how he was able to get rid of keeping Passover and observing Easter, which did come from paganism.

So, awesome here some of the things we’re going through and reading, and let’s just continue here in specifically what it says. The Eternal is salvation, we understand that. That’s what his name means. ...he save his people.

Now all this will be done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of by the LORD by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel. Now, they translated that properly. It’s not a transliteration of something, it’s a translation into English, which being interpreted, for us anyway, we understand that, is, God with us. That’s what it means. Just like the word “Christ” means “the anointed.” I’ll get this right. Yes, Christ – I’m afraid I’m making mistakes already.

Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the LORD had appointed him, and took unto him his wife: and did not know her until she had brought forth her firstborn son. Meaning they didn’t have any relationship sexually until after this period of time. ...and he called his name Joshua, “the Eternal is salvation.” Written in Aramaic. The Greek and some of the things that happened later on as Aramaic was translated into the Greek language, everything in the New Testament, I should say, was translated fully in the Greek language and in Latin and so forth, those things that happened in time, that’s when things got changed and a different name arose out of it around the same time period as everything else did.

Let’s turn over to Hebrews 3. So, please, you’ve heard this. Everyone listening today you have heard this. Keep it to yourselves. Don’t email anyone in Australia and New Zealand, Europe, and tell them “Did you hear? Did you hear what we’re doing?” Just keep it to themselves. Let them hear this sermon in their timing because they won’t hear it right away, it’s going to be next week. And furthermore, again, please, please, please strive to use wisdom in all this as to how we use the name. You can start getting used to it in your prayers and if it comes up I’m basically going to probably just primarily be using “Christ,” because in some of the things that are said this is for us as a Church. But for others who hear, rather than to cause quick, automatic offence and sound weirder than what people think we are anyway, I’ll just refer to him as the Christ or as Christ or the Messiah or whatever. But amongst ourselves this is the word we should use if we have to use it. And even in your conversations, “Christ.”

I hope that makes sense to you, okay? It’s going to take time to get used to some of that but it’s a part of a process of something we get to start cleaning up before Jesus... See, there I go, Joshua Christ, Joshua the Messiah returns. It’s going to be a hard one to change but that part of my mind I want cleansed.

And I’m thankful. I’m really thankful for that. I really, really am. Because when God finally made it clear that this was time I thought, wow, because it does represent everything that that church started in 325. Everything that’s represented there that’s carried on by the rest of the world who has the belief of those particular doctrines, Christmas and Easter and trinity and on and on it goes, it’s in that name and it’s not the right name. So it means so much more just to be able to have that cleansed as well. Not just the trinity cleansed and to realize no, he didn’t eternally exist, he had a beginning born of Mary. That’s where his life began. And there was no... He was no God that somehow came down and came into Mary. And if he did that then he’s the Father, think, because the Father had no part of that, so another being. So this stuff is just confusing in the world. And we’ve been cleansed of all that. Takes time. Taken a lot of time to get cleansed of these things that started in 325 even for God’s Church, because they did a number. That being has done a number in the world with his power to deceive and to distort things that are true.

There is only one other place in the New Testament where the actual name of the one who would lead the Israelites into the promised land is used of Joshua here. Let’s turn there in Hebrews 3:7, start here. Therefore (as the holy spirit said, Today if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: when your fathers tempted, or tested Me, as it is, proved Me, and saw My works forty years. Therefore, I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in their heart; and they have not known My ways.) Just rebelled and fought against it constantly. And Israel never changed. Man has never changed as a whole – continually fought against God’s truth, God’s word, God’s way of life. People don’t really like it or want it as a whole unless God specifically is giving them help to receive it.

(So I swore in My wrath, They shall not enter into My rest.) Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief... So it has to do with what you believe, what you understand in your mind and what you actually latch on to and receive by hearing and listening to God and believing. ...an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. And yet how many people have done that?

Even those with whom God has worked many have been called, few have been chosen. That’s the history of God’s true Church from the time of the disciples. And they addressed those things, of how different ministers had to be addressed and put out of God’s Church, how different ones through time had to be disfellowshipped from God’s Church, of things that were happening within the Church at that time early on, things that John wrote about, about how that there are many antichrists. Not talking about the one who would come along later on but talking about what was happening in the environment of the Church, those who were fighting against, who’d received God’s spirit and a calling from God who fought against Him. Many were called but few stayed with it through time, through the last 2,000 years. It’s the way of human nature.

It’s what happened with Worldwide. That’s what happened after the Apostasy especially in a very powerful way. It’s what’s happened to us ever since God has helped to bring us together once again as a remnant of what’s left over to take us up to the end. So many have come, many, many, many times more than what we are today. Many times over. Come and gone. Such a short time. Amazing!

Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief and departing from the living God. To a point in time where we choose to believe something different than what God gives to us.

Hebrews 4:7—Again, he limits a certain day, saying to David, Today, after so long a time; as it is said, Today if you will hear His voice... I think of what God has given in this last book, “If you will listen, God will listen.” Because that’s the problem with mankind, just hasn’t listened. Amazing! And that’s been the problem through time. ...harden not your hearts. For if... Notice the word in your Bible. Does it say “Jesus” or does it say “Joshua?” Joshua? Does anyone have “Jesus” in their Bible? Okay, some do. You think, why did certain ones do it this way? Is it the Old King James, by the way? Why did they do that? People are conniving. It’s amazing what goes on sometimes. So early on there was that which was translated and they used this name here because... And I know why. They had to give credibility to the name they changed.

Now, why couldn’t they just use the word that people already understood in the English language? Joshua. Because it’s there. It’s been in the English language for a long, long time, those who’ve translated it into English. So why did they use that other name? Like they’ve done so many other things in the New Testament, things that have been twisted and distorted. Anyway, it’s clearly about Joshua. The context is about Joshua. It is Joshua. It wasn’t Iēsous. Amazing!

For if Joshua had given them rest, then he would not afterward have spoken of another day. Another time. And so these things here about the Sabbath as well have a great deal to do with what it pictures as far as a period of time that God’s bringing to this earth. This actually pictured, because of the seven day cycle, that last thousand years, God’s time.

God gave man six days. He said the seventh day you’re to worship Me. You want to have a right relationship? The seventh day Sabbath you’re to keep week by week by week, and it’s to remind you as well of something very basic, of what He did in the creation, recreation if you will, the remolding and refashioning of things on this very earth. And we have learned through time that it pictures much more as far as God’s plan. Of the first six days, the first 6,000 years man can do as he will, choose his own way of life, but the seventh belongs to God. And so God makes it very clear that last thousand years Jesus Christ is going to reign on this earth as it plainly says in the book of Revelation, “And he’ll reign on the earth for a thousand years.” What an awesome thing to understand the seventh day or that one thousand years that follows the six. Incredible. A time when the Kingdom of God will reign on the earth over mankind.

He goes on to say here, For if Joshua had given them rest, then he would not afterward have spoken of another time (another day). There remains, therefore... Interesting word. It’s plural but it’s translated in English probably in your Bible as “rest,” correct? It’s the word “Sabbatismos” – Sabbath, Sabbath rest, a keeping of the Sabbath. That’s what it means in the Greek language. There remains, therefore, a Sabbath, a Sabbatismos to the people of God. So having tremendous meaning. Yes, mankind is going to learn, be taught when God takes control of this earth. When Jesus Christ comes as King of kings there’ll be one religion on the earth. There won’t be the allowance of all the false religions that exist on the earth. There’ll only be one truth given on the earth.

And mankind is going to learn about the importance of the seventh day, about an importance of a relationship with God Almighty, but also of when it come to pass, the seventh day, that seven thousandth year, if you will, that one thousand years that we understand is the Millennium and refer to as the Millennium.

And so this is a time for mankind that the world has never known. A time of rest. A time that pictured in going in the promised land really gives for God’s people in the first place. It’s about God’s Kingdom. It’s about what mankind is going to have the opportunity for during or for 1,000 years on the earth and to be able to learn from in such an incredible way. A kind of rest that man has never known on the earth. Awesome.

Satan won’t be around any longer. Beautiful time. And we’ll be the people of God, because those who don’t receive it, those who don’t accept it, God tells what He’s going to do to them. If people refuse God and refuse God’s government they’re just going to die. That’s what happens. Eventually that’s what’s going to happen. There is no choice. You can’t choose to have Sunday as your day of worship. You can’t choose to have Friday as others in other religion does. You can’t choose Monday as others in other religion do. It’s amazing, different cultures and different things they have chosen, but not the seventh day. But God’s going to show, yes, it’s the seventh day.

So again here, incredible what mankind has done. It’s clear that the true meaning of the word is accurately conveyed from Hebrew to English when the word Joshua is used as in the Old Testament. The question then, why on earth does the English translation of the name for the New Testament come from Latin and/or Greek? Incredible what man has done. Some things they’ll change, other things they will not. Some finally did start changing this to Joshua here in Hebrews, but...

So again here, what it pictures to me is a beautiful thing; that it helps to clean up some of the last things that God has given for His Church in a time period that we realize where we are as a people.

We understand as we see things happening in the world right now with North Korea, China... You think of some of the things going on over there and people just keep pushing. South China Sea, they just keep pushing. India, Pakistan, and that with China as well involved again. The relationship between Russia and the rest of the world, Russia in Syria, the things that are taking place.

I heard something interesting on TV the other day and thought what an incredible thing, because all along the Gaza area there, all along Syria, some of the rockets that have come in that they know are from Iran that they have smuggled into Syria, and some of the things taking place there, and the man was commenting. He said, “Israel is just surrounded by armies.” Wow! You don’t know the half of it. But to physically, carnally see something like that, that we live in a time period like that on the earth, and we haven’t seen all the surrounding yet, but even on a  physical plane we see some of those things taking place.

So, again, use balance. Don’t strive to be different, just to stand out to be different. Don’t be offensive in using the name Joshua. It’s for us. It’s for God’s Church. You don’t try and push Passover, Unleavened Bread, Pentecost on others and try to force that on a people to see that you’re different. You don’t have to. You go ask for time off, you don’t have to go into a long explanation about “Well, I keep the Feast of Tabernacles and I have to be gone for eight days!” People have done things where they’ve gone into and they’ve made a scene of their religion and what they believe. We don’t do that. We don’t make a scene of what we believe. We need to be balanced.

And I’m saying this because we have situations that arise at times when people aren’t. And this is an area where you need to apply balance. That’s what we’re being charged with by God Almighty and by Joshua the Christ, that we understand something that’s for us to grasp and comprehend and we’re not striving to be offensive to the earth. They’re about to go through some of the worst times of all human history and that’s hard, and that’s enough.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1