No Other God

Wayne Matthews

July 28, 2018

Welcome, everybody, to this seventh day Sabbath in this new venue, which I hope works out for the next group of recordings that we have to do.

The first two commandments reveal the way we as humans should learn to think because by nature we don’t think about obedience to God. By nature we just don’t.

It will take a transformation of the mind to obey these first two commandments, which we’re going to look at today. By nature we do not obey these two particular commandments.

We’ll start in Exodus 20:1. We often don’t think about the first two commandments. We often think about the second one more, probably, than the first because of graven images or images (mainly because of the Catholic Church).

Exodus 20:1—And God (Elohim) spoke all these words. So these all come from God. ...saying... Now, these are facts. This is a fact. I am the Eternal, “I am the LORD, the Self-Existing One,” your God, (Your Elohim). We understand the word to be plural and people misunderstand that and think there’s more than one, but there isn’t. There’s one true God, it’s just that this ties back to a word that means family. We can have a family of Elohim, family of God.

It goes on and says, because of God’s great power, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Now, we understand that’s physical. So God is establishing here some facts. It was God that brought Israel, the children of Israel, out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. For us if we go back into our life we were in this bondage, we were in Egypt, our minds were there. It’s not a physical thing; it’s a spiritual thing about the mind. So we were held into this bondage, but it was God that brought us out of the bondage, out of Egypt, this system, the world’s system. We’re so blessed to understand this very principle.

In contemplating this particular sermon and some future sermons it goes back to this understanding the truth, how important the truth is.

I want to use an example, because we do have koalas in our area, and one of the things with the wind and the trees (they eat gum trees, or they go up gum trees), they have very powerful little claws. Well, what they do is they climb up a tree and they normally get a wedge in a tree like that and they sit themselves in it and they put their claw, two in particular, into the tree, literally holding tight. And normally when there’s a strong wind they’re holding on to the trunk of the tree. It reminds you of what Mr. Armstrong said, “Hold on to the trunk of the tree.” And they don’t fall out of the tree whereas other creatures, you know, move around or try and get out of the wind. Koalas just sit there. They’re tight.

Well, we’re the same. We have to hold tight to the truth because that’s what sets us free and that’s what holds us in the Body of Christ, and the moment we don’t believe God and don’t believe the truth, we will fall, where they sit really tight. When it gets really hot in the heat they still hold on and they stretch out one leg. They cool their bottom leg. They put it out straight, but bring it back, put it out straight, bring it back. It’s hot, but they hang on tight. You’ll see them right out on the top of the branches out on the limbs eating, but they never fall.

Well, we’re the same. We will not fall if we hang on to the truth, if we hang on to the trunk of the tree. Mr. Armstrong used to use that analogy, “Hold on to the trunk of the tree.” Well, when I see koalas in these trees I remember “hang on to the truth; this is what we have.” Well, we’re going to cover one of these truths in the sense of the commandments because the commandments are truth. People say, “Ah, they’re all done away.” No, they’re not.

So the spiritual analogy is we’ve been called and we’re to hold on to the truth. With that calling that we’ve been given we should hang on really tight because the moment we let go we will fall, if we let go of any of the truths. We know 57 plus 1, but there’s more truth that God will reveal over time. Well, people in the future will be tested by the same thing.

Verse 3. The test is spiritual, it’s not physical. Physical tests mean nothing. Spiritual tests mean everything, and we as a unique group of people, as small as we are, are unique because we have the truth. The world doesn’t have it and they don’t believe this, verse 3, which is the first commandment. You, talking about Israel, talking about us individually, You shall have no other god’s before Me. The word “gods” because people set up things in place of God and the world is riddled with this setting up things. So the first commandment is no other God.

Verse 4, the second, You shall not make for yourself... So it’s individual. It’s talking to Israel but it’s individual as well, a carved image, so something that is made from our thinking, any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above... It’s referring to stars or above the heavens. We look up, we see stars, moons, planets and we know the Greek religion in particular, a lot of Greeks had astrology and have Thor and all these things and movies with Thor and all these different gods. They believe their gods.

Well, God is saying here we’ll have no other family but Mine. So it starts with one. Now we know Christ is in it so there’s an extension to the family. Well, we (this is a unique “we”) have been called now to be part of that family.

I was saying to Chris the other day, we’re driving in the car, how incredible (might even have been this morning), how incredible it is that of all the people in the world we know the truth. We can hang on to the trunk of the tree. People can’t. They can’t understand it because it takes God’s spirit to know the truth and actually hang on to it. If we lose God’s spirit we won’t hang on to it. We can’t. It’s not possible because it’s not a physical thing.

...or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them nor serve them. Now, that’s any other thing where we’re putting before God. We’re going to look at that in a bit more detail. Now, this is all about giving no credit to something else. That’s the key to this really. No other god. No other idols. Nothing else that we raise up. Well, this is about all credit relating to anything spiritual has to be given to God. No credit to anything else. We’ll look at aspects of that, about how we do it. There are measures that we can put in place just to check to say, “Am I putting something before God?” “Do I actually have an idol, something that I’ve raised up?”

Now, the world looks at this physical, and you’d think, well, therefore, obviously the second commandment, “You shall not make for yourself any carved image,” you would think, well, the Roman Catholic Church, how do they do away with that commandment? Well, they say they don’t pray to them. But they do. I was brought up in a religion that I prayed to Mary because you can’t go to God direct. Mary, because she’s the mother, she will intervene surely. Joseph, all the saints, St. Benedict or so-called saints. They’re not saints at all. They’re all dead in the ground and they’re not saints. We are saints of God; they’re not, as far as all these other things that they have made up.

Continuing on in verse 5—For I, the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations, to those who hate me. Now, this goes back to personal responsibility and that there are laws in place that penalties will be paid. So if we have someone or something before God and if we raise up an idol we will pay a penalty. The penalty is for disobedience. You can see that in Deuteronomy; there are laws that are in place. They’re automatic. It’s not as if God has to think about it. No, they’re automatic laws. If we think a particular way there’s a law that kicks in.

Just like the law of gravity. So we can say, well, who invented the law of gravity? Did Newton, or ever who he was that discovered it? It was in place. God did it. God invented electricity. Man didn’t invent anything. It all came from God. It’s created by God. He’s the Creator.

So there are laws in place on a spiritual level for obedience and disobedience and they’re automatic. That’s what will happen and you can go through Proverbs and Psalms and you can see a lot of those laws, particularly Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. There are laws in place that’ll take place automatically even though mankind doesn’t understand those laws.

Verse 6—Showing mercy, which is the opposite to this is a penalty for disobedience, but there’s a reward for obedience. Showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. Therefore (we can just look at that), therefore, the majority of the world, bar God’s people, are all paying penalties because they’re all in disobedience to God. The only ones that are in obedience to God are those that God has called to be in obedience to Him. Everyone else is going to pay a penalty, and we see it out there all the time, there’s penalties being paid everywhere and we get caught up in these things. We pay the penalty because we get caught up in them.

The purpose of this sermon is to bring to remembrance that there is no other God but one and to consider how foolish it is to have any type of idol in our thinking. So there are two parts to this.

Our human nature turns towards trusting in something else other than the one, true God. It’s just natural. That’s what mankind does. There are hundreds of ways that people do it – through the stock exchange, and many other things. We, by nature, look for an advantage for self. I’m going to repeat that because it’s a key to this particular sermon. We, by nature, look for an advantage to self, because it’s about rewarding self. We’re going to look at some of those examples.

I grew up with some of these things and understand aspects of these. Lucky charms. So why would a person have a lucky charm? You often see them in cars. They’re hanging down off the rear vision mirror. Particular religions have all the different charms and saints and crosses. What’s that all about? It’s about advantage to self. “This will protect me. I’m not going to rely on the one, true God,” who they don’t know, “but I’m going to have a lucky charm of some type.” Statues, same thing. They pray to Mary and other things called saints.

This one here you often stop and think, well, a rabbit’s foot. A rabbit’s foot? So why do you, as an individual, as a human, get a rabbit, cut its foot off, put it on a chain, and it’s going to protect you? How does a rabbit’s foot protect you? Why not get an elephant and use an elephant’s foot? Because it’s too big. It’ll choke you to death. But you can understand the stupidity of it all. A rabbit’s foot because rabbits, obviously, must be lucky of some type or protect self as an advantage here by doing this.

Lucky numbers? Lucky colors? Items of clothing? I’ve been in that. I used to wear a red shirt to the races when I was younger because it was my lucky shirt. Never proved to be too lucky. I lost a lot so it wasn’t that lucky.

Now touching wood. I want to just touch on this one a bit more in a bit more detail. Touching wood. It was the other day somebody pulled up in the car and he was talking about something, talking about something he was going to do in the future and he went “touch wood.” You think, hang on, there’s no wood here, but there’s a superstition that if you knock on wood that you’re going to have an advantage.

So I did look that one up and it’s a pagan belief that spirits dwell in wooded areas, and therefore, what would happen is that if they were going to say something they were worried about these spirits and pixies and all that that are in the forest, that if they (if you didn’t hit wood), they would be able to undo your good luck, your luck, your so-called good luck, therefore it would be bad luck. Therefore, what they would say, they’d turn around and say, “I’m going to grow these crops,” knock on wood. That means the evil spirits, because you’ve knocked on the wood, the evil spirits won’t interfere with what you just said. It’s just superstition.

Now, this is all just placing something before God. It’s just another form of trusting in something else. You’re trusting in touching wood every time they speak. I looked up, also, in the American government when they walk into the office guess what a lot of them do? There’s a wood board there and they go knock on wood. It’s riddled in people’s minds, in people’s thinking. It’s not uncommon for people to knock on wood. You see it all the time. People say something positive and they’ll knock on wood so the evil spirit (they don’t know that), but they’re doing it because they don’t want the evil spirit to hear it, so that they will undo what they’ve just said.

Consulting tarot readers. It’s trusting in something else. You want to look into the future and they flip the cards and here is the answer. Now, a lot of this spirit beings can be involved in some of this. They have a lot of power to deceive so they can be involved. So some things will come true, some things won’t. It’s not what we’re about. We trust in one true God who knows us and knows our life and our life is in His hands.

I’ll just quickly go through some others. A lot of people consult the spirit realm in lots of different ways. They just don’t understand that they’re doing it. Wishing wells and coins. So you go up to a wishing well or a well, you get a coin, and you throw it in and you make a wish. What’s that all about? You think of the stupidity of our minds that we do these things because we don’t believe God. The first two commandments, we just don’t believe them. Really, as humans, we don’t believe them. We might say we do, but we don’t.

A black cat walks in front of you. You’ve got to go around it. What has a black cat got to do with God’s law or God’s way of life? A black cat runs across the road, guess what? The black cat ran across the road! Walking under a ladder. Well, we can see there are thousands of things out there that are the stupidity of the natural carnal mind.

The main issue is that we have to put God first in our thinking and trust in Him no matter what. It’s not about the way we see it or the way we think. We’re going to look at Truth #42. Truth #42 was given at the Feast of 2005. “God the Father is Yahweh Elohim and He alone has eternally existed.” Now, we never fully comprehended that by any means. Being called early and being in the Church of God, believed that Jesus Christ (as he was called then), was known to have pre-existed. That was the thinking. Two in Elohim. That’s not true. That is false.

The teaching that Christ has always existed is a holdover from the Protestant teaching of the trinity. There is only one Almighty God that has eternal existence. He has eternal existence. He alone can give life and He gave life to Christ. Same as us; we have life because of God the Father. We have a calling because of God the Father. How blessed are we? We have the truth because of God. It’s what God is doing. That’s why the first commandment is so important. There is no other God. There is only one God and He’s doing it all. We should glorify Him.

Now we know more about Joshua the Christ and the real name, and now that separates us more. I think that’s just an incredible thing. When you look at it and you look back at 325 A.D. when there was confusion and then they bring in something, when the true Church knew there was one God and they knew who Christ was, the Messiah, but then after that there’s all this pollution. Well, look how long it’s taken to come out of that confusion. Well, it sets us free. The truth sets us free. I found this truth to be so exciting, that we’re separated. We’re completely separated.

People would say we’re completely nuts, but we’re completely free! We should hang on to this truth. Because the world will be given this truth in time – it’s coming – but we’ve been given it now. What a wonderful blessing it is.

The real name of Christ is Joshua the Christ and not what the world has been told or taught. One day they’ll learn all this and they’ll go, “Ah.” Now they know it’s all garbage. All the Catholic churches doctrines are garbage, absolute rubbish, and will be done away very soon.

These truths give us freedom but still exists the biggest idol that we have is our selfishness, because we put it before God. That’s just natural. That’s the way we’re made because we have to come to the point of transformation of the mind, where the mind will be transformed from one way of thinking to another way of thinking. So that’s what it’s about. We’re born with selfishness and we choose it. Once we’re called we now have a choice, to make this choice, what are we going to do?

So in the end it is about choices. We’ve been called to make a right choice once we hear the truth. Now, we’ve heard the truth about one true God. We’ve heard the truth about Joshua the Christ. We have to choose to believe God and now change the way we think. That’s what we’re doing. That’s the battle, change the way we think.

An idol in the mind can be seen—we can see our own idols—by our views and opinions that we lift up. So that’s how we can identify these things, because we’ve got them; all of us have an idol and we just don’t understand it.

I know back in times past Mr. Armstrong used to say, “Well, if you want to check an idol, what is it you put first?” “Where do you spend most of your time? Where do you dedicate your time?” So we’ve all got 24 hours in a day on the Roman calendar, so where do we spend our time, talking about in our mind. It’s not talking about something that we may go to work for 8-9 hours, 10 hours. It’s not what it’s about. It’s about the way we think while we’re in those 10 hours. It’s about why we do what we do in that 10 hours. What are we putting first? Do we check our behavior in those 8-10 hours that we’re working every day? So where do we spend our time in the mind, not physical body?

Now, we’ll pick up one aspect of this, Israel turning to the golden calf made by human hands, in Acts 7. This is Stephen and he was addressing the high priest and we’re going to pick it up in Acts 7:38. This was when Israel rebelled against God. Remember, Moses was away, he was talking with God in relation to commandments, and at this point in time he’d been away for a bit and Israel now has got to the point where they say, “Oh, well, we want something. We want something. We’re here by ourselves; we want something.”

Verse 38—This is he, talking about Moses, who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel, or the messenger or God, who spoke to him, spoke to Moses, on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, the one who received the living oracles to give to us, whom, referring to God, our fathers would not obey. So they wouldn’t obey. Now here is this is the first real open rebellion that’s taking place because they’re going to set something up for themselves.

And in their hearts, which is in their mind and thinking, they turned back to Egypt. Now, we’ve seen this happen. I’ve seen it happen often on a spiritual level, where people are called into the Body of Christ by God, they’re placed in the Body, they’ve been given the gift of repentance, they’ve had the gift and the receipt of God’s holy spirit, and they know the truth, they learn the truth, and they’re overcoming themselves for a period of time, but they get to a point where they now choose something different. They have a sin that is unrepented and now they turn back. They’re looking for something else. They set up an idol. And generally, what is that idol they set up? It’s in their minds and it’s something else other than the truth. It’s outside of the truth. They no longer believe the truth. They’re setting something else up. They believe something different. Lots of different reasons why people leave the Church, but it is generally all to do with the truth or they’re not happy the way things are because they don’t see God in the Church. So when somebody leaves the Church they set up an idol and that idol is their view, their opinion, their selfishness. They’re putting it before God and God’s way.

So why did they turn back and why have they turned away from God? They wanted to live the way they wanted to. They want to do it their way without rules and laws that govern their nature.

Well, it’s the same for us. There are rules and laws that we have to have implemented into our life and we have to choose to exercise self-control or control of self. One and the same thing, really. We have to learn to control selfish desires, things we want.

They wanted the freedom to sin, do whatever they want to do. They did not want to control self. Today it would be like turning back to darkness, back to pleasing self, which is exactly what they did.

Verse 40, this is physical Israel. They said to Aaron, Make us gods. So they weren’t really looking for one, they were looking for more than one. ...to go before us. So they wanted something to lead them. As for this Moses, who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. That was a justification. In other words, he’s abandoned us. It’s a justification; we want something to lead us and he’s gone so who is going to lead us now? Now, the truth of it, you see, they didn’t see God in it. They didn’t see God; because it was God that led them out of Egypt. It wasn’t Moses. Moses was an instrument. So we have to see God in the truth and if we don’t see God in the truth we’ll be just like these people, they’ll look for something else.

Verse 41—And they made a calf in those days. Now, it’s interesting. Why would they make a calf? Why didn’t they make a rabbit or a pig or something? Why was it a calf that they decided that they wanted to be led by? Well, it goes back to Egypt and Pharaoh and their religious beliefs. Now, they would have been aware—remember they were in captivity for a long period of time and all the generations over, I think it was 430 years or something, so you’re looking at a generation of people now that didn’t know God at all, wouldn’t have known the laws, wouldn’t have known anything about God, really. They’ve lost it all, but they would have known about the Egyptian gods, because there was more than one.

Well, the reason they chose a calf was because Egypt had a deity, a god that they looked at, “aspis,” and it was a bull, or a cow. So they’re setting up a calf. So there’s a reason why they choose a calf. “Aaron, make us a calf. Make us a bull, like the Egyptians. It’s a god that will lead us,” because that’s what Egypt had. So they’re doing it from their past. There’s a sacred bull that’s connected to this. So it’s something that they knew about, but they’ve left God out of this. They don’t believe God led them out.

And when you look at the miracles, the plagues, you look at the crossing of the Red Sea, and then at the end of all this (not big period of time) you get to Mount Sinai, it’s pre-Pentecost, and then Moses disappears and they’re going to set up a bull. The human mind. There’s a great potential.

Now, we can do this, brethren, we can do this. A lot of people have done it. They’ve set up a golden calf. It’s in their minds. They don’t see a golden calf, but they set it up, something else to lead them and it’s called your own opinion. Your own view is what is leading us, not what God says about it.

If we see the truth we see that God is leading us. Now, that’s a good measure, really. Where are we in our growth? Well, this goes back to it. Go back to the truth. The Church has always encouraged people go back to the truth because this is the proof and this is the evidence that God is leading us, if the truth is being delivered, which it has – we’ve had a lot of truth – to go back over them and to meditate on the truth because it’s holding on to the trunk of the tree. It is what the proof is of God leading us. We don’t need a golden calf and the moment we don’t believe the truth and we set up another opinion about something or another view of something we’re in trouble. Just like Israel set up a calf, we’re setting up something else in place of God.

The key point here is offering to idols is giving our thinking or our priority to something else. What is the priority that we have? Well, if we’re giving it over to something else we’re turning to something else, turning to trust in something else like the rabbit’s foot and those sort of things. Those are little physical things, but we don’t have to have any of those but we can still do it in our minds, trusting in something other than the one, true God.

Verse 42—Then God turned, that word there “turned” is “reversed,” so He’s reversing a decision, and gave them up to the worship of the hosts of heaven. So they turned now to stars, astrology, the hosts of heaven, and in amongst that, of course, people believe in Thor. I’m saying Thor because of the movie, but there’s lots of other gods that they believe in that I can’t think of at the moment. ...as it is written in the book of the prophets, which is in Amos 5:25-26 (we’re not going to turn there), but that’s where it’s written where they’re given over to something else and they’re going to now believe in astrology and lucky numbers and all those things, but not God. God is not in anybody’s thinking other than in those that are in the Body of Christ, those that have God’s holy spirit.

Did you offer me slaughtered animals, this is God speaking, Did you offer me slaughtered animals and sacrifices during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? Yes. Yes. You also took up the tabernacle of Moloch and the stars of your god Remphan, images which you made to worship. So it’s something else other than God. They’re setting something up. Well, false doctrine is an idol, believing something else, setting something else up, believing in something that is false that God didn’t give at all. And I will carry you away... So God then goes on and talks about what will happen, the consequences of it, cause and effect, obedience versus disobedience. Obedience – God would have been there fighting the battles. Now, if you look at the battles that people have, if you look back in history of Israel, God said that He would fight all the battles for them if they obeyed Him. He would do it all.

Now, if we just think about the first commandment – there’s God and no other God. There was only God. He is all powerful, almighty. So we don’t need horses. We don’t need money. We don’t need anything. If we’ve got the Creator of the universe for us, as the scripture says, who could be against us? Nothing. Nobody. Because it’s about what we trust in.

But Israel, not having God’s holy spirit, turned away just like all of mankind. It’s the same today. People that are not part of the Body of Christ are in the captivity of their minds. Well, we’ve been blessed that we’ve been called out of it.

Exodus 32:16. Now, this is the example of what actually took place when Israel set up this idol because they thought they needed someone other than God, or something other than God to lead them. Now, the tablets (or the commandments) were the work of God. So these were from God’s thinking and the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets. As we know God’s finger wrote them. Well, this is directly from God. How incredible if a human mind could only just think that God is almighty and all powerful and I don’t need anything else. But we don’t. We go back to trusting in self.

Verse 17—Then Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, because now there’s a big party going on. He said to Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp. So he’s thinking positively here, not the reality of what’s going on. “There’s a war! That’s why the shout’s going on!” Remember, there used to be shouts or trumpets blasting and things as a war. Obviously something is happening here.

But he, Moses, said, It is not the noise of the shout of victory nor the noise of the cry of defeat, but the shout of the singing I hear. So they’re singing and rejoicing. In other words, there’s a big party going on.

If you refer back to verse 6 quickly, Then they rose early the next day, burned offerings, brought peace offerings, and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. In other words, this is a big party that’s going on because they’ve got this golden calf now that they’ve turned to and they’re rejoicing because they’ve got something to lead them because they actually believed Moses, who was the leader (which it was really God leading them), but God’s not in the picture, Moses is not around, so, hey, we need something. Human nature.

So it was as soon as he came near the camp that he saw the calf and the dancing. So Moses’ anger became hot. So this is a righteous anger. People often talk about anger. Well, there is a righteous anger because this is sin, this is rebellion against God. So Moses is now getting really upset. He’s angry that they have turned away and built this thing, and he’s angry with Aaron, too. And he cast the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.

Verse 20—Then he took the calf which they had made... We’re looking at this physical. We should look at this spiritual because this is about our minds, individual, our minds. Then he took the calf which they had made, which we make, burned it in the fire, he melted it down, and he ground it to powder. In other words, he’s destroyed it. That’s our calling. Destroy the idols that we have. Anything that we put before God, any image, any wrong thinking, anything that’s outside of the truth, grind it up, crush it down, and get rid of it because it’s the way to righteousness, God’s thinking.

...and ground it to powder... which is what we have to do. We have to get rid of it. ...and he scattered it on the water and made the children of Israel drink it. Really quite incredible when you think about what actually happened there. He’s re-established God’s authority back with Israel. He’s ground it up. Can you imagine those that were doing all that partying and then Moses turns up and then takes it and grinds it up and throws it in the water and says, “Now you’ve all got to drink it.” A level of human humility was required because some may not have necessarily been that happy about that.

Now, this is what is ahead for all mankind. God through Christ will destroy all manmade idols. All things that mankind turns to and trusts in will be destroyed. Now, we’re not far from that time where this is actually going to take place, where the destruction of what mankind has set up. There’s a lot more than we think.

If you just take the Catholic Church and then all the Protestant Church, all of the idols that have been set up all have to be destroyed. It’s not just physical things, it’s in the mind. Now, we see buildings with steeples and that is all garbage. A lot of those stones will make brilliant houses. But places of worship like that are going to be pulled down. They’ve got to be gotten rid of. It’s rubbish. It’s just falsehood. It’s built on falsehood, but the stones are okay. They’re going to be okay, and the pews that they have, they’re going to be great building materials, you pull them apart and there’s brilliant wood in there because in the end it’s wood, true? And in the end it’s stone. Everything to do with those things has to be gotten rid of. Well, the biggest thing, of course, is false doctrine.

We have the truth and then God through Christ will introduce the truth with the 144,000 to the world. It takes time. How long have you and me been in God’s Church, the Body of Christ to learn 57 Truths plus 1? It’s a long time. 10? 12? 30? Some have been around fifty years – a long time.

So there’s no magic wand in the Millennium where everything is wonderful and everybody believes the truth. No, it’s going to take time. Like Mr. Armstrong said, three or four generations, because there’s a change of thinking that takes place. Our thinking is still being changed, and the percentage of the change of our thinking depends. For some people it can be around thirty years and their thinking’s changed so much. Some can be around ten years and they’re thinking can be changed so much because it’s in God’s hands, it’s God’s power. It’s about choices we make and our willingness to desire to change.

That’s why we should never look at anybody and say, “Ah, I give them great respect because they’ve been around thirty, forty, fifty years in the Church.” What does that mean? Maybe they need that long to believe the truth and to endure to the end, whereas someone else doesn’t need as long.

So, newer people coming into the Church in the Millennium with the truth that’s given and having Christ and the 144,000 on this earth, walking and teaching, you can imagine the change. The one true God’s going to be worshipped. Credit is going to be given to Him, whereas Israel is turning and giving credit to something else, a stupid piece of metal. It’s just insane when you think about what the human mind can do.

So God through Christ will destroy all idols. It’s just not physical things; it’s idols that have been built up in people’s minds, a way of life that they have, financial markets. There are hundreds of different things that’ll take place. All things that mankind turns to and trust in will be destroyed.

We’re going to turn now to Habakkuk, which is near the end of the minor prophets, in that area (Habakkuk 2:18), because it cuts to the chase here as far as the truth of the matter. We’re talking about facts, about one true God. Well, this is a fact. If we just consider anything and everything that has been made by mankind is garbage, it’s false, it’s an idol. No matter what it is it came from the mind of man. It’s like the rabbit’s foot on the key ring. That came from the mind of man. So where did that come from? Well, we understand there’s a spirit world out there and Satan and the demons want to deceive. A rabbit’s foot is deception. Lucky numbers is a deception. Gold calves are a deception. It’s about deceiving.

Why the deception? So that we will forget our potential, our incredible human potential, which is to be in Elohim, to be like God, God’s family. As we look, the first commandment, there’s one God and then “don’t have anything else but Me” because that’s the truth, there’s only one. Everything else is nothing; the physical is going to pass away.

Habakkuk 2:18— What profit, so what benefit or value, is the image, anything outside of God, that its maker should carve it? So anything made like that it’s carved from someone’s thinking. Like the Internet, computers all came from man’s thinking. God gave it, the power to comprehend this stuff, but we shouldn’t put that before God, spend time on it playing video games for 4 or 5 hours and not have a relationship with God. Why would you do that? You’re destroying a mind that God is trying to change to transform so that we can enter His family which is eternal, lasts forever. All this is temporary; we’re all going to die. It’s all temporary. Getting closer to it, talk more wholeheartedly about it. When we’re young, I remember when I was young, you don’t really think about it. But as you get older you think, hmmm, not long, won’t have much longer. No matter what happens, haven’t got long. 10 years maybe, 15 years at most. Things start to hurt and its getting closer.

So why would you have anything other than God as your Savior? Because nothing else can save. Rabbit’s foots are not going to save, because this image that’s being carved by this person that he’s going to sell, generally, is no value. The molded image, a teacher of lies. Well, they can’t teach anything. That the maker of its mold, because they have to be molded into something, cast. All have to be molded and shaped, to make a mold, that you should trust in it, to make mute idols. It’s dumb. It doesn’t talk. It doesn’t move. It has no life. There is no life in idols. The rabbit’s foot, the golden image, the statues, the pictures, all of those things, there is no life in it. None. It’s dead. There is no wisdom in it. There is only wisdom from God, true wisdom. These are just worthless things but mankind has set it up.

So this idol has no power. That probably is the key to it all – it has no power. There’s no power in it. God is the one with the power. God can raise up and God can pull down. God can win the battle. God can implement things that save us. God could call us. God can use us for good in the sense of His power of His holy spirit, which is good, or we can be used for a short time and we make wrong choices and God can put us on the shelf and bring us back later on in the hundred years. God has the power. Man and everything else has no power.

Verse 19—Woe to him who says to wood, Awake! We laugh. It’s just stupid. When you think about it it’s no different than the Christmas tree. You know, people go in the forest and cut it down and set it up and decorate it and put presents on it. It’s just stupidity. It’s a tree! It needs electricity for lights, you know. So, Woe to him, because this is just stupid, who says to the wood, Awake! To the silent stone, which is the statue that is around there, Arise! It shall teach. In other words, it’s got nothing; it’s dead. Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, yet in there is no breath. There is no life so it’s dead. So we should understand this.

Verse 20—But the Eternal is in His holy temple. Yes, there is only one true God that has power, has life and can give life and take life. Yet all the earth shall keep silent before Him because when we know the truth we do pull back, and we go, “Oh, all this other stuff is garbage.” There is only one true God. God has the power and the glory. Nothing that man can make has any power. Nothing.

Isaiah 31:1—Woe to those who go down to Egypt. Now, that means... ...goes down to Egypt for help. Now, this is about looking to something else for help. So here it is it can be a nation, it can be people, they say, well, there’s someone going to invade our country, let’s go down to Egypt and pull together their troops. They forget who has the power. So it’s not about horses and might.

There have been many examples of wars. I remember seeing a particular English one where there were 20,000 troops against 5,000. The will of God is done in the end because the 5,000 beat the 20,000. You think, how is that possible? Well, everything is possible with God. It depends what God wants to set up because God raises up and God pulls down. So it doesn’t matter how big you are as a nation, how many nuclear weapons you have, if God wants to bring you low nuclear weapons will make no difference at all because the will of God will be done.

Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, and rely on horses, who trust in chariots. Now, this is the key to it. It’s about trusting in something else other than God. So here they are they’re going down looking for help, “We can win this war because Egypt’s got 20,000 more troops that’ll make us a big, strong army, therefore, we’ll win.” No, not necessarily so. It means naught. Just like Gideon in the valley with the 28 odd thousand, ever how many there were, Gideon with a hundred. It makes no difference how big you are; it depends whether God’s involved or not.

...who trust in chariots because they are many. So it’s not about how many nuclear weapons you have. There are nations out there that have no nuclear weapons. Does it make any difference whether they have nuclear weapons when America has hundreds? Not if God’s involved. It’ll make no difference.

...and in horseman because they are very strong. But who do not look, because this is what the issue is, they don’t look to God, the Holy One of Israel, nor seek the Eternal. Now, that’s the problem. Well, we’re different, and we’ve had a sermon series that covers aspects of this. As we enter times of difficulty it will make no difference how many tins of baked beans you have. We’ve been told to do two to three months, but in the end we look to God because He is the one with the power. It won’t matter.

Now, there are examples which have happened in the Church of God in times past that had been spoken of where there was a family, they’re in a house, and there were rioters coming down going door to door and entering, and you know, doing all sorts of things, and they came, a big group of them, came and walked straight past the house and went to the next one. So both sides. Because God has the power. God can blind them. Just like with Lot and his daughter, remember? They were made blind all of a sudden. One minute you can see, now you can’t see, so what can you do when you can’t see?

So we might only have two tins of baked beans and we know where there are stories with the oil. Remember, you pour the oil and it just kept on coming? It was one jar but keeps coming, keeps coming, keeps coming. So we shouldn’t worry.

Now, it’s difficult because we’re physical and we’re human and that’s what we tend to do; we try to trust in this and I’ll get this ready and get that ready. Well, that’s normal, that’s right, we should do it within the bounds of what we’ve been instructed by God’s Church, but in the end it is about whether we trust God or not because He has the power, no one else does.

Verse 2—Yet He also is wise and will bring disaster and will not call back His words. So it’s God that has the power. If God determines something and He sends out His word, His power (not His holy spirit), His power can achieve it. God can place in people’s minds things to be achieved. And that has happened, often has happened, where God has put it into somebody’s mind to do something and say it. Like the dream of Nebuchadnezzar. If you look at it, God placed that dream in Nebuchadnezzar’s mind. It wasn’t something he had on his mind. No, it was a dream that God placed in there all for God’s glory, because the interpreter was Daniel. And what did Daniel do? Gave all the credit and glory to the one true God. “The God of heaven reveals this. Nebuchadnezzar, don’t give me any glory. I’m just a servant. I’m just a human, just like you are. God has now revealed to me this is the answer.” So Daniel gave all the glory and the credit to God.

And this is what we face. All the glory and credit has to go to God. In the future when people ask questions of God’s truth or God’s way of life from us we have to make sure that it’s not about “me” and what “I” know. No, the answer is “It’s what God has revealed to me and God gave it to me and I’m transferring this, but the glory goes to God. It’s God’s truth. It’s God’s power that’s doing this. I’m nobody.” You’re nobody in the scheme of it all. We’ve just been blessed by God at this time to know the truth. Don’t take any credit to self.

Now, I believe that we’ll all be tested on that. That’s just something—not doctrine—I just think that I’ll be tested on it because it’s a human weakness in all of us, to take a little bit of credit...take a little bit of credit to self.

...But will rise against the house of evil doers, and against the help of those who work iniquity. So God will do what God will do. If God’s will is that someone wins a war, they’ll win it. And if they’re going to lose it, they’re going to lose it. Now, we know that Ephraim and Manasseh are going to be in trouble shortly. God will do it. It won’t matter how many weapons and how many defenses and how many planes and how many boats. Doesn’t matter how many horses they have; it’s not going to make any difference. God will do what God will do. God’s all powerful.

Verse 3—Now, the Egyptians are men and not God. Isn’t that incredible? Because this is being very clear saying, well, no use trusting in the Egyptians, they’re just men and they’re not God with power. They might have all this military, but they’re not powerful at all. Just look what happened to Pharaoh. He would have been considered powerful, but he’s not God. God’s the one with the power.

...and their horses are flesh and not spirit, whereas God is spirit. When the Eternal stretches out His hand, which is a term about making a decision to do something, stretch out your hand to do it, an action, both he who helps will fall, so the person that they’ve gone looking to help, that person is going to fall, and he who is helped, the person who’s asked for it will fall down; they all will perish together.

Drop down to verse 6—Return to Him, which is talking about God, against whom the children of Israel have deeply revolted. They’re rebelled, but they should have relied on God. They should have waited on God because they got impatient and looked for something else.

Verse 7—For in that day... Now, this term “in that day,” there is many “in that day.” There’s an “in that Day” approaching soon, in that day. There’s been other times where “in that day,” in that time, every man shall bow down away from his idol of silver and his idols of gold, sin, which your hands have made for yourselves, because man’s done it.

So there’s going to come a time when no one will go out into the forest and cut down a pine tree, called a Christmas tree. A time’s coming. It’s going to be worthless. There’s coming a time when there will be no more Easter eggs, chocolate eggs, which is all commercial, of course. That times coming. There’s going to come a time when there’ll be no more paintings of Madonna’s with little babies, because it goes back to paganism. It is false. It’s totally wrong. It’s just rubbish. Statues, lucky charms, the time is coming. All this is going.

Proverbs 3:5—Trust in the Eternal with all your heart, with all your thinking, and lean not on your own understanding, in other words, try to work it out for yourself and have a view or an opinion. What we really should do is just hang on to the truth. In all your ways, in everything we do. Now, whether we work 8-10-12 hours some days because we have to, that’s not an issue. It’s more about what we think and how we behave, what example we are, whether we’re living mercy to others; that’s what’s important. So it’s not about time; it’s about time in the mind. So we can be in different environments but it’s about what we think about, whether we’re trying to correct self, discipline self, not say words that hurt others, those types of things. That’s what’s important in those hours.

In all your ways acknowledge Him, acknowledge God, that we want God in our life, we want to think differently. We want to be like Him, show mercy like He shows mercy. ...and He shall direct your paths. Isn’t that encouraging? So if we are willing to bring God into our life every day (doesn’t matter what we’re doing in that day, but every day), it says God will direct us. How does He do that? Well, God can show favor. God through the power of His holy spirit will direct the way we think.

Now, the purpose of life, when you look at what the purpose of life is, it’s about being placed in environments where we have to make a choice. What will we do in this environment? We’re all going to be tested by fire. So some things are difficult. Some things are really difficult. We know what is right and we know what is wrong, but because we’re weak we choose wrong, but God will test us again to see what we’ll do. I know various tests I’ve had I’ve failed them often. I know those tests are probably going to keep coming back until I start choosing what is right. Then I’ll move on to another test, because that’s what life is about, being tested.

Now, when you look at all the different things about tests that we face, the test really goes back to doctrine. Doctrine has tested the Church. We’re called into a Body. This is God’s Church. We carry God’s name. But all the tests, they’re not physical as we think, “Ah, family is doing this or family is doing that and this issue at work.” They’re tests in a way, but the real test is truth. When truth enters the Church, when it’s considered that we think we know everything, like Pentecost being on a Monday (I wasn’t around then), but it’s a test when God says you were wrong, this is the truth. That’s the test. What will we do? What will be put before God? Our view and opinion? Or will we put God first and believe God through Christ through an apostle? That’s the test. So, doctrine tests.

There’s never been a doctrine that doesn’t test, to a degree. Tithing tests. Still to this day, one of the early truths, tithing tests people. It really does. It tests people. The Sabbath tests people. The name of the Church tests people. It does. You’d be surprised. Church of God—PKG, Church of God, Worldwide Church of God. But it tested people. Name changes test people. It’s just that’s the way it is.

And when you go through all the doctrines they test. The ordination of women – tests. The rightful role of women – tests. It tests. I believe that tested most men because we grew up in a culture where that wasn’t true, you know, where women were considered secondary. That’s just the way humans acted and lived. Well, it tested. Be prepared for more tests. The only way that we can survive these tests is if we stay close to God and like that koala, grip hold of the trunk of that tree and hold tight. They sleep like that for twenty hours. Incredible. We’re not to go to sleep, of course, but it just shows you that you can hang on tight because it’s the tree that saves you; it’s the truth that saves you.

The truth sets us free from the world. They don’t have it. And if you really consider, God will direct our path because of the truth. I know most of us have tried to give the truth to somebody else. Doesn’t work. They can’t. They don’t have God’s spirit. They can’t know it or understand it or see it, whereas we can.

Verse 7—Do not be wise in your own eyes. Don’t think we know better or we see something special. Fear the Eternal, which is respect the Eternal, the one true God. Don’t put anything else before Him. Fear Him, respect Him; He’s guiding our paths. ...and depart from evil. Now, when we look about “depart from evil,” it’s about overcoming self.

Well, one of the things that the Bible talks about is flee evil. Flee it! Like, flee! Now, when we flee it’s like what Joseph did. You grab it – coat left behind, and he flees. Get out of there! Because that’s what we’ve got to do with sin. Now, we all have sin, but we have to be fleeing it. We’ve got to be striving to overcome it, to fight against it. So flee it. It’s obvious things in our life that we can flee certain environments. We really can. It might look difficult at the time. I’m sure that Joseph didn’t think about, “Ah, wonder what’s Potiphar’s going to do. Oh, I’m going to lose my job. Oh, Potiphar, he’s the boss.” No. Sin – flee! Out. Consequences? Jail.

If we’re in environments that we know are evil we’ve got to get out. God is all powerful. He can raise up and give us a job any time. He can give us income out of ways that we’ve got no idea. We always think we know the answer to everything. We know nothing in comparison to what God can do. He can raise us up or pull us down. Whatever.

There is a stupidity of placing anything before God. Use that word. There’s a stupidity in it. It’s called the human mind.

Leviticus 26:1—You shall not make idols for yourselves, neither a carved image nor a sacred pillar shall you rear up for yourselves. Nor shall you set up an engraved stone in your land to bow down to it. For I am the LORD your God. “I am the Eternal your Elohim.” There’s only one.

Exodus 32:30, there are a few scriptures today, keep you on your toes. Exodus 32:30, where we were supposed to be holding. Now, it came to pass on the next day that Moses said to the people, You have committed a great sin, and putting anything before God and trusting in something else is a great sin. The rabbit’s foot that someone’s got, it’s about sin is in the mind, of course. Trusting in that is a sin. We wouldn’t look at it like that. Nah, they’ve just got a little rabbit’s foot. They’ve got something hanging off their rear vision mirror. That’s sin. It’s trusting in something else. So when we look at it witchcraft, tarot reading, star signs, lucky shirts, lucky anything is sin because it’s trusting in something else. It’s having something before God.

So now I will go up to the Eternal; perhaps I will make atonement for your sins. Then Moses returned to the Eternal and said, Oh, these people have committed great sin. So we don’t realize it when we come up with our own doctrines or our own beliefs or when we think about a truth and think, oh, you know, we push it out one way or pull it back in another or it doesn’t apply to me, it’s a sin. It’s a great sin because we’re going outside what God has given. God will test us by giving us truth. He will test us by giving us truth.

...and have made for themselves a god of gold. And yet if You will forgiven their sin; but if not I pray blot me out of Your book which You have written. Now, I’m not too sure there are many other than those that have God’s holy spirit that would actually make a statement like that, willing to give up life for the sake of somebody else, which we know Christ did, gave up His life for the sake of others. Well, here we see Moses saying, well, you know, take me out of the picture if you will forgive them, which is an incredible thing that had to be given to them by God.

Nehemiah 9:5. This really covers about giving all credit to God, so this is about a way of thinking. Everything that happens, it’s about a way of thinking and if we are involving God in our life every single day and we’re in work environments and different environments for long periods of time it is about giving credit to God, disciplining self, thinking about it.

Verse 5—Stand up and bless the eternal your God forever and ever. Blessed be Your glorious name. Because we carry God’s name, we’re part of the Body of Christ. Blessed be Your glorious name which is exalted above all blessings and praise.

Verse 6—You alone are the Eternal. So there’s only one. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens with all their host... So God has made it all. ...the earth and everything in it/on it, the seas, and all that is in it/in them, and You preserve them all. Now, this is the incredible part. It’s about God preserves. So God preserves our life, God preserves our life in the Church, and He gives us a way to achieve that. That’s through the power of His holy spirit and the truth. They’re connected. So you can’t separate God’s holy spirit and the truth. It’s not possible.

People have left the Church and gone off with a different doctrine and believe they have God’s holy spirit. They don’t because there is one true Church – God’s Church. There is one set of truths – truth. That’s what sets us free. That’s what keeps us as part of the Body. Now, if we have God’s spirit we’ll believe the truth. If we don’t have God’s spirit we won’t believe the truth. Sounds simple but it’s true. That’s that way it works.

You preserve them all. The hosts (angels) of heaven worship You. That’s those that are in unity with God. There are those that are on this earth in rebellion. Because there are angels of heaven on earth. We call them “good angels,” and there are evil angels. So there are evil angels on this earth, too, trying to destroy you and me. Destroying a physical life out there means nothing to them, really. They like to destroy what God made. When you look at what Satan did with the rebellion, he had great power that he could affect the earth that way, to be able to destroy everything that quickly. So there’s great power that he had.

He may not have that power now as God withdraws the power from him, but evil spirits have great power. That power is one of deception. Their power is deception. And if you look at “the prince and power of the air,” it’s about “deceive the whole world.” So everyone out there is deceived. Now we couldn’t tell them that or say that because they’d think we’re a mob of loonies and it sounds very self-righteous, but it’s true. The world is riddled with deception. It is deception. Everything out there is deception.

We are not deceived. How are we not deceived? By the truth. Now, as we go through the truth and you spend time going through them it’s fascinating when you realize how separate we are. For example, mankind doesn’t have an eternal soul, you know, when they die they go to heaven. They live a life with that in their mind.

They have reluctances to kill very perverted people because they think they can save them. Because, you see, if you destroy them and they haven’t at least made some repentance they’re going to go to a hell fire with an eternal soul, and therefore, they’re going to be punished forever. So you can see why they think the way they do. They don’t want to do this. They allow rapists and murderers and give them 10 years and put them back out on the streets and in a short time they do it all again. They try to rehabilitate them. It’s all because of a belief system that they have this eternal life in them; therefore, you don’t want to kill them because they only live once.

Truth is—sets us free—they live twice. Isn’t it an incredible thing? So we have a different approach to life because we know, no, the vast majority will live twice and their time is not now. 6,000 years of man’s self-rule and look at it. It’s hard to watch it. It really is hard to watch it. The perversion is getting worse. The deception is getting worse. But they still live their life believing something. We’re free from that.

So when somebody dies in a car accident, I think I come across as callous anyway, hard; that’s my personality. A lot of that has to do with the fact I believe God. So when somebody dies I believe they will be resurrected, therefore, it doesn’t really matter whether somebody dies, whether their one or whether their ninety, because I believe God. They will be resurrected at some point in time; they will be resurrected unless they’re committed an unpardonable sin, set their mind. But the vast majority will be given a chance.

Now, that’s a freedom. It’s a boldness. It’s a confidence. Going to a funeral means very little. You feel for the people left behind because of the grief that they have to go through and there’s a gap, something missing from their life, but for us it’s different, isn’t it? We go, “Okay, they’re going to be resurrected and they’re going, in a great time, hundred years.” So, hundred years of peace, it’s going to be incredible. They’re better off dead.

You can’t go out and tell people in the world “Ah, you’re better off dead.” Terrible car accident, whole family wiped out. Sounds terrible! And it’s tragic from a human sense, but a spiritual sense they’re going to be better off because they’re not going to be in deception, they’re going to be in the truth. They’re going to know the truths that we know. Isn’t that incredible? What we know they will know. They’ll be given it and they’ll take time to learn it.

Verse 7—You are the LORD God who chose Abraham. God chose you for a calling, and me. Now, Chris and myself sit back and think about how incredible it is that we, out of all the people in Western Australia where we were, at this point in time, are the only ones that God is using in the truth. You are the same. God called you, is working to mold and fashion you for something that we really don’t know about. Same here. I don’t really know. All I know is what I have to do, what I strive to do.

So God chose Abraham (Abram) for a purpose. God called you and me for a purpose. When he was called, and left his city, do you think he knew what was ahead of him? He didn’t have a clue. He was told come and leave. ...and brought him up out of Ur of the Chaldeans, and gave him a name, Abraham. Now, at that point when he was given a new name do you think that he sat down and thought, “Ah, well, this is what’s going to happen. And Sarah and I are going to have children and Israel is going to come out of it, and in the end-time there’s going to be a Church and my descendants...” He didn’t know any of it. He’s like you and me. We live every day, because we don’t know really what’s around the corner the next day. Could be good, could be bad. It’s all good on a spiritual level but physically sometimes we’ve got to go through physical things for a purpose, for spiritual purposes. But we’d look at anything and think, “Oh, that’s bad.” No, it could be good. Could be good, and could be bad.

Like winning the lottery is bad, but our human nature would say, “It’s good!” No, it would be bad to have that much money, because then what are we trusting in? The bank account. We’re leaving God. We’re setting up something else that we rely on, just like Egypt. True? “It’s money in the bank. That’s what I trust in. So no matter what happens, when there’s a bit of a recession and a downturn I’m okay. It’s a benefit of self.” So you can see how easy it is for mankind to trust in something else because that’s what we do.

And verse 8—You found his heart faithful before You, which is what we have to do. We have to be faithful, believe the truth, and made an agreement with him the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, and the Girgashites to give it to his descendants. You have performed Your words for You are righteous. So, what God did. So this is why it goes back to God’s great power. There’s one true God with the power to do it. There was no man that could do what this is talking about, what God did.

Verse 9—You saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heard their cries by the Red Sea. You showed signs and wonders against Pharaoh, which He did, the plagues, against all his servants, and against the people of his land. For You knew that they acted proudly against them, which is against Israel. So you made a name for Yourself, as it is this day. Now, that’s exactly, this day. All the credit, all the glory goes to God. We only know what we know because God called us to know it. We know the truth and have the truth because God gave it. There is nothing you and I did, nothing other than chose to follow God’s lead, God’s spirit; we have to make a choice in it.

Verse 11—You divided the Red Sea before them so that they went through the midst of the sea on dry land. And their persecutors you threw into the deep as a stone into the mighty waters, which is the Red Sea. You can imagine being there, doing that? Now, for us it would be a bit different because we have God’s spirit, and if we were there and saw that it would be burned in our brain. But physical Israel, didn’t last long at all, and they got out the other side, “Build us a calf,” because it’s carnal. That’s what happens.

Verse 12—Moreover, You led them by day with a cloudy pillar, and by night by a pillar of fire. Well, only God could do it. God was their leader. And here they are looking for Moses. “Where is Moses?” God wasn’t in the picture. You can see here God’s doing it all, but they’re not giving the credit to God still.

...to give them light on the road. What’s the light for us? The truth. We’ve just got to keep following the truth; that’s the light. ...which they should travel.

I want to just skip through that one and turn to Isaiah 44:6, which you would know reasonably well. Thus says the Eternal, the King of Israel. We understand God is King and He has appointed Joshua the Christ as King of kings. ...and his, Israel’s redeemer. God is our redeemer. God is. He’s the one who’s saving. He used Christ as part of the process of forgiveness of sin.

So why did Christ die? So that sin could be forgiven. He’s resurrected to life to represent God as King of kings in the future on this earth. It’s a wonderful picture. Now, we know all these things. We take it all for granted often. The world knows nothing about this, nothing at all. They’ve got weird things that they believe. We know the truth.

God is our redeemer. The Lord of hosts. Now, this is interesting because we’re looking at this in the form of idolatry. I the first, and I the last. Apart from Me there is no God, there is no Elohim. “I the first.” God. Eternal. The first. “I the last.” What does that tell us? It means anything and everything that has raised itself up to represent God or gods, another family, will all be destroyed. There is only one family of Elohim, one family of God. God is the first. There is only one at the end. God is the last. Everything else is going to be gotten rid of.

Evil spirits that have raised themselves up to be the god of this world, the family of this world, will be destroyed. They won’t be the last. God will be the last because there’s only one family. There’s one God, one family started, and there’s an end because there’s nothing else afterwards. So everything in between, if you look at it from a picture, first and last, everything in between is going to be gotten rid of, destroyed, because there’s only going to be one. We have the potential and the opportunity to be part of it. How exciting is that? How motivating is that? I find it very motivating that we have that potential to be a part of that family, the family of God.

Apart from Me there is no God; there is no other Elohim. There is no other family. There is no other spirit family that’s worth striving to fight to get into, to be part of it. Through the power of God’s holy spirit we can do it. Now, by nature we’re part of another family, the deceiver, because we’re deceived. The natural mind is deceived; it dwells in evil.

Verse 7—And who can proclaim as I do? When God proclaims something who can fulfill it? Who can do it? Only Him. No one else can. Satan and the demons can proclaim things but they still have to be given the power and permission to do it. So they may, and they do, desire to destroy you and me, part of the members of the Body of Christ. Can they do it? No, because God won’t allow it. So they’re powerless, really, when you think about it. They have power but they have to get permission to do things. Their power’s being been taken away. They can’t do it. Now, if God withdrew His hand from us, which He won’t, we would be destroyed very quickly. But God’s Church will continue, because why? God says, “and who can proclaim as I do?” God has said His Church will endure. Nothing is going to change it. There’s only one God with the power to do it. It’s Yahweh Elohim.

Then let him declare it. So God’s saying, “Well, is there anyone else? Well, let them declare it. Let’s make a statement.”... and set it in order for Me. “Show Me. Show Me what you say you’re going to do and show Me that you have that power.” They don’t.

Since I appointed the ancient people and the things that are coming and shall come, let them show these to them. So in other words, “Okay, well, you know. You reckon you know all this, well, set it all out and show me, and then you should do it and see whether you can.” But God can cut across it just like that and with the parable about a man goes out and builds the tower and he builds new barns and puts more wheat in it and, “Oh, I’m going to have a big crop this year and I’m going to build this barn,” and God says, “You fool. You fool. I’m taking your life tonight,” because it’s stupidity to think that we have power. We have none. We have no power over life and death. Only God does.

So God is then challenging mankind here saying, “Well, show me what you’re going to do.” And it requires power to do it. Well, you don’t have it. You think you do; you don’t.

Verse 8—Do not fear nor be afraid. Have I not told you from that time, and declare it, You are My witnesses. There is no God besides Me. In other words, there’s only one God. “Is there a God beside Me?” There’s not. The first commandment says there’s only one God. That’s the first commandment. Indeed, there is no rock. I know no one. There’s nothing. There’s only God. So idolatry is foolishness.

Verse 9—Those who make an image, all of them are useless. Well, I can’t make much more of a statement. This is God saying it. So anybody that wants to raise something up or have something else, the rabbit’s foot or the luck number, the tarot cards, everything to do with all of that, it’s useless, has no power, none whatsoever. ...and their precious things shall not profit. They are their own witnesses. I think that’s a brilliant statement, “They’re their own witnesses.” They’re useless. Alright, there’s something there. Show me its power. There’s a witness to it – they’re useless. They can’t do anything.

We’ll close. Colossians 3:5. Turning to and trusting in anything else or giving credit to anything else other than God is sin. That’s something we have to overcome. Trust in God. We have to overcome self and learn to trust in God. And by the word “learn” it does take learning. You have to learn to do these things because by nature we trust in self, we look after self, we protect self (we think).

Colossians 3:5—Therefore, put to death your members... It’s not talking about other members of the Body. It’s things in our nature, the desires in our minds. ...which are on the earth. So these are the things that are in the mind that we have to get rid of that we set up as idols, because we put them before God. God tells us we shouldn’t do these things, but we do them, which means we’re putting up an idol. We’re saying to God, “No, I want something else. I’m putting something above you. I’m following this path, not Your path.” Now, we do this by nature.

Fornication, which is an illegal relationship based on God’s word. Uncleanness, passion, which is wrong desires, evil desire, and covetousness, which is putting something ahead of God, which is idolatry. So when we yearn for something and lust for something we’re putting something before God. It’s an idol. We’re raising that up before God.

Verse 6—Because of these things the wrath of God is coming up the sons of disobedience, which is mankind, in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them. That’s what we’ve been called out of. We’ve been called out of idolatry. We’ve been called out of a way of bondage, captivity of the mind.

Isaiah 45:5. You know this well, which is connected to Truth #42. Isaiah 45:5—I, the Eternal, and there is no other. There is no God besides Me. So God says He’s the first and He’s the last, the beginning and the end. So in the middle everything can be gotten rid of. There’s only one God. We have to really believe this and trust in God because if we really believe this we’ll believe that only God has the power; everything else is temporary. Only God has the power. Let’s trust in Him.

It doesn’t mean that things are going to go perfectly well for us all the time, but it’s a way of thinking. God wants to know what we really think. What do we really trust in? Do we trust in money in the bank? Do we trust in our stores that we’ve got stocked up or the generator and the extra petrol? Is that what we’re really trusting in? We’ve got to be logical and balanced in it. Shouldn’t use the word “logical” probably, but more balanced in it. We should do the things that are necessary as God said, two to three months, then, and even during that period, trust in God. It could all go in the first day for our knowledge.

There is no God besides Me. Not alongside or beside. There’s one. I gird you though you have not known Me. Mankind hasn’t known God as the Creator. We know God, that He created us. He’s given us the mind we have and then His holy spirit so that we can think differently. It’s a beautiful picture.

Verse 6—That they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting that there is none besides Me. I am the Eternal and there is no other.

While you’re turning to Revelation 21 I want to read Truth #7. But you can be turning to Revelation 21:6. Truth #7 says, “Who and what is God? God is a family into which we may be born.” So we’re now begotten sons of God because we have God’s holy spirit. Now, without God’s holy spirit we are not begotten sons of God. So only those that have God’s holy spirit are sons of God. In the world out there people can say they’re born again and all that rubbish. It’s not true. It’s only by the power of God’s holy spirit that we are begotten sons of God, which means we’re begotten, waiting to be born. We’re heirs of a promise, ready to inherit. We haven’t got it yet. Christ has. We haven’t.

“God’s spirit witnesses with our spirit,” mind that we have. Humans have it out there, but it requires God’s holy spirit to be given to them, which it hasn’t – requires a calling. “...that we are begotten children of God,” which I think is just an amazing thing. We are so separate. We are special to God, not to anyone else. We are special to God. Everybody in the Body of Christ with God’s spirit, we’re brothers and sisters in Christ. We should respect each other and love one another. We all belong to God for a purpose.

Revelation 21:6—And He (God) said to me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. So we will never thirst. There will be no end. It’ll be just given freely because we’re going to have a new mind.

Now, it’s hard for us to comprehend not thinking the way we do, because it’s a different mind, it’s a different spirit. We have a natural, carnal mind with a spirit so we sort of know it, we know how we think, and we know what we think, but this mind that’s going to be given to us the carnal aspect is completely gotten rid of, therefore, sin is not possible because it’s the mind of God and God can’t sin.

Now, it’s difficult for us to even begin that that could happen to us, but when we are changed to spirit we think so differently that there’s no natural part of us there. There’s no selfishness in us at all. It’s the way God is. We will love. It’s the way we think. It’s just the way that it is. It’s God’s mind. We can’t grasp it, really, when you’ve got a carnal one, but that’s what we’re looking forward to, is a totally different mind, the mind of Christ, the mind of God, the word of God, truth, no error versus this one we’ve got now. This one will be changed if we choose from this mind to desire this mind. It’ll happen. It’s a guarantee.

Verse 7—He who overcomes... So that’s the battle. This is what has to happen. We have to overcome this mind, these lusts and desires and selfishness. We’ve got to overcome our nature. ...shall inherit all things. We’re going to be changed to spirit and think like God. And I will be his God and he shall be my son.

Remember the scripture when it talks about Cain, what Cain killed Abel and God knew that Cain had a bad attitude. What did God say to him? You should rule over it. You’ve got to fight it. Same for us. We have to rule over it. We have to fight it, these desires and the wrong thoughts we have. Rule over it! We can do it by the power of God’s holy spirit. Cain couldn’t. He was natural, had a natural mind. We can. We can rule over selfishness, but we have to choose it. And if we live a life choosing that we’ll have this new mind eventually. It’s going to be exciting!

Imagine not thinking sin. Doesn’t that excite you? It excites me! Not thinking sin. Not thinking ill will. Just incredible! I’m looking forward to that change.

So we are now called for the purpose of transforming of the mind. We have to rule over, overcome our nature. But if we don’t the cowardly... What’s a coward? Someone who runs away from the battle. If we run away from this battle that’s set before us we’re cowards...we’re cowards. ...unbelieving, if we don’t believe the truth we’re unbelieving. ...abominable, murderers, which is ill will, sexually immoral, which is according to God’s will, what God says about sex in a relationship, sorceries, which is trusting in something else, idolatries, and all liars... So anybody that lies about it, which is lying to self, because a liar is someone who doesn’t believe they need to change. We’re lying to ourselves. If we think we don’t need to change we’re lying to ourselves. We’re liars.

...and all shall have part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the outcome of the judgment. We’ve been judged; we’re under judgment now. Church of God is under judgment, we’re being judged, well, the outcome is if we’re not going to judge ourselves and overcome and rule over our selfishness, by the power of God’s holy spirit, we decide the judgment. God set it up. He set a law – righteousness or evil – choose one. But the outcome is: righteousness, life with a different mind. Want to choose the carnal way? Outcome? A fire that destroys, which is the second death. Choice. Choice is ours.

Brethren, there is one God. God the Father is Yahweh Elohim and He alone has eternally existed. He is the first and He will be the last.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1