Healing & Trust in God, Pt. 2

Ron Weinland

September 1, 2018

This is Part 2 of the new series entitled Healing & Trust in God.

Last week in Part 1 it was covered how some of the Protestant world looks at examples of healing in the ministry of Christ and of the apostles and they misapply that knowledge to fit their own purpose and their own doctrines. Candidly, there is a lot of the Protestant world that doesn’t even think about that aspect of it but there are those who do build up or talk about, speak about healing and they go back and read various kinds of examples and totally distort them and they don’t understand the purpose and the meaning either. They primarily do so with the only focus being that of a physical that’s the here and now, an immediate thing having to do with various ailments and diseases or sicknesses or whatever that people have and they don’t tell the rest of the story. People don’t understand what it’s all about, why these examples are in scriptures in the first place.

Then I also mentioned how during the period of Philadelphia and Laodicea that there was also a very physical outlook on healing. In many ways it just started there and stopped there without understanding God’s purpose and what He was teaching in the examples in the first place and what God’s purpose and plan is with the very subject matter itself and how He speaks of it in scripture. Because it goes way, way, way beyond that. In actuality a lot of the things that God had to say and has to say about it, especially in the Old Testament, is all prophetic for something that’s spiritual on a far greater plane. It’s just that the physical aspects of human life when people become ill, when people are sick or injured or whatever can teach us a lot because we’re very physically oriented and so those things can help us to learn things on a spiritual plane. I spoke on that already enough last week.

We finally then ended on some verses in Matthew 8 about the centurion who wanted Christ to heal his servant. Incredible story here showing something unique about the centurion, that he had concern and care for those who were under him, who worked for him, who served him. He talked to Christ about this matter of understanding that he was a person in authority and he would tell soldiers to go do something or not do something and they obeyed him, they listened to him. Basically, he told Christ that all you have to do is say it here and it’s done. Now, that’s an awesome thing that was stated there and an awesome example.

So I think it’d be good to go back and pick up a part of the last of that at least of what was being said there in Matthew 8 in regards to the centurion comments about this matter of being under authority, that he understood that and that all Christ had to do was to speak it and it would be done, his servant would be healed.

Matthew 8:10—When Joshua heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed, Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such faith, no not in Israel! And I say to you that many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of heaven. So again here, he’s using this opportunity to teach something in the future, of something that’s going to take place in time in God’s plan and God’s purpose.

He went on to say then, But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into... and the word “outer” gives a wrong thinking especially when you think about some of the things the Protestant world teaches. “Into darkness” is all its saying, “cast into darkness,” or outside, if you will, away from the light. That’s what it’s talking about. It’s like someone who’s cut off from the Church who is disfellowshipped or whatever; they’re cut off beforehand anyway from the flow of God’s spirit. They’re cut off from the light and they’re hurting themselves not understanding what’s taking place. The same thing is being said here but on a grander scale in the sense of what God has planned for the future. It says, There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

So this isn’t about physical Israel. This isn’t about those things that are going to take place as a whole, though to a point there are some similarities that you can look at on a physical plane that I’m not even going to bother getting into because this is far more reaching than that. This is about the future. This is about God’s purpose and plan, and especially when you look at, focus on the final hundred years, when you look at the Last Great Day and he talks about a time when there’s going to be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

I can’t help think about then what we know to be so powerfully true today in ways that I don’t think we really grasped in the Church before because there was kind of this concept that anyone who comes into the Church, is baptized, that they pretty much have it made all the way, and that if they die they’re going to be in the first resurrection. Well, we know that’s not the case. We know that for the past 2,000 years, and even before, but especially in the last 2,000 years many have been called but few have been chosen. That’s an incredible thing to understand. It’s very sobering. I saw that, some here have seen that through the period of Philadelphia, saw that in through the period of Laodicea. I’ve seen hundreds and thousands, literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people – I don’t know, it probably passes a thousand that I’ve known of, known who have gone by the wayside over time. I’ve known of hundreds in PKG – hundreds in PKG who have gone by the wayside!

So looking back and farther into Laodicea and the period of Laodicea and back into Philadelphia, large numbers of people; many have been called and few have been chosen. That’s a sobering thing to understand.

This is an expression along the same lines, and those individuals who have opportunity who will not be in the millennial period, not live into that time, who have been called by God and lived in the past 2,000 years, an overwhelming majority of those are going to be resurrected. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth because of choices they made. Mindboggling.

Well, we’re going to continue on now where we left off in Part 1. Going on in verse 14 it says, When Joshua had come into Peter’s house, he saw his wife’s mother lying sick with a fever, and he touched her hand, just all he did, just touched her hand, and the fever left her. Incredible. He touched her and she was whole. It says, She rose up and served them. So different ones witnessed this. Matthew witnessed this. Matthew knew about this account. Different ones, obviously, spoke of it taking place, and so this is something he specifically wrote because Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote things from their own perspective in the gospels there and this is something that stuck with him that he remembered. Sometimes they write about something that they’re the only ones that record it. Other times all four record an incident. Other times there may be two or may be three of them that record a specific incident. But here is one of those occasions.

Then continuing now in verse 16—And when the evening had come, they brought to him many who were possessed with demons. This is something that we really don’t see in the environs of the Church in that respect, not today anyway. Those kinds of things that have happened in times past, there were some things that took place during Philadelphia as a whole; I have no recollection of anything ever happening in Laodicea, and nothing along those lines that have taken place during PKG. A lot of this is because of the purpose that God had for what He was doing at this time. That’s important to understand, that Christ did various things at a specific moment in time, according to God’s purpose, that they weren’t going to be done at other times all by design and purpose.

So the story continues here. There were those who were possessed of demons. Demons have the power to not only influence people, they broadcast to everyone that they can, that’s why it’s important to be in strong control of your own mind, to not meddle with sin, to not do things that can weaken your resolve as far as God’s purpose and God’s calling and His way of life.

So it says here they brought to him many. Amazing! It doesn’t say a few. I don’t know what “many” is but it’s more than one, two, or three; likely a whole lot more than four and five and six. There were many that they brought who were possessed with demons, meaning they didn’t have control over their own life, they didn’t have control of their own minds, and these beings did, had such influence and power over them. That’s something very hard for people to grasp and comprehend because we don’t see those kinds of things as a whole in this world, in society today. I’ve seen plenty of it in the world around me, but not in the environs of anything to do with the Church. Please understand this was not in the environs of the Church. The Church hadn’t even started yet. Church hadn’t even begun yet. It was a part of the world. It was a part of society and this was something that was happening in the world around them and so people brought individuals who they knew who needed help and they brought them to Christ.

It says, And he cast out the spirits with his word, by what he spoke. He commanded them just as the centurion understood what he had to say about, “You command it. You don’t have to come to my home. I’m not worthy that you be there. You just command it and I know it’ll be done.” And so it was here. He just commanded it and it was done. They had to obey him. Awesome! They had to obey what he had to say. There are a lot of different examples here about things that he did like this.

...and healed all who were sick, not one or two or three or four of them, in this particular instance. It says here that he healed all who were sick that they brought to him on this occasion.

It’s important to note here that this wasn’t a matter of faith on an individual’s part that was brought there. Those who were possessed, they had no faith. They didn’t have their own minds. Others brought them in hopes that Christ would heal them. Other individuals, did they have the kind of faith that those who are given, who are called, who receive the begettal of God’s spirit that we’re blessed to have? Absolutely not. These individuals, as a whole, obviously, weren’t even being drawn to be worked with. Some were. Some who were witnessing some of this obviously were. The disciples, at least eleven of them, were. Another one was being worked with for a different purpose. God knew that purpose very early on. How much Christ knew, we don’t know. That one would betray him. One would fulfill a particular role that had to be fulfilled and accomplished because of prophecy, because of things that God has said.

Verse 17... So they were all healed so that this could be accomplished that was written in the book of Isaiah...that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: He himself took our infirmities and bore/carried our sicknesses. So what does that mean? That he suffered at the moment that he healed different ones? No, not at all. It was what he was going to do when he was beaten like he was and when he was finally nailed to a pole like he was. He took upon himself then. So because of who he was, because he was the Son of God, because he had no sin in his life, because he was going to fulfill the role of Passover, this is a part of the role of Passover, to take on, because of sin and because of life itself, the infirmities, the weaknesses of human beings upon himself. He suffered for us, righteously so. He had no sin. We all have sin. We can’t take upon ourselves anything, but he did. Awesome what was stated here.

He took upon himself our infirmities and he carried our sicknesses because God made possible then that man could live by faith, that man could have a relationship with God, that man could have the impregnation of God’s holy spirit in them, that mankind could then begin to live by faith. Because those before and those in this story here were not living by faith. They weren’t called by God to live by faith. There were certain things that God worked with them, just like the centurion, to be able to grasp to a certain point, but not being worked with on a spiritual plane because God’s spirit and the impregnation of His spirit was in their minds, that they’d been given forgiveness yet. That was to come later. Others before that, in the previous 4,000 years, God worked with specifically in a totally different manner; called them, gave them the impregnation of His spirit for that which was going to be fulfilled later by Christ.

And again, sometimes that’s difficult for people to grasp, what God did and how He did it. But it was because of their ability to live by faith, because God had called them and given them of His spirit that they believed what He had to say about the Messiah. Awesome to understand how God has worked with human beings through time! So this example here. Again, incredible stories here of what God was doing and why he was doing things in the manner that He was.

It’s important to notice what I just mentioned about faith and what was going to come to those in the Church, that we’re able to live by faith, but many were healed long before faith, in that respect, existed. It wasn’t in their lives. So many people who were worked with, who were healed, it wasn’t a matter that they were exercising belief and confidence and trust in God through a matter of a relationship with God because of God’s spirit dwelling in them.

That’s why it’s important to understand things about healing and things about God’s intervention in our live, whatever He does, it’s an individual thing. How God works with us, whatever we pray about. Sometimes the answer is an immediate, “Yes.” Sometimes the answer is a “No,” permanent. Sometimes it’s an answer, “Later on.” We go through all kinds of things in order to be molded and fashioned by God. That’s a beautiful thing if you understand it. God works with us as children and so He works with us in different ways at different times, just as one must with their own children, and sometimes with different children in different ways because we’re all different.

So it’s important to learn about what Christ did in his ministry and what he had to say about the subject of healing, or what was said about him when these occurrences took place. Then one can truly begin to come to see more clearly God’s purpose in working with us so we can better understand the physical; I mean the physical aspects of healing and why God has allowed things to be a certain way in this relationship with Him and so we can come to see those things in a better way and really come to even understand a relationship with God in a better way. These things are there to help teach us and work with us, to mold and fashion us and through that means, then, to come to more fully see the spiritual purpose and the greater fulfillment of this subject anyway. That’s what God teaches us in time. It doesn’t come overnight. It doesn’t come in the first few years of one’s calling. In times past sometimes because it wasn’t even being taught one wasn’t able to see it anyway; maybe they’d come to certain understanding of certain things taking place, but then when God begins to show us specifically why certain things happen and the way they do then we can come to see it in a different way in a sense of understanding.

Matthew 10. Another incredible story here of an account that took place. Matthew 10:1. It says, And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power over unclean spirits. Authority. That’s what it’s talking about. He gave them power and authority over unclean spirits, meaning demonic world and people who were possessed or very highly influenced by demons, a demon or demons, to cast them out. Awesome! So they were going to be able to do what he did. Not because of their ability, not even yet because of God’s spirit in the sense dwelling in them yet in a sense of a begettal because begettal hadn’t happened yet for them. God was drawing them, working with them, and they were responding. ...to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and disease. Incredible! Awesome!

Sometimes people take from accounts like this that this is the way it was to be from then on by God’s ministry. No, it wasn’t. No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t God’s purpose to continue doing healing in the world around them. Mr. Armstrong didn’t go about doing that, striving to heal people in the world around him. He didn’t go to hospitals. He didn’t go to different places. He didn’t ask that people be brought in in order to pray over them and heal them. On the contrary. It didn’t work that way at all. People came into the Church and people learned if you desire to be healed you look to God and you obey what it says in James, “Call on the elders of the Church.” “Call on the ministry and they’ll pray over you,” or they’ll pray a prayer of faith, examples of Paul using an anointed cloth to send to someone. We just put it in the mail with a letter and it tells you what to do with an anointed cloth.

I understand now that we have new people (because we haven’t talked about this as much), don’t know what anointing is. I guess I was a little baffled by some of that because we do have some sermons on it listed in the system there. But we don’t always hear of those things perhaps or maybe we forget or didn’t drink in everything that was stated. But again, anointing is something that a minister does. He takes oil, puts it on the forehead, lays hands upon a person and asks God to heal them according to their relationship, basically, with God, according to God’s purpose and God’s will. I’ve seen occasions where people are healed right away of all kinds of things. I’ve seen occasions where people have to wait a while, maybe a few days, maybe a few weeks of some serious things in their life. Then other occasions where God says, “No,” and lets us experience whatever it is that we have in our life. That doesn’t mean one has less faith in any of those three situations because God doesn’t do it immediately.

We tend to be very physically oriented and very physically minded sometimes and we can tend as human beings to beat ourselves up and think something is wrong with me if God doesn’t intervene right now. No, it’s just there are occasions when God says no and how are you going to deal with that one? How are you going to think toward your Father, Almighty God, when He says no? Does He owe it to me to be healed? Does He owe it to me to do something in my life when I ask Him? Absolutely not! And if I can learn something through that process that I can’t learn in any other way because of how I am as a human being, and then with that transformation that’s taking place in our minds God knows how to mold and fashion us. He knows how to work with our minds to change our thinking. That’s awesome to understand. He works with us in different ways at different times. It’s not the same way all the time.

Some of these concepts! I think about what we had back for a long time within the Church about healing and this matter of faith. It was a pseudo kind of faith. It was like if you don’t have it you shouldn’t go to a doctor, you shouldn’t entrust your life to a doctor, and if you do something is wrong with you, you don’t have the right kind of faith, something is wrong with you spiritually. We were off base! Ministers were off base in teaching some of that. Some didn’t know any better because they had some teacher that told them otherwise who was off base (at Ambassador College), who wasn’t sound and grounded and balanced in the subject matter at all and gave some wrong concepts and wrong ideas then, if it’s a matter of your faith. So sometimes people just did things out of stubbornness, because it’s like, if you don’t do exactly what you’re told in this, in this matter of healing, then something is wrong with you spiritually. So it was like a stubborn thing, “I’m not going to go to a doctor.” Okay, that’s fine.

Someone asked me one time out in West Texas when we first got there if it was okay to take some novocaine or whatever because they were going to go to the dentist and have some things done. I just kind of jokingly (I didn’t tell them I was joking at the time), I said, “Well, it’s either that or bite the bullet.” My point was it’s a choice! But it was like the question was being asked because it’s like, “I don’t know if it’s right for me, if it’s a lack of faith on my part to take the novocaine.” Basically, my answer is that you have a choice here and it’s not a matter of a lack of faith. You can take the bullet, bite the bullet, whatever, and let them work on the other side, you know, whatever, and let them do whatever they’re going to do and hold on to something with all your being and scream if you have to if you don’t want to take the novocaine. I choose novocaine. I want something to ease the pain. If we have it is that sin? It’s like some people thought it was. That’s why I told them.

Then where do you draw the line? Where do you draw the line? You break an arm, would you rather have someone who knows what they’re doing to be able to fit it back into place if it’s way out of the whack there and to take care of it properly? So is that looking to them to heal you? Are you doing something wrong before God if you do something like that?

If you have an accident and something cuts through your body, cuts through your stomach because of a whatever, a farming accident of some sort, you know, someone is swinging a scythe, a great big bladed thing, and they’re out here doing wheat and they didn’t see somebody behind and they come around, and things like that happen in life! Someone cuts through a leg to the bone and you have someone come in that can help you, someone that can help put your guts back into place and sew you up. Well, there are things that people have understood for a long, long time that you can do to put things back in place, at least in a small physical way. Now, I mean, if it’s hanging out and you don’t want it hanging out, you know, this isn’t right, so if somebody can do something to help you out that’s a great thing. So where do you draw the line in the Church?

You have a car wreck and you’re messed up big time, in internal organs, oh yeah. See, this has happened to people. Is it wrong to have a doctor help you? Is it wrong to go to a hospital? So where do you draw the line? So we began to draw it at places like, “Well if they have to cut into you then that’s where I draw the line, because then that’s a lack of faith. If they have to cut into you to remove something, whatever it might be, then you’re not trusting in God.”

I’m telling you things that happened far too often by people who made choices even for their children. The ability to understand something that in the time of Christ, there were no cures, there was no ability of knowledge of man, how to deal with various things.

Open heart surgery? Forget it! You’re just going to die. If you have inherited certain things where your liver produces cholesterol like mine does then you’re just kind of up the creek because when those arteries get clogged up its done, it’s over with. If you get a cancer or something like that back in those times (they call things different, but people got things), things happened, or some kind of a thing that was catchy and people caught it, I don’t care whether it be, small pox, whatever it might be that different things that have passed around through time. The black death that went through Europe, England so bad, you know, different things that have taken place through time.

So are you just supposed to go and get in your own bed and if you’re in the Church and toughen it up, and if your faith isn’t strong enough you won’t be healed? But if somebody can help you? If we have knowledge enough to know how to take care of certain things ourselves? We do today. It’s only been of recent time as a whole, a lot of things man can do for himself because of technology, because of understanding of various things.

They can go in the chest and take the bone open (more than once), and go in there and open it up and they can go in there with different veins out of your body. That’s why I don’t have much more that they can glean because there are certain ones they can use and certain ones they can’t use. I was showing around here today a scar from wrist to elbow because they took one out of here, and you can only take one out of here, out of this arm. It’s the one that’s there, that does the most for your arms. It’s big enough to use for a bypass so they got two bypasses out of that. Then they got two bypasses out of the upper part of my leg here, but they can’t go back in there again because those arteries are gone and you don’t have an overflow of that type of artery.

But we have that kind of ability. I mean, that’s a marvel to understand what we can do for ourselves on a physical plane. So if I look back in time, and look back to a period of time thirty years ago, twenty years ago, if I went in would that be a sin? Would it be wrong then to have a doctor work on you because that’s not trusting in God? We lack so much understanding. What is wrong for a physical human being doing for themselves what they can if you have the knowledge and the ability to do it? We live in awesome times because we have such ability.

I’ll tell you what, in the Millennium you think everything is going to be a matter of God just intervening and lining people up and just healing them right and left just to make everybody whole like some people have had the concept of? During the Great White Throne, a little bit different. You get to start out with a brand new body then, healthy and strong, no clogged arteries, no deformities, no weaknesses. You’re just given a full, healthy, strong body; but not during the Millennium. God gives no such promises.

There are going to be people who live into the Millennium because of what they’re going to suffer in a horrible war that are going to suffer until they die. You think, “Christ is going to be on earth, 144,000, shouldn’t everyone be healed?” Well, should they? You take all that away, you take everything away that man is suffering even physically because of war, and are there things that can be learned because you do suffer, because a world that lived at a particular point in time and they go through certain things and they continue to learn then what it was like then to have lived like that before? You think that’s not good for the healing of the mind that some things remain?

That’s why I think it blew some people’s minds when I talked to them about during the Millennium. I think there was a concept by a lot that nobody is going to die, or when it comes time of their death God’s going to resurrect them immediately into a spirit family, and when God gave to me to give to the Church you’re going to have to wait until the end of the thousand years, you’re going to have to die and you’re going to have to wait until the end, it’s like, “It’s not fair! That isn’t what I’ve believed all this time.” Well, c’est la vie, it is what it is, and people are going to have to because people learn from that.

See, those in the thousand years have to learn something that happened in the first 6,000: we get old and we die or something happens to us, an accident or something. There are going to be things like that that happen in the Millennium, not just because of old age. People are going to die. God isn’t taking all that away in the Millennium just because Joshua the Christ and 144,000 are on this earth reigning and ruling. They’re reigning and they’re ruling with God’s government. What’s being taught is the truth on the earth and they’re over those things, but it doesn’t mean that God’s going to protect every human being from accidents, from disease, from harm, from learning things that we can learn in human life of what it’s like to suffer as a human being for those in the Millennium.

So sometimes our expectations are not reality because we don’t understand God’s purpose and why He made us the way He did. Sometimes those things are difficult when you believe something else, when God comes along and says, “No, you haven’t seen it fully. You don’t understand fully. You don’t grasp fully what this is all about,” and He tells us something different. Then we have to judge, what do I truly believe?

To me it’s an incredible story here of what God is teaching us and what He’s given to us, and why He’s given it to us, something we look at on a very physical way. It just shows us how physically minded our thinking really is and how hard it is to go beyond that and without God’s spirit, candidly, we can’t. It requires God’s holy spirit to go beyond that, to see the things, the purpose, the design, the beauty of what God is creating still, creating and molding and fashioning and changing.

Matthew 10:1, again, so he sent them out, gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and disease. Now the names of the twelve apostles are these: the first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, John his brother; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus, whose surname is Thaddeus; Simon the Cananite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.

Verse 5—Joshua sent these twelve out and commanded them, saying: Do not go into the way of the gentiles, and do not enter into any city of the Samaritans. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Awesome what he said. So those who are of Judah and those who are still around of others who hadn’t been taken captive and still in the area, though they be small in number, they were there, there were people out there, especially of three to four tribes. And as you go, preach, saying, The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Something was happening in time that was unique. 4,000 years had passed; God had worked with individuals along the way, molded and fashioned them. Awesome! But now something is taking place because the one that all of those individuals looked to and believed was now on the earth. The Messiah, he was on the earth. The Kingdom of God is near at hand. All of a sudden the very one who is the Son of God, the very one who is going to fulfill Passover, the very one who is going to become the High Priest, all these things, and so they went out and taught something that they didn’t fully grasp nor understand yet, but it was beginning, there was a beginning process before the Church actually began. So he was telling them the Kingdom of heaven is at hand more than ever before; more than the previous 4,000 years. Here there are things being made manifest and an ability to begin to learn something that was never understood before this. Awesome!

He said, Heal the sick. Why? To show you the power of the Kingdom of heaven, to show you the power of God Almighty, to show you that there is one here who has all power in a very great and mighty way that the earth has never seen nor known before this, that’s been made manifest, the Word made flesh.

So an incredible thing was taking place here and it was to point to that truth, to that ministry, “The Messiah is here.” These things were there for a purpose so that it was spread far and wide. They knew, they heard. When they witnessed this themselves or in their family, someone healed or demons cast out, and these apostles, they made it clear how this was being done and who had told them to do this, who had sent them out, you know, the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, powerful. They weren’t being called yet. Some might have been called out of some of those in time. God may have chosen to work with different ones. We don’t know the whole story. But as a whole that wasn’t the case and that wasn’t the purpose. But it was to draw people to something that hadn’t existed before, to make something a reality.

This is beautiful when you go through and understand what God was doing after 4,000 years. He wasn’t any longer going to work with people individually. He sent His own Son, sent His own Son to die as a Passover so we could have our sins forgiven us so that the Church could become established, so that God could begin to have a relationship with a large company of people in a very unique spiritual way on a spiritual plane.

Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead... So there were some evidently here that had died, not written about; and yet some of these things can be prophetic in themselves. We don’t know yet. Raise the dead. ...cast out demons. For freely you have received, so freely give. It’s not from you. Look what you’ve been given. You give this now. Awesome!

So what was the purpose of all this? Well, I’ve already said it. To draw people’s attention to a message, to draw people’s attention to the one through whom that message was coming, “The Kingdom of God is near at hand.”

So by the time he finally went into Jerusalem toward the end and the hundreds and the thousands who were gathering in Jerusalem and the uproar that was there that was taking place and how they looked to him and heard the stories, they wanted to see him and they cast out palms and sang, talking about “Hosanna in the highest,” and speaking of the son of David, because they understood he was of the lineage of David, that the Messiah was prophesied to come out of that lineage. They were crying these things out at the end.

Then he’s put to death and they don’t know what to think and what to do. “Could it have all been true? Why did all this happen?” Even the disciples, “What are we going to do now?” I mean, of all people, the disciples, because they didn’t know, and yet at this point here they still didn’t grasp and understand what was taking place. They didn’t understand that he came to die as the Passover and that he hadn’t come to be the Messiah yet. They didn’t know these things.

They didn’t know it was going to be over a period of time here, 2,000 years later, that God would begin fulfilling some of those things. They didn’t know! They died not knowing! They died looking! When is it going to be? It wasn’t until toward the end of the ministry of the different ones there, before they were put to death that God began to reveal, showed to Paul something has to happen first because that day isn’t going to come unless there come a great falling away first, an apostasy. Incredible! They began to be taught about antichrist, and yet there are many antichrists in the Church of God back then. That means against the very purpose of why God was calling them – because many are called and few are chosen – because at some point they would begin deciding for themselves what they want to do, what they want to believe or they give into their own carnal pulls, whatever they might be.

As I mentioned last Sabbath, sexual being the greatest one of all, because more have left over that than anything else. Amazing what happens in God’s Church sometimes and has happened for the last 2,000 years because we want what we want as human beings and we’ll work against God’s purpose. Antichrist works against Christ, works against the very purpose of why he gave his life, to forgive us of our sins, and if we ever come to a point where we aren’t crying out to God and asking forgiveness of our sins we become antichrist.

John wrote a lot about that, God gave him understanding. But Paul specifically brought out about an antichrist, about a man of sin, a son of perdition who would betray God, who would betray Christ, and until that happened and there was a great falling away from the truth within the Church he wasn’t going to return. Awesome, the time we live in, because we’ve seen it. Very few out of 6,000 years have witnessed such an incredible thing and the lessons that go along with it.

I am so thankful I lived through that. I am so grateful I witnessed that, hard as it was, as gut-wrenching as it was, as horrible as it was in every way. But only by God’s grace and mercy was I awakened “like a brand pulled out of the fire” as it says, because it wasn’t by anything I did. It wasn’t because of any goodness of my own. We all sinned, and yet because God had a purpose of a remnant He drew certain ones out of that – not very many. Out of that entire Apostasy He just drew certain ones out of it because He had a purpose of a remnant that would continue on until Christ’s coming.

So we’re very blessed. Awesome to have been called, first of all, in the first place, receive the impregnation of God’s spirit, and after the Apostasy incredibly blessed to go through a similar sort of thing on an incredible spiritual plane to be awakened out of a spiritual sleep. Awesome! It was by God’s grace and mercy, otherwise we’d be out there somewhere in some scattered group, or not even there, we’d be off doing our own thing, maybe having gone back to, in December here putting up a tree because a lot of them did that. A lot! When you’re cut off from God’s spirit it’s incredible what can take place.

So all for a purpose, all these healings that were taking place that the disciples were doing as they went out there, sent out during a period of time, we don’t know how long, during that 3½ years, and then Christ himself and all the stories, all the healing that he did that are recorded and many that aren’t. But those that are recorded in scripture here that we’re able to read about, all for a greater purpose of those things that were to come about him and about what he was fulfilling.

It wasn’t God’s purpose that for the next 2,000 years that within the Church everybody that came along was going to be healed or that the ministry was to go out and do the same thing, because they weren’t. It was to draw people to the fact of where God is, and the disciples continued to do some things in the beginning for a purpose, again, but it was about the Church, it was about the establishment of the Church, that this is here where God is. The Passover isn’t here any longer, the one who is the Messiah isn’t with us any longer, but his Church is, the Body of Christ is. So it was to draw people to the reality, the truth this is where God is working.

God used that with a very physical world that didn’t know anything, as a whole, about this type of thing, these things that were being taught at this time about the Passover and about Christ himself. So it began to be taught in the Church and this is how people were drawn along and brought along. It wasn’t through The Plain Truth magazine where, you know, someone read something and was like, wow, and then they were able to begin seeing it. No, they had other things that drew their attention to something that, “Well, this is incredible! Did you hear about this fellow? He was out there and he was giving permission to some of the soldiers to kill these people, to put them to death, to stone certain ones and put them to death, and now he’s a different person? He has a different name; he’s no longer Saul. His name is Paul and he’s out here and he’s been healing different ones?” It was to draw attention to something so incredible that when God began to draw them and work with them people’s ears perked up.

So we’ve lived through a lot of different things. God has worked with people in the Church in the past 2,000 years in different ways at different times. I look forward to hearing about some of the things that took place through the longest period of time, Thyatira. Anyway, that’s a personal thing.

So again, Christ healed many during that 3½ years of the ministry, and even sent out his disciples to do the same things to heal many. Again, but it’s so important to understand the reasons why and what God was doing during those specific moments in time.

Just like now, God isn’t trying to call a lot of people into the Church, because if He was you know what? It would happen. On the contrary, we’re being kept small for a purpose. I hope we understand that. I hope we understand the marvel of what God works out and how He works things out because He’s going to make it very clear what He has done, not what we’ve done. You know, if Worldwide was allowed to continue to grow and become greater and greater and greater, well, that’s why we had Laodicea in the first place, because it goes to the head after a while. It’s like, “Look at us! Look at us!” And you go off base then and God takes away His spirit. God’s making it very clear it’s not because of you.

God did what He did during Philadelphia for an incredible purpose. There are people out there who still know and have heard of and have read, and heard the name of Mr. Armstrong, who have heard the telecast, who have read The Plain Truth magazine. Incredible!

We actually have a group right now we’re looking forward to seeing more of what happens, but down in Mexico. A fellow that grew up in the Church, went to Orr, Minnesota camp. I guess that was where it was. He was brought all the way up here to go to camp even into Minnesota and he spoke of that and of how a church of around 200 some is down to 34, 35 now of people who have been holding on the best way they know how. They’ve come across a website that they’re beginning to believe this is where God led them. Of all the sites that are out there that’s a marvel because we’re small, we’re little, we’re puny. That’s exciting!

Because when God desires to work with someone, when God draws someone, He will draw them. He will accomplish whatever He sets out to do. Whatever God’s going to accomplish here at the end He’s going to do it, whatever it is to ever how great or how small. Whatever it is He does He’s the one who does it. If we get to be a part of that and share in that, then that’s awesome. That’s awesome to whatever degree that is.

So that’s the way it’s been through time. God has worked with different ones for different purpose and so forth. To understand that purpose is so important, especially when it has to do with a subject like this.

For those in God’s Church the subject of healing has much to do with the subject of trust, of learning to truly place our trust in God, even in something as simple as just obeying Him and trusting in Him that whatever He determines for us is what is best for us at that moment in time. But anyway, going on.

Again this is not a matter of an exercise in stubborn will or will power, faith, stubborn faith, because that’s not faith. Faith is a matter of just believing God, of learning as God teaches us and then just believing what He says and then living by that, acting upon that in our lives. That’s what faith is. It’s the exercise of what God has given us to believe.

Let’s turn over to Matthew 13 because the story just continues on and on and on. So, indeed, many have lacked a balance, if you will, or lack soundness of mind in this subject matter as well as many other things, but that’s just the way we are as human beings. God has to help us to grow in balance and soundness of mind because that’s where it comes from. It doesn’t come from ourselves because everything about the way we think has to be changed, as a whole, it really does. God changes the way we think. When our motivation and our thinking changes then all of our actions begin to change in life as well, of what we’ll allow and what we don’t allow, what we stand for, what we don’t stand for, what we’ll act upon, and what we don’t act upon. Choices, choices, choices. And sadly, to the end some are going to make some of the wrong choices. I’m going to save some stuff for the Feast. I have to be careful what I get into here. You just have to wait.

Matthew 13:10—And the disciples came to him and said, Why do you speak to them in parables? He answered and said to them, Because it has been given unto you to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven. So, so many that were even being worked with and people that were being healed, they didn’t understand what was taking place. They were excited by something that they had never witnessed, never seen before, and they believed that the only way this could happen is that it has to be of God. Because these things don’t happen, that someone can come along and say something or touch or do whatever they do, you know, the shadow of one of them passing by and they’re healing? This isn’t normal! These things just can’t take place in life. They were a little more open minded in the sense of listening, not that they understood nor grasped everything, because that wasn’t God’s purpose yet. Unless He’s drawing someone they can’t continue to grow and understand those things. But at least that was in the environment around them, of a desire to be around or to see or to learn more about what the Messiah is saying, what they came to believe that he’s the Messiah. This isn’t normal. This is of God.

Why do you speak to them in parables? And he said to them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. Even those who were healed it wasn’t given to them to know what was taking place.

For whosoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. So again here, parables of things that Christ said, of things that pertain to what would take place through time here especially as God works with the Church and how people respond to the truth and to their calling. Because this isn’t given to the world. They’re not given to understand. They’re not given to comprehend. That’s why he’s telling them this. There are parables here so that they can’t; even more so, so that it’s hidden, so that they can’t even come close. But it’s given to you to understand it all, to see it all, in that respect, as to what God is giving you at this moment in time.

He says, Therefore, I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see... They saw healings taking place, but they didn’t “see.” They didn’t see what God was doing. I mean, you’re moved by something like that on a physical plane as a physical human being if someone sees someone here who suddenly has their mind back and their life back because all this gibberish and things they were doing and the way they were acting is gone because they’ve been healed because there are no demons there anymore. “Seeing they do not see” spiritually. They just see something physically. That’s all they can deal with. ...and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. So they hear things being said.

I marvel about that at different times when some have come along or at different stages and they repeat things back with their own understanding and they hear certain things that are said. It’s amazing how the human mind can work, but it works so much so on a physical line, on a physical plane, even, sometimes, obviously, in the beginning in the Church. That’s how we grow. It takes time.

Verse 14—And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: By hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive. So you can witness all these things taking place. You can watch what’s going on. You can see people being healed. You can go through the Red Sea and not get it, by the hundreds of thousands. It’s the same thing, or you can see the Messiah himself and you can see him on a pole and the fact that he died and not get it, miss the whole thing, miss the whole purpose of what is there. But they saw these things take place, good and bad.

For the heart of this people has grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing... You know when they grow dull? The older they get. It’s just a part of life as physical human beings. It’s only by God’s calling and by God’s spirit does that ever change. Their ears are hard of hearing and they have closed their eyes. That’s the world! It’s been the world for 6,000 years. But there are certain times it’s even worse, and right now it’s at some of the height of that as far as this world is concerned.

We’re at a time very much like the time before the flood and what’s happening to the human mind, what people are doing. Most of it today being accelerated in a very powerful way by technology, by the misuse of technology, and by the harming of the mind through choices that people are making. So we see an incredible acceleration of people getting farther and farther away from anything to do with God or even thinking about God.

Otherwise they could see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and could understand with their heart and could become converted and I would heal them. So making it very clear here something has to change. They have to be given ability to see. They have to be given ability to hear because right now they can’t, and human beings can’t without God’s intervention.

But blessed are your eyes for they see. Why? Because they were better than others? Because they were more astute than others? Were they not like the others? God had a purpose and gave them ability to see certain things, an ability to hear certain things, but only to a certain point, and then they made choices to follow Christ. But it was only to a limited area because they didn’t grasp much, so very much of what he had to say, but enough that they were being drawn.

It’s like us when we begin to first be called, there are certain things, and it depends on how long a period of time it is. It might be a few weeks. It might be a few months. It might be a few years in that drawing process of God working with us, not meaning that one is better than any other, just has to do with God’s drawing and God’s calling and how He chooses to work differently with us and how we can learn so many different things because He’s the one that’s going to mold and fashion each individual mind according to His purpose and according to the place, the place He will place us in. God does the building and not a one of us can tell Him, “This isn’t where I want to be.” Human beings tend to do that though. “I’d rather be over there.”

…blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which you see. Why? Because they wrote about certain things, especially about the Messiah. They longed to see...they longed to see who he was. Just like things we want to see and we don’t want to wait any longer. ...and see those things which you see, and have not seen them, to hear those things which you hear, and have not heard them.

Daniel himself, he wanted to know more because he was given inspiration to write certain things. David was given inspiration to write many things, in many of the Psalms. He didn’t get them. He didn’t understand it all, what he wrote, things that were intended on a spiritual plane. There were certain things that God moved him to give as He did so many through time in the prophets. They didn’t grasp those things that were being said. They didn’t understand the fulfillment of those things.

So, indeed, Christ did many miracles of healing before the people, but they were not called to hear or see all that he was proclaiming, only small snippets here and there depending on God’s purpose and what He was working out. Because, as a whole, what He did and what He gave was strictly for the Church. It was for the Church that was going to begin in 31 A.D., and they would begin to be taught and it took time because it took time for the disciples to get up to speed to where they could give more of the meaning of some of the things they witnessed. They didn’t grasp it all even in the beginning. You don’t see everything even when God gives you His spirit to open things up; it takes time to build upon some of those things. You can see it in their writings. You can see it throughout the scriptures here of what God continued to give, more and more and more.

I think of one example about God’s love and about God dwelling in us. John was given the most. John was given the most to see and he understood it in a way that others before him didn’t. Peter and Paul and some of the others, all the others, candidly, did not see nor understand things on a spiritual plane to the way John did because God was giving more and more as the Church was growing, and John being the last of those apostles was given far more and he wrote about those things. But he wrote about them, too, with a spiritual insight that could only be there because he could see because it wasn’t a matter of writing prophetic things. They wrote about things they could see to that moment in time. Paul wrote about things he could see to that moment in time, and as Paul went along in his life that grew. You can see that in scripture, a growth and a spiritual growing and awareness that didn’t exist at the beginning. It takes time for God to build and mold and fashion things within us. I find that awesomely exciting!

So again, these things were for the Church, that Christ was teaching the disciples and the things he was doing was all for a purpose for things that were going to take place later on, and healing was about revealing that he, again, Joshua the Christ indeed was the Christ, that he was the Messiah sent from God.

Let’s turn over to John 12, just looking at different examples here and things that took place in that time for a specific purpose at that time. John 12:23—And Joshua answered them, saying, The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. What does that mean? He’s going to be changed from mortal to immortal. He’s going to take on a different life, a different body, a different make up. He’s going to be spirit. He’s going to be in the Family of God. Not just begotten, not just born in human life as the Son of God, and not just begotten as he was later on through baptism and the receiving the impregnation of God’s holy spirit in his being when he began to grow uniquely so himself as to who he was, of that which God molded and fashioned, which He did. But now it’s talking about being glorified, and those terms have to do with what takes place once someone is changed.

Truly, truly, I say unto you, that unless a grain of wheat fall to the ground and die, it remains by itself, or in other words, it remains a single grain; but if it dies it brings forth much fruit. He who loves his life shall lose it, and he who hates, or learns to love less... Isn’t that amazing what we have to do? We learn to love less self, because, candidly, we just love it! We love. We love ourselves. That’s what selfishness is. We love ourselves. We love what we want to do and how we want to do it and how we want things to be in our life and we don’t go around, you know, as a whole, as human beings: “I just hate myself. I loathe myself.” Now, what you are to learn to come to hate and loathe is your human nature. But there’s a balance in there of things you come to see, and a marvel of God’s spirit that dwells within us, of something that’s changing in the way we are in our mind, in our thinking that is awesome, and we want that, we hold on to that, we latch on to that and we cry out for more of that. But we want to get rid of this loving of self indeed.

But he who loves his life.... It’s like saying he who loves himself and doesn’t go beyond that; you’re going to lose it. You’re going to lose what you’re trying to hold on to. Whatever it is, you can’t take it with you. And he who hates, or learns to love less is what it’s about, his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. This is with understanding of God. This is with understanding of what happens within the Church. The only way you can understand what it’s saying here is if you have God’s spirit because it’s about receiving the impregnation of God’s spirit and understanding what can change in your being because of that. Because this is what we go through, we learn to love self less and less and less the farther we go along here in this process of spiritual growth and development. As we continue to do that and continue to yield to God and continue to grow spiritually then that’s a part of a process of keeping this life unto eternal life because God’s paved the way for us. Nothing can stop us. Nothing can stop that process except our choices. Nobody else can stop this, doesn’t matter who it is. Who can separate us from God? Just self or we can allow something or someone else out here to separate us from God. We can allow sin to separate us from God. We can allow wrong choices to separate us from God. But as far as being in control or having the choice? It ends right here, see, and this is what’s held accountable and responsible.

If any man serve me, let him follow me. So we learn how to do that in the Church. Human beings can’t. Denominations out here can’t. Even a scattered body can’t because they have to be awakened spiritually first. ...and where I am, there shall also my servant be. How would the Protestant world read that? Well, “’Where I am,’ he’s up there, so that’s where I’m headed. I’m going there. That’s where I’m going.” No, you’re not. Slow down, you’re moving too fast. ...and where I am, there shall my servant be also. This is all it’s saying.

So I think of the Church and wherever we are. We’re here together on the Sabbath; God’s people come together on the Sabbath, this is where Christ is. He’s in the Body. He lives in us. He dwells in us. That’s where he is. As long as we continue to choose to remain in the Body, as long as we continue to make the right choices and we want to abide in God and in Christ, we’ll be there; we’ll be where he is because he’s here. He is wherever we are—incredible—as we yield ourselves. It’s an amazing thing.

And because of that the only way to serve him is we will follow him, and where I am, there will my servant be. And if any man serves me, him will my Father will honor. A relationship with God, fellowship with God Almighty and with Christ.

Now is my life troubled, and what shall I say? “Father, save me from this hour?” He didn’t want to go through it. He did not want to go through what was in front of him. But for this cause I have come to this hour. Awesome! He understood he was the Passover. He understood he came to die as the Lamb of God. He understood that he was to take upon himself, and what it says in Isaiah that we read during Passover, he was to take upon himself the infirmities, the weaknesses, the sins of the world, for those who would receive God, that they would be able to be forgiven of their sins through him.

For this cause I have come to this hour. He had something to fulfill and he knew it, but he didn’t want to physically. Who wants to go through something like that? It’s not fun.

On a much smaller scale I think about having this sternum opened up here. Had it once, didn’t really want to have to go through it again, but you know the alternative is not so great. That’s the end. So, yes, do it again, cut it open, put some arteries in there, and continue on.

But look at what he did – no sin – knowing he was going to be beaten beyond recognition as a human being. Knew that he was going to be hanging on a pole until the moment he died, and he saw it so powerfully that when he prayed he perspired blood with the perspiration in his body; it came out his pores. That’s mindboggling.

Father, glorify Your name. “Glorify Your name.” Awesome what he said here. Then there came a voice came from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again. Amazing! It was going to be done in Christ, through him very powerfully so because of what God was doing in his life, with his life, His own Son, bringing about purpose that was given from before time ever began, before anything was ever created.

Verse 29—The people, therefore, who stood by and heard it said that it thundered. And others, An angel spoke to him. So they heard something that they didn’t recognize what was taking place as some of this was happening. Some thought it was thunder, some thought an angel had spoken to him, because it was something. They hadn’t heard anything quite like this before. And Christ answered and said, The voice was not for me, but for your sake. Just like the thing of healing, it was for the sake of others and it was for the sake of being able to help loosen up some of this hearing just enough so they would begin to ponder and think, “This is the Messiah.” Because this can’t happen unless God is there in it, unless God is doing it; human beings can’t do these things.

But it wasn’t enough to receive God. It wasn’t enough to see the truth. Because why? God has to draw someone to that. God has to call someone to that by His holy spirit. It takes more than human reasoning or human ability.

You know, if things were being done out here today and people walked through hospitals healing people it would produce the wrong thing, it would draw attention to the wrong thing. It isn’t God’s purpose to do those things. It would be wrong because it doesn’t fit. That’s why it’s not going to happen. It would draw people to the wrong thing. Incredible!

Verse 31—Now is the judgment of this... Because this world, and just like the things this world has to go through. There are things it’s not going to be allowed to see nor grasp until they’ve gone through what they have to go through to see what human beings do, will do. Given enough time, given the technology, they will end up destroying themselves. That’s where we are. God has to let us experience that.

Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And for me, if I am lifted up from the earth, speaking specifically of what was going to happen. He’s going to die on a pole, he’s going to be lifted up from the earth. That’s exactly what he was talking about. I will draw all unto me. Now, does that mean everyone is going to come? No, but that’s His purpose, to draw all to him, all who will receive when they’re called, when they’re drawn. But people have choices.

Just like I know that there are people in the last 2,000 years in the environment of God’s Church, and too many toward the end here, who because of certain choices they made and because of how they hated Mr. Armstrong, how they hated anything to do with the truth and they wanted what the Protestant world had and they made a choice. To have God’s spirit and make those kinds of choices is not a small thing in the mind and what can happen to the mind. There are some who have said, “No, I don’t want it. I want something different.” So God basically just says, “Then you won’t have what I have offered.”

Verse 33—This he said, signifying what death he would die. And the people answered him, We have heard out of the law that Christ abides forever, that the Messiah abides forever. Some obviously in the Protestant world would take this wrong, and maybe some in the scattered body, too, because it’s not talking about that which is eternal, in other words, but like saying remains or continues or dwells (that’s what these words are) forever.

So when that life is changed he abides forever. He didn’t come on the world scene until he was born as a physical human being. He didn’t start his ministry until the last 3½ years there before he died in 31 A.D., and so it’s talking about a period of time here of what would follow once he becomes the Messiah. He was called to be the Messiah, but to fulfill that role isn’t coming for a little while yet. Then he comes back as the Messiah. He wasn’t on this earth as the Messiah. He was the Messiah; he was born to become the Messiah, but he came to be the Passover, to fulfill that role. He fulfills the Messiah part later on here.

So what do you say about this, that the Son of Man must be lifted up?

Now, please understand. He is the Messiah. He is on the right hand of God Almighty, but he’s not fulfilling that role on the earth yet. He’s been fulfilling it within the Church.

So what do you say about this, The Son of man must be lifted up? Now, this is some terminology, “being lifted,” being brought out here that there had to be understanding here to a degree of what he’s talking about. “I have to be lifted up,” and talking about death.

Who is this Son of Man? And then Joshua said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while you have the light lest darkness come upon you, for he who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. Again here, unique things that can only be understood by those whom God works with. They didn’t grasp what he was talking about because he’s talking about things on a spiritual plane, talking about that he is, in essence, of the light, the Word made flesh, if you will. “Walk while you have the light,” because it was coming from him, through him. Yet they couldn’t receive it. Again here, warnings for those who can receive it. The only ones who really can receive that have to do with the Church.

And people keep rejecting the light! People continue to accept and choose the darkness. People continue to have to be suspended from God’s Church, and candidly, at the point of disfellowshipment in some cases. Even this past week. I’m weary of it, but I know it has to continue on. I loathe that part of my job, but those are choices that people have to make. I loathe it because it hurts that people would make such choices. I’ve cried out and cried out and cried out. God has cried out through different ones for 6,000 years, even within the Church for the last 2,000 years, and the vast majority haven’t listened, the vast majority have chosen otherwise. They’ve chosen the darkness. Many have been called and few have been chosen. That’s a horrible, horrible thing.

So I hope this time of year, and as we go into this Feast this year—because this is getting into some of my sermons—that we embrace this more than ever before, that we fight for this more than ever before, that we understand we are being judged in a manner, in a way that we never have before because there are certain things that must be finished before the Messiah returns, because the Church is going to be in a certain way and anything that is not that way will not be around.

So if you want to go out here and sleep with people, if you want to go out here and be drunk in your life and go off on tangents and do things and take drugs or whatever it is you want to do, that’s your choice! You want to throw it all down the toilet, that’s your choice! I wish you wouldn’t do it.

You want to continue to rob 2nd tithe for yourself and use it ever how you want to do it? “I can spend it on this or that and wait until my taxes come back,” if that be the case, “or I can spend it on this and that and hopefully then God will bless me so that I can get it all back.” That’s not how God works! Someone made that comment recently. “God has blessed me to get that back.” I have to watch myself. Blind! Blind, blind fool! You think you can rob from God and then God at some point in time because you say, “I’m sorry and I want to make it back up,” that God then blesses you with better work and better job or more work coming in? I’ll tell you what, there is someone there to help you with that and it isn’t God. You may get a whole bunch of money back – doesn’t mean it’s God because they want control of your life and they want you to make wrong choices and they want you to go off on left field.

So whether it be 1st tithe or 2nd, those are some of the most basic and simplest things to do, to obey. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy in your life because of some of the choices you made in life about living on credit and living on credit cards and maxing out things in your life. Yeah, it’s going to be tough. Anyone that comes into God’s Church, when I came into God’s Church it was going to be tough because I was used to working seven days a week and you get used to a certain amount coming in. That’s what happens in people’s lives. But you come to a point in time where you say, “No more!” The sooner you make that and are convicted of that, to never mess around with that, that’s good. But I still marvel that people still do those things in the environment after all that’s been said about it the last few years.

You want to go out here and be with someone else that God says no unless it’s in marriage? You want to do that with your physical life? To have that kind of a physical relationship? And that’s more important than a spiritual one? You know what? God will let you have it. God will let you have it. He’ll let you experience it. How long is it going to be that you’re going to have that relationship? Less than a year now? Is that possible? Few more months at the most? Then you have to live it all over again, live it all over again, live in a body all over again, not able to live on into the Millennium and grow and change and then potentially then at the end of that thousand years be resurrected into God’s family then. You have to come back and live all over again in a different world, different time, and then potentially… What more can I say? I can’t live anyone’s life for them. All I can do is cry out, holler about God’s way of life and about sins and why do we mess around with sin? Because you don’t get by with it. God knows everything you do in your life. God knows every wrong thought in your mind. We can’t play these games like Adam and Eve did: “I’m going to hide in the garden so God doesn’t see me. I don’t want to come out in the open. I’m going to hide in the garden.” No, you’re not hiding. God knows exactly where you are. Not only that, He knows exactly what you’re thinking. You don’t hide anything from God. He knows what’s in the spirit. He knows what’s in the spirit element of your brain, of your mind, and He’s the only one that can reveal it to you of what it’s like, of what it is, and that it’s based in selfishness and sin. That’s the way it is because all selfishness leads to sin. If we yield to selfishness it leads into sin.

So people mess around out there, mess around on their computers or their cell phones, whatever it might be, to watch something, to look at something, whatever, you know, and think that somehow this is going unnoticed or that they can just do it in private. God Almighty, the whole angelic realm, could see it all and knows exactly what’s going on. Incredible!

This is a time to be so sobered, brethren. I just can’t say it enough. You see what’s taking place in the world? Told about something just before services, hadn’t even heard the news yet, something that happened in the Ukraine? This is a dangerous world. Sermon for the Feast.

I’m going to back up a little bit. I’m going to continue on a little bit farther because there’s one section I do want to read later and I’ll get into that later so let’s finish this up. I thought I’d finished all of John 12. I got off on a tangent there talking about certain things having to do with sin and choices people are making and how frustrating that is and not grasping and understanding the time we live in of all time, for all people, and it gets frustrating.

So going on here, Verse 36—It says, While you have the light. It’s really a word that means “until.” “While” doesn’t really give the right meaning in the sense of what is being said here. Until you have the light, believe the light so that you may become the children of the light. Why is that important? Because, first of all here, he was talking about something a little bit different on a physical plane, and speaking to them, in essence, about something they didn’t understand, that wasn’t for them, as I said, it was for the Church.

In verse 35 when Joshua said unto them, “Yet a little while is the light with you,” speaking of himself and speaking of what was taking place, “walk while you have the light.” That’s for the Church! That’s prophetic. This isn’t just about a physical thing that he’s saying, “While you...” You know, “It’s with you for a little while.” In our own lives when we’re called it’s with us for a little while. How long will that be? Well, it’ll be with us as long as we continue to yield to the process and repent as we have access to the light, and that life then will come into our lives. But if we begin to sin and get cut off from it that’s going to disappear. So we need to walk in the light while we have that opportunity, when we have that opportunity, if you will.

Walk while you have the light, indeed, lest darkness come upon you; for he who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. That’s what happens in people’s lives. You start cutting yourself off by sins you have and you can’t see clearly anymore, you don’t think right anymore, your mind isn’t right anymore. You think you are. You think you’re in the Church. I’ve just had to tell some people, “You’ve been in the courtyard. You’re just kidding yourself.” “You’ve just been out in the courtyard. Who are you fooling?” Don’t we understand by certain sins and living them that we’re out in the courtyard? If we’re not repenting and conquering and overcoming, and that doesn’t mean you’re not going to slip and fall and have to repent, because you do, but if you continue to do and live in a certain way that’s a choice being made while ignoring God. See? God isn’t going to allow that.

So while we have the light, while we have this opportunity to repent and change that’s what we should strive to do.

So again here, then he goes on to say, Until you have the light, believe in the light so that you may become the children of light. This wasn’t for those people standing there; this is for the Church of God! This is for those that God gives His holy spirit to, or will give it to, until you have the light, because we all have to be called first. That’s what this is about, until you have it. There’s coming a time, because he’s talking about what’s going to happen, what’s going to take place when the Church begins in 31 A.D. on Pentecost, and then, even some who heard, “until you have the light,” so when you have it, when that time comes, walk in it. Walk in it! Believe in it! Believe what you’re given, that God gives to you.

...so that you may become the children of light. What does that mean? Well, we’re in a begotten phase right now but we’re not there yet. But one day that’s our hope and our desire, is to be born into God’s family, indeed the children of light.

These are the things... We always tend to take things physically first because we just don’t see things spiritually first. In time as we grow God will show us those things. Just like in the subject matter of healing, it’s about spiritual things. It’s not about physical things! Physical things are with us for just a little while and then they’re gone. What they teach have to do with that which is spiritual. God wrote them on a spiritual plane for a spiritual purpose.

So these are the things Joshua spoke, and then departed, and then hid himself from them. But although he had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in him. They didn’t. They couldn’t! So those, it goes back then to the individuals standing there. They couldn’t receive it. Why? Because God hadn’t called them. They weren’t being worked with spiritually, only physically. Hearing certain things, hearing truth but not understanding it, not perceiving it they didn’t believe in him.

So they were no different in that respect than those who came through the Red Sea. You’d think after that little experience they’d believe. But see, we’re physical, and so were these. They weren’t able to believe in him in the sense of he’s the Messiah and what he’s teaching and what he’s giving us and to grasp that.

I don’t want to go into the meaning of the word, but it’s not like the Protestant world. I hate how the Protestant world takes this, of believing in him. Again, as Mr. Armstrong says, it’s better understood just believing him and what he had to say, the Word of God made flesh.

Going on, verse 38— that the saying of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke: Lord, who has believed our report? No one can. No one has the ability. No one has for the last 6,000 years except God opens up their mind to hear it because He’s called them at that moment in time, whatever that is, to be able to see and understand things spiritually. Who has believed our report? In other words, what we have given, said to them, God’s very word. And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? That’s what the issue is. Who has it been revealed to? Only those whom God has called.

Verse 39—Therefore, they could not believe, because God hadn’t given it. By His strength, that’s what it’s referring to here, “Whom the arm of the Lord...” and to whom as the arm of the Lord been revealed? It’s a question. We understand to whom that power and that strength has been given to, to us to see and to understand. “Therefore, they could not believe,” those who weren’t being drawn, in that respect, because again Isaiah said, He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, so that they cannot see with their eyes nor understand with their heart. It’s the same thing as what happened. It’s the same sort of thing like Pharaoh. The more that you live in a carnal, physical world and choose carnal things and things happen around you, the more you’re going to turn inward. That’s what you’re going to be, the more inward you become.

The older we get without God’s spirit the more selfish we become, the more set we become in what we are. That’s why it’s going to be such a blessing, little children who are resurrected during the Great White Throne. They don’t have to unlearn the same things that a hundred year old does when he’s resurrected, or one who’s seven hundred years old, or six hundred years old. Incredible! Because they’re so set in their ways. The older we are when God calls us, it’s a toughie; it’s not easy.

He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart... It’s because of how He created us because He created us to be selfish. That’s how God made us, so we’d just naturally be selfish. Not to be spiritual, not to be filled with His kind of love; we’re not naturally that way. We’re just naturally selfish. We start crying and we’re uncomfortable and our diaper is wet, whatever, or worse, and we’re uncomfortable. We don’t like the feeling. We don’t like the smell and whatever it is and we let those around us know. We just get older and more professional in our selfishness.

So he’s blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts that they cannot see with their eyes and understand with their heart and become converted. See, God has to draw someone in order for a person to become converted, to really start making change. ...so that I would heal them. That’s why I love these verses about healing and what God has to say about it because healing is about something spiritual, not temporary and physical, because that all passes. But they can teach us about things that are greater. This teaches about something that is greater because this is what God wants to heal. This is the greatest thing of all.

You can have all kinds of things wrong with you physically in your body and you can live with those. You can live your whole life with those. But to have this changed and healed, that’s what it’s all about. It’s not about the physical, it’s about the spiritual. That’s the greatest gift and blessing of all that God offers human beings. Incredible to understand that. Whether our body is strong or weak physically is immaterial. Sometimes those things can simply even be an aid to us, truly, to help us to learn, to help us to learn to trust in God and not ourselves, to rely on God and not ourselves as human beings. The more we can grasp those things the more we can tend to do that too.

…become converted and I would heal them. Isaiah said these things when he saw his glory... Whose glory? The Messiah’s. Why? Because he wrote about them. He was given to see certain things to a point. He never saw the Messiah but he saw certain things that God gave to that point in time about something he looked forward to seeing literally, to the one who would take away the sins of the world. Isaiah said these things when he saw his glory and spoke of him, the Messiah.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1