Remember Your Calling

Ronald Weinland

September 25, 2018

Feast of Tabernacles Sermon – 2018

As we’re just beginning to observe this Feast of Tabernacles, as always it’s important to remember why we are here and how God’s Feast to become a part of our lives. And we’re going to do so now in this particular sermon, thinking about some of that in the sermon entitled Remember Your Calling.

The first great focus that God gives to us at this Feast of Tabernacles we’ve heard from the first sermon of the Feast that Johnny Harrell gave. And he went through a lot of those scriptures, some that I’m going to repeat today. And I thought it was good as I was listening to what he was going through that some of this is being repeated, because God wants us to get it. He wants us to understand the importance and the magnitude of what He gives to us and of why we’ve come together at this Feast of Tabernacles. And He does this from year to year but it’s good for us especially here as I’m going to build a little bit upon what Johnny had to say and I’m going to continue on from that.

And it’s incredible that we’re able to be here at this Feast of Tabernacles. Any time you can come to a Holy Day, any time you can go to Sabbath services you are exceedingly blessed more than you can grasp. Think about that. More than you can grasp. You really don’t understand. You grow in that understanding through time. But we really can’t fully grasp by any measure how blessed, how incredible it is that we’re able to be at a Sabbath service whenever that is. We are so blessed, far above and beyond what we can begin to see.

So I’m going to begin here by going back to Deuteronomy 16 where he was and what he had to say. Deuteronomy 16:13—You shall observe the Feast of Tabernacles seven days. And we understand the Feast is seven days. The first High Day, today, and then there is an eighth day, the Last Great Day that’s spoken of in Leviticus 23 as well. But we’re just going through and focusing on this right now about the Feast.

You shall observe the Feast of Tabernacles seven days after that you have gathered in your corn and your wine. And you shall rejoice in your Feast. Awesome! We should rejoice as we meditate, as we think upon (that’s what it means), as we think upon why we’re able to be here.

Verse 15—Seven days shall you keep a solemn Feast unto the Eternal your God. We’re not just coming here for vacation. We’re not coming here just to be together in fellowship. Which those are great blessings, to be able to travel to someplace to be with others, to get away from this world, to be in a different location as a whole. Sometimes, if like in Cincinnati, there are some who are able to stay in their own homes and be able to come to the meetings and so forth. But as a whole most have to travel to go somewhere else. And those are all good things, to get away, to have an opportunity to get away, and to be together with others of God’s people. But this is toward God. This time is toward God. It’s dedicated to God Almighty. It should be in our minds and in our thinking dedicated to God Almighty and His Son.

You shall keep a solemn Feast unto the Eternal your God in the place which the Eternal shall choose. And so that was mentioned as well. Cincinnati, yes, the Netherlands, yes, over in the Gold Coast of Australia, also up in the Niagara Falls area in Canada; those areas have been set aside by God’s Church as locations where people can go, as a whole. Now, there are situations that arise because of health, because of age, that people aren’t able to do that. And thankfully, as it was mentioned, with technology today even at that how blessed are we? You know it hasn’t gone that back... You know, you can go back a ways and the best we had was cassette. Cassette tapes was all we had if we wanted to listen to something in the past. But you couldn’t get those right away from the Feast. But here today, wow, not just the sound but now video as well. We can see what’s being said. Awesomely blessed!

But as a whole it’s where God chooses to place His name. And how is that done again? By His government. Whatever is bound on earth is bound in heaven. God has given His Church a responsibility to organize, to plan, and to prepare, and then to set aside certain places and locations, as a whole, that people can go to to be fed His word, His way of life, and to observe the Feast of Tabernacles. It may be an occasion, as it was in one year, that you observe it four days at a Feast site and the other four days at your home.

And the reason I mention that is because that was a year to try and to test a lot of people as to where you are spiritually, as to whether you grasp and understand how God Almighty works in His Church. Because we had a lot of people who grumbled and complained, “You can’t do that! You can’t tell us to stay at our home to observe God’s Feast!” Well, we did. And God judged them accordingly. And if their attitudes aren’t right…? A lot of those people aren’t around anymore, because of the complaining and the griping that they didn’t like what God was doing, that they didn’t like a decision that God’s Church had made by the inspiration of God’s spirit! Because I know that came from God.

We can learn from those things, brethren, we truly can, that we are to be at one with God, that there is to be no murmuring and griping and complaining. This is a time to rejoice before God. I think of a time, I’ve mentioned this before, it’s been a long time ago I think, but when I was in Big Sandy going to Ambassador there.... Not Big Sandy, Bricket Wood in England, going to Ambassador there. (Went to both places, I just got a little confused.) But it was while I was in Bricket Wood that some spoke of, an evangelist in particular spoke of a meeting they had had there before the Feast of Tabernacles. And they were all sitting around eating at their lunch and one got up and started speaking about some of the things at the Feast and he asked them all, basically, to set a good example, all the instructors there, all the ministry that was gathered there together in that particular meeting, and basically saying this year, because there had been a little complaining and grumbling the year before, even within the ministry, and he said be mindful of that, don’t do that. One of the evangelists was, as soon as the meeting was over started eating his soup and he said, “Oh! That’s salty.” And he looked around and he said, “Just the way I like it.” Because it hit him a little late that that’s okay; a little salty, that’s fine.

Anyway, we have to be on ourselves. We have to be on guard. This is good to learn from especially when we bring this number of people together and things that can happen. It’s good to be on guard. This is to God and God wants to know how we treat His family, how we love His family. So all those things that are included here.

Seven days shall you keep a solemn Feast to the Eternal your God, in the place which the Eternal shall choose: because the Eternal your God shall bless you in all your increase... Now, when God gave this He was speaking to a very carnal people, Israelites. Very few, probably a handful at the most, very few though were actually being molded and fashioned by God personally, who had His spirit dwelling within them. The rest hadn’t been called to that. They have to be... There are different ones through time with whom God has worked to mold and fashion the mind to be a part of the 144,000. But as a whole the Israelites weren’t and so they had to be dealt with very much so in physical terms; crops, increase, coming to the Feast. And all that is set there to learn lessons from on a spiritual plane. And so God gave that to His people.

So He said here that “The Eternal God shall bless you in all your increase.” For us we think about what is the increase? For us it’s not just something physical. If that’s all we think about we’re missing the boat. It’s what we have been blessed with far, far, far above anything physical. I don’t care how poor a person might be in this earth, to have this way of life, could be the poorest person but they would be the richest of all on earth. And that’s a mindset of how we’re at peace with what we do have, whatever that is, and to live within that. Because it’s a mindset; it’s how we think toward God.

It’s not about the physical wealth and blessings we have in life. It truly isn’t. If those things are made better for us in life and we’ve been able to work, to produce, those are just added blessings. And if we’ve been able to produce a lot those are just added blessings. But the greatest blessings and the greatest riches have to do with the way of God and the truth of God and the spirit of God in our lives. And what is increase then in our life? How are we growing? How much fruit have we produced?

So it says He shall bless you in all your increase, in all the works of your hands. We’re to work. We’re to work at this way of life. We truly are. We’re to produce physically and spiritually in our lives. ...in all the works of your hands, therefore, you shall surely rejoice. And so we’re able to rejoice in God because of a mindset we have toward Him.

Let’s turn over to Leviticus 23, which has also been covered. But again, we’re going to focus on this. Leviticus 23:39—Also, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month when you shall have gathered in the fruit of the land... So here is a point in time for them on a very physical plane, you’ve gathered in of the fall harvest. Now, all the spring harvest is in, the fall harvest, as a whole, is in, depending on where you live on the earth, what portion. But as a whole this is that time of year to focus upon those things, but not for the physical. For us it’s for the spiritual. And so this was the time that they were able to think about those things because of the area in which God was working with them as a people. And so they could relate to this, this fall harvest and what God was doing.

And so when you have gathered in the fruit of the land you shall keep a Feast unto the Eternal seven days. And on the first day shall be a Sabbath...the eighth day, the Last Great Day, is also a Sabbath. And you shall take unto you on the first day the boughs of good trees. Now, I’m mentioning this again because this isn’t the word for “boughs of trees.” It isn’t a part of a tree. It’s the fruit of a tree. It’s the only place that this world is translated like this, or mistranslated like this, because they didn’t understand what God was doing. They don’t understand God’s plan and purpose. And candidly, a lot of things have been hidden and covered because there’s a being that inspires those things that are false and confusing to people.

So this is only translated once as “boughs” and that’s here in this very verse. In all the other verses, over a hundred times, it’s translated as fruit.

And so you shall take unto you the first day, the boughs of goodly trees/good trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and the willows of the brook. Now, the reason for this is because basically it’s an instruction here of how to build a little thing to sit in, and so you had to have strong enough wood going across and to make this, whether it be…ever how you made it. And then the green part of the (is basically is what it’s talking about here), “the branches of palms, the boughs of thick trees, and the willows of the brook,” and those things that you can weave in and out to put it all together, and then you were to do something with this. And you were to have fruit there. You’re to take fruit and have there in that location that you can partake of. Awesome! All to teach us something on a spiritual plane, nothing about a physical plane, in that respect. And so they did that physically to obey God but that isn’t the point.

And so it says, and the willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Eternal your God seven days.

Verse 41—And you shall keep it (the Feast of Tabernacles), a Feast unto the Eternal seven days in the year. It shall be a statute forever in your generations and you shall celebrate it in the seventh month. Beautiful pictures here. Seven, completion. Seven. God’s plan of completion. 6,000 years have gone by and in those last eight days of the ... throughout the Feast of Tabernacles and the Last Great Day, pictures the completion, the seventh day of God’s plan for mankind. And by the time it’s over with it will be fully completed and there will be no more physical life on earth ever again.

There will be no more new birth on earth ever again, not even in the last hundred years. That’s awesome to understand. God says “It’s over. It’s complete. It’s finished to the degree I want it to be.” And all who will be Elohim will be completed by that time. No more physical human beings. Incredible! And so that picture is painted for us, of a plan that God has to complete His plan. And seven is so powerful in that, the seventh day Sabbath; that’s the same time period that’s being pictured here by the Feast of Tabernacles, the millennial period that’s about upon us and what will take place in the next 1,100 years.

You shall dwell in booths... I love this, because in Hebrew we can understand this now in the New Testament because of what’s stated there and what God has revealed to PKG that others never understood in that regard at all, of God’s spirit dwelling in us, living in us, because God gave that later. He saved that to give that to the end-time Church, to have understanding of what it means that Joshua the Christ and God the Father can dwell in, abide in, live in, continue in, and we’re to do the same toward them, to continue in them, to dwell in them, to live in them on a spiritual plane. That’s beautiful! That’s awesome! We understand that. We comprehend that. It’s not just a matter of having God’s spirit, it’s a matter of God’s spirit continually living and dwelling within us.

That’s why I love John 14, because that’s where it’s revealed. Awesome! When you go through and read those verses about what Joshua the Christ gave to his people at that time, something that’s been hidden for a long, long time, even after he gave it, that people didn’t understand.

And you shall dwell in booths, which means here to continue in, to abide in, to dwell in, and even to sit. Because that’s what they were to do. They understood that. They were to sit in that booth for a period of time, not very long, you know, just go out there and... Because they were told to think about certain things. So they didn’t have to stay there very long but they were to do it every day.

Sometimes I think in God’s Church, those who were around for a long time began to get a little confused about some of this because it was like if you go to the Feast of Tabernacles and have a temporary dwelling that’s what this was all about. No, they didn’t live in that thing. They didn’t dwell in that thing. They had places to stay. This was to teach something else. Now, you can learn from that, there is a lesson to be learned from that, the fact that most people go and live someplace else for a temporary time and dwell there for a time so the same lesson is carried out. But this dwelling in these booths was not a command later on for all of us to have to dwell someplace temporarily.

So, you shall dwell there, sit there seven days; all who are Israelites shall dwell or sit in booths. So what are you? You’re a begotten Israelite. Not a physical... It has nothing to do with physical Israel! Nothing whatsoever! Nada. It’s spiritual. It’s what the name means. The name that was given, that signified what God’s plan was for His people, that we are to become a spiritual Israel. And so when we’re baptized and we go under the water and we come back up and we have hands layed upon us and ask for God’s spirit, the impregnation of God’s spirit to be given to us, each one of us, we become a part of Israel, spiritual Israel, not yet born. It hasn’t happened yet but we’re in the process, for those who yield to that process.

And then remember again what I said on Sabbath – not everyone has done that through time here. Not everyone has done that in the Church in the last 2,000 years. Because the vast majority didn’t abide by that, they didn’t do it. They quit. They gave up. They let it slip between their fingers. They became negligent.

And we have too many people right now in God’s Church who are being negligent, and that’s a strong message going out to the Church in this Feast of Tabernacles. Saying with power and force and authority that God wants me to express to everyone. Okay? It shouldn’t be that way. Why would we do that toward God Almighty, and we don’t grasp, then, the riches of what God has given to us. We should grasp that and be so deeply thankful. I hope that message gets across, I truly do. But I know there are those who won’t listen. There are those who won’t look at themselves and make the change that God is offering at this Feast of Tabernacles.

This is it. I’m just telling you this is it. Just like I said on Sabbath. Some of you haven’t heard that sermon yet. This is it. This Feast of Tabernacles is the dividing line. God says there is no more time. We either repent now and repent with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our being before God, that we ask to be able to see ourselves for what we are, that we strive to make the changes that He shows us that we need to make—if we have the ears to hear and the eyes to see. Some are so weak they won’t be able to unless physically they can hear what I’m saying and maybe have a bit of suspicion that they haven’t been doing everything like they should be, that there are some sin’s in their life and that maybe they’re some of the ones beings spoken to. And maybe they’re asleep, and maybe if they’ll just repent and cry out to God maybe God will have mercy upon you and wake you up so that you can hear.

This Feast is going to be filled with some of this, brethren, because this is it. This is the... The time is here where God is making a judgment, and time comes upon us and we’re either there or we’re not, see?

...that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell/continue in booths/temporary dwellings. So they carnally, physically were to look back and think about, as it goes on to say here, because they continued in or stayed in temporary dwellings in journeying when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Eternal your God, Yahweh.

I couldn’t help but think about while I was listening to Johnny and going through those scriptures in Isaiah and other places that we understand that others don’t grasp – the fact that you know that, the fact that you understand that, that there is no trinity. It’s a bunch of crap that was foisted upon mankind by Satan, the great deceiver, and adopted by his church that he had total power over as they began a process in 325 A.D., as they said you are no longer to observe Passover. Because people were in different groups out here. Nothing was organized yet fully except the Church of God. But they didn’t know where that was because of what others were doing. I don’t want to go through all that history again.

But in 325, amazing what started. “You’ve got to observe Ishtar, Astarte, Easter, but you can’t observe Passover any longer. You’ve got to start observing your religious worship on Sunday, the day of the sun,” not on God’s Sabbath, not on the High Day, not on the weekly holy day that God gave to mankind. So they changed it to something else, the first day of the week.

I know I’m talking a thousand miles an hour, and I apologize to all of you with the Dutch language here, but you have to go back and catch some of this. But I’ve got a lot to say.

So, anyway, awesome here what God has given to us to see, to understand, and that here they were to look back in time about those who were brought out of Egypt, as it says here, “When I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Eternal your God.” And so I was talking about that one God, that there is only one. And I think about His name here, one all the way through the Old Testament, that they try to say it was Joshua...or they try to say is Jesus. “It’s Jeeesus.” I’ve grown to I don’t like that name anymore because it depicts everything that’s started with the Catholic Church and the protestant world, “Jesus.”

And you think God said, told from the very beginning in the gospels what his name was supposed to be, and it wasn’t supposed to be Iisoús or what is it in Spanish? Jesús [pronounced “hey-sous”], which for English became Jesus because of different pronunciations that people have. But they’re all the same. Iisoús is how they started with it, and then whatever it is in Spanish Jesús. I’m probably not saying it right. Am I butchering it? Okay. And then “Jesus.”

Think, no, there is a name that comes out of the Old Testament in Hebrew, the exact same name in Aramaic that God told through an angel, told them that his name was to be, Joshua. I love it! It’s the last great thing, in that sense, that frees us up totally, because that other name pictures Easter, Christmas, Sunday, you name it, the trinity, on and on it goes. Look at it. Awesome! And God finally freed us from that.

And so they lived in temporary dwellings. What we learn from that, that we’re in temporary dwellings. We’re to understand there’s something spiritual here as God brings us out of Egypt. This is only temporary, thank God. Because I don’t like this, as I mentioned on Sabbath, as I referred to it in certain ways that some of you haven’t heard and you’ll hear later on. And what can I say? We are what we are and it’s not a pretty thing. Our carnality, our human nature, it’s so ugly. It really is.

Let’s turn over to 1 Peter 1. So this is what God reveals to us through Deuteronomy and Leviticus about our journey out of Egypt. It’s a journey. But we’re looking at it as it’s happening, as we are dwelling in temporary booths, temporary dwellings, for a period of time until this is complete. As I mentioned, as we’re begotten of God’s spirit that’s where the process begins, not yet born, and continuing on this journey when we’re finally able to come through it all that we’re delivered fully out of Egypt after the calling that God has given to us. So it starts with a calling.

1 Peter 1:1—Peter, an apostle… An apostle. I am an apostle, okay? I think we still have some that refuse or resist some of those things sometimes. Peter, and apostle of Joshua the Christ to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. So he told them what he was. Why would he have to do that to God’s people? To remind them this comes from God, this is what God has established in His Church, doesn’t go any higher on a physical level.

Elect, chosen or selected, if you will, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. So again, the elect, the chosen, the selected; so he’s addressing the Church. God does the calling! What an incredible thing that it’s God Almighty that picks each one of us and decides and determines He’s going to give us the impregnation of His holy spirit. Not the rest of the world out here. And so how many of us? You talk about that little mustard seed that Johnny was talking about, that’s what lives on into the Millennium. Starts out with a mustard seed and then it grows like mad, quickly, fast, you know, so quickly. And you’re blessed to be a part of a mustard seed?

Look at the numbers of people on this earth. What is it close to...? I always mess up in this one here. I have to go back and even look it up. It’s over 7 billion, right? Is it 8 yet? We may be there, I don’t know. 7.4; we’re rolling toward it. And so how many of us are there within the Church who are a part of that? 1 out of 14,000,000? 1 out of 20 million? 1 out of 30 million? 1 out of 50 million? The reason I’m saying it that way is because if we’re not all doing what we need to be doing we’re not going to go through and we won’t be a part of that one out of whatever it is. And so those who go by the wayside the greater that number actually becomes, and the more dumbfounding it becomes!

So if a third of the Church is gone here before Joshua the Christ returns, if a half of the Church is gone – you think that’s not possible? I tell you it is. I remember Mr. Armstrong crying out toward the end of his life and he knew that Laodicea was coming on the Church and he talked about wondering if half really got it. And then toward the end he said, “I wonder if 10% of you get it!” Because he saw the Church was letting down. He saw that people were letting this way of life slip between their fingers. And you know who he saw in most of all of that? He didn’t see congregations because he didn’t know all the brethren. He couldn’t. He barely could keep up with the ministry! Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of ministers worldwide he couldn’t even visit with all of them and get to know them all there were so many out here. Incredible! But it was the ministers he saw. And he knew that wherever the minister was so was the Church...so was the Church.

And so if you have the majority of evangelists that you know, because that’s where it was at that time under God’s apostle, and they were going astray and they were doing their own thing and they were letting down and they no longer had to be in any service he was in, what do you think that told him as God’s apostle? They wouldn’t even come to the auditorium to sit there where they used to sit toward the front rows. And they wouldn’t even come any more. Now, they did have the ability to have piped into their homes as least, because they got lazy. So let’s have it piped into our homes and we’ll stay at home and listen. They wouldn’t even come and mix with the brethren. What do you think that told God’s apostle? “We’re in trouble. We. Are. In. Trouble.” And he probably hoped with all his being that at least maybe 10% of the evangelists were still with him at that point in time because of what was happening in the Church.

And so the whole Church fell asleep. Didn’t take long. We’ve been through some horrible history in God’s Church. We truly have. And so I’ve mentioned that number. Are you one in a fifty, are you one in a hundred million? It all depends on how many go by the wayside here in the last...in whatever this is. Because this is it. And so if there are some who don’t repent right now that number gets whittled down and that mustard seed gets a little bit smaller. But we’re blessed to be a part of the mustard seed, whatever it is.

Again, elect, chosen, selected according to the foreknowledge of God through sanctification of the spirit. Awesome what we’re being told, setting apart by God’s spirit, being cleansed, set apart from others in the world because God’s working with us in a different way. ...unto obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Joshua the Christ. I love the way it’s said here because it makes it very clear here how sanctification takes place. It always goes back to our Passover. We have to repent. We have to repent on a daily basis. If you can see your nature, if you can know yourself you have to repent every day of certain things because you don’t live every day perfectly by any measure. You’ve done something wrong up here in thought, attitude, whatever it might be, I don’t care. You’ve done something wrong that you need to go before God and say, “Father, I didn’t want to... Forgive me, please. Help me. Strengthen me. Help me to see these things and nab them, get on to them more quickly to stop them from happening.”

Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied. You know, most times people in times past they’d read through something like this and it was like an introduction so you’d just read through it as fast as you can and it doesn’t mean much, “blah, blah, blah, blah, God the Father, thought sanctification of the spirit and obedience to the spirit of the blood of Joshua... Grace be unto you and peace be multiplied,” and then finally somewhere farther down it gets into some things that he has to say to the Church there, whoever he’s speaking to, whether it be Paul or Peter or James or whatever. And then finally there are some scriptures and you start thinking about what he’s saying.

Often time’s people would read through that first part there, candidly, and not think about what was being said. And yet this is some of the most important thing. Because we can’t go on with the rest of the verses in the chapter or the rest of what Peter has to say if we don’t get this message, how we’re able to have what we have – through our Passover, a sanctification. That’s what gives us the sanctification of the spirit so that God’s spirit can work with us. Otherwise, if we’re not being able to see our sins and repenting on a regular basis then God’s spirit can’t work with us.

God’s spirit, I’m just going to be candid with you, can’t work with too many people in God’s Church right now. It can’t make the changes in their life because they’re not listening! Because they’re not hearing! Because they’re not changing and they’re living in their own stupid, silly sins and thinking they can get by with it! No, you can’t! You’ve got to make changes, whatever those changes have to be. What is it you need to change?

I’ve talked about this in times past in many different ways now. God has been giving me this message over the last two years in a very powerful way to give to His Church. It’s like, what are your three biggest things? If you don’t know what they are that you’ve got to battle you don’t know what you’re doing. Because you’re not battling. If you don’t know what the three most weak areas of your life are and what it is you have to battle then you don’t get it and you’re asleep. Truly! You are just snoring like mad spiritually. I’m sorry, you can’t afford to do that on a spiritual plane. You’ve got to be awake, to be awake, to be fighting your nature and asking God for help to fight it. Because you can’t. You can’t do it on your own.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Joshua the Christ, who according to His abundant mercy... God is so merciful. He’s so merciful and patient with me. And if you don’t see He’s really merciful and patient to you then you’re not getting the picture. You know, that helps to motivate a lot of change in your life, when you realize what you are and you realize God is so merciful to this, so patient with this. It helps you to love God more. I mean, it should stir up love and a desire to honor Him more, a desire to be more pleasing to Him because you do love Him and you want His way of life and that of His Son.

...according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a lively/living hope. “Begotten us again.” Again? Well, that’s fine the way it’s stated there because we were begotten once and this is what we became, that big pile of carnality, okay, living a physical life. Now we’re able to live a spiritual one, begotten again unto a living hope. You don’t have any living hope as long as you’re a carnal human being without God! You’re just… You’re in Egypt. The world is in Egypt and they don’t even know it. And we have the opportunity to come out of Egypt. We have the opportunity to become something different. Awesome, to understand that.

So He’s begotten us again unto a living hope of something that has great meaning, the greatest meaning because of the greatest purpose that God gave, the creation of Elohim, to be able to become a part of His family, to be born into it in time.

...begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Joshua from the dead... Now, it keeps talking about these things about Joshua. Why? Because he’s our Passover and he’s our High Priest. And without that we have no hope...we have no hope. So how blessed are we to be able to see what we see, to know what we know?

...to an inheritance incorruptible. And human beings in human life, if you inherit anything that’s passed down to you in life it’s just physical and you’re going to lose it anyway. You’re not going to be able to hold on to it. You can’t take anything with you. You could put it in the same big hole, dig a bigger hole or something and convert it to gold and pile it in there as well. Take it with you; have fun spending it! Anyway, I’m sorry. The point being is it’s corruptible. It’s physical, physical elements of the earth. But with God it’s not. What He is offering us is forever into time, age-lasting.

...to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that does not fade away, as we do in a temporary state that we are. We’re fading away. And when you’re younger you don’t think about that. When you get older you realize I’ve about faded out. I don’t have much left. It’s a circle of life, if you will. You know, you go through a part and it’s gone. So be it. It’s beautiful. It’s only for a moment. It’s only for a moment in God’s eyes. For us it’s like wait 6,000 years for a resurrection, if you go back there in Abel’s time, but he didn’t know about that 6,000 years in front of him. But time, it’ll pass, and then what comes after that, there is no comparison.

...to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that doesn’t fade away, reserved in heaven for you. Now, the protestant world would say, “See, you’re all going to heaven and you get to go up there and you get it.” No, it’s with God. It’s with Joshua the Christ and Joshua is going to bring it with him, and 144,000 are resurrected then and rule with him for a 1,100 years and then at the end of a thousand years gigantic resurrection; millions, maybe billions and billions into Elohim by the end of the Millennium.

Verse 5—Who are kept by/through the power of God. It takes God’s power to change this. It takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of work to change this and yet God loves us and He wants to change us if we’ll yield to Him, if we’ll listen to Him and realize that what’s being said is for “me.”

Who are kept by the power of God through faith... Through faith. We talked about that already at Sabbath. Through what we’re able to believe. What are we able to believe? We’re able to believe more than anything anyone who has ever lived before us can believe that’s true. There has never been a time like this because we’re almost to that point in time where what we have been blessed to have is what’s going to be taught in the world massively so. There is no trinity. There is no Easter. There is no Christmas. There is Passover. There are the Holy Days of God. There is the seventh day Sabbath. Those are the things, because of the mustard seed, that will continue on. That’s the Church. There’s the truth. You want the truth, read that, listen to that. It’s exactly what Joshua and the 144,000 are going to give in this world, one truth that God has now after 6,000 years established so powerfully, so firmly on this earth.

Just like the matter with women and what happened in the very beginning in the Garden of Eden and the suffering and the way mankind, men, have treated women through time. It’s been deplorable! Today in this earth, to me, it’s deplorable. Now, in some places, especially like in the western world, that’s been addressed more and more, whether it be on the job and the unfairness of things... And it is! It’s not fair! Things aren’t balanced. There is prejudice galore! There really is. But the world doesn’t know how to address it fully. They just know, people are learning, that something is wrong. Yeah, it is. Yes, it is and God is giving the good news that that’s about to change big times. Awesome!

A freedom like we can’t begin to imagine when husbands and wives work together as a team, not with one on top, not seen in that light at all. Working together as a team in their life to what they accomplish. And if they bring children into the world that they work as a team on that. It’s not a matter of one being over the other. That’s the wrong focus. Not even in God’s Church is that the focus. Only unless it has to be in what God says as a matter of order.

...who are kept by/through the power of God through faith, the ability to believe, again, what we’re blessed to believe, and salvation ready to be revealed in the last time, or the end-time. We’re there. That’s us more than ever. Now, for others who went through life at a particular time, for them the end came and they still have to address various things in their life. But I think of this as a matter of timing and the return of Joshua and so forth.

Whereby you greatly rejoice... Just like at the Feast; we greatly rejoice in this kind of thing, of what God is revealing to us. ...though now for a season, if need be, you are in heaviness through various trials. That’s just a part of our life and at times it may be more than others. You may be burdened down more now than you were six months ago or three years ago, but thank God...thank God for whatever it is you go through. Because you know what? God will use that to mold and fashion you in ways that you can’t be changed otherwise.

I don’t know that we grasp and understand the value of going through fire, of going through hardships, because without those things, especially in this age, we can’t make the kind of growth we need to as quickly as we need to. I wouldn’t necessarily be praying “Bring on the trials!” But they’re going to be there anyway just because of the world we live in. But when they do come, you know what? God Almighty and His Son Joshua use those things to our benefit in very powerful ways.

That the trial of your faith, because this is what it tries... Where are we? What do we think? What do we think toward God? Because whatever it is we’re going through that’s hard, how do we think toward God in what we’re suffering? It’s why when I think of this I can’t help but think of Paul. Because I think of all people, the things he went through and he never questioned God. He never said, “What am I doing wrong that all this just keeps happening to me? You know, I reach down here and a viper snake bites me, but I didn’t die. I’m out here bobbing around in the Mediterranean because of shipwreck. I get stoned and pulled out of the city like I’m dead because my body is lifeless and I’m bleeding all over and they think I’m dead.” So you want to be discouraged, think about him and walking in his shoes. You think things are tough or bad, think about the things he went through, truly, and understand we’ve gone through nothing in comparison on a physical plane. And it’s those kinds of things then that can try us.

Awesome! What is it? So he didn’t complain to God. He didn’t say, “God...” Because I’ve known people, and I’ll just tell you in the last year this has happened. Individuals might say, “Why? Why? If I’m in the Church why am I going through this trial?” “If I’m in the Church…” Well, are you in the Church or not? Do you know why you’re in the Church? Do you know the truth? Do you know the truths of God? Do you believe the truths of God? Then why is it if something comes along that all of a sudden we begin to wonder or might begin to wonder, “Why are You letting me suffer? Why are You letting me go through this hardship?” Human nature really is bad.

...that the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire. So there is nothing, in other words, you can compare what you are going through, with anything, any riches on this earth. Those are riches. Those things are riches because God will use those to give you something far more valuable...far more valuable.

...being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with a fire, might be found unto praise, this is what it’s leading to. What’s important? This. ...might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Joshua the Christ.

Now, you have to understand his context and what he’s looking at there. He’s looking at a period of time of those that are coming into the Church, being called into the Church, that they’re the ones being molded and fashioned for the coming of Joshua. Okay? He didn’t understand about 144,000. He didn’t understand about 144,000 at all. Peter knew nothing at all (neither did Paul), about 144,000, because that wasn’t given until they were dead. That was given to John in the book of Revelation, and then all of a sudden “It’s going to be 144,000.” So as far as they knew, those who were coming into the Church had the opportunity to one day be born into Elohim, into God’s family. And so this is what he’s talking about here, see, he’s talking to that group of people. So it’s powerful.

So he’s saying here in that context, “Though you be tried in fire, though you go through these things, that you might be found unto the praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Joshua the Christ.” Don’t you want that? Now, sadly a lot of people that Peter wrote to didn’t want that, didn’t want it enough, because many have been called and few have been chosen – even in their time, even in the era of Ephesus. Okay? And it just got worse and worse and worse as time went along.

Because when the apostles weren’t around and some things that God brought up and raised up through time, it was…they went through some hard times. Especially when that one body came up and began to call itself “Christian” and began to deceive the world. Then there were two churches on earth. One false great one and one true one that was always small and going through time.

Verse 8—Whom having not seen, you love. We learn to love God. We learn to love Joshua with all of our being, thankful for their mercy, thankful for their intervention. ...you love; in whom, though you do not see him now, yet believing… You believe. You believe what you’ve been shown by God. You’re able to see in a way that you can’t... I was thinking about radio interviews the other day here that I had done. And you can’t help them to see anything. You can try to talk to them about various things and tell them what’s taking place and what’s going to happen and so forth, but they can’t get it. They can’t grasp what’s being said. It hasn’t been given to them. It’s only been given to us. So it’s like blowing in the wind, just comes back at you.

Whom having not seen, you love; in whom… okay ..yet believing you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. So again, going on here verse 9—Receiving the end (or the purpose, or the conclusion of what this is all about, why we have a Passover and a High Priest and we’re begotten of God’s holy spirit and why we have to go through fire and why it has to be difficult and how God will use that to our benefit then to mold and fashion us. To the receiving the end of your faith, or the purpose. So God works with us in those things, molds and fashions as long as we yield ourselves to it. And again here, receiving the end, the purpose, the conclusion of your faith until it’s over.

In other words, you just keep doing the right things, you keep looking to God, you keep fighting the fight, you keep fighting against this, most of all. This is the biggest battle right here that you have. It really is. It’s not anyone else. No one else makes you unhappy. No one else can make you act a certain way that’s wrong. Only you can. Right here. Get out the great big mirror. Matter of fact it’d probably be better just to put a four-way mirror all the way around us, “Who did that? Why am I upset? Ooo, it’s me!” And any way you turn, any way you look it’s just you, it’s me, you know. We have to look at ourselves. “I’m” to blame. “I’m” to blame, no one else is.

Anyway, that’s difficult and it takes God’s help and God’s spirit to see that way, to think that way.

Okay, “of your faith,” “what you believe,” even the salvation of your lives. Of which salvation the prophets have enquired... Now, Johnny read that in some things that Christ had to say. He said the prophets have wanted to know. They wanted to know the things that are being told to you as Christ was telling his disciples. And here Peter much later now, many years later is writing this, recording this again here. He says, of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently. I can feel that. There are things I’ve gotten in the Old Testament and different places and trying to learn and trying to understand and is there more and what are we missing and what can we come to learn and then you know what? You can do all that but until it’s God’s time you’re not going to see it. But it’s good to still go through it all and be reminded of various things that are there and then at some point if God opens up a door and opens up the mind to see things that weren’t seen before, awesome! But I understand why they’d want to go and search and try to understand more. And then they come to understand “I can only understand what God gives me right now.” We learn that.

...of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you. Because what were they prophesying about? About the Christ, about the Messiah, about God’s Kingdom, about the Kingdom of God, about the City whose builder and maker is God. On and on it goes.

Searching what, or what manner of time the spirit of Christ, which was in them... So this is where some use this to say, “See, he was alive. There were two in the God Family, and because they had that spirit that was coming from...” No. “Blah, blah, blah.” You don’t get it. It’s not about that at all. It was what was in them because they lived by the same faith we do. They were being judged by the same things we are. They were the first wave loaf, okay? Those up in the first 4,000 years, the first wave loaf. And they went through a process of salvation because of what they believe was to come. We look back at what did come, who did come, our Passover, our High Priest and so forth. They looked forward to that time and they believed God about salvation and about the truths that God revealed to them. So they lived by that because it was a matter of God’s spirit. It’s the same spirit. The point being it all comes from God Almighty. It’s His spirit.

But they looked for the time that he would be made manifest, that these things would become a reality. Searching what, or what manner of time the spirit of Christ which was in them did signify when it testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ. So when we go back on Passover and we read in Isaiah about the sufferings of Christ, of what he was going to go through, of how badly he was going to be beaten, that you couldn’t recognize him, and on and on it goes in talking about some of those things, for us, in those prophecies, long before it ever happened.

And so those individuals who went through those things and read those things or were inspired to write those things, they looked forward to what it all pictured, to what it all meant.

Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things which are now reported unto you through them that have preached the gospel unto you with the holy spirit. So the point being is here now here God is giving His holy spirit now to see and to know these things, to understand these things so that this has all come together now and be able to be preached to you about the Passover, about the one who came to suffer, the one who is the Messiah, the one who is the Christ.

Verse 12—Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves... It wasn’t revealed unto them. They didn’t live through that and see that. They didn’t know exactly what was coming or how. ...but unto us they did minister the things. So the things that are written back there, they’re primarily for us. It’s a revelation, a progressive revelation of God’s plan through time. It just gets greater and greater. The farther you go along God reveals more and more. Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves but unto us they did minister the things which are now reported unto you, by/through them that have preached the gospel (the good news) unto you with the holy spirit sent down from heaven. So the source is God Almighty. It comes through His ministry, came through the apostles.

...which things the angels desire to look into. Isn’t that amazing? They don’t know. Over the last 6,000 years, not until God has revealed something to His servants did they come to understand it more clearly. So they’ve been able to see a pattern of God revealing through time and they desire to know. They have desired to see and be inspired by, be moved by, if you will, too, to see what God is doing at the end-time, how much more He’s doing in preparation for His Son coming to this earth.

...which things the angels desire to look into. Wherefore (verse 13), gird up the loins of your mind. What does that mean to you? “Gird up the loins of your mind.” It means take control! Take control, accept personal responsibility. That message has gone out over the last year as well, very powerfully so, I might add. We’ve just had quite a few people, too many, who haven’t heard it at all. Haven’t heard it at all. The whole year since the last Feast of Tabernacles, haven’t heard diddly-squat spiritually. That’s sad. That’s pathetic.

Wherefore, take control, be responsible, gird up the loins of your mind. No one is to blame but us of what is in here, of what comes into it, of what comes out of it. What do we allow in? What kind of thoughts do we allow in? What kind of thinking? What kind of feelings toward others? I think of jealousy and envying still in God’s Church today. You think there aren’t people right here today, and those who will be listening, who don’t have jealousies and envying of things that take place in the Church? I know they do. Sometimes people can’t see that in themselves and it affects their feeling and their ability to rejoice in other brethren because they’re prejudice in their thinking and they hurt themselves! They don’t understand.

I’m here to love anybody who desires to receive of that love. Nothing held against anyone. Now, sometimes those toward me, they have problems. Okay? ...or toward someone else in the Body in their thinking. So it’s their thinking that is screwed up, that is messed up, see? Ask God for help to change that. Ask God to be able to see in your mind whether you have any prejudices, because everyone does to certain levels.

I think of how God a few years back began to reveal things about women. And we’ve had people leave the Church over that one! They couldn’t take it! They couldn’t take it! “You’re going to ordain ‘this’ person or ‘that’ person?” It was just too much. Go back to United or someplace else. I don’t understand that even physically. I’d rather go back to eating pork, by far, than to be fed that garbage. I’ve been there, done that. (Anyway, sorry.)

So where are we? Do you think you have any prejudices in your mind? Because, see, how you think, that’s who you are, that’s what you are. That’s why I love about God, the Word of God, Logos. It’s the revelatory thought, the mind of God that we’re able to receive in our minds. We’re able to receive of that thinking. And it’s a mind that has no prejudice, that has no bias, that has no favoritism, that has no... Makes decisions according to how people respond to Him, yes, but it’s a matter of whether their desire is to live by His way of life. Like David. “He’s a man after My own heart because of what he’s doing, because of how he’s living, because of his response to Me, because of his quickness to repent of things,” and on and on it goes, “...and his desire to build for Me,” or whatever it might be, “because he thinks this way toward Me, the Great God.”

Because people oftentimes, even in God’s Church, don’t think toward God Almighty with the mind that we need to, in awe and reverence and thankfulness to a very merciful God, an almighty God. And yet that should be our heart and our mind. That’s why nothing else gets in the way. If we feel that way toward God and we think that way toward God we’re going to stand firm and stand tall for God’s way of life. It doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks or does, whether it be a mate, whether it be a parent, whether it be a child, whether it be someone within the Body in fellowship... Because I’ll tell you what, when the Church had the Apostasy you know where people went to different congregations and why they made the choices? Not because of what they believed but because of a friend or a parent or a sister or a brother. Or someone else went to this group and someone else went over...so they kind of went over there with them to kind of keep a peace because they’re close.

Anyway, I get worked up over these things. I can’t help it. If you love God God comes first and you’ll go through anything. It doesn’t matter what it is. Like Johnny spoke of, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. It’s hard for us to grasp that kind of a mind. You’re going to march into an oven that’s made so many times hotter than it ever has been, and those taking them up there died because of that, and yet they’re walking around unsinged, no smell of smoke on them whatsoever. The fire was probably too hot for any smell of smoke anyway. Smoke went fast. And yet they did it. And they even told the king “Even if He doesn’t intervene we’re walking in, we’re going in there. We’re not going to bow down to your god. We’re not going to bow down to this image you made.” And yet how many people really stand firm for God’s way of life and put that first in their life? ...even in the Church, to what degree? Because to what degree we fail to do that that’s where our problems are, where we’re not putting God first because we’re not listening, because we’re not changing.

Verse 14—As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts of your ignorance. We didn’t know any better. We were in Egypt, the world is in Egypt, they’re in ignorance. They don’t know that.

But as He (God Almighty) who has called you is holy... That’s who He is, that mind, as I said, the Word, the way He communicates to us, that thought, that revelatory thought that’s so beautiful, so awesome. He who has called you is holy so be you, or become, as it is, holy in all manner of conduct, as the word is. Now, they translate it as “conversation,” and candidly, oftentimes that’s the first thing that betrays us. It’s what comes out of our mouth. We are what we are and some of that sometimes comes out of the mouth, if you remember my Sabbath sermon. And it shouldn’t be that way. What comes out of us in our actions and our thinking should be the Word, the mind of God, the thinking of God.

There would never be gossip…never be gossip. There would never be tearing down anyone in the Body, if we’re doing this, because we’re striving to be holy in all manner of conduct. When we leave Sabbath services or we leave someone else in fellowship we wouldn’t go and speak to a mate or a parent or a child in a negative way – which still happens today in God’s Church. “Well, I don’t agree with that.” “Well, I didn’t like that.” You think things like that don’t happen? They might not be said in those exact words, and it might be covered up a little bit with a little bit of smoothness, but that’s the attitude.

Because it is written, Be you holy for I am holy. We are to become more like God. We’re to yield to this process of the mind being changed, of being transformed so our thinking is right, so we can get rid of the things that hurt us, of the things that restrict us from having real peace in our life. Because peace comes from God and it comes through His way, through His word. And so where jealousy enters in, envying enters in, you know, whatever it might be like that, where lust enters in, “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, the pride of life,” we’re going to decide for ourselves what we think is right? “I was told this by the minister but… I’m going to do something different.” That’s the pride of life. You know, we make choices that are different than what we hear in sermons or whatever it might be, and we hurt ourselves. We don’t realize what we’re doing to ourselves.

And that’s what this is talking about. We can have real peace, real joy, an ability to rejoice in these temporary dwellings. Because that’s the message of the Feast of Tabernacles, to rejoice. How can we really rejoice in the way God says? I can tell you right now it’s by having peace, the peace of God, the mind of God. No jealousy. No envy. No gossip. No tearing down of anyone. No looking down upon anyone. No judging others. Leave the judgment to God Almighty. Leave it to God Almighty! Who are you to judge His servant? We belong to God! And yet ever since I’ve been in the Church I’ve seen people who judge each other.

And if you call on the Father, who without respect of person judges according to every man’s work… See, it’s by how we respond to God and whether we cry out to God for His help, of His spirit to work in us, as we heard on the Sabbath, that we enter into a different kind of work. We cease from our work, selfish work, to do God’s work, to yield ourselves to God’s purpose in our life. And that takes work! Because the biggest job you have, again, is fighting this thing – not me, but your finger pointing to yourself. This is my biggest battle. It’s yours too. Again, not me.

So it says here, again, and if you call on the Father, who without respect of person judges according to every  man’s work, in other words, we have choices to make. It’s our fault. It’s up to us as what choices we make. What choices do we make? Do we choose to get upset at somebody? No one makes you get upset at somebody. No one makes you feel bad about someone. You know, if you think you’ve been slighted by someone, well, why do you feel that way? Even if they did, why feel in a negative way toward them.

So again, every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear. We should be of a fearful mind of what we’re able to do as human beings.

1 Peter 1:18—Forasmuch as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold… See, we inherit that which is incorruptible. …you were not redeemed with corruptible things, such as silver and gold, with your vain conduct received by the tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as a lamb without blemish and without spot. These aren’t just words. They’re what we’re blessed to be able to feel and to know and to be thankful for, to be thankful to God Almighty for, that we have this, that we can see this and know what it means.

Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world. Awesome! That’s why... I love these verses. To think that before God would create anything this was predetermined, He decided this, that everything was to be built upon the rock, His Son. There was no other way. There was no other way to create Elohim but by this plan. Absolutely no other way to create Elohim but exactly the way the Almighty God is doing it. Awesome!

And so nothing existed. There was no spirit realm. And before there was this was determined. This is how, this is what it’s going to lead to. Perhaps billions and billions and billions of years before we could get to this point here because then an angelic realm was created to live in a spirit realm that God made. Then a physical realm in which the universe could be placed. I don’t understand that. Where does it end? Does it? I don’t understand those things. I can’t comprehend it and neither can you. Incredible to understand.

Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world but was manifest (revealed) in this last time for you. And so again, Peter is talking about something that happened fairly recent and he was foreordained for your sake, because now there is a Church, there is the Body of Christ, and God is working with more people at this time than He has before – not a one on one type of thing as it had been in times past but now with a body of people and a body in different places, different church areas.

…but was manifest in these last times for you. Who by/through him do believe in God. So there is no other way to approach God but through our Passover. Because that’s why he died, so that we could have a relationship with God, so that we could come to know God once God determines to call us. We have to be forgiven of our sins first. We have to come to a point of baptism and then from that point on to repent day by day of sin.

Who by/through him do believe in God that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God. Not in this [self]. Too many trust in this. Big, big mistake. Trust in one’s own judgments and decisions – BIG mistake! Bad mistake! Going back to what was said on Sabbath, stupid.

Verse 22—Seeing you have purified your lives in/through obeying the truth… So what is the truth? It’s what God reveals to us and has been revealing to us through time. What he revealed to Mr. Armstrong that needed to be placed back on, restored again, I should say, to the Church after so long a time, after 1,900 years, as it were. All these things that began to go out to the world once again, and then all the additional things then that God has added since because of what had to happen at the end of an age, a countdown to the timing of His Son coming, an Apostasy. That was the beginning of it. Little did we know where that was going and the timing of those things even when we came to understand it was the Apostasy.

So again, Seeing that you have purified/are purifying your lives, because it’s a process. As long as you’re in this body... ...purifying your lives through obedience, obeying of the truth. And so our lives are formed around those things. Just like I mentioned, I’ve mentioned this one often because it’s something that hopefully we can latch on to and grasp, when God said what He did about that freedom that He’s giving to women, that that curse is going to be removed. That’s awesome! And sometimes that’s difficult for people to grasp.

I don’t think I finished my thought earlier when I talked about how that some in the Church, again, couldn’t accept some of that. But again, it goes back to the mind and how they think and the prejudice that existed there toward women. And I think of a period of two years where it was difficult and finally began to produce fruit, people began to make some changes in their thinking toward their wives or toward other women. And there’s still room for change.

Again, seeing you purified your lives in/through obeying the truth through the spirit, takes God’s spirit, unto unfeigned, which means unpretentious, without hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is so ugly. In other words, that which is genuine. So it has to come from inside because it’s true, not because we’re going through the motions, and not because, you know, roaming around out there in the courtyard and we just go through the motions. That’s what happens. If people are out in the courtyard they’re just going through the motions and it’s not true love, it’s pretend… “pretend I love you.”

…through unfeigned, unpretentious love of the brethren. Now, this is just brotherly love. It takes more than that. …love one another with a pure heart fervently. Do you pray for that? Do you ask God to help you on a regular basis to be able to love others whom He has called with a pure heart, to get rid of any prejudices and wrong feelings that you might have and to give them room as God’s children to grow?

…love one another with a pure heart fervently. Being born again, here we go again, born again, this time on a spiritual level, on a spiritual plane, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by/through the word of God. I love these! When you think about the fact that we can have that kind of a mind, the Word of God, the revelatory thought of God in our minds, that that’s the miracle He’s performed in us and is performing in us that we can see? It’s through that that we’re able to see what we see. I hope you’re in awe of that with all of your being. …which lives and abides forever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man, which isn’t good. The glory of man is not a pretty thing. It really isn’t. Because it’s done with pride. Any glory of man, in that respect, is just a pile of pride – big, big pile.

For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. You know, it’s here for a little while and they’re gone. People forget who they are. Graveyards are filled with people that are forgotten. They don’t know who they are; they’re lost in time. People don’t know who their great-great-great grandparents were in families and so forth. It’s gone. They don’t know.

The grass withers, it’s temporary, and the flower thereof falls away. But the word of the Lord endures forever. It’s this mind and that word in our minds that’s being transformed, that can continue on. It’s beautiful. And this is the word by the gospel that is preached unto you.

1 Peter 2:1—Therefore, laying aside all wickedness, and all deceit… We’ve got a job on our hands. “All deceit.” Do you believe the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked? That’s what you’re battling. It works to deceive you. Your own mind works to deceive you because of your carnality. That’s the way we are. And we have to battle that. We have to be alert to that, to thinking, and desire to put it in check and be on guard and say, “Wait, is this the mind of God? Is this the mind of Christ? Is this what they would do? Is this how they would talk? Is this how they would think toward others?” Shouldn’t take long to come to an answer on that one.

Therefore, laying aside all wickedness, and all deceit and hypocrisies, and envying… I loathe that! I loathe envying that exists in God’s Church. And they’re out there. Jealousies. Envying. What for? God has called you. He’s given you of His holy spirit. How awesome is that? Be thankful for what you can become and that God’s going to use and take you and place you within a body that you can’t even begin to comprehend how awesome that is! We can’t begin to comprehend what it’s going to be to live in such a life, in such an existence that God has prepared and molded. If God has prepared and molded it it’s going to be more than we can begin to comprehend, truly. He doesn’t do small things. He doesn’t do little things. He does big things. And right now with what He’s doing in the first 6,000 years, some big things. And you’re blessed to be a part of something, though small, of something incredibly great. To see what you see, to know what you know?

As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, to understand where we are. We don’t have anything to be prideful over even with what we see and know and understand. We shouldn’t look down on others who don’t see and understand that, because they don’t have God’s help yet. And we shouldn’t judge each other for where different ones might be in their growth, in certain areas of their life spiritually. Give time. Give each other time.

…desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby. If so be that you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. We do that. Hopefully in time we learn those things, we see how God’s been toward us (merciful, patient). Coming to him a living stone, rejected, indeed, of men, speaking of Joshua the Christ, living stone. And we’re able to have that life living and dwelling within us on a spiritual plane.

…rejected, indeed, of men. He was. You are. If you receive him into your life you’re rejected by people around you. They’re going to think you’re nuts for not keeping Christmas. They’re going to think you’re nuts for going to a Feast of Tabernacles. You tell your boss, “I have to leave in the fall.” “Well, what’s in the fall? What’s in late September? What’s in early October? You’re going to… Feast of what?” And then if you get down around the Feast, don’t say “Feast of Booths.” He might misunderstand what you’re saying. He might think you’re saying “booze.” The Feast of Tabernacles, temporary dwelling, booths, the Feast of Tabernacles. It’s foreign to them. It’s nutsy to them. “And you don’t keep Christmas? So you don’t believe in Christ?” Yes, we believe in Joshua… We don’t even say it. If you say that now, “Yes, I believe in…” Whoo-eee, “Joshua the Christ? You are really… You’re out there!” They are convicted of it. They already know it.

It was that way toward Christ. It was that way toward the disciples. That’s why the apostles were put to death. Every one of them except one, John. Isn’t that incredible? They were so hated, this way of life was so hated because it threatened Judaism and then it threatened others later on in what they were doing, all the way up toward Rome.

If so be that you have tasted that the Lord is gracious, coming to him a living stone, rejected indeed of men but chosen, in other words, selected of God and precious. You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, starts with our Passover, the Christ, and when God calls us and draws us into the Church, the Body of Christ, then we’re blessed to begin being built into a spiritual house. Who are we to argue with God, to say, “No, I don’t want to be in this part. I want to be over there! No, I want that!” And yet it happens over and over and over. That’s why there are jealousy and envying sometimes that take place when we miss the boat on what God’s doing in our lives. …a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices… Do you know what those are? Spiritual sacrifices? Because you’re fighting this. You’re willing to give up things of selfishness for God’s way of life, for God’s truth, from the beginning and on. …built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by/through Joshua the Christ. Again, requires repentance, and it’s through him that we’re able to go through this.

Therefore, also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious: and he who believes on him shall not be confounded. It means believe what’s given to us at all times, and wherever the Church is and whatever it does, whatever is fed to us, we understand that.

Verse 7—Unto you, therefore, who believe he is precious: but unto those who are disobedient, the stone which the builders rejected. This kind of blows my mind when you understand what’s being said. Because this is not about the world; this is about the Church. “Of those who reject…” You can understand in the world because they can’t accept it because they’re not called. But if within the Body that stone is rejected and a person turns against the very purpose of why he died? He died so that we could repent. He died so that we can be forgiven of our sins. That’s why he died, so that we could have, then, a relationship with God the Father and with himself, Joshua, our elder brother. That’s awesome to understand! And how people reject that in their life within the Church blows my mind sometimes, but that’s been our history. It’s been our long, long, long history for 2,000 years. “Many have been called and few have been chosen.”

…the stone which the builders rejected, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling. Dangerous thing about this, people read through this and think, “Oh, that’s the world. They rejected him. They reject the truth.” But we don’t think about what about right here. What about the Church? Who is Peter writing to? He’s not writing to the world, he’s writing to the Church. And do people see themselves? Do they recognize that, hey, this is about us, that we don’t want to reject this stone that God has placed here, the very cornerstone of it all? …a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence, even to those who stumble, don’t like what they’re told, don’t like what is given, suspicious of, doubtful of, whatever it might be that comes into the human mind that causes spiritual problems, meaning getting cut off from God’s spirit because we yield to our own spirit.

…those who stumble at the word, being disobedient. That’s why I cry out like I do about some simple things. If we can’t grasp that how can we grow on? First tithe? Faithful in that? And there are people who haven’t been, people who don’t because they judge, they evaluate a way to… Or then second tithe? Because that’s done on one’s own mind toward God in the sense of no one else knows. God knows. And yet we’ve had far, far, far, far, far, far, far too many who mess around with that. And so they use things in other places they shouldn’t use it. It’s foolish. Like we talked about on Sabbath, stupid, just plain dumb. And yet it’s happening to this day. It’s happening now, okay? There are people who went to the Feast of Tabernacles this year who didn’t save second tithe like God commanded them to save.

…whereunto also… So just by being at the Feast you think God says, “Oh, that’s nice. You went ahead and sacrificed and you got here anyway.” No, you disobeyed God. And if you disobey God He’s not going to give you what you’re here for. You’re not going to be able to see, you’re not going to be able to hear because you’ve been disobedient. You get cut off from the flow of God’s spirit. That’s something that we do to ourselves and have to repent of.

So even in the simplest of things you’d think...? So how much more is it then when it comes to relationships and how we think about others? And on and on it goes because those things really reveal where we are.

…being disobedient whereunto they were appointed. But you are a chosen generation… Chosen, each person by God. How incredible is that? Out of 6,000 years to be afforded such an opportunity when most have to wait until the end of a thousand years yet in the Great White Throne and live life a second time in physical bodies, to be resurrected, to live again but now to be able to have this opportunity at that time to be saved. And if they don’t choose this way of life, then as Johnny said, it’s the second death.

That’s something the Catholic’s don’t touch. Protestant world doesn’t touch this thing about the second death. Die twice? They don’t want to touch that one because they have no answer for it whatsoever. What can they say? See, now to die twice, what does that mean? You’ve got to live twice. Duh. (I’m sorry.)

But you are a chosen generation… Some know exactly what that says there, even in a physical carnal world, who have studied scriptures. But they won’t accept it because they’re... Why? Because they haven’t been called by God yet. They’re captive. They’re in Babylon. They’re in Egypt.

You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a special people, because of God, not because of who we are, not because of how good we are. Even those who came through the Apostasy, we’re not here because of how righteous we were, how good we were, that we were somehow better than some of those others out there, that we were better than all those others that went by the wayside and fell asleep.

Because that’s happened in God’s Church. A lot of those individuals are gone now because they thought they were better than some of those and that God opened up their mind and blessed them with being a part of PKG because they were just a little bit better than some of those that went, because “I understand why they went by the wayside and why they chose what they did.” Because lifted up with pride. Think, no, if you really knew the truth it’s because you were the lesser of them. Do you believe that? That there were those out there who had more on the ball, there were those out there who sacrificed more in their lives than what you did, and yet God opened up your mind and drew you and worked with you because He has a plan for you to make you great, to dumbfound those who thought they were great too, in that respect, because that’s what happened to the Church, got lifted up with pride and haughtiness. And that was our destruction.

…a chosen (selected) generation, a royal priesthood, a special people; that you should show forth… Who are we that we should show forth the virtues of God? Who are we? Awesome to be given such opportunity, that we can live a different life, that we can stand up for the truth, that we can stand up for what we believe, the Feast of Tabernacles. You’re going to the Feast no matter what the boss says. Take this job and I’ll find another. You probably thought I was going to say something else. …and I’ll find another. God will bless me. May not be tomorrow, may not be next week, but I’ll find something. To go through that trial, there have been people who have done it.

I think of one who’s back in Cincinnati, I think, yeah, that basically told his boss that and he said, “Well, you’re fired.” So after the Feast he went back to him and said, “I know that you have this position opened,” the one he was fired from, and he said he wanted to basically apply for it. I may be paraphrasing some of this. And what can you say to that? Took him back. Anyway, some crazy things have happened in times past of what has taken place with people.

But who are… We’re able to show… And how are we able to show forth those virtues, the character, the mind of God, which is what this is about? It’s because of the spirit that begins to change up here, that we can begin to treat people differently on the job and in the world around us. And they see something different. They don’t understand it but they see something unique and different that’s beautiful, that’s good in how people treat each other. Overall that’s the way it is. But it has to be not going through the motions. It has to be genuine and sincere without hypocrisy.

…the praises of him who has called you out of darkness, out of spiritual Egypt. This is something we’re to think about during this Feast of Tabernacles. That’s what the Feast of Tabernacles is about. He said “Sit in that booth, eat of that fruit, and think about those things that God has given to you. Think about where you are and what you’ve been given. Think about those who have gone before you and that I am the one who brought you out to this point in time so that you could have this experience with others.” Awesome! What about us then? That’s magnified many times over then on a spiritual plane, that we’re called out of darkness into His marvellous light.

Who in time past were not a people, but now are the people of God. I’m in awe of this, how small we are and why this is happening in this fashion, God driving home the point, “Not by might nor by power, but by My spirit.” God’s doing it and we just yield to the process and are able to share in it. What a beautiful thing, we’re able to share in something far greater than what we know and can comprehend. …who have not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. Amen to that.

Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims… That’s what it’s like. It’s like the pioneers, settlers in the eastern part of the United States when they migrated over there, different ones came from different countries and they started going west. They didn’t know what was there. And different ones went before them. Different ones went to before and explored. Many died in those things. Many who went across that country died as they went along, paving a way as time went along, and more and more then began to come because they made it easier. And then the way got… And then they built railroads and made it easier.

And that’s the way it has been with the Church, things have happened through time to bring us to this time, to where look what we have and really how easy it is compared to those who have gone before us. It really is. We have far, far more things to understand and comprehend than anyone who’s ever gone before us. And that’s awesome! Which means it’s easier, if you get it. It’s easier. You just have to yield to God. The way is totally there. And I think of those who aren’t doing the right thing, aren’t yielding to God.

Having your conversation, your conduct honest among non-believers: that, whereas they speak of you as evildoers, because they don’t like what you’re doing, they don’t like what you believe, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation, meaning when they’re visited, when they have their opportunity, when they’re resurrected. “Ah, now I get it. I treated you like that. Now I understand what a fool I was.” So they’ll thank God for what He’s doing and what He’s done in times past and what He’s made possible for them.

My, I have so much more to say and so little time to say it. Oh, well, I hope we’re getting the message that God’s giving to us, of where He desires us to be, of what has been given to us, what has been poured out upon us.

Let’s turn over to, jump ahead to Romans 8. So we’re being encouraged at this Feast of Tabernacles to remember our calling, and it’s good that we be encouraged as we press forward in what these days picture. Almost there, whatever that is. I don’t care when it is. 2019, 2119, what are you going to do differently? What would you do differently? Give up? Because the vast majority would. That’s sad.

Romans 8:26. (Now, I’m not saying that to… Please understand.) Verse 26— Likewise, the spirit also helps our infirmities. So we’re weak. We have weaknesses. We need God. And the more we see that the more we’ll cry out to God in genuine heartfelt desire that “I need help!” To constantly fight this and battle this, to live that way of life, to live the way of life He’s given to us.

Likewise, the spirit helps our infirmities, for we do not know the things we should pray for as we ought. Even there, there are times where we might be going through certain trials, certain anguish in our life, whatever it might be, and you just go before God and ask for help. He knows what’s going on. He knows what’s in here. He knows what you’re going through. Joshua knows what you’re going through, very powerfully so.

…but the spirit itself makes intercession for us with groaning that cannot be expressed. Because God knows what’s up here and He’ll help us, He’ll give us the help we need. And that which searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the spirit... That’s why. Because God knows what’s up here. He knows how we’re thinking, what we’re thinking. He knows what we’re going through, what we’re experiencing and He’ll give us help so often in the form of peace, peace of mind, just a peace of mind. It’s in God’s hands.

Where does the anguish, the thinking come from sometimes when we go through trials? It comes from things deep inside that come to the surface. And so if you come to a point in time where you realize you don’t have much control of anything except this [self], and even that’s limited depending on where we are. So you can’t control life. You can’t control situations in life. And there is that which you come to you realize “My life is in God’s hands, whatever happens. He called me for a purpose, by His design, to be in His Temple. Thank God for that. What more could I desire regardless of what I go through. And so I just rest with peace to know that it’ll all work to what is right and good because of God’s design.” It’s what it’s talking about here.

…because it makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, and that means seeking to be obedient, seeking to fight against this, seeking to repent and change because we have chosen Him, we have chosen Elohim. We don’t want this and we really see it as that big pile. We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. How great is that? Seriously, how great is that to be called by Almighty God? Do we get it? Are we moved by that? Are we excited by that? Are we thankful for that? Do we thank God daily for that? That you don’t have to be out there in the world, ignorant like the world is without knowledge of what’s taking place or why? But you know and you see and you have a living hope within you of something that is so close now!

For whom He foreknew, He also did predetermine, is what the word is, to be conformed to the image of His Son... God had the plan of how we’re to… Even as Christ was predetermined before time, the process of how we could become Elohim was predetermined, and it’s through him. That’s what it’s talking about, that we could be conformed to the image of His Son, because more like Him through this process of repentance and change and transformation of this thick, thick, thick thing up here. Truly. …that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Moreover whom He did predetermined, them He also called. Doesn’t mean that you individually were predetermined, it means that there is a plan and there are going to be those who fit into that plan and He’s going to draw and call various ones to fit into it at any moment, whatever that is. Maybe it’s the Great White Throne. Maybe it’s to live on into the Millennium. Maybe it’s to be a part of the 144,000. Whatever it is it’s God’s doing and God’s fashioning and God’s building and He does it. Nobody else does it.

And so, whom He called, because of where He’s going to place people within, to be… You’re called for a purpose. You’re called to fit in somewhere. You’re called because He has a plan of something that has already been predetermined within a building, within a structure that has to be filled. And you know what? God’s going to fill it! And if we don’t yield to that you know what happens? Somebody else will. So it says “Don’t let any man take your crown.” Whatever God has called you to, whatever blessing of life within the Body that God has called you to yield yourself to it, because if we don’t yield ourselves to it someone else will be brought into it.

Just like 144,000, it isn’t done yet. We’re not there yet. I hope and pray we’re really, really, really, really, really, really, really close. I mean I hope and pray we’re really, really, really close because I don’t want to be in this much longer. Okay? It’s selfish, isn’t it? Anyway. But isn’t that incredible to understand? If God calls us to something, to be in a…to share in something? You see, because the situation may be that there might be quite a few. So who is going to be those finally selected and sealed? That’s in God’s hands. Some are going to fill it. Because you know what? There are going to be exactly 144,000. How many more spots are there? One? Two? Three? I don’t know! I hope we’re down to one.

…them He called He also justified. He provided a way for us to make it from the very beginning. See, that’s what we talked about on Sabbath. From the very beginning this was all predetermined. It’s all been set. What we talked about on the seventh day, “Today if you’ll hear His voice,” “Nevertheless, it was all established from the foundation…” when we talked about those things in Hebrews. In other words, God had it all established when He first put man on the earth. Amazing! The way into Elohim, the plan was set and established. And the first one He began to work with to bring into that is Abel. Abel. Incredible. And then began to add through time.

…them He justified; whom He justified, them He also glorified. So if God justifies us through the forgiveness of sin… Because we’re not just but He attributes righteousness to us because of what we live by, because we live by faith, because we believe God, we repent of sin, we want to change this ugliness that’s in ourselves that we see in this mirror that goes all the way around us and it keeps pointing back to us, and we realize this is what has to change, this is what I have control of. I have no control of anyone else. I have no control of any situations in life. I can try, and some people try too hard, and that becomes their life and it becomes their drama because they want to change everything around them or different ones around them to do certain things. And you can’t.

That’s why I’ve told the ministry many a time, back away; back away unless you’re told otherwise. We rely on God’s spirit which comes through His government as when to address something and when to just back away to allow God to do His work, to allow sometimes for people to make mistakes and to do dumb things. Not to try to control situations when you see something is wrong.

I see a lot of things. I’ll be candid with you. I see a lot of situations in the Church that are wrong. There are a lot of people I know that are not living what they should be doing. I’m not going to them and telling them that because it’s spiritual. I’m not telling them that personally because you know what? I’m telling them that every Sabbath, every Holy Day, because it’s God doing the telling not me. It’s God’s spirit that speaks to us; by His great power we’re saved, not by ours.

Verse 31—What shall we say of these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? How awesome is that? He called us. He wants us to succeed. We’re the only ones that can stop that process or get in the way, reject the stone.

He who did not spare His own Son… He didn’t intervene and stop him from suffering, receiving an incredible beating as he did, dying on the pole like he did. He didn’t stop any of that. It was all for a purpose. And He doesn’t stop things we go through so often because otherwise the ability to mold and fashion and change us isn’t there. We need trials. We need fire. We need some hard times in our life. Because, candidly, that’s a part of God… That’s a process whereby God makes you what you are to become to be fit into a specific place perfectly so. Awesome to understand that! He does it! And certain things have to be whittled off, taken away, chiselled off that are hard to get rid of. And some things are able to bring those out so that God can do that if we just yield to the process.

Didn’t spare His own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall He not with him also freely give us all things? To deliver us up. Because He will. If we just yield to the process we have it made! We have it made. What was it worth to save back or steal that second tithe so you could go buy something else, so that you could get yourself into a financial pickle because you used that money somewhere else? Because that’s what happens. You didn’t use it to save for God to go to His Feast of Tabernacles, you saved it for something else. What was it? Was it a pet? Was it a cat? Was it a dog? Maybe it was dog food! I’ll tell you what, I’ve seen things like that, where people put dog food first over obedience to God. Now, that’s sick. What do you think God’s going to give to them?

I’m sorry, but I just can’t help this, brethren. This is the time for crying out, and I know that’s what’s taking place. And I just hope there are people out there who can listen because I want to see different ones live on into the Millennium. I really do. Why should there be any more damage? Why should there be any more? I’m sick of seeing people go by the wayside. I’m truly sick of it. Hundreds and hundreds and thousands of people that I’ve seen who’ve gone by the wayside. We’re a pile all right, and we need God’s mercy and God’s help to change and to grow and to come through this.

And here we have it: Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? If you’re called, if He’s working with you to be selected to fit into a place, whether it be a place now or a place in the Temple later on, if you’re at the beginning of this Millennium you have such incredible opportunities in front of you, to be placed, to be worked with, to be placed in the temple in ways that are just going to boggle your mind.

It is God who justifies. Who is it that condemns? We shouldn’t. It is Christ who died, yes rather, who is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Thankfully. It’s through a process of repentance and forgiveness. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, hardship, trials, fire, distress, whatever that distress might be? Have you ever been distressed in your life or things out of your control?

I was distressed a few years back. You want to talk about being stressed out, these twelve people who are to be my peers and go back into a room, who were not peers whatsoever but went back and made judgment of something they didn’t have any ability to make judgment about whatsoever anyway. Knew exactly where some of this… Well, I didn’t. I thought, “Maybe…” But oh, no, three years for the Church’s sake…for the Church’s sake, for what God is doing for the future. Because there are lessons throughout the Bible over 6,000 years that God uses, will use throughout the Millennium and the Great White Throne to teach people. “Look at that example.” “Look at that example.” “Look at that time.” “Look what happened then.” “What are you dealing with? Not much. Look at what all them went through.” “Look what Christ went through.”

Who shall separated us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, distress, or persecution, or famine…? See, famine. When I think of famine I think, ah, second tithe, don’t have as much as I want to have because I want to buy this and I want to buy that and I want to live there and I want to have that and I want… I want… I want… I want… I want… wa wa wa… And so you use, you stress out your credit cards and other things to go because you wa-wa-want, you know, and you want so much you steal from God, you rob from God Almighty. That just blows my… I’ll be honest with you. That blows my mind! You are so cut off from God it’s unbelievable.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For your sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. We go through battles. We have to fight.

Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. It’s easy to be done if we just fight this fight, continue to fight it until this is over. What is this little lifespan we have? You don’t think much about it until you’re at the end of it. Then you realize, “Yeah, it’s about over.”

For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come; it doesn’t matter what it is you put God first in your life. You love God Almighty. You love Joshua the Christ with all of your being. What else matters? And then everything else fits into place. Nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in and through Christ Joshua our Lord.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1