God’s Holy Spirit

Ronald Weinland

September 29, 2018

Feast of Tabernacles Sermon – 2018

At the Feast of Tabernacles in 2005, and then again in 2010, God poured out upon His Church, upon us, a vast wealth of knowledge and understanding about Himself and His Son Joshua the Christ. As He’s done that He’s given us an ability to better understand Him, giving us a truer and clearer comprehension of that relationship that exists and how it affects us in a more direct, in a more meaningful way. We’re ever growing and we’re ever building upon things. That’s how God works.

I love the expression about progressive revelation, because 6,000 years of that and we’re the benefactors, if you will, the recipients of, because of the time we live in, awesome opportunity to receive things that others never knew and they wanted to know so badly, so deeply so in their soul and in their being and in their life, to be able to comprehend things that had been said or written about. But God wasn’t going to reveal them then because it must be progressive the way mankind is worked with, the man mankind has been judged, and so forth.

It’s an exciting process. To understand where we are we don’t really grasp that. We can try to grasp some of that but to understand how much we’ve been given, we really don’t. We begin to take it as that’s just the way it is. It’s going to be like that in the Millennium for people who are born in that period of time and they grow up in a world where Christ is there, 144,000 are there, one Church, one government on earth, and that’s their norm. They’re not going to grasp the depth of how deeply blessed they are even though they hear stories about what it was like for the previous 6,000 years They really can’t because they’ve never experienced anything like that. But they’ll hear the stories as we read about stories in the Bible, and as time goes along we grow in our ability to grasp those things, the deeper things of what had been given because God reveals them by His spirit, of things that we can’t see, we can’t grasp.

So to me it’s an exciting thing to understand where we are. That’s something we should thank God for and continue to cry out to God to help us to appreciate ever more deeply the value, the wealth of those things He’s poured out upon us, because we really are exceedingly blessed. We really are exceedingly blessed and we can only grasp a small portion of that as we think about it. That’s going to depend in large part upon length of time, perhaps, and the experience of God’s spirit working in our lives and the growth on a spiritual plane that we are able to receive. So it’s exciting, it’s inspiring.

So God has given us far greater understanding of the spirit world in those sermons as well and of those things that will be changed in it in about 1,100 years. Since those years, 2005 and 2010, when God revealed so much to us, He’s continued to give us more and more that has been built upon those truths, those great truths.

So sometimes, if not often, we simply do not grasp, again, the depth of riches, of exceedingly great knowledge that God has given to us and the insight that He has given to us. So much of that very knowledge and insight, again, was newly revealed, never known even by the Church. Not known in Philadelphia. Not known in Laodicean. Not known in the early stages of PKG.

So today we’re going to look more closely at the marvel of how God has revealed such truths to us and of how the Kingdom of God, the family Elohim will exist into everlasting life. This sermon is entitled God’s Holy Spirit.

I marvel from year to year the focus that God gives us in sermons, what He wants us to focus upon, what He wants to give to us. You can learn much about that, from what God gives, as to where we are, where we’ve been, and where we’re going.

So again, over these years we’ve been given a sharper insight into how God’s holy spirit has and does work in our lives and what it means to us. The Church has been given, again, clearer understanding of terms that are used about God’s spirit. We were quite, I don’t know what word to use there really to express some of that – reckless, careless, just basically unknowing of how we used terms to refer to the spirit and how that affected our ability to see and understand certain things because we didn’t make a distinction in certain things that was said in scripture, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament. At the Feast in 2010 especially that distinction was made concerning the use of God’s spirit in scripture in a clearer way as far as that distinction is and I want to read some of those things said in that particular sermon here at the start.

“God is going to dwell in His Temple, in Zion.” Now, we read that now and we’ve had it for that length of time and it’ll be like those young people who grew up in the Millennium and that’s just the way it is, not understanding how we got there. Because, see, the more you grasp and comprehend how we’ve gotten to where we are the more you can begin to grasp the value of what we have, because it hasn’t always been there. Until you have that sometimes, in that respect, and especially if you go through it, you don’t grasp that.

It’s kind of like, an analogy if you will, of the Apostasy that took place. All of a sudden everything the Church had, especially the most basic having to do with the Sabbath and people saying, “No, you can worship God on any day of the week,” “God doesn’t mind what day it is and it’s not a command to keep the Sabbath in the New Testament now, the seventh day Sabbath,” so basically the preparing the way, as they were, to observe the day of the sun, you know, to go back to what they were called out of, Sunday, the first day of the week. That preparation was set there. All the truths that were there, I don’t know how to describe it, it was absolutely shocking; it was dumbfounding what we went through. All of a sudden everything we had some were trying to take it away, some were trying to change it. All the crazy things, to take us back to what God had called us out of! Unthinkable!

That experience helped the Church and those whom God brought through some of that, even the third in the sense that they were striving to hold on to it, but especially as God was going through the process of waking up individuals, the value that we were able to place on the Sabbath, what it meant to us, became far greater. The holy days took on a richer more meaningful thing because this was being taken away from a lot of people and people were biting into it and accepting it.

Those who went through that experience to be able to keep a Sabbath after that, then, to continue on keeping a Sabbath because that’s what we were going to do, and yet we were diminished in size massively so, we cherished the Sabbath more. It was more valuable to us. It meant more.

Sometimes it’s so hard for us as physical, carnal, selfish human beings to really appreciate in depth of gratitude, deep, deep, deep in our being what we have, what God has given to us. Sometimes because others have gone before us and things have been given to them as God has revealed things, and we come along then are able to drink of that, as in those who came along in 2007 and 2008, and so many of these things already established, you read it and that’s just the way it is. But you don’t know how we got there. You don’t feel it deep down inside. You don’t grasp the struggle to get to that point and because of that then the ability to truly grasp the wealth and the riches of what we have is a difficult thing.

I hope that makes sense to you because that’s the reality of life. That’s the truth in this way of life. You can’t help that, but you can look to God and cry out to God for ever so every day to want to love His way, to value His way and it be real in your life, that it have real meaning because it’s something on a spiritual plane; it’s not something you can do physically. You can’t just sit down and start thinking about it, but you can pray to God and ask for His spirit to be able to drink in of that and to value it more, to learn to value it more.

That’s why I’ve talked about, do you love, how much do you love 57 Truths? What do they mean to you? How meaningful are they? Can you really say, “I love them. I love what they say. I love what I can see and what I can grasp and what I can understand”? Because a lot of people have left them, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people just in PKG.

So again, I’m reading these things and I think, “There are different levels here of ability to really appreciate this.” That’s why we have to ask God to help us even more deeply.

“God is going to dwell in His Temple, in Zion, which is His place of rest.” God has been, since that period of time and even a little before, began to help us to focus more and more on Mount Zion and what it means, upon holy Jerusalem, and what that means, and of what He’s building and what He’s about to bring to this earth in portion, in part. God is exceedingly excited by these things, excited by this. We can’t begin to grasp how excited God is, how moving it is to Him, the Great God of the universe, to see these things that He has worked so long for begin to come to fruition, the anxiety, the anticipation of wanting to do various things, of wanting to visit upon a woman, Mary, to give her a Son that is His.

We can’t grasp that. We can strive to appreciate that but to understand the mind of God and how long everything has existed in the sense of when a spirit creation may have begun, we don’t know those things. We don’t know how long the angelic realm existed, but we have a focus upon what God did when He put man on the earth and how long we have existed. So, awesome!

“It is in the Family of God. It is Elohim. God will always dwell in His Family as His place of rest, and the Family will dwell in God.” That is awesome if you see it all deeply and thoroughly, what it means, because it changes all understanding of a spirit realm. It changes all understanding and ability to comprehend the angelic realm. It gives incredible understanding of God’s great desire for His Family and how it’s going to exist, perfectly, in perfect unity, absolute, without any ability of it ever going astray. Awesome!

Going on, “This is accomplished by His great power, which is of the holy spirit.” That’s no small thing. It’s not just by His spirit and His power to go out and perform and do something, it’s by His holy spirit.

So going on, “Now it needs to be stated again that we need to be certain that we grasp that God’s spirit is to be understood in two ways, because in the past we have very loosely used the terms of spirit, God’s spirit when speaking of His power, and that’s what gave misunderstanding and inability to see certain things.” That’s in God’s hands. That’s why when it’s time to begin giving that understanding He gives us the ability to begin to see what it really means and to understand the distinction and the importance of the distinction.

Because otherwise we have misinterpretation, mightily so. We will see things and read them in a certain context that are wrong, that is wrong, not matured and not full. We will think about things of the spirit realm, angels, that they are made of spirit, and therefore, they can exist forever because they are spirit and God is spirit, basically like they’re the same. So on and on it goes and we don’t grasp and understand the greater depth of God’s plan and how Elohim will exist. So these things are awesome things that God revealed.

Going on: “So we have very loosely used the terms of spirit, God’s spirit, when speaking of His power, but to have deeper understanding means we must differentiate the two definitions or distinctions that should be made when speaking of God’s spirit. One use of the word ‘spirit’ is about His power” or those things that are made of spirit, if you will, “which includes His power to create things in a spirit realm that are composed of spirit essence and His power to create things in a physical realm that are composed of physical elements. This includes His power to sustain life in spirit beings and in physical beings. But all this is about the power of God, His spirit to produce His will,” His plan.

Going on, “Another use, or a second use of this word ‘spirit’ is to understand God’s power that is a matter of His holy spirit. This is the power of life that reveals, produces, communicates the Word of God.” We may think we got a grip on that one, but we have a long way to go, okay? We do. The more you begin to see and grasp that and what that means the more inspired in time you will become. It’s a matter of spiritual growth and a value and appreciation of what God is giving, an ability to see. That comes with growth and maturity. It comes with a process whereby we obey God. It comes in a process whereby we quit sinning. It comes in a process where we strive to quit sinning. It comes through a process of constantly repenting because that’s where growth comes from.

The more we can grow by doing those things the less drama we will have. An example here. People are watching this probably. I don’t know if I said that during the beginning of the sermon. I have a llama here that was given to me yesterday, last night, and there is this expression going around “the no drama llama,” or whatever, and it fits into some things being said. I may go farther with that later, but anyway, some know what I’m talking about. But anyway, the no drama llama.

You know, these things keep us from growing! God’s word has life in it. We read those scriptures early in the Feast. God’s word literally comes alive through the power of His spirit in our minds, meaning it gives encouragement, inspiration, ability to see, to have vision, to grasp things on a spiritual plane, our decisions we make day by day, our petty grievances in life, our inability to place our trust in God and be at peace, to understand things the way God has given us to see them and to understand. Instead we try to change things or we just can’t get rid of selfishness and we try to have control. There are certain things we can’t! Well, there’s a lot. But it’s a matter of just living this way of life, looking to God, trusting in God, and fighting this battle.

Self. It’s the biggest battle. It’s the greatest battle anyone has, to be more concerned about fighting this battle than changing others or condemning others or judging others. You’ve got enough on your plate without worrying about what others are doing wrong or looking down upon them because you have judged that they’re doing wrong or you’ve been offended by something they say.

I was thinking about that this morning. We have people right here and in other Feast sites that have started the Feast, and I hope they’re getting a hold of those things, who have offenses toward others, and because of that they can’t really have good fellowship with them because there is this thing in their mind and in their life, and because of that that keeps people from really loving each other and really having a right relationship with each other because we have up this guard and this wall and this inability to break through it because, “You did something! You said something to me,” or whatever it is you did, and because of that “I don’t feel right toward you. In some ways I really don’t like you.” You think, “How can anyone?” People don’t really say that, but that’s what’s going on in the mind in this battle. We’ve got to battle this. We’ve got to battle this continually.

Again, this here, it’s about understanding the second use, His holy spirit. “This is the power of life that reveals, produces, communicates the Word of God, the truths of God, the very mind of God...” That is more than you can drink in, but we get to share in things of the mind and the being of God. The more we grow spiritually the more that can be a part of our life. Now, as long as you have this physical body though you still got your problems, you still have your weaknesses, and you still have to fight and you’re still going to fall on your face once in a while. But you get up, you repent, you keep moving forward, you ask God for forgiveness of sin, and you put it behind you and you just press forward and love God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your being. You strive for that.

Going on: “...the truths of God, the very mind of God, the nature of God. It is the power to unite as one in harmony, oneness, unity of spirit in the ways of God, in the ways of peace, in age lasting agape.” Godly love. Oh that we could grasp that one to its depth. “This power emanates from God and contains the very nature, word, truth, agape (the love of God), the ways of God that come from the very mind and being of God.”

One last paragraph here: “It is in the understanding of this second usage of the power of God’s spirit when spoken of in terms of the holy spirit, the spirit that communicates (reveals) the mind of God that will make the Family of God, the Kingdom of God, a reality.” It’s a marvel, God’s creation and what He’s doing, what He’s creating to bring about that family.

Let’s turn over to John 1. We have already looked at this in part but it’s good at this point that we look at it again, because the Church through Philadelphia and on into Laodicea did not understand these things as you’re blessed to be able to grasp them for what they say and what has been given to us, the treasure, the wealth, the power that exists here just in understanding and what it means in our lives and how God works in our lives and what He’s been doing for so long through His power of His holy spirit that reveals His purpose and how Elohim is accomplished.

John 1:1—In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was unto God, not “with” God because if you can read it that way with ideas of the past, ideas that the world of traditional Christianity has about three beings in the godhead and yet one. Then we got rid of one but we still had another being in there and he surely must have existed for all time as well and unless God comes along and reveals the error of that you’re caught in it. You can’t change. You’re caught in it, and until it’s God’s time to say, “Okay now, it’s time to reveal that.” There is only one God. There has only ever been one God.

That’s why Muslims and those of Judaism have such a battle toward traditional Christianity, because they believe with all their being, they see clearly what it says in Old Testament scripture, in essence, and what has been passed down from the times of Abraham, there is only one God. There is only one God. That’s the pinnacle. That’s the cornerstone, in that respect, in many ways, of everything else that they have on a physical plane that they believe is spiritual.

They look down upon traditional Christianity, being an abomination, in that respect, in many ways. Even though Judaism and some try to get along together there is always that divide that can never be crossed. I think about that. Isn’t that amazing, in Judaism, because of that thinking that’s why they have a problem. A lot’s happened in 2,000 years and with that big church that got bigger and bigger and bigger and what they’ve done that prevents those of Judaism from being able to make a step toward understanding that perhaps what they hear is Jesus Christ could be their Passover, because of what’s taught there, “He was a God, eternally existed.”

See, that’s what they’ve been given by traditional Christianity, and therefore, it’s a giant stumbling block. Not a small stumbling block, not the kind that was a stumbling block at the time that Judaism was the way it was and the leadership of Judaism was the way it was and they wanted to destroy that message. Now it’s different. It’s hampered the ability to hear. God will clear that up in time with the truth.

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was unto God, meaning it was God’s Word. It wasn’t anyone else. It was from Him. He was the source. ...and the Word was God. It expresses everything He is: logos, the Word, the mind, the being, the revelatory thought, the thinking... God! It identifies Him, everything about it that comes from that. Just as what’s in your mind reveals who you are, how you act, how you think, why you make the choices you do, why you respond to things in the way you do. That’s you. That’s your mind. Give it a name, whatever it is.

So what does this mean? Well, again, exactly what it says. It means more than just speech. It conveys the intent—that’s what comes from God, the intent—the thinking of God, His meaning.

Going on here: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was unto God, and the Word was God; the same was in the beginning with God. It was with, and again, unto, again, God and no other, is what it means here.

Verse 3—All things were made by him/by it, referring to the Word, not to God in this specific instance. Why? Because it’s the mind of God. It contains everything about His purpose, His plan, His will, His everything. It’s His mind, His thinking. Everything that He is is there. It’s not about a body. It’s not about a form. When the body goes, what’s left? Everything that’s ever been in our thinking. Only that can be worked with. Only that can God change and put in a different body or work with, transform and put in a different body, or resurrect and keep it as it was with the same thinking it has in a Great White Throne. God has that power. In a clean and healthy physical body, but it’s still the same person, same mind, same thinking, same everything. Incredible!

…all things were made by it, by the Word, by that thinking, by that mind that came from Him. That’s how He used His power. That’s what decides His power. It’s kind of like you. What is your power? Well, your physical power to do various things, to accomplish various kinds of work and you do that because of what comes out of this contraption, the mind. That’s all it’s saying. In our minds we have work that we do. That’s our power. We have no more except for technology.

So, incredible here. It’s just talking about God, His will, His mind, His purpose, His design, because everything’s there. Everything is in His mind. Planned it, purposed it, is going to do that, is going to accomplish it. So that’s why it states it this way.

All things were made by it, in that respect, and without it was not anything made that was made. So it’s referring to God. It’s the being of God, the mind of God, the will of God, the purpose of God, the design of God and so forth, and so it’s that mind. That being gave of His purpose and He has the power to do these things and that’s why He does what He does. That’s why we do what we do. That’s why this mouth does what it does, because it gets some signal up here or some thinking, or whatever it might be, and things come out of here. Sometimes the things that come out of the mouth are not too good – drama, drama, drama. Sometimes that’s what happens; it comes out of the mind. Well, it comes out of the mouth, that’s how we receive it, but it’s coming from the mind; that’s the source and that’s the problem.

It goes on to say then, beautiful scriptures: And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. I’ll tell you what, when God first started just revealing some of the beginning portions of that, and just to have a sense of a beginning portion of that, awesome. That’s why I think about when we first come along and we don’t realize what we didn’t know before. You just read a book or you read something, or you hear something that’s up to date, 2008, 2010, whatever, and it’s like all of us, when we come along that’s the way it is at that time, the present truth. That’s all we can see. We believe, we’re able to believe, but it’s another facet of life to come through that process, to know what we didn’t believe on a spiritual plane within God’s Church and then all of a sudden to begin seeing certain things – wow, that’s an incredible thing!

That’s why you have experienced certain new truths that have come along, like the curse of women. Those of you who have heard that from beginning to end, knowing what it was like before, and experiencing what was being said, that could be something you could internalize in a greater way, the excitement of that, of the potential for that.

And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Awesome! We can only try to appreciate that, that mind that he had from an infant. I can’t comprehend that, that ability as he heard things from scripture, as he went to the temple and he knew, he knew what it was saying. He knew what it was all about because of that mind. It was from God, His Father, that he had received in his being. That’s hard to grasp. That’s awesome, awesome beyond understanding. That’s why God gives us His spirit to grasp and comprehend these things.

Acts 1, let’s turn over there. Acts 1:1; Luke is writing this and he says, The former account, or what it’s doing here, it’s referring back to the scroll, book, whatever, that he had written before, the book of Luke, okay? So he’s talking about that account, when he wrote that. Now he’s writing something additional above and beyond that. He says, I made, that I made, that I wrote, Theophilus, of all that Joshua both began to do and to teach, until the day in which he was taken up.

That’s the way the four gospels are as a whole. They start out and they talk about that life, they talk about Christ, Joshua, they talk about birth, they talk about various things that happened, and finally working up to a point in time where his ministry began and all the things he began to teach and all the things he began to do as they travelled with him, as they went with him, and so that’s what they wrote about. Now he’s taking it a step farther. He’s going to write other things above and beyond that, actually, the beginning things having to do with the beginning of the Church and going quite a ways out until other books came along. He’s writing some of that history now, of the beginning of the Church, how it came about and the product and the struggles and things they went through.

He says, unto Theophilus, of all that Joshua began both to do and teach, until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the holy spirit... So this ought to be easy to understand. Again, it’s by the purpose, the mind, the being of God. He reflected all that in every way in his life and he had given commandment or instruction to them all the way through the period of time until a point he died, until even after he was resurrected, which he’s going to get into, the things that happened after he was resurrected. He’s going through and telling him these things done by the holy spirit.

That’s why I love the scriptures when Christ made it very clear, “The words that I speak unto you aren’t mine.” They’re not from him, from his own ideas and human reasoning, not at all. They were from God. They were of God. His mind is of God. He’s in agreement. He’s at one in powerful ways beyond what we can comprehend yet.

So, that which was through the holy spirit, given in instruction/commandments to the apostles whom he had chosen. To whom also he showed himself alive after his suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen of them for forty days, and speaking of things pertaining to the Kingdom of God. Christ was preparing them for a work that they were going to be doing. They didn’t know what it meant to be an apostle. They didn’t know what was ahead. They had no idea what was in front of them. At this point in time they thought they might be going back, splitting up and going back to do various kinds of work in order to live life as you would. Then all of a sudden, no, he’s alive and he comes along and he tells them, gives them instruction, and prepares them, “You have work to do. You have a job to do and you’re to stay in Jerusalem.” Well, let’s read the rest.

So again, for forty days, and speaking of those things pertaining to the Kingdom of God. Well, what’s that all about? Well, it’s about things ahead, things that are going to take place and how these things are going to begin to come to pass as time went along. You have to realize, understand right here at this point they still didn’t have God’s spirit. They weren’t impregnated with God’s spirit yet. God was drawing them, giving them understanding to a point, and even that forty days when he was with them they still didn’t get it all. It wasn’t time yet. But when they did receive of the holy spirit it was instant, powerfully so. They could grasp the parables. They could grasp things in a deeper way and everything fit together. I can’t imagine how moving that had to be on a spiritual plane, to be hit with that all of a sudden, to have that much that was given to you during that time and then those forty days and then all of a sudden for that to come alive. That’s incredible!

...being seen of them for forty days, and speaking of those things pertaining to the Kingdom of God, (verse 4),  and, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem but wait for the promise of the Father... Now, they didn’t grasp what that meant fully but they were going to wait there. They were told that there would be power that they would be receiving. They didn’t grasp that. They had been taught various things by Christ and then during those forty days, and so they just obeyed and did what he said, to wait to see what’s going to take place. They didn’t know what was going to take place. They didn’t know.

...but wait for the promise of the Father which you have heard from me. “You’ve heard it and He’s going to give it, so just wait, wait in Jerusalem.” For John truly baptized with water… Sometimes people in the Church in times past have difficulty with some of this as well.

Well, John baptized with water and they repented of sin and this thing of the spirit, they had a difficult time sometimes separating it. John’s baptism was simply a baptism unto repentance. We didn’t even go into more of that story about John and things that took place because we didn’t have time, but those things that were given to John were for a purpose of going out and preparing the way for the Messiah, the Passover, to be born and to begin his teaching, his ministry later on. So until that ministry began he was out there doing a work and preaching various things about the Messiah, “This is the time!” That’s what he was telling them, “The time is at hand.” “The Messiah is coming.” “Repent.” That’s what his message was, “Repent and return to God.” He would preach and teach various things to make it clear there was a great need for repentance in Judah, in Judea.

So people went to the Jordan River. They went to where he was. They wanted to be baptized. They wanted to repent. It was something they did “unto repentance.” Candidly, that’s what we do. You go under the water when you’re baptized. That’s what happened to them. They went under the water picturing that desire on their part to turn to God, “I want to be different.” In essence, “I do want to walk in newness of life,” in that respect. Incredible.

But there’s more. So when you come out of the water at baptism you have hands layed upon you. They didn’t have that happen to them. John didn’t do that to them. They couldn’t receive of the holy spirit. That wasn’t a part of what they were going through. They just had a physical, carnal approach toward things they were hearing about God and realized or believed that they’d heard a lot about the Messiah, and if this is possibly that time and God working with them too, because God draws—not all the way—and some of those were drawn farther later on. But many came to John to be baptized in the river Jordan. Later on in time some were even given of God’s holy spirit.

That’s a part of the story here of what’s taking place and that’s why it says here, wait for the promise of the Father which you have heard from me, for John truly baptized with water, you know, to be immersed, to acknowledge you need repentance, to acknowledge you do choose to return to God, you want His way of life, but they couldn’t get it. You can’t get it from that. You can have a desire to turn to God, but you can’t do it without God’s help, hence but you shall be immersed/baptized with the holy spirit not many days from now. That’s what God did. He brought them to the point where what we picture by repentance, of going under the water and coming back up to walk in newness of life, you can’t! You can’t do it. Those after John couldn’t do it. There had to be the next step. There had to be the ability to come to a point where hands were layed upon individuals so that the impregnation of God’s spirit could come into their being and they could be immersed then in God, in the holy spirit, so that the holy spirit could come into their life in a meaningful way. It’s in the mind!

It’s not some gyration thing where people roll around on the floor because they’re not in control and all this garbage and they speak in tongues and some of the things they do and you can’t interpret it and then someone else gets up and tells what that it was. “Oh, you ought to have heard what he had to say. Here it is...” They would get up there and say what he said, all of them full of it. They were demons. Demons do that. They love to mess around with human beings when people “call down the holy spirit” and Pentecostals and so forth.

To this day I’ve never known a Pentecostal that has remained in God’s Church if they’ve had experience of speaking in tongues. Maybe some of you had. If you had, I’d like to know you, because you’d be a first that I’ve ever known. They know they’ve experienced something. They feel it. They physically feel it. They physically feel something in them and then some of them don’t even remember what happens after that. It’s just a bunch of jabbering things come out of their mouth “blah, blah, blah,” you know, whatever it is, or speaking in some foreign tongue. Some people say that they’ve heard someone, some speaking in different languages and they’re cursing. I haven’t experienced anything like that because I don’t know any foreign languages that well. Thankfully, I haven’t been around that many people like that when they’re in that state, demon influenced, demon possession.

They’re sick beings. Nothing to be afraid of. But if people give themselves to that because they want this experience and they want to have this oftentimes they find it...they find it and because they’re an open vessel who want something so badly that they’re willing to accept whatever happens and they let go of their mind, they let go of control of their being.

God’s spirit doesn’t control. That’s a unique thing on our part because we hinder it. We hinder the ability to receive it because of our choices we’re constantly making in the mind. We’re the only ones that can hinder it. So God not only does not control us in any fashion or form, He draws us, He opens up our mind and gives us opportunity to see things we couldn’t see before, and then we have to start making choices. Those choices determine whether we can continue to see and see more. Only we can get in the way. You’ve got to want it. You’ve got to desire what you see by choice.

So these are the things that we’re told by Christ, to the group there, about John and how now they’re going to have the opportunity if they stay in Jerusalem to be immersed, baptized—that’s what baptized means, to be immersed...into the holy spirit not many days from now.

1 Corinthians 2:1—Brethren, when I came to you, I did not come with excellency of speech or of wisdom... So I don’t know what kind of a speaker he was. I think of the Church and how Mr. Armstrong was moved to give, come up with a manual, if you would, of twelve speeches, a program kind of patterned after Toastmaster’s and other kinds of organizations that are out there in the world where people come together, business people come together to improve themselves and they learn how to speak in public and feel more comfortable around others.  Anyway, this is a part of what was happening here.

It was an incredible program that Mr. Armstrong was inspired to give to help train, to help give a little bit better ability for us to express ourselves, whoever we are, or were at that time, and people would go through a program. It’s amazing how many went through the program and by the time they were through the twelfth speech they came back with stories about things it was helping on their job and the confidence they had and the ability to do things that others around them couldn’t do, to express themselves, to feel more comfortable in that. Because we as human beings, it’s not the easiest thing to get up in front of someone and speak because we have this thing about protecting self, and it’s hard, you know, it’s difficult to break through that and begin to feel more comfortable.

You come to a point in time where you realize, hey, we’re just all in the same boat. We’re all just human beings. It doesn’t matter how many are standing there or aren’t there and whatever, just be yourself and that’s the way it is whether it be one or a hundred or a thousand or ten thousand, it doesn’t matter. We come to that kind of thing. No one is better than anyone else, you know; we are what we are. We’re all weak, physical human beings. So he has this program. We don’t know what Paul was like as a speaker at this point in time.

Now, Paul was extremely well educated, highly educated. You go back and read what he was being prepared for. He was up there. He was being molded and fashioned for the highest of leadership within Judaism, he truly was, and I believe even to the Sanhedrin. These things that he was being prepared for were not small. Matter of fact, he had the authority, the ability to go around and say who should be killed and who shouldn’t, just like Stephen. He was there, gave them, others around him, the right to stone him, to kill him when he was preaching as he was, when Stephen was preaching. It was Saul, whose name was later changed to Paul, who did that. He had that power and authority already from the highest parts of that government of Judaism at that time.

So he’s telling them now, when I came to you Corinthians, I didn’t have great ability of speech, in that respect, and we don’t know to what degree he did or didn’t. I think of Moses. It’s not about how great we are in the sense of our abilities of speaking and whatever weakness or inability physically that Moses had. That’s why he wanted Aaron to do the talking. Whether it was a bit of a stammer in his speech that it sounds like was in scripture, what existed there, and so people can look at that and say, “And God’s working with him?! He can’t speak that well in public. He kind of trips over his words so how can that be of God?” Those things are not uncommon in the world and people hear various things, “Oh, I’m not going to listen to that.”

So that’s the way it is. It’s a matter of what God gives that comes out of it. It’s the truth. It’s not a matter of how polished it is, the truth is the truth. Most of the apostles didn’t have high education, obviously. Some were fishermen. That’s why some scoffed at them and made fun of them. “They’re from Galilee. What kind of a school system...?” “They don’t have any.” “What kind of education...?” “They don’t have any.” “You know, they’re from Galilee, who’s going to bother listening to them?” When people started listening to them it was a problem, see, what God was doing through them.

So he said, I didn’t come in the excellency of speech or wisdom, in the sense of worldly wisdom, in the sense of human reasoning, in the sense of being able to reason with people in a manner that so many are, you know, in this world get to a point of being able to do. Like politicians, you know, the silver tongue that some tend to have at times. Why people believe it, I don’t understand, but anyway.

...declaring unto you the witness of God. For I determined not to know anything among you, except Joshua Christ. Now, that’s an awesome thing to understand in the very beginning in the Church and here Paul and how he was working with various Church areas in the gentile world and preaching and teaching and whatever, and people being drawn and this process of what he was going through and what he was doing as he worked with individuals and what he would say. Incredible, the life of Paul and what he’d come to.

He goes on to say, this focus that he had, it was strictly about Christ. That’s hard for us to grasp sometimes because we come along and we’ve heard the name. It’s in the world. It’s hard for us to put ourselves back there to realize because none of the world knew about him that’s what their mission was, that’s what their focus was, it was to constantly talk about the Messiah who came and died as our Passover, was put to death and is resurrected and given life. That’s what it was over and over and over again. Other things, they didn’t come, that we go through in scriptures sometimes, until much later. Even in the book of Corinthians here, some things are added that they didn’t have before as he taught them, as he worked with them. But as a whole this is the message always, constantly, because the world, they didn’t know this name. They didn’t know the power of those things that had taken place.

So that’s why he says, I determined not to know anything among you, or in essence, not to give you anything or not to focus upon anything among you except this. This was the message. It’s about the Messiah. It’s about the Passover...and him nailed to a pole. He’d begin to explain why. It was the teaching he gave.

And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and much trembling. Well, what does that mean? Paul had a bit of a dilemma in the beginning. There were some who just didn’t trust him. The word had gone out, especially amongst some of the Jews who would come in with some of those gentiles. His job was primarily to the gentiles, but even the apostles didn’t trust him in the beginning. There was a bit of a problem there, him and Peter, you know, and some of the things that were taking place because he was Saul! He was responsible for killing Stephen and they knew that! They knew that he was the one that was pursuing them to kill them!

When it says “in fear and much trembling,” he knew he was on the list because he betrayed, now, those of the highest echelons of Judaism and he’s out here preaching. So he’s out of Jerusalem. That’s not a good place for him to be. See, that’s why God sent him up into other areas to preach and to teach, because down in Jerusalem they’d like to string him up, meet him in a dark alley some place and end this once and for all. That’s really what it was like because he betrayed them mightily. He truly did. So they’re out to get him and he knows it.

Then there are those there who don’t trust him too much and so it’s not an easy thing to go before an audience and knowing that your life, God may be through with it at any moment, and when He is, so be it, but you know, it’s not easy because you’re still a physical human being.

So, I was with you in weakness and in fear, and in much trembling, as you were, in some cases here people knew what it meant to be able to come around. Anyway, going on, verse 4—And my speech and my preaching was not with persuasive words of man’s wisdom... I think of people in times past in the Church—and it’s a natural desire in many ways—who maybe would want to talk to someone they knew well and look forward to an opportunity to open the Bible or open a booklet and go through “the seven proofs of this” or “the twelve proofs of this,” or to talk about individuals, about this because if you can reason with them and go to these different scriptures you’d be able to help them. No, you can’t. You can’t give them diddly squat. You can’t give them anything. Unless God’s drawing somebody they’re not going to hear one word you’re saying.

But some of that existed and this desire to share and some fancied themselves that they were the teachers that had to go out and do this and try to raise up, or to help other people see and understand, and so they’d go through these different reasonings, but it was a human reasoning. Even when you know the truth and you use human reasoning and go through “the seven proofs”—now, these are good for us to have—“and twelve proofs,” or whatever it is, of different things that we can read, for us who have God’s spirit these things are powerful. But for us to use them to try to get others to see it, can’t happen.

I think of one evangelist that was on a telecast that I saw one time several years back and he was saying, “If you’d just open your Bibles,” and I think he was talking about the Sabbath, “If you’d just open your Bibles you can see this!” I thought, “Really? Well, that sounds pretty easy. Let’s try it.” It doesn’t work. Whatever happened to the ability to understand you’re not going to help anyone, just because they open their Bible, unless God’s drawing them, unless God’s opening up their mind? And you don’t know that. Surely not everybody that’s out there that’s listening that opens up their Bible – obviously they’re not going to see it.

Sad. Because that’s why so many became so much weaker. They forgot their calling. They forgot how God worked with them. That’s why it’s so important for us to remember our calling, how God worked with you. He drew you by the power of His holy spirit. He gives you understanding by the power of His holy spirit. None of us do it on our own. You can’t talk anyone else into this way of life. You can’t give them anything to help them to see what is true. Only in God’s time. So the best thing we can do is be an example and light and if someone asks us a question we can given an answer, but we don’t unload the whole truck. You don’t dump out everything that you’ve been given because that could be a tendency too.

You know, if someone asked a question about “Why do you keep the Sabbath?” “I keep all the Commandments in the Old Testament in Leviticus...” It’s okay to tell them about Leviticus 23, but sometimes we say, “It’s not just the seventh day, because that’s commanded, there are annual Sabbaths,” and so we go beyond. I hope you understand what I’m saying. We can go beyond and get into other areas — “And then we can be baptized and receive the impregnation of God’s spirit and we can become a part of the God Family.” You understand what I’m saying?

We can go too far. We want to give them everything that we’ve been given because we’re excited. But they’re not. “When is he going to shut up?” They’re uncomfortable. “How do you get out of here?” Then they never come around again. You wonder, “I wonder what happened to Joe.”

So again here, he said I didn’t do it because of my ability and human reasoning because that’s not what it’s about because it wouldn’t do any good. There is no purpose in it. ...but it was in demonstration of the spirit and of power. He relied on God and God gave him what he needed to speak. God gave him the understanding of the truth. He understood that. Those things that were given to him, he was able to share with others to the degree that he was inspired to do so. People in that kind of situation learn how to do that, what to do because it’s an experience of how God’s spirit works and they just know. It’s like when you know the Sabbath, when you know the holy days, when you know certain things and you know. You don’t have to work it up. You don’t have to try to study and decide how you’re going to do a certain thing. You just look to God and God gives it, whatever it is.

I’ll tell you about this Feast of Tabernacles. When some of these sermons started coming to me I thought am I seeing the right things here? Am I getting the right thing here? Then after a while you start seeing it. Because in the beginning when certain things begin to be given you don’t know where it’s going. You kind of wonder about it and then all of a sudden it comes about, you see it. You can’t do it on your own.

That’s why I hate it when what happened to the Church and we’d go out to refresher programs and they would say, “Well, you have to have so many types of sermons in a year. You need to plan them three months, four months, six months, even a year ahead to know how many marital sermons to give, how many child rearing sermons to give.” How many child rearing sermons have I given? Well, I didn’t listen to that garbage. That’s why I don’t give child rearing sermons because God is not focusing, making us focus upon how to rear our children. We’ll learn, we’ll grow in that the more we listen to God, and maybe at times different things will be given that are important. How you rear your children, how you make certain choices in your life, of very physical things.

I may come along at times and say something that God inspires because He wants children to learn and be taught about Him, and so I may mention the importance of don’t wait until they’re ready to leave home and have a job to start teaching them about giving holy day offerings to God on the holy days. That’s a parent’s responsibility. See, now I can do that, but that’s not how to rear your children; that’s just how to train them, to work with them to look to God! That’s the greatest job you have. Many in God’s Church aren’t doing that to this day even after what I’ve said, still not training their children in something so basic! Why wouldn’t we want to teach them to look to God, that there is something special about this holy day? If nothing else to give an allowance for that very specific reason, to say, “Okay, now you’ve got to decide here what portion of this you want to give,” and to work with them in that, whatever it might be, or to give certain errands or chores to children so that they can begin learning some of these things.

Even tithing, to start teaching them these things. I don’t care whether it’s a dime, whatever that is in Europe, what you call it, and then 10% of that is a penny in the U.S. – anyway, one cent— and they have to be shown, “This is God’s. This is for the Feast. You save these up and this gets bigger and bigger and you have more to spend at the Feast.” That’s what you do.

I’ll just be real candid with you. Blows my mind that people don’t do that with their children. Then they sit through services and they sit through services and they get to a certain age and it’s like they’re not listening, they don’t care. Now, children are children, but man, if you want to give them an opportunity, a head start, something that God can work with, you have to teach them about Him. Why people wouldn’t do that, I don’t understand. So when they get 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17 and they don’t want to be there anymore, well, that may happen anyway. That’s just the way it is. That’s just the way it is. This world pulls at them and most choose and want to go that direction because it’s a strong pull, but they can also be pulled back at times depending on their choices because they come to a point where they have to make choices. You know, by 15 they’re making their own choices. They really are. But man, we should do what we can do while we have ability. As soon as they’re in school...as soon as they’re in school.

Well, anyway, that’s the closest I come to child rearing. I don’t follow what they gave at that refreshing program because it’s a bunch of bull. Some people got in that habit though of deciding these sermons and you think, “Where is God in this? Where is God in this?” Anyway, God will inspire what needs to be given, and most of that is in a timely fashion, in a very orderly fashion because things change from congregation to congregation. Especially in those days when you had congregations that were 300, 400, 500, 600 people, and you might have another congregation of a similar amount of people in another city an hour and a half, two hours away, and you would go there and two sermons in a day, or whatever, and you may have to address two different things at times because they’re going through different things that God will inspire to be given at one location that He doesn’t give at another location. Why? Well, because they’re being worked with in a different manner because God knows what’s going on in people’s lives. He knows what’s going on up in the mind.

I’ve experienced that over and over again in my life, where you can give one in one place and in another place and it turns out to be different and I oftentimes have learned because there are different things that were going on.

So this is what Paul is explaining. It has to come from God. It is a demonstration, he said, of the spirit and of power. That’s what you saw. That’s what he’s telling the Corinthians, “This is what you received.” ...that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men... It’s not about the person. It’s not about them, in that respect; it’s about what is God giving? What comes from God, see? That helps us in so many ways if we can grasp that. So it says, but in the power of God. It always goes back to God, keeping our eyes focused on God.

However, we speak wisdom among those who are, not perfect, but being perfected. It’s a process we’re going through of being matured, if you will. ...yet not the wisdom of this world. It’s not about our ability to remember certain things. It’s not about our ability to go through Strong’s Concordance. It’s not about our ability to reason or to know, so it’s not about those. It’s not in the wisdom of this world and how people normally think.

...nor of the rulers of this world, that come to nothing. Because that’s all going to go by the wayside. ...but we speak, he’s saying here “we,” the ministry, God’s ministers, speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, that people in the Church can receive or those who have God’s spirit can receive to the degree that they’re not resisting God, or to the degree that they’re seeking God and to the level that they’ve grown to spiritually at a certain time in their life. So these things happen on a spiritual plane.

So, we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery. Other’s can’t hear it, can’t understand it. There’d be portions of some sermons one can receive or some can receive and others can’t. That’s why I’ve mentioned some of the things I have in the sermons here, because I know there are some who there is something stuck in their ears and it’s a bunch of wax, spiritual wax, and people can’t hear because they’ve been making wrong decisions. They may be at services, they may even be at the Feast of Tabernacles, but they’re not listening or they can’t. It’s a spiritual thing. I hate for that to happen but it’s the way it is. Because you love people. You love God’s people and you see them begin to make certain choices in the beginning, the excitement they have and they come to baptism. Then something comes along in life, something begins to pull at them and they begin to change, and sometimes, sadly, people you’ve known for a long, long time and they begin to have different kinds of battles and so forth and they begin to have a different attitude toward you and it’s sad. I hate to see people go by the wayside. I hate to see people let down and not be who they could be. Choices. Choices. Choices. Constant battle.

So again here, he’s making it very clear here this is from God, in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, because it comes from God. God is the source of revealing everything. Others out here can’t hear it in the world, for sure, and then it can be in varying levels even within the Church.

It says, which God ordained before the world began unto our glory. Again, God has given us the ability to hear and we’re the only ones that get in the way by wrong choices, by quenching God’s spirit, by disobedience, lying to God, stealing from God, things that we deceive ourselves into thinking we can still be there and somehow be a part of it and not understand, no, there is no fellowship in that. It’s spiritual. The fellowship with God and Christ, it’s a spiritual thing. The ability to have a spiritual relationship, a fellowship within the Church is the same. It depends on where we are. Otherwise it’s just a physical relationship.

I think of one example of something that happened during the Feast in one area. Just to show you sometimes people just don’t hear. They can’t hear. Something is blocking their eardrum, spiritual eardrum, both of them, if we have two spiritual eardrums. Someone was talking about being quarantined in the sense of sickness and the like and so someone went up and told the individual, basically, because they had a discussion here about how they didn’t feel good, kind of sickly, if I have the story correct. Anyway, they were going through the story and sharing it and saying, “and you really want to be mindful of this,” of basically, in essence, paraphrasing, because this is what the Church teaches, it teaches quarantine, “and we don’t want to pass anything along to young children that are out here at the Feast and we don’t want to pass it along to the elderly because they’re more susceptible, as a whole, to those kinds of things.” And “Okay, yeah.” Little bit later they look over at a table and this individual was sitting with a bunch of elderly ladies. You think, what’s wrong? You didn’t hear. You didn’t listen. It’s like, “What’s wrong?”

You think, this is a very physical thing. No, it isn’t. No, it isn’t. It’s spiritual. It’s about a concern about other people. “That’s why I want to be in quarantine anyway, because I want others to have a great Feast. I don’t want to be guilty of passing something along to someone else to where their Feast is minimized or made less enjoyable and fulfilling. So if by my lack of presence and quarantine someone else can be benefitted by it and continue on that’s a great thing and I’m willing to sacrifice to put myself aside and to listen in some other means and still be thankful for that ability...blah, blah, blah.” Anyway, should be clear. But just giving that as an example. Things that happen sometimes we think here we are at the Feast of Tabernacles and we don’t realize sometimes what we’re doing at the Feast of Tabernacles, emotions, feelings, things we have in our thinking.

So again, talking about this hidden wisdom that God gave, which none of the rulers of this world knew. For had they known it, they would not have nailed to a pole the Lord of glory. If they really knew those things they wouldn’t have done what they did, but they’re ignorant of it. That’s why Christ said, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.” It’s a way of looking at the world. You can’t change it. It is what it is and live within it in the best means you can. Be at peace with that. Strive to be.

But as it is written, Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them who love Him.  This is a beautiful verse too, because candidly, we hurt ourselves, even once we’re in the Body, once we’re in the Church and we have access to God’s holy spirit, the mind, the being of God. His desire is to reveal more and more to us, and not only that, we have more than we can grasp of what’s already been given. You think by reading everything that’s been given in the last 10 years, as an example, that you get it. No, you don’t. You can go back through and read the whole same things again and you’re going to keep seeing things you didn’t see before. Every time you do it. Do it three months from now, whatever it might be, go back five months, six months, it doesn’t matter, and if you’re drawing closer to God, if you’re fighting against sin, if you’re truly repenting and desiring God with all of your being and you’re crying out to Him, you’ll see things you never saw before. Just like scripture. Doesn’t matter, it’s God’s word; it’s about how He’s working with us. Same thing.

Sermons, we can go back and listen to something: “How did I miss that?” A year later go back and listen to something and, “Man, I didn’t get that. I didn’t see that then.” Because we’re ever growing if we’re yielding ourselves to God. It’s a process. It’s beautiful. It’s inspiring.

So this thing here is constantly being fulfilled within the Body more and more. The more we grow the more we yield ourselves to God. “Eye has not seen nor ear heard.” We’ve heard a portion. We’ve heard part of it. But we haven’t heard it all. We don’t see it all. We don’t grasp everything that God’s given already. “Neither has entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for them who love Him.” So if we love Him He just gives us more and more and more.

1 Corinthians 2:10—But God has revealed them unto us by His holy spirit. It’s His will from His mind, His intent, His thinking toward us. He looks so forward to having Elohim and those who are begotten in the last, since Abel, because there is this excitement as well now we’re getting close to the first part of that, the firstfruits of all that creation, of being resurrected to rule with His Son, to reign with His Son. Then all that that’s going to be beyond that that’s going to continue, it’s just exciting. It’s inspiring to God. It’s inspiring to us. We’re able to share in that excitement. We get to be a part of it. Those who are resurrected in the first resurrection get to be a part of that from then on out in a very powerful way. Those who live on into that age get to be a part of something so awesome at the beginning of an age. Awesome!

But God has revealed them unto us by His holy spirit, for the spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. It searches, searches in the mind, how it can communicate with it, how it can work with it. It wants to give more, but our choices are the only thing that gets in the way and He can’t. But He knows what to give because He knows, He searches the mind. He knows what’s in the mind, how we think.

For what man knows the things of a man, except the spirit of man which is in him? So it’s making this distinction. Human beings can only use human reasoning. And sadly, see, what happens is we come into God’s Church and we have these two fronts – one a desire to live in a spiritual plane, a desire to draw closer to God, and the other this carnal part that just keeps pulling us back, this selfishness, “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” that battles against what God wants to give to us.

So we still have this spirit in man and we tend to think first with the spirit of man. We don’t automatically tend to think in a godly manner. We don’t naturally by our first thought in the mind think of God – by nature. Now, the quicker we can do that the quicker we can catch on to various things like that and we can go to that, awesome. But generally our first response, it just comes out natural, “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, the pride of life.” Selfish. That’s the way we are.

...even so the things of God no man knows, but the spirit of God. So anything that we have on a spiritual plane God has to give it. God is the source. Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; and literally this word means, this word “of” is in the Greek is “from out of God.” It comes out, indeed, the mind, the being, the Word, the Logos. It indeed comes out of God and He wants to give that to us. He wants to share a portion of that, as much as we can receive to the point that He’s revealed certain things already, to bring us to that plane, to that level.

...that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. They’re free. They’re there for us. We don’t earn them. They’re not owed to us; God just gives them to us if we make the right choices. Which things we also speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches, but, and literally, only that which the holy spirit teaches. So it’s a powerful thing that happens in our being. It’s hard for us to grasp as human beings because everything, basically, is physical to us. So to grasp the things that are spiritual and how God works in this mind and wants to work in this mind and wants to transform the way we think is a bit of a harder thing to deal with sometimes for us because we are so carnal, so physical. That’s an awesome thing that we can yield our self and this is a fellowship with God. That’s what it is to have fellowship with God. It’s about praying to God, a desire that He work in us, that He help us to see and to hear the things He has for us in sermons and Sabbath and the holy days and on and on it goes.

So again, but which the holy spirit teaches in comparing spiritual things with spiritual. God working in the mind to transform it, to bring us to a greater spiritual plane.

Verse 14—But the natural man does not receive the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. Now, we can read through something like that, read right over it and miss what is being said, that it pertains to us. It’s like, “Well, that’s not me, ‘the natural man does not receive the things of the spirit of God.’ I’ve been baptized; I have God’s spirit so I receive the things of God.” Oh, do you? Do you really? Do you do that all the time? Can you receive everything that God gives you from Sabbath to Sabbath, holy day to holy day?” Do we receive correction when God gives it? I know by great experience as a Body, as a whole, some don’t do that well sometimes or for some never at all.

I think God has addressed that mightily at this Feast of Tabernacles. We have to make some big changes in our lives to be prepared for the coming of the Messiah.

So the natural man does not receive the things of the spirit of God. So when there is preaching and people don’t hear it the natural man has won out, the natural, the carnal physical selfish part. We blocked it off. We can’t see it. Maybe because of whatever it is we’re resisting God in, because of some sin in our life, God can’t give it to us. Because it’s spirit, He won’t give it to us, you know. God teaches about love and how to love one another and if we have envying and jealousy you know what? You’re not going to be able to love someone better if you still hold on to that. You won’t be able to receive what He’s saying. You think you do. You think you know. You hear it by words. But to really digest it in the sense of it being able to come out of you because that requires God’s spirit toward others, you can’t do it. You still carry around attitude.

I, candidly, too often see too much attitude in God’s Church. Attitude. People who won’t let go of the past perhaps, and because of that they can’t act as they should or respond or talk as they should. Let the past go. God doesn’t keep a tally of our sins. God doesn’t try to remember and keep a record of all your wrongs. God knows them but that’s not the way of thinking. When we repent of sin we’re forgiven and it’s gone. That’s how we fail in a lot of our relationships towards each other because we don’t allow that to happen in others and so we can tend to judge them harshly because we know something they said at one time or did at one time, and because they did that, whatever it is that’s in our mind, we’re misjudging. We don’t let go of what God let go of a long time ago when they repented. That’s evil.

I’ll tell you, it’s more than evil, it’s just so sick it makes me want to puke, but that happens constantly in the environs of God’s Church. People don’t get along or they’re not able to draw closer together in a unity and a bond of fellowship because they have attitude, won’t let go of something that happened in the past. Somebody said something to you in the past or you think they did something. This happens a lot, where someone they think they did something to them by maybe not talking to them or whatever it is and because of that, “Man, what’s wrong with them?” Not knowing maybe they didn’t even see you, whatever it might be. But we tend to judge as human beings like that. I hope you understand what I’m saying.

Because of that we hurt ourselves in fellowship; we hurt ourselves in fellowship with God. It’s a spiritual thing because we can’t let go. That’s why it’s so wrong to hold on to things because that’s not forgiving others – when we have no right to hold on to anything in the first place. There isn’t a person in here who has a right to hold a grudge against, to hold evil toward someone else, yet it exists today. It exists in every Feast site where people are listening, because they’re human beings and because of experiences that people have had within the Body toward each other, and because of that they can’t let go. Because? Because we’re carnal. Selfish, carnal, protecting of self in this thought of what we are and where we are and others just not there. “If they can treat me that way, act that way toward me, say something like that toward me, offend me...” You know, anybody that gets offended I think, “You are so far away from this way of life it isn’t even funny!” You’re playing around in the courtyard. You can’t get into the temple that way. It blows my mind.

This sermon is about God’s desire to bring us into the temple, to have fellowship with us, to mold and fashion our minds to become like His more so in unity and oneness of spirit, and we get in the way so much. We really do. Be honest with yourselves. Do you have any wrong feeling toward anyone in this Body? When you come face to face with them and talk to them or they pass you by do you have any wrong feeling that crosses your mind? Because I’ll tell you right now it exists. Okay? It exists. Shouldn’t be there. It inhibits true fellowship with God. It inhibits our ability to grow more on a spiritual plane, to receive of the holy spirit into our being.

There is a way the holy spirit works and we have to seek to come into unity with that. That means to live and think in a certain way even in the Church toward one another, toward the Body. Awesome! It’s really awesome to understand that and to strive to live that. Because, see, that is a constant battle against this and the more you fight against this the more you are enriched in and able to rejoice in that which is true in fellowship in God’s spirit.

So we’re the only ones that get into the way of ourselves. We only have ourselves to blame if there is a feeling of jealousy, of envy, of grudging, of not forgetting something that’s happened in the past, of holding on to something, of having this offence that we have. That one there is just the one that makes me kind of furious inside, when someone will hold an offence toward someone. “I’m offended!” “I’m offended. Who do you think you are?” It’s a smugness, it’s a pride, and it just reeks.

I’ll tell you what, my radar sees it so powerfully you would be dumbfounded to know how clear I see it. I loathe pride. I loathe haughtiness with all my being because that comes from God. God loathes haughtiness and pride because it’s so wrong. He can work with, as it talked about in Isaiah, that we read, the contrite of heart, the humble of heart. That’s a mind that can be worked with. Awesome to understand that.

Verse 14—But the natural man does not receive the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. We can be that way if we’re not careful, if we yield to this carnal self and not God’s spirit. ...and neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. They’re of the holy spirit. But he who is spiritual judges/discerns all things, in other words, able to see and grasp things more on a spiritual plane, righteously so, not unjustly so, yet he himself is judged/discerned of no person. In other words, in this way of life they don’t get it.

For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct Him? Incredible how haughty we can become as human beings. But we have the mind of Christ. So sometimes we have to ask: Do we have the mind of Christ? To what degree do we have that mind or do we have too much of the selfish mind, the mind that’s focused on self?

Philippians 2. God desires to give us so much and we just get in the way sometimes. The reason I’m saying this, the more we can really examine ourselves after this Feast of Tabernacles, and even during this Feast of Tabernacles, the more we can embrace what God is placing before us and telling us and really, really, truly with all of our being examine our own lives and our own thinking, the closer we can draw to God. So much of that just begins in relationships, of how we think about other people, how we react toward them, think toward them, feel about them. That reveals much and can be a great means by which we can come to more deeply comprehend where we are in asking God for help to change those things because you can come to a greater conviction of how wrong they are and how much they keep you back from receiving more.

So this is a time that God is giving to His Church to draw closer to Him, to cry out more to Him, to be filled with the riches of His mind, His life, His power, His holy spirit, and to get away from sin, to get away from wrong thinking, to flee it as never before in the Church and to cry out for help to grow more in this next year. God is going to give you much, much more than you can comprehend as a part of that process. We’re at a point in time where He’s going to begin pouring more out upon us as well and if we aren’t the right kind of vessels and we’re not doing what we should be doing we’re not going to be able to be a part of it. That’s the sad part.

So God has a great desire to pour out abundant mercy, but it’s up to us to ask for it. It’s up to us to acknowledge what we are and to see what we are and to realize this part, this aspect of my life must change and I need His help. He wants to give me help so I’d be dumb not to ask for it! I’d be pretty stupid not to cry out for it, especially at a time He wants to even give more of that help because what He’s getting prepared to do in people’s lives you can’t comprehend because of what’s coming. If you prepare yourself and yield yourself to the process you’re going to be able to participate in something that human beings have never could even imagine.

You cannot imagine what it’s going to be like when God begins to pour out His spirit on this world, when people begin to be humbled because of what takes place, when people are shattered in hope and they have no hope and you’re filled with confidence. You’re filled with boldness? You’re at peace in the worst of all times? Do you think anybody is going to ask you why?

So it’s not about being lifted up with pride and haughtiness, of something to do, it’s just a matter of recognizing that it’s something God’s going to do and we can share in that if we’ll more fully prepare ourselves. The experience, the excitement of those things that will carry on into the Millennium, some into the first resurrection, other into a new age, you can’t imagine the awesomeness of that, the fullness of that. We’re just at an awesome time in all of human history and God wants to share mightily what He’s doing, what He’s experiencing.

I wish we could see that more fully. If you saw that to the depth and the degree of what God’s giving at this Feast of Tabernacles there would be very little sin in your life.

Philippians 2:1—Therefore, if there be any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, agape, if any fellowship of the spirit... We read things like this and sometimes we don’t grasp what’s being said. A fellowship of the spirit begins in the congregation, in the Church. It’s not about somehow we’re going to have this special relationship with God and we can pray to Him and that’s hunky dory and not grasp, no, it’s in the Church, how we think within the Church, how we think towards others within the Body. The fellowship we’re able to have with them is the fellowship we can have with God. That determines how much God can give to you. That determines how you think. That reflects and God uses that. He knows, and if we make changes in those things and become stronger in spirit in a relationship with Him, within the Body as well, we’re going to be incredibly blessed.

So if there is any fellowship of the spirit, if any bowels and mercies, deep inside of us of how we think. About what? About what God’s giving us, about what He’s offering us, and about others in the Body. Mercies. A lot of us need to practice a lot more mercy, to be more merciful in thinking. You know, if God’s been merciful to you to forgive you of your crap in your life, which is what it is – my llama – drama, drama, drama, drama. That’s what it is. That’s what comes out of drama: crap. It comes out of the rear end of the drama. It does! That’s all it is and if God is so merciful to forgive us of that stuff, man, can’t we be merciful to others?

Why can’t we be merciful to others, forgiving of others? Why should we ever hold on to a grudge? Why should we ever hold on to feelings towards others that aren’t right? There is sometimes so much pride and haughtiness in there that you can’t get through because we esteem ourselves so greatly that we should hold on to our offences. We’ve been offended: “I’ve been offended.” Oh boy! We need help. God’s people need help. We need help in growing and overcoming and being at one with one another. What an awesome thing to be able to have a right mind toward others within the Body.

So verse 2 here, going on, fulfil you my joy, that you be likeminded, having the same agape, being of one accord and of one mind. That’s God’s deep desire, that we be of unity and oneness and one mind with Him – at one with God! Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; and yet too many things are done through strife and vain glory because there is strife in our life, that drama, drama, drama. There is strife in our life. There is strife toward others in God’s Church because we won’t let go because we hold on to offences, you know, of something that’s happened in the past. Vain glory, getting something out of thinking we’re something better than what we are, and because we are we judge others as being lesser than us. That’s just a sick, sick thing.

...being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory; but in lowliness of mind... Do we see who we are? Do we understand what we are? ...in lowliness of mind, humility of spirit, let each esteem others better than themselves. Now, this is a very awkward translation and vast majority always misinterpret this, and many in God’s Church right now don’t understand what it’s saying. So it has to do with about “better than,” basically putting others above themselves first, being first, not putting ourselves first. We put ourselves first, it’s just selfish. We don’t think about others.

That’s why I loathe this generation in the world that’s like what’s happened before the flood. It’s a very selfish, selfish age. That’s why I loathe the kind of things I see in the world. It can be akin to the thinking of Lot, who vexed his soul day by day because of what he saw and how sick the world was and what it was doing in his age in that environment to his family. He saw those things. He saw the effect that was taking place and he loathed it, he hated it with all of his being.

I’ve seen that growth of those things, of selfishness, you know, people who are oblivious to anyone else around them. That’s the opposite of what we’re talking about and you can get sucked into that, where people are oblivious to others around them. They don’t care. They don’t think about others. When they’re walking down a sidewalk – I just love that when that happens – four coming in your direction and that’s as wide as the sidewalk, and I don’t know what they think is going to take place. Who is going to give? Literally, who will give? I’ve come to the point where I don’t get off the sidewalk. You want to come on, come on; I’m staying in my course. It’s happened a couple times. Some guy that could clean my clock, you know, smacked him with a shoulder; he started talking, “Oh, he didn’t get over.”

It happened in Portland, Oregon recently, walking down a sidewalk, these two guys, and it was a big sidewalk, but they were over in our section coming toward them. I don’t advise doing these things. But I thought, “You’ve got to be kidding.” I think they were just doing, testing, here comes the old guy and the old woman. You young guys going to see what they’re going to do. I didn’t budge. As soon as we got by he said, “He didn’t move over.” That’s right, he didn’t. I don’t care if you land on the ground, personally. Sadly, that’s how selfish the world is. It’s about self. Do you understand what I’m saying? You go down and you walk through a mall, who cares about others? Does any of that rub off on you? Do you get so wrapped up in your own world that you don’t think about others?

I think about it in services sometimes, people trying to get through and we get so wrapped up in ourselves and our own conversation. Now, please understand, I can understand that to a degree. But see, my mind thinks a little differently in some of that, always alert, what’s going on around me, who is there? I strive to be that way, I truly do. See someone coming, I’m going to get out of the way or ask others to move over. Does that make sense? Because this isn’t our own world right here! We have a whole group of people! Think about that! I wonder what tomorrow is going to be like. I hope it’s better because that does affect us and we get so wrapped up in what we’re saying, what “I’m” saying. It’s good to have fellowship but not at the exclusion of others around you, of being inconsiderate, of blocking a doorway, because no one else can get in.

I don’t understand that. If you’re in a door, now what’s that? It’s the way in and out of the room. If we’re in a door and there is no other way in or out of the room what’s going to happen, “Excuse me; I need to get through.” If you have to do that, that’s fine. But a person shouldn’t have to because first of all you shouldn’t be in the door in the first place if you’re thinking about others because others need to come in and out. “I love others. I want them to have that freedom of being able to come in in through the door.” I’m giving something very basic that we don’t realize sometimes what we’re thinking and how it affects others.

Even in public. See, that’s what we should be concerned about, others in a restaurant, and others in other places, to make it easier for them. Oh, it’s great and we paid for it and we’re all here together and we’re doing something but someone needs to get through. Maybe it’s someone carrying a bunch of plates and they’re loaded up and we’re a group that love to talk, and that’s great, but not at the expense of others or making it more difficult for others around us who want to serve us, who are being paid maybe, yes, but they’re not being paid to stand there for five or ten minutes until finally we get out of the way so they can get by with all those plates their holding. Do we love them too? Are we concerned?

So that’s what this is about. This is what this is saying! That’s what it’s telling us! To think about others. Don’t put yourself first in life because that’s what we tend to do and we fail to think about others. Think of how much better this world would be if we would think about others in all these things, in all things of community and life around us. It’d be so much better, so much easier. But it’s not because we live in a sick, selfish world.

We live in the selfie age, to where one of the greatest purchases you can ever make is a stick. It’s one of the greatest inventions of this age. It’s not the cell phone on the end of it; it’s the stick that can hold it out there because you can hold it out there and it’s like 15-20 years ago, you’d have to have several cameras and people hired taking these snap shots. “Oh, take that pose again,” you know, and clicking away, and take hundreds and hundreds of pictures. Now we can just set up there and do it ourselves, that selfie stick. It epitomizes, it pictures this age. It really does. It’s the selfie stick age! It is. It’s the way people think. We’re so consumed with ourselves and we don’t think about others. Do you think they’re thinking about others and what they expect? I don’t want to go there...be here forever.

Selfish, selfish, selfish, selfish human beings! We live in that age and if you don’t think that rubs off on us, it does. You have to fight against that kind of thinking because it manifests itself in many different kinds of ways, whether we’re tending to turn inward more and more. You’ve got to fight that.

Oh, my, my time has gone. Your time has gone. Our time has gone. So what do I go to here? Basically, I guess, I’ve said it all that needs to be said today.

It reminds me of this song—I’ll end with this—that we sang today: “How Lovely are Thy Dwellings.” God’s holy spirit. It’s all about His desire to dwell in us and we in Him. It’s a beautiful thing. I was going through this and struck by some of what was being said in the beginning. “Yea, the bird has found its home, built a nest to lay her young.” We can read something like that and say it’s about the birds. It’s about a building a nest. “O that I may find my altars,” how does this fit together, you know? Well, it does and it’s all about, “How lovely are Your dwellings.” God has created it so that the world around us, even a bird has the ability to build a nest, and it goes all the way through to something so much greater.

God has made it possible for a physical world around us to have a place, and yet we’re here to learn about what God’s place is for us, and it’s not here in this temporary life yet we embrace it as though it is sometimes. That’s why we turn so selfish because every moment, in that respect, is about us. We tend to be that way if we’re not careful.

“How lovely are Thy dwellings, O Eternal, Lord of hosts. For those who dwell in Your House, shall ever sing Your praise.” It’s God’s desire that we be in His house, in the temple. In the temple now and later a very part of the Temple, you know.

“Blessed and happy is the man who has found his strength in You,” comes from God not from ourselves. We look to God. “He is stronger day by day, and shall in Zion dwell.” That’s our desire, our goal. Well, to get there we have to make a lot of changes and we have a battle on our hands and it’s always in the mirror. Every day you get up it’s in the mirror – there’s your battle. Put on the armor of God, ask God for help, because you’ve got work on your hands and it’s in the big letters: S-E-L-F – SELF.

“How lovely are Thy dwellings, O Eternal, Lord of hosts. Give ear unto my prayer, O God of Israel.” How much do you want that? How much do you exercise that, to cry out to God for help to change, for help to receive everything He gives to us? “For a day with You is better than a thousand other days,” but we sometimes tend to leave God aside. Shoot out into the day, we don’t think about God perhaps and perhaps throughout the day don’t think about God. So we’re by ourselves. If we sin we cut ourselves off from God – if we don’t repent.

So if you have a day with God and God’s in it and you’re with God, it’s awesome. When I read that and saw “a thousand other days,” no, I thought, you know, a day like that is better than a Millennium without God. Because I couldn’t help but think of those who lived 800, 900 years without God, and look what it produced, a flood, a flood that had to come and destroy because they so corrupted their minds. Some of them can’t even be resurrected to a great white throne because they’re set in evil. They’ve already determined. Nothing God would show them, give to them, offer them would change them because they’re set like Lucifer became set when he first sinned. But over time a human being can destroy their mind. Awesome to understand that.

So I think about different ones and they used to think about, well, certain ones are going to be resurrected and how are people going to respond to such evil people who killed, responsible for killing millions of others and their minds were so evil and the torture. Well, rest assured, they don’t have to be resurrected, okay? There are some whose minds were so evil when they did the things they did that you can’t conceive of how human beings can treat each other that way. Well, there’s a reason for that, because they’re sick and they’re swayed by and moved by a being that they chose to emulate in their carnal, physical, hateful, evil lives.

So we used to have this concept in the Church, “No, everybody is going to be resurrected. Every person’s going to have an opportunity to change and accept God and receive God.” Well, sometimes those things get judged way ahead, way ahead of time, that there is no need to put them in another body. It’s not owed to them. It’s not owed to them! Sometimes we get these crazy ideas. Anyway, I’m sorry.

“How lovely are Thy dwellings, O Eternal, Lord of hosts. Give ear unto my prayer, O God of Israel. For a day with You is better than a thousand...” than a thousand years. “O that I may find Thine altars.” Do you know what that means to? To be able to come before God, sometimes to cling on to it, to pray for God’s mercy, to be able to find it, to be able to be forgiven of sin. Sometimes we don’t grasp the value of that.

“O that I may find Thine altars, My Lord, My King, My God.”

Table of Contents

Chapter 1