The 7th Day of the Feast

Ron Weinland

September 22, 2018

Feast of Tabernacles Sermon – 2018

This sermon today is entitled The 7th Day of the Feast.

This sermon will be a little different in its purpose and the actual time in which different people hear it, and that’s going to be depending upon where people are when they hear it because it’s going to be played at a later time. It’s a sermon that I’m giving obviously in Europe on the Sabbath before the Feast for those of you who are here. For others they will be hearing it on the seventh day of the Feast. So it’s an appropriate thing that has that particular title, especially in what the context of this sermon is today.

The reason I’m doing some of this a little bit differently is because it’s really hard to juggle all the sermons for when people hear it in Australia and New Zealand, and when they hear it in the U.S., and when they hear it over here, so that’s why we sent out the schedule like we did so that people can have something to follow to know what sermon everyone else will be listening to on that day in their particular area. This sermon came to mind in that particular context because as I was thinking about some of this being scheduled as it is and looking at the schedule it all fit into place, the 7th day of the Feast.

It has a lot of meaning when you start thinking about the uniqueness of the title today and when it’s being given today and when others will actually be hearing it on the seventh day.

Although the sermons that I’ll be giving at the Feast, except for this one, were all prepared before I had my quadruple bypass on July the 3rd, this sermon and the last one that I’ll be giving at the Feast were not completed so I knew I’d be given this at some point before the Feast. One evening on a Friday night, 5½ weeks afterwards this kind of popped into mind and felt that this would be a good subject to go through to start the Feast here in Europe and for others to listen to it later because of what it pictures, because the seventh day of the Feast has a lot of meaning in it. The seventh day, the seventh day Sabbath, the seventh day of the Feast, thinking about this picturing the time of the Millennium, the seventh period here of 1,000 years that we’re close to now and was thinking about how quickly this Feast is going to be over with. We haven’t even started it here in Europe but shortly we’ll have the first day, and shortly after that we’ll have the Last Great Day. It goes by quickly.

I couldn’t help but think about life and how life goes by quickly. You wonder where it goes when you get up to a certain point and you start having certain health problems in your life, you know you’re getting older, your body is getting older, but your mind doesn’t change except for the fact of being in God’s Church and a desire for living this way of life and the transformation, the transforming that God does in the mind. We’re awesomely blessed in that process.

So we can see change in our life over time but as far as the mind and how we think, you don’t think you’re at a particular age. You only know it by knowledge. You look in the mirror and it’s not the same person twenty years ago or thirty years ago and you wonder where it all went. It goes by so quickly. That’s the way the Feast is. That’s the way life is. It goes by quickly. I know for God this past 6,000 years has probably gone by quite quickly in one respect because that’s just the way time works and for Him and for the vastness of time that we don’t comprehend that He has existed, things that we cannot even begin to comprehend. But that’s the way life is, again, 1,000 years for now and those who are a part of the first resurrection are going to think the same sort of thing, “That went by so quickly.”

So make the most of this Feast, glean what you can. In one respect this is probably one of the most important Feasts we’ve ever had in many, many years because of, candidly, some of the things we’re going to be covering in this particular sermon.

It becomes very evident over time when you recognize the kind of sermons that God is inspiring to be given in the Church, you know what’s being addressed, you come to have a clearer picture of what God wants us to focus upon. This sermon says a lot in that regard. Sermons before this have said a lot as well. We just need to grasp where we are because all through time, whatever it is, even for human life, there’s a point when it just comes to an end. It’s over with, you have no more time.

And for God’s people right now as far as growing and desiring to live this way of life of repenting and making the most of what we have time is pretty much up. God’s giving us an opportunity right now through this period of time to respond to Him. I know in a very powerful way that is the message to be given to the Church, that we’re being given an opportunity to make some changes.

There are far too many people who are not living what they should be in God’s Church. I mean a lot, I don’t mean a few. And all of us can take count of all this and examine ourselves and throw ourselves more into this way of life and understand or seek to understand what God has given us, the value of what He’s given to us, the opportunity that He’s given to us. Because sometimes we go on and after a time we just live a routine day by day, week by week, Sabbath by Sabbath, holy day to holy day. You get into that kind of a routine, and with human nature that oftentimes isn’t good because with certain kinds of routines things become normalized, we begin to let down just like the Church did after Philadelphia into Laodicea; it became lukewarm, stagnant, because that’s just the way our human nature is with time.

As times goes on we very much tend to let down, the battle against self, because it’s easier. Over a long period of time you don’t recognize it. I’ve already mentioned some being cut off from God’s spirit and they don’t even know it that are attending the Feast this year. They don’t know it because they began to be cut off from God’s spirit a long time ago. It’s like being in the darkness that I gave in another sermon.

When you’re in the darkness you don’t know you’re in the darkness, you don’t know you can’t see anything, or you might know by knowledge, obviously, but you can’t see anything around you, you can’t see what might be happening. Only with light can you see what’s taking place. Only with light can you grasp and understand where things are. That’s the way it is with our life and the calling God has given to us.

So we’re preparing ourselves for what we believe as the present truth that we may very soon now be plunged into incredible world chaos—we’re on the tipping edge—and a World War III. We have no knowledge or ability to really grasp, I should say, what that’s going to be like and it’s not something we have to dwell upon. But the reality is in front of us. Things that are happening politically throughout the world, it’s an amazing time to watch, to watch things unfold. (I’ll talk about that later in the Feast. I don’t want to get into that now though I’d like to.)

So we need to understand then that potentially this could be a very important Feast for us as far as time is concerned. It very well can be the last Feast of 6,000 years of mankind, or in that particular phase of what God gave to mankind, a period of time, an overall picture.

So let’s turn over first today to Hebrews 4 because this really has a lot to say about what is being addressed today and how we need to address the time that’s in front of us, the time that we have remaining, to make the most of the time that we have, and we’re going to look back a little bit as we go through this sermon at another period of time, back to 2012, because there are some interesting things to compare as to where we are now and what the Church is going through.

Hebrews 4:1. It says, Let us, therefore, fear—fear what?—unless, a promise being left to us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. We should fear that. It should be a realistic fear in our lives, understanding what our human nature is like, knowing what our human nature is like, that we should fear selfishness. We should fear giving into selfishness. We should fear what we’re capable of doing, what so many before us have already done.

I think of that, the past 2,000 years and what Christ said when he said, “Many are called and few are chosen.” I think of what happened during Philadelphia, and then I think of what happened during Laodicea – but that was the Apostasy, but leading up to that period of time and in Philadelphia so many people went by the wayside through time. The farther we went into it, the more time there was in people’s lives, the more people began to let down, began to kind of level off and going to the Sabbath was a routine. Going to the Feast of Tabernacles was a routine. It wasn’t something that we cherish with all of our being. It wasn’t something that we held on to with all of our being as we should have and appreciating it before God as we should.

Every Sabbath we should be thankful that we have the Sabbath and thank God for it and that He’s called us out of this world and given us something, offered us something that the rest of the world can’t see, and to understand what it pictures as far as a period of time that’s coming and coming in our time, something that people whom God has called through time have all wanted. They’ve wanted to see “the City whose builder and maker is God” – deeply abiding in them. We have to have that deeply abiding inside of us, and if we don’t something is wrong.

So if the Sabbath becomes a routine and we just go through the motion, we don’t pray about it as we should, we don’t prepare ourselves as we should, the holy days and those kinds of things, please understand it can become a routine without God. It could become just a routine.

Just like the Seventh Day Adventists, they go through a routine. They don’t understand what it’s all about. They do it because that’s their day but it’s a routine for them. They go and they listen and as soon as they leave, as a whole, in this world especially without God’s spirit, people forget. They forget what they heard. They don’t think about it. They don’t think about it during the week, what they heard that was spoken to them on that particular day.

Do we? Do we think about the things that God gave us at a particular moment in time because He wanted us to focus upon it during that week? Because that’s what the Sabbath is like. I know some go back and listen to all kinds of sermons, and that’s awesome, but to think about what’s specifically given on a specific day, that’s what God is giving to us as our focus right now, right at that moment.

Just like this sermon today, this is no small thing that I’m talking about today. This is an exceedingly important sermon that’s being given to God’s people…I mean exceedingly important because the Church is being cleansed. Okay? I’m amazed at how some things are brought to the surface, how some things come out that God is bringing out. He is not going to allow whether it be a sealing to take place if people aren’t responding properly, or an ability to live into a new age, unless we want it with all of our being, unless we’re responding to God properly. It isn’t owed to us; we’re just exceedingly blessed that God called us to share in something and if we cherish that and want that and love God and are learning to love God more He makes a way totally possible…candidly, easy for us. It’s just our human nature that sucks and gets in the way and we let down and we don’t think about God as we should in a world that is totally Godless.

Let us, therefore, fear, unless a promise being left to us of entering into His rest any of you should seem to come short of it. So many have already come short of it. Many are called and few have been chosen through time. Many that were in Philadelphia, lived on into Laodicea, where are they now? If they haven’t died, where are they now, if they’re still alive?

So do we really grasp how easy it is to go by the wayside? We’re not better than they are. We’re not better than any of them, of those who have gone before us. We’re human beings, we’re blessed to be begotten of God’s spirit, and we have the same weaknesses and the same carnal, human nature and that’s the problem. So if you really want God’s way of life you’ve got to fight for it.

Some are going to come short of it, of being able to live on into the Millennium. That’s God’s word. That’s just an absolute promise for people in God’s Church. Absolute. And if we don’t grasp what God did to all those people of a certain age, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands who were not allowed to go into the promised land, it’s not too tough for a small group like us. It’s not tough for God anyway in any fashion or form whether it be into the millions and billions. See, if we don’t respond then we don’t deserve what’s in front, what’s ahead. What a horrible thing!

You see, because there were quite a few people this year, far too many, who up to the Feast time, before the Feast and the month or two months preceding that, that probably didn’t think that they might not be able to go to the Feast this year. See? They probably thought, right, and some to the last minute here, that they were going to be able to go to the Feast of Tabernacles this year and they’re not at the Feast of Tabernacles this year.

Now, that’s a horrible thing, isn’t it? Can you imagine all of a sudden receiving a phone call or an email and telling you, “Don’t bother coming because of …” I think that’s horrible, but how much worse would it be if God tells you, “You’ve gone this distance and you’re not going into the Millennium.” That’s the message, brethren.

Or that some who have had opportunity of the potential of being sealed, said, “No, no, no. You’re not going to be sealed.” Being in the God Family in the first resurrection is something so incredibly awesome, so mighty, and if we treat that lightly, if we don’t cherish that and latch on to that with all of our being and fight for it, if we potentially have that before us – and we should all strive to live that way regardless if that’s the case or not – but some who have been around for a long time, that can happen to. It’s happened to several people in the past here not too long ago back in 2012 and 2013. God made it real clear, “You’ve been in the Church twenty years, thirty years, forty years, that’s it. You’re not going into the Millennium. You’ll be resurrected at another time.” What a horrible thing!

Individuals who have been called to be a part of the first resurrection, individuals who are being trained to become a part of the first resurrection but treated it poorly. You know, we can read that scripture back in Hebrews here as well, to give up your inheritance for a bowl of porridge, a bowl of soup, to treat it like that? Think, that’s a horrible thing! Can you imagine somebody doing that? And yet many have done that before us, the many who have been called.

Verse 2—For unto us was the gospel (good news) preached… It hasn’t been preached to the rest of the world. The rest of the world hasn’t been able to receive the truths of God. The rest of the world doesn’t understand the plan of God. The rest of the world doesn’t understand who the Passover is and what he went through for us, what day he died on and why he died at that particular time, and what it all means for everyone. People don’t understand what the Wave Sheaf offering is. They don’t understand about the wave loaves. They don’t know those things. They don’t understand the holy days and what they mean, the days of Unleavened Bread and what it means to be called out of spiritual Egypt. But you do.

I mean, in just what I mentioned right there, how awesome is that? How awesome is it that we are given such knowledge when no one else out there has that knowledge. They don’t grasp it. They don’t understand Pentecost. They don’t understand the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement that we just observed. They don’t understand this Feast of Tabernacles or the Last Great Day. But we do.

Do we understand the value of what God has placed before us? Because so often we really don’t. We don’t grasp the value! Because we’re in a routine in life and it’s kind of surreal in some ways that we have all this and so we don’t generally think about the rest of the world around us doesn’t though. Who has this?

And in the scattering that took place, where are they are today? Thousands, tens of thousands of people who once knew the same things, some who have gone back to putting presents around a tree in December. You think how could a human mind who has sat in services for ten, twenty, thirty years go back to that? I mean, at least when some people leave, at least they take along, most of them, take along one physical portion. Do you know what that is? They won’t eat pork. But they’ll go back to a Christmas tree. Now, that kind of blows the mind. Won’t eat pork, something very physical, a physical diet. Very little that you can learn from, in that regard, spiritually there, compared to the other things that God gives to us that are on a spiritual plane that we can learn. Awesome, isn’t it, what we’re like as human beings.

So it’s tough. It’s tough when we come to understand our human nature and what we’re like and understanding what’s in front of us. It’s hard for us to grasp that the rest of the world doesn’t have what we have and to be able to make that kind of comparison logically, soundly in the mind on a spiritual plane, to grasp spiritually what we really have and respond to God spiritually up here in gratitude and thankfulness. I think of those sermons that God has blessed us to split up over time here leading up to this Feast; gratitude and thankfulness, so that becomes more of our thinking pattern, to be thankful, to be grateful to God for all that He gives to us, because the world doesn’t have what we’ve been given. There’s been a lot of suffering over 6,000 years to bring us to this point in time, of people who have gone before, generation by generation, then God reaching down and giving more. Just like when He led all the children of Israel out of Egypt and reached down from Mt. Sinai and gave them a codified law of how to live, of how to think toward Him, of how we should act toward Him, be toward Him, respond toward Him, hopefully in their minds to have Him magnified so much because of what they saw.

They saw and witnessed things that no one else has; a sea opening up and walking through, Egyptians following and being swallowed and destroyed, a mountain with smoke coming off of it and a voice that thundered. Incredible! And how did they respond? Well, they didn’t have God’s spirit. They didn’t have God’s spirit so they responded as carnal human beings do. But God kept giving more to those with whom He called and was working with. So those who had that ability to grasp what He was giving, Moses and others at that time, whoever it was that God was working with, Joshua, different ones.

You go on through time then, different people leading up to the time of Christ. It’s hard for us to grasp what God did then after 4,000 years. He flooded us with knowledge, with insight, in the things he lived, in the things he went through, in the things he taught, things that people 4,000 years before that, they never heard any of those things. They didn’t know any of that! Incredible! People with God’s spirit that He’d called didn’t know those things, didn’t grasp the things that Christ gave at that time. It just goes on and on and on.

But in the midst of all that and all whom God has called in the last 2,000 years of people who’ve suffered for living this way of life who are going to be in the first resurrection so that we could be here today as well, the people who’ve gone before, to live through the era of time that we had, some of us, Philadelphia then Laodicea, and now a unique period leading up to the return of Christ. How much do we love it? How much do we see it? How thankful are we?

For unto us, to you and to me, the good news was preached. That’s what he’s telling them here, Paul is to the Hebrews, a message to the Hebrews, and letting them know that here is a message that’s been preached that we’ve been able to hear that God has given to us. …as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit, a word that means “didn’t benefit, didn’t go any good,” speaking of the Israelites. So they heard certain truth concerning, for example here, the Ten Commandments, things about the temple they didn’t grasp, the building of the temple, the things in the temple and the Levitical system. They didn’t have any understanding of what it meant on a spiritual plane let alone a physical one.

But he’s making a distinction here in something we have that they didn’t have, and so that’s part of the story here. They heard, they listened to something, but it didn’t do any good to them, not being mixed with faith. What does that mean “not being mixed with faith?” Well, first of all you have to have God’s spirit to live by faith. They didn’t have it. You have to be able to believe what is true. You have to be given the truth and you have to have the ability to believe it. They didn’t have that ability.

Do we understand why? They didn’t have the ability to believe the things God gave to them because it requires God’s spirit to believe the truth. You can have a group of people out here into the millions or hundreds of thousands who keep a seventh day Sabbath, it has nothing to do with God but they keep that because of something they see about a seventh day. That’s about all they grasp on a physical plane by what they read physically. Nothing spiritual in it whatsoever.

But for you to believe what you do, that it’s not just the seventh day Sabbath but it’s about a 7,000 year plan, and you get that and you understand that and everything else that goes with it then, and the seven holy days, the annual holy days and all the meaning of that, the meaning of seven and what that pictures, God’s complete plan, in that respect. Awesome! That’s why it’s so unique to us. Others can have a Passover but they don’t grasp what it is. They don’t understand the detail in it and what it teaches spiritually on a spiritual plane. But we do inside and out.

So to even believe those things you have to have God’s spirit. That’s why it’s important to remember your calling or remember at what point it was that you were becoming convicted of what was true. There are some things you just don’t forget; I don’t know how anyone could forget it. It’s etched into my mind so deeply. The first time I heard about the Sabbath just by hearing it, and I knew it was true. Heard about how God worked with the Israelites and how they migrated up through Europe and what God was doing in the end-time with Ephraim and Manasseh. I just knew it was true. No intellect. It’s not because I didn’t have any at all, but it didn’t take any. In other words, you couldn’t do it because of that because you can’t prove such a thing. God just has to give it to you, open your mind and you see it and you believe it. How awesome is that?

Then you make decisions. You hear about the Sabbath, you know it’s true, you see the picture: “I’m doing that.” That’s what faith is. God gave you the ability to believe it and now “I’m doing it.” Awesome!

So it didn’t profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. For we who have believed—God gives us that ability—do enter into rest. Awesome! If you have the ability to believe because God’s spirit is working with you, He opens up your mind to see, to understand, you enter into a rest. It’s a beginning of a rest. It’s the beginning process that works in your life.

…as He said: As I have sworn in My wrath, If they shall enter into My rest. So the story being told here, what God has said, “If they shall enter into My rest.” If. It’s what it’s about because it’s a choice. We have to make a choice. We have to make a choice if we’re going to continue in that rest, if we desire to continue being in that rest that God has offered to us. Because, you see, the fulfillment of that happens over a long period of time. We begin the process. Just like the receiving of God’s spirit. We don’t become spirit for a long time. Then one day if we’ve gone through the entire process of begettal, and that growth, like in an embryo, until finally it’s able to be born, changed from mortal to immortal, from physical to spirit… Incredible!

If they shall enter into My rest. The word “although” is not a good one. It’s “yet.” So it’s making a statement here, Yet the works were finished from the foundation of the world. Do you know what that means, what he’s saying here? He’s saying there’s a choice to be made here, yet it was all set from the foundation of the world. As soon as God had done it all He had the plan set out, and when He drew people, worked with people, all they had to do was make a choice yes or no, “If you will hear, if you will receive what I’ve given to you.” But the point being made here by what Paul is saying is that this was all established from the very beginning. In other words, the path is clear and once you have ability to walk down that path if you make the right choices it’ll end in one way, you’ll be a part of Elohim.

God began a process from the very beginning with mankind and the creation of everything He did and what He had laid out as far as His plan was concerned. Look at Abel, righteous Abel, killed by his brother, the first God worked with. Adam and Eve didn’t receive it. They didn’t choose it. Amazing! The first two people, they didn’t choose it. They had the ability at the beginning but they didn’t choose it. They chose something else. Cain, he never wanted it. We don’t know to what degree God offered it to him in the first place. But it was given to Abel and his mind was opened up to see God’s purpose and God’s plan to a certain limited degree, enough for God’s spirit to work in him to transform him that he’s going to be in the first resurrection.

We don’t understand all that, but it started from the very beginning, making it very clear here, God’s saying in essence to us, “Yet from the very beginning, from the foundation of the world it was all there.” If God calls, if you have that choice because you have the ability to believe, if, if you will choose, once that happens in your life, you’ve got it made. You really do. He provides everything that we need.

But we make sad choices. We make selfish choices that hurt us, that cut us off from the flow of God’s spirit, that cut us off from (if we understand it) the promises of God. And yet God’s provided us with the most important thing that we need in all that process – the ability to repent; the ability to repent through our Passover, to be forgiven and it’s all behind and we just keep going forward. So the ability to go forward is always there. It’s just that we have to have the ability to come to the point where we’re able or willing to acknowledge this and what it is and say, “No, I don’t want this and I want to fight against this,” because everything about “this” that’s in this carnal human body, fights against God. Everything!

Only that which is spiritual gives us the strength to see through, to work through that carnal nature. It’s at enmity with God. That’s what we’re told very clearly. The carnal human nature is an enemy to God. It doesn’t want God; it isn’t subject to the laws of God. So when God calls us, what an awesome thing that something begins to happen in the mind and we can begin to make some changes and we can fight against that and become stronger and stronger in spirit over time. That’s an incredible thing that God’s placed before us, and He placed it there from the foundations of the earth, from the very beginning.

That’s the point that Paul is making here. If they shall enter into My rest, yet the works were finished from the foundation of the world. So it’s just that it goes back to that “if”; if they’ll just choose. If they’ll just choose to make the right choices it’s all there.

Verse 4—For He spoke in a certain place of the seventh day in this wise (in this manner): And God did rest the seventh day from all His works. So He uses that to teach. Six days everything was made, created, refashioned, reformed, and of the life brought on then, created, made, put on this earth, and the seventh day God rested. Then He gave to mankind that which would help mankind to remember how it all came about; on the seventh day to remember God Almighty is our Creator, God Almighty is our sustainer, God Almighty gives everything in life, has provided everything that’s out there to us. Awesome! Everything! Yet He rested on that particular day then, on the seventh day, from all His works.

Even in this… Some of these are awkward translations because they didn’t have any idea. You translate out of a certain language, whether it be Greek or Aramaic or Hebrew or whatever, and so often those who translated, they had no idea about God’s plan and what God was doing. To understand some of these things, they didn’t grasp it, so some of these are very sloppy translations. Then we strive to grasp and understand and God’s spirit helps us to see what is being said on a spiritual plane.

So even in this, the word is “again.” Even in this again (not place). Even in this again, if you have that in your verses there, it’s just saying he’s going back to the same statement again. That’s what it’s saying here. So he talked about the seventh day, God did rest from His works on the seventh day, but he’s going back to this same thought; even in this again, If they shall enter into My rest. So it’s emphasized again and again and again, and God’s emphasizing it now again and again and again, “if they shall enter into My rest.” That doesn’t mean a onetime thing. That’s a continual process in our life, to stay in that rest, to be a part of that rest because we can take ourselves out and it’s not hard.

If they shall enter into My rest. Seeing, therefore, it remains that, and it’s not “some.” It’s a word that means “each person.” In other words there’s a responsibility here. When you’re called, each person or one, as the word means, “one” or “each person”… It remains, therefore, that each person, in essence is what it’s saying here. If. But every person is going to have to come to this in some point in their time. Whenever God draws them and calls them and offers to work with them, well, that’s their time. If… If they will choose to enter into His rest, if they’ll choose to embrace what He’s placed before them, if they’ll choose to humble themselves and acknowledge He is God.

He can tell us how to live our lives. People don’t like to be told how to live life. Well, if you want what God is offering, if you want the way of God, in a world filled with peace, in a time, through time where there is just peace – no fighting, no arguing, no jealousy, no envy… How much of that just screws up people’s lives, messes up marriages, messes up homes because of selfishness? So we always have this “piece of you know what” to fight against because that’s what we are, a pile of poop, in one respect. God just gave us a better shape and an ability to vocalize ourselves, but when it comes right down to it I look forward to getting rid of this because it fights against God! I don’t like that. I don’t like that! Because my nature fights against God and so does yours, and we don’t like God telling us what to do! That’s what human beings are.

No, I’ve gone way past that. I do love God telling us what we are. I’ve learned to love that mightily. I’ve learned to love to see that it’s a battle. I’ve learned to love to see that this is what it is and can call it a pile of you know what. Because it is! Actually, that’s probably degrading the pile because I have a mind and I fight against God. That doesn’t. It just sits there and rots and goes back to the earth. But I fight against God; my carnal nature does when I give into my selfishness. Then I have to go apologize for something or things or whatever and strive to make things right in life or go before God and repent. Because this is just constant. It’s a constant battle. You must stay on top of it. That’s what being on guard is about in many respects. Being watchful and on guard is recognizing how easy it is to fall, how easy it is to fall away, how easy it is to let down. It’s a battle. This wasn’t meant to be easy.

Someone made that comment recently here when they found out they weren’t going to the Feast of Tabernacles this year. “This is hard!” They didn’t realize it is this hard. Yes, it is. It is, especially when you’re giving in to self. It makes it a whole lot harder. You know, you make your battle worse the more you give into self. The more you learn to bring it into control, the more you learn to repent quickly, the more you learn to battle certain things and desire to make change the easier it gets. But it’s still not easy because you’re always fighting this. At least you better be. Sometimes we don’t bother fighting it all the time. We just get into a norm, living a daily routine Sabbath to Sabbath, day to day, hour to hour without God.

And see that each person, again here, verse 6. So if they will enter into My rest, is what He’s saying, each person has this choice when it comes to them. …and they to whom it was first preached did not enter in because of unbelief. That word there is “disobedience.” So they just disobeyed because they weren’t able to believe in the first place, and that is the context. So again here, the only thing they had before them was just disobedience.

If you’re not able to believe what God gives to you you’re just going to live that kind of life. You can’t help it; you’re a prisoner to it. People out here are enslaved to who they are, to what they are. They can’t help it. They get upset at you, they get mad at you, they do something bad to you, they say something bad to you, you’ve got to think about it a little bit or try to at some point, maybe afterwards, and get your mind right with God to be able to say like Christ did, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.”

You’ve got to understand they don’t know what they’re doing. There is no sense in getting into confrontation with someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing. There is no sense in that at all. But we do it because we’re still carnal.

So someone at work or something, someone says something to us and if we’re not careful we’re in this battle, this confrontation, whatever it might be. We have a choice. They don’t. They don’t have a choice because they’re enslaved to who they are. So how blessed are you that you can see something different? Is it easy? No, you’ve got to fight against it and you’ve got to work to make it right. Sometimes, especially if you’ve done wrong to someone to make it right with them. If you’ve said something you shouldn’t have said or you respond in a wrong manner you need to be able to go back to them on the job or whatever it might be in the world, okay, let alone within the Church.

Yet sometimes we have situations happen when I’ve had to address that. It was a couple Feasts ago I had to address some of that while I was still over here; some getting into arguments, some getting mad at each other. Couldn’t resolve their differences, couldn’t resolve their problems. This isn’t a onetime thing; this happens a lot where people have confrontation. Now, thankfully it’s not happening as much now as it has been in times past. There are just some things that should never happen in God’s Church. If people can’t get along together, if people have jealousies or envy toward each other, if they have friction toward each other and won’t forgive and can’t talk to them, can’t be around them, you know, something is really, seriously wrong with that picture, isn’t it? I hope we can see that.

So if anyone has any bad feelings, wrong feelings towards anyone in God’s Church you’ve got a problem. They may not. I’ve seen that, where others don’t have the problem but you do in your thinking toward them. Amazing! It just blows the mind. But we have to understand how strong our carnal nature is. That’s why I hit drama so hard. I have no patience for drama anymore. I really don’t. I don’t have any problems saying it. Because of where we are in time we don’t have time for this stupidity, of people having clashes with each other or sinning out here, blatantly so, against God.

In the past, we would maybe give more time for certain situations and for people to work through certain situations, and to throw out some guidance and direction here and there. Today, it’s either you walk in this way of life or you make a choice. Because this is the time. See, time has come to us where we don’t have the luxury of time in front of us anymore.

That’s why I keep going back to those two elders when PKG was getting started. Well, before God started. It wasn’t started yet. We were just at the beginning of part of the Apostasy and I brought them in and talked to them and told them, “You’ve got to make a choice.” They just thought I was mean to them because I tell them, “This is the time and you don’t have the luxury of waiting any longer. I expect this of you and the other guy,” I didn’t say, “the man of sin, the son of perdition,” I called him by his name, and said, “he’s going to expect something different from you. So you’ve got to do one or the other. So which is it going to be? There is no middle road here, so where is your heart, where is your mind in obeying God and the things that were given to us that came through Mr. Armstrong to His Church, to God’s Church? Or is it going to be something different that this man out there is saying? Which is it? Because there is nothing else.” And I’m a bad guy; I’m a mean guy for saying that to them.

Well, some may feel I’m a little mean today, I don’t know, when I say there is no more time for drama, drama, drama, drama and that I’m not going to put up with drama. It just shouldn’t exist in God’s Church today because we need to be fighting more than ever before in our lives for our life. We have a short time, whatever that time is. It’s short. No matter what it is it’s short, okay, and God’s giving us the opportunity to hear what He wants for us. He’s always ready to forgive. He wants us to succeed. He called us to succeed. From the beginning, from the foundation of the earth, in that respect, or the foundation that He established in that six days of creation then rested on the seventh day it’s been established. The way has been given to man, if you will, when they’re called, an opportunity through God’s purpose and time and whenever He chooses, to become a part of Elohim or to begin the process, and we’ve been given that now and now we come to a certain point in time and we need to be in a certain place, we need to be of a certain mindset. So God’s always willing to forgive.

I’ve been so thankful to see some repent so quickly, so deeply, make such a change in their life of recent time here, some repentance that I haven’t seen that depth of repentance in the sense of cutting to the core of self, and knowing that this is so heartfelt and that they desire this way of life so deeply, so much, and to make a growth because of that that can take ten, twenty, thirty, forty years sometimes to get to that point of a conviction. Awesome! I rejoice in the repenting. I know God and His Son, Joshua the Christ, so rejoice when they see that kind of response in a person to them. And it excites me. I can’t tell you how great that is. Awesome! Beautiful! But we’ve got to be willing to do it.

We’ve been given so much. We really have. It’s so incredible. The ability to repent.

I think of some who have been given certain direction and been told the truth about certain things they have done and they don’t like it. They don’t like it. They resist it. They fight against it. They get in a bad attitude. I see it. I know what it is. I hope they can change that because it’s not toward me, it’s toward God. It’s toward His way of life. If anybody can do that to someone that God’s placed before them I don’t want to be in those shoes. So sometimes we can get into attitudes and thinking and thinking something is unjust, it’s not fair. It’s always based on righteous judgment and what comes from God.

You know, a person doesn’t tithe like they should, it’s pretty clear cut. It’s pretty clear cut. Don’t save second tithe like you should or you use it for something else like you shouldn’t? There’s a certain way we use it, and if people misuse it there is a judgment there. Sometimes people don’t like that and they can get upset at me or others. It’s not my problem. It’s your problem. I just hope you can come to repent of that because this is what we’re talking about today. You on’t have much time to repent either. This message is right now, this Feast of Tabernacles. This is it. This is what we’re being told.

Verse 7—again He limits, set aside, predetermined is what the word means, to set aside, to predetermine a certain day, saying in David, Today, after so long a time, as it is said: Today, if you will hear His voice… What an awesome message! You know, that’s been the message God has given through time, “If you’ll listen…” And I marvel that it’s the primary message, really, in this last book, if people will just listen to God.

So we’ve gone full circle through time right back to the trunk of the tree in this area. It’s God! It’s God that’s stepping into the affairs of this world and if people would just listen! Sadly, so many just will not.

Today if you will hear His voice do not harden your hearts. How does one harden their heart? Well, kind of like what I just mentioned, justifying themselves, continuing in sin. If a person continues in sin and doesn’t repent of it your heart just becomes hardened and it becomes harder to repent, it becomes more difficult to see self because that’s a spiritual matter, and if God’s spirit begins to be quenched, cut off, then we make it impossible.

That’s why I’ve made comment that there are some, I don’t know how many but I know there are some, who have been cut off from God’s spirit and don’t even know it because they can’t see it right now. They’re going through a routine that they have lived for whatever period of time now that they’ve been around God’s Church. You can go through a physical routine and not receive anything spiritually.

Today if you will hear His voice do not harden your hearts. For if Joshua had given them rest, speaking of those Israelites going into the promised land because that isn’t what it was about. It was about a spiritual Israel and about a different promised land and about a rest. For if Joshua had given them rest then they would not have afterwards have spoken of another day.

There remains, therefore, a rest… So in other words, it wasn’t about a physical carnal nation, it’s about a spiritual one. There remains, therefore, a rest; “a Sabbatismos” is the word here. It’s the word for the Sabbath, literally meaning, in essence, a Sabbath rest, a Sabbatismos, a keeping of the Sabbath.

Now, sometimes this has been used as a proof, I guess, some have felt that, well, this just shows you you have to keep the Sabbath. Well, that’s not fully what it’s all about. It’s more than that. Yes, to live this you have to keep the Sabbath, you have to keep the holy days, you have to keep the annual Sabbaths. To enter into that rest, yes, we’re going to live the way of life that God gave to us, which includes, obviously, the Sabbath, and it is the seventh day. So everything here is wrapped around that focus of what it pictures, of what it helps us to come to see and understand on a spiritual plane.

There remains, therefore, a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered into His rest, into God’s rest. Anyone who enters into that, he is also ceased from his own works, I love this expression through here, as God did from His. So what is it saying? It’s saying here that there came a time when God ceased work, on the seventh day of the creation week, what we call the creation week. He rested from all His work and He established something for us to live by, to keep a particular day, the seventh day, always to look back to God, that God did all that. Sabbath by Sabbath that should be one of the things we come to think about.

Almighty God who has given us everything we have, the site we have out here—although it’s a little cooler than what I’d like. Hopefully that will change before the Feast arrives or after, before it’s over, but anyway, that’s life—but beautiful. It’s what we make of it because of how we see everything that’s out here that God has given us to work with, to have. How much do we appreciate it and think about God then and thank God then?

For he who has entered into His rest he has also ceased from his works as God did from His. The point being made here is that when we enter into that rest, which includes the keeping of the weekly Sabbath, which includes every truth that God gives to us and we have the ability to believe those things, then we cease from doing our way, we cease from doing things our way and we want a different way. We’re ceasing from doing our works, our own selfish works is the better way of saying it. That’s what its intent is here. That we give up or we quit our own selfish works. Now that’s a day by day, hour by hour sometimes battle to fight against this, to fight against selfishness. That’s what this is all about. We have to cease from our own works, from doing things our own way, from, “Well, this is the way I see it.” Or “I think they did this, or they did that, and they shouldn’t have done that and they shouldn’t have…” whatever it is that people get upset about sometimes in judging others and that leads to conflict.

Let us, therefore, labor, means to work, to enter into that rest. And it’s work! You know it’s work. How do I say this? It’s work not to work, not to do selfish work. Okay? That’s what we’re being told here, in essence. So that’s what it says here, that we have ceased from our works. So it means we have to quit a certain kind of work, selfish works, our own selfish way, and it’s making the statement here, basically, that it takes work to do that. You have to labor to enter into that rest, to have peace, God’s peace. You know, peace is the opposite of drama. It’s the opposite of drama. To have peace where everyone gets along or individuals or two individuals get along and treat each other respectfully, rightly, properly, care for each other and show care to one another, that takes work. Because selfishness, it just wants its own way all the time, whatever that is, whatever it is, whatever that means for each of us.

So you have to fight against that and it takes work to repent because you have to think about what you’ve done and you have to think about what it takes to fight against that kind of mind then and that kind of selfishness and you realize, man, this way is not easy. Fighting against this is not easy. You all have work on your hands. We all have a lot of work on our hands.

Let us, therefore, labor (work) to enter into that rest, and that leads to then the rest that God wants us to have, which is in His family. We’ll not have fully entered into that rest or be fully engaged in that rest until we’re in Elohim. Then it’ll be there. But just like the process of being begotten of God’s spirit, the process of begettal, and the process of growth in the womb, there is a process there that has to reflect choices that have to be made in that length of time. If we will make certain choices then we can fully enter into it, into that rest that God set before us.

Let us, therefore, labor to enter into that rest lest anyone fall after the same example of disobedience. So today we’re addressing some of this, talking about some of this. The reality is since last year we’ve had far too many people enter into what it’s talking about here. They’ve entered into disobedience. When we come to the point where we have to be suspended or disfellowshipped from God’s Church we’re definitely deeply involved in disobedience. The admonition today is that each one of us search out our hearts, our lives, our minds, ask God to reveal to us the things that we may be deceiving ourselves in, where we may be disobedient to Him, and ask for help to change that. God wants to help us. He wants us to see ourselves more clearly. He wants to give us that kind of help. It’s absolute. He will give it if we’ll do our part, if we’ll enter into that rest. See, it’s a choice.

Verse 12—For the word of God is living and powerful. There is something unique, beautiful about God’s word. When it describes it this way it’s living. You know, for us it’s living. There is power, there’s life there. As it says here it is powerful, but it just comes alive when you read it. We hear certain things and we go through it and we can see it and it just comes alive.

When I go through sermons and read scriptures like this, to me, there’s something unique there about how it comes alive in our minds and what we can see. God gives us more of His spirit then at this time to be able to see, to be inspired. That’s what gives the inspiration. That’s what gives the courage, the desire to respond and to be moved by what God says to us, though sometimes it’s in a form of correction. That’s inspiring! Because if we don’t address it, if we don’t address the thing that God wants us to look at, to address, then we’ll follow that same example of disobedience, as it said up above there. But if we respond like God wants us to, wow, doors open up for us, life becomes richer.

For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing, or division, it says here, or dividing of soul, in other words, one’s physical existence of life. It’s just talking about life. In other words, it just cuts deep. …and spirit, because it gets to the mind. It gives us the ability to dig deep inside here and to grasp things that others can’t see in the world at all. But God gives us the ability to grow on a spirit plane and to cut through to the answer, to what’s right, to what is just.

He gives us that ability and that power through prayer, through whatever it is we’re doing, that we desire to draw closer to him, through applying then things that He tells us to live right by and we go and strive to do it physically, it might be something of apology to someone or something. There are things you have to do. It’s just like repentance sometimes and talking about some of these things.

Thinking about part of this, because I want to go back a little bit and mention something I passed up here in thinking, when talking about tithing and the like and you know, we have the ability to repent of those things and to make them right, and to get back on to a right track and God will help us. But it doesn’t mean we don’t pay a penalty. Sometimes people don’t grasp and understand that when we do certain things in life we pay a penalty. Just because we repent and God forgives us, please understand—because I’ve had to make comment about this a lot here recently to different ones, in essence, in different ways—please understand that if you repent and are forgiven of God there may be certain things that you’re still going to have to pay for through this. It may be time. It may be time out of God’s Church. It may be certain things that take place, whatever that might be.

But if you’ve repented of them God forgives you right then and there. But to drive it home so that we can learn in His mercy and His kindness and His grace that He gives to us, if He allows any of us to only be suspended and not be disfellowshipped, I’ll tell you what, that’s a blessing. Because to come back from a disfellowshipment is very hard. That means totally cut off. Suspension is for a certain amount of time so that we can hopefully and prayerfully be moved and motivated and shaken to make change and to realize how serious this is and if we do that God helps us all along the way. It’s beautiful when it happens, when people respond to that.

But how about different ones out here? There are certain things that happen in your life, that may take place in your life, and sometimes because of disobedience we’re suffering because of it. The Church may not know about it yet; God may not have brought it to the forefront, in the sense of the ministry, and that fits into a lot of people’s position right now. That’s why we all need to examine ourselves. We all need to take what’s being said seriously because we all have things in our life as human beings that we battle against. When an individual doesn’t battle like they should and gives in to certain things, you may feel like that you’ve gotten by with it. Nobody gets by with anything before God.

God sees and knows everything that’s in the mind. I don’t know why we can’t get that sometimes. God knows and sees everything we do. He knows everything that’s in this mind. He knows your thinking and He lets you have total freedom in it. Awesome! So nothing is hidden from God. Whether He brings it to the surface at a particular moment or not, that’s immaterial.

So the message, part of the message is today, please understand, if you continue in some of those things that you’re doing you know that are wrong, that you’re not doing right, because I know that we have situations where people are doing things that are wrong—it’s just the way it is—the numbers of people and so forth, the battles in this world, the way things have happened through time, and because of God’s spirit, there are things that need to be repented of in people’s lives. God may not bring it to the ministry, but He will address it in your life and you don’t want that. It’s a far better thing if it is able to be brought up and can come through the ministry and you be able to address it head on. Because if a person continues in sin thinking that they’re doing certain things in secret and others don’t know it, God knows it and He may allow you to continue doing that and you become fully cut off to where He won’t deal with you in any fashion or wise except to let you fall by your own foolishness.

There are some other scriptures we’re going to that really point some of that out very beautifully and powerfully so.

So the point is here is it’s a beautiful thing to repent. It’s an ugly thing to hide, to hide certain things from God. Some of you are hiding things from God. It needs to be repented of now, during the Feast, throughout the Feast to where you cry out to God as you’ve never cried out, if you believe anything at all that’s being said, and to cry out to God for deliverance, for ability to repent and change and to seek to fight against whatever it is your secret little battles are.

For the word of God is, again here, verse 12, is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even the dividing asunder of life, and it just cuts right through, and the joints and the marrow, and is a discerner, in other words, able to judge the thoughts and the intents of the heart. It’s powerful! God can reveal to us what we don’t know. He can reveal to us the intent of our heart, our motivation, for why we do certain things because therein is the primary crux of getting to that in order to make change. We’ve got to understand why we’re doing the things we do or why we’re motivated to it so that we can battle it. Just battling something on the surface, a physical thing, isn’t enough. It’s to understand the mind and why it thinks in the way that it does, and asking for God’s help to deal with that thinking.

Neither is there anything in creation that is not manifest in His sight. I said it already. …but all things are naked; in other words, they’re not covered, they are clearly seen, and open to the eyes of Him (Almighty God) with whom we have to do. Nobody ever hides anything from God. It’s as stupid as when Adam and Eve were walking in the thickness of the trees and thinking that they were hiding from God. Duh! But they couldn’t see that; they didn’t understand that. They couldn’t grasp that God knew where they were. He knew what they were thinking, but they didn’t understand those things at that time obviously. In God’s Church we can understand those things. God knows what is going on in the mind. Most assuredly then we should grasp He sees and knows all of our actions in life.

So it goes on, beautiful what it has to say. Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed into the heavens, Joshua the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. This is about our calling, what God has called us to, what we are living. So God says hold fast to that with all of your being. I’m, candidly, a little sick that some are letting it go; they’re not holding on. I hate it that I can be standing up here giving this and some will hear it and nothing is going to change. You think, what a horrible thing! But it’s a choice; if…if…if…if…if.

Verse 15—For we do not have a High Priest who cannot be touched with a feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tested like as we are, yet without sin. He lived a physical life. He fought it, thank God, without sin, you know, that we have a Passover and a High Priest. His great desire, far more than we can ever begin to comprehend, is that we will just kneel down and ask for forgiveness of whatever sin we have. He died so that you could have that. He died so that you could have that! He wants that much to give it to each one of us, the ability to repent and be forgiven. That’s hard for us to grasp and comprehend, that kind of love, that kind of desire that is still there. That’s what we’re being told.

Let us, therefore, come boldly, you know, great confidence and boldness before God, unto the throne of grace; it’s a throne of grace meaning that God desires to give us favor. He desires to give us help. He desires that we be in His family. …that we may obtain mercy, because God wants to give mercy. It’s just up to us to receive it. It’s just up to us to go before Him and ask for it. And when do we ask for it? When we need it, when we need mercy, because we see our carnality, we see our selfish nature and we want help to be something different. We want help to change and to stand firm and to stand tall for God’s way of life regardless of what anyone else thinks – an employer, others around you, a mate, a child, a parent, whoever, it doesn’t matter, but that we stand firm. Not obnoxiously so, but we just stand firm in doing what is right before God because it’s right.

Let us, therefore, come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace (favor, help, intervention, forgiveness) to help in time of need.

So again, we are at a doorway of time from one great era of time and ready to pass into another. It’s amazing to think where we are, to understand who we are, that we exist after the Apostasy because God had a plan and a purpose of having only a remnant of those who would be left of the Church at the end of an age, so that no one would be able to say because of their size or whatever it might be, “We did this.” “Look at how great we have become and what we’re doing,” because that’s what happened. That’s what happened.

So we are so small. That’s why I like the scripture that talks about “not despising,” in essence, “the day of small things,” things that God will do because God is great, because God’s going to make it clear He did it.

So, incredible to understand the time that’s before us, 1,100 years of God’s government, of one Church. That just boggles the mind. One Church, one government on this earth to rule mankind in righteousness and peace, in truth and in power. Not in absolute confusion, chaos, and ugliness that we see in the world around us today especially in government. God’s making that one really clear to the world. “You can’t govern yourselves. Look around. Don’t you get the picture yet? You can’t rule yourselves! You fight. You bicker. You stab in the back. You hate. You loathe. I can’t say lie enough. You lie. You lie. You lie. You twist. You distort. From top to bottom it’s sick out there!” God’s manifesting that to the world in a very powerful way. “You can’t govern yourselves!”

Even though we see all this how many of us are really in this until the end? We should be no matter when we were called, no matter when we began the process of our life, but the history of God’s Church has been many have been called but few have come through this, brethren. Few have continued to make the right choices, crying out to God, wanting God. Few.

Let’s go on to something else. I think of Mr. Armstrong even at the Feast of Tabernacles talking about from time to time, maybe often. I don’t remember exactly, it’s been so long ago. But there is a short verse in the book of Proverbs he would go to quite often, even in his writing and so forth, obviously, but it carries a lot in what it has to say about God’s people. He spoke of, Mr. Armstrong would, the importance of God’s people being able to see and want what God had placed before them. That’s a lot of what this sermon is about today, that we’ve got to want it with all of our being. We’ve got to be able to see it, too, and want it.

Here is that Proverb, 29:18. It goes like this: Where there is no vision, the people perish;

but he who keeps the law is happy. Now, a lot is said there. Truly is a lot said there.

Do you have the vision that God has offered and provided to His Church? Again, that’s what this sermon is all about. Do we see? Do we grasp what we’ve been given? I think of all the extra truths since Philadelphia that God has added to the Church simply because of where we are in time. Not because of who we are but because of His purpose and why He’s doing it this way, to prepare a people and to have things prepared and ready for the coming of His Son, and that things will just continue on, in that respect, as far as the truth that’s there in a very powerful way to this world.

Do you see what is before us and do you want it with all of your being? Only you can answer that, and you need to be truthful in that with all of your being. Right now it’s nearly in our grasp and we have choices to make across the board in God’s Church. But some have let go and others are in the process of letting go. Right now that just blows my mind. Because I’m telling you it could be a quarter, could be a third, could be half of God’s people that are sitting in Sabbath services at this Feast of Tabernacles that are in jeopardy. Okay? I don’t say that lightly. So we need to take things to heart, truly, because we have choices to make.

Where there is no vision the people perish. Some translate this as “are made naked” because of what it means. See? But this also means more in Hebrew. It can be used indeed “to make one’s self naked.” You think about that which is spiritual. With no vision you do something to yourself that isn’t good. But it carries with it here the meaning of “undoing, letting go, to let loose, or even to neglect.” That’s how it’s translated in different places. That’s what that word means in Hebrew even more so. It doesn’t mean just to perish, but it is more about the reason why, what leads up to perishing, in one respect. This is kind of the finality here in how it’s stated.

“Where there is no vision the people, they let go.” They let loose. They neglect, neglect the things they should be doing. That’s what it’s about. Where there is no vision you can’t help it. If we don’t have the vision that we should have spiritually on a spiritual plane people begin to let up, they begin to let go. I see that happening out here spiritually. It’s not for me to go around and tell individuals, “Hey, do you grasp what you’re doing right now? Do you grasp what’s taking place in your life right now?” That’s not my job. My job is up here in preaching what’s being preached. It’s up to us whether we hear, whether we want to hear, how much we want to hear, how much we cry out to God to help us to hear.

So what is it that without vision one can let loose, let go, neglect? Well, that’s basically answered in the last of the verse, in one respect, “That he (they) who keep the law are happy (are blessed).” We’re not living like we should be. That’s the problem. That’s why we don’t see and have a grasp of things the way we need to as God’s people. It’s a spiritual thing to see, to have that kind of vision of what God’s doing, of where we are now, of what’s taking place, of what’s happening in our life and being able to see ourselves realistically.

So again here, I think about the word “law” and how it also means “direction or instruction.” Any instruction, any direction that comes from God is about law. God’s saying, “This is the way it is.” This is what we need to see. This is what we need to address. It’s about how one is to live.

So the question here: Is anyone being sloppy, negligent in how they follow or choose to believe the instruction, the guidance, and the direction God is giving us now and that He has given to us in the past? Is anyone letting their vision become more dim and letting that vision begin to lose its drawing power? Because there’s a power there that God draws us to Him and if we begin to neglect through whatever it might be in our lives that is spiritually unhealthy and spiritually wrong for us we’ll begin losing that ability to be drawn toward God.

You know what happens? A person falls asleep spiritually. Eventually a person just falls asleep spiritually and there is a great lesson that we all should grasp from what happened to the scattered Church. No one can wake themselves up. If a person goes that far that they have fallen asleep spiritually only God by His choice and His time can wake them up. That’s why some of us are here, because God blessed us to be part of a remnant because it was part of a plan. That’s the only reason we’re here, because He woke us up. He woke me up. He woke different ones up to help us to see, to have that vision to see what had happened to us and why, that it was all of our fault, that we had let down. We were all to blame. Every last one of us became lukewarm, lethargic in spirit, and God spewed us all out of His mouth.

It’s kind of an amazing thing how some things, including time, can try us. Laura has mentioned to me many times over the past year how that it seems there are quite a few in God’s Church who are having a kind of repetition, a déjà vue effect take place in their life of what they were experiencing prior to 2012. It’s like Groundhog Day, a kind of spiritual Groundhog Day.

I hope people know what I’m talking about when I’m talking about a Groundhog Day. It’s this movie that was out there and this guy just kept repeating the same thing day after day. He’d go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning when the alarm went off and he had to live the same day again because he wasn’t doing things right. He had to get his act together. So it was déjà vue, Groundhog Day.

I’ll tell you what, it’s really kind of amazing because when she first brought that up and we started talking about some of those things, thinking about some of that and different situations in people’s lives, and it’s like God has brought certain things back up in people’s lives to address. Either they address it this time successfully… Because they didn’t before. They didn’t before and yet they were allowed to continue on. It’s like now is an opportunity, now is the time to get it right, just like Groundhog Day.

I’m talking in large part, too, not about just people who were called in the few years before that, as we had so many more added to the Body, I’m talking about people who have been around for a long time, okay?

So no one has it made in that respect. No one knows, as a whole, that they’re a part of a sealing, let alone that they’re going to be able to live on into the Millennium. But everyone has been called to one of the two, okay? That is what God has called you to. The vast majority to live on into the Millennial period. But there are going to be some other things said about a sealing during this Feast and the reality is is that some are going through that process of judgment being made upon them, a déjà vue; what are you going to do this time?

Because if you don’t do it right, now, you don’t belong there and someone else will be given that opportunity. Someone else will be given that opportunity because 144,000 will be completed. So it’s good to take note and not think that we kind of maybe feel like we have it made.

I’ve got the time. I want to continue on here. Proverbs 1. I want to show you how this word is used in some other places, this word about “perish,” about letting go and letting down and neglecting because it’s about what we do on a spiritual plane too often in our lives. But it’s said well in some other places here and gets right to the point. God doesn’t mince words. He gets right to the point sometimes, and this is one area where He does it right there, and this particular word here about letting down, about letting up, about neglecting things that we shouldn’t neglect, about letting something go of this magnitude that God offers.

Proverbs 1:22. This is really what we’ve been going through, and this one about vision here and what we’re talking about is very much about this time we’re living in right now. It’s always applied to God’s people, but I’ll tell you, because of the time constraints of time itself, because of the return of Joshua the Christ, right now this applies more fully than ever before, of what’s currently taking place and how people are being judged in a kind of final judgment and even cleansing within the temple. We’re down to the wire.

Proverbs 1:22—You simple ones, how long will you love being simple minded? Showing little judgment. Now, when we start to let go, when we start letting down, that applies. Why? Why are we like that as human beings that we can do something like that, neglect so great a salvation that God has offered us? How can we do that? If we really grasp what’s being offered to us how could we let it slip through our fingers? How could we let it go so easily? Because many have; the vast majority who have ever been called have done that. Are we different than they are? No, we’re not.

And the scorners to dismiss (make light of). Sometimes we don’t take things as seriously as we need to and realize this is serious stuff. How long will they take pleasure in their scorning? And fools, from a word (I like this), from a word that means “to be stupid.” Sometimes we’re just stupid.

Not to pay first tithe is stupid. Not to pay all of second tithe, or save up all of second tithe is just stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. How could anyone do this? How could we do that? Or use it for something else in our life because, “Well, I need ‘this,’ I need ‘that,’ and there is nothing else I can do and it’s there! So I’ll just borrow it.” To do that on your own is presumptuous, it’s against God’s law, it’s against God’s way of life, and it’s just stupid. It’s not worth it.

But sometimes we weigh things and think we do it because “it’s worth it,” because of how we think. We judge that something is worth it and we don’t know what we’ve done. To cut one’s self off from God, to cut one’s self off from God’s spirit is stupid. I mean, it’s not really very bright. But we do that as human beings if we’re not careful because of sin, because we want something else, because we want something else or someone else.

It’s amazing to me how often sex, the human mind and how people will stray off course because of sex, sex, sex, the opposite sex – sometimes now a days the same sex – or whatever it might be and get on the Internet or get on the cell phone, which is on the Internet, and do things you should not be doing. I know there are people in God’s Church doing that right now! I know there are far too many people in God’s Church doing that right now! And it must stop in your life if you want God to continue working with you.

Human nature, the human mind is drawn to that more than any other thing. Do you get it? Do you get it, men? Do you get it, women? – that that is the strongest pull of human beings and God made it so, so that you can learn from that, so you can grasp something from that? Nothing done in secret.

God calls it what it is. Stupid. Stupid. Just really, really stupid. I don’t apologize for it. If you do those things you’re just being stupid. I mean, you’re really being plumb dumb.

It goes on to say, Turn at My reproof… Turn away! Return! Turn away from what you’re doing and turn to God. This word “reproof”—“Turn at My disapproval, My rejection,” because you’ll be rejected if you don’t turn because it’s a matter of law. It’s a matter of a way of life. You can’t be given something that is against God, against the mind of God, against the law of God. But He gives us opportunity to repent so that we can be in unity and oneness with Him, to be at one with Him if we’ll just do it – to fight the battle. You’ve got to be willing to fight the battle. That doesn’t mean you’re going to do it perfectly, but you’ve got to be willing to fight the battle and to stay at it.

He says, So if you turn at My reproof and I will pour out My spirit upon you. That means to repent. God says, “I’ll pour out…” So that’s what we have to do. Repent means to change! I love that in the New Testament. The word that is translated as “repent” means “to think differently.” To be converted means changing. But basically that’s what we have to do. In order to change, self has to change. We have to start thinking differently toward whatever it is we’re doing wrong. There’ll be times when you just have to ask God, “Help me to loathe and hate what I love that works against You.” Because everything we do that is against God we love it or we wouldn’t do it. We want it. I want it. See? There is selfish nature. Selfishness is going to win out. Selfishness is going to go ahead and do it.

It says, and I will pour out My spirit unto you and I will make known My words unto you. Now, that’s beautiful if we understand it. So if we’ll turn to God, we hear something and we cry out to God, “Father, help me to be at one with You. And where I am fighting against You or I’m ignoring You or I’m neglecting You or I’m letting certain things go in my life, help me to see those more clearly and help me to repent of them. Help me to repent and change. Please pour out Your spirit upon me so that I can see, so that I can have the vision I need to have, and make Your words known to me.” That means to see it, to be so much a part of your mind; not your mind but God’s mind.

Verse 24—Because I have called to you and you refused; “refused what I’ve told you.” So that’s just a cycle of human life, and sadly a cycle within God’s Church within the last 2,000 years as a whole. The vast majority, the many, right here. Because I have called out to you and you refused, I have stretched out My hand and there was no attention given to it. Here comes that word, You have set at naught; let go. You just let it go. You’re just giving it up. You have set at naught, neglected all of My counsel and would none of My reproof. Because we didn’t think it applied to us or “it doesn’t apply to me. I can see how it applies to someone else. They need that help.”

“…and would not receive My correction,” is what it’s saying here. You have “set at naught.” So, again, awesome here some of these words when we look at them more deeply and realize what God is telling us and what His desire is for us.

Verse 26—Notice what God says if we choose to continue in a wrong way. I think of some whom we’ve worked with and gave more time to in times past, with knowing that first tithe is not first tithe, knowing that second tithe is not what it should be, and given time and talked to and yet go right back to doing the same thing year after year. Talk about patience and mercy that God has given to some people? Well, that’s all come down to the wire. No more. Because we’re there, the time is there in front of us.

He says, I will also laugh at your calamity, your distress. Think, why/how would God say something like that? Well, if someone wants something so badly the only way they’re going to learn is by some suffering in it. And how long is it going to be? Well, maybe a few months, maybe a few years, maybe several years, but in the scheme of things of age-lasting life it’s nothing. If we can see like God sees it gives us a different perspective of life. So allowing someone to suffer and to go through certain things is not a bad thing if it can bring them to repentance. I hope we understand that.

I also will laugh at your calamity, your distress; I will mock when your fear comes. “Now you want help? Now you want Me? Now you want to turn to Me? After all the times I pleaded with you and cried out to you? And now because you’re there, and now you want some help? Why didn’t you listen before? I can’t. It’s not right. It isn’t good for you. You know why? Because you wouldn’t change if I just gave it to you. You know, sometimes the answer has to be no, not now. You need more time and we just don’t have enough time.”

And I will mock when your fear comes. When your fear comes as desolation and your destruction comes as a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. You know, sometimes people just are insistent on doing their own thing and they’re given guidance and direction, they hear things in sermons, they’re given personal guidance and direction and counsel and then they go out and do the opposite or they interpret it their own way because of what they want to do. And sometimes, I’ll be candid with you, sometimes they get themselves in such a pickle and its like, “Well, I told you. What did you expect?” There is almost a bit of laughter in that sometimes. “You get the point now?”

It’s not because of disliking. It’s not a matter of looking down upon. It’s not a matter of wanting evil to be on someone. But it’s a matter of realizing “Look what you’ve done to yourself now.” It’s like telling a little child certain things: “Don’t do ‘that.’” “Don’t do ‘that.’” You know, “This is what’s going to happen if you do,” and then they do it and it’s like, “I told you. Now you’re hurting aren’t you? You banged your head against something” or “You did something else that you shouldn’t have done.” That doesn’t end with children. It goes on up to teenage years and you go out and do things you shouldn’t be doing and… anyway… you get hurt. It’s like, “I told you!”

Well, same thing with God and things He tells us that are far more important in life. “I told you.”

I’ll tell you one that kills me sometimes – is when because of failure to tithe or failure to be faithful in tithing…Doesn’t mean we don’t all go through various difficult times financially in life, because we do. But some go through it because they’ve put themselves there because they were disobedient and they brought curses upon themselves, and not understanding why they can’t find a certain job or whatever, or things aren’t working out for them and you know, we know that if we obey God God works with us and helps us through things and gives us answers to things. But sometimes the one that kills me the most is when individuals haven’t done what they’re supposed to be doing and they suffer for it. It’s like, “Told you.” I’m amazed, too, how often God just has mercy on people in those situations and lets them go off and do their own thing – “Cut off, but go off and do your own thing.”

Then an anguish will come upon you. Verse 28—Then shall they call upon Me. There are people listening today that are going to come to a certain point where they really call upon God then because of what they’re suffering in a very magnified way in life. …but I will not answer. God’s giving us the time now in a time of peace, in a time of abundance of truth, to grow, to change. No one before us has ever had what you have. No one. Mr. Armstrong didn’t have what you have.

God has given us so much more today because of where we are in time. People who’ve gone before, that’s the way it’s been for 6,000 years, God just progressively revealed more and more. But no one has ever received more than you have. What have you received? It’s incredible! If we let it go, we neglect it, we let it slip through our fingers, we have no one to blame but ourselves. And if we don’t hear the cry to repentance and change and getting our lives in order right now this is it.

Then shall they call upon Me but I will not answer. They shall seek Me early, but they shall not find Me, because they hated knowledge… That’s what it’s like toward God. God pours out knowledge, ability to learn, ability to see things, the ability to believe things that others before have not even been given the ability to see because God hadn’t revealed them yet. And if we don’t treasure that? I mean, if we don’t treasure that with all of our being? I marvel at what God has given to us, truly. If we treat that lightly what should we receive, justly so, before God?

…because they hated knowledge. That’s what it says to God and because that’s the reality of it. …and did not choose the fear of the Eternal. They would not receive My counsel; they despised all My correction. I know that as a minister in a way that I can’t even verbalize. Over 35 whatever it is years now of people that have been given knowledge, ability to see what they could do to change what they needed to change – wouldn’t do it. Hated the knowledge, didn’t want to receive it, and sometimes became angry at the knowledge. That’s another story.

Verse 31. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way… That’s what God lets us do. If it’s our way God will let us eat the fruit of it, which isn’t going to be good. …because they are fulfilled, in other words, satisfied by their own counsel. If we want our way, we judge something differently, it’s okay to do something different than God says, it’s okay to use our first tithe for something else, it’s okay not to give holy day offerings, it’s okay…whatever it is.

For the turning away… Because those are the things that test us. Those are the things that try us. That’s why we have them, because they try what’s inside of us, how we really think. It reveals much. For the turning away, the turning back, the faithlessness, as it means. Some translate this word even as “apostasy.” For the turning away of the simple shall slay them. It ends in their own destruction. If we’re going to be stupid about something, if we’re going to be foolish about something and stay in it and not repent then this is what happens. We have only ourselves to blame for the result. …and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.

But whoever pays heed to Me shall dwell safely, if we’ll just listen, if we just hear what God gives to us and respond to it the way God wants us to, and shall be at peace from fear of evil. That should mean more now than ever before.

I’ll read this. This is the last. Hebrews 2:1. Especially right now, this is for this time. Verse 1—Therefore, we should give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, unless at any time we should let them slip, slip away, drift away, as it means, drift by. For if the word spoken… And if we just hear sermons and we don’t think about them, meditate upon them, pray about them – because God gives them to us to focus upon, and we need to digest those things. We really do. So we need to think about it. It’s not just coming here and sitting and hearing something and going off and waiting for the next Sabbath. That’s fruitless.

For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect, a word that reflects being careless, so great salvation. Do we really grasp what God’s given us, brethren? I don’t enjoy giving a sermon like this. I don’t enjoy this at all. But I do when we respond, when people respond and make the changes in their life, of those who need to make those changes, and others to continue on with the pattern that they have wisely chosen to live by, continue in it.

…if we neglect so great a salvation, which at first began to be spoken by the Lord, in other words, Joshua the Christ, as he’s talking about here, to them, the apostles and so forth, and was confirmed unto us by those who heard.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1