The World Stage is Set

Ronald Weinland

October 6, 2018

This year’s Feast brochure, as with last year’s, has the title of this last sermon that I’ll be giving here at the Feast this year, and this is entitled The World Stage is Set.

I had not yet begun to work on this sermon before the brochures were printed, yet I still knew what the title of the sermon was going to be and the direction much of the content would take us. But when the Dutch brochure was being translated I was asked an interesting question about the title of the sermon. Now, I may not have this exact as how it came across but it helped me. The question had to do with the fact that there were a couple of different words or ways that this could be translated here as far as the title is concerned depending upon what is specifically meant by it or what I specifically meant by that phrase.

There is one that would give the meaning that indeed the world stage is already set, and another could be used if I was saying that the world stage is being set. So after I heard that I had to stop and consider what was I specifically saying about this, because I didn’t know fully where everything was going and what was to be stated and it was very clear from the get go that it was a specific direction and that helped a great deal in the sense of the start because whenever you’re preparing something like that it’s really good to know where you’re going so that you can see what’s being given.

Anyway, so it all became clear if the world stage is being set then there is more that must take place, that must be put into place before real catastrophic events can even begin to be unleashed upon this earth, and this would be like a real stage that’s being set up for a play and that the activity of the play itself cannot commence until the entire stage with all of its props and so forth have been fully staged, have been put into place. But if the world stage is already set then those catastrophic events can be unleashed at any time. As with a real stage the activity of the play can begin at any moment once the stage has been fully set, put in place.

This sermon is about the reality that, in that sense, that as far as the world is concerned the stage is already set. It’s already set. We’re just waiting for the actors to do what they’re going to do, the individuals that are going to do it, to make certain decisions that they do. That should help us to grasp the greater urgency in the sense of the sobering time that we live in specifically right now.

So if you look at what nations have been doing over the past year and what they’re doing right now it’s clear that sides have already been drawn – as a whole. There are still some, two or three things here that haven’t fully manifested themselves, but they can happen quickly at any moment. So in that respect as far as sides that people are going to take, that doesn’t take long because they’re pretty well aligned already; there are just some questions.

There are some questions about Great Britain, what it’s going to do. It may surprise people but there are just some things there that could be very disastrous in what they choose to do – and have an incredible effect on what happens in the world. So there are just a lot of things going on that are difficult, in that sense, and what God uses in that respect to start things, to do the things He’s going to do because it depends on what God does in large part as far as the world stage, as far as those things that He allows a demonic world to do, and all by design and purpose and judgment...judgment.

So it’s clear that with the attitudes and judgments that leaders and nations have right now that the action they’re going to take for what will fit in perfectly with prophetic events can literally begin at any moment in time. It only takes one action, one incident, one event, one trigger being pulled (perhaps even just one tweet, sadly), so one trigger being pulled that will throw the world into the most catastrophic time it has ever witnessed, and candidly, indeed greater than all other catastrophic events ever witnessed on the earth combined. Far, far greater.

You think, “Well, how can that be?” Well, because of the magnitudes of people on the earth and all those things considered. Yes, the world was cleansed at one particular time by a great flood, and that happened fairly quick. This devastation here lingers on longer, in that respect, as far as human suffering, as far as things that people are going to experience themselves, because there are going to be so many who come through that for a great purpose and many others who aren’t.

Let’s turn over to Revelation 7:1—And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, so that the wind would not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea... This is very specific about what it’s talking about, the first four and the context of the things being covered here in Revelation. God is making it very clear here that certain things have to take place, and then when it’s time they’ll be allowed, they’ll be given charge, in that respect, to proceed with the actual destruction that those Trumpets portend.

It says, Saying, Do not hurt the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. Couldn’t help but thinking about this morning here about some of that and thinking about the period between 2008 and 2012 and of individuals who were being molded and fashioned, being trained to be a part of this, 144,000. There are certain things that come along in life more so through a period of time, and then there is that which is a kind of final test, a period of time that we may go through.

I think of Abraham. He went through a lot of different things, obeying God, following God, and it finally came down to a point of time, the greatest thing that finally came toward him, was that of the sacrifice that he was going to perform in sacrificing his own son. We talked about that in times past, a great deal of meaning in those things, and it shows that there were things that had not been revealed to him yet, that he didn’t understand, but he was willing to obey God to that point in time knowing that God has the power to give life again. God provided him what he needed for a sacrifice and it wasn’t his own son.

Now, we can think about that, but we really don’t grasp what he went through, his thinking, his mind, and yet willingness to do that, that nothing was going to stand between him and his God, that God was first above everything, and knowing that he put his full trust in God. God gave a promise and he believed that God would fulfill that promise as He had with all the other things that He’d given to him before that. Then God told him, “I now know you.” He’d come to a point in time where he had been tested to the ultimate as a physical human being in the sense of his relationship with his God, to the point of the mind being molded and fashioned to where God could say that about him. It’s like a point in time when we finally come to a sealing, being sealed, if you’re a part of the 144,000.

Later on there will be those who are sealed throughout the Millennium – millions upon millions, potentially billions upon billions—who are to be resurrected at the end of that period of time. But they must come to a certain point, a certain level of a relationship with God Almighty in order for God to say that, and if they don’t then they die and then potentially have that ability to be resurrected in the Great White Throne. I’m telling you, there are going to be people like that, especially at the beginning because it’s going to take a long time. Mr. Armstrong spoke of four generations to get things to where they’re kind of levelled off and finally being able to move in a direction that God desires for that period of time. It’s not going to be an easy job. It’s going to take time.

Again here, everyone has to come to a point, in essence, where God says you’re ready for Elohim. If you die, if that comes, if that’s a point in time, whenever that does come, whatever God allows or gives to a person, they come to that point in time where they’re right with God, in that respect, and God indeed knows where this mind is, at what stage, at what state. We don’t understand that but it has to be at a certain point. The transformation of the mind has to be at a certain place on a specific plane in its thinking toward God. That only comes through trying and testing, much trying and testing over a long period of time. Then a finality of all that.

God has and allows us to come to a point where we are tried through various things and we go through hardships, we go through difficulty. It is a fire in our life in the sense of how we feel about what we’re experiencing. God uses that to bring something to the surface, something that we can’t see without going through it; and so when it’s brought to the surface that’s when we have choices to make. Are we going to work to get that off the top and discard it or not? And that’s the choice, so we go through things of that nature.

I think of many individuals leading up to 2008 who had the opportunity... I mean many who had the opportunity in a calling to be a part of 144,000, and because of certain choices they made along the way, that tried them beyond that which they were capable of...and sometimes, again, it’s not known fully where that is until they come to that time. God has to be able to say, “Now I know you. This is absolute,” and if we come to that moment in time where after all the training and all the experiences we’ve had, and all the molding and fashioning we have, and we don’t go through that... It’s kind of like a school where you go through and you have tests all along the year and then you have the finals, or a final test. It’s kind of like that in some respects on a spiritual plane and how God works with us.

So in PKG, when PKG began, there were a lot of people who could still be worked with, who had the opportunity of being worked with, and God would make the decision later on as to who would fit into what areas. But He was working with different ones and they gave it up—incredible—by whatever choice they made, for whatever reasons that they made it.

Then 2008 we had a change, a revelation about Pentecost, an understanding about when Joshua the Christ would return to this earth, and not on a Feast of Trumpets, for sure, for certain. Mr. Armstrong never placed an absolute certainty on Trumpets or Pentecost. He had questions in those things. And so much of the Church had gone in the direction of Trumpets as time went along as being that time, if not all, and then God made it clear, “No, it’s not Trumpets at all; it’s Pentecost because of the meaning of the Wave Sheaf.” What we learned from that and the connection of that then with the wave loaves, of how important that is to be carried out at a very specific moment in time because of the meaning there.

And candidly, just some rebelled. They were already going through certain things anyway. See, this doesn’t just happen, but there were certain things they were letting down in. Much like what’s happening today in the Church – too many are letting down. They’re letting things go about God’s way of life, kind of repeating a small portion of what it was like to be Laodicean, but letting down and letting truth escape, but for different reasons and so forth than what happened during that period of time. So it happens in cycles within the Church.

There were individuals who were already experiencing certain things, certain attitudes, but they were willing to continue to fight and work on until that came along, and then their attitudes came out. Something they have not known at all, something that hadn’t been manifest yet as far as a relationship between them and God, but that would be the deciding factor. Awesome to understand that, that God can use various kinds of things to see where your spirit is in the sense of the impregnation of God’s spirit there in the mind.

So right then and there many disqualified themselves, in that sense, as far as what they were doing and how they were living, in the sense of their choices, in the sense of their sins, in the sense that God could no longer work with them, in the sense that God judged, “No, it will not be. Not only will it not be,” in so many cases, “a matter of being able to be in the 144,000, you’ll not be in the Millennium.” God has that power. Something we should fear to go against God, but we shouldn’t fear for those reasons.

There are people who used to fear not going to a place of safety and they were motivated by that. It’s kind of like the Protestant world, they feared going to hell, so just in case there’s a place down there that’s burning and there are these things that are running around that are kind of red and they have these red hot pitchforks and they’re poking you in the butt on a regular basis, and “Whee,” you know, and they’re chasing you around and things are hot and it’s just a hot, hot, hot, hot place.

You think, how stupid can human beings be to think that God would have some kind of pleasure to see people being tortured, people in that state for all time? That’d be the exact opposite of a merciful, loving God! But they do because there’s a being that’s deceived the mind of human beings to think along a physical plane and they can’t think along a spiritual plane.

The place of safety was a little bit like that so people were motivated for the wrong purpose. They came to a point in time where they didn’t like their children having to listen to these things that might happen at the end of an age, and that you are to live right and then by living right God will bless you by being able to go to this place in Jordan (Petra) and the Church will be taken there and saved and spared for 3½ years.

Some people can look upon these kinds of things as well in a similar manner, to be motivated by fear. But you shouldn’t, of that, of what might happen.

So you kind of hang on just in case...just in case we’re really going to hell and not to heaven, so on Sunday when Sunday rolls around you kind of go there and you might repent then or confess your sins to somebody in a box (appropriate place), or whatever it might be. Weird! Crazy!

We can’t think that way! The fear of God is because we have chosen, we want this way of life, we love it. That’s the motivation. To understand then what we’re like as human beings, what we’re capable of doing, that we can throw it all out the window, that we can flush it down the toilet and treat God’s truth that way and a relationship with Him that way and thinking we can do certain things that “God knows we’re human and God knows I have physical weaknesses and He’ll look past that. He’s merciful.” Give me a break! You do it because you love God and you fear, therefore, what you’re capable of doing. You’re fearful of self.

It doesn’t take a whole lot to deceive the human mind. We’re easily deceived as human beings. We’re the biggest culprit, not a being out there. We want to deceive ourselves! “The heart is deceitful above all things,” God says. Who’s heart? Ours! Our minds! That’s the way human carnal nature works: “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” and because of that the human mind then works overtime to try to justify certain things that it does that it can get by and do that are wrong. No, wrong is wrong. It’s just wrong. Disobedience is just disobedience. Rebellion is rebellion.

I think of that period of time then, 2008 to 2012, and then 2012 and 2013 some more couldn’t take it. Being prepared to be a part of 144,000, one more thing to go through – went by the wayside, had choices to make, and we’re at a stage now where various ones are being worked with to be molded and fashioned and so much weighs upon that – what are we going to do? It will be done. It will become accomplished. God will have 144,000. But it’s not owed to any of us...not a single person. It’s not owed to anyone.

So what are you capable of doing? What are you doing right now in resisting God and resisting God’s way of life? Because it’s happening. I’ll just say it again, it’s happening a lot. Wrong thinking. It needs to be repented of, to think differently.

What a shame this far into this, this close to things that people have been looking for over the past 6,000 years, God’s Kingdom coming to this earth to rule and to reign with the Messiah, under the Messiah and His government and a new world that’s going to be established.

And I heard the number of them of those who were sealed: and there were sealed a hundred and forty-four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel. So we tended to think very physically about all this because that’s the way we are as human beings and that’s all we can see at first. We felt that there were twelve thousand out of each tribe that God was going to call and work with, and that out of that then they would become a part of the 144,000, and because it was very specific then in people’s minds. That’s what God allowed us to believe because that’s the conclusion that is drawn from 144,000. Then later on it talks about a great multitude.

“So if it says of the twelve tribes it must mean the twelve tribes, and therefore, twelve thousand out of each tribe makes 144,000. And then later on when it talks about a great multitude that no man can number then that’s a different group. That gives hope for the gentiles...that a lot of us are. And the gentiles then will have an ability, a great multitude, perhaps far greater than the 144,000, that will be a part of that as well and I’ll be able to be resurrected when the Messiah returns.”

See, that wasn’t too long ago. Matter of fact there are a whole lot of people who still believe that that are scattered.

God blessed us to understand the truth of that, that no, the 144,000 is the great multitude that no one can count, that no one can number, because it’s out of a period of 6,000 years (that’s what it’s all about). No one can number, only God. It’s a great multitude, all right, but no man could number it, no person was able to because God has had different generations through time. He gives a specific number, “There’ll be exactly 144,000.” Awesome to understand that.

So out of all this we understand that nothing can begin in the actual physical destruction from the seven trumpets that have been blown until the sealing has been completed. Then those angels who are ready to do their job, because they’ve already been prepared well in advance and they’re still there, they’re standing there in the sense of, they’re not in one place and they’re waiting, but they’re waiting until they’re told to do what they do to fulfill the portion that’s been given to them on the earth.

So by looking at world events we can also know, again, that the world stage is set and that this final sealing must indeed be very near as this sealing may involve only a very few. We may be at that point, just a few. Awesome!

Do you see what’s happening in the world? Since the time that we went through many news articles earlier this year do you see how things have progressed and gotten far, far worse since we covered those things earlier in the year on the world scene? Because sometimes we can kind of be lulled asleep again and not realize it’s gotten far, far worse. It’s amazing to watch things come together. It’s amazing, that as Johnny talks about, having a front-row seat, that we know what to look for and we see those things. And do they jar us?

Do they jar us when we read an article about Europe, some group has already gotten together, and talking about nine nations and potentially ten? That should, really, in some respects, should kind of send shivers up and down your spine. It’s incredible! If it’s being talked about, if they’re looking at various things it shows something that’s real, that’s true, that there is a stronger unity and alliance for a common purpose or desire than there is with the rest. So there’s a specific group who are the ones kind of charting a course, who are upholding the rest, in one respect, and they know that. They know they’re in trouble today. They know they’re in trouble. The EU knows it’s in trouble. Do you know it’s in trouble, those of you who live here?

So there are a lot of sobering things that are taking place. You can look at the U.S. alone, of how God is manifesting—which I love—God is manifesting to the world in a way that has never been done before, and it’s through modern technology that we have this ability. Awesome! God’s using it. Now, the world is using it in distorted and perverted ways, but God’s using it, too, to speak to the world, to manifest some things to the world. In this case – that the world can’t rule itself. Man can’t rule himself. To see the ugliness of politics, to see the ugliness of what it is to be in power and how power is used, to see the ugliness of what man’s rule is really like. Incredible! ...that government is corrupt.

It’s always been corrupt but God’s manifesting that in a greater way today, helping people to see that, seeing drama, drama, drama, drama on a world scale that has never been seen by people because they haven’t had the ability to watch it, to see it unfold like it is. Today it happens in seconds – tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet – and shakes the world. People become bonkers about it, they really do. “What’s he saying now?” And they have these motives of things they want him to say and what they want to interpret it as saying, which I think is a marvel, because it shows, again, how mankind has always been because of how we judge.

We judge by what we want to see. We want to see it in a certain way. Some want to see it in a light that is good for them or their party and so they’ll say, “No, this is what its saying.” Someone else will come along and say, “Oh, no! No, this is what he’s saying. Don’t you see it?” “Twisted, distorted, weird, nuts, crazy, so much so that should be put out of office!” “Should bring about an amendment that can be passed,” or something followed; I think it’s the 25th. Put him out of office because its loony tunes, not fit. Not fit!” We see this fighting and this battling and the twisting and the lying on all sides. It’s a world mockery. We can’t rule ourselves.

“Oh, if somebody else was in office then we might be able to rule ourselves,” and people wouldn’t see that kind of thing and they wouldn’t see how ugly politics are. But God is using things to show the ugliness of what is really there and what is always there. Every presidency has had things that people have tried to cover up, some pretty bad things. Incredible!

So much of the news media, I marvel, it is fake! Just stating it. Anybody that can’t see that, recognize that, is a little nuts themselves. Someone comes along with greater power and authority in the sense of the world scene and they said, “It’s fake news!” and so some people see, “Yeah, it’s fake towards you,” and they twist some things. They don’t even say that sometimes, you know, it’s like, “No, it isn’t fake. It’s honest and open and true because this is the way you are.” Incredible.

It is fake and always has been. I mean, it’s gotten worse. There were times when certain things in the world were reported. You can’t even hardly find it today, where it actually reports on certain things that are happening truly, in the sense it’s just a report: “This is what’s taken place.” Today it’s twisting and distorting things for a purpose, to give a different picture, to give a narrative of something, to try to sway people to think a certain way. And they all do it. Questions are there. I hope you’re astute enough to know that when questions are asked there is a purpose. Because I know that within the Church too often we hear something on the news and if we’re not careful we’ll follow right along with the stupidity that exists there, you know, and start taking a side, and start thinking, “Yeah, that’s wrong,” or “Yeah, that’s right.”

Be careful! Be careful how you think. Be careful what you latch on to. It’s not about taking sides. And be careful, because it can hurt the mind, such judgments can. So we have to be careful as to what we hear and what we conclude as a result of it.

Reporters go out there and they ask questions. And the questions are almost asked in a way to pull out a certain narrative. If they’re not then the person is not very bright that’s asking the questions, they’re not very well trained in what they’re doing, because those who are well trained and those who are getting the big bucks and climbing the ladder are the ones who know how to ask certain kind of questions to pull out a certain narrative that they’re trying to make. They’re not trying to get at the truth. They’re not trying to paint a picture, “This is what they think and this is what they’re trying to do.” No, they want to paint something different, a story that you will fall into and believe. I hope we understand that.

It’s as much as anything that happens in the world. It’s like in a court case where there is a prosecutor and one, the other, that’s trying to defend, and they try to paint a narrative as well so often in the world. It has nothing to do with the truth. It has nothing to do with what’s really just. It’s to win a case! They try to paint a picture to some people or to a judge that this is what was taking place and they’ll twist and distort things in order to accomplish that. This is randomly even taught in universities! It’s not about what is right—and they will openly acknowledge some of those things—it’s about winning your case.

So it is in the news. It’s about winning your side, winning your case. Anyway, those things are just said as a warning to help us understand you’ve got to be careful what you latch on to, what you believe, what you accept because this world is sick. It’s all sick! Not a part of it; all of it’s sick, distorted. Anything that’s out there anymore you can read something on both sides, about almost anything. It doesn’t matter what it is. You scratch your head, “Well, what am I supposed to do then?” Even if it’s a health issue or something like that, you read somebody that says something about one thing and someone else says exactly the opposite and they all have great credentials, recognized in a great way as far as medicine or science or whatever. You think, “What?”

Put your trust in God. Do the best you can do and put your trust in God. That’s the answer.

So I think of some of the news things that have been going on over the past many months and are happening right now. There has been much talk among EU leaders of how to bring a core group of nine to ten nations that can proceed with certain activities, mostly on a military plane. That’s what most of this stuff has been coming out, of recently, and that can work partly within and yet outside of a direct European Union of nations itself. Isn’t that incredible? There is one alliance, in one respect, if I have my facts right, which I think I do, that includes Great Britain and their military. Nine nations, outside, Brexit, gone, not a part of it but a big, big, big, big, big part of it. It’s here in this part of the world. That’s why it’s not known yet fully what they’re going to do. They have choices to make.

Macron himself and some in Germany have pushed forward these ideas. One pact was already signed back in June along this line, of these nations that got together and they’ve already signed a pact. So how does that fit in? Could that be a part? Absolutely. Will it be something else that’ll trigger something else more within the continental area itself? Don’t know. But don’t think we have the answers because we don’t.

Then there is a rekindled or an ongoing shame and embarrassment within and of or toward, if you will, the Catholic Church concerning perverted, perverted sexual abuse of so many priests of children and women. And you think, how on earth could a religious organization, let alone of the magnitude and size that they are, be able to get by with this and people still go to that place? Even on a physical plane you think people would run. Well, there are people who are starting to change their thoughts and thinking and it’s not well loved and well liked and there’s a lot of bitterness and anger out there toward some of these kinds of things by people. They don’t have a world stage, but it exists and it’s been interviewed from time to time from different areas. And some of the ones who try to cover it up, some of the highest ones in the echelon of their government, try to cover it up and have for a long, long time. What kind of a reputation then does that give them then in Europe? It isn’t the best is it? It’s not something that you necessarily want to rub shoulders with and yet they still have certain influence from the top, certain power.

See, I mention these things because in time Europe turns against them as it helps to destroy them; helps to destroy that organization, its seat of power and government. Awesome to understand that. That’s what God says.

So these kinds of things, the reason I’m mentioning this, work in that direction. It’s just one of many. So what is it going to take to topple that all the way? Well, a world war and what manifests itself then.

Then there are matters of trade war and reaction of governments because of ever changing sanctions and tariffs imposed by the United States on other nations. I hope you see what’s taking place and why. When the greatest nation the world has ever known, with the greatest power the world has ever known begins to turn inward, begins to protect itself, protectionism from the greatest, most powerful nation the world has ever known it rings disaster for the world because the world lives off of it. It’s a system. If the system pulls inward others are going to suffer no matter what. They are right now. Some of those things are starting to come to the surface. The more that happens, this goes by the wayside, they begin to change their thinking.

It’s gotten to a point, because of these things, that the world, in many respects, hates...hates. Deep down inside it hates that country, hates that president because of what he’s doing. Truly, it’s hatred that’s building up out here on a spirit plane, and a spirit world is feeding on that. I hope you see what’s taking place because it’s set. It’s set. At some point they’re going to say, some are going to say, if not almost all of them, “Enough is enough!” “Enough is enough.”

Here is how a news article put this recently, One Minute to Midnight: The Latest U.S. Sanctions Propel Nations Toward Risk of War. It does. It’s the truth. It’s absolute. That’s what’s behind it. Things that have happened in times past in history have been because of things like protectionism. The world has always practiced a type of world trade. Through the Middle East, different trade routes are how people did it, some by ship. As that grew that became greater and greater between nations, various travel routes through the mid-east up through Constantinople and different regions of the world that are noted for that. Antwerp, you know, down here, huge, huge port in Europe where they were the largest for a long period of time.

So things have been going on for hundreds and hundreds of years – you keep going back and you see these different areas of trade routes and so forth. I don’t even want to go into that. But some of the strength of the Muslim world began because of trade routes and because of what they were doing in mixing various religions into a book.

One Minute to Midnight: Latest U.S. Sanctions Propel Nations Toward Risk of War.[1] It stated in the article that “the famous Doomsday Clock of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists should have immediately been moved forward to one minute to midnight on receipt of the news.” This was concerning new sanctions imposed by the United States on Russia. Russia is not the only one. It’s a lot of the other countries that are the problem now. Sanctions here, sanctions there, sanctions everywhere, sanctions, sanctions, sanctions. Hitting out there with a big stick. Crazy!

You think that doesn’t have tremendous impact on the world? There are nations in huge trouble because the more that’s pulled in over there the less they have and the more they try to make ends meet and the world lives just like people do, as a whole, it’s like on the edge. People always want to have the maximum coming in and tax people to death and if that doesn’t work then you have to tax a little bit more because you get accustomed to have a certain amount coming in.

I don’t know what it’s like over here, but in the U.S. it comes around a certain time of the year and people start (in government), start spending a lot of money because they know how much is left in the coffers and so they spend it quickly to buy because if they don’t have that spent by that length of time do you know what happens? What they have, they’ll lower their amount that they can have. So they not only want to do that, they say, “Oh, we used it all up. We need more. We need more.” Sometimes they get more. This is how it works. This is how a lot of things work out here. Incredible what goes on and people suffer.

Argentina. Well, they suffer because of their own stupidity and their own governments, but I’m talking about things that are hurting in the world because you get a bunch of nations like that, and Venezuela, I can’t imagine life there. The things that are happening with various countries of the world that are on the edge, on the brink. Italy is in trouble. You know, you get some of these things and their finances and where they stand and this pull and this drag it puts on the European Union, some of these countries out here, and not able to uphold their portion of it. You talk about people pulling bags of rocks, you’ve got huge bags that they’re pulling behind them, Europe does, trying to make things work, struggling to make things work, wanting to make things work. This is forcing them into this thought and idea of a stronger, stronger body, stronger government, stronger ability to tax, stronger whatever it might be, military, whatever it is. Crazy world.

Another one. Then there was news back in August concerning Turkey. Incredible. Turkish Lawyers Want to Raid Incirlik Airbase, where the US is stationed. ...to Arrest U.S. Troops for Terrorist Ties.[2] “A group of lawyers aligned to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has filed formal charges against a number of US Air Force officers who are stationed at Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base. The complaint accuses them of having ties to terrorist groups,” partially of what’s happening in Syria and so forth and they’re using that as an area. You think, “A NATO ally?” The world is in trouble if they’re a NATO ally. NATO is in trouble, aren’t they? I mean, it’s just it’s nuts what’s going on. Then he’s messing around with Russia, getting what he can get, and then going up here and visiting Merkel here the other day, yesterday or the day before, and Germany. He’s playing these games in the world and he’s saying things that are so preposterous – the mind. He has a role to play prophetically and a betrayal of the U.S., whatever that is, whether it be Incirlik, whether it be some other thing that takes place, maybe an alliance with someone else, but it’s a part of something that’s in that part of the world that’s prophesied that they will do and he will do. It’s easy to see that now.

So that’s what I’m saying. Things are set out here and it doesn’t take much. It doesn’t take much for these different attitudes and feelings that people have and what nations are trying to do and the games they’re playing for things just to blow up – just to blow up at any time.

And Incirlik, by the way, has a large number of nuclear weapons there. We think, the United States thinks it can defend those? If Turkey decided to go after them? Pretty tough. Pretty tough. You’ve got to stage a part of a war there as well and you’re not equipped to even do it?

Finally, another one here, A Worldwide Financial Collapse Can Begin to Happen Any Time, so one headline talks about here and literally that’s true. A worldwide financial collapse can happen at any time. I think it’s harder for people in the United States to see this or to think about this as being a possibility because jobs are on the rise because of protectionism, pulling it in, and so there’s a prosperity that’s starting to pop up there more and more. But others, when it’s pulled in here, others suffer as a result of it because it’s a worldwide economy, and if you take it out of their pocket and you keep taking it out of their pocket…

And candidly, some of it should have been. I’ve known this for, I don’t know, I think before I even came in the Church, about NATO. I mean, who doesn’t know some of this, that the United States has been carrying the biggest part of it all along. And it comes a time in saying, “No, you need to do your portion too,” and then it’s like people get upset and they get mad.

I think about scriptures that talk about, “You buy your lovers.” “You buy your lovers.” That’s exactly what’s taken place. That doesn’t mean people love you. They love your money, what you’ll give to them. The United Nations, keeping it afloat, keeping it going. All these things that have been going on because that’s just the way it is. If the world wants its sense of peace that’s the way it has to be for the world. If that’s pulled back what happens to the world? That’s exactly where we are.

One headline in mid-August read, “Get Prepared” For The Chaos To Come[3], as it stated that there are fears of a global financial bear market looming. The article, like this one here, it says, “On Wednesday, U.S. stocks were down some, but things were much, much worse around the rest of the world.  Global banking stocks are plunging (when this was written), emerging market stocks are cratering, and emerging market currencies continue their stunning decline.  This represents a dramatic change from the relative stability that we have seen throughout most of 2018. It is almost as if someone flipped a switch once the month of August began...” Pretty insightful here, what’s being said. “Someone flipped a switch.” Only takes one trigger, one moment and things start changing so quickly.

Another article headline: “Euro WILL Implode!” Economist warns Macron faces BRUTAL choice to save 'unsustainable' EU. Just the talk and some of the things going on here, the battles that are going on and what they think. It’s in their minds.

Then on the 12th of this month there was the headline from Bloomberg, The ‘Hindenberg Omen’ Is Stalking Near-Record U.S. Stock Market.[4] I’m just going to read parts of this. “Warnings from Wall Street are coming thick and fast as U.S. stocks sit near all-time highs. The latest, from Sundial Capital Research Inc., points to a (controversial) group of potentially bearish technical signals known as the Hindenburg Omen. ... The indicator, named after the German zeppelin that caught fire and crashed more than eight decades ago, gauges indecision in the market and is designed to predict a decline within 40 days.” It was stated that “it is rare to see this number of clusters,” in other words, within this Hindenburg indicator, “so close together on both exchanges,” referring to both the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ, “...and, in the past, they preceded declines.”

So these things are out there on leaders’ minds, economists’ minds and they see these things are taking place. To see something lasting for so long, they know the history, that which goes up must come down. That’s the way it is. That’s the way it’s always been. And to go up that fast, to be that strong, and then to see what’s happening, in effect, to the rest of the world, something has got to give.

So indeed, incredible, the greatest nation the earth has ever seen has become the epitome, the embodiment of all that represents Babylon in the world. That’s where it starts. You know, when God starts dealing with things on this earth it starts there. It starts at the heart and core of Babylon.

You know, we in times past used to think of Babylon in a different way and primarily even on a religious scale concerning a church, and it’s far, far, far more reaching than that. It has to do with the chaotic world system that’s Lucifer’s way. It’s his way of working with the world and destroying the world.

I want to read Revelation 18.

But I hope you realize and understand Babylon is the entire world’s system. It’s all wrong. The height of that and the greatest part of that right now comes out of one great nation. That’s how it became established in this age at the end of this age, at the end of this period of time that we’re now in. It’s through that system that has gone out through the world, as a whole. As it’s gone on, since WWII, it has become stronger and stronger and stronger in power over its influence in the world.

It’s pretty tough to do banking without that. That’s the world economy. That’s why certain nations have tried to break away and are starting to now trade in different currencies and so forth, and in gold or whatever it might be in different ways of trading with one another in certain parts of the world. But they’re having a hard time getting it going. It’s just not grabbing hold because something else has been working for so long and it has such power in it that to go against that, well, you kind of put yourself out there on the sides and they’re doing that and they’re continuing on.

But it starts with one area, and as that gets struck all the rest is destroyed. It follows suit. It can’t survive.

Revelation 18:1—And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great has fallen, has fallen, and has become the dwelling place of demons, the prison of every foul spirit... It’s about demons. It’s about demonic beings. It’s about Lucifer. ...a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. So if you read this wrong you’re going to read it like, “Well, there are these demons and then there are these foul spirits and then these birds. What kind of birds are they?” It’s about them. It’s all a follow-up to talk about these demons. This is how they’re being described. Prison for every foul spirit.

You talk about foul spirits, perverted spirits that can never be changed, that’s it, that continue on, that are spirit. ...and every cage of every unclean and hateful, or hate filled bird. We tend to think of, because we’re carnal human beings, we tend to think of nice little birdies here in the trees. And if we don’t like them, maybe if it’s a bad one, maybe it’s vultures, maybe it’s these that just stink because they’re hanging over dead bodies and eating those all day long in the heat. It’s not what it’s talking about. It’s talking about these flying creatures, these beings. That’s what it’s referring to here. They’re all a part and it’s just different ways of describing the very same thing.

Verse 3—For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her... So it’s talking about a system, Babylon, and people have been blessed on a physical plane in the sense of that which is distorted and perverted by that system to make it work. That’s how they look to their blessings and their growth and their wealth, if you will, their accumulation of wealth and power.

So it’s talking about an entire system here. It’s a worldwide economy. And if you start cutting parts of that worldwide economy off in a system that’s been running like this for a long period of time now, and you bring it inward into one central area the rest of it starts suffering and the rest of it will eventually react. That’s what we’re living in.

For all nations have drunk of the wrath of her fornications, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth became wealthy through the power and strength of her reveling. It’s just describing very well, terms and a summation here, of what the world is like and how people do what they do in order to be a part of it, what they will compromise with in order to continue to be in it, and maybe a skirmish here and a battle there occasionally, debate here and there, but overall they’ve got to have it to survive. They try to use it in ways that benefit them and get more out of it if they can and the central part of it is willing to pass out money here and there and pass out credit or whatever it might be and you’re helping to sustain it, when it’s all said and done.

Verse 4—And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, My people... In other words, to become His people, out of Babylon, out of this chaos and confusion. It pictures everything that’s chaotic and confusing, whether it be with government, whether it be with economy, but it shows it here that these things exist because of an economy. It’s a worldwide thing. You start poking a stick at part of it and depending on how big a stick you poke after a while something’s got to give.

So it says, Come out of her, My people... In other words, this is what God is doing because of this, of what He’s going to bring on the earth.

“If you will listen, I will listen.” That’s what it’s talking about here, “Come out of her. If you want to be My people come out of that. Flee it. Get away from it. Understand why this is happening to the earth.” ...so that you’re not partakers of her sins, “If you will listen, I will listen. If you’ll change, if you’ll begin looking at yourself and understand that you brought this upon yourself.” ...and so that you do not receive of her plagues. It’s going to determine whether people, to what degree people are able to come through all of this in large part, as to how they think.

For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. So what it’s saying is that God’s known all along the sins carried out by all who participate, who promote Babylon, whether it be in religion, whether it be in economy, whether it be in governments or whatever. It’s the confusion of it all. What’s being said here, in essence, is “her sins have reached unto heaven,” in other words it’s come time for judgment. That’s what this is about, when it’s come to a point where judgment has to be administered on the earth.

Verse 8—Therefore, shall her plagues come in one day. It’s quick. This is what this is picturing. It doesn’t mean that everything happens in one day. Things can happen in a major way to start this process of Babylon being destroyed in one day, to the largest nation the world has ever known. It can happen. That can happen, basically, in one day in the sense of what brings it to its knees, but it’s about a short period of time. It’s just quick; one year for certain things to take place, thirty days, whatever it is, it’s not what it’s about. It’s about a short period of time and can be literal for the beginning of it. But it’s about the whole system, so one begins to fall and in time the rest will fall.

...death, and mourning, and famine. People are going to go without food. I think of the United States. I feel sorry for people in large cities because it’s going to be hard. You’re not able to drive anywhere, if you walk to a supermarket there is nothing there, transport isn’t working anymore, semis aren’t driving up and down the highway with food, what’s going to happen? It’s not going to be a pretty sight. You’re going to see some ugly human nature and what people will do to survive. It’s going to be ugly, ugly, ugly. That’s why we need God’s help and God’s protection and God’s care, because He’s the only one that can help us to survive these things, as well as others when they begin to turn to Him.

Therefore, shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine, and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the LORD God who judges her. It’s by incredible trial on the earth and by literal fire in different sections that follow out as a result of weapons that are used and so forth.

Verse 15, just jumping on down. It’s about the whole system, but I’m trying to help you see in one part of it that it begins in one place because that’s the center of it. That’s the strength of the system right now; it’s the U.S. It is the strength of the Babylonian system right now. If it’s not there the rest won’t survive. The rest will turn against each other as time goes along. That’s exactly how it’s going to unfold.

The merchants, in other words, the foreign trade. Hence, it’s about a worldwide trade. This is the way it is. It’s a global economy, and you take one person, a head of a great nation, and he takes away from the world economy and he says it’s our economy and we’re pulling it back and we’re taking care of “this” and we’re taking care of “that”?” It’s going to have disastrous effects. It can’t be helped. Even though in a physical, carnal way it’s kind of the right thing to do for them, but what about the rest? Well, it’s Babylon and Babylon sucks, Babylon stinks. All the politics, all the evil, all the things that people do, it’s sick so it’s good that it come to an end.

The merchants of these things, who were made rich by her, shall stand far off for fear of her torment, weeping and wailing... Some of that has already started, not because they see something happening there, but because they’re moaning and groaning about what they can’t have anymore, what they have to change in order to make up for what they’re losing. How are they going to do it?

Verse 16—Saying, Alas, alas, or its like, “Woe, woe,” or its like, “No, no, this can’t be; this can’t happen.” So it’s an expression of grief and sorrow and deep lament, if you will, biblically. ...that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls! You know, it finally hits people what’s happening to them because of what’s happening over there, and now what they’re going to have to face and who they’re going to have to face next because once it starts the people just turn against each other and they try to take whatever pie they can.

Look at WW II. Look at what happened. It’s the way it is. Human beings, countries, the selfishness that comes out. You grab “this,” you grab “that,” and you better get to Berlin before they get to Berlin and you better do “this,” and you better do “that” before they do because there’s this great big contest being fought in the world. Who is going to get what? And then in those countries they’re trying to survive and trying to get a piece of something and trying to establish a sovereignty that they can have. It’s a nightmare.

For in one hour has so great riches come to nothing. And every shipmaster, and all the company of ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off. It’s a world economy and that’s why it uses that kind of talk. You talk about an economy, just between China and the United States and the massive amount of shipment that takes place back and forth, some by plane, yes (didn’t put that in here), but ships they could understand. You know, back and forth, back and forth.

Amazing amount of goods going back and forth, great wealth being transferred back and forth, and everybody profits out of it back and forth until finally it comes to a point when someone says, “You better quit sending your stuff over there,” because you could do it cheaper over there, “and you better bring it back here and do it here. You’re going to be charged accordingly as far as taxation is concerned.”

Because you watch these shows on TV, you know, that one I’m trying to think of where the panel is up there and they may give money to someone, Shark Tank. They talk about getting certain products made cheaper, more cheaply. If you send it to China, and certain ones talk about being over in China, and they were able to bring down the price by 70% or whatever it might be, you think, “Well, you’re kind of stupid for not doing it then, aren’t you, if you’re going to make a go of this and you’ve got to compete with others.” So there’s this commerce. It goes back and forth.

They play these games and they know full well what’s taking place, governments that hate each other, governments that loathe each other, a government that would like to at least get, in one respect, half of the United States. “We’d just, like, take half of it. You can have the other half. Then when we get real big over there then we’ll take the rest.” Anyway. The power that they have, the military power, the influence they want to exert in the world right now? They’re really building up. Their plans are far reaching and as far as they’re concerned they’ve got a lot of time to do it. And they believe, and candidly, if time were to go on, they would do it, they would become the next great power in the world.

I think of someone that told someone of recent time (can’t think of who it was), but anyway there was this comment made from an FBI source that knew certain things about China and the things that were happening and the battles going back and forth, he said, “People better start learning Chinese in the future here and start teaching your children Chinese. That’s where things are going.”

Verse 20—Rejoice over her, heaven, and holy apostles and prophets; for God has avenged you of her. Basically showing here and saying that things that God has said in the manner that He does do it and has done it for the last 6,000 years in the world, it’s showing that all who love God, all who are a part of what God is doing, it’s a time to rejoice, because now what He’s given through them is coming to pass and a new world is coming. This one has to be cleansed, has to be destroyed because there is no other way.

And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it in the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all. It’s a horrifying picture and it’s a beautiful one. It’s hard. It’s difficult. No one wants to see suffering. God doesn’t want to see human suffering, but there comes a point in time where certain things have to be done for the sake of what He’s doing. He’s creating Elohim and so He has a great plan in how He’s going to accomplish that. So as horrifying as it’s going to be it has to be done because there is no other way. That’s an incredible thing to understand, no other way that human beings will listen.

What does it take some of us in God’s Church to listen? We have the impregnation of God’s spirit. They don’t! We’ve been given so much and yet we have a same kind of stubborn mind if we’re not careful and we refuse to repent, refuse to change whatever it is that might be there.

This Feast has very much been about a change that needs to be made within the Body. We need to become much stronger. Every one of us, please let me express that, are being given the opportunity to grow much more. Every one of us...every one of us, including me, including you; every one of us needs to be examining ourselves more thoroughly and seeking to have greater change in our life in how we can go about it. We need to become active in it. It’s not a suggestion. It is the way it’s going to be for those who continue on.

We’re to yield to what that message is from God right now. Some, sadly, can’t even hear it, can’t even make the change right now because of where they are spiritually, so much in the dark, so, so blind to what they’re doing, so damaged their minds already they can’t even be helped. Others, what does it take to shake us up?

That’s why I was going through and reading this. You think, this world has to be shaken to the core where hundreds, hundreds of millions, into the billions of people are going to be destroyed, are going to lose their lives. It has to be that way so that the world will listen to God! It’s the only way the world will listen and begin to receive a new age. What does it take to shake the “you know what” out of us? What does it take to shake things out of us so that we will address what needs to be changed so that we will repent?

It doesn’t take long to get snapped right back into what we’re striving to change. You’ve got to fight that battle every day of your life. Every one of us has to. We need to be more observant and clearer about that today, because I’ll tell you what, there are some beings out there who would love to get their hands on you. On some he will. Depends on our choices. They have great power to deceive, to help us become more greatly deceived in our lives, in our thinking, and so forth.

So, sad that the world has to be shaken like that. Sad that the Church has to be shaken like that and individuals have to go through certain things to be shaken to reality, whatever that is going to take.

So now we’re going to spend a little time considering the present truth in what we are focused in on what we believe concerning the timing of Christ’s coming. We need to do this. I’m going to quote from my last post.

“Although God’s Church has remained small through time, just as God said it would be, the Church of God has been teaching and publishing the truth of Christ’s return for just over 80 years now. But a more precise timing for that return was not known until God gave a very specific countdown to His Church that began in December of 1994.” That’s awesome to understand, what Paul was inspired to say in Thessalonians, “He’s not coming until something takes place.” It is the Apostasy, the great falling away from the truth, an apostasy from the truth. Mind-boggling that people could go so far in that to go right back to what they came out of, to go back to in December having a little tree over in the corner with all the nice lights and putting presents under for the children because it’s a nice thing to do. Sick, sick, sick, sick, sick human minds to turn their back on God like that after all the time.

Going on: “The incredible event that began this countdown is the very event God foretold through the apostles Paul and John. Paul declared that this future prophesied event would be the sign of Christ’s coming—of his return.”

“It is the responsibility of God’s Church, as a watchman, to warn about a great world war that immediately precedes Christ’s actual return. That specific warning has now been going out to the world for nearly 70 years. In the countdown that began in 1994, there are very specific measures of time that God has given as to when He can send His Son to become the King of kings in His Kingdom. There are only very specific periods or moments in time in which God has shown that His Son can return.” Incredible to understand these things, what God’s Church has been charged to do for a long time, for what God gave Mr. Armstrong to do. God gave him a message it’s the end-time, the Kingdom of God is at hand, more powerfully than ever before, and a message that was going out in the world in a very powerful way. “We are in the end-time.” He helped him to see that. He came to understand a very specific part of that in the late 40’s, of exactly where the Church was, exactly where the world was in the end-time, going into the end-time, waiting for one more revival of what’s referred to in that respect, the Holy Roman Empire, that sequence of events; not of Roman, but that which is an area of the world that would take place. So that message has continued to go out. We’re almost there.

So, from what I just stated, “There are only very specific periods or moments in time which God has shown that His Son can return.” Continuing on... “The countdown that began in 1994 has specific periods of time in which God can bring this age of mankind to an end and then establish His Kingdom under the reign of the Messiah, the Christ, for the next 1,000 years. God has revealed that this final end-time count to Christ’s return must fully align with the timing of certain annual Holy Days and that within that alignment there must be the fulfillment of very specific segments of time.”

What is that? What’s the most important one? Pentecost. Pentecost, Pentecost, Pentecost. And then there are segments of time that can lead up to a Pentecost.

God is very orderly in what He does. Time means a great deal, in that respect, when it comes to that, how God fulfills it, how God accomplishes, because it has to fit. But God’s given a lot of room within prophetic events to accomplish it as He’s shown us more and more. There is so much there. There are things within that that can change. That’s hard for a human mind to comprehend. And sadly, a lot of that has to do with mankind; it has to do with His Church most of all. I hope we understand that when we’re through here.

God’s eyes, God’s focus more than anything else for the past 6,000 years, has been on one thing above everything else. It is His Temple. It is Elohim. It is the structure. It is the 144,000. It is on that. It’s on that above everything else. Being called to be a part of the Church of God is an incredible thing. Over the past 2,000 years those who were called to be a part of the Church of God is something far beyond what any one of them could comprehend and understand, the magnitude of what it all means.

We’re given an opportunity to become something so great; and God’s eyes are upon us, His love is poured out upon us in measures, in ways that we cannot grasp. We can’t grasp it all. We can’t grasp the magnitude of that kind of purpose and plan and love and design. We just see parts of it. The more we grow and the farther we’ve gone in time the more God has revealed to us. That’s awesome to grasp and understand. So many have turned their backs on that, on that molding and fashioning and the opportunity that God has offered to them. Horrifying. To me it’s horrifying. But we need to grasp all the way up to the end here, until it’s over that’s God’s focus.

To think that it’s so important that God will work with events and things in the world in a different way, to adjust some of those until this is accomplished? Because this is the most important thing right now, to complete that phase of the Temple, if you will, to complete that 144,000 because there is nothing more important, that even things that could happen in the world could depend upon God working with us as His people? That ought to give you a little better perspective, in that respect, if you can latch on to it, hold on to it, to grasp what’s at stake, what’s taking place.

“The first count in which this event could have occurred was on Pentecost of 2012 or the Pentecost of 2013.” Could have been both. Why? Because of the Day of the Lord, a year in time. “But it did not happen at that time. The next and far more meaningful ‘count’ and alignment for Christ’s coming is on Pentecost, June 9th of 2019.” I hope we get it. I hope we see the amazing way in which seven segments of prophetic time are so powerful in what they picture, and then the days added to two specific areas of that have such great meaning.

“You can know if that is the time Christ will once again stand upon the Mt. of Olives if a third world war has broken out by February or March of 2019...” That’s close! It has to be by February or March, within that period of time. It has to have started by that period of time. If we go through to the end of March it’s not going to happen, not that year, not in 2019. “If not, then the next possible return will be the Pentecost of 2020.” The resurrection of the 144,000 can be altered at that moment in time and all of that changed as well. The period of time of 50 days of God intervening on this earth can be moved to a different period of time because a Day of the Lord, God can give it at any time and say, “Well, this is it. This is that time that’s going to fulfill that in order to accomplish all that needs to be accomplished.” So the reality is there could be a year’s time there when things begin to be unleashed on the earth in whatever ways that God sees fit to do that. And then if that happens, I have no idea. God hasn’t shown in any fashion or form when the 144,000 would be resurrected.

I don’t have the foggiest idea until God shows something, what is in front and what we’re to plan for and what we’re to look toward. But in time, just like everything else, just like any sermon that God gives, just like the Feast, just like that sermon that was given on the last day of the Feast of 2005, I knew God would give it. I knew He’d give it to me. I didn’t understand it all by any measure, Melchizedek, but I knew that God would give it. We need to have that kind of understanding, that kind of confidence of whatever happens in God’s time He will show it; He will give it.

“Beyond that and there will be a space of more time that will be a matter of a few years.” I don’t want that. I hope my heart isn’t about the potential for that, of taking an artery out of an arm and taking an artery out of a leg and making four bypasses to go in here, to take care of this so that it can go on for a long, long time. I don’t cherish that one one iota. I really don’t! I don’t want that. It’s not about what I want. I’d prefer not to live that, okay? I’d prefer somewhere in 2019 to be changed. That’s what I prefer. That’s what I want. I’ve longed for that for a long time. I want that with all my being. But if it doesn’t, I know that I have another year at least.

And if that isn’t it and we’re not ready, things aren’t ready? Wow. I know God can have a Day of the Lord to be whatever He wants, but to fit in with just with what I know to this point in time with what God has given through time, through experience, through His word to where we are, we’d have another seven years on there. I don’t want another seven years. But if we have to we have to.

If we have another seven years there’ll be some phase there where there’ll be some more called into the Body to replace those who have refused what’s been given to them because there could be a specific number of individuals who are to make up the Church that lives on in the Millennium. Because God’s building a building and there have to be certain things. There are certain things that He’s building for a purpose. There are certain things He’s constructing. It’s all by design. This isn’t by an accident, “Oh, let’s just have this many, and if it changes by forty or fifty or maybe a hundred, that’s not so bad.” No, God works to fulfill specific duties and jobs and places and positions. They were designed long, long ago and that which was established long ago, whether it be the 144,000, you know, a long time ago it was only told in the Old Testament that there would be tens of thousands of saints. Then it wasn’t until John that God says there are 144,000 exactly.

We don’t know how many fit into different places along the way to live on into the Millennium, to be a part of something so great. It doesn’t mean there won’t be a few more as well, but those who are specifically called to that purpose, to have that opportunity for something they’re going to be molded and prepared for during the beginning of the Millennium, incredible. It’s kind of like those who were with Christ, who followed him and went with him along the way. There weren’t that many that were there the vast majority of the time, but there were certain disciples that began and continued on. But there were twelve specific ones that he chose and made clear. But there were others that came along as well that followed, that were taught, that experienced those things, that saw the things that took place; so much so that there were two in the background here that could be brought in to take the place of the one who betrayed Christ.

There were things purposed in all that. There was the one who was the treasurer and the money was the big thing to him and how it was being used, and so much so that he couldn’t deal with it when he saw some being used in ways that he thought was inappropriate, and especially when it’s toward the Messiah and he began to judge, “Well, that’s not good that he received something like that and it should be used someplace else to benefit,” of course, “the poor.” I loathe human nature. I think, how sick is that? He turned against the Messiah. Mind-boggling!

Some in God’s Church today are turning against the Messiah. I think, “Oh!” That’s the message God is giving to the Church at this Feast of Tabernacles, because with the impregnation of God’s spirit no one has an excuse. No one has an excuse. That’s far worse on a spiritual plane than what Judas did. “What could be worse than that?” He didn’t have God’s holy spirit. He wasn’t impregnated with God’s spirit. He was a carnal human being without the impregnation of God’s spirit. We have been given the impregnation of God’s spirit and we’ve been given more truth than they had at that time; far, far, far more truth and understanding of God and His purpose and His plan and His way of life than they had at that time with God’s spirit in us.

So which is the worst? Without God’s spirit to sin against the Christ, or with God’s holy spirit, to have opportunity for growth, the Feast of Tabernacles, change, transformation, and then for selfish reasons, whatever it might be, to form a relationship with someone else in the Church that should not be formed, or to form a relationship with someone outside the Church that should never have been formed, or in the way that it was being formed? It’s not wrong to do that, but you better do it the right way. Not like the world where you sleep together in advance. If people can’t control themselves any more than that then what’s wrong if you don’t have a greater fear of what you’re doing that can cut yourself off from God?

I mention these things because this stuff happens year after year, and it should never happen. You think you get by with it? Not before God you don’t.

So what is it? What is it that we will betray Christ and the reason he died as our Passover? What will we do? Because every year people do, people do. They make certain choices; they cut themselves off from God’s spirit. Worse than Judas Iscariot! We read the story about Judas and we think, “How sick was that, to betray him up to be taken.” He didn’t know how far it was going to go. He knew there were some bad things going to happen, but he betrayed him, and it was to be killed.  I don’t believe he believed that any iota. Then when finally things were happening, he couldn’t take it and went and committed suicide. Horrible.

Again, looking at time. So going on and reading part of what’s in there, what was stated; those things that have to be in alignment for Christ’s coming is on Pentecost of June 9th of 2019. That’s the focus we have.

Okay, I’ve referred to the first count. It could have been on Pentecost 2012 and 2013, and the next time that has a far more meaningful count and alignment for Christ’s coming is Pentecost, June the 9th, because God just added more meaning to it because of that 50 days. If something else happens later on, you know what? There’ll be something else in there that God would give to have exciting meaning to it because every time something like that has happened I’m dumbfounded by it, I’m inspired by it, I’m excited by it because it just reveals more about God’s power and His ability to fulfill what He’s going to fulfill.

So again, we talked about how if this is going to take place you’ll know by February or March, and then the extra time that will be added, a few more years.

“The world is just that close to a final world war—a nuclear war breaking out on the earth. It is that nuclear war that is the trigger for Christ’s coming and the purpose for his intervention in the affairs of mankind to stop that war.”

So in that post that we just read about, what has been said, “If Christ doesn’t return on Pentecost of 2019...” Yet that’s the present truth. That’s what I’m looking forward to. That’s what I’m hoping for. I’m hoping with all my being, that we as a Body have ears to hear, that we’re able to make whatever changes we need to make, but especially those who have been drawn and worked with to be a part of the 144,000 – which are not just that exact number, there are others. There are others. If we fail, you know what? There is someone else. Just like those that were following Christ that can take Judas’ place.

The next possible timeline leads up to the Pentecost, 2020. Regardless, we need to be spiritually on guard and watchful.

So the last post also stated that we will know by February or March 2019 if that’s the time. It’s important to understand, again, the title of this sermon, The World Stage is Set. But we may not be and that’s the problem. The world stage is set but we may not be. It comes down to, again, that one thing, the final sealing of those who make up the final part of the count of 144,000.

Since we do not know that let’s look beyond Pentecost of 2019 understanding as we do that everything about this timing is about God’s Church and the completion of this final sealing. It’s good to repeat at this point something said in the sermon here at the Feast in Europe on the Sabbath before the Feast. Again, that sermon was entitled The Seventh Day of the Feast. Everyone else is hearing, around the world, was hearing that today. But I want to quote a little bit of what was said.

“A proverb used quite often by Herbert W. Armstrong was the one of Proverbs 19:18 where he said, ‘Where there is no vision, the people perish, but he who keeps the law is happy.’” That says so much. I understand more deeply now why God gave Mr. Armstrong that message to speak so often even at the Feast of Tabernacles. I see how now why that has come full circle now in a more powerful way, that now we need to have this more than ever in God’s Church, a vision of what’s taking place, an ability to see, a desire for something that we truly must want with all of our being, willing to fight for it, willing that each one of us sitting here today and anyone listening to this are genuinely making effort to change things in your life. If you’re not changing something in your life you’re missing the mark and you don’t understand this message is for you. It’s for every one of us to do better...to do better, to fight harder, to work more.

That can be something that is an infectious thing, in that respect, something that catches on with others as they see change and growth and that spirit at work because there are certain things we can see in people, certain responses of just in life itself. Not something fake and pretentious and we’re trying to sound spiritual, it’s just how you live your life that we see within families or whatever, that changes are being made, little changes here and there in life, whatever that might be, that you’re making them and doing better because you have this focus and this need to cleanse your life in a greater way to prepare for the Messiah that’s coming.

We should want to be as clean as we can be through the power of God’s spirit that He gives us to cleanse our lives. Like Wayne talked about the other day, to wash this mind up here, to wash it, you know, scrub-a-dub-dub in the tub.

I think of when I was first called into God’s Church, because of my thinking and how much I abhorred certain things that are just in the mind, that I remember one time working and praying while I was at work. If I remember correctly I was standing on a ladder because I was painting. I asked God for help, to just, like, stretch out the pieces of this brain, and just stretch it and take a knife and just get rid of the garbage, get rid of the wrong thinking as a human being. Another way of saying rub-a-dub-dub in the tub, cleanse it, wash it, use a bunch of Clorox, whatever it takes to get it white. I don’t care what I’ve got to go through, just get it out of me. Please help me to get it out.

It was at that point in time I made a huge leap forward in my life spiritually even more so. You’ve got to fight, whatever it takes. But it takes being able to see ourselves first. That’s a problem with too many in God’s Church today; we really don’t see ourselves realistically for what we are, for who we are. We don’t fear this thing like we should. We’re not afraid of how easy it is to compromise on the Sabbath, to compromise on a holy day, to let down spiritually in our lives, to let down in our prayer life, whatever it might be, to let down in how we treat other people, to let down on what kind of crap we allow into this mind and perversion that we allow in that’s broadcast by this world.

That’s why I’m hoping a bunch of us are getting a picture out here, that any of you fooling around with pornography and crap like that, you better quit! Because I know that too many are! I’m saying that with the authority of Almighty God; that God knows what you’re doing. If I was to ask of a show of hands of individuals who over the last year have looked at any of that stuff, have thought about any of that stuff or allowed that kind of thinking into their mind I’ll tell you right now a lot of hands would go up in this very room if you were being honest before God! I’m not going to do that, not to embarrass anyone. Do we fear that kind of stuff? Because that’s the exact kind of thing that you’re cut off from God’s spirit and you’re not growing like you should be.

I do not like to do this. I am sorry, but I am pleading with you. I am pleading with God’s Church, truly, because I know where we are and I don’t want this to be the reason it happened, that I got the extra time. I want to be changed. I’m tired of this. I’m tired of the battle. I want a new body.

There is some selfishness in there, I have to admit. It’s been a long struggle. It’s been a lot of suffering, a lot of hurt and a lot of tears, and a lot of pain, a lot of betrayals, a lot of stabbing in the back that have hurt so bad I can’t even tell you, in ways that you really can’t know because you’ve never experienced it to that degree.

Those who have gone through the Apostasy have had a lot of that take place in their life and it hurts. It cuts deep into the soul. That song, “Walk to God’s house side by side and counsel blended sweet”; l lived it hundreds and hundreds of times. I see some of you doing the same thing, but you don’t see it. You don’t see it. I see attitudes. I see spirit because God’s given me that ability to do the job I have to do. It’s not about me; it’s about a reality of us, each one of us. “Where there is no vision the people perish, but he who keeps the law is happy (blessed).” It’s what we want to do. We want to make things right.

Then it was asked, “Do you have the vision that God has offered and provided to His Church? Do you see what is before us and do you want it with all of your being?” It’s now nearly in our grasp but some have let go and others are in the process of letting go. I’m weary of that, brethren. I truly am. As God’s servant I am so weary of that. I have seen so many come and go that sometimes it gets to the point in time where—I don’t even want to mention it—you fear getting too close because is that where the next betrayal comes from?

I’ve been betrayed as God’s servant... Again, I’m just giving this as an example because it’s happened to all of God’s servants because this is where the betrayal begins. It’s toward God. It’s toward Joshua Christ, but I get the brunt of it. See, I get to see it up first hand in personal relationships. They do too, far more than I do (please don’t misunderstand me), because it’s against them first and foremost. But when you’re living in this carnal human body, this physical flesh and you form relationships and friendships and those things happen it takes a toll on you. It takes a toll on you. That’s why I can clearly, honestly say I’m used up. I am emptied out for God’s Church and only by His great power can I keep going forward, to be candid with you. I don’t want to see anyone else go by the wayside, young or old alike.

I wish every one of us in this following period of time that we have until that takes place is here to the end. But I know that not everyone is because I know some can’t even hear what I’m saying. They don’t get it this is about them. They don’t get what they have to change. They don’t get what their battle is. They don’t get what they really have to start making changes in in their life. Anyone who doesn’t do that doesn’t get it. So some are letting go, others have already let go.

I can give a whole list of things of what has happened over the past year or so, what people have done, things that have happened in people’s lives that have cut themselves off from God’s spirit, in relationships and things people desire and go after and are allowed. God allows it. Even in some things that I am suspicious of, because I’ve seen it over and over, I see patterns. I know patterns. After a while you see certain things happen on a spiritual plane and you know, boy, if you don’t get a hold of this you’re gone. You’re not going to be around much longer. You can’t make it through if you don’t get a hold of that attitude, if you don’t get a hold of the sin, the thinking that’s taking place that’s eating you up, the drama, drama, drama.

I’m serious. Drama – I love that when it squeezes out and it just all comes out. This one doesn’t fall to the ground, it goes back in so you can use it again, but that’s what it ends in. All drama is like that. It’s the feces of life. It is! Saying it in a nice way, as the feces of life. How can you be against that one there, because that’s scientific, the feces? Spoken of in scripture. It is what it is. That’s what happens with drama. That’s what we end up doing and being, rubbing our noses in it.

I think of these great big tanks– I don’t know if they have them over here but the stuff that’s flushed down the toilet, it goes out in the water and it comes into these great big tanks and they have these great big things that go around and around to kind of mix it up and then they start breaking it up and if you get anywhere close to those things you know that this isn’t good.

I think of how we can sometimes be on a spiritual plane. It’s like, “Oh, there’s a tank.” Someone were out in the ocean, or whatever this is out here, this bay out here, in the cold water and swam in it, but sometimes, you know, it’s like we’re driving along and we see one of those tanks and it’s like, “There’s a place to swim! Let’s go!” It’s like jumping out there and doing the back stroke, you know, in that stuff.

We don’t see sin for that. We just go out and do it because we’re not afraid to. We’re not afraid of what we might swallow and how that’s going to affect us, how that’s going to come out of us, ruin our life on a spiritual plane.

Why do we do things to ruin our lives spiritually that God has offered us? Why is it that some will put other things higher than God? Why is it that people don’t come for all eight days of the Feast? Why is it that some won’t come to the Feast and sacrifice and be there if you’re capable, if you’re able to? Where is the work ethic today of people working forty hours a week and producing in their own lives like God said, “Work!”? If you don’t work, what’s wrong? I don’t get it! It’s a simple thing. But if we don’t do it we’re not growing. You’re not growing spiritually. You must produce in life and you must use those things to be at God’s Feast, if you’re capable of, if you’re able to do that. Some people say, “I’m not able to do it, that’s why I can’t do it.”

I’ve known of people who wouldn’t come to the Feast of Tabernacles because of dogs and cats. “I can’t do anything with them. Where am I going to put it? I can’t leave them anywhere. Nobody wants them and we don’t have a place where you can take stuff like that. And chickens and goats and horses and cattle – can’t leave them; can’t leave them to go to the Feast of Tabernacles. To make that choice? To not be able to plan, to arrange, to work something out in order to do what God wants for us to do?

So we better be examining ourselves, how we’re keeping the Sabbath, how we’re keeping the holy days, whether we’re straying off course in different ways, what kind of relationships we’re developing, how we think toward some of others in the Church, whether we’re maybe forming some wrong relationships like what happened at last year’s Feast of Tabernacles, where some began to, who were married and had someone who wasn’t at the Feast with them, and different people who have their mates back home, and they start drawing a little bit too close together, getting a little too chummy, building a bond in a relationship with each other and their mates are back home. Why are you running around with them? Why are you doing this? What does this look like? Do you know what’s going on in your mind? Do you get it? Do you know what’s going on in your mind to do that?

“Well, they’re in the Church and I’m in the Church and we’re just friends.” Bologna! If you don’t know how to conduct yourself and how to act? How would your mate think about that? Would your mate like to see you spending some time with someone alone and talking with them alone and doing some things maybe together that you shouldn’t be doing?

So what kind of things are you doing? Are you doing things that are wrong before God? Because you don’t get by with them. Are you thinking wrong to some others in God’s Church and how you’re thinking about them, your mind being pure and clean and you’re not maybe hugging them for the wrong reasons? Because I know that some have right here at this Feast of Tabernacles. I’ve seen it. I know what’s in the mind, okay? There are certain ways to behave and there are certain ways to think toward each other. Truly are. It’s fine to do things. It’s fine to give the kiss on each side, you know, that is done here in Europe, if your mind is right. But if your mind is not right, if you’re thinking some wrong thoughts, God have mercy on you. He will only if you repent of your sins.

So my last opportunity for some chastening. I’ll tell you what; this is some of the strongest chastening I’ve ever given in God’s Church and I hate doing it. I don’t like doing it.

Further, it was stated (taking the time to do this), I’m going to read this. It was in that same sermon: “It’s kind of amazing how things, including time, can try us. Laura has mentioned to me many a time over the past year how that it seems like 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 in what they were experiencing prior to 2012, a kind of spiritual Groundhog Day.”

It’s there. Now, how are we dealing with it this time? Is this, perhaps, your final test?

Hebrews 4:7—Again, he limits, sets aside, predetermined a certain day, saying in David, Today, after so long a time; as he said, Today if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. This is a time to listen. This is a time to take to heart. Every person. Every person hearing this sermon, to take to heart what is being said.

So where do you stand? Are you truly changing and yielding your life more now at the end of this Feast than you were at the beginning? Is that going to continue after the Feast where you’re changing, where you are focusing on some specific things in your life that you’re seeking to do better, that you are changing? Because that’s what we’re talking about, making change to think differently. We all have room to grow and we should want to grow that much more.

So where do you stand?

Will God determine that we must go beyond 2019? And I think, I feel by the fact that this is being inspired to be given at this Feast that we’re real close to that decision being made. It’s just like in 2008. That’s why I hurt inside because I know what I’m being given and I’ll tell you, it scares me. It scares me. So we need to take it to heart with all of our being.

So when is that being made? Maybe at this Feast of Tabernacles? Maybe within the month after here to see what we put into practice in our lives? I don’t know. But I fear and feel that it’s that close to making a determination as to whether we’re going to go on at least another year.

I’ll tell you now, too, just so you know, that we’re going to try to secure Feast sites for the following year just in case...just in case. Pray to God we don’t have to use them for our group. Whatever happens in the following year if things do continue on and happens exactly as we’ve been focusing upon then God will provide whatever needs to be accomplished.

I’m focused, again, upon Pentecost of 2019, and because of that and knowing what can alter that date I’m crying out as much as I can, pleading with everyone to draw closer to God and yield completely to God and Christ working in your life to fully transform you to the level that’s required so that end-time events can begin, because the world stage is already set and ready to go at any time; we have to get there too.

One last scripture; Hebrews 10:37-39. I’ll just give it to you and you can look it up later if you want. For yet a little while, and he who shall come will come, and will not tarry, wait any longer; “delay the time” is what the word means. Now the just shall live by faith: but if anyone draw back (let down, withdraw) my soul, my life shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not... We are not of those, we were not called to be of those who draw back unto perdition (destruction, loss) but of those who believe to the saving of life.

[1] https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-08-24/one-minute-midnight-latest-us-sanctions-propel-nations-towards-risk-war

[2] https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-08-10/turkish-lawyers-want-raid-incirlik-air-base-arrest-us-troops-terrorist-ties

[3] https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-08-16/get-prepared-chaos-come-snyder-fears-global-financial-bear-market-looms

[4] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-13/the-hindenburg-omen-is-stalking-near-record-u-s-stock-market

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Footnotes