Real Freedom, Pt. 2

Ronald Weinland

February 2, 2019

We’ve currently begun a new series entitled Real Freedom, and today will be Part 2.

As it was mentioned at the beginning of Part 1, the world speaks of freedom but has a lot of definitions about what freedom really is, whether that be a matter of their definitions or the matter of various beliefs that people have. We know that real freedom, to truly be free, can only come from God. That’s what we discussed in Part 1. It’s something that only God can give.

The freedom that mankind has, just like I saw a repeat of a particular thing that John F. Kennedy had to say at one point (I don’t know why it was on or what I was watching at the particular time) but he made a comment how that freedom comes at a real price. Well, for them much of that has to do with war, much of that has to do with defense, and so forth, things that the world and how they think that they can achieve freedom, and so they’re talking about the loss of life and so forth that has gone on through time or in this particular nation here. That’s not freedom at all. That’s not what freedom is all about. The world doesn’t have it.

So we learn in God’s Church very quickly on where freedom comes from, whether it be literal freedom, physical freedom, but that of life, period. Again, God can only provide that. God can only give that in a new age, in a new world. Thankfully God has given us hope and understanding of those things.

So we’re going through and talking about this process of how we’re able to achieve that, how we’re able to latch onto that, our desire for that, have hope in that, of what God is going to bring to this earth when He stops the last war.

I think I mentioned also at the beginning last week before we actually got into the sermon about how that right now things don’t seem to be moving at a pace they need to, but I know that a war can break out at any time in the world. Things with Venezuela, things in the Middle East, really the Middle East, because the Middle East is a focal point of so many thing that are going to bring about an eruption of a war as far as prophecy is concerned. So we watch. We watch what various nations are doing and the things that are going on out there in the news. They have escalated mightily just over the past year.

But the reality is things are in God’s time and God’s purpose and sometimes He doesn’t show those things to us until later on. So my hope still remains the same, that we’re going to be able to enter into a period of time here now where a new world is going to be able to be ushered in soon, but that means that there are going to be some horrifying times before that. So whether it be this year or next year, hopefully not beyond that, but if it is, it’s in God’s purpose and God’s time. Things are not the same as what they were from 2008 to 2012 and ’13 and how we lived something in our lives where it was absolute. This is not absolute and God is making that very clear. So, for whatever purpose, and I could speculate about some of that, but it doesn’t do any good. Just that we follow God. Whatever God gives us we continue to go forward with the truth that He’s given to us. We have hope and we have desire that it be soon. If not we continue to move forward. So that’s what we do.

Anyway, with that said we are going through the process here of talking about some of the things then about how freedom is achieved. I always marvel at the process whereby God teaches us and molds and fashions things in us. I think of this series of sermons that have come before this to bring us to this point in time to talk about this particular subject, and especially considering some of the things discussed about peace. Because peace is very much about freedom as well – peace of mind, peace of life, how you live your life, and so forth, and how that has to exist in the world in order to be able to experience what freedom really is.

Again here, we’re going to pick this up where we left off last week. We barely got into the book of Peter. I do want to start in that again. We covered a few verses there and then we’re going to continue on there because some of these things begin to be addressed by him. We’re going to look at other areas as well. I don’t know how long this series is going to be, but there is a lot here, there really is, about this subject and about the process whereby God is blessing us and giving us a taste of that in advance in the Church, because that’s where you experience it. That’s where you begin to live it in part, but we don’t have it in the world yet.

I think of what the Church has gone through from the time of Philadelphia on, going through Laodicea, coming up to the Apostasy. We have gone through so much. We have experienced so much, of things, of lessons that are going to be taught for the next 1,100 years because this is the height, if you will, of it all, of God bringing everything together at the end of an age, and He’s done so in what the Church has experienced since Philadelphia, including that period of time.

1 Peter 1:1—Peter, an apostle of Joshua the Christ, to the strangers, or better yet, to those who are estranged, speaking of those who had been scattered but hadn’t gone up into Europe, of some of the tribes and so forth. That’s why it uses some of the words here like “the scattered.” “The dispersed,” is the real word that’s used here in the Greek language.

...throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, elect... So this is very special here because it’s speaking of those whom God has called out of those areas and those groups of people. So it’s speaking to the Church. That’s who Paul is addressing here. ...elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. I love reading that because when it discusses this, this foreknowledge, it’s a purpose. It’s showing God’s purpose of something He predetermined long before in time.

...according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, and other scriptures make it very clear that this determination by God, because it’s about His plan, is of something He planned out before creation ever began. Before the angelic creation ever began God had a plan and a purpose to create a family. We can’t grasp the billions or even trillions, we have no idea of what we would refer to as “earth time,” because it didn’t exist, but that’s what we’re talking about, time, long, vast periods of time, of the angelic realm and of the creation, of what they were involved in in being a part of a creation within a universe, of things that exist out there. They were a part of that. God let them share in that. God let them do things that we don’t grasp, that have not been fully revealed yet, a power that they had to serve God’s purpose and to experience those things as they were being brought to pass. It wasn’t just God saying, “Here it is,” and all of a sudden there it was, the entire universe. It didn’t happen like that. It was done in a systematic building process just like anything else is done on a physical plane. God worked in a physical universe to bring it about through time.

Anyway, going on; I don’t want to get sidetracked too much here. ...elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, God’s purpose in having Elohim. All these things created as a part of that purpose, things that are difficult for us to grasp and comprehend but beautiful when you understand it, when you see it. The angelic realm itself and why, and God’s purpose in creating it, and then bringing us down to the point in time when He put the earth here and created what we refer to as the Milky Way System, if you will, and this little orb that’s in the midst of all that. Incredible!

...elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the spirit... So it’s saying here that this was predetermined, that God had a process, knowing full well how He was going to make mankind. It wasn’t like God went along and all of a sudden decided later on He’s going to have a family and later on He’s going to create physical human beings. It was all planned out by design!

So again here, “through sanctification of the spirit.” So it was predetermined by God, creating mankind, and within that period of 6,000 years, that He would call various ones into a relationship with Him through sanctification of the spirit, through a process whereby they could begin a process of salvation, of being saved. Because by nature, God creating this way, we are selfish human beings. We are ruled by, we are enslaved to, we’re in bondage to “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” simply because of how we were created. God teaching us that we can have choices in that and we can experience that life and be lifted up with incredible pride, as 6,000 years of mankind has shown, in thinking we can solve all of our problems; we don’t need God. We can have any kind of god we want. We can form them and people that come up with all kinds of dumb, weird, insane ideas because there is something in the spirit essence that God has given to mankind to want there to be something greater than what they are, to even have this mind that there is something beyond this temporary life, something out there, and so different ideas.

They pick up various things and even things that God has told mankind but they’ve gone off on different tangents because they don’t really like it the way God says it is, and so they’ve come up with different ideas about the afterlife or whatever, or this heaven or whatever it might be, or punishment if you don’t live right. And where did they get all these things? Satan. That’s where all false religion has come from. He is the master; he is the teacher of it all to confuse mankind, to confound mankind. He communicates to the minds of human beings. He has through time and given various ideas of things that people have gone off on, and especially toward the beginning.

You look at Egypt, all the different gods that were there and the god families, and all the things that existed. That’s why God, when He took them out of Egypt, He said “You shall have no other elohim before Me.” No other gods. No other god families. There is only one God Family.

So there are these different ideas through mythology and whatever it might be, the Greeks, the Romans, and different ones and ideas they’ve come up with of these different gods that exist, Zeus, whatever it might be, and that family and the distortedness of that. They’re all made to look like they have these human hang-ups. These god families, they have human hang ups and they play around; they mess around with human beings. That’s what Satan wants human beings to think, there are these gods and they play around with human beings, in the lives of human beings, and they interfere in your life, and you’re just like a big experiment. I’m sorry – it’s so laughable, the ideas of human beings.

So again here, we may catch up where we left off.

So again here, God had a plan of sanctification of the spirit, unto obedience... So what’s the purpose? Why did he die? Why did he come and suffer as he did and his blood spill to the earth and die? Because there is a process whereby God will cleanse your life, will purify your life and give you that which is pure, and let you experience that which is absolutely pure and righteous and just in every facet because it’s from Him, of Him.

This sanctification of the spirit that can begin to change your life “unto obedience,” because you come into agreement with God, reconciliation. It’s the process that we’re going to be talking about here. That we know about these things but the more we see them, the more we understand them, the more we build upon them, the more in awe we become of what God is doing in our lives and how unique and special we are to God. We are a very special people to experience God’s holy spirit! And that, sometimes, is so difficult to grasp, how blessed we are.

I marvel that God gave us understanding that the angelic realm was never given of the holy spirit. Never! Never! Never! Never! They don’t have it dwelling in them. They were just given knowledge. They were spirit beings, but they were given knowledge of truth of God and then they had choices to make over a long period of time. That’s why it took so long for it to finally come to a point where one became lifted up by who he was and began to deceive and mislead and pull others toward his way of thinking because nothing else existed in the beginning but obedience. They didn’t know anything else except what God had told them, the being who created them. Awesome! So they never received of the holy spirit. Only a few in 6,000 years have ever experienced the life of God in their minds, in their being where they could understand what truth is.

“Sanctification of the spirit.” The purpose? ...unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Joshua the Christ. Because that’s how it’s done. So there are those in the first of the wave loaves, the first wave loaf up to the first 4,000 years of mankind, who believed what God had to say about a Messiah, who believed that their sins could be forgiven them, and they believe what God had to say about that which God was going to bring to save, to save mankind, to save, to give life of salvation. So they believed those things.

So though he hadn’t come and died yet they believe in that, and because of their belief, because they believed God they were forgiven. It’s the same process that works in us it’s just that it’s happened already, the Passover 2,000 years ago. So it doesn’t matter whether it’s in the future or in the past, it’s the same process that works in us all.

...unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Joshua the Christ. Grace to you... That’s what’s been given. That’s what he’s saying. That’s what you’ve received then, to be able to experience that, to be drawn, to be called to that. Grace is about the forgiveness, the mercy, the patience, the love, the kindness, the intervention of God in our lives. That’s what grace is about. It’s about everything that God gives to us freely. Nothing can be earned. It’s all free. Real freedom.

...Grace unto you and peace... They go together. To learn peace, to have peace, that which God gave up a long, long time ago when He gave free moral agency to the angelic realm; He knew what was going to happen. Grace unto you and peace be multiplied. That’s God’s will, that we grow in our ability to receive greater favor, stronger and a closer relationship with God the Father so that He can give us more. Because His desire is to give us a lot more and this is just the beginning of a process, to give us so much more that we can’t even begin to comprehend. We haven’t even been told it all. It’s so awesome and so great what God has planned and why the universe is out there – physical things and spiritual.

Grace unto you and peace be multiplied. As we said here, it’s not “Blessed be.” No one can bless God. You can’t bless God. It means, “Worthy to be praised” is God. If you understand, then, indeed, only God is worthy to be praised. No human being, in that respect, only God Almighty.

Worthy to be praised is God and the Father of our Lord Joshua the Christ, who according to His abundant mercy... He’s always been merciful, and people haven’t, the world hasn’t recognized it. Always of a merciful desire and spirit toward His creation. But because of carnality, “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life,” the sin that’s there God has to respond to mankind in a different way and back away, let them do what they’re going to do. Let them do what they’re going to do because it’s the only way they can ever learn. Only a few then through that period of time have the opportunity of being called out of that to begin to experience freedom, to begin to experience something that you can’t experience without God’s calling, without God’s holy spirit.

...according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again... Begotten of God’s holy spirit, a begettal of life from the Great God of the universe. Who has ever received that except a few through time? The angelic realm has never been begotten of God’s holy spirit. See? So how incredible is it to be able to be, to have a physical creation, to be physically created, to have physical life, and then to be begotten of God’s holy spirit for the purpose of being born into His family, the God Family?

...has begotten us again unto a living hope... So God has given us a hope. In the past 6,000 years many have shared in that hope, of what God has planned for, purposed for our lives and for the world.

...to a lively hope—Where does it begin?—by the resurrection of Joshua the Christ from the dead. God has a power of life and death. It’s a small thing for Him to give life, to give it again physically, to resurrect someone 6,000 years later, 6,500 years, whatever the time is, bring them back into a physical life, the same person with the same memories, the same mind, the same baggage, everything, exactly the way they were when they died except with a healthy, strong body to give them then opportunity to learn what we have the opportunity of learning in advance ahead of time, and yet they get to see a world that you and I cannot even begin to imagine. You cannot imagine. You see things on sci-fi movies and things like that, of what it’s going to be like 1,000 years from now. You really can’t imagine because technology will not stop. Technology has only started. We are in the stone age of technology, we truly are. We think we’re so great. We think we’ve come so far yet no one gives God the credit for everything that’s been revealed to mankind. He just didn’t give it to us earlier because we would have destroyed ourselves a long time ago, but God had a plan of making sure that man was here for 6,000 years before we started the process of annihilating ourselves. Because what do we always do? Everything that ever comes along with knowledge and science is used for war. A matter of fact, most of it has geared into, and a lot of those things have come about because of a desire for war, for conquering, for giving us “freedom,” whoever “us” is.

See, whoever it is who has the biggest weapons, the best weapons, we’re going to have freedom, our kind of freedom, whatever that is. It could be communism, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter, see. Different kinds of mindsets that are out there in the world, we’re going to give the world freedom. Incredible. Human life. But we have to live it. It’s the only way to get where we’re going.

...to an inheritance that is incorruptible and undefiled... The opportunity to inherit something—that’s God’s desire—incorruptible and undefiled. Can you imagine? No wrong thinking. Nothing that’s spurred by things that are hidden inside of our being, inside of our minds that we can only come to see with God’s help, with God’s spirit, as He reveals to us how sick our minds really are when you talk about selfishness and that which controls us. God blesses us in the Church to learn how to control that because we have no control as human beings of and by ourselves. We truly don’t, but with God’s help we begin to have control in our life and we begin to have freedom in our life. We begin to experience the separation from that, but there is a warring back and forth going on as long as you’re in God’s Church.

A lot of this sermon is about our ability to come to grips with some of that and to realize that in that warring, that as soon as you have messed up in that war and you haven’t been able to do what you wanted to do, because you want to do what’s right with God, and you fail and you fall on your face and you do or say something that’s wrong, and you know it, and you go and repent before God and you still carry it with you, you have not experienced God’s freedom. The kind of faith that God wants us to have and to grow in is the ability to grow more so so that we realize and we know the mercy, the grace, the love of God, that it’s GONE and you don’t have to carry it with you anymore. But you can’t use that as a liberty to continue in sin, as Paul talks about. You can’t use that knowledge in a wrong way. You’ve got to keep fighting against sin because that’s your choice. That’s why you cry out to God ever more so, “I need, I want help to change, to transform my thinking so that I am in agreement with You, so that I am at one with You.” A lot of our prayers ought to be about that.

It’s not a matter of just do’s and don’ts and you have the ability or you rely on yourself not to do a certain thing like so much of the world. Like Judaism does, they keep the Sabbath because it’s a do and a don’t and they do it on their own ability. And they’ve kept that knowledge through time though they keep it highly wrong and Christ himself condemned them for what they were doing and how they were doing it, because they didn’t have God’s spirit and they won’t doing it for the right reasons, because they weren’t at one with God. You want to be of the same mind as God. You want to be in harmony and unity. You want to obey because you’re in agreement with God. There is a world of difference in the two.

We’ve been talking about that in this sermon series, which I haven’t even caught up with yet. There is so much here. It’s awesome what God has given just to see and understand – the difference between trying to do it the Hagar way, the way that Abraham and Sarah did to bring about a promise on a physical plane because you’re relying on your own ability and your own self because you really don’t see or believe or trust in how God intended it to be accomplished through Sarah. Two big differences here.

One’s by promise because God promised it and He will fulfill it if you look to Him to fulfill it and accomplish it. It’s God that does it. Yes, you have a physical life and you experience the physical aspect of it, but you didn’t do it on your own. Only God made the way possible for you to do it.

...to an inheritance that’s incorruptible and undefiled and does not fade away but is reserved in heaven for you... God has reserved so much for us, He truly has. So much, as I mentioned a moment ago and didn’t continue on with, so much that we can’t begin to grasp, as I talked about science and what we have today and what the world will be like a thousand years from now. God is going to give us these things because we’re going to learn to use things for the right purpose and the right reason. And, candidly, it’s about a being that later on is brought back into an environment with mankind, who strive to deceive mankind, and he wants to use the technology to accomplish something he couldn’t before and he tries to persuade people to use that now so he can literally destroy the earth. That’s what his desire is.

...who are kept by the power of God through faith... That’s how we live our lives, it’s through faith. It’s through believing God. God gives us truth and it’s up to us to make choices. We have the ability. He gives us the ability, the mind to make a choice to believe it or not. So He gives us truths and He gives us the ability to see it, but then we have to make a decision as to whether we’re going to come into or be in agreement with it.

Like so many of recent time who just had the one problem with what was true about women. After 6,000 years that which God was going to take away and give freedom the way it was meant from the beginning to be. Not because of carnal human beings and because one was stronger physically than the other, more domineering, in one respect, than the other because of that strength, and was misused through time. Some in God’s own Church couldn’t do it, especially when it came to ordinations. That was it. “Now you’ve done it. Now you’ve done it! You’ve not only said that we’re basically the same and we should respect one another on that same plane, that one is not higher and better than the other, but now they can be ordained? Women can be ordained?”

Some couldn’t take it and they’re gone because of that. They’re gone because of that truth that God revealed. So they couldn’t come into agreement with it because their ideas, their thoughts on it were different and they couldn’t agree with God, because they could make excuse why, “That’s not from God, that’s from him. That’s what you’re following. You’re following him.” And you think, when did they lose that? They believed about an Apostasy. They believed about the stones of the temple. They believed about God spewing the Church out of His mouth. They believed because they experienced certain things, until they got to a certain point, and then they couldn’t swallow that one because of pride. So they made a choice.

God gives us the ability to believe, and then our choice to live by it is what faith is. It’s a simple thing. Faith is a matter of a choice to believe what God has given to us. He’s given us the ability to believe the truth, now it’s our choice and we start living by it and that’s how we grow spiritually – by living by faith because we believe God.

...who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation. Freedom! True, real freedom. That’s the process. It’s a process of salvation where God is bringing us out of bondage, saving us from bondage, and blessing us on a road toward freedom, real freedom. We’re not there yet.

...and ready to be revealed in the last time. Awesome! The last time. We are in the last times. This is it!

I was watching a part of a video of Mr. Armstrong this morning. Going back in some of the things that he had talked about. Incredible, the journey that God has brought us on in the end-times. He was talking about why these are the last times and what started, basically, back in WWI, leading up into WWII and through WWII. And because of a work that God was raising up in Oregon through Mr. Armstrong, starting at that time. He had no idea of what was being raised up fully by any measure until time went on and he began to experience what God was doing and he began to understand and see because God gave him that understanding to see and to know what He was doing through him, a work that had to do with the end-time, the last times of mankind on this earth. And finally, did get into the last time, Laodicea. That was it. That was the last of the seven eras of the Church. Then we had an apostasy. Awesome to know what we’ve lived through, what we’ve experienced.

So when it’s all done, that which has followed Laodicea, because the period of time there having to do with the Apostasy on, God was doing something different that hadn’t been fully revealed to the Church or spoken of to the Church in so many ways, and He began to reveal what He was going to accomplish until it was all completed and His Son returned.

So God is revealing in the last time here, we’re looking forward to it. Hope and pray. I have my desire that it be now. But if it isn’t we march on. As much as we may be weary you don’t stop. It’s just like those markers in your running. You just look to the next one and you run harder. You don’t give up. I’ve seen so many people in real races just quit, just give up. Individuals you would think would never do it, especially because of their pride (if you knew them), that were good at what they did. But since they couldn’t be up at the front they just quit. Amazing. That happens in God’s Church too. Fully convicted that because one couldn’t become an evangelist he wouldn’t continue on. Amazing. Amazing. That’s when his countenance began to change.

Wherein you greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, you are in heaviness through many trials. Is that our life? For 2,000 years it’s been in the life of those in God’s Church. Waiting, looking to the time that the promises are going to come to a fulfillment here. It’s no different. 6,000 years it’s been that way. Everyone has wanted to know. Daniel, I think of what was written about him. “Just shut the book, Daniel. It’s not for you. It’s not for your time.” Basically, “You’re going to live your life. You’re going to die. It’s going to happen much later.” So Daniel came to a point of peace with that.

So we rejoice. The more you grow, the more you rejoice in God and what God is doing, the more in awe you become of God. As we go through this series we have the ability to have a greater love of God. We truly do. To grasp more deeply what He’s given to us, to experience now a large portion of that freedom before we’re actually there and given the full amount, especially the inheritance for some.

Wherein you greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, you are in heaviness through many trials, so that the trial of your faith... This was never meant to be easy. It’s meant to be hard because that’s how you’re able to be molded and fashioned and transformed into something different because the things that put you to the test are the things that bring up things in your mind that you don’t even know about yourself! They reveal things about your character and about what’s deeply hidden in you so that you can address them. Because you can’t address them until God reveals them.

We’ve gone through many things. I think of since 2008 and what the Church has gone through and the many things that have been there that happened so fast over such a short period of time. More than what was ever experienced during Philadelphia and couldn’t even be experienced during Laodicea because that was going asleep. Far more, far faster because of what God was doing. Because the farther it goes into God’s plan the more that people are able to be given. Those in the Millennium are going to be given so much. They’re going to be given 6,000 years, and the greatest of the lessons are in the last 100 or less, actually. The greatest of the lessons come to a height toward the end here, because it’s like a building process and here all of a sudden now, now I can see it more fully. Those in Sardis couldn’t begin to see what we have now. They were nowhere close. That’s why it’s hard for us to grasp sometimes how much we have.

...so that the trial of your faith... Hard? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely! But beautiful, awesome, wonderful. No matter where you are, no matter what happens to you, because of the truth and because of God’s way of life and because of what’s in front of us we can grasp and have an understanding and rejoice in what we have whenever, wherever we are in time. That’s the way it’s been.

...so that the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire... Well, the reason that’s given as an example? Because human beings tend to think of the physical as being valuable, in what we have or what we can get in this life as being valuable. That’s the reason sometimes people don’t save their tithes as they should or pay their tithes or misuse second tithe, because something else is more valuable. A better place to live, a nicer car; yes, those things are nice to have if you can afford them. You maybe need to sacrifice for a time and learn various lessons through going through hardship at times in life.

We learn lessons through that. Which one is more valuable? See? The box in the corner that I said I’d like to be at least twice as deep, but that’s sufficient. Whatever you have, to be thankful and to know that what you have from God is far, far greater – so much greater.

...being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire might be found, as we grow and as we continue to receive more and more and more from God, might be found unto praise, honor, and glory at the appearing of Joshua the Christ... So that for the past 2,000 years has been the goal, the desire, the focus of those whom God has called.

We are unique because now the goal is for a portion to have that, but another portion, and the majority in that respect, in their thinking, should be that they’re looking forward to continuing on and being the foundation of a new age, the beginning of the Church of God in a new age! That’s awesome! The beginning of the Church of God in a new world, a new age. You’re the beginning of it. And you have no idea what that means, what you’ve been given. You really don’t. It’s hard to grasp that because you haven’t experienced it yet. But to know it!

People will know you. People will hear stories of you because you’re alive and living on into a new age. “You’re one of them!? I’d love to talk to you! I want to talk to you! I want to spend some time with you! I want to hear more.” They really, truly will. And can you handle it? Well, the only way you can handle it is because of what you’re getting ready to go through, the final humbling. Because it’s going to be hard, the final humbling, to where you won’t take it unto yourself because you’re going to experience and to know that God Almighty brought you through, that God Almighty gave you favor, that God Almighty intervened for you, that God Almighty has given you what you have. You’re going to know it in ways that you can’t know it yet. You truly are. You can know it by knowledge, but you don’t know it until you experience it. Then you will truly know it.

...whom having not seen you love. Isn’t that incredible? It’s a marvel. You haven’t seen God. You can’t anyway; no human being ever has. They’ve seen a manifestation of something physical, like Abraham did; he saw different manifestations – one of God, one of Melchizedek, and they were different.

…having not seeing you do love. So we learn to love God more and more. We learn to love His Son, Joshua the Christ more and more. We become more grateful for what he went through more and more.

In whom even though now you do not see Him... yet believing, you rejoice... We do. Feast of Tabernacles? Some of the greatest rejoicing in a year that we do. When we’re able to be totally separated from the world and experience a taste of—just a taste—of what the Millennium is going to be like when everyone is of the same mind. No division. As a whole no strife, though human beings do have strife at times and still have human nature. As long as you’re in this body you’re going to have some of that, but with the same desire in the mind to have unity and oneness and to rejoice before God and to be away out of this world, to be away from it, to be away from your job, to be away from the things of society you have to rub shoulders with on a regular basis week by week. You know, maybe just driving in the traffic to get to and from work. You don’t have to do that during the Feast. Awesome! I don’t know about you, but to me that’s awesome! Any other separation from the world that you can have that we have. So we experience something that we can’t experience at other times because God wants us to have a little bit of taste, that hope of something we look forward to. Incredible.

We do that in sermons as well that we receive from time to time and the things that God has opened up to us that we’re able to rejoice in more as we grow more and more.

...yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible... Again, a word that means “unable to fully convey in words.” There are times you just can’t. I find that oftentimes in sermons. What can I say? I might have something, but how do you convey that, because we have different experiences. ...and full of glory, because it’s from God. That’s where the glory is. The glory is of God. The more we have of that in our life and can experience the richer and greater life becomes.

Now we’re caught up.

Verse 9—receiving the end, or the fulfillment, or the purpose, in other words, that God predetermined before time, that foreknowledge. ...receiving the purpose, if you will, of your faith. It’s a marvel, this process that God has given to us to be drawn, to have our mind opened up, to receive of His spirit in the human spirit, to be able to see things that come in no other way. Your ability to see, to really hear what God gives, is what He gives you. You can’t do it on your own ability. You can’t pick up your Bible and just read it and glean it on your own ability. What you glean, what you’re able to learn, what you’re able to grow in is of God’s spirit. He gives the ability to see it and to experience it.

So again, Receiving the end/the purpose of your faith—even the salvation of your life. Because it’s a process...it’s a process being made free, coming out of bondage. Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you. So again here, throughout scripture, throughout time, things that have written about God’s purpose and what God’s going to do and things that are to come and things that have been written in scripture throughout time.

...searching what, or what manner of time, the spirit of Christ, the spirit about the Messiah... That’s what it’s talking about here, see; because there was that desire to see a greater fulfillment of something they hoped in. Freedom. Freedom from the oppression of horrible governments in the world, especially because of what you believe. It’s always been there with those whom God has worked.

...in what manner of time, the spirit about the Messiah, is what this is saying, which was in, the word really is with, because people have read other things into this, of what it’s saying. This is what it’s saying ...which was with them. Because it’s God’s spirit that was with them, or in them if we understand, that was revealing things to them, giving them insight, hope, understanding of certain things to whatever degree God gave to that period of time about a Messiah, about a promise. So they had this hope in something that God gave them the ability to see in the future. They didn’t know when but they believed it just as much as we believe in the Millennium and the Great White Throne and God’s Family.

...which was in them/with them did signify when it, God’s spirit, that’s what it’s talking about here, that’s the context, testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ. God said though it wasn’t understood. The disciples didn’t grasp and comprehend so many of the things, even when he was telling them, basically, “I’m going to die, you know, in three days.” They didn’t understand he was going to be resurrected and he told them certain things, because they could only see things on a physical plane. They hadn’t even been baptized yet. They hadn’t received the impregnation of God’s spirit. They were just being drawn and they believed to the point of what they were being shown.

Just like a calling. You believe what you are shown along the way and then you have the opportunity to come to a point where you choose baptism and you can go under a watery grave and come up again and then have the impregnation of God’s spirit. Awesome!

...testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. They looked forward to that. They looked forward to a new time. Now, they, again, understood this on a much lesser plane. They just saw freedom from government, oppressive government that was over them, you know, in a small part of the world. They didn’t grasp what the world was going to grow into and what the world was going to become.

Unto whom it was revealed that not unto themselves but to us they did minister the things which are now reported unto you... Now, this is amazing. They came to understand, just like Daniel, “Shut the book, Daniel. It’s not for you. It’s not for your time. It’s for those later on.” God worked with different ones along the way, and basically, doesn’t specifically say it, but it does here, they grasped, it was revealed to them that this wasn’t for them, it was for those later on that these things were being written, of a plan that was going to continue on as God continued to reveal more and more about a purpose that He had and what He was going to do and how He was going to accomplish it.

...so unto us they did minister the things which are now reported unto you by them that preached the gospel unto you by the holy spirit... It’s the only way the truth can be preached. Because truth comes from God; it can only be given, the truth, by help of God’s spirit. That’s the way it works. We’re able to only receive it by the help of God’s spirit, to be able to grasp it in the mind, to be able to receive what God gives us when He does.

So again, the holy spirit sent down from heaven—comes from God Almighty—which things the angels desire to look into. A marvel! It doesn’t matter whether it be those who are faithful to God – because they desire to rejoice in what God reveals as He reveals it. Just like the truths that have been given to us along the way. To understand all of a sudden things about the curse that started with Eve, Adam and Eve, and to realize that now there is a freedom going to be given? They rejoiced in that! They were excited to hear those things of God’s plan! That women could be ordained? That’s exciting to the angelic realm.

Not all, because there is another third out here who are demonic. But they want to hear, too. They want to know what God is doing. They want to hear what God is doing, what’s taking place.

Verse 13—Therefore, gird up the loins... It’s an expression that means “to prepare yourself.” Prepare. That’s what we’ve been doing. Preparing. That’s what God has been blessing us. That’s what He called a remnant Church to do, to prepare for that which is going to come. Therefore, gird up the loins... In other words, prepare your mind, get your thinking right. That’s what God has been blessing us with since 2012, beginning in 2013, beginning to reveal things to us, helping us to understand about a measuring of the temple that was to take place and continue on until this is accomplished, until this is finished, this phase.

Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind; be sober... Of all times, here we are. We’re in it! Those who drop off and go by the wayside? It hurts and it blows my mind. Blows my mind what happened in 2013 when so many in the ministry who were with us for so long, to do what they did, to make the choices they did. Sad, pathetic, hideous. Just fight the fight! Hold on! Get rid of your selfish pride. Don’t be tempted by thinking something different. Don’t forget how God called you and worked with you and how truth comes into your life. How can you forget those things? But people do.

...and hope to the end, for the grace that is to be brought to you through/at the revelation of Joshua the Christ. I think of that name alone, that revelation. Beautiful! Freed from something that the world of traditional Christianity is in bondage to, a name, a name that’s so wrong, a name that identifies something that is everything that’s deceitful that started before 325, but especially got a boost in 325 AD.

...as obedient children... Obedient. We should want to obey God. ...not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts of your ignorance. Don’t give up the fight. Don’t go back. Don’t let other things of your past have control. Keep at the fight. Continue to repent because that’s the only way to grow. If you give in to the past, if you give in to lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life, of things that you’ve gone past and you go back to those things, you put yourself in greater bondage again. Can you escape? Can you get out of it? Well, that’s playing a dangerous game.

...but as He who has called you is holy... So again, it’s God who calls us, God who gives us this opportunity that so many treat so shabbily and disregard and throw away. Choices. Choices. Choices. The many. Few have continued to fight over 2,000 years (and beyond), but especially in the last 2,000 years in the Church. Few. That’s a marvel to understand. ...but as He who has called you is holy, so become holy in all manner of conduct. The word is about conduct. It comes out in conversation so often, in what we say, what comes out of our mouth, because that reveals so often what’s clicking away and ticking away up in the mind.

Verse 16—because it is written, You become holy, for I am holy. We are to become like God, godlike. We’re to learn to be able to have those same qualities live through us, to yield to them, to want them, that live, that can live through us toward others. Learning to be unselfish, learning to sacrifice for the sake of understanding that’s what love is about. It’s about sacrifice. It’s about giving. So much is just about giving up things that “I want to do,” or whatever it might be, sacrificing self to give to others.

...because, again, as it is written, You become holy, for I am holy. Then it goes on to say, And if you call on the Father, who without respect of persons... Beautiful! He doesn’t judge like we do. He doesn’t judge like we do as human beings. He doesn’t judge by suspicion or thinking a certain thing about someone else. It’s because He knows. He knows what’s clicking away up here and He knows about our yielding, if we are, and if we really want Him, if we’re crying out to Him for help, and our desire to be in His Family because that has to be overriding in everything in our life. It has to be. That has to be first because God’s first. So a desire to be in His Family, to be with God, to become more like God, it’s a choice.  If we want that, we’ll fight for that. If we want that we’ll sacrifice for that. If we want that we’ll put that first.

And if you call on the Father... So how do you do that? Through prayer. It’s about a relationship with God. ...who without respect to person judges according to every man’s work. So what’s He do? He looks at how you’re living your life, what you’re doing. Obvious. Because whatever is in our mind comes out in how we live our life. That reveals whether we’re living by faith. It’s about faith. So if we believe God we’re going to be crying out for God to be able to live a certain way. And where we’re wrong we’re repenting of those things on a regular basis, we’re telling God, “I know I’m wrong. You’re right. You’re right! You’re right! Forgive me of my wrong thoughts, of my wrong thinking, of my wrong actions,” whatever.

So God judges us accordingly in a righteous way about how we respond to Him, as to whether or not we’re listening and then living what He gives us the ability to hear. He gives us the ability to hear it and to make choices, and then it’s up to us to want to live it. But we have to ask for help to live it because we know we can’t do it without His help. It always goes back to that. We’ve got to work at it, we’ve got to fight for it, but a lot of that goes back to this knowledge, this knowing all the time: “I need constant help to fight this fight every day.”

...who without respect of person judges according to every man’s work, conduct the time of your stay here in fear. That’s wise because it’s when people lose that fear of turning away from some truth, from something that God has given to us that we should have. We should fear doing that. We should fear living in any kind of disobedience. That’s why I marvel sometimes when some of the most basic of commandments that are given, of laws, of truth that we have, of understanding that we have and why we’re given it – like the ability to go to the Feast and how God has provided for that, and to our being obedient to that and faithful to that and agreeing with God about that and that comes as a part of some of the things that are first in our life because God is first. That’s why we want to do it. To do other than that? Blows the mind.

So what happens to the fear? See, the more you get away from that and you’re not really looking to God for help to obey, you’re not crying out to God for help to do what is right, you don’t fear. What do you really want?

...for you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things... So here it’s talking about how freedom is achieved from bondage, from slavery, and we’re not redeemed from, purchased from that process, as it says here, this “purchase” has to do with the ability, the giving of real freedom. ...you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold... It wasn’t monetary. It wasn’t physical. ...from your vain conduct, conversations or conduct, received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ. That’s where it begins because it’s about forgiveness. It’s about repentance and the receiving of forgiveness. That’s the process whereby God has given us to become free. So we always have that. God’s plan before the holy days, before God’s plan ever begins, starts with Passover. It’s not a high day; it’s a beginning before you can enter into God’s plan, before you can enter into the holy days and what they picture. It starts with Passover because it’s about Joshua the Christ. He is the cornerstone of all of God’s Family, all of God’s plan of salvation, of giving us freedom, of delivering us out of bondage. So we have a part in that and it’s up to us to practice that part.

So again here, this is how we were purchased, redeemed, if you will, from bondage. This it the process we’re going through because it’s an ongoing process. It’s not finished. It’s an ongoing process until we’re there. ...but with the precious blood of Christ as a Lamb without blemish and without spot. It had to be that, had to be that person, that one who was the Son of God, born of a human being, born of a woman, born in physical life, who himself had to be begotten later on. See, it’s something that’s hard for people to grasp and make a distinction in sometimes. Fully from God the Father. Fully that life and the ability to know and to see things, to know things at a very young age, to be in his mind, to have that mind, but he had to make a choice himself, which he was going to make. He knew who he was. He knew what his purpose was. He knew what his purpose was at a very young age. He knew who his Father was at a very young age. Things that we can’t really, fully grasp.

It was a part of a process of him yielding to that process and then himself one day having to be baptized. No sin, no spot, but having to set that for us as an example of that which we must do. There were no sins to be forgiven because he had none, but he went through the process and he was baptized and he received the impregnation on that day of the holy spirit. Separate, determined, a process that was begun and then was set. Was it ever set then.

...but with the precious blood of Christ as a Lamb without blemish and without spot, who indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world. See, that’s what we’re talking about. Before anything else ever started, before any of God’s plan of creation. ...but was manifest in these last times for you. Just talking about the last 2,000 years. Everyone who’s been called to be a part of the Church, to be a part of the Body of Christ has understood things about the Passover, about Christ.

...who through him believe in God. See, there is no other way to believe God. It’s through him. You come and you’re blessed to be called into the Body of Christ. It’s through him. It’s a process. It begins with a Passover, the forgiveness of sin. One day of being able to put the old person into a watery grave and then to come up, to walk in newness of life—it’s a beautiful picture—and then begotten of God’s holy spirit. ...who through him believe in God who raised him up from the dead and gave him glory. Incredible! The apostles, the disciples, before they’d even received the impregnation of God’s holy spirit gathered together in a room and all of a sudden there he is. Scared the tar out of them, you know. Thought they’d seen a ghost. They didn’t know.

...so that your faith and hope might be in God. Seeing that you have purified your lives... So it’s showing a process. It doesn’t mean it’s purified yet but it’s purifying our lives. That’s what we’re doing in obeying the truth. We have the ability to believe. We want to live it. We want to obey it. We want to do it and we have to cry out to God for help to do it. You can’t do it on your own. You have to cry out for God’s holy spirit because it’s spiritual. The more you see that and the more you believe that and the more you pray for that the more God will intervene in your life, the more help God will give you.

Seeing that you have purified your lives in obeying the truth through the spirit... It’s through God’s spirit. You have to exercise that which is physical as well in your mind, a determination, a desire, a want, and you have to work at it. You have to work at it. You have to fight! That’s what the fight is about. It’s about work! All the time crying out to God for the help to accomplish it. You want to do it. You want to fight. You try to fight. And indeed, that’s the way it should be, but all the while knowing that you can’t be successful in that fight without God’s holy spirit, so you cry out for it every day.

...your lives in obeying the truth through the spirit unto unfeigned love. This is how it begins to be manifested in our lives. In other words, it means without hypocrisy. It means sincere and genuine because it’s real, because it’s from God. Not philia. Not philia. Not a brotherhood. Not fraternal love because that’s what the word means. Something that goes beyond that. Not something that binds us together because we share something that’s unique – Sabbath, holy days, various other things, and we have large congregations in cities throughout the world. It goes way beyond that, that kind of fraternal love and the ability and the blessing of being able to be together and the charge and being able to be charged up even on a physical plane. But to be spiritual? It requires God’s spirit.

...through the spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren. See, because this is our arena. Small as we are this is still our arena. This is where it comes out as to whether or not we’re out in the courtyard or maybe off on a trip somewhere because we don’t know, we can’t even find the courtyard because that’s happened to too many. Or we’re seeking to be in the temple. We’re working to be in the temple. We’re clawing to stay in the temple, at the door to pull ourselves back in because you go out every time you sin. You’re on the outside and you want to get back in quickly. At least that should be our desire. You know you need God’s help to stay inside. You need God’s help to stay inside the temple, to be in the temple, for Him to be in you, for His Son to be in you and you to be in them.

I’ve seen this since 1969, since I was called and baptized, that which has not always been true in love of the brethren. I’ve experienced a lot of fraternal love and I’ve also experienced God’s love during those periods of time, but not from as many as sometimes people thought existed, and just because there were 97,000 people who were baptized, or whatever the number was at a particular height in time in the Church, does not mean that they had God’s love in them. Okay? There’s a big difference there. Because the reality is we know that wasn’t the case.

See, that’s why as the Church got larger and larger that the thought began to be, and it seemed a logical thing, without God revealing it, that we have to get up to 144,000 baptized members. Then when that’s there, we’re there, that’s the time because there was going to be this 144,000 out of that period of time and then there is going to be this innumerable multitude that we don’t know about that’s going to be added to it coming out of the world. I’m so thankful God revealed that to us. We couldn’t know that until after we experienced something, the Apostasy.

That’s why some people out here have a difficult time, certain ones that taught and started teaching at the very beginning, because they realized that we’re no longer that large number anymore, and whatever group you were in, that number, whether it be 7,000, 6,000, whether it be 14,000, 12,000, 16-17,000, you know it’s going to be quite a long time before you get to a point where you’re built back up to 144,000 baptized members and that’s counting children. So the return of Christ seemed a long, long, long, long way away for so many. Well, that is a matter of God’s spirit.

So I feel for them because they don’t see what you see, what you’ve been blessed to see. The only reason you see it is because God had a plan for you. Just like a calling. But how many have the ability to continue on right now? Not very many. That’s why I so look forward to the point in time where there are those who are awakened out of sleep, like some in the Body who are with us today, that came out of the Apostasy, had to be awakened out of a sleep at some point, whether it be a few days, whether it be almost instantaneously, or whether it be a year later or five years later or ten years later, and even the longer period of time. As soon as the mind is able to see, the growth, that which comes into the mind, the ability to put everything together now and the strength that comes from that is awesome.

That’s why I look forward to that time because they’re going to experience something that is awesome because they’re not only going to have the ability to see and grasp things that have gotten watered down over a long period of time (because you can’t hold on to it in a physical plane), but now to add to it all this history and to see it, they’re going to be dumbfounded. It’s going to be an exciting time. I so look forward to that.

...love one another fervently with a pure heart. It’s a goal, a desire. When we’re not thinking right toward one another, when we’re not judging maybe as we should be we need to examine ourselves before God, before God’s throne in prayer. ...being born again, not of corruptible seed, or begotten, in other words, of God’s spirit, not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, by/through the Word of God... That’s what’s an awesome thing, to understand that the very mind, the very Word, the very being of God is what He conveys to us. That’s what the truth is. It’s the Word of God. Scripture is the Word of God that He’s given to us, truths that He’s given to us. It’s the Word of God. It’s the mind of God. It’s the purpose of God. The more we can see those things it’s God that gives us that ability to know those things. ...by/through the Word of God which lives and abides forever.

So again, the beginning of our being freed from bondage begins with God’s calling and His offering to free us. That’s what it’s about. That’s what we’ve just read here. You see how you were purchased, how you were redeemed, not with that which is physical and carnal in a physical world, but that which is spiritual from God. His Son, who is our Passover, that’s the beginning of the process. Then it continues on and becomes greater because then we’re able to have Him live in us, the Father and the Son, to actually dwell in our lives spiritually on a spiritual plane.

We go through this process of understanding what it means to be freed from bondage, and it begins with a calling that God gives to us and His offering to free us from bondage, to bring us out of Egypt That’s what we picture during Passover and Unleavened Bread, this coming out of Egypt. It’s coming out of bondage. We know those things and that process, but the more alive that becomes in understanding in your mind the freer you become.

Because not everyone, see, and I would say we all grapple from time to time with various levels of this anyway, to go before God and ask for forgiveness and to be freed in the mind? That’s an awesome thing. You can only do that by God’s spirit that lets you experience that as you grow. And to know it’s gone...it’s gone. God doesn’t keep track. He doesn’t keep account. It’s gone!

We keep track. We keep account. That’s why sometimes it’s difficult in our relationships with one another because what God has forgiven of someone you may still have a beef about and you’re sinning hideously before God because we have no right to keep something against someone else EVER! See? But we do that as human beings and we do it to ourselves, too. But we do it toward other human beings, toward others whom God has called.

That’s why it’s such an atrocious thing, because God only can forgive sin or offense or whatever, and sometimes we hold on to it and we expect others to do certain things. We have expectations of them before we can say, “Okay, it’s okay now. We’re back to normal,” whatever that normal is. Our nature is hideous; it really is, as human beings, even in God’s Church.

That’s what we have to see. We’re fighting against that. We want to be different. We want to be forgiving of others and we have to be able to know when we’re forgiven. To believe it. To believe that Joshua the Christ is your Passover. How deeply do you believe that? Because the moment you go and ask for God to forgive you, though you might have asked for that same forgiveness two hours before that, and you do it again, it’s gone. If you are genuine and sincere before God and you have repented of your sin it’s behind you and you don’t have to carry it any longer. That’s an incredible thing to understand.

There is a freedom that you can have in forgiveness that’s awesome and unique. I wish I could give that to everyone, to where you could become freer, but it’s something you have to grow in because we don’t all have that kind of freedom yet. To know that the moment you’ve repented it’s gone, and not to take liberty of that, but instead to keep fighting, but to even have a greater desire to fight harder, see, because you love God and because you see the love He’s extended to you, the mercy and the grace to have such a blessing in life that you can be free from whatever that past is, from whatever was behind that you did wrong.

So in Part 1, again, we looked at the symbolism that was contained in the story of the woman in bondage who gave birth to Ishmael through the physical effort of Abraham. Don’t let that escape you, because so often, even when it comes to forgiveness, we go through this, the physical things in our mind and our thinking. That’s why we’re not totally freed because we’re relying on physical aspects of our life.

Sometimes just because you know who you are, sometimes because you know certain battles and you know you’re not different yet, you know that there’s that which is wrong in your mind. Is it going to happen again? You want to fight against whatever it is in life that you’re fighting. And because of that sometimes, because of that knowing you can’t put the past behind. Again, I think of the scripture we read here, of things that you can’t even express sometimes because there are things that are just spiritual in life and you have to experience them. But God wants to offer us a lot more when it comes to matters of freedom even now, see.

So we looked at this example of Hagar and the birth of Ishmael that came as a result of Abraham trying to fulfill and accomplish something that was never meant for him to do on his own because he relied upon himself. Then God later on revealed to him it’s not going to be through Ishmael; it’s going to be a different means. You and your wife, Sarah; she’ll have a baby. Sarah laughed. “I can’t give birth. I’m dead inside in that area of giving life.”

I think of Abraham. It talks about him thinking about himself, that he was dead. I think of the miracle later on. They had a lot more people. A lot of people don’t even think about that part, a whole other nation of people, of tribes. Both prophetic. It wasn’t Sarah because life after Sarah died continued on and so did his family, even though he saw himself as being dead in how he thought about certain things because of age. He was a hundred years old, right at a hundred years old. But Sarah, she laughed because this was absurd to her.

So again, we looked at the symbolism in these things. But don’t let those things escape you, because they’re there for a purpose. That’s what’s awesome, is to realize that God gave us examples of things a long time ago by design. None of that happened by accident. Think, well, how could that be? Well, it was intended that he be a very wealthy man. God gave him that. God knows how to work with people’s lives to provide the means whereby things can come together because human beings will follow a nature course and action in life. To have those who will be in bondage to serve, from other nations, from other people’s, and to be so wealthy that the wealth was so great and the caring of that was so great that it took a lot to care for it.

What an incredible story! What an incredible story. There would come to a time where there would be such jealousies between a servant and a wife. Incredible! Never happened by accident, but by God’s design that that’s where a huge portion of His plan was going to be magnified through physical symbolism of various things that would be carried out with Ishmael, things that would happen with Isaac that would go into history in time that are being worked out in the Middle East right now, that are happening throughout Europe right now because of a plan God has. It didn’t come together by accident. God designs and molds and fashions His family, and it starts with very physical things over 6,000 years.

Again here, all these things of examples of how you can try to bring things together because you try to do it on your own. That’s where the big error comes in in so many people’s lives, because of the lack of knowing that you can’t do what you want to do, what you really have chosen you want to do because you have the ability to believe it, but this thing of what’s lacking then sometimes is that ability to grasp I have to have help and stay close to God because I can’t do it without that constant help of His holy spirit in my life. That’s where you cry out. Then when sin enters in you go immediately, as quickly as you can, even if it be silent as you’re walking, and praying to God to forgive you through your Passover, whatever time of day it might be. So again, we looked at the symbolism of those things and what they mean.

Let’s go over to the book of Romans now, start adding some greater meaning to some of that symbolism because Paul talks about it here to the Romans and discusses it in a different form, in different ways. Romans 2. We’re going to go through a lot of Romans before we’re through with this.

Romans 2:28. It says, For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. In other words, just because a person is born of Judah, a Jew, that isn’t what this is all about. This isn’t what God is working in the Church. So it’s not just a matter that it’s outward physically in your life because of who you were born of and that makes you something special before God, in that respect.

...nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. So even that doesn’t mean that there is something in one’s life whereby you are special because of a relationship with God. ...but he is a Jew... So he’s showing something here that is on a spiritual plane. Why is he doing that? Well, we’ll run into this in different places, but as Paul went throughout the gentile world, as we talked about in Part 1, there were those who even came out of Jerusalem and different things that people got in their minds about Judaism as there was this tug-o-war going on.

They sought proselytes. They wanted people to join with them, to be of their mind, to be in agreement with them. “You don’t want to go in this direction because that’s not right.” There was this confusion sometimes that would come into a new church, a new area, a gentile group of people being worked with by God’s spirit and they would confound as sometimes happened in God’s Church because I saw a lot of this happen in Philadelphia where people would look to Judaism for answers.

I knew one, who was preparing to be a rabbi and knew Hebrew. He came into God’s Church, became a teacher at Ambassador College. I believe he taught Hebrew. And lo and behold after the Apostasy someone came to me and said that her husband was confused about Passover and 14/15 and wanted to keep Passover on the 15th and I said, “Well...” I was at a funeral at that time and (of my own father) and didn’t want to be bothered by that so I told them that I knew someone that could help them, that understood Hebrew and maybe would be able to work with him and to help him to see. So I told them about the individual. They got in contact with each other and he kind of convinced him that, “Yeah, you’re right. 14/15.”

I got a hold of this man who was a minister, who was a teacher at Ambassador College in times past and had this discussion with him and said, “What on earth are you doing? I sent someone to you because you know Hebrew and because you know when Passover is,” basically. We had this discussion back and forth in emails and then he sent me this long list of scriptures. I’m sorry I got sidetracked on this but hey, it’s good. It shows how the human mind can work sometimes, relying on self, relying on that which is physical because that’s what he was doing. He’s a Jew, Judaism, and people in the Church looked to the Jews so often. You think, is that where the truth came to you? Through Judaism? Or did you receive it through Mr. Armstrong because that’s how God worked with His holy spirit to teach the Church? Duh! You know, that’s a pretty simple one.

So basically it was my attitude in talking to this individual back and forth. So he sent me this long list of scriptures of why he was right about 14/15th Passover. I was dumbfounded and I wrote him back and said, “You know what? There is no meeting in the road, basically, between us. We’re so far apart. The very scriptures you sent me I would send to you. The exact same ones!” Basically I told him, “What I see there is the truth. Passover is only on the 14th. What you’re reading into it, basically, is hideous.”

I had a rude awakening at that point in time and learned that about half of the ministry of that organization believed in 14th/15th Passover because it was taught by an evangelist at Ambassador College and so they went out and teaching 14th/15th Passover or what they could about it and confused people.

So you can rely on things that are physical sometimes. Now, see, to me, and blessed by God to be able to see it and to know it because of God’s spirit, because He gave it, it was a simple thing. A simple thing: I knew the truth came through Mr. Armstrong. I knew that’s how God worked with the Church – came through an apostle. I knew that you don’t go running to the Jews and look to Judaism, to look to things that certain rabbis have written, certain notable rabbis (notable in the Jewish world), that they’ve written about these scriptures and about what Passover and when it was. To give greater credibility to that than to what God had revealed in the Church, that’s not a toughie at all.

But for him and so many others it was because somewhere along the line their thinking changed and they relied on something physical. What a huge mistake when people start turning away from God and trying to bring things about by their own ability, their own knowledge, their own reasoning. Human reasoning will kill you. Truly will.

So it was through Philadelphia and so it was through Laodicea. You don’t want to go down that road. You want to understand how God called you, and never forget it. How did you learn the truth? That’s what Mr. Armstrong taught me. Basically, that’s what I learned through him, from him. How did I learn it? Who gave it to the Church? Simple thing. So why go somewhere else?

That’s why when we’d go out there to some of the refreshing programs – I’ll tell you this one—sometimes when they’d bring the ministry out there for a couple of weeks to supposedly refresh us within about a 2½ year cycle. By that time they’d have all the ministers in the world go out there for that period of time, to go through various classes and so forth. We would go out there and sometimes we’d have individuals get up and talk about how you could use commentaries and Bible helps and learn. Even then I thought, “Are you kidding me?” To me you might learn certain things historically, but if you’re talking about truth out of Protestants who have written commentary about what the scriptures say you’re really missing the boat because they don’t know what God’s plan is! They don’t know the interpretation. They don’t know the truth. We do.

Many got their sermons out of commentaries, about what they thought was being said. I’m sorry but you can’t rely on yourself. You can’t save yourself by your own physical abilities, your own physical efforts. Yeah, you have to understand, to have the truth and to continue in the truth you have to continually cry out for God’s spirit, because you can’t even hold on to what’s true without God’s spirit.

That’s why you have to understand how blessed you are to still be here. You truly are because you’ve been making some right decisions. Prayerfully all have, though I know not all have because there are still some messing around in the courtyard. But as a whole the Body has been blessed to continue on fighting, to be blessed. That you’re able to see and believe 57 +1 and embrace them, now, that’s an awesome blessing because they didn’t come from your own abilities. It’s how you can have confidence and strength, too, because it had to come from God. To sustain it and to continue in it has to come from God. So how blessed are you?

...but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise... This thing about being worthy of praise, that expression, where it’s translated sometimes “bless,” whose praise is not out of men but out of God. See. So people in times past had to learn lesson of what you rely upon. You can’t rely upon commentaries. You can’t rely upon how much you might know about Judaism. On and on it goes.

Then speaking of all mankind in Romans 3:17, let’s drop on down. The way of peace they have not known. Awesome what it’s saying here. See, mankind only knows the way of selfishness, the way of drama, the way of bondage. So again, this thing of real freedom, this thing of experiencing what real peace is all about is something that only God can give to us.

There is no fear of God before their eyes. We already read some of that earlier, this thing of fear that can leave people’s lives. When you cease to fear disobedience, when you will continue in sin and continue to dwell in something and not go before God and seek repentance and seek forgiveness of your sin, it’s a horrible thing that happens to the mind. That’s what happens to people when they get farther and farther away from the temple. It’s a horrible thing.

Again, I use these physical things because it’s something we can understand and something that’s been cleared up and cleaned up a lot, but it still has gone on and I believe it’s still going on where 2nd Tithe is being misused. Why? Where is the fear of God in doing that? If you don’t fear, what happened? What’s more important to you? You say you believe God, you believe the truth. Are you seeking to live it? Do you not fear what’s going to happen if you continue in this? It’s a simple answer really, but something is wrong in people’s reasoning because there’s a relationship there that hasn’t been built upon and is not being worked with. There’s a lack of crying out to God, “Father, help me! I need help! I need Your spirit. I want Your spirit. I want to obey, but I know I need help to continue to obey. I know I need help and I need forgiveness of my sins. Please forgive me through the blessing of a Passover, my elder brother,” and mean it with all of your being. To know that as soon as you’ve said it it’s behind you. But you’ve got to keep fighting and you’ve got to keep crying out every day for God’s help. You really do. You got to cry out daily for God’s help, of His holy spirit to live in you, to keep you in the truth, to keep you in this way, to help stir up that fight and desire to fight from Him.

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law...

This is where we’re going to start. Well, we might start a little before that and then I’ll try to catch up again, but we’re going to keep going forward through this in Part 3 next week.

1. Chapter 1