Joshua Our Passover, Pt. 1

Ronald Weinland

April 13, 2019

We are entering this Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread season with a freer, cleansed, and much deeper appreciation of God’s revelation to us about His Son, who is our Passover. We’re going to begin this season of sermons with this awesome revelation.

The reason I’m going into this at this particular time is because Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and other places, they’re going to hear this particular sermon on the 1st day of Unleavened Bread and we’re going to go through a three part sermon series on this so that we have this entire period covered. This is a great place to begin. It’s a revelation that was given to us to begin using and living that we didn’t have before. We knew about it but hadn’t made the change as far as the Church is concerned. That was less than a year ago.

So God gave us great freedom this past year on the weekly Sabbath just before Pentecost, on May the 19th, to be able to begin using a new name. Awesome! We’re going to begin with that as part of this particular sermon. Over in Matthew 1, we’re going to take the time to go through all of this, and it’s important that we review it, especially now on this first Passover since this has been given to us, or this first Passover season, if you will, that we’re coming up to. But for the Days of Unleavened Bread and for the Passover it’s an awesome thing that we can do this. There is a sense of a freedom, or being freed from our past in the sense of always being associated with the things of this world in the sense of traditional Christianity when there is nothing in God’s Church that is similar to it in reality.

We are so very different because of the truths that God has given to us about all that’s taken place through time and all that He’s revealed about what’s to take place in the future. So this one thing is truly incredible, that we’re able to have this at this particular time.

Matthew 1:18 it says, Now the birth of Jesus Christ... That’s what it says in your Bibles. This is how we would have read this a year ago. But again, now we have a greater freedom to know it’s actually Joshua the Christ. It is no small thing that God has given this to us as a Church to begin using. We didn’t have to wait, in that respect, until he actually came to this earth and established God’s Kingdom on this earth.

Verse 18 it says, Now the birth of Joshua the Christ was on this wise, When as his mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with a child of the holy spirit. So it’s making it very clear here what this is talking about. Before they actually came together, not just in marriage but in that which was going to begin as far as the first child that would be born of Mary.

It says here, before they came together she was found to be with a child of the holy spirit. So again, it was of the holy spirit, not of any person but of God’s spirit. I love the way it’s stated here as well; it’s of the holy spirit because it’s from God. Because it is that which is spiritual, of spirit, if you will, that was given inside of Mary.

It says, and then verse 19—Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make a public example of her... In other words, that she wouldn’t have to be out there when they were just engaged and here she is. People judge mightily, obviously, in society, in the world, and they would look upon that and say, “Well, you, you’re not even married yet. We know what you did.” And so, not willing that she should go through that, not willing to make a public example of her, was of the mind to put her away privately. So, in other words, to give time so that this could all be completed.

Then the rest of the story goes on: But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, you son of David, do not fear to take to yourself Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived (begotten) in her is of the holy spirit. What an incredible thing to have that happen, to know that that happened, that someone in time was going to be chosen by God to be the one who would bear God’s Son, and for incredible purpose through time, meaning the first wave loaf, if you will. Because it involved the first 4,000 years as well as the past 2,000 years, let alone everything else that’s going to happen later. But when you think about and talk about God’s purpose and God’s plan for His family and the process of His creating it this is an incredible story. After 4,000 years, finally it was time that His Son should be born.

Though people read things or knew of things in the Old Testament, they didn’t understand. They didn’t understand how the Messiah was going to come. They didn’t understand the prophecies that were written. That’s why I love when you go through and the different ones here in the first four gospels they speak in terms of those things that are written in the Old Testament. They quote those things so that certain things would be fulfilled. It refers back to that saying that it so fulfilled a specific scripture. There’s really no way you can know that except that God gave it and gave it a particular time, that this was what this was all about.

I think of a lot of things that Christ said that are quotes out of the Old Testament. Though the Jews prided themselves—prided themselves (especially the leaders, scribes and Pharisees, and different ones)—on knowing scripture they didn’t know it at all. They didn’t understand God’s plan. It’s like the world today that can study a Bible, books of the Bible, and feel like they understand and know so much. They know so very little because all they can know is what man has devised or what has come from a being that they’ve been moved by to formulate, to put together, to interpret in their own way. That’s what the world is living with today as far as traditional Christianity and the Catholic Church is concerned.

It says, you son of David, don’t be afraid to take yourself Mary as your wife, for that which is begotten (conceived) in her is of the holy spirit. And she shall bring forth a Son, and you shall call his name, again, this was written in Aramaic, same form as Hebrew, as a whole, and it was Yeshua (Joshua).

Someone made a comment a while back about, “Well, why didn’t you go all the way and use the name Yeshua?” It’s like, “You got that far, you used Joshua, but why didn’t you use Yeshua?” Well, because we’re not weirdos, you know, and we’re not going to be weirdos in the sense of Christianity.

Because traditional Christianity or those who go out, especially with Messianic Jews and that kind of thing, to me it’s weird because they want to feel religious about what they’re doing by somehow if you say it in Hebrew, or some people who won’t even use the word “God” or even write it properly (they don’t write all the letters out), because this makes them more spiritual inside. You think, “Give me a break!” Some of the hypocrisy that exists in this world sometimes so infuriates me, but again, I have to remind myself they can’t help it. They don’t know what they don’t know.

But what infuriates me is that other people hear it and listen and are deceived by the same things and think that’s the right thing to do, that somehow it’s religious to use certain expressions, that somehow by saying the word “Yahweh” makes you spiritual. It doesn’t make you spiritual, you just happen to know how it’s said in the Hebrew. That’s true, that’s right, it’s good, but we don’t use that. We use “the Eternal God” as a whole, as far as our English translation, because that’s what it’s about.

Yeshua in English, it’s Joshua. That’s just the way it is. There are different languages that you have words that express a specific meaning, they have a specific identity. Joshua is another one in English. There are all kinds of names that change because of different languages and how they pronounce them, how they say them or how they write them with their letters or whatever it might be that they have.

Any word you have that’s in Hebrew of a name, just because you say it in a different way, in a different language doesn’t make anyone spiritual. That doesn’t identify what is spiritual. That doesn’t make anyone special. So again, some things are frustrating sometimes in what people get into. They think it’s better to use a certain term or a certain word. No. Joshua. Joshua is the English and it’s very clear as to what it means. It’s amazing how people think.

So anyway, You shall call his name Joshua, for he shall save His people. It’s written this way for a specific purpose because it’s telling what the word means because it means “the Eternal is salvation.” That’s what the word means, or “the Eternal’s Salvation.” So the story is going on, in a sense very meticulously so, explaining something very powerfully so of why this name has been chosen by God for them to use.

It says, for their sins. ...for he shall save His people from their sins. It’s about salvation. Indeed it is the Eternal’s salvation. He is the Eternal’s salvation for mankind, that process whereby God is going to save mankind, for those who will receive it in their time when they’re called.

Again, even as Joshua the Christ is God’s Passover, whom He has given to mankind. Incredible!

Verse 22—Now, all this was done so that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the LORD by the prophet, saying: Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a Son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which being interpreted is “God with us.” Again, an expression, a word, a name that identifies his being, his existence, and it’s about God being with us. Well, how? This is awesome, it really is, when you understand what God has done!

It begins with Joshua. It begins with the Passover of all mankind. That’s what enables the ability for man to be forgiven of sin so that God will be with us and in us. It’s about His Son, it begins with His Son, and everything comes through His Son. But what an awesome thing in what it means – enabling God to be with us. So in his form, in that respect, the Word made Flesh, God was with us, the words that came out, those things that were given to the disciples, those things that were taught by Christ, powerful in what was being stated because being, he was, the Son of God, being the Son of God. And so indeed, God, in that respect, was with us.

But there’s more to this. It’s about his entire life then, of why he’s been born, of why the Messiah began a process living in human life so that he could die so that we could be forgiven of sins, he could die as our Passover. That’s why it keeps flashing in my mind John 14, John 14, John 14, because that’s what it enabled. He made the comment that the things he did he did because the Father dwelt in him and he dwelt in God. He explained the story then that we’re going to go through on Passover night, as we always do, that this is all about what was going to happen now within the Church. That the very thing that was happening in his life and the very means by which he was able to do what he did. He didn’t take any credit to himself at all. It came from God and he said it was of God, from God, and God dwelling in him.

We get to experience the same thing. That’s what it explains in a few verses later, that we’re going to have the ability to have, that which they, if you will, were able to see in his life, and now the disciples were going to be able to partake of the same thing, that God the Father, that Joshua the Christ would be able to dwell in them and they would be able to dwell in God and Christ. Awesome! And so indeed it is God with us.

Sometimes we really don’t grasp that in God’s Church to the depth that it really is. You have to stop and think about it, you have to pray about it, and you grow in it, in the appreciation and the understanding of it, to understand that in the mind we’re not just carnal human beings; we’re carnal, selfish, human beings with a life inside of us in the mind, in the spirit, because we’re more than a physical body. There is a spirit essence that gives us the ability to think and reason and to live as human beings live. Because all are given of that spirit essence in the mind in the sense of that which gives us the ability that we have to do what we’re able to do, to have knowledge, to grow in knowledge, to grow in understanding of things, to experience life as we do, to be able to communicate as we do. Incredible what we are able to have in that regard.

And yet there comes a time when people are able to be baptized then, come up out of the water, have hands layed upon them and they receive a portion of God in them. Now, that’s something that’s hard to understand on a physical plane because it really can’t be. It’s something you begin to grow in and understand as you grow spiritually. You come to this realization, this understanding, as Paul talked about this battle that he had to address because he had to make the choices. There is this part that is just totally selfish and then there’s this other part you can yield to and desire more of in your life in order to go through a process of transformation. It’s accomplished God with us, by God being with us, in us, literally.

So we’re able to make changes, we’re able to make growth. We’re able to yield ourselves to that spirit. We don’t want the flow of the spirit that’s in that portion of the impregnation to ever be cut off because that flow has to continue to be there for God to continue to be there to change this mind, to change the way we are, to change the way, literally, the way we think. Over time we change the way we think. It’s an incredible thing that you’re experiencing in life, and it’s really far, far, far, far, far beyond your understanding. It’s far beyond our ability to really grasp and comprehend it its fullest.

We only get segments and part of it through time, and as we grow that portion of understanding and appreciation grows as well and becomes more meaningful to us as time continues on, but it’s hard for us to grasp how much we’ve really been given. Very few on the earth have ever experienced this, God with us, God in us. Same words, basically, in the language that’s being used here, in the Greek language. It’s what it’s about.

So again here ...shall call his name Immanuel, which being interpreted is “God with us.” So it began with the very presence of the Word made flesh in their presence teaching them, guiding them, working with them, but it led to something in meaning far, far, far greater in what it was all about.

Then Joseph, being raised from sleep, did as the angel of the LORD had appointed him and took unto him his wife, and did not know her until she had brought forth her firstborn Son. So there was no physical relationship as there is in marriage until after the birth of Joshua. It’s making very clear here then he went ahead and married her regardless of what people thought about it. That’s why he told him, “Don’t be afraid. Don’t think about what other people think, what they’re going to say. Do it. What’s in her is of the holy spirit. She is going to be carrying the Son of God.” Incredible!

And he called his name Joshua. Awesome!

As it goes through this story, again, from the very beginning it was told that this is his name. “You shall call his name, Joshua.” That’s what he did. And it says, “and they shall refer to him as Immanuel,” as well. That has to do with understanding, in time, specifically them, the disciples, when they were impregnated with God’s holy spirit, and with us; and not a name that we use to identify him but to understand what this is about on a spiritual plane. It’s how God is with us and in us, through Joshua the Christ. That’s what it’s about. It’s the understanding of those things. It’s the use of those things in our life on a spiritual plane.

So as time goes after God has given to us new truth, some new understanding, we can begin to take it for granted. It’s been less than a year and it’s like all truth that’s given to us. That’s why I so often encourage people go back from time to time, think about, read about, pray about from time to time all the truths you’ve been given. Not all at once time. Sometimes it’s good just to go through a process and consider. It’s a good thing to go back and look at number one, look at number two, and go all the way up through fifty-seven plus one, and to think about everything that God has given to you, that very few on the earth possess right now, that very few have.

There is only a small group that has this, a small remnant group. A remnant that was left over after an Apostasy and then those of you who have been blessed to enter into and share in fellowship with them for a different purpose – mainly that which begins in the Millennium.

So again, we can begin to take it for granted and that’s why we’re going through some of this at the beginning of this particular sermon series. We become very familiar...very familiar with it through time, with truth, and if we’re not careful we can and often do begin, again, to take what we’ve been given for granted. If you do that you begin to lose sight of what needs to be in the forefront of our mind and that is a thankfulness and a gratitude. The more you grasp that and think on that the more meaningful it’s going to be to you, what you have, what you possess, what God has given you to share in in life.

Familiarity can and very often does lead to some form of contempt. We need to think about that. Because taking something for granted is a form of that very thing, contempt. It’s not a right spirit toward God. It’s not a right mind toward God. Because being unthankful and ungrateful for what we possess, because we possess some of the greatest things... Not some of! I’m talking about in the sense of “some of” because of all the truths we have. That’s how I’m using that term. But we have the greatest truths; we have the truth. But we have some of the greatest truths ever given to anyone on this earth. That’s hard for us to appreciate sometimes. It’s hard for us to understand that.

You have so much more than what Abraham had. It wasn’t until Moses came along that God gave more, far more! Abraham did not have all that Moses had, and yet some people in times past have tried to say, “Yes, he did.” No, he did not. He didn’t because God hadn’t given it to the world yet. He was judged by what God did give to him. Then came Moses in time. Incredible what God gave through him, a codified law, how mankind should live toward God and how mankind should live toward mankind, and yet in the scheme of things there was so much more to come because they could only deal with and they were only called as a nation to deal with that on a physical plane, to be an example. What an example! But it’s to show what a nation of people will do with the laws of God that have been given to them, with God who has taken time to work with them, to lead them out of a nation of captivity, to lead them across a sea of water on dry ground, to deliver them from the greatest army that existed at that time, the armies of Egypt and Pharaoh, a powerful nation at that time! And God destroyed it. He destroyed it. He revealed to the Israelites His great power.

That’s what these days are all about, the power that God uses to deliver us out of Egypt. Because what happens in your life is far, far greater than what God did in leading them out of Egypt. That was simple! That was easy for God, if you understand what I’m talking about. Because even after He got them across they got on the other side and they started complaining, “Oh, that we could go back!” Well, have at it! But it wasn’t so easy or some would have gone back. The mind of mankind sometimes you got to marvel at.

But what God is doing with the Church, what God has done with everyone whom He’s ever called is a far, far, far greater thing than God delivering an entire nation of hundreds of thousands, if not a few million people out of a physical nation of Egypt, because we resist God. Our minds resist God. Nothing resisted God. The Red Sea, the great Sea didn’t resist Him when He came up to it. He had a whole nation of people; He just parted the water and took them across. It wasn’t a great thing for God to provide them with water, not a great thing at all. God just commands it and it’s there. It wasn’t a great thing for Him to bring all the birds that He brought, the quail, whatever, and to feed them at one particular time. Those are small things, physical things.

But when God calls people you should marvel at that, that God can work with a human mind that is against Him. That’s what He says, “The carnal mind is enmity with God.” An enemy! That’s what it means. By nature, it’s an enemy to God because it wants to do its own thing, raise itself up being like God, and doesn’t want the truth of God. It wants whatever it has by its own devices, by its own creation, but it doesn’t want what God offers because when God comes along and says, “You’ve got to change this. You’re a selfish being and you can choose between being selfish or being unselfish. You have to make the choice. No one else can make it for you.” Then people have a battle on their hand.

That’s why I can’t help but think of the first time when I learned the truth. I’ve shared this many a time. Because as soon as I learned it, well before I even knew about being baptized — I didn’t even know about being baptized yet. I didn’t know that you go down under the water and you had to come up and you had to have hands layed upon you. I just knew the truth. I knew the Sabbath. I knew the holy days. I knew about some of those things in part. I knew about the migrations of Israel just because of one night of hearing it. I didn’t have to turn to one scripture in the Bible – as soon as I heard it I knew it was true. That’s an experience.

Whatever you experience in your calling, no one can take that from you. It is a miracle because God has to put it in your mind. It isn’t a matter of some of the stuff we used to have in some of the ideas of some people that you have to go and prove the scriptures. Well, good luck with that! Nobody can prove anything by knowing where scriptures are. You can’t prove diddly squat! You really can’t! And yet we had people and people that taught this stuff, that you have to prove the scriptures. Well, how are you going to do that? Because we have thousands of ideas in traditional Christianity and they all think they can prove the scriptures because they know them so well. Some of them can memorize and know things far better than what I’ve ever known or you’ve known.

No, God just puts it in your mind, “This is true!” That’s a miracle. You can’t learn it by all the studying in the world. God gave it to you. Awesome to understand that. God put it in your mind and you just come to know. The reason you’re still here, you are a witness, you are evidence of the power of God Almighty (which I marvel).

I’ll just say: I don’t believe this is the year at all (which I’ll talk more about in Part 3), okay? I hope that the next one is, but I’ve learned something really powerful through all this period of time that I’ll share with Part 3 more so. Awesome! It’s because you know the truth. It’s because you know 57+1 and it’s only because of your conviction of it that you’re still here. It’s the only way you can be. Otherwise you’d be gone with some others who found fault earlier on when they couldn’t agree with certain things, that, “Oh, women can’t be ordained!” That blew a lot of people’s minds. “They’re not going to be free. That isn’t what those things mean!” Hate to disillusion you but that’s exactly what it means. The different ideas that people have sometimes.

And then now, especially, I can’t imagine some of the things that some might say about, “Oh, you’re using the name Joshua.”

What an incredible thing that we can know what we know, that we see what we see, and to grasp what God has given us here. I was going to say some other things but I’ll wait.

This thing of not being grateful, not being thankful to the level we should be comes from this thing of an attitude that comes out of human beings when familiarity begins to lead to something that it shouldn’t, that we can take something for granted. It doesn’t move us like it should, it doesn’t stir us like it should. We can do things, sin in spirit because we don’t have a right mind toward God in what we’re seeing, in what we’re thinking.

I mention some of this now because we do it toward truth, but we do it toward people too. We can begin to take people for granted. We can begin to take one another for granted. When you lose sight of what God’s doing, when you lose sight of God’s purpose, when you lose sight of what you’ve been given and you begin to allow too much of the carnality and the human nature and the human reasoning come in, that’s a dangerous thing. It’s a dangerous thing. This is that which is on a spiritual plane, in that respect, to understand what takes place to us spiritually in life.

I thought I would read this, the definition for familiarity: “a close acquaintance with or knowledge of something”—doesn’t sound bad, but it’s what you do with that—“contempt; the act,” it goes on, “the act of despising.” We don’t think in that way, but that’s where it goes, that’s the direction it goes when that kind of thought or that kind of attitude begins to creep into the mind.

If you don’t think that’s possible, think of everyone who’s ever left. They began to despise the truth. That’s what they all did – every last one of them. You think, “Well...!” They would say, “No, we didn’t despise the truth. We just know what the truth is now apart from this that you say is truth.” Well, how can you know what the truth is? God has to give it to you; He has to put it in your mind. It’s up to you what you do with it and if you believe what God has given to you and you hold fast to it, you’ll grow in the understanding of those things. But if you don’t and other attitudes begin to enter in then after a while you begin taking that for granted, you begin finding fault in something you don’t like because something didn’t go your way because maybe you didn’t get something you thought you ought to have.

Perhaps it was a certain ordination that you thought you should have! Some of those are the worst things that can happen to a carnal mind! “Because I didn’t get what I think I deserved!” None of us deserve anything that we have. We don’t deserve a bit of what we have. Do we deserve it? No! God has been so merciful to us. That’s where gratitude comes in because we realize what we’ve been given. We don’t deserve it. How blessed are we to be given something so great? That’s where gratitude stays, thankfulness stays, because of what we can see and what we do recognize, and familiarity, then, doesn’t breed contempt, it doesn’t breed that kind of a spirit where one can begin to have contempt toward, perhaps, the teacher, perhaps the one through whom it came and begin to find fault and say, “Well, that’s what you think. That’s what your ideas are, but this is why it’s different. Let’s get together and study our Bibles and find out what the truth really is.” You think, you forgot how you were called? You forgot how your mind was opened? You forgot that the only way you know the truth is that God is with you because God put it in your mind. Who are you to determine what the truth is? Incredible!

I think of those who found fault with Mr. Armstrong and then began to peck away and that included almost all the evangelists. You think, how could such a thing happen? They began to see themselves greater than what they were. They began seeing an old man who was ready to die and they began thinking about their future and where are they going to be in the pecking order of things? That’s exactly what happened. Sick, sick, sick, perverted spiritually. But that’s how far the human mind can go.

So they began to despise the truth. They began to despise God’s government, the number one thing, the first thing attributed to Mr. Armstrong for restoring to God’s Church, government. They all began to despise it because they thought it should be a different way. He’s getting old and ready to die? “This needs to be changed.” “That needs to be changed.” “I have ideas here.” “I have ideas there and I’m going to align myself with someone who has similar ideas.” Power struggles. Human nature. Carnality. Sick. Truly sick.

We have some awesome experiences through Philadelphia, Laodicea, and where we are now. We truly have awesome experiences of things because of a response that are molded and fashioned in the mind, that I marvel at what God can do with human beings, truly, if we just hold fast and hold on to what He’s given to us, what He’s blessed us to have.

So, the act of despising. Think about different ones you’ve known who are gone. They start despising something, besides someone. Because people always use other people as a reason for why they do things that they do, but then it eventually gets around to certain doctrine, and then they have different ideas about what should exist, what should be. What a place to put yourself. What a place to put self. God will put us where He wants us if we yield ourselves to the process. It’s God who does it. He’s in control of the Church. Everything goes according to His will. Everything.

Even the Apostasy went according to His will. He did that by backing away because that’s what happens with sin, and if He lets people go, for His purpose to teach some of the greatest lessons human beings can ever be taught, that even with God’s spirit you can become lukewarm, you can begin to let down, you can begin to drift spiritually, and you can begin to turn inward and begin to think that you’re greater than what you are and that your knowledge of things is greater than what it really is. Because the knowledge we have, God gave every bit of it to us and you can lose it all! There are people who have lost it all and gone totally back to what they were called out of. Others have lost most and not all; they have remnants of certain things, but not within the Church, just totally asleep.

“The act of despising; the state of mind of one who despises.” It’s not a pretty picture. “The state of mind of one who despises.” And you know what? To whomever that happens to in life they don’t think that way. They would never believe such a thing about themselves. But I know as every year goes by some will go by the wayside. Every year it happens. I generally speak of this around the Feast time because from one Feast to another there are some that won’t be with us. How small will we be before Joshua returns? What are you willing to go through in life before he returns?

“...the state of mind of one who despises.” It’s an awesome thing to think about that one can begin to despise the truth. You say, “Well, that can never happen to me.” If you make some wrong choices along the way it will most assuredly happen to you. I’ve spoken a lot this past year of people who have come to despise tithing and despise God because of it. Now, would they ever acknowledge it? “Oh, I don’t despise God! I would never think that way!” You rob from Him. How much do you really love Him? He’s given you everything. Do you acknowledge that? What does He ask for? What does He say you should do to have a right relationship with Him? You think you don’t despise God? Because to despise a truth is to despise God. It truly is. To despise any truth is to despise God, to take something for granted, to become contemptuous in spirit.

“...a lack of respect or reverence for something.” So how much do we truly respect and have reverence toward God Almighty or to His Church? I could go down the line. Shouldn’t have to.

So as we’re entering this exceedingly important season of the year we’re going to pause and back up a little and be reminded of an incredible and exciting truth, again, that God delivered us on that Sabbath of last year just before the day of Pentecost. You know, I just am dumbfounded by, I marvel at God’s timing, of when He gives certain things, of when He does certain things. I guess because of what we’re going through right now I think of some fasts we had when I wasn’t here, and I think of what God revealed immediately that needed to be cleansed in the Body. God brought it to the surface. Incredible, the power of Almighty God.

So again, this is about the truth that we’re going to look at, the +1 that goes beyond the 57 Truths before this. So we’re going to review what’s written on the blog page concerning this +1 truth. I’m going to take the time to go through this, just as we review different truths at different times, and as you should review different truths at different times. Ask God when you do those kinds of things for help to grasp how awesome it is that you can see it—because it’s a miracle, meaning that God has to be involved, meaning it can’t happen by your own abilities, meaning it has to come from Him—and a greater appreciation and understanding and gratitude of those things has to come from Him.

He can help you in that, to grow in that. All you have to do is say, “Father, help me to see it, to see it more clearly, to love it more fully, to embrace it more deeply, and to be thankful to You that I’m able to have it and that I’m able to have You with me and with others in the Body because of Your Son – truly, Immanuel.”

Under Only One Christ & One Last Error to Correct. Incredible! You talk about being freed from bondage? You talk about being liberated? Because that was a bondage to still be associated with something out there because we used the same name. But we had nothing in common with the beliefs. Everything was different, so opposite, so different from everything that’s taught, everything that’s taught out there about it. God freed us from that just in a word, just in a name. I don’t know if you feel that – and I’ve had many comment that they do. To me that’s a freedom. It’s like, “Thank you, God, that we have nothing to do with that now. Nothing!” We’re not associated with it in any facet or form. It’s like a giant, humongous gulf now that separates us. Not a little one, not one that was great. This is really great. This is mighty.

So under this section here, Only One Christ & One Last Error to Correct[1]: “As this post stated at the beginning, the world is filled with very divergent and conflicting beliefs about the Messiah—the Christ. This is truth in both Judaism and in traditional Christianity. Traditional Christianity does agree on one primary thing and that is the name they have given him—Jesus Christ. So we’re cutting in and reading in this section here.

“That is a different Christ than the one the disciples spoke of in scripture.” So how blessed are we to be separated from that? I feel incredibly blessed.

“The first book of the New Testament makes it clear what the Messiah’s true name was to be, but the church that became great in the Roman Empire after AD 325 changed that name and influenced its change in all scripture as well.” It’s almost hard to believe sometimes what really took place and the influence that did all of that. It’s an incredible thing that happened through time before the printing press. They had a lot on their side that Satan used in a very powerful way to distort, to twist, and then they used a particular language that a lot of the world wasn’t familiar with, but certain ones had to be if they were to get up and give their whatever it was that they gave when they spoke...speaking of Latin.

That was a big thing even as I was growing up. They still spoke in Latin. It’s like, well, speak in a language that everybody doesn’t understand. I want to go listen to that for fifteen minutes. By all means let me grow in wisdom and understanding. By all means let me be inspired. By all means I want to come back again because that was so uplifting! Don’t speak to me in my own language that I can understand. Don’t teach me things from the Bible—because they don’t come out of here anyway. Of course, they don’t say that, and that changed.

A lot of you came along after that started changing. It hasn’t been that long ago here in this country. Everything they went to hear it was, as a whole, and a lot of those areas it was still in a particular language and what they had to say that repeated over and over again. Amazing what human beings will go through.

But you know what human beings are mesmerized by? The show. It’s the show. It’s the ritual. It’s the ritual! They become enthralled with the ritual. Incredible!

Going on, “That is a different Christ than the one the disciples spoke of in scripture. The first book of the New Testament...” I may have already read this. It talked about 325 AD that changed the name and influences change in all scripture as well. So again, powerful that that name, that’s what was there in different languages, Iésous.

Anyway, going on: “God declared what His Son’s name was to be and it is not the name chosen and given to him by traditional Christianity.” Specifically, in parenthesis, you know, the Catholic Church.

“It is important to understand what God told Joseph before His Son was born of Mary. God made it clear to Joseph, and to all who will listen, what the Messiah’s name was to be. This will first be quoted for how it is stated in the New King James Version of the Bible.”

This is Matthew 1:18-25, again: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After his mother Mary was betrothed (engaged) to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a son, and you shall call his name JESUS, for he shall save his people from their sins.’”

It’s really sick when you understand it, what they did way back then, how they twisted and distorted the name.

“So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: ‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel,’ {Isa 7:14} which is translated, ‘God with us.’ Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him...”

Can you imagine? That has to be so strong, so powerful. I mean, people have dreams, but this here had to be strong, had to be powerful. When it’s of God’s spirit, when God puts something in your mind you know it. He knew it. He knew. He felt moved in a way he had never been moved in his life before and he acted upon it because it moved him to do so.

“... and he did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn son. And he called his name JESUS” (Matthew 1:18-25).” So again, “The name God gave to His Son as given through an angel to Joseph was not ‘Jesus.’ Jesus is supposedly a transliteration of the actual word, which in English is ‘Joshua.’ ‘Jesus’ (Iesous [ee-ay-sooce]) is supposedly the closest sound from Latin or Greek that could be used for the name of Joshua in Aramaic or Hebrew.”

When I read through things like this I think about what they did and then what they say later because they don’t use sensible terms, they don’t use sound reasoning, because they’re trying to twist something, they’re trying to distort something. They’re trying to convince you because they know there is something wrong and so they have to twist it and justify it, just like we do as human beings when we don’t want to acknowledge that we’re wrong. We try to distort or change part of the truth or slant it in a certain way to sound differently, to be different or to shift blame, or whatever it might be.

“However, it is not an actual translation of the word. The name of Jesus does not carry the actual meaning of the name of Joshua, yet that is the name God instructed to be given the Christ. It is important to note that writers in Greek and Latin did not try to give a transliteration to (or give a name to sound like) the name for ‘Messiah,’ as they did for the name of Joshua.”

So we don’t try to go back and use the Hebrew word talking about the Messiah. We use the word that’s given to us which means the same thing. I’ll just read it as it is here: “Instead they gave an actual translation of the name ‘Christ’ which does also mean ‘one anointed’ or ‘the anointed one.’” So that’s what it means in Hebrew, “The Messiah.” We don’t try to go back and make it sound like exactly like the Hebrew pronunciation of it. We use the name “Christ” as a whole. We use the name “Messiah” kind of interchangeably sometimes, but as a whole we use the name Christ and it means the same thing.

That’s what’s incredible about it, they actually chose a word then that you can use, and through time some of these things did change, but again, “the anointed one,” the “one anointed.” So, “Why didn’t they do that for “Joshua?” I think of how it’s used in Hebrews, and they don’t make any qualms about it. They use the name “Joshua” in English. Well, how could you do it there? What makes it different? Don’t try to use too much reasoning on some things.

Going on: “The Book of Matthew was actually originally written in Aramaic, yet today most scholars want to discredit this and claim that the apostles only wrote in Greek.” Why would they do that? Because of this very thing. It’s amazing to go through and see some of the arguments that different ones will come up with, scholars, in order to try to prove their point because they’re trying to counteract something else that’s being said, and so they have to do something. They try to use scholarly sounding phrases and terms and reasoning. Some of it when you get into some of the Catholic writings, I’ll tell you, it’s what they call it sometimes, a mystery. But it’s a mystery alright how they can think that way. But they’re just trying to cover certain things up and combat certain things.

“Certainly, Paul wrote in Greek to the gentiles, but the disciples of Christ spoke and knew Aramaic. Many Jews of that time in other regions of the Roman Empire...” And what did they accuse the disciples of at different times? “Oh, you’re from Galilee? What comes out of Galilee? What kind of an education?” Basically, that’s what they’re saying. “You’re fishermen?” What did they speak? Aramaic. They didn’t know Greek. They weren’t schooled as some of them were that were specifically of the particular religions, whether it be the Scribes or Pharisees and some of the things they went through especially in the area of Jerusalem and the like.

“Many Jews of that time in other regions of the Roman Empire did speak and write in Greek, but in this area at the time of Christ, Aramaic was the language of the Jews.” That’s why when you go to Acts 2 and in through there and Pentecost came and it lists all the different ones, the Jews who came from different regions. They all spoke different languages because of the different regions they were from, and they all came there. That’s why it was such an incredible thing when they began to speak. It was more a miracle of hearing what they heard. They heard in their own language. They could only speak at one time in one language, which was their own, but the people who were hearing? That’s why it lists all those different peoples from different regions who were Jews, who were there for a purpose because of that time of year, they heard in their own language. Awesome!

“Regardless of the arguments used by scholars of today, it is clear what the instruction was that was given to Joseph. The instruction was about a name that carried the meaning of the one whom God gave who ‘will save His people from their sins.’” That’s what this season of the year is all about.

What a beautiful thing to be able to come full circle now since this was given just before Pentecost of last year, and now for the first Passover to be free, to be able to have a meaning of something that these days picture – deliverance, being made free, freed from Egypt, freed from the confusion that has existed well before, but especially from 325 on, of all the garbage and things that began to be changed, of those who wanted to kill people who kept the Passover. They wanted to put them to death! It finally came down to the fact they wanted to kill people who kept the Sabbath. And they did. History is full of that by the Roman Empire, killed because they didn’t agree with them, they didn’t want to observe Easter, they didn’t want to observe Sunday worship. So a lot of them were sentenced to death simply for what they believed.

“The name Jesus,” going on, “carries no such meaning in its transliteration, but all languages can give a name that has such meaning if they so choose to do so.” That’s not hard to do in English if they wanted to, but because of what’s used in the sense of certain names that are carried out of the Old Testament that are used as far as English is concerned, like Joseph, but whatever the names might be, that’s the word that we have in English and we know exactly what it refers to. And the Old Testament, it’s quoted that way in English but sometimes when they bring it in the New Testament you think, “Well, why couldn’t you do the same thing there?” And in all cases they do except for that one name because of what the Catholic Church did.

“‘Jesus’ does not have any meaning about ‘one who saves,’ but the name ‘Joshua’ in English is clearly from the name that carries the same meaning in both Aramaic and Hebrew. This name means, ‘The Eternal is Salvation’ or ‘The Eternal’s Salvation.’ The angel who spoke to Joseph quoted scripture in Isaiah saying that a ‘virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,’ which is translated, ‘God with us.’”

So, I know all these things. I know all this. I especially have known it since it was given back on that Sabbath less than a year ago. It’s smart to review truths no matter how long it’s been. Make sure they’re deeply embedded in the mind because we’re human beings and we tend to forget or let down. That’s what happened to Laodicea, rich and increased with goods. They didn’t go back and review and study the 18 Truths that were restored to God’s Church after being lost in time through Thyatira and Sardis, especially in Sardis, the period of Sardis, obviously, because by the time you come to the end of it there were only three basic truths left.

Everyone should know what those three truths are. You should understand, you should know how far human beings can go through time and what they’re able to lose and what they’re able to hold on to, which is physical and not spiritual.

The Church was dead. The Church was dying out and right at a point of death. That’s why God raised up a man in the Willamette Valley of Oregon and began to reveal truth to him, helped him to become convicted of the seventh day Sabbath. From that point forward, incredible what took place. All the holy days began to come to him. God began to give him understanding of those things.

He studied a lot and God gave him understanding then, through the power of His spirit in the mind; candidly, drew him and worked with him in those things as well, to reveal. Just the holy days themselves, Leviticus 23, he didn’t know what they were. Nobody knew what they were, as a whole. Judaism had certain things but it wasn’t true, it wasn’t right about God’s plan and God’s purpose. Then God just began filling in the spaces over seven years, building upon that year after year, because they kept, Loma and Mr. Armstrong, kept those days, and because they did and he continually reviewed and continually went back and read and studied. He didn’t prove it; God gave it because of what he did. He was moved to read and to study about those things and God gave him greater understanding then and built upon that over that seven year period before he introduced it to the Church. Then he began, once so deeply convicted of all those things.

Because, you see, that’s not a small thing, to begin teaching something and giving something that you have to be so deeply convicted of this is true and this is from God. He wasn’t presumptuous. When he came to that point after seven years (completeness, things happen for a purpose and a reason), and then God brought him to that point, “Give it to the Church,” he became an apostle. Awesome! Right then and there.

“Clearly the name of Joshua (Immanuel) is about ‘God being with us,’ giving Christ power to help ‘save’ His people...” So don’t take the Passover for granted. You do it every year. Be careful. It’s not just a routine. It is not a ritual. And yet I’ve told people, as a whole, in times past, you can use the same service year after year after year because it does not change. It is the same and we’re to be moved by it every year. God has us, for a great purpose, go through things every year. By design! That doesn’t mean it’s the only time we should think upon certain things that have to do with what we do, whether it be holy days or whether it be, as an example, Passover and so forth.

This Passover coming up for me is exceedingly great because I can look back over time and I think of how blessed I’ve been.

It reminds me of something my wife and I watched. I don’t know of how many of you have ever seen it, but it’s called The Profit, P-r-o-f-i-t on TV. It’s on the same station as Shark Tank. Anyway, it’s called The Profit and this man has dedicated his life, in one respect, he goes out to different companies that are having trouble and he tries to work with different ones. He profits from it, that’s why it’s called what it is. But he genuinely gets in there to try to help people to change what they’re doing wrong so that they can have a success with the business that they have. He goes in to investigate whether or not he can really help them and then he makes them a deal because they’re all about to go under and they only have a certain amount of life’s blood left before they’re gone.

Most of the problems are with human situations of people not working together, not knowing how to work together, besides sometimes just being... I don’t want to say “dumb” but they don’t understand the business they’re in, which is a marvel to me sometimes how people can do that, get involved in certain things they don’t really understand. But sometimes they start out so small and then it just gets so big and they don’t know how to deal with what they have and so he goes in and shows them step by step what they have to do if they will listen. Some don’t and he has to walk away from them. Some of them he’s lost tons of money on.

But anyway, to make a long story short, I sometimes even by watching it, I marvel at how well he understands human nature. Because most of his situations are dealing with people, of how they must get along and work out differences that they have. So often just within families because they don’t get along and that’s causing them the destruction of their company.

Anyway, he was adopted by a family and never knew much about his roots. His mother was Lebanese, his father was Greek, I think, and they lived in Florida. His mother, before she had died, told him she didn’t want him to ever return to Lebanon where he was from, because they went and picked him up in Lebanon as an orphan. His story is about going back to try to find out more about his roots. She said that because of the danger of the region and what she had come out of, because a lot of people fled by the millions into different areas of the world. Argentina, Brazil, they talked about different numbers that went there, and into the United States, Canada, and so forth, to flee some of the things that were taking place there.

But anyway, to make a long story short, when he got to the orphanage and he saw what his mother had talked about, about this little bed (that was still there), they had these beds in there. They were metal and she talked about how he would shake the edges when he was standing up there. He’d shake the edges and cause it to move on the floor. Then he saw the coasters and understood why it was able to move on the floor, this metal bed. He broke down and it was very moving to watch a grown man like that go through that, to have all these things flood into his mind.

He finally explained why he felt the way he did. Because this woman who was there, a nun, who had worked with many that had come out of that area and worked with different orphans and worked to get them placed in different places, they had to have a translator because she didn’t understand. But anyway, she was continually giving him Kleenex and she finally said she was worried about the expense of all the Kleenex she was giving him, just kind of joking with him. But he broke down several times through all this and one was with her when she hugged him and embraced him and it was like, “Here is work I’ve done,” and “Here. Look at what’s produced.”

So all these emotions he was going through, he finally explained why he broke down to the degree he did. He said, “Because I realized in a way that I never had, the depth of gratitude for how blessed I am.” It just came flooding into him how much he’d been given and because they were willing to go there and pick him up and take him to another country, what he’d been given and the family he was raised in.

So anyway, that’s kind of what I was thinking about as I was going through this. Sometimes we look back on certain things and the more grateful we are for what God has given to us, the gratitude is there, the more we’re going to feel that love to God, thankfulness to God. We must make sure that we fight against anything that has to do with familiarity or taking things for granted.

We must always learn to be and stir up a spirit of gratitude in our minds, and to have that you’ve got to think about what you have. You’ve got to think about what you’ve been given and you’ve really got to grasp it, that God has given us everything. We are the most richly blessed people of all the earth, and not only that, we’re the most richly blessed people spiritually of all time, save for one, our elder brother.

No one...no one...no one who has lived before has ever had to the degree you have it, truth, and only because of the time in which you live and because of God’s purpose. This happens to be the time in which we live, and God has called us out of this age, out of Egypt, spiritual Egypt, and has flooded us with truth, and primarily for a great purpose. It’s about His Church, as small as we are, to be a light of something that God is going to use in a powerful way to continue on with that truth in a new age as soon as it’s here. There are not going to be a lot of surprises.

His name is Joshua. People are going to learn that quickly. It’s not the false name that is a false religion that has twisted and distorted the minds of multiple hundreds of millions of people through time. They’re going to be freed from that! You talk about being made free, being made free of government that’s wrong, being made free from economic things within the world that are wrong because they’re steeped in selfish human nature. Being freed. The height of it all, being made free with truth in understanding that has to do with God, the one who placed us here, the one who’s given us life. How blessed are we that God has a plan for a family?

We’re not just beings who live here for a while and then people wonder, “Well, where do we go next? Is there a next? Have you seen the other side? Did you see the white light?” I’ve been asked that. “What’s there?” Nothing. When you’re out you’re out. You don’t know anything. “Well, I wondered about that.” Some wanted to know. I didn’t tell them the rest of the story. There wouldn’t have been any purpose in it, but I basically let them know there is no white light. If you see a white light it must have happened just before you went out or something, the flash in your mind or something. Or maybe it was when they were shocking your chest. Maybe you got a little jolt of something that it affected your eyesight, I don’t know. But there was nothing there. Didn’t hear a thing. Didn’t know a thing. Didn’t see a thing. Nothing there. “Oh.” Because I was out for a little while until they finally zapped (I don’t know how many times). I just know the marks were on the chest and the hair was all burnt. It grows back.

Gratitude, thankfulness, the truths we’ve been given; God so loves us in ways we don’t comprehend. That’s why we had the sermon series and talked about once you’ve repented of sin what an awesome thing to understand and to know that everything you did, whatever you did, it’s gone. As far as God’s concerned it’s not there anymore.

That’s why we’re going through another series we’ve just started, and continue after the holy days are over (we’ll come back to it), Growing in Righteousness. Because that’s something we have to see with all of our being, to work at, to participate in our quest to become perfect, being perfected, because that’s what’s happening with this mind. God wants us to work at that. We’ll never be there in this physical body, but we are to work at it.

We are to address things in our life. We are to seek to become something different, to change and not just to go on the same as we’ve always been, “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,” using the mouth in ways we shouldn’t use it, certain things we allow into the mind. No. You know, there’s a lot of garbage out there and certain things come into your mind, but you don’t have to receive it. You can say no. No, I don’t want it. I know the harm it causes. I don’t want it in there. I choose God. I choose and want to be right with God. It’s a choice. God will help you in that process. All you have to do is cry out to God, “Help me to change. Forgive me. Help me to change. Bless me in continuing to be transformed. Only You can do it.”

I’m going to go back and read this last paragraph because I don’t know where I left off on it. We are never to allow any kind of familiarity enter into our lives, into any of our thinking regarding God and His plan of salvation for us, a plan that is to bring us into His family, into Elohim. The more you meditate, think upon it, the more you review certain things that God has given to you, and asking God all the while to help you to truly drink it in, how blessed you are, the greater the gratitude will become. Who am I to be given such things?

As that individual there in Lebanon looking upon that baby bed... “Who was I? I was lifted out of this. I was saved. I was given a different life. I was given opportunity that thousands of others, millions of others weren’t.” Because he saw a lot of these little children there and other children, and people who have escaped from Syria by the droves trying to survive, trying to live. He found out he was Syrian because his mother had come from Syria for a time to be in Lebanon.

So we all go through different things, but if we recognize how merciful God is to us, how blessed we are to have what we have; he did it on a physical plane, how incredibly blessed are we to do it on a spiritual one? To recognize what we have escaped. To recognize what God has called us out of, the Egypt that God has delivered us from. Do you think about that during this time of year? You need to a lot. What were you delivered from? What would your life be? I shudder to think what my life would have been like. I know what it would have been like. I know what I was like.

To know what you’re delivered from? To know what you’ve been given? Priceless. You can’t put a price on it. Just have to respond with gratitude and thank God for the patience, the mercy, the love, the kindness... Awesome!

So as mentioned, over time familiarity can begin to breed contempt in the mind, the beginning of lack of respect and awe toward God or toward what God has placed before us. An entire era of God’s Church did that. You think you are able to do the same thing? Absolutely. It’s a battle, battle of the human mind.

So God has commanded His ministry to annually remind His people of His plan that is contained in the meaning of His holy days. So every year we’re reminded of that plan and purpose that is so great, so far beyond human understanding and appreciation.

Leviticus 23. I have read this a lot. I have preached about it a lot, and it never, never, never, never gets old or familiar. That’s the way it should be in our mind and in our being. To be able to see this, to know this, to have this... Just this right here, not all the rest that we’ve been given, how blessed are we? How blessed am I? How blessed are you?

Leviticus 23:1—And the Eternal said unto Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them concerning the feasts, and it’s not the word for “feast.” It’s the word “appointed times.” God determined to have times appointed, just like an appointment book, that we’re to keep, but it’s God’s time. He says you put it in your book, you put it down for your time if you want to honor Me and have a relationship with Me.

Speak to the children of Israel, saying to them concerning the appointed times of the Eternal... It’s a word that’s also used interchangeably with “meetings,” “appointed meetings,” if you will, because it’s all about the same thing. We’re to come together in an appointed time in an appointed meeting, meeting with God, meeting with His Son, meeting with His people to be taught, to learn, to grow in understanding.

...which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations. So yes, we’re to come together to meet before God. ...even these are My feasts, to come together where we’re able to, first of all before God. Sometimes people can’t be with others of God’s people but they can come to meet before God at His appointed time before Him to receive what He has for them. We’re blessed in an age of technology where we’re able to watch it on a video. Incredible.

...even these are My appointed times. Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, a holy convocation. It’s a holy convening, a day we set aside, each one of us individually, to meet with God, to meet before God, to meet in God’s presence in a way we don’t do the other six days of the week. We don’t go out and work. We don’t go out and involve ourselves in things of this world. We don’t go to baseball games, football games, basketball games, and all those things that are so fun to stand in such long lines and pay such big bucks to sit there with large numbers of people that you want to escape from in the first place.

This is what kills me sometimes. You go visit an area, you know exactly what’s going to happen. We were in California so what happens on Friday? People are leaving the city. They are, by the droves! They are going to get out of town to get away from all the people and so they get on a highway of people that are trying to do the same thing and it’s happy times right away! And you know if you’re out there it might be an hour’s drive away, which it was for us on one occasion, over an hour, and by a certain time of day I knew exactly what was going to happen. They’re all going to start coming back to the city and the highways, some places five lanes wide filled with people! Oh, I was so happy!

You want to escape and you can’t escape, and so people’s way of escape is to be with others that they’re trying to escape being with. The human mind.

Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day, the seventh day is a day of rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work therein; it is the Sabbath of the Eternal in all your dwellings. These are the appointed times of the Eternal, even holy convocations which you shall proclaim, at least some translations say here now, they say “in their seasons.” It’s the same word that they’re quoting as “feasts” in other places. You think, no, in their appointed times. It’s what it means.

Verse 5... See, these things aren’t as important to you, to many of you as they are to me and maybe some who went through the Apostasy because there are things of understanding here that God has given through time that we haven’t always had or grasped to the depth that we do. When you experience something and you realize that others don’t or haven’t been given the ability to see certain things it can create, if you see it as you should, a greater spirit of gratitude and thankfulness for what you are able to see.

That’s why it’s kind of a dangerous thing sometimes to be called in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, because you don’t have those experiences of what it was to get from there to here. It’s through experiences that we can grow in greater conviction of certain things in life when it comes to a relationship with God. There are certain things we can know but until the experience is there...? So to cherish, to grasp? You have to ask God for help to do that, to grow in that, because it comes from God because you’re not going to have that same experience.

That’s the way it is with much of what is given. That’s why I think of the 18 Truths that God gave through Mr. Armstrong. If the Church had been able to hold on to a real appreciation, “I have all of this because of what God did through one man. Thank God He called him. Thank God He called a man who had the kind of background and mind that he did, the kind of sales training that he had, the ability that he had, in that respect (if you’ve read his autobiography), of those things that he experienced so that God could and would use such abilities and talents that God had given to him in the first place, to turn to the Church, to have an ability to have a vision to accomplish what needed to be accomplished, to have the kind of mind that had grown to a point that could foresee the value of three college campuses, that could build the kind of places that he did for a purpose. God used those mightily, powerfully.” Incredible what took place.

Millions of Plain Truth magazines and other Good News magazine, and on and on it goes, of things that went out. Publications, multiple millions that went out. Radio, and then television and radio. And where is all of that today? There’s only a little remnant of it left...only a little remnant left. How blessed are those of that remnant? How blessed are those who have been called to walk with them? Because there are others out there who have dedicated their lives fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, forty, fifty years and plus who are still alive, who grew up in the Church even, and are asleep. Who are you, who am I that we should have all this? By the mercies of God. By the grace of God. How blessed we are.

Talk about a pearl of great price, we don’t recognize the value of it and how big it is. It’s not a little pearl, it’s a humongous one.

Verse 5—In the fourteenth day of the first month at even (bane ha erebyim). See, I’ve written that down because that has meaning to me that I can’t give to you. I can tell you about it, some went through it, part of it, but when God began to reveal some of these things because of all that was taking place in the Church, of people who were screwing around with the Passover and the timing of it and when it was to be observed. And if they’d only listened to and been faithful to what God gave to Mr. Armstrong to give to the Church in a booklet.[2] Three verses he used in all of scripture to drive the point home everything was on, in the fourteenth day of the first month.

All those ministers, and even some evangelists who walked away from that, who despised the truth that God gave through His apostle. If they really grasped number one of what is attributed to Mr. Armstrong about government they would have feared... They would have feared to ever think anything different than what God had given to that point in time! That it was on, that it was in the fourteenth day and if you start thinking something different you will lose what’s in those three verses. You will see something different. You will twist and distort, which is what they did.

That’s why it’s worth repeating what I said about an individual who was trained...who was trained in Judaism to the point that he would be a Rabbi one day, who was called into God’s Church, who knew Hebrew, was teaching Hebrew and some of the different kinds of classes at Ambassador College. The one that I came in contact with after the Apostasy that I sent a couple to because, primarily, the couple, the man in particular, was messed up about the 14th/15th Passover and I didn’t have time to address what was there at that time being at a funeral, and I got the individual’s name, put them in touch with each other – found out that he believed 14th/15th Passover. Blew my mind!

We had this discussion then because I called him up because I was not a happy camper because I sent two to him to receive help that I thought they would receive from him. I thought he would be truthful and honest with them because I thought he was truthful and honest, after having gone through the Apostasy, with what God had given through Mr. Armstrong. But too many of the people out there began to say, “Well, I learned a lot from him. He was a good teacher.” Oh, you morons! You pathetic lives of individuals to say such things, to think such things!

It infuriates me inside to think a human being can come to that. To do something like that against what had been given to you, and you can’t acknowledge he was God’s apostle and the only way you ever got any truth in God’s Church was because of what came through that man! You didn’t learn it any other way! To be so haughty and so lifted up, who do you think you are, but God?

People, that’s what spiritual idolatry is. You lift yourself up above God. You can get away from those truths, the fact of how God’s government works, how God’s Church works. It’s why Paul encouraged people don’t ever forget what you’ve been told and through whom you learned it because that’s so important because it’s how God works. If you go to something else it’s not the truth. People do come to a point where they despise the truth and they despise God.

But you know what they despise first? Familiarity breeds contempt. All those evangelists and all those teachers, they began to hate Mr. Armstrong first. They began to despise him. Their actions, their words toward him, about him, “He’s just a senile old man. He’s going to die before long. Just have to kind of wait it out.” That’s some of the conversation what was taking place. How would you like to be in those shoes?

We’ve got a rich history and people who don’t learn from their history, oh, sad, sad, sad, whether it be a nation of people or a Church, the true Church.

In, indeed, the fourteenth day of the first month at bane ha erebyim – between the two evenings. That’s what the word means in Hebrew. Only two places it’s used, if my memory serves me right. And right now I’m not real sure because I used the wrong word awhile ago. Bane ha erebyim, between the two evenings.

So if you understand that, which not very many have, it says it all. The Sabbath is between two evenings. The Day of Atonement is between two evenings. That’s important if you understand some of the history here of certain things and about the Day of Atonement, because it has everything to do with understanding this as well. God makes it clear. It’s a simple thing. We keep the Sabbath between two evenings. So simple. We keep every holy day between two evenings. I wonder when that begins?

Because, see, some Jewish scholars, some Rabbi’s, some, one basically that would be seen as a high priest, decided that, well, the evening begins at the going down of the sun, as it says in scripture, so yeah, at about 12:00 it starts going down. Oh, it changes... Wow. So, the things that happened for Passover at the going down of the evening and it goes into the 15th, and we’re to observe, then, Passover the 15th. Such stupidity, ignorance, willingly so, because they didn’t want to give anything that might show that the one who died on the afternoon of the 14th was the Passover. He’s already dead so we have to eat the lamb on the 15th. People are sick. Religion is sick when you know the religious teachers and what they have done, knowing what they have done willingly so.

So on the fourteenth day, or In the fourteenth day, as the word really is here, is the Lord’s (the Eternal’s) Passover. It’s God’s Passover. It’s what He gave to us to save us, to save mankind from their sins. It’s in that day and it’s in no other. It’s so simple if they just would study that, just the beginning of that a little bit. “In the fourteenth day.” So how on earth can anyone, especially who has had part in God’s Church, who has been taught clearly three powerful scriptures that show that it’s on the fourteenth, in the fourteenth day, how could anyone have the audacity and the gall to come along and say it’s in the 15th, go on into the 15th day.

Wait, you can’t read? They twist what they read. That’s what people have done for so long.

I’m saying this again because, you see, it can happen to you. It happened to some who were around here a lot longer than you just a few years ago when we had those fasts back in 2012, 2013, and it came out of the woodwork all of a sudden that certain ones, leaders in God’s Church, supposedly, who were leading some of you down the wrong path, who wanted to lead all of you down the wrong path. It’s been that way every time there’s been an uprising in God’s Church.

I think of that which happened in Toledo and Detroit area and those who wanted to take the name that had been given to the Church, who wanted to take the website that the Church began, and to take the publications, and on it goes. “And we, we decide where you can and can’t go, and you can’t go down to Georgia and you can’t go where some other people are asking you to go, and we really don’t like you going down to Cincinnati!” Well, get used to it because I’m going. That wasn’t a hard battle for me at all. It was for them. (Sorry.)

In the fourteenth day is the Eternal’s Passover. That’s our next meeting, Passover.

We’re going to stop right there. This may have to be more than three parts. This has been Part 1 of Joshua Our Passover. So with that we’ll begin on the first high day right here.

[1] http://www.ronaldweinland.com/2018/06/09/is-christ-about-to-return/

[2] Pagan Holidays — or God’s Holy Days — Which?

1. Chapter 1

2. Footnotes